No Man's Land

by William W. Johnstone

  Frank smiled as the outlaws came into range, and adjusted the elevation on the Creedmore ladder sights of his rifle.

  “Just a few yards more . . . ” he whispered against the wooden cheek-piece.

  But Wilson had a bit of the curly wolf in him. Just before he came into range, he slowed the tall sorrel to let the rest of his gang rumble past him. Once they realized he’d stopped, the others reined up as well, circling their leader, milling about in the sparse grass.

  Wilson spun on his thoroughbred, pointing up the track where the wagons had disappeared. Three of the men peeled off from the main group and took off at the lope to reconnoiter. Their route would bring them within in fifty yards of Frank’s spot. Except for the short-stemmed buffalo grass, he had no cover.

  “Dammit,” Frank muttered. “How am I gonna kill you, Wilson, if you stand back and let your boys do all the dirty work?”

  He swung both legs around to half-turn his body and get a better shot at the three approaching riders. He was still invisible to Wilson and the others, but if they all decided to rush him at once, things were bound to get hot.

  “Turkey-shoot time, I reckon.” Frank lowered the sliding V on his sights, readjusting for the closer range, and followed the first of the three galloping outlaws with his rifle barrel. Methodically, he squeezed the first round, knowing it would hit its mark without looking, then swung his aim to the right as he ejected the empty brass and levered in another. He squeezed the trigger again and the trailing rider tumbled backward, head over horse butt, to the ground. The middle rider, all alone now and in the open, tried to turn his horse and race back to his companions. Frank never gave him the chance.

  All three rider-less mounts, tired from the hard push, dropped their heads to their dead riders, sniffed them, and commenced to graze on what little of the tough grass they could find on the prairie.

  Frank turned his attention back to the now-smaller army of outlaws, pushing three fresh rounds into the magazine of his Winchester as he did. It would be suicide for Wilson to charge the hill, but Frank had come across plenty of suicidal leaders before, especially those willing to let their men do the lion’s share of the dying.

  Laying the rifle on the ground beside him, Frank picked up the field glasses again. Wilson studied the plain around him. He had a spyglass of his own, but the setting sun was in the outlaw’s eyes and made it difficult for him to get anything but a glare. Frank was sure the man had a pretty fair idea of where the shots had come from, though, so he pushed himself back from the lip of the hill, then sprinted to Stormy, and loped along the draw to get a new vantage point, a few hundred yards to the north of the wagon track.

  When he poked his head up again with the glasses, the outlaws were on the move. As Frank suspected, they were doing just what he would do if he were them—trying to flank him.

  Wilson and a small contingent of three riders stayed back, just out of rifle range, while the rest of the crew split off into two groups of six, riding to the north and south. If they figured out where he was and rushed him all at once, Frank was done for.

  The riders heading north were well within rifle range, but if he shot, he’d give away his position. He thought about hopping on Stormy and trying for a better fighting place. Trouble was, there wasn’t one.

  That fact alone had haunted him more than any other since he’d rescued the women. It was one thing to sneak up on a band of killers in the rain at the darkest hour of night. Defending anything once you held it on such a wide-open plain—especially as one man—that was nigh unto impossible.

  * * *

  But Frank thrived on impossible tasks. Besides that, he didn’t have a running bone in his body.

  “If this turns out like I fear it might”—Frank looked at the cur dog on the ground next to him—“you take care of your old bones.”

  Dog whined and backed down the hillside a few inches as if he knew what was coming.

  The gunfighter picked the lead northern rider, vowing as he did to save at least one bullet for Steve Wilson before the fight was over. As he aimed, he took into the account the stiff evening breeze that whirred in his ears, and made ready to start the fight.

  The crack of a distant rifle sounded over his right shoulder, and he glanced to see one of the southern riders tumble off his horse. The man stood, clutching his arm, then fell to his knees. The sound of another round reached Frank after the first bullet had done its work.

  Willing to take help from wherever it came, Frank spun and began to pluck northern riders from their horses. He took out three of them before the others could scurry out of range and lope back to their boss. Four outlaws returned from their foray to the south. A look through the field glasses revealed one of their horses was limping from a bullet wound in the shoulder.

  Wilson played his spyglass back and forth along the horizon. The big man seemed to shake with hatred as he sat in the saddle.

  “You know it’s me, don’t you, you worthless son of a bitch?” Frank watched the gang turn, Wilson in the lead during the retreat, and lope back the way they’d come. Before they were out of sight, the man on the wounded horse slid to the ground, shot his mount with no more care than if he were pitching a stone, then climbed on behind another outlaw and disappeared over the long hill.

  “Wilson—or whatever your name really is, you are gonna rue the day you ever even heard my name,” Frank said, pushing himself back from the crest of bunchgrass. “But first, I reckon I should go see who just saved my hide.”

  * * *

  Ephraim Swan jerked on the reins and slid his sorrel thoroughbred to a sliding halt in the mud. He let fly a string of stinging epithets that caused the rest of his men to hunt for an escape path. He’d run across Gibson and Farmer earlier that day, tracking the wagon train and trying to figure out a way to get the women back. That alone had saved their worthless lives.

  Now he was down by eight men and the same number of horses. Some of the horses might wander back, but he could ill afford to lose eight more gun-handlers. Morgan had already killed twelve of them, thirteen if Swan counted the Finch kid—whose death Swan ultimately pinned on Morgan’s actions anyway. That left a total of twenty-one men—a mighty tall order even for a man with Frank Morgan’s reputation. Some of the women must have been helping him.

  Beyond the losses, Briscoe was wounded in the thigh and Farmer in the shoulder. Swan was sure both men knew the consequences if they slowed down.

  All the surviving men milled around their leader waiting for an order. He could see the anger and fear on their faces, but at least none of them had pissed their pants.

  “We’re gonna have to rethink this, boys.” Swan twirled his jigging horse, inwardly chiding himself for trading for such a hot-blooded animal. The horse stretched its mouth and fought the bit. “He’s got some of the women shooting at us too, but I don’t think they’ll be much of a problem once he’s gone. They still got a long ways to go. They’re bound to make a slip.”

  Swan surveyed the group of mounted men. Each of them was toughened by weeks on the trail and had a hard enough look to frighten most civilized humans. But he doubted any one of them could handle a man like Frank Morgan—from what Swan had heard of the man, he was a long way from being civilized. No, Swan would need more than he had if he wanted to take back his women.

  So far the odds had been in Morgan’s favor. There had to be a way to tip those odds. Swan’s released the pressure on his thoroughbred’s mouth, and the horse immediately calmed. The outlaw smiled to himself. He knew what it would take to stack the odds against the famous gunfighter. Odds were nothing more than numbers, after all—and with the profit Swan would make if he got back the wagons and the women, he could afford to invest a little money to up the numbers.

  “Spread the word, boys, to all those you know that I got ten thousand dollars to anyone who can bring me proof they killed Frank Morgan. I don’t care how it’s done. I just want him dead.”

  Chapter 8

  By the t
ime Frank worked his way back to the wagon track, he saw Dixie making her way toward him on a big paint horse that had belonged to one of the kidnappers he’d killed. She was wearing her blue gingham dress, a gray cooking apron, and a smile that covered her entire face.

  Frank’s jaw dropped. “What were you thinking?”

  The smile disappeared. “Is that anyway to treat a fellow combatant?”

  He let out a low sigh as she drew up next to him and they rode stirrup-to-stirrup. The rising prairie wind blew a lock of hair across her flushed face, and whipped her billowing skirts around enough to give her paint the jitters.

  “How about this then?” Frank hung his head. “I’m much obliged to you for saving my worthless neck.”

  Dixie sniffed. Tears formed in her reddening eyes, the gravity of the fight finally catching up to her. “That’ll do,” she said.

  * * *

  Over a hot supper of chili and cornbread, the little group celebrated the day’s victory. In a country as hard as this, Frank reminded them, surviving another day was something to be thankful for. All of them knew firsthand what a hard country it was.

  “Are you ladies certain you want to continue in this venture?”

  “We have nothing to go back to, Mr. Morgan.” Betty Ellington ran a brush through little Sara’s hair. The poor woman had already cried herself dry. “Wilson came into our little town back into Indiana and convinced our husbands to sell everything we had to give us a stake out here. He got them all whipped up into a frothy fever about the prospect of gold. I told Harry I didn’t trust the man, but he was blinded by the thought of riches. Now we’re stuck between a place we used to call home—where everything that was once ours has been sold off—and a fearsome place we’ve never been where we have nothing.”

  “Indiana is just too full of memories.” Paula shrugged and poked a stick at the fire. “Memories of our husbands and our sons. It would be too painful. I’ll never go back. I can teach school and every one of us has experience working in shops or sewing. If we pooled our money we could start any number of different kinds of businesses.”

  “Once you get settled, you can sell these mules and get a handsome sum of money,” Frank said. “They are magnificent animals.”

  “As much as we paid for them, they ought to be. Wilson found them for us and recommended them to our husbands.” Paula poked at the fire as if she were poking Wilson in the eye.

  “How much further to Denver, Frank?” Dixie sat down on the quilt next to him. She was close enough he could smell her hair again.

  “A good ways still. Weeks depending on the weather and how well the stock holds up.” He pointed into the darkness at the edge of the fire. “We’re still in Kansas, some east and a little south of Dodge City.” A thought suddenly occurred to him. “How are your supplies holding out?”

  “We could use some,” Dixie told him. The rest of the women nodded, the smell of a town, any town, already in their noses. “The outlaws took most of our bacon and all but a dab of our sugar.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t find your money,” Frank said.

  “We can thank Betty’s old man for that. He built false bottoms in all the water barrels. They were standing next to their loot all the time, but never knew it was there.”

  Frank nodded at the folks’ ingenuity. “Well, the point is you have money to take on some supplies and still make a good go of it wherever you land. So what do you say? You want to head for Dodge?”

  “I’d sure like to have me a real bath and sleep one night in a feather bed.” Paula gave the back of her wagon a wistful look. “And I’d like to send a wire to Weldon’s mother and let her know he’s dead.”

  Betty Ellington nodded. Carolyn Brandon just stared into the night.

  “Dodge it is then,” Frank said. “But I have to warn you, it’s a wide-open town, ladies. It can get mighty rough when the drovers come through.”

  “They have more law there than is out here, don’t they?” Dixie asked. “Some kind of police force?”

  Frank nodded. “They got better than a police force. They got Bat and Ed Masterson. Ed is the town marshal. Bat is the county sheriff.”

  “You know them?” Paula asked.

  “I know them and they know me.”

  Dixie narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “We’re friends of sorts. They know I won’t cause any trouble for them and they know not to prod me.”

  “Will they have rock candy?” Sara Ellington asked from her spot on the quilt by her mother

  Frank winked. “A whole sack of it, darlin’. A whole sack of it.”

  Paula looked up at Dixie, then over at Frank. Her round face glowed red from the embers. “What about after Dodge?” she said, her jaw set in grim determination. “Our trouble is, we don’t know how to get where we’re going. Would you consider guiding us, Mr. Morgan? We could pay you well for your trouble.”

  Frank slapped his knee. “Take pay for such a pleasure? Are you joshing me? It would be an honor to guide a passel of women as beautiful as all of you.”

  Dixie shook her head and smiled. “We might get to be too much for you, Mr. Morgan.”

  “You might at that, but I’ve always been partial to beautiful surroundings, so I reckon I’ll adapt.”

  “Aren’t you the silver-tongue?” Paula gave a coy toss of her head.

  “I want to warn you of one thing, though.”

  Dixie raised an eyebrow. “And what could that be?”

  Frank raised his empty cup. “I’m a coffee-drinkin’ man, I am, and I prefer my coffee like my women: strong.”

  Everyone laughed while Dixie took the tin cup and refilled it.

  The animals had all been fed. Dog was full of biscuits the girls had given him. Coffee in hand, Frank leaned back against his saddle and groaned. His belly glowed with the warmth of spiced chili and cornbread.

  “I’ll talk to Bat as soon as we get into town. Explain everything that’s happened. He’ll make certain no one messes with your wagons or mules. It’s a hundred miles or so past Dodge to the Colorado line, but it’s early summer, so we’ve got plenty of time as far as the weather goes.” Frank computed the distance in his head. “We can make Dodge by day after tomorrow if we start early.”

  Betty Ellington tossed what was left of her own coffee on the ground. “I’m ready to go now. I can hardly wait for a bath.”

  Chapter 9

  “Morgan, you no-good son of a bitch.” Frank heard the voice behind him as he spoke with the liveryman in Dodge.

  He turned to find the dapper-dressed Bat Masterson, derby hat low against the evening sun, standing behind him.

  “You’re losing your edge, Morgan. Letting me sneak up on you like that.”

  “Hell, Bat, I smelled your fancy cigar five minutes ago while you were dealing with that drunk cowhand across the street. I saw your reflection in the glass there when you stopped to consort with that loose woman on the sidewalk. Even noticed when you bent over to brush some horse crap off your shiny boots on your way across the street. If I’d wanted to brace you, I’d have done it long before you made it this far.” Frank stuck out his hand and grinned. “How you been, you fancy old fart?”

  Bat took the hand and gave it a hearty shake. “I’m doing well, thank you for asking. And who you callin’ old?”

  “Yeah,” Frank said. “I get your point.”

  “I understand you’re now the patron saint of lost widows, orphans, and wayward wagon trains.”

  “You got some spy network. We only been in town fifteen minutes.”

  “Those women can’t stop talking about their hero. Tell me, Morgan. What in thunder have you gotten yourself into?”

  “I’ll tell you, Bat, I’m not entirely sure. But I do know one thing. It’s been an eternity since I’ve had me a cup of coffee and I’m sportin’ a buffalo-sized headache. Let’s you and me hunt up a pot and I’ll fill you in. It’s kind of a long story.”

  Bat’s brother Ed joined t
hem as they walked into the café. A pot of coffee and three pieces of apple pie later, Frank finished telling his tale. Both lawmen shook their heads in disgust. Bat was the first to speak.

  “I never heard of anyone named Steve Wilson, but the man you’ve described is a no-good slave trader and whiskey runner named Ephraim Swan. He hails from somewhere back East himself—Ohio or maybe Illinois. Anyhow, it’s got to be him with the white eyebrow and scars.”

  “Figured his name wasn’t Steve Wilson.” Frank picked up a toothpick from a little jar on the table. “Ephraim Swan, huh? The name rings a bell.”

  Bat nodded. “Stealing women is what he does best. He lures them out with all sorts of schemes, then sells them to the highest bidder. Usually down in Mexico. I got a stack of wanted posters for various nefarious activities he’s been involved in.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d have your men look out for him while we’re in town.” Frank began to roll a smoke. “These women are bound and determined to get on to Colorado with their wagons.”

  “Everything will be safe while you’re here in Dodge and as long as you’re in the county,” Bat said. “Tell the women they can bank on that.”

  Ed nodded his agreement. “I’ll post some men to guard the wagons day and night.”

  “I appreciate it, boys. Say, I suppose you’ll be wantin’ my gun while I’m in town.”

  Ed shook his head. “You wouldn’t give us all of them anyway, Morgan. I know you better than that. Too many people gunning for you. Besides, turning in your gun has never worked out here.”

  “I heard Wild Bill has a little trouble with it.”

  “He does.” Ed darkened. “We have to pick our battles. But his attitude might get him killed one of these days.”

  “In any case,” Bat said, patting his brother on the back to calm him, “you watch your back, Morgan. Every two-bit gun-toter this side of creation is just itchin’ to do battle with you on the streets of Dodge City. And that’s not counting any hired killers Swan is sure to send to brace you.”