The Loner: The Big Gundown

by J. A. Johnstone

  “I’ll probably have to get a new suit, too,” Morgan pointed out. “The coat got pretty torn up while I was crawling around on that roadbed.”

  Glory picked up one of the other hats. “This is the one you need. Try it on.”

  Morgan turned the hat over in his hands. It was black, with a slightly smaller brim, and the band around the crown was studded with silver conchos. Holding it in one hand, he settled it on his head, then looked at Glory and asked, “What do you think?”

  “It’s perfect,” she told him. “Very handsome. You should get it.”

  “I don’t know how much it costs yet.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. Edward owns this store. He owns nearly all the businesses in Titusville.”

  Morgan frowned. “That doesn’t mean I don’t have to pay for the hat. I turned down that job he offered me, you know.”

  “Yes, I know, and I’m still not happy about it. I was hoping we could spend a lot more time together.”

  He might have tried explaining to her that if he had accepted her husband’s offer, he would have been out on the trail of Colonel Black’s gang, not spending time with her. Before he could get into that, however, a man’s voice said in a mocking tone, “Now ain’t that purty?”

  Morgan bit back a sigh and thought, Not again.

  He hoped he wasn’t about to have to kill somebody.

  Chapter 20

  Morgan turned slowly. He had recognized the challenge in the man’s voice and knew the comment was intended to either goad him into a fight or humiliate him. It hadn’t been that long since Phil Bateman had tried the same tactic, and Morgan was getting damned sick and tired of it.

  Two men stood there, hard-bitten hombres with stubbled faces and gaunt cheekbones. They wore range clothes and low-slung guns. One was a few inches taller than the other and had rust-colored hair instead of dirty brown. Those were the only significant differences in their appearance.

  Morgan pegged them as two of the men Sheffield had hired to protect his trains. The men who would now attempt to hunt down Colonel Black’s band of desperados, under Bateman’s leadership.

  It wasn’t very likely they would be successful, Morgan thought. If Black and his men knew the Dragoon Mountains at all, they would be able to give Sheffield’s unofficial posse the slip without much trouble.

  “I reckon Bateman must’ve sent you over here to harass me,” Morgan said.

  “I’m the one talkin’ to you, mister, nobody else,” the one with rust-colored hair said. An ugly grin stretched across his face. “And I say that’s a mighty purty hat. It looks like somethin’ an Eastern dude would wear.”

  Conrad Browning had been one of those Eastern dudes the hard case referred to, but those days were far behind Kid Morgan. He moved to one side to put some distance between him and Glory. He didn’t want her getting hurt if any shooting started. Even as he changed position, though, she sidled after him, as if she didn’t want him to get too far away from her.

  Morgan saw that from the corner of his eye. His jaw tightened. If he had to be blunt about it, he would.

  “Mrs. Sheffield, why don’t you go on over to the other side of the store?” he said.

  Before Glory could say anything or respond to the suggestion, the shorter of the two hard cases snickered. “You sure you want to do that, dude?” he asked. “Maybe the lady should stay where she is to protect you.”

  The other one said, “Yeah, I hear she’s partial to men who ain’t her husband.”

  Morgan heard Glory’s sharp intake of breath. She might not make any bones about the sort of woman she was, but she obviously didn’t enjoy hearing two men such as these gun-wolves talking about it.

  It got worse, though, as the first man said, “You know what I call a woman like that? A slut, pure and simple.”

  The second man laughed. “Then why’s she hangin’ around with some damn Easterner who probably don’t even like women? He looks like a sissy to me.”

  In a low, angry voice, Glory demanded, “Are you going to just stand there and let them say those things about both of us, Mr. Morgan?”

  He noticed that she called him Mr. Morgan again, instead of Kid. But he said, “What do you want me to do, shoot them?”

  “Yes,” Glory said. “I think I’d like that very much.”

  Well, that put it right out there.

  The two men crouched, poising their hands near their guns, and the movement reminded Morgan of coiling snakes. All they needed was the sound of rattles buzzing to warn of imminent danger.

  Everybody in the store knew it, too. There were quite a few customers in the place, and most of them scrambled to get somewhere that they wouldn’t be in the line of fire.

  “How about it, mister? You gonna draw?”

  “Hold on a minute,” Morgan said. “I want to look at this hat. I think you may be right about it.”

  That surprised all of them, including Glory. She said, “What are you doing?”

  Moving slowly so as not to spook them into drawing, Morgan reached up and took off the hat. He stepped closer to the window, as if trying to get a better look at it in the light.

  “What the hell?” one of the gunmen said.

  The next second he yelled a curse as the sunlight slanting in through the window struck the silver conchos on the hatband and reflected right into his eyes, momentarily blinding him. He flung up a hand to block the glare and took an instinctive step back.

  At the same instant, Morgan flicked his wrist and sent the hat flying into the face of the other man. Reflex made him flinch as it came straight at his eyes. Morgan kicked him in the groin. The agony that exploded between the man’s legs made him forget all about trying to get his gun out of its holster. He screeched in pain, clutched at himself as he doubled over, and then collapsed on the store’s plank floor.

  The man Morgan had blinded with the sun’s reflection from the conchos was still weaving around like he hadn’t yet regained his sight. He had his gun in his hand, though, so he was plenty dangerous whether he could see anything or not. Morgan lunged at him, grabbed his wrist, and shoved his arm up just as the man pulled the trigger. The gun roared, but the bullet shot harmlessly into the ceiling.

  Still holding tightly to the man’s wrist with his left hand, Morgan brought his right around in a looping punch that landed cleanly on the hard case’s jaw with enough force behind it to jerk the hombre’s head to the side. Morgan twisted the man’s wrist so hard that bones ground together under the skin. The man grunted in pain as his fingers opened involuntarily, dropping the gun. It thudded to the floor.

  Morgan let go of his wrist and brought that hand up in an uppercut that caught the man under the chin. The man’s head rocked back. Morgan chopped the side of his hand against the man’s exposed throat.

  Gagging and choking and pawing at his throat, the man staggered backward. He blundered into a stack of buckets, tripped and fell, and brought the whole stack crashing down on him. As the hard case struggled to get to his feet, Morgan picked up one of the buckets and brought it down hard on his head. The gunman slumped and sprawled, out cold. His companion lay nearby, curled up in a whimpering ball of pain.

  The whole thing had taken maybe ten ticks of the banjo clock on the wall of the store, behind the counter.

  “My God,” Glory said in an awed voice. “How did you do that? Why did you do that?”

  Morgan shrugged. “Seemed like it would be easier than shooting them, and less dangerous to everybody else in the store, too. Sorry if I disappointed you.” He bent and picked up the hat from the floor. “I think I’m starting to like this hat after all.”

  He put it on again and turned to see Glory glaring at him. She hadn’t liked that comment about disappointing her, he thought. But he knew it was true. She had thought she was about to see the blood and death that had been denied to her earlier in her husband’s office, and a part of her had been looking forward to it.

  Several of the store’s customers
and one of the clerks came forward tentatively to stare curiously at the men on the floor. The clerk glanced at Morgan and said, “I never saw anybody move so fast, mister. I think you could’ve beat ’em both to the draw if you’d wanted to.”

  “Didn’t see any point in getting a lot of blood on the floor,” Morgan said with a shrug. “You might’ve wound up with some bullet holes in the walls you’d have to patch, too.”

  “Or bullet holes in us.”

  “That was a risk, too,” Morgan agreed. “Have you got any law in this town?”

  “Phil Bateman’s the marshal.”

  Morgan grunted. Somehow, that didn’t surprise him. Edward Sheffield pretty much owned Titusville, so it made sense that the local law would be one of Sheffield’s handpicked men. Morgan was a little surprised that the tycoon hadn’t offered him the marshal’s badge as well, when Sheffield was trying to hire him.

  Morgan pointed at the hat on his head. “How much for the hat?”

  “There’s no charge,” Glory said before the clerk could answer. “I told you, Mr. Morgan, my husband owns this store. I’m sure he won’t mind if I give you the hat.”

  “I’d rather pay for it,” Morgan drawled coolly. He took a double eagle out of his pocket and flipped it to the clerk, who deftly plucked the spinning gold piece out of the air without thinking. “Will that cover it?”

  “Uh, yes, sir, I reckon,”—the clerk glanced nervously at Glory—“if Miz Sheffield says it’s all right.”

  She flipped a hand impatiently. “If Mr. Morgan wants to be ungracious, that’s fine with me, I suppose.”

  “I don’t mean any offense,” Morgan said. “I just like to pay my own way and not be beholden to anybody.”

  “Fine,” Glory said again.

  Heavy footsteps from the doorway made Morgan glance in that direction. Phil Bateman came into the store, his hands near the ivory-handled revolvers and a look of expectation on his face, as if he hoped he’d have to use the guns. He came to a stop when he saw the two men lying on the floor near Morgan and Glory, one unconscious, the other obviously not in the mood to cause any more trouble.

  “Somebody on the street told me there was a fight goin’ on in here,” Bateman said. “I should’ve known you were involved in it, Morgan. Trouble just follows you around, don’t it?”

  “It seems to,” Morgan said, his voice as flat and hard as Bateman’s. “I think you knew who was involved, all right, since you sent those two over here after me.”

  Bateman’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

  Morgan nodded toward the two men who had picked the fight. “Are you saying that those men aren’t part of the crew that Sheffield hired to guard the railroad?”

  “I’m sayin’ I never saw those two before in my life,” Bateman declared. “I’ve got better things to do than worry about holdin’ a grudge against you, Morgan. If I decide to settle things between us, you can damn well be sure that I’ll handle it myself, and I’ll come at you from the front.”

  Even though Morgan had been convinced that Bateman was behind the men’s attempt to pick a fight with him, Bateman’s words had the ring of truth. Bateman was the sort of man who clearly rated his own prowess with a gun quite highly, and maybe his pride would stand in the way of sending anybody else after Morgan. Morgan hadn’t considered that angle of it before.

  He decided that he believed what Bateman had just told him. He jerked his head in a curt nod and said, “Fine. But that leaves a question unanswered.” He gestured toward the two men. “Who are they?”

  “A couple of hombres who just naturally didn’t like you?” Bateman gave a humorless laugh. “I can sure understand that feeling.”

  “Maybe so.”

  Morgan didn’t fully believe it, though. His gut told him there was more to it than just a couple of hard cases trying to harass a man they had pegged as an Easterner, a suitable target for that sort of hoorawing. He would have to get to the bottom of it, otherwise he risked having someone send more men after him.

  “I understand you’re the local marshal, too,” Morgan went on. “What are you going to do with those two?”

  “We have a little one-cell jail. I’ll deputize a couple of miners to drag them over there and throw them in it. They can cool their heels there until I get back. The justice of the peace can hear their case then.”

  Morgan knew Bateman meant until he got back from trying to track down Colonel Black’s gang. That might take a while, he thought. The prisoners could be in for a long stay in jail.

  “What if I don’t press charges against them?”

  Bateman shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. They still disturbed the peace. For that matter, so did you. From the looks of it, their peace got disturbed real good.”

  “I just defended myself and the lady,” Morgan snapped.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna lock you up. But I reckon it’d be a good idea if you didn’t linger around town, Morgan. There’s nothing here for you.”

  Actually, Morgan agreed with him, although he wasn’t going to admit that to Bateman. He intended to spend the night there in Titusville.

  But come morning, he was going to be on the trail of Colonel Gideon Black.

  Chapter 21

  By nightfall, the whole town was buzzing about the exploits of the Cannon Gang, as the citizens of Titusville had dubbed the outlaws who had attacked the train. Thirsty passengers and members of the train crew had hit the saloons and spread the story, including the way that the stranger called Kid Morgan had almost single-handedly foiled the daring holdup attempt.

  After the violent incident in the general store, Glory Sheffield had lost her enthusiasm for looking around the town with Morgan. She had asked him if he would walk her back to the hotel, which he did. She said her good-byes there, none too warmly. Obviously, she had given up on him as a source of diversion. She probably would have switched her attentions to Phil Bateman, Morgan thought, if Bateman and a large group of men hadn’t ridden out of Titusville in the early afternoon, heading to the site of the attack on the train in an attempt to pick up the trail of the outlaws.

  The Kid spent the afternoon looking over the town. Titusville appeared to be a prosperous settlement, which meant the Gloriana Mine was successful. All of it represented a steady stream of profits flowing into the pockets of Edward Sheffield. It was easy to see why Sheffield would be a tempting target for outlaws.

  Was that all there was to it, though? An uneasy feeling stirred inside Morgan. He sensed there was something he didn’t know yet about the situation.

  He took a room in the hotel and made arrangements at the local livery stable for the buckskin. After eating supper at what the hotel clerk told him was the best restaurant in Titusville, Morgan walked along the street to one of the saloons, a place called the Birdcage. He wasn’t sure why the saloon had been dubbed that. He didn’t see a bird or a birdcage anywhere in the big, smoky, crowded room.

  Nursing a beer at the bar, Morgan listened to the conversations around him. Not surprisingly, most of them were about the attack on the train by the Cannon Gang. He thought he might pick up some information that could prove useful to him in tracking down the outlaws, but that didn’t seem to be the case. None of the men in the saloon knew who the bandits were, or if they did, they weren’t admitting it.

  After a while, Morgan drifted over to a table where a poker game was going on. When a player dropped out and a chair opened up, the dealer gestured toward it, looked at Morgan, and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. Morgan thought Why not? and sat down to take a hand.

  His mind wasn’t really on the game, but he played skillfully enough that he won a few hands, staying about even. After a while, one of the other players, a miner by the looks of him, threw in his cards and said, “That’s enough for me. I’m leavin’ while I still got enough money for a drink of whiskey and a woman.”

  “Come back any time, friend,” the dealer said smoothly as the miner scraped his chair back an
d stood up.

  At the end of the hand, which The Kid won with three nines, another man stepped up and rested a hand on the back of the empty chair. “How about if I sit in, gents?” he asked.

  “As long as your money’s good, you’re more than welcome,” the dealer said.

  The newcomer placed a stack of coins on the table in front of the empty chair. “Good enough for you?”

  The dealer smiled. “More than good enough. Have a seat.”

  The man settled himself in the chair and said, “I hope this is a friendly game.”

  Something nagged at Morgan’s mind. He hadn’t really paid any attention to the stranger, but curiosity drew his gaze to the man’s face.

  It took every bit of iron-nerved self-control in his body not to show the shock he felt as he recognized the newcomer as Colonel Gideon Black.

  Morgan had seen the renegade colonel only one time, when he watched Black and his men from inside the Williams ranch house. Black was dressed differently now. Instead of the fringed buckskin shirt and cavalry trousers and hat, he wore a brown tweed suit and a derby. He looked like a businessman rather than a military commander.

  But there was no mistaking the lean, almost satanic face with its dark goatee, as well as the dark hair curling out from under the derby. Morgan managed to keep his face expressionless, as if he had never seen the man who had just sat down at the table with him, but it required quite an effort.

  And it took a lot of brass on Black’s part to waltz right into Titusville after attacking the train that morning. However, it was possible that no one in town would recognize him, especially dressed like he was. He didn’t really look like the same man who had been recruiting gunmen in Bisbee for the past couple months.

  “My name is Sayers,” Black said. “Joshua D. Sayers. Mining equipment is my line.”

  “Well, poker is mine, Mr. Sayers,” the dealer said. “Welcome to the game.”

  Black smiled blandly. For a moment, The Kid wondered if he had made a mistake. Was the new player really a mining equipment salesman named Sayers? Was it possible that he just bore a strong resemblance to Colonel Gideon Black?