Sudden Fury

Chapter 10

The loudmouth called Dawson led the charge. He came at Frank swinging wild punches. Frank stood up and grabbed the stool he’d been sitting on, raising it sharply with the legs pointed at Dawson so that the man’s momentum carried him right into them. Dawson said, “Ooof!” and doubled over as the stool legs jabbed into his belly.

Frank dropped the stool and clouted Dawson on the jaw with a hard, looping right. The punch drove Dawson to the floor, where the next man to attack, one of the loggers, tripped over him and fell forward. Frank was ready for him, meeting him with a left jab that made blood spurt from the man’s nose as it pulped under Frank’s fist. The logger howled in pain and fell to his knees.

The space between the counter and the tables was narrow enough so that all of Frank’s opponents couldn’t charge him at the same time. That went a long way toward evening up the odds.

The men who’d been eating supper in the hash house scrambled to get out of the way as the last man in range clothes and one of the other two loggers bulled their way around their fallen comrade, knocking over one of the tables as they did so. Food flew in the air. The man in range clothes grabbed a chair and lifted it over his head as he rushed in. Frank snatched the stool from the floor again and used it to block the chair as it descended. That bone-jarring impact snapped the legs off the chair.

“Stop it!” Peter Lee cried. “Please don’t bust up my place!”

Frank felt bad about what was happening, but these men had sought him out and started the trouble. He was defending himself. And he would see to it that Lee got paid for the damages, one way or another.

The man who had wound up holding two broken chair legs came at Frank, slashing back and forth with the makeshift clubs. Frank had to give ground as he tried to fend off the blows with the stool he still held. Recklessly, his opponent came too close, so when Frank saw his opportunity, he lifted his leg and kicked the man in the groin. Better a pair of sore balls than a bullet.

The man screeched in pain and dropped the broken chair legs as he clutched at himself. He toppled to the floor and curled up in agony.

That still left three men on their feet, though, because Erickson had managed to get up again. With his jutting red beard and the long hair streaming around his face because his hat had fallen off, he looked like a berserk Viking as he came at Frank with an incoherent cry of rage. Frank dropped the stool again and bent over to let Erickson’s wild, flailing punches sail harmlessly over his head. He drove forward, burying a shoulder in Erickson’s midsection. As the big gunman’s momentum carried him forward over Frank’s back, Frank grabbed him around the thighs and lifted.

It was quite a feat of strength, demonstrating just how much power there really was in Frank’s muscular body. Erickson came completely off the floor and turned a flip as Frank heaved the man over his back. Erickson came down with a crash that seemed to shake the whole building.

That left two of the loggers facing Frank, and they hesitated now as Erickson rolled onto his side, tried to push himself up, and failed. With a sigh, Erickson slumped back down and lay still.

One of the loggers held his hands palms out toward Frank. “That’s enough, mister,” he said. The man looked at the bodies scattered along the counter in various stages of pain and semicon-sciousness. “By God, that’s enough.”

Frank’s chest rose and fell quickly from the exertion of the past few minutes, but his voice was steady as he said, “You boys called the tune. If you don’t want to dance to it, that’s your business.”

The other logger said, “Forget it, Morgan. I don’t want to tangle with you.”

Frank nodded and bent down to check Erickson’s pockets. He found a double eagle and flipped it to Peter Lee. “That ought to pay for the broken chair and anything else that got busted, as well as the food that was ruined. Fair enough, Peter?”

Lee bit the coin and satisfied himself that it was real. “Fair enough,” he told Frank. “Erickson may not feel that way when he gets his senses back, though.”

“Then he should have thought twice before he came in here to make trouble.” Frank turned back to the two loggers. “What did you do, go in the Bull o’ the Woods and get Erickson and his friends all stirred up?”

“Don’t blame us, Morgan,” one of the men said. “Erickson was already hot under the collar. A lot of men in Eureka feel the same way tonight. They don’t like you comin’ in here and takin’ over the hunt for the Terror like you done. Hell, you’re just one man. You can’t stop that monster.”

“You’d rather have a hundred trigger-happy fools blundering around in the woods shooting at anything that moves…including you?”

The loggers just frowned. They didn’t have any answer for that.

Frank shook his head in disgust. Sometimes, trying to help folks brought an hombre nothing but grief. Unfortunately, though, he wasn’t the sort of man who could turn his back on trouble.

He picked up his hat, which had gotten knocked off during the brief brawl, and waved it at the men on the floor. “Get them out of here. They’re cluttering up Mr. Lee’s place.”

Dawson was able to stand up and stumble out of the hash house under his own power. So was the man with the broken nose, which was still leaking crimson. The loggers helped the other two out, including a groggy Erickson, who kept shaking his head and muttering incoherently.

Frank called after them, “If any of you fellas have a problem with what happened, you can take it up with me. If I hear about anybody bothering Mr. Lee or his family, just because this little fracas happened in his place, I won’t take it kindly. And I’ll be looking for whoever’s responsible.”

The threat in his voice was clear. Every now and then, it came in handy to have most people think of him as a cold-blooded, gunslinging bastard.

Peter Lee and his pretty wife and their two little kids, a boy and a girl about five and six years old, came out from behind the counter to clean up the mess left by the fight. Frank pitched in to help, and so did some of the customers who hadn’t fled as soon as they had the chance.

“I’m sorry about this, Peter,” Frank said.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Frank shook his head. “Maybe I could’ve tried a little harder to head it off before anybody started throwing punches. Seems the Good Lord didn’t put much backup in me when He made me, though.”

“I got that impression,” Lee said dryly. “You want some more stew and corn bread?”

Frank smiled. “I did sort of work up an appetite again.”

Lee laughed as if he couldn’t help it. “I’ll see what’s left out in the kitchen.”

While Frank waited for Lee to come back, he became aware that the proprietor’s two children were staring at him. He smiled at them, which caused them to scurry off behind their mother’s skirts and then peep out at him timidly. Mrs. Lee just gave Frank a tired smile and herded the youngsters back into the kitchen. The customers who were left returned to their meals.

A few minutes later, Lee brought Frank a fresh bowl of stew and another piece of corn bread, as well as refilling his coffee cup. Frank dug in, and was enjoying the food when he heard the hash house’s front door open again. Footsteps clumped toward him, and when he glanced over, he saw Marshal Gene Price approaching him. The lawman wore a scowl on his rugged face.

“I thought I told you not to start any trouble in my town, Morgan,” Price said.

Frank shook his head. “I didn’t start it.”

“That’s not how I heard it. I heard you were in here brawling with half a dozen men.”

“Well, that’s almost true. But there were actually only four of them who got into the fight. The other two decided they didn’t want any part of it.”

“And you didn’t start it?”

“One against six? Do I look like a fool to you, Marshal?”

Price just grunted and didn’t answer the question. “You’ve got enemies here,” he said. “It’d be better all the way around if you rode out and didn’t come back.”

Frank shook his head. “Not until I finish the job I said I’d do.”

“I could just throw you in jail, you know.” Price’s voice held a worried edge. He was digging himself a hole, and he seemed to know it. He might have to try to arrest the notorious gunfighter Frank Morgan, and chances are, that wouldn’t end well. But his pride wouldn’t allow him to back down.

“On what charge?” Frank asked.

“Assault. Disturbing the peace.”

Peter Lee surprised Frank a little by speaking up. “That’s not how it happened, Marshal,” he said. “Those men came in here looking for Mr. Morgan, intending to cause trouble. They attacked him. He was just defending himself.”

Price glared at the hash house proprietor. “You sure about that?”

Lee nodded toward the men at the tables. “Ask any of my customers. They were all here when it happened.”

The lawman turned to look at the men, several of whom nodded in agreement with what Lee had said. The gestures seemed rather reluctant, as if they didn’t want to get involved in this possible trouble, but their honest natures forced them not to lie.

“All right then,” Price finally said with ill-concealed disgust. “But I’ll be keeping my eye on you, Morgan. You break the law, and you’ll wind up behind bars before you know what happened.”

That was an empty threat, and probably everyone in the place knew it. But Frank just nodded and said, “I always try to be a law-abiding man, Marshal.”

Price snorted and turned to stalk out of the hash house. Frank watched him go, then said quietly to Lee, “You may have made yourself an enemy there, Peter.”

Lee shook his head. “Marshal Price is a windbag. I’m not worried about him. I don’t think Erickson and his cronies will bother us either. You made it pretty clear what would happen if they did.”

Remembering how he’d been bushwhacked at Ben Chamberlain’s old cabin that afternoon, Frank said, “I couldn’t do much about it if I was dead.”

Peter Lee smiled. “Don’t get yourself killed then.”

Frank laughed and reached for his coffee cup. “Words to live by,” he said.

The logger with the broken nose was named Roylston. He sat at a big table in the back of the Bull o’ the Woods Saloon holding a bloody rag to his nose and cursing in a low, monotonous voice.

The other men at the table ignored him. The one who’d been kicked in the groin sat gray-faced and hunched over. Every now and then he grimaced and took a nip from the bottle in front of him. His name was Treadwell, and at this moment, he wanted to kill Frank Morgan more than he had ever wanted anything else in his life.

Big, red-bearded Erickson wanted to kill Morgan, too, but even more than that, he wanted to collect the ten-thousand-dollar bounty on the head of the Terror. With Morgan around, the chances of doing that were slim.

But if Morgan was dead, Erickson thought…

Across the table, Dawson said, “It don’t matter. Let Morgan go after that damn monster. It’ll tear him into little bloody pieces, the same way it’s done with everybody else unlucky enough to run into it.”

Dawson’s voice was thick because his jaw was swollen where Morgan had hit him. Anger burned in his eyes, too, the same way it burned in the eyes of the other men.

Erickson, Dawson, and Treadwell weren’t really friends. They hadn’t even known each other before they came to this area of northern California, drawn by reports of the Terror and the ten-grand bounty. Each of them fancied himself a gunman. They were tough and weren’t above skirting the law when it was advantageous—or profitable—to do so. They had met here in the Bull o’ the Woods, recognized each other as kindred spirits, and formed a rough partnership of sorts…although it wouldn’t have taken much to tempt each of them to double-cross the others. Still, they were as close to being friends as men like them could be.

Erickson had a bottle of his own, like Treadwell, and the other men were sharing a third bottle. Erickson had worried that a couple of his ribs were busted, but the pain that shot through him every time he took a breath had eased a little, dulled by the whiskey he was pouring down his throat more than likely. The whiskey didn’t do anything to ease the anger inside him, though.

“I wouldn’t count on that,” he said in reply to Dawson’s comment about the Terror getting rid of Frank Morgan. “Morgan’s not like most men. He wouldn’t have lived as long as he has, with the rep he’s got, if he wasn’t plenty tough.”

“Those fellas who ran into the Terror were tough, too,” one of the loggers said. “Damn thing tore ’em apart like a wolf with a rabbit. That’s why there needs to be more than one man goin’ after it. It may take an army to get it.”

Erickson shook his head. “Not an army. Just a handful of men…if they’re the right men. Like us.”

Roylston had his head tipped back, trying to stop the trickle of blood that still came from his nose. Now he straightened his head and said, “I’m not goin’ back out there. Not to cut trees for Chamberlain. He’s not payin’ me enough to risk my life with nothin’ but an ax and maybe a six-gun to defend myself.”

“Then come in with us,” Erickson said. He nodded toward the other two loggers. “You and Jenkins and Sutherland. The six of us, we’ll find the Terror and kill it.”

“What’s the point in that?” Roylston asked. “The old man lifted the bounty. He won’t pay ten grand for the monster’s head anymore, not unless Morgan brings it in.”

“He’d put the bounty on it again quick enough if Morgan was dead,” Erickson said, putting into words what he’d been thinking.

The other five men stared at Erickson for a long moment without saying anything. Then Treadwell rasped, “Are you sayin’ what I think you’re sayin’?”

“Once Morgan’s out of the way, there’ll be nobody stoppin’ us from going after the Terror. And Chamberlain’s bound to pay off once we get it.”

The logger named Jenkins shook his head. “Forget it. They say Morgan’s as fast as Smoke Jensen or Matt Bodine. What you’re talking about is a good way to get us killed.”

“Six against one,” Erickson said. “Those are mighty good odds.”

“Yeah. You would have thought so.”

Erickson’s face flushed angrily. “That was different. He had the edge because we couldn’t all rush him at once.”

“And what you’re talking about now is murder.”

Erickson leaned forward and glared at Jenkins. “What I’m talking about is ten thousand dollars, you damned fool. Even split six ways, that’s more money than you can make in three or four years.”

Jenkins thought it over and finally shrugged. “Well…you’re right about that.”

“Of course I’m right.”

“But we’ll be risking our lives going up against Morgan.”

“You’re not already risking your lives by going into the woods where that monster is?”

Roylston took the bloody rag away from his swollen nose and looked at it. “You’re right about that. Count me in.”

“Me, too,” Sutherland said.

Erickson looked at Jenkins. “How about it?” he demanded.

Jenkins sighed. “All right. I’ll throw in with you, too, Erickson. I don’t much like it, but…ten thousand is a hell of a lot of money.”

“It sure is.” Erickson reached over to Roylston. “Let me give you a hand with that,” he said as he took hold of Roylston’s nose and gave it a quick, hard squeeze before Roylston realized what he was about to do.

Roylston howled in pain, making the other men in the saloon look around. They went back to their drinking right away, though, when they saw there wasn’t going to be a fight. Roylston sat there with both hands cupped over his nose, shocked by what Erickson had just done.

“What the hell did you do that for?”

“You don’t want that nose to be all crooked when it heals up, do you?” Erickson asked. “I just straightened it back up. Now you’ll be handsome for the ladies, once you’ve got all that money in your pocket.”

Dawson grunted. “A man with enough money in his pocket is already handsome to the ladies.”

Still muttering curses, Roylston shoved his chair back and stood up. “We’ll have to go out to the camp and get our gear. Then we’ll come back into town. I don’t cotton to the idea of spending another night in those woods.”

“And then tomorrow we’ll start trying to figure out a way to get rid of Morgan,” Erickson said. “Right?”

Roylston nodded. “We’re with you.”

The three loggers left the saloon. Dawson watched them go, then commented, “I liked a three-way split of that reward money better than divvying it up six ways.”

Erickson took a slug from the whiskey bottle. “It’ll still be a three-way split,” he said with a leer. “Those dumb woodsmen will come in handy while we’re getting rid of Morgan and then when we go after the Terror…but once we’ve got the monster’s head, we won’t need them any more, now will we?”

Dawson thought about it for a second, then began to smile. Even Treadwell didn’t look quite as pained as he had earlier.

“Yeah, I think the Terror of the Redwoods is gonna claim at least three more victims,” Erickson said, “before we collect that ten-grand reward.”