Death Rides Alone (3 page)

Luke left the gray at the livery stable with Fred Crandall's promise to take good care of the animal, then accompanied Marshal Donovan and Judd Tyler to Bent Creek's jail.

A squat, stone building housed both the marshal's office and a small cell block. Donovan prodded the prisoner into one of the cells and slammed the barred door after him.

“There,” the lawman said with some satisfaction. “He ain't goin' anywhere, the dirty killer.”

Tyler let out a weary sigh and said, “I didn't—”

Donovan held up a hand to stop him.

“You might as well not waste your breath, kid. I can read. I saw what that wanted poster says.”

“Just because it's printed on a wanted poster doesn't mean it's true.”

“I never saw one yet that wasn't.”

Luke could have pointed out that the marshal was wrong. Not every man whose name and description turned up on a wanted poster was really an outlaw. His own brother Smoke had had paper out on him at one time, but it had been issued by a crooked sheriff who wanted Smoke dead.

Just in general, though, Donovan was right. Luke had no doubt of Judd Tyler's guilt.

“Marshal, I'm wet, I'm covered with mud and who knows what else, and I'd like nothing more right now than to wash up and get into some clean clothes,” he said. “I'll leave Tyler in your care, and I'm obliged to you for your help.”

“He ain't goin' anywhere,” Donovan said again. “Nobody's ever busted outta this jail. Of course, I ain't had too many murderers locked up in it.”

Tyler looked like he wanted to say something, but then he just shook his head and went over to the bunk bolted to the wall to sit down with a sigh.

Luke and Donovan went out into the marshal's office. Luke said, “You'll take care of sending that wire for me? I'm sure the law in White Fork will want to hear the news that Tyler's in custody from the proper authorities here.”

“Sure, but I got to warn you, there ain't no direct line from here to there. I'll have to wire Cheyenne, and they'll route it around some way to get the message to Montana. I wouldn't expect to hear back before tomorrow mornin' at the earliest.”

“Tomorrow will be fine,” Luke said.

“You understand, too, I ain't takin' responsibility for this prisoner. I don't think there's a chance in hell of him gettin' out, but if something happens and he does, don't come cryin' to me about your blood money.”

“A lawman's natural animosity toward bounty hunters was bound to crop up eventually, I suppose. Don't worry, Marshal. I appreciate your help and the use of your jail, but we'll consider Tyler my prisoner, not yours.”

Donovan nodded curtly and said, “That's the way it'll be, then.”

Luke left the jail, but before he did, he glanced into the cell block one more time. Tyler was still sitting on the bunk, shoulders slumped, head drooped forward, the very picture of despair. There wasn't an ounce of defiance in him, Luke thought . . . which made Tyler a little different from most of the outlaws he dealt with.

He hoped that Tyler wouldn't take it into his head to hang himself in the cell or find some other permanent way out of the fate that awaited him. That could complicate matters.

But when you came right down to it, the wanted poster
did
say
Dead or Alive
.

* * *

The Hotel Beale was kind of a fancy name for a one-story, false-fronted building of raw lumber that had turned gray from the weather, Luke thought. The fella who owned it had probably named the place for himself, a hunch that was confirmed when the slick-haired gent behind the desk in the lobby introduced himself as Jefferson Beale and added, “The proprietor of this fine establishment, sir.”

“Well, I'm sorry to come into your fine hotel in such a disreputable state, Mr. Beale,” Luke said as he replaced the quill pen in its holder after signing the registration book. “Would it be too much to hope that you have a place where a man can take a hot bath?”

“Indeed we do,” Beale replied with a note of pride in his voice. He handed Luke a key from the board hanging on the wall behind the desk and went on, “You'll be in Room Six, that's right down this hallway to the left here, and if you go all the way to the other end of the hall, you'll find a washroom with a tub. I'll tell the boy who works for me to start heating some water. He can gather up your, ah, soiled clothing as well and take it to be cleaned.”

“I'll be very obliged to you for that, Mr. Beale. Do you have a dining room as well?”

Beale shook his head and said, “No, but the Keystone Café is only two doors away and serves quite respectable food, as long as you're not expecting the same quality of fare you'd find in, say, San Francisco.”

Beale seemed to think that his hotel
did
compare to the hostelries you'd find in San Francisco, which Luke thought was a far cry from the truth, but he didn't see any point in saying that to the man. He just nodded, said, “Thank you,” and headed down the hall to his room with his saddlebags slung over his shoulder, key in one hand, Winchester in the other.

The room was furnished simply with a four-poster bed, a chair, a wardrobe, and a couple of throw rugs on the floor. It was clean, though, and the bed looked relatively comfortable.

Luke stowed his gear in the room, propping the rifle in a corner and hanging his gunbelt with its attached holsters and the sheath for the knife over the back of the room's single chair. He brushed his hat as clean as he could and hung it on a bedpost.

Then, carrying one of the Remingtons in his right hand, he walked down the hall to the washroom, which was a shed-like affair with a galvanized metal tub sitting in the middle of it. A freckled, red-haired boy about twelve years old was pouring water from a bucket into the tub.

“Howdy, mister,” he said. “The water's just startin' to get warmed up good. I'll be back with more. You probably don't want to get in there yet.” His eyes widened as his gaze landed on the gun in Luke's hand. “You're the fella who shot Tate Winslow and Dan Clevenger a while ago!”

“That's right,” Luke said.

The boy's young face creased in a scowl. He said, “They had it comin'. Tate kicked my dog once, really hard. And Freckles hadn't done nothin', didn't even get in Tate's way. He just felt like doin' it, the sorry varmint.”

“What happened to the dog?”

“He's all right. I was afraid for a while he was gonna die, but he got better. Still walks with a limp, though.”

“I'm glad to hear that he made it. What's your name, son?”

“Hardy, sir. Hardy McCoy.”

“Well, Hardy, if I had known that Tate was the sort who'd kick a boy's dog for no reason, I might not have cut him as much slack as I did.”

“I'm just glad he's dead. He killed five men, and not a one of 'em deserved it.”

“It sounds as if the world is better off without him,” Luke agreed solemnly.

“I'll fetch some more hot water.”

Steam was curling from the surface of the water by the time Luke stepped into the tub and lowered himself all the way. He felt better almost instantly as the heat loosened some of the kinks in his muscles.

He had pulled a three-legged stool over next to the tub and placed his Remington on it. Old habits died hard, and Luke intended to die the same way when his time finally came.

Hardy brought in a couple of thick white towels and hung them on hooks on the other side of the tub. He said, “I'll take those muddy duds of yours down to the Chinaman.”

“Will the laundry be open this late?”

“Oh, sure. Heathen Chinee don't keep regular hours like normal folks. They work all the time.”

“Industriousness is to be admired,” Luke said.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, I guess so.”

Luke chuckled as Hardy gathered up the dirty clothes and went out.

He wished he had thought to bring a cigar and some matches with him. There was nothing like a good smoke while soaking in a hot tub. He supposed he could send the boy to his room to fetch a cheroot when Hardy got back, but that seemed like too much trouble. Luke closed his eyes and just enjoyed the lassitude that crept over him instead.

Several minutes later he heard a floorboard creak. Since Hardy was back, Luke supposed he could go ahead and ask him to get a cigar.

“Hardy, if you wouldn't mind—”

The unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked made Luke's eyes snap open. His hand moved instinctively toward the gun on the stool, but a harsh voice ordered, “Don't do it, you son of a bitch, or you'll just die that much quicker!”

Luke's hand froze before it could close around the Remington's ivory grips.

Gloom had settled over the room. Lamps in wall sconces burned in the hallway, but not in here. The glow from the open doorway silhouetted the man who stood there but kept Luke from being able to make out any details about him.

There was enough light to strike reflections from the barrel of the gun in the man's fist, though. The weapon thrust forward, unmistakable in its menace.

“I did five years in the Texas pen because of you, Smith,” the man went on. “Five years of hell! All because of some stolen cows and a damn bounty hunter.”

“You're the one who decided to steal those cows,” Luke said. He had absolutely no memory of what the man was talking about, but he had brought in a few rustlers from time to time, so he was sure the man was right and Luke had turned him over to the law.

“I hear you're usin' a different name now,” the gunman went on. “That don't matter. As soon as you walked into the Three of a Kind, I knew it was you, Smith.”

“It's true I once called myself Luke Smith. And it's true I'm a bounty hunter. But if there's no paper out on you now, friend, you don't have anything to fear from me. You've come to Wyoming, made yourself a new start in life—”

“Shut up! I'm not afraid of you. Every miserable day I spent in that hellhole, I swore to myself that I'd even the score with you if I ever got the chance.” The gun in the man's hand shook a little from the depth of his rage. “Well, now's my chance, and I'm gonna enjoy watchin' you die—”

“Hey, mister, what're you—”

That was Hardy's voice from down the hall. The boy was back from the laundry and probably coming to see if Luke needed anything else. He couldn't have expected to see a man with a gun standing in the doorway of the washroom.

The gunman's head jerked toward the boy, and the barrel of his revolver shifted in that direction as well. That instinctive reaction was his undoing.

Luke's hand moved like lightning, snatching up the Remington. The would-be killer snarled a curse and tried to bring his gun back into line, but it was too late.

Flame spurted from the Remington's long barrel as the roar of the shot filled the room. The bullet drove the man backward. He hit the wall on the opposite side of the hall, bounced off, and finally pulled the trigger of his gun, but the slug smacked into the floorboards at his feet. He crumpled into a heap.

Luke was already on his feet by the time the man hit the floor. Water sluiced from his body as he stepped out of the tub. He kept the gun trained on the man who had wanted to kill him, but the
hombre
didn't move and it appeared he never would again.

“Holy cow!” Hardy yelled from the hall. “Are you all right in there, Mr. Jensen?”

“I'm fine, Hardy,” Luke said as puddles began to form around his feet. “Run fetch the marshal, will you? And he'll probably want to bring the undertaker with him, too.”

Hardy poked his head around the corner of the doorway to stare at the sight of Luke standing there holding the Remington. He said, “I reckon you're done with your bath, huh?”

“The water was starting to cool off anyway,” Luke said with a shrug.

“Let's see,” Marshal Chet Donovan said. “You ain't been in Bent Creek two full hours yet, and this is the third fella who's tried to ventilate you and wound up dead his own self instead. I reckon this must be a pretty common thing for you, Jensen.”

“More so than I'd like,” Luke said. “It's a hazard of the job, I suppose. When you put men in prison for a living, some of them are going to get out eventually and carry a grudge.”

“Huh. Imagine that. You wouldn't have to worry about problems like that if you just killed 'em all and brung in their bodies. That's what most bounty hunters do, ain't it?”

“I can only speak for myself, Marshal,” Luke said. “I don't kill a man unless he forces me to it . . . or unless he becomes really annoying.”

He was joshing about that last part, but Donovan looked like he believed him and Luke didn't bother correcting the mistaken impression.

Luke had dried off and dressed in his spare underwear, shirt, and trousers while he was waiting in the hotel's washroom for the marshal to arrive. He had the Remington tucked into his waistband now, since his gun rig was still back in his room.

Jefferson Beale stood to one side, all but wringing his hands as he looked upset that such a thing could have happened in his establishment.

“I don't know how this is possible,” he said. “I didn't see this man come in, and I was at the desk the entire time.”

“You have a rear door, don't you?” Luke asked.

“Well, yes. I suppose that's the explanation. This man saw you in the saloon, recognized you, followed you over here, and sneaked in the back to see if he could find you. It was your bad luck that he did . . . and his bad luck that he probably considered you defenseless since you were in the bathtub. In the poor light he might not have noticed that you were armed.”

“I'll take every bit of luck on my side I can get,” Luke said.

“You ain't plannin' on killin' anybody else while you're here, are you?” Marshal Donovan said.

“I didn't
plan
on killing any of those three,” Luke told him.

Donovan nodded toward the dead man who was still lying on the floor. He had sent Hardy to fetch the undertaker, but the boy hadn't returned yet.

“What's this one's name?”

Luke opened his mouth, then frowned before saying anything. When he spoke, he had to restrain the impulse to chuckle.

“You know, I have no earthly idea. He said I was responsible for him spending five years in a Texas prison for rustling, but he never mentioned his name or how long ago that was.”

“And you've put so many
hombres
behind bars you don't remember most of 'em.”

“Sad but true,” Luke admitted.

With a clatter of rapid footsteps, Hardy came down the hall from the lobby, trailed by a short, plump man in a sober black suit. The boy's companion bore a certain resemblance to the bartender in the Three of a Kind, and Luke wondered if they were related. Brothers, maybe.

“I told Herbert to take my wagon around back,” the newcomer said as he looked down at the corpse. “That'll be closer and handier, and I didn't figure you'd want us carting him out through the lobby anyway, Jefferson. That would look a mite bad.”

“I appreciate that,” Beale said. “Anyone in the hotel business knows you're going to have guests die from time to time, but that's no reason to call attention to it.”

“This fella wasn't a guest,” Donovan said. “Just another would-be killer who ran up against somebody better with a gun.” He looked at Luke. “You want me to go through my stack of wanted posters and see if he's got any bounty on his head?”

“That would be very kind of you, Marshal.”

Donovan sighed and said, “Man oughta collect what he's owed . . . even if he earned it with a bullet.”

* * *

Full night had fallen by the time Luke was fully dressed and ready to go out again. The rain had tapered off to an intermittent mist that created a soft halo around the lighted windows of the businesses that were still open.

Luke was glad to see that the Keystone Café was one of them. He stepped through the café's door into warmth and the appealing smells of stew, coffee, fresh-baked bread, and . . . was it pie? Yes, he decided, some sort of fruit pie.

The place wasn't busy on a damp night like this. A couple of men sat at the counter, but all the tables with their blue-checked tablecloths were empty.

An attractive woman with dark brown hair stood behind the counter talking to one of the customers as she topped off his coffee cup from a tin pot. She looked at Luke and smiled.

“Come on in,” she told him. “Still enough stew in the pot for a few more servings.”

“Judging by the aroma, that's good news,” Luke said as he took off his hat.

“Judging from your use of the word ‘aroma,' you're not from Bent Creek.”

“Hey, Mary, you shouldn't oughta say things like that,” the customer objected. “We can talk good.”

“Of course you can, Bert,” the woman said. “I was just being polite to the stranger, you know.”

“Oh. That's all right, then.”

While Bert turned his attention back to the piece of pie on a saucer in front of him, Mary looked at Luke, smiled, and mouthed
Not really.

He managed not to laugh as he slid onto one of the stools in front of the counter and placed his hat on the empty one beside him.

“What can I get for you, Mister . . . ?”

“Jensen,” he said. “Luke Jensen. A bowl of that stew would be fine, along with a cup of coffee and . . . is that fresh-baked bread I smell?”

“It certainly is.”

“A nice, large hunk of bread, then, and we'll follow it all with a slice of peach pie like our friend Bert is enjoying.”

“I'm afraid they're actually canned peaches, not fresh,” Mary said.

“But she fixes 'em up mighty nice,” Bert added.

“I never doubted it for a moment,” Luke said.

She told him, “I'll be right back.”

The other customer, a dour-faced, older man sitting farther along the counter, waited until Mary had gone through a door into the kitchen before he looked at Luke and said, “You're the bounty hunter, ain't you?”

“I am,” Luke said.

“The one who killed Tate Winslow.” The words didn't come out as a question.

“That's right,” Luke said. The old-timer didn't look like the sort to start trouble, but you never knew.

“That's one killin' that was long overdue, if you ask me.”

“That seems to be the consensus.”

Bert said, “You do talk a little funny, Mr. Jensen. Like a schoolteacher. You ever teach school, sort of on the side, I mean, to go with your bounty huntin'?”

Luke had to laugh this time as he shook his head.

“No, Bert, I've never been a schoolteacher. I was well acquainted with one once, though. A beautiful young woman named Lettie. That was long ago and far away, though, before the war. Practically a different lifetime. Since then, I've ridden a lot of lonely trails. It didn't take me long to discover that a solitary man's best friend is often a book. I make sure to carry several with me all the time.”

“Oh. Reckon that makes sense. I like to read, too. I send off to New York for them yellow-backed novels from Beadle and Adams. Got one right here.” Bert reached to his hip pocket and pulled out a small book bound in yellow paper. “It's about a gunfighter named Smoke Jen—Hey, you and him got the same last name! How about that?”

“Yes,” Luke said, still smiling. “How about that?”

Mary's arrival from the kitchen with a bowl of stew and a saucer with a large piece of bread on it saved Luke from offering any explanations . . . not that he was likely to. He didn't go around telling folks that he was Smoke Jensen's brother. For many years, he had kept his relation to the Jensen family to himself, for reasons he'd considered good at the time.

That had changed, but he still wasn't very forthcoming by nature.

He also didn't say anything about how those lurid, fanciful novels were sometimes a minor thorn in Smoke's side, bearing as they did little resemblance to anything remotely truthful about his life and career.

“Mr. Beale at the hotel recommended your café, and I'm glad he did,” Luke said after he had sampled the thick, savory beef stew. “This is excellent.”

Mary smiled and said, “Well, Jefferson Beale took a trip to San Francisco once, and it almost ruined him. He thinks everywhere should be like that, even Bent Creek. But he's a good man, despite those lofty ambitions. He usually manages not to be
too
pretentious.”

The old-timer finished his coffee and left. Bert polished off the last of his pie, put a silver dollar on the counter, and said, “I'm obliged to you, as always, Mary. Good night.”

“Good night, Bert,” she told him.

The little bell over the door jingled as he went out. Luke said, “I appear to be your last customer of the day.”

“You don't have to hurry. Just take your time, Mr. Jensen.” She took a cup down from one of the shelves behind the counter and poured coffee in it. “In fact, I'll join you, if you don't mind.”

“By all means. It's your café.”

“I like having a few quiet moments at the end of the day like this.” She took a sip of the coffee. “Especially with pleasant company.”

She was a very attractive woman. Luke couldn't help but notice that. Old enough that there were a few lines on her face, a few strands of gray in the glossy brown hair, to give her character. Warm brown eyes with the gleam of intelligence. A womanly body under the gray dress and white apron she wore. No wedding ring, but Luke couldn't imagine a woman such as this never marrying, which made him think she was probably a widow. Taken all together, it was enough to make a man contemplate the different ways he might enjoy her company.

Before Luke could venture very far down that intriguing mental path, however, the bell over the door jingled again.

“Drat,” Mary said under her breath. “I knew I should have gone ahead and locked up when I had the chance.” Then she put another of those bright smiles on her face and went on, “Good evening, Marshal.”

“Evenin', Mary,” Chet Donovan said as he clumped into the room on muddy boots.

“Can I get you something? Coffee? Maybe a piece of pie?”

“Wish I could, but I'm really lookin' for your customer there.”

“Me?” Luke said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I got an answer from up in Montana a lot quicker than I thought I would. Those wires must'a really been singin' tonight. Anyway, I heard from the sheriff in White Fork. Fella by the name of Axtell.”

“Did he authorize the payment of the bounty for Tyler?”

“Nope,” Donovan said.

“What?” Luke frowned. “Does he doubt that we have the right man? Did you describe the prisoner to him in your wire?”

“Of course I did. Told him I was sure the fella we've got locked up is Judd Tyler, and that the prisoner didn't even bother denyin' it. Evidently that don't matter.”

“Why not?”

“Because Axtell claims there's a special condition on that bounty. It's payable only when Tyler is delivered personally to him in White Fork, and not before.” The marshal grunted, and after a second Luke realized the sound was a laugh. “Looks like you're gonna have to be takin' a trip up north, Jensen, if you want to collect your blood money.”