The minutes dragged past. His toes and fingers were getting tired from clinging to the ledge and the bricks. But he finally reached the window that opened into his room, stopping just short of it.
The room was dark, of course, since he hadn’t been there to light the lamp when night fell and the interlopers wouldn’t have wanted to call attention to themselves by lighting it.
Frank lowered himself into a crouch and reached for the window. He didn’t recall if it had been locked when he left or not. On the third floor like this, with no balconies, there wouldn’t be much of a reason to lock the window.
Not many people would be plumb loco enough to make their way along the ledge like he had done, he thought with a faint smile.
The window moved slightly when he exerted pressure on it. So it wasn’t locked, he told himself. Now he could try to ease it up and hope that it wouldn’t make any noise, or he could open it in a hurry and dive into the room to take the would-be killers by surprise.
He opted for stealth, raising the window a fraction of an inch at a time and then pausing to see if there was any reaction from inside. The air was still and heavy and humid tonight, with little if any breeze, so he didn’t think the curtains would stir inside the room. They had been closed over the window when he left, he recalled, so whoever was in there wouldn’t notice the glass slowly rising.
Over the years, Frank had been in many dangerous situations where patience was the only thing that saved him. So he was able to take his time raising the window until it was up far enough for him to bend over and slip through it into the room. Gun metal whispered against leather as he slid his Colt from its holster. That was the only sound he made.
The same wasn’t true for whoever was in the room. He heard breathing, the rustle of clothes, the scrape of shoe leather on the floor. The varmint was getting tired of waiting for Frank to return.
As far as he could tell, the sounds he heard indicated that only one other person was in the room. That came as a small surprise. He had expected two or three. When he heard a tiny cough, Frank pointed the Colt at the sound, eared back the hammer, and said, “Don’t move or I’ll blow your head off, mister.”
Someone gasped, and then there was a big surprise.
A woman said, “Don’t shoot. Please.”
Chapter 18
Frank was shocked that the intruder lurking in his hotel room was a woman, but he didn’t let his guard down. A woman could pull a trigger as easily as a man.
She had sounded genuinely surprised and scared, though. He was about to tell her to light the lamp when he heard something rushing through the air at him.
Instinct made him jerk his head aside. Something hit the broad brim of his hat and knocked it off his head, then shattered against his shoulder, staggering him slightly.
He caught his balance and swung his left arm in a sweeping, backhanded blow. He didn’t want to hurt the woman, but he wasn’t going to just stand there and let her pound on him either.
His arm hit something soft. He heard the breath whoosh out of her lungs. That didn’t stop her, though. A small but hard fist swung blindly in the dark collided with his jaw. Frank grunted. He reached out, trying to get hold of her.
His fingers tangled in long hair. Soft, thick hair . . . but that realization didn’t stop him from grabbing hold and swinging her toward where he thought the bed was.
She cried out in pain, and a second later, he heard the bedsprings twang as she fell across the mattress. Frank holstered his gun and went after her, throwing himself on top of her and searching in the dark for her wrists.
The bedsprings squealed under his weight, too. If anybody in the adjacent rooms had an ear pressed to the wall, he knew what they had to be thinking right about now.
There was nothing sensuous about the struggle that was going on, though. The woman hit him again, this time with a stinging blow to the nose. Frank grabbed her wrist and pinned that arm to the bed. A second later, he found her other wrist and clamped fingers around it, too. He had her pinned down now, although she was still squirming underneath him.
Of course, having her body writhing against him like that did have a little effect on him. He was human after all. If he’d been younger, he probably would have gotten a mite hot and bothered by the situation, which might have given the woman an advantage.
As it was, he was able to tell her through gritted teeth, “Better just settle down, ma’am. You’re not going anywhere until I find out who you are and what you’re doing in my room.”
Abruptly, she stopped fighting. “Your room?” she echoed. “You’re Frank Morgan?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, get off me, you big stupid galoot! You’re the man I came here to see.”
Frank hesitated. The woman sounded mad, but not particularly threatening. He said, “Usually, when somebody wants to pay me a friendly visit, they knock on the door. They don’t sneak in and wait in the dark.”
“I didn’t say anything about a friendly visit. I’ve got a business proposition for you.”
Lying on top of a woman in bed, in a dark room, sometimes involved business, all right, Frank thought, but not the sort he took part in. That might not be what she was talking about, though, he reminded himself.
“If I let go of you, are you going to try to hit me again?” he asked. He wanted to get the lamp lit and find out what the hell was going on here.
“You’re sure you’re Frank Morgan?”
“Last time I checked,” he said.
“Then what in blazes were you doing sneaking in the window like that? I thought you were some sort of assassin who’d come here to murder Morgan.”
“Let’s just say I had a hunch somebody was in here who wasn’t supposed to be,” he said. He didn’t want to reveal the trick with the matchstick. “Somebody who was probably up to no good.”
“So what did you do, climb all the way around the building on that little ledge under the windows?”
“Yep,” Frank said.
“You’re crazy! You could have fallen and broken your neck!”
“Could’ve walked right into both barrels of a shotgun, too,” he told her. “I’d rather choose the risks I want to run.”
“You sound like Frank Morgan, all right.” She sounded a little breathless, too. “Now, could you get off of me? You’re sort of heavy.”
“That depends.”
“On what, blast it?”
“Who are you, and what do you want?”
“My name is Astrid Magnusson,” the woman said.
That was the biggest surprise yet, and Frank couldn’t stop his muscles from stiffening in response to it. If Victor Magnusson had been angry with him for that ruckus with the driller Hatch, Frank could imagine how the man would feel about him wrestling around on a bed with Magnusson’s wife.
Unless . . .
“You’re married to Victor Magnusson?” he asked.
“What? No. I’m his sister.”
Well, that was a little better. Not much maybe, but a little.
“All right, Miss Magnusson,” Frank said. “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here, but I’m going to let you go anyway so I can light the lamp. You promise not to try to run away or wallop me again?”
“I promise,” she said. “I want to talk to you as much as you want to talk to me.”
She sounded like she was telling the truth, so Frank took a chance and released her wrists. He pushed himself off her and stood up next to the bed. The gas lamp was on the wall above the bedside table. He reached out and found it, then snapped a lucifer to life with his other hand and held it to the lamp.
As the glow brightened and filled the room, Frank saw that Astrid Magnusson had sat up on the edge of the bed and was running her fingers through thick auburn hair. She was around thirty, Frank guessed, with brilliant green eyes. Mighty attractive, too, he thought, although at the moment she looked to be on the stern and angry side.
“You didn’t have to try
to yank my hair out of my head,” she complained.
“I’m sorry,” Frank said, “but right then I was just trying to grab hold of whatever I could.”
“Yes, I noticed that you’re rather free with your hands. You’re not what I’d consider a gentleman, Mr. Morgan. But then, I wouldn’t expect a hired gunman to be a gentleman, would I?”
Frank managed to keep the anger out of his voice as he said, “Ma’am, I wouldn’t have any earthly idea what you’d expect or wouldn’t expect. But I can promise you, I don’t go out of my way to be rude to ladies.”
She sniffed. “You could have fooled me.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t expect to find a lady waiting for me in a darkened hotel room either,” he said pointedly.
A pink flush crept over the creamy skin of her face. “What are you insinuating?” she asked in an icy voice.
“I’m not insinuating anything. I’m saying it plain. If you don’t want me to think you’re a whore, then tell me why you’re here.”
She gasped again, just like when he had first spoken after climbing in through the window. He hoped that his blunt words would shock her into finally telling him why she was in his room.
It worked. She said, “If you must know, I came here to see about hiring you!”
“So that was the business proposition you mentioned?”
“That’s right.” Her voice was colder than ever. “My brother needs help, and I thought you might be able to provide it.”
One more surprise in a day that had been full of ’em, Frank thought.
“The last time I saw your brother, he was mad as a hornet at me over a tussle I had with a driller of his named Hatch. He didn’t look like a fella who’d be asking for my help before the day was over.”
“He’s not,” Astrid said. “I am. And I heard about that fight you had with Hatch. The men who were with him on the wagon told Victor that you attacked them without provocation.”
Something in her tone intrigued Frank, despite its chilliness.
“You sound like maybe you’re not convinced of that,” he said.
She shrugged. “I know Hatch. He has a reputation for getting into fights. If he thought you worked for that Montero woman, he’s perfectly capable of coming after you.”
“That’s pretty much what happened,” Frank said with a nod. He reached down, picked up his hat from the floor, and tossed it onto the table. “What did you hit me with anyway?”
“The chamber pot. Don’t worry, it was empty.”
“I’m always thankful for small favors,” Frank said with a faint smile. He grew serious again as he went on. “Does your brother even know that you’re here, Miss Magnusson?”
“Of course not. Victor would be furious. If I’d told him what I planned to do, he would have forbidden it.” She paused. “He’s a very proud man. Too proud for his own good, most of the time.”
Having met Victor Magnusson, Frank didn’t doubt what Astrid said.
“But when he told me about meeting you,” she went on, “I remembered hearing your name. I asked around and confirmed what I remembered, that you’re a gunfighter. I thought that if you really weren’t working for Dolores Montero, as you claimed, then you might consider working for us.”
“Us?” Frank repeated.
“Well, for Victor. He runs the drilling company. But I own a significant share in it.”
“Why does Victor need to hire a gunfighter? I sure as blazes don’t know anything about drilling for oil.”
“Victor and his men can handle that part just fine. He needs you to keep those damned cowboys from sabotaging the wells and trying to kill the drillers!”
Frank recalled what the drillers had said that morning when he ran into them on the road to Salida del Sol. From the sound of it, they had been having the same sort of troubles as the ranchers in the San Fernando Valley.
And naturally, the drillers blamed the cowboys, just as the cowboys blamed the drillers.
Ever since the encounter with the drillers, Frank had been suspicious that a third party might be involved. What Astrid Magnusson had just said made his suspicions even stronger. But he needed more evidence before he made up his mind.
“The ranchers claim that the same sort of thing is going on directed at them. Their men have been shot at and their cattle rustled.”
Astrid shook her head. “What else do you expect them to say? They’re just trying to divert attention from what they’ve been doing. Our men have been shot at, derricks have been toppled, equipment ruined. They’re trying to drive the wildcatters out so they can have all the oil for themselves!”
That was an interesting theory, but Frank didn’t believe it for a second, having been there when Stafford suggested that the ranchers should drill for oil. Dolores and the other ranchers had no intention of doing such a thing. They were fighting to hold on to the way things had been before all the oil wells appeared on the range.
Frank didn’t say that to Astrid, though, because an idea had come to him. Instead, he asked, “If you hired me, what would you expect me to do?”
“Put a stop to the violence directed at the drillers.”
“How would I go about doing that?”
She crossed her arms over her breasts and gave him a haughty look. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell a man like you how to handle trouble, Mr. Morgan.”
“I’m not a hired killer.” Frank stated that flatly.
“I’m not asking you to murder anyone,” Astrid replied. “But if you were working for Victor, you’d defend your employer’s interests, wouldn’t you? You’d defend yourself if you were attacked?”
“I always have,” Frank said.
“Then you guard our wells, and if anyone tries to bother them, you deal with them, whatever it takes. Once those cowboys realize that the notorious Frank Morgan is on our side, maybe they’ll quit trying to ruin us. Do we understand each other, Mr. Morgan?”
Frank nodded slowly. “I reckon we do.” Astrid Magnusson wanted him to do exactly what Dolores Montero and the other ranchers suspected him of already doing. Once he took the job—if he took it—they would believe that they had been right about him all along.
He could deal with that, though. He was playing a deeper game now, he realized. The cattlemen didn’t want anything to do with him, but by going to work for Magnusson, he’d have an excuse to stay in the area and try to ferret out whoever was really behind the trouble.
There was still one problem, though.
“You’ve forgotten something,” he told Astrid.
“What’s that?”
“You said that your brother doesn’t know you’re here. That means he doesn’t know you asked me to work for him. He’s still got to agree to that.”
“We can take care of that right now. I can get Victor to listen to reason. We’ve rented a house here in town. Will you come with me and talk to him?”
“Now?” Frank said.
Her chin came up. “I don’t believe in postponing things that need to be dealt with.”
“I reckon I can see that.” If Victor Magnusson had reminded him of a Viking from some old book, Astrid fit the same description. One of those fierce Viking women who stayed behind when their menfolk went to roving, but able to handle a sword and deal with threats on their own if need be. He could see Astrid in that role.
Problem was, it had been a damned long day already, packed with action and surprising developments. But as she had said, there was no point in postponing things.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s go see your brother.”
For the first time, he saw a hint of a smile on her lips. “We’ll make it well worth your while. You won’t regret this, Mr. Morgan.”
Frank hoped that turned out to be true.
Chapter 19
Astrid had brought a buggy to the hotel from the house where she was staying with her brother, which was about a mile away. Frank suggested that they go downstairs together. He would fetch one of his horses from the s
table and ride along with her.
She shook her head. “No offense, Mr. Morgan, but I’d just as soon not be seen going through the lobby with you and leaving the hotel with you at this time of night. I have a reputation to protect, you know.”
“No, ma’am, I didn’t know that, considering that I’d never heard of you before tonight.” Frank shrugged. “But suit yourself. Tell me how to get to your house, and I’ll meet you there.”
She gave him directions, and then he asked one more thing that had been puzzling him.
“Why did you sneak in here and hide in the dark? Why didn’t you just come up and knock on the door? For that matter, how’d you get in?”
“If you had refused to cooperate with me, I didn’t see any reason why my brother ever had to know I’d been here. So I didn’t want to walk in and just ask openly for you, because word of that would have gotten back to him. I came in the back and bribed one of the porters to let me into your room. Once I was there, I thought it might be better to leave the lamp unlit. You might have noticed the light in the window and summoned the police, thinking that a burglar was in your room. How would it have looked for the officers to come in and find me like that?”
“Sounds like you thought it through, all right,” Frank said. “But you didn’t stop to think that I might take you for a bushwhacker. What if I’d kicked the door open and come in shooting?”
“Well, that wouldn’t have been very good for either of us, now would it?”
All Frank could do was chuckle and shake his head. She was right about that.
He opened the door and checked the hallway. Seeing that it was empty, he motioned her out of the room and told her, “I’ll see you at your house in twenty minutes.”
“Thank you, Mr. Morgan,” she said. “Now comes the hard part: convincing my brother that you can help us.”
They parted company then, Astrid heading for the rear stairs, Frank going down the main staircase to the lobby.
The clerk raised his eyebrows in surprise when he saw Frank. “Going out again, Mr. Morgan?” he asked.
Frank went out the door without looking back.
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