The Last Gunfighter: Ghost Valley

by William W. Johnstone

  Frank stood up, holstering his Colt. "I damn sure am unless they give me back my son."

  "Put me on my horse, Morgan. Give me a fightin' chance to live."

  "It don't appear you can sit a horse, Buster, but if you want I can tie you across your saddle."

  Tin Pan shook his head. "Hell, Morgan, this sumbitch is already dead. Leave him where he lays. Have you forgot that him an' his partners just tried to kill you?"

  "I'm a forgiving man," Frank said dryly. "Just because some gunslick tries to take away all you have, or all you're ever gonna have, don't mean you can't show any forgiveness for what he tried to do." He gazed down at Buster for a time. "Are you truly sorry you tried to kill me?" he asked.

  " Hell, no," Buster spat, still defiant. "If I'd had the right shot at you, it'd be you layin' in this snow with a hole in your guts."

  Frank chuckled, but there was no humor in it. He glanced over at Tin Pan. "See what I mean?" he asked. "We've got a killer here with no remorse. I think I'll just leave him here to die slow. His pardners are already dead. We'll take their horses and deliver 'em to Ned Pine. Send them into that canyon with empty saddles, a little message from me that this fight has just started."

  "It's your fight," Tin Pan said.

  Frank slapped the old mountain man on the shoulder. "I'm glad I had you siding with me. You dropped that outlaw quicker'n snuff makes spit."

  "It was the coffee," Tin Pan replied. "A man who'll offer a stranger a cup of coffee with brown sugar in it way up in these slopes deserves a helping hand."

  Frank gave Tin Pan a genuine laugh. "Let's fetch their horses down to our picket line. Feel free to take any of their guns you want. Where they're going, they won't be needing a pistol or a rifle."

  Tin Pan grinned. "Reckon we could add a splash of that Kentucky sour mash to the next cup of coffee?"

  "You can have all of it you want."

  Buster coughed again; then his feet began to twitch with death throes.

  "You see what I was talking about?" Frank asked. "It would have been a waste of good bottled spirits to pour even one drop of it into a dead man."

  * * * *

  "What makes a printer from Indiana get filled with wanderlust for the mountains?" Frank asked, drinking coffee laced with whiskey after the outlaws' horses were tied in the trees along with Frank's animals and the mule.

  "Dreamin', I reckon. I saw tintypes of the Rockies and I just knew I had to see 'em for myself."

  "And you planned to pay for it by panning for gold in these high mountain streams?"

  "There was a gold rush on back then. Men were finding gold nuggets as big as marbles."

  "But you never found any," Frank said.

  "Not even a flake of placer gold. This country had been panned out by the time I got here. The only other way is to dig into these rocky slopes. I never was much for using a pick and a shovel."

  "So you've turned to trapping?"

  "It's a living. I'm happy up here, just me and old Martha for company. I had me a Ute squaw once, only she ran off with a miner who had gold in his purse."

  "I owe Martha a sack of corn," Frank remembered. "She heard this bad bunch sneaking up on us."

  Tin Pan smiled. "Martha earns her keep. She can tote three hundred pounds of cured pelts and she don't ever complain. Once in a while she gets ornery and won't cross a creek if it's bank-full, but I reckon that just shows good sense."

  "You don't get lonely up here?"

  "Naw. There's a few of us old mountain men still prowling these peaks. We get together once in a while to swap tales and catch up."

  "I think I understand," Frank told him. "I've got a dog. I call him Dog. He's better company than most humans. I've had him for quite a spell."

  "Same goes for Martha," Tin Pan said, glancing into the pines where his mule and the horses were tied. "She's right decent company, when she ain't in the mood to kick me if I don't get the packsaddle on just right."

  Frank chuckled. "I want you to know I'm grateful for you helping me with those gunmen."

  Tin Pan gave him a steady gaze. "You're takin' on too much, Morgan, tryin' to go after eleven more of 'em all by your lonesome."

  "I don't have much of a choice. They're holding my son hostage. I can't turn my back on it."

  "Maybe you do have a choice," Tin Pan said after he gave it some thought.

  "How's that?"

  "I might just throw in with you to help get that boy of yours away from Ned Pine. I ain't no gunfighter, but I can damn sure shoot a rifle. If I find a spot on the rim of that canyon, I can take a few of 'em down with my Sharps."

  "It isn't your fight," Franks said. "But I'm grateful for the offer anyhow."

  "I've been in fights that wasn't mine before," Tin Pan declared. "Let me study on it some. I'll let you know in the morning what I've decided to do. I'd have to ask Martha about it. She don't like loud noises, like guns."

  * * * *

  Frank's eyes blinked open. The cabin was dark. Was it fate that had led him to Buck Waite and his beautiful daughter while he was on yet another manhunt?

  It was hard to figure why unexpected friends showed up just when he needed them.

  Eighteen

  Conrad Browning began to whimper as cold winds whipped past his horse, swirling around the two men escorting him toward higher peaks.

  "I'm freezing," he said, his teeth rattling, as darkness blanketed the mountains.

  Cletus Huling gave the boy a steely look as their horses plodded up a switchback toward Glenwood Springs, and the valley beyond.

  "You want me give this baby something to complain about?" Diego Ponce said, pulling a foot-long bowie knife from his stovepipe boot, snowflakes dusting his sombrero and his dark black beard.

  "Yeah. Shut the bastard up," Cletus said, reining his horse around a knot of pinyon pines. "I'm tired of listenin' to the son of a bitch bellyache."

  With one sudden motion Diego grabbed a fistful of Conrad's hair and, jerking him sideways out of the saddle, sliced off the tip of his left ear.

  Blood poured over Conrad's woolen greatcoat as he let out a piercing yell that echoed from the slopes around them, startling the horses.

  Cletus, leading the way to Ghost Valley, turned back in the saddle to watch the pain on Conrad's face.

  Diego laughed, tossing the piece of the boy's ear into a snowdrift. "Now he have something to cry about," Diego said, wiping the blood from his knife on one leg of his badly worn leather chaps.

  Blood seeped down Conrad's cheek as he held his palm to the wound. "My father will get you for this!" he cried, slumping over in the saddle.

  "That ol' man of yours don't give a damn what happens to you," Cletus said. "He never did come up with the money Ned an' Victor wanted from him. Only he'd better bring the money this time or you're a dead son of a bitch."

  "Dad came after me," Conrad said, nursing his missing ear tip with a handkerchief he removed from an inside pocket of his snow-laden coat.

  "Morgan never did get to Ned," Cletus reminded the kid. "He's way past his prime. He got too old to mess with the likes of Victor an' Ned. At least that's what everybody says about Frank."

  "You'll see," Conrad whimpered, tears brimming in his eyes as their horses climbed higher into the Rockies. "My dad will make you sorry for what you've done to me. Both of you will be dead."

  "You want me kill this loudmouth little bastardo?" Diego asked.

  "Naw. Let him bleed an' let him cry as loud as he wants," Cletus replied. "Ned promised us a ten-thousand-dollar share of the ransom he's gonna get from Morgan, an' we're damn sure gonna collect it."

  Diego frowned a moment. "Does this Morgan have that kind of money?"

  "He's got plenty, according to Ned. We ain't gonna take no chance by killin' the boy."

  Diego put his knife away. "If he make more noise I cut off his other ear. Then he don't hear so goddamn good when he make all this noise."

  "Suits the hell outta me," Cletus replied. "Far as I know he's w
orth the same to us with or without ears. All we gotta do is find this place Ned called Ghost Valley, an' I've got us a map to it."

  "How come we don't just shoot this worthless little piece of cow shit?"

  "We need to keep him alive so his daddy will see he's okay," Cletus replied. "That's how we get the ten thousand, accordin' to what Ned told me."

  "I say we kill him."

  Cletus glanced up at the mountains looming before them. "I reckon that's why you're flat broke, Diego. You leave the thinkin' part to me."

  Diego went into a sulk.

  Conrad kept the handkerchief against his ear as their horses began a steeper climb.

  Once, Diego glanced over his shoulder at their back trail.

  "I do not see nothing, Senyor," he said.

  Cletus turned up the collar on his mackinaw and kept on riding, shivering, wishing they'd brought along more whiskey. There had been plenty of it for sale at Trinidad. All they had between them was a half pint of red-eye.

  * * * *

  "Shut up!" Diego demanded, sending a boot crashing into Conrad's skull.

  The boy screamed, toppling over on his back after the savage blow.

  "Take it easy on the little bastard," Cletus warned. "We got us a ten-thousand-dollar package there if you don't kill him."

  "It is muy frio," Diego said, shuddering. "I don't like to listen to this boy complain."

  "Tie somethin' over his damn mouth," Cletus said while he was tying his horse in a clump of trees. "We're gonna make us some coffee so my insides don't freeze. Bring that bottle so we can put a little bite in it."

  "Por favor, senyor," Diego said, "but the bottle is almost gone."

  Cletus whirled toward his Mexican companion." You been drinkin' it this whole time?"

  "It was cold, Senyor."

  Cletus jerked out his revolver. "You got any idea how cold it's gonna be if you're dead, Meskin?"

  Diego glowered. "You would not shoot me."

  "I goddamn sure will if that pint is empty. Fetch it for me now!"

  "But there is only a little bit left, jefe."

  "If there ain't enough to keep me warm, you're a dead son of a bitch, Diego. I paid for that pint with my own goddamn hard money."

  "Maybeso there are a few swallows, Senyor."

  "There'd damn sure better be more'n that, you rotten Meskin bastard."

  Diego turned toward his horse to reach into his saddlebags. A shot rang out.

  Diego Ponce slumped to the snow on his knees with a dark stain blackening his coat. His horse snorted and bounded away in the snow, trailing its reins.

  "Never did have no use for a thirsty Meskin," Cletus said as he holstered his pistol.

  Diego began coughing up blood.

  Conrad drew back into a ball when the roar of the gunshot faded into the pines.

  "You ... killed your partner," Conrad stammered.

  "Diego never was no partner of mine. I couldn't sleep good at night, worryin' if he'd slit my damn throat when he took the notion."

  Dried, frozen blood was caked on Conrad's left cheek. "I've never met anyone like you," he said, his voice quivering from the cold.

  Cletus grinned. "Ain't likely that you ever will again, boy," he said. His eyes slitted. "You just remember one thing, kid. I'll kill you quicker'n I just killed Diego if you mess with me."

  "I understand," Conrad said. "You've made yourself perfectly clear."

  * * * *

  Cletus recognized them as Pawnees. Four Indians rode over a ridge clad in buffalo robes, almost hidden by veils of snowflakes.

  "Injuns," he grumbled, swinging his horse off the trail as quickly as he could.

  He glared at Conrad. "Now you shut the hell up, boy, or I'll kill you same as I'm about to kill them damn redskins over yonder."

  "I won't say a word," Conrad stammered, his reply muted by half-frozen lips.

  Cletus jerked his ten-gauge shotgun from its boot and swung to the ground ... the range between him and the Indians was close enough for a scattergun.

  "Get down off that horse," Cletus snapped with the wind at his back so his voice wouldn't carry, aiming the gun at Conrad when his boots touched new-fallen snow.

  But Cletus realized it was too late to hide from the four Indians when he heard a distant war cry.

  "I said get down, you little bastard!" he shouted to Conrad as the mounted warriors came toward them at a gallop with ancient muskets to their shoulders.

  A distant rifle shot cracked in the stillness of the snowstorm. A lead ball struck a tree behind Cletus, spooking his horse.

  "Take this, you rotten bastards," he hissed as he fired off one barrel of his Greener.

  A thundering blast shook the pine forest around them when his ten-gauge exploded. Somewhere in the swirling snow in front of them, he heard a scream.

  Then a shape came lunging toward him, a feathered Indian on a buckskin horse.

  Cletus fired again, satisfied when he heard a piercing yell in front of him. He watched the Pawnee topple off his horse as the buckskin pony swerved away from the gunshot.

  He cracked open the barrels in the nick of time, jamming two more cartridges into the smoking chambers. Just as he snapped the gun closed, another rifle barked.

  A snow-laden limb above Cletus broke in half with a dull crack, showering him with white flakes. But he did not allow anything to distract him from taking aim at the last two charging Indians.

  One warrior was ripped from the back of his sorrel pony as if he'd run into an invisible stretch of rope. The Pawnee went tumbling over his horse's rump, tossing his long-barrel rifle in the air.

  "One more," Cletus whispered, turning so his aim would be perfect.

  He closed his finger around the second trigger of his bird gun. The kick from the stock almost took him off his feet when the load of buckshot spat forth.

  A slender Pawnee warrior aboard a black pony went flying off the animal's withers without ever firing a shot, his buffalo robe tenting behind him where balls of molten lead shredded his ribs and spine.

  "Gotcha!" Cletus said, watching the pony gallop away trailing its jaw-rein.

  Then there was silence. As a precaution against more of the red savages, Cletus reloaded his Greener.

  "You killed all of them," Conrad said, hunkered down behind a tree.

  "That's what I aimed to do, boy," he said, "and if I take the notion, I'll kill you same as them."

  "You killed your own partner, the Mexican fellow," Conrad went on.

  "The sumbitch had it comin'," Cletus replied, turning his freshly loaded gun on Conrad. "Shut the hell up or I'll do the same to you."

  "But I'm worth more to you alive."

  "Maybe," Cletus muttered. "Only I don't think Frank Morgan is gonna know the difference if he brings that money to Ghost Valley. If his saddlebags are full of gold, like they's supposed to be, Ned's gonna kill him anyhow, if Victor or one of his men don't get to him first."

  * * * *

  When Cletus was satisfied that there were no more Pawnees in the area, he ordered Conrad into the saddle.

  "We got lots of miles to cover, kid, so shut up with the goddamn whimperin'."

  Cletus mounted and led Conrad's horse toward higher elevations as the snow continued to fall. By his own reckoning they had two more days of hard riding facing them before they reached the valley.

  Nineteen

  A soft touch on his forehead awakened him. He knew he'd been dreaming. A knifing pain spread slowly through his left shoulder

  "Where am I?" he asked.

  "You're at our cabin," a gentle voice replied. His eyes opened slowly. "Our cabin?"

  "Mine an' Dad's."

  Things came back to Frank by degrees. He recalled the gunshot that had taken him unawares, a shot from behind him. "That'd be Buck, the old gent who brought me here. Seems like he had a beard. Rode a pinto pony. Right now, that's about all I remember. He was showing me how to find Ghost Valley. I went down into the valley alone."

 
"That was my pa who brought you here."

  "Where is he now?"

  "He rode off a while ago to see if any of that Pine or Vanbergen bunch was close to our cabin. He said he'd be back before sundown."

  "How bad is my wound festering?" Frank asked, reaching for his left shoulder.

  "It has blood-poisonin' streaks. I changed the bandage a while ago."

  "I've got to get out of this bed," he groaned, trying to lift himself off the mattress. Somewhere near the foot of the bed, Dog whimpered.

  "You ain't goin' no place, Mr. Morgan," Karen said with a firm note in her voice. "You lost a lot of blood. Drink some more of this whiskey."

  "I won't turn it down," Frank answered, blinking to clear away the fog from his slumber.

  Karen handed him the jug, helping him hold it to his lips until he took a swallow.

  "That stuff burns," he gasped, letting his head fall back on the pillow.

  "It's supposed to. Pa says that's what makes it good for an ailin' body."

  He tried for a smile, admiring the smooth lines of Karen's face. While he was in no shape to be courting a woman, he found Karen Waite to be very attractive.

  A gust of wind howled through a crack in the log cabin and he heard snowflakes falling on the roof. "I take it the storm hasn't broken yet."

  Karen set the clay jug on the floor. "Pa says it could last for a couple of days ... a squall, he calls it."

  He gazed up at the sod roof of the cabin. "I've got to get back on my horse. Vanbergen and Pine could slip away under the cover of this snow."

  "You can't sit a horse in the shape you're in, Mr. Morgan," she said.

  "I sure aim to try," he told her, flexing the muscles in his left arm, wincing when more lightning bolts of pain shot through him.

  "Not till Pa gets back," she said.

  "You don't understand. I've ... ridden a long way to have my revenge against Ned an' Victor for what they did to my wife and to my son a few weeks ago."

  Karen stood up, leaving the whiskey beside his cot on the dirt floor. "Wait till Pa gets back. It's nearly dark now anyhow. Nobody in his right mind is gonna go anywhere in a snow storm like this."

  Frank surrendered to her logic ... for now. "Okay. Just don't let me drift off to sleep again."