The Morgans

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  But why would anybody name a hotel after an ugly lizard? There had to be a story behind that, the Kid thought, but he wasn’t sure he was curious enough to find out.

  The rest of Saguaro Springs looked like a dozen other little Western settlements the Kid had visited in his wanderings. Even though the twentieth century had arrived, a person would never know that by looking around here. Saddled horses were tied to the hitch racks, and wagons with teams of mules or horses attached to them were parked along the street. No telegraph or telephone wires stretched into town, and no railroad spur ran this direction.

  A few ranches could be found in the rangeland to the east, as well as mines in the mountains that rose in the distance to the south, on the other side of the border. The Kid was sure the settlement had been established as a supply point for those ranches and mines. It would probably never grow any larger than it was right now, and if the mines petered out, the ranches might not be enough to support it. Saguaro Springs led a precarious existence and one day might turn into a ghost town like hundreds of others scattered all across the West.

  Those thoughts flashed through the Kid’s keen mind as he studied the settlement from under the pulled-down brim of his hat. He noticed something else, too.

  Hard-looking men wearing holstered guns lounged here and there or strolled along the dusty street. The other inhabitants of the town kept casting nervous glances in their direction. A tense, expectant atmosphere hung over Saguaro Springs, as if trouble might erupt at any second.

  The Kid had his doubts that it would, though, since the settlement’s ordinary citizens seemed scared to death and wouldn’t start anything. Those hardcases had Saguaro Springs buffaloed.

  The Kid angled the buckskin toward the saloon. As far as anybody could tell by looking at him, he was just another hardcase himself, so he ought to fit right in here.

  He swung down from the saddle and looped the buckskin’s reins around one of the hitch rails in front of the Cactus Saloon. To the left of the batwing doors as he faced the building was a large window with gilt-painted curlicues in the corners and fancy lettering spelling out the name of the place. To the right of the entrance were a couple of smaller windows, and in front of those windows a bench was placed on the building’s low porch.

  Two men sat on that bench with legs outstretched and booted feet crossed at the ankles. One was a beefy Mexican in a tall sombrero. He was busy rolling a cigarette, while the other man, a lanky gringo in a brown tweed suit and brown derby, whittled on a block of wood. As far as the Kid could tell, the man in the derby was just carving slivers off the wood, because the block was a misshapen lump that didn’t really resemble anything.

  The Kid was stepping up onto the porch when the man in the derby whipped the knife toward him without any warning. It flashed through the air and struck one of the posts holding up the exterior balcony over the porch.

  The throw was accurate and powerful enough that the blade’s tip embedded itself into the post. The knife quivered slightly from the impact.

  The knife was stuck into the post no more than two feet from the Kid’s shoulder. He paused and looked at the man who had thrown it. A grin stretched across the man’s angular face.

  “You missed,” the Kid said.

  “Naw. If I’d’ve wanted to stick you, I would have.” The man held out a hand. “How’s about givin’ it back?”

  “Sure,” the Kid said. He reached up and grasped the knife’s bone handle. He pulled it free, and with a flip of his wrist he threw it back at the man. It stuck in the back of the bench between the man in the derby and the Mexican, who was licking the cigarette paper to seal it closed. He looked over calmly at the knife.

  “Hey, señor, I did nothing to you,” he said as he twisted the ends of the smoke. “Bracken is the one who decided to have some sport with you.”

  “Then maybe you should think a mite about the company you keep,” the Kid said. He reached for the batwings to push them open.

  “Hey,” the man called Bracken said. He jerked the knife out of the bench and got to his feet. “I don’t remember saying you could leave, mister.”

  “I don’t recall asking your permission,” the Kid returned coolly. Without waiting to see what Bracken would do, he moved the batwings aside and stepped into the saloon.

  To his right, a couple of tables, empty at the moment, sat in front of the windows. Farther along that wall stretched the bar, gleaming hardwood with a brass rail along the bottom. At the back of the room were a staircase leading to the second floor and a small open area that would serve as a stage whenever the saloon had any entertainment booked. A piano sat back there with nobody to play it right now, looking a little forlorn.

  A faro layout and a roulette wheel, also currently neglected, filled out the rear of the big room, and tables occupied the rest of the space. Four men stood at the bar nursing drinks, and two men had a bottle and glasses at one of the tables. Four men played poker at another table. Everybody in sight, including an aproned bartender behind the bar, was male. The Kid didn’t see even one woman, but he supposed it was too early in the day for them. The ones who worked here were probably upstairs asleep.

  The men at the bar and three of the poker players reminded the Kid of the two he had seen outside: hardcases who would sell their guns to the highest bidder. The other card player was a frock-coated gent with a thin mustache and dark hair parted in the middle. A professional gambler or the owner of the Cactus Saloon, or both.

  The two men drinking at one of the tables looked more like merchants who owned businesses here in town. The glances they gave the men at the bar weren’t too friendly, and the Kid got the same sort of wary frowns from the two men as he walked in.

  The Kid was still moving as he took all that in with a glance. He stopped, though, as he heard the batwings slapped open behind him.

  “Hey!” Bracken said. “Nobody talks to me like that and then walks off.”

  The Kid turned slowly and hooked his thumbs in his gun belt. A faint smile curved his lips as he said, “Seems to me like I just did.”

  Bracken’s stance—shoulders hunched a little, head leaned forward, right hand hovering near the butt of his gun—plainly showed that he was ready to hook and draw. The Kid didn’t want to get mixed up in a gunfight this soon after riding into Saguaro Springs, but he wasn’t in the habit of backing down from trash like this gun-wolf, either.

  He wanted to catch the attention of whoever these men worked for, so he supposed killing one of them would do that. Assuming, of course, that the other seven hardcases in the room didn’t fill him full of lead. He knew he could take down at least a couple of them before he hit the floor, but with seven-to-one odds, he had almost no chance to survive such a shootout.

  And his death would leave Frank still a prisoner, the Kid reminded himself, so it would be better if he tried to avoid bloodshed . . . for now.

  “But maybe we got off on the wrong foot,” he went on to Bracken. “Let me buy you a drink and we’ll call it square.”

  Bracken’s lip curled in a sneer as he said, “I’m not gonna have a drink with you, you dirty son of a—”

  “Bracken.” The sharp, hard word came from one of the men at the poker table. “That’s enough.”

  The Kid flicked a glance at the hombre who had spoken. His rounded face meant he was a little on the stocky side, and he had a close-cropped brown beard. He didn’t look as much like a hired gun as the other men did, but the Kid had heard steel in his voice and decided he wouldn’t want to cross this man unless absolutely necessary.

  Bracken seemed to feel the same way, but he was too mad to back down completely. He said, “You didn’t see what this stranger did outside, Kern, or hear the way he talked to me.”

  The Mexican who had been sitting on the bench with Bracken pushed the batwings aside and strolled into the saloon. With the now-smoldering quirley dangling in the corner of his mouth, he said, “This stranger is good with a knife, Kern. Bracken threw his at him,
and he threw it right back. I think he could have given Bracken a close shave if he’d wanted to.”

  “Shut up, Enrique,” Bracken snapped. “He was lucky, that’s all. Lucky I didn’t blast a hole in him first thing.”

  “Reckon you could have tried,” the Kid said, “if you’d really wanted to.”

  He knew that comment might goad Bracken into drawing, and he still wanted to avoid that if he could, but Lord, the man was annoying! He had gotten under the Kid’s skin like a burr under a saddle.

  “Let it go, Bracken,” Kern said from the poker table. “The boss won’t be happy if you get yourself killed for no good reason, but I’m the one who’ll get chewed out because of it.”

  “You think I can’t take this stranger?”

  “I don’t know one way or the other, but I still say that’s not a good enough reason to get yourself killed.” Kern chuckled, although the sound didn’t contain much actual humor, and nodded toward the bartender. “Besides, you don’t want Mr. O’Reilly to have to spend a lot of time and energy mopping up blood from the floor, do you?”

  Bracken’s face was still flushed with anger, but with a visible effort, he controlled himself and walked over to the table where the two townsmen were sitting.

  “Gimme a drink,” he barked at them.

  They didn’t look happy about it, but one of the men picked up the bottle, splashed a couple of inches of whiskey into a glass, and pushed it toward Bracken. The gunman picked up the glass and tossed back the liquor.

  The Kid turned toward the bar, figuring he would get a beer to cut some of the trail dust from his throat.

  He could tell by the reaction of the men at the bar that something was about to happen. A split second later, the empty glass smacked into the back of his head and knocked his hat off. The heavy-bottomed glass thudded to the floor as the Kid stumbled forward a step. He heard rapid footsteps as he caught his balance. As he started to whirl around, he saw Bracken rushing at him, head lowered like a charging bull.

  He tried to twist out of the way, but Bracken was snake-quick as well as snake-mean. He got an arm around the Kid’s waist and drove him backward so that he crashed against the edge of the bar.

  Pain shot through the Kid’s body, but anger allowed him to ignore it. He brought up his right fist and slammed it against Bracken’s head. That sent the derby flying through the air much like the Kid’s hat had done a few seconds earlier.

  Bracken pinned the Kid against the bar by leaning his body into him, at the same time hooking punches into the Kid’s belly. After the first blow that the Kid landed, Bracken ducked his head down so the Kid couldn’t get another good shot at it.

  The Kid wasn’t worried about fighting fair or clean, because the man he was pretending to be wouldn’t have been. So in close quarters like that, he brought his knee up in a vicious thrust aimed at Bracken’s groin.

  Bracken must have sensed what was coming. He turned his body just enough to take the Kid’s knee on his left thigh. It still hit him with sufficient force to knock him back a step, and with that sudden distance opening up, the Kid launched a straight, powerful right that landed cleanly on Bracken’s jaw and drove him back even more.

  Bracken fought to keep his balance but failed. He landed on his back on one of the empty tables. He didn’t weigh enough to make it collapse, but it slid under him and toppled over, dumping Bracken on the sawdust-littered floor.

  The Kid went after him. Again, it bothered him to kick a man when he was down, but he landed the toe of his boot in Bracken’s ribs anyway, rolling him over onto his belly. The Kid reached down, got hold of the collar of Bracken’s coat, and heaved him upright.

  Then, while Bracken was still too groggy to put up a fight, the Kid rushed him toward the entrance, through the batwings, across the porch, and then flung him face-first into the street. Bracken landed hard, skidded a few inches in the dust, and came to a stop. He lay there mostly senseless, moaning softly.

  The Kid turned, stepped back into the saloon, and looked around.

  “That hombre have any friends who want to back his play?”

  Kern laughed again. This time he sounded more genuinely amused.

  “His play’s already busted, mister. The rest of us have too much sense to back a losing bet.”

  “Speaking of backs . . . how likely is Bracken to try to put a bullet in mine?”

  Kern shrugged and said, “I’d keep an eye out behind me if I were you. But you look like the sort of fellow who already does that.”

  “It’s a habit I’ve gotten into,” the Kid said.

  “I’m not sure you have to worry too much, though. Bracken’s pride is hurt worse than anything else, I expect, and shooting you in the back wouldn’t salve it much. He’ll want to take you head-on when the time comes, so he can prove something.”

  “Is he fast enough to do it?”

  Kern’s shoulders rose and fell again. He said, “¿Quién sabe? Maybe we’ll find out.”

  “Maybe,” the Kid said. He stepped up to the bar and went on, “I’ll have a beer, Mr. O’Reilly.”

  The nervous-looking bartender nodded and picked up a mug from the backbar to draw the beer. Without being too obvious about it, the Kid walked off to the side as Kern gathered up his winnings and left the poker table. When O’Reilly set the beer in front of the Kid, Kern moved up alongside and dropped a half-dollar on the hardwood.

  “It’s on me,” he said, “and I’ll have one, too.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Kern,” O’Reilly said. Quickly, he drew the second beer.

  “You picked up on my name, I reckon,” Kern said as he lifted his mug. “What’s yours?”

  “Callahan,” the Kid said. That had been his wife, Rebel’s maiden name. He wasn’t likely to forget it. He couldn’t call himself either Kid Morgan or Conrad Browning, since it was likely Kern and these other hired guns would recognize both names.

  Kern drank some of his beer and then said, “You can handle yourself all right, Callahan, that’s pretty plain. Do you happen to be looking for work?”

  The Kid swallowed some of his beer, smiled, and said, “I just might be.”

  Chapter 15

  The Kid’s intentions had been to drift into Saguaro Springs, get the lay of the land, try to figure out where Frank was being held, and then come up with a plan to free him. Now, within an hour of him riding into the settlement, fate—along with the proddy gunman named Bracken—might have handed him a way of accomplishing those things.

  He paused after his reply to Kern’s question and then went on as if only casually curious, “What’s the job?”

  “One that pays well and might wind up being worth a hell of a lot more. What else do you need to know?”

  The Kid took another drink of beer, then smiled and said, “I always try to get an idea of how likely it is that I’ll be shot at.”

  “Oh, I reckon it’s almost guaranteed that you will be, sooner or later. Is that going to bother you?”

  “It never has so far,” the Kid said with a slight shake of his head.

  Kern seemed to like that answer. He laughed and drained the rest of his beer. As he set the empty mug on the bar, he asked, “Are you going to be around town for a few days?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been on the trail for a while. My horse and I could both use some rest.”

  “I’ll have to talk to some people and then look you up. Are you going to stay at the hotel?”

  “I didn’t see any other place in town to bed down, other than maybe the hayloft in the stable,” the Kid said.

  Kern nodded. “All right. Give me a day or two.”

  “I’ll be around . . . unless Bracken manages to kill me before then.”

  “I’ve got my doubts about that happening,” Kern said.

  “If I do wind up having to kill him . . . will you be looking to settle the score for him?”

  “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  With that noncommittal answer, Kern left the saloon. The K
id watched him go. Through one of the smaller windows, he saw Bracken sitting hunched over on the bench, slowly shaking his head as if trying to clear the cobwebs from his brain. His Mexican friend was with him and had probably helped him out of the street.

  Kern stopped next to the bench and spoke to Bracken. After a moment, Bracken got to his feet unsteadily and he and the Mexican followed Kern out of sight.

  The Kid figured he hadn’t seen the last of any of them.

  “Another beer, mister?” the bartender asked. “This one will be on the house.”

  The Kid turned to look at the man and asked, “Why’s that, Mr. O’Reilly?”

  The bartender glanced toward the table where the poker game was continuing without Kern. One of the men who had been standing at the bar had gone over and taken

  Kern’s seat. The other three hardcases were gathered at the far end, talking quietly among themselves. They didn’t appear to be paying any attention to the Kid and O’Reilly at the other end of the bar.

  “Bracken’s caused trouble in here before,” O’Reilly said, keeping his voice pitched low enough that only the Kid could hear him. “I’ve had to sweep up broken glass, mop up blood and spilled booze, and replace broken chairs. He’s got a mean streak a mile wide in him, and he takes it out on townsfolk most of the time. It was mighty good to see him get his comeuppance for once.”

  “What would you have done if I’d killed him? Given me a whole bottle of whiskey?”

  “It’d be worth it,” O’Reilly answered fervently, then fear flared in his eyes again. “Oh, hell. I shouldn’t be sayin’ such things. I heard you talking to Kern about going to work for the general, and if you do, that means you and Bracken will be on the same side.”

  “We might draw wages from the same man,” the Kid said, “but that doesn’t mean we’ll ever be friends. So you don’t have to worry that I’ll be telling tales.” He paused, then added, “Who’s the general?”

  “Diego Ramirez. I, uh, don’t think he was a real general in the Mexican army or anything. I don’t think he was even in the Mexican army. But he likes the men who work for him to call him the general. He figures on replacing President Díaz down there.”