Savage Country

by William W. Johnstone

  “Then you’re not angry with me?”

  “Not at all.”

  He never had learned when to leave well enough alone. “Not about . . . anything?”

  “Conrad . . .” Her hand tightened on his arm. “I heard about what happened, of course, and I forgive you. I suppose it’s only natural that a man would be tempted by such a brazen hussy. Once we’re married, I know you’ll never stray.”

  “I haven’t strayed,” he said stiffly. “And Miss Callahan is not a hussy.”

  “But . . . parading around . . .” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Naked!”

  “She wasn’t parading around,” Conrad insisted. Just as he had done earlier when Allison McShane was asking him about Frank, he found himself defending Rebel without really knowing why. “She was totally innocent, and I was completely to blame for the unfortunate incident. I just hope that someday she can forgive me for the embarrassment I caused her.”

  “Why would you care whether she forgives you or not?” Pamela demanded. “She’s only a frontier trollop—and she’s trying to get her hooks into my father!”

  So that was it. Pamela was jealous of all the attention Tarleton had paid to Rebel today. Conrad had to suppress the urge to laugh. At the same time, he didn’t like the way she was talking about Rebel.

  “Despite what you may think, Miss Callahan is a lady,” he said.

  “Really? Have you heard the way she speaks? Heavens, Conrad, she sounds like an uneducated bumpkin!”

  “Can you ride a horse all day or throw a lasso or brand a steer?”

  “What? Of course not! Why would I want to do any of those things?”

  “What would you do if someone took a shot at you? Would you keep your head, or would you scream and collapse in a dead faint?”

  Pamela’s eyes narrowed as she looked up at him. “I don’t care for the turn this conversation has taken, Conrad. I think we had better change the subject.”

  “Just don’t call Rebel a trollop or any other names,” he snapped. “She doesn’t deserve them.”

  Pamela glared at him for a moment, and then she said, “My God, despite everything that’s happened, you’re still infatuated with her!”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “I’m not. I offered to forgive you for your utterly boorish behavior, and yet you still leap to her defense!” She pulled away from him, and when he reached for her, she pulled back even more. “I think you should just leave me alone, Conrad,” she said coldly. “Leave me alone, and go somewhere and think about the things you’ve said and done.”

  “All right,” he said. “I will.”

  Her chin lifted defiantly. “And when you’re ready to come back to me and beg for my forgiveness—again—I’ll think about it.”

  “You do that, Pamela,” he said curtly. He turned and stalked out of the Holloway House, well aware that some of the people in the lobby had probably witnessed and perhaps overhead part of that scene. More grist for the rumor mill, he told himself. And he realized with a surge of anger that he didn’t really give a damn either.

  He was glad that he didn’t run into Tarleton and Rebel on his way out of the hotel. As upset as he was, he might have given them a piece of his mind. Without him really thinking about what he was doing, his steps turned toward the Big Nugget. He wanted a drink.

  He didn’t see Jonas Wade when he came into the saloon, but that was no surprise. It was a little early yet. The saloon keeper was also a gambler—which was how he’d gotten the Big Nugget in the first place, of course—and he would probably have a game going later. Conrad thought that he might sit in on it. He had never been much of a poker player, but he needed something to distract him from the troubles with the railroad and the confused mess that his personal life had become.

  Getting a beer at the bar, Conrad carried it over to a table and sat down. He nursed the drink for quite a while as the saloon began to fill up with customers. There were a few townsmen, but most of the men wore the rough garb of miners. A dozen or more mines were located in the mountains not far from Ophir, so Conrad wasn’t surprised by the miners’ presence. Without the business that the miners brought in, this settlement probably wouldn’t exist.

  The saloon girls in their spangled dresses began to circulate through the crowd. One of them paused by Conrad’s table and looked down at him. “Hello, honey,” she said with a crooked-toothed smile. “Remember me?”

  “Of course I do,” Conrad said. “We spoke last night. You’re . . . you’re . . . You know, I don’t believe I ever heard your name.”

  She laughed. “No, I don’t reckon you did. It’s Abby.”

  “Well, then, good evening, Abby. It’s good to see you again.”

  She motioned toward the empty glass in Conrad’s hand. “You want another of those?”

  “You know, I believe I do.” He hadn’t had any supper and he wasn’t that used to drinking, but if the first beer had made him feel good, it stood to reason that another one would make him feel even better.

  Abby went to the bar, and was back in just a few minutes with another full mug of beer. As she bent to set it on the table in front of Conrad, one of the miners at the next table suddenly leaned over and slapped her sharply on the rump. He said, “Hey, now, that’s one hell of a nice ass you got there, gal!”

  Abby jerked forward at the unexpected slap, and the mug slipped out of her hand. It hit the table and overturned, dumping all its contents right in Conrad’s lap. He scraped his chair back and jumped up, furious and mortified at the same time.

  He wasn’t the only one who was mad. Abby turned around and confronted the man who had slapped her. “Keep your damn hands to yourself, mister!” she flared at him.

  The miner was big and brawny and drunk. “Spitfire, eh?” he rumbled as he came to his feet. “Well, c’mere, Red.” He reached for her. “I wanna take you upstairs. I bet a redhead like you’s got freckles all over.”

  His thick fingers clamped around her arm. She pounded a fist against his chest and said, “Let go of me, you bastard!”

  The miner just grinned. “Yeah, you’re full o’ fight, all right. Just the way I like my gals. Ain’t nothin’ more fun than tamin’ one like you.”

  Conrad stepped around Abby and poked a finger against the miner’s broad chest. “The lady asked you to let her go.”

  The man glared at him and said, “What the hell? I don’t see no lady here, just a saloon whore!”

  “Let go of her,” Conrad grated.

  The miner looked down at Conrad’s beer-soaked trousers and laughed. “And why do you reckon I should listen to somebody who can’t even keep from pissin’ all over hisself?”

  That was the last straw. Conrad had long since stopped thinking about what he was doing. It just felt so damned good to be confronting a simple problem directly, with no negotiation, no glib talk, no highfalutin Eastern airs.

  Instead he said, “I’ll piss on you, you son of a bitch!” and slugged the miner in the jaw as hard as he could.

  Chapter 26

  The blow landed cleanly and took the miner by surprise. Conrad had always been rather muscular, and the punch packed enough power so that the miner was thrown backward and lifted completely off his feet. He came crashing down on the table where he and several of his friends had been sitting. The table legs broke and the whole thing collapsed. The stunned miner landed on the floor in the middle of the wreckage as his friends jumped back, yelling in anger.

  That anger was directed immediately at Conrad. “Get that bastard!” one of the men shouted as he lunged forward, swinging a malletlike fist.

  Abby stuck a leg out and tripped him before he could reach Conrad. She snatched up a drink tray from another table and swung it over her head, then brought it down on the man’s skull with a ringing impact. The man sprawled out, knocked senseless.

  But there were still several of his companions bent on handing Conrad a thrashing. As they came at him, he knew he should be scared, but for some r
eason he wasn’t. His blood sang in his veins. He had once heard Frank comment that barbarism was the natural state of mankind. There must have been some truth to that, because he certainly felt barbaric right now.

  Ducking under a roundhouse blow, he stepped closer to the man who had thrown it and hooked a punch into the man’s midsection. Breath laden with whiskey fumes exploded from the man’s mouth as Conrad’s fist sunk almost wrist-deep in his guts. Acting quickly, Conrad brought up a sharp left that clicked the man’s teeth together and glazed his eyes.

  A fist belonging to someone else struck Conrad a glancing blow on the side of the head. The punch landed hard enough to stagger him. He caught his balance and jabbed a right into the face of the man who had hit him. Someone else grabbed him, jerked him around, and struck him in the chest. His enemies were all around him, so he began to flail wildly at them, knowing that whoever he hit had it coming.

  He was only vaguely aware of hearing someone shout, “Hey! It’s the boss! All you Browning men, come on!”

  As more miners threw themselves into the fracas, it quickly went from a small, isolated fight to a full-fledged brawl that threatened to engulf the entire saloon. Conrad was in the middle of it, swinging punches right and left, absorbing the punishment being dealt out to him. He tasted the salty tang of blood in his mouth and didn’t care. His elegant, oh-so-genteel friends back in Boston would probably raise their eyebrows superciliously if they could see him engaged in such pugilistic excesses. He didn’t give a damn. He just wanted to hit somebody.

  When someone bumped into his back, he twisted around and started to throw a punch, but the man shouted, “Hold it, Mr. Browning! It’s me, Bob Elkins!”

  Conrad held back his fist. He recognized the man as one of the workers from the mine his company owned up in the mountains. “Elkins!” he exclaimed. “Is the whole crew here?”

  “Damn near,” Elkins said with a grin stretched from ear to ear across his rugged, blood-smeared face. The battle ebbed and flowed around him and Conrad, but they were able to snatch a few seconds for a shouted conversation. “They’re givin’ hell to those Tarleton men too!”

  “Tarleton!”

  “Yeah. Didn’t you know? That first fella you laid out was Ned Cameron, the foreman up at Tarleton’s mine!”

  So this combat was primarily between Browning men and Tarleton men, eh? Conrad liked the sound of that, and he liked the way his employees had jumped into the middle of the fight on his behalf. That was loyalty for you, by God! He wouldn’t let them down.

  “Let’s clean up those bastards,” he growled.

  Elkins let out a whoop. “I’m with you, Boss!”

  They stood back to back, the wealthy young man from Boston who owned the mine and the brawny miner who toiled there, and their fists wreaked bruising, bloody havoc around them. Men popped up in front of Conrad and he knocked them down again. Exhaustion began to creep over him, but he ignored it. The area around his left eye began to swell, making it hard to see. He didn’t care as long as his vision was still good enough to let him land his punches. Blood flowed like the finest claret, and Conrad Browning was drunk on it. It was the most exhilarating feeling he had ever experienced.

  Eventually, though, someone grabbed him from behind, pinning his arms. He thrashed and cursed for a moment before he realized that it was Bob Elkins holding him. “Take it easy, Boss!” the miner said. “We’ve done whipped ’em all!”

  Conrad’s hair had fallen in his eyes. He tossed his head to get it out of the way and looked around him. The saloon looked like a tornado had struck it. Busted-up tables and chairs were scattered around the room. The bloodied and battered forms of men lay sprawled in the wreckage, moaning softly in their pain. Half-a-dozen miners were still on their feet, and although they looked to be on the verge of collapse, they still had the strength to grin at each other triumphantly. Conrad recognized all of them. They were his men. His warriors.

  The saloon girls and the customers who hadn’t taken part in the epic combat stood around the edges of the room, looking on with expressions of awe. The bartenders peeked over the hardwood, coming out now that the fight was over. Conrad felt a pang of regret as he saw Jonas Wade stepping tentatively through the debris, a devastated look on his face. “My saloon,” the gambler said in a hollow voice. “My beautiful saloon.”

  Conrad shook loose from Elkins’s grip. His reason had returned to him, and even though he had enjoyed the brawl, he felt bad now for the damage it had done to the Big Nugget. Jonas Wade had been friendly to both him and Frank, and Conrad knew he had to make this right.

  “Jonas,” he said as he stepped forward and extended a hand toward the saloon owner, “don’t worry, I’ll pay for all the damages—”

  “Conrad!” Wade exclaimed in surprise. “You were part of this?”

  “Part of it? He started it!” Bob Elkins said proudly. “Decked that son of a bitch Ned Cameron just as pretty as you please!”

  Abby stepped up and said to Wade, “Don’t blame Mr. Browning, Boss. Cameron was being a jackass, as usual, and wouldn’t let go of me. That was after he made me drop a full mug of beer on Mr. Browning.”

  For a moment more, Wade just looked around and shook his head. Then he sighed and took Conrad’s hand. “It’s mighty kind of you to offer to pay for all this—”

  “I insist,” Conrad said.

  Wade shook his head again. “If you were defending one of my girls, then you’re not to blame even if you threw the first punch. Getting your place busted up is just one of the problems of running a saloon, I reckon.”

  “How about this?” Conrad proposed. “Make all of Tarleton’s men pony up for their share, and then I’ll make up the difference in whatever it takes to put this place back right.”

  “Well . . .” Wade rubbed his jaw. “That’s still mighty generous of you. But I might just take you up on it. I haven’t owned the Big Nugget for long, and I don’t have a lot of operating capital.”

  Conrad shook Wade’s hand again and said, “Then it’s a deal.”

  Abby rested a hand on Conrad’s shoulder and said, “Your mouth’s bleedin’, Mr. Browning, and you really ought to get a wet rag on that eye of yours before it swells up anymore. I’d be mighty pleased to take care of you, if you’ll let me.”

  Conrad thought there was more to her words than an offer of nursing care, but if so, he wasn’t going to take her up on it. He would allow her to tend to his injuries, but that was all.

  The fight had knocked all the cobwebs out of his brain. He was thinking clearly now for what seemed like the first time in ages. He knew what he had to do.

  He didn’t know where his father was at this moment, but he hoped Frank was having as good a night as he was.

  * * *

  Frank reacted before anyone else as more arrows began to fly out of the darkness beyond the reach of the firelight. Even with his hands tied behind his back, his finely honed muscles and reflexes enabled him to surge up from the ground and lunge toward the fire. A couple of bounding steps brought him close, and then as an arrow whispered past his ear, he threw himself forward in a rolling dive that landed him beside the unconscious Scheer and the dead torturer.

  One of the hardcases gave a gurgling scream as he pawed at the arrow that had gone through his neck. A sheet of blood flooded down his chest. He fell to the ground, flopping grotesquely as he died.

  Another man spun off his feet as an arrow ripped through his thigh. As he sprawled on the ground, he clawed out his revolver and emptied it blindly into the night as he screamed curses. Another arrow came out of the darkness and thudded into his chest, toppling him over backward.

  Shots roared, the reports echoing off the looming cliff as the gang of saboteurs fought back. By the fire, Frank twisted around and got his hands on the knife that the first man to die had dropped. Working by feel and trying to ignore the chaos around him, he turned the bowie around so that the blade rested against the ropes holding his wrists together. He began to saw des
perately on the bonds, knowing that he was running the risk of cutting his wrists so deeply that he could bleed to death. But he knew he would die anyway if he just waited helplessly with his hands tied behind his back.

  There were enough large rocks scattered around the cavelike area under the cliff so that the hardcases were able to take cover behind them and burn a lot of powder shooting at their unseen adversaries. The problem was that they were firing blind, and there was no way to know if they were hitting any of the Apaches or not. It seemed to Frank when he glanced up that there were fewer arrows flying out of the shadows now, but he couldn’t be sure about that.

  At least the members of the gang weren’t paying any attention to him at the moment. One of the ropes suddenly parted, and after a couple of minutes that seemed much longer, the other bonds fell away too. Frank’s hands were free. He stuck the bowie knife behind his belt and rapidly flexed his fingers, trying to get full feeling back into them as quickly as he could. When he was confident that he could use them normally, he crawled over to Scheer and the dead hardcase. The butt of a gun stood up from the dead man’s holster. Frank snagged the Colt and slid it into his empty holster. Then he rolled the man off Scheer and grabbed the unconscious engineer. One of the dead man’s arms fell in the fire, and the stench of burning flesh filled the air. Frank didn’t take the time to pull the man out of the flames. He started dragging Scheer toward the edge of the camp instead.

  Even though it was dangerous, he thought they had a better chance with the Apaches than with the killers working against the railroad. Scheer would be terribly mutilated by now if not for the timely interruption. For the second time in recent weeks, Frank was in the unusual position of being thankful for an Indian attack.

  “Damn it, Morgan’s gettin’ away!”

  That shout came from Royal as Frank knelt to get his hands under Scheer’s arms and pull the engineer upright. A bullet ripped past Frank’s head as he straightened with Scheer. Letting the unconscious man sag against him and holding him up with his left arm, Frank reached down with his right hand and palmed out the Colt he had lifted from the dead torturer’s holster. He snapped a shot at Royal and made the boss owlhoot dive for cover again behind a boulder.