The Last Gunfighter: Killing Ground

by William W. Johnstone

  The sound of gunshots traveled a long way. If Brighton had other gunmen in the area, they might hear the shooting and start to close in. It was possible that Frank and Caldwell might still be cut off from Buckskin.

  A few moments later, Frank saw that he had been right to worry about that. Three riders appeared on the right, angling toward them from the direction of those vermilion cliffs. The men were riding hard on a course to intercept them, and Frank didn’t have any doubts about their identity. They were more of Brighton’s killers.

  “Follow me, Judge!” he shouted over the thundering hoofbeats. He veered Stormy to the left, toward the breaks. They couldn’t escape by going through those badlands; it would be suicide to try. The horses would be hobbled and unable to go on before they went a hundred yards.

  But maybe they could skirt the edge of that waste-land, Frank told himself. If he and Caldwell could get around the horsebackers coming from the right, it would still be a horse race to the settlement.

  Within minutes, Frank knew that the men had too much of an angle on them. He and the judge couldn’t avoid the pursuit.

  That meant they would have to fight their way through. He would have to fight their way through, because Caldwell wasn’t carrying a gun.

  But this was why he had gone to Carson City to fetch the judge in the first place, he reminded himself. He had fully expected this trouble. Now he had to deal with it.

  Frank hauled back on the reins, slowing Stormy. Caldwell and the chestnut shot ahead. Caldwell noticed that Frank was gone and started looking around wildly for him, but by then Frank had Stormy moving up on the other side of the chestnut.

  “Over here, Judge!” Frank called. “Keep moving! Head straight along the edge of the breaks when you get to it! I’ll give you some cover!”

  Caldwell nodded to show that he understood.

  From time to time, Frank saw a spurt of dirt and gravel from the ground nearby, an indication that the two men behind them were still shooting. The three closing in from the right had opened up, too; Frank saw spurts of orange muzzle flame from their six-guns. Again, they would have been better off stopping their horses, dismounting, and using their rifles. Frank was grateful for any luck he and Caldwell could get. In this case, the killing frenzy that no doubt gripped the gunmen made them want to charge in and blast their quarry with their revolvers. That was a break for Frank and the judge.

  Frank still had his Winchester in his right hand as he used his left to hold the reins. He wasn’t trying for accuracy as he thrust the rifle’s barrel toward the three bushwhackers on the right and pulled the trigger. He just wanted to come close enough to maybe slow them down a mite.

  Then he twirled the Winchester like it was a handgun, using the weapon’s own weight and motion to cock the loading lever again. It was a fancy move, the sort of thing that Bill Cody or some other show-man might do to impress an audience of Easterners at a Wild West performance, but from time to time it came in handy in real life…like now. A man needed a mighty strong wrist to be able to pull off the maneuver. Frank Morgan had what it took.

  Since he was grandstanding anyway, he took the reins in his teeth, shifted the Winchester to his left hand, and used his right to draw the Colt on his hip. He guided Stormy with his knees as he fired both weapons, twirling the Winchester with his left hand while the Colt in his right bucked and roared.

  It must be spectacular as hell to watch, he thought fleetingly.

  More importantly, the hail of lead he was throwing toward the attackers actually had an effect. One of the men threw up his arms in death and slid from the saddle, crashing to the ground. Another lost his gun when one of Frank’s slugs smashed his elbow. That left only one man coming from this direction, and suddenly it seemed like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to catch Frank and Caldwell or not. He peeled away, still shooting but no longer closing in.

  Frank threw a glance over his shoulder. He and the judge were still well ahead of their original pursuers. Hope began to rise in him.

  As always, that was a jinx. Puffs of smoke came from a clump of boulders at the edge of the badlands as Judge Caldwell galloped past them. The chestnut stumbled. Frank grated a curse as he saw the horse slow down. The next second, the judge’s derby leaped off his head, no doubt plucked from it by a bullet. The chestnut came to a stop, leaving Caldwell an easy target on its back.

  Frank holstered his Colt and took the Winchester in both hands again. A few rounds remained in it. He brought the rifle to his shoulder and emptied it into the rocks where more of Brighton’s gunmen were hidden. He wanted to make things hot for those gunnies by boucing a lot of hot lead around inside the clump of boulders. They’d be too busy ducking for cover to ventilate the judge.

  It must have worked, because no more shots came from the rocks as Frank galloped up to Caldwell. He saw that the chestnut was wounded, but ought to still be able to run. Frank jammed the Winchester back in the saddle boot and leaned over to grab the other horse’s reins.

  “Come on! We’ve still got a chance!”

  With Frank holding the reins in an iron grip, the chestnut broke into a run again, trailing just behind Stormy. Frank leaned forward over the stallion’s neck to make himself a smaller target as gunfire resumed from the rocks. He hoped that Caldwell had enough sense to do the same thing. A glance back told him that the judge was following his example. Bullets sang through the air around them, but they were moving fast again now and none of the slugs found their mark.

  The men coming up from behind had cut into the lead while Frank was slowed down, but they were still well back. The chestnut was moving slower now, however, and Frank was no longer confident that he and Caldwell could outdistance the pursuit to Buckskin. The settlement was only a few miles away now, but that distance might as well be a hundred miles, he thought.

  His rifle was empty, too, as was the Colt, and he couldn’t pause to reload either. Nor could he manage that task on the run, because if he let go of the chestnut’s reins, the injured horse would probably stop again. Frank didn’t know how long the animal could go on before it collapsed. He hated to ask for such sacrifice from the horse, but he had no choice.

  He realized he hadn’t seen Dog for a while, and looked around, trying to spot the big cur. At that moment, he heard a faint shriek somewhere behind him, and looked back to see that one of the two men who had been giving chase was now on the ground, trying to defend himself from a shaggy grayish-brown shape with flashing teeth.

  Good old Dog! Frank had to grin as he realized that the cur had hung back and let the bushwhackers go past him, then unhorsed one of them with a well-timed leap. The other man stopped and swung his six-gun toward Dog in an attempt to save his partner from having his throat ripped out.

  He was too late on both counts. Dog sprang aside as the gun roared, leaving a bloody corpse on the ground behind him. Then he took off after Frank and Caldwell, a gray streak moving too fast for the remaining gunman to draw a bead on him.

  Even at a distance, Frank’s keen eyes saw enough of that for him to know what was going on. He grinned, and kept Stormy and the chestnut moving as Dog raced after them.

  His hope now was that he and Caldwell had successfully run the gauntlet of Brighton’s hired killers. More of the gunmen might be in the area, but Buckskin wasn’t far away now and the one man who was left on horseback behind them wasn’t giving chase anymore. He had abandoned the pursuit, perhaps realizing that he didn’t particularly want to catch up anymore, since that would mean facing The Drifter alone.

  The chestnut slowed down, and Frank slowed Stormy’s pace to match that of the injured horse. They were moving at a fast trot now, slow enough for Frank to talk to the judge.

  “You can see now why I wanted to give you a gun, Your Honor.”

  “I wouldn’t have been able to help, even I had taken the weapon,” Caldwell said with a shake of his head. “I’ve never fired a gun in my life.”

  “Even some wild shots might have been enough to dist
ract those hombres.”

  “Yes, and I might have shot you by accident, Morgan, or myself.”

  Frank couldn’t argue with that. He just said, “I hope we’re past the worst of it now.”

  Caldwell looked behind them.

  “They’re not chasing us anymore.”

  “Nope. We made them pay too high a price for trying to catch us.”

  Caldwell’s mouth quirked in a bitter twist. “You say those men work for Dexter Brighton?”

  Frank was a little surprised by the question, after Caldwell’s earlier insistence that he not listen to anything against Brighton.

  “That’s my best guess. I don’t have any proof of it, of course. But I don’t know of anybody else who would want to stop us from getting to Buckskin.”

  “I see.” Caldwell pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped sweat-streaked dust from his face. “I plan to ask Mr. Brighton about that.”

  “He’ll just deny it,” Frank said.

  “That’s his right.”

  “Seems to me you’re worrying a mite too much about the rights of a man who wants to kill you.”

  “Somebody has to worry about those rights,” Caldwell snapped. “Otherwise, sooner or later, no one will have them. That’s the rule of law.”

  Frank shrugged. Caldwell was like a lot of other people; he believed that a fella’s rights came from a court, or a piece of paper, instead of his own heart—and his own strong right hand. You couldn’t argue with folks like that, but sometimes you could show them the error of their ways.

  Caldwell would see for himself when they got to Buckskin.

  Chapter 27

  Vern Robeson was the first to spot them as they rode into the settlement, just as dusk began to ease down out of the mountains. The hostler came out of Amos Hillman’s livery barn carrying a pitchfork. He saw Frank and Judge Caldwell, dropped the pitchfork, and turned to run back inside and tell his boss that the marshal was back.

  Hillman came out of the barn as Frank and Caldwell stopped in front of the big structure. A grin creased the liveryman’s weathered face.

  “Howdy, Frank. Glad to see you made it back from Carson City.”

  “No gladder than I am to be here, Amos,” Frank said. He swung down from the saddle and handed Stormy’s reins to Hillman. “The judge’s horse got nicked by a bullet along the way. Reckon you can tend to it?”

  Hillman ran a hand along the chestnut’s blood-streaked flank and grunted.

  “I see that. Looks like you fellas ran into some gun trouble.”

  “More than our share,” Frank agreed.

  “Well, don’t worry about this horse. I’ll take good care of it.” Hillman looked up at Caldwell. “Need a hand gettin’ down, Judge?”

  “No, I…I’m fine.” Caldwell’s hands were wrapped around the saddle horn. “It’s just that I’ve been holding on so tightly, for so long, that I’m having a bit of a problem…letting go.”

  He pried his fingers off the saddle horn at last and then climbed down from the chestnut’s back. He paused beside the horse and patted its shoulder, taking Frank a little by surprise.

  “A gallant mount,” Caldwell muttered. He looked at Hillman. “Do your best for her, sir.”

  “I sure will, Your Honor. I reckon you are the judge Frank went to Carson City to fetch back with him?”

  “He’s the judge, all right,” Frank said. “Judge Cecil Caldwell. Your Honor, this is Amos Hillman, owner of this livery stable and one of our town councilmen.”

  Caldwell gave the liveryman a curt nod, then turned to Frank and said, “If you’d show me the hotel, I’d really like to get a room and rest a bit.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Frank shucked the Winchester from the saddle boot. He had reloaded it as they approached the town, along with his Colt, and it felt good to know that he had fifteen rounds in the rifle along with the five in the revolver. As a matter of habit on Frank’s part, the Colt’s hammer rested on the empty sixth chamber in the cylinder as it rode in its holster. Too many rash hombres who liked to carry a full wheel in their guns had shot their own toes off.

  With the rifle held slanted across his chest, Frank accompanied the judge down the street toward the hotel. It seemed unlikely that Brighton would try to kill Caldwell right here in the middle of town, but after all he and the judge had gone through to reach Buckskin, Frank didn’t want to lose Caldwell now.

  Besides, some of Brighton’s men might have already brought word to him that the ambush attempt had failed, and Brighton might be desperate enough to try just about anything to keep that court case from going ahead. Frank was more convinced than ever that the man’s claim on the Lucky Lizard was fraudulent and that Brighton had never intended for the case to go to trial. That was just another weapon in his effort to steal the mine from Tip Woodford.

  Even though night was falling and the streets of Buckskin weren’t as crowded as they were sometimes, enough people were around so that word of Frank’s return with the judge spread quickly. Catamount Jack and Phil Noonan came out of the marshal’s office and hurried to meet them.

  “I’m mighty glad to see you, Frank,” Jack greeted him. He looked Caldwell up and down. “This must be the judge.”

  Frank performed the introductions, then asked, “Everything quiet around here while I was gone?”

  Catamount Jack’s disgusted snort gave him the answer.

  “Not hardly,” the deputy said. “You know Mason, works down at the Top-Notch?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, he tried to kill Mr. Turnbuckle. Opened up on him with a Winchester from the roof o’ Patterson’s Hardware Store while Mr. Turnbuckle was in his hotel room.”

  Frank’s eyes widened in surprise at the news.

  “Is Turnbuckle all right?”

  “Mason wasn’t too good a shot. He missed Mr. Turnbuckle, but hit the lamp instead. Set the room on fire and pert near burned the hotel down.”

  “Good Lord,” Frank muttered. “Have you got Mason locked up?”

  “Nope.” Jack jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “We planted him in Boot Hill this afternoon. I tracked him from the back o’ Patterson’s store to the Top-Notch and had a showdown with him there. At first he denied tryin’ to bushwhack Mr. Turnbuckle, but then he tried to plug me. I figured that was a good enough confession.”

  “You figured incorrectly, Deputy,” Judge Caldwell snapped. “Involvement in an altercation doesn’t constitute a legal admission of guilt.”

  Jack frowned and went on. “Anyway, I let daylight through the skunk, but I didn’t kill him. Whoever did that was lurkin’ outside the Top-Notch, and he put a bullet in Mason’s brain ‘fore Mason could say who hired him to kill that lawyer fella. We all know who it was, though.”

  Caldwell opened his mouth to say something else, then thought better of it, shook his head, and rolled his eyes. Obviously, he thought that he had landed in a place gripped by total anarchy.

  “That ain’t all, though,” Catamount Jack went on.

  Frank nodded. “I was afraid you were going to say that. What else happened?”

  “While Mr. Turnbuckle and the other folks stayin’ in the hotel were tryin’ to get away from the fire, somebody come up behind him and stuck a knife in him.”

  “My God!” Caldwell exclaimed. “Is there a murder attempt every five minutes in this town?”

  “No, it just seems that way sometimes,” Frank told him. “Go on, Jack. How’s Turnbuckle?”

  “Healin’ up down at Doc Garland’s. Turns out he wasn’t hurt too bad, just sliced up a mite. He says he’ll be ready for the trial, soon as His Honor here gets around to it.”

  “Trial will convene at nine o’clock sharp tomorrow morning,” Caldwell said stiffly. “I can’t think of any place that obviously needs some law and order more than this godforsaken town!”

  Frank might have taken offense at that, but he was too tired. He said, “Come on, Judge. We’ll get you settled at the hotel, if there are any roo
ms left. Jack, I want you and Phil to take turns standing guard outside the judge’s room tonight.”

  Caldwell started to protest. “I don’t think that’s really necessary—”

  “After everything that’s happened, Your Honor, I’d appreciate it if you’d just humor me. I don’t want anything to stop that trial from going on tomorrow.”

  Grudgingly, Caldwell nodded and said, “All right. Is there somewhere I can get something to eat…?”

  “Jack, see if Lauren can fix up a tray for the judge and bring it over to the hotel later.”

  The deputy said, “Sure, Frank. What are you gonna do?”

  Frank’s hands tightened on the rifle. “I’d like to go have it out with Brighton…” He glanced at the judge. “But I reckon I’ll let the law handle that. I’ll go have a talk with Mr. Turnbuckle instead, let him know that the judge is here and everything’s set for tomorrow morning. Judge, if you do what Jack and Phil tell you, you’ll be all right, and this whole thing will be over before you know it.”

  “It can’t be too soon to suit me,” Caldwell said.

  Frank felt the same way. The showdown was coming, one way or another, and it was damned well about time.

  Luther Galloway had had an early supper and was propped up in bed, trying to study the notes he had salvaged from his burning hotel room a couple of nights earlier, along with the ones he had made since then. He had written out his opening statement and clutched a pencil in his hand as he revised it, crossing out a word here and there, sometimes substituting another word, sometimes not.

  It was an exercise in futility, though, and Luther knew it. No matter how convincing his oratory was, Tip Woodford’s case would collapse once Luther buckled under and accepted the authenticity of Brighton’s phony claim. With the sword of truth that Colonel O’Hara was holding over his head, there was nothing else he could do.

  Weariness was stealing over him along with the despair that was his constant companion now, and he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. He was suddenly wide awake again, though, as the door of the room opened and Marshal Frank Morgan stepped inside.