Ghost Valley

by William W. Johnstone

  “You’re tryin’ to trick me.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You damn sure won’t give me the first chance at the draw an’ you know it. I’m too fast for you.”

  A crowd had begun to gather along the boardwalks of Abilene to watch the affair. Everyone was listening to what was being said.

  Frank halted his strides when they were fifty feet apart. “I’ll wait till I see your hand move for the butt of that pistol,” he said.

  “You ain’t got the nerve.”

  “We’ll stand here until we both die of old age, Jake, unless you make your play. I won’t draw on a man first, and you can take that to the bank. If you don’t draw, I swear I’ll give you the worst beating you ever had.”

  “You yellow bastard. You’re bluffin’.” Jake’s jaw was set when he said it.

  “One way to find out, asshole, is to reach for iron. I’ll wait.”

  “If you do, you’re a dead man.”

  “Maybe,” Frank replied, sounding casual about it. “You can piss on my grave if you’re right about it.”

  Jake’s right hand made a dive for his Colt . . . Frank saw the muscles in his arm tense a fraction of a second before he made the move.

  Frank’s hand dipped for the butt of his weapon, a practiced move, one he’d refined over many years. His gun came out, cocked and ready, before Jake could clear leather.

  In a flash, Frank saw the fear in Jake’s eyes when he knew he’d been beaten to the draw.

  “Adios, Jake,” Frank whispered as he pulled the trigger on his Peacemaker.

  The thunder of a gunshot echoed up and down the main street of Abilene. For a fleeting moment, all was still until the sound faded.

  Jake Allison’s knees quivered. A red stain began to spread across the front of his vest. He let his pistol fall to the caliche roadway—it landed beside his right boot, making a soft thud.

  A whispered gasp escaped the lips of onlookers. All eyes were on Jake as he took a half step backward on uncertain, trembling legs.

  “Goddamn you, Morgan!” Jake bellowed, still full of fight even though his legs wouldn’t support him.

  Frank moved toward his mortally wounded adversary, still clutching his pistol. Jake sank to his knees, reaching for the hole in his chest.

  Now murmurs of whispered conversation spread through the onlookers. Frank came to a halt a few yards from Allison and the puddle of crimson forming around him.

  “I warned you,” Frank said, lowering his weapon.

  Jake rocked back on his haunches with blood pouring between his fingers. “Ain’t . . . nobody . . . that fast,” he stammered as more blood began to dribble from his mouth, proof of a lung wound that would claim his life in minutes.

  “Think about those Miller brothers while you die, Jake,” Frank said while bystanders edged closer to the scene of Allison’s death. “They were kids. Young cowboys barely old enough to shave.”

  “Like hell!” Jake spat, weaving back and forth as he sat on his rump.

  “No sense arguing about it now,” Frank told him. “You’re the same as dead.”

  The crowd around Frank and Jake parted as a man with a star on his shirt hurried up to them.

  “Frank Morgan, you’re under arrest!” Sheriff Stokes barked as he swung a shotgun up at Frank.

  “What’s the charge?” Frank asked.

  “Cold-blooded murder.”

  “He drew first,” Frank protested, still holding his gun at his side.

  “That ain’t the way I saw it, Morgan. Now drop that damn pistol an’ throw your hands in the air!”

  Frank glanced around him. Half a hundred people had been witnesses to what had happened. “These folks saw it. Allison went for his gun and I had to defend myself.”

  Sheriff Stokes was about to speak when someone from the crowd spoke up.

  “That’s right, Sheriff. Morgan wouldn’t draw first against Allison. We all seen it.”

  Stokes gave the speaker a glare. “What the hell would you know about anything, Jimmy?” he growled.

  Then a woman’s voice came from the back of the group. “I saw it myself, Sheriff Stokes. Mr. Allison took out his gun before Mr. Morgan did.”

  Stokes glanced at the woman. “Are you right sure, Miz Wilkinson? I sure wouldn’t question the word of the preacher’s wife.”

  “I’m quite sure of what I saw, Sheriff, and I’ll testify to it in court.”

  The sheriff’s shoulders slumped. He lowered his shotgun and looked at Frank. “Maybe I didn’t see things none too clear from where I was in front of my office,” he said in a much quieter voice.

  Frank holstered his Peacemaker. “All this dust, when the wind blows, can get in a man’s eyes,” he said.

  At the same moment Jake Allison fell over on his face and let out a moan.

  “I reckon somebody oughta send for Doc Weaver,” the sheriff said.

  “No need,” Frank said absently, turning away: “He’ll be dead before a sawbones can get here.”

  Stokes spoke to him as he was striding away.

  “What makes you so all-fired sure of that, Morgan?”

  Frank stopped just long enough to glance over his left shoulder. “I put a bullet through his heart. Looks like it might have nicked his lung. Either way, he’s headed for an undertaker.”

  Curious citizens of Abilene backed away from him as he strode from the scene. He had taken another life, adding to his fearsome reputation, and yet he hadn’t wanted things to end this way. He would have preferred to see Jake Allison stand trial for the murder of the Miller brothers.

  It seemed trouble, and gunplay, followed him wherever he went.

  He rode out of Abilene that day with a warning ringing in his ears, to stay clear of that part of Texas if he wanted to avoid trouble with the law.

  * * *

  “You were dreamin’.”

  He heard the voice, and focused on the fuzzy face hovering above him.

  “I woke you up ’cause you seemed to be real agitated about somebody named Jake.”

  He recalled the dream vividly. “Jake Allison,” he croaked, his throat dry.

  “Who was he?” Karen asked.

  “A man I had to kill. It happened a long time ago. Don’t know why I was dreaming about it.”

  “Your fever’s gettin’ worse. Pa went out to fetch some aspen bark so I can brew you some tea.”

  “Aspen bark?”

  “It helps with a fever sometimes. Your wound’s gettin’ worse. Pus is comin’ out of it now.”

  “I’ve gotta get back to that valley. Pine and Vanbergen will get away from me again . . . I lost ’em once, but it won’t happen again.”

  “Pa says they’re still there, only today two more men come ridin’ into the ghost town.”

  “Two more?” Frank tried to clear his head.

  “Pa slipped down close on foot the other night. He heard their names.”

  “The other night? How long have I been asleep?”

  “Two days. You woke up every now an’ then so I could give you some soup an’ whiskey.”

  Frank couldn’t quite believe that he’d been unconscious for two days. He could see Karen’s face clearly now. “The names of the other two ...”

  “What about ’em?”

  “What were their names?”

  She frowned a moment. “One was named Cletus. They called the other one Conrad. Pa was sure hopin’ it wasn’t that boy of yours.”

  He tried to bolt upright on the cot and could scarcely move. “That isn’t possible. Conrad is safe down in Trinidad in the south part of the territory.”

  “Pa only said that was his name. You can ask Pa soon as he gets back.”

  Frank couldn’t imagine how anyone could have taken Conrad from Trinidad a second time. Pine and Vanbergen were in Ghost Valley. Who was left among them that could take his son captive again? “Your pa must have been mistaken . . . about one of ’em being named Conrad.”

  “He told me that he slippe
d up right close in the dark an’ heard ’em talking.”

  “Go find Buck. I have to ask him if he’s sure about that name.”

  “He’ll be back right soon. There’s aspens down by the creek and you’ve got to have the bark so your fever will go down.”

  Frank closed his eyes briefly. Had he been so careless as to leave Conrad alone when he went after Ned and Victor? Had one of their gunmen taken Conrad captive again?

  “Where are my boots?” he asked feebly.

  “Right at the foot of the bed . . . only you ain’t gonna be needin’ ’em for a day or two.”

  “My shirt. My mackinaw,” he continued, ignoring what the girl said for now.

  “Hangin’ on pegs over yonder on the wall,” she replied, giving him a strange look. “Only you ain’t strong enough to get dressed yet.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” he said. “If my boy is in that valley, I’m going after him right now.”

  “You’re too weak to climb on your horse,” Karen said flatly as she put her hands on her hips. “And if you did get in the saddle, you’d fall off on your head. You’ve got a bad fever from your wound.”

  “I can manage it. Bring me my shirt and my boots.”

  “Not till Pa gets back, I won’t.”

  “Then I’ll do it myself,” he said, swinging his legs off the cot, closing his mind to the waves of pain racing from his left shoulder.

  Dog left his place by the potbelly stove and came over to him. Frank braced himself to stand up, leaning forward, placing his feet wide apart.

  Suddenly, a wave of swirling black fog enveloped him and he knew he was losing consciousness.

  “I told you so,” the woman said, sounding as if she said it from far away as everything went dark around him.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Cletus watched Conrad being tied to a sagging hide-bottom chair with coils of lariat rope. A coal-oil lamp lit up the room, illuminating the faces of hard men gathered inside the shack.

  “Here’s your prize,” Cletus said, aiming a thumb at Conrad Browning.

  Ned Pine nodded. “What happened to his ear?”

  “Diego had to cut it off to keep him quiet. He was makin’ too damn much noise.”

  “What happened to Diego Ponce?”

  “I had to kill him.”

  Victor Vanbergen gave Cletus a one-sided grin. “You can be one mean hombre, Cletus.”

  Cletus looked around the shack. “I don’t take shit off nobody. Now, where’s this kid’s old man? An’ where’s my ten thousand dollars?”

  “Morgan is here. He’s already taken down a few of our men,” Ned said. “Then we gave him a little dose of his own bitter medicine.”

  “He surely ain’t out in this snowstorm?”

  “He’s found himself a hidin’ place. Seems like he’s got a partner too. There was this rifle shot from up on the valley rim while Morgan was down here.”

  “Where’s Morgan now?”

  “Skeeter swears he got him with a rifle shot in the back a few days ago,” Victor said, inclining his head toward the man called Skeeter.

  “How in the hell am I gonna get my money if the son of a bitch is dead?” Cletus demanded.

  “He ain’t dead. Skeeter found blood, an’ tracks in the snow. Two sets of tracks, so we know his partner, whoever the sumbitch is, helped him hide from us.”

  “I ain’t gonna wait here all spring to get my money, Vic. You said ten thousand dollars for bringin’ the kid out of Trinidad to this valley. By God, that’s what I’ve got comin’ to me an’ you know it.”

  “We’ll find Morgan,” Ned promised. “You know damn well he’s got the money, much as he cares for this snot-nosed sissy kid of his.”

  “I ain’t gonna wait long,” Cletus said. “I damn near froze my ass off gettin’ him up here. This wasn’t no easy place to find on that map you give me.”

  “It won’t be long,” Victor said. “As soon as this snow lets up we’ll start lookin’ for him and whoever his partner might be. He won’t get away from us. There was a helluva lot of blood on that snow where Skeeter got him.”

  Cletus walked over to the fireplace, warming his hands above the flames. “Pass me one of them jugs of whiskey. An’ some of them beans in this here pot. I’m half starved, half froze, an’ damn sure thirsty.”

  He noticed that the kid was shivering. The bandanna covering his missing ear tip was covered with frozen blood. “You might oughta feed this skinny bastard too, so’s we can keep him alive until Morgan comes up with the money.”

  Ned handed Cletus a bottle of Old Rocking Chair. “This’ll help warm your innards until this damn spring storm lets up a bit.”

  Cletus pulled the cork and took a big swallow.

  “How come you had to kill Diego?” Victor asked.

  “He was gettin’ on my nerves,” was all Cletus said, drinking again. “Somebody fix me some of them leftover beans. An’ put them horses outside in the shed. We rode ’em mighty hard to get here.”

  One of Ned’s gunmen picked up a tin plate to fill it with beans. Another cowboy left by the front door to take care of the horses. But for the moment all eyes were on Cletus.

  “Morgan better have that money,” he said, gulping down more whiskey to warm his insides.

  “He’ll have it,” Victor said. “He’s worth a ton of money, an’ this kid is all he’s got. He wouldn’t have rode all this way without it.”

  “I’ve heard about Morgan,” Cletus said, taking the plate of beans, resting the bottle on the hearth. “He was supposed to be fast with a gun some years back. Smart too.”

  “We’ve got his kid. It changes things,” Ned said as he came over to the fire.

  “Maybe,” Cletus said, filling his mouth with spicy red beans and chunks of salt pork. He glanced at Conrad. “Better feed the little bastard. He ain’t got much meat on his bones. If Morgan has the money we’ll give him the boy. If he don’t, I’ll kill the boy and his daddy myself.”

  Cletus walked over to a window of the shack. “I seen half a dozen Injuns on my way down into the valley. What the hell are they doin’ here?”

  Ned shrugged. “They don’t bother nobody.”

  “What breed are they?”

  “We ain’t rightly sure. Some ol’ geezer we talked to claims they’s ghosts.”

  “The ones I saw damn sure wasn’t ghosts,” Cletus said around a mouthful of beans. “Besides, there ain’t no such things as ghosts anyhow. One funny thing I remember about ’em . . . they didn’t have rifles. They just sat there on skinny Injun ponies an’ watched us ride down.”

  “Don’t pay ’em no heed,” Ned said.

  Cletus left the window to retrieve the bottle while he forced more beans into his mouth. “All I care about’s that damn cash money for bringin’ the kid. Injuns or no Injuns, I’d damn sure better get paid.”

  “You’ll get your money,” Victor said. “Morgan will try to take back his boy without payin’, but we’re ready for that if it happens. Besides that, he’s wounded now. We got him right where we want him.”

  “You want me to untie this kid?” Skeeter asked, holding a tin plate of beans.

  Ned gave the boy a glance. “Yeah. Untie him so he can eat. He damn sure won’t be goin’ no place.”

  Skeeter chuckled and put the plate down to begin untying the rope.

  Conrad spoke, his teeth chattering. “My father won’t pay a dime to have you release me,” he said. “He left me and my mother before I was born. He doesn’t care what happens to me. You’ve all wasted your time.”

  Cletus wheeled toward the chair where Conrad was sitting. “You’d damn sure better be wrong about that, boy, or this is where somebody’ll be diggin’ your grave.”

  Skeeter gave Conrad a yellow-toothed grin. “We’ll be buryin’ you right beside your pappy, sonny, if this ground ain’t too froze to dig.”

  “He won’t pay,” Conrad said again.

  “He’d damn sure better,” Ned snapped, glaring at the youth wi
th slitted eyes.

  A gust of wind rattled a loose windowpane on one side of the shack. Cletus almost dropped his plate of beans to reach for his pistol.

  “You’re kind’a jumpy, ain’t you?” Victor asked.

  Cletus directed a cold stare at Vanbergen. “It’s what keeps me alive.”

  Conrad began to cough, holding his sides, ignoring the beans he’d been offered.

  “What the hell’s the matter with him?” a gunslick asked.

  “Who gives a damn,” Cletus said. “All he’s gotta do is stay alive until we collect that money. He can cough his goddamn head off for all I care.”

  “Reckon we oughta put somethin’ on his ear?” Skeeter asked softly.

  “Hell, no,” Ned answered. “Leave him be. He ain’t gonna bleed to death from no scratch like that. Hell, it’s just a part of his ear.”

  Skeeter ducked his head and went over to the fireplace, taking down a tin coffeepot. “I’ll go out an’ fetch some more snow so’s we can have fresh coffee. This shit tastes like wagon grease.”

  “Suit yourself,” Ned told him. “Just be careful walkin’ around out there. We don’t know who’s with Morgan . . . but we do know he’s a pretty damn good shot.”

  “I won’t have to go far,” Skeeter replied, pausing after he opened the door. “It’s still snowin’ like hell out yonder. I damn sure ain’t took no likin’ to this here north country. Be glad to get back where it’s warm.”

  Skeeter went out into the storm, closing the door behind him.

  * * *

  Skeeter Woolford tasted fear while he was out gathering fresh snow. There was something about Cletus Huling that gave him a dose of worry.

  He saw Sammy coming toward him in the darkness after putting the horses in the shed behind the shack.

  Sammy walked up to him, speaking in low tones. “We’d best keep an eye on that Huling feller,” he said. “I don’t trust a man who’ll kill his partner just ’cause he claims he got on his nerves.”

  “I was thinkin’ the same thing,” Skeeter said. “He’s liable to rob us of all the money after we get it, or kill every damn one of us in our sleep.”

  “He’s damn sure a sneaky bastard,” Sammy agreed. “I won’t sleep a wink till this is over.”