by Neil Hunter
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Reissuing classic fiction from the 1970s, 80s, 90s and Beyond!
Bodie was a bounty hunter, a legalized killer, a man alone. He was a survivor in a tough world where a gunman’s life depended on his ruthlessness and speed on the draw.
But Bodie didn’t kid himself about the glory of being a gunslinger. Killing was a trade and Bodie was for hire to anyone with enough money and desperation.
Yet there was one man who tried to take Bodie for a two-bit greenhorn. And Bodie wasn’t about to be taken …
TRACKDOWN
BODIE 1
Copyright © Neil Hunter 1979
Cover image © 2012 by Westworld Designs
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: August 2012
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
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Published by Arrangement with the Author.
For Andrew Marc and Sarah Kate –
who make the sun rise and set
Chapter One
‘Leo, I reckon it’s time we moved on.’
Giving a hitch to his sagging pants Leo Brack half turned to stare at the speaker. Jud Ventry, lounging on a tipped back chair, his broad shoulders braced against the scarred wall of the adobe-built cantina, scrubbed a big hand across his stubbled jaw.
‘Trouble with you, Jud, is those damn itchy feet,’ Brack said. He turned back to gaze out across the dusty plaza of the isolated border town, watching without much interest as a skinny dog wandered aimlessly from one patch of shadow to another, trying to find a cool place to rest. ‘So what’s wrong with this place of a sudden?’
‘Ain’t a thing left worth havin’,’ Ventry grumbled. ‘Hell, Leo, I done tasted all the liquor an’ screwed all the women! All that leaves is water to drink and the men to take to bed - an’ I ain’t lookin’ forward to either of those things!’
Brack fished a thin, black Mexican cigar from his pocket. Sticking it between his dry lips he searched for a match, struck it on his boot heel, and lit up. Blowing out a cloud of blue smoke he eyed Ventry’s motionless figure.
‘So where do you want to go?’
Ventry eased his tilted hat away from his eyes, flicking a buzzing fly from his upper lip. ‘South,’ he said. ‘Over the border. See if we can find us a place with some life.’
‘Mexico?’ Brack laughed. ‘I should’ve known. Can’t go for long without getting your balls tickled by them Spanish tails, can you, Leo?’
‘Man needs a hobby,' Ventry insisted.
‘Trouble with your damn hobby is the goddamn cost,’ Brack pointed out. ‘We’re going to need a sight more money than we got now.’
‘So we’ll take another bank.' Ventry answered, as if he was talking to a child. He let his chair settle back to the ground. ‘You do remember what a bank is – don’t you?’ he asked dryly.
‘One of them places where folk leave their money for us to take when we’re short. Ain’t that right, Jud?’
The speaker was the third member of the group. He had been sitting just inside the door of the cantina. Now he moved out into the savage glare of the hot sun, squinting his eyes against the brightness. He was young, lean and long legged. His thick blond hair hung shaggy and unruly to his shoulders.
‘See,’ Ventry said. ‘Gil ain’t forgotten.’
Brack scowled. ‘You two are about as funny as a .45 slug up the ass! When you figure you’ve had enough laughs let’s talk this out. Takin’ another bank so soon after the one at Creel ain’t too clever. Ain’t been long enough for folk to have calmed down yet. We could walk in on some place where every son of a bitch is jittery enough to start shootin’ ’fore we can get control.’
‘We can handle things,’ Gil Lutz crowed airily.
Brack rounded on him angrily. ‘You can quit that kind of asshole talk! Last thing I need when I take a bank is a gun happy kid siding me who figures he’s the best thing ever invented since the tail ’tween a woman’s legs!’
Lutz flushed nervously. ‘Hell, Leo, I only said ...’
‘I know what you was aimin’ to say.’ Brack dragged off his hat and rubbed the back of his hand across his sweaty face. ‘Why is it you kids got to go round provin’ how damn good you are? It’s that kind of asshole foolin’ round that’s liable to get you a nasty big hole blowed clear through you! See how tough you are then, boy, when you’re crawlin’ in the dirt with your insides hanging down your shirt front.’
Lutz dragged his gaze from Brack, turning to Ventry for some kind of support. But Ventry wore an even sterner expression than Brack, and Lutz realized he’d overstepped the mark. Brack and Ventry had been riding together for a long time. They were hard, experienced men, who lived on their wits and the ability to use the guns they carried well.
‘In this business,’ Ventry said, ‘when a man has a partner, he’s got to know he can trust that partner with his life. He can’t walk in to take some bank if his mind ain’t full on the job. If he’s worried about how his partner’s going to act then he might as well not bother, ’cause sooner or later that partner’s going to let him down. You remember that, Gil, ’cause it works for you and against you.’
Lutz, feeling less than human, nodded. He didn’t say another word because he couldn’t trust himself to say the right thing. Instead he turned away, staring blindly up the dusty street, out towards the far end of town.
And that was when he saw the rider coming in from the sun-bleached emptiness out beyond the town limits. He stood and watched the rider for a few seconds. Then he found his voice again.
‘Rider coming in!’
Ventry did no more than turn his head, narrowing his eyes against the reflected glare of the sun.
Brack, always the more nervous, walked by Lutz and stood watching the rider’s approach.
‘Leo?’ Ventry asked after a while.
Brack simply shrugged, indicating that he did not recognize the rider.
‘Probably some drifter just passing through,’ Ventry offered.
Brack cleared his throat and spat into the dust. ‘I know’d a lot of men who got killed on maybes.’
‘Gil, fetch my rifle,’ Ventry said. He rose to his feet, unwinding his long frame slowly. He moved to stand alongside Brack as Lutz vanished inside the cantina. They stood side by side, studying the rider who was now coming along the street.
‘Shit, I reckon I know that feller,’ Brack muttered. He began to rub the side of his nose with the tip of his left thumb, a habit he indulged in when he was thinking.
Ventry took a couple of steps forward, peering intently in the direction of the oncoming rider. A frown creased his brow. Then he gave an angry curse. Brack glanced at him.
‘What?’
‘Trust our fuckin’ luck!’
‘Leo?’
‘It’s Bodie!’ Ventry stated flatly.
‘Who’s Bodie?’ Lutz asked as he emerged from the cantina with Ventry’s rifle.
Snatching the weapon from him, Ventry snapped: ‘Stay around, boy, and you’ll find out.’
‘Find out what?’
‘That Bodie is the best there is in his line of business. I hope you heard me ’cause I might not have the chance to say it again.’
‘What business?’<
br />
‘The huntin’ business, boy.’ Brack grumbled through clenched teeth. ‘Manhunting business! And we’re the ones he’s huntin’ for this time!’
Lutz felt his guts coil up tight and a sick feeling began to fill his stomach.
‘Hell, Leo, it’s Bodie all right,’ Brack said suddenly.
‘What’s he going to do?’ Lutz asked as the rider reined in his horse across the street and stepped down from the saddle.
‘Do, boy?‘ Ventry hissed savagely. ‘What the hell do you think he’s going to do!’ He worked the lever on his rifle with a vicious jerk, forcing a round into the breech.
Lutz felt himself backing off, stepping away from Ventry and Brack. The awful realization had hit him. Any moment now the roar of gunfire would split the empty silence, and someone would die. Gil Lutz became aware of how little he’d done in his young life, and the possibility of that life being ended here in this dusty street, in this godforsaken little town, held little appeal. The thought flitted across his mind that he’d been a fool to join up with Ventry and Brack. All right, they had shown him a good time. He’d had women. Drink. Money. But there had also been a lot of hard riding. Staying away from towns, real towns, and having to hide away in fly-infested places like this one. And all for what? The couple of thousand dollars they’d got from that bank in Creel. That had been Lutz’s first job. Christ had he been scared! Waiting outside the bank with the horses while Ventry and Brack went inside. Then the silence. The seemingly eternal, empty, waiting silence. He’d begun to wonder if something had gone wrong. Sweat pouring down his face. Hands trembling as they had held the reins of the restless horses. And then the sudden eruption of gunfire that blasted the peaceful calm of Creel wide open. Ventry and Brack emerging from the bank, guns firing, canvas bags clutched in their free hands. A momentary confusion while they had struggled to get on their horses, and then the wild, uncontrolled flight through town, out across the sun-bleached terrain, hoping they could lose themselves in the silent, vaulted wilderness of that desolate landscape. For three days they had ridden almost non-stop, fearing pursuit, hardly daring to take time to rest. Finally, exhausted, they had taken refuge here in this nameless place close to the border. The town had offered little. A couple of grubby cantinas, one offering rooms for rent. Just along the street from the cantina they were using was a whorehouse run by a greasy, cold-eyed monster of a woman. She had six girls working for her, every one of them as hard as stone and just as devoid of feeling. The town had little else. A couple of stores, one of the worst eating-houses imaginable. There wasn’t any law, nor did the place have a doctor. All it did have were the basic requirements afforded by a place such as this. It was a stopover. A place for drifters and fugitives to rest, or hide, before they moved to new ground. The transients who visited the town were of a kind. Always unsettled. Always wary. Always looking over their shoulders, and all, without exception, waiting for and dreading the day when somebody finally did catch up with them...
‘Leo?’ Ventry spoke softly to his partner.
Brack nodded, beginning to edge away. ‘Call it when you’re ready,’ he said to Ventry.
Gil Lutz felt the hot, crumbling adobe of the cantina wall at his back. He stayed exactly where he was, a silent, unwilling spectator to the deadly game being played. Despite the fear being generated by his awareness of the unavoidable climax of the moment, Lutz found he was transfixed. He could not have taken his eyes off the three men on the dusty street for a wagonload of pure gold.
His gaze was drawn ultimately to the man called Bodie. He was close enough now so that Lutz could see him clearly. Bodie was a tall man, well over six feet, with the loose gait of a lifelong horseman. He didn’t appear to possess more than an average build, but that was more deception than fact. There was strength in the broad shoulders, a supple power, poised to explode. Bodie obviously allowed himself no pretensions. There was none of the usual façade of the extrovert gunman. His clothing was strictly functional. Faded levis worn over scuffed, yet cared-for boots. A dark wool shirt and a black hat that had seen better days, its wide brim curled. The hat was pulled low to shade Bodie’s keen eyes, leaving much of his strong-boned face in shadow. Around his lean waist was a simple cartridge belt supporting a shaped holster. Resting in the holster was a standard 1875 model single-action Colt with plain wood grips. Bodie’s right hand hung close to the butt of the Colt as he drew himself to a halt some twenty feet from Ventry and Brack.
He looked like a man with all the time in the world, and he scared the hell out of Gil Lutz.
‘Well?’ Jud Ventry asked.
‘Bank in Creel offered a thousand apiece for you boys. Dead or alive.’
Ventry spat in disgust. ‘And if you take us back alive we get to hang anyway? Right, Bodie?’
‘You play the game, you have to follow the rules,’ Bodie replied.
There was a long, strained silence. Brack gave an abrupt, hollow laugh, a product of his nervousness. He wiped the back of his hand across his dry mouth.
‘Hell, no!’
Jud Ventry screamed out the words, and in the same instant broke off to the left, swinging up the rifle he was holding. Slightly behind his partner in reacting, Brack snatched at the heavy Colt on his hip, starting to run forward, towards Bodie.
The man hunter moved with controlled slowness, but there was a deliberate intent behind his actions. His Colt came out of its holster easily and was up and cocked while Brack was still clearing his weapon. Bodie turned sideways on, presenting a slimmer target, his right arm lifting the Colt in a smooth, easy motion.
Ventry, who had begun the action, was the first to fire. But he was on the move and using a rifle. His Winchester blasted a gout of flame and smoke. The bullet whacked a ragged hole in the hard earth inches away from Bodie’s left boot.
‘Take him, Leo!’ Ventry yelled, jerking the lever of his rifle.
They were the last words he ever uttered. Bodie’s Colt exploded with sound. Two shots, so close they merged into one continuous blast. The first hit Jud Ventry in the chest, punching a jagged hole that spurted blood in a bright stream. The second bullet caught him just below the left eye, ripping through flesh and bone, then emerged just behind the left ear, spraying blood and bits of mangled flesh and bone. Ventry gave a hoarse grunt, twisting round on his left heel, the rifle spinning from numbed fingers.
He fell to his knees, facing in Lutz’s direction. For a long moment he remained there, blood gushing from the hole in his chest and the even more hideous wound in his face. And then he pitched face down in the bloody dust, his body twitching and jerking in a final spasm of silent agony.
Before Ventry hit the ground Bodie had swung away from him, dropping to a crouch, firing up at Leo Brack’s moving figure. Bodie’s gun blasted before Brack had time to cock his weapon. He shot Brack’s left leg from under him, the bullet shattering Brack’s kneecap in a gory flood of ruined flesh and splintered bone. Brack screamed as he went down. He smashed face first to the ground, his body arching in pain. Blood streamed from his crushed nose and lips as he struggled to raise himself, still clinging to the Colt in his hand. He had the hammer halfway back when Bodie put another bullet into his body. The heavy .45 caliber bullet drove deep into Brack’s chest, ripping the heart open. Brack shuddered in agony. He twisted over onto his back. Terrible choking sounds came from him as he lay kicking against the pain. Blood rose and burst from his straining lips in a red flood. It soaked his clothing, splashing to the dusty earth where it was greedily swallowed.
Gil Lutz watched the man called Bodie move towards him. There was a terrible expression on the face of the man hunter. Lutz felt a rising sickness fill his throat. Bodie was going to kill him too! Complete panic took over. Lutz thrust himself away from the wall of the cantina, eyes flickering wildly back and forth as he sought a way of escape - but he was in a trap with no way out.’
‘Leave me alone!’ he screamed in his fear, feeling the sudden warm flood of wetness in his groin as he l
ost control of his bladder. ‘For Christ sake leave me alone!’
Even in his panic he was aware of Bodie’s abrupt move. He saw the man’s arm come up. The thought flashed through his mind: He’s going to shoot me! He’s going to kill me! And Lutz grabbed wildly for his own gun, yanking it from the holster. He was still staring at Bodie, still seeing that raised arm, but in his fear, his total panic, he failed to digest the fact that it was Bodie’s left arm. Not the right. Not the gun arm. As far as Lutz was concerned he had seconds in which to defend himself and he reacted in the only way he knew. He brought up his gun, thumb dragging back the hammer, bringing the muzzle round to line up on Bodie.
‘Damn you, boy, don’t!’
Bodie’s plea was lost on Lutz. He was too far gone with fear. Too committed to draw back. He triggered a single, frantic shot, not bothering to see where it had gone before he started to cock his gun again for the second shot – which he never made.
There were two bullets left in Bodie’s gun. He put them both into Lutz’s lean body, and the range was so close that Lutz was lifted off his feet and tossed across the street like a rag doll. His gory wounds exposed splintered white rib bones. In his dying moments Lutz felt blood fill his mouth and nose. He coughed harshly, feeling the blood spray from his lips in a frothy mist. He began to crawl blindly across the street, tearing out his nails as he clawed at the hard earth. He didn’t know where he was going or why, but he didn’t want to just lie there. So he crawled, leaving behind a slimy trail of blood in the pale dust of that nameless town in the middle of nowhere. And that was where he died.
The man named Bodie put away his gun after he had reloaded it. He stood and surveyed the three bloody corpses.
Glancing at the twisted body of the boy he shook his head. There hadn’t been a need for him to die. Damn fool! If only he’d listened before he’d started shooting. All Bodie had wanted to tell him was that the ‘Dead or Alive’ notice had only been for Ventry and Brack. The boy, Lutz, would have got away with no more than a few years behind bars. He could have come out a free man with a chance to start again. But Lutz had chosen his own way and he paid for it. Maybe his actions had been fired by pure fear. By panic. The motivation didn’t make that much difference to Bodie. He could be killed just as easily by a bullet from a madman as from one coming out of the gun of a professional killer.