Stryker's Bounty (A Matt Stryker Western #3)
Page 14
Stryker and Upton trekked around to the washbasin on a stand behind the station. They splashed water on their battered faces and grinned at the sting on the cuts and bruises. “You pack a fair wallop, Garth Upton. Don’t think I want to toe the line with you ever again.”
Dodge handed them their shirts as they entered the station. Molly had coffee on the table, and Stryker and Upton sat across from each other, the tension between them gone. Carpenter and Dodge Miller sat beside them.
“You know Louella Hershey got her gold put away at Wells Fargo, then?” Upton said.
“Heard that. Did she pay you all who went after it?”
“She did.”
“That’s good. Reckon things’re all settled then.” Stryker took a sip of hot coffee, sucking in plenty of air with the brew.
“All over but the shouting, as they say.” Upton copied Stryker’s way of drinking coffee. “What’ll you be doing now, Matt . . . ‘s all right if I call you Matt, ain’t it?”
“Matt is fine. Right now I’m after a bounty.” Stryker swiped at the tears on his cheek with a bandana.
“Dead or alive?”
“Yeah. I’d rather it was alive, but that can’t always be.”
“I tangled with Matt Stryker,” Upton said, “and I’m still alive.”
Carpenter barked a laugh. “You’re lucky,” he said.
Upton grinned. “I fought Matt Stryker to a standstill. Ain’t that right, Matt?”
Stryker put a finger to his split lip. It came away with a spot of blood on it. “Right,” he said. “Completely right.”
“But you’ve got no bounty on your head,” Carpenter said. “They might as well write the name Stryker on any bounty around. He’ll purely get ‘em.”
“Lige, you shouldn’t tell tall tales,” Stryker said. “Once I catch Bill Floyd, I’m headed for Wolf Mountain. I hear there’s good grazing land up there, and I figure it’s about time I settled down.”
“You?”
Stryker smiled for the second time in as many minutes. “Yeah. Me.” He made a mental note to wire Catherine as soon as he bought the land. In the meantime, Bill Floyd had a bounty on his head. Stryker’s bounty.
About the Author
Charles T. Whipple, an international prize-winning author, uses the pen name of Chuck Tyrell for his Western novels. Whipple was born and reared in Arizona’s White Mountain country only 19 miles from Fort Apache. He won his first writing award while in high school, and has won several since, including a 4th place in the World Annual Report competition, a 2nd place in the JAXA Naoko Yamazaki Commemorative Haiku competition, the first-place Agave Award in the 2010 Oaxaca International Literature Competition, and the 2011 Global eBook Award in western fiction. Raised on a ranch, Whipple brings his own experience into play when writing about the hardy people of 19th Century Arizona. Although he currently lives in Japan, Whipple maintains close ties with the West through family, relatives, former schoolmates, and readers of his western fiction. Whipple belongs to Western Fictioneers, Western Writers of America, Arizona Authors Association, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Asian American Journalists Association, and Tauranga Writers Inc. His books can be found in the public libraries of most commonwealth countries in the Western Section.
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The Stryker Series
By Chuck Tyrell
1: Stryker's Law
2: Stryker's Ambush