by W. R. Benton
Luke turned and walked to the batwing doors, where he stopped and said, “You’ve an hour to get out of town, Jake, or I’ll lock you up.”
“You mean you’ll try, but I don’t want any trouble, so I’ll be a good boy and leave.”
Luke walked through the door, his boots heard on the boardwalk as he walked east.
“Well, since I got an hour, give me one more double,” Jake said and then smiled at the bartender.
Pouring his drink, the bartender said, “You’re a cold man.”
“Yep, the war did that to me. Was you in the war too?”
Lowering his head, due to Jake’s slow Southern drawl, the man replied, “I was in the Union army and served as a cook.”
Jake slapped the bar with a loud whap, which scared the bartender, and said, “Now, by God, now that was a job! We didn’t have no cooks assigned after the first year, because we didn’t have any food. The cooks all went into the infantry. But a cook has an important job—feeding men!”
Grinning now, his initial fear gone, the bartender asked, “Do you really think so?”
“Son, the South didn’t lose the war because you Yanks were better fighters! No, sir, we lost because we couldn’t produce enough weapons, deliver clothing, or find enough food to feed our army. Union men, just like you, beat us. Your Yankee supply Sergeants, cooks, northern factories and farmers beat us, not your army. Hell, we could out fight y’all any day of the week, except we had little to fight with.”
“I hear you, but I never thought of it that way.” The bartender smiled as if he finally realized he’d had a big part in the South losing the war. “I found the job borin' and not very glamorous.”
Jake laughed and replied, “You survived and helped the Yanks win the war, so you’re a hero of sorts in my book. Yes sir, a real hero.” Then, throwing his drink back, Jake said, “Well, I guess I’d better be movin’ on. How much do I owe you?”
“Forty cents.”
Laying the money on the bar, Jake turned and walked from the saloon. Mounting his horse, he rode to the end of town, and dismounted at the telegraph office. He quickly sent a message informing his contact with the Federal Government that Lester Pool had been killed and to send the reward money to Tobacco Flats, his next stop.
* * * *
The day was hot, with the sun a scorching orb overhead, and not a cloud in the sky. Jake turned his horse south and started from town at a slow walk. In a matter of seconds, he felt sweat running down his back to his waist. He knew from experience, all he had to look forward to on the way to Tobacco Flats was open desert and little shade. It was a hellish trip, but he strongly suspected the other men involved in the Tucson bank robbery were there, or had been until recently.
Besides Poor, there were four other men he was trailing, and he wanted all of them. He took his job and reputation seriously, and the only way to keep his social status high among other bounty hunters was to be successful in his manhunts. He was known as a no nonsense kind of man, who did his job very well, and he enjoyed the glory. Not really a man to socialize, he did like to be respected by other professionals. Respect was a trait he’d developed in the army. Do the job right or don’t do ‘er at all, he thought as he pulled his hat down to shade his eyes better.
The ride was scorching hot and more than once he’d looked for water, but found none. His canteens were full, as was the barrel on his packhorse, but Jake constantly looked for water when out in he desert. He’d once run out of the precious liquid and almost died, only to be saved by an old miner who'd found him. Since that day, water was constantly on his mind as he moved over the burning sand.
“We’ll rest overnight near those boulders,” Jake said to General, his big bay. He often talked to his horse like a cowboy on a long cattle drive. He and General went back to two years after the war, where he’d won the animal in a card game in Omaha. The animal could run all day on only a drop of water and was a quiet critter, just like Jake. Their personalities were almost identical; with the difference being General didn’t like bourbon.
Dinner was a few slices of bacon cooked over mesquite wood and two stale buttermilk biscuits. He washed it down with strong black coffee. He’d just leaned back on his saddle blanket when he heard a voice call out, “Hello the camp! I’m white and friendly! Can I come to yer fire?”
Sitting up, Jake pulled both hammers back on his shotgun and replied, “Come, but keep your hands where I can see ‘em. Any sudden moves and I’ll drill you right in the breadbasket! Just so you know I got a sawed off double-barreled Greener in my hands.”
“I’ll be there directly!”
As he watched a miner appeared from the cactus and made his way toward the fire. He was short, maybe five feet and four inches tall, with white hair and beard, and his clothing was filthy. When he neared the flickering flames, Jake saw his eyes were a deep blue. He was leading an ageless mule.
“I don’t like to camp alone in ‘Pache country iffen there’s another white man around. It ain’t safe.” The miner said as he stood grinning by the fire.
“You got a name?”
“Tin Cup is my miner name, but my given name is William.”
“There’s coffee on the fire, but you missed dinner.”
“I smelled yer bacon a mile off. No, I got food, iffen I can use yer fire.”
“Have at it. My skillets been washed, so if you use it, clean it.”
“I got my own. Ya read any Injun sign today?”
Pulling his pipe, Jake began filling the bowl as he said, “Saw four tracks about two miles south of Cactus Canyon, but nothing since. How about you, see anything?”
“Nope, not a thing. Last sign I saw was near on a week back and it was old.” Tin Cup replied as he kneeled by the fire and rearranged the wood. Moving to his mule, he pulled a slab of bacon and a skillet.
“We’ll pull guard tonight and I want you on the last shift.”
“Fine with me, but if ya was alone ya’d not pull guard.”
“Any time I’m on the move with another man, we pull guard, because it’s safer.”
“No argument out of me on pullin’ guard, I was jus’ commentin’.” Tin Cup replied and then began to shave his bacon into his hot skillet.
“There’s a leftover biscuit on the rock there by the fire if you want it.”
“Thank ya kindly.”
“How long you been out here, in the desert I mean.”
“Let me see, I first come heah back in 1846, so it’s been twenty-two years. Lord, how time flies by a man.”
Jake grinned and said, “Well, you missed the big fight back east then.”
“Twern't much, except fools killin’ fools over foolishness. I didn’t miss much in my eyes.”
“The Yanks said it was to free the slaves!”
Tin Cup shrugged and replied, “I ain’t never owned no slaves and seen very few black people in my whole life. So the whole shindig had little to do with me.”
“I grew up in Mississippi, so I’ve seen my share of black folks, but the slavery issue would have died on its own, given time.”
“Mayhap, I ain’t got any view on slaves. I guess iffen I was a slave things would be different, but I ain’t.”
Jake laughed and asked, “You don’t know much about the war at all, do you?”
“Nope, I don’t, and don’t want to know. All I understand is we had Americans killing Americans, but fer what? Only a political jasper would call fer a war over a bunch of black people most of us ain’t never seen,” Tin Cup said and then turned his bacon with his knife tip.
“Well said, but it wasn’t fought just over slavery. The biggest reason for the war was states rights. See, in Mississippi we didn’t like the idea of some big wig in Washington making decisions that affected us, when he didn’t know Texas from Mississippi. It ain’t a good thing. I felt it then and I still feel it.”
“I grew up in Missouri and I can tell ya right now, most of ‘em would have sided with the South or so it seems to me
.”
Jake laughed once more and said, “Oh, they sided with us, but the state and Federal Government stepped in and brought ‘em into the fold of the Union.”
“Men must have been leavin’ the state by the thousands.”
“Yup, I’d say just about every unit in the confederacy had a few Missouri men in it.” Seeing Tin Cup’s bacon was about done, Jake said, “Help yourself to the coffee or I’ll have to throw it out in a bit.”
“Thanks.”
As the miner ate his simple meal, Jake looked up at the clear night sky and watched the countless stars sparkle. The desert nights were usually clear, but what had surprised him when he’d first arrived, was how cold the evening could get. The day could very well be 120 degrees and then that evening it would drop down into the lower 70’s. While not really cold, a fifty degree drop in temperature made it feel that way.
The miner reached over to place the coffee pot back on the flames and whispered, “We got comp’nee.”
“Injuns?”
“'Paches would be my guess.”
At that moment the coffee pot jumped about a foot in the air and exploded, followed a split-second later by a gunshot. Tin Cup threw sand on the fire and then scampered to the safety of the huge rocks behind him. Once beside Jake he complained, “Damned 'Paches! Every single time I’ve had a meal cut short it’s been ‘cause of them red bastards!”
Pulling a long piece of dried beef from his shirt Jake handed it to the miner and said, “Here, chew on some jerky for a spell. Only thing I ask is you eat fast, because we both know there will be an attack in a few minutes.”
“Yup, it’s comin’,” Tin Cup replied and then tore off a long strip of beef and stared working it.
Not a sound was heard and no movement seen for almost half an hour. Then, abruptly, the night air was filled with war cries and four men ran toward the rocks.
Jake raised his rifle, it barked twice and two warriors lay on the ground unmoving. Swinging his barrel to the right, he fired once, saw the man kicked back to the sand and immediately heard loud screams.
Tin Cup fired his old Hawken rifle and smiled as a man dropped to the desert and began to thrash around.
“We need to check our back— ” Jake started to say when he saw two Apache almost in the rocks. He fired, missed and fired again, seeing one man go down. The second Apache struck the bounty hunter before he could give warning.
They rolled in the warm sand, with neither man gaining, when the warrior suddenly went stiff as his head went back, and he gave a loud pitiful scream. Throwing the man away from him, Jake stood, pulled his pistol and shot the man in the head. It was then he saw a big knife in the warriors back.
“Thanks for knifing that jasper.”
“Hell, I figured ya was playin’ with ‘em, but I needed another set of eyes in case them bastard’s charge us again. It ain’t a good idea fer jus’ one man to watch fer ‘Paches.”
By dawn, although they’d seen no movement, all but one of the dead warriors was gone. The remaining dead man was in the rocks with the two white men and could not be reached. As usual, Jake felt a shiver go down his spine when he saw the bodies were missing. While he might not like the Apache, he damned sure respected them as fighters.
“I know what yer thinkin’ and it ain’t natural like. Last night I saw a body and when I looked back a minute later it was gone.”
“I’m goin' to load up and move on to Tobacco Flats.”
“Mind iffen I ride along? I’m headin’ that way to pick up some dynamite and supplies. Be safer iffen we rode together.”
“It doesn’t matter to me, but you walk don’t you?”
“Usually, I do. Myrtle don’t mind iffen I ride sometimes and this looks like a good day to be mounted.”
“You mean because of them Apache?”
“Nope, ‘cause I’m dog-assed tired from no sleep.”
“If you’re goin’ with me, get your gear packed. I’m usually already on a trail by now.”
- - -
Jake Masters, Bounty Hunter
available for the Kindle
and
as an audiobook from Audible.com
The Fall of America:
Book 1 Premonition of Death
Kindle : http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F1S4BAG
Also available for Nook, iBooks, Kobo and at Smashwords
What if it all came crashing down?
It started with the "Biggest" stock market crash in history. Banks shut down under the weight of their bogus investments, and the financial sector failed. People looked to the government to make it all better. They couldn't! Hyper-inflation, mass unemployment and infrastructure started to breakdown. The food trucks didn't show up at the stores and the shelves went empty.
The Fall of America: Book 1 Premonition of Death is the beginning of a new series, about an average man who's life goes downhill fast, once society breaks down. Set in the rural south, a scorched-earth showdown with some local thugs leaves John and his wife homeless, and on the run. He hears rumors of a survivalist group made up of former military personnel, and finding them may be his only hope. Just basic survival becomes vicious, resistance at any cost, as the devastated country comes under new siege—invading Russian troops.
ADRIFT
Lost...at sea
For Kindle
WR Benton, fiction writer of Amazon best seller ‘Alive and Alone’, has masterfully crafted another gripping story of human endurance and the will to live. Adrift, when a family of three are cast out to sea in a rubber raft, they must find a way to conquer one terrifying tragedy after another or die in the process. The tension mounts as affluent city dwellers find their own hidden depths of strength, resourcefulness and courage.
Survival is not just for men, everyone will be tested to their limits in this inspiring story of human psychology and spiritual growth. A page-turning short story of ocean survival and Christian faith, that will touch your heart.
Audiobooks by W.R. Benton
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