The Loner: The Bounty Killers

by J. A. Johnstone

  Instead of answering her directly, The Kid asked Blount, “Can you tell me how to get to the Rafter G?”

  “Well, yeah, I reckon. You ought to be able to find the trail, even in the dark. Just what is it you got in mind doin’?”

  “I thought I’d pay a call on Spud Guthrie.”

  “Wait just a damn minute,” Lace said. “It sounds to me like you’re talking about running out on us, Kid.”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. I’m going to grab Guthrie and bring him back here. With him as a hostage, his men won’t dare attack the canyon, and they sure won’t dynamite the walls and cave them in.”

  “How’s that gonna solve things in the long run?” Blount asked as he raked his fingers through his long beard. “Can’t they still wait us out?”

  “As soon as I get back with Guthrie, you’re going to take our extra horse and ride to Phoenix as fast as you can,” The Kid explained. “McCall and I will hold Guthrie and the canyon until you get back with the law.”

  “You really think the law’s gonna side with an old prospector like me over a rich rancher like Guthrie?”

  “When you get to Phoenix, send a wire to a lawyer named John Stafford in San Francisco.” Claudius Turnbuckle was probably still in Santa Fe, The Kid thought, but his partner Stafford could handle this. “Use my name, and have him wire the governor of Arizona Territory and request his assistance in the matter.”

  Something was obviously off-kilter in New Mexico Territory, otherwise those wanted posters would have been quashed by now, but Conrad Browning had been on good terms with the territorial governor in Arizona. His name should still carry some influence.

  “If necessary, Stafford can contact the Justice Department in Washington and have a deputy United States marshal sent in,” The Kid went on. “We’ll stay here and protect the canyon until you get back with the authorities, and they can deal with Guthrie.”

  Lace said, “You sound mighty confident that these friends in high places will be glad to help out.”

  “I think they will,” The Kid said. “The Browning financial holdings and business interests wield considerable influence.”

  “If that’s true, how come there’s a ten grand bounty on your head?”

  The Kid raked a thumbnail along his jaw and admitted, “That’s something I can’t answer. Someone who’s pretty powerful must be pulling the strings behind the scenes in Santa Fe. But I don’t know who or why.”

  “You know,” Lace mused, “the more I listen to you talk, the more I start to believe that you’re actually telling the truth about who you are.”

  The Kid smiled. “Good. Because it’s true.”

  “All right,” Lace said. “Your plan’s a longshot, but it’s the only one we have other than sitting here and letting Guthrie starve us out. You’re going to Guthrie’s ranch to grab him?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m coming with you,” she declared.

  The Kid shook his head. “That’s not a good idea. Somebody needs to stay here with Mr. Blount.”

  “Hey, I can take care of myself,” the old-timer objected.

  “I’m sure you can, but two people can defend this canyon better than one, if something happens to me and it comes down to that.” The Kid held up a hand to forestall Lace’s protest as she opened her mouth. “And one person will be able to slip in and out of the Rafter G easier than two.”

  “This would be a perfect chance for you to ride off and never come back,” Lace said.

  “I’m not going to do that.” The Kid shrugged. “You can believe me or not.”

  She stared at him for a long moment before saying, “Damn it, I do believe you . . . whether I want to or not. All right, Kid . . . Conrad . . . whatever the hell your name is. When are you going?”

  The Kid glanced at the midnight sky. “No point in waiting. As soon as Mr. Blount tells me how to get to the Rafter G, I’ll be on my way.”

  It was possible Guthrie had left guards watching what was left of the cabin, although judging from the size of the blast, nothing could have lived through it. The Kid would have to take that chance.

  He led the buckskin to the gate. Lace came with him. They opened it together. When The Kid had taken the horse through the narrow gap, he turned back to Lace for a moment and whispered, “Keep your eyes and ears open. When I get here with Guthrie, I’ll give a hoot owl call. I may need some help with the gate.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” she said. “Kid, be careful. You’re our best shot at getting out of this alive.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to die until I’ve cleared up those charges against me.”

  He wasn’t sure why that had become so important to him, but it had. In months past, he wouldn’t have cared very much one way or the other. His reputation meant nothing to him. Kid Morgan was nothing but a fictional creation meant to help Conrad Browning achieve his revenge.

  But somehow, the identity had taken on a life of its own. Whenever he thought of himself, it was almost always as The Kid, and seldom as Conrad.

  It was all right for people to think of Kid Morgan as a gunfighter, but not as a murderer and outlaw. Why that was, The Kid didn’t know, but he didn’t doubt the authenticity of the feeling.

  Lace leaned toward him, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him. The Kid didn’t try to stop her. In fact, he returned the kiss with an eagerness he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  “You just haven’t given up on collecting that ten grand,” he whispered when they parted.

  “Damn right,” Lace whispered back.

  With that, he gave her shoulder a squeeze and turned away. He heard her shove the gate closed behind him as he led the buckskin eastward, along the face of the towering cliffs that formed the Mogollon Rim.

  He moved as carefully and quietly as possible, and no one tried to stop him. Either Guthrie hadn’t bothered putting any guards on the destroyed cabin, or else he had slipped past them unnoticed.

  Blount had said there was a trail leading to the top of the rim about half a mile east of Dos Caballos Canyon. It was a narrow path, barely wide enough for one man on horseback. Too narrow for cattle, even moving single file, which was why Guthrie wanted to blast the canyon into a wider trail. The next path to the top was a good five miles farther east, and it wasn’t fit for cattle, either.

  The wagon that had brought the dynamite to Blount’s cabin earlier in the day must have gone a long way around, The Kid mused. He supposed they hadn’t wanted to risk carrying the explosives down the narrow trail. Guthrie was probably mad enough that he hadn’t worried about that tonight.

  The Kid watched for the landmark Blount had mentioned, a boulder flanked by a couple of pine trees. The trail started its climb right behind that boulder. The Kid had only starlight to navigate by. A moon would have helped, but it also would have made it easier for him to be spotted by his enemies.

  In that part of the country, other than Lace McCall and Chester Blount, all he had were enemies.

  He found the trail without much trouble, mounted up, and started on the twisting path to the rim. The sure-footed buckskin moved carefully. One misstep could have sent both man and horse plunging hundreds of feet into the darkness.

  He heaved a sigh of relief when they came out on the top of the rim. The headquarters of the Rafter G was a couple miles due north from there, Blount had said.

  The Kid steered by the stars and headed in that direction.

  A chilly wind swept down from the Colorado Plateau and blew in The Kid’s face. It would help keep the horses in the Rafter G’s corrals from scenting the buckskin and raising a ruckus.

  The men who had blown up Blount’s cabin had had plenty of time to get back to the ranch and report the success of their mission to Guthrie. The Kid expected that everybody had turned in, secure in the mistaken belief their enemies had been blown to kingdom come.

  As he approached the ranch headquarters, he spotted a yellow glow. Lamplight through a window. Somebody
was still up and awake.

  Stealthy as an Apache, The Kid dismounted and stole closer to the big ranch house on foot, leaving the buckskin tied in some trees. It was too dark to make out all the details, but the Rafter G’s headquarters appeared to a sprawling, two-story log structure, with a bunkhouse and several smaller outbuildings off to one side, near a big barn and some corrals.

  The light he saw was on the first floor of the ranch house. An office, maybe. Guthrie might be burning the midnight oil, trying to come up with some more deviltry now that he thought he had gotten rid of Chester Blount.

  More than likely, he was figuring out his plans to turn Dos Caballos Canyon into a cattle trail. Men had an infinite capacity for convincing themselves they weren’t evil, The Kid mused. In Guthrie’s mind, his actions were justified. If Blount had accepted the offer to buy the canyon, then Guthrie wouldn’t have been forced to blow him sky-high.

  Or maybe he knew he was a ruthless son of a bitch and just didn’t care. It didn’t really matter. Either way, he had to be stopped.

  And it had fallen to The Kid to stop him.

  He crouched beneath the lighted window and raised himself until he could peer through the glass, which was lowered against the night chill. His guess that the room inside the window was an office proved to be correct. Guthrie sat at a massive rolltop desk, pawing through papers. Maps and engineers’ reports, The Kid thought.

  From the window, The Kid had a good view of his profile. The rancher was short and wiry, with a high forehead, thinning brown hair, and a soup-strainer mustache that hung over his mouth. He didn’t look all that impressive at first glance, but there was a vitality about him, a force and drive that went a long way toward explaining how he had been able to carve a ranch out of the wilderness and seize as much power as he could hold.

  He might have been an admirable man, The Kid thought, if his pride and arrogance hadn’t gotten out of control.

  Slipping along the wall in the shadows, The Kid came to a porch and climbed onto it, being careful not to make the boards creak. His hands found the front door. West of the Mississippi, few people locked their doors except those who lived in the big cities, and Spud Guthrie was no exception.

  The knob turned under The Kid’s fingers, and the door swung open with only a faint rasp of hinges. He held his breath, hoping the noise hadn’t been loud enough to penetrate into the office where Guthrie was working. When he didn’t hear any response, he stepped inside and eased the door closed behind him.

  The office was to his right, down a hallway. The door was open a crack, just enough to let a narrow band of light slant through it. The Kid started toward it.

  He had taken only a couple steps when a voice behind him said, “Do not move, or I will kill you.”

  Chapter 25

  The voice belonged to a man, and it had a soft, sibilant accent The Kid couldn’t place at first. Then he realized that it sounded Chinese. He guessed that Guthrie had a Chinese cook who also took care of the house. The man must have heard the noise the door had made when it opened.

  The Kid didn’t want to hurt the man, but he couldn’t afford to let anyone stop him from accomplishing his mission. The lives of Lace and Blount might well depend on it.

  He started to raise his hands, said quietly, “Take it easy, friend,” and whirled around, ducking so that if the man fired a gun, the bullet would go over his head.

  No shot blasted. The Kid heard the hiss of cold steel through the air and felt something brush across the top of his head, stirring his sandy hair. The son of a gun had tried to cut his head off with a meat cleaver!

  Swiftly, The Kid threw his right arm up to block any backhanded stroke. Stepping forward he hooked his left fist forward in a short but powerful punch, aiming at where he thought the man’s midsection ought to be. His knuckles sunk deep into the man’s belly, causing him to grunt in pain. The Kid reached out, found the man’s arm, and slid along it to the wrist. He twisted hard and heard the clatter as the cleaver slipped out of the man’s fingers and fell to the floor.

  Knowing he didn’t have much time before Guthrie came to investigate, he struck again with his left fist, aiming at the man’s head. The first blow slid off the man’s ear, but the second landed solidly on his jaw.

  The man collapsed onto the floor with a heavy thud.

  Guthrie couldn’t have missed that one, The Kid thought. As he turned back toward the corridor where the office was located, the door swung open, letting more light splash out. Guthrie’s short, slender figure was silhouetted against the glow as he called, “Wing? Is that you?”

  The name confirmed The Kid’s hunch about the Chinese cook, but he didn’t waste time congratulating himself. He rushed across the space separating him from Guthrie. The rancher saw him coming and clawed at a gun holstered on his hip.

  The Kid had been lucky in avoiding gunshots that would alert the whole ranch to the fact that something was wrong. Wanting to keep it that way, he struck with blinding speed, driving a punch into the jaw of the startled Guthrie. The blow had all the strength of The Kid’s rangy, trouble-hardened body behind it, and it lifted the rancher from his feet and threw him back against the rolltop desk.

  Guthrie was tough despite his size. He stayed on his feet, grabbed a heavy paper weight from the desk, and flung it at The Kid’s head.

  The Kid had to duck, giving Guthrie time to clear leather with his gun. As the revolver swung up, The Kid kicked out. The toe of his boot caught Guthrie’s wrist and knocked the gun loose. It spun out of the rancher’s fingers.

  Guthrie opened his mouth to yell, but The Kid was too fast. His left hand clamped over Guthrie’s mouth while his right hammered into Guthrie’s body.

  The Kid felt a twinge of guilt at physically attacking a man who was a head shorter and fifty or sixty pounds lighter, but it didn’t last long when The Kid remembered how Guthrie had sent his men to kill Chester Blount. Guthrie would kill him, if he had the chance, and never blink an eye.

  The Kid slammed a haymaker into the middle of Guthrie’s face and put the man down and out. Guthrie didn’t look very threatening, crumpled on the floor in front of the desk, but The Kid knew that some of the most venomous snakes in the world were small, too.

  After standing for a few seconds with his heart slugging heavily in his chest, he bent and got hold of Guthrie, hoisting the rancher over his left shoulder. At least Guthrie didn’t weigh very much.

  As The Kid turned toward the door, a stocky figure appeared in the doorway. The Chinese cook had regained consciousness and stood poised to throw the cleaver like a Barbary Coast hatchetman. He hesitated at the sight of Guthrie draped over The Kid’s shoulder.

  The Kid’s gun flickered out of its holster. “Drop it,” he warned in a low voice.

  The man’s dark eyes stared down the Colt’s barrel. An ugly smile spread across his face as he said, “You would not dare shoot. The sound would bring twenty men running from the bunkhouse.”

  “That’s true,” The Kid said, “but you wouldn’t be alive to see them get here, now would you? And what could they do as long as I’ve got hold of their boss?”

  The cook’s smile disappeared. A string of syllables came from him that The Kid figured were Chinese curses. But the cleaver hit the floor as the man dropped it.

  “Good,” The Kid said. “Turn around.”

  Fear appeared in the cook’s eyes. “Do not kill me,” he said. “I ask you—”

  “Turn around,” The Kid said again.

  Nervously, the man turned. The Kid stepped up close behind him. He flipped the gun around in his hand and struck, rapping the cook sharply on the head just above the black braid.

  The cook folded up, out cold. The Kid knew he wouldn’t regain consciousness for several minutes. Balancing Guthrie on his shoulder, he went to the front door of the ranch house and slipped out into the night.

  He could have killed Guthrie, but he wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer, and anyway, there was no guarantee that would solve th
e problem. One or more of the hired guns working for the rancher might decide it was time for them to take over the Rafter G.

  It was going to take a true cleanup, and for that The Kid needed the law. Even if it meant being recognized by the badge-toters and risking his own freedom.

  Moving at a trot, The Kid headed for the trees where he left the buckskin. Before he got there, a man stepped out of the bunkhouse and called, “Hey! Who’s there?”

  Ignoring the challenge The Kid kept going. He figured the good luck couldn’t last, and he was right.

  “Hold it!” the man yelled. “Damn it, I’ll shoot!”

  The Kid didn’t stop or even slow down. A moment later, muzzle flame stabbed through the night as the man fired twice. “Everybody out!” he shouted. “Something’s wrong!”

  The Kid reached the trees as Guthrie’s men piled out of the bunkhouse, yelling questions and curses. More guns began to roar. It was too dark for accurate shooting, and The Kid heard slugs whip through the pine needles, but none of them came close to him and Guthrie.

  He reached his horse and slung Guthrie’s senseless form over its back. As he jerked the reins loose and swung up into the saddle, he heard a bullet smack into a tree trunk only a few feet away.

  The Chinese cook shouted, “Stop shooting! Stop shooting! He has Mr. Guthrie! Stop!”

  The guns fell silent.

  The Kid turned the buckskin and moved as fast as he could through the trees. He couldn’t risk a full-tilt gallop in the darkness.

  Within minutes, Guthrie’s men would be mounted up and coming after him. The Kid’s brain worked swiftly as he tried to figure out what to do next. If he headed for the rim, taking the narrow, back-and-forth trail down the cliff face would give the pursuers a good chance to catch up to him.

  The gunmen believed that Chester Blount and his mysterious allies had died in the explosion that destroyed the old-timer’s cabin. The timing of Guthrie’s kidnapping was suspicious, of course, but they wouldn’t naturally assume that whoever had grabbed their boss was heading for Dos Caballos Canyon.