Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter (7 page)

Luke jerked his horse aside and yelled, “Hold your fire, damn it! I'm a friend!”

He didn't know that for sure. It might have been Kelly or Dog Eater who took that shot at him. He heeled the horse into a run toward the corner of the barn as he drew one of the Remingtons.

Luke kicked his feet free of the stirrups and dropped to the ground as his mount reached the corner. He let the horse run on into the darkness as he pressed his back against the rough wall and drew his other gun. Watching the barn doors, he listened intently.

At first, all he could hear was the roaring crackle of flames from the house. Then what he thought was a muffled cough came from inside the barn. The gunman was still there.

Luke began edging toward the doors. He heard another cough, followed by some muttered words. After a moment, he realized they were half-incoherent curses. The man inside the barn sounded like he wasn't in very good shape. He might have been drunk, but more likely he was hurt.

“Damn outlaws,” the man slurred. “G'damn owlhooss . . . Show yourselves again . . . Kill you for what you done . . . send you both to hell . . .”

Luke's eyes narrowed. The man in the barn was cursing two men. Gunner Kelly and Dog Eater seemed pretty likely. The man probably was the owner of the ranch. The bank robbers could have wounded him, stolen some horses, and left him in the barn to die.

But he wasn't dead yet. When Luke had ridden up, the man could have mistaken him for one of the outlaws returning, especially if he was wounded and in bad shape. But why was the house on fire? Were Kelly and the Apache responsible for that, too?

The basic theory made sense, Luke decided, so he risked calling out again to the man in the barn. “Hey! Mister! I'm not one of the men who did this. I'm on their trail. Like I told you, I'm a friend!”

“Why?” the man called back.

Luke realized the question wasn't exactly directed at him when the man went on. “Why'd you have to do it? We give you ever'thing you asked for . . . Why'd you have to do that to Martha?”

That anguished question made Luke frown. In his profession, he had seen so much ugliness, so many examples of utter depravity, that he realized there were no depths of horror to which human beings could sink when they chose to. He had learned to steel himself to that fact.

But reminders of it still affected him. He heard the agonized grief in the man's voice and realized the poor fellow was suffering from that as much as from any physical injury the outlaws had inflicted on him. In that state, it was unlikely Luke would be able to get through to him.

He wanted to help the man if he could, might be able to patch up a bullet wound even if he couldn't do anything else. And he wanted to know how long ago Kelly and Dog Eater had been there. He had to at least try to get that information out of the man in the barn.

Luke pouched both irons. The man's muttering seemed to be getting weaker, he thought as he listened for a moment longer.

Then he took a deep breath and exploded into action, driving hard around the edge of the door and going into the barn low and fast.

He knew he would be silhouetted for a second against the flames, but was counting on his speed and the inability of the wounded man to react very quickly. Even so, the man got off a shot, his rifle cracking as the muzzle flash lit up the barn for an instant.

Luke didn't have any idea where the bullet went. All he knew was that it didn't hit him. Using the rifle's flash as a guide, he reached out and the back of his hand hit the weapon's barrel. He grabbed it and wrenched it to the side as he rammed into the man. His other hand twisted in the man's shirtfront, and he swung him around. When the rifle came free, he slung it away.

“Take it easy!” Luke said. “I don't want to hurt you. I'll help you if you let me.”

The man struggled weakly in his grip. “Why'd you do it?” he demanded. “Why'd you have to hurt her?”

“I didn't hurt her,” Luke insisted. “I didn't hurt Martha.” He figured that was the name of the man's wife.

The man stopped fighting suddenly and went limp in Luke's hands. It wasn't a trick. He had passed out . . . or died.

Luke got one arm around his shoulders and the other behind his knees and picked him up, carrying him out of the barn. The man was slender and didn't weigh all that much.

Luke carried the grim burden several yards toward the house, until the light from the fire reached them. He knelt and lowered the man to the ground.

The blood that soaked the man's midsection was black in the flames' glare. When Luke saw how much of it there was and where it was located, he knew there was no chance he'd be able to do anything other than bury him. The rancher, if that's who he was, had been shot at least twice in the gut.

But he was still alive. Breath rasped harshly in his throat.

Luke whistled for his horse until the animal came trotting up to him. He didn't like the fire, but was well trained enough to answer Luke's summons.

Luke reached for one of his canteens, then changed his mind and delved into the saddlebags for a small silver flask. He unscrewed the cap as he knelt beside the wounded man.

He got a hand behind the man's head and lifted it, then trickled some whiskey into his mouth. Some of it spilled, but enough went down the man's throat to make him cough. That probably hurt like hell, Luke thought, but it brought him back from unconsciousness.

The man was in forties, with the whittled-down look of one who had led a hardscrabble life, as most small ranchers did. With firelight painting one side of his face a garish red, the man looked up at Luke and whispered, “Who . . . who are you?”

“I'm looking for the men who did this to you,” Luke answered. “A white man and an Indian, isn't that right?”

“Y–yeah. The Injun was . . . an Apache, I think. He's the one who . . . shot me . . . Don't know why . . . I would've traded horses with 'em. . . .”

“Because that's the sort of men they are,” Luke said, his voice hardening. “Worthless, no-good scum who aren't fit to breathe the same air as decent human beings.”

“You must . . . know 'em . . . all right,” the man forced out. “After they shot me . . . they went after my wife . . . poor Martha . . . Reckon they thought . . . I was dead. But I wasn't . . . I heard what they done to her . . . heard her scream just before one of 'em . . . cut her throat.”

The whiskey seemed to have revived the man somewhat, but Luke knew that wouldn't last. “How long ago was this?”

“Dunno . . . hours . . . middle of the afternoon . . . sun was still up.”

Luke frowned in puzzlement. From the place where he'd made camp, he'd seen the fire start. If the attack on the rancher and his wife had taken place that afternoon, why had Kelly and Dog Eater waited around so long to start the blaze and ride off? “What made them start the fire?”

The man's eyes were sliding closed again, but Luke's question made him open them.

“They didn't,” he whispered. “I did. I passed out . . . lay there for I don't know how long . . . and when I come to and saw what they done to her . . . I took her in the house . . . laid her out in our bed . . . I knew I'd never be able to . . . bury her proper . . . couldn't have any varmints . . . gettin' to her . . .”

Luke turned his head and looked at the burning house, realizing now that it was the woman's funeral pyre. “All fled, all done,” he muttered, part of a line from a half-remembered couplet.

The rancher had done what he could for his wife, and Luke was amazed at what he had managed as badly wounded as he was. If Luke had been more of a sentimental sort of a man, he might have said that was evidence of the power of love....

Somehow, the rancher found the strength to clutch at Luke's sleeve. “You said you're . . . chasin' those fellas?”

“I am. I intend to bring them to justice.”

“There's nothin' justice can do . . . that'll be bad enough to pay 'em back for what they done . . . They don't deserve justice.... What they're needin' . . . is revenge!”

The man's clawlike hand closed harder on Luke's arm. His body arched up from the ground as a spasm gripped him. His eyes grew wide, and his breath eased out of him in a final sigh. He was gone.

Gently, Luke lowered the man's head to the ground again. What had happened was two more marks against the ledger for Gunner Kelly and Dog Eater, he thought with a sigh of his own. Black marks . . . or maybe red for blood.

Luke wondered how many more marks there would be before he caught up to the murdering twosome.

 

 

Luke went into the barn, found a lantern, lit it, and looked around until he found an old blanket in the tack room. He used it to wrap the man's body and then carried the body into the barn and put it in the tack room, closing the door to keep predators out. In the morning he would dig a grave.

The only livestock in the barn was an old milk cow. Any horses the rancher had owned were gone, no doubt taken by Kelly and Dog Eater. A small flock of chickens was sleeping in a coop at the side of the barn, undisturbed by the violence and death that had descended on their home.

If Luke happened to pass a neighboring ranch, he would stop and let the people know what had happened. Until then, the cow and the chickens would have to fend for themselves. He would turn the cow loose in the morning so it could find some graze.

With those decisions made, he led his horse a quarter mile from the ranch and made camp again. He could still smell the burned-out house and didn't care for that. He had seen and smelled too many buildings that had suffered a similar fate during the siege of Richmond, when the big guns of Ulysses S. Grant and the Yankee army had pounded the city relentlessly for weeks on end. For a long time after that, he hadn't been able to get the bitter scent of ashes out of his nose.

He had learned to ignore the things that bothered him, so he was able to sleep. It was a light slumber, though. He didn't expect Kelly and Dog Eater to return to the scene of their latest crime, but anything was possible.

Because of that natural, instinctive alertness, Luke was able to come awake instantly when his horse let out a quiet whinny and shifted around a little. The animal had smelled or heard something, and Luke trusted the horse's senses. As soon as his eyes opened, he reached out and closed his hand around the butt of one of the Remingtons where his gun belt lay coiled on the ground beside him.

He drew the revolver with just the faintest whisper of steel on leather. His thumb looped over the hammer, ready to pull it back as he lay there listening intently.

He heard the faint thud of a hoof on the ground. The sound came from far enough away that he knew it wasn't his horse who had made it. Another horse was out there in the darkness.

A glance at the sky told Luke it was about an hour until dawn. He had been asleep for a while. He turned his head where he lay with it pillowed on his saddle. He could see the barn and what was left of the ranch house. The front door had burned, and through the opening that was left he saw a scattering of orange embers, the only remnants of the blaze that had consumed the inside of the dwelling.

Nobody was moving around over there.

The sound he'd heard had come from the other direction. Someone was moving up on his trail, and he recalled the feeling of being watched he'd had the day before. Whoever was following had caught up to him. They had probably used the flames to guide them, just as he had.

He heard another faint sound, the scuff of boot leather on dirt. The follower had left his horse and was advancing on foot. Luke knew that just as well as if he'd been watching the scene in broad daylight.

Breathing shallowly, he lay motionless and silent and let the unseen man come closer to him. The hombre moved pretty quietly overall, Luke had to give him credit for that, although not quietly enough to escape notice by a professional man hunter.

Finally, the man was close enough for Luke to see his dark shape creeping along. Starlight winked on the barrel of the rifle the man was carrying. If that rifle had swung toward him, Luke would have tipped up the Remington and fired from the ground. The man continued holding the rifle at a slant across his chest, though, instead of getting ready to use it.

The figure was only about five feet away, lined up on a course that would take him within a step or two of the spot where Luke was lying, when Luke realized suddenly that the man didn't know he was there. The man had seen the burning ranch house and was approaching it stealthily to find out what had happened.

Luke was still fairly sure he knew the man's identity. He stayed where he was until the man stepped past him, then exploded into movement. As he pushed himself up, his right leg swung around and crashed into the back of the man's knees. The man let out a startled yelp as Luke swept his legs out from under him. He collapsed and dropped the rifle.

Luke landed on top of him and planted a knee in the small of the man's back to pin him to the ground, just in case he was wrong about his identity. He pressed the Remington's barrel against the back of the man's head and said, “Don't move or I'll blow your brains out.”

“Don't kill me!” the man pleaded. “Please don't shoot!”

The familiar voice confirmed Luke's hunch. He didn't bother trying to keep the disgust out of his own voice as he said, “Hobie, what in the hell are you doing here?”

The young hostler from Cyril Dunbar's livery stable in Rio Rojo gulped fearfully. “Mr. Jensen, is that you?”

“Who did you think?” Luke asked as he took the gun away from Hobie's head.

“I . . . I was afraid it might be one of those bank robbers.”

Luke put his other hand on the ground to steady himself as he got to his feet. Hobie rolled over and sat up, taking deep breaths in an apparent combination of fear and relief.

Luke glared down at the young man. “If I'd been Gunner Kelly, you'd probably be dead right now. If I was Dog Eater, you'd
definitely
be dead. You haven't answered my other question. What are you doing out here so far from town?”

“I was . . .” Hobie swallowed hard. “I wasn't exactly following you. . . .”

“Except that you dogged my trail all day yesterday after I left, didn't you?”

“That's sort of the way it worked out,” Hobie admitted. “But what I was really doing was following Kelly and the Indian.”

“Good Lord,” Luke said, remembering one of the comments Hobie had made back at the livery stable. “You're after them, too, aren't you? You said you wanted to be a bounty hunter someday.”

“It's all over town about the five thousand dollar reward Mrs. Vanderslice promised you if you caught them and recovered the loot from the bank robbery,” Hobie said with a rising note of excitement creeping into his voice. “That's an awful lot of money!”

“Is it worth your life?” Luke demanded.

Hobie sounded confused as he asked, “What?”

“I said, is five grand worth your life? Because that's what it would have cost you if you'd actually found those two! They'd have killed you as easily as swatting a fly.”

“I'm pretty tough,” Hobie said defensively. “Tougher than I look.”

That wouldn't take much to be true, Luke thought. He reached down with his left hand. Hobie grasped it, and Luke hauled the young man to his feet.

“Let me ask you a question. Did you know I was there when you walked right past me, Hobie?”

“Well . . . I guess I didn't notice you—”

“Look over there.” Luke lifted an arm and pointed. “My horse is picketed thirty feet away. Did you see him while you were creeping along like some phony Indian in a James Fenimore Cooper novel?”

“No,” Hobie answered sheepishly. “A while back, I saw something burning up there, and I reckon I was concentrating too much on finding it. I had a hunch maybe Kelly and the Apache had something to do with it.”

“That's one thing you were right about,” Luke snapped. “The only thing, come to think of it.” He paused and looked at the sky again. There wasn't much point in trying to go back to sleep, so he went on. “Go get your horse. I'll show you exactly what sort of men Kelly and Dog Eater are and why you shouldn't be trying to find them.”

“Then I was right about them havin' something to do with that fire?”

“Just get your horse,” Luke said.

While Hobie was doing that, Luke broke camp, gathering his gear and his bedroll and saddling his horse. By the time Hobie came back leading his mount, Luke was ready to go. They swung up into their saddles and headed for the ranch a quarter mile away.

The eastern sky was starting to turn gray by the time they got there. Hobie looked at the burned-out ranch house. “Did they do that?”

“Actually, no. But they were responsible for it.”

Luke dismounted and handed his reins to Hobie. He went into the barn and brought out the body of the slain rancher. He placed the man on the ground and pulled back the blanket enough to reveal his face.

“Is that Mr. Anderson?” Hobie asked.

“You tell me. I'm not from around here.”

“It's got to be him. Nelse Anderson. He owned this spread, him and his wife Martha.” Hobie looked around. “Where is she? Did they—”

“She's in the house,” Luke interrupted in a harsh voice. “They rode up and wanted to trade for some fresh horses. Anderson was agreeable, but they must have gotten a look at Mrs. Anderson. Comely woman, was she?”

“Yeah, she . . . she was real nice-looking. And she always treated everybody decent.”

“Well, Kelly and Dog Eater gut-shot Anderson and left him for dead and then took turns attacking his wife until they got tired of it and cut her throat. Then they swapped horses and rode off, taking all the animals with them.”

The sky was light enough for Luke to see how sick Hobie looked. The young hostler said, “I . . . I don't understand. If the bank robbers left, who set the house on fire?”

“Anderson did. He passed out for a while, then came to and found his wife's body. He knew he wasn't strong enough to bury her . . . might not live long enough to bury her . . . so he took her in the house and put her in their bed. Then he lit the fire. Sort of like a Viking funeral, except that adobe ranch house isn't a ship and we're a hell of a long way from the sea.”

“How do you know all this?”

“He told me about it before he died. I don't think he would have had any reason to lie.”

“This is awful,” Hobie muttered. “Just awful. Why would anybody do such a thing?”

“I don't guess you ever ran into anybody like Gunner Kelly and Dog Eater before. Some people are just pure evil, kid. Those two are prime examples of that.”

Hobie was silent for a long moment, as if he were having trouble comprehending the truth of what Luke had told him. Finally he said, “What are you going to do now?”

“I'm going to see to it that these two people are laid to rest properly. It's not my responsibility, but someone ought to do it. And then I'm going after Kelly and Dog Eater. Somebody's got to do
that
, too.”

“I'll help you.”

“I certainly won't mind you giving me hand digging those graves—”

“I mean I'll help you go after Kelly and Dog Eater,” Hobie said. “We can be partners.”

Luke looked at the young man in disbelief. “Kid, have you listened to a word I said? You've got no business getting mixed up in this. Those two would chew you up and spit you out and not even slow down to pick their teeth.”

“But there's two of them and one of you. They've got you outnumbered. I know I'm new at the bounty hunting game, but surely it'd help even the odds to have me along.”

Luke took off his hat and scrubbed a weary hand over his face. “Hobie, are you familiar with the concept of negative numbers in mathematics?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Having you come with me wouldn't be like adding one to my side of the odds. I'd have to be looking out for you all the time, and I couldn't give all my attention to the job. That would actually subtract from my side and give Kelly and Dog Eater even more of an advantage over me. Do you understand?”

“Well . . . maybe,” Hobie said grudgingly. “I've never been that good at ciphering.”

“And one more thing. Bounty hunting isn't a game. It's a dirty, deadly, ugly business, and a lot of men get killed doing it. Men who are a lot tougher and more experienced than you are. Do you have a family?”

Hobie shook his head. “No, sir, not really. My folks are dead, and I don't have any brothers or sisters. I reckon Mr. Dunbar and his brother the marshal are sort of like my adopted uncles.”

“How about a sweetheart?”

Even in the dim light of dawn, Luke could see the blush that spread over Hobie's face as the young man said, “I've sort of been courtin' Betsy Jane Hendricks.”

“Then Betsy Jane would probably cry over your body, and I suspect the Dunbar brothers would mourn your loss, too. You don't want that on your conscience, Hobie.”

“No, I wouldn't, but . . . the reward's five thousand dollars, Mr. Jensen!”

Luke took the shovel off his horse and tossed it to Hobie, who caught it awkwardly.

“Get down and start digging,” Luke told the young man. “We'll see if you still feel the same way when we get through.”

 

 

The sun was a couple hand widths above the eastern horizon when they finished burying Nelse Anderson and his wife Martha. Luke and Hobie had taken turns digging until they had two graves ready on top of a small hill a short distance north-east of the house and the barn.

Hobie hadn't wanted to go into the house, but Luke had insisted. He wanted the young man to see everything Gunner Kelly and Dog Eater had left behind them. The ruins of the house were still too hot to walk on in places, so Luke and Hobie had to be careful, but they were able to recover the remains of Mrs. Anderson.

Then Hobie had stumbled behind a bush, fallen to his knees, and thrown up for a long time. His position was almost one of reverence, but the sounds coming from him were a long way from being prayers.

Sweat pasted Hobie's shirt to his torso by the time they were finished covering the graves. He leaned on the shovel, took off his hat, and sleeved moisture from his face. Turning his head to watch in disbelief as Luke started walking back toward the horses, he called out, “Wait a minute. Aren't you gonna say something over them?”

Luke paused and looked back. “They've both been dead for hours. If there's an afterlife, they're already where they're going to wind up. Nothing we say now can make any difference.”

“If you believe that, why'd we go to the trouble of buryin' 'em? Why not just leave their bodies to be torn apart by coyotes and picked over by buzzards?”

“A simple matter of respect and dignity,” Luke said. “And wherever they are, I think they'll rest easier knowing that didn't happen to what they left behind.” He gestured toward the graves. “But if you want to say something, go right ahead. Don't let me stop you.”

Luke heard Hobie mutter something behind him as he turned away again. A moment later the young man hurried to catch up to him, carrying the shovel. “What do we do now?”

“You go back to Rio Rojo,” Luke said. “I pick up the trail and go after Kelly and Dog Eater.”

“How can you catch them now? They're bound to be a long way ahead of you.”

“I know which way they're headed. Even if I lose the trail, I'll find them sooner or later. After a while, they'll get careless. Outlaws nearly always do. They won't go to as much trouble to hide where they've been. Besides, I know most of the trails and the places where men like that hole up. I've been tracking killers and thieves for years.”

“Seems like they're heading a little south of due west. If they keep goin' far enough in that direction, it'll take 'em to the border.”

Luke smiled. “Borders don't mean a whole lot to men like me. I'm not like a lawman with a set jurisdiction to worry about. I go wherever the trail leads me.”

“But you can't collect the reward for them in Mexico, can you?”

“No, but I can put their heads in a sack and bring them back to prove I caught them.”

Hobie stared at him and looked like he might be sick again. “You'd do something like that?”

“They'd already be dead,” Luke pointed out. “They wouldn't care.”

“What happened to dignity and respect?” Hobie muttered.

“Vermin like that don't deserve it. You want anything to eat?”

Hobie looked startled by the question. With a queasy expression on his face, he shook his head. “No, I . . . I don't think so.”

“All right. I'll stop and fix a little breakfast for myself later. Right now I want to put a few miles behind me.” Luke fixed the hostler with a stern stare and added, “Good-bye, Hobie.”

“You're really sendin' me back to Rio Rojo?”

“That's where you belong. Keep doing a good job and Dunbar might make you a partner in the livery stable one of these days. Hell, you might wind up marrying Betsy Jane or whatever her name is and taking over the business. Go live your life, Hobie.” Luke shook his head. “There's nothing waiting for you on the other trail but death.”

Hobie looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment he mounted up and turned his horse back toward the east. “Good luck, Mr. Jensen,” he called as he lifted a hand in farewell.

Luke returned the wave, then stood there watching as Hobie rode away. He waited until the young man had gone several hundred yards before he went to his own horse and swung up into the saddle.

Picking up the trail of the outlaws wasn't very difficult. Kelly and Dog Eater were leading several horses now. Luke couldn't tell exactly how many. They would be able to switch back and forth so that they always had fresh mounts, though, and that would make his job that much more difficult.

The one advantage he had was sheer stubbornness. Once he was on a man's trail, he never gave it up. Days or weeks would go by, and Gunner Kelly and Dog Eater would become convinced that they had eluded any pursuers. They would believe that they were safe.

And then, sometime when they weren't expecting it, Luke would be there with his guns in his hands. Powder smoke and lead would fill the air, more than likely, because men like those two never came along peaceably.

No, Luke thought as he rode, somebody would die. Somebody always died.

So far it hadn't been him, and he was going to try to keep that streak going for a while longer.