Double The Bounty

by Robert J. Randisi

  “So what? He would have taken it if he could have. If you weren’t there holding a gun on him.”

  “No, not that man,” Brian said, shaking his head. “He saved you because he wanted to, because that’s what a doctor does.”

  “Bullshit! He would have called for the sheriff as soon as we left and had a posse on our tail within the hour. We couldn’t leave him alive, Brian, don’t you see that?”

  “No, Brent, I don’t see that.”

  “You’re too soft,” Brent said. “You always were.”

  “And you’re an animal, Brent,” Brian said, staring at his brother as if he’d never seen him before. “A sick, rabid animal.”

  “And what do you do with rabid animals, brother?” Brent taunted. “You put them down. You gonna put me down…brother?”

  “No, I’m, not going to do it, Brent, but some-body has to…before you kill someone else.”

  “Like you?” Decker asked.

  “What?”

  “How long will it be before he turns on you, Brian?”

  “No, he won’t,” Brian said, without conviction.

  “Look at him, Brian.”

  Brian Foxx continued to stare at the ground.

  “Look at him!”

  He looked.

  “Look at his face, the look in his eyes. If you untied him now, do you know how he’d repay you? He’d kill you.”

  Brian stared at Brent, who looked as if he’d start foaming at the mouth any moment. He looked away, and then walked away.

  It was a very long wait for darkness.

  When darkness finally fell, it was Decker who tied Brent Foxx up again.

  “You’re a dead man, Decker. You hear me?”

  Decker ignored him.

  “You turned my brother against me. I’m going to kill you for that!”

  “I didn’t turn your brother against you, Brent,”

  Decker said, looking down at him. “You did that all by yourself.”

  Brian and Decker took their horses as close as they dared, and then left them to go on foot. They retraced their steps back to the vantage point they’d had earlier and looked down at the camp. It was lit by three or four separate campfires. They tried to locate the two women.

  “I can’t find them,” Brian Foxx said.

  “They’ve pitched a tent,” Decker said, “probably for the leader. We’d better head for that.”

  “You think they’re in there?”

  “If they’re not, at least we’ll have him.”

  “This could get us both killed, you know.”

  “You want to back out?” Decker asked.

  “And have to wait tied up with Brent? Not on your life.”

  Decker liked it better this way, too.

  At least if he died tonight, he’d have company.

  First they surveyed the entire layout.

  The men were spread out, but in four or five distinct groups around four separate fires. There were two wagons in the camp, one at the far end, isolated, and one right near the tent. They were most likely filled with whatever booty they had collected along the way.

  “We’ve got to come in from back there,” Decker said, pointing to a place directly behind the tent.

  “Why go down together?” Brian asked. “We’d have a better chance if we split up, in case one of us got caught.”

  Decker looked at Brian, his face expressionless.

  “I know,” Brian said, “you don’t know whether or not you can trust me. All I can tell you is that I want to get those two women out of there almost as much as you do. The rest is up to you.”

  If they split up, Brian Foxx could very well ride back to his brother, untie him, and escape.

  Somehow, though, Decker didn’t think so. That was probably why he’d had Brian’s gun tucked into his belt all the while. He took it out now and handed it to him.

  Brian accepted it and looked at it.

  “It’s loaded,” Decker assured him.

  Brian nodded and put it in his holster without checking it.

  “I’ll go around this way and try to get to the tent,” Decker said. “You go that way and see what they’ve got in that wagon.” He indicated the one at the far end of the camp.

  “Why that one? This one is much closer.”

  “If you had two wagons,” Decker said, “and one of them had explosives in it, where would you put it?”

  Brian nodded, realizing what Decker meant. If the comancheros carried explosives in that second wagon, they would come in handy.

  “All right, let’s move,” Decker said.

  “Good luck,” Brian Foxx said, putting his hand out.

  Decker took it and said, “Yeah.”

  Damn, he thought. It was going to be hard turning this man in.

  Chapter XXXVII

  As Decker got closer to the camp, he could hear the sounds of talking and laughter. Some of it sounded drunken, and if indeed some of the men in the camp were drunk, that would be a help. He did not hear any women’s voices.

  He worked his way through the darkness, getting around behind the tent. His night vision helped him avoid a few chuckholes, and he hoped that Brian wouldn’t step in any of them. Another thing that would work in their favor, if they were discovered, was the fact that many of the men around the campfires were looking into the fire. If things started jumping, their eyes would have to adjust to the darkness before they could adequately see anything.

  Small points in their favor, he thought, when they were outnumbered twenty to one.

  Finally he was directly behind the tent. Now all he had to do was work his way toward it. From where he was he could see the far wagon, but he couldn’t make out whether or not Brian had gotten to it yet.

  Behind the tent he paused and waited, hoping to give Brian enough time to get set.

  Brian Foxx cursed as his heel slid into a chuck-hole. Luckily he was able to shift his weight and avoid any injury He worked his way carefully to the wagon, as thoughts similar to Decker’s went through his mind. He was also thinking of his brother and what he had become. Had he seen the signs and ignored them? Could he have kept his brother from becoming a cold-blooded killer?

  At least he’d be able to keep him from killing anyone else, but in order to do that he’d have to pay for his own crimes as well. Was he willing to do that? Well, if he wasn’t, he’d be on his way back to Brent right now to untie him. The lives of that woman and the girl seemed very important to Brian at the moment, as if saving them would make up for the lives his brother had taken.

  Finally he was directly behind the wagon, hoping that Decker was in position as well. Slowly he made his way to the wagon and climbed up into it. Being as quiet as he could, he started looking through it. He found kegs filled with whiskey, canned goods, some bolts of cloth they had probably stolen from some ranch house, and in the front of the wagon, right behind the seat, he found what he was looking for.

  Three cases of dynamite.

  Decker approached the back of the tent and took out the knife he had taken from his saddlebags. He listened intently and thought he could make out the sound of someone breathing evenly, as if asleep.

  He punctured the back of the tent with the tip of his knife and then began to slit the material downward. Using his other hand, he spread the slit open so he could see inside, and managed to stop cut-ting just in time.

  He was slicing the tent right above the supine form of a sleeping man, probably the leader of the comancheros. His pallet was right up against the back of the tent, and another six inches and Decker’s knife would have poked him awake.

  Decker withdrew the knife and drew his gun. He leaned in through the slit, raised his gun, and brought the butt down on the man’s head. The man grunted, and there was a subtle change in his breathing that indicated he was no longer just asleep but unconscious.

  Decker moved to his left, made a new slit all the way down to the floor, and stepped through.

  There were two other pallets in the t
ent. Rebecca lay quietly on one, although her eyes were open. Her clothing was in tatters, doing little to hide her breasts and her thighs. On the other pallet lay Felicia. She was asleep, but the stains on her face indicated that she had cried herself into that state and was probably exhausted.

  He went to Felicia first.

  He put his hand over her mouth and her eyes opened. She was frightened at first, but then recognition dawned and she reached for him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tightly, saying over and over, “I knew you’d come, I knew you’d come…. ”

  “Easy, take it easy,” he told her, holding her. “I need your help, Felicia. Don’t fall apart on me. Okay?”

  She snuffled in his ear, then sat back and wiped her face with her hand.

  “I won’t fall apart.”

  “How is Rebecca?”

  “Oh, my God, what they did to her,” Felicia said, almost crying again. “When they brought her in here, her eyes were open, but it was as if she couldn’t see me.”

  “She’s in shock. I’m going to need your help in getting her out.”

  Felicia nodded and said, “Okay.”

  At that moment the flap of the tent went up and a man walked in.

  “Chico, the men want to know—hey, what the hell!”

  The man drew his gun, but Decker was faster. He fired, catching the man square in the chest. The man clutched at his wound and staggered out of the tent.

  “That does it!” Decker said aloud.

  Don’t fail me now, Foxx!

  When Brian Foxx heard the shot, he was ready. He had tucked sticks of dynamite in every one of his pockets and in his belt. He knew that if a stray bullet hit him, there wouldn’t be enough of him left to blow in the wind, but he wanted to be sure he had enough.

  He was crouched down next to the wagon, watching the tent. He saw Decker go in and knew what was going to happen next, so he was ready.

  As the camp came to life, many of the men looking over at the tent where the wounded man was staggering, Brian lit the fuse on the stick of dynamite and threw it.

  He’d had an anxious moment when he didn’t find any matches on him, but rummaging around in the wagon had produced a whole carton of lucifer-stick matches.

  He threw the dynamite as far as he could, and even if it hadn’t had a fuse, it would have gone off because it landed in the nearest campfire.

  It exploded and two men were blown off their feet.

  After that, things got pretty confused.

  With the sound of the first explosion, Decker moved. He lifted Rebecca in his arms, but she didn’t stir, just continued staring. He handed his gun to Felicia, and now he said, “All right, Felicia, you first. Let’s go.”

  She nodded, stepped through the slit he’d made, and shot the first man she saw.

  Once he threw the first stick of dynamite, Brian had Tomake a quick decision. Should he run away from the camp or through it, tossing sticks of dynamite.

  He voted for a third course of action. He decided to run around the periphery of the camp, staying out of the light thrown by the campfires, chucking sticks of dynamite as fast as he could.

  The comancheros were so confused that they drew their guns but didn’t know what to shoot at. They had no idea how many men were attacking them or where they were.

  Three or four of them, however, had more self-possession than the others.

  They ran toward the tent.

  As they came out of the back of the tent, a man came running around it. Felicia pointed the gun and fired, catching him right in the face.

  “Good girl!” Decker shouted, not truly realizing that a fourteen-year-old girl had just killed a man!

  “Move!” he told her, because she had frozen there, looking down at the man.

  They started running and from behind him Decker could hear shots being fired at them. He hoped Felicia wouldn’t get brave and turn to fire back.

  Suddenly he felt a searing pain in his side and knew he’d been hit. He staggered from the bullet, then from Rebecca’s weight, and fell. Felicia heard him and turned.

  “Decker!”

  Sitting on the ground, he shouted, “The gun!”

  She ran to him and gave it to him. He turned in time to see a large man bearing down on him with a gun. He fired, and the man spun and fell. There was another man right behind him, and Decker shot him, too.

  There were three more men running toward him as his vision blurred, but they suddenly seemed to jump into the air and didn’t move when they came down.

  “Come on,” somebody said, grabbing his arm and pulling him to his feet.

  It was Brian Foxx.

  “Take Rebecca.”

  “Let her walk,” Foxx said. He pulled her to her feet and slapped her in the face. “If you want to live,” he shouted into her face, “run!”

  Felicia came forward and grabbed Rebecca’s hand.

  “Run!” she shouted.

  Decker’s legs didn’t feel very strong, and as he tried Tomove he felt as if he were running in molasses.

  “Go,” he told Foxx. “Get out of here.”

  Brian took a stick of dynamite out of his belt, lit it, and threw it, then did the same with his last stick.

  “That’s it. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Get going!” Decker shouted at him.

  “Not without you.”

  He put Decker’s left arm around his shoulder and said, “Now let’s go.”

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Decker didn’t know where he was.

  He didn’t know what day it was.

  He opened his eyes and looked up and saw Felicia looking down at him.

  “Oh, Decker. You’re alive!”

  He frowned. The statement seemed silly to him. She wouldn’t have been talking to him if he weren’t alive.

  “What happened?” he said. “Where are we?”

  “We’re in an abandoned church,” she said. “Foxx brought us here after you rescued us.”

  “When was that?”

  “Two nights ago.”

  “Jesus,” he said. “Help me up.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Help me sit up,” he snapped at her.

  She reached for his arm and pulled him until he was sitting. There was a dull ache in his side, and when he touched it he found that he was all wrapped up with bandages.

  “Where is Rebecca?”

  “She’s outside.”

  “And Brian?”

  “He’s outside, talking to her. They’ve been talking ever since we got here.”

  “Tell me again how we got here.”

  “After you rescued us, Brian took us to where the horses were. He put you on one horse and me and Rebecca on the other and took us away from there.”

  He looked around the church, recognizing it as the same one where he had first encountered the Foxx brothers.

  “Where’s Brent Foxx?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Felicia, where’s Brent?”

  “Brian’s outside,” she repeated. “I’ll get him.”

  “Felicia—” he called out, but she kept going.

  He realized that he was lying on a pew bench and swung his legs off it and to the floor. The dull ache in his right side became a sharp pain, causing him to catch his breath.

  “Are you all right?” Brian asked as he came up to Decker.

  “Hurts like a son of a bitch!” he said through his teeth.

  “I guess so. You were lucky, though. The bullet went right through.”

  “You doctor me up?”

  Brian nodded.

  “I watched when the doctor in Stillwell wrapped Brent up. I got the bleeding to stop and bandaged you. Is it too tight for you?”

  “I can’t tell,” Decker said honestly. “It hurts too much.”

  “You should be okay in a few days.”

  “We can’t stay here. We need supplies.”

  “We have some.”

  “From where?
”

  “I went back to the comanchero camp and did a little scavenging. I found enough to keep us going for a day or two more, if we ration it right.”

  “What about the comancheros?”

  “Well, we killed a few, and the others scattered, I guess. They never knew what hit them, so they didn’t know where to look for us. I guess they decided to cut and run.”

  “The wagons—” Decker began. If they had a wagon, they could get started right away.

  “I thought of that, but they took them with them.”

  “All right,” Decker said, “now where’s Brent?”

  Brian looked away.

  “You let him go, didn’t you?”

  “You only need one of us to collect your bounty, Decker.”

  “To hell with the bounty. He’s a mad-dog killer and you let him go.”

  “When it came right down to it, he was my brother. I couldn’t let him be executed.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “You don’t have a brother. Even Rebecca understood, Decker.”

  “Rebecca? How is she?”

  “She came around. She went through a terrible ordeal, but she’s tough.”

  “How did you keep her from killing you?”

  “She knows I didn’t kill her brother.”

  “How did she react when you let him go?”

  “She was still in shock when I did that. It was the first night.”

  “You let him go in the dark?”

  “Yes.”

  “With a horse?”

  “Yes.”

  “With a gun?”

  “No…but he could have gone to the comanchero camp and picked one up. They were all over the place.”

  “He’s going to try and kill us, Brian.”

  “He’ll run.”

  Decker grimaced and said, “You don’t believe that. He’s going to try and kill us, and he’ll probably save you for last.”

  “He’s my brother—”

  “Not anymore.”

  Decker put both hands on the seat on either side of him and pushed. He rose to his feet and felt his legs shake, but they held.

  “We’d better get started.”

  “You can’t ride.”

  “Your brother managed to ride with a bullet in him, didn’t he?”