Death's Bounty Page 7
“I want you to get seven uniforms!” Hedges barked, and the laughter suddenly trailed away. “Gray ones.” “What the hell?” Forrest exploded.
Hedges whirled around and raked his slitted eyes along the row of faces staring down at him. “You got it, Sergeant!” he snarled, fixing his gaze upon the mean set features of Forrest. “We’re goin’ to do what General Grant wants.”
The lieutenant whistled a sigh of relief. With Marlowe and the hotel clerk—an undercover man for the Pinkerton agency—both dead, he would have been alone to face official ire if the mission had failed.
Rhett had hauled himself to his feet and was looking up at Forrest. A flicker of the sergeant’s eyes revealed to Hedges that the man behind him was waiting for the order to be given approval by the noncom.
“Move it, trooper!” the captain snapped, not turning around. “Or I’ll kill you.”
The slivers of his eyes dared Forrest to intercede before Rhett started forward. Both the captain and the sergeant held a rifle, and for several stretched seconds all the watchers knew both were ready to raise and fire the weapons. Even the shavetail, for whom such a showdown situation between a noncom and an officer was an utterly new experience, was alert. The troopers had been witnesses to many similar unmilitary standoffs.
“They’ll have holes and be covered with blood,” Rhett pointed out nervously, still looking to Forrest for a sign.
“Three seconds and you’ll know the feeling,” Hedges said softly. •
Mud made a moist sound as Rhett lifted a boot from the quagmire. A harsh laugh erupted from Forrest, splitting his thin mouth wide and draining the tension from his body. He tore his eyes from the trap of Hedges’ stare and looked along the row of faces.
“Be like the old days,” he said easily as the laugh ended. “Goin’ after just the one man. Like a bounty hunt.”
The lieutenant nodded enthusiastically. “If you get him, it could end the war. That would be the biggest bounty in history.”
“Lucky the niggers turned mean now instead of later,” Forrest growled.
Hedges allowed the forbidden epithet to pass, recognizing its use as a balm to the sergeant’s wounded ego.
“We’d have blasted ’em good, Frank,” Seward boasted.
“Sure,” Forrest agreed as he watched Hedges turn to reenter the hotel lobby. “But we wouldn’t want a mutiny on the bounty hunt.”
The masked men remained cool in the hot sun beating down upon the birthday celebrations which had turned sour. After the thin man had heaved the bag of money up onto the roof, the masked man with the shotgun stepped forward and picked it up. He didn’t open it. Instead, he whirled and moved to the side of the building. It was an easy jump for him. Because of the angle of the comer, he was out of sight for a few moments. When he reappeared, he was astride a white horse. The money bag was hung from the saddle, its handles hooked over the horn. One of his hands held the bridle of the piebald mare he was leading. The other held his own reins, as well as being curled around the shotgun, the stock of which was nestled in his armpit.
“My buddy’s going to jump now, folks,” he announced. “Be out of sight for awhile. But he’ll be seeing me. And he’ll sure enough hear a shot. He does, you’ll hear a shot. Sheriff’s wife’ll hear it louder.”
“Don’t anybody try anything!” the ashen-faced lawman ordered, swinging around to show his determination to the whole assembly. His final stare was at Edge.
The tall half-breed shrugged. “I’m a patient man, Sheriff,” he said.
“You better have a lot of it, mister,” the man with the shotgun rapped out, recapturing every pair of eyes. “That goes for all of you. We intend to take the lady a mile outa town before we let her go. We have to ditch her before that, bring out some shovels as well as your guns. You get my drift?”
His eyes above the neckerchief mask met and locked with the sheriff’s. Pitman nodded. “We get it.”
The woman gave a yell of alarm as she was forced to jump from the roof, still in the clutches of the second masked man. The sound changed to one of pain. Pitman made to move forward, but the slight lift of the shotgun’s barrels froze him.
“Sprained ankle, is all,” her captor announced as he emerged from the angle of the wall, one arm still wrapped around the petrified woman as the other hand pressed the revolver against her head.
There was a fraction of a second, as he slung the woman across the horse and then swung up into the saddle, when it would have been possible to put a bullet into him before he could fire the revolver. But only one man in the crowd would have been prepared to take the chance. Like so many before him, the masked man with the shotgun sensed the mark of the killer in the lean features of the half-breed, and it was at Edge that the shotgun pointed during that vital iota of time. The Winchester stayed resting easily against the deceptively lean shoulder.
“Thanks for everything, folks,” the spokesman for the two said brightly. “Just remember to hold still until we drop off the lady. Then do what you have to.”
The man with the lawman’s wife across his horse started out first, thudding in his heels to demand a gallop. His partner allowed him a start of a few yards, then wheeled his horse and raced in pursuit. Grazing cattle raised their heads to the sound of the thudding hoofbeats, then resumed feeding. The unconscious Jefferson groaned his way back to awareness.
Like the others in the crowd, Edge watched in unmov-ing silence as the dust cloud blurring the forms of horses and riders receded into the distance. He watched as the holdup men reined their horses to a halt. The dust did not have time to settle until they lunged forward into a gallop again. The woman emerged from the yellow cloud, staggering back toward town in a limping run. Her husband gave a grunt of anguish and barged through the crowd, racing out along the trail to meet her. A hubbub of conversation broke out among the crowd.
Edge continued to watch the departing holdup men, following their progress as they angled off the trail and cut across the open range to disappear from sight around the hump of a hill. Then he whirled, stepped down from the sidewalk, and strode quickly along the street toward the stable. He sensed the eyes of the thin man on him, but did not glance across to the front of the law office where he had been standing since tossing the bag of money up to the men.
The stablehand was not at the stable and had not put in an appearance by the time Edge had saddled the gelding. There was a neatly printed scale of charges tacked to the inside of the door, and he peeled off enough bills from his shrinking bankroll to cover his debt. There was a paperknife on the battered desk, and he used it to spear the bills to the half door of the stall which the gelding had occupied. Then he mounted and rode out into the diminished heat of the sun as afternoon gave evening a pale yellow kiss.
There was no longer a breeze, and the street decorations hung limply, sadly—as if in sympathy with the mood of the people below. The crowd was dispersing, only a few waiting to watch as Sheriff Pitman helped his wife back along the trail.
The old barber was as melancholic as everyone else. He was one of those drifting away from the area of the prizefight, where Jefferson and the thin man were dismantling the ring.
“Who died?” Edge asked.
The old-timer shook his head. “Not who. What. A tradition, stranger. We ain’t never had no trouble in Jerusalem. For better than ten years. First there was what you done to the sheriff last afternoon. Now what’s happened today.”
“Real tough,” Edge said sardonically, clucking his mount forward. “Maybe you ought to build a wailing wall.”
The barber was confused. Then he shrugged and continued on his way to the shop. Edge rode slowly along the street to where Jefferson and the thin man were loading the ropes and posts of the ring onto the back of a buck-board. McNally was nowhere in sight. The thin man looked up, startled, as Edge’s shadow fell across him. His fear expanded as he saw the familiar icy glint in the narrowed eyes. He nudged Jefferson, who donned his toughest c xpression.
“Twenty-two grand,” Edge replied easily.
“You saw what happened to the money!” the thin man whined.
Edge nodded. “I saw.”
“Everythin’ I got is in that bag,” the thin man pleaded. “I can’t pay you.”
The sheriff and his wife were still a half mile out on the trail. The waiters—mostly citizens of Jerusalem and the owners of the farmsteads in the immediate vicinity— turned their attention to the drama closer at hand. The thin man looked around at them imploringly.
“What can I do?”
Several heads shook and some shoulders were shrugged. Edge guessed that all the money except his had been riding on Jefferson.
“You can hope,” the half-breed advised, and curled back his thin lips to show a cruel grin as the thin man blinked at him in perplexity. “That there’s more than twenty-two grand in the bag, feller,” he explained. “More?” Jefferson snarled.
Edge nodded. “The balance I take for my trouble.”
The prizefighter seemed intent upon arguing the point, 1 ut the thin man nodded.
“Sure. Sure, mister. You catch up with them, you’ll have earned it.”
“Obliged,” Edge said wryly, then wiped the grin from his lean features. His voice became a rasping whisper. “And if I find out I’ve been cheated of my due, I’ll find you and take the balance from your hide.”
The thin man swallowed hard, unable to speak. Jefferson was ready to step into the breach, but the older man laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Don’t mess with him,” he warned.
The crowd parted to allow Edge to ride through, and he did not rein his horse again until he reached the very end of the street. The fat lawman and his hobbling wife glared up at the rider hatefully.
“I already heard,” Edge told them. “First me, then the stickup. Things around here are still green, but they ain’t so pk asant no more.”
Pitman held the venom in his eyes but kept his voice flat, unthreatening. “Just ride on out like you said, mister. And don’t come back.”
“No sweat, sheriff,” Edge replied, swinging his horse to the side to go around the couple. “I’m owed. And I ain’t gonna get those kinda dues in Jerusalem.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The men needed sleep, and the hotel in Hartford Gap contained ample beds for them. But they complied willingly with Hedges’ order to move out of the town as soon as they were all attired in stolen uniforms, marking them as enlisted men in the Second Kentucky Infantry.
As Rhett predicted, the gray clothes were caked with mud and showed red stains around ominous holes. And because of the mutilating effect of the mill explosion, the choice was limited to a selection of those clothes on the Rebels killed during the gun battle. Only Douglas got a tunic and pair of pants which came close to being a good fit. The others, clustered in a group outside the hotel, were quite obviously dressed in hand-me-downs. All were armed with Spencer rifles.
“Good luck, sir,” the lieutenant said, saluting. “It won’t be easy.”
“What is, in this friggin’ war?” Seward muttered acidly.
Hedges responded to the salute by touching the peak of his ill-fitting forage cap, then turned to the men. “Move out. It’s a long walk to Richmond.”
All the horses which had survived the deadly cross-fire from the roof-tops had bolted, and none had returned.
The troopers formed into a single file and started to trudge wearily through the clinging mud, leaving behind the dead men sprawled on the sidewalks and under the wagons, heading for the dismembered bodies scattered over the intersection. None gave a thought to the corpses, except as vivid examples of what could well happen to themselves if the shavetail’s presumption was correct. For as the lieutenant had said, there had been two civilians remaining in Hartford Gap when the federal forces took the town. Both were supposed to be undercover men for the Pinkerton Agency. One was now spread-eagled in the mud. The other had disappeared an hour before the wagon train was ambushed, and it could well be the missing man who had informed to the Rebels.
This possibility, coupled with the chance that there were more Rebels in the area waiting for Major Collins and his men to return, was why the Union troopers had given Hedges no argument when he ordered them to move out.
“Where’s buddy-boy goin’?” Forrest asked when the men had angled across the intersection and were heading east on the cross street under a sky that still looked like a black sponge waiting for another squeeze.
Hedges tugged at the crotch of his tight-fitting pants. “I got enough problems, Sergeanthe replied, putting stress on the rank.
Forrest got the message. “You didn’t ask him, sir?”
“He might have told me, and then I might have worried about him,” Hedges replied sourly.
They moved across the eastern limits of town, and the pale moonlight showed the trail ahead winding through rolling farmland. But Virginia had suffered perhaps more than any other state from the ravages of war. It had been a long time since many of the fields had been tilled, and for the most part they were overgrown with crops gone wild and weeds. Only a few of the farmsteads showed signs of recent habitation. The others had fallen into various states of disrepair. Some sagging timbers bore the scars of war in the shape of bullet holes. Here and there, blackened frameworks were outlined against the night— the remains of buildings put to the torch.
But the going was easier in open country, for the men were able to move off the boglike trail and tramp across fields. The surface was spongy after the heavy rain, but living roots held the soil together and kept it from breaking down into mud.
The fact that he was leading the men across farmland, and his sardonic reference to worry about the young lieutenant, caused Hedges to think of Jamie. His crippled brother ought to be safe enough, secure in Iowa far from the battle grounds. He ought to be taking care of the farm without too many problems, aided by the money Hedges sent to him whenever he was able. But Jamie was young and he was alone. And he had a bum leg. It was natural to worry about him, Hedges reasoned, and he had a lot of anxiety to spare. For the long, bloody years of war had forged a new set of values for the captain. Survival and the protection of what one cared about were all that mattered. Josiah C. Hedges cared about himself and his brother.
“What made you agree to blast Jeff Davis?” Forrest said suddenly. He added, “Sir?”
They had covered perhaps three miles, and Hartford Gap was lost to sight through the night and behind intervening hills. Hedges had not been lost in thought. His hooded eyes had been constantly alert, flicking to left and right, then straight ahead, searching for a sign of trouble. But the sergeant’s remark startled him. Not for the first time, Forrest revealed that he possessed a useful attribute for a professional killer. He could not read another man’s mind, but he did have a kind of perceptive sense that gave him a clue to a secret train of thought. The sort of talent which, in a gunfight showdown, would tell him a fraction of a second before a move what action his opponent was going to take. Or perhaps Forrest was just a guesser—a right one, since he was still alive.
“To end it,” Hedges replied after a pause, not turning as he continued to survey the terrain ahead. “I was stretched out on the floor in that crumby hotel. Stripped to my underwear with mud all over my face and flour in my eyes. Getting ready to blast guys supposed to be on my side—before they blasted me. And I suddenly thought about my spread in Iowa. I knew where I’d rather be. Putting some bullets in Davis might just get me back home a lot sooner than making cavalry charges against Reb artillery barrages.” ,
“And maybe put up your life expectancy?” Forrest asked slyly.
Hedges halted abruptly and whirled. Forrest stopped suddenly and reached for a gun holster that wasn’t there. He cursed, then again as the unfortunate Bell collided with him. Bell, with the other troopers, backed away. The prospect of trouble between the officer and the sergeant dro
ve the weariness from their red-rimmed eyes. Forrest made a move to bring up his rifle, but halted it when he saw that Hedges’ Spencer was still held low in front and across him. Each surveyed the other’s unflinching features across a distance of three feet. Forrest’s narrowed eyes were challenging. He made wet sounds with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. Hedges’ eyes were as impassive as the rest of his features.
“You calling me a name, Sergeant?” he asked softly.
Forrest sniffed and it was wetter than the sound from his mouth. “I might be saying I ain’t sure . . . sir.”
“What’s this all about, Frank?” Billy Seward wanted to know.
The sergeant ignored the question, watching and waiting for Hedges’ reaction to the barb.
“I think Frank’s accusing the captain of being like Bob, Billy,” John Scott attempted to explain.
“You mean like queer?” Seward exclaimed, shocked.
“He means like yellow,” Hedges muttered.
Rhett scowled at the first comment. “I do my best,” he answered to the second, but nobody was listening to him.
“I mean you suddenly got mighty careful lately,” Forrest corrected. “You got caught in the open when the Rebs hit. But both times you made the crap fly back there, you was tucked up nice and safe behind solid walls.”
“Hey, that’s right!” Rhett put into the tense silence, seizing an opportunity to redeem himself. “It was me he 1 sent out into the open without a weapon to defend myself with.”
“Bob?” Hal Douglas said.
“Yeah?”
“If I was down to my underwear, I’d send you outside.”
Rhett groaned his frustration and nobody laughed.
“Well, Captain?” Forrest demanded, his mouth line twisting into a sneer.
All the troopers stared intently into the hard, set lines of Hedges’ face. He swung his gaze away from the expectant face of Forrest and raked the features of the others. His eyes betrayed nothing of what he was feeling or thinking. But in his stance, with feet slightly apart, weight evenly balanced, and body canted almost imperceptibly forward, there was a latent threat which caused each man to take a tighter grip on his Spencer.