Manhunt

by William W. Johnstone

  The ill-tempered sheriff’s deputy took Cummins’s raised hands as a sign of contrition, and put a hand on the crippled man’s shoulder to turn him toward the jail. He had his own gun drawn, but didn’t bother to take the gunman’s pistol.

  “Get moving,” the deputy said—more to the crowd than the gunman. He gave his prisoner a slight shove to add to the show.

  Cummins reacted with the speed of a viper. He shrugged the deputy off his shoulder and struck out with his withered hand to claw across the young lawman’s face.

  Instead of shooting, Pierce threw up a forearm to protect his eyes. Cummins drove a hard left hand into his gut, then sent another into the tottering man’s nose, knocking the pistol out of his hand and sending him sprawling to the dusty street. The deputy cowered there, squinting up into the sun, his arm across his face.

  Cummins drew his own pistol and pointed it at the stunned lawman. He thumbed back the hammer. “No snot kid of a lawdog is gonna take me in while I can still shoot, and he damned sure ain’t gonna push me around. I’ll plant you, then I’ll kill . . .”

  Morgan whistled to get the left-handed gunman’s attention. “Hey, Cummins,” he shouted.

  The gunman wheeled, pointing his pistol as Frank drew and shot him in the chest.

  “I apologize,” Morgan said. He strode across the street to kick the gun out of the dying man’s hand.

  Cummins stumbled backward, blinking his eyes against the bright light. He fell back as the life drained out of him. “Morgan, you . . .” The wounded gunman slumped to one side, lying on his gun hand. “Hell, Morgan . . .” He moaned and lowered his head for the last time.

  Frank rounded up Deputy Pierce’s pistol and handed it back to him. “Thanks for comin’ by when you did,” the gunfighter said. “I didn’t think he had the peach pits to follow through. Couldn’t let my horse go lame on me, you know.”

  Even from across the street, Victoria could see Pierce stare holes into Morgan. He took the gun, but jerked away when Frank offered him a hand up.

  * * *

  “You go ahead and drink my phosphate, Tyler,” Frank said a short time later when he walked inside the drugstore. “I feel more like a cup of coffee right now.”

  “We haven’t even ordered yet,” Victoria said, trying to understand how Morgan must have felt. She was glad he hadn’t gloated over the way it had all come to pass.

  “Good. Fact is I could use a little of my own company right now, as odd as that may sound.”

  That was one thing easy for Victoria to understand. She often felt that way.

  “You say your mama’s feelin’ poorly?” Morgan matter-of-factly reloaded his Peacemaker while he spoke.

  “I’m afraid the stress of my father’s kidnapping has taken its toll on her.” Victoria shot a glance at Beaumont. His eyes still danced.

  “Maybe I’ll ride on over there in a few minutes and make me and her a pot of strong coffee,” Frank said. “What say you two youngsters go ahead and enjoy those phosphates? Tyler can help you bring your shopping home from the general store.” He looked over at Beaumont with sad eyes. Eyes that must have seen dozens of such killings—too much bloodshed for one man.

  “I’ll meet you at the Monfore place.” Morgan holstered his pistol and took out his timepiece. “Say an hour? We’ll ride out and have a talk with the Crowders then—see what they know.”

  “Sounds good,” Beaumont said. “I’ll take good care of her.” The Ranger winked at Victoria.

  “I’d be willin’ to bet on that,” Morgan said. He looked at her and grinned. “He’s a cocky little rooster but he generally knows how to handle himself.” He turned to go. “An hour then.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, two bearded men in dusty coveralls drove up in a buckboard wagon. They heaved Cummins’s body in the back with an unceremonious thump. His bad hand hung limply over the back, waving in a final irony to the gathered crowd.

  The object of interest gone, people began to disperse and go back to the mundane daily grind of life in Parker County.

  A minute later only one man was left across the street from the drugstore. He stood frozen, intently watching the large picture window on the drugstore. He wore light tan trousers and a pressed white shirt with a silk tie. He had his suit coat over his arm, having removed it because of the afternoon heat. Now, something more than the beating sun sent a burning glow to his neck and face.

  Reed Whitehead cursed under his breath as he watched Victoria Monfore, who was supposed to be his woman, sit and flirt across a tiny drugstore table with the sawed-off upstart of a Texas Ranger. She giggled and laughed, and put her hand to her face the way she never had when he told her jokes and funny stories.

  The runt of a Ranger twirled his hand over his head, telling some ignorant tale, no doubt about his feats of daring and bravery. Victoria—Reed Whitehead’s Victoria—sat entranced with rapt attention, her beautiful eyes fixed on the lawman.

  Reed’s father had warned him about the Monfore girl. “She’ll never stick by you, son,” the old man had said. “She’s too damned fixated on herself and her own family to let a man in her life.”

  She was sure letting this man in.

  Whitehead felt the steak he’d had for lunch roll in his belly. He spit into he street to get the bitter taste out of his mouth.

  “Filthy little whore,” he fumed. “I’ll show you how a proper lady should behave.”

  Reed stepped down off the boardwalk and started across the street. The sorry little tramp would pay for this sort of behavior. Beaumont, busy with his story, stood at the table inside and twirled his hand around his head again. The huge pistol was plainly visible on his hip.

  Reed stopped, then spun quickly on his heels before anyone could see him. Victoria Monfore would get her just desserts, but he could wait until the meddling Ranger wasn’t around.

  Oh, yes. Her time would come, and soon. He smiled to himself and began to form a plan in his head. His stomach was already feeling better when he rounded the corner leading back to his office.

  22

  Morgan found Mercy sitting alone in her parlor reading from a leather-bound book of poems. Seeing her there in her shining black skirt and spotless white blouse, he remembered how much she’d always liked to read.

  She stood when he came in and gave him a weary smile, touching her hair to primp out of nervous habit.

  She motioned him to a seat in the chaise lounge next to her high-backed wooden rocker. “You know what just upsets me to no end?” Her sweet Southern drawl rolled off her tongue like nectar.

  “What’s that?” Frank braced himself for whatever she might say. He felt sure he’d done a dozen things that Mercy deserved to be upset with him about. Any one of them was likely to hit as hard as a bullet.

  “Well, look at us. Here you are thin and fit. Oh, you may have a little touch of distinguished gray around your temples and a laugh line here or there, but other than that, you are the picture of health and vigor.” She sighed. Even the soft sound of her breathing carried a hint of the Deep South. “I, on the other hand, look and feel old as one of those drooping live oak trees out front of the house.”

  “Well that’s about as foolish a thing as I’ve ever heard a woman say. You’re as pretty as . . .”

  She cut him off. “As the day you left?” Though her name was Mercy, when she attacked, she aimed straight for the throat.

  Frank leaned forward in his seat and stared at the back of his hands. He tried to decide what to say, wishing he could do something to make amends for the sins and weakness of his youth. When he finally did look up, Mercy was leaning back in her rocking chair, staring up at the ceiling. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Mercy, I . . .”

  She sniffed and held up a hand to stop him with uncharacteristic firmness. “Don’t. I don’t want you to have to lie to me. What’s done is done. Things have turned out for the good or bad in spite of anything you or I may have done.”

  “I kn
ow it’s a poor substitute for good behavior.” Morgan looked her square in the eye. “But I want you to know I am truly sorry for any hurt I caused you.” Mercy would never have any idea, but he could count all the people he’d ever apologized to on one hand. Not that he thought he was perfect, that wasn’t it at all. Apologizing admitted a particular weakness—and in his line of business, admitting weakness was like the scent of blood to a pack of wolves. It could get a man killed.

  Mercy looked away, her eyes cast up at the ceiling again. She began to speak, but her chest quivered with sobs. Frank looked at the pale skin of her throat and the soft lines of her collarbones where they disappeared below the white fabric of her blouse. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything quite so white. She was right in that she’d aged, but with her blue-black hair, high cheekbones, and slender neck, Mercy Monfore was yet among the most handsome women he’d ever seen.

  He felt his face flush when she finally met his gaze and caught him looking at her. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about their times together all those years ago.

  “We were little more than children,” she said, using a flippant tone he could tell she didn’t really mean. She’d never been able to hold a hard demeanor with him—or anyone he’d ever known for that matter. “Old enough,” she continued, “to do the things older folks did, but too young to understand the consequences of our own actions.”

  She brought the hankie to her face and sobbed into it with both hands. She was the only woman Morgan had ever known who could blow her nose and keep her ladylike demeanor.

  “Mercy,” Frank said, his voice a hoarse whisper. He’d been working up to this for some time. It was something he had to say.

  She looked up from her crying and sniffed. Her nose was red and swollen. Her eyes still brimmed with tears, but they sparkled with happiness that he would still want to talk. Happy to hear him say her name. “What is it, Frankie?”

  “I’m nothing but a tramp, Mercy. I could have never given you something like this.” Morgan tugged at his hat so hard he thought he might tear it in half. “After the war, I just couldn’t see myself rooted to one spot. Especially not here in Parker County.”

  He’d never felt more awkward in his life. “I’ve done a heck of a lot I’m sorry for; most of it I couldn’t make right if I had a hundred lifetimes. All I can do is push ahead on the road I’m already on. I’ll never be able to make it up to you for leaving the way I did. There’s a bushel full of things in my life I’m not very proud of, and I sure do carry the blame on this one, for a fact.”

  “Not all of it, Frank. None of us are blameless.” She moved to the chaise lounge beside him and took his hand, holding it in her lap. “I’m certainly not without guilt.” She paused, meeting his eyes. “But I am repentant, and that ought to count for something.”

  “If I’d known about the girl,” he said, “I never would have gone. You know that, don’t you?”

  “What difference would that have made?”

  “You know what I mean,” he said. “I wish you would have told me.”

  “What makes you so sure she’s yours?”

  “Isn’t she?” He watched her face, looking for a sign he was right. Morgan was better than most at judging human character, but Mercy didn’t give him a single clue.

  Instead, she smiled slyly and looked at him through narrow, swollen eyes.

  “Victoria looks like you. That’s an undeniable fact. But you know, people always said you and I favor one another.” She sniffed. “And sometimes, she acts so much like Isaiah it frightens me. Some folks on his side of the family say she’s the spittin’ image of his younger brother, Theo.”

  “This is just like you.” Morgan threw back his head. “You always did love to toy around with me.”

  She took his hand again and traced a vein on the back of it with the tip of her finger while she spoke. She didn’t look at him, but kept her eyes on her own lap while she spoke.

  “I was devastated when you left. I wanted to tell myself you felt some foolish duty to go fight in that foolish war. . . .”

  “I . . .” Morgan interjected.

  Mercy squeezed his hand to stop him. “I knew it could not have been something as simple as that. If it had been, then you would have at least said good-bye to me. I finally had no choice but to assume you were not running to the war, but from me.” She took a deep breath. “Then Isaiah came into town, a handsome young lawyer with the promise of a good future. He showed a bit of interest in the poor broken creature that I was . . . am, and we married a few weeks later.”

  She looked up at him for the first time since she took his hand. Her eyes were wide now and painfully honest. “You see, Frank, you broke my heart, but Isaiah put it back together, without any questions. I grew to love him almost as much as I need him.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Frank whispered.

  “Only two people in this world are certain who Victoria’s father is, and you aren’t one of those two. You would be doing me a great favor if you didn’t ask me about it again.”

  Morgan hung his head. “I won’t.”

  She traced a knife scar up the palm of his hand to his wrist. “Think of it this way, Frankie. Victoria already has a father. I am trusting in you to find him and bring him home to us safely. But she could always use another friend.”

  Horse hooves crunched on the gravel drive and footfalls sounded on the porch. Morgan drew his pistol and stood, motioning for Mercy to stay put in the chair. He didn’t need her hanging on him if the visitor happened to be Sheriff Whitehead.

  “Hello the house.” It was Beaumont.

  Frank opened the door to find the Ranger standing with a grinning Victoria scooped up in his arms. She wore his jacket and both wore the smiles of recent laughter on bright faces.

  Mercy rose quickly. “What’s happened? Are you all right?”

  “It’s nothing, Mother. I stumbled coming off the boardwalk in front of Stidom’s and twisted my ankle, but I’m fine, really. I told Tyler I was all right and could walk, but he refused to let me try.”

  “I’m not very tall,” Beaumont joked. “If I drop you, you won’t have far to fall.”

  Beaumont put the girl down and she limped over to her mother. “You’ve been crying again,” she said.

  “I’m fine, dear,” Mercy said. “Really. You look a fright, though. Are you sure about your ankle?”

  Morgan motioned toward the door with his hat. “We’d best get on the move. We’ll not accomplish much sitting around here talking.” His voice sounded hollow and as faraway as his thoughts. In a way, he wished he’d had a few more minutes alone with Mercy, but he was just as happy Beaumont had come along and rescued him from the conversation.

  “You be careful, Ranger Beaumont,” Victoria said. The smile had never completely left her face.

  Tyler tipped his hat. “You ladies watch yourselves now. Don’t let anyone in unless you know and trust them.”

  There seemed to be a sudden lack of air in the house, and Morgan felt a desperate need to be on his way. “See if you can get some rest, Mercy. We’ll go have a talk with Old Man Crowder—find out what he knows about all this.”

  “Thank you for checking in on me,” Mercy said as they went out the door. “I’m thankful for the chance to talk with you some.”

  Morgan settled his hat over his head and looked over his shoulder as he went out the door. “Me too, Mercy,” he said, and he meant it.

  * * *

  “What do you think of Ranger Beaumont?” Victoria asked after the men had gone. Mercy sat on the edge of her bed and watched her change into fresh clothes after her tumble into the street. “He was a perfect gentleman. I only stumbled and he treated me like I’d broken my leg. Wouldn’t hear of letting me walk on my own.”

  Mercy smiled. She’d never seen her daughter bubble over so. It was strange how happy she sounded considering the circumstances and all they were going through.

  “He seems the decent sort of f
ellow,” Mercy said. She handed Victoria a clean camisole.

  “He is, isn’t he? He told me he intends to stay here in Parker County for a while and base his Rangering from around here. What do you think he means by that?”

  “I’d say you know what he means by that.”

  Victoria finished buttoning up her blouse and sat down by her mother. She ran a brush through her long ebony hair. “Daddy’s going to be all right, you know. With two men like Ranger Beaumont and Frank Morgan going after him, he’ll be just fine.”

  “I know.” Mercy bit her bottom lip. She felt tears welling up inside her again.

  Victoria, caught up in her own emotions, didn’t seem to notice. “That Frank Morgan is a great man. You’re lucky to have known him when you were both young.”

  Mercy could do nothing but offer a closed-mouth nod.

  “Tyler practically worships him. It’s always Frank this or Morgan that—Tyler thinks he hung the moon. Did you know people have written books about him and his bravery and skill? If Tyler believes so strongly in him, he must be quite a man.”

  Mercy swallowed back a sob and touched her daughter gently on the shoulder.

  Victoria stared into space, thinking. “There’s just something about him. . . .”

  I know, Mercy thought, but she didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to.

  23

  The Crowders’ Ranch actually started a half mile out of town—the part of the land the railroad was interested in for stockyards—but the main house was nearly three miles out over cactus and white caliche and rock-covered hills. The land nearest town was too poor for ranching, and would take a good fifty acres just to support one cow-calf pair.

  “It’s no wonder Crowder wants to get shed of this hunk of ground,” Ranger Beaumont said, twirling the end of his reins as he skirted his horse around a particularly nasty patch of prickly-pear cactus.

  “It is slim pickin’s, that’s for certain.” Morgan scanned the countryside around them. There were more gnarled mesquites springing up than Morgan remembered as a child. The thorny trees seemed to be traveling further and further north each year with the passing herds of Mexican cattle that ate their beans and deposited them elsewhere in their manure as they traveled. Here and there, a patch of bronze-and-rust Indian blankets made a go of it on a bit of shallow gray dirt, but the biggest crop going by far seemed to be yucca plants and red-ant hills.