Boon by Ed Kurtz (smallest ebook reader txt) 📗

themselves to death for next to nothing just so a few big-wigs at the top of the pile could keep getting richer. I’d decided early in life that work was no way to spend one’s few and short days before that old Angel of Death came calling for his due.

Yet if somebody had asked me the day before what I did to earn my living, I could have laughed and told him I did no such stupid thing, whereas here I was slumped in the saddle with a job of work at hand and, at least for the time being, a profession.

Edward Splettstoesser, bounty hunter.

Jesus.

“Look alive, Edward,” Boon called to me from ahead. She was reading my mind again. “We ain’t but just getting started out.”

“You know,” I called back, “I do believe we are riding right into the heart of Indian Country.”

“We’ve been in the Comancheria for days already,” she said. “Or what’s left of it, anyhow. Still some Kiowa bands about, raising hell. See that smoke over to the east?”

My back stiffened and I looked. Sure enough, a thin gray column rose from the horizon to my right. It wasn’t particularly close, but too close for comfort.

“Nothing like they used to be,” Boon said. “But meaner than ever. I don’t blame ’em none, either. Government’s been warring them to death since they ran out of Confederates to kill. It’ll come to a head soon enough.”

“I’d rather not be in the middle of it when it does,” I said, never imagining for a blink of the eye that I would be.

“If they scalp you, you can just turn that big beard of yours up and wear it on your head,” she offered. “Hardly anybody will notice the difference.”

Boonsri did not laugh often, but when she did it was uproarious. I wasn’t in the mood for mirth. Apart from my anxiety at the volume of her laughter so close to that camp, I reckoned the two of us had already had more than enough Indian troubles.

Barely a year had passed since our run-in with the Mescaleros along the Texas Big Bend, east of Chihuahua. Boon had spotted the smoking ruins of a stagecoach behind an outcropping of rocks and mesquite and insisted on investigating. It smelled like trouble to me and my nose wasn’t lying: no sooner had we gotten within spitting distance of the stage, we were circled by a band of a dozen Mescalero Apaches mounted bareback and armed with a shiny new U.S. Army repeater apiece.

All but one of them were men, and the one woman among them dressed in the same cotton tunic, leather waist-belt, and knee-high moccasins. Like her fellows, she wore long, loose hair that draped over her shoulders. And like her fellows, she did not appear terribly friendly.

It was her that rode up from the rest, her horse snorting as she neared Boon and me. The woman tilted her head back so that she looked down her nose at us, first me and then Boon. I edged a little closer to my own mount, thinking about going for my rifle and seeing how many of them I could knock off their horses before the end. Without so much as looking at me, Boon said, “Don’t.”

The Mescalero woman said something in Chiricahua to her. Boon listened, gravely and intently, despite the fact that she couldn’t understand a single word, as I knew damn well. At the time, I couldn’t tell if the woman was their leader, or if she was just talking to Boon because they were the only two women there. Did she think Boon was an Indian, too? Didn’t seem likely. Mostly, my mind was just spinning in every direction looking for some hidden solution to our dilemma. When an older man with a hard, square face loped up beside the Mescalero woman and aimed his rifle—a brand-spanking new Springfield Trapdoor—at me, I decided it was too late for solutions.

I raised my hands like I was being robbed. The square-faced man’s eyes widened and he tightened his grip on the rifle before he couldn’t take it anymore and exploded into a fit of raucous laughter. Boon turned redder than any of them, she was so embarrassed by me. But the rest of the braves got to chortling pretty good at my expense, too, so in a way I figured I’d just saved our lives by acting the fool like that.

Then the square-faced man directed a pair of his men to ride up to us, where they jabbered until we understood that they wanted us to climb back up into our saddles. I thought we were being set free, but Boon gathered more from their talk than me.

“Hand over your rifle,” she instructed me. “Slow and easy.”

Her Colt came out and spun on her finger so that the butt faced out. One of the men took it. I wasn’t even through untying my saddle scabbard before the other was upon it and yanking the Winchester free.

“They just leaving us out here unarmed?” I protested.

“No,” Boon said. “They’re taking us with them.”

I could feel all the blood drain out of my face.

“Why?” I said.

She shrugged.

Terrific.

The two fellows who took our guns also took our reins, and we rode without power over our destinies with the little band of Mescalero Apaches for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Along the way it became clear to me that the square-faced man was, in fact, the leader of the band, though the woman held some measure of authority, as well. I wondered if she was his wife or his sister, but for the most part I just quietly panicked over what they had in store for us wherever we were going.

Where we went was a camp that might or might not have been across the border into Mexico, where our mounts were confiscated and we were both roughly directed to be seated in front of a smoldering fire. The remaining women of the camp