Frank nodded. He unpinned the badge and slipped it into the pocket of his jeans. Then he unbuckled his own gun belt and looked around for something to do with it.
“I’ll hold that for you, Marshal,” a familiar voice said behind him.
He glanced around to see that Willard Donohue stood in the doorway of the saloon. The mayor of San Remo had an old Henry rifle tucked under his arm. On the boardwalk behind Donohue were several more of the townsmen, all of them holding rifles or shotguns.
A grim smile tugged at the corners of Frank’s mouth. He had underestimated these men. They hadn’t gone home to hide while he confronted Sandeen. They had just gone to arm themselves, and now they were ready to back his play if they needed to.
“Thanks, Mayor,” Frank said. He handed his coiled gun belt to Donohue as he stepped out onto the boardwalk.
Behind him in the saloon, Sandeen ordered, “All you Saber men stay out of this! It’s between Lannigan and Morgan.”
As Frank started out into the street, he heard the heavy clump of Lannigan’s boots on the boardwalk. Suddenly one of the townsmen called, “Marshal, watch out!”
Frank turned and saw that Lannigan had charged him from behind with no warning. He didn’t have time to get his feet set and brace himself before Lannigan slammed into him. Frank’s hat flew off his head from the impact as Lannigan drove him off his feet. Both men crashed to the ground, but Lannigan was on top and his weight drove the air from Frank’s lungs as it landed on him.
As he gasped for air, Frank’s instincts warned him that he couldn’t let Lannigan get him in a bear hug. Frank was taller, but Lannigan was heavier and more powerful. If he trapped Frank in his brutal embrace, he would probably break Frank’s ribs.
Twisting, Frank drove the heel of his hand up under Lannigan’s bearded chin, forcing his head back. That loosened Lannigan’s grip enough so that Frank was able to writhe free and roll over a couple of times, putting a little distance between them. He came up on hands and knees and then surged to his feet just ahead of Lannigan, whose greater bulk made his movements slower and more lumbering.
Frank stepped in and threw a hard right that caught Lannigan on the jaw. Despite his generally slender frame, Frank packed a lot of deceptive strength in his whipcord muscles. The blow landed solidly and drove Lannigan’s head to one side, throwing him off balance. Frank moved closer and hooked a left to the man’s midsection. Lannigan was stocky but not soft. Hitting those slabs of muscle over his belly was almost like punching a wall. He shrugged them off without any effect and launched a roundhouse punch at Frank’s head.
If that blow had connected, it probably would have ended the fight then and there. But Frank was able to duck under it and bore in again, this time landing a whistling right uppercut. Lannigan staggered backward, and Frank sensed a weakness in him. Lannigan might not have a glass jaw, but Frank had already figured out that he could pound away at the man’s midsection all night long without doing any real damage. If he was going to win this fight, he was going to have to concentrate on Lannigan’s head.
That was why he peppered a couple of swift left jabs into Lannigan’s face while he had the chance. The second one made blood spurt from Lannigan’s nose. Lannigan howled in pain and anger. Obscenities spewed from his mouth as he caught his balance and swung wildly. Frank was able to avoid most of those punches, but one of them landed on his chest and had enough power to take his breath away again. Then Lannigan’s other fist clipped him on the side of the head and made the world spin crazily for an instant.
Lannigan must have thought that Frank was hurt worse than he really was. He let out an exultant yell and rushed in to finish off his opponent. Frank met him with another stinging left to the face that slowed him, and then threw a right that landed in the same place on Lannigan’s jaw as the earlier punch. Lannigan staggered.
Frank didn’t give him a chance to recover. He pressed his advantage, slugging with a left, a right, and then another left, all of them aimed at Lannigan’s jaw. Lannigan stumbled backward, pawing feebly at Frank but unable to hold off those crashing fists. With a last-ditch effort, he reached out and grabbed Frank’s shirt, then went over backward, pulling Frank with him.
Going back to the ground was the last thing Frank wanted to do. Once they were down again, the fight turned into a wrestling match, and his speed didn’t do him any good there. He tried to tear himself loose as Lannigan’s big hands closed on him, but the tide of battle was turning again.
Instead of tugging against Lannigan, Frank suddenly went with him as the man tried to pull him in. He lowered his head and butted it into Lannigan’s face. Lannigan hadn’t expected that. His grip slipped, and Frank came free. He pushed himself upright. Lannigan followed, but he was wobbly. Frank brushed past his defenses, hit him with a left, then launched a piledriver right that knocked Lannigan completely off his feet. Lannigan crashed down onto his back, arms and legs loose, and didn’t move as he lay there, out cold.
While the fight had been going on, Frank had been vaguely aware that shouts of encouragement were coming from all around them, mostly from Sandeen’s men as they urged Lannigan to cripple or even kill him. Now a stunned hush fell over the street. Frank’s chest rose and fell as he tried to catch his breath. He wiped the back of a hand across his mouth and looked around, glad to see that the townsmen weren’t celebrating his victory or gloating over Lannigan’s defeat. Instead they stood there watching quietly and soberly, making sure that no one interfered with the fight or tried to come after Frank now that it was over.
Sandeen stepped out onto the boardwalk, looked at Lannigan’s sprawled figure, and shook his head in disgust. “Pick him up and put him on his horse,” he ordered a couple of his men. “We’ll take him back to Saber with us.”
“I thought he drew his time, Sandeen,” Frank said.
The rancher waved a hand. “That was just talk. Carl still works for me.”
“Better keep a tight rein on him.”
“I keep a tight rein on all my men,” Sandeen said, “until it’s time to let them go.”
With that, he motioned for his riders to mount up and take Lannigan with them.
Willard Donohue and Jasper Culverhouse came over to Frank. “That was one hell of a fracas,” Donohue said. “Sandeen and his men know you mean business now, Marshal.”
Frank grunted. “I hope so.” He flexed his fingers, frowning at the pain that went through them as a result of the battering they had taken.
Culverhouse grinned and said, “I got some liniment down at the barn that you can soak those hands in, Marshal. It’ll fix ’em right up. You’ll be fine by mornin’.”
“I hope so,” Frank said.
After all the violence this day had brought with it, from the attack on the line shack to this grudge match in the street, he didn’t like to think about what tomorrow might bring.
Chapter Nine
True to Jasper Culverhouse’s prediction, Frank’s hands weren’t in too bad a shape when he got up the next morning. The knuckles were somewhat sore and swollen, and the fingers were a little stiff. But Frank could use his hands without any trouble, and that was all that really mattered. That liniment of Culverhouse’s was good medicine—even if it was meant for horses and not people.
Frank had other aches and pains as he rolled out of the pile of hay in the loft where he had slept. Some came from the bruising fight with Lannigan, while others were just the result of his age. He had heard it said that it wasn’t really the years that aged a man, but rather the miles that he put on his body. In his case there had been plenty of both—years and miles.
He pulled on his boots, buckled on his gun belt, and settled his hat on his head, then climbed down the ladder to the hard-packed dirt floor of the barn. Culverhouse was nowhere in sight. Frank looked in on Stormy, who appeared to be fine, and rubbed Dog’s head as the big cur nuzzled his leg. “Stay here, and I’ll bring you back something to eat,” he told Dog, then left the barn and walked toward th
e café, eager to find out if Mary Elizabeth Warren’s breakfasts were as good as the supper he’d had the night before.
Judging from the crowd inside the café, they were. Several of the men he had met in the Mogollon Saloon were there, sitting at the tables with platters full of food and steaming cups of coffee in front of them. Frank didn’t see any of the saloon owners, but that came as no surprise; saloons were nocturnal enterprises, and the men who ran them tended to sleep late.
Willard Donohue was at one of the tables, though, along with Simon Wilson and Ben Desmond, the two merchants. Donohue raised a hand in greeting and said, “Come and join us, Marshal. We thought you might be along.”
Frank took the empty chair at the table and nodded pleasantly to the three men. “Mornin’,” he said.
“How are you feeling, Marshal?” Desmond asked. The dapper little storekeeper smiled. “A bit sore, I imagine.”
Wilson commented, “A man would have to be, after a tussle like that one with Lannigan.”
“I’m fine,” Frank told them. “A little stiffer than usual, maybe, but nothing to worry about.”
“Lannigan won’t forget what happened, you know,” Wilson went on. “You’d better have eyes in the back of your head from now on, Marshal.”
“I’ve got pretty good instincts,” Frank said dryly. “And why don’t all of you call me Frank? I’m not much of one for standing on ceremony.”
“All right, Frank,” Desmond said. “I imagine you do have good instincts to have lived this long, a man in, ah, your profession.”
“I didn’t set out to make gunfighting my life’s work. It just sort of happened that way.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean any offense.”
Frank smiled. “None taken. And you’re absolutely right, Ben. I have to know when trouble’s coming. Most of the time I do.”
Mary Elizabeth brought over a cup of coffee and a plate stacked high with flapjacks, bacon, scrambled eggs, and hash-brown potatoes. As she set the food in front of a somewhat puzzled Frank, Donohue chuckled and said, “You don’t order breakfast here, Frank, you just eat what Mary Elizabeth brings you . . . if you’re smart, that is.”
The food and coffee smelled wonderful. Frank took a sip of the strong black brew and nodded appreciatively. “Mighty good,” he told the woman, who smiled back at him.
“You eat up and enjoy your meal, Marshal,” she said. “You know it’s on the house.”
“And I’m much obliged for that.” Frank dug in.
This arrangement might work out pretty well, he thought. After Frank had taken the marshal’s job, Jasper Culverhouse had refused any payment for taking care of Stormy and Dog, and he wouldn’t hear of accepting money for letting Frank sleep in the hayloft. Frank could eat for free at the café, and he supposed he could go down to Pastor McCrory’s church for spiritual comfort and guidance any time he wanted to. He was taken care of, body and soul.
And all he had to do in return was keep the peace in San Remo and try to prevent a bloody range war from engulfing the whole country hereabouts. Just a simple little chore, he thought wryly.
Donohue, Wilson, and Desmond finished their meals before Frank, but they lingered over cups of coffee and kept him company while he ate. Frank took advantage of the opportunity to question them, asking them to fill him in on all they knew about Howard Flynn and Ed Sandeen.
As one of the first settlers in the region, Flynn was known by everyone in these parts and liked by most. That wasn’t to say that he hadn’t rubbed a few people the wrong way over the years. Like a lot of cattlemen, he was accustomed to getting his own way, and he had been known to ride roughshod over anyone who defied him. He had never descended to outright violence against his enemies, though. His intimidating nature and tough crew of riders had been enough to get him what he wanted. The only people he had fought against were rustlers and Apaches. Those he and his men had battled ruthlessly.
Sandeen was a newcomer, having been in the Mogollon country only a few years. Nobody knew where he came from, because he was tight-lipped about his past. He was always well dressed and cultivated an air of culture and education, but despite that he impressed observers as a tough man who was probably dangerous to cross. From the start, he had hired an even saltier crew of riders than Howard Flynn, although it was only in recent months that cold-eyed killers like Vern Riley and Carl Lannigan had started showing up on the Saber payroll.
“Things might’ve been different if Laura Flynn had taken an interest in Sandeen when he tried to court her,” Donohue said. “Might’ve postponed the trouble, anyway. Couple of hombres as full o’ themselves as Flynn and Sandeen likely would’ve butted heads sooner or later, no matter what else happened. But we’ll never know, because Miss Laura wasn’t interested. I reckon she’s got her cap set for Jeff Buckston.”
“Flynn’s foreman?” Frank asked.
“Yeah. She’s fond of him, and I suspect he returns the feelin’. Leastways, I’ve seen him makin’ calf eyes at her while they were both in town and Miss Laura was shoppin’ for supplies.”
“I hear she used to be a schoolteacher back East.”
Wilson said, “Yes. She talked about starting a school here, but there aren’t enough children around to do it, especially if you don’t count the Delgado youngsters. None of them speak anything but Spanish, so Miss Laura would have a hard time teaching them.”
“How does Sandeen get along with his other neighbors?”
“Pretty well,” Donohue said. “But there ain’t all that many of ’em anymore. Sandeen sort of gobbled up all the small spreads around him. Except for a little bit here and there, the other ranches in the area all border the Lazy F.”
“The ranches that Sandeen bought,” Frank said. “Was there anything improper about the way he acquired them?”
“You mean did he force those other fellas to accept his offer at the point of a gun?” Donohue shrugged heavy shoulders. “Nobody could ever prove it if he did. And I don’t know if he actually did that. But I know some water holes went bad and a few barns got burned. Those things happen, you know. Might’ve been pure coincidence that those ranchers decided to sell out not long afterward.”
Frank didn’t doubt for a second that Sandeen had forced those men to sell. Despite his suave exterior, rapaciousness lurked in Sandeen’s eyes. Frank had seen it for himself, and he’d had no trouble recognizing it. He had run into many men over the years who were the same way.
“Has there been any trouble here in town between Sandeen’s men and the Lazy F riders?”
“A few ruckuses, but no real gunplay. One mornin’ one of Howard’s punchers was found out behind the Verde Saloon, dead. He’d been stabbed in the back. He’d been in there the night before and won some money in a poker game, but his pockets were empty when his body was found. He could’ve been robbed and killed by a drifter. We have some of them come through here now and then.”
“Or he could have been killed by Sandeen’s men and robbed to make it look like they didn’t have anything to do with it,” Frank said.
“Yeah. It could’ve happened that way.”
Frank finished the last of the food, which had been excellent all around, and reached for his coffee cup. “Who owns the Verde Saloon?” he asked.
“Sandeen does,” Donohue said. “He bought it from the previous owner, a gambler name of Ford Fargo, about a year ago.”
Frank’s eyebrows rose. “That’s interesting. So Sandeen is a saloonkeeper as well as a cattleman. He’s making himself into a real power in these parts.”
“Yeah. He has a fella named Mitch Kite who looks after the Verde for him. Sandeen still spends most of his time out at Saber, but it ain’t uncommon to see him in town.”
“Do you think if things escalate into open warfare between Flynn and Sandeen, it’ll spill over into the settlement?”
“How can it fail to?” Desmond asked. “The businesses here all depend on Saber and the Lazy F. There’ll be gunfights and God knows what else g
oing on.”
Frank sipped the still-warm coffee and leaned back in his chair. “So in order to really do my job of protecting the settlement, I have to make sure that Flynn and Sandeen don’t go to war against each other.”
With a faint smile, Desmond said, “There’s an old saying about an irresistible force and an immovable object, Frank. That may be what you’re up against here.”
“More like a rock and a hard place,” Donohue put in.
“Whatever you call it, I’ve got it to do,” Frank said. He drank the last of the coffee and reached for his hat.
Wilson said, “You’ve put Sandeen on notice already. What’s your next move, Frank?”
“I thought I’d ride out to the Lazy F and have a talk with Howard Flynn.”
“He won’t be glad to see you,” Wilson warned.
Frank just smiled. Wilson was right about that—and the storekeeper didn’t even know about the run-in Frank had had with Flynn and his men the day before.
* * *
That same morning, across the border in New Mexico Territory, a man walked into a sleepy little cantina in a sleepy little village. Tall and lean, he had red hair and a rawboned face and wore a black hat and a black frock coat. The drowsy man behind the makeshift bar looked up at the stranger, didn’t recognize him as anybody who had ever passed through this nameless village before, and said, “Sí, señor. What can I do for you?”
“Too early to get a drink?” the gringo stranger asked.
The proprietor of the cantina, whose name was Rivas and who was the only one in the place at this hour, chuckled. “Never too early for that, Señor. Tequila? Pulque? Mescal?”
The stranger rested his hands on the bar and said with a smile, “Don’t you have any American booze, you damned greaser?”
Rivas took no offense. He had been called many things in his life, and his theory was that as long as the men calling the names had plenty of money and were willing to part with it, the words that came out of their mouths mattered not at all.
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