The Loner (5 page)

“Nonsense,” Rebel said. “This is my house. I can answer my own—”

Lasswell must have run out of patience. A boot heel crashed against the door just below the knob, springing it open. The door flew back. Rebel let out a startled cry as she jerked herself out of its way.

“Edwin, run!” she shouted. “Get Conrad!”

Shocked, struggling to figure out what to do next, Sinclair stayed rooted to the floor. A couple of hard-faced men rushed into the kitchen with guns drawn. Sinclair had never seen either of them before, but he knew they must be some of Lasswell’s men.

Rebel reacted with the sort of blinding speed that Sinclair would have expected from that gunfighter father-in-law of hers. She snatched up an empty coffeepot from the stove and swung it at one of the men, crashing it against the side of his head. He stumbled into his companion and dropped his gun. Rebel was on it like a hawk, scooping it up before it hardly had a chance to hit the floor. She shot the second man at such close range that the flame licking out from the gun muzzle scorched the man’s shirt as the bullet punched into his chest.

Sinclair had made it clear to Lasswell and Moss that Rebel wasn’t to be hurt, but he didn’t know if the gunmen would be able to control themselves when someone started shooting at them. They might return her fire. He couldn’t let that happen. He leaped toward her, wrapped his arms around her from behind, and said, “Rebel, no!” He got one hand on her wrist and forced the gun toward the floor.

More men burst into the room, among them Lasswell and Moss. Lasswell’s bearded, leathery face creased into a grin as he said, “Looks like you decided to jump right in there and grab her yourself, Sinclair.”

Sinclair bit back a groan of despair. Now everything really
was
ruined. He had hoped for a second that he could pass off his actions as merely fearing for her safety, but now Rebel had to realize that he was part of the plan. Otherwise, Lasswell wouldn’t have known his name.

He would just have to make the best of it. If he disappeared along with Rebel, Browning and everyone else would believe that the intruders had kidnapped him, too. He could go with Lasswell and the others, and once the ransom was paid and he had his share, he could take Rebel and leave Carson City far behind. They would go to Mexico, he thought. She would go with him, and in time, she would learn to love him.

He twisted the gun out of her hand and threw it on the floor, then shoved her toward the outlaws. “Here,” he snapped. “Get her on a horse, and let’s get out of here.”

Two of the men grabbed her. One of them was a giant with a moon face. Sinclair didn’t like the leer the man wore as he looked at Rebel.

She twisted and struggled in their grip, but she had no chance of getting away. Turning her head, she looked straight at him and said, “You son of a bitch. Conrad will kill you for this, and if he doesn’t, I will!”

Lasswell chuckled. “Better be careful, boys, she’s a wildcat. Hurry up now. That shot means we ain’t got time to waste.”

One of the men pointed at the one Rebel had shot and said, “What about Ray?”

“Get him on his horse, too,” Lasswell ordered. “Maybe he’ll make it.” He looked at Sinclair. “You talked like you was comin’ with us, mister.”

“Of course I’m coming with you,” Sinclair snapped. “I can’t stay here now. She knows I was part of it.”

In fact, Rebel was still glaring murderously at him as the two men dragged her out of the house. Sinclair hoped they wouldn’t treat her too rough.

“Well, here’s the problem,” Lasswell said. “We ain’t got a horse for you.”

“I’ll ride double with someone, then.” Sinclair took a step toward the door. “Let’s go. As you said, there’s no time to waste.”

Lasswell put out a hand to stop him. “Sorry, Sinclair. Your part in this is over here and now.”

“What? You’re insane! I can’t stay here.
She knows.
” Sinclair shook his head impatiently. “I realize we can’t follow the original plan now, with me pretending to rescue her and everything—”

“That was never the plan,” Lasswell said.

Sinclair frowned. “Of course it was. I was going to rescue her—”

“Nope. You were just here to knock out Browning, so we could grab the gal without havin’ to worry about hurtin’ him. Like I said, you’re done.”

“I most certainly am not!”

Lasswell looked past Sinclair and said, “Julio.”

Sinclair hadn’t realized that one of the men was behind him. He’d been so upset about his part in the plan being revealed to Rebel that he hadn’t been paying much attention to anything else. Now as he started to turn, he felt a sudden, sharp, white-hot pain in his back. He gasped.

A second jolt of agony lanced through him. Someone had stabbed him, he realized as he stumbled forward. Then Moss stepped up and hit him in the belly, causing him to double over and fall to his knees. An icy chill that coursed through his entire body replaced the hot pain in his back.

“When Browning comes to and gets loose, he’ll figure you got yourself killed tryin’ to defend his poor wife,” Lasswell said as he loomed over Sinclair. “He won’t know better until he gets her back…
if
he gets her back.”

“You…you can’t…” Sinclair gasped.

Lasswell looked past him again and nodded. Someone grabbed his hair and jerked his head back, and he felt something tug at his throat, followed instantly by a hot, wet gush.

“Your throat’s just been cut, you damn fool,” Lasswell told him. “You’re so stupid, you had it comin’.”

Sinclair blinked. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe, and he suddenly felt incredibly sleepy. There was surprisingly little pain. Someone shoved him from behind, and he fell facedown. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he smelled the coppery scent of his own blood pooling around his head.

It wasn’t fair, he thought. He was going to die on the kitchen floor of Conrad Browning’s house. He was going to die without ever seeing Rebel again. He was going to die…

He did.

Conrad heard someone groaning, and gradually became aware that it was him. He was adrift in a deep, black sea, the waves jolting him back and forth. After what seemed like an eternity, he realized that the waves were actually the pulsing of blood in his head.

He was alive.

That knowledge brought strength and determination with it, but they seeped slowly into his body and brain. Finally, he tried to move his arms, but they were pulled behind him in an awkward position and wouldn’t budge. Someone had tied him up, and the uncomfortable, soggy lump in his mouth was a gag of some sort. He moved his head and felt his chin scrape against something rough. He knew that he was lying on the rug in front of his desk.

Then it all came flooding back to him.

Sinclair. That bastard.

Sinclair had to be the one who had hit him and knocked him out. Conrad wasn’t sure
why
, but he was certain it had been Sinclair. In that instant before everything had fallen in on him, he had realized that the writing on the telegraph form was his secretary’s. Sinclair had printed the message in an attempt to disguise his hand, but it hadn’t worked. Conrad had recognized those decisive strokes.

So the telegram was a lie. Kirkson wasn’t going to change everything at the steel manufacturing plant. Sinclair had dreamed up the whole thing so he’d have an excuse to get into Conrad’s house. But why?

Rebel!

The answer shot through Conrad’s veins like a jolt of that newfangled electric current. And like that electric current, it galvanized his muscles into action. Conrad lurched up onto his knees, ignoring the fresh pain that pounded in his skull like the sound of distant drums and the agony in his shoulders. He leaned against the desk to brace himself and shoved with his legs until he was on his feet.

He had to free himself and get to Rebel.

Easier said than done. The room spun crazily around him as he turned his back to the desk. His hands had gone numb enough that he could barely feel them as he fumbled around for the letter opener he knew was on the desk. At last he found it, and struggled to turn the blade so that he could use it to saw through the cord binding his wrists. Luckily, the cord wasn’t very thick and parted within a few minutes. Even so, those minutes seemed like an eternity to Conrad, because all he could think of was that something terrible might be happening to Rebel.

When his wrists were free, he pulled his hands in front of him again and took a moment to massage some feeling back into them. Then he ripped the gag out of his mouth and took a step toward the door.

He reeled, and would have fallen if he hadn’t managed to grab the back of the chair where Sinclair had been sitting earlier. Conrad dragged a deep breath into his body and waited a few seconds. No matter what was going on, no matter what danger threatened, he couldn’t do Rebel any good if he passed out again. He had to stay awake and on his feet.

Even though he stumbled a little, his stride was stronger when he started for the door again. He grasped the jamb to steady himself as he stepped out into the hall. “Rebel!” he shouted. His voice sounded distorted to his ears. “Rebel, where are you?”

No answer. In this case, maybe the worst answer of all.

She had said she was going upstairs. Conrad wasn’t sure he could manage stairs just yet. If he took a tumble down them, he might break a leg, or hit his head and knock himself out again.

The rear stairs, he thought. They were narrower than the main staircase. He could press a hand against each wall and brace himself. He staggered toward the kitchen.

As soon as Conrad shoved the door open and stepped into the room, he recognized the smell in the air. He had seen enough gruesome death to know what freshly spilled blood smelled like. He stopped in his tracks and stared down stupidly at the figure lying on the floor in front of him.

It was Edwin Sinclair, Conrad realized. The secretary lay facedown. A large pool of reddish-black blood had formed around his head and was slowly soaking into the hardwood floor. Several large crimson stains marred the back of his suit coat. In the middle of one of those stains, the handle and part of the blade of a knife protruded from Sinclair’s body.

And pinned to the corpse with that knife was a piece of paper.

Conrad lurched forward. He saw his name written on the paper and knew it was meant for him. He dropped to his knees beside Sinclair and reached for the knife. He wrapped his fingers around the handle and pulled it free. The blade made an ugly sound as it came out of Sinclair’s lifeless flesh.

Conrad heard other sounds, but they meant nothing to him. A door slamming, voices shouting, heavy footsteps…He ignored all of them. Every bit of his attention was focused on the words crudely printed on the paper, which Edwin Sinclair’s blood had stained in places. Sinclair hadn’t written this note.

Rebel was gone, taken from their house by strangers, intruders who had killed the secretary. Had he been wrong about Sinclair? Conrad asked himself.

“Good Lord!” a gravelly voice exclaimed. “Put that knife down, mister. I’ve got you covered.”

Numbly, Conrad looked around. Carson City had an actual police force now, not just a local marshal and deputies, as befitted the capital city of the whole state. Two uniformed officers stood just inside the kitchen, revolvers in their hands. They pointed the guns at Conrad, and he realized that he was still holding the knife. Not only that, but he was kneeling beside the bloody corpse of his own secretary.

“This isn’t…what it looks like,” he managed to rasp after a moment.

“What is it, then?” one of the officers demanded. “It looks to me like you stabbed that poor son of a gun.”

Conrad held the paper out so the man could read it for himself. Suddenly, he was too tired to explain.

Too tired, and too filled with fear for his wife.

The presence of the note made it clear that Conrad hadn’t killed Edwin Sinclair. The chief of Carson City’s police force admitted that as he sat in Conrad’s study an hour later.

“Your secretary must have tried to fight off the kidnappers,” the chief said. “He paid for it with his life, but at least he tried.”

Conrad rubbed his temples as he sat behind the desk. The dull, throbbing ache in his head hadn’t gone away.

But it wasn’t as bad as the ache in his heart.

“I misjudged poor Sinclair,” he said. “To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure I trusted the man. In business, yes, but not that much around my wife.”

The chief raised his eyebrows. “You shouldn’t say things like that, Mr. Browning,” he advised. “Some folks might figure that was a motive for murder. Of course, in this case, we know the kidnappers are to blame for Sinclair’s death.”

“Chief, do you have any experience with things like this?”

“Well…no, sir, I don’t. This is the first kidnapping I remember ever taking place in these parts. But I’ve heard about such things, and I reckon it’s only a matter of time before you hear from those varmints again. They’ll have to tell you how much money they want, and where and how you’re supposed to deliver it.”

“Do you think they’ll want me to bring the money in person?”

The chief scratched his jaw. “That wouldn’t surprise me. They’ll figure you’d be less likely to try some sort of trick that way.” He hesitated. “You
are
going to pay?”

“Of course,” Conrad snapped. “I’d pay any amount of money to get my wife back safely.”

But that didn’t mean he was going to let those bastards get away with what they had done, he thought. They had to pay for taking Edwin Sinclair’s life, and for the ordeal they were putting Rebel through.

Conrad wouldn’t let himself think about what might be happening to her. Rebel was strong and smart. She would do whatever she needed to do in order to live through this. For the moment, her survival was all that mattered.

Vengeance would come later.

Even though he was willing to wait, Conrad had taken the first step toward settling the score with the kidnappers. He had written out a wire and prevailed on one of the police officers to take it to the Western Union office. The urgent message was addressed to Claudius Turnbuckle in San Francisco, a partner in one of the law firms that represented the Browning interests. The last time Conrad had seen his father, Frank Morgan had been on his way to Los Angeles to lend a hand to Turnbuckle’s partner, John J. Stafford. Conrad didn’t know if that affair had already been settled, but Turnbuckle would. The lawyer might have at least an idea of how to get in touch with Frank.

Because Conrad didn’t mind admitting that he needed his father’s help again.

“We’ll do everything we can to help,” the chief was saying now, “but our job is really keeping the peace here in town. You might want to give some thought to hiring the Pinkertons, or some outfit like that, if you want to track down the men who did this.”

“I know someone who can find them,” Conrad said, thinking of Frank.

The chief must have understood what he meant, because he nodded and said, “Oh. Yeah, you’re probably right about that.”

The problem was that it might take days to locate Frank, and even longer for him to get here. Conrad didn’t think the kidnappers would wait that long to make their demands. They would move quickly, in hopes of getting their hands on the ransom and making their getaway before anyone had a chance to corral them. He would probably have to handle that part himself, without Frank’s help.

The chief put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “If there’s anything I can do for you, Mr. Browning, don’t hesitate to let me know,” he said. “In the meantime, I don’t reckon there’s much any of us can do except wait. Maybe you should try to get some rest.”

“Yes, of course,” Conrad said, even though he had no intention of resting again until Rebel was at his side once more. He shook hands with the chief of police and thanked him. Then, the chief left, and he was alone.

He had never been alone in this house, he realized. Rebel had always been with him. He felt a sharp pang of loss as that sunk in on him.

Staying busy would help, he thought. A cabinet on one side of the room held several Winchesters, a double-barreled shotgun, a long-range European sporting rifle, and half a dozen Colt revolvers. Checking and cleaning all those weapons would take time. Conrad wanted to be sure he had plenty of ammunition on hand for all of them, too.

There was no telling how many guns he might need before this was over.

By morning, Conrad still hadn’t slept. The ache in his head had faded some but was still there. He went into the kitchen to make some coffee, but stopped short when he saw the large, dark stain on the floor. The undertaker’s men had cleaned up the blood as best they could when they came to collect Edwin Sinclair’s body, but nothing would get rid of that stain. The floor would have to be replaced. Once Rebel was back, the two of them could go on that trip to the high country, Conrad thought, and while they were gone, someone could come in here and do the work on the house that needed to be done to cleanse it of every reminder of what had happened.

A knock on the front door as he stood there contemplating the bloodstain made him jerk around. His long legs carried him quickly to the door. He had to force himself not to run.

When he opened the door, he found a boy about twelve years old standing on the porch. He looked like a typical frontier youngster in boots and overalls and with a round-brimmed hat. He gazed up at Conrad and asked, “Are you Mr. Browning?”

“That’s right,” Conrad said.

“An hombre told me to give this to you.” The boy held out a folded piece of paper. “He said you’d give me a nickel.”

Conrad took the paper. When he unfolded it, he saw that the words on it were printed in the same crude block letters as the message that had been left for him the night before. He recognized that before the actual meaning of the words sunk in on him.

Conrad’s heart pounded hard in his chest. Fifty thousand dollars was an incredible amount of money. Most men wouldn’t earn that much in a lifetime. He had it, though, and he didn’t mind spending it if that would insure Rebel’s safe return.

Unfortunately, there were no guarantees that the kidnappers would keep their word.

“How about that nickel, mister?” the boy who had delivered the message prodded.

Conrad reached in his pocket and brought out a double eagle. The boy’s eyes widened at the sight of it.

“I’ll do better than that,” Conrad said. “This is yours if you can give me a good description of the man who gave you the message for me.”

“Sure! He was older than you, and sort of skinny. He had a reddish-colored beard that sort of poked out from his chin.”

“How was he dressed?”

The boy frowned. “Well, I never paid much attention to that. Like a cowboy, I’d say. I know he had on boots and an old Stetson.”

“Anything else you can tell me about him?”

“Not really,” the boy said with a shrug. “He was just a fella.”

“Was anybody with him?”

“Nope. He was by himself. I know that.”

“Where did you see him?”

The boy turned and pointed toward the road that led northwest out of Carson City. “He was up yonder, about half a mile, I reckon. He was just sittin’ on his horse in some trees when I walked by and he called me over. He asked me if I knew you or where you lived. When I said I didn’t, he told me how to find your house and gave me the paper.”

“What about his horse?”

“It was a big chestnut gelding.”

Conrad’s heart had started to beat faster as the boy described the man who had given him the note. The description of the horse was the last bit of evidence Conrad needed. He remembered both man and horse from the encounter on the hillside overlooking the city several days earlier. He had no doubt that the kidnappers were the men who had interrupted the picnic he and Rebel had been enjoying.