Bounty Hunter (9781101611975) (22 page)

Cole squinted into the darkness and got lucky.

He took aim with the Henry on the silhouette of Joe Clark's bobbing head.

Click!

The hammer fell on an empty chamber. Blake had left his Henry with just one round in it.

“I heard that,” Clark shouted. “You're out of bullets!”

“I've been counting, and I think you're nearly down to none yourself,” Cole shouted back confidently. “I know you got yourself nicked back at the fire. Why don't y'all just give up and we'll go back and sit by that nice warm fire.”

In fact, he had
not
been counting and wasn't sure how many shots the man had left. It might be one, and he was sure it was no more than two. Meanwhile, Cole now had the advantage of Clark believing Cole had an empty gun, when he still had five rounds left in his Colt.

Cole braced himself.

The intuitive next step for a man facing another who was out of ammunition is to attack and finish him off.

Instead, however, Clark turned and resumed running. Maybe it was Cole's overconfidence, expressed in his invitation to the warmth of the fire, that made Clark believe that he was doomed unless he got away.

Cole jumped a downed tree that crossed his path, and gave chase. Maybe Clark really was almost out of bullets.

They came to an open area, and for a brief moment, Clark was exposed.

K'pow!

Cole fired once and missed.

He eyed a boulder in the middle of the clearing and ran toward it, knowing that Clark would turn and return fire as soon as he reached the dark woods at the far side.

K'pow!

Clark's shot hit the rock inches from Cole's hand. The shards of granite kicked up by the lead stung his flesh.

K'pow!

Cole fired again as Clark resumed running through the woods.

The pursued man grunted. Cole was unsure whether this meant that he had been hit.

The stillness of the forest was bisected by two men running as fast as the underbrush permitted.

Not far ahead, Cole heard the sound of feet slipping on loose gravel and the scrabbling noise of a man trying to keep his balance.

“
Aargh . . . ahhh . . . eeyoooooh!
”

Gasps turned to a single scream, which trailed off into the distance.

Suddenly, Cole found his own boots scruffling in the uncertain footing of gravel mixed with snow.

His feet went out from beneath him, and he fell on his back.

Briefly winded, he caught his breath, sat up, and looked around.

Barely two feet away, the ground dropped into a dark void. The patch of gravel on which he found himself seated was, literally, a slippery slope into nothingness.

The moon drifted out from behind a cloud, and Cole stared at the broad canyon that lay before him. He was at the top of a vertical cliff. Had he not slipped and fallen where he did, he would have gone over.

Grabbing a nearby tree root to steady himself, he stepped out to a rock outcropping where he could look into the chasm.

Far below, he saw Joe Clark, lying faceup and motionless on a slab of light-colored rock. The inky darkness spilling from his broken skull told the bounty hunter that he was never going to arise from this place.

Chapter 28

“W
HERE'S
C
LARK?”
H
ANNAH
R
ANSDELL ASKED AS SHE
entered the campsite. She had remained in the crow's nest high above until she had seen Bladen Cole ride out of the woods.

“He didn't make it,” Cole answered.

She didn't ask how or why. She did not really care. The day ahead demanded her attention more than did the last loose end from yesterday.

She had breathed a sigh of relief when she laid her peeled eyes on the bounty hunter and had come down from her perch to greet him. She was tempted to do so with a hug, but forced herself to remain focused on the business at hand.

For Cole, the first order of business was a perfunctory examination of the other bushwacker, who had not moved since Cole had drilled the man the night before.

“That's Lyle Blake!”

Gideon Porter recognized the body as soon as Cole rolled the corpse to face the gathering light of day. “What the hell?”

“Meet the man who's been trying to kill
you
since yesterday,” Hannah said, holding her rifle in a posture that Porter found a trifle threatening. “Him and Joe Clark.”

“They won't now,” Cole said tersely.

“Why would they do this?” Jimmy Goode whined.

“Because somebody wants you
dead
,” Cole answered. “It looks like Gideon's ‘friends in high places' don't want to see you hang after all . . . they want to see you killed off
before
you get anywhere
near
a gallows.”

“Gideon, is that right?” Goode shouted. Apparently, even after all the shooting on the previous day, it took the vacant stare of Lyle Blake to finally bring it home to Goode that someone was actually gunning for
him
.

“Shut up, damn you . . .” Porter roared back.

“If I'm not mistaken, these boys were paid by the same person who paid
you
,” Hannah said.

“That would make you a loose end,” Cole continued. “How does it feel to have your high-placed man turn on you and want you erased . . . squashed like a bug so that you can never talk?”

“But . . . he still owes me money.”

“
Who
is it?” Hannah demanded. “Is it . . . ?”

“I ain't talkin'!” Porter shouted. “I ain't sayin' a word till I get to Gallatin City.”

*   *   *

T
HERE BEING ADEQUATE ROCKS NEAR THE CAMPSITE,
C
OLE
put Porter to work in the construction of a rock pile mausoleum as the resting place of Lyle Blake. The flood of profanities that accompanied this task offended Hannah's sensibilities less than his stubbornness.

“That man is insufferable,” she said, glancing at Cole as she saddled her mare and Cole stacked the saddles and tack belonging to Blake and Clark on top of the cairn.

“By this time tomorrow, he'll be somebody else's problem,” he reminded her as he turned loose the horses that had been ridden by the late bushwhackers.

“I fear this will be a very long day,” she said, revealing a trace of melancholy.

“Sometimes the last day of anything is the longest,” Cole said. “But same as any day, they're all eventually over.”

“Mr. Cole,” she said, looking back at him.

“Yeah . . .”

“I'm really worried about today.”

“After what we been through, what I've seen you able to take in stride, I can't picture you being too much of the worrying type.”

“I've never had to face my father like this.”

“I can't even imagine it,” he said, betraying a shade of sympathy despite the overarching outrage he felt toward her father.

“Is your father still alive, Mr. Cole?”

“No, ma'am. He died in the war.”

“I'm sorry . . .”

“It's been a while,” Cole shrugged. “Lot of good men died in the war.”

“I used to think of my father as a good man,” Hannah said sadly.

“I'm sorry about that,” he replied, trying not to appear cynical.

“Thank you . . .” she said, her voice trailing off.

She smiled, but he could see the tears in her eyes. He felt her hand close tightly on his wrist.

*   *   *

T
HEY WERE A CURIOUS CONTINGENT, THIS RAGTAG PARTY
making its way south along the Helena–Gallatin City wagon road on that cold, early winter morning.

The bounty hunter brought up the rear behind an assortment that included two well-worn men chained to their saddles and a ripening corpse that was beginning its foul decay even in the sub-freezing temperatures. Leading the way was a young woman. Despite a generous spattering of mud and dirt and her two mostly sleepless nights of camping in the wilderness, she still managed to present the manner and appearance of a lady out for a Sunday ride.

She cheerfully greeted a freighter whose wagon they passed on his way north toward Helena. He smiled and tipped his hat when she waved, but his jaw dropped a little when he saw the others. He was still looking back at them and scratching his head a quarter mile after they had passed.

Though he was tempted to breathe a sigh of relief at having gotten through the last night on the trail alive, Bladen Cole knew better. There was no guarantee that Blake and Clark were the only ones with a mandate to prevent Cole and his prisoners from setting foot again in Gallatin City alive.

Snowflakes drifted in the air more like paint flaking randomly from the white sky than harbingers of a serious storm.

About two hours from the campsite and the final resting place of the late Lyle Blake, Hannah Ransdell reined her mare into an about-face and trotted back to where Cole was.

“Did you see?” Hannah asked urgently.

“Yeah . . . three riders about a mile and a half out.”

The three had dropped out of sight behind a low rise, but he too had been watching them for about ten minutes.

“I think I recognize one of them,” she said.

“Oh yeah . . . Who?” Cole said cautiously.

“I think the one in the black coat is Edward J. Olson, my father's . . .”

“Yeah, I know,” Cole nodded, instinctively tucking his long coat behind the holster that held his Colt.

“What should we do?”

“If we've seen
them
 . . . they've certainly seen
us
,” Cole said. “If we leave the trail now, they'll know that we have misgivings about crossing their path.”

“Then we shan't leave the trail,” Hannah said confidently. “We'll face them. I'll continue to ride point.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Cole asked. “You're a good shot, but there's three of them, two of us, and we have a pair of caged pigeons to keep from getting killed.”

“I don't mean for us to face them with
guns
,” she said. “I mean to face Edward J. Olson with
words
. He
knows
me, and I think I can figure out what to say. He doesn't know that I know that
he
sent Blake and Clark out here, and there is no indication that we met up with those two. The best thing we have on our side is that he's in very big trouble if he lets anything happen to Isham Ransdell's daughter.”

“He could say that you got hit in a cross fire,” Cole said.

“Thanks for suggesting that comforting possibility,” she said with an almost smile. “I'm betting there will not be a cross fire.”

“I don't know . . .” Cole said hesitatingly.

“Do
you
have a better idea, Mr. Cole?”

*   *   *

T
HE TWO GROUPS OF RIDERS APPROACHED EACH OTHER
cautiously but deliberately, without overt demonstration of caution.

When they were within shouting distance, it was Hannah who spoke first.

“Good morning, Mr. Olson.” she exclaimed with a merry smile, as though she were greeting Olson on the street in Gallatin City. “What a pleasure to see you.”

His companions, whom she dismissed with a nod, were a pair of men she recognized as being among those who did occasional odd jobs around town.

“Good morning, Miss Ransdell,” he replied, touching the brim of his hat. “I'm surprised to see you out here this morning.”

“It
is
such a nice morning, isn't it? A bit on the cold side, but it doesn't look like we're in for a lot of snow.”

“No, ma'am. It doesn't look like much of a storm.”

“Good morning, Mr. Olson,” Cole said with a wave, riding up to a place near Hannah. Following her lead, Cole smiled broadly, though he kept his right hand close to his Colt.

“Mr. Cole,” Olson said, nodding an acknowledgment of the bounty hunter. “I can see with great satisfaction that you have succeeded in your mission of rounding up the Porter boys . . . or at least
one
of the Porter boys.”

“Enoch's right there,” Cole said, nodding to the canvas-wrapped parcel tied across the saddle on Enoch Porter's horse.

“I can smell him from here,” Olson nodded.

Olson was trying to appear cordial, but the two men with him had nervous, edgy expressions. Perhaps it was merely Cole's endemic distrust of Olson's employer, but it seemed to him that these two were keeping their gun hands at the ready.

Cole was sizing up how fast he could take them if they
did
draw on him, and which one to take first. Unlike the more seasoned and calculating bushwhackers of the day before, these two appeared very young and very inexperienced, the sort who were prone to being easily spooked into drawing weapons without adequate thought. That sort was, Cole knew, the worst kind.

Cole watched Gideon Porter exchange knowing glances with Olson. This man, as Olson's knowing nod and the expression on Porter's face revealed, was one of Porter's friends in high places.

“What are you boys doing out for a ride today?” Hannah said cheerfully. “Heading up to Helena?”

“No. Actually, we were riding out to meet Mr. Cole,” Olson said warily. Whatever he was doing or saying that he was doing, he obviously had not in his wildest dreams expected to run into Isham Ransdell's daughter.

“Mighty good timing, I'd say,” Cole smiled. “How'd you pick
this
morning?”

“There were some travelers who passed through Gallatin City a couple of days ago who had word of a bounty hunter with two prisoners who had been in Copperopolis about a week ago,” Olson explained. “Figured it had to be you.”

“Guess you figured right,” Cole smiled calmly.

“Hadn't expected to see you out here, Miss Ransdell,” Olson said, repeating his earlier words to her. “Does your father know you're out here?”

“Of course he does,” Hannah lied with an innocent smile.

“He didn't say anything to
me
about you being out here on the road with this bunch.”

“Well, you know Daddy,” she laughed. “He doesn't necessarily tell everyone about
everything
. He often doesn't tell me about the errands he sends
you
on.”

“He
sent
you?”

“Certainly,” she said with a nod. “You don't think I'd come out here and associate myself with such riff-raff on my own, do you?”

“Well . . . I reckon not,” Olson said. He had to admit that having his boss send her was the only possible explanation that he could imagine.

“Why do you suppose . . . um . . . Why did he do that?”

“Well, Mr. Olson, as Mr. Cole put it, he wanted me to ‘check up on his bounty hunter.' Why do you suppose he didn't tell
you
that I was coming?”

Hannah wished immediately that she had not made the latter barb, but she could not resist the temptation to insinuate that the right-hand man was not briefed on everything.

“I reckon he was busy with various affairs at the bank,” Olson said weakly, trying to save face.

“Folks, if you'll excuse me, I've got some outlaws to move along,” Cole interjected at this break in the conversation.

“Of course.” Olson nodded. “But I must say that I'm certainly concerned to see Miss Ransdell being in harm's way like this, with these ruffians. Since things seem to be in order here, I'd like to escort her on ahead and get her back to Gallatin City as soon as possible, while you bring in your villains, Mr. Cole. I'll leave the boys here to give you a hand.”

“Thank you
so
much for your offer,” Hannah said. “There is really
nothing
I'd rather do right now than get away from this mess . . . especially now that Enoch Porter has started to reek with such an atrocious odor.”

“I'm happy to oblige . . .” Olson smiled.

“
But
 . . . and it pains me to say it, Mr. Olson, I would not be true to my father's instructions to accompany this motley crew if I were to do such a thing.” Hannah smiled.