Dead Before Sundown

Chapter 9

Frank, Salty, and Meg took up the trail again the next morning, riding east through the mountains. The terrain was rough enough to make their progress frustratingly slow.

That frustration increased when Salty’s horse pulled up lame in the middle of the day. When the horse began to limp, Salty let loose with a flood of angry exclamations that sounded like curses even though they actually weren’t.

“Take it easy,” Frank told him.

“Take it easy?” the old-timer repeated incredulously after he had dismounted and checked his horse’s bad leg. “We’re gonna have to let this jughead rest a day or two. Wouldn’t do no good to switch out the packs on one o’ the mules and slap a saddle on it. Those supplies weigh just about as much as I do, so it wouldn’t help the hoss to have to carry ‘em.” He jerked his battered old hat off and slammed it down on the ground in exasperation. “That varmint Palmer’s gonna get that much farther ahead of us!”

“We’ll make up the time,” Frank said, “and even if we don’t, we know where he’s headed. We’ll just have to catch up to him in Calgary, that’s all.”

“It’s gonna be that much harder to find him once he gets to a settlement,” Salty pointed out. “Calgary’s big enough he’ll be able to find a place to hide.”

Frank couldn’t argue with that. He just said, “We’ll find him, Salty. You’ve got my word on that.”

They dismounted, unsaddled the horses, and took the packs off the mules.

“If we had to make camp sooner than we expected, this isn’t a bad place to do it,” Meg said as she looked around.

She was right about that. The ground was fairly level and there was an open stretch along the bank of the creek, with evergreens towering above it. The valley was narrow here, running between rocky, steep-sided slopes.

Frank took a can of liniment from one of their packs and massaged the thick, foul-smelling stuff into the tight muscle on the bad leg of Salty’s horse.

“That’ll help,” he said. “In the meantime, we might as well take it easy.”

Salty looked as if that was going to be a difficult task for him. He was still muttering to himself as he sat down, leaned against a large rock, and pulled his hat down over his eyes.

Frank grinned and shook his head at the old-timer’s chagrin. He understood why Salty felt the way he did, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

“I think I’ll take a walk up the creek,” he said as he pulled his Winchester from its sheath. “Might find some game. We could have elk steaks tonight.”

Meg said, “We won’t need a fire tonight, but I suppose I’ll go ahead and start gathering some wood.”

“Keep your eyes open,” Frank advised. “You wouldn’t want to run into a bear.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said with a smile.

With the repeater tucked under his arm, Frank walked along the stream. Between the twists and turns it took and the way the trees closed in, he was soon out of sight of the camp.

In fact, as far as he could tell by looking, he might as well have been the only human being in five hundred miles.

Frank didn’t mind the solitude. In fact, he liked it.

He’d had no choice but to get used to being alone, since so many of his long years had been spent that way. Too many days and nights had been spent far from anywhere and anyone, trying to avoid trouble.

Many times he had been on the run from a posse led by some overzealous lawman who blamed him for crimes he hadn’t committed, simply because he had a reputation as a fast gun. When that happened, he sometimes asked himself … if he was going to be damned anyway, why not go ahead and become the sort of man they thought he was?

But he couldn’t, of course. It wasn’t in him to be an owlhoot. He hadn’t been raised that way.

Folks could think what they wanted. In his heart, he knew who Frank Morgan was, knew what Frank Morgan was … and was not.

And in recent years, things had begun to change a little, slowly but surely. Though in the habit of keeping people from getting too close to him, he had allowed the woman named Dixie to steal his heart.

That had ended tragically, sending him into a spiral that had almost claimed him and left him beyond redemption.

His friendship with the young Texas Ranger Tyler Beaumont had rescued him from that fate. Then, because of Beaumont, he had been reunited with old friends from his past. His estranged son Conrad had reached out to him, in need of help, and that was the beginning of the growing respect and friendship between the two of them.

For a while, Frank had even pinned on a lawman’s badge and served as the marshal of a Nevada mining town, something that ten years earlier, he would have sworn up and down had no chance in hell of happening.

It had taken him a lot of years to learn it, but he had come to the realization that no man can predict the course of his life … and it was a fool’s errand to try.

There was nothing wrong with planning for the future—that was only good sense—but a man had to live with the knowledge that those plans might never come about.

He smiled to himself as he realized how deeply he had sunk into this reverie. Being surrounded by nature had something to do with that, he supposed.

It was beautiful here. These Canadian Rockies were some of the most spectacularly beautiful country he had ever seen.

But they held plenty of danger as well. Beautiful or not, carelessness could get a man killed in a hurry here.

As he walked along the creek between the trees, he saw birds and small animals, but no elk or moose. He decided he had come just about far enough and was about to turn around and go back to camp when he heard something.

The crackle in the brush behind him made him spin around and bring the rifle to his shoulder, ready to fire.

“Frank, wait! It’s me!”

He found himself staring over the Winchester’s sights into Meg’s blue eyes, which were wide with surprise and even a little fear right now.

Biting back the curse that sprang to his lips, he lowered the rifle and said, “Blast it, Meg, you know better than to sneak up on me like that.”

“I didn’t sneak up on you,” she protested. “I was just walking along behind you. I’m surprised you didn’t hear me before now.”

So was he. Surprised and angry, mostly at himself. He had let himself get caught up in contemplating his lonely past, and if Meg had been an enemy, he would probably be dead now.

“I thought you were going to gather some firewood,” he said in a gruff voice as he dropped the rifle to his side.

“I did. Then I decided to come after you.”

“Something wrong back at camp?”

Meg shook her head. “No, not unless you count Salty’s snoring.” She came a step closer to him. “I just thought you might want some company.”

It would have been rude to tell her that he didn’t, so he just said, “I was about to start back. Didn’t see any game worth shooting.”

Meg looked around and took a deep breath. “It sure is lovely here,” she said. “And the air smells wonderful.”

“That’s because of all these evergreens,” Frank said. “And because there’s no town close by to foul the air.”

He was trying not to think about the way her breasts had lifted underneath the soft buckskin of her shirt when she inhaled deeply like that.

“You don’t care much for civilization, do you, Frank?”

He shrugged. “I like civilization just fine.”

“Then it’s the people you don’t like.”

“I like people, too. Just not some of the things they do. Most folks are too greedy, and they’re too quick to judge other folks.”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing right now?” Meg asked with a twinkle in her eyes.

Frank had to chuckle. “I reckon you’re right.”

“Anyway, you shouldn’t hold people to your standard. Not everybody can be as perfect as Frank Morgan.”

He grunted and shook his head ruefully. “I’m a long way from perfect. That just goes to show that you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

“I know that most men would have had me in their bed a hundred times in the months that I’ve known you, Frank. I’ve pretty much thrown myself at you.”

He looked away, fastening his gaze on the stream that danced and bubbled merrily a few yards away.

“We don’t need to talk about that.”

“I think we do,” she insisted. “Damn it, if you don’t know by now that I love you, you’re a lot dumber than I think you are.”

“I’m smart enough to know that I’m twice your age.”

“But not smart enough to know that I don’t care about that?”

Frank sighed. He was going to have to put it to her plain.

“Listen. I’ve been married twice. I don’t intend to ever get married again.”

“Who said anything about getting married?” Meg shot back. “You see a preacher anywhere around here? I don’t. But I see a nice, thick bed of grass on that creek bank, and I see mountains and blue sky and all the beauties of nature. I’m just saying we ought to add to those beauties, Frank, and if that shocks you, I’m sorry. I just don’t believe there haven’t been other women in your life besides the ones you married.”

“There have been,” he admitted. More than he could remember, really. In those days, he had taken comfort where he could find it and then ridden on without regret, taking with him only memories … and those always faded.

“Then why is it a problem?”

“Because, blast it, I’m too damned old for this!”

“I don’t think so.”

How had she gotten so close to him without him noticing? He couldn’t answer that, but suddenly she was close enough that he could feel the warmth of her breath against his face. She lifted her arms and put them around his neck before he could pull away.

Did he even want to pull away? He sure wasn’t trying very hard to do so.

He didn’t put up a bit of a fight when she lifted her face to his and pressed her lips against his mouth, either.

He had the Winchester in his right hand. His left arm came up and went around her waist. He wasn’t thinking now. It was an instinctive reaction when he pulled her closer to him. She came eagerly, her body molding to his.

In the cool mountain air that surrounded them, the heat of her kiss seemed searing to Frank.

Why not? The part of his brain that was still working asked that question. Demanded an answer.

He didn’t have one. Other than the ones he had already stated, he didn’t have a single good reason not to give Meg what she so obviously wanted.

Then he heard something besides the thudding of his own heart.

The clink of bit chains, followed by a man’s voice.

With the arm that was already around her waist, Frank picked up Meg, drawing a started gasp from her, and hustled her away from the creek, deeper into the shadows underneath the thickening trees.

“Quiet,” he told her in an urgent whisper. “There’s somebody out here.”