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  “Did they tell you what had happened in town?”

  “Just that they broke jail and was on the run.”

  “One of them shot Marshal Tom,” Big Ed said tersely.

  “Oh, hell,” a hand muttered.

  “Which way’d they head out?” Ed asked. “And I want the truth.”

  “South,” the hand said. “Little Ed said they was gonna try to make the Wilderness and hold up there till you could get them out of this mess.”

  “Dumb,” Big Ed muttered. “Just plain stupid.”

  “Just like you,” Elsie said.

  With a visible effort, Big Ed ignored his wife’s comments. “They get in the Wilderness, Morgan, you won’t get them out.”

  “Oh, I’ll bring them back, Ed,” Frank assured him. “Sitting a saddle or belly-down across it. But I’ll bring them back.”

  Elsie and Big Ed exchanged worried looks, Elsie saying, “We could have bought off that damn judge. But shooting Marshal Tom”—she shook her head—“that’s bad news.” She looked at Frank. “I got a big mouth, Morgan, and a dirty one, I know. But I wouldn’t have really put lead in you or Marshal Tom. I might have wanted to ... but I wouldn’t have. On the other hand”—she jerked a thumb toward her husband—“stupid here, well, that’s another story. He probably would have shot you.”

  “Oh, shut the hell up, Elsie!” Big Ed hollered.

  Elsie proceeded to tell him what part of her anatomy her husband could kiss.

  Big Ed gritted his teeth and faced Frank. “Don’t kill my son, Morgan. I mean that. You don’t have to. I mean, he’ll be back here when he runs out of grub and money. I’ll turn him in then. You have my word.”

  “Ed,” Frank said, “I believe you would. But before I left town, word of the shooting was already out on the wires. How many enemies do you have that would enjoy gunning down your son?”

  Big Ed nodded his head. “All right, Morgan. Point taken. Every two-bit street trash in three states will be comin’ in here lookin’ for Ed. All right. Go do your duty as you see it, Morgan. I won’t interfere.”

  “I appreciate that, Ed.” Frank stepped back into the saddle and pointed Stormy’s head south, toward the area known as the Wilderness.

  EIGHTEEN

  The area known as the Wilderness was a hard three days’ ride south. Frank figured he’d make it in maybe five days, taking it slow and steady. He circled around the edges of the Simpson main house until he picked up the trail of three horses, heading south. From the bite the horses’ hooves were making in the earth, Frank could tell the three were pushing hard.

  “Keep it up, boys,” Frank said, “and you’ll kill those horses.”

  Frank lay back, not pushing Stormy, just following the trail. On a sunny midmorning, he found where the trio had made camp and cooked a meal. He pressed on, not hurrying, just riding at the same steady pace, stopping often to rest Stormy and give Dog a chance to catch his breath and rest his paws.

  On the third day out, Frank studied the sign carefully. One of the horses had a loose shoe, and if the rider didn’t catch it soon and fix it, that horse was going to pull up lame. A mile farther on, Frank came up on a man afoot, and the man was plenty mad.

  “Your horse go lame on you, partner?” Frank asked.

  “Bastards stole my horse!” the man said. “ ’Bout two, three hours ago. Come up on me all nice and polite and then one of them stuck a pistol in my face and took my horse. Took my whole damn rig!”

  “Did they leave you a lamed-up horse?”

  “They didn’t leave me nothin’!”

  “You live far from here?”

  “No,” the man said, calming down a bit. “Couple of miles is all. What they done just made me mad as hell, that’s all.”

  “They’re a bad crew. Shot the marshal over at Chance.”

  “Tom?”

  “Yes.”

  “I been knowin’ Tom for years. Is he all right?”

  “Yes. Lost part of one ear. But he’s all right.”

  “You catch them outlaws, Deputy. But you watch that young one. He’s a bad one. I can tell he is.”

  “I’ll catch them. See you.” Frank lifted a hand and rode on.

  So they were about three hours ahead of him. The lamed-up horse had really slowed them down. Maybe the trio wouldn’t make the Wilderness area. That would make Frank’s job much simpler. He pushed on.

  An hour later he came to a crossroads and a general store. He could tell by the remnants of the original log building it had once been a trading post . . . dating back many, many years. Frank reined up by the side of the building, waited while Dog and Stormy drank from the trough, then told the big cur to stay put. He took off his badge, stuck it in his pocket, and walked inside.

  It was a combination store and saloon; no customers were in the general store part, but half a dozen rough-dressed men were lounging at the long bar. They all wore pistols, and Frank got the impression they knew how to use them . . . and would. Frank ordered a beer.

  The men all gave him a long, careful once-over, then returned to their drinking and talking in low tones.

  “Come far?” the barkeep asked, placing a mug of beer in front of Frank.

  “Long ways,” Frank said. “Crossed over into California from Nevada and just seeing the country.”

  “There’s a lot of it to see, all right. Say, mister, you remind me a lot of somebody, you know that?”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. By God! You sure do resemble Val Dooley.”

  “What’s a Val Dooley?” Frank asked.

  One of the men at the bar laughed at that. “You shore ain’t from around here, cowboy, or you wouldn’t be askin’ that.”

  “No, I’m not from around here. What’s a Val Dooley?”

  “An outlaw and fast gun.”

  “And ladies’ man,” another said.

  “Well, I’m no ladies’ man, for a fact,” Frank said after taking a swig of the cool beer and carefully placing the mug on the bar.

  “Does that mean you’re a fast gun?” another man at the bar asked.

  “I know how to use one.”

  “You ever been in this part of the country before?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “I think you have.”

  “Think whatever the hell you want to think,” Frank replied easily. “It’s a free country. But don’t ever call me a liar again.”

  “Or you’ll do what?” the man asked, stepping away from the bar and facing Frank, his right hand hovering over the butt of his six-gun.

  “Why, I might take offense,” Frank said with a smile. “And I’m thinking you wouldn’t like that. Not a bit.”

  All the men at the bar laughed. One said, “You bes’ be careful, Zeke. This ol’ boy thinks he’s a bad one.”

  “He just might be at that,” another said softly. “I got me a bad feelin’ about this cowboy. Let it drop, Zeke.”

  “The hell I will!”

  The man who cautioned Zeke took his beer and moved to a table in the rear. “I’m out of it, mister. You hear me?”

  “I hear you,” Frank said.

  “Maybe he wouldn’t be so brave and all facin’ two of us?” a man said, stepping away from the bar to stand beside Zeke.

  Frank smiled.

  “Somethin’ funny, mister?” Zeke asked in a hard voice.

  “Yeah, Zeke, you. Your kind never changes. I’ve been running into your kind ever since Luther Biggs braced me when I was about fifteen years old.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I killed him,” Frank said very softly. “Then his brothers came after me.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “I killed them. All of them.”

  Zeke swallowed hard. Something about Frank worried him, nagged at him. The man was just too damn calm. “You say you done that!” Zeke sneered.

  “That’s right, Zeke, I say.”

  “You got a name, mister?” the man who had moved to a table a
sked.

  “Frank Morgan.”

  All the air seemed to go out of the man who had thrown in with Zeke. He held up a hand. “I’m out of this, Morgan. Leave me be.”

  “All right. Stay out of it.”

  Zeke cussed the man, all without taking his eyes from Frank. After the cussing, he said, “Morgan’s a has-been, Tom. Look at him, he’s got to be forty-five if he’s a day—probably older than that. He’s an old man; got gray in his hair.”

  “Then you take him, Zeke,” Tom said. “I don’t want no part of him.”

  “I’m with Zeke,” another said, stepping away from the bar. “All them songs and sich about Frank Morgan is so much folderol. I never did believe none of it.”

  “You’re a fool, Billy,” the man who had seated himself at a table said.

  “Hell with it!” a man standing at the bar shouted. “Die, Morgan!” he screamed, and dragged iron.

  Frank shot him, the bullet striking the man just below the throat, shattering the bones there and blowing out the back of his neck. The man fell face-first on the bar and remained in that position while he died.

  Zeke pulled his pistol, and Frank’s second bullet hit Zeke in the belly. Zeke screamed and doubled over, dropping his pistol on the floor. The six-gun discharged and the bullet hit Tom in the ankle just as he was fumbling for his pistol. Tom hollered and fell to the dirty floor, his shattered ankle unable to support his weight. Frank quickly stepped to the man and kicked his pistol away, out of reach.

  “Anybody else?” Frank asked.

  None of the remaining three said a word.

  The man who had died doubled over on the bar suddenly broke wind and fell slowly to the floor, falling right on Tom’s broken ankle.

  “Owwww!” Tom squalled. “Git him offen me.”

  “Git me to a doctor,” Zeke moaned. “I’m hard hit, boys.”

  Frank waited, his Peacemaker in his hand.

  “We’re done with this, Morgan,” another of the men at the bar said. “Drink your beer and relax whilst we look after them still alive.”

  Frank backed up, around the end of the bar, still holding his .45. He picked up his mug of beer and drained it, then signaled the barkeep for another.

  “I’m crippled for life,” Tom yelled as the corpse was lifted off his broken ankle. “The doc will probably have to cut off my leg. Damn you, Morgan. Damn you to the fires of hell for doin’ this to me!”

  “You brung it on yourself, Tom,” the seated man said. “Don’t blame Morgan.”

  “By God, I blame him,” the man called Billy said. “Farley was a pal of mine.”

  “Is Farley the dead man?” Frank asked.

  “Yes. And he was a good man.”

  “He wasn’t good enough,” Frank said, a matter-of-fact tone to his words.

  “Damn you!”

  Frank minutely shrugged his muscular shoulders, dismissing the man’s comments without words.

  “Shut up, Billy,” the seated man told him. “Before you get turned into a corpse.”

  “You’re a bastard, Morgan!” Billy yelled, his face reddening with anger. “You’re a no-good bastard, that’s what you are.”

  Frank had two rounds left in his Peacemaker. He had left his short-barreled Peacemaker, his belly gun, in his saddlebags. He waited, saying nothing.

  The bartender ended the standoff. He reached under the bar and came up with a Greener, pointed at Billy. “That’s it, Billy. It’s over. They’s been enough killin’. Now stand easy and keep your hand away from your gun.”

  Billy immediately relaxed. No one in their right mind wants to mess with a ten-gauge sawed-off shotgun at close range. Frank took that time to quickly reload.

  “You want to leave now, Morgan?” the barkeep asked.

  “After I finish my beer and get me something to eat.”

  “You’re cold, Morgan,” the seated man said. “Too damn cold.”

  “I didn’t start this trouble,” Frank said.

  “That’s a fact. But Billy’s a hothead. He won’t forget this.”

  “That’s his problem.” Frank looked at the barkeep. “You got any hot food?”

  “Got some good-tastin’ stew and it’s fresh. With some hot baked bread to go with it. I might have some puddin’ left too.”

  “Sounds good to me. Put that Greener away and fix me some of it, please. I’m a hungry man.”

  “You the coldest son of a bitch I ever seen in my life,” Billy said.

  “I’m hurtin’ something awful,” Zeke hollered. “And y’all talkin’ ’bout stew and puddin’ and sich. Don’t nobody give a damn ’bout me?”

  “Nearest doc is miles away, Zeke,” the one man at the bar who had, up to that point, not spoken finally said.

  “My belly’s on far, Able!” Zeke shouted.

  Frank moved to a table across the room and sat down, his back to a wall.

  “Ain’t you got nothin’ to say, Morgan?” Able asked, just as the barkeep brought out Frank’s food.

  “Yes,” Frank said. “I’m fixing to eat now. Leave me the hell alone.”

  NINETEEN

  Zeke died just as Frank was finishing eating. He had the barkeep put together a sack of scraps for Dog, then paid his bill as the others watched him.

  “You just gonna ride away and leave Zeke dead on the floor and Tom with half his ankle blowed off?” Billy asked.

  “What do you want me to do about them?” Frank asked.

  “Well . . . I don’t rightly know. But you ought to do something. You’re the cause of it all, ain’t you?”

  Frank shook his head in disbelief. “You boys are the dampest bunch I’ve run into in many a moon. I have to say that.”

  “What do you mean, Morgan?” Billy asked.

  “Good Lord,” Frank said, then turned and walked out the door without looking back.

  “I’ll see you, Morgan!” Billy shouted. “You can count on that. You and me, Morgan. Then we’ll settle up for Zeke and Tom. Count on it, Morgan.”

  Frank stowed the food for Dog in his saddlebags and stepped into the saddle. He angled back and forth for a time, until once again picking up the trail of Little Ed and his men. He stayed with the trail until about an hour before sunset, then made camp for the night, not far from a small fast-running creek.

  Frank fed Dog, then fried some bacon and made some pan bread for his supper. Just as the sun was slowly sinking over the horizon, Frank rolled a smoke and settled back with a cup of coffee. The nights were cool in this high country, but Frank had decided to let his fire burn down into coals before he rolled up in his blankets. Just as he was finishing his second cup of coffee, when the small fire had burned down to only a few coals, he heard the sounds of slow-walking horses.

  “I tell you, Rich, I smell smoke,” a voice drifted faintly to him.

  “I never said you didn’t, Bob,” a second voice replied. “But it was faint and probably drifted in from a long ways off.”

  “And I smell coffee too.”

  Rich laughed. “That’s your belly takin’ over from your nose’s business. There ain’t nobody within ten miles of here.”

  “That’s a town, Rich. I ain’t talkin’ ’bout no town. I’m talkin ’bout somethin’ real close by. And my smeller don’t lie.”

  A town ten miles away, Frank thought. A good bet Little Ed and his hands had headed there for supplies before riding into the Wilderness.

  “Well, we got to fight shy of town anyways,” Rich said. “Val’d have our butts if we got caught.”

  “Providin’ the law didn’t hang us first,” Bob said with a laugh.

  The two men drifted on until Frank could no longer hear even a whisper of conversation from them. He would have liked to follow them to Val Dooley’s hideout, but, he thought with a sigh, Little Ed and his two hands came first. Val Dooley would have to wait.

  Frank rolled up in his blankets and went to sleep.

  At midmorning of the fifth day out, Frank sat his saddle and stared at the trail he
’d been following. Two riders had turned due east, one rider continuing on south.

  “Now what?” Frank asked the air softly.

  Frank mentally flipped a coin and decided to trail the lone rider, having a hunch that was Little Ed.

  Frank came up on the lone rider while he was watering his horse. Stopping about a hundred yards back, Frank ground-reined Stormy and cautioned Dog to be quiet and stay put. Then, after removing his spurs, he cased up behind Little Ed.

  “Stay easy, Ed,” Frank cautioned the young man. “I don’t want to have to shoot you.”

  “You’re gonna have to, Morgan ’cause I ain’t goin’ back to stand trial for killin’ that fat tub of guts.”

  “You didn’t kill him, Ed. You just grazed his head. Tom is very much alive. But you did shoot off a piece of his ear.”

  “I still ain’t gonna go to prison.”

  “Stand still, Ed. I’m taking your pistols. Don’t try anything. I will shoot you.”

  Ed made no funny moves while Frank disarmed him, stowing the guns in his saddlebags. “Turn around, Ed.”

  The young man faced him and Frank tossed him handcuffs. “Put those on, boy. Let’s do this legal.”

  “Hell with you, Morgan. I ain’t gettin’ myself chained up like a damn animal.”

  Frank took one step forward and busted Little Ed with a right to the jaw. The young man dropped like a rock, stunned but not completely unconscious. Frank locked the cuffs around his wrists and hauled him to his feet.

  “Now get on your horse, boy. We have a long way to go.”

  Little Ed cussed him.

  * * *

  A crowd gathered along both sides of the street as Frank brought Little Ed Simpson back to town.

  “Get a rope!” someone shouted.

  “Yeah!” another yelled. “Let’s hang the bastard.”

  “Settle down!” Marshal Wright shouted, stepping out of his office, a Greener in his hands. There was a big bandage covering one side of his head. “They’ll be no lynching in this town. Ed Simpson will get a fair trial.”

  “That’s a better chance than you gave him, Ed,” Frank said.

  “He’s a fool. My pa won’t let no one try me.”

  “I think you’re wrong about your pa, boy.”

  “Him and Ma won’t let me go to prison,” Little Ed said confidently.