The Loner: Seven Days to Die Read online

  Fletcher blinked rapidly as he frowned. “Partners?” he repeated. “You and me?”

  “Why not?” Bledsoe asked. “We’re both intelligent men. Working together, we can make a fortune here, and when Gehenna is bled dry, we’ll move on and do it again somewhere else.”

  The barrel of the rifle in Fletcher’s hands lowered slightly. “I never thought about that,” he mused. “It might work out quite well—”

  “No!”

  The strangled cry came from Jillian. The Kid turned to look at her and saw that she had lifted his revolver in both hands and was pointing it at her father as she backed away.

  “Jillian, what in blazes are you doing?” Fletcher snapped. “Put that gun down right now.”

  Jillian shook her head. “No,” she said. “No, this has gone on long enough. I…I just watched you murder a man in cold blood, Father!”

  “Carl Drake barely qualified as a man,” Fletcher said dismissively. “He was an outlaw.”

  “Like you!” Jillian accused.

  Fletcher shook his head impatiently. “Stop this nonsense right now. If you don’t put that gun down, one of my men will take it away from you.”

  He made a curt gesture, and one of the hardcases took a step toward Jillian. It was just a feint, though. As she jerked the gun toward him, another man moved to grab her from behind.

  Jillian realized what was about to happen and twisted back toward her father, pulling the trigger as she did so. She cried out as the gun roared and the recoil tore it from her hands.

  Fletcher staggered back and stared down in shock at the blood on his side where the bullet Jillian had fired had creased him.

  The Kid moved at the same time, diving and reaching out to catch the gun Jillian had dropped before it hit the floor. As soon as the walnut grips slapped into his palm, he rolled over and came up on a knee.

  Fletcher swung the rifle toward him. Flame gouted from the muzzle. The bullet plowed into the floorboards beside The Kid as the Colt began to roar. The Kid slammed three shots into Fletcher’s chest in little more than the blink of an eye.

  Meanwhile, Dakota Pete took advantage of the distraction to grab one of Fletcher’s men and lift the hardcase off the floor. With a bellow of rage, Pete swung the man like a club and sent him crashing into the other two gunmen. All of them sprawled on the floor.

  They still held their guns, and as The Kid lunged up and darted to the side, slugs whipped past him. He returned the fire, and so did Pete, the shots pounding out like deafening drumbeats.

  As the echoes died away, The Kid saw all three of the hired guns lying there bullet-riddled, bleeding their lives out.

  That left Bledsoe.

  Another shot blasted suddenly. The Kid heard the bullet sizzle past him. He turned, saw Tom Haggarty standing in the doorway, one hand holding the batwings open while the other clutched a revolver with smoke curling from the barrel.

  The Kid looked in the other direction in time to see Ben Bledsoe fold up. The rifle he had picked up after Fletcher dropped it slipped from his fingers as he fell to the floor and gasped a couple times before a spasm went through him. After that, he lay still.

  “I heard the shots and figured I’d better see what was going on,” Haggarty said as he lowered his gun. “Looks like I got here just in time.”

  The Kid nodded his thanks. “Just in time to save my life, from the looks of it. I’m obliged, Haggarty.”

  The bounty hunter smiled thinly. “The reward notices on Bledsoe did say dead or alive. I can take his body to Tucson and collect that way.”

  The sound of sobbing made The Kid look around again. Jillian knelt beside her father’s corpse. She appeared to be unhurt, but her face was wet with tears when she looked up at The Kid and said, “I…I shot him. My own father.”

  “You didn’t kill him,” The Kid told her. “I did. And if you want to hate me for that, I don’t blame you.”

  “H-hate you?” Jillian repeated. “No. No, I can’t do that. The man you killed…he wasn’t the man he…he used to be. The one I…”

  She couldn’t go on. She collapsed across Fletcher’s body, her back shaking with sobs.

  Conrad Browning had suffered his own tragedies and hadn’t been able to deal with them. That was why Kid Morgan had been born. He sure as hell couldn’t make the pain and the conflicting emotions go away for Jillian Fletcher.

  So The Kid did the only thing he could.

  He punched the empties out of his Colt’s cylinder and thumbed in fresh rounds to take their place.

  The sun came up an hour later. By midday, Tom Haggarty had already left Gehenna, driving a wagon with the blanket-wrapped bodies of Ben Bledsoe and Carl Drake in the back of it. The owner of the local wagonyard was letting him use it to take the bodies to Tucson out of gratitude for the part Haggarty had played in freeing the settlement from Bledsoe’s iron-fisted grip.

  “You don’t have to worry about being a fugitive anymore, Morgan,” Haggarty had told The Kid before he left. “I’ll make sure the authorities over in New Mexico know it was a case of mistaken identity.”

  “I’m obliged for that.” The Kid had said.

  “One more thing…I brought along that buckskin of yours that I took when I left you at Hell Gate. He’s over in the livery stable. Wherever you’re going next, you’ll need a horse.”

  The Kid was grateful for that, as well, and as he lifted a hand in farewell while Haggarty drove away, he wondered if he would ever see the bounty hunter again. Haggarty wasn’t a bad sort…

  For a tough, mean son of a bitch.

  The Kid had the buckskin saddled up, and he had a packhorse loaded with supplies ready to travel, too, courtesy of the merchants of Gehenna, who were glad to have their businesses back. Both animals were tied to the hitch rail in front of the hotel.

  As The Kid started up the steps to the porch, Jillian came out of the front door and waited for him. The tears on her face had dried, but she still looked grave.

  “You’re leaving so soon?” she asked.

  “There’s nothing to keep me here,” The Kid said.

  “There could be.” She glanced down the street toward Rosarita’s place, where Rosarita herself stood out front with Aliciana and several more of the soiled doves. “In fact, I think you could take your pick of reasons.”

  The Kid smiled and shook his head. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted…but I think I’ll be riding on.”

  “Just you and whatever pain it is that you’re carrying inside you?”

  “Something like that,” he said. “What about you? Are you going back to Hell Gate?”

  “Why would I? There’s nothing for me there. I was thinking I might stay here in Gehenna. It seems like a nice town, even though it has a terrible name.”

  “Names can be changed,” Kid Morgan said.

  “Yes, but does that really make any difference in what a place is, or who a person is?”

  “We can hope,” he said with a shrug. He put a hand on her shoulder, leaned closer to brush a kiss across her forehead, and turned back to his horses. “So long, Jillian,” he said over his shoulder.

  She didn’t say anything else, or smile, or wave, but he felt her watching him as he rode away.

  Dakota Pete walked out from the blacksmith shop as The Kid rode by. He said, “I wish you’d stick around for a while, Kid. Bonham’s gonna teach me blacksmithin’. I figure it’s time I had a trade besides law-breakin’.”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” The Kid said with a smile. “I don’t think you’re really cut out to be an outlaw, Pete.”

  “Where are you headin’?”

  “That’s a good question. Maybe I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

  Pete called, “So long!” as The Kid rode away. The Kid turned in the saddle and lifted a hand in farewell.

  Would he recognize his destination when he finally found it, if he ever did? Or was he doomed to wander endlessly, a solitary rider, a loner in search of the peace he
might not ever find?

  The Kid didn’t know. The only way to find out was to keep riding.

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  Copyright © 2010 J. A. Johnstone

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  ISBN: 978-0-7860-2532-9