Stryker's Bounty (A Matt Stryker Western #3)

by Chuck Tyrell

  “Bitch!” Lee Roy took a step forward and kicked her. His boot caught her left breast and smashed it against her ribcage. The force of the blow carried her off the ground. She collapsed back in a heap of elbows and knees.

  Ung. Ung. Ung. Ung. Her breath blew little dust devils up next to her nostrils. She lay face to the ground, eyes closed, making little ung, ung, ung sounds.

  “Bitch!” Lee Roy hollered.

  “Boy!” Lester Dent hollered back. “You hurt the bitch so’s she cain’t do for us, and you’ll answer to me. It’s one thing to chastise her, another to kill her. You hear me?”

  “Bitch!” Lee Roy shouted again. But he didn’t kick her and he didn’t hit her. Instead, he twisted his fingers into her matted hair and pulled her to her feet.

  He stuck his face into hers and growled. “I’m telling you, bitch. When I call for you, you come at a run. You don’t, an’ I’ll beat’chor ass until you all’ll wish you was dead. You near me?”

  Molly gagged.

  Lee Roy shook her head by its hair.

  Ung. Ung. Ung.

  “Bitch!” Lee Roy drew back his hand to smack her again.

  “Boy!” Lester’s shout cut through the fog of anger in Leroy’s brain. He looked at the older Dent. “I said lay off,” Lester said.

  Lee Roy released his handful of Molly’s hair. A few strands were still entwined in his fingers. Molly staggered and nearly fell.

  “Missus,” Lester said.

  Molly shifted in his direction.

  “You get back into the shade of that rock. We’ll be leaving soon enough, and you all’s gotta keep up. Now go.”

  Molly nodded, bit her lip, and staggered back to the boulder. She squatted in the shadow.

  “Bitch,” Lee Roy said almost under his breath. “I’ll ketch yore ass later, I truly will.”

  Molly shuddered, her back to Lee Roy.

  “Lee Roy,” Lester Dent said. “You tromp over to the hogback and keep an eye on the back trail. The horses need another hour or so to graze, and this here swale’s got enough foxtail and grama for that. Now git.”

  “Yeah, pa.” He shouldered a Winchester, took the army field glasses, and slouched off toward the hogback.

  Garth Upton and Elijah Carpenter left Chez Bennie before Stryker, and he knew that somewhere, sometime, Upton would brace him. While Upton was a ruffian and treated women as things rather than humans, he had a hunch Upton was not one of the bushwhackers so despised in Kansas and Missouri. When he came, he’d arrive front and center, without a ruse.

  Matt Stryker laid no claim to being a fast gun. More often than not, the “fast gun” was in too much of a hurry and missed the first shot. Matt Stryker’s bullets went where he pointed his six-gun, no mistake. Sometimes, like with King Rennick, he misjudged the damage his bullets did or the fire in his opponent’s belly. He’d shot King Rennick in the middle of his torso, and turned to the killing of Rennick’s two gunnie partners. Then, when the other two were down and out, and Stryker began to relax, King’d hollered and pulled the trigger of his Colt. The bullet didn’t kill Stryker, but sometimes the place where it plowed into him was still sore. Like now.

  “Marie. Thank you for the delicious breakfast.” Stryker raised his voice. “Marcel, mon ami, your food is marvelous, as usual. I shall return.”

  “Merci, Monsieur Matt. We await your arrival.” Marcel came to the kitchen door to see Stryker off.

  Stryker adjusted his SAA Colt, gunbelt, and holster. He touched a finger to his forehead in salute, then donned his gray Stetson. Upton would be there in the street, or he wouldn’t. Stryker still had a job to do. Molly Miller needed help and there was a bounty on the Dents.

  Although it’s been known to snow in Tucson, the day Stryker stepped out of Chez Bennie onto 12th Street, a brass ball of a sun glared down on wagon-rutted streets. Dust lay in wait of passing vehicles or horses or breezes, ready to swirl up into squinted eyes or filter through lintel cracks and loose door jambs. Each step, man or beast, stirs up a tiny dust devil.

  With a sweeping glance, Stryker took in the scene on 12th Street. A farm wagon drawn by a tired team turned the corner onto Scott Avenue, probably headed for the market near the St. Augustine chapel. He mounted Saif and turned him back toward 5th Avenue, which ran by Doc Singleton’s place. His eyes watched everything in front of him, his ears and his intuition guarded against attack from behind. After he turned onto 5th, he heard another horse make the same turn. Twisting in the saddle, he glanced back the way he had come. Elijah Carpenter came along on a black-pointed dun.

  “Hold up, Saif,” Stryker said. The black Arabian stopped.

  Carpenter pulled the dun up beside Saif. “Damn. That’s some horse you’ve got, Stryker. Never seen the like. Like he knows everything you say.”

  “He hears me when he likes what I say,” Stryker said. “Where’s your friend?”

  “Upton ain’t no friend of mine.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “He had a foot on the rail over to the Red Garter,” Carpenter said. “I stood alongside, and he bought me a drink. That’s about it.”

  “Red Garter’s a ways away from Chez Bennie.”

  “A man’ll go all the way across town for good food. Ever been to El Paso?”

  “Passing through.”

  “Ever hear of Rosa’s? Just across the bridge into Mexico? Now that’s a place men ride halfway across Texas for. Good, dark Mexican brew and the best machaca this side of San Lucas.”

  “Why are you following me, Elijah?”

  “Just happened to be going in the same direction. Maybe?”

  Stryker chuckled as he wiped at the tears with the back of his hand. “Must be it,” he said. “I’m going over to Doc Singleton’s place. Like to know how Dodge Miller’s doing. Then I’m going over to Ridges and Hale to see what that stage was carrying and whether the Dents knew enough to hit the coach or if it just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Carpenter said.

  “Good for me, yeah. But what about you, Carpenter? What’s this to you?”

  “Call me Lige.”

  Stryker peered sideways at the man on the black-point dun. He wiped at the trickle of tears with the back of his hand. He took a deep breath, then nodded. “Lige it is,” he said. “But that don’t tell me why you’re wanting to tag along.”

  “I hear you’re a top manhunter, Stryker.”

  “Matt.”

  “Yeah, Matt. That’s what I hear. I hear you’re as good or better than Kensington St. George or Dutch Regan.”

  “Never held a contest, so I’ve got no way of knowing.”

  Carpenter said nothing for a while. He rode shoulder to shoulder with Stryker, though the dun was a hand shorter than Saif, and Carpenter came nowhere near Stryker’s bulk. Still, there was a danger about Elijah Carpenter, the same kind of danger a man sensed in a coiled rattler or a rangy prairie wolf.

  “So how far are you planning to ride, Lige?”

  “How far you going?”

  “Already told you that.” Stryker’s brow furrowed and he again swiped at the tears with the back of his hand.

  “How many men stood by you in the Ponderosa fight?”

  “Me and Sam Brady at first. Then Tom Hall showed up. Fletcher Comstock wanted to, but I told him not to. He wouldn’t be worth nothing dead, and him dying would put lots a folks outta work.”

  “How ‘bout Rimrock?”

  Stryker had an idea where Carpenter was going. “Tom Hall. Wolf Wilder for a little while. Injun Jake. And the boys helped—Squirly Adams and Wildman Kelly. Catherine came along. Rod McKendrick and Ken St. George. Josiah Fish. Judge Westover. There were a lot of people helping get Stan Ruggart’s affairs settled up right.”

  “Right. Then half the Indian tribes in Sonora, plus the Mexican Rurales, helped you some down the south side of Nogales. See what I’m saying, Matt?”

  “You’re saying I can’t handle nothing by myse
lf.”

  “No. And you know it. If you had to, you’d go at it—whatever ‘it’ is—all by yourself. Tell me. Have you ever out and out asked for help?”

  “You can bet I have. I hired Tom Hall to watch my back in Ponderosa. Paid him, too. Not many as good at watching a man’s back as Tom Hall.”

  Saif and the dun came up on Doc Singleton’s place. “Hold up, Saif,” Stryker said. Saif stopped and turned to face the hitching rack. The dun did the same. Stryker dismounted and looped Saif’s reins over the rack.

  “Mind if I tag along?” Carpenter said as he got off the dun. “Or should I stay out here and watch the horses?”

  “Don’t be an ass. Come along,” Stryker said, his grimace of a grin taking the sting from his words. “I’m interested in finding out what’s up your sleeve.”

  “No aces. That I’ll guarantee,” Carpenter said, returning Stryker’s grin.

  Stryker barged in the front door. A bell tinkled, announcing their entry. An elderly woman came to see who’d come in.

  “Matt Stryker. Come to see Dodge Miller. That all right?”

  The woman looked at Carpenter.

  “Elijah Carpenter. I’m with Matt.”

  “Doctor Singleton left instructions saying you could visit, Mr. Stryker, but he didn’t say anything about a Mr. Carpenter.”

  “He’s with me,” Stryker said. “Should be no problem, I’d figure.”

  “We-e-e-ell. All right. This way, please.”

  Dodge Miller sat in bed, propped up by pillows. “Matt. What’s up?”

  “Don’t know yet, Dodge. I’ll go to Ridges and Hale next. Work from there.”

  Miller looked from Stryker to Carpenter and back. He arched his eyebrows.

  “This here’s Lige Carpenter,” Stryker said, but gave no more explanation.

  “My Molly was a Carpenter before we got hitched,” Miller said.

  “Molly Miller’s a cousin of mine,” Carpenter said. “A close cousin.”

  Chapter Five

  After a long minute, Miller said, “Lige Carpenter? Lige Carpenter from Higgins Bottom?”

  “The same.”

  “I heard you went wild,” Miller said. “Before we come west, I heard you rode with James Danby’s boys.”

  “I did, but I quit. Them Dents what got my cousin Molly, they was once with Danby, too. Well, at least Lester and the two older boys was.”

  “You know them bastards!”

  Stryker stood to one side, interested in seeing what Dodge Miller made of Lige Carpenter.

  “Not that I’m proud to say it,” Carpenter said. “Don’t like to admit it at all. To anyone but you, I’d say I didn’t know no Dents.”

  “So wha’cha doing here?” Miller’s brows remained knitted in puzzlement.

  “I’m here to go with Matt Stryker to get Molly back for you. If he’ll let me, that is. You can’t. Not right now. Molly deserves kin to get her away from them Dents.” Carpenter stuck out a hand. “Dodge. I figure you’re kin, too.”

  Miller reached for Carpenter’s hand. “Dear God, it feels good to have kin.” His eyes glittered with unshed tears.

  Carpenter clapped his left hand over his handshake with Miller. “Dodge, Matt Stryker’s about the best man you could have going after your Molly. And I’ll be right with him. All the way, I’ll be there.”

  “I thank you, Lige. I truly do.” He swiped at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “And you, Matt, what takes you out after my Molly?”

  “Men like the Dents don’t deserve to run wild, Dodge. I’ll bring them in, like I said, and if they won’t come, I’ll bring them in anyway. Belly down, if that’s how it’s got to be.”

  Keeping his grip on Lige Carpenter’s hand, Miller stretched his other one toward Stryker. “I’d have your hand on that,” he said.

  Stryker gripped Miller’s hand.

  “Kin and good friends. Sometimes that’s all that gets a man through.”

  Stryker nodded at Lige Carpenter. “You lay back and heal, Dodge. Me and Lige’ll get on the trail of them Dents, soon as I gather a little more information. I’d like to know what they piped off the stage for one thing.”

  “I’ve got no idea,” Miller said. “No regular shipment of anything valuable that I know of. Don’t know why they had to go and kill everyone. Even that woman passenger.”

  “Something sure does stink,” Stryker said. “Smells riper than a two-year-old pig pen. Don’t like it. Don’t like it at all.” He shot a glance at Carpenter. “”Lige, we’d best be on our way. Dodge’s going to be here for a couple of weeks or so, but we can’t wait.”

  “Wish I was going with you,” Miller said.

  “You just heal yourself, Dodge Miller,” Stryker said. “We’ll be back quick as we can.” He patted Miller on the shoulder. “Come on, Lige.”

  Outside, Stryker fished a double eagle from his vest pocket. “You want to provision up for us while I go to Ridges & Hale?”

  Carpenter frowned. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to be with you when you talk to the stage folks,” he said.

  Stryker stood with Saif’s reins gathered and his hand on the saddle horn. His eyes were blue pieces of ice as he once more took stock of Lige Carpenter. “All right,” he said. “Two heads can sometimes be better than one. Sometimes worse.” He shoved a boot into Saif’s onside stirrup and swung a leg over the cantle. Without another word, he reined the Arabian away from the hitching rail and started north on 5th. When it merged with Toole, he said, “Hold up, Saif,” stopping across the street from the Tucson Station on the Southern Pacific Railroad.

  Saif turned to the hitching rail in front of a frame building with a sign that read:

  RIDGES & HALE

  Passengers and Freight since 1870

  Lige Carpenter parked his dun alongside and dismounted. He adjusted the Colt Lightning that hung under his arm.

  “You looking for trouble?” Stryker said.

  “Never can tell,” Carpenter replied. “Pays a man to be ready.”

  “It does at that.” Stryker pulled his own Colt, spun the cylinder, let the hammer down on the single empty chamber, and shoved it back into its holster. “Lets go shake the tree,” he said. “See what drops out.” He entered the station with Lige Carpenter at his shoulder.

  “You ain’t keeping much of an eye out for Upton,” Carpenter said, just loud enough for Stryker to hear.

  “He ain’t around,” Stryker said. “You’d a said something if he was.”

  A clerk stood behind the counter, doing whatever stage station clerks do. He looked up a question in his eyes.

  “I’m Matthew Stryker, and I’d like to speak with someone about the Miller’s Well phooraw. Are you the man?”

  “Oh, no sir.” The clerk looked all of sixteen, if a day. “Just a moment.” The youngster scooted across the room and disappeared through a door in the side wall. A moment later, he reappeared with an older man in tow. “This’s the boss,” he said, and scooted back behind his counter.

  “Josh McCabe,” the man said. He made no move to shake hands.

  Stryker saw an air of confidence inside the plaid suit. McCabe carried a big stomach on his stocky build. “Matt Stryker,” he said, “and Lige Carpenter. We’d like to talk to you about what happened at Miller’s Well.”

  “Come into the office,” McCabe said. “We can speak freely in there.” He held the door open for Stryker and Carpenter to enter.

  “Have a seat, gentlemen,” McCabe said. He motioned Stryker and Carpenter toward chairs set in front of a large oak desk. He took the chair behind it.

  Stryker removed his Stetson and hung it on the rack before sitting. Carpenter left his bowler on.

  “I went to Sheriff Paul and told him what I found at Miller’s Well,” Stryker said. “I’d like to know if there’s any more to it.”

  When McCabe didn’t answer, Stryker went on. “Seems unusual for robbers to burn the station, kill the driver and shotgun, kill the passengers, then shoot the horses. I
s there anything about that stage that doesn’t meet the eye?”

  “Sheriff Paul let us know of the problem only a few hours ago,” McCabe said.

  “But you had a stage late, late more than a few hours, too,” Stryker said. “How long do you wait before sending a rider up the line?”

  “A day. Maybe two.”

  “So someone is on the way right now?”

  “They are.” McCabe adjusted his weight in his chair. He looked unhappy at the direction talk was going.

  “I saw four burnt bodies, McCabe. Couldn’t tell no more than that three were men and one was a woman. Like I told Sheriff Paul, I found Dodge Miller alive in the outhouse. They’d left him for dead. He heard ‘em say they was Dents. Sheriff had a flyer on the Dents.”

  Carpenter broke in. “Mr. McCabe, has anyone else come asking about Miller’s Well?”

  “Someone else?” McCabe said. “Anyone?”

  Carpenter nodded.

  “Well. Elrowe Hershey, you know, he’s a partner in the Old Dominion mine in the Globe City area.

  “Heard that mine was copper,” Carpenter said.

  “So it is. Along with traces of gold and silver, and some lead,” McCabe said.

  “What’d Hershey want?”

  “Well. The stage was long overdue, and Mr. Hershey was inquiring as to any news about when it would arrive.”

  “Wonder why.”

  “Mr. Hershey was not specific, but I got the impression that he was waiting for someone called Neil Bascomb.” McCabe settled back in his chair, dug a stubby pipe from a coat pocket and began filling it from a pouch.

  “The man who died at Miller’s Well, I reckon,” Stryker said.

  McCabe nodded, struck a match, and puffed his pipe alive.

  “Then who was the woman?”

  “Don’t know,” McCabe said through a haze of pipe smoke. “Must have caught the stage at Globe City.”

  “And you haven’t telegraphed to find out?” Stryker obviously disapproved. “What’d your coach have on it that would make the Dents kill everyone, shoot the horses, then burn Miller’s Well to the ground?”