“Shut up, Bobby,” the gut-shot outlaw coughed. “You fool kid.”
“Are you . . . Frank Morgan?” the third outlaw asked. He was a bald man and though the rain had stopped, drops of sweat and water rolled down into his squinting eyes. A crackling wheeze escaped his bullet-riddled chest as he spoke.
Frank touched the brim of his hat. “That’s my name.”
“Who’s with you?”
“Just me, boys.”
“I thought it was you....” The bald man gasped before closing his eyes for the last time.
Frank turned his attention back to the boy. “Who’s Swan? And where’s Wilson? When is he coming back?”
The young outlaw’s face twisted in pain as he spoke. He wouldn’t last long. “He’s a right powerful man, Mr. Morgan. He’s got money, and plenty of men to back his play. They got a place not far from—”
“Shut the hell up, Bobby.” The gut-shot outlaw kicked out and connected with the boy’s ribs. Both men cried out in pain, but the boy fell silent.
Alone now, the older outlaw glared at Frank. “Bobby was right about one thing, you son of a bitch. Swan has a bucketful of men to back his play. That I know for certain. He’ll hunt you down wherever you go, you can count on that. And when he catches up to you, he’s gonna rain down on you like hellfire.”
“Hellfire, sir, is something about which you will soon be intimately acquainted.” Frank rose and turned to walk away.
“You aim to just leave me here?” The outlaw hacked up a mouthful of blood and spit it into the muck.
“I tried to trade with you.” Frank said. “If all you can talk is trash, go talk it to the devil.”
* * *
Frank climbed into the lead wagon and sat on the springy wooden seat beside Dixie. “You ladies got everything you need?”
“I think so,” she said. “If we left anything behind, they can have it.” She turned to face him and took a deep breath. “Frank, did you find Virgil?”
Frank slapped the mules with the leather reins to get them started. He nodded, staring straight ahead. “I did. Found all of them—and the Fossman woman.”
The wagon lurched forward as the mules dug into the mud. “I want to turn us north and get us as far out of No Man’s Land as I can before Wilson gathers his forces. We need to get to a town. Dodge isn’t too far. I know people there. We can re-outfit and you ladies can decide what you’re going to do.”
Dixie suddenly burst into tears, burying her face against the sleeve of Frank’s coat. “They just killed them, Frank. Herded them out into the open and shot them all—even little Timmy Brandon. I don’t think Carolyn will ever be the same. None of us will.” Her words gushed out as if keeping them bottled up might kill her. “They were going to sell us, Frank. They were taking us to some town where they planned to sell us all, even the baby girls.”
Frank drove on through the mist, relying on the mules’ night vision to steer them clear of obstacles. Soon he was keenly aware of Dixie sleeping against his shoulder. He smelled the rain on her skin and the fragrance of the soap she’d used to wash her hair, felt the rise and fall of her chest as she sobbed in her sleep.
Three hours later, he rolled to a stop. Afraid they might break a wheel if they kept going, he pitched a quick camp. They were all exhausted, and the country was getting too rough to go on in the dark. He made a quick fire for a pot of coffee, and let Dixie and the others sleep.
The rain had turned to a heavy mist, and the coffee warmed his body and spirits. Alone with his thoughts, Frank sipped the hot brew and mentally prepared himself for the attack he felt sure would come. Huddling under a makeshift canvas, he checked the rounds in his shotgun, petted Dog, and waited for the dawn.
Chapter 6
The idiot Finch kid came sliding into camp, drenched to the skin like he’d fallen in a river. Ephraim Swan heard the muffled voices outside his tent and pulled his boots on. He had given strict orders no one was to leave the women until he returned. With Frank Morgan on the prowl, it was impossible to predict what might happen.
“I’m cold, Ephraim. Where are you goin’?”
Swan turned to the skinny little redhead in the bedroll next to him and held up an open hand. She was no more than seventeen, and groggy from the Chinese drugs he’d given her. “You stay there, Carmen, and shut your mouth. I got some business to take care of and then I’ll be back and warm you up proper.”
He pushed the tent flap aside and pulled his oilskin duster up around his shoulders to ward off the heavy mist. He hadn’t bothered with a shirt, and a trickle of rainwater ran down the small of his back and made him even more irritable than he already was.
“What in the hell are you doin’ here?” he spit at the Finch kid. “The buyers won’t be here to talk to me till tomorrow. I told Spence you should all stay with the wagons until I got back.”
“Spence is dead, Mr. Swan.” The frightened kid chewed on his lower lip enough to make it bleed. He had his hat in his hands, and rain plastered his blond hair to a freckled face. “They’re all dead except Gibson and Farmer. I think they ran off right after the shooting started. I thought maybe they might beat me back here.”
“Dead? Ran off? Who was doing any shootin’?” Swan doubled his fist and swore. His snow-white eyebrow crept up his forehead in frustration. “Slow the hell down and tell me what happened. Are the women dead?”
Finch shook his head. “Not as far as I know, sir. It was all out of nowhere—like the pure fury of hell. A posse swept down on us not more’n a couple hours ago.” The boy’s eyes were still wide with the terror he’d seen during the attack. “They didn’t ask no questions or even give us a chance to give up. They just started shootin’. I was in one of the wagons. I heard a noise and when I looked out, I watched ’em blow Will Pascoe’s head off with a shotgun. People were dyin’ all around me, but somehow I made it to the horses and got away.”
The breeze kicked up a little and Swan could smell urine. The idiot kid had not only abandoned his post, but had pissed himself in the process.
“Let me see your pistol, you gutless little puke,” Swan snapped. “Did you even shoot back at the posse?”
Finch handed over his gun and nodded quickly, his head bobbing up and down like he had palsy. “Yes, sir, Mr. Swan. Sure I did, but there wasn’t much to shoot at. It was dark and they was everywhere. All I could ever see was fire and smoke and rain.”
The revolver had indeed been fired four times. Swan emptied the spent rounds into the mud and held out his hand until the boy gave him four fresh ones with trembling fingers.
“Calm down and listen to me, Finch.” Swan put a hand on the kid’s shivering shoulder. “I stand to lose a lot of money if anything happens to those females. They got their life savings hidden in the wagons, and I got an interested party who will pay handsomely for fresh women. I need you to think back and tell me which way the posse came from. How many were there and what was the last thing you saw them do?”
Swan was having a difficult time believing a posse would just happen on a wagon train of kidnapped women and shoot it out with his men without asking a few questions about identity. His gut told him different. This whole thing smelled like Frank Morgan.
Finch’s voice broke as he tried to speak, and he cast his wide eyes this way and that, as if looking for a place to run. “I . . . I don’t know how many there were. Ten, maybe a dozen. Like I said, they came on us after it got dark in the middle of a gully-washer. With all the thunder and lightning it was hard to tell how many of ’em there was for certain.”
“But you came back to tell me, while Gibson and Farmer ran away for their lives? You just wanted to let me know something happened. Didn’t you?” Swan’s hand still rested on the kid’s shoulder.
Finch’s sallow face brightened at the thought that he might have done something good. He looked at the small crowd of Swan’s other men who had gathered around, their own slickers drawn tight to their necks from the cold rain and the tension in the
air. The boy swallowed and started to stand a little straighter.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Swan. I did. I came back to report to you what happened.”
“But think now. You don’t remember any more?”
The kid shook his head. Rainwater dripped off his nose. “No, sir.”
“All right then.” Swan’s voice was calm, even soothing. He smiled and tilted his head toward one of the far tents. “You go and get dried off and get yourself something to eat.”
The boy nodded and turned to go. He stopped and turned back. “Oh, my pistol,” he said.
“Here,” Swan said softly, and shot him in the face.
The horses along the picket line a few yards away snorted and stomped at the shot, and several men poked their heads out of their own tents to see what had happened. When they saw Ephraim Swan standing in the rain with a gun in his hand, they wisely got out of his sight.
“I reckon Gibson and Farmer were the smart ones,” Swan mumbled to himself, before handing the smoking pistol over to the stoic outlaw who stood beside him.
Swan looked down at the body and watched it twitch in the mud. “I can abide a man who gets run off by a posse. I can even abide a man who gets himself shot up by Frank Morgan. But I can’t abide a man who’d piss himself in the middle of a fight.”
He strode back to his tent, then turned and looked at the other outlaws. “I want the men ready to go first thing in the morning. Those wagons can’t have traveled far in this weather. That wasn’t no damned posse that took those women back from us. It was that son of a bitch Frank Morgan. I don’t care how fast he is, I aim to get back what’s mine.”
The other man grunted and slogged away through the mud. Swan had no doubt the men would be up and ready before he was. He kept them in lots of money, liquor, and women for very little work—and every so often he killed one of the weak to show them all he was a serious man.
Inside the tent, he threw the wet oilskin over a small wooden traveling chest and climbed back into the blankets next to Carmen. The Chinese herbs he’d given the girl to smoke had made her groggy, and her head lolled back and forth when he tried to wake her up. She smacked her lips and mumbled something in her sleep.
“Stupid whore.” He slapped her hard across the face to bring her out of her doze. His hand left a pink imprint across her pale cheek. He slapped her again to make sure she was awake. She flinched and batted her foggy eyes at him, then smiled.
Swan stared at his groggy bedmate in disgust. It was no wonder his buyer was willing to pay for fresh meat—women who a man didn’t have to slap to get them going—women who still had some fire left in their eyes.
Tomorrow, he’d ride back with his men, kill that meddling fool Frank Morgan, and get those women back.
Chapter 7
Dixie drifted in on the mist in with a cup of coffee about four o’clock the next morning. She carried a rifle in her free hand.
“Thanks.” Frank sipped the hot drink and smiled at her company. “What’s got you up so early?”
“I came to give you a break from watch. You’d better get some sleep, Frank Morgan. If what you say is true, come tomorrow we are going to need you awake and ready.”
Frank gave her a weary nod. “I’m afraid I’m still too wound up to sleep, but I’ll try to get a catnap if I can.” He stared into the cup for a long moment, then looked up at his visitor. “Mind if I ask you something?”
“Not at all, Frank. Ask me anything you want. Were it not for you, none of us would be around.”
“What do you plan to do from here on out?”
Dixie shrugged. “Go forward, I guess. Just like Virgil planned. We sold everything we had back home in Indiana. The girls and I have nothing left to go back to.” She clutched the rifle to her chest as if she had a sudden chill. “Why do you ask?”
Frank ignored her question. “What will you do when you get there? Hunt for gold?”
“In Colorado? Oh, heavens, no. Gold hunting was Virgil’s job. I’m not too old yet. I suppose I could learn to do a number of things.” She winked. “Paula Freeman’s a schoolteacher and I’m every bit as smart as she is. I could always be a matronly widowed schoolmarm.”
She took a seat under the canvas shelter next to him, and they sat in silence for a few minutes. Rain dripped of the edge of the makeshift tent. Horses and mules milled about in the predawn darkness, snorting for their morning feed.
At length, Frank stood and gave a yawning stretch. “Dixie, you may be a lot of things. But a widow is something that will not suit you for long.”
Before she could say anything, Frank tipped his wet hat and walked to an empty wagon. To his surprise, he fell quickly into a dreamless sleep.
* * *
Four hours later, he woke with the smell of coffee and bacon in his nose. He sat up, rubbed a calloused hand across his face, and groaned. Dog, lying a few feet away, chewed on a soup bone and gave him a scolding look for sleeping in so late.
The rain had stopped and the sun was well up, but everyone was still asleep except Dixie, who stooped over a fire, stirring a pan of bacon with an iron fork.
She brushed a lock of auburn hair out of her green eyes and looked up at him.
“Thought I could make myself useful while I stood watch.” An errant dab of flour decorated the tip of her button nose.
Frank couldn’t help but notice the pink glow in her cheeks. “Why Mrs. Carpenter, considering the circumstances, you look the picture of health.”
“Well, that’s just what every woman wants to hear in the morning, Frank. ’Dixie, you’re not as sickly as I thought you might be.’”
“I mean you look radiant. Happy.” He searched his brain for the right word. “Corn-fed.”
She threw her oven mitt at him and stuck out her bottom lip in a mock pout. “Where I come from, corn-fed means fat.”
Frank looked at Dog, who offered no help. “Out here, certain things are important in a woman.” Frank said. “Sturdy health and having a little meat on the bones are traits to be envied for certain.” He scratched his head and tried to smooth down his wayward hair. “Though I reckon next time I’ll just say you’re beautiful and stop it right there.”
Betty Ellington’s six-year-old daughter Sara rescued him. She walked up to Frank’s wagon, dragging a quilt, and held her hands up for him to take her. He squirmed and looked over at Dixie.
“She trusts you, Frank. Pick her up and hold her for a few minutes.” Dixie dabbed a tear out of her eye. “The poor child deserves to feel safe for a few minutes.” She sniffed and turned back to her bacon and biscuits. “Just don’t call her corn-fed and you’ll be all right.”
Frank hoisted the tiny girl up into the wagon beside him. She didn’t say a word, but seemed content to sit in his lap and lean her small head against his chest. He could feel her heart beating. She trembled like a frightened bird. He couldn’t help but imagine what Wilson and his men had had in store for this innocent little one. Bile rose and burned the back of his throat. His stomach churned, but he tried to keep his outward composure so as not to alarm the girl. He rocked her gently and vowed to get her safely out of this awful place.
* * *
Two hours later saw everyone loaded, hitched, and on the trail. Frank rode Stormy out on point. He entertained the thought of riding some more with Dixie, but decided against it. She was too recently widowed, too emotionally raw. His feelings were too strong for her; he couldn’t hide them. It was best to give her a little time.
By three in the afternoon they were well out of the desolate strip known as No Man’s Land. They’d had such a late start, they didn’t stop for lunch but kept pushing, hoping to put as much distance between the plodding wagons and Steve Wilson’s gang as possible before making camp.
Frank checked each wagon, asking if the women were all right. They all nodded in turn. The only two of the ragtag group who ever had much talk in them now were Frank and Dixie. He rode by her wagon in silence for a time, scanning the country, listening
to her cluck and scold the mules. She had no idea what a commodity she was in country like this. The low sun cast an orange shadow across her face and hair. The auburn locks mixed with the dark, shadowed highlights and made a radiant show of color. It reminded him of a brindle bull he’d once had, and though he’d always thought the bull particularly handsome, he decided to keep the comparison to himself.
“I’m going to hang back for a few miles,” he said at length. He didn’t want to make another social blunder, so he kept his words all business. “You take the wagons up over that little ridge ahead there. I’ll scoot up there first to make sure nothing is going to bite you on the other side, then I’ll work my way back to see who’s following us. You stay with the wagons.”
Dixie smiled and nodded. “You know best, Frank.”
He turned Stormy to ride away, but she caught him. “Oh, and Frank, don’t worry. I’ve had three babies. I suppose there are worse things to be called than corn-fed.”
The gunfighter tipped his hat, put the spurs to Stormy, and whistled for Dog to follow. His mind was awhirl and he needed some male companionship.
The terrain was a series of one grassy rise after another, and Frank watched the last wagon disappear over a long mound to the northwest. He left his horse in the draw and worked his way up on the ridge to the south. Flat on his belly, he used his field glasses to scan the prairie on their muddy back trail.
“Damn,” he hissed into the wet clay, spitting a fleck of muddy grass stem out of his mouth. “Wilson, you sure know how to build an army.”
A large cadre of riders kicked up turf along the wagon track. He played the binoculars back and forth until he found the face he was looking for—Steve Wilson.
The outlaw rode to the far left of the group, on a nimble sorrel that looked like it might be a thoroughbred. Frank didn’t recognize any of the other men, but two fellows out front looked haggard, as if they’d been riding all night. He pegged them for escapees from his ambush.
He counted nineteen men. All riding with a vengeance. There was no way he could take them all, not even from his position on the high ground. But he could kill Steve Wilson. That might be enough to confuse the gang—cut off the head of the snake, leave them leaderless.
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