The Morgans

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  “Name’s Morgan. Some call me the Kid.”

  McRoberts’s bushy eyebrows rose.

  “Morgan,” he repeated. “Like Frank Morgan? Are you and him kin?”

  “Distant.” That wasn’t true when it came to the blood relationship, but for most of his life the Kid hadn’t even known that Frank Morgan existed, so he supposed it wasn’t too much of a stretch.

  “That’s how come you know Dog, then.”

  “Yeah, he’s been with Frank a few times when the two of us crossed trails.”

  The Kid took hold of Dog’s front legs and put them on the ground again. As he did, he noticed the healing wound on the side of the big cur’s head.

  “What happened to him?” he asked sharply.

  “He got walloped.” McRoberts still had his hat off, so he pointed to a fading bruise with a scabbed-over cut in the middle of it, above his left ear. “Like me. Somebody pistol-whipped us both, knocked us out.”

  “Who’d do a thing like that?”

  “Dunno,” the old-timer replied with a shake of his head. “I never got a look at the no-good scoundrel. Dog probably did, but he ain’t talkin’.” McRoberts clapped the hat back on his head and scratched the silvery stubble on his jaw. “I’m bettin’ that whoever was responsible for attackin’ us had somethin’ to do with Frank Morgan’s disappearance, though.”

  “Morgan disappeared?”

  “Yeah. I was expectin’ him to pick up Dog and his horses the mornin’ somebody sneaked up and buffaloed me, but he never showed up, at least not while I wasn’t out cold. Both horses are still here. One of my other customers came in and found me layin’ in one of the stalls and went hollerin’ for the law. The town marshal and the county sheriff both investigated, and neither of ’em found hide nor hair of Frank. He ate breakfast that morning at Sorensen’s Café—old Sorensen knew him and talked to him—but after that he plumb dropped outta sight.”

  The story didn’t surprise the Kid. He knew from the ransom note that Frank had been kidnapped, and from the sound of what Pete McRoberts was saying, it must have happened here at the stable, early enough in the morning that not many people were stirring around.

  “Did Frank tell you where he was going from here?”

  “Nope, not that I recall.” McRoberts frowned at the Kid. “You seem a mite more inquisitive than a distant relation might be, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.”

  “Frank and I have helped each other out on occasion. If something’s happened to him, I wouldn’t mind knowing what it is. Maybe he needs help.”

  “Maybe so, but you’d have to find him first. The law hasn’t been able to do that.”

  “The law has other things to tend to,” the Kid pointed out. “They might not be able to devote the time and attention to the chore that somebody like me could.”

  “Yeah, I reckon that’s true. I can’t tell you much more’n I already have, though. The sheriff asked around and found out that Frank had dinner the night before he vanished with some good-lookin’ Mexican gal, but nobody seems to know who she is. She checked in at the hotel under the name Antonia Escobar. Whether that was her right name or not, there ain’t no tellin’. And she’s gone, too. Nobody’s seen her since the night she ate at the Ruby House with Frank.”

  That was quite a bit of information to take in at once, but the Kid’s brain was keen enough to do it. He saw instantly that the woman who called herself Antonia Escobar had to be connected with Frank’s kidnapping. She had gotten to know Frank somehow. She might have asked him for help. He never would have turned down such a request from a woman.

  Questions remained, however. Was Antonia Escobar also the victim of a kidnapping? Was she being held for ransom somewhere near the settlement of Saguaro Springs, as Frank was?

  Or had she been responsible for what happened to him? The Kid couldn’t believe that one woman would ever be able to capture Frank Morgan, but she could have had help.

  “Are you thinkin’ you might go lookin’ for him?” McRoberts continued.

  “I’m just drifting,” the Kid said. “I don’t aim to get sidetracked.”

  From what McRoberts had told him, he didn’t believe the old-timer could have any possible connection to the kidnappers, other than having been knocked out by them, but if anybody was hanging around and keeping an eye out to see if someone was looking for Frank, he didn’t want to tip them off.

  “Seein’ as how you’re related to him, you wouldn’t want to take those horses and Dog off my hands, would you?”

  “It’s not my place to do that,” the Kid said. “Frank might come back and expect them to be here.” He paused. “If you need some money to keep looking after them, though, I reckon I could give you some.”

  McRoberts waved away the offer and said, “Oh no, that wasn’t what I was thinkin’. Frank and me are old friends. I don’t mind keepin’ his trail partners here.” A wistful note entered the man’s voice as he added, “I hope he does come back for ’em one of these days. I’d sure hate to think that somethin’ really bad has happened to him.”

  “That’s not likely,” the Kid said. “I don’t know him all that well, but I know if there’s anybody who can take care of himself, it’s Frank Morgan.”

  “That’s the plumb truth.”

  The Kid thanked McRoberts for the information and moved on down the street, walking and leading the buckskin now. Dog started to follow him, but McRoberts called the big cur back. Dog returned to the livery barn and sat down beside the old-timer, but the Kid heard some whining from Dog as he walked away. Dog wanted to come with him . . . and in a way the Kid wanted to take him along. Dog was a formidable ally in a fight, as well as being a connection to Frank Morgan.

  The Kid knew he couldn’t risk it, though. Frank’s kidnappers were bound to recognize Dog if they saw him again, and if Kid Morgan drifted into Saguaro Springs accompanied by the big cur, members of the gang might spot him and know right away that the Kid and Frank were connected.

  No, he thought, if he was going to win his father’s freedom, he was going to have to do it on his own.

  Chapter 13

  A few years earlier, Frank had read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, the novel of imprisonment and revenge being one of the volumes he had carried in his saddlebags and read by the flickering light of a campfire along lonely trails. So he knew about dungeons.

  As far as he could recall, this was the first time he had ever actually been in one, though.

  When Ramirez’s men had hauled him down here, he had seen six doors along the side of the stone corridor, so he assumed six cells lay behind those doors. A single lantern burned, hanging on a peg on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Some of the wavering light from it spilled through the tiny window in the door, so as Frank’s eyes grew accustomed to it, he was able to look around at his surroundings . . . not that there was really anything to see.

  It was much like what he would have expected from a dungeon: a small, cramped cell with stone walls, floor, and ceiling. No windows, since it was below ground level. A wooden door several inches thick, reinforced with bands of iron nailed into place around it. A six-inch-square window in the door with two iron bars in it, even though the opening was much too small for anyone to get through it.

  Unlike most dungeons authors wrote about in books, however, this one was dry, with no water trickling down the walls to create a dank, oppressive atmosphere. Instead, the air smelled of ancient dust and the buckets in each cell that prisoners had used for sanitary purposes over the years—or decades. The stench had permeated everything.

  The bucket in the corner was the only furnishing in the cell. No bunk or stool, so Frank had to sit or lie on the floor. The hard surface was pretty uncomfortable on his aging hip bones, not to mention his leg with the still-healing stab wound, but he tried to ignore the discomfort. That was just one more score to settle with his captors, and until he actually had a chance to do that, he didn’t see any point in dwelling on it.

&
nbsp; As he sat with his right leg stretched out in front of him, he drew his knee up and then extended the leg again, flexing the muscles so they wouldn’t get too stiff. He had been doing that with both legs, but especially the right one since that was where Antonia Ramirez had stabbed him with the dagger. The wound had still been bleeding when he was thrown into the cell, but after an hour or so the door was unlocked and a Mexican woman came in carrying a pan of hot water and some rags.

  Kern followed closely behind her with a shotgun. As he pointed the weapon at Frank, he had said, “The boss has given me permission to shoot you if you cause any more trouble, Morgan, so don’t try anything.”

  “You can’t fire that Greener in here without killing this innocent woman, too,” Frank had said.

  “As for innocent, I couldn’t say one way or the other. But there’s plenty more like her where she came from, so one old señora more or less doesn’t make any difference.”

  The callous comment made anger well up inside Frank, but he settled for saying quietly to the woman, “I’m sorry.”

  “De nada,” she murmured as she knelt beside him with the water and the rags. Working by the dim light from the lantern, she tore the rip in his bloodstained trouser leg wider, exposing the wound, which she began to clean.

  While she was doing that, Frank said to Kern, “Where’s your partner, Bracken?”

  That brought a laugh from the bearded man. He said, “General Ramirez won’t let him come down here. I reckon he doesn’t trust him not to just go ahead and shoot you, the first chance he gets. The boss is willing for you to die as long as there’s a good reason for it, but believe it or not, Morgan, he’s not just a wanton killer.”

  Frank grunted and said, “Next thing you’ll be telling me that he really does want to lead a revolution for the good of Mexico, instead of just using that as an excuse to get his greedy hands on all the loot he can.”

  “It’s not my job to tell you anything,” Kern said with a shrug, “just to make sure you behave yourself while you’re getting that leg patched up.”

  The woman used a wet rag to wipe away the dried blood. The wound had just about stopped oozing crimson by now. The woman reached down inside the neckline of her blouse and brought out a clump of moss. She got it wet in the pan of water and mashed it against the hole in Frank’s leg. His jaw tightened slightly against the pain she caused by doing that. The ache didn’t last long before receding. She bound the moss in place with a long strip of cloth that she tied securely.

  When she was done with that, she motioned for him to push his trousers down far enough for her to examine the wound on his hip. The bullet burn had bled very little, so all she did was clean it and then nod to him to indicate that it would be all right.

  Frank could see now that she was the same woman who had brought him one of his meals in the room on the second floor. He said, “Gracias, señora.”

  “De nada,” she said again. It is nothing. But not to Frank. It was something, all right, the only bit of kindness he had encountered since being brought to this bandit stronghold, and he wasn’t going to forget it.

  Kern had ushered her out then and relocked the door.

  Night and day meant nothing down here. Time passed without Frank knowing how much of it had gone by. Every so often, somebody brought him a meal, sometimes one of the guards, sometimes the older woman or one of the two younger ones he had seen before. The food was simple, just beans and tortillas and an olla of water, but it kept Frank alive.

  Every time the older woman came, she checked his wound and replaced the moss. He knew the stuff was drawing out any poison and dulling the pain. When he was alone in the cell, he worked the leg, carefully enough to keep it from starting to bleed again, but what he was doing would also keep it from stiffening up. He did the same thing with his arms and shoulders. He wanted to be able to move quickly if he needed to.

  He was up on his feet, shuffling around as much as he could in the close confines of the cell, when he heard footsteps in the corridor on the other side of the door. He wasn’t surprised when they stopped, since as far as he’d been able to tell by listening, he was the only prisoner down here.

  A man looked through the window, saw Frank standing there, and ordered, “Back against the wall, Morgan.”

  Frank moved away from the door. The guard unlocked it and came in wielding a shotgun, then kept Frank covered as he backed into one of the front corners. Another shotgunner came in and took up a position in the other front corner.

  That made four loads of buckshot staring at Frank. At this range, if both guards emptied their weapons at him, there wouldn’t be much left. They weren’t taking any chances.

  Because of those extra precautions, he wasn’t surprised when Diego Ramirez appeared in the doorway. Today the man was wearing a blue uniform with a red sash around the waist and gold braid on the shoulders. Frank smiled as he looked at Ramirez and remembered a song from a comic opera he had seen a while back. He drawled, “You look like the very model of a modern major general . . . General.”

  Ramirez’s features tightened with anger. He said, “Mock me if you wish, Señor Morgan, but you will be singing a different tune when I am the ruler of Mexico . . . if you are still alive. So far there has been no sign of your son with the ransom money.”

  Serious now, Frank shook his head and said, “He won’t bring it. You’ve made a mistake. Conrad is stubborn as all get-out, and tight with a dollar, too. Besides, the boy doesn’t give a damn about me. He never knew I was his pa, never even heard of me, until a few years ago. And he didn’t like me when he met me and found out.”

  “If this is true, why have the two of you come to each other’s aid on numerous occasions?”

  “You’ve really studied up on us, haven’t you?” Frank shrugged. “Sure, there have been times when we’ve found ourselves on the same side in a fight, but that doesn’t mean anything. And you’ve overlooked one very important point, Ramirez. If I wind up dead, the whole shooting match belongs to the boy.”

  For a second, alarm flickered in Ramirez’s eyes, too strong a reaction for him to conceal completely. Frank saw it and knew his thrust had gone home. Ramirez really hadn’t considered the fact that Conrad would profit by Frank’s death.

  Ramirez was too convinced of his own infallibility to doubt his plan for long, though. He shook his head and said, “You should hope that you are wrong, Señor Morgan. Otherwise, things will go very badly for you.”

  “My stay here hasn’t been all that pleasant so far. I’ve been shot and stabbed and beaten up.”

  “That is no one’s fault but your own. I made it clear that I would be happy to cooperate with you, if you wished to cooperate with me.” Ramirez squared his shoulders in the gold-braided uniform. “To that end, I am here to make one more effort to enlist you in our cause. It would greatly simplify matters, and I feel that a man such as yourself would be a most welcome addition to our forces.”

  Frank studied the bandit leader for a moment, then said, “Suppose I agreed to join up with you. You’d just believe that I was telling the truth and give me the run of the place?”

  Without hesitation, Ramirez laughed and said, “I think you know better than that, amigo. A number of my close associates, including my daughter and Señor Bracken, have advised me not to trust you at all, now or ever. As you know, Señor Bracken feels that you should be killed. My daughter would not be upset if you were tortured, although not to the point of death. Neither of those things is necessary. However, to answer your question, if you proclaimed your allegiance to our cause, you would be watched at all times until I was satisfied that you were sincere. There would be no chance for you to escape, if that is what you’re thinking.”

  “I guess that’s plain enough,” Frank said. “I won’t be joining up.”

  Ramirez frowned and then jerked his head in a curt nod.

  “So be it. There will be no third offer. Your only value to me now, Señor Morgan, is as a bargaining chip. If I get
what I want, you live. If not . . .”

  His shrug was eloquent, but Frank didn’t believe what Ramirez said. He knew that even if Conrad paid the ransom, Ramirez planned to kill him. Conrad had to know that, too.

  And that was one more reason Frank hoped that Conrad had a few tricks in store for Diego Ramirez and his band of cutthroats and thieves.

  Chapter 14

  The young man who rode into Saguaro Springs on a tired buckskin horse was covered with trail dust and had a couple of days of beard stubble on his lean cheeks and jaw. He was dressed in black from head to foot, although the dust gave the shirt, trousers, boots, and hat a grayish cast. The dust also dulled the gleam of the hat’s turquoise-studded silver band. The young man gave the impression of having ridden a lot of lonely trails for a long time.

  That was exactly what the Kid wanted anybody who saw him to think, especially anybody working for whoever was responsible for Frank Morgan’s kidnapping.

  Saguaro Springs consisted of one main street that stretched for three blocks with a couple of small cross streets lined by adobe dwellings. The false-fronted business buildings along the main street were frame structures, for the most part. The only buildings that actually had two stories, as far as the Kid could see, were the Cactus Saloon and the Chuckwalla Hotel. He smiled faintly as he noted the names of both establishments.

  He could see why the owner of the saloon had chosen that name. About half a mile northeast, at the base of a small hill, several springs bubbled out and formed a narrow stream that twisted its way south past the settlement and then curved west to disappear into the desert. Towering saguaros grew along the banks of that stream, their spiny fingers reaching high for the Arizona sky. The springs and the cactus gave the town its name, and the distinctive vegetation must have impressed whoever owned the saloon.