THE BOUNTY: Twentieth in a Series of Jess Williams Westerns (A Jess Williams Western Book 20)

by Robert J. Thomas

  “What the hell were you thinking Dudley?” Sheriff Cohen asked cuttingly.

  “We just wanted to get rich,” moaned Dudley as he twisted in pain.

  “Well, the only thing you got is dead,” implied Cohen. “You obviously didn’t know who you were going up against. This is Jess Williams, the best man killer and bounty hunter alive.” Dudley looked up at Jess and contorted in pain again.

  “Just my damn luck,” Dudley coughed after his last words on this side of death’s door.

  Jess looked over at the store and saw Jane looking out of the front window. He looked over to where his hat lay in the dirt, a brand new hole in it. He felt the top of his head and checked for any blood on his hand, but there wasn’t any. He looked at Sheriff Cohen’s hat and noticed a large tear in one side of it.

  “Sheriff, it looks like we both need a new hat and I’m buying.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Jess walked out of the general store carrying a box of supplies and sporting a new hat on his head. Jane was wearing new brown denim pants and a light brown shirt that was two sizes too big for her on purpose. It was buttoned all the way up and her short hair was topped off with the oversized hat. The attempt to make her look more like a man was offset by her breasts, which were more than ample.

  Sheriff Cohen was wearing a very nice black Stetson along with a very nice smile on his face. The three of them walked back to the jail and Jess and Jane quickly packed up their supplies for the rest of their trip to Jacksonville. The two of them climbed up in the saddle and Jess nodded at Sheriff Cohen who touched his new hat and smiled.

  “Nice meetin’ ya Mr. Williams,” exclaimed a happy Cohen.

  The two of them rode out of Sturgis and headed straight south toward Jacksonville. They rode in silence for the first few hours and Jess decided to stop by a narrow stream to let the horses water themselves and graze on some of the lush prairie grass that lined the banks of the stream. They both climbed down from the saddle to stretch their backs a little. He pulled out some beef jerky and handed a piece to Jane. Jess bit off a large piece and started to chew on it. Jane nibbled a small bite and looked at him with probing interest.

  “Don’t you feel bad about killing those three men back there?” she asked him. Jess gave her an indignant expression.

  “I tried to get them to back off, but they wouldn’t listen.”

  “I know, but it just seemed so senseless.

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars will make a sane man do senseless things, although I’m not so sure that those three had any sense to begin with.”

  “I just wished there was another way.”

  “Would you have rather had me hand you over to them?”

  “Of course not…it’s just that…well…you didn’t hesitate for a moment. You just walked straight at that man while he was still shooting at you.”

  “Yeah, but he missed, I didn’t.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever understand this business of men killing each other so casually.”

  “You’d better get used to it because those three won’t be the last men who’ll come for you,” submitted Jess.

  “I hate Walt Mercer for what he’s done to my life.”

  “I can’t say I blame you.”

  They stood there eating the jerky and letting the horses get their fill of the lush grass and when they finished, they climbed back up in the saddle and crossed the stream and headed south. They rode for another two hours when Jess reined his horses up pulled his spyglass out of his saddlebags and extended it.

  “What is it?”

  “We’ve got two riders coming our way,” he said, almost in a whisper.

  “Do you think they might be trouble?”

  “Not sure yet, it could be two people just passing through on their way to Sturgis,” offered Jess as he put the spyglass away and pulled his large bore shotgun out of his back sling. “Rack a shell into that rifle and ride a few feet further apart and be ready for anything. If they go for their guns, shoot the one on the right.”

  They continued on along the trail, Jane riding about eight feet to Jess’ right. When the two men came into view, Jess could easily see that one of them carried a shotgun across his lap and the other carried a rifle with the butt of it on his right thigh. When they got closer, he reined up Gray and turned him sideways so that the shotgun was facing both men directly. He waited until they reined up their horses about fifteen feet away. Both men exchanged glances after looking at the ten-gauge shotgun.

  “You could point that somewhere else,” the man on the right suggested.

  “I could,” said Jess grinning. The two men looked at Jane, but didn’t acknowledge whether or not they recognized her, but Jess could tell by the way they kept exchanging glances that they knew who she was.

  “Kind of risky for a woman to be out here, especially one as pretty as you,” said the other man with the rifle.

  “She’s with me,” implied Jess smartly.

  “Is that right?” asked the man with the shotgun, looking straight at Jane.

  “I fail to see where that’s any of your business,” she answered uneasily.

  “Just asking,” the man with shotgun said. The two men exchanged glances again and there was an awkward moment of silence. Jess sat in the saddle and had his fingers on both triggers of the shotgun.

  “Is that all you two want to know?” He asked them. The one with the shotgun smiled at Jess.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have some coffee you could spare would you,” asked the man. “We ran out this morning and we won’t make it to Sturgis today.”

  Jess didn’t look at her when he said, “Hester, reach into your saddlebag and give them a bag of Arbuckles’.” She gave him a harsh look, but she did as she was told and moved her rifle to her left hand as she fished around with her right hand until she found the bag of coffee. She threw it at the man with the shotgun and he caught it and looked at the bag.

  “You drink the good stuff,” smiled the man. “I especially love the peppermint stick they put inside the bag.”

  “Is that all you need?” Jess asked curtly. The man with the rifle frowned at him.

  “You ain’t too friendly of a feller, are you?” the man with the rifle asked.

  “I gave you that coffee didn’t I?” asked Jess sarcastically.

  “Actually, she gave it to me,” said the man with the shotgun.

  “Yeah, but I paid for it,” he inferred bluntly. The two men exchanged knowing glances and Jess saw it. The man with the shotgun opened his saddlebags and dropped the bag of Arbuckles into it and grinned.

  “Much obliged for the coffee, Mister, we’ll be on our way now,” the man with the shotgun said as they gigged their horses into a walk.

  Jess backed Gray up a little to let the two men pass between him and Jane, all the while keeping the large bore shotgun trained on them and watching their every move. Jess kept the shotgun on them until they rode out of range for it and he stuck it back into his back sling and pulled out his Winchester and racked a shell into it. Jane gave him a worried look.

  “What are you doing?” Jane asked nervously.

  “Those two are coming back,” he answered sharply.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “For one, they could still make it to Sturgis tonight, and the one with the shotgun just pulled his rifle out. When they come, stay at least twenty feet from me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they don’t want to kill the one who’s worth twenty-five thousand dollars. They want to kill the one who is protecting it.” The two of them waited there sitting atop their horses until the men were almost out of range for their rifles.

  “Are you as good with that rifle as you said you were?” Jess asked her.

  “Yeah, but I’ve never shot at a man before, only squirrels and rabbits.”

  “Just picture a really large rabbit riding a horse,” implied Jess.

  “That’s not funny,” she snapped back. “And
Hester? The best name you could think of was Hester?”

  “It was the only name I could think of at the time,” Jess said defensively.

  “Hester,” she whispered under her breath while shaking her head.

  The two men spurred their horses into a dead gallop as they turned them around and separated themselves by about thirty feet. They both raised their rifles up and Jess took careful aim at the man on the right.

  “Aim at the man on the left,” said Jess just as a slug whizzed past his right side, missing him by several inches as he squeezed back on the trigger of his rifle. The rifle jumped and a few seconds later, the man fell from his horse and hit the ground hard with a dusty thud. Another bullet kicked up some sand to the left and behind his packhorse and Sharps was shaking his head and snorting loudly. Jane was aiming at the man, but she hesitated in pulling the trigger. Jess racked another shell into his Winchester just as he felt the burning sensation of a bullet creasing his left ribcage. He pulled back on the trigger and the second man slumped down onto the neck of his horse before falling off and hitting the ground and rolling several times before he finally came to a halt. Jess racked another round into his rifle and shot Jane a quick look.

  “You wait here,” he barked as he nudged Gray into a slow gallop, holding the rifle up high. She watched him ride to the first man and it looked to her like he was talking to the man. Then, all of a sudden, Jess fired his rifle at the man and she jumped in the saddle from it. He rode over to the other man and dismounted. She watched him nudge the man with his boot and then watched him open the man’s saddlebags and take something out of it. He climbed back up in the saddle and rode back to where she was waiting and the blood started to seep through his shirt from the bullet wound.

  “You’ve been shot!” Jane cried out. Jess took his bowie knife out and cut the shirt a little to look at the wound.

  “It’s nothing, just a crease,” he said. He reached into one of his saddlebags and pulled out a piece of the white cloth that he used to stuff the slugs down into his shotguns and folded it up and placed it on the wound. He looked up at Jane and winced a little from the pain.

  “Why didn’t you shoot him?”

  “I don’t know. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t do it.”

  “Well you better learn to get over that if you want to survive this thing,” he snapped. “Next time it might be four of them instead of two.”

  “What did you take out of that man’s saddlebags?”

  “I took the Arbuckels’ back.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, I like that peppermint stick myself.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  They rode until an hour before dark and made camp behind a small ridge that sat about a half mile from the main trail. Jess bagged a rabbit and they had supper and turned in for the night after he kicked some sand on the fire putting it out.

  They continued south for the next five days, always making camp way off the trail and out of sight. Jess always made sure the fire was out before darkness set in. On the morning of the sixth day, Jane was emptying the last two cans of beans they had in their saddlebags.

  “We’re going to need to stock up on some supplies,” she explained. “We’re about all out of food. All we have left is some hardtack and a few pieces of jerky.” Jess looked down into his coffee cup as if he was looking for an answer.

  “Well, we can reach the town of Kendall before nightfall,” submitted Jess. “We could supply up there.” Jane chewed her beans and gave him a quizzical look and he picked up on it.

  “What’s that look about?” he asked keenly.

  “Well, what are the chances we could sleep in a real bed tonight?” she asked with pleading eyes. “My back is killing me.”

  “Did you forget what happened back in Sturgis?”

  “I’ll never forget that, but I need at least one night of sleep on a real bed and something else to eat besides rabbit, beans and jerky.” Jess swished his coffee around and didn’t respond right away.

  “Please?” she implored. “Just for one night.”

  “Alright, but you’ll have to eat in the room,” He said firmly. “I’m not taking you into any restaurant.”

  “That sounds fine to me.”

  They stopped outside of Kendall just before dark. Jess scanned the town with his spyglass first and he spotted the hotel and the livery, which luckily were on the same side of the street.

  “We’ll ride around and behind the hotel and we can go in the back,” advised Jess. “Keep your head down as much as possible and as soon as I get the key from the clerk, you go to the room and stay there.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. He looked at her chest and frowned.

  “Is there anything you can do about those?” he asked looking at her chest. She had a surprised look on her face.

  “Are you talking about… my breasts?” she asked with an uncomfortable look on her face.

  “Well, they do kind of…well…stick out,” he said as respectfully as he could. She turned in the saddle and frowned at him.

  “Have you been looking at my breasts?”

  “Well you can’t exactly miss them.”

  “I can’t exactly take them off either,” she barked disdainfully.

  “I know that,” he argued. “But can you wrap them up tightly or something. I’m just saying that things might go a lot easier if people think you’re a man.”

  “What in the hell am I going to wrap them up with?”

  Jess opened his saddlebags and fished around and came out with a roll of gauze he always kept to patch up his wounds.” Jane had an indignant look wash across her face.

  “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t.”

  “Give me that,” she snapped. He handed her the roll of gauze and she snatched it from him and slid down from the saddle. She walked over behind some bushes and glanced back at Jess.

  “And no peeking either,” she barked at him.

  “I’m not looking,” he argued irritably.

  She removed her shirt and removed her natural colored camisole and wrapped her breasts up as tightly as she could, using the entire roll of the gauze. She put her camisole back on and put the men’s shirt back on and buttoned it all the way up and tucked it back into her denim pants. She walked back out from the bushes and climbed back up in the saddle.

  “Are you happy now?” she asked angrily. He looked at her chest and smiled.

  “Yep,” he said, nudging Gray into a walk toward the outskirts of town.

  “This is uncomfortable you know.”

  “Hey, I’m the one who got shot.”

  “And you said it was just a scratch.”

  “Yeah, and I got it because you wouldn’t pull the trigger.”

  “Are you blaming me for that?”

  “Yep.”

  “You take that back,” she demanded.

  “This is exactly why I usually work alone,” whispered Jess under his breath.

  “I heard that,” she nagged.

  They rode way around town and up to the rear of the only hotel in town and dismounted. Jess grabbed his rifles and saddlebags and so did Jane. When they walked in the back door, she kept her hat low on her forehead and kept her head down. When they walked into the lobby from the rear, the clerk gave them a tangled look.

  “The front door is right there,” the clerk explained pointing at the front door.

  “And there’s the back door right there,” Jess said flatly, pointing at the back door as he threw a ten dollar gold piece on the counter. “We need a room.”

  The clerk started to say something, but Jess gave him a hard look so he just shut his mouth and reached behind him and grabbed the key to room seven. He handed the key to Jess and Jess handed the key to Jane.

  “Get on up to the room now,” Jess told her firmly. Jane walked up the stairs carrying her saddlebags and rifle. The clerk gave Jess a somewhat disapproving look as he handed
him his change. He left the change on the counter.

  “He’s a little off his nut,” implied Jess. The clerk forced an anxious smile.

  “And I wouldn’t bother him in the room either,” he added. “The last clerk who tried to enter his room got shot in the foot.”

  “Oh my,” whispered the clerk. “I’ll make sure not to bother him.”

  “Smart man,” said Jess picking his things up and walking up the stairs.

  Jess rapped on the door before opening it and when he did, he found Jane in the process of removing the gauze from her chest. She quickly grabbed her camisole and put it up covering her chest.

  “Sorry, I’ll turn around until you’re finished,” he offered blushing as he closed and locked the door. She finally finished removing all the gauze and put her camisole and shirt back on.

  “Okay, you can turn around now.”

  “Feel better now?” he asked.

  “Much better,” she replied letting out a long sigh. He pulled one of his two cut-down shotguns out from the back of his holster and handed it to her.

  “Keep the door locked and only open it for me,” he explained. “Anyone else tries to come through that door; you better pull the trigger this time. I’d suggest you only pull one trigger at a time because that thing kicks like a mule.”

  “Alright, but you hurry back.”

  “I’m going to take care of our horses and get some supplies and then some grub,” he told her. “I’ll get back here as soon as I can.”

  He left the room and waited until he heard her lock the door. He walked back down and out the back of the hotel and took the horses and led them down to the livery. He paid the livery man and told him to leave the horses saddled up and ready to ride. He stopped at a general store and picked up supplies and took them back to the hotel and gave them to Jane to pack up in the saddlebags. Then he walked down the street until he found a small eatery. He walked in and up to the counter and took a seat. He noticed there were only a few people in the eatery, not one of them wearing a gun. A young girl came walking out and quickly handed him a slip of paper explaining the specials.