Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter (16 page)

“So she can travel on the stagecoach?” Hobie asked.

“That's what I just said, isn't it? I think she should be examined again by a competent physician at the next available opportunity, though.”

Luke said, “There'll be doctors in the other towns along the coach's route. Did you tell her she could travel?”

“I did. I suspect she's already packing and getting dressed. She wanted me to tell you to be sure and not let the stagecoach leave without her.”

“Thanks, Doctor.” Luke glanced at Hobie and added, “I guess we'll take it from here.”

A pleased grin spread across the young man's face.

A few minutes later, Luke and Hobie walked up to the stagecoach station carrying their rifles and saddlebags. They had checked out of the hotel. The stagecoach sat in front of the barn, where a couple hostlers were finishing up the job of hitching a fresh team of horses to it. The new singletree was in place.

Jim Pierce walked around the coach inspecting everything, the way a careful jehu did before setting off on a run. He raised a hand in greeting to Luke and Hobie. “I was hopin' I'd see you fellas again before we left this mornin'.”

“You'll see more of us than that,” Luke said. “With Ben Wallace laid up, who's going to be your shotgun guard?”

Pierce scratched at his beard and admitted, “We don't have one. There's a relief guard waitin' at Moss City, just across the border in Arizona, but until we get there I reckon I'll be driver and guard both.”

“Not necessarily. I've got a guard for you.”

“Who might that be?” Pierce asked.

Luke turned and leveled a finger at a startled Hobie McCullough.

Hobie was a little surprised, but once he realized what Luke had in mind, he was enthusiastic about the idea.

The station manager wasn't so sure, though. He frowned and said, “I don't know how the company would feel about me hiring you for the job, young man.”

“You don't have to hire me. Luke and I are headed in that direction anyway. I'll just tie my horse on at the back of the stage and ride with Mr. Pierce. You don't have to pay me anything.”

Hobie's argument convinced the station manager.

Pierce was pleased with the development, too. “I ain't expectin' any more trouble, but you never know. It'll be good to have you boys ridin' with us for the next leg of the trip.”

Luke and Hobie had promised Jessica they wouldn't reveal her secret. She hadn't done anything wrong, of course, but still didn't want people to know she was being pursued by an older man who had been lusting after her for years.

Knowing what he did, Luke felt a little bad about not warning Pierce of the very good chance there would be more trouble. The stagecoach would continue on its way regardless, so Luke figured he and Hobie were doing what they could to help it get through to Moss City.

Hobie wanted to go all the way to California with Jessica. If that was his decision, Luke would wish both of them the best. As for him, he had a couple outlaws to catch.

Jessica and the Langstons walked down to the station from the hotel a short time later. Luke and Hobie had saddled their horses, and Hobie's mount was tied at the back of the coach.

“Where's that gambler, Kemp?” Stephen Langston asked.

“Reckon he's stayin' here in Harkerville,” Pierce replied. “His ticket was only good for this far, and I ain't seen him since we got in last night. He probably spent the night in some saloon, playin' cards, and he'll sleep away the day.”

“That means there's room for you to ride in the coach if you want to,” Langston said to Luke, who shook his head.

“I'll be scouting our route,” he explained. Besides, the last thing he wanted to do was spend hours sitting on a hard bench seat in a stagecoach that rocked as much as a ship in rough seas. The dust was always bad inside a coach, too, blowing in despite the canvas covers over the windows. He would be a lot happier out in the fresh air.

The passengers climbed into the coach and settled down for the journey.

Hobie was right there to give Jessica a hand getting in. “If you need anything, I'll be up top. You just give a holler.”

Luke swung into the saddle as Hobie joined Jim Pierce on the driver's seat and picked up the shotgun that was lying on the floorboard at his feet.

The white-mustachioed marshal came along the street and regarded Luke with a disapproving frown. “Can't say as I'm sorry to see you go, bounty hunter,” he snapped. “I can do without a bunch of gunmen in my town.”

“Don't worry, Marshal. I won't be in any hurry to come back here.” Luke grinned and lifted a hand in a mocking wave of farewell as he heeled his horse into motion.

They soon left Harkerville behind as the coach rolled on toward the border between New Mexico Territory and Arizona. Luke hadn't had a chance to ask around the settlement about Kelly and Dog Eater, but he was confident they were headed in the right direction.

Anyway, the outlaws probably would have avoided the town unless they needed supplies or planned to rob the bank. They would have been more likely to stop at one of the way stations along the stagecoach line to water their horses or buy a meal.

Luke ranged ahead of the coach by as much as a half mile at times, and he dropped back a similar distance now and then to check their back trail. He didn't see any signs of trouble, but knew better than to think those hardcases hired by Milton Dietrich would give up. It was only a matter of time until they struck again.

The coach stopped at an isolated way station at midday to change horses and let the passengers stretch their legs, as well as have a meal of beans and stew. While they were there, Luke asked the man in charge of the station, “Have you seen two men come through here in the past week or so, leading several extra horses?”

The man, who was wiry and wizened with age and had a brush of gray hair that stuck straight up from his head, tilted his head and frowned. “Are you talkin' about a white man and a Injun, mister?”

Luke felt his pulse quicken slightly. “That's right. The Indian is an Apache.”

The man spat. “I seen 'em, all right. Let 'em water their horses. But somethin' about 'em wasn't right, and it wasn't just that the one fella was a 'Pache. Those red devils make everybody in this part of the country uneasy. But I tell you, that white man spooked me just as much or more than the Injun. I stood in the door with my rifle in my hands the whole time they was here. I was mighty relieved when they rode off.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Three days, I think,” the man replied with a squint-eyed frown. “The days sort of run together out here, but yeah, I'm pretty sure it was three days ago.”

Luke and Hobie had cut into their lead, somehow. Kelly and Dog Eater must have been just ambling along, Luke thought, supremely confident that no one was on their trail.

He was about to thank the man for the information and move on, but something else occurred to him. “I don't suppose you heard them say anything while they were here about where they were going, did you?”

The way station manager squinted some more, then finally said, “Come to think of it, I did hear the white hombre say somethin' that sort of puzzled me, but it wasn't about where they were headed. He mentioned somebody called Don del Oro.”

“Gift of gold,” Luke translated. “I wonder what that was all about.”

“Or maybe it was somebody's name,” the man suggested again. “All I know is, I wouldn't want to have those two lookin' for me. That Don fella better have eyes in the back of his head if those two are after him. They was pure poison.”

Luke couldn't argue with that.

The passengers climbed into the stagecoach and it rolled on. Luke knew from talking to Jim Pierce that it would stop for the night at another way station, then move on in the morning, crossing the Arizona border and arriving at Moss City around the middle of the day.

As he rode alongside the coach, Luke asked the jehu, “Have you ever heard of somebody or something called Don del Oro?”

Pierce thought about the question for a long moment, then shook his head. “Can't say as I have. A lot of the fellas who own big ranches down in Mexico are called dons. Maybe it's one of them.”

Luke supposed that was possible. For some reason the phrase didn't really sound to him like a man's title and name, though.

“What's that about, Luke?” Hobie asked.

“I was talking to the fella back at the way station. Kelly and Dog Eater were there three days ago. They said something about Don del Oro while they were watering their horses.”

“Those are the bank-robbin' varmints you're after?” Pierce had talked to Luke and Hobie enough to know that they were tracking the two men who'd robbed the bank in Rio Rojo.

“That's right,” Luke said. “I was hoping to pick up a clue to their destination. I don't know if Don del Oro is it, but I'll have to keep it in mind.”

Hobie didn't say anything else. He was torn between wanting to continue on the quest that had brought him that far and his desire to help Jessica Wheeler safely reach her brother's ranch in California.

Luke suspected Hobie's infatuation with Jessica would win that battle. That was fine. He had set out after Kelly and Dog Eater alone, and was perfectly willing to continue going after them alone. It was the way he had spent most of his time during the past decade and a half, after all.

The afternoon passed without any trouble. The sun wasn't far above the western horizon when the next way station appeared up ahead. The adobe building was a dark, squat shape in the sea of reddish gold light washing over the landscape.

Luke rode ahead of the stagecoach and reached the station a few hundred yards ahead of it. As he reined in, two men came out of the building. One of them called, “That the stage from Harkerville comin' up behind you?”

“That's right.”

“Who are you, mister?” the other man asked with a note of suspicion in his voice.

“Outrider. Actually I'm just traveling along with the stage as far as Moss City, so I thought I might as well do a little scouting.”

“Run into any trouble?” the first man asked.

“Not so far.” Luke looked around the station. There was no barn, but behind the building he saw a big corral where the fresh teams were kept.

Something struck him as odd about several of the horses, though. Their sides were flecked with drying sweat, as if they had been put in the corral recently after a hard run.

Before he could ponder that thought, the stagecoach rattled up and Pierce hauled back on the lines to bring the team to a stop, calling, “Whoa!” The cloud of dust kicked up by the team's hooves and the wheels swirled around the vehicle for a few seconds before the breeze began to carry it away.

“Howdy, fellas,” Pierce said to the two men who had come out of the building. “Where's ol' Banty Sinclair?”

“He, ah, took sick,” one of the men replied. “The company sent us out to take his place.”

Pierce frowned. “That's odd. I would've figured those two boys of his could handle everything.”

That brief exchange on top of the drying sweat he had noticed on several of the horses in the corral suddenly came together in Luke's mind to form a picture, and he didn't like what he was seeing.

His right hand reached for a gun as his left pulled his horse's reins and sent the animal lunging between the stagecoach and the station. “Jim, get that coach out of here!” he shouted.

The shutters on the station's windows flew open, and gun flame lanced from inside the building.

Luke returned the fire and kept his horse dancing and wheeling so he would be a harder target to hit. From the driver's seat, Hobie's shotgun boomed as Pierce bellowed at the team and lashed them with the reins. The coach lurched into motion again.

The two men who had come out of the station jerked guns from under their shirts and triggered the weapons at Luke. He felt the hot breath of one slug as it whipped past his head. The Remington in his hand blasted as he downed one of the men with a bullet through the body. He sent the horse pounding straight at the other one.

The man didn't have time to get off another shot. He screamed as the horse's shoulder rammed into him and knocked him down. The animal's steel-shod hooves slashed at him.

Luke twisted in the saddle and sent two more slugs sizzling through an open window into the station. That emptied the Remington. He rammed the revolver back in its holster and kicked the horse into a gallop after the stagecoach. More dust boiled up from the rapidly turning wheels.

Luke looked back and saw two men run out of the station holding rifles. They fired after him and the coach, but the fading light made accurate shooting difficult. Luke leaned forward to make himself a smaller target, just in case the riflemen got lucky enough to come close.

He thought back to the horses he had noticed in the corral. He was pretty sure only four of them had been flecked with sweat, meaning only four bushwhackers had been lurking at the station, waiting for the stagecoach to arrive. Luke had shot one of them and trampled another under his horse's hooves. The two throwing lead after the stagecoach were the only ones left.

He didn't think those two were likely to give chase, now that they had lost the element of surprise. Their trap had failed.

Luke raced to catch up to the stagecoach. As far as he could tell, Hobie and Pierce were all right. The jehu didn't seem to be hurt as he kept the team moving at top speed. The horses couldn't keep that up for much longer, though.

Luke drew even with the coach.

From his position facing the rear and kneeling on the seat so he could fire back over the roof, Hobie called to him, “I don't see them comin' after us!”

“I don't think they will,” Luke said. “But keep an eye on our back trail anyway, Hobie!”

Hobie waved a hand to signal that he understood.

Luke motioned for Pierce to slow down and shouted out, “Better stop and let those horses blow, Jim!”

Pierce nodded and hauled back harder on the reins. The team slowed to a walk and then stopped.

One of the coach doors opened, and Stephen Langston popped out of the vehicle with a pistol in his hand. “What happened back there?” he demanded. “My God, are we going to be plagued with outlaws for the entire journey?”

Luke knew the men at the way station weren't outlaws. They were more of Milton Dietrich's hired hardcases. He wasn't going to reveal Jessica's secret, though. It wasn't his place to do so.

He didn't have to.

Jessica looked out the coach window and said, “This is all my fault, Mr. Langston. All the trouble that's been following us is because of me.”

Langston frowned. Inside the coach, his wife said, “I don't hardly see how that's possible, dear.”

Jessica stepped out of the stagecoach to explain. “Those men who attacked us both times—the ones who tried to kidnap me back in Harker ville—all work for a man named Milton Dietrich. He . . . he's got his mind made up that he's going to marry me, even if he has to force me into it.”

Edna Langston, poised on the step to exit the coach, gasped, while her husband said, “Good Lord! That's outrageous!”