by Neil Hunter
Late afternoon found Bodie on his way back to High Grade from the Crown mine. Len Treval had worked wonders in the short time since the previous night’s raid. He already had men working on the damaged fence and the wrecked bunkhouse. And he was still keeping the mine’s production at its normal capacity.
On the surface he had nothing to worry about. Everything seemed normal. Which was why Bodie had a bad feeling.
His feelings heightened his natural senses, and Bodie rode the dust trail towards town in anticipation of trouble.
So when he caught the merest glimpse of sunlight bouncing off some metallic object in the deep brush edging the trail, he reacted instantly, hauling back on the reins and bringing his horse to a complete halt.
Which meant that instead of the burst of spreading shot from a scattergun hitting its intended target, Bodie’s horse was struck. The charge hit the animal in the neck, ripping open a pulpy wound that spurted blood. The horse shrieked as it went down, legs thrashing wildly. Before it had struck the ground Bodie was out of the saddle, his hand snatching his Colt free. He hitthe ground on his shoulder, letting his forward momentum carry him over the edge of the trail. He crashed into and through the thick brush, ignoring the thorny vegetation. Dust rose in pale clouds, marking his descent, but Bodie wasn’t too concerned about giving away his position. He wanted whoever had shot at him to come looking.
He hit the bottom of the slope, coming to his feet, aware of someone moving through the tangled brush. Whoever it was, he thought, had done this kind of thing before. The man moved fast and didn’t make much noise. He managed to slide through the dense, brittle undergrowth without disturbing it too much.
Bodie eased back the Colt’s hammer, sinking into the shadows at the base of a high rock, and waited.
A silence descended. The ambusher was holding his position. Maybe, like Bodie, he was waiting and listening.
There was a faint whisper of sound at Bodie’s rear. The manhunter turned his head slightly. He knew damn well that the ambusher hadn’t got behind him. For one thing there hadn’t been enough time. So that meant two of them. Bodie smiled. They had planned it carefully. The first one had let Bodie ride by, giving the second man time for his shot. In the case of the shot not killing Bodie it meant they had him between them. All they had to do was close in and take him when they were sure.
Not that Bodie intended to make it that easy for them.
If there was any waiting to be done Bodie was a past master at the art. He’d learned it from experience, back when he’d been seventeen, fighting the Apache in their own country, and there was no better way of learning than that. Providing you survived the course.
The sun continued on its downward slide. The shadows grew and deepened. Bodie was content to wait it out. The darkness held no problems for him. But it apparently bothered his ambushers.
The one behind Bodie began to worm his way forward. He had the same skills as the other, and Bodie acknowledged the man’s expertise. But only to a point. As good as he was the man still made too much noise. And it didn’t take Bodie too long to spot him. He waited until the man raised himself off the ground, coming to his knees. A gun shone dully in the fading light and behind it Bodie made out the dark outline of a man’s body.
He swung the Colt up and triggered two fast shots at the shape.
An unearthly howl of pain followed the blast of gunfire. Bodie’s target lurched to his feet, plunging out of the brush, seeming to run directly at Bodie. As Bodie turned towards the man he caught a fleeting glimpse of wild eyes and a mouth thrown wide open in a scream of ragged pain. There was blood too, spurting from the two ragged holes in the man’s chest, soaking the filthy shirt, spilling through the skinny fingers the man pressed over the holes. The man weaved as he ran, throwing up the gun he was holding, and began to pull the trigger. Bullets slapped the rock beside Bodie, howling off into the red sky.
Bodie ducked low, tilting up his Colt, firing into the lean body. He saw his bullets hit, saw the flesh burst open in bloody gouts, yet the man still came on, still yelling and firing.
Go down, you son of a bitch, Bodie cursed, and raised the Colt, aware that he was using his last shot. He touched the trigger and the heavy gun slapped his palm in recoil.
The bullet drilled in just below the nose, caving in the front of the face as it flattened against bone. Fragmented bone and lead tore up through the skull cavity, blood spurting from the shattered mouth. The man ran on for half a dozen more steps before the limbs ceased to function and then the thing, which was already a corpse, simply crashed to the ground.
On his feet Bodie circled the highrock he’d been using, his fingers busy ejecting spent casings from the Colt’s cylinder. He could hear the crackle of brush, and knew that the second man was on the move.
So come and get yours, feller, Bodie almost yelled the thought out loud as he thumbed in the final load, snapping back the hammer in readiness.
He heard the man’s sudden curse. Bodie realized he had found his dead partner. He angled through the brush, moving along a course that would bring him out behind the ambusher. Which seemed a fair way of doing it, Bodie decided. It was the way they had started the fight…and now it would be the way he’d end it.
The lean figure was standing over the dead man, cradling a scattergun in his hands. He was no more than ten feet from Bodie as the manhunter stepped out from the tangled brush, and Bodie saw him tense, slim shoulders lifting.
“Here I am, feller!” Bodie said softly, and he began to fire even as the man lunged to one side.
Bodie’s first shot took the man in the left side, flipping his lean body over, blood jetting from the raw wound. The man hit the ground, rolling lightly, almost making it to his feet. But Bodie’s second bullet ripped away his left kneecap in a welter of blood and bone. The man flopped back on the ground, his lips peeling back from his teeth in a savage snarl of anger. He managed to jerk the scattergun in Bodie’s direction, touching the trigger. The shotgun howled loudly blasting its deadly charge in a cloud of powder smoke. Bodie felt the stinging cut of shot rip across the left side, over the ribs, and felt the rush of blood from lacerated flesh. He triggered shots in return; saw the man on the ground jerk and twitch as bullets ripped away more of his life. The scattergun slipped from weakening fingers. The man tried to pull the gun holstered on his hip, but Bodie reached him before then. He drove the toe of his boot against the man’s gun hand. Bone cracked and the gun spun away into the shadows.
“I told Deeks we’d get you or have our asses shot off,” Simm Jelks said through a bloody froth.
“You had your chance,” Bodie told him. “I’ll tell Deeks you wasted your time. Not that he’s got much left himself.”
Simm managed a slight grin. “Deeks, now, he’ll go down fightin’!”
“Feller, I don’t give a damn if he goes down singing ‘God Bless America’, long as he don’t get up again!”
“Bodie.”
“Yeah?”
Simm coughed up more blood, groaning against the terrible pain in his chest. “You a tidy kind of feller? Who don’t leave a job unfinished?”
“I guess,” Bodie said, easing back the Colt’s hammer, and putting his last bullet through Simm Jelks’ head.
He turned in the direction of High Grade, figuring that if he was going to tidy he might as well sweep away the rest of the town’s horseshit!
Chapter Sixteen
It was starting to get dark by the time Bodie reached town. He made his way along the street in the fading light until he was across from the squat building where Deeks had his office. Bodie paused to check the scattergun he’d picked up after the gunfight with the Jelks brothers. He’d found extra shells for the gun in Simm Jelks’ pocket. Satisfied that the deadly shotgun was fully loaded and cocked, Bodie turned his attention to the building across the street.
“Deeks! It’s Bodie. I left your boys out yonder for you to bury. But you got to go through me to get to ’em. If you got the guts,
you son of a bitch!”
There was no response. Slowly Bodie began to cross the street, his eyes raking the frontage of the building.
“Come on out, Deeks! I heard you had a big reputation in this town. Hard and mean, that’s what they told me. They were wrong, Deeks. You ain’t hard and you ain’t mean. You’re no better than a bag of horseshit! Deeks, you come out, or I’ll drag you out!”
He had reached the middle of the street. Above him, at one of the upper windows, a figure moved, edging round so that he could push the barrel of a rifle through the bars. Bodie watched the moving barrel line upon him. He had the scattergun in the crook of his left arm, leaving his right hand free. Now he dropped the hand to the butt of his Colt, bringing it up in a smooth, easy action. The hammer was already back as the muzzle tilted up. Bodie eased back on the trigger. The Colt rapped out a single shot. The exposed barrel tilted skywards, the shadowy figure falling back inside the room.
Movement at the door drew Bodie’s attention. He thrust the Colt away and swung the scattergun across to his righthand, finger resting on the triggers.
Three figures burst out through the door. Bodie recognized two of the men who had been in the office with Deeks the day he had arrived in High Grade. The third man was Deeks himself.
Bodie triggered the scattergun’s first barrel. The charge caught the closest man in the left hip, splintering the bone and ripping flesh apart. The man gave a terrified scream as the force of the charge lifted him, hurling him back across the boardwalk. and Deeks himself, halting in mid-stride, his hand lifting, leveling the gun he carried, firing…the bullet kicked up dirt inches to one side of Bodie ... he turned sideways on, presenting a slimmer target, hearing the heavy blast of sound as he triggered the second barrel of the scattergun, felt the recoil of the weapon…and Deeks caught the full force of the charge in the face. A high, terrible scream of agony filled the air, and Deeks began to stumble blindly about, raising his hand to cover the awful mask of pulped flesh that had been his face; there was no feature left to be recognizable: it was as if Decks’ face had been wiped away, leaving behind a raw, bloody mass of pulsing flesh and splintered bone. Bodie tossed aside the scattergun and took out his Colt, lifting it, he fired twice, the bullets driving Deeks to the bloody ground.
“I’m out of it, Bodie!” the third man yelled. He threw his gun down on the ground and lifted his hands.
Bodie turned in his direction, his Colt exploding with noise. The man twisted violently, blood spurting from the ragged wound in his chest. He sprawled full length in the dust, one leg kicking awkwardly against approaching death.
“You are now, feller,” Bodie said, and walked on by him, into the building.
He stood in the empty lobby, thumbing fresh loads into the Colt, waiting.
After a long time he heard a cautious footstep from somewhere in Decks’ office. A cold smile edged Bodie’s mouth. He moved silently to the door and glanced into the room.
Jonas Randall stood in the very center of the big office. He had a rifle gripped in his hands and he was staring in Bodie’s direction.
“Bodie, can we talk?” he asked. There was a slight edge to his voice. Sweat gleamed on his face.
“Can’t be done, feller,” Bodie said.
“For God’s sake why, Bodie?”
“It’s a one-way conversation.”
Randall frowned. “What is?”
“Talking to a dead man,” Bodie explained.
Realization hit Randall in that final moment. In desperation he jerked up the rifle he was holding. But he was too slow. Bodie put three bullets in him where he stood, the impact driving Randall back across the office. He struck the edge of Deeks’ big desk, slithered along the polished top and struck the floor on his face. The back of his dark coat was wet with blood from the three fist-sized exit holes made by Bodie’s bullets. Slick runnels of blood began to creep out from under his prone body.
“They keep saying conversation’s a dying art, anyhow, feller,” Bodie said.
He walked outside. Oddly he was now aware of a steady pulse of pain down his side where he’d caught some of the shot from Simm Jelks’ scattergun. Putting his hand there he felt the swelling edges of the wound and the sticky warmth of blood. He pushed his way through the gathering crowd and began to walk up towards the Crown house at the top of the hill. It began to look a long, long way off, and he wondered if he’d make it.
Even in the gathering twilight he recognized Angela Crown’s figure as she came down the hill. When she realized it was him she ran to him, staring at his bloody side.
“I heard the shooting,” she said. “Somehow I just knew it had to be you.”
Bodie shrugged. “It’s been that kind of a day.”
“Bodie, what happened?”
“Let’s just say Randall’s withdrawn his offer for your mine. Permanently!”
Angela shook her head slowly. “You mean it’s over?”
“That part is. But there’s going to be one hell of a fuss when the law gets to hear what’s been happening in High Grade.”
Angela slipped her arm around his waist as they walked on up the hill. “Will you stay and help, Bodie? I think I need you.”
“I walked into this mess with my eyes open,” Bodie said. “I might as well go the course. I got a couple of good reasons to keep me here for a while.”
Angela glanced at him, her face flushing warmly. “Oh?”
“Hell, yes. It’s going to take some figuring out what bounty money I got coming from those gunslingers Randall had on his payroll. With my luck the law’ll contest every claim I make. I could be there for weeks.”
“What’s the other reason?” Angela asked hopefully.
“Kind of embarrassing,” Bodie said. “See, we never did get round to talking money after you hired me to ride shotgun on that wagon you brought in. Things kind of got a little busy after we got here.”
“Bodie, I hope you choke on every cent,” Angela said.
“Way I see it, a deal’s a deal.” He thought for a moment. “Mind, we could make some kind of arrangement.”
“Oh? What did you have in mind?”
“Kind of a more personal sort of payment,” Bodie suggested.
A slow smile spread across Angela’s face. “Sounds interesting, Mr. Bodie. I’m sure we could reach an satisfactory conclusion.”
“Damn right we could, Miss Crown.”
“And I do believe I could come up with an offer later tonight.”
“Yeah?”
As they reached the house and Angela pushed open the door, she turned to glance at him, pink tongue drifting lightly across her soft lips. “Most definitely. And I even think there might be a bonus or two in it for you.”
Bodie followed her inside. He was thinking it might be worth considering investing some of his money in Crown mine stock. The way Angela played the game, collecting his dividends could take on a whole new meaning.
Bodie will return in
THE KILLING TRAIL
The next book in the Bodie series,
Coming soon!
To visit our website, click here
To visit our blog, click here