The Loner: Killer Poker

by J. A. Johnstone

  The Loner: KILLER POKER

  J. A. Johnstone

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Conrad Browning knew he was asleep. That didn’t make the dream he was having any less of a nightmare.

  In the dream, two children ran ahead of him. Their laughter had a taunting quality to it. He hurried after them, trying to catch up. He should have been able to do that easily, since they were only three or four years old, but somehow they stayed just out of his reach.

  Then, still laughing, they looked back over their shoulders at him, as if to beckon him on.

  He could see they had no faces, and horror washed through him. Where happy smiles and bright eyes should have been, he saw only smooth, empty, hideously blank flesh.

  He came up out of sleep with a strangled yell. Cold sweat beaded on his face.

  “Sir? Mr. Browning? Are you all right?”

  Arturo’s familiar voice grounded Conrad and gave him something to hang on to. His chest heaved and his heart pounded madly inside it. He covered his face with his hands for a moment.

  When he lowered them, he was able to say, “Yes, Arturo, it was just . . . just a bad dream.”

  “I surmised as much, sir.”

  Conrad drew in a deep breath. His pulse wasn’t racing quite so crazily, but a feeling of revulsion still gripped him.

  A holstered Colt, with the attached shell belt wrapped around it, lay on the ground beside his bedroll. He was glad that instinct hadn’t made him grab the gun when the nightmare jolted him out of his sleep. He might have fired it without meaning to and hurt Arturo.

  The tall, slender servant was sitting on a fallen cottonwood with a Winchester across his knees. A few feet away, the little creek where they had made camp gurgled along. A million stars shone in the black sky above them. It should have been a peaceful night . . .

  But Conrad Browning was anything but at peace.

  He ran his fingers through his close-cropped, sandy hair, then wiped the clammy beads off his face. He tried to tell himself he was sweating because the night was warm, but knew that wasn’t true.

  And just because he was awake didn’t mean the nightmare was over.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” Arturo asked.

  Conrad shook his head. He pushed the tangled bedroll aside and stood up. “I’m awake, so I might as well go ahead and take over standing guard.”

  “It’s still more than an hour until I was supposed to wake you.”

  “Yeah, but like I said, I’m awake.” Conrad held out his hand for the rifle. “And this is a chance for you to get a little extra sleep.”

  “Well . . .” Arturo considered the idea for a moment, then handed the Winchester to Conrad. “All right. I am a bit weary. Thank you, sir.”

  “No thanks necessary,” Conrad assured him.

  Arturo stood up and stretched. He was several inches taller than Conrad and fifty pounds lighter. His slender build made him look frail, but Conrad had discovered that Arturo Vincenzo was considerably tougher and stronger than he appeared. Technically, Arturo was his butler, valet, and traveling companion on their quest, but they were more like brothers in arms, having faced deadly danger together on numerous occasions.

  The campfire had burned down to embers. Conrad didn’t bother stirring it up before he took Arturo’s place on the log.

  Cottonwoods that were upright and healthy lined the creek banks. Their leaves rustled slightly in the night breezes. Conrad sat and listened intently, while Arturo stretched out to sleep.

  The horses were picketed nearby. Conrad frowned as the animals began to shift around and stamp their hooves. Something had spooked them. A coyote, maybe, or even a wolf. He didn’t know what dangers might lurk on the plains of eastern Colorado.

  Something was out there. His instincts told him that much, and he had learned to trust them.

  “Hello, the camp!”

  The voice came out of the darkness, but didn’t surprise Conrad. He had already decided they were about to have visitors, even though it was the middle of the night.

  Arturo sat up and reached for the pistol next to his bedroll. Conrad came to his feet. There was no reason to think they were about to have trouble, but there was also no reason not to be careful.

  Conrad heard the sound of several horses approaching the camp. He called, “That’s far enough. What do you want?”

  The hoofbeats stopped. The man who had spoken before said, “We were ridin’ by not far off and heard somebody yell out. Everything all right here, friend?”

  Conrad’s mouth tightened. It bothered him that somebody had heard his horrified cry. “Yes, we’re fine, but thank you for your concern.”

  “Wouldn’t happen to have some coffee left in the pot, would you? We’ve been ridin’ all night.”

  Though he hadn’t been raised in the West, it was where Conrad made his home, and Western hospitality demanded that visitors be welcomed. “Come on in,” he told them, adding quietly, “Arturo, stir the fire up.” His voice dropped even more. “And keep your pistol handy, just in case.”

  Three dark shapes bulked up out of the night, turning into three men on horseback as they came closer. Conrad didn’t point the Winchester at them, but he kept the rifle aimed in their general direction.

  Little flames began to dance as Arturo stirred the campfire back to life. The light they cast showed three hard-faced, unshaven men who looked tired as they reined their lathered mounts to a halt. They had been riding hard and fast.

  “All right to light and set?” the spokesman asked.

  Conrad nodded. “Go ahead. Any coffee left in the pot, Arturo?”

  “Some,” Arturo replied. “I’m not sure it’s fit to drink by this point, however.”

  The man who seemed to be the leader of the trio grinned as he swung down from the saddle. “It’ll do fine by us. We’re much obliged.”

  Just because they looked like hardcases didn’t mean they were, Conrad thought. They could be drifting cowhands or even ranchers. There were some vast spreads on the Colorado plains, and some cattle barons didn’t believe in putting on airs.

  On the other hand, they could just as easily be owlhoots on the run from the law. Considering the low-slung guns they wore, that was probably more likely.

  Arturo set the coffee pot at the edge of the fire. “We should let that warm up a bit. That can only improve what’s left.”

  One of the strangers took the reins of the horses from the other two men, leaving them with both hands free. Conrad made a note of that fact.

  He knew the leader was studyi
ng him and Arturo. The man didn’t seem too impressed with what he saw. Arturo wasn’t the least bit threatening in his appearance, and Conrad was just a young man, fairly tall and well built, but in nondescript black trousers and a white shirt open at the throat, he wasn’t anything special.

  The man looked over at their horses. The big, blaze-faced black gelding Conrad rode was a fine animal, and the four horses making up the team that pulled Arturo’s buckboard were pretty good, too. The pack mule didn’t really count.

  “You know, if you fellas are interested, maybe we could work a trade.”

  “What sort of trade?” Conrad asked, although he was certain he already knew the answer to that question.

  “Our horses are about played out, and we really need to keep movin’ as soon as we’ve had a cup of coffee. How about we swap you our mounts for three of your animals?”

  Conrad shook his head. “Sorry. We’re used to these animals. We’d like to keep them.”

  Anger flashed in the man’s eyes, but he kept a grin on his face. He looked at Arturo and said, “Is that the way you feel about it, amigo?”

  Arturo was still hunkered by the coffee pot. “Whatever Mr. Browning says is fine with me,” he replied.

  “Your boss, is he?”

  “My employer.”

  Conrad said, “That’s none of your business.”

  The man held up his left hand, palm out. “Oh, now, no offense meant, friend. Just makin’ conversation. You sure we can’t interest you in swappin’ horses?”

  “I’m certain,” Conrad said.

  The man who wasn’t holding the horses spoke up. “Ah, hell, Kingston, why all this pussyfootin’ around?”

  “Take it easy,” the leader shot back. “How’s that coffee comin’ along there, Arturo?”

  “It should be getting warm now.” Using a piece of thick leather to protect his hand, Arturo grasped the pot’s handle and picked it up. “If you have cups—”

  “Just hold on,” the man called Kingston said. “We need to finish our business first.”

  “We don’t have any business to finish,” Conrad said. “Drink your coffee and move on.”

  “Well, now you don’t sound friendly at all. Where are you headed? Denver?”

  “That’s right.”

  Kingston shook his head. “That’s gonna be a long walk.”

  “We don’t plan on walking.”

  “Well, you’re gonna have to, because we’re taking your horses, and we’re not leaving ours, either. With that many spare mounts, we can outdistance that posse without any trouble. You and Arturo there can either hoof it, or you can stay right here permanent-like.” Kingston started to move his hand toward the butt of his gun. “The choice is—”

  Conrad shot him in the face.

  Chapter 2

  The rifle in Conrad’s hands was angled up slightly as he fired from the hip. When the slug struck the man in the right cheekbone, just above the corner of his mouth, it bored through his brain and exploded out the back of his head in a shower of blood, gray matter, and bone fragments. The other man yelled a curse and grabbed for his gun as Kingston’s blood sprayed across his face.

  The revolver hadn’t cleared leather when Arturo uncoiled from the ground and threw the coffeepot into the man’s face. The man screamed and staggered back as the hot metal seared his flesh.

  Conrad worked the Winchester’s lever and brought the rifle to his shoulder. He waited a second to make sure the man wasn’t going to give up. When the man jerked his gun from its holster, Conrad squeezed the trigger and drilled a bullet into the man’s chest. At that range the slug had enough impact to throw the man backward into the horses.

  The third man struggled to control the horses as they began to spook from the shooting. Conrad levered the Winchester again and swung the barrel toward him.

  “Give it up!” Conrad called.

  For a split second, the third outlaw thought about it.

  Then he dropped the reins, shouted, “Go to hell!”, and clawed at the gun on his hip.

  Conrad and Arturo fired at the same time. The bullets ripped through the man’s body and spun him around. He thudded to the ground, face-first.

  Without anyone holding their reins, the thoroughly panicked horses belonging to the outlaws bolted off into the darkness with their reins trailing.

  Conrad watched them go and smiled faintly. Slowly, he lowered the rifle and took a deep breath. The air was thick with the smell of powdersmoke and death. He knew he ought to be used to it, but he wasn’t sure he ever would be. “They must have stolen those mounts pretty recently,” he said. “Otherwise they would have been used to the sound of gunfire by now.”

  Arturo said, “Excuse me, sir. I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Go ahead,” Conrad told him.

  Arturo stumbled away from the campsite. Conrad heard him retching. There had been a time when the sudden outbreak of bloody violence would have affected him that way, too.

  Maybe he was getting used to the killing after all.

  He levered another round into the rifle’s chamber— something he should have done sooner, he reminded himself—and checked to make sure the three men sprawled on the ground were dead. He was pretty sure they were, but it took only a minute to confirm.

  Arturo came back, looking pale and shaken. He wiped the back of a hand across his mouth. “My apologies, sir.”

  “No apologies necessary. You handled yourself very well.”

  “I’ve learned by observation, and I’ve had a good teacher.” He gestured at the corpses. “I take it these men were desperadoes?”

  “One of them said something about a posse being after them, so yeah, it’s a good bet. I’ll check their clothes and see if I can find anything that’ll tell us their names.”

  It was an unpleasant chore, and an unproductive one as well. He didn’t find anything in the pockets of the men except some greasy, folded greenbacks, a few coins, matches and cigarette makings, a tattered deck of cards, and a poker chip.

  “If they had any loot from their crimes, it must have been in their saddlebags,” he said as he straightened from the task. “Not much to show for a life of crime.”

  “What do we do with them?”

  Conrad glanced at the stars. “It’ll be light in another three hours or so. We’ll bury them then. In the meantime, let’s drag the bodies over there in those tall weeds. I don’t want to spend the rest of the night looking at them.”

  When that was done, Conrad told Arturo to go back to his bedroll and try to get some sleep, as he’d been trying to do when the three strangers rode up.

  “I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep after that,” Arturo said.

  Conrad smiled. “Try, anyway. I’ll finish out the night on watch.”

  “Well . . . all right. But if you need me, don’t hesitate to wake me.”

  “I won’t.”

  Despite what Arturo had said, within minutes his deep, even breathing indicated that he had dozed off. Conrad sat down on the cottonwood log again and tried not to think too much about what had just happened. If he allowed himself to brood about every act of senseless, wanton violence that had intruded itself into his life over the past couple years, he wouldn’t have time for anything else.

  And he would probably go mad.

  Conrad Browning had been living the happy, peaceful life of a successful businessman in Carson City, Nevada, married to a beautiful young woman named Rebel and managing the worldwide holdings of the vast business empire he had inherited from his mother, when tragedy struck. Rebel was kidnapped and murdered, and his former fiancée, Pamela Tarleton, had been behind the evil plan.

  He had uncovered that fact and attained some small degree of vengeance for Rebel’s death, but only by abandoning his old life and taking up a new identity, that of the wandering gunfighter called Kid Morgan.

  He came to that naturally, because his father was Frank Morgan, the famous—or infamous, depending on how you looked at it—gu
nfighter known as The Drifter.

  Attempting to put his past behind him, The Kid had decided that Conrad Browning was no more. His new identity might be fictional, but he embraced it. During the time he had spent wandering in and out of trouble he’d first met Arturo, who was working for a man who wound up being a deadly enemy to Kid Morgan.

  Eventually The Kid had learned how hard it was for a man to give up who he had been. Pamela Tarleton was dead, but one of her relatives had tried to carry on her campaign of hate against Conrad Browning, and in the course of that, Conrad had uncovered Pamela’s plan to strike out at him from beyond the grave.

  According to the letter she had written to him, she had given birth to twins, a boy and a girl, and Conrad was their father. The children, who would now be three years old, were hidden away somewhere in the West. Somewhere he would never find them, the letter boasted.

  Shaken to the core by the revelation that he was a father, Conrad wasn’t going to give up easily. Recruiting Arturo to help him, he had returned to Boston, where he had been engaged to Pamela, learning where and when she had given birth. She had left Boston with the infant twins and headed west. Conrad was able to pick up her trail that led to Kansas City and then across the plains. Following the route of the Union Pacific, Conrad and Arturo were traveling by horse and buckboard, stopping at every settlement to ask if anyone had seen a woman traveling with two small children and a nurse, several years earlier.

  The odds against discovering where Pamela had hidden the children were long ones, but Conrad intended to keep searching. The Browning business empire was still thriving. Money was no concern, and neither was time.