Chapter 12: Bounty Hunter

“Don’t you ever bring them in alive?” grunted Sheriff Douglas Greenaway. The toe of his left boot traced an arc in the thin scurf of snow on the sidewalk outside his office as he looked across the hitching rail at a pair of horses. Draped across the saddle of one was the corpse of Ben Avery, former killer and bank robber. Astride the other was Dave Bartlett, aged thirty, an inch under six feet tall, heavily built, with a round, clean-shaven face, pale blue eyes and, under the battered black hat, sandy hair, already thinning.

“They don’t usually give me much choice,” he answered, easing himself down from the big grullo. What he said was true. The men he usually tangled with were the most notorious desperadoes, who had everything to gain by shooting their way to freedom and little to lose by being cut down in the process, since they would hang anyway if taken alive.

Bartlett’s occupation was not universally regarded as a savoury one. Some people were indifferent to bounty hunters, while many hated them and few admired them. That didn’t seem right to Dave, when he could be bothered to think about it. After all, what was he doing? He was ridding society of pests, reducing the workload of official lawmen and helping to make life safer for the settlers pouring into the West.

None of that cut any ice with Saltwater’s law custodian Greenaway, who detested those he called scalpers in general and Dave Bartlett in particular. He made no secret of this as he looked into the challenging eyes of the man he considered barely better than an outlaw. The hostility radiating from the sheriff could have penetrated the hide of a pachyderm. Bartlett was not the most sensitive of men, but he felt himself singed by Greenaway’s projected loathing. “You don’t like me one little bit, do you?” he said.

“No, Bartlett, I don’t. If you really want to know, I’d just as soon see you as anybody else brought in sideways over a saddle.”

“You’ve no call to talk that way,” Bartlett snapped. “Maybe you don’t like the way I make a living, but it saves you and your kind a lot of trouble. Anyway, I’m not asking you to like me, just to pay me.”

“You’ll get paid,” the Sheriff replied. “Come by this afternoon. Meanwhile you can hand over that hardware you’re toting. I don’t allow firearms in town any longer. Collect them when you leave and make sure you do that by sundown.”

The two men had crossed swords more than once over the subject of Bartlett’s livelihood, but Greenaway was in a particularly malevolent mood this time. Bartlett glared up at him. “I don’t see where you have the right to order me around like that,” he said as he handed over his rifle and handgun.

The lawman stood to his full six feet three inches, his hefty, paunchy frame up on the sidewalk towering over the bounty hunter standing in the iron-frozen wagon ruts of the street. Even without the force of law behind him, Greenaway would have been an intimidating figure. “What do you aim to do about it?” he asked, his speech changing suddenly to a mildness which Bartlett realised was more dangerous than the open fury it replaced.

Of course, Greenaway held the reins. Bartlett didn’t like the instructions, but he was in no position to defy them, though he had intended to stay in town for two or three days. “All right, I’ll go,” he muttered. “I don’t reckon you’ll object to my eating while I’m here – or have you banned that as well?”

The sheriff was already turning back to his office. “Eat all you want,” he said. “Get whatever else you need. See me around three o’clock for your blood money, then get out.” He stomped inside, slamming the door with a force that shook snow from the awning.

Bartlett was annoyed. In four years, he had brought in the cadavers of seven high-priced bandits, three of them to Greenaway. Somewhere along the line, rightly or wrongly, he’d rationalised his work. In his mind, he was an unofficial agent of justice, if not of the law. The spasm of anger passed quickly. In this line of business, a man had to get used to being a loner. Not many people wanted to keep company with a manhunter.

Leaving the dead bandit for the Sheriff to deal with, Bartlett trudged off to the livery stable, ensured care for his horse, then went to the better of the town’s two saloons where, his alcohol tolerance being limited, he contented himself with a couple of beers. Next he bought supplies to last him a couple of weeks. Finally, with the sheriff’s deadline looming, he treated himself to a meal of steak, eggs, potatoes and apple pie.

At three o’clock, with a fall of fine snow beginning to sift along the street, he returned to Greenaway’s office to collect his weapons and reward money. That done, he paused to look at the wanted dodgers pinned to the notice board, seeking to establish whether any of the villains on show deserved his attention. Deciding that none of them did, he turned to head for the door, then at the last moment saw a new-looking poster, part-covered by a ledger, on the lawman’s desk. He pointed at it. “Who’s that?”

Greenaway sighed. “I was hoping we wouldn’t get around to this,” he said, hauling out the dodger. “Still, I guess you’ve as much right as anybody else to see it. Arrived this morning. Shame you didn’t come and go yesterday, but since you’re here, you’d better sit down for this one.”

Intrigued, Bartlett took the proffered paper and dropped onto one of the couple of bare wooden chairs that Greenaway kept for visitors. Looking down, he twitched involuntarily, even his tough constitution jolted. Staring up at him was a face which, apart from its trim moustache and short beard, was his own.

With a head-shake, he handed the poster back. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “So he’s really notorious now, is he?”

“Yes. Your twin brother. Changed his name, but that didn’t fool me. He’s top of the wanted list now. Didn’t know that myself until today.”

Dave Bartlett was still staring at the picture. “What did he do?” he said.

“Robbed a bank. When they tried to stop him, he shot a teller dead, then when he was running for his horse, he knocked a ten-year-old boy into the path of freight wagon. They say the kid’ll never walk again.”

“I’d better bring him in,” said Bartlett.

Hardened though he was, the lawman was taken aback by this one. “For heaven’s sake man,” he almost shouted. “This is your brother.”

Now it was Bartlett’s turn to show irritation. “Listen to me, Greenaway,” he barked. “He may be my identical twin, but he stinks in spades. Let me tell you about him. When we were youngsters, he was a real louse. He never passed up a single chance to give me a hard time. Got me into trouble more often than I can remember. If there’s a man in this world I have cause to hate, it’s my brother.”

It was an unusually long speech from the normally taciturn bounty hunter and for a moment Greenaway was astounded by the man’s vehemence. He sat nodding, collecting his thoughts, then scraped back his chair, slapping his palms on meaty thighs. “Well Bartlett,” he said at length, “I never took you for the emotional type. I was going to say something about blood being thicker than water, but I guess I’d be wasting my breath.”

“Yes, you would.”

Now it was time for Greenaway to shake his head. “I always had a low opinion of you,” he said, “but I guess you’ve found new depths. I reckon a man who’d go out hunting his own brother must be about the lowest of the low. As between you and him, I don’t know which one I’d rather see in jail.”

“Don’t lecture me about family matters,” Bartlett snarled. “You have your experiences and I have mine.”

Greenaway inclined his head towards the door. “Get out,” he said quietly, “before I throw you out. And don’t forget what I said about leaving town.”

Bartlett stamped across the street, cursing as he wrenched a foot in one of the vicious ruts. “To hell with this for a one-eyed place anyway,” he muttered to himself, then, balancing his ire against the reward he’d just received, he put the argument with Greenaway behind him, concentrating instead on his brother.

As the lawman had said, Lew had changed his family name and was now known as Lew Wharton. The price on him was two thousand dollars, dead or alive. This time, Bartlett would try hard to make it alive, though he had no doubt that had their roles been reversed, Lew would have had no such scruple.

Mindful of the sheriff’s last words, Bartlett lugged his purchases to the livery stable, saddled up and moved out into the drab main street. The brief flurry of snow had stopped and he looked westward through the clear air to the bulk of the mountains, a good day’s ride away. He had no doubt that his brother was holed up there and he had a good idea where.

Camping in the foothills that night, Dave Bartlett thought about his bitter exchanges with Sheriff Greenaway. It never occurred to Dave that he might be in the wrong. Nor did he entertain the possibility of treating his brother much differently from any other outlaw. He would make some extra effort to avoid killing him. That was enough. What he had told the sheriff was true. Lew had made his early life miserable.

The boys’ mother had died when they were four years old and they had been brought up by a father who, besides being stern by nature, was usually overworked, fatigued and careworn. He provided shelter, food and clothing for the boys, but the unremitting toil involved in making a living left him little time or inclination for pastoral care. He was just, according to his lights, which sometimes did not burn as brightly as they might have done.

Dave had found the general monotony and endless chores of the domestic scene dispiriting enough without the added woes caused by the behaviour of his brother. It had never been clear to Dave whether his own somewhat misanthropic bent had arisen from his innate character or from Lew’s malign influence. Inclined as he was to self-justification, he preferred to believe the latter. He’d spent a good deal of time trying to work out why such a strange situation should arise between twin brothers. Eventually, he ascribed it to one of Lew’s boyhood accidents, when he had fallen from a hay loft, receiving a mighty crack on the head.

Both boys had left home while still in their teens. Dave went first, Lew shortly afterwards. Within two years of the boys’ departure, their father had died, penniless despite the years of labour. There were no other relations.

Since striking out on their respective ways, Dave and Lew had met only once, even that encounter being unintentional. Lew had already made a reputation for himself as a small-time bandit and when the twins’ paths had crossed, he had been with a choice pack of ruffians and clearly enjoying the company. Even now, years later, Dave’s mouth twisted in a thin grimace as he recalled the occasion. Well, they would meet again now, for Dave was sure he would find Lew. This time it would be just the two of them, as it was well known that the outlaw now worked alone.

Dave had no illusions about tackling his brother. Lew was an expert at living in the wilds, especially in these mountains. He had few equals as a tracker and in a land of fine marksmen, he was as good as they came. Also, he had more than his fair share of cunning. Dave was a formidable operator in his chosen field, but he suspected that this time he might be biting off at least as much as he could chew.

It didn’t take Dave long to start picking up sign and Lew was equally quick to realise that he was being pursued. For five days, the deadly game went on, the two men quartering a region of the mountains that each knew well, zigzagging, backtracking and overlapping.

Lew could have made a run for it but Dave knew he wouldn’t. This was not only a manhunt, but also a matter of pride. Dave had never failed to bring in his man, while Lew had never been outsmarted by anyone. Dave excelled at what he did, with no pretensions in other fields. Lew had no speciality, but was versatile. Though he had not been chased quite like this before, his whole adult existence had been spent living by his wits and he was accustomed to coping with the unfamiliar. It was a classic contest.

On the morning of the sixth day, Dave scented success. He had camped on high ground. After taking a cold breakfast, he exploited his fine vantage point, inspecting the land to the west with his telescope. In the distance, beyond a wide belt of pines which he knew to be five or six miles from his position, there was a strip of open ground running north-south for as far as he could see, and seemingly several hundred yards wide. It was swept bare of snow by the wind, and bounded to the west by a high escarpment. Dave knew that in that rock face were caves, at least two of which offered shelter, though neither could be classed as a secure hiding place.

It was as likely a spot as any, Dave decided. He would have to go down, up and down again, and do it with the utmost care. Within ten minutes he was on his way. It took him three tense hours to cover the distance to the far edge of the woodland, his necessarily slow progress being further hampered by a short but heavy snow shower.

Reaching the western fringe of the conifers, Dave emerged cautiously, to view the rock-strewn open stretch. Threading his way through the trees, he rode slowly along for over a mile, then stopped, drawing in his breath in mixed surprise and satisfaction. The earlier shower had deposited a white carpet over the open expanse and there, leading towards the rock face, were hoofprints. That they were fresh was clear, for Dave had seen from his morning survey that the ground had been practically snow-free. It was now noon and the flurry had stopped at around ten. The tracks were no more than two hours old.