Renegades (30 page)

Frank grabbed the saddle horn as Stormy trotted up. In a flash, he was in the saddle again and had heeled the Appaloosa into a run.

Leaving the Rocking T behind, Frank galloped toward San Rosa and what he hoped would be the final showdown with Nathan Wedge.

San Rosa appeared quiet and peaceful in the early morning light as Frank rode toward the settlement. The street was deserted. That right there told Frank something was still wrong in this town. If Wedge and the other Rangers who had been left here to keep the citizens under control were gone, folks would have flocked outside to celebrate. Storekeepers would be sweeping off the walks in front of their places of business. Wagons would be rolling through the street. San Rosa would start getting back to normal.

Instead, the silence and emptiness meant that everyone was still lying low. Frank would have to draw the enemy out.

He did so by riding right down the middle of the street, inviting their fire. They didn't disappoint him. In the eerie stillness, he suddenly heard the scrape of boot leather on boards and swiveled his head toward the false front of the Border Palace Saloon. When he spotted the rifle butt protruding through the window opening, his hand dipped to the Colt on his hip and brought it up blazing.

Frank fired twice, the bullets punching through the boards of the false front and knocking the hidden gunman backward. The rifle in his hands discharged, but the bullet screamed off harmlessly into the air. The dead man rolled down the sloping roof of the building and fell with a thud in the alley next to the saloon.

Stormy shied to the left, whinnying angrily, and Frank twisted to the right in time to see another outlaw leap out the door of a hardware store brandishing a shotgun. As the scattergun roared, Frank left the saddle in a dive. The twin loads of buckshot hadn't had time to spread out much as they tore through the space where Frank had been a heartbeat earlier. Landing lithely in the road in a crouch, Frank fired up at the shotgunner. His slug caught the man in the body and threw him back against the window behind him. The glass shattered into a million pieces as the gunman fell through it. The broken window lay in glittering shards around his unmoving body.

Frank surged up and darted across the street as a rifle barked at him, the bullets kicking up dust around his feet. The rifleman was on the roof of the blacksmith shop. Frank snapped a couple of shots at him and saw the man clutch his leg and fall. He slid off the roof and dropped hard to the ground, wounded badly enough to be out of the fight.

Ducking into an alcove at the entrance of a closed café, Frank pressed his back against the wall and watched the street closely as he reloaded. His experienced fingers could handle that chore by feel. This time he thumbed six bullets into the Colt, instead of leaving one chamber empty for the hammer to rest on.

He didn't know how many of the enemy were left, and he still hadn't seen Nathan Wedge. But as the echoes of the shots rolled across the Texas plains and faded away, Frank heard the planks of the boardwalk creak a little, first to his right and then to his left.

Men were closing in on the alcove from both directions. If he waited, they would have a chance to catch him in a cross fire.

He wasn't going to give them that chance.

Frank took a deep breath and charged out of the alcove, diving into the street. Guns blasted behind him as nervous trigger fingers spasmed. He landed, rolled, and came up firing to his left, blasting two shots into the man who had been sneaking up on him from that direction. The bullets slammed the outlaw into the wall of the building. He bounced off, leaving a bloody smear on the boards, and collapsed on the walk.

Even before that man fell, Frank pivoted smoothly toward the second would-be killer. He didn't fire, though, because he saw that the man had already dropped his gun and had his hands pressed to his belly as he bent over. Blood welled between his fingers. He looked at the man Frank had just shot and grated, “Leo, you . . . idiot . . . you done shot . . . me ...”

The idea of a cross fire had backfired on this gunman. His own partner had ventilated him while trying to hit Frank. The gut-shot man fell to his knees and pitched forward on his face.

“Morgan!”

Frank sprang to his feet and turned toward the sound of the shout. Once again he had to stop his finger from pulling the trigger, because Nathan Wedge had just come out of the building that housed Roanne's dress shop and her living quarters. He had Roanne in front of him, an arm looped around her neck holding her in position as a shield. Wedge's other hand pressed a revolver to her head.

Wedge forced Roanne toward Frank. “You've ruined everything, Morgan,” the renegade Ranger said bitterly. “I should've killed you in Mexico instead of figuring the Black Scorpion would do it.”

“Yeah, you should have,” Frank said, “especially since the Black Scorpion is on the side of the honest Texans now. Estancia's dead, and so is the plan you hatched with him.”

“I didn't hatch anything with Estancia,” Wedge snapped. “The whole thing was my idea. When he'd helped me get what I wanted, I would have double-crossed the dirty greaser and killed him, too.”

“Well, it's over now. You might as well drop that gun and let Miss Williamson go.”

“The hell I will! I'm getting out of here, and she's going with me.”

Frank shook his head. “Nope. You're not going anywhere.”

Wedge sneered at him. “You can't stop me, you dumb son of a bitch.”

“Actually,” Frank said as he lifted the Colt, “I can.”

He fired.

The bullet hit the cylinder of Wedge's gun, knocking it straight backward away from Roanne and driving it into Wedge's throat before he could pull the trigger. The impact smashed his larynx and left him gasping for air. His grip on Roanne slipped, and she pulled away from him and flung herself to the side. Frank waited to see if Wedge was going to surrender now, but instead the renegade Ranger fumbled behind his back and brought out another gun that had been tucked behind his belt. Frank sighed and fired again. This time the bullet hit Wedge in the midsection and doubled him over. He dropped the second gun and staggered a couple of steps to the side. When he lifted his head to stare at Frank, his face had already started to turn blue and purple. He was literally choking to death, and it was a good question: What would kill him first, the crushed throat or the bullet in his vitals?

Frank rendered the question moot by firing a third time, putting this bullet through Wedge's forehead. Wedge went over backward and landed in a loose sprawl. Blood began to puddle under his head and his body.

Frank let out the breath he had been holding and slowly lowered his gun.

Hoofbeats behind him made him turn swiftly and raise it again.

The half-dozen men entering San Rosa from the eastern end of Main Street reined in, coming to an abrupt halt. One of them walked his horse forward. He was a tall, ruggedly handsome man, and Frank had never seen him before.

Pinned to the breast of his butternut shirt was a Texas Ranger badge.

He brought his horse, a magnificent golden sorrel, to a halt a few yards from Frank. His wide mouth quirked in a grin as he said, “Take it easy, hombre. In case you didn't know it, I'm a Texas Ranger, and we don't take kindly to havin' guns pointed at us.”

Frank leaned his head toward the sprawled body of Nathan Wedge and said, “He was a Texas Ranger, too.”

The stranger looked at Wedge, and his gray-green eyes seemed to change color, turning to ice as the smile disappeared from his face. “Wedge?” he asked.

“That's right.”

“Then he wasn't a Ranger, mister. Hasn't been since the first day he stepped over the line to the owlhoot side.” The man cuffed his wide-brimmed Stetson back on his thick black hair. “My name's Hatfield. The governor and Cap'n McDowell sent me and a few pards down here after they got word from a rancher named Tolliver about what was goin' on.” Grim humor edged into Hatfield's voice as he went on. “We were supposed to clean up a mess, but it looks like you've already done it, Mister . . . ?”

“Morgan. Frank Morgan.” Frank finally lowered his gun again and holstered it this time. The young cowhand called Hardy had gotten through to Laredo before he was captured, but as it turned out, the fighting Texans hadn't needed the help after all.

“The Drifter,” Hatfield said.

“That's right.”

“Wedge didn't know what he was lettin' himself in for, did he?”

“He wouldn't have cared if he did,” Frank said with a shake of his head. “All he could see was the power he wanted, and he was willing to do anything to get it.”

“Any more of the varmints left?”

“I don't think so. Some friends have rounded up what's left of them, out at a ranch called the Rocking T.”

“We know where that is. We'll ride out there and see if your friends need a hand.” Hatfield paused. “That is, if you can take care of everything here, Morgan.”

Frank turned and looked at Roanne, who now stood in front of her shop waiting for him. She still looked a little shaken, but as her eyes met Frank's, a warm smile spread over her face.

“You go on ahead, Hatfield,” Frank said. “I reckon everything here is just fine.”

 

 

It was a beautiful evening, cool and clear, and guitar music floated through the air from one of the cantinas that catered to San Rosa's Mexican population. Frank and Roanne strolled along the street, Dog trailing behind them. The big cur still seemed disappointed that he had not been able to take part in the final showdown with Wedge. The renegade had managed to shut him up in one of the rooms in Roanne's house when he showed up early that morning.

Now Roanne had a shawl around her shoulders against the chill, and Frank wore his denim jacket. They had eaten dinner in the café, and he was walking her home.

“It's nice to see the town getting back to normal so quickly,” she said. “It was really horrible, having the men we trusted at first to maintain law and order turn out to be the worst outlaws this part of the country has ever seen.”

Frank nodded. “You're right. To be honest, across the border they're used to the Rurales being a pretty low-down bunch, but the Rangers have always been above that.”

“Well, with Ranger Hatfield and his friends here now, we shouldn't have to worry about any of the renegades who got away.”

“There were only a few, according to Cecil Tolliver, and I imagine they've all taken off for the tall and uncut by now. Likely they won't ever show their faces in this part of Texas again.”

Roanne stopped and looked up at him. “What about you, Frank?” she asked. “Are you going to stay around here for a while?”

“Why, sure,” he said. “I plan to be on hand for the wedding when Ben Tolliver and Carmen Almanzar get hitched. That may be a while, though, since Don Felipe insisted that Ben has to court Carmen properly for a while first.”

Roanne laughed softly. “I can't believe she was really the Black Scorpion.”

“Only for a little while,” Frank said. The whole story was out in the open now, and everyone knew about the way Antonio Almanzar had gathered a band of daring followers to try to break Estancia's brutal hold on the border country south of the Rio Grande. “With Wedge and Estancia and their men all gone, I don't reckon there'll be any need for the Black Scorpion to ride again.”

But you never knew, he thought. Out here in the West, darned near anything was possible....

Footsteps on the boardwalk made them turn. Doc Ervin's lanky figure approached. The sawbones paused and tipped his hat to Roanne. “Miss Williamson,” he greeted her. “Good to see you again. How are you, Frank?”

“Just fine, Doc. Where have you been?”

“Making the rounds of my patients. A doctor's work is never done, you know.” Doc chuckled. “About the same as a gunfighter's, I guess.”

“That's where you're wrong, Doc,” Frank said. “My work is over and done with.”

“I wish that was true, my friend . . . for your sake.”

Doc said his good-nights and moved on, and when he was gone, Roanne asked quietly, “Was Doc right, Frank? Will there ever truly be peace for you?”

“Maybe someday,” Frank said. “Right now, there's peace in San Rosa, and that's good enough for me.”

“Me, too,” she said, smiling up at him. She linked her arm with his and leaned her head on his shoulder, and together they strolled on into the night.

Frank Morgan had come to the border country looking for a warm place to spend the winter.

He reckoned he had found it.

In the small town where I grew up, there were two movie theaters. The Pavilion was one of those old-timey movie show palaces, built in the heyday of Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin—the silent era of the 1920s. By the 1950s, when I was a kid, the Pavilion was a little worn around the edges, but it was still the premier theater in town. They played all those big Technicolor biblical Cecil B. DeMille epics and corny MGM musicals. In Cinemascope, of course.

On the other side of town was the Gem, a somewhat shabby and run-down grind house with sticky floors and torn seats. Admission was a quarter. The Gem booked low-budget “B” pictures (remember the Bowery Boys?), war movies, horror flicks, and Westerns. I liked the Westerns best. I could usually be found every Saturday at the Gem, along with my best friend, Newton Trout, watching Westerns from 10
A.M.
until my father came looking for me around suppertime. (Sometimes Newton's dad was dispatched to come fetch us.) One time, my dad came to get me right in the middle of
Abilene Trail,
which featured the now-forgotten Whip Wilson. My father became so engrossed in the action he sat down and watched the rest of it with us. We didn't get home until after dark, and my mother's meat loaf was a pan of gray ashes by the time we did. Though my father and I were both in the doghouse the next day, this remains one of my fondest childhood memories. There was Wild Bill Elliot, and Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers, and Tim Holt, and, a little later, Rod Cameron and Audie Murphy. Of these newcomers, I never missed an Audie Murphy Western, because Audie was sort of an antihero. Sure, he stood for law and order and was an honest man, but sometimes he had to go around the law to uphold it. If he didn't play fair, it was only because he felt hamstrung by the laws of the land. Whatever it took to get the bad guys, Audie did it. There were no finer points of law, no splitting of legal hairs. It was instant justice, devoid of long-winded lawyers, bored or biased jurors, or black-robed, often corrupt judges.

Steal a man's horse and you were the guest of honor at a necktie party.

Molest a good woman and you got a bullet in the heart or a rope around the gullet. Or at the very least, got the crap beat out of you. Rob a bank and face a hail of bullets or the hangman's noose.

Saved a lot of time and money, did frontier justice.

That's all gone now, I'm sad to say. Now you hear, “Oh, but he had a bad childhood” or “His mother didn't give him enough love” or “The homecoming queen wouldn't give him a second look and he has an inferiority complex.” Or “cultural rage,” as the politically correct bright boys refer to it. How many times have you heard some self-important defense attorney moan, “The poor kids were only venting their hostilities toward an uncaring society?”

Mule fritters, I say. Nowadays, you can't even call a punk a punk anymore. But don't get me started.

It was, “Howdy, ma'am” time too. The good guys, antihero or not, were always respectful to the ladies. They might shoot a bad guy five seconds after tipping their hat to a woman, but the code of the West demanded you be respectful to a lady.

Lots of things have changed since the heyday of the Wild West, haven't they? Some for the good, some for the bad.

I didn't have any idea at the time that I would someday write about the West. I just knew that I was captivated by the Old West.

When I first got the itch to write, back in the early 1970s, I didn't write Westerns. I started by writing horror and action adventure novels. After more than two dozen novels, I began thinking about developing a Western character. From those initial musings came the novel
The Last Mountain Man: Smoke Jensen.
That was followed by Preacher:
The First Mountain Man
. A few years later, I began developing the Last Gunfighter series. Frank Morgan is a legend in his own time, the fastest gun west of the Mississippi . . . a title and a reputation he never wanted, but can't get rid of.

The Gunfighter series is set in the waning days of the Wild West. Frank Morgan is out of time and place, but still, he is pursued by men who want to earn a reputation as the man who killed the legendary gunfighter. All Frank wants to do is live in peace. But he knows in his heart that dream will always be just that: a dream, fog and smoke and mirrors, something elusive that will never really come to fruition. He will be forced to wander the West, alone, until one day his luck runs out.

For me, and for thousands—probably millions—of other people (although many will never publicly admit it), the old Wild West will always be a magic, mysterious place: a place we love to visit through the pages of books; characters we would like to know . . . from a safe distance; events we would love to take part in, again, from a safe distance. For the old Wild West was not a place for the faint of heart. It was a hard, tough, physically demanding time. There were no police to call if one faced adversity. One faced trouble alone, and handled it alone. It was rugged individualism: something that appeals to many of us.

I am certain that is something that appeals to most readers of Westerns.

I still do on-site research (whenever possible) before starting a Western novel. I have wandered over much of the West, prowling what is left of ghost towns. Stand in the midst of the ruins of these old towns, use a little bit of imagination, and one can conjure up life as it used to be in the Wild West. The rowdy Saturday nights, the tinkling of a piano in a saloon, the laughter of cowboys and miners letting off steam after a week of hard work. Use a little more imagination and one can envision two men standing in the street, facing one another, seconds before the hook and draw of a gunfight. A moment later, one is dead and the other rides away.

The old wild untamed West.

There are still some ghost towns to visit, but they are rapidly vanishing as time and the elements take their toll. If you want to see them, make plans to do so as soon as possible, for in a few years, they will all be gone.

And so will we.

Stand in what is left of the Big Thicket country of east Texas and try to imagine how in the world the pioneers managed to get through that wild tangle. I have wondered about that many times and marveled at the courage of the men and women who slowly pushed westward, facing dangers that we can only imagine.

Let me touch briefly on a subject that is very close to me: firearms. There are some so-called historians who are now claiming that firearms played only a very insignificant part in the settlers' lives. They claim that only a few were armed. What utter, stupid nonsense! What do these so-called historians think the pioneers did for food? Do they think the early settlers rode down to the nearest supermarket and bought their meat? Or maybe they think the settlers chased down deer or buffalo on foot and beat the animals to death with a club. I have a news flash for you so-called historians: The settlers used guns to shoot their game. They used guns to defend hearth and home against Indians on the warpath. They used guns to protect themselves from outlaws. Guns are a part of Americana. And always will be.

The mountains of the West and the remains of the ghost towns that dot those areas are some of my favorite subjects to write about. I have done extensive research on the various mountain ranges of the West and go back whenever time permits. I sometimes stand surrounded by the towering mountains and wonder how in the world the pioneers ever made it through. As hard as I try and as often as I try, I simply cannot imagine the hardships those men and women endured over the hard months of their incredible journey. None of us can. It is said that on the Oregon Trail alone, there are at least two bodies in lonely, unmarked graves for every mile of that journey. Some students of the West say the number of dead is at least twice that. And nobody knows the exact number of wagons that impatiently started out alone and simply vanished on the way, along with their occupants, never to be seen or heard from again.

Just vanished.

The one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old ruts of the wagon wheels can still be seen in various places along the Oregon Trail. But if you plan to visit those places, do so quickly, for they are slowly disappearing. And when they are gone, they will be lost forever, except in the words of Western writers.

As long as I can peck away at a keyboard and find a company to publish my work, I will not let the Old West die. That I promise you.

As The Drifter in the Last Gunfighter series, Frank Morgan has struck a responsive chord among the readers of frontier fiction. Perhaps it's because he is a human man, with all of the human frailties. He is not a superhero. He likes horses and dogs and treats them well. He has feelings and isn't afraid to show them or admit that he has them. He longs for a permanent home, a place to hang his hat and sit on the porch in the late afternoon and watch the day slowly fade into night . . . and a woman to share those simple pleasures with him. But Frank also knows he can never relax his vigil and probably will never have that long-wished-for hearth and home. That is why he is called The Drifter. Frank Morgan knows there are men who will risk their lives to face him in a hook and draw, slap leather, pull that big iron, in the hopes of killing the West's most famous gunfighter, so they can claim the title of the man who killed Frank Morgan, The Drifter. Frank would gladly, willingly, give them that title, but not at the expense of his own life.

So Frank Morgan must constantly drift, staying on the lonely trails, those out-of-the-way paths through the timber, the mountains, the deserts that are sometimes called the hoot-owl trail. His companions are the sighing winds, the howling of wolves, the yapping of coyotes, and a few, very few, precious memories. And his six-gun. Always, his six-gun.

Frank is also pursued by something else: progress. The towns are connected by telegraph wires. Frank is recognized wherever he goes and can be tracked by telegraphers. There is no escape for him. Reporters for various newspapers are always on his trail, wanting to interview Frank Morgan, as are authors, wanting to do more books about the legendary gunfighter. Photographers want to take his picture, if possible with the body of a man Frank has just killed. Frank is disgusted by the whole thing and wants no part of it. There is no real rest for The Drifter. Frank travels on, always on the move. He tries to stay off the more heavily traveled roads, sticking to lesser-known trails, sometimes making his own route of travel, across the mountains or deserts.

Someday perhaps Frank will find some peace. Maybe. But if he does, that is many books from now.

The West will live on as long as there are writers willing to write about it, and publishers willing to publish it. Writing about the West is wide open, just like the old Wild West. Characters abound, as plentiful as the wide-open spaces, as colorful as a sunset on the Painted Desert, as restless as the ever-sighing winds. All one has to do is use a bit of imagination. Take a stroll through the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona; read the inscriptions. Then walk the main street of that once-infamous town around midnight and you might catch a glimpse of the ghosts that still wander the town. They really do. Just ask anyone who lives there. But don't be afraid of the apparitions, they won't hurt you. They're just out for a quiet stroll.

The West lives on. And as long as I am alive, it always will.