Manhunt

by William W. Johnstone

  “It gets better on up a ways.” Morgan nodded ahead.

  “Can’t get much worse.” Beaumont grinned, then reined up sharply and looked at Frank.

  The flat crack of a rifle report echoed across the rolling hills in front of them.

  “Any other time I’d chalk that up to somebody takin’ a potshot at a coyote.” Morgan craned his head toward the sound of the shot. “But the way things are goin’, I’d say we ease on up, real care-fullike, and reconnoiter.”

  In the rolling country it was impossible to tell exactly where the shot came from, but it sounded close, maybe even over the next rise. To be on the safe side, both men dismounted and led their horses so as not to be such large targets coming over the hill.

  They left their mounts a few feet below the crest and inched up on their bellies, skirting cactus and anthills as they went. Morgan carried his .44/40 Winchester.

  On the road below them, about two hundred yards away, four cowboys sat astraddle their horses surrounding a single buckboard. A black man held the reins, and a little girl of about four or five sat beside him on the seat.

  The cowboys milled around the wagon, shouting and taunting the driver. One of them had a rifle in his hands and fired it into the air, waving the weapon and shouting to make some point. None of the ne’er-do-wells looked to be over twenty.

  “We best hurry on down,” Morgan said, backing quickly down the hill. He slid the rifle back in his saddle boot and swung aboard Stormy gathering the reins.

  Beaumont climbed on his bay. “Four against one and a little young’un—it’s mighty lucky we happened along when we did.”

  Morgan urged his stout Appy into a trot. He spoke over his shoulder. “Yes, it is at that. I happen to know the man driving the wagon. If we don’t hurry, there’ll be four dead cowboys down there very shortly.”

  * * *

  Morgan and Beaumont covered the ground in no time, and trotted up to the little group like they owned the world. All four cowboys bunched up on one side of the wagon to meet them. They stood stirrup to stirrup and ignored the black man they’d been teasing only seconds before. It appeared they needed each other for moral support.

  Morgan pointed his horse straight for the kid with the rifle in hand. Beaumont veered off toward a cowboy at the end of the group on a small mouse-colored mare.

  Stormy was a stout animal with powerful hindquarters. He didn’t know the word quit. Though the armed cowboy’s pony stood its ground, the big Appaloosa plowed on through knocking the smaller quarter horse back and peeling the rider to one side. Morgan took advantage of the boy’s surprise and slapped the rifle to the ground before grabbing the scrawny kid by the scruff of the collar and dragging him across to his own saddle. He felt surprisingly light, and Frank couldn’t help but smile to himself that his old strength was coming back.

  The kid attempted a struggle, but Morgan hammered him on the noggin with the side of his fist before letting him slide to the ground. Beaumont gave the mouse-colored mare a sharp slap on the ears with his quirt. She squealed, then bolted, dumping her hapless rider on his rump into a wide patch of prickly-pear cactus.

  Out of the corner of his eye Frank saw the others glance down at his side arm. He drew and thumbed the hammer back on his Peacemaker before either of the two remaining cowboys could lay a hand on their own weapons.

  “If you boys would settle down a little,” Frank said as he tipped his hat at the wagon driver with his free hand. “We’re trying to save your miserable lives here.”

  The cowboy who’d landed in the cactus cussed a blue streak that made the little girl cover her mouth and go wide-eyed. She giggled when he clucked and waddled around trying to catch his horse. He had enough sense not to make a play for his gun. The one Frank had walloped lay groaning on the ground. Dog stared him in the face and growled. The two who remained mounted sat dumbfounded at their new predicament.

  “How you been, Bose?” Morgan smiled at the man in the wagon.

  The black man dipped his head. “Just fine, Frank. I was on the way to townwith . . .”

  “You know this here nigger, mister?” the mounted cowboy nearest Morgan sneered. His hat was thrown back in the manner of so many of the cocky youth Frank had met in his travels. It seemed like young people just couldn’t figure out the proper way to wear a hat.

  “I do,” Morgan said patiently, directing his pistol at the loudmouthed cowboy’s belly. “But it’s apparent you do not. All I can figure is that you’re not from around here. Gather near, boys, and let me introduce you to an old friend of mine. If you listen close, you might even learn some history.”

  The wagon driver shook his head and looked a bit embarrassed by the show Frank was putting on.

  “The gentleman you chose to harass today is my friend Bose Ikard, trail companion of Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving of Goodnight-Loving Trail fame. Mr. Ikard was killing Comanche and dodging outlaw bullets while you boys were still trying to figure out how to button your own britches. Like Mr. Goodnight, I’d trust him with my money and my life.” Morgan stopped suddenly and motioned with the Peacemaker back toward the wagon. He laughed out loud. “You boys sure enough picked the wrong wagon to pester. You didn’t bother his little girl, did you?”

  “No, sir,” the cowboy on the ground moaned. “We never said an unkind word to the youngster.”

  “Well, that’s a blessing anyhow,” Morgan said. “Mr. Ikard, go on and give these squirts a peek at what you had for ’em if their bad manners would have spilled over to that sweet little child of yours.”

  “Love to,” the black man grunted, glaring hard at the cowboys. He shifted the green wool coat across his lap to reveal a double-barreled shotgun sawed off to ten inches. Both hammers were back and his finger rested on the trigger.

  “What’d I tell you?” Frank watched the remaining color seep out of the boys’ faces. “Where you from?”

  “Ft. Worth,” they all said in unison.

  “What brings you whelps all the way across the county line to try and get yourselves killed?”

  “The boss gave us the day off,” the cowboy who cowered on the ground in front of Dog said in a quivering voice. “Would you please call off this wolf of yours? I swear I’ll not move a muscle.”

  Frank whistled at the cur. It padded off to sit at the edge of the group, but licked its chops and kept a wary eye on the cowboys.

  “You still didn’t answer my question.” Morgan looked down at the same cowboy and motioned with his gun barrel for him to get to his feet. “Why would you come spend your day off in Parker County? Haven’t you got enough whores and saloons over in Ft. Worth?”

  “We was supposed to come over and stir things up a little,” the cowboy said.

  “Shut up, Boomer,” the cowboy with the cocky hat spit. “These saddle tramps got no right to be privy to our business.”

  “Saddle tramps?” Morgan shot an amused look at Beaumont, then at Ikard.

  The black man shrugged. “I guess they don’t know who you are, Frank. They about to stir things up, I reckon. That’s what they wanted to do in the first place.”

  Boomer cocked a frightened eye at Morgan. His face fell even lower than it was. “Who are you?”

  “It don’t matter if he’s Jesse James,” the cocky cowboy said. “We ain’t tellin’ him our business.”

  “Walt, use your head,” Boomer said. “Jesse James has been dead a long time. I think this is . . .”

  The cowboy named Walt jerked his pistol. Morgan’s Colt barked once and the boy slumped in his saddle, holding a hand across his bleeding shoulder. His gun thudded to the ground.

  Ikard’s daughter held her hands over her ears and shut her eyes.

  Morgan glanced at Bose. “I apologize for scaring the girl.”

  The black man held up a hand. “Think nothing of it. Only did what you had to. She’ll be fine.”

  Walt looked at Morgan, dumbfounded. “You just shot me, you son of a bitch, and now you’re worried about sca
ring some stupid little nigger girl?”

  “Shut up your own self, Walt,” Boomer said. “I was just about to tell you that this here is none other than Frank Morgan. I recognize him from a drawing on one of them dime-novel books: Frank Morgan and the Deadly Ambush.”

  Morgan grinned and looked over at Beaumont. He’d never heard of that one—and they were drawing pictures of him now? He had no idea where the writers of that garbage came up with such titles. It’s a wonder anyone ever read them.

  “The boss sent us over to stir things up,” Boomer said. “We’re supposed to make everyone in Parker County know what a bad idea it would be to have our types running around if the railroad puts the stockyards over here.”

  “I see.” Morgan lowered his gun to his thigh, but he didn’t put it away. “Well, I got a proposition for you. We can either settle this now, just among us friends, or you can dump your guns in the back of Mr. Ikard’s wagon and scamper your little behinds back across the county line before you bite off more than you care to chew.”

  “I already dumped mine,” Walt nodded at his pistol on the ground at his horse’s feet.

  “Dump our guns?” Boomer sat wide-eyed in his saddle.

  “Don’t want you to get up the hill a little ways and decide to start taking potshots at us.” Morgan motioned toward the wagon with his Colt. “Take it easy now. Nice and slow.”

  “I’ll leave ’em at the Ranger office over in Palo Pinto County,” Beaumont said. “If you want ’em back you can ride over and get ’em in a week or two.”

  “Palo Pinto’s sixty mile away from Ft. Worth!” Walt protested.

  “I said we could handle this now,” Morgan said. “If that’s what you’re of a mind to do.”

  The cowboys put their rifles and side arms in the back of the wagon under the watchful eyes of the three hard-looking men.

  Boomer took out a horn-handled bowie knife and tossed it in beside his rifle.

  “You can keep your knife, son.” Frank chuckled. “From the looks of your pal Walt there, you might need it to amputate his arm.”

  The cowboys looked back and forth at each other for a moment, then turned and rode away with tails tucked low. Even Walt kept his head bowed, the reality that he knew he’d almost been killed by Frank Morgan finally sinking in. The boy who’d fallen in the prickly-pear patch stood in his stirrups as they left. Morgan could hear him cussing long after the group was out of sight.

  “What brings you back to Parker County?” Ikard watched the chastised cowboys ride over the rise before lowering the hammers on his double-barrel. “You always told me you were gonna steer clear of this place.”

  Frank let out a deep sigh. “I know I did, but a friend called me about all the problems ya’ll are having with the stockyard decision.”

  “Mercy?”

  Frank nodded.

  “I see.” Ikard silently mouthed the words, as if it was all so clear to him now.

  Morgan needed to change the subject. “Bose, I want you to meet another friend of mine: Texas Ranger Tyler Beaumont.”

  Beaumont was about even with the wagon seat on his short horse. He reached straight across to shake hands.

  “Rangers looking in on this, eh?” Ikard said. He put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders and drew her to him to make sure she was all right. “It is some bad goin’s-on in these parts, that’s for certain. Now someone’s gone and kidnapped the good judge.”

  “Your place is out this way, Bose,” Frank said. “You know anything about the Crowders?”

  “I know they got a passel of no-account sons. Tom, the youngest of ’em, is in jail right now for mistreatin’ a young gal from town. I expect he’ll likely hang for it.”

  Morgan needed to stretch his back, and stepped down from Stormy. He checked the animal’s feet for stones while he spoke. “You hear any scuttlebutt about the judge?”

  Ikard laughed and slapped his knee. His little girl smiled beside him. “It beats all how some folks go on and on talkin’ around a black man like he don’t hear nothin’ at all. Crowder’s got somethin’ to do with it, that’s for certain. I heard his boys laughin’ it up about something. Whitehead, he knows better, though. He’s too smart to let ’em babble on in front of me like they was. I didn’t hear enough to do you much good.”

  “So Sheriff Whitehead is in cahoots with Crowder?” Beaumont nodded slowly.

  “Clean up to his eyeballs,” Ikard said. “Ol’ Man Crowder is for the stockyards so the sheriff, he’s for the stockyards too.”

  “I suppose I should ask you what your opinion is on the matter,” Morgan said.

  Ikard chuckled again, shaking his head. “You should know better than that, Morgan. I’m a black man in Texas. The war may have freed me and my kind, but it didn’t give me a right to no opinion. If these folks want me to have a particular view, they’ll let me know what it’s supposed to be. I tell you what I think, though. I think you should have a word with young Tom Crowder over in the jailhouse. Them Crowder boys is tight. He’s bound to know something and he’s just dumb enough to make a slipup—if the sheriff will let you in to see him, that is.”

  Beaumont’s face brightened. “I saw Whitehead riding out of town a half hour before we left.”

  “With any luck, he’s still gone then,” Morgan said, lifting Stormy’s reins. “I hate to run off on you, Bose.”

  Ikard shrugged. “I’ll run into you again, I reckon. Much obliged for you keeping me from havin’ to kill those boys.”

  24

  Old Man Crowder kept the group waiting while he made water behind a huge cedar tree on the bank of Cottonwood Creek. He was steaming and they all knew it. Pony and Pete both stayed well out of his way, and the handful of his hired men kept their eyes pointed at the ground.

  Purnell had never seen Crowder angry before, but he’d heard the old man had a tendency to chomp his teeth like a nervous horse when he got ready to kill somebody. Right now, there was way too much chomping going on for the lawyer’s comfort. Even Sheriff Whitehead kept quiet.

  “It’s a good thing your dear mother can’t fathom what a couple of absolute dumb asses she whelped,” Crowder spewed after he pulled up his suspenders and rejoined the group. “And you, Purnell, you stupid bastard. You ought to have more sense than to let ’em take the judge—with all your schoolin’.” A purple vein bulged on the old man’s forehead. He moved his whiskered jaw in and out and side to side as if he couldn’t keep it still. His one eye darted around the group. “What were you boys thinkin’?”

  “Pa . . .” Pony offered.

  His father wheeled on him. “You shut your gob. You weren’t thinkin’. That’s just the problem. I ought to kill every damned one of you.”

  “Mr. Crowder,” Purnell tried to whisper. His voice came out of his throat more like a moaning croak.

  “Speak, lawyer man,” Crowder shouted loud enough to make him jump back a foot. “Tell me why this happened.”

  “He saw us. If he identified us, he would have tied this back to you.”

  “You were supposed to wear masks,” Crowder screamed. His eye glowed red. The purple vein on his forehead looked as if it might burst.

  “Sir, we had to take care of Pete,” Purnell said. “That girl almost knocked his head off. The judge came in and surprised us. It was either kill him or bring him with us.” He wanted to scream that it was all that idiot Pony’s idea, but that seemed weak. Purnell felt weak enough already.

  Crowder clamped his mouth shut and breathed through his nose while he stared from man to man and thought. No one looked up to meet his glaring eye.

  “I want the old fool to change his mind. I want my boy to be set free by the judge.”

  Whitehead took off his hat and studied the inside of the crown. “Why don’t you let me spring him? You say the word and one of my deputies will die, letting the boy escape. I’ve already got one I’d pick for the job.”

  Crowder spit. “I don’t want him to escape. Then he’d have to be on the ru
n for the rest of his life. I want him released—all legal and tidylike.”

  The sheriff continued to stare into his hat. It scared Purnell to death to see a man as mean as Rance Whitehead cowing to anyone. “I’m afraid the horse is already out of the barn on that account, Mr. Crowder,” said the sheriff.

  “The hell it is. Those charges are all trumped up against the boy anyhow. That Smoot girl led him on to trap him and make us look bad—to turn the vote her father’s way.” Crowder hooked a thumb toward the rough log cabin fifty yards away. A hired man Purnell had never seen sat on a wooden bench smoking a cigarette in front of a heavy slat door. He had a rifle across his lap. Purnell considered the man lucky for not having to take part in the tongue-lashing from the old man.

  “The judge is half loopy from the beating Pony gave him,” the old man said. “He may come around to our way of thinkin’ yet.”

  “Judge Monfore doesn’t seem like the kind of man to change his mind because of a beating,” Purnell heard himself say. He immediately wished he hadn’t, and wanted to melt into the dark tree line at the edge of the clearing.

  Crowder let his red eye rest on the trembling lawyer while he ruminated on his options. His mouth began to work back and forth again as if he had a bit of food caught between his back teeth and wanted to get it out with his tongue. He was chomping again.

  “Maybe he won’t take well to threats on himself, but we still got his daughter to use as ammunition if we need to.” Crowder’s eyes narrowed and he seemed to be plowing through a new concept in his head. “For that matter, we still got his wife we could use.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Crowder,” Whitehead said. “What good would it do to take the women if we already have the judge? I think he knows you mean business by now.”