They had to regroup. If they didn’t, they ran the risk of shooting each other. Frank hoped they had done enough damage to Baldridge’s forces that they weren’t cutting their own throats by halting the attack.
When the Boxed E men held their fire, though, the shooting stopped entirely. Hal ordered, “Sing out!” and the men did. As they gathered in the darkness, Frank realized they were all there except for a couple of the men.
“We did it!” Hal said exultantly. “I think we got them all!”
“Except for a couple who lit a shuck out of here,” Carlin growled. “I think it was Baldridge and Brady Morgan, but I didn’t get a good enough look at them to be sure.”
“We need some light,” Frank said. “Somebody gather up some pine needles and make a fire.”
Soon they had several branches burning as makeshift torches. When they spread out again over the ridge, several armed men going with each man who carried a torch, they found that all of Baldridge’s hired killers were either dead or badly wounded.
Two of the Boxed E cowboys had been killed in the fighting as well. They would be buried as heroes, Hal Embry declared.
But they didn’t find Brady Morgan or Gaius Baldridge. It came as no surprise to Frank that the two ringleaders had fled.
Frank knelt next to one of the wounded gun-wolves and gripped the man’s chin, jerking his head around so the gunman had no choice but to look up at him. Blood trailed from a corner of the man’s mouth.
“Where did Baldridge and Brady go?” Frank asked.
“Why don’t you ... go to hell?” the man rasped defiantly.
Frank dug the muzzle of his Colt under the man’s jaw.
“You’ll be there first,” he promised. “There are still three more of you left alive. I’ll go ask one of them if you want me to pull this trigger right now.”
The gunman’s eyes widened in fear, but he said, “You’re ... bluffin’!”
Frank leaned closer and asked in a flat voice, “Do I look like I’m bluffing, mister?”
“The ranch!” the wounded gunman yelped. “I saw Brady grab Baldridge ... he said they were goin’ ... back to the B Star. Said they had to get those girls ... to make sure they got away safe.”
That confirmed Frank’s hunch that Faye and Katie were being held at Baldridge’s headquarters. He pulled the gun away from the man’s throat and let his head fall back.
“Come on,” he said to Hal. “We need horses. We’re heading for the B Star. Gage, you and the rest of the men can mop up here and tend to the wounded in the line shack. Salty’s up there on that other ridge, too.” Frank was relieved when he saw Dog come loping up. “Dog, go to Salty. Somebody needs to go with Dog and help Salty.”
Carlin nodded. “I’ll take care of it, Frank,” he said. “Count on it.”
Frank and Hal ran along the ridge until they came to a place where they could descend fairly easily. They reloaded their guns by feel as they hurried toward the line shack to reclaim a couple of the Boxed E horses milling around nearby. Some of the animals had been killed in the fighting, but several were still unharmed. By the dwindling light of the burning hay, Frank and Hal grabbed two mounts and swung up into the saddles.
“Can you find your way back to the B Star in the dark?” Frank asked as they rode out of the pasture where so much killing had taken place.
“Yeah,” Hal replied. “When I was a kid, before there was any trouble between my pa and Baldridge, I roamed all over this valley. I know my way around, even on Baldridge’s range.”
Brady and Baldridge had a lead on them, so Frank didn’t expect to beat the two men back to the ranch. He just hoped they could get there in time to prevent them from taking the two young women and leaving.
Would Baldridge really abandon the B Star, Frank wondered, or was he being forced to do so by Brady? With the crew of gun-wolves all either killed or captured, Baldridge couldn’t hope to seize the valley by force anymore, and trying to wipe out Embry and his men the way he had done was bound to weigh against him in court. Baldridge had no reasonable way to salvage the situation now. Maybe he would cut and run. What other choice did he have?
Hal Embry proved as good as his word. He led Frank straight to Baldridge’s headquarters. As they approached the big house, Frank saw lights blazing in most of its windows. Before they got there, he motioned for Hal to stop and reined his own mount to a halt.
“We’ll go ahead on foot so they don’t hear us coming,” he said.
“How do we know they’re still there?” Hal whispered.
“There are a couple of horses standing by the porch,” Frank pointed out. “The way their heads are drooping, they’ve been ridden pretty hard getting here. But the saddles are still on them, and I don’t think all those windows would be lit up if the place was abandoned.”
“I hope you’re right. If they’ve already taken Faye and Katie, we’ve got to get on their trail as fast as we can.”
“We will,” Frank promised. “Let’s just check out the house first.”
With guns drawn and staying in the shadows as much as possible, they stole toward the house. Frank stepped onto the porch and pressed his back to the wall to the right of the front door, gesturing with his Colt for Hal to take the other side. He edged toward the door.
A couple of the windows were open to let fresh air into the house. Through them came the sound of loud, angry voices. Frank couldn’t make out the words, but he recognized Brady Morgan’s voice, along with Baldridge’s.
Then Laura’s voice cut through the hubbub, clear and penetrating but no less angry.
“Both of you, just shut up!” she said. “Gaius, go fetch those girls.” She paused. “Brady, you had them all trapped! How could you let them get away?”
“We didn’t have them all,” Brady said, and he had to be closer to the window now because Frank understood him. “We didn’t have Frank, and somehow he turned it all around. Damn him! Father or no father, if I had him in my sights right now—”
“You idiot!” Laura cried. “Frank Morgan’s not your father!”
On the porch, Frank stiffened in surprise. Inside, Brady sounded just as shocked as he said, “What? But all those years, you said—”
“I told you a fairy tale,” Laura snarled. “A convenient fairy tale about how your father was the big bad gunman who abandoned us and never loved you!” She laughed, and a hysterical edge crept into the sound. “And it worked, didn’t it? You grew up to be just the man I wanted you to be! A man who would do anything I wanted, kill anybody I told you to kill!”
Frank’s heart slugged heavily in his chest. Laura had no reason to lie now, and what she was saying to Brady had the ring of truth.
It was also as sick and twisted as anything he had ever heard, but that no longer surprised him.
“Gaius!” Laura’s voice lashed out. “All of you stop right there. Brady and I are going to Great Falls. We’ll catch the train to Helena. Once we’re there safely, my lawyers will take over.”
“Take over?” Baldridge repeated. “I don’t understand. After everything that’s happened, what can your lawyers say?”
Frank moved so he could look through the window as Laura replied, “Exactly what I tell them to say.”
She was standing at the top of the stairs, on the second-floor balcony that ran around the large main room of the ranch house. She had a small pistol clutched in her hand. Brady stood a few yards away on the balcony, also holding a gun.
Between them were Gaius Baldridge and the two prisoners he had just herded out of their confinement. Faye Embry and Katie Storm had their hands tied in front of them, and both young women were gagged. Their faces were pale with terror.
Baldridge looked scared, too, but more confused than anything else. He shook his head and said again, “I don’t understand.”
“You went mad and tried to wipe out Jubal Embry and his men,” Laura said. “When that didn’t work, you came back here and tried to kill everyone in the house. You murder
ed Miss Embry and Miss Storm here, but then Brady saved my life by killing you.”
Brady appeared to still be shaken by the revelation that Frank Morgan wasn’t his father, but he didn’t let that stop him from raising his Colt and aiming it at Baldridge and the two young women.
“And no one will ever be able to prove differently,” Laura said as Baldridge’s mouth sagged open in comprehension and horror.
That was when Frank kicked the front door open and thundered, “Brady!”
Chapter 34
Brady whirled toward the balcony railing as Frank charged into the room, followed by Hal. Frank started to fire up at him, but he held off as he saw that Brady had been seized by a violent trembling. Brady lowered his gun. He controlled the trembling with a visible effort and said, “You may not be my father, but you’re still fast on the draw. I’m faster, though. Holster it, old man. Let’s give a try, just you and me.”
“Brady, no!” Laura screamed. “Kill him!”
Brady ignored her and sneered at Frank. “How about it?” he asked softly. “Scared?”
Laura jerked around and fired the little pistol in her hand. Frank felt the bullet spear into his shoulder. He took a step back.
Brady’s gun flashed up and spouted flame.
Frank fired at the same instant. He felt the wind-rip of Brady’s bullet past his ear and saw Brady rock back as Frank’s slug plowed through his body at an upward angle. Eyes widening in shock, Brady dropped his gun and swayed forward. The railing caught him at the waist, and he tipped over it, plummeting to the floor of the main room with a crash.
Laura started pulling the trigger of her gun as fast as she could.
Another bullet whipped past Frank. He swung his Colt toward her, but Laura had already swept her gun hand toward the prisoners and Baldridge. The rancher thrust Faye and Katie behind him and charged Laura with an incoherent cry of rage. Bullets thudded into his chest, but the pistol wasn’t a heavy enough caliber to slow his momentum.
He crashed into Laura and she went over backwards with a scream.
Both of them tumbled down the stairs, wildly out of control. They didn’t stop until they reached the bottom.
By the time they did, Frank was there, ready to kick the gun out of Laura’s hand.
There was no need. When she and Baldridge came to a stop, she lay on the bottom with her head twisted at a grotesque angle on her neck. The life was already fading from her eyes.
Frank reached down, grasped Baldridge’s shoulder, and rolled the man onto his back. While Frank was doing that, Hal rushed past him and charged up the stairs to see to Faye and Katie.
Laura’s bullets might not have stopped Baldridge, but they had penetrated far enough to be fatal. Blood soaked the front of his shirt. He was still clinging to life as he looked up at Frank and said, “Morgan ... I’m sorry ... she ... she deceived me ...”
“You’re not the only one,” Frank said. Baldridge didn’t hear him, though. The man was already dead.
Frank dragged Baldridge’s body aside to make more room as Hal brought Faye and Katie downstairs. Katie looked at Frank and exclaimed, “Mr. Morgan, you’re hurt!”
Frank glanced down at the blood on his shirt that had leaked from the wound in his shoulder.
“I’ll be all right,” he assured them. “Lord knows this isn’t the first time I’ve been ventilated like this.”
“You saved our lives,” Faye said. “Those lunatics would have killed us.”
Frank looked at Brady and Laura. Brady had been loco, all right, no doubt about that. His mother had made him that way. Laura, on the other hand ...
Frank had learned long ago that some people were just pure evil. But sometimes the reminders were still mighty damned painful.
The rocking chair squeaked a little as Salty rocked back and forth on the front porch of the Boxed E ranch house. Frank sat beside him in another rocker. Both men had bandages bulked under their shirts where they had been wounded. Several days had passed since the kidnapping of the two young women and the epic battles that had followed, and while Frank and Salty were healing well, according to Dr. Hutchison, it would still be a while before they were able to travel for any great distance.
That was fine with Frank. He was enjoying the tranquility of life on the Boxed E now that peace had returned to the valley.
With the thumping of crutches, Jubal Embry stumped onto the porch, the leg with the broken ankle held up so that no weight was on it.
“You’re supposed to be inside resting with that leg propped up,” Frank reminded him.
“The hell with that,” Embry said with a snort. “I ain’t the sort to lay around doin’ nothin’. I’m used to bein’ outside. There’s work to be done.”
“I think between them, Hal and Gage have everything under control.”
Embry snorted again.
“Gage, maybe. Hal’s head is too full of sparkin’ that Katie gal to think about work. She’s a bad influence on him, mighty bad. Why, with her stayin’ out here, the boy speaks up for hisself and talks back to me too much. I’ll be glad when that crotchety ol’ uncle of hers is recuperated enough for ’em to open up the café again.”
Salty chuckled and said, “Café or no café, I reckon you best get used to that gal bein’ around, Jubal. I don’t think Hal’s gonna let her go anywhere, ’cept maybe down the aisle of the church.”
Embry propped himself up on his crutches and leaned against the porch railing.
“Well, I got to admit, I’d rather go back to the church for somethin’ like that than why we were there yesterday.”
A solemn silence gripped all three men for a moment. A day earlier, they had journeyed into Pine Knob for Marshal Roy Trask’s funeral. Trask had died a hero, charging out of the line shack to draw the fire of Baldridge’s hired killers before Embry or anyone else could stop him.
There had been no services for Baldridge, Laura, or Brady. They had been laid to rest in the local cemetery with no mourners on hand except Frank. He instructed Omar Finnegan to put “Brady Morgan” on Brady’s tombstone. He had no idea what other name to use, and that was as good as any, Frank supposed.
Faye came out of the barn and walked toward the house, trailed by Dog. The big cur had taken a liking to her, maybe because they both had their savage streaks, Frank mused. Faye had wanted to have Bill Kitson hanged for betraying the Boxed E ... after he’d been horsewhipped, of course.
But Jubal Embry had overruled his headstrong daughter for once, telling Kitson instead to light out of the valley and never come back. He would be shot on sight if he ever set foot on Boxed E range again.
“I’ve got the buggy hitched up,” Faye said now as she came up to the porch. “I’m sending a letter to that lawyer in Helena instructing him to find out who Baldridge’s heirs are. I think we should buy the B Star from them.”
“Buy the B Star?” Embry repeated. “What in blazes would we do with it? We don’t need that much range for our herd!”
“Well, we’ll buy Baldridge’s stock, too, of course,” Faye replied. “Once we do that, we’ll have the biggest spread in this part of Montana.”
“I never had no interest in being the biggest, just the best,” Embry said.
“All right, then,” Faye said without hesitation. “Give the B Star to me. I’ll run it ... and I’ll make it the best.”
Embry cocked an eyebrow and let out a hoot of laughter.
“A gal runnin’ a ranch? And makin’ it a better spread than mine? That’ll be the day!”
“You think so, do you?” Faye’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll just see about that!”
She turned and headed for the barn, ready to take the buggy to town. Embry snorted and went back inside, muttering something about daughters who were vexations and needing a drink.
“Frank,” Salty said when they were alone on the porch again, “I was thinkin’ maybe we ought to stay around here for a while, but with those two goin’ at it, I ain’t so sure anymore!”
“I reckon you’re right, Salty,” Frank replied with a grin. “We’d better head for Mexico as soon as we’re able; otherwise, we’re liable to find ourselves smack-dab in the middle of another range war!”
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2012 William W. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
PINNACLE BOOKS and the Pinnacle logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
The WWJ steer head logo is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.
ISBN: 978-0-7860-3008-8
Montana Gundown Page 22