Montana Gundown

by William W. Johnstone

  The answer was obvious, and while he didn’t like it a bit, it didn’t particularly surprise him, either.

  A couple of other questions were nagging at him, and he had a feeling that if he could answer those as well, the whole picture would be visible to him.

  “Blast it!” he exclaimed as he hauled back on Goldy’s reins. “My horse has gone lame for some reason.”

  Salty frowned and said, “Are you sure, Frank? I didn’t see nothin’—”

  “Yeah, I felt him pull up just now,” Frank went on quickly. He started to dismount. “I’d better check him over. Maybe he just picked up a stone in one of his shoes.”

  The whole group had come to a stop now.

  “We don’t have time for this, old man,” Brady complained.

  Frank swung down from the saddle and waved them on toward the mountains. “The rest of you go on. Salty, why don’t you and Bill stay here with me and give me a hand? We’ll catch up to the rest of you in a little while.”

  “I don’t like splittin’ up like this,” Embry said.

  “There are only three of those kidnappers,” Frank pointed out. “You’ve got about thirty men. If ten-to-one odds don’t make them surrender, having the three of us along isn’t going to make any difference.”

  Brady sneered and said, “It sounds to me like the great Frank Morgan is tryin’ to duck out of a fight. Maybe that reputation of his was just a mess of hot air all along!”

  “Sonny, you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about!” Salty said. “Why, I’ve seen this man take on a whole passel of varmints single-handed!”

  “Let it go, Salty,” Frank said. “I don’t care what Brady thinks.”

  “You will one of these days,” Brady said, “when it comes time for a showdown between you and me.”

  Frank ignored him. Bill Kitson edged his horse up and said, “I don’t know, Mr. Morgan ... I think I ought to stay with the boss ...”

  “I just thought if you hung back with us for a little while, you could ride after the others and let them know if Salty and I have to turn back,” Frank explained.

  “That makes sense,” Embry said. “Stay here with Morgan and Stevens, Bill, until he sees how bad off his horse is.”

  Kitson nodded but still looked uneasy as he said, “Sure, boss. Whatever you say.”

  He dismounted and stood there holding the reins of his horse and fidgeting a little as Frank started examining each of Goldy’s hooves in turn. The rest of the men rode off, with Brady directing a disdainful glare toward Frank as they left.

  Salty leaned over and put his hands on his knees as he studied the sorrel’s hooves as well. “I don’t see nothin’ wrong so far, Frank,” he said. “Goldy’s pretty dependable, though, so if he tried to pull up, there must be somethin’ botherin’ him.”

  “I’ll find it,” Frank said, “no matter how long it takes.”

  He noticed that Kitson looked even more impatient at that comment.

  “Mighty pretty country around here,” he went on, apparently making idle conversation while he checked over the horse. “I don’t reckon I’ve ever seen anything prettier, though, than Miss Faye standing under that waterfall with that water running all over her.” He grinned, even as Salty frowned in puzzlement. “How about you, Bill? You ever seen anything like that?”

  Kitson ducked his head, but he couldn’t completely hide the surprised frown that appeared on his face.

  Frank laughed as he set down the hoof he’d been examining.

  “You’ve seen her like that, haven’t you, Bill?” he prodded. “I can tell by the look on your face.”

  Bill turned away. “I don’t reckon I want to talk about that.”

  “Come on, Bill, you’re among friends. You and Faye were sweet on each other for a while. You went out there to that waterfall with her a few times, didn’t you?”

  “That’s none of your business, Mr. Morgan,” Kitson said. He was starting to sound annoyed now.

  “Hell, son, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Frank persisted. Salty was staring at him now in utter confusion, knowing that Frank wasn’t the sort of man to talk about a woman like that, but Kitson had his back turned and couldn’t see the old-timer’s expression.

  Frank gestured to Salty, trying to tell him to play along, and continued, “A couple of healthy young people like you two, there’s nothing wrong with stripping down buck-naked and romping a little in a pool like that—”

  Kitson swung around sharply, and now his face was flushed with anger.

  “That’s not the way it was!” he said. “I knew about that waterfall and wanted to go out there with her, but she wouldn’t let me! I had to sneak out there to get a look at her, and she—”

  He stopped short and stepped back with a look of apprehension on his face.

  Frank took a quick step toward the young cowboy. “She caught you,” he said, “and told you that everything was over and done with between you. She probably called you a few choice names and threatened to tell her pa about what you’d done, too, didn’t she?”

  “You ... you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Mr. Morgan,” Kitson forced out.

  “I think I do,” Frank said. “She was furious at you, probably said all kinds of things that made you mad, but in the end she promised not to say anything to Embry. But you couldn’t forget how humiliating it was to have her treat you like that, could you, Bill? You were still in love with her, but she didn’t feel the same way anymore. And you couldn’t stand that.”

  Kitson shook his head and took another step back. “You don’t know what it was like,” he said. “Having to see her around the ranch all the time, knowin’ that she hated me now, knowing what we might’ve had together if I hadn’t been so blasted stupid ...”

  “So to get even with her you decided to sell out the Boxed E.” Frank’s voice was hard as flint now. “You went over to Baldridge’s side and started feeding information to Brady Morgan. Maybe you didn’t mean to let it slip about Faye going out there to the waterfall, but you said something to plant the idea in Brady’s brain. If Faye Embry was raped and murdered by a couple of Baldridge’s gun-wolves, it would get a war started in this valley for sure.”

  Kitson gasped and exclaimed, “No! No, I never meant for Faye to be hurt. He promised me—”

  “You believed a snake like Brady Morgan?”

  “He’s your son!” Kitson accused.

  “That doesn’t make him any less of a snake. Or you, for that matter. You slipped out of the bunkhouse last night and rode over to the B Star, or wherever you met Brady to pass along your information, and told him that Faye was going to Pine Knob today. As soon as he knew that, he hatched a plan to have her kidnapped. That gunman called Cotter and the other two, they never quit Baldridge. That was a lie. They’re still working for him. And everything Brady and Baldridge said when we rode up was just an act.”

  “I ... I don’t know anything about that,” Kitson insisted.

  “Sure you do.” Frank’s words lashed out like a whip. “You know Jubal and Hal Embry and the rest of the Boxed E crew are riding into a trap right now! It’s all a double-cross. The rest of Baldridge’s gunnies are waiting up there in the mountains to ambush them and wipe them out!”

  Frank hadn’t seen all of the plan laid out in detail at first, but it had come together in his mind as he was talking. Now that he had put his hunches and half-formed theories into words, he knew it was all true.

  He knew as well that Brady hadn’t come up with such an elaborate scheme on his own, not on such short notice. And neither had Baldridge.

  He saw Laura’s hand in this. She was cunning, and she was ruthless, and she knew how to get what she wanted. She had probably been pulling Baldridge’s strings from the start, with Brady’s help. Frank wasn’t sure exactly what she hoped to gain from pitting Baldridge and Embry against each other. But if Baldridge wiped out his only rival and then married Laura, and something was to happen to him after that ...

 
Laura could easily wind up owning the entire valley.

  There was more to it than that, Frank thought, and it probably had to do with the railroad since Laura’s late husband Frederick Wilcoxon had been involved with building spur lines all across the frontier. Laura might want to run such a line through the valley, and she stood to make a fortune if she controlled all the rights-of-way. Or rather, a bigger fortune, Frank thought, since she was already a wealthy woman.

  But would too much ever be enough, where Laura was concerned?

  Those thoughts were racing through Frank’s head, and they almost distracted him to the point that he didn’t see Kitson suddenly grabbing for the gun on his hip.

  “I won’t let you tell anybody!” the young cowboy yelled.

  Frank didn’t reach for his gun. His right fist shot forward instead, crashing into Kitson’s face just as the man’s Colt cleared leather. The force of the blow sent Kitson reeling backward. Frank went after him, grabbing the gun and twisting it out of Kitson’s grip. Then he swung a powerful backhand that cracked across Kitson’s jaw and sent the cowboy sprawling senseless on the ground.

  “Good Lord, Frank!” Salty burst out as he scrambled forward with his old hogleg clutched in his hand. He covered Kitson and asked, “How in tarnation did you figure out all that? It’s as tangled up as a skillet full o’ snakes!”

  “Just put together a few things I saw and heard along the way,” Frank said. “Keep him covered, Salty, while I tie him up. We don’t want him getting away and trying to warn Brady and Baldridge.”

  “Wait a minute,” Salty said with a frown. “Did Goldy really go lame or not?”

  “We’d better hope not,” Frank said, “because we’ll really have to light a shuck if we want to catch up to Embry and his men in time to stop them from riding into that ambush!”

  Chapter 28

  It didn’t take long for Frank to lash Kitson’s wrists and ankles together so securely that the young cowboy wouldn’t be going anywhere until somebody came along and cut his bonds.

  Since they were out in the wilds of the B Star range, Frank decided it would be all right to leave Kitson without gagging him. There was no one around to hear his shouts.

  “We’ll come back to get you later,” Frank told Kitson as he swung up into the saddle.

  “Either that or you’ll lay out here until you starve to death, you double-crossin’ polecat,” Salty added with a malicious cackle.

  Kitson said dully, “It’d be better if you’d just go ahead and shoot me. It’s all I deserve after what I’ve done.” He groaned in despair. “A bunch of my friends are gonna wind up dead because of me!”

  “More than likely,” Frank said. “You should’ve thought about that before you let your head get all twisted up by a woman.”

  He heeled Goldy into motion and rode away without looking back at the forlorn Kitson. Salty rode alongside on the pinto.

  “How are we gonna find that line shack, Frank?” the old-timer asked. “Baldridge is the one who knows where it is.”

  “They left enough sign we can follow their trail,” Frank said. “I’ve got a hunch that when we get closer, we’ll be able to tell where they are.”

  “We’ll hear the shootin’, eh?” Salty asked grimly. “There’s a good chance you’re right about that.”

  They pushed their horses hard in hopes of catching up to the men from the Boxed E before they reached the ambush. But Goldy and Salty’s paint had already traveled quite a distance today, and there was only so much the horses could do. Frank knew that running their mounts into the ground wouldn’t accomplish anything.

  The mountains rose sharply along the northern edge of the valley, with only a narrow band of foothills before the tree-covered slopes. A larger range with snow-capped peaks bulked to the northwest. The mountains bordering the valley were smaller but still rugged. The high pastures had good grass, but it was too much work getting stock up to them and back down again when summer was over.

  Thirty horsemen couldn’t travel through those pastures without the grass getting beaten down. Not all of it had sprung back up again just yet, so Frank and Salty had no trouble following the trail. The terrain climbed in front of them and fell away behind them, so when Frank glanced back over his shoulder, he had a good view of the entire valley.

  It was a beautiful place, just as he had said to Bill Kitson. Worth fighting for, no doubt about that, but at the same time plenty big enough for two ranches. Hal Embry had been on the right track with his suggestion.

  Unfortunately, it was probably too late for a peaceful solution. With everything he knew now, Frank was sure that Gaius Baldridge was in on the plan hatched by Laura and Brady. He had to be. That meant he had gone along with the idea of kidnapping Faye, and he was aware that Brady planned to bushwhack the rescue party and murder all the men from the Boxed E.

  There was no turning back from that. Even though Frank figured Baldridge had been manipulated by Laura and Brady, he had been a willing victim. He had crossed a line and couldn’t come back.

  “What do you reckon’s gonna happen when they get to that line shack?” Salty asked.

  “Embry will charge it like the loco old buffalo bull he is,” Frank said, “and the rest of his bunch will be right behind them. Brady and Baldridge and the men with them will open fire from behind, and I figure the rest of Baldridge’s crew is hidden somewhere close by where they can start shooting, too. Probably won’t take long to butcher everybody from the Boxed E.”

  “Frank ... I don’t want to say it, but I’m thinkin’ maybe Miz Wilcoxon has got somethin’ to do with this.”

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Salty,” Frank replied.

  “If we can put a stop to this, what’s gonna happen to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Frank said honestly. “Right now I just want to keep Embry and Hal and the rest of them from getting slaughtered.”

  The horses were tiring even more. Goldy was strong and valiant, and Salty’s pinto was a real scrapper. But they were only flesh and blood and had their limits. The fact that the trail had gotten even steeper didn’t help matters.

  Frank grimaced as the sound of shots suddenly reached his ears, drifting down from higher in the mountains.

  Salty heard the gunfire, too. “We’re too late, damn it!”

  “Maybe not,” Frank said. He pulled his Winchester from its sheath. “We’ve got to try to help them.”

  They called on their mounts for one last burst of speed. The animals thundered up a long slope. The ground leveled out into a pasture about two hundred yards wide that stretched for twice that distance to a sheer cliff jutting up a hundred feet or more. Rocky ridges flanked the pasture on both sides. At the far end of the pasture, near the granite cliff, stood the old line shack. It was built of logs with a stone chimney and appeared to still be pretty sturdy.

  A number of riderless horses milled around the shack. Frank recognized some of the Boxed E mounts. He didn’t see Brady or any of the B Star gunnies. Sensing that the situation wasn’t exactly what he had expected to find, he reined in and motioned for Salty to do likewise. They stopped in the shelter of some trees at the entrance to the pasture.

  “What in blazes is goin’ on here?” Salty asked as gray puffs of powdersmoke spurted from behind boulders and trees on the ridges. “I figured we’d find Embry and the rest of the Boxed E bunch shot to pieces.”

  “So did I,” Frank said. Shots came from the windows of the line shack as well. Frank pointed to half a dozen dark shapes sprawled on the ground between them and the shack and said, “It looks to me like Embry or somebody else in the bunch must have figured out they were riding into an ambush. That line shack was the closest cover, so they lit out for it just before the shooting started. A few of them didn’t make it, but most of the bunch did.”

  “What about the kidnappers and those two gals?”

  Frank shook his head. “They were probably never in the line shack to start with. That wa
s just a ruse to get Embry and his men up here.”

  “Where are the gals, then?”

  “Being held prisoner in Baldridge’s house, maybe,” Frank guessed. “We’ll figure that out later. Right now we’ve got the survivors from the Boxed E holed up in that shack, and Baldridge’s hired killers up on the ridges trying to smoke them out.”

  “What about us?”

  Despite the desperateness of the situation, a grin flashed across Frank’s face, the reaction of a natural-born fighting man.

  “We’re the wild cards, Salty,” he said. “Neither side knows we’re here. It’s up to us to even the odds a little.”

  “Now you’re talkin’,” the old-timer said. “Where do you reckon Baldridge and Brady got off to?”

  “We didn’t meet them coming up here, so they must still be around. Chances are when the trap didn’t close all the way, they headed up on one of those ridges to throw lead at the line shack, too.”

  “If we could get our hands on Baldridge ...” Salty mused.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Frank agreed with a nod. “Then we’d have a bargaining chip of our own.” He lifted Goldy’s reins. “Come on. Let’s see if we can work our way around to that ridge on the right.”

  Staying in the cover of the trees where they weren’t as likely to be noticed, the two men rode east. After a few minutes of making their way toward the ridge, Frank suddenly stiffened in his saddle as the smell of tobacco smoke drifted to his nostrils. Someone nearby was smoking a quirly.

  He motioned for Salty to stop and dismounted. After handing his reins to the old-timer, Frank started through the trees on foot with the Winchester held slanted across his chest. He followed the smell of smoke until he came to a clearing where a dozen saddle horses were tied to bushes and saplings. Those mounts had to belong to Brady’s men. The gun-wolves had left them here to climb to the ridge and take their positions for the ambush.

  One man stood next to a tree, sucking on a quirly as he kept an eye on the horses. His back was half-turned toward Frank. With the stealth that his long, perilous life had taught him, Frank moved closer to the guard in almost complete silence.