ELEVEN SUNRISES is going to be the second book in THE BOUNTY HUNTER series. A BULLET FOR TWO was originally written to be a short novel, but I have decided to extend the storyline it into a series of 7 books or more.
The number of words in the 1st draft of ELEVEN SUNRISES is 49,034
Chapter 1
The Sheriff dismounted and walked over to where Jeb’s and Summer Wind’s bodies were bleeding in the sand. He spat on both of them, and then he shot them several more times. With a large smile on his face he turned to the men in his posse and said, “Now, that’s what I call justice.”
His deputy laughed.
“You’re damn right it is.”
“How many men we got down?” The sheriff asked.
The deputy turned and looked at so and so……..he was just sitting there on his horse with the desert sun burning his skin as though nothing had happened.
“What we got? Two men down? Three?”
So and so looked at the deputy and sheriff and yelled out, “Joe and Frank are dead and Bill and Bert and Ted are wounded. Bill and Bert caught a bullet or two in their shoulders and legs but Ted is all shot up. He’s bleeding in three or four different places.”
The deputy looked at the sheriff and said, “We better get them back to town so the doc can take a look at them.”
“We will,” the sheriff answered as he reloaded his pistol………..the point is x number of men are dead, x number of men are wounded…………..the sheriff is surprised to hear how many men are dead and wounded but the guy reporting to him and deputy says, it was that damn girl that shot them. We only had two or three men down and then when we charged in on her she shot Joe and Bill. Where in the hell did a young girl as pretty as her learn to shoot like that?”
The sheriff reloaded his pistol as he scrutinized their dead bodies. There were shouts and there was laughter as the others dismounted and walked over to where he and the deputy were standing and though it was unspoken by men that pride themselves on being fearless there was relief. The chase was over. When the sheriff finished sliding the last bullet into the chamber he slipped his revolver back into its holster and then he reached into his left shirt pocket and removed a handkerchief and wiped the sweat and grime from his face.
“I don’t know about you but I’m tired of standing here in this hot sun. Let’s get them back to town.”
“You got it sheriff.”
His deputy, Jake Barns, began giving the posse members orders as the sheriff continued to look at their bodies. A moment ago they had been shooting at them but now they were motionless. They looked so young, too young to be wanted, too young to die. Nothing akin to guilt or remorse colored his soul and yet he felt strange about killing for the first time in his life. It was an unfamiliar feeling, one that he didn’t like. His eyes moved across Jeb’s body now and then and the rivers of blood surrounding it but it was the beauty of Summer Wind that he couldn’t get past. The others couldn’t either. When he couldn’t stomach anymore of listening to them talking about what an indignity it was for such a young, beautiful girl to die he turned to them with an impatient hardened face sagging and bloated with fatigue.
“I wish you all would shut up. Just get it done and over with so we can be on our way. We’ve got a good ride ahead of us, ten miles or better. I’m awfully thirsty and we’ve got some money coming to us, enough to drink and gamble until we won’t even be able to remember our own names.”
Their voices fell silent. They looked at each other and gestured but they didn’t want to risk getting shortchanged on their shares of the reward money so they quit their gawking and loafing and got to work. When they had both of their bodies tied to some horses along with the three men that had been killed in the shootout they began making their way back to their little town in the New Mexico
The sheriff’s stern demeanor gave way to aloof indifference as he listened to them bragging about the shootout, and as always happens more than one man claimed to make the shot that finally brought the notorious Jeb McCulloch to his final resting place. With so many guns firing bullets at the same time it’s impossible to know who killed him. More than once he felt tempted to tell them that but he knew it was futile. Each man had already convinced himself that he had made the shot and each man would take credit it for it until the day he died. No one claimed to make the shot that killed Summer Wind; that was something none of them wanted to talk about; but every single one of them argued his case for being the one that ended Jeb’s life.
There are many reasons to drink, whiskey, beer, gin, whatever quenches a man’s thirst. Some never quench it; others do but don’t know it so they keep drinking until it’s the only thing they know. Sheriff Hadley was one of those men. When they arrived back in town they made their way to their favorite saloon and tried to forget everything, the tears of the women that wouldn’t stop flowing the minute they saw their men dead, the tears of their children, tears they knew would keep flowing long after their bodies were buried. It was a small town and so more or less everyone knew each other or was related in some way. It was a different town now than it was before they had left. The men that had died in the shootout with Jeb and Summer Wind were a brother or a cousin or a husband or a best friend of someone. They didn’t want to think about it and they didn’t want to feel the pain anymore than anyone else did. The sheriff had been out in front so he didn’t he see them fall, but the ones that did had to live with that too, the looks on their faces and the sounds of their anguished cries as the bullets ripped through them. The sheriff had another memory that he wanted to drown more than any other, that of Summer Wind’s face and the way her eyes looked incredibly beautiful in death.
Bert and Jim chose to go home to their families rather than keep company with the others. Neither liked cards very much and neither cared much for drinking either. They were honest, upstanding, hardworking ranchmen and the sheriff respected them as much or more than he did anyone else. At times he got the feeling that they even had something like respect for him. To call it respect would be too much. It wasn’t him that they liked or respected and he knew that. It was the fact that he was the sheriff. They respected and believed in the law. They would have shown the same to any man holding his position and being the loyal and duty bound men that they are they would ride for any other sheriff’s posse too if he asked them. They didn’t do it for the money. They did it out of a sense of duty to their families, to the town, to the law they believed in, the laws that held everything together. The men draining bottle after bottle and playing cards with the sheriff were a different kind of men. They were the same kind of man he was, only they didn’t know it. They were there for one reason only, the money. If there was any other reason at all, it would be nothing less than selfish preservation. They knew the sheriff was more of a politician than a lawman and they hated politicians and didn’t trust them and yet it was best to stay in his good graces. The sheriff was a man that would smile at you one moment and ask for your vote and the next he’d put a bullet in your back and never think twice about it.
Every man is different and yet every man is the same. Some of the people in town viewed him as a great man, a man you could depend on, a man that kept outlaws and villains at bay. Some of them knew that he was adept at being flexible in his rather vast interpretation of the law of the land. They viewed him a mercenary, a bounty hunter that used the star on his chest to line his pockets with money more than a lawman bringing outlaws to justice, but they were willing to look past that because they believed that only men like him could do the job. If not for men like him the countryside would be overrun with even more lawless violence. Every time you turned around a bank was being robbed or a stagecoach or some men of bad temper and spirit wandered into town looking for nothing but trouble. It wasn’t a job for a man with a delicate conscious. It wasn’t a job for a man that had a hard time sleeping at night. It was a job for a tough bastard, one that was just as bad, perhaps even worse, than those he brought to justice. He wasn’t what you would think of as an intellectual, he could barely read if he could read at all, but he was cunning and shrewd and had a natural affinity for understanding what others expected of him as all politicians do.
Some of the more religious people in town didn’t approve of him because of the company he kept. A man of his position wasn’t supposed to spend his time gambling and getting drunk with saloon women. There were rumors about him, some of them were based partly in fact, others were completely fabricated, but when a man is sheriff, the people of the town watch everything you do. It didn’t matter who the woman was, how old she was, if she was pretty or not, it only mattered that he was doing something they didn’t approve of. He was supposed to be an example to others but no one was brave enough to tell him that. They talked constantly behind his back but no one dared say it to his face. That was another rumor, he might pay you a late night visit and enforce the law in a way that even the most liberal of sheriff’s, if they have any honesty or decency in them at all, would find nothing short of horrid.
A few years back it was whispered from ear to curious ear that he had a bastard child with a woman by the name of Betty. It was said that he wouldn’t claim the child as his own. That’s why she and the boy packed their belongings one day and left on a stagecoach for San Francisco
Some of the men won money. Some of them lost money. All of them were less than sober. The cards kept getting dealt, hand after hand and the stories of their shootout had by now made its way through town and so every time someone walked into the saloon they felt them looking at them, staring, gawking, as if they were trying to discern something of death. Bill laid his cards on the table as a stranger walked in, one that was lean and tall and muscular in build. He had a shiny pair of boots on and one of those fashionable new hats that all the young guys are so fond of. His hair was as a yellow as the sun and it was neatly combed. It wasn’t long but it wasn’t cropped short either; it reached down to the edge of his shirt collar, a shirt that was made from white cotton. His sideburns grew to just below his ears; along with his eyebrows they comprised the only hair on his face. He wore no beard or mustache. He was clean shaven and his skin smooth and tan was without blemishes or freckles. There was a revolver on his hip, and the gun belt that was around his waist was as black as his jacket and trousers. As he stood at the bar he took his pocket watch out and looked at it. The chain it was attached to gleamed in the light. When the barkeeper set his beer down on the counter in front of him he closed the cover to the case and put it back in his vest pocket. His blue eyes looked around the room as he took a swig of beer and then another. When he had finished his beer he ordered another and then he walked over to the table with the frothy mug in his hand to where the sheriff and his men were sitting.
“Mind if I join you?” He asked, as he looked at the sheriff.
“Taking money from a stranger’s even better than taking money from a friend, and it looks like you’ve got some to take. Pull up a chair.”
Garrett James smiled and sat down.
“If you can take it, it’s yours.”
“When a man with expensive clothes walks in and wants to share his money with us we oblige him don’t we boys?”
“I reckon that star on your chest means you’re the sheriff.”
“Your reckon right, stranger.”
“And who might you be?”
“The name’s James, Garret James.”
“You say it like I should have heard of you.”
“If you mean that being a lawman you think you’ve seen my name somewhere then you’d be wrong.”
“You don’t look like an outlaw on some wanted poster to me. No sir. Those fine clothes you’re wearing look like those of a merchant, one that’s doing rather well.”
“You’re right, sheriff, life has been kind to me. I have business interests in San Francisco
Ed dealt the cards as James took in their ragged faces. They didn’t appear to be intelligent enough to be good gamblers nor did any of them have a demeanor of luck. They looked exactly like what they were, a small town sheriff and his hired henchmen that he passes off as a posse. James picked up his cards and looked them over as did the others. He found himself holding two black kings, a pair or two’s and a five of hearts.
“There’s a lot of talk around town about a man they say you and your boys killed.”
The sheriff was surprised to hear him speak so boldly.
“You know how people are. They talk. What’s it to you anyway?”
“I fought in the war with a man by that name. When I heard the news I had to find out if was him. I suppose it probably was because there aren’t likely to be any other men by that name. It’s a damn shame though, sheriff. A damn shame. He was the bravest man I’ve ever known.”
“He was an outlaw. He got what was coming to him is all.”
“What do you know about him?” James asked, as he discarded one card, the five of hearts, and reached into his pocket and took out some coins and set them on the table. “Those posters he was on don’t tell you what kind of man he was. I fought with him side by side in blood soaked trenches, on battlefields where thousands of men died in a single day. I knew him as well or better than any other man. He survived all that hell only to die such a pitiful death. If that’s not a damn shame I don’t know what is.”
“You got it all wrong, mister”, the sheriff replied, as they all picked up the new cards they had been dealt and looked them over. The sheriff’s cards weren’t any good. He had nothing higher than a pair of sevens. He thought about folding but since he was adept at bluffing he threw some more coins on the table. “I’ll tell you what’s a damn shame. Your hero and that savage girl killed three of my men and wounded two others. I don’t know yet if they’re going to make it or not. That’s three men, maybe four or five that will never see their children grow up and you want me to feel sorry for him.”
James won the hand and then when the cards were dealt again he looked at the sheriff and asked, “Were you in the war?”
“I don’t reckon that’s any of your business. Who do you think you are riding into my town and questioning me?”
“I’m not questioning you, sheriff,” James said, as he looked at him, his voice calm and even. “I just want you to know that the men he killed deserved it or he wouldn’t have done it. Sometimes things get turned around and those that are supposed to be on the side of the law are on the wrong side of it and those that are branded as outlaws are the only ones that stand for justice.”
“He killed a sheriff, a mayor and another man. Shot them down like dogs so he could make off with that girl.”
“That’s what they say but it doesn’t make it true.”
“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s dead and so is the girl.”
“You’re wrong, sheriff. It does matter. He saved my life more than once and I suppose I saved his a time or two. You and I are men and we’ve lived but he was just a boy and now he’s dead.”
“Then it’s up to God to save his soul but that’s the preacher’s business, not mine.”
“I suppose you’re right about that, God will save his soul. You can count on that. That’s why I’m here tonight. I came to tell you that I’m going to pay for his burial.”
“You can talk to the undertaker about that.”
“I intend to see him first thing in the morning.”
“Are you paying for the girl’s funeral too?”
“Of course.”
“Well, aren’t you generous. Are you going to give her a Christian burial or are you going to do it like the savages do it?”
“They’re not savages, sheriff. I’ve heard she was half Apache.”
“Suit yourself. It’s your money.”
The sheriff looked at James long and careful. He didn’t like the fact that the man sitting across the table from him knew Jeb. He wanted Jeb to be an outlaw, nothing more. He didn’t kill a hero. He killed an outlaw. This man was trying to change his mind, trying to put a different slant on things. He was trying to make him feel bad about what he had done. He didn’t like losing money to him hand after hand either. He began to wonder if he was a professional, a card shark, a man that could count cards and all this talk about the outlaw that he and his men had killed being a war hero was nothing more than a tall tale that he had made up to distract them. What did he have up those fancy sleeves of his? He always had an ace or a king or a queen. They were always there when he needed them, royal flushes, straight flushes, four of a kind, and he seemed to always have a Queen of hearts too. He had only lost one hand so far and that was probably nothing more than a calculated ruse to make them think he was honest. Either he was lucky or he was cheating him and his men.
“You a war hero too? That what you’re saying?”
“No. I’m not a hero. I’m just a man. Jeb McCulloch was a hero and he’s going to have a hero’s burial, not an outlaws. You forget sheriff, we all come from somewhere. He has folks out there, somewhere back east if I remember correctly, and other people that knew him. I’m not the only one.”
“You act so high and mighty, all of you boys coming out of that war do but all you did is kill. You did your job. I did mine. I’m sorry to hear that he was a friend of yours but outlaws die. That’s just the way it is.”
James stood up but he made no attempt to collect the money that was sitting on the table in front of him.
“That’s for your time, sheriff. Keep it; it’s yours. The drinks are on me.”
The sheriff looked at his men after James had walked out the door.
“I want him dead! Do you hear me? I want that bastard dead!”
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