The Loner: Inferno #12 Read Free

everywhere, they were rare. Rare enough that The Kid had never seen one.
    But that was what he was looking at, no doubt about it. Using the telescope, he made a quick count. Thirty wagons in the train stretched out, single file, for a couple of hundred yards.
    A dozen or so outriders moved along with the wagons, flanking them on horseback. Two more riders were in the lead, several yards ahead of the first wagon in line.
    Smiling faintly, The Kid lowered the telescope and shook his head. The heyday of the wagon trains might not be far enough in the past to consider what he was looking at as a bit of living history, but it was close.
    His curiosity about what he was seeing wasn’t satisfied. He closed the telescope, tucked it back into his saddlebags, and heeled the dun into motion again, setting a faster pace.
    The ground-eating trot quickly closed the gap between him and the wagons. As he approached, a couple of the outriders noticed him and peeled away from the vehicles to intercept him.
    The men looked tough and competent, and each was armed with a pistol and a rifle. One of them raised his hand in a signal for The Kid to halt.
    He wasn’t looking for trouble, so he hauled back on the dun’s reins and brought the horse to a stop. The two men walked their mounts closer.
    “Something we can do for you, mister?” the one who had lifted his hand asked.
    “Just thought I’d pay a visit to the wagon train.” The Kid nodded toward the cumbersome vehicles that continued rolling slowly westward, being pulled by teams of oxen. “I’ve never seen one like this before.”
    “It ain’t a sideshow,” the other man snapped. “Just a bunch of honest, hard-workin’ folks who’re tryin’ to make better lives for themselves.”
    “I don’t doubt it for a second. I told you, I’m not looking for trouble.”
    “Go on about your business, then.”
    The Kid’s jaw tightened. Being talked to like that rubbed him the wrong way. However, he didn’t want to get in a shooting scrape with these men, so he supposed the best thing to do would be to ride on around the wagons and ignore them.
    He was about to do that when he saw one of the men who’d been leading the wagon train galloping toward them. The two outriders looked around, then one of them said, “Stay right there, mister. I reckon the boss wants to talk to you.”
    The Kid thought about being contrary and saying he didn’t want to talk to the “boss”, but there didn’t seem any real point in that. He sat easy in the saddle and waited.
    The man who rode up was an imposing, barrel-chested presence with a craggy, ruggedly powerful face. He reined in, then thumbed a gray hat to the back of his head and demanded, “Who’s this?”
    “He hasn’t told us his name, Mr. Dunlap,” one of the outriders replied.
    “Well, have you asked him?”
    “Uh ... no, not really.”
    The big man brought his horse closer to The Kid. “I’m Horace Dunlap, the wagonmaster of this train. Who might you be, mister?”
    Dunlap had the look of a veteran frontiersman, so he had probably heard of Kid Morgan. That identity hadn’t existed only a few years earlier, but The Kid had developed quite a reputation in a short time.
    Facing down Hammersmith and the rancher’s gun-crew had been different. The Kid didn’t see any need to play on that reputation at the moment, so he gave Dunlap a friendly nod and said, “Name’s Morgan.”
    “Do you aim to cause us any trouble, Mr. Morgan?”
    “Not a bit,” The Kid replied honestly.
    “In that case, why don’t you come with me? We’ll ride up at the point, so we can talk.” Dunlap looked at the outriders. “You fellas get back to your posts.”
    The two men didn’t look particularly happy about it, but they turned their horses and rode back to the wagons.
    “They’re good hombres,” Dunlap went on, “but they take their jobs mighty serious-like.”
    “That’s the best way to take a job,” The Kid said.
    “That’s the God’s