The Last Gunfighter

by William W. Johnstone

  “He is, I tell you, and…and no matter how much I don’t want to admit it, I know he probably did kill those men. But it’s not his fault. He’s not right…in his thinking.”

  “You mean he’s a lunatic?”

  She grimaced again. “That’s such an ugly word. It makes you think of people locked away in some horrible, squalid place where all they do is rave all day…Ben’s not like that. He never was. He was always sweet and gentle and kind. He was almost like a little child.” Nancy shook her head. “Please don’t misunderstand, Mr. Morgan. Ben’s not one of those people who can’t learn. He doesn’t have the mind of a child in the body of a grown man or anything like that. He’s actually very bright. But he…he lives in a world of his own, I suppose you could say. It got worse after Mother passed away. Ben didn’t want to be around other people, even me, and we had always been close. He just wanted to be alone. That…that’s why he ran away.”

  This sounded to Frank almost like a story from a fairy-tale book. But he couldn’t think of any reason why Nancy Chamberlain would lie to him about it. She was telling the truth, he sensed, or at least she thought she was.

  “So your brother left home and went off to live in the woods,” he said.

  “Yes. Like Thoreau. Although I don’t suppose you know who that is.”

  Frank didn’t take offense. He didn’t think she was actually trying to insult him. It was just a little casual condescension.

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I don’t reckon anything like what’s been going on in these woods ever happened around Walden Pond.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry—”

  Frank stopped her with a motion of his hand. He had indulged his curiosity this far, he thought. He might as well go the rest of the way.

  “Tell me more about your brother,” he urged.

  “Well, like I said, Ben lives in a world of his own. But it was always a peaceful place. He never hurt anyone, never got in any sort of trouble. I never even heard him raise his voice in anger, except…”

  “Except what?” Frank said.

  “When he and Father argued.” Nancy sighed. “They were just too different to ever get along very well. Father thought that someday Ben would take over the business.”

  Frank nodded. “A lot of fathers expect that out of their sons.”

  It was a good thing he hadn’t expected his son to follow in his footsteps, he thought. He hadn’t even been aware that he had a son with Vivian until Conrad Browning was a grown man. Conrad had inherited the other half of the Browning business empire, and he had done a good job of running it. But he was an Easterner, the farthest thing from a drifting gunfighter like his pa.

  Although, Frank reminded himself, Conrad and his wife, Rebel, now lived in Virginia City, Nevada, and on the few occasions when Conrad had found himself drawn into dangerous situations with Frank, he had given a pretty good account of himself. He could handle a gun when he had to, and throw a decent punch.

  “Ben had no interest whatever in the timber business, or any other business,” Nancy went on. “He never did. Father tried to force him to work in the company office in Eureka. It didn’t go well. They argued again and again. Ben just wasn’t the sort of son that Father could be proud of.”

  Frank was no expert on such things, but he knew it was a mistake to try to force a youngster’s feet onto a path he didn’t want to follow. He was proud of Conrad, no matter how different the two of them were. It had taken Conrad a while to do some growing up and see that, but Frank was glad they had finally come to an understanding.

  “Finally, after Mother passed on, Ben said that he wasn’t going in to the office anymore. Father insisted that he was. They wound up shouting at each other, and…and Father told him to get out. He said he wouldn’t have a son who was so shiftless and lacking in ambition. He…he said that Ben was no longer his son.”

  Frank shook his head. “That had to hurt.”

  “Yes, of course it did. I tried to tell Ben that Father didn’t mean it, but we both knew that he did. I told Ben he didn’t have to leave, but he insisted. He said he didn’t want to have anything to do with the world of men anymore. He was going to go off into the woods and live by himself, surrounded by nature.”

  “Like Thoreau,” Frank said.

  Nancy smiled. “Yes. Like Thoreau.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Two years.”

  “But the Terror’s only been causing trouble for a few months,” Frank pointed out. “How do you know what’s been happening has anything to do with your brother?” He didn’t want to mention another possibility that had occurred to him, but he felt like he had to. “Ben might not even be alive anymore.”

  “He’s alive!” she said. Then she looked down at the expensive rug on the floor of the sitting room. “At least, he was just before all this started.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I…I saw him in the woods.”

  Frank had to frown again. “You go out in those woods by yourself?”

  “You have to understand, Mr. Morgan. Ben and I grew up around these giant redwoods. They’re not frightening to us. The forest has always been our home. You’re not scared of the place you grew up, are you?”

  Frank thought back to the rolling, wooded hills of the Cross Timbers in north central Texas. With a faint smile, he said, “We don’t have two-hundred-foot-tall trees where I’m from that grow so thick you can hardly see the sun. Anyway, there are wild animals in the forest, bears and wolves and things like that.”

  “We know how to avoid the dangers. I’ve never been afraid to go in the woods. I was out there that day when I ran into him. Right after he left, I used to meet him and try to talk some sense into him, but gradually I came to see that it wasn’t going to do any good. I hadn’t seen him for months before that day.” She sighed. “I was surprised. He…he had stopped taking care of himself. When he first went out there, he built a cabin and lived in it, but he told me that day that he didn’t go to the cabin anymore. He wouldn’t say why, but I got the impression he thought it was a bad place for some reason. He had let his hair and his beard grow, and he would barely talk to me. He seemed frightened of everything. You see, Mr. Morgan, that’s how I know he couldn’t be guilty of the things everyone is saying he is. He’s too scared to hurt anyone.”

  Frank knew she wanted to believe it, but he also knew that folks who are scared sometimes lash out at other people. If Ben Chamberlain really was the Terror of the Redwoods, maybe he was hurting people because he was afraid that they were going to hurt him. So he went after them first.

  “But it wasn’t long after that,” Nancy went on, “when some of the loggers started talking about seeing a monster in the woods. I know it must be Ben. Before that, he had always been careful to avoid people. Something must have happened to change him…maybe whatever it was that made him afraid to go back to his cabin…”

  “Maybe it changed him so that he’s not as gentle and peaceful as you remember him,” Frank suggested.

  “No! I know my brother, Mr. Morgan. He’s not capable of such violence.”

  For everybody who had ever gone loco and started killing, there was somebody who claimed it wasn’t possible, Frank thought. Nancy might not want to believe it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

  Still, maybe she was right, Frank thought. What if she was? If some of those bounty hunters came across a big, hairy fella in the woods who ran off when they spotted him, they would go after him and do their best to kill him. Frank had no doubt of that. If Ben Chamberlain was innocent, he didn’t deserve that fate. Even if he was guilty, the idea of him being gunned down like a rabid animal didn’t sit well with Frank.

  And he sure didn’t like the thought that somebody might chop the head off Ben’s corpse, bring it back here to collect that ten grand in blood money, and haul it out of a sack right in front of Nancy.

  But did he want to get more involved in this than he already was, when he’d just be
en passing through the area? Oregon was still waiting for him.

  Oregon wasn’t going anywhere, he reminded himself. It was just possible that Ben Chamberlain was innocent of the killings. In that case, somebody needed to find him and get him back safely to his father’s house before the bounty hunters started taking potshots at him.

  There was still one question he wanted an answer to before he agreed to help Nancy. “If you’re so sure your brother is what they’re calling the Terror,” he said, “why haven’t you told your father about it?”

  “I have,” she replied with a bitter twist of her mouth. “I told him about seeing Ben in the woods. He didn’t believe me. You see, when Ben left, he didn’t tell Father where he was going. Father thinks that Ben ran off to San Francisco or somewhere like that. He said that’s probably where Ben is now, drinking and…and associating with loose women.”

  “No offense, Miss Chamberlain, but your father strikes me as a stubborn man.”

  She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “That’s certainly true, Mr. Morgan.” She looked intently at him. “But I think you can match him…if you want to. Will you do it? Will you find Ben and bring him back here, so I can keep him safe?”

  “How do you know he won’t just run off again?”

  He could tell she hadn’t thought about that. She was so worried that all she wanted was to have her brother back with her.

  “I’ll figure out something,” she said. “I’ll just have to find a way to make him listen to reason.”

  That might be easier said than done, Frank thought. But that part of it was her problem, not his.

  “If it turns out he killed those men, he’ll have to face justice for it,” Frank warned her.

  “I’ll deal with that when the time comes, too,” she said. What seemed to be her natural spirit was returning. She lifted her chin with a touch of defiance. “At least if he’s here, or even in jail, he won’t be shot down like an animal.”

  Frank didn’t have any other questions to ask or arguments to make. He had to come to a decision, and as usual, he didn’t brood over it. He knew instinctively what he had to do. With a nod, he said, “All right, Miss Chamberlain. I’ll do my best to find your brother and bring him back here to you.”

  She reached out and put a hand on his arm. “Thank you so much, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t done anything.”

  “No, but if you tell my father that you’ll take the job after all, he’ll stop offering that bounty.”

  “I’ll have to tell him that I’m going to kill the Terror to get him to do that.”

  Nancy smiled. “He doesn’t have to know the truth, though. He’ll see that I was right, once you bring Ben back here.”

  Frank hoped he got a chance to do that. With every hour that went by while the woods were full of bounty hunters, the odds against Ben Chamberlain’s survival went up.

  “I’ll talk to your father, and I won’t mention anything you told me,” Frank said as he put his hat on. He didn’t feel completely comfortable about deceiving Rutherford Chamberlain, but the man had already made up his mind about his son. Chamberlain wouldn’t believe that Ben was the so-called Terror until he saw it with his own eyes.

  “Thank you so much!” Impulsively, Nancy threw her arms around Frank and hugged him. He gave her an awkward pat on the back, well aware he was old enough to be her father. In fact, he was pretty sure that Conrad was several years older than Nancy. His saddle might even be older than she was! He was glad when she stepped back and smiled up at him.

  “There’s one more thing,” he said. “If I locate your brother, he’s not going to know me, and he probably won’t listen to me, even if I tell him that you sent me to find him. Is there anything he’d know, something I could tell him or some object he’d recognize, so he’d be more likely to believe me?”

  Nancy frowned in thought for a moment, then reached behind her neck. Frank realized after a second that she was unfastening the clasp of a necklace. She took it off, pulling a small locket out from under her dress. As she pressed the necklace and locket into his palm, he felt the warmth that the metal had taken on from being nestled next to her skin.

  “Ben gave me that,” she said. “His picture is in it. If…if there’s anything left of the person he used to be, he’ll recognize it.”

  Frank nodded as he tucked the chain and locket into his shirt pocket. “That sounds like just what I need.”

  He opened the door of the sitting room and looked out into the foyer. It was empty at the moment. As he started toward the library, the butler stepped into the hall at the far end. Dennis raised white eyebrows in surprise.

  “I came back to talk to Mr. Chamberlain,” Frank said. He glanced toward the sitting room door, which was still open a crack. Nancy smiled gratefully at him through the gap.

  “I’ll see if he’s willing to speak to you again, sir,” Dennis said. He knocked quietly on one of the library doors, then went in. A moment later, he reappeared. “Please come in, Mr. Morgan.”

  Frank was glad that Chamberlain had agreed to see him again. They hadn’t left things on a very cordial basis.

  Chamberlain was behind the big desk in the library. “What is it, Morgan?” he snapped.

  Frank didn’t beat around the bush. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “I’ll take the job.”

  Chamberlain’s rather bushy eyebrows lowered in a frown. “You’ll find the Terror and kill it?”

  Frank didn’t like to lie, but he had made a promise to Nancy Chamberlain. He thought about the lines of worry he had seen etched on her pretty face, then said, “That’s right.”

  Chamberlain leaned back in his chair. “May I ask what prompted this reversal?”

  “I decided it was more important that you lift the bounty and get all those trigger-happy fools out of the woods.”

  “And I suppose the ten thousand dollars had nothing to do with it?”

  Frank shrugged. Let the old buzzard think whatever he wanted to.

  Chamberlain stood up and came around the desk. “I’m surprised by this, Morgan, and I don’t mind admitting it. I thought you were too stiff-necked to admit that you were wrong. But I’m glad you changed your mind. I’ll put out the word about the bounty being lifted immediately, but it may take some time for it to reach everyone who’s looking for the Terror.”

  “Make it as fast as you can,” Frank said.

  “Of course.” Chamberlain stuck out his hand. “We have a deal.”

  Frank shook with the timber baron and said, “We have a deal.”

  He hoped it was one that would bring an end to the bloodshed in the redwoods.

  Chapter 7

  Chamberlain offered him a drink to seal the bargain, but Frank refused as politely as possible. He wasn’t much of a drinker to start with, preferring a good cup of coffee instead, and he wanted to get started on this job as soon as possible.

  “Send a man into Eureka to spread the word about lifting the bounty,” Frank suggested. “If you’ve put up reward posters, have him take them down.”

  Chamberlain frowned, clearly not liking it that Frank was giving him orders. But he said, “Very well. I’ll take care of it this afternoon.”

  Frank nodded and turned toward the door.

  Behind him, Chamberlain said, “Bring me his head, Morgan. Bring me the damn creature’s head.”

  Frank didn’t say anything, didn’t turn. He just stood there for a second, jaw clenched, before he went out and closed the library door behind him.

  Chamberlain didn’t know what he was asking for. All he knew was that something was killing his men and threatening his business. At least, that was all he would admit, even to himself. No wonder he felt the way he did.

  Dennis was waiting in the corridor. He followed Frank all the way to the front door of the bizarre redwood mansion this time. The two horses and Dog were right where Frank had left them. Dog probably hadn’t moved since he sat down. His tail thumped a
gainst the ground, though, when Frank stepped out of the house and started down the steps from the porch.

  The gunman called Rockwell lounged nearby on a wrought-iron bench that didn’t look the least bit comfortable. A quirly dangled from his lips. He took it out, stood up, and sauntered over while Frank was untying his horses’ reins.

  “You were in there quite a while,” he commented. “Strike a deal with the old man?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. I’m going to hunt down the Terror, and Chamberlain’s going to call off the bounty.”

  Rockwell’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You got him to back down? I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “I offered him an arrangement he liked better, that’s all.”

  Rockwell took another drag on the smoke. “I can tell you who’s not going to like it. All those hombres who’ve started wandering around in the woods looking for monsters. They all think they’re going to be the one to kill the Terror and collect that ten grand.”

  “Chamberlain’s going to send someone to town to spread the word.” Frank swung up in the saddle. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d pass it along, too, Rockwell.”

  The gunman shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Sure. Some of the boys have been going out into the woods to do some hunting during their spare time. I’ll tell them not to bother anymore.”

  Frank rested his hands on the saddle horn and looked down at Rockwell. “Something else I’m wondering about…why does Chamberlain need to hire so many bodyguards?”

  “He’s a rich man. Rich men have enemies. Chamberlain does especially. You ever hear of Emmett Bosworth?”

  Frank pondered the question and then shook his head. “Can’t say as I have.”

  “He’s the boss’s biggest competitor. He’s got the second biggest logging operation in northern California…and he’d like to have the biggest. Bosworth’s managed to get some leases that Chamberlain wanted to get his hands on. Those two gents don’t cotton to each other.”