The Loner: Book One

by J. A. Johnstone

  The lawyer frowned. “But surely you don’t intend to continue with this…this…” He waved at the Kid’s fringed jacket and the buscadero gunbelt and holster. “Masquerade!”

  “It’s not a masquerade anymore. I’m Kid Morgan now.” He paused. “I might have one more use for Conrad Browning, though.”

  “To help you find out who hired Lasswell to kill Rebel and put you through hell?” Frank guessed.

  “That’s right.” The Kid drained the last of his brandy and reached for his hat. “Whoever sicced Lasswell and his bunch on me has a grudge against Conrad, not Kid Morgan, so if I’m going to draw the bastard out, Conrad has to live again. The Callahan boys told me that Rebel is buried in New Mexico, down close to where she and I first met.” He stood up, nodded to Frank and Turnbuckle, and said, “It’s time for Conrad Browning to pay a visit to his wife’s grave.”

  Turn the page for an exciting preview of the USA Today bestselling series SIDEWINDERS!

  SIDEWINDERS: CUTTHROAT CANYON

  by William W. Johnstone

  with J. A. Johnstone

  Coming in June 2009

  Wherever Pinnacle Books are sold

  The wise man avoids trouble,

  so as to grow old with grace and dignity.

  —Sir Harry Fulton

  Nobody ever accused us of bein’ smart.

  —Scratch Morton

  Chapter 1

  Scratch Morton dug an elbow into Bo Creel’s ribs, nodded toward the building they were passing, and said, “That’s new since the last time we were here, ain’t it?”

  As Bo looked at the building, a nearly naked woman leaned out a second-story window and called to them, “Hey, boys, come on inside and pay me a visit.”

  Bo ticked a finger against the brim of his black, flat-crowned hat, said politely, “Ma’am,” then used his other hand to grasp his trail partner’s arm and drag him on past the whorehouse’s entrance.

  “You’d have to pay, all right, like the lady said,” he told Scratch, “and we’re a mite low on funds right now.”

  “Well, then, let’s find a saloon and a poker game,” Scratch suggested. “There should be plenty of both in El Paso.”

  Bo didn’t doubt that. The border town was famous for its vices. That was the main reason Scratch had insisted on stopping here. They had been on the trail for a long time, and Scratch had a powerful hankering for whiskey and women, not necessarily in that order. They had come home to Texas, and Scratch was of a mind to celebrate.

  For most of the past two score years, the two drifters had been somewhere else other than the state where they were born. Of course, Texas hadn’t been a state when Bo Creel and Scratch Morton entered the world. It was still part of Mexico then. They had been youngsters when the revolution came along, and after that they’d been citizens of the Republic of Texas for a while.

  By the time Texas entered the Union in 1845, Bo and Scratch had pulled up stakes and gone on the drift, due to Scratch’s fiddle-footed nature and Bo’s desire to put the tragedy of losing his wife and family to sickness behind him. They had been back to the Lone Star State a few times since then, but mostly they’d been elsewhere, seeing what was on the other side of the next hill.

  The long years showed in their tanned, weathered faces, as well as in Scratch’s shock of silver hair and the strands of gray shot through Bo’s dark brown hair, but not in their rangy, muscular bodies that still moved with the easy grace of younger men.

  As befitting his deeply held belief that he was God’s gift to women, Scratch was something of a dandy, sporting a big, cream-colored Stetson, a fringed buckskin jacket over a white shirt, and tan whipcord pants tucked into high-topped brown boots. The elaborately tooled leather gunbelt strapped around his hips supported a pair of holstered Remington revolvers with long barrels and ivory grips. People had accused him in the past of looking like a Wild West Show cowboy, and he took that as a compliment.

  Bo, on the other hand, had been mistaken for a preacher more than once with his sober black suit and vest and hat. His gunbelt and holster were as plain as could be, and so was the lone .45 he carried. Not many preachers, though, had strong, long-fingered hands that could handle a gun and a deck of cards with equal deftness.

  Having lived through the chaos of the Runaway Scrape and the Battle of San Jacinto, Bo and Scratch both claimed to want nothing but peace and quiet. Somehow, though, those things had a habit of avoiding them. It seemed that despite their best efforts, wherever they went, trouble soon followed.

  Bo was determined that things would be different here in El Paso, since they were back on Texas soil. They would replenish their funds, have a few good meals, sleep under a roof instead of the stars, stock up on supplies, then ride on to wherever the trail took them next.

  It was a good plan, but it required money. Bo set his eye on the Birdcage Saloon in the next block as a likely source of those funds.

  He recalled the Birdcage from previous visits to the border town. It was run by a big German named August Strittmayer who insisted that all the games of chance there be conducted in an honest fashion. Bo was sure some of the professional gamblers who played at the Birdcage skirted the edge of honesty from time to time, but by and large, Strittmayer’s influence kept the games clean.

  “You can have a beer at the bar in Strittmayer’s place while I see if there’s an empty chair at any of the tables,” he suggested to Scratch.

  “Now you’re talkin’,” Scratch agreed with a grin. “The scenery’s plumb nice in there, too.”

  Bo knew what Scratch was referring to. On a raised platform on one side of the room sat the big cage that gave the place its name. Instead of a bird perching on the swing that hung inside the cage, one of the saloon girls was always there, in the next thing to her birthday suit. The girls took turns rocking back and forth on that swing. They might not sing like birds, but their plumage was mighty nice.

  When Bo and Scratch pushed through the batwings and went inside, they saw that the saloon was doing its usual brisk business. Thirsty cowboys filled most of the places at the bar and occupied all but a few of the tables. A group of men gathered around the birdcage in the corner, calling out lewd comments to the girl on the swing.

  Strittmayer had laid down the law where those girls were concerned. The saloon’s bouncers would deal quickly and harshly with any man who so much as set foot inside the cage. He couldn’t stop the comments, though, and the girls who worked the cage soon learned to ignore them and continue to wear a placid smile.

  The air was full of the usual saloon smells—whiskey, tobacco, sweat, and piss—and the sounds—loud talk, raucous laughter, tinny piano music, the click of a roulette wheel, the whisper of cards being shuffled and dealt. Bo nodded toward the bar and told Scratch, “Go grab a beer.”

  “I can handle that job,” Scratch said.

  Bo spotted a dealer he knew at one of the baize-covered tables where poker games were going on. The man wore the elaborate waistcoat and frilly shirt of a professional tinhorn. Close acquaintances knew him as Three-Toed Johnny because of an accident with an ax while splitting some firewood one frosty morning. He was an honest dealer, at least most of the time. Bo hadn’t seen him for a couple of years. The last place they had run into each other was Wichita.

  The hand was over as Bo came up to the table, and Johnny was raking in the pot. No surprise there. One of the players said in a tone of disgust, “I’m busted. Guess I’m out.” He scraped back his chair and stood up.

  Johnny stopped him and held out a chip. “No man leaves my table without enough money for a drink, my friend,” he said.

  The man hesitated, then said, “Thanks,” and took the chip. He headed for the bar to cash it in and get that drink.

  Bo said, “Some people say that’s what got Bill Hickok killed. He busted Jack McCall at cards, then tossed him a mercy chip like that the day before McCall came back into the Number Ten and shot him.”

  Three-Toed Johnny looked up and grinn
ed. “Bo Creel! I didn’t see you come in.”

  Bo sort of doubted that. Johnny didn’t miss much.

  “It’s good to see you again, amigo,” the gambler went on.

  Bo gestured toward the empty chair. “You have room for another player?”

  “Most assuredly. Sit down.”

  “Wait just a damned minute,” a man on the other side of the table said. He was dressed in an expensive suit, but the big Stetson pushed back on his head, the seamed face of a man who spent most of his life outdoors, and the calluses on his hands all told Bo that he was a cattleman. The suit and the big ring on one of his fingers said he was probably a pretty successful one. So did the arrogant tone of his voice.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Churchill?” Johnny asked. Bo could tell that the gambler was keeping his own voice deceptively mild.

  By using the hombre’s name, Johnny had also identified him for Bo. The upset man was Little Ed Churchill, the owner of one of the largest ranches in West Texas. Little Ed wasn’t little at all, but his pa Big Ed had been even bigger, Bo recalled, hence the name.

  “This fella’s a friend of yours,” Churchill said as he jerked a hand toward Bo. “You said as much yourself just now.”

  “And that’s a problem because…?”

  “How do the rest of us know that you and him aren’t about to run some sort of tomfoolery on us?”

  Johnny’s eyes hardened. “You mean you’re afraid we’ll cheat you?” he asked, and his soft tone was really deceptive now. Bo knew how angry Johnny was.

  He wasn’t too happy about being called a cheater himself.

  “I’ve seen you play, Fontana,” Churchill said. “You win a lot.”

  “It’s my job to win. But I do it by honest means.”

  So Johnny was using the last name Fontana now, Bo thought. Johnny had had half a dozen different last names at least. Bo wasn’t sure Johnny even remembered what name he’d been born with.

  “To tell you the truth,” Johnny went on, “I don’t need to cheat to beat you, Churchill. All I have to do is take advantage of your natural recklessness.”

  One of the other players rested both hands on the table, in plain sight, and said, “I don’t like the way this conversation is going. I came here for a friendly game, gentlemen, not a display of bravado. And certainly not for gunplay.”

  “Shut the hell up, Davidson,” Churchill snapped.

  The man called Davidson paled and sat up straighter. He was in his thirties, well dressed, with tightly curled brown hair and a mustache that curled up on the tips. As Davidson moved forward a little in his chair, Bo caught a glimpse of a gun holstered in a shoulder rig under the man’s left arm. Despite his town suit, Davidson looked tough enough to use the iron if he had to.

  “I can go find another game,” Bo suggested. He didn’t want to sit in on this particular one badly enough to cause a shootout. “I just thought I’d say hello to an old friend.”

  “There’s no need for that, Bo,” Johnny said. He gave Churchill a flat, level stare and went on. “Bo Creel is an honest man, and so am I. If you doubt either of those things, Churchill, maybe it’s you who had better find another game.”

  “I won’t be stampeded, damn it.” Churchill nodded toward the empty chair. “Sit down, Creel. But remember that I’ll be watching you.” He looked at Johnny. “Both of you.”

  “It’s going to be a distinct pleasure taking your money,” Johnny drawled.

  “Shut up and deal the cards.”

  Johnny shut up and dealt.

  Chapter 2

  Bo wasn’t sure what would have happened if he or Johnny had won the first hand after he sat down. Little Ed Churchill might have been more convinced than ever that he was being cheated.

  The man called Davidson was the one who raked in that pot, however. In fact, judging by the way what had been a fairly small pile of chips in front of Davidson when Bo sat down began to grow after that, the man’s luck appeared to have changed for the better.

  Davidson won three out of the next five hands, with Bo taking one and Johnny the other. Bo understood now what Johnny meant about Churchill being reckless. The man was a plunger when he had a decent hand and a poor bluffer when he didn’t. Bo wasn’t surprised that Churchill lost a considerable amount of money in a short period of time.

  The cattleman’s face was red to start with, and it flushed even more as he continued to lose. Bo felt trouble building. If not for the fact that he and Scratch needed money, he would have just as soon gotten up from the table and walked away.

  Scratch ambled over from the bar and stood there watching the game with a mug of beer in his hand. Churchill glanced at him and glared.

  “What two-bit melodrama did you come from?”

  Scratch’s easy grin didn’t hide the flash of anger in his eyes that Bo noted. “I’ll let that remark pass, friend,” the silver-haired Texan said. “I can see you’ve got troubles of your own.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  “Well, from what I’ve seen so far of your poker playin’, my hundred-and-four-year-old grandma could likely whip you at cards.”

  Churchill slapped his pasteboards facedown on the table and started to stand up. “Why, you grinning son of a—”

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” The booming, Teutonic tones of August Strittmayer filled the air as the saloon’s proprietor loomed over the table. “All the games in the Birdcage are friendly, nicht wahr?”

  “Don’t talk that damned Dutchy talk at me,” Churchill snapped. He settled back down in his chair, though. Strittmayer was an imposing figure, two yards tall and a yard wide in brown tweed, with a bald head and big, knobby fists.

  “Trouble here, Johnny?” Strittmayer asked.

  “Not really,” Johnny answered with a casual shrug. “Mr. Churchill is a bit of a poor loser, that’s all.”

  “No one leaves the Birdcage unhappy,” Strittmayer declared. “Why don’t you come over to the bar and have a drink with me before you go, Herr Churchill? I have some splendid twenty-year-old brandy that I would be pleased to share with you.”

  “Who said I was going anywhere? I’m staying right here, damn it, until I win back my money!”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have that much time,” Strittmayer said.

  Johnny added, “Yeah, we’d all grow old and die before then.”

  For a smart man, Johnny never had learned how to control his mouth, Bo thought. Churchill paled at the insult. He glared at Strittmayer and demanded, “Are you throwing me out, you damned Dutchman?”

  Strittmayer looked sorrowful. “Although I regret to say it, yes, I am, Herr Churchill.”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  That was a stupid question, given the fact that Strittmayer had just called the cattleman by name. But Churchill was too angry to be thinking straight, Bo decided.

  “Most certainly I do.”

  “You’ll lose a hell of a lot of business if I tell my ranch hands to stay away from this place.”

  “Then I suppose I shall have to make up that business some other way,” Strittmayer said.

  Churchill got to his feet. “You’ll be sorry about this,” he said. “And you can keep your damned twenty-year-old brandy. In fact, you can take the bottle and shove it right up your—”

  Strittmayer’s hamlike hand closed around Churchill’s arm and propelled the rancher toward the door. “I think you have said enough, nicht wahr? Good evening, Herr Churchill.”

  The whole saloon had gone silent now. Everybody in the Birdcage watched as Strittmayer marched Churchill to the door. Even the girl in the cage wasn’t swinging back and forth anymore.

  Churchill cursed loudly at the humiliation as Strittmayer forced him through the batwings. When the rancher had stalked off, Strittmayer stepped back inside, dusted his hands off as if they had gotten dirty, and beamed around at the crowd. “No more trouble, ja? The next round of drinks, it is on the house!”

  Cheers rang out from the customers
as most of them bellied up to the bar for that free drink. Bo had a feeling that the bartenders would be reaching for special bottles full of booze they had watered down especially for such occasional demonstrations of generosity on Strittmayer’s part.

  “Sorry about that, gents,” Three-Toed Johnny Fontana told the other cardplayers at the table. “Poker should be a game of more subtle pleasures.”

  “I don’t know,” Davidson said with a smile. “I enjoyed watching that blowhard get thrown out of the place. A man like that gets a little money and power and thinks he owns everything and everybody.”

  Bo nodded toward the big, affable German who had gone back to the bar and asked Johnny, “Can Churchill really make trouble for Strittmayer?”

  Johnny shrugged. “That depends on how badly his pride is wounded. August does enough business so that it won’t hurt him much if Churchill orders his men to stay away from the place.”

  “What if he tries something a little more drastic than that?”

  “You mean like coming back here with a bunch of those hardcases who ride for him and trying to wreck the place?” Johnny shook his head. “That seems like a little bit much for a dispute over a few hands of poker.”

  For once Johnny’s ability to judge other men, which was so important in his profession, seemed to be letting him down a mite, Bo thought. He had seen something bordering on madness in Little Ed Churchill’s eyes as he was forced out of the saloon. As Davidson had said, some men got that way when most people didn’t dare to stand up to them. It enraged them whenever they ran into an hombre who didn’t have any back-up in his nature.

  But maybe Churchill would show some sense and go back to his ranch to sleep off that rage. Bo hoped that would turn out to be the case. When Johnny said, “Shall we resume the game?” Bo nodded.

  Davidson’s luck was still the best of anyone’s around the table, but Bo won a few hands and was careful to cut his losses in the ones he couldn’t win. He had increased their stake enough so that he and Scratch could afford a couple of hotel rooms and some supplies. He was about to call it a night when he heard a lot of hoofbeats in the street outside.