Chapter 9

I spent the rest of the day visiting Smith's victims and returning their "penalty" money. By late afternoon, I had visited everybody listed in the ledger that I could find. I just had time to get home before dark, so I took off at a brisk lope and got home before Lupe could be mad at me (damn, there I go sounding like a husband, again!).

I had dropped by the Jimsen jail and collected Blount, so that I could turn him in to the Willow Run marshal for a receipt. He was worth $100, so I was looking forward to twisting Jimmy's tail, again. In the meantime, I had $1,700 dollars I had confiscated from Smith that I needed to take care of. I now had over $3,000 in cash in my possession and no good place to keep it. I had to come up with something pretty damn soon!

The rest of the week was spent either as Doctor Horton in my office or as Jake Esposito in town at one saloon or another. Life was really fun for the first time since my husband had left for the war. While I was fooling around this way, I had some time to think of my impulse, I could hardly call it a plan, to become a kind of Robin Hood. I could easily combine it with my bounty hunting escapades and have a high time with the scheme. This seemed like such a good idea that I decided to follow through on it.

One thing I wanted to do was to cut down on the variety of ammunition I had to carry. I had the Henry rifle that was chambered for the rim fire .44 caliber Henry Flat cartridge, the LeMat cap and ball, the Walker Colt cap and ball, and the shotgun part of the LeMat that also used a cap. That was 4 different sets of ammunition that I needed, though one set of caps did work for three of the guns. I got to thinking of what I could do to help myself out. Suppose I had a Walker reworked to use the .44 Henry Flat? That ought to be easy to do, and it sure would simplify reloading. There was a really first class gunsmith in Trinity who might be interested in doing the job for me. I needed to go to Trinity, anyway, to collect my latest bounty, I could visit the gunsmith then.

Come Monday, I put on my Jake Esposito persona and rode to Trinity. I carried one of my spare Walkers with me. The first place I went was the gunsmith, Jimmy at the courthouse could wait. We went into a long technical discussion about how the gun could be converted. It turned out to be a complex problem involving factors that I was not aware of. For example, though both guns are called "44 caliber," the bullets are slightly different in size, but enough to cause problems. The best fix would be to make a new cylinder and use a section of a Henry barrel to replace the regular Walker barrel. He said that this could get expensive and might cost as much as $200 to do the complete conversion.

Well, I had the money, so I gave him my extra Walker and 5 double eagles to get started. He said that he could have the whole shebang ready to test in 4 weeks. I said that I would see him then. I left the shop well pleased with myself.

I then went by the courthouse and had my fun with Jimmy collecting the $100 for Blount. I had depleted his reward money supply pretty drastically with my collection of $1,000 for The Hard Rock Kid, so that he was nearly as put out with me for the $100 reward. This whole thing was almost as much fun as my visit to the gunsmith.

I spent the rest of the day in Trinity at various saloons playing poker. The next morning I left for home and had no adventures on the whole trip. I won't say it was boring, but I was vaguely unhappy when I finally got home. Lupe fixed me a late lunch, and I went on into town to visit the saloons and look for a poker game.

I spent the afternoon demonstrating stud poker around town and had a lot of fun with it. When supper time came, I reluctantly left the poker game, but I was happy to get home in time for one of Lupe's wonderful suppers. That evening, I stayed home and reported to Lupe my experiences in Trinity, though I could tell that she couldn't care less about the visit to the gunsmith.

The time had come for me to start looking for my nemesis Bill Elliot/Ezra Hawkins. I haunted the saloons in Willow Run, but he never showed up. I never lost hope, but I was pretty disgusted that he was not there. However, it was also time for me to go back to the gunsmith in Trinity. I was so anxious to see the results of the experimental gun that I pushed my horse very hard and was at the gunsmith's before lunch.

He greeted me with glee and showed me the result of his efforts. There was little difference in outward appearance with the Walker, but the gunsmith had made some significant changes. He had reworked the rear of the cylinder shell on the right side of the frame to add what he called a loading gate. You opened this to eject the spent cartridge and load a new one into the chamber of the cylinder. He had modified the loading ram to become an ejector rod for the spent cartridge shell. The action was somewhat complex, but no more bother than what one had to go through to reload the powder, ball, and cap of the original design.

We went out behind the shop to his shooting range, and I tried out the gun. It was still as heavy as ever, but that was not too much to cope with, especially as I never really aspired to be a quick draw artist. I found that it functioned very well as a pistol and was outstanding for reloading, so I was very happy to part with the other $100 he wanted for his efforts. I asked him about modifying the LeMat, and he said that he could do the same kind of modification on it. Though there were more chambers, he would still charge me only $175, since he now knew what to do. In fact, he had a LeMat in his shop that he would modify for me and charge me $200 for the pistol with the modifications. I told him to go ahead. He said that he could have it ready in 2 weeks. I was ecstatic!

I returned to Willow Run that same day; I could hardly wait to show off my new gun to my friends! That evening, I was the talk of the place as I showed off my modified Walker to anyone who would stand still long enough. There was a lot of oohing and ahing, but I noticed that everybody thought I was a little crazy for spending that kind of money to rework a perfectly satisfactory gun. Oh, well, ignorance abounds!

I spent the rest of the week haunting the saloons in Willow Run looking for Elliot. It got so that the bartenders just shook their head "no" as I started in the door. Then, on the following Saturday evening, I got lucky. As I walked in, the bartender pointed to the back of the room. There they were! But there were 6 of them. Even I was not fool enough to take them all on at once in a crowded room, so I got a beer and sat down along one wall to see what might happen.

It was about 45 minutes and 1 beer later that I saw two of the new gang members get up and wander outside, leaving 4 men still at the table. A few minutes later, the other two new gang members left, so only the two I was particularly interested in were still at the table. This was what I had been waiting for! Pinky got up a little later and headed out the back door in the general direction of the jakes, so I figured that this was the time for me to move in.

I went over to Elliot's table and sat down without waiting for an invitation. I was careful to sit with my back to a wall. The table was in a corner, so Elliot was also backed against a wall; therefore, I had no compunction about shooting him where he sat. I figured to collect my bounty, tonight, whether it was $100 or $400. As I sat down, Elliot said, "Get yer ass outta here. This here table is taken."

I placed my beer mug on the table out of the way and stared him in the face. "I guess you don't recognize me, you filthy, murdering, raping bastard. Well, I'm now a bounty hunter and I plan to take you in. You can surrender or fight, but either way, you are going to jail, tonight!" I was careful to speak in my best English, because I wanted to be sure that he understood me.