Death's Bounty

by George G. Gilman

  “Christ, Frank!” Billy Seward muttered.

  Forrest showed a cold grin. Hedges matched it.

  “Lousy test, Sergeant,” the captain said softly.

  Forrest shrugged. “You knew?”

  Rhett had drawn his gun and was checking the cylinder. “Frigging toys loaded with blanks!” he announced.

  “We gonna hang around here all day playing kids’ games?” Hal Douglas complained.

  Hedges withdrew the theatrical prop slowly and threw it into the river. He stooped, picked up the Colt, and hol-stered it. Then he lifted the Spencer and tossed it up onto the driver’s seat of the stage. The troopers divided their weary attention between the captain and the sergeant.

  “You guys can do whatever the hell you like,” Hedges drawled easily. “I’m gonna find me a place to sleep.”

  Abruptly, every eye was concentrated upon him, and they were no longer dull and lifeless. Instead, they expressed quizzical surprise at the indifferent attitude and uncharacteristic sentiments of the captain.

  “You sound like a man giving up,” Forrest sneered.

  Hedges shook his head. “Just a man who doesn’t need the hired hands no more,” he answered. “I don’t figure to have to fight my way into Richmond. And when I get there, there’ll be just Jefferson Davis and me.” He showed a tired grin. “And he ain’t no Frank Forrest with a gun, I hear.”

  The sneer became a snarl. “You ain’t running out on us, Hedges!” the sergeant barked.

  “I got room to take six,” the captain replied evenly, then fed ice into his eyes. “But not passengers. And not toting toy guns.”

  Hedges concealed his surprise at Forrest’s reaction. He had expected the mean-faced sergeant to grasp the opportunity to opt out of the war, and there was no doubt that the other five troopers would have followed him. But Forrest hurled the shiny gun out into the river and snatched up his Colt and Spencer. The others followed his example, not attempting to mask their disappointment. Forrest reached up and hauled himself onto the seat beside Hedges. The others climbed into the cramped passenger section, sharing the restricted space with three large trunks.

  The captain released the brake lever and slapped the reins over the backs of the team. The wheels made sucking noises as they turned on the muddy trail.

  “You got your bluff called, uh Captain?” Forrest said after a lengthy period of silence,

  “No bluff,” Hedges replied.

  “Because you had the real guns, and we only had actors’ junk?”

  “What do you think?”

  Forrest gave a harsh laugh. “That you’d have blasted me and every man who tried to back out with me.”

  Hedges considered the suggestion for a few moments, then gave a curt nod. “Deserters deserve nothing less.”

  “You’re okay, Captain,” Forrest said, raising his voice so the men inside the stage could hear. “Forget what I said back there about you being more careful than you oughta be. Takes a brave man to go gunning for a president on his own.”

  Hedges leaned to the side and spat. “Am I supposed to be flattered, Sergeant?” he asked, eyeing the stand of timber ahead.

  “Just grateful,” Forrest replied. “It ain’t gonna be easy, knocking off a president. You’ll need help. It won’t be any stand-up-in-the-street, straightforward shoot-out, man to man.”

  “You talk like a man with experience,” Hedges said sardonically as he steered the team around a curve in the trail and into the wood.

  Forrest shrugged. “Got me a Mexican governor down in Sonora one time, Captain,” he replied conversationally. “But I had me three gunslingers along. Had to blast maybe ten or a dozen guards before we reached the governor.” Hedges angled the stage off the trail and weaved between the trees, looking for a safe place to halt and rest. “How much you get paid for that job?”

  “Nothin’,” Forrest answered. “This guy promised bounties on Apache scalps and didn’t deliver. Me and the boys killed him ’cause he cheated us. Cut him up a little before we put bullets in him. Made a lot of noise.” “Must have been a barrel of fun,” Hedges said wryly as he reined the team to a halt in a glade screened from the trail.

  “It wasn’t that so much,” Forrest said reflectively as Hedges jumped down and started to unhitch the team. “But it was what got my rep really started. Just walking into the fancy house, blasting the guards, and giving the governor a hard time. The name Frank Forrest really started to mean something.”

  “And now you’ve been away a long time,” Hedges supplied.

  Forrest leaped to the ground and nodded. “That’s right, Captain. And people got short memories. On top of which, a lot of guys have creamed a lot of other guys in this war. When it’s over, they’ll all be shooting off their mouths about it.”

  “Hey, that’s right,” Bily Seward exclaimed as he climbed out of the stage, the others following him. “But how many guys’ll be able to say they blasted the Reb president?”

  Only Seward and Forrest grinned their delight at the prospect. Weariness had reasserted an eyelid, drooping grip on the others.

  “Make camp,” Hedges instructed, and there was a sudden flurry of activity as the three tents were unloaded and set up in the lush clearing.

  One of the trunks contained food and coffee beans, but the effects of the meal eaten at Hartford Gap were still with the men, and sleep was the prime necessity. The surge of energy created within Forrest and Seward by the prospect of being known as the presidential killers, earned the two men the first guard duty. They griped, and Hedges accepted this as a good1 sign as he stretched out on a blanket in the tent he had claimed for himself. After a period of prolonged rest, it was likely that the other four troopers would share the renewed enthusiasm of Forrest and Seward. It was pure luck, of course, Hedges realized as he stared up at the inner angle of the tent roof. He could claim no credit, as a man or an officer.

  When he climbed aboard the stage, he had fully intended to drive off and leave the troopers, if that was the way they wanted it. A few moments later, he changed his mind. He would shoot them as deserters. It was merely good fortune that Forrest spotted the unexpressed threat. And a greater good fortune that this mission was something special. For had they been going on patrol or even into battle, the men would have been poised on a knife-edge—as ready to kill their officer as they were to slaughter the enemy.

  But now Forrest had supplied the final injection of luck which played into Hedges’ hand. He had dangled before himself and the others a prize which, to them, was far more desirable than Hedges’ simple aim of a peaceful life on the Iowa farm. As the captain closed his eyes, he reflected that to men such as those he led, the successful end of this mission could be termed glory. Not in respect of striking a blow which might end the war. Nor even in overcoming overwhelming odds to strike the blow. Rather, in the knowledge that their fellow men would become aware of what they had done and pay homage by means of fear-based respect.

  Then Hedges forced his mind to become a blank, receptive to the anxious pressure of sleep. The mechanics of how it had happened didn’t matter. The men were well-fed, and in time they would be rested. And when that was achieved, he would once again be leading what he considered to be the best small fighting unit in the federal army.

  “You reckon the captain really would have gunned us down, Frank?” he heard Seward ask as the first gentle wave of sleep’s tide washed out the final traces of anxiety and left his mind smooth and unruffled.

  “I would have, in his position,” Forrest replied gruffly.

  “Hot dog!” Seward gasped.

  “More like apple pie,” Forrest replied.

  “Uh?”

  “What you get for dessert!” Forrest told the young killer.

  Hedges dived into sleep with a grin curling back his lips. He was roused six hours later by Bell and Scott at the end of their guard duty. The pale orb of the sun filtering through a thick layer of gray cloud fixed the time at close to eleven o’clock. He allowed t
he men to stay in their tents until it was far beyond its high point. The time was after three when he started a small fire and the men crawled out into the mid-afternoon light, nostrils twitching to the aroma of boiling coffee.

  Sleep had taken the redness from their eyes and diffused it across their cheeks. The captain’s razor was passed around and stubble was scraped from jaws and throats. Hot coffee made stale crackers digestible.

  “I feel like a new man!” Bob Rhett announced expansively, after he had removed the dressing from his head and bathed the scabbed scar.

  “Which one of you guy’s he been having?” Forrest snapped with mock anger and a raking look of faked suspicion.

  The others grinned. Rhett scowled.

  “It’s gettin’ so I can’t open my mouth without putting a foot in it!” the New Englander complained.

  “A foot?” Forrest exclaimed incredulously.

  “Ah, Bob!” John Scott put in. “You let our secret out These guys know Fm the only one with that much.”

  ‘You’re sure as hell a big one!” Seward countered, giggling. “What’d you say, Captain?”

  Hedges was sitting on the running board of the stage, smoking a cigarette, quietly content that the ribbing of Rhett, and any other man who left himself open, was a further sign that the troopers’ morale had been given a boost. He swallowed the coffee remaining in his mug and flicked the cigarette into the heart of the dying fire.

  “That they come in all shapes and sizes, trooper,” he said as he stood up, and suddenly grinned to take the sting out of the taunt. “We’ve all gotta be pricks to be in the middle of Reb country, dressed up like California dudes.”

  “The kind that’s needed to shaft old Jefferson Davis!” Roger Bell countered.

  “So let’s get on the job,” Hedges ordered.

  With the team hitched, Hedges again took the reins, and Forrest shared the box seat with him while the others climbed inside the stage. More than fourteen hours had slid into history since the last rain had fallen, and the trail was firmer beneath the hooves of the team and the rims of the wheels. Hedges was able to keep the stage moving at a fast pace for most of the time, as the afternoon light faded into retreat under the relentless pressure of evening gloom.

  They saw no more soldiers, either out on the trail or in the many small hamlets they passed through. Civilians eyed the stage and its occupants curiously, and at first this caused a degree of apprehension to cloud the minds and eyes of the troopers. But then Hedges realized the reason for the strange looks cast in their direction. The stage on its own was an oddity, with the garishly painted signs on the side. And the theatrical costumes of its driver and passengers were obviously an even more outlandish sight to the Virginian plantation workers.

  After he had passed this explanation on to the men, the stage rolled sedately through the tiny communities, minus its previous burden of nervous tension. Fists relaxed their grip around revolver butts, and easy smiles replaced strained expressions.

  The first large town they reached was called Pineville, straddling the Roanoke River. A faint orange glow in the sky—reflection of the town’s lights on the low cloud— was the initial indication that the stage was heading for a much larger community than any it had passed through since the troopers commandeered it. The trail cut through a rocky gorge and emerged at the top of a gentle incline. Hedges hauled on the reins and locked the brake.

  “What about it, Captain?” Forrest asked as the troopers inside the stage leaned out of the windows to see what was causing the hold-up.

  The trail ran down the slope in a curve, providing a wide thoroughfare through the thickly wooded terrain. The town started at the foot of the incline, extending eastward for about a mile, and spreading out to north and south for perhaps half a mile at the widest point. It was completely surrounded by forest, and the river cut a silvered diagonal through the buildings, northwest to southeast. It was a well-planned town with straight streets crossing each other at broad intersections. Milling and lumber industries were concentrated at the river banks on the south side. The midtown section, was brightly lit by gas. The residential areas surrounding this oasis of light had a peaceful, respectable look.

  “I think we gotta go through,” Hedges replied after raking his slitted eyes around the fringes of the town. Trails left town in many directions at irregular intervals, but there was none which offered a bypass route.

  “Ain’t Richmond, is it?” Billy Seward asked.

  “Glad your shooting is better than your geography, Billy,” Bob Rhett told him.

  “Up yours!” the younger trooper snarled.

  “Promises, promises,” Rhett retorted in falsetto tones.

  “Ain’t no way round,” Forrest agreed.

  “Act natural,” Hedges called to the men inside the stage as he urged the team down the incline.

  “You just pretend, Bob,” John Scott muttered to the New Englander.

  There were few people and few lights to be seen at the edge of town. Most of the substantially built frame houses were in darkness and looked empty. The hoofbeats of the team and crpaking of the ancient stage resounded against the blank fagades on either side. The street became paved as it ran through the business section, and there were more people on the sidewalks. All were dressed in their Sunday best and turned recently scrubbed or newly shaved faces to look toward the lumbering stage. Some consulted pocket watches. Others smiled warmly. More waved enthusiastically. All were hurrying toward the brightly lit midtown area.

  “They look kinda gay,” Rhett said, waving back to the citizens of Pineville like a visiting dignitary.

  “It’s all in your mind,” Roger Bell muttered.

  “And we know where Bob’s mind is,” Hal Douglas countered.

  “That’s why he talks so much crap,” John Scott put in.

  “Will you look at the boobs on that dame in the red dress!” Billy Seward exclaimed.

  “Billy!” The name was growled by Forrest as the sergeant fixed a falsely warm smile on his mean features and nodded toward the happy crowd pressing excitedly along the sidewalks.

  “Yeah, Frank?” Seward called up.

  “Business before pleasure.”

  “Sure be a pleasure to give her the business,” Seward muttered softly.

  “Forget it, Billy,” Douglas told him. “She’s old enough to be your mother.”

  “She couldn’t be,” Rhett hissed in a vindictive tone. “I saw her ring. She’s married.”

  Like the others, Hedges was going through the motions of responding to the greetings, but his smile and easy attitude comprised a cover for a nagging anxiety. The reason for his concern was not an easily identifiable one—such as the fact that they were seven Union soldiers moving deeper into the heart of a Confederate town. Rather, it arose from a suspicion based upon the insecure foundation of a hunch.

  Then the team hauled the stage into the broad, gaslit square at the very center of Pineville, and his anxiety was seen to be well-founded.

  “Jesus Christ Almighty!” Forrest rasped. “Now what do we do?”

  The Pineville Playhouse was on the north side of the square, a two-story, frame building spilling a lot of light from its crowded foyer. Multicolored gas mantles hissed around the marquee, illuminating the lettering on a square of canvas:

  For One Night Only THE JOHN FORD TOURING COMPANY

  in

  The West As It Really Is

  “Don’t reckon he’s gonna help us,” Hedges muttered in reply as he angled the stage across the square to where a small man in a tuxedo was beckoning frantically.

  “What the hell we gonna do to help ourselves then?” Forrest growled.

  “Play along,” Hedges replied with a grin, jerking free of his anxiety. Now he knew the true situation, leaving his mind free to deal with it. “Evenin’,” he called down to the man in the tux, whose agitation could be seen in the sweat on his crimson face and the constant blinking of his watery eyes.

  “Mr. Ford?”
His voice was squeaky, as if he had just completed a long, loud speech.

  “Appearing in person,” Hedges boomed dramatically.

  “You’re late,” the man accused, then brandished his hand as if to wave aside potential excuses. “Never mind. You’re here now. I’m Griffiths. Theater manager. Stage door’s along the side alley. You can take the rig down. You’ve got a little time to get ready. There’s another attraction on ahead of you.”

  He didn’t punctuate his speech, taking a deep breath before he started and running out all the words in a single sentence.

  “Not animals or children, I hope?” Hedges demanded. “They’re hard to follow.”

  Griffiths mopped his face with a large colored handkerchief. It left his features dry and set in a mournful expression. “A hanging.”

  “Swinging opening,” Hedges muttered as he clucked the team forward and jerked on the reins to steer them into the alley alongside the playhouse.

  “What the hell’s goin’ to happen after that?” Forrest growled.

  “The show must go on,” Hedges replied as he hauled the team to a halt outside the stage door of the theater. “Just hope the dancer’s the only guy to die the death.”

  Edge rode the gelding hard, galloping north in the wake of the stage. The night became colder as it grew older. But it was miles rather than time which caused the temperature drop. For once clear of the plateau, the trail began to climb, meandering and sometimes making hairpin turns to gain altitude up the solid rock of the mountains.

  The terrain was in the half-breed’s favor. For the sharp turns in narrow gorges and the narrowness of the ledges with sheer drops on one side would force the stage-driver to slow his speed. Such a trail was much easier for a lone rider to negotiate.

  He ran into difficulty only when the trail seemed to fork, offering alternate routes to twin passes in a high ridge—black, jagged, and foreboding in the silvered moonlight. The rocky surface of the trails showed no hoofmarks or wheel ruts. But the time he spent exploring several hundred yards along the trails was not wasted. It gave the gelding a respite, and when Edge’s narrowed eyes spotted the fresh cigar butt, his mount was breathing easily again and the white foam of sweat had dried and ceased to steam from the animal’s flanks.