the Bounty Hunters (1953) (2 page)

Looks fine to me, Willet said uneasily. That's the way you always wear it.

I want to try all kinds of styles, Flynn said evenly, before I get old and set in my ways and have to live with it the rest of my life. He looked at Rellis, whose mouth had tightened. I've got all afternoon. You can try parting it on the other side, then in the middle, then if you run out of ideas get your book out and look up a new one.

There was a silence and suddenly a brittle tension that was ready to break. Rellis' jaw tightened and colored a deeper red beneath the beard stubble. His body was stiff as if poised to make a move.

And then Joe Madora laughed. It was a soft chuckle, but it split the silence.

Rellis turned on him. Are you laughing at me! His face was beet-red now.

Madora's smile straightened and suddenly his dark face was cold and dead serious. He said to Rellis, If you're not man then you shouldn't drink that lizard-pee they pass off as whisky over at the Republic.

Rellis didn't move. Flynn felt the tension and it made him ease up straighter in the chair. He looked at Rellis standing on the edge of his nerves gripping the Winchester tightly, cradled under his arm now. Rellis' eyes were wide with disbelief, staring at the little man with the beard' a head smaller than he was, older, and wearing his pistol in a high, awkward position. But Madora looked back at him calmly and something stopped Rellis at the peak of his anger.

Mister, Flynn said now, and waited until Rellis looked at him. You don't need a shave as bad as you think you do. Maybe you better get while your luck's still holding out.

Amazement was on Rellis' face, but he was near the end of his patience and the anger was plain on his face. What's your name? he said.

Flynn.

We ever met before?

I doubt it.

Are you going to get out of that chair, or do I pry you out with this? He raised the Winchester slightly.

You raise that another inch, Flynn said calmly, I'll kill you.

Rellis stopped. He looked at the long barber cloth that covered Flynn to the knees, smooth striped cotton that told nothing.

You're bluffing.

There's one way to find out.

Rellis glanced quickly at the antlers next to the door. A tan coat hung there; a gun belt could be beneath it, but it could also be in Flynn's hand beneath the cloth.

John Willet's face turned paler under the eye shade. He said, his voice faltering, Gentlemen, please' But that was all.

Rellis moved suddenly toward the chair, but Flynn's boot kicked out in the same motion and caught him in the pit of the stomach. Rellis went back with a rip up his shirt front where Flynn's spur had slashed, and as he staggered back, Flynn came out of the chair and swung the hand mirror hard against the side of Rellis' head while his right hand wrenched at the Winchester.

The rifle barrel swung back toward Rellis, even while his hand was still on the stock, and came down across his skull. He didn't go down, but staggered backward with Flynn pushing him toward the open door, and in the doorway Flynn stopped, holding the rifle, while Rellis kept going, stumbling, until he landed in the dust on his back and rolled over. He was raising himself to his knees when his saddlebags came flying out to catch him full in the face and knock him flat again.

Flynn turned back into the shop and placed the rifle against the wall below the antlers. Give him his rifle back when he gets some sense, he said to John Willet.

Joe Madora came out of the chair. Some other time, John. You look a mite too nervous to be wielding scissors. He nodded to the broken glass from the hand mirror. David, you just acquired seven years of the worst kind of luck.

Flynn paid Willet, who took the money silently, then moved to the antlers. He took down his coat, then lifted off his gun harness and passed his arm through the sling so that the holster hung well below his left armpit, the long-barreled .44 extending past his belt. He put on the tan coat, faded, bleached almost white. His light Stetson was sweat-stained around the band and he wore the stiff brim straight, close over his eyes. Putting it on, he said, We'll see you again, John.

Willet said now, He's not going to forget that. Dave, you don't know that man.

Madora said, But he knows Dave now.

Chapter
2

They rode out of Contention toward the cavalry station which was two miles north, up on the San Pedro. It was a one-troop post and Flynn wondered why it had been chosen for the meeting place. He had been working out of Fort Thomas since his return, and Bowers was from Whipple Barracks. But that was like Deneen. He'd pick it so you would wonder. Deneen, the departmental adjutant, whom he'd known for a long time. Too long. Since Chancellorsville. And there was a day at Chancellorsville that he would never forget. Madora had said once that you ought to take a good look at Deneen because he was one of the few honest-to-God full-blooded sons of bitches left.

They rode relaxed, walking the mares, Flynn on a buckskin and Madora on a chestnut. It was close to four o'clock and already the sun was low off to the left, a long crimson streak above the colorless sierra of the Catalinas.

Madora said, Remember Anastacio Esteban?

Flynn looked up, surprised. Very well.

He came through here yesterday with about the whole tribe. Four or five wagons of big and little Estebans hanging on every place you looked.

Here? They live down in Sonora. Soyopa.

I know it, Madora said. They were up the line for some shindig. You know Anastacio made a lot of friends when he was packin' mules for the army. It don't take much to get him back for a celebration.

Flynn said, I came through Soyopa. I was digging just southeast of there and stopped off on my way back. Anastacio had me spend the night at his dobe.

He mentioned he saw you.

His brother Hilario is the alcalde now. Least he was six months ago when I passed through.

Madora nodded. The quiet one.

Unlike his brother, Flynn said. He wasn't along, was he?

No; his daughter was. Did you meet her?

I think so.

You don't think so about her. You either did or you didn't.

Anita?

Nita, Madora said. She could stand a few more pounds, but she's much woman the way she is.

She was along?

Taking her father's place. They passed through here just yesterday. You might catch up with them' depending when you leave.

We might, Flynn said.

He had become acquainted with the good-natured Anastacio while still in the army, during the time Anastacio transported supplies for them; Anastacio the mule skinner, the arriero, who talked to his animals as if they were his children, and drank mescal as if it were water. But he had not met the others until he passed through the pueblo of Soyopa. They had not come up into Arizona to work as Anastacio had done. Hilario, the quiet one. And Nita, whom one remembered well. Perhaps he would see them again.

Deneen's here already, Madora observed, as they rode into the quadrangle of Camp Contention; a scattering of cottonwoods behind a row of drab, wind-scarred adobes, a flagpole, then a long low stable shed facing the adobes.

That's his bay over there in the end stall the trooper's wipin' down, Madora said. When Deneen's standin' next to it you got to blink your eyes to tell which is the genuine horse's-ass, and then you can never be dead sure.

At the end of the stable shed, a dozen or more figures sat about a smoking fire. The sun was behind them and Flynn could not make out who they were until he put his hand up to shield the sun glare.

My boys, Madora said.

Flynn recognized them then Coyotero Apaches, working for the army as trackers. The Apaches looked toward them then and one of them stood up and waved. He wore a faded issue shirt, but it lost its regulation worn with the rest of his attire. Red cotton headband and gray breech clout, and moccasin leggings that reached his thighs.

Madora said, You remember him?

Three-cents, Flynn said. He worked with me awhile.

That red son's better than a bloodhound, Madora said.

A sign marked the adobe headquarters. Black lettering on a whitewashed board to the right of the door: TROOP E SIXTH U.S. CAVALRY.

A trooper who had been at parade rest by the door took their reins and they went inside.

By the left wall, an officer, holding a kepi in his hand, came up quickly off the bench that was there and Flynn knew that this was Bowers. He glanced at the sergeant seated behind the desk and nodded, then looked back at the officer. A young man no, he looked more a boy above medium height, red hair cropped close and a pinkish clean-lined face with a serious set to it. His dark brown eyes held the question, though it was plain he was trying to seem incurious.

Bowers?

The young man nodded.

Dave Flynn. You know Joe Madora.

The officer nodded again, taking the outstretched hand. His grip was firm and he returned Flynn's close inspection as they shook hands.

We had a divisional commander named Bowers.

He was my father.

Good soldier.

Thank you.

Then Flynn beckoned to the door leading into the post commander's office. Is Deneen in there?

Bowers nodded. With Lieutenant Woodside.

Have you seen him yet?

Only for a few minutes.

He hasn't explained anything, then.

I don't see the necessity of an explanation, Bowers stated. I've already received my orders.

May I see them?

Bowers hesitated.

Look, I'm on your side.

He drew a folded paper then from inside his jacket. You are mentioned here, Bowers said quietly. I assumed, though, that this would be discussed in a more private manner.

I won't tell a soul, Flynn said. He glanced at Bowers' serious face and wanted to smile, but he did not.

Madora moved next to him then, to look over his shoulder. That's a nice hand, he said.

Flynn held it close to his face. I don't smell any perfume on it.

Well, don't get it too close or you're liable to smell something else, Madora said. They read the orders in silence.

FROM: .R.L. Deneen, Col. ept. Adjutant, Department of Arizona n the field, Camp Contention, Arizona Terr. O: egis Duane Bowers, Second Lt. th Cav. Reg. hipple Barracks, Prescott, Arizona Terr. UBJECT: ransfer and Reassignment

17 Oct. 1876

As of this date, R. D. Bowers is formally assigned to the office of the Departmental Adjutant, Department of Arizona, and is hereby instructed to report to Camp Contention, Arizona Terr., for detailed instructions concerning the following outlined orders:

Within one week, or, before 25 Oct., R. D. Bowers will have made preparations for extended patrol.

R. D. Bowers will contact one D. Flynn, civilian contract guide. However, herenamed contract employee is free to decline assignment. Substitute, if needed, will be selected by the office of the Department Adjutant.

R. D. Bowers and civilian guide will proceed to that section of Sonora (Mexico) indicated at a future date.

Aforementioned are to make contact, without show of arms, with one Soldado Viejo, hostile Mimbre+|o Apache, and return said hostile to Apache Agency, San Carlos, Arizona Terr.

R. D. Bowers is warned that if detained by Mexican authorities, because of the nature of the assignment he will not be recognized by the United States as a lawful agent.

The subject matter contained herein is of the strictest confidential nature.

The office of the Department Adjutant extends its heartiest wish for a successful undertaking.

A. R. L. DENEEN Department Adjutant

Madora said, That last line's the one.

Flynn returned the sheet to Bowers and moved to the bench; sitting down, hooking a boot heel on the edge, he made a cigarette and took his time lighting it, then exhaled the smoke leisurely, studying the young officer who was trying to appear composed, trying to look West Point. And it was plain that the orders meant very little as far as he was concerned.

This was the man he would take across the Rio Grande which they would call the Bravos then to find Soldado, a broncho Mimbre, who had been fighting longer than Bowers or he had lived. Four dollars a day to guide a new lieutenant with only one year of frontier station behind him. To take him across sun-beaten nothingness and into scrambling rock-strewn puzzling never-ending canyons in search of something that would probably not be there. But always with eyes open, because the Apache knows his business. He knows it better than anyone else. How to kill. That simple? Yes, that simple, he thought. That's what it boils down to. That's what it is from where you're standing, so that's what you call it. Four dollars a day. More than a lieutenant makes. His uniform compensates for the low pay rate' though he could die naked as easy as not.

He heard Madora say, What's he got on you?

I beg your pardon? Bowers said, startled.