The Loner: The Big Gundown

by J. A. Johnstone

  “We had just started forward to look for you,” Sheffield said.

  “Are you all right?” Glory put in.

  Morgan nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Scratched up a little from crawling around under the train, that’s all.”

  Glory’s eyes widened. “Under the train? What if it had started up again?”

  “I’d have been out of luck,” Morgan said, although it was possible he could have stayed where he was and let the train pass over him. As soon as it cleared him, though, he would have been an easy target for the outlaw riflemen on the bluffs.

  He leaned out a window and saw that the gap was well behind them. The train was out of effective range of the cannon and well out of range of the rifles. By now the outlaws might be mounted up and coming after them on horseback, but Morgan didn’t see any dust to indicate that. More than likely, since the ambush had failed, the gang had given up on stopping the train…at least for now.

  The blue-uniformed conductor crowded onto the platform behind Sheffield and Glory. “Does anybody know what’s going on?” he asked with a note of panic in his voice.

  “Your engineer’s dead,” Morgan told him. “The fireman’s at the controls. You’d better get somebody up there to shovel some coal for him. He’s wounded, so he can’t do that job.”

  The conductor jerked his head in a nod. “I’ll get up there myself, right now. We don’t want to start losing steam. Those bushwhackers might try to come after us.”

  “Even though their ambush failed?” Sheffield asked.

  “They were bold enough to attack a train with a cannon,” Morgan pointed out. “Maybe we’d better not underestimate them.”

  The conductor hurried off toward the front of the train. Glory said, “I never heard of such a thing. It’s like those outlaws are at war with the railroad.”

  “That’s one more reason I’m convinced Gideon Black is behind this,” Sheffield snapped. “These attacks are being carried out like military operations, and he’s got the knowledge to do so.”

  Morgan looked behind the train again and spotted the buckskin galloping after it. The horse couldn’t keep up, and was falling farther behind as the train continued to climb into the Dragoon Mountains. Morgan grimaced. He didn’t want to lose the buckskin. The horse had been a fine saddle mount.

  At that moment, the train began to slow, either because the flames in the firebox had died down and it was losing steam, or because a curve was coming up. Either way, Morgan didn’t care. He seized the opportunity as the train’s speed fell off to a crawl.

  “I’ll see you in Titusville,” he told Sheffield.

  “Wait a minute,” the tycoon said. “Where are you—Morgan!”

  It was too late. Morgan had already clattered down the iron steps attached to the platform on the rear of the caboose and swung off, landing in a run on the ground. His momentum kept him going for several steps before he came to a stop.

  Sheffield glared at him as the train continued to pull away. Glory stood beside her husband with a look of concern on her face. Morgan lifted a hand in farewell to both of them. Then he turned and let out a shrill whistle, calling the buckskin to him.

  The horse trotted up to him, then stood there trembling a little, worn out from the effort of trying to keep up with the train. Morgan patted the animal on the shoulder and then took hold of the reins. He couldn’t ride the buckskin until the horse had had a chance to rest. He slid the Winchester back in its saddle sheath, then started walking along the tracks, leading the buckskin.

  Morgan hoped those outlaws weren’t pursuing the train. If he had to make a run for it now, he’d be out of luck. The buckskin couldn’t gallop another half mile without collapsing.

  Luckily, the sky remained clear of dust behind him. Once the train was out of sight, he was alone in the foothills of the Dragoons.

  The walk gave him some time to think. Sheffield was right. The outlaws use of the cannon pointed straight to Colonel Gideon Black. Throw in the connection with the raid on the Williams ranch, and that was more than enough proof for Morgan. The ex-colonel was the man he was looking for.

  Finding Black might not be that easy. Morgan wasn’t convinced that accepting Sheffield’s offer would do any good. A posse of hired guns could tramp around those mountains for weeks without finding any sign of the outlaws. It was easier to avoid a large group of men like that than it was to throw one man off the trail.

  The problem was, what could one man do against two dozen outlaws who had gotten their hands on a cannon, for God’s sake?

  He wasn’t any closer to an answer to that question when he came in sight of Titusville a couple hours later. He had walked for half an hour to let the buckskin rest, then mounted up and ridden at a slow but steady pace for another hour and a half, following the railroad tracks. That brought him to the settlement, which was tucked into a shallow valley that came to a dead end against the slope of a mountain. Part of the way up the face of that mountain, Morgan saw a number of buildings scattered around a large, dark opening in the face of the earth. That would be the Gloriana Mine, he thought, the source—or rather, one of the sources—of Edward Sheffield’s wealth and power.

  The damaged train sat at the depot. The engine had been uncoupled and pulled into a roundhouse, where it was turned around and then run back out onto a siding. Men were already working on it, trying to repair the damaged cowcatcher.

  Morgan reined to a halt beside the locomotive and asked one of the men working on it, “Do you know where I can find Mr. Sheffield?”

  “I expect he’s down at the mining company office.” The man pointed along the street. “That is, if he’s not off somewhere chewin’ nails. I never seen the boss so mad.”

  Morgan nodded his thanks. He wasn’t surprised to hear that Sheffield was still upset.

  He rode along the street until he came to a red brick building with a sign on it proclaiming it to be the headquarters of the Sheffield Mining Corporation. He dismounted and left the buckskin at the hitch rack in front of the building.

  When he went inside, he planned to ask one of the workers if Sheffield was there, but he didn’t have to. He heard the tycoon’s angry voice coming through an open door behind several desks.

  “—absolutely nothing!” Sheffield was saying. “Your men were worthless, Bateman, and that means that you’re worthless to me!”

  Morgan headed toward that door. A man who had been sitting at one of the desks got up quickly and moved in front of him. The fellow was tall and slender, in shirtsleeves, vest, and string tie. He said, “Hold on a minute, mister. Can I help you?”

  Morgan nodded toward the door and said, “I’m looking for Sheffield.”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Sheffield is busy right now—”

  Morgan stepped around the man. “Sorry. I have to see him.”

  “Wait! You just can’t—”

  Sheffield appeared in the open door. “Morgan!” he said. “I thought I heard your voice out here. I was beginning to worry that those outlaws had caught up to you.” He turned to look over his shoulder. “Step out here, Bateman. I want you to meet the only man who actually accomplished anything when those outlaws attacked the train.”

  A man in a brown suit followed Sheffield out of the inner office. He wore a flat-crowned brown hat, and long blond hair fell around his shoulders. Dressed like that, with the long hair, the man bore a faint resemblance to the famous Wild Bill Hickok, and Morgan had a hunch the hombre knew that and tried to play it up to his advantage. The man also wore a pair of ivory-handled Colts.

  And at the moment, the anger in his eyes made it clear that he would like nothing better than to pull both of those irons and fill Morgan full of lead.

  Chapter 19

  “I told you, we’ll run those bandits to ground, Mr. Sheffield, if you’ll let us,” the man said. “So far, you’ve just had us guarding the trains.”

  Sheffield snorted. “And a fine job your men did of that today.”

  “It would have been d
ifferent if I’d been there.”

  Sheffield looked like he didn’t believe that. “This is Kid Morgan,” he said. “I’ve asked him to take over and lead the effort to find Colonel Black and his men.”

  “Morgan, huh?” The long-haired man gave Morgan a cool, appraising stare and clearly didn’t like what he saw. “I reckon I’ve heard of him.” He spoke directly to Morgan. “And I reckon you’ve probably heard of me. I’m Phil Bateman.”

  Slowly, Morgan shook his head. “Nope. Can’t say as I have.”

  A flush crept over Bateman’s face as his scowl deepened. As he stepped past Sheffield, his hands hovered over the butts of his guns. “Maybe I ought to show you why you should have,” he said, his lips curling in a snarl.

  Sheffield snapped, “Damn it, Bateman, stop that. I want you and Morgan to work together, not kill each other.”

  “I never agreed to work for you,” Morgan said.

  Sheffield frowned at him. “Now, listen, if it’s a matter of money—”

  “It’s not.” Morgan had made up his mind. “I just don’t want the job.”

  He didn’t bother explaining to Sheffield that his answer didn’t mean he wasn’t going after Colonel Black. He had his own reasons for trying to put a stop to the renegade colonel’s activities. He had a score to settle for the friends he had lost, and he thought his chances of doing that would be better alone—even with the odds he’d be facing—rather than trying to deal with a stiff-necked hard case like Bateman and a bunch of other hired guns.

  Sheffield glared at Morgan. He was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted, and he didn’t like it when anyone told him no. He began to sputter, “Blast it, Morgan, you saw that those bastards are capable of—”

  “That’s right,” Morgan said, “I did. That’s why I don’t want any part of going after them.”

  Bateman gave a contemptuous laugh. “This is the famous gunfighter you were gonna hire, Mr. Sheffield? First of all, he ain’t all that famous, and second, he sounds like a damn coward to me!”

  Morgan knew good and well that Bateman was trying to prod him into a fight. Sheffield’s words had stung his pride, and Bateman intended to heal it by proving that he was faster on the draw than Kid Morgan.

  One advantage Morgan had was that he didn’t give a damn whether he was faster than Bateman. He felt fairly confident that he was, but he didn’t intend to find out. He wasn’t going to risk getting killed before he could settle the score with Colonel Black for what had happened at the Williams ranch.

  Sheffield glanced back and forth between the two of them. Judging by the look on his face, he was nervous about the possibility of gunplay breaking out—with him maybe caught in the middle.

  Then a woman behind Morgan said, “What’s going on here?”

  Morgan knew the voice belonged to Glory Sheffield. Her husband looked past Morgan at her and said, “Damn it, Gloriana, I told you to stay at the hotel.”

  “I would have, but you were over here such a long time, dear.”

  Glory moved around the men so that she could see Morgan and Bateman—and so they could see her. She sensed the tension in the room, as did the men who’d been working at the desks. They looked almost as nervous as Sheffield. The clerk who had tried to stop Morgan from going into the inner office had backed off and now stood beside his desk, toying with the inkwell as he watched the confrontation between Morgan and Bateman.

  Morgan didn’t take his attention off Bateman, but from the corner of his eye he saw the way Glory’s breasts began to rise and fall faster. A flush crept over her face. He realized that she was excited by the danger that was in the air. A part of her probably wanted Morgan and Bateman to slap leather.

  Morgan wasn’t going to let that happen. When Bateman demanded belligerently, “Well, Morgan? Did you hear what I said?” He just smiled faintly.

  “I heard you. Think whatever you want, Bateman. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  “So you admit that you’re a yellow, spineless coward?”

  “I admit that I don’t care what somebody like you thinks.”

  The flat, simple words were so scathing in their dismissal that once again Bateman looked like he was about to reach for his guns. If his hands moved a little more, Morgan was ready to draw. Even though his stance appeared casual, every nerve in his body was taut. He planned to kill Bateman just as quickly as he could, in hopes that the gunman wouldn’t get off a shot that might hit an innocent bystander, like one of the clerks—or Glory Sheffield.

  “Ah, the hell with it,” Bateman muttered abruptly. “I’m not gonna waste a bullet on you, Morgan.” He moved his hands away from the ivory-handled gun butts and turned to Sheffield. “Give me the word, Mr. Sheffield, and the boys and I will go out and hunt down those outlaws for you.”

  Sheffield’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “All right, Bateman, I don’t suppose I have any choice. Find that renegade, Colonel Black.”

  “And kill him?” Bateman couldn’t quite keep the bloodthirsty eagerness out of his voice.

  “Whatever it takes to make sure he leaves my trains alone,” Sheffield said. He walked over to his wife and took hold of her arm. “We’re going back to the hotel.”

  She pulled loose from his grip, not roughly but firmly. “There’s no need to manhandle me, Edward,” she said in an icy tone. “I was hoping to look around Titusville. I haven’t been here before, you know.”

  “There’s nothing to see. It’s just a town.”

  She smiled. “I noticed a great many saloons and similar establishments.”

  “None of which are suitable places for you to visit.” Sheffield looked at Bateman. “What are you waiting for? There’s still time enough for you to go out there where those outlaws ambushed us and try to pick up their trail.”

  Bateman nodded. “Yes, sir. Hadn’t I better leave some men here to ride guard on the train when it goes back to Bisbee?”

  Sheffield looked at Morgan. “Are you going back to Bisbee on the train, Morgan? It ought to be repaired and ready to roll again tomorrow.”

  Morgan shook his head. “No, I think I’ll stay up here for a while. I’d sort of like to look around the town, too.”

  “See?” Glory said with a triumphant smile at her husband. “I’m not the only one.” She stepped over to Morgan and slid her arm around his. “Maybe we should explore Titusville together.”

  Morgan’s jaw tightened. He hadn’t expected such scandalous behavior from Glory, but maybe he should have known better, considering what he had seen of her actions so far. She clearly liked goading her husband and flirting with other men as much as she could. He thought about disengaging his arm from hers, but that might just make her more determined to get her way.

  “Do what you like,” Sheffield snapped. “You always do, anyway. And as long as you’re with Morgan, at least I’ll know that you’re safe from the roughnecks around here.” He turned back to Bateman. “Yes, leave some men to guard the train tomorrow, since Morgan won’t be on it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bateman didn’t like the implication that Morgan alone would do a better job of protecting the train than his men could. He stalked out of the office, but not before glaring one last time at Morgan.

  When Bateman was gone, Glory urged Morgan toward the door. “Come with me, Kid,” she said. “I want to see this place.”

  “I still have work to do,” Sheffield said. “I’ll be here at the office for a while.”

  “That’s fine, dear.” The offhanded way Glory spoke made it clear she didn’t care where her husband was or how he was spending his time. A little muscle jumped in Sheffield’s jaw as he nodded and turned to go back into the inner office.

  With arms linked, Morgan and Glory left the building that housed the mining corporation. “What would you like to look at first?” she asked. “A saloon? A brothel?”

  “You’re trying to shock me,” Morgan drawled. “It’s not going to work.”

  “Are you saying that you can’t be shocked, Ki
d?”

  “Nope.”

  “But it would take more than me to do it, is that right?” She gave him a speculative look. “We’ll see about that.”

  Morgan managed not to sigh in exasperation. “Let’s walk over to the general store,” he suggested. “I need a new hat.”

  “I’d noticed that yours was gone. What happened to it?”

  “I lost it while I was crawling around under the train. I imagine it’s blowing around somewhere out there on the edge of the foothills now.”

  “Well, I’ll be glad to help you pick out another one.”

  He hadn’t asked her to help him pick out a new hat, he thought, but he refrained from pointing that out to her.

  Morgan spotted a large building across the street with TITUSVILLE MERCANTILE painted on the sign that hung above its doors. He and Glory started toward it. Morgan was aware that a lot of the men on the boardwalks and in the dusty street stared at Glory with undisguised lust. She was probably the most stunning woman who had ever set foot in the settlement. He was sure that she was aware of the attention, too, and was probably enjoying every minute of it.

  She could stir up a lot of trouble if she stayed in a rough-and-tumble place for very long, he thought. It would be a good idea if Sheffield got her back to Bisbee on that train tomorrow.

  But that was Sheffield’s business, not his, Morgan told himself.

  They stepped onto the boardwalk and went into the mercantile. Morgan spotted several hats hung on pegs next to a window and went over to examine them. Since Glory still had her arm linked with his, she went with him.

  Morgan reached for a broad-brimmed brown Stetson similar to the one he had lost under the train. Before he could take it off the peg, Glory said, “No, not that one. It doesn’t go with that suit at all.”