Luke nodded and said, “I thought it might be something like that.”
Glenda refilled the glasses. “Don’t get the wrong idea about the sheriff. He can be opinionated and inflexible, but he does a good job of keeping the peace. Giff and I weren’t here when the town was still the railhead, but from what I’ve heard, it was wide open and a dangerous place to live in those days. It’s a lot better now, and Collins deserves most of the credit for that.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Luke said. “Anyway, I don’t intend to be here for long. I’ll probably be riding out tomorrow or the next day, depending on how quickly that reward money comes through.”
“And that’s the only reason you’d have to stick around?”
Luke smiled at her over the rim of the glass. “Well . . . perhaps not the only reason.”
* * *
Luke called a halt to the drinking after the second brandy, promised Glenda he would stop back by the Plainsman later in the evening, and went to the Rycroft House for dinner. A plump, pretty waitress took his order for roast beef with all the fixings and delivered a tray of food that smelled and tasted delicious. The coffee he used to wash it down was good, too.
As he ate, Luke was aware that some of the other guests in the dining room were casting careful glances at him. He knew that word had gotten around. Not only was he the bounty hunter who had brought in the bodies of four dead outlaws earlier in the day, he had also been mixed up in a shooting scrape since then. They weren’t used to having the likes of him around these days. But they would just have to put up with his presence until he was ready to ride out.
Ben Stanton walked into the dining room, hat in hand, and looked around. He met Luke’s eyes and then walked toward the table.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked as he rested his free hand on the back of the empty chair on the other side.
“Please do. The food is excellent, but I was just thinking I might want to linger over another cup of coffee and let it settle for a bit. I wouldn’t mind some company while I’m doing that.” Luke smiled. “Good conversation always improves the digestion.”
Stanton dropped his hat on the table and sat down. The waitress was there immediately. He told her, “I’ll have the roast beef, too, with all the fixin’s.” When she left he said to Luke, “I met your brother once.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. Back in Kansas City. We were both selling some cattle. Big Ben Conyers from down Texas way was there, too. Smoke’s one hell of an hombre.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
Stanton clasped his hands together on the table and leaned forward. “I just heard that Collins didn’t arrest Clint Norman. Just got him patched up at the doc’s and told him to get out of town and not come back for a few days. He’s trying to give you time to get gone so if Norman does try to get even with you, it won’t be in the sheriff’s bailiwick.”
“You think Norman will do that?”
“I think Clint Norman is a craven cur who wouldn’t be above backshooting a man,” Stanton said bluntly. “So you’d best have eyes in the back of your head, Jensen.” He grunted. “Of course, I imagine you do, being in your line of work.”
“A habit of being careful is one reason I’ve lived as long as I have.”
“I just thought I’d say something, and I remembered you telling the sheriff you intended to eat supper over here.”
“I’m glad you did. Maybe I can ask you something.”
Stanton shrugged burly shoulders. “Go ahead. Don’t guarantee I’ll know the answer.”
“Did you know Jack McKinney?”
“Three-fingered Jack?” The cattleman looked and sounded surprised. “Matter of fact, I did know him. Sold him some stock at a good price to help him get his herd started when he and his wife and young’uns came out here.”
“Did he strike you as the sort of man who would turn owlhoot with no warning?”
Stanton shook his head. “I couldn’t hardly believe it when we heard about that gang he was leading up in the Dakotas. Like a lot of people around here, when he first disappeared I figured something bad had happened to him. I was right worried, in fact. Then, when it looked like he rode off and wanted to drop out of sight, I was puzzled, sure enough. But I still never would’ve dreamed that he’d turn lobo like that.” He frowned across the table at Luke. “Why are you interested in Jack McKinney?”
Luke smiled and said, “I got hold of one of those wanted posters his son Aaron made up.”
“That boy! You can’t really blame him for being mad that his father abandoned the family, but to put up a bounty on your own pa . . . I know it doesn’t amount to much . . .”
“A dollar and forty-two cents,” Luke said, “and a harmonica.”
Stanton laughed. “Yeah. Loco, ain’t it? But it’s kind of the principle of the thing, I guess. Those two boys, they sure wound up goin’ in opposite directions. Thad took off to try to find his pa and join the gang, and Aaron wants ’em all brought in, dead or alive.” He paused. “Say, are you thinking about going after Three-fingered Jack?”
“I haven’t made up my mind,” Luke said, “but I’ll admit, the situation interests me. What about Mrs. McKinney? How’s she handling things?”
“As well as she can, which is to say, not all that good. It’s been hard on her. Some of the other ranchers and I have tried to lend her a hand now and then, you know, without hurting her pride too much, but it’s not easy.”
“I got the feeling your sheriff is interested in her.”
“Ross Collins?” Stanton blew out a disgusted breath. “He may have some crazy notions in his head, but he’d better not hold his breath waiting for Amelia McKinney to return any feelings he has for her. That ain’t gonna happen, and if Collins had a lick of sense in his head, he’d know it. Anyway, Miz McKinney’s still got a husband. Of course . . . if a bounty hunter was to bring in Three-fingered Jack, say . . . and the wanted posters, the real ones, all say dead or alive . . .”
“If I were to go after McKinney, you’ve just given me a very good reason to bring him in alive, Mr. Stanton. I don’t believe I’d want to do anything to make it easier for Sheriff Collins to start courting that poor woman.”
Stanton guffawed at that, then dug in on the plate of food the waitress set in front of him. She filled his coffee cup and refilled Luke’s.
Luke lingered as he’d said he would, enjoying the next half hour as he listened to Ben Stanton spin yarns about the early pioneer days in Arizona Territory. It had been a bloody, dangerous time, and the settlers who had come through it were tough as leather, men and women alike.
Luke finally said his good-nights.
“Going back up to the Plainsman to have another drink with Glenda Farrell?” Stanton asked.
“I promised her I would. But first I intend to stop by the sheriff’s office and pick up some papers he promised to have ready for me.”
“Collins will have gone home by now.”
“That’s one reason I had supper first,” Luke said. “I don’t think the sheriff is that anxious to see me again, and the feeling is mutual.”
He left the hotel and stepped out into the darkness of early evening. Most of the day’s heat still hung over the town, but a breeze was beginning to break it up. Far out on the plains, lightning flickered. Probably just heat lightning and nothing would come of it, Luke thought, but it was always possible that a storm really was building out there.
The courthouse windows were dark except for the corner where the sheriff’s office and jail were located. Luke paused at the edge of the street under the cottonwoods before starting across the lawn toward the large stone building. He slipped a cheroot from his coat pocket and put it in his mouth, then took out a match as well and held it in his left hand as he stretched his arm as far as it would reach. His iron-hard thumbnail flicked the match to life.
Colt flame bloomed redly in the shadows as a shot roared.
CHAPTER 7
Luke heard the wind-rip
of the slug as it passed through the air a couple of feet away from him. The man who’d fired the shot had aimed it at the match flare, just as Luke intended. He hadn’t been absolutely certain someone was stalking him, but his instincts told him that was the case.
As he dropped the match, he palmed out the little pistol from the shoulder holster. It spat fire and lead as he triggered twice, using the muzzle flash he had seen as a target. Someone grunted, then footsteps slapped rapidly against the ground. The bushwhacker was running.
Luke went after him. He caught flickering glimpses of movement in the shadows but nothing plain enough to shoot at. He was confident he had hit the man who’d ambushed him, but evidently the wound wasn’t bad enough to slow him down much.
Somewhere ahead of him, a horse blew out a startled breath. Then hoofbeats pounded. Luke slowed and then stopped as the swift rataplan diminished in the night. The bushwhacker had had a horse ready and waiting and had made it into the saddle before Luke could catch him. Now there was no chance of that.
It didn’t really matter, he told himself. He already had a very good idea who had just tried to kill him.
He replaced the pistol in the shoulder holster and walked back toward the courthouse. He chewed on the cheroot but left it unlit. A yellow blob of light suddenly bobbed in front of him and quickly resolved itself into the glow from a lantern.
As the light reached Luke, the man holding the lantern stopped short and called, “Hold it right there, mister! I’ll shoot!”
Luke took the cigar out of his mouth and said, “I’d rather you didn’t.” He kept his hands in plain sight. “I’m not looking for any trouble.”
As the man with the lantern came closer, Luke could see him well enough to recognize him as the chunky deputy who had been with Sheriff Collins earlier in the day. Tom, that was his name, Luke recalled.
“It’s Luke Jensen, Tom. You’re exactly the man I was looking for.”
“I am?” The deputy had the lantern in his left hand and a Colt in his right, but he kept the gun pointed at the ground in front of him. “What for?”
“The sheriff said he was going to leave those reward claim forms with whoever was on duty when he left for the day. That would be you, correct?”
“Uh, yeah, and I know he put some papers on the desk he said to give you if you came by.” A frown creased the deputy’s forehead. “But what was all that shootin’ a minute ago?”
“Somebody took a potshot at me, and I returned fire.”
“Are you hit?”
“No, he missed.”
“What about the other fella?”
“Bring that lantern on over here,” Luke suggested, “and maybe we can find out.” He led Tom to a spot about where he thought the bushwhacker had been lurking underneath one of the cottonwoods, and sure enough, as the lantern light washed over the ground, Luke pointed out a splash of fresh blood. “I hit him, but he was moving pretty fast when he ran away from me. He had a horse waiting for him and galloped off before I could do anything else about it.”
“Did you get a look at him?”
“I never did,” Luke said, “but you and I both know it had to be Clint Norman.”
Tom frowned again and shook his head. “You shouldn’t go around accusin’ folks if you didn’t actually see ’em.”
“No one else in this town has any reason to want me dead,” Luke pointed out.
“Maybe not, but you still couldn’t testify in a court of law that it was him who took that shot at you.”
“I suppose not. But a diligent sheriff would take a ride out to Norman’s uncle’s ranch tomorrow and demand to see him. It should be pretty easy to tell whether he has a fresh wound in addition to the one in his shoulder that I gave him in the Plainsman this afternoon.”
“If you think I’m gonna tell the sheriff how to do his job, you’re loco, mister. He don’t take kindly to that.”
Luke shrugged. “No, I don’t imagine he would. But bear in mind what I told you anyway, Deputy.”
A few men came closer on the street and hailed them. “Hey, what’s goin’ on down there?”
“Nothin’,” Tom called back. “Just go on about your business.”
“I suppose we should go get those papers,” Luke said.
“Yeah, I guess,” the deputy agreed grudgingly. He and Luke walked into the courthouse.
Luke looked over the four claim forms on which Sheriff Collins had stipulated that the bodies Luke brought in had been positively identified as those of Son Barton, Jimmy McCaskill, Deuce Roebuck, and Ed Logan. As soon as the bank had sent wires to the territorial capital to confirm the rewards, Luke would get his money and he could move on.
He had a pretty good idea about where he would go next.
* * *
“I heard a rumor that you were mixed up in that shooting earlier,” Glenda Farrell said as she and Luke sat at her table in the Plainsman.
The saloon was crowded with men lining the bar and several poker games going on. Short-skirted serving girls moved among the customers, laughing, flirting, and delivering drinks. None of them took men upstairs, though, Luke noted, so evidently the Plainsman didn’t conduct that sort of business. He was sure establishments that did could be found on the other side of the railroad tracks.
“Someone took a shot at me while I was down by the courthouse,” he said. “Luckily, I was halfway expecting an attempt on my life and was being careful. You might even say I was trying to draw out whoever it was.”
“Humph. We both know who it was. Clint Norman’s pride was hurt worse than his shoulder was.”
“But he was wounded,” Luke pointed out. “I doubt if he could have used a gun with his right hand.”
“I’ve seen him shoot left-handed, showing off. He’s not as good with that hand, but good enough to try to ambush somebody.”
“I’ll take that as more proof,” Luke said, “not that I needed convincing.”
“Ross Collins should have arrested him after what he did. The only reason he didn’t is because he’s afraid of old Buck Norman.”
“An elected position such as sheriff attracts politicians, and politicians always know who has the most power and influence. It’s like the old story about the nature of the scorpion. You can’t blame Collins for being what he is.”
Glenda shrugged. “I suppose not. You weren’t hurt when Clint ambushed you?”
“Not a bit.”
“What about him? I know you must have shot back at him.”
“There were signs that I hit him. Not badly enough to keep him from getting away, but he lost some more blood.”
“If he dies, his uncle Buck is going to be looking for you,” Glenda said with a worried frown.
“I’ll deal with that when and if it happens.”
“Why don’t we talk about something more pleasant, like what you intend to do with the rest of your evening?”
“I thought I’d spend it here with you, if that’s agreeable.”
That put a smile on her face. “I think that’s more than agreeable, and by the time the evening is over, I’ll bet you will, too.”
* * *
Luke was dressed in his trail clothes again when he picked up his horse at Fritz Harwell’s stable, late the next morning.
“Leavin’ town, Mr. Jensen?” Harwell asked as Luke finished cinching up his saddle.
“That’s right. My business here is done. Your bank operates very efficiently. It took only a couple of hours to conclude my affairs.” By that he meant that he had collected the reward money for the four outlaws.
Harwell had to be able to figure that out. The stableman nodded. “I know that some folks won’t be sorry to see you go, but I just want to say I got nothin’ against you. You were a good customer, and it was a pleasure doin’ business with you.”
“I appreciate that, Mr. Harwell.” Luke shook hands with the man, then swung up into the saddle. He ticked a finger against his hat brim and rode out of the livery barn.
He
could have stayed and had lunch in the hotel dining room. If his supper the night before and breakfast that morning were any indication, the meal would have been very good.
He could have stopped by the Plainsman and said good-bye to Glenda Farrell, too, but their farewell the previous evening had been quite satisfactory for both of them, Luke believed, and sometimes it was best to leave well enough alone. He heeled his mount into a trot that carried them up the street at a good pace.
Along the way, he passed Sheriff Ross Collins, who was standing on the boardwalk in front of a general store. He glared as Luke rode past. Luke thought about tipping his hat to the man, but again, decided to leave well enough alone.
He circled the depot and walked his horse across the railroad tracks. It was the first time he had seen the part of town where Collins had wanted to banish him. It didn’t look that bad. The buildings were a little more run down, most of the people on the streets were not quite as well dressed, and there were a lot more saloons, at least half a dozen that Luke saw. He had been in a lot more disreputable-looking places, though.
The main street turned into a trail that led almost due north toward a range of low, rugged peaks several people had mentioned. To his left was a green line that marked the course of the river that watered the broad, shallow valley and made it possible for ranches and farms to exist in the area. Farther west, everything dried up and the terrain flattened out into a desert that stretched for forty or fifty miles, broken up by badlands that less than ten years earlier had been strongholds and hiding places for Apaches who refused to go to the reservations in the southeastern part of the territory.
Gradually, those renegades had been either defeated by the army or driven into submission by hunger and other hardships. Most people believed the days of the Indian Wars were over. Luke wasn’t so sure about that. There were still places deep in the wilderness where the holdouts against civilization could take refuge and wait for the right time to strike against the white invaders once more.
He rode for a couple of hours, gnawing on some jerky from his saddlebags to make up in part for the meal he had missed by riding out when he did. The trail angled to the west, closer to the river. Luke hadn’t asked for directions to the McKinney place, but he figured it couldn’t be too far from the stream since Sheriff Collins had said that Jack McKinney and his family raised crops as well as horses and cattle. Creeks trickled across his path here and there, feeding into the river, and when the hills loomed close in front of him, he followed one of them on a hunch.
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