Frank shook his head and grimaced at the doctor’s dry and very macabre sense of humor. “For sure, Doc, the undertaker ought to have quite a collection of guns and saddles and boots by now.”
A group of local men began gathering around, staring at the bodies. One said, “I’m gettin’ mighty tired of gunplay in our streets.”
Doc Everett glanced at him and replied, “Jim, did anybody ever tell you that you are sometimes a real pain in the ass?”
“Who stuck a bee down your drawers, Doc?” the local asked. “Hell, I ain’t said nothin’ but the truth.”
Doc Everett frowned but made no reply.
“I’m going,” Frank said.
“Good,” someone in the gathering crowd of men and a few women muttered.
“Are you all right, Frank?” Doc Everett asked. “You’re not hit?”
“No. I’m fine. I’ll see you men.”
Frank pushed his way through the crowd and walked to his horse. He rode out of town, very conscious of the many eyes on him from the people gathered on both sides of the street. They were standing silently, staring at him.
* * *
Frank got the saddle pack for the packhorse out of the barn and inspected the rigging. It looked all right. Dog sat on the ground, looking up at him and wagging his tail in anticipation. Frank smiled at the dog’s actions.
“You’re ready to travel, aren’t you, boy?”
Dog barked excitedly.
“All right, all right. A couple more days and we’ll pull out. That’s a promise.”
Frank lit lamps in the house, for the rooms were dark due to the many boarded-up windows. He fixed his bedroll, tied it tight, and packed his saddlebags. He packed his gear for traveling without any real sense of regret, for he was ready to put the valley behind him. More than ready really.
When he was finished, he looked around the house, checking for anything he might have missed. The only articles that were left were those that would go into his packsaddle. And not many of those.
“We’re just about all set, Dog,” he said. “Not much more to do. But we’re going to find us a real home one of these days. I promise you that.” Someday, Frank silently added. Somewhere, I hope.
Back in the kitchen, Frank pumped a big pot of water for coffee and set it on the stove. He looked around. He would leave the dishes and most of the pots and pans for the kids.
“I wonder if I’ll ever see this place again,” he murmured. “And do I give a damn whether I do or not?”
He decided he didn’t.
The coffee was ready, so Frank fixed a mug and went outside to sit in his rocking chair on the porch. He sipped his strong coffee and smoked a cigarette.
Dog lay down beside the rocking chair.
“We almost made it here, Dog,” Frank said. “We came close. But I think in the future what we need to look for is a place about twenty-five or so miles from the nearest town, and don’t make any friends. Don’t get close to anyone. I think that’s the trick. That’s what we’ll do. We’ll look for a small ranch where I can raise horses and run a few head of cattle. And mind my own affairs and stay the hell out of everybody else’s business.”
That’s not asking too much, is it? Frank silently questioned.
Is it?
THIRTY
“Where are you going, boy?” Colonel Trainor asked, sitting on the front porch, drinking a cup of coffee and enjoying the cool of early morning.
Jules never stopped walking across the front porch of the mansion. “What do you care? I’m nothin’ to you.”
“I asked you a question! Don’t get smart-mouthed with me. Answer me!”
Jules did not reply. He walked straight to the barn, saddled a horse, and rode out of the compound.
“Hell with you then,” Trainor muttered. “Good-for-nothing yellow little pup.”
Jules headed for the town of Heaven. He’d by God show his father he wasn’t yellow. He’d ride straight into that damn town and shoot it up, maybe kill him some local yokels. Yeah, that was a good idea. The doctor, the banker, and maybe that damn lawyer, Foster. That would get his father’s attention for a fact.
Frank had ridden into town to get a slab of bacon for the trail. He had everything else he needed, and had made up his mind he was pulling out the next morning. He’d say his good-byes in town, then ride out to say good-bye to the kids and Julie, and that would be it. He’d shake the dust of this area off him. He’d already given the Appaloosa to Phil.
Colonel Trainor had changed his mind about Jules, and he and a crowd of hired guns had ridden after him. The boy might be a coward, but he was still a Trainor.
It was nine o’clock in the morning when Jules rode into town. Frank was in the general store. Doc Everett was having coffee in the cafe. John Simmons was at his desk in the bank. Lawyer Foster was standing outside his office, chatting with a friend. The druggist, Sam Bickman, was mixing some medicine for a customer. Reverend Philpot was lumbering along the boardwalk, savoring the thoughts of the horrible punishment that awaited sinners and the wondrous joys of those he had shown the way to salvation. Julie had just rolled up in a buckboard and was going over her list of things she had to buy in town.
“What is that crazy Jules Trainor doing in town?” the clerk asked, looking out the window.
Frank instantly tensed as Jules dismounted and tied up at a hitch rail. He stepped up onto the boardwalk just as Reverend Philpot came ambling along, rattling the boards and shaking windows as he walked.
Jules walked right into the more-than-ample preacher. It didn’t move Philpot an inch, but the impact almost knocked Jules off the boardwalk.
“Watch where you’re goin,’ you big fat tub of crap!” Jules snarled at the preacher.
“Watch your mouth, young man,” Philpot thundered. “You are speaking to a man of the cloth.”
“Go to hell, fat man,” Jules said, and started to walk on.
Philpot grabbed the young man by the arm and spun him around. “You need a good thrashing!” he shouted.
Jules jerked free of the man’s grasp. Cursing loudly, he gave Philpot a hard shove. The push sent the preacher stumbling backward. Philpot lost his balance and went crashing through a store window.
“Good Lord!” the store owner shouted as several women customers started screaming in fright.
Philpot struggled to get his weight up off the floor, all tangled in piles of men’s long-handled underwear, britches, and shirts. “Help!” he hollered. “Somebody help me!”
Jules looked in through the broken window. “I ought to shoot you, you fat pile of horse crap!” he yelled. “By God, I think I will!” He jerked one .45 out of leather and banged off a shot, the bullet gouging out a hole in the floor next to Philpot’s ample rear end.
Philpot was off the floor as fast as greased lightning. The customers would all later recall they had never seen the preacher move that fast.
“Wahoo!” Jules shouted, and banged off another shot. The bullet ripped through the floor between Philpot’s feet, and the preacher started picking them up and putting them down. Huffing and puffing like a locomotive with a full head of steam, Philpot charged through the store, several steps ahead of the store owner and the customers. He was out the back door in two blinks of an eye.
Jules turned and put a shot into the barber pole across the street. The red-and-white striped pole began spinning wildly. The barber and the man in the chair both hit the floor.
Yelling like a wild man, Jules walked out into the middle of the street, both hands filled with .45s, and started shooting. Julie fell out of the buckboard and landed on her rear end in the street. She scrambled under the buckboard, and managed to get up onto the boardwalk and into the general store. She spotted Frank.
“Do something!” she yelled.
“Do what?” Frank asked. “What do you want me to do: shoot the kid? I thought you wanted me to hang up my guns?”
Jules let another round rip, and the bullet busted out a window and c
langed off a cook pot on a shelf. The store owner hollered and vanished behind a display of canned goods.
Julie gave Frank a very dirty look and dropped to the floor, crouching behind a counter.
Frank walked to the door and took a look out. Jules had walked up the street, cussing and shouting. “You can all get up now,” Frank said.
“Hell with you!” the store owner said. “That damn kid’s crazy.”
Julie crawled to her feet. “Go out there and disarm that person, Frank!”
“Why?” Frank asked. “I’m leaving. The good citizens wanted me out of their town. So I’m pulling out. This is none of my affair.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying that!” Julie said.
“You want me to repeat it?” Frank asked.
“You’re impossible, Frank Morgan!”
“Guess so,” Frank replied with a shrug.
“I see you, Morgan!” Jules yelled. “I’m gonna kill you!”
“Now that makes it my affair,” Frank said. He looked out at Jules. “Boy, put up those guns before you hurt somebody.”
“To hell with you, Morgan. Step out here and face me and I’ll holster them, and then we’ll see who’s the fastest gunhandler.”
“Why don’t I just say: Okay, you win. Would that satisfy you?”
“Huh?” Jules hollered.
Frank sighed, thinking: Jules is sure enough not totin’ a full load in his brain box. “Jules, I don’t want to fight you. Can’t you understand that? I don’t want to have to shoot you. Go on home, boy.”
“You get out here and face me, Morgan. Or I swear I’ll start puttin’ lead in every local in this damn sheep-dip town.”
“And what would that prove, Jules?”
“Huh?”
“Jules, that would just prove that you really are a coward. Nobody but a coward shoots an unarmed man or women or children.”
“I ain’t no damn coward, Morgan!” Jules screamed.
Frank looked over at the shopkeeper, who was peeking over the counter. “Tell me, why doesn’t someone in this town knock his legs out from under him with a shotgun?”
“How do I know?” the shopkeeper said. “You shoot him. You’re a gunman, aren’t you?”
“I thought it would come to that.”
“Do something, Frank!” Julie said.
“Right. Sure.” Frank sighed. He looked up at the north end of the street just as Colonel Trainor and his crowd of hired guns rode into view. “Here comes Jules’s father. Maybe I won’t have to do anything.”
“Jules!” Colonel Trainor hollered. “Put away those guns, boy.”
“Go to hell!” the son told the father.
Trainor walked his horse up the street, stopping about fifty feet from his son. “You’re making a fool of yourself, boy. Somebody’s going to kill you if you don’t stop this right now.”
“Nobody’s gonna kill me!” Jules shouted. “This whole town is scared of me. I got them all buffaloed.”
“Morgan’s in town,” one of the gunfighters called to the colonel. “Yonder’s his horse.”
“Morgan!” Trainor yelled. “Don’t kill my son. The boy is addled some. He needs some help. You hear me?”
“I ain’t neither addled!” Jules screamed. “You get out here, Morgan, and face me like a man. I want this thing settled ’tween us.”
“There is nothing between us, Jules,” Frank called. “Not a thing. Listen to your father, boy. Go on back home.”
Jules’s reply to that was to put a round through the window of the store. Julie and the storekeeper hugged the floor.
“That does it, Jules,” Frank called. “I’m coming out.” Frank dropped his hand to the butt of the Peacemaker and slipped it in and out of the holster a couple of times. He knew from long experience the talking was over.
“Then get out here and face me!” Jules shouted.
Frank stepped out of the store onto the boardwalk.
“Kill that bastard!” Colonel Trainor yelled, pointing at Frank.
Frank jumped back into the store just as the dozen mounted gun-handlers opened fire.
THIRTY-ONE
Frank managed to snap off one shot that knocked one hired gun out of the saddle. Then he had to dive behind a counter filled with sewing notions and hug the floor as the main street of town erupted in gunfire.
When there was a few seconds’ lapse in the howling bullets, Frank jumped to his feet and ran to the storeroom, then out the back door. He stood on the loading dock for a moment, then jumped off and headed for the alley.
“Morgan!” The shout came from behind him just as he reached the mouth of the alley.
Frank instantly spun, dropped to one knee, and fired, his bullet hitting the man in the hip and spinning him around. Frank fired again. This time the gunman hit the ground and did not move. Frank ran up the alley, and almost collided with another of the Snake gunhands. Frank jammed his Peacemaker in the man’s belly and let it bang. The man’s mouth opened in shock and pain and his eyes widened. He dropped his gun and sank to his knees. Frank grabbed up the man’s pistol, and eased up to the mouth of the alley just as a shotgun boomed. He looked out and saw that Jules was down in the street, his legs bloody. He couldn’t tell what citizen had found the courage to pick up a gun and join the fight, but he would bet it was either Lawyer Foster, Banker Simmons, or Doc Everett.
“Damn you to hell!” Jules screamed out at the man who’d shot him. “I’ll kill you! I swear I will.”
Frank ran back down the alleyway and circled around, coming out at the far south end of town. He paused for a moment, catching his breath and listening.
“Where is he?” he heard a man shout. “He’s disappeared.”
“Curly’s dead,” another man shouted. “He’s in the alley. Morgan shot him in the belly. Must have been close up ’cause his shirt’s still smokin’.”
“Any sign of Morgan?” a third voice called.
“Not a trace.”
“Find him!” Colonel Trainor screamed. “Find the son of a bitch and kill him.” Then, almost as an afterthought, Trainor said, “And someone drag my idiot son out of the street and carry him over to the doc’s office.”
“You can carry that fool back to Hell!” Doc Everett shouted from his office. “Don’t bring that putrid piece of coyote crap over to me.”
“And kill that damn doctor too!” Trainor shouted.
Doc Everett’s shotgun boomed and a hired gun hollered, more in shock than pain. “He damn near got me that time. Hell with this. I’m outta here, boys. See you.”
“You get back here, you coward!” the colonel hollered.
“Go suck an egg!” the gunhand yelled.
“I’m with you, Lee,” another man yelled. “Let’s get outta here.”
Frank waited at the edge of the main street. Two down, at least, and two leaving. The odds were being cut down.
“Morgan!” a man called. “I’m gone with them other boys. You hear me, Morgan? I’m gettin’ my horse and ridin’ out. Don’t shoot.”
“Poole!” Trainor yelled. “Don’t you quit on me, you yellow bastard!”
“Hell with you,” the hired gun replied. “I’m gone from here.”
Three gone, Frank thought. Come on, boys. The rest of you ride out of here.
“Colonel?” The shout came from across the street from Frank’s location. “This is Bell. Me and Granville is still with you.”
“Good, Bell,” Trainor shouted. “How about you other boys?”
“We’re with you, Colonel,” Frank heard someone shout.
“Who is we?” Trainor called.
“Vance and Meeker.”
“Good men. They’ll be extra money for you after this is over. Anyone else?”
“Barker here, Colonel,” another hired gun called. “I’m with you.”
“All right!” Trainor yelled. “Let’s finish this, men. Get Morgan!”
Frank had listened to the men buy into this life-and-death game. He didn’
t know any of them; had never heard of any of them. He smiled knowingly. The more experienced gun-handlers had all pulled out. They were gone. He shifted positions and chanced a look into the street. Jules apparently was not badly hurt. He had more than likely been hit with a load of bird shot. He had crawled unassisted to the edge of the boardwalk. He had managed to hold on to one of his pistols.
Frank waited, not wanting to give away his position.
“You men in town!” Trainor called. “Stay out of this! This is between me and Morgan. When this is over, I’ll pull back across the line and you can have your goddamned pigs and chickens and potatoes. You have my word on that. And I have never gone back on my word. You all hear me?”
“We hear you, Colonel.” The shout came from the Blue Moon Cafe. “This is Sutton. Now, I can’t talk for everybody, but there’s a half dozen of us in the cafe. We’re out of it. We’ll hold you to your word.”
“Good man,” Trainor yelled. “You won’t regret your decison.”
He’s a good man, all right, Frank thought bitterly. Cowardly bastard. Frank slipped to the rear of the buildings and began his move toward the center of town, pausing when he heard one of the gun-handlers call: “Morgan might have slipped out of the town, Colonel. He ain’t on this side of the street.”
“Then he’s on the other side of the street,” Trainor yelled. “He didn’t leave. Morgan doesn’t run. Check it out.”
Frank heard boot steps behind him. He turned, his Peacemaker raised. The man spotted him, leveled his pistol, and opened his mouth to yell.
Frank drilled him in the belly. Then he stepped up to the man and kicked his pistol away.
“Who is that?” someone yelled.
“Barker’s over on the other side. Barker? You hear me? Answer me, Barker!”
Barker groaned.
“I don’t hear nothin’.”
“I think he’s been hit.”
“Check it out,” Trainor called.
“Too dangerous,” a man called.
“Damn you!” Trainor shouted. “I said check it out. You work for me, you do what I tell you to do.”
“Then I don’t work for you no more.”
“What’s your name?”
The Forbidden Page 20
