“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.
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.