LITMIR.BIZ

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landed a hard right on Cobb’s sternum. The blow rocked Cobb back a step and set him up for the left hook that Frank exploded on his jaw. Cobb went to one knee, a look of stunned surprise on his ugly face. Clearly, he hadn’t expected Frank to land the first three punches.

      With another angry roar, Cobb came up from the ground and launched himself into a diving tackle with his arms spread wide. Frank couldn’t avoid the lunge. Cobb wrapped an arm around his thighs and drove him backward off his feet.

      When Frank hit the ground, the impact knocked the air out of his lungs. He gasped for breath and rolled to the side to avoid Cobb’s knee as Cobb tried to plant it in his groin. Frank brought his elbow back and clipped his opponent on the jaw with it.

      Some of the other men yelled encouragement to Cobb, but most of them just sat silently on their horses, watching the fight. They made no move to interfere, though, and that was all Frank cared about where they were concerned. He twisted around, got his left hand on Cobb’s throat, and bounced the man’s head off the ground.

      Cobb brought his left up and for the first time landed a punch cleanly. The knobby fist crashed into the side of Frank’s head and sent him sprawling. That brought more shouts from Cobb’s friends. Cobb dove after Frank, who rolled onto his back and managed to get his right leg up in time to drive the heel of his boot into Cobb’s belly. Cobb’s weight and momentum made the boot heel sink deeply into his midsection. He went “Oooff!” and doubled over.

      Frank reached up, grabbed Cobb’s vest, and hauled hard on it at the same time as he levered the man into the air on his leg. Cobb sailed through the air over Frank’s head and crashed onto the ground. It was his turn to gasp for breath now. Frank had recovered his. He flipped over, landed on Cobb, and slugged him on the jaw again. Pinning his opponent to the ground with a knee in his belly, Frank hit Cobb twice more, a left and then a piledriver right. Cobb’s head lolled loosely on his neck as he lay there on his back with his arms and legs spraddled out.

      “If you’re thinking about hitting him again, Morgan, I wouldn’t. He’s out.”

      Frank looked up at the man who had tried to warn Cobb. Chest heaving a little from his exertions, he said, “You…recognized me.”

      “That’s right. Cobb’s damned lucky he just tried to thrash you. If he’d thrown down on you, you probably would’ve killed him. Better a beating than a bullet in the heart.”

      One of the other guards said, “Rockwell, who the hell is this jasper? You act like you know him.”

      The man called Rockwell shook his head. “No, we never met, but he was pointed out to me one night in a saloon in Fort Worth. His name’s Frank Morgan.”

      “Morgan!” Several men muttered in surprise. The one who had exclaimed said, “You mean the gunfighter?”

      “One and the same,” Rockwell said.

      Another man let out a whistle. “You’re right. Cobb’s lucky to be alive.”

      Frank went over to Stormy and got his hat from the saddle. He put it on and then buckled the gun belt around his hips. He paused to rub Dog’s ears. The big cur had stayed right where Frank had told him to stay, even during the fight. He had probably growled a few times, though, frustrated that he couldn’t tear into Cobb.

      A couple of the guards had dismounted. They reached down, took hold of Cobb’s arms, and lifted him to his feet. He sagged in their grip, and would have fallen if they hadn’t been supporting him, but he was starting to come around now. He gave a groggy shake of his head and moaned.

      “Come on,” Rockwell said to Frank. “I’ll take you up to the house. I think you knocked all the fight out of Cobb, but it’ll be simpler if you’re already inside when he wakes up good.”

      Frank nodded. He picked up the horses’ reins and motioned for Dog to follow him.

      Rockwell led the way along a path made of crushed rock that ran through a green lawn in front of the house. It widened out into an area where buggies could be parked. From there, the path ran on around the mansion toward a carriage house and several other outbuildings.

      The house itself was one of the oddest, yet most impressive structures Frank had ever seen. It was a three-story Victorian topped by a square tower with a steep roof and a long metal spire that served as a lightning rod. There were more gables than Frank could count, each one topped by a lightning rod as well, and although he was no architect, they seemed to be placed rather haphazardly around the roof. A room jutted out from the front of the house, cutting off a porch that appeared to wrap the rest of the way around the house. The porch railings were wrought iron and decorated with elaborate curlicues and designs. Latticework framed the windows, and carvings were everywhere in the wood. Frank saw birds and animals, moons and stars, even human faces. The whole place had a reddish gleam in the sun, and he recalled that Karl Wilcox had said the mansion was made out of the redwood that had brought Rutherford Chamberlain his fortune.

      Frank thought that if he had to live in a place like this, he would go plumb loco in a week.

      Rockwell must have had an idea what he was thinking, because the man grinned over at him and said, “It’s really something, isn’t it?”

      “It’s something, all right,” Frank said. “I’m just not sure what.”

      “The old man designed it himself. He says the woods made him a rich man, so it’s only fitting that he lives here among the trees.”

      “I hear that he does all his business from here and doesn’t go into town very often.”

      “Hardly ever,” Rockwell said with a nod. “He used to get out more, but Mrs. Chamberlain passed away a few years ago, and now Mr. Chamberlain just stays in the house unless there’s some sort of emergency.”

      “I guess he figures no one will bother him here,” Frank mused. “It must have really shaken him up when this whole business with the Terror started.”

      “Ah, the Terror,” Rockwell said. “I sort of figured you were here about that. Going after the money, are you?”

      “I want to talk to Mr. Chamberlain about the bounty,” Frank said, not answering the question directly. Let Rockwell draw whatever conclusions he wanted to. As they came up to the porch, Frank went on. “What do you think about the Terror? Ever seen it?”

      “No, and I don’t want to.” Rockwell stopped and looked over at Frank. “Call me hardheaded, but I’m not sure the damned thing really exists. The evil that men do is bad enough without there being monsters in the world.”

      Frank started to say that he felt the same way, but he surprised himself by not doing it. After the things he had seen this afternoon, he wasn’t certain what he believed anymore. The only things he knew for sure were that something was killing men in the forest and that it needed to be stopped. But he didn’t think that posting a bounty was the best way to go about it. That might just get some innocent men killed.

      Frank tied Stormy and Goldy to a fancy hitching post in front of the house and told Dog to stay. Then the two men walked up onto the porch. The front door was a massive slab of varnished redwood with a bronze lion’s-head knocker so big that for a second Frank thought Chamberlain must have gotten it from a real lion. Rockwell grasped the knocker and rapped it sharply against the door.

      “They probably heard the commotion inside,” he said, “so they’ll know that something was going on—”

      As if to support his words, the door opened almost right away. A tall, cadaverous man with white hair and a white mustache stood there. He wore a black suit. Frank had seen enough butlers in his life to recognize the breed. He halfway expected the gent to talk with a British accent, but the butler sounded American as he asked, “What is it, Rockwell? Who is this man?”

      “He’s here to see Mr. Chamberlain,” Rockwell said. “His name is Frank Morgan.”

      If the name meant anything to the butler, for once Frank couldn’t see it in the man’s eyes.

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