The Bounty Hunters, page 6
Pulling his hat low over his eyes, he asked a man standing near him, “What happened?”
The man pointed. “Shooting down on that side street. One man dead, another one shot up pretty bad. They took him to Doc Green’s office.”
“Know who did it?”
“Beats me. That nigger’s telling a wild story about being jumped by a gang of Mexicans. He never said what he was doing behind that house. Trying to break in, I reckon. A nigger will steal the boots off a dead man’s feet.”
“The sheriff know about it?”
“Sheriff’s out of town. And the last marshal we had quit. It’s the same old story. The law’s always somewhere else when you need them.”
“I’ve noticed that,” Colman said, and strolled away, reaching for one of his cigars. He glanced at the hotel where Travis had taken a room, but in his experience hotels and Travis made a bad combination. So he decided to wait and try for the blond man somewhere else. With all the excitement, however, it was unlikely that Travis would stir from his room until things quieted down. Travis did not like crowds.
Colman went to his own room in the town’s other hotel, lay down on the bed in his clothes and smoked his cigar in the dark. He did not know how long Coon Hooks would stick to his story about being attacked by a gang of Mexicans, or how long it would be before Travis discovered that Nita Ramsey and Billy Primrose had already left Tucson. But since the sheriff was out of town, and since Travis could not trail the fugitives in the dark, Colman figured he had the rest of the night to come up with another plan.
A little after midnight Barney Pierce left the saloon where he worked as a dealer and went along Congress Street, the main thoroughfare. He had not gone far when a quiet voice whipped at him from the mouth of a dark alley.
“Hold it, Pierce.”
Barney Pierce stopped in his tracks. He did not turn his head, but he knew that quiet voice and he sighed. “I’ve been wondering when you’d find me,” he said.
“Step over here, Pierce,” Travis said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
Pierce turned and walked carefully into the alley. In the dark shadows he made out Travis, a tall man with a gun in his hand. “So this is how it’s to be,” the gambler said. “Ever since you killed Red Grayson I knew you’d come after me sooner or later. But I never thought it would end in a dark alley.”
“You talk too much and say too little, Pierce,” Travis told him. “I want to know what happened at the Big R Ranch the day you and Red Grayson killed Lyle Ramsey.”
Pierce shrugged. “Hasn’t that woman told you? Nita Ramsey?”
“I’d like to hear your side of it,” Travis said.
“Before you kill me?” Pierce asked dryly.
“That depends,” Travis said coldly.
Pierce shrugged again. “We heard some talk about her in one of the saloons in Cottonwood Creek and Red wanted to go out there. I told him he was a damn fool, but he wouldn’t listen. So I went along with him. I thought I might be able to keep him out of trouble, though it never was easy to keep Red Grayson out of trouble. But I don’t think that woman told the straight of what happened. She seemed right pleased to see us. Well, to make a long story short, her and Red were in the bedroom when that fool boy busted in with a gun in his hand, threatening to kill Red. I was in the living room and I went in and told him to drop the gun, but he turned and tried to use it on me. I didn’t have any choice but to kill him. In a way, I figure it was justice, though. I understand he was the one who started the talk about his stepmother, about how easy she was and all. If it hadn’t been for that, Red never would have wanted to go out there. But he never forced her. I could hear them laughing and talking. Does that sound like a woman who was forced against her will?”
“Not much,” Travis said, “if you’re telling the truth.”
“I never figured you’d take my word over hers,” Pierce said. “Or I would have tried to find you a long time ago and give you the straight of what happened. Knowing how hotheaded Red was, I figured he probably went for his gun rather than try to explain anything.”
“That’s about how it happened,” Travis said. “But why didn’t you tell Sam Grayson that?”
Pierce drew a deep breath. “Don’t try telling him anything bad about Red. When Red was alive they were at each other’s throat all the time, but after you killed Red, he became a saint as far as Sam was concerned. He’s always talking about what a fine boy Red was, like he was his son instead of his brother. I guess he forgot all the mischief Red was always in and how he sent me everywhere with Red to keep him out of trouble. But like I say, he never forced that woman. She never even put up enough of a struggle to make it look good. I guess that’s why Red told her we’d come back and kill her if she told anyone we raped her. I don’t know why he said ‘we,’ because I never touched her. I won’t deny she was a real looker, though. When I went in to stop that fool boy from killing Red, I could see why he was out of his head with jealousy. A woman like that could make a fool out of any man, if he let her.”
Travis hesitated. “I heard a rumor that you left Grayson. Anything to it?”
Pierce sighed. “I’ve been trying to go straight, but it’s not so easy. Sam wants me back with him. His men aren’t just looking for you, Travis. They’re looking for me too, and they’ve got orders to bring me back. Alive, I hope. But I’ve sworn I wouldn’t go back that way. And after what happened tonight, I can’t stay in Tucson. When that fool Coon Hooks gets done talking, everyone will be looking here for other members of the gang.”
“It wasn’t me who shot him,” Travis said. “But I think they went there looking for me and found someone else instead.”
“Some people think Billy Primrose shot them and then left town with that woman to keep from having to answer questions,” Pierce said. “I guess everyone knows they’re not married. They’ve been arguing so loud they’ve got the whole town talking.”
“I don’t think it was Primrose,” Travis said. “In the first place, he’s not that good with a gun. And I think they’d already left town. Nita Ramsey was afraid you came here to kill her.”
“She wasn’t even here when I arrived,” Pierce grunted. “But it seems like just about everyone has turned up except the one person I wanted to see.”
“Did you leave Lorna Mason in Comanche Crossing to find out if I was after you, Pierce?” Travis asked.
“That was a fool thing to do,” Pierce admitted. “That’s what tipped you off it was me with Red Grayson that day, wasn’t it?”
“I had a feeling all along it was you,” Travis said. “After that, there wasn’t much doubt in my mind. But one thing always puzzled me. You must have figured out why I killed Red Grayson, but you never told Sam why I did it—am I right?”
Pierce slowly nodded. “If I had told him, he would have gone to that ranch and killed everyone he could find. I knew that wouldn’t be just wrong, but stupid as well. Even Sam Grayson couldn’t get away with something like that. The law would have hunted us all down no matter how long it took.”
“You’ve got a higher opinion of the law than I have,” Travis said. “But I’m glad you didn’t tell him, anyway.”
“What happens now?” Pierce asked.
Travis holstered his gun. “As far as you’re concerned it’s all over. For me I don’t guess it’ll ever be over. I just wish I had talked to you before I talked to Red Grayson. It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.”
Barney Pierce smiled a sad smile. “I’ve thought about that a lot myself,” he said. He held out his hand. “Good luck, Travis.”
Travis grasped the hand briefly, then stepped back. “So long,” he said.
Chapter 7
Link Colman awakened at dawn with a dead cigar in his teeth. After a moment of alarm, he was so relieved that he had not burnt the hotel down, himself in it, that he was not as dismayed as he might have been by the realization that he had almost certainly let Travis slip through his fingers once more.
Tightening his gunbelt an extra notch in lieu of breakfast, he descended the stairs two at a time, settled his bill at the desk and hurried to the livery stable. There he learned that, yes, a tall blond-haired fellow had got his horse and left around midnight.
“When?” Colman asked.
“Thereabouts anyway,” the old hostler said. “I sleep in the hay and he rousted me out. Rode in only yesterday. I remember him for two reasons. He had hair like faded copper and gold, but around the edges it was almost brown. Never saw anyone with hair like that before.”
“That’s him all right,” Colman said. “What was the other reason?”
The old man scratched his whiskers. “Danged if I recall.”
“What name was he using?”
“That’s it!” the hostler exclaimed. “He said his name was Rutherford B. Hayes. I kept thinking there was something familiar about that name and finally it came to me. That’s the name of the President of the United States! Then last night when he come back I said to him, ‘What was yore name again?’ And he said, ‘Jeff Davis.’ Seems like there’s something familiar about that one too, but so far I ain’t laid a-holdt of what it is.”
“I’d like my horse sometime today,” Colman said.
“Keep your shirt on. I can’t do ever’thing at once. Which one was yours again?”
“The blue roan, if you ain’t sold him.”
“He’s still there, if the Apaches ain’t made off with him,” the old hostler said. “Them’s the thievin’est varmints. Did I ever tell you about the time—?”
“Tell me the next time I’m in town,” Colman said.
When at last the horse was saddled and Colman was in the saddle, he looked down at the talkative but forgetful old hostler and asked, “Any chance you’d remember which way Travis went?”
“Shore do. He was headin’ east, back the way he come. What did you say his name was again?”
“Travis.”
“Yeah, and I reckon you’re Davy Crockett or maybe Jim Bowie,” the old hostler said, spitting a stream of tobacco juice. “By the way, did I ever tell you about the time I just missed bein’ at the Alamo?”
Colman gave the old man a hard look and rode off the way Travis had gone.
It was a big, open, sunburnt land, this desert country of Arizona and New Mexico. The air was startlingly clear. The sky, on a clear day, was like a painted blue canopy. The ash-gray mountains that always rose on the horizon stood out in sharp relief, forming the walls of this desert world. And all the way to these mountain walls everything seemed visible.
But this was only an illusion created by the openness of the country and the incredible cleanliness of the air, the brightness of the blazing yellow sunlight. Many desert creatures had learned to blend in with the barren, rocky terrain and move about as if invisible.
Among these were the Apaches, past masters of the art of camouflage and the greatest guerrilla fighters the world has known—except for one thing. They were not very good shots. Firearms were still something of a mystery to them. Like most Indians who were more familiar with the bow, they either shot too high or, to compensate for the tendency, too low.
The bullet meant for Travis had killed his horse. Now they had him penned down in the rocks, twenty feet from the dead animal. As soon as they killed him and got his scalp and gun—or even if he managed to get away on foot after dark—they would eat the horse. A sorry fate for a good saddle animal. To be devoured by savages. But it was not so bad compared to the fate that awaited Travis if they captured him alive. Him they would torture to death, prolonging their fun as long as possible. Apaches had no use for white intruders and derived special enjoyment from watching them suffer.
Travis did not think there were more than half a dozen in this bunch, but he could not be sure. Nor could he be sure where they were. Now and then he saw a movement in the rocks, but no target that was visible long enough for him to get a shot at it. They were apparently waiting for him to show himself. They had all the time in the world—and he was in a hurry.
He felt certain that Billy Primrose and Nita Ramsey had decided to go back after the rest of Chet Ramsey’s money, and he wanted to get there before they did. It didn’t look like he would make it. The chances grew slimmer with each minute that passed.
It was a little past noon and the sun glare on the rocks was painful to the eyes. For a moment Travis watched a gray and brown lizard sunning itself nearby, then he turned his head and looked at his canteen on the horn of his saddle. But despite his growing thirst he resisted the temptation to make a try for the canteen. The horse lay in the open, exposed on all sides.
Travis didn’t have much cover where he was, just a few rocks and stunted shrubs. Worse still, the Apaches were on higher ground where they could fire down at him. But so far they had not wasted many bullets. Perhaps they didn’t have many.
Travis checked his long-barreled revolver. He had already added an extra cartridge in the chamber he normally left empty as a safety precaution. Except for that one cartridge, all the loops in his shell belt were full. So far he had not fired a single round. There was a box of cartridges in his saddlebag, but trying to get it might get him killed. So, like the Apaches, he was waiting for a clear shot.
The wind worried him. It made a rustling noise that frequently sounded to him like an Apache crawling through the rocks toward him, and the shrubs stirring in the breeze also made it harder for him to detect their movements.
Another disadvantage was that he could not rise up enough to watch for them without partially exposing himself.
Suddenly, a bullet whined off the rock above his head and he instinctively ducked, although he was not in any danger from that quarter. After about a minute there was another shot, then several others at irregular intervals. Each shot came from a slightly different position, but he thought it was the same gun.
For a time he wondered why only one of them was firing. But after a while he thought he knew the reason for it. That one was trying to distract his attention and make him stay down where he could not see anything while the others moved in closer, crawling through the rocks and brush like lizards.
Finally he saw an Apache crawling toward him. Unseen behind a shrub, Travis peered at the Indian with interest. Not much to look at, really. A craggy dark face framed by wild black hair. A small wiry brown body, almost naked. But wily and cruel, and filled with the savage lust to kill.
Travis had no wish to kill the Indian, but he had no other choice. It was either kill or be killed.
He slowly raised the open-top Colt, took aim and fired. The Indian grunted. His arms gave way under him. He tried to push himself back up, then collapsed and lay still.
Three others suddenly rose and rushed forward a short distance and then dropped behind the rocks. But one of them would not rise again, for Travis snapped a shot at him and the bullet punctured his throat.
Then for a time Travis neither saw nor heard anything out of the Indians. At least two of them were no more than thirty feet away. He had no idea where the others were. The rifle had fallen silent, so that one was probably moving in closer also. It was possible that there were only three left. Four at most. But that was three or four too many.
Travis noticed that he was sweating, although the wind was cool on his face. He was in a cramped position and he was afraid the slightest movement on his part would bring a bullet from the unseen Apaches. He was almost afraid to breathe for fear they would hear him.
I haven’t got time for this, he thought. Why didn’t they ambush Billy Primrose and Nita Ramsey instead of me?
He heard flies buzzing around the dead horse and glanced that way. Flies in November, he thought. Or was it December already? He had lost track of the days. As a rule, time meant no more to him than it did to the Apaches. But now he had a feeling that time was running out for Chet Ramsey.
Of course, it was probably running out for Travis as well. But he thought about it as little as possible, and concentrated each day on living to see the sun go down, each night on living to see it rise again.
Right now, several Apaches stood between him and sundown. They also stood between an old man and any future he might have left.
Funny, Travis had started thinking of Chet Ramsey as an old man. But Ramsey seemed a lot older than his fifty years. Of course, fifty years was a long time. Half a century. Travis doubted if he would ever live that long, the way things were going.
Death had been looking over his shoulder for a long time.
He turned his head, and saw the cruel savage face of an Apache leering down at him. The Indian was crouched on the rock above him with a wicked-looking knife in his hand. He leapt as Travis turned. Travis whirled and fired and rolled out of the way and a dead Indian hit the ground beside him.
In a rare moment of uncontrolled anger, Travis grabbed the dead Apache and threw him bodily back over the rock for the others to see. It was his way of letting them know what awaited them if they tried the same thing.
But he was worried. He had not heard the Indian approach. Nothing had warned him that the warrior was there. If he had not glanced around at that moment, he would probably be dead now. He would probably be dead anyway if the Indian had come after him with a gun instead of a knife.
The tense, anxious waiting began again. There were two or three of them still out there, perhaps only a few rocks away. He did not know whether they were inching closer or waiting for him to get careless and show himself.
He carefully replaced the spent cartridge in his revolver and glanced at the sun. It was still at least four hours until dark.
