Bounty Hunter

CHAPTER 25

Moving fast but not rushing, Luke palmed the Colt smoothly from its holster. At the same time, his left hand twisted at the wrist, grasped the butt of the Griswold and Gunnison sticking up from his waistband, and pulled that gun, too.

He wished the blonde wasn’t standing right by the bar where a stray bullet could hit her, but most of the time a man couldn’t choose the fights that came to him. All he could do was try to stay alive.

The outlaws swept aside the long buffalo coats and grabbed for their guns. They were fast, but Luke was faster. They had just cleared leather when his guns began to roar.

He shot the one called Ben first, triggering the Colt twice and slamming the slugs into the man’s body, hoping two shots would be enough to put the big man down.

The bullets slammed Ben back against the bar and knocked some of the planks loose. Luke fired his left-hand gun at Cooter and saw the man stagger.

To Luke’s left, the gambler’s pistol cracked, but the third outlaw had his gun leveled and jerked the trigger twice, sending return shots at the tinhorn.

Luke pivoted and used the Griswold and Gunnison on the third brother while he sent two more slugs from the Colt into Cooter’s slumping form. The third man was hit, but he still stood tall and straight and fired at Luke, who felt the hot breath of the bullet as it whipped past his ear.

Something flashed in the lamplight, and the third Gammon brother made a gurgling, gasping sound. Bright red blood flooded from his neck, which the blonde had opened almost from ear to ear with a single backhanded swipe of the straight razor she held in her hand. The man dropped his gun and pawed at his neck, but there was nothing he could do to stop the bleeding. He collapsed onto his knees and then pitched forward on his face to lie motionless as a crimson puddle formed on the dirt floor beneath his head.

Cooter and Ben were both down. So was the gambler, and so were the two cowboys, although they lifted frightened faces to look around as the shooting ended. Luke saw the proprietor peeking out from behind one of the whiskey barrels where he had taken cover.

Luke said to the blonde, “Why don’t you step away from those men, ma’am, so I can make sure they’re dead?”

“The one I cut is, you can count on that. Looks like just about all the blood he had in him has leaked out.”

“It never hurts to make sure.” Luke approached the fallen outlaws with both hands still filled with revolvers and toed them over onto their backs. In all three cases, sightless eyes stared up emptily at the low ceiling.

“Told you,” the blonde said.

One of the cowboys had gotten up to check on the gambler. “This fella’s hurt bad.”

Luke tucked away the Griswold and Gunnison but kept the Colt in his other hand as he went over and knelt beside the gambler. The man’s white shirt was dark with blood under his once-fancy vest.

“Sorry,” Luke said.

“D-don’t be,” the gambler managed to say. “I knew it was . . . a game of chance . . . when I took cards . . . It’s just the way they were . . .” He wasn’t able to finish as his eyes went glassy.

“That’s right,” Luke said, even though the tinhorn couldn’t hear him anymore. “It’s just the way they were dealt.” He looked up at the blonde. “You know his name?”

“I don’t have any earthly idea. He just rode in a while ago, like the rest of you. Those cowboys were first, then him, then the Gammons. Then you.”

Luke stood up, reloaded the Navy, and introduced himself. “Luke Smith.”

“I’m called Marcy.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance . . . again.” He noticed the razor she had used to cut the throat of the third Gammon brother was nowhere to be seen. She’d probably slipped it back into a hidden pocket in her dress. “I take it these are some of the local bad men?”

“They’re bad, all right. They’ve robbed, raped, and murdered their way across half of Kansas and Nebraska.”

“Then the world’s better off with them dead.”

“I reckon. The world really would’ve been better off if they’d been put in gunnysacks and drowned when they were babies.”

Luke couldn’t help smiling. “A bit bloodthirsty, aren’t you?”

“Men like that deserve it,” Marcy said, prodding one of the bodies with the toe of her boot.

Luke turned to the Texas cowhands. “How about giving me a hand dragging them out?”

The proprietor spoke up from behind the bar. “As cold as it is, there’s liable to be wolves around tonight. If you put the bodies outside—”

“Then these three will finally serve a purpose in nature, won’t they?” Luke looked at the gambler. “We’ll put this fellow in the shed where the wolves can’t get at him. Maybe the ground won’t be frozen too hard in the morning to dig a grave.”

The proprietor told Luke his money wasn’t any good as long as he was there. Since Luke’s funds were running a little low, he didn’t argue, and enjoyed the beer, the bowl of stew, and the chunk of hard bread the man brought to his table once the bodies of the dead men had been tended to.

Marcy came over and sat down at the table with him, bringing a glass of whiskey with her. “What happened to those fellas who were with you the last time I saw you?”

“Four of them are dead,” Luke said. “I don’t know about the other four.”

He had kept his eyes and ears open while he was drifting, hoping he might run across something or somebody who could put him on the trail of Potter and the others, but so far he hadn’t had any luck. He had no idea where to start searching, so he asked questions about them and waited and hoped. “You haven’t seen any of the others since then, have you?”

She shook her head. “You’re the first one, Luke.”

He swallowed some of the beer from his mug and smiled. “I appreciate you not shooting me that day.”

“Don’t think I didn’t think about it,” she said solemnly. Then a faint smile tugged at her lips, too.

“You’re about as hardboiled as a lady can be, aren’t you?”

“Who the hell said I’m a lady? And do you know any other way for a woman to survive out here? We’ve got to be tougher than all you men. We just can’t let you see it.”

Luke grinned and lifted his beer. “To toughness.”

She clinked her glass against his and nodded. “To toughness.”

After they drank, he said, “What happened to the other women who were with you that day?”

“Turnabout’s fair play on that question, eh?” She shrugged. “Damned if I know. Some of them are dead, and the others are scattered. Just like your friends, I reckon.”

“The ones who are left alive aren’t my friends,” Luke said, his smile disappearing.

Marcy regarded him shrewdly for a moment and then nodded. “It’s like that, is it?”

“It is.”

“Well, then, I don’t know whether to hope you find them or not.”

“Why’s that?” Luke asked.

“Because there’s four of them and one of you, and I hate to see any man I let into my bed without payin’ get himself killed.”

Luke’s eyebrows rose a little. “You’re going to let me into your bed without paying?”

“Let me finish this drink—” Marcy lifted her glass—“and then we’ll see.”

Luke and Marcy spent the night in one of the small rooms partitioned off at the back of the roadhouse. Wrapped up in blankets and each other, they stayed warm enough despite the icy wind howling outside.

When Luke woke up in the morning, she was gone, but he smelled coffee brewing and hoped he would find her in the main room. He sat up and dressed quickly. Pushing the curtain aside, he stepped out of the tiny room and saw Marcy standing at the stove fully dressed with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Even inside the roadhouse, it was cold.

She looked up at him and smiled. “How do you feel?”

“Not bad.” As he walked over to her his gait was a little awkward. His muscles had stiffened up some while he was asleep.

She noticed, and asked, “Something wrong?”

“Just an old injury. Nothing to worry about.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know all about those old injuries. The world’s got a way of knockin’ folks around, doesn’t it?”

“It sure does,” Luke agreed.

“Well, sit down somewhere. Coffee will be ready soon, and then I’ll whip up some breakfast.”

“You’re the cook here, too?”

“That’s right.” Her smile was wry. “I have lots of different jobs.”

While Luke was sitting there, the two young cowboys came in from outside. They had spent the night at the roadhouse, too, and Luke figured they’d been out to check on the horses, all of which had been put in the shed behind the building along with the body of the gambler.

“Mornin’, Mr. Smith,” one of the youngsters greeted him. “Got something here for you.” He lifted a gun belt with double holsters. The walnut grip of a revolver stuck up from each holster.

“We took ’em off one of those Gammon brothers when we dragged the carcasses outside last night,” the other puncher explained. “Didn’t see any point in armin’ the wolves that were gonna drag ’em off.”

“I see.” Luke took the gun belt from the first cowboy. The holsters were reversed for a cross draw. He slid one of the guns from leather and recognized it as a Remington. Fine weapon, he thought. “What about the other two brothers?”

The cowboys grinned and pulled back their coats to reveal that they had taken the gun belts from those bodies, too.

“Those looked like the best guns, so we figured you deserved to have them, Mr. Smith. And the horses, too, if you want ’em.”

“I’ll take one horse as an extra mount,” Luke said. “You fellows can get some good use out of the other two, I expect.”

The punchers exchanged grins.

“We sure can,” one of them said. “We was just about broke last night, ’cept for our saddles and our hosses. Now we got good guns and extra mounts. Reckon we’re plumb rich!”

Luke wasn’t sure he had ever been as young and carefree as those two Texas cowboys. If he had been, he couldn’t remember it.

Marcy came over with the coffeepot. “You two sit down,” she told the punchers. “Breakfast will be ready in a little bit.”

They were all eating a short time later when the door opened again. Luke glanced up and saw a bulky figure silhouetted against the gray light of the overcast day. The first things he noticed were the rifle in the man’s hand and the tin star pinned to his coat. He recognized it as a United States marshal’s badge.

The man wore a thick sheepskin coat and had a broad-brimmed brown hat pulled down tight on his head so the wind wouldn’t blow it away. His face was red, either from the cold, a close acquaintance with whiskey, or both, and a close-cropped blond beard stuck out on his cheeks and chin.

Luke took a deep breath. He was still wanted on murder charges back in Georgia.