Imposter

by William W. Johnstone

  Jack blinked and then paled just a bit. “I’ll alert the men, Frank. If you’re right, and I’ll bet you are, we don’t have much time.”

  “Move, Jack. Get the men into position.”

  On the boardwalk, Frank ran down to the Purple Lily and looked inside. The saloon was deserted, with not a single patron. That cinched it in Frank’s mind. A raid on the town was imminent. Many of the ne’er-do-wells who had drifted into town had joined up with Val Dooley.

  Frank ran over to the office and grabbed a rifle from the rack, then stuffed his pockets with cartridges. He stuck a pistol behind his gunbelt and stepped outside. The long main street was deserted, devoid of foot traffic. Horses had been ridden or led away from the hitch rails. Most of the businesses had closed their doors.

  Frank looked up to the rooftops of the businesses. Men were lined up all along Main Street, on both sides, with rifles and shotguns. The Dooley gang was going to be in for a bloody surprise when they hit this town, for many of the men were veterans of numerous battles—outlaws, rustlers, Indian wars, the War of Northern Aggression, or a combination of all of them. These men couldn’t be frightened off and they wouldn’t quit. They would go down fighting. Frank had no doubts at all about that.

  Frank looked up at the sound of a galloping horse. It was the old wrangler from the livery. “They’re on their way,” he shouted, reining up and dismounting. “About a mile out of town now. ’Bout thirty or forty of them, looked to me. They’ll be here shortly. I’ll be in the loft of the livery. Good luck to us all. We’re damn sure going to need it against that gang.” He led his horse into the livery and closed the big doors behind him.

  The Dooley gang had waited, Frank was sure, until Tom and the posse had passed their hiding place, heading south, before they rode out to the north, to the town.

  “We’re ready as we can be, Frank,” Doc Evans called from the door of his office. “I’m ready to receive wounded. I know there will be some.”

  “Ready over here, Frank,” Jack O’Malley called.

  All along both sides of the street, men began calling in. The town was ready for the gang. There would be gunsmoke in the air and blood in the dirt before this day was over.

  “They’re coming in from both ends of the street!” a man called. “Some of them must have circled around. Good God, there’s gotta be fifty of them.”

  “Damn,” Frank muttered through gritted teeth. He levered a round into the rifle and stepped into the mouth of an alley.

  Dooley’s men dismounted and Val split his gang up into small teams of three to five men, sending them all over town. Gunfire and the screaming of women echoed throughout the town as outlaws kicked in the doors to private homes, terrorizing the residents.

  A bullet dug a furrow in the wood of the building, just inches from Frank’s head, sending tiny splinters into his face and neck. Frank dropped to one knee and leveled his rifle. He pulled the trigger just as his assailant fired again. The gang member missed. Frank didn’t. The bullet from Frank’s rifle slammed into the man’s chest and knocked him to the ground. Frank turned his attention back to the street just in time to see a local take a round in the head and fall from the rooftop of the bank, crashing through the awning of the boardwalk. He bounced on the boardwalk and slowly rolled into the dirt.

  One of the men Frank had seen loafing in the Purple Lily came running up the boardwalk, a pistol in each hand, firing indiscriminately. Frank sighted him in and squeezed the trigger. The outlaw stopped abruptly and fell like a rag doll as the bullet ripped into his belly. He jerked once and then lay still.

  Frank heard a woman screaming in one of the houses just behind the main street, but could not tell for sure which house it came from. He turned his attention back to the main street as a man carrying a bundle of something tried to make it into the bank. Frank could not tell what was in the bundle. A shotgun roared from inside the bank building, and the man was lifted off his feet and flung out into the street. A second later the bundle exploded, sending bits and pieces of the dead man flying all over Main Street. Windows on both sides of the street were blown out from the concussion of the blast.

  “Nitro,” Frank muttered. “Dangerous stuff to handle.” He wondered why the Dooley gang would choose to use the highly volatile liquid rather than the easier-to-handle and much more stable dynamite.

  “Go in the back of the bank,” someone shouted from the other side of the street. “Blow the safe.”

  “You’ll never make it,” Frank muttered. Seconds later, heavy gunfire erupted from the bank building. The banker and his tellers were all heavily armed and making a fight of it.

  Frank watched an outlaw stagger out of the leather shop, both hands holding his lead-perforated belly. The man stumbled on the boardwalk and fell into the street. He kicked and jerked for a moment and then was still.

  The Dooley gang was taking a real beating from the residents of the town. Val should have known better than to attack a town, for it was extremely rare for a Western town to be treed by a gang.

  During a momentary lull in the gunfire, Frank heard the unmistakable bellow of Mrs. Hockstedler coming from a row of houses directly behind Main Street.

  “Get away from me, you hoodlum!”

  Frank turned his head to see if he could spot Mrs. Hockstedler. He turned just in time to see an outlaw come stumbling out of the front door of a house, Mrs. Hockstedler in pursuit, wielding a large broom.

  “Take that, you ruffian!” she hollered, and whacked the outlaw on the back of the head, sending him rolling ass-over-elbows off the porch and into the yard.

  “I’ll kill you, you fat pig!” the outlaw yelled.

  Mrs. Hockstedler let out a squall and came charging off the porch, swinging the broom. “You filth!” she bellered. “How dare you call me names, you, you . . . white trash!” She swung the broom.

  The broom connected with the back of the man’s head and knocked him flat on the ground. Mrs. Hockstedler jumped on him just as he was getting to his feet, all her considerable weight landing on the man, once again knocking the outlaw to the ground.

  He hollered and made a grab for his six-gun. Mrs. Hockstedler balled a hand into a fist and belted the man, her fist connecting with the man’s jaw and flattening him. “Take that, you ne’er-do-well!” she yelled. “How dare you assault a helpless woman.”

  “Helpless, my foot,” Frank muttered as Mrs. Hockstedler commenced to pound the outlaw with the business end of the heavy broom.

  The gunfire picked up, and Frank left the outlaw in the very capable hands of Mrs. Hockstedler.

  “This ain’t workin’ out!” a man yelled. “We done lost too many men. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Let’s go,” another man yelled. “Back to your horses. It’s over.”

  Frank waited, counting as many of the dead and the wounded as he could. Eight outlaws and two local men were dead in the street. He had no way of knowing how many outlaws and locals had been killed or wounded in private homes.

  Frank looked behind him. The outlaw Mrs. Hockstedler had been pummeling with the broom had gotten to his feet and taken off running, leaving his pistol behind him on the ground. Frank figured the outlaw was very fortunate Mrs. Hockstedler didn’t pick up the six-gun and shoot the man with his own pistol.

  “They’re gone!” a man yelled from a rooftop. “Riding out, heading toward the west.”

  Frank stepped out of the alley and walked across the street to the hotel. As soon as he stepped into the lobby, waves of panic hit him. He fought them down and walked swiftly to the desk clerk, who was sprawled in a pool of blood. The man was dead.

  Frank took the steps two at a time, heading for Lara’s room. The door had been smashed open. Lara was gone.

  “My daughter’s gone,” a man yelled from the street. “Them outlaws took my girl.”

  “Doc Evans, come quick,” another man yelled. “My wife’s been hit on the head and is bleeding real bad.”

  The bank was sec
ondary, Frank thought. The bastards were after women.

  “They’ve done this before,” a citizen said, as if reading Frank’s thoughts. “They hit a town and kidnap half a dozen women. They rape them and when they’re finished with them, they sometimes turn them loose.”

  “Sometimes? Or they kill them?” Frank asked.

  “Only if they’ve caused them a lot of trouble. More often than not, they sell them into whorehouses along the old Barbary Coast. Sometimes the women escape and make it back home. But not many of them.”

  “Maybe they’re shipped out to Mexico or other places?”

  “Could be. I’ve heard of that happening.”

  Frank walked over to Doc Evans’s office. The doctor was busy patching up a local, and he worked while Frank told him what had happened to some of the town’s women. “I’m heading out, Doc. I’d appreciate if you’d take care of Dog while I’m gone. I’m going to be moving fast and Dog just couldn’t keep up.”

  ’I’ll do it, Frank. I like Dog and he likes me. He can sleep right here.“

  “Thanks. I’ll bring him by right now.”

  Frank went to the livery and got Dog, taking him to Doc’s office and telling him to stay. Dog would obey him. He might not like it, but he would stay. Frank then provisioned up and put several boxes of rifle and pistol cartridges in his saddlebags.

  Jack O’Malley and several other local men came to see him in the livery.

  “You going after them, Frank?” Jack asked. “Alone?”

  “I operate better when I’m alone, Jack,” Frank replied. “I can move faster too.”

  The owner of the Blue Bird Café handed Frank a sack. “Fresh-baked bread in there. I baked it this morning.”

  “Thanks, Paul. Would you save some scraps for Dog? He’s staying over at Doc Evans’s while I’m gone.”

  “I’ll take some over to him personal every day, Frank. I’ll feed him well. You have my word on that.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “We’ll look after the town, Frank. And we’re riding with you, in a manner of speaking,” the man from the saddle shop said.

  Frank nodded his head. “I know.”

  “They got my daughter, Frank,” the owner of the Gold Nugget Saloon said. “Nellie. She’s only fifteen. You bring her back to me and the Missus, Frank. Please?”

  “I’ll do my best, George.”

  “Half a dozen women was taken, Frank,” Jack said. “Lara, Nellie, Dixie Malone, Harriet Baker, Lydia Wilson—she’s only fourteen—and Penny Tucker. Half a dozen that we know of, that is. There might well be more from this town or the surrounding area. Probably are.”

  “Probably,” Frank said, tightening the cinch on Stormy.

  “Frank,” Jack said, putting a hand on Frank’s shoulder.

  Frank turned to look at the man.

  “You be careful, Frank.”

  Frank nodded his head and swung into the saddle. He looked down at the men. “I’ll bring those women back if at all possible.” He lifted the reins and rode out.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Frank picked up the trail of the gang and began following it, heading south. He felt without any doubt that the gang would soon split up into smaller groups; he also felt they would eventually wind up in the same spot: Val Dooley’s hideout in the area known as the Wilderness.

  A few hours after the abortive raid against the town, the gang split up into half a dozen smaller groups. Frank kept on the trail of the larger group heading straight south; that was the group he was sure had the women. He felt that Val Dooley would not let any of the others have their way with the women until he personally had raped them. Being the leader of a gang does have its privileges.

  Judging from the imprint the horses’ hooves made in soft earth, none of the women were doubled up on a single horse. As near as Frank could figure it, he was following sixteen people. Six women and ten of the Dooley gang, including Val.

  Then the gang went into a shallow river in an effort to lose any pursuers by hiding their tracks. It’s a good trick, and it will throw off dogs and inexperienced trackers, but it seldom works with any experienced tracker.

  It didn’t with Frank, and he only lost about an hour before he was once more on the trail of the Dooley gang.

  Approaching darkness forced Frank to call a halt and to make camp. It was just as well, for Stormy was getting tired.

  Frank built a hat-sized fire, and while water for coffee was boiling, he fried some bacon and then thin-sliced a potato into the bacon grease, and had that and some of Paul’s fresh-baked bread for his supper. He used another hunk of bread to sop up the grease left in the pan and ate that. Then, over the first cup of coffee and several cigarettes, Frank allowed his mind to think more deeply on the fate of the hostages. The images he conjured up were not pleasant.

  He was sure that some, if not all, of the hostages had been assaulted by now. All of them had probably been beaten into submission.

  Frank got killing mad at the thought. And he knew in his mind right then, at that quiet thoughtful moment by the campfire, there would be damn little mercy shown to any member of the Val Dooley gang . . . not by him. And he was going to get those women back home. He couldn’t guarantee what shape they would be in, but if there was any way short of making a deal with the devil, he would get them back home.

  Then he let the golden image of Lara slip into his mind.

  Bad mistake. For that only served to make Frank even angrier. He felt his blood run hotter and his emotions get all choked up.

  If anything were to happen to her . . .

  If she were to be killed . . .

  He fought those thoughts away and tried to roll another cigarette. His suddenly trembling fingers made a mess of the first attempt. He angrily threw the wadded-up papers and what remained of the tobacco into the fire and fought back his hot anger.

  This won’t do, he thought, steadying his raging mind and calming his white-hot musings.

  This won’t do at all.

  He sat still for a moment, calming his inner emotions, then, with steady fingers, rolled a cigarette and poured another cup of coffee. He had successfully mentally banked his fires of rage. But he could and would allow the flames to roar into an inferno when the time was right. And God help any Dooley gang member who was in the way when that happened.

  God would have to help the outlaw . . . Frank Morgan sure as hell wouldn’t.

  * * *

  Frank doggedly followed the trail of the Dooley gang. At midmorning of the second day out, he found where the gang had camped the night before. He found a piece of torn dress and the remnants of a woman’s undergarments.

  Frank squatted by the rags of clothing and softly cursed. The attacks on the kidnapped women had begun.

  And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. At least, not yet, he thought. Frank put the torn rags in his saddlebags, to keep as evidence, and swung back into the saddle. Three or four hours behind them, he told himself. Only three or four hours. But he knew better than to push Stormy any harder than he already was. The big Appaloosa was as game as any horse on the trail, but he had his limits.

  Frank maintained a steady pace, stopping often to let Stormy rest. He nooned by a little creek, taking time to brew a pot of coffee and eat some bread, then was back in the saddle. And he was closing the distance between him and the gang. He could tell by the freshness of the horse droppings. And their horses were getting tired; the gang had been pushing them hard and it was telling on the animals. He was now maybe two hours behind the gang, at most.

  A hour later, Frank caught a faint whiff of smoke. A few minutes later, the smell of smoke was mixed in with the odor of bacon frying. He had found somebody. Whether it was the gang or some traveler, he would soon know.

  He left Stormy ground-reined and taking his rifle, Frank began cautiously working his way through the timber, following the scent of smoke and bacon frying.

  He froze still when he heard someone say, “I don’t li
ke this a-tall, Danny. I just don’t like sittin’ here like a dummy waitin’ for Morgan to show up.”

  “Relax, Shorty,” Danny told him. “Morgan’s half a day behind us. We’ll eat and then we’ll get in place to kill the bastard.”

  “And what if he’s only half a hour behind us?”

  Danny laughed and Frank worked closer. He could see the two outlaws.

  “Huh?” Shorty laughed. “Don’t laugh at me, Danny. What if he’s closer?”

  “He ain’t that close, Shorty. I can feel it.”

  “You’re right about that,” Frank said, stepping into the clearing. “I’m right here.”

  Shorty grabbed for his six-gun and Frank put a .44-40 slug in his chest. The bullet knocked Shorty back, shattered his heart. The outlaw was dead before he hit the ground. “Don’t kill me, Morgan!” Danny yelled, fear making his eyes wide.

  “Oh, I’m not going to kill you,” Frank assured him. “We’re going to have a nice long talk, you and me.”

  “Huh? What are we gonna talk about?”

  “You’re going to tell me everything about Val Dooley.”

  “No, I ain’t, Morgan. I’m more feared of Val than I am of you. I ain’t gonna tell you a damn thing.”

  Frank walked to the man and gave him the butt of his rifle on the side of his jaw. Danny hit the ground out cold.

  When he woke up, he was stripped naked and tied to a tree. He could see Frank squatting by the fire, doing something. “This ain’t decent!” Danny hollered.

  Frank turned his head to look at the man, contempt in his eyes. “You kidnap and rape women, some of them no more than children, and you talk to me about decency?”

  “What are you doin’ with that fire, Morgan?”

  Frank stood up, a running iron in his gloved right hand. The tip of the running iron was glowing red hot.

  “What the hell are you gonna do with that, Morgan?” There was a slight hint of hysteria in the man’s voice.

  “I told you, Danny. We’re going to have a long talk.”

  “You ain’t gonna burn me, Morgan. You a lawman, you can’t do nothin’ like that. It ain’t legal.”