Bodie knew he allowed his recklessness get the better of him at times. He let himself be lead by the feelings of the moment rather than by taking time to consider what he was letting himself in for. Even so he knew that this time around, whatever the outcome, he was not riding away. Almost from the moment he had taken out after Thad Monk he had been shot at, lost his horse and generally had a run of bad luck. All which totaled up to leave him a tad upset.
Anyone who knew him would realize that unsettling Bodie was not something to be considered. In this case the Monk clan did not know Bodie. But they were going to and any that survived would be able to sit back and realized the error of their ways.
As he pushed his borrowed horse back towards the Monk spread Bodie took time to work on the situation. He had no idea what had caused the outbreak of gunfire he had heard. There would easily be a number of explanations. When he thought about them he couldn’t see any that might be of benefit to himself. The last thing he needed was to get himself caught up in some dispute not of his own making.
He acknowledged the shooting might have been from some other lawful group come up the mountain to deal with the Monk clan. They were no bunch of peace lovers, more along the lines of a reclusive clan of mountain dwellers who expected to be left alone and who protected their own and who would not welcome strangers. Something not unheard of when it came to these mountain dwellers. The possibilities were numerous. All he wanted was to get his hands on Thad Monk so he could haul him, dead or alive, back to collect the bounty.
There were times, he decided, when a man had to deal with all kinds of distractions just to earn himself an honest dollar. This was one of them. It seemed Bodie was going to have to wade through more than his fair share of them before he got his hands on Thaddeus Monk.
He pushed on, telling himself he would come through this damn mess in the end. He’d been riding the bounty trail for too long to allow a few setbacks to make him quit. In truth Bodie never did quit. It wasn’t in his nature to give in just because things became rough.
Bodie let his thoughts take him back to the previous encounter with the Monk clan when he had approached the house. If he was going to revisit the place he needed to go in with less of a fanfare, using some stealth, and to that end he decided he would ride around the place and come in from a less than direct point. He reined the horse west, figuring to make a wide approach and tackle the homestead from the far side. It would mean an longer ride but Bodie never concerned himself with time limits. Better to make a slower approach than catch a fast bullet.
He felt the hot sun on him as he rode. A shade more comfortable than the sudden rain storm of the previous day. The horse had no quarrel with the slow pace of travel. The day had taken on a quieter aspect and Bodie was never one to argue with that. His man hunting life had a habit of becoming dark and violent when things were on the move and right now was no exception.