Bounty on a Baron

by Robert J. Randisi

  Bounty on a Baron

  Robert J. Randisi

  A penniless Russian baron has made his way west by putting his pedigreed killing practices to work, but in the eyes of the law, all men are equal, and Decker the bounty hunter is going to make sure the Baron faces American justice.

  Bounty on a Baron

  Robert J. Randisi

  Royal Flush

  “Your chit for Parmenter,” the sheriff said, handing it to Decker.

  “I’ll take him over to the undertaker. Have you got any new paper in?”

  “Don’t let any grass grow under your feet, do you?” the lawman said. “Well, as a matter of fact, I got some paper on the Baron.”

  “On the Baron?” Decker said, surprised. “He’s a killer, but he’s usually careful enough to avoid drawing paper.”

  “Well, not this time,” the sheriff said. “He gunned down a kid, a twelve-year-old boy.”

  “What? He’d never take a job like that. Not on a boy.”

  “That mean you don’t want any part of the reward? Or do you just not want any part of the Baron? Be an interesting matchup, you gotta admit.”

  Decker looked at the figure on the poster the sheriff handed him. Ten thousand dollars. He unfolded the poster and stared at the picture. The Baron had been plying his trade as a hired killer for more than seven years without ever having made a mistake that Decker knew of. He guessed that the old saying was never more true.

  There’s always a first time.

  To Ed Gorman

  Prologue I

  Kendall, Wyoming

  They called him “the Baron,” and that’s exactly what he was, a bon-i-fidey Baron, from Russia. He never talked about it, though, not to anybody. It was a painful memory, fleeing Russia to escape his enemies, coming to the United States without a penny to his name. He tried working at different jobs, but none of them ever paid off. So, he turned to what he knew best.

  Killing.

  Even in Russia he had been a hired killer, but it was done differently there. Killing was killing, but he’d had to learn the new trappings that surrounded his profession in America.

  In Russia, a rifle had been his weapon, and a knife. In America, he had to learn how to use a handgun, and he found that he had a natural talent with it. He had speed, he had accuracy. It soon became as natural as pointing his finger—the way it was with all the good ones.

  He also needed a new name to go with everything else. Keeping the old one would allow his enemies to track him down too easily—even in this far-away country. He decided to use Brand—he liked the way it sounded. The first time he’d heard the word in the American West it had been something you did to a steer. Now it was his name.

  Then there was his accent. Hard as he tried, he couldn’t lose it completely. It became more pronounced whenever he tried to speak quickly, so to counteract that, he rarely spoke unless it was absolutely necessary—

  Like now.

  “Outside,” he said to Stu Carver.

  Carver turned and looked at him, and so did the other men in the saloon. There were about half a dozen but the Baron had eyes only for Carver.

  “The Baron,” Stu Carver said, the two words a terrified whisper.

  No one knew about the Baron’s background, but during the three years since he’d started his new life many people had commented on how regal his bearing always was. Some men even said he acted like royalty. Like a king or a duke or a baron, somebody had said. The name “Baron” stuck, even though he had never called himself anything but “Brand.”

  Now, Carver was no coward, but when he saw the Baron standing there his blood ran cold and his stomach did flip-flops. There was only one reason the Baron came to town—and he had called Carver’s name.

  “Me?” Carver said.

  The Baron nodded.

  “But, why me?”

  The Baron shrugged. He had never asked why before taking a job, and he never intended to. It didn’t matter to him.

  “Listen—” Stu Carver said, standing up.

  “Outside.”

  If it was avoidable, Brand liked to kill his man without taking anyone else with him. Extra killings brought in no recompense.

  Carver had two friends in the saloon, and they straightened up now. Brand saw them but did not make a move.

  “Outside,” he said for the third time, then backed out of the saloon into the darkness.

  Carver came out of the saloon first, sweating. He was followed by his two friends, who fanned out on either side.

  “Baron?” Carver called.

  “Step away from the light.”

  It was good advice, but it wasn’t meant to be. Brand didn’t want any stray shots going into the saloon and hitting some innocent bystander.

  The three men stepped into the street, and Brand walked into a shaft of moonlight.

  They all drew and fired.

  Carver fired in haste and missed. Brand’s shot took him square in the chest. Brand never fired in haste.

  Carver’s two friends fired several shots, but Brand leaped quickly to the left and heard the bullets whiz by him. He calmly squeezed off two more shots and then the whole town seemed to grow quiet.

  He walked over and checked the bodies, Carver’s last.

  “Damned waste,” he said. He’d been paid to kill one man, and he’d killed three. That was wasted lead for him.

  He heard a noise behind him, then. Spinning around, he drew and fired. A man fell dead, and Brand went over to check the body. Carver must have sent someone out a back window, he thought. He knew the saloon had no back door.

  Using his foot, he turned the body over. A muscle in his jaw began to jump when he saw that he’d killed a boy. Big for his age, but probably no more than twelve.

  Damned shame.

  He holstered his gun, mounted his horse, and rode out of Kendall, Texas.

  His job was done, and there had been some unfortunate incidentals, but that’s all they were.

  Incidentals.

  Prologue II

  Santee, New Mexico

  When Decker rode into Santee he was not a happy man. He was leading a horse with a man slung over the saddle. The man had a nice price on his head, but Decker was supposed to have caught three men, each with a price on his head.

  He rode right up to the sheriff’s office and recognized the horse tethered outside. He dismounted and looked around, but the other two horses he had expected to see were nowhere in sight. The two wanted men were probably over at the undertaker’s. He knew they weren’t in jail, because they were dead.

  He’d killed them.

  He mounted the boardwalk and entered the sheriff’s office without knocking. He didn’t know the sheriff of this county, but that didn’t matter.

  As he entered, he saw a man sitting next to the sheriff’s desk. The man turned in his chair and his eyes widened in recognition.

  “Wellman,” the bounty hunter said coldly, ignoring the sheriff completely.

  The lawman frowned and stood up.

  “Who are you? What do you mean busting into my—”

  “My name is Decker.”

  “Oh,” the sheriff said, recognizing the name. “Ain’t this my lucky day. Two bounty hunters in one day. Who have you got?”

  “I’ve got Ross Parmenter outside.”

  “Dead, of course.”

  “Do you know any other way Parmenter would have come in?” Decker asked.

  “No,” the lawman admitted. “This feller just put in for Parmenter’s sidekicks. He’s got a two-thousand-dollar chit. I guess the five—thousand—dollar chit goes to you.”

  “Wrong,” Decker said.

  “What?” the sheriff asked, puzzled.

  “I get the whole bundle.�
�

  “I don’t understand—”

  “This man does,” Decker said, moving closer to Wellman, who stood up hastily.

  “Take it easy, Decker.”

  “Well then, fill me in,” the sheriff said. He was an older man, in his early fifties, and had probably been the sheriff here for a good many years. “I want to know what’s going on.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Decker said. “He stole my meat.”

  “What?”

  “He’s crazy,” Wellman said.

  “I caught up to Parmenter’s sidekicks before I caught up to him. They made their choice and I killed them. Then I hung them up so they’d still be there when I got back with Parmenter,” Decker explained.

  “You…hung them up?”

  “I tied a rope around their ankles and hung them from a tree to keep the critters from getting at them. When I got back with Parmenter, they’d been cut down. I didn’t know by who until just now.” He knew Wellman, and he knew his horse, so he knew who he’d be facing when he entered the sheriff’s office.

  Wellman was a hard man, but only when he had things going his way.

  That wasn’t the case here.

  “He stole my meat, and he’s trying to steal my money.”

  “Meat?” the sheriff said. “Is that what those men are to you?”

  “It’s what they are now,” Decker said. “You sign my chit for five thousand, Sheriff. The rest I’ll get from Wellman, here.”

  “Not in my office—”

  “You want me to take him to court for it?” Decker asked. “Or are you telling me I’m not entitled to that money?”

  The sheriff wiped his mouth nervously, withering beneath Decker’s hard gaze.

  “I ain’t saying that at all—”

  “Then sign my chit.”

  Defeated, the sheriff sat down and started writing.

  “Let’s have it, Wellman.”

  “What? You’re crazy, Decker—”

  “On the desk.”

  “Wha—”

  Decker closed his eyes just for a second, displaying tolerance for the last time.

  “Put the chit on the desk, Wellman,” he said, enunciating each word very carefully. Nervously, Wellman looked at the sawed-off, cut-down shotgun Decker wore in a specially constructed holster.

  “Decker, we can split—” Wellman started, but the look in Decker’s eyes caused him to hurriedly pull the chit from his shirt pocket and put it on the desk, his hands shaking. That done, he stepped away from the desk and moved his hands away from his sides to show that they were empty.

  “All right, all right,” he said, backing away from the desk. “Jesus, Decker, they were just hanging there, swinging in the breeze. How was I to know they were yours?”

  “You know me, Wellman,” Decker said, picking up the chits. “If I ever catch you stealing from me again…” he began, but thought better of threatening the man in front of a witness—especially a lawman.

  “Get out of here,” he said, his voice low and threatening.

  Wellman rushed from the office, slamming the door behind him.

  “Your chit for Parmenter,” the sheriff said, handing it to Decker.

  “I’ll take him over to the undertaker.”

  “What did you mean, he knows you?” the sheriff asked.

  “Nobody else hangs their meat up the way I do, Sheriff,” Decker explained. “Wellman’s in the business. He knows my trademarks.”

  “Like the hangman’s noose you always carry with you?”

  Decker stared at the sheriff, who apparently knew that trademark pretty well.

  “Yes, like the hangman’s noose. Have you got any new paper in, Sheriff?”

  “Don’t let any grass grow under your feet, do you?” the lawman said. “Well, as a matter of fact, I got some paper in on the Baron.”

  “On the Baron?” Decker said, surprised. “He’s a killer, but he’s usually careful enough to avoid drawing paper.”

  “Well, not this time,” the sheriff said. “He gunned down a kid, a twelve-year-old boy.”

  “What? He’d never take a job like that. Not on a boy.”

  “You know him?”

  “I know his rep.”

  “Well, he killed a man named Carver and two others. One of them was probably the target. The kid came along later, and the Baron gunned him down.”

  “It must have been an accident.”

  “That mean you don’t want any part of the reward?”

  Decker looked at the figure on the poster the sheriff handed him. Ten thousand dollars.

  “Or do you just not want any part of the Baron?” the sheriff asked. “Be an interesting matchup, you gotta admit.”

  “Thanks for the chits, Sheriff. I’ll go over to the bank after I drop Parmenter off.”

  He left the sheriff’s office, still holding on to the Baron’s poster. After he took care of the body, and his horse, Decker entered the saloon. He ordered a beer, took it to a table, then unfolded the poster and stared at the picture of the Baron.

  The Baron had been plying his trade as a hired killer for more than seven years without ever having made a mistake that Decker knew of. He guessed that the old saying was never more true.

  There’s always a first time.

  Chapter One

  Under normal circumstances, Decker’s first move when he started hunting someone was to go to the place his quarry had last been seen. In this case, that would be Kendall, Wyoming.

  This, however, was not a normal circumstance.

  This time Decker was chasing another professional—not that bank robbery or train robbery weren’t professions, but there was something about bounty hunting and hiring out as a killer that made them more closely related.

  They were both man hunters. The only difference was that when the killer found his man, his job wasn’t over until he killed him. At least the bounty hunter had the option of bringing his man in alive.

  No, now that Decker was hunting a pro, there was no need to go to Kendall, Wyoming. There would be nothing there to help him. What he had to do was talk to another pro, another professional killer.

  And he knew just the man—Joe Rigger.

  There was only one problem with that. Joe Rigger had sworn that the next time he saw Decker, he’d kill him.

  That was just something that Decker would have to deal with the best he could.

  Finding Joe Rigger would be no problem. He always stayed in the same town between jobs. His profession had once been the same as Decker’s, but five years ago he had switched from hunter to killer. Decker had always felt that Rigger changed professions because, with Decker around, he could no longer claim to be the best bounty hunter in the business.

  Until the arrival of the Baron he had been the best professional killer around. Now his status was open to debate—to everyone but Rigger.

  That was what Decker was counting on to get Rigger to help him.

  Rigger was a Texan, and although it wasn’t general knowledge, Decker knew that between jobs he stayed in the town of El Segundo, right across the border from Mexico. It was the perfect place; in case the law ever came looking for him, the border would be readily accessible. Of course, before the law came looking for him they’d need some kind of proof that he had killed in cold blood. Rigger was too good, too careful to ever leave anything like that behind him. Even if he couldn’t get his target to face him fairly, he killed him anyway—and managed to be able to claim to be somewhere else at the time of the killing.

  Everyone knew that Joe Rigger was a killer, but no one could ever prove it.

  Except Decker. He’d been an eyewitness to one of Rigger’s murders, but since the target had been a man Decker was hunting, and since Rigger had walked away from the body, Decker had been able to turn the corpse in for the bounty. That was the reason Rigger had sworn to kill him, for collecting a bounty on a man he had killed. He claimed it wasn’t fair, or right, but Decker couldn’t see the sense of letti
ng the corpse rot without someone collecting the reward.

  That had been a few years ago, just before the Baron had appeared on the scene. Decker wondered if Rigger was still angry.

  He’d find out soon enough.

  Decker entered El Segundo under the cover of night. He didn’t want to run into Rigger by accident. He had a definite idea about how to handle their first face-to-face meeting in three years.

  He knew that Rigger owned the Hunter Saloon and kept the entire second floor for his own use. If anyone wanted to dally with one of Rigger’s girls after hours, he’d have to supply the hotel room.

  Decker walked his gelding, John Henry, behind the saloon and left him there. He moved around to the front of the saloon again and peeked through the window to make sure Rigger wasn’t there. If he had been, Decker would have made his entry through the second floor. Since Rigger wasn’t inside, that meant he was already upstairs.

  Unless he was away on a job. If that was the case, Decker knew he’d have to find another angle to work.

  He entered the saloon and walked to the bar. The place was about half full. It wasn’t the biggest saloon in town, and Decker wondered how much business it usually did. Of course, Rigger’s livelihood didn’t depend on it, so half full was probably fine with him.

  Decker ordered a beer from the bartender, a heavyset man with hands like hams and the face of a pig.

  Beer in hand, he turned his back to the bar and checked the room. There were two girls working it, a fairly attractive blonde who had seen better days and a young brunette with the face of a schoolteacher and the body of a—well, no schoolteacher Decker had ever known had had a body like that.

  The blonde was sitting on a man’s lap, and the brunette, who had just dropped off some drinks at another table, was returning to the bar.

  He didn’t see anyone else working the saloon, so he assumed that either the bartender or one of the girls would know where Rigger was.

  Looking closely at the younger girl, he decided she was his best bet. She’d be most likely to give Rigger’s whereabouts away without meaning to.