David Gates - Blood Money

Placido Geist was seated at one of the vacant blackjack tables. There had been no other place to sit. He’d waved away both of the girls who’d offered him company, had eaten a not unacceptable steak, gristly but flavorful, if overcooked, and he was sipping a weak coffee with a whiskey chaser.

The man who’d come in through the back walked over to the table. He was a compact sort, of medium height, the kind of man likely to be very quick, Placido Geist calculated.

“Straw’s my name. I believe I know yours.”

Placido Geist nodded. They’d never met, but Simon Straw had killed sixteen men, to the bounty hunter’s knowledge, in the Texas Panhandle and in Oklahoma. He was as good as they came. Both of them were out of their usual territory, but they were on all too familiar territory with each other.

“I believe we have a bone to pick,” Straw said.

Placido Geist had himself unhurriedly surveyed the near environs, casting about for a second shooter, but had seen none. This appeared to be a straightforward transaction, man to man. “I believe we may have an argument,” he conceded. “And one I’d prefer to avoid. You’re here for Kick Emory, if I don’t miss my guess. I’ve come to prevent your killing him.”

Simon Straw smiled. It was a disarming smile, almost apologetic. It wasn’t meant to give insult. “I’m not here for that ranny,” he said. “I’m here for you, Espectro.” His stance was relaxed, practically nerveless, none of his muscles tensed.

His hands were at his sides, the elbows slightly bent, like a man ready to pick up a glass. His gun was worn high on the hip, a.44 Remington single-action.

“Kick Emory is worth fifty thousand dollars to Nathan Benét’s father,” Placido Geist said. “I can’t be worth the time and energy.”

“You’d be worth it to me,” Straw said.

He should have seen it before, he now saw. “How much money has Farragut Hagerty put up for me?” he asked.

Simon Straw shrugged. “Twenty-five thousand,” he said.

“The price for the cowboy’s twice that.”

“Kick Emory’s holed up on the Hagerty place back in Texas,” Straw said. “He’s nowhere near New Mexico.”

“Old man Hagerty’s giving sanctuary to Emory from Colonel Benét,” Placido Geist said, snapping to it at the last, if a little late. “And this entire fool’s errand has been meant only to draw me out.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Straw said.

To die in some backwater where there was no law to stop it. It wasn’t Kick Emory who’d picked this place.

“Let’s step out into the street,” Straw said.

“Why bother?” Placido Geist asked him.

“I’ll take small credit for shooting a man with a napkin in his lap.”

“You want a fair fight,” Placido Geist said. “You want we should stand up to each other. You want it known you could take me. And your reward is my celebrity, not Hagerty’s money.”

“I don’t care about the money, old man. I want it said I went up against you, and we took the ten paces, and shot it out. God’s truth, I’d admire your scalp on my belt.”

“It’s a dubious eminence, Straw,” Placido Geist said.

“Fine words butter no parsnips.”

“Make your play,” Placido Geist told him.

He was indeed very fast, and almost fast enough. His left hand moved across his body as he drew the gun with his right, so the heel of his left hand cocked the hammer.

Placido Geist shot him through the table with the nine-inch Smith he’d been holding under his napkin, the bullet splintering up through the felt, taking Straw in the chest. He went down in a burst of tissue and bone.

Straw’s own bullet had nicked the bounty hunter’s earlobe. Placido Geist stepped out from behind the table and put his foot on Straw’s wrist.

“Damn,” Straw said, looking up, his breath a whisper in his shattered lungs. “You’ve done for me.”

“They couldn’t have sent a better,” Placido Geist said.

Air bubbled on Straw’s lips. “I found my better,” he said. He coughed, wetly, and choked to death on his own blood.

Placido Geist touched the napkin to his ear.

Fine words butter no parsnips. The bounty hunter regretted having to kill a literate man.

Other than the Army, there was no law in Antelope Wells, and he chose not to wait for things to sort themselves out. He rode the gelding north to Deming, three full days, where he could catch a through train, and they traveled to Texas by rail, the buckskin riding in the freight wagons, his job done. Placido Geist had left a job half done, but now he had to see it through to the finish.

He was going to settle with the Hagertys. The fated moment awaited him, and he would no longer avoid it.

Emile Duquesne wasn’t overly glad to see him again. The sheriff of Dime Box knew trouble when it came courting.

“The last time you passed through, there were coffins made. Is this getting to be a habit?”

“Hagerty sent a man to kill me.”

“He’ll send others.”

“Not if there’s no one left alive to pay my bounty.”

Duquesne studied the old manhunter. His hands rested on his desk, and he was careful to leave them there. “That sounds much like an offer of violence to Farragut Hagerty’s person,” he remarked. “I’ve no grounds to arrest you, as yet. And there’s no doubt in my mind that should I attempt such an arrest, you’d spill my brains before my gun cleared leather.”

“I’d be unhappy to see it come to that,” Placido Geist said.

“So would I, and I’d be on the unhappy end of it.”

“What are the odds I can parley with Hagerty?”

“Slim to none,” the sheriff said. “Your best chance of a negotiation would be to kill him, and then his oldest son Peter, and then you’d have no choice but to kill me as well.”

“You wouldn’t let it rest there.”

“Couldn’t,” Duquesne told him.

“Because you’re in Hagerty’s pocket.”

“What difference does that make if he’s dead? Besides, he might have bought the gun, but he can’t buy the badge. I signed on for an honest day’s work, half a lifetime ago.”

“Time you earned your pay,” Placido Geist said.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars, if I shoot you in the back,” the sheriff said.

“I won’t leave you to cover my back, then.”

“Ah, hell,” Duquesne said, pushing to his feet. “Somebody has to.”

“No need for it to be you,” the bounty hunter said.

“No need,” Duquesne agreed. “Other than mine.”

They rode out to the Hagerty spread together. Duquesne sat a roan. Placido Geist was riding his claybank mare. “That’s an ugly damn hammer-headed horse,” Duquesne remarked. Placido Geist said nothing. Duquesne wasn’t the first to comment on the mare’s appearance.

“Must be like having an ugly wife,” Duquesne said. “Nobody wants to steal her.”

He was making conversation to cover his anxiety, the bounty hunter understood.

“It’s said you’ve killed over forty men,” the sheriff said.

“Near enough,” Placido Geist said.

“You remember them all?” Duquesne asked.

“Every one,” the bounty hunter said.

“Not something you forget, I’d imagine. Like the women you chose to sleep with.”

“Some of those women have slipped my mind.”

Duquesne sniffed. “Not mine,” he said.

“Fifty-six,” Placido Geist said.

Duquesne knew it wasn’t women the old man was keeping score of, but the number of graves the bounty hunter had filled.

“I don’t take pride in it,” Placido Geist told him.

“But you’re alive.”

Placido Geist nodded to himself. “There’s that,” he said.