The Loner: Trail Of Blood (18 page)

It sounded like Fisher was reloading, too. When he was finished, the marshal asked, “You hit?”

“I picked up a scratch or two when those windows broke, but that’s all. How about you?”

“Not even a scratch.” Fisher stood up. “There are shutters on the windows. Let’s close them before I strike a light again.”

That sounded like a good idea to The Kid. He closed and latched the shutters on the window where he had been firing at the gunmen, and heard the marshal doing the same at the other window. The scratch of a lucifer came a moment later. Light flared up from the match.

Fisher lit the lamp. In its glow, The Kid studied the shutters, which had a double layer of thick boards that would stop most rifle bullets and anything smaller than that. The office door was
formidable, too. With the building’s stone walls, it would take a cannon to bust in there.

Fisher put his rifle back in the rack. “Stranger in Abilene, aren’t you?”

The Kid nodded. “That’s right. A friend and I just rode in a little while ago.”

“That was good timing as far as I’m concerned.” The marshal came around the desk and stuck out his hand. A faint smile relieved the naturally grim cast of his face. “I’m obliged to you for your help, Mister …?”

“Morgan,” The Kid said.

“Morgan.” The lawman nodded. “You said you had some business with me?”

The Kid tucked his Winchester under his arm. “We stopped at the livery stable down the street, and the old-timer running it said you’d been a lawman here in Abilene for quite a while.”

“About twenty years. Started out as a deputy under Marshal Travis. Took on the top job when he retired.”

“Then you’ve probably seen most people who have come and gone during that time.”

Fisher shrugged. “Most of them, I guess.” He gave The Kid a shrewd look. “I take it you’re looking for somebody in particular.”

“A woman,” The Kid began.

Fisher held up a hand to stop him. “Wait a minute. Stories that start out with a fella looking for a woman generally take some time and require a cup of coffee.” He gestured toward the pot that sat on a stove in the corner.

“Don’t mind if I do,” The Kid said with a smile.

Fisher filled tin cups and nodded The Kid into a chair in front of the desk. The lawman took a seat behind the desk and propped a booted foot on its corner. “Go ahead.”

“This woman would have come into Abilene on the train.” The Kid described Pamela, not downplaying her beauty. It was a shame that such a lovely exterior had concealed such an evil soul, but that’s how it was. “She would have been traveling with another woman—I don’t know much about her—and a couple of kids a few months old. A boy and a girl.”

Fisher shook his head. “I don’t recall anybody like that moving to Abilene recently.”

“It would have been about three years ago. And the woman wouldn’t have stayed here. Maybe the other woman did, I don’t know. But she might have left the children.”

Fisher frowned and sat up straighter. “Abandoned them, you mean?”

“No, she would have found somebody to take them in. She probably would have paid them to spread the story that the kids belonged to some relative of theirs.”

The marshal’s face wore its bleak look again as he shook his head. “I don’t know absolutely everybody in Abilene, Mr. Morgan, but I can promise you I never heard tell of anything like that happening around here, certainly not in the past three years. Anybody who’s gotten any kids has had them show up the, ah, normal way.”

The Kid’s instincts told him Fisher wasn’t lying, hadn’t been paid off by Pamela to lie. For one
thing, that would have required a certain degree of crookedness on the marshal’s part, and The Kid had a hunch Fisher was as straight-arrow a lawman as anybody would ever find.

“Well, I can’t say as I’m surprised.”

“Who is this woman you’re looking for, Morgan? If she’s not wanted by the law, I suppose you can tell me it’s none of my business, but—”

“She’s not wanted,” The Kid said. “She’s dead. Has been for more than a year.”

“Was she the mother of those kids?”

“That’s right.”

“And you’re the father.” It was a statement, not a question.

The Kid drew in a deep breath. “I didn’t even know about them until a long time after she’d taken them and hidden them away somewhere.”

Fisher took his foot off the desk and sat up straight in his chair. “That’s a damned rough thing for a man to have happen. I wish I could help you, but I can pretty much guarantee the children aren’t here in Abilene. Tell you what I’ll do, though. If you’re going to be around here for a day or two, I’ll put out the word, just in case I’ve overlooked something.”

“I’d appreciate that, Marshal.”

“If you don’t mind indulging my curiosity, how do you know she hid them somewhere?”

“I got a letter from her after she died,” The Kid explained. “She had left it with a relative of hers, along with instructions that I was to get it after a certain amount of time had passed.”

Fisher shook his head again. “That’s a pretty damned low thing to do.”

“Yeah, it sure is.” Since his mission in Abilene was probably going to be a failure, The Kid went on. “Now indulge my curiosity, if you would, Marshal. Who were those men, and what did they want?”

Fisher made a face like he had just bitten into something that tasted bad. “Hired guns who work for a man named Court Elam.” He jerked a thumb at the cell block door. “I’ve got another of Elam’s men locked up back there. He was drunk and got too rough with a soiled dove. Slapped her around until she passed out, and she hasn’t regained consciousness.” Fisher sighed. “That was two nights ago, so it doesn’t look very good for her. I figure the varmint will hang for murder before it’s all over.”

“And Elam doesn’t like that, does he?”

“Not one damned bit. He’s the big skookum he-wolf of a town called Powderhorn, about thirty miles west of here. He and his gunnies have everybody there buffaloed, and he doesn’t like it when anybody challenges him. He seems to think he ought to run things in this whole part of the state and can get away with whatever he or his men want to do.”

“But you don’t agree with that.”

Fisher shook his head. “Inside the town limits of Abilene, I sure don’t.”

The Kid got to his feet. “Well, Marshal, I wish you the best of luck with this problem.”

The marshal regarded him through narrowed
eyes and asked, “You wouldn’t be interested in pinning on a deputy’s badge, would you? Just temporary-like, until I see what’s going to happen.”

The Kid smiled and shook his head. “Sorry. I’m not a lawman.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid you’d say. And you’ve got those kids to look for, too. I can’t blame you for thinking that’s more important.” A look of surprise came over Fisher’s lean face as something occurred to him. “Say, I just thought of something that might help you. There’s an orphanage not far from here. What better place to hide a couple kids than some place where there’s a whole passel of them to start with?”

The Kid’s heart began to beat faster as he thought about the marshal’s question. “You’re right. All Pamela would have had to do was claim they were orphans and leave them there!”

Fisher nodded. “Yeah, you’ll want to check that out for sure.”

The Kid’s hands tightened on his rifle. “Where is this orphanage?”

“Well, that might be a little problem for you. You see, it’s in Powderhorn … and after tonight, I don’t think Elam’s gun-wolves are going to be too happy to see you again.”

By the time The Kid reached the hotel, Arturo had rented two rooms for them. They were on the second floor, in the back as The Kid had requested, and were next to each other. Arturo had taken the valises upstairs and placed one in each room. He was waiting in an armchair in the lobby when The Kid came in.

“I heard a considerable amount of shooting a short time ago. I suppose it’s too much to hope for that you weren’t involved in that, Kid.”

“I had a hand in it,” The Kid admitted.

“I suspected as much.” Arturo frowned as he spotted a bit of dried blood on The Kid’s face where a piece of the flying glass had cut him. “Good Lord. You’re wounded! Do you require medical attention?”

“I’m fine. It’s just a tiny scratch. Don’t worry about me, Arturo.”

“It’s my job to worry,” Arturo pointed out. “Did you get a chance to talk to the marshal, or were you
set upon by crazed gunmen before you reached his office?”

“I talked to him,” The Kid replied as a grim tone came into his voice. “He doesn’t remember anyone like Pamela ever stopping here, and he’s convinced that no children have shown up mysteriously in Abilene in the past three years. But he’s going to investigate just to be sure.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because I pitched in and gave him a hand when some hired guns tried to bust a friend of theirs out of jail.”

“Ah,” Arturo said. “The light dawns. Those were the shots I heard.”

“That’s right.”

“Was anyone killed?”

“Not this time.” In a low voice, The Kid quickly filled him in on what had happened at Marshal Fisher’s office.

When The Kid was finished, Arturo frowned in thought. “Wait just a moment. You said that no one was killed
this
time. Do you plan to have another violent encounter with these men?”

“I’m not planning on it, but it could happen. You see, they’re from a place called Powderhorn, and that’s where we’re going from here.” The Kid gestured toward the stairs. “Come on. I’ll tell you all about it.”

They went up to The Kid’s room, where The Kid told Arturo about the orphanage in the settlement called Powderhorn. “Marshal Fisher didn’t know much about the place, only that it’s been there for about five years and is run by an old
widow woman named Shanley. He said he couldn’t think of a better place to hide a couple kids than an orphanage, and I agree with him.”

Arturo considered the idea and nodded. “It certainly seems feasible to me, sir. All Miss Tarleton would have had to do was claim that the parents of the children were dead. I doubt if this Mrs. Shanley would have demanded any proof, because after all—”

“Who would lie about such a thing.” The Kid finished for him.

“Exactly.” Despite Arturo’s habitually calm demeanor, a hint of excitement appeared on his face and in his voice as he went on. “I believe this may be the most promising development in our search so far.”

The Kid nodded. “I agree. We’ll stay here tonight and start for Powderhorn tomorrow.”

“Where there may well be men who are, what’s the expression, gunning for you?”

“We ought to be used to that by now,” The Kid said.

They didn’t leave Abilene until almost noon the next day. The Kid considered it unlikely the former cowtown held anything else that would help him in his quest, but he had agreed to let Marshal Fisher ask some questions around the settlement. The Kid was confident if anyone could get answers, it was Fisher.

The lawman came to the hotel late in the morning and knocked on The Kid’s door. Arturo
was waiting there, too. The buckboard was ready to roll down at Barlow’s livery stable, and The Kid’s black gelding was saddled.

Fisher came in and gave both men a curt nod. “I didn’t turn up anything about the woman and the children you’re looking for, Morgan. Like I told you last night, I don’t think they were ever here, except to pass through on the train.”

The Kid nodded in acceptance of that opinion. “Thanks anyway, Marshal.” He shook hands with Fisher. “I appreciate you looking into it.”

“If you want, I could ride over to Powderhorn with you,” Fisher suggested. “I’d be out of my jurisdiction over there, so I wouldn’t have any legal standing, but I might be able to lend you a hand.”

The Kid shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, but you have enough on your plate right here. How’s that injured woman doing, by the way?”

“She died early this morning. Elam’s man will be charged with murder. I don’t doubt that he’ll wind up dancing at the end of a hangrope.”

“Sounds like the best place for him,” The Kid said.

“I already wired the sheriff over in the county seat. He’s on his way here with some deputies to pick up the prisoner. I’ll have Barnes off my hands before the end of the day, and that’s just fine with me.”

“Maybe we should stay here to lend
you
a hand, in case you need it.”

“You mean if all of Elam’s men ride back here to bust him out?” Fisher smiled and shook his head. “It was different while the girl was still alive.
Elam was willing to risk trying to get him out then. Now that it’s murder, he won’t try it. He’s got a thin shred of respectability left in Powderhorn, and he’d like to hang on to it. He won’t risk turning outlaw all the way for scum like Barnes.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Sure enough.” The marshal gave a humorless chuckle. “I’ll say one thing, though. Court Elam’s going to be in a mighty bad mood by the time you and your friend get to Powderhorn.”

“We’ll have to risk it. Maybe we won’t have any run-ins with his men. We’re just going to Mrs. Shanley’s orphanage. No reason for us to get involved in anything else.”

“Hope it works out for you. Good luck,” Fisher added as he left the room.

Less than ten minutes later, The Kid rode out of Abilene, leading the pack mule, with Arturo following in the buckboard. The main trail was easy to follow. Even if it hadn’t been, the railroad tracks lay a couple hundred yards to the south, with the telegraph poles running along beside them.

They probably wouldn’t be able to cover the whole thirty miles to Powderhorn in one day, The Kid knew, but they would put enough distance behind them that they could reach the settlement the next day without any trouble.

Arturo had packed a lunch from a place back in Abilene called the Sunrise Café. They stopped to eat and rest the horses early in the afternoon, when they were only a few miles from town, then resumed the trip. A short time later, The Kid spotted
some dust ahead of them. A cloud of it boiled up and moved toward them.

“Riders coming, and they’re in a hurry,” he called to Arturo as he held up his hand in a signal to stop. “Must be half a dozen or more horses, to be kicking up that much dust.”