Chapter 6

Author’s note:[ and ] delineate mind-to-mind dialog.

Sunday was a real drag. The only open businesses with a real crowd were the two brothels. These were the guys who got tired of waiting last night and gave up before they made it inside. There was a small amount of business in each of the saloons, but most of that was related to the penny-ante poker games. Yes, it was a quiet day, and I was bored to death.

By lunch time, I was about ready to climb a wall, so I stopped by Henry Thompson’s place and told him that I was taking Sunday afternoon off. My wife, daughter, and I were going on a picnic. Then I had to explain what a picnic was. Oh, well, the picnic was all set up before I got home by means of the mind-to-mind link with Julia. We had our replicators, so we did not need a lot of food fixing. In fact, all we had to do was to hitch my mule that everybody by now knew was a robot to the carriage and take off.

That stream where I first met Julia and Susan ran close to Clear Wells and had trees growing along most of its length, so it was a good place to head for a picnic. We found a very pleasant location right next to the stream and exited the carriage. Julia and Susan found a spot for the picnic blanket, and we sat down. I was the one who knew about picnics, so I was the one who ordered the food.

I ordered potato salad heavy on the sweet pickle, tuna salad, also heavy on the sweet pickle, potato chips, a dip based on mayonnaise, and sliced bread for the sandwiches. Iced tea was the beverage of choice. Just as we finished eating, four men rode up, and it was easy to tell that they were trouble just looking for a place to happen.

Julia left it to me to talk to the men. I said, “Good day, gentlemen, and what can we do for you?”

One of the men said, “We’ll have a cup of coffee. Then we will have the lady for a party.”

I said, “You have just signed your death warrants.” I drew both of my pistols and started shooting. The men were so close that I had no trouble putting a bullet into each one of them, but they managed to hit me with several shots, and the bastard’s even shot at Susan. She was hit twice in the chest. No shots were taken at Julia for obvious reasons. They didn’t worry about her because it was not lady-like for a woman to carry a gun. Okay, I’d take care of that later.

What really pissed me off were the shots taken at Susan. It made no difference whether or not she was shot—what could a 5-year-old do to prevent a murder and rape? Of course, none of us were injured because of the body armor. Before doing anything else, I replaced the clips in my pistols and Replicator recycled the ones that I had used.

When the shooting was over, naturally, the pleasure of the afternoon was spoiled, so we decided to return to town. First, I did check to see if there was anything interesting in the men’s pockets, moneybelts, or saddle bags. There was nothing but a small amount of change, less than $3 total. I left the men for the scavengers, but I did take the horses. Replicator cleaned up the place for us and we went home.

On the way home, I asked Julia, [Do you know how to use a gun?]

When we got home, I told James what had happened and asked him about putting a shooting range in the back yard. There were no close neighbors, so the gunshots should not annoy anybody too much. I told him that I planned to teach Julia how to shoot in case she was ambushed. I even wanted to teach Susan how to protect herself when she got a bit older. He agreed with me on both counts. James said that he would start laying out the shooting range as soon as I gave him directions as to exactly what I wanted. He was relieved when I reminded him that Replicator could supply what we needed almost as soon as we told him what we wanted.

That evening, James and I worked on the design of the shooting range with some input from Sam. He wanted Helen included in the instruction, and I readily agreed to that. According to Replicator, Sam was now progressing so fast that Replicator thought that he would be back at work in two weeks. That would be soon enough to start the lessons.

The shooting range was operational in three days, so I tried it out. Sam joined me and fired a few shots, but that was still all he could manage. Nevertheless, even he admitted that he was progressing very rapidly. Those extra treatments that he was getting with Replicator’s yellow and cyan rays were really making his wounds heal quickly.

The range had three shooting stations, two for students and one for the instructor; namely, me. Replicator installed some cable lines to hang the targets on, and that made the range safer to use.

I tried to get Sarah to agree to take up shooting, but she flatly refused. That was when I found out that she was virtually blind in one eye and could not see clearly beyond about 15 feet with the other eye. After a strong argument, I got her to let Replicator examine her eyes. It turned out that her problem was with cataracts. Replicator said that he could fix the problem in one day if she would cooperate. She agreed after seeing what was being done with Sam, so Replicator operated on both eyes in one day.

The artificial lenses that were installed in Sarah’s eyes made her see quite well without glasses up to about 25 feet, and Replicator provided glasses so that she could see normally. Her vision was actually better than the average person if push came to shove, and I was able to convince her to learn to shoot. My argument was that the Comanches could attack at any time, and she and Julia might be the only protection for Susan. That was a compelling argument.

Things were remarkably quiet for the rest of my term as marshal of Clear Wells. Sam was back on the job and was welcomed by one and all. That was fine with me since I did not want the job, anyway. I was thanked by one and all for my service during the emergency, but it was obvious that the townsfolk were glad to see Sam back on the job.

I took up the job of teaching the women to shoot after we expanded the range to four shooting lanes. My intention was to try to get all of them to an adequate level of accuracy at a range of 12-15 yards. By adequate level, I meant that every shot should hit a man-size target somewhere. It may not be a killing shot every time, but a hit with a hollowpoint bullet was going to be damned painful and likely to put the wounded man out of action.