The Loner: The Bounty Killers

by J. A. Johnstone

  But both places also held bitter memories for him, memories that went far beyond the taste of wormwood and gall. Rebel had been abducted from their home in Carson City. Later Conrad had burned it down to make it look as if he, too, had died so the men responsible for Rebel’s death wouldn’t expect him to come after them.

  He wasn’t going back to that part of Nevada, he decided. He might never visit Carson City or Buckskin again, and that would be just fine with him. There was nothing left for him in either place.

  It would be a good idea, though, to get in touch with his personal attorney, Claudius Turnbuckle in San Francisco. Claudius would be able to contact the territorial authorities in New Mexico and find out why those wanted posters had been issued. The Kid needed to get the price on his head lifted as soon as possible, before too many bounty hunters set out on his trail.

  Las Vegas had a telegraph office, he recalled. He could backtrack and send a wire to Claudius from there, so the lawyer could get started toward clearing up the mess.

  The Kid rode east toward the little settlement.

  It didn’t take him long to reach the edge of the mountains. He paused in the foothills and looked out over the vast sprawl of desert and plains in front of him. He could make Las Vegas in a day if he pushed the buckskin.

  But it was too late in the day to start across. The sun was almost touching the rugged peaks behind him. Better to wait and get a fresh start in the morning, he told himself.

  His eyes narrowed as he spotted a thin haze of dust hanging in the air. That meant riders. He couldn’t tell if they were coming toward him or going away from him.

  The Kid’s frown deepened as he watched the dust for several minutes. Definitely coming toward him, he thought. More than one or two riders, maybe as many as half a dozen.

  Of course, they weren’t necessarily looking for him. They could be on their way somewhere else and not have anything to do with him at all. But it wasn’t a well-populated or widely-traveled area The Kid was riding through. He was simply drifting. He’d wanted to put Arizona, and his troubles there, behind him.

  The sight of that dust definitely made him suspicious. All the more reason to hole up somewhere for the night, he told himself. If those riders were looking for him, he didn’t want to run right into them.

  With that in mind, he rode north along a rocky ridge until he came to a spot where several large boulders clustered, and he could make a small fire without it being seen. There wasn’t much graze for his horse, or water for either of them, but his two canteens were nearly full and he had a little grain left in the pouch that he carried. He and the buckskin could get along just fine until morning.

  As dusk began to settle over the rugged landscape, The Kid unsaddled his horse and found enough dried brush to build a tiny fire just big enough to boil some coffee. He had jerky and some stale biscuits in his saddlebags. That would do for a meal.

  It was a far cry from the times he had dined in the finest restaurants in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, he thought as he hunkered on his heels next to the fire. Those days had been more comfortable, but he didn’t miss them. He felt like he had never been fully alive until he came west.

  He couldn’t see the dust anymore in the fading light. The riders might have stopped to make camp for the night, or he might have just lost sight of the dust their horses raised. Either way, The Kid didn’t care. He wanted to steer clear of them, whoever they were.

  And yet, as he finished his meager supper and sipped his coffee, doubts began to nag at his mind. Maybe it would be better to know who the men were. If they weren’t looking for him, he could stop worrying about them. If they were . . . he’d have some warning, and he could start figuring out how to deal with that.

  To determine who they were and what they were after, he’d have to find their camp. When he gazed along the line of foothills to the south, he picked out an orange glow that came from a campfire. It had to be the bunch he had spotted earlier. There couldn’t be two groups of riders spending the night at the edge of those isolated mountains.

  Well, there could be, he thought, but it was mighty unlikely.

  The fact that they weren’t trying to conceal their campfire told him there were enough of them to feel confident they could handle any trouble that came their way. He would be a fool not to stay as far away from them as he could.

  Unfortunately, his curiosity nagged at him. He finished off the last of his coffee and cleaned up after the meal. By that time, the last of the sunset’s rosy glow had disappeared from the sky. It was full dark, with millions of stars glittering in the sable sky overhead.

  The Kid estimated the campfire he saw was about a mile away from the boulders where he had stopped. It was a quiet night. The sound of a horse’s hoofbeats would travel a long way in the thin, still air.

  If he wanted to spy on the men, he would have to approach their camp on foot. He thought he might be able to work his way close enough to get a good look at them and perhaps even overhear what they were talking about.

  He had picketed the buckskin, so the horse couldn’t wander. After heaping sand on what was left of the fire to put out any embers, The Kid put his saddle back on the horse, just in case he needed the animal in a hurry. He patted the buckskin on the shoulder and said, “I’ll be back after a while.”

  If anything happened to him, the buckskin would be able to pull loose eventually. From there it would have to fend for itself. Bands of wild mustangs ran free in that part of the country and it might be able to join one of them.

  The Kid left all his gear and headed for the camp in the distance. His boots weren’t really made for walking, but unlike cowboys who had spent their whole working lives in the saddle, he wasn’t totally averse to being on foot now and then.

  The darkness and the rough terrain meant he couldn’t travel very fast. It took him close to an hour to reach the vicinity of the camp. As he approached he moved slower and more carefully. He didn’t want to accidentally stumble right into the middle of them.

  Several different aromas told him he was getting close: woodsmoke, food, coffee, tobacco. He paused to listen and heard the murmur of voices, followed by a man’s laughter. He couldn’t make out any of the words, but he thought he heard several different voices.

  As silently as possible, he crept closer. A massive slab of rock leaned away from him, and he thought if he climbed to the top of it, he might be able to look down into their camp.

  It was still warm under his hands as the stone clung to the heat of the day. The air had more than a hint of coolness in it, typical of the desert atmosphere. By morning, the temperature would be cold enough to make a man’s breath steam in front of his face.

  The men gathered around the campfire were still talking, so he counted on that to cover up the tiny scraping noises his boots made against the rock as he climbed. When he reached the top, he took his hat off and set it aside. Carefully, he edged his head higher to peer over the lip of the rock slab.

  The men had built their campfire in the lee of the rock. It would reflect heat back and keep the camp warmer during the night. The fire had died down some, but flames still leaped and crackled merrily.

  Five men sat around the fire, talking and passing a bottle back and forth. They wore rough range clothes and had hard-planed, beardstubbled faces.

  They were well-armed. Each man sported at least one holstered revolver, and a couple carried two guns. Several Winchesters were stacked nearby, and The Kid saw a Sharps carbine and a shotgun among the long guns, as well.

  A sixth figure sat a short distance off, his legs stuck out in front of him and crossed at the ankle. He wore a poncho and leaned back against a smaller rock. Judging by the way his head drooped forward with his hat brim pulled down over his face, he was asleep.

  From atop the big rock The Kid could hear what the men were saying, and he didn’t like what he heard.

  “. . . can’t be too far ahead of us. He was in Las Vegas a couple days ago.”

>   “Yeah, but who knows how far he could have gotten in two days?”

  The first man spoke again. “Everybody we talked to said he didn’t seem to be in any hurry. It’s been like that ever since we left Arizona.”

  One of the other men said, “It’s almost like Morgan don’t know there’s a ten grand price tag on his head.”

  That confirmed it, The Kid thought. The men were bounty hunters, too, and they were on his trail. He had done well to avoid them.

  He would continue to do so. As late as it was, they would be turning in soon. He decided he would stay right where he was for the time being, wait until all or most of them were asleep, and then slip away, back to his camp.

  In the morning, they would go west, deeper into the mountains, and he would head east toward Las Vegas. He would have to be very careful. Word might have gotten around the settlement that he was a wanted man. He wondered what sort of law they had there.

  A new sound intruded on The Kid’s thoughts. It came from behind him, and it sent alarm coursing through his veins. It was a deep, throaty, animal growl, full of menace.

  The Kid swung around and looked down at the ground on the far side of the rock slab. The silvery illumination of starlight was enough for him to make out the big, shaggy shape crouched at the base of the rock. Whatever it was, it obviously wanted to tear his throat out and gnaw the meat from his bones.

  With a surge of muscles and a flash of razorsharp teeth, the snarling beast bounded up the rock toward him.

  Chapter 4

  The Kid could have drawn his gun and shot the dog. It wouldn’t give away his position since all the bounty hunters could follow the sound of the dog’s snarls.

  Instead, he took the desperate chance of waiting until the savage brute leaped at him so he could duck under the attack. He fell back as the dog lunged at his throat. The animal’s teeth snapped on empty air.

  The Kid’s hands shot up and grabbed the thick, shaggy body. Using the dog’s own weight and momentum against it, he heaved the dog over his head and past the lip of the rock.

  The dog howled as it plummeted toward the ground and the fire below.

  The men around the campfire yelled in alarm, and although The Kid could no longer see them from where he was, he figured they were on their feet, surprised to see the dog come sailing down out of the night sky at them.

  The Kid didn’t wait around to see what happened. He took off down the massive stone slab, not bothering to be quiet about the descent. He almost pitched forward out of control as he reached the ground in three giant bounds.

  As soon as his boots hit the sandy soil, he caught his balance and headed for the place he’d left his horse. A lot of yelling still came from the camp, but it didn’t sound like the bounty hunters were coming after him yet.

  A moment later rifles began to crack wickedly. He glanced over his shoulder and saw flashes spurting from the muzzles of the long guns.

  The men couldn’t see him in the darkness and were firing in the direction they thought he might have gone. The Kid heard a couple bullets hum overhead and another whistled past a few yards to his right, but none of them came any closer than that.

  Then he heard the order he’d been expecting. One of the men bellowed, “Get your horses! Spread out and find that son of a bitch!”

  In a matter of seconds, hoofbeats pounded behind him. All he could do was keep running.

  One of the men shouted, “Over there! I see him!”

  The hoofbeats got louder as he galloped after The Kid.

  As the horse thundered up right behind him, The Kid spun around. A pistol barked, but the man had fired too quickly. The slug whistled past The Kid’s ear.

  That decided it. If they were willing to kill him without even knowing who he was, without having any idea that he was actually the man they were hunting, he was willing to return the favor.

  His gun leaped into his hand and spouted flame as he jumped aside to avoid being trampled. The bullet struck the rider in the chest like a sledgehammer and swept him backward out of the saddle.

  With his free hand, The Kid made a grab for the trailing reins the man had dropped. He caught them and hung on tightly, feeling like the horse was going to pull his arm right out of its socket, as he ran alongside.

  After a moment, his weight caused the horse to stop. The Kid acted instantly, vaulting up into the saddle. His feet found the stirrups and jabbed his heels into the horse’s flanks, sending it leaping forward into a gallop again.

  Everything had happened so fast, The Kid hoped the rest of the bounty hunters might not realize he had taken their partner’s place on the back of the horse. Since he was out in front of the others, he kept moving, hoping they would mistake him for the man he’d shot.

  A lot of whooping and hollering came from the men behind him, but they held their fire.

  The Kid was a couple hundred yards ahead of them when he reached his camp. He dismounted on the run and never slowed down as he jerked the buckskin’s reins free and leaped into the saddle. A heartbeat later, he had the horse running strong, stretching its long legs into a swift gallop.

  “What the hell!” one of the bounty hunters shouted a moment later as they pounded up to the camp. “Here’s Jagger’s horse!”

  Jagger had to be the man he’d blasted out of the saddle, The Kid thought as he leaned forward over the buckskin’s neck and urged the animal on to greater speed.

  “That fella ahead of us must be the one who was sneakin’ around our camp!”

  The pursuit was on again.

  But The Kid was mounted on a superior animal. He didn’t know the quality of horseflesh that belonged to his pursuers, but he was well aware of the buckskin’s capabilities. His horse had plenty of speed and stamina and could outrun most horses.

  The problem was that the buckskin wasn’t fresh. He really hadn’t had much chance to rest after being on the trail all day.

  Neither had the horses belonging to the bounty hunters, The Kid told himself. They might have a slight edge, but he was still betting on the buckskin.

  Betting his life on it, in fact.

  The Kid headed east, away from the foothills and across the semi-arid plain that stretched all the way to Las Vegas. The moon had risen, and it cast enough silvery light so the bounty hunters would be able to spot him as they trailed him.

  At least they had stopped shooting at him, having figured out they weren’t going to hit him unless it was by sheer luck. They were still behind him, though. He saw them when he glanced over his shoulder, dark blobs moving through the glimmering wash of moonlight.

  The buckskin was as gallant as ever, running along seemingly effortlessly. The Kid had to trust to luck that the horse wouldn’t step in a hole or stumble over something and trip. If the buckskin went down, the fall might kill both of them.

  If it didn’t, the bounty hunters would soon take care of that.

  His horse couldn’t run forever. The Kid’s only hope was that the mounts of the pursuers would play out first.

  His spirits rose as that began to happen. He looked back and saw that the bounty hunters were strung out in a line. Some of them were dropping back, falling out of the chase.

  One of the riders in particular wasn’t slowing down. In fact, he appeared to have drawn closer, indicating his horse was faster than The Kid’s buckskin.

  The Kid muttered a curse. Facing one man was better than facing all five of them, but he had hoped to get away without having to kill any more.

  Deserved or not, he was in enough legal trouble without having any more fatal shootings attached to his name. Claudius Turnbuckle had plenty to straighten out without that.

  It looked like he wasn’t going to be able to avoid swapping lead with the man closing in on him. The stubborn rider was close enough The Kid could see he was mounted on a big, dark horse that seemed to be flying over the landscape.

  The Kid debated whether it would be better to stop and fight it out. But even if he won, he realized, the
delay would give the others a chance to catch up to him. They had fallen far back, but it wouldn’t take them long to draw even with him if he stopped.

  His best chance was to keep going.

  A dark line loomed in front of him, twisting across the ground like a snake. His heart sank as he recognized it as an arroyo. He couldn’t see either end of it. Running north and south, it blocked his path as effectively as if it was a rock wall.

  The Kid bit back a groan of despair. He wasn’t going to give up. He had been through too much in his life simply to surrender.

  He hauled back on the reins and brought the buckskin to a skidding halt at the edge of the arroyo. It was a dozen feet deep and almost twice that wide. The banks weren’t so steep that he couldn’t dismount and lead the horse down them, and probably up and out the other side, but the time needed to do that would allow the bounty hunters to catch up to him.

  So it was a fight. If that was what fate had in store for him, so be it.

  Swiftly, he dismounted and pulled the Winchester from the saddle boot. Leading the buckskin to the very edge of the arroyo, he swiped off his hat and slapped it against the horse’s rump. The buckskin began picking its way down the slope. The Kid wanted the horse out of the line of fire.

  He went a short distance down the slope himself and dropped to one knee. The ground itself gave him some cover. The man on the black, fast horse was about fifty yards away.

  The Kid levered a round into the Winchester’s firing chamber. He brought the rifle to his shoulder, sighted in the moonlight, and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 5

  The Winchester cracked and kicked hard against his shoulder. The .44-40 slug passed over the rider’s head and screamed off into the night.

  The Kid had aimed high, hoping it would turn the bounty hunter back. Charging right at him while he had a good defensive position was suicide.