Hunters

by James Reasoner

  “They just didn’t figure on Redemption havin’ such good lawmen,” Flint said, a note of pride in his voice.

  “I think we’re all mighty lucky that we do,” Hartnett said, then he grabbed for Bill’s arm as the marshal swayed. “Whoa! You all right, Bill?”

  “Yeah, just mighty tired.” He straightened. “But I’m all right now.”

  And he was, because he had just caught sight of Eden running toward him, unharmed and with an eager smile on her face.

  The buffalo hunters’ camp on the eastern edge of town was a subdued place when Bill visited it that night. Half of the men had been killed in the battle with the Pawnee, and several of the survivors were wounded.

  Bill found Ward Costigan sitting on the lowered tailgate of one of the wagons. Costigan’s right leg was heavily bandaged.

  “You’re gonna have trouble gettin’ around with that,” Bill said as he nodded toward the wounded leg.

  Costigan smiled in the light from a campfire. “Between the two of us, Dave and I will be all right, I reckon. He has two good legs, and I have two good arms.”

  “Are you goin’ back to buffalo hunting when you heal up?”

  “No, I reckon I’ve had enough of it,” Costigan said. “You smell that, Marshal?”

  Bill frowned and shook his head. “I smell a lot of things…woodsmoke, bacon frying, coffee boiling…”

  “No, I’m talking about the smell of death. I’ve been carrying it with me ever since the war. There’s no sense in staying in a business that just adds to that stink.”

  Bill nodded. “Buffalo hides are pretty potent, all right.” He hesitated. “You know, I don’t have any idea what you did in the war that you’ve been carryin’ around with you, Mr. Costigan, but you helped save some folks’ lives today. Maybe that’s a start on getting rid of that smell you talked about.”

  Harshly, Costigan said, “A lot of people died today on both sides who didn’t really deserve to.”

  “That’s true. But it wasn’t your fault. You did what you could to save lives. That’s got to count for something.”

  “Maybe. We’ll see.” Costigan looked up at him. “Did you ever find out who fired the shot that killed Spotted Dog?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did,” Bill said. “Sort of had to piece it together from talking to Phillip Ramsey and that prisoner we’ve got locked up in jail, Oscar Kipp. That fella Fraker killed Spotted Dog. He saw that by you turnin’ yourself over to the Pawnee, the fight was about to be headed off. Fraker didn’t want that. He figured a battle with the Indians was just the distraction he needed to get away with robbing the bank.”

  “A bank robbery?” Costigan said. “That’s why all those people died today? Greed?”

  Bill shrugged. “That was part of it, all right. A simple thing. So’s bein’ afraid, and wanting things to be like they used to, and bein’ proud. All of it came together in the worst way, seems to me.”

  Costigan shook his head. “I don’t envy you your job, Marshal. You’ve got to pull the town back together and try to make sense of things.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Bill said. “We’ll bury our dead, and we’ll mourn for ’em, but Redemption will be all right. There are too many good people here for it to be any other way.”

  “If you had put it to that vote, those good people probably would have turned us all over to the Pawnee in order to save their own skins,” Costigan said.

  “Don’t reckon we’ll ever know,” Bill said. He put out his hand. “If I don’t see you again, Mr. Costigan, good luck to you. I hope you find what you’re lookin’ for.”

  Costigan gripped his hand. “I won’t forget that you saved my life out there, Marshal. I think maybe I owe it to you not to throw the rest of it away.”

  Bill smiled. “If you ever pass this way again, you can stop and buy me a drink. We’ll call it square.”

  “I might take you up on that,” Costigan said.

  Bill left the camp and walked back toward the office. Redemption was quiet tonight…so quiet, in fact, that he could hear the weeping coming from some of the houses, including that of Mason Jones, who had been murdered inside the bank, probably by Fraker. There would be a lot of crying for the next few days, a lot of funerals and burials.

  They could even have a funeral now for Aaron Wetherby, who had also been murdered by Jake Fraker. That was another thing Bill had found out by questioning Oscar Kipp. The big man had told everything he knew, including how they had left several other members of the gang outside of town, in hopes of escaping a hangman’s noose. He probably would avoid that fate, too, because even though he had known about Fraker’s plans, he hadn’t really taken part in any of them, the way it turned out.

  Once he was able to ride, though, Kipp would be wise to put Redemption a long way behind him and take the rest of the gang with him, if the Indian threat hadn’t already made them light a shuck. Bill intended to suggest that very thing to Kipp, as strongly as possible. If they tried anything else in these parts, they would be sorry.

  Mordecai Flint pushed through the batwings and stepped out of Smoot’s Saloon as Bill walked by. He said, “Sorry, Marshal. I was makin’ my rounds, and I got a mite sidetracked.”

  He wiped the back of his hand across his whiskery mouth.

  “That’s all right, Mordecai,” Bill said with a smile. “I reckon most of us who lived through this day feel like gettin’ a little…sidetracked.”

  Flint chuckled as he fell in step beside Bill. “Hell of a thing, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Bill said. “A hell of a thing.” He brightened as he went on, “Are you still thinkin’ about settling down here? Still want that deputy’s job?”

  “The badge kinda suits me. And even though the past few days have been a mite hectic, I got to believe that in a peaceful little town like Redemption, things have got to be pretty quiet most of the time. Don’t they?”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Bill said.