“It’s a long, ugly story,” Frank said. “And I’m sorry if this causes problems for the hotel.”
Dunnegan sighed and shrugged. “Well, you’re one of the owners now, so as you said earlier, it’s on your head.”
Frank tucked the Colt behind his belt again. “Come on. Let’s go talk to the police.”
The officers had plenty of questions. They were outraged that three men had been killed, and didn’t seem to care very much that the dead hombres had been doing their damnedest to kill Frank. When had it become so common in civilized society, Frank wondered, to care more about what happened to skunks like that than about the fact that they were trying to hurt innocent folks? That attitude was just so wrong, Frank couldn’t even come close to understanding it.
Luckily, Hannah and her grandfather were right there to explain how Driscoll had been held against his will by Wade and the others and how Frank had rescued him from that captivity.
“But who are those other fellows?” one of the policemen wanted to know. “The dead ones in the derby hats?”
“They were after me,” Frank explained. “They didn’t have anything to do with Miss Sterling’s grandfather being held prisoner.”
“Wait a minute,” another officer said. “There was a shooting near here last night. Does this have anything to do with that?”
Frank hesitated. He didn’t want the law interfering with his business. His involvement with the shooting the previous night was a matter of record, though. He said, “Yeah, I reckon they’re connected. Somebody tried to kill me last night and wounded another fella instead, and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the bushwhacker from last night was one of the gents I had to shoot today.”
“You’re either mighty popular or mighty unpopular, depending on how you want to look at it. You want to tell us why so many folks seem to want you dead?”
Frank looked them in the eye and said, “It’s a mystery to me.”
Dutton could have agents anywhere, including in the Chicago Police Department. Anyway, Frank thought it was unlikely the police would believe him if he told them that Dutton had put a bounty on his head. But they would want to investigate, and that would just complicate matters.
Frank didn’t want any more complications. He had come to the conclusion that the best thing for him to do would be to get to Boston just as fast as possible. Dutton’s hired killers already knew where he was, so there was no longer any point in trying to be discreet. From here on out, he was going to close in on his goal as hard and fast as he could, and if any more hired guns got in his path, he would blast them out of the way too.
“Frank Morgan,” one of the officers mused. “You’re that Western gunslinger, aren’t you?”
“Some have called me that,” Frank admitted.
“Those fellas must have recognized you and decided to kill you to increase their own reputations.”
“Could be,” Frank agreed, happy to let the policemen believe that alternative explanation.
“How long are you planning to stay in Chicago?”
“Not long at all. I reckon I’ll catch a train out tonight or in the morning.”
“Good. No offense, but we don’t need you around here being a magnet for trouble.”
“Trust me, boys, when I tell you I’ll be as glad to see the last of Chicago as Chicago will be to see the last of me.”
By the time Frank, Hannah, and Driscoll got back to the Wild West show compound, the afternoon performance was already well under way. Hannah was worried that Cody would be upset with her for missing it, but at the same time she was almost giddy with relief at being freed from the threat that Wade had posed to her and her grandfather.
“I’d be willing to bet that Colonel Cody will understand,” Frank assured her. “He’s been mighty worried about you, Hannah.”
“Yes, he’s a very nice man. Do you think he’d let Gramps stay here with the show, so there won’t be any chance that Wade will grab him again?”
“I expect that can be worked out.”
Driscoll said, “I’ll work for my keep. I was a blacksmith in my time, and I can still fire up a forge and swing a hammer if I need to.”
The short, slender Driscoll didn’t look much like a blacksmith, but evidently there was a lot of wiry strength in his body.
“Do you think there’s any chance Edgar will come back and try to bother us again?” Hannah asked.
“You know him better than I do,” Frank pointed out, “but the law is after him and his friends now for kidnapping your grandfather. Likely, they’ll head back to Indian Territory as fast as they can, since they’ll probably be safer there.”
Frank hoped that would be the case, but he would still warn Cody to be careful. When the plans of a man like Wade were ruined, sometimes there was no telling what he would do to strike back in anger.
They were waiting outside the arena for Cody to come out when the performance was over. The showman’s face lit up in a grin when he saw Hannah and the old man standing beside her. He looked at Frank and said, “Wade?”
“Got away,” Frank replied, “but there’s a good chance he won’t bother anybody anymore, at least in Chicago.”
Cody grasped his hand and pumped it eagerly. “I can’t thank you enough for your help, Frank. If there’s anything I can do for you, just name it.”
“Well, you said something yesterday about helping me get to Boston as soon as I can.”
Hannah said in surprise, “You’re leaving, Mr. Morgan?”
He nodded. “I’ve got important business elsewhere, Miss Sterling.”
“Oh, goodness, after everything you’ve done for us, you’ve got to call me Hannah.” She turned to Cody. “Colonel, this is my grandfather, Junius Driscoll.”
Cody shook hands with the old man. “It’s my pleasure, Mr. Driscoll. Everyone connected with the troupe is quite fond of your lovely granddaughter.”
Frank left Cody talking with the two of them and walked over to the corrals. He found Holloway there and said, “You’re the head wrangler around here, aren’t you?”
The cowboy nodded. “That’s right.”
“Reckon you could find some use for that dun and chestnut of mine?”
“You want to sell your horses to the colonel?”
Frank would have given the mounts to Cody, but he knew the showman would insist on paying for them. “That’s right. I’m leaving Chicago on the train, and where I’m going I won’t have any use for them.”
“Well . . .” Holloway rubbed his jaw. “The chestnut strikes me as a decent saddle mount, but that dun’s got a mean look about him. The boys have to watch him when they get too close, for fear he’ll reach over and take a bite out of their hide.”
“He just might at that,” Frank said with a chuckle. “But once he gets used to you, he’s a fine horse. Got a lot of sand.”
“Yeah, I can tell that by looking at him too.” Holloway nodded and went on. “Sure, if you want to get rid of them, we’ll find something to do with them. One thing about a show like this, it always needs plenty of horses. Anytime one of them pulls up lame and needs to rest for a few days, we’ve got to have another one ready to go in the Grand Review and all the other acts.”
“It’s a deal then.” Frank put out his hand.
Holloway shook it. “For a man with the reputation you’ve got, you’re not a bad fella, Morgan.” There was a little twinkle in his eye as he grinned. “Can’t say as I’ll be sorry to see you go, though.”
“Neither will I,” Frank said.
Chapter 22
A train bound for Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, and other points east, including Boston, was scheduled to leave Chicago at eleven thirty that night. Since the evening performance would be over well before that, Cody prevailed on Frank to attend the show one more time.
“You haven’t even seen all of it yet,” Cody pointed out.
Frank agreed. That would also give him the chance to share one more meal with his old friend.
>
They ate in the same steakhouse, and as they walked back to the compound, Cody said, “I appreciate everything you’ve done to help Hannah, Frank. I’m . . . very fond of that girl.”
“No offense, Bill, but you’re also old enough to be her pa. And I seem to remember hearing something about you being married.”
“Yes, indeed. My dear Louisa—Lulu, I call her—is back home in North Platte. She prefers not to travel with the show.” Cody chuckled and shook his head ruefully. “Don’t worry, Frank. I know there’s no fool like an old fool, but I haven’t lost all reason. While I admire Hannah and find her undeniably beautiful, I don’t have any designs on her. I reckon you could say that I really do look on her almost as a daughter.”
“Well, then, I’m glad I was able to help. I just didn’t think the girl needed any more trouble.”
“Definitely not.” They had arrived at the arena. “Here we are. You’ll watch the show from my private box again, and when it’s over, I’ll escort you to the train station myself.”
Crowds were already streaming into the arena to watch the evening performance. Frank kept his eyes open, watching for any indication that somebody was about to bushwhack him again. As far as he could tell, though, everybody in the crowd had come to be entertained, not to try to kill him.
Junius Driscoll was sitting in Cody’s box when Frank got there. “The colonel said I could watch the show from here,” the old man explained. “That is, if you don’t mind the company, Mr. Morgan.”
“Not at all,” Frank said with a smile as he settled down in the seat next to Driscoll. “That granddaughter of yours is quite a rider. I saw her part of the show last night.”
“I taught her how to ride,” Driscoll said with pride in his voice. “She was on the back of a horse almost before she could walk. I owned a smithy and livery stable in Fort Smith, right down the street from Judge Parker’s courthouse.” The smile disappeared from Driscoll’s face. “I reckon that was where Wade saw her for the first time and got it stuck in his head that he wanted her. One of his pards from over in Injun Territory had been caught and tried and convicted o’ rustlin’, and he was bein’ hanged along with some other no-goods who’d found themselves in front o’ Judge Parker. I guess Wade came to say so long and see him off. After that, he started stoppin’ by the stable every time he came to Fort Smith, but I knowed he was there just to leer at poor Hannah.”
“Seems mighty daring of him to come right into Fort Smith when Parker’s deputies were after him,” Frank commented.
“Oh, they didn’t have anything on him, even though they all knowed he was an owlhoot. I reckon that was his way o’ sorta throwin’ it in their faces. But it won’t be like that anymore. There’s a kidnappin’ charge against Wade and his boys now, so they’ll be on the run from now on. I reckon once ol’ Isaac Parker hears about it, he’ll be rubbin’ his hands together in anticipation, just a-hankerin’ to see Wade at the end of a hang-rope.”
The cowboy band came out to play “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and a few minutes later the Grand Review got under way. Frank sat back to enjoy the show.
He did too, at least for a while. But then it came time for Hannah’s trick riding act, and she didn’t come galloping out from under the grandstand on her pony. There was a lull in the performance for a few minutes, as if Hannah’s absence hadn’t been planned, but was a surprise to the rest of the troupe too. The crowd began to grow restless. They didn’t settle down until Salty Stevens drove the Deadwood stage out into the arena and the mock Indian attack got started. As the guns began to roar, the spectators clapped and cheered again.
Not Frank, though. He leaned forward in his seat and said worriedly, “Something’s wrong.”
“What is it?” Driscoll asked. He hadn’t seen the show before, so he didn’t know that Hannah hadn’t put in her scheduled appearance.
“Hannah was supposed to be doing her act now,” Frank explained.
The old man frowned anxiously. “You reckon somethin’s wrong with her? Maybe she’s sick or somethin’?”
Frank stood up. “I intend to find out.”
Driscoll scrambled to his feet and said, “I’m comin’ with you.”
Frank didn’t argue with him. Hannah was Driscoll’s granddaughter, after all. The old man had a right to accompany him.
They hurried down a ramp and went out through the area underneath the grandstands. Out in the arena, the battle between Buffalo Bill’s cowboys and the Indians who had been “attacking” the Deadwood stage was in full force. The roar of gunfire filled the air.
But it didn’t keep Frank from hearing other shots that came from somewhere else.
He reached for the gun under his coat as the reports sounded from the large tent where the show’s receipts were counted each night. Cody had pointed it out to him earlier. Frank’s agile mind leaped to the only reasonable conclusion—somebody was holding up the Wild West show. The show sold enough tickets and took in enough money for each performance to make such a robbery worthwhile. And for all Frank knew, some of the receipts from previous performances might still be kept in the tent too.
He broke into a run toward the tent with Driscoll struggling to keep up behind him. It came as no surprise to Frank when several men came boiling out of the tent with guns in their hands and bandannas pulled up over their faces to form crude masks. He recognized Edgar Wade and Lawlor despite those disguises. The men with them were undoubtedly members of Wade’s gang from Indian Territory.
And the worst thing of all was that Wade had Hannah with him, dragging her along as she struggled futilely to free herself. She was dressed in the costume she wore in her act. Wade had to have grabbed her just as she was about to go on, Frank thought.
He couldn’t start blazing away at Wade and the other robbers as long as they held Hannah hostage. They were headed toward some saddled horses that stood nearby, their reins being held by another masked member of the gang. Frank moved to try to cut them off.
Suddenly, hoofbeats rumbled and Driscoll yelled from behind him, “Look out, Mr. Morgan!”
Frank jerked his head to the left and saw several unsaddled horses stampeding toward him, being driven by another of the masked owlhoots. They were some of the show’s horses, busted out of a corral to use as a distraction.
It worked, because Frank had to leap backward to avoid being trampled. One of the horses clipped him with a shoulder as it bolted past and sent him spinning off his feet. He landed hard, but managed to hang onto his gun. By the time he started to climb back to his feet, Driscoll had reached his side. The old man panted, “Hannah! They got Hannah, damn it!”
“Did you see where they went?” Frank asked.
“They jumped on their horses and rode off yonderways!” Driscoll pointed.
Jed Holloway and several other wranglers ran up at that moment. Holloway said, “Morgan! Did you see what happened?”
“A bunch of no-good skunks stole the ticket money, grabbed Hannah Sterling, and rode off,” Frank replied. “I’m going to grab one of these horses and go after them.”
“We’ll go with you,” Holloway offered grimly. “Those bastards can’t mess with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and get away with it!”
“They’ve got guns,” Frank pointed out.
Holloway reached to the small of his back and produced a revolver that had been tucked behind his belt. “Oh, hell, that’s not a problem. Nobody around here goes too long without packin’ iron!”
Frank had to grin at that. If he had to put together a makeshift posse, he could do a lot worse than Holloway and the rest of the show’s wranglers.
But they weren’t going to be the only ones volunteering to join in the chase, he saw a moment later as Cody galloped up on the fancy white stallion he rode in the show. “What the hell’s going on, Frank?” he demanded. “I got away from the arena as soon as I could.”
“Wade stole the night’s receipts and took Hannah with him,” Frank explained as he managed to grab one of the
horses that were milling around. He swung up bareback. Holloway and the other wranglers followed suit. Frank held a hand down to Driscoll and grasped the old man’s wrist, pulling him up so that Driscoll could ride behind him. “You can show us which way they went.”
With the horse carrying Frank and Driscoll taking the lead, the posse charged out of the compound and headed north toward downtown Chicago. Frank wondered if Wade intended to catch a train out of town before word could spread of the robbery at the Wild West show grounds.
Cody brought his mount up alongside Frank’s. The white stallion was decked out in gaudy trappings, but that didn’t mean the horse couldn’t run. Cody was in his showman’s outfit too, and he was probably the deadliest shot and most dangerous man in Chicago tonight—other than Frank Morgan.
People on the streets turned to stare as the group of a dozen or so riders thundered past them like this was Abilene or Dodge City or some other frontier cow town instead of the teeming metropolis of Chicago. This was no Wild West show, though. This was the real thing, a posse of grim-faced men hot on the trail of a bunch of owlhoots.
After a few minutes of hard riding, Frank caught a glimpse of their quarry up ahead in the glow of the gaslights along the street. They were back on Michigan Avenue now. “There they are!” he shouted, and he urged the horse he was riding to a burst of greater speed. Behind him, Junius Driscoll hung on for dear life.
Gradually, the posse began to overhaul the fleeing outlaws. Wade and his men dodged and darted around trolley cars, but couldn’t manage to shake Frank and the other pursuers. Frank saw several of the bandits twist around in their saddles, so he wasn’t surprised by what happened next. Orange gun-flame spouted from the revolvers in their hands. “Keep your heads down!” Frank shouted to his companions as he leaned forward over the neck of the horse he was riding.
It was going to be pure luck if any of the shots fired by the outlaws actually hit their targets, but stranger things had been known to happen. Frank hoped that none of the flying lead struck any innocent bystanders. The outlaws weren’t being any too careful with their shots. Frank and the riders with him, on the other hand, couldn’t just blaze away indiscriminately at the men they were chasing. There were too many people on the street for that, and besides, Hannah was still Wade’s prisoner and in harm’s way.
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