Bounty Hunter (9781101611975) (20 page)

“When I saw you, I guessed that he might have sent you to check up on me . . . check up on how I was doing with this job he gave me.”

“Well, I guess you guessed very, very
wrong
, Mr. Cole.”

“Why
are
you here, then . . . making yourself the target of two men who aimed to kill us three and probably now aim to kill you as well?”

“Let's just say that I have a strong interest in seeing justice done,” she said, looking at him with disdain. “Unlike
you
, Mr. Cole . . . I am not here because of a substantial sum of money.”

“Well, I won't say I'm
not
doing it for the money . . .” Cole began.

“That's because you
can't
say that,” she finished, biting back. “At least you can't say it with a straight face.”

“If the
only
reason I have for being in this situation is the reward money, then I would have made what I'm doing a helluva . . . pardon me for my language in front of a lady . . . lot easier.”

“Apology accepted, though I've heard worse,” Hannah said sternly without looking at him. “How?” Hannah asked after a long pause. “How,
exactly
could you have made this any
easier
?”

“The warrant says ‘dead or alive,'” he began.

“Yes, I'm well aware of that detail.”

“Then you can probably imagine how much
easier
it would have been for me to bring Porter and Goode back like old Enoch. Without going through all the details, my life would have been a helluva lot easier with these cantankerous fools dead rather than alive.”

“Why then, Mr. Cole?” she asked. “Why did you decide to do it the
hard
way?”

“Let's just say that I
also
have a strong interest in seeing justice done.”

The canyon narrowed once again, bringing an interruption to their conversation which left many questions yet unanswered.

Chapter 26

“T
HANK YOU,
M
R.
C
OLE,” SHE SAID CRISPLY, TRYING TO
maintain her facade of practical aloofness.

Late in the afternoon, the bounty hunter had offered her a slice of buffalo jerky. Hannah Ransdell was starving but tried her best
not
to appear so. She wished to deny him the satisfaction of knowing both how unprepared she had been for this venture and how much she appreciated his gesture.

She had lost her appetite after the anxiety of shooting Lyle Blake, but pent-up hunger had overtaken her and had dogged her for the past several hours. The meat tasted really good.

Hannah knew why
she
wanted Gideon Porter brought back alive, by why did
Cole
?

She had ridden to her rendezvous predisposed to his being merely a mercenary craving a reward, but his words suggested that there was more to it than she had believed.

It had surprised her greatly, and frankly confused her, that the bounty hunter had made a conscious decision to deliver at least part of the Porter boys' gang
alive
rather than
dead
. In this, his purpose coincided with her own—but she could not imagine
why
.

On the other hand, it annoyed her greatly to have heard him insinuate that she was the mere instrument of her
father
and that her motives in wishing to preserve the lives of Jimmy Goode and that detestable Gideon Porter were in the service of Isham Ransdell's interests—when exactly the
opposite
was true.

As the miles went by, the wind picked up, and with it a cold chill, although in its blowing it seemed to have parted the clouds, and there were now a few patches of blue showing.

“If it's any measure of consolation, Miss Ransdell,” the bounty hunter said, “I don't think these men will try to attack us until after the sun goes down.

“Did I say that I needed consoling, Mr. Cole?” Hannah asked scornfully.

“The way that you've been biting at your lip when you look back at those yonder hills makes me think as much,” he said with a slight smile.

As much as she resented the bounty hunter's verbal prods, she resented herself more for interrupting her resentment to admire the way his beard was taking shape.

“I would have to say that their presence in those hills concerns me a bit, as I suspect it does you as well,” she said.

In fact, it troubled her greatly that Lyle Blake and Joe Clark were still out there somewhere stalking them. Her original plan, the plan which had taken shape back in Gallatin City when things seemed much simpler, had been to alert the bounty hunter and let him do whatever it was that gunmen did to relieve themselves of a threat. Instead, she too was now among the hunted.

“Yes, ma'am, I would be a liar to say that it is not a bother to me as well. Tonight worries me even more. Rascals like that are like the cowardly in the animal world who get their kills by attacking the unsuspecting under cover of darkness.”

“I am
certainly
aware of that particular vexation,” she said, referencing without describing her overnight wolf kill. She thought of mentioning it but decided such a tale would seem so improbable that he would take it as fabricated bragging, and it would therefore undermine the image of usefulness she hoped to cultivate in their mutual endeavor.

“I expect we'll have no shortage of vexations tonight, Miss Ransdell,” he replied.

*   *   *

A
FTERNOONS DON'T LAST LONG IN THE MONTHS WHEN THE
cold winds begin to blow, and the clouds through which the patches of blue had appeared were starting to take on the golden hue that would precede the dreaded twilight.

Below and ahead of them now lay broad, open country stretching down toward the confluence of Sixteen Mile Creek and the Missouri. They were now less than a day's ride from their final destination, and Hannah could see the sense of relief in the bounty hunter's eyes.

Her eyes followed his, looking back into the Big Horn Mountains and the canyon of Sixteen Mile Creek, as though they were putting a monster behind them.

“I half expected that your friends wouldn't let us get this far,” he said, glancing at the surrounding hillsides. “Your description of them as ‘cesspool-bred thugs' suggests to me that you're just writing them off as fools. I would not have thought that of them, given that their ambush showed a certain amount of foresight in the planning.”

“I did not mean to suggest that they were not wily in their conniving,” Hannah clarified, “only that they were scum of the earth.”

“Scum or not, I hadn't taken them for fools,” Cole replied. “If the tables were turned, I would have thought it foolish to let us get this far.”

“I thought you said that you didn't figure on them attacking us until after nightfall,” she said.

“Didn't think it more than a fifty-fifty chance, so I didn't want to worry you.”

“
You didn't want to worry me?
”

“No. Didn't much want to worry
me
either, I 'spect. We still got the most worrying time ahead of us. After nightfall will be the time when a man can slink up out of the darkness and not be seen coming on a distant ridge beyond rifle range.”

“I don't appreciate your
keeping
things from me, Mr. Cole. I thought that we were in this
together
.

“We have both taken fire from these men, and we are
both
being hunted by them. I cannot abide you withholding information from me because you find me too fragile to take the worry.”

“I don't much care for you keeping
me
in the dark either, Miss Ransdell,” the bounty hunter replied with unexpected sharpness.

“What exactly do you mean by
that
?” Hannah replied defensively.

“I mean that Isham Ransdell's daughter shows up out of nowhere this morning with a chip on her shoulder as big as all outdoors . . . and tells me all coy-like that she's here to ‘see justice done' and nothing more. If this ain't something to make a man wonder, I don't know what is.”

“I am not being
coy
, Mr. Cole, and I am not lying when I say that I
am
here to see that these men get back to Gallatin City alive. That is the
only
reason I am here. If I hurt your feelings by making you think there's a chip on my shoulder, that's just
too bad
. I'm certainly not here to shelter your feelings.”

She could feel her face growing red with indignation.

“It would be a lot easier on my feelings to ride with a less ornery companion,” he said with a smile, reacting to her suddenly flushed complexion.

“Nor am I here to brighten your day, Mr. Cole, but to do
my part
in seeing that our common purpose is accomplished.”

“Then you can tell me the
whole
truth about what's going on, Miss Ransdell?” he said, the smile gone from his face. “I suspect there is
some
truth in what you've said, but I suspect it to be
half truth
, and half truth is just the same as half
untruth
.”

“I have
not
lied to you, Mr. Cole.”

“Then tell me the part that's a half lie by its
not
being told.”

“What do you mean by
that
?”

“I mean the part about you being Isham Ransdell's daughter . . . and him being absent from the room when those shootings took place.”

Hannah felt as though the jaws of the wolf had seized her windpipe.

“What . . . makes you think . . . ?” she said, gasping and grasping for words as the tears welled up in her eyes.

Her father!

“Guess I touched a nerve,” the bounty hunter said. “I can tell by your manner that we
both
know that the crazy notion that those people were shot over some trifle wrong that Blaine did to Gideon Porter is just a load of bull, and I will not apologize for strong language, because it serves my point.”

“Which is?”

“That I figured out a long way back down the trail that Porter and his bunch got paid to do the shooting. And on his deathbed, Milton Waller
told
me so. I assume your daddy got my letter from Fort Benton?”

“Yes . . . There was nothing about . . .”

“Of course there wasn't,” the bounty hunter said pointedly. “Would not have told your father what Waller said under any circumstance. But his words stuck with me since that night . . . and men don't tell lies on their deathbeds.”

“What . . . ?” Hannah started to ask, fearing the worst.

“His words included something about a ‘railroad,' and that there were four partners . . . three had to die . . . and only one could survive. We both know who among the four was
not
there.”

Partners. Her father. The railroad again!

In the back of her mind, Hannah had hoped some evidence might emerge to the contrary of her worst fears, but instead, there was only this cold, hard confirmation, and also now the fact that the bounty hunter
knew
.

She turned her head, frantically wiping the tears from her cheek with a gloved hand.

“Once again, Miss Ransdell, why did your father send you out here?”

“Once
again
, Mr. Cole,” she gulped between sobs as she reached for her handkerchief. “He
did not send me
.”

“I guess what I've just said comes as a pretty big surprise then,” he said, taunting her, watching her wipe her face.

“No, Mr. Cole,” she said, blowing her nose. “It does
not
come as a surprise. I too have seen evidence of my father's hand in this tragedy.”

“Oh . . .”

It was his turn to be startled.

“Are you too blind to see that
this
is why I came all the way out here to make sure that those two men riding up ahead of us . . . hopefully hearing little of our conversation . . . that those two, especially Gideon Porter, did not die before they could point their
fingers
 . . .”

“Point their fingers at your
father
?”

“At the
truth
, Mr. Cole. Point them at the truth . . . whatever it is . . . whatever terrible, sordid facts surround it. I cannot live or work with my father without knowing the
truth
.”

“The last time we crossed paths, you thought your father not being there was just a fortunate accident. What was . . . ?”

“What changed was the
damned
railroad . . . and I will not apologize to
you
, Mr. Cole, for strong language,” Hannah said, regaining her composure. “The railroad will be coming to Gallatin City, and it will need land owned jointly by the four partners . . . whose arrangement has them inheriting the shares of partners who die. I've uncovered the same facts which you uncovered at the bedside of Milton Waller.”

“I see . . .”

“What I discovered was suspicious, but open to interpretations. It is, as the lawyers call it, ‘circumstantial' evidence,” Hannah admitted. “However, when I saw my father's cursed ‘right-hand man,' Mr. Edward J. Olson, speaking to Lyle Blake and Joe Clark, within hours of their coming to kill
you
, this was the evidence which made the other evidence
damning
evidence.”

“I reckon . . .” the bounty hunter said, “I reckon we both had the same reason for wanting those two to live long enough to see Gallatin City.”

“I reckon that's so, Mr. Cole,” Hannah said. “Now, are you going to tell me what you have learned from speaking with Gideon Porter? As I assume you have spoken to him on this matter.”

“He has been even less willing to discuss it than
you
were earlier today,” Cole explained. “Though he does insist that he has friends in high places who won't let him hang.”

“Who? What
friends
?”

“Didn't say,” the bounty hunter replied with a shrug.

“You didn't
press him
?” Hannah asked with surprise. “Why didn't you press him to tell you? Weren't you the least bit curious?”

“You mean why did I not
beat
it out of him?”

“Well . . .”

“It's not my job. My job is to bring him in. It doesn't matter what he tells
me
. It doesn't matter what I say to anyone about what he told me. It matters what he says when he rides into Gallatin City. What matters is the look on their faces when he comes face-to-face with . . .”

“
My father
,” Hannah said, completing his sentence.

“Yeah.”

*   *   *

H
ANNAH
R
ANSDELL FELT A DEEP AND BROODING SENSE OF
foreboding as the sun sank into the clouds on the horizon and darkness rapidly enveloped what was left of the day. To have had her worst fears confirmed by the suppositions of the bounty hunter and the deathbed words of Milton Waller caused her great anguish and despair.