Bounty Hunter (9781101611975) Read online

  Lately, of course, his thoughts of women had turned to Natoya-I-nis’kim, and now they turned to a comparison between her and Hannah Ransdell. They were both smart and intuitive. Natoya was the first woman he had met in these past years whom he had not compared to Sally Lovelace. Maybe this meant he was getting over Sally. He wondered too if this meant that his faith in the character and motivation of the female species in general, so severely defiled by Sally, was slowly being rebuilt.

  His final thought before he dozed was that Natoya-I-nis’kim also had the distinction of being the only woman who had ever saved his life.

  Chapter 14

  GIDEON PORTER LOOKED MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE.

  Bladen Cole did not mind the inconvenience that he was suffering, but he did not want him dead. In fact, he wanted—more than anything at the moment—to keep this man alive.

  After their conversation the night before, and his having learned how little was known by “good-for-nothing” Jimmy Goode, Cole understood that Porter was the only man who could finger the mastermind of the murder conspiracy.

  “Goddamn you, bounty hunter,” Gideon snarled as he woke up, greeting Cole and welcoming the new day with his characteristic lack of cheerfulness. “Damn near froze last night.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Cole said. “A chinook blew in after midnight. Besides that, I kept the fire stoked so your little stocking feet wouldn’t be cold.”

  The face that glared at Cole really did look more dead than alive. The wounds from his having been whipped with a pistol the day before were healing, but they’d left jagged scabs that were nearly black with dried blood and dust. Three or four days without a shave had made Gideon look like a beggar. At least he still had his scalp, and that was thanks to Bladen Cole.

  “Goddamn it, bounty hunter,” Gideon whined. “Gimme some goddamn coffee.”

  “No man needs coffee to stay alive,” Cole said calmly as he sipped his boiled concoction. He didn’t let on that, despite its inviting aroma, it was pretty bad-tasting swill.

  He hand-fed the two prisoners before chaining them back to their saddles. He loaded Enoch’s body on his horse, and the procession started out at first light, configured as it had been for the previous two days.

  The chinook had changed the landscape, raised the temperatures, melted some of the snow, and swept the sky clear of much of yesterday’s overcast. The sun was barely up, but there was a promise that the day might almost be warm.

  At last, the monotonous plains dropped away, and they could see the long, narrow forest of cottonwoods that marked the Missouri River. Within half an hour, they could see it, like a blue-green snake hiding among the trees, some of which were still decked with clusters of yellow leaves.

  With remembered landmarks to guide him, Bladen Cole steered his charges to turn right and head upriver. He knew they were not far from that little no-name collection of shacks where he had bought whiskey and learned of Milton Waller’s impending demise. Cole knew that the shopkeeper at that place had met the Porter boys on their way north, and he really did not want to take the time to explain why their condition was so dramatically changed on their way south.

  With the Missouri at its lowest level of the year, finding a ford almost anywhere would be easy.

  Had it not been for the terrain along the way, and for the fact that the river flowed through the big centers of population between Helena and Diamond City, Cole might have followed the Missouri all the way to Gallatin City, but Cole wanted the latter to be the only population center he saw until the reward money was safely in his saddlebags.

  As they were scrabbling up the far bank after fording, Cole saw something in the distance that gave him pause. A pair of mounted riders was coming toward them.

  The thought of adopting an alternate course to avoid them was dismissed. There was little advantage that might be gained, and to do so abruptly would almost certainly invite pursuit. Cole knew that his chance of eluding these men while keeping his prisoners was a remote one.

  Instead, he waved in friendly greeting.

  “Howdy, stranger,” one of the men shouted as soon as they were within earshot.

  “Hello there,” Cole shouted back.

  So far, so good.

  As they came closer, Cole recognized the man who had spoken. By his tall hat, Cole recalled him as the one who had been at the general store in the no-name town, the one who had berated the shopkeeper for telling Cole about the Porter boys.

  This was going to be tricky.

  “Whatcha got there, mister?” the man asked. “Couple Indians? They look like the mangiest coupla Indians I’ve seen.”

  “Nope, not Indians,” Cole said with a shake of his head. “Couple horse-stealin’ sons of bitches.”

  “Oh yeah, I can see now . . . white men.”

  The others were on top of them now, and the question that Cole feared most came quickly.

  “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “Don’t think it likely,” Cole lied.

  “I’m sure we met . . . maybe I’m wrong . . . can’t place you.”

  Cole still hoped for the best, though he could see that Porter and Goode recognized the man, and he figured that the man would soon notice this.

  “Yeah, I remember now,” the man with the big hat said. “It was down at Sumner’s Landing about a week back. You were favoring a leg.”

  “Oh yeah, that was me,” Cole admitted. “Didn’t recall you. Got a bad memory for faces.”

  “How’s your leg? You got it fixed up?”

  “Yeah, it’s better,” Cole said, wincing so as to suggest that it was still somewhat of a bother.

  After pausing for a moment, Cole resumed the conversation, hoping to conclude it. “Well it was good seein’ y’all again. I guess it’s time for me and my friends to get movin’ on.”

  “What a minute,” the man with the big hat said. “I recollect now that you were asking after four men who’d been through a day or so before, and now I’m seeing that you got yourself two of the four right here. Hardly recognized ’em. Look like Indians. Look like they been through hell. Guess you found ’em.”

  “Like I said,” Cole explained calmly. “Horse thieves.”

  “Wait a minute,” the man said suspiciously. “I’m not the sharpest bull in the herd, but I’m startin’ to figure out somethin’. This feller here, who looks like some savage tried to scalp his face, handed me a twenty-dollar bill . . . You remember that doncha, mister? You paid me to tell any lawman from down in Gallatin City that I saw that you was headed east, not north.”

  Gideon Porter just looked away.

  “Well, I reckon that makes you twenty dollars richer,” Cole said, trying to appear calmer than he felt.

  “Well . . . yes . . . it does, and you don’t see that kinda money out here much, so what I got figured is that these fellers are wanted for a lot more than horse thieving . . . and you ain’t no lawman . . . are you?”

  “I was sent to bring back horse thieves, and that is what I’m trying to do, and if you’d excuse us, that’s what’s got to get done.”

  “Whoa . . . wait a minute,” the man in the big hat said, as his companion began to grin avariciously. “Like I said, twenty dollars handed out in the form of a single greenback is a lot for one man to be tossing around on strangers. This tells me that there’s a good deal of money involved here . . . and since you ain’t no lawman . . . that would make you a bounty hunter.”

  Cole could see where things were headed.

  “Now, I’d not want to be getting in the way of what no lawman would be doing,” the man with the big hat said after a long pause. “But since you ain’t no lawman, this would be a strictly business-type deal . . . and somebody’s paying a whole bunch of money for these fellers to be brought in. I know that you were planning on that bounty,
but I think I’d like to take over from you and go down to Gallatin City . . . get that bounty for myself . . . er . . . what I mean is that my partner and me want that bounty for ourselves.”

  “You’re aiming to steal my prisoners?” Cole asked rhetorically as he unsuccessfully attempted to stifle an ironic laugh.

  “If you’d be so kind as to step aside,” the man with the big hat said, his right hand going to his holster.

  Cole had seen his gun clear leather before the first shot was fired.

  The partner of the man in the big hat, who had not spoken and who would speak no more, had also drawn his gun before he died.

  The man with the big hat toppled to the ground as his horse reared at the sound of Cole’s two gunshots, but the other man remained seated as his mount sidestepped, whinnying, for about ten feet. His previous grin had been superseded by a dumbfounded expression. He eyes dropped to the growing, reddish-brown smear on his shirt. His revolver tumbled clumsily from his hand as he reached toward the blotch, then suddenly, he jerked, like a man awaking with a start, and tumbled lifelessly to the ground.

  Cole holstered his sidearm. In a space of time barely longer than it takes for the tick of a second hand, Cole had erased a potentially deadly threat with deadly action of his own.

  If he’d had reason, after the near escape of Gideon Porter, to doubt his having acquired the spirit power of the grizzly, he now could wonder whether he might not have come by it after all.

  Two mounds of stones surmounted with saddles marked the resting places of the two men who had chanced to express a desire to steal from Bladen Cole. The single word marked on each cross adorning those graves succinctly expressed the reason for which they were now at rest: “Thief.”

  The wind had picked up considerably by the time that the three men resumed their ride. About a quarter mile into this journey, they noticed an object tumbling through the brush near their route. It was an especially large hat that was quite tall in the crown.

  Chapter 15

  “SHUT UP, DAMN YOU,” GIDEON PORTER SCREAMED AT THE top of his lungs.

  As on the night before, Bladen Cole had chained Porter and Goode to widely separated trees so as to discourage them from communicating with each other, and as on that previous night, Jimmy Goode had taken the opportunity to engage Cole in conversation, hoping he was out of earshot of the man in whose shadow he had all his life been accustomed to cowering.

  “I done told him that when this thing gets sorted, I’m gonna get let go,” Goode shouted back to Porter.

  “What gives you that crazy idea?” Porter shouted back.

  “’Cause ’twas not me who shot them folks . . . because it ’twas that sonuvabitch Enoch and you who pulled the triggers,” Goode said as though in triumph over the reasoning of his onetime master.

  “Didn’t that worthless mama of yours teach you that it ain’t no good manners to speak ill of the dead? If you’d have had a father, you’d have got taught.”

  “Don’t go bringin’ my mama into this,” Goode whined, omitting reference to the mention of a father he never knew, and whom his mother knew for but a short time.

  “Shut up, both of you,” Cole said angrily.

  It was growing colder again, though the wind had died down. They had reached the foothills of the Little Belt Mountains when the shadows grew long, and they followed a deer trail until darkness overtook them. Cole planned to cross the mountains into the Smith’s River drainage and stay east of Diamond City for the same reason that he had bypassed Fort Benton. Traveling with two men in chains and a dead body tended to attract the kind of attention that brought questions and unwanted intrusion.

  The dark clouds that had built up in time to blot out the sunset had promised snow, but it was a fickle promise. The temperature descended from manageable to uncomfortable, and there were still patches of snow beneath the trees, but no flakes had been seen in the air as they settled in for the night.

  “You see why we call him ‘good-for-nothing,’ doncha, bounty hunter?” Porter shouted after giving Cole’s demand for silence short consideration. “This fool don’t know that there’s a rope waitin’ for him in Gallatin City . . . just the same as for me.”

  “I reckon there will be a trial,” Cole said.

  “Like you gave those strangers this day?” Porter said. “Didn’t see them get a fair trial or anything of the sort. You were pretty fast with the executioner’s sword . . . I hesitate to say ‘sword of justice’ because there ain’t no justice in what you done to them.”

  “I guess you didn’t see that both were in the motion of drawing their ‘executioner’s swords’ on me at the time,” Cole replied in a disparaging tone. “If that was me, not them, under those rocks back there, do you reckon you’d have ended up this day ridin’ upright in your saddle . . . or sideways across it like your brother?”

  * * *

  BLADEN COLE AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF GRAVEL KICKED.

  He sat up, trying to filter out the loud snoring of Gideon Porter and follow the direction of the sound. Something was obviously moving in the darkness not far from the circle of light from their fire.

  Coyotes occasionally drifted near the fires of humans, especially in the desperate, hungry months when game was scarce and before the winter cold killed the weaker of the deer, antelope, and cattle, leaving them for the coyotes to scavenge. Being cowardly scroungers rather than serious predators, they were unlikely to attack an uninjured man or horse, but chasing them off was a formality necessary to prove that the humans were in charge.

  Cole rolled quietly from his bedroll, grabbed his Winchester, and moved in the direction of the sound. As he did so, he glanced to the log where he had tethered Jimmy Goode. He was gone.

  Cursing himself silently, Cole continued moving in the direction of the sound. He had expected Porter to repeat his escape attempt, and had taken special care to anchor him to a tree. He had meanwhile chained Goode to a log, incorrectly assuming that he would not dare to escape. Goode had allowed Cole to believe that he really was good for nothing.

  There was a gully which led into the canyon to the south. Goode had evidently slipped in the dark as he stumbled down the slope.

  Cole peered into the gloom, though it was impenetrable to the eye, and cocked his head for further sounds.

  Hearing none, he pointed his Winchester down the line of the ravine—there was no such thing as aiming under the circumstances—and squeezed off a shot.

  He heard the t’zing of the bullet ricocheting off a rock, and he heard the desperate scrabbling sounds of a frightened man moving as fast as he could through the darkness and the underbrush that choked the gully.

  Cole fired again, this time at the sound. Again, he heard the t’zing of the bullet ricocheting off a rock, and the reckless crashing of a scared man.

  Cursing himself not so silently, Cole returned to the campsite, where Gideon Porter had been awakened by the shots.

  “What in holy hell you shootin’ at, bounty hunter?” Porter demanded.

  Ignoring him for the moment, Cole went to check on the horses. He was surprised to find all four still tied where he had left them. Why had Goode not taken a horse and scattered the others? Perhaps he had decided that getting away without being heard was worth getting away on foot.

  The same question occurred to Porter as Cole began saddling his horse for the day’s ride.

  Porter groused. “Why’d that stupid Jimmy Goode leave the horses? What a stupid fool to walk when he could ride. Course he done got one over on you, bounty hunter!”

  “Guess he’s not good for nothing,” Cole replied, trying not to sound as chagrined as he felt.

  * * *

  BLADEN COLE HAD MADE A SIGNIFICANT ERROR, AND HE cursed himself for it repeatedly, but Jimmy Goode had made several. He had proved himself not to be good for nothing, but his failure to
take a horse was a serious mistake, putting him on foot in rugged terrain—with his wrists still in chains.

  By panicking and starting to run when Cole had fired at him, he had confirmed the direction that he was headed. By chance, or by design, his choice of direction took him downhill, toward the Smith’s River, and in the eventual direction of Gallatin City. These errors were duly and confidently related by Cole to Porter as they rode.

  The fugitive had also failed to take any food or water, although, as Cole discovered—but did not tell Gideon Porter—Goode had taken the pistol that had been confiscated from the estate of the man with the large hat.

  Goode also had a head start, a fact that Cole cursed, though silently in the presence of Porter. His head start, as short as it was, had been extended considerably by Cole’s having not wanted to start out with the horses until there was sufficient daylight to see where they were going.

  Because of the steepness, and the twists and turns required to follow the course of the dry streambed, while avoiding the periodic tangles of brush, the going was slow. Cole had planned to cross the mountains following the same deer trail that they’d been on when they had stopped for the night, but Goode had necessitated a change of plans. At least he was headed in the right direction.

  Cole hoped that they would catch up with Goode, writhing in pain with an ankle twisted from a fall in the rocky gulch, but it was a wish that went unfulfilled.

  Porter, who had been sullen and silent in the first days of captivity, had grown increasingly talkative. Having Goode out of the picture seemed to lift his self-imposed burden of perpetuating a facade of intransigence.

  After spewing a tantrum of anger over Cole’s having killed his brother over a “squaw,” whom he considered somewhat less than human, he turned his attention to Jimmy Goode.

  “That sonuvabitch coward could have sprung me, but he just ran off” was a statement repeated often, which summarized Porter’s indictment of the man whom he considered not just a buffoon but a traitor to his leader.