The Loner: The Blood of Renegades

by J. A. Johnstone

  Conrad was considering the odds of agreeing to Ollie’s proposal, then circling around and stealing some horses from the settlement, when gunshots suddenly roared in the distance.

  Ollie swung around and stared off toward the settlement. “What in the world?”

  Shots continued to blast. Conrad’s conclusion was inescapable.

  War had come to the Valley of the Outcast Saints.

  Chapter 20

  Arturo held the Greener. Conrad bent swiftly and pulled two more revolvers from the holsters of the men he’d shot. He tucked the guns behind his belt and picked up a shotgun. “Let’s go. Leatherwood and the avenging angels must have found the valley.”

  It was the first thought that had occurred to him, and as guns continued to go off in the distance, he was convinced it was the only explanation for so much shooting.

  “No!” Ollie said. “Leatherwood will kill anybody who gets in his way while he’s tryin’ to carry out Elder Hissop’s orders.”

  “We know that as well as you do,” Conrad told him. “We’ve swapped lead with him a couple times ourselves.”

  The three of them ran back down the canyon and up the hill. When they reached the top, they paused to look toward the settlement. Conrad had already noticed an orange glow in the sky, so he wasn’t surprised to see flames leaping up. At least one of the cabins was on fire.

  He reached out to grasp Ollie’s arm as the young man started to rush down the hill. “Wait a minute.”

  “But those are my friends! I’ve got to help them!”

  “If we go charging in there, Leatherwood and his men will just gun us down, too. Let’s figure out what we’re going to do before we get there. You know this valley a lot better than we do. Is there a way we can circle around and get back to the settlement without using the road?”

  “Well, yeah, there are some other trails . . .”

  “Lead the way,” Conrad said.

  They left the road and trotted through groves of trees and along ridges. Ollie seemed to know where he was going, even though it was too dark to see very well. The shooting began to taper off, and Conrad thought that was a bad sign. When it stopped completely a few minutes later, he knew it wasn’t good.

  They came up behind Kingman’s cabin. It was on fire, and even in the trees thirty yards away, Conrad felt the heat of the blaze against his face. The flames cast a large circle of hellish light, and he saw a number of men on horseback. They wore the dusters and broad-brimmed hats of the avenging angels, proof that Jackson Leatherwood had tracked his quarry to the valley.

  A second later, Conrad saw Leatherwood himself. It was impossible to mistake that scarred, ugly face. He rode back and forth holding a Winchester pointed upward, the butt propped against his thigh. He wore an arrogant sneer as he surveyed the destruction his men had carried out. A number of bodies lay sprawled in the firelight, and several more Outcast Saints had been taken prisoner and herded together. Heavily armed men on horseback surrounded them.

  Ollie drew his gun and started to lift it. Conrad caught his wrist and forced it down.

  “Let me go,” Ollie said. “I think I can hit Leatherwood from here.”

  “That’s doubtful, and even if you did, it wouldn’t change anything. The rest of them would just charge over here and kill us.”

  “I can’t let them get away with this!”

  “I didn’t say anything about letting them get away with it. But we’ll have to be smart about it.”

  Ollie shook his head miserably. “I’ve never been smart, Mr. Browning. Fact is, I’m kind of dumb.”

  “Then let me do the thinking for us,” Conrad urged. “As it happens, I’m pretty smart most of the time.”

  It hadn’t saved him from the tragedies that had befallen him, he thought . . . but Ollie didn’t need to know that.

  “Conrad, look,” Arturo said. “It’s Miss Webster.”

  A couple dismounted gunmen held Selena, one on each side, and were forcing her toward Leatherwood. As they came to a stop in front of the leader of the avenging angels, Selena screamed hysterical curses at him, words a good Mormon girl shouldn’t have known. Leatherwood sat there and took it for a moment, then slid his rifle back in the saddle boot and swung down from his horse. His hand came up and cracked across Selena’s face with such force the blow would have knocked her down if the two men hadn’t been holding her.

  Ollie made a growling sound deep in his throat. Knowing exactly how the big man felt, Conrad wanted to charge out there himself and smash a fist into Leatherwood’s face, then plant a bullet in the man.

  Conrad reined in his anger and said quietly, “Take it easy. Leatherwood’s time is coming.”

  “Not soon enough for me.” Ollie’s voice trembled with rage.

  Leatherwood said something to his men and made a curt gesture. They dragged Selena away. He mounted up again, and a moment later one of his men rode up with Selena astride his horse, in front of the saddle, his arm tight around her. Leatherwood called out an order, and the avenging angels galloped out of the settlement, taking Selena with them but leaving the stunned survivors of the attack behind. Conrad was a little surprised Leatherwood hadn’t ordered them executed. Maybe he figured he had wiped out enough of the Outcast Saints that they weren’t a threat anymore.

  “Now what do we do?” Ollie asked.

  “Come on,” Conrad told him. “Some of those men may be wounded and need help.”

  As they came out of the trees, the roof of Kingman’s cabin collapsed, sending a huge shower of sparks high, lighting up the sky. One of the men spotted Conrad, Arturo, and Ollie approaching.

  “It’s them!” the man yelled. “The outsiders! They led Leatherwood here!”

  The men surged toward Conrad and his companions. Angry muttering came from them, and Conrad knew it wouldn’t take much for them to turn into a vengeance-crazed mob.

  Ollie stepped in front of Conrad and Arturo and held up his hands. “Hold it! You can’t blame this on these men. We brought them here. Leatherwood followed our trail from that camp down by the railroad.”

  “Why are you defending them, Ollie?” one of the survivors demanded. “They’re Gentiles!”

  “Yeah, but they haven’t done anything wrong. All they ever did was help Selena, and for that . . . for that—” Ollie’s voice choked off. He still didn’t want to admit Kingman had tried to have Conrad and Arturo murdered.

  Conrad stepped forward. “Listen to me. I’m going after Leatherwood. He has to pay for what he’s done here tonight. If anybody wants to come with me, you’ll be more than welcome. But I’m settling the score with Leatherwood, one way or another.”

  More muttering came from the men, but it wasn’t as angry. Finally one of them stepped forward. “They didn’t just take Selena. They took my Rachel, too, and the other women we had here. Took them back to Father Agony and his cronies. I don’t like you, mister, but if you think you can help us get them back . . . I’m willing to go along with you.”

  A couple other men nodded.

  But another man spoke up, saying, “Not me. I’m done with this. Dan Kingman said we’d start our own community here where everyone would be treated fairly, but all he did was turn us into a bunch of outlaws! I don’t want any part of any of it anymore.”

  Conrad nodded. “Anybody who feels like that is free to go.” He sensed that by the sheer force of his personality, he had taken control of the situation, as he had so often in the business world, back in that other life of his. He had been able to walk into a room filled with men hostile to what he wanted, and before he was finished, he was giving them orders.

  Four men were willing to go after Leatherwood, while five refused. Ollie told them, “There are some of our boys up in that little canyon on the other side of Cedar Hill. Some of them are wounded and need help.”

  “What happened up there, Ollie?” one man asked.

  Ollie hesitated. “Dan sent them on an errand, and it didn’t work out. You don’t have to come with
Mr. Browning and me, but the least you can do is give those boys a hand before you leave the valley.”

  The men agreed to do that.

  Conrad said, “We’d better see about getting some horses ready to ride—”

  “Leatherwood’s men busted down the corral fence and scattered the horses. They’re all over the valley by now.”

  Conrad was disappointed to hear that, but he said, “Then we’d better start looking for them. We can’t afford to waste any time if we’re going to catch up to Leatherwood before he and his bunch get back to Juniper Canyon.”

  He was about to turn away when one of the men exclaimed, “Oh, my Lord! Look at that!”

  Conrad saw where the man was staring and swung around to look in the same direction. He was shocked to see a figure stumbling toward them. The man’s clothes were charred tatters, and his skin was blistered in some places and covered with soot in others. Conrad had no trouble recognizing him, though.

  Dan Kingman was still alive.

  Chapter 21

  Conrad’s hands tightened on the shotgun he held. He didn’t believe in taking chances.

  Kingman appeared to be unarmed, and judging by his shambling gait, he was somewhat disoriented. He came to a stop in front of the men and stared at them, not seeming to comprehend what he was looking at.

  Ollie took a step toward him and held out a hand. “Dan? Are you all right?”

  Kingman flinched away for a second, then shook his head. He didn’t seem to be saying “no” to Ollie’s question. It was more of a clearing-the-cobwebs gesture.

  “Ollie?” he muttered. Then he looked past the big blond man and focused on Conrad. “Browning!”

  “Take it easy, Kingman,” Conrad said.

  Kingman’s blistered face twisted in a scowl. He lurched forward a step and raised his hands. “You did this! You brought Leatherwood here!”

  Ollie got between Conrad and Kingman, just as he had with the other men earlier. “Hold on, Dan,” he said in an urgent voice. “That’s not the way it is. We’re the ones who left the trail up here to the valley. We made Mr. Browning and Mr. Vincenzo come with us, remember?”

  “The avenging angels never found this valley before!”

  Conrad said, “Maybe they never looked all that hard until Selena ran off with Father Agony’s money. Maybe they didn’t really care where the rest of you went.”

  “Selena!” Kingman croaked, as if he had just thought of her. He swung around to stare in wide-eyed horror at the burned-out cabin. “Selena!”

  Ollie hurried to grab him as Kingman started toward the cabin. “She ain’t in there, Dan! Do you hear me? Selena’s not in there. But she’s all right. We saw her just a little while ago.”

  Kingman sagged in Ollie’s grip in obvious relief at that news. He looked around. “Then where is she? Is she here?”

  “I’m sorry, Dan . . . Leatherwood took her.”

  Kingman turned his head to stare up at Ollie. “Took her? You mean—”

  “By now the avenging angels are on their way back to Juniper Canyon with Selena and the other women who were here. But we’re going after them,” Conrad said.

  “Going after them? You mean to get her back?”

  Conrad nodded. “Her and the other women.”

  “And to see that Leatherwood has his just desserts meted out to him,” Arturo added.

  Kingman took a couple deep breaths, then looked up at Ollie and nodded. “You can let go of me now. I’m not out of my head anymore. I’ll be all right.” As Ollie released him, Kingman turned his attention to Conrad. “I’m coming with you.”

  “First tell me how you managed to survive that fire.”

  Kingman’s chin jutted out defiantly. “I don’t have to explain anything to you.”

  “Well, I’d sure like to know, too,” Ollie said. “When I saw your cabin burnin’ up like that, and you weren’t out here with the other fellas, I figured for sure you were in there and were a goner.”

  Kingman continued to glare at Conrad for a second before he shrugged and said to Ollie, “I almost was. I think we’re wasting time talking about this, but . . . When the shooting started I ran outside to see what was going on, but there were so many bullets flying around I had to retreat into the cabin. Anyway, I wanted to protect Selena. A couple of Leatherwood’s men managed to bust through the door before I could stop them, and one of them slugged me with a rifle butt.” He touched his head. “He was going to shoot me, but the other one stopped him. Said they ought to burn the cabin down around me, that Elder Hissop would like that. He said . . . he said I was going to wind up burning in the pits of Hell anyway, so I might as well start by burning here.”

  Visibly overwhelmed by the horrible memory, Kingman dragged in a shaky breath before he could go on.

  “That’s the last I heard before I passed out. When I came to, I thought I was already in Hell, all right. There was fire all around me. My clothes were on fire. I realized I was still in the cabin and made it to my feet. Part of the back wall was already burned through. I had to jump through the flames, but managed to get out that way. Then I fell down and rolled around to put out my clothes, and I started to crawl away from the fire. I guess I passed out again. I woke up . . . a few minutes ago . . . behind what’s left of the cabin. We’ve wasted enough time. We need to get started after Leatherwood.”

  “What you need is some doctorin’,” Ollie said. “You got burns all over you, Dan.”

  Kingman shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t care about that. What happens to me doesn’t matter. It’s Selena—”

  “The avenging angels scattered the horses. It’s going to take some time to round them up. While we’re doing that, you can get those burns tended to. I’m sure somebody here knows how to take care of injuries like that. Find some clothes that aren’t half burned off you, too.” Conrad looked around at the men who were going after Leatherwood. “We’ll all need guns. Where’s my buggy?”

  “We parked it in the barn. It should be all right.”

  Conrad nodded. “I’ve got a couple extra pistols in my gear, if we need them. Ollie, you make sure Kingman gets some medical attention.”

  Ollie nodded. “Sure thing. I can take care of that myself.”

  While Conrad was speaking, Kingman stared at him. As shaken up as he’d been by his narrow escape from the fire, Kingman hadn’t realized Conrad and Arturo shouldn’t be there. He wondered why they were still alive . . . and how things had worked out that Conrad was giving orders.

  Men scattered to look for the horses, and Ollie said, “Come on back to my cabin with me, Dan. I got some salve we used to use on Elder Hissop’s cattle when we’d brand ’em. I reckon it might work for burns like this, too.”

  “Wait a minute.” Kingman stepped away from him and confronted Conrad. “Listen, Browning—”

  “Whatever you’re going to say, I don’t want to hear it,” Conrad said. “And I’m sure as hell not interested in offering explanations for anything that might be puzzling you. Let’s just say your plans didn’t work out the way you expected, and from here on out, all I’m interested in is getting Selena away from those lunatics who have her now. Are we clear on that?”

  Kingman stared at him for a moment, the anger in his eyes fading until he finally nodded. “Yeah. We’re clear. And whatever you can do to help her . . . I appreciate it, Browning.”

  “No thanks necessary,” Conrad snapped. “Go with Ollie. I want to see if I can find my horse.”

  Gingerly, Ollie took hold of one of Kingman’s burned arms and led him away toward the cluster of cabins. As they watched the two of them go, Arturo said to Conrad, “Do you believe that young Mr. Kingman’s change of heart is genuine?”

  “I’m not going to count on it,” Conrad said. “I still don’t trust him.”

  “Nor do I.” Arturo slid his fingertips along the smooth stock of the shotgun he held. “I believe I’m going to appoint myself the task of keeping a close eye on the gentleman.”


  Conrad gave him a weary smile. “Sounds good to me. Let’s go find those horses.”

  Chapter 22

  Conrad knew they couldn’t go after Selena without horses, but the delay while they searched for the stampeded animals caused worry to gnaw at his thoughts. He hoped he’d be able to locate the black gelding because he knew how strong and dependable it was—but would take any mount he could find.

  As it worked out, the first horse he and Arturo found was a roan that shied away until Conrad spoke to it in a calm, soothing voice as he approached. He had learned the trick from his father, and it nearly always worked. They had brought a couple bridles with them, and as soon as he was within reach, Conrad slipped the leather harness over the roan’s head. The horse fought halfheartedly, and Conrad figured it was probably glad to have a human calling the shots again.

  He handed the reins to Arturo, who led the roan while they continued looking for another horse.

  A few minutes later, Conrad heard some racket in a thicket of brush. He took a chance and let out a low whistle. The noise stopped. He whistled again, and a large, dark shape pushed itself out of the thicket with a crackle of branches. The horse gave a familiar toss of its head. Conrad grinned as he recognized it. “It’s good to see you, too,” he told the black as he came up to it and slipped the bridle on.

  “Since we have our full allotment of horses, I suppose we should head back to the cabins now?” Arturo asked.

  “Yeah, but we’ll keep our eyes open along the way. If we find any more, we’ll try to drive them that direction.” Conrad paused. “How are you at riding bareback?”

  “Bareback?” Arturo repeated, sounding as if he could hardly believe Conrad had asked the question. “Completely inexperienced and vaguely horrified at the mere concept. Riding with a good saddle is perilous enough to the male anatomy. But I suppose if you insist . . .”

  “No, no, we’ll lead them. Come on.”