The Loner: Trail Of Blood

by J. A. Johnstone

  “Of course.”

  Arturo continued on his way, and The Kid stepped into the broad, dusty street. He was only partway across when he heard the sudden rataplan of hoofbeats. Stopping, he saw a group of riders coming quickly toward him. The red glow from the setting sun in the sky behind them cast them in stark silhouette. Four men on horseback, and they didn’t seem inclined to slow down or go around him. With his mouth tightening in anger, The Kid took a fast step back to avoid being trampled.

  He wanted to call out to them and tell them to watch where the hell they were going, but that could lead to an argument or a fight and he didn’t have time to waste. Once the horsemen were past him, he started toward the marshal’s office again.

  He slowed as he saw the riders pull their mounts to a stop in front of the stone building. They swung down, stepped onto the boardwalk, and then paused for a second. Even in the fading light, The Kid’s keen eyes saw the men reach down and check to make sure their guns were loose in their holsters.

  That was a sure sign trouble was brewing, The Kid thought as one of the men jerked open the door and all four of them marched into the marshal’s office.

  Whatever was about to happen, it was none of his business, he told himself. He didn’t know who those four men were, and he had never even heard of Abilene’s Marshal Fisher until a few minutes earlier. The smart thing to do would be to turn around, follow Arturo to the hotel, and come back to see the marshal later.

  But suppose there was trouble, and Fisher got himself shot full of holes. He might know something about Pamela and the children … but a dead man was no use to Kid Morgan.

  The Kid drew a deep breath through his nose and started walking again. He still had the Winchester in his hands, and he worked the lever to throw a round into the rifle’s chamber.

  The four men had left the door partially open. As he stepped onto the boardwalk, The Kid heard a harsh voice say, “You can let him outta there, Marshal, or by God we’ll take him out! You won’t like what happens if we have to do that.”

  It was enough to give The Kid a pretty good idea of what was going on. Using the Winchester’s barrel to push the door open the rest of the way, he stepped into the doorway and drawled, “And I don’t reckon you boys will like what happens if you try.”

  Chapter 22

  In a matter of seconds, The Kid’s eyes took in the scene in the marshal’s office, noting the position of each of the five men who stood there.

  The four who had just entered had arranged themselves in a threatening half-circle around a man who stood with his back to the thick wooden door that separated the office from the cell block in the rear of the building. The man was in his forties, slender as a whip, with graying fair hair and a mustache. He was dressed all in black and had a holstered Colt on his hip, along with a marshal’s badge pinned to his leather vest.

  The oldest of the four intruders was older than the marshal, with a derby hat on thinning red hair and a grizzled beard of the same shade sprouting from his jaw. The youngest was no more than twenty. Curly brown hair fell around his shoulders. Despite his youth, the eyes he turned toward The Kid were flat and devoid of humanity, like the eyes of a snake.

  The other two were in their thirties, typical hardcases in worn range clothes. One of them, who had a prominent beak of a nose over a thick, drooping black mustache, glared at The Kid and demanded, “Who the hell are you?”

  The old-timer in the derby growled, “This ain’t none o’ your business, mister. You best skedaddle.”

  “My business is with the marshal,” The Kid said coldly. “So you’d best conclude whatever brought you here and then leave, so I can get on with it.”

  Big Nose said, “You’re makin’ a bad mistake. Haul your freight outta here.” He was the one who had been threatening the marshal as The Kid reached the doorway.

  The long-haired youngster laughed. “Yeah, you don’t want to get on our bad side, mister. We work for Court Elam.”

  “Never heard of him,” The Kid snapped.

  Big Nose ignored him and looked back at the marshal. “How about it, Fisher? You gonna let Barnes out?”

  “Not hardly,” the lawman replied. “We don’t know yet if that girl’s going to live or not, and even if she does, Barnes will have to answer for what he did to her.”

  Big Nose’s face flushed with anger. “Court’s not gonna like this. He wants his men treated with respect.”

  “I don’t give a damn what Elam likes or doesn’t like. As far as I’m concerned, none of you varmints have earned a lick of respect from me or anybody else in Abilene. Why don’t you just ride on back to Powderhorn?”

  The youngster said, “We can take ’em, Jim. There’s four of us and only two of them.”

  “Yeah, but one of them is behind us with a Winchester.” Big Nose grimaced. “We’ll go, Fisher. But this ain’t over.”

  The old-timer with the derby pointed a finger at the marshal and blustered, “Yeah, you’ll be seein’ us again.”

  “More than likely over the barrel of a gun,” Fisher drawled, and The Kid’s instinctive liking for him increased.

  The Kid moved aside from the door to let the four hardcases file out of the office. He kept them covered the whole time. When they were gone, he toed the door shut and lowered the rifle as he turned toward the marshal.

  Before The Kid could say anything, Fisher snapped, “Get down!” and leaped toward the desk where a lamp was burning. Even as he blew out the flame, both of the windows in the office exploded inward under the onslaught of a volley of shots fired from outside.

  The Kid had halfway expected something like that, so he was already diving toward the floor as shards of broken glass sprayed around him. He had an arm over his face to protect his eyes. He rolled over as he landed and came up on one knee still holding the Winchester. He thrust the rifle through the busted window closest to him and aimed at the muzzle flashes in the street, cranking off three rounds as fast as he could work the lever.

  Marshal Fisher had snatched a loaded rifle from the rack on the wall behind the desk and crouched at the other window to open fire. He and The Kid raked the street with their shots, and that was enough to make the four mounted men dig in their spurs and send their horses lunging away from the marshal’s office.

  “Hold your fire!” Fisher called to The Kid. “They’re leaving. Don’t want any stray bullets hitting anybody else.”

  The Kid pulled the Winchester back from the window. The rifle was chambered to use the same rounds as his Colt, so he took fresh cartridges from the loops on his shell belt and thumbed them through the Winchester’s loading gate, working in the dark with the ease of long familiarity.

  It sounded like Fisher was reloading, too. When he was finished, the marshal asked, “You hit?”

  “I picked up a scratch or two when those windows broke, but that’s all. How about you?”

  “Not even a scratch.” Fisher stood up. “There are shutters on the windows. Let’s close them before I strike a light again.”

  That sounded like a good idea to The Kid. He closed and latched the shutters on the window where he had been firing at the gunmen, and heard the marshal doing the same at the other window. The scratch of a lucifer came a moment later. Light flared up from the match.

  Fisher lit the lamp. In its glow, The Kid studied the shutters, which had a double layer of thick boards that would stop most rifle bullets and anything smaller than that. The office door was formidable, too. With the building’s stone walls, it would take a cannon to bust in there.

  Fisher put his rifle back in the rack. “Stranger in Abilene, aren’t you?”

  The Kid nodded. “That’s right. A friend and I just rode in a little while ago.”

  “That was good timing as far as I’m concerned.” The marshal came around the desk and stuck out his hand. A faint smile relieved the naturally grim cast of his face. “I’m obliged to you for your help, Mister …?”

  “Morgan,” The Kid said.

>   “Morgan.” The lawman nodded. “You said you had some business with me?”

  The Kid tucked his Winchester under his arm. “We stopped at the livery stable down the street, and the old-timer running it said you’d been a lawman here in Abilene for quite a while.”

  “About twenty years. Started out as a deputy under Marshal Travis. Took on the top job when he retired.”

  “Then you’ve probably seen most people who have come and gone during that time.”

  Fisher shrugged. “Most of them, I guess.” He gave The Kid a shrewd look. “I take it you’re looking for somebody in particular.”

  “A woman,” The Kid began.

  Fisher held up a hand to stop him. “Wait a minute. Stories that start out with a fella looking for a woman generally take some time and require a cup of coffee.” He gestured toward the pot that sat on a stove in the corner.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” The Kid said with a smile.

  Fisher filled tin cups and nodded The Kid into a chair in front of the desk. The lawman took a seat behind the desk and propped a booted foot on its corner. “Go ahead.”

  “This woman would have come into Abilene on the train.” The Kid described Pamela, not downplaying her beauty. It was a shame that such a lovely exterior had concealed such an evil soul, but that’s how it was. “She would have been traveling with another woman—I don’t know much about her—and a couple of kids a few months old. A boy and a girl.”

  Fisher shook his head. “I don’t recall anybody like that moving to Abilene recently.”

  “It would have been about three years ago. And the woman wouldn’t have stayed here. Maybe the other woman did, I don’t know. But she might have left the children.”

  Fisher frowned and sat up straighter. “Abandoned them, you mean?”

  “No, she would have found somebody to take them in. She probably would have paid them to spread the story that the kids belonged to some relative of theirs.”

  The marshal’s face wore its bleak look again as he shook his head. “I don’t know absolutely everybody in Abilene, Mr. Morgan, but I can promise you I never heard tell of anything like that happening around here, certainly not in the past three years. Anybody who’s gotten any kids has had them show up the, ah, normal way.”

  The Kid’s instincts told him Fisher wasn’t lying, hadn’t been paid off by Pamela to lie. For one thing, that would have required a certain degree of crookedness on the marshal’s part, and The Kid had a hunch Fisher was as straight-arrow a lawman as anybody would ever find.

  “Well, I can’t say as I’m surprised.”

  “Who is this woman you’re looking for, Morgan? If she’s not wanted by the law, I suppose you can tell me it’s none of my business, but—”

  “She’s not wanted,” The Kid said. “She’s dead. Has been for more than a year.”

  “Was she the mother of those kids?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’re the father.” It was a statement, not a question.

  The Kid drew in a deep breath. “I didn’t even know about them until a long time after she’d taken them and hidden them away somewhere.”

  Fisher took his foot off the desk and sat up straight in his chair. “That’s a damned rough thing for a man to have happen. I wish I could help you, but I can pretty much guarantee the children aren’t here in Abilene. Tell you what I’ll do, though. If you’re going to be around here for a day or two, I’ll put out the word, just in case I’ve overlooked something.”

  “I’d appreciate that, Marshal.”

  “If you don’t mind indulging my curiosity, how do you know she hid them somewhere?”

  “I got a letter from her after she died,” The Kid explained. “She had left it with a relative of hers, along with instructions that I was to get it after a certain amount of time had passed.”

  Fisher shook his head again. “That’s a pretty damned low thing to do.”

  “Yeah, it sure is.” Since his mission in Abilene was probably going to be a failure, The Kid went on. “Now indulge my curiosity, if you would, Marshal. Who were those men, and what did they want?”

  Fisher made a face like he had just bitten into something that tasted bad. “Hired guns who work for a man named Court Elam.” He jerked a thumb at the cell block door. “I’ve got another of Elam’s men locked up back there. He was drunk and got too rough with a soiled dove. Slapped her around until she passed out, and she hasn’t regained consciousness.” Fisher sighed. “That was two nights ago, so it doesn’t look very good for her. I figure the varmint will hang for murder before it’s all over.”

  “And Elam doesn’t like that, does he?”

  “Not one damned bit. He’s the big skookum he-wolf of a town called Powderhorn, about thirty miles west of here. He and his gunnies have everybody there buffaloed, and he doesn’t like it when anybody challenges him. He seems to think he ought to run things in this whole part of the state and can get away with whatever he or his men want to do.”

  “But you don’t agree with that.”

  Fisher shook his head. “Inside the town limits of Abilene, I sure don’t.”

  The Kid got to his feet. “Well, Marshal, I wish you the best of luck with this problem.”

  The marshal regarded him through narrowed eyes and asked, “You wouldn’t be interested in pinning on a deputy’s badge, would you? Just temporary-like, until I see what’s going to happen.”

  The Kid smiled and shook his head. “Sorry. I’m not a lawman.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid you’d say. And you’ve got those kids to look for, too. I can’t blame you for thinking that’s more important.” A look of surprise came over Fisher’s lean face as something occurred to him. “Say, I just thought of something that might help you. There’s an orphanage not far from here. What better place to hide a couple kids than some place where there’s a whole passel of them to start with?”

  The Kid’s heart began to beat faster as he thought about the marshal’s question. “You’re right. All Pamela would have had to do was claim they were orphans and leave them there!”

  Fisher nodded. “Yeah, you’ll want to check that out for sure.”

  The Kid’s hands tightened on his rifle. “Where is this orphanage?”

  “Well, that might be a little problem for you. You see, it’s in Powderhorn … and after tonight, I don’t think Elam’s gun-wolves are going to be too happy to see you again.”

  Chapter 23

  By the time The Kid reached the hotel, Arturo had rented two rooms for them. They were on the second floor, in the back as The Kid had requested, and were next to each other. Arturo had taken the valises upstairs and placed one in each room. He was waiting in an armchair in the lobby when The Kid came in.

  “I heard a considerable amount of shooting a short time ago. I suppose it’s too much to hope for that you weren’t involved in that, Kid.”

  “I had a hand in it,” The Kid admitted.

  “I suspected as much.” Arturo frowned as he spotted a bit of dried blood on The Kid’s face where a piece of the flying glass had cut him. “Good Lord. You’re wounded! Do you require medical attention?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just a tiny scratch. Don’t worry about me, Arturo.”

  “It’s my job to worry,” Arturo pointed out. “Did you get a chance to talk to the marshal, or were you set upon by crazed gunmen before you reached his office?”

  “I talked to him,” The Kid replied as a grim tone came into his voice. “He doesn’t remember anyone like Pamela ever stopping here, and he’s convinced that no children have shown up mysteriously in Abilene in the past three years. But he’s going to investigate just to be sure.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because I pitched in and gave him a hand when some hired guns tried to bust a friend of theirs out of jail.”

  “Ah,” Arturo said. “The light dawns. Those were the shots I heard.”

  “That’s right.”


  “Was anyone killed?”

  “Not this time.” In a low voice, The Kid quickly filled him in on what had happened at Marshal Fisher’s office.

  When The Kid was finished, Arturo frowned in thought. “Wait just a moment. You said that no one was killed this time. Do you plan to have another violent encounter with these men?”

  “I’m not planning on it, but it could happen. You see, they’re from a place called Powderhorn, and that’s where we’re going from here.” The Kid gestured toward the stairs. “Come on. I’ll tell you all about it.”

  They went up to The Kid’s room, where The Kid told Arturo about the orphanage in the settlement called Powderhorn. “Marshal Fisher didn’t know much about the place, only that it’s been there for about five years and is run by an old widow woman named Shanley. He said he couldn’t think of a better place to hide a couple kids than an orphanage, and I agree with him.”

  Arturo considered the idea and nodded. “It certainly seems feasible to me, sir. All Miss Tarleton would have had to do was claim that the parents of the children were dead. I doubt if this Mrs. Shanley would have demanded any proof, because after all—”

  “Who would lie about such a thing.” The Kid finished for him.

  “Exactly.” Despite Arturo’s habitually calm demeanor, a hint of excitement appeared on his face and in his voice as he went on. “I believe this may be the most promising development in our search so far.”

  The Kid nodded. “I agree. We’ll stay here tonight and start for Powderhorn tomorrow.”

  “Where there may well be men who are, what’s the expression, gunning for you?”

  “We ought to be used to that by now,” The Kid said.

  They didn’t leave Abilene until almost noon the next day. The Kid considered it unlikely the former cowtown held anything else that would help him in his quest, but he had agreed to let Marshal Fisher ask some questions around the settlement. The Kid was confident if anyone could get answers, it was Fisher.