out again until he had found what he was looking for.
When he came back downstairs a short time later with a pair of full saddlebags draped over his shoulder, he found Dr. Patrick Connelly waiting in the lobby. Frank frowned in surprise as Connelly lifted a hand in greeting and said, “Could I have a moment of your time, Mr. Morgan?”
“Sure. I was on my way to the livery stable, if you’d like to walk along with me.”
“That will be fine.”
As they headed toward Patterson’s, Frank asked, “What can I do for you, Doctor?”
“A short time ago, you asked me to confirm something for you, Mr. Morgan. Now, I’d like for you to confirm something for me. You strike me as an observant, intelligent man, and even though you’ve only been in this area for a short time, you’ve seen several of the victims attributed to this so-called Terror.”
Frank laughed. “Funny how people keep putting
“That’s because at this point, no one is certain what it really is. We can’t be, until it’s killed…or captured.”
“Seems like a man would have a mighty tough chore on his hands if he set out to capture a thing like that.”
“Indeed. But my point, Mr. Morgan, is that these bodies today struck me as being slightly different from the previous victims. I was wondering if you noticed the same thing.”
Frank stopped and looked around. No one was close enough to overhear him as he lowered his voice and said, “You don’t think the Terror killed those men Wilcox brought in from the logging camp.”
Connelly shook his head slowly. “Not unless it’s learned how to wield an ax. Those poor devils were chopped apart, not torn apart. I suspect that they were shot first as well, so the mutilation was postmortem, but I’d have to dig into their bodies and find the bullets to prove that. Whoever took an ax to them was careful to obliterate the gunshot wounds.”
“Have you told anybody else about this, like the marshal?”
Connelly grimaced. “Gene Price is an honest man, a good man despite his gruff nature. And he does a good job of keeping the peace here in town. But dealing with violence on this scale, with cold-blooded mass murder…that’s a little beyond him, I’m afraid. There’s enough panic in the region already because of the Terror. If people knew that a gang of vicious murderers was roaming the countryside as well…” The doctor shook his head. “It wouldn’t take much to set off riots among the loggers, and that could easily spread to the town.”
“That’s what I thought,” Frank said with a nod. “That’s why I’ve kept quiet about it.”
“Who do you think could be responsible for such an atrocity?”
“Only one man I can think of. Chamberlain’s competition. Emmett Bosworth.”
“Bosworth,” Connelly said softly. “He’s in town, you know.”
“He is?”
The physician nodded. “He’s staying at the Eureka House. Has the big suite, right up in front on the second floor. He’s been here, off and on, for months. He has a small timber lease up the coast, so it’s not unreasonable for him to be here to check on his holdings. Everyone knows he’s got his eye on Chamberlain’s trees, though.”
“I’d like to talk to him,” Frank said, “but I don’t have time right now.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Chamberlain’s deadline. I heard about that. Do you believe you can find the Terror in that amount of time?”
“I’m going to try, that’s for sure.” Frank turned toward the livery stable again. He was glad he’d had this chance to talk to Connelly, but now he needed to get started on the hunt again.
“Mr. Morgan…that bone you showed me? Does
“It might,” Frank admitted. “I don’t know yet.”
“I have a safe in my office. I’ll lock it up, so that it’ll be secure.”
Frank nodded. “I’d appreciate that.” He shook hands with Connelly. “So long, Doctor.”
“Good luck, Mr. Morgan…or should I say, good hunting?”
Frank headed for the livery stable, leaving Connelly there in the street. He glanced toward the Eureka House and thought about Emmett Bosworth. He was leaving a lot of things hanging fire here, but he had no choice. If he didn’t find the Terror in the next twenty-four hours, Rutherford Chamberlain would put that twenty-thousand-dollar bounty on its head, and the whole countryside would explode in violence, Frank reckoned. The only way to stop that was to bring in the creature himself.
One showdown at a time, he thought as a grim smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
“Son of a bitch,” Emmett Bosworth said as he let the curtain fall closed over the window. He’d had it pushed back only a few inches, leaving a small gap through which he could watch as Frank Morgan carried on an earnest conversation with Dr. Patrick Connelly. Bosworth knew Connelly from the time he had spent here in Eureka, and he had heard a great deal about Frank Morgan. Supposedly, Rutherford Chamberlain had hired the notorious gunfighter to find the Terror, and according to the conversations Bosworth had overheard in the hotel dining room a few minutes earlier, Chamberlain had now given Morgan a twenty-four-hour deadline to kill the creature.
That wouldn’t do at all. For his plans to succeed, he needed the Terror, whatever it was, to continue its occasional depredations. That way, the Terror would be blamed for the things Bosworth’s men were actually doing.
The Eureka House had a bell system, so that all Bosworth had to do to summon a porter was to push a button. He did so now, and a few minutes later, a soft knock came on the door. Bosworth opened it to see an elderly black man in a red jacket waiting in the hallway.
