Bounty Hunter (9781101611975) by Bill Yenne Page B

immediately by another.
    The porridge of bone and flesh that had once been the back of Enoch Porter’s head distributed itself randomly on the far wall of the room.
    Jimmy Goode’s quivering hand lost its grip on his coffee cup.
    Gideon Porter’s hand went for his own gun.
    Bladen Cole’s reproachful advice, supported by a gun aimed directly at Gideon’s head, was that he should
not
do that.

Chapter 10

    R ELIEVED OF HIS SIDEARM, A SULLEN G IDEON P ORTER SAT upon his horse, his wrists restrained by old army-issue prison manacles. The chain was looped through the gullet beneath his saddle horn, inextricably fastening him to the saddle. He bit his lip in reaction to the biting cold and to the bitter realization that he had been caught.
    He watched as his little brother, now a rapidly cooling corpse wrapped in a cast-off scrap of canvas, was tied across the saddle on which he had ridden into Heart Butte the day before.
    â€œDamn you, Enoch,” his brother hissed quietly. Had it not been for Enoch’s uncontrolled sadism, Mary Phillips would still be alive, and the cycle of events that had been neither anticipated nor desired by anyone would never have led to this humiliating moment.
    They had gone to a house to kill three men, but by Gideon’s reasoning, Enoch’s killing a woman with no good reason had ignited the fires of outrage that had put a bounty hunter on their trail—a bounty hunter who had apparently not feared following that trail into Blackfeet country.
    Gideon had assumed they would be safe in this land of barbarians.
    Gideon had been wrong.
    â€œDamn you, Enoch,” his brother hissed quietly. “Why the hell did you have to go after that damnable squaw?”
    Had it not been for Enoch’s impetuous, hotheaded lust, there would have been three guns to take on the bounty hunter. At least there would have been
two
—because, after all, Jimmy Goode was good for
nothing
.
    Barely fifteen minutes ago, Jimmy had been enjoying a cup of coffee—poor coffee, but still coffee—but now both he and Gideon were manacled to their saddles in the icy arctic wind. Events had unfolded more quickly and with more complexity than the limited capabilities of Jimmy Goode’s mind could process.
    A squaw on the floor, and Enoch’s brains on the wall.
    A
very angry
squaw with Enoch’s knife, and Enoch’s manhood in Double Runner’s potbellied heating stove.
    Normally, Double Runner would have been displeased to have guests treated so harshly and blood spattered all around his parlor, but after what he had seen Enoch try to do to Natoya-I-nis’kim, he agreed entirely with the fate meted out to Enoch Porter by the bounty hunter.
    After what Cole had told him about them, Double Runner was doubly pleased to be rid of the surviving strangers.
    The Siksikáwa leader was also delighted that Cole had made the gesture of presenting him with Enoch’s finely tooled leather boots, a pair which Cole had seen him admiring. Double Runner was pleased with this favor and called for his son and two other young men to ride with the bounty hunter and his prisoners as far as O-mis-tai-po-kah’s camp.
    As they rode out, all were silent.
    There was nothing much to be said.
    The two outlaws rode in the center, their horses roped together, flanked by the Blackfeet men, who were as eager to see them going away to justice as the bounty hunter. Cole rode behind, where he could watch his prisoners. He was flanked by Natoya, who rode parallel to him at a distance of about a dozen yards.
    As Cole watched, over the first few miles, the taut muscles in her face gradually relaxed. Rage had turned to anger. Anger had been slowly but surely consumed by the soothing mitigation of retribution having been exacted.
    At last she shot him a glance, and he saw that for the first time, the frown had disappeared from her face. It was not exactly a smile, but it was an expression of