The Devil's Badland: The Loner (2 page)

The boy hesitated, surprised that Conrad had offered to shake hands with him. He took Conrad’s hand briefly, keeping his eyes downcast as he mumbled, “Pleased t’ meet ye, Mr. Browning.”

Short and slender, Rory was a lot smaller than his big, brawny father and brother, but he had the same bushy red hair as Hamish and James, who had introduced themselves to Conrad while the boy was out at the barn tending to the horses. They had introduced Margaret as well, who shared the red hair and also possessed the same shyness as Rory. Conrad felt an instinctive liking for these people and was glad he had stepped in to help them.

He had faced a choice when he rolled up in the buggy just as the rain began falling in earnest. He had no way of knowing which side was in the right in this dispute, so he could cast his lot with the defenders inside the house built into the side of a hill, or with the attackers who were charging that dugout.

Conrad had counted nearly a dozen men attacking the house, where only two or three defenders fired back. When in doubt, take up for the underdog, he had decided. But he had shot to wound, not to kill, just in case he found out later that he had jumped into the fight on the wrong side.

Looking around at the MacTavishes, he couldn’t believe that was the case. They appeared to be honest, hard-working settlers—the salt of the earth, as the old saying had it.

The sort of people that Conrad Browning once would have looked down on with a sense of arrogant superiority.

He liked to believe that he had changed, that he wasn’t that sort of man anymore, but it didn’t hurt to remind himself from time to time just what a son of a bitch he had been.

Hamish MacTavish dug around in an old trunk and came up with a dark brown bottle and a couple of glasses. As he brought them over to the fireplace, his son James asked, “What about me, Pa?”

“Ye’re too young for this,” Hamish said.

“Old enough to fight, ain’t I?” James challenged.

“Aye, but so’s Rory, and ye dinna see me givin’
’im
a drink, do ye?”

“He ain’t much of a fighter,” James said, his lip curling in a sneer. “He didn’t kill any o’ Whitfield’s men, as far as I could see.”

Conrad glanced at Rory to see if the youngster would say anything in his own defense. Rory just kept looking at the floor and didn’t speak up.

Turning back to Hamish, Conrad took the glass the man offered him. Hamish lifted his glass and said, “T’ ye health, sir.”

“And to yours,” Conrad returned.

They tossed back their drinks. The whiskey went down like liquid fire and kindled a blaze in Conrad’s belly. He gave a little gasp for breath, and that brought a smile to Hamish’s face.

“I told ye ’twas good,” he said with pride in his voice.

“I never had any better in San Francisco or Boston,” Conrad admitted. That made Hamish beam.

Conrad went on, “Why were those men attacking you?”

Hamish’s smile disappeared. His broad face darkened with anger. “Because they’re hired killers workin’ for a no-good bastard called Devil Dave Whitfield!” he declared.

“The local cattle baron,” Conrad guessed.

Hamish gave a contemptuous snort. “He thinks he is, anyway. He disnae ken that those days are over, that he can no longer run roughshod o’er the smaller ranchers. This is MacTavish land, and MacTavish land it will stay!”

It was an old story, Conrad thought, one that had been played out many times on the frontier. Despite what Hamish said, it nearly always ended the other way, with the richer, more powerful rancher triumphing over the owners of the smaller spreads.

In fact, by this point syndicates or corporations owned most of the large ranches, and companies always grew larger at the expense of individuals. At one point in his life, Conrad had believed that was the proper way for things to be, and he had enough experience in business to recognize the truth of the matter, whether he agreed with it now or not.

He smiled as he told Hamish, “I hope you’re right.” When he got down to it, though, this wasn’t his fight. He had business of his own in New Mexico Territory. So he didn’t ask any more questions, other than to say, “I wonder if you could put me up for the night? The weather’s still pretty bad out there, and I’m not sure the storm is going to let up until morning.”

Conrad could still hear the rain’s sluicing rush. The MacTavishes must have done a really good job of sealing the roof and walls to keep the water out.

“Aye, we wouldna send ye back out in that deluge,” Hamish said. “Ye’ll be welcome to spend the night. Ye can have mah bunk.”

Conrad started to tell the rancher that wasn’t necessary, that he could just make up a bedroll on the floor, then he remembered that the man Conrad Browning used to be—the man Conrad Browning was still
supposed
to be—wouldn’t have reacted that way. That Conrad would have expected to be accommodated in the best possible manner.

“Of course I’ll be glad to pay you,” he went on, his smile turning smug. That was something the old Conrad would have said, too.

Hamish frowned. “’Twill no’ be necessary to do that,” he said, his voice suddenly cooler. Conrad knew that his offer of payment had just knocked him down a notch or two in Hamish’s estimation, and that was a shame. Still, the game had to be played.

Not that he expected to win, Conrad mused. In the big scheme of things, he had already lost before he ever started, because no matter what he did, Rebel would still be dead. His wife was gone.

All Conrad could do was continue his quest to bring vengeance—and justice—to those responsible for her death.

The stew Margaret served for supper was hot and delicious, Conrad thought. When he complimented the girl on it, she blushed prettily. She was a nice-looking young woman, somewhere in her late teens, with thick masses of red hair tumbling down her back and a well-curved body in a homespun dress. Conrad recognized those things, but they didn’t really affect him. He was still in mourning. Anyway, Margaret was the daughter of his host and much too young for him.

While they were sitting at the dinner table, James MacTavish said, “Whitfield’s men will be back, ye know. We killed at least one of ’em, that gunman called Hardesty. I saw you put a bullet in his head, Pa.”

Hamish gave Rory a hard look. “Aye.”

Conrad didn’t know what that exchange was about, but he felt a little sorry for the boy, who never lifted his eyes from his bowl of stew. Conrad could tell from Rory’s attitude that he knew his father was glaring at him, and he felt a pang of sympathy for Rory.

He knew all too well what the tension between father and son was like.

Conrad couldn’t stop himself from saying, “This fellow Whitfield must have quite a grudge against you folks to send hired guns after you like that.”

“All over a bunch of blasted cows,” Hamish said bitterly. “He claimed that we stole them, but that was just his way o’ tryin’ to get the law on his side, so he could run us off our land.”

“So he accused you of rustling?”

“Aye,” James said. He slapped a palm down on the table. “But we never did it! We never touched a one of his damned beeves!”

“James!” Margaret scolded. “That’s no way to talk, especially at the dinner table.”

“It’s the truth!” James insisted. “What Whitfield said was a lie, and Charlie was right to tell him to his face.”

Margaret paled. “All that did was get Charlie killed. Was it worth it for him to call Whitfield a liar? Was it, James?”

James scowled but didn’t say anything.

These people had seen more than their share of hardship and tragedy, Conrad thought—but so had he. There was nothing else he could do to help them, not while his own mission was incomplete.

Anyway, if he tried to involve himself too deeply in their problems, he would probably just make things worse, he told himself. He had a history of bringing trouble down not only on himself, but also on those around him. You could ask his wife Rebel about that.

Well, you could if she wasn’t dead.

The strained silence lasted for the rest of the meal. When it was over, Hamish showed Conrad to a small room in the back of the dugout that contained little more than a narrow bunk.

“’Tis no’ much,” he said, “but th’ best we can offer ye, Mr. Browning.”

“It’s fine,” Conrad assured him. “Thank you.”

There was no door to the room, just a curtain, like the other two bedrooms, one shared by the boys and the other for Margaret. A candle on a shelf provided light. Conrad undressed by its flickering glow. The heat from the fireplace had only partially dried his clothes, and he was glad to get the damp garments off.

He wore a plain, black gunbelt while he was dressed in the dark, sober suit, although there was a different gunbelt coiled in his saddlebags. He curled the one he had taken off around an equally plain, black holster that held his Colt .45 Peacemaker and placed belt, holster, and gun on the floor next to the bunk, within easy reach if he needed the Colt. He didn’t expect that to be the case tonight, but always being ready for trouble was a habit with him now.

Conrad wrapped up in the blanket that was on the bunk, stretched out, and tried to sleep. As usual, that wasn’t easy. As soon as he closed his eyes, images began to whirl through his brain—awful images that he would just as soon never see again.

But at the same time, a part of him clung to them, reluctant to let go of the pain, because that would mean letting go of the past, too, and he wasn’t ready to do that…

Rebel stood high atop the bluff that loomed over Black Rock Canyon. Behind her was the gunman, Clay Lasswell. Conrad had paid the ransom that was supposed to save her. The rest of the kidnappers already had their greedy hands on it. All that was left was for Lasswell to let her go.

But instead, the killer from Texas cried out, “Welcome to hell!” as the gun in his hand roared. The bullet tore into Rebel and knocked her off the bluff, so that she plummeted down toward the merciless ground below, falling, falling…

The image in Conrad’s mind changed. Now he was standing over one of the kidnappers, pressing the barrel of a Winchester to the man’s head. He saw the man’s eyes widen in horror and disbelief, then bulge out from the pressure as Conrad pulled the trigger and sent a bullet through the bastard’s brain.

That man wasn’t the only one Conrad had killed in circumstances that might seem like cold-blooded murder to some people. He had killed even more in fair fights. Their faces swam before him now as he tried to sleep, but always that image of Rebel falling, followed by the memory of cradling her broken, lifeless body in his arms, returned to drive everything else away.

Conrad dozed off and slept fitfully on the narrow bunk in the MacTavish dugout, jerking from side to side as nightmares haunted his slumber. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t get away from the ghosts who pursued him. All the men he had killed chased him, their bullet-riddled forms closing in on him, and in trying to get away from them, he ran toward the elusive form of his wife, still alive and vital, looking back at him with love shining in her eyes.

But, he could never catch up to her, and the dead men caught up to him instead, trying to pull him down like a pack of wolves. He fought against them, lashing out and driving them back until he had time to reach his gun. He drew the Colt and spun to face the grisly phantoms. The revolver came up, his finger tightened on the trigger—

A woman’s voice screamed, “Mr. Browning! No!”

Conrad came awake and found himself staring into the terrified face of Margaret MacTavish over the barrel of the Colt clutched in his sweating hand, his finger taut on the trigger, only a hair’s-breadth of pressure away from blowing the girl’s brains out.

“Please don’t shoot,” Margaret whimpered as she stood in the doorway, one hand still on the curtain she had just pulled back.

“Dear Lord,” Conrad said, horrified at what he had almost done. He took his finger off the trigger and quickly lowered the Colt. “Miss MacTavish, I’m sorry. I never meant to threaten you. I wouldn’t harm you—”

And yet he almost had, Conrad thought. He had come within a whisker of shooting the girl, all because of the dreams that tormented him.

Heavy footsteps heralded the arrival of the male MacTavishes. Considering the words Margaret had screamed, Conrad wasn’t surprised that Hamish had the shotgun in his hands and a furious look on his face. Under the circumstances, it was a father’s natural assumption that the city slicker visitor was molesting his daughter.

Hamish wasn’t the only one who was armed. James had his Remington revolver, and even Rory clutched his Winchester.

“What th’ devil is goin’ on here?” Hamish roared. “Is this the way ye repay us for our hospitality, Browning, by bein’ free and easy wi’ a poor, innocent girl—”

“Pa, no!” Margaret said. “It’s not like that. I heard Mr. Browning thrashing around and thought he might be sick from getting drenched by the rain. But he was just having a nightmare, and…and he…”

When Margaret’s voice trailed off, Conrad said, “What your daughter is trying to tell you, Mr. MacTavish, is that I almost shot her. You have my word, though, it was unintentional.”

MacTavish snorted. “A devil of a lot of good that would have done her if ye had pulled the trigger!”

“That’s true,” Conrad admitted. He picked up the holster, slid the Colt back into the black leather. He had become uncomfortably aware of the fact that he was sitting there naked except for the blanket wrapped around him. “I’ll get dressed and leave now.”

“That’s not necessary,” Margaret said. “You didn’t mean it. You were asleep…you didn’t know what you were doing.”

Conrad shrugged. “Even so, I think it’ll be better if I look for somewhere else to spend the night. I
am
grateful for the hospitality you’ve shown me, and I don’t want anything to ruin that.”

Margaret turned to her father and said, “Pa, you’re not going to make Mr. Browning leave, are you? It’s still raining out there. Pouring, from the sound of it.”

“Aye, ’tis true,” MacTavish admitted as he rubbed his beard-stubbled jaw. “And he
did
help us against Whitfield’s men.”

“They probably would have made it into the house and killed all of us, if Mr. Browning hadn’t shown up when he did,” Rory said. Conrad was a little surprised that the boy spoke up in his behalf, when Rory wouldn’t even defend himself, but he was grateful to the youngster for the gesture.

James scowled at him. “I ain’t sure it’s a good idea. This fella’s a rich man, you can tell by lookin’ at him, and you know they can’t be trusted, Pa. Sure, he took our side against Whitfield’s men, but that was because he didn’t know what was goin’ on. Now that he does, he’s liable to turn on us.”

Conrad felt a surge of anger. The accidental near shooting of Margaret was bad, he would grant them that, but he hadn’t done anything else to make the MacTavishes distrust him.

He said, “I’m not going to turn on you, James. I don’t have any interest in your dispute with Whitfield. It’s not my fight. I just pitched in because I don’t like seeing anybody outnumbered that badly. Come morning, all I intend to do is head on down to Val Verde. I have business there.”

“Rich man’s business,” James said with a sneer.

“Being rich has got nothing to do with it,” Conrad snapped. “I’m going to visit my wife’s grave.”

He hadn’t meant to reveal that much, but once the words were out, a surprised silence fell over the dugout. Hamish and James frowned, while Margaret and Rory looked at Conrad with pity.

“’Tis sorry I am to hear that ye lost your missus,” Hamish finally said. “My own darlin’ wife passed on five years ago, and not a day goes by when I dinna feel the pain of her passin’. I, uh, reckon I misjudged ye at first about what was goin’ on with Meggie here.”

“Nothing was going on,” Margaret said. She turned to Conrad. “Forgive me if I’m prying, Mr. Browning, but the nightmare…was it about your wife?”

Conrad didn’t want to hash everything out with these people, and he didn’t want their pity, either. Pity didn’t change a damned thing. He said curtly, “I don’t remember. I’m just sorry that I almost shot you. If I leave now, we can all be sure that it won’t happen again.”

“But the storm…”

“I’ll go sleep in the barn with my horses,” Conrad suggested. “It won’t be the first time.”

“It won’t?” James said. “You could’ve fooled me. I figured a fella like you would never have set foot in a barn, let alone slept in one.”

“That’s enough, James,” Hamish said. “Mr. Browning has apologized for what happened, and he’s offered to make sure ’twill not happen again. Ye cannot ask anything more o’ the man.”

James’s glare told Conrad that the young man didn’t like being reprimanded like that, but he didn’t say anything else except, “I’m goin’ back to bed.” He turned and stomped off to the tiny room he shared with Rory.

“Ye don’t have to sleep in the barn—” Hamish began.

“I’d feel better about it if I do,” Conrad said. “The last thing I want is any sort of accident that might hurt one of you.”

“Well, then…I’ve got an old piece o’ oilcloth ye can hold over your head while you’re runnin’ out there. It’ll keep ye from gettin’ quite so wet.”

“You’re sure about this, Mr. Browning?” Margaret asked with a worried frown.

“I’m sure,” Conrad told her. “Again, Miss MacTavish, I’m very sorry for what happened.”

“And I’m sorry for your loss,” Margaret said. “If you’d like to talk about it…”

Conrad shook his head. “I wouldn’t.”

“Come on, then,” Hamish said to his remaining children. “Let’s leave the poor man alone.”

Poor man,
Conrad thought. That was the first time anybody had called him that in, well, ever, at least that he could recall. And yet that’s exactly what he was.

Because no amount of money could ever replace what he had lost.

Once he was dressed, he wrapped up in the blanket, draped the oilcloth over his head, and made the dash from the dugout to the barn. The rain wasn’t coming down in torrents like it had been earlier, but it was still falling hard. Once he was inside, Conrad found the matches Rory had told him about and lit the lantern. The black and the buckskin nickered softly in greeting to him.

The barn roof leaked in a few places, but it was fairly dry inside. Conrad climbed into the hayloft and made himself a bed in the straw. He blew out the lantern, stretched out on the blanket, and discovered it was surprisingly comfortable.

Despite that, he didn’t go to sleep right away. Too many nights in recent months had been spent drifting in and out of nightmares. Eventually, exhaustion would claim him. For the moment, though, his mind drifted back unbidden over everything that had happened to bring him to this time and place.

For most of his life, he hadn’t known who his real father was. His mother was Vivian Browning, and so he had assumed that her husband was his father. He had been almost grown before he discovered that his real father was Frank Morgan, the notorious gunfighter known across the West as The Drifter.

No one knew how many men Frank Morgan had killed. Songs had been written about him, and sleazy, money-hungry scribblers had penned dozens of lurid, yellow-backed dime novels featuring The Drifter. He was a bloody-handed hired gunman, at least in the minds of many, including scores of lawmen who didn’t want him in their towns.

That was the image Conrad had of Frank Morgan, so it was no surprise that he was horrified when he found out that Morgan was his father. His mother had revealed that fact to him while they were on a trip west, checking on her business interests. Then, only a short time later, Vivian Browning had been killed by outlaws. Frank Morgan had avenged her death, but not before some of those same desperadoes had kidnapped and tortured Conrad. Frank had rescued him, but despite that, Conrad didn’t want anything to do with the man. It was bad enough they had to be related.

But a day had come when Conrad needed Frank’s help. Since they shared ownership of the businesses they had inherited from Vivian, it was only fair that Frank pitch in when there was trouble, especially when it was the sort of problem that was in his line of expertise. Someone had been raising hell with a railroad spur Conrad was building in New Mexico Territory, and he needed the services of a good man with a gun.

There was none better than Frank Morgan.

It was during that adventure that Conrad had come to have some grudging respect for Frank. Not only that, but he had met and fallen in love with a beautiful Western girl named Rebel Callahan during that dust-up. Rebel thought the world of Frank Morgan, and that had influenced Conrad to get to know his father better. Along with the respect had come some affection. Frank and Conrad had come to be friends, even if they weren’t as close as many fathers and sons were. After spending some time living in Boston, Conrad and Rebel had moved to Carson City, Nevada, and one of the reasons was so that they could see Frank more often.

It had been an idyllic existence—right up until the night when more than a dozen outlaws had invaded their home and kidnapped Rebel, holding her for the ransom that Conrad was to deliver in Black Rock Canyon. He had taken the money with him when he drove out to the rugged canyon northwest of Carson City, but he had been prepared to fight, too. For the first time, perhaps, he had truly become Frank Morgan’s son on that terrible night.

It was terrible because Rebel had died. So had some of the kidnappers. The way things worked out, it appeared to the world at large that wealthy young businessman Conrad Browning was dead, too. That was fine with Conrad. He had assumed another identity in order to track down the kidnappers who had escaped. With the help of new friends he had run the kidnappers to ground and killed them, one by one, until finally he caught up to the leader of the gang, Clay Lasswell, the gunman who had killed Rebel.

By that time, however, Conrad had figured out that Lasswell had been acting on someone else’s orders, some enemy who had set up Rebel’s kidnapping in the first place. He wanted Lasswell dead, but he also wanted to know who was truly to blame for what had happened.

Fate had conspired against Conrad once again. Lasswell had died, but without revealing the identity of the mastermind behind the kidnapping. For all the blood he had spilled, Conrad’s vengeance was still hollow and unfulfilled. His true enemy was still out there somewhere.

That was why Conrad Browning lived again. Rebel was buried in the mission cemetery in the small settlement of Val Verde, east of Lordsburg. She had been raised in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, where her father had a ranch, but the spread had gone under because of rustlers and the family had moved to New Mexico Territory. The Callahans had lived for a time in Val Verde, and Rebel’s brothers knew she had liked the place. They had chosen to have her buried there. Tom and Bob had been forced to make the arrangements because at the time everyone believed Conrad to be dead.

Conrad was on his way to visit his wife’s grave, and he intended to do so right out in the open. He wanted everybody in Val Verde to know why he was there. Whoever had set up Rebel’s kidnapping hadn’t been interested in the ransom money; that was just to pay off the owlhoots who had carried out the job. Lasswell’s actions in killing Rebel had made it clear that the real objective was to torture Conrad, to make him suffer the almost unendurable pain of watching his wife die.

Someone had a damned strong grudge against Conrad Browning. That was why he intended to use himself for bait to lure them out into the open.

And once he knew who it was…

The killing wasn’t over yet. It had just gotten started.

Those thoughts whirled madly through Conrad’s brain. Waking, sleeping, it made no difference. The painful memories were always there. He let out a long sigh and rolled onto his side. He would try to sleep now, but he didn’t figure it would work out well.

He had just closed his eyes when he heard a horse neigh.

The sound was faint, and Conrad was sure that it hadn’t come from inside the barn. That meant a horse was moving around outside somewhere, and where there was a horse, there was usually a rider.

He couldn’t think of a single good reason for somebody to be skulking around the MacTavish place on a stormy night like that, but he could think of plenty of bad ones. Leaving the lantern unlit, Conrad reached out in the darkness and closed his hand around the butt of his gun. The Colt’s grips fit his palm like they had grown there.

He came up on his knees and crawled quickly over to the little door that allowed bales of hay to be lifted into the loft from outside. It had a simple latch on it. Conrad unfastened it and pushed the door open several inches. The rain was falling straight down now, since the wind had died away, and the barn’s eaves kept it from coming in the opening.

Conrad’s eyes narrowed as he peered through the wet, murky gloom. He saw several figures moving around near the dugout, but they were just deeper patches of darkness. He couldn’t make out any details. Given the fact that he had heard a horse, though, he was fairly sure they were men on horseback. He leaned forward to watch them.

Suddenly, despite the rain, a match flared to life. They had to be shielding it somehow. Conrad saw hands moving in the harsh glare, holding something toward the flame…

Sparks spurted. Conrad’s hand tightened on the Colt as he realized what he was seeing. One of the men had just lit a fuse. The powder-laced length of cord would burn in spite of the rain.

At the other end of that fuse was a stick of dynamite!