The Loner: Trail Of Blood Read online

  The telegrapher sighed. “Whatever you say. You sure do know how to stir up a hornet’s nest, don’t you?”

  “It’s one of the things I’m good at.”

  Now it was just a matter of waiting. Maybe he had misjudged Elam, he mused as he walked back toward the orphanage. Maybe when Elam found out what was going to happen, he would abandon his scheme to seize the parts of Powderhorn that he didn’t already control. Maybe he would just go on like he had been, content to own half the businesses in town, like before that stockyard deal had come up.

  Maybe … but considering the pride, arrogance, and anger he had seen in Elam’s eyes, The Kid didn’t think so.

  Actually, he was counting on it.

  Chapter 31

  Arturo had gone back to the orphanage with instructions for Theresa Shanley. The Kid wasn’t sure she would go along with the plan, but now that events had been set in motion, she wouldn’t have much choice in the matter if she wanted to keep the children safe. He figured that was more important to her than anything else.

  When he reached the big house with its tree-shaded yard, everything looked quiet and peaceful. But as he opened the gate and started up the walk to the porch, Tom Kellogg stepped out of the house with a rifle in his hands.

  The Kid stopped at the bottom of the steps and smiled. “I know I told you to gather up some men who were willing to fight, Brother Tom, but I didn’t expect you to take up arms yourself.”

  “A man of God can fight, as long as it’s in a righteous cause. I can’t think of a cause more righteous than battling murderers.”

  “Nothing’s been proven against Elam and his men in a court of law,” The Kid reminded him.

  “No one else had any reason to kill Jephtha Dickinson or Marshal Reed. Anyway, we’re not taking the fight to them, are we, Mr. Morgan? If Elam doesn’t want trouble, he doesn’t have to come here.”

  The Kid nodded. “True enough. How many men are inside?”

  “Counting me, eight.”

  The Kid frowned. He and Arturo would make ten. They would be facing odds of at least two to one. True, they would be defending the house, which would give them a slight advantage, but it might not be enough to balance out the superior numbers Elam would have.

  “Theresa insists that she’s going to stay and fight, too,” Kellogg added. “She says she can handle a rifle just fine.”

  “Blast it,” The Kid muttered. “I was hoping she’d be well out of harm’s way.” He glanced toward Main Street. “We may not have much more time.”

  “I tried to talk some sense into her head. She can be a very proud, stubborn woman when she wants to be.”

  “Yeah, I got that impression. When this is all over, Tom, you’d better tell her how you feel about her.”

  The preacher’s face turned pink. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Yeah … except maybe to the lady who ought to know it the most.”

  “Then I have one more reason to ask God to help us prevail. I’ll take your advice, Mr. Morgan … provided we live through this.”

  The Kid looked again at the street. He saw a couple of men carrying rifles come around a corner and start up Fifth Street. Neither of them was Court Elam or Tom Mundy, but he had no doubt they were Elam’s men.

  “Are all the kids gone?” he asked quickly.

  “Yes, they’re all safe. Members of the church took them in and are caring for them for the time being.”

  “That’s one thing we can be thankful for, anyway.” The Kid went up the steps. “I thought there might be more volunteers to help us, but it’s too late now. Elam’s men are on their way.”

  As he withdrew into the house with Kellogg, he spotted two more men darting from the concealment of a shed to a spot behind a parked wagon. The Kid suspected a dozen or more men were working their way toward the orphanage, getting into position for the attack.

  The question was whether or not Elam would order them to start shooting, or if he would give the house’s defenders a chance to surrender first.

  The answer came when a buggy rounded the corner and rolled slowly toward the house. From inside the doorway The Kid watched it coming.

  A footstep behind him made him glance over his shoulder. Theresa Shanley stood there, a rifle clutched in her hands. “Is Elam coming?”

  The Kid nodded. “Yeah. You might still have time to get out the back before he gets here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Her hands tightened on the Winchester. “This is my home, Mr. Morgan. My children may not have been born here, but they … they died here, and so did my husband. It’s home to all the children I’ve taken in, too. I won’t abandon it.”

  “Your choice,” he said curtly. Anyway, it was probably too late. Elam might have men behind the house, and if he did, they would grab Theresa if she tried to leave. That would be the same as handing over a valuable hostage to Elam.

  Kellogg stood behind Theresa. The Kid looked at him and said, “Get the men spread out so they cover as many windows as they can. Make sure each man has plenty of ammunition. Where’s Arturo?”

  “Upstairs at one of the gable windows,” the minister replied. “He says he’s a good shot and can pick off some of Elam’s men from up there when the shooting starts. I’ve got a man in one of the attic windows in the back of the house, too.”

  “Good idea.” The Kid commended him with a nod.

  The buggy came to a stop in the street in front of the house. The Kid recognized Court Elam’s well-dressed figure at the reins. Elam stared at the house for a moment, then called, “Morgan! Morgan, I know you’re in there!”

  The Kid called through the open door, “I’m here, Elam!”

  In a voice that shook with anger, Elam demanded, “What the hell have you done?”

  “You know what I’ve done. That stockyard is going to be built west of here, on land I sold to the meat packing company for half of what they’d have to pay for this site.”

  “That’s impossible!” Elam shouted back. “Who in blazes are you? How does some damn gun-fighter pull off a deal like that?”

  The Kid glanced at Theresa and Kellogg and saw that they were equally confused. He grinned reassuringly at them and told Elam, “That doesn’t matter now. What’s important is that you don’t have any reason to run people out of their homes and businesses anymore. Why don’t you take your hired guns and get out of Powderhorn?”

  “Blast it, this is my town, Morgan. I’m going to kill you for interfering with my plans!”

  That was exactly the reaction The Kid expected from Elam. The man was too arrogant and power-hungry to listen to reason.

  “Nobody else has to die, though,” Elam went on. “Come on out of there and I give you my word that’ll be the end of it.”

  “What about Mrs. Shanley?”

  “Theresa is going to be my wife!” Elam insisted.

  She stepped up beside The Kid and shouted, “Never! Go to hell, Elam!” Before either The Kid or Tom Kellogg could stop her, she lifted the rifle to her shoulder and fired.

  The whipcrack of the shot filled the street. The rifle’s recoil was strong enough to knock Theresa back a step. The Kid wasn’t sure where the bullet went, but it didn’t hit Elam. He hauled on the reins and jerked his buggy team around, then sent the horses racing back toward Main Street. The Kid heard him shouting something but couldn’t make out the words.

  It must have been an order to open fire, because shots suddenly blasted from the hiding places Elam’s gunmen had worked themselves into. Slugs thudded into the walls of the big house, but the thick planks stopped them.

  The Kid pulled Theresa away from the door and kicked it shut. “Well, that’s one way of opening the ball,” he said dryly.

  “I shouldn’t have shot at him like that.” She rubbed her shoulder where the rifle’s recoil had pounded. “I could have killed him in cold blood.”

  “But you didn’t,” The Kid pointed out, “and even if you had, he likely ordered the murders of two men. And tha
t’s just the ones we know of. There’s no telling what else Elam has done.”

  “Mr. Morgan’s right, Theresa,” Kellogg said. “When there’s no law, good people have to deal out justice themselves.”

  The shots from outside continued, and the defenders inside the house returned the fire. Glass shattered under the onslaught, and bullets made curtains flutter as if the wind were blowing through them. The attack seemed to be centered on the front of the house, so The Kid, Theresa, and Kellogg took up the defense there. The Kid and Kellogg crouched by the big window in the parlor that had already been broken out by flying lead. Theresa went to a smaller window at the side of the room, raised the pane, and poked the barrel of her rifle out as she searched for a target.

  “Stay down as much as you can, Theresa,” Kellogg warned her between shots. “I don’t want anything happening to you before I … before I get a chance to tell you something important.”

  She glanced at him but didn’t say anything.

  The Kid’s Winchester spat fire as one of Elam’s men tried to dash from one tree to another. The steel-jacketed slug punched into his chest and flipped him backward like he’d been swatted with a giant hand. He crumpled in a lifeless heap on the grass.

  The Kid heard Arturo’s rifle crack from upstairs and saw a man topple out from behind a parked wagon. He figured Arturo had had an angle on the gunman from the gable window. Facing the odds they were, it was just the sort of shooting they needed. They had to make nearly every shot count.

  Feet clattered on the stairs. The Kid glanced around to see a stranger descending from the second floor. “Brother Tom!” the man called to Kellogg, which identified him as one of the church members.

  “What is it, Will?” Kellogg asked.

  The man stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “From that attic window I saw a big dust cloud headin’ for town. Has to be a bunch of riders to be kickin’ up that much dust.”

  “What direction is it coming from?” The Kid asked.

  “From the north,” the townie answered.

  The Kid’s mouth tightened grimly. In all likelihood, the arrival of a large group of riders from that direction meant Elam had summoned the outlaws he’d been working with to help him clean out the opposition in Powderhorn. All the cards were on the table, and neither side could back down.

  “What does this mean, Mr. Morgan?” Kellogg asked.

  “It means the odds against us are about to get a lot worse,” The Kid said bluntly. “If you know any more prayers besides the ones you’ve already said, Tom, now’s the time for ’em.”

  Chapter 32

  Another of Elam’s men tried to shift his position. The Kid drilled him cleanly and knocked him down. Shots continued pouring into the house from the attackers, but the sturdy walls gave the defenders good cover.

  The Kid glanced over at Theresa and caught her eye. “You’re going to have plenty of damage to clean up when this is over.”

  “I don’t mind. It’ll be worth it to rid the town of Elam.”

  The gunfire from outside suddenly increased. The Kid and his two companions in the parlor ducked as a storm of lead smashed into the house. Bullets zinged through the broken windows and thudded into the interior walls. A framed picture fell from its nail, shaken loose by the slugs striking it.

  The Kid knew there had to be a reason why Elam’s men had stepped up their attack. When he risked a glance over the windowsill, he saw why. A dozen men on horseback were charging the house with guns blazing in their hands. The horses smashed into the picket fence and crashed right through it.

  An instant later, a couple men leaped their horses onto the porch. The Kid and Tom Kellogg had to throw themselves aside as one of the animals came right through the empty space where the big window had been.

  The Kid rolled across the rug on the parlor floor and brought his Winchester up as he levered a fresh round into the chamber. The man on the horse had stayed in the saddle. He swung his revolver toward The Kid and fired. The bullet smacked into a floorboard only inches from The Kid’s head.

  The Winchester cracked as The Kid fired it one-handed. The bullet caught the outlaw under the chin and bored on up into his brain, flipping him backward out of the saddle. The Kid scrambled to avoid the slashing hooves of the panic-stricken horse. The other gunman who had reached the porch burst through the front door and tracked his gun toward The Kid.

  A rifle blasted and knocked the outlaw back out through the open doorway. The Kid glanced over and saw smoke curling from the barrel of Tom Kel-logg’s Winchester. Another man started to clamber through the window behind Kellogg. The Kid snapped his rifle to his shoulder and sent a slug boring into the center of the would-be killer’s forehead. The man flopped back onto the porch.

  Another gunman replaced him an instant later. Several of them had reached the house, getting close enough the defenders at the windows no longer had a shot at them. The Kid knew if more of them managed to pour into the house, they could go through the place and clean it out, killing all the defenders.

  It would have helped, he thought bitterly, if more than eight men had stepped forward to help in the battle. But sometimes you had to fight for folks anyway, whether they seemed to deserve it or not.

  More determined than ever The Kid wheeled toward the window and fired as the man charged through, shooting blindly. He doubled over and fell when The Kid’s bullet punched into his belly. His momentum carried him forward and he crashed into The Kid’s legs, knocking him down.

  Another man loomed close behind. His gun was chopping down toward The Kid when a blast from the stairs sent him spinning off his feet. Arturo stood there, halfway down the staircase, with a smoking Winchester in his fists.

  As The Kid shoved the gut-shot man aside and leaped to his feet, he heard shouts and renewed gunfire outside. Not sure what was going on, he moved cautiously to the door and peered out.

  Once the outlaws on horseback had breached the house, it appeared the rest of Elam’s men had left their hiding places and joined the charge, eager to get in on the carnage. They were caught in a crossfire as a number of men from town, armed with rifles and shotguns, attacked them from the rear. A grim smile tugged at The Kid’s mouth. The citizens of Powderhorn had come through after all. It had just taken most of them a little longer to realize it was time to stand up and fight.

  “Come on!” he called over his shoulder to Kellogg and Arturo. “Let’s give them a hand!” He jumped off the porch and advanced toward the knot of hired killers in the street. Bracing the Winchester against his hip, he emptied it as fast as he could work the lever and crank off the rounds. Arturo, Kellogg, and several other defenders from the house joined in. Elam’s men didn’t stand a chance, trapped between the two forces the way they were. Clouds of powdersmoke rolled, and the stench of burned powder and the cries of dying men filled the air.

  When the shooting stopped, it was eerie in its abruptness. A few of Elam’s men were still alive but wounded. They threw their guns down and begged for mercy.

  The Kid looked over the bodies but didn’t see Court Elam or Jim Mundy among them. Since his rifle was empty, he tossed it aside and drew the Colt on his hip. Leveling it at one of the wounded men, he asked in a voice as cold as the grave, “Where are Elam and Mundy?”

  The man was pale from terror and loss of blood. “Don’t shoot!” he wailed.

  “Tell me where they are,” The Kid ordered.

  “They … they took off when the fight started goin’ against us. Looked like they were headed for … the railroad station.”

  The Kid looked over at Tom Kellogg, whose face was grimy from gunsmoke. Blood dripped down Kellogg’s face from a scratch on his head. He didn’t look much like a preacher.

  “When’s the next train due through here, do you know?”

  “Sometime this afternoon,” Kellogg replied. “Could be any minute.”

  The Kid nodded. He wasn’t surprised. Despite his arrogance, Elam was cunning. He had timed the attack so h
e’d have a way of escaping if things went bad.

  Turning back to the man he’d questioned, The Kid said, “Elam ordered the marshal and Dickinson killed, didn’t he?”

  The man swallowed hard and nodded. “Mundy did the actual killin’, but Elam gave the orders.”

  “You’ll testify to that?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right.” The Kid holstered his gun. “Arturo, you and Tom stay here and start getting things cleaned up. Make sure Mrs. Shanley is all right.”

  “Where are you going, Kid?” Arturo asked.

  “To make sure Elam and Mundy get what’s coming to them.”

  “I’ll come with you—”

  “No, stay here. You know what you have to do if I don’t come back.”

  With that, The Kid strode quickly toward Main Street. On the way, he thumbed a cartridge into the Colt’s chamber he usually left empty. He wanted a full wheel for the last act in the drama.

  He broke into a run when he heard the shrill blast of a train whistle.

  Swinging into Main Street, he saw the plume of smoke from the locomotive’s stack as it approached the town from the east. The whistle blew again. Main Street was empty—as if Powderhorn was a ghost town. Everybody was lying low until the battle was over.

  It would be soon, one way or the other.

  The Kid circled the depot at a run and came up the stairs at the west end of the platform. The train was about five hundred yards away, slowing to pull into the station.

  In the middle of the platform, Court Elam and Jim Mundy stood waiting. Elam nervously clutched a carpetbag. Mundy had a gun in his hand. He was watching the door from the depot lobby, not the end of the platform.

  “Elam!” The Kid called. “Mundy!”

  Both men jerked toward him. The train whistle screeched again as Mundy’s gun came up. The killer’s mouth worked, no doubt spewing curses, but The Kid couldn’t hear them over the rumble of the engine, the hiss of steam, and the clatter of the train’s brakes.