The Loner: The Bounty Killers

by J. A. Johnstone

  “So you had me to supper at your house?”

  “That was the girl’s idea,” Fairmont snapped. “I was watching you like a hawk the whole time. If you’d tried anything, you would’ve been sorry.”

  “I wouldn’t have tried anything, Marshal. I told you the truth. I’m not looking for trouble.”

  “Yeah, tell that to those guards you killed.” Fairmont motioned with the pistol in his hand. “Now unbuckle that gunbelt, slow and easy, and put it on the floor.”

  The Kid made no move to follow the order. “I didn’t kill any guards,” he said. “Yes, I broke out of prison, but it was because I was locked up unjustly. I was mistaken for an escaped convict named Ben Bledsoe. The authorities in New Mexico know this. There are no charges against me. Whoever put out those wanted posters made a terrible mistake.”

  Fairmont grunted. “Terrible for you, no doubt about that. With a price of ten thousand dollars on your head—and dead or alive, at that—you’re going to attract a lot of attention. You’ll be safer in my cell block than anywhere else, Morgan. Now unbuckle that gunbelt and get in there.”

  The Kid thought about how it had felt to have iron bars closing him in. He shook his head.

  “Sorry, Marshal. I’m not going to do it.”

  “Damn it, I’ll shoot you if I have to!”

  The Kid looked at the gun in Fairmont’s hand. “That’s a .32 caliber revolver you got so tricky with,” he said. “If you put a slug in me, it won’t knock me down. I’ll have plenty of time to get my gun out. You know what that means.”

  The marshal paled. “You’d kill a lawman? I thought you said you aren’t a murderer.”

  “I said I never killed any prison guards in New Mexico,” The Kid replied with a thin smile. Let Fairmont make of that whatever he wanted.

  But as a matter of fact, he didn’t want to kill the marshal, for Carly’s sake, if for no other reason. On top of that, Fairmont believed he was just doing his job. A man didn’t deserve to die for that.

  “Damn it, Morgan. I can’t let you walk out of here. It doesn’t matter if you did save my life this afternoon. You’re a wanted man. It’s up to the courts to sort out whether the charges are justified, not me.”

  “That’s why I sent the wire, Marshal. It went to my lawyer in San Francisco. If he’s given a chance, I’m sure he’ll straighten everything out.”

  “You expect me to believe that a drifting gunfighter has a lawyer in San Francisco?”

  “It’s true,” The Kid said. “If you’re interested in the ten thousand dollars, I can make arrangements to have that amount paid to you.” He could have added that he was actually a very wealthy man with business interests stretching from one end of the country to the other, but he didn’t think Fairmont was very likely to believe that.

  The offer appeared to anger the marshal. “I’m a lawman,” Fairmont snapped. “I earn my wages by keeping the peace. I don’t collect bounties.”

  “Then you don’t have any real reason not to let me go.”

  “Except the fact that you’re a fugitive.” Fairmont’s hand tightened on the pistol. “There’s been enough talk. Are you going to drop your gun and get in that cell, Morgan, or do I have to pull this trigger?”

  The Kid sighed. “Take it easy, Marshal.” His hands went to the buckle of his gunbelt. “Looks like you’ve got me—”

  Fairmont’s eyes dropped, following The Kid’s hands . . . just as The Kid had figured they would.

  He sprang forward with blinding speed, closing the gap between them before the marshal could pull the trigger. The edge of The Kid’s left hand slashed sideways against Fairmont’s wrist.

  The pistol barked, but The Kid had already knocked the barrel out of line. The .32 caliber bullet thudded into the front wall rather than finding his flesh.

  At the same time, The Kid bunched his right fist and drove it forward. The punch landed cleanly on Fairmont’s jaw and rocked the lawman’s head back. The lawman fell against the desk and knocked the lamp over.

  Flames shot up as burning kerosene splashed over the papers on the desk. The Kid’s eyes widened in alarm at the sight of the blaze. He ignored Fairmont for the moment and yanked his hat off, slapping at the flames as he put them out.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Fairmont stagger across the room. The marshal caught himself and shook his head as if to clear it. He had dropped the smaller pistol, but clawed at the butt of the long-barreled revolver on his hip and dragged it out of its holster.

  The Kid whirled and flung his charred hat into Fairmont’s face as the lawman’s gun cleared leather. Instinctively, Fairmont batted the hat away from his eyes, giving The Kid time to leap across the room and close his left hand around the cylinder of Fairmont’s gun so it couldn’t fire. The Kid drove his other fist into Fairmont’s belly.

  The marshal doubled over, gasping for breath. He was a tough old bird, but he was no match for The Kid in a brawl. The Kid wrenched the gun out of Fairmont’s hand and flung it away behind him. Then he grabbed the front of Fairmont’s shirt, jerked him upright, and muttered, “Sorry, Marshal,” before he threw another punch. The blow slammed into Fairmont’s jaw, and put him out. When The Kid let go of Fairmont’s shirt, the marshal dropped senseless to the floor.

  Feeling disgusted with himself and the circumstances, The Kid turned away. Somebody would be coming to investigate those shots. He needed to get out of Las Vegas, but hated to leave before he got a reply to his telegram to Claudius Turnbuckle. He would have to get in touch with the lawyer again later, from some other settlement with a telegraph office.

  He froze as he came around toward the door. It had opened without him being aware of it as he was struggling with Fairmont. A figure stood there, silhouetted against the light that filtered into the street from other buildings. The Kid instantly recognized the slender figure.

  It belonged to Carly Fairmont. And the gun she held in both hands, pointed at him, belonged to her father.

  “Dad was right to be suspicious of you,” she said savagely. “He told me you weren’t who you were pretending to be and that I shouldn’t get any thoughts in my head about you. But I didn’t believe him. I see now I should have.”

  The Kid shook his head and told her, “You’ve got it all wrong, Carly.”

  “How could I get it wrong?” She took another step into the room. “You attacked my father and tried to burn down his office. I heard shots. Did you try to kill him, too?”

  “Just put the gun down and step aside. Your father’s not hurt bad. You don’t know what’s going on here.”

  “I know enough,” she said. “I know you’re not going anywhere, Mr. Browning or whatever your name is. Did you lie about that, too?”

  “Carly . . .” The Kid took a step toward her.

  She screamed and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 11

  The muzzle flash from the gun was blinding in the darkened room. The Kid had seen the way the barrel jerked a little just as Carly pulled the trigger, and his superb reflexes enabled him to jump the other way.

  The bullet whistled past his ear.

  He lunged forward before Carly could fire again. His arm swept the gun aside and knocked it out of her hands. She cried out and tried to get away from him, but he grabbed her so she couldn’t retrieve the gun.

  “Let me go!” she screamed. “Let me go!”

  “Blast it, settle down!” The Kid began, but then he gave it up as a bad job. He wasn’t going to be able to make Carly accept the truth. He probably couldn’t even stop her from being hysterical. It would be a waste of valuable time even to try.

  He had to get out of Las Vegas while he still had the chance. “I’m sorry,” he said as he thrust her out of his way.

  Arms closed around his legs in a clumsy tackle. “Damn you!” Fairmont yelled. The marshal had regained his senses faster than The Kid had thought he would.

  He tried to kick his way free from Fairmont’s grip, but Fairmont wasn’t a small man and p
ut all his considerable heft into heaving on The Kid’s legs. At the same time, Carly planted her hands in the middle of The Kid’s chest and shoved as hard as she could. Between the efforts of the two of them, The Kid suddenly crashed to the floor of the marshal’s office.

  Fairmont clambered on top of him. “Get his gun!” the marshal told his daughter. “Get his gun!”

  The Kid made a grab for his Colt, but Fairmont had him tied up too well. He felt Carly pluck the weapon from its holster, but she couldn’t use it to shoot at him while he was rolling around on the floor with her father.

  Fairmont got a hand on The Kid’s neck and tried to choke him. The Kid grabbed the marshal’s wrist and ripped the hand away from his throat. At the same time, he bucked up from the floor and threw Fairmont’s weight off him. The Kid rolled on top of the marshal and threw a short, wicked jab into the middle of Fairmont’s face.

  Carly swung the gun at his head. When something exploded against the back of his skull, he knew in a flash of intuition that it was the butt of his own revolver.

  As he slumped forward, she hit him again, and the darkness inside the office suddenly got a lot thicker and rushed at him from all sides. He felt his face strike the floor as he collapsed, felt his head bounce a little from the impact.

  Then the blackness was all around him, and he didn’t feel a thing.

  It wasn’t the first time The Kid had been knocked out. Coming to was a slow, painful process, but it brought with it the knowledge that he wasn’t dead, which was a relief.

  As he became aware of his surroundings, he realized he was lying on a hard, narrow, uncomfortable surface—some sort of cot or bunk. He was positioned on his side, and when he forced his eyes open, he saw a rock wall at close range, only inches away from his face.

  Turning his head slightly so he could lift his gaze along the wall, he wasn’t surprised to see a small, barred window set into it.

  He was in jail, just as he expected.

  The light in the cell was dim. The Kid rolled onto his back and looked the other way. The heavy door between the cell block and the marshal’s office stood open, and light came from the lamp burning in the office.

  Snoring came from across the aisle that divided the cell block into two sets of matching cells, totaling four. That would be the outlaw who had survived the failed bank robbery that afternoon.

  The Kid rolled onto his other side so he could swing his legs off the bunk attached to the wall and sit up. As he did so, his senses whirled around crazily for a moment. He felt sick.

  He sat there until he felt steadier and the feeling soon passed. When he was confident he wouldn’t fall down, he stood up and walked over to the cell door, which was made up completely of iron bars.

  A shudder went through him as his fingers curled around the bars. After his experience in Hell Gate Prison had left his back crisscrossed with fading whip scars, he had sworn he would never allow himself to be locked up again.

  And yet there he was, behind bars once more.

  The Kid drew in a deep breath. “Marshal!” he called. “Marshal Fairmont! Are you out there?”

  The would-be bank robber in the cell across the way stirred and muttered in his sleep, but after a few seconds he started snoring again.

  With a heavy tread, Fairmont appeared in the doorway. “I thought I heard somebody stirring around back here. You’re awake, are you, Morgan?”

  “You can see that for yourself,” The Kid said. “I tell you again, you’re making a mistake, Marshal.”

  “Not according to that reward poster. But if you’re right and it’s wrong, then I suppose I’ll owe you an apology. It’s not up to me to sort that out, though. I’ve sent a wire to the New Mexico territorial authorities in Santa Fe advising them that I have you under arrest and asking them what they want me to do with you.”

  The Kid felt an odd surge of hope when he heard that. It was possible that Claudius Turnbuckle had been in touch with those same authorities, and when Fairmont heard back from Santa Fe, the message might well inform him that all charges had been dropped and The Kid was free to go.

  That would be the best outcome for the fiasco. The Kid wouldn’t likely know if it was true until morning at the earliest.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I had to lie to you, Marshal.”

  Fairmont nodded. “You see, that’s one reason I’ve got my doubts about you. If you’re telling the truth about not being wanted, why did you lie about your name?”

  “Think about it, Marshal. You’re not the only one who’s seen that wanted poster.”

  Quickly, The Kid told Fairmont about his two encounters with bounty hunters in the mountains west of Las Vegas and the narrow escapes he’d had. There was no longer any point in concealing any of that information.

  “So when I rode back into town, all I wanted to do was send that wire to my lawyer, wait for his response, and then get out again without anybody paying any attention to me.” The Kid couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice as he added, “And then those four robbers came running out of the bank.”

  Fairmont rubbed his jaw. “I reckon you did save my life,” he admitted. “But then you lied to me, and you made it worse by coming to my house and continuing to lie to me. In my book, that goes a long way toward evening things out.”

  “If I had told you the truth then, would you have believed me?”

  “Well . . .”

  “No, you’d have believed what you saw on that wanted poster,” The Kid said.

  Fairmont jerked his head in a nod. “More than likely.”

  “So you see, all I was trying to do was save you some trouble.”

  “You can look at it that way if you want,” the marshal said. “To me it seems like you were just trying to avoid being locked up again.”

  “Locked up unjustly,” The Kid said. “For the second time.”

  “That’s for somebody else to sort out, not me. I’m sure that if you really have that fancy lawyer in San Francisco you keep talking about, he’ll be able to get to the bottom of things.”

  “You don’t believe me about the lawyer, either, do you?”

  Fairmont looked steadily at him and said, “Right now I’m not sure I’d believe anything that comes out of your mouth, Morgan.”

  “I guess I might as well get some sleep, then.”

  The outlaw in the other cell had stopped snoring. He said, “Yeah, especially if it means that you’ll shut up so the rest of us can sleep!”

  Fairmont spent the night in the marshal’s office, explaining that he didn’t feel comfortable leaving when he had a couple prisoners. But when The Kid woke up in the morning after a few hours of fitful sleep, Fairmont was gone. He’d probably headed home for some breakfast and maybe a little rest, The Kid thought.

  The office wasn’t deserted for long. He heard the front door open, then a moment later a key rattled in the lock of the cell block door.

  It swung open to reveal Carly standing there. She said, “I’ve brought breakfast for the two of you.”

  The Kid stood up and went to the bars. He leaned against them and gave her a sardonic smile.

  “What?” she asked after a second. “Why are you looking at me like that, Mr. Browning? I mean, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Why not just call me Kid?” he suggested. “I was just thinking that you don’t look like the sort of woman who’d try to bash a man’s head in with a pistol.”

  She frowned at him. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you, after what you did to my father.”

  “Luck had nothing to do with it,” The Kid said. “You tried to shoot me, remember? If I hadn’t been fast enough to get out of the way of the bullet, I’d be dead right now.”

  “And good riddance. Dad said you killed a couple prison guards down in New Mexico Territory.”

  “That’s what the wanted poster says,” The Kid corrected. “It’s not true.”

  “If it’s not, I’m sure you’ll have your chance in court to prove it.” She turned a
way from the door and came back a moment later carrying a tray with a plate of hotcakes, bacon, and eggs on it. “For now you get your breakfast.”

  She passed the tray to The Kid through the narrow opening in the barred door designed for that.

  “Hey, what about me?” the other prisoner asked.

  “I have your breakfast, too,” Carly assured him. “Just a minute.”

  She returned to the office and came back with another tray. When she had passed it into the cell, she said, “There’s coffee on the stove. I’ll get cups.”

  As she turned back toward the office, the front door opened and a boy about twelve years old came in. He wore overalls and a cap, which, when he saw Carly standing there, he tugged off to reveal a mop of flaming red hair.

  “Howdy, Miss Fairmont,” he greeted her. “Cyrus down at the telegraph office sent me to look for that Mr. Browning fella who stopped the bank robbery yesterday. Said he’d probably be at the hotel, but they ain’t seen him. I figured I’d ask your pa. Is he here?”

  “No, he’s not, Davey,” Carly replied. “But I know where Mr. Browning is.” She held out her hand. “If you’ll give me the message, I’ll see that he gets it.”

  The boy hesitated. “Well, I dunno . . . Cyrus said to give it straight to Mr. Browning . . .”

  The Kid’s heart had started to pound harder as soon as the boy announced why he was there. It could be his ticket out of the jail.

  He set the breakfast tray on the bunk and stepped quickly to the bars, thrusting an arm out between them.

  “That message you have is for me, son,” he called.

  The boy stepped closer to the cell block, his eyes widening as he peered into the cell and recognized The Kid. “Golly!” he said. “You are him!”

  “That’s right. That telegram is addressed to me.”

  Davey took an envelope from the pocket of his overalls and squinted at it. “The name on here is . . . Conrad Browning.”

  The Kid nodded. “That’s my real name.”

  Davey looked at Carly. “Miss Fairmont?”

  She sighed and nodded. “He’s the one who sent a wire to San Francisco,” she confirmed, without addressing the issue of his true identity. “I suppose he has a right to see the reply.”