Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter by William W. Johnstone Page A

way ahead of you.”
    â€œI know which way they’re headed. Even if I lose the trail, I’ll find them sooner or later. After a while, they’ll get careless. Outlaws nearly always do. They won’t go to as much trouble to hide where they’ve been. Besides, I know most of the trails and the places where men like that hole up. I’ve been tracking killers and thieves for years.”
    â€œSeems like they’re heading a little south of due west. If they keep goin’ far enough in that direction, it’ll take ’em to the border.”
    Luke smiled. “Borders don’t mean a whole lot to men like me. I’m not like a lawman with a set jurisdiction to worry about. I go wherever the trail leads me.”
    â€œBut you can’t collect the reward for them in Mexico, can you?”
    â€œNo, but I can put their heads in a sack and bring them back to prove I caught them.”
    Hobie stared at him and looked like he might be sick again. “You’d do something like that?”
    â€œThey’d already be dead,” Luke pointed out. “They wouldn’t care.”
    â€œWhat happened to dignity and respect?” Hobie muttered.
    â€œVermin like that don’t deserve it. You want anything to eat?”
    Hobie looked startled by the question. With a queasy expression on his face, he shook his head. “No, I . . . I don’t think so.”
    â€œAll right. I’ll stop and fix a little breakfast for myself later. Right now I want to put a few miles behind me.” Luke fixed the hostler with a stern stare and added, “Good-bye, Hobie.”
    â€œYou’re really sendin’ me back to Rio Rojo?”
    â€œThat’s where you belong. Keep doing a good job and Dunbar might make you a partner in the livery stable one of these days. Hell, you might wind up marrying Betsy Jane or whatever her name is and taking over the business. Go live your life, Hobie.” Luke shook his head. “There’s nothing waiting for you on the other trail but death.”
    Hobie looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment he mounted up and turned his horse back toward the east. “Good luck, Mr. Jensen,” he called as he lifted a hand in farewell.
    Luke returned the wave, then stood there watching as Hobie rode away. He waited until the young man had gone several hundred yards before he went to his own horse and swung up into the saddle.
    Picking up the trail of the outlaws wasn’t very difficult. Kelly and Dog Eater were leading several horses now. Luke couldn’t tell exactly how many. They would be able to switch back and forth so that they always had fresh mounts, though, and that would make his job that much more difficult.
    The one advantage he had was sheer stubbornness. Once he was on a man’s trail, he never gave it up. Days or weeks would go by, and Gunner Kelly and Dog Eater would become convinced that they had eluded any pursuers. They would believe that they were safe.
    And then, sometime when they weren’t expecting it, Luke would be there with his guns in his hands. Powder smoke and lead would fill the air, more than likely, because men like those two never came along peaceably.
    No, Luke thought as he rode, somebody would die. Somebody always died.
    So far it hadn’t been him, and he was going to try to keep that streak going for a while longer.

CHAPTER 9
    Two days later, Luke was forced to admit that he had lost the trail. There had been too many rocky stretches where the ground was too hard to take hoofprints.
    But as he had told Hobie, he knew which way Kelly and Dog Eater were going, and he was confident that he could find them. For all its vastness, the frontier was a small place in many ways. Someone, somewhere, would have seen the two outlaws and would be willing to tell Luke how long ago they had been there and which direction they’d been going when they left.
    The landscape was mostly flat and arid,