Hard Luck Money

by J. A. Johnstone

  “Better stay here,” The Kid told Beatrice.

  “No, I want to see what’s going on,” she insisted.

  “I reckon it’ll be all right, Keene,” Brattle said. “Those two hombres work for the boss, after all. Although it don’t make any sense, them bein’ here right now.”

  They joined Grey in front of the house and watched the two riders approach. Although Bert Hagen was no longer wearing his prison guard’s uniform and Ike Calvert was dressed in civilian clothes, The Kid recognized both men. Calvert had a derby hat perched jauntily on his head.

  As they reined their mounts to a halt, Hagen said, “Sorry to show up like this without any warning, Mr. Grey. There’s big trouble brewin’, and we figured you needed to know about it as soon as possible.”

  Grey ignored him and looked at Calvert. “I never expected to see you again. I never wanted to see you again.”

  The rat-like little convict grinned. “No need to take that tone, son. I’ve done everything you asked me to, haven’t I? Anyway, a boy shouldn’t talk that way to his own father.”

  Beside The Kid, Beatrice gasped. “It is him. I ... I remember seeing pictures of him.”

  So did The Kid. As he struggled to comprehend what was going on, he recalled the family portrait he’d seen in the old plantation house ... that Alexander Grey had burned to the ground. If he’d had a chance to take a closer look at that painting, he might have recognized Ike Calvert. Or Isaac Grey, to give the man what was probably his real name.

  He remembered Beatrice telling him that after murdering his wife, the elder Grey had changed his name and become an outlaw.

  The Kid knew where the man had ended up. How Alexander Grey had come to set up the operation with his estranged father was unknown to The Kid, but he supposed that didn’t really matter. Hagen dismounted without being asked. So did Calvert, which was the only way The Kid could think of him.

  Grey demanded, “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

  “To help you, of course,” Calvert said. “It was time to cut and run, Alex. The law’s on to what we’ve been doin’.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I was workin’ in the assistant warden’s office, sweepin’ out the place, you know, and I always like to look around when nobody’s there. You never know what you might find.” Calvert grinned. “Like part of a letter the assistant wrote to a ladyfriend of his. Seems he was tryin’ to impress her by tellin’ her all about how him and the warden were helpin’ the Texas Rangers by getting a fake prisoner on the inside of an outlaw gang.” Calvert leveled a finger at The Kid. “Him! He ain’t Waco Keene at all! He’s a damned Ranger!”

  The accusation didn’t take The Kid by surprise. He had figured out where things were going several moments earlier, although he hadn’t known exactly how Calvert had discovered his identity. Warden Jennings might be trustworthy, as Captain Hughes claimed, but obviously he had placed his trust in the wrong man.

  Unarmed, The Kid’s only chance lay in trying to brazen it out. “That’s crazy! I don’t know what some blasted warden wrote, but I’m sure not a Texas Ranger!”

  That was true enough, as far as it went.

  “Yes, he is,” Calvert insisted. “They figured out somehow what we’ve been doin’. They tricked us into bustin’ Keene, or whatever his real name is, out of prison and takin’ him into the gang, and the Rangers’ll probably be comin’ down on our heads any minute now!”

  Grey turned his cold, serpent-like gaze on the newest member of his gang.

  The Kid knew nothing he could say was going to convince Grey that Calvert was wrong.

  “I smuggled Ike out of the prison and we got here as quick as we could to warn you, boss,” Hagen began.

  “It’s all right,” Grey said. “It all makes sense now, why that Ranger has been sneaking around here. He’s your partner, isn’t he, Waco?”

  “I don’t know anything about this—”

  “Like I told him, don’t waste your time lying. You’ve just been waiting until after we’d pulled a job so you’d have more evidence against us. You were going to signal him so he could tell the Rangers to go ahead and raid the place. But he ruined everything by sneaking in and getting captured before you could give him the high sign.” Grey laughed and shook his head, then turned back to Hagen and his father. “So you see, there’s nothing to worry about. All we have to do is get rid of these two lawmen, and we can carry on as before. It’s a shame we won’t be able to have Murrell turn in the body for a nice, fat reward like we did with Lupo and the others, but I suppose we can accept that loss.”

  Brattle said, “A couple Rangers turn up missin’, boss, and the rest of those badge-totin’ buzzards will start wondering what happened to ’em. And that fella Tyler might’ve told his bosses we were holed up here. I think it’d be better if we moved out, and mighty quick-like, too. Maybe tonight.”

  Grey rubbed his jaw and frowned in thought. “That’s good thinking, Brattle. You may well be right. We can’t take the chance. Take Waco—we’ll still call him Waco for the sake of simplicity—take Waco out to the barn and put him with the other one.”

  Brattle grinned and reached for his gun. “Sure, boss. I’d be glad to.”

  The Kid knew he had run out of time. Putting up a fight might be futile, but he wasn’t going to give up and let them kill him.

  He launched himself at Brattle in a diving tackle. As he crashed into the segundo, he made a grab for Brattle’s gun.

  The impact of the collision knocked Brattle off his feet. He grabbed The Kid’s shirt and dragged him down, too. His fist slammed into The Kid’s jaw. The Kid drove his knee into Brattle’s belly as men shouted around him. Grey’s voice went up in pitch as he yelled, “Get him! Get him!”

  The Kid closed his hand over the cylinder of Brattle’s gun and twisted the weapon free. He got his elbow under Brattle’s jaw and levered the man’s head back, breaking loose of his grip.

  As The Kid rolled over, he flipped the gun around and wrapped his hand around the butt. But he didn’t have a chance to use it. Hagen loomed over him and swung a vicious kick, catching him in the head. Skyrockets exploded behind The Kid’s eyes. A wave of darkness welled up and threatened to overwhelm him.

  Another kick smashed into him, digging painfully into his ribs. He curled up and gasped for breath. Consciousness was slipping away from him, no matter how desperately he fought to hang on to it.

  He heard Grey order, “Take him out to the barn, but don’t kill him yet! I want that pleasure myself.”

  It was the last thing The Kid knew as blackness washed over him, taking away the pain and everything else.

  Chapter 30

  An unknown time later, The Kid swam up out of the black pool that had sucked him under. His head throbbed with pain, but he ignored it. He couldn’t afford to surrender to the agony. He had to figure out a way to escape.

  Returning to consciousness, he moaned and moved around.

  A voice called quietly, “Kid? Kid, can you hear me?”

  The Kid pried his eyes open and looked over at Tyler. The wounded Ranger was still tied to the post in the barn.

  It took only a moment for The Kid to realize he was in the same situation. His arms had been jerked awkwardly behind him, and his wrists were lashed together around a post. He was sitting on the hard-packed ground with his legs stuck out in front of him.

  Squinting, The Kid looked around. A lantern hung on a nail driven into another post, casting a yellow circle of light over the two prisoners. On the other side of that circle, the outlaw called Hendry sat on a stool, a six-gun held loosely in his hand.

  Hendry grinned at them. “So, both of our pigeons are awake now. I’ll have to let the boss know. He wanted to kill the Ranger first, but wanted you awake to see it, Mister Waco damned Keene.”

  “That’s not ... my name,” The Kid muttered. He took a deep breath, strengthening him some and making the pounding inside his skull lessen a little. He lifted hi
s head. “They call me Kid Morgan.”

  No point in secrets any longer—not with death dangling by a thread over him and Tyler.

  Hendry’s eyes widened. “Kid Morgan ... I’ve heard the name. Damned if I haven’t. You’re supposed to be some sort of gunfighter. Are you tellin’ me you’re really a Texas Ranger?”

  “Of course I’m not a Ranger, you blasted idiot!” The Kid’s mind grasped at any hope, no matter how slender. He took something that had really happened and twisted it to his purposes. “I don’t know anything about some crazy plan the Rangers hatched. I was arrested and thrown into prison because I was mistaken for Waco Keene!”

  Hendry gave his head a shake, as if trying to wrap his brain around what The Kid was telling him.

  “When Calvert said somebody was going to bust me out, of course I went along with it,” The Kid continued. “I would have been a damned fool to do anything else. And I’ve been pretending to be Waco Keene ever since, because that’s who your boss thought I was. You’ve got a good operation here. I wanted to be part of it for real.”

  “I never heard nothin’ about Kid Morgan bein’ an outlaw,” Hendry protested.

  “I wasn’t ... until I got sent to prison for something I didn’t do. Now I just want to get back at all the damned lawmen for doing that to me.”

  The sound of slow clapping came from the open double doors of the barn. Alexander Grey stood there, a sardonic smile on his face. “My, that was quite an inventive story. Totally ludicrous, of course, but with a tiny shred of possibility someone might take it seriously. Not me, however. I can see right through what you’re trying to do, Mr. Morgan. That is what you said your name is, isn’t it?”

  The Kid didn’t waste his time or breath trying to convince Grey the situation he’d described had actually happened to him in New Mexico Territory. It wasn’t worth the effort. He looked up at the man. “You’ve got it all wrong, Grey. I’m not a Texas Ranger.”

  “Well, if you’re not, then you’re working with them, which is just as bad,” Grey said as he strolled across the barn toward the prisoners. “Let’s not delay here. Everything is packed up, including the loot from that robbery today, and we’re ready to leave. The only thing left to do is take care of you two.” He paused and frowned. “I’m really not happy about having to abandon this place. It would have made an excellent headquarters for us for a while.”

  “That’s too damned bad, isn’t it?” The Kid said.

  “Yes, it is.” Grey jerked his head at Hendry. “Go on and join the others. I’ll be there shortly.”

  “Sure, boss.” Hendry stood up and went out of the barn as directed.

  The Kid tugged at the rope around his wrists. With only Grey to face, if he could get loose he stood a chance of overpowering the mastermind and getting his hand on a gun.

  The bonds were too tight, though. No matter how hard The Kid strained, he couldn’t get any play in them. Eventually he might have been able to work his way loose, with the loss of plenty of skin in the process, but Grey wasn’t going to give him that much time.

  Grey stood in front of the prisoners. “I thought about shooting you. I thought about letting Brattle cut your throats, too. He would have enjoyed that. But I decided both of those methods would be too quick, and relatively painless. I think you’d suffer a lot more if you burned to death.”

  A shiver went through The Kid at the sound of evil pleasure in Grey’s voice. “What are you going to do? Burn down the barn, like you did the plantation house?”

  Grey’s lips drew back from his teeth. “That house didn’t deserve to stand any longer! It was a monument to one man’s evil, and it’s only fitting that it was wiped off the face of the earth.”

  The Kid thought back to what the deranged preacher John Schofield had told him. “You can burn something down, but that doesn’t change the past. Everything a man does is still there, whether any sign of it is left or not. Your father still murdered your mother.”

  “I see dear Beatrice has been spilling the family secrets. Well, no matter. Yes, my father murdered my mother. I won’t deny it.”

  For a second The Kid thought Grey might lose control while talking about his father, and that might have led the man to make a mistake. “But you let him live.”

  Grey shrugged, coldly unemotional. “He serves a purpose. You two don’t.” It appeared he was mostly concerned with the money his scheme could make.

  But concerned with cruel revenge, too, as he proved by taking a match out of his pocket and waving it around. “I’m going to set fire to the hay in the back of the barn. The flames should spread quickly, but it’ll still take them several minutes to reach these stalls. You’ll have that time to think about how foolish you were to try to stop me, and to ponder how it’s going to feel to burn alive. I’ve heard that’s the most painful way to die, but then how would anyone know for sure, eh?”

  “You son of a—” Tyler raged at him. “You’re loco, you know that?”

  “On the contrary. I’m sane enough to know this world is a cesspool and the only thing it’s good for is whatever we can rip away from it.” Without saying anything else, Grey walked to the back of the barn.

  The Kid heard the match rasp into life.

  Grey returned with a smile on his face.

  “Good-bye, gentlemen. I hope it hurts like hell.” He turned and stalked toward the double doors.

  As he did, The Kid heard the faint crackle of flames and caught a whiff of the first tendril of smoke.

  Grey hadn’t quite reached the door when another figure appeared in the opening. Beatrice darted past him, avoiding the startled grab he made for her. With her long skirt swirling around her legs, she ran over to The Kid.

  “Waco!” she cried as she dropped to her knees beside him. She reached behind him to tug at his bonds and looked over her shoulder at her brother, pleading. “Alexander, you can’t do this!”

  Anger contorted Grey’s face as his long-legged strides carried him to her. He took hold of her arm and hauled her roughly to her feet, drawing a cry of pain from her.

  “So you’ve fallen for this Ranger, eh? You prefer him over your own flesh and blood?”

  “No, Alexander,” Beatrice whimpered. “I just don’t want you to kill them, that’s all. You ... you’re better than that.

  “There’s where you’ve made quite a mistake, my dear. I’m not better than that. Not at all. I’m no better than I have to be.” He started dragging her toward the doors. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

  “Alexander, no, no!” She tried to pull free from his grip.

  Grey used his other hand to slap her. The blow cracked viciously across her face and rocked her head to the side.

  Brattle came running in. “Boss, the gal got away from—”

  “I told you to watch her!” Grey yelled as he pushed the stunned Beatrice into his segundo’s arms. “Put her in the buggy and get her out of here! Now!”

  The flames were crackling louder in the rear of the barn.

  Brattle glanced at the fire and jerked his head in a nod. He tightened his grip on Beatrice. “I got her this time, boss.”

  She wasn’t struggling anymore as Brattle took her out of the barn.

  Grey glanced back at The Kid and Tyler one last time, laughed, and hurried after the others.

  Over the sound of the fire, The Kid heard hoofbeats and wagon wheels outside as the outlaws pulled out.

  Tyler groaned as he strained to no avail against his ropes.

  “Damn it, Kid. I’m sorry I got you into this mess!”

  “You didn’t.” The Kid moved his hands as much as he could, feeling around on the dirt behind him. “It was my own choice to get mixed up in the plan. I wouldn’t mind knowing what you were doing here, though, instead of sitting up on that hill like you were supposed to.”

  Tyler grimaced. “I thought it would be a good chance to snoop around while all of you were gone. I figured we could use all the evidence against Grey we could round up.
But you got back a mite sooner than I expected, and I didn’t have a chance to get away before those two hombres with the horses spotted me.”

  The Kid supposed he couldn’t fault Tyler for that. Then his heart slugged hard in his chest as his fingertips brushed against the thing he was looking for. “There’s one more thing I have to know. Tyler’s not your last name, is it?”

  “No, that’s my front handle. My full name is—”

  “Tyler Beaumont,” The Kid finished for him.

  Tyler stared at him in surprise. “How in blazes did you know that?”

  “My father is Frank Morgan.”

  Tyler gaped at him. “Morgan! I ... I never put it together. But that means ... my wife Victoria ...”

  That was the girl’s name, The Kid recalled. “That’s right, she may be my half sister. Frank wouldn’t talk about it much, but that’s the feeling I got, anyway.”

  His hands were busy behind his back as he talked.

  “Then you and I could be brothers-in-law,” Tyler said. “And we wind up stuck in the same mess like this. That’s just loco!”

  “Isn’t it, though?” The Kid grimaced as pain lanced into his wrist. He ignored it and kept working. “Sometimes the world is ... a lot smaller than we ... expect it to be ... Uh!”

  With a jerk, the rope around his wrists came apart. As Tyler watched, shocked, The Kid brought his arms around in front of him. Blood dripped from a couple cuts on his wrists.

  In his right hand he clutched the small folding knife Beatrice had tried to place in his hand as she was pretending to tug at his bonds. She’d been awkward about it, and the knife had slipped from her fingers to fall behind him.

  The Kid had a bad moment then, thinking Grey might spot the knife and their last chance would be gone, but he’d had been too angry with his sister to notice.

  There had been a few harrowing seconds when The Kid couldn’t find the knife ... but he had, and was free.

  He flexed his fingers rapidly to get the blood flowing again as he hurried over to kneel behind the post where Tyler was tied. Flames had spread all the way across the barn’s rear wall and were working their way up the side walls. Smoke made both men cough as The Kid started sawing at Tyler’s bonds.