Bounty Hunter lj-1 Read online

  Luke shook his head. “No, I can’t even feel them. I was . . . shot in the back.”

  “Last night?”

  He nodded wearily.

  “Then that was you I heard hollerin’. I wanted to come see, but Grampaw wouldn’t let me. He said to let the damn Yanks and the damn fool Rebs shoot each other, that it weren’t nothin’ to us either way.”

  Luke didn’t know exactly what she meant, but it wasn’t the time to discuss it.

  The girl untied the overalls from her leg and scrambled to her feet. “You could have the decency to close your eyes, seein’ as how I ain’t got no pants on and I saved your life and all.”

  Incredibly, Luke felt himself smiling. “Yes, ma’am.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Could I ask you one more favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tell me your name.”

  She hesitated, then said, “Emily. Emily Sue Peabody.”

  “You sound like a good Georgia girl, Emily Sue Peabody.”

  “I am. Where are you from?”

  “Missouri. My family has a farm up in the Ozarks.”

  “Then you must be a soldier, in spite of what you’re wearin’. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so far away from home.”

  “I was a soldier,” Luke said. “But not any more.”

  That was true. The gold was gone, his friends were dead, and he had spent the past day on the razor’s edge of death. It wouldn’t surprise him one bit if he closed his eyes and opened them again to find himself in Hell.

  “What’s your name?” Emily asked.

  “Luke Jensen.”

  “Well, I’d say that I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Jensen, but right now that’d be a plumb lie. Now don’t you move . . . Come to think of it, I guess you won’t, will you?”

  “Not likely.”

  “I’ll be back quick as I can with the wagon. I’d take it kindly if you don’t die in the meantime.”

  “I’ll . . . try not to,” Luke said as a new wave of exhaustion washed over him. His eyes closed. He heard the swift splashes as Emily hurried away over the wet ground.

  Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought it wasn’t raining quite as hard. Even if the downpour stopped, it wouldn’t mean the danger was over. All the water that had fallen upstream still had to go somewhere. The whole area might flood. If it did, he would be helpless.

  I’m pretty much helpless either way, he reminded himself. All he could do was lie there and wait for Emily to come back.

  “Emily Sue Peabody,” he murmured. It was a pretty name for a pretty girl.

  Thinking about her made the pain not quite so bad.

  CHAPTER 13

  The sound of wagon wheels creaking brought Luke out of his stupor. Rain still fell, but it was definitely not pouring down as hard.

  The wheels stopped, and he heard a thud as somebody jumped down from the wagon. Footsteps ran over to him.

  “You ain’t dead, are you, Mr. Jensen?” Emily asked.

  He opened his eyes and lifted his head. “I’m . . . still here,” he croaked.

  Emily bent down to look at him. “Good.” Then she turned her head to call, “He’s still alive, Grampaw!”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” replied a voice cracked with age. “I’d hate to think you dragged me out in this rain for nothin’! My rheumatiz don’t like this damp weather at all.”

  Luke looked past Emily and saw a man with long white hair and a drooping white mustache coming toward them. The years had bent him some, but he was still fairly tall and his shoulders were broad with strength. He reminded Luke of a thick-trunked old oak tree draped with moss.

  “Let’s roll him onto his back so I can get hold of him under his arms and drag him,” the old man suggested.

  “We can pick him up and carry him,” Emily said. “I’ll help you.”

  “No, the other way will be easier,” her grandfather insisted.

  “He said he’d been shot in the back. Draggin’ him like that’s liable to hurt him even worse.”

  The old man frowned. “You might be right about that,” he admitted. “All right, get on that side of him. I can take most of the weight, but you’ll have to support some of it.”

  “I’ve got it.” Emily moved to loop both arms around Luke’s right arm in a secure grip.

  Her grandfather took Luke’s left arm in the same fashion. “All right, you ready? Lift!”

  With grunts of effort, they straightened, hauling Luke upright for the first time since the night before. Emily’s feet slipped a little in the mud as the strain of his weight hit her, but she managed to keep her balance and didn’t lose her grip on him.

  “This’d sure be easier if you could walk, mister,” the burly old-timer said, “but since you can’t . . .”

  Half dragging, half carrying him, they started toward the wagon, which Luke saw had a team of four rawboned mules hitched to it. They looked like pretty sorry specimens and the wagon wasn’t much better. Every step the old man and Emily took sent pain jolting through him, but he gritted his teeth and didn’t cry out. He recalled how he had screamed after Potter shot him, and the memory filled him with shame. He wasn’t going to let himself act like that in front of Emily Sue Peabody and her grandfather.

  That wasn’t the only shame he felt. The knowledge that he had driven right into that ambush, had lost the Confederacy’s gold, and gotten his friends killed had started to gnaw at him. He had known good and well there was a chance Wiley Potter and the others would double back and make a try for the bullion. For a couple days he had watched very closely for any signs of an ambush.

  But he guessed he’d let his guard down, especially while he was concentrating on getting the wagon up the steep slope of the riverbank. All it had taken was that moment of carelessness, and he had lost everything.

  Well, not everything, he corrected himself. He was still alive, even if just barely. Remy, Dale, and Edgar couldn’t say that much. The guilt Luke felt because of that ate at his insides all the more.

  When they reached the wagon, the old man said, “Mister, you grab on to the sideboard and help hold yourself up whilst Emily puts the tailgate down. Hop to it, girl.”

  Luke grasped the side of the wagon as tightly as he could. When Emily had the tailgate lowered, they helped him around to it and lowered him facedown over the gate. Luke’s weight kept him there while they lifted the lower half of his body and shoved him into the wagon bed.

  That hurt like hell, too.

  “I can see where the bullet tore his shirt,” the old-timer commented. “Looks like the rain washed out most of the blood. Maybe it did the same for the wound. If it didn’t, he’ll likely die of blood poisonin’ in a day or two.”

  “Grampaw!” Emily said.

  “Just tellin’ you the truth of it,” her grandfather said. “I’ll wager the fella’s already thought of that his own self.”

  “I ... have,” Luke gasped from where he lay with the side of his face pressed against the rough boards of the wagon bed. “I appreciate you . . . trying to save my life anyway.”

  “It was the girl’s idea,” the old man said. “I got no use for either side in this war. Haven’t ever since it took my boy and my two grandsons.”

  That explained the bitter undertone in the old-timer’s voice, Luke thought, as well as Emily’s comment that her grandfather didn’t want to get involved in the Yankees and the Confederates shooting each other. He thought he had already lost enough to the fighting, and he was probably right about that.

  Luke didn’t consider himself a Confederate anymore, not after the way he’d let down the cause by losing that gold. But it didn’t really matter since, as Emily’s grandfather had mentioned, he expected to die from his wound in the next few days.

  He would worry about guilt when and if he survived.

  “Might be a good idea if you was to climb up there with him and hold him as still as you can,” the old man told Emily. “It’s gonna be a rough ride, and bumpin’ around’s just gonna
hurt him worse.”

  “You’re right.” She climbed into the wagon bed and sat down next to Luke. Her grandfather got on the seat and took up the reins, yelling at the mules and slapping them with the lines until they lurched forward into a walk.

  The jarring motion sent fresh bursts of agony through Luke’s body, just as the old-timer had predicted. His breath hissed between clenched teeth, but again he managed not to yell. Emily lay down beside him and put her arm around his shoulders, hanging on tightly to brace him against the wagon’s rocking and bouncing.

  He couldn’t help being aware of the warmth of her torso pressed to his. If he responded to it, he didn’t know it, but somehow it comforted him anyway. Gradually the pain eased a bit.

  He didn’t know how far it was to their destination or how long it took to get there, but finally the wagon came to a halt.

  “We’re here,” Emily said. “This is our farm.”

  Luke felt the wagon shift as the old man got down from the seat. A moment later Luke heard the tailgate drop and felt himself moving. He knew the old-timer had taken hold of his feet to drag him out of the wagon, even though he couldn’t feel the grip.

  The rain had tapered off to a drizzle. It was late in the afternoon and darkness was coming on quickly, earlier than usual because of the overcast sky. As they lifted him from the wagon, Luke saw a rectangle of yellow light and recognized it as an open doorway. The glow from a lantern spilled out from the room beyond the door.

  Emily and her grandfather wrestled him inside.

  The old man said, “We better get him outta these wet duds, or he’ll catch the grippe for sure. He don’t need that on top of ever’thing else. I ought to take a look at that bullet hole in his back, too.”

  “You think you can help him, Grampaw?”

  “You want me to, don’t you?”

  “Well . . . yeah, if you can.”

  “One thing I got to know first.” The old man hung on to Luke’s arm, but moved enough so he could peer into Luke’s face. “Are the Yankees gonna come lookin’ for you, mister? Is helpin’ you gonna get me and my granddaughter killed?”

  “The Yankees . . . don’t know I exist,” Luke whispered.

  That might not be exactly true—there might still be patrols searching for eight or nine men with two wagons—but the Yankees would have no interest in a lone man with what was probably a mortal wound in his back. The bodies of Remy, Dale, and Edgar had surely washed downstream, Luke realized, and when they were found, likely they would be miles from there.

  He figured Emily and her grandfather would be safe enough having him. If the Yankees had left them alone so far, they’d have no reason to bother them now.

  “All right,” the old man said. “I hope you’re tellin’ the truth. I’ll hold him up, gal. Get a knife and cut them clothes off him. That’ll be the easiest way to do it.”

  Luke was in too much pain to worry about the girl seeing him naked. Anyway, he’d seen her wearing nothing but that soaked woolen shirt, so he supposed turnabout was fair play, as the old saying went.

  He heard the faint sound of a sharp blade cutting through fabric. His clothes fell away from him. A chill went through him, and he started to shiver.

  “Get somethin’ and dry him off,” the old man said as he struggled to keep Luke upright. “Then we’ll put him in my bunk.”

  Luke felt her drying his torso. When she moved around behind him, he heard her sharp intake of breath. He figured she had spotted the wound low down on his back.

  “It don’t look too good, Grampaw.”

  “I wouldn’t expect it to. Come on, we need to get him warmed up some.”

  Emily finished drying him, and they carried him over to a bunk. As they lowered him face-first onto it, Luke heard a rustling sound that told him the mattress was stuffed with corn husks.

  Even with nothing but a rough blanket covering it, it felt wonderful. He let his face sink into the softness.

  His head jerked up a second later as something prodded into the wound in his back. His lips drew back from his teeth in a pained grimace.

  “Looks like the bullet’s still in there,” the old man said. “It’ll have to come out, but not now. The hole’s already festerin’ too much. Fetch me that jug o’ corn.”

  “You don’t need to get drunk, Grampaw,” Emily said.

  He snorted. “I ain’t plannin’ to drink it. It’ll clean out that wound better’n anythin’ else we got.”

  After hearing that, Luke knew what to expect. But he groaned anyway, a moment later, when the liquid fire of the corn liquor burned into his back and seemingly all the way through to the core of his being. Something poked into the wound again, probably the old man’s fingers, he guessed.

  That was confirmed when the old-timer said, “I can feel the bullet. Should be able to get it. But not yet. I’ll dig it out in a day or two . . . if he’s still alive.”

  “He’ll be alive,” Emily said. “I’m gonna see to that.”

  “Why in Tophet do you care so much whether this varmint lives or dies? You don’t even know him.”

  “I know his name,” Emily said softly. “That’s enough for now.”

  The pain eased a little, and Luke let out the breath he had been holding. As the long sigh escaped him, his eyes closed.

  Exhaustion caught up to him, crashing down like a hammer, and once again he knew nothing but darkness.

  CHAPTER 14

  When he woke up the next time, the only light in the room came from a small candle burned down to almost nothing. The dim glow was enough to reveal Emily sitting in an old rocking chair next to the bunk, dozing. Her eyes were closed.

  Now that Luke got a better look at her, he saw that his initial impression had been right: she was beautiful. Her face showed lines that sorrow and hard work had put in it already, even though she was only around twenty years old, but that didn’t detract from her beauty as far as he was concerned. Her thick dark hair was plaited into a single braid hanging over her left shoulder as she sat in the rocking chair. She had put on a clean shirt and a clean pair of overalls, maybe the only clothes she owned besides the ones she’d been wearing earlier.

  Rough snores came from a long, bulky, blanket-wrapped shape in the bunk on the other side of the room. Luke recalled the bunk in which he lay belonged to Emily’s grandfather, which meant the old-timer had claimed Emily’s bunk while she slept in the chair.

  Or maybe she had insisted on sitting up with him, he thought. That was certainly possible.

  The pain in his back had receded to a dull throbbing. He felt it with every beat of his heart, but was able to ignore it by focusing his attention on Emily.

  Growing aware of his gaze somehow, her eyes opened, the initial flutter of eyelids as delicate as that of a butterfly’s wings. She scooted forward in the rocker and leaned toward him. Quietly, she spoke. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”

  Before Luke could say anything, Emily shook her head. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m sure you hurt like hell.”

  Incredibly, he felt his lips curving in a smile. In a voice that sounded rusty to his ears, he said, “I do.”

  “Then why are you smilin’?”

  “Because I don’t think I’ve . . . ever run across a young woman who . . . talks like you do.”

  She looked surprised, and Luke saw a pink tinge spreading slowly through her lightly olive skin. She was blushing, he realized.

  “You mean the cussin’? I started doin’ it for a reason. After . . . after we got word that my pa and my brothers wouldn’t be comin’ back from the war, I got worried that Grampaw would miss not havin’ any other menfolks around, and since one of the things men seem to do a lot is cuss, I figured it might make Grampaw feel better if I was to do it. They all tried to watch their language around me while I was growin’ up, what with me bein’ the only gal on the place, but I heard enough. I can cuss up a storm when I want to.”

  “How did that ... turn out for you?” Luke asked. />
  “To be honest, it spooked the hell outa Grampaw at first, but once he got used to it, I think he sorta likes it. And I got used to it, too, I reckon, so I don’t hardly know I’m doin’ it anymore. Sometimes when you’re really mad or frustrated, it sure feels good to let loose with a few ripsnorters.”

  “Yes, I can . . . imagine.”

  Emily put a hand to her mouth and looked embarrassed again. “As bad as you must hurt, you must really feel like cussin’. You go right ahead if you want to, Mr. Jensen. It won’t bother me none.”

  “That’s all right. What I’d really like . . . is for you to call me Luke.”

  Emily thought it over and nodded. “I reckon I can do that. I’ve always been taught to be careful around fellas who were slick talkers, because my pa said there was only one thing they wanted, but I guess the shape you’re in, I don’t have to worry about that, do I?”

  “Not hardly,” Luke told her. “And even if I . . . wasn’t hurt . . . my pa brought me up to be a gentleman.”

  “I can see that in your eyes,” she said softly, nodding. She reached forward and lightly rested her hand on his forehead. “Oh, my Lord! You’re burnin’ up with fever.”

  Luke wasn’t surprised. He had already known he felt chilled and light-headed. He supposed the wound in his back had festered and blood poisoning had set in, just like Emily’s grandfather had predicted.

  “I’ll wake Grampaw and see if there’s anything he can do for you,” she went on.

  “There’s . . . no need. Just get a wet cloth . . . wipe my face with it . . . That’s about all . . . anyone can do for me.”

  “There’s gotta be somethin’ else!”

  “There’s not,” Luke told her. “It’s pretty much . . . out of our hands now.”

  He knew that was true. If the fever broke, he might have a chance. If it didn’t, he would die. Simple as that.

  And it might be better if the fever went ahead and took him, he thought. Emily and her grandfather could bury him and be done with it. They wouldn’t have to run even the slight risk of the Yankees finding him and taking action against them.