Bounty on a Baron

Chapter Fourteen

The first night Decker camped on the trail after leaving the Boone lumber camp made him appreciate Frenchie’s offer of hospitality—whatever the man’s motives—even more. Sitting in front of his fire, he pulled his jacket closer around him and put his fur collar up to ward off the chill. As it turned out, being cold saved his life, because it was when he leaned over to grab his blanket and wrap himself in it that the shot was fired—missing him by inches.

After the first shot he rolled away from the fire as quickly as he could and drew his gun. It was in situations like this that Decker wished he were a better shot with a handgun. His cut-down shotgun had a limited effective range, and was of almost no use in instances like this. True, he could have fired into the brush, and his double-O shot would cover a wide area, its pattern spreading more the farther it went, but at some point—when it spread too much—it became ineffective.

Decker looked over at his rifle on the other side of the fire. He had rolled away from the fire instinctively, trying to get out of its light, but in doing so had also rolled farther away from the rifle.

Anxiously, he looked at John Henry, who seemed unconcerned about the goings-on. Had he been ambushing someone he would have gone for the horse first, either to free it or kill it. He was relieved that his ambusher—or ambushers—had not thought of that yet.

They might, though, which gave him three possible choices. He could stay where he was, but that wasn’t such a great choice. He might be away from most of the fire’s light, but he was still out in the open.

The second choice was to move over by John Henry, to protect the horse, but then he’d still be waiting for them to make a move.

His third choice was to move into the brush himself, out of sight, which would put him on more equal footing with his attackers.

Lying on his belly, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, Decker wondered why there had only been that one shot. As if to answer his question there were suddenly two more, sounding as if they had been fired from two different guns. Each kicked up some dirt on either side of him, and he knew he had to move or he’d be dead in seconds.

He took a deep breath, then rose and ran for the brush. Three or four more shots rang out, narrowly missing him, and then he wasn’t out in the open anymore.

He stopped when he had cover and crouched down, staying perfectly still. He listened intently, trying desperately to hear something that would give away the position of his assailants.

“Jesus, we missed—” he heard, and then someone said, “Shhh!” forcefully.

That was enough for him to pinpoint their position. He started to move through the brush, hoping to come up behind them before it occurred to them to go after his horse.

As he moved along, Decker started to wonder if he wasn’t getting a little old for this business. The two men had managed to get close enough to take a shot at him without his hearing them. This was just another in a series of lapses he had noticed since he had started out after the Baron. Even the usually reliable John Henry had not detected the presence of the men before they could fire. Decker wondered if the cold had affected the horse’s sense of smell and hearing. Maybe it had even affected his.

Why couldn’t the Baron have hid out in Mexico, like a lot of other outlaws? he wondered.

After he moved about a hundred yards in a semicircle Decker stopped and listened again. This time when he heard them they were much closer.

“Where did he go?” one man asked.

“I told you to keep your mouth shut!” a second voice said.

They were about ten yards to his left and in front of him.

He moved cautiously, not wanting to alert them, and when he thought he was directly behind them he decided on his course of action. If he called out to them they could split up and would immediately gain the advantage. He was better off taking a more direct course.

He raised his sawed-off and fired both barrels ahead of him. While the men screamed in anguish he quickly ejected the two empty shells and replaced them.

He moved forward then, gun held out ahead of him, and approached what had become a stream of steady moans.

“God, Jesus!” one man yelled. “I been cut in half!”

The other was simply groaning, holding himself with both arms.

Decker moved to the shouting man, but as he leaned over him the man stopped yelling. An instant later he emitted a sound that could only be a death rattle. This man would never give him any trouble again, Decker knew.

He turned to approach the other man, whose wounds appeared less serious. Still, he was surprised when the man rolled over with a gun in his hand. Without even thinking, Decker squeezed off one barrel, striking the man in the face, obliterating it totally.

There was an eerie silence after the shots, and Decker checked both men again. From his vantage point he had a clear look at his campfire. If they had been better marksmen—or if he had not been so cold—he would be dead now instead of them.

Decker was about to step out into the open when there was a shot from the opposite side of the campfire.

“Shit!” Decker said, hitting the ground. Apparently these men had not been alone but were simply the first wave.

Decker rolled over, removed the spent shells from his gun, and loaded two more. It was at times like this—and a lot of others—that he wished he was a competent shot with a six-shooter, simply because they had six shots.

“Dave!” a voice called out. “Steve!”

Well, now Decker knew the names of the two dead men. Of course, that still didn’t tell him who they were.

Keeping low, Decker crept over one of the bodies, intending to move back into the brush, but he stopped short. He holstered his gun, picked up one of the dead men’s rifles, and then began to circle to his right, facing the campfire. Maybe whoever was on the other side—one man? two?—would think that Decker was as dead as his two friends, and step out into the open.

Moving slowly but steadily, Decker heard someone say, “Shit!” under his breath, and he followed the sound of the voice.

He was opposite the place where he’d left the two bodies when someone suddenly shouted, “Hey, Steve! You hit?”

Decker started, because the voice came from right in front of him, about ten feet away. Decker could see that the man was wearing a plaid jacket and heavy pants. From the look of him, he was a lumberjack—an interesting point.

Peering through the brush, he saw a lone man lying on his stomach, a rifle in his hand. He came up behind the man, who heard him too late.

“Freeze,” Decker said, putting the barrel of his rifle right against the man’s ass. “Let’s have a talk.”

“I got nothing to say.”

“We can talk now, or I give you another asshole and then we can talk.”

“Jesus! Wait—”

“All right, then,” Decker said. “Toss your rifle out into the clearing.”

The man obeyed, flinging the rifle away from him.

“Who sent you?”

“I don’t know.”

“What the hell—” Decker said, pressing the rifle butt harder against the man’s ass.

“I mean it,” he said. “I just came along for the ride.”

“And the money?”

“Sure. And the money.”

Decker backed away from the man and said, “Okay, roll over. I want to take a look at you.”

The man rolled over and Decker saw his hand inside his jacket. Before the man had time to bring the gun out, Decker fired. The bullet struck the man in the throat, bringing a gusher of blood from his mouth, and then he slumped back with his eyes still open.

“Damn!” Decker said.

He moved through the brush until he found a branch approximately the size and thickness of his arm, then walked to his campfire and lit one end of it. Using it as a torch he went back to check the first two bodies. He did not recognize either of the men, but he did recognize the way they were dressed.

There was no doubt in his mind that all three men were loggers.

As he drank some strong black coffee, Decker pondered on the significance of the attack. Someone from a logging camp had sent those two men after him, and the only logging camp he’d been anywhere near was the Boone camp.

Who was really in command there? he wondered. How much real authority did Dani Boone have? She had just taken over from her father. How much loyalty would she command from her men? And why, if she was so anxious for Decker to find her father’s killer, would she send two men to kill him.

No, it wasn’t Dani Boone.

The logic that eliminated Dani Boone, however, did not apply to the other person who was in authority: Big Jeff Reno. Decker had had no contact whatsoever with Reno during the short time he’d been in the camp, yet whenever the man looked at him, it had been with distinct displeasure.

Why? What could Reno have against him? Perhaps Reno recognized Decker. It wasn’t impossible that Decker had once brought in or killed a relative of his. Decker couldn’t count the times that someone’s brother or father or wife or even daughter had tried to kill him out of revenge.

Still, if he’d had some contact with a relative of Reno’s in the past, and if there had been any resemblance at all, surely he’d remember.

Was he leaving someone out? What about Frenchie? If he’d been so close to Dani’s father, wouldn’t he have some authority with the men? He could have given the order, but it had been Frenchie who’d brought Decker into camp in the first place.

Reno was Decker’s choice, but he decided not to go back to camp now and find out. He could do that later. It would be some time before Reno knew that his men had failed, and by that time it would be too late to send anyone else after him.

Decker fed some more mesquite into the fire, then lay back with his head on his pillow. He’d sleep lightly to night. He filed Jeff Reno away in the back of his mind as unfinished business.

Back in Douglas, Wyoming, Sheriff Calder was sitting in his office, wondering how long he would remain sheriff there.

He hadn’t heard from the Baron in some time, and he was beginning to wonder if Decker hadn’t actually found him and brought him in—or killed him. Without the Baron to back him up, Calder wouldn’t be able to hold on to Douglas. As soon as the news broke that the notorious hired killer had been brought in, the town would turn on him.

Nervous, the sheriff tried to calm himself. He knew what the Baron was capable of. Before he panicked, he’d wait until he either heard from him or heard that he’d been caught.

In Broadus, Brand realized that it had been a while since he had contacted Calder to find out if anyone was asking about his services.

He was sitting on the porch of Josephine’s house, waiting for her to close the store and come home to cook him dinner. It wouldn’t take long for him to walk over to the telegraph office and send word, but that would tell Calder where he was. What he usually did was travel to a different town to contact the sheriff. That way no two messages ever came from the same place.

Right now he was too comfortable to saddle a horse and ride to the next town, so he just settled back and continued to wait for Jo.