“Yes, please.”
“Dunbar’s Livery.”
Luke cocked an eyebrow.
“It belongs to my brother,” the marshal went on, “and it’s the only stable in town, so me bein’ the law don’t give it any sort of unfair advantage. What about Epps’s horse?”
“Think your brother would pay enough for it to cover the expense of its late owner’s burial?”
Dunbar studied the animal with a critical eye for a moment, then nodded. “More than likely. I’ll see that Calvin gets paid.”
“Thank you.” Luke touched a finger to the brim of his black, flat-crowned hat. “That goes for both of you gentlemen.”
“I’ll send that wire right away,” Dunbar said.
“I’m obliged to you, Marshal.”
“Might get that bounty as soon as tomorrow,” Dunbar went on. “Once you’ve been paid, won’t be no reason for you to hang around Rio Rojo, will there?”
The question didn’t surprise Luke. Most lawmen didn’t like having a bounty hunter around. Neither did most of the other honest citizens, for that matter. Luke supposed he didn’t blame them. He might be legally sanctioned, but he was still a killer.
“That’s right, Marshal,” he said, keeping his tone mild. “There won’t be any reason for me not to move on.”
Luke’s first stop was the livery stable, where Marshal Dunbar’s brother was more than happy to lead Luke’s horse into a stall and promise to take good care of him. The marshal had failed to mention that he and his brother were twins, right down to the shaggy mustache each man sported.
“I reckon Cyrus sent you,” the man said.
“That would be the marshal?”
“Yep. I’m Cyril.”
“Cyrus and Cyril Dunbar.”
“Yep.”
“He mentioned a hotel and a bath house, too. Are they also owned by Dunbars?”
Cyril looked confused. He frowned and said, “What? No, old Mr. Vanderslice owned the hotel. Reckon his widow does now, since he passed away earlier today. And Felipe Ortiz runs the bath house and barber shop. Next closest one is all the way over in El Paso.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Luke paid for his horse’s keep for a night and left his saddle there, but took his saddlebags and Winchester with him. Behind him, Dunbar yelled for somebody named Hobie to rattle his hocks and fork down some more hay from the loft.
The usual red-and-white-striped pole led Luke to the bath house and barber shop, where the rotund and ebullient Felipe Ortiz welcomed his business, too. He had a fire burning under a huge pot of water big enough to cook a meal for a whole tribe of South Seas cannibals, Luke noted.
A hall that led from the back of the barber shop area had two cubicles partitioned off on either side of it, each with a tub in it. None of them were occupied at the moment, so Luke could have his pick, Felipe informed him. Luke replied that any of them would be all right, and with a spate of rapid Spanish directed at his sons, Felipe set them to filling the tub in the first room on the left. The little boys used buckets and had the tub almost full within minutes. Tendrils of steam rose wispily from the water’s surface.
“I need a shave, too,” Luke said.
“It will be attended to, señor,” Felipe assured him. “You should bathe first.”
Luke nodded and drew the curtain across the opening at the front of the little room. In addition to the tub, the room contained a bench and a stool. He leaned the Winchester in a corner, pulled the bench over next to the tub, took off his gun belt, and coiled it so the butts of the Remingtons were within easy reach when he placed it on the bench. His saddlebags went on the bench, too. One of the pouches held clean shirt, socks, and the bottom half of a pair of long underwear he intended to put on when he was finished with his bath, but he would have to don the dusty black trousers again.
When he was naked, he stepped into the tub. A chunk of soap and a brush sat on a shelf beside the tub, but Luke left them where they were for the moment. He was content to lie back and let the hot water soak away the aches and pains of long days on the trail.
He closed his eyes and let his mind drift, although a part of him remained alert. He had made too many enemies over the years to allow himself to relax completely unless he was in a place where he knew for sure he was safe. In the circles in which he traveled, men tended to settle old grudges with powder smoke and lead.
His thoughts went back to what Marshal Dunbar had said about him changing his name. That wasn’t strictly true. When he had started calling himself Luke Jensen again, he had merely reclaimed his real name. Luke Smith had never been anything but an alias designed to conceal his true identity because of what he considered some shameful events during the closing days of the War of Northern Aggression. Those days were long past and Luke had put them behind him, but he had continued to use the Luke Smith name out of habit, if nothing else.
Then he had run into his younger brother Kirby, who had another name, too—Smoke Jensen. Luke suspected that his brother had grown up to be the famous gunfighter known from one frontier to the other as probably the fastest man who had ever lived, but he had avoided a meeting until fate brought them back together.
Getting to know Smoke—fighting side by side with him—had convinced Luke that he ought to take the Jensen name again, but he didn’t go out of his way to let folks know that he and Smoke were related. Smoke was a successful rancher in Colorado, a widely respected citizen. He didn’t need people knowing that his brother followed a profession as sordid as bounty hunting.
Luke could have drifted off to sleep in the bathtub. The hot water felt that good. He didn’t let himself do that, of course, and the part of his brain that remained vigilant knew right away when a soft footstep sounded just outside the curtained-off cubicle.
By the time someone pushed the curtain aside, Luke’s eyes were open and one of the Remingtons was clutched in his right fist as he aimed it at the opening.
The young woman who stood there gasped in surprise. Her eyes widened as she took an involuntary step back. “Please, señor, do not shoot.”
She didn’t look like a threat. She was about eighteen, with smooth, honey-colored skin and masses of thick dark hair around a pretty face. The white blouse she wore rode low on bare shoulders and revealed the upper swells of her full breasts. She carried a basin in her hands.
“Who are you?” Luke asked. “What do you want?”
“I . . . I am Philomena,” she said. “I have come to shave you. My papa—”
“You’re Ortiz’s daughter?”
“Sí, señor.”
“So he has more than sons.” Luke lowered the hammer on the Remington and slid the revolver back into its holster. “You can leave the basin and the razor. I’ll take care of the shaving.”
“But you have no mirror. You cannot see.”
“Won’t be the first time I’ve shaved without a mirror.”
A stubborn look came over Philomena’s face. “I am excellent at shaving a man, señor. And my father sent me to do this. I must do as he says.”
Luke had to wonder what sort of father would send his beautiful daughter into a small room with a naked man.
On the other hand, Philomena would be holding a razor to that man’s throat, which would be enough to make most hombres behave themselves. If a fellow got out of line, all she had to do was press a little harder.
“I suppose it’ll be all right,” Luke said. “Where’s the razor, anyway?”
Philomena set the basin of hot, soapy water on the bench and used a bare foot to drag the stool over closer to the tub. She smiled, reached into the top of her blouse, and took out a closed razor. “I like to warm it before I begin.”
“I’ll just bet you do,” Luke muttered.
“Señor?”
“Nothing,” he told her. “Go ahead.”
She sat down, got a handful of soapsuds from the basin, and spread them on his face. Her slender, supple fingers worked the lather into his beard stubble wi
th surprising strength.
“Lean your head back, señor,” she said quietly. “It will be easier that way.”
Luke did as she said. In that position, his eyes naturally closed again. What she was doing to him felt good. It wiped away all the stress of the long days he had spent trailing Monroe Epps.
She smelled good, too. A clean, healthy female scent. Not the perfume of the ladies he dallied with in San Francisco, to be sure, but just as appealing, especially since Philomena was right there and those ladies were hundreds of miles away.
He felt something brush his face and slit his eyes open to see that several thick strands of her raven-dark hair hung next to his cheek as she leaned over him. The blouse sagged enough to give him an unobstructed view of the valley between her golden breasts. He closed his eyes again and steeled himself not to react. He was old enough to be the girl’s father, after all . . . but he was also human.
She began humming softly to herself as she took the razor and started scraping the stubble from his cheeks and throat. Her touch was smooth and sure. She hadn’t been lying when she’d boasted that she was good at it.
Luke had a hunch she was good at other things, too, but he was determined not to find out about that. It just wouldn’t be right. Even a bounty hunter had some scruples.
“Señor?” she whispered, so close that he felt the warmth of her breath on his ear. “Señor, you are a very handsome hombre. I wish—”
Whatever she wished, Luke probably would have said no, but he didn’t get the chance to. At that moment, another step sounded in the corridor, along with the jingle of a spur, and the curtain was suddenly swept aside, causing Philomena to cry out and jerk back from Luke. The razor in her hand nicked his neck as she did so, but the sting of the little cut was the least of his worries at the moment.
The stranger’s face twisted in hate and anger as he thrust the twin barrels of a shotgun at Luke and screamed, “Time for you to die, bounty hunter!”
CHAPTER 3
Luke’s reaction was instantaneous. His left hand shot out and grabbed Philomena’s arm while his right flashed toward the basin of soapy water. He pulled Philomena into the tub with him as he grabbed the basin and sent it flying toward the would-be killer with a flick of his wrist.
Philomena’s scream ended in a splash and a gurgle as she went face-first into the tub. Luke twisted aside and surged up from the water, partially shielding her body with his own.
The basin spinning toward the stranger’s face caused him to flinch, pulling the shotgun’s barrels out of direct line with Luke. But at that close range, the buckshot would spread enough to do considerable damage if the man triggered the weapon.
In the split second of grace that throwing the basin had given him, Luke snatched one of the Remingtons from its holster. He didn’t aim, but fired from the hip, letting instinct guide his shot.
The bullet flew true, ripping into the man’s left side and spinning him halfway around. Stubbornly, he stayed upright and tried to swing the shotgun back into line. Luke fired again, and put his shot right in the middle of the stranger’s forehead. The slug bored on through the man’s brain and exploded out the back of his skull in a grisly spray of blood and bone.
The man dropped the shotgun and fell to his knees, then toppled forward to land with his ruined head dangling over the edge of the tub. At that moment, Philomena emerged sputtering and choking from the water and found herself looking at the dead man’s bullet-shattered skull from a distance of only a few inches. She started screaming again.
Felipe Ortiz rushed in brandishing an old cap-and-ball pistol and yelling in Spanish. Spotting his daughter in the tub and a naked Luke Jensen standing over her, he reacted normally and thrust the gun at Luke with both hands as he fired.
Luke didn’t want to kill Ortiz. He dived to one side as the old pistol boomed. The ball missed him by several feet, hit the cubicle’s rear wall, and blew a neat hole in it. He fell over the bench, rolled, and hooked a foot behind Ortiz’s left ankle, sweeping the barber’s legs out from under him.
Ortiz went over backward with an alarmed yell and bounced a little as his amply-padded rear end hit the floor.
“Papa, no!” Philomena cried. She kept shouting at her father in Spanish.
Luke understood the language fairly well, although the words flew out of her mouth so fast he missed some of them. But he knew she was telling Ortiz not to shoot anymore.
Finally she said in English, “The señor did nothing! It was this . . . this . . .” She looked down at the dead shotgunner again, and fainted dead away.
Luke grabbed her blouse to keep her face from sliding under the water.
The barber shop door slammed open and heavy footsteps charged back to the bathing area. Marshal Cyrus Dunbar came to a startled stop and looked around to see Ortiz sitting on the floor, a dead man draped over the edge of the bathtub with blood leaking from his head turning the water red, and a passed-out Philomena sagging in the tub while Luke, naked as a jaybird, held her up.
“Good Lord! I must be seein’ things!” Dunbar squinted and looked away from Luke. “Things I don’t want to be seein’.”
“I assure you, Marshal, there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this,” Luke said.
“You mean besides me bein’ loco?”
“Yes, and if you’ll take Señor Ortiz and his daughter out of here and let me get dressed, I’ll tell you all about it.”
“What about, uh . . .” Dunbar gestured vaguely at the dead man.
“He won’t be going anywhere or bothering anyone else.”
“Fine, fine,” Dunbar muttered. “Felipe, go back out front and take that old horse pistol with you.”
Philomena started moaning and moving around as she came to, and the marshal added, “Señorita, let me give you a hand.”
While Dunbar helped the groggy and soaking wet Philomena climb out of the tub, Luke picked up his hat and held it in front of him so that he was no longer completely exposed.
Dunbar put his arm around Philomena’s shoulders and steered her toward her father, who had gotten to his feet but still looked completely confused. Dunbar looked back at Luke and snapped, “Is there gonna be a dead body involved every time I run into you, Jensen?”
“I hope not, Marshal. I sincerely hope not.”
Luke hadn’t gotten the chance to scrub off all the trail dust, but the idea of getting back into the tub after so much of the dead man’s blood and brains had leaked into it didn’t hold any appeal. He used the rough towel hanging on a nail driven into the wall to dry off and then got dressed. At least some of his clothes were clean, he told himself.
He left the body where it was and went out into the barber shop. Night was settling down over Rio Rojo, he saw through the big window in the front of the shop.
Dunbar and Ortiz were waiting for him, but Philomena was gone. Luke supposed her father had sent her home. He said, “The first thing I want you to know, Señor Ortiz, is that I did nothing to dishonor your daughter. I give you my word.”
“What was she doing in there?” Ortiz asked with a glare.
“Shaving me.” Luke touched a finger to the little nick on his throat. The drop of blood from it had scabbed over. “She said you sent her in there to do it, that it was her job.”
“Dios mio!” Ortiz threw his hands in the air. “That girl! I have told her such things are not decent, but she watches and when she sees a man who appeals to her—as so many do!—she sneaks in to flirt with them. She has the . . . the heat in her blood . . . like her mama. A good thing for a man when his wife is like that, but not so good when it is his daughter!”
“What about the dead hombre?” Dunbar asked heavily.
Luke shrugged. “He came in, pointed a shotgun at me, and yelled that it was time for me to die.”
“And you took exception to that.”
“It seemed like the appropriate reaction.”
Dunbar’s eyes narrowed. “You must be pretty handy with a gun if yo
u were able to stop him from killin’ you when he already had a greener ready to cut loose.”
“I was lucky.” Luke explained about throwing the basin at the stranger. “That gave me just enough time to get my hand on a gun.”
“And that’s all you needed, wasn’t it?” Dunbar held up a hand. “Never mind. Who was he, and why did he want you dead?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Marshal.”
“You mean you don’t know him?” Dunbar sounded like he had a hard time believing that.
“I never saw him before,” Luke said. “He knew who I am, though. He called me a bounty hunter. He said it like an obscenity.”
“To some folks I reckon it is,” Dunbar muttered.
“Let’s go take a better look at him.”
Ortiz crossed himself and said, “Not me. I just want him out of my place, Marshal.”
“As soon as I can, I’ll tell Calvin to fetch his wagon “ Dunbar said. “Come on, Jensen.”
They trooped back to the cubicle. Dunbar took hold of the corpse’s shoulders and pulled him away from the tub. The body rolled loosely onto its back. The man’s face was set in a permanent grimace, etched there by the bullet that had left the black, red-rimmed hole in the center of his forehead. “You sure you don’t know him?”
Luke studied the dead man for a long moment, mentally comparing the face to the drawings on hundreds of wanted posters he had memorized. It wasn’t an unusual face, sort of foxlike and bordering on ugly, with a weak chin and straggly hair the color of straw. The man wore range clothes that had seen better days. In addition to the shotgun, he packed a .44 revolver in a holster strapped to his waist.
“He looks like a thousand other drifting hardcases, Marshal,” Luke finally said. “I don’t know him, but I feel confident that he was wanted. He must have seen me come into town, recognized me as a bounty hunter, and figured it would be in his best interest to kill me before I recognized him and came after him.” Luke shook his head. “His high opinion of his own notoriety got him killed. I wouldn’t have known him if I’d bumped into him on the street.”
Luke Jensen Bounty Hunter Dead Shot Page 2