Chapter 17

We didn't cover ground quite as quickly as I had on the trip before, but we made up some by traveling on into the night. We had to slow down before we got into the town because we came up on the four men herding Amos' Damsel. We decided not to take 'em on out here on the road since there would be a danger of hurting her in the fracas.

After the other bunch turned around to look at us a time or two we drew rein at the side of the road and dismounted. We moved on off the road and into the woods and I built a little fire while Amos broke out some sausages he was carrying. We cut some short branches, stripped off the tiny limbs and leaves and heated 'em up over the fire.

"They're supposed to be taking her to the next town for some head honcho's amusement," Amos said.

"Well, I had dealings in the town on the way down here and there's six less assholes living there now. Most of the ones I killed were just traveling trash though, best I can figure."

"Well this head man is supposed to have about twelve men working for him, but Rita couldn't discover what he was doing to make a living," Amos said.

"It don't really matter, does it? I mean, we're basically going to stop them from whatever they're doing unless we get lucky and they stash the girl in an outbuilding or leave her somewhere else where we can steal her."

"When you're right, you're right," Amos said.

We let them get about an hour on down the road and then fell in line behind them again. We'd just caught back up to them when they turned off the road about two miles from town, or it was my best guess anyway. We cut off through the woods about a half-mile before we came to the small road they went down.

All we could do now was cut the angle on them and hope. There was some underbrush to give us fits, but it wasn't bad on the long legged horses we were riding. Well it wasn't really bad, but the brush against our legs was annoying.

"Looks like I'm going to have to try my hand at making chaps before long. In fact it looks like I should have tried it last night instead of banging Rita's box all night," Amos said.

"Well you do what you can think of and try to think of what you left off last time before you come back again," I said.

About a hundred yards at a time was all I could keep up with in the wooded area and I at least knew we'd done that much and more. Finally the woods thinned out and we were looking at an argument going on. The four men who'd come with the Damsel were still mounted and they were having a squabble with six men from the house.

"I tell you he got killed in the cafe a couple of days ago, and five of our men did too. We don't know where the money he was supposed to pay you with is hid out," one of the men on the ground told the leader of the bunch that had just come down the road with the Damsel.

"Well, we shore ain't leaving the woman with you without no more money," the leader of the traveling crew said.

"But he already paid half down. You can't take her back with him having paid half already," the leader on the ground said.

"Like hell we can't. It was his money anyway, not yours. We brought her here and it was cash on the barrel for the rest. No cash, no cockburner. We'll just take her off and sell her to someone else, the mounted one said, and then he collected an arrow low on his left side.

The fight was on now and the other three mounted men took shots with their crossbows right away. The trouble was there were more men to shoot at than they had shots ready. They nailed the three they were shooting at all right, but it left three standing and they had the benefit of being able to put their crossbow's end on the ground for proper cocking.

The wounded leader got hold of himself then and charged the other leader with his sword a swinging. That one was working on his crossbow, with his foot in the end of it and pulling back on the string. It didn't leave him much defense when the sword came slicing through his upper body, but the one swinging it fell off about the same time.

Amos and I watched the cluster fuck with amusement, knowing we'd have the last laugh and hoping they'd all wind up having killed each other. The horse with the girl on it had backed away from the fuckup on its own and she was pretty much out of the line of fire.

We were about two hundred yards from the fracas and we both started walking toward it with our bows in hand. I was thankful I'd had a chance last time to practice with mine.

The three remaining on horseback were finally finished off by the ones on the ground, but not before they wounded two of the others. Essentially there were two men left standing, sorta, and one of them started walking toward the horse with the Damsel on it. Amos and I both turned that way and fired at him, and of course we both hit him.

It left the one still standing and even though he didn't know what part we were playing in the fiasco he knew we weren't with him. He bent over the crossbow again trying to get it ready for another shot. He found out the big advantage to having a normal bow just then, but it was at the very end of his life.

I walked over toward the wounded while Amos went to claim his reward. The poor Damsel Jennifer was so worn out from all the riding she was only in the saddle because they had tied her there. While Amos was cutting her loose I busied myself cutting throats on the men who were lying around badly wounded.

An hour later we had the men all safely dead, stripped naked, and their horses unsaddled and gathered up on a picket line. I took them all plenty of water, including the ones we'd rode in on, and then I found a sack of grain in a shed behind the house and gave them all a bait in their nosebags.