Read the Bounty Hunters (1953) for Free Online Page B

binding the cut traces, and loaded the dead into the flat bed; they moved off slowly, following the draw that twisted narrowly before beginning a curving gradual climb that once more brought them to high open country. By noon of the next day they would be in Soyopa. They would bring the people home to be buried.
    Later, as the trail descended, following the shoulder of the slope, Flynn studied the ribbon of trail far below. It would be dark before they reached the bottom, he knew. They both rode on the wagon box, their horses tied to the tailgate.
    First he saw the dust. It hung in the distance, filtered red by the last of the sun. Whatever had raised it was out of sight now.
    Then, below small shapes moving out of shadow into strips of faded sunlight two riders, moving slowly, bringing up the rear of whatever was up ahead. The riders seemed close, but they were not within rifle range.
    Lieutenant, let me have your glasses.
    There was something familiar about the rider on the left, even at this distance. Flynn put the glasses to his eyes and brought the riders close and there it was, as if looking into the future, seeing Frank Rellis riding along with the Winchester across his lap.

    Chapter 5
    Standing in the doorway, Lieutenant Lamas Duro scratched his bare stomach and smacked his lips disgustedly. The taste of mescal was stale in his mouth. A feeling of faintness came on him, then passed just as suddenly and left him wide awake. He swallowed again as his tongue searched the inside of his mouth. And finally Lieutenant Duro decided that he did not feel too badly considering the mescal and the few hours sleep. Perhaps the mescal had not worn off completely. That was it.
    He looked at the corporal, who smiled at him showing bad teeth, and he thought: If he is as frightened as I know he is, why should he smile? Why should he curl his diseased mouth which makes me despise him all the more? He shrugged to himself as his hands felt the flatness of his pockets. Then he moved the few steps from the sleeping-room doorway into the front room, and drew a cigar from a packet on the cluttered desk.
    The corporal, who was a small man, watched him with wide-open eyes and nervously fingered into his pocket for a match; but when he scratched it against the adobe wall it broke in his hand, unlighted.
    Lieutenant Lamas Duro, chief of rurales, took a match from the desk, shaking his head faintly, and scratched it across the scarred surface of the desk. Holding it to the cigar, he looked at the corporal and the corporal's eyes shifted quickly from his own.
    He moved his hand idly over the hair of his stomach and chest and the hint of an amused smile played about the corners of his sensitive mouth. The corporal, a cartridge bandoleer crossing his faded gray jacket, stood at a rigid but stoop-shouldered attention, his eyes focussed now somewhere beyond the lieutenant, seeing nothing.
    You have a good reason for hammering my door at this hour? The lieutenant spoke calmly, yet his words seemed edged with a threat.
    Teniente, the execution, the corporal said with his eyes still on the wall beyond.
    What execution?
    The Indian who was taken yesterday, Teniente. The one who accompanies the American.
    Oh' There was disappointment in his voice.
    The day before, an American had wandered into Soyopa with a glittering display of goods kitchen utensils, cutlery, leather goods, hats, even suits of clothes. The boxes filled his Conestoga to such capacity that many of the pots and pans hung from racks along the sides. And with him was the Aravaipa Apache boy.
    The boy was perhaps thirteen, certainly not older, but still an Apache. Lieutenant Duro's duty was to rid this territory of banditry, and this included Apaches. They were simple instructions with few qualifications. No exceptions. If the Apache was foolish enough to enter Soyopa, so be it. Let him make his grace with God. His scalp was worth one hundred pesos.
    The trader was escorted far out of sight of