The Loner: Trail Of Blood Read Free Page B

the engine and tell him it’s all right to slow down.”
    “We passed the water stop at Yucca Flats,” Conrad pointed out. “Can we make it to Monahans without taking on more water?” He didn’t particularly want the train to have to back up to the water tank, not with several owlhoots still roaming around the area.
    “I’ll check with the engineer, but I’m pretty sure we can,” the conductor said. “Especially if he slows down.” The man looked at Conrad and shook his head in awe. “I never saw anybody take on a whole gang of killers and nearly wipe them out. How’d you learn to shoot like that, Mr. Browning?”
    “It’s a knack.”
    In truth, it was an ability inherited from his father, a natural talent he had never known he possessed until great tragedy had forced him to pick up a gun and become an avenger. Since then he had worked diligently to improve his gun-handling skill.
    Normally he didn’t go out of his way to demonstrate it and wouldn’t have displayed it if circumstances hadn’t forced him to. Not many people knew that Conrad Browning, businessman, financier, stockholder in mines, railroad lines, shipping concerns, banks, and numerous other enterprises, was the son of Frank Morgan, the Drifter, last of the fast guns.
    Or perhaps next to last. When pushed to it, Conrad could almost match his father’s blazing speed with a Colt.
    The conductor said, “Maybe you’d better go talk to that butler fella who works for you and lethim know you’re all right. He was so worried he was about to have a fit when we came through your private car a minute ago.”
    Conrad pouched both irons in the cross-draw rig and smiled a little. Arturo was the high-strung sort, all right.
    The conductor and the brakemen continued on toward the engine while Conrad left the passenger car and headed for the caboose. He had to climb onto the top of the baggage car and the express car to reach the rear of the string. That was the way the trainmen had come, but they were experienced at navigating the top of a swaying car. It was trickier for Conrad, but his sense of balance and superb reflexes enabled him to manage it without any trouble.
    He climbed down to the platform of the private car and went inside. As he stepped into the sitting room, he found Arturo pacing back and forth restlessly. The valet stopped short, stared at him for a second, and exclaimed, “You’re alive!”
    “And relatively unharmed,” Conrad said, holding up his gravel-scratched hands.
    For a moment he thought Arturo was going to hug him, but of course that would have been much too great a breach of decorum. Instead, Arturo looked down at Conrad’s knees and frowned. “You’ve ruined those trousers, in addition to getting blood all over the rug.”
    “You knew you were going to work for a barbarous American when you took this job,” Conrad pointed out.
    “Yes, I did, but I didn’t know you were going towreak this much havoc before we even reached our destination.”
    Conrad’s smile disapeared and was replaced by a tight, grim mask. “Believe me, Arturo … I’ve just started wreaking havoc.”
    Arturo hesitated, then as the train began to slow, he said, “Why don’t you allow me to tend to those cuts on your hands, sir, and then you can don clean raiment. I’m sure the, ah, train workers will come and dispose of the, ah …”
    “Corpses.”
    “Yes, the corpses you left in your wake.”
    Conrad relaxed and let the valet clean the minor damage to his hands. None of the scrapes were bad enough to require a bandage.
    Arturo was an Italian by birth, although he spoke perfect English, without a trace of an accent. He had been educated not only in his homeland but also in England. Coming from a long line of servants, at one time he had worked for a deadly enemy of the notorious gunfighter known as Kid Morgan … who was, in reality, Conrad Browning.
    A few years earlier, Conrad had been rich, successful, and happily married to a beautiful