Slaughter

Book 19: Last Gunfighter

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Westerns; Romance; Historical Romance

Synopsis

The towering Last Gunfighter series continues with Slaughter. In the lawless West, Frank Morgan is the type of man you want on your side in a fight. But when he ventures into town—trouble always seems to find him. And now, treachery abounds as oil drillers encroach on local ranches, and violence erupts at every turn.

Release date: March 3, 2009

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

Frank Morgan eased back on the reins and brought the big, golden-hued stallion he was riding to a halt. Behind him, the two horses he was leading came to a stop as well.

The big, wolflike cur that had been loping alongside bounded on ahead, though, darting into the brush in pursuit of some small animal Frank hadn’t seen.

Frank had reined in at the top of a long, twisting ridge that overlooked a broad plain. Behind him was an even broader valley. In the distance to the south and southwest he saw flashes of blue that he knew came from the Pacific Ocean.

“That’s it,” Frank said to the horse. Like most men who spent a lot of time in the saddle, he was in the habit of talking to his mount. “That’s where we’re headed, Goldy. Los Angeles.”

Frank had been there numerous times over the years, beginning when he was a relatively young man and the settlement was little more than a sunbaked pueblo.

Now Frank was a man in advancing middle age, and Los Angeles was a real town. No, more than that, he reflected.

It was a city.

Streets that looked like a maze crisscrossed the valley in front of him. They were lined with houses and with brick business buildings, some of them several stories tall.

Buildings weren’t the only things that had sprouted since Frank was here last. Tall wooden structures jutted up in scores of locations scattered all over the city. They were oil well derricks, and Frank had seen numerous others as he crossed the San Fernando Valley.

Nor were oil wells the only thing multiplying around here. Had to be thousands of people living down there, Frank reflected as he thumbed back the wide-brimmed, high-crowned Stetson he wore. No, more likely tens of thousands, he amended. Just thinking about it was enough to give a man who didn’t like crowds the fantods.

Luckily, Frank was the sort of man who was comfortable wherever he went, from big cities like Chicago and San Francisco and Denver to small frontier settlements such as Buckskin, Nevada, the place he had left a week earlier.

Not that Buckskin was all that small anymore, he reminded himself. It had gone from being a ghost town the first time he saw it to a regular boomtown as the old silver mines located nearby began to produce again.

Frank had spent a pleasant, if somewhat hectic, time as the marshal of Buckskin before coming to the realization that it was time for him to move on again. Years before, someone had dubbed him The Drifter, and the name fit. He’d been fiddle-footed too long to settle down permanent-like.

Besides, the good folks of Buckskin deserved a marshal who didn’t have bloodthirsty varmints trying to kill him all the time.

A rangy, muscular man with a face a little too rugged to be called handsome and dark hair shot through with strands of silver, Frank Morgan had been roaming the West for most of the thirty years or so since the end of the Civil War. He had first made his name as a fast gun in his home state of Texas, and that reputation had followed him ever since, no matter where he drifted.

The days of the Wild West were fading now as the century waned and a new century loomed in only a few more years. The sprawling, modern city that was Los Angeles was proof of that. It had changed a great deal from the raw frontier settlement it had once been.

From time to time, Frank Morgan had tried to change, too, but he’d never been successful at it. He was still the same man he had always been.

A gunfighter.

According to some, the last gunfighter.

He lifted the reins and hitched his horse into motion. “Come on, Stormy,” he said to the rangy gray stallion he was leading along with a packhorse. “Hey, Dog, we’re leaving.”

The big cur known only as Dog emerged from the brush, licking his chops over the critter he’d just dined on. Some unlucky rabbit, Frank thought. Dog fell in alongside Frank and Goldy again as they began making their way down the ridge. The sure-footed Goldy picked his way along the trail with ease.

Frank had come to Los Angeles on business of a sort. No one looking at this rugged rider in worn trail clothes would take him for a rich man, but in truth, Frank had enough wealth to rival all but the biggest mining magnates and railroad tycoons. He had inherited half of the vast Browning financial empire from his late wife Vivian.

Being rich had never interested him all that much, though. As long as he had enough money for supplies and ammunition as he roamed, he was happy. So he had several firms of lawyers in Denver and San Francisco who managed his holdings for him.

He was here in Los Angeles as a favor to one of those attorneys, Claudius Turnbuckle. Turnbuckle had come to Buckskin to help him out there, and when the lawyer had asked Frank to ride down to Los Angeles since he was leaving Buckskin anyway, Frank had agreed.

It seemed that Turnbuckle’s law partner, a man named John J. Stafford, had traveled from San Francisco to southern California to handle a case for one of the firm’s clients, and he had run into considerable trouble there—the sort of trouble that Frank Morgan was uniquely suited to handle.

Gun trouble.

Frank had the name of the hotel where Stafford was staying. That was all he really knew. The lawyer was expecting him, though, and would fill him in on everything when they met.

Frank intended to reserve judgment until then about what he would do. Despite the reputation he had—especially among nervous lawmen who didn’t want shootouts on the streets of their towns—Frank had never hired out his gun. He sometimes helped out folks who needed his help, that was all.

His other killings had been strictly in self-defense. He always tried to turn away the ambitious young gunnies who came after him looking to make a name for themselves. His efforts were seldom successful, though, and then Frank was forced to slap leather to save his own life.

Because even though he didn’t want to kill anybody, he wanted to die even less. That was just common sense.

The residential streets on the outskirts of town were wide and dusty. As Frank rode along them leading the two horses, a couple of kids wearing short pants and caps left off playing some sort of game and started trotting alongside him.

“Hey, mister!” one of the youngsters said. “Are you a cowboy?”

“Damn, that’s a big hat,” the other one said. “He must be a cowboy.”

Frank grinned down at them. “I’ve done some cowboyin’ in my time,” he admitted. “Used to work on a ranch in Texas when I was a youngster my own self.”

“Look at his gun,” the second kid said. “You ever shoot anybody with it, mister?”

“Every now and then. But only when I have to.”

“Are you Wild Bill Hickok?”

Frank shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Bill Hickok’s been dead almost twenty years, I’m sad to say.”

“Was he a friend of yours?”

“Not really. I met the man a time or two, but I wouldn’t say we were friends.”

In fact, Hickok had once warned Frank to get out of Abilene, when the famous pistoleer had been serving as marshal of that wild cow town. Frank had gone along with Hickok’s carefully worded “suggestion,” not because he was afraid of the man but because even by then, he had learned that it was easier to avoid trouble than to seek it out.

He was human, though, human enough to have wondered every now and then how he and Wild Bill would have stacked up against each other if it had come to a draw. Hickok had been fast, no doubt about that. Fast enough to be in the same league as Ben Thompson, Smoke Jensen, Luke Short, Falcon McAllister, and that bunch.

Curious or not, Frank was just as glad that he had avoided that particular showdown.

“Wow,” the first kid said now. “You knew Wild Bill Hickok! How about Wyatt Earp?”

Frank nodded. “Him and his brothers, and Doc Holliday, too.”

Fact of the matter was, he had heard that Virgil Earp was living somewhere here in southern California now. Frank figured to look him up and say hello if he got the chance.

“Were you in Tombstone for the big gunfight there?”

Frank shook his head. “Nope. I missed that one.”

If he had been there, he thought, he probably would have sided with the Earps and Doc. They could be a mite on the shady side at times, but Frank knew he wouldn’t have been able to abide the Clantons.

“Have you ever been in a big gunfight?” one of the youngsters persisted.

“Probably not any you’ve heard of.”

“Aw, he ain’t a real gunfighter,” the second kid said to his buddy. “He probably ain’t even really from Texas.”

“Hey, mister, is that a dog or a wolf?” the first kid asked, abandoning his efforts to find out if Frank was somebody famous.

“He’s a dog. Might have a little wolf in him, though.”

“Can we play with him?”

Frank shook his head. “Wouldn’t be a good idea.” Dog had been pacing along, warily eyeing the youngsters, but he hadn’t growled at them or ruffled his fur . . . yet. “He’s not a real playful sort.”

“We see coyotes sometimes. They come down outta the hills. Mostly they stay away from folks, though.”

Frank nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

The first kid asked, “Did you come here to kill somebody?”

“I told you, he ain’t a real gunfighter,” the second kid said, slugging his friend on the arm.

“Ow! What’d you do that for?”

“’Cause I felt like it!”

A second later, the two youngsters were rolling around in the dusty street, wrestling and grunting and swearing. Frank grinned, shook his head, and rode on.

The houses were being replaced by businesses now. Frank spotted a squat, thick-walled adobe building with a sign over its open door that read CANTINA.

He wasn’t much of a drinker, but he had been on the trail long enough so that a cool beer to cut the dust in his throat sounded pretty good. He angled Goldy toward the building, and stopped at the hitch rail in front of it.

When he had tied the horses to the rail, he told Dog, “Stay,” and went inside, grateful for the cool dimness after being in the blazing California sun.

The place wasn’t very busy. A couple of men stood drinking at the bar. Only one of the tables was occupied. The lone man who sat there lazily dealt himself a solitaire hand. He looked like a professional gambler, but his threadbare suit and old hat had seen better days.

Frank moved to the bar and ordered a beer from the chunky Mexican bartender. He left a good space between himself and the two other drinkers, who were dressed like cowboys.

But he was close enough to hear the sudden whispers, and when he glanced over, he saw one of them nudging the other in the ribs with an elbow. They both looked at him and then looked away.

Then he heard one of them say “Morgan” and “gunfighter,” and he tried not to sigh.

That hadn’t taken long. Not long at all.

More than once, Frank had been the subject of dime novels, and while the scribblers who wrote those lurid little yellowbacks usually didn’t have much idea what they were talking about, the artists who provided the covers for them sometimes worked from photographs of the novels’ subjects.

So even though they usually drew him with the sort of menacing scowl on his face that he seldom if ever displayed in real life, he was at least recognizable from those book covers. Cowboys loved those dime novels, despite knowing how much hokum was crammed between their covers.

Now that he’d been recognized, Frank’s hope was that the two waddies down the bar would just want to talk to him and hear about any gunfights he’d been involved in, like those youngsters outside. Most grown men still had a little boy in their nature that they would never outgrow.

The worst thing would be if one or both of those hombres fancied themselves fast on the draw and eager to prove it by bracing a known gunfighter, especially one as famous as Frank Morgan.

It was out of his hands now, so Frank sipped the beer the bartender set in front of him and waited to see what was going to happen.

The beer was a disappointment, somewhere closer to warm than cool, and on the bitter side. It was wet, and that was about the best thing Frank could say for it.

The actions of the two young cowboys were disappointing, too. They threw back the whiskeys they had ordered and then turned to swagger along the bar toward Frank. He knew the attitude all too well.

“Hey, mister,” one of them said. “My amigo here claims that you’re Frank Morgan, the fella they call The Drifter. Is that right?”

If he lied, chances were they wouldn’t believe him. He wasn’t in the habit of lying either.

“I’m Morgan,” he said without looking at them.

From the corner of his eye, though, he saw the elbow nudge that passed between them. “Told you,” the second cowboy said. “Told you I seen his picture on books.”

They sidled closer. The first one said, “I hear that you’re a famous gunfighter, Mr. Morgan. I’d be plumb honored if you’d let me buy you a drink.”

Frank gave them a taut smile. “I’m much obliged, boys, but I’m not much of a drinking man.” He hefted the beer mug in his left hand. “This one will do me just fine, and then I have to be moving on. I just stopped for a minute to wet my whistle.”

The first cowboy frowned. “Well, that’s not very friendly of you,” he declared.

“I didn’t stop to make friends.”

The second man put a hand on his friend’s arm. “Come on, Lonnie. You don’t want to horn in where you ain’t wanted.”

The cowboy called Lonnie shook off the hand as his frown deepened into a scowl. “Listen, Mr. High-an’-Mighty Morgan, all I wanted to do was buy you a drink.”

“I said I was obliged,” Frank told him. He drained the rest of the beer in the mug.

“You know why I wanted to buy you a drink?” Lonnie went on.

“Just being friendly, I suppose.”

“I figured it’d be a nice thing to do, buyin’ one last drink for the man I was about to kill!”

There it was, the challenge that Frank had known was coming. Lonnie hadn’t been trying to be friendly at all. He’d just wanted to goad Frank into a fight, believing that he could best the man he considered a washed-up has-been still living on his reputation.

It might have been funny, if it wasn’t so dumb and tragic.

And so damn common.

“I’m not looking for trouble,” Frank said. “I’ve had my drink, and now I’ll move on.”

He had to look up John J. Stafford, Claudius Turnbuckle’s law partner, but that was his business, not Lonnie’s.

“You’re not goin’ anywhere, Morgan,” Lonnie said. “Not until you and me have it out.”

Frank shook his head, a small, barely perceptible side-to-side motion.

“I’ve got nothing against you, kid, and you’ve got no reason to draw on me.”

“No reason?” Lonnie echoed. “How about to show Barclay here, and ol’ Pedro, that I’m faster’n you?”

The man dealing solitaire, whose name evidently was Barclay, didn’t look up from his cards, but he drawled, “Don’t kill anybody on my account. I’m not even really paying attention.”

Pedro the bartender leaned over the bar and held out his hands as he said, “Please, Señor Lonnie, no shooting. The floor, she is dirt so she cleans up easy, but it’s no good for business when people get killed in my cantina.”

“Shut up,” Lonnie said. “This old man insulted me.”

“Now how’d I do that?” Frank asked. “By not taking that drink you wanted to buy for me?”

“By thinkin’ that you’re faster’n me! I can’t let you get away with that. I’m the fastest draw around here, and I’m gonna prove it!”

Hell, Frank thought, why do they always have to say the same damned thing?

He started turning toward Lonnie, still holding the empty beer mug in his left hand. Without warning, that hand moved quicker than the eye could follow, smashing the mug against the right side of Lonnie’s head and knocking the young cowboy’s hat flying. Lonnie’s knees unhinged. He crumpled to the hard-packed dirt floor.

His friend let out a surprised yell and took a fast step back. The young cowboy’s hand dropped to the butt of his gun in what appeared to be a purely instinctive move.

He froze with his fingers wrapped around the Colt’s walnut grips, because Frank’s .45 was already out and leveled. The cowboy’s eyes widened in shock as he found himself staring down the revolver’s barrel.

“Don’t draw, son,” Frank said in a quiet voice.

As if the Colt had suddenly turned scalding, the cowboy let go of it and jerked his hand away from it. “D-don’t shoot, Mr. Morgan,” he said as his face turned pale under the permanent tan of a man who worked outdoors all day.

“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.”

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. . .