Sudden Fury

Chapter 4

Frank saw several rifles and shotguns among the men. He reined Stormy to a halt and said in a low voice, “Dog, sit. Stay.” He didn’t want the big cur to give the men any excuse for being trigger-happy.

For that same reason, he kept his hands in plain sight, well away from his guns. These men were Rutherford Chamberlain’s bodyguards, he told himself, and they were just doing their job. With all the mysterious and deadly things going on in the forest these days, you couldn’t blame them for being suspicious of strangers.

It went against the grain, though, for him to have guns pointed at him and not do something about it. That was just part of who he was.

“Take it easy, gents,” Frank said in a loud, clear voice as the men on horseback surrounded him. “I’m plumb peaceable.”

“Who are you?” one of the men demanded. “What are you doing here?”

Frank answered the second question. “I’m looking for Mr. Chamberlain. I just want to talk to him.”

The spokesman, who had an ugly, rawboned face and straw-colored hair under a black Stetson, sneered and said, “Well, he don’t want to talk to you.”

“Maybe you should ask him about that,” Frank suggested.

The sneer didn’t go away. It just got uglier. “Yeah, maybe you should just go to hell.”

“I still haven’t told you who I am.”

“I’ve decided it don’t matter. I can tell by lookin’ at you that you’re just some old saddle tramp, and Mr. Chamberlain ain’t got time for trash like you.” The man jerked a thumb toward the road. “Vamoose.”

Frank knew that he ought to just tell this man who he was. Most likely, the name Frank Morgan would open the door of the mansion.

But he was just stubborn enough not to do that. This hombre’s arrogance had gotten under his skin, and he knew it would be like a burr under a saddle if he didn’t do something about it.

He pressed his heels against Stormy’s flanks. The horse moved forward.

The leader of the guards jumped his mount ahead to block Frank’s path. “Are you loco, mister?” he yelled. “You get outta here right now or you’re gonna be sorry.”

“I’m going to talk to Chamberlain, and you’re not going to stop me,” Frank said.

“There are eight of us—” the man began.

“No,” Frank cut in, “I said you’re not going to stop me.”

The man’s face flushed a dark, angry red. “Why, you son of a bitch!” he burst out. “You think I’m scared of you?”

One of the other men spoke up, saying, “Cobb, maybe you better be careful. I don’t like the looks of this hombre.”

“I don’t either,” Cobb snapped. “That’s why I intend to change ’em a mite.” He glared at Frank. “Get down off your horse, mister.”

“Before I do, I want your word that this is between you and me,” Frank said. “And I don’t want any of your men bothering my dog or my horses either. If they try, they’ll be sorry.”

Cobb waved a hand impatiently. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, mister.”

“I have your word?”

“Hell, yeah!” Cobb looked around at the other guards. “You fellas stay out of it, hear?”

“I’ll be glad to,” said the man who had spoken earlier. He was looking intently at Frank, as if he recognized him. Frank thought that was possible. These guards all had the look of tough, hard-bitten hombres, the sort of men who traveled in the same circles he did.

Cobb swung down from his saddle, unbuckled his gun belt, and hung it on the saddle horn. He put his hat on top of it. He was a couple of inches taller than Frank, but probably packed about the same amount of weight on his rangy frame. He wore a white shirt, a black vest, and black leather wrist cuffs.

Frank dismounted as well and removed his gun and hat. Cobb gestured at the bowie knife on Frank’s left hip and said, “Get rid of that pigsticker, too.”

Frank slid the fringed sheath off his belt and tucked it and the knife in his saddlebags. “Just so we’re clear,” he said, “once I’ve gotten past you, your friends won’t stop me from going on up to the house, right?”

“You won’t get past me,” Cobb said with a grin.

“But if I do—”

“Yeah, yeah. Let him talk to the boss, boys, if the boss is willin’ to see him.” Cobb looked at Frank. “I can’t promise any more than that.”

“Fair enough,” Frank said.

He hadn’t gotten the words completely out of his mouth before Cobb let out a yell and charged him. The man was fast, but Frank was able to twist out of his way. As Cobb stumbled past, Frank hit him on the ear. It was only a glancing blow, but it must have stung. Cobb bellowed and swung around with a look of rage on his face. He threw a looping punch at Frank’s head.

Frank blocked it, stepped in, and landed a hard right on Cobb’s sternum. The blow rocked Cobb back a step and set him up for the left hook that Frank exploded on his jaw. Cobb went to one knee, a look of stunned surprise on his ugly face. Clearly, he hadn’t expected Frank to land the first three punches.

With another angry roar, Cobb came up from the ground and launched himself into a diving tackle with his arms spread wide. Frank couldn’t avoid the lunge. Cobb wrapped an arm around his thighs and drove him backward off his feet.

When Frank hit the ground, the impact knocked the air out of his lungs. He gasped for breath and rolled to the side to avoid Cobb’s knee as Cobb tried to plant it in his groin. Frank brought his elbow back and clipped his opponent on the jaw with it.

Some of the other men yelled encouragement to Cobb, but most of them just sat silently on their horses, watching the fight. They made no move to interfere, though, and that was all Frank cared about where they were concerned. He twisted around, got his left hand on Cobb’s throat, and bounced the man’s head off the ground.

Cobb brought his left up and for the first time landed a punch cleanly. The knobby fist crashed into the side of Frank’s head and sent him sprawling. That brought more shouts from Cobb’s friends. Cobb dove after Frank, who rolled onto his back and managed to get his right leg up in time to drive the heel of his boot into Cobb’s belly. Cobb’s weight and momentum made the boot heel sink deeply into his midsection. He went “Oooff!” and doubled over.

Frank reached up, grabbed Cobb’s vest, and hauled hard on it at the same time as he levered the man into the air on his leg. Cobb sailed through the air over Frank’s head and crashed onto the ground. It was his turn to gasp for breath now. Frank had recovered his. He flipped over, landed on Cobb, and slugged him on the jaw again. Pinning his opponent to the ground with a knee in his belly, Frank hit Cobb twice more, a left and then a piledriver right. Cobb’s head lolled loosely on his neck as he lay there on his back with his arms and legs spraddled out.

“If you’re thinking about hitting him again, Morgan, I wouldn’t. He’s out.”

Frank looked up at the man who had tried to warn Cobb. Chest heaving a little from his exertions, he said, “You…recognized me.”

“That’s right. Cobb’s damned lucky he just tried to thrash you. If he’d thrown down on you, you probably would’ve killed him. Better a beating than a bullet in the heart.”

One of the other guards said, “Rockwell, who the hell is this jasper? You act like you know him.”

The man called Rockwell shook his head. “No, we never met, but he was pointed out to me one night in a saloon in Fort Worth. His name’s Frank Morgan.”

“Morgan!” Several men muttered in surprise. The one who had exclaimed said, “You mean the gunfighter?”

“One and the same,” Rockwell said.

Another man let out a whistle. “You’re right. Cobb’s lucky to be alive.”

Frank went over to Stormy and got his hat from the saddle. He put it on and then buckled the gun belt around his hips. He paused to rub Dog’s ears. The big cur had stayed right where Frank had told him to stay, even during the fight. He had probably growled a few times, though, frustrated that he couldn’t tear into Cobb.

A couple of the guards had dismounted. They reached down, took hold of Cobb’s arms, and lifted him to his feet. He sagged in their grip, and would have fallen if they hadn’t been supporting him, but he was starting to come around now. He gave a groggy shake of his head and moaned.

“Come on,” Rockwell said to Frank. “I’ll take you up to the house. I think you knocked all the fight out of Cobb, but it’ll be simpler if you’re already inside when he wakes up good.”

Frank nodded. He picked up the horses’ reins and motioned for Dog to follow him.

Rockwell led the way along a path made of crushed rock that ran through a green lawn in front of the house. It widened out into an area where buggies could be parked. From there, the path ran on around the mansion toward a carriage house and several other outbuildings.

The house itself was one of the oddest, yet most impressive structures Frank had ever seen. It was a three-story Victorian topped by a square tower with a steep roof and a long metal spire that served as a lightning rod. There were more gables than Frank could count, each one topped by a lightning rod as well, and although he was no architect, they seemed to be placed rather haphazardly around the roof. A room jutted out from the front of the house, cutting off a porch that appeared to wrap the rest of the way around the house. The porch railings were wrought iron and decorated with elaborate curlicues and designs. Latticework framed the windows, and carvings were everywhere in the wood. Frank saw birds and animals, moons and stars, even human faces. The whole place had a reddish gleam in the sun, and he recalled that Karl Wilcox had said the mansion was made out of the redwood that had brought Rutherford Chamberlain his fortune.

Frank thought that if he had to live in a place like this, he would go plumb loco in a week.

Rockwell must have had an idea what he was thinking, because the man grinned over at him and said, “It’s really something, isn’t it?”

“It’s something, all right,” Frank said. “I’m just not sure what.”

“The old man designed it himself. He says the woods made him a rich man, so it’s only fitting that he lives here among the trees.”

“I hear that he does all his business from here and doesn’t go into town very often.”

“Hardly ever,” Rockwell said with a nod. “He used to get out more, but Mrs. Chamberlain passed away a few years ago, and now Mr. Chamberlain just stays in the house unless there’s some sort of emergency.”

“I guess he figures no one will bother him here,” Frank mused. “It must have really shaken him up when this whole business with the Terror started.”

“Ah, the Terror,” Rockwell said. “I sort of figured you were here about that. Going after the money, are you?”

“I want to talk to Mr. Chamberlain about the bounty,” Frank said, not answering the question directly. Let Rockwell draw whatever conclusions he wanted to. As they came up to the porch, Frank went on. “What do you think about the Terror? Ever seen it?”

“No, and I don’t want to.” Rockwell stopped and looked over at Frank. “Call me hardheaded, but I’m not sure the damned thing really exists. The evil that men do is bad enough without there being monsters in the world.”

Frank started to say that he felt the same way, but he surprised himself by not doing it. After the things he had seen this afternoon, he wasn’t certain what he believed anymore. The only things he knew for sure were that something was killing men in the forest and that it needed to be stopped. But he didn’t think that posting a bounty was the best way to go about it. That might just get some innocent men killed.

Frank tied Stormy and Goldy to a fancy hitching post in front of the house and told Dog to stay. Then the two men walked up onto the porch. The front door was a massive slab of varnished redwood with a bronze lion’s-head knocker so big that for a second Frank thought Chamberlain must have gotten it from a real lion. Rockwell grasped the knocker and rapped it sharply against the door.

“They probably heard the commotion inside,” he said, “so they’ll know that something was going on—”

As if to support his words, the door opened almost right away. A tall, cadaverous man with white hair and a white mustache stood there. He wore a black suit. Frank had seen enough butlers in his life to recognize the breed. He halfway expected the gent to talk with a British accent, but the butler sounded American as he asked, “What is it, Rockwell? Who is this man?”

“He’s here to see Mr. Chamberlain,” Rockwell said. “His name is Frank Morgan.”

If the name meant anything to the butler, for once Frank couldn’t see it in the man’s eyes. The butler turned to him and asked, “What’s the nature of your business? I’ll have to explain to Mr. Chamberlain why you wish to see him.”

“It’s about the bounty,” Frank said. “The bounty on that thing the loggers call the Terror.”

The butler’s eyes widened slightly, but only for a second before he controlled the reaction. He said, “Have you come to collect? Do you have the creature’s head with you?”

“No, and no,” Frank said. “I don’t much believe in bounties, and I sure don’t believe in hacking off somebody’s head just to collect one.”

“I don’t understand. Why do you wish to see Mr. Chamberlain if you don’t intend to collect the reward?”

“That’s between him and me.”

The butler looked at Rockwell. “I fail to see why you brought this man to the house. I don’t think he has any need to see Mr. Chamberlain—”

“I do,” Rockwell said. “Like I told you, he’s Frank Morgan.”

The butler shook his head. “Is that name supposed to mean something to me?”

“He’s The Drifter, for God’s sake! He’s a gunfighter. Some say the last real gunfighter, since Smoke Jensen and Matt Bodine hung up their guns and Wes Hardin’s dead. If he’s got something to say, I reckon the boss would be well-advised to listen.”

“Very well,” the butler said with a sigh. “Please, come in, Mr. Morgan. I’ll see if Mr. Chamberlain is willing to speak with you.”

Frank took off his hat as he stepped into the house. “Much obliged, Mister…?”

“Dennis, sir. Just Dennis. No mister required.”

“See you later, Morgan,” Rockwell said as he stepped back from the door. He lifted a hand in farewell, a gesture that Frank returned. He didn’t particularly like Rockwell, but the man didn’t seem like a bad sort.

“You can wait in the library,” Dennis said. The redwood floor in the foyer had been polished to a high sheen. The hallway down which the butler led Frank was the same way. Portraits of stern-looking men and impassive women hung on the walls.

Dennis ushered Frank through a pair of double doors into a large, rather dark room. Bookshelves lined all four walls from floor to ceiling. The furnishings consisted of a writing desk and several comfortable-looking armchairs. Thick drapes hung over the room’s single window. They were pulled back part of the way to let in some light.

“I’ll advise Mr. Chamberlain that you’re here, sir,” Dennis said.

“No hurry,” Frank told him, and meant it. The sight of all these books intrigued him. Like a lot of men who spent most of their time alone, he was an avid reader and nearly always had a book or two, sometimes more, stuffed in his saddlebags. He wouldn’t mind taking a look at the volumes Rutherford Chamberlain had collected.

Dennis left the room, closing the doors behind him. Frank set his Stetson on one of the chairs and walked over to the nearest bookshelf. Most of the books were bound in expensive leather. He always read cheap editions, because they took quite a beating from being toted around in his saddlebags. He spotted a novel he had read before and enjoyed, Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. This was a different edition, though, so he was about to take it down and flip through it when he heard the library doors open behind him. He turned, expecting to see either Rutherford Chamberlain or the butler Dennis, explaining that Chamberlain had refused to see him.

Instead, a blond, very attractive young woman had stopped just inside the library, and she seemed to be as surprised to see Frank as he was to see her.