The first of the rain caught them in the open. By now they were moving slower, having kept on most of the night. That faint red glow over the rounded mountaintops was about as welcome a sight as Norris could have asked. If nothing else, it meant they’d put enough distance between them and Placer to discourage any followers. In the slim chance that didn’t happen, any pursuers who had the drive would have had a rough time tracking them.
Norris, who’d done his share of tracking, knew that it damn near impossible in mountains, especially the coarse gravel, dry gravel that dominated here. Even thoroughly saturated, the stuff just wouldn’t hold a track. The only thing worse was trying to trail somebody or something that had run up the middle of a stream. But for now the terrain was working in his favor. He hoped to be a good ways gone from Placer by the time he lost the advantage.
Reaching into the duster, he searched the inside pocket for his map. While Horse ambled along on his meandering course Norris unfolded the weathered paper. Hundreds of graven brown lines crisscrossed the map, holdovers from times he’d been in a hurry and stuffed it in the pocket without bothering to pay attention to the folds. Among other marks were the ones he’d made; suitable shelters, the presences of various game animals, grazing land, and the presence of water, usually creeks too small for the government to make note of. In short, he’d drawn up the perfect map for a horseman, or horsemen, as the case might have been.
Almost immediately a thick raindrop hit and ran down the paper. He committed the basic layout of the surroundings to memory and stuffed it back in the pocket. The rain was starting down in earnest. Over the mountains to the north, he could only make out the barest details of a gathering of thunderheads. No lightning yet, but he could pick up the faraway drum roll of thunder. If this kept up they’d have a fine New Mexico storm cooked up before dark. All the more reason to find someplace dry and quiet, he reasoned. No point in being needlessly miserable.
Norris had a couple of reasons for being here. Of lesser priority was an outlaw by the name of Otto Geitlin who—as renegades went—was more nuisance than threat. Geitlin was the sort who’d probably last five or six minutes in a place like Placer. Whether he was bold enough or stupid enough to venture that way was open to speculation. As it stood, Geitlin hadn’t actually killed anybody or dynamited a bank or even gone as far as arranging a holdup. A thief by trade, he’d built a reputation on stealing horses. Now horse thieves weren’t especially odd in this part of the country and normally this wouldn’t have been cause for a bounty hunter to get involved. Problem was, Geitlin had begun to make a habit of stealing the wrong animals, specifically those with the U.S. Army’s brand on the flank.
He wasn’t bankrupting the Army and he was nowhere near being worth the big money the government handed out for the big fish. The price stood at $500 live or $400 dead, so long as the remains were recognizable. Geitlin had a noose and a long last step waiting for him. Even so, they’d only pay that extra hundred if they got the exclusive right to his ultimate demise. Of course they’d still be happy—to the tune of four hundred, no less—to have him gone, regardless of cause.
With his pockets getting emptier by the day, Norris had settled on this Geitlin character as an opportune excursion on his journey north. His real reason had a greater draw but was ultimately more difficult to fathom. He had, in one pocket or another, a simple note from the Denton Logging Company of southern Colorado calling him. Why—and what they might have planned—he was not aware.
Whatever their intent, they were offering a thousand for simply appearing. He thought that was a square deal, especially if he wasn’t going to have to do any tracking, detaining or killing. And that much would’ve been a good deal even if the opposite was true. Money was money in the end and a bundle like that would keep him going for quite a while. Having long since memorized the message it relayed, he folded the notice and put it away. Enough business for now.
They made Black’s Canyon in the early hours after midnight, and Norris could have sworn their tail had returned. He’d looked long and hard every couple of minutes since they left. Still no sign, just that uneasy feeling in the gut. An unpleasant side effect was that his nerves were becoming strained beyond his usual limit. The end result wasn’t going to be pretty for anybody who came across as abnormally bothersome.
Though a mining town, Black’s Canyon was about as far removed from Placer as you could get. The town wasn’t altogether planned, but at the same time, streets and avenues had been established once the original tent city came down, due largely to the influence of a Philadelphia draftsman who’d come west hoping to get rich off gold-mining. Eventually he’d became more preoccupied with laying out a burgeoning city, something that earned him a respectable bank account in the end.
In Norris’ mind, that was one of the things that lent the territories and western states such strong appeal back east. Yes, it was wild. Yes, it was rough. But maybe, just maybe, you’d be among the lucky ones, the people who migrated out and someday picked and blasted their way into an especially rich vein. The beauty of it was that you didn’t even have to mine ore to strike it rich.
A blacksmith or tailor who came in early and got themselves entrenched could, over the first few years, build up a considerable clientele. If you didn’t mind replacing the furniture every couple of weeks and had a good supply of hard liquor on a regular basis you could make a living thinning out the paycheck of anybody and everybody with a thirst that water couldn’t cure. Those were the kinds of work Norris had neither the inclination or patience to do.
He slowed Horse when they reached the edge of town. Black’s Canyon wasn’t a place he’d be hesitant about sleeping. Further up the street he spotted a stable, and a few buildings down and across the street a hotel. Both looked decent, enough so for his standards. He weighed the money in his pocket against the draw of another night in a warm bed and suitable food and shelter for Horse. He’d be pushing things a bit, but the way he figured he’d be able to afford both if he avoided spending any more on excesses.
Somewhat reluctantly he dragged his attention back to why he was here. To start his search for Geitlin he’d check in with the various saloons and gambling halls. From there he’d try the houses of ill repute and then the hotels and flophouses. If by that time he wasn’t having any better luck he’d see about finding accommodation for the night for Horse and himself.
First on the list, before looking for Geitlin, even, was a visit to the local marshal’s office, if for no other reason than to warn whatever law within earshot that he was here after a horse thief wanted dead or alive by the Federal government and that it might very easily come to pass that they’d have a running gun battle tearing through their fair town before long. He also wanted to see if they’d even seen Geitlin lately. If not, he saw no point in sticking around, hotel or no.
Finding the marshal’s office was no trouble. Set near the center of the town, not far from the city hall building, a sign across the front loudly proclaimed the structure’s purpose. He tied Horse out front and pushed the door open. To emphasize his point he loosed the coach gun from its boot and brought it along. He made sure to break the gun over for the purpose of declaring himself as non-threatening. He’d learned that lesson, and very nearly learned it the hard and final way. Needless to say the experience stuck with him.
The lone attendant—undoubtedly bored by pulling the midnight watch—sat up from a semi-dozing state on seeing this newcomer. Carrying a scattergun, no less. Suddenly the early shift wasn’t quite as boring. His hand inched toward the pistol in the drawer of his desk, stopping only when he realized the stranger posed no great threat to himself or the lone prisoner sleeping off a sentence in the cell in back.
“You looking for something, stranger?”
“A man named Geitlin. Horse thief. You seen him?” Norris answered.
“Oh, I wouldn’t know nothing about that. We got a man named Geitlin, sure. Ain’t never done nothing to nobody, though.”
“U.S. Government says different,” Norris said. “This Geitlin made off with three thousand dollars worth of horseflesh in past two months.”
“Well now, Mr. ahh…”
“Norris.”
“Norris, yeah. See, what the U.S. Gubmint says ain’t worth beans here.”
“That may be true deputy, but you’d best be advised things is liable to get real warm in a minute,” Norris said, feeling already that this conversation had outlasted its usefulness. The law knew he was here. The law knew he’d be going after Geitlin. He’d told them what they needed to know. They could help or they could sit back and watch. The way things were going they were planning to observe and that was just fine by him.
Half an hour later and already sick and tired of searching every building, Norris was forced to change his hunting strategy. He temporarily gave up his pursuit of the elusive thief and went to the nearest bar instead. A shotglass filled with something resembling kerosene appeared on the scarred wooden surface. He flicked at the glass.
“What’s this?”
“Our finest, son,” the barkeep said, “you look like you been dragged feet-first through hell, so we’ll make that first one on the house. Drink up.”
Norris raised the glass, took a final look at whatever it was floating inside, and finished it on the first try. Whatever it was, it burned.
“Ain’t too many come in at this hour,” the barkeep said when he’d emptied the shotglass.
“If it ain’t prying, why’d you come here?”
“Otto Geitlin,” Norris said flatly.
“Bounty hunter?”
“That’s right.”
“Well,” the bartender paused to take up a dirty glass and rag, “I warned the boy. Told him the Army’d come after him one day. I guess his number just come up.”
“You might say that. I’d kinda hoped to get him still kickin’ though.”
“Well, if’n you figure your luck’s good tonight, he was playing a hand in the back not too long ago. Ain’t heard nothing since so could be he went over to hotel across the street.”
The bounty hunter nodded slowly. If Geitlin had gone to the hotel, odds were he’d be sleeping off his time at the card table. That made capturing him infinitely easier. He himself had no over-riding desire to kill the man. The Federals might, but Norris had no personal stake in this. But if worst came to worst, there was no question of how it all would end.
He tossed a couple of coins onto the bar to pay for the free drink and walked across the street, stopping long enough to take the shotgun from his saddle boot. He broke the gun and took out the chambered shells. Both were unfired and in good condition. Both went back in and he pushed the coach gun closed. The crisp metal snap effectively sealed the fate of Otto Geitlin. No turning back now.
Norris let himself into the hotel. “Geitlin,” he told the clerk, throwing the reward poster on the counter. The desk clerk, taken off balance by the appearance of an armed bounty hunter at two in the morning, found a key and dropped it on the counter with a shaking hand.
“R-r-room twenty-t-three,” he stammered. Norris took the key and went upstairs. By now, the situation had picked up too much momentum to be reversed. The snowballing had started with him checking ammo in the street. It hadn’t been looking good for Geitlin then. Now, with a bounty hunter on the stairs with a gun and a room key the thief’s fate was unavoidable. He’d be at the gates soon, either at the hands of Norris or the Army.
He turned the skeletal key in the lock, hearing the mechanism turn and halfway wondering if the sounds were enough to wake the man on the other side. He opened the door a crack and peered inside. An unmoving shape lay on the bed. Nope. Still sound asleep. This shouldn’t be too difficult. Norris leaned over the sleeping form.
“Geitlin!”
The shape rolled over, saw him, and started to sit up. Without light, Norris couldn’t be sure if this was the right one or not.
“Otto Geitlin, you got a five hundred-dollar bounty on you. ‘Less you wanna die I’d recommend you”—
“Otto?” a woman’s voice asked. “Otto, is that you?”
Uh-oh.
“Otto?” she reached up to touch his face and, upon discovering that this intruder wasn’t Otto Geitlin, let off a piercing scream.
Things happened fast after that. Primarily, the real Otto Geitlin—who’d wandered downstairs a little bit earlier in search of a late-night drink and a friendly game of cards—came tearing down the sidewalk, burst into the hotel lobby, and thundered up the stairs. As he ran, he reached under his jacket for his British-made Webley. Tragically for him, he happened to get the revolver clear in time to reach the hotel room.
Geitlin—who could never have been considered anything even close to a fighter—was a thief first and a gunman as a last resort. His trade called for a fair bit of stealth with very little emphasis on handling guns. Hence, when it came time he needed to know how he was flat out of luck. The room was the worst possible environment and he made the amateur’s mistake of barreling straight into the middle of an unfamiliar situation. With the lamps out out, his eyes failing to adjust, and the nerve-rending screams going on, he made his second big mistake: he started shooting.
His first three shots went wide, straddling the bounty hunter and passing through the far wall. Norris hadn’t wanted for things to turn out this way, but that was the breaks. He wasn’t here for personal reasons maybe, but he wasn’t leaving empty-handed. He brought the coach gun up and hauled back on both triggers. For the shorter part of a second the discharge blocked all other noise while the unfolding scene was frozen in the muzzle flash.
The force of the double impact hit Geitlin hard. So hard, in fact, that he was thrown out of the doorway and against the other side of the hall. Norris figured the thief was dead before he landed. He broke the gun and tossed the empties, then dropped in two more while he moved to take a closer look at his source of funding for the next couple of months.
Otto Geitlin was—or rather, had been—a smallish, mousy-looking sort, somehow made to appear smaller by the onset of his sudden and violent demise. By his guess, Norris put him a little over five feet and maybe a hundred-twenty pounds soaking wet. That fit the description on the poster, though Geitlin had grown a mustache since he’d become a wanted man. Norris reached down and grabbed the collar of the thief’s jacket to drag him outside.
Four hundred, he thought. That ought to last a while, at least until he got the thousand from the Denton Logging Co. Well past that point, really. He hadn’t had that much cash on him in quite a while because most of his earnings went into a bank account back in Galveston. That way he’d have a healthy stockpile left when he eventually quit and retired into a respectable life someplace where nobody knew him.
Somehow he knew better. Quitting was a novel idea, albeit one that would never happen. In all his years he had met old men and he had met bounty hunters. Never once had he met an old bounty hunter. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t toyed with the idea, though it never got far. There was always one last fee to collect, one last rustler or thief. He had finally realized—too late—that he was waiting on a break that would never come. But that was the luck.