Manhunt

by William W. Johnstone

  “What do you think, Morgan?” I reckon we’ll have to bury ’em now. That’s gonna set us back considerable,” Beaumont said while he reloaded.

  “Morgan, you say?” Rip sighed, letting his face fall to the dirt. “Are you Frank Morgan?”

  “I am,” Frank said.

  “Damn my luck,” Rip cursed, beating his head against the ground now. “My first job outta prison and I gotta pick Frank Morgan to rob.” His voice trailed off into a whisper. “I never had no damned luck at all. . . .”

  7

  “Victoria, pass the chops, please.” Judge Isaiah Monfore picked his teeth with a sweet-gum twig while he waited for his second pork chop of the evening to come his way. He had the dignified air of a seasoned barrister and the pudgy jowls of a man who’d eaten a few more than his share of pork chops. He kept his thick silver hair combed straight back like a wood duck and sported a matching beard with no mustache so he looked like a graying, well-fed President Lincoln.

  Mercy touched a cloth napkin to her lips and smiled. She liked to watch her husband eat. It pleased her when she could give him things he enjoyed. She recognized she was the flighty type, prone to fits of panic that rendered her incapable of rational thought. Isaiah was the stable force in her life, the rock-steady anchor to all her unsteadiness. She owed him more than he would ever know—more than he could possibly understand—and earnestly strove to make his life as easy and comfortable as a woman like her could.

  It had turned out to be such a perfect evening. Isaiah hadn’t had any trials, and he was content to sit and chat about mundane things—until Victoria decided to try her hand at a political debate.

  “Papa.” She handed over the plate of breaded chops, and followed it with a dish of applesauce without being asked. “Would you mind telling me why are you so against the stockyards coming in to Parker County?” Victoria batted her dark eyes with an air of contrived innocence and tossed her head so her long black hair flowed over her shoulders. She had a way of posing a question that let you know right away that she was absolutely positive your answer was going to be in error.

  The judge began to saw on the thick slab of pork with his silver-handled knife. His gold and ebony ring glinted in the lamplight. He spoke without looking up. “Mercy, we have got to get this girl married off. She should be giving us grandchildren instead of talking politics at the supper table. She’s on the backside of her twenties and very near to looking thirty in the eye if I do my math right.”

  Victoria flushed at the comment about her age. “I know perfectly well how old I am, Father. That has nothing to do with my question, which, by the way, you have yet to answer.”

  Monfore chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then pushed his unfinished plate away from him as if he didn’t want to contaminate his meal with any of this particular conversation.

  Mercy slumped in her chair. A resigned sigh escaped her lips. “Can’t this wait until after dinner?” She hated talking politics at any time, but dinner was the worst. She’d watched the sheriff gun down Nelson Ross like a mad dog over this same issue only a few weeks before. “This has to be horrible for the digestion.”

  The judge held up a beefy hand. “It’s all right, Mercy.” He dabbed at his beard with a linen napkin. “We’ve raised her up to be headstrong. I suppose I must shoulder the lion’s share of the responsibility for her willful ways.” He shot a wink at Victoria.

  This was the way it always went. He’d act tired and put out only to take the full blame for any indiscretion the girl might commit. “Maybe we should have sent her off to a convent years ago,” he said.

  Victoria kept her eyes glued to her father. “We’re Presbyterians, Papa.”

  “Drowned you then, that’s it, drowned you as a pup—or whatever it is we Presbyterians do with insolent daughters.”

  He pulled the plate back, unwilling to let a good chop go to waste just to make a point. “Well, my dear, if you are so set on discussing this; it’s because of the type of people it would bring in—rowdies, gunmen, and swindlers.”

  “What about the jobs and the opportunities for the town—the whole county—to grow?”

  “There are those who think the stockyards would be the type of growth we need.” Monfore nodded and took a drink of buttermilk. “I happen to disagree—and so do a lot of other intelligent people. Weatherford is a fine little town and it will grow into a fine little city someday—all in due course, stockyards or no.”

  Victoria crossed her silverware at the edge of her empty plate. She was slender, but her appetite was almost as great as her father’s. “Reed says the yards would help the economy in more ways than one.”

  Mercy’s mouth hung open in horror. “What are you doing speaking to Reed Whitehead?” She could feel the familiar flutter in her chest—as if a thousand bees buzzed inside her, swarming around her heart. The back of her throat burned.

  Victoria looked genuinely bewildered. “I should think you’d be happy. You and Papa are always after me to get married and give you grandchildren. Reed’s a fine man. He’s intelligent with a bright future. For pity’s sake, Mother, his father’s the sheriff.”

  Mercy wanted to scream that the sheriff was no better than a cold-blooded killer. It broke her heart that her only daughter was getting mixed up with the likes of the Whitehead family. She knew how difficult it was to be a young woman in love, but this was too much to take. “The sheriff is a hard man—coarse and full of meanness. I don’t know how he ever got elected.”

  Isaiah had started back in on his chop. “I’ll tell you how he got elected. He got elected because his rich financiers, the Crowders, bought him the job.” The judge gestured with his fork, which was festooned with a large bite of fried pork. “I have to agree with your mother on this, my dear. You have to look at the whole situation in things such as this. It’s touchy and more convoluted than you can imagine. Old Silas Crowder stands to make a bundle if he can sell this worthless parcel of his land to the railroad for the stockyards. He as good as owns the Whiteheads. Any of them are bound to say whatever he wants them to.” He bit the meat off the fork and washed it down with a swig of buttermilk. “It’s a damned hard row to hoe, being a judge in a county with a puppet for a sheriff.”

  And a cold-blooded killer too, Mercy thought. She couldn’t forget the way the heartless man had smiled coolly after he’d gunned down poor Nelson Ross.

  Victoria brushed a lock of dark hair out of her eyes. “Well, Reed is no more exactly like his father than I am exactly like you.”

  The judge studied her thoughtfully for a moment and sighed.

  “You’re a grown woman. If you want the stockyards in town, then you are entitled to that opinion. But don’t think it’s the only way to think just because some young upstart happens to agree with you. Use some of the brain God gave you and make your mind up for yourself.”

  Victoria finished her sweet tea and excused herself with a smile and a peck on the cheek for her father. These little conversations were nothing for those two, but they set Mercy’s nerves on edge like fingernails on a writing slate.

  Her husband took a strong stand on this stockyard business and whether he liked to admit it or not, there were a lot of people against him—a lot of cruel people like Sheriff Rance Whitehead. And now, to find out her own daughter was associating with his son . . . Mercy had worried that her husband might be facing trouble when she sent the telegram to Frank Morgan. Now she was certain. Her whole family was in danger.

  8

  “Mind if I ask you a question? It’s been eatin’ on me for sometime now.” Beaumont rode alongside Morgan, his short horse working almost at the double to keep up with Stormy’s ground-eating stride.

  Morgan shrugged. He wasn’t used to having such a blabby companion on the trail, but when he was honest with himself, he realized he’d grown pretty fond of the stubby kid. “Fire away.”

  “Who is this Mercy Monfore that she could get you on the road to recovery with a few words? I couldn’t get you o
n your feet for near two months of tryin’.”

  Morgan glanced down at the stout little Ranger. “That’s a mighty fair question,” he said. He reached into his vest pocket, took out his gold timepiece, and clicked it open. He replaced the watch and stood in the stirrups to survey the dull green row of post oak ahead of them. “I’ll ask you a question and then we’ll see if you get an answer.”

  “As you like to say, Frank. Fire away.”

  “Why are you taggin’ along like this? I showed you I was fine back there at the contest. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the company, mind you, but you told me yourself you have plenty of things you could be up to if you didn’t have to fool with me.”

  Beaumont leaned forward and patted his bay gelding on the neck, letting the reins dangle. “I don’t know. Reckon I’m just doing what Rangers do. I’m rangin’. Besides, it’s eatin’ me up inside to know about this long-lost love of yours. I’m mean, that’s who Mercy is. Isn’t she?”

  Frank cocked his head to one side and thought for a moment. “Unless I’ve missed my guess, that’s Springtown up there. It’s nearly two and I’m in a mind for a cup of coffee. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to chew on this for a bit so when I do spit it out, it’ll be something you can understand.”

  Beaumont shrugged. He had a twinkle of youthful mischief in his eyes. “You up for a race with a short horse?”

  “Son, I just got up from my deathbed a few weeks ago. I’ve got a feeling I’ll be forced to prove myself soon enough. Suppose I’d better mosey for a little spell yet.”

  The Ranger kept his horse at a walk and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Frank. I shoulda known better. Now you got me feelin’ bad.”

  Morgan grinned and took off his hat. “Oh, what the hell,” he yelled as he put the spurs to Stormy and gave the horse his head, fanning the air with his hat.

  * * *

  “Wouldn’t have been much of a race anyhow,” Morgan said as he dismounted in front of Neff’s Café in downtown Springtown. “With that little pony you got, I should have given you a half-a-mile head start.”

  Frank looped the Appaloosa’s reins around a long cedar rail. The ride hadn’t been such a good idea, but he was never one to back away from a challenge. His ribs felt like they were on fire, but he wasn’t bleeding; that was a blessing. He didn’t know how fast a body manufactured the red stuff, but he was pretty certain he was still a little shy of a full dram.

  Beaumont tied his stout quarter horse beside the Appaloosa. His hat was thrown back against his stampede string. “What was that all about? First you made me feel lower than an armadillo toe for not carin’ about your health, then you leave me in the dust.”

  Frank slapped the Ranger on the back and pointed him toward the door of the café. “Remember what I said about not holding on to life too tight.”

  It had been so long since he’d been back to north Texas that Frank felt like a stranger in places he’d once called home. He brushed the front of his britches off and stomped his feet on the wooden sidewalk to get rid of any stray manure on his boots before he went into the glass-fronted establishment.

  Mrs. Neff was older than he remembered. She’d once been a handsome woman with long blond hair she kept in a tight bun. He and Luke had often stopped by the café when they were out that direction just to lay their eyes on the pretty older woman. She’d likely been all of twenty-five at the time, but he and Luke had started pushing cattle at twelve and rounding up mavericks on their own when they were thirteen. To the two love-struck boys, Elizabeth Neff was a goddess of pure beauty. A creature so lovely, she was worth a day’s ride and camping with the snakes two nights in a row, just to gaze at her angelic face while they ate a piece of her pie.

  “And she was a damn fine cook too,” Frank whispered under his breath, reminiscing.

  She’d kept the bun, but it was gunmetal gray now. A little too much of her own good cooking had settled around her middle and hips. Her face, though aged, still held that timeless beauty that made it easy for Frank to see why he and Luke had taken such a fancy to the woman.

  Morgan picked a table in the back where he could see the door and watch Mrs. Neff at the same time. It gave him a good view of the door, but it also happened to be the same table he and Luke Perkins had sat at all those years ago to do their awestruck gazing. He laid both hands palms down on the table—as if he could get a feel of the past from the polished wood.

  “You all right, Morgan?” Beaumont flopped down in a chair with his back to the counter. He cocked his head over his shoulder. “You act like you know her.”

  Frank smiled and took a deep breath. “You might say so. I used to spend a considerable amount of time here as a boy.”

  Mrs. Neff came to the table to take their order. Her sky-blue eyes still held the same sly smile and mischievous twinkle. Frank remembered why he and his friend had been so smitten.

  “A peace of pecan pie with that little dab of chocolate in it and a big cup of coffee,” Morgan said, removing his hat.

  Elizabeth gave him a querysome look and tapped her pencil stub on her little pad of paper. “You just asked for my speci-ali-ty without me even tellin’ you about it. I don’t recognize you and I doubt my pie is all that famous.”

  “I grew up over near Weatherford, ma’am.” Frank met her eyes like he’d never been able to bring himself to do as a boy. “When I was a boy, my friend and I used to ride out this way every chance we got.”

  Her lips pulled back into a shining grin. A sudden look of recognition flashed across the woman’s face.

  “I declare! You’re one of the Moon Boys!”

  “I beg pardon?” Frank looked at Beaumont and shrugged. “I think you may have me . . .”

  Mrs. Neff wagged her finger and grinned from ear to ear. Her brightened eyes sparkled just as they had long ago. She put a hand to her chest and blushed. “No, I know it’s you—Frankie, isn’t it?”

  “That’s my name, but not Moon.”

  She patted him on the shoulder and winked at Beaumont. “Of course it’s not Moon. Frankie here used to come in with his friend Lucas and ogle at me with their sad moon eyes so much, my husband told me that once they turned sixteen he was going to have to shoot them both. Mr. Neff started calling them the Moon Boys whenever they’d come around.” She shook her head, doing some remembering of her own. “I don’t mind tellin’ you, Frankie, those were tough times for a young gal, what with all the Comanches raidin’ every time there was a dark night. Hooligans coming around at all hours. It was a strain on the nerves to be sure. You two youngsters did a lot for me back in those days. Kept me from getting old before my time.” She primped her hair.

  Frank actually felt himself blush a little. “I hope your husband’s not still the jealous type.”

  “No, I’m afraid poor Mr. Neff passed away a few years back. My lads, it’s a good thing to see you again, Frankie. Puts me in such a mind of old times.” She patted his shoulder again. “You just sit right there and I’ll go get your pie and coffee.”

  When she’d disappeared through a back door, Beaumont gave Morgan a sly look. “What else am I goin’ to learn about you—”

  Morgan raised his hand. “Hold it right there. If you were about to call me Moon Boy—or anything close to it—I should remind you of who I am and the parts of your body I might be inclined to shoot off when you’re not looking.”

  The Ranger slumped against the table, leaning on his hands. “All right. I get the message. Now, I’m ready to hear about you and Mercy. I think you ought to let me in on this little secret of yours before we ride into the middle of it and I look like a fool.”

  “She’s an old friend of mine.” Frank stared out the window into the sunny street. “From back before the war. We were awful young.”

  “She seems to think you are a man who could help her out of a predicament.”

  “We kept in touch some after the war, but she never wanted me to come back. She married shortly after I left. Had a child.”
He paused for a long while. “A daughter.”

  “How old’s the daughter?” Beaumont crossed his arms on the table and rested his chin on top of them, listening.

  “In her late twenties, I suppose—about your age.”

  Beaumont pondered that for a moment, his eyebrows alternately working up and down as he ruminated on the information and did the math in his head. “The telegram said she has your temper—do you reckon she’s . . .”

  Morgan was saved by the tinkling bell at the front door. A young man in blue canvas britches and a pressed white shirt eyed the two men when he went to the counter. He wore a black, Mexican-style holster and a nickel-plated Schofield revolver. His flat-crowned black hat looked fresh off the rack.

  Beaumont’s Ranger badge wasn’t visible, so the man likely dismissed the two as a pair of worn-out drifters—which in Frank’s case wasn’t far off the mark.

  The newcomer pounded his fist on the counter. He acted like someone used to getting his way. He was so forward, at first Morgan thought he might be related to the Neffs.

  Mrs. Neff had her hands full with a tray of pie and coffee, and she bumped the kitchen door open with her hip. She was smiling until she saw the new arrival.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute, Paddy.” Her almost giddy voice slumped to a low drone.

  The boy sneered. Frank decided this one wasn’t old enough to be thought of as a man. “Drop off their order and get to it. I haven’t got all day.” The snide voice carried across the bright room on a thick Irish brogue not long from the old country.

  Mrs. Neff set the tray on the next table and put Frank’s coffee in front of him. Her hands shook enough to rattle the dishes.

  The gunfighter shot a quick look toward the kid at the counter, then back up at her. “Mrs. Neff, are you all right?”

  She cast her eyes at the ground while she got the pie. She fumbled with the saucer and dropped it on the ground, narrowly missing Frank’s lap.

  Frank caught her eyes again. They were welling up with tears.