Reprisal (15 page)
Authors: William W. Johnstone
Twenty-seven
Billy hunched his shoulders into the wind, buttoning his coat underneath his chin. He wore thin leather gloves that did little to keep out the cold.
“Ned's tryin' to get me killed,” he mumbled, gripping the Winchester resting across the pommel of his saddle as the brown gelding plodded into sheets of tiny snowflakes. Billy knew Lyle and Slade were too smart to ride their back trail in the dark with Frank Morgan behind them.
So much snow had fallen since they made camp under the rock ledge that Billy couldn't find their own tracks, much less those of Rich and Cabot . . . or Frank Morgan's.
“He'll shoot me right out of the saddle,” Billy told himself in a whisper, searching both sides of a narrow mining road leading west, flanked by tall pines. They had ridden this road in daylight and now it was pitch dark, a condition made worse by the snow.
I'm a dead man,
Billy thought, shuddering when a blast of cold wind came toward him.
Billy thought, shuddering when a blast of cold wind came toward him.
But he was just as dead if Ned Pine shot him for refusing to look for Rich and Cabot.
His gelding pricked up its ears, watching something ahead of him on the trail.
“It's Morgan,” Billy said, pulling back on the reins to study the situation. “Don't nothing hurt no worse than being shot when it's cold,” he mumbled.
A bounty hunter had put a bullet through his leg one winter as Billy was leaving Amarillo with twenty head of stolen cows, and nothing, not even his dad's woodshed whippings when he was a kid, had hurt any worse.
I won't do this,
Billy thought.
Billy thought.
He reined his horse off the road into the ponderosa pines and waited.
* * *
“Just one of 'em,” Tin Pan whispered. “His horse caught our scent 'cause we is upwind.”
Frank jacked a shell into the firing chamber of his Winchester. “I'll go after him on foot,” he said. “Keep an eye out, in case the rest of them are close by.”
“You're wastin' good wind,” Tin Pan told him. “I always keep an eye on things. Martha will tell me if they get round behind us.”
Frank crept off into the darkness, making a wide sweep to get behind the rider they'd seen.
“He's a worrier,” Tin Pan said to himself. “What he needs is a really good mountain mule.”
* * *
Billy swung down from the saddle and tied his horse off to a pine limb.
“I'll just sit here and wait for half an hour,” he said to no one in particular. “Ned won't know the difference if I tell him I couldn't find any tracks.”
He hunkered down behind a ponderosa trunk to be out of the wind, cradling his Winchester next to his chest while he searched the black forest around him, his teeth chattering.
“I'm gonna quit this outfit,” he promised himself, thinking about home. And being warm.
“I can kill you now,” a soft voice said behind him.
Billy jerked his head around.
“Who's there?” he asked, bringing the muzzle of his rifle up quickly.
“Lay that Winchester down or I'll put a tunnel through your head,” the voice said.
“It's you, Morgan!”
“That's right.”
“How did you get behind me?”
“Quietly.”
“Ain't nobody can be that quiet,” Billy said.
“I'll only tell you one more time to drop that rifle.”
Billy let the Winchester slide from his hands into the snow at his feet.
“That's better. Where's Ned? And my son?”
“East. Maybe two miles. Please don't kill me, Mr. Morgan. I didn't want no part of this right from the start. It was Ned's idea. He's taking your boy up to Gypsum Gap to meet up with Vic Vanbergen.”
“I can't leave you alive. You'll go back and join forces with Ned Pine again.”
“No, sir, I won't. I swear it.”
“Only one way to be sure.”
“Are you gonna kill me?”
“Take your pistol out of the holster and throw it as far as you can in my direction.”
“Yessir,” Billy stammered, reaching into his coat very slowly to take out his Colt .44. He tossed it toward the voice.
“Now take off your boots.”
“My boots?”
“That's what I said. Pull 'em off.”
“My feet are gonna freeze off.”
“Would you rather be dead?”
“No, sir.”
“Then take 'em off.”
“I got holes in my socks. My big toe is stickin' through the left one.”
“You can hop back to camp on your right foot. Pull the boots off.”
Billy reached for his right boot. “Are you gonna leave me my horse?”
“Hadn't planned on it.”
“But I'll freeze to death.”
“I can kill you right now and that won't be a worry,” the voice said. “Is that what you want?”
“No, sir, I'm takin' my boots off now. Just please don't shoot me. I told you the truth. Ned's headed for Gypsum Gap to join up with Vic.”
* * *
Louis Pettigrew set off before dawn to ride for Denver. He had no story to write. Frank Morgan wasn't the legend people thought he was.
His ride back to Denver would take two days, and in a snowstorm like this he would suffer, unless he could find food and lodging.
He carried strips of jerky and tins of peaches in his saddlebags. And a bottle of whiskey.
“What a waste,” Louis told himself, snuggling inside his coat with a wool muffler wrapped around his face. His nose had no feeling in it.
If time allowed he would stop off in Abilene, Kansas, to inquire as to the whereabouts of Wyatt Earp. Word was that he had already moved south to Tucson, leaving Louis with no one to write about.
Odd about Morgan, he thought. So many lawmen had said that Frank Morgan was the last of the true gunfighters roaming the West.
“Wonder how so many could be wrong,” he said, guiding his horse down an empty, snow-covered stretch of road that would take him to Denver . . . if he didn't freeze to death.
“The things a writer will do for a story,” he mumbled between numb lips. It would be a couple of hours until dawn brought warmer weather.
The road he had taken would pass through a place called Gypsum Gap, an abandoned mining town north of Cortez that had been a big gold-mining area.
* * *
Vic sat up in bed. He reached for the washstand beside his bed and checked his pocket watch for the hour.
“Five o'clock,” he grumbled, tossing aside the quilts on his bed at the Cortez Hotel. “Time we got saddled and headed back to the Gap.”
He dressed quickly, for the tiny room had no heat and he was cold. When he was fully attired, he walked into the hallway and knocked on Ford Peters's door.
“Who is it?”
“Vic. Get the rest of the boys up.”
“What the hell time is it?” Ford asked sleepily.
“Time for you to get your ass out of bed. It's past five in the morning. We've got to get the hell out of here before Ned shows up at the Gap with that boy.”
“It's too damn early,” Ford said through the thin door leading into the hall.
“Get out of bed.” Vic snapped. “Get the men on their horses and meet me in front of the hotel.”
“Damn, damn, damn,” Peters mumbled. Then Vic heard the squeak of bed springs.
* * *
Larry and Ashford rode out front, complaining about the hour and the cold.
“It's still snowin',” Larry said, shrouded in snowflakes as he urged his pinto forward.
“You've got real good eyes,” Ashford told him, steering his horse around a deep snowdrift. “I'm real damn glad to hear that you don't need spectacles.”
Vern rode up beside them, speaking in a low voice. “The boss don't like all this complaining. He threatened to kill Todd a minute ago on account of Todd said his feet was cold. I'd be real careful about the complaints.”
“I've got a splittin' headache,” Kirk Stearman said, his face a pale white.
“Too much whiskey last night,” Vern remarked. “You shoulda gone to bed early.”
“What the hell are we doin' up here?” Kirk asked. “This don't make no sense to me.”
“Followin' orders,” Vern grumbled.
“But how the hell are we gonna make any money off this kid Ned Pine has got?” Kirk was careful to keep his voice soft when he said it.
“Ask Vic,” Ford said. “It's a question that might get you shot off your horse before daylight.”
“It just don't make no sense.” Kirk had a deep scowl on his face.
Ford glanced up at clouds heavy with more snow. “When you join a gang, you don't ask questions if things don't seem to make sense. You follow orders.”
“Has anybody got any whiskey?” Kirk asked. “I need a little hair of the dog to cure what ails me.”
“I drank all mine,” Ford replied.
“Me too,” Vern added, “but I sure as hell wish I'd saved a swallow or two.”
Steve Bandas overheard what was being said as he tried to keep his dun gelding moving in the right direction. “Whiskey is what we all need,” he said.
Tyler Feagin, a gunman from eastern Texas, spat loudly into the snow. “What we need is to get the hell back to where it's warm. It's colder'n hell up at that old mining town in Gypsum Gap. The goddamn wind blows through every crack in that mining office.”
“Shut up, Tyler,” Vern said. “Vic's liable to be listening to every word you say.”
“Right now, I don't give a damn. I never heard of this Frank Morgan. We ain't gonna split up no million dollars for helpin' Ned capture his boy.”
“You gonna brace Vic with it?” Vern asked.
Ford gave Tyler a stare. “Speak up loud, Tyler. Are you gonna jump Ned and Vic over it?”
“Nope,” Tyler said, dropping his head. “I'd aimed to stay alive.”
“Now you're usin' your brain,” Ford remarked, “You ain't no match for Ned or Vic.”
Tyler glanced over his shoulder. “One of us could slip up behind Vic and blow his goddamn head off. That way, we could get out of this cold weather an' head south.”
“You try it,” Ford told him.
Vern nodded his agreement. “Yeah, Tyler. You ride up back of him and pull the trigger.”
Tyler fell silent as the string of outlaws rode up a steepening trail into the mountains east of Cortez.
“Whiskey,” Kirk muttered again. “All I need is a couple of swallows of whiskey.”
The road made a bend. Ford Peters was riding out in front now.
“Frank Morgan,” Vern complained. “I've never been so sick of hearin' one man's name in my life.”
“He's bad news,” Steve said.
“How can things be much worse than ridin' through a goddamn blizzard at six in the morning?”
“I should have taken that job at the post office down in Goliad,” Steve said.
Skies to the east had begun to turn gray. Victor Vanbergen kept his gunmen moving toward Gypsum Gap in spite of the cold and snow, figuring that Ned Pine had something big up his sleeve.
Twenty-eight
Just as dawn lightened the sky, Lyle tensed on his perch on top of the ledge. He saw a man on foot limping toward them through deep snowdrifts.
“I think we're about to find out what happened to Billy,” he said to Ned while Ned added wood to the fire. “It don't appear Cabot an' Rich are with him.”
“Do you see Billy?” Lyle asked
“Billy ain't got no horse . . . if it's Billy,” Slade said as he lowered his rifle
“No horse?” Ned asked, straightening up from nursing the flames under their coffeepot.
Slade shook his head. “Seems like Mr. Frank Morgan found Billy before Billy found Rich and Cabot. Or where Morgan left their bodies.”
Lyle spoke again. “This Morgan feller must be mighty good at stalking a man ... even if he's older than dirt like you say, Ned.”
“Son of a bitch,” Ned muttered.
“Don't shoot!” a voice cried.
“That's Billy,” Slade added tonelessly.
Billy Miller hobbled into camp with a slightly dazed look on his face. He was staggering, about to fall as he made his way toward the fire.
“Where the hell's your boots?” Lyle asked with a wry smile tugging at his mouth.
“Where's your horse?” Ned demanded.
“Morgan got 'em,” Billy stammered, his teeth chattering. “He's right behind us. I gotta warm my feet at that fire while I tell you about it. I can't feel my own damn feet. They's froze.”
Billy stumbled toward the fire below the outcrop and fell down on his rump, placing his stocking feet close to the flames for a moment.
“How the hell did Morgan get the jump on you?” Ned wanted to know, the harsh tone of his voice betraying his rage as he questioned Billy.
Billy closed his eyes. “I was ridin' down our back trail. I stopped to look at some hoofprints. Morgan was hidin' in the dark off to one side of the road. He told me to throw down my guns or he'd kill me.”
“You gave up without a fight?” Ned snapped.
“He had me cold, Boss. Wasn't anything else I could do right then.”
“What did he say?” Ned asked.
“He wanted to know about his boy, and where we was takin' him.”
“Did you tell Morgan we were headed up to Gypsum Gap?”
“I only said we was ridin' north. He said he knew that already.”
“You're a damn fool and a yellow son of a bitch,” Ned spat, reaching inside his coat for his pistol. “I won't have a man like your ridin' in my gang.”
Billy stared into the muzzle of Ned's Colt. “You ain't gonna shoot me, are you?”
Ned thumbed back the hammer on his revolver.
“Don't do it, Ned,” Lyle said softly. “We may need every man we've got.”
“Billy Miller ain't a man,” Ned replied, jutting his square jaw.
“Morgan's liable to hear the gunshot,” Slade warned with a glance over his shoulder.
“I don't give a damn,” Ned told him. “This idiot already told Morgan where we are.”
An explosion echoed from the dry streambed when Ned's gun went off.
Billy was slammed to the ground with a dark hole near his right temple. Blood began squirting from the wound, covering the snow around his head.
Conrad Browning started to gag. He rolled over on his side and vomited.
Billy's legs began to twitch. His eyes were tightly shut as a groan escaped his lips.
“Billy won't be needin' no boots now,” Lyle observed dryly. “No horse neither.”
“He deserved it,” Ned whispered, lowering his smoking Colt to his side. “He was nothin' but a yellow bastard in the first place.”
Slade looked back to the south. “Best we get our horses saddled and clear out of here. Morgan will be comin', after he heard that gun.”
“Are you scared of him too?” Ned asked.
“I never met a man I was truly scared of,” Slade replied, “but I've damn sure been in some places where I shouldn't have been, where I was at a big disadvantage. This creek is one of 'em, and I figure it's smart to get to a spot where we can defend ourselves.”
Conrad's gagging distracted Ned. “One of you shut that kid up. Knock him out, or somethin'.”
“I'll do it,” Lyle said, moving over to the boy.
With the butt of his rifle, Lyle silenced Conrad Browning with one blow to his skull.
“We'll have to tie him over his horse,” Lyle observed when Conrad lay still.
“It don't make a damn bit of difference to me,” Ned answered quickly. “Get our horses ready. We're clearing out of here for Gypsum Gap.”
“Suits the hell out of me,” Slade muttered as he started toward the picket ropes. “I've never been so damn cold in my life.”
Ned gave their back trail a look. “You bastard, Morgan,” he hissed, holstering his pistol.
In a matter of minutes they had Conrad tied over his saddle and begun moving out.
Billy Miller lay dead by the smoldering remains of their campfire.
* * *
“Three of them,” Frank whispered.
Tin Pan nodded.
“They've got Conrad roped to a horse.”
“Appears he's out cold,” Tin Pan said. “Or he could be dead as a fence post.”
“Ned Pine won't kill him yet.”
“What makes you so damn sure?”
“Ned wants me. He knows I'll keep following him until we get to the right place where he thinks he has the advantage over me.”
“What are you gonna do, Morgan?”
“I'll stay with them every step of the way. If I get a chance to kill the others, I will.”
“You're taking a big chance that Pine will kill your son, ain't you?”
“Not if I do it right.”
“I've never met a man who was so dead set on one thing like your are.”
“Did you ever have a son?”
Tin Pan nodded. “A long time ago. His mother didn't think I was fit to raise him, so she moved off to Baltimore and I never saw the boy again.”
Frank stood up behind the pine tree on a ridge above the dry stream where they'd been watching Ned, and what was left of his gang, pull out. “I had the same problem. Vivian, Conrad's mother, took him away from me when her father ordered her to do it. Conrad and I scarcely know each other, and he resents me for not being there when he was younger.”
“Does he know the whole story?”
“No.”
“How come you don't tell him?”
“I never had the chance . . . until now.”
Tin Pan squinted into the snow. “There's an old mining town northwest of here. I think it was called Gypsum Gap. That was the town you mentioned.”
“That boy who rode with Ned told me.”
“I can find it.”
“I'm staying close to Pine, and my son. Wherever they go, that's where I'm going.”
“You're a hardheaded cuss.”
“Maybe I am.” Frank sighed, heading off the ridge to their horses.
“Ain't no maybe to it.” Tin Pan chuckled.
“Looks like this snow will never let up,” Frank said, to change the subject from himself.
“No doubt about it. That sky has got lead in it. We can count on bein' chilly for a spell.”
* * *
Ned was riding out in front with Conrad tied over the saddle of a bay gelding. Lyle and Sloan covered their back trail as they made for Gypsum Gap.
“I say we cut and run,” Lyle said softly to Sloan. “This is personal between Ned and Morgan. I can't see no way either one of us is gonna make a dime.”
“I'm afraid you're right,” Slade said. “We could starve to death waitin' for Ned to make up his mind to find a bank or a train we can rob.”
“This snow will cover us ... if we decide to leave Ned today,” Lyle remarked.
“I'm not worried about Ned.”
“He's dangerous, Slade. He might decide to come after us if we leave.”
“I'm not worried. I'll kill the son of a bitch if he tries to stop us.”
“Maybe we oughta just shoot him now . . . in the back, and get the hell away from here.”
“It'd be easy,” Slade agreed.
“I can draw a bead on him and blow his guts out the front of his belly right now.”
Slade looked behind them. The road was clear for a quarter of a mile. “Let's wait,” he said. “I've had a look at Ned's poke. It's full of gold coins. If we're gonna kill the son of a bitch, we may as well rob him.”
“He's carryin' gold?”
“Lots of it. I seen it myself back in town when he paid for the whiskey.”
“How much you figure?”
“A leather pouch bigger'n my fist packed with gold coins and paper money.”
“Jesus.”
“But he's real careful with it. It was an accident when I saw him draw it out . . . he didn't know I was standing behind him looking.”
“I say we kill him and take the gold,” Lyle said with more than a little conviction.
“We've gotta choose the right time for it, and just the right place,” Slade warned. “He's quick with a six-shooter, and if he knows what we're about to do, he'll pull iron and we'll be in one helluva fight.”
“I know he's good,” Lyle said, “but he can't be good enough to take both of us.”
Slade turned in the saddle. The roadway was still clear behind them. “I'd have said the same thing about this Frank Morgan, only he's killed off our bunch one or two at a time and we're in a fix.”
“You just give the word,” Lyle said.
“The right time will come,” Slade assured him.
“What's wrong with right now, Slade? I can pull my Winchester and drop him before you can sneeze.”
“Don't be too damn sure of it.”
“Are you losin' your nerve, Slade? That sure as hell ain't like you.”
“I'm being smart. And careful.”
Ned turned his horse up a steep part of the road with Conrad's horse tied to his saddle horn.
“I swear I can kill him now,” Lyle insisted.
“Wait,” was all Slade said.
“I was only thinkin' about that money pouch.”
“It'll still be in his pocket no matter when we decide to kill him.”
Lyle glanced backward. “Morgan will hear the shots when we kill Ned. He'll come after us.”
Slade shook his head. “All he wants is that crybaby boy of his. He don't know about Ned's gold. If we leave the kid alive, Morgan won't follow us.”
Lyle looked down at his gloved hands. “It's creepy, how one man can kill so many people. Ned keeps sayin' Morgan is old, that he's washed up.”
“He don't seem all that washed up to me,” Slade remarked as they started their horses up the climb. “What he is, is real damn careful.”
“Maybe he was as good as his reputation,” Lyle said.
“That ain't what's worryin' me,” Slade told his partner. “I'm worried that he's still as good as they say he was.”
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