Avenger

by William W. Johnstone

  Holloway and the other wranglers were all excellent riders and had no trouble keeping pace with Frank and Cody. In fact, Holloway caught up and began to pull ahead. He was only about fifty feet behind the stragglers among the outlaw gang. Leaning far forward over his mount’s neck, Holloway urged the horse on until it was moving at blinding speed. Since he was the closest, the outlaws began to concentrate their fire on him, and Frank expected to see either Holloway or his horse hit at any moment.

  With his fingers tangled in the horse’s mane, Holloway veered his mount back and forth, though, throwing off the outlaws’ aim. He drew alongside the nearest man and lashed out with a fist, knocking the owlhoot’s arm up just as he was about to pull the trigger and fire at point-blank range. The shot went wild, and Holloway rammed his horse’s shoulder into the outlaw’s mount.

  With a frightened scream, the outlaw’s horse stumbled and almost went down. Even though the animal regained its footing, the jolt had been enough to make its rider tumble out of the saddle. The outlaw shrieked in horror as he fell, but the cry was cut short a second later as he slammed at full speed into the pavement of Michigan Avenue. As Frank flashed past, he saw that the impact had cracked the man’s skull wide open, probably killing him instantly. Junius Driscoll must have seen the same thing, because Frank felt a horrified shudder go through the older man’s body.

  The next outlaw in the group tried a different tack. He reined in, bringing his horse to a sliding, skidding, twisting stop. As he turned back toward the onrushing Holloway, he lifted his gun for a killing shot.

  Holloway left the back of his mount in a diving leap that seemed to send him flying through the air. The outlaw’s gun blasted, flame geysering from the muzzle, but Frank couldn’t tell if the bullet struck Holloway or not. The wrangler crashed into the gunman, driving him out of the saddle. Both men pitched to the ground. Holloway landed agilely on top, and the way he crashed his fists into the face of the man he had tackled told Frank that he wasn’t hit bad, if at all.

  But Holloway was out of the chase now, at least for the moment. Frank urged his mount on, gaining steadily on the fleeing bandits. Bill Cody allowed only the best horses in his show, and that policy was paying off now as the impromptu posse closed in on its quarry.

  Frank decided he was close enough now to risk a shot. As one of the outlaws turned to throw lead at him, Frank lifted the Colt and squeezed the trigger. He was rewarded by the sight of the man’s gun arm jerking as the bullet tore through it. The outlaw dropped his revolver and his arm hung limply at his side as he swayed in the saddle. He managed to hang on instead of taking a tumble that would be potentially fatal at this speed, but he had to use his other hand to gradually bring his mount to a halt. One of the wranglers rode up to the outlaw and covered him with a six-gun. The bandit lifted his good arm in surrender.

  Several more outlaws reined in and threw their guns down, preferring to give up rather than engage in a pitched battle with the posse. The wranglers surrounded them.

  That left Frank, Cody, and Driscoll to go after the rest of the gang, which now consisted of Wade, Lawlor, and two more men. As the frontiersmen closed in on the outlaws, Cody drew his pistol. “I put live rounds in here before we left the show!” Cody called to Frank. He triggered twice and one of the outlaws sailed out of the saddle, ventilated through the body by both shots. “Feels good not to be firing blanks for a change!”

  Lawlor twisted around and blasted a shot at Frank, who heard the bullet rip past his head. Frank fired back. Lawlor swayed in the saddle and then crumpled onto his horse’s neck. The animal began to slow down as the reins slipped from Lawlor’s fingers and dragged on the ground. Lawlor stayed mounted, but he was hit hard, maybe dying.

  That left Wade and one other man. Frank was only about ten feet behind them. The other outlaw suddenly veered his mount to the side, threw his gun away, and thrust his hands in the air as high as they would go. He’d had enough.

  But Wade wasn’t giving up yet. And he was desperate enough to attempt a terrible distraction.

  Hannah was riding in front of him on the horse’s back, and as Driscoll gasped in horror at the sight he glimpsed over Frank’s shoulder, Wade slung Hannah off the horse.

  Frank had seen what had happened to the man who had fallen off his mount while the animal was galloping at top speed. Such a fall could easily prove fatal, and even if it didn’t, Hannah would be likely to wind up with numerous broken bones.

  But as she fell, she brought her booted feet together, and when they struck the pavement her knees bent for an instant, and then straightened as she used the impact to launch herself upward again. She grabbed the back of Wade’s saddle and hung on tightly as she swung her legs over the horse’s back in a move very similar to one that she performed in her trick-riding act. She landed astride the horse, only behind Wade now instead of in front of him.

  And she used that opportunity to grab him around the neck and jerk his head back.

  As the horse felt the weight of its riders shift, it stopped and reared up on its hind legs. Hannah slipped off, but retained her stranglehold on Wade’s neck. Her body swung crazily through the air like a pendulum, but she didn’t let go. Wade couldn’t stay on the horse. He fell, crashing to the pavement. Hannah landed beside him and rolled away.

  Wade came up cursing savagely, his gun still in his hand. “You bitch!” he screamed at Hannah as he swung the weapon toward her.

  He didn’t get a chance to pull the trigger. Frank and Cody fired first, their shots roaring out in the Chicago night. Wade was jolted backward in a jittering dance of death as slugs from the guns of The Drifter and Buffalo Bill smashed into him. Bloody flowers bloomed on his shirt. His gun slipped from nerveless fingers. As the hammers on Frank’s and Cody’s guns clicked on empty chambers, Wade sat down hard. Covered with blood, he managed to stay upright for a moment, but then he toppled to the side and didn’t move again. He had enough lead in him to sink a warship.

  Driscoll slipped off the horse and ran to Hannah, catching her in his arms and hugging her tightly. “Are you all right, gal?” he asked in a trembling voice.

  “I . . . I’m fine, Gramps,” she answered breathlessly. “But what about Wade?”

  Frank was already thumbing fresh cartridges into his gun in a casual fashion. He looked at Wade’s crumpled body and drawled, “He should’ve taken his chances with the Hanging Judge. But still, I reckon justice has been done.”

  Chapter 23

  Surprisingly, after everything that had happened, Frank made his eleven-thirty train. A lot of that was due to the considerable influence of the famous Colonel William F. Cody. He handled all the authorities who were naturally upset about a running gunfight taking place in the middle of Michigan Avenue. He had rousted out of bed the lawyers who took care of his show’s business, and they were kept busy explaining everything to the police while Frank, Cody, Hannah, Driscoll, and Holloway went to the train station. Holloway had a bullet burn on his cheek where the slug fired by the outlaw he had tackled had grazed him, but that was the extent of his injuries.

  The men all shook hands with Frank, and Holloway promised to see to it that the two horses he was leaving behind had a good home with the Wild West show. Then Hannah hugged Frank and said, “I know we haven’t known each other for very long, Mr. Morgan, but I’ll never forget you. And I can never repay you for everything you’ve done for me.”

  “You don’t have to,” Frank told her with a smile. “I was glad to help.”

  “But you could have gotten killed!”

  “That’s the risk folks take every morning when they get out of bed, even the ones who aren’t gunfighters,” Frank said. “It shouldn’t stop them from living life the best they can.”

  Carrying his war bag, he climbed up onto the platform at the rear of one of the passenger cars and paused there, turning back to lift a hand in farewell. Steam billowed along the platform as the conductor shouted, “Booooarrrrdddd!” A moment later, with only a slight lu
rch, the train began to move.

  Frank stood there waving until the depot dropped out of sight behind him. Then he turned and went into the car.

  It would take a couple of days on the train to reach Boston, and Frank didn’t plan to let his guard down during that time. The first night, he had to sit up since he hadn’t been able to book a sleeping compartment. The next morning, though, he made arrangements with the conductor for a berth for that night and the next, and the day after that the train would arrive in Boston.

  Frank had ridden on plenty of trains in his life, but always in the West, where the scenery varied some. As these cars rolled across the farmland and low hills of Indiana and Ohio, he found himself growing bored as he looked out the window beside him. He knew, logically, that there were vast stretches of the frontier that were just as monotonous, but somehow it didn’t seem that way to him.

  Suddenly, a pleasant scent filled his senses, and he looked around to see that an attractive, well-dressed woman had paused in the aisle next to the seat where he was sitting. “Do you mind if I join you?” she asked with a smile.

  Out of habit, Frank took off his hat and nodded politely to her. “Go right ahead, ma’am,” he said.

  As she settled down on the seat, she said in a quiet voice, “I hope you don’t think I’m being terribly forward, sir. But there are only a few seats available, and I know from experience that Western gentlemen such as yourself are more pleasant traveling companions than, well, men like him.”

  She tipped her head to indicate a man sitting by himself on the other side of the aisle, three or four seats toward the front of the car. His derby and loud, flashy suit marked him as a drummer of some sort. Frank knew that traveling salesmen were necessary for some businesses to succeed, but he didn’t particularly like spending time with them any more than the lady sitting beside him did.

  “I’m Helen Jeffries,” she introduced herself, offering him a gloved hand.

  Frank took it and said, “Frank Morgan.”

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Morgan.”

  She was around thirty years old, Frank decided, with honey-colored hair under her stylish hat and a small mole on her right cheek that just made her smooth, creamy complexion seem even more attractive. Full red lips and blue eyes and a body with curves in all the right places under her expensive dress completed the picture. Frank glanced at her left hand. No wedding ring.

  He asked the question anyway. “You’re not traveling with your husband?”

  “I’m a widow.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s been several years since my husband passed away, so my sorrow has eased considerably. It was helped to do so by the money I inherited from him as well.”

  Frank grunted in surprise.

  The smile didn’t leave Helen Jeffries’s face as she went on. “Yes, I know, I’m too plainspoken for my own good. But I never believed in beating around the bush. I’m fairly well-to-do, Mr. Morgan, and I’ve gotten that way by cultivating the company of well-to-do men.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t have picked a poor cowboy this time,” he told her. “I can be a mite plainspoken myself sometimes.”

  Helen laughed, and Frank couldn’t help but like the sound of it. “I was telling the truth when I said I was looking for a pleasant traveling companion. And that’s all I’m looking for on this trip. So don’t worry, Mr. Morgan. I’m not going to spin any sort of sinister web to entrap you or anything like that. Just some enjoyable conversation will be fine.”

  “Well, I reckon we understand each other then.”

  “What’s your destination?” she asked.

  “Boston.”

  “Are you traveling for business or pleasure?”

  “Purely business,” Frank said. He had long since given up on the idea of getting any pleasure out of settling the score with Charles Dutton. Killing Dutton wouldn’t bring Vivian back, and it wouldn’t do anything to ease the sense of loss Frank felt whenever he thought about her. But it would make him feel that justice had been done, and besides, since Dutton was out to have him killed, forcing a showdown with the man was also a matter of self-defense.

  “Where are you from? Or should I not ask that of a Westerner?”

  “I don’t mind saying that I come from Texas originally, but I’ve been all over.”

  “Fiddle-footed, eh?”

  He glanced at her in surprise. “You’ve known some cowboys before,” he commented. “Oherwise, you wouldn’t know what it means to be fiddle-footed.”

  “I’ve visited with several cattlemen in Kansas City,” she said demurely.

  She had made it pretty plain that she was a high-class prostitute, but he believed her when she said that she wasn’t looking to hook him. Even a soiled dove couldn’t be on duty, so to speak, all the time. And under other circumstances, if she’d had a dalliance in mind, he might not have objected. But he didn’t want anything to distract him from the mission he was on, and he hoped that Helen Jeffries wouldn’t try to.

  There was another possibility too that he couldn’t ignore.

  She might be working for Dutton.

  Bearing that in mind, Frank intended to be mighty careful just how close he got to Helen Jeffries.

  By the time the train crossed from Ohio into Pennsylvania, Frank had spent several hours talking to Helen and enjoyed the conversation. She had traveled quite a bit herself, and told him several stories about her visits to Denver and San Francisco. He enjoyed her company even though he still didn’t quite trust her.

  They were talking when a man passing by in the aisle stopped suddenly and stared at Frank. “Something I can do for you, partner?” he asked the man coolly.

  “Beg your pardon, mister,” the stranger said. “It’s just that I knew I’d seen you somewhere before, and I just remembered where it was. Cheyenne, five years ago. You were coming out of a hotel when the Rock Springs Kid braced you. Man alive, I never saw such a fast draw! That crazy kid never had a chance, Mr. Morgan. You are Frank Morgan, aren’t you?”

  Since he’d already told Helen his name, Frank didn’t figure he could lie about it now. He nodded and said, “That’s right.”

  “I’ve read some of the dime novels about you,” the man went on. “I’ve got to say, after having seen you in action with my own eyes, even those stories don’t do you justice. Why, you can kill a man in less than the blink of an eye! I saw you do it.”

  “That’s enough, friend,” Frank growled. “We don’t want to upset the lady.”

  “Oh. Sorry, Mr. Morgan. I didn’t mean any offense—”

  “None taken,” Frank cut in. “Now, if you’ll excuse us . . .”

  “Sure. Sure thing.” The stranger tipped his hat to Helen. “Ma’am.”

  She smiled and nodded at him, and when the man had moved on down the aisle, she turned to Frank and said, “Was he telling the truth? Are you really a famous gunfighter?”

  “I’ve been in my share of shooting scrapes,” Frank admitted. “Some would say more than my share.”

  “Frank Morgan,” she mused. “You know, I thought that name was familiar for some reason, but I couldn’t place it. And you said you’re on your way to Boston on business. . .” Her eyes widened suddenly. “You’re going to kill a man!”

  Frank didn’t bother denying it. He just shrugged.

  “I’d hate to be the man that you’re after,” Helen went on. “He must have done you a terrible wrong, for you to be traveling all the way to Boston to deal with him.”

  “It was bad enough,” Frank said. He didn’t want to get into the details.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” Helen said quickly. “We’ll just leave it at that, shall we?”

  Frank nodded. “Sounds fine.”

  But even though they tried to go back to the conversation they’d been having, there was something between them now, a barrier formed of Helen’s awareness that he was a killer. When it got to be suppertime, Frank thought they might go to the dining car
and eat together, but she made an excuse about being tired and turning in early. He nodded and accepted the story with as much grace as he could muster.

  That sort of ruined his appetite, so instead of going to the dining car he headed for the club car instead, intending to have one of his infrequent drinks. When he entered the car, he spotted the man who had recognized him earlier in the day. Obviously, ever since then, the fella had been in here drinking and telling stories about how the notorious gunfighter known as The Drifter was on this train.

  Frank thought about turning around and leaving, but he was damned if he was going to let himself be stampeded by a bunch of curious rubes. Instead, he went to the bar and nodded to the drink juggler behind it. “Whiskey,” Frank said.

  The bartender poured the drink and put it in front of him. Frank tossed back the liquor and felt the warmth it kindled in his belly. He hadn’t been drunk since that bad time after Dixie died, and he didn’t intend to get drunk now. But at moments like this, it was tempting.

  The reason he couldn’t afford to do that announced itself by way of a voice saying, “Hey, Morgan.”

  Frank recognized the tone, and didn’t want to turn around to acknowledge the man who had spoken, but he knew that if he didn’t, the situation would just get worse. He swung around deliberately and put his back against the club car bar. Standing a few feet away, swaying slightly due to the motion of the train, was a young man duded up in Western clothes, but not the sort that any real cowboy would ever wear. The brim of his Stetson was curled tightly, and he had long hair down on his shoulders and a drooping mustache. The hombre had been reading too many dime novels about Wild Bill Hickok, Frank thought.