Reaper's Fee (16 page)

The tracks took a few meandering turns, but led them toward Hackett. More than once, Nick played with the idea of breaking away from Kinman to do the rest of the tracking on his own, but that would have meant leaving the bounty hunter to his own devices. There were ways to make sure Kinman stayed put, but Nick didn’t want to waste time on following those through. Besides, there was still a bit of time for Kinman to prove himself useful.

Nick could see a good portion of the town as Kinman reined his horse to a stop. They’d been riding a bit quicker than the day before, but not quite up to full speed. Kazys was breathing somewhat heavily, but Kinman’s horse stood by without even shifting its hooves.

“You want to check the town?” Kinman asked.

“Do the tracks lead there?”

“Not as such, but Lester would’ve had to get some supplies and he might not be able to get everything from his cousins.”

“We’re here for Lester, so we’ll follow his tracks,” Nick said. “We’ve come too far to be thrown off the scent now.”

“All right, then.” Kinman shifted so he could look directly at Nick. He crossed one hand over the other as he let out a smooth breath. “Let’s get something straight. If those jewels are there, we’re splitting them right down the middle.”

“We already negotiated this.”

“That’s when I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to find Lester or not. Now that we’re here I want to get all of this out of the way before there’s any commotion.”

Nick’s voice was smooth and even as ice on a freshly frozen pond. “There’s going to be a commotion right here and now if you push this too far.”

“Then let’s get it out of the way,” Kinman declared, while shifting his coat aside so he could better reach his pistol.

“Or I could just follow the marked tracks that lead past that town and head straight to wherever Lester’s holed up.”

Kinman was taken aback, but it didn’t last long. He regained his composure in a heartbeat and actually smiled good-naturedly. “You saw those, huh?”

“Yeah. I saw ’em.”

“Then our original deal stands.”

Nick nodded without moving more than the few muscles required to perform the action. Although the rest of him was still, the muscles were tensed like bowstrings beneath his skin.

Kinman kept still as well.

The next few seconds felt as if the world around them was holding its breath.

“How about we finish up one matter before moving on to the next?” Nick finally said.

“Fine with me.”

To show he was the better man, Nick took his hand away from his holster and placed it casually upon his saddle horn. Kinman did the same.

“If Lester’s still with his cousins, he’ll probably be waiting for us,” Kinman said.

“They’re probably all waiting for us. That is, if they haven’t already moved along by now.”

Kinman craned his neck to look in the direction that the marked tracks led. “Lester’s tired. He’s been running for a while and has been hiding out for over a year. Once he gets around family, he’ll settle in for a bit.”

But Nick was thinking of a bit more than Lester wanting to rest up and get a hot meal in his belly. Nick knew a thing or two about being on the run and he also knew about what it was like to be hunted. There was a time when the prey wanted nothing more than to turn the tables and take a bite at its pursuers. It seemed like a foregone conclusion that now would be that time for Lester. Nick could feel it just as surely as he could feel the impulse to take a shot at Kinman.

Since there was still an outside chance that there was a bit of tracking to be done, Nick nodded and said, “I think you’re right. Lester probably spent
his first couple hours eating or sleeping. By that time, he’s got to know that we’d be after him.”

“He knows, all right,” Kinman said with a grin. “The only question now is what he intends to do about it.”

Glancing overhead to take note of the crisp, blue sky, Nick said, “It’ll be dark in a while. Lester’s probably not going to move until after the sun goes down.”

“You really think he’ll wait that long?”

Nick was nodding as if he’d only heard that question in the back of his mind. “He’s dug in, so there’s no reason to do anything when he can still be sighted. Riding at night will make it easier for him to slip away and try to regain his lead on us. That is, unless he’s already long gone.”

“Riding at night will also make it easier for him to trip up or stumble somewhere along the way,” Kinman offered.

Nick shook his head. “He knows this land better than we do. The dark will only work to his advantage.”

“Lester’s been hiding out in Oregon for half a year or more. Before that, he was working his way up from Texas.”

“He still knows this area. Even if he’s been here once before, that’s once more than me. What about you?”

Kinman shrugged and shifted his gaze forward. “I see your point. How do you want to approach him?”

“Let’s find him first and work out the rest once we get there.”

Both men snapped their reins and rode in a path that skirted Hackett’s limits.

It didn’t take long for them to ride close enough to catch sight of the run-down spread inhabited by Lester’s cousins. Of course, finding it was doubly easy, since there were four sets of marked tracks that all led to the same spot. Two sets were headed toward the spread and two headed away, each like individual strands of a web that were all connected to the same central point.

“Jesus Christ,” Kinman muttered from his spot in the grass well away from the house. “No wonder Lester came here.”

Nick lay stretched out on his belly directly beside Kinman. Both of them squinted through spyglasses as various members of the household in front of them went about their business. Every cousin was armed.

“You see Lester yet?” Nick asked.

Kinman kept the spyglass to his eyes and said, “Nope, but his horse is in the barn.”

Since he could only see a few noses inside that barn from this vantage point, Nick was about to question the validity of Kinman’s statement. Then Nick took a look for himself and spotted one horse’s nose that was splotched in a pattern of white, black and brown that seemed very familiar.

“That’s Lester’s horse all right,” Nick admitted. “Good eye.”

“It’s what I do.” When Kinman looked over at Nick, he saw the other man setting his spyglass down and taking off his coat.

“Stay here and give me a few minutes to get in closer.”

“Oh, no you don’t. We’re going in together. If they see you, they’ll start shooting and it’ll be that much harder for me to get in to do anything but catch some lead.”

“They won’t see me,” Nick assured him.

“And how can you be sure of that?”

“Because it’s what I do.”

Seeing Kinman’s aggravation put a warm feeling in Nick’s heart. He pulled his sleeves all the way down and buttoned them so they remained tight against his wrists. His holster was repositioned on his side and tied to his leg to keep it out of his way. By the time anyone knew he was there, Nick would have plenty of time to get the Schofield in hand. If not, he would have a lot bigger problems than shaving half a second off of his drawing speed.

Nick kept his belly in the grass and half-crawled, half-slithered toward the house. Whenever he reached a patch of higher weeds or bushes, Nick allowed himself to get his feet beneath him and scramble forward. It wasn’t the quickest way to travel, but he got to the house without drawing a glance or making more than a subtle rustle to an
nounce he was there. He circled around to the side of the property opposite the barn.

Just then, a door slammed and Nick froze in his spot. His belly pressed against the dirt and his legs stretched out behind him. The sun was on its way down, but it would be a while before dark. As steps knocked against the front porch, Nick eased his arm down to his holster and kept it there. He was ready to draw, but didn’t want to tip his hand unless it was absolutely necessary.

The man who’d opened the door was a big fellow with a long, unkempt beard. He had a rifle in one hand and a shotgun in the other. Holding both guns over his shoulders, the bearded man strutted out and cleared his throat noisily.

“Take this shotgun, Ann.”

When he heard the woman respond, Nick twitched. She’d been so quiet that he hadn’t even heard her come outside.

“Keep it,” she replied.

“We been through this already. There’s some men that might be comin’ and we’ll need all the help we can get when they arrive. You don’t have to hit anything. Just fire and keep them off their balance.”

“I ain’t taking no shotgun, Wesley, and that’s that.”

Nick heard a few more heavy steps, followed by the creak of a rocking chair. He pushed himself up a bit, but couldn’t see much more than the back of the chair and the big man leaning down to it. The
post at the corner of the porch was blocking Nick’s view of the woman Wesley was talking to.

“You’re taking this shotgun and you’re helping to defend this house, God dammit,” Wesley snarled.

“Defend this house or defend those goddamn jewels? I’d be more than happy to do one, but not the other.”

“If you want to keep living off that money, you’d best do both.”

“Then talk to Stephanie,” Ann said. “I’m sure she’ll fight to the death if it means she can gussy herself up with some more diamonds.”

Nick could feel the tension building as if it was heat rolling in on a summer day. Although he’d never met the man or his wife, he knew what was coming.

“Take it!” Wesley snapped. He extended his arm and shoved the shotgun at her.

That was followed by the sounds of a wheezing breath and creaking wood. As soon as Nick heard that, his stomach began to clench. His instinct was to do something before things went any further. Then again, he was also desperately looking around for a sign of Lester or the other cousin Kinman had mentioned. He could hear movement coming from somewhere, but couldn’t narrow it down since Wesley was creating such a ruckus.

“I won’t take it!” Ann insisted. “What if the law comes? You want me to shoot them too?”

“You’ll take it because I say so, bitch. Otherwise, I’ll knock you through the goddamn window.”

Nick gritted his teeth and waited another couple of seconds. It became quiet, but that ended with the sound of flesh slapping against flesh.

“You gonna do what I say?” Wesley asked. “Or do I need to smack some more sense through that fuc—”

“That’s enough!” Nick said as he straightened up and drew his pistol.

Wesley towered over Ann as both of them turned to look at Nick.

“Leave her be,” Nick said.

Wesley and Ann responded at the same time by taking their weapons and aiming them at Nick.

Nick’s eyes widened as he reflexively dove for cover. He’d been expecting Wesley to make a move like that, but hadn’t counted on Ann doing the same. Since he wasn’t sure which to shoot first, Nick opted to try and live through the next few seconds to see if he could come up with a better plan.

Wesley’s rifle went off and sent a round through the air fairly close to where Nick had been standing. By the time Nick hit the dirt, he heard the roar of the shotgun. The buckshot spread out as it left the barrel and some of it scraped along the backs of Nick’s legs. He gritted his teeth against the pain, more surprised than hurt that Ann had been the one to draw first blood.

“Serves me right, I guess,” Nick muttered.

As soon as he heard steps thumping against the porch, Nick rolled to one side and prayed he could reach some of the taller grass nearby.

Another shot from the rifle punched into the soil not far from where Nick had been lying. Nick fired one round toward the porch, but knew he wouldn’t hit anything but a wall if he was lucky, since he was still in the process of rolling. When he came to a stop, he popped onto one knee and found himself looking at the woman who’d been sitting in the rocker.

Ann looked right back at him over the top of her shotgun as her finger tightened around its trigger.

Nick was running toward her even as the hammers of Ann’s shotgun dropped. He bolted straight past Wesley so he could grab hold of the shotgun and twist it out of Ann’s grasp. Only when he was holding the shotgun himself did Nick realize what he’d done. Ann stared at him with eyes as big as dinner plates and her mouth hanging open.

“You already emptied both barrels,” Nick told her.

But that didn’t do much to soften the blow. She still stared at Nick as if he had dodged a hail of gunfire without breaking a sweat.

The truth of the matter was that Nick wasn’t sure whether she’d emptied both barrels or not. He’d already been in her sights and she was already pulling her trigger. If she’d saved a barrel for him, he would have been dead either way.

Ann’s jaw began to move as she regained the power of speech. Less than two seconds had ticked by, which was more than enough time for Wesley to turn and see what was going on. Nick looked at
Wesley just as the man was swinging his arm around to take a shot. The next thing Nick did was extend his arm and throw himself back against the house. The shotgun Nick had taken caught Ann across the chest and knocked her back into her rocker, just as Wesley’s rifle spat out a plume of smoke.

Nick’s back hit the house as a bullet hissed past him. Since Wesley didn’t seem like the sort of man to get flustered under fire, Nick turned away from him and ran for the corner. It was a bit farther than he would have liked, so he raised his modified Schofield and squeezed off a round to cover his escape.

“Jesus!” Wesley yelped as Nick’s bullet took a small piece out of his shoulder. He rolled with the momentum of the passing bullet and dove away from the porch. When he brought up his rifle again, the only one in his sights was his wife.

“Where the hell’d he go?” Wesley asked.

Ann’s eyes were still wide and she turned as if in a daze.

“Answer me, woman! Where’d he go?”

Ann looked at the corner where Nick had gone and then looked back at her husband. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a few strained grunts came out.

Wesley was back on his feet and stomping onto the porch. As he passed his wife, he slapped the palm of his hand against her face and shoved her back down onto the rocking chair. “Just stay put and keep out of the way, you useless pig.”

Stepping around the corner, Wesley was propping his rifle against his shoulder when he saw Nick standing calmly with his back against the side of the house. Snapping his head back, Wesley nearly tripped over his own boots before Nick took a shot at him. The Schofield’s bullet whipped through the air past Wesley’s face like an angry hornet as the scent of burnt powder filled his nostrils.

“Dammit, Pat, what the hell are you doin’ in there?” Wesley shouted.

When he heard that, Nick saw some movement through the window beside his face. Glancing that way, Nick saw a younger man with a gun in his hand. The instant he saw that gun raised up to fire, Nick pushed away from the wall and sent a pair of shots into the house.

Glass shattered loudly as the shots blasted through the air. Inside the house, Pat fell to the floor as he fired blindly at Nick. One of Pat’s shots took out the remains of the windowpane, while the other punched straight through the wall.

Nick moved away from the house as he tried to decide if he should waste his remaining bullets by trading blind fire for more blind fire. Deciding to make better use of the next few seconds, he pulled some fresh bullets from his gun belt and began dumping the empty shells.

“You ain’t taking them jewels from me, you son of a bitch!” Wesley shouted as he rounded the corner.

Snapping the Schofield shut, Nick was about to fire when he heard another shot crack through the open air. This one didn’t come from inside the house or even from the porch. It had come from behind Wesley and opened a messy hole through the bearded man’s chest.

Stumbling forward, Wesley twisted around to try and return fire, but was hit a second time. The next bullet caught Wesley in the side of the neck and took a good portion of meat along with it. Not knowing which way to turn, Wesley looked back at Nick as he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Nick closed the Schofield with a snap of his wrist, kept the pistol at waist level and fired a round through Wesley’s forehead. Once Wesley finally dropped and fell face-first to the ground, Nick was able to see Kinman standing behind him.

Still holding his smoking pistol in hand, Kinman said, “You were supposed to wait for me.”

“Let’s clear this house out before we haggle over details.”

Shifting his eyes toward the shattered window, Kinman said, “Best watch yourself.”

Judging by the tone in the bounty hunter’s voice, Nick might have expected Kinman to be warning him about getting cut from the broken glass. When he took a look for himself, Nick saw Pat charging toward the window with a crazed look in his eyes. It was all Nick could do to jump clear of the window before catching the hell that was about to be thrown through it.

Not only did Pat fire through the window, but someone else was firing as well. Nick gritted his teeth as the hailstorm of lead rushed outward. Kinman stood his ground and waited for Nick to look his way before pointing calmly toward the front porch. Nick nodded to acknowledge Kinman’s signal and then pointed toward the back of the house. Both men headed off in the directions they’d chosen as the gunfire from within the house subsided.

Nick treated the next window he was approaching as if it were a bear trap. Rather than walk straight past it, he stopped with his back against the wall and his gun held at the ready. Considering how flimsy the walls of the house were, Nick wasn’t about to stand and wait for a bullet to punch through the wood. Instead, he took a quick glimpse through the window, saw an empty room, and then moved along.

The back of the house opened out to a wide couple of acres that were overgrown with more weeds than shrubs. The back porch wasn’t much more than a platform with a few steps leading to the ground. There were no windows between him and those stairs, so Nick rushed the back door.

Slamming his heel against the door, Nick sent an explosion of splinters into the house as the door’s frame gave way. Inside, he found a small kitchen and pantry leading to the sitting room at the front of the house.

“Who’s there?” Pat shouted from another room. “Is that you, Wesley?”

Nick held his gun in front of him as he moved through the house. With all the noise coming from the other rooms, he didn’t have any trouble keeping his steps from being heard. To his left and away from the kitchen, Nick saw a short hall leading to a closed door. He knew that had to be the room with the broken window and he prepared himself for anything to come through that door.

When the door opened, a younger woman stood there with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Are you the law?” she asked.

Nick didn’t have time to say a word before a man’s hand took Stephanie by the shoulder and pushed her out of Nick’s sight. Pat then filled up the doorway. Firing from the hip, Pat pulled his trigger again and again as a visceral scream rolled up from the bottom of his lungs.

All Nick had to do was take a step back into the kitchen and every last one of Pat’s rounds burrowed into the wall or flew into the next room. Once the firing was over, Nick took a cautious peek around the corner to find Pat closing the door again.

Gunfire came from the sitting room, announcing Kinman’s entrance into the house. Within seconds, someone raced out of the front room like a quail that had been flushed from a bush. Nick pressed his back to a wall and listened for those steps to draw closer. Lester raced straight for the back door, without so much as glancing in Nick’s direction as he passed.

Nick took a few lunging steps and grabbed hold of the back of Lester’s collar. Squirming reflexively, Lester pulled himself out of his loose-fitting shirt like a snake shedding its skin. His arms flailed in front of him and he finally managed to get hold of the door. Pulling it open, Lester used every bit of his strength to sprint outside.

As Nick ran after Lester, he could hear more yelling and shooting behind him. A woman screamed. Something heavy hit the floor. The last thing Nick heard as he followed Lester to the barn was a man’s voice roaring over everything else.

“Shut your damn mouth and put the gun down!” Kinman shouted.

There was a moment of silence followed by another pair of shots.

Nick didn’t have time to figure out what had happened, since Lester had made it into the barn. He knew better than to rush in there after Lester, so he shouted, “Come on out of there or I’ll drag your dead body out myself!”

Hearing the creak of hinges, Nick stepped back and got ready for whatever was about to come through that door. Hearing the rustle of hooves through loose hay, Nick swore under his breath and ran to pull open the door himself.

Nick got a real good look at the immaculate interior of the barn, mostly because of the light flooding through the wide-open rear door. Lester was in the saddle and riding through the rear door on the back of a sleek black mare. Nick was just
able to see the bundle tucked under Lester’s arm before the black mare broke into a run and turned sharply out of Nick’s sight.

While Nick might have thought his luck was running dry, he quickly changed his reasoning when he saw two more horses already saddled and ready to go in the stalls to his left. Seeing that one of those horses was the run-down old-timer Lester had ridden before, Nick kicked open the gate of the other one’s stall. Moments later, he was racing out of the barn and thundering after Lester.

It seemed that Lester knew his horseflesh, since he’d already pulled into a bigger lead than Nick had expected. Digging his heels into his own horse’s sides, Nick snapped his reins against the animal’s flanks and hoped for the best. Sure enough, the horse bolted forward. The speck that had been Lester’s silhouette grew larger by the second as Nick chewed up the ground between them.

As he rode, Lester swung his arm behind him and fired off a few quick shots from a pistol his cousins had given to him. The bullets sailed away without getting close enough for Nick to even hear their passing. Even while squeezing off another shot, Lester wasn’t looking behind him. Instead, his eyes were facing front and searching the horizon.

“Come on,” Lester grumbled as he focused on the trail that led into Hackett. “It’s almost six-thirty. Where the hell are you?”

When Lester crested a gentle rise, he spotted a group of four horses galloping toward Wesley’s house. Lester smirked and snapped his reins again. “There you are!”

Closing the gap between himself and Lester, Nick spotted the approaching riders as well. The way they were moving toward that house, Nick had to assume they were racing to back up Lester and his cousins. Nick turned around to see if he could spot any trace of Kinman.

From this distance, the house actually looked peaceful.

Nick figured the bounty hunter could handle himself, so he turned back around to set his sights on Lester. When he did, Nick saw that the group of riders had split up so two of them could intercept Lester and the other two could move along to the house. Considering how fast they were all going, Nick guessed it would be only a minute or so before everyone got to meet on a more personal level.

The uneasy feeling in Nick’s gut didn’t get any better when he saw Lester turn to meet the other two riders head-on. It got even worse when he saw Lester wave his arms wildly over his head like some kind of crazed bird.

The two riders slowed down to meet up with Lester and started looking in Nick’s direction as Lester flapped and waved back at him.

Nick pulled back on his reins and held his gun at the ready. It was too late to try and approach from
another angle and it sure as hell was too late to turn back.

Pulling his horse to a stop, Nick swung down from the saddle so all that flesh and bone was between him and the other men.

“Toss that weapon and be quick about it, mister,” one of the other two riders shouted. “Don’t force us to kill you.”

There was something odd about the way that rider tossed his threat at Nick. He didn’t talk like someone out to get their hands on a load of stolen jewels. When Nick glanced around his horse to get a better look, he found Lester and both other riders pointing their guns at him.

Sure enough, those two were wearing badges.