The Loner: Dead Man’s Gold (9 page)

“I…I took her into the hotel. Some women there said that they would take care of her. I came back to see about Father Horatio, and to find out if there was anything I could do to help.”

“Just do what you do best, Father…pray.”

“And just what is it that you do best, Mr. Morgan?” the priest asked coldly.

The Kid glanced at the burning church and said, “Cause all hell to break loose, from the looks of it.”

The Kid retrieved his hat and boots from behind the church while the fire continued to burn inside. He knew that by the time it was finally out, the building would be gutted. The walls might remain standing, though, so the people of Las Cruces could rebuild it if they wanted to.

It had been a rough day. The settlement had lost its sheriff, its priest, and one of its churches.

All because those three hombres who’d confronted him in the store wanted to be known as the men who’d killed Kid Morgan, The Kid thought. What a tragic waste.

He didn’t consider the death and devastation his fault. He hadn’t forced Culhane and the other two to come after him in the first place, and it wasn’t his idea that Jackson and his friends should want revenge. When a man picked up a gun with murder in his heart, bad things happened. Plain and simple as that.

The citizens of Las Cruces didn’t have to form a bucket brigade from the public well. The town had a volunteer fire brigade with a wagon that had a water tank and a hand pump mounted on it. The members of the brigade swung into action, using the rig to spray water over the buildings closest to the blaze. It was too late for them to save the church; the structure was too far gone. The Kid watched long enough to see that their efforts were going to keep the fire from spreading to any of the other buildings.

Satisfied that the whole town wasn’t in danger of burning down, he walked into the hotel to look for Annabelle. Father Jardine had gone back there earlier.

The Kid saw a couple of women in the lobby and approached them, frowning as he noticed how they recoiled slightly from him. He suppressed the irritation he felt and said, “I’m looking for Dr. Dare. Do you know where she is?”

“The wife of the man who owns the hotel took her up to their living quarters,” one of the women replied. “Upstairs to the left, I believe.”

The other woman said, “You’re not going to shoot anyone in here, are you?”

He supposed he couldn’t blame them for worrying about that. He had killed five men in the past half hour, after all. But understanding that didn’t stop him from replying rather curtly, “Only if somebody shoots at me.” He turned and went to the stairs, his long-legged strides taking them two at a time until he reached the second floor landing.

The door of one of the rooms to his left down the hallway stood open. The Kid walked over to it and looked into the sitting room of a suite. Annabelle sat in a ladderback chair while a middle-aged woman brushed out her hair, which was wet from being washed. The Kid supposed she’d wanted to get the kerosene out of it.

Annabelle wore a plain gray dress that didn’t fit her. Her shoulders were too wide for it and her arms were too long. This was the first time he had seen her in a dress, The Kid realized. Until now she had always worn boots, trousers, and a man’s shirt. He had to admit that she might look pretty nice if she was wearing a gown that actually fit her.

She looked up at him and scowled. “What happened to Father Horatio?”

“He didn’t make it,” The Kid replied with a shake of his head.

“How many dead men does that make?”

“You mean today?” The Kid shot back, angered by the tone of disapproval in her voice.

The hotel owner’s wife said sternly, “Young man, this poor young lady has been through an ordeal. I won’t have you coming in here and speaking to her like that.”

He took off his hat and gave the woman a polite nod. “You’re right, ma’am. I apologize. I reckon it’s been an ordeal for all of us.”

The woman sniffed. “From what I hear about you, Mr. Morgan, you should be used to trouble following you around by now.”

The Kid reined in his temper. “Yes, ma’am, I should. Could I, uh, speak to Dr. Dare in private?”

“Are you going to try to browbeat her?”

The idea of anybody being able to browbeat Annabelle Dare struck The Kid as pretty farfetched. But he just said, “No, ma’am. I give you my word that I’ll be polite.”

The woman set the hair brush aside. “Very well. I’ll go in the other room. But you call if you need me, Doctor.”

“Of course,” Annabelle said. “It’ll be fine. Thank you so much for your help.”

The woman left the room. Annabelle said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Morgan. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I know it wasn’t your fault that those men attacked you in the store, nor were you to blame for what happened at the church.”

“If I didn’t have a reputation as a fast gun, they wouldn’t have come after me,” The Kid said with a shrug.

“Yes, but what else can you do except defend yourself when you’re attacked?”

The Kid shrugged again. That was the same thing he had thought earlier, but he was glad that Annabelle realized it.

“And when those men took poor Father Horatio and me prisoner, you were just trying to rescue us,” she went on.

“It’s a shame I couldn’t get the padre out, too.”

“Yes, but you saved my life, and I appreciate that.” She laughed softly, humorlessly. “One could say that all the violence is
my
fault for asking you to come with me and Father Jardine.”

“Start thinking like that and you’ll wind up going around and around in circles until you drive yourself loco,” The Kid told her.

“Do you speak from experience?”

The Kid didn’t answer that question. Instead he asked one of his own. “Did those varmints hurt you?”

“Not to speak of,” Annabelle replied. “They handled me rather roughly when they were tying me up, but I’m not injured.”

A faint flush spread across her face, and The Kid was willing to bet that they’d pawed her pretty good. He wasn’t going to make things worse for her by mentioning it again.

“Good,” he said. “I’m glad you’re all right. I reckon you want to continue the journey?”

“Of course! The Konigsberg Candlestick is still out there somewhere, along with the secret of the Twelve Pearls. We have to find them.”

“Well, we won’t be moving on tonight, after all.” The Kid nodded toward the window. Even though gauzy curtains were closed over it, they could tell that the sun had set and night was settling down over Las Cruces. “It was Sheriff Lipscomb who wanted us to leave, and Jackson killed him.”

“Yes. I heard the shot.”

“Where are your clothes?”

“Mrs. Franklin sent them down to the laundry to be cleaned, if that’s possible. She wasn’t sure anyone would be able to get the smell of kerosene out of them, though.”

The Kid nodded. “Well, if they can’t, you can pick up some new duds at the store. We’ll pull out first thing in the morning, if no one objects.”

She gave that quiet, grim laugh again. “Do you really think anyone will object to us moving on, after what’s happened today?”

“I doubt it,” The Kid said.

He left Annabelle in the hotel and went back outside to lead the buckskin across the street to the livery stable. After arranging for the horse to be kept there for the night, The Kid struck a deal with the proprietor to park the wagon and turn the team into the corral.

“I’ll probably sleep in the wagon,” he mentioned.

“It don’t matter to me where you sleep, mister,” the wizened old man who ran the establishment told him. “Just don’t shoot up the place.”

That seemed to be a common worry in Las Cruces. “I’ll try not to,” The Kid said dryly.

After driving the wagon over and tending to the team, The Kid started toward the hotel again, intending to check on Annabelle before he got something to eat and then come back to the wagon to turn in and get some well-deserved sleep. Before he reached the hotel, though, a man came up to him in the street and said, “Mr. Morgan, I need to talk to you.”

The hombre was young and nervous-looking, but he had a badge pinned to his vest. The Kid stopped and said, “I reckon you’d be the deputy who’s taking over for Sheriff Lipscomb.”

“That’s right. My name’s Jake Nye. The town council’s appointed me acting sheriff. I want to know if you and your friends are gonna leave town tonight, like Sheriff Lipscomb told you to.”

“It’s late,” The Kid said. “Dr. Dare and Father Jardine have gone through a lot today. Besides, I’ve already put the team away, over at the livery stable, and it would be hard to find a good spot to camp in the dark. I’m hoping you’ll say that under the circumstances, it’s all right for us to spend the night, Deputy.”

“Acting sheriff,” the young man reminded him.

“Sure. I meant Sheriff Nye.”

The youngster seemed to like the sound of that. It didn’t ease his nervousness much, though. Clearly, he didn’t want to have to try to run Kid Morgan out of the settlement.

To make the decision a little easier, The Kid went on, “It would sure be considerate of the lady not to make her leave town tonight.”

Acting Sheriff Nye nodded. In the light that spilled through the big front windows of the hotel, The Kid could read his thoughts as they played across his face. Nobody could fault him for being considerate of a lady, Nye was thinking.

“All right,” he said. “I reckon you don’t have to leave tonight. But first thing in the morning…”

“As soon as we fill our water barrels,” The Kid promised.

He continued on into the hotel and found Annabelle and Father Jardine sitting in the lobby. Annabelle still didn’t have her regular clothes on, but she wore a bottle green dress that fit her a lot better. One of the ladies staying at the hotel had loaned it to her after seeing her in the ill-fitting gray dress, she explained.

“They’re still serving in the dining room,” she said with a nod toward the arched entrance that led off the lobby. “I thought we could all eat supper together.”

“That sounds like a good idea to me,” The Kid agreed. It seemed that Annabelle had gotten over being quite so upset with him, and it was simpler all around if things stayed that way.

Father Jardine wasn’t as enthusiastic about the idea, but he didn’t object. All he said was, “I’m afraid I may not have much of an appetite tonight.”

The Kid didn’t care how hungry the priest was. He was famished, himself.

But then, having to kill a bunch of murdering hardcases had never bothered
his
appetite all that much.

After supper, The Kid said his goodnights to his two companions and left them with a warning to be careful and keep their eyes open.

“You mean because Fortunato could still have some agents working here,” Annabelle said.

“I mean because trouble seems to be dogging our trail, no matter where it comes from,” The Kid replied.

“I don’t know what happened to my gun. Those men took it away, and I never saw it again.”

The Kid figured Annabelle’s .38 was somewhere in the smoldering rubble of the church’s interior. Even if the fire hadn’t damaged it beyond repair, it would be easier to buy her a new one than to dig the old one out.

“We’ll take care of that in the morning,” he said. He lifted a hand in farewell and left the hotel, walking across the street toward the livery stable and wagon yard.

He was in almost the exact middle of the street when a gun roared somewhere behind him.

At the same instant that he heard the shot, The Kid felt the hot breath of a slug as it passed his head, only inches from his ear. Instinct took over, sending him twisting and diving to the ground as his hand flashed to the gun on his hip. He had the revolver out as he rolled over. Another bullet kicked up dirt next to him, but that time he saw where it came from. He fired twice toward the spot where Colt flame had bloomed in the dark mouth of an alley.

As soon as those shots blasted from the muzzle of his gun, he was up and on his feet, weaving toward the alley in a zigzagging run. Thankfully, everybody had cleared off the street when the ruckus broke out, so The Kid didn’t have to worry about an innocent bystander getting in the way of a stray slug.

The bushwhacker loosed another round at him. The Kid heard it whip past him. He ducked behind a wagon that was parked at the edge of the street. A bullet thudded into the vehicle’s sideboards but couldn’t penetrate them. The Kid edged along it to the tailgate, then crouched and snapped a shot around the end of the wagon. He heard lots of curious shouting going on, and then the slap of boots against the ground as someone hurried toward him. He spun around and leveled his Colt at a shadowy figure running across the street.

“Don’t shoot!” the man called. “It’s just me, Acting Sheriff—”

Muzzle flame lanced from the alley again, and Acting Sheriff Jake Nye said,
“Urk!”
and stepped backwards as if he had run into a wall and bounced off of it. The Kid bit back a curse as he triggered two more shots into the alley. He was really going to be disgusted if two of Las Cruces’s lawmen had gotten themselves killed because they stuck their noses into his fights.

Nye wasn’t dead, though. The young star packer rolled over and started crawling toward the wagon where The Kid had taken cover. “Mr. Morgan?” he called.

“Yeah,” The Kid said. “How bad are you hit, Sheriff?”

“I…I’m not sure. I think he just got me in the arm.”

Serious or not, the wound had to be painful. The Kid could hear the strain in Nye’s voice. “Which arm?” he asked as the acting sheriff reached the wagon.

“The left one.”

“Good,” The Kid said as he reached down to grasp Nye’s right arm and help him to his feet. “You can still use a gun, then.”

“I guess. What happened? What’s going on here?”

The Kid nodded toward the alley mouth, which was still dark and now quiet. “I was walking across the street to the livery stable when somebody started taking potshots at me.”

“Did you see who it was?”

“Nope.”

And there was really no way of telling who the would-be killer was, The Kid thought, since there were so many hombres around who wanted him dead.

Nye drew the revolver on his hip, then said, “I’ll cover you while you run over there to the boardwalk in front of the hardware store. Whoever’s in the alley can’t get a shot at you from there. Then you can fire around the corner of the building at them.”

Despite the pain he was in, the young lawman sounded fairly cool and calm. The Kid wouldn’t have expected that, as nervous as Nye had seemed earlier, but some men were like that. It took actual danger to settle them down and make them the fighters they were capable of being.

The Kid finished thumbing fresh cartridges into the Colt’s cylinder. He closed it and gave Nye a nod.

“Any time you’re ready.”

Nye thrust his revolver over the top of the wagon. “Go!”

Shots roared out from the lawman’s gun as he poured lead into the alley. The Kid ran out from behind the wagon and reached the boardwalk in front of the hardware store in a handful of swift strides. He put his back against the wall of the building and slid along it until he was only a step away from the alley mouth.

As Nye’s gun fell silent, The Kid thrust his around the corner and opened up with it. He had filled the wheel, six rounds, and he triggered off three of them as fast as he could, sweeping the barrel across the alley.

The shots didn’t draw any response. The Kid wondered if the bushwhacker was dead or just playing possum. Of course, it was also possible that the man had fled once Nye joined the fight. Two to one odds might have been too much for him.

The Kid reached into his pocket and found a match. He snapped it into life with the thumbnail of his left hand and tossed it into the alley. No response to that, either. As the match hit the ground and flickered out, The Kid called over to Nye, “Do you see anything in there, Sheriff?”

“Nothing but a rain barrel and some old crates,” Nye replied. “The bushwhacker could be hiding behind them.”

The feeling that the gunman was gone was starting to grow stronger in The Kid. He said, “Cover this end of the alley. I’m going to circle around to the back.”

“All right. Be careful, Mr. Morgan.”

The Kid intended to be careful, all right…but a fella could only be so careful when he was about to go up a dark alley where a man with a gun might be hiding.

He loped along the boardwalk, then cut through the next passage between buildings. When he reached the rear corner of the hardware store, he took a careful look. The light was bad back there, but he could make out the deeper patch of darkness that marked the alley where the bushwhacker had hidden. He paused long enough to replace the three bullets he had fired a few moments earlier, then started toward the alley. He leveled the Colt in front of him, finger taut on the trigger and ready to fire instantly.

He had almost reached the alley when a growl stopped him. A frown creased his forehead. He saw movement and realized that a dog had been rooting around in the garbage behind the hotel. The Kid was a little surprised that the shots hadn’t chased it off. Then he realized that the animal was terrified, too scared to move as it pressed itself to the rear wall of the hotel, but still defiant enough to growl at the strange human approaching him.

That growl was liable to give away his presence to anybody still lurking in the alley, The Kid thought. He had told Acting Sheriff Nye what his plan was, so if the bushwhacker was in there, he had heard what The Kid said. The dog’s growl would alert the would-be killer that The Kid was in position at the rear mouth of the alley. He dropped to one knee and made reassuring motions at the dog…for all the good that would do.

The move backfired. The dog stopped growling and started across the mouth of the alley, coming toward The Kid to get his ears scratched and his belly rubbed.

A gun blasted again and again in the alley. The bushwhacker was crouched there in the darkness, aware that he was trapped between The Kid and Jake Nye, and his nerves were drawn so tight that the slightest flicker of movement—in this case, the dog—had caused them to snap and he blazed away at it. Dirt flew in the air as the slugs chewed up the ground around the startled animal.

The Kid thrust his head and his right arm and shoulder around the corner and slammed two shots toward the muzzle flashes that lit up the alley. The glare from his own gun revealed the dark, bulky shape of a man lunging across the alley and crashing into the wall of the hotel.

Except the wall gave inward, because it wasn’t a wall at all. It was a door of some sort, probably a service entrance. From the sound of wood rending and splintering, the door had been locked, but the impact of the bushwhacker’s body had torn it open. The Kid snapped another shot at the fleeing figure as it disappeared into the building.

“Sheriff! He’s in the hotel!” The Kid shouted as he ran toward the back door. Somewhere inside the building, a woman screamed.

Annabelle and Father Jardine were in there, The Kid thought. He hoped they were already in their rooms and had the good sense to stay put.

The hotel’s rear door was locked, too. One kick from The Kid’s boot sent it flying open. He ran into the building and found himself in the kitchen. Another door led into the dining room, which was empty. The Kid dashed through it as more shots blasted outside.

When he ran into the lobby, the scared clerk peeking over the top of the desk waved toward the front doors and said, “He ran out that way!”

Warily, The Kid ran out onto the porch. He heard hoofbeats drumming somewhere down the street. But he didn’t see anybody, not even Acting Sheriff Nye.

“Morgan!”

The weak cry came from the young star packer. The Kid hurried over to the wagon where both he and Nye had taken cover earlier and found the lawman sitting in the street with his back propped against one of the wheels. Nye had a hand clamped to his right thigh.

“He hit me again and knocked me down when he came out of the hotel,” Nye said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him, Mr. Morgan. He grabbed a horse that was tied at one of the hitch rails and rode away down the street.”

The Kid nodded. “Yeah, I heard him taking off for the tall and uncut.” He knelt beside the lawman. “How bad is this wound?”

“Bad enough I’m not going to be dancing a jig any time soon,” Nye said. “It doesn’t seem to be bleeding too much, though, so I reckon I’ll live.”

“Did you get a good look at the bastard who shot you?”

Nye nodded. “Yeah, I saw him when he ran out of the hotel. It was Lew Jackson, the son of a bitch who shot Sheriff Lipscomb. I’ve seen him around town enough in the past few months to recognize him. He was always causing some kind of trouble, him and the rest of that bunch of no-good hardcases he ran with.”

“Culhane and the others?”

“Yeah.” Nye grimaced. “I reckon they’re all dead now, except for Jackson…but so’s the sheriff.”

“You’ll do fine,” The Kid told him.

“How can I? I’ve got a couple of bullet holes in me! I’ll be laid up for a while.”

“Are there any more deputies?”

“Well, yeah. Three more. And they’re good men.”

The Kid nodded. “They can hold down the fort until you’re on your feet again.”

“I suppose so.”

The Kid tried not to heave a sigh of relief. He’d been afraid for a second that Nye was going to ask
him
to pin on a badge and take over. And that just definitely wasn’t going to happen.

“Speaking of being on my feet again…”

“Yeah, let me give you a hand.” The Kid helped Nye upright. “Where’s the nearest doctor’s office?”

“Right down the street in the next block.”

The doctor saw them coming and hurried out to help get Nye inside. Once The Kid was satisfied that the lawman was in good hands, he returned to the hotel. He went into the alley beside it and lit another match. The glare that came from the flame revealed a splash of crimson on the ground. Jackson was hit, but there was no telling how bad. From the looks of it, he hadn’t lost enough blood to slow him down much.

A whining sound caught The Kid’s attention as the match flickered out. He struck another one and strode toward the end of the alley. The mutt that had spooked Jackson into firing was standing there, looking up at The Kid expectantly.

The Kid dropped to a knee and ruffled the hair on top of the dog’s head. The dog licked his hand eagerly. The Kid didn’t see any blood on the animal. He ran his hands over its body, searching for wounds, and didn’t find any.

“I didn’t know dogs could have guardian angels, fella, but I reckon you do,” The Kid said. “With all the lead flying around, I figured you were a goner for sure.”

The dog, a scrawny yellow animal with floppy ears, reached up with its head and tried to lick The Kid’s face. The Kid laughed and petted it some more. Then he gathered it up into his arms.

When he walked into the hotel lobby, quite a crowd had gathered, including Dr. Annabelle Dare and Father Jardine. Several people wanted to know how Acting Sheriff Nye was doing.

“The doctor’s tending to him now,” The Kid reported. “I think he’s going to be fine.”

Annabelle looked at him and said, “When I heard all that shooting, somehow I had a pretty good idea you were mixed up in it, Mr. Morgan. After all, it had been more than an hour since you shot at anybody.”

The Kid didn’t have to reply to that gibe, because Father Jardine asked, “Who was it this time, Mr. Morgan?”

“That fella Jackson, the one who made it out of the church this afternoon. He must have been lying low somewhere in town, waiting for a chance to bushwhack me and even the score.”

“It would hardly be even, considering that you killed five of his friends.”

“Well…as even as he could get it, anyway. He wound up just catching a bullet, though.”

“He’s dead?” Annabelle asked.

The Kid shook his head. “No, he got away.”

“Then he could still come after you,” Father Jardine pointed out.

“He could,” The Kid admitted.

“Doesn’t that worry you?”

“Not particularly.”

Annabelle said, “Why should it, Father? Mr. Morgan already has plenty of people with a grudge against him. One more shouldn’t really matter.”

For somebody who wanted his help, she sure had a sharp tongue on her, The Kid thought. He supposed that was just her nature, though. She couldn’t help it.

With a nod toward the dog, Annabelle went on, “What are you doing with that mangy beast?”

“I don’t see any mange on him,” The Kid replied, “and he and I have sort of become friends.”

“You’re not thinking of taking him along with us, are you?”