Chapter 3

CAST:

Alice Hightower—Annie's mother

Annie Hightower—Heroine

Arthur Harrison—neighboring rancher

Bill Akers—cowboy friend of Jack

Bill Smith—Jake Blade alias

Jack Highsmith—Annie's alias when posing as a man

Jake Blade—murderer of Annie's father

James Hightower—Annie's father

John Horner—Jake Blade alias

Ma Jenkins—local healer and self-taught doctor

Jack removed his hat and raised his head enough to see over the edge of the ditch. He couldn't see any sign of his assailant, but that didn't mean that he had left. Jack turned around and crept back down the ditch toward his horse. He stopped a few feet away from where he had hit the ditch and propped his hat on a stick at the side of the ditch with the hat just showing. The hat was in position for only a few seconds when a shot rang out and the hat went flying.

Jack let out a yell like he had been hit, possibly a mortal wound, and scurried back a ways from the punctured hat. He had his pistol out and fully cocked, just waiting for the assassin to show himself. Jack had to wait for nearly five minutes before there was any activity on the far side of the road. Finally, a man stood up and walked in the direction of the hat. Jack waited for the man to get close enough so that he couldn't possibly miss before shooting the man in the groin.

That was a calculated shot, since Jack wanted to question the assassin before the man died. He collapsed on the road, and the rifle went flying off to one side well away from the wounded man. Holding his gun at the ready, Jack slowly walked to where the wounded man was lying and poked the man with his boot to try to get his attention.

The wounded man didn't pay Jack any attention, so Jack searched him for other weapons. The man was a walking arsenal of guns and knives. Jack found the obvious .44-40 Colt, two Derringers, and a .32 S&W. He also found a bowie knife, an Arkansas Frog Sticker (stiletto), and a folding knife that looked like it was used for skinning.

Jack had not been gentle in his search, and the wounded man was now ready to pay some attention to him. Jack asked who the man was, and he got the expected "Fuck ya!" as his answer. Jack hit the wounded man in the balls and got a little more respect.

"Who are ya?"

"Bill Thompson."

"Why'd ya shoot at me?"

"Cuz Jake Blade has put $100 on yer head. Jake said that he's tired of ya doggin' his footsteps."

"Where kin I find Blade?"

"He'll spend a couple more days in Reid City, whats 'bout 10 miles farther down the road."

"Are ya the only one chasin' me?"

"I doubt it. Jake made the offer in a couple of saloons that I know of. He pro'bly done it in some more. I 'spect ya're gonna be shot at fer a while, now."

"Shit, well that's the end of usin' the roads fer a while. Where'd ya leave yer hoss. I don't want it ta starve, cuz ya ain't comin' back."

"Yeah, it ain't the hosses fault that I let myself get gutshot. He's in that draw 'bout a hundred yards north of here. I'd be much obliged ifen ya'd put a bullet in my head afore ya leave me, since I knows I ain't gonna recover from this here bullet."

"Since ya asked so nicely, I'd be pleased to do that fer ya. Give my regards ta the Devil." With that, Jack shot Thompson in the head to put him out of his misery.

Jack found Thompson's horse and brought it back to where Thompson lay. He stripped Thompson of anything valuable, including $12 in coin, and pulled his body to the side of the road before mounting his own horse and leading Thompson's horse on a lead rope cross country. Fortunately, the country was rolling hills and plains, so leaving the road was not that much of a burden.

Jack reached Reid City, put up his horse and sold his loot. A fellow could make a decent living doing this sort of thing, provided he was not worried about being shot, himself.

By this time, Jack was used to the precaution of looking at the patrons of a saloon before entering the establishment, himself. The problem was, somebody could be lurking in the shadows and not readily visible from the front door, but that was a chance he just had to take. The trick, there, was not to pause just inside the door, but to walk far enough into the saloon so that the whole barroom was visible before stopping. Most people wouldn't admit it, but they couldn't hit a moving target, even somebody at a slow walk, with a pistol, pretty much no matter what the range might be. It's a different story with a rifle or a shotgun, but a pistol is not the easiest thing to shoot accurately, many folktales to the contrary.

Anyway, Jack looked before entering and didn't see any danger, so he walked to the bar and asked for a beer. He looked around carefully, but did not see anyone he recognized, and it didn't look like anyone was about to shoot him. Jack asked the bartender if he knew where Jake Blade might be, but the bartender said he didn't know. This was really too early for Blade to show up, baring something unusual.

As Jack turned to leave, his eye caught in the mirror an odd movement toward the back of the barroom. He turned to look as a bullet went flying passed him to bury itself in the bar, accompanied by the crashing boom of a .44-40 fired indoors. Jack dropped to the floor, along with all of the patrons of the saloon, except for the shooter. For some reason, he was still standing there with his smoking gun in his hand and a stupid expression on his face as he tried to find Jack among the bodies hugging the floor.

Jack was too busy saving his own life to think about what was happening. He simply raised his gun and put a bullet into the chest of the fool standing there with the smoking gun. His nerves would react to the situation once the danger was passed, but he was too busy right now to bother with extraneous thoughts or emotions. Jack stood there for a moment, then yelled for the bartender to send for the marshal; the answer was that Reid City didn't have a marshal, was he interested in the job?

Jack declined the job offer and went to check on the man he had killed. Since the man was already dead, there was no way for Jack to question him, but that really did not seem necessary. As usual, Jack stripped the man of his valuables and tipped the swamper a dime to clean up the mess. As he walked out the door toward the next saloon, there was a spark of admiration in several onlooker's eyes.

As Jack walked down the sidewalk, a very young man went running passed him to the next saloon with the news of what had happened moments before. The kid pointed out Jack as he walked in. So much for anonymity! Jack surrendered to the inevitable and shouted, "DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHERE I KIN FIND JAKE BLADE?" That question met with dead silence, so Jack backed out the door, not wanting to give anybody too easy a target.

That was when his hat had the second hole punched in it that day. Dammit, this could get expensive—decent replacement hats were not cheap! Jack jumped behind a horse watering trough and looked around for the telltale puff of gunsmoke. There it was across the street behind another watering trough. This time, from the sound, the bullet had come from a Remington buffalo gun. That was a useful piece of information, every buffalo gun Jack had ever heard of was single shot, so there was the pause after the shot to allow for reloading.

This could be serious, so Jack flipped open his Schofield and dropped in another cartridge to give him the full set of six. Hopefully, he wouldn't need that many, but he never was one to take foolish and unnecessary chances. He also had his backup gun if he really got into a pinch.

Neither Jack not the assailant fired another shot, as each waited for the other to do something foolish. Probably 10 minutes later, an innocent mule skinner drove his freight wagon down the street. Jack leaped at the chance offered by the monster wagon. When the wagon got between Jack and the assassin, Jack jumped from his place of concealment and ran across the street to drop down behind another watering trough.

Jack hoped that the assassin was still behind the trough he had first used; if so, he was a dead man! The street and sidewalks were deserted of pedestrians, so Jack believed that he could shoot as much as he wanted to without hurting innocent bystanders. With that in mind, Jack jumped to the sidewalk, and started shooting at the man with the rifle hiding behind the next trough in line. The range was only 10-12 feet, so Jack needed almost no time to acquire his target and start blasting away.