"I'm not a bastard. My ma and pa were married. You've been wrong about nearly everything so far, cowboy."
"You gotta get me to a doctor."
"I don't have to do a damn thing except climb on my horse and be on my way."
"I can tell you where to find Ned an' Vic, only you gotta help me."
"I already know where they are."
"How the hell'd you find out?"
"An Indian told me."
The gunman raised his head to stare at Frank. "You seen 'em too?"
Frank merely nodded.
The shooter's head fell back on the grass. "Help me, Morgan. I'll be dead before dark if you don't."
"Seems a shame. I'm touched by your predicament. I was on my way to Ghost Valley when some son of a bitch tried to shoot me from ambush. But I got behind you and shot you instead, and now you want me to have sympathy for you?"
"Damn, Morgan. My belly hurts. I'm dyin'."
"Appears that way. I'm gonna find your horse and turn it loose while you leak blood all over this pretty green grass. I fully intend to leave you right here."
"It was just business, Morgan. Ned hired me to take you out. You're a hired gun, so you oughta know it damn sure ain't nothin' personal."
"I'm not taking it personally."
"You gotta help me get to a doctor."
"Like hell. All I've got to do is keep riding toward that valley."
"We shoulda killed that boy of yours when we had him, you cold-blooded sumbitch."
"I'm no kind of son of a bitch. If you weren't already dying, I'd kill you over a remark like that."
The gunman's breathing became ragged.
"Hear that sound, back-shooter?" Frank asked, grinning a mirthless grin. "That's a death rattle in your chest. It won't be long now."
"Help ... me."
"Not today, cowboy. I've got business with your bosses and it won't wait."
"Nobody ... can be ... that cold."
"You just met him," Frank said savagely before he wheeled away to look for the shooter's horse.
He found a dun gelding in a ravine and pulled the saddle off it, tossing the saddle to the ground. Frank slipped off the bridle and gave the horse its freedom.
As he was turning to climb back up the ridge, he thought he saw a shadow move in the forest higher above him. A reflex, he raised his rifle and moved behind a pine tree.
"I know I saw somebody," he whispered.
But no matter how closely he looked, he saw nothing now and it gave him a spooky feeling. Who the hell would be watching him unless he came here to shoot at him? he wondered.
He pondered the possibility that the Indian who spoke to him at the Glenwood Springs cemetery was watching him again. But he couldn't quite make himself believe in old Indian ghosts. It had to be a Ute or a Shoshoni, a flesh-and-blood Indian.
After a final examination of the woods he strode back to the spot where the gunman lay. The bushwhacker's eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow.
"Adios, you yellow bastard," Frank said, trudging back toward his horse and the dog.
He found his bay ground-hitched where he'd left him, and Dog sat patiently a few yards away in the tree shadows.
"Out front, Dog," Frank said, climbing into the saddle with his Winchester. He wondered if any more attempts would be made on his life before he found the valley.
* * * *
He rode up on a clear, running brook coming out of the mountains. Gazing north, he could see faint traces of a trail following the east bank of the stream.
Frank whistled Dog back from the far side of the shallow creek and began the steeper climb. Dog seemed unconcerned by anything flanking the trail, moving farther ahead with his ears drooping.
The bay began to struggle climbing rocky spots, bunching its muscles to make the ascent. Foamy lather began to form on its neck and shoulders and its breathing grew labored at the higher altitude.
Frank saw small brook trout in the stream, suspended in deeper pools above glittering beds of colorful stones. Had it not been for his deadly purpose here, he would have stopped to enjoy the clean, pine-scented air and spend time relaxing, maybe even go fishing for a spell.
But this was a business trip, with scores to settle, and the only thing on his mind was finding Vanbergen and Pine and the rest of the gang. If Frank Morgan had his way, a peaceful valley hidden between these peaks would run red with blood before the week was out.
Gray clouds began to scud across the sky, coming from the north, and soon the forest shadows were dim when the sun was blocked out. Frank supposed it wasn't too late in the year for a spring snowstorm. At higher elevations, it could snow almost any time.
He had plenty of warm clothing and a mackinaw, just in case, and a pair of worn leather gloves. While snow wasn't the weather he would have ordered for a manhunt, it might give him cover when he found the gang.
A chill wind came with the clouds, and he shivered once. It had been snowing when he'd finally caught up with Ned and Vic and Conrad before.
"Maybe it's a good omen," he mumbled, turning up his shirt collar.
Before long he could feel a hint of ice on the winds as the stream coursed higher. Tied around his bedding behind the cantle of his saddle was a small canvas tarp to keep things dry, and it also served as a makeshift leanto when snow or rain forced him to a halt.
"It don't matter what the weather's like," he said savagely, keeping his eyes on the trail. "A goddamn hurricane won't keep me from finding that valley.
Mile after empty mile passed quietly under the bay's hooves without Dog giving any indication of danger. Frank slumped in the saddle, deciding upon a stop for jerky and a tin of peaches in another hour or so.
Farther ahead, high on a switchback, he glimpsed a black bear watching him.
"Proof enough the way is clear for a spell," he told himself in a hoarse whisper.
* * * *
He came to a small clearing an hour later, and halted his horse to swing down. With water from the stream, he could eat salted pork and sweet peaches here, with a good vantage point for watching his surroundings.
He opened a package of butcher paper and sat on a nearby rock to chew jerky, saving the peaches for a final touch. He dipped a tin cup full of water from the stream while his horse grazed on the clearing's grasses.
Dog sat on his haunches in front of him with a begging look in his eyes.
"You'll get some," Frank promised. "Humans eat first around here."
He tossed Dog a scrap of jerky, and had begun opening the peach tin with his bowie knife, when suddenly Dog jumped up, snarling, looking east.
"Take it easy, stranger," a thin voice said from behind him. "I've got my Sharps aimed at yer back."
Frank glanced over his shoulder, his blood running cold. "How the hell did you slip up on me, old-timer?" He saw an old man dressed in buckskins covering him with a long-barrel buffalo gun.
" 'Twas easy. You been pretty careful most o' the way, but yer belly got the best of you."
Frank wondered if he had time to make a play for his pistol before a bullet took him down. "Are you aiming to kill me?"
"Nope. Jest curious. You shot a man back yonder a ways an' I was wonderin' about it."
"He was trying to bushwhack me."
"I seen that. Still didn't know what it was all about."
"He was one of the men who kidnapped my son. I got my boy back, and now I aim to make the men who took him pay."