Killing Ground. William W. Johnstone

the stack of wanted posters that had come in while he was gone to Arizona.

      As usual, it was a pretty sorry assortment of owlhoots. But his own face had graced a wanted poster from time to time—always unjustified, but there nonetheless—he reminded himself. Some of these fellas might not be as bad as they were made out to be. But most of them probably were.

      The door opened and Jack came into the office, hurrying enough so that Frank knew something was wrong. He took his feet off the desk and sat up straight.

      “What’s wrong?” he asked his deputy.

      Jack pulled at the tuft of whiskers on his chin.

      “Couple o’ hombres are over at the Silver Baron jawin’ about how they come to Buckskin to try you out, Frank. They think they’re fast guns, but they’re just young and stupid, as per usual.”

      “Did you talk to them?”

      Jack shook his head. “Nope. Just heard about it from Vern Robeson.”

      “Vern gets around, doesn’t he?” Frank chuckled, apparently unconcerned, but a grim look lurked in his eyes.

      He had long since grown weary of killing young, ambitious men who wanted to make a name for themselves. And there was always the chance that one of these days, one of those would-be gunslingers would turn out to be faster and more accurate than him. It was inevitable that someday Frank would run into someone who could beat him to the draw…unless he hung up his guns and somehow made it stick.

      That was mighty unlikely.

      “All right.” Earlier, he had dropped his hat on the desk rather than hanging it from the nail on the wall. He reached for it now as he went on. “I’ll go see about it. Maybe I can talk some sense into their heads.”

      Catamount Jack snorted. “You’d be more likely to fill up a rat hole by poundin’ sand down it. It wouldn’t be as empty as those young fellas’ heads are o’ brains.”

      Frank put his hat on as Jack went to the wall rack and took down one of the shotguns hanging there.

      “What do you think you’re doing?” Frank asked.

      “Goin’ with you, o’ course.”

      Frank shook his head. “There’s no need for that.”

      “What if those varmints try to gang up on you? You might need me to handle one of ’em whilst you deal with the other.” Then Jack grimaced and went on. “But if they do that you’ll just have to kill ’em a mite quicker, won’t you?”

      “You’re the law in this town if anything happens to me,” Frank pointed out. “And even at this time of day, there are probably enough people in the Silver Baron that you don’t need to be firing a scattergun in there.”

      “And in a gunfight, I can’t haul out this old percussion pistol o’ mine fast enough to do you much good as a partner,” Jack said with a bitter twist in his raspy voice. “You’re tryin’ not to tell me that I’d be more of a liability than a help.”

      “I’ve never thought of you as a liability, Jack,” Frank said honestly. “If I did, I never would have gone off and left you in charge here like I did. It’s just that I’m better suited to handle some things than you are, and vice versa.”

      “Yeah, I’m better at bein’ a useless ol’ geezer.”

      Jack started toward the door, an angry look on his face.

      Some genuine anger of his own welled up inside Frank. He caught hold of his deputy’s arm and snapped, “Blast it, Jack, you’re blowing this way out of proportion. You’re about as far from useless as anybody in Buckskin. I could take this badge off right now and leave you in charge permanently, and I wouldn’t lose a bit of sleep worrying about leaving the town in your hands.”

      “I couldn’t handle gunnies like those two in the saloon, and you know it.”

      “You wouldn’t have to if I wasn’t here. The only reason men like that even come to Buckskin is to try their hands against me.”

      Jack couldn’t argue with that. They both knew it was true. From time to time a crooked gambler set up a game, or some miners got in a fight, or somebody got knocked out and robbed in an alley after leaving some soiled dove’s crib, but that was just about the normal extent of trouble in Buckskin these days. Jack was tough enough, and respected enough, to handle things like that.

      But the would-be shootists and pistoleros were a different story. Those were Frank’s responsibility.

      And he had two of them waiting for him now.

      “Come along with me if you want,” he told Jack, “but leave the Greener here and stay out of the fight, if there is one.”

      “Oh, there’ll be one,” Jack said with grim certainty. But he went back to the rack and hung up the shotgun again, then fell in step beside Frank as the two of them started down the street toward the Silver Baron.

      Even after all these years, it never failed to amaze Frank how quickly word could spread of impending violence. As he and Jack approached the saloon, he saw several people gathered on the boardwalk in front of the place. More were headed in that direction.

      Vern Robeson was one of the men peering in the Silver Baron’s front window. He turned to greet Frank with an eager grin.

      “Looks like there’s gonna be two more notches on your gun pretty soon, Marshal!”

      “I don’t carve notches on my gun, Vern,” Frank snapped. “I don’t know any real gunfighters who do.”

      Vern’s grin disappeared. He shuffled his feet and looked down at the boardwalk.

      “Sorry, Marshal. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

      “I’ll bet Amos is wondering where you are.”

      “I’ll go on along down there to the stable…in a few minutes.”

      Frank knew what the hostler meant. He was going to stay right here to see what was going to happen. If anybody died this morning, Vern Robeson wasn’t going to miss it. And that was his right, Frank supposed. Vern wasn’t breaking any law by standing on the boardwalk.

      Frank pushed the batwings aside and stepped into the saloon. Catamount Jack was right behind him. Every nerve in Frank’s body was alert, every muscle taut and ready for action. It was always possible in a situation like this that the men who were waiting for him might slap leather and start their guns blazing as soon as he walked into the room.

      They didn’t, though. In fact, the two young men standing at the bar didn’t even realize he was there until they saw Willie Carter, the only bartender working at this time of the morning, looking intently at the door. Even then, they leisurely finished the drinks in front of them before they turned to face The Drifter.

      Instantly, Frank saw the resemblance between them. They were brothers, probably no more than two or three years apart in age. Sleekly built, flashily dressed, handsome in a cheap way. Saloon gals probably fawned all over them. And when they grinned, the expressions reeked of arrogant confidence.

      “Well, if it ain’t the marshal,” the older one said.

      “See, Rand?” the younger one said. “I told you he wouldn’t be scared to face us…even though he oughta be.”

      “You were right, Brock. I figured Frank Morgan was so old that he would’ve lost all his guts by now.”

      “If he ever had any to start with. Maybe he backshot all those fellas he’s supposed to’ve killed. I mean, jus’ look at him. I wouldn’t put it past him, would you?”

      Rand shook his head. “Nope. I reckon he never was any more’n a puffed-up bag o’ shit.”

      Frank laughed, causing both brothers to look surprised. He couldn’t help it. They had probably rehearsed those lines before