The Loner: Rattlesnake Valley

by J. A. Johnstone

  The Kid felt a surge of anger go through him. Diana had told him how the settlers had turned their back on the family of the man who’d made it possible for them to live there, and now Parnell had confirmed it. The injustice of the situation and the ingratitude of the settlers rankled The Kid.

  Parnell took a long swallow of his beer, then went on, “You know, there’s one person in this town who might have the gumption to stand up to Terence Malone.” He inclined his head toward the end of the bar, where Sophia stood talking to the bartender, Fergus. “That’s her, right there.”

  Sophia sensed them looking at her. She turned her head and frowned at them, then left the bar and went back through the door that led to her office.

  “So,” Parnell continued, “do you think you’re going to be around here for long, Mr. Morgan?”

  “Like I told the lady,” The Kid replied, “I’m just passing through.”

  He had a hunch that things had gone far past that, though. The icy feeling along his spine told him that he wouldn’t be leaving Rattlesnake Valley until more blood had been spilled and the air was full of gunsmoke.

  Chapter 15

  The Kid left the Rattler’s Den a short time later, frustrating Jefferson Parnell as the newspaperman kept trying to angle for an interview. He walked up and down the streets, studying the settlement. Bristol didn’t have a telegraph office, and he figured the closest railroad line had to be at least thirty or forty miles away. The Kid spotted a stagecoach station and thought about how odd it was, in that modern day and age only a few years away from a brand-new century, that a stagecoach was the town’s primary means of communication with the outside world. It would probably be years before a railroad spur and the telegraph came to Bristol, and the telephone lines that were springing up across the West might not ever reach that far.

  Something stirred in the back of The Kid’s mind. A canny investor could come in there, pick up some land, maybe start working to get a spur line and a telegraph office…There was money to be made in Rattlesnake Valley, that was certain. All it would take was a letter to his lawyers in San Francisco to start the wheels rolling.

  Then he stiffened as he realized what he was doing. Conrad Browning was the one who thought like that, not Kid Morgan. Those days were far behind him, and he was never going back to them again. Maybe he hadn’t left that life as far behind as he’d thought.

  He came across the doctor’s office on one of the streets. It was an adobe house that obviously served as the medico’s living quarters as well as his office. A sign out front read DR. NEAL EGGARS, M.D.

  The Kid was surprised when he looked through the front window and saw a man moving around inside. The doctor should have been out at Diamondback, tending to Deuce Robinson’s wound. Of course, the man in the house might not be the doctor, but The Kid was puzzled enough to go up to the door and knock on it.

  The man who jerked the door open a moment later wore a harried expression and had blood on his hands. He was in his forties, with graying hair. “What is it?” he snapped. “Are you sick or injured, sir?”

  “Not particularly,” The Kid said with a frown, although his ribs did still hurt a mite from the brawl earlier. “If you’re the doctor, I just want to talk to you.”

  “Then if you don’t have a medical emergency, I’m already tending to a wounded man,” the doctor said as he turned away.

  The Kid grabbed the door before the man could close it in his face. “You are Dr. Eggars?”

  “That’s right.” The doctor didn’t try to force the door closed. He turned away, adding over his shoulder, “Come in and wait if you want.”

  The Kid followed Eggars into a waiting room, then on down a hallway. The doctor didn’t realize The Kid was right behind him until they were both in a small room with an examination table in it. A man lay on the table, stripped to the waist, with blood oozing slowly from an ugly bullet hole in his shoulder.

  Eggars jerked his head toward The Kid and said, “You shouldn’t be in here—”

  “I know this man,” The Kid interrupted. He had recognized the wounded man as soon as he stepped into the room. The man lying bleeding on the table was the cowboy called Orrie, who’d been sent to Bristol by Sam Rocklin to bring the doctor back to the ranch. “How badly is he hurt?”

  Eggars turned back to his work, picking up a wet cloth from a basin of water and swabbing at the wound in Orrie’s shoulder. “This is his only injury,” he said without looking around at The Kid. “The bullet lodged against the bone. It must have been a ricochet because it seemed to have lost some of its force before it struck him. I don’t believe the bone is broken. Luckily, I was able to remove the bullet once we got back here, but of course, that started the wound bleeding again. I’ll finish cleaning it out, bandage it, and we can hope for the best. The young man lost quite a bit of blood out on the trail where we were attacked. He’s in a very weakened condition.”

  The Kid had already seen that Orrie was only partly conscious and didn’t seem aware of what was going on around him. He thought the young cowboy probably stood a good chance of recovering, though, if he didn’t come down with blood poisoning from the wound.

  “The two of you didn’t make it to Diamondback?”

  That brought a glance from Eggars. “You know where we were going?”

  “I was out there last night when Deuce Robinson was wounded and Jim Woodley was killed,” The Kid replied.

  The doctor’s voice was grim as he said, “This is a bad business. There was enough tension in the valley to start with. Now that a man’s been killed, it’ll only get worse.”

  “More work for you.”

  Eggars frowned. “More work for the undertaker, you mean.” He pressed a pad of clean bandages over the wound in Orrie’s shoulder and looked at The Kid. “Who are you, sir?”

  “My name is Morgan.”

  “You’re a friend of the Starbirds?”

  “I never heard of them until yesterday,” The Kid answered honestly. “From what I’ve seen since I rode into the valley, though, it looks like they could use some friends. And since I had a run-in with Terence Malone and his men myself…”

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, huh?” the doctor said. “There’s an old Chinese proverb to that effect. Do you intend to stay in Rattlesnake Valley permanently, Mr. Morgan?”

  “Only if I’m buried here.”

  “Then it seems the wisest course of action for you would be to ride on and forget about the Starbirds and Terence Malone.”

  The Kid smiled. “Nobody ever accused me of being wise. Why don’t you tell me what happened to you and Orrie?”

  Eggars began winding bandages around the puncher’s shoulder to hold the dressing in place. “We were about halfway to Diamondback when someone started shooting at us from some rocks on top of a little hill. Orrie tried to return the fire, but he was hit almost right away. I travel by horseback, not in a buggy like some doctors, so I was able to grab his reins when he dropped them and lead his horse. He managed to stay in the saddle as we galloped away from there as fast as we could. After we had gone half a mile or so, I stopped and put a temporary dressing on his wound to slow down the bleeding. Then we headed back here to town.”

  The Kid nodded. From what the doctor said, it sounded like Malone had thrown a cordon of gunmen around the Starbird ranch. Those hired killers weren’t going to allow any help to get through to Diamondback. That meant Malone might be getting ready to launch another all-out attack on the ranch.

  “There’s still a wounded man out there who needs your help, Doctor,” The Kid said. “More than one by now, in fact. I reckon I can get you through, if you’re willing to risk it.”

  “You can get me there and back safely? You guarantee that?”

  The Kid’s mouth tightened. “You’re in the business of life and death. You know there aren’t any guarantees.”

  “Then I can’t come with you,” Eggars said. “It’s too risky.”

  “I thought you d
octors swore an oath.”

  Eggars glared at him. “We do. The saddlemaker’s wife is going to have a baby any time now, and I’m afraid it’s going to be a difficult birth. The little daughter of the teller at the bank is running a high fever. Those are just two of my patients, Mr. Morgan, and I’m the only physician in Bristol. In this whole part of the state, actually. I have a lot more people depending on me than just a few cowboys at Diamondback. I did swear an oath, and I’m honoring it by not getting my head shot off because of some stupid range war!”

  The Kid couldn’t argue with that logic, but he grated, “It’s not just a range war. Malone is out for vengeance on Owen Starbird.”

  “That’s none of my business,” Eggars said. “I’ll help anyone who shows up on my doorstep, but I’m not going to put my life in danger recklessly. I wouldn’t have gone with Orrie in the first place if I’d known what I was getting into.”

  The Kid bit back the bitter response he could have made. As far as he could see, his only choices were to either accept the decision Eggars had made, or pull his Colt and force the doctor to accompany him at gunpoint. He knew he wasn’t going to do that.

  “All right, Doctor,” he said. “Take care of Orrie.”

  “Of course. I’ll do everything I can for him.” The doctor paused. “Are you going back to Diamondback, Mr. Morgan?”

  “I am.”

  “Then there is one thing I can do. I’ll pack up some medical supplies you can take with you. I don’t know what they have on hand out there, so if they’re facing more trouble, it might be a good idea to be prepared.”

  The Kid nodded. “Thanks. I’ll pay you.”

  “All right. That’s probably a good idea…as a precaution.”

  The Kid knew what he meant. If Black Terence Malone has his way, Owen Starbird might not be around in the future to settle any debts, and the same was true for everybody else at Diamondback, too.

  The Kid left the doctor’s house a few minutes later, carrying the bag of medicine, bandages, and other supplies Eggars had gathered from the cabinets in his office. He walked back to the Rattler’s Den but didn’t go in to the saloon. Instead he tied the bag onto his saddle and unwound the buckskin’s reins from the hitch rail. He was about to lead the horse over to a nearby water trough so that it could get a drink before he rode out, when Sophia Kincaid pushed the batwings aside and stepped onto the porch.

  “Leaving town so soon, Mr. Morgan?” she asked.

  “I think I’ve seen enough of Bristol,” he said, not bothering to keep the tone of dislike out of his voice.

  “I’m sorry we’ve disappointed you.”

  The Kid shook his head. “Not you. But I can’t say I’m all that impressed by most of the other folks around here.”

  “You don’t even know the people who live here. You don’t have any right to say something like that.”

  “I know that nobody’s got to the guts to stand up to Malone, except maybe you. Is that why you wanted to know if I was a hired gun? You want to pay me to go up against Malone?”

  She came to the edge of the porch. “Say that Malone succeeds in destroying Owen Starbird. Do you think he’s going to be satisfied with that? He’ll wind up running this whole valley, including the town.”

  “And you’re afraid he’ll crowd you out,” The Kid guessed.

  Sophia’s chin lifted defiantly. “I made this saloon a success. I won’t have some bloody-handed pirate coming in and forcing me to take him on as a partner.”

  “You think that’s what Malone’s got in mind?”

  “I know it is,” she said. “He’s already dropped some hints about how I need a man around to help me run the place.” She gave a snort of derisive laughter. “As if I ever needed a man for anything.”

  “Seems to me you were just doing some hinting of your own, about me helping you,” The Kid pointed out dryly.

  Sophia shook her head. “I might be interested in hiring you, Mr. Morgan. But you’d be working for me. We wouldn’t be partners.”

  “No thanks.”

  “You don’t want to work for a woman?”

  “I don’t want to work for anybody at all. I’m just passing through, remember?”

  “All right, then,” she snapped. “Go on and leave. When the time comes, I’ll fight Malone by myself if I have to.”

  “Good luck,” The Kid said. He lifted the buckskin’s reins and led the horse toward the water trough, not looking back toward Sophia as he went.

  Even though he had turned down her offer of a job, she wouldn’t be fighting Malone by herself, he thought. With any luck, it would never come to that, because he intended to put a stop to Black Terence’s reign of terror before Malone could take over the entire valley.

  He just hadn’t quite figured out how to do that yet.

  Chapter 16

  The Kid followed the main road west out of town. He felt eyes watching him as he rode out, and he remembered what Diana had said about Malone having spies in Bristol. He didn’t doubt it for a second. As Malone gained more power in the valley, there would be more and more people in the settlement who were eager to curry favor with him. The Kid figured that before the day was over, somebody would be riding out to the Trident ranch to tell Malone everything that had happened in town.

  Of course, Malone probably knew some of it already. He would have heard how Breck and Early had clashed with The Kid, and they might even have told him how Sophia had run them out of town, although it was possible they would balk at admitting that they had backed down to a woman.

  As soon as The Kid was out of sight of the settlement, he veered the buckskin off the trail and set out across country. Malone didn’t have enough men to cover every possible approach to Diamondback. The Kid intended to find a way through the ring of gun-wolves that Malone had thrown around the ranch.

  He rode north until he came to the Severn River. That didn’t take long, since the river and the main trail paralleled each other through the valley, the distance between them ranging from a half mile to a mile. The Kid reined in and studied the stream for a moment, trying to decide if it would be a good place to cross.

  The Severn had a decent current in those places where the banks were fairly close together, telling The Kid that the springs in the mountains back to the west pumped out quite a bit of water. He turned his head to gaze toward the eastern end of the valley. Something tickled in the back of his mind.

  He put the thought away since he couldn’t quite grasp it and moved the buckskin forward. It was more likely that Malone would have men watching all the fords, he thought, so he would cross there. He wasn’t sure how deep the river was, but the buckskin was a strong swimmer.

  A few moments later, the horse emerged dripping from the stream and shook itself. The Kid continued to ride north for another mile or so, then turned west. The terrain was more rugged than it was around the headquarters of Diamondback, but there was still enough graze for the cattle he saw here and there.

  All The Kid’s senses were keenly alert as he rode. He knew that he might run into Malone’s men at any time. He pulled the Winchester from its sheath and rode with it across the saddle in front of him, ready to use it if he encountered any trouble. His eyes constantly roved over the surrounding landscape, searching for dust that would mean riders or the glint of sunlight on metal that could indicate a hidden gunman drawing a bead on him.

  In the end, though, it was his ears that told him something was wrong. He pulled the buckskin to a stop as he heard the sudden popping of gunshots.

  The reports came from somewhere in front of him, and he guessed the distance at less than a mile. That was too close for the sounds to be coming from another attack on the ranch headquarters. He was on Diamondback range now, though, so he figured Malone was to blame for the ruckus, wherever it was.

  The Kid heeled the buckskin into a run. He galloped hard for several minutes, then pulled the horse back to a walk. He didn’t want to charge right into the middle of a battle withou
t knowing what was going on. The shots sounded a lot closer, so after a minute more, The Kid brought the buckskin to a stop and swung down from the saddle.

  He dropped the reins, knowing that his mount would stay ground hitched, and started up a wooded hill. His hands were wrapped tightly around the Winchester.

  Gunfire still rolled out like thunder somewhere nearby. The Kid could tell that he was getting closer to it. He reached the top of the hill and saw that it was actually a long ridge that dropped down to a grassy flat on the other side. At the foot of the ridge, on the edge of the pastureland, stood a crude cabin with three walls built of mud-chinked logs and the fourth of stone. The cabin didn’t appear to have any windows, but The Kid saw several rifle barrels sticking out through gaps between the logs on the side that faced the ridge. Flame spurted from the muzzles of the weapons as the men inside the cabin fired toward the ridge.

  They had good reason for those shots, The Kid saw. Gunmen were scattered behind the boulders and trees that dotted the slope. They poured a concentrated barrage of lead at the cabin.

  A horse whinnied shrilly somewhere close by. The Kid put a tree between himself and the sound and pressed his back against the trunk. It figured that the bushwhackers had left their mounts out of the line of fire, with a man or two to hold them. He didn’t want to be spotted, so he took his hat off and edged his head carefully around the trunk for a look.