“Is it possible the Black Scorpion could be responsible for the rustling?” Frank asked.
“Folks have thought about that,” Tolliver replied, “but me and some o’ the other ranchers around here have lost stock on the same nights that the Black Scorpion’s gang was reported to be maraudin’ on the other side of the border. The varmint can’t be in two places at the same time.”
“No, I reckon not,” Frank said, but he wasn’t completely convinced. His instincts told him that there was even more going on around here than was readily apparent.
His instincts also told him that the smart thing to do would be to unhitch Stormy from the team, mount up, and light a shuck out of here. The troubles had nothing to do with him, and if he stayed around and was drawn deeper into them, his hopes for a quiet, relaxing winter might well be shattered.
On the other hand, he had never turned his back on trouble just to make it easier on himself, and he was a mite too old to start now. A leopard couldn’t change its spots, nor a tiger its stripes.
The sun was low in the sky by the time the buckboard reached the headquarters of the Rocking T. Frank saw a large, whitewashed house sitting in the shade of several cottonwood trees. Behind it were a couple of barns, several corrals, a bunkhouse, a cookshack, a blacksmith shop, a chicken coop, and some storage buildings. There was a vegetable garden off to one side of the house and beyond it a small orchard filled with fruit trees. It was a mighty nice layout, Frank thought, the sort of spread that required years of hard work and dedication to build. He admired a man like Cecil Tolliver who could put down roots and create something lasting and worthwhile like this. For all of his accomplishments, Frank had never been able to achieve that. True, he had quite a few business interests scattered across the West, business interests that had made him a wealthy man, at least on paper, but he had inherited those things, not worked for them and built them himself. Most of the time, he felt as if all he truly owned were his guns and not much else. Stormy and Dog were friends, not possessions. And most of the time, that was all right. Frank didn’t miss the rest of it except at moments such as this, when he looked at the Rocking T and wondered what his life would have been like if things had been different, if he hadn’t been blessed—or cursed—with such blinding speed and uncanny accuracy with a gun.
Tolliver hauled back on the reins and brought the buckboard to a halt. “This is it,” he said. “Welcome to the Rocking T, Mr. Morgan.”
CHAPTER 3
Their arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed. A small black, brown, and tan dog came racing around the house, barking sharply at the buckboard. The dog stopped abruptly, however, when it spotted the big cur sitting next to Frank in the back of the vehicle. A growl rumbled deeply in Dog’s throat and was echoed by the smaller animal, even though Dog was more than ten times his size.
“Don’t get your back fur in an uproar there, Dobie,” Tolliver called to the little dog. “This here’s a friend.”
“Behave yourself, Dog,” Frank said firmly to the cur.
Dog jumped down from the buckboard. He and Dobie sniffed warily at each other, but neither of them snapped. After a moment, Dog strolled over to a clump of grass and hiked his leg to relieve himself on it. Dobie followed suit, establishing himself as the boss around here. Dog seemed to accept that, and if he’d been a human he would have shrugged, Frank thought as he watched the byplay between the two animals.
Dobie wasn’t the only one to greet the newcomers. Several men walked out of one of the barns and came toward the buckboard. At the same time, the front door of the ranch house opened and four women emerged. Two of them were fairly young and had the same sandy-colored hair that Ben did. One of the older women had gray hair, while the other was a stunning brunette.
“Come on,” Tolliver said as he climbed down from the wagon. “I’ll introduce you to the womenfolk.”
Frank slid off the back of the buckboard and followed Tolliver and Ben to the house. When he reached the bottom of the three steps that led up to the porch, he took off his hat.
“Ladies, this here is Mr. Frank Morgan,” Tolliver said. With rough-hewn gallantry, he went on, “Mr. Morgan, allow me to present my wife Pegeen and our daughters Debra and Jessie. And this is Pegeen’s sister Roanne.”
Frank held his hat in front of him and nodded politely. “Ladies,” he said. “The honor and the pleasure are mine.”
“We’re pleased to meet you, Mr. Morgan,” Pegeen Tolliver said. She was oldest of the four women, the one with gray hair. She was still a handsome woman, though, and the same lines of timeless beauty to be found in her face were also present in the faces of her sister and her daughters. Roanne, who was around thirty, Frank estimated, was especially lovely. There wasn’t that much age difference between her and her nieces, who were both between twenty and twenty-five, fine-looking young frontier women. And both already married too, judging by the rings on their fingers.
Frank noted that Roanne wore no ring at all, for whatever that was worth.
The men who had come out of the barn reached the house. Two of them stepped up onto the porch and moved next to Debra and Jessie. “My sons-in-law,” Cecil Tolliver said, then introduced them. “That’s Darrell Forrest with Jessie, and Nick Holmes with Debra. They’re both top hands.”
Frank shook hands with Darrell and Nick and said, “Glad to meet you, boys.”
Darrell Forrest looked intently at Frank and said, “Frank Morgan ... that was the name, sir?”
Before Frank could say anything, Ben Tolliver said, “That’s right, Darrell. He’s The Drifter.”
Pegeen put a hand on her husband’s arm and said, “Cecil, you went to town for supplies, but I don’t see any in the buckboard. And one of the horses is missing. Does that spotted horse belong to Mr. Morgan?”
“That’s right,” Tolliver told her. His bearded face grew grim as he continued. “The supplies are scattered up and down the road this side o’ San Rosa, where they got jolted out when we had to run from a bunch o’ gunmen.”
Pegeen’s hand tightened on Tolliver’s arm. “Are you or Ben hurt?”
“I reckon we’ll have some bruises tomorrow. We got throwed off the buckboard when it turned over durin’ the chase. But Mr. Morgan come along right about then and helped us fight off those bast—those no-good skunks.” Tolliver looked at Nick Holmes. “Nick, send a rider to San Rosa to tell Flem Jarvis that we’ve got the bodies of seven o’ them owlhoots out here waitin’ for the undertaker.”
“Seven bodies!” Nick exclaimed. “But I don’t see—”
“That’s because they’re still out on the road right now. Once you’ve sent a man to town, you and Darrell take a couple of hands and a work wagon and go out to get the corpses.”
The ladies all looked a little shaken by this casual discussion of corpses and an attack by a gang of outlaws. Being good frontier women, though, they remained calm and didn’t waste time with a bunch of chattering questions. It took more than a little trouble to rattle a true woman of the West. And these were Texas women, which meant they had backbone second to none.
Pegeen turned to Frank and said, “Thank you for helping my husband and my son, Mr. Morgan. I hope you plan to stay for supper and spend the night with us. A little hospitality is the least we can do for you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Frank said with a smile. “Your husband already told me I’d be staying a while, and I sure appreciate the kindness.”
“You’re very welcome. Come on inside. I’ll bet you could use a cup of coffee.”
“Ma’am, coffee is one of my biggest weaknesses,” Frank said, his smile widening into a grin. He went into the house with Tolliver, Ben, and the women, while Darrell and Nick hurried off to carry out Tolliver’s orders.
The house was well appointed, with thick rugs on the floors and heavy, overstuffed furniture. A massive stone fireplace dominated one wall of the parlor. A tremendous spread of longhorns adorned the wall above the fireplace. Several sets of deer antlers were attached to the wall as well, and rifles and shotguns hung on pegs. A cavalry saber was also on display, and when Cecil Tolliver noticed Frank’s interest in it, the rancher said, “I carried that when I rode with Jeb Stuart, Fitz Lee, and Mac Brannon during the war, Mr. Morgan. That was before I came out here to Texas.”