Bounty Hunter

CHAPTER 27

Blood money, Thornapple had called it, and that turned out to be true.

As the years passed, Luke Smith saw a veritable lake of blood.

From the Rio Grande to the Canadian border, from New Orleans and the Mississippi River delta to San Francisco, Luke roamed, always on the trail of men with a price on their heads. Whether the bounty was big or small didn’t really matter. Kill enough penny-ante owlhoots, as long as somebody was willing to pay for the carcasses, and the money added up.

Sometimes there were big kills, too, high-dollar rewards netting Luke enough cash he wouldn’t have to track down any more outlaws for a while if he didn’t want to.

But what else was he going to do?

The face looking out at him from the mirror when he shaved became craggier, more weathered. The ordeal he had suffered at the end of the Civil War made him look older than his years, and the life he lived after that certainly didn’t make him appear any younger. Those deep-set eyes had seen too much death and suffering to ever be innocent again.

His only consolation was the men he killed had it coming. They were robbers, rapists, arsonists, murderers.

He wasn’t arrogant enough to consider himself some sort of avenging angel delivering justice. If he was working for any higher power, it was Lucifer, reaping more souls to be plunged, screaming, into the depths of Hades.

Luckily, there were a few moments of humanity here and there, or he might have gone insane.

Deadwood, 1877

The gold rush that had caused the town to spring into existence a year earlier had dwindled away as mining syndicates and corporations moved in and, for the most part, replaced the individual prospectors who had sunk shafts in the sides of the gulches all around the settlement. It still had its rough edges, though, and enough vice to attract men from all over, including those on the run from the law.

Luke rode in on the trail of a man named Robert Fescoe, who had killed a bank teller during a robbery down in Yankton. Fescoe was reported to be heading west, and Luke hoped the fugitive paused long enough in Deadwood to get drunk and find himself a whore.

Those two things didn’t sound that bad to Luke, either, although he wasn’t one to indulge his baser appetites indiscriminately. However, a man couldn’t just sit and read during all his spare time.

He stopped at a livery stable, and as he turned his horse over to the hostler, he asked, “Have you seen a tall, skinny fellow with a half-moon-shaped scar on his chin?” Luke was grateful for the outlaw’s scar because it made him easy to describe.

The hostler frowned in thought and shook his head. “Can’t say as I have, mister.”

“He would have ridden in within the last day or two,” Luke added.

“Nope. Sorry.”

“Is this the only livery stable in town?”

The hostler chuckled. “I wish it was. I’d make a lot more money that way. No, there are three or four more. Maybe the hombre you’re lookin’ for left his hoss at one of them.”

“Maybe so.” Luke flipped a five-dollar gold piece to the man, who caught it deftly. “That ought to cover my bill for a while . . . and buy your discretion if you happen to see the man I’m looking for.”

“If you mean I won’t say nothin’ to him about you lookin’ for him, you’re danged right about that. I’ll even come see if I can find you.”

“I’d be much obliged,” Luke told him. “Meanwhile, what’s the best place in town to get a drink?”

The hostler scratched his beard-stubbled jaw. “Well, there’s the Bella Union. It’s pretty nice. Or the Gem, which ain’t as nice, but their whiskey is good and they got some fine whores. Folks tend to get shot there from time to time, though.”

“An all-too-common occurrence.”

“Or there’s a new place you could try. It’s called the Buffalo Butt.”

Luke had to laugh. “What a name for a saloon!”

“Yeah, I don’t know why the gal who owns it decided to call it that. She don’t look like a buffalo’s hind end, I can tell you that for dang sure. She’s one of the prettiest gals in Deadwood, I’d say.”

“Well, that certainly sounds intriguing. I’ll give it a try.” Luke lifted a hand in farewell and left the livery stable.

It didn’t take him long to find the Buffalo Butt Saloon. Despite the crude name, it appeared to be a well-furnished and successful establishment, sitting at an intersection with its batwinged entrance right at the corner so it was easily visible from both streets.

Luke pushed the batwings aside and stepped in with his usual caution. A man in his line of work never knew when he might run into an old enemy, although most of the men Luke tried to take into custody put up a fight and wound up dead.

A long mahogany bar ran down the left side of the room, with gambling layouts to the right and tables in between. At the far end of the room was an open area where people could dance and a small stage for performers, which was empty at the moment. Men sat at about half the tables, drinking, and the bar was pretty busy, too, although there were plenty of open spots. A couple poker games were going on, and the click and clatter of a roulette wheel mixed with the sounds of talk and laughter. Luke liked the looks of the Buffalo Butt, inelegant moniker and all.

A staircase next to the stage led up to the second floor. If the place was like most saloons, the girls who worked downstairs delivering drinks also worked upstairs delivering something else. Luke glanced at the women moving around the room. Unlike some saloon girls, they were fully dressed in nice gowns cut low enough to reveal the swells of their breasts. Luke might have tried to single out one of them for his attentions later, but a man at a nearby table tilted his head back to look up and said, “Lord have mercy, who’s that?”

Luke instinctively followed the direction of the man’s gaze. His breath caught in his throat and he stiffened as he saw a woman standing at the railing on the second-floor balcony, looking down at the room. She wore a dark red dress tight enough to reveal her splendid figure, and a thick mass of curly blond hair spilled around her shoulders.

Luke knew her instantly. Marcy hadn’t changed much in the seven years since he’d ridden away from Wichita, leaving her in that hotel room.

He saw her suddenly clutch the railing and knew she had recognized him, too. He started toward the stairs, weaving among the tables, as she came along the balcony. He went up the stairs as she came down, and they met halfway, embracing with a desperate urgency as their mouths met.

“Aw, hell!” That disappointed exclamation came from the man who Luke had heard speak when he entered the saloon. “Looks like she’s already took.”

Luke and Marcy kissed for a long moment, and Luke felt the dull emotional pain that dogged his steps flow out of him. The unexpected reunion was like being plunged into a clean, icy mountain stream.

Then Marcy pulled back a little, lifted her hand, and pressed the barrel of a derringer against the side of his head. “Damn you, Luke Smith. I ought to put a bullet in your brain.”

Most of the time, if somebody pointed a gun at him, he reacted violently. He suppressed that urge and smiled instead. “You’d probably be justified. I knew you’d be upset that I left you in Wichita. On the other hand, you appear to be doing well for yourself.”

He remembered what the liveryman had said about the owner of the Buffalo Butt being one of the prettiest women in Deadwood. Wherever Marcy was, she would fall into the category. “This is your saloon, isn’t it?”

“What if it is?”

“You wouldn’t be the owner of a successful business if you hadn’t gotten a start from your half of that reward money, would you?”

She let out a snort. “That shows what you know. I used that money to buy an interest in a whorehouse in Wichita. Then it burned down and I lost everything. I had to start over. But by then I’d learned I was pretty good at running things. It took me a while, but I’m doing all right again.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Luke said. “Now, if you’re not going to pull the trigger on that popgun, I’d appreciate it if you took it away from my head. It might go off by accident.”

“I don’t do anything by accident.”

As Marcy lowered the derringer and let its hammer down carefully, Luke became aware the saloon had gone deathly quiet. He supposed someone had noticed her holding a gun to his head and pointed it out, and as the news spread, everyone stopped what they were doing to watch.

Marcy kissed Luke again, and someone let out a cheer, breaking the silence. Customers returned to their drinking and gambling, filling the saloon with noise once more.

Marcy took Luke by the hand and led him upstairs so they could get reacquainted properly.

That evening, Luke sat with Marcy at her private table in the rear corner of the saloon’s main room. One of her bartenders had brought supper over from the dining room of the Grand Central Hotel. It was the best food in the Black Hills, she had explained, and Luke had to admit she was probably right. The roast beef was as good as any he’d had in a long time.

As they ate, washing down the food with sips of fine wine, they talked about everything that had happened since they’d seen each other last.

“I don’t have much to tell,” Luke told her. “I’m a bounty hunter, have been ever since that run-in with the Gammon brothers.”

“I know. I’ve heard talk about you from time to time. You have quite a reputation.” Marcy smiled. “Did you know I named this place after the Gammons?”

“I wondered how come you called it the Buffalo Butt.”

“In those buffalo coats, they were as ugly and smelly as buffalo rumps.”

“I can’t disagree with that,” Luke said.

“Even though I didn’t want to admit it to you this afternoon, I reckon that was when my life started to change for the better. So I felt like I ought to commemorate the occasion.”

Luke thought about it and decided the name was appropriate after all. He lifted his wineglass. “To the good that can come from ugly, inelegant things.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Marcy clinked her glass against his, and he thought her eyes had a meaningful, mischievous twinkle in them as she looked at him.

He was ugly and inelegant, he thought. He had so much blood on his hands he could never wash it off, even if he tried.

But he had done some good in his life, too. He had saved Emily and her grandfather from Vincent Wolford. If the carpetbagger had lived, he wouldn’t have stopped going after them until he got what he wanted.

And Luke had helped Marcy escape a life that would have eventually killed her if she hadn’t gotten out of it. Some people might consider owning a saloon in a frontier town like Deadwood to be pretty disreputable, but those folks just didn’t know how low people really could sink. Marcy was better off. He was sure of it.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked.

“I thought I’d have another glass of this surprisingly good wine,” he replied with a smile.

“No, I mean with your life. Blast it, Luke, you know that.”

He poured the wine and set the bottle aside. “I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing. I don’t see any reason to change now. I’m not sure I could change, even if I wanted to.”

“I did,” Marcy said.

“You wanted to.”

“Wouldn’t you like to have a normal life? Maybe a business? Like . . . half interest in a saloon?”

He saw the hope in her eyes and knew it would be kinder to dash it right away, rather than letting it linger and grow. He shook his head. “I’m not going to settle down. I can’t. Now that I know you’re here, I might try to drift this way more often—”

“Don’t put yourself out on my account.” Her expression turned cold, like a blue norther blowing down across the plains.

“You don’t understand. I can’t be who you want me to be, Marcy, but knowing that I have a friend somewhere. . . well, it might make those cold nights out on the prairie a little easier to bear.”

She wasn’t going to give in easily. “I’ll think about it.” Her voice and body remained stiff with disappointment and anger.

Luke lifted his glass to her. “That’s all I can ask.”

She came to him that night seemingly as passionate as ever, but he sensed she was holding something back. His declaration that he would be riding on had changed whatever had been between them.

And how could it fail to do so? he asked himself, regretting it had happened.

Late that night, as Luke was dozing off with Marcy’s head pillowed on his shoulder, he heard her whisper, “If you run out on me in the morning without saying good-bye again, I’ll hunt you down and kill you.”

He laughed softly and promised, “I’ll be here.”

He was sound asleep when his instincts took over and warned him. Maybe it was the faint creak of a floorboard, but whatever the reason, his eyes snapped open and caught a flicker of movement in the shadows of the room.

Reacting with the speed that had saved his life many times, Luke shoved a startled Marcy out of bed and rolled the other way. With a boom like a crash of thunder, a shotgun went off, twin gouts of flame erupting from its barrels.

Luke snatched up the Remington he had left lying on a chair right beside the bed and thumbed two shots just above the muzzle flash from the scattergun. Momentarily deaf from the shotgun’s roar, he couldn’t hear if his target cried out or dropped the weapon.

Keeping himself low to the ground, he crept forward. After only a couple steps, Luke tripped on something and stumbled. He put his left hand out to catch himself and it landed on something hot and sticky. He pulled it back and lashed out with the revolver, thudding against something soft.

“Get a light on,” Luke told Marcy, hoping none of the buckshot had winged her.

A lucifer flared to life. He squinted against the glare, his eyes adjusting as she lit a lamp on the table beside the bed. Light filled the room and revealed Luke kneeling beside a gaunt man with a scar shaped like a half-moon on his chin. The would-be killer’s chest was a bloody mess from the two slugs that had torn through it.

“Who is he?” Marcy asked. “Do you know him?”

Luke heard the question indicating his hearing had come back. He shook his head. “We never met, but I know who he is. His name’s Fescoe. I’ve been on his trail for a while. Somebody must have told him I was in town looking for him, so he asked around until he figured out where he could find me. Thought he’d get me off his trail permanently.”

Luke was going to have a talk with that liveryman, who had obviously double-crossed him.

Marcy put her hands on her hips. “My bed’s ruined from that shotgun blast, and he’s getting blood on the rug, too.”

Luke stood up. “I’ll send you money for the damages once I’ve gotten the reward. I’ll have to ride back down to Yankton to collect.”

“But you won’t be coming back?”

“Not for a while. Not after this.”

“I’ve seen men die before, you know. I’ve even had them try to kill me.”

“Death doesn’t follow you around, though. Not like it does with me.”

Marcy sighed as one of the bartenders pounded on the door and called out to see if she was all right.

“I can’t decide if you’re the best man I know, Luke Smith, or just a sorry SOB.”

Luke walked to the chair by the side of the bed and slipped the Remington back into the holster. “It’s a good question. I don’t know the answer myself.”