The Loner: The Bounty Killers

by J. A. Johnstone

  “Thanks,” The Kid said dryly.

  “All right.” Davey advanced hesitantly and held out the envelope to The Kid. “How come you’re in the hoosegow, Mr. Browning?”

  “It’s a long story,” The Kid said. “And a big mistake.” He felt in his pockets to see if Fairmont had left him any money. Finding a silver dollar, he handed it to Davey and took the envelope.

  “Thanks!” the boy said.

  “Run along now, Davey,” Carly told him.

  “You bet!”

  He dashed out of the marshal’s office, no doubt on his way to the general store to convert that dollar to licorice whips or maybe a pocket knife.

  The Kid stood in the cell, paying no attention to Carly or the bank robber in the cell across the aisle. He ripped the envelope open, eager to see what Claudius Turnbuckle had to say.

  Chapter 12

  The terse words hit him like a hard punch in the gut.

  REWARD GENUINE STOP TERRITORIAL

  GOVERNOR REFUSES TO DROP

  CHARGES STOP GOING SANTA FE TO

  STRAIGHTEN OUT MESS

  TURNBUCKLE

  The Kid sank slowly onto the bunk as he tried to absorb the message.

  “Bad news?” Carly asked.

  “Bad enough.” The Kid crumpled the telegram into a ball and tossed it out through the bars. “See for yourself.”

  She hesitated for a second before picking up the paper, smoothing it out, and reading what was printed on it.

  “Who’s Turnbuckle?” she asked as she looked up at him.

  “Claudius Turnbuckle, my lawyer. One of the partners in the firm Turnbuckle & Stafford.”

  Carly tapped a finger on the telegram. “He says he’s on his way to Santa Fe.”

  “Yes, and I have no doubt he’ll get everything straightened out like he says. But how long is that going to take?” The Kid shook his head in disgust. “In the meantime, I have to stay here, penned up in this cell.”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, it’s not that bad,” Carly said. “I happen to know you have a perfectly fine breakfast there. I fix the meals for the prisoners, and I’m a good cook.”

  “That’s a fact,” The Kid said with a shrug.

  “I’m sure it’ll be boring, but if you’re telling the truth, in the long run you don’t have anything to worry about. You’ll be exonerated and released. You’ll have lost some time, that’s all. Unless you were on your way somewhere in a hurry, that shouldn’t be a big problem.”

  “No,” The Kid admitted, “I wasn’t on my way anywhere, in a hurry or otherwise.”

  “Well, there you go,” she said with a satisfied nod. “It’s just an inconvenience, that’s all. You’ll be well treated. Consider it just . . . a chance to rest.”

  That was the sensible way to look at things, The Kid supposed.

  But where iron bars were concerned, he wasn’t sure he could ever be sensible again.

  Marshal Fairmont returned to the jail at midmorning. He came into the cell block and said, “Carly tells me you got a telegram from somebody in San Francisco.”

  “My lawyer,” The Kid said with a nod from the bunk.

  “Well, it just had the fella’s name signed to it. There was nothing on there that actually said he was a lawyer.”

  The Kid laughed and shook his head. “You’re determined that I’m not telling the truth, aren’t you?”

  “She’s starting to feel a little bad that she came near to shooting you and then clouted you over the head. She’s worried that maybe you didn’t deserve it.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That until I see proof otherwise, to me you’re just another owlhoot on the dodge.”

  “In other words, I’m guilty until proven innocent.”

  Fairmont flushed angrily. “It’s not like that, and you know it.”

  “That’s the way it sounds to me.”

  “I’m just doing my job here. If you don’t like it, that’s too damned bad.”

  From the other cell, the bank robber asked, “What about me? What are you gonna do with me, Marshal?”

  “Now, that’s a lot simpler,” Fairmont said. “The circuit judge will be through here in a couple weeks. You’ll be charged with bank robbery and attempted murder, and I expect you’ll be on your way to prison shortly thereafter. It’s lucky for you nobody except your partners got killed while all the lead was flying around, or you’d be facing the gallows, son.”

  The man looked down at the floor and muttered something, probably a curse. He didn’t ask any more questions.

  The rest of the day passed quietly and uneventfully. It was boring, all right, just as Carly had predicted it would be. But the thick stone walls of the jail retained a little of the coolness from the morning, so as the day heated up it didn’t become too unbearable inside the cells.

  Carly brought sandwiches made from the leftover roast beef for lunch and stew for supper. After delivering the evening meal, she hesitated outside the cells, and The Kid could tell by looking at her that she had something on her mind.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about it all day,” she said. “What if I was wrong about you? Growing up with a lawman for a father, I saw a lot of outlaws, and you don’t seem like the type to me, Mr. Morgan. Most of them were uneducated louts.” She glanced over her shoulder at the man in the other cell. “No offense.”

  He looked up from the stew he’d been slurping. “Oh, none taken, missy. I’ll be the first one to tell you I never had much schoolin’.”

  Carly turned back to The Kid. “Anyway, I’ve been worried about that. I hate to see any man locked up who doesn’t deserve it.”

  “What about that wanted poster?” The Kid asked, playing devil’s advocate. “According to the wire from Claudius, the territorial authorities in New Mexico meant to issue it and refused to retract it.”

  “Maybe they don’t know the full story of what happened.”

  “They ought to know. The warden’s daughter was going to testify that I was locked up by mistake.”

  Carly shook her head. “I just have a feeling that there’s been a mistake made somewhere, and I’m afraid I may be the one who made it.”

  After she’d left, taking the empty bowls with her, the other prisoner grinned at The Kid from across the aisle and said, “That gal’s gone sweet on you, Morgan. You play up to her, she might just let you outta here.”

  “It didn’t seem much like it last night when she was trying to stove my head in with a gun butt,” The Kid said.

  The bank robber waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, hell, you can’t go by that. I’ve had gals try to shoot me, stab me, and even bust my skull with a piece of cord wood, but they still loved me.” He grinned. “It’s because I’m such a roguish bastard. The gals just can’t resist me.”

  “Then maybe you’re the one who should be playing up to Miss Fairmont.”

  The man shook his head. “Naw. Not this one. She’s got her eye set on you.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” The Kid said.

  “Can’t hurt to try. Worst she can do is slap you across the mush.”

  The Kid stretched out and turned his face to the stone wall. He didn’t want to think about what the bank robber had said.

  In the first place, he wasn’t convinced Carly was smitten with him, and in the second, he wasn’t sure he could play up to any woman anymore. Conrad Browning had been quite the ladies’ man in his time, leaving a string of broken hearts behind him, but those days were long gone.

  Carly was right. What he needed to do was just be patient. He had faith in Claudius Turnbuckle’s legal skill.

  And Marshal Fairmont had been right, too. With that ten thousand dollar price on his head, he was probably safer in jail—for the time being—than he would be anywhere else.

  Five hard-faced men rode into Las Vegas a little after sundown that evening. They headed for the Nugget Saloon, which was the biggest and best of the four saloons in
town. They left their mounts at the hitch rail in front and went inside.

  The man who carried himself like their leader wore black boots, black whipcord trousers, and a black vest over a dark red shirt. A black Stetson with a tightly curled brim was thumbed back on a rumpled thatch of prematurely white hair above his tanned, angular face.

  He stepped up to the bar and rested his left hand on the hardwood. The right stayed close to the pearl-handled butt of the revolver holstered on his hip.

  “Whiskey,” he told the barkeep without waiting for the man to ask him what he’d have. He angled his head toward his companions as they bellied up to the bar next to him and added, “That goes for my friends, too.”

  “Sure thing, mister,” the apron said. He turned and reached for a bottle sitting on the backbar.

  “Not that swill,” the stranger snapped. “We’ll be needing something better than that.” The flinty tone of his voice left no room for argument.

  The bartender nodded a little nervously and reached under the bar as he said, “Of course, sir.”

  He fetched out a different bottle, unwrapped the seal from around its neck, and set glasses on the hardwood. As he studied the five men without being too obvious about it, he wished they had picked one of the other saloons in town to do their drinking.

  Standing next to the white-haired leader was a thick-bodied man with a drooping walrus mustache of a muddy shade. To his left was a tall, skinny man with a patchy beard that tried to cover up his weak chin and prominent Adam’s apple, but failed. The fourth man was either a Mexican or a ’breed and really shouldn’t have been drinking, but the bartender wasn’t going to argue with anybody who had such an evil face.

  That left the medium-sized, gray-haired man in black who looked like a preacher, but only if a preacher carried two guns, butt-forward under his coat ready for a cross-draw. His expression was mild, but something about the look in his eyes made the bartender shudder.

  The white-haired man tossed back his drink and asked, “Any strangers ride into town lately?”

  “Besides you fellas, you mean?”

  The man fixed the bartender with an impatient stare. “I don’t think I’d be asking about us, do you?”

  “No, I, ah, reckon not.” The bartender tugged at his celluloid collar. “People come and go in Las Vegas all the time. It’s hard to remember ’em all.” He paused. “Unless something happens that makes you remember them, like that bank robbery yesterday.”

  “Bank robbery?” the white-haired man repeated.

  “Yeah. Well, attempted bank robbery, I guess you’d have to say, since the varmints didn’t get away with any loot. Shucks, none of ’em got away, period. Three of ’em are dead, and the fourth is locked up in Marshal Fairmont’s jail, thanks to that stranger.”

  The bartender had relaxed a little as he warmed up to the story he was telling, but a shiver went through him again as the white-haired man asked, “What stranger?”

  “He said his name was Browning at first. He helped the marshal stop that robbery, and Henry Bennett over at the bank was gonna pay for whatever expenses the fella had while he stayed here in town. But then Marshal Fairmont figured out he’s really some gunfighter and outlaw called Kid Morgan who’s wanted over in New Mexico Territory, so he locked him up. I’ll bet he hated to do it, since Morgan helped him, maybe even saved his life, but the law’s the law, you know?”

  “Yeah,” the white-haired man said, “I know. So this Kid Morgan is still locked up in the jail?”

  The bartender nodded. “Yep. I don’t know what the marshal plans to do with him. Maybe New Mexico’s sending somebody to take him back there.”

  “That’s mighty interesting,” the man said. He glanced over at his companions and saw the avarice that had appeared in their eyes.

  Their glasses were empty. The bartender asked, “You want me to refill those drinks?”

  The man spun a coin on the bar. It twirled for several seconds before rattling to a stop. “No thanks.”

  He turned and headed for the door without motioning for the others to follow him. They did, anyway.

  When they were outside, the man who looked like a preacher said, “That’s mighty providential, The Kid dropping into our laps like this, Pronto. What are we going to do about it?”

  “What do you think?” replied the man called Pronto. “We can’t collect the reward for him if somebody else locked him up.”

  “So what are we gonna do?” the man with the walrus mustache asked.

  “The only thing we can,” Pronto said. “We’re going to break him out and then kill him.” His thin lips curved in a cold smile. “Those posters said he was wanted dead or alive, after all.”

  Chapter 13

  The Kid was dozing on his bunk when he heard Carly’s voice out in the office. He wondered why she had come back to the jail—supper had been several hours earlier. He hoped something wasn’t wrong.

  A few moments later, the front door of the office slammed like somebody had left in a hurry.

  The Kid sat up on the bunk and frowned. From the sound of it, Carly had come to the marshal’s office to bring her father some sort of urgent summons. Trouble must have cropped up somewhere in Las Vegas.

  The key rattled in the cell block door. It swung open, and The Kid saw Carly’s slender figure silhouetted against the light in the office. She went quickly into the cell block.

  The Kid came to his feet, grasped the bars, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Carly clutched the marshal’s big key ring in her hand. She pushed a key into the lock on The Kid’s cell and said, “I’m letting you out of here.”

  “Hold on a minute.” The Kid couldn’t quite believe he was saying that, but the words came out of his mouth. “What’s going on here?”

  “I sent some telegrams of my own,” Carly said. “I wired Turnbuckle & Stafford in San Francisco and asked if a man named Browning was one of their clients. I also sent a message to a friend of mine in Denver and asked her to check with the newspapers there and see if she could find out anything about Conrad Browning.”

  “I guess you must have gotten some replies,” The Kid said. His mouth was set in grim lines.

  “That’s right. My God, what terrible things have happened to you! To lose your wife like that, and then to have everyone believe that you were dead—”

  “That was my choice,” The Kid broke in. “I wanted people to think that Conrad Browning was dead.” He paused. “Especially the men who murdered my wife.”

  “Anyway, I’m convinced those wanted posters are just another terrible mistake, like you said. I knew you . . . you couldn’t be a bad man.”

  The Kid grunted. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. You don’t know all the things I’ve done. But I never murdered any prison guards, in New Mexico or anywhere else, and the only reason I broke out of Hell Gate was to try to clear my name.”

  Carly turned the key. “That’s why I’m turning you loose. So you can clear your name. I told my father some story about being up at the store when I saw a fight about to break out between some cowboys, and he went to see about it. You have to hurry. He’ll be back soon.”

  She swung the door open, but The Kid didn’t step out. “What happened to just waiting here until Turnbuckle proves I’m innocent?”

  “That was before I knew about everything you’ve gone through. I-I wasn’t sure you could stand being locked up.”

  The Kid put a hand on the barred door. “I appreciate the sentiment. I really do. But I don’t want to get you in trouble with your father. I can stand staying here.” He smiled. “As long as you keep providing the meals, that is.”

  She stared at him and asked, “You’re not going to escape?”

  “I will,” the bank robber said from the other cell. “You can unlock this door, and I’ll thank you mighty kindly, ma’am.”

  “Forget it,” The Kid told him. “You go back out in the office, Carly. Take the keys with you. We’ll forget this happened, and the m
arshal doesn’t have to know about it.”

  “But, Kid . . .” she pleaded, and he could tell from the look in her eyes that the outlaw in the other cell was right. Carly had fallen for him, or at least she had convinced herself that she had. She was trying to make this big dramatic gesture in order to prove how she felt about him.

  He shook his head. “This isn’t right, and you know it.”

  He could tell she wanted to argue some more, but the sudden opening of the front door in the marshal’s office made her jerk around with a sharply indrawn breath.

  The Kid expected to see Marshal Fairmont standing there and Carly probably did, too, but instead, a man The Kid had never seen before strode into the office.

  He had white hair and was dressed all in black except for a red shirt under his vest. He stopped short as he looked through the open cell block door and saw Carly standing in front of The Kid’s open cell.

  A grin spread across his hard-planed face. “Well, this is mighty handy,” he said. Then his hand dipped and came up with a pearl-handled Colt, drawn smoothly from the black holster on his hip.

  “Kid?” Carly said with fear in her voice.

  An obscenity slipped from the lips of the bank robber in the other cell. “That’s Pronto Pike,” he said.

  The name meant nothing to The Kid, but he knew a dangerous man when he saw one. He stiffened, one hand still on the barred door.

  Pike came across the office, the gun level and rock steady in his hand. “Back away from that cell, miss,” he ordered.

  Carly was pale with fright, but her chin lifted and she asked with a note of defiance, “What do you want?”

  “I want that prisoner,” Pike said, nodding toward The Kid. “I was just going to talk to the marshal and get the lay of the land, but I won’t pass up a chance like this.” His voice hardened. “Step back out of the way.”

  “Do what he says,” The Kid told Carly.