Avenger

by William W. Johnstone

  Junius Driscoll.

  Frank had never heard of the man. The name meant nothing to him.

  The clerk wanted to beat around the bush, but Frank didn’t have time for that. His finger jabbed the page of the registration book as he said, “This fella Junius Driscoll, was he an older man, with gray hair? Not very big and sort of stooped over?”

  The clerk hesitated, but only for a second. Then he nodded and said, “That’s right, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Was he alone up there, or was somebody with him when he checked in?”

  The clerk frowned in thought. “I believe there were two men with him. Yes, I’m sure of it.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “Well . . . to be honest, they didn’t seem to be the sort of person we encourage to stay here at the Avalon. They were rather rough-looking. Country types, you know.”

  “Was one of them a big fella with dark hair and a hawk nose that looked like it was busted sometime in the past?”

  The clerk nodded. “Yes, sir. That’s a very good description of one of the men.”

  Edgar Wade, Frank thought. There was no doubt about it now. And this Junius Driscoll was probably someone close to Hannah in some way whom Wade was using to force her to go along with what he wanted.

  But where had they all gone? Had Wade already started back to Arkansas and taken Hannah with him?

  Frank decided he’d better get back to the Wild West show and let Cody know what he’d found out.

  Before he could leave, though, the clerk said, “Ah, Mr. Morgan, would you do something for me?” Without waiting for Frank’s reply, he reached underneath the counter and brought up a folded newspaper. As he placed it on the desk, he went on. “Would you sign this newspaper story for me? It’s all about how you saved all those homesteaders out in Kansas when the night riders tried to burn down their town.”

  Frank snatched up the newspaper. “Let me see that.”

  “Uh . . . sure. Help yourself.”

  Frank’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the story. Although the newspaper had been published here in Chicago, a credit line accompanying the story stated that it had been written by a reporter named Buckman and originally published in a Salina, Kansas, newspaper before being picked up by the Associated Press syndicate. It recounted in breathless prose how Frank Morgan, the notorious gunfighter known as The Drifter, had battled against a horde of hooded killers and saved the people of Elysium.

  Well, that explained how Dutton’s killers had gotten on his trail again, he thought as he dropped the newspaper on the desk. Some of the crooked lawyer’s agents must have seen this story and searched from Salina eastward until they found him.

  That meant he would have an unknown number of bushwhackers and would-be assassins standing between him and Dutton, eager to collect the blood money on his head, all the way to Boston.

  “Uh . . . Mr. Morgan?” the clerk said. “Your signature?” Frank took the pen from its holder, dipped it in the inkwell, and scrawled his name across the newspaper story. “There you go, son,” he said. “Might be worth something when I’m dead.”

  Chapter 19

  By the time Frank got back to the Wild West show, the evening performance was over and most of the crowd was gone, although a few people still lingered around the compound and others wandered along the brightly lit midway of the exposition across the street. The ticket booth was empty, so there was no one to challenge Frank as he walked past it and headed for Hannah Sterling’s tent.

  Before he could get there, someone hailed him. He stopped and turned to see Bill Cody striding toward him. The showman’s leathery face was creased in a worried frown.

  “What happened, Frank?” Cody asked. “I noticed that you left before the performance was over.”

  “I wanted to keep an eye on Hannah,” Frank explained. “Good thing I did too, because she left and went to a hotel a few blocks from here called the Avalon.”

  Cody’s frown darkened. “I’m familiar with it. Did she go there to meet Wade?”

  “Looks like it. But Wade wasn’t waiting there for her by himself. Does the name Junius Driscoll mean anything to you, Bill?”

  “Driscoll?” Cody repeated. “Driscoll . . . no, I can’t say that it . . . Wait a minute, something about that name does seem familiar, as if I’ve heard it recently . . . or seen it—” His bushy white eyebrows rose suddenly. “That’s it! I saw the name written on an envelope in Hannah’s tent. But I don’t recall if she was writing a letter to this Driscoll fella, or had gotten one from him. My God, does she have another man on the string besides Wade?”

  “No, Junius Driscoll is a lot older than Hannah. A little, gray-haired hombre who looked more like somebody’s grandfather. Hannah’s maybe.”

  “And yet you said he was with Edgar Wade at the Avalon Hotel?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this, Frank,” Cody said. “I don’t like the fact that Hannah is mixed up with that man. No good’s going to come of it. He’s forcing her to marry him, probably by threatening her grandfather . . . if that’s who Driscoll really is.”

  “That’s the theory I’m going on right now,” Frank agreed. “I was just on my way to Hannah’s tent to talk to her.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Cody said without hesitation.

  “Might be better to let me talk to her by myself,” Frank suggested.

  “But you didn’t even meet her until today.”

  “I know. Sometimes folks will open up to a stranger easier than they will to somebody they know better.”

  Cody tugged on his goatee and frowned again. “Maybe. All right, go ahead. I just want to get to the bottom of this and get Hannah out of whatever mess she’s in.”

  “There’s something else you need to know about,” Frank said.

  Cody groaned. “Not more bad news, I hope.”

  “Depends on how you look at it. While I was following Hannah, Jed Holloway and his friends were following me, looking to even the score for that ruckus this afternoon. I wound up tangling with Holloway and a couple more of them.”

  “The scoundrels!” Cody exclaimed. “I’ll fire every dad-blasted one of them—”

  “That’s not necessary,” Frank cut in with a shake of his head. “They saw the error of their ways . . . about the time one of them called Amos got a bullet in the shoulder. He’s in the hospital now, and Holloway and the others went with him in the ambulance wagon.”

  Cody’s startled eyes went to the gunbelt draped over Frank’s shoulder. “You shot one of them?”

  “Nope. Fact is, the bullet that hit Amos was meant for me.”

  “Bushwhacker?” Cody asked cannily.

  “Yeah. The business that’s taking me to Boston . . . well, somebody doesn’t want me to get there. And he’s willing to pay good money to have me stopped.”

  “You think that’s why somebody took a shot at you?”

  “I suppose it could have been Edgar Wade.” Frank explained quickly how he and the four wranglers had left the hotel and gone to the park. “Maybe Wade came out of the Avalon and spotted me and figured it was a good chance to get rid of me. Either explanation is possible, or it might be something I haven’t even thought of.”

  “But the upshot is that you’re having to deal with my problems and the fact that somebody wants you dead.” Cody shook his head. “Forget about all this, Frank. Get out of Chicago while you can. You can go tonight. There’s probably a midnight train—”

  “I haven’t made a habit of running out on friends while they’re in trouble,” Frank broke in, his voice hardening. “I don’t reckon I intend to start now.”

  Cody stared at him for a moment, then abruptly chuckled. “No, I don’t guess you would. I forgot for a second who I was talking to . . . and just how mule-headed you can be. All right, what can I do to help?”

  “Let me see what I can find out from Hannah. I’ll talk to you later,” Frank promised.

  “You know where my t
ent is.”

  The two men split up, Cody heading back to his tent while Frank continued on toward Hannah’s.

  When he got there, he paused outside the entrance flap and called, “Miss Sterling? Are you in there?”

  No answer came from inside, but after a moment Frank thought he heard something. He leaned closer to the flap and listened. The sound of a muffled sob came to his ears.

  He took a deep breath and pushed the canvas flap aside. As he stepped into the tent, he said, “Begging your pardon, Miss Sterling. I’m not in the habit of busting in on a lady without being invited, and here I’ve done it twice today.”

  She was sprawled out on the bunk, her face buried in a pillow. At the sound of Frank’s voice, she lifted her head and said, “Please leave, Mr. Morgan.”

  “You sounded like you could use some help,” he replied gently.

  “N-no, I’m fine. There’s nothing you can do. Nobody can help me—”

  “What about Junius Driscoll?” Frank said. “Would it help if he wasn’t in Edgar Wade’s hands anymore?”

  Hannah caught her breath and swung her legs off the bed, sitting up sharply. “Junius Driscoll! How do you know that name?”

  “I was at the Avalon Hotel tonight. I saw you go into Room 214 and meet Driscoll.” Frank was putting his cards on the table, and he hoped the tactic didn’t backfire on him. “This is just a guess, but I’m thinking that maybe he’s your grandfather.”

  Sniffling, Hannah nodded. “He . . . he is. He’s my mother’s father. Gramps, I’ve always called him.”

  “And now Wade’s threatening to hurt him unless you go along with whatever he wants . . . like marrying him. I reckon Wade told you to come to the Avalon tonight so you could see for yourself that your grandfather is his prisoner.”

  Hannah jerked her head in a ragged nod. “Yes. The whole thing . . . it . . . it’s awful!”

  And she put her hands over her face and sobbed again, her shoulders shaking as the sobs wracked her.

  Frank wanted to sit down on the bunk beside her and put an arm around her shoulders to comfort her, but he hesitated, unsure of the propriety of doing that. She solved the problem for him by jumping up and throwing her arms around him like a scared little girl. Awkwardly, he embraced her, patting her on the back. It had been a while since he had held a girl this young and pretty, even to try to settle her down when she was upset and crying.

  He maneuvered her back onto the cot and sat beside her. “Tell me about it,” he said. “Start at the beginning.”

  “The beginning is that Edgar Wade is a no-good bastard,” she said vehemently and with surprising bluntness. “He’s had his eye on me since I was fourteen years old. He told me then that he was going to carry me off and marry me someday. I laughed in his ugly face. I probably shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Probably not,” Frank agreed.

  “Anyway, I didn’t think it would ever be a problem. Wade had a bad reputation even then, and it just got worse as time went by. He . . . he was an outlaw over in Indian Territory. Everybody knew it. Judge Parker’s deputies stayed after him, but they couldn’t ever find any proof or get anybody to testify against him. Everybody was scared of him. The Cherokee Lighthorse couldn’t do anything about him either, since he’s white.”

  Frank nodded, knowing that the Indian police force she had mentioned only had jurisdiction over its own people.

  “But I figured as many scrapes as Edgar got into, somebody was bound to kill him sooner or later,” Hannah went on. “Only, that never happened. He’s still alive and meaner than ever, and he still wants me just as bad. I never expected him to follow me all the way up here to Chicago, though. I couldn’t believe it when he showed up.”

  “Did he threaten your grandfather right away?”

  She shook her head. “No, that came later, after I told him I didn’t want anything to do with him. He said I’d better think twice about that; otherwise Gramps would regret it. When I told him I didn’t believe him, he said for me to come to that hotel tonight and knock on the door of Room 214. He said the proof would be waiting for me inside.” Hannah gave a soft, despairing laugh. “It was. Gramps was there, just like Edgar said he would be.”

  “And Wade and another man were there too.”

  She nodded. “Yes. The other man’s name is Lawlor. He . . . he was part of Edgar’s gang down in Indian Territory.” Hannah sighed miserably. “What am I going to do, Mr. Morgan?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Well, I . . . I can’t let him hurt Gramps. I guess . . . I’ll have to marry him.”

  Frank thought about the situation. There had been a time when he would have hunted up Wade and Lawlor and told them in no uncertain terms to leave Hannah alone and get the hell out of town. Then they would have drawn on him and he would have killed them both and it would be all over.

  He still could have done that in many places west of the Mississippi, where people could still think clearly and recognize right from wrong, good from evil. In a so-called “civilized” town like Chicago, though, a gunfight like that would leave him sitting in jail facing murder charges, more than likely.

  And then he might never get to Boston to settle his score with Charles Dutton. If he was going to run afoul of the law, he wanted it to be for putting that mangy coyote of a lawyer in his grave. Once Dutton was dead, Frank didn’t much care what happened to him as a result.

  So this business with Wade had to be handled carefully. Frank asked Hannah, “How were things left between you and Wade? What are you supposed to do next?”

  “He . . . he said for me to meet him back at the hotel tomorrow afternoon. He’s going to have a . . . a preacher there. For the wedding.”

  Frank had been in Room 214 and knew that Wade wasn’t staying there. The room had been empty when he searched it earlier. But it had to be still rented to Wade so that he could use it to rendezvous with Hannah and force her to go through with a mockery of a marriage.

  “You show up there tomorrow like he told you,” Frank said.

  “But the wedding—”

  “Is going to have an unexpected guest. I plan on being there, and when the preacher asks if anybody has any objection to the wedding taking place . . .”

  He smiled, not needing to finish that statement.

  He just hoped he wouldn’t have to voice his objection with hot lead.

  Chapter 20

  Hannah had calmed down somewhat by the time Frank left her tent and headed for Cody’s. She had dried her eyes and promised to put her fate in Frank’s hands. He hoped he wouldn’t let her down.

  Cody was waiting impatiently for him in the opulent tent that was the showman’s temporary home. “What did you find out?” he asked when Frank came in.

  “We guessed right. Driscoll is Hannah’s grandfather, on her mother’s side. And Wade is holding him hostage until Hannah agrees to marry him. He told her to meet him at that hotel again tomorrow afternoon.” Frank paused. “He’s going to have a preacher there to perform the ceremony.”

  “By God, we can’t let that happen!” Cody exclaimed.

  “We won’t,” Frank said, “but we can’t just go in there with guns blazing either.”

  “I don’t see why not.” Cody grimaced. “Well, actually, I reckon I do. Things aren’t like they used to be, are they, Frank? Good men have to work a lot harder now to do the right thing because of all the obstacles our new, ‘progressive’ society has put in the way of justice.”

  Frank nodded. “That’s about the size of it. What we have to do is get Driscoll away from Wade somehow. Once her grandfather is safe, Hannah won’t have to cooperate with Wade, and if he tries to force her, then we’ll be justified in doing whatever we have to in order to protect her.”

  “Like blowing holes in Wade and all his hardcase cronies, eh?” A fighting grin stretched across Cody’s face. “I’m with you, Frank.”

  “No, you’re not,” Frank said with a shake of his head. “You’re too well know
n, Bill. If you show up at the hotel, it’ll cause a commotion and maybe tip our hand to Wade.”

  “You can’t mean that you want me to stay here?”

  Frank nodded. “That’s exactly what I want.”

  “But Wade and his men will outnumber you—” Cody stopped abruptly, then went on. “Look who I’m talking to. You’ve beaten odds like that plenty of times in the past, haven’t you?”

  Frank shrugged and said, “I just think it would be better if you let me handle things by myself. That way, if it doesn’t work out, you won’t be in trouble with the law.”

  Cody pulled at his goatee. “It doesn’t sit well with me letting somebody else run all the risks to pull my fat out of the fire . . . but if you think that would be best, I’ll trust your judgment.”

  “I won’t let you down, Bill.”

  “Now that’s a thought that never entered my mind,” Cody said.

  At Cody’s insistence, Frank spent the night at the Wild West show compound, in a spare tent. The next morning he sought out the wrangler, Jed Holloway, and not surprisingly found him at one of the corrals where the show’s horses were kept. Frank’s two horses were in that corral too.

  “How’s your friend who got winged?” Frank asked Holloway, who was leaning on the temporary fence that had been erected to hold the animals.

  “Doing as well as can be expected,” Holloway replied. “The doctors still don’t know if he’ll ever make a full recovery.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s not your fault, Morgan. If we hadn’t been there looking to settle a score with you, Amos wouldn’t have got shot. And since you whipped us fair and square both times, we didn’t have any gripe coming to start with.” Holloway rubbed his chest. “You know, I still feel like I been kicked by a Missouri mule. I had it coming, though.”

  “If your friend needs anything, let me know. And tell him not to worry about his hospital bill. I’ll see that it’s taken care of.”