2
“Yes, I'm Frank Morgan,” he admitted.
Cecil Tolliver frowned. “I don't mean to sound ignorant, mister, but I don't reckon I've heard of you.”
Ben came over and held out his hand to Frank. “That's because you never read any dime novels,” he explained to his father. “Mr. Morgan here is a famous gunfighter.”
Tolliver grunted. “I never had time for such foolishness, boy. I was too busy tryin' to build the Rockin'T into a decent spread. You was the one who always had your nose in the
Police Gazette.”
Frank shook hands with both of them and said to Ben, “Most of what's been written about me in those dime novels and the illustrated weeklies was a pack of lies made up by gents who don't know much about the real West.”
“You can't deny, though, that you've had your share of gunfights,” Ben said.
Frank inclined his head in acknowledgment of that point. “More than my share,” he allowed.
“Well, we're much obliged for the help, whether you're famous or not,” Tolliver said. “If you hadn't come along when you did, I reckon Almanzar's boys would've done for me and Ben.”
“Almanzar,” Frank repeated. “I'm not familiar with the name. Is he the leader of that gang of
bandidos
?”
“You could call him that. He runs the rancho where those gunnies work.”
Now it was Frank's turn to frown. He waved his left hand toward the sprawled bodies of the raiders and said, “Those don't look like vaqueros or cowhands to me.”
“That's because Almanzar's a low-down skunk who hires killers rather than decent hombres.”
“Sounds like you don't care for the man.”
“I got no use for him,” Tolliver said stiffly. “Him and me been feudin' ever since I came to this part of the country, nigh on to thirty years ago. Almanzar specializes in wet cattle, if you know what I mean.”
Frank understood the term, all right. It referred to stock rustled from one side of the river and driven to the other. Down here in this border country, a lot of cattle had gotten their bellies wet over the past few decades, going both directions across the Rio Grande.
Young Ben spoke up. “You don't know that Don Felipe has been rustling our cows, Pa.”
“I know all I need to know,” Tolliver replied with a disgusted snort. “Almanzar's a thief and a bloody-handed reiver, and this ain't the first time he's tried to have me killed!”
Obviously, there was trouble going on around here, Frank thought. Just as obviously, it was none of his business. But by taking a hand in this gun battle, he had probably dealt himself into the game, whether he wanted that or not. If Cecil Tolliver was correct about Don Felipe Almanzar sending those gunmen after him and his son, then Almanzar would be likely to want vengeance on Frank for killing several of his men.
“Another thing,” Tolliver went on angrily to Ben, “I don't want to hear you callin' that bastard by his Christian name again. He ain't our friend and never has been.”
“What about when you first settled here, before I was born?” Ben asked. “I've heard you say more than once, Pa, that without Señor Almanzar's help, the Comanches would have lifted your hair back in those days.”
“That was a long time ago,” Tolliver growled. “Things change.”
Frank wasn't really interested in the history of the feud between Tolliver and Don Felipe Almanzar. He said, “Where were you men headed?”
“Back to the Rockin'T,” Tolliver replied. “We'd been to San Rosa for supplies.” He shook his head in disgust. “All the boxes done bounced out back along the road, when that bunch jumped us and we had to take off so fast. We're lucky the damn buckboard didn't rattle itself to pieces.”
“San Rosa's the nearest town?”
“Yep, right on the river about five miles upstream from here. The name's fouled upâit ought to be Santa Rosaâbut the fella who stuck the name on it didn't savvy Mex talk. Still a pretty nice place.”
“I'll pay it a visit,” Frank said. “I was looking for a place to get something to eat and somewhere to stay.”
“You don't have to go to San Rosa for that.” Tolliver jerked a thumb at the buckboard. “Help us set that wagon up, and then you can ride on to the Rockin'T with us. You'll be our guest for as long as you want to stay, Mr. Morgan.”
“Call me Frank. And I wouldn't want to imposeâ”
“Impose, hell!” Tolliver had picked up his hat, and now he slapped it against his leg to get some of the dust off. As he settled it on his head, he went on. “After what you done to help us, I'll consider it a personal insult if you don't let us feed you and put you up for a spell.”
Frank smiled. “In that case, I accept.”
He whistled and Stormy came out of the chaparral, followed by Dog. Tolliver and Ben looked with admiration at the big Appaloosa, but were more wary where Dog was concerned. “That critter looks a mite like a cross between a wolf and a grizzly bear,” Tolliver commented.
“He's all dog,” Frank said with a grin. “Just be sure you've been introduced properly before you go to pet him. Unless you're a little kid,” he added. “He'll let kids wool him around like he's still a pup.”
Frank took his rope from the saddle and tied one end to the buckboard. Ben saw what he was doing and brought over the surviving three members of the team. The rope was tied to their harness, and the horses did the work as the buckboard was soon pulled upright again. Frank hitched Stormy into the empty spot in the team. The Appaloosa didn't care much for that, but he was willing to tolerate it if that was what Frank wanted him to do. Stormy turned a baleful eye on his master for a moment, though.
“I'd watch out for that horse if I was you, Mr. Morgan,” Ben said. “He looks like he might sneak up on you some time and take a nip out of your hide.”
“I fully expect that he will,” Frank agreed with a chuckle. He grew more sober as he gestured toward the bodies again. “What about them?”
“I'll be damned if I'm gonna get their blood all over my buckboard,” Cecil Tolliver said. “When we get to the ranch, I'll send a rider to San Rosa to notify the law. In the meantime, a couple o' my hands can come back out with a work wagon to load up the carcasses. The undertaker can come to the ranch to get 'em for plantin'.”
“There's law in San Rosa?”
“Yeah, a town marshal. And there's a company of Rangers that's been usin' the town as their headquarters for a spell, while they try to track down some bandits who've been raisin' hell around here.”
Frank's interest perked up at the mention of Texas Rangers. Over the past year or so he had shared several adventures with a young Ranger named Tyler Beaumont. Beaumont was back home with his wife in Weatherford now, recuperating from injuries he had received in that fence-cutting dustup in Brown County. Frank respected the Rangers a great deal as a force for law and order, even though his reputation as a gunfighter sometimes made the Rangers look on him with suspicion.
He wasn't looking for trouble down here along the border, though, so it was unlikely he would clash with the lawmen.
Tolliver and Ben climbed onto the seat of the buckboard. Frank tied his packhorse on at the back of the vehicle, then sat down with his legs dangling off the rear. When he snapped his fingers, Dog jumped onto the buckboard and settled down beside him. Tolliver got the team moving and drove on toward his ranch, the Rocking T.
Frank saw cattle in the chaparral as the buckboard rolled along. They were longhorns, the sort of tough, hardy breed that was required in this brushy country. Longhorns seemed to survive, even to thrive, in it where other breeds had fallen by the wayside. The ugly, dangerous brutes had been the beginning of the cattle industry in Texas, back in the days immediately following the Civil War. Animals that had been valuable only for their hide and tallow had suddenly become beef on the hoof, the source of a small fortune for the men daring enough and tough enough to round them up and make the long drive over the trails to the railhead in Kansas.
As a young cowboy, Frank had ridden along on more than one of those drives, pushing the balky cattle through dust and rain, heat and cold, and danger from Indians and outlaws. Since the railroads had reached Texas, the days of such cattle drives were over. Now a man seldom had to move his herds more than a hundred miles or so before reaching a shipping point. As much as he lamented some things about the settling of the West, Frank didn't miss those cattle drives. They had been long, arduous, perilous work.
With an arm looped around Dog's shaggy neck, he turned his head and asked the Tollivers, “How much stock have you been losing lately?”
“Not that much,” Ben said.
His father snorted. “Not that much at one time, you mean. Half a dozen here, a dozen there. But it sure as hell adds up.”
Frank knew what Tolliver meant. Rustlers could make a big raid on a ranch, or they could bleed it dry over time. Either method could prove devastating to a cattleman.
“The Rangers haven't been able to get a line on the wide-loopers?”
“They're too busy lookin' for the Black Scorpion.”
“The Black Scorpion?” Frank repeated. “What's that?”
“You mean who's that. You recollect what I said about the Rangers huntin' for a gang of owlhoots? Well, the Black Scorpion is the boss outlaw, the son of a bitch who heads up that gang.”
Ben laughed. “Now you're talking like the one who's been reading dime novels, Pa.”
“The Black Scorpion's real, damn it,” Tolliver said with a scowl. “Folks have seen him, dressed all in black and wearin' a mask, leadin' that bloodthirsty bunch o' desperadoes.”
That sounded pretty far-fetched to Frank, too, like the creation of one of those ink-stained wretches who made up stories about him. There might be some truth to it, though. The West had seen mysterious masked bandits before, such as Black Bart out in California. Frank was going to have to see this so-called Black Scorpion for himself, though, before he would really believe in such an individual.
Ben was equally skeptical, saying, “I'll believe it when I see it. It seems to me that Captain Wedge and the Rangers are wasting their time looking for phantoms when they ought to be hunting down rustlers.”
“Well, I ain't gonna argue about that,” his father said. “I wish they'd do something about the damn rustlers, too.”
Frank sat in the back of the buckboard and mulled over what he had heard. He had come down here to the border country looking for someplace warm and peaceful. It was warm, all right, but evidently far from peaceful, what with the feud between Cecil Tolliver and Don Felipe Almanzar, the rustlers plaguing the Rocking T, and another gang of bandits led by a mysterious masked figure. With all that going on, it seemed like trouble could crop up from any direction with little or no warningâor from several directions at once.
“Is it possible the Black Scorpion could be responsible for the rustling?” Frank asked.
“Folks have thought about that,” Tolliver replied, “but me and some o' the other ranchers around here have lost stock on the same nights that the Black Scorpion's gang was reported to be maraudin' on the other side of the border. The varmint can't be in two places at the same time.”
“No, I reckon not,” Frank said, but he wasn't completely convinced. His instincts told him that there was even more going on around here than was readily apparent.
His instincts also told him that the smart thing to do would be to unhitch Stormy from the team, mount up, and light a shuck out of here. The troubles had nothing to do with him, and if he stayed around and was drawn deeper into them, his hopes for a quiet, relaxing winter might well be shattered.
On the other hand, he had never turned his back on trouble just to make it easier on himself, and he was a mite too old to start now. A leopard couldn't change its spots, nor a tiger its stripes.
The sun was low in the sky by the time the buckboard reached the headquarters of the Rocking T. Frank saw a large, whitewashed house sitting in the shade of several cottonwood trees. Behind it were a couple of barns, several corrals, a bunkhouse, a cookshack, a blacksmith shop, a chicken coop, and some storage buildings. There was a vegetable garden off to one side of the house, and beyond it a small orchard filled with fruit trees. It was a mighty nice layout, Frank thought, the sort of spread that required years of hard work and dedication to build. He admired a man like Cecil Tolliver who could put down roots and create something lasting and worthwhile like this. For all of his accomplishments, Frank had never been able to achieve that. True, he had quite a few business interests scattered across the West, business interests that had made him a wealthy man, at least on paper, but he had inherited those things, not worked for them and built them himself. Most of the time, he felt as if all he truly owned were his guns and not much else. Stormy and Dog were friends, not possessions. And most of the time, that was all right. Frank didn't miss the rest of it except at moments such as this, when he looked at the Rocking T and wondered what his life would have been like if things had been different, if he hadn't been blessedâor cursedâwith such blinding speed and uncanny accuracy with a gun.
Tolliver hauled back on the reins and brought the buckboard to a halt. “This is it,” he said. “Welcome to the Rocking T, Mr. Morgan.”
3
Their arrival hadn't gone unnoticed. A small black, brown, and tan dog came racing around the house, barking sharply at the buckboard. The dog stopped abruptly, however, when it spotted the big cur sitting next to Frank in the back of the vehicle. A growl rumbled deeply in Dog's throat and was echoed by the smaller animal, even though Dog was more than ten times his size.
“Don't get your back fur in an uproar there, Dobie,” Tolliver called to the little dog. “This here's a friend.”
“Behave yourself, Dog,” Frank said firmly to the cur.
Dog jumped down from the buckboard. He and Dobie sniffed warily at each other, but neither of them snapped. After a moment, Dog strolled over to a clump of grass and hiked his leg to relieve himself on it. Dobie followed suit, establishing himself as the boss around here. Dog seemed to accept that, and if he'd been a human he would have shrugged, Frank thought as he watched the byplay between the two animals.
Dobie wasn't the only one to greet the newcomers. Several men walked out of one of the barns and came toward the buckboard. At the same time, the front door of the ranch house opened and four women emerged. Two of them were fairly young and had the same sandy-colored hair that Ben did. One of the older women had gray hair, while the other was a stunning brunette.
“Come on,” Tolliver said as he climbed down from the wagon. “I'll introduce you to the womenfolk.”
Frank slid off the back of the buckboard and followed Tolliver and Ben to the house. When he reached the bottom of the three steps that led up to the porch, he took off his hat.
“Ladies, this here is Mr. Frank Morgan,” Tolliver said. With rough-hewn gallantry, he went on. “Mr. Morgan, allow me to present my wife Pegeen and our daughters Debra and Jessie. And this is Pegeen's sister Roanne.”
Frank held his hat in front of him and nodded politely. “Ladies,” he said. “The honor and the pleasure are mine.”
“We're pleased to meet you, Mr. Morgan,” Pegeen Tolliver said. She was oldest of the four women, the one with gray hair. She was still a handsome woman, though, and the same lines of timeless beauty to be found in her face were also present in the faces of her sister and her daughters. Roanne, who was around thirty, Frank estimated, was especially lovely. There wasn't that much age difference between her and her nieces, who were both between twenty and twenty-five, fine-looking young frontier women. And both already married, too, judging by the rings on their fingers.
Frank noted that Roanne wore no ring at all, for whatever that was worth.
The men who had come out of the barn reached the house. Two of them stepped up onto the porch and moved next to Debra and Jessie. “My sons-in-law,” Cecil Tolliver introduced them. “That's Darrell Forrest with Jessie and Nick Holmes with Debra. They're both top hands.”
Frank shook hands with Darrell and Nick and said, “Glad to meet you, boys.”
Darrell Forrest looked intently at Frank and said, “Frank Morgan . . . that was the name, sir?”
Before Frank could say anything, Ben Tolliver said, “That's right, Darrell. He's The Drifter.”
Pegeen put a hand on her husband's arm and said, “Cecil, you went to town for supplies, but I don't see any in the buckboard. And one of the horses is missing. Does that spotted horse belong to Mr. Morgan?”
“That's right,” Tolliver told her. His bearded face grew grim as he continued. “The supplies are scattered up and down the road this side o' San Rosa, where they got jolted out when we had to run from a bunch o' gunmen.”
Pegeen's hand tightened on Tolliver's arm. “Are you or Ben hurt?”
“I reckon we'll have some bruises tomorrow. We got throwed off the buckboard when it turned over durin' the chase. But Mr. Morgan come along right about then and helped us fight off those bastâthose no-good skunks.” Tolliver looked at Nick Holmes. “Nick, send a rider to San Rosa to tell Flem Jarvis that we've got the bodies of seven o' them owlhoots out here waitin' for the undertaker.”
“Seven bodies!” Nick exclaimed. “But I don't seeâ”
“That's because they're still out on the road right now. Once you've sent a man to town, you and Darrell take a couple of hands and a work wagon and go out to get the corpses.”
The ladies all looked a little shaken by this casual discussion of corpses and an attack by a gang of outlaws. Being good frontier women, though, they remained calm and didn't waste time with a bunch of chattering questions. It took more than a little trouble to rattle a true woman of the West. And these were Texas women, which meant they had backbone second to none.
Pegeen turned to Frank and said, “Thank you for helping my husband and my son, Mr. Morgan. I hope you plan to stay for supper and spend the night with us. A little hospitality is the least we can do for you.”
“Yes, ma'am,” Frank said with a smile. “Your husband already told me I'd be staying a while, and I sure appreciate the kindness.”
“You're very welcome. Come on inside. I'll bet you could use a cup of coffee.”
“Ma'am, coffee is one of my biggest weaknesses,” Frank said, his smile widening into a grin. He went into the house with Tolliver, Ben, and the women, while Darrell and Nick hurried off to carry out Tolliver's orders.
The house was well appointed, with thick rugs on the floors and heavy, overstuffed furniture. A massive stone fireplace dominated one wall of the parlor. A tremendous spread of longhorns adorned the wall above the fireplace. Several sets of deer antlers were attached to the wall as well, and rifles and shotguns hung on pegs. A cavalry saber was also on display, and when Cecil Tolliver noticed Frank's interest in it, the rancher said, “I carried that when I rode with Jeb Stuart, Fitz Lee, and Mac Brannon during the war, Mr. Morgan. That was before I came out here to Texas.”
“I thought I detected a hint of Virginia in your voice, sir,” Frank said.
“Were you in the war?”
“I was . . . but that was a long time ago.”
Tolliver clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Indeed it was. After supper, I'll break out a bottle of brandy I've been savin', and we'll drink to old times. They weren't the best of times, but they made us what we are.”
“I reckon that's true enough,” Frank agreed. Almost three decades had passed since the end of the war, but it remained the single biggest event in most men's lives.
A man couldn't spend all his time looking backward, though. As the women left Frank, Tolliver, and Ben in the parlor, Frank steered the conversation back to the here and now by saying, “I suppose you've had your hands riding patrol at night, trying to stop the rustling.”
Tolliver nodded. “Damn right I have. All it's gotten me is one puncher shot dead and another laid up with a bullet-busted shoulder.”
“So the rustlers don't hesitate to shoot?”
“Not at all. Anyway, this is a big spread. It'd take an army to cover all of it at night.” The frustration was easy to hear in Tolliver's voice. “But I can't just call in my men and throw the ranch wide open to the damn wide-loopers.”
Frank shook his head. “No, you can't do that,” he agreed.
“If you have any ideas, Mr. Morgan,” Ben said, “we'd be glad to hear 'em.”
Tolliver got a cigar from a box on a table next to a heavy divan and jabbed it toward Frank. “What I ought to do is hire some gunmen and ride across the Rio to wipe out Almanzar. I'll bet our rustlin' troubles would stop then!”
Ben frowned darkly, and Frank got the feeling that the young man didn't care for his father's idea at all. Ben wasn't the only one. Pegeen had come back into the room with her sister in time to hear her husband's angry pronouncement, and she said, “You'll do no such thing, Cecil Tolliver! You can't take the law into your own hands, and besides, you don't know that Don Felipe is behind the rustling.”
Tolliver stuck the cigar in his mouth and chewed savagely on it for a moment before he said, “When we first come out here, Peg, there wasn't no law but what a man could carry in his own fist. We did all right in those days.”
“We all nearly got killed more than once, fighting off Comanches and outlaws,” she snapped. “You leave such things to the Rangers.”
Tolliver just made a sound of disgust. He took another cigar from the box and offered it to Frank, who slipped it into his shirt pocket. “I'll save it for later, with that brandy,” he said.
“Good idea. I got to gnaw on this one now, though, to keep from sayin' things I hadn't ought to say.” Tolliver crossed his arms and glared at the world in general.
His wife dared his wrath by saying, “I still need those supplies. Come morning, Cecil, you'll have to go back to town to replace the ones you lost.”
“All right, all right,” Tolliver muttered around the cigar. “But I'm takin' more of the boys with me next time, and if Almanzar sends his gun wolves after us again, they'll get even more of a fight than they got this time!”
Debra and Jessie came out of the kitchen carrying trays with cups and saucers on them. Steam lifted from the coffee in the cups, and Frank smiled in appreciation of the delicious aroma.
The coffee tasted as good as it smelled. Frank sat in a comfortable armchair and sipped from his cup. A time or two, he caught Roanne watching him with undisguised interest. He wondered if she was married or a widow or had never been hitched. An unmarried woman of her age was considered an old maid out here, but there was nothing old about her. To be honest, the boldness of her gaze wasn't very maidenly, either. Frank returned her looks with an interest of his own. She was a mighty attractive lady.
They hadn't been sitting around the parlor for very long when a sudden rataplan of hoofbeats welled up outside. A large group of riders was approaching the ranch. Tolliver and Ben set their cups aside and stood up quickly. So did Frank. No shouts of alarm had sounded from the ranch hands, but these days, no one was taking a chance. With his hand on the butt of the Colt at his hip, Tolliver strode to the front door. Ben and Frank were right behind him.
As the three men stepped out onto the porch, they saw a group of about twenty-five men entering the ranch yard. The rider in the lead was a big, barrel-chested man with a rawboned, hawklike face and a shock of white hair under a black Stetson. The last of the fading light revealed a badge pinned to his coat. Frank recognized it as a star set inside a circle, the emblem of the Texas Rangers.
“Captain Wedge!” Tolliver called out as the newcomers reined in, confirming the guess Frank had just made. “Good to see you and your boys. Could have used you around a little while ago.”
The Ranger captain swung down from his saddle and curtly motioned for his men to dismount as well. “Why's that, Tolliver?” he asked as he turned to face the rancher.
“Because my boy an' me were jumped by a gang o' Almanzar's gunmen from across the border. If it wasn't for Frank Morgan here, Ben an' me would probably be buzzard bait by now.”
Captain Wedge turned his dark eyes toward Morgan and repeated the name. “Frank Morgan, eh?”
Frank knew there was no point in denying anything. It came as no surprise to him that a lawman had recognized his name. He said, “That's right.”
“Heard of you,” Wedge said with a curt nod. “Don't think there's any paper out on you right now, though.”
“There never has been except on trumped-up charges that were proven false,” Frank said.
Wedge nodded again. “Pretty much what I figured. Heard, too, that you've given the Rangers a hand now and then.”
“I'm a law-abiding man,” Frank explained. “I do what I can to help, when I'm called on.”
“Good to know.” Wedge turned back to Cecil Tolliver. “What's this about you and the boy being attacked by Almanzar's riders?”
“They jumped us while we were comin' back to the ranch from San Rosa,” Tolliver said. “We'd been to town to pick up some supplies. A whole bunch of 'em came on us suddenlike, yellin' and shootin'. We tried to get away and make a fight of it at the same time, but our buckboard turned over. Then Mr. Morgan rode up and took a hand in the game. We knocked down enough of the bastards so that the rest of 'em turned tail.”
“Sounds like you're lucky to be alive,” Wedge said.
“That's the way I figure it, too.”
The Ranger captain frowned. “How do you know the men who jumped you work for Almanzar?”
“Who else would have it in for me?” Tolliver demanded. “Almanzar and me been crossways with each other for a long time.”
“What about the Black Scorpion?”
Tolliver looked surprised at Wedge's question. “What about him?”
“Could the men who attacked you have been part of the Scorpion's gang?”
Ben put in, “That thought crossed my mind, too, even though I'm not sure I believe in the Black Scorpion.”
“He's real enough,” Wedge said.
Tolliver shook his head stubbornly. “I didn't see no sign of any masked man leadin' the gang. They were just a bunch of border toughs, the sort of hard cases Almanzar hires to make life miserable for me.”
“The reason I ask is, the men and I have been trailing the Black Scorpion since yesterday. He and his gang raided a ranch on the other side of San Rosa. They were coming in this direction and it seems logical to me that they could have run into you and your son.”
“Nope. Those gunnies worked for Almanzar.”
Frank read the skepticism on Captain Wedge's face, and to tell the truth, he was beginning to have his doubts about Tolliver's belief, too. From the looks of things, Tolliver's hatred of Don Felipe Almanzar was so deep-seated that the cattleman was quick to blame Almanzar for everything bad that happened, whether Almanzar had anything to do with it or not.