The Last Gunfighter

“Very well.” Connelly still held the bone in his hand. As he turned toward Frank, he lifted it and asked, “Do you mind if I hang on to this for the time being, Mr. Morgan? I might be able to determine a little more about it if I have time to study it.”

Frank nodded. “That’s fine, Doctor. Just keep it somewhere safe.”

Connelly laid the bone on a small table where he had placed the copy of Gray’s Anatomy. He reached for his coat and hat, which hung on hooks next to the door, and as he put them on, he said to his wife, “I’ll be back as soon as I can, Molly. I doubt if there’s any reason to keep my dinner warm, though. I expect I’ll be downtown for a while.”

She sighed and gave him a resigned nod.

Frank followed Connelly out of the house. Bert, the townie who had brought the news, was too excited to move at a normal pace. He broke into a run, obviously anxious to return to the main street.

“Man’s morbid curiosity,” Connelly said as he and Frank strode along side by side. “I see it all the time. There’s nothing more intriguing than death, probably because of its universality and inevitability.”

“Yeah, I expect there’ll be quite a crowd gathered around that wagon.”

Frank’s prediction proved to be accurate. So many people were in the street that it was difficult to see the wagon itself. He spotted the man sitting on the seat holding the reins, though, and recognized Karl Wilcox, the logger he had met the day before. Wilcox looked pale and shaken, which wasn’t surprising considering his cargo.

Marshal Gene Price was on hand, too. When he saw Frank and Dr. Connelly approaching, he raised his voice and ordered, “All right, everybody get back! Get back, there! Let the doctor through!”

On the wagon seat, Wilcox rubbed a shaky hand over his face and said, “It’s too late for a sawbones, Marshal. Way too late.”

Frank knew that was true, and Price must have as well. Still, the marshal took hold of Connelly’s arm and steered the physician to the wagon. “Take a look, Doc, and see what you think.”

Connelly had to know what to expect, but he blanched anyway as he studied the grisly remains in the back of the wagon. “I think this gentleman is right,” he said with a nod toward Wilcox. “The time when my services might have come in handy has long since passed.”

“You’ve seen some of the other bodies that have been brought into town from the woods,” Price said. “Are these killings the work of the same creature?”

Frank was particularly interested in hearing Connelly’s answer. He had determined to his own satisfaction that men were responsible for this outrage, not some monster. However, his discovery of the other body indicated that the Terror had been in the vicinity of the logging camp when the massacre took place.

Connelly said, “I couldn’t tell you that, Marshal, without a closer examination of the bodies. What I can say is that you should get them off the street. There’s no need for this grotesque display. Take them down to the undertaking parlor, and I’ll have a better look at them there.”

Price nodded and made a curt gesture to Wilcox. “You heard the doc,” he said. The lawman stepped away from the wagon and waved his arms. “Let’s have some room here, damn it!”

Reluctantly, the crowd moved back far enough so that Wilcox could flap the reins and get the team of mules moving again. Connelly followed the vehicle toward the undertaking parlor.

Price hung back and frowned at Frank. “I saw you come up with the doctor, Morgan,” he said. “You sick or something?”

“No, but I was discussing some medical matters with him.”

Price looked like he was waiting for Frank to go on, but Frank didn’t elaborate. After a moment, the marshal said, “If you’re going to hunt down that creature, Morgan, I hope you do it soon. Even though these killings aren’t happening in my jurisdiction, I don’t like seeing all these bodies brought into my town.”

“I’ll be riding out again, right after I get something to eat,” Frank said.

Price grunted and inclined his head toward the wagon, which was still rolling down the street toward the undertaker’s. “You’ve got an appetite after seeing that?”

Frank smiled thinly. “A man’s got to keep his strength up if he’s going to be hunting monsters.”

After leaving a grim-looking Marshal Price in the street, Frank headed for Peter Lee’s hash house. The proprietor, his pretty wife, and their two children were busy at this time of day, but Frank found an empty stool at the counter and ordered the lunch special—steak, potatoes, greens, and apple pie. When Lee put the plate in front of Frank, he nodded toward the window and said, “Lots of excitement out there in the street a little while ago. I figured it would be better if I kept my wife and the little ones in here while it was going on.”

“You were right about that,” Frank told him.

Lee lowered his voice. “They say more men were killed by the Terror.”

“That’s what it looked like, all right.”

Frank didn’t add that that was what it was supposed to look like. He knew better, though. He suspected that by this time, so did Dr. Patrick Connelly. He couldn’t imagine the doctor overlooking the slight discrepancies between the wounds these latest victims had suffered and the earlier ones actually inflicted by the Terror.

The question was, would Connelly say anything about it to Marshal Price?

“A little while ago, I saw those men who came in here and caused all that trouble last night,” Lee went on. “They went by the window. I think they were headed into the Bull o’ the Woods.”

“Any of them appear to be hurt?” Frank asked as a theory came to his mind.

“One of them had a bloody rag tied around his arm, and another was walking really funny, like there was