The Loner: Book One

by J. A. Johnstone

  Then it all came flooding back to him.

  Sinclair. That bastard.

  Sinclair had to be the one who had hit him and knocked him out. Conrad wasn’t sure why, but he was certain it had been Sinclair. In that instant before everything had fallen in on him, he had realized that the writing on the telegraph form was his secretary’s. Sinclair had printed the message in an attempt to disguise his hand, but it hadn’t worked. Conrad had recognized those decisive strokes.

  So the telegram was a lie. Kirkson wasn’t going to change everything at the steel manufacturing plant. Sinclair had dreamed up the whole thing so he’d have an excuse to get into Conrad’s house. But why?

  Rebel!

  The answer shot through Conrad’s veins like a jolt of that newfangled electric current. And like that electric current, it galvanized his muscles into action. Conrad lurched up onto his knees, ignoring the fresh pain that pounded in his skull like the sound of distant drums and the agony in his shoulders. He leaned against the desk to brace himself and shoved with his legs until he was on his feet.

  He had to free himself and get to Rebel.

  Easier said than done. The room spun crazily around him as he turned his back to the desk. His hands had gone numb enough that he could barely feel them as he fumbled around for the letter opener he knew was on the desk. At last he found it, and struggled to turn the blade so that he could use it to saw through the cord binding his wrists. Luckily, the cord wasn’t very thick and parted within a few minutes. Even so, those minutes seemed like an eternity to Conrad, because all he could think of was that something terrible might be happening to Rebel.

  When his wrists were free, he pulled his hands in front of him again and took a moment to massage some feeling back into them. Then he ripped the gag out of his mouth and took a step toward the door.

  He reeled, and would have fallen if he hadn’t managed to grab the back of the chair where Sinclair had been sitting earlier. Conrad dragged a deep breath into his body and waited a few seconds. No matter what was going on, no matter what danger threatened, he couldn’t do Rebel any good if he passed out again. He had to stay awake and on his feet.

  Even though he stumbled a little, his stride was stronger when he started for the door again. He grasped the jamb to steady himself as he stepped out into the hall. “Rebel!” he shouted. His voice sounded distorted to his ears. “Rebel, where are you?”

  No answer. In this case, maybe the worst answer of all.

  She had said she was going upstairs. Conrad wasn’t sure he could manage stairs just yet. If he took a tumble down them, he might break a leg, or hit his head and knock himself out again.

  The rear stairs, he thought. They were narrower than the main staircase. He could press a hand against each wall and brace himself. He staggered toward the kitchen.

  As soon as Conrad shoved the door open and stepped into the room, he recognized the smell in the air. He had seen enough gruesome death to know what freshly spilled blood smelled like. He stopped in his tracks and stared down stupidly at the figure lying on the floor in front of him.

  It was Edwin Sinclair, Conrad realized. The secretary lay facedown. A large pool of reddish-black blood had formed around his head and was slowly soaking into the hardwood floor. Several large crimson stains marred the back of his suit coat. In the middle of one of those stains, the handle and part of the blade of a knife protruded from Sinclair’s body.

  And pinned to the corpse with that knife was a piece of paper.

  Conrad lurched forward. He saw his name written on the paper and knew it was meant for him. He dropped to his knees beside Sinclair and reached for the knife. He wrapped his fingers around the handle and pulled it free. The blade made an ugly sound as it came out of Sinclair’s lifeless flesh.

  Conrad heard other sounds, but they meant nothing to him. A door slamming, voices shouting, heavy footsteps…He ignored all of them. Every bit of his attention was focused on the words crudely printed on the paper, which Edwin Sinclair’s blood had stained in places. Sinclair hadn’t written this note.

  WE HAV YUR WIF. DO WHAT WE SAY OR WELL KILL HER. YULL HERE FROM US.

  Rebel was gone, taken from their house by strangers, intruders who had killed the secretary. Had he been wrong about Sinclair? Conrad asked himself.

  “Good Lord!” a gravelly voice exclaimed. “Put that knife down, mister. I’ve got you covered.”

  Numbly, Conrad looked around. Carson City had an actual police force now, not just a local marshal and deputies, as befitted the capital city of the whole state. Two uniformed officers stood just inside the kitchen, revolvers in their hands. They pointed the guns at Conrad, and he realized that he was still holding the knife. Not only that, but he was kneeling beside the bloody corpse of his own secretary.

  “This isn’t…what it looks like,” he managed to rasp after a moment.

  “What is it, then?” one of the officers demanded. “It looks to me like you stabbed that poor son of a gun.”

  Conrad held the paper out so the man could read it for himself. Suddenly, he was too tired to explain.

  Too tired, and too filled with fear for his wife.

  The presence of the note made it clear that Conrad hadn’t killed Edwin Sinclair. The chief of Carson City’s police force admitted that as he sat in Conrad’s study an hour later.

  “Your secretary must have tried to fight off the kidnappers,” the chief said. “He paid for it with his life, but at least he tried.”

  Conrad rubbed his temples as he sat behind the desk. The dull, throbbing ache in his head hadn’t gone away.

  But it wasn’t as bad as the ache in his heart.

  “I misjudged poor Sinclair,” he said. “To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure I trusted the man. In business, yes, but not that much around my wife.”

  The chief raised his eyebrows. “You shouldn’t say things like that, Mr. Browning,” he advised. “Some folks might figure that was a motive for murder. Of course, in this case, we know the kidnappers are to blame for Sinclair’s death.”

  “Chief, do you have any experience with things like this?”

  “Well…no, sir, I don’t. This is the first kidnapping I remember ever taking place in these parts. But I’ve heard about such things, and I reckon it’s only a matter of time before you hear from those varmints again. They’ll have to tell you how much money they want, and where and how you’re supposed to deliver it.”

  “Do you think they’ll want me to bring the money in person?”

  The chief scratched his jaw. “That wouldn’t surprise me. They’ll figure you’d be less likely to try some sort of trick that way.” He hesitated. “You are going to pay?”

  “Of course,” Conrad snapped. “I’d pay any amount of money to get my wife back safely.”

  But that didn’t mean he was going to let those bastards get away with what they had done, he thought. They had to pay for taking Edwin Sinclair’s life, and for the ordeal they were putting Rebel through.

  Conrad wouldn’t let himself think about what might be happening to her. Rebel was strong and smart. She would do whatever she needed to do in order to live through this. For the moment, her survival was all that mattered.

  Vengeance would come later.

  Even though he was willing to wait, Conrad had taken the first step toward settling the score with the kidnappers. He had written out a wire and prevailed on one of the police officers to take it to the Western Union office. The urgent message was addressed to Claudius Turnbuckle in San Francisco, a partner in one of the law firms that represented the Browning interests. The last time Conrad had seen his father, Frank Morgan had been on his way to Los Angeles to lend a hand to Turnbuckle’s partner, John J. Stafford. Conrad didn’t know if that affair had already been settled, but Turnbuckle would. The lawyer might have at least an idea of how to get in touch with Frank.

  Because Conrad didn’t mind admitting that he needed his father’s help again.

  “We’ll do everythi
ng we can to help,” the chief was saying now, “but our job is really keeping the peace here in town. You might want to give some thought to hiring the Pinkertons, or some outfit like that, if you want to track down the men who did this.”

  “I know someone who can find them,” Conrad said, thinking of Frank.

  The chief must have understood what he meant, because he nodded and said, “Oh. Yeah, you’re probably right about that.”

  The problem was that it might take days to locate Frank, and even longer for him to get here. Conrad didn’t think the kidnappers would wait that long to make their demands. They would move quickly, in hopes of getting their hands on the ransom and making their getaway before anyone had a chance to corral them. He would probably have to handle that part himself, without Frank’s help.

  The chief put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “If there’s anything I can do for you, Mr. Browning, don’t hesitate to let me know,” he said. “In the meantime, I don’t reckon there’s much any of us can do except wait. Maybe you should try to get some rest.”

  “Yes, of course,” Conrad said, even though he had no intention of resting again until Rebel was at his side once more. He shook hands with the chief of police and thanked him. Then, the chief left, and he was alone.

  He had never been alone in this house, he realized. Rebel had always been with him. He felt a sharp pang of loss as that sunk in on him.

  Staying busy would help, he thought. A cabinet on one side of the room held several Winchesters, a double-barreled shotgun, a long-range European sporting rifle, and half a dozen Colt revolvers. Checking and cleaning all those weapons would take time. Conrad wanted to be sure he had plenty of ammunition on hand for all of them, too.

  There was no telling how many guns he might need before this was over.

  By morning, Conrad still hadn’t slept. The ache in his head had faded some but was still there. He went into the kitchen to make some coffee, but stopped short when he saw the large, dark stain on the floor. The undertaker’s men had cleaned up the blood as best they could when they came to collect Edwin Sinclair’s body, but nothing would get rid of that stain. The floor would have to be replaced. Once Rebel was back, the two of them could go on that trip to the high country, Conrad thought, and while they were gone, someone could come in here and do the work on the house that needed to be done to cleanse it of every reminder of what had happened.

  A knock on the front door as he stood there contemplating the bloodstain made him jerk around. His long legs carried him quickly to the door. He had to force himself not to run.

  When he opened the door, he found a boy about twelve years old standing on the porch. He looked like a typical frontier youngster in boots and overalls and with a round-brimmed hat. He gazed up at Conrad and asked, “Are you Mr. Browning?”

  “That’s right,” Conrad said.

  “An hombre told me to give this to you.” The boy held out a folded piece of paper. “He said you’d give me a nickel.”

  Conrad took the paper. When he unfolded it, he saw that the words on it were printed in the same crude block letters as the message that had been left for him the night before. He recognized that before the actual meaning of the words sunk in on him.

  BRING 50 GRAND TO BLACK ROCK CANYON TONIGHT MIDNIGHT COME ALONE.

  Conrad’s heart pounded hard in his chest. Fifty thousand dollars was an incredible amount of money. Most men wouldn’t earn that much in a lifetime. He had it, though, and he didn’t mind spending it if that would insure Rebel’s safe return.

  Unfortunately, there were no guarantees that the kidnappers would keep their word.

  “How about that nickel, mister?” the boy who had delivered the message prodded.

  Conrad reached in his pocket and brought out a double eagle. The boy’s eyes widened at the sight of it.

  “I’ll do better than that,” Conrad said. “This is yours if you can give me a good description of the man who gave you the message for me.”

  “Sure! He was older than you, and sort of skinny. He had a reddish-colored beard that sort of poked out from his chin.”

  “How was he dressed?”

  The boy frowned. “Well, I never paid much attention to that. Like a cowboy, I’d say. I know he had on boots and an old Stetson.”

  “Anything else you can tell me about him?”

  “Not really,” the boy said with a shrug. “He was just a fella.”

  “Was anybody with him?”

  “Nope. He was by himself. I know that.”

  “Where did you see him?”

  The boy turned and pointed toward the road that led northwest out of Carson City. “He was up yonder, about half a mile, I reckon. He was just sittin’ on his horse in some trees when I walked by and he called me over. He asked me if I knew you or where you lived. When I said I didn’t, he told me how to find your house and gave me the paper.”

  “What about his horse?”

  “It was a big chestnut gelding.”

  Conrad’s heart had started to beat faster as the boy described the man who had given him the note. The description of the horse was the last bit of evidence Conrad needed. He remembered both man and horse from the encounter on the hillside overlooking the city several days earlier. He had no doubt that the kidnappers were the men who had interrupted the picnic he and Rebel had been enjoying.

  Which meant that the encounter probably wasn’t a coincidence. Those men had been following them, probably plotting their crime even then. Conrad suspected that they had wanted to get a good look at him and Rebel.

  They must have decided it would be easy to steal her away from him, he thought bitterly.

  “Mister?”

  Conrad looked down at the boy and forced a solemn smile onto his face. He held out the double eagle.

  “Here. You’ve earned this.”

  The youngster snatched the coin and bit it to make sure it was real, obviously a habit with him. He grinned and said, “Thanks, mister.” He started to run away, then stopped and looked back at Conrad. “That note I brought you…was it bad news?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said honestly.

  He wouldn’t know—until midnight tonight.

  Chapter 6

  Despite the vow he had made to himself earlier about not resting until Rebel was safe again, Conrad knew he couldn’t afford to be groggy tonight from lack of sleep. He would need to be alert, with all his senses functioning at top efficiency. For that reason, he went upstairs and forced himself to lie down on the bed in the guest room. He couldn’t bring himself to stretch out by himself on the bed he normally shared with Rebel.

  Exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he fell asleep with surprising ease even though he hadn’t taken off his clothes. His dreams were haunted, though, by nightmares in which shadowy, faceless, evil figures were chasing Rebel through a dark, seemingly endless forest. More than once he jolted awake, only to fall back almost right away into a stupor that turned into yet another of the horrible dreams.

  It was the middle of the day when he woke up and stayed awake. As he stumbled down the stairs, he spotted a Western Union envelope on the floor just inside the front door. He had sent instructions with the message to Claudius Turnbuckle that Western Union was to bring any reply to him right away, no matter what time it was, day or night. He supposed he had been sleeping so soundly that he hadn’t heard the messenger knocking on the front door.

  Conrad practically pounced on the telegram. He tore open the envelope and pulled out a yellow flimsy like the one Sinclair had brought to the house the previous night. This one read:

  MORGAN’S WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN AT PRESENT STOP WILL ATTEMPT TO LOCATE WITH ALL URGENCY STOP ANYTHING ELSE I CAN DO TO HELP STOP TURNBUCKLE

  Conrad heaved a sigh and suppressed the urge to crumple the telegram in his hand. That wouldn’t do any good. He couldn’t help but be disappointed, though. He had hoped that Frank was somewhere close by.

  It looked like Conrad couldn’t
count on his father’s help with this problem.

  He took the telegram into his study and left it on the desk. Then he cleaned up a little, shaving and changing clothes. He had to pay a visit to the bank, and he didn’t want to look like he had slept in his clothes—which, of course, he had.

  Conrad did business with the bank in the same building where his downtown office was located. He went there now, hitching up the buggy horse and driving the half mile. When he walked into the bank, he carried a good-sized carpetbag with him.

  A clerk ushered him into the bank manager’s office without delay. The man stood up and shook hands with Conrad, smiling with the same eager affability that he used to greet any large depositor. “What can I do for you, Mr. Browning?” the man asked.

  “I need fifty thousand dollars,” Conrad said.

  The manager prided himself on being unflappable, but even he gaped at that unexpected statement. For a moment, he couldn’t speak. Then he said, “But…but that’s a great deal of money, Mr. Browning!”

  Conrad nodded. “I know that. I need it anyway.”

  “But why?”

  Conrad allowed his tone to grow chilly. “No offense, but that’s not really any of your business, is it?”

  The bank manager clasped his hands behind his back and squared his shoulders. “Actually, it is,” he said. “I have a responsibility to the depositors to protect their money. You don’t have fifty thousand dollars in this bank, sir, so I’d be giving you other people’s money.”

  “You know perfectly well I’m good for it,” Conrad snapped. “You can wire my banks in Boston and Denver and San Francisco if you don’t believe me.”

  “Oh, I believe you,” the manager said quickly. He had been taken by surprise, but he didn’t want to offend Conrad if he didn’t have to. “It’s just that there are procedures we normally follow—”