"There's times when it pays to worry a little."
"Maybe," Frank replied.
Skies darkened to the west. The snow had stopped falling and the wind had died down.
"I'll show you that old Injun trail down the back side of the valley," Buck continued. "It was used by them Anasazi. If I stay perched up in them rocks with my Sharps, I can get a few of 'em."
"I'm obliged for the offer, but there's no need to put your neck in a noose over me. I can handle whatever's down there on my own."
"You're a hard-headed cuss."
Coffee was boiling out of the spout, and Frank put on a glove to take the pot off the flames, placing it on a rock beside the crackling fire.
"I've been told that before," he said, grinning. "It comes from my daddy's side of the family."
Buck drew an Arkansas toothpick from a sheath inside his right boot. "I'll slice up some of that fatback and put chunks of jerky with it. Oughta make a decent meal."
"Sounds mighty good to me." Frank added a handful of snow to the coffeepot to get the grounds to settle to the bottom. "We can get moving soon as it's dark enough to hide us. That's a toothpick you're carrying. I've got one of my own, only it's a bowie. Best knife on earth for killing a man, either variety."
"Mine's skinned many a grizzly and elk. I know the way to the valley real well," Buck said, pulling a chunk of salted pork from a waxed-paper bundle, then cutting thin slices off with his knife. "Trapped it a few times."
"Is there any cover on the floor of that valley?" Frank asked.
"Scrub pines. Not many. If Ned decides to hole up in the town and wait you out, it'll take an army to flush him out of there."
"I've got plenty of ammunition," Frank declared, "some with forty grains of powder in 'em. After I start filling that cabin with lead, they'll come out after a spell."
"Sounds like you've done this sort of thing before, Morgan."
"A few times."
Buck frowned. "Do it ever bother you, thinkin' about the lives you've took? I still have nightmares about the Yankees I shot durin' the war."
Frank shook his head. "Like I told you before, I never killed a man who didn't deserve it."
Buck laid strips of fatback in Frank's small frying pan and added a few pieces of jerky. He set it on a flat stone close to the flames, nestling it into the glowing coals. "That oughta do it," he said, wiping his knife clean on one leg of his stained deerskin pants.
"Coffee's ready," Frank said, glancing up at a gray sky darkening with nightfall.
He poured himself a cup, then another for the old man, tossing him a cotton sack of brown sugar.
"Mighty nice," Buck said with a smile. "It don't get much better'n this."
"You're right," Frank agreed. "Open country, a warm fire, and good vittles."
"Don't forget about the coffee."
Frank slurped a steaming mouthful from his cup. "I hadn't forgotten about it."
The salt pork began to sizzle in the skillet, giving off a wonderful smell. But Frank's thoughts were on Conrad, what he had been through. Ned Pine had tortured him, making him as miserable as possible, asking questions about Frank the boy couldn't answer. Frank and Conrad barely knew each other, and the circumstances under which Conrad was born without Frank being there made the boy resentful toward his father, an understandable feeling since Conrad didn't know the whole story behind his birth and his father's love for his mother.
A back way into Ghost Valley would give Frank a tremendous advantage, and with a shooter up on the rim, things could get hot for Pine and his bunch. Frank owed the old man for his willingness to lend a hand.
The first order of business would be to take out any riflemen guarding the trail. If he made his approach very carefully, he could take them without making much noise. Then he'd make his way down to the abandoned town and start the serious business of killing off Pine's and Vanbergen's men one or two at a time.
Buck turned over the fatback strips with the point of his knife.
"Won't be long now," the old man said.
"My belly's rubbing against my backbone," Frank replied, taking another sip of coffee.
* * * *
Zeke Giles and Tom Ledbetter were still drunk from a night-long consumption of whiskey.
Ledbetter was from Missouri, wanted for a string of robberies in his home state. Giles was a small-time cow thief who had killed seven men after the war without anyone knowing his identity.
Zeke looked up at darkening skies. "I thought this storm was gonna blow over. Looks like more of this goddamn snow is headed our way."
"Just our luck," Tom muttered. "We'll freeze our asses off up here if that wind builds again."
Zeke glimpsed a shadow moving among the boulders behind them. "Who the hell is that?"
Tom turned in the direction Zeke was pointing. "I don't see nothin'. You're imagining things."
"I was sure I saw somebody headed toward us."
"Who the hell would it be?"
" This bad light plays tricks on a man's eyes. I wish it wasn't so damn dark tonight."
"You're seein' things. Relax."
"Pass me that whiskey," Zeke said. "Could be I'm just too cold."
Tom handed Zeke the bottle. Half of its contents were missing.
Zeke had raised the bottle to his lips when suddenly a dark shape appeared on top of the boulder behind Tom.
An object came twirling through the air toward Zeke, and then something struck his chest. "Son of a..." he cried, driven back in the snow by a bowie knife buried in his gut just below his breastbone.
"What the hell?" Tom cried, scrambling to his feet as Zeke slumped to the ground.
A heavy rifle barrel slammed into the back of Tom's head and he sank to his knees, losing consciousness before he fell over on his face.
Zeke cried, "What happened?"
The shape of a man stood over him.
" Who ... the hell ... are you?"
"Frank Morgan," a quiet voice replied.
"Oh, no. We was supposed ... to be watchin' for you."
"You weren't watching close enough, and now you'll pay for it with your life."
"Please don't ... kill me. I've got a wife back home."
"You're already dead, cowboy. The tip of my knife is buried in your heart."
Waves of pain filled Zeke's chest. "No!" he whimpered, feeling warm blood flow down the front of his shirt.
"I'm gonna cut your pardner's throat," the voice said. "He has to die for what you did to my son."
"It was ... Ned's idea," Zeke croaked.
"You went along with it," the tall man said, bending down to jerk his knife from Zeke's chest.
As Zeke's eyes were closing he saw Frank Morgan walk over to Tom. With a single slashing motion, Morgan whipped the knife across Tom's throat.
Zeke's eyes batted shut. He didn't feel the cold now.
--------
*Fifteen*
Tiny snowflakes fell in sheets across the abandoned town. The bottom of the valley floor was covered with several inches of white.
An eerie silence gripped Ghost Valley as Frank made his way down slippery rocks and sheer cliffs, following the old Anasazi trail Buck Waite had shown him.
Smoke curled from a rock chimney as Frank watched a shack in the middle of town, after he had made slow but careful progress across the valley. Behind the cabin, more than a dozen horses stood with their tails to the wind in crude pole corrals. A pile of hay was stacked in one corner.