A Complicated Bounty

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

Rose McCleary rode into town in triumph, her horse at a canter and a trussed up, slowly waking man tied down on the back of the animal. He snapped his head up and gave a wild look around before twisting to see the blonde braid of his captor, the woman who’d brassily tricked him on the open road and knocked him flat soon as he turned his back on her.

A bounty hunter. A female bounty hunter. His face flushed at the realization and he struggled-but she had him tied up tight. She pulled up outside the sheriff’s office in the dusty town of Saint Jose and slipped out of her saddle, landing light on her feet and dusting the shoulders of her denim button up shirt off. She cast her rider a glance, noting he was awake-and openly gaping at her.

Rose offered a wry smile. “Did you have a nice rest, Mark Daniels?” He turned even more purple, sputtering-before he started in on the threats.

“I’ll escape before I swing you little harlot-and then I’m going to track you down and-”

“Yeah, yeah, cut my throat in my sleep I’m sure. Get the hell off’a my horse.” She gave a hard shove to his shoulders-and let him fall on the hard packed dirt road right at her horse’s hooves. All signs of amusement vanished as she left him cursing foully on the ground, turned to head inside. She’d let someone else haul the skinny man inside and to a cell-she’d done her part in delivering him.

She shoved open the glass paned door and offered a tight smile to the deputy-no real fan of hers-and then a nod to the sheriff, a burly man with a belly and a greying mustache.

“Well if it ain’t Miss Rose.” He greeted, rising from his desk and giving her a handshake over the messy surface-where he’d been whittling something.

“I got your man outside, sir.”

He gave a nod to his deputy and the younger man sighed and straightened up off the wall, heading out to check the goods.

“He give you much trouble?”

“He didn’t even know I was there for him til he woke up just now.”

He shook his head and opened a drawer, counting out the promised twenty five dollars. “I don’t know how a little miss like you does it, but that’s the third bounty you’ve made good on in two months. Can’t say I’m not impressed.”

“Yeah, well-I’m good at what I do.” She said noncommittally, her eyes on the bills he was counting out, counting right along with him. He handed the money over with an extra five dollars. “For luck.” He said with a nod.

“Mighty kind of you.” Rose said agreeably, tucking the money into the leather billfold she kept in her front right pocket.

“You up for another job?”

“Maybe.”

“Got a man on the run a friend of mine is after. Robbed a cattle baron down south, friend of his.”

“Yeah? What’re they offering?”

“Hundred dollars. I’ll throw on another twenty, as I owe him a favor.”

Rose weighed that out, considering. “Where’d they see him last?”

~*~

Rose walked back out just as the deputy was hauling the doomed Daniels in-still cussin’, she noted absently. She had a new mark, but it could wait until tomorrow-for now, she wants a warm bath and a soft bed to sleep in, after all that riding-she’d been up for thirty two hours now, assuming her math was right.

She grabbed the reins and walked her horse down to the stables first thing, figuring her girl would like a brush down as much as she’d like that bath.

At five feet and five inches, Rose McCleary wasn’t the largest of women-average in size and build for the most part, if a bit of extra curve to the hip and chest. In pants and a button up shirt, corded belt cinched around her slim waist she cut a pretty enough figure, and walked with an alluring sway on those dusty boots of hers.

Her blonde hair was braided down her back and tied off with a bit of blue ribbon, a slight bit of a tan to her skin-and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She didn’t wear any rouge or lipstick, no make up at all to speak of-but she didn’t really need it, either. Still, she was sporting an altogether too serious of an expression for such a youthfully pretty face. One that kept men looking at her only when her back was turned, given the vicious look her green eyes flashed for any eyes that lingered too long on the cowgirl.

Yes, one night of a rest, and then she’d look into maybe picking up a prison cart-her new target looked a little too heavy and too big for her to possibly haul over the back of her horse-and it was much too long of a trip for her to feel safe doing so, anyway.

 

[saedo]

Miscommunication. Whoops.

 

[such_a_bad_man]

The wide Texas prairie is a lonely place. It wasn't a place to live; it was something to cross on your way to someplace else. It was a sea of grass that stretched off in every direction so it was either blind luck or cosmic irony that Drew Goode found himself sitting in the shade of the only hickory tree for miles. It wasn't how he envisioned his plan going, but "stealing" your own cattle back from a cattle boss's herd is a crime. It doesn't matter that you can prove it's your cattle when the boss owns the Marshals and the judges in a 500 mile radius.

Drew stared at the flicking cooking fire he had made in a sunken fire pit. The bacon sizzling in the pan was the last meat he had squirreled away in his pack when he ran. As soon as he heard a bounty had been placed on his head for cattle rustling, he knew it wouldn't pay to stick around. He was in no hurry to introduce himself to the hangman.

Looking away from the fire, his eyes landed on his rifle and saddle. There wasn't much he had to his name anymore. Between his rifle, his horse Samson, and the items in his saddle bags, that was all he had to call his own. It wasn't long ago that he had a house, a wife, and a small cattle farm, but circumstances took one after another away from him. Still, he was determined to get it all back... somehow.

After a less than satisfying meal of bacon beans and carrots, Drew settled in for a long night's sleep. He had to make sure he kept his strength and energy up to stay ahead of the law and their bounty hunters. Tomorrow was going to have to be a hunting day while he was at it. It was going to be tricky, but it wouldn't be the first time he's had to feed himself when others were looking for him.

--------

The morning came with a low-hanging haze and a chill wind. Drew groaned against the cold as he sat up and splashed some water in his face from his canteen. He put out his fire and buried the pit before saddling Samson and heading out further to the west. If he could get into the New Mexico territories, it would be easier to cross south into Mexico or even continue further west to California.

Toward the afternoon, he spied a cluster of pronghorns. It broke his heart to do it, but he'd need the meat if he was going to stay on the run for a while longer. The rest of the cluster ran off when a single rifle shot rang out across the hills that divided the prairie from the deserts beyond. It might not have been his best shot, but it showed his rust from the war hadn't been too bad.

Drew dressed the pronghorn there in the field and took as much meat as he could carry, leaving the rest to the coyotes that he could already hear yipping in the distance, drawn by the scent of blood. That night, he found shelter in the leeward side of an escarpment. It kept him out of the wind and hid his fire that night so it was a bit of a better evening than he'd had in a while. Curling up in the hollow of the overhang, he smiled as he drifted off. Maybe, just maybe, he'd make it out of Texas in the morning.

 

[CurtailedAmbrosia]

“Well, somebody’s been here.” Rose said to the painted mare, the animal indifferent as she poked around in the grass nearby. The bounty hunter was crouched down next to what had been a fire pit. She knocked a half burned log off the pile of ash beneath it, studied it a moment.

The fire couldn’t have been put out more than twelve or so hours ago, and the grass flattened out was still a bright and vivid green, and spoke to there being one man and one man only who’d camped here.

Probably...hopefully her mark. They’d dressed a pronghorn and left much of it behind, probably knowing they wouldn’t be anywhere to sell or store whatever couldn’t be stripped off and smoked in a hurry. Must be low on rations-when a man went on the run, he didn’t always have a lot of time for packin’, and this close to the original location of his crime, he couldn’t really venture into town to pick up any, neither.

Rose rose to stand, tipping her hat back a bit to squint out across the prairie and towards the hills. He was heading further West. The cart wouldn’t do so great out in the open desert, so she needed to double time it to catch up before he got too far into those territories. She didn’t fancy a trip south of the border, neither. Not since her troubles with Juarez.

~*~

It was long past dark, long past the time any hard traveling man would still be awake.

And he wasn’t. The dimming firelight revealed that much, but the man was on his back and had the brim of his hat low over his eyes, could potentially be anybody. Well, supposin’ it was some other poor bastard way out here in the wastes, she’d just apologize and get the hell outta there.

Low to the ground and flat on her belly, Rose slowly straightened, lever action rifle in hand, not yet chambered-and stood with her boots firmly spaced and planted/ She waits there in the dark, watching the rise and fall of the outlaw’s chest. She’s outside the firelight, he wouldn’t be able to see her.

Her mouth is a little dry, which isn’t unusual before a bust, all told. There was always the potential for something to go very wrong, after all-she’d be a fool not to stay at least a little wary.

“Drew Goode, you’re wanted for cattle rustlin’-” She bellowed into the crackling flames and chirping crickets, leveling her repeater on the cowpoke, the telltale sound of a repeater chambering a round. “Keep your hands up and away from that gunbelt of yours-you won’t make it to drawing that pea shooter, I can promise you that!”

 

[such_a_bad_man]

“Drew Goode!"

His name called out like that against the quiet evening, snapped Drew awake. Still his body was so tired that he didn't do much more than curl into a ball against the intrusion into his sleep. He groaned as he rolled onto his back and sat up, pulling his hat up onto his head. Looking around, his dying fire blinded him to the night beyond. Without any ability to see who was out there, he knew that his pursuer was right; he was a dead man even if he could get to his gun first. He had no idea where to shoot.

Sighing in defeat, Drew could only lift up his hands. "You couldn't have waited until I got a decent night's sleep? I finally found a good campsite and you roust me out of it?" He protested, cracking wise as he always did. It was his enduring trait; for some reason, Drew always found he had a smile in the face of death. He couldn't recall ever being nervous in the face of the enemy, only a sense of peace. He was in no hurry to die, but wasn't looking to find it either.

So, Drew stood up to show that he wasn't hiding a gun on his person. His gun belt was laying on his saddle beside him as well as his rifle leaned against the rocky escarpment. "Need me to turn so you can see if I got another iron tucked into my belt?" Drew called out, figuring that would put this bounty hunter at ease.

As he waited, he took a moment to consider the voice he'd heard out there. Either this bounty hunter was young or he was being brought in by a woman. That would be a first, but he wasn't going to put the wagon before the horse until he saw who had gotten the drop on him.