Chapter 4

Josh came riding out of the brush a few minutes later. “Ajax did an artistic job on this galoot. He took out the fool’s throat without leaving another mark on him. The horse is just standing there as if it cannot figure out what could possibly have happened. Have you identified this here galoot yet?”

“Yeah, this is Jacob Spinner. He is worth $55 for murdering a county judge about a year ago. Let’s get him tied to his saddle and then go check on the other one.” I dismounted and started going through the robber’s pockets and moneybelt. Damn, I found over $110 on him. We got him tied to his saddle and went into the brush to take care of the other galoot.

He was Jack Hobner and was worth only $25, but was still worth the effort. These two were worth more than Moreland, but who was going to quibble over that? He had just under $60 on him, so we had what most folks would call a gold mine in these two. We decided to take them with us to the county seat to turn them in for receipts, then we could collect for the lot just by going down the street.

We got our receipts and made it to the courthouse before lunch. As a lark, Josh had me present the receipts to the county clerk. He was not going to give me the money because he was sure that no woman could have killed over $200 worth of wanted outlaws. I countered by asking where in the rules it said that a woman could not be a bounty hunter. He sputtered a bit, but gave in when I put my hands on my pistols. I grinned at him and he smiled back, so I figured there were no hard feelings, certainly none on my side.

I picked up a supply of the latest wanted posters and left the office with a recommendation for the best Mexican restaurant in town. Josh and I went there and ate an excellent lunch.

That afternoon we returned to Willow Run. We did not take any chances and let Ajax do his usual job of scouting for us just in case a new road agent had moved in since we had passed. None were found, and we made it all the way back to Willow Run with no interruptions.

We stabled our horses in the same livery stable we had previously used, and the manager was happy when we left Ajax in his care, or was it vice versa? I’d had a brainstorm on the way back to Willow Run, so we headed for that first saloon that we had visited. The same two whores were working the saloon so I joined them after Josh bought us a Mexican beer. I made friends and cohorts for life when I gave each of them 10% of the bounty that I had gotten for the two fugitives they had pointed out to me. They promised to tell me of any more that they ran across when I promised them 10% of any bounties I picked up as a result of tips from them. That $7.50 and $8.00 payments were the most money they had ever earned in a single day, and they were thrilled. It often took them a month to earn that much money. I expected them to be valuable resources in the hunt for fugitives.

Josh agreed with me on the potential value of such contacts, and he agreed that we should cultivate as many more as we could find. I would spread the word of our largess at the other saloons in Willow Run and at saloons we visited in other towns.

We went to supper at our favorite restaurant and were greeted as valued patrons. That was nice, and it resulted in another 10¢ tip. We spent the rest of the day playing penny-ante poker. We did wind up sitting at separate tables, so there would be no accusations of collusion if and when we won.

The novelty of playing poker with a woman made up for their losses, and I did not engender any ill will simply by winning most of the pots. Some of the players were lucky to make $40 a month in wages, so the evening games put real pressure on them. I made friends by being careful not to win too many pots, but I still came out $4.80 ahead. Josh won 70¢, so he was happy.

That night in bed was much like the previous night, except that I introduced him to foreplay. He found that to be a revelation, and now he understood why I liked a shaved pussy. As a side-effect, I mentioned that I was afraid to shave with a straight razor, so Josh volunteered to take on that chore for me. Wow, I could hardly wait for our next bath!

I was not afraid of being knocked up because I still had three years of protection left as long as I continued to keep the implants in my arm. Of course, as soon as they ran out, I was probably going to catch big time. I was of mixed feelings about that, mostly because I didn’t know how Josh would react. I’ll probably find out pretty soon when I tell him about my strange history. In any case, I currently am having too much fun to want to change anything I don’t have to.

There were no more leads from the bartenders or the whores last night, so we will just try to scare up some business on a different road. Hopefully, a road agent or two will fall into our laps today. Ajax is good at finding them if they are there, so we might be lucky. Going out to look is the only way to know for sure.

Busted! Not a thing! Even Ajax is acting kind of annoyed that there were no contacts by this afternoon. We went all the way to the next town north of Willow Run without finding a single nibble. I feel much like an unlucky fisherman. Oh, well, there is always tomorrow. At least, our evenings are interesting.

That evening at supper, Josh said, “Dammit, Helen, I think that poker professional at my table was cheating, but I cannot tell what he was doing. He just seemed to win too many pots to be on the up and up. Can you swap places with me tonight and see if you can spot what he is doing, if anything. I grant you that he is a hell of a better player than me, and that may be all he is doing, but I would feel better if you took a look at him.”

“Okay, you can sit in at my table and I will take your place. I can’t promise anything, but I will try to see if he is cheating.”

Well, we accomplished the swap without much comment, and I paid close attention to what the poker pro was doing. By now, the ante was 5¢ with the 10¢ maximum raise, and I wondered what a pro was doing in such a low-stakes game. On the other hand, I wondered why he stayed in town because we did not have many people who could afford large bets. There was such a game on Saturday each week, but that still was a cheap game for somebody who made a living at poker.

Play opened with a couple of hands, one of which was won by the pro, and I could see what Josh meant about there being something fishy about the game. The dealing was slow except for when the pro dealt his own cards. Then they seemed to fly out of his hands. That had to be the clue to finding what I was looking for if it was really there.

Ah-ha, at last! Now I could see what he was doing. He had a mirror on his ring that he could use to see the cards as each one was pulled from the top of the deck. Every once in a while, he would slip that card to the bottom of the deck and deal out the next card to the proper recipient. When it came his turn for a card, he would pull his card from the bottom of the deck.

It was still hit or miss for him to get a good hand, but he knew what all of the others were holding so that he could adjust his play to fit the hand. His technique was not all that great, but it was good enough to fool us rubes. It dawned on me that he was using us for practice before he moved on to better things. Okay, it was now up to me to trap him.

I watched the pro for a few more hands, but I could not see anything that I could use to call him out. All I could do would be to stop the game and accuse the pro of using his mirrored ring to read the cards. I put my cards face down on the table and crossed my arms. “Okay, Mr. Poker Pro, I know that you are cheating with that mirror on your ring. Take that ring off and let us see how well you play then.”

He jumped to his feet and said much too loud, “HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF CHEATING!” With that, he extended his right arm and a derringer suddenly appeared in his hand. He was reaching with his thumb to cock the little pistol when I drew a revolver with my right hand and shot him in the gut. Nobody points a cocked gun at me and gets by with that action!

He went stumbling back with shock and surprise as the large bullet tore into him. His arm went flying up, and he discharged his Derringer in the process, but the bullet went into the ceiling. I then stood up, and he tried to shoot me with the second barrel on his little gun. That was too much! I put a bullet through his head before he could cock the second hammer.

I called out, “BARTENDER, PLEASE SEND YOUR SWAMPER TO FETCH THE MARSHAL!” The bartender acknowledged my request and I kneeled to search the pro’s pockets. He had quite a store of gold and silver coins in his jacket pockets, and his moneybelt was stuffed with gold coins, mostly double-eagles. I moved the money and moneybelt to my pockets and stood up when the marshal showed up.

A short conversation convinced him that I had fired both my shots in self defense, and he sent the swamper for the undertaker. I had to pay the two-bits charge for the burial. There was not much money on the table, yet, so I told the other players to divide it up—I had enough from what I got from the Tin-Horn’s pockets. I also inherited the game for the rest of the night. I dealt and found that all of the stuff the dealer had to do was sufficiently distracting that I never won a hand for the rest of the evening. That was when I swore that I would never take up poker as a profession.

As Josh and I were leaving the saloon, one of the whores cornered me and said, “Earlier this evening, I had a customer who claimed to be a road agent working the south road out of town. I never got his name, but he was about 5½ feet tall and had light brown, almost blond, hair. He had a brown checkered shirt and gray pants. That’s all I know about him, but he might be worth something if you go after him.”

Okay, that was as good a lead as we could hope for, so I thanked the whore and said that she would get her usual reward if we found him. She looked very happy at that, and went back to work. We went back to the hotel.

That night was a good one as Josh practiced what he had learned from his foreplay instructions. I actually came once while he was playing with my clit. The fucking was great, too, but I noticed that, for both of us, the fucking was evolving into love making. I could not have been happier!