Chapter 14

Joe threw the drop cloth on the floor and stomped out the fire. Joe reloaded his pistol before going for the marshal, whom he found at the first saloon he entered. The marshal came with him to the barber shop and agreed that the shooting was justified. George went for the undertaker while Joe talked to the marshal. Joe finally got his shave, but he could tell that George was still a little nervous from the incident. Joe finally got his chance to look at the ledger, told George that he was doing a good job, and left to return home. It was too late to go anywhere else that day.

Joe discussed the incident with me over supper, and we agreed to tell the agents to do whatever the robber asked. A few hundred dollars was not worth getting killed over. They were to let us be responsible for tracking down the bandit and recovering the money. We thought that we would try an experiment by having the agent keep no more than $50 in cash on hand under normal circumstances; the rest should be deposited in the local bank. It was a little less convenient, but more likely to keep the agent alive in case of a robbery.

I wondered if this was a random event, or were we setting ourselves up to be the regular target of bandits. Neither one of us had considered that when we started the loan business, but we now had to treat that as a possibility. The other possibility that occurred to me was that this was the first step in a war between us and the loan sharks. If that were the case, then we needed to resume actively hunting down loan sharks before they had a chance to hit us hard.

With that idea in mind, we left the next Saturday to make a 4-day swing around the county, looking for loan sharks and calling on our agents. Mary's Hole was a good place to start, even though Joe had just gotten back from there. We stopped by to visit George at his barber shop before visiting the local saloons. We didn't find anything of interest, so we pushed on to the next town; we ate the sandwiches that Lupe had fixed for us while we were on the trail.

We got to Maddog in mid-afternoon and started our visits to the saloons. There were 4 saloons in town, so we split up: I took 2, and Joe took 2. There was nothing of interest in the first saloon, so I moved on to the next one. I looked around before I went in, looking for any obvious danger, but I couldn't see the whole barroom. Nevertheless, I figured that it was safe enough, so I went on in. I went up to the bar and ordered a Mexican beer.

I had drunk about half my beer and was waiting for a chance to talk to the bartender, when I heard a voice shout, "YA CAN'T CHEAT ME, YA BASTARD!" Like any other sensible person, I ducked as soon as I heard those words, because I knew that lead was about to fly. In the far corner of the room was a poker table, and sitting at that table were 3 of the poker cheats that I had encountered in Jimsen a few months ago. All 4 men at the table had jumped up in order to facilitate drawing their weapons, but I had the advantage of the shoulder holster, so I drew and fired a shot into the ceiling where no one would get hurt.

The sound of the shot coming from a unexpected direction was enough to stop the action at the poker table, and they all turned to look at me. One of my old enemies shouted, "IT'S THAT GALOOT FROM JEMSON! GIT 'IM!"

I probably should have minded my own business, but that's something that I just can't seem to do. The 3 cheats all turned their guns at me, so I was now committed to a fight. I started blazing away as fast as I could cock, aim, and fire. I thanked that gunsmith who had reworked my pistol, because it operated smoothly just when I so badly needed it. I got off 4 shots before any of the others could manage a single shot, and then I dove the rest of the way to the floor and rolled toward the end of the bar.

I was already rolling as fast as I could move, and they apparently didn't know how to hit a moving target as the three galoots at the poker table finally got their guns to working, I managed to get around the end of the bar and behind it without being hit. The 3 fools further compounded their error by tipping up their table and trying to hide behind it. Three men behind even a large diameter table can't do much hiding; whereas, I had the full length of the bar to maneuver behind. Further more, the owner of the bar had specified a very thick front on the bar which could stop most of the ball ammunition of the day, so I had a reasonably safe fort to fight from. If the bar could protect the bartender, it sure as hell could protect me!

On the other hand, the table top was made as thin as possible for cost and convenience of the clean-up crew, so my conical Henry bullets plowed right through. The men were trying to hide, but I could see their boots around the curvature of the table, so I knew where to find them. I tried to put bullets through the table where I could see boots, and I was reasonably successful from the start. As soon as I could reload the 4 expended cartridges, I started trying to hit my enemies behind the table. My second or third shot scored a hit on one of the men and he fell out from the table. The other two men kept blazing away at me, but they really had no hope of scoring a hit except with the craziest sort of luck.

Meanwhile, the saloon had emptied as much as possible, though people were crowded at the windows trying to watch the course of the gun fight from a safe location. The man who had caused all of the trouble was lying huddled against the wall, trying not to be noticed; I can't say that I blamed him, he was obviously out of his league.

The bar mirror had long since been shattered by the bullets coming from the back of the saloon, so I did have to watch out for broken glass. I could get a nasty cut if I didn't pay attention to my surroundings as I moved up and down the length of the bar. I moved like that so that the opposition didn't know where my next shot was coming from and be laying in wait for me.

It took maybe 15 minutes for me to kill the other two shooters, but calm finally returned to the saloon. Once the battle was over, the onlookers poured back into the saloon and bellied up to the bar for a drink to celebrate a good show. Maddog didn't have a marshal, so I didn't have to explain myself to anybody except Joe, who was incensed that I had fought a battle without him.

Joe finally calmed down and said that he had found a potential agent whom he wanted me to meet. We met in one of the other saloons, and I agreed that this man was acceptable. As soon as he came to Willow Run to sign the contract, we were up to 6 loan agents. Parson County Finance Company was growing fast.

Maddog didn't have an active loan shark in residence that we could find, so we moved on to the next town, which was within reach before it got too dark. We stopped by the hotel in Simpson's Crossing and took a room. We ate supper in their restaurant before visiting the town's saloons; there we had some fun!

Our second stop was in a saloon with a poker tournament going on. We each paid the $10 to buy in, and we played draw poker until 4:00 AM when we finally dropped out. We managed to break even on the deal as far as the money was concerned, but we both had a lot of fun. I highly recommend a poker tournament for some gut wrenching fun that you can still live through, provided nobody tries to cheat.

We went to bed and slept sinfully late, all the way to 9:00 AM. We were still a little groggy from lack of proper sleep, and we had a problem finding a place that would fix us breakfast, so we went back to the saloon, only to find that the tournament was still going on. Our breakfast consisted of pickled hard-boiled eggs and Mexican beer from the bar. We were tempted to rejoin the tournament, but wisely decided that we did have other fish to fry.