William Johnstone - Bounty Hunter

“Don’t do it,” Luke warned.

Across the creek, the blonde screamed, “Get out of here, damn you! One barrel of this scattergun’s still loaded! I’ll cut you all down! I ought to do it anyway, for killin’ Maddy!”

Potter’s gun was in his hand, already cocked, but it was still pointed at the ground. He looked at Luke through eyes slitted narrow with hate. “You’re takin’ the side of a bunch of damned whores over your friends?”

“I don’t recall you and me being friends, Potter,” Luke said. “We just have the same job to do, that’s all.”

“And that job’s in danger the longer we stay here,” Lancaster said. “We have to go. Now.”

For a second Luke thought Potter was going to lift his gun and pull the trigger, anyway. If he did, the creek bank would erupt in gunfire. They might all die, especially if the blonde cut loose at the men with that shotgun. She very well might do just that, considering the other whores had scrambled out of the creek and taken shelter behind their wagon.

Potter laughed and shook his head. “I’ll never figure you out, Jensen.” He lowered the hammer of his revolver and stuck the gun back in his waistband. “But I reckon you and the colonel are right. There might be a Yankee patrol gallopin’ toward us right now, so we better light a shuck.”

“But, Wiley—” Casey began.

“I said we’re goin’.”

Casey cast a regretful glance at the blonde. Clearly, he might have dared that shotgun to get at her. But too much else was against him at the moment. He nodded. “Yeah, come on, fellas.” He pointed a finger across the creek at the blonde and added, “I’ll see you again one of these days, darlin’.”

“You better hope I don’t see you first,” she said as her mouth twisted in a snarl.

Luke didn’t put his gun away until the men had gone back to the wagons. He saw Potter glancing at him several times as they got ready to move. It was hard to read the man’s expression, but Luke knew he had made an enemy.

The outriders mounted up, and the drivers and guards climbed onto the wagons. With no Yankees in sight, they moved out smartly, still heading south.

Remy brought his horse alongside the wagon where Luke and Dale were riding. “The next time those girls see Yankee soldiers, they’re gonna tell them about us.”

“I expect you’re right,” Luke said.

“And that blond belle, she be a smart one, Luke. She heard Casey and Potter call the colonel by his rank, and she heard him givin’ us orders. She’ll figure out that, civilian clothes or not, we’re soldiers. Confederate soldiers.”

Luke nodded. He knew Remy was right.

And because of what had happened at that creek, he knew their mission had just gotten harder.

CHAPTER 8

The rest of that day, everyone in the group kept looking behind them fairly often, checking their back trail. The same thought was in their minds: one time, they’d look back and see Yankee cavalry chasing them.

It didn’t happen, though. By the time they camped that night, they hadn’t encountered anyone else.

The next day passed without incident as well, and Luke began to hope if the whores had told somebody about what had happened, the Yankees were too busy to worry about some strange-acting Confederate soldiers dressed in civilian clothing.

They were somewhere in eastern Tennessee, Luke figured, maybe in the Smoky Mountains, and the terrain grew more rugged. The wagons followed narrow, twisting trails running between steep, heavily wooded slopes. Luke watched those mountainsides intently, knowing the dark valleys were perfect for an ambush.

The travelers avoided settlements, but every now and then they passed isolated cabins with small garden patches nearby. The people living there barely subsisted on what little food they could grow, along with any small game they could trap. Obviously, it wasn’t much. The people who came out of those rickety cabins to watch them pass were gaunt and hollow-eyed. They looked like it had been months since their bellies were even half full.

The children were the worst, Luke thought. His heart went out to them as they stared up at the wagons and riders with dull, defeated eyes. He wanted to give them something to eat, but he and his companions were already on short rations. His own belly spent a lot of time growling in hunger. The soldiers couldn’t do any hunting because of the attention the shots might attract.

They were approaching one such cabin when an old man with a long white beard limped onto the trail to stop them.

Lancaster called, “Get out of the way, old-timer,” but the man didn’t budge. Dale hauled back on the reins to bring the lead team to a halt before they ran over the old man. Lancaster cast an irritated look over his shoulder, and Luke knew it was because Dale had stopped the wagon without waiting for the colonel’s order.

“What do you want, old man?” Lancaster asked.

The man raked gnarled fingers through his long white beard before answering. “I don’t know who ye are or where ye be goin’, but I want you to take my grandson wi’ ye.” He turned his head and nodded toward the shack, where a skinny boy about twelve years old stood on the leaning porch. He was barefoot and wore only a pair of ragged overalls.

“I’m sorry, we can’t do that,” Lancaster said.

“If he stays here, he’ll starve, sure as shootin’,” the old man insisted. “The only chance he’s got to live is goin’ somewheres else, somewheres they have more food.”

A harsh laugh came from Potter. “Then he’s out of luck, old-timer, because it’s like this all over the South. The Yankees have burned and looted and torn down until there’s nothing left. The boy might as well stay here and starve instead of starvin’ somewhere else.”

The old man lifted a trembling hand. “Ye can’t mean that. There’s got to be someplace better. There’s got to be a place where folks still have some hope.”

“If there is, we haven’t seen it,” Lancaster said. “I’m sorry, sir, but we have to be moving on. Now, if you’ll get out of our way ...”

In desperation, the old man reached for the halter on the colonel’s horse. “Please . . . you got supplies . . .”

“Not enough to share,” Lancaster snapped. “Not even enough to last us until we get where we’re going.” He pulled his horse to the side, out of the old man’s reach. “Get out of—”

He didn’t say any more. At that moment, a shot boomed and the old man’s head jerked as a sizable chunk of it was blown away by a rifle ball. Blood sprayed in the air, turning his white hair pink.

The shot came from just behind them and to the right, Luke judged. While he was turning on the wagon seat to locate the threat, the thought crossed his mind that the shot had been aimed at Lancaster. When the colonel moved his horse suddenly, it sealed the old man’s fate.

More shots roared. Tongues of flame spurted in the trees almost at the edge of the trail. Luke whipped his rifle to his shoulder and fired at one of the muzzle flashes. A man in a dirty blue uniform and black forage cap staggered out from behind a tree, clutching his chest where Luke’s bullet had gone. The Yankee soldier collapsed.

The rifle was good for only one shot, and Luke didn’t have time to reload. He dropped it at his feet and yanked the revolver from his waistband as he used his other hand to shove Dale off the seat. He followed, diving after his friend.

The bushwhackers seemed to be on the right side of the road. As the Confederates returned the fire, they hurriedly took cover behind the wagons. The saddle mounts bolted down the trail, but that was a problem to worry about later, Luke thought . . . if any of them survived.