Bad Men Die

by William W. Johnstone

  With his free hand, Luke rubbed his chin as he frowned in thought. “I’d wager you know how much bounty McCluskey is worth to me, so you’d figure I wouldn’t bust him out no matter what you did in bed,” he mused. “That means you probably planned on getting me unarmed and then getting the drop on me so you could use me as a hostage. You could march me over to the jail at gunpoint and threaten to kill me unless Marshal Elliott released the prisoner.”

  Her eyes were fairly glittering with anger, but she still tried to make her voice honey-sweet. “Why, I’d never do anything like that. You’re just such an attractive man—”

  Luke’s harsh laugh interrupted her. “Now I know you’re just putting on an act, Delia. It’s not going to work, so you might as well take your cleavage and get on out of here.”

  The fake smile disappeared as she snarled at him. “You damn fool. You don’t know what you’re passing up.”

  “Whatever it is, I reckon there’s a good chance I’ll live longer without it.”

  “Oh!” She snatched up the shawl but didn’t put it back on as she turned to the door.

  “You’ll get over McCluskey,” Luke told her. “He’s just a two-bit outlaw. A week from now you’ll have forgotten that you ever met him.”

  She jerked the door open, stalked out, and slammed it behind her hard enough to make it shiver in its frame.

  Luke locked the door, holstered the Remington, and went to bed.

  He fell asleep quickly and didn’t dream.

  Breakfast at the café was just as good as supper had been the night before, and Luke felt well-rested and well-fed as he went to the livery stable to get his horse and McCluskey’s mount. Once he had the horses saddled and ready to ride, he led them to the general store, which had just opened for the day.

  Marshal Elliott had told him it would take about a day and a half to ride to Rattlesnake Wells, so Luke wanted to make sure he had enough provisions for that journey. His weeklong pursuit of McCluskey had exhausted some of his supplies.

  With that errand taken care of, he headed for the marshal’s office.

  “Is that a fresh pot or left over from yesterday?” Luke asked as he came into the office. He gestured toward the coffeepot on the stove in the corner.

  “The grounds are still good,” Elliott said defensively. “The town doesn’t pay me what you’d call an extravagant wage. Man’s got to be thrifty to live on it. I’ll pour you a cup, though, if you want it.”

  “No, thanks.” Luke had already had an extra cup at the café, figuring he would need it to stay alert on the ride to Rattlesnake Wells.

  “Suit yourself.” Elliott picked up a ring of keys from his desk. “I already fetched the prisoner some breakfast awhile ago, so he’s ready for you, I reckon.”

  “I’m obliged to you for your help, Marshal.”

  Elliott unlocked the cell block door. “I’m just glad we were able to corral that jasper. I don’t like the idea of an outlaw like him being in my town and I didn’t even know it.”

  “You didn’t have any reason to suspect McCluskey was in these parts,” Luke pointed out. “There’s no telegraph office here, so you wouldn’t have gotten a wire about that bank robbery over in Rock Springs. You wouldn’t have known to be watching for him.”

  “And the stagecoach only comes through once a week. That’s the only news we ever get. Since it was westbound last time, word of the holdup never got here. But it all worked out all right, I suppose.” Elliott swung the thick wooden door open. “Can’t say as I’ll be sorry to see McCluskey go. You need to be mighty careful with him on the way to Rattlesnake Wells, Jensen. He’s liable to try to escape.”

  “I’ll be ready for any tricks he pulls.” Now that he had captured McCluskey alive, Luke would just as soon keep him that way and turn him over to the authorities in Cheyenne. But if the outlaw tried to make a break and Luke had to kill him, well, that wouldn’t be any cause for lost sleep.

  McCluskey was fully dressed, wearing the clothes that had been brought over from the hotel. He stood at the cell door, grasping the bars and glowering at Luke as the bounty hunter and the marshal entered the cell block.

  Luke drew one of his Remingtons and covered McCluskey as Elliott unlocked the cell. The lawman stepped back quickly and drew his own gun. “Come on out now,” he told the prisoner.

  “And don’t forget all the posters on you say dead or alive,” Luke added.

  McCluskey swung the door back and said sullenly, “I’m not gonna try anything. I’m smart enough to know when the odds are against me.”

  “Just not smart enough not to take up a life of crime,” Elliott said.

  McCluskey sneered at the marshal but didn’t have any other response.

  “Hands behind your back and turn around,” Luke said.

  “You’re gonna cuff me like that?” McCluskey asked indignantly. “Hell, a man can’t ride with his hands cuffed behind his back.”

  “You can. I’ll be leading your horse. You don’t have to worry about the reins.”

  “Maybe not, but it’ll be blasted uncomfortable.”

  “Not as uncomfortable as the coffins where all the men you’ve killed are spending their time now.”

  McCluskey smirked. “Hell, I’ll bet they’re not feelin’ a thing.”

  Luke suppressed the impulse to pistol-whip the man again. “Turn around.”

  McCluskey did, and Luke snapped a pair of handcuffs on him. With that done, he grasped the outlaw’s shirt collar and jerked him through the marshal’s office and outside where he helped him up into the saddle as Elliott stood by with gun still drawn. Once McCluskey was mounted, Luke ran a length of rope under the horse’s belly and tied the outlaw’s ankles together.

  “If this jughead runs away or falls down, there won’t be a damn thing I can do about it,” McCluskey complained bitterly. “I’ll be stuck up here.”

  “It’s your horse and your worry,” Luke said. “You’d know better than I would how likely that is.”

  “You’re hopin’ I don’t make it to Cheyenne alive, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not worried about it one way or the other,” Luke replied honestly. “If I really want you dead, I can just shoot you in the head as soon as we’ve left town. Nobody would ever know the difference, or care overmuch if they did. You’d do well to remember that.”

  The frown McCluskey gave him was enough payment for that jibe, Luke thought as he chuckled to himself.

  Even though the hour was fairly early—the sun had just come up—quite a few people were on the street, and Luke realized they had turned out to watch him leave Rimrock with his prisoner. Having the notorious desperado Frank McCluskey captured in their town was probably the most exciting thing that had happened in the settlement in years. It was possible nothing would ever take place in Rimrock to top it. Some of the townspeople were probably even sorry to see them go.

  Luke wouldn’t regret putting the place behind him. He glanced across the street at the Powder River Saloon, which was dark and quiet at the early hour. Delia Bradley was probably asleep. He was confident that what he had told her was right. She would soon forget all about Frank McCluskey.

  Luke swung up into the dun’s saddle. Elliott handed him the reins of McCluskey’s horse.

  “Thanks again, Marshal,” Luke told the lawman.

  “My pleasure. Just be careful, Jensen. You never know what you might run into.”

  Luke nodded and heeled his horse into motion. Leading McCluskey’s mount, he rode out of Rimrock, on his way to collecting six thousand dollars.

  As they passed the saloon, he thought he saw a curtain in one of the windows twitch, but he wasn’t sure about that and didn’t figure it mattered anyway.

  Delia let the curtain fall closed. She couldn’t bear to watch McCluskey humiliated like that, being paraded in front of those stupid townspeople as a helpless prisoner while Jensen took him out of town. She hadn’t known McCluskey long, but she knew what a proud man he was and how that display
had to be eating at his guts.

  It was just one more thing Luke Jensen would pay for, sooner or later, she swore to herself. Her eyes were red-rimmed and gritty. She’d been awake all night, crying and plotting her revenge.

  That damn bounty hunter would rue the day he first set eyes on her, she thought as she stripped off the thin wrapper she wore and started cramming her few belongings into a threadbare carpetbag.

  CHAPTER 5

  Southwest Wyoming was a wide basin broken up occasionally by ridges and buttes and gullies. The rugged, snowcapped mountains in the distance were the Prophecies. Rattlesnake Wells was located at the base of that range, on the closest side of the peaks.

  In the thin, clear air, the mountains looked almost close enough to reach out and touch, but Luke and McCluskey were still a day and a half’s ride away, assuming they didn’t run into any delays.

  They rode steadily toward the mountains and stopped only occasionally to let the horses rest. McCluskey complained almost constantly, but after a while Luke was able to just ignore him, almost as if he couldn’t hear it.

  During the years he had spent as a bounty hunter, a lot of his prisoners had done the same thing, and the only other options were to gag them or knock them out, both of which were too much trouble as far as he was concerned. It was easier to not pay attention to the profanity-laced tirades.

  When the sun was high overhead, Luke called a halt in the shade of some scrubby aspens that grew along the edge of a gully. The wash was dry, but he supposed water ran in it during rainstorms, which accounted for the trees. Their roots could reach down far enough to find some moisture.

  “I’ve got some sandwiches I brought from the café back in Rimrock, and I’ll boil up a pot of coffee,” he told McCluskey when he had dismounted and let the dun start grazing on the sparse grass beneath the trees. “You think you can stop flapping your gums long enough to eat?”

  “How the hell am I gonna eat with my hands behind my back? I’ve got to tend to some other business, too, if you know what I mean.” McCluskey smirked at Luke. “You gonna help me with that, bounty hunter?”

  Luke resisted the impulse to backhand him. He untied McCluskey’s ankles and stepped back quickly, drawing one of his guns. “Get down,” he ordered.

  McCluskey kicked his feet free of the stirrups, swung his right leg over the horse’s back, and slid to the ground. He landed awkwardly and almost fell before righting himself.

  “Turn around.” Luke didn’t holster the Remington until McCluskey was facing away from him, then he took a pair of leg irons from one of his saddlebags and snapped them around McCluskey’s ankles. The chain had just enough play to let the outlaw shuffle along a few inches at a time.

  When his ankles were secure, Luke unlocked the handcuffs, again stepping back swiftly so McCluskey wouldn’t have a chance to spin around and make a grab for him.

  “There are some bushes right over there,” Luke told him. “Go take care of your business, then we’ll have something to eat.”

  Moving slowly and tentatively, like a little old man, McCluskey headed toward the bushes.

  “Stay where I can see your head and shoulders,” Luke added as he started gathering fallen branches to build a fire on a rocky spot near the edge of the gully.

  He glanced toward McCluskey now and then as he got the fire going and set the coffeepot at the edge of the flames to boil. After a few minutes the outlaw emerged from the brush and shuffled over to stand next to the fire, across from Luke.

  “How about leaving the cuffs off until after we’ve eaten?” he asked. “It’d sure make things a lot easier.”

  “For you or for me?” Luke asked.

  “Hell, for both of us. You don’t want to have to feed me and give me drinks from a coffee cup, do you?”

  As a matter of fact, Luke didn’t. As he straightened, he reached for his gun, thinking he could make McCluskey back off, then set the man’s food and drink on the other side of the fire and cover him while he ate.

  He didn’t get the chance. Before he could draw the Remington, McCluskey launched himself across the flames in a diving tackle that caught Luke around the waist.

  Caught by surprise, Luke was slow to react just enough to give McCluskey a chance. The impact of their collision drove Luke backward, and suddenly there was nothing underneath his boots except empty air. McCluskey had knocked him off the edge of the gulley.

  A second later, Luke’s feet hit the sloping side of the wash, but it was too steep for him to catch his balance. He kept toppling toward the bottom with McCluskey hanging onto him. As they rolled over and over, the outlaw grabbed desperately for one of Luke’s guns.

  Luke’s head smashed against a rock on the side of the gully with stunning force. Barely aware that his prisoner had succeeded in snatching one of the Remingtons from its holster, the realization shot through Luke’s brain just in time for him to wrap his left hand around the barrel and shove it aside as McCluskey pulled the trigger.

  The gun’s muzzle was so close to Luke’s ear that the shot slammed against it like a physical blow. The bullet screamed past his head and plowed harmlessly into the side of the gully. As they rolled, McCluskey’s face loomed above him, so Luke jabbed a fist into it, striking the outlaw squarely in the nose.

  He knew from experience that being hit like that stung like blazes and was enough to incapacitate a man for a few seconds. Luke tried to seize that advantage by locking his right hand around McCluskey’s throat. He squeezed hard enough to make McCluskey’s eyes bulge out.

  They hit the bottom of the wash with enough force to jolt them apart. Luke grabbed for the other revolver, but he found only an empty holster. The gun had come out during their mad tumble down the slope.

  He rolled and kicked just as McCluskey tried to bring the Remington to bear on him. The toe of his boot struck McCluskey’s wrist and knocked the gun out of his hand. It flew a good ten feet before it thudded onto the bottom of the sandy, rock-littered wash.

  Luke scrambled after the weapon, but before he could reach it McCluskey was on him again. He dropped his feet over Luke’s head, snaring him with the chain between the leg irons. Luke grabbed the chain just as McCluskey jerked his knees back, and his grip was all that prevented the iron links from crushing his windpipe.

  McCluskey dragged him over onto his back and tightened the stranglehold. At the same time, the outlaw picked up one of the rocks scattered around the bottom of the gully and swung it up, then brought it down toward Luke’s head.

  The rock was the size of two fists put together, and it would have crushed Luke’s skull like an eggshell if it had landed. Luke saw the blow coming just in time to jerk his head aside. The rock slammed into the ground a couple inches from his right ear.

  Luke let go of the chain and immediately started to gag as the pressure increased on his throat. He reached up and behind him with both hands and caught hold of McCluskey’s knee. From that angle he couldn’t exert as much strength as he would have liked, but he forced the joint in the wrong direction as best he could. It was enough to make McCluskey cry out in pain, and the grip on Luke’s neck eased.

  He twisted and shoved, and his head popped free of the hold McCluskey had had on him. He levered himself up on his left arm and buried his right fist in McCluskey’s midsection. McCluskey rolled onto his side, gasping for breath.

  Luke knew the feeling. His lungs were starved for air, but he couldn’t afford to take the time to catch his breath. He went after McCluskey, scrambling up and throwing punch after punch. He pounded the outlaw’s head from side to side. Blood splattered from McCluskey’s nose and mouth. He put up his hands, but he wasn’t fighting. He was pawing feebly in an attempt to block Luke’s punches and making little mewling sounds.

  Luke drove one last punch to McCluskey’s jaw. The outlaw’s eyes rolled up as he went limp. He was out cold.

  With his chest heaving, Luke pushed himself to his feet and stumbled back a couple steps so he could look around. He spotted
both Remingtons and hurried to pick them up before McCluskey regained consciousness. When he had both guns in his hands and had backed off about a dozen feet to cover the prisoner, he finally had the chance to catch his breath and gather his strength.

  His throat ached from the chain. He growled as he thought about stomping McCluskey’s face in. He wasn’t the sort to kill a man in cold blood or even beat up an unconscious opponent, so he ignored the impulse and waited for the outlaw to come to, using the few minutes to regain breath and strength.

  The outlaw began to groan and twitch. Luke had seen the man regain consciousness before, so the sight was a familiar one.

  McCluskey blinked and gradually pushed himself up to a sitting position with his back against the side of the gully. “Damn you,” he said thickly through bloody, swollen lips. “That’s the second time you’ve knocked me out. It’s not gonna happen again.”

  “Damn right it’s not,” Luke rasped. “The next time you give me any trouble, I’m going to kill you, McCluskey. Consider that fair warning.”

  “Big talk.”

  “Not if I can back it up.” Luke motioned with the left-hand Remington. “Get up. You’re going to crawl back to the top.”

  “I can’t climb with these leg irons on!”

  “Figure out a way,” Luke told him coldly.

  McCluskey rolled over so that he was facing the slope. He had to pull himself up with his hands and push his body along with knees and toes. The wash was only about fifteen feet deep, but by the time McCluskey crawled out of it and collapsed on the ground, his hands were bloody and the knees of his trousers were shredded and had blood on them, as well.

  From twenty feet away, Luke had kept his guns trained on the outlaw every inch of the way, staying even with him on the slope.

  Now that they were both out of the gully, Luke said, “Roll onto your face, McCluskey, and put your hands behind your back.”

  McCluskey cursed, “You told me I could have my hands loose while I ate.”