The Morgans

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  One of the office boys had come in a short time earlier and spoken to Phillip, Conrad’s secretary, in an excited whisper. Phillip had said, “I’ll be back shortly, Mr. Browning,” and left the office with the boy after Conrad distractedly waved him out. Conrad didn’t know what it was about, but he was sure that Phillip would inform him if it was anything important. Unless and until that happened, he simply wouldn’t worry about it.

  Phillip came in wearing a worried frown on his face and holding an envelope in his hand. Conrad laid aside the pencil he had just picked up and figured that whatever was going on, it would be a welcome distraction from the endless reports he’d been going through.

  “What is it, Phillip?” he asked.

  “This message for you arrived, Mr. Browning,” the secretary replied. “You know that your instructions have been for me to go through all the business correspondence and handle everything that doesn’t require your personal attention.”

  “Yes, of course,” Conrad said with a hint of impatience.

  Phillip glanced down at the envelope in his hand and said, “This isn’t exactly business correspondence. I thought it was, or I wouldn’t have opened it, but . . .”

  Conrad held out his hand and said, “Give it to me.”

  Phillip extended the envelope across the desk. It bore no marks from the post office and had only the words Conrad Browning, San Francisco scrawled on it. Conrad frowned.

  “Who delivered this?”

  “I’m told it was a rather disreputable-looking man,” Phillip replied. “Possibly a Mexican.”

  Conrad opened the envelope and took out a folded sheet of paper. He spread it out and read the message written on it in pen and ink, in an excellent script.

  Your father, Frank Morgan, is my prisoner, and his life is in my hands. If you would save him, you must bring, in person, $250, 000 in cash to the village of Saguaro Springs in Arizona Territory. You will be contacted there and instructed how to deliver the money. This must take place within the next two weeks, or Frank Morgan’s life will be forfeit. Any attempt to contact the authorities will also result in Frank Morgan’s death. This is very serious and you must do as I have told you if you wish to ever see your father alive again. If you doubt what I have said, you will soon receive proof following the delivery of this letter.

  The message was unsigned.

  Conrad didn’t know whether to be astounded or angry. He hadn’t seen his father in quite some time. He got occasional letters from Frank Morgan, and in the last one, Frank had mentioned that he was in Texas.

  That had been at least six weeks earlier, though. Conrad had no idea where Frank had gone or what he had done since then. Even though the resentment Conrad had felt toward his real father had long since faded, they weren’t so close that they kept in frequent contact. Each lived his own life.

  Conrad also had a hard time accepting the idea that Frank Morgan could be captured and held for ransom. It wasn’t impossible, he supposed—Frank wasn’t superhuman, and he was getting older—but every time trouble had come calling, Frank had come out on top. Conrad had assumed he always would.

  “Sir,” Phillip said, “I apologize for inadvertently reading such a personal message, but since I do know what it says . . . would you like for me to start getting together the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”

  Conrad tossed the letter and envelope on the desk and said, “The ransom money, you mean?” He shook his head. “I’m not going to cooperate with criminals. Anyway, anybody can write a letter and make some wild claims and demands. That doesn’t mean anything in this is true.”

  “The letter speaks of some sort of proof—”

  “We’ll wait for that before we decide what to do next,” Conrad said.

  As if he had been waiting for that cue, the office boy who had spoken to Phillip earlier knocked on the door and stuck his head into the office.

  “There’s another delivery for you, Mr. Browning,” he announced. “A package this time.”

  Those words made a chill go through Conrad. What proof of his father’s captivity could be sent to him in a package? Some body part that had been hacked off, maybe?

  Only one way to find out. He told the office boy, “Bring it in.”

  “You bet, Mr. Browning.”

  Phillip was wide-eyed and apprehensive as he looked at Conrad and said, “Do you think—”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Conrad interrupted as he got to his feet. “But I suppose we’re about to find out.”

  The office boy reappeared, swinging the door open and striding in with a jauntiness that showed he was unaware of the situation’s seriousness. He must have realized that something was going on, though, because he slowed and broke stride.

  In his hands he held a flat package about an inch thick and eight-by-twelve inches in dimension, wrapped in brown paper tied with a string. The package wasn’t big enough to contain anything too grisly, Conrad thought.

  He held out his hand and the office boy gulped at the fires he saw burning in his boss’s eyes. The boy handed the package to Conrad, who took a folding knife from his pocket and cut the string holding the wrappings in place. Then he dropped the still-open knife on the desk and tore the paper away to reveal a framed photograph.

  It was a starkly exposed picture of Frank Morgan sitting in a chair and wearing a grim expression on his face. A man stood on either side of Frank, but not much of either of them could be seen in the photograph. The guns they held to Frank’s head were clearly visible, though.

  The office boy gulped again and exclaimed, “Good Lord!”

  Phillip said, “I’ve never met your father, sir, but I assume that’s him?”

  “It is,” Conrad said. “That’s Frank Morgan.” His fingers tightened on the frame. In the photograph, Frank appeared unhurt, but the menace of the guns was unmistakable.

  Hesitantly, Phillip said, “You know, playing the devil’s advocate here, we can’t be certain when that photograph was made . . .”

  “No, but why would anybody go to that much trouble if they weren’t telling the truth?” Conrad placed the photograph on the desk next to the letter. “I don’t know who’s responsible for this, but I believe whoever it is actually has my father and intends to kill him if I don’t pay that ransom.”

  “As I said, I can start gathering that money—”

  “No,” Conrad broke in. “Not yet.” His brain was spinning, but certain thoughts had begun to emerge from the mad whirl and were crystal clear. “Send word to Claudius Turnbuckle that I need to speak to him, here in the office, as soon as possible.”

  “Mr. Turnbuckle, sir? Your, ah, personal attorney?”

  “That’s right.” In the past, Claudius Turnbuckle had handled both business and personal affairs for Conrad, but most of the increasingly complex legal work involving the Browning holdings had been shuffled over to other attorneys in recent years. These days, Turnbuckle was as much friend and mentor to Conrad as he was legal counselor.

  Conrad looked intently at Phillip and the office boy and went on, “Are the two of you the only ones who know anything about this?” He tapped a finger on the letter.

  Phillip swallowed, nodded, and said, “That’s right, sir.” He looked at the office boy. “You didn’t say anything to anyone, did you?”

  The wide-eyed youngster shook his head and said, “To tell you the truth, I’m still not exactly sure what’s goin’ on, sir.”

  “Keep it that way,” Conrad snapped. “I don’t want word of this getting out.”

  “Of course, sir,” Phillip said quickly. He looked at the office boy again. “You know where Mr. Turnbuckle’s office is?”

  “Sure.”

  “Get over there and deliver Mr. Browning’s message.”

  “You got it, boss!”

  The boy hurried out. Phillip turned back to Conrad and said, “Is there anything else I can do?”

  Conrad slumped back into his chair and shook his head.

  �
��Not right now. Claudius will have some instructions for you later.”

  Phillip looked puzzled by that, but he didn’t say anything.

  “I want to be left alone,” Conrad added.

  “Certainly. I’ll be in the outer office if you need me.”

  “Show Claudius in as soon as he gets here.”

  The door closed behind the secretary. Conrad sat there, looking at the letter and the photograph on the desk but not really seeing them.

  Instead, in his mind’s eye, he saw himself, a spoiled, helpless young man in the hands of a brutal outlaw gang. They had been holding him for ransom and had cut off part of his left ear to prove that he was their prisoner. He still wore his sandy hair long enough to conceal that mutilation.

  Frank Morgan had saved him from those outlaws, and not by paying any damn ransom, either. The only thing Frank had delivered to them had been hot lead.

  The images in Conrad’s head shifted. He saw his late wife, Rebel, eternally beautiful in his memory. She had been kidnapped, too, and had met death at the hands of her captors, despite everything Conrad had done to try to save her. He had failed, and that failure had haunted him for years before finally fading to a dim ache of sorrow and regret that would never go away completely.

  He was still deep in that bleak reverie of the past when the office door opened without a knock and the tall, broad-shouldered, middle-aged Claudius Turnbuckle strode in. His beefy face had a look of annoyance on it.

  “Your boy was most insistent that I come to see you right away, Conrad,” he said. “I’m not accustomed to being at someone’s beck and call like that, you know, not even yours. This had better be important. That blasted boy wouldn’t even give me a hint of what it’s about.”

  Conrad gestured toward the letter and photograph and said, “Take a look at those and then tell me if you think it’s important.”

  Turnbuckle picked the items up briskly, still looking put out, but his expression turned to one of shock and concern as the meaning of what he was looking at sunk in on him.

  “Dear God in heaven,” he muttered. “Can this possibly be true?”

  “It looks real enough to me,” Conrad said. “I don’t know who wrote that letter—you can see it’s unsigned—but if he’s able to capture Frank Morgan he has to be taken seriously.”

  “Of course.” Turnbuckle placed the letter and photograph back on the desk. He was all business again as he went on, “There’s enough money in your various bank accounts to put together that quarter of a million dollars. It’ll take a day to do so, but that should still leave you plenty of time to reach this Saguaro Springs place, wherever it is.”

  Conrad shook his head and said, “I’m not taking the money to Saguaro Springs. I want you to gather the cash and make arrangements to have it delivered there in ten days’ time if you haven’t heard from me before then.”

  Turnbuckle frowned and said, “I don’t understand. You’re not going to Arizona to ransom your father?”

  Conrad opened the large bottom drawer on the right side of the desk and reached into it. He brought out a coiled gun belt with an attached holster in which a walnut-butted Colt .45 rested. He stood up and put the gun belt on top of the letter and photograph.

  “Conrad Browning isn’t going to Saguaro Springs,” he said, “but Kid Morgan damn sure is.”

  Chapter 10

  The room in Diego Ramirez’s stronghold where Frank was kept locked up might be comfortable—but it was still a prison. Frank had been locked up more than once in his life, always unjustly, and he didn’t like being behind bars.

  That first evening, a middle-aged Mexican woman had brought him supper. It was simple fare: beans, tortillas, stew with chunks of cabrito, goat meat, swimming in it. The food was good and Frank appreciated it, but when he expressed that gratitude and tried to get the woman to talk to him, she remained silent and just darted glances at the two guards—both armed with shotguns—who had accompanied her to the room on the second floor. Clearly she was afraid of them, as Armendariz the photographer had been.

  Frank wondered where they came from. Was there a village near the bandit stronghold? That was entirely possible, and in that case, Ramirez’s men could have taken it over and were ruling it with an iron fist. A place like this needed servants to take care of it, and Ramirez would be able to get them from a nearby village and force them to work.

  Frank thought Ramirez might show up after supper to gloat, but no one else came to the room that evening. With nothing else to do, and since the day had been a mighty long one, he turned in early and went to sleep without much trouble. Any man who had spent years on the frontier knew how to sleep when he had the chance, because he never knew when another opportunity might come along.

  The same woman, accompanied by different guards, brought his breakfast the next morning, which included a single cup of coffee. Frank could have used more, but his suggestion to that effect was met with a blank stare.

  A younger woman who bore a marked resemblance to the first one brought his midday meal. Frank figured she was the daughter or maybe the niece of the older Mexican lady. She proved just as unresponsive when he tried to engage her in conversation.

  One of the guards laughed at that and said, “You’re wastin’ your time, Morgan. These señoritas don’t like us, and there don’t seem to be nothin’ we can do to make ’em feel different.”

  Frank could understand why that would be the women’s reaction to this gangling, snaggle-toothed guard, who appeared to hail from the mountains of Arkansas. He couldn’t blame the female servants for not wanting anything to do with the man or the others like him. They were outlaws, after all.

  The guard went on, “Since they act so stuck-up and all, we just take whatever we want from ’em. It ain’t like they can do anything about it, after all. But I reckon you’re too old to be thinkin’ about such things, ain’t you, Morgan?”

  Frank ignored the man and his leering comments. He saw the split-second glance that the young woman directed toward the guards, though, and recognized the anger and hatred burning in her eyes. Ramirez’s men might have the upper hand right now, but they had better be careful, Frank thought. One day they might not be in charge anymore.

  Instead of one of the women bringing him supper as he expected, Kern and Bracken showed up again with their guns drawn. Frank was sitting in the armchair with his boots off. Kern motioned toward them with his gun and said, “Get your boots on, Morgan. You’re going to have supper with the boss.”

  “Ramirez?” Frank asked.

  “Only one boss around here, isn’t there?” Bracken said.

  “I don’t know,” Frank said coolly. “You tell me.”

  “Let’s go,” Kern said. “Señor Ramirez is expecting you.”

  Frank pulled on his boots and stood up. Kern backed into the hall and crooked his free hand to indicate that Frank should follow him. Bracken brought up the rear. Frank didn’t like having the derby-hatted gunman behind him. He didn’t put it completely past Bracken to gun him down and claim that he’d tried to escape, then take his chances with Ramirez for killing the hostage.

  If Bracken had that impulse, he restrained it. Frank went downstairs with the two men covering him. They ushered him into a dining room dominated by a big hardwood table with heavy, ornate chairs around it.

  Diego Ramirez sat at the head of the table with a cigar smoldering between the fingers of his left hand. He wore a dark brown, Spanish-cut suit today. Gold rings on several fingers gleamed in the rich yellow light that came from a chandelier hanging above the table.

  “Good evening, Señor Morgan,” he greeted Frank. “I hope your stay with us has not been too unpleasant so far.”

  “No, other than being locked up,” Frank said.

  Ramirez’s shoulders rose and fell in an eloquent shrug.

  “An unfortunate necessity,” he said. “I do not believe you would stay here and cooperate with us of your own accord.”

  “Not hardly.”
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  “But when our objective has been achieved, then you will be free to go, and I hope there will be no hard feelings between us. I bear you no personal ill will.”

  “Can’t say as I feel the same way,” Frank replied.

  Ramirez chuckled and said, “If you did, you would be lying, and we both know it.” He waved the hand holding the cigar toward the empty chairs to his left. “Please, have a seat.”

  Frank didn’t see any point in arguing with that, so he sat down in one of the chairs halfway along that side of the table. A female servant appeared almost instantly and filled his glass from a bottle of wine. She wasn’t the same one who had brought him his lunch, but she was also young and attractive, in a coarse way.

  As the servant withdrew, Ramirez picked up his own wineglass and said, “Please join me, señor. The wine may not be as good as that to which you are accustomed, but it is passable.”

  “I’ve never been much of a drinker,” Frank said. “What makes you think I know anything about wine?”

  Ramirez frowned slightly and said, “But you are a wealthy man. Every man I have known who possessed a great deal of money had expensive tastes.”

  “A man can have his name on a piece of paper saying that there’s money in a bank that belongs to him, but pieces of paper blow away in a strong wind. I carry enough gold and silver to buy bullets and supplies, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s all the money I really have. And your men seem to have cleaned me out of that while I was unconscious.”

  “Our philosophies differ,” Ramirez said with a quirk of his right eyebrow. “But that does not mean we cannot share a drink.”

  “I suppose not.” Frank picked up his glass and took a sip. The wine tasted all right, but he was no expert.

  “Perhaps we should drink a toast,” Ramirez started to suggest, but then he stopped short and got to his feet as he looked past Frank. Frank glanced in the same direction and saw that Antonia had come into the room. He stood up, as well. He might not like the way she had tricked him, but he was still a gentleman.

  Anyway, most fellas would stand up for a woman as pretty as Antonia Ramirez. She wore a dark blue gown trimmed at neck and wrists with white lace. The gown’s neckline was low enough to reveal the upper slopes of her high, full breasts. A choker with a blue gem set in it hugged her neck. Her long dark hair flowed loosely around her shoulders and down her back. She was elegant and stunning, especially when she smiled as she did now.