Frank hadn’t considered that Laura might have been the target. He couldn’t think of any reason someone would want to harm her. Sure, she had rejected Ed Sandeen’s advances, but Sandeen hadn’t struck Frank as the sort of man who would try to kill her over that. Sandeen would be more likely to try to get back at Laura by ruining her uncle and taking over the Lazy F.
It was more likely that he had been the target, Frank told himself. He had insulted Sandeen’s pride by refusing to go to work for him, then added injury to insult by killing the Hanley brothers and whipping Lannigan in that fight. Sandeen would want to settle that score. In addition, Sandeen wouldn’t want a man like Frank entering the upcoming fight on the side of Howard Flynn. Sandeen might have decided that the best way to prevent that was to take Frank out of the picture entirely.
However you added it up, Frank believed that the shots had been intended for him. But there was no way of being sure about that until he found out the identity of the bushwhacker—which was something he intended to do.
They came in sight of the ranch headquarters and reached the big house a few minutes later. Flynn had sent one of his men galloping ahead to alert the cook to the fact that Laura had been wounded. Acey-Deucy was waiting for them on the porch when they rode up. He rushed down the steps and hurried to Laura’s side, where he helped her dismount and held on to her good arm as they went into the house. “Don’t worry, Missy Laura,” he told her. “You be just fine. Acey-Deucy take good care of you.”
Buckston dismounted and stumbled off toward the bunkhouse, muttering something about needing a drink. Flynn dismissed the other punchers with a flick of his hand, then turned to Frank and said, “Let’s sit out here on the porch. If you’ve got something to say to me, you can say it there.”
“Don’t want me in your house, eh?” Frank said.
“Let’s just say I don’t have much use for gunslingers. I’ve never cottoned to your kind, Morgan.”
Frank didn’t feel like defending his life to this stiff-necked cattleman. Let Flynn think whatever he wanted to, he told himself. What mattered was making it clear to Flynn that under no circumstances would any range war be allowed to spill over into San Remo. Once Frank had gotten that message across, he could deal with the problem of the conflict between Flynn and Sandeen itself.
There were several old ladder-back chairs on the porch. Flynn sat down in one of them and took out the makin’s. He didn’t offer the tobacco pouch to Frank. Frank picked up one of the chairs and turned it around so that he could straddle it and rest his arms on the back. He said, “Laura told me that Willard Donohue wasn’t ever elected the mayor of San Remo.”
“That’s true.” Flynn licked the edges of the paper onto which he had spilled tobacco, pasted them together, and twisted the ends of the quirly. “So if Donohue’s the one who gave you that badge, I ain’t sure if callin’ yourself a marshal is exactly legal.”
“Everyone else in the settlement went along with it, so I reckon it’s legal enough.”
Flynn shrugged as he took a block of lucifers from his pocket, broke one off, and scratched it to life on the sole of his boot. He held the flame to the end of the cigarette and lit it.
“Do what you want,” he said. “It don’t make no nevermind to me.”
“I’m going to proceed as if I’m the duly appointed marshal of San Remo,” Frank warned him. “That means that if you or any of your men try to start trouble in town, I’ll do my best to stop it.”
“Why don’t you go warn Sandeen?” Flynn snapped. “He’s the one causin’ all the trouble.”
“I did warn him, last night. Which makes me wonder if whoever fired those shots at your niece and me this morning works for him.”
Flynn’s weathered forehead creased even more as he frowned. “If you’ve already had a run-in with Sandeen, he sure might’ve sent somebody after you. There’s sure as hell no shortage of backshooters and cold-deck killers on Saber to choose from for a job like that.”
“That’s pretty much what I thought,” Frank said with a nod. “I’m told that one of your punchers was murdered in town not long ago.”
Flynn’s scowl grew even darker. “Yeah. Joe Harrington. A pretty good kid, just a little wild and careless, otherwise he wouldn’t have been playin’ poker in the Verde Saloon without any other Lazy F men around. The story was that some drifter robbed and killed him, but I never believed that. Sandeen was responsible. He saw a chance to get rid of one of my boys and took it.”
“We’re in agreement on that, too,” Frank said. “But you didn’t try to strike back at Sandeen for it.”
Flynn shook his head disgustedly. “Didn’t have any proof, and I like to think I’m a fair man. It ain’t like what happened yesterday. Rufe Blake told you before he died that Sandeen’s men were behind that. That’s good enough for me.”
“But Blake and Bragan and Wardell were all inside the line shack when the shooting started,” Frank pointed out. “A shot came through the window and killed Wardell, and Blake and Bragan were pinned down in there until the shack was set on fire. They were shot when the flames drove them out. That means they never really got a look at who killed them.”
Flynn had been puffing furiously on the quirly as Frank spoke. Now he threw down the butt and ground it out savagely with his boot. “Damn it, are you sayin’ maybe it wasn’t Sandeen?”
“I’m saying you can’t prove that, either. Personally, I believe that Sandeen ordered the shack burned and your men killed. I spoke to him in the settlement last night, and I didn’t like the looks of him. But if you want to be fair, you can’t take action against Sandeen based on what happened yesterday.”
“Maybe you’d rather I wait until the bastard’s got a gun to my head,” Flynn growled. “It’ll be too damned late then.”
Frank inclined his head. “You’ve got a point there. Here’s what I suggest. Keep your men close to home for a while. Don’t let them go into San Remo and stir up trouble. I’ll poke around some and see what I can find out, maybe get you the proof you need to go to the authorities.”
“I been stompin’ my own snakes for forty years.”
“I know, and I understand how you feel. I’m just trying to keep this trouble from boiling over and spreading bloodshed all over the range.”
Flynn snorted. “You’re a fine one to talk, Morgan, considerin’ how much blood you’ve shed over the years.”
“I know,” Frank said. “Maybe I’m trying to make up for some of that.”
“Atonin’ for your sins, eh? Been my experience that that don’t really work.”
“Mine, too.” Frank shrugged. “But I figure it doesn’t hurt anything to give it a try.”
Flynn sat there for several moments, frowning in thought. Finally, he nodded and said, “All right, Morgan, I’ll play it your way . . . for now. My riders will steer clear of San Remo. But if you come up with the proof that Sandeen is behind those killin’s . . . well, I make no promise what I’ll do then.”
“Fair enough,” Frank said. If Flynn kept his word, then Frank had accomplished his first goal, which was to protect the settlement. Now he could work on preventing the range war that might threaten it.
Flynn put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “Grub ought to be ready soon,” he said. “Come on in and eat with us.”
“Your opinion of me must have gone up a little,” Frank said, “for you to invite me to sit at your table.”
“Yeah, well, nobody’s ever gonna say that Howard Flynn ain’t hospitable . . . even to low-down gunfighters.”
Chapter Thirteen
The cook had cleaned and bandaged the wound on Laura’s arm, and she had changed from her riding clothes into a simple but attractive dress. Her face was still pale and drawn from the pain, though, as she sat down at the table in the ranch house dining room with her uncle and Frank.
“How’re you feelin’, Laura?” Flynn asked her.
“I’ll be all right,” she said.
&
nbsp; “We can hitch up the wagon and take you over to Prescott to see a real sawbones.”
Laura shook her head. “No, I’m sure that won’t be necessary. Acey-Deucy did a fine job of cleaning and dressing the wound.”
“Just keep an eye on it,” Frank advised. “I think it’ll heal all right.”
“You’d know about bullet wounds, wouldn’t you, Morgan?” Flynn said.
“I suspect you’ve been nicked a few times yourself,” Frank responded.
Flynn chuckled grimly. “Yeah, you’re right about that. Now dig in. The Chinaman ain’t as good a cook as that colored woman in town, but his food ain’t bad.”
Frank found that he agreed with that assessment. The steak that Acey-Deucy served him wasn’t quite as tender and flavorful as the one he’d had in Mary Elizabeth Warren’s café the night before, but it was still more than passable.
When they had finished eating, Frank said his goodbyes to Flynn and Laura and went outside. Flynn followed him onto the porch and said in a low voice, “Don’t be too long about that pokin’ around you’re plannin’ on doin’, Morgan. I’ll only wait so long before I take my men over to Sandeen’s and clean out that nest o’ vipers.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Frank promised. He knew that if Flynn and his men attacked Sandeen, it wouldn’t be as easy a victory as Flynn made it sound. In fact, it would probably be a bloodbath on both sides, and Frank suspected that Sandeen might actually win. He had the advantage in that many of his men were cold-blooded killers. They probably outnumbered Flynn’s crew, too. Flynn might not realize it, but an attack on Saber would be like baiting a grizzly in the bear’s own den.
Frank had left Stormy tied to a hitching post in front of the house. The horse was still there. One of Flynn’s punchers lounged nearby. He said, “We were gonna take that horse o’ yours over to the barn, Morgan, but the fool jughead wouldn’t let us near him. Like to bit one fella’s hand off. He’d have lost some fingers for sure if he’d been just a little bit slower.”
“He’s lucky,” Frank agreed as he patted Stormy on the shoulder and gathered up the reins. “This big fella doesn’t trust anybody until I tell him it’s all right.”
With that, he swung up into the saddle and turned Stormy toward the west. Before he could ride out, he heard someone call, “Morgan!”
Frank looked toward the bunkhouse and saw Jeff Buckston striding in his direction. Bruises were starting to form on Buckston’s face, and there was still some dried blood here and there around his mouth. Although Frank hadn’t looked in a mirror recently, he figured he was sporting some fresh signs of battle himself.
“What do you want, Buckston?” he asked as the foreman came to a stop about ten feet away. Buckston had a gun on his hip, of course, and Frank hoped that he wouldn’t try to draw it. There had already been too many killings in the past twenty-four hours.
“I know now you weren’t the one who hurt Miss Flynn, Morgan,” Buckston said. “Reckon I jumped the gun on that. Sorry.”
The apology surprised Frank a little; he had Buckston pegged as a man who would be too proud to admit that he was wrong, especially this soon after the fact. But he nodded and said, “Fair enough.”
“That don’t mean there’s no hard feelin’s, though,” Buckston went on, his voice hard and edged with anger. “You and me left things unsettled between us, and it can’t end like that.”
“They seemed pretty settled to me,” Frank said coolly. He didn’t aggravate the situation by pointing out the fact that the fight had ended with Buckston on the ground, helpless and gasping for breath.
“Just heed what I’m sayin’. . . . Sooner or later, you and me will have it out, Morgan.”
“That’s a fight I don’t want.”
“It’s one you’ll have, like it or not.”
That was a challenge Frank couldn’t allow to pass unanswered. He said, “It’ll be up to you to start the ball, then, whenever you’re ready.”
“You’ll know when the time comes,” Buckston said. “I ain’t no bushwhacker or backshooter.”
“Never thought you were.”
Buckston nodded. “We understand each other, then.” Without saying anything else, he turned and walked back toward the bunk house.
Frank glanced over his shoulder and saw that Howard Flynn was still on the porch of the big house, watching the confrontation with interest. Laura had joined him, and she looked even paler and more worried than ever. Frank lifted a finger to the brim of his hat, gave them a nod, and heeled Stormy into a trot.
Buckston was right. Frank knew he was leaving unfinished business behind him as he rode away from the Lazy F. But there was nothing he could about it now, and he had other problems on his plate.
Like stopping a bloody range war . . .
* * *
A man could learn quite a bit about the country in which he found himself simply by riding over it. That was how Frank spent the afternoon, riding the range.
During his conversation with Jasper Culverhouse as he was soaking his hands in liniment the night before, he had asked about the boundaries of the Lazy F and Sandeen’s Saber spread. The two ranches took up most of the land between the Mogollon Rim and the Verde River for a lengthy stretch along the stream. According to Culverhouse, the Lazy F was really the prime piece of real estate of the two; Saber lay to the south of Flynn’s spread, and the terrain there was more rugged, not as well watered during the dry spells, and lacking in good grazing land when compared to the Lazy F. Saber certainly wasn’t a bad ranch. It just wasn’t as good as its neighbor to the north.
So after leaving Flynn’s headquarters, Frank rode east for a ways, then left the trail and headed south, intending to have a look at Saber for himself. Several times during the afternoon, he saw riders in the distance and steered clear of them, not wanting any confrontations with either Flynn’s or Sandeen’s men.
As he penetrated deeper onto Sandeen’s range, he saw that Culverhouse’s assessment of it was correct. If Sandeen was the sort to feel jealous, he probably felt some envy of Flynn. But he could have made a perfectly good cattle enterprise out of Saber, if he’d been willing to work at it. A man like Sandeen couldn’t stand to see someone else being successful, though. In order to be satisfied, he had to be better than everybody else. He had to ride higher on the hog and have everybody look up to him, or else resentment would eat away at his guts. Frank had known people like that before, and he would have considered them pathetic—if they hadn’t been so dangerous.
When he felt like he had seen enough, he turned and rode west until he came to the Verde, then followed the river north until he came to San Remo again. The sun was about to dip behind the mountains to the west by the time he reached the settlement. He rode across the plank bridge and went to the livery barn behind the blacksmith shop.
Dog came bounding out to greet him, tail wagging and tongue lolling. As soon as Frank had dismounted, the big cur jumped on him. Frank grabbed Dog’s ears and rubbed behind them. Dog’s tail was wagging so fast now it was just a blur.
Culverhouse came out of the blacksmith shop and took Stormy’s reins. “I’ll put him up for you, Marshal,” he said. “Give him a good rubdown, too.”
“I’m much obliged, Jasper. Quiet day around here?”
“Yeah.” Culverhouse jerked his head toward the Verde Saloon. “A few of Sandeen’s men rode by a while ago and went to the saloon, but I haven’t seen any Lazy F riders, so there ain’t been any trouble.”
“I had a good talk with Flynn,” Frank said, not mentioning the ambush or the subsequent battle with Buckston. “He’s going to keep his men out of town for the time being. That should let things quiet down a little.”
“Huh. I’m surprised you got Flynn to go along with that. He’s a stiff-necked old pelican who always thinks he’s right.”
Frank grinned. He couldn’t have described Flynn any better himself.
Since it was nearly dark, he walked along to the café. Not surprisingly, he found Wil
lard Donohue sitting outside, apparently waiting for him.
“Evenin’, Marshal,” Donohue said. “Haven’t seen you around since early this mornin’. Did you take that ride out to Howard Flynn’s ranch?”
“I did,” Frank said with a nod. “I explained to him that I’m the marshal of San Remo now, and told him there wouldn’t be any trouble tolerated in town.”
“How’d he take that?”
“Well, he cast aspersions on the legality of this badge I’m wearing. Said you appointed yourself mayor, rather than being elected.”
Donohue grunted. “He did, did he? I reckon it’s true there wasn’t exactly an election . . . but everybody in town thought we needed a mayor, and nobody objected when I said I’d take the job. That makes it legal enough as far as I’m concerned.”
“Me, too,” Frank said. “You had supper yet?”
“Nope. Waitin’ for you.”
“Let’s go on inside, then. It’s been a long day.”
Frank had the pot roast for a change, and it was every bit as good as the steak he’d had the night before. When Mary Elizabeth brought the food, she said to Donohue, “You’ll have to pay for your meal, Mayor. You ain’t eatin’ on the cuff like the marshal here.”
“Add it to my tab, if you would, my dear,” Donohue said.
Mary Elizabeth sniffed and rolled her eyes, but she said that she would.
Over supper, Frank told Donohue everything that had happened, including the bushwhacking, the wounding of Laura Flynn, and the fight with Buckston. Donohue asked worriedly, “Will that young woman be all right?”
“I think so,” Frank told him. “It wasn’t much more than a scratch. Of course, it seemed worse to her, since she’s not used to being shot at.”
“And you are.”
Frank shrugged. “It seems to happen a lot. Not saying I like it, but that’s just the facts of the matter.”
“Do you really intend to bring in outside authorities if you can prove that Sandeen is behind the attacks on Flynn’s spread?”
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