Bounty Hunter (9781101611975) (11 page)

Chapter 13

T
HE BUREAUCRATS IN
W
ASHINGTON, OR IN
C
HICAGO, OR
somewhere across the eastern horizon had decided for the Marias River to be the boundary between the ancient civilization of the Blackfeet and the encroaching civilization of the
nápikoan
—but none of them had ever been here.

They had ordered their cartographers to delineate one side as being as different as night and day from the other, but to a person riding the hills and swales of this limitless country, the landscape on the south side seemed identical to that on the north.

The cartographers pictured the Marias as a great and imposing boundary, but today, the river, flowing forlornly low as autumn waited for winter, looked to the three riders who splashed across it this morning—you couldn't really say they forded it—no more distinguished than any other stream.

“How long you reckon . . . Mr. Cole?” Goode shouted, turning his head as they climbed the bank on the southern side.

“How long for what?”

“How long you reckon till we get there?”

“Get where?”

“Back to Gallatin City.”

“Guess you'll know it when you get there,” Cole promised. He didn't know himself, and he did not care to speculate for the satisfaction of Jimmy Goode.

Porter shot Goode an angry glance, and he said no more.

This was the first time that Goode had spoken in a conversational tone since they started on this enforced adventure. Cole took it as a sign, an indication, that Gideon Porter, the mastermind whom Goode had obviously once idolized, might be losing his charisma.

Goode perceived himself to have been captured in Heart Butte not as an individual, but as part of the entourage of Gideon Porter, an appendage to his power and presence, a mere addendum to the man himself. Goode had dared not engage in conversation because Porter did not, and he was merely an extension of the great man's identity. Now, as the great man had been taken down a peg, Goode was flirting with the notion that he was, himself, a person with an individual identity.

Jimmy Goode had, Cole intuited, probably spent a lifetime kowtowing to Gideon Porter, and living in a deeper, more shadowy corner of his shadow than even Gideon's little brother, Enoch. In the past two days, though, Goode had seen Gideon Porter captured, humiliated, and beaten bloody. No longer was he the kingpin of a gang; he was now a humbled man chained to his saddle in his stocking feet, being fed like a baby from his own canteen by the bounty hunter who refused to unchain him for lunch, or even to take a drink. Gradually, Goode was realizing that he and Gideon Porter were essentially the same—except that Goode still had his boots!

Nothing more was said, though. Porter's glare was still cruel and still frightening. An hour passed, then two. The hours melted into one another as the skies grew dark and the wind picked up.

It was one of those days when the wind demanded that you keep your head buried so low in your collar that you never notice the first snowflake. The first ones that landed on the roan's mane disappeared almost immediately. It was when they started to stick that Cole decided it was time to look for a place to camp.

One side of him yearned to press on, to try to get far enough so that they could reach the Missouri River early tomorrow. The other side knew that getting caught in a blinding blizzard in a deficient campsite was a potential disaster.

Two ridges farther on, they came into a broad gulch where the streambed was populated with a handful of tall cottonwoods. Unlike the small aspen of the previous night, there was no way that Gideon Porter could ever climb these.

“This is it,” Cole declared. “Off your horses.”

Porter and Goode each struggled off his mount as gracefully as he could while being chained to the saddle horn. Cole uncinched Goode's saddle and let it slide to the ground, where the snow was starting to stick. Leaving Goode for a moment, he went to deal with Porter. With Cole's back turned, Goode could start to run, but he wouldn't get very far in a blizzard while anchored to a saddle. Cole was sure that he would not even try—after all, he had been told all his life that he was good for nothing.

“This snow is damned cold on the feet,” Porter complained as Cole uncinched his saddle. “And
damn you
for givin' my goddamn boots to that heathen brute.”

“Damn
you
, Gideon,” Cole said, as he worked. “I didn't
give
your goddamn boots to the savage.”

“Whadya call it when he rides off with
my
boots, and I walk away barefoot?”

“Tradin',” Cole answered succinctly.

“
Tradin'
?” Porter spat angrily. “Didn't see nobody get no goddamn thing in trade from that redskin.”

“I expect that even if you're too stupid to notice that the Indian traded your
life
for those damned boots . . . you aren't blind enough not to have seen that knife he wanted to drag across your neck from one ear to the other.”

“I saw the knife all right,” Porter admitted.

“What do you think he wanted to do with it?” Cole asked sarcastically. “Play mumblety-peg with it?”

“Lost my goddamn boots,” Porter said, trying to redirect the trajectory of the conversation.

“You still got your scalp?” Cole asked rhetorically. “Looks like, by the fact that you can feel the cold on your feet, you're still alive . . . Now, pick up that saddle and head over to that cottonwood on the far right.”

Once he had each man chained face-forward around a separate cottonwood trunk, Cole started a fire. Fortunately, there were plenty of broken cottonwood scraps in the gulch to use as firewood. Soon a big fire was blazing, the horses were secured, and Cole sat down to cook some of the buffalo meat that O-mis-tai-po-kah had given him as a parting gesture of hospitality.

“What's gonna happen to us in Gallatin City?” Goode asked cautiously, keeping his voice low so that Porter, who was forty feet away, couldn't hear what he was saying over the roar and crackle of the fire.

“Reckon there's gonna be a trial,” Cole said.

“I didn't shoot nobody,” Goode insisted. “'Twas Gideon and Enoch who shot all those people in that house. Enoch shot a
woman
 . . . an
old
woman. I seen him . . . I seen him do it.”

“Hmmm.” Cole nodded. After having seen Enoch Porter in action at Double Runner's shack, after watching him display the brand of uncontrollable rage that would make a man try to rape a woman in a room full of people, it took little stretch of the imagination to see him gunning down Mary Phillips.

“And you got him dead already,” Goode continued. “You done got Enoch layin' there wrapped in canvas. You could let
me
go right now 'cause you got them who did
all
the killin'.”

“Doesn't work that way,” Cole assured him.

“You can't charge nobody for murder that didn't do no murder,” Goode asserted.

“Why'd you do it?” Cole asked.

“I
didn't
do it . . . I didn't do no murder.”

“Why'd you go to the house that night?”

“Gideon said we had to kill three of 'em,” Goode insisted.

“Which three?”

“Gideon didn't say. I 'spect that Enoch musta knowed, but nobody tells
me
nothin'.”

“Who told you to go there?”

“Gideon.”

“Who told
him
to go?” Cole asked, hoping finally to know the truth.

“I dunno,” Goode shrugged as best he could in his awkward position. “Maybe nobody. Maybe it was
his
idea, thought up by hisself. Like I said . . . nobody tells me nothin'.”

“What are you talkin 'bout over there?” Gideon Porter yelled from across the fire. “Goode, I told you to keep your damned mouth shut and not be talkin' to that bounty hunter.”

“Shut up, both of you,” Cole shouted back. “Get some shut-eye. We got an early start tomorrow.”

With that, he lay his head back onto his saddle, pulled his blanket up to his chin, and stared up into the skeletons of the big cottonwoods illuminated by the fire.

His first thoughts went to his conversation with Jimmy Goode and his description of the lunatic Enoch Porter. Next, he went back to the nagging question of
why
they went to the Blaine house. Cole had found just over $200 in Gideon Porter's saddlebags. Taking into consideration that they had only received half the payment due them, and that they had probably spent a fair sum in the saloons of Diamond City and Fort Benton—not to mention whatever Doc Ashby charged—the
total
payroll for the crime, not just a sum advanced to each of the perpetrators, still only came to around $500. Now Ransdell was paying eight times that sum to have them brought in. There was more to all this than met the eye.

The snowfall, which had been coming down pretty heavily as they made camp, had finally slacked off considerably.

As the few random flakes drifting out of the sky caught the orange light of the fire, Cole thought about that night out of Diamond City when he had dozed off comparing the stars to the freckles on Hannah Ransdell's nose. It was a silly, romantic thought, but more pleasant to fall asleep to than the probable sins of Hannah's father.

Lately, of course, his thoughts of women had turned to Natoya-I-nis'kim, and now they turned to a comparison between her and Hannah Ransdell. They were both smart and intuitive. Natoya was the first woman he had met in these past years whom he had
not
compared to Sally Lovelace. Maybe this meant he was getting over Sally. He wondered too if this meant that his faith in the character and motivation of the female species in general, so severely defiled by Sally, was slowly being rebuilt.

His final thought before he dozed was that Natoya-I-nis'kim also had the distinction of being the only woman who had ever saved his life.

Chapter 14

G
IDEON
P
ORTER LOOKED MORE DEAD THAN ALIVE.

Bladen Cole did not mind the inconvenience that he was suffering, but he did not want him dead. In fact, he wanted—more than anything at the moment—to keep this man alive.

After their conversation the night before, and his having learned how little was known by “good-for-nothing” Jimmy Goode, Cole understood that Porter was the
only
man who could finger the mastermind of the murder conspiracy.

“Goddamn you, bounty hunter,” Gideon snarled as he woke up, greeting Cole and welcoming the new day with his characteristic lack of cheerfulness. “Damn near froze last night.”

“No, you didn't,” Cole said. “A chinook blew in after midnight. Besides that, I kept the fire stoked so your little stocking feet wouldn't be cold.”

The face that glared at Cole really
did
look more dead than alive. The wounds from his having been whipped with a pistol the day before were healing, but they'd left jagged scabs that were nearly black with dried blood and dust. Three or four days without a shave had made Gideon look like a beggar. At least he still had his scalp, and that was thanks to Bladen Cole.

“Goddamn it, bounty hunter,” Gideon whined. “Gimme some goddamn coffee.”

“No man needs coffee to stay alive,” Cole said calmly as he sipped his boiled concoction. He didn't let on that, despite its inviting aroma, it was pretty bad-tasting swill.

He hand-fed the two prisoners before chaining them back to their saddles. He loaded Enoch's body on his horse, and the procession started out at first light, configured as it had been for the previous two days.

The chinook had changed the landscape, raised the temperatures, melted some of the snow, and swept the sky clear of much of yesterday's overcast. The sun was barely up, but there was a promise that the day might almost be warm.

At last, the monotonous plains dropped away, and they could see the long, narrow forest of cottonwoods that marked the Missouri River. Within half an hour, they could see it, like a blue-green snake hiding among the trees, some of which were still decked with clusters of yellow leaves.

With remembered landmarks to guide him, Bladen Cole steered his charges to turn right and head upriver. He knew they were not far from that little no-name collection of shacks where he had bought whiskey and learned of Milton Waller's impending demise. Cole knew that the shopkeeper at that place had met the Porter boys on their way north, and he really did
not
want to take the time to explain why their condition was so dramatically changed on their way south.

With the Missouri at its lowest level of the year, finding a ford almost anywhere would be easy.

Had it not been for the terrain along the way, and for the fact that the river flowed through the big centers of population between Helena and Diamond City, Cole might have followed the Missouri all the way to Gallatin City, but Cole wanted the latter to be the
only
population center he saw until the reward money was safely in his saddlebags.

As they were scrabbling up the far bank after fording, Cole saw something in the distance that gave him pause. A pair of mounted riders was coming toward them.

The thought of adopting an alternate course to avoid them was dismissed. There was little advantage that might be gained, and to do so abruptly would almost certainly invite pursuit. Cole knew that his chance of eluding these men while keeping his prisoners was a remote one.

Instead, he waved in friendly greeting.

“Howdy, stranger,” one of the men shouted as soon as they were within earshot.

“Hello there,” Cole shouted back.

So far, so good.

As they came closer, Cole recognized the man who had spoken. By his tall hat, Cole recalled him as the one who had been at the general store in the no-name town, the one who had berated the shopkeeper for telling Cole about the Porter boys.

This was going to be tricky.

“Whatcha got there, mister?” the man asked. “Couple Indians? They look like the mangiest coupla Indians I've seen.”

“Nope, not Indians,” Cole said with a shake of his head. “Couple horse-stealin' sons of bitches.”

“Oh yeah, I can see now . . . white men.”

The others were on top of them now, and the question that Cole feared most came quickly.

“Don't I know you from somewhere?”

“Don't think it likely,” Cole lied.

“I'm sure we met . . . maybe I'm wrong . . . can't place you.”

Cole still hoped for the best, though he could see that Porter and Goode recognized the man, and he figured that the man would soon notice this.

“Yeah, I remember now,” the man with the big hat said. “It was down at Sumner's Landing about a week back. You were favoring a leg.”

“Oh yeah, that was me,” Cole admitted. “Didn't recall you. Got a bad memory for faces.”

“How's your leg? You got it fixed up?”

“Yeah, it's better,” Cole said, wincing so as to suggest that it was still somewhat of a bother.

After pausing for a moment, Cole resumed the conversation, hoping to conclude it. “Well it was good seein' y'all again. I guess it's time for me and my friends to get movin' on.”

“What a minute,” the man with the big hat said. “I recollect now that you were asking after four men who'd been through a day or so before, and now I'm seeing that you got yourself two of the four right here. Hardly recognized 'em. Look like Indians. Look like they been through hell. Guess you found 'em.”

“Like I said,” Cole explained calmly. “Horse thieves.”

“Wait a minute,” the man said suspiciously. “I'm not the sharpest bull in the herd, but I'm startin' to figure out somethin'. This feller here, who looks like some savage tried to scalp his face, handed me a twenty-dollar bill . . . You remember that doncha, mister? You paid me to tell any lawman from down in Gallatin City that I saw that you was headed
east
, not north.”

Gideon Porter just looked away.

“Well, I reckon that makes you twenty dollars richer,” Cole said, trying to appear calmer than he felt.

“Well . . . yes . . . it does, and you don't see that kinda money out here much, so what I got figured is that these fellers are wanted for a lot more than horse thieving . . . and you ain't no lawman . . . are you?”

“I was sent to bring back horse thieves, and that is what I'm trying to do, and if you'd excuse us, that's what's got to get done.”

“Whoa . . . wait a minute,” the man in the big hat said, as his companion began to grin avariciously. “Like I said, twenty dollars handed out in the form of a single greenback is a lot for one man to be tossing around on strangers. This tells me that there's a good deal of money involved here . . . and since you ain't no lawman . . . that would make you a bounty hunter.”

Cole could see where things were headed.

“Now, I'd not want to be getting in the way of what no lawman would be doing,” the man with the big hat said after a long pause. “But since you
ain't
no lawman, this would be a strictly business-type deal . . . and somebody's
paying
a whole bunch of money for these fellers to be brought in. I know that you were planning on that bounty, but I think I'd like to take over from you and go down to Gallatin City . . . get that bounty for myself . . . er . . . what I mean is that my partner and me want that bounty for
ourselves
.”

“You're aiming to
steal
my prisoners?” Cole asked rhetorically as he unsuccessfully attempted to stifle an ironic laugh.

“If you'd be so kind as to step aside,” the man with the big hat said, his right hand going to his holster.

Cole had seen his gun clear leather before the first shot was fired.

The partner of the man in the big hat, who had not spoken and who would speak no more, had also drawn his gun before he died.

The man with the big hat toppled to the ground as his horse reared at the sound of Cole's two gunshots, but the other man remained seated as his mount sidestepped, whinnying, for about ten feet. His previous grin had been superseded by a dumbfounded expression. He eyes dropped to the growing, reddish-brown smear on his shirt. His revolver tumbled clumsily from his hand as he reached toward the blotch, then suddenly, he jerked, like a man awaking with a start, and tumbled lifelessly to the ground.

Cole holstered his sidearm. In a space of time barely longer than it takes for the tick of a second hand, Cole had erased a potentially deadly threat with deadly action of his own.

If he'd had reason, after the near escape of Gideon Porter, to doubt his having acquired the spirit power of the grizzly, he now could wonder whether he might not have come by it after all.

Two mounds of stones surmounted with saddles marked the resting places of the two men who had chanced to express a desire to steal from Bladen Cole. The single word marked on each cross adorning those graves succinctly expressed the reason for which they were now at rest: “Thief.”

The wind had picked up considerably by the time that the three men resumed their ride. About a quarter mile into this journey, they noticed an object tumbling through the brush near their route. It was an especially large hat that was quite tall in the crown.