The Bounty Man and Doe
Dusty Richards
High Hill Press
A Cactus Country Book
Dear fans and friends.
This
book was the result of some grand people and I sure want to thank all of them. In the 1980’s when this story was hatched, several of my
friends became involved with my writing. Linda Qualls, a housewife with a large breeder hen farm borrowed an electric typewriter from a
registered Angus rancher who only used it to type pedigrees. She typed it. Charlie Elliot, who did lots of my editing, no doubt helped
shape it. Velda Brotherton, a wonderful writer, and I formed N. W. Arkansas Writers group along with some other great gals and guys. A
critique group that still meets every Thursday night and I attend. There were lots more folks who added to this mix. Jory Sherman, a man
who’s written over half a thousand books, guided me through the mine fields of some terrible agents and pushed me into Western Writers of
America. I have not missed a WWA convention since my first in San Antonio in 1985. In 2011, I will become president of that group. Dr
Frank Reuter, now retired, jerked me out of my “Dick and Jane” style and under his tutorage a new world of writing began to develop. The
road I crawled up to publication was never if I sell, but I will sell my books. It was also paved with quitters. Good folks who drowned in
rejections. I shed turn downs like a raincoat does rain. I can still recall sitting on the porch of the Zane Gray cabin and telling his
ghost with not a book written—someday I’ll be on the book shelf with you. Thanks to my wonderful agent Cherry Weiner, all the fans and
friends. They made the awards and all the sales that much sweeter. And a special thank you to my wife Pat who always encouraged me.
God Bless you all Dusty Richards
Prologue
The conversation got around to when someone asked him
if he’d ever heard of a bounty man called Sam Brennen? Why sure Doc Holiday knew Sam Brennen.
The poker playing Dentist remembered when Brennen worked as a deputy for Wyatt in Wichita, Kansas. Speaking in his Georgia drawl to the
other card players around the table in the Birdcage Theater that warm afternoon, he said.
“He’s a quiet, peaceful enough man and in Wichita he married a Dutch woman who had two children.”
“Where was it Sam got that town marshal job?” Doc asked himself absently.
Then as if he recalled he shook his head to continue. “I recall it was some mining camp up in Colorado.”
Then he folded his cards in disgust. “Someone said a bunch of drunk miners killed his
whole family while he was gone. Pretty gory deal.”
“What happened then?” one of the players asked.
“Nobody knows, but I heard now that he’s bounty hunting with some mean squaw.” Doc
twisted in his chair. “Wyatt?”
“What’s that Doc?” the Marshal asked from the bar.
“Where did Sam get that gun packing Injun bitch rides with him?”
“Search me.”
“Well, them two rounded up a bunch of stage robbers in Colorado. Heard she blowed one old boy to hell with a shotgun for reaching
for his gun” Wyatt said with shake of his head. “She must be tough enough.”
“I heard that she was Natise’s daughter.”
“Who knows who she is, but Sam Brennen has her riding along with him. I guess he’s got him a helluva outfit to collect them
rewards,” Wyatt said, leaning back on his elbows on top of the bar.
Doc agreed, then broke into coughing that he finally suppressed with a straight shot of whiskey before he spoke again.
“He keeps on the move, must be still looking for those ones that kilt his family.” Doc began studying his new hand.
“You reckon he’s still is doing that?” a player asked across the table.
“Can’t be sure, but if determination and an Indian squaw will help, I’d hate to be the one he thought had done it,” Holiday said
and folded.
“Doc, I’m going down to the OK Corral and check on my horse. He’s still lame,” Wyatt said finishing his drink.
“Well by gawd, take these damn flies down there with you!”
“Them flies bringing you bad luck?” Earp frowned and acted amused.
“Ain’t won a damn hand all afternoon.”
Wyatt smiled and shook his head as he started for the front door. Under the shaded porch, he could still hear Doc coughing as he
crossed the street. Where in the hell was Sam Brennen anyway?
Chapter One
Sam had searched the diggings from Fort Collins to south of Denver for the
men who had killed his wife and step daughters. Bearded men in the night, no clues, his family’s blood all over the rooms.
Two or three men in a mean stupor of alcohol had destroyed a dream. Ended the tranquil domicile where he escaped the pressure of the
badge. Charged with the job of protecting the entire community, he had failed his own. As the search became more and more futile he began to
really drink.
Whiskey helped him numb the hopelessness as one day ran into the next
one. His guts churned as he rode that day. At last deciding through his booze fogged mind, he was lost.
The bay horse picked its way up the stream laced canyon. There was
something ahead. A blurred figure was beating a pile of hides or something on it. His eyes would not focus.
“Hello the camp,” he said, reining the horse up.
“None of your damn business, you whup your squaw, by gawd, I’ll whup
mine!”
He was a grizzly-looking, bearded man in buckskin armed with a large
quirt.
“Are you whipping a woman?” Sam asked squinting to try to see.
“This here is my squaw, Mister and I aim to whup her till she
learns a lesson.”
“Get back!” Sam ordered, dismounting loosely.
“You better fill your hand,” the whiskered man said, grabbing for the
pistol in his waistband. The bay horse bolted in front of Sam. The bullets from the man’s gun struck the horse and he reared in pain.
With the reaction of a man familiar with a gun, Brennen’s fist filled
with the Colt as he moved clear of the dying horse. He emptied the .45 into the surprised man’s
body. Each slug hitting with a thud and blast of smoke as they spun him around, sent him crashing to the ground.
Balancing unsteady on his boot heels, Sam saw the fearful dark eyes of
the girl. She certainly was hardly more than a teenager.
Turning, she watched the twisting dying tormentor as he gurgled his last
blasphemous moments on earth. Then she surveyed the tottering stranger, busy reloading his pistol, and spilling cartridges on the ground. She
prepared to meet her ancestors.
“You got any coffee?” he asked, leaning over her. “Well well, do you have
any coffee?”
Swallowing hard, she nodded and scurried off on all fours to obey the
latest wild man in her life. Returning she held the steaming metal cup up in her hands with her head bowed obediently.
The cup instantly began to burn his palms. Setting it down on a rock, he
wondered how she had even brought it to him. Rubbing his stinging palm he studied her carefully. In her worn buckskins, she waited for her
destiny, head bowed.
“Who is he?” Sam asked puzzled. Perhaps she did not understand English.
“Who is he?”
Trembling, she rose to stand before him and still did not speak.
Shrugging his shoulders at her not answering, he tried the coffee again, it was cooling. The bitter vapors helped clear his head and still
burnt his throat going down. He gagged and chocked, the sour taste flooding his mouth. His body jerked over forward convulsively as he threw
up. He heaved and heaved and finally when nothing else came forth, he had the dry convulsions that followed.
Swirling his brain into semi darkness, he fought the depleting enemy.
“Damn it girl! Who is this crazy nut that shot my horse?” He coughed half
rising on his knees as she offered him a drink of water. Swallowing hard, he pointed with the canteen at the now stiffening corpse.
“Him, Joe Sunday!” she blurted out in a ring of anger.
“Joe Sunday, huh? Don’t
reckon that means much. Who are you?”
“Doe,” she said proudly.
He cocked his right eye open.
“Doe who?”
“Doe.” She pointed to herself raising her shoulders with the dignity of
royalty.
“Sam Brennen,” he said pointing at himself with the canteen.
Doe spat and kicked with a bare brown foot at the deceased.
“Bad man! Good he is gone to spirits!”
“Right, now we better bury your ex-husband—owner, whatever—and figure
what the hell to do next,” Sam muttered out loud.
“You eat. Plenty time to bury him.” She passed him a plate of steaming
stew.
Testing his sense, he decided it might stay down.
There was no telling when he had eaten last. His belly told him he was hungry.
Sam decided her nose was narrow and had been broken some time. Maybe by
that bad one he’d shot. Her eyes were deep dark pools under the longest lashes. But she was
Indian enough looking. If he’d been out in the diggings for a season, he wouldn’t have culled much
of anything female. Short, but her body was well proportioned with youthful curves. Enough about her looks, he wasn’t interested in her as an
object.
The stew needed salt, but Sam resisted mentioning it. At least it settled
on his shaky stomach. Smoke from the fire changed its direction and he looked up. She was not
taking a bite as if she awaited some command.
“You eat!” he said when she refilled his coffee cup.
She shook her head and grinned pleased at him.
“Get some food and sit down over here. I’ve a million questions to ask
you.” He patted a place beside him for her to come sit by him.
With a shrug, she filled a bowl
and sat down on his side of the fire, cross legged. Her bare brown knees and shapely legs obvious to
him as he began. “Where are your people?”
“No people,” she said, scooping with her fingers into the stew and
licking them delicately.
“What tribe do you belong to?”
“Belong to Joe Sunday, no more Sunday now belong to Sam.”
She pointed at him.
“No. Hell, no. We’re taking you home to your people.”
“They cut my nose off!” she said fearful with a knife like motion across
her face.
“There are some problems that can’t be solved tonight,” Sam mumbled,
shaking his head. “Is there a shovel?”
“Find one after you eat.”
He agreed.
Searching through the panniers after they ate, he found a short handled
one and tested the sandy creek bottom. Patting him on the arm, she made him stop. Taking the shovel away from him, she shook her head at him
and began the grave.
Darkness was filling the canyon as Sam searched the dead man. Stripping
the ammunition belt off the body, he placed it with the old black powder pistol. There were several gold Mexican coins in a leather pouch from
around his neck, even more in the panniers and several ounces of gold dust in a chamois pouch. No papers identified him as Joe Sunday. Only
her word. Age fortyish, left index finger gone
and big knife scars on his forearms from a bad fight. Struggling hard, Sam drug the stiff corpse to the
hole she was preparing.
He considered once, just to get a horse and a rope for the task.
Finally he managed to get the body beside the enlarging grave, illuminated by the nearby fire.
Sam found a tattered trading blanket
and proceeded to wrap the remains up in it. Noticing the girl looked displeased with his use of the
blanket.
“Joe Sunday not worth old blanket!” she said, climbing out of the shallow pit.
“Your opinion, but even he deserves a Christian burial.” Sam puffed rolling the last remains into the grave.
With a shrug of her shoulders, she began covering the body. He stopped her.
“Lord,” Sam began. “We’re delivering this sinner to your grace and trust. Amen.”
“Give me the damn shovel” They tussled over the tool and he finally wrestled it from her.
“Doe go clean dishes,” she said, stomping off barefooted.
“Lord help me,” he said, looking up at the star flecked sky. “My horse is dead. This wild grizzly bear of a man is dead. I have some
Indian girl on my hands. Besides I don’t even know where I’m at.”
Finishing with the burial, he moved back to the fire and sat down.
“More food?” she asked, scrubbing the dishes in a steamy kettle.
He shook his head, deciding he needed to know more about her. “Where did you hook up with Joe Sunday?”
“At a river he paid two men some gold for me.”
“What river?”
“I was never there before.
They called it the Rio Bravo
Nodding, he figured that was based in Texas and the New Mexico Territory.
“Where did you learn English?”
“Mission. Priest teach me English. How to read and write. Learn much at
mission.”
Good, he had a lead on where to take her back to.
Priest would not cut her nose off. “You lived by a mission?”
“We lived in mountains with our people.
“One day Peralta brothers came and killed my mother. Mean men they
scalped her. They stole my brother and me. Bad men they used me like a woman, many times. At a place of dirt houses they sold us to another
mean man. He beat us and we not know why? All time he beat us. The padre take us to mission. No more bad-food, no more bad barn to sleep.
Padre teach us English and pray to his Jesus. Brother run away to ride with Natise. He not like Papagos at mission. He is a warrior.
“One day I decided to run away to my people. I am not a good woman. My
life is spoiled by the men who kill my mother.
“So I wandered alone until two men on mules take me with them. Not too
mean to me, but they sell me to no good Joe Sunday for gold. He ride back trails, go to Colorado,
find more gold. No stop in towns, he mad all the time. Beat Doe ‘cause he mad. Then Sam come.”
Sam coughed and felt the embarrassment of her private life. He studied
the buckskin clad girl-woman that sat cross legged beside him. He thought of the trials she had been drug through. She broke his chain of
thought.
She asked, “You know my story?”
“I do. It is sad. Some mean men killed my wife and two daughters. I’m
searching the gold camps for them. You know these men who hurt you. All I know about them is they are miners. Hell, I’ve been looking for
ghosts for months. I don’t even know where we are at.”
“You lose all your family?”
“Hell, yes, but you don’t understand they are gone like smoke—like
ghosts.”
“I help you find these men then we
ride and then we get Peralta brothers?”
“How in the world can we find ghosts?”
He turned his palms out.
“No ghosts kill your wife. They leave a trail you miss sign. Need a good
Indian to find the way. Yes, then we’ll go find the Peraltas.”
“Let’s sleep on it. I’ve done enough thinking for one day.”
“You want me sleep with you?” she asked.
It was a flat matter of fact statement that made him cringe.
He had not even considered a woman to sleep with him since burying his wife.
“No, not tonight,” he said meekly.
She frowned. “You not ride off and leave Doe?”
“No,” he said, turning an ear to some wolves howling up on the mountain.
Sunday’s horses shuffled uneasy, but they were hobbled. The lonely hair raising cry of the leader that led the pack called them in after a
fear filled black tail deer. Answering him they joined the pursuit.
“Doe, build up fire so wolves don’t come eat us. Be too cold to sleep
alone,” She laughed rubbing her chilled arms.
“Yah,” he said tired, ignoring the offer. Getting his bedroll from the
dead horse, he dropped into his blankets. He snuggled in their warmth with the pistol in his hand. Peeking, he watched her churn up the fire.
Sparks flying blindly, she poked it with vengeance and sat down to stare into the flames. Smiling to himself, he drifted off to sleep.