Chapter 7

We arrived in Bloody Gulch well before mid-morning. There were very few people around, and that was good. The fewer people around—the fewer people who could get hurt in the ensuing melee. I went up to the saloon window and looked in. As I expected, Jake Holbein was not there. That probably meant that he had not yet finished breakfast.

I suddenly got a wild idea. There was a good chance that his gang would disperse with no further shooting if Jake were out of the picture. Therefore, I was going to challenge Jake when he reached the street and before he got to the saloon where his men waited for him. If I worked this right, Jake would be the only one I had to kill, and Helen would not be put in danger.

I grabbed my shotgun just to be on the safe side and found a shady spot to wait for Jake to show up. Meanwhile, Helen took our horses down the street to leave them in the livery stable where they would not be noticed. She was to bring her shotgun when she came back. We met and found a comfortable place to sit while we waited for Jake to finish breakfast.

We had to wait almost an hour for him to show up. When he did, he was sporting a long cigar and obviously enjoying the way people jumped out of his way. He had almost a block to walk before he came to a convenient place to cross the street. He never looked in either direction as he stepped into the street. Obviously, it was the duty of everybody else to avoid inconveniencing him. I waited until he got near the middle of the street before I stepped out and challenged him.

Jake was so surprised that I think that he damned nearly shit in his pants. This sort of thing did not happen to the omnipotent Jake Holbein. I said, "Good morning, Jake. And it is a very good morning. Why? Because I am about to blow the shit out of your worthless hide. You are basically a coward, so I know how hard it will be for you to decide what to do.

"I am offering you a choice: either I will blast you in the gut with both barrels of my shotgun, or you can draw against me. Which will it be? You got 15 seconds to make up your mind."

We stood there for about 10 seconds with terrible anguish on Jake's face. He knew he was dead, no matter which way he chose. He was reaching for his pistol when I heard Helen scream, "HONEY, LOOK OUT!" That was all it took for me to blast Jake Holbein to Hell with both barrels of my shotgun. We were so close that his body was cut nearly in two by the impact of 24 #00 buckshot.

A moment later, I heard a .44 and a shotgun go off almost simultaneously. I felt a terrible pain in my left side, and I dropped my shotgun. I fell to the ground and almost blanked out. I heard another shotgun blast, a pause, and two more blasts from a shotgun. Meanwhile, several .44s were firing. There was a slightly longer pause and two more blasts from a shotgun. Then, a few seconds later, I felt Helen gather me in her arms. That was when I fainted completely.

I found out later that I was unconscious for about three hours. I came to my senses while lying in a bed, later identified as part of the hotel. Helen was sitting beside me, quietly crying, and a much older woman was sewing up my wound. She said, "Ah, now that you are awake, you can have some laudanum for the pain. You are a very lucky young man! The bullet went no farther than to crack two ribs. It dug a tunnel as it ran through your side from back to front. Just a fraction of an inch farther over and you would have a bullet in your lung. There ain't nothing I could of done about that, but you will be all right in a few weeks. Just do not drink too much of that there laudanum!"

I sure was glad to hear about the laudanum because I had a pain like I never had before. I managed to gasp out, "What happened?"

Helen answered, "One of them bastards what worked for Jake Holbein tried to shoot you in the back. I managed to hit him with a shotgun blast just before he fired, so his shot went off the mark. I killed the other five of his gang with my shotgun before I ran to you. Dearest Husband, you are so very brave, but if you ever do anything to scare me like that again, I will shoot you myself!"

"Did you check the dead men to see if their faces are on a wanted poster?"

"I did not have to. The marshal did that for me. There were four wanted men and two what were not. The marshal wrote out the receipts for me, but he put my name on them. I guess that we can get that changed."

"No, do not do that! You killed them, so you deserve the money. How much was it?"

"The total came to $190. Are you certain that you want me to keep all of that money?"

"Sure, Honey! You earned it, if anybody did. That money is yours to do whatever you want with it."

"Oh, my Lord! I ain't never had that much money of my own. I do not know what I will do with it, but I guess that I can find something to do with it."

I looked at her and grinned. "Honey, there ain't never been a woman born what cannot figure out a way to spend money!" Helen swatted my arm, but I was already asleep from the laudanum, so I never felt it.

****

Four weeks later, I was up and about. I was still moving gingerly, but I was able to ride a horse if I had a mounting block. I was no longer taking any laudanum, and I had managed to stay away from developing an opium addiction. I had seen people with that kind of trouble, and I wanted nothing to do with it!

Things had calmed down quite a bit in our part of the county now that Jake Holbein was no longer around. The only thing I regret was that I was not able to haul him to NMT to collect the $100 reward for his head. Unfortunately, it rotted too fast for me to cart it to NMT, and they would not pay the reward based on a receipt from a Texas marshal. Well, we did not need the money that bad, but it would have been nice to collect it as a last gesture of spite toward Jake Holbein.

Now that I was able to set a horse, I rode around the Circle J ranch to see what we could salvage from it. Helen rode with me, and we stopped for a picnic whenever that was possible. Sometimes we would indulge in a little loving while we were picnicking, but Helen was a little embarrassed because she still had to be on top. I was too sore to service her any other way. However, I was sure that problem would go away in two or three more weeks, and Helen and I could hardly wait.

The ranch was shot to Hell! All of the cattle had been rustled, and we had no chance of finding them at this late date. Several of the ranch buildings had been destroyed, including the bunkhouse. There were other problems, too, so it looked like it would be years before we could make it profitable again.

Martha, Helen, and I mulled over that problem many a night, and we could not come up with a solution to the problem. In a way, Jake Holbein had won the war, and that was enough to sadden us all! The only good thing we could say was that Jake was not around to enjoy his victory.

We had a little bit of money left from the bounty rewards, but we did not know what we would do when that ran out. The Texas economy was shot, and it looked like it would be a while before it built back up. That meant that there was practically no way that I could get a job that paid enough to keep three adults going, and the situation would be even worse when Helen got knocked up.

We talked about it and talked about it. The only solution we could think of was for me to become a regular bounty hunter. We could last until I was completely well, but there was going to be a problem within a month or so of not enough money. It seemed like the only practical solution was to try to sell the Circle J ranch for enough money to live on, at least for a while. That hurt Martha the most because her husband was buried here, but she said that she could get over that.