Avenger

by William W. Johnstone

  When they reached the arena, Cody said, “You’ll sit in my private box right down front. That is, if I can’t talk you into taking part, even if it’s just for one night.”

  Frank shook his head. “How many people can you pack in this place, Bill?”

  “Eighteen thousand,” Cody replied proudly.

  “I reckon I’d take on a horde of howling Comanch’ before I’d feel comfortable performing in front of eighteen thousand people.”

  “You’d be surprised how quickly you get used to it.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Frank said.

  Cody escorted him to that private box, which was draped with red, white, and blue bunting. Then the colonel headed for the area underneath the grandstands where the performers gathered before the show. Half the sky was still lit up with the afterglow from the sunset, but above the arena, gaslights mounted on towering poles began to flicker on. There were so many of them that by the time they were all lit, it was as bright as day inside the arena.

  The stands began to fill up quickly. Many of those attending were families with young children, but Frank also saw couples who were probably courting or newly married, and older people who might well remember when some of the things they were about to see were commonplace.

  When the stands were full, a band composed of men in cowboy clothes walked out onto the large, circular floor, which was covered with smooth, freshly raked sand. As the musicians struck up the instantly recognizable opening notes of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the crowd rose to its feet and became respectfully silent. They remained that way until the band had completed the stirring anthem. Then a huge cheer welled from the eighteen thousand throats.

  The cheering continued as Buffalo Bill rode out into the center of the arena on a beautiful white horse rigged up with silver trappings on its harness. Cody rode around in a circle, waving his creamy Stetson over his head and saluting the crowd. After a few moments, he brought his mount to a halt and called out in a voice that was surprisingly powerful for a man of his age, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World! Now . . . the Grand Review!”

  With a sweep of his hat, he ushered a column of riders into the arena. Riding four abreast, cavalrymen from numerous different nations paraded slowly before the grandstands full of cheering spectators. Each group carried a flag representing its country. Frank recognized the ones from England, France, and Germany, and of course the American Stars and Stripes, since the U.S. cavalry was well represented, but the other flags were unknown to him. He told himself that he would ask Cody about them if he got the chance later.

  The Grand Review lasted for quite a while, with the band playing martial airs the whole time. When it was finally over, Annie Oakley took her turn. Cody introduced her as Little Sure Shot, the Darling of the Plains.

  And she was a mighty good shot, no doubt about that. Frank had to give her credit for her undeniable skill with pistol and rifle. She made some shots he doubted that he would have been able to accomplish, such as busting a whole row of tiny, colored glass balls that were thrown into the air, without a single wasted shot from her rifle. There was no trickery about it, no gimcrackery. Annie Oakley was the genuine article.

  That was hardly the end of the show. The Deadwood stage appeared next with old Salty Stevens handling the reins. As Salty sent the coach rolling around the arena, expensively dressed folks riding inside it waved to the crowd. Frank figured they were local politicians or important businessmen or both.

  After the coach had made a complete circuit of the arena, a group of riders suddenly came boiling out of one of the gates that led underneath the grandstands. They wore buckskins and feathered headdresses, and they howled and whooped savagely as they gave chase to the stagecoach. Salty whipped up the team to a gallop. The attacking Indians opened fire with the rifles they carried.

  The chase lasted for a couple of turns around the arena before a group of cowboys led by Buffalo Bill appeared on the scene, racing after the Indians and shooting at them. The air was growing thick with floating veils of gray powder smoke. Some of the Indians went tumbling spectacularly off their mounts as if they were mortally wounded.

  Frank knew that none of them were actually hurt, of course. It was all playacting. All those involved in this so-called Indian fight were firing blanks from their guns. But it still made for quite a spectacle, and the audience ate it up. The cheering and applause never stopped. Most of these people had never seen a real Indian attack and never would—and they could thank their lucky stars and men like Buffalo Bill Cody for that—but what they were witnessing here was a reasonably close approximation. It was a window into a history that was not completely gone yet, not by any means, but one that was beginning to fade.

  Buffalo Bill and his cohorts chased off the rest of the Indians and the stagecoach followed, going out through the same gate by which it had entered. It took several minutes for the crowd reaction to die down.

  Then Hannah Sterling appeared, riding a big bay horse. She wore the same outfit Frank had seen her in earlier, with the addition of a buckskin jacket and a white Stetson that must have been held on her head by a taut chin strap, though Frank couldn’t see it at this distance. The hat stayed on Hannah’s head, though, even when she began to perform a series of acrobatic horseback tricks.

  When she launched into her first trick, Frank thought for a second that she had fallen off the running horse. But then she popped back up and he realized that she had slipped out of the saddle, let her booted feet hit the ground, and then vaulted back up, using her tight grip on the saddle for leverage as she swung her legs across the horse’s back and let them drop on the other side.

  That was just the beginning. Before the act was over, Hannah had ridden backward, upside down, standing on the saddle, and every other which way. Frank had seen other performers who could carry out such horseback tricks, but he had to admit that Hannah was as good as any of them and better than most. The crowd seemed to like her too, although Frank didn’t envy anybody who had to follow something as exciting as the Indians “attacking” the Deadwood stage.

  When Hannah had finished her act, Colonel Cody returned to the arena to do some sharpshooting of his own, which he combined with a demonstration of fancy horsemanship. Frank would have enjoyed watching his old friend perform, but he had other business to take care of. He slipped out of the private box and went down some steps to the area underneath the grandstands. He wanted to find Hannah so that he could keep an eye on her and see what she did next. He hoped to discover what sort of hold Edgar Wade had over the lovely young woman.

  He spotted her making her way toward the area where the performers’ tents were located. As Frank followed her at a discreet distance, guns began to go off again inside the arena. The shots became a deafening fusillade, and Frank knew that the mock Battle of the Little Big Horn was under way. He wondered briefly how Red Thunder and the other Indians felt about staging such a spectacle and reducing what had ultimately been a tragic moment in their history to mere entertainment, but he put that thought aside as he trailed Hannah Sterling. Right now, her problems with Edgar Wade were his main concern.

  Hannah went into her tent. Frank lingered nearby, waiting to see if she was going to come out again. She did so about ten minutes later. She had changed out of her costume into a simple but attractive dress, and her long red hair was put up on her head with a stylishly small hat perched on it. Frank drew back into the shadows so she wouldn’t see him as she walked by. He gave her a lead, then fell in behind her again, trailing her as she left the Wild West show compound.

  Hannah walked briskly for several blocks, heading north toward downtown Chicago. Frank didn’t figure that was her destination, though, because it was too far to walk. Sure enough, she turned onto a cross street and went toward the lakefront. She entered a six-story building that faced the water. A sign that hung over the door read: AVALON HOTEL.

  Frank gave Han
nah a moment or two, not wanting to follow too closely behind her, then went into the hotel himself. He knew he might look out of place in his range clothes, and as he entered the lobby, he saw that that was sure enough the case. All the other men he saw wore suits, and some of them sported derbies or bowler hats or fedoras.

  He caught sight of Hannah’s skirts ascending a staircase on the other side of the lobby. As he started after her, the slick-haired gent behind the registration desk held up a hand and said firmly, “May I help you, sir?”

  Frank shook his head and walked on past the desk. The clerk said, “Just a moment, sir—”

  Frank turned his head toward the young man, and the clerk shut up when he saw the expression on The Drifter’s rugged face. “It’s all right, son,” Frank said to the youngster. “If there’s a ruckus, I’ll tell everybody afterward that it wasn’t your fault, that you tried to stop me.”

  The clerk swallowed hard. “Is . . . is there going to be trouble, sir?”

  “I reckon that’ll depend on what I find when I get upstairs.”

  Without another word, Frank hurried along to the staircase and bounded up the steps. The Avalon was a reasonably nice place, the sort of accommodation where a fella might bring his family for a summer vacation near the lake. When Frank reached the second-floor landing, he glanced along the hall, and then pulled back sharply so that Hannah wouldn’t see him. She was standing in front of a door about halfway along the corridor, in a pose that told Frank she had just knocked on the panel and was waiting for a response.

  He took off his hat and edged his head past the corner of the landing. Hannah was turned so that he could only see one side of her face, but that was enough to tell him that she wore a tense, expectant expression. She didn’t seem to have noticed him when he reached the top of the stairs, and all her attention was focused on the closed door now. She didn’t as much as glance in his direction.

  Just when Frank was beginning to wonder if Hannah was going to get any answer to her knock, the door slowly swung open. A slender, stooped, gray-haired man stood there, his face haggard. But a smile appeared on it as he saw Hannah, and he held out his arms to her. The two of them embraced tightly, and then with an arm around her shoulder, the old man took Hannah into the room and closed the door behind them.

  What the hell? Frank thought. Given everything that had happened, he had expected Hannah to be meeting Edgar Wade. Instead, she was visiting some elderly stranger.

  He walked quietly along the hallway until he came to the door. The number on it was 214. Frank leaned closer, his broad-brimmed hat still in his hand, and pressed his ear to the panel. He could hear the low mutter of voices inside the room, but he couldn’t make out the words.

  The door of another room opened, and a heavyset, gray-haired woman in late middle age stepped out wearing a fancy dress and a plumed hat. She had pince-nez spectacles attached to a beaded chain around her neck, and she lifted the glasses to her nose and glowered through them at the sight of Frank trying to eavesdrop.

  He straightened, put his hat on, and gave the brim a polite tug as he nodded to the woman. “Ma’am,” he said.

  “Young man, if you’re going to lurk around hotel corridors, I shall have no choice but to report you to the police,” the woman said with a sniff.

  She wasn’t so much older than him that she ought to be calling him “young man,” Frank thought, but that didn’t really matter. He didn’t want the woman raising a ruckus. He moved a few steps closer to her, and she recoiled a little, clutching her handbag tighter.

  “I’m not lurking, ma’am,” he said, “I’m looking for my, ah, sister. You happen to know who’s staying in Room 214?”

  “I do not. Perhaps you should inquire at the desk downstairs.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I suppose that would be best.” Frank put on his most gallant tone as he continued. “If you’re going down to the lobby, I’d be glad to escort you.”

  The woman’s icy manner thawed a little. “I suppose that would be all right.” As they fell in step toward the stairs, she added, “Are you a cowboy?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “From Texas?”

  “As a matter of fact, I was born and raised there, ma’am. But I’ve drifted around to a heap of other places too.”

  “You should go see Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. It’s positively thrilling. I’m certain you’d enjoy it.”

  “I’ll sure think about doing that,” Frank promised.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Frank hoped the woman would go on so that he wouldn’t have to continue this charade. Before he could do anything else, though, four men in range clothes came through the front doors of the hotel, and one of them said loudly, “There you are, Morgan. We’ve got a score to settle with you, mister!”

  Chapter 17

  As the four men started across the lobby toward Frank, he recognized them from the fracas at the Wild West show compound earlier in the day. The one in the lead, the one who had spoken, was the wrangler called Holloway.

  Frank had been willing to abandon his post on the second floor because he figured that when Hannah left the hotel, she would go out through the lobby. He’d planned to wait for her down here and then follow her and confront her after she left. She had the look of a woman in trouble, but he couldn’t help her if she wouldn’t confide in him.

  Now it looked like he had been followed from the show, and Holloway and the other three wranglers wanted revenge for the whipping he had given them that afternoon.

  If a brawl broke out here in the hotel lobby, the commotion might alert Hannah and the old man and whoever else might be in Room 214, possibly Edgar Wade. Frank didn’t want that, so he held up a hand, palm out, and said sharply, “Hold on, Holloway. I’m not looking for trouble with you boys.”

  “Well, that’s just too damn bad, Morgan,” Holloway replied with a sneer, “because we’re lookin’ for trouble with you. And you can’t scare us off with that Colt either, gunslinger. This here’s Chicago. It’s a civilized town, and you’ll wind up in jail if you slap leather, especially against unarmed men.”

  The older woman beside Frank gasped, “Gunslinger?”

  He looked over at her and smiled faintly. “Don’t worry, ma’am. A Wild West show’s not about to break out right here in the lobby.” He turned his attention back to Holloway and went on tersely. “Outside.”

  Holloway jerked his head in a nod. “That’s fine with us. But you go first, Morgan. We don’t want you tryin’ to duck out on us.”

  The wranglers stepped aside. Frank stalked past them to the door. Behind him, the woman he had accompanied downstairs called, “Should I summon the police, young man?”

  He paused long enough to look back at her, shake his head, and say, “No, thanks, ma’am. I won’t need any help to handle the likes of these hombres.”

  That comment just made Holloway and his friends angrier, but Frank didn’t much care. The more interference he encountered, the longer it was going to take him to clear up whatever this mess was with Hannah Sterling and Edgar Wade, and the longer it would be before he reached Boston and settled his score with Charles Dutton. If it had been anybody but Bill Cody who had asked for his help . . .

  There was a small park across the street from the hotel, along the waterfront of the lake. Light from several gas street lamps reached the edges of the park, so Frank headed for it, thinking the open space would give him room to move around. When he reached the park and turned back toward the hotel, he saw that the older woman, the desk clerk, and several other men who had been in the lobby had come outside to watch the fracas.

  Holloway and the other three wranglers stalked toward him. Their fists were clenched and their faces were set in angry lines.

  “You ready for a whippin’, Morgan?” Holloway taunted.

  “If you think you can do it, you’ve got it to do,” Frank replied coolly. “You’ve got the odds on your side, that’s for sure. Four to one might be enough to give you an ad
vantage.”

  Holloway sneered and jerked a thumb at the three men with him. “These boys just came along in case you tried anything underhanded. I’m gonna thrash you all by my lonesome, old man.”

  Frank unbuckled his gunbelt and took it off. “Then maybe one of them wouldn’t mind holding this for me,” he said. He held it out toward them.

  The men exchanged glances; then one of them shrugged and stepped forward. He took the gunbelt from Frank. “Looks like I’ll be stayin’ out of this, Morgan,” he said.

  “Your word on that?”

  “Sure.”

  Frank nodded. “Good enough for me then.” These wranglers were tough and arrogant, but they were still Western men. Frank knew none of them would give their word lightly.

  He turned toward Holloway and took his hat off, handing it to the man who was holding his gun. Holloway handed his hat to one of his other companions and started forward, his fists lifted in a rough boxing stance.

  “I’ll try not to hurt you too bad, old man,” he said with a grin. “Just bad enough you’ll be sorry you ever laid eyes on me.”

  “Too late,” Frank said. “I already am.”

  Holloway’s grin changed to a snarl as he lunged forward and drove a right-hand punch at Frank’s head. Frank expected it to be a feint, and it was. As he moved to his right to avoid the blow, Holloway’s left came hooking up with blinding speed.

  Frank was just as fast, though. He blocked Holloway’s left with his right forearm and jabbed his own left into the wrangler’s belly, which was unprotected at the moment. The punch didn’t travel very far, but it had plenty of power behind it. Frank’s fist sunk in Holloway’s gut almost to the wrist.

  Holloway doubled over, air gusting from his mouth as the punch knocked the wind out of him. Frank smelled the whiskey on the wrangler’s breath, and knew that Holloway had fortified himself with a few shots of Who-hit-John before setting out on this mission of vengeance.