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  Strong hands grabbed at his clothing, dragging him across the ground. Somebody tore the rifle from his hands. Bodie kicked out and felt his boot strike soft flesh. A man cried out and Bodie recognized Jody Butler’s voice. Then a hard blow caught him across the side of the skull. Brutal punches rained down on him until his face and body throbbed with pain. He felt his body being dragged over so that he was lying face down, and then he became aware of the cold muzzle of a gun being pressed cruelly against the side of his face. The hammer went back with a deadly sound.

  Welcome to the world of BODIE THE STALKER.

  ALSO AVAILABLE IN BODIE THE STALKER SERIES FROM

  PICCADILLY PUBLISHING

  1. TRACKDOWN

  2. BLOODY BOUNTY

  3. HIGH HELL

  4. THE KILLING TRAIL

  HANGTOWN

  BODIE THE STALKER

  By Neil Hunter

  First published by Star Books in 1979.

  Copyright © 1979, 2013 by Neil Hunter

  Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: July 2013

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading the book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please.

  Cover image © 2013 by Westworld Designs

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Published by Arrangement with the Author.

  Chapter One

  “You want to say that again?” Jody Butler asked.

  The man seated at the table pushed his glass of beer aside and raised his head. “Sure,” he said. “Go to hell! That’s what I said, cowboy, and you take it any damn way you want!”

  An ugly laugh rose in Jody Butler’s throat. “Maybe you ain’t realized who I am, mister.”

  “I know who you are,” the man replied. “But it don’t bother me. I never was one to get excited over a name.”

  The flesh of Jody’s face darkened with the rise of color. He jerked a finger in the direction of the man at the table. “You hear what this son of a bitch said? To me!”

  Jody’s three companions, lounging against the saloon bar, nodded their agreement. One of them stepped forward, his small eyes glittering with menace. He was a stocky man with heavy shoulders and a brutal, pockmarked face.

  “Kick the bastard out of the chair if you want it, Jody. Don’t do to let these assholes talk back. Only thing they know is a rap in the mouth.”

  “Yeah!” Jody grinned, sure of himself now that Haddon had backed him. “You going to make a choice, mister? Hard or easy?”

  The man remained silent. Jody took this as a sign of defeat and glanced at Haddon, his grin widening. He was still grinning when the man at the table rose to his feet, grabbing up the chair he’d been using and swung it in a brutal arc. There was a sodden smack as the edge of the chair clouted Jody across the side of his face. He fell back, clutching a hand to the gash in his cheek, yelling in fright as he felt blood spurt through his fingers. There was a momentary confusion in Jody’s mind, clouded by the pain swelling up in his face. Wild, uncontrolled anger rose and he snatched at the gun holstered in his right hip.

  “Go ahead, boy, because I’d purely love to blow a hole right through your belly!”

  Jody checked his right hand, blinking away the tears of pain misting his eyes. He looked in the direction of the man who had hit him, and saw that the chair had been exchanged for a double-barreled shotgun. The muzzles were aimed directly at Jody. He stared down the black bores and a sick feeling crawled over him. Jody jerked his hand away from his gun as if the weapon had become red hot.

  “Now keep still,” the man with the shotgun said. “All of you! It’s time somebody told you people how this town feels. We’ve had to put up with you damn cowmen for too long. Comin’ down out of the hills with your herds. Driving them here to Pine Ridge ‘cause we’ve got the railroad. We put up with that. This is cattle country. But we don’t see why we have to put up with you people walkin’ all over our town like it was yours to treat how you like. This is our home - not some place where you can raise hell and pay no mind to the mess you leave behind. Ain’t right we should have to step aside for you. Or give up somethin’ just ’cause you want it. You want to act like pigs - then go home and do it! But don’t bring your dirt to Pine Ridge and foul the streets!”

  “Mister, the Major ain’t goin’ to be too happy when he gets to hear how you treated us,” Haddon said.

  “You can tell the Major that Nate Gower couldn’t care less how he feels. You tell him to run his town the way he wants but in Pine Ridge he’s just another cowman.”

  “Damn you!” Jody Butler screamed. “My father could buy this town ten times over!”

  “Dare say he could,” Gower said. “But owning a town ain’t all there is to it. Town’s no more than wood and nails and glass. It’s people who matter - an’ there ain’t money enough in the world can buy you those!”

  “Bull!” Jody raged. “You’ll see, Gower! It ain’t over yet! I’ll fix you!”

  “Right now,” Gower pointed out, “the best thing you can do is get out of here. Find the doc and get him to patch you up ’fore you bleed to death!”

  Jody Butler suddenly remembered his gashed face. He turned pallid white, his flesh greasy with sweat. He threw a glance in Haddon’s direction.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Haddon growled. He jerked a thumb at the other two men. They moved to help the softly moaning Jody Butler across the saloon and out of the door.

  There was a strained silence in the saloon, broken when the bartender picked up a washed glass and began to wipe it dry. “Thought I was going to need the sawdust there for a minute, Nate,” he said.

  Nate Gower lowered his shotgun. He stepped up to the bar, releasing a long-held breath. “That was close as I ever want to get! Give me a whisky, Vic.”

  The bartender filled a glass. “On the house,” he said. “That’s been a long time coming, Nate, and needed saying.”

  Nate Gower drained the glass, shuddering as the whisky burned its way down to his stomach. “Son of a bitch,” he said softly.

  The bartender raised his eyes. “Jody Butler? Yeah. They should’ve drowned him at birth! Ain’t nothing but pure meanness all the way through. Nate - you keep your eyes skinned. That Butler kid - he could take it in his mind to hurt you. Not the sort to be happy at getting pushed around himself.”

  Gower nodded. “I was thinking the same myself, Vic.” He grinned, none too convincingly. “I’ll be all right.” He picked up the shotgun. “This’ll make sure!”

  He had convinced himself that the matter was ended a few hours later. He completed his business in town, and towards the latter end of the afternoon was on his way to the livery stable to pick up his horse for the ride back to his ranch. His mind was absorbed with other things, mainly concerned with the fact that he had secured a loan from the bank, which would enable him to build the new barn he needed.

  So he didn’t notice the shadowed figures lurking in the mouth of an alley he was drawing level with. Or the man who moved up behind him, something gleaming coldly in his right hand. There was an instant when Gower became aware of the man behind him and he began to turn, his face taut with alarm. He was too late. Something smashed brutally against the side of his skull. Pain exploded inside his head. Numbing, blinding pain. Gower uttered a stunned cry. He felt his limbs weaken. There was a sick feeling rising
in his stomach. He lurched drunkenly. Then hands reached out and caught hold of him and he was dragged into the dusty alley. He was flung to the ground, hitting the rough earth hard, his mouth scraping against something sharp. Blood spurted from a gashed lip. Gower lay in semi-darkness, dazed, unsure of what was happening. It had all been too fast.

  “Well now, look what happened to Mister Gower!”

  The voice was unmistakable even to Gower. He would have recognized the taunting tones of Jody Butler anywhere.

  “He don’t look so tough to me,” said Lee Haddon. He drove the toe of his heavy boot into Gower’s ribs. “Hell, listen to the bastard moan!”

  Jody Butler, leaning against the side of the building that formed one wall of the alley, fingered the bandage on his cheek. “Get him on his feet!”

  Still half-dazed, spitting blood from his mouth, Nate Gower felt himself being hauled upright. He peered through glazed eyes at the leering faces before him.

  “Come on, Gower,” Jody Butler jeered. “Don’t go falling asleep on us. This is all for your benefit. Wouldn’t want you to miss all the fun!”

  “You want first go?” Haddon asked.

  Jody giggled softly. “No, Lee, I’ll let you have him. You got the touch.”

  “Yeah!” Lee Haddon said, and then he began to hit Gower. He worked steadily, methodically, his gloved fists brutally working back and forth across Gower’s face and body. His blows were delivered with the maximum force to create the most painful results. After a couple of minutes he stepped back to survey his handiwork. He was sweating, his pockmarked face streaked.

  “I bet you thought we’d forgot about you, huh?” Jody Butler sneered. “I said I’d get you, Gower, an’ I mean what I say! You figure you hurt now - well just wait until we’re through!”

  One of the two men holding Gower upright reached and took a handful of the rancher’s hair, yanking his head up. Jody Butler almost yelled out with pleasure when he saw what Haddon’s fists had done to Gower’s face. There was hardly a square inch of flesh left unmarked. Gower’s face was a mass of bruised, gashed bloodiness. His nose was crushed almost flat. The left eye was covered by a sticky spread of blood from a cruel gash angling down across the cheek. There was a raw, pulpy mess where his mouth had been, the lacerated lips having been smashed back against the teeth again and again until flesh and gums and broken bone had become almost one.

  “He’s finished, Jody,” Lee Haddon said. He had peeled off his bloodstained gloves and was lighting a thin Mexican-made cigar he had shipped up from Nogales. “Ain’t no good punchin’ away at a man who can’t feel it.”

  “I don’t figure to let him off on account he ain’t awake!” Jody screamed. He whirled around and spotted Gower’s shotgun lying in the dirt. Bending he snatched up the weapon and dogged back both hammers. “Hey, boys, you reckon this’ll make him sit up and take notice?”

  “Hell, Jody, take it easy!” Haddon yelled.

  Jody’s face grew taut, the reckless streak in him taking control of his emotions.

  “You growin’ a yellow streak, Lee?” he challenged.

  “You know better than that,” Haddon said. “Far as I’m concerned you can cut him in half! But you shoot off that scattergun and the whole damn town’s going to be on our backs!”

  “Who cares about a horseshit place like this,” Jody screamed. His eyes were wide and staring, his whole body stiff with tension. And he had already committed himself to the act he now carried through.

  The narrow alley was filled with the shattering blast of the exploding shotgun. A cloud of powder smoke momentarily obscured the figure of Nate Gower. He was still being held upright by Jody Butler’s men - but as the smoke cleared it was to reveal that they were supporting a headless corpse. Jody had thrust the shotgun close up to Gower’s face and pulled the trigger. The devastating power of the point-blank discharge had literally blown Gower’s head off his shoulders in a hideous explosion of shredded flesh and bone, hair and blood. Bits of raw flesh and brains spattered the wall behind Gower’s body. A gout of blood fountained up from the pulped neck where Gower’s head had been only a second before. The decapitated corpse jerked and kicked, as if life still existed - which it did for a short time - until the escaping rush of blood starved the heart and it ceased to work. Raw nerve ends transmitted their final spasms and Nate Gower became nothing more than a dead weight in the arms of the men holding him.

  “Judas Priest,” one of them said. “That weren’t funny, Jody! You might of hit Travis or me with that scattergun!”

  “You ever known me to miss what I aim at?” Jody asked, grinning. “Hell, Brenner, a blind man couldn’t have missed that shot!”

  “Never mind the talk,” Haddon said. “We don’t get out of here, Gower’s goin’ to have company!”

  “Damn right,” Brenner agreed. He nodded to Travis and they both released their hold on Gower’s corpse, letting it flop to the ground.

  The four men ran to the mouth of the alley, bursting out on to the street. Their horses were standing at a hitch rail on the far side of the street.

  “Come on,” Haddon yelled.

  They were halfway across when men started to appear, running down the street towards them.

  “See what you’ve done now, Jody?” Travis grumbled. “Aw hell boy, I could kick your goddamn ass for pullin’ a fool stunt like that!”

  Jody grinned. He turned abruptly, bringing up the shotgun and triggered off the second barrel in the direction of the advancing crowd. A man went down in the dust, clutching hands to a bloody thigh.

  “That’s enough, Jody!” Lee Haddon warned.

  “Go screw yourself,” Jody whooped. He yanked out the revolver and started to shoot.

  “Son of a bitch!” Haddon growled. He pulled his own gun and slugged Jody behind the ear.

  Brenner and Travis had the horses free by this time and they turned to help Haddon. He let them take Jody’s limp form. Bending he picked up Jody’s gun, using it and his own to lay a volley of well-placed shots at the feet of the oncoming crowd, scattering them. Jody had been dumped across his saddle, and as Haddon mounted his own horse he took the dangling reins of Jody’s mount in his left hand.

  “Go!” Haddon screamed. “Go!”

  The horses thundered off towards the outskirts of town, a desultory peppering of shots following in their wake. Thick dust rose from beneath the pounding hooves, concealing them from the guns of the outraged citizens of Pine Ridge.

  They left behind them an angry town, one man wounded and another one very dead. Though it might not have been of much concern to anyone at the time, they also disturbed the sleep of a man in one of the front rooms, on the second floor of the Pine Ridge Cattlemen’s and Businessmen’s Hotel.

  The man, who was not alone in his bed, was not a cattleman, or a businessman in the strict sense of the word. If he had to be classed he would have been labeled as a specialist. A specialist in an anti-social profession. He was a hunter. A hunter of men; men outside the law; men who had outraged and violated society; men who carried a price on their heads. Once an upholder of the law himself and now simply an extension of the system, he worked according to the letter of the law - which allowed him the freedom to hunt down and, if the need arose, to kill the lawbreakers. He was a bounty hunter.

  His name was Bodie.

  Chapter Two

  “Please sit down, Mister Bodie,” the gray haired man said.

  Bodie sank into one of the comfortable leather armchairs, taking a quick look round the expensively furnished office belonging to Lew Masters, the president of the Pine Ridge Bank.

  “Can I offer you anything, Mister Bodie?” Masters asked. “A drink? Cigar?”

  Bodie shook his head. “I’ll settle for an explanation,” he said.

  A nervous smile touched Masters’ lips. He wasn’t sure yet how he should treat this man. But he was realizing fast that Bodie had no time for fripperies.

  “Very well. Let me introduce my fellow council memb
ers.” Masters indicated the fat, bald headed man on his left. “Orville Prine. And this is Jonas Wayland,” he went on, lifting a hand in the direction of the stern, cold-eyed man seated on his right.

  “I guess this has something to do with the upset yesterday afternoon?”

  Masters nodded. “Not the kind of incident we wish to encourage in Pine Ridge, Mister Bodie.”

  “We intend to stamp out such lawlessness,” Jonas Wayland stated Bodie glanced in his direction. One look at the man and Bodie knew Wayland was one of the old school. He was a straight-down-the-line man. There wouldn’t be any deviation from his single-minded dealings with lawbreakers. Given the opportunity Wayland would have hung every transgressor he got his hands on. “Pine Ridge is an expanding community. We are attracting investors and people all the time. The last thing this town needs is an epidemic of violence and killing.”

  “You’d prefer a quick trial and a good, clean hanging,” Bodie said, his eyes fixed on Wayland’s face.

  To his credit Wayland never even flinched. “Just that,” he snapped. “We want Jody Butler and the other men involved in the killing of Nate Gower brought back to Pine Ridge to stand trial. And if they are found guilty, then they’ll hang! Do you see anything wrong in that, Mister Bodie.”

  “No. Tell me, Mister Wayland, are you going to put the rope round their necks personally?”

  Lew Masters gave a muffled cough and Orville Prine raised his eyes to the ceiling, desperately trying to find something to look at.

  Only Jonas Wayland remained unmoved. He leaned back in his seat and for a brief moment Bodie was sure he caught the makings of a thin smile on his lips.

  “Let me put it this way, Mister Bodie. If the need arose I certainly wouldn’t back down.”

  I bet you wouldn’t, Bodie thought. He turned his attention back to Lew Masters. “You putting out a bounty on these men?” he asked.

  Masters nodded quickly. “We are prepared to offer fifteen-thousand dollars for the capture of the four men involved in the killing of Nate Gower and the wounding of Ben Halstead.” He picked up a printed poster and handed it to Bodie. “These will be officially displayed, of course, as the law demands, but...”