The big gundown

by J. A. Johnstone

  This day, he thought, had been a thousand years long.

  Despite his weariness, he didn’t fall asleep instantly, as he’d thought he would. Instead, images played through his mind, some of them tragic and grisly—the fate suffered by Sean, Frannie, and Cyrus Williams, along with their ranch hands—and some of them unaccountably intriguing, such as Gloriana Sheffield. Morgan wasn’t interested in her as a woman, but he was human enough to know that she was incredibly attractive. He responded to her beauty as any man would, just not to the same degree that most men would experience if they spent much time around Glory. He was still in mourning for everything that he had lost.

  Even if he hadn’t been, Glory would have been off-limits to him. Conrad Browning had been a pretty sorry son of a bitch at times, but even then, he hadn’t been the sort to go after another man’s wife.

  No, he didn’t have any romantic interest in her, Morgan thought, but he had to admit that she was a strong personality, the sort that you didn’t forget. Even though he was sure they didn’t mean it the same way, he was looking forward to getting acquainted with her, too.

  With that thought in his head, Kid Morgan finally dozed off.

  After breakfast the next morning in the hotel dining room, Morgan settled up his bill and then led the buckskin down to the train station. It was early, not quite seven o’clock. The train for Titusville with Edward Sheffield’s private cars coupled to it wouldn’t be rolling out for more than a hour, but Morgan wanted to be sure he could make arrangements to take his horse with him.

  The conductor assured him that wouldn’t be a problem. “Mr. Sheffield told us that you’d be traveling up to the mountains with him today, Mr. Morgan,” the man said. “He didn’t say anything about you taking a horse with you, but he asked us to accommodate anything you asked for, as long as it doesn’t throw us off schedule. We’ve got a boxcar fitted out with stalls for livestock. You can put that buckskin of yours in any of them.”

  “I’m obliged to you,” Morgan said with a nod. “Have you hooked on to Mr. Sheffield’s cars yet?”

  “No, we’ll do that just before we pull out. Mr. Sheffield’s up and about, though. I saw him just a little while ago, talking to the stationmaster.”

  Morgan nodded again and then led his horse over to the train. Some of the porters moved a ramp into place so that he could load the buckskin into the boxcar fitted out with stalls.

  Once that was done, he walked toward the siding where Sheffield’s private cars were parked. Activity around the depot had picked up as the hour approached the time when the train would leave. Bags were being placed into the baggage car and passengers were beginning to congregate on the platform. Some of them were miners who were returning to Titusville and the Gloriana Mine after having a few days off in Bisbee.

  Morgan climbed the iron steps to the platform at the rear of the car where he had met with Sheffield the night before. He knocked on the door, expecting the maid to open it.

  Instead, it was Glory Sheffield who stood there when the door swung back. She wore a dark green silk robe that was belted tightly around her trim waist. The robe was open just enough at the top to give a hint of the shadowed cleft between her breasts. Her thick red hair was loose around her shoulders.

  She smiled a greeting as she stepped onto the platform. “Mr. Morgan,” she said. “Right on time. Actually, I think you’re a little early.” She put a hand on the breast of her robe. “You’ll have to pardon me for not being dressed yet.”

  Morgan tugged on the brim of his hat. “Just wanted to let your husband know that I’m here, ma’am, and ready to go.”

  “You don’t care that I know you’re here?”

  “No offense, Mrs. Sheffield, but I’m not doing business with you.”

  “You could be, you know.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

  A trace of anger sparked in her eyes. “I meant, if Edward would give me some more responsibility, I could handle some of his affairs for him.”

  “I suppose he does what he thinks is best.”

  Green eyes regarded him coolly for a moment. Then Glory said, “Come inside. I’ll tell my husband that you’re here.”

  Morgan nodded. Before either of them could move, though, footsteps crunched on the gravel roadbed of the siding and a man stepped around the end of the car. He swung up a shotgun and yelled something incoherent.

  In moments of danger, time seemed to slow down for The Kid. He recognized Clyde Watkins, the miner he had fought in Augustine’s the night before. Watkins was probably shouting curses and threats, but his words weren’t understandable because of his injured tongue.

  The threat he represented was perfectly clear, though. At that range, the blast from both barrels of the shotgun would splatter not only Morgan but also Glory Sheffield all over the railroad car platform. Morgan’s instincts took over, allowing him to react in less than the blink of an eye.

  He reached out with his left hand and shoved Glory backward through the car’s open door into the vestibule. The Colt leaped into his other hand and roared just as the greener’s barrels came to bear. The slug plowed into the vengeance-seeking miner’s chest and knocked him backward. The shotgun’s barrels kept rising, and by the time Watkins’ finger contracted involuntarily on the triggers a heartbeat later, the weapon was pointed toward the sky. Both barrels went off with a deafening double boom, but the buckshot slashed harmlessly through the air.

  Watkins sat down hard. His mouth worked, but again all that came out was gibberish, made even more incomprehensible by the blood that welled over his lips in a thick crimson flow. After a second, he fell to the side and lay still.

  Morgan heard Glory gasping for breath. He turned to look at her and saw that his shove had sent her toppling to the floor of the vestibule. Her robe gaped open, showing more of her breasts. She didn’t seem to be hurt.

  “You weren’t hit, were you?” he asked sharply.

  She looked up at him, blinking, seemingly half-stunned by the sudden and unexpected outbreak of violence. After a few seconds, she swallowed hard, licked her lips, and was able to say, “No…no, I’m all right.”

  The door at the far end of the car slammed open. Heavy footsteps pounded. Morgan looked past Glory and saw Edward Sheffield rushing toward them. Sheffield wasn’t wearing his coat and tie, his suspenders were down, and his shirt collar was open. Bits of shaving soap clung to his cheeks, and he still held his razor in his hand.

  When he saw Morgan standing there, gun in hand, over Glory, Sheffield’s face mottled with rage and he brandished the straight razor as he started toward them.

  “By God, Morgan, if you’ve hurt my wife—”

  “Stop it, Edward!” Glory said. “Mr. Morgan just saved my life.” She raised a hand toward him. “If you’ll just help me up, Mr. Morgan.”

  She recovered quickly from the shock of almost being shotgunned, Morgan thought. She was also making sure that he got a good view down that partially open robe.

  “I’m sure your husband would be glad to help you, ma’am,” he said as he opened the Colt’s cylinder. “I need to replace that cartridge.”

  She glared at him as he thumbed a fresh round into the gun and snapped the cylinder closed again. Down on the ground, Watkins still hadn’t moved. Morgan went down the steps to take a closer look. He kicked the empty shotgun aside and kept the Colt trained on Watkins as he circled the miner.

  Watkins was dead. The blood that came from his mouth formed a small pool beside his head. Morgan didn’t feel any real regret over the killing—any man who tried to blast him with a shotgun could expect the same thing—but he did have a bitter taste in his mouth for a moment at the sheer senselessness of it. The fight the night before had been over nothing but Watkins’ injured pride, and now he was dead for the same reason.

  Sheffield had helped his wife to her feet and both of them came onto the platform. Morgan noticed that Glory was holding her robe tightly closed at the throat. />
  “That’s the man you were brawling with in Augustine’s place last night,” Sheffield said.

  Morgan nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And now you’ve killed him.” Sheffield’s voice held a vaguely accusatory tone.

  “When a man’s pointing a shotgun at you, there’s not enough time not to kill him,” Morgan said.

  Sheffield sighed. “I suppose not. Watkins’ temper was always getting him into trouble. If he’d fired that shotgun, chances are that Mrs. Sheffield would have been wounded.”

  “He probably would have killed me, along with Mr. Morgan,” Glory said. “Mr. Morgan really did save my life, Edward.”

  “Well, that’s one reason for me to forgive him for killing one of my employees. And one more reason for you to accept my proposition and go to work for me, Morgan. You can replace Watkins on my payroll…but for a much higher salary, of course.”

  “We’ll talk about that later”—Morgan slid his gun back into its holster—“once we get to Titusville.”

  “All right.” Sheffield jerked his head toward the door of the railroad car. “Come on in. We’ll be leaving soon.”

  Morgan went back up the steps and followed Sheffield and Glory into the car. “Welcome aboard,” Sheffield added over his shoulder as he headed for the door at the far end of the car. Their living quarters were in the other car, and he needed to finish shaving and dressing.

  Glory turned her head to smile at Morgan. “Yes,” she said, “welcome aboard.”

  Somehow it sounded completely different when she said it.

  Chapter 16

  The train pulled out of Bisbee right on schedule. It had backed onto the siding so that Sheffield’s private cars could be coupled behind the caboose. Then it rolled through a big curve, leaving the Southern Pacific tracks behind and heading north on the rails of the spur line owned by Sheffield.

  Once they were out of the Mule Mountains around the settlement, the tracks followed the broad, flat valley of the San Pedro River. Because of the river, the mostly arid landscape to be found elsewhere in that part of the territory was relieved by broad patches of grass and scrubby trees and brush. The splashes of green were welcome sights in the primarily brown and tan and gray vistas rolling past outside the windows of the sitting room in Edward Sheffield’s private car.

  While Sheffield and Glory were in the other car, the German maid appeared and offered Morgan some coffee, asking him as well if he would like anything to eat. He smiled at her and said, “Just the coffee, thanks.” As she turned to leave, he added, “Have you worked for Mr. Sheffield for very long?”

  “Ach, years I have taken care of Herr Sheffield and Frau Sheffield.” The maid frowned. “The other Frau Sheffield.”

  Morgan sensed an opening and took it. “That’s right, I remember hearing something about Mr. Sheffield being married before.”

  The maid nodded. “Frau Sheffield was a lovely woman. But not well. Sick, you understand?” She touched her ample bosom. “Her heart.”

  “That’s a shame. At least Mr. Sheffield was able to find someone else”

  “Ja. Someone else.” The sound of the maid’s voice as she repeated Morgan’s words made it clear that she didn’t care much for her employer’s new wife. “Are you going to work for Herr Sheffield?”

  The question took Morgan a little by surprise. “I don’t know yet. Maybe.”

  “You be careful around that one. I did not say anything, you understand, but…be careful.”

  With that, she turned and left the car, and when she came back a few minutes later with a cup of hot coffee, she didn’t say anything else.

  Morgan sat in one of the armchairs and sipped the coffee as he looked through the windows. The Dragoon Mountains were already visible to the northeast, blue and gray on the horizon. They were bigger than the Mule Mountains, rugged peaks that contained valuable quantities of copper and silver and gold. The railroad tracks began another long, sweeping curve that would take the train into the mountains.

  Glory Sheffield came into the car. She wore a modestly cut, expensive dress again, but somehow on her, it didn’t look all that modest. She had left her hair loose.

  “Good morning again, Mr. Morgan,” she said. “I hope the rest of our trip is more pleasant—and less dangerous—than it started out.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Morgan said.

  She sat down in one of the overstuffed armchairs opposite him and demurely folded her hands in her lap. “I hope you’ll agree to take Edward’s offer, too,” she said. “It would be nice having someone around who’s closer to my own age.”

  “If I take the job, I won’t be around all that much,” Morgan pointed out. “I’ll be on the trail of those outlaws.”

  “Well, I suppose that’s true, but I’m sure we’d see each other some of the time.”

  “Do you know anything about this Colonel Black your husband suspects is the leader of the bandits?” Morgan asked idly.

  He was surprised by the way Glory stiffened at the question, just enough for him to notice. “No, of course not,” she said. “Why would I know anything about a bandit?”

  “No reason,” Morgan replied with a shake of his head. “I just thought you might have heard Mr. Sheffield talking about him.”

  “No, I don’t know any more than you do. I’m sorry.”

  “No need to be sorry. I was just curious.”

  Glory stood up. “Would you like something to eat? I can have Dorothea prepare some breakfast.”

  “Already ate, thanks.” Morgan held up the cup. “Coffee’s fine.”

  “All right. I’ll see you later, Mr. Morgan.”

  She left without giving him her usual flirtatious smile, and Morgan couldn’t help but wonder if his question about Colonel Black had caused her sudden shift in attitude. The only reason he could see that it would was if she had lied to him.

  And if she’d lied to him, then she really did know more about the renegade colonel than she was letting on. That was…interesting, he thought. Morgan didn’t know what it meant yet, or whether it would prove helpful to him, but it was definitely interesting.

  Sheffield came into the car a short time later, smelling of bay rum from the shave he’d had earlier. He sat down and said, “Before we left Bisbee, I made arrangements to have Watkins buried at my expense. I also sent word to Sheriff Stewart that you’d be available for questioning about the incident later, if necessary.”

  “The sheriff’s not going to be happy with me.” Morgan chuckled. “I was supposed to attend an inquest today for those two hard cases I shot last night.”

  Sheffield waved a hand. “Don’t worry about that. My attorneys can smooth over any ruffled legal feathers. I don’t consider myself above the law, Morgan, but I don’t see anything wrong with using it to my advantage, either.”

  “You mean you take whatever advantages you can,” Morgan said.

  Annoyance showed in Sheffield’s eyes. “Of course I do. I’m a businessman. No one is successful in business without learning how to seize opportunities. Carpe diem. That means—”

  “Seize the day.”

  Sheffield’s eyebrows rose. “You speak Latin?”

  Morgan shrugged. “A little.”

  As a matter of fact, he’d had several years of instruction in Latin at the prestigious Boston academy where he’d been educated, as well as in college. But Sheffield didn’t have to know that.

  “At any rate,” the tycoon went on, “you don’t have to be concerned about Sheriff Stewart…if you go to work for me, that is. If you don’t…” He shrugged. “Then any legal matters would be your own responsibility, of course.”

  Morgan wasn’t worried. He could muster as much legal firepower as Sheffield could, if not more. But that was something else Sheffield didn’t have any reason to know.

  Changing the subject, Morgan asked, “How long has it been since the outlaws hit one of your trains?”

  “Almost three weeks. As I told you, I put extra guards on th
e trains, and word of that could have gotten to the gang.”

  “You don’t think that’s going to scare them off for good?”

  Sheffield shook his head. “No, I don’t. In fact, it worries me that this much time has passed since the last robbery. The odds are that they won’t wait much longer to strike again.”

  “How did they stop the trains?”

  “They piled rocks and logs on the tracks at the spot where the line comes out of the mountains. The right-of-way is narrow there, with bluffs crowding in on both sides, and the tracks curve so that southbound trains don’t have a good view of the gap until they’re almost on top of it.”

  “Sounds like a spot almost tailor-made for an ambush and holdup,” Morgan commented.

  “Unfortunately, that’s true. When my surveyors laid out the line, they concerned themselves only with engineering concerns, not on whether they were creating a bottleneck where a train could be stopped easily. No one realized the potential problem until later.”

  “After the first robbery, I expect.”

  Sheffield shrugged. “That’s right.”

  “And by then, it was too late to do anything about it.”

  “Correct again. It would be prohibitively expensive to move the line now.”

  Morgan rubbed at his jaw and tugged on his earlobe for a second as he frowned in thought. “They only hit trains coming out of the mountains, bound for Bisbee from Titusville?”

  “Of course. Those are the trains that have ore shipments on them. Northbound trains such as this one carry passengers and supplies, but not enough to make it worth the while of those outlaws to stop them.”

  “So you’re not worried about them stopping us on the way up there?”

  “Not at all.” Sheffield smiled thinly. “But we’ll be taking on an ore shipment while we’re there, so there’s a chance we might run into trouble on the return trip.”

  He sounded like he almost hoped that would be the case, Morgan thought. Sheffield probably thought there was a better chance he’d take the job if that happened.