The Last Gunfighter: Killing Ground Read online

  “There’s one tonight, mister,” the clerk said. “You want to buy a ticket on it?”

  Luther opened his mouth and was about to say yes when he seemed to hear Claudius Turnbuckle’s voice, once again instructing him to go to Buckskin and tell Frank Morgan what had happened. The client always comes first, Turnbuckle had said. He had lived by that philosophy for many years. Now Luther had to struggle with that same philosophy.

  “Mister?” the clerk prodded. “You want a ticket for San Francisco?”

  Luther could barely believe the words were coming out of his mouth as he said, “Could…could you tell me if there’s a stagecoach or some other sort of transportation that runs from here to a town called Buckskin?”

  “Buckskin? Sure. Stage runs down there twice a week. Is that where you need to go?”

  “Yes.” Luther swallowed hard. “I’m afraid that Buckskin is exactly where I need to go.”

  Chapter 10

  Frank Morgan’s life, full of violence and tragedy as it had been, had taught him to be thankful for small favors. To appreciate the peaceful times when nobody was trying to kill him or anyone else he cared about.

  That was why he was more than willing to accept the respite that followed the gunfight with the Johnson brothers and the arrival of the telegram from Claudius Turnbuckle. Dex Brighton appeared to be lying low for the time being, waiting for the circuit judge to arrive, and Tip Woodford was content to wait for the lawyer that Frank had sent for. Nobody else stirred up any trouble. No more would-be fast guns showed up looking for a reputation. There weren’t even any brawls between bored, drunken miners in the saloons.

  So naturally, Frank started to worry. That old saying about things being too quiet sometimes had a lot of truth to it.

  He and Catamount Jack were sitting in ladder-back chairs on the porch in front of the marshal’s office a couple of days after the shootout in the Silver Baron. Frank’s boots were propped on the railing along the front of the porch. Jack was doing the same thing, only he had his chair tipped back and was rocking it as he also rolled a quirly. The stagecoach was due to come in pretty soon, and the two lawmen were swapping lies to pass the time until its arrival.

  “Ever fight any Comanches while you were down there in Texas as a younker?” Jack asked. He knew that Frank had been born on a spread near Weatherford, Texas, and had grown up in that area.

  “Yeah, right after the war, while I was cowboying. We had to take some cows to a ranch up in the Pan-handle. That was some years before Mackenzie broke the Comanches’ spirits by destroying their horse herd at Palo Duro Canyon, so the boys who were going on the drive knew we might run into trouble.”

  Jack spilled tobacco from his pouch into the brown paper he cradled in his other hand. “That didn’t stop you, though, did it?”

  “Of course not,” Frank said with a grin. “We were young and full of piss and vinegar. We were actually looking forward to the idea that we might wind up in an Indian fight. I reckon we thought we were going to live forever, the way most kids do.”

  “Just out o’ curiosity, you know how many of that bunch is still alive?”

  A faraway look stole into Frank’s eyes. “Out of the dozen who went along on that drive…two, I think. Counting me.”

  “Ain’t hardly forever, is it?”

  Frank shook his head. “Nothing is.”

  Jack licked the paper and sealed it, then twisted the ends of the quirly. “You were sayin’, about the Comanches…”

  “Yeah, we were southwest of Amarillo, not that far really from the spread we were going to, when they jumped us. Came out of nowhere like they sprouted from the ground, them and their horses, too. To this day I don’t know where they were hidden. But there they were, and they were whooping and hollering so that the three hundred head we were driving stampeded. One of the fellas got caught in front and couldn’t get out of the way. His horse went down and we lost him then and there. The rest of us managed to make it to a draw where we forted up.”

  “What about that stampedin’ stock?”

  “We let it stampede,” Frank said. “Figured it was more important to save our hair first.”

  Jack nodded. “Reckon that makes sense. Them Injuns charge you?”

  “Six or seven times,” Frank said. “We lost another man and had a couple wounded, but they lost a dozen or more and finally decided that it was going to cost them too much to roust us out of there. So they took half a dozen of the cows and rode off.”

  Jack swiped a match into life on the seat of his pants and held it to the tip of his cigarette. When he had it going, he said, “So they killed two o’ you cowboys and lost a dozen o’ their own men, all for six cows?”

  “That’s right,” Frank said. “They were kind of scrawny critters, too.”

  “Now tell me how in the hell six cows is worth all that killin’ and dyin’?”

  “They’re not. What was worth the killing and dying to them was the fact that we were there to start with, and they didn’t want us there.”

  “And how about to you and the fellas with you?”

  “We were young and stupid,” Frank said. “That was enough.”

  “What’d you do, bury the boys you lost and then round up the cows and go on?”

  “That’s exactly what we did. That’s what we were being paid to do.”

  A companionable silence fell on the porch. Both of these men could have told dozens of similar stories, tales of death and sacrifice, often for no good reason, or at least no reason that would have made sense to anyone who hadn’t been there. He and Jack were fast becoming relics, Frank thought. They had been to see the elephant, but these days, most folks didn’t even know where the elephant was anymore.

  Frank was just as glad when he heard the rumble of hoofbeats and the creaking of wheels, because those sounds meant that the stagecoach was coming into town. He lowered his boots from the railing and stood up. Jack did, too, although he nearly tipped his chair over in the process.

  “You still expectin’ that lawyer fella on today’s stage?”

  “I haven’t heard any different since that telegram he sent me,” Frank said.

  They walked along the street toward the stage station, and as they approached they could see the cloud of dust boiling up from the hooves of the team and the wheels of the coach as it reached the edge of town. The jehu hauled back on the reins and brought the vehicle to a perfect stop in front of the station. The coach, still painted a fading red and yellow from its days of service with the Butterfield line, swayed back and forth slightly on the broad leather thoroughbraces that ran underneath it.

  Catamount Jack lounged against a hitch rail while Frank planted his feet, squared his shoulders, and waited for the passengers to climb out of the coach. The driver and shotgun guard leaped down from the box, and the guard reached underneath the seat to pull the mail pouch out of the compartment there. A little frown appeared on Frank’s face as the doors of the coach remained closed and no one emerged from it.

  “No passengers this run?” he asked the driver.

  The grizzled jehu laughed. “Oh, there’s a passenger in there, all right. I reckon he’s feelin’ a mite poorly, though. Didn’t take to all the bouncin’ on the trail. Had to hang his head out the window a few times between here and Carson City.”

  Frank walked over to the coach and grasped the handle on one of the doors. He twisted it and pulled the door open. Slumped on the forward-facing seat inside the coach was a man in a dusty brown suit and hat. “Mr. Turnbuckle?” Frank said.

  The passenger groaned and turned a pasty, washed-out face toward the sound of Frank’s voice. He was much younger than Frank expected, with spectacles on his nose and a thatch of sandy hair under the expensive hat.

  Frank leaned toward him. “You need a hand?”

  “I…I need…” The man groaned again and closed his eyes.

  Frank turned and motioned to his deputy. “Give me a hand here, Jack. Mr. Turnbuckle doesn’t appear to f
eel too good.”

  They reached into the coach, got hold of the new arrival, and helped him out onto the street. Frank tried to be careful about it, but there was no way to avoid some jostling. Still, Turnbuckle seemed to feel a little better once he got his feet back on solid ground. He leaned against the hitch rail, took off his hat, and used a bandanna he pulled from his pocket to mop his sweat-drenched face.

  “That’s the worst ordeal I’ve ever endured,” he announced. His voice was still weak. “Every bone in my body aches, and I think all my teeth have been shaken loose.”

  “Yeah, that stagecoach road’s a mite rough, all right,” Jack said. “You’ll get used to it, I reckon.”

  Turnbuckle shook his head. “No. Not in a million years.”

  Worry had begun to gnaw at Frank. Not only was this fella younger than he’d expected, but he didn’t strike Frank as the sort of man who would be a famous, high-powered lawyer either. Of course, lawyering was sort of like being a gunfighter, he reminded himself. The only thing that really counted was the result of a showdown, whether it was in the middle of a dusty street at high noon or in a courtroom.

  “Listen, you are Claudius Turnbuckle, aren’t you?” he asked. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake, not with the future of his friend Tip Woodford perhaps on the line.

  “I’m…I’m…” The young man took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and nodded. “Yes. I’m Claudius Turnbuckle.”

  Frank grasped Turnbuckle’s limp hand and shook it, saying, “I’m Frank Morgan. I’m the fella who sent for you, Mr. Turnbuckle, but in this case, I’m not your client. If you’ll come with me, I’ll introduce you to him.” Frank added to the deputy, “Jack, can you see about getting Mr. Turnbuckle checked into the hotel and have his bags taken over there?”

  Jack nodded. “Sure. Don’t worry about a thing, Marshal.”

  Frank took hold of Turnbuckle’s arm and steered the lawyer’s unsteady steps toward the office of the Lucky Lizard Mining Company. Earlier in the day he had told Tip Woodford that he expected Turnbuckle to arrive on today’s stage, and Tip had promised to stay around town rather than riding out to the mine as he usually did. Frank wanted to get the two of them together as soon as possible so that they could start working out their strategy for the court case.

  “I told you in my telegram that this business concerns a mining claim,” Frank said, “but not one that belongs to the Browning Mining Syndicate. It’s the Lucky Lizard Mine. My friend Thomas Woodford owns it, and his claim to it is under attack from an hombre I suspect is a crook of some sort.”

  “Lucky Lizard,” Turnbuckle muttered. The man still seemed a mite disoriented, Frank thought.

  “That’s right. Tip’s office is right up here, and he can tell you all about it. That’s what they called Woodford.”

  Turnbuckle scrubbed a hand over his face. “Let me get this straight. You want me to help a man…who owns a rival mine?”

  “I reckon there’s plenty of silver in these mountains for all of us,” Frank said with a smile.

  “That’s…an unusual attitude…in business.”

  “My son Conrad would agree with you. He’d heard rumors that there was a potential problem with one of the mining claims in this area and came up here to make sure it wasn’t the Crown Royal. That’s the Browning mine.”

  Turnbuckle nodded. “Yes, I know.”

  “Anyway, when he found out that the trouble didn’t have anything to do with our mine, he thought we ought to just stay out of it.”

  “That seems like a sound business decision.”

  “Problem is, I’m not much of a businessman and never have been,” Frank said. “But I am Tip Woodford’s friend, and I wasn’t going to let him face this alone. Anyway, I’ve run across skunks like this hombre Brighton before. If he gets away with stealing the Lucky Lizard out from under Tip, he’s liable to get greedy and go after one of the other mines next. And it might be the Crown Royal he sets his sights on.”

  “You want to stop him now, before he can try to hurt anyone else,” Turnbuckle muttered.

  “You don’t stand around watching a rattlesnake to see if he’s going to strike at somebody before you shoot him. You know he’s going to sooner or later, and then an innocent person is going to get hurt.”

  The lawyer shrugged. “I don’t suppose I can argue with that.”

  Something else occurred to Frank. “You want a drink or maybe a cup of coffee, or something to eat, before you talk to Tip?”

  A shudder ran through Turnbuckle. “Perhaps some coffee later on. But right now…nothing.”

  “All right. Here’s the Lucky Lizard office.”

  They stepped onto the porch in front of the office and Frank opened the door. He ushered Turnbuckle inside. There were two desks in the office. Tip sat at one of them, Diana at the other. Both of them stood up as Frank and Turnbuckle entered.

  “Here he is,” Frank said. “The famous Claudius Turnbuckle.”

  Woodford and Diana looked surprised, and Frank knew what they were thinking. They had been expecting an older, more impressive individual than the man who had gotten off the stage. But Tip cleared his throat and came around the desk to extend his hand to the newcomer.

  “Welcome to Buckskin, Mr. Turnbuckle,” he said. “Frank here tells me you’re one of the best lawyers west o’ the Mississippi.” He pumped Turnbuckle’s hand and went on. “You’ll need to be, because that fella Brighton is smart and dangerous. Reckon it’ll take all your legal expertise to give him his comeuppance.”

  Turnbuckle gave a weak nod. “Tell me all about it, Mr. Woodford.”

  Chapter 11

  What the hell do you think you’re doing?

  A shrill voice screamed those words in the back of Luther Galloway’s brain. It wasn’t bad enough that he hadn’t corrected Frank Morgan’s mistake when Morgan took him for Mr. Turnbuckle. Now he was allowing the ridiculous charade to continue, even to the point of sitting down to discuss the case with the man on whose behalf Morgan had summoned him.

  The problem was that he had felt so bad when the stage arrived in Buckskin, had been so sick and disoriented, that he wasn’t even fully aware of what was going on at first. Then, Morgan had shaken his hand and seemed to be so glad to see him, and no one had really acted that way around Luther before, certainly not a man as famous as Frank Morgan…

  For God’s sake, Luther had read dime novels about this man! And Morgan was welcoming him…

  Surely it wouldn’t hurt anything if he waited a few minutes to correct Morgan’s mistake, Luther had thought. Surely not. After everything he had gone through to get here…the terrible violence on the train, then the hellish bouncing and swaying of the stagecoach, not to mention the choking dust…after all that misery he deserved something, he decided, and the scorn that Morgan would surely heap on a lowly law clerk wasn’t it.

  Even so, he had intended to tell Morgan who he really was while they were walking down the street to the offices of the Lucky Lizard Mine. But then Morgan had begun telling him about the case and despite the fact that he still felt terrible, Luther found himself getting interested. The idea that a man would summon his own lawyer to assist a business rival seemed quite odd to Luther, but clearly Frank Morgan was not the sort of man they usually dealt with in San Francisco. He had a power about him, a compelling way of speaking and carrying himself, and Luther didn’t want to disappoint him.

  Of course, it was impossible for him to continue this masquerade for much longer. He would have to tell Morgan the truth, along with this man Woodford and his daughter.

  But he could at least listen to the details of the case first and perhaps give them some advice. He had studied law, after all, even if he hadn’t been able to pass the bar examination so far, and he had spent two years working for Mr. Turnbuckle and Mr. Stafford, two of the keenest legal minds in the country.

  “Here’s the story,” Tip Woodford said as they all sat down. “This fella Dex Brighton showed up in Buckskin a while back an
d said that he was the rightful owner of my mine. He said that his pa and the fella I bought the claim from were partners and they had an agreement sayin’ they could only sell out to each other, not to anybody else.”

  Woodford continued with the explanation until Luther felt that he had the whole thing straight in his mind. When Woodford paused, he asked what seemed to him to be the most logical question.

  “Have you actually seen this so-called partnership agreement?”

  Woodford shook his head. “Brighton’s playin’ his cards close to the vest. He won’t show anybody the document. Says he’ll produce it for the judge, but not until then.”

  “That’s his right, although I might be able to file a motion as soon as the judge gets here compelling Brighton to produce his evidence. Litigants in a civil suit have more leeway about such things than, say, the prosecution in a criminal proceeding, but still, the judge might see things our way.”

  What was he saying? He was talking as if he were going to proceed with the case! That was completely out of the question. He lacked the experience for such a thing, not to mention the fact that representing himself as an attorney was fraudulent. He would be risking not only Woodford’s case, but his own future as an attorney. He would never be admitted to the bar if his deception was discovered.

  But what if he won the case? The question prodded his mind. If he won the case, disposed of Brighton’s claim, and went back to San Francisco, the people in this frontier town might never know the difference. It was possible that someone would hear later about Turnbuckle’s death, but if they read that he was killed during a train robbery, they would probably think that it happened while he was returning to San Francisco, not on the way to Buckskin.

  “Do you really think you can win?” Diana Woodford asked.