Chapter 8

For the first mile or so, I ambled along, looking carefully to each side of the road. Fortunately from my point of view, the rain had stopped completely, but the ground along here was not bone-dry. At first, there was nothing especially interesting, but I eventually came to a place where the ground surface was very disturbed. It looked to me like several horses, moving fast, had turned away from the road at this point and headed northwest.

I had nothing definite to go on, but it seemed to me to push coincidence a little too hard to think that this many horses would leave the road at the same place if there were not a good reason for doing so. Anyway, I decided to follow the trail left by the horses to see what they did next. Well, the truth of the matter was that they held to a pretty much straight direction, but the horses slowed down. That was when I saw that there were four horses, and there was one horse that was leaving deeper tracks than the others.

That had to mean that it was carrying a heavier load than the other three, and $17,000 in gold coins and bars had to weigh around 65 pounds. That much weight was going to tire out a horse real fast, so there was no wonder that the bunch of horsemen slowed down. Very soon, the gang stopped, and the extra weight shifted to another horse. From then on, the extra weight shifted from horse to horse, and none of them were moving very fast.

I was now moving much faster than the horses that I was chasing, and I caught up to a camp that the men made. There was a waterhole, so it was a logical place for them to stop. I looked around for where they had gone when they left the camp, and I noticed that the horses all seemed to be carrying about the same weight. Surely, that meant that the bandits had divided up the money when they made camp that night.

That division of the money meant trouble for me: now the men were less likely to stick together, and I could be chasing four different galoots all over creation. At almost dark, I sighted a cabin amidst a few trees, and there was an associated rope corral holding four horses. Maybe, I had hit the jackpot!

I hobbled my horse in some tall brush and took my shotgun as I walked up to the cabin. There was smoke coming from the chimney, so I knew that there was at least one man in residence, and the presence of the four horses implied that there were four men here.

I sneaked up to a window and peered in. Four men were sitting at a table playing poker, and the table had a pot consisting of nothing but gold coins and bars. I figured that my famous luck was holding, and the men were playing with the gold taken from the bank. All the men were wearing their guns strapped to their thighs in the common manner. The two guns that I could see still had the leather strap fastened to keep the gun from falling from the holster. Things looked better and better.

The only problem, such as it was, was that I could not handle four prisoners. That was just too much for one man to keep track of, so I was going to have to kill two or more of them. The men had proved during the robbery that they did not care whom they might kill, so my conscience was clear for me to shoot them all.

Keeping that in mind, I cocked my shotgun and aimed at the poker table without breaking the window. Without warning, I fired both barrels at the men sitting at the table. I was able to include two of the men in the shot pattern, so they were down for sure, and, if I was lucky, I might wound the other two.

I fired through the window and did, indeed, hit the two men I expected to knock down. I could not tell about the other two because of the cloud of powder smoke generated by my shotgun. There was not enough of a breeze to dissipate the smoke fast enough to do me any good, so I reloaded as quickly as possible and ran for the door.

I kicked the door open and received a shot in my direction in reply. I shouted, "I HAVE PLENTY MORE SHELLS FOR THIS HERE SHOTGUN, SO Y'ALL BETTER GIVE UP!" In reply, I received another shot. I had expected that, so I was hiding behind the wall next to the door when I made my demand.

I had seen the muzzle flash from the pistol, so I fired one round from my shotgun in that direction. I received a cry of pain and a round of cursing for my effort, so I knew that I had not killed the shooter, but I must of wounded him. I hastily reloaded the spent shell, and dove through the door to roll on the floor. The cloud of smoke from my previous shot hid that motion, but my opponent had to know what happened from the noise I made when the stock of my shotgun hit the floor.

There was another shot in my general direction, and that was a very foolish thing for the shooter to do. I now knew exactly where he was from the muzzle flash that showed through the smoke cloud. I fired one round at the muzzle flash that was only about 10-12 feet away from me. This time there was another scream, but no follow-up cursing, so I figured that there was a good chance that I had killed the shooter. Certainly, my muzzle flash had to be visible to him if he was still alive!

I reloaded the spent chamber and crawled toward the shooter. I found him as a bloody mass of torn flesh, and there was not a sign of life. Okay, I no longer had this galoot to worry about, but what about the rest of them? I figured that it would be foolish for me to tempt fate by standing up, so I crawled toward the overturned table. There were three men lying there, and all three were dead. That was the good news, but the bad news was that one of my buckshot pellets had punched a hole in the coffeepot, and now it was damned near empty!

Well, there was nothing else for me to do but to feed the five horses, mine included, and to fix me some supper. At least, I did have a hot stove to use for cooking and a regular bunk for sleeping. My only real complaint was over that wasted coffee!

I did drag the four bodies over against the wall after I searched each one for valuables. I collected $17,000 off the floor and various saddle bags and had $243.26 left over. That I put into my saddle bag, figuring that I did not have to account for it.

The next morning, I tied the four corpses to the horses and left for Brandy and its bank. Three of these galoots were on wanted posters, so I was in line for another $115 in bounty money. This had been a very profitable chase. It took me almost three days to get to Brandy, and I barely made it before the bank closed. I turned in the $17,000, but he bank manager pissed and moaned about $162.17 that was missing. I did not comment.

I picked up my $1,100 in reward money and got my receipts for the wanted men from the marshal. I sold the horses for $27 each, and got something for their weapons. In total, I made $1,599.26 for less than a week of work. This business of catching crooks could be very profitable!

I figured that I had enough money from this spell of bounty hunting, so I headed home. I had $1,655.26, minus living expenses, for only about two weeks of work. I wondered how much money I could make if I worked at it for a whole year. Well, as I had said before, we did not need the money, so I was planning to take at least two weeks off to be with my family.

I was welcomed with open arms by the women and settled in to a life of leisure. I guess you know how long I could take that! By the third day, I was already bored. The only excitement I managed to get was in bed with my wife. She was not far enough along to have a bulge in her belly yet, so we were able to use all of our favorite positions. You do not need to tell anybody I said so, but we used all of them the first night that I was home!

It was pretty obvious by the end of two weeks that I had to get back on the road before I died of boredom. I loaded my pack mule and left for Arbuckle to pick up any new wanted posters. I had an easy trip this time and did not meet any road agents. To tell the truth, I was kind of disappointed. I picked up a new set of posters at the courthouse and headed toward Brandy. Why? I had had such good luck in that direction that I decided to keep on in the same direction.