J.A. Johnstone - The Loner - Crossfire

Deep inside, Conrad raged in disbelief. He had traveled so far, endured so much, come so close to finding his missing children. No hired killers were going to prevent him from completing his quest!

Newfound strength surged through him. As another kick thudded into his side, he grabbed hold of the man’s leg and began pulling himself up.

“Get him off me!” the attacker yelled, swinging a fist at Conrad’s head. Conrad hunched his shoulders and butted the man in the stomach. The man lost his balance and went over backward with a startled shout.

Conrad made it to his feet.

Then one of the other men stepped up behind him, holding the sap he had taken away from Morelli, who lay bleeding and motionless on the dock a few feet away. He hit Conrad in the back of the head.

It was like a gigantic explosion going off inside his skull. He saw a brilliant flash and felt like his head was coming apart. The odd thing was that the devastating explosion was silent. Completely noiseless. Instead of blackness, a great white void expanded and engulfed him. He didn’t hear anything, didn’t feel anything, and didn’t know anything as he fell endlessly through nothingness.

He crashed face-first onto the dock, out cold.

The man who got off the train the next morning was tired from sitting up the whole way during his journey. He could have booked a sleeping compartment if he’d been willing to wait for a later train; certainly he could afford the cost of such a luxury. What he hadn’t been able to afford was the time.

So he had ridden sitting up in a Union Pacific passenger car from Montana to Salt Lake City, dozing when he could, then caught the next Southern Pacific westbound for San Francisco. He would have preferred to take a couple weeks and make the trip on horseback, but there was no time for that, either.

He looked out of place as he disembarked among men in expensive suits and ladies in fancy dresses. He was medium height, but the highcrowned, cream-colored Stetson he wore made him appear taller than he really was. Broad, powerfully muscled shoulders stretched the faded fabric of a blue work shirt. He wore jeans and plain, functional boots.

The Colt revolver holstered on his right hip was plain and functional, too, as was the Bowie knife sheathed on his left hip.

He carried a simple carpetbag containing a few spare clothes and several boxes of ammunition. He hadn’t brought his saddle because he hadn’t brought a horse with him, and didn’t expect to need one. He felt that lack keenly. Despite everything that had happened in the past forty years, a part of him was still the young cowboy he had been. Part of him felt that a man without a horse just wasn’t a man.

He shrugged off the feeling and walked through the lobby of the train station. When he stepped onto the street, San Francisco spread out before him. A sigh escaped from him before he could stop it. He didn’t like big cities. Never had, never would.

But it was where he was needed.

A buggy pulled up in the street outside the depot. Claudius Turnbuckle climbed out and strode hurriedly toward the newcomer. “Frank! I meant to be here when your train arrived, but I was delayed at my office.” He added grimly, “By the police.”

“What’s wrong?” Frank Morgan asked as he shook hands with Turnbuckle.

“It’s Conrad,” Turnbuckle said. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but ... he’s missing.”

Frank’s rugged face was set in tense lines as he repeated, “Missing?”

“I’m afraid so. If you’ll come back to the office with me, I’ll tell you everything we know.”

Frank Morgan, The Drifter, the man some called the last true gunfighter, hadn’t been aware he had a son until a few years earlier. Now that he had gotten to know Conrad Browning, now that they had fought alongside each other against common enemies on several occasions, Frank would move heaven and earth to help the young man if Conrad needed his help.

The lawyer motioned Frank toward the buggy. Before they reached it, a voice called from behind them, “Mr. Turnbuckle! Mr. Turnbuckle, sir!”

They stopped and looked back to see a tall, slender man in a brown suit and hat coming toward them, also from the direction of the train station. He was moving deliberately, even gingerly, as if he were injured and didn’t want to make it worse. He was determined, though. That much was evident from the set of his narrow face.

“Arturo!” Turnbuckle exclaimed. “The two of you were on the same train?”

“The two of who?” the man called Arturo asked as he came up to them.

“You and Frank here.”

Arturo looked at Frank. “You’re Mr. Morgan, sir?”

“That’s right.” Frank nodded. “I reckon you must be that Italian fella I’ve heard about.”

“Arturo Vincenzo. I had no idea we were on the same train, or I would have sought you out and introduced myself after I boarded in Carson City.” They shook hands. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. Mr. Browning has spoken a great deal about you, always in the most glowing terms.”

Frank chuckled. “That wasn’t always the way he talked about me, and you can bet a hat on that.”

“Bet my headgear?” Arturo said with a puzzled frown. “Why would I want to—”

“Never mind that,” Turnbuckle broke in. “Something’s happened that you don’t know about, Arturo. Conrad has disappeared.”

“Good Lord! Tell me about it.”

“Frank and I were on our way to my office. I was going to fill him in there. You look pretty tired, though, and I know you’re still recuperating from that bullet wound, so perhaps we should drop you at the hotel—”

“Nonsense,” Arturo said. “No offense, sir, but I’m coming with you and Mr. Morgan. Dr. Taggart said I was fit to travel, and I can’t possibly rest until I know what’s happened to Mr. Browning.”

“That’s just it,” Turnbuckle muttered. “We don’t know. But come along, and I’ll fill you in on all the details.”

“I hope so,” Frank said, “because I haven’t followed much of this so far. I don’t even know what Conrad was doing here in San Francisco.”

“It’s not a pretty story,” Turnbuckle said with a sigh.

“It never is,” Frank said.

Chapter 18

One of Turnbuckle’s assistants had brought in cups of coffee for the three men. As they sat in the lawyer’s elegantly appointed private office, Turnbuckle said, “I suppose the best thing to do is just start at the beginning. You’re a grandfather, Frank.”

“What are you talking about, Claudius?” Frank was stunned, the cup in his hand forgotten.

“Do you remember Pamela Tarleton?”

Frank grunted. “Be hard to forget her, after what she did to Rebel.”

“Yes, well, that wasn’t the extent of Miss Tarleton’s evil. I don’t wish to be indelicate about this, but it seems that when Conrad decided to call off his engagement to her, she was, ah, already in the family way.”

Frank sighed. “Conrad’s grown into a fine young man, but before that he could be a damned fool sometimes.”

Turnbuckle didn’t comment on that. “Following the affair in New Mexico in which Miss Tarleton’s father was arrested and then murdered, she returned to Boston and gave birth to twins. A boy and a girl.”

“Named Frank and Vivian,” Arturo put in.

That news rocked Frank. Learning he had a pair of grandchildren had been a shock without hearing they were named after him and Conrad’s mother, the great love of his life. To cover how shaken he was, he took a sip of the hot, strong coffee. Then he nodded and said, “Go on.”

For the next half hour, Turnbuckle and Arturo explained how Conrad had found out about Pamela’s cruel plot against him and how he had set out on a cross-country odyssey to find the missing twins.