Frank shook his head. “No, just wounded. I sent Doc Ervin out there to patch him up. But as far as Doc or anyone else in town knows, Longwell accidentally shot himself while he was cleaning his gun.”
“Is Doris all right?”
“She’s fine, just shaken up.”
“What happened to the men who shot Howard?”
“They won’t shoot anybody else,” Frank said flatly.
Roanne looked at him for a long moment without saying anything. Then she sighed and said, “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that, Frank. In fact, I didn’t hear anything you just told me about the Longwells or Captain Wedge and the Rangers.”
Frank nodded and said solemnly, “I reckon that would be the smartest thing you could do, Roanne.”
“I’m touched, though, that you trusted me.”
“You strike me as a trustworthy sort of woman.”
A pleased smile tugged at her lips. “I’m glad to hear that,” she said.
“Good, because I’m going to ask you to look after Dog for me while I’m gone.”
“Of course. I’d be happy to. But where are you going?”
“I can’t stay here tonight. That wouldn’t be proper.”
Roanne laughed. “When a lady gets to be my age, Frank, she places less value on propriety than she might have when she was younger.”
Frank was tempted, but he wasn’t going to take her up on the invitation that was implied in her words. His instincts told him that all hell could break loose at any time, and he wanted to be able to move quickly without having to worry about Roanne’s safety.
“I think I’ll ride on down to the Rocking T,” he said. “There’s enough moonlight so that I can follow the trail with no trouble.”
“Oh.” She sounded a little disappointed. “All right. I’ll take good care of Dog.”
“Before I go, though . . . tell me what’s been going on around here while I was gone.”
Roanne hesitated before she answered, sipping her coffee in an apparent effort to put her thoughts together before she spoke. Finally, she said, “Things have gotten worse, no doubt about that. Captain Wedge seemed furious when he came back without catching the Black Scorpion. He seemed to think that the gang has supporters and informers around here, and he began interrogating people that he suspected of being connected in some way with the Black Scorpion. The questioning got pretty rough at times, from what I heard. But he never found out anything.”
“Reckon that made him that much more angry and frustrated,” Frank commented.
Roanne nodded. “That’s right. He hasn’t actually declared martial law yet, but things are heading in that direction. He relieved our town marshal, Walt Duncan, of his duties and said that the Rangers were completely responsible for maintaining law and order now. He told Heck Carmichael, the operator at the telegraph office, that no messages could be sent or delivered unless they were cleared through the Rangers first. So nobody’s been able to get in touch with the county sheriff, and there’s no deputy on duty up here. But everybody has sort of gone along with that. After all ... Captain Wedge and his men are Rangers.”
Frank nodded slowly. He knew what Roanne meant. The Rangers had such a long record of sterling public service, dating back to the days when Texas had been an independent republic, and they were so well respected that no one really wanted to believe the worst of them. Folks were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, just because they were Rangers.
That was probably the very thing that Wedge had counted on when he decided to go his own way.
If not for the incident at the Longwell ranch, Frank might have thought that Wedge was just being overly aggressive in enforcing the law. The shooting of Howard Longwell, though, was a definite step over the line into outlawry. Once that step was taken, there was no going back.
“Even if Captain Wedge has . . . has turned renegade, why would he want to kill you?” Roanne asked with a puzzled frown. “Why would he think that you represent a threat to him?”
“Other than the fact that he just doesn’t like me, I reckon he knows I’ve got a reputation for sticking my nose in wherever there’s trouble. He knows that I’ve worked with the Rangers—the honest Rangers—before. And I’m called The Drifter for a reason. I usually don’t stay in one place for very long. Could be he’s afraid that if I ride on, word of what he’s doing here will get out and the governor might send in some other Rangers to investigate.”
“Well, it sounds to me like you’d better be very careful:’
Frank nodded. “I intend to be.”
He finished his coffee, scratched Dog’s ears for a minute, and told the big cur to stay there with Roanne. As he straightened and started toward the back door, she stepped closer to him and put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“Frank,” she said softly, “I meant what I said about being careful.”
“So did I,” he told her. And then, with her standing so close to him like that with her face tilted up to his, he did the natural thing.
He kissed her.
It was a sweet, warm kiss that grew in urgency. Frank stepped back before things got too hot and heavy. With a regretful sigh, Roanne let him go.
He slipped out the back door of the building that housed both her business and her home. The night seemed to be peaceful and quiet, but Frank knew that danger could lurk anywhere in the darkness. Whoever had tried to bushwhack him earlier, whether it was Wedge or someone else, might make another attempt on his life. Judging by the way the man had run off so nimbly, none of Frank’s shots had wounded him.
Frank whistled quietly and Stormy came around the building to him. Taking the reins, Frank led the Appaloosa behind the other buildings along San Rosa’s main street until he came to the one where the bushwhacker had lurked. He lit a match and looked for anything that might give him a clue to the gunman’s identity, but he didn’t see anything. Too many people moved along this alley during the day for any footprints to stand out among the welter of prints on the ground.
He did find the sombrero Don Felipe had given him, still lying where it had fallen after being shot off his head. He shook his head ruefully as he saw the neat hole drilled all the way through the high crown. A few inches lower and he’d be a candidate for the undertaker now.
After slapping the sombrero back on his head, Frank mounted up and turned Stormy to the east, riding out of town and circling for a mile or so before angling back to the main road. No one tried to stop him as he trailed south toward the Rocking T.
A low-voiced challenge came from the grove of cottonwoods beside the road. “Hold it right there, hombre,” a man called. Frank couldn’t see him in the darkness, but the tone of menace in the voice told him that the words were backed up by a gun.
Something about the voice was familiar, too, and as Frank reined in, he cast his mind back and tried to figure out who it belonged to. The answer came to him, and he said, “Nick? Nick Holmes?”
This time the voice sounded surprised. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Frank Morgan.”
Cecil Tolliver’s younger son-in-law stepped out from the trees. “Mr. Morgan!” he exclaimed. “What are you doin’ out here in the middle of the night? Ben said he’d heard a rumor you were still in Mexico.”
So that was how Ben had explained it, Frank thought with a grin. The youngster couldn’t come right out and say that he’d seen Frank at the Almanzar hacienda, because then he would have had to explain what he was doing there. And it was likely Ben wanted to keep his romance with Carmen a secret just like she did.
“I’ve been south of the border, all right,” Frank said. He thumbed back the sombrero. “That’s where I picked up this big hat. But I’m back now, and I need to see Cecil.”
“Well, come ahead,” Nick told him. “Just ride a mite easy when you get to the house, so nobody gets trigger-happy.”
“What’s going on, Nick?” Frank asked. “Has there been more trouble while I was gone?”
“Hell, there’s been nothin’ but trouble! I don’t know if it’s Almanzar’s gunnies or the Black Scorpion’s bunch, but rustlers have hit us nearly every night. And the Rangers don’t do a damned thing to stop it! That Captain Wedge treats us like we’re the lawbreakers!”
That didn’t surprise Frank. He could have told Nick that neither Don Felipe Almanzar nor the Black Scorpion were to blame for the problems plaguing the Rocking T and the rest of the border country. If he’d had to guess, Frank would have said that the so-called Rangers under Nathan Wedge were responsible for the rustling. That would explain why they couldn’t catch the wide-loopers: They would have had to chase themselves in order to do that.
It was a nice setup for the Rangers-turned-outlaws ... as long as they didn’t mind betraying everything that their badges were supposed to stand for.
“That’s why your father-in-law has extra guards out?” Frank said to Nick.
“Yes, sir. Every trail in and out of the ranch has men posted on it around the clock. There were a couple of rifles besides mine trained on you when you rode up.”
“Well, keep a sharp eye out for trouble,” Frank told him. “It’s liable to come calling any time.”
With that, he rode on, heading for the ranch headquarters. He had known that he was getting close to the Rocking T boundary line, and the presence of Nick Holmes and the other guards had confirmed that Frank was now riding on the Tolliver range.
Quite a few lights were burning in the ranch house when he came within sight of it. Dogs began to bark when they heard Stormy’s hoofbeats. Several men emerged from the barn and walked out to meet Frank. He saw the rifles in their hands.
“Take it easy, fellas,” he called to them. “It’s Frank Morgan.”
The front door of the house opened and a stocky figure stepped out onto the porch in time to hear Frank identify himself. “Frank!” Cecil Tolliver said. He came to the edge of the porch as Frank rode up to the steps. Waving the rifle-toting cowboys back to the barn, Tolliver went on. “Good Lord, where did you come from? I didn’t know if you’d ever get back this way. We heard you were down in manana-land.”
Frank swung down from the saddle and looped Stormy’s reins around the hitching post beside the porch. As he came up the steps, he said, “That’s right, I’ve been in Mexico for a while. They have the same sort of trouble down there that you do up here, Cecil.”
Tolliver snorted. “How can that be? All our trouble comes from Mexico!”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Frank insisted. “We need to have a long talk.”
“Sounds fine to me. Come on inside. Peg will be glad to see you.” The rancher looked askance at the sombrero on Frank’s head. “Where’d you get that Mexican hat?”
“Mexico,” Frank said. He was really starting to miss his old Stetson.
Tolliver ushered him inside. “The womenfolk have gone on to bed, but Ben and Darrell and I were chewin’ the fat in the kitchen. You’re welcome to join us.”
They went down the hall to the kitchen, where Ben Tolliver and Darrell Forrest were sitting at the heavy, butcher-block table. Ben looked especially surprised to see Frank—and none too happy about it, either. Frank nodded to the young man and said, “Ben, how are you?”
“I’m fine,” Ben said warily. He had to be wondering if Frank was about to spill his secret.
Frank thought about it. It might be better to get everything out in the open right here and now. But he decided to hold off and see what Cecil Tolliver had to say first.
The men had cups of coffee in front of them, and as Tolliver motioned for Frank to sit down at the table, he got another cup and filled it from the pot on the stove. Before this night was over, Frank thought wryly, he was going to have drunk enough coffee to keep him awake for a week. But that was all right, because there was a lot to talk about.
“First of all, tell us about the Black Scorpion,” Tolliver requested when all four men were sitting down. “We know the Rangers caught up to his bunch but let him get away. Captain Wedge said he thought you’d been killed in the ruckus, Frank.”
“Came close,” Frank said with a smile. “I even tangled with the Black Scorpion himself.”
Tolliver slapped a hand on the table. “By God, I hope you gave him a wallop for me!”
“I’m the one who got walloped,” Frank said ruefully. “The Scorpion got away from me ... that time.”
“You met him again?” Darrell asked eagerly.
Frank nodded. “I did. And I found out something about him. He’s not a bandido at all.”
“Not a bandido!” Tolliver burst out. “That’s crazy!”
“Ask the farmers and the other common folks on the other side of the Rio Grande about the Black Scorpion,” Frank said. “They’ll tell you that he and his men were just trying to fight a bunch of brutal, corrupt Rurales. They’re the real bandidos.”
Stubbornly, Tolliver said, “That doesn’t make any sense. I know for a fact that the Black Scorpion and his men have raided on this side of the river.”
Frank nodded. “That’s right. They were trying to break up a smuggling operation that the captain of the Rurales runs on both sides of the border.”
Quickly, Frank filled them in on everything he had learned about Captain Estancia and the Rurales. He didn’t mention that he knew the Black Scorpion’s true identity. Revealing that now wouldn’t serve any purpose.
When Frank was finished, Tolliver said reluctantly, “I suppose there could be something to that. I can believe that a company of Rurales would go bad. From all I’ve ever heard about them, they’ve always been sort of a shady bunch.”
“I think you’ve got something of the same sort going on up here,” Frank said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean the way the Rangers under Nathan Wedge have taken control of everything around here and are running things with an iron fist.”
Tolliver frowned darkly. “We were just talkin’ about that.”
He might have said more, but at that moment footsteps sounded on the porch and one of the cowboys called from outside, “Somebody else comin’, Boss.”
31
The four men stood up and moved quickly to the front of the house. They stepped outside as a buggy rolled to a stop beside the porch. Frank recognized the lean figure of Doc Ervin at the reins. His son Bob sat beside him, a chunky boy with a scowl on his face.
“Hello, Doc,” Tolliver greeted the medico. “What brings you out here?”
“I thought you might like to know what happened to Howard Longwell, Cecil,” Ervin said as he handed the reins to his son. He started to climb down from the vehicle, but paused in surprise when he saw Frank. “Well, I didn’t expect to run into you again so soon.”
“You two know each other?” Tolliver asked.
Ervin nodded toward Frank. “This fellow brought me the news that Howard Longwell had been shot.”
“Shot!”
“That’s right. However, he didn’t mention that Howard was gunned down by some of Wedge’s erstwhile Rangers.”
Frank tensed. “I told you Longwell accidentally shot himself, Doc.”
“Yes, and under the circumstances I forgive you for lying to me,” Ervin said crisply as he came up onto the porch. “I suppose you weren’t sure who you could trust and who you couldn’t in San Rosa.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Frank drawled.
“Howard, however, knew he could trust me, so he and Doris told me what really happened. You saved their lives, sir.” Ervin put out his hand. “Thank you. The Longwells are good people.”
Frank shook hands with the doctor as Darrell Forrest said, “I don’t know what the hell’s goin’ on here.”
“Just what we were afraid of,” Ervin went on. “The Rangers have crossed the line. They’ve gone renegade, damn them.”
Tolliver turned to look at Frank. “So you already knew about Wedge and his men?”
“I got a pretty good idea, pretty fast, onc
e I rode up to the Longwell place earlier this evening and found three of Wedge’s men trying to steal Longwell’s horses after putting a bullet through his shoulder.”
Tolliver cursed in a low, heartfelt voice. “Let’s all go back inside,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
For the next half hour, Frank heard more about how the Rangers had tightened their grip on the area in the past couple of weeks. No massacres such as the one in the Mexican village had been carried out, but other than that the parallels between the situations above and below the border were uncanny. They were so similar, in fact, that Frank began to wonder if there might be some connection. Nathan Wedge and Domingo Estancia knew each other; maybe they had hatched their schemes together. It was something to ponder.
In the meantime, though, there were more pressing problems. Cecil Tolliver thumped a fist on the table and declared, “We’ve got to do something about this. We can’t just let Wedge buffalo us.”
“No one man is any match for the Rangers,” Frank pointed out. “Even with all your crew, Cecil, you’d be outnumbered.”
Doc Ervin said, “That’s why we need to get together, all you ranchers and some of the men from town who aren’t afraid to stand up to Wedge, and figure out a way to act in concert.”
“That’s a good idea, Doc,” Tolliver said enthusiastically. “We can have a meeting here. You’ll spread the word, won’t you?”
Ervin nodded. “I reckon I can do that. I travel all over the area tending to the sick and injured. Wedge won’t be suspicious of me.”
“You’d better send a rider to Austin, too,” Frank suggested to Tolliver. “Write a letter to the governor and ask him to send some honest Rangers down here. That would be a better way to break Wedge’s stranglehold than if you try to fight him yourself. That would just make you and your friends look like criminals.”
“Mr. Morgan has a point,” Doc Ervin agreed. Tolliver scowled. “Maybe so, and I’ll write that letter, but if Wedge gets any more high-handed before the real Rangers can get here, there’s liable to be trouble.” He looked at Frank. “You’ll stand with us if there is?”
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