Chapter 1

The civil war had come and gone and never meant much to us in Texas, especially in the big middle of it. We had come into a lot of gold during the war, especially near the last when we'd sold plenty of beef to feed the Confederate soldiers and had insisted on payment in Gold.

We didn't really give a shit about the cause you see, but we did care about the money for our beef. Those cotton raising fools could give their all for the cause if they cared to, but as far as I was concerned they could free all those poor noble darkies and let them go up north where everybody wanted them to be free.

I'd just been a kid when the war got started but now it had been over for a couple of years I was sixteen, considered grown, and working on my Daddy's ranch raising more beef.

Even though I wasn't in the war I had learned more than a little about combat from the Indians who always liked to steal a few of our cattle. I'd damned nearly worn a Henry out shooting their asses and I'd had to learn to get around without being seen or heard. Of course I'd had to learn to shoot well too.

This fall my father had decided I needed a little schooling and like a good son I'd done what he'd asked. I felt a little silly in the one room school house since I was older than most of the other kids, but I paid attention and learned my letters and I also took to ciphering well since I could see it would come in handy.

My only problem at school was with the Mayor's son. His father had also thought it was time for him to get some education at this late date. He was actually a little older than me and he was slightly bigger to boot.

He must have thought he needed to give me a lickin' to secure his place as cock of the walk in school since he started up with me one day. I promptly showed him it was important to know how to fight along with being bigger. He took the chance to show me it was more important to be carrying a gun than it was to be good at fighting.

After I'd basically beat the tar out of him he pulled a little hide out derringer and shot me. It didn't do him much good since he was a piss poor shot and only hit me in my upper thigh.

It caused a lot of trouble later on though, since I picked up a big rock and smashed him in the head with it. It didn't kill him, but it did some awful damage in his head since he couldn't talk any longer when he woke up and he could barely walk after that too.

Hell was raised on all fronts. Some blamed me for knocking him senseless with a rock, but even more just raised hell about the Mayor letting his boy take a gun to school. Wearing a sidearm was normal on the streets or in saloons and such, but no one had come up with a reason for the jackass to be carrying a hideout derringer in school.

I missed out on most of the trouble since I was laid up at home getting well over the gunshot, but the Mayor and his now, idiot, son didn't get much peace. The town council threw the Mayor out at the next meeting and then person or persons unknown burned out his big General store in town.

To me it seemed funny the Mayor would catch so much grief over what his son had done, but my Dad told me the Mayor's son had already been raising hell and getting into trouble all over town and the Mayor had used his position to shield him from punishment.

Hell, all it took was one look in his face now to shield him from punishment since he plainly didn't have sense enough to come in out of the rain any more and he couldn't even pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel since he couldn't even read Ned and the first reader any longer.

After I healed up Dad sent me back to school and I had no more trouble. Hell, I was now the biggest boy in attendance and it was remembered I'd been kicking the Mayor's boy's ass before he shot me.

I won't say I enjoyed my final days in school, but I did learn to read well and that was worth something, especially later on in life. Or at least it was what everyone told me.

I never forgot my main lesson either, as in; don't go into a fight of any kind without a weapon, as in, a revolver. Derringers just weren't my style.

I spent my next year working on our ranch and Dad considered it good training for me to get paid like any other hand and take care of my own needs. He even had me move out into the bunkhouse with the other hands. Of course I was welcome to come visit my mother and brothers after the workday was done, but still I lived in the bunkhouse now.

I was lucky in another way too. My mother must have had prior knowledge of my banishment since she bought me a lot of clothes before I was moved out of the house. It was sort of a stake she gave me and the money I earned didn't need to be spent for clothes for quite a while.

I was a disappointment to my father nearly right off the bat though. I took my first pay down town to the gunsmith and bought a Colt .44-40 double action revolver and had it converted to fire the .44 rim fire cartridges my Henry used. I never understood why my father couldn't see the advantages of having a pistol and rifle, which fired the same cartridges. Maybe it was because he'd never been shot.

Anyway he kept going on about it until I stopped coming up to the house and mostly stayed in the bunkhouse. At least it left me saving most of my money and it cut way down on the nagging from my father. I guess my Dad didn't care much for this track either because three weeks later he had the foreman lay me off.

Well shit. What was I gonna do now? The foreman even told me the horse I rode most of the time belonged to the ranch and so I couldn't leave on it. This was a departure from normal since almost always, when a good hand was laid off because of lack of need; they sent him off on a horse as a sort of severance pay, or some such.

This left me in a little bit of a bind since I wouldn't have any way to take my things with me. I went to the bunkhouse and packed my clothes up as tightly together as I could and tied them up with twine. I put all the ammunition I had into my pockets, strapped on my Colt and picked up my Henry then I took off walking. Mother was standing on the porch when I passed and I waved at her, but it was obvious to me she didn't know what was going on and she just smiled and waved back.

I saw my Dad watching me from the barn and I didn't even act like I noticed. I didn't wave at him or say shit. I just kept walking.

It was twelve miles into town and let me tell you I knew I'd been out for a walk when I made it there. The first place I came to was the livery stable. I asked Jeb, the liveryman, if he had a horse for sale and he didn't. Then I asked him if I could pay to sleep in his haystack for the night. He told me I could do it for nothing if I wanted to, and then he asked me what I was doing staying in town for the night.

He was shocked when I told him and he asked what I was going to do.

"I'm going to try to find a job first thing and worry about what comes next after that."

We talked for a few minutes and when he found out I could shoe horses he asked me what I'd charge.

"I don't even know what it's worth, Jeb, and I don't have no tools."

"Oh I got all the tools you'll need for shoeing horses. I had to get 'em when the blacksmith left town. I paid the last man I hired ten dollars a head for shoeing, but he took off too. I don't really blame him since it is a lot of work, even for ten dollars."

"If you want to try it for a while though I'll pay ten dollars a head and let you stay in the barn all the time," he said.

We shook on it and he told me there were four of his horses which needed shoeing in the morning. I told him I'd get to them right off the bat.

I was hungry by now and I walked off down the street to a cafe for some supper. They brought me plenty of beef stew and bread for a dollar and I also got all the coffee I wanted with it. I filled up on it and went back to the stable, spread my blanket on the haystack, and went to bed.

I was up with the sun the next morning, built a fire in the forge, and had two of the horses shod before Jeb came out to open up. He bragged on me and then led the horses around and bragged on my work. I got done with the other two by about ten AM and had just put them back into the pen when my Dad and his foreman came riding up.

"What are you doing here?" my Dad asked.