Killing Ground. William W. Johnstone

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THE LAST GUNFIGHTER KILLING GROUND

      THE LAST GUNFIGHTER

       KILLING GROUND

      William W. Johnstone

       with J. A. Johnstone

      PINNACLE BOOKS

       Kensington Publishing Corp.

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 1

      It was good to be home again, Frank Morgan thought as he reined in at the top of a hill overlooking the mining settlement of Buckskin, Nevada. A mighty pretty place, nestled in those pine-covered foothills as it was, with majestic, snowcapped mountains looming around it.

      And it struck Frank, as it always did at moments like this, how odd it was for him to be thinking of Buckskin as home. For so many years, he had been on the move, wandering from place to place with a natural restlessness that had helped earn him his nickname—The Drifter.

      Since he had settled down in Buckskin and accepted the job as town marshal, though, he had experienced a contentment unlike any he had known for quite a while. When circumstances took him away from the settlement, as they had recently when a dangerous job had sent him down to Arizona Territory, he was always anxious to get back.

      “There it is,” a man’s voice said from behind Frank. “The famous Buckskin, Nevada. It doesn’t appear to have changed much since our last visit.”

      Frank turned his head to look back at the buggy where his son, Conrad Browning, and Conrad’s wife, Rebel, rode.

      “The big silver boom is over,” Frank said. “The settlement should keep growing, but it’ll be slower and steadier now, instead of going from being a ghost town to busting at the seams practically overnight.”

      “Especially since it has a famous town-taming marshal now,” Conrad said, and Frank wasn’t sure if there was a faint note of sarcasm in the words or not.

      For years father and son had been estranged, even after the death of Vivian Browning, Frank’s first wife and Conrad’s mother. Vivian had left half of her vast business holdings to Frank, making him one of the richest men in the West even though nobody would ever guess that from his well-worn range clothes and the even more well-worn Colt .45 that was holstered on his right hip.

      No, Frank Morgan was a gunfighter—some said the last real, true gunfighter in the West—not a tycoon. One of the few men faster on the draw than him was the legendary Smoke Jensen, who had, in these waning days of the nineteenth century, done what was almost unheard of. Jensen had put his gunfighting days behind him and was living a life of peace on his Colorado ranch.

      That was the sort of thing Frank Morgan aspired to. That was why he had decided to put aside his drifting ways and settle down in Buckskin.

      But the violence that had surrounded so much of his life kept trying to pull him back. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to pin on a lawman’s badge. Maybe as long as he wore it, there would always be some no-good son of a buck who needed killing. Maybe he would never know true peace, Frank sometimes thought during dark nights of the soul, until he was dead. Then he would have the peace of the grave…

      Sometimes things could change, though, he tried to remind himself at times like that. Just look at him and Conrad. His son had flat-out hated him when they first got to know each other.

      It didn’t help that Conrad had been raised by another man, his mother’s second husband, and hadn’t even known Frank until he was grown. But circumstances, namely their shared business interests, had led them to fight side by side on several occasions, and Conrad had developed a grudging respect for his father. Frank liked to think that at times Conrad was beginning to feel a little real affection for him. Time would tell about that.

      “Perhaps I should visit more often,” Conrad went on. “Since the Crown Royal mine started production again, though, I’ve had good men looking out for my interests, like Garrett Claiborne.”

      “And like your father,” Rebel pointed out.

      She was a beautiful blonde, a Western girl born and raised, and Frank thought that marrying her was just about the best thing that could have happened to Conrad. She wore a stylish, expensive traveling outfit at the moment, with a modish hat perched on her upswept blond curls, but give her a chance and she’d be in buckskins and jeans and a Stetson again, riding like the wind.

      “Yes, that’s right,” Conrad said, his voice a little gruff. He and Frank got along better than they used to, but he wasn’t the sort of man to get all sentimental. That was fine with Frank, since he wasn’t that kind either.

      He heeled the horse into motion and started down the hill with Conrad and Rebel following in the buggy. Frank hadn’t taken either of his regular horses, the big stallions Stormy and Goldy, with him to Arizona, but the rented mount he rode now, a big blood bay, was a good horse. He would be glad to see Stormy and Goldy again, along with the massive, shaggy cur Dog, who had been one of his trail partners during many of the long, wandering years.

      Frank Morgan was a medium-sized, compactly built man with the broad shoulders and lean waist of a natural-born horseman. He wore comfortable boots, jeans, a faded blue work shirt, and a cream-colored, high-crowned Stetson with a slightly curled brim. Thick dark hair lightly touched with gray was under that hat. His features, tanned and weathered by years spent outdoors, were a little too rugged to be called handsome, but he was a man with a compelling, powerful presence anyway. Not a fancy man in any fashion. The revolver on his hip had plain walnut grips, and the Winchester rifle he carried in a saddle sheath had obviously seen plenty of use. When a grin spread across his face and his eyes twinkled with good humor, it was obvious that Frank was a good man to have as a friend.

      When the grin went away and his eyes turned icy and hard as flint, it was equally obvious that Frank Morgan was a bad man to have for an enemy.

      Frank was smiling now as he rode toward Buckskin, glad to be back, but wary, too. The only reason Conrad and Rebel were here was that the situation in Buckskin was rather unsettled at the moment. Trouble might be brewing that could affect the interests of the Browning Mining Syndicate—Frank and Conrad, in other words.

      “There are rumors that someone is going to dispute the ownership of one of the mines in the area,” Conrad