The Loner: The Bounty Killers

by J. A. Johnstone

  “I’ll admit, we usually get what we go after,” McCall said. “Don’t we, Max?”

  The dog let out a loud bark.

  “Keep your opinions to yourself,” The Kid muttered. He looked at McCall. “What happens now?”

  “I take you to Santa Fe and collect that ten grand reward.”

  “Flagstaff is a lot closer. You could turn me over to the authorities there and put in your claim.”

  She shook her head. “And have to trust that some crooked lawman wouldn’t try to cheat me? No, thanks. It’s the Territory of New Mexico that wants you, and I intend to go as high up the ladder as I can. I’d dump you right in the governor’s lap if I could. That way everybody will know I’ve got the whole ten thousand coming to me. I captured the notorious Kid Morgan all by myself.”

  The Kid glanced at Max. “You had a little help,” he pointed out.

  “He’ll get his share, don’t worry. Max and I have been partners for a long time. We work well together.”

  The Kid couldn’t dispute that. He said, “I figured I killed him when I threw him over the edge of that rock.”

  “You could have,” McCall snapped, her eyes flaring with anger. “It was just pure luck he landed on Charley Hobart. Charley’s a good-sized man. He broke Max’s fall.”

  “So I came close to killing him and close to killing you on the same night.”

  “Yeah. You shouldn’t be surprised that I don’t like you, Morgan.”

  “I don’t care if you like me,” The Kid said. “I just wish you’d believe me when I tell you that this is all wrong.”

  “You mean that loco story about those wanted posters being a mistake?” She shook her head. “If you want to sell me a bill of goods, mister, you’d be better off trying something else. But if by some miracle you are telling the truth, you can straighten it out with the law in New Mexico . . . after I’ve collected that bounty.”

  He stopped arguing. It wasn’t doing any good.

  “What’s your name besides McCall?”

  She frowned at him and asked, “Why do you want to know?”

  He shrugged as best he could with his arms tied to the tree like they were.

  “Just curious, I guess.”

  “Well, it’s none of your business.”

  “What’s the story on that little girl in the picture?”

  Her frown darkened. “That’s really none of your business.”

  “Hey, I’m just making conversation here. If you’re going to take me to Santa Fe, we’ll be on the trail together for at least a week, probably more. It’ll be a long, boring ride if we can’t even talk.” He paused. “I’m guessing that she’s your niece.”

  “Well, you’re wrong,” McCall said. “You’re so damned sure of yourself . . . sure you’ve got me pegged . . .” Emotions warred on her face. “She’s my daughter, all right?”

  The Kid looked at her, saw the pain in her eyes, and murmured, “Sorry.”

  “You should be,” McCall said in a sullen voice. “Her name is Linda Sue, not that it’s any affair of yours. She lives in Kansas City with my mother. I send money back to ’em, whenever I can.”

  “So I did the right thing by sending that roll of greenbacks to them.”

  “Yeah, you did. Although my mother’s going to be worried when she gets the picture of Linda Sue with the money. She’s liable to think I’m dead.”

  “At the time, I thought you were dead. I thought the picture ought to go back where it came from.”

  McCall looked away and shook her head. “I reckon that was . . . a thoughtful thing for you to do. As soon as we get to somewhere I can post a letter, I’ll write to my mother and let her know I’m still alive.”

  “Sorry if I’ve caused any trouble.”

  “Hell, you didn’t know. No way you could know my life story.” A bitter laugh came from her. “You wouldn’t want to, even if you could.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” The Kid told her. “I’d be glad to listen to anything you want to tell me.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. Then her face twisted in a scowl and she jerked the rifle up toward him.

  “What the hell are you trying to do?” she demanded. “Sweet-talk me? Is that what you think you’re gonna do, Morgan? Pretend that you like the homely old gal so you can wrap her around your little finger and get her to do whatever you want?” Her finger tightened on the rifle’s trigger. “Cutting the head off your corpse is starting to sound better all the time.”

  The Kid forced himself to stay calm, knowing he was looking death in the face. When he spoke, he told the truth. “You’re not homely, and you’re not old, McCall. I doubt if you’re much more than twenty-five. I was just making conversation, not trying to seduce you.”

  “Yeah, well, you’d damned well better not try.” She took a deep breath and lowered the rifle. “I don’t put up with any of that stuff. Not since Pronto.”

  The Kid caught his breath as he recognized the name. “Pronto?” he said.

  “Yeah. Pronto Pike. Used to be my partner. You must’ve seen him, that night we tangled before. It was his bunch I was traveling with. I knew it was a mistake. We came damn near to shooting each other when we split up a year ago, but when he asked me to give him a hand tracking you down, I said I would. Then when I was wounded—when you wounded me—he went off and left me, the bastard. All he was interested in was that reward.”

  The Kid struggled to make sense of all she had told him. He had figured that group of bounty hunters he’d encountered had continued on west in search of Kid Morgan. They hadn’t gotten a good look at him that night, hadn’t known he was actually the man they were after.

  But for some reason they had doubled back to Las Vegas and caught up with him there, just like McCall had trailed him to the spot where she had jumped him.

  He couldn’t figure it all out, but he supposed it didn’t really matter. He was McCall’s prisoner.

  He was sick and tired of being somebody’s prisoner.

  “I wouldn’t have figured you for being friends with a cold-blooded bastard like Pike,” he said.

  McCall’s eyes widened in surprise. “You know him?”

  “We ran into each other in Las Vegas. He had ideas about that ten grand reward just like you do.”

  “But you got away from him?”

  “Yeah.”

  She cursed and started heaping dirt on the flames to put out the fire.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You should have told me Pike was on your trail. I figured we had both given him the slip. You getting away from him like that will just make him more loco than ever. He’ll hunt you down and try to take you away from me.”

  “I thought you used to be lovers.”

  “I never said that!” McCall blew out her breath as she extinguished the last of the flames and darkness plunged over the camp. “But it’s true,” she went on quietly. “And if he finds out that I’ve got you and he doesn’t, he’s liable to kill us both . . . you for the bounty, and me for the sheer fun of it.”

  “Do you still plan to take me all the way to Santa Fe?” The Kid asked her.

  “That’s right. And we’re gonna get started right now!”

  Chapter 17

  As McCall was saddling the horses, she said, “You’d be wise not to give me any trouble from here on out, Morgan. If you cooperate, the worst I’ll do is take you to Santa Fe and turn you in . . . alive. Pike won’t go to that much bother.”

  “You mean he’ll just kill me and be done with it,” The Kid said.

  She paused and looked at him. “Isn’t that what I told you? If you doubt it, maybe I’ll just leave you tied to that tree and let Pike find you.”

  The Kid shook his head. McCall was right. “I’ll cooperate . . . for now.”

  She flashed a cold grin at him. “You’re not making any promises for down the road, is that it?”

  “Something like that,” The Kid said.

  “Yeah, well, rig
ht now I’ll settle for putting this part of the country behind us,” she said as she jerked a saddle cinch tight. She came over to him and pulled her knife from its sheath. “I have your word you won’t try to escape? Because I can knock you out and tie you belly down over your horse if you’d rather.”

  The Kid took a deep breath and then nodded. “I give you my word,” he said. It was a bitter promise to make, but seemed like the best option.

  McCall returned the nod and went around to the other side of the tree. The Kid felt the knife tug on the ropes as she cut them.

  He pulled his arms back in front of him, grimacing as pain shot through the stiff muscles. His hands had gone partially numb. He rubbed them together to get feeling into them.

  “You can ride that buckskin of yours,” she told him. “I’m taking Blackie.”

  He laughed. “You named your horse Blackie? Your black horse?”

  She turned sharply to glare at him. “You got a problem with that? I could still kill you and cut your head off, you know.”

  “No, no problem,” The Kid said with a grin that he knew would annoy her. He went over to the buckskin and swung up into the saddle.

  “Move out,” McCall told him as she mounted. “You’re leading the way.”

  “You think I know where we’re going?”

  “You know which way’s east. I want you in front of me so I can shoot you if I have to.”

  The Kid shook his head and heeled the buckskin into motion. Riding at night was tricky, especially in rugged terrain, so he let the horse pick his own pace.

  McCall rode to the left and a few feet behind him, leading the third horse. He turned his head and said to her, “There’s one thing I’m curious about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How did you get loose when I went to find that horse you were riding? I didn’t tie you up as tight as I could, but you shouldn’t have been able to work your way free that quickly.”

  “You’ve got Max to thank for that,” she said with a nod toward the big dog, who padded along beside them. “He chewed through that cord without much trouble when I told him to.”

  The Kid grunted. “I didn’t figure on some damn trick dog.”

  “You didn’t figure on a lot of things,” McCall said.

  The Kid didn’t have a response for that, so he didn’t say anything. He couldn’t help but think, though, that he had never met a woman quite like the bounty hunter named McCall.

  She kept them moving far into the night, explaining that if anyone had spotted the campfire, she wanted to be a long way from that location before they stopped to rest. When she finally called a halt, a faint tinge of gray in the eastern sky signaled dawn was only a few hours off.

  McCall dismounted first and drew her gun. “All right, Morgan. Get down from that horse and put your hands behind you.”

  “I need to tend to some personal business first,” The Kid said as he swung down from the buckskin.

  “If you want to take a piss, there’s a bush right there that could use some watering.” McCall raised her Colt Lightning and pointed it at his head. “It’s short enough I can see you to shoot if you give me a good reason.”

  “I promised to cooperate, remember?”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t much of a promise. For now, you said, and how the hell am I supposed to know how long that is?”

  She had a point, he supposed. He stepped behind the bush and took care of the chore while she stood a few feet away aiming the gun at his head. The arrangement was a little awkward, but it was better than nothing, he told himself.

  When he was finished, she said, “All right, hands behind your back.”

  “You don’t need to tie me up.”

  “I’ll rest a lot easier if I do.”

  “How about this? I give you my word I won’t try to escape for the next twenty-four hours. That way you can get some sleep, too, while I stand guard.”

  She laughed humorlessly. “I’m supposed to believe an hombre who’s wanted for breaking out of prison and murdering guards?”

  “One of those charges is completely false, and as far as I knew until recently, the other one had been dropped because of extenuating circumstances.”

  “Extenuating,” she repeated. “Where’d you learn a word like that?”

  “You’d be surprised how much I know.”

  “Maybe. But you don’t know how to do like you’re told. Now, about putting your hands behind your back . . .” She lifted the Lightning.

  “Do you know where I was going when you caught up to me?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Not really.”

  “I was going to Santa Fe. My lawyer’s there. That’s where I want to go. You’re not taking me there as much as we’re just riding together.”

  “This gun says different. So does Max.”

  The dog bared his teeth at The Kid at the sound of his name.

  McCall went on, “He can knock you down and chew on you for a while if you don’t want to go along with what I say. After that I reckon you won’t be so quick to argue.”

  The Kid put his hands behind his back, but not without muttering, “One of these days you won’t have that gun and that dog.”

  “Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that,” McCall jeered.

  She tied his hands, then helped him sit down at the base of a tree. After holstering the Lightning, she pulled her Winchester from its sheath and sat down where she could lean back against the trunk of another tree. She didn’t make a fire, and it was cold enough that their breath fogged in front of their faces.

  As uncomfortable as The Kid was, he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep. But exhaustion trumped discomfort, and even though he was leaning against the rough bark of a pine trunk, he dozed off quickly.

  When he woke up, he found he had slumped onto his side while he was sleeping. The sun was up, slanting its rays through the trees.

  A few yards away, McCall was lying on her side, too, and appeared to be sound asleep. Her hat had come off, and her head was pillowed on one arm. The hard lines of her face had softened some as she relaxed. She wasn’t what anybody would call pretty, but as The Kid looked at her, he realized when she wasn’t trying to appear fierce and intimidating, her features had a certain attractiveness to them. The lines that a hard life had etched into her face also gave her character.

  The Kid’s mouth tightened into a grim line as he told himself he shouldn’t be thinking such things about her, or about any woman. It hadn’t been long enough since he had buried his wife.

  But it didn’t hurt anything to lie there and look at McCall. He wondered how she had wound up with a child living in Kansas City while she wandered the frontier trying to apprehend the worst of the badmen who were wanted by the law.

  The sound of hoofbeats drifted to The Kid’s ears and caused him to jerk his head up as he listened intently. Several horses, he decided, and they weren’t far away.

  McCall still slept soundly.

  Softly, The Kid spoke to her. “McCall! McCall, wake up! Riders coming.”

  She didn’t budge. In fact, her breathing seemed to be deeper and more regular than ever. She was settling in for a nice, long sleep.

  The Kid muttered a curse and sat up. He pushed his back against the tree trunk and started wiggling his shoulders as he worked his way up. After a moment, he managed to get a foot underneath him and awkwardly pushed himself into a standing position.

  His legs were stiff from sleeping on the ground. He stumbled over to McCall and nudged her shoulder with a booted foot. “Wake up, damn it!” he said to her in an urgent whisper.

  She woke up, all right. She sat bolt upright, snatched the Winchester from the ground beside her, and rammed the barrel into The Kid’s belly, causing him to double over in pain.

  As The Kid tried not to retch, McCall scrambled backward on her butt and trained the rifle on him. “What the hell are you trying to do?” she demanded in a loud voice.

  The Kid hissed through his t
eeth at her, hoping she would understand that he meant for her to keep it down. “Riders coming,” he croaked out.

  McCall lifted her head and listened. An expression of alarm flashed across her face. She had heard the horses, too.

  She leaped to her feet and drew her knife. “I’m gonna cut you loose,” she said as she stepped behind The Kid. “We’ve got to keep our horses quiet and hope those men, whoever they are, pass us by. I can count on your word not to try to escape?”

  “You can,” The Kid told her.

  She slashed the ropes around his wrists. He massaged them, then stepped over to the buckskin and put a hand on the horse’s muzzle. McCall did the same with the other two horses and told the dog, “Quiet, Max.”

  Max stood with his tail up and the hair on the back of his neck bristling, but he didn’t make a sound.

  The hoofbeats grew louder. The riders probably weren’t more than fifty yards away. The Kid heard the low mutter of men’s voices, but they were too far away for him to make out any of the words or recognize the voices.

  That early in the morning there wasn’t much breeze. With any luck, the strangers’ horses wouldn’t scent the four animals in the makeshift camp. The Kid and McCall waited in tense silence.

  The hoofbeats began to recede as the riders passed the camp and were going on without discovering it. The Kid and McCall stood motionless until the sound of the horses faded away completely.

  McCall heaved a sigh and said, “They’re out of earshot now.”

  “Could you tell if they were Pike and his men?”

  She shook her head. “No, I never could hear them well enough for that.”

  “If they were, they’re ahead of us now. If we keep going east, we’re liable to come up behind them.”

  McCall nodded and said, “I know. That’s why we’re going to cut south for a while and then head east again.”

  “You know, sooner or later we’ll have to find out just how much you trust me.”

  She frowned at him and asked, “What do you mean by that?”

  “If we run into Pike, there’ll be trouble, you said.”