“Keep the girls close to the wagon.” Frank nodded at Dixie, then surveyed the uneven plain around them.
“Why? Indians?” Dixie followed his example and began a search of her own.
“Not necessarily. Although there may be a band or two still out here wanting to make a name for themselves. It’s those redheaded brothers I’m worried about.”
“You think they’ll hit us this soon?”
Frank wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his bandanna. “They shouldn’t, but who knows? They didn’t look to be the brightest in the class. They might not even know where the Ford County line is. In any case, it’s best to keep the girls in sight and a sharp eye on the horizon. Pass the word among the women to keep their weapons at the ready.”
Dixie nodded and patted the rifle in the seat beside her.
The weather remained warm and cloudless for the next three days, and the wagons slowly ate their way across the endless plain. Nine miles out of Ford County, they pulled up for the night at a tiny settlement made up of no more than a saloon, general store, assay office, and a jumble of surrounding shacks and brush wickiups.
Paula had forgotten to get nutmeg in Dodge, and set off to the store on a mission to find some, against Frank’s warning that in this little no-account town, she’d be lucky to find salt, let alone a fancy spice.
Frank walked into the darkened saloon and found he had it to himself. He needed another man to talk to, someone with a low voice to rest his ears.
“Beer,” he said, leaning up against the rough bar.
“Comin’ right up, mister,” the smiling barkeep said through a mouthful of crooked teeth. He looked like each tooth had been removed and put back in sideways. “You the one leadin’ all them women west?”
Frank nodded, sipping the froth of his beer. “I am.”
“How do you stand it? I could hear you all comin’ for the last hour—all that cacklin’ would drive me outta my head.” He leaned forward on his bar rag. “Ain’t they got no other menfolks?”
“Killed. All of them. By a fellow named Ephraim Swan and his gang.”
“Heard of him. He’s a bad one for a fact, he is. Cold-blooded killer.”
“He is at that.” Frank took a proper drink of his beer and downed it. “That was tasty. Got one more?”
The bartender drew another beer and put it on the bar in front of Frank. “Best beer in town.” He began to laugh, showing all his crooked teeth. “Hell, it’s the only beer in town. This one’s on the house, friend. Anyone who can put up with a bunch of women on the trail deserves a little reward. Besides, you’re a damn sight easier to talk to than those three hotheads that came in here earlier today.”
Frank sat up straight at the news and leaned closer to the bartender. “Three men came here ahead of us?”
The man nodded and poured himself a beer. He raised the glass to Frank. “To ownin’ your own bar,” he toasted. “Yeah, they was real scabby types. Surly too, wouldn’t talk to me at all. Kept to themselves altogether.”
“Redheads?”
“Yeah. You know ’em?”
“Afraid so.” Frank turned to go warn the women, but the Benson brothers poured through the front door before he could take a step.
All three shuffled to the end of the bar and ordered beers.
“We ain’t lookin’ for no trouble, Morgan.” The oldest of the three stood nearest him at the bar.
Frank thought it best to put all his cards out on the table right there and then. Better to face all three together now, than at night on the plains, when he’d have the women to worry about. “You boys are a right smart distance out of Dodge. Did Swan have to draw you a map?”
The brothers started when he mentioned the outlaw’s name, as if they’d been caught red-handed stealing cattle.
Frank nodded. “Figures. I thought he’d probably pay someone to do his dirty work.”
“We don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, mister,” the one called Bully said from between his brothers. The three seemed to go everywhere in order of their ages.
“So you’re just out for a little trip?”
“We might be,” Bully said. “There ain’t no law against it.”
“Depends on what you do while you’re on that trip.” Frank swayed up from the bar and faced the three men. “Now which one of you three is in charge?”
They looked at each other blinking, as if no one had ever put the question to them before.
“I’m the oldest,” the one on the end said, bobbing his red head.
“Shut up, Hugh. You may have been whelped before me, but you ain’t in charge of nobody.” It was easy to see why they called this one Bully.
“Why can’t I be in charge once in a while?” the youngest brother whined into his beer.
Frank put his hand on the butt of his gun. “I wish you boys would hurry up and figure it out, ’cause I aim to kill the one in charge first.”
All three pushed up and held out their hands. “Hey, Morgan, we said we ain’t lookin’ for trouble.” Bully had a shifty eye. If any of them drew had the gumption to draw, it would be him.
“Yeah, you don’t want any trouble, not here in front of witnesses. But you’d sure as hell sneak up and cut all our throats while we’re sleeping.” He took a step toward the brothers. “Now I want to know which one of you took the money from Swan to come after us. Tell me the truth and I’ll only kill the one of you.”
“You’re crazy, mister,” Hugh said, turning to leave.
Frank was in his face now. He grabbed the older brother by the ear. Bully took a step toward him, but Frank jerked his Peacemaker from the holster and slapped him across the side of the head. A couple of Bully’s teeth beat him to the ground. Frank stomped down hard on Hugh’s boot toe, then gave the screaming redhead a conk on the noggin as well, sending him sprawling and unconscious beside his middle brother.
Frank turned to the youngest Benson, gun in hand. “All right, I just did you a big favor. You’re in charge.”
The boy swallowed hard, his huge goiter bobbing up and down on a freckled throat. “What do you want from me, mister?”
“First, I want you to put your gun on the bar where my friend here can keep it for you.” The boy complied. His knees knocked together.
“Now, you can do me a favor,” Frank said. “What are your orders from Swan?”
“N-n, no or-or-orders.” He had a hard time talking past the lump in his throat.
Frank thumbed back the hammer. “I’m gettin’ tired of askin’ you, Baby Benson.”
“R-really! We ain’t got no orders. I ain’t never even met the man. He just put out the word he’d pay ten thousand cash to any man who kills you.” Pale to begin with, the boy had gone bone gray, and looked like he might keel over at any moment.
This was bad news. Now every tinhorn gunslick west of the Mississippi would be looking to gain not only a reputation, but ten thousand dollars as well.
“Wh-what do you aim to do with us, Mr. Morgan?” Baby Benson leaned against the bar to steady himself.
“That is a very good question,” Frank said, tapping the barrel of his Colt against his thigh. “A very good question in deed. I can’t just leave you all here like this. When your fool brothers wake up, you wouldn’t be in charge anymore and they’re likely to make you come after us. We can’t have that, now can we?”
Baby Benson shook his head. “No, sir, I reckon we can’t.”
Frank stared down at the unconscious men and smiled. His face suddenly brightened. “You can be in charge for a while longer,” he told the young redhead. “I got an idea.”
* * *
Dixie came out of the store with Paula, who was gloating about finding a small vial of nutmeg behind a tin of baking powder, when she heard two shots from inside the bar next door. Both women jumped at the loud sound and started for the door. Dixie had taken to carrying her rifle with her wherever she went, and she grabbed it with both hands, making it ready for use.
&nbs
p; Before they could make it inside, Frank met them on the steps, chuckling and shaking his head.
“Are you all right?” Dixie checked him up and down looking for wounds. She didn’t see any.
“I’m fine. Just had to shoot the two oldest Benson brothers in the foot.”
“What?” Dixie and Paula said at once.
“Shot each of ’em in the foot. They were bound to come after us one way or another. Least this will slow ’em down.”
“Weren’t there three?” Dixie asked.
“Yeah.” Frank chuckled. “But the youngest one’s no problem. He’ll be busy tending to his wounded brothers for a while anyway. Besides, if a miracle happens and he grows a spine, we’d smell him coming a mile away.”
* * *
A tall, slender Mexican sat hunched in Ephraim Swan’s tent wearing a rumpled white suit and an impatient look. Swan sat across from him drinking from a snifter of brandy.
“How long do you expect my offer to stand?” the skeletal man asked, dabbing at his thin mustache and goatee with a white kerchief he’d taken from his vest pocket. “I, like you, have customers I must keep happy. If I do not bring them a product, then they begin to look elsewhere.”
“I’ll get them for you, Eduardo. I told you I would and I will.” Swan set the brandy on the wooden trunk offered the other man a cigar. “I have run into some, shall we say, unforeseen circumstances. But they are nothing I cannot handle in time.”
“Would these unforeseen circumstances be Mr. Frank Morgan, the famous gunman and desperado?”
Swan grunted around his own cigar. “You know of the bastard down in Mexico?”
“Oh, yes,” Eduardo said. “He is quite a legend.” The Mexican shook his head slowly and took a long draw on his cigar. “I understand your problem, but unfortunately I can only give you one more week. If you somehow get the girls back by then, my offer is still valid. Any time beyond that, and my buyers will begin to look at other markets. They are particularly interested in the redheaded señoritas, so I will give you the agreed price for them whenever you bring them—the güeras—the blondes as well. But the price will go down considerably for all the others after this week. Frank Morgan or no, my feet are . . . how do you say it? Held to the fire.”
Swan seethed inside, but didn’t let is show on his face. “Thank you for the week, Eduardo. I’ll make good use of it, I promise you.”
Eduardo flicked the ash of the coal off his cigar with a bony finger. “May I ask what you plan to do? I have heard of your reward, and I have also heard this Morgan has killed everyone who has challenged him so far.”
Swan tried to keep his face placid. What did this stupid bean-eating scarecrow know about Frank Morgan—or anything, for that matter? If Swan didn’t stand to lose so much money, he would have held a lot more than this idiot’s feet to the fire. Swan took a deep breath and cleared his throat in an effort to regain his internal composure.
“I have sent the word all over about the reward. Men will begin to come and challenge him in droves. Some will go for him in town; others will try him on the prairie. Sooner or later, he will lose.”
“I hope for your sake, Ephraim, it is sooner rather than later.”
Swan nodded. “I do as well. I have sent word to a very special man who should be able to speed things up. Once he hears, all our troubles should be over.”
“These are not my troubles.” Eduardo smirked. “They are yours and yours alone.”
Swan smiled broadly. His face hid the inner fury that gnawed at his stomach. If in a week’s time he didn’t have the girls, Frank Morgan would still pay dearly—but so would Eduardo. For the next time they met, if the price was lowered one peso, Swan would see the bony Mexican torn limb from limb for all his smart condescending attitude.
Chapter 13
Paula soaked some dried apples, and used a dash of her treasured nutmeg to make an apple pie that smelled good enough to make Frank want to forget the rest of the fine meal. Dog didn’t care much for pie, but he did enjoy the steak trimmings and biscuits the girls gave him.
“You ladies are going to fatten me and Dog up so fierce, we won’t be able to protect you.” Frank chuckled, and used a piece of biscuit to sop up the last of his fried potatoes and pan gravy.
“We like to see a hungry man eat,” Dixie said, dabbing a little tear out of her eye with the corner of her apron.
“Well.” Frank got to his feet and scraped the last bits of his main course onto a nearby clump of grass. “I don’t aim to disappoint you then. Paula, I’d chop you a cord of wood for a piece of that pie.” Wood was at a premium on the plains, and they all laughed at how easy it was to promise such a thing.
Dog sprawled out between the Fossman girls, doing his part to cheer up the orphans, and promptly went to sleep. With Frank ’s belly full of steak and sweet apple pie, he decided Dog had a pretty good idea.
Dixie squatted by the fire, gathering up the dishes and banking the coals so there’d be some left to cook breakfast. The dying blaze popped and sputtered, casting a warm glow on the woman’s face. She smiled at Frank, a wide smile that made the tough gunman’s insides turn to jelly
For one night anyway, all was right with the world.
* * *
They made it until noon the next day before the rain came. They were in a low-lying draw and Frank had them push on, fearing they’d be caught in a flash flood. By the time they’d gone two miles, mud began to suck at the wheels. Each wagon left trenches a foot deep in the trail. Stormy moved his feet with great effort, each step making a slurping pop as he withdrew his hoof. The prairie had turned into a maze of muddy streams under the heavy downpour.
Alone as they were on the treeless plain, Frank worried as much about lightning as he did about bandits. There wasn’t anything he could do about it, so they pushed ahead.
Frank wiped his eyes with a bandanna and peered ahead of him. Finally, through the wind and rain, he could see what he’d been hoping for.
“Swing left for those rocks,” he yelled to Dixie over the driving rain. Tall sandstone monoliths stood a quarter mile away, looking like giant guardians of the prairie. “They’ll give us some protection from the wind and maybe keep us from getting struck by lightning.”
Dixie clucked to her mules and tugged on the wide leather reins. The stout animals seemed to know rest waited for them at the rocks, and dug in with renewed effort, straining at the harness.
A short time later, wagon canvas was strung and a fire built under it from dry wood Frank had insisted the girls gather for just such an occasion.
Dixie rocked back and forth next to the flames, tugging at the pockets of her soaking-wet britches. She shook her head and looked at Frank. “I don’t care what you say. Dresses have an added benefit of not being so uncomfortable when they get wet.”
He chuckled, warming his hands by the fire. “I suppose wet britches do take a little gettin’ used to.”
“It’s something I’d rather not try,” Paula said. “This is absolutely unbearable.” She had a drawn, pained look on her face.
“I’m going to change back into a dress until these dry.” Dixie winked at Frank. “I have an extra skirt if you’re uncomfortable, Frank.”
Frank scoffed. “That’ll be the day.”
The rain lasted for two long days. In the cramped quarters under the canvas, tempers simmered and inevitable squabbles broke out between the girls. Berta Fossman accused little Tabby Freeman of stealing a length of green ribbon she wanted to use to tie back her wet hair. There was a flurry of name-calling, and for a moment Morgan thought the girls might come to blows. Berta was stout, and had twenty pounds and at least three years on Tabby. But Frank would have put his money on the Freeman girl in an all-out brawl. She had the look of righteous indignation in her eye, a calm tone in her voice, and though no one else could see it, a cast-iron muffin pan hidden behind her back to defend herself with against the much larger girl.
Luckily, Bea Fossman found her sister’
s ribbon and after much crying and apologizing, all was forgotten. Frank was amazed at how women could be so all-fired angry with each other one minute, then sit around and gab shoulder-to-shoulder the next, sewing on a quilt together like nothing had ever happened. If it had been boys, someone would have had a bloody nose. He’d seen men go to guns for lesser insults.
On the third day, the sun popped out from behind a gray cloud bank. The camp turned into a huge tangle of lines with dripping clothes and steaming bedding.
Two days later, the wagons pulled into the settlement of Garden City, Kansas, about sixty miles from the Colorado line.
Frank suggested that Paula go on another nutmeg hunt in case she wanted to make another apple pie or two ... or three. She was glowing at his compliment outside the small mercantile when a well-dressed man in a high-collared shirt and bowler hat sauntered up on the boardwalk.
Frank gave the man a wary stare and turned to face him, letting the women move out of the way and into the store.
“Pardon me for intruding,” the gentleman said, touching the brim of his bowler. He had a dark, pencil-thin mustache, which looked like it took a lot of work, under a crooked nose. An assortment of white scars adorned the backs of his large hands. He carried himself with a confident air of strength and grace. A bare-knuckle boxer.
“What can I do for you?” Frank kept his gun hand relaxed, ready.
“My name is George Carlisle.” The boxer stuck out a beefy paw. He smiled under his tiny mustache. There seemed to be nothing but admiration in his eyes.
“Frank Morgan.” They shook hands.
“I know. You’re the reason I’m here.”
Frank tensed, waiting for Carlisle to make a move.
“I’m on assignment from a national detective agency,” the boxer said.
“Pinkerton?” Frank took a deep breath and shook his head. After what they did to Jesse James’s mother, Frank had little use for Allen Pinkerton or his men.
Carlisle smiled, but didn’t come out and admit to working for the infamous agency. “I spoke with Sheriff Masterson in Dodge. He told me about the trouble with Swan and his gang.”
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