The Forbidden (18 page)

F
rank drew, fired, and jumped to one side just as both men cleared leather and their .45s boomed. Frank's shot hit Able in the side, and he grunted and went down to one knee. Lee's shot tore out a chunk of wood from the awning support post. Frank fired again, the bullet from his .45 striking Lee in the chest, high up and on the left side. Lee staggered back and fell over a bench in front of the saloon. He crawled to his feet just as Able got off his second shot, which missed. Frank's next shot didn't miss, the slug taking Able in the belly. Able Wainwright sat down on the boardwalk, dropping his pistol. The cocked weapon went off, and the round struck Able in the foot, blowing off part of his boot and taking part of his foot with it. Able started howling in pain and frustration.

“Kill that bastard, Lee! Kill him!”

Lee got to his feet and raised his pistol just as Frank fired. This time the bullet caught Lee in the center of the chest and put him facedown on the boards. He did not move.

“Damn your eyes, Morgan!” Able shouted, squirming around, trying to find his gun.

“Don't do it, Able,” Frank shouted. “Give it up and live.”

“Hell with you, Morgan. Trainor's still payin' a big bounty for your head. Where's my damn gun?” he shouted.

“Leave it alone, you fool!” Frank shouted. “I don't want to have to shoot you again.”

“You kilt Lee, you bastard!” Able found his pistol and cocked it, sitting up and pointing the weapon at Frank.

Frank drilled him through the heart, the .45 slug knocking Able back and laying him down on the boardwalk.

Frank slowly walked across the street to stand in front of the two fallen gun-handlers. Doc Everett walked out and looked at both men.

“Dead as they'll ever be. You had no choice in the matter, Frank. You gave them a chance to live, they refused it.”

“Are you all right, Mr. Morgan?” Betty Lou asked, rushing out of the doctor's office.

“I'm fine, Betty Lou. I was sure proud of you and Donnie, standing up to your father.”

Donnie and Phil and Katie all came out and gathered around Frank. “The war's over, Mr. Morgan,” Katie said. “You don't have to leave now.”

Frank's smile was sad. “Yes, I do, honey. I've played out my string in this town. Believe me, I have to go.”

“That isn't fair!” she cried.

“Not much in this world is, girl.”

“Some of you men carry the bodies over to the undertaker,” Doc Everett said, motioning to a crowd of locals that had gathered around.

Bullard and Gilmar stepped out of the office, walking up to Frank. “You did what you had to do, Morgan,” Bullard told him. “You gave Able more chances than I would have given him.”

“For a fact,” Gilmar said. He looked at Bullard. “We'd better get back. We've got some firing and hiring to do.”

“Sure do,” his friend replied. “It'll be a relief to get back to the business of ranching.”

Frank walked away, into the saloon and up to the long bar. Chubby was polishing glasses. “Drink, Frank?”

“Coffee, if you've got any fixed.”

“Fresh pot. Made it myself. I'll get you a cup.”

Leaning against the bar, Frank sipped his coffee while some of the locals quietly filed back into the saloon, several farmers among them, including a couple who had expressed a dislike for Frank from the git-go.

“Be nice when all the pistol-handlers finally get out of the valley,” one said in a voice that was a tad too loud.

“Sure will,” another replied. “Be nice and peaceful . . . for a change.”

“Don't pay them no mind, Frank,” Chubby whispered.

“Kind of hard not to, Chub. Don't worry about it. I've got a real thick skin.”

“I wish you would change your mind about pullin' out, Frank.”

“Can't do that,” Frank said, setting his coffee cup on the bar. “I'm pulling out in a few days. Tell you the truth, more and more I'm looking forward to it.”

“I don't blame you a bit. Way some of these people is actin' is disgraceful.”

Frank smiled. “I'm used to it.”

“You gonna stick around and see what Trainor will do now that his big rancher friends have called a halt to the war?”

“If he's going to do anything he'd better do it quick, Chub.”

“I think he will, Frank.”

“We'll see.” Frank nodded at the barkeep and walked out of the saloon. He mounted up and rode out of town, heading back to the peace and quiet of his farm.

* * *

Colonel Trainor sat in the study of his ranch house, the rage in him building steadily. His foreman, Tom Bracken, had just left the ranch after announcing he was quitting. Tom had been with Trainor for years; now he was gone, leaving after Trainor had refused to join Bullard and Gilmar in calling off the war with the farmers in the south end of the connecting valleys. And to make matters worse, the few remaining cowboys on the Snake payroll, those not drawing fighting wages, had walked out with Tom.

“The hell with all of you!” Trainor had shouted as the working cowboys rode away. “I don't need any of you yellow bastards!”

Trainor's dark thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the study door. “What is it?” he yelled.

The door pushed open and Orin Mathison stepped in. “You wanted to see me?” the back-shooter asked.

Trainor didn't hesitate. “You want to earn five thousand dollars, Mathison?”

“Stupid question,” the man said. “Of course I do.”

“Kill Frank Morgan and the money is yours.”

“Morgan is out of this fight, Trainor,” Orin said. “He's leaving the area in a few days. Killing him won't solve a thing.”

“Goddamn you!” Trainor yelled, jumping up from his leather chair. “Do you want the money or not?”

Orin shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, I do. Half now.”

“What?”

“You give me half now, half when I finish the job.”

“Why, you . . .” Trainor fumed.

“Take it or leave it,” Orin said calmly, stopping the rancher's tirade. “That's the deal.”

Trainor calmed himself and slowly nodded his head. “All right, Mathison.” He walked to a huge safe and opened it, taking out a wad of paper money and counting out twenty-five hundred dollars. He laid the money on a table. “There's your money. Take it and go do your job.”

Orin smiled one of his very rare smiles. “With pleasure.” He turned and walked out.

“I'd a done it myself,” Jules said, walking into the room. “For nothin'.”

“You had your chance, boy,” the father said. “I heard all about it from the barkeep at the old store. You're yellow. Now go away and play with rag dolls or something.”

“Rag dolls?” the young man yelled.

“You heard me. Just get out and leave me alone.”

Jules cursed his father and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Trainor returned to his chair and sat down. “For five thousand dollars I could get the King of England killed,” he muttered. “Frank Morgan ought to be a lot easier than that.”

If the graveyards all around the West could talk, there would be dozens of hollow, muted voices contradicting Trainor's remark.

* * *

Frank was sitting on the front porch of his house, drinking coffee and enjoying the cool of late afternoon, when Dog's head came up fast and he growled low in his throat. Frank was out of the chair instantly and in the house, hustling Dog in with him. He grabbed his rifle and shoved Dog behind the wood box.

“Stay there,” he told the animal. “If somebody is sneaking up on us, I got me a pretty good idea who it is.”

Dog laid his head on his paws and stayed put. But every few seconds he would bare his teeth and growl low.

Frank moved to the front of the house and chanced a peek out one of the few windows that hadn't been shot out and boarded over. Frank jerked his head back just as a rifle cracked and more window glass was blown all over the living room floor.

“I think you've lost your touch, Orin,” Frank yelled, putting his hunch as to who it was into words.

“It ain't over yet, Morgan,” Orin hollered. “Matter of fact, it's just now startin' between you and me.”

“Then come on and face me, Orin.”

“I'd rather do it this way.”

“I'm sure you would. The coward's way is oftentimes the easiest way.”

There was a moment of silence before Orin spoke. “I know what you're tryin' to do, Morgan. It won't work. You can't make me mad enough to slip up.”

“I'm not trying to make you slip up, Orin. I'm telling the truth. It's known all over the West. You're a coward.”

“That's a damn lie!” Orin shouted.

“I think it's the truth.”

“You go to hell, Morgan!”

Frank had just about pinpointed Orin's location. But instead of chancing a shot that would probably miss the man, he decided to continue goading the back-shooter.

“Only a coward kills children, Orin. The lowest of the low. Wherever you go you leave a trail of slime. You crawl out from under a rock. That's where you make your home. You live in a pool of filth.”

“Goddamn you! Shut up, Morgan!”

Frank smiled at the almost frantic tone in Orin's voice. “What sort of night creature was your mother, Orin? Some sort of
thing
that has no name?”

“My mama was a good woman, Morgan. Don't you be bad-mouthin' her. You son of a bitch, I won't stand for none of that.”

“I hear you were born in a whorehouse. Is that right?”

Orin screamed out his anger. No words, just a howl of wild rage.

“I guess the rumors are true. You don't know who your daddy is, do you?”

“That's a vicious lie, Morgan. I'll kill you for sayin' that. My daddy was a good decent man. He loved my mama.”

“I heard your daddy was a circus freak, Orin. A sideshow operator got him out of an asylum. Is that right?”

Orin cursed Frank until he was breathless.

“That's the truth, isn't it, Orin? Your mother was a fifty-cent whore and your father was a sideshow freak.”

Orin Mathison jerked in frustration and cussed Frank heatedly.

“What's the matter, Orin?” Frank yelled. “It's not your fault you take after your whore mother and your freak father.”

“Goddamn you!” Orin screamed, jumping up and exposing his upper body. That was all Frank needed. He put a .44-40 round into Orin's belly. The back-shooter rose up in pain and shock. Frank shot him again, the slug striking the man in the chest. Orin fell forward, landing on his face at the edge of the clearing. He jerked a couple of times, his hands digging into the dirt, then cried out once. After that, he did not move again.

Frank slipped out of the house, using the back door, and circled around, coming up on Orin from the timber. He watched the man until he was certain Orin Mathison was dead. Frank went through Orin's pockets and put the twenty-five hundred dollars into his own pocket, then found Orin's horse and tied the man belly-down across the saddle. “Have a good trip back to the Snake, Orin,” Frank said.

He slapped the horse on the rump and the animal galloped off. The Snake horse would head for familiar pasture.

Frank walked back into the house and set about making another pot of coffee. While the water was heating up, Frank set out a bowl of biscuits and meat scraps for Dog and pumped fresh water for him.

Frank took a cup of his fresh-brewed coffee out onto the porch and sat down in his rocker. The sun was sinking into the far western horizon.

“It's going to be a beautiful sunset,” he said aloud.

The man known as the Drifter sat in his rocking chair and sipped his coffee as dusk silently settled around him.

F
rank rode into town the next day and deposited the twenty-five hundred dollars in his farm account.

“The kids can use this to buy seed and equipment or baby clothes and food,” he told John Simmons. “Whichever comes first,” he added with a grin. Then he told John where he got the cash.

“So Orin Mathison is really dead,” the banker said softly.

“Stiff as a board,” Frank said.

The banker smiled. “I'll bet the colonel is boiling mad.”

“He's going to pull something very soon, you can bet on that.”

“You know he's hired a lot of those gunfighters who were dismissed from the Diamond .45 and the Lightning ranches.”

“I heard. Doesn't surprise me a bit.”

A teller stuck his head into John's office. “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Simmons, Mr. Morgan. But you both should see this. A whole bunch of riders coming into town.”

Frank and John stepped out onto the boardwalk just as a dozen riders reined up in front of the general store. Frank personally knew one of them. A puncher turned gunfighter from Wyoming, name of Paul Robinson. Paul looked at Frank and held out his hands.

“We're friendly and peaceful, Frank. Just come into town to buy supplies for the trail. Hell don't welcome us no more. We're not even gonna have a drink 'fore we leave. We've quit this war.”

“Glad to hear it, Paul.” Frank called. “Have an easy trail.”

“Thanks, Frank. You too. No hard feelin's?”

“None at all.”

Paul nodded his head and smiled. “It was just a job of work, Frank. Nothin' personal.”

“That's good enough for me, boys.”

The riders dismounted, hung their gunbelts on the saddle horns, and walked into the store.

“The colonel still has a lot of gunmen riding for him,” John remarked.

“But not as many as before,” Frank replied. “And these boys probably won't be the last ones to leave.”

“And you'll be leaving shortly yourself?”

“In a few more days.”

The banker sighed audibly. “There is no point in me continuing to try to persuade you to stay, is there?”

“No, John. No point at all. Seems like everything I've tried to do since coming here has backlashed on me.”

“Well, now, Frank, I have to take issue with that statement.”

Frank chuckled at that. “I thought you weren't going to continue your pestering me to stick around.”

The banker smiled. “All right, Frank, all right. But you've done a lot of good here. Don't sell yourself short on that account. You'd only be lying to yourself.”

Frank looked up the street at the approach of a buckboard. “Here comes a lady who might disagree with you about that.”

With Julie Wilson handling the reins, the buckboard rattled slowly to a stop in front of the millinery shop. She stepped down and walked into the ladies' store.

“She didn't see you, Frank,” John said.

“Maybe so. But I think she did. She just wants to avoid confrontation, that's all.”

The gunfighter and the banker stood on the boardwalk and watched as the hired guns exited the general store, stuffed their newly purchased supplies into their saddlebags, and rode out of the town, taking the southerly route.

“I wonder where they'll go,” John said.

“Anywhere there is a need for a hired gun, a bounty hunter, or a marshal. The West is settling down, but slowly. In ten or fifteen years their kind, my kind, will be only a bad memory.”

“We're going to get us a newspaper in Heaven, Frank. I got that word yesterday. We're growing, changing with the times.”

Frank was suddenly conscious of the weight of the .45 on his hip. “You're telling
me
?” he said with a smile.

John laughed and slapped Frank on the back. “See you later, Frank.”

“All right, John.”

Frank stood alone for a moment, watching the people of the town as they walked along the boardwalks. They greeted each other warmly, often stopping to chat for a time. No one spoke to him. People who walked past him averted their gaze to avoid eye contact. Frank had started to step off the boardwalk and ride out when a young boy ran up to him.

“Mr. Morgan?” he asked.

“That's me, son.”

“Two men down on the other side of the livery give me a dollar to tell you they're waitin' for you.”

“They have names, son?”

“Yes, sir. Peck and Rondel.”

Frank gave the boy a silver dollar and thanked him. Then he began the walk down to the livery. Ever since Frank had killed Jess Malone back in the ghost town, he'd wondered how long it would take for Peck Carson and his partner, Rondel, before they made a play for him. He didn't have to wonder any longer.

He slowed his walk as he approached the end of the business district of stores and shops, and cut down an alley, coming out behind the livery. He pressed up against the building and listened and waited.

He could hear nothing. He edged closer to the huge rear doors, picking up a stone along the way. When he was at the doors, he tossed the rock into the semidarkness. The rock bounced off the rump of a horse and the horse kicked and whinnied.

“What the hell caused all that?” a man asked.

“He's here. Shut up and listen, Rondel.”

“Front or back?”

“How the hell do I know? You watch the back, I'll take the front.”

“I figured he'd come walkin' down the middle of the street and call us out, damnit,” Rondel whispered.

“Well, he didn't.”

Frank waited, motionless as he pressed against the outside wall, his Peacemaker in hand, hammer back and ready.

A couple of minutes ticked by.

“Maybe that wasn't him,” Rondel said. “I can't hear nothin'.”

Frank figured the gunman was maybe two feet away from where he stood by the open doors of the livery.

“Maybe it wasn't,” Peck called from the front of the building. “Maybe that damn kid just stuck the dollar in his pocket and went off to buy some candy.”

“You can't trust nobody no more. Kids is shore different from when we was kids, ain't they, Peck?”

“For a fact. Hell, let's amble up the street and find him.”

“The kid?”

“No, damnit! Morgan.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Frank listened as the men moved to the front of the livery. He stepped into the dark rear of the huge barn and came up behind them in front of the livery.

“You boys looking for me?” Frank called.

Peck and Rondel spun around, both of them cussing and dragging iron as they turned.

Frank put lead into Peck first, doubling the gunman over. Frank's Peacemaker boomed a second later and Rondel went down, his chest suddenly bloody, Rondel's pistol cracking and spitting fire and smoke, blowing a hole in the ground and sending up a cloud of dust. Down on one knee, Peck cursed Frank and lifted his .45. Frank shot him again, the bullet taking Peck in the center of his forehead. Peck stretched out on the ground, his gunfighting days over.

“You sneaky bastard,” Rondel gasped as Frank walked up to the fallen gunfighters. “You killed me.”

“Looks like it,” Frank replied, kicking Rondel's pistol away from him. “You boys should have ridden out with the others.”

Rondel had no reply to that. He was dead, his lifeless eyes wide open and staring up at the blue of the sky.

John Simmons was the first to arrive at the scene. He ran up the street and stood panting and sweating next to Frank.

Frank calmly punched out the empty brass and reloaded.

“You killer!” a woman screamed from the boardwalk. “Why don't you get out and leave us in peace!”

John turned and looked at the woman. “Be quiet, Mrs. Mid-dleton. Frank was merely defending himself.”

“He stalked those men!” a man yelled from the other side of the street. “Mrs. Middleton is right. I seen it all.”

Frank looked at the banker, sadness in his eyes. “It won't be long now, John. Believe me, I've been through this before.”

“I'm sorry, Frank,” the banker said, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

“Don't be. Actually, I'm looking forward to some trail dust.”

Dr. Everett came strolling up, and glanced briefly at the two dead men sprawled in the dirt. “I'm really going to miss you, Frank. However, not as much as the local undertaker and grave-diggers.”

Frank shook his head and grimaced at the doctor's dry and very macabre sense of humor. “For sure, Doc, the undertaker ought to have quite a collection of guns and saddles and boots by now.”

A group of local men began gathering around, staring at the bodies. One said, “I'm gettin' mighty tired of gunplay in our streets.”

Doc Everett glanced at him and replied, “Jim, did anybody ever tell you that you are sometimes a real pain in the ass?”

“Who stuck a bee down your drawers, Doc?” the local asked. “Hell, I ain't said nothin' but the truth.”

Doc Everett frowned but made no reply.

“I'm going,” Frank said.

“Good,” someone in the gathering crowd of men and a few women muttered.

“Are you all right, Frank?” Doc Everett asked. “You're not hit?”

“No. I'm fine. I'll see you men.”

Frank pushed his way through the crowd and walked to his horse. He rode out of town, very conscious of the many eyes on him from the people gathered on both sides of the street. They were standing silently, staring at him.

* * *

Frank got the saddle pack for the packhorse out of the barn and inspected the rigging. It looked all right. Dog sat on the ground, looking up at him and wagging his tail in anticipation. Frank smiled at the dog's actions.

“You're ready to travel, aren't you, boy?”

Dog barked excitedly.

“All right, all right. A couple more days and we'll pull out. That's a promise.”

Frank lit lamps in the house, for the rooms were dark due to the many boarded-up windows. He fixed his bedroll, tied it tight, and packed his saddlebags. He packed his gear for traveling without any real sense of regret, for he was ready to put the valley behind him. More than ready really.

When he was finished, he looked around the house, checking for anything he might have missed. The only articles that were left were those that would go into his packsaddle. And not many of those.

“We're just about all set, Dog,” he said. “Not much more to do. But we're going to find us a real home one of these days. I promise you that.”
Someday,
Frank silently added.
Somewhere, I hope.

Back in the kitchen, Frank pumped a big pot of water for coffee and set it on the stove. He looked around. He would leave the dishes and most of the pots and pans for the kids.

“I wonder if I'll ever see this place again,” he murmured. “And do I give a damn whether I do or not?”

He decided he didn't.

The coffee was ready, so Frank fixed a mug and went outside to sit in his rocking chair on the porch. He sipped his strong coffee and smoked a cigarette.

Dog lay down beside the rocking chair.

“We almost made it here, Dog,” Frank said. “We came close. But I think in the future what we need to look for is a place about twenty-five or so miles from the nearest town, and don't make any friends. Don't get close to anyone. I think that's the trick. That's what we'll do. We'll look for a small ranch where I can raise horses and run a few head of cattle. And mind my own affairs and stay the hell out of everybody else's business.”

That's not asking too much, is it?
Frank silently questioned.