The Loner: Trail Of Blood Page 13

  With that decision made, he reconsidered another one. When he reached Kansas City, he took the horse back to the stable where he had bought it. As the hostler put the animal in a stall for the night, The Kid said, “I’ll be back for him in the morning.”

  The clerk in the hotel lobby looked puzzled by The Kid’s clothes, but he recognized the tall, sandy-haired man as Conrad Browning. The Kid got a couple of telegraph forms from the clerk, printed his messages, and shoved them back across the desk. “See that these are sent right away.”

  “Of course, sir. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  The Kid smiled faintly. “Where’s the closest wagon yard? I need to buy a buggy in the morning.”

  Armed with that information, he went upstairs. Arturo was still awake and fully dressed, of course. He would have been no matter what time it was when The Kid got back.

  “Did you find out what you wanted to know, sir?” Arturo asked as The Kid took off his wide-brimmed Stetson and dropped it on a table.

  “I did,” he replied. “Pamela was behind the whole thing. She paid off Potter and the leader of the men who jumped me later in the afternoon. She promised them more money, through a Boston lawyer, if they were successful in carrying out her orders.”

  “To have you killed, you mean,” Arturo murmured.

  The Kid inclined his head in agreement.

  “No offense, sir, considering that you were once engaged to the lady in question … but was there no end to the woman’s deviousness?”

  “Evidently not,” The Kid said. “That’s the reason I’ve made up my mind about something.”

  “And what might that be, sir?”

  “You’re coming with me after all.”

  Surprise leaped into Arturo’s eyes, but he concealed it quickly and kept his usual unflappable expression on his face. “An excellent decision, I must say. But what prompted you to reconsider the one you made earlier, if you don’t mind my asking.”

  “I’m liable to run into one trap after another, all the way to San Francisco,” The Kid explained. “I’m going to need somebody watching my back. And you did save my life on the train coming out here. I know I can count on you, Arturo.”

  “Indeed you can, sir. You won’t regret this.”

  “You know, of course, it’s going to be dangerous.”

  “Of course,” Arturo said. “But after all, I’m going to be in the company of a notorious gunfighter, aren’t I?”

  First thing in the morning, they went to the wagon yard. The Kid couldn’t imagine Arturo riding horseback all the way to California, if that was what it took, but the valet could drive a buggy that far, as long as they didn’t have to travel through territory that was too rough for such a vehicle. If they did … well, The Kid would deal with that when the time came.

  They settled for a buckboard with a single seat and enough room behind it to carry quite a bit of their gear. The Kid wouldn’t have to leave behind as much as he had expected to. Between the buck-board and the pack mule, they would be able to take plenty of supplies with them. The Kid made arrangements to have a cover added to the buck-board so Arturo would have at least a little protection from the sun and the rain.

  “Really, sir, that’s not necessary,” Arturo protested. “I can travel without that luxury.”

  “It’s not a luxury,” The Kid said. “The cover will protect our gear, too.”

  The owner of the wagon yard promised to have the buckboard ready to roll by that afternoon. The Kid and Arturo went back to the hotel to pack.

  When they entered the lobby, the clerk saw them and called, “Mr. Browning.”

  The Kid went over to the desk. “What is it?”

  “I have a response to the telegrams you sent out last night.” The man handed over a Western Union envelope.

  The Kid tore it open and slid out the yellow flimsy inside. His eyes quickly scanned the words printed on it.

  The wire was from Charles Harcourt and explained that the lawyer hired by Pamela, Willard Davenport, was refusing to cooperate and wouldn’t admit he knew who Pamela Tarleton was. Harcourt could sue in an attempt to force him to open his records, but that would take a long time and might not be successful in the end.

  In the meantime, Jack Mallory was conducting a more discreet investigation of his own. Reading between the lines, The Kid knew Harcourt and Mallory were trying to come up with something they could use to blackmail Davenport into talking.

  Mallory was enough of a big Irish bulldog that he stood a good chance of finding something they could use against the attorney. It was a dirty way to play the game, but not nearly as dirty as the tricks Pamela had pulled.

  Anyway, it wasn’t a game, The Kid thought. It was business, deadly serious business.

  That afternoon, Arturo returned to the wagon yard and picked up the buckboard while The Kid got the black gelding and the pack mule from the livery stable. It was late enough in the day that they wouldn’t get very far before having to stop and make camp for the night.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait and get a fresh start in the morning?” The Kid asked Arturo.

  “Really, sir, I think I know you better than that by now,” Arturo replied. “I can tell you’re anxious to be on your way, and this will give me a chance to become accustomed to driving the buckboard before I have to handle it for an entire day.”

  “Well, that’s a good point,” The Kid said with a smile. “We’ll load up and light a shuck out of here.”

  “Light a shuck … what an odd expression.”

  The Kid chuckled. Crossing the country by train was vastly different from doing it on horseback and in a buckboard. It was going to be a real education in frontier life for Arturo. He had experienced some of that while he was working for Count Fortunato, but not like he was about to.

  They carried their belongings downstairs, The Kid refusing the help of a porter. Now that he had slipped back into the personality of Kid Morgan, his impulse was to do things for himself, rather than waiting for somebody else to take care of a chore for him. It was different where Arturo was concerned. The Italian undoubtedly still saw himself as a servant, but to The Kid’s mind, they were rapidly becoming partners.

  That was what happened when you fought side by side with a fellow and shared danger together. Those bonds went deeper than boss and employee.

  The sun was still fairly high in the sky when they crossed the bridge that paralleled the railroad trestle over the Missouri. The Kid rode slightly ahead, leading the pack mule, and Arturo guided the buckboard after him. The shrill whistle of a train made The Kid look to his left, where he saw a locomotive crossing the trestle with a long string of cars behind it. Smoke puffed from the big engine’s diamond-shaped stack.

  Westbound. Headed for California and all the bright promises that lay between here and there, The Kid thought. Headed into the unknown, because no man truly knew what the next day would bring.

  He and Arturo were headed in the same direction, and The Kid was ready for whatever the journey might bring.

  Chapter 21

  They covered several miles the first day and camped on the bank of a creek that flowed into the Kansas River from the north. They planned to follow the railroad tracks, which ran along with the river past Abilene, to the point where the Saline and Smoky Hill Rivers flowed together to form the Kansas. From there the railroad continued running almost due west, The Kid knew, though the rivers twisted and turned away from the steel rails and then came back again.

  Over the campfire that night, as trains rumbled past on the tracks several hundred yards away, The Kid mused as he sipped from a cup of the good coffee Arturo had brewed. “If Pamela hid the twins somewhere along the way, she likely would have done it someplace the train was already scheduled to stop. If she’d gone too far away from the railroad, she’d have had to hire a wagon and a driver, and I don’t see her doing that. We’ll have to stop in every settlement where the train stops.”

  “But I wa
s under the impression Miss Tarleton was capable of almost anything, sir,” Arturo said. “You can’t be sure she didn’t leave the train and strike out on her own with the children and her servant.”

  “No, that’s true, I can’t be sure,” The Kid said with a shrug. “But that’s what my gut tells me, and I’ve learned to play my hunches.”

  “If you’re wrong, it’s possible we may travel all the way to San Francisco without finding the children.”

  “I know. Believe me, I know.”

  “What will you do then?”

  The Kid took a sip of the hot, strong coffee. “Reckon we’ll turn around and start back this way. Do it all over again.”

  “That could take years.”

  “Yeah. It could.”

  The Kid’s tone made it clear that if the search took years, he was fully prepared to spend that much time on it.

  Arturo didn’t say anything for a long moment. Off in the distance, a wailing sound arose, joined by another and another until they formed a discordant melody. Arturo lifted his head to listen. “Are those … wolves?”

  “No. Coyotes.”

  “Are they dangerous?”

  “Not to a man who can stand on his own two feet. If you were wounded and there was a whole pack of them, they might come after you, but otherwise you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “I see.” Arturo hesitated. “Mr. Browning?”

  “Just call me Kid.”

  Arturo sighed as if that was going to be difficult. “Are there savages out here?”

  “You mean Indians?”

  “Yes, sir. Kid.”

  “There may be some still roaming around. Most of them are on reservations now, though.”

  “Are they dangerous?”

  The Kid smiled. “There haven’t been any Indian fights in these parts for a long, long time, Arturo.”

  “Well, that’s good to know. I wouldn’t want to be scalped.”

  “Neither would I,” The Kid said, looking off into the night for two reasons. He knew better than to stare into the fire, because it would ruin his night vision, and he didn’t want Arturo to see the grin on his face.

  Yeah, this trip was going to be an education for Arturo, he thought.

  Lawrence was the first good-sized settlement they came to. It had been raided twice by jayhawkers, first before the Civil War and then during the war by William Quantrill’s marauders, who had burned the town to the ground. Lawrence had rebuilt and was now a peaceful farming community, with few if any reminders of the bloody violence that had taken place there.

  They spent two days camped outside town while The Kid and Arturo asked questions of the settlers. Nobody seemed to know anything about Pamela. Nobody tried to kill The Kid, either, which told him she probably hadn’t disembarked the train there.

  It was a good break for Arturo, too, since he wasn’t used to sitting on the hard, bouncing seat of a buckboard all day long. His skin was already starting to tan, and he was handling the four-horse team with more confidence.

  They moved on to Topeka. For a capital city, the settlement was on the smallish size, but still large enough that The Kid and Arturo spent a week there, poking around and asking questions. The Kid wired Charles Harcourt to find out if there had been any new developments in Boston, but Harcourt reported that he and Jack Mallory had been unsuccessful in their efforts to uncover any more facets of Pamela’s far-reaching plot.

  After a week, The Kid thought it was time they moved on. He began to have the feeling that Pamela wouldn’t have hidden the children in a large town or city where he wouldn’t have any realistic chance of finding them. She hadn’t wanted that. She’d wanted him to stay on the trail, and he wouldn’t do that if the chances of finding the twins were so small as to be hopeless. She’d wanted him to keep going, so he could keep stepping right into the traps she had prepared for him.

  The Kid was convinced it was much more likely the children were hidden away in some small settlement along the rail line, and that was where he and Arturo would devote their efforts.

  Abilene was still famous for everything that had happened during its days as a wild, hell-roaring cowtown. The sleepy little farming community bore little resemblance to that bloody hell on wheels where Wild Bill Hickok had ruled as city marshal. It was just the sort of place where Pamela might have stashed the twins, The Kid thought as he and Arturo rolled across the bridge over Mud Creek and down Front Street.

  Dusk was settling over the town. The Kid turned in the saddle and pointed toward a two-story brick hotel. “We’ll stay there tonight. Be nice to sleep in a real bed, won’t it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m getting used to being uncomfortable. How will I know what to do if there aren’t insects biting me and rocks jabbing me all night?”

  “You’ll figure it out,” The Kid said with a smile. “Here’s a livery stable.” He swung down from the saddle and led the black and the pack mule through the open double doors into the barn. Arturo brought the buckboard to a halt just outside.

  An elderly hostler, quite spry despite his age, greeted them. “You gents want to put them animals up for the night?”

  The Kid nodded. “And I reckon we can park the buckboard out back?”

  “Sure, sure, no charge for that. Two bits a night for the critters, though.”

  “Fair enough,” The Kid said. He took a five-dollar gold piece from his pocket and handed it to the old man. “That’ll cover three nights with a little left over. Give them a little extra grain. They deserve it.”

  “I sure will. You fellas been travelin’ a far piece?”

  “Far enough.” The Kid paused. “Have you been around these parts for long?”

  “Oh, shoot, yeah. Twenty years or more.” The hostler held out a hand. “Name’s Barlow.”

  The Kid shook with him. “Morgan. My friend’s Vincent.” Arturo’s last name was really Vincenzo, but The Kid had given the moniker a more American sound. With his neutral accent, Arturo didn’t sound Italian.

  “Pleased to meet you both,” Barlow said.

  “We’re looking for some old friends of ours. You might remember if they’ve been here.”

  A grin split the old-timer’s face. “I see ’most ever’body who comes through town, except for the folks who never get off the train when it stops.”

  “This lady would have come in on the train,” The Kid said. “A very beautiful lady with two young children, traveling with a friend of hers. She brought the children out to let them stay for a spell with either some friends or relatives of hers, I’m not sure which.”

  The Kid had devoted considerable thought to the matter and figured that was the story Pamela might have used. The sudden, unexplained presence of two new children in a family might draw too much attention, but people took in youngsters belonging to friends or relatives all the time, when there was some sort of hardship or other circumstance that warranted it. Pamela would have made it worth the trouble to any family where she left the twins to spread that lie.

  Barlow scratched his jaw, which bristled with silvery beard stubble. “That don’t sound familiar. About how long ago are we talkin’ about, Mr. Morgan?”

  “Three years or so. Maybe not quite that long.”

  “Three years, huh? That’s a long spell, especially to a fella like me who’s gettin’ older and don’t remember so good anymore.”

  The Kid slid a hand in his pocket. “Would a double eagle improve your memory?”

  “What?” Barlow looked confused, then suddenly moved his hands back and forth in front of him as he figured out what The Kid meant. “Oh, no, no, I’m tellin’ the truth, not hintin’ for more money. I been right on the straight and narrow ever since me and my brothers got in some trouble with the law years back. I really don’t remember so good no more, Mr. Morgan. But I’m thinkin’ I never heard tell about no lady bringin’ some kids here like that and leavin’ ’em.”

  The Kid tried not to sigh. “Well, if anything comes to you, my frien
d and I will be staying over at the hotel for a day or two. Let us know, will you?”

  “I sure will.” Barlow’s eyes widened as a thought occurred to him. “Say, I know who you ought to talk to. Marshal Fisher. He’s been around Abilene even longer’n I have.”

  The Kid had been trying not to involve the law in his search, but maybe the suggestion was a good one, he thought. “I’ll do that,” he told Barlow. “We’ll get these horses unhitched and unsaddled—”

  “Let me do that,” the hostler said. “I got to earn my keep. I been an honest businessman for a long time now. You get whatever you want to take to the hotel with you, and I’ll lock up your saddle and the rest of your gear in the tack room.”

  The Kid nodded. “Much obliged.”

  He slid his Winchester from the sheath strapped to the black’s saddle and draped the pair of saddlebags over his shoulder. Arturo took a pair of small valises from the back of the buckboard.

  “Well, he was quite a colorful character,” Arturo commented as the two of them walked toward the hotel.

  “I’m sure he’d think the same thing about you,” The Kid said. In the fading light, he spotted a squarish, solid-looking building made of stone, up ahead on the left across the street. An oil lamp burned in front of the building, and the windows glowed yellow with lamplight. A sign attached to the wall beside the door read MARSHAL’S OFFICE.

  Since the lawman appeared to be in his office, The Kid said to Arturo, “Why don’t you go on to the hotel and get a couple of rooms for us? I think I’ll stop and talk to the marshal, like Mr. Barlow suggested.”

  “Do you think he’ll be willing to help you?”

  “I don’t know, but Barlow said that he’d been around Abilene for a long time. If he’s been packing a badge all that time, he’s probably kept a pretty close eye on the comings and goings in town. He might be more likely to remember seeing Pamela than anybody else.”

  “That strikes me as a reasonable assumption. Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” The Kid started to step down from the boardwalk so he could angle across the street to the marshal’s office, then paused. “Get us rooms in the back if you can. Quieter that way.”