Imposter

by William W. Johnstone

  Just as the sun began to shove rays of light over the eastern slopes of the Wilderness, about a dozen men walked out of the barn, leading their horses. Their saddlebags were full and bedrolls were tied behind their saddles.

  “We’re pullin’ out, Morgan!” one of the men yelled. “We don’t want no trouble with you. You hear?”

  Frank remained still and silent behind cover.

  The men mounted up and rode out without looking back.

  “Let them yeller-bellies go!” The shout came from somewhere in the town. “We’re stayin’ here and we’re gonna kill you, Morgan! You hear that?”

  Frank said nothing. He waited for those in the town to start the dance. It was not a long wait.

  Half a dozen men ran from the rear of the town into the nearby timber. The search for Frank Morgan was on. The men would probably split up into three groups and begin their hunt. Frank stayed hidden and waited. It would take the men a good half hour of cautious, slow searching to reach his hiding place. Then it would get interesting.

  Frank had his rifle fully loaded, and three pistols, all three fully loaded. His cartridge belt was full and he had a bandolier of cartridges slung across his chest bandit-style. And he had a sack of dynamite, about half of it capped and fused. Some of those sticks of explosives with very short fuses.

  “What’s the matter, Morgan?” The taunting shout came from the town. “You made your brag. Now why don’t you come out and fight?”

  Oh, sure, Frank thought. Just step out so you boys can fill me with lead. That’d be real smart on my part. No, thanks. I’ll wait.

  A man with more guts than sense jumped out from behind a building and made several obscene gestures to the ridge that ringed the town. When that drew no response from the hidden Frank, the man grew bolder, dropped his pants, and showed his bare butt to the ridges.

  “I don’t think he’s up yonder, boys,” the man hollered. “I think he’s done gone yeller on us and pulled out.”

  Several more men stepped out into the open. That was all Frank had been waiting for. Two fast shots later and two of the outlaws lay dead on the ground. Frank had time to at least get lead in a third before the others hightailed it back behind cover, dragging the wounded and hollering man with them.

  “You ambushin’ bastard!” The shout echoed around the ridge. “You’re a damn yeller coward, that’s what you are, Morgan.”

  Frank smiled and waited.

  “You boys heard the shots!” another man shouted. “He’s up yonder on the ridge, in the rocks and brush, about a hundred yards from town. Get him!”

  “Yeah,” Frank muttered. “Come and get me, boys.”

  “He kilt Slim and Wally!” another man shouted. “And Nick’s hard hit. Git that no-good bastard. Kill him.”

  “Good,” Frank whispered as he shoved fresh cartridges in his .44-40. “Three less I have to deal with.”

  He laid his rifle aside for a moment and took out a couple of sticks of short-fused dynamite. Then he dug in his jacket pocket, making certain he had matches. This would be a hell of a time to run out of matches.

  Frank carefully watched his flanks. It wouldn’t be long before the two teams working the ridges would come into rifle range . . . or better yet, he thought, dynamite range.

  He smiled at that thought.

  “Y’all see him yet?” someone shouted from the town.

  “No,” someone from the team on Frank’s left yelled. “I think he’s done shifted locations.” The shouted reply was close; maybe thirty yards away from Frank.

  Frank readied match and dynamite.

  “We ain’t spotted him neither,” someone in the other team yelled. They were much farther away.

  Frank centered his attention on the team coming up on his left. He had slipped out of thick cover to get a better throwing position.

  He saw the three men just as one yelled, “We’re here. But Morgan ain’t. I think he’s done moved on us.”

  Frank lit the short fuse and hurled it.

  A few seconds later the dynamite exploded. The stick of dynamite landed directly in front of one man, killing him instantly. The concussion knocked the other two sprawling. One lay still on the rocky ground. The other one staggered to his feet, looking dazed.

  Frank shot him.

  “What in the hell was all that?” someone yelled from the town.

  Silence greeted the question.

  “Answer me!” the outlaw yelled from town.

  “Morgan’s usin’ dynamite, Rich.” The shout came from the second team, on Frank’s right. And they were getting closer to Frank’s position.

  Frank slipped behind the brush he had been using and angled around, on a collision course with the second team.

  “Can you see him?” The shout came from town.

  “If I could see the bastard, I’d shoot him! No, I can’t see him.”

  But Frank saw him. He lit and tossed the dynamite.

  The stick of dynamite exploded right in front of a man, in midair, about chest high. The explosion took the man’s head off and sent the headless man rolling down the hill. His friends took off running.

  Frank dropped one with a leg shot. The third one made the timber, and Frank could hear him thrashing through the brush, hauling his butt down the hill.

  Frank ran back to his gear, grabbed it up, and took off into the timber, heading for another location, on the far side of town.

  “This ain’t workin’ out worth a damn,” another outlaw shouted from the town. “We gonna have to rush him, boys.”

  Frank paused, checking to see if anyone took up the challenge and rushed the ridge.

  No one did.

  Frank moved on.

  It’s all been too easy, Frank thought as he ran to a different location. It’s all been just too damn easy. Why don’t they all pour out of town, all heading in different directions, and blanket the ridges with men? That’s the only way they’re going to take me. Just hunt me down en masse. Are they so damn stupid they haven’t realized that?

  Frank stopped to rest for a moment and looked down at the town. From this point, as it would be from his new vantage point, the town was only about seventy-five yards below him. There was no movement from the outlaws. “Incredible,” Frank muttered. He shook his head in disbelief and continued on the last few yards.

  He wormed his way into his new location, again in the rocks and brush, and took a sip of water from his canteen and ate a hunk of bread. He said to hell with caution—the outlaws weren’t moving, so to hell with it—and rolled and smoked a cigarette. He longed for a cup of good hot, strong coffee, and with an effort, pushed that thought out of his mind.

  Then he heard the pounding hooves of fast-running horses. Startled, Frank jerked up his rifle. Half a dozen riders were racing out of town. They had bedrolls behind their saddles and their saddlebags were bulging with gear.

  “Well, I’ll just be damned,” Frank said. “Running out This is incredible.” Frank couldn’t tell who the men were, not from this distance.

  Frank figured there were probably less than thirty outlaws left in the ramshackle town. And he had no idea where the women were now being held. They might have been moved during the night. He couldn’t start firing into the buildings hoping to hit an outlaw for fear of one of his bullets striking a hostage.

  So it was back to cat and mouse. But whether the outlaws realized it or not—and obviously they didn’t—theirs was a mighty big cat against a lone mouse.

  “If’n you don’t get the hell gone from here and leave us alone, Morgan,” someone called from the town, “we’ll start killin’ the women.”

  Frank had wondered when that threat would be tossed out. And there it was.

  “You hear me, Morgan? And afore we do that, we’ll hurt these women. I promise you, we’ll hurt them bad.”

  Frank had wondered when that too would be threatened.

  He said nothing. He waited, but he had made up his mind about one thing. When night came, he was goin
g into that town.

  “We done kilt two women, Morgan. You prob’ly found one of them back yonder on the trail. We kilt the other one jist ’fore you got here. We double-teamed her, and she got to squallin’ and carryin’ on so bad we broke her neck. So don’t think we won’t kill these here. Don’t you doubt that for a minute.”

  Frank didn’t ponder long on the meaning of “double-teamed.” He knew what it meant. He softly cursed.

  “Go ahead and let them kill me, Mr. Morgan!” a girl’s voice screamed. “I can’t stand no more of this. They been hurtin’ me real bad. They been makin’ me do all sorts of things and they been usin’ me in ...”

  Frank tried to block her descriptions from his ears. He could not. And the outlaws were letting her talk, letting her tell him every vile, perverted thing they had done to her. It was sickening. Disgusting. Frank could not imagine the type of men who would force a girl to do some of the acts the young lady was vividly describing.

  When the girl began crying and sobbing hysterically, the outlaws began laughing, obscenely urging her on.

  They’re not men, Frank concluded. And they’re far worse than animals. To compare them to animals would be an insult to the animal world.

  Frank abruptly shifted locations, this time to a spot just above the one road leading out of the outlaw town.

  “Hey, Morgan!” a man yelled. “While we’s waitin’ for you to make up your mind, we’ll just have us another taste of this young gal. We want you to listen to her. You ready for this, Morgan? Listen to her now.”

  A girl suddenly began screaming in pain and humiliation and degradation. The outlaws were laughing.

  There was nothing Frank could do. He waited in silence, letting his anger wash over him in invisible clouds of rage.

  The day wore on, and the woman’s screaming finally subsided into low moans, then into silence. Frank spent part of his time capping and fusing sticks of dynamite. At full dark, he was going to take the fight into the town.

  “We’re tarred now, Morgan,” a man yelled from the town. “We done had our pleasures with the fillies. We’re gonna take us a rest now while we’re waitin’ for you, Morgan.”

  “I’ll be along, boys,” Frank whispered. “Just as sure as the sun sets and the moon rises, I’ll be along. And when I’m through, your town will be a ghost town. In more ways than one.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Frank left his rifle on the ridge and carried only his pistols and the sack of capped and fused dynamite. He had capped and fused all the dynamite. He was determined that once the women were safe, he was going to destroy the town. But getting the women to a secure place was his first priority.

  Frank stepped around the corner of a building and came face-to-face face with an outlaw. The rapist reached for his gun and Frank laid his Peacemaker up alongside the man’s head. The man dropped like a rock and did not move. Frank didn’t bother trussing him up. He was about to make his presence known in a big way.

  Frank looked through the cracks in a building and saw four men, all heavily armed, sitting at a table, playing cards with what looked like a very greasy deck. Frank slipped a stick of dynamite out of his pouch and took a match from his pocket.

  “I want me some more of that kid,” one of the men said. “I can’t git me enough of that.”

  “Val said, ’fore he pulled out with them others this mornin’, we could use ’em up and then kill ’em,” another said. “So keep your britches on, Lars. She’ll be here waitin’ when we git shut of Frank Morgan.”

  So Val and probably Little Ed had pulled out and were long gone. Frank had suspected that would be the case. No matter. He would track them down one by one—all of them—and even the score as much as possible for what had happened to the women.

  “I like the way that young’un hollers and squalls when I git with her,” Lars said, his lips curving in an evil smile. “I like to slap her around and settle her down when I’ve had enough of her whimperin’ and cryin’.”

  “You’re a pig, Lars,” another said.

  “Maybe I am that, Waddy. But you poked your share of that other young gal as I recall—right?”

  The man called Waddy laughed. “And I aim to git me some more of it too, Lars. But first we got to git ourselves rid of Morgan.”

  “That’s right,” the fourth man said. “What I want me is some more of that cold-lookin’ blonde. She needs a good beatin’ to show her who’s boss. And I aim to give her another one.”

  “She shore ain’t one to beg none, is she?” Waddy said. “I never seen a woman take on a whole line of men and not beg for mercy.”

  That did it for Frank. He popped the match head into flame, touched the flame to the fuse, jerked off one of the boards covering the broken window, and tossed the stick of dynamite into the room.

  “Jesus Christ!” one of the men yelled just as Frank was leaping into a ditch behind the house.

  That was all the rapist had time to utter before the dynamite blew. The heavy charge blew the walls out and collapsed the roof on top of the four men, crushing them, if any were still alive, that is.

  “Good riddance,” Frank whispered. There was no sound of moaning or yelling for help from the rubble.

  Men began running out of a building close by, and Frank pulled out his Colts and started evening the score. Outlaws were hitting the ground, hollering in pain as their hands clutched at perforated chests and bellies.

  Frank shifted positions, the darkness covering him as he ran, crouching low. He jumped into a ditch and quickly reloaded his guns. He had scouted out the town earlier and knew where the women were being held, so now there was no danger of his accidentally harming them. They were being guarded by four men. Those would be the last of the outlaw/rapists he would deal with.

  “Somebody kill that son of a bitch!” a man shouted.

  “Where is he?” The question was tossed out into the night just as Frank was lighting the fuse on a stick of dynamite, his body shielding the slight flicker of flame.

  “Right here,” Frank called, a second after he tossed the explosive into a knot of men standing outside the hotel.

  The outlaws didn’t even have time to scream out a warning or shout in fear before the charge blew. Bits and pieces of shattered bodies went flying in all directions. Several men ran out of an alley just as the enormous sound was fading into the night. They ran right into the guns of Frank Morgan. Frank blistered the night with .45-caliber death, firing until his guns were empty, and the men went down into the littered dirt.

  Frank quickly reloaded and again shifted positions, this time darting into an alley and running across the rutted street. He crouched beside a shack and waited.

  “Cecil?” a man called from directly across the street. “Where you is, Cec?”

  “I’m down here, Luke.” The answer came from Frank’s left.

  Not more than a dozen yards away, Frank guessed. Probably on the other side of the building next to the one he was standing beside.

  “How many boys you got with you, Cec?”

  “Five, I think. You?”

  “About that, I reckon. Got some hurt real bad. They ain’t gonna make it neither. One of ’um’s innards is all a-hangin’ out. It’s plumb sickenin’. That goddamn dynamite really screwed it all up.”

  “The last bunch got some lead in Morgan’s direction. I seen it. Maybe he got hit, you think?”

  “I hope. But I ain’t countin’ on it. Hell, didn’t nobody figure the man would really come down into the town after us.”

  “We got to kill him, Luke. We’re all gonna die if we don’t. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know.” The reply was almost whispered. Frank had to strain to hear it.

  “Or give it up.”

  “I thought ’bout that too. Believe me, I have.”

  “Reckon he’d let us?”

  “Don’t know. I ain’t above axin’ him. You?”

  “Me neither.”

  “Y’all ax if you want to,” a
nother voice added. It came from across the street and a couple of shacks down from Luke. “I ain’t givin’ up. Not me. I aim to kill that bastard and take that cold-lookin’ blond woman and have my way with her. And I know some ways that’ll make her squall.”

  “You do what you want, Sam,” Luke said. “We’ll do what we want. Right, Cec?”

  “Damn right.”

  “Y’all yeller, that’s what you are,” Sam called. “I got Kallen and Otis and Louie and Wilson with me. We’re gonna kill that damn Morgan. You hear me, Morgan?” he shouted to the night. “You’re a dead man.”

  “Yeah,” yet another voice added. “And I’m gonna be the one who shoots your eyes out, Morgan. My name is Ham Nederland. I want you to ’member that name in the time you got left you. Ham Nederland.”

  Frank said nothing. He waited in silence. But his thinking was that this person called Ham was trying really hard to get his courage up and working.

  “He’s so damn yeller he won’t even answer nobody,” Ham called. “Hey! You reckon he took lead and is hurt bad?”

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Cec called. “He’s just layin’ low, bidin’ his time. He’s waitin’ for the right moment to strike.”

  “I think you’re yeller too,” Cec called. “You and Luke. I think both of you done pissed your pants you’re so a-feared of Morgan.”

  “Think what you want to think, Hambone.”

  “Don’t you call me Hambone, Cec! Damn your scummy eyes. I’ll kill you if you call me Hambone.”

  Both Cec and Luke laughed.

  “Goddamn you!” Ham shouted. “Don’t neither of you dare laugh at me. My God, I’ll kill you both.”

  “Cec, Luke!” Frank called softly. “Get your gear together and clear out. Go far away. Don’t ever let me see either of you again. If I do, I’ll kill you. Now get out of here. I’ll let you both ride out.”

  “We’re gone, Morgan. You’ll not see neither of us again. I promise you that.”

  “Good. Now clear out of here. If some of your own friends don’t kill you when you try, that is.”