Diamond In The Rough (Bodie Kendrick - Bounty Hunter Book 3) Read online

  Diamond In The Rough

  Bodie Kendrick – Bounty Hunter

  (Book Three)

  Wayne D. Dundee

  Diamond in the Rough

  copyright © 2013 Wayne D. Dundee. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information and permissions please contact

  Bil-Em-Ri Media

  908 West 7th Street

  Ogallala, NE 69153

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or deceased, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This is for Chris Ireland,

  who pulled the partial manuscript

  out of "the cloud" and put it back in my hands

  Chapter One

  The sound of gunfire certainly wasn’t something new to Bodie Kendrick. During his years spent hunting violent fugitives throughout the Southwest territories of Arizona and New Mexico, he’d heard gun shots on plenty of occasions. Hell, he’d been in the thick of flying lead more times than he cared to think about.

  But on this bright, sunny afternoon, out here in the middle of nowhere, the not-too-distant crack of guns coming from just over a rocky ridge off to the west, was sudden and unexpected.

  Kendrick reined up his big chestnut stallion, Blockhead, and stood in the stirrups, listening more intently as he scanned the ridge for sign of movement or a dust cloud or anything that might be connected to the sound. He spotted nothing. But the shooting continued, rifles and pistols both popping steadily. Whatever was going on, somebody seemed to be taking it mighty damn serious.

  Kendrick settled back onto the saddle seat and swore under his breath. He was a big, square-faced man with restlessly alert eyes and broad shoulders that spread wide the unbuttoned front of a buckskin vest. The latter was being worn over a faded blue shirt, its own buttons somewhat strained in front by the barrel chest that went with the shoulders. The strength carried by such a physique was obvious. What was less evident, except to those who’d seen him in action, was how fast Kendrick could move that powerful frame when he needed to. It tended to surprise folks—surprised some of them plumb to death.

  Mouth twisting sourly, he spoke to the horse. “I know what you’re thinkin’. You figure I should’ve learned better by now than to go stickin’ my nose in other people’s business … But we ought to at least take a peek and see what this is all about, don’t you reckon?”

  Accepting the lack of protest on Blockhead’s part as a sign of acquiescence, Kendrick made up his mind. Although unnecessary, since he kept his weapons precisely maintained at all times, Kendrick took a moment to check the action and the loads in the Colt Peacemaker holstered on his right hip as well as the Winchester riding in a saddle boot just ahead of his right knee. Satisfied both were in order, he gigged Blockhead to a hard gallop straight for the rocky ridge and the continuing sound of gunfire coming from the other side.

  The surrounding terrain was little more than sun blasted desert. Farther to the west could be seen the ragged, hazy humps of the Dos Cabezas Mountains, marked by the high twin peaks that gave them their name.

  The town of Lowdown, tucked into the foothills of the Dos Cabezos, happened to be Kendrick’s destination. Between there and where he was now—in addition to this matter of gunfire that had suddenly cropped up—was nothing but more miles of flat, dusty expanse speckled with sagebrush and cactus and slashed intermittently by shallow gullies and sharp, twisty arroyos. Here and there jagged rock formations thrust up, often running along the rim of these arroyos. Because of this, Kendrick half expected the ridge he was starting to ascend would drop off suddenly in just such a fashion.

  As they neared the crest of the ridge, Kendrick once again hauled back on the reins and checked Blockhead before they skylined them-selves to whoever was on the other side. The shooters were still going at it, but at a somewhat more sporadic pace.

  Kendrick dismounted, removed his dust-colored Stetson, and edged cautiously forward for a closer look-see.

  Contrary to what he’d expected, the ridge did not drop off sharply on the other side. Rather, it slanted downward at roughly a forty-five degree angle. For the most part, the slope was made up of fingerlike slabs of solid rock, pitted and deeply seamed by the elements. In a few places, however, there were pockets of broken boulders that had tumbled from the rim above. Beyond, the landscape flattened out again and resumed as an ongoing expanse of desert. But directly along the base of the slope ran a narrow ribbon of flat, barren ground—perhaps a shallow wash at some point in the past—now forming part of the route for a stagecoach run.

  That a stage line was operating anywhere in these parts was news to Kendrick. But he hadn’t passed this way in over a year, he reminded himself; things had a way of changing. And it wasn’t just a matter of conjecture about the stage line—the evidence was right down there staring him in the face.

  The coach was stalled in the middle of the road, blocked by its two lead horses lying crumpled and dead exactly where some well-aimed rifle shots had cut them down. Okay, maybe that much was conjecture on Kendrick’s part, since he hadn’t actually seen it happen. But the way the rest of it was playing out before him now left damn little doubt about how it had gone prior to this.

  The ambushers—four of them, by Kendrick’s count—were firing from well-chosen positions in one of the boulder nests about thirty yards below and slightly to the right of where he crouched. In addition to taking down the lead horses, it looked like they also had killed the shotgun guard. He’d pitched forward off the seat and now his body hung limp and motionless over the edge of the front boot.

  The driver had jumped off the far side and was returning fire from there with a Winchester. From inside the coach, somebody else was shooting back with a pistol.

  “Damn fool,” Kendrick muttered under his breath. “He’d better find a better spot than that to fight from, elsewise they’ll ventilate the coach and his sorry carcass right along with it.”

  Kendrick didn’t much like the thought of opening up on somebody from behind, not even a pack of yellow, ambushing skunks. But it was clear enough who was on the right and wrong sides here. And it was equally clear that if he didn’t pitch in and help, there was sure to be more dead bodies down there around that stalled stage. Hell, there might be others besides the pistol shooter inside—maybe even a woman or a child.

  The hard fact of the matter was, he saw little choice but to start pouring it to the ambushers and either put them on the run or kill them if they stayed and tried to continue making a fight of it.

  Resolved to do what had to be done, Kendrick hitched around, squirmed belly-down until he found the right position, then brought the Winchester stock to his shoulder and steadied the barrel across a hump of rock. He settled his sights on the nearest ambusher, a bulky cuss wearing a black neckerchief and a high-crowned, floppy-brimmed sombrero pushed back onto his shoulders.

  Kendrick expelled half a breath, held it, then caressed the Winchester’s trigger with his finger. The rifle roared and the bulky cuss’s head cracked open like an overripe pumpkin. The sombrero dangling on his shoulders turned into a handy bucket for catching flecks of brain matter and shards of skull bone.

  The other ambushers were momentarily stunned and bewildered by the sight of thei
r cohort dropping suddenly to the ground with his head blown apart. It was only when the report of Kendrick’s rifle rolled down and was distinguishable from the cracks of their own weapons that they came to realize what was happening. As one, their heads snapped around, eyes darting to see who had somehow crept up behind them.

  By then Kendrick was already drawing a bead on his next target, a scrawny runt with scraggly sideburns and an even scragglier goatee. When the runt’s head swiveled around to glare in his direction, Kendrick got a good full-face look at him and saw the marled right eye with a thin whitish scar extending above and below it. That was more than enough to recognize exactly who the man was. Kendrick had a Wanted poster in his saddlebags with that same ugly mug plastered on it. And the list of vicious crimes attributed to the face on the poster was enough to erase the last trace of reservation Kendrick felt about cutting loose on this pack of vermin from behind. Anybody who’d run with the likes of Gordo Lucas deserved to be blasted off the face of the earth, no matter how.

  Kendrick triggered the Winchester again and sent another bullet screaming down the slope. In the same instant, a round of return fire from the stagecoach driver, taking advantage of Lucas clumsily exposing himself when he twisted around to look behind, came smashing into the wanted man’s right shoulder. This caused Lucas to throw back his head and start to scream in agony. The scream got cut short, however, by the arrival of Kendrick’s slug, striking not the center of his target’s forehead, as intended, but rather the exposed length of throat offered by Lucas’s sudden head jerk when the first bullet hit. The scream turned into little more than a wet, bloody gargle after Kendrick’s bullet tore away a chunk of windpipe. And then Lucas’s heart quit pumping and no more sound came out of him at all as his knees buckled and he crumpled to the ground.

  That was it for the remaining two ambushers. With all their advantages—surprise, superior numbers, commanding position—suddenly gone, they wasted no time deciding to cut and run. Throwing furtive rounds of cover fire as they went, they scrambled from the boulder nest, made it up over a twist on the ridge crest, then down the other side to where they had horses waiting.

  Kendrick spent a half dozen more bullets hurrying them on their way but did not give immediate pursuit. For one thing, he figured the people down at the stagecoach likely needed his attention more. For another, he didn’t want to be too eager to rush into a possible trap set by men who’d already shown an inclination to wait in ambush.

  As he listened to the sound of their hoof beats pounding away, Kendrick mentally replayed the fleeting images he’d gotten of the pair. One of them had been nothing more than a hat, its tall crown skimming along behind the rocks. The other, though, he thought he recognized. If he was right, that made another hombre—one Reese Eckert by name—he was carrying a Wanted poster on. The fact Eckert was known to have ridden with Gordo Lucas in the past pretty much clinched it as far as Kendrick was concerned. Given another chance, he told himself, he’d do his damnedest to see Eckert rode one more trail with Gordo … the one straight to Hell.

  Chapter Two

  When Kendrick reached the stagecoach, he found the situation there was worse than he’d anticipated.

  In addition to the dead shotgun guard, both the driver and the passenger who’d been returning pistol fire were wounded. The driver’s injury was fairly superficial, a bullet burn to the top of one shoulder.

  The man from inside the coach, however, had taken two hits to the chest—each just an inch or two to the outside of his heart. He was losing a lot of blood. How he’d managed to stay conscious and keep fighting for as long as he had was a testament to his toughness or stubbornness, maybe both.

  But by the time Kendrick made it down off the ridge, whatever had been fueling the fellow while the bullets were flying and the excitement was at its peak, seemed to be fading rapidly now. He was outside the coach, seated on the ground, with his back and shoulders propped against the oversized rear wooden wheel. Administering to him was another passenger who (just as Kendrick feared) had also been inside the now bullet-riddled conveyance.

  In addition to the pistoleer, there had been three others. None of them appeared to be injured. This was a relief to see, especially since two of them were women—both young and both quite attractive, Kendrick couldn’t help but notice, each in her own distinct way.

  Tending the pistol shooter was a pretty strawberry blonde with brilliant blue eyes and a faintly pug nose touched by a dusting of pale freckles that she likely had hated ever since trading pigtails for ribbons. Kendrick was quick to form a hunch that the Irish in her, evidenced by the freckles and the red-tinted hair, could probably flare to a fierce temper without too much provocation.

  The other young woman had olive skin, lustrous black hair that fell long and straight all the way to her waist, and large, luminous dark eyes. The overall effect was one of smoldering sensuality. At the moment, however, she was all business as she focused on the wound of the driver who’d been brought around and positioned in a similar manner as the other victim, only in his case against the front wheel of the coach. Assisting in his care was a thin, middle-aged man with the same dark skin and eyes as the girl. The pair of them were anxiously exchanging words in a language Kendrick did not recognize.

  Squinting up at Kendrick as he came striding down from the slope, the unshaven, leathery-faced stage driver said, “Don’t know who you are or where you came from, mister, but it was a powerful welcome sight to see you pop up and open fire on those bushwhackin’ bastards the way you done.”

  Kendrick made a gesture to indicate the man’s injury. “Looks like it would’ve worked out better if I’d made it a little sooner.”

  “This little scratch?” the man said. “Hell, I’ve nicked myself worse’n this tryin’ to shave when I had a hangover.” His expression turned somber and his gaze flicked over his shoulder to where the body of the shotgun guard still hung over the edge of the front boot. “My pard Lenny there sure could’ve used a better break, though. Those dirty sons hit us without warnin’, kilt ol’ Lenny and cut down the lead horses before we even knew what was happenin’.”

  “It’s a cold-blooded way,” Kendrick allowed grimly. “But an effective one.”

  The driver looked around again, this time over toward the pistoleer. “That fella there, though—blamed if I can even remember his name—he sure helped me put up a scrap after they had us pinned down. But I’m afraid it cost him, cost him bad. I think he took some real nasty hits.”

  “Yeah, it looks that way.”

  “Maybe you oughta go see if there’s any help you can be for him. I’m okay here.”

  The dark-haired girl had pushed the driver’s shirt open and was pressing a canteen-wetted cloth down on the twin holes, entrance and exit, where a bullet had passed through the meaty area just above his collarbone. There didn’t appear to be much blood and the girl’s assistant was poised with another clean strip of cloth, torn from some article of clothing, ready to apply a bandage.

  With a quick glance from those dark eyes, the girl said to Kendrick in a carefully controlled accent, “Go ahead. That other man, Mr. Crandall, is hurt very bad. We can see to this.”

  Kendrick moved over to the strawberry blonde and the wounded man, now identified as Crandall. “How can I help?” he said.

  The woman didn’t answer right away. She had yanked Crandall’s shirt open and was urgently pressing handfuls of torn cloth to his wounds, trying to stanch the bleeding.

  Crandall, a square-jawed, ruggedly handsome sort with fat beads of sweat running down over a face that seemed to be growing paler by the second, said with amazing calmness, “You got the makings for a cigarette, friend?”

  Kendrick shook his head. “Sorry, don’t use ‘em. I got a few cigars with me, but they’re in the saddlebags of my horse, up over the ridge yonder.”

  “That’s too bad. I sure could use a cigarette.”

  “Good lord,” said the woman exasperatedly, “don’t you think y
ou have more serious concerns than a blasted cigarette?” Her face was flushed with the strain of keeping pressure on the wounds and there was a faint film of sweat on her forehead, dampening the strands of hair spilling around her face.

  Crandall rolled his eyes somewhat plaintively toward Kendrick. “Do you suppose you could convince this stubbornly beautiful lass—as I’ve been trying to do—that I’m going to bleed to death in a few minutes? And while I ordinarily wouldn’t object to a pretty gal tearing my shirt off, she’s really only wasting her time and energy.”

  “You’re not dead yet,” the girl insisted. “Stop being so negative.”

  Crandall’s eyes cut to Kendrick once again. “I don’t suppose you have a flask of whiskey on you, either?”

  “I’ve got some with me, but—“

  “—it’s in the saddlebags of your horse, over the ridge yonder,” Crandall finished for him. “I’m not complaining, mind you, but the next time you show up to rescue somebody from a tight, maybe you’ll consider bringing along some other essentials besides just bullets.”

  Kendrick couldn’t restrain a wry smile. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

  The redhead blew a strand of sweat-dampened hair away from her face. “He has some makings in his pocket,” she said resignedly. “I already told him the papers look all blood-soaked. But if you want to give it a try, maybe you can find one that’s dry enough to build him a cigarette.”

  “Do you know how to roll a smoke?” Kendrick asked her.

  “Well, yes. But in case you haven’t noticed I’m a little—“

  “What I notice is that you’re getting exhausted. Let me take a turn at those wounds, you go ahead and see if you can’t find a dry rolling paper.”

  “Not that I favor the trade, mind you, not when it comes to somebody glomming my bare chest,” spoke up Crandall, his voice growing notably weaker. “But the fellow is right, Amy. You need a break … Let him take over … And if you then managed to build me a smoke, that would turn you from a mere darling into an angel.”