Slaughter Read online

  “I don’t intend to if I don’t have to,” Frank told him. “What’s your name?”

  “J-Jeff, Mr. Morgan.”

  “Well, now, Jeff,” Frank said, “I’m going to walk out of here, get on my horse, and go on about my business. That all right with you?”

  Jeff managed to nod.

  “When I’m gone, you might want to help your friend up and take him back to whatever spread you boys work for. I didn’t want to hurt him at all, but I figured an aching head was better than a bullet in the brisket.”

  “Y-yes, sir.” Jeff gulped. “I never . . . never even saw you draw, Mr. Morgan! It was like . . . the gun was just there in your hand, without you havin’ to do a thing.”

  “You tell Lonnie that when he wakes up.” Frank started to lower his Colt. “All right if I holster my gun? You don’t want to try your luck, too?”

  Jeff shook his head vehemently. “No, sir!”

  Frank nodded and pouched the iron. He looked at the bartender and said, “I’m sorry about busting that mug. I’ll pay you for it.”

  “No need, Señor,” the man said, shaking his head. “I’d rather have to pick up busted glass than have to haul out some young fool’s ventilated carcass.”

  “I insist,” Frank said. He used his left hand to take a double eagle out of his pocket and lay it on the bar. “For your trouble, amigo.”

  Pedro shrugged. “If you insist . . .” The gold coin disappeared with an adroit motion of the bartender’s hand.

  Frank turned away from the bar, adding to Jeff, “Tell Lonnie I’m sorry I had to knock him out.”

  As Frank passed Barclay’s table on his way out of the cantina, the gambler said, “I’m surprised you didn’t kill that young fool. I was ready to hit the floor in case any wild shots started flying.”

  “There wouldn’t have been any wild shots,” Frank said.

  Barclay chuckled. “No, probably not.” He paused, then went on. “You have the look of a man who’s weary of killing, Mr. Morgan.”

  Frank had gotten weary of it so long ago that he couldn’t even remember how long ago it had been. So he just nodded and moved on toward the door. He heard a groan and a mutter of voices as he went out. Lonnie was starting to come around.

  As Frank reached for Goldy’s reins to untie them from the hitch rail, he muttered a curse. He had meant to ask somebody in the cantina where he could find the Nadeau Hotel. That was where John J. Stafford was staying. The confrontation with Lonnie had made it slip his mind entirely.

  He would ask someone else, he decided. There were plenty of people on the street. Los Angeles was a busy place.

  He had just pulled Goldy’s reins loose from the rail when an angry shout sounded. Lonnie burst through the cantina’s door, jerking away from Jeff, who was trying to hold him back. Frank saw the gun in the young cowboy’s hand, heard the roar of the shot, saw Colt flame bloom from the weapon’s muzzle as he crouched and turned and dropped the reins.

  The bullet missed, whipping past Frank close enough so that he heard the flat, slapping noise of its passage through the air. His gun was already in his hand again, and he fired as Lonnie tried to bring the revolver down from being kicked up by the recoil of the missed shot.

  Lonnie didn’t get a chance for a second shot. Frank’s slug punched into his chest and knocked him backward into the arms of a shocked Jeff, who caught him and held him up.

  “Oh, God!” Jeff cried as Lonnie shook and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. The gun slipped out of his grip, hung for a second with one finger in the trigger guard, and then fell to the ground at his feet. His eyes rolled up in his head and he went limp. He would have fallen if not for Jeff supporting him.

  Jeff stared at his friend’s slack face, then looked at Frank and said, “You killed him!”

  Barclay came up behind them. “The young idiot didn’t give Morgan any choice in the matter.”

  “He didn’t have to kill him!”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, kid,” Barclay said. “If you’re dumb enough to throw down on The Drifter, then somebody’s gonna die.” He looked at Frank, who was already replacing the spent shell in the gun’s cylinder. “And chances are it’s not gonna be an old curly wolf like Frank Morgan.”

  Chapter 3

  Figuring that it would be easier and simpler to deal with the authorities now, rather than make them hunt him down later to question him about the shooting, Frank waited at the cantina for the law to show up.

  “I’ll testify that you acted in self-defense, Mr. Morgan,” Barclay said.

  “So will I, Señor,” Pedro added.

  They were standing outside the cantina by the hitch rail, along with a considerable crowd that had gathered in response to the shots. People stood around watching solemnly as Jeff sat in the doorway with the dead Lonnie’s head cradled in his lap. Jeff looked grief-stricken, but he wasn’t making any move to try to avenge his friend’s death.

  A short time later, a couple of blue-uniformed men drove up in a wagon. Los Angeles had a regular police department like the big cities back East, Frank recalled, rather than a city marshal and deputies like most frontier communities. The officers climbed down from the wagon, and one of them demanded, “What happened here?”

  It seemed pretty obvious to Frank, but he supposed the officers had to follow procedure.

  Barclay spoke up, saying, “That young fella there with the bullet in his chest tried to kill this gentleman.” He nodded toward Frank. “As you can see, that was a mistake.”

  “Sí,” Pedro added. “He followed Señor Morgan outside and started shooting.”

  The second officer glanced sharply at Frank and said, “Morgan? That wouldn’t be Frank Morgan, would it?” Despite the blue serge uniform and felt cap, he had a rawboned, sunburned look about him, as if he would have been more at home on horseback and in trail clothes.

  “It would,” Frank said with a nod. “Do we know each other, friend?”

  The policeman grinned. “No, we never met, but I was in Cheyenne some years back when three men braced you in the Gold Room. All three of ’em hit the floor within a couple of seconds of each other, as I recollect. You’d plugged each of ’em dead center.”

  Frank shrugged. “With three-against-one odds, there wasn’t time to get fancy. I just aimed for the biggest targets.”

  “And hit ’em,” the policeman said.

  His companion looked annoyed. “Damn it, Randolph, you almost sound like you admire this . . . this gunslinger. I’ve heard of Frank Morgan. He’s nothing but a cheap, hired killer.”

  Frank felt a surge of anger, but suppressed it. Arguing with the law wouldn’t accomplish anything except to delay him from getting to the business that had brought him here.

  “That shows what you know,” the officer named Randolph said. “You moved here from Philadelphia. You don’t know anything about the West except what you’ve read in Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly.” He stuck a hand out to Frank. “Glad to actually meet you, Mr. Morgan. I’m Ben Randolph.”

  “Glad to meet you, too, Ben,” Frank said as he shook hands with the man. He nodded toward Lonnie and Jeff. “Is there going to be trouble about this?”

  Randolph shook his head. “I wouldn’t think so, what with these two other fellas testifying that you shot back in self-defense.”

  “Blast it—” the officer from back East began.

  “Don’t mind him,” Randolph said with a wave of his hand. “I’ll fill out the report. You may be called to the inquest, but as long as we know where to find you, that’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll probably be staying at the Nadeau Hotel,” Frank told him.

  “You know how long you’ll be in town?”

  Frank shook his head. “I’m afraid not.” That would depend on exactly what sort of trouble Stafford needed him to handle. “A few days at least, I reckon.”

  “That ought to be all right. I’ll talk to Chief Glass myself and let him know the situation.”

 
; “I’m much obliged,” Frank said.

  The other officer was still upset and grumbled something about kid gloves, but Randolph silenced him with a glare. He took a notebook and a pencil from his pocket and began writing in it as he asked Barclay and Pedro to tell him again what happened.

  While that was going on, Frank walked over to the doorway and hunkered on his heels next to Jeff and Lonnie. “I’m sorry about what happened,” he told Jeff. “You know I didn’t want to kill him.”

  “I . . . I tried to hold him back,” Jeff said. “But he was so mad I couldn’t stop him. Still, couldn’t you have . . . I don’t know . . . winged him or something?”

  “Maybe,” Frank allowed. “And maybe I would have missed and his next shot would have killed me or some innocent person walking by in the street.” His voice hardened. “I said I was sorry and I meant it, but when you start throwing lead around, you’ve got to figure that somebody’s liable to throw it back at you.”

  Jeff didn’t say anything in reply to that, but his eyes burned with anger. In addition to whatever trouble Stafford was about to ladle onto Frank’s plate, he knew that he would also have to keep an eye out for this youngster impetuously trying to even the score for his dead amigo.

  Maybe Jeff would have more sense than that. Frank hoped so.

  He stood up and went back over to where Randolph had finished talking to Barclay and Pedro. The officer patted the pocket where he had put away the notebook and said, “I reckon I’ve got all the information I need, at least for now. You’re free to go, Mr. Morgan.”

  The other officer still looked like he didn’t care for that decision.

  Frank nodded and said, “Thanks. Can you tell me how to get to the hotel?”

  “The Nadeau, you said?”

  “That’s right. I guess it’s been built since I was here last. I recall the Bella Union and the Lafayette Hotels, but not the Nadeau.” Frank paused. “Say, it’s not named for old Remi Nadeau, is it?” The French-Canadian immigrant had established one of the first freight lines in the area, using mule-drawn wagons to haul goods from Los Angeles to San Pedro and back.

  Randolph laughed. “It’s more than named for him. Remi sold his mule teams a dozen years ago and decided to go into the hotel business with the profits. The Nadeau is the biggest and best hotel in the city. Four stories!”

  Frank had seen taller buildings in Chicago and Boston, but he had to admit that four stories was pretty impressive, especially in a town that had started out with one-story adobes. Randolph told him that the hotel was located at the corner of First and Spring Streets and added, “It even has an elevator.”

  “Well, I’ll have to take a look at that, all right,” Frank said. “I’m much obliged, Officer.”

  “You’re welcome. You take care now, Mr. Morgan.”

  Having a representative of the law treat him so pleasantly was a nice change, Frank reflected as he mounted up and rode toward downtown Los Angeles on Goldy, still leading Stormy and the packhorse. Dog padded alongside. The big cur let out a growl from time to time. He didn’t like crowds.

  The Nadeau was so big that it occupied an entire city block. A concrete sidewalk ran all the way around it. Frank didn’t know much about architecture, so he didn’t know what to call the style in which the hotel was built. To him it was just a big, ugly brick box.

  He left the three horses at a stable across from the hotel’s rear entrance. The hostler agreed to let Dog stay there, too, while Frank went into the hotel . . . but he wasn’t too happy about it.

  “Critter looks more like a wolf than a dog to me,” the man said with a worried frown. “He’s not gonna attack any of the horses or my customers, is he?”

  “Not unless I tell him to,” Frank said. “And I don’t plan to do that.” He handed the hostler a ten dollar gold piece. “I may be staying here for a while, so consider that just a starter.”

  The man’s attitude improved considerably at that. “Thanks,” he said. “We’ll take good care o’ your horses, mister.”

  “And the dog,” Frank said.

  “Yes, sir. And the dog, too.”

  Satisfied for the moment, Frank crossed the street, which here in downtown was paved with cobblestones. Instead of going in through the hotel’s rear entrance, he walked all the way around to the front. That put him closer to the desk so he could ask for John J. Stafford’s room.

  The Nadeau’s lobby was full of potted palms, crystal chandeliers, polished hardwood floors, overstuffed furniture, and people coming and going. The men wore suits and looked stuffy and prosperous; the women were mostly pretty and sported big hats, bustles, and flowery, flowing dresses. With his rough, dusty trail garb, old Stetson, and well-used .45, Frank felt a little like a turd in the middle of a plate of cookies.

  Judging by the sneer on the desk clerk’s face, he felt the same way about Frank. “Yes?” he asked curtly as Frank stepped up to the desk. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Mr. Stafford,” Frank said, keeping his voice and expression mild. If he was going to let himself be annoyed by every jackass in the world, he wouldn’t have time for much else.

  “Which Mr. Stafford?”

  “John J. You have more than one staying here?”

  The clerk didn’t answer the question. Instead, he glanced over his shoulder at the board where guests’ keys hung and said, “Mr. Stafford isn’t in his room at the present time. Would you like to leave a message for him?”

  “You happen to know where he is?”

  “Even if I did, I wouldn’t be at liberty to divulge Mr. Stafford’s whereabouts to . . . to a person of your . . .”

  The clerk let his voice trail off and swallowed as he saw the flinty look that came into Frank’s eyes. Frank couldn’t keep his irritation from showing, and he didn’t care anymore whether he did or not. He’d already had to kill some stupid kid today, and he wasn’t in a very good mood.

  “Just tell me where to find Stafford,” he began, then stopped as a voice behind him asked, “Did I hear my name?”

  Frank turned and saw a tall, blocky man with thinning brown hair and prominent side whiskers, wearing a gray tweed suit and a bowler hat. The man’s eyes widened. He stuck out his hand.

  “My God, sir, you must be Frank Morgan! Claudius wired me that you were coming. It’s good to meet you. I’m John J. Stafford.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Frank said as he shook hands with the lawyer.

  “I was just on my way into the hotel’s barroom to have a drink. I’ve been out visiting my clients, and it’s a rather dusty buggy ride back into town. Would you care to join me?”

  “I’ll pass on the drink,” Frank said, thinking back to the beer he’d had in the cantina, “but I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged.” Stafford put a hand on Frank’s arm. “Come along, Mr. Morgan.”

  Normally, Frank didn’t care for being touched like that. He let it go this time, though, sensing that Stafford didn’t mean the gesture to be insulting or domineering. The two of them walked across the lobby to an arched doorway that led into the barroom.

  Stafford signaled to the bartender for a drink and added, “I’d like to get a cup of coffee for my friend here, too, George.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Stafford,” the man replied.

  Stafford led Frank to an empty table in a corner of the well-appointed room. “Did you have any trouble on the way here?” he asked as they sat down.

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Frank said with a shrug. He took off his high-crowned hat and placed it on the table. He didn’t want to go into the details of the shooting with the lawyer.

  “Well, I hope that you can help me handle the trouble that I’ve run into here,” Stafford said. “I wasn’t sure about bringing in a . . . a . . .”

  “Gunfighter?” Frank suggested with a faint smile on his rugged face. “I don’t know what Turnbuckle told you, Mr. Stafford, but I’m not a hired gun if that’s what you’re t
hinking.”

  “Not at all, not at all. But it’s true Claudius convinced me that you might be able to give me a hand with this case, Mr. Morgan.”

  “I’m not a lawyer either,” Frank pointed out. “Not even close.”

  “I’m aware of that . . . but you are a man who knows what to do when all hell breaks loose, aren’t you, Mr. Morgan?”

  The blunt question brought a chuckle from Frank. “I reckon that’s true,” he admitted.

  “Did you come into the city from the north?”

  Frank wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything, but he nodded. “On horseback.”

  “Then you must have seen all the oil derricks in the San Fernando Valley as you rode through it, as well as here in town.”

  Frank nodded again and said, “I did. I’d heard folks had started drilling for oil around here, but I didn’t expect to see derricks all over like that.”

  A grim look came over Stafford’s face as he leaned forward and said, “Those oil wells, Mr. Morgan, are the gateways to that very hell I was talking about!”

  Chapter 4

  Frank didn’t know much about oil. His son, Conrad Browning, who was the managing partner in the business empire they jointly owned, had mentioned a time or two that they ought to look into drilling for oil, maybe in Texas. It might be lucrative someday, Conrad claimed. But that was just about the extent of Frank’s knowledge.

  However, he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that oil wells were gateways to hell, despite the fact that they smelled a mite like brimstone. He said, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to explain that, Mr. Stafford.”

  That explanation was delayed for a moment as the bartender arrived with a cup of coffee for Frank, a drink for Stafford, and a glass of water. Evidently, the man already knew what Stafford’s poison was, because he hadn’t asked.

  “Thank you, George.” The lawyer picked up the drink and took a sip, then closed his eyes in appreciation for a second. “Nothing like some fine cognac to make a man glad that he’s alive.”