Dead Man's Gold. J.A. Johnstone

the culture. That was the accepted thing for wealthy young Americans of a certain class to do. His late mother, Vivian Browning, had had her feet planted firmly on the ground and was as unpretentious as could be, but she had also believed that it wouldn’t hurt anything for her son to be exposed to some of the finer things in life.

      “Fortunato will resort to any means to get what he wants, including murder,” Annabelle went on. “It’s rumored that he was involved in a robbery at the Louvre several years ago. The men who actually carried out the theft all wound up dead, and the paintings they took were never recovered. I’m certain they’re hanging on the walls of Fortunato’s villa.”

      “Sounds like a pretty bad hombre,” The Kid said, not mentioning that he had been to the Louvre himself. She probably wouldn’t believe him, anyway. “What’s he doing over here in the States?”

      “Have you ever heard of the Konigsberg Candlestick?” Before The Kid could answer, Annabelle waved a hand dismissively. “No, of course you haven’t. It’s a very valuable artifact that was stolen from a castle in Spain more than two hundred years ago. The castle was being used by the Spanish Inquisition as a place to hold prisoners and conduct trials. The candlestick was in a chapel inside the castle and was the property of the Catholic Church. It was stolen by an escaping prisoner and never seen again, although there were rumors that the prisoner fled to the New World, taking the candlestick with him.”

      The old man came up with several strips of clean cloth. The Kid nodded toward him and said to Annabelle, “So you and your pa are on the trail of this fancy candlestick, is that it?”

      Annabelle frowned. “My what?”

      “Your father. The old-timer here.”

      Her frown deepened as she shook her head. “He’s not my father.”

      The old man sighed and said, “I’m afraid I may have misled you slightly, my son.”

      “He’s Father Jardine,” Annabelle said. “He’s been sent by the Vatican to recover the Konigsberg Candlestick…and another artifact the prisoner may have taken with him.”

      The Kid sat back on his heels in surprise. “If he’s a priest, then who are you?”

      “Dr. Annabelle Dare.”

      The Kid raised his eyebrows. “Doctor?”

      “Ph.D in History from Yale University, thank you.” She moved her injured arm slightly and winced. “I believe you said you were going to bind up this wound?”

      “Yeah. See if you can sit up.”

      With Father Jardine’s help, Annabelle did so. Her face paled in pain, making the scattering of freckles across her nose more noticeable. The Kid knelt beside her and wrapped the makeshift bandages around her arm, pulling them tight enough to make her wince again.

      “Do they have to be that tight?” she asked.

      “The bleeding’s stopped. You don’t want it to start up again.”

      “No, I suppose not.” She moved her arm a little, as if checking to see how bad it was going to hurt. Then she said, “You still haven’t told me your name.”

      “It’s Morgan.”

      “Is that your first name or your last name?”

      “Doesn’t matter. Some people call me The Kid, or Kid Morgan, so I guess you could say it’s my last name.”

      Actually, he had given himself that name, taking the inspiration for it from a dime novel. He had assumed that identity to conceal who he actually was, and in time, the pose had become the reality. He had no intention of going back to being the man he’d been before.

      “Kid Morgan?” Annabelle repeated, and the mocking tone in her voice put The Kid’s teeth on edge for a second. “That sounds like the name of some sort of desperado or gunfighter.”

      The Kid shrugged and didn’t say anything.

      “Wait a minute,” Annabelle said as wariness sprang up in her eyes. “Are you an outlaw, Mr. Morgan?”

      He knew what she was worried about. She had been so anxious to blather on about wicked Italian counts and valuable old candlesticks that she might have revealed too much to the wrong man. After all, they had never seen him until an hour or so earlier and had no idea what he was capable of. He might kill them both and go after the Konigsberg Candlestick himself, or he might try to sell them out to Fortunato…

      “I’m not an outlaw,” he said. Whether or not she wanted to believe him was up to her.

      Evidently she did, because she looked relieved. Then she said, “Then you must be a gunfighter.”

      The Kid didn’t deny it. That was the reputation Kid Morgan had, and he supposed there was some truth to it.

      Annabelle leaned forward suddenly and clasped his arm with her right hand. “If you’re a gunfighter, Mr. Morgan…Kid…then I want to hire you.”

      “Hire me? To do what?”

      “To kill Eduardo Fortunato,” she said.

      Chapter 4

      The Kid felt a cold surge of anger inside him. This was the sort of thing that his father had been putting up with for years, he thought. Just because Frank Morgan had a reputation for being fast on the draw, most people believed that he could be hired to gun down anyone. That he was just a killing machine, a handy tool for whoever had the right price.

      “You’ve got me mixed up with somebody else,” The Kid said tightly, making an effort to keep his anger under control. “I’m not an assassin.”

      “But…I thought—”

      “You thought wrong.”

      Annabelle shook her head. “Then I apologize. I meant no offense, Mr. Morgan. The way you helped us made me think you were the kind of man who seeks adventure, and then when you admitted that you’re a gunfighter as well…” She shrugged her right shoulder, being careful not to move the left one and make her wounded arm hurt worse. “It was a natural enough mistake.”

      If she wanted to believe that to make herself feel better, The Kid didn’t care. He stood up. “This’ll be a good spot for you to camp. I’ll help the padre tend to the horses, and then I’ll be moving on.”

      Her eyes widened. “You’re not going to stay here tonight, too?”

      “No, I reckon I’ll get on about my business…which doesn’t include killing Italian noblemen.”

      Annabelle’s mouth tightened into an angry line. “I suppose I deserved that,” she snapped. “You can at least help me to my feet and give me back my gun before you go.”

      “I said I’d help with the horses, too,” The Kid responded as he reached down, grasped her upraised hand, and pulled her to her feet. Then he picked up her gun and extended it to her butt-first. It was a double-action Smith & Wesson .38, he noted with approval, small enough for a woman to handle without too much trouble, especially if she practiced with it, but a heavy enough caliber to have some stopping power, too.

      She took the weapon and slid it back into its brown leather holster. Then she stood and watched in silence as The Kid helped Father Jardine unhitch the team from the wagon. They hobbled the horses to keep them from wandering off, but the animals could still drink freely from the pool and graze on the grass that grew on its banks.

      “You must forgive Annabelle, my son,” the priest said quietly when he and The Kid paused on the other side of the wagon. “She means well, she truly does, but she has little patience and our mission is very important to her.”

      “What’s in it for her?” The Kid asked. “If you recover this fancy candlestick for the Church, what does she get out of it?”

      “It was her research that led me here.