And the blood, Buckston thought, but he didn’t say that.
Laura leaned forward slightly, brought her right hand up to her eyes, and began to sob. Buckston wanted to take her into his arms, hold her, and tell her that everything was going to be all right, that he would take care of her and protect her, but of course it would be way too forward of him to do that. He settled for awkwardly patting her shoulder a couple of times and saying, “I’m sure sorry, Miss Laura.”
For the next few minutes there was considerable scrambling around in the house as Laura continued to sit in the kitchen and cry. Then Glover came in and said quietly to Buckston, “We got the boss laid out in the parlor, Buck.”
Laura began to wipe her wet, red-rimmed eyes. “I . . . I have to see him,” she said as she started to get to her feet. Buckston took hold of her right arm to help her, just in case she was unsteady. Even under these tragic circumstances, he was aware of the firm round warmth of her arm through the sleeve of her blouse.
Many of the ranch hands had crowded into the parlor and gathered around the divan where Flynn’s body was laid out. He was wrapped in a blanket so that only his face was visible. The bloody ruin of his chest was hidden from Laura, and Buckston was glad of that. He led her over to the divan and stood beside her, still gripping her arm, being careful not to hold her too tightly.
“Oh, Uncle Howard!” Laura wailed as she looked down into the rugged, weathered face. Death had smoothed out Flynn’s features somewhat; they weren’t as contorted from pain as they had been at first. That was something else Buckston was grateful for.
Laura went on, “You . . . you gave me a home . . . and now you’re gone. I . . . I’m so sorry.” She turned to Buckston, and an edge of savage anger crept into her voice as she asked, “You said Frank Morgan did this?”
“We found him standing over the boss’s body, the gun still in his hand.”
“That doesn’t sound like something Mr. Morgan would do. When I met him he didn’t seem like a . . . a cold-blooded killer. But if you found him like that . . .” She stopped and drew a deep breath, and her voice was stronger as she went on. “I want you to find him, Jeff. I want you to find him and bring him to justice.”
Buckston nodded and said, “That’s just exactly what I plan on doin’, Miss Laura.”
* * *
For a saloon in a settlement like San Remo, a rainy day killed business. There weren’t that many people in town, so the saloons depended on the cowboys who worked in the area for their customers. On a day like this, when there had been thunder and lightning and then a drenching downpour that finally settled into a steady drizzle, nobody wanted to get out and ride miles into town just for a drink or a roll in the hay with one of San Remo’s three, count ’em, three soiled doves.
So Alonzo Hightower was pretty bored as he stood behind the bar in the Mogollon Saloon, lazily polishing the hardwood with a damp rag. He had sent his bartender home and was taking care of the saloon’s two customers himself. One was a gambler named Farrell who had drifted into town a week or so earlier and probably would be drifting on pretty soon because the pickin’s here were so slim. He sat at a table playing solitaire. The other customer was Mayor Willard Donohue, who hardly counted because he already had a tab that was a mile long and paid on it only once in a blue moon. Donohue stood at the bar, sipping now and then from a mug of beer. The atmosphere of boredom in the place was oppressive.
That was why Hightower looked up with interest as he heard a horse going by in the street outside, its hooves splashing softly in the mud. Maybe the rider was a stranger, or at least somebody interesting.
He was a stranger, all right, dressed in black from head to toe. He reined his horse to a stop in front of the saloon and just sat there in the saddle for a long moment, staring over the batwings into the Mogollon, as if he were trying to decide whether or not he wanted to come in. Since it was a gloomy day outside because of all the clouds, Hightower couldn’t see the man’s face very well. The broad brim of the black hat obscured the stranger’s features even more. Hightower caught a glimpse of a hawk nose, and he thought the man had red hair but wasn’t sure about that.
But even without being able to see the stranger very well, something about him struck a chord in Hightower, and the sound it produced wasn’t a pleasant one. The rain had cooled things off considerably, but now an actual chill went through the saloon keeper, as if the temperature had dropped another twenty degrees in a matter of a second.
Or as if someone had just walked over his grave.
Then the stranger lifted his reins, clucked to his horse, and turned the animal away from the saloon. Slowly, he rode out of sight.
Hightower kept staring for a moment. There had been so much raw ferocity in the man that it seemed impossible he was gone. Something about him, an aura of sorts, seemed to linger in the air where he had been before slowly dissipating.
Hightower swallowed hard and looked over at Donohue. The mayor had swung around and was looking out the saloon entrance, too. His face was pale and he licked his lips nervously.
“You saw him, too, didn’t you?” Hightower asked.
Donohue jumped a little, startled by Hightower’s voice. “You mean that fella dressed all in black? Yeah, of course I saw him. Why wouldn’t I have seen him? He was real, wasn’t he? I mean, he wasn’t some sort o’ haunt or something, was he?”
“Seemed real enough to me,” Hightower said. “Sure was a mean-looking fella, though.”
“Yeah. Don’t know what it was about him. He was just another hombre, but at the same time he was . . .” Donohue searched for a word.
“Spooky,” Hightower supplied.
“That’s right,” Donohue said with a fervent nod. “That’s it exactly. Spooky.”
“Why do you reckon he just looked in the door and didn’t come in here?”
Donohue rubbed his grizzled jaw in thought. Finally, he said, “If I had to guess, I’d say he was lookin’ for somebody . . . and I don’t know about you, ’Lonzo, but I’m damned glad the fella he was lookin’ for ain’t in here.”
* * *
Mitch Kite had been running the Verde Saloon for Ed Sandeen for about a year, ever since Sandeen had bought it from Ford Fargo, who had tired of Arizona and headed for California. Kite was a medium-sized, fair-haired man of indeterminate age who thought life in San Remo was boring as all hell. But no sheriff’s deputies ever came around here, and for a man with reward dodgers out on him in four states and two territories—none of them Arizona—it made a good place to lie low. Still, Kite’s restless nature was such that he knew he would have to move on eventually, even though it meant running the risk of having the law after him again.
The Verde wasn’t much busier than the Mogollon, but he still had one bartender on duty, a balding gent named Speckler who had the biggest Adam’s apple Kite had ever seen. Kite was sitting at a table drinking with a whore called Sweet Susie, whose sour disposition meant that she rarely lived up to her name. Kite was musing on the possibility of taking her to one of the rooms out back, but it almost seemed like more trouble than it would be worth.
That was when the stranger dressed in black pushed the batwings aside and walked into the saloon, pausing just inside the entrance to look around the room. When Kite saw that, he thought it looked exactly like a drawing he had seen once on the cover of a dime novel, and he almost laughed out loud at the melodramatic nature of the gesture, as well as the sinister all-black outfit.
But then the stranger’s gaze touched him, and suddenly Kite was glad that he hadn’t laughed. Very glad indeed, because something about the man said that he wasn’t the type of hombre who would be happy about being laughed at.
After a moment, the stranger walked on over to the bar. Speckler came up to ask him what he wanted, and the two men talked quietly for a moment. Then Kite was surprised to see the bartender nod toward him. Speckler even pointed at him, for God’s sake! The man in black nodded and turned toward the table where Kite s
at with Sweet Susie. Kite’s heart pounded in his chest. The man might be a bounty hunter, bent on claiming the reward from one of those dodgers that had Kite’s face and a different name on them.
The stranger didn’t appear too menacing as he walked toward the table, though, except for the cold glint in his eyes that reminded Kite of a rattlesnake’s eyes. And the way that his hand never strayed far from the stag-butted revolver on his hip, under the long black coat. And the air of coiled violence just waiting to be unleashed.
Come to think of it, Kite realized as a chill went through him, the closer this son of a bitch got, the scarier he became.
But Kite could be a scary son of a bitch himself when he needed to be, so he steeled his nerves and said quietly to Sweet Susie, “Go ahead and get out of here.”
The whore glanced nervously at the approaching stranger and said quickly, “You don’t have to tell me twice, Boss.” With that she was up and moving toward the bar, angling away from the stranger so that she wouldn’t have to pass too close to him.
The stranger stopped by the table and said, “You’re the fella who runs this place?”
“That’s right,” Kite said. “Something I can do for you?”
“I’m looking for a man.”
If he said Gil Hunter or James Malone or Harry Sloan or any of the other names Kite had used in the past, Kite was going to twist his right wrist and cause the derringer under his sleeve to slip into his palm from its spring-loaded holster, and then he was going to plant a couple of .32 slugs right in this bastard’s belly. That might not be enough to stop the stranger from drawing and killing him, but Kite was damned sure going to try.
“His name is Frank Morgan,” the stranger went on.
Kite felt the tension go out of him. He smiled and said, “Sit down and have a drink, my friend. You’ve come to the right place. As of a couple of days ago, Frank Morgan is now the marshal of San Remo.”
One of the red eyebrows quirked just slightly, but that was the only indication of surprise that the stranger allowed. “Is that so?” he said mildly.
Some manhunters—and there was no doubt in Kite’s mind that was what this stranger was—might have been upset to discover that their quarry was packing a lawman’s badge. But Kite had the feeling it wouldn’t matter to the stranger that the man he had come to San Remo to kill now wore a tin star.
Not one damned bit.
Chapter Eighteen
Chilled, wet, and miserable, Frank huddled in a tiny cave in the hills as night fell. He had found the place around mid-afternoon. More of a niche in the side of a hill, tucked away underneath a cliff that bulged out above it, the cave was barely big enough for both Frank and Stormy. But they were out of the rain here, and more importantly, out of sight of anybody who came looking for them.
He knew he had given Buckston and the other Lazy F hands the slip earlier in the day. He had gotten up high enough to watch his back trail, and although he had spotted the riders twice, he could tell from the way they were wandering around that they didn’t have any real idea where he was. He had waited until they were gone, then resumed his climb toward the Mogollon Rim.
Just because Buckston and the other men finally had turned back didn’t mean that Frank was in the clear, and he knew it. Buckston would have wanted to get Howard Flynn’s body back to the ranch house and tell the cattleman’s niece what had happened. But Frank had a feeling that once Buckston had attended to that grim chore, the ranch foreman would be back out on the range again, searching for the man he believed to be Flynn’s murderer.
After finding the cave, Frank had brought in a small pile of broken branches and moss from the trees that covered the hillside. At first the branches were too wet to burn, but he had been letting them dry all afternoon and now, as the light of day faded, he hoped they were dry enough to catch fire. He took a waterproof tin container that held matches from his saddlebags and knelt beside the branches. He made a small mound with some of the moss, which definitely had dried and would serve as tinder, and arranged some of the branches around it, leaning them against each other to form a tepeelike structure. Then he snapped one of the matches to life with his thumbnail and held the flame to the moss.
It caught right away, blackening and curling as a tendril of smoke rose from it. A few tiny flames leaped up and caressed the pine branches. Frank leaned over and blew gently on the fire, causing it to flare up a little more. Even the faint light that it gave off seemed bright in the gloom of the cave. More smoke twisted into the air. Flames danced around the branches....
And went out.
Frank bit back a curse. Railing against the bad luck that had followed him ever since he rode into these parts wouldn’t do any good. If a man didn’t like how things were going, he took action and changed the course of events, even if it was something as simple as starting a fire. He poked more moss between the branches and struck another match. Again he lit the tinder and leaned over to blow on it.
This time one of the branches caught. Frank’s lips drew back from his teeth in an expression that was half smile, half grimace of relief. He fed a little more moss to the tiny fire and made the flames dance higher and stronger. They spread to more of the pine branches. A bit of heat rose from the fire, but it was quickly swallowed up by the damp, chilly air inside the cave.
The Appaloosa let out a soft whicker and stirred restlessly. “Take it easy, big fella,” Frank told him. “I know you don’t like being this close to a fire, but we can’t help it. The quarters are pretty cramped in here.”
That was an understatement. He and Stormy both were practically on top of the small campfire. But Frank needed the flames, so he spoke in a soothing voice to the horse and continued to feed branches into the fire until he had a nice little blaze that wouldn’t go out for a while. Nor would it be easy to spot from outside, and the gathering darkness could conceal the smoke that drifted from the mouth of the cave. Without any real ventilation other than the cave entrance, the air in the little niche in the hillside quickly became somewhat smoky, but Frank and Stormy would just have to put up with that annoyance.
Warmth filled the air along with smoke, and it soon made Frank feel better. He had taken off his slicker, but his damp clothing hadn’t really dried much during the afternoon. Now it began to.
Earlier, Frank had worked the left shoulder of his shirt down so that he could take a look at the bullet wound. That hadn’t been easy, since the blood had dried partially and the cloth wanted to stick. But he had been careful about freeing it and hadn’t done any more damage. The graze was similar to the one Laura Flynn had received on her arm from the bushwhacker during the attack the day before. The raw welt on top of Frank’s shoulder had bled quite a bit, but the bullet hadn’t chipped the bone and he was grateful for that. Now all he had to do was see to it that the wound didn’t fester, and since he didn’t have any whiskey or anything else he could use to clean it, there was only one option.
He didn’t normally carry a knife on his belt, but there was a sheathed one in his saddlebag. He took it out, slid the keen blade from its sheath, and hunkered beside the fire, holding the knife so that the flames licked around the blade. After a few minutes, the cold steel wasn’t cold anymore. It glowed red with heat instead. Frank looked over at his injured shoulder, looked at the knife, and then took a deep breath. He lifted the knife from the fire and pressed the cherry-red blade to the wound. It made a faint sizzling sound.
His breath hissed sharply between his teeth at the pain that went through him. But he held the hot knife in place, burning away any possible infection and sealing the wound. The smell that rose from what he was doing made him gag slightly when he got a whiff of it. Finally, with a gasp of relief, he pulled the blade away from the wound and slumped back against the wall of the cave.
Stormy whickered again. “Yeah,” Frank muttered. “It was bad, all right. I’m sorry, fella.”
He apologized because he knew he had to do that same thing with the wound on Stormy�
�s shoulder. With a grim look on his face, resigned to the task, Frank held the knife blade in the flames again and watched as it began to glow once more.
The Appaloosa bore the pain almost as stoically as his master had, but Frank was glad when it was over anyway. He sat down cross-legged by the fire, leaning against the wall again, and enjoyed the warmth that came from the flames. It made him a little drowsy, but the sharp hunger in his belly kept him from dozing off. He hadn’t expected to be away from San Remo overnight, so he hadn’t brought any supplies with him. He had nothing to eat except a bit of jerky left in his saddlebag from when he had been riding the trail before he ever reached the Mogollon country. He planned to get it out and gnaw on it later, but he wanted to wait as long as he could before he did that.
Something besides hunger kept him awake, as well. The wheels of his brain were spinning rapidly as he tried to sort out everything that had happened and what it was all going to mean. First and foremost, he was a fugitive now, and whatever course of action he followed, he would have to take into account the fact that Buckston and the other Lazy F punchers would be combing these hills for him. Frank suspected that they would shoot on sight, too, if they caught as much as a glimpse of him. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t blame them.
Not that he was going to sit back and let them hunt him down and kill him. Not by a long shot. There had to be a way to find out who the mysterious gunman in the yellow slicker was and prove it.
Frank’s gut told him that Sandeen was behind Howard Flynn’s murder. Sandeen probably hadn’t pulled the trigger himself, but one of his men almost certainly had. Frank closed his eyes and mulled it over. Sandeen hated him, no doubt about that, and had sent Lannigan to try to kill him. After Frank’s visit to Saber, Sandeen could have put another of those hired killers on his trail, maybe one of the gun-throwers Frank had seen at the ranch or even Vern Riley himself. Say it was Riley, Frank thought. Riley could have followed him away from Saber and maybe circled around and gotten in front of him to set up an ambush.
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