He never got a chance to finish it. Jeff popped him on the nose. Again.
“Oww!” Conrad yelled. “’Ou don’t ’ight ’air. My ’ose is ’eally ’oken now!”
“Good,” Jeff yelled. “I’ll make sure.” He hit Conrad again. On the nose.
Conrad hollered and jumped up, both hands holding his busted beak.
Frank decided it had gone far enough. He waded in and grabbed Conrad, slinging him into the arms of his bodyguards. “Hold on to him and don’t turn him loose.” He reached down and jerked Jeff to his boots. “It’s over, damnit! Now calm down.” He gave Jeff a shove that propelled him into the base of the horse trough. Jeff did a belly flop into the icy water.
He came up sputtering and hollering.
Frank looked at the bodyguards. “Get your boss out of here, right now.” He hauled Jeff out of the horse trough and shoved him toward the barbershop. “Get over there and tell the barber to start heating up some hot water. I’ll bring your clothes over.”
“Who won the fight?” Jeff asked, shivering in the cold air.
“I’d call it a draw.”
* * *
Frank paid for the broken window. Then he got Dog something to eat from a cafe and saddled his horse. He got Jeff some clean clothes and took them over to the bathhouse, and waited until Jeff had finished his bath and was dressed.
“Go on back to the livery and take care of Dog until I get back. Can you do that without getting into a brawl?”
“Yes, Frank.”
“Good. I should be back by midafternoon, or sooner. Now go on.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find us a place to stay.”
“How’s Conrad?”
“Probably madder than hell.”
“How is Colleen?”
“I have no idea. Now go on back to the livery and, by God, stay there.”
Frank headed out of town, but he had no plans to look for a place to stay. He had already found one that was owned by the marshal and paid several months’ rent on the place.
He wanted to check out the country and do it alone. And he wanted to see if he might be followed.
As he rode, Frank smiled as he thought about the fight. Conrad was sure as hell no sissy-boy. He was a pretty good puncher and wasn’t afraid to wade right in and mix it up. Now if the boy would just get rid of that damn silly hat.
Frank rode for several hours and could detect no signs of being followed. The Pine and Vanbergen gangs either did not yet know he was in the area, or didn’t care. Probably they didn’t know. But they would, he was certain of that. Both Ned and Vic wanted him dead.
Frank headed back to town, arriving at midafternoon. The weather had turned sour, the skies thick with low gray clouds that promised a blanket of snow before morning.
Jeff was in the loft of the livery, rolled up in his blankets, Dog snuggled up next to him in the hay. Frank shook him awake.
“I have us a place to live, Jeff. Let’s get moved in. Rattle your hocks.”
“I feel really terrible. I think I’m coming down with something.”
“You probably are. Move.”
The two-bedroom house Frank had rented was well built and furnished, with a small barn out back. Frank sent Jeff to the general store to buy bedding and a few pots and pans, a coffeepot, and a few basic supplies. Frank built a fire in the Franklin Stove and in the stove in the kitchen, then primed the pump in the kitchen and got it working.
Dog had carefully inspected each room in the house, and after circling the spot a dozen times, apparently had found himself a place to bed down in the small living room.
“We’ll spend the winter here, boy,” Frank told him. “I hope,” he added.
“I broke your boy’s nose and gave him a fat lip,” Jeff announced, placing the supplies on the table in the kitchen.
Frank looked at Jeff’s face. It was bruised and Jeff was sporting a shiner. “You both got marked. Did you see Colleen in town?”
“Yes. She found a job working for the local paper.”
“As a reporter?”
“Sort of. She’s quite thrilled about it. We’re going to a social tomorrow evening.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Conrad apparently wants no more to do with her. I’m told he’s sworn off women forever.”
Frank chuckled. “That’ll last for at least a day or two. Are you feeling better?”
“Yes. Much better. I just have a small head cold. But I’m very tired for some reason.”
“Eat a good supper and then go to bed. I’ll fix us some bacon and eggs.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
Long after Jeff had gone to bed and was sleeping soundly, Frank sat in the small living room, the lamp turned down low, drinking coffee, wondering what his next move should be. The fire of revenge that had burned in his belly for weeks after his cabin was destroyed and Dog was shot had become only a small smoldering. Going after Ned and Vic would not bring Vivian back, it would not rebuild his cabin, nor would it ease the days and nights of suffering that Dog had experienced.
So what the hell would be the point of long exhausting weeks on the trail, through the bitter cold and blowing snow, to gun down a pack of worthless men that the law would catch and hang sooner or later?
No point at all.
“Hell with it,” Frank whispered to the shadowy room. “Durango is as good a place as any to hole up for the winter. I sure don’t have to worry about money.”
Dog padded over to him, and Frank petted the animal. “Maybe we can stay put here for a few months, boy. Would you like that?”
Dog whined and wagged his tail.
“It’s settled then. We’ll stay here for a while.”
* * *
During the next several weeks, Jeff staked out a claim and actually began finding some decent color. Paulette Tremaine’s soiled doves went back to work, doing what they did best . . . freelancing in the town’s many saloons.
Paulette and Martha founded the Durango Christian Temperance and Women’s Rights League, and proceeded to make a nuisance of themselves.
Jeff and Colleen were seeing each other on a regular basis, and love appeared to be in full bloom. Frank figured they’d get hitched up come spring.
Conrad kept pretty much to himself, and when he and Frank would see each other, the young man chose not to acknowledge his presence. Frank didn’t push the issue. Conrad would come around someday, or he wouldn’t. There wasn’t a damn thing Frank could do about it, one way or the other.
Christmas and New Year’s came and went and the weather turned lousy, with lots of snow and bitterly cold temperatures. Frank kept busy chopping wood and hauling it back to town with a wagon and team rented from the livery.
Dog stayed inside mostly and put on weight.
February drifted into March, and the weather began to moderate.
“We hit the trail come spring, boy,” Frank told him. “You’re going to lose some of that fat.”
Dog wagged his tail and looked at his empty food bowl.
“Later,” Frank told him. “You’re getting fat! Why don’t you go catch a rabbit?”
Dog looked at him as though he had lost his mind, and wandered over to his bed for a nap.
“Too quiet for the past couple of months,” Frank muttered as he fixed a pot of coffee. “Something real bad is fixin’ to happen. I can feel it. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am.”
Frank answered a knock on the front door, and looked into the worried face of Marshal Dickson. He waved him inside. “I was just thinking that it was too damn quiet and that something was due to happen. I reckon it has.”
“It has, Frank. Conrad Browning’s been kidnapped.”
Fifteen
Conrad had stepped out for lunch and never returned. The two bodyguards that accompanied him were found in a shed behind the cafe. Their throats had been cut. The other two bodyguards had disappeared without a trace. A bloodstained note had been found, pinne
d to the chest of one of the dead bodyguards with a knife. The note demanded a million dollars for Conrad’s safe return. If the money was not paid, the young man would die.
Frank stared for a moment in disbelief at the marshal. “A million dollars?”
“That’s what the note said.”
“I can’t even imagine a million dollars!”
“I can’t either. When it gets past a couple of thousand, my brain gets boggled.”
“Who signed the note?”
Dickson handed the bloodstained note to Frank. It was unsigned. “This is it?” Frank asked.
“That’s it. Now you know as much as I do.”
“No instructions.”
“None.”
Frank handed the note back to the marshal. “The two missing bodyguards?”
“For sure they had something to do with it. But there were at least half a dozen boot prints back of the cafe and bloody boot prints in the shed.”
“Pine and Vanbergen.”
“That’s my thinkin’.”
“Do you know their hideout, Marshal?”
Dickson shook his head. “No. I honest to God do not. I’ve talked with other lawmen who say it changes from time to time. From the canyon country badlands west of here to the mountains north of here. Take your pick.”
“Have you ever chased them?”
Again, Dickson shook his head. “They’ve never committed a crime in this town. At least not to my knowledge. And I don’t know a damn thing about the badlands.”
“Do me a favor?”
“Sure. Name it.”
“Find Jeff and tell him to look after Dog. I’m going to gear up and try to pick up their trail.”
“If he can’t look after him, I promise you I will. I’ll take good care of him. You have my word. I like that mutt.”
Frank packed quickly but carefully and saddled up, then rigged the packsaddle on his packhorse. Then he filled up Dog’s water bowl and food dish.
“Now you be good and mind people, you hear me?” he told Dog.
Dog looked up from his food dish and wagged his tail, then resumed his dining.
Frank rode into town and provisioned up. While the shopkeeper was filling his order, Frank checked the tracks in back of the cafe, and found a couple of horseshoe prints that were very distinctive. One shoe had a distinctive marking, and one of the horses had an odd way of putting down his right front hoof.
“Now I can follow you to hell, boys,” he muttered. He was back in the saddle in half an hour, heading out of town. The tracks led straight north.
“Better than heading down into Ute country,” Frank said aloud, although there was not much fight left in the Utes now.
There was still snow on the ground in many places, and that made tracking a lot easier.
The kidnappers were following an old Indian trail that Frank felt sure had originally been a game trail. The stage road was a few miles to Frank’s east, but those few miles were over some rugged and inhospitable terrain. The day was bright with sunshine and the temperature, Frank thought, was probably in the mid-forty range. The snow was melting quickly in the lower elevations. The nights were still well below freezing, usually in the mid-twenties.
The kidnappers had several hours’ jump on Frank, and Frank was pretty sure the outlaws would have fresh horses hidden along the way. There was no way he could catch up to them without killing his horses, something he had no intention of doing.
A half day’s hard ride north of Durango, the trail abruptly turned west. Frank rested his horses while he inspected the trail sign on foot. After casting around for several minutes, he discovered that half of the outlaws had continued on north, the other half west.
“Damn!” Frank muttered.
He had no way of knowing which group was holding his son captive.
Either way was rough country, but north was slightly worse and colder.
“West.” Frank made up his mind. “And I hope I’m right.”
Frank spent an uncomfortable night on the trail—the first of what would turn out to be many—and was back dogging the outlaws at first light. During the cold night, Frank awakened often to add wood to the small fire and to think. He didn’t believe his son was kidnapped solely for ransom . . . a million dollars was totally unrealistic. He believed, in part, that Conrad had been taken to pull Frank out of Durango. Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen had grabbed Conrad knowing Frank would follow and they could kill him—or try to kill him.
But if that was the case, then why did the trail suddenly split?
Just maybe, Frank thought, the bodyguards who were in cahoots with the Pine and Vanbergen gangs had been paid off and sent on their way.
Lingering over coffee at his nooning, Frank decided that was it.
He knew that Pine and Vanbergen hated him with an unbridled passion; he had been told that both had sworn to kill him many times. He suspected they had killed Vivian, not just for the money Dutton had surely paid them, but to get at him.
“Sorry bastards,” Frank muttered, pouring another cup of coffee and munching on hard crackers. Well, he thought, if you’ve done this to get me on your trail, boys, you’ve damn sure succeeded.
Frank’s horses suddenly became alert, their heads coming up, ears pricked in attention. A twig popped faintly in the timber. Frank dropped his coffee cup and threw himself to one side just as gunfire ripped the cold stillness.
Rifle in hand, he rolled toward a fallen log and hunkered down behind the small protection.
One man, Frank thought, off to my left in that thicket of brush.
Frank held his fire, wanting the sniper to expose himself. He waited, but no more shots came.
A few minutes ticked past. Frank rolled from behind the protection of the log and into brush. No shots followed him. He slipped deeper into the brush and then into the timber, carefully working his way toward the thicket. He heard a slight noise and paused, listening intently. The faint sounds of a horse moving away reached him. Frank ran toward the fading sound, hoping to get in at least one shot. He was too late. The unknown sniper had gotten away. He knelt down and inspected the hoof tracks. He could not tell if they were part of the group that had left the tracks behind the cafe in town, and it was still a mystery as to whether or not he was following the group that had his son.
But he now suspected more than ever that he was.
Frank mounted up and rode on. Before he had gone a mile, he came across the fresh tracks of his ambusher. The man had swung back onto the trail and was traveling as fast as he could over the rough terrain.
Frank reined up. He had to give this situation some thought. The ambusher knew he was following, and also knew he wasn’t going to stop following. That made Frank a very conspicuous target. What to do about that? He couldn’t leave the trail, for if he did that it might take him hours or days to pick it up, or he might never pick it up.
Frank shucked his rifle out of the saddle scabbard and started on, his rifle held in one hand, across the saddle horn.
He would ride a few hundred yards, then rein up and carefully check out all that was in front of him. It slowed him down some, but was helping to keep him alive.
He moved on another half a mile, he reckoned, and abruptly stopped when he saw where the sniper had reined up and sat his horse for a time. Frank carefully scanned the terrain in front of him, his gaze always returning to one spot about five hundred yards in front of him and slightly to his right.
“Right there is where I’d choose for an ambush,” he muttered. “Perfect cover and elevation. And I’ll bet that’s where the shooter is.”
Frank stepped his horse off the trail and into deeper timber. He ground-reined both animals and took off his spurs. Then he set out on foot, swinging wide so he could come up behind the ambusher . . . he hoped.
As he drew ever closer, Frank caught the faint odor of tobacco. The man had built him a smoke while waiting, probably to try to steady his nerves for the kill.
Frank was
much more cautious now, for while he knew approximately where the shooter was, he wasn’t sure of the exact spot. He could be anywhere along that ridge, in the brush and timber. And from the sound of the rifle, he definitely wasn’t shooting a .44 or a .44-.40. Probably one of those fancy new bolt-action rifles with maybe one of those high-powered telescope things on it. That type of rifle would have a much more accurate range to it than Frank’s .44-.40. Definitely something to take into consideration.
Shortly after he swung in behind the ridge and started working his way up, Frank caught a flash of color, a color that was out of place in the brush and timber.
“There you are,” Frank muttered.
Frank had a shot, but chose not to take it. He wanted the ambusher alive, if possible, to answer some questions.
Frank began slowly and furtively working his way up the ridge, utilizing every bit of cover. The ambusher came into clear view, and never looked around to check behind him.
When Frank was about twenty-five yards behind the man, with a clear shot if the fellow spun around and tried to shoot, Frank called, “Don’t move, partner. Don’t do anything stupid or you’re dead.”
The man froze in place. “Morgan?”
“That’s right.”
“Damn! Are you part Injun?”
“No. Just a man that’s managed to stay alive by being real careful.”
“I believe it.”
“Lay the rifle down slow.”
The man carefully laid his expensive-looking rifle with a telescope sight on it on the ground.
“Stand up and turn around,” Frank told him. “And do it real careful. No sudden moves.”
The ambusher stood up slowly. Without turning around, he asked, “Are you going to kill me, Morgan?”
“Not unless I have to.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Your choice. Live or die, it’s all up to you.”
The man stood with his back to Frank, his hands at his side. He refused to turn around.
“You’re putting me on the spot, fellow,” Frank said, “and you’re playing a dangerous game.”
The ambusher laughed. “What difference does it make? It’s the only game in town.”
“For a fact.”
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