The Winchester ran dry. Frank dropped it and drew his Colt. The range was plenty close enough now for an expert pistol shot like The Drifter. He triggered twice and was rewarded by the sight of another rider plummeting from the saddle.
The gang of bandidos had had enough. They wheeled their horses, still snapping shots at the buckboard as they did so, and then lit a shuck out of there. Frank and the two men threw a few shots after them to hurry them on their way, but the riders were out of pistol range in a matter of moments.
Frank holstered the Colt and picked up the Winchester, then proceeded to reload the rifle with cartridges from his pocket in case the raiders turned around and tried again. From the looks of it, though, the bandits had no intention of returning. The dust cloud their horses kicked up dwindled in the distance.
“Keep riding, you bastards!” growled the older of the two men from the buckboard as he shook a fist after the bandidos. “Don’t stop until you get back across the border to hell, as far as I’m concerned!”
The man was stocky and grizzled, with a graying, close-cropped beard. Most of his head was bald. His hands and face had a weathered, leathery look, an indication that he had spent most of his life outdoors.
The second man was younger, taller, and clean-shaven, but he bore a resemblance to the older man that Frank recognized right away. He pegged them as father and son, or perhaps uncle and nephew. Both men were dressed in well-kept range clothes that would have looked better if they hadn’t been covered in trail dust. They had the appearance of successful cattlemen about them.
Frank spotted the other rifle lying on the ground about twenty feet away. He nodded toward it and said, “Better pick up that repeater, just in case they come back.”
The older man snorted contemptuously. “They won’t be back! Bunch of no-good, cowardly dogs! They travel in a pack and won’t attack unless the odds are ten to one in their favor.”
“And we cut those odds down in a hurry,” the younger man said. He hurried over to retrieve the rifle anyway, Frank noted.
The riders had disappeared in the distance now, without even any dust showing. Deciding that they were truly gone, Frank walked out from behind the buckboard and went to check on the men who had fallen from their horses during the fight. He counted seven of them. Six were already dead, and the seventh was unconscious and badly wounded. Blood bubbled from his mouth in a crimson froth with every ragged breath he took, and Frank heard the air whistling through bullet-punctured lungs. The man dragged in one last breath and then let it out in a shuddery sigh, dying without regaining consciousness.
Frank’s expression didn’t change as he watched the man pass over the divide. Any man’s death diminishes me, John Donne had written, and in a philosophical way Frank supposed there might be some truth to that. Donne, however, had never swapped lead with a bandido.
Five of the men were Mexicans, typical south-of-the-border hardcases. The other two were Americans of the same sort. Frank checked their pockets, found nothing but spare shells for their guns and some coins.
A pistol shot made him look around. The younger man had just put the injured horse out of its misery.
Frank walked back to the buckboard. The younger man began unhitching the team and trying to calm the horses. The older man met Frank with a suspicious look. He asked, “Who are you, mister? Why’d you jump into that fracas on our side?”
“My name’s Morgan,” Frank said, “and I just thought it looked like you could use a hand. I never have liked an unfair fight.”
The man nodded and wiped the back of his hand across his nose, which was bleeding a little. That seemed to be the only injury either of them had suffered in the wreck of the buckboard. They had been mighty lucky.
“Well, the boy an’ me are much obliged. My name’s Cecil Tolliver. That’s my son Ben.”
Ben Tolliver paused in what he was doing to look over at Frank and nod. “Howdy.” He turned back to the horses and then paused and looked at Frank again. “Wouldn’t be Frank Morgan, would it? The one they call The Drifter?”
Frank tried not to sigh. Just once, he thought, he would like to ride in somewhere and not have somebody recognize him almost right away.
And it would have been nice too if nobody shot at him.
CHAPTER 2
“Yes, I’m Frank Morgan,” he admitted.
Cecil Tolliver frowned. “I don’t mean to sound ignorant, mister, but I don’t reckon I’ve heard of you.”
Ben came over and held out his hand to Frank. “That’s because you never read any dime novels,” he explained to his father. “Mr. Morgan here is a famous gunfighter.”
Tolliver grunted. “I never had time for such foolishness, boy. I was too busy tryin’ to build the Rockin’ T into a decent spread. You was the one who always had your nose in the Police Gazette.”
Frank shook hands with both of them and said to Ben, “Most of what’s been written about me in those dime novels and the illustrated weeklies was a pack of lies made up by gents who don’t know much about the real West.”
“You can’t deny, though, that you’ve had your share of gunfights,” Ben said.
Frank inclined his head in acknowledgment of that point. “More than my share,” he allowed.
“Well, we’re much obliged for the help, whether you’re famous or not,” Tolliver said. “If you hadn’t come along when you did, I reckon Almanzar’s boys would’ve done in me and Ben.”
“Almanzar,” Frank repeated. “I’m not familiar with the name. Is he the leader of that gang of bandidos ?”
“You could call him that. He runs the rancho where those gunnies work.”
Now it was Frank’s turn to frown. He waved his left hand toward the sprawled bodies of the raiders and said, “Those don’t look like vaqueros or cowhands to me.”
“That’s because Almanzar’s a low-down skunk who hires killers rather than decent hombres.”
“Sounds like you don’t care for the man.”
“I got no use for him,” Tolliver said stiffly. “Him and me been feudin’ ever since I came to this part of the country, nigh on to thirty years ago. Almanzar specializes in wet cattle, if you know what I mean.”
Frank understood the term, all right. It referred to stock rustled from one side of the river and driven to the other. Down here in this border country, a lot of cattle had gotten their bellies wet over the past few decades, going in both directions across the Rio Grande.
Young Ben spoke up. “You don’t know that Don Felipe has been rustling our cows, Pa.”
“I know all I need to know,” Tolliver replied with a disgusted snort. “Almanzar’s a thief and a bloody-handed reiver, and this ain’t the first time he’s tried to have me killed!”
Obviously, there was trouble going on around here, Frank thought. Just as obviously, it was none of his business. But by taking a hand in this gun battle, he had probably dealt himself into the game, whether he wanted that or not. If Cecil Tolliver was correct about Don Felipe Almanzar sending those gunmen after him and his son, then Almanzar would be likely to want vengeance on Frank for killing several of his men.
“Another thing,” Tolliver went on angrily to Ben. “I don’t want to hear you callin’ that bastard by his Christian name again. He ain’t our friend and never has been.”
“What about when you first settled here, before I was born?” Ben asked. “I’ve heard you say more than once, Pa, that without Señor Almanzar’s help, the Comanches would have lifted your hair back in those days.”