Slaughter

by William W. Johnstone

  Frank hoped that his face didn’t betray just how surprised—not to mention foolish—he felt just then. Dolores Montero’s status as a widow had caused him to think of her as an older woman, but as he considered the matter now, he realized there was no reason she had to be.

  “Thank you, Pete,” she said to the foreman. “Well, Mr. Morgan? Are you coming in?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Frank swung down from the saddle and handed Stormy’s reins to Linderman. “I’m obliged for the hospitality.”

  “Don’t make more of it than it is,” she snapped. “I’d extend the same invitation to almost anyone . . . except perhaps that snake Victor Magnusson.”

  There was that name again, Frank thought. Even though his plan to get a job on the Montero ranch hadn’t worked out, maybe he could still get some information from this young woman about the trouble going on in the valley. He could always reveal to her that he was working with Stafford, but he thought he might be better off using that as his hole card.

  Dolores Montero turned and walked toward the sprawling adobe ranch house, providing an interesting view in those snug leather trousers. Frank paused before following her to tell Linderman, “Better keep an eye on that stallion. He gets it into his head sometimes to take a nip out of somebody’s hide.”

  Linderman grunted. “Thanks for the warning. Is that dog gonna tear my throat out if I get too close to him?”

  “Not unless I tell him to,” Frank said.

  Even though it wasn’t the middle of the day yet, the air was growing hot. Frank was grateful for the coolness generated by the thick adobe walls as he stepped into the house behind Dolores Montero.

  “Would you like a drink?” she asked him.

  “It’s a mite early in the day for that. I’d take a cup of coffee, though, if you’ve got any handy.”

  “Of course.” She raised her voice. “Pilar!”

  A heavyset woman who looked more Indian than Mexican came into the room a moment later. “Señora?” she asked.

  “A cup of coffee for Mr. Morgan,” Dolores said, “and I’ll have one, too.”

  “Sí, señora.”

  Frank was looking around the room while his hostess talked to the servant. It was a very masculine place, all dark wood and heavy furniture and thick, woven rugs on the floor. Mounted on the wall above a massive fireplace was the head of a bear, its mouth open so that its teeth showed in a menacing snarl.

  “My husband’s grandfather killed that bear,” Dolores said. “In those days there were many of the creatures around here. They were very dangerous. But Francisco’s grandfather slew that one with a single shot from a pistol. God was smiling on him that day.”

  “I’d say so,” Frank agreed.

  “Francisco,” she repeated. “That is your name, is it not, Mr. Morgan?”

  “Well, I’ve always gone by Frank, but I reckon it’s pretty much the same thing.”

  “You were shocked to find that the Widow Montero was so young.” It wasn’t a question.

  Frank shrugged. “No reason you shouldn’t be young.”

  “I was not my husband’s first wife. He outlived her by a number of years. Unfortunately, he outlived all of their children, too. So in the end, I was all he had.”

  Frank couldn’t help but wonder how she had come to marry the old ranchero. Had she been a poor young woman, out to marry a rich old man because of his money? One of the servants here on the ranch maybe, who was now the mistress of the place and seemed quite at home in the role?

  That was none of his business, he reminded himself, and had nothing to do with why he was here.

  “And in the end, I was not enough for him,” Dolores went on, which further puzzled Frank because just by looking at her, it seemed that she would be enough woman for any man.

  Before she could say anything else, Pilar reappeared with a silver tray containing two cups of thick, black coffee. She set the tray on a brilliantly polished hardwood table with thick, ornately carved legs. Dolores said, “Gracias,” then picked up one of the cups and offered it to Frank.

  “Muchas gracias,” he said as he took it. He waited until she had her cup and then sipped the coffee. It was as potent as it appeared, which was just fine with him. He had always liked his coffee strong enough to get up and walk around on its own hind legs.

  “So tell me, Mr. Morgan,” Dolores said when she had taken a sip from her own cup, “what really brings you out here? I cannot believe that a famous man such as yourself would truly be seeking a job as a vaquero.”

  “Everybody’s got to eat,” he said, using the same answer he had given Linderman. Dolores didn’t appear to be any more convinced than her foreman had been, though.

  “You don’t get any income from the dime novels that are written about you?”

  “Not a penny,” Frank said with a smile. “All those stories are made up anyway. I’m surprised you even know about them.”

  “Such stories are popular in the bunkhouse, I’m told. I see them from time to time, but I’m afraid I’ve never read one.”

  “You’re not missing much,” Frank said.

  “I stay busy taking care of the ranch. I feel I owe that to my late husband. Salida del Sol has been in his family for many generations.”

  “Sunrise,” Frank said, translating the Spanish name.

  “Named by Francisco’s great-great-grandfather because he first saw the land here by the light of the rising sun one morning, when he came here to settle and establish a ranch. It’s been known by that ever since.”

  “I like it,” Frank said with a nod. “It suits the place.”

  A fierce expression appeared suddenly on Dolores’s face. “It is my home,” she said, “and I will defend it to the death. If that barbarian has hired you to force me out with your gun, you’ll find it’s not so easy a job!”

  Frank set his coffee cup on the table and held up his hands. “Hold on there, Señora,” he said. “Nobody’s hired me to do anything of the sort. Like I keep telling people, I’m not a hired gun—”

  Before he could go on, the heavy front door of the house swung open again, and Pete Linderman stepped inside. Frank knew right away from the foreman’s urgent manner that something had happened—or was about to happen.

  “Sorry to bother you, Señora,” Linderman said, “but somebody’s comin’.”

  Dolores glanced at Frank. “Another visitor so soon. Who is it, Pete?”

  Linderman’s face was grim as he answered, “Looks like that son of a—I mean, it looks like Victor Magnusson . . . and I expect he’s huntin’ more trouble!”

  Chapter 9

  Dolores’s gaze swung quickly back to Frank. “Magnusson!” she breathed.

  “I tell you, I don’t have anything to do with the man,” Frank insisted. “I’ve never even seen him before.”

  “Of course,” Dolores said, not sounding convinced at all. “Well, you’re about to see him now.”

  Frank swallowed the irritation he felt. First, Magnusson’s drillers had mistaken him for one of the Montero ranch hands, and now, Dolores Montero herself seemed to think that he had been hired by Magnusson to wage some sort of campaign of terror against the ranch.

  “Exactly who is this hombre Magnusson?” he asked.

  Dolores sniffed, as if to say that she believed he knew good and well who Magnusson was. But she said, “Victor Magnusson is the most successful wildcatter in the valley. He has wells all over . . . but he insists that the largest pool of oil is under the Montero range, and he wants it!”

  “If he’s right and the oil really is down there,” Frank said, “why don’t you go after it yourself?”

  That was the suggestion Stafford had made to his clients, including Dolores, and it sounded like a good one to Frank.

  She gave him a withering look. “This is a cattle ranch, not an oil field. I don’t want anything to do with that foul stuff.”

  “Life doesn’t always give you a choice,” Frank said with a shrug.

  Pete Lin
derman still stood there just inside the door with his battered Stetson in one hand.

  “What do you want me to do, ma’am?” he asked. “The boys and me can run Magnusson off if you like.”

  Dolores frowned in thought for a second and then shook her head.

  “Not unless he starts trouble,” she declared. “If he just wants to talk, I’ll talk to him.”

  Linderman looked like he thought that was a bad idea, but he wasn’t going to argue with the mistress of the Montero ranch. He nodded and said, “Sí, señora.”

  The ramrod turned and left the house. Dolores said to Frank, “My apologies, Mr. Morgan. It appears that lunch may be delayed.”

  “That’s quite all right,” Frank told her. I’m a mite curious about Mr. Magnusson myself.”

  She gave him a still-skeptical look and then went to the door, which Linderman had left open. Frank followed, settling his hat on his head again.

  They went through a flower-bedecked courtyard and out a black wrought-iron gate in the adobe wall that surrounded the hacienda. Frank spotted the buggy rolling toward the ranch house, its wheels and the hooves of the two horses pulling it kicking up a spiral of dust behind the vehicle. The man at the reins appeared to be alone in the buggy.

  Whatever Victor Magnusson’s failings, a lack of courage didn’t appear to be one of them. He was riding straight into the stronghold of his enemy all by himself.

  Pete Linderman stood near the bunkhouse with several of the hands, including Jeff. Frank saw the young cowboy casting furtive, angry glances at him, and his mind went back to the ambush attempt on his life the night before.

  Jeff had to be the leading suspect in that shooting. No one else had had any reason to throw lead at him from that dark alley.

  And yet for some reason, Frank didn’t feel that Jeff had been the bushwhacker. No doubt the youngster bore a grudge against him, but Jeff just didn’t strike Frank as the sort who would try to shoot a man from hiding. Jeff was rash enough to come at an enemy out in the open, as he had done when Frank rode up a short time earlier.

  Magnusson drove the buggy into the yard between the hacienda and the bunkhouse and brought the two horses to a halt. They looked like good sturdy animals, Frank thought. Like most Westerners, he was in the habit of assessing the horseflesh he saw.

  Victor Magnusson seemed to be a pretty sturdy animal himself. When Magnusson stepped down from the buggy, Frank saw that he was tall and brawny in a brown tweed suit. His shoulders stretched the fabric of the coat. A darker brown hat was crammed down on fiery red hair. A spade beard of the same blazing shade jutted from a pugnacious jaw.

  Frank was reminded immediately of illustrations he had seen in books depicting the fierce Viking rovers of ancient times. Victor Magnusson looked like he ought to have a horned helmet on his head and a broadsword in his hand.

  He started toward Dolores Montero, but Linderman got in his way.

  “Hold on there, Magnusson,” the foreman said. “What’s your business here?”

  “I want to talk to Señora Montero,” Magnusson snapped in a deep voice. “And don’t try to tell me she’s not here, because I can see her right there!”

  He flung out a big hand and pointed toward Dolores.

  “I’m the foreman here,” Linderman went on stubbornly. “You got a question about the ranch, you can talk to me.”

  Magnusson glared and looked like he wanted to push Linderman out of his way, but he controlled his anger with a visible effort and said, “I want to talk to her about that man right there.”

  Again he pointed, this time at Frank, who didn’t care much for it.

  “You mean Morgan?” Linderman asked.

  “I don’t know what his name is, and I don’t care. All I know is that he viciously attacked and injured one of my men a little while ago. I was on my way out from town when I ran into a wagonload of my drillers coming off their shift. The injured man was in the back of the wagon. They said he was attacked by a Montero cowboy, and that man matches the description!”

  Linderman shook his head. “You’ve got it wrong, Magnusson. Morgan doesn’t work for us. Never has, and likely never will.”

  Under the red mustache, Magnusson’s mouth curled in a sneer. “He looks right at home to me.”

  Frank had listened to enough of this. He stepped around Dolores and strode toward Magnusson.

  “Linderman’s right,” he said. “I don’t work for Señora Montero. It’s true that I rode out here thinking that I might get hired, but that’s not going to happen.”

  He came to a stop directly in front of Magnusson and only a few feet away from the man. Magnusson was several inches taller than Frank and considerably heavier, but the driller called Hatch was bigger, too, and Frank had whittled him down to size.

  Although to tell the truth, after that little dustup, Frank hoped he wouldn’t have to tussle with Magnusson. He was already sore from the battering he had taken.

  “As for what happened out there on the road,” Frank went on, not giving Magnusson a chance to interrupt, “your men told you their version, and it doesn’t exactly match up with the truth.”

  Magnusson’s already flushed face grew even more ruddy, almost matching his beard.

  “Are you callin’ my men liars?”

  “If they say that I attacked them, they are,” Frank stated without hesitation. “I moved aside to let the wagon pass. I wasn’t looking for trouble.”

  There was that pesky stretching of the truth again.

  “Your men are the ones who stopped and provoked a fight,” he continued. “Hatch got down from the wagon and started throwing punches. I didn’t have much choice except to throw some of my own back at him.”

  Jeff stepped forward and said, “You seem to get in a lot of jams where you don’t have any choice but to hurt somebody, Morgan.”

  Linderman turned his head and glared at the young cowboy. “Hush up, kid,” he snapped.

  Magnusson frowned at Frank. “What’s he talking about? Just who are you, mister?”

  Jeff ignored Linderman’s warning glower and called, “He’s Frank Morgan! He’s nothin’ but a no-good, murderin’ gunfighter!”

  So much for keeping quiet about who he really was, Frank thought bitterly. Now the leaders on both sides of the dispute in the valley knew his identity.

  “Frank Morgan, eh?” Magnusson said. “I’ve been in the West long enough to hear plenty about you, Morgan, and none of it good. It’s said you’ve killed more men than Billy the Kid, John Wesley Hardin, and Ben Thompson put together!”

  Frank shook his head. “I don’t keep count of things like that. I just do what I have to to stay alive.”

  “Well, you’ll find that attacking my men was a mistake,” Magnusson blustered. “I’m going to swear out a warrant for your arrest!” He flung out a hand again as he went on. “By God, I may not have been able to prove yet that the Montero ranch hands are responsible for all the deviltry going on in the valley, but I’ve got ten witnesses to testify against you, sir!”

  “You mean ten witnesses to lie for you,” Frank said.

  Magnusson chewed his mustache in rage for a second before he said, “We’ll just see about that!”

  “Mr. Magnusson,” Dolores Montero cut in coolly, “Mr. Morgan is my guest, and I’m not going to stand by and see him abused and insulted this way. If you don’t have anything else to say, I’ll thank you to leave.”

  “I’ll leave when I’m good and ready!”

  That wrathful answer was a mistake, especially directed at the mistress of this ranch. Linderman and the other members of the crew stepped forward, their faces set in angry lines, their hands close to their guns.

  Magnusson was outnumbered, outgunned, and just flat out of luck if the cowboys attacked him. That prospect didn’t seem to worry him, though. He stood his ground and continued glaring at Frank and Dolores.

  After a moment, Dolores lifted a hand just enough to signal to Linderman and the others that they should stay bac
k. They stopped their advance, but clearly didn’t like being reined in. They wanted to give Magnusson a thrashing and then toss him off the ranch.

  Frank could sympathize. Big, arrogant, blustery hombres like Magnusson always made him itch to throw a punch or two as well.

  “You’ve overplayed your hand by hiring a gunfighter, Señora,” Magnusson said after the strained silence had gone on for several seconds. “The law won’t have any choice but to be on my side now.”

  “The law was already on your side,” Dolores said. “The sheriff has done nothing about all the shots your drillers have taken at my men. He doesn’t even try to track the cattle your men steal from my herds!”

  Magnusson drew himself up straighter, and his beard seemed to bristle even more.

  “My men are not thieves! How dare you—”

  “I dare because this is my ranch!” Dolores shouted as she stepped forward and jabbed a finger into Magnusson’s broad chest. “I dare because I give the orders here, and I’m ordering you now to get off Montero range, Magnusson! Get off, or I won’t be responsible for what happens!”

  They stared daggers at each other from a distance of a foot or less for a moment that seemed to stretch out longer. Finally, Magnusson growled, “All right, I’ll go. But this isn’t over yet, Señora. Not by a long shot!” He glanced at Frank as he started to turn away from Dolores. “You’d do well to remember that, Morgan!”

  “I intend to remember everything that’s happened here today, mister,” Frank drawled. “And I’ve got a good memory for jackasses.”

  Magnusson’s hands clenched into fists. Frank thought for a second that the wildcatter was going to take a swing at him, and he thought wearily that if that happened, he supposed he and Magnusson would have to go around and around, too.

  Or maybe not, because Linderman and the other cowboys might actually pitch in to help him. Right now, it was probably a toss-up which of the two of them the Montero hands hated more, him or Magnusson.

  Magnusson stalked back to his buggy, though, and climbed up into the vehicle, his movements stiff with anger. He jerked the reins loose from where he had tied them around the brake and slapped the lines against the backs of the team, then hauled hard to turn the horses as they started moving. With his back ramrod-straight, Magnusson drove away from the hacienda.