The Last Gunfighter

men who’d been killed. It’s hard to believe that whatever did it could even be human.”

“He is, I tell you, and…and no matter how much I don’t want to admit it, I know he probably did kill those men. But it’s not his fault. He’s not right…in his thinking.”

“You mean he’s a lunatic?”

She grimaced again. “That’s such an ugly word. It makes you think of people locked away in some horrible, squalid place where all they do is rave all day…Ben’s not like that. He never was. He was always sweet and gentle and kind. He was almost like a little child.” Nancy shook her head. “Please don’t misunderstand, Mr. Morgan. Ben’s not one of those people who can’t learn. He doesn’t have the mind of a child in the body of a grown man or anything like that. He’s actually very bright. But he…he lives in a world of his own, I suppose you could say. It got worse after Mother passed away. Ben didn’t want to be around other people, even me, and we had always been close. He just wanted to be alone. That…that’s why he ran away.”

This sounded to Frank almost like a story from a fairy-tale book. But he couldn’t think of any reason why Nancy Chamberlain would lie to him about it. She was telling the truth, he sensed, or at least she thought she was.

“So your brother left home and went off to live in the woods,” he said.

“Yes. Like Thoreau. Although I don’t suppose you know who that is.”

Frank didn’t take offense. He didn’t think she was actually trying to insult him. It was just a little casual condescension.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I don’t reckon anything like what’s been going on in these woods ever happened around Walden Pond.”

“Oh! I’m sorry—”

Frank stopped her with a motion of his hand. He had indulged his curiosity this far, he thought. He might as well go the rest of the way.

“Tell me more about your brother,” he urged.

“Well, like I said, Ben lives in a world of his own. But it was always a peaceful place. He never hurt anyone, never got in any sort of trouble. I never even heard him raise his voice in anger, except…”

“Except what?” Frank said.

“When he and Father argued.” Nancy sighed. “They were just too different to ever get along very well. Father thought that someday Ben would take over the business.”

Frank nodded. “A lot of fathers expect that out of their sons.”

It was a good thing he hadn’t expected his son to follow in his footsteps, he thought. He hadn’t even been aware that he had a son with Vivian until Conrad Browning was a grown man. Conrad had inherited the other half of the Browning business empire, and he had done a good job of running it. But he was an Easterner, the farthest thing from a drifting gunfighter like his pa.

Although, Frank reminded himself, Conrad and his wife, Rebel, now lived in Virginia City, Nevada, and on the few occasions when Conrad had found himself drawn into dangerous situations with Frank, he had given a pretty good account of himself. He could handle a gun when he had to, and throw a decent punch.

“Ben had no interest whatever in the timber business, or any other business,” Nancy went on. “He never did. Father tried to force him to work in the company office in Eureka. It didn’t go well. They argued again and again. Ben just wasn’t the sort of son that Father could be proud of.”

Frank was no expert on such things, but he knew it was a mistake to try to force a youngster’s feet onto a path he didn’t want to follow. He was proud of Conrad, no matter how different the two of them were. It had taken Conrad a while to do some growing up and see that, but Frank was glad they had finally come to an understanding.

“Finally, after Mother passed on, Ben said that he wasn’t going in to the office anymore. Father insisted that he was. They wound up shouting at each other, and…and Father told him to get out. He said he wouldn’t have a son who was so shiftless and lacking in ambition. He…he said that Ben was no longer his son.”

Frank shook his head. “That had to hurt.”

“Yes, of course it did. I tried to tell Ben that Father didn’t mean it, but we both knew that he did. I told Ben he didn’t have to leave, but he insisted. He said he didn’t want to have anything to do with the world of men anymore. He was going to go off into the woods and live by himself, surrounded by nature.”

“Like Thoreau,” Frank said.

Nancy smiled. “Yes. Like Thoreau.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Two years.”

“But the Terror’s only been causing trouble for a few months,” Frank pointed out. “How do you know what’s been happening has anything to do with your brother?” He didn’t want to mention another possibility that had occurred to him, but he felt like he had to. “Ben might not even be alive anymore.”

“He’s alive!” she said. Then she looked down at the expensive rug on the floor of the sitting room. “At least, he was just before all this started.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I…I saw him in the woods.”

Frank had to frown again. “You go out in those woods by yourself?”

“You have to understand, Mr. Morgan. Ben and I grew up around these giant redwoods. They’re not frightening to us. The forest has always been our home. You’re not scared of the place you grew up, are you?”

Frank thought back to the rolling, wooded hills of the Cross Timbers in north central Texas. With a faint smile,