Bounty Hunters, Map Makers Gold Miners | Page 4

and the people who robbed them. Garrett also knew a thing or two about the land around and about Eureka and where a train robber might hide. He loaded up on supplies and rode out of town.
After two weeks of false starts, old trails, and dead ends, Garrett tracked Tinker Tyson and his outlaws to an abandoned silver mine in the mountains. Garrett had three sticks of dynamite, a spool of wire and a plunger that he used to even up the odds a bit. The rest of it was settled with an old-fashioned gunfight. Three weeks after he left Eureka, and one day before Clayton's deadline, Garrett rode back into town with Tinker's body to collect his reward.
The people of Eureka welcomed Garrett as a hero. Clayton gladly paid the bounty knowing that he wouldn't become the largest property owner in a ghost town. Train service to Eureka continued interrupted. Garrett told the Sheriff about the abandoned mine and Riley decided to plant explosives and collapse it so that no one could use it as a hideout again.
John Maddox, the Mayor of Eureka, saw the benefit of having bounty hunters as a supplement to the regular law enforcement for the city. The Bennett Boys had robbed the Savings and Loans for half a million dollars six months ago and Sheriff Riley had not captured them yet. And some of the ranchers had been complaining about cattle rustlers enough for the Mayor to know it weren't all just bellyaching.
But Mayor Maddox knew the people of Eureka couldn't afford to pay the taxes needed to offer a $25,000 or $50,000 bounty. Maddox had the idea that Eureka could spread the payments out over a period of time, so that the payments were small enough for Eureka to afford it, but the total was big enough to interest someone like Garrett into getting the job done.
Maddox proposed the idea at the next town meeting. Eureka would offer a bounty of $25,000 over a period of 25 years for the capture of the Bennett Boys. Sheriff Riley thought it would be a great way to split up the work. He and his deputies could take care of the day to day business of keeping law and order. And bounty hunters could be used to take care of the random villains who fed off of the good folks of Eureka. The people of Eureka thought a thousand dollars a year was dirt cheap to get the Bennett Boys off their streets.
Four months later, Isaac Preston hauled the Bennett Boys into town and started collecting his reward.
Crime went down in Eureka, and the town grew into a metropolis. Preston and other bounty hunters collected rewards when trouble arose. As he got older, Preston formed his own company, IP Inc. Eureka had grown so big that Preston could afford to hire employees. Garrett continued working as a solo act, bringing in the occasional bad guy for a reward. Everyone was happy.
For a while, anyway.
Twenty-three years after he brought in the Bennett Boys, Isaac Preston started to get a little nervous. His annual bounty payment for the Bennett Boys would stop in two years as would two other annual payments. He had four annual bounty payments that would end in three years. And over a dozen payments he was getting every year that would dry up in four years.
He was going to have a serious cash flow problem soon. So Preston decided to pay a visit to Mayor Maddox.
"It just isn't fair, Mayor. I did all that work, risked life and limb, and brought in the Bennett Boys for a mere $25,000."
"That was the reward offered by the city of Eureka. You didn't have to take the job."
"Yes, but the Bennett Boys stole half a million dollars and were planning on hitting another bank when I caught them. They could have taken millions before Sheriff Riley had caught them. And I only got $25,000. It just doesn't seem fair."
"But you shouldn't have taken the job for $25,000 if you didn't think it fair."
"And that same year, I brought in Rex and his bunch when they were rustling cattle. Remember?"
"Sure, I re-"
"And those cattle were worth an awful lot more than the $15,000 reward that Eureka offered. Heck, the Langrie herd was over three hundred head of cattle alone!"
"But then why-"
"And the other thing is that inflation has been so bad the last few years that a thousand dollars a year just isn't worth what it was twenty-some years ago. Even if you don't increase the rewards, you should raise them just to keep up with inflation otherwise a thousand dollars a year just isn't enough."
"Well, I don't know. I mean, what exactly did you have in mind?"
"Look, Mayor, I'm not a greedy man. I just want my