Bounty Hunter (9781101611975) Read Online Free PDF Page A

wryly.
    â€œHmmm . . .” Cole said, half reading the document out loud. “Hmmm . . . ‘armed and dangerous,’ it says. Would have thought that this goes without saying.”
    â€œThat’s a way of saying they’re wanted ‘dead or alive.’ It’s a way of saying they’re to be brought back by any means necessary, and in any condition necessary for them to be brought back.”
    â€œMost folks here in Gallatin City would rather see them
dead
than alive,” Olson interjected.
    Ransdell just nodded his head to confirm the assertion.
    When they had finished signing an agreement and shaking hands a second time, Cole explained that he would be starting out first thing in the morning.
    â€œDon’t you want to get started right away?” Ransdell asked urgently. “You’ve got your warrant and they’ve already got almost a two-day head start.”
    â€œThat’s right, Mr. Ransdell,” Cole agreed. “And at this point there’s no way that hard riding will ever catch up to them. The only way that they’re gonna get caught is if they can see that there’s nobody coming after them. If they think they got away, they’ll relax. They’ll slow down. They’ll get themselves caught. In the meantime, I’d like to spend what’s left of this day taking a look at where the shooting happened and talking to them who was there.”
    â€œThat sounds reasonable, I suppose,” Ransdell admitted. “I guess you need to know who you’re dealing with . . . Hannah, could you take Mr. Cole over and see if Mrs. Blaine is up to receiving a caller?”
    â€œYes, Father,” Hannah said with a nod of agreement.
    Bladen Cole smiled, but Hannah scowled slightly. She found the tall stranger easy on the eye and a bit captivating in a dangerous sort of way, but she didn’t want him to know that such was the case.
    *   *   *
    â€œ W HAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THESE P ORTER BOYS, M ISS Ransdell?” Cole asked as they walked.
    â€œThey’re no good,” she said emphatically. “I knew them in school. A lot of the boys had a bit of the nick to them, but those two were just plain cruel . . . cruel to animals . . . cruel to people. Enoch was the worst. He had a taste for blood . . . torturing and killing cats and dogs . . . in ways I’d rather not describe . . . or
recall
.”
    â€œThey ever kill any
people
before?”
    â€œNot that I know of . . . Of course, I have never made it my place to know all of what the Porter boys were up to.”
    â€œWhy do you suppose they did it this time?”
    â€œI dunno . . . some kind of grudge, I reckon.” Hannah shrugged. “Gideon used to work for Mr. Blaine but got himself fired.”
    â€œWhat about the others?”
    â€œLike my father said, they’ll do anything Gideon Porter says to do. Milton Waller is dumb as a post . . . quit school in the second grade . . . Jimmy Goode is known all over Gallatin County as ‘good for nothing.’”
    â€œWhat do they do for work, these boys?”
    â€œThey cowboy around. There’s a lot of need for extra hands on the ranches at branding time . . . roundup time. Man who’s good with a horse and rope, you don’t care if he’s dumb as a post or that he used to kick puppy dogs around.”
    As they turned the corner onto Elm Street, the wind shifted and Cole caught a whiff of her perfume. It was just a trace, just barely there, not like the dolls in Denver who liked to really slather it on. She was naturally, and almost perfectly, beautiful, but the little threesome of freckles on her nose added a humanizing touch, softening the classical perfection of that beauty. This and the easy way that she smiled—now that she had relaxed and stopped forcing her jaw