The Loner: Trail Of Blood (17 page)

They spent two days camped outside town while The Kid and Arturo asked questions of the settlers. Nobody seemed to know anything about Pamela.
Nobody tried to kill The Kid, either, which told him she probably hadn’t disembarked the train there.

It was a good break for Arturo, too, since he wasn’t used to sitting on the hard, bouncing seat of a buckboard all day long. His skin was already starting to tan, and he was handling the four-horse team with more confidence.

They moved on to Topeka. For a capital city, the settlement was on the smallish size, but still large enough that The Kid and Arturo spent a week there, poking around and asking questions. The Kid wired Charles Harcourt to find out if there had been any new developments in Boston, but Harcourt reported that he and Jack Mallory had been unsuccessful in their efforts to uncover any more facets of Pamela’s far-reaching plot.

After a week, The Kid thought it was time they moved on. He began to have the feeling that Pamela wouldn’t have hidden the children in a large town or city where he wouldn’t have any realistic chance of finding them. She hadn’t wanted that. She’d
wanted
him to stay on the trail, and he wouldn’t do that if the chances of finding the twins were so small as to be hopeless. She’d wanted him to keep going, so he could keep stepping right into the traps she had prepared for him.

The Kid was convinced it was much more likely the children were hidden away in some small settlement along the rail line, and that was where he and Arturo would devote their efforts.

Abilene was still famous for everything that had
happened during its days as a wild, hell-roaring cowtown. The sleepy little farming community bore little resemblance to that bloody hell on wheels where Wild Bill Hickok had ruled as city marshal. It was just the sort of place where Pamela might have stashed the twins, The Kid thought as he and Arturo rolled across the bridge over Mud Creek and down Front Street.

Dusk was settling over the town. The Kid turned in the saddle and pointed toward a two-story brick hotel. “We’ll stay there tonight. Be nice to sleep in a real bed, won’t it?”

“I don’t know. I’m getting used to being uncomfortable. How will I know what to do if there aren’t insects biting me and rocks jabbing me all night?”

“You’ll figure it out,” The Kid said with a smile. “Here’s a livery stable.” He swung down from the saddle and led the black and the pack mule through the open double doors into the barn. Arturo brought the buckboard to a halt just outside.

An elderly hostler, quite spry despite his age, greeted them. “You gents want to put them animals up for the night?”

The Kid nodded. “And I reckon we can park the buckboard out back?”

“Sure, sure, no charge for that. Two bits a night for the critters, though.”

“Fair enough,” The Kid said. He took a five-dollar gold piece from his pocket and handed it to the old man. “That’ll cover three nights with a
little left over. Give them a little extra grain. They deserve it.”

“I sure will. You fellas been travelin’ a far piece?”

“Far enough.” The Kid paused. “Have you been around these parts for long?”

“Oh, shoot, yeah. Twenty years or more.” The hostler held out a hand. “Name’s Barlow.”

The Kid shook with him. “Morgan. My friend’s Vincent.” Arturo’s last name was really Vincenzo, but The Kid had given the moniker a more American sound. With his neutral accent, Arturo didn’t sound Italian.

“Pleased to meet you both,” Barlow said.

“We’re looking for some old friends of ours. You might remember if they’ve been here.”

A grin split the old-timer’s face. “I see ’most ever’body who comes through town, except for the folks who never get off the train when it stops.”

“This lady would have come in on the train,” The Kid said. “A very beautiful lady with two young children, traveling with a friend of hers. She brought the children out to let them stay for a spell with either some friends or relatives of hers, I’m not sure which.”

The Kid had devoted considerable thought to the matter and figured that was the story Pamela might have used. The sudden, unexplained presence of two new children in a family might draw too much attention, but people took in youngsters belonging to friends or relatives all the time, when there was some sort of hardship or other circumstance that warranted it. Pamela would have
made it worth the trouble to any family where she left the twins to spread that lie.

Barlow scratched his jaw, which bristled with silvery beard stubble. “That don’t sound familiar. About how long ago are we talkin’ about, Mr. Morgan?”

“Three years or so. Maybe not quite that long.”

“Three years, huh? That’s a long spell, especially to a fella like me who’s gettin’ older and don’t remember so good anymore.”

The Kid slid a hand in his pocket. “Would a double eagle improve your memory?”

“What?” Barlow looked confused, then suddenly moved his hands back and forth in front of him as he figured out what The Kid meant. “Oh, no, no, I’m tellin’ the truth, not hintin’ for more money. I been right on the straight and narrow ever since me and my brothers got in some trouble with the law years back. I really don’t remember so good no more, Mr. Morgan. But I’m thinkin’ I never heard tell about no lady bringin’ some kids here like that and leavin’ ’em.”

The Kid tried not to sigh. “Well, if anything comes to you, my friend and I will be staying over at the hotel for a day or two. Let us know, will you?”

“I sure will.” Barlow’s eyes widened as a thought occurred to him. “Say, I know who you ought to talk to. Marshal Fisher. He’s been around Abilene even longer’n I have.”

The Kid had been trying not to involve the law in his search, but maybe the suggestion was a good one, he thought. “I’ll do that,” he told
Barlow. “We’ll get these horses unhitched and unsaddled—”

“Let me do that,” the hostler said. “I got to earn my keep. I been an honest businessman for a long time now. You get whatever you want to take to the hotel with you, and I’ll lock up your saddle and the rest of your gear in the tack room.”

The Kid nodded. “Much obliged.”

He slid his Winchester from the sheath strapped to the black’s saddle and draped the pair of saddlebags over his shoulder. Arturo took a pair of small valises from the back of the buckboard.

“Well, he was quite a colorful character,” Arturo commented as the two of them walked toward the hotel.

“I’m sure he’d think the same thing about you,” The Kid said. In the fading light, he spotted a squarish, solid-looking building made of stone, up ahead on the left across the street. An oil lamp burned in front of the building, and the windows glowed yellow with lamplight. A sign attached to the wall beside the door read MARSHAL’S OFFICE.

Since the lawman appeared to be in his office, The Kid said to Arturo, “Why don’t you go on to the hotel and get a couple of rooms for us? I think I’ll stop and talk to the marshal, like Mr. Barlow suggested.”

“Do you think he’ll be willing to help you?”

“I don’t know, but Barlow said that he’d been around Abilene for a long time. If he’s been packing a badge all that time, he’s probably kept a pretty close eye on the comings and goings in
town. He might be more likely to remember seeing Pamela than anybody else.”

“That strikes me as a reasonable assumption. Good luck.”

“Thanks.” The Kid started to step down from the boardwalk so he could angle across the street to the marshal’s office, then paused. “Get us rooms in the back if you can. Quieter that way.”

“Of course.”

Arturo continued on his way, and The Kid stepped into the broad, dusty street. He was only partway across when he heard the sudden rataplan of hoofbeats. Stopping, he saw a group of riders coming quickly toward him. The red glow from the setting sun in the sky behind them cast them in stark silhouette. Four men on horseback, and they didn’t seem inclined to slow down or go around him. With his mouth tightening in anger, The Kid took a fast step back to avoid being trampled.

He wanted to call out to them and tell them to watch where the hell they were going, but that could lead to an argument or a fight and he didn’t have time to waste. Once the horsemen were past him, he started toward the marshal’s office again.

He slowed as he saw the riders pull their mounts to a stop in front of the stone building. They swung down, stepped onto the boardwalk, and then paused for a second. Even in the fading light, The Kid’s keen eyes saw the men reach down and check to make sure their guns were loose in their holsters.

That was a sure sign trouble was brewing, The Kid thought as one of the men jerked open the door and all four of them marched into the marshal’s office.

Whatever was about to happen, it was none of his business, he told himself. He didn’t know who those four men were, and he had never even heard of Abilene’s Marshal Fisher until a few minutes earlier. The smart thing to do would be to turn around, follow Arturo to the hotel, and come back to see the marshal later.

But suppose there
was
trouble, and Fisher got himself shot full of holes. He might know something about Pamela and the children … but a dead man was no use to Kid Morgan.

The Kid drew a deep breath through his nose and started walking again. He still had the Winchester in his hands, and he worked the lever to throw a round into the rifle’s chamber.

The four men had left the door partially open. As he stepped onto the boardwalk, The Kid heard a harsh voice say, “You can let him outta there, Marshal, or by God we’ll
take
him out! You won’t like what happens if we have to do that.”

It was enough to give The Kid a pretty good idea of what was going on. Using the Winchester’s barrel to push the door open the rest of the way, he stepped into the doorway and drawled, “And I don’t reckon you boys will like what happens if you try.”

In a matter of seconds, The Kid’s eyes took in the scene in the marshal’s office, noting the position of each of the five men who stood there.

The four who had just entered had arranged themselves in a threatening half-circle around a man who stood with his back to the thick wooden door that separated the office from the cell block in the rear of the building. The man was in his forties, slender as a whip, with graying fair hair and a mustache. He was dressed all in black and had a holstered Colt on his hip, along with a marshal’s badge pinned to his leather vest.

The oldest of the four intruders was older than the marshal, with a derby hat on thinning red hair and a grizzled beard of the same shade sprouting from his jaw. The youngest was no more than twenty. Curly brown hair fell around his shoulders. Despite his youth, the eyes he turned toward The Kid were flat and devoid of humanity, like the eyes of a snake.

The other two were in their thirties, typical hardcases in worn range clothes. One of them, who had a prominent beak of a nose over a thick, drooping black mustache, glared at The Kid and demanded, “Who the hell are you?”

The old-timer in the derby growled, “This ain’t none o’ your business, mister. You best skedaddle.”

“My business is with the marshal,” The Kid said coldly. “So you’d best conclude whatever brought you here and then leave, so I can get on with it.”

Big Nose said, “You’re makin’ a bad mistake. Haul your freight outta here.” He was the one who had been threatening the marshal as The Kid reached the doorway.

The long-haired youngster laughed. “Yeah, you don’t want to get on our bad side, mister. We work for Court Elam.”

“Never heard of him,” The Kid snapped.

Big Nose ignored him and looked back at the marshal. “How about it, Fisher? You gonna let Barnes out?”

“Not hardly,” the lawman replied. “We don’t know yet if that girl’s going to live or not, and even if she does, Barnes will have to answer for what he did to her.”

Big Nose’s face flushed with anger. “Court’s not gonna like this. He wants his men treated with respect.”

“I don’t give a damn what Elam likes or doesn’t like. As far as I’m concerned, none of you varmints have earned a lick of respect from me or anybody else in Abilene. Why don’t you just ride on back to Powderhorn?”

The youngster said, “We can take ’em, Jim. There’s four of us and only two of them.”

“Yeah, but one of them is behind us with a Winchester.” Big Nose grimaced. “We’ll go, Fisher. But this ain’t over.”

The old-timer with the derby pointed a finger at the marshal and blustered, “Yeah, you’ll be seein’ us again.”

“More than likely over the barrel of a gun,” Fisher drawled, and The Kid’s instinctive liking for him increased.

The Kid moved aside from the door to let the four hardcases file out of the office. He kept them covered the whole time. When they were gone, he toed the door shut and lowered the rifle as he turned toward the marshal.

Before The Kid could say anything, Fisher snapped, “Get down!” and leaped toward the desk where a lamp was burning. Even as he blew out the flame, both of the windows in the office exploded inward under the onslaught of a volley of shots fired from outside.

The Kid had halfway expected something like that, so he was already diving toward the floor as shards of broken glass sprayed around him. He had an arm over his face to protect his eyes. He rolled over as he landed and came up on one knee still holding the Winchester. He thrust the rifle through the busted window closest to him and aimed at the muzzle flashes in the street, cranking off three rounds as fast as he could work the lever.

Marshal Fisher had snatched a loaded rifle
from the rack on the wall behind the desk and crouched at the other window to open fire. He and The Kid raked the street with their shots, and that was enough to make the four mounted men dig in their spurs and send their horses lunging away from the marshal’s office.

“Hold your fire!” Fisher called to The Kid. “They’re leaving. Don’t want any stray bullets hitting anybody else.”

The Kid pulled the Winchester back from the window. The rifle was chambered to use the same rounds as his Colt, so he took fresh cartridges from the loops on his shell belt and thumbed them through the Winchester’s loading gate, working in the dark with the ease of long familiarity.