The Loner: Book One

by J. A. Johnstone

  “That’s right,” Morgan said.

  “You can go right on in, and welcome. The Injun’s got to stay out here, though.”

  “But he’s my friend,” Morgan objected.

  The black man shook his head. “Don’t matter. Miss Rosa says no Injuns today, and what Miss Rosa says goes.”

  Bearpaw thumped himself lightly on the chest with a fist and said, “No worry ’bout Bearpaw, friend Morgan. Bearpaw sit on step, wait for friend.”

  “No, you can’t sit there either,” the black man said. “Mosey on down to the train station, why don’t you? There’ll be a westbound in soon; you can probably cadge some money for firewater.”

  Bearpaw nodded. “Bearpaw do like dark man say.” He turned away, and one eye opened and closed quickly in a wink that Morgan could see, even though the bouncer couldn’t.

  The Paiute shuffled off down the street while Morgan stepped inside the whorehouse. As a younger man, well before his marriage to Rebel, he had been inside a few such establishments in Boston, but those had been high-class enterprises, nothing like this shabby, squalid brothel. The rug on the floor in the parlor was threadbare, and some of the overstuffed furniture around the room was losing its stuffing.

  The same was true of most of the women waiting in the parlor for customers. They were getting on in years, blowsy in soiled shifts, and more than one smile was missing some teeth as they grinned at Morgan in what was supposed to be an enticing manner. He didn’t feel the least bit tempted. He couldn’t imagine any circumstances in which he would. Maybe if he hadn’t actually seen a woman for fifteen or twenty years…

  One of the whores caught his eye, though. She was younger than the others, around twenty years old, and even though her skin lacked any reddish hue, her raven hair and high cheekbones testified to at least some Indian blood in her. She was even slightly pretty, in a coarse way.

  A woman in a crimson gown, with graying blond hair piled high on her head, came into the parlor through another door. She had a cup of coffee in one hand, and Morgan guessed she had been out in the kitchen heating up the brew. She stopped short at the sight of Morgan and said, “Howdy, mister. I didn’t know anybody had come in.”

  “He’s a pretty one, ain’t he, Rosa?” one of the whores purred.

  The madam moved toward Morgan. “You looking for some female companionship, cowboy?”

  Morgan hesitated. He was going to have to spend some time here, more than likely, until he got a line on Baggott and Hooper. He wasn’t sure how to go about this, but he knew that he couldn’t stay if he didn’t act like he wanted to partake of the dubious pleasures offered by the house.

  “That one,” he said as he pointed to the youngest whore, the one with Indian blood.

  The other soiled doves looked disappointed. Rosa smiled and said, “Good choice. Tasmin, take our guest upstairs and show him a fine old time.”

  The young woman stood up from the divan, sidled over to Morgan, and took hold of his arm with both of her hands, pressing herself against him so that he felt the warm mound of her breast prodding his side.

  “You come with me, mister,” she said as she smiled up at him. “I promise, you won’t ever be sorry that you picked me.”

  Morgan felt a surge of panic inside him. He didn’t want this woman. He didn’t want any woman—except the one he could no longer have.

  At that moment, the door from the parlor to the kitchen opened again, and a man came into the room. Morgan glanced at him, saw a middle-aged hombre with a battered Stetson shoved back on his head and a close-cropped, salt-and-pepper beard. He said, “Rosa, how’s about frontin’ me some more money? There’s a poker game down at the saloon tonight, and I reckon I can clean up in it.”

  The young whore started tugging Morgan toward the stairs. Rosa turned to the man who had just come into the room and snapped, “Damn it, Clem, I’ve told you not to bother me while I’m working.”

  Clem Baggott. The name rang in Morgan’s mind. This was one of the men he and Bearpaw had come here looking for. Morgan turned his head to look closer at the man, and recognized him from that awful night in Black Rock Canyon, even though he had only seen Baggott for a moment by the glaring light of those torches alongside the trail.

  Morgan wasn’t the only one who recognized somebody, though. Even though Morgan looked quite a bit different now, Baggott’s eyes bulged out in shock. He yelled, “Son of a bitch! You’re that bastard from Carson City!”

  Then he reached for the Colt on his hip, even as the whore called Tasmin screamed and tightened her two-handed grip on Morgan’s gun arm.

  Chapter 18

  Morgan knew he had only an instant to act. He reached over with his left hand, grabbed Tasmin’s shift, and hauled hard on it. The garment tore a little, but held enough together enough to pull her away from him. He swung her around and slung her right into Rosa. The two women collided with startled yells and fell to the floor, out of the line of fire.

  At the same time, Morgan lunged the other way. Baggott’s gun blasted, flame licking from the muzzle. Morgan couldn’t hear the whine of the bullet past his head because all the women in the room were screaming by now, but he felt the hot wind-rip of its passage.

  His Colt had flickered into his hand. It roared and bucked as he squeezed the trigger. Baggott grunted in pain and spun halfway around. He tried to catch himself on the back of a divan, but his groping hand missed. He pitched to the floor, dropping his gun as he did so.

  Morgan had time to hope that Baggott wasn’t fatally wounded, since he didn’t know yet where Hooper was, and then the front door crashed open and the huge black bouncer came into the room like an avalanche, bellowing angrily.

  “Get him, Hyde!” Rosa screamed from the floor. “He killed Clem!”

  Morgan hoped again that wasn’t the case, that Baggott wasn’t dead. Then the bouncer called Hyde was on him, reaching for him with long, tree-trunk-like arms.

  Morgan could have shot the man, but as far as he could tell, Hyde was unarmed. Anyway, he wasn’t sure bullets would stop the charging behemoth. Morgan tried to twist away, knowing that if those arms ever trapped him in their circle, he would be in for some rib-crushing.

  He managed to avoid the bear hug, but Hyde grabbed the back of his shirt and threw him at the wall. The planking vibrated as Morgan’s right shoulder slammed into it. He cried out in pain as that arm went numb. A thud sounded as the gun slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor.

  He had been hoping to wallop Hyde over the head a few times with the Colt and maybe slow him down that way. Now he was unarmed, and definitely out of his class as far as weight, reach, and rough-and-tumble ability were concerned. As Hyde charged him again, he dropped into a crouch and threw himself at the big man’s knees, hoping to chop Hyde’s legs out from under him.

  The maneuver was only partially successful. Morgan hit Hyde low, and the bouncer fell. But he landed on top of Morgan, who was pinned to the floor by Hyde’s weight. Hyde got one hand on Morgan’s throat and closed it, cutting off his air. Morgan’s vision started to blur as he tried to gasp, but he could still see Hyde looming above him, raising a giant fist and getting ready to bring it down like a sledgehammer into the middle of Morgan’s face.

  Even over the roaring of blood in his ears, Morgan heard a solid thump. Hyde’s eyes rolled up in his head until only the whites showed; then he pitched forward senselessly. He was still on top of Morgan, though, so all the Kid could do was stare over Hyde’s shoulder at Bearpaw, who stood there with the Sharps clutched in his hands. Morgan figured it was the butt of the rifle he had heard connecting solidly with the back of Hyde’s skull.

  “Get him…off me!” Morgan managed to croak.

  Bearpaw looked like he wanted to laugh, but he kept a straight face as he bent down and grasped the collar of Hyde’s coat. “You’ll have to help me,” he said. “I’m not sure I can budge this big fellow by myself.”

  Morgan got his hands against Hyde’s shoulders and shoved while
Bearpaw heaved. After a moment of grunting struggle, they were able to roll the big man off Morgan.

  “Check on…Baggott,” Morgan said as he sat up and tried to catch his breath. “I had to…shoot him…”

  Bearpaw turned toward Baggott, and as he did so, Morgan heard a small popping sound. Bearpaw grunted again and took a sudden step back.

  “I’m shot,” he said.

  Morgan surged to his feet and saw Rosa swinging an over-and-under derringer toward him. “You son of a bitch!” she screamed. “You killed my brother!”

  Morgan leaped and swatted the little pistol aside just as it popped again. That emptied it, but he closed his hand over it and twisted it out of Rosa’s fingers anyway, so she couldn’t reload and try again to shoot him. He was worried about Bearpaw, so he gave the madam a shove that sent her stumbling backward to sit down hard on her ample rump.

  Morgan swung around and saw that Bearpaw had sunk onto the arm of a ratty divan. The whores had all scurried away and vanished except for Tasmin, who stood huddled in fear against one of the walls.

  Bearpaw slipped a hand inside his shirt, pulled it out, and looked at the crimson stains on his fingertips. “Yeah, I’m shot, all right,” he said.

  Then he toppled over backward onto the divan.

  Morgan started toward him, but he had taken only a single step when another gun blasted from somewhere above him. The slug whipped past him. He looked up and saw a man standing at the top of the stairs, smoke curling from the barrel of the gun in his fist.

  Morgan recognized this man from Black Rock Canyon, too, and knew he had to be Spence Hooper. As Hooper fired again, Morgan launched himself in a dive toward the Colt he had dropped a few moments earlier while battling with Hyde. The feeling had returned to Morgan’s arm, so he was able to snatch up the gun as he slid across the threadbare rug. He came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs and fired up at Hooper.

  Hooper screamed and listed sideways as blood and bone exploded from his left kneecap. He pitched forward, squeezing off another shot as he did so. The bullet chewed splinters from the stairs halfway down. Still screaming from the pain of his shattered knee, Hooper tumbled on down the stairs, coming to a stop just a few steps up from Morgan.

  The Kid scrambled to his feet. Hooper had dropped his gun, and Morgan didn’t see any other weapons. He turned so that he could cover Hooper while checking on Rosa, Tasmin, and Hyde. Rosa had crawled over to her brother, and now lay half on top of him, sobbing and wailing. Baggott hadn’t moved since he went down, so Morgan thought there was a good chance he really was dead. Tasmin still stood against the wall, watching wide-eyed.

  Bearpaw rolled onto his side and started trying to struggle to his feet. “I’m all right,” he said as Morgan hurried over to help him. “That bullet just nicked me. Keep an eye on the other one.”

  Morgan ignored what Bearpaw said, got an arm around the Paiute, and helped him stand up. Morgan looked at Tasmin and asked, “How quick will the law get here?”

  “Wh-what?”

  “The law,” Morgan repeated. “The local sheriff, police, whatever they have here. How long?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. They leave this end of town alone mostly. But with that many shots, they’ll have to come see what it’s about. Five or ten minutes maybe?”

  Morgan hoped that would be long enough. “Hooper’s still alive,” he said to Bearpaw. “We need to question him.”

  Bearpaw nodded. “Help me over there, then stand back and keep an eye out for trouble.”

  The two men went to the foot of the stairs. Hooper lay there whimpering. Bearpaw reached down, rested a hand on the outlaw’s thigh just above the shattered knee, and pushed hard.

  Hooper shrieked.

  “That was just to get your attention,” Bearpaw said as the cry died away. “Where are the others?”

  “Wh-what…others?” Hooper gasped.

  “The other men who rode with you when you kidnapped Conrad Browning’s wife.”

  Hooper blinked up at the Paiute. “I…I don’t know what…you’re talkin’ about…I never kidnapped no woman—”

  Bearpaw didn’t let him go on. Instead, he pushed on Hooper’s leg again. Hooper gobbled in pain.

  But when the agony eased a little, words began to spill from Hooper’s mouth. “I don’t know where they all went, but Rattigan and that breed, White Rock, were gonna do some prospectin’ in Colorado! Rattigan said he knew a place up in the Sangre de Cristos where he thought there might be some gold! I think it was called Blue Creek, or something like that. God, don’t do that again, redskin. I can’t stand it.”

  “What about the others?” Bearpaw insisted.

  “I don’t know! I swear! Vernon used to talk about someplace down on the border, but I don’t know any more than that. And nobody else told me anything about where they were goin’ when we split up.” Hooper sobbed. “You gotta get me to a sawbones. I’m hurt bad.”

  “You’re sure you don’t know where we can find any of the others?”

  “No, I swear! That’s all I know.”

  “Then you don’t have to worry about a sawbones,” Bearpaw said. His arm and shoulder moved.

  Morgan saw Hooper give a little jerk. The man’s eyes widened. Morgan looked down in time to see Bearpaw let go of a knife with a staghorn handle that protruded from Hooper’s chest. The thrust must have gone right into the outlaw’s heart. Hooper opened his mouth, but no more words came out before his head fell back on the steps. He kept staring as the life faded from his eyes.

  On the other side of the parlor, Hyde groaned as he began to stir.

  “Help me up,” Bearpaw said. “We’d better get out of here.”

  It was too late for that. Heavy footsteps sounded on the porch, and three men crowded into the room, each of them carrying a shotgun. Morgan started to lift his gun, then stopped as he spotted the badges the men wore pinned to their coats.

  “Arrest them, Marshal!” Rosa screamed. “String ’em up! They murdered my brother!”

  The lawmen leveled their Greeners at Morgan and Bearpaw. “Shuck your irons, boys,” one of the men growled. “We got some sortin’ out to do here.”

  “I hope that telegram you sent does some good, Kid,” Bearpaw said an hour later as the two of them sat on an iron cot in a cell in the Gallup city jail. “Otherwise, things don’t look too promising for us. ‘Therefore never send to ask for whom the bell tolls,’ John Donne said. ‘It tolls for thee.’”

  “And just what does that mean?”

  “It means that if you hear them hammering together a gallows, it’s probably going to be for us.”

  Morgan took a deep breath. It had taken a lot of talking to convince Marshal Davis to let him send a telegram to Claudius Turnbuckle in San Francisco. The message had been a short one.

  STILL ALIVE STOP NEED LEGAL HELP GALLUP NMT STOP CONRAD

  Rosa had insisted, tearfully and at the top of her lungs, that Morgan and Bearpaw had burst into the whorehouse and started shooting for no reason. They had gunned down her brother, and then they had shot Spence Hooper and caused him to fall on his own knife. That was the only explanation that made any sense to the marshal, since the knife in Hooper’s chest belonged to him. Even Rosa admitted that. She had been too busy grieving over her brother—who was indeed dead, shot cleanly through the heart—to realize that that version of events didn’t make complete sense. Hooper wouldn’t have lived long enough for Bearpaw to question him if that had been the case.

  But they already had one murder charge hanging over their heads, Morgan thought, so why complicate matters even more?

  “You didn’t have to kill him,” Morgan whispered now as he sat beside Bearpaw. “I would have done it, once we found out everything we could from him.”

  “You mean you would have shot him in cold blood?” the Paiute asked.

  “That’s the way I killed Hank Winchell.”

  “There was nothing cold-blooded about that night,” Bearpaw said with a sh
ake of his head. “You had just seen your wife murdered. You were in a state of shock. Pulling the trigger on a man weeks later is different.”

  “I shot Esquivel.”

  “You put him out of his misery. He would have died anyway from that bullet in his guts, and he would have suffered a lot more. You were merciful to him, Kid. That wasn’t murder. Me, I’ve already got plenty of bad things on my conscience. Taking care of one outlaw who needed killing won’t cause me to lose any sleep.”

  Morgan didn’t say anything. Despite the hatred and the need for vengeance that had consumed him since leaving Carson City, he was coming to realize that there was a difference between killing a man in a fair fight and snuffing out the life of someone who couldn’t fight back.

  After a few minutes, Morgan asked, “How’s your shoulder?”

  Bearpaw started to shrug, then stopped as the motion caused him to grimace in pain. “It hurts like the devil,” he said, “but I’ll live. That little popgun of Rosa’s didn’t have much punch. The bullet wasn’t more than a couple of inches under the skin.”

  A doctor had come to the jail after Morgan and Bearpaw were locked up and tended to the Paiute’s wound, which was messy but not life-threatening. A bulky bandage showed now as a lump under Bearpaw’s shirt.

  “Kid, I’m sorry things got out of hand,” he went on. “I never figured on Baggott recognizing you like that.”

  “Neither did I,” Morgan said. “I guess he’s got a good eye for faces, because I’ve changed a lot since that night. We just didn’t have any luck.”

  “A man’s always got luck. It’s just that sometimes it’s good…and sometimes it’s bad. Mostly, it’s some of both. We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

  “For now,” Morgan said. He had visions of a trial, and a judge passing sentence, and a long walk up thirteen steps to the gallows…