“Is that right?” Frank looked at the blacksmith. “You and me are friends, aren’t we?”
An improbable grin split the blood-smeared visage of the man. “I never saw you before, but right now there’s no doubt you’re the best friend I’ve got in this world, mister.”
Frank turned his attention back to the other men and shrugged. “There. You see?”
“I don’t see nothin’ except some dumb son of a bitch stickin’ his nose in where it ain’t wanted. Are you blind? I’ve got a gun here.”
“So do I,” Frank said.
“There’s four of us and only one of you.”
“Those are pretty bad odds, all right, but I reckon if you don’t mind being outnumbered, that’s your choice.”
It took a second for them to understand what he was saying, but the blacksmith got it right away. He gave a hearty laugh and said, “That’s a good one.”
The gunman’s face flushed a deep red with anger. He growled at his men, “Forget about Craddock. I’ll cover him. Just teach this bastard a lesson he’ll never forget.”
The two men holding the blacksmith’s arms let go of him and stepped toward Frank. The one who had been handing out the beating moved toward him, too.
If Frank had been expecting any help from the blacksmith, it looked like he was going to be disappointed. The burly, bearded man tried to stay on his feet, but he had taken too much punishment. He slipped to his knees and then crumpled the rest of the way to the ground, breathing harshly through his flattened nose.
“You never did tell us your name, mister,” said the man who had been hitting the blacksmith. He flexed knobby-knuckled hands and then closed them into big fists. “I like to know whose bones I’m breakin’.”
“My name is Frank Morgan,” the Drifter said.
And while they were digesting that, he stepped in and busted the first man square in the face.
5
Frank wasn’t muscle-bound. In fact, he was fairly slender. But his punch packed plenty of power and exploded in the man’s face like the kick of a Missouri mule. The man went backward in a hurry and crashed into the two men behind him. All three of them went down in a tangle of arms and legs.
That drew the attention of the man with the gun, and before his eyes could flick back toward Frank, the Peacemaker was in Frank’s hand and was lined up on a spot right between the man’s eyes.
“I wouldn’t pull that trigger if I was you,” Frank advised.
The man’s eyes were wide with surprise and anger and a little fear. “How did you . . . My gun’s already drawn, damn it!”
A faint smile touched Frank’s lips. “First isn’t always best. Just usually.”
“I could still kill you.”
“Maybe. Just maybe. But you’d never know one way or the other, because you’d be dead first.”
The gunman’s chest rose and fell raggedly as he struggled with his emotions. On the ground a few feet away, the other three toughs sorted themselves out and scrambled up, but they hung back since Frank had drawn his iron. They were handy at beating up a man they had the drop on, but clearly they had no interest in going up against an enemy with a gun in his hand.
Frank was getting tired of standing there. He prodded, “Well? What’s it going to be?”
The blacksmith groaned, pushed himself onto hands and knees, and reached over to grasp the length of wood that his attacker had dropped a few minutes earlier. “Let me have ’em, mister,” he rumbled. “You just keep Grady covered, and I’ll handle the other three.”
“Are you in any shape to do that, friend?” Frank asked.
“Not really,” the blacksmith replied with a bloody grin. “But I’m going to anyway.”
Frank smiled without taking his eyes off the man with the gun. “Have at it, then,” he said by way of invitation.
Seeing that they were going to have no choice but to fight, the three men tried to jump the blacksmith first, before he had a chance to get set. One of them went in low, tackling him around the knees. The other two swung punches aimed at his head and body.
The blacksmith used the club to block the blow coming at his head and shrugged off the other punch which thudded into his barrel chest. He whipped the club around backhanded. It crashed into the shoulder of one of the men, who cried out in pain and lurched back, that arm dangling limply. He’d been hit so hard his whole side was probably numb.
With a heave, the man who had tackled the blacksmith threw him off his feet. The smith landed heavily but held on to the club. He rolled aside as his enemies tried to kick him. An arm like the trunk of a small tree swept out and knocked the feet out from under one of the men. At the same time, the blacksmith brought his club up between the legs of the other man and slammed it into his groin before he could get out of the way. The man shrieked in agony, doubled over, and fell to the ground clutching at himself.
That left only one man uninjured. The one who’d been hit on the shoulder was leaning against a wagon parked behind the blacksmith shop, holding his shoulder, and whimpering from the pain of broken bones. He might not ever be able to use that arm properly again.
The uninjured man was on the ground. He scuttled backward, scooting his butt in the dust, as the blacksmith stood up and turned toward him. “That’s enough!” the man cried, holding out a palm toward the blacksmith. “Enough, Craddock!”
Frank noticed that the man was the one who had been doing the beating while the other two held the blacksmith, so he wasn’t surprised when Craddock’s pulped lips curved in a grisly smile. Craddock said, “Enough? Not hardly.” He stalked after the retreating man.
“Stop him,” the man with the gun said to Frank. “He’ll kill Grant! He’s insane!”
“No, he’s probably just mad as hell,” Frank said. “And I don’t reckon I blame him.”
The gunman finally lowered his pistol and slid it into his holster, ending the standoff. “Look, that’s it,” he declared. “You win, Morgan. Just call off that brute before he kills somebody!”
“Hey, Craddock,” Frank said, not holstering his Colt yet. “Are you going to kill that son of a bitch?”
The blacksmith hesitated and then finally shrugged. “No, I don’t suppose I will.” He tossed the club aside. “I want to make sure he remembers me, though.”
He reached down with both huge hands and grabbed Grant by the front of his shirt. Jerking the man up, Craddock began to shake him. “Thought it would be fun to gang up on me, didn’t you?” Craddock growled as Grant’s head flopped violently back and forth. Grant didn’t put up a fight.
Like a dog with a rat, the big blacksmith shook the bully for a long moment, until Frank began to think Grant’s neck might break. Before that could happen, Craddock tossed the man aside. Grant flew limply through the air like a toy carelessly discarded by a child and crashed to the ground, rolling over several times when he landed. When he came to a stop, he lay there motionless, out cold.
Frank looked around the little yard. Three of the men were either unconscious or incapacitated. The fourth man was pale with anger and more than a little fear. Frank said to him, “You’d better figure out a way to get your pards out of here. Then hit the trail, all of you.”
Grady swallowed. “I’m just one man. I can’t handle all of them.”
“Where are your horses?”
“Out front,” Grady answered sullenly.
“Bring ’em around here and load the men one at a time. Tie them in the saddle if you have to. Just get out, and be quick about it.”
“Or what? You’ll murder all of us?” The man couldn’t stop a brief sneer from appearing on his face. “I’ve heard about you. You’re a gunfighter, the one they call the Drifter. Nothing but a low-down killer.”
Frank’s lips curved in a humorless smile. “If I was as bad as I’m painted sometimes, you’d be dead by now, mister. You’d best remember that. Now get moving.”
Muttering curses, Grady fetched the horses and struggled to lift his friends, on
e by one, into their saddles. Finally, all the men were mounted, although a couple of them were only half-conscious and had their hands full just staying on their horses. The other man, the one with the busted shoulder, couldn’t handle the reins. Grady gathered up all the reins and led the other horses as he rode out, casting a final venomous stare over his shoulder at Frank.
“You made some bad enemies today,” the blacksmith said as the bullies rode out of sight.
Frank slid his iron back into leather. “If men like that weren’t my enemies, I’d know I was doing something wrong. I hate to think about what sort of world it’ll be if folks ever stop standing up to varmints.”
“Yeah.” The blacksmith thrust out a hand. “I’m Reuben Craddock, and I’m much obliged to you, Mr. Morgan.”
“Make it Frank.” Smiling, Frank shook Craddock’s hand. He could feel the awesome power in the blacksmith’s grip, but Craddock restrained it. Clearly, Craddock didn’t feel the need to prove anything, and that was the sort of man Frank liked.
“Did you come here looking for someone to do some blacksmith work, Frank?”
“Yeah, my horse threw a shoe,” Frank replied with a nod. “He’s out front with my dog.”
Reuben nodded. “Let me get cleaned up a bit, and I’ll tend to it right away. No charge.”
“That’s not necessary,” Frank objected.
“Believe me,” Reuben said with a grin, “you’ve more than paid in full.”
* * *
After Reuben had put the new shoe on Stormy, he asked Frank to stay for supper, and Frank took him up on the offer. The blacksmith’s quarters were in a small house next to the shop. “I can’t promise you anything fancy,” Reuben said as he led Frank into the house, “but I’m a pretty fair cook when it comes to simple things.”
“Simple is fine with me,” Frank assured him. He had left Stormy in a shed behind the house along with Reuben’s mule. Dog was out there, too, gnawing on a bone that Reuben had given him.
“I’ve got beans soaking. I’ll get them started cooking.”
The furnishings in the house were strictly utilitarian, except for a bookcase full of leather-bound volumes. Frank had thought that Reuben sounded like an educated man, and the sight of the books confirmed it. He went over to look at the titles. Reuben noticed and asked, “Are you a reading man?”
“I always have a book or two in my saddlebags,” Frank replied. “I’ve found they make for mighty good company on the trail.”
“Or anywhere else,” Reuben agreed. “Have you read Mark Twain’s new one about Huckleberry Finn? It’s there on the shelf.”
Frank found the book, took it down, and flipped through the first few pages. “Tom’s friend from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?”
“That’s right. Or Howells’ new one, The Rise of Silas Lapham, is there, too. You can take them with you if you want. I’ve read both already. I have books sent down from a store in Fort Worth on a regular basis.”
Frank found the Howells novel and added it to the Twain. “You’re sure?”
Reuben waved a hand. “Of course. Once read, a book should be passed on.”
“Well, I’m obliged.”
“Not as much as I am. Those bastards were having so much fun they might have killed me.”
Frank set the two books on a small table and turned to look at the blacksmith. There was a serious expression on his face as he asked, “What was that all about, anyway?”
Reuben frowned as he stirred the beans simmering in a pot on the black cast-iron stove. “They came in to have one of their horses shod. But before I could even get started on the job, they started making comments about dumb blacksmiths. I told them that if they felt that way, they could take their business somewhere else.” Reuben shook his head. “They didn’t care for that. Grady pulled a gun and covered me while Chadwick, Thomas, and Grant jumped me.”
“You know them?”
Reuben’s broad, powerful shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “They’ve worked on various ranches around here. Mostly, though, they just hang around in the saloons in Granbury and Glen Rose and cause trouble.”
“They’re liable to come back and try to even the score.”
“I’m not afraid of them,” the blacksmith said. “Next time I see them coming, I’ll grab my Greener and be ready for them.”
Frank nodded slowly. “Just keep an eye out for them,” he advised. “Maybe they’ll decide that coming after you again is too much trouble.”
“Trouble’s what they’ll get if they bother me again, that’s for sure.”
Reuben cooked some cornbread and fried up a mess of bacon to go with the beans. It was a good supper. Frank ate hungrily, relishing the simple but tasty fare.
Reuben sat across from him, and as the blacksmith breathed, Frank could hear the air whistling in the man’s swollen, broken nose. He said, “Shouldn’t you have a doctor look at that nose?”
“No, that’s not necessary,” Reuben said. “It’s been broken before. I pushed the cartilage back into place already. It’ll just have to heal.”
Frank smiled. “Not many men could tend to their own broken nose like that. Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Sure. But pain is a part of life, isn’t it?”
Frank thought about Dixie and the way her loss would always be a dull ache inside him. He had never completely gotten over the death of his first wife, and he knew that losing Dixie would stay with him, too.
“Yes,” he agreed quietly, “pain is a part of life, right enough.”
The two men ate in silence for a while, and when Frank spoke again, he changed the subject. “I appreciate those books you said I could take with me. I’ve only got one in my saddlebags at the moment, but I’ll trade it for the other two. You ever read anything by Henry James?”
Reuben frowned in thought and then shook his head. “I can’t say that I have. Is his work any good?”
Frank grinned. “Well, you might say he chews more than he bites off, but some of what he writes is pretty interesting. He’s no Ned Buntline or Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, though,” he added, naming a couple of prolific, popular dime novelists. Frank had actually met Edward Judson, the man behind the Buntline pseudonym.
When they had finished eating, Reuben asked, “You’ll stay the night, won’t you? I can sleep out in the shed and you can have my bunk—”
“That’s not necessary,” Frank told him. “I’ll spread my bedroll in the shed and be obliged for it.”
“You’re sure?”
Frank nodded. “Certain. You can feed me breakfast in the morning, though,” he added with a smile. “And brew up a pot of coffee.”
“I can sure do that.”
They turned in a short time later, Frank pitching his bedroll in the shed as he had told Reuben he would. He never minded the company of Stormy and Dog, and the blacksmith’s mule seemed all right, too. He had a final smoke, then stretched out on his blankets and went to sleep with an animal-like speed and ease.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when his eyes suddenly snapped open and he was instantly awake. But he was certain of one thing because all his instincts told him it was true.
Trouble was afoot in the darkness.
6
The first thing that Frank noticed was the smoke. Not tobacco smoke from a quirly or a pipe, but wood smoke. He pushed himself up on an elbow and took a deeper sniff. Definitely wood smoke. Something nearby was burning, and on a warm summer night like this, no one would have lit a fire in a fireplace.
Dog growled deep in his throat, and Stormy shifted around in the stall. Knowing that his animal friends were bothered by something was the last bit of confirmation Frank needed. His gun belt was coiled close at hand, and as he came smoothly to his feet, his fingers closed around the wooden grips of the Peacemaker. He pulled the iron from leather.
A crackling sound reached his ears and the smell of smoke was stronger as Frank stepped out of the shed and looked around. The back door of the blacksmith sho
p was open, and a red glare came from inside.
“Damn it,” Frank grated. He knew the smoke and the glare weren’t coming from the forge.
He started toward the door, but he had taken only a couple of steps when something hit him from behind, slamming across his shoulders and knocking him forward. He sprawled on the ground as pain shot through him, but somehow he managed to hang on to the Colt. As he rolled over, he saw the stars above him blotted out suddenly by a looming shape. In a heartbeat, he recognized the shape as a man standing over him with some sort of bludgeon lifted over his head, ready to bring it down in a crushing blow.
Frank fired. Even with the pain of being struck down from behind, his aim was accurate. The bullet hit whatever it was his attacker was using as a club and knocked it out of his hands. At the same time, Frank’s leg snapped out in a kick. His heel caught the man in the kneecap and sent him down with a cry of pain.
Frank kept rolling and used the momentum to help him come up on his feet. As he turned toward the rear of the blacksmith shop, another man came running out the door. Frank shouted, “Hold it!” but the man kept moving. Colt flame bloomed in the darkness as he snapped a shot at the Drifter.
That made it clear what the rules were in this fight, as if that wasn’t the case already. Frank heard the wind-rip of a slug past his ear and then returned the fire, the Peacemaker bucking in his hand as it roared. The man who had just emerged from the blacksmith shop spun crazily, lurched to the side, and then fell back against the wall of the building. He slumped to the ground and didn’t move.
The man whose leg Frank had kicked out from under him scrambled back to his feet and tried to limp away. Frank caught up to him easily and swung the Colt in a short, chopping blow. The barrel thudded against the man’s skull. He folded up, stunned.
Frank ran to the door of the blacksmith shop and peered inside. He wasn’t surprised to see flames licking up on all four walls. The man who had been inside must have spread kerosene all around the place and then set it on fire. The other man had been left outside to stand watch.
Violent Sunday Page 4