Ghost Valley

With one sudden motion Diego grabbed a fistful of Conrad's hair and, jerking him sideways out of the saddle, sliced off the tip of his left ear.

Blood poured over Conrad's woolen greatcoat as he let out a piercing yell that echoed from the slopes around them, startling the horses.

Cletus, leading the way to Ghost Valley, turned back in the saddle to watch the pain on Conrad's face.

Diego laughed, tossing the piece of the boy's ear into a snowdrift. "Now he have something to cry about," Diego said, wiping the blood from his knife on one leg of his badly worn leather chaps.

Blood seeped down Conrad's cheek as he held his palm to the wound. "My father will get you for this!" he cried, slumping over in the saddle.

"That ol' man of yours don't give a damn what happens to you," Cletus said. "He never did come up with the money Ned an' Victor wanted from him. Only he'd better bring the money this time or you're a dead son of a bitch."

"Dad came after me," Conrad said, nursing his missing ear tip with a handkerchief he removed from an inside pocket of his snow-laden coat.

"Morgan never did get to Ned," Cletus reminded the kid. "He's way past his prime. He got too old to mess with the likes of Victor an' Ned. At least that's what everybody says about Frank."

"You'll see," Conrad whimpered, tears brimming in his eyes as their horses climbed higher into the Rockies. "My dad will make you sorry for what you've done to me. Both of you will be dead."

"You want me kill this loudmouth little _bastardo?"_ Diego asked.

"Naw. Let him bleed an' let him cry as loud as he wants," Cletus replied. "Ned promised us a ten-thousand-dollar share of the ransom he's gonna get from Morgan, an' we're damn sure gonna collect it."

Diego frowned a moment. "Does this Morgan have that kind of money?"

"He's got plenty, according to Ned. We ain't gonna take no chance by killin' the boy."

Diego put his knife away. "If he make more noise I cut off his other ear. Then he don't hear so goddamn good when he make all this noise."

"Suits the hell outta me," Cletus replied. "Far as I know he's worth the same to us with or without ears. All we gotta do is find this place Ned called Ghost Valley, an' I've got us a map to it."

"How come we don't just shoot this worthless little piece of cow shit?"

"We need to keep him alive so his daddy will see he's okay," Cletus replied. "That's how we get the ten thousand, accordin' to what Ned told me."

"I say we kill him."

Cletus glanced up at the mountains looming before them. "I reckon that's why you're flat broke, Diego. You leave the thinkin' part to me."

Diego went into a sulk.

Conrad kept the handkerchief against his ear as their horses began a steeper climb.

Once, Diego glanced over his shoulder at their back trail.

"I do not see nothing, Senyor," he said.

Cletus turned up the collar on his mackinaw and kept on riding, shivering, wishing they'd brought along more whiskey. There had been plenty of it for sale at Trinidad. All they had between them was a half pint of red-eye.

* * * *

"Shut up!" Diego demanded, sending a boot crashing into Conrad's skull.

The boy screamed, toppling over on his back after the savage blow.

"Take it easy on the little bastard," Cletus warned. "We got us a ten-thousand-dollar package there if you don't kill him."

"It is _muy frio,"_ Diego said, shuddering. "I don't like to listen to this boy complain."

"Tie somethin' over his damn mouth," Cletus said while he was tying his horse in a clump of trees. "We're gonna make us some coffee so my insides don't freeze. Bring that bottle so we can put a little bite in it."

_"Por favor, senyor,"_ Diego said, "but the bottle is almost gone."

Cletus whirled toward his Mexican companion." You been drinkin' it this whole time?"

"It was cold, Senyor."

Cletus jerked out his revolver. "You got any idea how cold it's gonna be if you're dead, Meskin?"

Diego glowered. "You would not shoot me."

"I goddamn sure will if that pint is empty. Fetch it for me now!"

"But there is only a little bit left, _jefe."_

"If there ain't enough to keep me warm, you're a dead son of a bitch, Diego. I paid for that pint with my own goddamn hard money."

"Maybeso there are a few swallows, Senyor."

"There'd damn sure better be more'n that, you rotten Meskin bastard."

Diego turned toward his horse to reach into his saddlebags. A shot rang out.

Diego Ponce slumped to the snow on his knees with a dark stain blackening his coat. His horse snorted and bounded away in the snow, trailing its reins.

"Never did have no use for a thirsty Meskin," Cletus said as he holstered his pistol.

Diego began coughing up blood.

Conrad drew back into a ball when the roar of the gunshot faded into the pines.

"You ... killed your partner," Conrad stammered.

"Diego never was no partner of mine. I couldn't sleep good at night, worryin' if he'd slit my damn throat when he took the notion."

Dried, frozen blood was caked on Conrad's left cheek. "I've never met anyone like you," he said, his voice quivering from the cold.

Cletus grinned. "Ain't likely that you ever will again, boy," he said. His eyes slitted. "You just remember one thing, kid. I'll kill you quicker'n I just killed Diego if you mess with me."

"I understand," Conrad said. "You've made yourself perfectly clear."

* * * *

Cletus recognized them as Pawnees. Four Indians rode over a ridge clad in buffalo robes, almost hidden by veils of snowflakes.

"Injuns," he grumbled, swinging his horse off the trail as quickly as he could.

He glared at Conrad. "Now you shut the hell up, boy, or I'll kill you same as I'm about to kill them damn redskins over yonder."

"I won't say a word," Conrad stammered, his reply muted by half-frozen lips.

Cletus jerked his ten-gauge shotgun from its boot and swung to the ground ... the range between him and the Indians was close enough for a scattergun.

"Get down off that horse," Cletus snapped with the wind at his back so his voice wouldn't carry, aiming the gun at Conrad when his boots touched new-fallen snow.

But Cletus realized it was too late to hide from the four Indians when he heard a distant war cry.

"I said get down, you little bastard!" he shouted to Conrad as the mounted warriors came toward them at a gallop with ancient muskets to their shoulders.

A distant rifle shot cracked in the stillness of the snowstorm. A lead ball struck a tree behind Cletus, spooking his horse.

"Take this, you rotten bastards," he hissed as he fired off one barrel of his Greener.

A thundering blast shook the pine forest around them when his ten-gauge exploded. Somewhere in the swirling snow in front of them, he heard a scream.

Then a shape came lunging toward him, a feathered Indian on a buckskin horse.

Cletus fired again, satisfied when he heard a piercing yell in front of him. He watched the Pawnee topple off his horse as the buckskin pony swerved away from the gunshot.

He cracked open the barrels in the nick of time, jamming two more cartridges into the smoking chambers. Just as he snapped the gun closed, another rifle barked.

A snow-laden limb above Cletus broke in half with a dull crack, showering him with white flakes. But he did not allow anything to distract him from taking aim at the last two charging Indians.

One warrior was ripped from the back of his sorrel pony as if he'd run into an invisible stretch of rope. The Pawnee went tumbling over his horse's rump, tossing his long-barrel rifle in the air.

"One more," Cletus whispered, turning so his aim would be perfect.

He closed his finger around the second trigger of his bird gun. The kick from the stock almost took him off his feet when the load of buckshot spat forth.

A slender Pawnee warrior aboard a black pony went flying off the animal's withers without ever firing a shot, his buffalo robe tenting behind him where balls of molten lead shredded his ribs and spine.

"Gotcha!" Cletus said, watching the pony gallop away trailing its jaw-rein.

Then there was silence. As a precaution against more of the red savages, Cletus reloaded his Greener.

"You killed all of them," Conrad said, hunkered down behind a tree.

"That's what I aimed to do, boy," he said, "and if I take the notion, I'll kill you same as them."

"You killed your own partner, the Mexican fellow," Conrad went on.

"The sumbitch had it comin'," Cletus replied, turning his freshly loaded gun on Conrad. "Shut the hell up or I'll do the same to you."

"But I'm worth more to you alive."

"Maybe," Cletus muttered. "Only I don't think Frank Morgan is gonna know the difference if he brings that money to Ghost Valley. If his saddlebags are full of gold, like they's supposed to be, Ned's gonna kill him anyhow, if Victor or one of his men don't get to him first."

* * * *

When Cletus was satisfied that there were no more Pawnees in the area, he ordered Conrad into the saddle.

"We got lots of miles to cover, kid, so shut up with the goddamn whimperin'."

Cletus mounted and led Conrad's horse toward higher elevations as the snow continued to fall. By his own reckoning they had two more days of hard riding facing them before they reached the valley.

--------

*Nineteen*

A soft touch on his forehead awakened him. He knew he'd been dreaming. A knifing pain spread slowly through his left shoulder

"Where am I?" he asked.

"You're at our cabin," a gentle voice replied. His eyes opened slowly. "Our cabin?"

"Mine an' Dad's."

Things came back to Frank by degrees. He recalled the gunshot that had taken him unawares, a shot from behind him. "That'd be Buck, the old gent who brought me here. Seems like he had a beard. Rode a pinto pony. Right now, that's about all I remember. He was showing me how to find Ghost Valley. I went down into the valley alone."

"That was my pa who brought you here."

"Where is he now?"

"He rode off a while ago to see if any of that Pine or Vanbergen bunch was close to our cabin. He said he'd be back before sundown."

"How bad is my wound festering?" Frank asked, reaching for his left shoulder.

"It has blood-poisonin' streaks. I changed the bandage a while ago."

"I've got to get out of this bed," he groaned, trying to lift himself off the mattress. Somewhere near the foot of the bed, Dog whimpered.

"You ain't goin' no place, Mr. Morgan," Karen said with a firm note in her voice. "You lost a lot of blood. Drink some more of this whiskey."

"I won't turn it down," Frank answered, blinking to clear away the fog from his slumber.

Karen handed him the jug, helping him hold it to his lips until he took a swallow.

"That stuff burns," he gasped, letting his head fall back on the pillow.

"It's supposed to. Pa says that's what makes it good for an ailin' body."

He tried for a smile, admiring the smooth lines of Karen's face. While he was in no shape to be courting a woman, he found Karen Waite to be very attractive.

A gust of wind howled through a crack in the log cabin and he heard snowflakes falling on the roof. "I take it the storm hasn't broken yet."

Karen set the clay jug on the floor. "Pa says it could last for a couple of days ... a squall, he calls it."

He gazed up at the sod roof of the cabin. "I've got to get back on my horse. Vanbergen and Pine could slip away under the cover of this snow."

"You can't sit a horse in the shape you're in, Mr. Morgan," she said.

"I sure aim to try," he told her, flexing the muscles in his left arm, wincing when more lightning bolts of pain shot through him.

"Not till Pa gets back," she said.

"You don't understand. I've ... ridden a long way to have my revenge against Ned an' Victor for what they did to my wife and to my son a few weeks ago."

Karen stood up, leaving the whiskey beside his cot on the dirt floor. "Wait till Pa gets back. It's nearly dark now anyhow. Nobody in his right mind is gonna go anywhere in a snow storm like this."

Frank surrendered to her logic ... for now. "Okay. Just don't let me drift off to sleep again."

"Rest'll be the very best thing for you right now, Mr. Morgan."

"Why don't you call me Frank?"

"Wouldn't be proper. We ain't acquainted."

He grinned. "Then let's get acquainted. Tell me why a pretty girl like you is living up here in these mountains with her father."

"He needs me."

"It has to be more than that. Buck seems like he's able to take care of himself."

"All we've got is each other," Karen said quietly, moving over to the woodstove to add more pine limbs.

"Why did you come up here with him in the first place?" Frank asked.

"To be away from folks. Pa had a hard time durin' the war an' he didn't want to be around so many people. Nothin' up here but deer, elk, an' grizzly bears, besides the smaller varmints along the creeks."

"Don't you ever get lonely?"

"No. I like it up here."

Another blast of wind screamed around the eaves of the small cabin.

"But you're miles from any settlement."

She turned away from the potbelly to stare at him. "When we feel the need to see folks we can ride down to Glenwood Springs, or over to Cripple Creek. When we don't, there ain't nobody who bothers us up here."

"Sounds peaceful," he said, reaching for the whiskey with his right hand.

"It is. Pa wants it that way."

"Why?"

"On account of the war. He said he's seen enough of what men can do to each other."

"I understand that," Frank said, taking a big swallow of corn whiskey.

"You sound like pretty much of a loner yourself," Karen said as she closed the stove door.

"I am. I reckon it's for the same reasons your pa likes it up in these mountains. It don't take long for a man to get enough of civilization."

"We get by," Karen said. "The winters can be hard sometimes."

"And cold," Frank surmised.

"The cabin stays warm. We get ready for winter with plenty of firewood. This place could use a few more chinks between some of the logs."

Frank pushed a moth-eaten wool blanket off his chest and struggled to a sitting position, movement that only increased the pain in his left side.

"You shouldn't be movin' around, Frank," she said, coming over to him.

"I can't stay here. I've got business over in that ... Ghost Valley, they call it."

"It'll keep for a few days," Karen assured him.

"Not this," Frank said darkly. "I've been looking for those jaspers for weeks. It won't be settled until Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen are dead."

"Pa says you're a killer."

He took the whiskey jug again and drank deeply before he answered her question. "There was a time when I made a living at it. But not now."

"You just said..." Karen's voice faded.

" This is different. This is personal."

"You won't be strong enough," she warned. "This cold drains all the strength out of a body."

"Not mine," he replied. "I'm used to the cold ... or the heat."

She came over to him and sat beside him on the cot, with worry in her eyes. "Pa says you aim to go up against that bunch of outlaws single-handed."

He nodded, and drank more whiskey.

"You don't know those men," Karen said. "They're all paid killers."

"I know 'em real well. That part don't scare me one little bit. They shot me, but it was because I got careless and let one of 'em get behind me."

"But Pa said your son was safe now, down in Trinidad or thereabouts."

"I aim to make 'em pay for what they did to Conrad. I won't let 'em get away with it."

"Pa says there's a lot of them hard cases in the valley."

"I've thinned 'em down by a few."

"You killed some of them?"

"A handful. Your father gave me some help."

"Pa said he wasn't gonna kill no more men after the war was over."

Frank sighed. "I reckon he made an exception. I owe him for what he did."

"We came up here to live peaceful," Karen whispered, staring at a cabin window covered with deer hide.

"I may have pulled him into a fight that wasn't any of his affair," Frank explained.

"Did you ask him to help you kill those men?"

He wagged his head. "Nope. He did it on his own and that's a fact."

Karen was thoughtful a moment. "We try to live quiet. Even when those Indians come around, Pa gets along with 'em and gives 'em what they want."

Frank remembered the Indian he'd seen outside the cemetery at Glenwood Springs. "Do you mean the Old Ones? The Ones Who Came Before?"

"Some call 'em that," Karen admitted, although she seemed nervous about it.

"Are they Utes? Shoshoni?"

"No one knows. They've lived here for a very long time. I only saw 'em a few times. Pa says they're real careful about showin' themselves to strangers."

"Who are they?" Frank wanted to know.

"Ask Pa about it."

"I already did. He didn't tell me much."

Karen got up off the cot, as though she didn't care to talk about it anymore. "I'll warm up some more of this soup. It'll help you get your strength back."

"You didn't answer my question," he persisted.

"I didn't aim to. Ask my pa about it."

The pain in Frank's shoulder forced him back down on the bed and he closed his eyes.

The Indian he saw beyond the cemetery fence at Glenwood Springs had seemed real enough.

He tried to recall what Doc Holliday told him about the local Indians. Some folks claimed they were like ghosts from the past, some tribe called the Anasazi.

"I saw one of them," he told Karen.

She turned quickly from the potbelly where she was warming his soup.

"It's true," he said. "I couldn't get a good look at him, but he was there, and he spoke to me."

"You're joshin'," Karen said.

"I'm completely serious."

She went back to her cast-iron pot. "An' just what did this Indian say?"

"He directed me to Ghost Valley. That's one reason why I'm here."

"What's the other reasons?" she asked without turning around to look at him.

"A white man, a gunfighter by the name of Doc Holliday, told me this is where I could find Pine and Vanbergen."

"You'll have to ask Pa about that. I mind my own business when it comes to gunfighters an' Indians. Only, Pa told me you were a gunfighter, so I reckon I shouldn't be talkin' to you now."

"That was a long time ago," Frank said sleepily as the corn whiskey began to do its work.

--------

*Twenty*

He saw Jake Allison standing at the end of a dusty street in Abilene, Texas, and he knew something was wrong, since this moment came from his distant past. Jake was a deadly gunman with a far-flung reputation as a quick-draw artist. And Allison was long dead, by the hand of Frank Morgan.

Jake came toward him, his gun tied low on his leg. He wore a flat-brim hat, stovepipe boots, and a leather vest, with a bandanna around his neck.

"Time we settled this, Morgan!" Jake shouted from the far end of the street.

"Suits the hell outta me, Jake," Frank heard himself say in a voice that was not his own.

"You been talkin' about how you're gonna kill me. I'll give you the chance."

Frank began taking measured steps toward Allison, his hand near his gun. "It won't be just talk, Jake. You killed that boy and his brother up on the Leon River. They were friends of mine and I don't take that sort of thing lightly."

"The sheriff ruled it was self-defense, Morgan."

"Sheriff Stokes is in the pockets of the cattlemen's association, the crooked outfit you work for."

"You can't prove a damn thing. Them Miller boys went for their guns first."

"They weren't gunmen and you know it. They'd have never gone for a gun against a rattlesnake like you."

"You talk mighty tough, Morgan," Jake said as he walked closer.

Frank grinned. "Difference between you and me is, I can back it up."

Jake stopped, spreading his feet slightly apart. "Time we quit all this jabberin'."

Frank kept moving closer, judging the distance, ready to make his play. "I'm done with words myself, Jake. I'm gonna give you the first pull. Go for that damn gun whenever you're ready."

"You're tryin' to trick me."

"How's that?"

"You damn sure won't give me the first chance at the draw an' you know it. I'm too fast for you."

A crowd had begun to gather along the boardwalks of Abilene to watch the affair. Everyone was listening to what was being said.

Frank halted his strides when they were fifty feet apart. "I'll wait till I see your hand move for the butt of that pistol," he said.

"You ain't got the nerve."

"We'll stand here until we both die of old age, Jake, unless you make your play. I won't draw on a man first, and you can take that to the bank. If you don't draw, I swear I'll give you the worst beating you ever had."

"You yellow bastard. You're bluffin'." Jake's jaw was set when he said it.

"One way to find out, asshole, is to reach for iron. I'll wait."

"If you do, you're a dead man."

"Maybe," Frank replied, sounding casual about it. "You can piss on my grave if you're right about it."

Jake's right hand made a dive for his Colt ... Frank saw the muscles in his arm tense a fraction of a second before he made the move.

Frank's hand dipped for the butt of his weapon, a practiced move, one he'd refined over many years. His gun came out, cocked and ready, before Jake could clear leather.

In a flash, Frank saw the fear in Jake's eyes when he knew he'd been beaten to the draw.

"Adios, Jake," Frank whispered as he pulled the trigger on his Peacemaker.

The thunder of a gunshot echoed up and down the main street of Abilene. For a fleeting moment, all was still until the sound faded.

Jake Allison's knees quivered. A red stain began to spread across the front of his vest. He let his pistol fall to the caliche roadway, it landed beside his right boot, making a soft thud.

A whispered gasp escaped the lips of onlookers. All eyes were on Jake as he took a half step backward on uncertain, trembling legs.

"Goddamn you, Morgan!" Jake bellowed, still full of fight even though his legs wouldn't support him.

Frank moved toward his mortally wounded adversary, still clutching his pistol. Jake sank to his knees, reaching for the hole in his chest.

Now murmurs of whispered conversation spread through the onlookers. Frank came to a halt a few yards from Allison and the puddle of crimson forming around him.

"I warned you," Frank said, lowering his weapon.

Jake rocked back on his haunches with blood pouring between his fingers. "Ain't ... nobody ... that fast," he stammered as more blood began to dribble from his mouth, proof of a lung wound that would claim his life in minutes.

"Think about those Miller brothers while you die, Jake," Frank said while bystanders edged closer to the scene of Allison's death. "They were kids. Young cowboys barely old enough to shave."

"Like hell!" Jake spat, weaving back and forth as he sat on his rump.

"No sense arguing about it now," Frank told him. "You're the same as dead."

The crowd around Frank and Jake parted as a man with a star on his shirt hurried up to them.

"Frank Morgan, you're under arrest!" Sheriff Stokes barked as he swung a shotgun up at Frank.

"What's the charge?" Frank asked.

"Cold-blooded murder."

"He drew first," Frank protested, still holding his gun at his side.

"That ain't the way I saw it, Morgan. Now drop that damn pistol an' throw your hands in the air!"

Frank glanced around him. Half a hundred people had been witnesses to what had happened. "These folks saw it. Allison went for his gun and I had to defend myself."

Sheriff Stokes was about to speak when someone from the crowd spoke up.

"That's right, Sheriff. Morgan wouldn't draw first against Allison. We all seen it."

Stokes gave the speaker a glare. "What the hell would you know about anything, Jimmy?" he growled.

Then a woman's voice came from the back of the group. "I saw it myself, Sheriff Stokes. Mr. Allison took out his gun before Mr. Morgan did."

Stokes glanced at the woman. "Are you right sure, Miz Wilkinson? I sure wouldn't question the word of the preacher's wife."

"I'm quite sure of what I saw, Sheriff, and I'll testify to it in court."

The sheriff's shoulders slumped. He lowered his shotgun and looked at Frank. "Maybe I didn't see things none too clear from where I was in front of my office," he said in a much quieter voice.

Frank holstered his Peacemaker. "All this dust, when the wind blows, can get in a man's eyes," he said.

At the same moment Jake Allison fell over on his face and let out a moan.

"I reckon somebody oughta send for Doc Weaver," the sheriff said.

"No need," Frank said absently, turning away. "He'll be dead before a sawbones can get here."

Stokes spoke to him as he was striding away.

"What makes you so all-fired sure of that, Morgan?"

Frank stopped just long enough to glance over his left shoulder. "I put a bullet through his heart. Looks like it might have nicked his lung. Either way, he's headed for an undertaker."

Curious citizens of Abilene backed away from him as he strode from the scene. He had taken another life, adding to his fearsome reputation, and yet he hadn't wanted things to end this way. He would have preferred to see Jake Allison stand trial for the murder of the Miller brothers.

It seemed trouble, and gunplay, followed him wherever he went.

He rode out of Abilene that day with a warning ringing in his ears, to stay clear of that part of Texas if he wanted to avoid trouble with the law.

* * * *

"You were dreamin'."

He heard the voice, and focused on the fuzzy face hovering above him.

"I woke you up 'cause you seemed to be real agitated about somebody named Jake."

He recalled the dream vividly. "Jake Allison," he croaked, his throat dry.

"Who was he?" Karen asked.

"A man I had to kill. It happened a long time ago. Don't know why I was dreaming about it."

"Your fever's gettin' worse. Pa went out to fetch some aspen bark so I can brew you some tea."

"Aspen bark?"

"It helps with a fever sometimes. Your wound's gettin' worse. Pus is comin' out of it now."

"I've gotta get back to that valley. Pine and Vanbergen will get away from me again ... I lost 'em once, but it won't happen again."

"Pa says they're still there, only today two more men come ridin' into the ghost town."

"Two more?" Frank tried to clear his head.

"Pa slipped down close on foot the other night. He heard their names."

"The other night? How long have I been asleep?"

"Two days. You woke up every now an' then so I could give you some soup an' whiskey."

Frank couldn't quite believe that he'd been unconscious for two days. He could see Karen's face clearly now. "The names of the other two..."

"What about 'em?"

"What were their names?"

She frowned a moment. "One was named Cletus. They called the other one Conrad. Pa was sure hopin' it wasn't that boy of yours."

He tried to bolt upright on the cot and could scarcely move. "That isn't possible. Conrad is safe down in Trinidad in the south part of the territory."

"Pa only said that was his name. You can ask Pa soon as he gets back."

Frank couldn't imagine how anyone could have taken Conrad from Trinidad a second time. Pine and Vanbergen were in Ghost Valley. Who was left among them that could take his son captive again? "Your pa must have been mistaken ... about one of 'em being named Conrad."

"He told me that he slipped up right close in the dark an' heard 'em talking."

"Go find Buck. I have to ask him if he's sure about that name."

"He'll be back right soon. There's aspens down by the creek and you've got to have the bark so your fever will go down."

Frank closed his eyes briefly. Had he been so careless as to leave Conrad alone when he went after Ned and Victor? Had one of their gunmen taken Conrad captive again?

"Where are my boots?" he asked feebly.

"Right at the foot of the bed ... only you ain't gonna be needin' 'em for a day or two."

"My shirt. My mackinaw," he continued, ignoring what the girl said for now.

"Hangin' on pegs over yonder on the wall," she replied, giving him a strange look. "Only you ain't strong enough to get dressed yet."

"I'll be the judge of that," he said. "If my boy is in that valley, I'm going after him right now."

"You're too weak to climb on your horse," Karen said flatly as she put her hands on her hips. "And if you did get in the saddle, you'd fall off on your head. You've got a bad fever from your wound."

"I can manage it. Bring me my shirt and my boots."

"Not till Pa gets back, I won't."

"Then I'll do it myself," he said, swinging his legs off the cot, closing his mind to the waves of pain racing from his left shoulder.

Dog left his place by the potbelly stove and came over to him. Frank braced himself to stand up, leaning forward, placing his feet wide apart.

Suddenly, a wave of swirling black fog enveloped him and he knew he was losing consciousness.

"I told you so," the woman said, sounding as if she said it from far away as everything went dark around him.

--------

*Twenty-one*

Cletus watched Conrad being tied to a sagging hide-bottom chair with coils of lariat rope. A coal-oil lamp lit up the room, illuminating the faces of hard men gathered inside the shack.

"Here's your prize," Cletus said, aiming a thumb at Conrad Browning.

Ned Pine nodded. "What happened to his ear?"

"Diego had to cut it off to keep him quiet. He was makin' too damn much noise."

"What happened to Diego Ponce?"

"I had to kill him."

Victor Vanbergen gave Cletus a one-sided grin. "You can be one mean hombre, Cletus."

Cletus looked around the shack. "I don't take shit off nobody. Now, where's this kid's old man? An' where's my ten thousand dollars?"

"Morgan is here. He's already taken down a few of our men," Ned said. "Then we gave him a little dose of his own bitter medicine."

"He surely ain't out in this snowstorm?"

"He's found himself a hidin' place. Seems like he's got a partner too. There was this rifle shot from up on the valley rim while Morgan was down here."

"Where's Morgan now?"

" Skeeter swears he got him with a rifle shot in the back a few days ago," Victor said, inclining his head toward the man called Skeeter.

"How in the hell am I gonna get my money if the son of a bitch is dead?" Cletus demanded.

"He ain't dead. Skeeter found blood, an' tracks in the snow. Two sets of tracks, so we know his partner, whoever the sumbitch is, helped him hide from us."

"I ain't gonna wait here all spring to get my money, Vic. You said ten thousand dollars for bringin' the kid out of Trinidad to this valley. By God, that's what I've got comin' to me an' you know it."

"We'll find Morgan," Ned promised. "You know damn well he's got the money, much as he cares for this snot-nosed sissy kid of his."

"I ain't gonna wait long," Cletus said. "I damn near froze my ass off gettin' him up here. This wasn't no easy place to find on that map you give me."

"It won't be long," Victor said. "As soon as this snow lets up we'll start lookin' for him and whoever his partner might be. He won't get away from us. There was a helluva lot of blood on that snow where Skeeter got him."

Cletus walked over to the fireplace, warming his hands above the flames. "Pass me one of them jugs of whiskey. An' some of them beans in this here pot. I'm half starved, half froze, an' damn sure thirsty."

He noticed that the kid was shivering. The bandanna covering his missing ear tip was covered with frozen blood. "You might oughta feed this skinny bastard too, so's we can keep him alive until Morgan comes up with the money."

Ned handed Cletus a bottle of Old Rocking Chair. "This'll help warm your innards until this damn spring storm lets up a bit."

Cletus pulled the cork and took a big swallow.

"How come you had to kill Diego?" Victor asked.

"He was gettin' on my nerves," was all Cletus said, drinking again. "Somebody fix me some of them leftover beans. An' put them horses outside in the shed. We rode 'em mighty hard to get here."

One of Ned's gunmen picked up a tin plate to fill it with beans. Another cowboy left by the front door to take care of the horses. But for the moment all eyes were on Cletus.

"Morgan better have that money," he said, gulping down more whiskey to warm his insides.

"He'll have it," Victor said. "He's worth a ton of money, an' this kid is all he's got. He wouldn't have rode all this way without it."

"I've heard about Morgan," Cletus said, taking the plate of beans, resting the bottle on the hearth. "He was supposed to be fast with a gun some years back. Smart too."

"We've got his kid. It changes things," Ned said as he came over to the fire.

"Maybe," Cletus said, filling his mouth with spicy red beans and chunks of salt pork. He glanced at Conrad. "Better feed the little bastard. He ain't got much meat on his bones. If Morgan has the money we'll give him the boy. If he don't, I'll kill the boy and his daddy myself."

Cletus walked over to a window of the shack. "I seen half a dozen Injuns on my way down into the valley. What the hell are they doin' here?"

Ned shrugged. "They don't bother nobody."

"What breed are they?"

"We ain't rightly sure. Some ol' geezer we talked to claims they's ghosts."

"The ones I saw damn sure wasn't ghosts," Cletus said around a mouthful of beans. "Besides, there ain't no such things as ghosts anyhow. One funny thing I remember about 'em ... they didn't have rifles. They just sat there on skinny Injun ponies an' watched us ride down."

"Don't pay 'em no heed," Ned said.

Cletus left the window to retrieve the bottle while he forced more beans into his mouth. "All I care about's that damn cash money for bringin' the kid. Injuns or no Injuns, I'd damn sure better get paid."

"You'll get your money," Victor said. "Morgan will try to take back his boy without payin', but we're ready for that if it happens. Besides that, he's wounded now. We got him right where we want him."

"You want me to untie this kid?" Skeeter asked, holding a tin plate of beans.

Ned gave the boy a glance. "Yeah. Untie him so he can eat. He damn sure won't be goin' no place."

Skeeter chuckled and put the plate down to begin untying the rope.

Conrad spoke, his teeth chattering. "My father won't pay a dime to have you release me," he said. "He left me and my mother before I was born. He doesn't care what happens to me. You've all wasted your time."

Cletus wheeled toward the chair where Conrad was sitting. "You'd damn sure better be wrong about that, boy, or this is where somebody'll be diggin' your grave."

Skeeter gave Conrad a yellow-toothed grin. "We'll be buryin' you right beside your pappy, sonny, if this ground ain't too froze to dig."

"He won't pay," Conrad said again.

"He'd damn sure better," Ned snapped, glaring at the youth with slitted eyes.

A gust of wind rattled a loose windowpane on one side of the shack. Cletus almost dropped his plate of beans to reach for his pistol.

"You're kind'a jumpy, ain't you?" Victor asked.

Cletus directed a cold stare at Vanbergen. "It's what keeps me alive."

Conrad began to cough, holding his sides, ignoring the beans he'd been offered.

"What the hell's the matter with him?" a gunslick asked.

"Who gives a damn," Cletus said. "All he's gotta do is stay alive until we collect that money. He can cough his goddamn head off for all I care."

"Reckon we oughta put somethin' on his ear?" Skeeter asked softly.

"Hell, no," Ned answered. "Leave him be. He ain't gonna bleed to death from no scratch like that. Hell, it's just a part of his ear."

Skeeter ducked his head and went over to the fireplace, taking down a tin coffeepot. "I'll go out an' fetch some more snow so's we can have fresh coffee. This shit tastes like wagon grease."

"Suit yourself," Ned told him. "Just be careful walkin' around out there. We don't know who's with Morgan ... but we do know he's a pretty damn good shot."

"I won't have to go far," Skeeter replied, pausing after he opened the door. "It's still snowin' like hell out yonder. I damn sure ain't took no likin' to this here north country. Be glad to get back where it's warm."

Skeeter went out into the storm, closing the door behind him.

* * * *

Skeeter Woolford tasted fear while he was out gathering fresh snow. There was something about Cletus Huling that gave him a dose of worry.

He saw Sammy coming toward him in the darkness after putting the horses in the shed behind the shack.

Sammy walked up to him, speaking in low tones. "We'd best keep an eye on that Huling feller," he said. "I don't trust a man who'll kill his partner just 'cause he claims he got on his nerves."

"I was thinkin' the same thing," Skeeter said. "He's liable to rob us of all the money after we get it, or kill every damn one of us in our sleep."

"He's damn sure a sneaky bastard," Sammy agreed. "I won't sleep a wink till this is over."

"Keep your pistol handy," Skeeter warned, dipping snow off the top of a drift.

"I will," Sammy said, glancing up and down the empty street running through the abandoned mining town, a roadway now covered with several inches of snow. "Besides that, we gotta keep an eye out for that bastard Morgan an' his pardner."

"Just between you an' me," Skeeter confided, "Ned an' Victor have gone plumb crazy over this whole idea. It was dumb to grab that kid again. Morgan didn't pay the last time. All he done was shoot the hell outta a bunch of us."

"I don't need no reminder."

"Time comes, if it don't look like Morgan intends to pay, I say we cut our losses an' ride out of here."

"But we come all this way."

"What difference will it make how far we rode if we wind up dead?"

Sammy nodded, knocking snowflakes off the brim of his hat. "And now we gotta watch out for Huling. We're liable to be caught on two sides of a shootout."

"Just don't sleep too hard. Let's get back inside before Ned gets edgy about us bein' gone."

They trudged through the snow to the door of the shack as the storm let up briefly. Sammy glanced over his shoulder at the rim of the valley.

"Spooky place," Sammy whispered, kicking snow off his boots. "I see why it's called Ghost Valley. Things just don't seem all that natural here."

Skeeter was about to open the door when he saw shapes moving on one of the slopes. He dropped the coffeepot and reached for his pistol. "Who the hell is that?" he cried, jerking his Colt from leather.

"Injuns," Sammy replied, sweeping back the coat tails of his mackinaw, drawing his gun. "They're too far out of range for a handgun."

"I count four," Skeeter said, peering into a swirling curtain of small snowflakes. "What the hell are they doin' here?"

"Better tell the boss," Sammy said, pushing the door to the shack open.

Skeeter picked up the coffeepot just as the four Indians rode out of sight into a stand of pines.

"Injuns!" Sammy bellowed from inside the cabin. "We seen 'em just now."

Ned and Cletus rushed outside cradling rifles. Skeeter pointed to the spot where the four riders disappeared. "They're gone now," he said.

"How many?" Ned snapped.

"Wasn't but four. They was way up yonder on that mountain slope."

"I don't see a damn thing," Cletus said.

"They rode into them trees. Haven't seen 'em since."

Ned lowered the muzzle of his Winchester. "Probably just passin' through," he said.

"Prob'ly same ones I saw ridin' in," Cletus added. "Like I told you, they didn't have no guns that I could see. Just sat there watchin' us."

Ned grunted and turned back inside. "To hell with a bunch of Indians," he said. "All we need right now is to find Frank Morgan an' find out how he aims to hand over that money for his kid."

Cletus and the others came inside, closing the door behind them.

"May not be that easy," Cletus said. "You say he's wounded. And he's got a sidekick. Could be we'll have to go take that money away from him now."

--------

*Twenty-two*

Frank awakened to the sweet smell of coffee, or so he thought. He tried to lift his head, using all the strength he could muster, and still he failed.

"Take it easy, Frank," a woman's voice said. For a moment he didn't know who was speaking to him. Nor did he have any idea where he was.

He stopped struggling, gazing up at the same sod roof he'd seen before, and now things began coming back to him.

"No sense in fightin' it," another voice said, and then Frank saw Buck Waite standing over him.

"I keep ... blacking out," he mumbled. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't regain his senses.

"You got a bad fever in that shoulder, Morgan."

"I can't ... just lie here." Events were coming back to him in fragments ... his ride to Ghost Valley, the men he killed along the way, and the gunshot from behind that took him down when he least expected it.

"That's damn near all you'll be able to do for a spell in the shape you're in."

"The girl ... your daughter, she told me you overheard them talking down in the ghost town. One of them said ... they had Conrad."

"Appears that way. He's hardly more'n a boy, from what I saw an' heard of him."

"Have they harmed him?"

"Looked like somebody had cut on one of his ears, but he was okay when they took him inside. I got close enough to the cabin so's I could hear 'em."

"The bastards."

"Ned Pine is damn sure a bastard. Victor Vanbergen ain't much better. That's a rough bunch they got with 'em too, but the one who brung your boy is the worst, if my opinion makes any difference."

"What was ... his name?"

"Cletus. I didn't stay long enough to hear 'em say he had a last name."

"I don't know anyone who's named Cletus."

"He looks like a rough customer. Carries a shotgun an' a pistol. Got a Winchester too. He didn't come all this way on no sightseein' trip."

"I've got to get to Conrad before they hurt him. He's not cut from the same cloth as the rest of us. He won't stand a chance against them."

"How is it that a boy of yours can't take care of himself?" Buck asked.

"We never were around ... each other. His mother and I were separated when he was born."

"Here's some special tea, Frank," Karen said, offering him a steaming cup. "I laced it with a bit of Pa's corn squeeze, so you'd like it better."

Frank pushed himself up on one elbow, noticing that his left shoulder and arm were badly swollen.

"That bark tea will help some," Buck said. "It's an old Indian remedy for fever an' poisoned blood. Drink as much of it as you can."

Frank allowed Karen to hold the cup to his lips so he could take a few swallows. Despite the whiskey, the tea was bitter, harsh on his tongue.

Dog was watching him from the foot of the bed as he slowly sat up and took the cup in his right hand.

"The storm's let up," Buck said. "Those boys down in the valley ain't goin' nowhere. They's waitin' on you to show up with money to pay for your son's release."

"I'm gonna release 'em, all right," Frank said, trembling with a curious weakness before he took several more swallows of tea and whiskey. "I'm gonna kill every one of the bastards as soon as I can walk."

"Maybe a day or two," Buck suggested.

"I can't wait that long," Frank replied, glancing over at his rifle and pistol belt.

"Seems to me you ain't got no choice," Buck said as he went over to a stool near the fire. "That poison in your arm is gonna keep you here."

"I've had worse," Frank told him, moving his injured arm a bit.

" They'll kill you, Frank," Karen said softly. "You can't take care of yourself in this condition. Pa will keep an eye on what's going on in the valley until you're strong enough to get on a horse."

"That could be too late," Frank said, flexing the fingers on his left hand, making sure he could steady his rifle with it if the occasion arose.

"You won't be helpin' that boy of yours none if you get shot again," Buck said from his place beside the stove. "It's smarter to wait."

Frank thought about Conrad, finding it hard to believe that one of Pine's or Vanbergen's men had ridden all the way down to Trinidad to capture him again.

"I missed my chance to kill Ned and Victor a few weeks ago," he reminded himself. "All I cared about at the time was getting my boy back home safe and sound."

"Life is full of little mistakes," Buck said, chuckling as he added wood to the fire. "Gives a man a whole bunch of regrets if he thinks about 'em too long."

"I'll get them," Frank said, sipping scalding, bitter tea while his mind was on the shack down in Ghost Valley. "I swear to you I'll get 'em all this time."

Buck shook his head. "You ain't gonna get nothin' but a grave marker unless you wait for that arm to heal some. That's a bad wound."

"My son's life is more important."

"Listen to me, Morgan," Buck said, picking up the jug of whiskey. "The men down yonder in that valley are bad hombres, the killin' kind. If you go after 'em before you're ready to handle yourself, that kid of yours will die an' so will you. I know that bunch. They come up here mighty regular to hide out from the law."

"I know their type," Frank said, thinking back over his years as a gunfighter. "They don't scare me. If I can sit my horse, I can get 'em."

"Won't be so simple," Buck said. "They know you're up here in these mountains now. They'll be expectin' you. You lost the element of surprise."

"I know," Frank sighed, watching Karen move away from him, momentarily distracted. "I suppose I should be more grateful for what the two of you have done for me. I'd probably be dead in this snow somewheres if it hadn't been for you. Just wanted you to know I appreciate what you've done for me. I won't forget it either."

"We don't want no thanks," Buck remarked. "Just wait here until you can travel. I told you when we first met I came up here to get away from killin' an' such, after the war. But in your case I'll make an exception. I'll help you get your boy back."

"I wasn't asking," Frank said.

"I know," Buck replied. "Just call it somethin' I've made up my mind to do."

"Again, I'm obliged to both of you."

Buck gave him a stern look. "Drink that damn tea. I didn't go out in this god-awful storm to fetch back bark if you ain't gonna drink the tea from it."

Frank drank half the cup, feeling better as the minutes passed. He noticed that Karen was rolling out dough on a small table.

"Are you baking a pie in the dead of winter?" he asked, trying to sound playful.

"Makin' biscuits," she said without turning around to look at him.

"Can't say as I'm all that hungry," he admitted.

Buck grinned. "You will be, soon as you smell them turtle-head biscuits my girl makes. Puts 'em in a Dutch oven on top of this stove. We've got fatback to go with 'em, and a dab of good cane syrup."

"Maybe I'll be hungry after all," Frank said, gazing around the cabin. Skins and antlers were used for wall decorations on the logs, along with a rusty trap or two.

"Drink your tea," Karen scolded. "It'll bring your fever down in no time."

"The whiskey helps," he said, grinning at her.

She returned his smile with one of her own, and he was reminded again how pretty she was.

Frank became aware that Buck was watching him. He took his eyes off Karen.

"I'll hand it to you, Morgan," Buck said.

"How's that?" he asked.

"When you get your mind set on somethin', you stay hell-bent in that direction."

"Are you talking about going after my son?" Buck nodded.

"I don't see how a father can do things any other way," he replied.

"It's the way you aim to go about it. There's still ten or twelve men down in that shack. A man with good sense would have brought some help."

"I've always worked alone," he said, gazing off at a window of the cabin.

"Why?"

"It's safer that way. You don't have to worry about being double-crossed by a partner."

Buck hesitated, as if he were thinking carefully about what Frank said. "Back in the war, we counted on havin' men who kept a watch on our backsides."

Frank drained his cup. "Graveyards all over the South and the North are full of men who were counting on someone to watch behind them."

"But a man can't live his entire lifetime alone, Morgan. You've got to learn to trust somebody."

"Maybe," Frank said. "Maybe not. I'm still alive because I learned to trust myself and nobody else. It may sound strange, but it's kept me out of a cemetery."

Karen put her cast-iron pan full of biscuits on top of the stove, banging its lid into place. "Some folks can be trusted," she said.

He examined the crude bandage around his shoulder while he thought about what the girl said. "I reckon I just haven't found anyone like that," he said.

She was staring at him now. "It could be said that maybe you didn't look hard enough, Frank."

"I suppose."

Dog came over to him and licked his hand, his liquid eyes on his master.

"I suppose I trust this dog," he said after a bit of thinking on the subject.

Karen wheeled away from him and began cutting strips of salt pork into a smaller frying pan. "Men aren't good judges of character," she said.

Frank chuckled. "I reckon not, although I think I'm a real good judge of bad characters."

A pine knot popped in the stove. For a while, all three of them were silent, until Buck brought Frank the jug of whiskey. "If I was you, I'd drink some more of this," he said. "An' another cup of tea."

"I'll do it," Frank muttered, hoisting the whiskey to his lips. "Right now, I don't much care which one of 'em cures me. All I care about is the cure."

Buck moved over to the door, picking up his rifle. "I'm gonna go have a look around. Done the best I could at coverin' our tracks an' your blood in the snow, but a man can't be too careful. Be back in a little while, after I make sure we ain't been followed out of that valley."

Buck went out into the darkness, shouldering into his coat.

--------

*Twenty-three*

Sam signaled a halt. "Yonder's a fire ... I smell it. Maybe it's Charlie on his way back to the valley after he ambushed Morgan."

"Who the hell else would be out here?" Tony asked as he peered into the snow. They'd been following traces of blood and footprints for several hours.

Buster jerked his pistol free, his back to the heavy snowfall. "We gotta be sure, boys," he said to Sam and Tony. "I've heard stories about Morgan. He ain't no tinhorn, even if he is bad wounded. Let's ride up real careful, just to be on the safe side."

"You worry too much," Sam said. "Charlie Bowers is as good as they come when it comes to trackin' a man. That's how come Ned sent him back to do the job. Charlie don't miss. He's as good as they get for a bushwhackin' job."

"All the same," Buster said, drawing his own Colt .44, "we'll ride up careful. No sense in takin' any chances. It could be some deer hunter or a traveler. We don't need no more troubles with the law if we kill the wrong man. I still say it pays to be cautious with Morgan."

"Remember what Ned told us," Sam warned. "Frank Morgan is a killer, a professional shootist from way back. He may still have a lot of caution in him, even if Charlie winged him."

"Ned's too worried about Morgan," Tony declared. "Besides, he's just one man and there's three of us. You ain't giving Charlie enough credit. My money says he planted Morgan in a shallow grave by now."

"We've got the wind at our backs," Sam said. "Let's ride around to the east and come at him upwind, whoever the hell he is."

"Sounds like a good idea," Buster agreed. "We'll cut around to the south and move upwind. If it's Charlie camped down by that creek, we'll recognize him. If it ain't, if it's Morgan, we start shootin' until that sumbitch is dead."

"Morgan's already dead," Tony said. "The only thing worryin' Ned is why Charlie didn't come back to the cabin by dark. Charlie knows his way around these mountains. Maybe all that happened was his horse went lame."

"I don't like the looks of this, Tony," Sam said, squirming in his saddle. "There's something about this that don't feel quite right."

"You're a natural-born worrier, Sam," Tony said. "If it is Frank Morgan down there by that fire, the three of us will kill him."

The gunslicks rode south into the snowy night with guns drawn.

Larger flakes of snow had begun to fall, and the howl of the squall winds echoed through the treetops around them.

* * * *

Frank sat on the bunk eating flaky biscuits and strips of salt pork, remembering the other man he'd met in the mountains far to the south of here who helped him get Conrad away from Ned and Victor.

"Clarence Rushing is my full name," Tin Pan had said, pouring himself another cup of coffee. "I've been up in these mountains so long that the other gold panners hung the Tin Pan handle on me. Suits me just fine."

Frank grinned. "I like Tin Pan. It's a helluva lot easier on the ears."

"A name don't mean all that much anyhow. I went by Clarence Rushing for thirty years back in Indiana. I went to college for a spell. Tried to make my living as a printer. But I kept feeling this call to see the high lonesome, these mountains, and a man just ain't happy if he ain't where he feels he belongs. I came out here looking for gold with a sluice box and a tin miner's pan. A few miners took to calling me Tin Pan on account of how much time I spent panning these streams. Hellfire, I didn't mind the new handle. I reckon it suited me. A name's just a name anyhow."

"You're right about that," Frank agreed, "unless too many folks get a hankering to see it carved on a grave marker. Then a name can mean trouble."

"Why would anybody want your name on a headstone, Frank Morgan?"

Frank looked up at the snowflakes swirling into the tiny pine grove where they were camped. "A few years back I made my living with a gun. I never killed a man who didn't need killing, but a man in that profession gets a reputation ... sometimes it's one he don't deserve."

"You was a gunfighter?"

"For a time. I gave it up years ago. Tried to live peaceful, running a few cows, minding my own business on a little place down south. Some gents just won't leave a man alone when he wants it that way."

"Sounds like your past caught up to you if you're about to tangle with Ned Pine and his gang."

"They took my son. Pine, and an owlhoot named Victor Vanbergen, set out to settle old scores against me."

"Old scores?" Tin Pan asked.

" First thing they done was kill my wife, the only woman I ever loved. Then they found my boy in Durango and grabbed him for a ransom."

"Damn," Tin Pan whispered. "That's near about enough to send any man on the prowl."

"I can't just sit by and let 'em get away with it. I'm gonna finish the business they started."

"I've heard about this Vanbergen. Word is, he's got a dozen hard cases in his gang. They rob banks and trains. I didn't know they was this far north."

"They're here. I've trailed 'em a long way."

"One man won't stand much of a chance against Ned Pine and his boys. They're bad hombres. Same is bein' said about Victor Vanbergen. Have you gone plumb loco to set out after so many gunslicks?"

"Maybe," Frank sighed, sipping coffee. "My mama always told me there was something that wasn't right inside my head from the day I was born. She said I had my daddy's mean streak bred into me."

Tin Pan shrugged. "A mean streak don't sound like enough to handle so many."

"Maybe it ain't, but I damn sure intend to try. I won't let them hold my son for ransom without a fight."

Tin Pan stiffened, looking at his mule, then to the south and east. "Smother that fire, Morgan. We've got company out there someplace."

"How can you tell?" Morgan asked, cupping handfuls of snow onto the flames until the clearing was dark.

"Martha," Tin Pan replied.

"Martha?"

"Martha's my mare mule. She ain't got them big ears on top of her head for decoration. She heard something just now and it ain't no varmint. If I was you I'd fetch my rifle."

Frank jumped up and ran over to his pile of gear to jerk his Winchester free. He glanced over his shoulder at the old mountain man. "I sure hope Martha knows what she's doing," he said, hunkering down next to a pine trunk.

"She does," Tin Pan replied softly. "That ol' mule has saved my scalp from a Ute knife plenty of times."

Tin Pan pulled his ancient Sharps .52 rifle from a deerskin boot decorated with Indian beadwork. The hunting rifle's barrel was half a yard longer than Frank's Winchester, giving it long range and deadly accuracy.

"But the Utes are all south of here," Frank insisted, still watching the trees around them.

"They signed the treaty," Tin Pan agreed. "I don't figure these are Utes. Maybe you're about to get introduced to some of Ned Pine's boys."

Frank wondered if Ned Pine had sent some of his shootists back to look for Charlie Bowers. If that was the case, it would give him a chance to change the long odds against him. It would make things easier.

He crept into the trees, jacking a load into the firing chamber of his Winchester saddle gun.

* * * *

"Right yonder," Sam whispered. "In them pines, only it looks like the fire just went out."

"Maybe he heard us," Buster suggested. "Could be Charlie," Tony said. "He'd be real careful if he heard a noise."

"It'd be a helluva thing if us an' Charlie started shootin' at each other in the dark," Sam said.

"How the hell are we gonna find out if it's him without gettin' our heads shot off?" Buster asked.

"I ain't got that figured yet," Sam replied. "Let's move in a little closer."

"I say we oughta spread out," Tony said.

"Good idea," Sam agreed. "Tony, you move off to the left a few dozen yards. Buster, you go to the right. Stay behind these trees until we know who it is."

" Right," Buster whispered, moving north with his rifle next to his shoulder.

Tony slipped into a thicker stand of pines to the south of the grove where they'd spotted the flames.

Sam inched forward, blinking away snowflakes that got in his eyes. Since they were coming upwind, whoever was camped ahead of them wouldn't hear a sound they made. If it was Charlie Bowers who made the campfire, Sam knew he would recognize his bay stallion tied in the trees before any shots were fired.

* * * *

Frank spotted a dim shape moving slowly, quietly among the trees. He didn't need a look at the man to know he was up to no good.

Frank thumbed back the hammer on his rifle, waiting for the man to show himself again.

The heavy roar of a big-bore rifle cracked near the mule and horses.

A shriek of pain filled the night silence. Tin Pan Rushing had hit someone with his Sharps ... Frank knew the sound of the old buffalo gun. He was more than a little bit surprised that the mountain man would throw in with him in a fight with Ned Pine's gang.

Two muzzle flashes winked in the darkness from trees near the clearing. The crack of both guns and the fingers of red flame gave Frank a target.

He squeezed off a round at a fading flash of light.

"Son of a bitch!" a deep voice cried.

Frank was ejecting a spent shell, levering another into the Winchester as fast as he could before ducking behind the tree as the voice fell silent.

"Is that you, Charlie?" someone shouted from the trees east of camp.

7 Now Frank was certain that some of Ned Pine's men had been sent back to look for Charlie Bowers.

"Yeah, it's me!" Frank bellowed. "Is that you, Ned?"

"It's Tony. How come there's two of you shootin' at us? You shot Sam an' Buster just now."

"My cousin Clarence came up from Durango. We met on the trail. We didn't know who it was out there. Come on down to the fire. We've got coffee."

"That still don't sound like you, Charlie. Did you kill Frank Morgan?"

"Put a hole right through his chest. Sorry about shooting Sam and Buster. Come on down and we'll get the fire going again."

"Bullshit!" Tony said. "It must be you, Morgan."

"Morgan's dead, like I told you. I didn't plan on riding up to the cabin in this storm. Me and Clarence shot a wild turkey hen. Walk on down here and have some."

"You don't sound like Charlie."

"It's cold. What the hell are you so scared of, Tony?"

"Scared of bein' tricked, and I never heard you make mention of no cousin by the name of Clarence."

Tin Pan shouted from the far side of the clearing. "I'm Charlie's cousin. I don't know who the hell you are, but you've gotta be crazy to stand out in the cold and snow. We've got coffee and roasted turkey. Come on in."

A silence followed.

"Let me check on Sam and Buster first. I can hear Buster groanin' over yonder. Ned ain't gonna like it when he finds out you shot down two of us."

"It's dark," Frank said, readying his rifle. "How the hell was I supposed to know who it was?"

"You don't sound like Charlie Bowers to me," Tony said, his voice a bit lower. "I've been ridin' with Charlie for nearly three years. I'd know his voice if I was hearin' it."

"I'll walk up there and prove it to you," Frank said. "I can't tell exactly where you are. Show yourself and I'll come up."

A dark silhouette moved in the wall of snow and pine trunks.

Frank brought his Winchester's sights up, steadying the gun against his shoulder. "I see you now, Tony. Just wait right there for me and we'll see to Sam and Buster."

He squeezed the trigger. His .44-caliber saddle gun slammed into his shoulder.

The man partly hidden by trees flipped over on his back without making a sound.

"Nice shot, Morgan," Tin Pan said from his hiding place. "Couldn't have done no better myself."

Frank stepped around the pine. "It was mighty nice of him to walk out and introduce himself. Some men are so damn stupid, it makes you wonder how they stayed alive long enough to grow out of diapers."

"One of 'em ain't dead yet," Tin Pan warned.

"I'm always real careful," Frank replied as he headed into the forest.

* * * *

Karen came over and sat beside him. "Are you feeling any better?" she asked. "Seemed like you drifted off for a spell."

"I was just remembering another gent who helped me get my son back the first time I went after him." He gazed at a window for a moment. "I wonder what's keeping your pa."

--------

*Twenty-four*

Coy Cline was riding his horse up a snow-laden slope when he heard the crack of a rifle. Something struck his breastbone with tremendous force.

"Shit!" he shouted as his sorrel gelding bounded out from under him.

"What the hell was that?" Bud Warren cried.

"A bullet, you damn idiot!" Buster Pate replied, reining his bay into the trees.

Another gunshot rang out from a ridge above the rim of the valley.

"Son of a..." Bud bellowed, gripping his belly as a piece of hot metal passed through him, exiting next to his spine. He threw his pistol into the snow to hold onto the saddle horn with both hands.

"I'm shot!" Coy shrieked, toppling out of the saddle into a snowdrift.

Buster jumped off his horse. A sharpshooter from above was taking potshots at them in the dark.

"Help me, Buster!" Bud called from a dark place between two lines of trees.

Buster didn't answer him. Only a fool would give his position away in the dark.

Coy began to moan somewhere in the inky blackness. "You gotta help me," he sobbed.

"Screw 'em," Buster muttered. The shots had come from more than two hundred yards away. It would take a hell of a marksman to make that kind of shot at night, and a very large-bore rifle to boot.

"Morgan," he whispered, gripping the stock of his rifle with gloved hands.

He'd been sure they were following Frank Morgan's trail of blood out of the valley, but now he wasn't so sure. Who the hell was shooting at them?

"You gotta help me," Coy cried again. "I'm shot through the gut. I'm bleedin' real bad."

From another spot in the pine woods, Bud began coughing until his throat was clear. "Jesus."

Bud slid off his horse next to a pine trunk. He landed with a thud and groaned softly as his gelding galloped away to escape the bang of guns.

"I'm dyin' over here," Bud croaked. "You boys gotta help me."

Buster was only thinking of surviving the sharpshooter himself. He lay still for a moment.

"Where are you at, Buster?" Coy wondered, the pain in his voice garbling his words.

Buster wasn't about to answer him and make a target of himself.

The boom of a rifle came from above.

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" Coy screamed, flipping over on his back.

It was proof that Buster had been wise to remain silent until he knew where the rifleman was.

"Please help me," Bud called. "I can't move my damn legs no more."

Buster wanted to make sure his legs would move as he made his way back down the slope. He said nothing, closing his ears to Bud's cries.

He could hear Coy strangling on blood. Under better circumstances he would have offered his old partner some assistance, but not now. He knew with certainty that his life was at stake now.

"Where're you at, Buster?" Bud shouted. "You gotta come help me."

Buster hunkered down to wait. Bud Warren was nothing but a hired killer in the first place, and someone at the top of the valley was giving him his just due, a payback he had coming after years as a gunman.

"If only we hadn't followed the smell of that damn smoke," Buster said softly.

"I'm dyin'," Coy choked. "Send my share of the money to my ma back in Texas."

Buster grinned, although there was little real humor behind it. No one in Ned Pine's bunch would send a share of the money anywhere ... if they got their hands on the money at all. It was beginning to look like the ransom money for Conrad Browning was going to be hard to collect.

"Morgan may be as tough as they say he used to be," Buster muttered. "He's damn sure a hard sumbitch to kill, if you ask me."

Buster went looking for his horse. Ned and Victor had to be told what had happened while they were following Frank Morgan's blood trail.

* * * *

Ned glared at Buster. "What the hell do you mean, he got all of you?" Ned demanded.

"He got Coy an' Bud. Shot 'em right off the backs of their horses. I made it down the slope, but I was dodgin' lead the whole time."

"In the dark?"

"Dark as pitch, Boss."

"I thought you told me Morgan was wounded ... that you found blood."

"We did. He's got somebody with him. Don't know who the hell was doin' the shootin', but he can damn sure hit what he aims at."

Victor Vanbergen was standing at a window. "That bastard," he snapped.

Cletus Huling strode over to the fire to get more beans from the pot. "I'll handle Morgan," he said, "If you raise my share to fifteen thousand."

"You're too goddamn greedy," Victor said. "You agreed to ten thousand."

Cletus grunted. "It don't appear any of us is gonna collect a damn dime unless we find Morgan, an' even then we ain't sure he's got the money."

"He wants this boy," Ned said, turning to Conrad for a moment.

Cletus gave Ned a steely stare. "After all I've been through gettin' this kid up here, I'd better get the money you promised me in that telegram, Ned. If I don't, I'm gonna kill you an' Victor an' every other gunslick you've got left, if you have any left after Morgan gets through with you. He's killin' off your boys faster'n you can keep track of the number, an' that ain't no joke."

"You can't talk to me like that, Cletus," Ned said, his eyebrows furrowing.

"Like hell I can't," Cletus replied. "I've killed better men than any of you. I'll kill every sumbitch in this valley unless I get my money."

"There's seven of us," Victor said from his spot by the window. "You'll never get us all."

"Time'll tell," Cletus remarked, his right hand near his pistol. "If I get the money you promised me, there won't be no trouble."

Victor's eyes strayed to Ned's. They both knew how dangerous Cletus could be, one reason they'd contacted him to capture the Browning boy.

"Take it easy, Cletus," Ned said. "No call to get so riled up."

"Just so long as I get my damn money," Cletus told him as he took a spoonful of beans and shoveled them into his mouth. "That's the only reason I'm here," he added, chewing without taking his eyes from either Ned or Victor, his back to the wall beside the hearth.

Ned looked at Buster. "Are you sure Coy an' Bud are dead?" he asked.

"Same as dead," Buster answered. "Coy couldn't hardly talk an' Bud was cryin' like a sugar-tit baby. I damn sure wasn't gonna look for 'em with Morgan shootin' down on us the way he did just now."

"What makes you so sure it was Morgan?" Victor asked, an eye still on Cletus as he walked over to the fire to warm his back and his hands.

"I ain't," Buster replied. "Only whoever it was could damn sure shoot in the dark."

"Morgan brought somebody with him this time," Ned told the others.

"Sounds like it," Cletus agreed. "A wounded feller ain't gonna have the best aim. You said you found blood in the snow, an' two sets of footprints."

"We did," Buster agreed.

"Reckon one of them Injuns I saw when we rode in is helpin' him?"

"Them Injuns don't help nobody. We hardly ever see 'em around here," Ned said. "They ain't never come down an' talked to us."

"How come they hang around here?" Cletus asked.

"Nobody knows. We asked folks down in Glenwood Springs. They tell stories about 'em."

"What kind of stories?"

Ned looked down at his boots a moment. "About how they're called the Old Ones, the Ones Who Came Before. Some of the old-timers around here claim they're the Anasazi, the Injuns who built all them old mud houses up on the bluffs."

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Cletus asked him.

Ned seemed reluctant to answer right at first. "They've all been dead for hundreds of years, Cletus, or so the locals tell it."

"So that's where them ghost stories come from?"

"Most likely."

Buster spoke. "The sumbitch shootin' at me an' Coy and Bud wasn't no ghost. Leastways, the bullets, was real enough to knock 'em off their horses."

"It was Morgan," Cletus said, sounding sure of it.

"That's the way I've got it figured," Buster answered in a faraway voice.

Cletus walked over to the door and opened it a crack. For a time he stared out at the snowy night.

"What are you doin', Cletus?" Ned asked.

Cletus didn't answer until he closed the door. "I may not wait for him to come to us."

"What?" Victor seemed surprised.

"I may go after him myself."

"That'd be plumb crazy," Buster said. "He's just waitin' up there on that rim for one of us to try it."

"Wait until it gets light," Ned suggested. "That way, you can see his tracks."

"I ain't much on waitin'," Cletus replied, "not when I'm owed ten thousand dollars."

"But you won't know where to look," Ned said.

Cletus shook his head. "When you're huntin' a man, it's easy to know where to look."

Victor shrugged. "Suit yourself on it, Cletus, only be sure to bring us our part of the money if you find him."

"Are you sayin' I'd double-cross you, Vic?"

"No. Didn't mean that at all."

Ned went to the door and peered out. "It's stopped snowin', looks like. A man would be easier to find now."

Buster shuffled off to a corner of the fireplace. "You'd best have eyes in the back of your head," he said. "Morgan, or whoever it was, can see like a cat at night."

"I was born with eyes in the back of my head," Cletus said quietly, shouldering into his mackinaw. "That's how come I'm still alive."

"You want us to send some of the boys with you, Cletus?" Victor asked.

"Hell, no. They'd only be in the way."

"Find out where Morgan's hidin'," Ned suggested. "Then come get the rest of us an' we'll kill him an' sack up all that damn money."

Cletus picked up his rifle. "I'll let you know if I find him."

"And the money," Victor said, glancing at the Browning boy tied to a chair.

Cletus moved to the door and prepared to go outside. "One thing don't figure," he said thoughtfully.

"What's that?" Ned asked.

"If Morgan brought all that money up here to get his son back, then how come he ain't just sent word to you that he's ready to pay?"

Ned and Victor gave each other questioning looks. Ned spoke first. "We ain't set eyes on him yet."

Cletus wasn't convinced. "It don't sound to me like he intends to pay that ransom at all."

"Then why the hell is he here?" Victor asked.

"To kill every last one of you," Cletus replied, opening the door carefully. "By the way he's been actin' since I got here, it don't appear he's in no money-payin' mood."

--------

*Twenty-five*

Buck came back to the cabin an hour before dawn. He came through the door soundlessly while Frank was drinking another cup of whiskey and bark tea. Karen sat near him in a hide-bottom chair.

"I got two of 'em," Buck said, leaning his buffalo gun in a corner. "They was followin' the smell of our smoke from this here fireplace."

"Two?" Frank asked, clearing his head to hear what the old man had to say.

"One of 'em got away. It was hard to see in that forest down yonder, but I don't figure it'll be long before more of 'em start looking' for us up here."

Frank tossed the wool blanket off his shoulders, flexing his bad arm. "Hand me my shirt, Karen," he said. "I think I can pull on my boots."

"You ain't strong enough, Morgan," Buck said.

"I reckon I'm about to find out."

"Don't do it, Frank," Karen pleaded.

"I've got no choice. Pine and Vanbergen know I'm here and they're sending men after me now."

Steadying himself, he put his cup of tea and whiskey on the dirt floor and pushed himself upright. "Hand me my shirt," he said again.

"I can handle 'em, if they don't come all at once," Buck said.

"It's not your responsibility ... it's mine," Frank said, taking the flannel shirt Karen offered him. "It's me they want, and the ransom money they think I'm carrying."

"You didn't bring any ransom money, did you?" Karen asked him.

He shook his head. "Nope. Just a load of lead for what they've done. I intend to pay them in heavy metal, but not the kind they're expecting."

Buck sighed. "I'll go out an' saddle your horse. It'll be light soon."

"I'd be obliged," Frank told him, buttoning the front of his shirt, ignoring the pain, then stepping into one stovepipe boot, and then the other.

" This is crazy," Karen said, watching Frank struggle to get dressed.

"Maybe," Frank replied. "Now if you'll hand me my coat and that Winchester in the corner. There's a box of shells in my saddlebags."

"And what if I won't?" Karen asked, folding her arms across her chest.

Frank pretended he didn't hear her. "I may have to have you help me strap on my gunbelt."

Dog whimpered softly, sensing his master's pain, coming over to him to lick the back of his hand.

"You can go, Dog," he said gruffly. "Two sets of eyes are better than one."

Dog trotted over to the door as soon as Buck went out to saddle the bay.

"Please don't do this, Frank," Karen said. "To tell the truth, I've gotten mighty fond of you."

"This is business, Karen. Dirty business, and not of my own making. My only son is down in that valley now. What kind of father would I be if I didn't go after him?"

"But you're hurt bad."

"I've been hurt this badly before. It takes a helluva lot more than one bullet to kill me ... if it don't go in at the right place."

"You're hardheaded, Frank Morgan."

He eased into his mackinaw. "So I've been told. My ma used to tell me the same thing nearly every day. Now help me strap on that gunbelt."

"I'll never understand men," Karen said, moving over to the bed to get his Colt.

Frank grinned in spite of the throbbing ache in his left shoulder. "I never met a woman who did," he told her gently while she reached around him to buckle on his cartridge belt just below the top of his denims.

"Thanks," he said softly, and for reasons he couldn't explain at the time, he bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips.

She returned his kiss and stepped back, and now there was a trace of a smile on her face. "That was nice, Frank. You come back so we can do that again."

"I have every intention of coming back."

"Just make sure you do."

He walked over to the doorway, his back hunched against the pain pulsing through his chest. He was certain that if he could get on his horse, he could make it.

* * * *

Bud Warren lay in the snow, fighting back waves of nausea. The hole in his lower abdomen felt like it was on fire and when his fingers touched the area, they came back wet, he knew it was blood.

"Are you there, Coy?" he asked in a weakened voice thick with phlegm.

Coy didn't answer him the first time.

"Coy! Coy!"

And then a shadow moved in the darkness, standing over him now.

"Is ... that you, Coy?"

"Why do you come here?" an unfamiliar voice asked, a voice with a curious accent.

"That ain't you, Coy. Who the hell are you?"

"I am a keeper of this valley."

"A keeper? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you Frank Morgan?"

"I do not know this Frank Morgan."

"Then what's your damn name?"

"I am called Isa."

"What kind of name is that? I can't see you real good. It's too damn dark."

"In your language, it is the word for coyote."

"In my language? What the hell are you talkin' about, stranger? You're Morgan. If I could find my gun, I'd kill you right here an' now."

"I am not Morgan. You will not kill me. You have no weapon and you are dying."

"I ain't dyin'. I've got a hole in my belly, that's all it is."

"You will die."

"You ain't no damn doctor, an' you've got a real stupid name."

"I will be the one who kills you."

Bud raised his head off the snow, blinking furiously to clear his eyes. He saw a man dressed in buckskins with a bow and arrow.

"You're a damn Injun!" he cried.

"I am Anasazi."

Bud saw an arrow being fitted to the bow.

_What the hell is an Anasazi?_ he thought, slipping toward unconsciousness again, remembering what he'd been told about Frank Morgan.

But who the hell was this Indian?

--------

*Twenty-six*

As Bud was surrounded by a swirling gray fog, what he'd been told came back to him.

* * * *

Darkness came to the snow-clad mountains. Rich Boggs was hobbling toward the cabin at Lost Pine Canyon on seriously frostbitten feet. Cabot Bulware was behind him, using a pine limb for a crutch, they told Bud afterward, describing every step of their painful journey.

"It ain't much farther," Rich groaned. "I can see the mouth of the canyon from here."

_"Sacre,"_ Cabot said, limping with most of his weight on the crutch. "I be gon' kill that _batard_ Morgan if I can get my hands on a horse and a gun."

"I just wanna get my feet warm," Rich said. "The way I feel now, I ain't interested in killin' nobody. I think a couple of my toes fell off."

"Who was the old man with Monsieur Morgan?" Cabot asked. "I hear Ned say Morgan always work alone."

"Don't know," Rich replied, his teeth chattering from the numbing cold. "Just some old son of a bitch in a coonskin cap with a rifle."

"He be dangerous too," Cabot warned. "I see the look in his eyes."

"You're too goddamn superstitious, Cabot. He'll die just like any other man if you shoot him in the right place. I can guarantee it."

"My feet are frozen. I go back to Baton Rouge when I can find a horse. I don't like this place."

"I ain't all that fond of it either, Cabot," Rich said as they moved slowly to the canyon entrance. "It was a big mistake to side with Ned on this thing. I never did see how we was gonna make any money."

"I do not care about money now," Cabot replied. "All I want is a stove where I can warm my feet."

"Won't be but another half mile to the cabin," Rich told him in a shivering voice. "All we've gotta do is get there before our feet freeze off."

"Boots, and horses, are what we need," Rich announced. "If they didn't leave our horses in the corral, we're a couple of dead men in this weather."

"I feel dead now," Cabot replied. "I don't got feeling at all in either one of my feet."

* * * *

As night blanketed the canyon Rich added more wood to the stove. He and Cabot had dragged the dead bodies outside, but a broken window let in so much cold air that Rich was still shivering. He'd taken the boots off Don Jones's body and forced his own feet into them. Cabot was wearing boots and an extra pair of socks that had once belonged to Mack.

They'd found two pistols and a small amount of ammunition among the dead men. Ned and the others had taken all the food; thus Rich was boiling fistfuls of snow in an old coffeepot full of yesterday's grounds.

Five horses were still in the corral even though the gate was open, nibbling from the stack of hay, and there were enough saddles to go around.

"I am going back south in the morning," Cabot said with his palms open near the stove.

"Me too," Rich said. "I'm finished with Ned and this bunch of bullshit over gettin' even with Frank Morgan. There's no payday in it for us."

"I've been dreaming about a bowl of hot crawfish gumbo all afternoon," Cabot said wistfully. "This is not where I belong."

"Me either. I'm headed down to Mexico where it's warm all the time."

Cabot turned to the broken window where Don had been shot in the face. "What was that noise?" he asked.

"I didn't hear no noise," Rich replied.

"One of the horses in the corral ... it snorted, or made some kind of sound."

"My ears are so damn cold I couldn't hear a thing nohow," Rich declared. "Maybe it was just your imagination. All I hear is snow fallin' on this roof."

Then Cabot heard it again.

"Help ... me!" a faint voice cried.

"That sounded like Jerry's voice," Cabot said, jumping up with a pistol in his fist.

"I heard it that time," Rich said, getting up with Mack's gun to open the door a crack.

Rich saw a sight he would remember for the rest of his life. Jerry Page came crawling toward them on his hands and knees in the snow, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

Rich and Cabot rushed outside to help him.

"Morgan," Jerry gasped. "Morgan came up on the rim and stuck a knife in me. He killed ... Roger. Cut his throat with the same bowie knife."

"We'll take you in by the fire," Cabot said as he took one of Jerry's shoulders.

"I'm froze stiff," Jerry complained, trembling from weakness and cold. "I'm bleedin' real bad. You gotta get me to a doctor real quick."

"We can't go nowhere in this snowstorm," Rich said as they helped the wounded man into the cabin. "It'll have to wait for morning."

"I'm dyin'," Jerry croaked. "You gotta help me. Where's Ned?"

Ned and the others pulled out. We ran into Morgan too. He took our boots and guns and horses. We damn near froze to death gettin' back here."

They placed Jerry on a blanket beside the stove and covered him with a moth-eaten patchwork guilt.

"Morgan," Jerry stuttered. "He ain't human. He's like a mountain lion. Me an' Roger never heard a thing until he was on top of us."

"We figured there was trouble when neither one of you came back," Rich said bitterly. "Morgan killed Mack and Jeff and Don and Scott. Only Lyle, Slade, Billy, Rich, Cabot, and Ned made it out of here alive."

"What happened ... to Morgan's kid?"

"Ned had a gun to his head," Rich recalled.

"That's the ... only way it's gonna stop," Jerry moaned as he put a hand over the deep knife wound between his ribs. "Ned's gotta let that boy go."

"Ned's gone crazy for revenge. He won't stop until he kills Morgan."

"Morgan ... will ... kill him first," Jerry assured them. "I need a drink of whiskey. Anything."

"We're boilin' old coffee grounds," Rich said. "There ain't no whiskey. Ned and the others took it all with them when we pulled out of here."

"Water," Jerry whispered, his ice-clad eyelids batting as if he was losing consciousness. "Gimme some water. Morgan's gonna kill us all unless Ned ... lets that boy go."

"You know Ned," Cabot said, pouring a cup of weak coffee for Jerry, steaming rising from the rusted tin cup. "He won't listen to reason."

"I'm gonna die ... way up here in Colorado," Jerry said as his eyes closed. "I sure as hell wish I was home where I could see my mama one more time...."

Jerry's chest stopped moving.

"Don't waste that coffee," Rich said. "Jerry's on his way back home now."

Cabot stared into the cup. "This is not coffee, _mon ami._ It is only warm water with a little color in it."

* * * *

Ned paced back and forth as a fire burned under a rocky ledge in the bend of a dry streambed.

"Where the hell is Rich and Cabot?" he asked, glancing once at Conrad, bound hand and foot beneath the outcrop where the fire flickered. It was dark, and still snowing, but the snowfall had let up some.

"They ain't comin'," Lyle said.

"What the hell do you mean, they ain't coming?" Ned barked with his jaw set hard.

"Morgan got to 'em," Slade said from his lookout point on top of the ledge. "They'd have been here by now if they were able."

"Slade's right," Bud said, his Winchester resting on his shoulder. "Some way or another, Frank Morgan slipped up behind 'em and got 'em both."

"Bullshit!" Ned cried. "Morgan is an old man, too old to be a the gunman. He doesn't have it in him to slip up behind Rich and Cabot."

"I figure he got Jerry and Roger," Slade went on without raising his voice. "We know he shot Mack and Don and Jeff and Scott back at the cabin. Poor ol' Curtis never had a chance either. Then you've got to wonder what happened to Sam and Buster and Tony back on the trail when they went to check on Charlie."

Lyle grunted. "Morgan must be slick," he said, casting a wary glance around their camp. "I wish we'd never gotten into this mess. That kid over yonder ain't worth no big bunch of dollars to nobody."

"He ain't worth a plug nickel to me," Billy said as he added wood to the fire. "I say we kill the little bastard an' get clear of this cold country."

Ned turned on his men. "We're not leaving until Frank Morgan is dead!" he yelled.

Lyle gave Ned a look. "Who's gonna kill him, Ned? We ain't had much luck tryin' it so far."

"We'll join up with Victor at Gypsum Gap and hunt him down like a dog," Ned replied.

Slade shrugged. "Bein' outnumbered don't seem to bother Morgan all that much."

"Are you taking Morgan's side?" Ned asked.

"I'm not takin' any side but my own. My main purpose now is to stay alive."

"Me too," Billy added.

"Same goes for me," Lyle muttered. "This Morgan feller is a handful."

"Are you boys yellow?" Ned demanded.

"Nope," Lyle was the first to say. "Just smart. If a man is a manhunter by profession, he's usually mighty damn good at it if he lives very long."

"I never met a man who didn't make a mistake," Ned said, coming back to the fire to warm his hands.

"So far," Slade said quietly, "Morgan hasn't made very many mistakes."

"One of you saddle a horse and ride back down the trail to see if you can find Rich and Cabot," Ned ordered, his patience worn thin.

"I'm not going," Slade said. "That's exactly what a man like Morgan will want us to do."

"What the hell do you mean?" Ned inquired, knocking snowflakes from the brim of his hat.

"He wants us to split up, so he can take us down a few at a time."

"Slade's right," Lyle said.

"We oughta stay together," Billy chimed in. "At least until we join up with Vic an' his boys."

"Morgan!" Ned spat, pacing again. "That son of a bitch is a dead man when I get him in my sights."

"That'll be the trouble," Lyle offered. "A man like Morgan don't let you get him in your gunsights all that often, an' when he does, there's usually a reason."

"He'll come after us tonight," Billy said, glancing around at forest shadows. "He's liable to kill us in our bedrolls if we ain't careful."

"I'm not goin' to sleep tonight," Slade said.

"Why's that?" Ned asked.

Slade grinned. "I want to make damn sure I see the sun come up tomorrow mornin'."

Ned was fuming now. Even his two best gunmen, Lyle and Slade, showed signs of fear.

"You ride back a ways, Billy," Ned said. "Just a mile or two."

"I won't do it, Ned." Billy was certain it was a death sentence.

"Are you disobeying a direct order from me?" Ned demanded as he opened his coat.

"Yessir I am," Billy replied. "If Morgan's back there, he'll kill me from ambush someplace."

Ned snaked his Colt from a holster. He aimed for Billy's stomach. "Get on one of those horses and ride southwest to see if you can find Rich and Cabot. If you don't, I'll damn sure kill you myself."

Billy's eyes rounded. "You'd shoot me down for not goin' back?"

"I damn sure will. Get mounted."

Billy backed away from the fire with his palms spread wide. "You let this Morgan feller get stuck in your craw, Ned. I never seen you like this."

"Get on that goddamn horse. See if you can find their tracks."

Billy turned his back on Ned and trudged off to the picket ropes.

"You may have just gotten that boy killed," Slade said tonelessly.

* * * *

Bud felt something pierce his chest, pinning him to the ground. The last thing he saw before his eyes batted shut was the Indian, holding a bow with a quivering bowstring.

Was the Indian Morgan's sidekick? he wondered.

But the Indian, who called himself Anasazi, wasn't carrying a rifle.

Bud felt his body rising off the ground, spinning in lazy circles.

"What the hell is goin' on?" he mumbled, then fell silent.

* * * *

A slender figure dressed in deerskin leggings and a deerskin shirt bent over Bud, jerking his arrow from Bud's rib cage with one savage pull.

"Sleep, white-eyes," he said, turning away quickly with the bloody arrow in his fist.

He mounted a piebald pony and disappeared into the pine forest as dawn brightened the eastern horizon.

--------

*Twenty-seven*

"Show me where you found the three men," Frank said, clinging to his saddle horn, shivering inside his coat from the fever from his wound and the below-freezing temperatures at this high elevation.

"It's a mile or so," Buck said. "Can you stay on your horse that long?"

"Yeah," Frank whispered, thinking about Conrad and this second attempt by Ned Pine and Victor Vanbergen to hold him for ransom. "I can sit this saddle for a spell." Clouds of swirling steam came out of his mouth when he spoke even though his lips were pressed tightly together, a mark of the anger welling inside him.

Dog trotted out in front of them as they crested a ridge above Ghost Valley. Early rays of sunlight cast eerie shadows on the snowy forest floor, while a curious silence surrounded both horsemen.

"Some of 'em will be comin', lookin' for the two I shot," Buck said.

"Let them come," Frank snarled, fighting back the pain racing through his shoulder and chest. He wanted to end things between himself and the gunslicks, but he had to remember that Conrad's safety was the most important thing and he couldn't let personal grudges get in the way.

Buck shrugged. "I'll get as many of 'em as I can, Morgan, only it's gonna be a helluva fight if they all come at us at once."

"I've never been in a fight that wasn't hell," Frank told him. "Never had an easy one in my life. But you don't have to take a hand in this. I can handle it myself."

"In the shape you're in? You'd have a hard time swattin' a fly."

"I've never had an easy road through life."

"Don't reckon I have either," Buck recalled, guiding his pinto around a snowdrift." Gettysburg was the worst. Never saw so many dead men in my life. I coulda been one of them. Took a ball in my leg. Ain't been able to walk quite right ever since, but I was always thankful I didn't wind up dead like so many of 'em did."

"No such thing as an easy war," Frank said, keeping his eyes on the trees below as they rode over the lip of the valley to begin a steep descent.

"Hold up, Morgan," Buck said quietly, jerking his pinto to a halt.

"What is it?" Frank asked, unable to see any movement in the trees.

"Way down yonder, maybe half a mile or so. I just saw a man on a horse."

Frank reined his bay to a stop, trying to find the movement Buck had seen. "I don't see a damn thing," he said a moment later.

"He's gone now. Coulda been one of them Injuns, I suppose, or it might be one of Pine's boys."

"Will the Indians bother us?" Frank asked.

Buck shook his head. "They stay to themselves. A year can go by when me an' Karen don't see hide nor hair of 'em. Once in a while they'll show themselves, but it's only when they take a mind to."

"Are they the Old Ones, the Anasazi?"

"Can't say for sure. Main thing is, they don't bother nobody."

"I hope they stay that way until this business between me and Pine and Vanbergen and his damned hired guns is over. I don't need any Indian enemies now."

"Most likely they will stay out of it. All these years I been up here, we ain't had no trouble out of 'em. Hardly ever see 'em, matter of fact."

" Let's keep moving," Frank said, heeling his horse forward. "I don't see anything down there."

Buck merely nodded and urged his horse alongside Frank's to continue their slow trek toward the snow-laden floor of Ghost Valley.

Suddenly, Frank saw the outline of a man on a horse, he was wearing a bowler hat. Frank swung his horse into the trees and said, "I see one of them."

"I seen him too," Buck said softly. "Looks like an Easterner wearin' that derby."

"He's real careful," Frank observed. "He's no Easterner by the way he uses cover to hide himself."

"I'll flank him," Buck suggested, easing his pinto away to the east. "Remember, there could damn sure be a bunch more of 'em somewheres."

"I don't need a reminder," Frank said, pulling his Winchester from its saddle boot.

He jacked a shell into the firing chamber and sent his bay down the slope at a slow walk. The pain in his shoulder seemed less.

* * * *

Cletus knelt over the bodies of Bud and Coy, examining the blood and footprints in the snow. What puzzled him most was the pair of moccasin prints near one of the bodies.

He glanced around him. Maybe Frank Morgan wore moccasins when he was out in the wild.

"Don't make no damn difference to me what's on his feet," Cletus muttered.

A moment earlier he'd thought he'd saw a pair of riders on one of the high ridges, but now they were gone. In the light of early morning, it was hard to tell. He supposed it could have been a couple of those Indians he saw when he found this hideout of Pine's and Vanbergen's.

"A man's eyes can play tricks," he said, moving back to his horse to climb in the saddle. "But if it is Morgan, I'll kill the son of a bitch an' take that money. He'd damn sure better have that money with him."

Cletus mounted, collecting his reins, listening to the silence around him, watching everything.

"It's damn sure quiet," he said to himself. "Downright unusual for it to be so quiet."

He urged his horse up the snowy slope, resting the butt of his ten-gauge shotgun on his right knee. If anyone showed up in front of him, he'd cut them to shreds with his Greener shotgun and take off for Texas with the money.

Two hundred yards higher up the incline, a voice from the forest stopped him cold.

"Hold it right there, pardner. Drop that damn goose gun or you're a dead man!"

Cletus thumbed back both hammers, aimed, and fired in the direction of the voice. One barrel bellowed, spitting out its deadly load of flame and buckshot. His horse shied and almost lunged out from under him, until he finally got the animal under control.

"That was a mistake, pardner," the same voice said.

Half a second later, a rifle barked from the pines east of him, he saw the yellow muzzle flash just as something popped in his right hip, sending tiny tufts of lint from the hem of his coat flying into the air.

"Shit!" Cletus cried, flung from his saddle by the force of impact from a ball of lead.

He landed on his side in the snow, wincing, and his fall caused the second barrel of his shotgun to go off harmlessly toward the treetops.

His horse galloped away trailing its reins, and Cletus understood the danger he was in almost at once. He was wounded, lying in a small clearing, with a gunman taking good aim at him from a spot Cletus couldn't see clearly.

"Bushwhackin' bastard," he croaked, beginning a slow crawl toward a ponderosa trunk with blood running down his pants leg to his right boot.

The rifle thundered again, its slug missing him by mere inches, plowing up a furrow in the snow behind his head before he could make the tree.

Cletus made the ponderosa and looked down at his leg. He was bleeding badly.

Taking stock of his situation, he quickly realized how desperate his circumstances were. He was wounded in the hip, without a horse, trapped in a cluster of pines.

"How the hell could I have missed seein' the bastard," he asked himself. Years of manhunting had given him good instincts for this sort of thing.

He knew he had to stop the bleeding from his wound. He took a faded blue bandanna from around his neck and gingerly tied it around the top of his thigh.

"I've gotta move ... he knows where I am."

Painfully, yet carefully, Cletus began to crawl between the tree trunks, hoping he could find his horse. As he inched across the snow, he reloaded his shotgun.

* * * *

Buck heard the twin shotgun blasts and the rifle shot, and he jumped off his horse in a clump of small blue spruce trees not far from the spot.

"Morgan found him," he whispered, leaving his pinto ground-hitched.

He crept forward with his buffalo gun cocked and ready, unable to see who Morgan was shooting at.

Then he saw a loose horse trotting back toward the valley floor, a saddle on its back.

"Morgan got him," Buck told himself.

Looking uphill, he sought the place where the man in the derby hat had gone down. Whoever he was, he'd been knocked off his horse, but that was a long way from a sure sign that the man was dead.

And there was another thing to consider ... making sure he didn't mistake Morgan for the enemy.

Buck continued up the slope at a slow pace, pausing behind every tree to look and listen. He knew this country well, and he knew how easily a man could be fooled by what he thought he saw in front of him.

* * * *

Frank was blinded by tears by the time he made it out of the saddle. He tied off his bay, cradling his rifle in the crook of his good arm. The man he was after had gone down little more than a hundred yards away.

He sleeved tears of pain from his eyes.

"Time to be real careful," he told himself, beginning a slow walk downhill, a bit of carelessness he allowed himself due to his injury, and the need for haste to get to Conrad before Pine and Vanbergen killed him.

A pistol shot roared from his left and he made a dive for his belly, tasting snow, feeling the shock of his fall all the way up to his sore shoulder.

Bitter bile rose in his throat. "You missed me, you son of a bitch!" he cried, knowing how foolish it was to give his present position away.

His answer was another gunshot, coming from more than a hundred yards away.

"You're a damn fool, whoever you are!" Frank bellowed, making sure he had some cover behind the trunk of a thick pine tree.

" You're the damn fool, Morgan!" a distant voice shouted back at him.

Frank didn't recognize the voice. "Who the hell are you, asshole?"

"What difference do names make? Where's all that goddamn money you're supposed to be bringin' to get that snivelin' kid of yours back?"

"I've got it right here. Come and get it!"

"I'm gonna kill you, you old bastard."

"Make your play. I'll be waiting for you...."

Another soft sound reached Frank's ears, a movement in the snow.

"Keep coming," he said. "Keep thinking about all this money I've got in my money belt."

Now there was silence.

* * * *

Cletus belly-crawled toward the place where he'd seen Morgan go down. In his mind's eye, he could see a leather money belt filled with gold coins. He told himself that Morgan wasn't as good as they said he was ... if his own aim had been just a little bit better a moment ago, Morgan would be dead and all the ransom money would be his.

He continued to inch forward on his elbows, his Greener shotgun clenched in one fist, his Colt in the other. He could almost feel the gold in his hands.

Then he heard a whispering sound. A short arrow with a feathered shaft entered his side, penetrating his liver with a suddenness he'd never known before.

"What the hell ... ?"

He rolled over just in time to see an Indian moving away from him among the pines.

Blood pumped from Cletus's wound. He dropped both of his guns to reach for the arrow shaft, and found it buried in his flesh almost all the way to the hilt.

Shooting pains, like hot branding irons, raced down his body and across his chest. He tried to breathe, and couldn't.

A moment later, Cletus Huling, bounty hunter from Texas, was dead, never knowing who it was that killed him.

* * * *

Victor went to a window of the shack. "Those were gunshots I heard," he said, turning to Ken and Harry Oldham, brothers from the Texas Panhandle. "You boys ride up there. Maybe Huling got Morgan, but I'm gonna make damn sure Huling don't double-cross us. If you find him, bring him down here with that money."

--------

*Twenty-eight*

Ken Oldham was riding his horse up a steep incline when he heard the thud of a gun. Something entered his abdomen like a hot knife.

"I'm shot!" he shrieked, toppling out of the saddle into a snowdrift.

Another gunshot blasted from a ridge above the lip of the valley.

"Holy shit!" Harry bellowed, gripping his belly as a piece of hot metal passed through him, exiting next to his spine. He threw his rifle into the snow to hold onto the saddle horn with both hands.

Harry jumped off his horse, gripping his wound with one hand. A sharpshooter from above was taking potshots at them in the shadows of dawn.

"Help me, Harry," Ken called from a dark place between two lines of trees.

Harry didn't answer him. Only a fool would give his position away now.

Ken began to groan somewhere in the forest. "You gotta help me."

"Not now," Harry muttered. The shots had come from more than two hundred yards away. It would take a hell of a marksman to make that kind of shot, and a very large-bore rifle to boot. But he had to go to the aid of his downed brother.

* * * *

"Morgan," Ken wondered aloud, gripping the stock of his rifle with gloved hands.

He'd been sure they were following Frank Morgan's trail of blood out of the valley, but now he wasn't so sure. Who the hell was shooting at them? Morgan was supposed to be mortally wounded.

"You gotta help me," Ken cried again. "I'm shot through the gut. I'm bleedin' real bad."

From another spot in the pine woods, Harry began coughing until his throat was clear. "Jesus."

Ken crawled over to a pine trunk. He was out of breath, and wheezed softly as his gelding galloped away to escape the bang of guns.

"I'm dyin' over here," he croaked. "You've gotta help me, Harry."

Harry was only thinking of surviving the sharpshooter himself. He lay still for a moment.

"Where are you at, Harry?" Ken wondered, pain in his voice.

Harry wasn't about to answer him, making a target of himself, even though the cry came from his brother.

The boom of a rifle came from above.

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" Ken screamed, flipping over on his back.

It was proof that Harry had been wise to remain silent until he knew where the rifleman was.

"Please help me," Ken called. "I'm hurt real bad. I don't think I can move...."

Harry wanted to make sure his legs would move as he made his way back down the slope. He said nothing, closing his ears to Ken's cries.

He could hear Ken choking. Under better circumstances he would have offered his brother some assistance, but not now. He knew with certainty that his life was at stake if he made the wrong choice.

"Where're you at, Harry?" Ken shouted. "You gotta come help me."

Harry squatted behind a tree with his rifle ready. His belly wound was bleeding badly.

Moments later he felt himself losing consciousness, and when he looked down at the snow around him it was red with blood ... his blood.

He fell over on his chest and took a shuddering breath, wondering about his brother.

* * * *

Dog led Frank over to two bloody bodies stretched out in the snow. Both men appeared to be dead. Dog growled and looked down the slope, a sure indication that someone else was close to the spot.

Buck came up behind Frank, making almost no noise in spite of the new-fallen snow.

"I got one more, maybe another," Buck told him.

"I heard them yell," Frank said. "I still haven't found the bastard wearing the bowler."

" Last I saw of him was down yonder."

"Yeah, but he isn't there no more."

"Maybe you got him, Morgan."

"I missed. I saw bark fly off a tree when I had my best shot at him."

"Heard his shotgun go off twice, then a pistol."

"He's had plenty of time to reload."

"I'll make a circle. I'll be off to your left, so don't take a shot at me."

Frank closed his eyes when a wave of fresh pain from his shoulder raced through him. "Don't worry, Buck. I won't shoot unless I know what I'm shooting at."

The old man moved off into the woods.

Frank spoke to Dog. "Find him for me, Dog, but be real careful about it."

Dog padded away from the pine trunk with his tail in the air, his nose lifted for scent. Frank hid behind the tree, wondering how many more men Pine and Vanbergen had with them in Ghost Valley.

"We've already taken on a small army," he whispered to himself.

Frank watched Dog move lower. Then suddenly the animal stopped.

"There he is," Frank whispered, and moved away from the ponderosa as silently as he could.

* * * *

He found the man he'd been looking for ... the gunman's derby lay in the snow behind his head. But what puzzled Frank most was the crude arrow sticking in the gunslick's ribs.

"What the hell is this?" Frank asked himself softly, taking a closer look at the feathered arrow, and the circle of blood around the dead man.

He gave the trees around him a closer examination. Only an Indian, perhaps one of the Old Ones, could have killed the gunman coming after him with an arrow.

"I thought Buck said they were peaceful."

Frank moved away when Dog gave no indication that anyone was close by.

Taking quick stock of his situation, he crept farther down the steep descent with his rifle ready when he felt sure it was safe to continue. A quarter of a mile away, on the valley floor, he saw snow-clad buildings, the ghost town where his son was being held for ransom.

--------

*Twenty-nine*

Victor Vanbergen took a peek out the door of the shack. "I heard that rifle fire twice," he said to Ned Pine. "I'm tired of sittin' here. That bastard Huling will doublecross us if he gets a chance. That could've been his gun, an' now he's got his hands on all that money. He's got a rifle booted to that saddle of his. Wasn't no shotgun I heard a minute ago, but it damn sure coulda been Huling's rifle."

"What do you aim to do?" Ned asked.

"I'm goin' up there myself to kill Morgan. Or Cletus Huling, if he's tryin' to steal our money. A man can't trust a bounty hunter like Huling. Hell, he killed his own partner, Diego Ponce, on the way up here. You can't trust a sorry son of a bitch like him."

"Maybe Ken an' Harry got both Huling an' Morgan in a cross fire. That coulda been the shots we heard just now, if you think about it."

"I ain't leaving nothin' to chance. You boys keep an eye on that kid. Somethin' don't feel right this mornin'. When I get an itch that don't scratch right, I feel it all the way down to my bones."

"Be careful, Vic," Ned warned. "Morgan's got hisself a partner. We already know that, so don't take no chances bein' out in the open."

"I don't give a damn about taking a few chances. I'm tired of all this waitin' while our boys get killed off. Wait here till I get back."

Ned edged closer to the door. "How do we know you won't run out on us if you find that loot yourself, Victor? That's a helluva lot of money."

Vanbergen wheeled toward Pine and clawed for his gun, but Ned was faster, snaking out his Colt just a fraction sooner than Victor.

"You son of a bitch!" Victor cried.

Ned fired a thundering bullet into Victor's chest, sending him rolling out the door of the cabin into the snow with his legs kicking furiously. A dark stain spread around him as his pistol fell from his hand.

"How come you to do that?" a gunslick asked from inside the shack, standing behind the Browning boy as the echo of the gunshot, trapped inside the tiny cabin, faded away until all was quiet.

"He went for his gun first," Ned said, watching Victor squirm beyond the doorway. "I ain't takin' no shit off nobody in this deal. When a man tries to double-cross me, he'll pay for it with his life."

"Jesus, Ned. He was your partner...."

"A man ain't got many partners when it comes to money. I had to kill him. I never did trust Victor all the way. There was somethin' about him."

"But he was on our side."

"Not anymore. He's on his backside now. Won't be long until he's dead."

"I ain't so sure that was smart, Ned."

Ned turned to the gunman who spoke to him. "What ain't smart is for you to keep runnin' your mouth, or you'll wind up just as dead as Victor. I'll kill you same as I did him unless you keep your mouth closed."

"Yessir. I was only thinkin' out loud about what you just done."

"You ain't smart enough to do no thinkin'. Just keep your mouth shut an' do what I tell you to do."

"Yessir, Boss. Whatever you say."

"I'm gonna take a look around," Ned said, shouldering into his coat.

"What the hell do we do with this kid if you don't come back?"

Ned gave the pair of gunmen inside the cabin a final look before he walked outside. "Kill the little son of a bitch, for all I care."

"You ain't gonna run out on us if you get your hands on that money, Ned?" It was the half-breed who spoke.

"Are you accusin' me?" Ned snapped.

"No ... I ain't, but I was just wonderin'."

"Stop your goddamn wondering. Keep an eye on this door and an eye on the kid. Wait for me till I get back."

"What about Victor?" the other hired gun asked. "He ain't dead yet."

Ned glanced down at Vanbergen. "Won't take him long. I shot him in just the right place."

"Damn, Ned. That was cold-blooded."

"He went for his gun against me. Take a good look outside. This is what happens to any son of a bitch who pulls a gun on Ned Pine. Remember that, boys."

Ned trudged off across the snow to fetch his horse, ignoring the soft cries of his former partner as the man lay dying in front of the shack.

* * * *

Rays of early morning light slanted into the shed where they kept their horses while Ned saddled his black gelding. Long shadows fell away from pines around the corral. It was the time of day when a man's eyes were tested, he thought, when a man was not quite sure of what he saw.

And when he looked across the valley floor, he saw a sight that made him wonder about his eyes. It looked like an Indian aboard a piebald pony was half hidden in a clump of trees on one of the slopes.

Ned wasn't worried about a lone Indian. He led his horse out of the corral, tightened the cinch strap, and mounted up to ride south, toward the gunshots they'd heard a few minutes after dawn.

He looked over his shoulder at Victor while he collected his reins. Ned had brought a sudden end to a five-year partnership when he drew his pistol just now, but it was the price Victor had to pay for reaching for his own gun.

"So long, Vic," Ned said, putting a spur to his black horse.

He rode off, preparing himself for a test against the gunfighting skills of Frank Morgan.

--------

*Thirty*

Frank heard someone behind him. He whirled around in spite of the pain in his shoulder, wondering who was slipping up on his backside.

Buck came toward him through a line of trees, cradling his rifle in the crook of an arm. "I seen by your tracks you found that feller in the bowler."

"I did," Frank replied. "He had an arrow in his gut, which means there's someone else in these woods who's doing some shooting."

"Kind'a odd," Buck agreed. "Them Injuns ain't never showed me nothin' but a peaceful side in all the years me an' Karen been up here."

"They sure as hell aren't ghosts," Frank said, glancing back at the valley.

"Never said they was, Morgan. It was you who came up with that story."

"Somebody in Glenwood Springs said they were ghosts of the Old Ones, the Ones Who Came Before."

"They leave real tracks just like ordinary folks, most of the time."

"What do you mean by 'most of the time'?"

Buck took his time answering. "Once or twice I've seen 'em up here, but their ponies didn't leave no tracks in the snow, or in the mud close to a creek."

"Maybe you just didn't look hard enough."

Buck chuckled. "I make a livin' lookin' for tracks, Morgan."

"Could be your eyes are getting bad, Buck."

"I seen that arrow in that feller's side plain enough. My eyes are still good."

"It's hard to figure why an Indian who has no stake in this fight would take a side."

"Some things just don't make no sense, Morgan. Just be glad that galoot is dead."

"I am. Now I've gotta fetch my horse and ride down to the ghost town ... before Pine and Vanbergen make up their minds to kill my son."

"I'll ride along," Buck said.

"No need. I can handle it alone."

"You're a hardheaded cuss, Morgan."

Frank turned away to climb back up the slope. "So they tell me," he replied, balancing his Winchester in his good hand as he plodded through the snow.

"I'll collect my pinto," Buck said. "Just in case you run into more'n you can handle. I'll stay back a ways so I can keep an eye on things."

"Suit yourself on it, Buck ... but like I told you, I can handle this business myself."

He heard Buck laugh softly before he disappeared into the pines.

Frank knew he owed the old man and his daughter a tremendous debt. He wondered if he'd be alive now had it not been for Buck Waite and Karen.

He climbed aboard his bay painfully, sighting downslope for a time. The way looked clear. However, experience had taught him that looks could be deceiving.

* * * *

A lone horseman crossed the valley floor, keeping his mount to a walk. Frank saw him clearly even though the distance was great, half a mile or more.

"I'll keep watching him," Frank muttered, staying deep in the forest.

The rider crossed the valley and started up a steep trail toward a rocky ridge overlooking the valley. His horse had to struggle to make the climb up a snow-covered trail. The ridge, ending abruptly where a sheer cliff overlooked Ghost Valley, was a straight drop of more than a hundred feet.

"Wonder why the hell he's headed up there?" Frank asked himself, reining his bay to the east to approach the ridge from an angle that held plenty of cover. Snow-clad pine trees would cover most of his progress until he reached the cliff, if that were truly the rider's destination.

There was something vaguely familiar about the way this horseman sat a saddle, he thought.

He halted his horse suddenly when he caught a glimpse of an Indian watching from the top of the cliff, perched atop a red and white pinto pony. But just as suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the Indian was gone when a gust of wind kicked up a swirl of snowflakes. When the snow settled, the cliff top was as it had been before ... empty.

"Maybe it's the whiskey Karen gave me." He recalled Karen fondly just then. She had a strange natural beauty that appealed to him.

Frank kept riding toward the towering cliff, keeping his eyes on the horseman climbing toward the top along a twisting trail. There was no doubt in Frank's mind that this was one of Vanbergen's or Pine's men, sent out to kill him. But he also knew he had to keep a close watch for the Indian he'd seen moments before, just in case the redskin was killing every white man who came to their hidden valley.

Dog trotted well out in front, his nose to the ground, now and then lifting it to scent the air. The ridge of hair lay flat on his back, a sure sign that the animal sensed nothing in front of them.

The horseman would reach the top of the cliff long before Frank could get there. Frank's final approach would have to be slow, cautious, on foot, ready for anything if this was the rider's destination.

Dog stopped for a moment to lap up a few mouthfuls of snow before he continued to lead Frank toward the bluff.

* * * *

Ned wanted to hold the highest ground, and the sheer drop he was aiming for would be the perfect spot to watch for Morgan if he made a play to get his boy back.

His horse finally reached the top of the trail. Ned rode it across a flat spot, and swung down to tie the gelding deep in the trees behind the bluff.

He pulled his rifle and walked slowly toward the edge of the cliff where he would have the best vantage point. His jaw was set. He was determined to get Morgan this time, and the ransom money. Victor was dead. Most of their hired guns were dead, and he didn't give a damn what happened to the remaining men, or the Browning kid. All that mattered now was getting his revenge against Morgan and heading south as a rich man.

He crept to the top of the cliff and peered into the quiet valley. Then he gave his surroundings a careful inspection, just to be sure no one was behind him.

But just as he was all but certain he was alone, he saw a figure step out from behind a tree.

"Morgan, you son of a bitch!" he cried, bringing his Winchester up.

"I am not Morgan," a feathery voice said.

Ned fired at the man, even though he was partially hidden in deep forest shadows. The bark of his rifle resounded off the sides of Ghost Valley, yet the figure remained where he was, watching Ned.

Ned jacked another shell into the firing chamber and fired again, with the same result. The man watching him simply stood where he was.

Ned levered another round into his rifle, wondering how his aim could be so bad.

"It is time for you to die, white-eyes," the strange voice said.

"Like hell," Ned cried, triggering off another thundering shot.

And then he saw an Indian step out into a small patch of sunlight, and his blood ran cold. "What the hell are you doin' here?" he demanded. "This ain't none of your affair, you redskin bastard!"

"We are the keepers of this valley. You have come here with black hearts. It is time for you to die ... for all of you to die."

Ned readied another bullet in his rifle, just as a blasting gust of wind washed off the face of the slope above him. He lost his footing and staggered backward, trying to regain his feet on slippery snow.

His left foot lost its purchase. He turned his head just in time to see the edge of the cliff. And again the wind struck him, blinding him with snowflakes, driving him farther backward in spite of every effort he was able to muster to remain where he was.

Ned was swept off the lip of the ledge. He let out a scream as he felt himself falling. His scream became a wail when his lungs emptied while he was plummeting hundreds of feet toward a pile of snow-crested rocks.

His last thought was of the Indian, and the wind, before he died in a mass of broken bones and torn flesh.

--------

*Thirty-one*

Frank wasn't quite sure what he had seen. For no apparent reason at all, Ned Pine had fallen off the bluff. And Frank had been almost sure he'd seen the same Indian, standing back in the forest, although the distance had been too great to be absolutely certain.

Buck rode up on his pinto.

"That was Ned Pine," Frank said. "I recognized him just before he fell."

"Maybe he didn't fall," Buck said knowingly.

"What the hell do you mean by that?"

"I'm sure you saw that redskin."

Frank nodded. "I thought I did."

"Maybe what we both just witnessed was Anasazi justice, Morgan. This was their homeland. Could be they ain't all that fond of intruders."

"But no one was near him when he fell."

"Another one of them arrows coulda got him, only I never saw no arrow fly."

"Neither did I," Frank replied, "but it sure did look like something knocked him off that ledge."

"Why worry about it, Morgan? That feller's damn sure dead down there."

"I'm going down after my son. It'd probably be best if you stayed here."

"I'll do whatever suits me, Morgan," Buck replied as Frank turned his horse for the valley floor.

* * * *

He rode up on the body. His bay snorted, smelling blood among the rocks.

"You got yours, Ned," Frank said savagely. "Now all I've gotta do is find Vanbergen and get rid of him, along with the rest of your boys."

But when he looked closely at the body of Ned Pine, he saw no arrow in him. How could Pine have been knocked off the cliff without being wounded? Ned's fall made no sense.

"I don't suppose it matters any," Frank said with a sigh, wheeling his bay away from the boulders where Ned Pine would spend eternity, while the wolves and coyotes cleaned his bones.

The land was clear leading toward the abandoned mining town, yet Frank rode straight across it without bothering to look for shelter. His mind was made up. He would kill Victor and whoever else was holding Conrad, even if it cost him his own life in the process. Enough damage had been done to young Conrad for the sake of revenge, and Frank aimed to bring it to a permanent end once and for all this very morning.

* * * *

"Untie him," Tip said.

The half-breed Apache shook his head. "Ned will kill both of us if we let him go."

Tip was standing at the door. Victor Vanbergen had died a slow death a few minutes ago. "That was Ned that fell off them rocks up yonder. Vic's dead, an' so is Ned. Morgan don't plan to hand over no money. All he aims to do is kill us an' git his boy back. Untie the little bastard an' let's saddle our horses so we can clear out."

"You're sure it was Ned?"

"Real damn sure. Cut them ropes off. I'm gonna go saddle my horse. You can stay if you want. I'm headed back to Texas where it's warmer."

The half-breed Apache cut Conrad's bindings with a long bowie knife and picked up his rifle. "I'm going with you, Tip," he said. "This whole thing was a mistake."

Tip stepped out into the snow with the half-breed close at his heels. Inside the cabin, Conrad rubbed his bleeding wrists and got out of the chair.

A man aboard a bay horse was sitting his saddle near the corral. He held a rifle to his shoulder.

"Son of a..." Tip cried, reaching for his pistol.

A .44/40-caliber slug lifted him off his feet, for the range was close. It felt as though his throat collapsed, and he dropped his pistol to reach for the white-hot pain racing down his neck.

"Wait, Morgan!" the half-breed shouted. "Your boy is..."

The half-breed Apache spoke too late. Another powerful slug came from Frank's rifle, sending the breed into a curious, one-footed spin when the bullet hit his breastbone. He fell in a heap without drawing his pistol, gasping for breath with blood leaking from his buckskin shirt.

Tip continued to strangle on his own blood, rolling back and forth in red snow. Then his arms and legs went slack and he lay still.

* * * *

Frank climbed painfully from the saddle, expecting more trouble from inside the shack, not knowing how many men Vanbergen had left. And there was Victor Vanbergen himself to deal with, a vendetta Frank had long nurtured.

But what he saw coming out the cabin door made him hold his fire. A slender figure with a bloody bandanna around his head walked hesitantly outside.

"Is that you, Conrad?" Frank called.

"It's me." Conrad saw the two fallen bodies halfway to the corral. "That's the last of them. You killed them all," he said in a thin voice.

"Where's Vanbergen?"

"Ned Pine killed him. They got in an argument over the money you were supposed to be bringing. Vanbergen went for his gun and Pine shot him. He's lying dead over there by the front door."

"What happened to your face? To your head?"

"One of them who captured me cut off the top of my ear. The bleeding has stopped, pretty much."

"I'm sorry, son. This has all happened to you on account of me."

Conrad took a few steps toward Frank, then stopped and gave a weak grin. "I suppose I should have been more careful. I thought this was over the first time."

"It's over now. Pine is dead and so are the others. I give you my word they won't be bothering you ever again. It's finished business."

Conrad looked down at his lace-up shoes. "I reckon I'm glad you came for me again. They talked like they intended to kill me if you didn't show up with fifty thousand dollars in ransom money."

"I came because I love you, son."

"Seems like you've had a real strange way of showing it all these years."

"I've already told you the story about your mother, and what happened between us. I didn't feel I had a choice, and then they killed her. Vivian was the only woman I've ever loved, and she gave you to me, a son I'd never seen."

"It's okay," Conrad replied. "Right now I think I'd like to get the hell out of this place." A sound made Conrad turn. He saw a man mounted on a black and white pinto, waving a long rifle at them before he wheeled his mount and rode off to the south.

"Who is that?" Conrad asked.

Frank watched Buck ride away. "One of the best friends a man could ever have, son. Buck Waite is his name, and without his help, and his daughter's help, you'd probably still be a prisoner here. We'll stop by their cabin on our way back south. Pick a horse from the corral and I'll help you saddle it."

"I can saddle my own horse," Conrad said, moving toward the corral.

Thirty-two

Karen was cleaning Conrad's ear. Buck had taken off Frank's shirt to add a pungent ointment of bear grease and wintergreen to his shoulder wound.

"I still can't figure what happened to Ned Pine," Frank said.

"Does it matter?" Buck asked.

"Not really, I reckon."

Conrad spoke up. "We saw some Indians when Cletus Huling was bringing me into the valley. The funny thing was, they weren't carrying guns."

"One of them killed Huling with an arrow," Frank said as Buck began winding strips of cloth around his fevered shoulder. "But there wasn't any arrow in Ned. I rode up close to where he fell for a good look."

Karen finished putting salve on Conrad's ear, and put a clean piece of white cloth around his head. "That should do it," she said.

"I'm grateful, ma'am," Conrad replied, standing up near the stove to warm his hands.

Frank put on his shirt, doing it carefully, then sleeved into his mackinaw. Dog sat near his feet, watching everyone in the smoky cabin.

"I made some elk soup," Karen said. "Best the both of you have some before you take off."

"I'm sure as heck hungry," Conrad said, smiling for the first time since Frank had seen him.

Frank stood up. "You make some mighty good soup, Karen, only that bark tea made me see things once in a while I was down in the valley."

"You mean the Indians?"

"I just saw one. Saw him twice."

"You weren't seeing things. We see them from time to time, but not very often."

"Then they're real," Frank said. "I was told they were ghosts from long ago."

"They're real enough," Karen told him, ladling soup into tin cups.

Buck gave his daughter a glance. "You be quiet, girl," he said gruffly.

"But why, Pa?"

"Because I said so. They let us live up here because we don't talk about 'em. We don't bother 'em either. They go on about their business, same as us."

"All Frank asked was if they were real or not. Don't see what's wrong with that." She handed Conrad and Frank cups of soup.

Frank decided it didn't matter, and dropped the subject. As far as he was concerned, the arrow in Cletus Huling was real enough to kill him. "We're headed back south. It'll take us a few days to get back to Durango. I want both of you to know how much I appreciate what you've done."

"That goes for me too," Conrad said. "My father told me what you did for him after he was wounded."

Frank's soup was salty, but delicious. "We owe you a big debt," he said.

"You don't owe us nothin'," Buck replied. "We'd do the same for damn near any stranger who didn't come up here with no bad intentions."

"Including killing some of the men who were holding his son for ransom?" Karen asked.

"Maybe," Buck mumbled, turning his back to Frank. "It would kind'a depend on the man, or the men. That outlaw bunch didn't cause us no trouble."

Karen came over to Frank and stared into his eyes for a moment.

Frank allowed an uncomfortable silence to pass. "And a special thanks to you, for the tea and whiskey you made," he said.

"Pa gathered up the bark. All I did was brew the tea for you."

"No matter. It must have helped. I feel a lot better already."

She lowered her voice. "You come back sometime, Frank Morgan. I'll miss seein' you."

"And I'll miss seeing you too, Karen. You've got my promise I'll come back one of these days."

"I hope that's a promise you'll keep."

"I always keep my word, 'specially to a pretty lady."

She turned away then and went back to the woodstove to fix Buck a cup of soup.

Frank drained his cup. "It's time we got going," he said to Conrad. "We've got half a day of daylight left and we'll need to find a campsite."

Conrad picked up a torn woolen blanket he'd taken from the shack in Ghost Valley. "I hope we won't freeze to death tonight," he said, shivering in spite of the warmth of the log cabin.

"We'll build a big fire," Frank said, grinning. "I've got plenty of coffee and fatback. We'll boil a big pot of beans too."

Frank went over to shake Buck's hand. "Thanks again, Buck, for all you did."

"Wasn't nothin'," Buck answered. He glanced over at Conrad briefly. "Just glad you got your boy back. That bunch wasn't no outfit to take lightly."

"How well I know. But they're all dead now, and this is the end of it."

Then he walked over to Karen, and in spite of her father's presence, he bent down and kissed her on the cheek. "Thanks, lady," he said gently, handing her the soup cup. "I'll see you again. Can't say when."

"I understand, Frank. You'll always be welcome here with me an' my dad."

* * * *

They rode southwest under clear skies, across meadows of melting snow with the sun directly overhead. For several miles neither one of them said anything, leaving Ghost Valley behind them.

Finally, Conrad spoke. "What was all that about the Indians not being real?"

"Just a folk tale, I imagine. Some folks believe they're ghosts of an ancient tribe that used to live here hundreds of years ago."

"But I saw them."

"So did I. At least I think I did."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Dog let out a low growl, aiming his nose toward the horizon.

"There's one of them now," Frank said, pulling his bay to a halt.

"I see him," Conrad said, hauling back on the reins of his brown gelding.

On a mountain slope in the distance, they saw an Indian on a red and white piebald. He merely sat there in an open spot between the trees, watching them.

"He's the same one," Frank said quietly. "The same one I saw just before Ned Pine fell off that cliff."

" Let's see if we can ride up and talk to him," Conrad said, his voice full of excitement.

"I doubt if he'll be there when we get there, but we can try," Frank told his son.

They kicked their horses to a slow trot, making for the snowy slope where the Indian sat.

"He isn't leaving," Conrad said.

Frank kept the Indian in sight, guiding his horse with his knees. Dog trotted farther out in front, the hair down his back standing rigid.

They rode down into a ravine where snowdrifts were deep, and for a moment, the Indian was out of sight. When their mounts climbed out of the arroyo, Frank discovered that the Indian was gone.

"Where did he go?" Conrad asked.

"Can't say for sure," Frank answered. "We'll follow his tracks when we get up there."

They urged their horses up a steep climb to reach the spot on the mountainside where they had both seen the Indian, Frank opening his coat so he could reach his pistol if the need arose. When they arrived at the place, Frank studied the ground for several minutes.

"No tracks," he muttered. "It isn't snowing now, so it just ain't possible that a horse wouldn't leave any tracks."

"But we both saw him," Conrad protested.

"We both _thought_ we saw him."

"I know what I saw," Conrad said with assurance. "It was an Indian on a spotted horse."

Frank took a deep breath. "I know," he said. "The same one I saw just before Ned Pine fell. It's mighty hard for a man to understand."

"Maybe he was just making sure we were leaving," Conrad suggested.

"That may be it, son."

" Let's keep riding. I'm darn near frozen all the way to my toes."

"So am I," Frank said, giving the forest around them a final look.

They heeled their horses farther up the slope. For a time, Frank kept looking over his shoulder, wondering.

At the crest of a switchback leading up a mountain, Conrad spoke again. "Tonight, when we find a camping place, maybe you can tell me more about what happened between you and my mother back then."

Frank's shoulders slumped. He knew he didn't want to remember what had happened to his beloved Vivian so long ago, but for the sake of his son, he'd talk about it one more time, to help bring them closer together. "Okay, but it isn't a very pretty story."

"I'm old enough now. No matter what happened, I'd like to hear it."

Frank wondered. "Maybe there's some of it you shouldn't hear."

"I've been puzzled by it most of my life. Some things my grandfather told me didn't add up, and when I asked him pointed questions about it, he always dodged the matter, saying there were things I did not have to know, that what happened was best left in the past for my own sake."

"More likely for his sake."

Conrad gave him a piercing look. "What do you mean by that?"

"I'll tell you my side of it, son. Then you can make up your own mind."

"Just so long as you tell me the truth."

"I'll do that. You've got my word on it. No point now in telling it any other way. Your mother was a good woman, the best woman I've ever known. If nothing more than for the sake of her sweet memory, I'll tell you everything, and then you can be the judge."

"I'd appreciate it. All these years, I've been feeling like there was some dark secret being kept from me."

"It wasn't my idea," Frank said. "Tonight, when we find a place to camp, I'll start right from the beginning, and I swear I won't leave anything out."

They rode side by side down the switchback. Frank knew there would be hard parts of the story to explain ... especially all the years he'd spent away from his only son.

But he would try. If for no better reason than for the sake of Vivian's memory.