Preacher's Quest

by William W. Johnstone

  A couple of older men, who had been to see the elephant a time or two in their lives, looked with narrowed eyes at the strangers and then turned to walk quickly into the depot, as if they were getting out of the way of something.

  The train was in sight now, chugging steadily toward the station from the west, black smoke rising from the diamond-shaped stack on the big Baldwin locomotive. The man who had checked his watch stepped to the edge of the platform, leaned out slightly to peer along the tracks, and then nodded in satisfaction. He turned to the other five and repeated the nod.

  Inside the station, one of the old-timers was talking quickly and earnestly to the stationmaster. The stationmaster frowned dubiously at first, but after a minute, he nodded and gestured to one of the boys who worked at the depot. He gave some quick instructions to the boy, who then hurried across the lobby, banged through the doors, and took off at a run down the street, in the direction of the marshal’s office.

  He wasn’t going to get there in time. The train was already pulling into the station.

  Frank Morgan’s long legs were stretched out in front of him and his hat was tipped down over his eyes. He never slept very well on a train, so, earlier that morning, after he’d gotten some coffee and a bite to eat in the dining car, he’d returned to his seat for a nap. He didn’t fall completely asleep, but he rested a little while remaining alert. That habitual caution was ingrained so deeply within him that it would always be a part of him, he supposed.

  When the train began to slow, Frank felt it and raised his head. He opened his eyes and saw the conductor coming along the aisle. The conductor called out the name of the town where the train was about to stop. It didn’t mean much to Frank. The train was somewhere in Kansas; that was all he knew.

  Frank thumbed his hat back on thick dark hair streaked liberally with gray. He wore a faded blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up a little on his muscular forearms. The legs of his denim trousers hung outside the tops of well-worn horseman’s boots.

  His clothes might be nondescript, but his ruggedly handsome face possessed a power that sometimes made folks look twice at him. He didn’t appear to be a wealthy man—but he was. One of the richest hombres west of the Mississippi, in fact, with business interests scattered from the Rio Grande to the Canadian border. Frank Morgan didn’t pay much attention to those business interests, though. He had a whole passel of lawyers and accountants in Denver and San Francisco to do that. He watched them just closely enough to know that nobody was trying to cheat him.

  No, judging by appearances, Frank Morgan was little more than a saddle tramp. A drifter.

  But the Colt Peacemaker on his hip told a different story. He wasn’t just a drifter. He was The Drifter. A fast gun whose fame had spread across the frontier for years. A gunfighter in an era when civilization was on the ascendant and men such as Frank Morgan mostly had been bypassed by time.

  Not completely, though. Frank wasn’t obsolete just yet.

  The conductor knew who he was and approached him with obviously mixed emotions. Frank could have sat on the board of directors of this railroad if he had chosen to do so, which meant the conductor had to treat him with some deference. On the other hand, Frank was a known killer who had gunned down countless men, and that made him an abomination to the conductor’s civilized nature. In the end, the man’s respect for money won out over his distaste for violence, and he forced a polite smile onto his face as he asked, “Everything all right this morning, Mr. Morgan?”

  “Just fine,” Frank said quietly in a deep, controlled voice. The train lurched a little as its brakes began to take hold. “We going to be stopped here long?”

  “No, sir, just long enough to take on any passengers and freight we’ve got waiting for us.”

  Frank nodded. “Long enough for me to get out and stretch my legs a little, though? I’m a mite stiff after last night.”

  “We would have been happy to find a sleeping berth for you, Mr. Morgan—”

  “You mean you would have kicked somebody out of a berth they had reserved,” Frank cut in. He shook his head. “I’ll sit up all the way to Chicago before I’ll do that.”

  “Well, ah, in answer to your question, we’ll be stopped here for at least five minutes if you want to walk around a little.”

  “Thanks.”

  The conductor moved on as the train rocked to a stop. Frank glanced over through the windows by the seats on the other side of the aisle. That was the side the station platform was on. He saw six men standing there with rifles in their hands. As Frank watched, the group split up, three going toward the front of the car, three toward the rear.

  “Oh, hell,” he said softly.

  He came swiftly and smoothly to his feet, his brain already racing as he decided on his course of action. The vestibule at the rear of the car was closer, so he turned in that direction. He wanted to get out of the railroad car as quickly as possible, out where he would have more room to move and where not as many innocents would be endangered by the lead that was about to fly.

  Several people turned their heads to look as Frank strode down the aisle. He heard a few startled mutters behind him as some of the passengers realized that something might be wrong. Then he reached the vestibule, stepped through it, and out onto the car’s rear platform. His hand was already reaching for the Peacemaker on his hip as he turned toward the station platform.

  The three rifle-toters got there at the same time. Their eyes widened as they looked up at him and saw that he was ready for them. One of the men yelled, “Rance! He’s back here!”

  Then they jerked their rifles up.

  Frank’s Colt whispered from leather. He fired from the hip, putting a bullet in the chest of the man who had shouted. The lead punched the man backward a couple of steps before he lost his balance and fell.

  Frank turned slightly and fired again, so fast that so that none of the riflemen had had a chance to get a shot off yet. His second bullet shattered the shoulder of a would-be killer and sent the man spinning off his feet.

  The third man managed to fire the rifle in his hands, but he rushed the shot and the bullet spanked off the brass fitting at the corner of the railroad car. Frank’s Colt blasted a third time. The last of the gunmen who had come in this direction doubled over as the slug tore agonizingly into his belly. He dropped his rifle, clutched his stomach, folded up, and collapsed on the station platform as blood welled over his fingers.

  Frank spun around and leaped off the other side of the train. He landed agilely and dropped into a crouch. There was open ground on this side of the train, and no place to hunt some cover. He ran toward the front of the car, bending low.

  As he ran he glanced underneath the car, hoping to spot the legs of the other three men who wanted to kill him so that he could tell what they were doing. All he could see, though, was the raised station platform.

  He had nearly reached the front of the car when two of the assassins bounded across the platform at the back of it and began firing at him. He whirled toward them and went to one knee, squeezing off a couple of shots as he crouched.

  One of the riflemen lurched, blood spurting from the side of his neck where Frank’s bullet had ripped it open. He stumbled around wildly for a second before falling in a limp sprawl.

  The other man was hit in the body, but somehow he managed to stay on his feet and keep firing. His aim was none too accurate. Bullets from the Winchester whistled over Frank’s head.

  Frank’s problem now was that the gun in his hand was empty. Under normal circumstances, like riding on a train, he carried it with the hammer resting on an empty chamber, and he had expended all five rounds that the cylinder held. There were fresh cartridges in the loops on his belt, but he would need a few seconds to reload, preferably when slugs weren’t coming so close to him that he could hear the wind-rip of their passage beside his ear.

  He threw himself to the side, rolling over the rail and under the train. The rough gravel of the roadbed poked a
t him through his shirt. Coming to rest on his belly, he opened the revolver’s cylinder, dumped the empties, and reached behind him to pluck live rounds from the loops of the shell belt. As he began to thumb them into the cylinders, he heard a man shout over the low rumble of the engine, “The bastard’s under the train, Rance!”

  “Well, find him, damn it!” came the reply in a harsh, gravelly voice.

  Frank snapped the Colt’s cylinder closed and crawled toward the rear of the car. The sound of the engine would cover up the crunching of the gravel underneath him as he moved. He looked over and saw the booted feet of the man who was searching for him. The gunman was moving slowly and carefully toward the front of the car. Frank could have broken his ankle with a shot, but instead he planned to wait until the assassin had gone on by, then roll out behind him.

  That plan fell apart before it had a chance to develop. The rumble of the engine suddenly got louder, and the drivers clattered as they engaged. The train began to move, rolling slowly eastward. Frank’s cover was leaving.

  The leader of the killers, the man called Rance, must have run up to the engine and climbed into the locomotive’s cab. A gun at the engineer’s head would force him to move the train.

  Frank jammed his gun back in its holster and rolled onto his back. He probably had time to slip out from under the car before the train started moving too fast, but instead he reached up and grabbed hold of the undercarriage. He lifted his feet and twisted his ankles around a pipe. As he pulled himself up he came clear of the roadbed. The train carried him along as he hung on tightly.

  He clung there like a burr until he judged that the caboose was clear of the station. Then he dropped off, timing his move so that he would fall between cross-ties and ignoring the pain that shot through him as his back jolted heavily against the roadbed. The rest of the train passed over him, and when its shade was gone, the morning sunlight jabbed abruptly against Frank’s eyes. He squinted and rolled onto his belly again, drawing his gun as he did so.

  The man he had wounded a few moments earlier was standing beside the tracks, across from the station platform, looking around in confusion. Clearly, he had expected to find Frank lying in the roadbed once the train was gone.

  “Hey!” Frank called.

  The man whirled toward him, bringing up the rifle, but before he even started to line up a shot, the Peacemaker in Frank’s hand cracked. The range was a little long for a handgun, but Frank had plenty of experience at making such shots.

  The slug thudded into the killer’s chest and drove him backward as if he had been punched by a giant fist. His arms went up in the air and the Winchester flew from suddenly nerveless fingers. He crashed down beside the steel rails.

  With that threat disposed of, Frank leaped to his feet and turned toward the train.

  He saw immediately that he’d been a little too slow. Rance had already climbed down from the cab of the locomotive, bringing the engineer with him. He had his left arm looped tightly around the man’s neck, and his right hand held a pistol with the muzzle pressed hard against the engineer’s head.

  “Drop your gun, Morgan!” Rance yelled as he forced the engineer closer to Frank. “Drop it or I swear I’ll blow this poor bastard’s brains out!”

  Chapter Two

  Frank tried not to look into the engineer’s eyes, which were wide with terror. Instead, he kept his gaze fixed on the gunman and said, “You know I can’t do that, Rance.”

  “You know me?” Rance looked a little surprised at that.

  As a matter of fact, Frank had never seen the man before. He had seen the type, though, too many times to count. A hired gun, a cold-blooded killer. Maybe a little smarter than the run-of-the-mill shootist, judging by the way he’d had his men approach the train. But in the end he was just another gunman.

  Frank didn’t say that. He said, “Sure. I know if I drop my gun, you’ll ventilate me a second later. So I can’t do it.”

  Rance pressed harder on the engineer’s temple with the gun barrel. “I’ll kill him!”

  Frank’s shoulders rose and fell in a minuscule shrug. “That’s too damned bad, isn’t it? Maybe what you should do is drop your gun. Your boys are lying back there at the station, either dead or shot up so bad they’re out of this fight, and I’ll wager that the local law is on its way. But you haven’t done anything today that’s a hanging offense. You haven’t killed anybody. So unless you’re wanted for something else, you can surrender and live through this, Rance.”

  There was no emotion on Rance’s weathered, rugged face. “The hell with that,” he said. “I took money to do a job. I aim to do it.”

  “Took money from who?” Frank asked. He had a pretty good idea of what the answer was, but some confirmation of his hunch would be nice.

  “Go to hell, gunfighter.”

  “I hope you enjoyed spending Dutton’s money,” Frank said.

  The slight widening of Rance’s eyes told Frank that he’d been right about who hired the killers. Then Rance jerked his gun toward Frank and fired.

  The shot went wild because the gun in The Drifter’s hand had roared a shaved instant of time earlier. Frank’s bullet had already sizzled past the engineer’s ear, aimed at the narrow slice of Rance’s face that Frank could see. It struck Rance in the right eye and bored on into his brain just as the gunman pulled the trigger. The .45 slug went all the way through and burst out the back of Rance’s skull in a spray of blood, bone splinters, and gray matter. He stood there for a second with his arm still around the engineer’s neck, before the rest of his body caught up with the fact that he was dead. Then he let go, slid down to his knees, and toppled onto his side.

  The engineer fell the other direction, passing out from fear and strain and the sudden relief of realizing that he was still alive.

  Before Frank could holster his gun, a man’s voice called from behind him, “Drop it! Drop that gun, mister! I got a scattergun pointed right at you!”

  Frank didn’t move. He asked, “Are you the law?”

  “That’s right. I’m the town marshal here, and I got a shotgun and two deputies that’re armed, too. You gonna put that gun down, or do we have to shoot?”

  “Take it easy, Marshal,” Frank said. He bent forward and carefully placed the Colt on the roadbed. Then he straightened and lifted both hands to shoulder level. “I’m turning around now.”

  “Do it slow and careful-like, and don’t try nothin’ funny.”

  Frank did as he was told, and saw that the marshal was a stocky, middle-aged man with graying red hair. He was flanked by a couple of much younger and more nervous deputies. They worried Frank more than the marshal did. The local badge had the look of an experienced man who wouldn’t panic and start shooting unless he had good reason to.

  “It’s all over, Marshal,” Frank said, keeping his voice calm and steady. “Why don’t you tell your deputies to lower those Greeners? I’d hate for one of them to go off accidentally.”

  “Won’t be nothin’ accidental about it if you try anything,” the lawman warned.

  “I’m not going to. All I did was defend myself. Those men met the train with the sole intention of killing me. They were hired guns.”

  The marshal frowned. “Who the hell are you, that somebody would send six bushwhackers after you?”

  “My name is Frank Morgan.”

  That meant something to all three of the star-packers. The eyes of the younger men got even wider. “Hell, he’s The Drifter!” one of the deputies exclaimed. “He’s in some o’ those yellowbacks I read!”

  Frank tried not to sigh. Not for the first time, he thought there ought to be a law against pasty-faced scribblers making up a bunch of rubbish about real people and publishing it in dime novels.

  “The Drifter, eh?” the marshal said. Without taking his eyes off Frank, he ordered his deputies, “Lower those scatterguns. Unless he’s got another gun hid somewhere on him, he’s unarmed, and I ain’t never heard nothin’ about Frank Morgan carryin’ a hi
de-out.” The lawman tucked his own Greener under his arm. “Now, what’s all this about, Morgan?”

  “I’d be glad to come down to your office and tell you all about it, Marshal, but only if you can convince the conductor to hold the train for me. I don’t want to have to wait until the next eastbound comes through to be on my way.”

  “I’ll see what I can do . . . but don’t forget, you ain’t the one givin’ the orders here.” The marshal turned his head and snapped at one of the deputies, “Go check on them fellas who got shot. Some of ’em might still be alive. Josh, you go fetch the doc.” As the deputies hurried to carry out the commands, the marshal asked Frank, “Did Endicott get hit?”

  “Who?”

  “Cleve Endicott. The engineer.”

  “Oh.” Frank shook his head. “No, I don’t think he’s hurt. Looked to me like he just fainted.”

  For the first time, a hint of amusement appeared on the lawman’s rugged face. “Swooned like a gal, eh? He’ll get some ribbin’ about that. I might’ve done the same thing, though. I saw that shot you made just as I was getting’ here. That bullet couldn’t have missed him by much more’n an inch.”

  “That was enough,” Frank said.

  The marshal grunted. “Yeah. Come on, Morgan. Let’s go talk to the conductor.”

  The conductor didn’t like holding the train, but he agreed to for half an hour. The engineer had to be brought around, anyway, and given a little while to recover from his fainting spell.

  The marshal, whose name was Harry Larch, walked down to his office with Frank. Larch had Frank’s Colt tucked behind his belt, and Frank had retrieved his hat from the roadbed where it had fallen off.

  As he brushed dirt from the Stetson and settled it on his head, he asked, “Am I under arrest?”