Sudden Fury

Chapter 9

The man’s aggressive stance made Frank instinctively want to reach for his own revolver, but the sight of the badge pinned to the stranger’s vest prompted him to control the impulse. Despite what many star packers thought of him because of his reputation, he went out of his way to avoid trouble with the law.

“Marshal,” Frank said with a nod. “What can I do for you?”

The lawman frowned. He was middle-aged, with a rugged face, slicked-back gray hair under his hat, and the beginnings of a gut under his vest and brown tweed suit.

“You know who I am?”

“I can read,” Frank said. “Your badge says Marshal. U.S. or town?”

“Town,” the man replied curtly. “Name’s Gene Price. I’m the law here in Eureka.”

“Pleased to meet you, Marshal. I reckon I don’t have to introduce myself.”

Price snorted. “You sure as hell don’t. It’s all over town how the famous gunslinger Frank Morgan’s come here to hunt down that critter folks say is out in the woods.”

“You don’t believe in the Terror?” Frank asked, hearing the skepticism in Price’s voice.

“I believe somebody has killed over a dozen men lately. I saw the bodies with my own eyes, down at the undertaker’s. That’s all I know for a fact. That, and it happened outside of my jurisdiction.”

“So what do you want with me?” Frank was hungry, and he was starting to get a little impatient. “There’s no law against getting some supper, is there? Because that’s what I was on my way to do.”

Price shook his head. “No, and I don’t care what you do out in the woods. But I don’t want you starting any gunfights here in my town, Morgan.”

“Marshal…I never start gunfights.”

Price’s face flushed angrily, evidence that he understood the implication in Frank’s words. “You know what I mean. You got a heap of blood on your hands. I don’t want you getting any more on them while you’re in Eureka.”

“I never go looking for trouble. You have my word on that.”

Price gave Frank a grudging nod. “We understand each other then.” He started to turn away.

Frank stopped him. “Marshal, what can you tell me about Rutherford Chamberlain?”

A frown creased the lawman’s forehead. “What do you want to know? He’s the biggest businessman in these parts. I’m not saying that Eureka would dry up and blow away if it weren’t for his logging operation, but I reckon he’s mighty important around here.”

“And Emmett Bosworth?”

Price looked even more suspicious. “Bosworth would like to be where Chamberlain is now. He’s made a good start on it, too.”

“Any trouble between their crews while they were here in town?”

“Some,” Price admitted. “Not lately, though.”

“Since the Terror showed up.”

It wasn’t a question, but Price treated it like one anyway. “That’s right. Everybody who works in the woods is so nervous about whatever it is, they don’t have the time or energy to squabble with each other.”

That was interesting, thought Frank, and it agreed with what Rockwell had told him. But it didn’t have any connection with the task he had taken on, at least as far as he could see. He had asked the question out of sheer curiosity. The next one was more pertinent.

“Do you know Ben Chamberlain?”

“Ben?” The lawman appeared to be more puzzled than ever. “Sure, I know Ben. Used to see him here in town every now and then, but he was never much of one for socializing. Kept to himself mostly. And I haven’t seen him at all in…oh, hell, a couple of years now, I reckon. I’ve heard that he had some sort of falling-out with his pa and went off to live in San Francisco. That’s just gossip, though. I can’t say how true it is.”

Frank suspected it wasn’t true at all, but he didn’t say that to Price. It might be better if folks around here continued thinking that Ben Chamberlain had gone to San Francisco after the argument with his father.

Price went on. “You’re asking a lot of questions, mister, considering that you’re working for Rutherford Chamberlain.”

“I just like to know what I’m getting into, that’s all.”

“Whatever you get into, do it somewhere else besides here.”

This time, Frank let the marshal stalk away without stopping him.

As he walked on down the street toward the hash house, Frank thought about all the marshals and sheriffs over the years who had warned him not to start any trouble in their towns. They knew his reputation, and they weren’t really interested in anything he had to say. He had never really understood that attitude until he had worn a badge himself. The time he had spent being responsible for the safety of his friends in Buckskin had taught him to be a little more tolerant of suspicious lawmen.

He spotted the eatery next to the boisterous Bull o’ the Woods Saloon, which took up most of a block and had its entrance on a corner. A number of men in the calked boots, overalls, and flannel shirts of loggers stood on the boardwalk in front of the saloon’s big windows. They wore solemn expressions as they talked among themselves, and several of them cast glances toward Frank as he approached. Elbows nudged into sides, and one by one the rest of the men turned their attention toward him, too.

Frank paused outside the door of the hash house and gave them a friendly nod. “Evening,” he said.

None of the men responded. They just kept looking at him with blank or unfriendly stares.

Frank didn’t know what that was about, but he was too hungry to worry about it. He went on into the hash house.

The place was long and narrow, with a counter on the right and a row of tables along the left-hand wall. Most of the tables were occupied, as were the stools in front of the counter. A swinging door at the end of it probably led into the kitchen.

A man with a round, friendly face worked behind the counter. He was dark-haired, about thirty years old, and wore a white apron. Except for the slight slant of his eyes, he didn’t really look Chinese. He smiled at Frank and waved him onto one of the empty stools.

“What can I do for you, mister?”

Frank glanced at the specials chalked onto a board on the wall behind the counter and said, “I’ll have a bowl of stew and plenty of corn bread. Coffee hot?”

“You can bet that hat of yours that it is,” the man assured him.

“Then fill a cup and keep it coming.”

“Sure thing.”

The man’s voice didn’t have a hint of an accent, but when he turned to a small open window behind the counter and called through it, he spoke in what sounded to Frank’s ears like fluent Mandarin. Not that Frank was an expert in Chinese dialects, but nearly thirty years earlier, he had spent some time in the Sierra Nevadas while hundreds of laborers from China had been building the Central Pacific Railroad through the mountains, and he had picked up a smattering of the lingo, just like he could speak a little of the tongues of several different Indian tribes, as well as a little German and French. Having grown up in Texas, though, he was better with Spanish than any other foreign language.

When the proprietor brought over a cup and saucer and the coffeepot, Frank said, “I’m Frank Morgan.”

The man’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t spill a drop as he poured the hot, black brew. “I’ve heard of you, Mr. Morgan,” he said. “I suspect nearly everyone in Eureka has by this time. My name is Peter Lee.”

Frank put out a hand. “Pleased to meet you, Peter. You sound like you’ve been in this country for a while.”

“As far back as I can remember,” Lee said as he shook hands. “Although I was born in China. I was two years old when my parents came here to work on the Central Pacific.”

Frank nodded. “You grew up speaking English?”

“I did. You see, one of the supervisors took me in when my father was killed in an accident only a couple of months after we got here. My mother…” Lee shrugged. “Well, I don’t know what happened to her. She was gone by the time I was old enough to remember anything.”

Frank took a sip of the coffee. “Some fellas might be a little bitter about that.”

Lee shrugged and said, “I never knew any difference. The people who raised me were good folks. Taught me how to work hard and take care of myself.”

“Looks like you’re doing a fine job of it,” Frank said with a meaningful nod at their surroundings.

“I do all right.” The door at the end of the counter swung open, and a very attractive young Chinese woman came through it carrying a bowl of stew, which she placed in front of Frank. Peter Lee said, “My wife and our children help me run the place.”

Frank nodded politely to the woman and tugged on the brim of his Stetson. “Mrs. Lee,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

She smiled and didn’t say anything, just retreated back through the door into the kitchen.

Frank picked up the spoon Lee placed on the counter beside the bowl and dug in. The stew smelled good and tasted better. It was full of big chunks of beef, potatoes, carrots, wild onions, and spices. Lee brought over a plate with a big hunk of corn bread on it, and when Frank sampled that, it was equally as good.

“What brings you to Eureka, Mr. Morgan?” Lee asked as he leaned on the counter. “As if I didn’t know.”

“You’ve heard about it, eh?”

“You’re the talk of the town tonight. Some people are glad that a man with your reputation is going after the Terror, while others are upset that Mr. Chamberlain isn’t offering that ten-thousand-dollar bounty anymore. And some of the loggers think that it would be better to have a lot of people hunting the monster, instead of just one man.”

“What do you think, Mr. Lee?”

The man shrugged. “Until that so-called Terror comes in here and sits down at my counter, it’s not really any of my business, is it?”

“It can’t be good for your trade if it starts to cut into the logging that’s going on around here.”

“That hasn’t happened…yet.”

But it would eventually, Frank thought, if the men who worked in the woods kept dying. That was something to ponder.

He wasn’t in much of a mood for pondering at the moment, though. He’d been shot at several times today, as well as having that ruckus with Cobb at Chamberlain’s redwood mansion. All he wanted to do right now was sit here and eat some of Mrs. Lee’s excellent beef stew and corn bread.

Lee moved off along the counter to refill other coffee cups, leaving Frank alone with his meal. For the next few minutes, he ate with great enjoyment.

He should have known the peaceful respite wouldn’t last. It had been his experience that they never did. Because of that, he wasn’t really surprised when the door of the hash house opened and several men clumped into the long, narrow room. Frank glanced at them, saw that three of the newcomers were dressed in range clothes, while the other three were loggers.

“Morgan,” said one of the men in range garb, “I want to talk to you.”

This hombre didn’t have a badge like Marshal Price, so Frank didn’t see any good reason to talk to him. He spooned more stew into his mouth, took a bite of the corn bread.

The man who had spoken took a step closer. “Damn it, I’m talkin’ to you, Morgan. You deaf?”

Without looking at the man, Frank said, “I just want to enjoy my supper, friend, and having to kill you would put a serious crimp in those plans.”

“Why, you—”

Even though Frank seemed casual, didn’t even appear to be paying any attention to the man, the slightest move toward a gun would have sent him into a blur of deadly motion. Instead, one of the other men stepped forward and brushed the belligerent one back.

“Take it easy, Dawson. I’ll handle this.”

He was the biggest of the bunch, even bigger than the burly loggers. Long, dark red hair fell from under a high-crowned brown Stetson, and he sported a beard of the same hue.

“Listen, Morgan,” he said. “My name’s Erickson. Maybe you’ve heard of me.”

Frank took a sip of coffee. “Can’t say as I have.”

That nonchalant comment made Erickson’s jaw clench for a second, but he controlled his obvious anger.

“The talk’s all around town about how you’re gonna hunt down the Terror. Because of you, Rutherford Chamberlain took back that bounty he put on the monster. We don’t like that. My friends and I planned on finding that critter ourselves.”

“That’s too bad,” Frank said, not meaning it at all. “But you probably just would’ve gotten yourselves killed by other fellas who were out there hunting for the Terror.”

“That’s our lookout, not yours,” Erickson snapped. “Not only that, but you killed Jingo Reed and busted Matt Sewell’s shoulder so that he’ll never be the same again. Jingo and Matt were good men. Friends of mine.”

Frank didn’t really believe that. Hardcases like Erickson appeared to be didn’t have many real friends. Erickson was just using what had happened to them as an excuse to pick a fight with Frank.

“You ride out in the morning and keep going,” Erickson went on. “Leave this part of California. Leave the Terror to us. You do that, and we’ll let what happened to Jingo and Matt slide…this time.”

“And if I’m not interested in doing that?”

Erickson grinned. “You’ll be sorry.”

Peter Lee had come back to stand on the other side of the counter from Frank. He leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Please, Mr. Morgan. If there’s a gunfight in here, innocent people might be hurt. That wall between us and my family isn’t thick enough to stop a bullet.”

Frank glanced around. All the other customers in the place looked as nervous as its proprietor. Some of them probably would have made a break for the door by now if the six big men hadn’t been blocking it.

“There’s not going to be a gunfight,” Frank told Lee with a shake of his head.

Erickson heard what he said. “You’re gonna get out of town?”

“Nope. But you’re not going to make me draw on you either.” A faint smile touched Frank’s lips. “I promised the marshal I wouldn’t kill anybody in his town if I could help it.”

“You son of a bitch.” Erickson strode forward. “So you’re not going to draw on me, are you?”

“No. I’m not.”

Erickson reached over and picked up the coffee cup that Frank had set down on the counter. The cup was still about half full. Erickson tilted it as if he were about to pour the coffee on Frank’s head.

The Drifter’s hand shot up and clamped around Erickson’s wrist, the fingers closing like iron bands. Erickson’s eyes widened with surprise at the strength of Frank’s grip. A man as big as he was probably hadn’t run into too many hombres brave enough to take him on in a hand-to-hand battle.

But he had never run into Frank Morgan before.

“I said I wasn’t going to get in a gunfight with you,” Frank told him. “I never said anything about not beating the hell out of you if you want to push it that far.”

Erickson’s lips drew back from his teeth in a furious grimace. He let go of the cup. It fell toward the counter. Peter Lee made a grab for it, caught it so that while most of the coffee splashed out, the cup didn’t shatter.

At the same time, Erickson threw a piledriver punch with his other hand. It might have connected, if not for the fact that Frank squeezed the other wrist with such force that the bones ground together. Erickson flinched and leaned in the direction of the agonizing pain, and that threw his aim off. Frank ducked the punch, hammered a blow of his own into Erickson’s midsection. The air gusted out of Erickson’s lungs and his normally florid face turned gray. He stumbled back a step as Frank let go of his wrist. That put him in position for the sharp, crossing left that Frank slammed into his jaw. Still seated on the stool in front of the counter, Frank brought his right leg up, planted his booted foot in Erickson’s belly, and shoved him hard. Erickson flew backward to crash down in a heap at the feet of the men who had come into the hash house with him.

Those men were staring in shock, because the whole altercation had happened so fast that it was hard for their eyes to follow it. They knew that Erickson had landed on the floor, though, something that never happened in a fracas.

Erickson looked up, hate burning in his eyes as he glared at Frank. “Get the bastard!” he rasped.

The other men surged forward, and the battle was on.