The Loner: The Bounty Killers (22 page)

“What do you want, you son of a bitch?” the gunman answered.

“Call it off now, or Guthrie dies! I’ve got a gun to his head!”

That wasn’t strictly true, but all it would take was a shouted command by Lace for Max to rip Guthrie’s throat out, so it was almost the same thing.

After a moment, Nebel shouted, “All right! We’re leaving! But this ain’t—”

“Yeah, it ain’t over,” The Kid called back mockingly. “I’ve heard that before. If you and the rest of Guthrie’s crew have any sense, you’ll ride out now and save your own hides. The sweet deal you had here . . .
that’s
over.”

Nebel didn’t say anything. After a minute, the sound of hoofbeats drifted through the night. Maybe Guthrie’s crew of killers were really pulling out, or maybe it was another trick.

Either way, The Kid thought as he thumbed fresh cartridges through the Winchester’s loading gate to replace the ones he’d fired, he and Lace would be ready. If it came down to it, they would go out fighting.

It was as good a way to die as any.

And better than most, The Kid told himself grimly as he worked the rifle’s lever and jacked a round into the chamber.

Chapter 29

The retreat of Guthrie’s men was no trick. The rest of the night passed quietly, as did the next two days and nights after that.

“Looks like Nebel and the rest of your bunch have decided you’re not worth fighting for,” The Kid told Guthrie on the morning of the fourth day. With any luck, it was the day Chester Blount would be back from Phoenix with a posse of lawmen.

Guthrie glared at The Kid. They had taken pity on him and given him coffee and something to eat every day, but it hadn’t improved his disposition any.

“They’re just biding their time,” Guthrie insisted. “They won’t let me die, and they sure as hell won’t let me be turned over to the law.” His glare turned into a smirk. “I know too much about too many of those boys. They won’t want me testifying.”

“Sounds like a good reason for them to decide they’re better off with you dead,” Lace commented.

Guthrie looked surprised and a little worried. Obviously, he hadn’t thought of that.

“Max, guard,” Lace told the dog. He planted himself on his haunches in front of Guthrie and gazed intently at the prisoner, mouth open a little so Guthrie could see the sharp teeth. If The Kid hadn’t known better, he would have said Max was grinning at Guthrie in an attempt to unnerve the rancher.

Lace inclined her head toward the other side of the rock as an indication that she wanted The Kid to follow her. He did so with his Winchester tucked under his arm. His gaze roved constantly over both canyon rims and the gate. Just because Guthrie’s hired killers hadn’t tried anything for a couple of days didn’t mean the trouble was over.

“What is it?” he asked quietly when he and Lace had put the big rock between them and the prisoner.

“The old-timer’s liable to be back today.”

The Kid nodded. “I know. If nothing happened to delay him, and if he was able to get the authorities in Phoenix to listen to him.”

“If he was able to use your name to make them listen, that’s what you mean.”

The Kid shrugged. “Influence isn’t worth having if you’re not willing to use it in a good cause.”

That was the sort of altruistic statement the old Conrad Browning never would have made. To him, influence was only good for increasing his own wealth and power. Being around Frank and Rebel had changed him, and then Rebel’s death had tempered the steel inside him even more. There was no longer any point in denying it.

“You see, that’s not the sort of thing I’d expect to hear a hunted fugitive say,” Lace said. “If that wild yarn of yours is true and you really are this rich fella Conrad Browning, I think it’s time you told me how you went from that to being the man you are now. What’s this Kid Morgan business all about, anyway?”

The Kid’s jaw tightened. “That’s sort of personal.”

“Damn right it is. You think those things I told you about
my
life weren’t personal? You think it was easy to tell you that my mama was a whore, I was a whore, and I’m gonna make damn sure
my
daughter doesn’t grow up to be a whore? Because I’ll tell you right now, Kid . . . it wasn’t. It wasn’t easy at all.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. She was right, of course. She had been honest with him. Did he owe her the same sort of honesty? They were comrades-in-arms, after all. They had fought side by side, risked their lives for each other, heard the same bullets whipping past their heads.

But she was asking him to reveal things no one else knew except Frank Morgan and Claudius Turnbuckle. And even those two had never heard
all
the details of that horrifying night in Carson City.

As he hesitated, she went on, “If we get out of this mess with Guthrie alive, we’ll be heading on to Santa Fe pretty soon. Will we be going there as partners, to clear your name, or do I have to take you prisoner again and turn you in for that ten grand bounty?”

The Kid smiled. “Do you think you could?” “For ten thousand dollars, I’ll give it a damned good try,” she said flatly, and he knew she was telling the truth.

“All right,” he said, reaching a decision. “If you want to know the ugly story of Kid Morgan’s birth, then so be it.” He thought about how he had put the barrel of a rifle against the head of an unarmed man and pulled the trigger. “But you may not like everything you hear.”

“Try me,” she said. “It’s not likely you’ll be able to shock me.”

“I’m not trying to shock you. I’m just doing what you asked, telling you the truth.”

For the next half hour, that’s what he did, speaking quietly so Guthrie couldn’t overhear. It was bad enough opening himself up to Lace without letting the evil little rancher in on it.

She tried to keep her face expressionless at first, but as the tale unfolded of Rebel’s murder, the injuries he had suffered, and the stark, unrelenting vengeance he had exacted on those responsible for the tragedy, he saw both shock and pity in her eyes.

The shock didn’t bother him so much. He didn’t want any part of the pity. “If you’re feeling sorry for me, forget it,” he snapped. “There’s no need.”

She shook her head. “But it was so unfair—”

“It was life,” The Kid said harshly. “You want to know the biggest truth I ever learned?”

She waited in silence.

“Anything can happen to anybody at any time,” The Kid said. “People won’t admit that to themselves or even think about it too much, because if they did, it would drive them mad. But it’s still true. You go along, and you think you’ve got a good life, and it can be snatched away from you in a second, with no warning at all. Everything you’ve ever worked for can disappear, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “And it doesn’t do a damned bit of good to talk about fair or unfair. It just is. If you’re going to mourn what you’ve lost or the bad breaks that have happened to you, you might as well mourn the sun coming up in the morning, because it’s all part of the same thing.”

She stared at him as he finished his bleak pronouncement. He had put into words the feelings that had ridden with him over the past year. He had never really been alone, no matter what he thought. The stark horror of life had always been at his side.

Finally she said, “Don’t you think . . . don’t you think that sometimes people can get good breaks, too?”

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “That’s part of it. There are probably some people who go through life without anything bad ever happening to them. But it’s not because of anything they did. It’s just the luck of the draw. They might go along just fine for fifty years and then lose it all. Or they might go to their grave still thinking the world’s a wonderful place. It doesn’t change anything.”

Lace shook her head. “I feel sorry for you, whether you want it or not, Conrad.”

He smiled. “You believe me now?”

“Yeah. Nobody could spin some crazy yarn like that without it being true.” She turned away from him. “And don’t worry, I’ll try to help you clear your name, but I won’t waste any pity on you from here on out. You’re already getting plenty of that from yourself.”

His hand shot out and gripped her arm. He jerked her around toward him, saying, “You think I feel sorry for myself?”

Her gun came up. The barrel pressed under his chin as she eared back the hammer. “Let go of me,” she told him between clenched teeth.

The Kid saw the anger in her eyes and felt the tremble that went through her muscles. He opened his hand and released her arm.

She stepped back and lowered the gun. After easing down the hammer, she pouched the iron on her hip. “Damn right you feel sorry for yourself,” she said. “You had every right to, for a while. The way you’ve helped people out along the way, despite how you felt, well, I can admire you for that. But for God’s sake, you can’t let what happened ruin you for life. You can’t just shut yourself off from everything that’s good out there.”

“Why the hell not?”

She looked at him and said, “Because Rebel wouldn’t want you to.”

His first impulse was to slap her, to warn her not to dare tell him what Rebel would or wouldn’t have wanted him to do. The fact that he didn’t wasn’t solely due to the fact that she might shoot him if he did.

He knew she was right.

He had fought, again and again, with the things his heart had tried to tell him. His brain acknowledged the grim uncertainty of life, but he had refused to allow himself to see the hope that his heart urged on him.

“You talk about the truth,” Lace whispered.

“The truth is somewhere in the middle. You’re not just Conrad Browning or Kid Morgan. You’re both of them. And that adds up to a good man, whether you believe it or not.
That’s
why I’m going to help you, Kid.”

“I thought you were going to call me Conrad.”

She shrugged. “I like Kid a little better. But it doesn’t really matter.”

“No,” he said. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

He took hold of her arms again, but he was gentle as he drew her toward him. His mouth found hers as her arms went around his neck.

The parts of his being that had been locked in mortal combat with each other could take up their struggle again later.

The rest of him was going to be busy for a while.

They were sitting at the base of one of the pine trees near the canyon mouth. The Kid’s arm was around Lace’s shoulders, and her head rested against his arm. She wore her poncho again, but her hat hung by its neck strap.

She chuckled and said, “It’s a good thing Nebel and the rest of that bunch of gun-wolves didn’t come along a little while ago.”

“Yeah,” The Kid agreed, “but I was keeping an eye and an ear out for them.”

“Sure you were,” she said, laughing again.

Actually, it was true, but he wasn’t going to argue the point.

The afternoon was still and quiet, so he didn’t have any trouble hearing the horses in the distance. From the way Lace suddenly stiffened against him, he knew she heard them, too.

“Sounds like a big bunch of riders,” she said.

“Yeah, and they’re coming closer.”

“Maybe it’s the old man and a posse from Phoenix,” Lace suggested.

“It could be,” The Kid agreed. He got to his feet and helped her up. “But we’d better make sure.”

Carrying their rifles, they hurried toward the canyon mouth and stopped at the gate. As The Kid peered through the screen of brush, he spotted a cloud of dust in the distance to the east, not to the south as it likely would have been if it heralded the return of Chester Blount.

“That doesn’t look good,” Lace said quietly.

“No, not at all. It appears that Nebel and some of the rest of Guthrie’s crew are paying us a visit again.”

But not all of the gunmen, The Kid saw as the riders came closer and he began to be able to make them out. There were about a dozen men in all. Six to one odds, he thought. He had faced worse. But as the grim side of his nature knew all too well, good luck always ran out. “Check the rims,” he told Lace.

She stepped back and lifted her head to let her gaze search along both sides of the canyon. “Nothing,” she reported. “Nobody’s moving around up there.”

“Well, that’s something to be thankful for, anyway,” The Kid muttered. “Maybe the rest of Guthrie’s men gave up and left after their last try. Those could be the only ones he has left.”

“That’s still pretty long odds against us,” Lace pointed out.

“Yeah, but as long as they’re out there and we’re in here, we can hold them off.”

“I hope you’re right.” Lace bent over to look through a gap in the brush again.
“Son of a bitch!”

The Kid tensed at the sudden note of alarm in her voice.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Those aren’t all Guthrie’s men,” Lace said. “Look at those two hombres riding in front. Do you recognize the one on the right?”

The Kid’s breath hissed between his teeth. “Good Lord,” he said. “That’s—”

“Yeah,” Lace said. “Pronto Pike. And all the rest of his men are with him, too.”

Chapter 30

“I thought we gave Pike the slip days ago,” The Kid said bitterly. “How did he manage to find us?”

Lace said, “Back when I was riding with him, sometimes I thought he could
smell
the men we were after, even from miles away. It was uncanny the way he could find them. Sort of spooky, too.”

“Some predators have a nose for blood. Maybe that extends to blood money, too.”

“Could be,” Lace agreed. “However he did it, he’s here. And here he comes.”

Most of the men had reined to a halt a couple hundred yards away from the canyon mouth. Pike and the man with him kept riding until they were only a hundred yards away. Then they stopped as well.

The Kid wondered if the man with Pike was Nebel, the chief of Guthrie’s hardcases. It wouldn’t surprise him if that were true.

“Morgan!” Pike called. “Morgan, is that you in there?”

“Don’t answer him,” Lace said. “If he knows for sure it’s you, he’ll never give up.”

“I don’t think he’s going to, anyway,” The Kid said, but he didn’t respond to Pike’s hail.