The Loner: Book One

by J. A. Johnstone

  Conrad hauled back hard on the reins. He was glad the kidnappers were confronting him at last. Anything was better than just driving slowly along in the buggy and waiting for them to show themselves.

  What happened next surprised him. Several torches blazed into life along both sides of the trail. The harsh light from them washed over the buggy so that Conrad couldn’t make a move without the kidnappers being able to see what he was doing. They were smart. They didn’t trust him any more than he trusted them.

  A man stepped out into the middle of the trail, in front of the buggy. Conrad half expected to see the ginger-bearded man, but this fellow was one he’d never seen before. He was tall and burly, with a deeply tanned, rough-hewn face.

  “Are you alone, Browning?” he asked.

  “Your note said for me to come alone,” Conrad snapped. “I’m cooperating. I want my wife back.”

  “You’ll get her, if you do as you’re told. If you don’t…” The man waved a hand toward the trees alongside the trail. “There are a dozen rifles trained on you right now. Try any tricks, and you’ll wind up ventilated.”

  Conrad looked toward the trees. Enough light from the torches penetrated into the shadows underneath them for him to be able to see the barrels of those rifles the kidnapper had mentioned. He also caught glimpses of some of the men holding the weapons. He recognized several of them from the previous encounter, including a huge, moonfaced man who was so big, he stuck out from both sides of the tree trunk he was using for cover, a bearded Mexican with a steeple-crowned sombrero, and an older, ugly man in a black vest and with black sleeve cuffs. Conrad stared at them over the barrels of their rifles and committed each face to memory in turn.

  He would never forget any of them. Their images would be burned into his brain until the day he died.

  Which might be today, he reminded himself. He was badly outnumbered, if it came down to a fight.

  A wry smile tugged at his mouth. “You should hope your men are good shots,” he said to the spokesman.

  That comment put a frown on the man’s face. “Why the hell do you say that?”

  Conrad nodded to the right of the trail, then the left. “You’ve got six men on each side of the trail. If they shoot at me and miss, they’re liable to hit some of the men on the other side.”

  The spokesman frowned. “Never you mind about that. You got the money?”

  Conrad didn’t even glance down at the carpetbag at his feet. Nor did he answer the man’s question. Instead, he asked coolly, “Do you have my wife?”

  “Oh, we got her, all right. Don’t you worry about that.”

  “Let me see her.” Conrad supposed that Rebel was somewhere back in the trees, with at least one of the kidnappers guarding her.

  Instead, the kidnappers’ spokesman took him by surprise by pointing at the sky and saying, “Look up.”

  For a terrible moment, Conrad thought the man was saying that Rebel was already dead and was pointing toward heaven, but then as he lifted his eyes, he saw another torch flare into life. This was on top of the rocky bluff that overhung the canyon. Conrad gasped as he saw the two figures illuminated by the torch’s glare.

  Rebel was one of them, standing perilously close to the bluff’s edge. The other one, right behind her, was the bearded man Conrad had pegged as the leader of the kidnappers. He had hold of Rebel’s arm with one hand. The other pressed the barrel of a revolver into her side.

  “Oh, my God!” Conrad cried. “Rebel! Rebel, can you hear me?”

  “I hear you, Conrad!” she called down to him. “And I love you!”

  “I love you, too!”

  The craggy-faced man in the trail said, “That’s touchin’ as all hell. Let’s see the money, Browning.”

  Conrad had to tear his eyes away from Rebel. It wasn’t easy. He glared at the man and said, “You don’t get the money until my wife is safely in this buggy with me.”

  The man shook his head. “You ain’t givin’ the orders. Here’s how it’s gonna work. You give us the money and then stay right where you are. We leave, and our man leaves your wife up on top of that rock. There’s a trail down. She can make it if she’s careful. She climbed up there after all. Once we’re gone with the money, she can climb down, and the two of you can go back to Carson City. You’ll never see us again. Sound good?”

  “The part about never seeing you again does,” Conrad lied. He planned to see each and every one of them again, either at the end of a hangman’s rope, or over the barrel of a gun.

  But that would come later, after Rebel was safe.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll turn over the money. But I want your men to pull back, so that I don’t have all those guns pointing at me.” He paused. “They make me nervous.”

  The man thought it over, then shrugged. He drew his Colt and called, “All right, you fellas heard the man. Back off so it’s just him and me. That all right with you, Browning?”

  “Let’s see them do it first,” Conrad said.

  One by one, the kidnappers stepped out from behind the trees and moved along the trail, withdrawing until they were about fifty yards behind their spokesman. That gave Conrad an even better look at their faces. He would know them when he saw them again, that was for sure.

  “Now, damn it,” the craggy-faced man said. “We’ve done what you wanted. Turn over the money, or we’ll just kill you both and take it.”

  Conrad knew he had to risk it. He bent over and reached down to pick up the carpetbag, and as he did so he felt the pressure of the gun that was tucked into his trousers at the small of his back, under his coat. He hefted the carpetbag and stood up in the buggy. With a grunt of effort, he tossed it over the buckskin horse’s head. Dust puffed up around the bag as it landed in the trail, almost at the man’s feet.

  He took an eager step forward and reached down to unfasten the catches on the bag. As he threw it open and saw the packets of bills inside, a grin creased his face.

  “You can count it if you want,” Conrad said coldly.

  “I don’t reckon that’ll be necessary. You’ve played square with us. Now we’ll play square with you.” The man closed the bag, fastened it, and picked it up. He carried it over to where one of the torches was stuck upright in the dirt beside the trail. He wrenched the torch free and waved it over his head. Conrad supposed that was the signal to the man on the bluff with Rebel that they had the money.

  Maybe now they would let her go, he thought. No tricks, he prayed. Please, no tricks.

  “Browning!” the man on the bluff shouted.

  Conrad’s head jerked back as he gazed upward. He hoped to see the man let go of Rebel and retreat, but that didn’t happen. Instead, as the man stepped behind her, he called, “What happens now is on your head! Welcome to hell!”

  “Noooo!” Conrad screamed.

  Rebel must have realized what was going to happen next. She twisted and tried to strike at the man, but she was too late. Muzzle flame spurted as the man fired. Rebel cried out in pain as the bullet tore into her and knocked her backward.

  Right off the bluff.

  Conrad couldn’t believe his horror-stricken eyes as he saw Rebel stumble back into empty air and then plummet toward the base of the bluff so far below. Even though it took only the blink of an eye for her to disappear into the trees, the fall seemed to last an eternity.

  Instinct sent Conrad’s hand flashing to the gun at the small of his back. He whipped it out and tilted the barrel upward, blazing away at the man atop the bluff, the man who had just shot Rebel. The bastard was already gone, though, having leaped back out of Conrad’s line of fire.

  He jerked his eyes back down and saw that the man in the trail was still standing there, apparently dumbfounded by what had just happened. Evidently, it had taken him by surprise just as much as it had Conrad. But he recovered quickly from the shock and clawed at the gun on his hip.

  Conrad grabbed the reins, yelled, “Hyaaah!” and sent the buckskin leaping forward. The kidnap
per had to leap to one side to avoid being trampled by the big horse. He couldn’t get out of the way of the buggy, though. The vehicle clipped him and sent him spinning off his feet. He screamed as he fell, and from the lurch Conrad felt, he was pretty sure one of the wheels had passed over the man’s legs.

  Standing in the buggy, holding the reins with one hand and the Colt with the other, Conrad sent the buggy racing toward the rest of the kidnappers. He emptied the revolver as he charged them, and between the flying lead and the racing horse and buggy, the men were forced to scatter. They fired back at Conrad as they scurried out of the way. He heard some of the slugs whine past his head, but he ignored them.

  He didn’t care if they killed him. He was sure that Rebel was dead. Shot at close range like that, followed by the fall off the bluff…There was no way she could have survived. So, actually, they had already killed him. His heart might still beat and his lungs might draw breath into them, but he was dead, right along with his beloved Rebel.

  He charged through the kidnappers and kept the buggy moving, not stopping until he had gone a couple of hundred yards, well out of reach of the light from the torches that still blazed alongside the trail. Then he hauled the horse to a halt and leaped out of the buggy. He tore off his outer clothing, revealing the black garb that would be impossible to see in the shadows. Moving swiftly and efficiently, he reached behind the seat, picked up the gunbelt, and strapped it on. The holster already held a loaded Colt. The black Stetson was next, tugged down on his sandy hair. Then he retrieved the Winchester and the shotgun and loped off into the darkness, carrying one in each hand.

  Shots roared, but the kidnappers had to be firing blindly because they couldn’t see him in the shadows as he circled back toward them. After a moment, a man bellowed, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire, damn it!” Conrad thought the voice belonged to the ginger-bearded man. “Forget Browning! Leave him alive! Just get that money!”

  They had all charged after him, determined to kill him, and had forgotten momentarily about the ransom. Conrad hadn’t forgotten, though. That money was the bait that would bring them to him, so that he could kill them. He reached the trail and dashed out into the light. The carpetbag still lay there, close to the man he’d run over with the buggy. That man had pulled himself to the edge of the trail, dragging what appeared to be two broken legs behind him. He was whimpering in pain, but he let out a shouted curse as he saw Conrad coming.

  “He’s here! The son of a bitch is here! He’s after the money!”

  Men came running from the other direction, but they were too late. Conrad dropped the Winchester next to the carpetbag and whirled toward them, using both hands to brace the shotgun as he eared back the hammers and pulled the triggers. The double charge of buckshot exploded from both barrels with a thunderous boom.

  Conrad heard yells of pain, but didn’t know how many of them he’d hit or how badly they were wounded. He dropped the scattergun, snatched the rifle and the carpetbag from the trail, and darted past one of the torches into the trees again.

  “Get that money!” the leader yelled. “But don’t kill Browning!”

  That was strange, Conrad thought. Why did the man want his life spared? So that he could be tormented that much longer by the knowledge that he had failed his wife, that she was dead because of him?

  Before he could ponder that any further, a crackling in the brush near at hand warned him. One of the kidnappers burst from behind a tree and tackled him. Conrad went down hard, but he managed to hang on to both the carpetbag and the Winchester.

  “I got him!” the man yelled as he tried to pin Conrad to the ground. “Over here! I got him!”

  Conrad swung the carpetbag and smashed it against the man’s head. The kidnapper fell off him and sprawled to the side. Conrad lurched to his feet and pressed the Winchester’s barrel to the man’s head. In the faint light from the torches, he saw the man’s eyes widen with fear.

  “Help! He’s gonna—”

  Conrad pulled the trigger.

  This man had helped murder Edwin Sinclair, had helped kidnap Rebel. He was partially responsible for her being dead. There was no mercy in Conrad at this moment. Barely anything human remained inside him. He took no pleasure in blowing this bastard’s brains out. It was just something that had to be done.

  The sound of the shot set them off again, despite their leader’s orders. Guns roared, and bullets whipped through the trees around Conrad, thudding into trunks and clipping off branches. Conrad crouched and ran, trusting to luck or fate to keep him safe, at least until he could kill the rest of them. After that, he didn’t care what happened to him.

  Something slammed into him and knocked him off his feet. The carpetbag’s handle slipped out of his hand as he fell. A burning pain in his side sent waves of weakness through him. He got a hand under him and pushed himself to his knees. He felt around for the carpetbag but couldn’t find it.

  As a young man back East, before he’d ever come West and met Frank Morgan for the first time, Conrad had taken part in several fox hunts. He was reminded of those times now as he heard the outlaws crashing through the brush toward him, yelling to each other like hounds baying after the fox.

  And he was the fox.

  He had no doubt they would tear him apart if they ever got their hands on him, just like the hounds did when they caught up with the fox. The wound in his side had put him at a disadvantage. He felt his strength deserting him, and since he no longer had the money, he couldn’t use it to lure them on and kill them at times and places of his choosing.

  They outnumbered him by too much. He had to admit it. He couldn’t kill them all tonight. So he had to get away. Sooner or later they would die at his hand, but in order for that to happen…

  He had to live.

  That knowledge burned through him with a fiercer heat than the bullet that had gouged his side. The need for revenge that filled him could only be satisfied if he survived this night of blood and death.

  He forced himself to his feet and stumbled through the trees. Behind him, somebody shouted, “Hey, it’s the money! Hot damn, I found the money!”

  “Let’s get out of here!” That was the ginger-bearded man again, the one who had shot Rebel. It was all Conrad could do not to lift the Winchester and spray the remaining rounds in the direction of that voice as fast as he could work the rifle’s lever.

  But he couldn’t hope to kill all of them, and even though the bearded man was the one who’d pulled the trigger, they had all played a part in Rebel’s death. He wouldn’t be satisfied until all of them were dead.

  “What about Hank?” another man demanded. “He killed Hank!”

  “Sorry. There’s nothin’ we can do about it now. My orders were to leave Browning alive.”

  There it was again. Conrad huddled against a tree trunk and wondered who could have given such orders. He had seen the reaction of the man in the trail when the bearded man shot Rebel. He hadn’t known that was going to happen, and Conrad thought that the rest of the kidnappers hadn’t either. They had expected to collect the ransom and turn Rebel back over to him.

  That meant the bearded man had been playing a different game, a game of his own. And only he had the answers that Conrad needed.

  The voices faded. A few minutes later, Conrad heard hoofbeats in the night. They were leaving. Taking the money and riding away from the place where Rebel had died. Where a huge hole had been ripped out of Conrad’s heart. No one could live with damage like that. I’m dead, he thought again. Conrad Browning is dead.

  His head jerked up, and he realized that he had lost consciousness. He had no idea how long he’d been out. He blinked and looked through the trees, thinking that he might catch a glimpse of the torches if they still burned, but nothing met his eyes except darkness.

  The canyon was quiet now. The place was far enough from town, isolated enough, that no one would have heard the shots. No one was going to come and help him. He shouldn’t have tried to handle this alone,
he thought. He should have asked for help, from the law or the Pinkertons or someone. But time had been short, and he had honestly believed that he stood the best chance of saving Rebel by following his instincts.

  A sob wracked him. His instincts had betrayed him, and Rebel was dead.

  He was no Frank Morgan, that was for damned sure. Frank wouldn’t have let this happen. Frank would have found a way to save her, to save Rebel and kill all the bastards who had kidnapped her.

  Conrad sat there stewing in self-loathing for long moments, before he finally braced his back against the tree trunk and began struggling to his feet. The least he could do was to find Rebel and take her body back to town so that she could have a proper burial. He owed her that much, after failing her so spectacularly.

  The pain in his side had faded to a dull ache. He placed his hand against his shirt and felt the blood that had soaked into it. He couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt, but he could walk, so he hoped the wound wasn’t too bad.

  Eventually, he stumbled onto the trail. He whistled, hoping that the horse was still somewhere around. A moment later, he was rewarded by the sound of hoofbeats moving toward him. A second after that, he heard the faint creaking of the buggy wheels.

  The buckskin brought the buggy to him. Conrad caught hold of the horse’s halter and leaned against him. The horse shied a bit, no doubt from the smell of blood. Conrad patted his shoulder, murmured to him until he calmed down. Then Conrad found the suit coat he had tossed behind the seat and dug out a box of matches from one of the pockets.

  He made a torch of his own, ripping the lining out of the coat and wrapping it around a branch he found. Then, holding the torch above his head, he stumbled toward the spot where he thought Rebel’s body had fallen. His head was spinning by now, and he couldn’t be sure he was going in the right direction, but he would search all night if he had to.

  His instincts were true this time. He found her only minutes later, lying in a huddled heap between two trees. Her body was broken from the fall, and her white blouse was dark with blood from the gunshot wound. Conrad fell to his knees beside her and jabbed the torch into the ground so that it would stand up as he gathered her into his arms. She was limp, lifeless. He cradled her against his chest and sobbed as he searched in vain for a pulse, a breath, even the faintest sign of life. But of course, there was none. Rebel was gone. And her last words, he realized, had been to tell him that she loved him.