Burning

by William W. Johnstone

  Frank said nothing. He stood there with the hammer eared back on his Peacemaker and waited for Reggie to topple over. He’d long since learned never to count a man out till he’d breathed his last breath.

  “Oh, God!” Reggie moaned as the first wave of intense pain hit him hard. “I never had nothin’ hurt me so bad.” Reggie tried to get up, but succeeded only in falling over on his face. His gasping breaths raised small clouds of dust from the dirt around his nose.

  A man and a woman stepped out of the country store to stand on the porch and stare.

  “Help me,” Reggie begged, sticking out a hand covered with blood and holding it out to them.

  “Ain’t nothin’ neither of us can do, mister,” the man said, glancing nervously at Frank. “We ain’t doctors.”

  “Then both of you can go to hell!” Reggie told them as he grunted and groaned in agony.

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” the woman admonished him, holding her nose high in the air and sniffing. “The Lord will frown on you for sayin’ that.”

  Reggie did not reply. He was dead, facedown in the dirt and long past caring what the Lord would think of anything.

  “Who are you, mister?” the man asked.

  “Frank Morgan.”

  “Lord have mercy! ” the woman said. “Frank Morgan right there in front of us, Otis.”

  “I see him,” the man said. “What are you goin’ to do with that man you shot, Mr. Morgan?”

  “I’m not going to do anything with him. But you can have what’s in his pockets and his horse, saddle, and guns if you bury him.”

  “I reckon that’s more than a good swap. All right. We’ll do that.”

  “You run this general store?”

  “Shore do.”

  “I need supplies. I’ll be looking around while you dig the hole.”

  “Sounds just fine to me,” the man said. “Nell, you go fetch a shovel for me, will you?”

  “You got any coffee ready to drink?” Frank asked.

  “Shore do. It’s on the stove. Help yourself.” He hesitated, and glanced at his wife, Nell, as if she might contradict him. “No charge for the coffee.”

  “Thanks.”

  * * *

  Frank picked up a few supplies, laid them on the counter, and then helped himself to a cup of coffee. While his coffee cooled, he opened a can of bully beef and fed Dog. He found a weeks-old newspaper and sat down to catch up on the news around the country.

  Frank had just finished reading the paper when the front door opened and the man and woman walked in. “That feller you shot had a wad of cash on him, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Keep it.”

  “All of it?”

  “Sure.”

  “But they’s five hundred dollars here, Mr. Morgan.”

  “The dead man doesn’t have any use for it, does he?”

  “Well . . . no, sir, I reckon he don’t. But don’t you want part of it?”

  “No. You fix me something to eat and let me bunk in your barn tonight and we’ll call it even. How about it?”

  The man and woman exchanged glances, the man replying, “Seems like you’re gettin’ the short end of this deal, Mr. Morgan. But if that’s the way you want it . . .”

  “That’s the way I want it.”

  * * *

  Frank was up and gone into the mist the next morning. Drifting south. He took no joy or satisfaction in the killing of Reggie. Reggie wanted a showdown, he got it. It was over and done. Frank put it out of his mind. That was something he had trained himself to do years back. He knew men who had killed other men and eventually went to pieces over it. Not Frank. Some trouble-hunter wanted trouble with The Drifter, he’d better have his will all written out. And when it was over, Frank would walk away and have a smoke and a cup of coffee. He’d never in his life killed anyone that didn’t sorely need it, and he saw no percentage in worrying about it, so he didn’t. It was as simple... and as complicated as that.

  Frank continued his slow drift south, taking his time, seeing a stretch of country he hadn’t seen in a long time.

  At a still-active trading post in Colorado, Frank pulled up one cold, rainy morning and led his horses into the barn. “Hell with this, Dog,” he said. “Let’s hole up here until the weather clears. How about it?”

  Dog barked his agreement and moved over to a corner before he commenced to shaking the water off his coat.

  “Well, that settles it then,” Frank said, stripping the saddle off Stormy and using double handfuls of sweet-smelling hay to rub both horses down. “You stay here, Dog. I’ll check things out in the post.”

  It was not a bit unusual for men traveling alone to hold lengthy conversations with their animals. Historians do not record whether any of the animals ever replied to questions or comments by their owners, but Frank once knew a miner who’d had to walk for almost twenty miles back to town after taking out his rifle and shooting the mule that’d been his constant companion for almost twenty years. When Frank asked him why he’d shot the animal, the miner frowned and said, “The sumbitch was gettin’ uppity on me. Kept disagreein’ with me on jest ’bout everthing I had to say. Finally, one mornin’ when I tole him it looked like it was gonna be a nice day, he snorted and gave me this look like I was crazy.” The old man shook his head. “Well, there weren’t nothin’ to do but kill the bastard.” He grinned. “That’ll teach him to snort at me!” Frank had decided not to ask the man any more questions about his mule, and promised himself if Dog ever started answering him, he’d do his level best not to take offense at it.

  Frank finished drying the horses and Dog off, and checked the brands on the half dozen or so other horses stabled in the barn. Doing this had saved his life on more than one occasion when it kept him from walking into an ambush. He did not recognize any of the brands or horses.

  He walked over to the trading post and pushed open the door, stepping inside. Four men were seated at a table, sharing a bottle of whiskey. They looked up at Frank’s entrance. Frank recognized one immediately: Jake Fabor, a gunslick from Arizona. He did not know the other three.

  “Well, well,” Jake said, a sarcastic edge to his voice. “If it ain’t the living legend.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” one of the men at the table asked as he leaned over to spit a brown stream of tobacco juice onto the floor.

  “Frank Morgan,” Jake replied.

  The men stared at Frank as he moved across the room and took a seat at a table as far away from the quartet as possible.

  “You got to be jokin’,” another of the men said.

  “Nope. That’s The Drifter hisself,” Jake told him. “What the hell are you doin’ in this part of the country, Morgan?”

  “Passing through, Jake,” Frank said, keeping his voice calm and level, but his eyes were hard as flint. “You have a problem with that?”

  “I might.”

  “Coffee,” Frank said to the man behind the rough bar. “Bring the pot and the sugar bowl.”

  “You gone sissy on us, Drifter?” Jake needled him. “Got to have some sweetener in your coffee. Maybe you better get the post owner’s wife to make you a sugar tit ’fore you leave.”

  “I just might do that, Jake. But before I do that, I’ll have him bring in a bucket of black paint.”

  “Huh? What you gonna paint?”

  “I’m going to try to cover up that yellow streak that’s running up and down your back.”

  The men seated with Jake got a laugh out of that. Jake flushed and pushed back his chair.

  “Don’t do anything you’ll regret, Jake,” Frank told him. “When you make a mistake with me, it could well be your last one.”

  “I ain’t scared of you, Drifter.”

  “Sit down, Jake,” one of his friends urged. “Don’t be a fool. That’s Frank Morgan, remember?”

  “I know who it is!” Jake snapped the words. “But I ain’t standin’ for no man callin’ me yeller. You take back what you said, Morgan. You
hear me? You take it back.”

  Frank carefully stirred his coffee in silence.

  “I’ll kill you, Morgan!” Jake shouted the words and jumped to his feet. “You hear me? Stand and face me, you bastard.”

  Frank took a sip of coffee and said nothing.

  Jake was so mad he was trembling. His hand was poised over the butt of his six-gun. “Stand up, Morgan!” he shouted.

  “No, Jake,” Frank said, finally breaking his silence. “You sit down. You really don’t want to pull on me.” Frank looked at the man through his cold pale eyes. “Do you, Jake?”

  Jake hesitated, cursed under his breath, and sat down.

  “Jake,” Frank said, “you’re not a coward. You just have a tendency to let your ass overload your mouth. And then you don’t know how to get out of the crap you stepped in.”

  “That’s sure the God’s truth,” one of the men seated at the table with Jake said.

  Jake shook his head, grinned crookedly, and said nothing in rebuttal.

  “You got anything cooked?” Frank asked the man behind the counter.

  “Stew, fresh-baked bread, and apple pie.”

  “Start serving,” Frank told him. “You’re looking at a hungry man.”

  He glanced over at the other table and saw that there was no food on it, just whiskey. “And bring my friends plenty also,” Frank added. “They look like they could use a bite to eat.”

  “We don’t need no charity, Morgan,” Jake said testily.

  “It isn’t charity, Jake,” Frank replied evenly. “I’m just bein’ neighborly is all.”

  “Oh, in that case . . .” Jake replied, smiling.

  Thirty-two

  Frank got a second big bowl of stew and half a loaf of bread for Dog, and took it out to the barn for the big cur. He forked hay for his horses and gave them both a bit of grain. While he was feeding the horses, Jake and his friends saddled up and mounted.

  “You boys pulling out in this weather?” Frank asked.

  “Got a job waitin’ for us south of here,” one of the men replied. “Sodbusters movin’ in, cuttin’ up the range. Some of the big spreads is payin’ fightin’ wages.”

  Frank shook his head. “You boys are fighting progress, you know that, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean, Morgan?”

  “The law’s on the side of the settlers,” Frank explained. “And there’s plenty of land for everybody.”

  “This is cattle country, Morgan. No place for farmers and their damn fences and plows. See you around. We’re gone.”

  Frank watched them ride away in the downpour. He was not unhappy to see them leave. Frank had always felt Jake Fabor was not playing with a full deck of cards, and such men were dangerous. You never knew what they were gonna do, since they weren’t constrained by logic. He had a strong hunch he’d be seeing Jake again.

  Frank climbed up in the loft and smiled as he looked around. It was filled with fresh-cut hay and smelled wonderful. He would sleep warm and dry later on this night.

  Frank waited until Dog was finished with his stew, and then he took the wooden bowl he’d used to feed Dog back into the post.

  “I wish we’d get another dog,” the post owner’s wife said when Frank handed her the bowl. “I like dogs. They’re good company.”

  “When another one shows up, we’ll feed it and keep it,” the husband said. “Like I’ve told you time and again. But I ain’t seen a dog out here in months. Them that do run off from a wagon train—if they’re big enough to stay alive—sometimes hook up with a coyote pack.”

  Frank got another cup of coffee and walked over to a table near the window. He sat and watched the rain.

  “You really Frank Morgan?” the man asked, cutting his eyes at Frank as he wiped down the rough-hewn board that served as a bar.

  “I am.”

  “Read a book about you a couple of years ago. You really killed a thousand white men?”

  Frank laughed and shook his head. “No. Those books tend to stretch the truth.”

  “You watch that damn Jake Fabor. I been knowin’ him off and on for a long time.” The man tapped the side of his hand. “He ain’t all together up here. If you know what I mean.”

  “I know. I’ve known Jake for a long time too. I’m always careful about my back trail.”

  “He was accused of ambushin’ and killin’ a man last year. But no one could get enough proof on him for an arrest. But he done it. Everyone who knows him believes that. Want some more coffee?”

  “I do. Good coffee.”

  “I’ll tell my old woman. That’ll please her. She’s fixin’ steak and potatoes for supper and she baked a cake too. She’s a good cook. Aggravatin’ as hell at times, but a good cook.”

  “I’ll put in my supper order right now,” Frank told the man. “I do like my steaks.”

  “You want me to cook one for your dog too?”

  “Sure. He deserves it.”

  The store owner shook his head and his wife laughed. The laughter ceased when the front door was pushed open, letting in a blast of cold, wet air. Jake Fabor walked in.

  “I told the others to go on,” Jake said. “I’d catch up with them after I dealt with you, Morgan.”

  Frank slowly stood up. “You’re making a mistake, Jake. You should have kept on going.”

  “I ain’t no coward, Morgan.”

  “I believe I straightened all that out, Jake, when I bought you dinner. Why don’t you just let it alone?”

  Jake shook his head. “I want to see you beg me to let you live, Morgan. You do that, and I’ll ride on out.”

  “You know that isn’t going to happen, Jake. Why don’t you sit down and have some coffee with me? We’ll talk this out.”

  “I’ll drink me a cup whilst I look at your dead body and laugh, Morgan.”

  “That isn’t going to happen, Jake. Come on and sit down.”

  “Hell with you, Morgan. I come back to kill you.”

  The couple that ran the old trading post watched as Frank Morgan’s face changed. His eyes turned flint hard and cold, his features seemed to tighten.

  “Then do your damnedest, Jake,” Frank said, letting his right leg straighten out with his right hand resting on his thigh. “I’m tired of trying to talk sense to you.”

  Jake dragged iron. The muzzle of his .44 just cleared leather when Frank’s Peacemaker thundered. The bullet struck Jake in the chest and knocked him back. He stumbled out the open door, got his feet all tangled up on the porch, and fell off. He landed on his face in the sloppy mud and the cold rain and did not move.

  “Whooo, boy!” the post owner said. “I seen some fast guns in my years out here, but you top the list, Frank Morgan. You are greased lightning with that .45.”

  “Is that man out yonder dead?” his wife asked.

  “If he ain’t,” her husband replied, “he’s shore doin’ a bang-up job of pretendin’.”

  Frank stepped out onto the porch and looked down at Jake for a moment before walking down the steps, grabbing Jake by the arms, and dragging the man over to the barn. The trading post owner followed Frank.

  “You want to bury him now?” the man asked.

  “Might as well. He’ll start puffing up and smelling if we don’t.”

  “I’ll fetch a couple of shovels.”

  The men dug a shallow grave in the rain-soaked earth and rolled Jake in, after wrapping the man in a blanket. His body made a small splash in the water pooling in the grave.

  “You want to say some words over him?” Frank asked.

  “I ain’t a bit inclined to do so.”

  “That’s it then.” Frank patted down the mound some, and the men walked back to the barn. “I’m going to change into dry clothing and then have some hot coffee.”

  “I’ll make fresh. Say, you reckon them friends of Jake will be back lookin’ for him?”

  “I doubt it. Truth be told, they’re probably glad to be rid of him.”

  After a change into dry clo
thing, Frank walked back to the post for coffee and conversation.

  “Where ’bouts you headin’, Mr. Morgan?” the post owner asked as he placed a fresh pot and cup on the table.

  “Thought I’d wander down into Oklahoma Territory.”

  “Stay out of No-Man’s-Land. That place is wild and woolly. That’s a real good place to avoid.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  The post owner looked at Frank and smiled. “But you’re goin’ to check it out, ain’t you?”

  Frank returned the smile. “I thought I might.”

  Thirty-three

  Frank built up the fire in the rusted stove in the old shack and put on water to boil. He had stabled his horses in the rickety shed out back and given them the last of the grain. It was damn cold out. He wasn’t exactly sure where he was, but he thought he was in Colorado. He wasn’t sure what the date was either, but he felt it was close to the end of November. If it wasn’t, it damn sure ought to be, judging by the weather.

  “We’ve got to find us a trading post somewhere, Dog,” Frank said to the big cur. “We’re running out of everything.”

  Dog looked at his master. Dog wasn’t worried. He had killed a fat rabbit earlier that day and had a fine meal. Now he lay by a fire and was ready for a night’s sleep. Dog yawned and closed his eyes. Life just didn’t get much better than this.

  Frank smiled at his four-legged companion. “We find us a more comfortable place to hole up for a time, you and me, boy, are going to have us a bath.”

  That opened Dog’s eyes for a moment. He did not like baths. Dog stared at Frank for a time, then grumbled low in his throat and again closed his eyes.

  “Got to find us a better place than this to ride out the winter,” Frank said. “One good wind and this place will fall down. But I reckon it will have to do for tonight.”

  The morning dawned bright and sunny and cold. Frank continued south. Two days later he came upon a trading post.

  “You’re ’bout seventy-five miles from the Strip, mister,” the barman told him. “Was I you, I’d turn either west or east. Stay the hell out of that area. It ain’t no fittin’ place for a white man.”

  “I heard it was rough.”