The Bounty Hunters, page 18
Colman kept quiet in order to listen better and not give his exact position away. Also, it was not in him to carry on a conversation with an enemy who meant to kill him if possible.
After a short time he heard Biggers crawling up the slope toward him.
He eased the Merwin & Hulbert out of the holster on his left hip and laid it on the rock before him. Then, taking out the other two pistols, he stood up quickly and began firing as rapidly as he could.
Biggers was caught by surprise between two boulders. But the rocks higher up the slope afforded some protection and he crawled on as rapidly as he could, only his big rump exposed and Colman never quite succeeded in hitting that.
Then Colman’s guns began clicking, and with a triumphant bark of laughter Vince Biggers rose like a grizzly bear and lumbered up the slope toward him, murder shining in his bright eyes.
Colman dropped the gun in his right hand and grabbed the Merwin & Hulbert. He jerked the gun into line and got off two quick shots.
As Vince Biggers fell forward, he looked up at Colman with his mouth wide open in surprise. He crashed to the ground like a big tree, his arms giving way under him like broken limbs.
Colman walked carefully down the slope, his gun trained on the huge outlaw. Biggers lay on his back, his eyes squinting at the light. He was almost smiling. It seemed to be the natural expression of his plump round face. Colman noticed that the outlaw was losing his hair and growing a good-sized belly.
“Travis said you weren’t fat,” the bounty hunter grunted in surprise.
“I’ve put on a few pounds since he saw me,” Biggers said, still half smiling. He sounded almost apologetic. “Runs in the family. We get up around forty we all start putting on weight. Only exception in my family was my little brother. But he had some strange disease. I forget what the doctors called it. Maybe they never knew what to call it. But they said he aged eight times faster than other people. Died of old age at ten. They said that was equal to eighty years for most people, which meant he was a real old man when he died. But we just figgered it was a cock and bull story they made up because they didn’t know what was wrong with him. That’s why I turned outlaw, to get some money so maybe we could find somebody who could cure him. But I never figgered on him dying so soon.”
“Well, when a man decides to turn outlaw, he’ll find some excuse,” Colman said, not wanting to show any sentiment. He’d found it was better to stay tough around dying outlaws, or things could get sloppy.
Biggers shook with laughter, then winced in pain. He was the sort of jolly outlaw who did not seem to bear anyone malice. Not the people he had robbed or killed. Not even the man who had killed him. “Looks like I’m done for,” he said, coughing. He squinted up at Colman and added, “Well, at least we got Travis. That’s what we set out to do.”
“Hate to disappoint you,” Colman said, “but Travis left before you got here. He went after Grayson.”
“I’ll be damned,” Biggers said softly, gazing up at Colman as if he could not believe it. “You mean you got all three of us by yourself?”
“I guess I was lucky,” Colman said.
“Lucky, hell,” Biggers said. “You’re good. A man like you don’t need luck.”
“Everybody needs luck,” Colman said.
“Yeah, they sure do,” Biggers gasped. He tried to smile, coughed and died.
Chapter 21
It was almost dark in the big canyon, and an icy wind was blowing down it from the northwest, stirring up dust and adding to the hazy gloom.
Lorna Mason sat on a dead log, shivering in the old clothes Grayson had given her. Even with a blanket about her shoulders she was miserably cold, for Grayson was afraid to build a fire. She did not know how long they would be here. He had only stopped to rest the horses.
He sat on a rock facing her, his gold tooth faintly gleaming as he gnawed a piece of jerky. He had offered her some but she did not feel like eating anything. She was too miserable, too filled with despair. Even if she managed to escape, she knew she would never entirely escape the memory of him. The memory of the things he had done to her and the things he had made her do. But even more shameful was the stark knowledge that she had enjoyed some of it, at least toward the last. In the cold stone house on the mesa, when the night winds howled outside like a lonesome wolf, she had clung to the outlaw chief for warmth and for the cruel hateful pleasure he had brought her in spite of herself. No, she would never be the same again. He had tarnished her self-image beyond repair and for that she hated him.
Grayson had heard or imagined some sound and his wild dark eyes were darting at the shadows, his hand on his gun. “You hear anything?” he asked her.
She silently shook her head.
“I thought I heard something,” Grayson said. “I guess it was just the wind.” He went on chewing the jerky in his mouth, but after a moment he said bitterly, baring his gold tooth, “I bet they don’t get Travis. He’ll come after me. But he can’t trail us in the dark. And you want to know what I’m going to do as soon as it gets light tomorrow? I’m going to get behind a rock and wait for him. I’ll kill him myself. I knew all along I’d end up having to do it myself.”
Lorna glanced at his holstered gun. When he went to sleep she would try to get the gun and shoot him. And then she would do her best to forget the days and nights she had spent in the old rock house up on the mesa.
She had also made up her mind that if she got a chance she would take the money she knew he had in his saddlebags. So much money there was not room for much of anything else. She would know from now on that she was not really a lady, but she intended to live like one if possible, and the money would help. It would help a lot.
“You can watch me kill him,” Grayson told her maliciously. “Then you’ll know you can forget about him ever coming to rescue you.”
Travis suddenly stepped out of the gathering dusk with a gun in his hand and said quietly, “I’m here, Grayson.”
Grayson stared at him with wild eyes and said in disbelief, “Travis!”
“Didn’t you always know I’d come back after you?” Travis asked. “I should have killed you when I killed Red.”
“Don’t kill me, Travis!” Grayson begged, almost crying. “I ain’t going to fight you!”
“No, you’ll just keep sending others after me,” Travis said through his teeth. He raised the gun slightly. It roared and flame leapt from the muzzle.
Grayson fell off the rock, then scrambled up trying to draw his gun with one hand while he held the other out toward Travis in silent entreaty.
Travis’s gun roared again and Grayson was slammed back to the ground. This time he lay still.
Travis looked at Lorna Mason, and she looked quickly away, unable to meet his glance.
Travis started to say something, then looked down the canyon in surprise. A wagon was creaking this way out of the gloom. On the seat sat a man and a women, peering at them in wonder.
Travis went toward the wagon and it stopped. Lorna Mason heard him an the old couple on the seat talking quietly for a few moments, but could not tell what they said. Then the wagon creaked closer and the old couple got down, the woman talking to her in a kindly voice as though she were a child.
Lorna looked about and saw Travis standing off to one side, holding his hat in his hand—something she would remember and clutch to her like a small hope. He seemed about to say something but the talky old woman never gave him a chance. She led Lorna toward the wagon and when Lorna looked again Travis was gone.
She remembered Grayson’s saddlebags and went back to get them while the old couple watched her in surprise and wonder. It did not matter what they thought. She had to think of herself and the long years ahead.
The next morning Travis found Colman standing over the body of Jud Yetman.
“That bastard should have died about noon yesterday,” Colman said. “Instead he lasted all day and most of the night, daring me to come after him. This morning I found him lying here with that gun still in his hand.”
Travis drew Colman’s Winchester from the saddle scabbard and handed it down to him without dismounting. “Turned out I didn’t need it,” Travis said briefly.
“Where’s Grayson?” Colman asked.
“Down that big canyon about half a day’s ride.”
“Why didn’t you bring him?” Colman asked.
“I didn’t even think about it,” Travis said.
“You didn’t even think about it!” Colman echoed. “Man’s worth ten thousand dollars and you didn’t even think about it!”
Travis shrugged. “If you want him you’ll have to go after him.”
“I sure as hell will,” Colman said. Then he asked, “What about the Mason woman?”
“She went on to Dry Wells with an old couple in a wagon. They were looking for a place to homestead, got lost and wound up in that canyon. When I saw them they were looking for a way out of it.”
“Travis, you aim to help me round up all these bodies? Not a one of them worth less than five hundred and most of them are worth a lot more than that. The body of an honest man ain’t worth anything, but the body of a no-account, back-shooting outlaw is nearly always worth anywhere from two hundred on up.”
“Count me out,” Travis said. “I’ve got a train to catch.”
Colman studied him thoughtfully. “Lorna Mason is a mighty fine looking woman,” the bounty hunter observed. “Almost as beautiful as Nita Ramsey.”
“Almost,” Travis said.
“Did you ever notice how Nita Ramsey’s built?” Colman asked in a tone of near awe.
“A man would have to be blind not to notice,” Travis said. “It sort of sticks out.”
“It sure as hell does,” Colman said. “And all that fire and energy. Damn near scares a man.”
“That wasn’t what scared me,” Travis said. “Well, good luck, Colman. You’ll need it, if you intend to tangle with Nita Ramsey again.”
Colman looked like a man on his way to the gallows. “I don’t even like the bitch,” the condemned man remarked. “But she’s there. Like Grayson was there. If you’re a man like me you have to go after the worst there is and hope you come out on top.” He sighed. “What’s a man to do?”
“I wish I knew,” Travis said, and rode off toward Dry Wells.
A dark-haired lady in a new dress sat by herself in the almost empty train car. Travis stopped in the aisle, removed his hat and asked uncertainly, “Is it all right if I join you?”
She looked up at him out of cool green eyes. Her cheeks were pink from a little too much sun and wind. But other than that there was nothing to indicate that anything had happened to her that had not happened to any other refined lady. Plenty of soap and water, a comb, a night’s rest and the new dress had worked a small miracle, at least on the surface.
“Please do,” she said.
Travis hesitated, then sat down on the seat beside her, holding his hat in his hands. For a while they sat watching the desert pass by outside. Then Travis asked, “What do you plan to do now?”
“I thought I might travel for a while,” Lorna Mason said. “It’s what I’ve gotten used to. What about you?”
“That’s what I sort of planned to do,” Travis said. “Since we seem to be going the same way, we might travel a piece together.”
Lorna Mason laughed quietly. Then there was another little silence. Before it became awkward she said, “Did that Ramsey woman ever find all that money she told me about?”
“Not the last I heard,” Travis said. “But if I know her she won’t quit trying. She’ll probably end up spending the rest of her life in that old shack she hated so much, scratching in the woods around there like a hen looking for worms. That’s probably about all she’ll ever find too. Buried money usually stays buried.”
“Not always,” Lorna Mason said, opening her bag. “Look what I found. With this we can travel in style.”
Travis’s face went bleak. “How far do you think it will take us?” he asked.
“As far as we want to go.”
“That might be pretty far,” Travis said.
One day Colman entered a small restaurant in Santa Fe and found Nita Ramsey behind the counter.
“You!” she exclaimed, her lip twisting with scorn. “What are you doing here?”
“Just passing through,” Colman said, taking a stool. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet!” Nita Ramsey said. “You came back after that money, didn’t you?”
“Did you ever find it?” Colman asked.
“Would I be working in a place like this if I had?” Nita Ramsey asked, rolling her eyes and waving her arms in anger, “I know what Chet Ramsey did. He buried it and then raked pine needles back over it, just to keep me from finding it. After I gave him the best years of my life! But I’ll find it yet! Just as soon as I can save up some money I’m going back out there and look some more. That money belongs to me and I’ll find it if it takes me the rest of my life!”
“I was just thinking,” Colman said. “I might grubstake you for a share of it, provided you ever find it. That way you could spend more time out there looking for it. And I could come by there every now and then to see how you’re doing.” He scowled. “I mean, to see if you’re running low on supplies or anything.”
Nita Ramsey leaned her bosom over the counter and gazed into his eyes. Her own were big enough to drown in. But Colman decided it might not be such a bad way to go.
“You sure the money’s the only thing you’re interested in?” she asked.
Colman scowled. He was far from sure that the money was the only thing he was interested in. He glared at her juicy red lips and full breasts as though she had betrayed him by looking too good to resist.
Thank you for reading
The Bounty Hunters
by Van Holt.
If you enjoyed this story, please leave a review about
your experience on Amazon.
You may also enjoy another story about some famous gunfighters called The Bushwhackers.
Here’s the first two chapters:
The Bushwhackers
by Van Holt
Chapter 1
Heck Martin returned to the guerrilla camp after dark and squatted silently by the fire, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the blackened pot.
Knowing him, the others waited. He would speak when it suited him. He might not say anything at all. He had left Quantrill after the brutal massacre at Lawrence, Kansas, and the others—thirteen hard-bitten veterans of many bloody battles—had gone with him. Most of them had regretted the decision, but were afraid to go back to Quantrill, who was known for his vindictiveness. Still and all, they had liked him better than they had come to like Heck Martin, who was a strange, silent man, moody and withdrawn.
The only reason he was still their leader was that they were afraid of him. He stood two inches over six feet tall and weighed a hundred and eighty pounds, and was quick as lightning with his revolvers. Like most guerrilla fighters, he carried several, as it took a while to reload the cap and ball firearms. He had a pair of 1860 Colt .44s that he carried in holsters and a pair of double-action Starr .44s that were sometimes thrust in his waistband and sometimes carried in the leather-lined pockets of his long black coat. The coat was now unbuttoned and the silent guerrillas could see the butt of one of the deadly Starrs. They also noticed that Heck Martin held the coffee cup in his left hand.
Across the fire, Cotton Petty showed his yellow teeth in a grin and said, “Why don’t one of you boys take care of Heck’s horse?”
The bearded, ragged guerrillas crouching back in the shadows glanced at the brown gelding that stood with reins down near the fire, but no one volunteered to unsaddle the animal and rub it down. It had rained earlier and the horse was wet. Martin himself was soaked to the skin. The men were all wet and cold, in spite of the fire. But they were used to discomfort. After four years of guerrilla warfare, it seemed like the natural state of existence. In fact most of them had never known much else.
“What did you find out, Heck?” Cotton Petty asked, with his toothy grin. He was the talker of the bunch, and the others waited for him to ask the questions. “Is it true what we heard?”
“It’s true,” Heck Martin said. “The war’s over.”
He had gone into the nearest town himself, just to make sure.
There was some muttering among the men. Others leaned closer to catch Martin’s words, for he rarely raised his voice. In the midst of excitement, he seemed to become quieter, calmer, somehow more remote. He did what he thought he had to do and was prepared to accept whatever consequences luck or fate had to offer.
“I’ll be damned,” Cotton Petty said. “What does that mean for us?”
Heck Martin drained his cup and tossed it aside. “It means it’s over,” he said.
Several of the men crowded closer to the fire and stared at his hard, bearded face and cold blue eyes. They had never liked him but they respected his strength and his judgment. He had kept them alive through a year and a half of bitter fighting.
“What you gonna do, Heck?” asked Sam Parkinson, a big man with a stubbled round face and small eyes pouched in wrinkles. He was close to fifty, older than the other men.
“I’m going home,” Martin said. “If there’s any home left.”
Cotton Petty sneered. “You kiddin’, Heck? Them bluebellies will shoot you on sight. They’ll be ridin’ high in the saddle, now that Lee’s surrendered. Well, I ain’t surrendered to nobody, and I don’t know as I aim to. Me and the boys have been talkin’ it over, and we don’t see no reason why we shouldn’t go on like before. We never was in the damn army nohow.”
