Chapter 19

By breakfast time the next morning the women seemed to have settled down. It looked like Anita's work to me and I intended to thank her for the help when I got the chance. She was rewarding me again at the moment by showing me her titties as Clarice nursed. It was easy to see the show was for my benefit while the breakfast was for Clarice's.

Jasper and Blossum had something to show me after the meal was over. They must have worked late into the night because my cross-draw gun-belt was ready. I was surprised it was all from one piece of leather instead of the belt and the holster being added together they were all basically one piece cut out to fit me perfectly, and it did. I strapped it on, saddled Bob, and took off a little way back down the road into town.

Bob had never showed a tendency to jump or cut up from firing off his back, then again I hadn't done it much. I gave him a little practice and got in some of my own, drawing and firing while sitting in the saddle. I also worked him at turning one way or the other from leg pressure while he was standing still. I felt as confident as I could when I went back and turned him loose.

I'd also done a few draws from standing on the ground and I thought the cross-draw was a little faster for me that way too. I wasn't convinced it was, but it did seem to let me acquire the target and a good firing stance more easily. I wasn't going to spend days on end practicing, but I did spend a lot of time with my draw without firing. Hell, it was free and a good outcome was something worth a little time getting familiar with the process.

When it came right down to it this was a dangerous stunt I was planning. I intended to wait for the other guy to get his draw started before I put a hand on my pistol. I wanted the deputy to know for sure I didn't have any choice. If I guessed wrong about my opponent's abilities, I could be dead myself and that was something I didn't want.

On the morning I was supposed to get things in motion I got up early and ate earlier than usual. I drank plenty of coffee and spent another hour warming up my arm. After that I relaxed until about nine-thirty, then saddled Bob and headed for the lawyer's office.

I was sent in to see Don Jennings as soon as I darkened his door. He went over some specifics of the deal, including the balance of what the soon-to-be widow wanted as payment after I'd made her a widow. If the place was as good as I was told the ten thousand dollars would still be money well spent and after learning about the funds Bill had sent to a bank here I knew we could afford it.

After Don and I had things mostly ironed out we went to his outer office and there was a deputy sitting in the waiting room part. Don introduced me to Jed Franklin and we went outside and mounted up.

Jed told me it was about twelve miles to Jack Dunbarton's place.

"Did Mr Jennings tell you anything about Jack?" Jed asked.

"Not really."

"Well he's a loudmouth, hotheaded, belligerent, an all around Jackass, and a bully to boot. He's going to raise hell about you coming out to look the place over and he might try to get rough over it. That's the reason the Marshal asked Mr Jennings to request a deputy as an escort if someone wanted to look the place over."

"Isn't it a little far out to be in the Marshal's bailiwick?" I asked.

"Yes, it is, but the Marshal is also a sheriff's deputy and he's mostly over this part of the county too. Just be sure you keep your eyes on Jack while he's ranting and raving. He gets awful mad sometimes when he's trying to plow over a body and they don't get upset and shaky right away."

"There may be trouble for sure then. I was invited to a war a few years ago and I ain't too skittish no more."

The scene was as advertised when we got there. I knew it would come to a killing before things were finished. It was plain old Jack didn't like my looks. I didn't give a rat's ass and I was more than tired of his shit before he made his fatal mistake. Jed didn't even get watch out out of his mouth before I drilled Jack Dunbarton through his right eye. He fell like a sack of shit and stayed there bleeding.

Just to be on the safe side, I pulled out my left hand conversion too, in case some of the hands standing around decided to argue about the way things turned out. One of them walked up to Jack's body and nudged it with his toe.

After he convinced himself Jack was really dead he threw his head back and shouted Hallelujah with enough feeling to make a preacher ashamed about his own efforts. It gave me the feeling not many of the hands were going to miss Jack.

Jed got down himself and took a look at the body and then climbed back aboard his nag.

"I hate to be troublesome Frank, but I'm gonna have to ask you to ride back to town with me and give the Marshal or the clerk a statement. It was plain as day he caused it and tried to draw on you first. I know it means a long trip for nothing, but we need to do it," Jed said.

"Well hell Jed, he's already dead and there ain't no rush to send after a doctor or nothing. Can't you give me a few minutes to look the place over?"

"I guess that can't hurt nothing. Remus, will you show him around?" Jed asked the one that had shouted.

He agreed to and he saddled a buckskin and started off to the south. He told me there were thirty-five hundred acres on the place and that mostly it had come from bought out homesteaders. They had about fifteen hundred head of cattle and nearly three hundred mares along with about a dozen stallions and around a hundred geldings they used on the ranch.

"Will you stay on here now that he's dead?" I asked.

"If the lady wants me to I will. It's hers now and all the hands like her a hell of a lot better than we did him. She's a good woman and you just did her a good turn. I just want to find out where they bury him so I can slip around and piss on his grave someday," Remus said.

I didn't want to get in on that and I sure as hell didn't mention I'd come out here hoping to poke holes in his former boss. Anyway, I let Remus get back to work and Jed and I headed back to town. I went directly back to Jennings office, telling Jed I had to see my lawyer before I made any statements. He didn't like it much but he rode on to the jail I guess.

Don Jennings was surprised to see me back so quickly and he said so.

"He didn't make me wait before he tried to get his pistol out. I didn't make him wait to get a bullet in the eye neither."

"I'm afraid something has come up that makes the deal impossible. The widow Dunbarton has changed her mind and she doesn't want to sell now." Jennings said, renewing my lack of faith in lawyers.

"Well, I'm awful sorry to hear that, Mr Jennings, but take my advice and hire you some guards for the next five or six years," I said.

"Why? I'm a well-respected man in Oregon City. I don't need any guards," he said, but he quit talking when the muzzle of my Remington found its way inside his open mouth.