The Savage Country

Book 13: Last Gunfighter

by William W. Johnstone, Fred Austin

Genres: Westerns; Historical Christian; Christian Romance

Synopsis

Acclaimed best-selling Western author William W. Johnstone returns to the action-packed life of quick-draw Frank Morgan. Just as Frank and his son begin to bond, a criminal mastermind designs an evil plan to kill them both. Harvard-educated businessman Conrad Browning is so desperate he hires his estranged father Frank to neutralize the trouble plaguing his New Mexico railroad line. As the unlikely pair rides to the remote railroad site, they outshoot vengeful bushwhackers and hostile Apaches. But when a gorgeous young lady stumbles into their camp one night, they soon find themselves under her disarming spell.

Release date: November 29, 2016

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 280

Sample

Frank Morgan heard laughter as he strode into the lobby of the Grand Central Hotel in El Paso, Texas. Ugly laughter, the sort that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It came from the barroom to his right.

Frank ignored the sound as best he could, and continued on across the lobby toward the desk. Whatever was going on in the hotel bar, it was none of his affair. He had come to El Paso on business of his own.

The clerk at the desk greeted Frank by saying, “Yes, sir, may I help you?” His manner was polite, even though Frank was dressed in worn range clothes that still carried the dust of the trail and had a pair of saddlebags slung over his left shoulder. In a bustling frontier city like El Paso, a man who looked like that might be a saddle tramp with barely a penny to his name—or he might be an important businessman with millions of dollars in the bank.

As a matter of fact, Frank came closer to fitting the second description, although he wasn’t sure if his business interests were actually worth a million dollars or not. He left such details to his lawyers in Denver and San Francisco. But he wasn’t hurting for money, that much was certain.

He rested his left hand on the desk and said, “You should have a reservation for me. Name’s Frank Morgan.”

The clerk’s eyes widened a little as they went to the Colt. 45 Peacemaker with walnut grips holstered on Frank’s right hip. He knew the name, all right. More than likely, he had seen it in some of the dime novels that had been written about the man known as The Drifter. Most of them were unmitigated trash made up by Eastern scribblers, but they contained enough kernels of truth so that Frank’s reputation as a gunfighter had spread far and wide.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Morgan,” the clerk said hastily. “We have your room all ready for you, one of the finest in the hotel. If you’ll just sign in . . .”

Another burst of laughter came from the nearby barroom as the clerk turned the book around for Frank to sign. Frank glanced in that direction, then picked up the pen from the inkwell and signed his name. He left the space for his home address blank. It had been a long time since he’d had one of those that meant anything.

He had spent the past few months in South Texas, far down the valley of the Rio Grande, waiting there for winter to be over and enjoying the company of an intelligent, attractive woman at the same time. As pleasant as that interval had been, with the coming of spring he had begun to grow restless, and the arrival of a telegram from Conrad Browning asking Frank to meet him in El Paso had been all he needed to prompt him to move on. He had put some supplies on a packhorse, kissed a regretful Roanne Williamson good-bye, and ridden northwest on Stormy, the big Appaloosa, trailed by the big cur known only as Dog.

“Thank you, Mr. Morgan,” the clerk said. “If you have a buggy or some other vehicle you’d like to put in our barn . . .”

“Nope, just a saddle mount and a packhorse, and I already left them at a livery stable down the street, along with my dog. Fella named Gomez runs it, I think.”

“Oh, yes,” the clerk said. “Pablo Gomez. A good man. He’ll take good care of your animals.”

“That’s what I thought from the looks of the place,” Frank said. He frowned as laughter exploded again in the bar. “What’s going on in there?”

The clerk shook his head. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know, sir.”

Frank shrugged, telling himself again that it was none of his business. The clerk plucked a key off a rack on the wall behind the desk and started to give it to Frank. Another moment and Frank would have taken the key, gone up to his room, and forgotten all about the hyenas in the barroom.

If only a voice hadn’t suddenly called out desperately, painfully, “No! Please, don’t! Please . . .”

Frank’s face hardened. Somebody was in trouble in there, and whether it was any of his business or not, he wasn’t the sort of man to turn his back on folks who needed help.

“Hang onto that key,” he said to the clerk. “I’ll be back in a minute or two.”

A couple of lithe steps brought him to the arched entrance of the barroom. Although it was the afternoon of a bright spring day outside, the windowless barroom was shadowy, lit only by a couple of oil lamps in the form of chandeliers. The L-shaped bar was to Frank’s left, with tables in front of him and booths along the wall to his right. A nervous-looking bartender stood behind the bar. There were only three other men in the place. Two of them had the third man bent backward over the table in one of the booths. One of them had a hand planted in the middle of the third man’s chest, holding him down, while a bowie knife glinted in the other hand.

“I’ll hold him while you take his pants off,” the knife-wielder said to his companion. “I bet he’ll sing real pretty once we carve on him some.”

Frank glanced at the bartender. “Aren’t you going to do something about this?”

Beads of sweat glistened on the man’s high forehead. “Reckon I ought to go for the law?”

“Likely it’ll be too late by the time they got here,” Frank said.

“You don’t know those Callahan b-boys,” the bartender stammered in a half whisper. “They’re c-crazy!”

Frank might not know the Callahans, but he had a feeling he was about to make their acquaintance. He stepped closer to the booth where the two men were tormenting the third one and said sharply, “Hey!”

One of the Callahans had the hapless prisoner’s trousers halfway off. He stopped what he was doing and straightened, turning toward Frank. The one with the knife kept the man pinned down, but he turned to look over his shoulder at Frank.

“Move on, mister,” he growled. “This ain’t got nothin’ to do with you.”

“Yeah!” the other one said. “Get the hell outta here, if you know what’s good for you!”

They were cut from the same cloth, with coarse, beard-stubbled, ratlike features. More than that, there was a family resemblance, and Frank felt confident they were brothers. The one with the knife appeared to be a little older.

A faint smile touched the grim line that was Frank’s mouth. “That’s the problem,” he said. “I’ve always had a hard time doing what was good for me.”

“Well, you better do it now,” the one with the knife threatened, “or we’ll slice off your cojones too!”

“What about him?” Frank asked in a deceptively mild tone as he nodded toward the man bent over the table. “What did he do to make you want to mutilate him?”

“Do? He didn’t do anything! He was just here.”

“So you decided to torture and probably kill a man simply for the fun of it?”

“Why the hell not?” the younger Callahan brother demanded. “If you’re mean enough and strong enough, you can do anything you want in this world, and there ain’t nobody meaner and stronger than us!”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Frank said.

“You bastard! I’ll learn you—” The younger brother’s hand dived toward the gun on his hip.

Frank waited until the man’s hand had closed around the butt of the revolver before he drew and fired in one smooth motion that was almost too fast for the eye to see. The Peacemaker bucked against his palm as it drove its leaden messenger of death deep into the man’s chest. The impact threw him back against the partition between booths. He bounced off and let go of his half-drawn gun. It slipped out of the holster and thudded to the floor. The mortally wounded man pressed a hand to his chest. Blood welled between his fingers, but not much. His heart had already been stilled by Frank’s bullet.

“Simon!” the man croaked. Then he fell to his knees and pitched forward on his face. His legs kicked a couple of times before he lay still.

The man with the knife hadn’t moved. His name was Simon, Frank guessed. He stared at Frank, who still held the Colt level and steady, for a few seconds before he asked, “Who in blazes are you, mister? I never saw a draw like that before.”

“Name’s Frank Morgan.”

“The Drifter?”

“Some call me that,” Frank admitted.

Simon Callahan swallowed hard. “I ain’t gonna draw on you, Morgan. I wouldn’t have a chance. No more than my brother Jud did.”

“Put the knife away and let that man up, and there won’t be a need for any more shooting.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.” Callahan took a step back away from the table. He slid the bowie into a beaded sheath on his left hip. “You didn’t have to kill him. He wasn’t near as fast as you.”

“Fast enough so that there was no time to get fancy,” Frank said. He motioned with the barrel of the Peacemaker. “Take his body and get out.”

Callahan bent to hoist his brother’s limp form. He got his arms under his brother’s arms from behind and began dragging the corpse toward the lobby of the hotel. Jud’s boot heels made scraping sounds on the floor.

“This ain’t over,” Simon Callahan said. “I ain’t about to forget this, Morgan.”

“Your choice,” Frank said. “But the smart thing to do would be to bury your brother and ride on out of El Paso.”

Simon’s face contorted in a grimace of hatred. “Reckon I have a hard time doin’ what’s good for me too.”

With that, he dragged his brother’s body out of the Grand Central Hotel, past the horrified gaze of the desk clerk and a couple of other people who had come into the lobby.

Frank holstered his gun and turned toward the man who had been the object of the Callahan brothers’ cruelty. He had straightened up and was trying to pull his clothes back into a semblance of order. He was thin and well dressed, from the look of him a gambler maybe. El Paso had plenty of them.

“Thank you,” the man said as he picked up a black hat that had fallen off and settled it on his sleek black hair. “I . . . I think those lunatics would have killed me if you hadn’t come along to stop them, Mr. . . . Morgan, was it?”

“That’s right.”

The man held out a hand with long, slender fingers, another sign of a man who made his living with the pasteboards. “Jonas Wade.”

Frank shook with him. “Was that really all there was to it, just sheer meanness on their part?”

“I assure you it was. I was just sitting there, playing solitaire”—Jonas motioned to a nearby table where a deck of cards was already laid out in a hand of solitaire—“when they came in and looked around and then set upon me, taunting me and trying to goad me into fighting with them. When I refused, they . . . they said I was a coward and that I didn’t have any need for my . . . for my . . .” A shudder ran through him as he contemplated what the Callahan brothers had been planning to do to him.

“Well, it’s over now,” Frank said. “I don’t reckon the one that’s left will bother you again.”

“Maybe not, but I don’t intend to give him a chance.” Jonas smiled ruefully. “I believe I’ll fold my tent and steal away like an Arab in the night. My stay in El Paso has been profitable, but let’s face it—there are other places where a man can play cards.”

Frank couldn’t argue with that. He gave Jonas a nod as the gambler gathered up his cards and left the barroom. Frank couldn’t quite comprehend just yelling for help and not fighting back when threatened with trouble, but he supposed some folks were like that. He was glad he had stepped in to help Jonas, whether the gambler had really deserved it or not.

His contempt was reserved more for the bartender who had stood by, apparently intending to do nothing while the Callahans had their sadistic fun. He turned toward the man and asked scathingly, “What the hell’s wrong with you, mister? Don’t you have a shotgun or at least a bung-starter under the bar in case of trouble?”

The bartender took out a bandanna and mopped his damp forehead. “We don’t have trouble in here,” he said defensively. “This is a civilized place.”

“Better stop letting folks come in then. Human beings aren’t naturally civilized. Sometimes they have to have it forced on them.”

The clerk had come out from behind his desk and now stood in the arched opening between the lobby and the barroom. He said, “I’m sorry for the disturbance, Mr. Morgan. Thank you for stepping in when you did. Otherwise, things might have gotten, well, awful.”

Frank nodded. “Sorry about the blood on the floor.”

“It could have been a lot worse.”

“I reckon I’ll take that key now.”

“Of course. If you’ll come with me . . .”

Frank followed the clerk to the desk. Once again the clerk took a key from the rack, and once again he was about to hand it to Frank when he was interrupted, this time by one of the men who had come into the lobby while Simon Callahan was dragging out the body of his brother.

“Well, I see that some things never change,” the man said from behind Frank.

The voice was familiar. Frank turned slowly and found himself looking into the eyes of Conrad Browning, the man who had asked him to come here to El Paso.

Conrad Browning . . . who was also Frank Morgan’s son.

A smile spread slowly across Frank’s face. “Conrad,” he said. “It’s been a while. You’ve changed.”

“You haven’t,” Conrad snapped.

Frank shrugged. “I reckon I’m a little older, a little grayer. But you . . . you’re a grown man now.”

It had been several years since Frank had seen the son he hadn’t even known that he had for most of Conrad’s life. He had missed out on so much, just as he hadn’t been able to be a part of Victoria Monfore’s life while she was growing up. At least he knew for sure that Conrad was his son, while there was still a little uncertainty as to whether or not Victoria was his daughter.

The last time Frank had seen Conrad hadn’t been under the best of circumstances. Conrad had been a youngster then, with one year of college behind him. He had been kidnapped, not once but twice, by a gang of vicious outlaws led by Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen. The same bunch of desperadoes had been responsible for the death of Vivian Browning, Frank’s former wife and Conrad’s mother. Frank had been able to rescue Conrad and wipe out most of the gang. Pine and Vanbergen were both dead, although ironically not by Frank’s hand. Conrad had gone east to finish his education at Harvard and to tend to the wide-ranging business interests inherited from his mother, the same business interests that had made Frank Morgan a rich man because Vivian had left a percentage to him too.

Frank hadn’t seen Conrad since that time, and they had been in touch only sporadically. Nearly everything was handled by Frank’s lawyers and the attorneys who worked for Conrad. To put it bluntly, Conrad didn’t like Frank and a part of him still blamed The Drifter for his mother’s death. Conrad regarded as his real father the man Vivian married after her short-lived marriage to Frank had been annulled by her father.

Frank wished that things were different between him and Conrad, but wishing never brought a man much. Conrad had chosen to go his own way, and Frank had had no choice but to let him.

Now they were face-to-face again, and it was Conrad’s doing. That had to give Frank at least a little hope for a reconciliation.

Conrad had filled out some. He wasn’t a college boy anymore, but rather a young man in the prime of life, wearing an expensive suit and a fine hat. He had even cultivated a closely clipped mustache. He wore his sandy hair long, over his ears. Frank supposed that was not only to be fashionable, but also to cover up Conrad’s disfigured left ear, the top of which had been cruelly sliced off by one of the outlaws while he was their prisoner.

“I need to talk to you,” he said coolly to Frank. He gestured toward the barroom and went on. “Why don’t we go in there? I’m sure the smell of freshly burned gunpowder won’t bother you.”

Frank’s jaw tightened a little. That last comment hadn’t been necessary. It was starting to look as if Conrad wasn’t interested in being friends, let alone having a real father-and-son relationship with Frank after all.

If that was the case, then so be it. Frank said, “Sure. I’ll buy you a drink.”

They went into the barroom and sat down at a table well away from the spot where Jud Callahan had died. Without asking what Conrad wanted, Frank called over to the bartender to bring them each a beer.

“Excuse me,” Conrad said. “I’d rather have a cognac. With water on the side.”

Frank shrugged. He didn’t care what Conrad drank. “Your letter caught up to me while I was down in South Texas,” he said. “I’m glad I was able to get out here to El Paso while you’re still here.”

“I would have waited for you as long as I possibly could. It’s very important that we talk.”

Frank nodded. “I agree.”

“A lot of money is riding on it.”

Money . . . but Conrad’s impersonal tone made it clear that nothing else was involved here. This meeting was just business. That was all.

The bartender brought over their drinks. He still looked a little pale and shaken. Frank picked up the mug, sipped the beer, and said to Conrad, “Tell me about it. What brings you to El Paso?”

“I came to talk to you, of course.” Conrad took an appreciative sip of his cognac. “This is the closest large city to Ophir . . . although compared to Boston, it’s hardly a city at all, of course.”

Frank’s eyes narrowed. “What’s Ophir?”

“I’m getting ahead of myself,” Conrad said with a little shake of his head. “Perhaps I’d better start at the beginning.”

“That’s always a good place,” Frank murmured.

“Since my graduation from Harvard I’ve taken a more active hand in the running of our businesses. I trust you’ve been getting regular reports from your attorneys?”

Frank nodded. “When I stay in one place long enough for them to catch up to me.”

“Then you’ve seen for yourself that the various companies are doing quite well and turning a healthy profit.”

“You’ve done a good job. I’m sure your mother would be very proud of you.”

Frank saw Conrad’s fingers tighten on the glass and supposed he shouldn’t have mentioned Vivian. That just dredged up bad memories and piled them on the table between them.

“Yes, well, you may not be aware that we’ve recently purchased a railroad.”

Frank’s eyebrows went up. “No, I don’t recollect seeing anything about that.”

“The New Mexico, Rio Grande, and Oriental line. We’re building a spur route from Lordsburg up to Ophir, in southwestern New Mexico Territory.”

“So Ophir is a town. I hadn’t heard of it.”

“A boomtown actually. It hasn’t been there very long. It sprang up because of the gold and copper and silver deposits in the area. There are quite a few lucrative mines near there in the Mogollon and Mimbres Mountains.”

Frank nodded. He was familiar with the area, although it had been a long time since he’d passed through those parts.

“Browning Mines and Manufacturing owns several of those mines,” Conrad went on with a note of pride in his voice. “I expect that they will make us richer than we already are. As will the railroad too, of course . . . if it gets built.”

That last bit sounded a little ominous to Frank. “Having trouble with the railroad?” he asked.

Conrad got a pained look on his face. “The railroad has been nothing but trouble, right from the start. We’ve run into numerous delays. Some trouble is to be expected, of course, in an undertaking as major as the construction of a rail line, but I’m not just talking about bad weather and construction difficulties. According to the superintendent, there have been numerous instances of deliberate destruction. On top of that, one of our payroll shipments was stolen, and the workers threatened to quit unless they received a bonus to compensate them for their pay being late. To make matters worse, they’ve also been threatened by some of the local savages.”

“Indian trouble?” Frank asked with a frown. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard about any of that. Old Victorio was killed more than ten years ago down in Mexico, and Geronimo and his warriors are on the White Mountain Reservation, living in peace for a change.”

“Not all of them evidently. From what I’ve been told, the marauders are definitely Apaches.”

Frank drank some more of his beer and mulled that over. While supposedly all the young men had surrendered to the U.S. Army along with Geronimo several years earlier, it was possible that a few bands of renegades were still hiding out in the mountains. There had always been rumors of such things, and they were aggravated every time any horses went missing from some isolated rancho.

“It sounds like you have trouble, all right,” Frank said after a moment.

“We have trouble,” Conrad corrected him. “Although your percentage is relatively small, you own part of these businesses too.”

“I let other folks handle that,” Frank said with a shrug. “Folks who know what they’re doing when it comes to that sort of thing.”

“Who knows more than the famous Drifter about handling trouble?”

There was a slight sneer in Conrad’s voice as he asked the rhetorical question. Frank felt anger flare inside him. From the sound of things, Conrad was getting around to asking for his help, but yet the young man couldn’t keep from expressing, at least a little, his disapproval of his father. Maybe what Frank ought to do, he thought, was tell Conrad to stomp his own snakes.

But before Frank could do or say anything, a heavy footstep sounded in the entrance to the barroom. Frank glanced in that direction and saw a bulky man in a dusty black suit coming into the room. Light from the oil lamps reflected on the tin star pinned to his lapel. He spotted Frank and Conrad sitting at the table and came toward them with a determined look on his dark-complected face.

“Frank Morgan?” he said as he came up to the table.

Frank nodded. “That’s me.”

“I hear tell you killed a man in here a while ago.”

“That’s right. He drew first, or at least he tried to.”

The lawman snorted. “Hell, you’re The Drifter! Anytime you draw against anybody, it’s the same thing as murder in my book.”

“Then it’s a good thing for me your book isn’t the same as the law,” Frank said.

The man glared at him. “I’m the constable hereabouts, name of John Selman. I’d arrest you if I could, Morgan, but since I can’t, I’ll just say I want you out of El Paso.”

“A warning like that usually comes from the sheriff or the city marshal,” Frank pointed out. “I don’t see them here.”

“My say-so’s good enough,” Selman blustered. “Better get on your horse and ride.”

Frank had heard of John Selman, although their trails had never crossed before. The man had a long reputation as a shootist and a shady character operating on both sides of the law. Frank considered it a minor miracle that someone like Selman had evidently been legally elected to a law enforcement position, but he supposed that was the prerogative of the citizens of El Paso.

“I won’t be in town for long,” Frank said. “I have business elsewhere.”

“Well, see that you don’t linger. The law can’t guarantee your safety from Simon Callahan. You killed his brother, and he’s liable to come after you to settle the score.”

“And you wouldn’t lose any sleep over it if Callahan was successful in that, would you, Constable?”

“Not a damn bit,” Selman growled. “I hate all you famous gun-throwers. Somebody ought to shoot the whole lot of you.”

“But it won’t be you, will it, Selman? Not unless they all turn their backs on you.”

Frank knew it was a harsh thing to say, but he felt a deep, abiding, instinctive dislike for John Selman. The man just had the look of a backshooter about him.

Selman’s face turned pale with rage, but he was able to contain his anger. “I’ve had my say,” he snapped. “If you stay in El Paso, then whatever happens is on your head, Morgan.”

Frank didn’t say anything. After a minute, the fuming Selman turned and stalked out of the barroom. His boot heels rang on the lobby floor as he crossed to the hotel entrance and slammed out.

“I see you make friends just as easily as ever,” Conrad commented dryly.

“I’m not interested in being friends with a polecat like Selman.” Frank drained the last of his beer and set the empty mug aside. “Now, Conrad, you were talking about all the trouble you’re having getting this railroad spur to Ophir built.”

“Yes, and I was wondering. . . .” Conrad paused and drank the last of his cognac, chasing it with water from the glass at his side. He took a deep breath, obviously struggling with what he was trying to say. Finally, he blurted out, “I was wondering if you’d help.”

“Help get that spur line through?” Frank asked, wanting to make sure there was no misunderstanding.

“That’s right.”

“I don’t know a damn thing about building a railroad.”

“I do,” Conrad said confidently, “and so does my construction superintendent. What we need you to do is to find out who’s responsible for all the problems plaguing us and put a stop to them.”

“In whatever way is necessary?”

“In whatever way is necessary,” Conrad said flatly. “The company has sunk a great deal of money into this project . . .