THE BOUNTY: Twentieth in a Series of Jess Williams Westerns (A Jess Williams Western Book 20) Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author and/or publisher. They are solely the imagination of the author and/or publisher and the imagination of events that may or may not possibly happen.

  Copyright© 2013 by Robert J. Thomas

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, or stored into or introduced into any electronic or mechanical method without the written permission of the author and/or publisher. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the written permission of the author and/or publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

  A Jess Williams Novel.

  Westerns. Revenge. Violence. Action. Adventure.

  ISBN# 978-1-940108-07-0 – E-Book

  LCCN# 2013911975

  AMAZON AISN# B00EAEFYU8 (AMAZON ASSIGNED E-BOOK NUMBER)

  THE BOUNTY

  A Jess Williams Western

  Twentieth in the Series

  By Robert J. Thomas

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Why you gotta keep pushing me, Mister?”

  “Maybe because you have a three thousand dollar bounty on your head, dead or alive I might add.”

  “Why the hell for?”

  “You killed a young boy who was scarcely twelve years old.”

  “He came at me with a knife.”

  “That might have something to do with the fact that you killed his father and raped his mother right in front of him.”

  “She was asking for it.”

  “You broke into their house in the middle of the night,” exclaimed Jess loudly.

  “I needed drinkin’ money.”

  “You got a whole five dollars in that robbery.”

  “How was I supposed to know that’s all they had?”

  “None of which matters now,” barked Jess, a tone of exasperation in his voice now.

  He had been on Web Miller’s tail for almost a month after leaving Stratton, Texas. And now, here he was in a little two-bit, no name town with no law and one saloon. He had come across Miller by accident. He had no information that Miller was here. He simply stopped in town for some supplies and a drink.

  Miller had committed several robberies in the same manner. Breaking into a family home in the middle of the night, killing the father and raping the mother along with any daughters they had. The worst of it was, he didn’t actually believe he did anything wrong. The fact that he was a little off his nut probably had something to do with it; but now Jess was trying to get him to go for his pistol, and he wasn’t cooperating and Jess was getting more frustrated by the moment. He was tired, hungry and hadn’t slept much in the last few days.

  “I ain’t pullin’ on you,” declared Miller with a face full of outright attitude. Jess glared at him and stuck his left hand in his pocket and pulled out a wad of paper money and he sat it on top of the bar. Miller quickly eyed the money and started licking his lips.

  “That’s a whole lot of money you got there,” observed Miller, eyeing the large paper bills.

  “You committed four robberies,” stated Jess flatly. “How much did you get in total from all of them?”

  “Maybe a hundred dollars or so,” answered Miller, adding it up in his rattled brain.

  “Well, there’s over one thousand dollars in that pile and if you kill me, it’s all yours,” said Jess smiling. Several of the men in the saloon took notice of the pile of money, including two cowpokes who were sitting at a small table in the corner sharing a bottle of whiskey. The tension in the room tightened up some more and everyone became stone still.

  “You got more money in your other pocket?” Miller inquired greedily.

  “Yep.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Nice try, but no.”

  Miller kept fidgeting with his half-empty glass of beer while looking at all the money with materialistic eyes, thinking about what he could do with a thousand dollars. He picked up his glass of beer and downed it, all the while not taking his eyes off the pile of cash on the bar.

  “So, if I kill you, I gets to keep that money plus what you have in your other pocket?”

  “You’re a thief, ain’t you?” Jess told him. Miller smiled a crooked smile as he turned to face Jess straight on.

  “You know, I’m pretty good at draggin’ this smoke wagon from leather,” claimed Miller.

  “Go ahead and show me just how good you are and make yourself a rich and famous man,” pressured Jess.

  Miller slowly put his right hand down closer to the butt of his Navy Colt, still eyeing the pile of cash on the bar, the scrunched up bills slowly unfolding themselves as if they were somehow mysteriously calling out to him, at least in his own muddled mind.

  Miller’s right hand jerked quickly and then his chest jerked from the impact of the slug that took a fast trip though his chest, ending up firmly stuck in the wooden wall behind him. As Miller fell slowly backward, Jess heard the distinctive sounds that a pistol made when it was being thumbed back. He glanced to his left and saw the two cowpokes who were sitting at a corner table, in the process of standing up and thumbing their pistols back. Jess quickly spun sideways and to his left and fanned two shots, hitting both men, but not before one of them threw a chunk of lead that tore a hole straight through his shirt at the back of his left shoulder.

  “Damn it,” he said under his breath as he quickly scanned the place for any other threats.

  He walked over to the two cowpokes and saw that one of them was dead; the bullet had traveled straight through the man’s heart. The other cowpoke was in a sitting position and leaning his back against the front wall of the saloon holding his chest with both hands, trying to stop the flow of blood that was now seeping through his fingers. The man looked up at Jess with a hateful look.

  “You shouldn’t have shown us all that money,” the man grimaced in pain.

  “And you shouldn’t have tried to gun me down like that,” Jess offered flatly. The man grimaced in pain again and then his eyes rolled up in the back of his head as his hands slowly fell down to the saloon floor. Jess shook his head as he replaced his spent shells and holstered his pistol, leaving the hammer strap off just in case someone else got any ideas.

  He pulled one of his short cut-down double-barrels out from the back of his holster and laid it on the bar and gave everyone in the saloon a warning look that they all understood. He turned to the barkeep, who was standing behind the bar making sure both of his hands were on the top of the bar. Jess picked up the pile of money and stuck most of it back into his pocket. He left forty dollars in paper money on top of the bar.

  “Free drinks for everybody until I leave.” The tension in the room quickly vanished and all the men in the saloon cheered. The barkeep walked around handing out bottles of whiskey to all of them. The barkeep walked back behind the bar and started to pour Jess a whiskey. Jess smiled at him as he covered the glass with his left hand.

  “Not that shit, pour me the good stuff.”

  The barkeep reached under the bar and retrieved his good bottle of whiskey and poured Jess a small glass of it. Jess took a sip and smiled. A man, who was obviously the keeper of the dead, walked into the saloon we
aring a tall black hat, black cotton pants and a white shirt with a black string tie and black suspenders. He started to pick up the dead body of Web Miller and Jess stopped him.

  “I’m taking that waste of human flesh in for the bounty on his head,” Jess informed him, as he threw the undertaker a twenty dollar gold piece. “That should cover your expenses for tying him across his horse outside.” The undertaker smiled widely and enlisted another man’s help in dragging Miller’s lifeless corpse out of the saloon. Jess turned to the barkeep and smiled.

  “You got anything to eat back there?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jane Lacey picked the tomatoes from the garden she and her husband, Derrick, had planted in the early spring. She put one of the tomatoes up to her nose and smelled it. It smelled fresh and ripe. Jane was a slender woman with just enough curves to make her an attractive woman at the age of thirty. Her light brown eyes complimented her long brown hair. She had a small nose above her full lips and when she smiled, she exposed an almost perfect set of white teeth. She hadn’t smiled much lately though. She peered over at the large sycamore tree where the single headstone rose from the ground marking her husband’s grave.

  The disease that had racked her husband’s body finally claimed him a month ago. He had fought it for several months, but all the medicine and all the doctors couldn’t save him.

  She glanced over at the little cabin the two of them built with their own hands. It wasn’t much, two small sleeping quarters and a larger room with a cook stove and a large fireplace. She reminisced about how she and Derrick would sit in chairs in front of the fireplace on cold winter nights, drinking hot tea. But it wasn’t cold now as she stood there; the basket of tomatoes leaning on her left hip, the water welling up in her eyes again.

  She pushed the grief from her mind and walked inside the cabin to put the tomatoes on the table, knowing that tomorrow she would begin canning them along with some fruit she had picked from the trees in the back section of their property. She wiped her hands off on her apron and walked back outside to the small barn where the three horses they had were stabled. She cleaned up the manure and hauled it out back to be used for fertilizer in the garden. When she finished with that, she grabbed the pitchfork and began piling hay for the horses. When she finally finished her chores, she leaned the pitchfork against the wall and wiped her hands off on her apron again. It was hard work taking care of the tiny farm she was left with, especially without her husband to help her now, but she had managed it so far.

  She looked at the one broken board in the one empty stall in the barn. Her husband hadn’t had the strength to fix it before he passed. She sighed and shrugged her shoulders and began looking around for a hammer and some nails.

  She was rummaging through some cans on the work counter when she noticed that it got a little darker in the barn and when she turned around, she discovered why. It was the two figures blocking the open door to the barn, which she had left open. It was Jethro Mercer and Rubin Fisher, the two young men who had been pestering her for weeks now.

  Mercer was the son of Walt Mercer; a wealthy businessman who had built his vast empire over the last forty years on the backs of other people. He had a list of businesses that he owned all over the country, but mostly in the east. He owned the largest brick factory in the country and one of the largest clothing mills located in New York City. He owned several distilleries in the south producing some of the finest whiskey and bourbon, which he shipped all over the county as well as overseas. Walt had earned every dollar he had, but Jethro had been born with a silver spoon in his crooked little mouth. Everything had been handed to him on a silver platter and he was used to getting anything he wished for, and right now, he wished to have Jane Lacey.

  Fisher, on the other hand, hadn’t been so lucky in life. His parents were killed in an accidental fire in a boarding house in Dallas, Texas, where they had taken Rubin to see a doctor about the limp he had developed after breaking his leg in two places. He had fallen from the rooftop of a barn while replacing some broken boards and the leg never healed up properly.

  After his parent’s deaths, he began hanging around Jethro and the two of them quickly became bad influences on one another. Jethro teaching Rubin to take anything he wanted and Rubin teaching Jethro how to be a pain in the ass to everyone. Although, truth be told, Jethro didn’t need much help in that department. Now the two of them darkened the doorway of the small barn where Jane was standing and glaring at the two of them.

  “Jethro, I’ve told you a dozen times already to stop bothering me,” snapped Jane, her hands on her hips, an angry look on her lips.

  “But Miss Jane, you are such an attractive woman,” Jethro replied devilishly, as he stepped forward a few steps, the light filtering into the small barn again. “You need a man to take care of your needs if you know what I’m getting at.”

  “And when I find a man, I might consider that,” she said smartly. Jethro displayed a hurtful, but playful look. Rubin just smiled impishly at her, shifting from one foot to the other nervously.

  “Are you saying I’m not man enough for the likes of you?” demanded Jethro mockingly.

  “I’m just saying you’re not the man for me, which is something I would’ve thought you realized by now.”

  “But I’m a wealthy man by any standards.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “But I want you, and I’m getting tired of asking,” ranted Jethro, slowly losing his patience.

  “You can ask as many times as you want, but the answer will still be no,” replied Jane, a tone of finality in her voice that seemed to aggravate Jethro considerably. His demeanor darkened a little as he took a few steps closer to her.

  “Then maybe I should stop asking,” said Jethro threateningly.

  “I think it’s time that you go home and tell your father what you’ve been doing,” argued Jane. “Or maybe I should pay him a visit and tell him myself.” Jethro stiffened and frowned at the mention of his father.

  “He’s too busy to know what I’m doing,” retorted Jethro, taking a few more steps toward her.

  Jane realized that she had unconsciously stepped backward when her back hit one of the posts of the empty stall. He took another step forward and reached out with his right hand and Jane slapped him hard across the face. His right cheek quickly turned red and he put his left hand up on his cheek and gave her a harsh look.

  “Nobody slaps me like that, especially some damn dirt farmer’s widow,” growled Jethro as his right fist swung quickly into a thrashing blow that knocked her off her feet and she fell backward into the pile of hay, out cold.

  ***

  Jane’s eyes slowly began to open, but they didn’t focus yet; her vision still blurred. She was looking up at the roof of the barn, which told her she was lying on the ground, but she couldn’t remember why just yet. She racked her fogged brain for a moment and then she heard voices that seemed muffled and distant, yet at the same time nearby. Her eyes began to slowly come into focus and when they did, she saw that she was lying on the ground and that her dress had been totally cut away from her. She was trying to remember what had happened and she reached down between her legs and felt the warm moistness. She looked over at the voices and saw Jethro and Rubin arguing about something while Jethro was buttoning his pants up.

  “I have to kill her now,” complained Jethro, waving his hands around aimlessly with his back to her.

  “We can’t kill her,” argued Rubin nervously.

  “If my father finds out what I did, he’ll write me out of his will,” bawled Jethro fretfully.

  “He’ll fix this just like he fixes everything,” clarified Rubin.

  “How is he going to fix this?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” Rubin explained uneasily. “Maybe he’ll give her a lot of money and move her out east or something like that.”

  “I can’t take that chance,” said Jethro, bending over to pull the small knife out of his boot. When he
stood back up, he saw the look of shock on Rubin’s face, but it was too late. Before he could even turn around, he felt the sharp pain as the tines of the pitchfork pushed through his chest, blood quickly staining the front and back of his shirt. The knife fell from his hand.

  Rubin watched as Jethro slumped down on all fours. Jane was standing there with a look of shock and disbelief. She stood there buck naked holding the pitchfork in her trembling hands; a look of crazed fear in her eyes that scared Rubin into taking several steps backward. Jethro finally rolled over onto his back; blood pooling beneath his now dead body. Rubin glanced down at Jethro and then back up to Jane.

  “Mr. Mercer ain’t going to be able to fix this,” exclaimed Rubin fearfully. “You’d better get as far away from here as you can get.”

  Jane didn’t respond. She was too transfixed with fear looking at the dead body of Jethro Mercer and the bloody pitchfork in her hands. Slowly she found the words to put together in her head.

  “You saw what he did to me,” she uttered in a broken voice. Rubin shook his head nervously.

  “I’m not saying anything,” said Rubin. “Mr. Mercer will have my head over this. He’ll say I made Jethro do this and he’ll kill me for certain. I’m getting on my horse and riding out of here and if you have a lick of sense, you’d better do the same.”

  “But you saw…you know…” beseeched Jane with watery eyes.

  Rubin shook his head some more and ran out of the barn leaving Jane standing there trembling in fear. She looked down at the dead body and thought about his father Walt Mercer and she knew that Rubin was telling the truth. Without a witness to tell her side of the story, Walt Mercer would use his influence, wealth and connections to make sure she either hanged or was locked up in prison for murder. Her side of the story wouldn’t matter to Walt, all that would matter is that his only son was dead and she did the killing. The rest of the details would be sorted out in Walt Mercer’s hateful mind and she realized it and slowly sat down on the ground, letting the pitchfork fall from her hands.