The Bounty Hunters

"That one had us when you hit him," Fly

"Small goddamn world. My boys brought him in yesterday."

"What are you doing to him?"

"Why?"

"Just curious."

"Asking him where the old chief lives."

"You don't expect him to tell you?"

Lazair shrugged. "No skin off my tail. It's up to him. He tells or he wakes up dead."

"I hear the old man's got five hundred pesos on his head," Fly

"You heard wrong. It's eight hundred now." Lazair nodded toward Matagente. "His lieutenant's got three hundred." He smiled faintly. "The price of fame, eh?"

Fly

Lazair studied him. "You can talk plainer than that."

"I've seen your picture somewhere…on a dodger."

"Where would that be?"

"Cibucu, Fort Thomas, somewhere like that."

Lazair gri

Bowers said now, "So are a few Mimbreno Apaches."

Lazair looked him up and down, noticing the issue belt and holster and the high boots. "Where's your uniform?" he said. He smiled again pushing back the straw from his forehead. "They sent the two of you all the way down here after Apaches?" He shook his head, still gri

Fly

Lazair shifted his eyes to him. "You think he'll mind?"

"He might."

Lazair shook his head again, because he still couldn't believe it. "You mean to tell me they sent just two of you?"

Bowers said, "That's right."

"Christ, I've got fourteen men and we've never laid eyes on him!"

"He's seen you, though," Bowers said. "He was talking about it yesterday."

"Where?"

"Not far from here," Bowers said.

"If your men weren't so gun-happy," Fly

Lazair's men returned his stare silently, hostilely.

He looked at Lazair. "D. F. was carved on the stock of the Springfield. Do I look for them, or do you tell somebody to hand them over?"

Lazair picked a cigar from his shirt pocket and as he lighted the end his eyes remained on Fly

"Long as I get them."

"Where'd the old man say he was going?"

"He didn't."

"But he was going to come home and tend to you later, eh?"

Fly

"Maybe," Lazair said gri

Bowers looked surprised. "You're not holding us?"

"Why?"

"We might be cutting into your business."

"Do I look worried to you? Hell, you can go any place you like…even give you a couple of mounts to use. Anything to help the Army." He smiled sardonically, his teeth clenched on the cigar. "Goddamnedest thing I ever heard of. You're down here hunting him against the law 'cause you're on the wrong side of the fence, and I do the same thing and get paid for it 'cause I'm in a legitimate business."

"We'll have to have a drink over that sometime," Fly

"Next time I'm in Soyopa."

Fly

"Not today," Lazair said. "You going back now?"

Fly

"There's a friend of yours in town," Lazair said. "Matter of fact he was the one ambushed those Indians yesterday. Brought in this one 'cause he was still alive, then rode out this morning for Soyopa. One of the boys saw you in town and this one thinks he might know you." He watched Fly

Fly

Lazair prompted, "He didn't say where he knew you."

"In Contention."

"Nice place…I've been there." Lazair glanced at his men. "Who's got this man's guns?"

No one spoke.

His eyes went over them. "Sid?"

The man said nothing.

"Goddamn it I'm talking to you!"

The one called Sid, heavy-set, with a stubble of red beard, stepped out reluctantly and drew Fly

"Here, let's see it," Lazair said. He weighted the pistol in his hand. "Just a mite long in the barrel. Likely it's accurate, though." His arm swung quickly thumbing the hammer and he fired the pistol in the motion.

Sid jumped quickly. "Hey!"

But no one was looking at him. Matagente sagged forward, his chin against his chest, unmoving, and below his chin was the small hole Lazair's bullet had made.

"Damn accurate," Lazair said.

A silence followed. Fly

Lazair shrugged. "He wasn't doing anybody much good. Hair's worth more'n his carcass. See, we don't exactly make farmers out of them, but we help the crops…turn them under, like manure."

He handed the pistol to Fly

It was past noon when they reached Soyopa, entering by the way they had gone out two days before. And now the cemetery was silent. Rows of wooden crosses, but no one kneeling to remember the dead. Later on, when the shadows lengthened behind the church, the women would come. Always someone came.

The newer graves were near the road and already these were begi

Fly

Aqui yace Anastacio Maria Esteban Vencino de Soyopa Matado por los barbaros el dia 26 de Octubre del ano 1876 Ora por el, Christiano, por Dios.

Fly

Bowers eyed him curiously. "You're sure?"

"Absolutely."

"The Indian could have been lying."

"It's not what Soldado said."

Bowers looked at him, but said nothing.

"Then you didn't see her," Fly