The Last Gunfighter: Ghost Valley Read online

  "I'm on my way, son," he whispered as a wall of white fell in front of him. "Just hang on until I get there. I promise I'll make those bastards pay for what they've done to you."

  * * * *

  Frank climbed out of the tub and toweled dry. It was time to stop living in the past and get on with the business of hunting down Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen.

  But as he put on clean denims and his last clean shirt, he had difficulty shaking the image of the man he'd seen behind the cemetery.

  "There's no such thing as ghosts," he told himself while he combed through his hair.

  And still he wondered why the old man standing near the gate into the cemetery had claimed he couldn't see the Indian who walked back into the pine tree shadows.

  Frank pondered the possibility that old age was robbing him of his senses.

  Four

  Even at night, this part of the Rockies was beautiful land to behold. Glenwood Springs lay just north of the Colorado River in a valley between towering mountain slopes. It was country Frank knew well.

  He walked through the quiet little town before he went to bed, thinking about Victor Vanbergen and Ned Pine. Now that his son was safely back in Durango, Frank knew the smartest thing he could do would be to forget about his quest for vengeance and go elsewhere. But that went against his grain. He just wasn't made that way.

  He strolled out to the overgrown cemetery with a cigar in his mouth, remembering the Indian he had seen when he came to Glenwood Springs.

  "The Ones Who Came Before," he muttered with a note of sarcasm in his voice. The man he had seen was as real as the cigar between his teeth.

  He leaned against a rusting wrought-iron fence to look at the gravestones, feeling the chill of mountain air wash down from the slopes around him.

  "I knew you'd come back," a voice said from the darkness, sending Frank's hand toward his gun.

  "Don't shoot me. I ain't armed."

  A shadow moved in the pines west of the graveyard.

  "Who the hell are you?" Frank demanded.

  "We talked when you rode into town, mister. I was here when you said you saw one of the Old Ones."

  Frank's gun hand relaxed. "What the hell are you doing out here this time of night, old-timer?" he asked.

  "Visitin' my daughter."

  "Your daughter?"

  "She's buried here. Died from the consumption. Sometimes I come out here just so's I can be close to her. Makes me feel better."

  The old man he'd seen beside the fence earlier in the day walked up to him.

  "Sorry about your daughter," Frank said.

  "It's been two years, nearly. Can't sleep at night without thinkin' about her before I drop off."

  "The galloping consumption is a hard thing ... a rough way to die," Frank said.

  "She went fast. Less'n two months after we found out she came down with it."

  Frank understood the old man's grief ... he'd lost a wife to a coward's bullet. "It's hard to lose a loved one, no matter what the cause."

  "I asked around in town after you got here, mister. They say you're Frank Morgan the gunfighter. Ol' Man Barnes at the hotel told me. An' Smitty recognized you when you came to the hotel."

  "I don't make a living with a gun now," Frank said. "I gave all that up years ago."

  "But you was askin' about Ned Pine an' Vic Vanbergen. That don't sound like you come here with peaceable intentions, if you pardon me for sayin' so."

  It had begun to seem that Frank's past would haunt him for the rest of his life. He stared across the moonlit cemetery a moment. "They killed my wife and took my son hostage. I got my boy back, but I still owe them a debt ... a blood debt, and I aim to see that they pay it."

  "Then you are a killer."

  Frank's jaw muscles went tight. "If I can find Vanbergen and Pine, I intend to kill them for what they did to my Vivian, and to Conrad."

  "Could be I can tell you where to find 'em," the old man said.

  Frank turned around abruptly. "Where?"

  The man aimed a thumb toward the snow-clad peaks north of Glenwood Springs. "Up yonder. Doc ... that's Doc Holliday, he knows where they're at."

  "Would he tell me?" Frank asked, feeling his blood begin to boil.

  "Can't say fer sure, Mr. Morgan. But you can ask him for yourself, if you've a mind to."

  "Where is Holliday?"

  "At the sanitarium."

  "Where is it?"

  "Just ride down to the river an' turn east. You'll see it plain as day."

  "I'll do it first thing in the morning."

  "Doc, he's cranky as hell, but he's in a lot of pain, so they say."

  "All I want to know is where I can find Vanbergen and Pine," Frank explained.

  "Doc knows 'em. Leastways he knows where they go to hide out from the law."

  "I appreciate what you've told me," Frank said.

  The old-timer turned toward town. "That Ned Pine, he ain't no good. If there's a sumbitch in Colorado who deserves to die, it's him."

  "What's your name?" Frank asked as the old man walked off.

  "They call me George. I reckon that's all you need to know."

  A moment later George was out of sight around a bend in the road. Frank made up his mind to talk to Doc Holliday right after sunrise.

  As he was about to head back to the hotel he saw a slight movement in the pine trees behind the burial ground. Again, he reached for his pistol.

  A shape appeared, a slender man dressed in buckskins. He walked with a swinging gait toward the rear of the cemetery and then he stopped.

  Small hairs swirled on the back of Frank's neck. He was looking at the same Indian he'd seen when he came into Glenwood Springs this afternoon.

  "Who are you?" Frank shouted.

  No one answered him and the Indian did not move.

  "I asked you a question," Frank called. "Who the hell are you?"

  A soft voice spoke to him, even though the Indian was more than a hundred yards away beyond the cemetery fence.

  "Go to the mountains."

  Frank wrapped his fingers around the butt of his Colt Peacemaker ... an odd sensation touched some inner part of him, one he couldn't explain.

  "Walk around here so I can see your face," he said.

  "Go to the mountains," the Indian said again.

  "What for?" Frank asked.

  "To find the men you seek. Ride to Ghost Valley."

  "Why should I take any advice from you, and how is it you know I'm looking for anybody? You won't even tell me who the hell you are."

  "I am One Who Came Before. We are called Anasazi. This is all you need to know."

  "But how is it that you know I'm looking for a couple of men?"

  "Go to the mountains," the Indian said for the third time. "One of the men you seek is behind you now." Then he wheeled away and disappeared into the forest.

  "Damn," Frank whispered. He gave some thought to following the Indian. Or was this all a product of his imagination?

  Frank glanced over his shoulder, just in time to see a man cradling a shotgun walking toward him from the direction of Glenwood Springs.

  "Are you Frank Morgan?" the man cried, bringing the shotgun to his shoulder. Frank wasted no time drawing his pistol, aiming it, drawing back the Colt's hammer.

  "I asked you a question, you son of a bitch!"

  "Here's my answer," Frank bellowed. His trigger finger curled.

  A shot rang out, echoing off the mountainsides surrounding the cemetery.

  The stranger with the shotgun stumbled, staggering to keep his footing. He fired a load of buckshot into the ground before he fell to his knees.

  Frank rushed forward, reaching the gunman just before he went over on his back.

  "Where's Vanbergen? Where's Pine?" Frank demanded with his gun clamped in his fist.

  The bearded cowboy lay motionless with blood leaking from a wound in his chest. His eyes batted shut.

  "How the hell did you know I was here?" Frank asked, k
nowing the man would never answer him.

  He put his smoking six-shooter away and headed back toward town. He would have to report the incident to the local sheriff and if possible, get the dead man's identity.

  Somehow, Pine and Vanbergen already knew he was here, hot on their trail. But what puzzled Frank most was how the Indian had known that a member of the gang was coming for him.

  Five

  Sheriff Tom Brewer looked down at the body in the light of a coal-oil lantern. "Can't say as I've ever seen him in Glenwood Springs before."

  " He tried to kill me with that shotgun," Frank said. "I had no choice."

  Brewer glanced up at Frank. "I heard you was in town, Mr. Morgan. I know your reputation. You're a killer for hire, a paid shootist. I won't tolerate that in my jurisdiction."

  "It was self-defense, Sheriff."

  "I reckon I'll have to take your word for it, unless there was any witnesses."

  "None. An old man who said his name was George was here before this gunslick showed up, only he left before the trouble started."

  "George Parsons. His daughter is buried here. I reckon that's all I need from you now, Mr. Morgan, only I sure as hell hope there won't be no more shootin' in my town."

  "There won't be ... unless someone else starts it, the way this owlhoot did."

  Sheriff Brewer turned back toward Glenwood Springs. "I'll send Old Man Harvey out to take care of the body. He's our undertaker, when he ain't bein' a blacksmith."

  * * * *

  Frank turned out the lamp in his tiny room and lay across the bed. His guns were on a washstand beside him. All this recent bloodshed was a result of Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen, and the events that had brought Frank to this part of Colorado to put unfinished business to rest.

  He thought about Conrad, and the snowstorm that had finally led Frank to the right spot to rescue his son....

  * * * *

  Frank watched from hiding as Ned Pine brought Conrad out of the cabin with a gun under his chin. The boy's hands were tied in front of him. Swirling snow kept Frank from seeing the boy clearly.

  Five more members of the gang brought seven saddled horses around to the front. Frank was helpless. For now, all he could do was watch.

  He wondered if Pine would execute his son for the men he'd already lost. But Pine needed a human shield to get him out of the box canyon. He needed Conrad alive. For now.

  "Pine will kill Conrad when he hears the first gunshot," Frank whispered to himself. "I'll have to follow them, and wait until Ned makes a mistake."

  He wondered where they were taking his son. Frank had taken a deadly toll on Pine's gang in a matter of hours, with the help of Tin Pan Rushing.

  Frank felt something touch his shoulder, and he whirled around, snaking a pistol from leather. He relaxed and put his Peacemaker away.

  "Don't shoot me," Tin Pan said softly. "They're clearin' out, as you can see."

  "I've got no choice but to trail them. Maybe Ned will get careless somewhere."

  "Where will they take him?"

  "I've got no idea, but wherever it is, I'll be right behind them. I don't know this country."

  "I do," Tin Pan said. "Been here for nigh onto twenty years."

  "This isn't your problem. I appreciate what you've done for me, but I can handle it from here."

  "I'll fetch one of them dead outlaws' horses from behind the canyon. I'll ride with you."

  "No need, Tin Pan. This isn't your fight."

  "I decided to make it my fight, Morgan. When some ornery bastards are holdin' a man's son hostage, he needs all the help he can get."

  "That was a nice shot from up high a while ago. Couldn't have done any better myself."

  "I was hopin' the wind didn't throw my aim off. But this ol' long gun is pretty damn accurate. I'll collect that horse and unsaddle the others so I can let 'em go. I'll bring your animals around, along with Martha, to the mouth of the canyon soon as they ride out."

  "I'd almost forgotten about your mule."

  "She's got more'n fifty cured beaver pelts tied to her back, and that's plenty to get me a fresh grubstake before the weather gets warm and the beavers start to lose their winter hair. You might say that's a winter's worth of work hangin' across her packsaddle."

  "Here they come," Frank said, peering into the falling snow. "Stay still."

  "No need for you to tell me what to do, Morgan. I know how to make it in this wilderness without being seen. Rest easy on that notion."

  Ned Pine rode at the front with Conrad, Pine's gun still pressed to Conrad's throat. Two more gunmen rode behind Ned and the boy. A fourth outlaw came from the cabin leading a loaded packhorse.

  The last pair of outlaws stayed well behind the others with Winchester rifles resting on their thighs.

  "Keepin' back a rear guard," Tin Pan observed. "If we get the chance, we might be able to jump 'em in this snow. It's hard to see real well."

  "I was thinking the same thing," Frank said. "One way or another, I've got to get rid of Pine's men before I take him on man-to-man."

  "You'll need to pick the right spot, and the right time," Tin Pan reminded him.

  "I'm a pretty good hand at that," Frank told him, moving back into the trees as Pine and his men rode out of the canyon with Conrad as their prisoner.

  Snowflakes swirled around the men as they left the canyon and turned east, away from the badlands. Frank was surprised at the direction they took.

  * * * *

  Barnaby Jones parked his rented buggy in Cortez. His drive down from Denver had been brutal and he was sure he'd almost frozen to death. Had it not been for three bottles of imported French sherry, he was certain he wouldn't have made it through this wilderness in a blizzard.

  He stopped in front of the sheriff's office and took a wool blanket off his lap before he climbed down from the seat. He removed his gloves. Cortez was a mere spot in the road, a dot on the map he'd bought in Denver after he got off the train.

  "The things I do to get a story," he mumbled, wondering if his editor at Harper's Magazine would appreciate the difficulty he'd gone through.

  He entered the sheriff's door without knocking, enjoying the warmth from a cast-iron stove in a corner of the tiny room. A jail cell sat at the back of the place.

  A man with a gray handlebar mustache looked up at him with a question on his face. He was seated at a battered rolltop desk with a newspaper in his lap.

  "Sheriff Jim Sikes?" Barnaby asked.

  "That's me." The lawman looked him up and down. "Stranger, you ain't dressed for this climate. Didn't anybody tell you it gets cold in Colorado Territory?"

  " Yessiree, they did," Barnaby replied, offering his hand. "I am Barnaby Jones from Harper's Magazine in New York. I'm wearing long underwear under my suit."

  "What brings you to Cortez?" the sheriff asked.

  Barnaby pulled off his bowler hat. "The United States marshal in Denver told me to look you up. I'm writing a story for my magazine about a retired gunfighter named Frank Morgan, and Marshal Williams said you would know if he's in this part of the country. One of our competitors, the Boston Globe, has sent a reporter out here to interview this Mr. Morgan. I'd like to talk to him myself."

  "Morgan ain't in these parts, mister. Marshal Williams is wrong about that. If Morgan was around, I'd know about it. I'd have dead men stacked up here like cordwood."

  Barnaby edged over to the stove, warming his backside as best he could. "I have other information. A writer by the name of Louis Pettigrew from the Globe found out that Morgan is in southwestern Colorado Territory. I'm only a day or two behind Mr. Pettigrew."

  "You're both wrong."

  "How can you be so sure, Sheriff?"

  "Like I said, no dead bodies. Maybe you ought to have the wax cleaned out of your ears. I said it real plain the first time."

  "But I know he's somewhere close by. Pettigrew left the day before I did. He rented a horse in Denver and came down here. Something about Morgan's son being a prison
er of some outlaw gang."

  "We've got a few outlaws," Sheriff Sikes said. "Some of 'em are in town right now. Victor Vanbergen and his bunch of toughs are down at the Wagon Wheel, but they haven't caused any trouble. I think they're just passing through."

  "I never heard of Victor Vanbergen. Who is he?"

  "A bank robber. A thief and a killer. But so long as he don't cause no trouble in my town, I'm leaving him and his boys alone."

  Barnaby reached inside his heavy wool coat, taking out a few papers. "Who is Ned Pine?"

  "A hired gun. Worse than Vanbergen. He heads up one of the oldest outlaw gangs in this part of the West, but the last I heard of him he was down south. Texas, I think."

  "Mr. Pettigrew of the Boston Globe believes he's here, and that he has Frank Morgan's son as a hostage."

  "It's news to me," Sheriff Sikes remarked. "I'd have had something over the telegraph wire by now if Ned Pine and his men were close by."

  Barnaby shook his head. "I still think I have good information about Pine. And Morgan."

  Sikes went back to reading his paper. "You're welcome to look around Cortez," he said, a hint of impatience in his hoarse voice. "But Morgan ain't here, and neither is Pine. Vanbergen just showed up today. I judge he'll be gone by tomorrow if this snow lets up."

  "Where can I hire a room for the night?" Barnaby asked. "And I need a place to stable my buggy horse."

  "Ain't but one hotel in town, the Cortez Hotel. It's just down the street. You can't miss it."

  "Have I come too late to buy dinner?"

  "Mary over at the cafe might have some stew left. She's about to close, so I'd hurry if I was you."

  "Thank you, Sheriff. I'm thankful for the information you gave me."

  "You're wasting your time in Cortez looking for Ned Pine or Frank Morgan. We don't get many of the real bad hard cases in this town. They usually pass right on through, if the weather's decent."

  Barnaby put on his hat and walked out the door. The wind had picked up after sundown, and bits of ice and snow stung his cheeks as he climbed back in his snow-covered buggy.