Ghost Valley (4 page)

“I can shoot you now,” the rifleman said. “That way, your feet won't be cold.”

Rich slumped on his rump and pulled off his stovepipe boots without further complaint.

“Now start walking,” the rifleman said. “I don't give a damn which direction you go.”

“We will die!” Cabot cried.

The lanky gunman came toward them and picked up their boots without taking his rifle sights off them. “Life ain't no easy proposition, gentlemen,” he said. “Start walking, or I'll kill you right where you sit.”

Both gunslicks limped away.

“Pretty sight, ain't it?” Tin Pan asked.

Frank merely nodded.

* * *

He closed his eyes. Was his need for revenge so great that it was worth riding this vengeance trail?

Frank knew the answer as he drifted off to sleep. Dog was curled beside the bed, watching him with big liquid eyes.

Frank reined his bay east at the river. Dog trotted beside the horse. After a big breakfast of pancakes and ham, with a pot of coffee at his elbow at Glenwood Springs' only cafe, he felt rested, better than he had in days. He'd purchased supplies at Colter's General Store, enough provisions to last him for a month or more.

He sighted a rock building and a faded, hand-painted sign reading GLENWOOD SPRINGS SANITARIUM hung above a pair of front doors. The place looked like it had fallen on hard times, like the rest of the town.

Frank swung over to a hitch rail and stepped down, wondering what Doc Holliday would be like. His waitress at the eatery had said that Holliday was dying with tuberculosis and word was he didn't have long, which was what George had said.

Frank let himself into the building. Dog watched him, resting on his haunches near the bay.

A gray-haired woman in a rumpled nurse's uniform greeted him.

“What can I do for you, mister?”

“I'd like to speak to Doc Holliday a moment.”

“He don't want any visitors.”

“It's important, ma'am. Someone's life may be in danger unless I can talk to him.” It was more or less the truth. If Holliday could tell him where to find Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen, their lives would damn sure be in grave danger when Frank caught up to them.

The woman frowned. “I'll ask him if he'll talk to you. Give me your name.”

“Frank Morgan. He may not recognize the name, only please tell him I need to talk to him. I won't need but a minute of his time.”

“I'll tell him, Mr. Morgan. You can take a seat over there by those windows.”

The nurse disappeared down a dark hallway. Somewhere in the back of the building, Frank could hear bubbling water and soft splashing sounds, no doubt the hot mineral baths this place was known for, a spring coming from deep in the earth and filled with healing, or so some folks said.

“This place is damn near empty,” he muttered.

The woman returned a moment later. She halted in front of Frank and glanced down at his gunbelt. “Doc says it's okay, but he asked if you was carryin' a gun.”

“I'll leave it here on your desk,” Frank replied, drawing his Colt, placing it on her desk top with a heavy thud. He still had a belly-gun hidden inside his shirt—not that he figured he'd be needing it.

“Come this way, Mr. Morgan,” the nurse said, leading him down the hallway. “Doc said you could only stay a minute or two. He's feelin' real poorly now.”

“I understand, ma'am,” Frank told her as she opened a door into a small private room.

A frail, emaciated young man lay on a narrow bed below the room's only window, covered by a thin sheet and wool blanket to keep out the morning chill.

The woman closed the door behind Frank.

“Doc Holliday?” he asked softly. The man on the bed would scarcely weigh a hundred pounds. His cheeks and eyes were so deeply sunken into his face that he could have been dead, had he not spoken just then.

“That's me,” Holliday replied. “You can take that chair in the corner. I've heard of you, Morgan. You have a reputation as a man with an intemperate disposition.”

Frank grinned weakly and eased over to the wooden chair. “I've heard much the same about you, Doc.”

Holliday tried for a laugh that ended in a series of wet coughs. With a slender-fingered hand he wiped blood from his mouth with a blood-soaked rag. “What brings you to me, Morgan? Nurse Miller said it was important.”

“Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen. I need to know where they are.”

“A nasty pair. Cowards, both of them. However, they'll shoot a man in the back and he'll be just as dead as if they'd faced him.”

“I know. I almost had them a few weeks back in the south part of the territory. They were holding my son for ransom to get at me. I got my boy back, but Pine and Vanbergen got away clean.”

“A damn shame. They need to take the dirt nap. What makes you so sure they're here?”

“I picked up their trail. They've still got a few gunslicks with ‘em. One of 'em tried to jump me here in Glenwood Springs last night while I was down by the old cemetery. He came at me with a shotgun. It only makes sense that it was one of Pine's or Vanbergen's shooters. The only thing that troubles me is how they knew I was here—not that it matters, since I'm gonna kill 'em all anyway if I get the chance.”

“You're not worried about the odds?”

“I never worry about the odds. I lost their trail south of here by a few miles. I figured they'd come here for whiskey and supplies.”

“They did. That was a couple of weeks ago.”

“Some old man in town told me to look for 'em in a place called Ghost Valley. It doesn't show on the map I've got with me.”

“It won't,” Holliday replied. “But that's where you'll find them, most likely. There are remnants of an old mining town in a deep valley to the north. They hole up in a cabin on the west edge of the town. Nobody lives there now.”

“How do I find it?”

Doc broke into another fit of bloody coughing. Frank waited for him to clean his mouth and chin.

“There's a two-rut wagon road that angles northwest of town into the mountains. It's a steep climb. Ride three or four miles until you come to a little stream. Swing off the road and follow that stream through the pines. It's a rough climb in places. I hope you're riding a good mountain horse.”

“I am.”

“The stream wanders for about six miles. You'll come to a place where it cuts between two ridges. Ride up the more nothern one. There won't be any trail to follow. Ride slow and very carefully. When you come to the top you'll be looking into Ghost Valley. There's an old Indian burial ground down below. You'll see the mounds. The mining town is to the east—what's left of it.”

“What about those old Indians, Doc? I thought I saw one yesterday near the Glenwood Springs Cemetery as I was riding into town.”

“Some people claim they can see them. I've never seen one. I think it's poppycock. The Anasazi have been gone for hundreds of years.”

“I saw something,” Frank assured him. “My dog growled when he saw it. The Indian wasn't my imagination.” He left out the part about the whispered voice he'd heard.

“Maybe he was a Ute or a Shoshoni,” Holliday suggested as he wiped his mouth again, “although most of the tribes have been driven farther north by the Army.”

“He was an Indian, whatever breed he was.” Right then, Frank couldn't shake the eerie feeling that perhaps he had seen a ghost, even though there wasn't a superstitious bone in his body that he knew of.

Holliday dismissed the subject with a wave of a pale hand. “I've never seen an Indian around here and I've been here for three months. I've only been bedridden over the past month. As you can see, I'm at death's doorway. Doc Grimes tells me it won't be long now.”

“Sorry to hear it, Doc,” Frank said.

“Funny,” Holliday told him, smiling as he stared up at the ceiling. “I've always assumed a bullet in the back would take me to my grave. I'd planned to die with my boots on, as the old saying goes. This is a horrible way for a man to cash in his chips.”

“I'd rather go out quick myself,” Frank agreed.

Holliday glanced at him. “You may get your chance if Pine or Vanbergen sees you first. They won't do it honorably. You can bet your last dollar on that.”

“I've already become acquainted with them,” Frank said in a low growl. “I'll be ready when the time comes.”

“You sound like a very confident fellow, Morgan. Are you that good with a gun?”

“I've gotten by. Tried to quit years ago, until this business with my son came about.”

“Good luck, Morgan,” Holliday said, his voice trailing off. “Now if you don't mind, I need to close my eyes. I just took a dose of laudanum and I'm sleepy. Follow that stream until it passes between those ridges. Ride up to the crest of the valley, and from there on, you'd better have eyes in the back of your head.”

“I'm obliged, Doc,” Frank said, coming to his feet. “I wish you the best.”

“My best days are already gone, Morgan,” Holliday replied as his eyelids batted shut. “However, I must say I had a wonderful time while it lasted.”

Frank started for the door.

“One more thing, Morgan,” Holliday said, his throat clotted so that he was hard to understand.

“What's that, Doc?”

“Make sure nobody follows you out of town. Vanbergen and Pine have friends here. Quite possibly back-shooters who have been warned to keep an eye out for you.”

“I killed one of them last night. Sheriff Tom Brewer made it real plain he didn't want me hanging around. Makes me wonder if he's a friend to Pine and Vanbergen.”

“I doubt if you have anything to fear from Brewer,” Holliday said, his eyelids closing again. “But he could be looking the other way for a handful of silver when those outlaws ride into town. He won't be the first crooked lawman I ever met.”

“Me either,” Frank said. “Thanks for the warning, Doc. I aim to bring 'em down . . . every last one.”

Holliday didn't answer, his nostrils flaring gently with opium slumber.

Frank let himself out, and walked back up the hall to fetch his pistol. He saw the nurse seated behind her desk, and came over for his gun.

“Thank you, ma'am,” he said, holstering his Colt. “I'm much obliged.”

“Is Doc asleep?” she asked. “I just gave him his laudanum before you arrived.”

“Yes, ma'am, he's asleep.”

Frank went outside and untied his bay, mounting after a look down the empty road back to town. He reined away from the sanitarium and heeled his horse to a jog trot.

Remembering the directions Doc gave him, he knew he would have to pass through Glenwood Springs to reach the right wagon road, a ride that would attract attention should any of the gang be watching for him.

“Suits the hell outta me,” he mumbled. It would be just as easy to kill a few more of them here, rather than wait for an ambush somewhere in the mountains looming above the sleepy little village.

He rode through Glenwood Springs at the same slow trot, with an eye out for anyone who seemed to be watching him. He passed the sheriffs office, and noticed that Tom Brewer came out on the boardwalk to stare at him with unfriendly eyes.

“He's on the take,” Frank told himself quietly. He'd seen that same look in men's eyes before.

Riding past a blacksmith's shop, he noticed a new pine coffin on a pair of sawhorses. “One less back-shooting bastard to worry about,” he said aloud, urging his horse to a short lope as he rode away from Glenwood Springs into a dense ponderosa forest.

Less than a quarter mile from town he found the two-rut wagon road Doc Holliday had described. Frank reined his horse to a halt and looked behind him. No one was following him now, but it was too soon to tell.

He swung onto the wagon ruts and started up a steep hill. The pines grew so close to the road they were like walls on either side. Deep shadows lay before him. It was the perfect place for an ambush.

“Out front, Dog!” Frank bellowed.

Dog understood his job. He trotted out in front of Frank and the bay until he was more than a hundred yards ahead.

“A little insurance,” he said, pulling his Winchester from its saddle boot to jack a shell into the firing chamber. He lowered the hammer gently and rested the rifle across the pommel of his saddle.

He slowed the bay to a walk and kept his eyes glued to the ruts and shadows. If Pine or Vanbergen meant to jump him on his way to the valley, they'd have their hands full.

Dog continued up the steep ascent without making a sound or giving a warning. The old dog's senses were as keen as ever and he was rarely taken by surprise.

“Let the bastards come, if they want,” Frank said grimly. “I got a little surprise for 'em....”

Frank rode slowly between the pines, stopping every so often to check his back trail, and to listen for the sounds of another horse. Dog sat in the middle of the road panting, watching the man and the horse behind him, when Frank reined his animal to yet another stop.

“It's quiet,” he whispered. “Maybe too damn quiet.”

But there was no evidence that anyone was following him, and Dog had sensed nothing ahead.

“Getting jumpy in my old age,” Frank told himself, although he had the eerie feeling that he was being watched.

He heeled his horse forward, continuing up the steady climb toward snowcapped peaks. The creak of saddle leather and the soft drum of the bay's hooves filled the silence around him for a time.

Then Dog halted suddenly, hair rigid along his backbone as he looked to the east.

Frank drew rein on his horse at once, scanning the dark forest. A marksman worth his salt could kill him easily from those pines. Perhaps it was time to proceed with more care until he cleared this part of the road.

He swung out of the saddle, using his bay for a shield to continue moving northwest, walking beside the horse's shoulder. And still, Dog didn't move, watching the trees with a low growl coming from his throat.

“That's good enough for me,” Frank muttered, moving off the road to enter black forest shadows where he would make a more difficult target. Balancing his Winchester in the palm of his hand, he crept along at a snail's pace.

“What is it, Dog?” he whispered when he came to the spot in the road where his dog remained frozen between the ruts.

Dog wouldn't look at him, staring at the same spot on a wooded ridge, still growling.

Now Frank was sure something, or someone, was out there. It would be a fool's move to continue along the road until he found out what it was.

He ground-hitched the bay and started walking softly among the pine trunks, using them for cover wherever he could. Dog trotted up beside him, his attention still fixed on the ridge.

I wonder if it's that Indian again,
Frank thought.

Dog had never given him a false signal despite the cur's advancing age.

With no warning, the sharp crack of a rifle's report sounded from the ridge. Frank threw himself on the ground behind a ponderosa trunk, listening to the bullet sizzle high above his head.

“Damn, that was close,” Frank said, gritting his teeth in anger. He knew now that he should have been more cautious, coming around behind the ridge instead of approaching it head-on.

“I missed you, Morgan!” a distant voice shouted. “But I ain't done yet!”

Dog was crouched beside him . . . it wasn't the first bullet the animal ever heard.

One of Pine's or Vanbergen's men,
Frank thought.
There may be more than one.

“Stay, Dog,” he whispered, crawling backward away from the tree, keeping it between him and the shooter.

Frank took off in a crouch, dodging and darting from one pine to the next, his chest welling with rage.

Moving as quickly as he could, he began a wide circle that would take him around to the back of the ridge.

* * *

He sighted a prone form using underbrush for cover at the top of the switchback, partially hidden in the shade to keep sunlight from gleaming off his rifle barrel.

“Gotcha, you bastard,” Frank whispered, drawing a bead on the man's back. Frank wouldn't shoot a man in the back without giving him a fair warning.

“Hey, asshole! I'm back here!” he cried.

The rifleman flipped over on his side, bringing his gun around as quickly as he could. It was just what Frank had been waiting for.

He triggered a .44-caliber slug into the man's belly. The explosion near his ear almost deafened him.

“Shit!” the rifleman bellowed, jerking when the bullet found its mark. A crimson stain exploded on his shirtfront. He dropped his rifle to grab his belly with both hands.

Frank came to his feet, still covering the bushwhacker as he started toward him. Taking careful steps, he started up the back of the ridge.

“Jesus! I'm shot!” the gunman moaned, blood pouring between his fingers.

“That's a real good calculation of your situation,” Frank told him. “You're gonna die for Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen. Ask yourself if it was worth whatever they were paying you to ambush me.”

“You ain't gonna just leave me here, Morgan.”

“That's exactly what I'm gonna do. I hope you die slow, so you can think about what you just tried to do. Hurts a bit, don't it?”

“You bastard.”

“I'm not a bastard. My ma and pa were married. You've been wrong about nearly everything so far, cowboy.”

“You gotta get me to a doctor.”

“I don't have to do a damn thing except climb on my horse and be on my way.”

“I can tell you where to find Ned an' Vic, only you gotta help me.”

“I already know where they are.”

“How the hell'd you find out?”

“An Indian told me.”

The gunman raised his head to stare at Frank. “You seen 'em too?”

Frank merely nodded.

The shooter's head fell back on the grass. “Help me, Morgan. I'll be dead before dark if you don't.”

“Seems a shame. I'm touched by your predicament. I was on my way to Ghost Valley when some son of a bitch tried to shoot me from ambush. But I got behind you and shot you instead, and now you want me to have sympathy for you?”

“Damn, Morgan. My belly hurts. I'm dyin'.”

“Appears that way. I'm gonna find your horse and turn it loose while you leak blood all over this pretty green grass. I fully intend to leave you right here.”

“It was just business, Morgan. Ned hired me to take you out. You're a hired gun, so you oughta know it damn sure ain't nothin' personal.”

“I'm not taking it personally.”

“You gotta help me get to a doctor.”

“Like hell. All I've got to do is keep riding toward that valley.”

“We shoulda killed that boy of yours when we had him, you cold-blooded sumbitch.”

“I'm no kind of son of a bitch. If you weren't already dying, I'd kill you over a remark like that.”

The gunman's breathing became ragged.

“Hear that sound, back-shooter?” Frank asked, grinning a mirthless grin. “That's a death rattle in your chest. It won't be long now.”

“Help . . . me.”

“Not today, cowboy. I've got business with your bosses and it won't wait.”

“Nobody . . . can be ... that cold.”

“You just met him,” Frank said savagely before he wheeled away to look for the shooter's horse.

He found a dun gelding in a ravine and pulled the saddle off it, tossing the saddle to the ground. Frank slipped off the bridle and gave the horse its freedom.

As he was turning to climb back up the ridge, he thought he saw a shadow move in the forest higher above him. A reflex—he raised his rifle and moved behind a pine tree.

“I know I saw somebody,” he whispered.

But no matter how closely he looked, he saw nothing now and it gave him a spooky feeling. Who the hell would be watching him unless he came here to shoot at him? he wondered.

He pondered the possibility that the Indian who spoke to him at the Glenwood Springs cemetery was watching him again. But he couldn't quite make himself believe in old Indian ghosts. It had to be a Ute or a Shoshoni, a flesh-and-blood Indian.

After a final examination of the woods he strode back to the spot where the gunman lay. The bushwhacker's eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow.

“Adios, you yellow bastard,” Frank said, trudging back toward his horse and the dog.

He found his bay ground-hitched where he'd left him, and Dog sat patiently a few yards away in the tree shadows.

“Out front, Dog,” Frank said, climbing into the saddle with his Winchester. He wondered if any more attempts would be made on his life before he found the valley.

* * *

He rode up on a clear, running brook coming out of the mountains. Gazing north, he could see faint traces of a trail following the east bank of the stream.

Frank whistled Dog back from the far side of the shallow creek and began the steeper climb. Dog seemed unconcerned by anything flanking the trail, moving farther ahead with his ears drooping.

The bay began to struggle climbing rocky spots, bunching its muscles to make the ascent. Foamy lather began to form on its neck and shoulders and its breathing grew labored at the higher altitude.

Frank saw small brook trout in the stream, suspended in deeper pools above glittering beds of colorful stones. Had it not been for his deadly purpose here, he would have stopped to enjoy the clean, pine-scented air and spend time relaxing, maybe even go fishing for a spell.

But this was a business trip, with scores to settle, and the only thing on his mind was finding Vanbergen and Pine and the rest of the gang. If Frank Morgan had his way, a peaceful valley hidden between these peaks would run red with blood before the week was out.

Gray clouds began to scud across the sky, coming from the north, and soon the forest shadows were dim when the sun was blocked out. Frank supposed it wasn't too late in the year for a spring snowstorm. At higher elevations, it could snow almost any time.

He had plenty of warm clothing and a mackinaw, just in case, and a pair of worn leather gloves. While snow wasn't the weather he would have ordered for a manhunt, it might give him cover when he found the gang.

A chill wind came with the clouds, and he shivered once. It had been snowing when he'd finally caught up with Ned and Vic and Conrad before.

“Maybe it's a good omen,” he mumbled, turning up his shirt collar.

Before long he could feel a hint of ice on the winds as the stream coursed higher. Tied around his bedding behind the cantle of his saddle was a small canvas tarp to keep things dry, and it also served as a makeshift lean-to when snow or rain forced him to a halt.

“It don't matter what the weather's like,” he said savagely, keeping his eyes on the trail. “A goddamn hurricane won't keep me from finding that valley.

Mile after empty mile passed quietly under the bay's hooves without Dog giving any indication of danger. Frank slumped in the saddle, deciding upon a stop for jerky and a tin of peaches in another hour or so.

Farther ahead, high on a switchback, he glimpsed a black bear watching him.

“Proof enough the way is clear for a spell,” he told himself in a hoarse whisper.

* * *

He came to a small clearing an hour later, and halted his horse to swing down. With water from the stream, he could eat salted pork and sweet peaches here, with a good vantage point for watching his surroundings.

He opened a package of butcher paper and sat on a nearby rock to chew jerky, saving the peaches for a final touch. He dipped a tin cup full of water from the stream while his horse grazed on the clearing's grasses.

Dog sat on his haunches in front of him with a begging look in his eyes.

“You'll get some,” Frank promised. “Humans eat first around here.”

He tossed Dog a scrap of jerky, and had begun opening the peach tin with his bowie knife, when suddenly Dog jumped up, snarling, looking east.

“Take it easy, stranger,” a thin voice said from behind him. “I've got my Sharps aimed at yer back.”

Frank glanced over his shoulder, his blood running cold. “How the hell did you slip up on me, old-timer?” He saw an old man dressed in buckskins covering him with a long-barrel buffalo gun.

“ 'Twas easy. You been pretty careful most o' the way, but yer belly got the best of you.”

Frank wondered if he had time to make a play for his pistol before a bullet took him down. “Are you aiming to kill me?”

“Nope. Jest curious. You shot a man back yonder a ways an' I was wonderin' about it.”

“He was trying to bushwhack me.”

“I seen that. Still didn't know what it was all about.”

“He was one of the men who kidnapped my son. I got my boy back, and now I aim to make the men who took him pay.”

“Sounds reasonable enough.”

“I take it you're not with them. If you were, you'd have already killed me.”

“If you mean that bunch down in Ghost Valley, I damn sure ain't none of their kind.”

“Will you put that gun down and have some peaches?”

“I might. I'll give it some thought.”

“My name's Frank Morgan.”

“I'm called Buck Waite.”

“I'd sure be obliged if you lowered that gun.”

“Don't make a snatch fer that pistol you're carryin'. I've got one myself an' I'll kill you deader'n pig shit if you do.”

“No reason for a gun, I don't reckon, if you don't aim to shoot me.”

The man with shoulder-length red hair and a red beard flecked with gray lowered the muzzle of his rifle. Frank noticed he had an old Navy Colt tucked into a deerskin belt around his waist.

“Come have some peaches,” Frank offered. “If you're willing, I need to ask you about getting into that valley. It's real clear you know your way around these mountains.”