“Frank,” Conrad said as he stepped forward and ex tended his hand. “It’s good to see you again.”
The times when Conrad called him “Pa” or even “Father” were few and far between. Frank had learned to accept that, too. He gripped Conrad’s hand and said, “It’s mighty good to see you, too, son.”
No harm in a little reminder every now and then, just so the boy didn’t forget.
As Frank let go of Conrad’s hand and turned toward his daughter-in-law, Rebel threw her arms around him in a big hug. “Frank, how are you?” she asked.
He patted her on the back. “I’m doing fme, I reckon. Better since you and Conrad are here.”
Rebel stepped back and looked around. Buckskin was surrounded by thickly wooded hills, and not too far away were majestic, snowcapped peaks. “It’s beautiful here! Conrad and I should have come to visit you before now. I can see why you decided to settle down here.”
“It’s a pretty nice place,” Frank agreed. He saw Diana Woodford standing on the boardwalk not far away. She had been walking along the street when she saw Rebel hugging him, Frank realized, and she had stopped to look at them with a slight frown on her pretty face. There was a certain similarity between the two young women. They were about the same age, and both were blond and very attractive. Frank couldn’t tell if Diana was curious about the newcomers—or annoyed that the good-look ing one had been giving him a hug. He was pretty sure she had realized that there would never be anything ro mantic between her and Frank, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t feel a mite jealous to see some other gal hug ginghim.
So he smiled at her, motioned her over, and said, “Diana, I want you to meet my son and daughter-in-law.”
“Oh,” Diana said. She put a smile on her face. “Of course.”
Frank performed the introductions. Diana shook hands with both Conrad and Rebel.
“Diana’s pa owns the Lucky Lizard Mine,” Frank ex plained. “It was the first big strike in this area. Without Tip, I don’t reckon Buckskin would even exist. He’s the mayor here, too, which makes him my boss.”
Diana laughed and said, “I don’t think any man is truly Frank Morgan’s boss.”
“I’d agree with that,” Rebel said.
The driver came around the coach and said, “I expect you folks want your bags unloaded? You’re gettin’ off here, ain’t you?”
“That’s right,” Conrad said. He looked around. “Is there a porter … ?”
Frank suppressed the impulse to laugh. You could take the dude out of Boston, but you couldn’t take Boston out of the dude, at least not all the time. He said, “I’ll help you with the bags, Conrad. The hotel is just down the street. I’d ask you to stay with me, but my cabin’s pretty small and anyway, I sleep in the back room at the mar shal’s office most of the time.”
Catamount Jack had followed Frank down the street. He cleared his throat loudly now and said, “I’ll give you a hand, Marshal … that is, if you’ll introduce me to these here folks.”
This time Frank did laugh. “Sorry, Jack,” he said with a chuckle. “Conrad, Rebel, this is my deputy, Catamount Jack.”
Conrad extended his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Jack. Catamount is a bit of an unusual first name, isn’t it?”
“That ain’t my first name,” Jack said as he shook hands. “It’s just what they call me.”
“Come to think of it,” Frank mused, “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard your last name, Jack.”
“Been so long since I used it, I sort of disremember. It don’t matter, no how. Let’s get them bags out o’ the boot and take ‘em down to the hotel.”
By the time the teams were changed and the stage coach rolled out of Buckskin, Conrad and Rebel were registered at the hotel and their bags had been taken up to their room on the second floor. Conrad suggested, “Frank, why don’t we go somewhere and have a drink?”
Something about the young man’s tone made suspi cion stir inside Frank. He recalled the worried expression he had seen on Conrad’s face earlier. He couldn’t stop a hard edge from creeping into his voice as he said, “You didn’t come here just to pay a visit to your old pa, did you, Conrad?”
Conrad and Rebel glanced at each other, and Conrad said, “I’d really rather discuss this somewhere private, over a drink.”
“You know I’m not much of one for whiskey. Or se crets, either.”
Rebel said, “I’m sorry, Frank. We should have come to see you before now. And we should have made sure that you were at our wedding. It’s just that we didn’t know exactly where you were at the time …. “
He had been down in Arizona Territory, in the Mogol lon Rim country, trying not to get his damn fool head shot off in a range war, Frank recalled.
“Anyway,” Conrad said, “you didn’t come to see us when you were in Boston last year.”
Frank grunted. “Know about that, do you?”
“I keep my ear to the ground. I know what happened to Charles Dutton.”
Dutton was the reason Frank had gone to Boston. Once he had been one of Vivian Browning’s lawyers, before his treachery led to her death.
“You were in the same town with him, and you didn’t do a damned thing about it,” Frank said. He didn’t like the anger he felt roiling around inside him, but he couldn’t do anything about it. “The man was responsible for what happened to your mother.”
“Yes well I’m not a gunman,” Conrad said in a cool voice. “I knew you’d take care of the situation sooner or later. I didn’t expect that it would bring you out here, but…” He shrugged. “At any rate, all that’s in the past.”
“And now you need my help again, don’t you?” Frank guessed. He supposed he would have to resign himself to the fact that his son wasn t going to have much to do with him … except when Conrad needed help with something.
The kind of help that only a gunfighter could provide.
“Do you want to hear about it or not?” Conrad asked.
A grim smile appeared on Frank’s face. “Might as well,” he said. “Who do you need me to shoot this time?”
Chapter 9
They went to the marshal’s office instead of one of the saloons. If Conrad wanted a drink, it could wait until after he’d explained what really brought him to Buck skin.
Frank listened in silence as Conrad told him about the bank robbery in Tucson and the eighty thousand dollars that had been taken from the First Territorial Bank.
“I know that’s a lot of cash to have on hand,” Conrad said. “There were a couple of payrolls in the vault, plus a shipment of cash from the reserve bank in Denver that would have been distributed to some of the smaller banks in the area … if that bastard McCoy hadn’t waltzed off with it,” he added bitterly.
Frank waited for Conrad to go on, and after a moment the younger man did so.
“Since I happened to be in town when the robbery took place, I immediately offered a sizable reward for the capture of the outlaws and the return of the money, of course. A man named Abner Hoyt was also in Tucson, along with some of his friends. They’re bounty hunters.” Conrad grimaced. “Probably not much better than the men they hunt, but I couldn’t afford to be too particular about such things. The local sheriff organized a posse to go after the bank robbers, too, but by the time they got around to riding out, Hoyt and his friends were already on the trail. They followed McCoy and his gang to Ambush Valley.”
Frank’s expression had been pretty impassive so far, but that bit of information caused him to raise his eye brows in surprise. “I’ve heard of the place,” he said. “Supposed to be pretty much hell on earth.”
“Quite possibly. Hoyt and his men caught up to the gang just before they reached the valley. They were able to shoot down a couple of the outlaws, but the rest of them reached the valley. Two of them fell back to fight a delaying action while McCoy and the others escaped into the valley.”
Frank grunted. “Wonder how McCoy talked them into doing that.”
&nbs
p; “I have no idea. All I know is that the only member of the gang who emerged from the other end of Ambush Valley was Cicero McCoy. Hoyt caught him in a little town called Hinkley, right on the border between Ari zona and Mexico.”
“But he didn’t have the money with him,” Frank guessed.
Conrad shook his head. “No, he didn’t. I don’t know what happened in Ambush Valley—”
“I can make a pretty good guess,” Frank broke in. “McCoy hid the loot from the bank, or more than likely had his men hide it. Then he killed them so he’d be the only one who knew where the money was.”
Conrad’s eyebrows rose. “Could any man be so treach erous as to do a thing like that?”
“We’re talking about an outlaw,” Frank pointed out.
“How many people did you say were killed in Tucson when McCoy and his gang hit the bank?”
“Five,” Conrad replied, his face grim. “Including two men inside the bank and two men in the street, both shot down mercilessly by Cicero McCoy.”
“There’s your answer. I wouldn’t put it past McCoy at all to double-cross his partners. Not with eighty grand at stake.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“What happened to McCoy after Hoyt caught him?”
“He was brought back to Tucson, put on trial for robbery and murder, convicted, and sentenced to twenty five years In Yuma Prison.”
“I suppose somebody tried to get him to tell where the money’s hidden.”
“Yes. Both before the trial … and after it.”
Frank sat up straighter in the chair behind the mar shal’s desk. “You sent a man into the prison to ques tion him?”
“Well … I wouldn’t put it exactly that way …. “
Frank’s jaw clenched. He came to his feet without really thinking about it and leaned forward to rest his fists on the scarred top of the desk. “You sent a man into Yuma Prison to torture McCoy.”
“I won’t mince words about it,” Conrad snapped.
“Abner Hoyt went to Yuma. He bribed the warden and some of the guards and tried to force McCoy to talk.” The young man’s narrow shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “He failed.”
“McCoy stood up to the torture, eh?”
“Evidently, he really wants to hang on to that money,” Conrad said. “Although what earthly good he thinks it will do him, locked up for the next twenty-five years as he is—”
“You see, that’s not where you’re thinking the same way McCoy is,” Frank pointed out. “He’s not planning on spending that long in prison. Fact is, he probably started thinking about possible ways to bust out as soon as the door of his cell closed behind him. Maybe before that.”
“And if he were to succeed in escaping, then he could return to Ambush Valley and retrieve the money.”
“Exactly,” Frank said. “Before he got caught, he prob ably planned to leave the loot cached for a year or so, until all the pursuit died down. A lot of outlaws will do that, especially if they’re going to be holed up some where they think the money might not be safe.”
“That was my thinking, too:’ Conrad said. “And that’s why I’m here. Since things haven’t worked out for McCoy as he planned, if he escapes, he’ll head right for that money and get it as soon as he gets the chance. He won’t want to risk being recaptured before he puts his hands on it.”
“So what are you going to do?” Frank asked. Before Conrad could respond, he held up a hand and went on. “No, wait a minute. Let me tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to let McCoy escape.”
“That’s right,” Conrad said. “And you’re going to escape with him.”
The way Frank saw it, there was one thing wrong with Conrad’s plan.
He wasn’t in prison.
Nor did he intend on doing anything that would get him thrown behind bars, especially in a place like Yuma Territorial Prison. He might not spend the rest of his life here in Buckskin—it was too soon to say about that—but he didn’t figure on setting out on a rampage oflawless ness, either.
“Of course not,” Conrad said. “I’m aware that we haven’t spent a great deal of time together, but I know you well enough to say that that thought never entered my mind, Frank.”
“So you thought I’d just pretend to be an owlhoot.”
“That would serve our purpose.”
“Your purpose.”
Conrad’s expression hardened. “Allow me to remind you that you own part of that bank, too, Frank. It’s your loss as much as it is mine.”
Upon Vivian’s death, ownership of her numerous busi ness holdings had been split between Frank and Conrad. The difference was that Frank had never had any interest in helping to run the Browning empire, while Conrad took to it naturally. Frank had been content to leave it to his attorneys in Denver and San Francisco to see that everything was done fair and aboveboard, while he con tinued to live as he always had, with no outward sign that he was one of the richest men west of the Mississippi. May?e one of the richest in the entire country, although not In the very top level like Carnegie, Mellon, J.P. Morgan, and hombres like that. The way he saw it, a man who had good friends, a good horse, and a good dog was Just as well off as one with millions of dollars in the bank. Better, even.
Frank had all of those things, so if Conrad intended on making a financial appeal to him, the boy was out of luck. He could lose all of his share and go right on with his life.
“Take the eighty grand out of my half of the business” he said.
Conrad stared at him. “What?”
“I said, take the money out of my half of the business. Put it back in the bank. That way, the folks who put It in there to start with won’t lose anything. Simple as that.”
“No!” Conrad burst out. “McCoy—”
“McCoy’s already behind bars where he belongs. You told me that yourself.” Frank shook his head. ‘You roped me into that railroad business because of my ties to the company, Conrad, and lots of folks got killed.” “
“More would have died if you hadn’t been there, Conrad pointed out. “Anyway, I didn’t come to you for help this time because of the money.”
“Then how come you’re here?” .
“Because it’s not right for McCoy to get away With it!” Conrad leaped up from his chair as if he couldn’t contain himself any longer and began to pace back and forth. “The man walked into my bank—our bank—and shot one of the tellers in the head. Murdered him for no reason at all, unless he was trying to get the attention of everyone else and show them that he meant business. That man had a wife and a young child, Frank. Then someone in the gang shot the bank manager. Then, out side in the street, McCoy gunned down another man and his gang trampled a woman to death. A husband and wife, with a son who’s now been left an orphan. The boy … the boy saw his own mother ridden down as if she were less than nothing!”
“McCoy’s in prison, and the other members of the gang are dead,” Frank pointed out, thinking about how Conrad had seen his mother killed by outlaws, too.
Conrad swung around toward him. “It’s not enough! You said yourself that he’s probably planning to escape.”
“Doesn’t mean he’ll succeed in doing it,” Frank said with a shrug.
“No, but if he does, I don’t have any confidence in the law being able to catch him again. If it wasn’t for Hoyt and his friends, McCoy would be in Mexico by now, out of reach of justice.” Conrad sighed. “Anyway, it doesn’t really matter whether or not McCoy escapes. He already thinks that he’s won, simply because he kept me from getting the money back. You didn’t see the man, Frank. As they were leading him away to take him to prison, he grinned at me. He was practically gloating. The only way to beat him is to recover that money and show him that he can’t … he can’t … “
In a quiet voice, Frank said, “I know what you’re trying to say, Conrad. You don’t like the way outlaws ruin the lives of honest folks. Neither do I.”
“Then you’ll help me?”
&
nbsp; Frank’s eyes narrowed. “Are the authorities in Arizona really going along with this harebrained scheme?”
“The only one who has to go along with it is Eli Townsend. He’s the warden at Yuma.”
“You bribed him to let Hoyt torture McCoy. You figure you can bribe him to let me pretend to be a convict.”
Conrad flushed. “I’m not proud of what I did. It was probably wrong. But by God, it would be wrong to let McCoy get away with what he’s done, too!”
Frank looked across the desk at his son for a long moment, trying to decide what he wanted to do. He was a little surprised that he was actually considering going along with the crazy plan … but he liked the spirit that Conrad was showing. For once, it wasn’t all about the money with Conrad. There was an element of, yes, per sonal vengeance in what the boy was proposing. Frank knew from experience that vengeance was seldom as sat isfying as a fella thought it would be.
But sometimes there just wasn’t anything else a man could do except try to set things right.
“How would this thing work?” he fmally asked.
Conrad’s face lit up. “You’ll do it?”
“I didn’t say that. Just tell me what you had in mind.”
“All right.” Conrad started pacing again. “You’ll be put in the prison at Yuma as a convict. Not as Frank Morgan. We’ll come up with a different identity for you, a false identity. Once you’re there, you befriend McCoy and offer to help him escape in return for a share of the loot that you’ve heard about. That’s not too far-fetched, is it? Surely every outlaw in this part of the country has heard about what happened.”
“More than likely:’ Frank admitted. “What makes you think McCoy’s going to take me on as a partner just like that?”
“Well I don’t know how you’d manage that. I suppose you’d have to get him in your debt some way. Then it would seem reasonable for you to suggest that the two of you should escape together.” . .
Ambush Valley Page 9