A team of six horses strained in their rigging, pulling the stagecoach toward the way station at the top of the slope.
“Looks like we’ll be on time for a change,” Del O’Connell, the driver, shouted over the pounding horses’ hooves.
Warfield Hunter, riding shotgun, smiled and shouted in return, “If we get back to Lost Creek before nightfall, it’ll be the first time we finished a run on time since I took this job.”
“Hell!” laughed O’Connell. “You’ve only been workin’ three weeks. I’ve been ridin’ this stage-line for better than three years and this’ll only be the fourth time for me.”
Hunter laughed along with O’Connell and then glanced at the way station up ahead. They would change horses there for the last time. After that, it was a straight line for home.
It was also a straight line to Ella Phillips.
As much as Hunter loved the sight of fast moving white clouds scudding across a big blue sky; as much as he loved the wide open plains and the sight of a long green valley from high up on a mountain ridge ... none of that could quite compare to being in a closed, darkened room with Ella. And she was waiting for him back in Lost Creek.
The stage finally topped the slope and came to a halt in front of the way station next to the corral. Neither Joe Tilden nor his son came out to help with the horses. That wasn’t like the Tildens. Either Joe or his boy, Brian, were always out front to greet them. O’Connell, who knew the Tildens well, didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
“Think maybe they’re sick?” O’Connell asked Hunter, trying to put the best face on the situation that he could.
“They looked healthy enough when we came through here two days ago,” said Hunter. “I’ll go take a look while you tend the horses.”
With shotgun in hand, Hunter jumped down from the coach and walked toward the silent sod house.
There are all kinds of quiet. There’s the peaceful quiet of people sleeping, the tranquil quiet of empty places, and then there’s that special quiet full of tension, the silence poised between when the rattle stops and the snake lunges forward to bite.
Hunter was too long a man of the frontier to mistake this kind of stillness. There was trouble in the air, but what it was he could not guess.
The one room sod house was without windows, so all he could do was open the door and go inside.
He was careful to open it only a crack, but that wasn’t careful enough. The door suddenly flew open in his face, and he found the muzzle of a six-gun pointing straight at his chest.
The man holding the gun on Hunter was standing sideways, holding one pistol on him and a second pistol, in his other hand, at two men who stood against the far wall. Joe Tilden and his son were lying on the floor, looking at Hunter, terror clearly showing on their faces.
“Who are you?” demanded the gunman.
“The name’s Hunter. I ride shotgun for the stage,” he answered coolly, betraying no fear in his voice. “And who might you be, mister?”
The stranger ignored Hunter’s question. Instead, he glanced at Joe Tilden, lying on the floor, and asked, “Is he telling the truth?”
Tilden nodded his head.
“Okay,” said the gunman, “get inside here and lie down on the floor next to the old man and the boy.”
“What’s this all about?” asked Hunter, not moving.
“None of your damn business. Just do as I tell you.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll put a bullet in you and that’ll be the end of it. Now do like I say.”
Hunter had no choice. He crossed over the threshold and into the house, leaning his shotgun up against the wall near the stranger before lying down on the floor next to the Tildens.
The stranger holstered one of his guns and then turned his attention to the two young men who stood against the far wall.
“As you see, I’m not takin’ any chances. No tellin’ when one of your gang might show up and try to help you two escape.”
“We ain’t part a’ no gang,” pleaded the taller one of the two. “This is all a mistake. Dave and me didn’t even know we was wanted back in Lost Creek ’til today. We was on our way back there all on our own. I swear it!”
The stranger’s lips curled up into an unpleasant smile. “No,” he whispered softly, “I think you’re part of a gang. I think you’re two very dangerous killers. I think I’m gonna have a hard time bringin’ you boys in alive.”
The other man, the one named Dave, said, “Bobby and me aren’t gonna be any trouble. We want to go back. Just take it easy, will you?”
“Take it easy?” the stranger laughed. “Well, the easiest thing for me is to lay you two boys over a saddle and bring you into Lost Creek stiff and cold. After all,” he snickered, “the poster says ‘Dead or Alive.’”
Bobby turned completely pale. “We didn’t do anything wrong!” he wailed. “We was only tryin’ to put the fire out! That’s all! I swear, that’s all!”
The stranger sidled over away from the door, closer to where Hunter and the Tildens were lying on the floor, silently taunting the wanted men to make a dash for the opening.
No one moved.
“Yeah,” said the stranger softly. “Out there on the trail, no tellin’ what might happen. I see somebody comin’, I’m liable to figure it’s part of your gang and I’d just have to do the safe thing—you know, take it the easy way—and blow both your heads off. I sure couldn’t let a couple of murderers like you get away. Yeah. That’s what I’d have to do.”
Hunter could see what the bounty hunter was up to—he wanted those two men to make a run for it. Hunter didn’t know if they were innocent or guilty, but he figured those two men deserved their day in court. Somehow or other he had to keep the bounty hunter from killing them. The best thing to do was to try and calm them down so they wouldn’t do anything rash.
As Hunter was about to speak, from just outside the door, Del O’Connell suddenly called out, “Is everything all right in there?”
The bounty hunter turned as if he was startled. That was all it took. Bobby broke for the door, trying to knock the bounty hunter down on his way out, hoping he could get out of the house without getting shot.
He wasn’t halfway across the room before the bounty hunter had turned back to face him. Bobby tried to stop. He put up his hands. “No! Wait!” he yelled. But the bounty hunter calmly pulled the trigger of his Colt and Bobby’s chest seemed to break apart as the slug shattered his sternum and sent fragments of bone and lead slicing through his chest.
Bobby was still falling, but even before he hit the floor, the bounty hunter turned the muzzle of his gun on the second man. Without any hesitation, he fired.
Seeing the fate of his friend, at the last instant, Dave dove for cover behind the woodpile next to the fireplace. He didn’t make it. The bounty hunter was too fast for him. A bullet slammed into Dave’s thigh, tearing through flesh and ripping the muscle. The pain was sharp and intense, but Dave, nonetheless, kept crawling toward the cover of the woodpile.
The bounty hunter chuckled at the wanted man’s useless struggle. “Looks to me like you’re tryin’ to get away,” he said as he thumbed back the hammer of his Colt ...
As soon as the bullet that had killed Bobby was fired, Hunter had rolled behind the bounty hunter and grabbed the shotgun that he’d left leaning against the wall.
With the second shot, the one that crippled Dave, Hunter was up on his feet.
With the click of the bounty hunter’s hammer being pulled back, Hunter made his last desperate move. In one swift motion he lunged forward and bashed the heavy iron barrel of his shotgun against the back of the bounty hunter’s head. The force of the blow knocked the bounty hunter flat on his face, the Colt in his hand firing harmlessly into the floor.
Del O’Connell barged through the door, a pistol in his hands, looking for someone to shoot at, but the one-room sod house, beclouded now with gun smoke, was no longer a battlefield.
“Keep your gun on him,” said Hunter to O’Connell, gesturing toward the unconscious figure of the bounty hunter.
“Who is he?” asked the stage driver.
Joe Tilden’s son, Brian, spoke up and said, “He’s a bounty hunter. Said his name is Bledsoe. Isn’t that what he said, Pa? Bledsoe?”
“Yeah,” agreed the boy’s father. “And he’s a mean sonofabitch. No two ways about it.”
Hunter had heard that name before. A man with a reputation like Bledsoe’s gets to be pretty well known. But the bounty hunter wasn’t on his mind just then. The wounded man by the woodpile was his first concern.
Hunter kept his shotgun trained on the still struggling outlaw. It made no difference that Hunter had saved the young man’s life. The fact remained that this kid named Dave was a wanted man, and therefore he was not to be trusted.
“I’ve got to stop that leg of yours from bleeding,” said Hunter. “If you try anything I’m gonna put your head right through the floor. You understand what I’m sayin’?”
The kid swallowed and nodded.
Hunter put his shotgun down about three or four feet away, then proceeded to tie a tourniquet around the wound till the flow of blood slowed to a trickle and then finally stopped.
“I’m obliged,” said the kid wearily.
“You’re still going to Lost Creek,” Hunter admonished him. “The fact that Bledsoe is out cold doesn’t change anything.”
“I know,” the kid answered softly. “I just wish Bobby was comin’ with me. He died for nothin’. We were tellin’ that bounty hunter the truth. We didn’t do nothin’ except try to put that fire out.”
“I’m not the judge and jury, kid. I’m not the one you have to convince.”
“I know ... but what am I gonna tell Bobby’s ma? What’s gonna happen to Mrs. Winslow? She was countin’ on Bobby.”
There was nothing Hunter could say except that life was seldom fair. And that was anything but news. Hunter just shook his head.
“What are we gonna do about this Bledsoe feller?” questioned O’Connell.
“Is he coming around?” asked Hunter.
“Nope. It’s my guess he’s gonna be sleepin’ for quite a while.”
“Then we’ll throw him in the coach with the kid here.”
“What about him?” said O’Connell, pointing at the lifeless Bobby Winslow.
“He’s Bledsoe’s blood money and I guess we’ve got to bring him in,” Hunter answered. “I’ll throw him over a horse and tie him down. As a matter of fact,” he added, “just to make sure they don’t kill each other inside the coach, let’s tie up Bledsoe and the kid, too.”
“Bledsoe isn’t going to like that,” warned Joe Tilden.
Hunter smiled for the first time since walking into that sod house and said, “After that bust in the head, Bledsoe won’t need anything like a little hog-tying to make him mad. He’s plenty mad already.”
“Yeah,” said Tilden. “He’s mad at you.”
“There’s no profit for Bledsoe in hating a man whose death won’t bring him a reward. He’ll likely take his bounty money, swallow his hate, and move on.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Tilden, looking down at the unconscious bounty hunter.
“Sure he’s right,” O’Connell said stoutly. “Now how about we get a move on? I’ll be damned if we’re gonna get into Lost Creek late again!”