Burning

by William W. Johnstone

  “Rumor is you’re a rich man, Mr. Morgan. Any truth to that?”

  “I’m not going to miss any meals, that’s for sure. Why do you ask?”

  “Curious, I suppose. Curious as to why a moneyed man would just drift around.”

  Frank smiled. “I’m a wanderer, Joe. I like to see new places.”

  “Must be nice,” the store owner said, a wistful note in his voice.

  Frank did not reply to that. He was watching dust rise up outside of town, the thin cloud getting closer. “A group of riders coming,” he observed just as the horsemen came into view.

  “Grant Perkins and his hired guns,” Joe said after watching the riders for a moment. “You’ve met Mark Rogers; now you get to meet the owner of the GP.”

  “I’m sure it will be a pleasure,” Frank said.

  “Yeah, right,” Joe replied, his voice filled with just as much sarcasm, then stepped back into his store.

  Five

  Grant Perkins didn’t even glance Frank’s way as he passed by. He reined up across the street in front of the saloon/hotel and stomped inside, his men with him.

  “One of Grant’s boys must be passed out drunk in one of the rooms,” Joe said, stepping out onto the boardwalk. “Probably Victor. He’s a mean one.”

  “How many kids does he have?”

  “Three. Victor, Lucy, and Robert. In that order. They’re all rotten, especially Vic.”

  “How about Rogers?”

  “Three kids. Mark Junior, Peaches, and Mike.”

  “Peaches?”

  Joe laughed at Frank’s expression. “Real pretty girl. ’Bout twenty years old, I’d guess. I don’t know what her real name is. All I know is Peaches.”

  “The kids of the ranchers get along? They socialize?”

  “Oh, yes. Truth is, they feel they have no one else to socialize with. That’s the way they was raised, I guess.”

  “No one else on their social level,” Frank said. “Sad.”

  “It was Vic, like I said. There he is.”

  Frank watched as an obviously drunk Victor Perkins was half carried, half dragged out of the saloon and helped into the saddle. Grant led the procession out of the settlement, heading back to the ranch. He had not given Frank a single glance.

  “Vic must be a real quiet drunk,” Frank said. “My sleep wasn’t interrupted last night.”

  “He is. He gets liquored up, gets him a whore, and heads for a room. The next morning you can count on his daddy comin’ into town to fetch him back home. You have any children, Frank?”

  “A son. We don’t see much of each other. He lives back East.”

  “His mother was killed, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes. Several years ago.” Frank stood up and stretched. “I think I’ll find me a cup of coffee and then ride out in the country for a spell.”

  “Good day for it.”

  * * *

  Frank rode heading east, being careful to stay on the roads that cut through the valleys. He passed three farmhouses, surrounded by well-tended fields. Some of the farm families waved at him, others did not. After several hours of riding, he turned around and headed west. He reined up at a homestead and sat his horse, watching from the road as the family worked at loading up a wagon with their belongings. Frank walked his horse into the yard and dismounted. The family, a man, woman, and three kids, stopped and stared at him.

  “Could I trouble you for a drink of water for my horse, my dog, and me?”

  “Help yourself, mister,” the man said. “Well’s yonder and the water’s good.”

  “Much obliged.” His thirst satisfied, Frank walked over to the wagon and leaned against it. “You folks moving?” he asked.

  “Yep,” the man said. “Pullin’ out.” He stared at Frank for a moment. “You’d be Frank Morgan?”

  “That’s right. And I’m not working for the ranchers, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Wouldn’t make no difference no how. The ranchers won this one. We’re leavin’.”

  “But your crops have just been planted. You going to just pull out and leave them to rot?”

  “They ain’t worth dyin’ over.”

  Frank looked over what land he could see from the yard. “You have a buyer for your place?”

  “Never asked nobody. Got two sections here. My brother owned one. The ranchers killed him last year. Threatened me last month. I’m quittin.’”

  “Nice snug house,” Frank observed.

  “Sure is. And they’s a crick runs through the land. You tasted the water. It’s sweet and cold. Deep well.”

  “How much you want for the land and the house?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Sure am.”

  “What do you figure it’s worth, Mr. Morgan? I mean, I was just gonna leave it and take my loss.”

  “How much do you need to get started somewhere else?”

  “More than you’d be willin’ to pay for this land, Mr. Morgan.”

  Frank smiled and named a figure.

  The farmer’s eyes widened. “Don’t josh, Mr. Morgan. I’m up agin hard times with my wife and kids.”

  “I’m not joking. I have that much with me. Is it a fair figure?”

  “You’re not jokin’?”

  “I’m not.”

  “That’d get me set up back East somewheres, away from these damn murderin’ ranchers.”

  “Well, not all ranchers are like the ones in this area. But a lot of them can be unreasonable, for a fact.”

  “You really got that much cash with you?”

  “I can pay some of it in cash and the rest in a banknote. I assure you, it’s good. I’ll give you the names of my attorneys in Denver and San Francisco to contact if you have any trouble. The only thing I ask is you not tell anyone about me buying you out. Anyone in this area, that is.”

  The farmer turned to his wife. “Mother, fetch me the deeds to this land. We’re gonna be set up when we get back East.”

  * * *

  After the farm family had rolled out, Frank took a better look at the property he’d just purchased. The house was well built, with a large living area/kitchen combination and two bedrooms. The man had installed a hand pump in the kitchen, and Frank tried it. Cold, sweet water came gushing out. The farmer had donated a bed with a very comfortable feather tick, a table and chairs for the kitchen area, and a rocker for the living area. Frank felt like a king.

  He rode back to town and moved out of the hotel. Over at the livery, he rented a buckboard and horse, then went over to the store and bought supplies, including lamps, candles, bedding, and carpenter tools, including a box of nails.

  “You settling in somewhere, Frank?” Joe asked.

  “Might be, Joe. I might decide to file on some land. Who knows?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Sure. You never know what I might do.”

  “You know anything about farming?” the store owner asked, a dubious expression on his face.

  “I’ve planted a few gardens,” Frank replied with a smile. “Do me a favor, Joe?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t say anything about this?”

  “You got it. Want to surprise the Diamond and GP, hey?”

  “Something like that.”

  “It’ll be a surprise, all right. I’ll keep mum about it, Frank. You have my word on that.”

  “Good deal. See you, Joe. Give my best to your missus.”

  Dog hopped up in the bed of the buckboard for the ride back to the country. “Lazy thing,” Frank told the big cur.

  Dog showed him his teeth.

  On the way back to his land, Frank passed several farms and waved at the people working in the gardens or the fields. To a person they stopped their work and stared at the gunfighter driving a buckboard, the bed of the wagon loaded with supplies. Frank smiled at the expression on their faces.

  “Going to be interesting when the word gets back to the ranchers,” Frank muttered.

  H
e unloaded his supplies and then made himself something to eat and a pot of coffee. After eating his bread and bacon, Frank took a cup of coffee outside. He sat on a bench and drank his coffee and smoked a cigarette, waiting for the first visitor to arrive. It didn’t take long.

  Claude Hornsby and Dan Jones rode up and dismounted. They stood at the wooden fence around the small front yard, Claude asking, “Mind if we come in, Mr. Morgan?”

  “Not at all. Come on in, boys. Fresh pot of coffee on the stove. Cups on the table.”

  The men fixed their coffee and came back outside. Claude sat on the bench beside Frank. Dan found a small stool and sat down.

  “Are you goin’ to farm this land, Mr. Morgan?” Claude asked.

  “The name is Frank. Not Mister. I knew word would get out about my buying this land. I didn’t think it would be this quick.”

  “People saw you drivin’ a buckboard,” Dan said. “They put two and two together, that’s all. I reckon I should say they hoped that two and two made four.”

  “I bought this land, yes.”

  “You goin’ to farm it?” Dan asked.

  “I’m going to live here. You and Claude want to work the land for the crops?”

  “Are you jokin’?”’ Claude asked.

  “No. You and Dan can split them fifty-fifty. I’m not much of a farmer.”

  “You bet we will!” Dan said.

  “Then it’s a deal.” Frank stood up and shook hands with the men. “We’ve got us a partnership, boys.”

  After the men left, to tell their families about their new neighbor and the deal they had struck, Frank sat on the bench outside his new home and wondered what he’d gotten himself into this time . . . although he knew perfectly well what was facing him: a bloody range war.

  He didn’t question why he’d done it. Frank was known far and wide as a man who would always take up the fight for an underdog.

  He got up from the bench, went into the kitchen, and poured himself another cup of coffee, and then stood looking out the kitchen window at the spread he’d bought. He noticed some of the fencing was leaning and in disrepair, especially the small corral that was next to the barn about a hundred yards from the cabin. The barn itself also looked like it could use some fixing up and maybe even a fresh coat of paint.

  Frank shook his head. It was as if once the farmer decided he was going to have to leave, he’d quit caring about his farm and neglected to do the necessary work that went with keeping any place like this in good repair.

  Frank glanced at the box of tools he’d laid on the table earlier, and realized he was going to be doing a lot of carpentry in the next few days. The thought made him smile. Frank had always enjoyed working with his hands, especially when the work was outdoors. There was just something about taking a place like this, pretty but somewhat worn down by events, and making it bright and shiny and new again, a feeling of accomplishment that few other endeavors could bring to a man.

  Seeing that the coffee was getting low in the pot, Frank added a handful of coffee and some fresh water from the pump. He threw another couple of pieces of wood into the stove to heat it up, and walked back out onto the porch.

  Dog was still lying curled up next to the steps. It was almost as if the animal knew this was to be their new home for a while and was settling in and making himself to home.

  Frank smiled and sat on the top step, drinking his coffee and rubbing Dog’s hips just in front of his tail, a place that always seemed to make the dog moan with contentment.

  Frank’s eyes moved over his land, and his heart swelled with the sort of pride owning your own place can give. He wondered, since the feeling was so good and seemed to feel so right, why every time he tried to settle down and make a permanent home someplace, events seemed to conspire to cause him to pack up and move on sooner rather than later.

  He snorted through his nose at this thought, being introspective enough to realize it wasn’t just events that caused him to move on, but the inner devil within him that seemed to always need new adventures and new places to see in order to be happy.

  He remembered a few years back, over in New Mexico, when on an impulse he’d bought a hacienda and a couple of hundred acres of land that ran alongside the only creek in the area that held water year-round. He’d thought at the time he’d had enough roaming around and that it might be time for him to settle down and set a spell.

  Things had gone well for almost six months. Frank had bought a few sheep and goats, about the only livestock he could think of that would just about take care of themselves and that could live off the desert-like land of his ranch. He’d even gone to a few socials in town, and had started keeping company, as they say, with a young Mexican widow named Maria. It was nothing serious, and since Maria had been married before, they hadn’t needed a chaperone on their many picnics and rides through the countryside.

  He was just beginning to believe that he was settled in for good when once again fate, or the devil within him, reared its ugly head. He went into town one Saturday and rode directly to Maria’s house. They had a date to go riding out in the country. Frank had found a natural dam in the creek next to his place where the water backed up and formed a small lake, surrounded by cottonwood trees. It was an ideal place for a swim followed by a picnic in the shade of the trees.

  When he knocked on Maria’s door, he was surprised when it was opened by Esperanza, Maria’s aunt. She was dressed all in black and her face was flushed and tear-stained.

  “Esperanza, what’s wrong?” Frank asked, his heart hammering painfully in his chest. “Where’s Maria?”

  In broken English mixed with Spanish, Esperanza told him that Maria was dead, she’d killed herself the night before.

  Frank thought his knees were going to buckle before he could get inside and get the rest of the story from Esperanza. It seemed that the previous afternoon, Maria had been walking back from the general store toward her house, which sat on the edge of town, when a group of drunken cowboys grabbed her, dragged her back into an alley, and took turns raping her.

  When she went to the sheriff, the men all said that Maria had sold herself to them for money, and so the sheriff had said there was nothing he could do.

  Humiliated and ashamed, Maria had gone home and cut her wrists, bleeding to death in the bathtub she’d filled to try and wash away her shame.

  Grim-faced and filled with a hatred so intense he thought he might burst, Frank gave Esperanza a handful of money for Maria’s funeral and asked her which ranch the men worked on.

  Esperanza said she didn’t know, and so Frank stalked over to the sheriff’s office and banged open the door. The sheriff was leaning back in his chair with his feet up on his desk. His face paled when he saw Frank, for everyone in town knew that he and Maria were courting.

  “Who was it, Bill?” Frank asked, knowing the sheriff would know what he was talking about.

  “Uh, Frank, listen to me,” the sheriff said, getting to his feet and holding out his hands. “There was nothin’ I could do. All the men stuck to their story and since there weren’t no other witnesses . . .”

  “Bullshit, Bill!” Frank almost screamed. “You knew Maria. You knew what kind of woman she was, and you certainly knew she would never do what those men said she did.”

  “Sure, Frank, I know that. But as a lawman, I got to have evidence before I arrest somebody—it ain’t enough to go on my feelings in the matter one way or the other.”

  Frank nodded. The sheriff had a point. “All right, Bill, that’s good enough for me. The law can’t do nothing, but I can. Now tell me the names of the men involved.”

  “Frank—”

  “Do it, Bill, and then stay out of this if you want to live to see your next birthday.”

  * * *

  When Frank got to the ranch where the men worked, he saw all their horses reined outside the large bunkhouse, it being a Saturday and no one working this afternoon.

  Frank pulled his rifle from his saddle boot, unh
ooked the hammer thong on his Colt, and walked up to the door.

  Instead of using the door handle, he just raised his right foot, kicked the door in, and moved quickly through the doorway.

  A man next to the first bunk went for his pistol, and was stopped cold when Frank slammed the butt of his rifle into the man’s face, shattering his front teeth and knocking him out cold.

  The four other men in the bunkhouse froze, their hands out from their sides. “We don’t want no trouble, mister,” the foreman said. “What is it you want?”

  Frank called out five names, and then he asked, “Are you the men that go with those names?”

  “Uh, sure, but so what?” the foreman asked. He looked around. “We know who you are, Morgan, but don’t none of us here have any business with you.”

  Frank jacked a shell into the .44/.40 and leveled the barrel at the man. “Do you know the name Maria Hernandez?” he asked, and smiled grimly when the men paled and glanced nervously at one another.

  Frank nodded. “I thought you might,” he said. “I’ve come here to kill you for what you did to her.”

  The foreman shook his head. “Ain’t none of us gonna draw on you, Mr. Morgan. We all know how good you are with a gun, an’ we wouldn’t stand a chance against the likes of you.” He smiled grimly. “And I know from your reputation, you ain’t about to shoot no man down that don’t have a gun in his hand.”

  Frank shook his head. “Cowards one and all, huh?” He turned, picked up a lantern on a nearby table, and flung it against the wall of the bunkhouse. “Well, you can stay in here and burn like the rats you are, or you can come out this door with you hands full of iron and at least die like men. It’s your choice, gentlemen.”

  He backed out of the door and walked twenty yards away, laying the rifle on the ground next to him, and waited.

  As the flames consuming the bunkhouse rose into the sky, the five men finally came running out of the door, firing their pistols wildly in every direction, hoping to hit Frank before he could return fire.

  Frank picked up the rifle and calmly, ignoring the angry buzzing as slugs tore by his head and the stinging in his left shoulder as one of the bullets creased him, shot the men down where they stood.