The Loner: Trail Of Blood Read online

“I shot the man holding it and knocked him backward.” The Kid didn’t see any point in lying about it. “The dynamite flew up in the air and came back down on the roof, and since the fuse was already burning …”

  He didn’t have to finish the sentence. Anybody with eyes could see the devastation that had happened next.

  “Well, I’m even more obliged to you than I knew,” Fisher said. “You sure you don’t want me to go to Powderhorn with you?”

  “I’m sure. You’ll have your hands full here, cleaning all this up and getting a new marshal’s office and jail built. And you’ll have to explain to the sheriff when he gets here that he rode all the way from the county seat for nothing. Justice has already been done.”

  Fisher chuckled wryly. “He won’t be happy about that.” He gripped The Kid’s hand. “If you ever come through these parts again, stop and say hello. Maybe all hell won’t break loose again.”

  “Maybe not.”

  But somehow The Kid doubted it.

  Chapter 25

  Arturo was still waiting in the clump of cotton-woods where The Kid had left him. When he rode up a short time later, Arturo put the rifle he’d been holding across his lap in the back of the buckboard. “I noticed what looked like quite a bit of smoke rising in the direction of Abilene a while ago. I suppose you were responsible for that, Kid?”

  “Well, sort of,” The Kid said with a smile. “But mainly it was the fault of the fella with the dynamite.”

  “Dynamite,” Arturo repeated.

  The Kid nodded. “Yeah. The one who blew up the jail.”

  “I see.” Arturo paused. “Is Marshal Fisher all right?”

  “Yeah, I got there in time to give him a hand. Those men of Elam’s won’t bother him anymore. Unfortunately, he no longer has a prisoner to turn over to the sheriff. The explosion sort of took care of that problem, too.”

  “Well, that simplifies matters for the marshal, I suppose. I take it we’ll be continuing on to Powder-horn as planned?”

  The Kid nodded. “That’s right. Are you ready to go?”

  Arturo lifted the reins. “Of course.” But he didn’t put the team into motion right away. “I was quite glad to see you ride up, sir. I would have gone on without you, but I was hoping that wouldn’t be necessary.”

  “You’d have tried to find my kids on your own?”

  “Certainly,” Arturo answered without hesitation. “They’re the children of Conrad Browning. They need to know that. They need to receive the legacy that would be coming to them.”

  A warm feeling filled The Kid’s chest. He smiled, nodded. “I’m obliged to you for that, amigo.”

  “That’s Spanish for friend, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. It is.”

  When evening came, The Kid led the way about half a mile off the road before he found a good place to camp. He wasn’t expecting trouble, but it never hurt to be careful about picking a place to spend the night.

  In the morning they pushed on toward Powder-horn. They encountered several cowboys on horseback and a farming family in a run-down wagon. None of those pilgrims had represented any threat.

  Around mid-morning, The Kid spotted travelers up ahead on the road, heading east toward Abilene. He reined in and motioned for Arturo to stop as well. Something about the riders coming toward them struck The Kid as different. For one thing, there were half a dozen men on horses accompanying a black buggy. As the distance narrowed, The Kid saw that only one man sat in the buggy, handling the reins.

  “Let’s get out of their way, Arturo. Is that rifle of yours still handy?”

  “I’ll get it out of the back and put it on the floorboard,” Arturo said as he lifted the reins and drove the wagon off the trail.

  “Put it on the seat beside you where it’s handy,” The Kid advised. “Go ahead and lever a round into the chamber.”

  Arturo looked worried, but readied his rifle. The Kid moved his black saddle horse and the pack mule aside from the trail as well, tying the mule’s reins to the back of the buckboard. Then he slid his Winchester from its sheath and laid it across the saddle in front of him.

  By that time, the travelers were close enough The Kid recognized the hawklike nose and drooping mustache of Jim Mundy, the gunman who, according to Marshal Fisher, was Court Elam’s segundo.

  More than likely that made Elam the man in the buggy, The Kid thought.

  The rest of the riders were typical hardcases—like the other members of Elam’s gun crew The Kid had seen. He could make a guess why Elam and some of his men were on their way to Abilene.

  As the group neared the spot where The Kid and Arturo waited, Mundy scowled in recognition. He moved his horse closer to the buggy and said something to the driver. It came as no surprise to The Kid when the man hauled back on the reins and brought the vehicle to a halt. The riders reined in and arranged their horses three on each side of the buggy, with Mundy closest on the right.

  The man in the buggy regarded The Kid with a cool stare. He was in his forties, The Kid judged, but already had iron-gray hair under his expensive brown Stetson. His brown tweed suit had cost plenty, as had the diamond stickpin in his cravat. He was lean in face and body, with watchful, deep-set eyes.

  “You’re the man called Morgan,” he said as he looked at The Kid. It wasn’t a question.

  “That’s right,” The Kid said with a nod. “And you’d be Court Elam.”

  The man smiled thinly. “You’ve heard of me, I see.”

  “Heard plenty. None of it good.”

  Mundy’s scowl darkened as he leaned forward slightly in his saddle. His hand moved an inch or so toward the butt of his gun.

  Elam lifted a hand and motioned for Mundy to take it easy. It was a casual gesture, as if Elam knew it would be obeyed instantly and without hesitation.

  “We’re not looking for any trouble, Mr. Morgan,” Elam said. “We’re on a sad errand this morning. Some of my employees met an untimely end yesterday, as you well know. I’m on my way to Abilene to make the final arrangements for them.”

  The Kid grunted. “Fitting, since you sent them there to die.”

  Elam’s narrow face hardened slightly. With a faint, solemn smile he said, “Just because a man’s employees do something doesn’t mean that he ordered them to do it. Sometimes they do exactly the opposite of what he might wish.”

  “Are you saying they came to Abilene on their own?” That was what Fisher believed had happened, The Kid reminded himself.

  “That’s right,” Elam said. “Sometimes men will get carried away when a friend of theirs is in trouble and do something unwise.”

  “How’d you find out what happened?”

  Still wearing that same shadow of a smile, Elam said, “Well, I’m not sure that it’s any of your business … but Marshal Fisher notified me of the tragedy.”

  Fisher might do that, The Kid thought. Fisher might send a telegram to Elam in Powderhorn telling him to come get the bodies of his hired guns.

  But Fisher probably wouldn’t have gone into detail about The Kid’s part in the events of the previous day. He suspected Elam had spies in Abilene, or at least friends who could have given him the whole story.

  Tension was thick in the air. Mundy and the gunmen looked coldly at The Kid, and he knew they wanted to slap leather and blow him out of the saddle. Elam’s presence was the only thing keeping them from doing exactly that.

  Like all businessmen, honest and crooked alike, he knew the secret of success was waiting for just the right moment to make his move. He also had sense enough to realize if lead started flying, he would be in the way of The Kid’s first shots. “You and your friend appear to be bound for Powder-horn, Mr. Morgan. Is that the case?”

  “It might be,” The Kid allowed.

  “If you’re there for any amount of time, we’ll probably run into each other again. I own a number of businesses in the settlement.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “Right now, though, we have to get on to Abilene. We h
ave an unpleasant chore awaiting us.” Elam inclined his head in a lazy nod. “So long.” He flicked the reins against the back of the buggy horse.

  The Kid didn’t say anything as Elam got the vehicle moving again. He sat there stoically as the gunmen rode past, sending hostile looks his way. The Winchester stayed where it was on the saddle in front of him as the group from Powderhorn moved on.

  “I was convinced they were going to kill us,” Arturo said from the buckboard behind The Kid.

  “They thought about trying. But Elam knew he’d be the first one to die if they did.”

  Arturo brought the buckboard up even with The Kid. “I’ll never become accustomed to this, you know.”

  “You’d be surprised what a man can get used to when he doesn’t have any other choice.”

  Arturo didn’t argue the point as they continued on their way to Powderhorn. They didn’t stop for lunch since The Kid thought they were getting pretty close to the settlement.

  It was only a little after one o’clock in the afternoon when he spotted a church steeple up ahead, along with the roofs of several buildings and a smudge of green indicating the presence of trees—planted, watered, and cared for by humans, since the Kansas prairie was largely treeless.

  As they drew closer, The Kid looked for a building big enough to be used as an orphanage, figuring such an institution would be located on the outskirts of town. He didn’t see one.

  The railroad tracks curved toward the settlement. A red brick depot building stood at the southern end of the main street, which ran due north for half a dozen blocks to a wooden bridge that spanned a creek. The stream’s meandering path formed Powderhorn’s northern boundary. The Kid had no idea how the town had gotten its name. He didn’t see any physical features that reminded him of a powderhorn.

  The trail turned into a road that ran along the front of the depot. Main Street dead-ended into it on The Kid’s right as he and Arturo approached the station.

  Even before they turned onto Main Street, The Kid saw a warehouse on the far corner. A sign with ELAM FREIGHT COMPANY painted on it hung on the front of the building. On the other side of the warehouse was a large barn and corral. The sign on it read ELAM FREIGHT LINES.

  The Kid supposed Elam had merchandise shipped in by train, stored it in the warehouse belonging to Elam Freight Company, and delivered it in wagons belonging to the Elam Freight Lines to settlements that weren’t on the railroad line. That was a handy arrangement.

  It didn’t end there, however. The Kid and Arturo also passed Elam’s Livery Stable, Elam’s General Mercantile Store, and Elam’s Prairie Belle Saloon. Across the street stood the Elam Hotel.

  The Kid was getting good and sick of that name.

  “Mr. Elam certainly wasn’t exaggerating, was he?” Arturo said. “How do you Americans put it? He appears to own half the town.”

  “At least,” The Kid said.

  He saw a building on the left with the words MARSHAL’S OFFICE on a sign that hung from the wooden awning over the boardwalk, and couldn’t help but wonder if the man who occupied that office was Elam’s Marshal. He would be surprised if it didn’t turn out to be the case.

  Deciding to start his search there, he angled toward the hitch rail in front of the lawman’s office, and Arturo followed.

  The Kid swung down from the saddle and looped the black’s reins around the rail. “You might as well stay here until I find out something,” he told Arturo. “No need for you to climb up and down if you don’t have to.”

  “Very well.” Arturo took off his hat and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to pat beads of sweat off his forehead while The Kid went to the door of the marshal’s office. The door was locked, he discovered when he tried the knob, and no one responded to his knocks on it.

  A stocky man ambling along the boardwalk stopped to watch him for a moment before asking, “You lookin’ for the marshal, mister?”

  The Kid suppressed a surge of irritation. It was obvious what he was doing, he thought. “That’s right. Do you know where he is?”

  “Sure do.”

  The man didn’t volunteer any more information, so once again The Kid had to hold his temper. “Can you tell me where to find him?”

  “Yep.” For a second, The Kid thought the local was going to force him to ask again, but then the man went on. “You see the church up at the end of town, on the other side of the street?”

  “I see it,” The Kid said.

  “Go on around back and you’ll find the cemetery. That’s where the marshal is. Just look for the tombstone that has HERE LIES A DAMN FOOL carved on it.”

  Chapter 26

  The townsman appeared to be completely serious. He was short and thick and had a close-cropped gray beard. His clothes were stained and had a definite odor of manure about them, which told The Kid the man probably worked in the livery stable.

  “You mean the marshal is dead?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What happened to him? And I don’t mean the business about him being a damn fool.”

  The man shrugged. “He took his job too serious-like. Tried to keep the peace one night when he should’ve just let it go. He knew good and well the law only gets enforced a certain way around here, or at least he should have.”

  “And Court Elam decides what way that is,” The Kid guessed. “Who killed the marshal, Jim Mundy or another of Elam’s gun-wolves?”

  “Mister, I don’t know you, and I’ve said all I’m gonna say. Probably more than I should have.”

  The Kid noticed that Powderhorn didn’t appear to be a very busy place. Only a few people were on the boardwalks, and just a handful of horses were tied up at the hitch rails. “Is everybody taking a siesta? Or do Elam and his men have folks so scared they won’t come out of their homes and businesses unless they have to?”

  The man shook his head. “Like I told you, I ain’t sayin’ anything else. I got to get back to work.”

  “At the Elam Livery Stable?”

  The man had started to brush past The Kid but he stopped and frowned. “A man’s got to eat, and so does the rest of his family. You can work for somebody without agreein’ with everything he does. If it wasn’t you holdin’ down that job, it’d be somebody else.”

  “That’s a convenient way to think,” The Kid said, not bothering to keep the scorn out of his voice.

  The man’s already florid face flushed a deeper shade of red. Instead of angry words, though, he said quietly, “You ain’t from around here, mister. You don’t know how it is.”

  “You can answer one more question for me.”

  “I told you—”

  “Where can I find Mrs. Shanley’s orphanage?” The Kid’s words cut through the local’s protest.

  The man looked surprised by the question. His eyes widened for a second, then narrowed in suspicion. “Why do you want to know? You and your friend in the buggy there don’t look like orphans to me.”

  “As a matter of fact, both of my parents are deceased,” Arturo said. “But it happened a long time ago, so I don’t really think of myself as an orphan.”

  “And my father’s still alive,” The Kid said. As far as I know, he added to himself. As perilous a life as Frank Morgan led, he supposed he couldn’t make that assumption.

  The liveryman said, “I don’t really care. I don’t mix in things that don’t concern me, and that Shanley woman and her blamed orphans are one of ’em.”

  With a hostile glare, he walked off down the street toward the stable.

  “Well, he was certainly an unhelpful fellow,” Arturo said.

  “Not completely. He told us more about how things are around here. Not very good, from the sound of it. Elam and his men have this town treed.”

  “By that you mean everyone is afraid of them?”

  “Yeah.” The Kid looked up the street and rubbed his chin. “I’m curious why he didn’t want to say anything about the orphanage. That doesn’t seem like something that would get anybody
in trouble.”

  He untied the black’s reins but didn’t mount up, leading the gelding up the street.

  Arturo brought the buckboard alongside him. “Where are we going, Kid?”

  “To see somebody who maybe won’t mind telling us about the orphanage.”

  The Kid angled across the street toward the church. It was a whitewashed frame building with a square bell tower that had a tall wooden steeple on top. As he looked along the side of the building he saw the fenced graveyard behind it. A few small cottonwood trees provided shade where the citizens of Powderhorn who had passed on had been laid to rest.

  It put him in mind of another cemetery, located in a small town in New Mexico. As The Kid’s mouth tightened into a grim line, he put those thoughts out of his mind. It wouldn’t do to think too much about the woman who was buried there, even though he would never forget her, or the happiness she had brought him.

  Or the scars her murder had seared into his soul.

  As The Kid tied the black’s reins to the buck-board Arturo asked, “Shall I come with you, sir?”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  They stepped into the church and walked through a small foyer into the sanctuary. It was cooler inside, out of the sun. “Hello?” The Kid called. The word echoed back from the stained-glass windows and the high ceiling.

  “Up here,” a voice said from behind and above them.

  The Kid turned and looked into the foyer where a narrow door stood open a few inches. He opened it more and saw a ladder propped inside the tiny room. Light spilled through an open trapdoor at the top of the ladder. It led up into the bell tower, The Kid thought.

  “Wait there and I’ll be right down,” the same voice said. A moment later, a man’s shape blocked off the light coming through the trapdoor. He started climbing down the ladder.

  When he reached the bottom he stepped off and brushed his hands together. “I was working on the bell,” he explained with a smile. “On the rope, actually. It was getting rather frayed. Wouldn’t do to have it snap some Sunday morning while I’m ringing the bell to summon the faithful to services.”