Chapter 7

“Whaddaya think, Lonnie?” Yancey Brooks reined back to let Lonnie pull up beside him.

“I don’t know. Looks like a tradin’ post or somethin’,” Lonnie said. “Sizable outfit, ain’t it?” Both men were traveling in country they were not familiar with. Judging from the size of the waterway, however, they felt certain that they were looking at the Arkansas River several hundred yards ahead of them. From the ridge they were on, they could see that the river made a double turn, forming a U-shaped bend with a cluster of small buildings nestled in the bottom of the U.

“He knows this damn country,” Yancey said, “so I’m bettin’ he was headin’ for that place on the river. That’s gotta be the reason he’s been holdin’ to a straight line across the territory.” Although it had been apparent that Grayson had not taken pains to hide his trail, it had become harder and harder to follow. A day and a half of rain had done its part to erase some of the tracks, forcing the two assassins to gamble on long stretches where there were none.

“He must know the folks that run that place. I reckon there’s one way to find out,” Lonnie said, and gave his horse a nudge with his heels. “Maybe if we’re lucky, this is where we’ll catch up with him. We’d best look that place over pretty good before we go ridin’ in, though—look them horses over in that corral to see if Billy’s Appaloosa’s in with ’em. We don’t wanna spook Grayson if he sees us comin’ and runs.”

“Hell, we’ll just ride right on in,” Yancey disagreed. “I ain’t ever seen Grayson. Have you?” When Lonnie said that he had not, Yancey exclaimed, “Then, hell, he ain’t ever seen us neither. He don’t know we’re comin’ after him.”

Lonnie considered it for a moment. “I hadn’t thought about that,” he finally confessed.

*   *   *

Robert Walking Stick paused on his way from the barn to look at the two riders approaching from the west. Each man was leading one horse with no saddle and no packs. His first thought was that they were probably coming to see John Polsgrove with selling the horses in mind. He knew that Polsgrove bought horses from time to time, but he expected the two riders to be disappointed, because John had just acquired some extra horses as a result of the Pawnee raid two days before. Robert went on into the store to tell his aunt Belle that someone was coming. “Got some customers, Aunt Belle,” he sang out when he didn’t find her in the store.

Belle came in from the living quarters behind the store after having just given her husband his dinner. She wiped her hands on her apron and walked to the door to look at the riders. “Ain’t nobody I ever see before,” she said. She turned to address her nephew. “Your dinner’s on the table in the kitchen. If you don’t eat it pretty soon, it’s gonna be too cold.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Robert replied. “I’m goin’ after it right now.”

She watched him till he went through the door, thinking how fortunate she and John were to have his help. Robert was a hard-working boy—never had to be told what to do. He saw things that needed doing and he jumped right on them. He had a few run-ins with the Indian Police, but nothing really bad, just things that young boys get into. He had access to some illegal alcohol from time to time and had raised a little hell in the village on a couple of occasions. But Belle figured that was nothing more than the natural warrior blood of his ancestors. Although it caused concern for his mother, her sister, it merely made Belle smile. She walked over and closed the door to the house, then went back to the end of the counter to await the riders.

Right from the start, she had cautious feelings about the two strangers. There was something about the way they paused at the door to look the room over before entering. And when she asked what she could do for them, she didn’t get a reply right away. Instead, they continued to scan the room as if there might be someone hiding behind the counter, or behind the stack of flour sacks in the corner. “We’re government agents,” Lonnie finally said, thinking to use the same farce that seemed to work for them before.

Belle Prairie Flower Polsgrove was not the simple Indian woman they took her for, however. “Government agents?” she asked. “What kind of government agents?” Her reply left Lonnie speechless. He looked to Yancey for help.

“The kind that puts people in jail,” Yancey said.

“Nobody here need to go to jail,” Belle replied. “You wanna buy something?” At that moment, the door to the house opened, causing both men to jump, their hands on their pistols, to startle a curious Robert, who simply wanted to see what they wanted. Belle was immediately alerted to a possible robbery attempt. “Don’t shoot Robert,” she said, almost without emotion, and she took a couple of steps to the side to stand next to her rifle propped at the corner of the counter. “He don’t do nothing wrong.”

Yancey relaxed and forced a smile. “Nah, we ain’t lookin’ for Robert. We’re chasin’ a killer name of Grayson, and we think he was here.”

Belle frowned. “Grayson ain’t no killer. You after the wrong man. Maybe you need some supplies—coffee beans, flour, dried beans—we got all that.”

“No, dammit, we don’t need no supplies,” Yancey responded. “Now, was Grayson here or not?”

Belle wasn’t about to give men as phony as these two any information about Grayson. Whatever they were up to, it wasn’t good. She edged a little closer to her rifle. “People all the time come in here—we don’t ask no name. I don’t ask your name.”

“A minute ago you said Grayson wasn’t no killer,” Yancey said. “Now you say you don’t even know his name.” He waited for her explanation, but she only shrugged. It was plain to see that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with the impassive Indian woman, so Yancey shifted his attention to the boy standing in the doorway. “How ’bout you, boy? You see a couple of fellers—one of ’em ridin’ an Appaloosa, and most likely had his hands in irons?” Robert hesitated to answer. Having witnessed the reactions of the two men when he opened the door, he wasn’t sure how to answer. After another moment with no response, Yancey threatened. “Boy, I asked you a question, and if I don’t get an answer right now, I’m liable to start shootin’ this place to pieces.”

That was enough for Belle. Before Robert could answer, she picked up her rifle and rested it on the counter before her. “You start shooting and I shoot you,” she warned. “Now maybe you get on your horse and ride away.”

“Why, you ornery ol’ bitch,” Yancey responded, “put that rifle down, or I’ll blow your head off.” When she made no move to follow his orders, he said, “There’s two of us, so even if you got one of us, you ain’t quick enough to cock that thing before the other’n gets you. So put it down,” he demanded.

“Maybe she don’t have to get but one of you.” The words came from Big John Polsgrove, standing behind Robert in the doorway, his shotgun resting on the boy’s shoulder. Awakened by the sound of angry voices, he had struggled out of his bed and made his way to the door to lean against the jamb. “Which one you gonna shoot if they go for them pistols, Belle?”

“I shoot the big one, doing all the talking,” Belle said with a slight smirk. “He’s a big target, no chance to miss.”

“Good enough,” John said, “I’ll take the other’n. All right, boys, either go for them guns, or get the hell outta my store.”

Time stood still for a frozen moment with both Yancey and Lonnie weighing their odds in the standoff. It didn’t take a great deal of thought for both men to realize they had no chance to draw their weapons before being cut down. Finally Yancey admitted defeat. “All right,” he said. “You got the upper hand this time. Me and my partner will walk out the door. Ain’t no need for anybody to get shot.” He looked at Lonnie, who still appeared to be caught in indecision. “Come on, Lonnie, let’s leave these folks be.” He held his hands out before him to show his intentions were peaceful, and turned toward the front door. Lonnie followed.

As soon as the two gunmen went out the door, John started to sag against the door jamb, having held on for as long as he could. Robert was able to get a shoulder under him before he went to the floor. Belle ran from behind the counter to help. “Watch ’em, Belle,” John gasped, a growing stain of crimson spreading on his shirt. “Watch ’em,” he warned.

“I watch ’em,” she said. “Robert, get him back to bed.” She took but a second to make sure Robert was enough support to get her giant-sized husband back to his bed. Like John, she had a feeling they weren’t through with the two strangers claiming to be government agents. So her rifle still in hand, she hurried over to take a position behind the stack of flour sacks piled up in the corner opposite the counter where she could watch the door.

Outside, the tempers were hot, fueled by the humiliating defeat at the hands of the Indian woman and her husband. Had they known that her husband was on the verge of collapse, they might not have backed down. As they stood ready to climb on their horses, Yancey glanced back to notice that no one was even standing in the door to make sure they left. “That Injun bitch,” he muttered. “She’s stuck in my craw, and that’s a fact.”

“Mine, too,” Lonnie said. “I’m thinkin’ about throwin’ a few shots through that door before I ride off.”

“There ain’t nobody watchin’ the door,” Yancey pointed out. “We could shoot the place up before they knew what hit ’em.” It was all the encouragement Lonnie needed. He nodded and drew his .44 from his holster, and they both suddenly charged through the door with guns blazing.

With both men concentrating their fire on the counter, after first discovering there was no longer anyone standing in the doorway to the house, their barrage succeeded in shooting holes in the front of the counter and the shelves behind. So intent upon their surprise attack, neither man noticed the Winchester rifle resting on the top sack of flour on the pile in the opposite corner of the room—or the Indian woman carefully taking aim on the one man who had stepped all the way inside the room. The unlucky man was Lonnie, and he let out a grunt and staggered backward into Yancey when the slug from Belle’s rifle slammed into his chest. Yancey escaped injury when Lonnie unintentionally shielded him from the second shot that struck not six inches from the first. Not wishing the same as his partner, Yancey ran for the horses. Lonnie, still on his feet, staggered drunkenly after him, and managed to grab the saddle horn when his horse started to follow Yancey’s. The two extra horses were left behind in the panic to escape out of rifle range.

Yancey did not look back until reaching cover in the trees along the river. Only then did he realize that Lonnie was still alive. The wounded man, unable to lift himself into the saddle, was holding on desperately to his saddle horn while his horse dragged him along, his feet plowing the dust as he went. After taking a look behind them to make sure there was no pursuit, Yancey pulled to a stop and dismounted to help Lonnie up in the saddle. “Damn, partner, I thought you was in the saddle,” he lied. “I didn’t know you was hit that bad.” Once Lonnie was settled, Yancey put the reins in his hand and asked, “Can you ride?”

“I damn-sure will,” Lonnie gasped. “I ain’t stayin’ here.” He fell over on his horse’s neck.

Yancey hesitated a moment to make sure Lonnie was going to stay on, and when it appeared that he was, he hurried back to his horse and mounted. “Let’s get the hell outta here,” he said, and started off at a gallop. He didn’t ride more than half a mile before reining the horse back to a fast walk and waiting for Lonnie to catch up. “You ain’t lookin’ too good,” he told him when his horse pulled up beside his. Lonnie could only shake his head slowly as he suffered through his pain. Yancey took a longer look at him, trying to decide what to do. “Well,” he said, “we might as well find us a place to camp, since we ain’t got but one horse apiece now. We’ll let ’em rest tonight and see how you’re feelin’ in the mornin’.” This was welcome news to Lonnie, because he knew he couldn’t stay on his horse much longer.

Yancey picked a place to camp close to the water’s edge, and helped Lonnie settle himself next to a cottonwood trunk for support. “I’ll take care of the horses. Then I’ll take a look at them wounds,” he said. With the horses watered and hobbled, he returned to build a fire before tending to Lonnie’s needs. “Two of ’em,” he muttered, looking at the twin holes in Lonnie’s chest. “Both of ’em bleedin’ like hell. There ain’t nothin’ I can do for you. Looks like they both went deep inside.” He was fairly satisfied that his partner was a goner, but he didn’t want to tell him that. Lonnie had a coughing fit that lasted for a couple of minutes before he was again able to control it. However, the coughing brought up a small quantity of blood that ran down the corner of Lonnie’s mouth and into his chin whiskers. That was enough to confirm Yancey’s suspicions. “We’ll see how you feel in the mornin’ after you’ve had a little rest.” He made him as comfortable as he could, even tried to feed him something, but Lonnie couldn’t eat without a choking sensation, so Yancey let him rest.

In an effort to take his mind off his pain, for Lonnie was groaning with every breath, Yancey rambled on about his plans for them to continue the search for Grayson. “We ain’t got no tracks to follow, but I figure he was plannin’ to follow the river right on into Fort Smith. He’s been trying to swing wide, so nobody would look for him this far north, but he’d be a damn fool to keep goin’ east now, past the river. He’s got to cut back sometime, and this is where he’s doin’ it. I’d bet my share of that reward on it.” He paused to see how Lonnie was doing, and the suffering man could only groan. Yancey decided he wasn’t hearing a thing he said.

Somewhat to Yancey’s disappointment, his partner was still alive the next morning, and determined to gut it out in the saddle, although he still could not eat. “You just help me up in the saddle,” Lonnie said, “and I’ll make it all right.”

“Damn, partner,” Yancey told him, “I wasn’t sure you’d make it through the night, but you must be tougher’n a bull elk. We’ll get saddled up and get on down this river. We’ll catch that son of a bitch before long.” He decided to make an effort to remain positive in hopes of encouraging Lonnie to gut it out. He was sure they had been rapidly closing the gap between themselves and Grayson, and he was reluctant to lose what they might have already gained.

The ride was hard on the wounded man that day, but he stubbornly held on, determined to make it until dusk. Before, they had ridden on into the night, but they had to be more concerned with their horses now. So when they came upon a bend in the river that looked like it was made for camping, Yancey suggested they stop there for the night. There was ample evidence that testified to the fact that the spot they picked was a popular one. After he got Lonnie reclined against a tree, he looked around the area to see what he could find. There were six or eight spots where campfires had been, their ashes dead and gray now, but some were more recent. Farther down the riverbank, he found a recent camp, indeed, for there were horse droppings that still looked moist, almost fresh. Somebody was here not long ago, he thought. Then a hoofprint in the sand by the water caught his attention, and his heart skipped a beat, for the edges were sharp, like the ones he and Lonnie had been following. Billy’s Appaloosa, he thought, I’m sure of it! He couldn’t believe his luck. It was unusual to find the edges on those shoes still fairly sharp after traveling so many miles. More likely they had stumbled upon somebody else’s trail who had recently had his horse shod. “No, hell, no!” he said defiantly. “That was Billy’s horse that left these tracks!” They were back on Grayson’s trail, and from the looks of the droppings he had found, they weren’t far behind. He hurried back to tell Lonnie about the tracks.

“We’ll get on his trail in the morning,” Lonnie forced through pale lips when Yancey reported his find. His face looked even more haggard than before, but his will was there and he was determined to heal from his wounds. He tried to sip a little bit of coffee, and he went into another of his coughing fits. Yancey studied him carefully, and began to think the situation through. It didn’t take much thought before he came to the conclusion that there were decisions to be made.

In spite of Lonnie’s determination, Yancey wasn’t convinced that his partner was going to make it. The wounds he suffered were deep and involved his inside organs. He wasn’t even confident that a doctor could save him. Hard to say, though, he told himself, I’ve seen some fellows shot to pieces and live to talk about it. He looked again at the suffering man lying next to the tree, trying to find some position that would lessen the pain. And he had to think that it was a hell of a time for Lonnie to get shot, for he was certain now that they had almost overtaken Grayson and Billy. Then he began to feel a little perturbed by the constant moaning that seemed never to cease. He couldn’t help thinking that if Lonnie would go on and die, he could get hot on Grayson’s trail, and he would once again have a spare horse to alternate with his. Mr. Blanchard had offered six hundred dollars to the two of them to get the job done. It seemed to Yancey that the money should be the same, even if just one of them came to collect it. I’ll see how Lonnie passes the night, he thought. We’ve been riding together, on one job or another, for a good many years now.

His thoughts of compassion were interrupted by a loud groan from the wounded man, and he told himself, Ain’t neither one of us gonna get any sleep with that going on. Hell, he’ll likely be dead by morning. There ain’t no sense in letting him keep me awake all night. Thoughts of that six hundred dollars riding farther away from him were enough to make up his mind.

Lonnie rolled his eyes up to gaze mournfully at his partner when Yancey walked over to stand before him. “I’m beholden to you for standin’ by me,” he said, and tried to smile.

“Well, hell, I wouldn’t leave you out here on the prairie to die,” Yancey replied. “How you feelin’? Is it gettin’ any better?”

“I’m gonna make it,” Lonnie answered. “I think I’m a little bit better, but I’m still hurtin’ right smart.”

“I think I can fix that,” Yancey said, and whipped out his .44 Colt and shot the surprised man in the head. He intended to put the bullet right between his eyes, but Lonnie had tried to turn away in that last fatal instant causing the bullet to hit him in the side of the head, right at the temple. The recoil banged his head against the tree trunk, and he slumped in death. “No hard feelin’s,” Yancey said, “but you was slowin’ me down.” He went about stripping the body of anything useful to him, then looked around to determine where best to drag it out of the way. Making a quick decision, he grabbed Lonnie’s feet and dragged him over to the embankment of the river, and rolled him over the edge to drop about four feet to rest on the sand at the water’s edge. With that chore done, he went back to the fire he had built and began to cut some bacon to put in his frying pan.

He lay down to sleep that night feeling satisfied to roll up in his blanket without the constant groaning of his late partner to keep him awake. Sleep did not come easily, however, and when it did, it was not for long, for he was wide awake long before sunup. He told himself that he was just too anxious to get started on Grayson’s trail in the morning, and that was the reason he found it difficult to wait out the morning light. In truth, however, he found it hard to forget about Lonnie’s body lying below the riverbank. Did he check real closely to make sure Lonnie was dead? How could he be alive with a bullet in his brain? He couldn’t, his common sense told him, and yet he finally got out of his blanket, and with the light of a full moon, walked back to the riverbank to make sure the body hadn’t moved.

Lying face up, the body appeared to meet his gaze, causing him to leap back from the edge of the bank, startled, almost falling down. Regaining some measure of control over his emotions, he moved cautiously up to the edge of the bank and looked again at the cold dead eyes of his late partner staring up in the moonlight to meet his. “Lonnie?” he couldn’t help asking, not sure what he would do if there was a response. When there was none, he breathed a sigh of relief. Then his heart skipped a beat when Lonnie seemed to stir slightly. Yancey’s frightened reaction was to jerk the trigger and shoot the corpse of his friend once more, realizing immediately after that he had just let himself get spooked. “Damn you, Lonnie, you’re dead as you can get. Whaddaya wanna devil me for? You was gonna die anyway.” The corpse shifted slightly again, but this time Yancey realized that the river had risen just enough during the night for water to inch up on the sand and gently rock Lonnie’s body.

There would be no more sleep that night, his nerves having been thoroughly frazzled, but he thought it necessary to wait until sunup to give him a better chance to follow Grayson’s tracks away from the camp. He was still convinced that the bounty hunter was riding the river down to Fort Smith, and he was bound to overtake him before another day, two at the most. But he wanted to see the tracks of his horses leaving the camp to verify it. So he went back to his blanket, built up his fire, and waited for the sun to appear.

*   *   *

“You a religious man, Grayson?” Billy asked, not expecting an answer. Grayson seldom bothered to answer his prisoner’s cocky rambling, but that never seemed to discourage Billy. He did it just to annoy the somber bounty hunter. “Whaddaya reckon it’s gonna be like when one of my brothers puts a bullet in your brain? You reckon there’s gonna be a big ol’ angel waitin’ to take you by the hand—maybe lead you up them golden stairs to a mansion in the sky?” Seated at the base of a cottonwood, his hands tied around the trunk, he watched Grayson preparing their supper. “Maybe it’ll be one of the devil’s boys that comes to meet you instead,” he started again. “That’d be more like it, ’cause there ain’t nothin’ lower than a bounty hunter when it comes to pure scum.” There was still not even a glance in his direction from the object of his taunting. “You’d better hope it’s Slate that gets you. He’ll most likely put a bullet right through your head, make it quick-like, and you’ll be right on your way to hell. Now, if it’s Troy, well, that’ll be a different story. Troy’s got a real nasty streak. He’s gonna wanna kill you slow-like, so he can enjoy it longer.”

Grayson pulled his coffeepot to the edge of the fire when it started to boil. After it simmered down a bit, he poured himself a cup of coffee and sipped it cautiously to keep from burning his lips. Then he stirred the bacon around in the pan, and turned it over to fry the other side, all the while ignoring the constant rambling of Billy’s mouth. Although he never showed any indication that Billy’s attempts to annoy him had any effect upon him, he secretly wondered if he was going to make it to Fort Smith without cutting the brazen killer’s tongue out.

The wound in Billy’s thigh, although swollen and a little red around the bullet hole, was healing to the point where it was not so painful. Grayson suspected this to be the reason that his prisoner was feeling sassy enough to try constantly to annoy him. I should have shot him in the head instead of the leg, he thought as he pulled the pan from the hot flames. When he lifted some of the meat out of the pan and placed it on a tin plate, Billy stopped talking, in anticipation of eating his supper. Just as he had ignored the senseless banter, however, Grayson ignored his silence. He picked up his coffee, took his plate, and walked several yards away to sit down against a tree to eat.

At once alarmed, Billy sang out, “Hey, wait a minute! Where’s mine? I’m hungry, too. You gotta feed me, dammit, it’s the law.”

Grayson took a deliberate look at him and had a couple more sips of his coffee before speaking. “There ain’t no law that says I gotta feed you. Even if there was, I ain’t a lawman.” He tore off a bite of bacon with his teeth and chewed the tough meat for a few seconds. “Besides, it seemed to me that you were more in the mood to use your mouth for talkin’ instead of eatin’, so I figured you could decide when the talkin’ was done, and maybe you’d let me know.”

“Ah, come on, Grayson,” Billy pleaded, his cockiness gone now. “I been ridin’ as hard as you have. You gotta feed me.” Grayson was not moved by the contrite tone he had adopted, so Billy promised, “All right, I’ll shut up if you let me eat.”

“You sure now?” Grayson paused, then took another bite of bacon. “’Cause if you don’t, I’m gonna have to bend my rifle barrel over your head to shut you up.”

“I’m sure,” Billy replied meekly. “I’ll shut up. Just untie me from this tree.” You hard-ass son of a bitch, he thought to himself, you just get careless one time, and I’ll cut your gizzard out. He had no sooner thought it when he noticed something that might offer his opportunity. During all the long days since leaving Rabbit Creek, Grayson had never been careless once. When Billy was not tied hand and foot, he was under Grayson’s constant vigilance. He never made a mistake—except for this one time—when he left the knife he had used to slice off the bacon sticking in the butt end of a large limb by the fire. The sight of the long, razor-sharp skinning knife caused the wheels in Billy’s mind to churn anxiously, and he tried not to stare at it while Grayson was untying the rope that held him to the tree trunk.

Billy was past the point where he might consider desperation attempts as too risky. Too many days had already passed with no sign that he was going to get help from his father, and the harsh reality that he was on his way to be hanged made any attempt worth the gamble. He shifted his gaze to directly lock on the stoic bounty hunter as he pulled the knot loose. Is he going to remember that knife he left by the fire? Or did he leave it there as bait, hoping I would make a move for it? There was no way to tell by studying the impassive face of his captor.

As soon as Billy’s hands were free, Grayson backed away and leveled his rifle, ready to fire. “You can take a minute to take a leak,” he said, and kept the rifle on him while he emptied his bladder.

When he had finished, Billy made a show of stretching his arms and neck. “A man gets awful stiff and stove-up settin’ there huggin’ a tree all night,” he said. “Wouldn’t be no harm in lettin’ me set by the fire to warm up a little, would it?”

“It ain’t that cold this mornin’,” Grayson said. “I think it best if you sit on that log where you sat last night.” He nodded toward a fallen tree a few yards from the fire. The warmth of the fire reached that far, and he felt no need to risk having Billy grab a flaming limb and flinging it in his direction.

“Whatever you say,” Billy replied. The fire was between him and the log Grayson insisted upon, so he thought he could pass close by it without arousing Grayson’s suspicions.

Billy’s cooperation without his usual vocal rebellion should have alerted Grayson that something was wrong, but he didn’t give the matter much thought. He stood back to let Billy go before him, his rifle held waist-high before him, but not really expecting any trouble, for Billy typically was prone to cause trouble after his belly was full. As they approached the fire, Billy held his hands out, palms down, as if to warm them as he passed by. Grayson was not ready for the move that followed. Beside the fire now, Billy apparently began to stumble, and before Grayson knew what was happening, Billy suddenly reached down and drew the knife from the limb. Thinking his prisoner had put his hand down to keep from falling, Grayson was unaware of the coming attack until Billy turned back toward him with the knife in hand. Grayson’s reflexive action in that initial instant was to slap his hand against his empty knife scabbard, shocked to find he had been so careless. It was no more than an instant, however, as he braced himself to meet Billy’s charge, prepared to use his rifle in defense, and shoot only if he had to.

Billy was quick, but no quicker than the older and larger man, who stood his ground when Billy lunged, striking out with the knife. Grayson blocked Billy’s attempt to bury the blade in his chest by catching it on the barrel of his rifle, then hit him hard on the side of his neck, causing him to stagger backward in order to stay on his feet. The intense fire in the young killer’s eyes burned hotter still. Grayson tried to talk him down. “Let it go, Billy. You made your play, but now it’s over. Don’t make me have to shoot you.”

It was too late to try to talk sense to Billy. Although the advantage was Grayson’s, Billy was reluctant to surrender now that he had a weapon in hand. “You’re gonna have to shoot me, you son of a bitch,” Billy snarled, “but I’m takin’ you with me.” He flung himself recklessly at his jailor. Grayson heard the solid thud of the bullet against Billy’s back, followed a split instant after by the sound of the shot fired. There was no time for thought. The next few seconds were dependent upon instinct and reflexes. Grayson dived for the ground, rolling several times until he reached the cover of the log that Billy had been directed to. With the log to shield him, he took time to figure out what had just happened. The shot had to have come from the trees behind him. From whom and for what, he could only speculate, but he assumed the shot had been meant for him. From the end of the log, he could see Billy’s body, and from all indications, it appeared that his prisoner was dead. If he was right in his assumption, and he was the intended target, then he had better decide what he was going to do, and quickly. The shot had come from the same side of the river he was on, from a distance of at least seventy-five yards, maybe a hundred. How many was he facing? There was only one shot fired. As if his thought was intercepted, a second shot came, imbedding itself in the log. “Time to move,” he muttered and pushed his body back away from the log.

Doing his best to keep the log between himself and the spot he thought the shots probably came from, he kept as flat as he could while pulling his body back into the brush before the trees. When he reached a point where the bushes between the trees were thick enough to conceal him, he got to his feet and quickly moved deeper into the brush, hoping to gain a position to see who was shooting at him. He was safe for the moment, the fact confirmed by several more shots aimed at the log he had vacated. The possibility that it was an Indian with stealing the horses in mind had to be considered, but he still had a strong feeling that it was just one man. He would have wanted to try to work around his assailant by crossing over to the other side—especially if it was only one man—but the river was wide at this point, although not deep, and with a fairly lazy current. If the bushwhacker caught on to his intention to circle behind him, he would naturally move to cut him off. And Grayson didn’t like the prospect of being caught in the middle of the river while his assailant took potshots at him.

He finally decided the first thing to do was to get Billy and the horses and pull back away from the clearing at the river’s edge. The trouble with that was the fact that Billy was still lying in the open where he had been shot, and it was too dangerous to try to remove the body since it would expose himself as an open target. There was no problem with the horses. He could easily get to them back in the trees without exposing himself. And he would not have bothered to risk saving Billy’s body, but it was worth one thousand dollars. Council had insisted that he had to produce the body to collect the reward. “Damn,” he cursed, frustrated. He had plenty of evidence to support Billy’s death, his horse, his weapons, his personal items, but John Council was adamant—no body, no money.

*   *   *

“Damn the luck,” Yancey cursed under his breath. His front sight had been set squarely on Grayson’s chest, and if Billy had kept walking beside the fire, his reward money would have been as good as in his pocket. But Billy had lunged right at the point when Yancey squeezed the trigger. The bullet was already on its way when Billy’s back suddenly appeared in his sights. Yancey felt no real loss in the death of Billy Blanchard. Very few people had any use at all for the loudmouth braggart, but he was Jacob Blanchard’s favorite son, so it was going to be a difficult task to explain Billy’s death as an accident, and caused by Billy, himself. “Damn,” he swore again when picturing the old man’s reaction. He’s liable to shoot me, he thought, even if I kill Grayson. There was no decision to be made; he would tell Blanchard that Grayson shot Billy. When he returned to Black Horse Creek with Billy’s horse and possessions, as well as those of the feared bounty hunter, Blanchard might even reward him with a bonus. Without witnesses, there was no way Jacob could ever know that it was him who shot Billy. The thought brought a wicked smile to Yancey’s face, for he couldn’t help appreciating the irony of getting rid of a hated bounty hunter, along with Blanchard’s pain-in-the-ass son, and collecting double the reward for doing it. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of horses crashing through the brush on the other side of the clearing. He’s running! he told himself, and immediately left the cover of the trees, hoping to get a shot off before Grayson was able to get away. When he reached the edge of the clearing, however, there was no sign of the fleeing man, only the sound of horses pushing through the brush-covered riverbank, growing more and more faint by the second. With his horses tied some seventy-five or eighty yards behind him, there wasn’t much chance of overtaking the bounty hunter in a flat-out race. But the day ain’t over yet, he told himself.

Unwilling to charge into the clearing, being naturally wary of an ambush, in spite of the fact that he was pretty sure he was now alone, he dropped to one knee and looked the campsite over before exposing his body. There was Billy, lying facedown next to the fire, still clutching Grayson’s skinning knife. It was a good shot, he thought, even if it was not the right target. He remained there on one knee for a few seconds, listening until he could no longer hear the sound of the horses farther down the river. He’s long gone, he decided, disappointed that he had not gotten an opportunity for one more shot. You’re running, he thought, but you’re leaving a trail easy to follow from the sound of it. He resigned himself to more time in the saddle, tracking. He had never bumped into the man known simply as Grayson, but based upon the way he had hightailed it after a couple of gunshots, he suspected his reputation was more words than deeds.

Yancey rose to his feet again and walked over to the fire to examine Billy. He turned the body over to find Billy looking up at him with the same vacant gaze he had gotten from Lonnie Jenkins. It was not as unsettling in the light of day as it had been in the middle of night. “Don’t look at me like that, boy,” he joked and reached down to close Billy’s eyelids. Since it was still too early for rigor mortis to set in, Billy’s eyes remained closed. “That’s the first time you ever done what I told you,” Yancey couldn’t resist taunting the dead man.

Still clutching his rifle before him, ready to fire quickly, he scanned the tree line and shrubs by the river bank. Satisfied that he was indeed alone, he relaxed his vigilance and glanced around him at the abandoned camp. “Left his coffeepot,” he said with a chuckle. There was a cup lying on the ground where Grayson had dropped it, so Yancey picked it up, wiped off the dirt, and poured himself a cup of coffee. After a couple of sips, he glanced again toward the shrubs by the river. The cup dropped from his hand when he discovered the grim man standing there, where there had been no one only seconds before, a Winchester rifle pointing at his midsection.

“Who the hell are you?” Grayson asked. He had half expected to see Slate or Troy Blanchard, but he had never seen this man before. There was no answer to his question. In a panic, Yancey tried to yank his rifle up, but was immediately cut down by a slug from Grayson’s Winchester, followed in less than an instant by a second shot that slammed into his breast bone. Grayson walked up to stand over the body, stuck the toe of his boot in the chest and rolled it over. A big man, rough and dirty-looking, he was no doubt one of Blanchard’s hired guns. Grayson wondered how many more had been sent to stop him, and how far behind they were. He shook his head slowly when he thought about the time spent at Big John Polsgrove’s trading post. It had cost him his lead, but he had been given no other choice. He wondered if this man lying here had stopped at John’s store. He hoped not, since John was in no condition to deal with a hired gun, and he had no help but a young boy and his wife. “Well, there’s work to do,” he announced to the two corpses in the clearing.

The first order of business was to recover all the horses, so he started down along the river at a trot. As he expected, his gray gelding was not far away, grazing peacefully on a patch of grass near the water. “Come’ere, boy,” he called calmly, and the horse looked up, thought it over for a second or two, then walked slowly over to his master. Grayson climbed in the saddle and followed the obvious trail left by the other horses when he had chased them through the trees. Like his gray, they had not run far before settling down to graze on the water lilies at the river’s edge.

Once his horses were secured, he scouted the perimeter of the clearing until he came across Yancey’s footprints. He followed them back through the trees until he found the outlaw’s two horses tied to some tree branches. He became a little wary when he discovered that both horses carried saddles. It caused him to scout all around the area where they were tied, but he could not find any footprints other than the set he had followed. He couldn’t help wondering if maybe there had been two, and if a visit to John Polsgrove might have had something to do with the empty saddle. Whatever the reason for both horses being saddled, he felt quite certain that his assailant had acted alone on this morning. He had quite a string of horses now, more than he cared to fool with, but too valuable to cut loose. The next thing to attend to was Billy.

Returning to stand over him, he took a few minutes to think about what he should do about the corpse. He wondered how firm the governor and John Council were in their insistence that he had to bring Billy’s body to Fort Smith. It would take him at least three more days to reach Fort Smith, maybe a half a day more, and from prior experience, he knew that a man’s body would start to smell pretty high in that amount of time. He decided he’d better not waste any more time and get in the saddle right away. But first, he had to wrap Billy up the best he could, so he scratched his head for a while over that one. The solution came to him in the form of a wide piece of canvas he found rolled up and tied behind the saddle of one of the two horses acquired that morning. It appeared to have been used to make a shelter of sorts. He found it was big enough to wrap Billy’s body up fairly securely. So he rolled the corpse in the canvas and tied it together with rope. “There you go, governor,” he said when he was finished, “all wrapped up like a Christmas package.” Billy had not started to stiffen up yet when Grayson hefted him up across the saddle of the Appaloosa and tied the ends of his package under the horse’s belly. I guess you’ll ride there all right, he thought, although the Appaloosa seemed a bit skittish with the rope tied under its belly. It settled down and accepted the awkward bundle after a few minutes, however, and Grayson was able to break camp and start out for Fort Smith.

Things went well enough for the rest of the morning as he followed the river southeast, veering from the trail along the shallow banks only when approaching Fort Gibson near the confluence of the Arkansas with the Neosho River. He had no reason to stop at the fort, and he preferred to avoid the town that had grown up near it. There was no need to leave witnesses to his passing that way, in case there were still others on his trail. To make sure there was no contact with anyone, he led his horses through a range of low hills that stood between the river and the prairie to the southwest. Descending a narrow ravine to the prairie again, he felt his horse jerked up short by the string of horses behind. He looked back to find that Billy’s Appaloosa was suddenly pulling against the lead line, and trying to sidestep the awkward burden wrapped in canvas. The reason was apparent. The rough terrain of the hills had caused the package to slip upside down, with Billy’s body now hanging under the Appaloosa’s belly, the sensation of which caused the horse to try to step around it.

Grayson stopped to haul the corpse back up across the saddle where it had started out. Billy’s body had gotten quite stiff by then as rigor mortis had set in. He took an extra length of rope to loop around the saddle horn to secure the package, thinking he would improve on it when he stopped to rest the horses. It wouldn’t be long, because it was already getting along in the afternoon, but he determined to be far removed from Fort Gibson when he did stop. Another hour in the saddle and he approached the bank of the Arkansas once again, and looked for a good place to stop to let the horses drink and rest. There were any number of sites to choose from, since the river was lined with a heavy band of trees at this point, and he finally decided upon one where the river split to flow around a sandbar that formed a small island of willows with one solitary oak tree right in the middle. He led his horses across the shallow channel onto the island.

Billy’s corpse was totally stiff, and in the shape of a U. When Grayson untied it, it sat on the saddle like a great horseshoe, so he had to roll it to one side, then pull it straight off the horse from the side. He checked it to make sure the ropes he had bound it with were still tightly tied. Satisfied that Billy was wrapped as snugly as could be expected, considering the wrap available to him, Grayson dragged the body over and leaned it against the trunk of the large oak. After pulling the saddles off the horses, he left them to graze on the thin grass growing on the sandbar while he gathered some dead limbs to start a fire for coffee.