A bullet-ridden man staggered into Stonewall's saloon clutching a gold bar with a grip that only death could open.

With his dying breath, he named bounty hunter Denver Calhoun as his killer. Although the dead man turned out to be a member of the bank-raiding Flynn gang, when Sheriff Mitchell offered the gold bar as bounty on Denver's head, every man in town joined in the hunt for him.

Denver himself had moved on to Bluff Creek where he joined a high-stakes poker game that left four men dead. And when the formerly impoverished Horace Turner wagered a gold bar, Denver reckoned the Flynn gang had to be behind the gold turning up in the hands of the most unlikely of people.

Despite all the guntoters on his trail, Denver vowed to bring the Flynn gang to justice and to find out where the gold was coming from. But can he succeed now that the bounty hunter has become the hunted?

The man looked to be half-dead as he staggered into Stonewall's only saloon.

By the bar, Sheriff Mitchell stared at him agog, the others customers matching his surprise.

The man stood stooped before the swinging batwings, a gun dangling from a slack hand, his other hand clutching his guts. And from the bright blood oozing between his splayed fingers and dripping to the floor, that hand was probably keeping him intact.

He staggered a pace towards the bar, leaving behind a pool of blood and, as if that motion broke everyone out of their shocked spells, two men hurried to help him. But the man saw them coming and straightened up then aimed his gun in their general direction.

The barrel was shaking so much Sheriff Mitchell doubted he could hit anyone, but the approaching men had the sense to back away with their hands held high in calming and placating gestures.

The man sneered at them, then wended a snaking path across the saloon. He clattered to a halt when he stumbled into the bar.

'Whiskey,' he grunted, slamming his gun on the counter.

The barkeep poured him a full measure and the man released his weapon to grab the glass then throw it down his throat. He grimaced then slammed the glass back on the counter and signified he wanted another one.

With the other customers giving him a wide berth, Mitchell headed down the bar to stand beside him. He noted that the injured man had placed his gun on the counter, but that his hand never strayed far from it. Mitchell kept his hand loose and dangling beside his holster.

'You seen some trouble,' he said.

The man glanced at him from the corner of his eye, then knocked back his second whiskey.

'You're mighty observant for a lawman,' he murmured through gritted teeth, then swiped a layer of sweat from his brow.

'You want to tell me who did it?'

'Nope.'

'Can't arrest him unless you give me a name.'

'I'll deal with it,' the man grunted than spat to the side, the phlegm streaked with red.

Mitchell shrugged. 'And there was me thinking you wanted to stand there bleeding to death rather than get the man who shot you.'

'You want me to talk, is that it?'

'Won't learn nothing if you don't.' Mitchell threw a dollar on the bar. 'Here's what we'll do. I'll pay for your drinks, you and me will sit down and have ourselves a talk, and someone will get you some help.'

'Don't want no help. Don't want no talk.' The man snorted, the sound somewhere between grim humour and terminal despair. 'And I'll pay.'

The man reached into his pocket and, when his hand emerged, he clutched a gold bar. The light shining off it sprinkled around the saloon and generated a long intake of breath.

'Where you get that?' Mitchell asked.

The man slammed the gold bar on the counter.

'Barkeep,' he grunted, 'keep the whiskey coming until I've spent it.'

With his eyes wide and fixed on the gold, the barkeep filled another glass. The man reached for it, but his hand shook and when he grabbed the glass, it slipped from his hand and scooted off the counter to crash to the floor. The man followed the glass, his clawed hand holding on to the counter a moment before he folded and fell.

The customers edged in towards him, as Mitchell knelt then turned him over. The man lay with his pain-racked limbs twitching, his breath coming in short gasps.

'A name?' Mitchell asked.

A bubbling gasp escaped the dying man's lips and Mitchell reckoned he wouldn't answer, but then it came.

'Denver Calhoun,' he breathed. Then he didn't breath again.

Mitchell stood, and already the customers were eyeing the gold bar on the counter with far more interest than they were eyeing the dead man.

'How much you reckon it's worth?' one man asked.

'Plenty,' another said. 'But who owns it now?'

More questions came, but Mitchell raised his hands, calling for calm.

'The answer to all those questions is simple.' He took the gold bar from the counter and held it aloft, letting everyone get a proper look at the gold. 'Whoever brings in Denver Calhoun gets this here gold bar.'

Despite the lure of looking at the gold, within a minute, the saloon was deserted.

I'd always liked the Maltese Falcon type set up for a story where a lot of diverse characters chase around after something valuable, but where the something is actually not all that important to the story. So in Calhoun's Bounty a huge stash of Mexican gold comes to light then disappears and everybody wants to find it: a nice group of brothers, corrupt lawmen, outlaws... and of course the main point is that everyone gets into conflict with everyone else in the search.

The odd thing though was that having set up a situation in which none of the characters knew where the gold had gone, I found that I didn't know either. And that started to worry me. So I just had to carry on writing to find out where the gold was, even though I kept telling myself it wasn't all that important.

As it turned out, when I did eventually find out what had happened to it, it was as big a surprise to me as it was to the characters and it set up a very unusual situation for a western that I enjoyed writing a lot. But I'll say no more to avoid spoiling the surprise!