“Give it up, Ray,” Frank called from behind the wounded man.
Hinkle stopped his crawling, and cursed Frank as he rolled over onto his back and stared at his enemy with eyes filled with hatred and envy.
“That make you feel better, Ray?” Frank asked.
“I almost had you, Morgan. If you hadn’t ducked your head to light that damn cigarette, I’d have put a lead pill right between your eyes and blowed your damned head off.”
“Well, Ray, continuing with ‘what if,’ if your aunt had been born with balls she’d have been your uncle.”
Hinkle looked at Frank and frowned. “Huh?”
“Never mind, Ray. Who hired you to ambush me? Was it Grant or Rogers?”
“Go to hell, Morgan.”
Frank bent down, shucked Hinkle’s pistol out of leather, and picked up his rifle off the ground from where the ambusher had dropped it when Frank shot him. “Nice rifle, Ray.”
“It’s served me well,” Hinkle growled through teeth gritted in pain, wondering what Morgan was getting at.
“Meaning you’ve killed a lot of people with it.”
Hinkle did not reply.
“That leg’s bleeding bad, Ray. Tell me who hired you and I’ll tend to it.”
Ray cussed Frank again, using different words this time, but the meaning was still clear.
“Have fun crawling into town,” Frank said, swinging the rifle over his shoulder and turning to walk away.
“Huh? What do you mean?” Hinkle asked as he took a bandanna from around his neck and placed it against the hole in his leg, trying to slow the bleeding down.
Frank stopped and turned back around to face him. “I mean I’m going to take your horse.”
“You can’t do that, Morgan,” Hinkle whined, his voice full of fear at the thought of not having a horse to get to town on.
“Watch me.”
“I’ll die out here!”
“Probably. It’s a long way into town and the way that leg of yours is leaking, I figure you’ll run out of blood ’fore you make it a mile.”
“Grant Perkins. He’s the big he-wolf now,” Hinkle groaned, pushing harder on the bandanna as blood began to flow around it.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s the boss. Somethin’s happened to Rogers. He don’t act right, so I’ve been told.”
“Rogers is out of this?”
“I reckon so. He told Grant to run things. That’s the way I heard it anyways.”
Frank stared at Hinkle for a long moment. “I ought to kill you right here and now, Ray.”
“But you won’t, Morgan,” Hinkle said with a grimace and a slight shake of his head. “That ain’t the way you do things.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“I’m sure, Morgan. Tell you what: You back off and get me get on my horse, and I’m gone.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I ain’t no liar, Morgan. If I say I’ll do something, I’ll do it.”
“It’s gotten back to me that several times over the years you’ve said you were going to kill me.”
“Yeah, well . . . them was just words.”
Frank had noticed that Ray Hinkle had let go of the bandanna with his right hand and was slowly inching it toward his belly. He’s got a little derringer behind his belt buckle, Frank thought. Go ahead, Ray, make your play. We’ll settle this once and for all right here and now.
“You hear me, Morgan? Them was only words. A man’s gotta make his brags ever now and then.”
“I hear you, Ray.” The hammer on Ray’s rifle had been in full cock position when Frank picked it up. Frank tightened his grip on the rifle and moved the muzzle slightly on his shoulder. Hinkle did not notice the movement.
“How about it, Morgan? You let me go and I’m out of this country for good.”
“Sure, Ray. I’m game for that.”
“You mean that, Morgan?”
“I said it, didn’t I?”
“I’m gonna get up to my knees now, Morgan.”
“Go ahead.”
Hinkle got to his knees and made a grab for his belly gun. Frank let him make his move until the little derringer was in plain sight and Hinkle was earing back the hammer. Then Frank jerked the rifle off his shoulder and shot the man without bothering to take aim.
The bullet entered Hinkle’s body just under his right arm, close to the armpit. It blew out the left side, smashing Ray’s left arm as it exited. Ray Hinkle gasped once, coughed up a mouthful of blood, and then collapsed, dead on the ground. Frank smiled grimly at the thought that Hinkle was killed by a bullet from his own gun, one that the back-shooter had admitted had been used to kill many others.
Frank got Ray’s horse and tied the man belly-down across the saddle. He put Hinkle’s rifle in the boot, then led the animal out of the timber and across the road. He saddled up Stormy, told Dog to stay in the barn, and headed for the GP range.
At the main gate, Frank untied the rope holding Ray in the saddle and let Ray’s body fall to the ground. He ground-reined Ray’s horse, and then laid Hinkle’s rifle across the dead man’s body. Frank stepped back into the saddle and headed for town.
* * *
“All hell’s fixin’ to break loose, Frank,” John Platt told him as Frank swung down from the saddle at the livery.
“What happened?”
“Bob Frazier’s been killed and his wife raped. Bob was tied to a fence post and forced to watch it ’fore they killed him.”
“Damn! Who did it?”
“Don’t know for shore. But that ain’t all. John Adams’s boy, Jimmy, was bushwhacked out on John’s land. Left for dead. John himself dug the bullet out and the boy’s restin’. He might make it.”
“The lid’s coming off, John.” Frank told the liveryman about Ray Hinkle and how he’d admitted that Grant Perkins had hired him to back-shoot Frank out at his farm.
“Damn,” John said, shaking his head. “You’re right, Frank, things is heatin’ up somethin’ fierce ’round here.” He paused and glanced over Frank’s shoulder. “And speakin’ of heatin’ up, here comes a couple of gunhands riding into town now.”
Frank looked. “That’s George Cummings on the bay. I don’t know the other one.”
“I do. He’s been around for a time. Name’s Nick Barrow. Fancies himself a fast gun.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He ain’t never faced no real gunhand. He’s kilt a couple of farmers, back some months ago. I reckon he’s got the blood lust runnin’ hot and hard in him.”
“I hate to hear that.”
The two gunhands reined up in front of the saloon and started to enter, but they both spotted Frank and paused on the boardwalk as they made some comment about it. They stared at him for a moment, and then shared a laugh as they walked through the batwings.
“They know you’re here,” John said.
“Yeah. But first they have to get some courage out of a bottle and talk it up in front of the people in the saloon ’bout how they’re gonna take the famous Frank Morgan down.”
“And then?”
Frank grinned in eager anticipation. “Then I reckon there’ll be a showdown between us.”
Fifteen
Frank sat in the small livery office, drinking coffee and talking with John. He felt certain that a showdown with Cummings and Barrow was only a few drinks of whiskey away. As they talked, he realized how alive he felt. It was always thus for him just before, during, and even after a gun battle. He always figured it was the possibility of imminent death that caused the feelings, not at all unpleasant, of being more energized and more in touch with everything and everyone around him.
He’d tried to tell a woman about these feelings once, a woman with whom he was having one of his infrequent romances. When he found he couldn’t make her understand these feelings, he realized he could never make her understand him either and the romance had died a natural death, unmourned by either of them.
“I could,” Frank agreed. “But that would only delay things, and might possibly get some unsuspecting homesteader, in town for supplies, killed.”
“That’s true. But they’s two of them waitin’ to gun you down, Frank.”
“I’ve faced two before.”
“I reckon you have.”
“Hinkle told me that Rogers told Grant to run things, that something is the matter with Rogers. Have you heard anything about that?”
“No, not lately. But I know that Mark can sometimes act funny.”
“Funny?”
“He loses his grip on things. Don’t act right. Like somethin’ is loose in his head.”
“You’ve seen this personally?”
“I shore have. Several times when I was workin’ for him. It ain’t no pretty sight neither.”
“The fight may have triggered . . . whatever is wrong with him,” Frank opined.
“Might have. But don’t go blamin’ yourself. He’s had this ailment for many years.” John glanced out the open window. “Cummings and Barrow just stepped out of the saloon, both of them hitchin’ at their gun belts. Oh, my,” John added.
“What is it?”
“Preacher Carmondy and his sister a-sashayin’ up the street. Looks like they’re headed for the café.”
“They always manage to be in the wrong place at the right time,” Frank said, thinking for some unknown reason about how the sun made Lydia’s hair shine like fresh-oiled saddle leather and how full and red her lips were, as if they’d just been kissed and were swollen with desire.... He shook his head and looked around, blushing, as if John could read his silly thoughts.
“They ain’t been in their new house a week. Why didn’t they stay put awhile longer? Maybe have another cup of coffee?” John complained.
Frank smiled at the liveryman and stood up, adjusting his gun belt and loosening his rawhide hammer thong. “Maybe Lydia can’t cook?”
“Now that there is a possible, by God. But as fine a lookin’ woman as she is, what man would care?”
Frank laughed and silently agreed with John. He turned toward the door. He didn’t have to check his Peacemaker. He knew it was loaded up full, six and six. “No point in putting this off, I reckon.”
“I guess not,” John replied. His eyes were sad, filled with the knowledge that this might be the last time he and Frank would talk.
Frank walked out of the office and out of the livery. Unseen by Frank, John Platt picked up his Winchester and levered a round into the chamber. If by some strange twist of fate Frank took lead from one of those yahoos, John would finish the fight, by God.
Richard and Lydia had just stepped up onto the new addition to the boardwalk, and were a few steps away from the café when both of them spotted Frank. They looked toward the saloon and saw Cummings and Barrow, and sensed instantly there was about to be trouble.
“Into the café, sister,” Richard said, taking Lydia’s arm. “Gunmen are about to ply their devil’s trade.”
“But there are two of them against Fran ... ah ... Mr. Morgan!”
“Morgan is a cold-blooded killer, sister, dear. Save your sympathies for someone worthy of them.”
“But he has a decent streak in him, Richard. I know it . . . I can sense it. Why else would he stay and pick up the farmers’ fight?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Into the café, dear.”
“Now, by God, you’ll get what’s comin’ to you, Morgan!” George Cummings hollered. “Me and Nick’s gonna see to that.”
Frank said nothing as he continued walking, closing the gap between them.
George and Nick did not spread out as more experienced gun handlers would have done. They stayed close together, almost touching.
Lydia removed her brother’s hand from her arm. “I’ll sit at the table by the window, Richard. I want to see this.”
“It’s barbaric, Lydia!”
“I still want to see it. Get us some coffee, please.”
With a sigh of exasperation, Richard seated his sister by the window and walked to the counter.
“Trouble outside?” Charlie Jordan asked, wiping his hands on his long apron and craning his neck to try and peer out of the front window.
“Frank Morgan appears to be marching toward another shoot-out,” Richard said with disgust in his voice. “With two ne’er-do-wells in front of the saloon.”
“Heavens!” Becky said, coming out of the kitchen to stand by the front door, wiping her hands nervously on the apron tied around her front. “So much violence.”
“Yes, isn’t it just awful?” Lydia said, digging in her purse for another handkerchief.
“You stop right there, Morgan!” Nick yelled when Frank was about fifty feet away from the pair.
“Yeah, that’s far enough, Morgan,” Cummings said.
Frank stopped and stared at the men confronting him. He had a half smile on his face and his hands hung at his sides. It was apparent he felt not the slightest twinge of fear or apprehension.
“It ends right here and now, Morgan,” Nick said. “You ain’t good enough to get both of us.”
“So which one lives and which one dies?” Frank asked calmly. “The choice is up to you boys.”
“We live and you die,” Cummings said.
“Yeah,” Nick said with a smirk. “That sounds good to me.”
“How about we all live?” Frank asked.
“Huh?” Cummings said.
“You boys turn around and walk away and I’ll do the same.”
“Can’t do that, Morgan,” Nick replied.
“Why?”
“’Cause we done made our brags, that’s why.”
Most everyone in the little village, including the workmen from out of town, had gathered on both sides of the street to watch and listen.
“Brags are wishes,” Frank said. “Nobody with any sense will hold you to them. Living is more important, don’t you agree?”
“Enough of this talk,” Cummings said. “Time for you to make your play, Morgan. So do it.”
“Not me, boys. This is your time in the sun. You wanted this action, you start it.”
“By God, we can do that!” Nick said.
“All right,” Frank said. “I’m waiting.”
“You think we won’t?” Nick shouted.
Frank said nothing. He waited, still with a smile on his face.
The sun was high in the sky and the day had turned out hot. Sweat was forming on the faces of Cummings and Barrow.
“You ready, Morgan?” Cummings asked.
“I’ve been ready,” Frank replied.
“Now!” Nick yelled, and grabbed for his six-gun.
Frank’s draw was as smooth as silk and honey. Nick never even cleared leather before the bullet from Frank’s Peacemaker struck him a hammer blow in the chest, creating a small, black hole in his denim shirt just over his heart. Nick’s boots flew out from under him and he landed on his back in the dirt. “Oh, Mama!” the would-be gunslick hollered, his hands going to his chest as if he could somehow hold in the blood that was pumping out in a large stain on his shirt. He drummed his feet on the ground as he screamed, creating a small cloud of dust around him.
George Cummings held out both hands, chest-high, his face a mask of terror at the ease and speed with which Morgan had shot his friend. “Don’t shoot, Morgan!” he shouted. “I yield. Don’t shoot.”
“Unbuckle your gun belt,” Frank ordered, the barrel of the Peacemaker trained on George’s head. “Let it fall to the street.”
“I’ll do it,” Cummings said, fumbling with the buckle. “I’m doin’ it. Just don’t shoot, Morgan.” Cummings’s rig fell to the street.
“Kick it away from you,” Frank ordered.
Cummings kicked the gun belt away. The man’s face was pale and slick with sweat, and his eyes were so wide that the w
hites of his eyes showed all around the pupils.
“Oh, my God!” Nick yelled in a high-pitched whine. “I’m hurtin’ somethin’ awful. Oh, Lord, somebody hep me,” he pleaded, whipping his head back and forth as if looking for divine help.
Behind him, Frank could hear the sounds of pounding hooves. But he did not turn around to look.
“It’s Paul Adams and his sons, Frank,” John Platt called from the livery doorway, where he stood with his Winchester cradled in his arms.
“Damn you, Morgan,” Nick said, “I think you kilt me.” And he stiffened in the dirt. Those were the last words he would ever speak.
Frank lowered his pistol and turned to face Paul Adams, but he kept watch on George Cummings out of the corner of his eye.
“My son lies near death, Morgan,” Adams said, sitting his horse, looking down at Frank. “Shot in the back by some damn cowardly ambusher.”
“Probably Ray Hinkle,” Frank told the farmer. “He tried to kill me earlier today. I left his body at the main gate to the GP spread.”
“Good,” Paul said. “I applaud you for that. But Grant Perkins and Mark Rogers are still alive.”
“And you plan on tackling them alone . . . just you and your remaining sons?”
“I do.”
“You’ll be riding into a death trap, Paul,” Frank said. “They’ve got ten guns to your every one, an’ they’re manned by men who are used to killing others, not farmers like you are.”
“Be that as it may. Perhaps we will be successful in ridding this world of two very evil men.”
“Doubtful,” Frank told the man. “You’ll never even get close to either main house before you’re all gunned down.”
“You have a better plan, Morgan?”
“No. But I don’t intend to throw my life away needlessly without any chance of success. Think about this, Paul: You’ll be sacrificing your sons if you go through with your plan.”
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