Violent Sunday Read online

  “You afraid of what we’d see?” Rawlings asked with a sneer.

  Before Wilmott could respond to that gibe, Callie moved her horse forward, putting herself between her brother and the sheriff. “We just want to see for ourselves that Chris is being taken care of,” she said.

  “Now I’ve seen everything,” MacDonald drawled in a whisper to Frank. “Callie Stratton as the voice of reason. Wonders ain’t never gonna cease.”

  Wilmott shut him up with a frowning glance. Then the sheriff turned back to Callie and said, “You have my word, Mrs. Stratton, that everything’s being done for Kane that can be done. Tell you what . . . I’ll allow you to go in and see him, but the rest of your bunch has to stay out here.”

  Rawlings started to protest, but Simon Clark said, “That sounds all right to me.”

  “Me, too,” Vern Gladwell put in. “As long as Callie doesn’t mind.”

  She nodded. “Sure, I can do that.” She swung down from her saddle and handed the reins to her brother. Rawlings took them grudgingly. He still looked like he wanted to fight.

  Frank watched Beaumont from the corner of his eye. The youngster was making a point of it not to stare at him now. It was pretty clear to Frank that Beaumont was working undercover. He wasn’t wearing his silver five-peso Ranger badge, and he was sort of hanging back in the group led by Rawlings.

  Frank was anxious to talk to him and find out exactly what was going on and what his plans were, but that would have to wait. Out here in front of this crowd, they couldn’t even acknowledge that they knew each other, let alone carry on a conversation. For the time being, they were going to have to pretend they were on opposite sides of the clash that threatened to split Brown County right down the middle.

  As Callie and Sheriff Wilmott started into the jail, Earl Duggan said loudly, “I want to see Kane, too.” He started to dismount.

  “Wait just a damned minute!” Rawlings burst out. “Sheriff, if you won’t let Kane’s friends in to see him, I don’t think you should let his enemies in, either.”

  “That’s a good point,” Wilmott admitted reluctantly. “Earl, I’ll have to ask you to wait out here.”

  “I ain’t accustomed to bein’ told where I can and can’t go, J.C.,” Duggan growled.

  “Well, you better get used to it when it comes to this jail,” the sheriff snapped back. “I’m in charge here, and don’t none of you forget it.”

  What he was going to be in charge of, Frank thought, was a whole mess of trouble if the lid ever came off the boiling cauldron that Brown County had turned into. For the moment, though, Duggan subsided with a grunt and a curt nod.

  “I still want to know who was responsible for bush-whackin’ my men,” he said.

  “So do I. When Kane wakes up, I’ll ask him.”

  With that, Wilmott ushered Callie into the jail, and the crowd in the street waited tensely for them to return.

  21

  Rawlings and Duggan did their best to glare holes in each other. The men with Rawlings didn’t seem quite as hostile as he was, but it was clear they didn’t feel very friendly toward Duggan, either. For his part, Frank remained impassive. Beside him, Ed MacDonald was tense.

  “It could’ve been some of this bunch that bushwhacked us last night, Frank,” he said quietly.

  But not quietly enough so that Rawlings didn’t overhear him. “That’s a damned lie!” he exclaimed. “We heard about what happened, but none of us were anywhere near the Slash D last night.”

  Now that the argument was out in the open, MacDonald edged his horse forward a little. “What about that fella with you?” he asked, gesturing toward Beaumont.

  “You mean Tye?”

  So that was the name he was using, Frank thought.

  “I’ve seen him around,” MacDonald said. “He works for Kane and Bramlett, doesn’t he? For that matter, where’s Bramlett?”

  “I can speak for myself,” Beaumont said tersely. “Yes, I ride for Kane and Bramlett. At least, I did. Will Bramlett is dead.”

  That announcement brought mutters of surprise from the crowd.

  “He was shot in that ambush you’re so eager to blame on us,” Beaumont went on. “He died early this morning, and we buried him out on his spread. Now tell me, if any of our bunch was responsible for the ambush, why was Will shot? That just doesn’t make sense.”

  “He could’ve been hit by accident when your friends were tryin’ to cut down my riders,” Duggan said.

  “That’s not the way it happened,” Beaumont insisted.

  Frank had known from the blood on the grass that one of the men who had been about to cut the Slash D fence had been hit. And it could have been an accident, as Duggan said.

  But Frank had been in many gun battles, and it seemed to him that when the men hidden in the trees had opened up with that vicious first volley, they hadn’t cared who they might hit. Surely if the bushwhackers had been friends of Kane and Bramlett, they would have been more careful.

  But if they hadn’t been part of the loose-knit organization of small ranchers and farmers, then who in blazes had they been? Frank still couldn’t answer that question.

  Beaumont wasn’t through. “Listen to me,” he said. “When Chris brought Will back to the ranch last night, he told me he didn’t have any idea who had started all the shooting. He thought it was just the Slash D riders.”

  “It wasn’t us,” MacDonald said. “Some fellas threw down on us from the trees along the creek.”

  Beaumont nodded. “That’s what I’m hearing now. But I tell you Chris and Will didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “And neither did any of the rest of us!” Rawlings said. “How do we know your men ain’t lyin’ about the whole thing, Duggan?”

  “I’ve got two men with bullet holes in ’em, you damned fool!” roared Duggan. “What do you think happened, they shot themselves?”

  Rawlings bristled and moved his hand closer to his gun. Everyone else followed suit, and once again the street was locked in a tense tableau that might erupt into bloody violence at any second.

  The door of the jail opened before that could happen, and Callie Stratton came out, accompanied by Sheriff Wilmott. All eyes swung to them, breaking the potentially deadly tension.

  “I’ve seen Chris,” Callie announced. “As far as I can tell, everything possible is being done for him.”

  “Is he still unconscious?” Duggan asked.

  Callie nodded. “He is. And he looks terrible. I don’t know if he’s ever going to wake up again.”

  “He shouldn’t have tried to draw on Skeet Harlan,” Duggan said. “He got what was comin’ to him.”

  For a second Frank thought Callie was going to flare up again, maybe even reach for the gun on her hip, but she suppressed her anger at Duggan’s callous comment and said to her brother, “Let’s go, Al. There’s nothing we can do here.”

  “Yeah, I guess not,” Rawlings agreed. With a hate-filled glower, he turned his horse and started away from the jail. The others followed, including Callie.

  Frank, Duggan, and MacDonald sat their horses where they were, forcing the other delegation to go around them. As Beaumont rode past Frank with only a few feet between them, he turned a cold-eyed gaze on the Drifter. Anyone looking at them would have no idea that they knew each other, let alone that they had been good friends and comrades-in-arms.

  Frank hoped that was just a pose. He hoped that Beaumont didn’t really hate him as much as he seemed to....

  * * *

  They headed for Ace McKelvey’s Palace, as Rawlings had said earlier. Beaumont didn’t look back as they rode away. He didn’t want to give Morgan the satisfaction.

  What the hell was Frank Morgan doing with Duggan? Was he really the cattle baron’s hired gun? That wasn’t like the Morgan that Beaumont had known. That Frank had taken pride in the fact that he’d never hired out his gun.

  But times changed and so did the men who lived through them. Beaumont himself was not the same m
an he used to be; the tragedy that had befallen Victoria on their wedding day had seen to that. Maybe Morgan had decided that such things as honor no longer meant anything to him. Maybe he had finally become what so many people had always taken him to be: a ruthless, cold-blooded killer.

  One thing was for sure, Beaumont thought. Morgan would do well to steer clear of him. No matter what Morgan was doing here in Brown County, Beaumont wanted nothing to do with him.

  They dismounted in front of the Palace, tied their horses at the hitch rail, and went inside. It was only the middle of the morning, so the saloon wasn’t busy. A chubby gent with slicked-down black hair and a narrow mustache was working behind the bar. A drunk was sprawled facedown on one of the tables. He was the only customer.

  “Gimme a bottle and six glasses,” Rawlings snarled at the bartender. The man hurried to follow the order. He brought the bottle and the glasses over to the table where the group sat down.

  Rawlings grabbed the bottle by the neck and poured the drinks. Beaumont thought it was a little early in the day for whiskey, but since none of the others objected, neither did he. He threw back the fiery liquor just like everyone else, even Callie. No ladylike sips for her.

  “What are we going to do, Al?” Clay Harrell asked.

  “I can tell you what we’re not going to do,” Rawlings replied. “We’re not going to let Duggan and the rest of those big ranchers buffalo us. We got a right to be here, and by God, we’re through bein’ pushed around!”

  “We can’t stop them from stringing barbed wire,” Simon Clark pointed out. “And as long as we’re fenced in like we are, there’s not much we can do.”

  “We can cut those damned fences,” Rawlings grated. “That’s what we should’ve been doing all along. Every time we come across a fence, cut every blasted strand of it, at every post for a hundred yards or more!”

  “That won’t do any good,” Gladwell said. “They’ll just put up more. And if any of their men catch us at it, there’ll be shooting, just like last night.”

  Rawlings glared at him. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  “I just don’t want to see anybody else get killed.”

  “As long as it’s Duggan or one of those other bastards like him, I don’t care how many of them get killed,” Rawlings said with a snort.

  Beaumont didn’t like the way this conversation was going. It couldn’t lead to anything but trouble. He said, “We’ve tried cutting fences. From what I’ve heard, fences have been cut every now and then for the past couple of years, and like Vern said, it hasn’t done a bit of good. Maybe we could come to some sort of arrangement with the big ranchers instead.”

  Rawlings stared at him. “Arrangement? What kind of arrangement could we have with those greedy bastards?”

  “They understand money,” Beaumont said with a shrug. “We could pay them a fee to drive our cattle across their spreads when it’s time to take them to market. Same thing for water rights where we’re fenced off from the creeks and such.”

  “You’re just a grub-line rider,” Rawlings snapped. “You’re mighty free and easy about spending other people’s money, Tye. You don’t have anything riding on this. We do.”

  “Al’s right,” Clark said. “Our profits have been cut to the bone. There’s no money to pay fees to men who don’t really need the cash.”

  “That’d bust us,” Gladwell added gloomily.

  “Well, I’m not sure we can fight them.” Beaumont took a chance. “Did you see that stranger with Duggan? Do you know who he is? He looked like a gunfighter to me.”

  “He is a gunfighter,” Rawlings said with a grunt of disdain. “His name’s Frank Morgan. I ran into him in here last night. I told him what was what.”

  “And you got a bullet through your arm for your trouble,” Callie said. “Morgan could have killed you just as easily.”

  “Frank Morgan?” Beaumont repeated with a frown. “The one they call the Drifter?”

  “That’s him,” Callie said.

  “He’s supposed to be one of the fastest guns still alive. Faster than Smoke Jensen, even.”

  “If you’re scared of him, you can pull up stakes and ride on any time you’re of a mind to,” Rawlings said. “I ain’t afraid of him.”

  “Maybe you should be,” his sister said. “He might kill you next time.”

  “I’ll be ready for him next time,” Rawlings vowed. “Morgan won’t kill me unless he shoots me in the back like the low-down skunk he is.”

  It was all Beaumont could do not to bristle angrily at that comment. Frank Morgan was no backshooter, and Rawlings ought to know that.

  It took a couple of seconds for Beaumont to realize that he had automatically defended Morgan’s good name, at least in his mind. He wasn’t sure why he’d had that reaction. He didn’t even like Morgan anymore. Just a matter of habit, he supposed. After all, he and Morgan had ridden together and fought side by side for quite a while.

  He didn’t have to defend Morgan. Callie Stratton did it for him. She said, “Frank Morgan may be a lot of things, but he’s not a skunk, Al. He wouldn’t shoot anybody in the back.”

  Rawlings sneered. “If you think so highly of him, why the hell don’t you marry him?”

  Callie reached over and snagged the bottle. As she poured herself another drink, she said, “I don’t plan on ever getting married again. I already buried one husband, and that was enough. Morgan’s a handsome man, though, in his way.”

  Rawlings snorted. “Don’t go soft on him, Callie. He works for Duggan, remember? We may wind up swapping lead with him.”

  If you do, Beaumont thought, you’ll probably wind up dying, too.

  The door to the saloon’s office opened. Ace McKelvey came out and looked around the room. In the time since he’d been in Brown County, Beaumont hadn’t heard anyone mention McKelvey’s real first name. Ace just seemed to suit him so well, even though he seldom took part in the poker games that went on in the saloon. Spotting the group at the table, he came over to them.

  “Good morning, Callie,” he said politely. He nodded to the others. “Boys. I heard about what happened to Chris Kane. I’m mighty sorry about that. He seemed like a decent sort, if a mite hotheaded.”

  “He’s not dead yet,” Rawlings said. “Don’t talk about him like he’s already in the ground.”

  “I meant no offense. But he was shot three times. Surely it’s pretty unlikely that he’ll recover.”

  “Doc Yantis says he might pull through,” Callie said.

  “Well, I certainly hope so. The way I hear it, the only reason Kane came to town was to look for the doc because his partner had been shot. What happened with Bramlett, anyway?”

  “Dead,” Beaumont answered heavily. “We buried him before we came into town.”

  McKelvey shook his head. “That’s a damned shame. Sounds like Duggan’s bunch pretty much made a clean sweep of them.”

  “It was Skeet Harlan who shot Chris,” Beaumont pointed out. “And nobody seems quite sure who the bushwhackers were that killed Will.”

  McKelvey dismissively waved a hand and said, “Everybody knows that Harlan and Marshal Keever really work for Duggan and the other big ranchers. Do any of their cowhands ever get arrested when they come into town and go on a bender? Of course not. Keever and Harlan don’t want to rock the boat. They know who has the most money and power in these parts.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” Callie said with a frown. “Marshal Keever’s always seemed reasonably honest to me.”

  “The man’s dumb as a goat,” Rawlings snapped. “And Harlan’s just a snake-blooded killer.”

  Callie shrugged. “Well, I can’t argue with that part. I always shiver a little whenever Skeet Harlan looks at me.”

  McKelvey took out a cigar and put it in his mouth. “It’s just not right, the way Duggan and the others try to run roughshod over you fellas.”

  Simon Clark asked, “If that’s the way you feel, McKelvey, why do you let them drink in here
?”

  The saloon keeper spread his hands and clamped his teeth on the unlit cigar as he said, “I’m just a businessman, boys. I can’t afford to play favorites, no matter what my personal feelings may be.” He glanced toward the entrance and frowned. “That’s why I don’t want any trouble in here, understand?”

  Beaumont looked at the door, too, and knew what had prompted McKelvey’s words. The door opened and Earl Duggan stalked into the Palace, followed by Frank Morgan and Ed MacDonald.

  22

  Duggan headed straight for the bar. MacDonald did, too, so Frank followed them, even though he had spotted Tyler Beaumont sitting at a table with Al Rawlings, Callie Stratton, and three other men. Frank didn’t do more than glance in their direction as he joined Duggan and MacDonald at the bar.

  “Whiskey,” Duggan grated at the bartender. The apron hurried to fill the order. Without asking, he put glasses in front of Frank and MacDonald, too.

  The group at the table looked like they were having a council of war. A man in a suit stood beside the table. Frank didn’t know him, but from the looks of him he was a businessman of some sort, maybe the owner of the saloon. He spoke briefly to Rawlings and then came over to the bar.

  “Hello, Earl,” he said as he paused beside Duggan. The cattleman gave him a curt nod and then swallowed the whiskey in his glass.

  “McKelvey,” Duggan said shortly, confirming Frank’s guess about the man’s identity.

  “I was just telling Rawlings and his bunch that I don’t want any trouble in here,” the saloon keeper said. “I hope I don’t have to tell you the same thing. You should already know.”

  “Yeah, yeah, it ain’t your fight,” Duggan said with the air of a man who’d had this conversation before. “Doesn’t it get a mite uncomfortable straddling that fence all the time, McKelvey?”

  “I just want peace in the county, Earl. If I can’t have that, I’ll settle for having it in here. But by God, I will have it in here.”

  Duggan shrugged. “We ain’t looking for trouble.”

  McKelvey glanced over at the rancher’s two companions. “I know Ed, of course. Who’s this new fella?”