Nathan Gould- Gunfighter from Green Mountain by Bruce Graham

Author:Bruce Graham [Graham, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Outlaws Publishing LLC
Published: 2018-02-10T04:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A stocky stranger with twin pistols hung low appeared in the sheriff’s office shortly after an autumn noon. “Mike Martin, from Austin.”

I was reading the Dallas newspaper with my feet up on the desk. I studied the man for a few seconds. “And?”

The man had definite Hispanic cast to his face. “I’m here to claim a reward.” His voice had a lilt like someone whose English had been a second language when he was younger. His black, curly hair edged out from under his small slouch hat.

I yawned. “All right, so claim it.”

“There’s a reward offered for a former Union soldier who killed a well liked man on the steps of the Capitol about three years ago.”

I dropped my feet onto the floor and slowly stood up and stretched. I drew Carson’s Henry rifle down from the rack behind me with a quick movement. “Do you have a warrant? Are you a lawman? Can you identify this worthy?”

Martin stood, weight on one leg, hands on his pistol grips. His left side pistol was reversed, so he could quickly reach the weapon with his right hand when his right hand gun was out of bullets. “No, no and probably. The reward is for him dead or alive. I’ll need to take him to Austin or send a picture of his corpse to Austin to claim the reward. Do you have a photographer’s shop here in town?”

“No. A traveling photographer comes through about every month or so. He was here two weeks ago. So you’ll need to stick around until the photographer comes, if you know where to find this man. Otherwise, if you take him dead, he’ll be mighty ripe by the time you get him to Austin, and without a picture you’ll have killed him for nothing.”

The man glanced around the room. “I guess I’ll wait for the photographer to get here before I make my play.”

“He may be gone by then.” I held the Henry in my hands.

The man nodded. “That’s the chance I’ll take. I figure he has business here and won’t want to give it up.” Martin turned and sauntered toward the door. “I’ll bed down at the Buffalo Horn for a few days.” With that he went out the door and closed it behind him.

I began to shake. I sat down on the edge of the desk chair. I wondered if he knew that I was the killer he wanted, or if he was playing cat and mouse to see what he could work out. The name Martin rang a bell. I opened a side drawer in the desk and pawed around among the sheaf of recent wanted posters. Most of the characters were Mexicans or weathered reprobates, and one for Miguel Martinez, of Beaumont, leaped into my hand, wanted for assault with intent to kill, four years earlier. I spun about and grabbed the office copy of the 1866 Texas Criminal Code down from the shelf. Under Limitations of Actions I found that the statute of limitations for assault with intent to kill was six years.

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