The Loner: Killer Poker

by J. A. Johnstone

  When he got a chance to make a break for freedom, he wanted to take them by surprise.

  He wondered how long he had been out cold. It seemed like a long time, hours, maybe, but he knew that feeling could be deceptive.

  Along with the hoofbeats of the team pulling the wagon, he could hear other horses. Outriders, more than likely. Maybe McKinney himself, since he struck Conrad more as the type to ride a horse than sit on a wagon.

  Rose would be on the wagon. He considered the possibility of throwing off the enshrouding blanket, grabbing her, and using her as a hostage.

  It wouldn’t work, he decided. For one thing, he was too likely to get tangled up in the blanket and slowed down by it. For another, just because McKinney and Rose were working together didn’t mean that he gave a damn what happened to her. If Conrad threatened to kill her, McKinney might just laugh and tell him to go ahead.

  Anyway, he wasn’t the sort of man who used a woman as a shield, even a dangerous woman like Rose Sullivan. He would have to find another way out of the mess.

  And it would have to be soon, because he heard McKinney say, “There it is. The Double Star ranch. The last place that bastard Browning will ever see.”

  Chapter 25

  It was too late to make a move before they reached the ranch. Conrad swallowed his disappointment and remained still. A few minutes later, the wagon came to a stop and he heard a gate being opened. The wagon rattled into motion again.

  Several more minutes passed before the wagon stopped. Saddle leather creaked as men dismounted. McKinney said, “Let me give you a hand,” and Rose replied, “Thank you.” Obviously, he was helping her down from the wagon seat. Conrad felt the vehicle shift on its springs.

  “Get him out of there,” McKinney ordered.

  The wagon’s tailgate dropped open with a racket. Strong hands reached into the wagon bed and took hold of the blanket-wrapped figure. Conrad felt himself being dragged toward the back of the wagon.

  As they lifted him clear of the vehicle, McKinney said, “Dump him out.”

  The men let the musty blanket unroll. Conrad tumbled free, but instead of crashing limply to the ground as an unconscious man would have, he caught himself lithely on his hands and feet. Blood pumped hard through his veins and he forgot all about how badly his head hurt as he sprang up and swung a fist at the man closest to him.

  It was still night. Oil lamps burned on the porch of the big house in front of which the wagon was parked, so he was able to see the cowboy. The blow landed solidly on the surprised man’s chin and sent him flying backward.

  “He’s awake!” McKinney yelled. “Grab the son of a bitch!”

  Conrad knew the odds facing him were mighty high. If he could break away from them and get his hands on a gun, he might be able to capture McKinney. Rose wouldn’t make a good enough hostage, but the rancher was a different story. Conrad knew McKinney’s men wouldn’t blaze away at him if McKinney was in the line of fire. He was going to fight until he couldn’t fight anymore, and get his hands on Rance McKinney if he could.

  One of the Double Star punchers who had accompanied the wagon leaped at him, swinging a roundhouse blow. Conrad ducked under the whistling fist and hooked his right hand into the man’s belly. The cowboy folded up as the short but powerful blow drove the air from his lungs. Conrad’s left hand shot out and snagged the gun from the holster on the man’s hip.

  “Look out!” somebody else shouted. “He’s got Jonah’s gun!”

  “Shoot him!” The shrill cry came from Rose.

  “No!” McKinney bellowed. “I want him alive!”

  Conrad heard a rush of footsteps behind him and bent forward sharply. The man who tried to tackle him sailed over his head. Conrad twisted away from another man. He spotted McKinney standing in front of the porch steps with Rose and lunged in that direction.

  A man yelled, “Hyaaah!” and suddenly a horse loomed up on Conrad’s right, crowding in on him. He tried to get out of the animal’s way, but its shoulder slammed into him and knocked him off his feet. He managed to hold on to the gun as he sailed through the air and came crashing down on the ground, but before he could swing it toward McKinney, another man rushed in and kicked his arm. Conrad’s fingers opened involuntarily and the gun flew free.

  The cowboy tried to kick him again. Conrad grabbed the man’s foot and heaved, sending him falling over backward with a startled yell. Conrad rolled away and scrambled to his feet, ramming into the solid obstacle of a horse’s flank. Something dropped over his head and tightened around his neck.

  “I got him!” the rider shouted. “I got a loop on him!”

  “Don’t kill him, damn you!” McKinney roared.

  Conrad had no idea why McKinney was so dead set on keeping him alive, but he didn’t have time to ponder the question. He clawed at the lasso around his neck, trying to get his fingers under it. The rope was already tight enough that it cut off his air. The way the horse was dancing around, if it bolted the noose would probably break his neck as surely as if he’d dropped through the trapdoor of a gallows.

  Men crowded around him and grabbed his arms. Some of the pressure went off his neck as the rope was cut. A fist crashed into his jaw and rocked his head back. In the chaos that surrounded him, Conrad couldn’t tell exactly what was going on, but he heard McKinney say, “Hold him,” and felt the man’s hot breath against his face.

  A fist slammed into his belly. Conrad felt sick, but there was nothing in his belly to come up. McKinney hit him again and again, pounding him like a side of raw meat while the cowboys held him up.

  Conrad had endured beatings before. He knew how to put the pain aside and pretend that it didn’t exist. Blow after blow battered him, until McKinney stepped back and said with vicious satisfaction, “I reckon that knocked all the fight out of him. Let him go.”

  The men released Conrad. He tried to stay on his feet, but his legs wouldn’t support him. He fell to his knees and stayed there.

  McKinney stood in front of him, looking dark and huge in that cowhide vest. The rancher grinned and rubbed his swollen knuckles with his other hand. “You may have won the card game, you son of a bitch,” he gloated, “but you lost everything else. And you’re just gettin’ started learning how much you’ve lost.”

  He nodded to someone behind Conrad. A booted foot hit Conrad in the back and drove him forward, facedown in the dirt. He coughed as dust clogged his mouth and nose. He knew he was about to pass out again and fought to hang on to consciousness, but it was a losing battle.

  A darkness as black as those aces he had used to defeat McKinney closed in around him and took him away.

  When Conrad woke up, he was lying in a soft, comfortable bed between crisp, clean sheets. The shock of those surroundings was so great it was almost like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water in his face. He gasped before he could stop himself.

  “Browning’s awake,” a man said somewhere close by. “Go tell the boss.”

  A door opened and closed, and it was followed by a sound Conrad knew all too well: the sound of gun hammers being drawn back.

  He opened his eyes, wincing a little as light struck them. Sunlight slanted in through a window with the curtains drawn back. As his vision cleared, he saw two men standing at the foot of the bed. Each man had a double-barreled shotgun pointed at him, and the weapons were cocked and ready to fire.

  “Better . . . be careful . . . with those scatterguns, boys,” Conrad husked. “If they go off . . . at this range . . . there won’t be . . . much of me left. Your boss . . . won’t like that.”

  “Mr. McKinney said we was to go ahead and kill you if you try anything else,” one of the men said with a sneer. “I reckon he’s damn sick and tired of your tricks, mister.”

  Conrad felt too weak for any tricks. He closed his eyes again and lay there, trying to regain some of his strength as he took a quick inventory of his aches, pains, and bruises. Yep, he decided after a moment, he hurt pretty much from head to toe.


  Footsteps sounded in the hall outside the room. Conrad opened his eyes. A second later the door swung open and Rance McKinney marched in. The rancher looked pleased with himself as he grinned down at his battered prisoner. “Well, I’m glad to see you’re not dead. You’d be gettin’ off too easy if you were.”

  Conrad’s voice was stronger as he said, “What the hell are you talking about, McKinney? I never did anything to you except beat you at a game of cards.”

  McKinney waved his left hand. His right rested on the walnut butt of the Colt holstered on his hip. “I don’t care about the money. It’s what you did to that poor woman you got to pay for, Browning.”

  “Poor woman?” Conrad repeated in confusion. “You mean the woman calling herself Rose Sullivan?”

  McKinney snorted in contempt. “Not her. That gal can take care of herself better than any I ever saw. She could probably whip half my crew, and out-shoot ’em, too.” He drew in a deep breath and glared in hatred at Conrad. “I’m talking about Pamela Tarleton.”

  “I never—”

  Conrad stopped short. He’d been about to say he had never hurt Pamela Tarleton, and that was true in a physical sense. But he had broken their engagement, and although he and Frank weren’t truly responsible for her father’s death, Pamela blamed them for it. She’d been hurt, all right, and that had allowed the vengeful monster she had been all along to escape.

  “I don’t know what she told you,” Conrad said to McKinney, “but chances are, it was a lie.”

  “That woman never told a lie in her life,” McKinney snapped.

  The conviction in the rancher’s voice told Conrad that Pamela had worked her magic on him, had woven a spell like some latter-day Circe and convinced McKinney to believe whatever lies she laid out for him. She had probably taken McKinney to bed. She had been able to make any man believe anything when the falsehoods were accompanied by soft, sleek flesh and softer kisses.

  “She explained everything to me,” McKinney went on. “She told me how you went loco and threatened her, and how she had to break off your engagement and run away from you just to save herself. She told me about how you’ve been trying to kill her ever since then and how she had to hide out. She didn’t dare tell you about those kids, because she knew that would make you even worse. She said if you ever found out, you’d try to track her down, and she made me promise that if the trail led you to me, I’d stop you.” He jerked his head in a curt nod. “So that’s just what I’m gonna do.”

  Conrad felt a surge of despair well up inside him. The story Pamela had told McKinney bore a passing resemblance to the truth. But she had changed a few things, like the fact that it was he who had ended their engagement, not her, and twisted others until everything was backward. McKinney thought he was protecting Pamela, and that explained the man’s reaction when he found out who Conrad was.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Conrad said wearily, knowing it probably wouldn’t do any good. “I just want to find my children.”

  “So you can mistreat them like you mistreated their mother?” McKinney shook his head. “Not a chance in hell, Browning. I know what I’ve got to do. You’re never gonna leave this ranch alive.” A cruel smile twisted the rancher’s mouth. “But we’re gonna have some fun makin’ sure you wind up dead.”

  Chapter 26

  The vengeful expression on McKinney’s face and the cruel anticipation in his voice made it clear what Conrad was dealing with. It was true Pamela had duped McKinney as she had duped so many others, but the rancher had had a mile-wide streak of viciousness and evil in him before he ever met her. Conrad had seen that for himself the first night he had run into McKinney, during that altercation in the Palace. He might have built a successful ranch for himself, but he was still a cold-blooded killer at heart, and the hardcases who worked for him weren’t much better.

  Conrad wasn’t sure exactly where Rose Sullivan fit into things, but he knew she was working with McKinney. That increased the odds against him.

  “You can’t get away with kidnapping me. When I disappear, too many people will ask questions. They know you had it in for me. They’ll come looking for me, and this ranch is the first place they’ll look.”

  McKinney laughed. “Let ’em look. Nobody on the Double Star will talk. My men are all loyal to me. By the time anybody actually searches the place, the buzzards will have picked your bones clean and the coyotes will have scattered them all over hell and gone.”

  That was certainly a grim prediction, and Conrad knew it had a good chance of coming true. But he didn’t intend to let that happen without putting up a fight.

  “Get up and get dressed,” McKinney went on, and for the first time Conrad realized he was naked. McKinney added to his men, “When he’s got his clothes on, bring him downstairs.”

  “And if he tries anything, boss?” one of the guards asked.

  “Blow him to hell.” McKinney grinned at Conrad again. “You see, Browning, I’d rather carry out what I’ve got planned for you, but as long as you wind up dead I reckon I can accept it.” As he left the room he added, “Don’t let him get too close to you. He’s fast and tricky.”

  The cowboys nodded in understanding and backed off, keeping the shotguns leveled at Conrad. “You heard the boss,” one of them said. “Get out of bed and get them clothes on.” The man motioned slightly with the twin barrels of his Greener.

  Conrad looked in the direction the man indicated and saw a pair of denim trousers and a plain work shirt draped over a chair. He pushed the sheets back and swung his legs out of bed, grimacing at the pain of stiff, sore muscles from the beating they had given him. “I don’t see any boots.”

  “If the boss wanted you to wear boots, there’d be some boots there. Now hurry up, damn it.”

  Conrad sensed their nervousness. They were afraid he would try something. At the same time, they hoped he would. Then they could pull the triggers on those scatterguns and have it all over and done with.

  He didn’t want to give them any excuse to do that, so he moved slowly and carefully as he stood up, went to the chair, and started pulling on the clothes McKinney had provided. When he was dressed, one of the guards opened the door and backed out through it, keeping his shotgun level. The other two guards flanked Conrad.

  He smiled at them. “You realize that if you shoot me now, you’ll kill each other, too.”

  The guards’ eyes widened, and one of them said, “Damn! He’s right!”

  Conrad laughed coldly. “Don’t worry. I’m cooperating . . . for now.”

  He had looked around enough to see that the room was simply but comfortably furnished, and as he stepped into the hall and felt a thick rug under his bare feet, he saw the same seemed to be true of the rest of the house. A few yards away, the hall opened onto a balcony that overlooked a large room on the first floor. Conrad hadn’t known until then that he was on the second floor.

  He figured he was in McKinney’s ranch house. The outer walls were made of logs, and there was dark, heavy wood almost everywhere he looked. The horns of deer, moose, antelope, and elk adorned the walls. It was the sort of house that would be built by a man who had carved an empire out of the frontier.

  Some men did that sort of thing honestly and honorably. Conrad had a strong hunch Rance McKinney was not that kind of man. It wouldn’t surprise him a bit if most of McKinney’s first herd had been acquired by the light of a rustler’s moon.

  One of the guards backed away in front of Conrad while the others followed him. “They’re waitin’ for you downstairs.”

  “They?” Conrad repeated.

  “The boss and that gal.”

  Rose, Conrad thought. Maybe that really was her name, although it didn’t seem to fit her.

  Not too many gals went by Medusa, though, he told himself with a faint smile, remembering some of the classical literature he’d read back in his college days.

  He went down a broad staircase with banisters made from thick, heavy beams. At the botto
m, he looked across the big room and saw a table sitting in front of a massive stone fireplace that was cold at that time of year. The table was set for breakfast, and the aromas of hot coffee and food made Conrad’s stomach clench as a reminder of how long it had been since he’d had an actual meal.

  McKinney sat at one end of the table, Rose at the other. Her pale, wavy hair was loose around her shoulders, which were left partially bare by the low-cut blue gown she wore.

  McKinney grinned as he got to his feet. “Glad to see that you’ve decided to join us, Browning.” He waved at an empty chair halfway between him and Rose. “Have a seat.”

  “You’re putting me in the middle so that if your men cut loose with those Greeners, none of the buckshot will hit you or Rose, I take it.” Conrad walked to the chair. He kept his face coolly impassive and didn’t let them see how much he hurt all over.

  McKinney chuckled. “That’s right. Sit down.”

  Conrad sat. The coffee had already been poured in his cup, and the plate in front of him was piled high with steak, eggs, and biscuits.

  He turned to look at the woman and nodded politely. “Good morning, Rose. Or would you rather I called you by some other name?”

  “Rose will do fine,” she told him, without indicating one way or the other whether that was her real name. “You really shouldn’t have put up such a fuss, Conrad. It would have been much easier on you if you’d cooperated.”

  “Guess I always was too stubborn for my own good.”

  “That’s the truth,” McKinney said. “Otherwise you would’ve given up Pamela when you had the chance and not turned loco.”

  Conrad started to tell the rancher again that he was making a big mistake, but he gave it up as a waste of breath. After everything that had happened, McKinney would want him dead even without the lies Pamela had told him. McKinney’s arrogance would have demanded revenge for that humiliating defeat at the poker table.