Bounty Hunter

CHAPTER 23

Still burning brightly, the fire cast an orange glow into the sky behind Luke as he rode toward Dobieville. Being on a horse again felt good.

Despite his concern for Emily, he felt more alive than he had in a long time.

He hadn’t had a chance to reload the Navy after all. Checking the gun’s cylinder, he found that Burnett had fired only one round. The other five chambers were loaded. He had eleven shots.

It would have to be enough.

Regret gnawed at him. He hadn’t taken the time to say good-bye to Emily and her grandfather. He knew they would have tried to talk him out of forcing a showdown with Wolford. Luke didn’t trust himself not to give in to Emily’s pleading and stay at the farm with her.

If he had stayed, things would continue to get worse. He didn’t know if they would actually improve once Wolford was dead, but at least if the carpetbagger and his gunmen were gone they wouldn’t be able to threaten anyone else.

The raiders had come very close to killing Emily, and that knowledge filled Luke with a rage overpowering every other emotion. Somebody had to take a stand against their evil.

He was the man.

Simple as that.

Luke had a good sense of direction and was able to find the settlement without any trouble. When he saw its lights, he reined in for a moment, thinking of the situation and what he should do next.

The three gunmen weren’t that far ahead of him. He figured the first thing they would do was report to Wolford, so there was a good chance he could find them together. It would certainly make things easier if all four of his enemies were in one place.

That notion turned his thoughts to Potter, Stratton, Richards, and Casey. He’d had four enemies to deal with that fateful night, too, and it hadn’t turned out well. But he’d been taken by surprise, even though he shouldn’t have been, and tonight he’d be the one doing the surprising.

He shook his head and turned his thoughts back to the situation at hand. Wolford owned the North Georgia Land Company. Luke had heard talk about it and had seen the sign on a building in town, earlier, when the group of farmers came to talk to the sheriff. He nodded. It was the first place he would look for his quarry.

He used his heels to get the horse moving again. Dobieville was quiet. No reason for it not to be, Luke supposed. The citizens didn’t know what had happened out at the Peabody farm. They would hear about it by morning. As he rode down the deserted streets they were blissfully ignorant.

That was about to change.

The saloons were open, and a light still burned in the general store, but most of the businesses along Main Street were dark, including the building that housed Wolford’s office. It appeared to be locked up for the night.

A faint glow in the alley behind the place told a different story. Luke looked along the side of the building, saw that glow, and knew one of the windows in the rear was lit up.

He dismounted and his legs sagged for a second, forcing him to grab the saddle horn and hold himself up. He straightened and looped the reins around the hitch rack in front.

Hoping his muscles wouldn’t betray him at the worst possible moment, he drew both revolvers from his pockets and started down the narrow passage beside the building. His gait was awkward as he kept his legs rigid, but they got him where he was going.

Reaching the rear corner of the building, he edged around it carefully and saw the lighted window. It was raised a few inches to let in the night air.

As quietly as possible, he moved closer to hear what was being said inside.

“. . . doctor,” a man said harshly. “This bullet’s gotta come out of me.”

“If we fetch the doctor, there’ll be questions about how you managed to get shot, Joe.” That was Wolford’s voice. “I’d rather not deal with the potential embarrassment.”

“So you’re just gonna let me die?” Burnett’s voice was drawn thin with pain.

“Of course not. Harve can dig the bullet out, can’t you, Harve?”

One of the other gunmen answered, “I reckon I can give it a try.” He didn’t sound too confident about it.

“And I have a bottle of whiskey right here,” Wolford went on. “Take a nice healthy slug, Joe, and then Harve can clean the wound with it, too.”

“I don’t know about this.” Burnett was clearly reluctant to trust his fate to the medical skills of his fellow hired gun.

“You’re being well paid to take risks,” Wolford snapped, losing his patience. “And you didn’t even manage to kill the old man like I told you to.”

“That’s not my fault,” Burnett replied, a whine creeping in his tone. “I told you, boss, the girl jumped right in front of my gun just as I pulled the trigger.”

“Yes, well, if she’s dead, that’s going to be very regrettable. . . for her and for you. I mean to have her, along with her grandfather’s farm.”

Luke’s hands tightened on the guns, wanting to burst in there and start shooting. But it wasn’t quite the right moment yet. He needed to wait just a little longer.

“Here’s the whiskey,” Wolford said.

Luke heard the glugging sound as the wounded man took a healthy swallow of the liquor.

Wolford went on, “You can lie down here on my desk, Joe. Thurman, you hold him down while Harve removes that bullet.”

Murmurs of agreement came from the men.

Luke waited as he listened to them moving around.

Burnett let out a yelp. “Damn it, boss, at least give me somethin’ to bite down on!”

“All right—”

Now, Luke thought.

While they were all gathered around the desk with their attention focused on the crude surgery he took a couple steps and rammed his shoulder against the building’s back door. The flimsy lock gave under the impact and the door flew open.

Luke stumbled over the threshold, catching his balance as he brought up the guns in his hands. “Hold it!” he yelled. “Nobody move!”

They ignored the command and moved, all right. Luke had figured they would. But he had given them a chance to surrender, so his conscience was clear.

One of the gunmen—he still didn’t know which one was Prentice and which one was Howell—whirled away from the desk and tried to claw out the gun holstered on his hip. Luke shot him in the face with the Griswold and Gunnison. The .36 caliber slug destroyed the man’s nose and plowed into his brain, driving him backward over the desk, where he fell on top of the wounded Burnett.

The second gunman cleared leather, but before he could raise his gun, let alone get off a shot, a slug from the Colt Navy in Luke’s left hand ripped into his throat. The man spun around in a half turn, blood from severed arteries spraying across the expensive rug on the floor of Wolford’s private office.

Roaring in rage, Burnett shoved the dead man off himself and plucked the man’s Colt from its holster. Even wounded, he had the strength to lunge up off the desk.

Luke fired both guns into Burnett’s chest. The double impact lifted the big easterner off his feet and dumped him onto the desk again.

A pocket pistol went off with a small popping sound, and Luke felt something lance into his left shoulder. It wasn’t much worse than a bee sting, but he knew he’d just been shot. He knew, as well, Wolford had shot him, because the other three men in the room were already dead.

Wolford fired again as he darted for the door leading into the front part of the building. Luke ducked, which gave the carpetbagger time to flee from the private office. As Luke straightened, he fired again and stomped into the bigger, darkened room after Wolford.

Wolford’s gun went off again. Luke spotted the little tongue of flame from the muzzle as he heard the slug whine past his ear. He snapped a shot in return. Wolford cried out.

With Luke pursuing him inexorably, Wolford didn’t have time to unlock the front door. He took the only way out, throwing himself against the front window. Glass shattered and sprayed as he burst through it and sprawled on the boardwalk outside.

Luke kept moving. His legs hadn’t betrayed him so far, and miraculously, he was still alive. His quick reflexes and speed with a gun had saved him, but the job wasn’t done yet.

He stepped through the broken window onto the boardwalk as Wolford tried to scramble away. Wolford screamed for help.

“Should’ve thought of that before you sent those men out to the Peabody farm tonight,” Luke told him.

“You . . . you can’t be doing this!” Wolford gasped as he scrambled to his feet. “You can’t even walk!”

“Seems that I can.” Luke shot the carpetbagger’s left leg out from under him, the bullet shattering the kneecap into a million pieces. “But you can’t.”

Wolford collapsed and clutched his bleeding, ruined knee as he screamed. Luke aimed carefully, since the man was writhing around, and blasted apart Wolford’s other knee.

“Drop that gun!” a man yelled over Wolford’s shrieks of agony. “Drop it right now!”

Luke glanced over and saw a hatless, nightshirt-wearing Sheriff Royce Wilkes pointing a shotgun at him.

Luke lined the Griswold and Gunnison’s barrel on Wolford’s forehead and eared back the hammer. His thumb was all that kept it from falling. “You can blast me to hell, Sheriff, but you can’t pull those triggers fast enough to keep me from killing Wolford.”

The carpetbagger realized how close he was to death, and screamed, “Don’t shoot him, Sheriff! Don’t shoot him!”

Wilkes held off, but the slight tremor of the shotgun’s twin barrels showed how much he wanted to pull the triggers. “Listen here, mister, you’d better put that gun down. Otherwise you’ll die here.”

“So will this murderer,” Luke said, “and I think I’m just fine with it if that’s what it takes to rid the world of him.”

“I ... I never murdered anybody!” Wolford gasped. “Oh, God! Somebody help me!”

“You’re beyond help from God or anybody else,” Luke growled. “And you paid those gunmen of yours to go out to the Peabody farm, burn down the barn, and murder Linus Peabody. I heard you say that yourself, just a few minutes ago.”

“Why . . . why would I . . .” Wolford couldn’t go on. He lay whimpering in pain.

“Because with her grandfather dead, you thought Emily would have no choice but to turn to you,” Luke continued. “You thought I didn’t represent any threat. You were wrong on both counts. Even if you’d killed Linus and me, Emily would have wound up cutting out your heart. Trust me on that, Wolford.”

“You . . . you’re crazy.”

“Am I? Sheriff Wilkes, why don’t you ask Mr. Wolford if he sent his men to kill Linus Peabody?”

The shotgun was still trembling in Wilkes’ hands, but it seemed to be from fear. “I don’t want any part of this. I’m supposed to enforce the law—”

“Then arrest Vincent Wolford. Arrest him for murder and see to it he’s tried, convicted, and hanged. And if you do that, then maybe, just maybe, there’s still some hope for this country after all.”

“Mr. Wolford?” Wilkes said, clearly uncertain what he should do.

“What does it matter?” Wolford suddenly cried. “Of course I sent my men to get rid of that stubborn old geezer! He’s just a Rebel! We beat them! We won! We can do anything we want to them!”

“There’s still supposed to be some law—”

“Not for Rebels!”

“We’re still Americans,” Luke pointed out. “Isn’t that one of the so-called reasons you Yankees fought the war in the first place?”

Wolford let out a shriek of rage and hatred and pushed himself up from the boardwalk with his left hand. His right flung up the little pistol. “Go to hell!” he screeched.

“You first.” Luke lifted his thumb. The revolver roared and bucked in his hand, and the bullet smacked into Wolford’s forehead, hammering the back of his skull down on the planks. The gun fell out of Wolford’s hand, unfired.

Luke expected to feel a double load of buckshot smash into him, ending his life.

Instead, he realized that other than the echoes of his shot dying away, the street was quiet.

He looked over at Wilkes. The sheriff had lowered the shotgun. Maybe it had something to do with the crowd of townspeople surrounding him. They had been drawn by the shots and the screaming, and probably had heard Wolford’s confession. It was possible a lot of them didn’t like the way Wilkes had been doing the Yankees’ bidding. He had to be worried the crowd would turn on him, if he shot Luke.

“The . . . the soldiers will be coming from their camp,” Wilkes stammered out.

“When they get here, you can tell them some criminals have been executed,” Luke said.

“There was no trial—”

“More than they deserved. Wolford got to speak his piece.” Luke nodded at the crowd. “All these people heard it.”

“There’s gonna be warrants sworn out on you—”

“Fine.” Luke tucked the Colt Navy away, but kept the Griswold and Gunnison in his hand as he stepped down carefully from the boardwalk. The horse he had ridden into town was only a few steps away. It looked like he wasn’t going to be able to return the mount to Thad Franklin after all. If he could, later on he would send some money to the man to pay for the horse.

“I thought you couldn’t walk,” Wilkes remarked.

“It seems that I can,” Luke said again.

“Old Peabody and his granddaughter . . .”

“They’re all right. Emily was wounded, but I don’t think it’s bad.”

“Then Wolford’s men didn’t murder anybody after all.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Luke said. “And there’s no telling what other crimes they’re guilty of, or how many men they’ve killed.”

“You’re the killer,” Wilkes said, his voice shaking. “A cold-blooded killer!”

“In that case, Sheriff,” Luke said quietly, “I think you’d do well to stay out of my way.” He put his foot in the stirrup and swung up onto the borrowed horse. Or stolen horse, if you wanted to look at it that way, he thought.

Part of him couldn’t believe he was still alive, or his legs were still working. But that was the case, and he had learned to deal with things the way they were, not the way he wished they could be.

Wilkes was right. The law would probably come after him. He could never go back to the Peabody farm. It would bring down more trouble on their heads, trouble they didn’t need.

One thing had to be left perfectly clear before he rode away. Raising his voice so he addressed the townspeople as much as the sheriff, he said, “Emily Peabody and her grandfather had nothing to do with what happened here tonight! I did it on my own, and the law has no reason to bother them for this or anything else! I’m counting on the good people of this community to make sure that’s understood! I did this!”

“We don’t even know your name, mister,” one of the townies called out.

“It’s Smith. Luke Smith.”

With that, Luke jammed his heels into the horse’s flanks. People scrambled to get out of his way as he galloped out of the settlement. The darkness at the edge of town swallowed him.

It swallowed Luke Smith . . . because Luke Jensen was dead. He had died the night the Confederate gold was stolen. His ma and pa, Kirby, and Janey would never know he was a failure and a fugitive.

The swift rataplan of hoofbeats in the night faded and then was gone.