Chapter One
Aaron Wright rode his proud paint Rusty through the rocky outcrops south of the mountain passes and north of the desert. The landscape was dry, dusty, orange, a strange place that seemed a world away from the lush green Rocky Mountains or the simmering swamps of Florida or the Southern states.
He’d been tracking the Morton Lewis Gang, called the Eye-Socket Gang for their preference of blinding one of their victims as a sort of signature to their presence. It had become so gruesomely popular that others had begun to copy the move. But Aaron knew the work of the real gang, that they only blinded one eye of only one member of their victimized family or business or gang. It was always the left eye, always removed by knife and never by gun.
This was how Aaron knew he was on the right track. Other bounty hunters were eager to bring in the valuable and near-legendary Eye-Socket Gang, but none of them would succeed, Aaron felt certain. Those who might would likely be stumbling toward their own graves.
But Aaron was close. His years of experience as a tracker told him what contours of the landscape his prey would follow. He knew how the rains of the spring would come quickly, ferociously, driving the men to local shelters. He knew how such men thought, how they lived, how they died.
There was a large outcrop of massive, brown boulders, forming a kind of natural collection of enclosures with hidden or obscure points of entry and exit—a perfect place to hide in wickedly waiting ambush and launch attacks upon passersby.
The hairs on the back of Aaron’s neck stood on end as a red-tailed hawk cried out overhead, and he looked up to see the bird circling slowly above him. It seemed to be waiting for a feast, his own bones and blood left for the creatures of the wild. Aaron brought his own kills back with him to the nearest town, ready to cash them in for the bounty on their heads. That was what put the gun into Aaron’s hand, apart from the odd occasion of having to protect himself from those foolish enough to take him as a ready victim. He left those for the animals to devour, though there were times he brought their heads in just in case a bounty was in the offing.
The Eye-Socket Gang were said to be four in number, perhaps more. It wouldn’t be easy to bring in so many bodies. Aaron reasoned it would take two of their own horses at the very least. But envisioning bringing them in was a bit far off the mark, as he hadn’t even found the gang yet.
His tracking skills had allowed him to follow traces of hoofprints. The wind was blowing from the north, and Aaron could see the faintest of marks from the right portion of the horses’ hooves, the pattern of which drew him farther west, closer and closer to that deadly gang of murderous butchers.
And they would see him coming. The outcrop they hid behind would give sentries plenty of time to see him coming. But their initial instinct would not be to be fearful, but to be aggressive. They would wait and hide and launch an attack.
Aaron was counting on it.
He knew he’d never have a chance of storming that rocky citadel. He’d never get close enough. The only way was to let the Eye-Socket Gang think they’d captured him, and then to destroy them from within.
And Aaron knew just how he was going to do that.
He rode in closer, setting a course to ride just past the outcrop. The fading traces of the horse hooves led toward the rocky citadel, where his query no doubt rode. His path would be to ignore it, to pretend he didn’t see it and wasn’t even looking.
That was when they would try to jump him.
Aaron rode closer to the rocky formation, feeling the eyes of his enemies upon him. They were scooping out his goods, his arms, how dangerous he might be and how important it might be to kill him sooner rather than later.
But Aaron had a secret weapon against such a cowardly attack. Or rather, it was a weapon that he made sure wasn’t so secret at all. The new invention called dynamite, a portable form of concentrated nitroglycerin that was soaked into dry rods of gunpowder and ignited by a simple fuse. It was a rarity in the area, and it was highly valued for any number of purposes. One stick could destroy a dozen men or more if they were in an enclosed space, and that rocky outcrop would provide just such a place.
But it would provide more than one, and it would be too easy to blast an empty chamber, bringing his enemies out to him when he was otherwise engaged. It could make for a quick and easy kill. Aaron knew, however, that he would be vulnerable just in pulling out a stick, lighting, and then throwing it. He’d likely be blasted off his horse before he could launch his deadly weapon.
Instead, the idea was to draw them out. The two small wooden crates, one on each side of Rusty’s flanks, were clearly marked. This had two beneficial effects. It would entice any greedy thief or ambitious road agent who wanted that valuable and deadly cargo, but nobody could afford to shoot at him for fear that they would accidentally hit the crate and blow the dynamite up. One crate would ignite the other and the whole of the precious cargo would be lost. So the crates were both bait and shield, and it was an approach most of the scum he came across could hardly resist. He’d drawn road agents out of the hills only to fell them and bring them in for money that Aaron didn’t even know had been stamped upon their heads.
This time, Aaron knew very well the value of the men he was hunting. And he knew the power of the dynamite, how it could turn a man’s living body into a stain against a rock, turn an entire building into a smoldering ember. Aaron wanted verifiable proof of the identities of the men would he bring in, the Eye-Socket Gang.
Dynamite was the most sensational innovation since the repeating pistol and the rifle before that, and the horse before that. Dynamite was helping the white man blast his way into gold veins, through mountains to create roads and bridges and to physically change the shape of the landscape. Nothing would stand in his way, not the Great Nations, not the animals or the mountains or anything else. Everything was being laid bare for the white man. With the Civil War over by more than a decade, the future seemed certain, the story of the white man’s ascent to global glory.
Aaron had little interest in such political matters. Few enough men or women meant anything to him. He had no interest in impressing anybody or in being impressed, certainly not into any kind of duty. Aaron Wright followed no man other than those he sought to bring to justice. In doing so, he was his own leader and his own followers, a murderous posse of one, accountable only to his own conscience and the numbers printed on the posters he picked up in any one of the sheriff’s offices he delivered his prizes to, and from which he collected his pay.
It was still too early to spend that money. He knew the men of the Eye-Socket Gang would come out to apprehend him, to get him far enough away from the crates in order to kill him safely. He knew just what they would do, how, and why, and knowing that would allow Aaron to take full advantage of the situation. Not only would he not be killed, but he would kill each and every one of his adversaries.
In the corner of his eye, the Eye-Socket Gang rode out at him, four men from two different locations in the rocky outcrop. Aaron went on riding as if he didn’t know what was happening, as if he had no idea that he was luring the four men to their deaths.
They charged him and Aaron slowed down, clueless and timid as a lone traveler might be. The men rode up, two of them recognizable from several wanted posters that Aaron carried around in his saddlebags. He always studied his prey as much as he could, the better to find their weaknesses and exploit them.
The Eye-Socket Gang were cautious, but they were eager and greedy, and that would be their downfall. The four men rode up and encircled Aaron, Rusty the paint coming to a stop and looking around with a huff.
“Afternoon,” Aaron said, tipping his hat.
After a long, tense silence, one of the riders asked, “What’s in the boxes, friend?”
Aaron glanced at the dynamite crates strapped to the horse’s haunches behind him. “Oh, just a little package I’m taking to some friends just a bit west of here.”
“That so?”
It wasn’t. It was the same lie he told everyone, changing only the direction of his destination, depending on which direction he happened to be traveling.
Aaron nodded. “Why ask?”
“Well,” their apparent leader said, “that depends.” He was a man Aaron recognized as a manic killer known as Earless Joe. His long black hair made a positive identification difficult, but it didn’t really matter.
“I know my letters, mister, and I know what it says on the side o’ them crates.”
“Then you know how dangerous this stuff is to deal with. One errant plug and we all go up in smoke. Everything in a mile’s distance, any direction, gonna meet its maker.”
Earless Joe and the others shared dubious looks. Their fear tempered their greed and aggression, just as Aaron knew it would.
He said, “Why don’t you fellers go back to your little cave there and leave me be, eh?”
“Could do,” Earless Joe said. “Or, could be, just could be, you turn over them crates to us… and then we let you ride off.”
“Maybe so,” Aaron said, nodding, “or… could be… could be, mind you, that once you take my crates… you take my life.”
The four horsemen shared glances, one of them grinning a mean, toothless smile as they chuckled their wicked intent.
Earless Joe said, “Why don’t you an’ me dismount, settle this with our fists like men. You better me, you ride on in peace. If no, we keep the crates. But you still ride off. I ain’t gonna shoot a man who tucked his sleeves back in a fair fight.”
The man was lying. He would have his fellows gun Aaron down as soon as he was safely away from the crates. They’d steal the horse, take everything, and probably put his eye out just for fun.
But it wasn’t going to happen.
Aaron said, “Sure, friend, we’ll climb down at just the same time, if… if that’s what you want.”
“Only seems fair,” Earless Joe said.
“And your friends here, they won’t back your play?”
Earless Joe chuckled. “My mother didn’t raise no liars.”
“No,” Aaron said, “I’m sure she was much too good a woman for that.”
Aaron and Earless Joe each began to slowly dismount, eyes locked on each other. Aaron knew Earless Joe was cautious of a premature attack by fire, and that was just what Aaron had in mind. But it wasn’t against Earless Joe at all.
Aaron drew one of the Colt pistols he carried in the leather holsters on each side of his gun belt. He shot the other three men first, a dead eye and razor-sharp timing proving to be an overwhelming combination.
Bang! Bang-bang! Bang!
The burst of quick action happened before the men could respond or even comprehend. One man snapped back with a shocked expression, a red hole in the center of his forehead.
The other two went down as well, horses jostling with the blinding speed of the draw. Aaron turned his gun on Earless Joe, now no longer backed up by his men. And his physical position, halfway into a dismount, had him compromised.
The two men stared each other down. The moment was long and quiet, the echo of silence after the explosion of violence and sudden death. Three men had just lost their lives, an ugly fact not lost on Earless Joe, whose last name was rumored to be McGovern.
After a long pause, Aaron said, “Yer worth no more alive than dead, so it doesn’t make a difference to me.”
Earless Joe looked at his three newly dead fellows and back at Aaron. “It makes a hell of a lot of difference to me.”
“I know it does,” Aaron said, “too much. You want me to take you in alive, that’s fine by me. But I won’t give you a chance to struggle.”
“Oh, yeah? And what ‘choo gonna do about that?”
Aaron aimed and shot, Earless Joe’s knee erupting in a shower of red blood and flecks of white bone. He screamed and grabbed his leg, leaning over and falling off the side of his horse.
“You damned devil!” He pulled his gun clumsily, drew and aimed sloppily, but Aaron did not give him a chance to take that fateful, vengeful shot.
Bang!
Earless Joe sank to the ground, a cloud of red mist hovering over what remained of his butchered skull.
Aaron sighed and holstered his Colt. He glanced around to see no sign of any other living thing other than the men’s horses. They would carry the men’s bodies back, and they would bring some handsome coin from the local livery.
Flagstaff had a reliable sheriff, a growing population, and postal delivery to towns both far and wide. There would be a good bounty for the Eye-Socket Gang, and plenty of fresh posters to collect and head out with. It would be another day, another dollar, another death—certainly not the first, though, as always, the next could always be the last.
Chapter Two
Aaron rode his small and gruesome party into Flagstaff. The town was growing fast, with elevated wooden sidewalks allowing pedestrians in various dress to walk above the muddy thoroughfare between the two rows of shops, restaurants, hotels, and saloons.
The town was founded around local industries, including ranching, farming, and mining. Passersby often stayed, by choice or by chance, and plied their various wares and services. All manner of people went in and out of the little town from each direction. Whale oil lamps sat on the top of tall pine poles, ready to keep the night active and profitable for the town’s seedier elements.
The girls leaned out of the local saloons, winking and cooing at Aaron as they often did. Still in his early thirties, he was strong and made a good impression in that regard. His long blond hair had always been enticing to women, his blue eyes ensuring their affections. But he’d had his fill of such women, of the things they could offer and the things they could do. He’d had too many lonely weeks in the open, and too many lonely nights in the back rooms of saloons like the Golden Pouch or the Lucky Nugget. He wasn’t in Flagstaff for that, though there would be time to spend and rest to get, money to spread around as required or as desired.
He rode the four horses, roped behind his own, up to the sheriff’s office. It was a place he’d been to often enough to know the temperament of the man inside it. He wasn’t as corrupted as many men who hid behind a tin star, but he could still be unpredictable, dangerous, and deadly under the wrong circumstances. Aaron never could be sure what circumstances he’d find the man in when he arrived.
Aaron dismounted, tied Rusty to a post, and walked into the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Dabney Cole turned from his coffee pot as Aaron stepped in. The lawman’s brown hair was longer than when Aaron had seen it last, telling him that the luxuries of living in a town or a township were not always attractive to those who needed them most.
“Aaron Wright,” the sheriff said. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“An’ why’s that, Sheriff?”
“Plenty of bounties around these parts. That’s like honey to a bee for you.”
Aaron shrugged. “A man’s gotta make a living.”
“Dying ain’t much of a living, my friend.”
“Tell that to the Eye-Socket Gang.”
Sheriff Cole stopped, lowering his tin coffee cup. “You… you didn’t?”
“Right outside your door,” Aaron said. “Earless Joe McGovern, Dan Blanchard… and another two, I’m not sure what they called themselves.”
Sheriff Cole looked at Aaron as if in disbelief before stepping across the little office and outside.
In the front of the sheriff’s office, Cole inspected the four men, looking at their faces one at a time. Finally, he shook his head and wiped his brow. “Dang if you don’t live up to your reputation.”
Aaron shrugged. “It was their reputation that was the pivotal matter, not mine.”
“True enough. Well, let’s get you paid off. I suppose you’re taking the horses to the livery?”
“Or sellin’ ’em off private. I don’t much care.”
The sheriff looked them over. “I’ll give you two hundred for the stallion right now.”
“Sold,” Aaron said. “Gotta dump the bodies with the mortician first.”
Sheriff Cole nodded. “Fair enough. Take the stallion to the livery with the others, tell the boy there I’m staking for the stallion. Then you come back here and we’ll settle up.”
Aaron cracked a little smile. “Let’s take care of the bounties now, Sheriff, and we’ll pay the horse off after matters are seen to.”
Sheriff Cole seemed to give it some thought, a devious smile stretching across his face.
Aaron saw to his chores, visiting the mortician and paying him for the services of preparing and burying the Eye-Socket Gang, which Aaron paid out of his own bounties. It was his tradition, his way of giving back to a society that didn’t even seem to notice he existed. They knew the men he destroyed because they feared them. They did not fear Aaron, but only because they did not know him.
Selling three of the horses and storing the fourth with the livery, Aaron secured himself a hotel room and then returned to the sheriff’s office before the end of the man’s shift. His business could not be completed by any deputy.
Sheriff Cole counted out the two hundred for the stallion and Aaron shook his hand, one gentleman to the other. They were on opposite sides of the badge, but each knew the value of the other. The sheriff knew how much good bounty hunters like Aaron could do, supplementing their own limited jurisdiction. The sheriffs, when not terribly corrupted, were a force for order in the growing cities, as was good and proper.
Sheriff Cole said, “You sticking around this time?”
“Not for too long. You got anything good?”
“Good? You just brought in the most-wanted gang in the Arizona Territory! Why not relax a bit, spend some of that money?”
“I will,” Aaron said, “then I’ll get back to work.”
The sheriff seemed to think about it before shrugging and stepping over to a small table where a stack of wanted posters waited. He picked them up and handed them to Aaron. “Take yer pick… but yer makin’ us all look like a bunch of lazy bones!”
“You get a salary,” Aaron said, “you can afford to be lazy.” He looked through the crudely printed posters of even more crudely rendered portraits. He’d seen some of the men on posters before, including Black-Blood Barnard Silt, Daniel the Ghost Gohstander, and a man so despised that his only known moniker was simply Donkey. None were worth very much, though Aaron was ready to rid the earth of any one of them.
Another day, another dollar, another death.
Sifting through the posters, Aaron was struck by a cold shock running through his blood, fingers numb to see the familiar face drawn in black ink on the yellowing poster. The name on the poster was Ian Mahl. But Aaron was struck with the certainty that he’d seen the man before, that he knew him perhaps better than any bounty hunter alive, or perhaps even anybody else.
Aaron held the poster out to the sheriff. “This new?”
Sheriff Cole looked it over and nodded. “Brought in from Tucson. You know him?”
Aaron could hardly answer. All he could do was hand the other posters back to Sheriff Cole and roll up the likeness of Ian Mahl to keep for himself. “Know him? I dunno… but I’m going to find out.”
Chapter Three
The Lucky Nugget was alive with excitement and action. A piano jangled in the corner. Men argued and women laughed, all of them too loud. Cigar smoke hung thick in the air, mixing with the smells of spilled beer, body odor, and bad breath.
Aaron sat alone at the bar, eyes staring out into a vague, vast distance, seeing everything and, at the same time, seeing nothing at all.
This would be the ride of his life, certainly the most important bounty of his career, likely even to be the last. He was a man unlike any whom Aaron had hunted before. It had been years since he’d seen that face, the name only a blur in his mind. The name didn’t matter; it had been changed, Aaron knew that much for sure. The man seemed to have changed too, unless the information on the poster was incorrect, deliberately or otherwise. What had caused that turn beguiled Aaron, sitting in the front of his mind, ahead of all else.
He wouldn’t normally care one whit for any man or the origins of his deeds, be they for the general good or ill. It was the deeds themselves, and their ramifications, that had always been Aaron’s code, and they would aways be. A man could say any number of things about himself or about others. It was what a man did that mattered; it was a man’s actions that stood for what manner of man he was. Words lied, but actions were among the only truthful things Aaron had ever come across in that bold, ragged new nation.
This man was a different story. This man had seemingly gone from one extreme to the other in a way Aaron found too perplexing to ignore. This man in particular had once been a great man, towering head and shoulders above other men in matters of honor and decency. This man seemed to be among the most valuable bounties in the Arizona Territory, wanted for crimes including murder, among various other charges ranging from the brutal to the banal. This man had a story to tell, lessons both to teach and to learn.
This man could be harboring secrets, perhaps acting undercover among a criminal gang, his own enemies, to overtake them from within. It was a slim chance, but with a man like this one, it was still possible. And if that were to be the case, Aaron knew he had to find the man and give him an assist. An honorable man doing the honorable thing was a rarity, something the new nation needed as much as it needed anything else. And if this man found himself in that position, Aaron would not resist the compulsion to help him, to fight by his side and perhaps even to die by his side, if he could arrive in time.
Because this man was Aaron’s father.
Ian Mahl, Aaron thought, shaking his head as he sat at the bar in the Lucky Nugget Saloon. But the face was unmistakable; the eyes, the nose, the steely blue eyes rendered colorless in the poster sketch. The face had a hardened look that Aaron recognized from other men, even on his own face when the occasional mirror found him. But this man’s face from years before echoed in Aaron’s memory. He’d been hardened, but by virtue, not by vice. He’d been tough, a stalwart champion of right over wrong, of decency and humanity. Jasper Wright had been a good man; he’d set the standard for Aaron’s own life, his code of honorable behavior that guided his hand and his gun, in the open or in the towns and camps across the nation.
If his father had gone bad, Aaron knew he himself might do the same. That was something he could not allow. All he truly had in the world were his guns, his horse, his name, his word, and his honor. His life depended on holding onto these things, some more replaceable than others. The fall of Jasper Wright, believed dead for ten years until just a few moments before, threatened Aaron’s sense of himself and the world around him, the very foundation of his worldview rocked to the core.
“There he is,” the familiar female voice said, slinking up to Aaron from the side. Redheaded Roxie Carmichael was suddenly sitting next to him, her pretty face pushing up to him with a sultry smile on her painted lips. “Where you been, lover?”
“Ridin’,” Aaron said, taking a sip of his cold beer. “Workin’.”
“Killin’,” Roxie said. Aaron swallowed his beer and sighed. She asked, “Who was it this time? Wild Willie MacClintoch? Mad Dog Davis?”
Another voice answered, “The Eye-Socket Gang is who!”
Aaron and Roxie turned to see stooped Mikey the Milker, the lean, weathered dairy farmer who came into town frequently and lingered at the saloons whenever he was nearby. He wore a broad, rotting smile as he slapped Aaron on the back.
“All four of ’em, Earless Joe an’ all!”
Roxie cracked a sexy smile. “That’s my man.”
“We can all sleep a little better,” Mikey said, shaking his head. “Four against one, and he rides ’em in with their horses in tow. Didn’t lose one!”
“That’s good business,” Roxie said, her eyes fixed on Aaron. “And good thinking. A lot of money in those bounties, four horses.” She leaned closer to him. “You wanna let go of some of that money, honey?”
Aaron grinned and drank a shot of whiskey. “I’m working on it.”
Another man approached from behind, so big that he cast a shadow over the others even with the indoor lamplight coming in from almost every direction.
“Mister Aaron,” he said, bowing his head just slightly, and not just because of his enormous size.
“Gregor,” Aaron said, extending his hand. The big Russian took it and the men shook, a meeting of equals. Though few were the physical equal of the tremendous immigrant, Aaron knew he had the man’s respect, that his own skills with a gun were the rare match for Gregor’s incredible strength and indefatigable courage. Gregor ran a farm outside of Flagstaff, drawing vegetables out of the desert ground, his body made hard and strong with years of strenuous labor.
But those strengths would be spent in Aaron’s service if necessary. Gregor’s friendship was certain, his loyalty unquestioned ever since Aaron had helped him out of a mess with a gang of outsiders. Greater numbers had overwhelmed even Gregor’s considerable powers. Only luck and timing and Aaron’s dead eye had rescued the man from a lynching. The moment when Aaron had shot the rope through to release the struggling man from his last dance at the end of that rope was echoed in Aaron’s memory as he knew it was in Gregor’s.
A good turn had earned a good friend, proof that one’s deeds were their true measure. It worked for good deeds as for ill. It was one of the rare truths Aaron could rely upon.
Roxie asked Aaron, “How long are you going to be in town, hon?”
“Riding out tomorrow,” he said as the bartender poured another drink.
She leaned forward, voice breathy. “Can’t you stay just one more day?” Aaron shook his head and raised the shot glass. Roxie took the glass out of his hand and drank the whiskey herself. “Let’s not waste any time then, lover.”
Mikey the Milker and Gregor shared a knowing glance and stepped away to different corners of the saloon.
Chapter Four
Aaron rose with the dawn. He’d slept in the small hotel room he’d booked before going to the Lucky Nugget, and Rusty waited for him in the livery, rested and ready. His things were packed, his arms loaded. He’d made every possible preparation, and he had a good idea of where the man would be found.
The area was known to be crowded with small criminal bands, as was common throughout the entire nation. From his own sojourns across the Arizona territory, bringing down in one bounty after another, Aaron knew the local bands weren’t as desperate as they seemed.
They were said to be organized in a way few criminal gangs were. They more often acted independently, looking out for one another only. Often enough, road agents would be dispatched by a local sheriff or saloon owner to rob the very citizens they claimed to serve and protect. It was rare that criminals of that sort, bandits primarily, were allowed to linger and ply their terrible trade without paying some respect to the local powers that be.
“A Bounty Hunter’s Burden” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!
Aaron Wright, a seasoned bounty hunter known for his unyielding resolve, finds himself entangled in a quest more personal than any before. His father, long presumed dead, could be alive and entangled in a web of crime stretching across the Flagstaff area. Aaron’s mission? To find his father and restore their family’s honor. The path though is fraught with peril…
Will Aaron’s skills be enough to confront every danger?
Lynn Mayfield, who was once captive of these very criminals, now stands beside Aaron. After being rescued by Aaron, she is more than just an ally in his quest — she is a beacon of hope, a reason to fight. As they navigate a labyrinth of intrigue and deception, their bond strengthens. In a world where secrets have the power to change fates, can their growing love survive?
Some truths might be to harsh too uncover…
Faced with daunting challenges and nefarious plots, Aaron and Lynn stand at a crossroads. With time as their constant foe, their actions will decide the fate of the entire Arizona Territory…
“A Bounty Hunter’s Burden” is a historical adventure novel of approximately 60,000 words. No cliffhangers, only pure unadulterated action.
Hi there, I hope you enjoyed this sneak peek of my latest story! I will be impatiently waiting for your comments below.