Bounty Hunter (9781101611975) (23 page)

“I'm sure that if he were here, Miss Ransdell, he would . . .”

“He might or he might not.” Hannah shrugged innocently. “But of course if he
were
here, he wouldn't have asked
me
to be here . . .”

“Okay, Miss Ransdell,” Olson said, holding up a hand. “If that be your wish. Let us all hasten back to Gallatin City . . . together.”

*   *   *

“
Y
OU FELLAS WORK FOR
M
R.
R
ANSDELL?”
C
OLE ASKED
innocently of Edward J. Olson's hands as they continued south toward Gallatin City.

While Olson joined Hannah in the lead of the procession, the other two had joined Cole in bringing up the rear.

“Ummm . . . yep,” answered one. “Sometimes. Mainly do jobs for Mr. Olson.”

“He sure seems to be surprised that Mr. Ransdell sent his daughter out to check up on me,” Cole said in a casual, “making conversation” way.

“Does seem curious, I guess,” the kid said. “But I guess he figured she was up to the job.”

“She's a willful one,” the other interjected. “Too damned smart for her own damned good from what I've heard. Like some kind of filly bronc.”

“Like to ride that filly bronc, though,” the first kid said.

“Not me,” said his partner. “I'm not rightly fond of uppity women. That one looks to be nothing but trouble.”

“Still, she's a looker,” the first insisted. “What do you think, Cole?”

“She's a looker, for sure,” Cole said, nodding, in a casual, “making conversation” way.

Chapter 29

A
S
I
SHAM
R
ANSDELL UNLOCKED THE FRONT DOOR TO THE
Gallatin City Bank and Trust Company and stepped inside, the big clock on the far wall chimed once. Half an hour until opening time.

Mr. Duffy was at his desk, hard at work under his green eyeshade. Hannah's desk was empty, of course.

“I wonder why Hannah decided so impulsively to take off for Bozeman,” Duffy said as he noticed his boss staring at the empty desk.

“She has a friend down there who had a child recently,” the banker replied. “But I do not know why she decided on this visit so abruptly. I have long ago discovered that the females of our species are given to flights of spontaneity. In any event, I looked forward to her return. I'm tiring of making my own breakfast.”

“Maybe you'll hear from her by mail today,” Duffy said hopefully.

“When she travels, she usually drops a line to tell that she arrived safely, but young people often forget such things when they get busy. I hope she is having a pleasant visit.”

Pouring himself a cup of the coffee which Duffy had made—more poorly, admittedly, than Hannah—he sat down to review a stack of papers that Duffy had placed on his desk for his signature.

After signing off on a couple of very routine documents, he leaned back in his heavy oak desk chair to take a sip of coffee. On the wall there hung a map of Gallatin City and adjacent parcels, with various properties marked with color-coded snippets of ribbon carefully attached with banker's pins. Red stood for mortgages, green for commercial loans, and so on. To the east of town, his eyes fell upon the tract of land that he and his partners had acquired some years back for practically nothing, and on which he and his lone surviving partner stood to make a fortune. Upon this reflection, he could not stifle a contented smile.

As the clock struck the hour, Isham Ransdell was raising the curtains and unlocking the front door. This was normally Hannah's job, but in her absence it fell to him. It was, he thought, only for the week. In any case, he was delighted, as always, to see a line of customers at his door.

Standing at the teller's window, performing the routine tasks of the bank teller—cashing checks, making change for the boy sent over by the mercantile, and so on—reminded him of his own early days in banking. He was glad, though, to have that part of his career behind him.

*   *   *

I
SHAM
R
ANSDELL STEPPED INTO THE COLD MORNING.
A few snowflakes were in the air, but there seemed no threat of a storm.

Not only had he been compelled to fill in at the teller's window this morning, but he now had to make the daily trek to the post office
himself
. He could have sent Duffy, but the man was more useful to the bank beneath his eyeshade working with his pen.

Standing in line, waiting for his mail, was another task Ransdell was glad to have behind him.

At last, he got his bundle, and he had stepped aside to thumb through it, when the door opened and in walked Virgil Stocker.

“What brings
you
to the post office, Virgil?” Ransdell asked with a smile..

“Same as you, I suppose,” Stocker answered with a shrug. “My secretary is off today . . . Caught something . . . It's the weather, I suppose. These girls these days . . . they get the sniffles and suddenly they cannot work.”

“Not like when we were starting out,” Ransdell observed nostalgically.

“In those days, we'd have come to work with a broken leg.”

“Indeed,” the banker agreed, noting the injuries and scars that were still prominent on the attorney's face.

“Isham, I was thinking that if you are available, you and I should perhaps dine together at the Gallatin House, as we have
not
done in some time.”

“That is a capital idea,” Ransdell said, his eyes brightening. “What about this evening? With my chief cook and bottle washer off to Bozeman to call on her friend, dinner at my home is a lonely affair. Your company would be much appreciated.”

“Excellent. We could make it an early dinner. We'd dine in my private booth, of course . . . perhaps around five?”

By now, Stocker had reached the head of the line and was rewarded with his own stack of mail.

Isham Ransdell was about to say “good day” and leave his partner to look though his mail alone, when Stocker turned to him with a letter, addressed to “Mr. Virgil Stocker, Attorney,” which he showed to his friend. It had been postmarked in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the return address was that of the Northern Pacific Railway Company.

Stocker looked at Ransdell and back at the letter.

“This may be what we have been waiting for,” Stocker said, licking his lips.

“Are you going to open it?” Ransdell asked.

“I suggest that we open it
together
,” Stocker said with a smile. “We
could
wait for dinner, but why don't we retire to my offices
now
and open it over a glass of something to warm us.”

Neither man spoke as they made their way through the lazily drifting snowflakes to Stocker's law offices. The two men sat down, and Stocker ceremonially uncorked a half-filled whiskey bottle.

“Special occasions.” He smiled, pouring generous portions for himself and his colleague. “I save this bottle for special occasions. I think you were here the last time . . . When was that?”

“Nearly a year ago, as I recall,” Ransdell said, picking up his glass. “There were
four
of us on that day.”

“Indeed, there were,” Stocker agreed with sadness in his voice.

“Shall we drink to a satisfactory conclusion of a sad affair?” Ransdell said. “To the bounty hunter's having resolved the situation once and for all.”

“To the end of the whole sordid mess,” Stocker suggested, touching his partner's glass. “And to brighter days ahead.”

“Hear, hear,” Ransdell agreed with a smile. “Now, are you going to open the damned letter?”

“Indeed . . . after much adieu,” he said, crisply slitting the envelope with a letter opener.

Isham Ransdell leaned forward as Stocker unfolded the missive.

Beneath the formal letterhead of the railway company, and above a signature that carried the legend, “on behalf of Mr. Frederick H. Billings,” was a typescript containing more zeros than either man could have imagined.

“Jackpot,” Isham Ransdell said. It was the only word that came to mind.

Stocker smiled after a long pause. “This is but their
opening
offer.”

Chapter 30

E
DWARD
J
.
O
LSON FOUND HIMSELF IN THE KIND OF
situation his mother had always referred to as a “pickle.” He never understood why, to her, a conundrum was like a canned vegetable, but the analogy had permanently stained his vocabulary.

When he had ridden north out of Gallatin City at the crack of dawn, he had expected to meet Blake and Clark on the trail with a line of horses bearing the bodies of the bounty hunter and the Porter boys. Just in case Blake and Clark had not accomplished their task, he had brought a further pair of hired guns to help him finish the job.

One way or another, he had expected to reach Gallatin City with a line of horses that represented a line of loose ends, each of them neatly tied off.

Then
she
appeared, unexpectedly, and as though out of
nowhere
!

When he had ridden north out of Gallatin City at the crack of dawn, the
last
thing Olson would have imagined himself doing was riding back to Gallatin City beside Isham Ransdell's daughter—and with Gideon Porter still
alive
.

Where were Blake and Clark?

They must be out here
somewhere
. If
she
had found the bounty hunter, certainly they could have as well. Were they complete fools or had they been spooked into inaction by the presence of Isham Ransdell's daughter?

If they had done their job
before
she had showed up, then Edward J. Olson would not be in this pickle, but he
was
, and he knew he must either eat it or choke on it.

One way or another, Gideon Porter
could not
reach Gallatin City alive. If Gideon Porter pointed his filthy finger of accusation in front of everyone in Gallatin City, Olson himself would be in danger of the gallows. He cursed everyone involved in that fatal calamity at John Blaine's house and himself for agreeing to be part of it.

Her
presence complicated everything. He
must
get rid of Gideon Porter, but he could not have her as a witness. He had to get her away so that his boys could take care of business.

“Miss Ransdell,” Olson said at last, steering his horse close to Hestia. “May I have a word?”

“Yes, Mr. Olson,” she said, smiling innocently.

“I'd like to beg you to reconsider my offer to ride on ahead with me. I would very much hate to see you get hurt if there were to be trouble. These men are dangerous criminals.”

“They don't appear very threatening at the moment,” she said, mocking him with a naive giggle. “They're both chained up. I don't see
how
they could hurt anyone in such a state.”

“Miss Ransdell, I'm afraid that this is not something that is open to discussion.”

“
What?
”

“As your father's right-hand man, I am afraid that I must
insist
that we get away from these men and that you allow me to escort you back to Gallatin City in safety. The men have the situation well in hand.”

“As you should know better than anyone, sir,
his
wishes must be respected,” she said, displaying a temper not previously in evidence. “I'm afraid that I cannot do as you've requested.”

“This is not a request, Miss Ransdell,” he said, displaying a temper of his own. “I must
insist
.”

“Then I
decline
your insistence, as I declined your request, Mr. Olson.”

“You
will
do what you are
told
!” he said angrily. “I was your father's right-hand man when you were in pigtails, Miss Ransdell. If you will not obey me, I'll turn you over my knee as your father should have done long ago.”

“I should like to see you
try
to do such a thing,” she said antagonistically.

“You are a disrespectful girl demonstrating the behavior of a wench, young lady,” he cautioned.

With that, he desperately grabbed for her reins.

She deftly sidestepped the black mare, and his grasp fell short.

“
Aha
,” Hannah exclaimed, taunting him.

“Damn you,” Olson said, turning his horse to get near to her.

The mare reared suddenly, but Hannah leaned into Hestia's neck and did not fall.

“What's going on up there?” Bladen Cole yelled from the back of the procession, having seen Olson make a grab at Hannah's mare.

Olson grasped again for Hannah's reins, and again he missed.

“What the hell are you tying to do?” Bladen Cole shouted angrily, as Olson glanced back toward him.

“Boys!” Olson shouted. “Take him
now
!”

The young man closest to Cole, the one who had described Hannah as a “filly bronc,” went for his pistol.

Alerted by Olson's shout, the bounty hunter ducked as the first shot rang out, and fired the second himself.

As the man toppled from his horse, the one behind him reached for his gun.

The .45-caliber lead from the bounty hunter's Colt impacted just below the man's clavicle, ripping into his chest before he had a chance raise his gun.

Cole glanced once at his dying face and at hands thrashing clumsily in the warm, rapidly flowing blood, and turned the roan in the direction of Edward J. Olson.

*   *   *

A
S
O
LSON WAS WATCHING THESE EVENTS UNFOLD, HIS GAZE
turned to Gideon Porter, the man who could, under no circumstance, ever set foot in Gallatin City.

He pulled his own pistol from the holster within his coat and took careful aim. Porter was so near, and so paralyzed with fear, that he could not be missed.

As he aimed his pistol at Porter, Olson felt what seemed to be a freighter's wagon crashing down on his head.

The sight of the near and vulnerable Gideon Porter melted into a dizzying grayness.

Turned awkwardly in his saddle, and spinning in dizziness, Olson felt his balance lost.

He had the sensation of the pistol tumbling from his hand as he reached out to break his fall.

The collision with the ground was nearly as painful as the blow to his head.

I must finish the job . . . Gideon Porter cannot live
, Olson thought.

Through the dizzying grayness and the seeing of “stars,” his eyes fell upon his pistol. He crawled and reached out to it as it lay on the ground in the light dusting of newly fallen snow.

“Don't do it!”

Someone was shouting.

K'pow . . . T'zing

A shot had been fired.

The bullet had ricocheted of the metal of the cylinder.

Something had hit him in the eye.

He rolled over and looked up.

With his other eye, he saw Hannah Ransdell, still on her mare, pointing a rifle at
him
.

“Put that gun down this instant,” he demanded in a creaking, sputtering voice.

“Or what?” Isham Ransdell's daughter asked. “Will you turn me over your knee?”

K'pow . . . T'zing

The second shot missed him by inches.

“That's for calling me a
wench
,” she explained. “Next time, I won't miss.”

*   *   *

“
D
AMN YOU, BOUNTY HUNTER.
H
E'S THE
ONE
,”
G
IDEON
Porter asserted as Bladen Cole rode up to find Edward J. Olson lying on the ground with Hannah Ransdell pointing her Winchester at him.

“One
what
?” Cole asked

“One what hired me to shoot those people.”

“
Now
you tell us,” Cole said. “After all these days of keeping your mouth shut about your ‘friends in high places.'”

“Looks like he was not your friend after all,” Hannah suggested.

“And not in such a high place at the moment,” Cole added wryly.

“He told me he'd take care of it . . . said that he'd take care of everything,” Porter insisted angrily.

“Looks to be that his plan was to take care of
it
by taking care of
you
,” Cole mused.

“You fool, you
stupid
fool,” Olson said to Porter as he stood up and brushed off his hat.

“Is the fool
right?
” Cole asked. “
Did
you hire him to do those murders?”

“You are
all
fools,” Olson said emphatically, walking toward his horse. “This is not over yet!”

“Whoa, there, Mr. Olson,” Cole said. “You're not dressed to ride just yet.”

For Isham Ransdell's right-hand man, being “dressed to ride” meant the proper jewelry, specifically the manacles that then held Jimmy Goode to his saddle. Because Goode was without the use of his right hand, Cole decided to secure him to his saddle with rope and to use that set of irons for anchoring Edward J. Olson instead.