Dead Man's Gold

Book 3: Loner

by J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

The son of legendary gunfighter Frank Morgan, The Loner is fast with his fists, faster with a gun, and haunted by the demons of his past. . . The Way Of The West With his wife's killers dead and buried, Conrad Morgan--known as The Loner--is on his way to Mexico for some peace and quiet. But on the way he's sidetracked by some intriguing travelers who are hunting down a valuable golden artifact. They're not the only ones who want to get a hold of the treasure. A running gun battle with some killers lands The Loner and his cohorts in the Jornada del Muerto--a hellish, waterless wasteland in New Mexico Territory. And now it's up to The Loner to get himself and his new friends out of this arid stretch of land before they perish from thirst. . .or lead poisoning.. . .

Release date: September 26, 2009

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 218

Sample

A castle outside Seville, Spain, 1668

Albrecht Konigsberg tried not to think about the fact that the torturers would be coming for him soon. He might have prayed, except that the men who were about to kill him considered themselves to be doing the Lord’s work. If they were right, then God would not listen to his prayers anyway, because he was a heretic.

Even knowing that, Konigsberg slipped to his knees beside the bed in his cell and sent a prayer heavenward, asking for deliverance.

He was still kneeling there when footsteps began to echo in the long corridor leading through the vast underground dungeon.

A bitter laugh came from Konigsberg’s lips. So much for his prayers being answered. He hadn’t expected anything else, really. He was a German, he was a Jew, and he was a man of science, rumored to be a descendant of the great astronomer Regiomontanus. To these Spaniards, any one of those things might have been enough to condemn him. Taken together, they were damning beyond redemption.

He stood up and faced the cell door. He would not force them to drag him out like a coward. He would go to meet the inquisitors on his feet. He would die a man, even though he was a heretic in their eyes.

But when a key rattled in the lock and the door swung open, it wasn’t the priests or the torturers who stood there. It was one of the guards, a man named Alphonso.

“German!” he said. “I would have a word with you.”

“What do you want, Alphonso?” Konigsberg asked. “I have nothing with which to bribe you. The Church has taken everything I own.”

The guard came closer and tilted his head to one side. Greed lit up the eyes in his brutal face. “It is rumored that you know a secret…a secret that is very valuable.”

“I know nothing,” Konigsberg replied with a shake of his head. “If I did, would I not try to trade it for my life?”

“I will help you escape, if you take me to the treasure,” Alphonso went on, as if he hadn’t heard a word that Konigsberg said.

“Are you not listening to me? I know no secret! I know nothing of any treasure!”

Alphonso smiled and pointed a blunt, dirty finger toward the stone ceiling. It was a moment before Konigsberg realized that the guard was really pointing toward the heavens.

“The Twelve Pearls,” Alphonso said.

Konigsberg’s breath hissed between his teeth. He had to restrain himself from leaping forward, grabbing the guard’s tunic, and shaking him. “What do you know of the Twelve Pearls?”

“I know that you know their secret.”

Konigsberg never would have thought of it that way. No wonder he hadn’t realized what Alphonso was talking about. The guards must have gossiped among themselves, taking a thing that had only scientific importance, and inflating it until it was supposed to be the key to some sort of fabulously valuable treasure.

Sensing that this would be his only chance for freedom, for life itself, Konigsberg put a sly smile on his face and said, “What if I do know the secret of the Twelve Pearls?”

“Is it worth your life?” Alphonso demanded. “The torturers will be here soon.” The guard lifted his ring of keys and jingled them. “But I can let you out. You’ll be gone when they get here.”

Suddenly, Konigsberg worried that this was a trick of some sort. A test for the heretic.

“What about you?” he asked. “They’ll know you did it. They’ll torture and execute you in my place.”

Alphonso shook his head. “No, I’m leaving with you. They’re not watching your cottage anymore. Take me there and give me the secret, and then we will go our separate ways.” He paused. “I have a cousin, the master of a ship sailing tomorrow for the New World. I intend to be on that ship. With the wealth that you will give me, I will be an important man in New Spain!”

The fool. The utter fool. But like most poor men, he had a dream, and that dream told him that if he could do one certain thing, achieve one certain end, then he would be rich and all his problems would be solved. It didn’t matter what that thing was; it was probably different in every dream.

And like all dreams, it never came true.

“All right,” Konigsberg said. He had nothing to lose. “But let us go quickly.”

Alphonso nodded eagerly. He led the prisoner out into the corridor and then locked the cell door behind them. When the torturers arrived and found the cell locked and empty, they would be puzzled, until they figured out that Alphonso was gone, too. Then they would understand, and they would come looking for the guard.

As Alphonso led Konigsberg through the rat’s warren of passages underneath the castle, he said quietly, “I heard the priests talking about how they searched your cottage, German. They found nothing save some journals. You hid the secret of the Twelve Pearls well, I think.” Alphonso laughed. “Are they real pearls, German?”

“You’ll see,” Konigsberg said.

But you won’t understand.

They came to a narrow flight of stairs, dimly lit by a candle in a wall sconce. When they reached the top, Alphonso unlocked another door and led the way into a chapel. It was a small room, but richly furnished. Konigsberg saw a golden candlestick inlaid with gems that had to be worth a small fortune. There were other things there in the castle that were equally valuable, but Alphonso would never dream of stealing them, because they belonged to the Church.

He wouldn’t hesitate to steal from a German Jew, though. That was entirely different.

Konigsberg had no doubt that Alphonso planned to kill him as soon as he had turned over the secret of the Twelve Pearls. Then he would flee to the harbor at Cadiz and his cousin’s ship bound for the New World.

As they went past the table where the candlestick sat, Konigsberg snatched it up.

“Here now!” Alphonso said. “You can’t take that! It belongs to the Church!”

Konigsberg’s lips curled in a snarl. “I’m a heretic, remember? I need something to pay my way, to help me escape.” And to recompense him for the tortures he had already suffered, he thought. A shudder ran through him as he remembered the pain that had been inflicted on him in numerous sessions.

Alphonso hesitated, then shrugged. “Your immortal soul is damned anyway, I suppose. Come!”

They reached a small door leading out of the castle’s rear wall. The guard unlocked it, and the two men stole into the night. No one had seen them. They had made their escape, and Konigsberg breathed deeply of free air once again. It smelled wonderful.

Alphonso’s hand closed around his arm. “Now, take me to your cottage,” he ordered. His other hand caressed the handle of the knife at his hip. “Give me the secret of the Twelve Pearls.”

“Of course. A bargain is a bargain.”

Konigsberg’s cottage was on top of a hill, well outside the city. He had settled there for a reason. The view of the night sky was unobstructed. He remembered all the pleasant hours he had spent with his telescope in front of the little, thatched-roof cottage.

He wondered how the view of the stars would be from the New World. Perhaps he would find out. Alphonso had planted that idea in his mind, and with luck, it would take root and grow.

They reached the cottage an hour later. The door hung crookedly from its hinges where the men who worked for the inquisitors had wrenched it open. A goat came trotting out as Konigsberg and Alphonso walked up. It bleated at them and ran off. Konigsberg knew the inside of the place was probably unfit to live in now, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t plan to stay there.

“The books that the priests found,” he said to Alphonso. “What did they do with them? Did they burn them?”

“Of course! They were sinful, the work of a heretic.”

Konigsberg laughed. He reached down to the stone in front of the door. “Help me pry this up.”

“What?”

“The secret lies underneath it.”

That was enough for Alphonso. He bent down, and his strong back and arms did most of the work as the two men pried up the stone, revealing a small cavity underneath. Konigsberg went to his knees—so oddly like prayer, he thought—and reached into the dark hole. He brought out a small wooden chest. Inside it, wrapped in oilcloth, was the only truly important book he had. The other journals he had left lying around on purpose, so that if the priests ever searched the cottage they would have something to find and destroy in a fury of self-righteousness. Now, Konigsberg clutched the box and its precious contents to his chest.

“Is that the treasure?” Alphonso asked eagerly.

“No, that’s still in the hiding place,” Konigsberg said. “You can get it if you’d like.”

Instantly, Alphonso was on his knees beside the hole. He bent over and reached down into the cavity.

Konigsberg picked up the candlestick he had set aside and brought it crashing down with stunning force on the back of Alphonso’s head. The unexpected blow drove the guard to the ground with a grunt of pain and surprise. Konigsberg struck again before his victim could regain his senses. The candlestick was heavy, especially its base. He smashed it down on Alphonso’s head again and again and again, until the man’s skull had been beaten into a shape that didn’t resemble anything human. Blood and brains leaked into the hole that had hidden the secret of the Twelve Pearls.

Konigsberg straightened from his work. Earlier tonight, he had been prepared to die. Now, through a miracle—divine intervention?—he was not only free, at least for the moment, but he had recovered his life’s work.

The inquisitors and their torturers would try to find him, he knew. Every hand would be against him. But he would cling to his freedom as long as he possibly could, and perhaps where one miracle had occurred, so could another. He would make his way to Cadiz, find that ship, tell Alphonso’s cousin that Alphonso had sent him…If word of his escape and Alphonso’s death had not yet reached the port…if the ship sailed in time…

Well, in that case, Konigsberg thought as he hurried through the night, the box in one hand and the candlestick in the other, then he would know that every now and then, God heard the prayers of a so-called heretic after all.

God…or possibly the Devil…

New Mexico Territory, 229 years later

The man who called himself Kid Morgan reined the buckskin to a halt as he topped a ridge dotted with gnarled mesquites and clumps of hardy grass. This was a dry, rugged land, inhospitable to men and animals and hard on vegetation.

The Kid leaned forward in the saddle and watched as a wagon raced from right to left across the flats in front of him. A couple of hundred yards back, three men on horseback galloped after the vehicle, steadily gaining on it.

The Kid’s eyes narrowed. The riders weren’t shooting at the wagon, just chasing it. He didn’t know what was going on, and these days he made it a policy to mind his own business. Over the past year, he had experienced quite a bit of tragedy and strife in his life, and now he wanted nothing but to be left alone. To drift aimlessly, not caring about anything. He wasn’t looking for trouble.

Although a person wouldn’t know that to look at him. The walnut grips of the Colt .45 holstered on his right hip showed signs of considerable use. Saddle sheaths were strapped to both sides of the buckskin’s rig; the stock of a Winchester repeater stuck up from one of them, while an old Sharps Big Fifty was snugged in the other one. In addition to the three guns, The Kid carried a Bowie knife in a sheath attached to his belt on the left side, angled slightly so that he could reach across his body and draw it in a hurry if he needed to.

Yeah, he was armed for trouble, and the eyes under the shade of the broad-brimmed brown hat were keen, always watchful for any signs of danger. But just because he was alert didn’t mean he was going to go rushing blindly into every ruckus that came his way.

He kept telling himself that, anyway.

The wagon was just about even with him. Two men swayed back and forth on the driver’s seat as the vehicle careened along. The terrain looked absolutely flat from up there on the ridge, but The Kid knew that it was rougher than it appeared when you were actually down there driving a wagon over it. The man handling the reins lashed at the rumps of the team with the trailing ends of the lines, trying to urge the horses on to greater speed.

He might as well give up, thought The Kid. That wagon wasn’t going to be able to get away from men on horseback. It just wasn’t fast enough.

The pursuers still hadn’t opened fire. Evidently they just wanted to overhaul the wagon and stop it. The Kid had no idea why. None of his affair, he told himself again. He lifted the buckskin’s reins, poised to turn the horse away and ride back down the far side of the ridge when the wagon jolted particularly hard over a rough spot, and the driver’s hat flew off.

Long red hair that was bright in the sunlight spilled down the figure’s back.

“Well, hell,” The Kid said softly.

So that was a woman at the reins, he thought…although it might be a man with really long hair; it was hard to be sure at this distance. But he knew in his gut it was a woman, just as he knew that now he couldn’t ignore what was going on, couldn’t just turn and ride away.

Couldn’t because the beautiful blond ghost who haunted him wouldn’t want him to.

He reached for the Winchester and pulled it from its sheath. Working the rifle’s lever to throw a bullet into its firing chamber took only a second. Kid Morgan brought the Winchester to his shoulder, nestled his cheek against the smooth wooden stock, and rapidly cranked off three rounds, placing them about halfway between the wagon and the three riders, who had closed to within fifty yards.

Those horsebackers might not hear the shots over the pounding of their mounts’ hoofbeats, but they couldn’t miss the way dirt and rocks sprang into the air where those slugs smacked into the ground in front of them. The Kid knew by the way they reined in so sharply that they had seen the bullets hit. One of the men hauled back on the reins so hard his horse stumbled and went down in a welter of kicking legs. Dust billowed around the fallen man and horse.

The other two men yanked their mounts around and pulled rifles from saddle boots. If they had simply turned and ridden away, The Kid would have let them go. But they clearly wanted to make a fight of it. He heard the sharp crack of shots and then the whine of a bullet passing over his head.

They had called the tune, he thought. Let them dance the dance.

Shooting uphill or downhill, either one, was tricky, which was why the first hurried shots from the riders on the flats were high. The Kid didn’t give them the chance to correct their aim. Rapidly, but without rushing, he fired four shots of his own. One of the men hunched over in the saddle but didn’t fall. The other twisted around and then, as his horse bolted, toppled off the animal’s back. His foot hung in the stirrup, though, so the horse dragged him as it continued to run back the way it had come. His foot didn’t come loose for a couple of hundred yards. When it did, he lay there motionless on the sandy ground.

The wounded man who was still mounted didn’t try to keep the fight going. Instead he turned his horse and kicked it into a run after the one that had dragged off his companion. The Kid’s eyes narrowed as he lowered the Winchester and watched the man flee. He might have been able to hit the hombre again, even at that range, but he didn’t attempt the shot.

Maybe that was a mistake. Letting an enemy go usually was, thought The Kid. But that hombre didn’t know who he was. Besides, the man was wounded and might not live.

The wagon had kept going without slackening speed. It was vanishing in the distance to the east, its location marked by the plume of dust raised by its wheels and the team’s hooves. The Kid glanced in that direction, then clicked his tongue at the buckskin and heeled the horse into motion.

The horse that had fallen had managed to get back to its feet and apparently was unhurt. It was wandering around aimlessly near its former rider, who still lay on the ground. The Kid headed for that man first, because he might be alive and pose a threat. The one who’d been shot and dragged was dead, more than likely.

The Kid held the Winchester ready for instant use as he approached the fallen man. When he was close enough, he brought the buckskin to a stop, dismounted, drew the Colt with his right hand and used the left to slide the rifle back in its saddle sheath. He kept the revolver trained on the man as he walked over to him.

When he was still several yards away, The Kid could see that the man’s head was twisted at an odd angle. He must have landed wrong and broken his neck, The Kid thought. He stepped closer, saw the glassy, lifeless eyes, and knew that the man was dead. The hombre wore range clothes and had a hard-featured, beard-stubbled face. Might have been an outlaw, might not have been. The Kid didn’t know, had never seen the man before. But the other two had been quick to shoot at him, and those hadn’t been warning shots, like the first ones he’d fired. He had no doubt that the trio had been up to no good by chasing the wagon.

A whistle brought the buckskin to The Kid’s side. He mounted up and rode across the flats to check on the other man. As he had thought, that one was dead, too, drilled through the body by one of the slugs from The Kid’s Winchester. A bloody froth drying around the man’s mouth told The Kid that he’d ventilated at least one of the man’s lungs.

This fella had the same hardcase look to him, The Kid noted. He supposed that they’d intended to rob the pilgrims in the wagon.

The buckskin pricked up his ears and tossed his head. That caught The Kid’s attention. He turned to look and saw that the horse was reacting to the approach of the wagon, which was rolling steadily toward him at a much slower pace than it had been making earlier. The people on it realized that they weren’t being chased anymore and had turned around to see what was going on.

Curiosity like that could get folks into trouble, The Kid reflected. It would have been smarter for them just to be thankful that someone had stepped in to help them and keep going.

He hoped they didn’t want to spend a lot of time being grateful. He wasn’t looking for gratitude.

The wagon came to a stop beside the other dead man. The passenger climbed down from the seat and knelt beside the corpse, probably checking to make sure the man was dead.

The Kid put a foot in the stirrup and swung up onto the buckskin. He thought about waving to the people with the wagon and then riding on without talking to them.

The driver hopped to the ground, and strode toward him. Now that The Kid was closer, there was no mistaking the fact that the slender but well-curved figure of the driver belonged to a woman. The long red hair swayed around her face and shoulders in the hot wind that blew across the flats.

The man he had once been had prided himself on being a gentleman. There was enough of that left in Kid Morgan to keep him from turning his back on the woman and riding away. Instead, he hitched the buckskin forward at a walk to meet her.

She moved like a young woman, and as he came closer, he saw that estimation was correct. She was in h. . .