The Bounty Hunters, page 10
The driver handed Lorna Mason’s suitcase down to him and they went down the street toward a hotel. The stage had stopped in front of the livery stable
“Are you going to get a room?” Lorna asked.
“I may later,” Travis said. “It depends on how I feel after I’ve had something to eat.”
“I’m starved,” Lorna said. “Do you think we can get something to eat in the hotel?”
“If not there should be a restaurant still open. It’s not late.”
“The driver said we’d get here about nine,” Lorna said, as they turned into the hotel.
The sleepy clerk glanced up as they approached the desk. When he saw Lorna Mason he scrambled to his feet, suddenly wide awake. He gazed at her as if had never seen a woman before.
“A room for the lady,” Travis said, putting the suitcase down in front of the desk. “I may need one later.”
“You’re not together?” the clerk asked hopefully.
“We just came in on the stage together,” Travis said.
“Oh, I see,” the clerk said, looking at Lorna as she signed the register. He laid a key on the desk. “You can have number 5 upstairs, ma’am. It’s the nicest room we’ve got.”
When she had finished registering Lorna gave the clerk a cool look through long dark lashes and asked, “Is the dining room still open?”
The clerk shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am. It closed an hour ago.”
“I guess we’ll have to go to a restaurant,” Lorna said to Travis. “Will you bring my suitcase up?”
“I don’t mind doing that, ma’am,” the clerk said. He showed rather large teeth in a smile. “It’s my job.”
“I’ll get it,” Travis said, picking up the suitcase.
As they went up the stairs Lorna Mason lowered her voice and said, “Did you see how he looked at me? I run into that everywhere I go. I’m getting so I can’t stand hotel clerks. They all look at me like I didn’t have any clothes on.”
Lorna opened the door of her room and lit the lamp. Travis came in after her and set the suitcase down near the surprisingly large, comfortable looking bed. They both glanced about the room. There was the usual bureau in one corner with a pitcher of water on top, the usual straight-backed chair in front of it. But the thick soft carpet on the floor was rather unusual in a frontier town, where hotel carpets were usually worn thin and dirty.
“It’s nicer than I expected,” Lorna said. “And that bed looks so soft and comfortable. If I weren’t so hungry I couldn’t wait to get in it.”
Travis glanced at the bed. It did look mighty inviting on a cold windy night.
Lorna looked at him and noticed that he was still holding his saddlebags and blanket roll. “You can leave your stuff here till we get back from the restaurant,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Travis hesitated, then lowered the saddlebags and blanket roll to the carpeted floor.
When they came back down the stairs and passed the desk, the clerk noticed that Travis no longer had the saddlebags and blanket roll. The clerk looked not only disappointed, but a little indignant. Who did they think they were, trying to pull something like that in a respectable hotel? They could have at least had the decency to say they were married and wanted a double room.
As they left the hotel Travis looked about uneasily. He was afraid someone would recognize him, remember him from ten years back. But the cold windy street was almost deserted, and it was unlikely that there would be very many of the original bunch left. Fortune hunters and adventurers, always the first to arrive in a mining camp, were also the first to go. It remained for the people who came after them to turn the place into a permanent settlement.
As they went down the street Lorna Mason looked up at the dark mountains rising on all sides of the town. She shivered. “It seems colder than it was. I can hardly wait to get back in that nice warm bed.”
Travis smiled a frosty smile. He suspected that she was torturing him on purpose.
She glanced aside at him. “You’re thinking about buying another horse and disappearing again, aren’t you? The way you did in Cottonwood Creek.”
“It seems like a good idea,” he said.
“It’s awful to be on the run, isn’t it?” Lorna said sympathetically. “I’ve had a taste of it with Barney, and I can’t say I much look forward to spending the rest of my life that way. But it seems the men I’m attracted to always turn out to be in some kind of trouble. Except for Joe. He was what they call a nice dull boy. But I got tired of that too. I don’t guess I know what I want.”
They entered a small restaurant that was empty and sat down at a table. A black-bearded man wearing a dirty white apron came from the kitchen in back and looked at them without saying a word. It was not a very friendly look either. He seemed a little annoyed by their intrusion.
“We’d like something to eat and some coffee,” Travis said.
“I got elk roast and ‘tat’ers,” the black-bearded man said.
“Then I guess we’ll have elk roast and ‘tat’ers,” Travis said.
Blackbeard went into the kitchen and almost immediately returned with the barely warm elk roast and potatoes. Then he brought them some coffee that was hot but so strong and bitter that Lorna Mason could not drink it. She picked at her food, glanced toward the kitchen, looked at Travis and said softly, “I guess I’m not as hungry as I thought.”
“We could leave this stuff and take our chances at another restaurant,” Travis said.
“We probably wouldn’t have any better luck there,” Lorna said. “I’m ready to go back to the hotel when you are.”
Travis glanced at a cardboard sign on the wall which said, “Meals 50 cents.” He laid a dollar on the table and pushed back his chair. They left the restaurant and went back along the street to the hotel in silence. Neither spoke until they were back at Lorna’s door. Then she looked at him and said, “You’re going to leave tonight, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “If I can buy a horse.”
“It’s going to be an awful cold night,” Lorna Mason said, looking into his eyes.
“I’m used to cold nights,” Travis said, already moving away from her in his mind, because he had to. Because he was Ben Travis.
“Are you going because I’m a married woman?” Lorna asked. “Or because you wouldn’t feel safe here?”
“Some of both,” Travis said. “You might not be safe either if I stayed here. I don’t know how close Grayson’s men are. Lately it seems like they’re devoting all their time to hunting me down. I guess Grayson is getting impatient.”
“And there’s Colman,” Lorna Mason said.
“Him too,” Travis said.
“I’m not working with him, whatever you may think,” Lorna said. “Maybe he thinks I am, but I’m not. I wouldn’t help him find anyone, and I certainly wouldn’t help him find you.”
“I’ve still got to go,” Travis said.
And he went.
Late that night he halted on a high windy mountain, got out of the saddle and found three rocks piled together near a tall tree. Under the rocks he had buried the old army Colt ten years ago. Now he knew it was not Dan Britton he had tried to bury with the gun, but Ben Travis. Yet if he had buried anyone it was Dan Britton, the boy he had been before.
He was tempted to dig the old gun up. But it would do no good. The gun would be so rusty it would not shoot, and he had left its young owner somewhere back there in the past, like a lot of other things that he could not take with him. A man like Travis had to travel light.
The next morning Joe Mason sat in the small restaurant where Travis and Lorna Mason had eaten supper the night before. Joe Mason had no appetite, but he sipped a cup of bitter coffee while he watched the hotel through the window. He held the cup in his left hand. His right hand was in his coat pocket, gripping the short-barreled Colt. His face was drawn and his eyes were bloodshot from a sleepless night in the saddle.
When the stage pulled up in front of the hotel, Lorna came out and got in it. To Mason’s surprise she was alone. Ben Travis had no doubt disappeared. He was famous for disappearing, sometimes only a few minutes ahead of the Grayson gang.
With little doubt Lorna was going back to Barney Pierce.
Joe Mason waited until the stage had left. Then he got his horse and followed it.
Chapter 12
There was a rude knock at Nita Ramsey’s door. She opened the door and stared in angry amazement at the tall dark man standing there. Her lips twisted with scorn.
“You!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
Colman did not waste time. “Where’s Travis?”
Nita Ramsey rolled her great dark eyes and waved her arms. She was a very beautiful woman, but she was entirely too expressive. She overdid everything. “He left! I don’t know where he is. You knew he was here?”
“By now everyone knows,” Colman said. “Me, the Grayson gang, everyone. And if everyone doesn’t know about the money they soon will.”
Nita Ramsey’s eyes widened in alarm. “How did you find out about the money?”
Colman gave her a hard look. “The same way everyone else found out about it,” he said. “I never knew a woman yet who could keep her mouth shut about anything, and you’re worse than most.”
“You didn’t seem to mind the last time I saw you!” Nita Ramsey said. “Then you wanted me to talk!”
Colman rubbed his bristly black mustache. “That was different,” he said.
“Different my eye!” Nita Ramsey said. “You go away and leave me alone. I’ve got a lot to do. I’m leaving on the stage today.”
“The stage will take too long,” Colman said. “It has to circle way around because there’s not a direct road. I figure Travis is on his way there to find that money and I want to get there before he leaves. But I don’t know where it is, so you’ll have to go along and show me.”
“Travis!” Nita Ramsey exclaimed. She crossed herself. “You think he’ll go there and try to find it ahead of me? But he left on the northbound stage!”
“That don’t mean a thing,” Colman said. “He just wanted everyone to think he was headed north.”
Nita Ramsey began to wring her hands. She seemed frantic and on the point of tears. “That money’s mine! I gave that old man the best years of my life! It’s not right for Travis to get his money!”
“You can have the money for all I care,” Colman said harshly. “Travis ain’t going to need it for very long. Just help me get him.”
The money had been at the back of Travis’s mind. Forty thousand dollars would solve his financial worries for a good long time—probably for the rest of his life, unless people quit trying to kill him. And he hated the thought of Nita Ramsey getting her hands on the money, after Chet Ramsey had died to keep her and Billy Primrose from getting it. Chet had wanted Travis to have the money if anything happened to him, not his unfaithful wife.
He believed he could find the money, but it would take time, and he did not know how much time he would have. Nita Ramsey was probably already on her way there, and the Lord only knew who would be with her or follow her. Colman and half of the Grayson gang, as likely as not. Maybe all of the Grayson gang. Travis didn’t know how many of them were left. Too many, that was certain. New recruits took the place of those who had gotten themselves caught or killed.
It would be risky to go back, Travis knew. Maybe even foolish. But the thought of Nita Ramsey finding the money was intolerable. She had had a hand in murder to get it, and Travis did not believe people should be rewarded for their crimes, although he was well aware that it happened all the time.
At the back of his mind he must have known all along that he would go after the money. He had left Ringtown heading north on the stage road, but had soon left it and circled around the town, angling southeast through the rugged mountains.
He did not stop until noon the next day. Then he halted long enough to boil a pot of coffee and give the horse a little rest before riding on again.
A short time later, as he was crossing an open valley between boulder-strewn ridges, two rifle shots rang out almost simultaneously and the horse screamed and caved in under him. Travis landed flat on his belly on the hard ground, the breath knocked out of him. For a moment he was too stunned to move. But that moment gave him time to think and he decided to stay where he was and play dead. There was a good-sized rock about twenty feet ahead of him but he was afraid he would never reach it before a bullet cut him down he thought the rock lay between him and the bushwhackers, but he could not be sure of their exact location, and the ridge was a lot higher than the rock.
He heard the dying horse whicker softly behind him. That was the second horse that had been shot out from under him—a reminder that his existence was at best a precarious thing. He was afraid his luck was running out.
Before he had expected, he heard the two men tramping toward him, talking quietly. One of them said in a nasal drawl, “We ain’t even sure it’s him.”
“It’s him all right,” the other one said gruffly. “That’s the kind of hair they said he had—blond on top, brown around the edges. Ain’t many people got hair like that, Slim.”
“Reckon you’re right, Lefty. Better put another one in him just to make sure. He may not be dead yet.”
The two men stopped and one of them cocked a gun. Travis opened one eye and saw them standing there beside the rock, one huge bearded man peering at him over the barrel of a Winchester, a tall skinny one watching him with an almost friendly interest in his hazel eyes.
Travis rolled to one side and drew his gun as the Winchester roared. The bullet kicked up dust behind him and hit the dead horse. Travis’s long-barreled .44 barked a fraction of a second later and blood gushed out over the big man’s cowhide vest. The tall skinny one was too surprised to move, seeing a corpse come to life that way. He saw the .44 shift in his direction and he let his Winchester clatter to the ground, spreading his hands wide.
“Don’t shoot, mister!” he said, watching Travis with worried eyes. “Killin’ you was his idea.” He nodded at the big man on the ground.
“Like hell,” Travis said, getting to his feet. He walked up to the frightened man and lifted his gun out of the holster. Slim did not move a muscle. He just kept watching Travis out of his anxious eyes. He did not seem much like a killer, despite what had just happened. “Where are your horses?” Travis asked.
“Back there on that ridge,” Slim said. “We wasn’t sure you was dead. But I never even tried to hit you. I’m the one shot yore horse. I wanted to take you back alive, but Lefty said it would be easier to take yore head back in a sack.”
“You boys work for Grayson?”
“Yeah,” Slim said uncomfortably. “I joined up because I couldn’t find a job. I only wanted to rob a few banks, but Grayson sent us out to find you the first thing. But it was mainly Lefty’s idea. He wanted that five thousand dollars Grayson said we’d get if we brought you back.”
“Where is Grayson?” Travis asked.
“We left him over in Cimarron. But I don’t know where he is by now. He keeps movin’ because he’s afraid some of his own will get caught and tell the law where he is.”
“He by himself?”
“He was when we left him.”
“Let’s go get the horses,” Travis said, thrusting Slim’s Smith & Wesson in his waistband. He debated taking one of the Winchesters, but decided against it. He had not owned a rifle in years because he did not seem to need one very often and when he did it was usually back in his hotel room or out of reach in his saddle boot. Besides, he could hit a man up to seventy-five yards away with a revolver. “Take off your shell belt and let it drop,” he said to Slim as the latter lead the way toward the rocky ridge.
Slim fumbled with the buckle and let the gun belt drop and Travis picked it up when he got to it.
“I shore hope you don’t aim to kill me,” Slim said in a plaintive tone. “I mean I ain’t had nothin’ but bad luck lately. It’s been one thing after another. But I wish now we hadn’t come after you.”
“I’ll bet you do,” Travis said.
He had holstered his gun and was slipping the cartridges from the loops of Slim’s shell belt and putting them in his coat pocket. They left the valley and began climbing the rocky slope of the ridge.
“You can b’lieve what you want to,” Slim said, “but I never meant to kill you. I only shot yore horse. Course, I don’t guess you like that too much.”
“That’s all right,” Travis said. “I’ll just take yours.”
“You ought to take old Lefty’s,” Slim said. “It’s a better horse. And he won’t need it no more.”
When Travis saw the horses he said, “I’ll take the sorrel.”
“That roan’s the best horse,” Slim said.
“Was that Lefty’s?” Travis asked.
“Yeah,” Slim said.
“That’s what I thought,” Travis said. “Somebody might get the idea I killed him for his horse. So I’ll take yours and you can explain how you got his. I don’t usually take what isn’t mine, but you owe me a horse. And I think I’ll keep your pistol for the trouble you’ve caused me. It seems like a good gun.”
“It is,” Slim said. “Them Smith & Wesson .44 Russians is about the best guns you can buy. Course, a lot of people would ruther have a Colt. But I’ll take a Smith & Wesson any day. That was old Lefty’s name, by the way. Lefty Smith. That’s what he called hisself anyhow. I don’t think that was his real name, though.”
“What’s yours?” Travis asked.
“Oscar Perkins. But ever’body calls me Slim.”
