Hard Luck Money

by J. A. Johnstone

  A lantern hung from a nail in one of the beams holding up the hayloft. Its harsh light spread over a circle that held Grey, Brattle, and Murrell. Lupo saw a couple of saddled horses waiting patiently behind them.

  “I’m sorry, Quint,” Grey said when he saw that Lupo had regained consciousness. “That head of yours has taken quite a pounding in the past few months, hasn’t it?”

  “You ... son of a bitch,” Lupo panted. He strained at his bonds, but the ropes were too tight.

  “There’s no need to take that attitude, simply because you were outsmarted,” Grey said. “These things happen. A man figures the odds as best he can and then makes his play. It just so happens I figured them a bit better than you.”

  “You ... set me up. You planned all along ... to double-cross me.”

  “Of course. And as a matter of fact, we made an excellent team while it lasted. You’re a very good bank robber, Quint. But the reward for you is high enough now that you’re more valuable to me in other ways.”

  “How do you plan on collecting?” Lupo asked. He didn’t really care all that much how Grey was going to work the scheme, but the longer he kept the man talking, were a few more minutes of life he could cling to. Maybe a miracle would happen. “You can’t turn me in. I’d tell the law all about you.”

  Grey smiled and spread his hands. “Well, of course you would,” he agreed. “That goes without saying.”

  “So you have to kill me.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “How will you collect the reward? You’re an outlaw, too.”

  “Ah, but no one knows that,” Grey said smugly. “I could ride into the nearest town with your body and claim the reward myself, and no one would ever be the wiser. But that might make the authorities curious about me, and I’d prefer they remain completely unaware of my existence. The same goes for Brattle here.”

  Lupo’s gaze darted toward Murrell. “But this man—”

  “He’s a bounty hunter,” Grey finished for him. “The law is already quite familiar with him, and no one will think twice when he brings in the body of a fugitive wanted for murder, bank robbery, and breaking out of prison.”

  Lupo felt like crying. But he hadn’t shed tears in more than forty years and he was damned if he was going to start.

  But he was damned no matter what he did, he thought. He sighed. “Get it over with.”

  “What? You’re not going to beg for your life?”

  Lupo lunged up off the floor as best he could with his hands tied behind him. It wasn’t much.

  “Damn you to hell, Grey! Don’t taunt me! If you’re going to kill me, go ahead and kill me!”

  Grey took out a cigar and put it in his mouth without lighting it. He said around the cigar, “You might as well oblige him, Angus.”

  Murrell drew the black Colt on his hip and pulled back the hammer. Lupo wanted to glare furiously at the killer, but he couldn’t do it. He closed his eyes instead and whispered, “I’m sorry, Katie.”

  Grey said, “Wait, what did he—”

  Murrell’s finger had already tightened on the trigger. The gun roared like thunder, echoing in the old barn. Even with his eyes squeezed shut, Lupo saw an explosion of red, then ... nothing.

  No miracles tonight.

  Chapter 8

  San Antonio

  “Let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” Kid Morgan said. “You want to send me to prison.”

  Captain John R. Hughes looked solemnly across the desk at him and nodded. “That’s right, Mr. Morgan.”

  “No offense, Captain, but you’ve gone loco!”

  Culhane shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He and The Kid were sitting in front of Hughes’s desk.

  “No, sir, I’m completely serious.” The grave look on Hughes’s rugged, mustachioed face confirmed his statement.

  Culhane had explained to The Kid that Captain Hughes was the commander of Company D, Texas Rangers, part of the famous Frontier Battalion that had brought law and order to so much of the far-flung state. They were sitting in Hughes’s office in the adobe building that housed the Battalion’s headquarters.

  “Maybe you don’t understand, Kid,” Culhane said.

  “Oh, I understand, all right,” The Kid said. “It’s pretty plain. You want to send me to prison so I can get shot in the head.”

  “That’s what happened to Quint Lupo,” Hughes said. “The idea is to keep it from happening to anybody else, and to round up the outlaws behind the scheme.”

  “You don’t know there actually is a scheme. You said the reason that fella Lupo was behind bars to start with was because he was a bank robber.”

  “And a good one,” Hughes said with a nod. “Or maybe I should say a talented one. I’m not sure there is such a thing as a good bank robber.”

  The Kid wanted to get up and walk out of the captain’s office. He wished he hadn’t let Culhane talk him into going there in the first place.

  But now that he was, he didn’t want to get Culhane in trouble with the boss Ranger, so he said, “All right. I’ll hear you out, Captain. But I’ve got a special dislike for the idea of going to prison ... especially when I haven’t done anything to deserve it!”

  “Yes, I understand. I did some checking into your background after Sergeant Culhane came up with this idea.” Hughes shook his head. “But we’ll get to that. Let me finish filling you in on the facts as we know them.”

  Hughes had already gone over some of it, but The Kid could tell the captain was the sort who liked to be thorough. He nodded. “Go ahead.”

  Hughes glanced down at the documents on his desk. “Five years ago, Quint Lupo was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a term of fifteen years in the state penitentiary on numerous charges of bank and train robbery. The record shows that prior to his arrest, no one was ever killed during the commission of one of his crimes.”

  “We don’t have any evidence to show he ever took a shot at anybody,” Culhane put in.

  The Kid shrugged. “All that tells me is he planned his robberies well enough he didn’t have to shoot anybody.”

  “That’s how it appears,” Hughes agreed. “And except for a few minor scrapes of the sort that occur all the time in prison, he stayed out of trouble while he was at Huntsville ... until he provoked a fight with another convict and wound up in the infirmary.”

  “Which you think was deliberate.”

  “It looks like it,” Culhane said. “That ain’t necessarily the same thing.”

  “While Lupo was in the infirmary, he and three other convicts made an escape attempt,” Hughes went on. “They murdered a guard, a Sergeant Alonzo Flynn, and slightly injured two others. They made it outside the walls of the prison, but were pursued by a guard detail led by Corporal Bert Hagen. The other three convicts were shot down by Hagen and his men, but Lupo gave them the slip and got away in the woods.”

  “Men have broken out of prison before,” The Kid pointed out. As a matter of fact, he was one of them.

  “Yeah, but that ain’t all of it,” Culhane said.

  Hughes shifted around some of the papers on his desk and picked up another document.

  “Lupo dropped out of sight and wasn’t spotted until a couple weeks later, when half a dozen outlaws held up the bank in La Grange. They were all masked except for Lupo, who was recognized by one of the victims. That man wound up being killed when he pursued the robbers outside the bank, but he identified Lupo in the hearing of several other witnesses before the shooting started.”

  The Kid frowned slightly. “Wait a minute. Lupo was the only one who wasn’t wearing a mask?”

  “That’s right. Two men were gunned down during that robbery, and another, the bank president, died of a heart seizure.”

  “That doesn’t sound much like the jobs Lupo pulled before.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Hughes said.

  Culhane put in, “When Rangers questioned some of the folks who were in the bank the day of the holdup, they said Lupo wa
sn’t the one who killed those fellas. He waved a gun around, but he didn’t shoot.”

  The Kid had to admit this was getting more interesting, even though he was still reluctant to get involved. He scratched his jaw. “All right, go on.”

  “Over the next couple months, Lupo turned up at several more robberies, including stopping a train and looting the express car over by Seguin,” Hughes said. “Three more men were killed in those crimes, and one was wounded.”

  “Did Lupo do any of the shooting?”

  “Not as far as we’ve been able to determine.”

  The Kid leaned back in his chair. “So probably what you’ve got is a fella who didn’t like killing when he started out, but hardened up while he was in prison and threw in with some trigger-happy hombres after he escaped. You could explain it that way.”

  “And no one would doubt it for a second,” Hughes said. “Just like no one lost any sleep over it when a bounty hunter named Angus Murrell brought in Lupo’s body a couple weeks ago. He claimed he’d been trailing the gang and caught up to them while Lupo was away from the other outlaws. Murrell shot and killed him ... and collected the fifteen thousand dollar reward on his head.”

  The Kid grunted. Fifteen thousand dollars wasn’t much money to Conrad Browning, as he had thought earlier when he was talking to Lace, but it was a mighty big price for an outlaw. “Bounty hunters bring in fugitives all the time,” he said, thinking about her again. “There’s nothing unusual about that.”

  “No, and this man Murrell is well-known to the authorities. Lupo wasn’t the first wanted man he’d brought in, not by a long shot.”

  “So what makes Lupo’s case different?” The Kid wanted to know.

  Hughes smiled slightly. “It’s not the differences but the similarities. Six months ago, Angus Murrell brought in the body of an outlaw named Henry Bedford. A few months before that, Bedford escaped from the penitentiary where he was serving a term for several bank holdups.”

  The Kid sat forward, intrigued despite himself. “Let me guess. After breaking out, Bedford turned up leading a gang of robbers, only they were all masked and he wasn’t.”

  Culhane slapped a hand against his thigh. “Dadgummit, Cap’n, I told you this young fella was smart!”

  Hughes nodded. “You’re right, Mr. Morgan. That’s exactly what happened. Then Murrell tracked Bedford down and killed him, earning himself ten thousand dollars bounty in the process.”

  “Is there more?” The Kid asked.

  “One more case. Last year another bank robber named Lew Tolbert escaped from prison and took part in another series of holdups in which he was positively identified. Eventually Murrell brought his body in and claimed an eight thousand dollar reward for him.”

  “The payoff’s going up every time,” The Kid murmured.

  “That’s right. So you can see where all this is leading us, Mr. Morgan.”

  “It’s not leading to me volunteering to go to prison, that’s for sure,” The Kid said. “I had enough of that over in New Mexico Territory.”

  Hughes tapped a finger against another document on his desk. “Yes, I’ve got a report here about how you were locked up in Hellgate Prison because of a case of mistaken identity. You were identified as an outlaw named ... Bledsoe, was it?”

  “Ben Bledsoe,” The Kid said. “Bloody Ben, they called him, and he deserved the name.”

  “That matter was cleared up. There are no charges against you in New Mexico Territory or anywhere else.”

  “Maybe not, but I spent more than enough time behind bars in that hellhole. I’m not anxious to go back.”

  “Huntsville ain’t like that Hellgate place,” Culhane said.

  “But it’s still a prison.”

  Neither of the Rangers could argue with that statement.

  After a moment, Hughes cleared his throat and went on. “It’s our belief there’s an organized gang breaking these men out of prison, forcing them to take part in bank robberies, and then killing them for the bounty once the price on their heads has gone up enough to make it profitable. In order to do that they’d have to be working with someone inside the prison. We want to put our hands on whoever that is, as well as the mastermind who’s orchestrating the whole thing.”

  “You don’t have any proof that theory’s even right,” The Kid said.

  “No, we don’t,” Hughes admitted. “But that’s where you come in.”

  The Kid started to get up. “No, that’s where I go out. I think you may be on to something, Captain, I have to admit that, but the plan’s still loco.”

  “It could work,” Hughes said quickly, trying to keep The Kid from leaving. “We can’t put a Ranger in there, because there’s too much of a chance one of the convicts would recognize him. But you’re not a lawman, Mr. Morgan, and you haven’t spent that much time in Texas. You could get away with it.”

  “I’m not an outlaw, either,” The Kid said.

  “No, but Waco Keene is.”

  Taken by surprise, The Kid eased back down into his chair. “Who in blazes is Waco Keene?”

  “You are, if you agree to help us,” Hughes said.

  “He ain’t real,” Culhane added. “Or rather, he was, but he’s dead now. Deputy sheriff up in Comanche County killed him the other day when he tried to rob a store in Gustine. Thing is, not many folks know about it yet.”

  “So he was a bank robber,” The Kid said.

  Hughes said, “Not exactly. He and three other men stopped and held up half a dozen trains in various places around Central Texas. The other members of the gang were killed last week when a posse caught up to them. Keene got away, but he had been dodging the law on his own ever since and was pretty desperate. He tried to shoot it out with that deputy sheriff and lost.”

  “I suppose I happen to look like him?” The Kid asked.

  “No, not at all,” the captain said. “He was a scrawny little fella with dark hair, not a big strapping hombre like you. But that doesn’t matter. As far as anybody inside the walls at Huntsville would know, you’d be him. Nobody he ever rode with is locked up there.”

  “As far as you know.”

  Hughes shrugged and nodded.

  “As far as we know. The plan certainly wouldn’t be without its risks.”

  “And I’d be the one running them. No thanks.”

  The Kid put his hands on the arms of the chair and pushed himself to his feet.

  “Mr. Morgan, I can’t order you to do this—”

  “You certainly can’t.”

  “But from what I know of you, you’re the best man for the job. You stand a better chance than anyone else of getting on the inside of this gang and helping us bring them to justice.”

  “I’m sorry, Captain,” The Kid said. “I mean that. But I have no interest in going back to prison, for any reason.”

  Culhane started to say something, but Hughes lifted a hand to stop him. “It’s all right, Sergeant. Mr. Morgan certainly has every right to refuse.” Hughes stood and extended his hand across the desk. “Thank you for coming in and hearing me out.”

  The Kid shook hands with him. “I hope you find somebody who works out better than I did.”

  Culhane followed The Kid out of the office, and as soon as the door was closed behind them, he said, “Dang it, Kid—”

  “There’s no point in arguing with me, Asa. My mind’s made up.” The Kid paused. “You can satisfy my curiosity about something, though.”

  “I ain’t sure I want to,” Culhane said with a frown. “But what is it?”

  “If you and the captain are right about there being some sort of mastermind behind this, it’s a pretty complicated scheme. A lot of things would have to go just right to make it work. But if they did, it would be really hard to detect. What made you suspicious about it in the first place? It’s not the sort of thing that would jump out at anybody.”

  “Are you sayin’ we’re too dumb to have figured it out our own selves?”

  “No, I’m saying
you wouldn’t have had any reason to think about it if somebody hadn’t tipped you off.”

  “Well, that’s true, I reckon. Somebody did just about talk my ear off, and then the cap’n’s ear, too, tryin’ to convince us she was right about it.”

  “She?” The Kid repeated.

  “That’s right. You see, Quint Lupo had a daughter. Katherine’s her name, and she’s plumb convinced her old bank-robbin’ pa was murdered.”

  Chapter 9

  By the time he got back to the Menger Hotel, The Kid hadn’t changed his mind about accepting Captain Hughes’s proposition, despite what Culhane had told him about Quint Lupo’s daughter being convinced her father had reformed while he was in prison. What daughter wouldn’t want to believe that about her father?

  The idea of voluntarily going back to prison just wasn’t acceptable to him. As he walked up the stairs to his room, The Kid recalled how a few years earlier his own father, Frank Morgan, had wound up pretending to be a prisoner in Yuma Territorial Prison, out in Arizona, in a deadly charade designed to find out the location of a cache of stolen bank money.

  That memory made The Kid feel a twinge of guilt. Frank had taken on that dangerous job as a favor to him. Conrad Browning owned a substantial stake in that looted bank.

  It didn’t matter, he told himself. He hadn’t known Quint Lupo, and he didn’t know anybody in La Grange or any of the other places where Lupo’s alleged gang had robbed a bank. He certainly didn’t know Lupo’s daughter Katherine.

  He unlocked the door of the room and went in, calling to Lace, “I’m back.”

  Then he stopped short just inside the door. Lace was gone and so were her things.

  The Kid bit back a curse as he whirled around. He should have been expecting it, he told himself bitterly. He should have known better than to think once her mind was made up she would stay around any longer than she had to. She wouldn’t want to give him a chance to talk her out of lighting a shuck for Del Rio and that fugitive she was after.

  He hurried down the stairs and crossed the lobby with long strides. “Have you seen Miss McCall?” he demanded of the clerk at the desk.