The Loner: Trail Of Blood

by J. A. Johnstone

  Unable to believe what he was seeing and hearing, Conrad leaped forward and leaned down to grab the wrist just as Arturo was about to knock on the platform again. Arturo’s other hand had hold of the coupling between the cars, and both of the servant’s legs were wrapped around an iron rod projecting from the apparatus.

  Conrad hauled up on Arturo’s wrist and then grabbed his coat. He lifted Arturo onto the platform and threw his arms around him in a hug. “I thought that bastard Murtagh had killed you!”

  “Yes, well, it wasn’t for lack of trying.” Arturo was trembling all over from the strain of having to hang on for dear life as the roadbed rushed past right below him.

  “Come on, let’s get you back to the compartment.”

  Behind Conrad, the door into the passenger car opened and the conductor strolled out, too late for all the excitement he was blissfully unaware of. “Mr. Browning!” he said when he recognized Conrad. “Something wrong?”

  “Yes, my friend here isn’t feeling well,” Conrad explained as he put an arm around Arturo’s shoulders. “I was helping him get some fresh air.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can to do help?”

  Arturo said, “No, thank you, I’ll be fine. Perhaps if I lie down for a short time …”

  “Lemme give you a hand there, Mr. Browning,” the conductor offered.

  Between them, they got Arturo into the Pullman compartment, where he stretched out on one of the short divans that pulled out into a berth. The conductor said, “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do help.”

  Conrad nodded. “I certainly will.”

  When the man was gone, Conrad sat down on the opposite berth and asked, “How did you happen to come out there just in time to save my life?”

  “I thought you would be back here sooner,” Arturo explained. “I just stepped out to see if you were coming.”

  “Another few seconds and I would have been a dead man. Thanks, Arturo. I’m obliged to you.”

  “Nonsense, sir. It’s my job to assist you in any way possible.”

  Conrad laughed. “It’s not your job to take on cold-blooded killers, but you jumped right in anyway.”

  “Was that Mr. Murtagh?”

  “It was,” Conrad said with a nod.

  “What … what happened to him?”

  “He won’t bother us anymore,” Conrad said, thinking about Murtagh’s broken back and the long fall from that trestle.

  The train rolled on, heading west into the night.

  Chapter 16

  The bustling city of Kansas City, Missouri sat on the border between the states of Missouri and Kansas, but it was a border town in other ways, too. For years Westport Landing, one of the frontier communities that had developed into Kansas City, had been a major jumping-off place for the wagon trains carrying immigrants to the West. Later, as civilization extended itself past the Missouri River, Kansas City had become the primary market for grain grown in the vast, flat farmland surrounding the city. But it was also a cowtown, as the railroads brought shipments of cattle from the empire-sized ranches of Texas and elsewhere. Huge stockyards covered much of the area known as West Bottoms, just west of downtown, and you were just as likely to see cowboys walking down the street, spurs jingling, as you were to bump into sober-suited businessmen. Kansas City was the true boundary between east and west, Conrad thought as he stepped down from the train in Union Station, followed by Arturo.

  The servant hurried off to supervise the unloading of their luggage. Conrad set off across the crowded platform toward the stationmaster’s office. He had sent a telegram to the stationmaster from back up the line, advising the man when to expect him.

  The woman who sat at the desk in the outer office recognized his name. She stood up and smiled at him. “Please sit down, Mr. Browning. I’ll let Mr. Crowley know you’re here.”

  Conrad noticed she was quite attractive, with upswept brown hair and a fine figure that the high-necked, long-sleeved dress she wore failed to conceal. Evidently, more and more women were working in business offices.

  The secretary came back a moment later and motioned for him to go through the door to the inner office. “Mr. Crowley will see you now,” she murmured.

  Conrad went in and shook hands with a tough-looking, gray-haired man. “It’s good to see you again, Mr. Browning,” Crowley said.

  “We’ve met before?” Conrad asked with a faint frown.

  “Not exactly. I used to be a conductor, and your mother rode on my trains several times. You were with her, but you were only a boy so I don’t expect you to remember.”

  Conrad smiled. “My mother traveled a lot. She had so many different business interests, and she liked to keep up with all of them, as personally as she could.”

  “I imagine you’re the same way.” Crowley gestured toward a leather armchair in front of the desk. “Have a seat. Would you like a cigar or a drink?”

  “No, thanks.”

  When both men were settled in their chairs, Crowley went on. “What can I do for you, Mr. Browning? Your wire said something about the records from three years ago …”

  “I’m looking for two women who would have been traveling with a pair of infants. Twins. I’d like to find out where they went when they left Kansas City.”

  The stationmaster’s forehead creased. “Two women and two children. That’s all you know? And this was three years ago?” With a vaguely uncomfortable look, Crowley moved some papers on his desk. “You realize, of course, Mr. Browning, that thousands and thousands of passengers have come through this station since then?”

  Conrad suppressed the surge of irritation he felt. “Of course. But I can narrow it down to a fairly short period of time, and surely there are records of how many tickets were sold and what the destinations were.”

  Crowley sighed. “Mr. Browning, what you ask is impossible. Yes, there are records of how many tickets were sold, but there’s no way to tell which passengers bought which tickets. All we have are totals.”

  Conrad’s heart sank. He leaned his elbows on his knees and hung his head. The news was bitterly disappointing. As he mulled over the stationmas-ter’s words, it occurred to him perhaps there was another way—a longer shot even, than checking the railroad’s records—but it might provide at least some information.

  He straightened in the chair. “Do you have someone who’s worked here for several years? Someone who would have been here three years ago during the period I’m interested in?”

  “Yes, of course. A number of our employees have been here for a long time.”

  “If I could talk to them, ask them some questions …”

  “Do you really think that would do any good?” Crowley asked. “Mr. Browning, with all due respect, so many people go through here I doubt if any of the employees would remember someone from last week, let alone three years ago.”

  “They might remember one of the women I’m looking for.” With Pamela’s beauty and the way she carried herself like some sort of royalty, with all the attendant arrogance and abrasiveness, she was hard to forget. Or so Conrad hoped.

  “Certainly you can talk to them,” Crowley said. “I have no objection to that at all. I just think you should be prepared for the possibility that you won’t find out anything.”

  “Can you give me a list of the people who were working here three years ago?”

  The stationmaster nodded. “Give me a couple of hours.”

  Conrad got to his feet. “Fine. I appreciate this, Mr. Crowley.”

  The man smiled. “I’m glad to do it. You’re a major stockholder in this railroad, Mr. Browning, as your mother was before you. Should I send the list to your hotel?”

  “That’s fine. I’ll be at the Cattleman’s Hotel.”

  “All right.” Crowley extended his hand across the desk. “I’m not sure exactly what you’re looking for, Mr. Browning, but I wish you the best of luck in your search.”

  The best of luck was exactly what
he was going to need, Conrad thought.

  Arturo had engaged a buggy for the two of them and a wagon for their luggage while Conrad was talking to the stationmaster. It didn’t take long to reach the Cattleman’s Hotel in downtown. With ranchers and cattle buyers making up most of its guests, Conrad thought he would feel more comfortable there than in some stuffier place. His time in the West had changed him, made him less tolerant of the artificiality that pervaded much of the East.

  Which was not to say that the Cattleman’s wasn’t a nice place. The lobby was luxuriously furnished, and the dining room was famous for its steaks. The desk clerk greeted Conrad warmly and summoned bellboys to take the luggage up to the suite he’d reserved.

  As promised, a messenger delivered the list of long-time employees that Crowley sent over, but it was too late in the day to return to Union Station and start interviewing them.

  The next morning Conrad used the stationmas-ter’s office to talk to them, but it didn’t take long to realize that Crowley had been right. Even though the ticket clerks, porters, and other employees wanted to be helpful, again and again Conrad got nothing but blank looks as he described Pamela Tarleton and explained that she would have been traveling with another woman and two babies. He added that she would have been hard to please and likely would have bossed around anyone she encountered, but that didn’t help.

  As one ticket clerk put it, “We see hundreds of people a day, Mr. Browning. There’s just no way to remember anything that far back.”

  Conrad was polite, but he felt his frustration growing. When he had talked to everyone on Crowley’s list, the stationmaster came back into the office and asked, “Any luck?”

  Conrad slumped in the chair behind the desk and shook his head. “Not a bit. No one remembers her.”

  “I was afraid of that. I did some checking through our records, just in case I might turn up something, but no luck.”

  “It’s a dead end,” Conrad said glumly. “The trail’s too cold. There’s no way to find out where she went.” He looked at the list he had tossed onto the desk, and a thought occurred to him. Tapping the list, he asked, “What about people who were working here three years ago, but aren’t now?”

  Crowley rubbed his jaw and frowned in thought. “Yes, there are some folks who fit that description, beginning with Ralph Potter.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “He ran this station before I did.”

  Conrad sat up straighter. “Where can I find him? He’s still alive, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes, he’s still alive. I can give you directions to his place. I don’t know if he’ll help you, though. Ralph can be a little … difficult.”

  “I’ll take that chance,” Conrad said. Now that he thought about it, the odds of Pamela having much to do with a ticket clerk or a porter were small. Given her personality, if she’d encountered any sort of trouble with the railroad in Kansas City, she would have gone directly to the stationmaster to complain.

  Crowley explained that Ralph Potter had bought a small farm south of town when he retired from the railroad. He told Conrad how to find it and then warned him again that Potter didn’t like strangers.

  Conrad smiled. “I’m sure I can handle him.”

  Still clinging to a shred of hope that the trail wasn’t completely lost, Conrad left the depot and went back to the hotel. When he told Arturo what he was going to do, the servant asked, “Would you like me to come with you, sir?”

  Conrad shook his head. “No, I’ll be fine. I’m going to rent a horse and take a ride down to Potter’s farm this afternoon.”

  The buckskin he had ridden while he was drifting across the Southwest was being well cared for at a livery stable in Santa Fe. Conrad had paid the man for several months’ care in advance, and if it was longer than that before he got back to pick up the buckskin, the man knew how to contact the law firm of Turnbuckle & Stafford in San Francisco to get more money. The dangers Conrad had shared with the buckskin while he was known as Kid Morgan had made the two of them friends, at least as much as man and horse could be. But since he hadn’t known where his quest would lead him, he’d had to leave the buckskin behind and would have to rely on other mounts.

  After lunch in the hotel’s dining room, Conrad found a nearby livery stable and picked out a rangy gray gelding, renting the horse for the rest of the day along with a saddle and tack. He mounted up and made his way out of Kansas City. It took awhile because the town was so big and sprawling.

  Eventually, Conrad found himself following a road that ran through mostly flat farmland. Here and there, a small hill rose, and there were stretches of uncultivated land as well.

  He wasn’t quite sure if he was still in Missouri or had crossed into Kansas. The border ran right through the area, and a swing of a hundred yards as the road curved could easily mean he was crossing from one state to the other. Not that it really mattered to him which state Ralph Potter lived in. He just wanted to talk to the man.

  Following Crowley’s directions brought Conrad to a small farmhouse with a sod roof that looked like it had been there almost as long as the region had been settled. Corn grew in the fields on both sides of the narrow lane that ran from the road for a quarter of a mile to the house. A couple of cotton-woods shaded the house itself. A barn stood behind it, along with two smaller outbuildings. Conrad saw a covered well at the side of the house.

  It was a nice-looking place, especially for a man who had retired from being the stationmaster of a busy depot at one of the country’s busiest railroad hubs, or for someone who wanted to live out the rest of his days in peace.

  Conrad reined to a halt in front of the house and was about to swing out of the saddle when a pack of four or five huge, shaggy dogs exploded around the corner of the building and charged at him in a yapping frenzy. The rented horse panicked and started to buck and rear. Conrad was a fine rider and normally would have been able to stay in the saddle, but he’d been in the act of dismounting and was thrown off balance. He grabbed for the saddle horn but missed.

  With a breath-robbing impact, he crashed to the ground.

  Instantly, the growling, snarling curs were all around him. His impulse was to reach for his guns and shoot them, but they held back, not attacking him, just surrounding and threatening him.

  He was glad he hadn’t started any gunplay when he heard a shotgun being cocked. He glanced around to see the menacing twin barrels of a greener approaching him. What really shocked him was the person pointing the scattergun at him.

  She was a beautiful girl, no more than seventeen or eighteen years old, with long, straight blond hair hanging around her face and down her back. She had a sweet, innocent, heart-shaped face, but there was nothing sweet or innocent about her voice as she said, “Keep your hands away from them guns, mister, or I’ll blow your damn head off.”

  Chapter 17

  Conrad swallowed hard and kept his hands well away from the guns under his coat. His hat had fallen off when he tumbled from the horse, and a hot prairie wind stirred his hair. The same wind moved several strands of the girl’s long, fair hair in front of her face, but she didn’t move to brush them away. All her attention was focused on the stranger who lay there surrounded by the dogs.

  From where he lay, Conrad couldn’t help noticing the thrust of her breasts against the thin cotton dress she wore, or the way the wind molded the fabric to the curves of her hips and thighs. She was young, but a full-grown woman or next thing to it, no doubt about that.

  He licked dust off his lips. “Listen, take it easy. I mean no harm—”

  “Shut up! Come out here from town to take our land away from us. I know your type of skunk when I see it.”

  The scornful lash of the girl’s voice bothered Conrad almost as much as the shotgun she was pointing at him or the slavering muzzles of the dogs all around him. She had taken him for some sort of town scoundrel with his tweed suit and rented horse.

  “Sara Beth!” a man’s voice called. “What you g
ot there, Sara Beth?”

  “I think it’s another fella from the bank!” the girl replied without taking her eyes off Conrad.

  An elderly man limped into view. He wore gray-striped trousers with suspenders over a faded pair of red longjohns. A black cap with a stiff bill perched on his head. Conrad looked at it for a second before he realized it was the same sort of cap worn by many men who worked for the railroad. The man was short and thin, with a leathery face and a spiky white beard.

  “Mr. Potter?” Conrad guessed.

  The man’s pale blue eyes were deep set under shaggy brows. Those brows rose as his eyes widened in surprise. “You know me?”

  “Of course he knows you,” the girl, Sara Beth, snapped. “The bank sent him out here to cause more trouble for us, didn’t it?”

  “I’m not from any bank,” Conrad said, “and I’m certainly not here to cause trouble for you. My name is Conrad Browning. If you’ll call these dogs off, I’ll tell you why I came to see you.”

  The old man tugged thoughtfully at his beard. “Maybe we ought to listen to him, Sara Beth—”

  “No! You can’t trust anybody from the city. You told me that.”

  “Yeah, but there’s somethin’ about this young fella …” The old man’s voice trailed off as he looked surprised again. “Browning, did you say your name is? Any relation to Mrs. Vivian Browning?”

  “She was my mother,” Conrad said.

  That made up the old-timer’s mind. He reached over, took hold of the shotgun’s barrels, and pushed them aside. “Get away from him, you blasted varmints!” he told the dogs as he advanced, kicking at them. “Let the man alone!”

  “But you told me—” Sara Beth began angrily.

  “I know what I told you, girl. But this fella is the son of one of the most decent ladies to ever walk the face o’ the earth. Ever’ time a train she was on stopped in Kansas City, she made a point of it to come to my office and say hello to me.”