Avenger

by William W. Johnstone

  The man carrying the warning had reached the saloon, and now several more gunmen spilled out of the building, bristling with rifles, shotguns, and handguns. Frank and Catamount Jack withdrew deeper into the trees, well out of sight.

  “You told me your name, but I still don’t know who you are,” Frank pointed out.

  “I’m a old friend o’ Tip Woodford’s.”

  “Thomas Woodford, the owner of the Lucky Lizard?”

  “That’s right, but everybody calls him Tip. I done some prospectin’ with him a long time ago, but I give it up ’fore he ever struck it rich. Course them riches didn’t last. The silver vein he found played out. But he lived high on the hog for a while first. Me, I do a little trappin’ and huntin’ and fishin’. Bein’ rich never appealed to me all that much.”

  “What are you doing here?” Frank asked the old frontiersman.

  “Came to visit Tip and his gal. I try to stop by once or twice a year and say howdy. But when me an’ Eldorado got here—that’s my mule, Eldorado—I seen right away that somethin’ was mighty wrong. Didn’t see any o’ the folks who live in Buckskin, but I saw them gunnies struttin’ around, sure enough. Took me a while, but I finally figured out what was goin’ on. Been waitin’ for you to get here ever since.”

  “Waiting for me? Why?”

  Catamount Jack rubbed his jaw, and Frank heard the faint rasp of callused fingertips on beard stubble. “Well, I’m a pretty tough ol’ bird, but even so, I didn’t figure I could kill all them bastards by myself. Thought I’d wait until you got here so as to even up the odds a mite. Now that I know you’re Frank Morgan, I reckon they’re even, all right.”

  “There are at least twenty of those hired killers, you know.”

  “Ten for you, ten for me,” Catamount Jack said with a shrug. “Don’t seem like no big deal.”

  Frank couldn’t help but laugh softly. Most of the time he felt like he was an old-timer, but this man really fit that description. And as somebody who had spent more than half a century on the frontier, Catamount Jack was obviously as tough as whang leather. Frank had been thinking earlier about how he didn’t have any allies in this fight. Now it appeared that Fate had brought him a good one.

  “We still have to worry about the prisoners inside the saloon,” Frank pointed out. “That’s where all the people who live here have gone. Dutton and his men rounded them up when they first got here.”

  “Yeah, I reckoned that was what happened. I got me an idea about that, though. What we got to do is draw them gunnies outta there, then we’ll take over the saloon and fort up in it.”

  Frank thought that over for a second and then nodded. “Sounds like a good idea, but how do we get in there?”

  “You don’t know Buckskin like I do, son. There’s a old tunnel, an offshoot o’ the Lucky Lizard, that goes right under the place. Got a trapdoor that leads up to the back room. We’ll go in that way.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out,” Frank observed.

  “I’ve had plenty o’ time to think these past few days. Just needed a hand to carry out the plan, like I told you.”

  “All right.” Frank heard shouts from the hired killers who were searching for him. Those shouts got louder when some of the gunmen stumbled over Floyd and Rankin, the man Frank had killed. Now they knew something was wrong. As soon as Floyd was untied and spit that gag out of his mouth, he would tell them that he had been jumped by Frank Morgan. “We’d better get busy.”

  “Come on,” Jack said. “I left Eldorado back yonder, and we’ll need somethin’ I’ve got in my packs.”

  Jack led the way through the night with practiced ease. As they came up to a mule that had been tethered to a tree, the animal shied away nervously, and was about to bray when Jack clamped a knobby hand over his muzzle. The old-timer looked around for the cause of the mule’s nervousness and exclaimed, “What the hell’s that, a wolf?”

  Frank saw Dog glide out of the trees. “No, that’s a friend of mine,” he explained.

  “Mighty spooky-lookin’ friend,” Jack said, “but I’ll take your word for it.” He dug in one of the packs strapped to the mule. “Here we go.”

  He brought out a small bundle of tightly wrapped cylinders. “Is that dynamite?” Frank asked.

  “Damn sure is. I got six sticks of it. Reckon we can put ’em to good use?”

  “I reckon we can,” Frank said. “If we set off a few blasts around town, Dutton will panic and send most of his men out to see what’s going on. Then we can get into the saloon through that tunnel.”

  Jack nodded. “That’s the way I figured it too.”

  The next few minutes were busy ones. The two men had to avoid the searchers as they circled around Buckskin. Along the way, Catamount Jack told Frank how to find the entrance to the tunnel. A trapdoor leading into it was located in the office of the old Lucky Lizard Mining Company. Jack pointed out the building to Frank; then the two men split up, each of them taking three sticks of dynamite. Jack had cut fuses of varying lengths and attached them to the cylinders of explosive.

  The old-timer had also pointed out other buildings where members of Dutton’s gun crew were hiding. Frank slipped up behind one of them and laid one of the sticks of dynamite against the rear wall, choosing the one with the shortest fuse. Leaving the fuse unlit, he moved on to the next building that concealed some of the hired killers. He placed the stick with the medium-length fuse against the back wall of that shack. Then, using shadows to mask his movements, he closed in on a third and final shack and planted the last stick of dynamite there. It had the longest fuse. Snapping a match into life with his thumbnail, he held the flame to the fuse, and when it began to sputter and spark, he turned and ran back to the second building. When that fuse was lit, Frank hurried to the first stick of dynamite and set fire to that fuse.

  Then he took off for the offices of the Lucky Lizard Mining Company, where he was supposed to rendezvous with Catamount Jack. The old frontiersman had been planting his sticks of dynamite on the other side of town. Cutting fuses wasn’t an exact science, but the hope was that most of the dynamite would go off at about the same time.

  Frank drew his Colt as he reached the Lucky Lizard building. Jack’s voice came out of the darkness in a rough whisper. “Morgan? That you?”

  “It’s me, Jack,” Frank replied. “Did you get your dynamite plant—”

  A huge blast of noise and fire that ripped the night apart answered that question. The earth shook under Frank’s feet. The tremendous explosion was followed almost instantly by several more thumping blasts.

  Frank grabbed Jack’s arm. “That first one wasn’t one stick of dynamite!”

  Jack cackled with glee. “No, I found a shack where some old blasting powder from mining days was bein’ stored. When the first stick o’ dynamite went up, it took all that powder with it! Mighty big bang, weren’t it?”

  “Sounded almost like the end of the world,” Frank agreed. “Come on. Let’s find that tunnel.”

  The back door of the mining company office was locked, but the wood around the door was rotten, and gave easily as Frank threw his shoulder against it. Frank told Dog to stay put, then the two men rushed inside. As Jack struck a match, Frank heard shouting in the street outside. Dutton’s men—the ones who had survived the explosions anyway—were trying to find out what the hell was going on. He and Jack had no time to waste.

  “There’s the trapdoor,” Jack grunted.

  Frank bent and caught hold of the leather strap attached to the door. He heaved and the door came up, releasing cool, musty air that had been trapped underground for who knows who many years. He saw the rungs of a ladder just as the flickering light from the match went out.

  Sitting down with his feet dangling into the opening, Frank felt for the rungs and grasped the top one. He got one foot on the ladder, then his other foot, and he started climbing down. He hoped none of the rungs were rotten enough to break and dump him down the shaft. He had no idea how deep
it was.

  He heard Jack climbing down above him. When he reached the bottom, it came as something of a surprise. The tunnel was only about twelve feet under the ground. A moment later, Jack reached the bottom beside him.

  “Why was this tunnel here?” Frank asked.

  “Tip’s sort of an odd fella,” Jack said. “He owned the Silver Baron back then—that’s the saloon—as well as the Lucky Lizard, and he lived above the saloon. He liked to be able to go back and forth without folks knowin’ what he was doin’. But then Diana come out from the East to live with him after her ma died, and she didn’t cotton much to her pa ownin’ a saloon. So Tip sold the place . . . but the tunnel was still here.”

  The old-timer told the story as he and Frank made their way through the tunnel, feeling their way along. Cobwebs brushed against Frank’s face, making his skin crawl. It took only a few minutes for them to reach the far end of the passage. Jack felt around for a moment, and then said, “Here’s the ladder.”

  “I’ll go first,” Frank said. Jack didn’t argue.

  Frank climbed the ladder until the crown of his hat bumped against the underside of the trapdoor. He bent his head and reached up. When he pushed against the door, it didn’t budge.

  “It won’t open,” he hissed down to Jack. The horrible thought struck Frank that maybe the trapdoor on this end of the tunnel had been nailed shut.

  “Might be somethin’ settin’ on top of it,” Jack suggested. “Give it a heave.”

  Frank bent over even more so that he could get his shoulder against the door. Then he straightened his back and pushed with his legs, and the door lifted a little. It wasn’t fastened down anyway, and he was grateful for that.

  “It moved some,” he told Jack. “Let me try again.”

  Groaning with the effort, Frank threw all his strength into lifting the trapdoor. It gave a little more. Frank rocked up and down. Suddenly the door flew up and back, and a heavy crash sounded in the room above. Some piece of furniture had been sitting on the door, and Frank had succeeded in toppling it. He scrambled through into a dark room. A line of light showed under a door. Jack came out of the tunnel right behind him.

  Frank drew his Colt and went to the door. It seemed impossible that the crash of something falling over in here hadn’t drawn any attention, but that seemed to be the case. Of course, with those explosions causing all hell to break loose outside, Dutton and his men were probably pretty distracted. Frank turned the knob and eased the door open a few inches. He found himself peering out into the main room of the saloon. The place was almost empty. All the gunmen had rushed out to see what was going on, just as Frank and Jack had planned. Frank looked through the front window of the saloon and saw Charles Dutton standing on the boardwalk, looking around wildly. Only two of the gunmen were in the saloon, and they were guarding a group of about a dozen people who stood huddled to one side. The citizens of Buckskin, Frank thought. Dutton’s hostages and human shields. He must have ordered them brought down from the upstairs rooms in case he needed to make use of them.

  It was time they were freed.

  Frank swung the door all the way open and stepped into the barroom. “Hey!” he said. The two gunnies spun toward him, looks of shock on their faces. They jerked their guns up and fired, but it was too late. Frank’s Peacemaker was already spouting death. He shot both men, knocking them off their feet. Their guns went spinning away.

  The townspeople stared at him in fear and confusion, but Jack came out of the storeroom quickly and called, “Don’t worry, folks! This fella’s a friend!”

  “Jack!” Tip Woodford cried. “Thank God!”

  On the boardwalk outside the big window, Dutton screamed, “Morgan! He’s in here! He’s in the saloon!”

  Frank triggered a shot at him, shattering the window, but Dutton had already leaped back out of the line of fire. As Frank headed for the busted window, he called to the former hostages, “Everybody down! Hunt some cover!”

  He took one side of the window and Catamount Jack took the other. They opened fire on the hired killers who were charging the saloon, Frank with the Peacemaker and Jack with the old cap-and-ball Walker Colt. A couple of the gunnies were knocked off their feet by the barrage. The others scattered, but kept shooting.

  Tip Woodford and his daughter Diana, who was just as pretty close up as Frank had figured she would be, snatched up the guns dropped by the men Frank had shot and joined in the fight. They crawled up to the window on hands and knees and fired over the sill.

  “Are there any more of those gunnies upstairs?” Frank asked them.

  Woodford shook his head. “No, they all went runnin’ out when those blasts went off. I reckon those explosions were the work of you and this old pelican, Mr. Morgan?”

  “Who you callin’ an old pelican?” Jack demanded tartly.

  “The only old pelican I see in here is you,” Woodford said as he squeezed off another shot. Beside him, Diana fired as one of the hired guns tried to run from one bit of cover to another, and the man flipped off his feet as he ran into the slug. “Good shootin’, gal,” Woodford said in approval.

  Frank saw that several buildings in town were on fire from the explosions, but the flames didn’t appear to be spreading. He wondered how many of Dutton’s gunnies had died in the blasts, taken by surprise as the shacks where they were hiding were blown apart. He figured he and the others had made a big dent in the enemy forces.

  But they were still outnumbered, and Dutton’s men were experienced, ruthless killers. If they charged the saloon, they would take some losses, but they could probably fight their way in and slaughter everybody in here.

  Or maybe not, because at that moment one of the townspeople called, “Hey, all the guns they took away from us are here behind the bar.”

  With an eager rush, the citizens of Buckskin armed themselves. The odds had just gotten a lot more even. Frank grinned as he thumbed fresh cartridges into his Colt. Let those gun-wolves come a-callin’. They would get a hotter welcome than they expected.

  Suddenly, he heard a man screaming outside, and when he ventured a look he saw that Dog had taken a hand in the fight. The big cur had pulled down one of the gunmen and was savaging him. Another man raised up to look and yelled, “Damn, it’s a wolf! Shoot it!”

  Those were the last words he ever spoke, because the next second Frank put a .45 slug through his brain. The man flopped into the street and kicked a couple of times before lying still.

  Frank couldn’t see Dutton, but he heard the man screaming orders. “Get in there!” Dutton screeched. “Get in there and kill them all!”

  The gunmen hung back, not wanting to risk the deadly accuracy of the saloon’s defenders. Dutton bellowed in frustration, “Twenty thousand dollars to the man who kills Morgan!”

  That temptation was more than the remaining gunnies could resist. They knew that some of them would die, but maybe one would be lucky enough to survive and collect that twenty-thousand-dollar bounty. Each thought that he would be that one lucky man. . . .

  With guns geysering flame, they charged the Silver Baron Saloon.

  Chapter 32

  Frank, Catamount Jack, and the citizens of Buckskin returned the savage fire. Lead flew through the air like a swarm of deadly bees. Frank felt bullets tug at his shirt and his Stetson flew off his head, a fresh hole in its crown. A fiery kiss on his cheek staggered him, and then he felt blood dripping down his face from where he’d been grazed. But even in the face of such a fierce assault, he remained cool-nerved and steady, taking his time as he picked his targets and fired, and each time the Peacemaker bucked in his hand, another hired killer went down.

  The charge reached all the way to the boardwalk before its back was finally broken by the fierce resistance. The handful of remaining gunmen, all of them wounded, threw down their guns and shoved their hands in the air. “Don’t shoot!” one of them cried raggedly. “For God’s sake, don’t shoot anymore!”

  Frank’s Colt was empty, but Woodf
ord and several other townspeople still had ammunition in their guns. They covered the gunmen who had surrendered while Frank reloaded and took a look around. The defense of the saloon had been successful, but it had not come without a price. Two men who had been among the defenders were down, lying motionless on the floor with bloodstains spreading on their shirts. Several more men and one of the women were wounded, but the injuries didn’t look too bad. Frank wondered who all these people were and what they had been doing in Buckskin before Dutton and his killers rode in and treed the town. Such a thing wouldn’t have happened in the old days, Frank knew, because then the citizens would have outnumbered the gunnies and would have been armed and willing to use their guns.

  As it was, Buckskin’s populace had given a good account of itself in the end, and none of them had anything to be ashamed of. Frank was proud to have fought at their side.

  He shouldered the shot-up batwings aside and stepped out onto the boardwalk. “Where’s Dutton?” he asked the men who had surrendered.

  “Hidin’ somewhere, the cowardly little weasel,” one of the men replied bitterly. “When he hired us, he said all we had to do was kill one man. He didn’t say anything about gettin’ blowed up and havin’ to fight a whole damned town.”

  “Your choice to take a hand in this game,” Frank said. He turned to Catamount Jack, who had come out onto the boardwalk behind him. “Find a place to lock these bastards up.”

  “What’re you fixin’ to do, Morgan?”

  Frank holstered his Colt. “Find Dutton.”

  “Want some help?”

  “No, I reckon I can handle this chore.”

  Frank started walking in the direction from which he had last heard Dutton’s voice shouting orders. His eyes roved constantly to both sides of the street, searching the shadows for any sign of the man he sought.

  As he walked along, he called, “You hear me, Dutton? This is Frank Morgan, and I’m coming for you. It’s time you paid for what you did to Vivian, and to everybody else you ever betrayed, Dutton. You’re not getting away this time.”