Avenger

by William W. Johnstone

  “It’s all over, Marshal,” Frank said, keeping his voice calm and steady. “Why don’t you tell your deputies to lower those Greeners? I’d hate for one of them to go off accidentally.”

  “Won’t be nothin’ accidental about it if you try anything,” the lawman warned.

  “I’m not going to. All I did was defend myself. Those men met the train with the sole intention of killing me. They were hired guns.”

  The marshal frowned. “Who the hell are you, that somebody would send six bushwhackers after you?”

  “My name is Frank Morgan.”

  That meant something to all three of the star-packers. The eyes of the younger men got even wider. “Hell, he’s The Drifter!” one of the deputies exclaimed. “He’s in some o’ those yellowbacks I read!”

  Frank tried not to sigh. Not for the first time, he thought there ought to be a law against pasty-faced scribblers making up a bunch of rubbish about real people and publishing it in dime novels.

  “The Drifter, eh?” the marshal said. Without taking his eyes off Frank, he ordered his deputies, “Lower those scatterguns. Unless he’s got another gun hid somewhere on him, he’s unarmed, and I ain’t never heard nothin’ about Frank Morgan carryin’ a hideout.” The lawman tucked his own Greener under his arm. “Now, what’s all this about, Morgan?”

  “I’d be glad to come down to your office and tell you all about it, Marshal, but only if you can convince the conductor to hold the train for me. I don’t want to have to wait until the next eastbound comes through to be on my way.”

  “I’ll see what I can do . . . but don’t forget, you ain’t the one givin’ the orders here.” The marshal turned his head and snapped at one of the deputies, “Go check on them fellas who got shot. Some of ’em might still be alive. Josh, you go fetch the doc.” As the deputies hurried to carry out the commands, the marshal asked Frank, “Did Endicott get hit?”

  “Who?”

  “Cleve Endicott. The engineer.”

  “Oh.” Frank shook his head. “No, I don’t think he’s hurt. Looked to me like he just fainted.”

  For the first time, a hint of amusement appeared on the lawman’s rugged face. “Swooned like a gal, eh? He’ll get some ribbin’ about that. I might’ve done the same thing, though. I saw that shot you made just as I was gettin’ here. That bullet couldn’t have missed him by much more’n an inch.”

  “That was enough,” Frank said.

  The marshal grunted. “Yeah. Come on, Morgan. Let’s go talk to the conductor.”

  The conductor didn’t like holding the train, but he agreed to for half an hour. The engineer had to be brought around anyway, and given a little while to recover from his fainting spell.

  The marshal, whose name was Harry Larch, walked down to his office with Frank. Larch had Frank’s Colt tucked behind his belt, and Frank had retrieved his hat from the roadbed where it had fallen off.

  As he brushed dirt from the Stetson and settled it on his head, he asked, “Am I under arrest?”

  “Not yet. I just want some answers, is all. There hasn’t been any real trouble here in my town for a long time, and I want to know why folks started dyin’ this morning all of a sudden.”

  The dying hadn’t started this morning, Frank thought. This was just the latest installment.

  The marshal’s office was in a small, blocky building that also served as the town jail. A coffeepot sat on a cast-iron stove in the corner. After putting the shotgun back on the rack, Larch offered Frank a cup, and Frank accepted gratefully.

  “I used to do some cowboying, and that’s where I learned to boil coffee,” the marshal said. “So this is pretty potent.”

  Frank smiled. “Just the way I like it.”

  Larch poured coffee for both of them and waved Frank into a chair in front of the battered, scarred desk. He took Frank’s gun from behind his belt and placed it on the desk. As he settled down in a swivel chair, he said, “Now tell me why somebody wants you dead, Morgan . . . other than the fact that a man like you must have a lot of enemies to start with.”

  Frank took a sip of the strong black brew and nodded in appreciation. Then he said, “Those gunmen were sent to intercept me by a man in Boston named Charles Dutton.”

  “Why would this fella Dutton do that?”

  “Because he knows that I’m on my way to Boston to kill him.”

  Larch’s bushy eyebrows rose in surprise. “Simple as that, eh?”

  Frank nodded. “Simple as that.”

  But it wasn’t simple, not really. Not at all. And the beginnings of it went back years. Maybe even decades, depending on how you looked at it.

  It went all the way back to when he had met and fallen in love with and ultimately married a beautiful young woman named Vivian. Her father had been opposed to the marriage, and eventually had succeeded in having it set aside legally. But he couldn’t do anything about the child Vivian had been carrying when she and Frank parted, and even though Vivian had wound up marrying somebody else who had raised her son Conrad as his own, the boy was Frank’s and that connection would always exist between them.

  Years later, they had met again. Vivian Browning was a widow by this time, and a very rich widow to boot. It was then that Frank had learned for the first time he had a son. Conrad Browning’s dislike for Frank had made his reunion with Vivian a bittersweet one, but given enough time, things might have improved all around.

  They didn’t get the chance to, because Vivian had been betrayed and set up by one of her attorneys, a man named Charles Dutton. Because of Dutton’s treachery, Vivian had been cut down by an outlaw’s bullet, ending her life and driving a wedge between Frank and Conrad that threatened to become permanent.

  Fate had cast the two men together again on several occasions, and Conrad had overcome his resentment of his true father to form a grudging respect for Frank. They had even worked together to ward off threats to a railroad Conrad was building down in New Mexico Territory. They were partners whether they wanted to be or not, since Vivian’s will had left a large share of her business holdings to Frank and the rest to Conrad.

  Frank had met Charles Dutton briefly, before Vivian’s death. He knew the man was responsible for what had happened, even though Dutton hadn’t actually pulled the trigger himself, and he was aware that Dutton had fled back to Boston. Frank had intended to go after him and settle the score, but other things had gotten in the way, keeping him from getting around to it.

  And then, while Frank was embroiled in a bloody range war down Arizona way, a hired killer had come after him and forced a showdown. Frank had emerged triumphant from that shoot-out. As the gunman lay dying, he had revealed that Charles Dutton had hired him to kill Frank. Clearly, Dutton felt that Frank’s very existence posed too much of a continuing threat and had decided to have him eliminated.

  Instead, the attempt on his life had served as a reminder for Frank, a reminder that he had unfinished business to take care of. Now he was on his way East, and nothing was going to sidetrack him until he had looked into Charles Dutton’s eyes and avenged Vivian’s death.

  He quickly sketched in this background for Marshal Harry Larch, then said, “I suspect Dutton has spies keeping an eye on me. I rode from Arizona up to Denver and talked to my lawyers there, made arrangements for my horse and my dog to be taken care of while I was gone, and bought a train ticket to Boston. I see now that was a mistake, though.”

  “How come?” Larch asked, clearly fascinated by Frank’s story.

  “How come it was a mistake? Because if Dutton knows that I’m coming for him—and I’m sure he does—he’ll do his damnedest to try to stop me. He’ll try to have me killed before I can get anywhere close to him. He’s got the money to hire plenty of gunmen too . . . money he stole from my late wife.”

  “What’s that got to do with you riding the train?”

  “I’m an easy target on a train,” Frank explained. “There’s no room to move, and there are too many innocent people around. Not on
ly that, but the men who are after me will always know where to find me.” He shook his head. “What I’ve got to do is throw them off the trail. That’s my best chance of getting to Dutton.”

  Larch rubbed his jaw and frowned in thought. “Even if you make it to Boston, it won’t be easy gettin’ to Dutton. He’ll probably have himself a bunch o’ bodyguards.”

  “I expect so,” Frank said with a calm nod.

  “So you’re willin’ to fight your way through a whole army o’ hired guns and guards just to take your shot at this hombre.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  The marshal laced his hands together and leaned back in his chair as his frown darkened. “There’s one thing you’re forgettin’, Morgan. . . . No matter how justified you may feel in seekin’ revenge, what you’re really talkin’ about is murder. This is a civilized country now. You can’t just walk up to a man and gun him down, no matter what he’s done. If you can prove that Dutton is responsible for your wife’s death, you need to go to the law and let them handle it.”

  Frank nodded. “I wouldn’t expect you to tell me any different, Marshal. And what you say would be mighty good advice for most people. But I’m in the habit of stompin’ my own snakes, and I reckon I’m too old to change now.”

  Larch sighed and reached out to rest his hand on Frank’s gun. He shoved the Peacemaker across the desk toward The Drifter. “All I can say is that I’m damn sure glad this fella Dutton is in Boston and not here in my town. This is gonna be some other lawman’s worry.”

  Chapter 3

  Only one of the hired killers had survived the shoot-out at the train station, the man whose shoulder Frank had broken with a bullet. He was expected to recover from his wound, although in all likelihood he would never have full use of that arm again. Frank and Marshal Larch stopped in at the doctor’s office to see the man on their way back to the depot.

  The doctor’s office was in his house, about a block from the station. The wounded man was propped up in bed with bandages wrapped around his shoulder. One of Larch’s deputies sat in a straight chair next to the wall, a shotgun lying across his knees.

  The gunman was pale from pain and loss of blood. He had a thin, beard-stubbled face and watery eyes. He didn’t look at Frank and the marshal as they came into the room.

  Larch said, “In case you ain’t figured it out yet, you’re under arrest for attempted murder.”

  “I didn’t try to murder nobody,” the man muttered sullenly. Still without looking at Frank, he waved his left hand in The Drifter’s general direction. “He’s the fella you oughtta be arrestin’. He gunned down my friends for no good reason.”

  “Other than the fact that you were shootin’ at him.”

  “He shot first,” the gunman accused.

  Larch glanced over at Frank, who nodded. “As a matter of fact, that’s true,” Frank admitted. “I saw them through the window and recognized them for what they were. They split up, half of them heading for the front of the car and the other three for the back. I met this man and two others at the back of the car. They pointed their rifles at me and one of them yelled at the leader that I was back there. I figured that was justification enough.”

  The deputy nodded and said, “That fits with the story Josh and me got from the witnesses, Marshal.”

  “I never said you weren’t justified in what you did, Morgan,” Larch said. “I wish you’d picked some other town to shoot up, though.” He held up his hands to forestall Frank’s response. “I know. It wasn’t really your choice, was it?”

  The gunman said, “Morgan’s a killer. He’s killed hundreds of men, from what I’ve heard. He’s the one who oughtta be behind bars.”

  “I never killed anybody who didn’t have it coming,” Frank said. “And I’d challenge anybody to prove otherwise.”

  “Never mind about that,” Larch said. “All I’m concerned with is what happened here, and I’m satisfied you acted in self-defense. I’ll testify to as much at the inquest, which is the only reason I’m willin’ to let you catch that train and leave town.” He turned his attention back to the gunman. “Now, who hired you and those other boys to kill Morgan?”

  The man’s expression grew even more sulky. “Nobody hired us. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “Was it a man named Dutton?” Larch asked, ignoring the gunman’s denial.

  Frank was watching the man’s eyes closely, and he saw no sign of recognition in them. The gunman had never heard of Charles Dutton. That didn’t really come as a surprise. Rance had been the leader of the bunch, and it was entirely possible he was the only one who had known who they were working for.

  “This is all crazy,” the gunman insisted, refusing to answer Larch’s question. “Morgan started shootin’ at us for no reason.”

  Larch nodded wearily. “You just stick to that story, son. We’ll see whether or not a jury believes it . . . and then you’ll have a nice long time to think about it in prison.”

  Frank caught the marshal’s eye and gave a little shake of his head. Larch was wasting his time. The would-be killer didn’t know anything that could be used legally against Dutton. As usual, the slick lawyer had covered his tracks, although it was lucky for Dutton that Rance had been killed in the shooting.

  “Stay here and keep an eye on him for now,” Larch ordered the deputy. “As soon as the doc says it’s all right, we’ll move him down to the jail. He can recuperate there while he’s waitin’ to stand trial.”

  With that, Frank and the marshal left the doctor’s house and walked on to the railroad station. The stationmaster, the conductor, the engineer, and the brakeman were conferring on the platform. They turned to look at the newcomers, and the conductor asked irritably, “Are we about ready to roll again? The head office ain’t gonna be happy about us fallin’ this far behind schedule.”

  The stationmaster put in, “I wired on ahead to the next stop so they’d know to expect a delay. Shouldn’t cause too much of a problem. Cleve can make up a little time between stops.”

  The engineer seemed to be none the worse for his perilous experience earlier. He frowned at Frank and said, “Mister, you damned near shot me.”

  “But I didn’t,” Frank replied coolly. “When you get right down to cases, that’s all that really counts, isn’t it?”

  The engineer’s reply was a grudging, “Maybe. But what if I’d moved my head a little just as you pulled the trigger?”

  “That would have been a shame,” Frank said. “I was counting on you being too scared to move.”

  The engineer glared, but didn’t make any reply to that. He looked at the other men and said, “I’ve got steam up. Let’s get the hell outta here.”

  Frank went back to the passenger car where he had been riding earlier. As he found a seat, he felt the eyes of the other passengers watching him. They had been talking animatedly among themselves about the gun battle they had witnessed, but they fell silent as Frank walked past them. Everybody in here now knew that the notorious gunslinger known as The Drifter was among them. Some were intrigued and impressed, but most of them were just plain scared. Frank couldn’t blame them for feeling that way either. When they had gotten on this train, they hadn’t known that they would be riding with a famous gunfighter with a habit of attracting trouble.

  That was truer now than ever. Frank had no doubt that if he remained on this train, he would draw more killers than honey did flies.

  About five miles east of the town where the shoot-out had taken place, there was a grade that, while not steep, was long enough to cause the train to slow down a little. At the top of that grade, Frank Morgan tossed the carpetbag he had purchased in Denver from the rear platform of the caboose and then swung down to the ground himself, running a few steps before he caught his balance and stopped.

  He looked up at the caboose, where the conductor stood with his arms crossed and an unfriendly look on his face. Clearly, the conductor was glad to see Frank leave the train, ev
en if it wasn’t at a scheduled stop.

  As the train chugged on eastward, receding into the distance, Frank picked up his carpetbag and walked in the same direction. Like most men who had spent the greater portion of their lives in the saddle, he didn’t care much for walking, but his low-heeled boots didn’t hurt his feet too much. Besides, he didn’t have very far to go. Only a couple of hundred yards ahead was a line of cottonwood trees that marked the course of a creek. That was his destination.

  He walked beside the gleaming steel rails until he reached the creek, which was spanned by a short trestle. Moving under the trees, he found a log where he could sit down and wait with his carpetbag at his feet. The shade was welcome. The sun had risen high enough by now that the day was beginning to heat up.

  Frank had been waiting only about half an hour when he heard the hoofbeats of several horses approaching. He stood up and turned toward the sound. Out of habit, his hand hovered near the butt of the gun on his hip. After a moment, he relaxed as he recognized the man riding toward the creek and leading two horses behind him.

  Marshal Harry Larch rode into the trees and brought his mount to a halt. He swung down from the saddle and handed the reins of the two riderless horses to Frank.

  Larch said, “I’m damned if I know why I’m doin’ this, Morgan. I ought to arrest you, considerin’ the errand you’re on.” He shrugged. “But I’m old enough to remember a time when the only law west of the Mississippi was what a man packed on his hip. Those were worse times in a lot of ways . . . but by God, I’m not convinced that justice wasn’t better served back then too.”

  “That’s one of the burdens of getting older, Marshal,” Frank told him. “You see too many changes, good and bad.” He looked over the horses Larch had brought him. Both were geldings. One was a rangy lineback dun with a bit of a mean cast to his eyes, the other a sturdy chestnut with a white blaze and three white stockings. The dun was saddled, while the chestnut had several bags full of supplies slung over its back.