The Last Gunfighter

by William W. Johnstone

  They split up just outside of the settlement as usual. Grimshaw said they would meet in the back room of the Bull o’ the Woods later. He headed for the Eureka House. He knew that Emmett Bosworth would want a report.

  Grimshaw also knew that Bosworth was going to be mighty damned unhappy with what he had to tell him.

  He paused on the hotel porch to shake as much of the moisture as he could from his hat and his slicker, which he hadn’t gotten around to donning until his clothes were already wet. He went inside, his boots making a squishing sound that drew a frown of disapproval from the desk clerk. The man glanced away hurriedly, though, when Grimshaw returned the look with a cold stare.

  It was late enough that Bosworth would be finished with supper. Grimshaw hoped the timber baron hadn’t brought a woman back to his room with him. He didn’t want to have to stand around waiting while Bosworth got rid of some soiled dove.

  Of course, Grimshaw reminded himself, Bosworth was too good for a common prostitute. He would’ve found some lonely married woman and seduced her, or maybe some spinster who was pretty good-looking when she took off her spectacles and let down her hair. Grimshaw had been with a few gals like that himself, and he knew how wild they could be once they finally let themselves go.

  He shook his head, forcing those thoughts out of his brain. Emmett Bosworth’s love life was the least of his worries. He still had Frank Morgan to kill—and he thought it was possible that Frank might have heard him yelling out there today during that fight with the Terror. If Frank had recognized his voice and knew he was gunning for him…

  A chill that had nothing to do with being soaked went down Grimshaw’s back as he paused in front of the door to Bosworth’s suite and rapped sharply on the panel.

  Bosworth jerked open the door a couple of seconds later. He wore a dressing gown and had one of those big cigars in his mouth. One hand clutched a squat glass with a couple of fingers of whiskey in it. He didn’t waste any time on preliminaries, instead asking curtly, “Did you find Morgan?”

  Grimshaw nodded toward the room and said, “I don’t cotton to standing in the hall.”

  “Fine, fine,” Bosworth muttered impatiently as he moved back. Grimshaw stepped into the sitting room. Bosworth closed the door and went on, “Well?”

  “We found him, but he’s not dead.”

  Bosworth’s teeth clenched angrily on the cigar. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because we found something else at the same time. We ran into the Terror.”

  Bosworth’s eyebrows went up in surprise. He took the cigar out of his mouth and said, “Really? The damned thing actually exists?”

  “I’ve got three more dead men to prove it.”

  “But did you actually see—”

  “The thing was standing as close to me as you are now. Big as life, twice as ugly, and smelled ten times as bad.”

  “Given its history then, I’d say you’re very lucky to be alive, Grimshaw.”

  The gunman nodded. “Yeah. Damned lucky.”

  “I wish you’d been able to kill Morgan, though. Tell me what happened.”

  Grimshaw spent the next five minutes doing that. Bosworth puffed on the cigar as he listened. When Grimshaw was finished, he said, “You’ll be going back out in the morning to resume the search for Morgan, I take it?”

  “We don’t know that he’s still out there.”

  “He was on foot and possibly wounded. Do you really think he got away?”

  “I wouldn’t put anything past Frank Morgan,” Grimshaw said flatly. “He’s done things you wouldn’t think any man could do, and he’s got more lives than a cat.”

  Bosworth waved the cigar. “He’s human like anyone else. Put enough bullets in him and he’ll die.”

  “Yeah, but how many of us will he kill first?”

  “That’s not my worry,” Bosworth replied with a smug look on his face. “I’m paying you to take care of that. You keep losing men anyway,” he added scathingly.

  Grimshaw reined in his temper. Bosworth didn’t understand. But he was rich, so he didn’t have to.

  “Do you need to recruit more men?” the timber baron continued.

  Grimshaw shook his head. “There are still eleven of us. Eleven good men. That’s enough.”

  “I would hope so. But fifteen doesn’t seem to have been enough, at least so far.”

  “Morgan’ll be dead before the end of the day tomorrow!”

  The heated exclamation came out of Grimshaw’s mouth before he could stop it. Bosworth just nodded, though, and grinned. “That’s what I want to hear.” His rugged face grew serious again. “Just be sure you make good on it this time, Grimshaw. Otherwise, I’m going to start thinking that you can’t handle what I need you to handle.”

  “Don’t worry,” Grimshaw snapped. “Morgan’s as good as dead.”

  The look that Bosworth gave him as he replaced the cigar in his mouth spoke volumes. Prove it, Bosworth was saying. Results were all that mattered.

  Grimshaw nodded. He left the room and turned toward the landing. He wanted some dry clothes, some hot food, and a drink. Maybe three or four drinks.

  It might take that many to make him forget, even for a little while, that Frank Morgan might be gunning for him now.

  Erickson stared into the shot glass sitting on the table in front of him. It had about an inch of whiskey in it, and floating in that amber liquid was Sutherland’s face.

  Not really, of course, but Erickson saw it there anyway. It looked just like it did the last time Erickson had seen it. Sutherland’s mouth was wide open in a scream, and his eyes were bugged out so far, it looked like they were going to jump right out of his head. Sutherland was pleading for the others to help him, but there wasn’t a damned thing they could do. The Terror was too fast. It was gone, carrying Sutherland with it.

  Erickson lifted the glass, threw back the drink. Thumped the empty on the table.

  Sutherland still screamed up at him from the glass. Erickson reached for the bottle and poured more whiskey. He’d drown the son of a bitch and make him go away, he thought, no matter how much booze it took.

  The other four men sat around the table in the Bull o’ the Woods, each of them as sullen and somber as Erickson was. They were putting away the whiskey, too. Nobody had said anything for a while. What was there to say? They had seen their friend and partner carried off by a monster. They had spent a long time looking for Sutherland, but hadn’t found hide nor hair of him. Not a single one of them, though, doubted that he was dead.

  “I’m done,” Jenkins abruptly said into the silence.

  Erickson lifted his head to glare at the dour logger. “What do you mean you’re done?” he demanded.

  “Just what I said. Done. Finished. I’m not goin’ back out there, Erickson. Not to fell timber, not to look for Sutherland, and damn sure not to hunt monsters or gunfighters. If you want to go after Frank Morgan and the Terror, that’s your business, but count me out.”

  The whiskey made Erickson angry. So, too, did the fear he had felt that afternoon when the Terror came out of nowhere and snatched Sutherland, but he didn’t want to admit that, even to himself.

  “You’re throwin’ away a big payoff,” Erickson said. “When Chamberlain ups that bounty to twenty grand tomorrow, that’ll be four thousand apiece when we bring in the Terror’s head.”

  Jenkins grunted. “Yeah, or else I’ll wind up with my bones scattered over some godforsaken hillside like Sutherland.”

  “We don’t know the Terror killed him,” Erickson insisted. “He might’ve gotten away.”

  That was such a ludicrous idea that none of them could believe it, even Erickson. The grim certainty of Sutherland’s death was etched on each man’s face.

  Roylston poured himself another drink, tossed it back, and said, “I’m with Jenkins. I’m through monster-huntin’.”

  “Now, damn it, you can’t both back out on me,” Erickson protested.

  “Looks like we just have,” Jen
kins said.

  Erickson turned his head to glare at Dawson and Treadwell. “What about you two? Are you gonna turn tail and run, too?”

  Dawson said, “I’ll stick. You know that.”

  “Yeah,” Treadwell agreed. “We been ridin’ together for a while, Erickson. We’re still with you.”

  Erickson snorted and leaned back in his chair. “Good. I was afraid you two might’ve turned yellow, too.”

  Jenkins gave a hollow laugh and shook his head. “Forget it, Erickson. It won’t work. Roylston and me, we’re loggers, not gunmen. Not hardcases like the three of you. Neither was Sutherland. We just let greed blind us, that’s all. We thought we could throw in with you and be something we’re not. We know better now.”

  “Good riddance then,” Erickson muttered. “I don’t ride with anybody I can’t trust.”

  Jenkins shoved back his chair and got to his feet. “So long then.”

  Roylston stood up as well and gave the other three men a curt nod. He followed Jenkins out of the saloon.

  “Well, we’re back to a three-way split,” Dawson said, “and we didn’t have to kill those bastards to get there.”

  “Yeah, we’re better off without ’em,” Erickson said. He was peering into his glass again, not liking what he saw there.

  “We’re still going after Morgan?” Treadwell asked.

  Erickson frowned. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him around town tonight. He may still be out there somewhere in the woods. Hell, maybe the Terror even got him.”

  “That’d make things simpler for us, wouldn’t it?”

  “It sure would.”

  Dawson said, “We can’t do anything about any of it tonight, so I’m gonna go find me a gal and not even think about monsters and gunfighters for a while.” He downed the last of his whiskey and then settled his hat on his head. “I’d advise you boys to do the same.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Treadwell agreed. “I’ve had enough hooch to deaden the pain in this wounded arm of mine. Maybe I’ll go deaden something else.”

  Dawson laughed. “That don’t even make sense. But I must really be drunk, ’cause it’s funny anyway.”

  The two of them stood up and wandered off, leaving Erickson sitting by himself at the table.

  But not completely by himself. He still had company. He picked up the bottle and muttered, “Have some more whiskey, you bastard,” as he poured the booze down Sutherland’s shrieking throat.

  Grimshaw went through the usual charade with Harry the bartender, got the key to the back room, and sat at the table nursing a drink as the other ten men filtered into the room by ones and twos. They passed the bottle around, and when everyone was there, Grimshaw said, “We’re goin’ out again in the morning to look for Morgan.”

  “Bosworth still wants him dead?” Radburn asked.

  “Why wouldn’t he? What’s changed since this afternoon?”

  “Well, we lost Hargan, Flynn, and Dupree,” Radburn said, naming the three men who had died at the hands of the Terror.

  Grimshaw shook his head. “Why in the hell would Bosworth care about that? We’re just tools to him.” He tilted his glass to his lips and drank. “Just like an ax or a saw to a logger.”

  Hooley said, “Well, by God, I think he needs to pay us more. This is turnin’ into a dangerous job.”

  Grimshaw stared at the man for a couple of seconds, then began to laugh. He couldn’t help it.

  “Yeah, imagine that. Bein’ a hired gun is dangerous work.”

  Hooley flushed. “You know what I mean. It ain’t enough we got to go after Morgan. We have to worry about that damn monster, too. What if it’s on the lookout for us now? We don’t know how smart the blasted critter really is. People seem to think that it’s only attacked folks who happened to run into it. But what if it’s really out there lookin’ for unlucky hombres to rip apart?”

  “I can’t believe none of us hit it, the way we were throwin’ lead around out there,” Radburn mused. “Hell, it looked to me like we put half a dozen bullet holes in it, at least. But the thing never slowed down, never acted like it was hurt.”

  “Maybe somethin’ was watchin’ over it,” Grimshaw suggested.

  “Like a guardian angel?”

  Grimshaw chuckled. “More like a guardian devil, since it looked to me like it crawled up right outta hell.”

  “That’s right,” Hooley said. “You got the best look at it of anybody who’s still alive, Grimshaw. What did it look like?”

  “Like nothin’ you ever saw before. Like nothin’ anybody ever saw before.”

  Except him, Grimshaw thought. He had seen the Terror close up all right.

  But today wasn’t the first time.

  Because Jack Grimshaw was maybe the only man alive who knew for sure who the Terror really was. He knew because he had been there the day the Terror was born, so to speak.

  He wasn’t going to think about that, though. Wasn’t going to think about all the blood that was on his hands because of what had happened in that cabin…He had enough blood on his hands because of his own killings over the years. He didn’t need any more.

  Radburn grinned and said, “It sounds to me like you’re sayin’ the Terror is even uglier than ol’ Hooley here, Jack.”

  “Hey!” Hooley protested. “How’d you like it if I went around comparin’ you to a monster?”

  “Forget it,” Grimshaw snapped. “Everybody have a drink, then go get a whore. Better yet, get a good night’s sleep. You’re liable to need it come mornin’.”

  “How are we gonna find Morgan?” one of the men asked.

  Grimshaw leaned back in his chair and tipped more whiskey into his glass. “I’m not sure we’ll have to worry about that,” he said. “Chances are, Morgan’s going to find us.”

  Bosworth was pacing, smoking, and drinking when he heard the soft knock on the sitting room door. While things were going fairly well, there had been too many complications to suit him. Once that damned gunfighter Morgan was out of the way, things would be simpler again. And if Grimshaw couldn’t do the job and get rid of Morgan, Bosworth would find somebody who could.

  He put those thoughts out of his mind, though, and smiled as he went to the door to answer the knock. The lamps in the hallway had been turned down low, so the light was dim. It was enough, though, to show him the slender figure who stood there, wearing a hooded cape to keep the rain off her hair.

  “I thought you told me you couldn’t come back tonight,” he said.

  “If you’re disappointed, I can leave.”

  “Not at all.” Bosworth stepped back. “Come in, please.”

  She did so, and as he closed the door behind her, she lowered the hood so that the lamplight in the room reflected off her thick, shiny, auburn hair. “He’s asleep,” she said as Bosworth turned toward her. “He won’t wake up until morning.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “I’ve seen what the opium does to him.”

  She shrugged out of the cape. Bosworth took it from her, hung it on a brass hook near the door. The rain had beaded on it. The droplets rolled slowly down the oilcloth fabric, then began to form a wet spot on the rug.

  “Rather irresponsible of him, isn’t it?” Bosworth asked as he ran his hands up her arms to her shoulders. She wore a plain dress tonight, not the sort of gaudy thing she sometimes slipped into when she was visiting him. “What if his services are needed? He swore an oath after all.”

  “What does an oath mean when a man craves what he wants?”

  “What indeed?” Bosworth murmured. He pulled her toward him, brought his mouth down hard on hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body to his.

  When he drew back, his eyes burned with desire. For a while now, he wouldn’t think about monsters, or his rivalry with Rutherford Chamberlain, or all the money he would make when that lease was his and all those beautiful logs were flowing into his sawmills. He wouldn’t even think about that gunfighter, Frank Morgan, an
d the threat Morgan represented to his plans. All he would think about was the woman in his arms.

  And, well, maybe…just a little…about all that money.

  Chapter 24

  By morning, Frank’s fever had broken. The rugged life he’d led, plus his own naturally hardy constitution, gave him the ability to throw off illness fairly quickly. His left arm was mighty stiff and sore, though.

  Ben Chamberlain hadn’t come back to the cave during the night, at least not that Frank was aware of. When Frank walked out into the morning sun, he saw Stormy and Goldy not far away, cropping at the grass. A whistle brought them both trotting toward him.

  He had jerky and coffee in his saddlebags, both of which he craved this morning. He carried a small silver flask of whiskey in there, too, which he also wanted, but for a different reason.

  As soon as he had rekindled the fire in the cave and started the coffee brewing, he tore the sleeve of his shirt back, washed away the dried blood with water from his canteen, uncapped the flask, and dribbled whiskey into the bullet wound on his arm. The pain caused by the fiery liquor made him grunt and grit his teeth, but he kept it up until he was confident that the whiskey had run all through the wound. Then he got a spare shirt from his saddlebags, tore a strip of fabric from it, and used that as a bandage, wrapping it around his arm and tying it tightly with the help of his teeth.

  The efficiency with which he carried this out was a grim testament to how many times he’d been shot over the years. He’d had plenty of experience at patching up bullet wounds, including his own. Too much experience.

  By then the coffee was ready. He drank from the tin cup he always carried with him and ate a couple of strips of jerky. The simple breakfast made him feel almost human again.

  He switched the saddle from Stormy to Goldy, and was trying to figure out the best place to start searching for Ben again when Dog growled. Frank saw the big cur staring into the woods as the hair ruffled up on his neck, and when Frank looked in the same direction, after a moment he spotted Ben standing there. With the long, shaggy hair and the crude coat of pelts he wore, Ben blended into the shadows so that it was hard to see him. But he was there, and Frank put a smile on his face as he said, “Come on out, Ben. We need to talk.”