Slaughter Read online

  “She didn’t hire me,” Frank cut in. “Not unless you count a good meal as the only pay I’ll get. Seems to me like she’s in a bad fix here, and I’d like to help out.”

  “Out of the goodness of your heart?” Linderman’s tone made it clear how unlikely he believed that to be.

  “Because I don’t like to see a woman being taken advantage of. And to tell you the truth, because I didn’t much cotton to Victor Magnusson.”

  Linderman grunted in agreement. “Yeah, he rubs me the wrong way, too.” He studied Frank for a moment. “So now we’ve got a gunfighter on our side.”

  “I’m going to poke around and see what I can find out about your troubles.” Frank didn’t mention his connection with Stafford. If Dolores wanted her men to know about that, she could tell them.

  “You won’t have to poke very much. Magnusson’s to blame for all of it, him and those other wildcatters. But mostly Magnusson.”

  “If I can get proof of that, the sheriff will have to act.”

  Linderman gave a disgusted snort. “The sheriff’s in Magnusson’s hip pocket. Those oilmen are bringin’ a lot of money into this area. The authorities aren’t gonna go against ’em.”

  “With enough proof, they won’t have any choice.”

  Linderman looked like he would believe that when he saw it with his own eyes, and not before.

  Frank went on. “It would sure make things easier if I could count on you and the rest of the crew not to interfere with what I’m doing, Linderman.”

  The foreman shook his head. “I make no promises except this one, Morgan—I’ll steer clear of you, and I’ll tell the rest of the boys to steer clear of you. But I can’t guarantee that they’ll listen to me, especially Jeff. He and Lonnie were pards for a long time, ever since they were kids.”

  “Then he ought to know how Lonnie was.”

  “Knowin’ and carin’ are two different things,” Linderman said with a shrug. “Like I said, I’ll do what I can . . . but you’d better keep an eye on your back trail, Morgan.”

  “I always do,” Frank said.

  He rode out a few minutes later, after explaining to Linderman about the meeting that would be held there at Salida del Sol that evening. The foreman was still unfriendly, but he promised that he would see to it the other ranchers in the valley got the word.

  As he rode back through the valley, Frank became aware of the unnatural smells and noises that filled the air. A constant scent of brimstone lingered, and the clanking and clattering and rumble of engines sounded, instead of the lowing of cattle and the songs of birds and the rustling of small animals in the brush.

  Dog looked up at Frank and whined softly as he padded along. “I know, Dog,” Frank told the big cur. “Things sure as hell aren’t like they used to be around here. This was a mighty pretty place ten years ago, and before that, too, of course.” He shook his head. “But once things change, they hardly ever go back to the way they used to be. You can mourn the past, but you can’t change it.”

  Dog just whined again.

  “I know,” Frank said with a laugh. “You didn’t ask for any homespun philosophy, did you?”

  Things were even worse on the other side of the Santa Monicas, because there were more drilling rigs in Los Angeles proper. Seemed like everybody’s front yard or backyard had one of the tall wooden derricks in it. They were about to crowd out the homes and businesses on some streets. The racket was hellish, and so was the smell.

  “How do you stand it?” he asked the hostler when he reached the livery stable behind the hotel and began unsaddling Stormy.

  “The smell, you mean?”

  “That and the noise.”

  “That’s the smell o’ money, mister,” the man said. “And the noise might as well be coins bein’ minted.”

  Frank put his saddle on a stand and shook his head. “Folks are willing to put up with a whole lot just for money.”

  “Story o’ the world, ain’t it?”

  “I reckon.” Frank told Dog to stay and then headed for the hotel.

  The same clerk was on duty behind the desk who had been there the previous afternoon, but this time when Frank asked him if Mr. Stafford was in, the man responded politely and a little nervously, “Yes, sir, Mr. Morgan. I believe I saw him go into the bar a short time ago, sir.”

  “Thanks,” Frank said with a nod.

  “Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Morgan?”

  “No, I don’t reckon there is.” Obviously, someone had filled the clerk in on Frank’s reputation. He was probably worried that a gunfight would break out right there in the lobby.

  It might liven things up a mite at that, Frank thought with a wry smile as he walked into the barroom.

  He spotted John J. Stafford sitting at a table in the corner and started in that direction. Stafford saw him at the same time and lifted a hand in greeting. The lawyer had a glass in front of him full of what appeared to be the same stuff he had been drinking the day before. It was a little early in the day for cognac, Frank thought, but to each his own.

  “Are you about to ride out to the Montero ranch?” Stafford asked as Frank pulled back a chair and sat down at the table.

  Frank shook his head. “Nope. Already been there.”

  “Already? You must have started very early.”

  “I’ve never been one for burning daylight,” Frank said. “Everything you told me was right. The ranchers out in the valley seem to be in a bad way, what with those oil wells crowding in all around them.”

  Stafford leaned closer to him and frowned in the somewhat dim light of the barroom. “Is that a bruise I see on your face?”

  Frank chuckled. “I wouldn’t be surprised. I had a little run-in with some of Victor Magnusson’s drillers. A while later, I met the man himself. It wasn’t a very friendly meeting.”

  “My God, what happened? Were you injured?”

  “Nothing to speak of, just a few bumps and bruises, like the one you noticed. I got in a ruckus with a fella named Hatch.”

  “Good Lord! Hatch is a monster! And you fought him with your fists? Why didn’t you just—”

  “Shoot him?” Frank finished when Stafford’s question came to an abrupt halt. “As far as I could see, he was unarmed. Gunning him down would have been murder.”

  Stafford took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead where beads of sweat had broken out. “I meant no offense, Mr. Morgan,” he said. “It’s just that Hatch is considerably larger than you, and he’s beaten men within an inch of their lives on several occasions.”

  “I was able to whittle him down to size,” Frank said.

  “And what about Magnusson? You said that you met him, too?”

  “He came out to Salida del Sol while I was there. He was looking for me, in fact. He’d heard about my ruckus with Hatch and figured that I worked for Señora Montero. She set him straight on that.”

  “You weren’t able to get a job on the Montero ranch, as you planned?”

  Frank shook his head. “That idea sort of blew up in my face. They found out who I am.” He explained about Lonnie and Jeff and everything that had happened the day before. He concluded, “I think Señora Montero was sort of intrigued by the idea of hiring a fast gun to deal with Magnusson, but in the end she wouldn’t do it . . . not that I would have hired on to kill him anyway.” Frank paused. “By the way, you didn’t tell me that the señora was so much younger than her late husband.”

  “Nor that she was so attractive,” Stafford said with a smirk on his face. “She’s a lovely woman.”

  “And you’re old enough to be her father, too,” Frank pointed out.

  “Yes, ah, ah, of course,” the lawyer said. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “Never mind,” Frank said. “Señora Montero’s looks don’t have anything to do with her problems. I persuaded her to let me help her anyway, even though she didn’t hire me. I told her about my connection with you.”

  Stafford nodded. “Good,
good. Might as well put our cards on the table, I suppose, since your original idea didn’t work out. What are you going to do now?”

  “First thing is to have a meeting with all the other ranchers,” Frank said. “They’re going to be at Salida del Sol this evening, unless the señora lets me know different. I want to talk to all of them and get a better sense of everything that’s going on in the valley.”

  “That sounds like a fine idea. Should I attend this meeting with you?”

  Frank nodded. “That probably wouldn’t hurt. You represent most of them, don’t you?”

  “All of them except Edwin Northam.”

  “They might be more inclined to trust me if their own attorney is there vouching for me. Can you be ready to go in a couple of hours?”

  “Of course.”

  Frank nodded and pushed himself to his feet. “Your buggy’s in the stable behind the hotel?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll see you over there then in two hours.”

  “What are you going to do in the meantime?”

  Frank glanced down at his oil-stained jeans. “Figured I’d clean up a mite and see if there’s a laundry around here that can get these stains out. I got them wrestling around with Hatch.”

  Stafford shook his head and said, “I still can’t believe you were able to defeat that brute in hand-to-hand combat.”

  Frank rubbed his jaw. “Well, it’s not a waltz I’d care to repeat any time soon,” he said.

  Chapter 12

  Stafford was waiting at the livery stable when Frank got there a couple of hours later. He was wearing clean trousers, and had left the oil-stained jeans at a laundry down the street, where the pigtailed proprietor had promised that he could get the stains out.

  The lawyer was already sitting in his buggy, ready to go. Dog sat a few yards away with his tongue lolling out, and Stafford eyed the big cur warily.

  “The hostler tells me that animal belongs to you,” he said to Frank. “Is that true?”

  “He and I are old trail pards, all right,” Frank replied with a smile and a nod.

  “Is he safe? Does he bite?”

  “Only folks who need bitin’.”

  Stafford swallowed hard. “Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep him away from me. I don’t like dogs.”

  That put a frown on Frank’s face. He had a tendency not to trust people who didn’t like dogs. On the other hand, he knew that Dog did look a lot like a wolf, and those sharp fangs of his could be frightening when he bared them in a snarl.

  “He won’t bother you,” Frank told Stafford. “I’ll see to that.”

  “Thank you.” The lawyer paused. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Soon as I saddle up.”

  Frank put his saddle on Goldy this time, since he had ridden Stormy out to the Montero ranch that morning. When he had agreed to take Goldy after the stallion’s former owner had died trying to gun down Frank, he hadn’t been sure about having two horses.

  But being able to swap them had worked well so far, and kept both mounts from getting too played out. That meant it would be longer before Frank had to make the painful decision to put Stormy out to pasture.

  Some people might say that he was getting old enough to be put out to pasture, Frank thought with a wry grin to himself as he tightened the cinches around Goldy’s middle.

  That likely wouldn’t ever happen, he told himself as his expression grew more solemn. When the time came for him to be put out to pasture, it would be with a bullet or two—or half a dozen—in his carcass.

  He rode out a short time later with Stafford rolling alongside him in the buggy. Goldy wanted to run, but Frank held him in so that they wouldn’t outdistance the vehicle. The stallion didn’t like it, but he cooperated.

  As usual, Dog bounded on ahead, ran off to the sides of the trail, circled around, and generally had a fine old time flushing birds and small animals from the brush.

  The small group made it through the pass over the Santa Monicas by dusk, and started down into the San Fernando Valley as night began to settle over the landscape. Frank knew they wouldn’t have any trouble following the road even after it got dark.

  Dots of yellow light were scattered through the canyons and across the broad floor of the valley like stars tumbled from heaven. They marked the locations of the oil rigs, Frank realized. Even with night falling, the drilling continued. It probably went on twenty-four hours a day, he thought.

  Hundreds of feet below the earth, where the metal drill bits gouged deeper and deeper through dirt and rock, night and day had no meaning.

  They were about a mile away from Salida del Sol, Frank estimated, when orange flame suddenly spurted from some rocks to the right of the road. At the same instant, a shot crashed out. Frank felt the hot wind of a bullet fanning his cheek.

  The Colt on his hip seemed to spring into his hand of its own volition. As he leveled the gun on the spot where he’d seen the muzzle flash, he shouted at Stafford, “Go on, get out of here!”

  Then the revolver in Frank’s hand roared twice. He didn’t think he would hit the bushwhacker unless it was by a stroke of luck, but he hoped to come close enough with the shots to make the varmint duck.

  Stafford slashed at his team with the reins and sent the two horses lunging ahead. The buggy careened down the road after them.

  Frank sent Goldy lunging around the rocks and called, “Dog! Hunt!”

  The big cur was a gray streak in the gathering gloom. He disappeared among the rocks as Frank circled them in an attempt to get behind the bushwhacker.

  He had recognized the sound of the first shot as the whipcrack of a Winchester. A rifle wasn’t the best weapon for close work, as the man would find out if Dog cornered him.

  That seemed to be what was happening. Frank heard two more shots and then a man screamed. He pulled Goldy to a halt and swung down from the saddle before the stallion stopped moving. Gun in hand, Frank charged into the cluster of boulders, following the screams and Dog’s ferocious snarls.

  Dog let out an abrupt yelp of pain. Concern for his old friend surged through Frank. He didn’t have long to worry, though, because the next second a dark shape loomed up in front of him. The faint red glow left in the western sky by the sunset glinted off the barrel of a Winchester as it swung toward him.

  Both weapons roared at the same instant. Frank heard the wind-rip of a slug’s passage beside his ear, then the high-pitched whine as it ricocheted off one of the boulders behind him.

  The bushwhacker went over backward, driven off his feet by the impact of Frank’s bullet. The rifle clattered among the rocks as it slipped out of the man’s hands.

  Frank hurried forward, intent on making sure the wounded man didn’t try to pull a six-gun, but before he could reach the fallen bushwhacker, Dog appeared again, leaping at the man with fangs slashing and snapping. Frank was glad to see that the big cur was still alive, but he called him off anyway.

  “Dog! Back!”

  Dog backed away from the bushwhacker, who gurgled once and then lay still and silent. Even in the dim light, Frank could see the dark stain that had flooded down below the man’s throat. He grimaced. Dog had finished off the bushwhacker, tearing out his throat.

  Just to make sure, though, Frank fished a match out of his shirt pocket with his left hand while he kept the Colt ready in his right. He snapped the lucifer to life with his thumbnail, fully expecting that the yellow glow from the match would wash over the face of Jeff, the young cowboy from the Montero ranch.

  Instead, the harsh glare revealed the hard, unshaven features of a man Frank had never seen before.

  A frown creased Frank’s forehead as he leaned closer and studied the bushwhacker’s face. The varmint was dead, all right, no doubt about that. If Dog hadn’t killed him, Frank’s bullet would have, because there was a neat, black-rimmed hole in the man’s breast pocket, right beside the hanging tag from his tobacco pouch. Frank had drilled him through the heart.

&n
bsp; Straightening, Frank shook out the match and dropped it. He muttered to himself in disgust as he went over to Dog. If the dead man had turned out to be Jeff, Frank would have understood.

  He wouldn’t have liked it, because if he had killed Jeff as well as Lonnie, then there was no way anyone on Salida del Sol would ever trust him or cooperate with him. But he would have understood the motive behind the ambush.

  Also, it made sense that Jeff could have found out Frank was returning to the ranch this evening and lain in wait for him in these boulders beside the road. It was a spot ready-made for a bushwhack killing.

  But the fact that a stranger had tried to gun him down made for a puzzle in Frank’s mind—and he didn’t like puzzles.

  Kneeling next to Dog, Frank holstered his gun and ran his hands over the big cur, searching for wounds. All he found was a sticky lump on Dog’s head, between the ears.

  “Walloped you with that rifle butt, didn’t he, old fella?” Frank asked. “He couldn’t dent that thick skull of yours, but he knocked you silly for a minute. Then he practically ran right into me while he was trying to get away.” Frank sighed. “And we can’t even ask him who he was or why he tried to ventilate me.”

  Satisfied that Dog was all right, Frank stood up and went back to the body. It was possible the man was a member of Dolores Montero’s crew that Frank hadn’t seen on his earlier visit to the ranch, but the man didn’t really look like a cowboy, he decided as he struck another match and took a look at the man’s clothes.

  The jeans and work shirt could have belonged to a ranch hand, but the lace-up boots on the man’s feet looked like those of an oil driller. A battered Stetson lay on the ground next to him, though, where it had landed when the man fell.

  Frank hadn’t seen that many drillers in his life, but none of them had ever worn a hat like that, he thought. Having never seen the fella before and being unable to draw any firm conclusions from his clothes, Frank decided that the best thing to do would be to take the corpse to the meeting with him and see if anyone there recognized him.

  That could open up a can of worms if the man worked for one of the other ranchers in the valley . . .