Bounty Hunter

CHAPTER 24

1870

An icy wind clawed at Luke through the sheepskin coat he wore as he brought his horse to a stop in front of the squat roadhouse. Settlers’ homes and most businesses on the almost treeless Kansas plains were built of sod because it was too expensive to have lumber freighted in. Any grass on the thatched roofs was dead. It was late autumn.

He was glad he’d found the place perched on the bank of a narrow creek with ice forming along its edges. No other human habitation was in sight for miles around on the open plains. At least he’d have somewhere to spend the night out of the frigid weather.

His legs sometimes gave him trouble when it was cold. Usually he got around just fine, as if he’d never been injured, although it had taken months to regain his full strength. The wound in his shoulder was minor and had healed quickly, but his legs had given him trouble for a long time. Every so often the old ache was there, deep in his muscles, and it was worse when the temperature dropped.

Other old aches bothered him more, like the knowledge that he had failed the Confederacy and his friends, and the fact that he had ridden away without saying good-bye to Emily.

At least he knew she and her grandfather were all right.

A few months after leaving Georgia, he’d been tending bar in a little East Texas town when none other than Sheriff Royce Wilkes had walked into the saloon where Luke worked. Former Sheriff Royce Wilkes was more accurate, because as it turned out, Wilkes had been run out of town, just like when he’d been a deputy.

Luke dismounted and tied his horse at the rack with half a dozen others. He glanced at the gray sky. Sleet or snow would probably fall later, but for now there was just the cold wind and the fading light. He shuddered in the cold, remembering that long-ago meeting with Wilkes.

As he came up to the bar, his eyes widened in shock as he recognized Luke. “Smith!” His hand dropped toward the gun on his hip.

Luke reached under the bar and rested his hand on the stock of the sawed-off shotgun the owner kept on a shelf there. “I wouldn’t do that, Sheriff. There’s a Greener pointing at you under here.”

Wilkes moved his hand well away from his gun and muttered, “Sorry. And I ain’t a sheriff no more. Haven’t been since not long after you left Dobieville.”

“What happened?”

Wilkes’ mouth twisted bitterly. “Everybody in the damned county raised hell with Judge Blevins and Colonel Morrison about how Wolford tried to have Linus Peabody killed. That old man’s well-liked around those parts. Morrison and the judge tried to brush it off. Blevins swore out a warrant for your arrest on murder charges. But I said I wasn’t gonna go after you, so they booted me from the job.”

“That’s a shame,” Luke said. “A man shouldn’t lose his job for doing the right thing . . . for once.”

“You don’t know what it was like back there when the Yankees came in.” Wilkes scowled and shrugged. “Or I reckon maybe you do, since you were there. Anyway, the Yankees didn’t want me anymore, and the townsfolk didn’t have any use for me to start with, so I thought I might as well come on out here to the frontier and see what I was missin’. So far it ain’t been a hell of a lot.”

Luke asked, “Do you know how Emily is?”

“She was fine when I left. She wasn’t hurt bad that night. In fact, she started lettin’ Thad Franklin’s boy Jess start courtin’ her.”

Luke drew in a breath. Hearing that hurt, but at the same time he was glad Emily wasn’t sitting around and pining away. He wasn’t worth her being unhappy.

“What about those murder warrants?”

Wilkes shrugged again. “They’re still in effect, I guess, but nobody’s gettin’ in any hurry to serve them. I reckon there’s a good chance that if you stay out of Georgia, nobody’s even gonna bother lookin’ for you.”

Luke hoped that was true. He had spent the first three months looking over his shoulder, even as he worked his way west, taking whatever odd jobs he could find.

“I see you’re still up and walkin’ around,” Wilkes went on.

“Yeah, my legs are a lot better.”

“You’re a lucky man. How about a beer?”

Luke nodded and reached for a mug. “ I can do that.”

Wilkes had his drink and left. Luke was relieved, knowing Emily was all right. Maybe she would marry the Franklin boy and settle down to have a long, happy life, Yankees or no Yankees.

It was still on Luke’s mind when he left the saloon that night and started back to the shabby little room he rented a block away.

The soft scrape of a footstep behind him was all the warning he had ... or needed. As he twisted, his hand streaked to the Colt Navy tucked in his waistband. He never went anywhere without being armed. One of his revolvers was always in easy reach, even when he was sleeping.

The gun came out with blinding speed. The muzzle flash from the other man’s gun bloomed n the darkness. Luke’s revolver crashed. A man cried out and reeled from the mouth of the alley Luke had just passed, collapsing in the muddy street.

He knew, even before he snapped a lucifer to life with his thumbnail, the man he’d just killed was Royce Wilkes. He’d been nursing a grudge against Luke ever since leaving Georgia, and when fate had brought the two of them together again, the moment was inevitable.

And it was a damned shame, Luke thought. Back in Dobieville, Wilkes had acted like a real lawman for a moment, but ultimately, doing the right thing had brought him to a violent end.

The former sheriff was responsible for bushwhacking him, though, so Luke wasn’t going to lose any sleep over killing the man. Nor was he going to stay around. He didn’t need the attention or the trouble. Before anyone came to see what the shooting was about, he hustled to his room, rounded up what little gear he had, got his horse from the shed behind the boardinghouse, and lit a shuck, heading west again.

In the years since, he had continued to drift, never staying in one place for too long. He had driven a freight wagon, worked as a shotgun guard on a stagecoach run, tended bar, and even worked as a clerk in a store more than once, although he hated that job. Sometimes he sat in on a poker game and usually came out ahead. He had made enough money to send some back to Thad Franklin for the horse, a mount he had traded in on a better one in San Antonio. He owned a decent saddle, a Winchester rifle, and a gun belt and holster in which he carried the Colt Navy. He kept the Griswold and Gunnison either in his saddlebags or tucked in his waistband. He picked up books wherever he could find them and spent most of his nights reading.

It wasn’t much of a life, but it was what he had.

The vague idea of going to Denver had struck him, and the way he lived, he didn’t spend much time thinking about what he was doing next. He just did it. So he’d set out across Kansas, not figuring on the late autumn storm that was sweeping down across the plains from Canada. He might have to hole up at the roadhouse for a while before continuing his endless journey.

The first thing that struck him as he stepped inside the sod building was the silence. He’d expected some talk and raucous laughter from the patrons, maybe the clatter of coins tossed onto a table as somebody anted up in a poker game, or the clink of a whiskey bottle against a glass.

Instead, once he swung the door closed behind him and cut off the long, hard sigh of the wind, he didn’t hear anything.

Then the sound of harsh breathing came to his ears.

The low-ceilinged, windowless room was lit only by a couple dim and flaring lamps, and the air was thick with smoke and shadows. Luke’s eyes adjusted quickly to the gloom, and took in the scene before him.

A couple young men who looked like they might be cowboys up from Texas sat at one of the crude, rough-hewn tables scattered around on the hard-packed dirt floor. Another man in an overcoat with a flashy but well-worn suit underneath it sat alone at another table. Luke pegged him as a gambler.

Three men in shaggy buffalo-hide coats had a woman pinned up against the bar, which consisted of planks laid across several whiskey barrels. Long-haired and unshaven, they were about as shaggy as the buffalo that had provided their coats. They turned their heads to glare at Luke.

A few feet away, on the other side of the bar, a skinny, bald-headed man stood, looking nervous. He probably owned the place, Luke thought.

The young cowboys looked a little scared, too. The gambler’s face was impassive, but that didn’t mean much. Tinhorns made their living by not letting their faces give anything away.

To the room at large, Luke said in a mild voice, “Don’t mind me. I’m just looking for a place to get out of that blue norther that’s blowing in.”

One of the hardcases shrugged and started to turn away, and Luke thought that was the end of it. But the woman said, “I know you.”

Luke hadn’t gotten a good look at her. He’d seen enough soiled doves in his travels, taking what comfort he could from them when he had to. She tried to step out of the half circle of men around her, and the lamplight hit her face, revealing the curly blond hair, the face that was still pretty despite the hard lines settling in around the eyes and mouth, and the little dark beauty mark near the corner of that mouth.

Luke stiffened. He remembered her, too. It was hard for him to forget somebody who had pointed a shotgun at him. The most vivid memory was of her standing in a shallow creek in wet, skimpy undergarments, but it was followed closely by the mental image of her threatening him and his companions with that scattergun. “Tennessee. Or maybe Georgia.”

Before the woman could respond, one of the hardcases put a grimy hand on her chest and shoved her back against the bar. “Mind your own business, mister,” he snarled.

“Oh, I intend to,” Luke said. “But I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t treat the lady quite so rough, friend.”

The blonde said, “They’re gonna do a lot worse than that.” Her voice rose a little as she tried to control the fear she obviously felt. “They’re going to kill us all, once they’re through having their fun. These are the Gammon brothers.”

The name didn’t mean anything to Luke, but he said, “I see.”

One of the hardcases said, “Hey, Cooter, you think this fella could be that U.S. marshal who’s been on our trail?”

“I don’t know, Ben.” The man squinted across the room at Luke. “But it don’t really matter, does it?”

As soon as the hardcase said that, Luke knew the woman was right. The three of them planned to kill everybody and loot the place before they rode off. They’d probably keep the blonde alive the longest, figuring she could help keep them warm until the storm blew over.

Luke didn’t take his eyes off the outlaws, but he asked the cowboys, “You fellas from Texas taking a hand in this?”

“Mister, all we got are rifles, and they’re outside on our horses,” one of the young punchers said.

“We just came in for a drink,” the other added miserably. “Now we’d just like to get out of here alive.”

“How about you, Ace?” Luke asked the gambler.

“The deck was stacked against me . . . until now.”

The hardcase who had spoken first yelped, “Hellfire, Cooter, they’re gonna draw on us!”

Luke told the Texans, “You boys hit the floor now!”