Before Holloway could catch his breath or his balance, Frank smashed a right cross to his face. The punch sent Holloway staggering across the grass. He righted himself before he fell, and reached up to grasp his chin and work his jaw back and forth. Surprisingly, a chuckle came from his mouth.
“That’s a pretty good punch . . . for an old man,” he said.
“More where that came from,” Frank told him.
“Yeah, I’ll just bet there is.”
Holloway came toward him again, but this time the wrangler’s approach was slower and more careful. The two men sparred, feeling each other out now. At the same time, Frank was trying to keep an eye on the hotel entrance in case Hannah came out. He wasn’t sure what he would do if she emerged from the hotel while he was still busy with Holloway, but he would deal with that when and if it happened.
Unfortunately, the distraction proved to be just enough to let Holloway get too close. Holloway’s right fist suddenly snapped out and connected solidly with Frank’s jaw. The impact rocked Frank’s head back and made him take a step backward. As he did so, Holloway hooked a toe behind his heel and jerked. Frank’s leg went out from under him, and since he was already a little off balance, he wasn’t able to stop himself from falling.
Instantly, Holloway abandoned his boxing strategy and leaped after Frank, obviously intent on pinning him to the ground. Frank saw him coming and rolled aside. Holloway hit the ground instead, and Frank drove an elbow into his ribs. Holloway gasped in pain, but reached out and grabbed hold of Frank.
They rolled across the grassy parkland, wrestling furiously. When they finally came to a stop, Frank was on top. He hit Holloway with a right and a left that jolted the wrangler’s head one way and then the other. Half-stunned, Holloway still managed to get a leg up and hook it across Frank’s throat. He levered Frank off him and rolled the other way.
Winded and groggy, Holloway croaked to his companions, “Get him! Get the old bastard!”
So much for fair play, Frank thought as he came to his knees and then struggled to his feet. He stood up just as the two wranglers closed in on him.
He was able to duck the punch that the first one threw at him, but the second man landed a fist in Frank’s side. Frank counter-punched and caught the man on the chin. That gave him an instant’s respite, but that wasn’t long enough to allow him to twist away from his attackers. A punch exploded on his jaw.
From where Holloway lay on the ground, he threw a little treachery into the mix by thrusting a leg between Frank’s feet. Frank tripped over it and fell. Before he could get up, the two men had closed in on him again and reached down to grab his arms. They jerked him onto his feet. Their fingers dug cruelly into his flesh as they held him.
Holloway got up and came toward them, his face contorted in an expression of savagery. “Now you’re gonna pay, Morgan,” he grated.
Frank knew good and well what was about to happen. Holloway intended to give him a beating while the other two men held him. It was unfair, but Holloway was too angry to care about anything like that.
The man holding Frank’s gun and hat said, “I don’t know about this, Jed. It don’t seem right—”
“Shut up,” Holloway snapped. “You don’t have to do anything. You can walk away if you don’t have the stomach to watch.”
“Well, if you’re gonna do this, you better make it quick,” the other wrangler said reluctantly. “I think some of those folks over at the hotel might’ve gone back inside to call the police.”
Frank’s jaw tightened. He didn’t want the police coming around here while he was still trying to find out what was going on with Hannah. He had been standing there in the grip of the two men with his head hanging down, as if he were stunned. In reality he had just been resting, taking advantage of the chance to catch his breath and get some of his strength back. Now, as Holloway approached him, he decided that he didn’t have any more time to waste waltzing around with these jaspers.
He lifted his head and threw his weight against the two men holding him. At the same time he lifted both feet off the ground and brought his knees up almost to his chest before he straightened his legs and kicked Holloway in the chest. The double kick literally lifted Holloway off the ground and sent him flying backward through the air.
The unexpected weight threw the men holding Frank off balance. The grip one of them had slipped loose. Frank pivoted toward the other one, bringing his free arm whipping around so that his fist landed in a sledging blow to the side of the man’s head. The wrangler dropped like a poleaxed steer.
Frank whirled around just as the remaining man leaped toward him. His fists came up, ready to strike, but before he could throw a punch, a shot blasted somewhere nearby. The man who was lunging at Frank was thrown backward as the meaty impact of a bullet striking flesh sounded.
A fraction of a heartbeat earlier, Frank had heard the sizzling whip-crack of the bullet passing beside his ear. He had no idea where the shot had come from, but he went to the ground in a rolling dive, making himself a harder target to hit. As he came back up on one knee, he saw the man who was holding his gunbelt standing nearby, a dumbfounded look of shock on his face. The wrangler who had been shot was on the ground, writhing in pain as blood pumped from a bullet-shattered shoulder.
“Throw me my gun!” Frank shouted at the man holding the Colt. The man gave a little shake of his head, breaking out of his stunned reverie, and tossed belt and all across to Frank.
He caught it and plucked the Peacemaker from its holster as another shot blasted and a slug plowed a furrow in the ground right beside him. This time, Frank had caught sight of the muzzle flash. It came from some trees deeper in the park. He lifted the gun and smoothly squeezed off two shots, aiming at the spot where orange flame had bloomed in the darkness.
Too late. The sound of running footsteps told Frank that the bushwhacker was already fleeing. The gunman had taken two potshots and missed with both of them.
Frank wasn’t willing to just let the man go. He snapped at the wrangler who was still on his feet, “Get something on your friend’s shoulder to stop the bleeding!” Then he darted into the trees in pursuit of whoever had taken those cowardly shots at him.
The sound of the running footsteps led him through the park at an angle. When he came back to the curving street, he spotted a man in a broad-brimmed hat running through the light cast by a gas lamp. Frank lifted the Colt to take a shot at him, intending to aim low and knock a leg out from under the fleeing bushwhacker, but at that moment one of the electric trolley cars came rattling past, blocking his view of the man. When the trolley was clear, the bushwhacker was gone.
Frank bit back a curse. He knew there were several alleys the man could have ducked into. Frank could have gone over there and started exploring them, but the idea of traipsing into stygian alleys after a man who had already tried once to kill him didn’t seem like a very smart thing to do. Shaking his head, he turned and walked back through the park.
When he came to the spot where he’d had the ruckus with Holloway and the other wranglers, he found it crowded with people. A man who must have been a doctor, judging by the open black bag at his side, was kneeling next to the cowboy who’d been shot. Quite a few other men, most of them probably from the hotel across the street, stood around watching. Holloway and the other two wranglers were there too. Holloway held his arms crossed tightly over his chest as if he were in pain. Frank knew that he might have broken one or two of Holloway’s ribs with that double kick.
The police were on hand too and as somebody said excitedly, “There he is!” a couple of the blue-uniformed figures turned toward Frank and lifted guns.
“Drop that pistol, mister!” one of them said. “You’re under arrest!”
Chapter 18
Frank didn’t drop the gun as he had been instructed, but he kept it down at his side as the policemen approached him. He didn’t know how trigger-happy they might be, and he didn’t want to give them any excuse to start
blazing away at him.
“Take it easy, boys,” he said, keeping his voice steady and calm. “Why am I under arrest?”
“For shooting that man,” the other officer said, inclining his head toward the wounded wrangler.
A frown creased Frank’s forehead. “I didn’t shoot him. In fact, I reckon the bullet that hit him was intended for me. It didn’t miss my ear by more than an inch or two.”
The older woman from the hotel came bustling up. “Mr. Morgan is telling the truth,” she said. “There were at least a dozen witnesses when that poor man was shot, and Mr. Morgan didn’t even have a gun at the time.”
“Well, he’s sure armed now,” one of the policemen said, “and he’s got a reputation as a gunfighter and killer. We’re gonna have to take him in for questioning.”
Frank glanced toward the Avalon Hotel, wondering whether Hannah was still up in Room 214. It didn’t appear likely that he would be finding out any time soon.
His gunbelt was still lying on the ground. He picked it up, slipped the Colt into the holster, and coiled the belt around it. As he handed it over to one of the officers, he said, “You fellas are making a mistake. Somebody tried to bushwhack me and got that other hombre instead. That’s what happened, simple as that.”
Holloway surprised him a little by speaking up. “Morgan’s right. He didn’t have anything to do with shooting Amos. I saw that with my own eyes.”
The policemen looked stubborn. They wanted to take in the famous Drifter. But it was obvious they didn’t have any real reason to arrest him.
“You’re not supposed to be wearing a gun,” the one holding the coiled shell belt said. Frank wondered if they were going to try to make that charge stick against him, but then the officer held out the gunbelt and continued reluctantly. “Here. Don’t let us catch you with it again.”
Frank nodded and said, “Sure.” He tucked the holstered gun under his arm—where it would still be within easy reach if he needed it.
The doctor had stopped the bleeding and put a crude bandage on the wounded man’s shoulder. He stood up and said to the policemen, “I need to get this man to the hospital. One of you summon an ambulance wagon.”
“Sure, Doc. Is he gonna be all right?”
“I think I can repair most of the damage,” the medico replied. “He may not ever be able to use that arm like he did before, though.”
Holloway heard that and said bitterly, “Damn it. Amos can’t work as a wrangler with a bum arm.”
“I’ll bet Bill Cody will find another job for him,” Frank said.
Holloway nodded. “Yeah, the colonel takes good care of the folks who work for him.” He glared at Frank. “You kicked the hell out of me, you know. Feels like every rib I’ve got is busted.”
The doctor said, “Let me take a look.” He poked and prodded Holloway’s chest, prompting the wrangler to grimace and mutter a few curses under his breath. Then the doctor announced, “I think they’re just bruised, not broken. You’ll be pretty sore for a few days, though.”
“Yeah, there’s a surprise,” Holloway said sullenly. Then he took a deep breath and held out a hand to Frank. “Reckon I owe you an apology, Morgan. You were whippin’ us fair and square when Amos got shot . . . which is more than I can say about the way we acted. Just got a mite carried away, I reckon.”
Frank looked into Holloway’s eyes and decided that the apology was sincere. He clasped Holloway’s hand firmly and nodded. “It was a pretty good fight while it lasted. Sorry your pard got winged by that bushwhacker.”
“The fella was after you, you said?”
Frank nodded. “That’s the way it looked to me.”
“What happened to the gunman?” one of the officers asked.
Frank gestured toward the trees. “He ran through the park there, made it back to the street, and got away in some alleys. I almost had a clear shot at him for a second, but one of those dang trolleys got in the way.”
“Do you have any idea who he was? Who has a reason for wanting to kill you?”
The older woman said, “Why, this man is a famous Western gunslinger. There must be hundreds of men who want to kill him!”
Frank smiled at her. “I hate to say it, ma’am, but you’re probably right.” Then he shook his head and said to the officers, “Sorry, I don’t know who he was.”
“Well, if you think of anything that might help us find him, you’ll let us know?”
“Sure,” Frank lied.
The way he saw it, the most likely person to have taken those shots at him was Edgar Wade. After all, other than Holloway and the other three wranglers, Wade was the only one he’d had a run-in with since arriving in Chicago earlier in the day. It was possible that Wade had spotted him trailing Hannah and had waited for a good chance to get rid of him.
It was also just possible that the bushwhacker was one of Dutton’s hired killers, like the men who had been waiting at that train station way back in Kansas. Someone working for Dutton could have picked up his trail again, although Frank wasn’t exactly sure how that could have happened. He had been careful and avoided towns for the most part after leaving Elysium, until he’d made it here to Chicago.
Frank didn’t know which of those theories was the right one, but in either case, he considered the trouble personal and intended to handle it himself. Times might have changed, but not so much that The Drifter was going to go running to the law to stomp his snakes for him.
The crowd was breaking up now. The ambulance wagon arrived to take the wounded cowboy to the hospital. “We’ll go along with him,” Holloway told Frank. “You’ll let the colonel know where we are?”
Frank nodded, said, “Sure,” and meant it this time.
One of the policemen pointed a finger at him and said, “Remember what we told you about not wearing that gun.”
Frank nodded curtly. He would figure out a way to carry the Peacemaker without it being so obvious. But considering what had happened tonight, he sure as hell wasn’t going to go around Chicago without packing iron.
Since the lady from the hotel was still there, Frank said to her, “I’ll walk you back across the street, ma’am.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Morgan. The desk clerk was telling me all about you, but I must say, you don’t really look or act like a vicious killer.”
“Thanks,” Frank said wryly. “The way I see it, I never shot anybody who wasn’t trying to hurt me or somebody else.”
“I believe you. You seem like an educated man.”
“Self-educated, for the most part. I had some schoolin’ when I was a boy, but most of what I’ve learned was from the books I’ve carried around in my saddlebags for years.”
“Have you ever read anything by Mr. Henry James?”
“Well . . . I’ve tried. But I’ve always felt like he’s one fella who chews more than he bites off.”
The woman laughed. “How amusing . . . and how perceptive. Tell me, Mr. Morgan, are you married?”
“I used to be. Twice, in fact, to two fine ladies. But I lost them both.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m a widow myself. I was married for thirty years before my husband passed away last winter.” She sighed as they reached the hotel entrance. “He was a businessman in Dearborn. We came to Chicago every summer for a holiday and stayed here at the Avalon. I . . . I thought I ought to continue the tradition. But I’m not so sure anymore that it was the right thing to do.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am,” Frank said as they crossed the lobby.
She stopped and turned to him, putting a hand on his arm. “Would you . . . care to come up to my room, Mr. Morgan? I could have a bottle of sherry sent up. . . .”
He slid his hand into hers and squeezed it for a moment as he smiled at her. “I’d surely admire to spend some more time in your company, ma’am,” he told her, “but I’m afraid I have urgent business to tend to.”
“Yes, of course.” She managed to look disappointed and relieved at the same ti
me. “I imagine you want to look for that man who took those shots at you.”
“Something like that.”
“You . . . you will be careful, won’t you? I realize we just met, but you strike me as a good man. I’d hate for anything bad to happen to you.”
“I’ll be careful,” Frank promised.
She gave him a smile and went through the lobby into the hotel dining room. He supposed she was going to have a late supper, probably like the ones she had enjoyed here with her husband. Frank’s heart went out to her, but there was nothing he could do to ease her loss and pain. Only time would do that.
He went upstairs instead, determined to take action. Skulking around just didn’t come naturally to him. He went straight to the door of Room 214 and knocked sharply on it.
There was no answer. Frank waited a few moments, then knocked again, harder this time. Still no response, even when he pounded on the panel.
He took the Colt out of its holster, slung the gunbelt over his shoulder, and tried the doorknob with his left hand while he held the revolver ready in his right. The knob turned, and he swung the door open.
The room was empty except for the furnishings that went with it.
Frank stood there in the doorway for a moment, looking around; then he strode into the room and began to search for any sign of those who had occupied it earlier. They hadn’t left anything behind, though. There was no clue who the gray-haired man had been, or if there had been anyone else here in the room with him besides Hannah Sterling.
After several minutes, Frank was forced to conclude that he wasn’t going to find out anything worthwhile in the hotel room. He holstered the Colt, left the gunbelt slung over his shoulder, and went out of the room, closing the door behind him.
The clerk behind the desk in the lobby looked up at him and asked, “Can I help you, Mr. Morgan?”
“Tell me who rented Room 214 and where they’ve gone,” Frank said bluntly.
The young man looked uncomfortable. “I’m, uh, not supposed to reveal anything about our guests. . . .” Without looking down at the desk, he turned the registration book around so that Frank could read the names scrawled on it. Frank’s eyes searched the column of names until he found one with the number “214” written next to it in a different hand, probably that of the clerk.
Avenger Page 14
