The vehement question made the slick-haired gent look nervous, but he took a small envelope from under the counter and held it out toward The Kid. “She departed a while ago, Mr. Morgan. She asked me if I would give you this note.”
The Kid snatched the envelope out of the clerk’s hand, causing him to flinch a little. As The Kid stalked over to one of the windows where the light was better, he ripped the envelope open, in his anger not being too careful about it.
Lace’s handwriting was bold but feminine. On the card inside the envelope she had written:
Sorry to end things like this for now, Kid. I thought it might be easier this way. I know you’re already thinking about charging after me and giving me a hand tracking down Jake Cisneros, but I’d take it as a personal favor if you didn’t. This is my job, not yours. We’ll run into each other again one of these days. Until then ...
Lace.
His first impulse was to clench his hand on the card and crumple it, but he knew he might regret it, later. He slid it back into the envelope and tucked it away inside his coat.
She was right about him coming after her, though. If she was bound and determined to be a bounty hunter, she’d just have to put up with a partner. He wouldn’t take any cut of the rewards, of course, since he didn’t need the money and she did.
And she’d probably wind up hating him for horning in, he realized with a sharply indrawn breath. It would be a blow to her pride, and that was one thing Lace couldn’t stand.
On the other hand, he already missed her. The pang of it was like a knife in him.
As he turned away from the window, he saw the clerk pointing across the lobby at him. The man was talking to a tall, slender young woman in a gray traveling outfit and hat. Her blond hair was pinned up in an elaborate arrangement of curls under the hat. Clearly, the clerk had just pointed him out to her.
The Kid tensed. He already had enough on his mind without more trouble, and he could tell by looking at the woman that was exactly what she was. He even had a pretty good hunch who she was.
She nodded her thanks to the clerk and started across the lobby toward The Kid. He glanced at the doors of the hotel. The only way he could reach them before she cut him off was by making a dash for them. He wasn’t going to make a run for it across the Menger’s lobby just to get away from a young woman.
She was a very attractive young woman, too, not that that changed anything. Her face was lovely, and even at a distance The Kid could tell her eyes were a brilliant blue. He still didn’t want to talk to her.
But it looked like he wasn’t going to have any choice in the matter. She planted herself in front of him and said, “Mr. Morgan?”
“You know I am. The fella at the desk just told you I was. And you’d be Miss Lupo.”
If she was surprised by his knowledge of her identity, she didn’t show it. “That’s right. I imagine Captain Hughes told you about me.”
“Actually it was Sergeant Culhane.”
Culhane’s name brought a smile to her lips. “The sergeant told me the two of you are friends.”
“Not good enough friends that I’m willing to go to prison just because he asks me to,” The Kid said.
Katherine Lupo’s smile disappeared. She looked worried. “We shouldn’t be talking about that here. There are too many people around.”
“Doesn’t matter,” The Kid told her with a shake of his head. “I’m sorry, Miss Lupo, but I can’t help you.”
“You mean you won’t help me,” she shot right back at him.
He shrugged. “Call it whatever you want.”
“It’s not so much about helping me. It’s about restoring the reputation of ... well, I suppose you really can’t call my father an innocent man.”
“Since he was behind bars for bank robbery and holding up trains, I reckon not.”
Anger flared in those compelling blue eyes of hers. “My father never denied what he’d done. Once he was caught, he was willing to serve his time. But he’d been in prison for five years, Mr. Morgan, and every time I visited him during those years, and in every letter he wrote to me, he made the same promise—that once he had served his sentence and been released, he would never break the law again. I believed him then, and I still do.”
“Of course you do,” The Kid said. “He was your father. And for your sake I’m sorry about what happened to him, by the way.”
“But you don’t think I’m right about him.” The words came out of her mouth in a flat, hard voice.
The Kid sighed. “Look, maybe we shouldn’t stand here in the middle of the lobby talking about this. Why don’t we go in the dining room, maybe get some tea?”
And maybe that would help get his mind off Lace leaving the way she had, he thought.
Katherine hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “All right. I’d like to explain.”
“It won’t do you any good,” The Kid told her, “but I’ll listen.”
They went into the Menger’s well-appointed dining room and sat at a table in the corner. A waitress came over and The Kid ordered tea. He hadn’t managed to get any dinner before he went with Culhane to the headquarters of the Frontier Battalion, but with Lace gone, he wasn’t particularly hungry.
While they were waiting for the tea, Katherine Lupo said, “Captain Hughes told you about what happened to my father, I suppose.”
“That’s right.”
“You probably don’t believe that he wouldn’t have broken out of prison unless he was forced to.”
“Being forced is not something that happens very often,” The Kid said. “Or ever.”
Again her eyes sparked with anger. “You don’t know that,” she insisted. “But even if you don’t believe that, you can believe this. My father would never, ever kill anyone. He just didn’t have it in him. Why do you think he was able to carry out all those other robberies without anyone ever getting hurt?”
“Some of that could’ve been luck.”
Katherine shook her head. “No. It was because he never wanted anyone to get hurt. He was a good man.”
“Except for stealing other people’s money.”
For a second The Kid thought Katherine was going to stand up and slap him. He probably had it coming, he mused. He wasn’t being very nice to her.
But he didn’t feel very nice.
Finally she said, “I’ll admit that he had a few ... moral shortcomings, I guess you could call them. But he wouldn’t have killed that prison guard.”
“Maybe one of the men who broke out with him was responsible for that,” The Kid suggested. “They may not know exactly what happened during the escape.”
“One of the guards, Corporal Hagen, swore that he saw my father stab Sergeant Flynn. He’s lying, Mr. Morgan.”
“Why would he do that?” The Kid asked.
The question was barely out of his mouth when a possible answer suggested itself to him.
Hughes had said the Rangers suspected the gang was working with at least one person inside the prison, probably more. The guard Hagen could be part of the scheme, he thought. In that case, if the Rangers—and Katherine Lupo—were right about her father being forced to escape against his will, it made sense Hagen would lie about Lupo killing the other guard. That would give the gang even more of a hold over him.
In spite of himself, The Kid found himself thinking again about everything he had heard ... and realizing there was a good chance Hughes, Culhane, and Katherine were right.
Katherine watched The Kid’s thought play across his face and smiled. “Now you’re beginning to understand, Mr. Morgan.”
The Kid frowned. He understood, all right, but that didn’t change the facts of what they wanted him to do.
The waitress arrived with their tea. They sat quietly for a few moments, sipping from the delicate china cups.
Katherine placed her cup on the accompanying saucer and said, “I know it’s not fair. The Rangers are asking you—I’m asking you—to risk your life. You didn’t know my f
ather and you don’t know me. You have absolutely no reason to be willing to run that sort of risk.”
“I don’t like outlaws,” The Kid said. “If what Hughes told me is true, this is a pretty vicious bunch. They’re responsible for the deaths of quite a few people.”
“Yes, including my father. I’d track them down myself if I could, Mr. Morgan, but that’s just not possible.”
He smiled faintly. “You’d stand out pretty good in the penitentiary, all right.”
“When Sergeant Culhane first came up with this idea, I told him and Captain Hughes I didn’t want them to do it. I wasn’t going to ask a perfect stranger to put his life on the line simply to get justice for my father.”
“That’s not the only reason to do it.”
“Perhaps not, but it’s the reason that matters the most to me. Sergeant Culhane assured me things would be arranged so that whoever went into the prison would have help. They would have ways of communicating with you and stepping in if the situation became too dangerous.”
That sounded good and might be reassuring to Katherine, The Kid thought, but he knew how quickly things could change once a fella was in the middle of a fight. All the plans in the world might not be enough to save him if his luck deserted him at the wrong moment.
But that was true of just about everything in life, he reminded himself. Anything could happen, at any time. The tragedies that had dogged his own life the past few years were proof enough.
A man would go loco if he thought about it too much.
So the choices facing him were simple ones, at least on the surface. He could ride after Lace and risk making her so angry at him she’d never have anything to do with him again. He could sit in San Antonio and drink and brood, maybe gamble a little like the bored rich man he used to be. He could go back to Boston or San Francisco and actually resume the identity of Conrad Browning again, something he had sworn he would never do.
Or he could go along with the Rangers’ plan and maybe wind up dead.
But if he didn’t wind up dead, he might be able to get to the bottom of the mystery and put a gang of brutal killers out of business. That would be a good thing.
And so would taking some of the pain out of this young woman’s eyes.
Those thoughts flashed through his mind in a matter of seconds. He looked across the table at Katherine Lupo and said, “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll talk to Culhane again.”
Chapter 10
“Didn’t expect to see you again so soon, Kid,” Asa Culhane said.
“Someone came to see me at my hotel,” The Kid said.
“The girl?”
“You didn’t put her up to it, did you?” The Kid watched Culhane’s rough-hewn face intently as he asked the question.
“No, sir, I did not,” the Ranger replied, sounding a little offended by the idea. “I knew she’d been here and talked to the cap’n, and I figured he told her you said no to the idea, but that’s all I know about it. Cap’n Hughes wouldn’t have sent her to beg you to help, neither. He ain’t got an underhanded bone in his body.”
The Kid smiled. “That’s the impression I got, too. Miss Lupo’s really determined to clear her father’s name, at least as much as that’s possible considering his history.”
Culhane nodded. “Can’t blame her for feelin’ that way about her pa.”
“The same thought occurred to me,” The Kid agreed. He’d caught up to Culhane at the headquarters of the Frontier Battlion. Even though the grizzled old Ranger claimed to be surprised to see him again, The Kid thought Culhane didn’t really look all that surprised, as if he’d suspected all along The Kid wouldn’t be able to resist the challenge.
“Let’s go in the office and talk,” Culhane suggested. The Kid nodded.
They went into the adobe building. Culhane rapped his knuckles on the open door of Captain Hughes’s office and was told to come in.
Hughes raised his eyebrows when he saw The Kid. He looked genuinely surprised.
“The Kid’s had second thoughts about our plan,” Culhane said.
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” The Kid corrected him. “But I’m willing to discuss it some more. Miss Lupo said you had some ideas about how to cut down on the danger for the man who goes into the prison.”
“Miss Lupo came to see you?” Hughes asked.
“She found me at the Menger Hotel.”
“I didn’t send her there, Mr. Morgan.”
“That’s what Sergeant Culhane told me. I believe you, Captain.”
“Well, in that case,” Hughes said, “sit down and we’ll talk about this.”
“We’d have to keep who you really are mighty quiet,” Culhane said after he and The Kid took seats in front of Hughes’s desk, “since we figure somebody inside the prison is workin’ with the gang and we don’t know who.”
Hughes said, “Just about the only person who’s above suspicion is the warden.”
“You’re sure of him?” The Kid asked.
“I’ve known Preston Jennings for more than twenty years,” Hughes said. “He’s incorruptible.”
The Kid wasn’t sure anybody fell into that category, but since he was going to have to trust somebody if he became a part of this, he supposed he might as well trust the captain’s judgment. Nodding, he said, “Go on.”
“We’d let Jennings know who you really are and that you’re working with us. We’ll leave it up to him to tell one subordinate he trusts.”
“Just in case somethin’ happened to the warden,” Culhane added. “We wouldn’t want you to wind up gettin’ stuck behind bars for any longer than you had to be there.”
“I wouldn’t want that, either,” The Kid commented with a smile.
“Other than that, though,” Hughes continued, “everybody inside the prison would believe you’re actually Waco Keene, the train robber.”
“None of the convicts in there know Keene well enough to recognize him?”
Hughes shook his head. “We can’t rule that out entirely, of course, without checking the background of every single prisoner, but the chances of it are slim. Keene’s never been in prison. He was locked up a few times in local jails, but those are the only times he’s been behind bars. And all the men who rode with him on his holdups are dead. All the paperwork will say you’re Waco Keene, and I don’t think anyone will challenge it.”
“Sounds like this Keene was pretty small-time, and he wasn’t even a bank robber,” The Kid said. “Not like Lupo. What makes you think the gang will find him an attractive enough target to go after?”
“Keene was beginning to develop a reputation as a desperado. We can make it even stronger by spreading the word he was responsible for a number of robberies he really didn’t have anything to do with and inflating the amount of the rewards that were offered for him. A prison is like any other community, Mr. Morgan. To a certain extent it lives on gossip and speculation. Also, we know Lupo took part in at least one train robbery after he was broken out of prison. The gang doesn’t limit themselves to bank robberies.” Hughes shrugged. “Anyway, Waco Keene is the one who’s conveniently dead right now.”
“It sounds like you might be able to pull off that part of it,” The Kid said. “But if I found myself in trouble, the guards wouldn’t help me. They’d believe I was Waco Keene, too.”
“Well ...” Hughes smiled thinly. “You’d have to be able to take care of yourself, that’s certainly true. But if you found yourself in such danger the plan had to be abandoned, you could ask to see the warden. He’ll know who you are.”
“The guards might not let me see him.”
Hughes shrugged. “The plan has risks. I won’t deny that.”
“So what you’re saying is it would be up to me to stay alive in there until the gang comes to bust me out,” The Kid said. “Or until you give up on the idea. How long’s that going to be? Lupo was in there for five years before they recruited him, remember?”
“They’ve been making a move about every six
months,” Hughes said. “It hasn’t been that long since Lupo escaped, but we’re hoping they’re starting to get greedy and will make their next move sooner.”
“Owlhoots usually do get greedy,” Culhane put in.
The Kid leaned back in his chair and cocked his right ankle on his left knee. “Let’s say it works and they break me out of there. What happens then?”
“We’ll be keeping an eye on the prison, and with any luck we’ll be able to follow them,” Hughes said. “We wouldn’t want to close in on them just yet, though. We wouldn’t be able to charge them with anything except the breakout. To get proof of everything they’ve done, you’d have to be part of their organization for a while. Once you’ve found out as much as you can, you get word to your contact, and the Rangers will move in and grab them.”
“What contact?”
“We’ll have a man stationed somewhere close to the gang. He’ll signal you, so you’ll know where to look for him. After that, he’ll wait for your signal, and when he sees it, he’ll alert the other Rangers.”
The Kid thought it all over and then slowly shook his head.
“Sounds like there’s an awful lot that could go wrong.”
“Of course there is,” Hughes agreed without hesitation. “And if it does, you could easily wind up dead. I won’t try to deny that. But it’s the only way we can think of to find the people who are really behind this.”
“If you’re even right about it being some sort of gang,” The Kid said. “Maybe you’re wrong about Lupo, and his daughter is, too.”
“In that case, nothing will happen, and in a few months we’ll pull you out of the prison.”
“A few months,” The Kid repeated wryly.
“I don’t think that’s how it’s going to turn out. I think we’re right about the gang.”
The Kid thought there was a good chance the Rangers were right, too. And from the sound of it, they had devoted quite a bit of planning to the idea and would try to protect their inside man as much as they could.
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