“I wouldn’t mind,” Frank replied. “It’s been sort of a thirsty night.”
Duggan made that grunting sound again. “Nothing like nearly gettin’ ventilated to make a man appreciate the pleasures of life, is there?” He paused and then added, “But I reckon you’d know that, bein’ the one they call the Drifter and all.”
“So you know who I am,” Frank said.
“Sure. I reckon most folks west of the Mississippi know who Frank Morgan is, and plenty of ’em east of there do, too.” Duggan took a bottle and a couple of glasses from a cabinet. “All I’ve got is whiskey.”
“That’ll do,” Frank told him.
Duggan poured the drinks. They knocked back the whiskey. “Another?” Duggan asked.
Frank shook his head. “No, thanks.”
Duggan looked like he wanted to refill his glass, but since his guest had refused a second drink, he put the bottle away instead. Turning back to Frank, he slipped his hands into the hip pockets of his jeans and said, “Ed tells me you’re looking for work.”
“That’s right.”
Duggan frowned. “You know, Morgan, I’ve heard a lot about you, but I don’t recollect ever hearing that you sold your gun.”
“I don’t. You’ve got a good-sized spread here. I thought maybe you could use another hand. I cowboyed when I was a kid up in Parker County.”
Duggan just stared at him for a moment and then said, “Am I hearin’ right? Frank Morgan, the famous gunfighter, wants to hire on as a forty-a-month-and-found cowpuncher?”
“I reckon you could call it getting back to my roots,” Frank said.
“I reckon I call it crazy. Nobody’s going to believe you hired on as a cowhand, no matter what I tell them.”
Frank shrugged. “I don’t have any control over what people believe or don’t believe.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Duggan thought it over for a moment more and then said, “You gave my boys a hand tonight. I owe you for that. If you want a riding job, Morgan, you got it. But you’re smart enough to have figured out there’s trouble brewin’ in these parts. You could find yourself smack-dab in the middle of a shootin’ war.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Frank said easily. Smack-dab in the middle of this range war was exactly where he wanted to be . . . because that was the place where he was mostly likely to find Tyler Beaumont.
* * *
Setting the Winchester aside, Beaumont hurried forward. As he did so, Will Bramlett’s waning strength finally gave out and he began to tumble from the saddle. Beaumont got there in time to catch him. He felt wetness against the palms of his hands as he grasped Bramlett’s blood-soaked jacket and shirt.
Kane slid to the ground and sprang to help Beaumont, but the young Ranger said, “I’ve got him.”
“Take it easy with him,” Kane said worriedly. “He’s got a bullet in his belly.”
“Damn,” Beaumont said, his voice soft. Like most frontiersmen, he knew what it meant when a man was gut-shot. Almost without fail, it was a death sentence. Only very rarely did anyone recover from such a wound.
Carefully, Beaumont lifted Bramlett and carried him into the right-hand side of the cabin. Kane hurried ahead and lit the lamp that Beaumont had blown out when he heard the approaching hoofbeats. With things the way they were in this part of the country, a man had to be careful whenever anybody rode up at night. There was no telling who might be coming to call, but there was a very good chance their intentions were hostile.
Once Kane had the wick burning in the lamp, he lowered the glass chimney and a yellow glow spread through the room. It had a hard-packed dirt floor with a couple of Indian rugs thrown on it, a rocking chair, and three bunks, one each for the two owners of the place and their hired hand. On the other side of the dogtrot was the kitchen, which was also where the men ate.
Beaumont lowered the wounded man onto one of the bunks. Bramlett’s face was pale as milk, probably because he had lost so much blood. His whole midsection was black with it. He moved his head a little, and a sound that was half-sigh, half-moan came from his lips. His eyes remained closed.
“What happened?” Beaumont asked as he straightened. He wore jeans over a pair of long-handled underwear and his feet were bare. He didn’t seem to notice that the night had grown chilly. The upper half of the gray underwear was stained with blood from where he had carried Bramlett.
“Some Slash D men jumped us,” Kane answered. He took his hat off and ran his fingers through his thick brown hair. He was fairly young, only a few years older than Beaumont, of medium height and slender build. He was a tough, experienced cowboy despite his relative youth. He wore a Colt belted around his waist and knew how to use it.
“What were you doing over by the Slash D?” Beaumont knew that as a hired hand, which was all he was to Chris Kane, he didn’t have any right to be demanding answers. He posed the question anyway.
“We went down there to teach Duggan a lesson,” Kane said. “It’s not right what he and the others are doing to Al Rawlings.”
“You tried to cut Duggan’s fence?”
“That’s right.” Kane’s chin lifted in anger. “He had it comin’.”
Beaumont wasn’t going to argue with that. He rode for the KB spread—or so everyone thought—so what the bosses said went. Or in this case, the boss, because Bramlett was in no shape to give orders. All the responsibility now fell on his partner, Chris Kane.
Bramlett was older, a chunky, graying man in his mid-thirties. He and Kane had known each other for several years, both of them having worked for Earl Duggan at the same time, and they got along well enough that they had decided to go in together as partners in a ranch. Beaumont had learned that and more in the two weeks he had worked for the men.
They hadn’t wanted to hire him at first, even though their herd had grown large enough so that they really needed an extra hand. They didn’t have enough money to pay regular wages, Kane had said when Beaumont rode in and asked if they were hiring. Beaumont had agreed to work for his keep and ten dollars a month. That was less than a third of a cowhand’s usual pay. Kane and Bramlett had probably wondered why Beaumont had accepted such a proposition. But he made a good hand, and they had decided they were lucky to have him.
More importantly as far as Beaumont was concerned, he was now on the inside of the loose-knit organization of small ranches and farmers who were opposed to the way the big ranchers had fenced off huge sections of land in Brown County.
You knew things had to be really bad when cattlemen and sodbusters started working together, Beaumont had thought more than once during the time he’d spent here. The hatred and anger caused by the high-handed actions of Duggan, Wilcox, Calhoun, and the other big ranchers in the county had united men who might have been enemies under other circumstances.
It was Beaumont’s job to find out just how bad things really were and keep them from getting worse.
From the looks of the bloodstained figure on the bunk, so far he had been spectacularly unsuccessful in the latter part of that chore.
“I thought you’d gone to town and Will was riding night herd,” he said now to Chris Kane.
Kane hung his hat on the back of the rocking chair. “I didn’t know we had to clear things with you,” he said curtly. “Last time I checked, you still worked for us.”
Beaumont held up his hands. “I’m sorry, Chris. You’re right. I was out of line.”
“Forget it,” Kane said with a shake of his head. “You know anything about doctorin’?”
“I’ve seen plenty of bullet holes patched up. I can take a look at Will if you want.”
“You do that. I’m going to get a fresh horse and light a shuck for Brownwood. Will needs Doc Yantis.”
Beaumont wasn’t sure a sawbones could do Bramlett any good at this point, but he didn’t say that to Kane. Instead, he said, “I’ll clean the wound and try to get the bleeding stopped.”
Wearily, Kane scrubbed a hand across his face and then nodded.
“Thanks.” He started out of the cabin, snagging his hat from the back of the chair as he passed.
“Don’t you want some coffee or something to eat before you go?”
“No time,” Kane said over his shoulder. The door banged behind him as he went out.
Beaumont looked at the man on the bunk and sighed. He pushed the sleeves of the long underwear higher on his arms. He had his work cut out for him just keeping Will Bramlett alive until Kane got back from Brownwood with the doctor.
16
Despite the lateness of the hour, Brownwood’s saloons were still open for business. Light spilled out through their windows and into the street. Ford Nairn’s Double O Saloon, Pomp Arnold’s place, Happy Jack Young’s tavern, and Ace McKelvey’s Palace all had customers.
One of them was bound to know where Doc Yantis was, Chris Kane thought as he reined his horse to a halt in front of McKelvey’s. He would start there.
Actually, the first place he had stopped at in Brownwood was the physician’s house, which doubled as his office. The place was dark, and no one had answered when Kane pounded on the door and called Yantis’s name. The doc was gone somewhere, and Kane wanted to know where. If Yantis was in town, Kane intended to get him and take him out to the ranch, by force if necessary.
If the sawbones was out in the country somewhere on a call, Kane didn’t know what he would do. Will Bramlett needed medical attention as soon as possible, and even then it might not be enough.
His partner might already be dead, Kane thought grimly as he stepped onto the shallow porch in front of McKelvey’s.
He opened the door and went inside. Three townsmen stood at the bar, drinking. The tables were all empty. Behind the hardwood, the tall, red-bearded bartender looked bored as he polished glasses. Kane had been coming in here for several years, ever since he had gone to work for Earl Duggan after being released from the penitentiary in Huntsville. He knew Rusty and knew the girls who usually worked here, too. One of them, the blonde called Annie, leaned against the bar, looking as bored as Rusty. The other one, Midge, was nowhere in sight. Either she had taken a customer upstairs or had simply called it a night and turned in alone.
Annie’s face lit up as she looked over and saw Kane. He knew she liked him, probably because he made a point of always being polite to her. He might have felt the same way toward her if he’d had time for such things. He didn’t hold it against her that she was a whore. After all, he was a convicted rustler, an ex-jailbird.
She smiled as she came toward him. “Hello, Chris,” she said in a quiet voice. “It’s been a long time since I saw you last.”
“Yeah, I’ve been busy,” he said curtly. He didn’t have time to flirt with some calico cat, even one as nice as Annie. “Have you seen Doc Yantis this evening?” Kane knew that the doc sometimes liked a little nip after supper. Something to help him sleep, the sawbones claimed.
Annie shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen him. Is something wrong?” She laid her hand on his forearm in a gesture that managed to be solicitous and sensual at the same time.
“I just need to find him, that’s all.” He sure as hell didn’t want to explain that he needed help because his partner has been shot just as they were about to cut the Slash D fence.
Annie caught hold of the sleeve of his denim jacket. “Why don’t you stay and have a drink with me?” she suggested. “Then you can go look for Doc.”
Kane pulled away more roughly than he intended to, but in his distraction, he didn’t notice the surprise and the hurt feelings in Annie’s eyes. “Sorry, I don’t have time.” He turned and walked out.
Inside the Palace, Annie gazed after Kane with disappointment. She didn’t hear the door at the far end of the bar open, didn’t know that Ace McKelvey had emerged from his office until the owner of the place came up behind her and touched her shoulder. She gave a little gasp of surprise and turned to look at him.
McKelvey was a sturdily built man with dark hair and a mustache. He said, “Was that Chris Kane who just left out of here?”
Annie nodded.
“He hasn’t been to town much lately,” McKelvey mused. “I reckon he got to missing you, Annie.”
“No, he didn’t,” she said with a faint edge of bitterness in her voice. “He just came in here looking for Doc Yantis. He wanted to know if the doc had been in tonight.”
“What does Kane need a doctor for?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Must not have been for him. He looked healthy enough.”
“He didn’t seem to be hurt,” Annie agreed.
“Well, I suppose we’ll hear about it sooner or later if it was anything important.” McKelvey rubbed Annie’s bare upper arm. “Why don’t you come back to the office with me? I could use some help with the, ah, books, and you’re the smartest girl I know.”
Annie was smart enough to know that her talents didn’t lie in bookkeeping. That wasn’t what McKelvey wanted help with.
But he was the boss, so she had to do pretty much whatever he said. She put a smile on her face and said, “All right, Mr. McKelvey. I’d be glad to.”
“Call me Ace,” he chided. “I’ve told you that before.”
“Sure . . . Ace.”
Brownwood had only four saloons, and they were all fairly close together. It didn’t take long for Chris Kane to visit all of them. Unfortunately, he got the same lack of results in each place. No one had seen Doc Yantis.
He stopped just outside Pomp Arnold’s saloon and rubbed his eyes as he tried to think. All the other businesses in Brownwood were closed at this hour. He didn’t know who else he could ask about the doctor.
Then it occurred to him that more than likely somebody would be awake at the marshal’s office. And Keever or his deputy, Skeet Harlan, might know where Doc Yantis was. Kane didn’t like the idea of approaching the lawmen, but he didn’t know what else to do. He remembered that Ed MacDonald had recognized him during the confrontation out at the Slash D fence line. MacDonald could have ridden to town by now and reported what had happened to the sheriff, and if the sheriff knew about it, then Marshal Keever probably did, too. Of course, that was assuming MacDonald and the other Slash D riders had lived through the gunfight, which had still been going on while Kane and Bramlett lit a shuck out of there.
It was a chance he would have to take, Kane decided. The marshal’s office was only a couple of blocks away on a side street just off Fisk Avenue. His steps carried him swiftly toward it.
Kane saw a light burning in the window of the small frame building as he approached. He tried the door, found it locked, and rapped sharply on it. A moment later a man asked from inside, “Who’s there?”
For a second Kane hesitated, unsure whether he should give his name. Then he plunged ahead and said, “Chris Kane. I’m looking for Doc Yantis.”
A key rattled in the lock and then the door was jerked open. Skeet Harlan, Marshal Sean Keever’s deputy, peered out at him. Kane squinted against the light coming from inside the office as Harlan asked, “What do you need the doc for, Kane? You hurt?”
“No, but my partner Will Bramlett is,” Kane replied. “He was cleaning his gun and it went off. Accidentally shot himself in the belly.” It was a weak excuse, but the best Kane had been able to come up with. And Harlan couldn’t prove that he was lying.
“Shot in the belly, eh?” Harlan sounded amused by the situation. “Might as well forget about Doc and go roust out the undertaker. By tomorrow Bramlett’ll need plantin’.”
Kane had never liked Skeet Harlan. The deputy got too much enjoyment out of the power he wielded. He was fast to use a gun when there was trouble, too. He liked to pistol-whip drunks, and he had shot more than one cowboy who’d gotten a mite too rambunctious while celebrating payday. Kane was already on edge tonight because of everything that had happened, and now Harlan’s callous comments got under his skin, probably just the way Harlan intended. Kane couldn’t help it. He snapped back, “Just tell me where the hell Doc Yantis
is, Harlan.”
The deputy gave him an ugly grin. “He’s out at the Slash D. Stiles Warren rode in to fetch him a while ago. It seems that Dave Osmond and Pitch Carey got themselves shot earlier tonight. There was some sort o’ dustup along Duggan’s fence line, there by Stepps Creek.”
“I hadn’t heard anything about that,” Kane said hollowly.
“From what Warren said, a lot of powder got burned and a lot of lead slung. You sure you don’t know anything about that, Kane?”
“I told you I didn’t.” Kane struggled with the anger and fear that welled up inside him. Did Harlan know for sure that he and Bramlett had been there when the shooting started? Did the deputy know they had aimed to cut Duggan’s fence?
“Funny thing,” Harlan drawled as he leered at Kane. “Warren heard Ed MacDonald call your name just before the shootin’ started. Are you sayin’ that MacDonald’s a liar?”
“Maybe he was just mistaken,” Kane rasped. He started to turn away, feeling empty inside. If Doc Yantis was out at the Slash D, there was no way Kane could get his help for Bramlett. The poor gut-shot son of a bitch was doomed, if he wasn’t dead already.
“Hold on!” Harlan ordered.
“I don’t have time—” Kane began.
“You got plenty of time. Bramlett’s as good as dead, and you know it. That’ll save the county the expense of hangin’ him.”
Kane bristled. “You’ve got no right to say that! Will didn’t do anything.”
“Fence-cuttin’ is a crime, you know.”
“Not a hanging offense,” Kane said. “Anyway, Will never cut a fence in his life.”
That was true. Kane had been the one about to cut the fence. And when you came right down to it, he hadn’t actually done it, so he was still legally in the clear, too.
“How about attempted murder?”
“We didn’t shoot anybody! It was somebody else—”
Kane stopped short as he realized what he had just done. Harlan gave a wicked laugh and said, “So you admit you and Bramlett was there, do you? I thought as much. Get your hands up, boy. You’re under arrest.”
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