Dead Before Sundown

by William W. Johnstone

  “Something I can do for you folks?” the sailor asked.

  “Our friend is missing,” Meg said. “Mr. Stevens? Do you know him?”

  “The old-timer with the beard?”

  “That’s right.”

  The sailor scratched his jaw and frowned in thought under his short-billed cap. “I haven’t seen him. The cap’n told everybody they ought to stay onboard the ship tonight, though.”

  The mist in the air gave the lights of the settlement a blurred look. Frank heard the faint strains of music drifting through the night air from somewhere as he asked, “You don’t have a guard posted to keep folks from leaving, do you?”

  The sailor shook his head. “No, sir. What the cap’n told the passengers was just a suggestion, not an order.”

  “That’s what I figured.” An idea had come to Frank when he heard the music, and he didn’t like it very much. Still, they ought to make sure Salty wasn’t onboard before checking out his new hunch. “Can you take us to the crew quarters? If there’s a poker game going on anywhere, Salty can usually sniff it out.”

  “I can promise you, the old fella isn’t there, Mr. Morgan. I just came from there to go on duty.”

  Frank didn’t have any reason to doubt the man’s word. “What about the officers’ quarters?” he asked.

  The sailor shook his head. “No, sir, he wouldn’t be there. None of the crew is allowed to fraternize with the passengers. Cap’n Beswick wouldn’t stand for it.”

  Meg sighed in frustration. “Then where could he have gone?”

  “There,” Frank said, tipping his head toward the settlement. That made some mist that had collected on his hat drip off the brim in front of his face.

  Meg’s eyes widened as she looked at him. “You think he went to …?”

  Her voice trailed off as she didn’t finish the question.

  “I reckon they have some saloons in that town, son?” Frank asked the sailor.

  “Yes, sir, several. Does Mr. Stevens, uh, like to take a drink now and then?”

  “He used to,” Frank said.

  “He wouldn’t have any trouble finding a place to do that in Powderkeg Bay. Or to indulge in any other sort of vice you can think of.” The young salt cast an embarrassed glance toward Meg. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Meg told him with a wave of her hand. “Frank, we’ve got to find Salty. I thought he gave up drinking.”

  “He did,” Frank said, “but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t get tempted from time to time. All it would take would be a moment of weakness.”

  He turned toward the gangplank that led from the ship’s deck to the dock.

  “Wait a minute, sir,” the sailor said. “Have you ever been to Powderkeg Bay before?”

  “Never even heard of the place until today.”

  “It has a bad reputation. It would be dangerous for a stranger to go wandering around alone. Cap’n Beswick even put the town off-limits to the crew.”

  Frank smiled. “I can take care of myself, son.”

  “But sir—”

  “Do you know who this is?” Meg interrupted. “This is Frank Morgan. People call him the Drifter.”

  The sailor’s face showed his surprise. “The famous gunfighter? Really?”

  “I’m Frank Morgan,” Frank said. “The famous part doesn’t concern me.”

  “Why don’t you let me take you to see the cap’n?” the sailor suggested. “Maybe he could send some men with you to help you search for Mr. Stevens.”

  That wasn’t a bad idea, Frank decided. He nodded and said, “All right, son, let’s go.”

  The sailor led the way forward and down another set of steps. Companionways, Frank thought they were called. Or maybe those were the corridors below decks. He wasn’t sure. He was a landlubber at heart, no doubt about that, he thought as he smiled wryly to himself despite his worry over Salty’s possible whereabouts.

  A brisk voice answered, “Come in!” when the sailor knocked on a door.

  The young man opened it and said, “Cap’n, a couple of the passengers need to speak to you.”

  The captain didn’t invite them into his cabin. Instead, he stepped out into the corridor. He wasn’t wearing his coat or his cap, but he still stood ramrod-stiff as he frowned at the sailor.

  “What’s this about, Monroe?”

  Frank spoke up. “We asked the young fella if we could talk to you, Captain.”

  The lantern-jawed man with bushy side whiskers regarded Frank with a cool stare. “Mr. Morgan, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right,” Frank said with a nod. “This is Miss Goodwin.”

  Captain Beswick inclined his head politely toward Meg. “What can I do for you folks?”

  “Our friend Mr. Stevens doesn’t seem to be onboard the ship tonight.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “He’s not in his cabin or on deck,” Meg said.

  “We haven’t looked in the officers’ quarters or the crew’s quarters,” Frank added.

  “Or in the other passengers’ cabins, I’ll wager,” Beswick said.

  Frank and Meg glanced at each other. She shook her head.

  Beswick smiled an annoyingly indulgent smile as he said, “So you see, there are still plenty of places he could be.” His voice sharpened as he looked at the sailor and went on, “Monroe, get some of the crew and conduct a search. Locate Mr. Stevens and then report back here.”

  “Aye, Cap’n,” Monroe said. He hurried off.

  “Won’t you come in?” Beswick invited Frank and Meg. “You might as well be comfortable while we wait.”

  They followed the captain into his cabin. Like all the other cabins on the Jupiter, the room was small, but it was comfortably furnished with a bunk, a desk, a map table, and a couple of chairs. A bookcase was built into one wall.

  “Would you like a drink?” Beswick asked Frank. “I have some decent brandy.”

  “I’m obliged, but no thanks,” Frank said. He wasn’t that much of a drinker under normal circumstances. With Salty missing, Frank knew he might need a clear head even more than he usually did.

  “I’m sure Monroe will be back shortly with the news that he’s found Mr. Stevens.”

  Frank thought the captain was pretty irritated by the situation, but Beswick was trying to keep that from showing. The shipping line would want him to be polite to the passengers.

  “The thing is, Salty doesn’t really know anybody else on the ship, either the passengers or the crew,” Meg said. “He wouldn’t have any reason to be in somebody else’s cabin.”

  Frank said, “We think he’s gone ashore.”

  Beswick frowned. “Into the settlement, you mean? Why would he do that? I explained to everyone about what sort of place Powderkeg Bay is.”

  “That wouldn’t mean much to a man like Salty. He’s likely traipsed through every hell-on-wheels between the Rio Grande and the Milk River,” Frank said.

  Of course, the same comment could be made about him.

  “Salty used to drink quite a bit, too,” Meg added worriedly.

  “Ah,” Beswick said. “I see.”

  Anger flashed in Meg’s blue eyes. “I don’t think you do,” she said. “Salty’s not just some old drunk. He’s been all over the West and done just about everything there is to do.”

  “I meant no offense, Miss Goodwin. Still, you have to admit, you are worried about him because you think he may have slipped off to some saloon in the settlement.”

  Meg couldn’t deny that, so she settled for just glaring in silence as they waited for the young sailor, Monroe, to return.

  That took about ten minutes. Beswick said, “Come in,” when someone rapped on the door. Monroe stepped inside, holding his cap respectfully in front of him.

  “Mr. Stevens isn’t onboard, sir,” he reported.

  Beswick frowned in surprise. “You’re sure of that?”

  “Aye, sir. I found Mr. Handlesman, told him what you said, and he or
ganized a search party. We checked everywhere, even in the cargo hold.”

  “And you didn’t find Mr. Stevens?”

  “No, sir.”

  Beswick turned to Frank and Meg. “It looks like you may have been right. My apologies for doubting you.”

  Frank didn’t care about apologies. He said, “Now that we know Salty’s not onboard, I’ll go take a look for him in the settlement.”

  “Not alone,” Beswick said. “That wouldn’t be wise.”

  Meg said, “He won’t be alone. I’m going with him.”

  “That would be even more unwise.” Beswick looked at the sailor. “Monroe, you and Mr. Handlesman and the rest of that search party will accompany Mr. Morgan ashore.”

  “I don’t want to have to keep up with a bunch of sailors,” Frank said.

  “With all due respect, Mr. Morgan, that decision isn’t yours to make. I’m charged with the safety of my passengers, and I intend to see to it that I deliver each and every one of them safely to Seattle. Besides, you can use the help. Mr. Handlesman is my second mate and a good man.”

  Frank supposed it wouldn’t hurt to have some of the crew with him, especially if Powderkeg Bay really was as wild and woolly a place as everybody said it was.

  “All right, but I’m going ashore now. Salty could already be up to his neck in trouble.”

  “There’s no doubt about that,” Beswick agreed.

  “What about me?” Meg demanded.

  “Go back to your cabin and wait,” Frank told her. “Sorry, but that’s the way it’s got to be.”

  “I don’t like it,” she muttered darkly, “but I reckon we shouldn’t waste time standing around arguing. We’ve wasted too blasted much of it already.”

  “I’ll see that the young lady gets back to her cabin safely,” Beswick said, which earned him another glare from Meg.

  Frank and Monroe left them there and hurried back up to the deck. The continuing drizzle made it a little slippery under Frank’s boots.

  Monroe found the second mate, Handlesman, who turned out to be a stocky gent with a bulldog face and red hair under his cap. Even though he clearly didn’t care for the orders that Monroe delivered, he quickly gathered up several sailors to serve as the search party.

  “You don’t have to go ashore with us, sir,” he told Frank.

  “I think it would be a good idea if I did. When you find Salty, he’s liable not to listen to you. He can be a crotchety old pelican when he wants to.”

  Handlesman shrugged burly shoulders. “All right, then. Let’s go.”

  They went down the gangplank to the dock. Frank was careful not to slip. His boots were made for riding, not for negotiating the damp gangplank of a ship.

  Water lapped softly against the dock’s pilings. The thick mist in the air seemed to muffle sounds, including the music Frank could still hear.

  “Where’s that coming from?” Frank asked Handlesman. “It might have lured Salty off the ship.”

  The second mate grunted. “Like the Sirens, eh? You won’t find any such creatures at Red Mike’s place. Only whores, tinhorns, and cutthroats.”

  “I’ve heard about Red Mike’s,” Monroe put in. “Never been there, though.”

  “That’s because the skipper put the whole settlement off-limits before you shipped out with us,” Handlesman explained. He spat on the hard-packed dirt of the street as they reached the end of the pier. “We had a couple of crewmen get killed in there.”

  It sounded like the sort of place where Salty could get in trouble, all right. Frank said, “Let’s go have a look.”

  Not many people were out and about on this damp, dank night, and the ones who were got out of the way of the grim-faced party from the ship. Within moments, Frank and his companions were approaching a squat building made of rough-planed boards.

  Frank had figured that the place was called Red Mike’s because the proprietor had red hair, but in the flickering light of a lantern that hung beside the door, he saw that the boards were painted red. It was a sloppy job with ragged bare patches and streaks, but Frank doubted if the men who came here to drink really cared about such things.

  The door stood open. The music coming through it was louder now, but the notes came to an abrupt, discordant end when Frank and the men from the ship were still a block away. Loud, angry voices replaced the tinny strains from a piano.

  “Sounds like trouble in there,” Frank said.

  “I’m not surprised. Brawls happen all the time at Red Mike’s.” Handlesman motioned the other sailors forward. “Just in case the fella we’re looking for is in there, we’d better have a look before—”

  He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Guns began to roar inside the saloon, their deadly blasts ripping through the misty night.

  Chapter 3

  Frank started to break into a run toward Red Mike’s, but Handlesman lunged and grabbed his arm, stopping him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” the Jupiter’s second mate demanded.

  “My friend might be in there,” Frank responded as he jerked his arm free of Handlesman’s grip. He hurried toward the saloon.

  “Come back here, you damned fool!” Handlesman shouted. Frank ignored him.

  It would be just like Salty to get himself caught in the middle of a corpse-and-cartridge session like the one going on inside Red Mike’s. The old-timer was a trouble magnet.

  Of course, the same thing could be said of Frank Morgan. But it took one to know one, as the old saying went.

  He veered to the side as he approached the place. He didn’t want to run right into a stray bullet that came out that open door. When he reached the building, he put his back against the sloppily painted wall and slid along it toward the entrance.

  Guns continued to bang inside the building. Frank passed a window, but inside the glass, heavy curtains were drawn, preventing him from looking in.

  As he neared the door, he caught a whiff of the powder smoke that rolled out into the night. He had smelled that sharp tang too many times in his life. He was downright weary of it.

  But weary or not, there was a chance Salty was in the middle of that ruckus, so Frank was going to have to go in there and make sure.

  He used his left hand to take off his hat and edged his head just far enough into the doorway that he could take a look at part of the saloon.

  He saw a bar to the right. It was made out of rough-hewn planks, not the polished hardwood of most bars, but the planks must have been thick enough to stop a bullet because several men appeared to be hiding behind it.

  Smoke and flame gushed from the barrels of the guns they thrust over the top of the bar and fired at somebody who was back to Frank’s left.

  Seeing that the volleys were going back and forth inside the bar instead of being aimed at the door, Frank took a deep breath and leaped across the opening, pressing his back to the wall on the other side.

  From there he could see what seemed to be one man crouching behind an overturned table, sporadically returning the fire of the men behind the bar. Frank didn’t get a glimpse of anything except the man’s hand and the revolver in it, but he thought he recognized the old long-barreled Remington.

  That was Salty’s gun.

  Frank mulled over what he should do next. Charging straight through the door probably wouldn’t accomplish anything except to get him killed.

  But he had spotted a door at the far end of the bar, and that door probably led to an office or a storeroom, something like that. There might be a back door to Red Mike’s, and if there was, it would allow him to get the drop on the men behind the bar.

  Before Frank could move, he saw Handlesman, Monroe, and the other sailors from the ship making their way cautiously toward the saloon, staying low and behind whatever cover they could find. After a moment, Handlesman and Monroe dashed to his side.

  “What’s going on in there?” the second mate asked.

  Frank thought that was pretty obvious, but he suppressed the irritation
he felt.

  “Some men behind the bar are shooting it out with one hombre behind a table,” he explained. “I think the man behind the table is Salty.”

  “Then he’s in a bad spot.”

  Frank nodded. “That’s right. Eventually those varmints will shoot that table to pieces. I’m going around back to see if I can get in that way.”

  Handlesman reached under his blue jacket and brought out a short-barreled revolver. “I’ll come with you,” he said.

  Frank started to refuse but changed his mind before he said anything. If Handlesman wanted to get mixed up in this ruckus, it was his decision to make.

  “What about me and the rest of the men?” Monroe asked.

  “You’re not armed,” Handlesman snapped. “Stay out here unless you hear me yelling for you. Then you can charge in and do the best you can.”

  Monroe nodded. “Aye.”

  Frank put his hat on and jerked his head toward the black, narrow alley at the side of the building. “Come on.”

  He and Handlesman made their way through the stygian gloom in the alley. Frank banged his knee against something, but not hard enough to hurt him. Trash rustled under his feet. More rustling, accompanied by squeaking, told him that rats were fleeing in front of him and Handlesman.

  They reached the rear corner of the building. It was black as sin back there. Frank had to feel his way along with his left hand on the wall until he came to a window.

  When he tried to raise it, it wouldn’t budge. The window had been either nailed or painted shut, and he didn’t have time to figure out which.

  “Give me your jacket,” he said to Handlesman.

  “What?”

  “Your jacket,” Frank snapped.

  Handlesman shrugged out of the garment and handed it to Frank, who wrapped it around his gun. The shooting was still going on in the saloon’s front room. That would help cover up any racket he made back here.

  Anyway, he didn’t have any time to waste.

  Using the jacket-wrapped gun butt, Frank smashed the windowpane. The broken glass clattered to the floor inside the room, but no one reacted to it, telling him the room probably was empty. He raked the Colt’s barrel around the edges of the window to clear away any shards.