The Loner: The Bounty Killers

by J. A. Johnstone

  “Hard to believe, but I’ll take your word for it,” The Kid said. “He’s quiet now, anyway. I’m grateful for that.”

  Guthrie couldn’t do anything except make grunting noises through the gag, but his eyes continued to follow them around the camp, lit by the hellish glare of murderous hatred.

  They kept guard most of the time, one watching the gate, the other scanning the tops of the canyon walls, looking for sharpshooters Nebel might send up there to try to pick them off.

  The Kid was watching the opposite rim when he spotted movement. A moment later, his keen eyes saw the barrel of a rifle thrust around a rock. The bushwhacker leaned out a little to aim.

  It was enough of a target for The Kid. His Winchester snapped to his shoulder and cracked. The bullet struck the rock only inches from the man’s head and made him jerk back, exposing more of him.

  The Winchester’s lever was a blur as The Kid worked it and fired again, the bullet boring through the man’s head. He jerked as death claimed him and pitched forward, dropping his rifle and landing so his arms and head and shoulders hung off the edge of the canyon rim. Blood dripped in a steady stream from his shattered skull.

  “Kid?” Lace called from the other side of the rock. “You all right?”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Keep an eye on the gate. They might try hitting us from two directions at once.”

  After a few minutes, somebody The Kid couldn’t see took hold of the dead man’s feet and hauled him back, away from the rim. That was fine with The Kid. He didn’t need the grisly sight as a reminder of the danger he and Lace were in, and hoped the bushwhacker’s death discouraged any other gunman from trying the same tactic.

  By nightfall, nothing else had happened. Not wanting to risk a fire, The Kid and Lace had a cold supper. They would build one in the morning so they could have coffee . . . if they were still alive.

  Guthrie had settled down some, and when he made noises indicating he wanted the gag removed, The Kid obliged. Guthrie didn’t try to take a finger off.

  “Don’t I get something to eat?” the rancher asked wearily.

  “You heard Nebel. He’s planning on starving us out. We have to make our supplies last as long as they possibly can.”

  “You know it’s not gonna come to that,” Guthrie said. “You sent Blount to Phoenix to fetch the law, didn’t you?”

  The Kid didn’t see any point in denying it. “That’s right. He’ll be back in another three days or so, and your little reign of terror will be over, Guthrie.”

  Guthrie laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know how you figure that. I’m an important man in these parts. The authorities won’t believe an old fool and a couple of drifters over me.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Guthrie. My real name is Conrad Browning.”

  Guthrie stared up at him in the darkness. “Seems like I’ve heard that name before.”

  “You should have. I own an interest in a number of banks in Arizona Territory, as well as the railroad and several mines.”

  A curt laugh came from Guthrie. “I’m supposed to believe that? You’re nothing but a fastgun saddle tramp!”

  “Appearances are deceiving. Not only that, I’ve made an offer to Mr. Blount for half interest in Dos Caballos Canyon. We haven’t worked out the details yet, but he’s going to take me up on it. So for all intents and purposes, this is my land, too, and I’m not going to let you steal it.”

  “You’re loco,” Guthrie muttered, but there was some doubt in his voice. He was starting to realize he might have bitten off a bigger chunk than he could handle.

  A few minutes later, he tried to salvage the situation. “Listen to me. If you take me with you as a hostage, you can ride out of here in the morning. My men won’t have any choice except to let you go. I’ll order them to stay here and not follow you, and when you’ve got a five or ten mile lead, however much you want, you can let me go and ride on. You’ve killed some of my men and annoyed the hell out of me, but I’m willin’ to call it square.”

  “I’m not,” The Kid said. “I hold a grudge.”

  He knew that Guthrie was lying. The rancher would never let them go unscathed. One way or another, he would have to have his revenge, unless he was locked up.

  Or dead.

  Leaving Max to keep an eye on the prisoner, The Kid and Lace moved to stand guard on the gate. One of them would stay awake at all times to listen for anyone trying to sneak up. They used the pine trees for cover again.

  They planned to alternate two-hour shifts. The Kid would stay awake first, letting Lace get a little sleep. He stood with his back against the tree, the rifle cradled across his chest, and listened intently. Guthrie’s men might be able to slip up to the gate on foot without being heard, but they couldn’t unfasten the latch without making the brush rustle.

  The night was quiet, cool, and peaceful. It would have been mighty pleasant, The Kid thought, if he hadn’t been listening for a bunch of cold-blooded killers who wanted to wipe out him and Lace.

  After a couple hours, she called softly, “Kid! I’m awake. Get some shut-eye.”

  “Thanks,” he told her. He slid down to sit at the base of the tree with his back against the trunk. Sleep claimed him within seconds of closing his eyes.

  He hadn’t completely mastered the trick of waking up when he wanted to, but he was able to come pretty close to the allotted amount of time. When he opened his eyes again, he was confident that not much more than two hours had passed. If he had overslept by too much, Lace would have called to him and woken him.

  “All right—” he started to say as he got to his feet, but she shushed him instantly.

  “Somebody’s out there,” she called in a half whisper.

  He brought the rifle to his shoulder and swung around the tree so he could aim at the gate across the canyon mouth. He listened and didn’t hear anything at first, but a moment later the soft scrape of boot leather on the ground came to his ears. He knew Lace was right.

  Somebody was creeping up on the gate, and they couldn’t be up to anything good.

  A faint rasp and a sudden small flare of light sent alarm stabbing through The Kid’s veins like ice. Damn them and their fondness for dynamite!

  Sparks sputtered at the base of the gate as The Kid dashed out from behind the tree and sprinted toward the canyon mouth.

  He hadn’t anticipated them trying to blow up the gate, but he should have, he thought bitterly, racing toward the gate to reach the bomb and pull the fuse before it exploded.

  “Kid!” she cried behind him.

  “Cover me!” he shouted over his shoulder as he threw himself forward in a long dive that carried him to the bottom of the gate.

  Lace sprayed rifle slugs over his head, through the brush tied onto the wooden framework. At the same time, Guthrie’s men opened fire from outside the canyon. Bullets whined around The Kid’s head.

  Focusing on the bundle of dynamite and the sputtering fuse just on the other side of the gate, he shoved brush aside and thrust his arm through the opening he had created. The dynamite was just out of his reach. He threw his shoulder against the gate and stretched his arm out as far as he could, far enough that he felt bones creaking in their sockets.

  His fingers brushed the burning fuse. He pushed aside the pain as sparks bit into his hand. The fuse was too short for him to pull, so he did the only thing he could.

  He closed his hand around it, smothering the fire with his flesh.

  The sparks died out, but a second later bullets began to smack into the ground around him. Guthrie’s men were trying to detonate the explosives by firing into them.

  Not wanting to take the chance it might work, he strained forward again, and closed his hand around the three sticks of dynamite that had been tied together. He pulled them through the gate and rolled away from the slugs that were whipping around him. It was possible a few sticks of dynamite could come in handy later on.

  He tossed them over to the far side of the c
anyon, then snatched up his Winchester, which he had dropped when he dove for the explosives. He scrambled back behind the pine tree and joined Lace in returning the fire of Guthrie’s men. In the dark, all they could do was aim at muzzle flashes. It was impossible to know if their bullets found their target.

  After a fierce exchange of shots that lasted for several minutes, Lace suddenly cried, “Kid! On the rim!”

  The Kid twisted and looked up, saw the flare of another match. They were going to try dropping dynamite from up there. He brought up his rifle and fired three shots as fast as he could, aiming at the lucifer.

  A man staggered forward, silhouetted against the starlight. With a scream, he pitched forward off the rim, plummeting toward the canyon floor far below. An ugly thud, like that of a watermelon breaking open, silenced him in mid-scream.

  The Kid held his breath for a few seconds, waiting to see if any dynamite was going to go off. When there was no explosion, he knew he had winged the man before he’d been able to light the fuse.

  The shooting from outside trailed off. As Lace’s gun fell silent, The Kid took a chance and yelled, “Nebel! You out there?”

  “What do you want, you son of a bitch?” the gunman answered.

  “Call it off now, or Guthrie dies! I’ve got a gun to his head!”

  That wasn’t strictly true, but all it would take was a shouted command by Lace for Max to rip Guthrie’s throat out, so it was almost the same thing.

  After a moment, Nebel shouted, “All right! We’re leaving! But this ain’t—”

  “Yeah, it ain’t over,” The Kid called back mockingly. “I’ve heard that before. If you and the rest of Guthrie’s crew have any sense, you’ll ride out now and save your own hides. The sweet deal you had here . . . that’s over.”

  Nebel didn’t say anything. After a minute, the sound of hoofbeats drifted through the night. Maybe Guthrie’s crew of killers were really pulling out, or maybe it was another trick.

  Either way, The Kid thought as he thumbed fresh cartridges through the Winchester’s loading gate to replace the ones he’d fired, he and Lace would be ready. If it came down to it, they would go out fighting.

  It was as good a way to die as any.

  And better than most, The Kid told himself grimly as he worked the rifle’s lever and jacked a round into the chamber.

  Chapter 29

  The retreat of Guthrie’s men was no trick. The rest of the night passed quietly, as did the next two days and nights after that.

  “Looks like Nebel and the rest of your bunch have decided you’re not worth fighting for,” The Kid told Guthrie on the morning of the fourth day. With any luck, it was the day Chester Blount would be back from Phoenix with a posse of lawmen.

  Guthrie glared at The Kid. They had taken pity on him and given him coffee and something to eat every day, but it hadn’t improved his disposition any.

  “They’re just biding their time,” Guthrie insisted. “They won’t let me die, and they sure as hell won’t let me be turned over to the law.” His glare turned into a smirk. “I know too much about too many of those boys. They won’t want me testifying.”

  “Sounds like a good reason for them to decide they’re better off with you dead,” Lace commented.

  Guthrie looked surprised and a little worried. Obviously, he hadn’t thought of that.

  “Max, guard,” Lace told the dog. He planted himself on his haunches in front of Guthrie and gazed intently at the prisoner, mouth open a little so Guthrie could see the sharp teeth. If The Kid hadn’t known better, he would have said Max was grinning at Guthrie in an attempt to unnerve the rancher.

  Lace inclined her head toward the other side of the rock as an indication that she wanted The Kid to follow her. He did so with his Winchester tucked under his arm. His gaze roved constantly over both canyon rims and the gate. Just because Guthrie’s hired killers hadn’t tried anything for a couple of days didn’t mean the trouble was over.

  “What is it?” he asked quietly when he and Lace had put the big rock between them and the prisoner.

  “The old-timer’s liable to be back today.”

  The Kid nodded. “I know. If nothing happened to delay him, and if he was able to get the authorities in Phoenix to listen to him.”

  “If he was able to use your name to make them listen, that’s what you mean.”

  The Kid shrugged. “Influence isn’t worth having if you’re not willing to use it in a good cause.”

  That was the sort of altruistic statement the old Conrad Browning never would have made. To him, influence was only good for increasing his own wealth and power. Being around Frank and Rebel had changed him, and then Rebel’s death had tempered the steel inside him even more. There was no longer any point in denying it.

  “You see, that’s not the sort of thing I’d expect to hear a hunted fugitive say,” Lace said. “If that wild yarn of yours is true and you really are this rich fella Conrad Browning, I think it’s time you told me how you went from that to being the man you are now. What’s this Kid Morgan business all about, anyway?”

  The Kid’s jaw tightened. “That’s sort of personal.”

  “Damn right it is. You think those things I told you about my life weren’t personal? You think it was easy to tell you that my mama was a whore, I was a whore, and I’m gonna make damn sure my daughter doesn’t grow up to be a whore? Because I’ll tell you right now, Kid . . . it wasn’t. It wasn’t easy at all.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. She was right, of course. She had been honest with him. Did he owe her the same sort of honesty? They were comrades-in-arms, after all. They had fought side by side, risked their lives for each other, heard the same bullets whipping past their heads.

  But she was asking him to reveal things no one else knew except Frank Morgan and Claudius Turnbuckle. And even those two had never heard all the details of that horrifying night in Carson City.

  As he hesitated, she went on, “If we get out of this mess with Guthrie alive, we’ll be heading on to Santa Fe pretty soon. Will we be going there as partners, to clear your name, or do I have to take you prisoner again and turn you in for that ten grand bounty?”

  The Kid smiled. “Do you think you could?” “For ten thousand dollars, I’ll give it a damned good try,” she said flatly, and he knew she was telling the truth.

  “All right,” he said, reaching a decision. “If you want to know the ugly story of Kid Morgan’s birth, then so be it.” He thought about how he had put the barrel of a rifle against the head of an unarmed man and pulled the trigger. “But you may not like everything you hear.”

  “Try me,” she said. “It’s not likely you’ll be able to shock me.”

  “I’m not trying to shock you. I’m just doing what you asked, telling you the truth.”

  For the next half hour, that’s what he did, speaking quietly so Guthrie couldn’t overhear. It was bad enough opening himself up to Lace without letting the evil little rancher in on it.

  She tried to keep her face expressionless at first, but as the tale unfolded of Rebel’s murder, the injuries he had suffered, and the stark, unrelenting vengeance he had exacted on those responsible for the tragedy, he saw both shock and pity in her eyes.

  The shock didn’t bother him so much. He didn’t want any part of the pity. “If you’re feeling sorry for me, forget it,” he snapped. “There’s no need.”

  She shook her head. “But it was so unfair—”

  “It was life,” The Kid said harshly. “You want to know the biggest truth I ever learned?”

  She waited in silence.

  “Anything can happen to anybody at any time,” The Kid said. “People won’t admit that to themselves or even think about it too much, because if they did, it would drive them mad. But it’s still true. You go along, and you think you’ve got a good life, and it can be snatched away from you in a second, with no warning at all. Everything you’ve ever worked for can disappear, just like that.” He snapped his fing
ers. “And it doesn’t do a damned bit of good to talk about fair or unfair. It just is. If you’re going to mourn what you’ve lost or the bad breaks that have happened to you, you might as well mourn the sun coming up in the morning, because it’s all part of the same thing.”

  She stared at him as he finished his bleak pronouncement. He had put into words the feelings that had ridden with him over the past year. He had never really been alone, no matter what he thought. The stark horror of life had always been at his side.

  Finally she said, “Don’t you think . . . don’t you think that sometimes people can get good breaks, too?”

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “That’s part of it. There are probably some people who go through life without anything bad ever happening to them. But it’s not because of anything they did. It’s just the luck of the draw. They might go along just fine for fifty years and then lose it all. Or they might go to their grave still thinking the world’s a wonderful place. It doesn’t change anything.”

  Lace shook her head. “I feel sorry for you, whether you want it or not, Conrad.”

  He smiled. “You believe me now?”

  “Yeah. Nobody could spin some crazy yarn like that without it being true.” She turned away from him. “And don’t worry, I’ll try to help you clear your name, but I won’t waste any pity on you from here on out. You’re already getting plenty of that from yourself.”

  His hand shot out and gripped her arm. He jerked her around toward him, saying, “You think I feel sorry for myself?”

  Her gun came up. The barrel pressed under his chin as she eared back the hammer. “Let go of me,” she told him between clenched teeth.

  The Kid saw the anger in her eyes and felt the tremble that went through her muscles. He opened his hand and released her arm.

  She stepped back and lowered the gun. After easing down the hammer, she pouched the iron on her hip. “Damn right you feel sorry for yourself,” she said. “You had every right to, for a while. The way you’ve helped people out along the way, despite how you felt, well, I can admire you for that. But for God’s sake, you can’t let what happened ruin you for life. You can’t just shut yourself off from everything that’s good out there.”