The Last Gunfighter Read online

  That wasn’t much of anything. The forest was quiet and seemingly peaceful again. Frank knew better, though. He knew the fear and death that lurked in these trees. He had seen it with his own eyes. How many men had died in the past two days? Close to two dozen? He couldn’t even keep track anymore. The deaths blended into a succession of grisly images.

  Finally, satisfied that whatever had done this was no longer nearby, Frank swung down from the saddle and hunkered on his heels next to the body. He held the rifle in one hand, took hold of the dead man’s shoulder with the other, and rolled the corpse onto its back. The man’s face was smeared with blood, but not a lot of it. The blood looked like it had come from a gash in the man’s forehead. Other than that, his face was unmarked.

  It was a horrifying sight anyway, because it was frozen and twisted in lines of such fear that the man must have died feeling sheer terror all the way down to his soul. Frank’s jaw tightened as he studied the man’s face. He tried to put aside for the moment the fear and the blood and concentrate on what the man must have looked like in life.

  After a moment, he came to the conclusion that he had never seen the dead man before.

  He had seen the type plenty of times, though. The narrow, unshaven face, the weak mouth and chin, the small, deep-set eyes…This man had been a hired killer. Frank was sure of it. And it didn’t take much to figure out from there that he’d been a member of the gang of gun-wolves that had massacred the men back there at Chamberlain’s logging camp and then mutilated their bodies.

  He wondered if Marshal Gene Price would recognize the gunman. Still hunkered beside the body, he began looking around for some broken branches he could use to fashion a travois using one of his blankets. He wasn’t going to load the gruesome corpse onto Goldy’s back, but would drag it back to Eureka on a makeshift sled instead. The blanket he used would be ruined, but Frank could afford to buy another.

  Spotting some branches that might work, he straightened to his feet.

  And just as he did, a rifle cracked. Frank heard the high-pitched whine of a bullet whistling past his ear.

  Chapter 13

  Instantly, more shots rang out. Slugs smacked into the tree, spraying bark and splinters into the air.

  Frank was already moving, though, his superbly honed reflexes taking over at the first sign of danger. He called, “Dog! Cover!” and threw himself into a dive that carried him behind the tree. He heard bullets thudding into the redwood, but they had no chance of penetrating all the way through the massive trunk.

  He glanced over and saw that Dog had darted behind another tree. It was smaller than the one where Frank had taken shelter, but big enough to shield the shaggy, wolflike creature from any harm. And Goldy, he was glad to see, had dashed off out of sight among the trees. The horse was smart, and a quick learner. He hadn’t traveled with Frank Morgan for very long without realizing what those loud, unpleasant noises meant and what he should do to avoid them.

  Frank was surprised that neither Dog nor Goldy had scented the bushwhackers creeping up on them. He supposed that the smell of freshly spilled blood—and the stench of whatever had done this—might have masked any other scents, at least enough to keep the animals from noticing anything else unusual. As Frank lay there on the carpet of needles, he wondered who was shooting at him.

  Of course, it was possible the riflemen were the same ones who had attacked the logging camp. But they had been headed the other direction, toward Eureka. They might have gotten behind him, but Frank considered it unlikely.

  The only other explanation, though, was that there were two gangs of killers out here, as well as something that could claw a man to death or rip him apart with apparently equal ease.

  The woods were getting a mite crowded, Frank thought with a grim smile as he cradled the Winchester’s smooth stock against his cheek and crawled to one side so that he could risk a glance around the trunk.

  The sound of the shots told him that this was indeed a different group, or at least a smaller one. He estimated that five or six men had opened fire on him. The larger gang could have split up, but again, he couldn’t see any reason why they would have done that and why some of them would have circled around to get behind him. Checking their back trail maybe? He couldn’t rule it out.

  The bushwhackers stopped firing. They must have realized that they could throw lead at that tree all day without doing any real damage. Frank looked over at Dog. The big cur was trained to respond to hand signals, too, as well as Frank’s voice. Frank made one of those signals now, a gesture that meant Hunt!

  Staying on his belly, Dog crawled out from behind the tree where he had taken cover. Either the bushwhackers didn’t see him, or they didn’t care that he was on the move.

  If it was the latter, they might have reason to regret their carelessness in a few minutes, Frank thought.

  Dog disappeared into the brush. Frank waited. He knew how to be patient. The ability to remain still and silent had saved his life on numerous occasions.

  He heard the crackle of broken branches, and knew that at least some of the bushwhackers were on the move. Dog wouldn’t make that much racket while he was hunting, not on his worst day.

  The sounds continued, moving to Frank’s left now. He twisted in that direction and snugged the Winchester’s butt against his shoulder. His eyes narrowed as he searched for any sign of movement that would give him a target. Some of the brush swayed a little, and then he caught a glimpse of a rifle barrel.

  Frank opened fire, cranking off three rounds as fast as he could work the rifle’s lever. The bullets lashed through the brush. A man cried out in pain, and then someone returned the fire. They hurried their shots, though, and the slugs just hit the tree several feet above Frank’s head as he crawled backward, out of the line of fire.

  At the same time, a man yelled in surprise and pain, and Frank figured that Dog had found his quarry. He knew it a second later when he heard snarling and snapping. Somebody shouted, “Son of a bitch!” and another man added, “Let’s get out of here!”

  Frank stood up and pressed his back against the tree trunk. When he heard hoofbeats, he stepped out and triggered several more rounds in that direction. He couldn’t see the fleeing bushwhackers, so he didn’t have any real hope of hitting them, but at least he could hurry them on their way. No shots came back toward him, so he was convinced that whoever the ambushers were, they had given up on killing him.

  At least for the moment.

  “Dog!” Frank called.

  A minute later, the big cur came bounding out of the brush. The flecks of blood on his muzzle testified that he had sunk his teeth into at least one of the gunmen. Frank roughed up the fur on his head and said, “Good boy!”

  He whistled for Goldy, who promptly answered the summons just as Dog had. Frank took down his bedroll, removed one of the blankets from it, and used the blanket and those broken branches he had decided on earlier to make a travois. Once he had the corpse loaded onto it, he replaced the rest of the bedroll, taking care that the bone he had found in the primitive cabin was still wrapped up securely.

  The morning’s developments meant that he needed to return to Eureka now, instead of continuing his search for the Terror. For one thing, it was clear now that more danger lurked in the woods than just the supposed monster. Frank wanted to get a lead on the man whose body he had found, if possible.

  He planned to keep his theories about Emmett Bosworth to himself for the time being, though. He would just tell the marshal that he had found the dead man in the woods, and wouldn’t say anything about the massacre at the logging camp. Somebody else would come across that soon enough, Frank figured. More of Chamberlain’s men were bound to show up there and make the grisly discovery.

  Dragging the travois with its gruesome burden behind his horse, Frank rode toward Eureka. He kept the Winchester across the saddle in front of him, just in case he ran into any more trouble—human…or otherwise.

  Treadwell’s face was gray
with pain as he hunched forward in his saddle. “Bad enough that bastard Morgan kicked me in the balls last night,” he grated. “Now he had to go and shoot me, too.”

  “You’ll live,” Erickson told him. “Morgan’s bullet just knocked a chunk of meat out of your arm.” The big, red-bearded man laughed curtly. “At least you can sit your saddle without hurtin’ too bad. That wolf-dog of Morgan’s practically tore poor Sutherland’s ass off.”

  “It ain’t funny,” Sutherland said as he leaned far forward in the saddle, trying to ease the injured area. “That critter was vicious.”

  Dawson urged his horse up alongside Erickson’s. “Who do you think that other hombre was, the one Morgan found?”

  “I don’t know,” Erickson said with a shake of his head. “I didn’t get a good look at him. All I know is that he was dead. Nobody could lose that much blood and still be alive.”

  Jenkins said, “The Terror got him. That must be what happened.”

  “We’ll get the Terror,” Erickson said. “But we need to get Morgan first.”

  “Don’t you reckon Old Man Chamberlain would pay us the bounty anyway if we showed up at his house with the thing’s head?”

  Erickson frowned in thought. “I don’t know. He might not. He might say it didn’t count anymore. You fellas who worked for him know him better than I do. Is he a tight-fisted old son of a bitch?”

  “He pays fair wages,” Jenkins said. “He don’t go out of his way to give anybody anything extra, though.”

  Erickson nodded. “There you go. Chances are, he’d use any excuse not to have to pay the bounty. So it’ll be better if we kill Morgan first, then the monster.”

  “Easier said than done,” Treadwell complained. He nodded toward the bloody rag tied around his arm. “We didn’t do a very good job of it today.”

  “This was just our first try,” Erickson said. “We’ll stick like burrs to Morgan, and the next time…we’ll fill his hide with lead.”

  Hooley caught up with the rest of Bosworth’s hired gunmen before they reached Eureka. When Jack Grimshaw heard the horse coming up fast behind them, he reined in and motioned for the others to do likewise. Hooley galloped up and joined them, bringing his mount to a sliding stop on the logging road they were following now.

  Grimshaw saw the wild look in Hooley’s pale, watery eyes and guessed that something had happened. “Where’s Nichols?” he asked.

  Hooley shook his head. “I don’t know. I had to leave him back there.”

  “You were supposed to stay with him,” Grimshaw said.

  “Yeah, well, that was before somethin’ spooked his horse and made it run away. Damn horse ran right into whatever it was that scared it, though. I never heard an animal scream like that in my life.”

  “So you ran off and left Nichols there on foot with that thing in the woods?”

  “It already had him,” Hooley snapped. “What was I supposed to do, stay there and get torn up, too?”

  One of the other men asked, “Did you see the thing?”

  Hooley shook his head. “Not really. Just caught a glimpse of it through the trees. It was mighty big and fast. Shaggy, too, like a critter. But it’s a critter the likes of which ain’t never been seen around here before. Or anywhere else either.”

  “Maybe so,” Grimshaw said, “but I don’t like the fact that you just left him there. We’re supposed to all be working together.”

  “Easy for you to say. You weren’t there.”

  Hooley’s tense, angry attitude as he spoke and the way he moved his hand just slightly toward the butt of his gun made Grimshaw stiffen in the saddle. He was ready to slap leather, too, if Hooley wanted to push the matter.

  Radburn moved his horse up and said, “Damn it, we already lost one man today. We don’t need the two of you gunnin’ for each other, too.”

  Grimshaw kept his cold, level stare locked on Hooley for a couple of seconds longer, then nodded. “Radburn’s right. What’s done is done. We’ll let it go.”

  “Just don’t be callin’ me a coward,” Hooley warned.

  “I never said that.” Grimshaw’s lip curled. “I can’t help what you think of yourself, though.”

  That comment was almost enough to set Hooley off again, but Radburn pushed his horse up alongside Hooley’s and caught hold of the lunger’s arm. “Come on,” he urged. “Let’s get on to town and collect our pay.”

  “Now you’re talkin’,” one of the other men said. “Maybe the boss’ll have another job for us, too.”

  The group of riders got moving again. Grimshaw said, “I wouldn’t count on anything else right away. Bosworth’ll want to let what happened today soak in on everybody for a while.”

  The atmosphere among the hired killers eased as they approached the settlement. Most of them were thinking now of the money they had coming to them, and how they would spend it. The saloons and whorehouses in Eureka would do a booming business tonight.

  While they were still outside of town, Grimshaw reined in and said, “We’ll split up here. The rest of you drift into the Bull o’ the Woods one or two at a time as usual. I’ll see the boss and meet you there in a little while.”

  “Don’t lose any of that money along the way,” Radburn cautioned.

  Grimshaw snorted. “I know you fellas. I’m not enough of a damn fool to try something like that.”

  “Damn right,” Hooley said, still a little proddy from the earlier confrontation. “We’d hunt you down and take it outta your hide.”

  Radburn used his horse to crowd Hooley’s mount toward the saloon. “That’s enough. Let’s go get a drink.” He licked his lips. “Killin’ is thirsty work.”

  Grimshaw left the others at the saloon and headed on up the street toward the Eureka House. It was midday, and the town was busy, the streets full of pedestrians and buggies and wagons, and a few men, like Grimshaw, on horseback.

  He drew up in front of the hotel and dismounted. After tying his horse at the hitch rail, he went inside, striding through the lobby without stopping at the desk. He knew where he was going.

  His destination was a suite of rooms on the front of the hotel, overlooking the street. Grimshaw raised his hand to knock, but someone inside jerked the door open before he could rap on the panel. Emmett Bosworth stood there in his shirt sleeves, his collar undone. He must have been looking out the window and seen Grimshaw approaching the hotel. He glared at the gunman.

  “Is it done?”

  Grimshaw nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but Bosworth held up a hand and stopped him. The timber magnate opened the door a little wider and inclined his head toward the divan, where an attractive, nearly nude woman lay curled up with her eyes closed and a satisfied smile on her face.

  “Give me a few minutes,” Bosworth ordered under his breath.

  Grimshaw nodded and stepped back as Bosworth closed the door. He understood now why Bosworth hadn’t wanted him to say anything. He didn’t want the woman to overhear any details of the job that might come back later and implicate him in mass murder.

  Grimshaw strolled down to the end of the corridor and waited, looking out a window at the alley that ran alongside the hotel. He didn’t see anything more interesting than a big yellow cat rummaging through some garbage. He heard the door of Bosworth’s suite open again, heard some quiet words exchanged between Bosworth and the woman as she left, but didn’t turn around. She hadn’t gotten a look at his face, and he figured Bosworth would want to keep it that way.

  A moment later, he heard a heavy footstep behind him and turned. Bosworth gestured curtly.

  “Come on.”

  Bosworth had fastened his collar, put on a tie and his coat. He looked like the successful businessman he was. As he led Grimshaw into the sitting room of the suite, he went on. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “You damn sure can,” Grimshaw said, recalling what Radburn had said a few minutes earlier about killing being thirsty work. That was sure true. He had been craving a shot of whiskey ever sinc
e they’d finished chopping those poor devils into little, bloody pieces.

  Bosworth picked up a cut-crystal decanter of bourbon from a fancy sideboard and splashed the fiery liquor into a couple of glasses. He handed one to Grimshaw and said, “To the success of your mission.”

  “Yeah,” Grimshaw said. He clicked his glass against Bosworth’s and then threw back the booze. It burned quite satisfactorily in his gullet.

  Some men were content to guzzle any sort of rotgut or panther piss. Grimshaw liked the finer stuff in life, including liquor, which was why he had attached himself to Emmett Bosworth a year earlier, when the timberman had first approached him about ramrodding a crew of troubleshooters, as Bosworth called them, while he expanded his operation into the area of northern California now controlled by Rutherford Chamberlain.

  Grimshaw had known right away what Bosworth was getting at. Any time one strong man tried to take something away from another strong man, there was bound to be trouble. In most cases, gun trouble. Grimshaw had been in that position many times in the past and knew what went with the job. He’d helped Bosworth recruit other men, some of them known personally to Grimshaw, like Radburn. Others, like Hooley, he had only heard of from mutual acquaintances.

  There had been problems along the way. Grimshaw had lost a man early on, when he was just getting started putting the bunch together. But now the group was at full strength, and Bosworth was ready to make his move. The attack on Chamberlain’s camp this morning was just the opening salvo.

  Bosworth sipped his bourbon. “You did it like we discussed?”

  Grimshaw nodded as he helped himself to another drink, feeling confident enough in his relationship with Bosworth to do so. “Yeah,” he said. “It went just like you wanted it. Better get ready for a real uproar. I expect the news will be all over town before the day’s over.”