Montana Gundown

by William W. Johnstone

  “And he brought in regulators to do it,” Frank mused. “Most of the time, that’s just a fancy name for hired killers.”

  “Brady Morgan and his crew sure fit the bill,” Hal agreed. “But there’s no need to sit around here all day jawing. It’ll be nigh on to suppertime before we get back to the house.”

  He lifted his reins and turned his horse. Frank and Salty fell in beside him. The three cowhands brought up the rear, spreading out some and riding with their rifles across the saddle in front of them.

  “Those gunnies jumped you for no good reason?” Frank asked.

  “That’s right,” Hal said. “The boys and I were just checking on the stock in this part of the valley when Morgan and the others showed up and started shooting. We lit out, but I don’t figure we would have gotten away if you and Salty hadn’t pitched in and given us a hand.”

  “They still outnumbered us by quite a bit.”

  “Yeah, but we were forted up good in those rocks, and it wouldn’t have been easy to roust the two of you from that knoll. Plus we had them between two fires. Morgan may be a lot of things, but he’s not a fool. Once he saw the layout, he knew he’d suffer some heavy losses, even if he managed to kill us all. I guess he figured it’d be better to wait and try to wipe us out some other day.”

  Frank nodded. Hired guns were nothing if not practical. A hired killer would risk his life for wages. That was part of the job. But he wouldn’t do it foolishly. Frank had known plenty of them even though he had never sold his gun himself, his reputation to the contrary. He fought only for causes he believed in.

  “You said this isn’t open range anymore,” he commented to Hal Embry. “I haven’t seen any fences.”

  “We haven’t gotten around to fencing off most of the Boxed E just yet. Barbwire costs money, and we’re sort of cash poor. And to tell you the truth, my pa is enough of an old-fashioned cattleman that he doesn’t like the stuff. He’s a little slow to change. It took my ma and my sister quite a while to convince him to file a claim on the land legal-like, but he finally saw that that’s the way things are going these days. The land’s ours, all right. The claim’s on file official and proper down in Helena.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Frank said.

  “Yeah, things are changin’ all over,” Salty put in. “Most of it sticks in my craw, too.”

  “You’ll get along with my pa, then,” Hal said with a grin.

  True to the young man’s prediction, the sun was almost directly overhead when the six men rode up to the ranch headquarters. It was a nice-looking layout, Frank thought, with a two-story, sturdy-looking log ranch house, a bunkhouse and barn made of whipsawed planks, and several pole corrals. A smaller pen near the ranch house held a couple of milk cows, and someone had put in a vegetable garden, too. There was nothing fancy about the Boxed E, but it had a comfortable look about it, as if a family could make a good home here.

  If they got the chance.

  Several shaggy yellow dogs came bounding out from the barn to greet the newcomers. They stopped short, their legs stiffening and the hair raising on their necks as they spotted Dog and caught his scent. Growls came from deep in their throats, and the big cur answered in kind.

  “Dog!” Frank said. “Easy.”

  The ranch dogs approached warily. Considerable sniffing and circling went on, then Dog turned his back on the other canines and strode on next to Frank and Goldy, his disdain for the ranch dogs palpable.

  The ranch house had a big porch along the front of it. As the riders approached, a heavyset man with thinning gray hair and a gray goatee stepped out of the house with a double-barreled shotgun in his hands. From the man’s powerful bearing, Frank guessed this was Jubal Embry, the owner of the Boxed E.

  “You all right, Hal?” the man asked in a challenging tone as the riders drew rein in front of the porch. “One of the hands said he thought he heard some shots coming from the west pasture a while ago.”

  “He did hear shots,” Hal said. “Brady Morgan and his gun-wolves jumped us while we were checking the stock over there. Might’ve done for us, too, Pa, if these drifters hadn’t come along and helped us out.”

  “Drifters,” Jubal Embry muttered. Then his eyes widened abruptly in recognition, and the shotgun in his hands came up. “Hal, you damned fool!” he shouted. “That’s Frank Morgan, the gunfighter! He’s Brady Morgan’s father!”

  Chapter 3

  Frank didn’t know what was more of a shock: having that scattergun pointed at him, or hearing that he was the father of a regulator, a hired killer.

  Frank had one son, Conrad Browning, who had been led by tragedy to abandon the life of a successful businessman and now roamed the Southwest, using the name Kid Morgan. And there was a girl down in Texas named Victoria who might be his daughter. Frank wasn’t sure about that, and Victoria’s mother had always refused to say positively one way or the other. Victoria was confined to a wheelchair, the victim of a bullet intended for Frank himself, but she was married to Frank’s old friend, Texas Ranger Tyler Beaumont, and he knew she was doing well. Every so often, one of her letters caught up to him.

  Those were his only two children, as far as he knew, although to be honest he had been with other women from time to time over the years. None of them had ever said anything to him about being in the family way. But maybe they wouldn’t have.

  And he hadn’t learned of Conrad’s existence until the young man was nearly grown, he reminded himself. Was it possible that he had other offspring out there somewhere?

  He had to admit that it was.

  Those thoughts flashed through his head as he looked down the twin barrels of Jubal Embry’s shotgun. He hadn’t budged since Embry pointed the Greener at him. He didn’t want to give the rancher any excuse to jerk those triggers.

  “Pa, wait!” Hal said. “You must have it wrong. These hombres helped us.”

  Embry squinted at Frank over the shotgun’s barrels and said, “Are you denyin’ it, mister? Are you Frank Morgan or not?”

  “I’m Morgan,” Frank said. “But I never heard of anybody called Brady Morgan until today.”

  Hal stared over at him. “I trusted you,” the young man muttered.

  “Are you loco?” Salty burst out. “You trusted us for good reason! We kept those no-good varmints from gunnin’ you!”

  One of the ranch hands spoke up, saying, “That’s true, Mr. Embry. As soon as they saw what was goin’ on, they opened fire on Baldridge’s regulators.”

  Hal glared at Frank and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me your real name?”

  “I did. Frank’s my real handle. But once you started talking about somebody else named Morgan, I thought it might be a good idea to wait a while and see what else I could find out about what’s going on around here.”

  “Well, now you know,” Embry said. “That bloodthirsty whelp of yours is workin’ for Baldridge and tryin’ to run us off land that’s rightfully ours. But he can’t do it. He can’t get rid of us without killin’ us.”

  “I believe you,” Frank said. “But Morgan’s a common name. Just because the man ramrodding Baldridge’s regulators is called that, it doesn’t mean he’s related to me.”

  “Then why does he keep goin’ around tellin’ everybody he’s the son of the famous gunfighter Frank Morgan?”

  Frank couldn’t answer that, so he just shrugged and shook his head.

  “All I can tell you, Mr. Embry, is that Salty and I didn’t know anything about any of this until today. Not about Baldridge, not about the trouble you’ve been having, and for sure not anything about this Brady Morgan.”

  Doubt began to appear in Hal’s eyes. He said, “I suppose he could be telling the truth, Pa—”

  “You think it’s a coincidence they showed up just as those gunnies were tryin’ to kill you?” Embry demanded. He didn’t lower the shotgun. “Don’t be so blasted dumb. It’s a trick, that’s what it is! Baldridge is tryin’ to slip these men in amongst us, so they can work against
us.”

  “I don’t see how—”

  “Did they shoot any of those regulators?”

  “Well ... no,” Hal admitted. “I think it was Gage’s shot that plugged one of them. Looked to me like they might’ve been firing high.”

  Embry snorted. “Ain’t that a surprise,” he said. “I swear, boy, they’ve pulled the wool over your eyes! But they can’t fool me.” The shotgun’s barrels shook slightly from the depth of the rage that possessed the man holding the weapon. “Get off my range! Get out now before I blow you both out of the saddle like I ought to!”

  “You’re makin’ a mistake, mister,” Salty said. “You got it all wrong.”

  “I don’t think so. Now git!”

  Frank lifted Goldy’s reins and said, “We’re going.”

  He was angry, too, but he could see that he wasn’t going to be able to change Jubal Embry’s mind. Circumstances had conspired to convince the rancher that he was right, and he wouldn’t be swayed, no matter what.

  “Hal, get in the house,” Embry went on sharply. “You three, ride along with Morgan and whatever that old pelican’s name is, and make sure they get off our range. If they give you any trouble ... shoot ’em!”

  Hal looked over at Frank and said, “I’m pretty mixed up about all this, but I appreciate what you did for us.”

  “You’re welcome,” Frank said with a faint smile.

  “Hal!” Embry roared. “Now!”

  Frowning in embarrassment and anger, Hal dismounted while Frank and Salty turned their horses away from the ranch house. Frank saw that several more punchers had emerged from the bunkhouse and the barn. The men watched with wary, slitted eyes as Frank and Salty rode past. They had heard enough of Embry’s bull-like bellowing to believe that these two strangers were enemies of the Boxed E.

  “Maybe this’ll break you of the habit of goin’ around tryin’ to help folks,” Salty said as they rode east and the ranch headquarters fell behind them. “That’s the most surefire way of gettin’ in a heap of trouble I ever saw.”

  “Seems like when you and I met, I was trying to give you a hand,” Frank drawled.

  “Yeah, well, that was different.”

  The three cowboys trailed behind them, rifles still held at the ready. But when they were out of sight of the ranch house, one of the men nudged his horse up alongside Frank’s mount.

  “Gage Carlin,” he reintroduced himself. He was middle-aged, with the rawboned, weather-beaten look of a veteran cowboy. “For what it’s worth, Mr. Morgan, we’re obliged to you, too, like Hal said.”

  “Thanks, Gage,” Frank replied. “And also for what it’s worth, I was telling the truth back there. I don’t know this Brady Morgan, or Gaius Baldridge, either.”

  “My bones say you’re tellin’ the truth. Can’t go against the boss, though. No offense.”

  Frank nodded and said, “None taken. I’ve ridden for the brand in my time, too.”

  “Not for a while, I expect, judgin’ by the stories I’ve heard about you.”

  “Not for a while,” Frank admitted. “But some of those stories you mentioned were likely just big windies.”

  “Some, maybe. Not all, I’ll bet.”

  “No,” Frank said, “not all.”

  They rode on for a while, and finally Salty asked, “Is there a town somewhere the way we’re goin’?”

  “Yeah. Settlement called Pine Knob. Didn’t start out as much, but it’s growin’.”

  “Does the railroad pass through there?” Frank asked.

  Carlin shook his head and said, “Nope. Closest train station is in Great Falls. But there are a couple of good eatin’ places in Pine Knob, and a decent hotel if you’re lookin’ for a place to stay.” The cowboy grinned. “And some nice saloons, too.”

  Salty licked his lips and said, “Now you’re talkin’.”

  Frank was still curious and asked, “Where does Baldridge’s range run?”

  “He has the whole eastern end of the valley,” Carlin said. “Pine Knob sits in between, right on Loco Creek. Folks call it that because of the way it twists around so, but it runs generally north and south and cuts the valley right smack in half.”

  “Baldridge used to run his stock from one end of the valley to the other?”

  “Yep. But he never filed claim on any of it except the land his headquarters sits on, at the far end of the valley. Miss Faye is the one who figured that out.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The boss’s daughter. Smart as a whip, she is. I probably shouldn’t be sayin’ this, but she got the head for business that Hal didn’t. He’s a top hand and as good a ramrod as you’d ever want to work for, but ...”

  “I understand,” Frank said. Hal Embry could handle the day-to-day details of running a ranch but didn’t know how to go about doing so profitably.

  Like most cowboys, Gage Carlin was talkative once he got going. He continued, “Yeah, Miss Faye found out her daddy could file on the range and wouldn’t have to share it with Baldridge’s B Star spread anymore. We’ve always had trouble with Baldridge tryin’ to hog the grass and water. Once it was done, we pushed all the B Star stock east of Loco Creek. Baldridge pitched a fit, but there was nothin’ he could do about it. Not legally, anyway. So he filed on his half of the valley and started tryin’ to crowd us out with regulators.”

  “Ain’t there no law in these parts?” Salty asked.

  “Pine Knob’s got a marshal, but he don’t take no sides in what goes on outside of town. And a deputy U.S. marshal gets up this way from Helena now and then, but you can’t count on him bein’ around whenever there’s trouble. Folks still handle most problems on their own.”

  Frank nodded. That was the way it had been on the frontier for a long time, and despite the inexorable advance of so-called civilization, it was likely to remain that way for a while longer.

  “We’ve had potshots taken at us before,” Carlin went on, “and there’s been trouble in town between our crew and Brady Morgan and his men, but today’s the first time they’ve tried to out-an’-out murder some of us on Boxed E land.” The cowboy shook his head regretfully. “It probably won’t be the last.”

  “No,” Frank agreed, “it probably won’t.”

  They rode over a shallow ridge, and Frank spotted some buildings on the flats about a mile away, where a line of cottonwoods marked the twisting course of a stream.

  The men reined in, and Carlin pointed.

  “That’s it,” he said. “That’s Pine Knob.”

  “Why in blazes do they call it that?” Salty asked. “I don’t even see a knob, let alone one covered with pines.”

  “Well, it’s not much of a hill,” Carlin explained, “and you can’t see it because it’s on the other side of the creek, past the settlement. A few years ago it was covered with pines, but then folks came in and started the town, and they cut ’em all down for lumber to make the buildin’s. I guess you could say the name’s all that’s left of the original pine knob.”

  “If that don’t beat all,” Salty muttered. “Folks are too quick to tear down and build things that ain’t as good as what was there to start with.”

  “You could be right, sir. But I gotta admit, I do like havin’ a place closer than Great Falls where a fella can get a drink.”

  “Well, you may have a point there,” Salty admitted.

  “We’ll head back now. You fellas will keep goin’, right? You don’t aim to make any trouble for the Boxed E?”

  “That’s right,” Frank said. “You have my word on it.”

  “Good enough for me,” Carlin said with a nod. He turned to Morales and Kitson. “Come on, boys.”

  The three men turned and rode back toward the ranch headquarters.

  “We didn’t get that dinner the Embry boy promised us,” Salty said. “And I was sure lookin’ forward to it. What say we find us a hash house down yonder in the settlement, get a surroundin’ in our bellies, maybe wet our whistles, and then ride on? Might be able to get
out of this valley by dark.”

  “I thought you might want to spend the night,” Frank said. “Fill up on something besides trail grub and sleep in a real bed for a change.”

  Salty looked over at him for a long moment, then abruptly jerked his battered old hat off and agitatedly ran his other hand through his tangled white hair.

  “Dadgummit! I knowed it, I purely did. You can’t just ride away, can you? You got to mix in and get to the bottom of this whole range war mess. You got to find out what the story is on this Brady Morgan varmint!”

  “Wouldn’t you be curious if you found out you might have a son you didn’t know about?”

  Salty pulled on his beard and said, “I just might. I wasn’t always a scruffy ol’ billy goat, you know. I used to have a way with the ladies.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Anyway, I didn’t say we were going to get mixed up in any range war.”

  “You didn’t have to say it,” Salty replied with a sigh. “I’ve rode with you long enough now to know how trouble follows the Morgan clan.”

  He heeled his paint into motion.

  Frank rode after Salty. He hated to admit it, but the old-timer was right. For decades now, trouble seemed to follow Frank wherever he went, and from what he knew of Conrad’s life now, the same was true of Kid Morgan.

  He supposed he couldn’t expect things to be any different with this Brady Morgan ... whoever he was.

  Chapter 4

  Most of Pine Knob’s buildings were on the east side of the creek. Gaius Baldridge’s side, so to speak. But as Frank and Salty rode into the settlement from the west, they passed a few businesses and some residences.

  Among the businesses were an adjacent blacksmith shop and livery stable and a couple of saloons, one called CORRIGAN’S CASINO, and another that was, according to the sign, THE POPULAR SALOON.

  Judging by the sleepy appearance of the place, that was wishful thinking.