Chapter 10

Spring was here, and we headed north to collect our new guns. We picked them up and found that the gunsmith had done his usual fine job. Janet was particularly taken with the reloading ease of her new guns. While there, we stocked up on ammunition and left with a song in our hearts. We felt downright invincible with out new guns.

Though we had not originally intended to, we decided to visit Oklahoma again, since we were so close. We had restocked our wanted poster file, so we were well equipped to venture forth, and we now had our new guns we were anxious to try out in real life. Target shooting is all very well for familiarization, but it couldn't approach the thrill of actual combat. I was still a thrill seeker, and I had corrupted Janet into being much the same way.

We rode into the wilds of Oklahoma, not expecting trouble so soon, but ready for it, anyway. It was a good thing that we had not gotten too slovenly in our habits, because we were suddenly met by a blast of gunfire coming in our direction. Fortunately for us, whoever was doing the shooting had fired too soon, and they were using pistols instead of rifles. Both of us were nicked by bullets in several places, but the real aggravation was that my horse was wounded so bad that I had to finish him off with a bullet to the brain. Dammit, that was a good horse, and I was going to get even with the son of a bitch that caused his death!

I had no choice, and Janet joined me on the ground. The area was so flat, except for the clump of hillocks protecting our assailants, that we both had to shelter behind the body of my horse as we lay prone on the ground. My horse had fallen so that he landed on top of my rifle, and I could not draw it from the scabbard. Janet had not had time to grab her rifle, so we were reduced to having only our pistols to defend ourselves.

At least, my stash of spare .44 caliber ammunition was in a saddle bag that I could reach, but Janet was limited to the .38 caliber ammunition that she was carrying with her. This meant that a long battle would force her into using my second .44 weapon as she ran out of .38 bullets. She had proven that she could use the .44 if she had too, it just required two of her smaller hands, so it was a bit awkward to use in this kind of fighting.

Fortunately, we had plenty of water, since I was also able to reach one of my full canteens. I quickly pulled it down to where we were hiding so that it would not be hit accidentally by a stray bullet.

There was a whole lot of shooting coming from our assailants, so we were forced to keep our heads down quite a bit of the time. Therefore, I could not get an accurate count of the number of people shooting at us, but I was sure that it was at least five. From the erratic rate of fire, I could tell that they were using guns firing loose powder, so they had a significant amount of down time while they reloaded.

I sorely missed my rifle and concluded that I needed a second rifle carried on the opposite side of my horse, so that no matter which way he fell, I could still reach a rifle. However, that was for the future, the problem was what to do now. The ground where we lay was not so hard packed that it was impossible to dig in it, so I asked Janet to use her bowie knife to try to dig my rifle out from under the dead horse. She immediately saw the value in that and set to with a will.

Meanwhile, I was using my pistol and firing at any likely target that showed itself. I didn't know for sure, but I thought that I scored several hits at this early point in the battle. In any case, I tried to keep up a steady fire, but not to waste ammunition by firing indiscriminately. It was interesting that our adversaries did not share my restraint. This made me wonder if we were facing a bunch of neophytes who had just taken up the outlaw profession. If so, we might get out of this easier than it had seemed, at first.

It only took about 15 minutes of vigorous digging on Janet's part to extricate my rifle. I cleaned the loose dirt from it and proceeded to give our opponents what for. We had been operating at the extreme edge of accurate pistol fire, but it was an easy thing with the rifle. Withing a few seconds, judging from the screams of pain, I had managed to hit two of the bandits badly enough to put them out of action.

This must of made an impression, because there was a lot of argument and shouting from the other side as I stopped to reload my rifle and let it cool down. Suddenly, a figure jumped up from the hillocks and began to run away from the fight. Normally, I might have let him go, but I was still pissed over the death of my horse, so I took aim and hit him with a bullet in the small of the back. He flipped as he fell, and I was sure that I had discouraged any further thought of flight from the battle.

Yes, frantic shooting resumed from the hillocks and I was sure that this meant that the remaining assailants were thoroughly frightened. I thought that now was the time for a change in strategy. I asked Janet to take over the fight while I tried to get behind the fools who had attacked us. I asked her to use the rifle and her .38 alternately to give the impression that we were both still behind the carcass of the horse. I would use that distraction to try to get behind them and end this nonsense before one of us got hurt.

She took my place and did as I requested. Meanwhile, I slithered away from the protection of the dead horse and made my way well out of pistol range. That way, even if they saw me, our enemy could not do anything about it. I was successful because I kept the dead horse between me and the enemy, so they could not have seen me under any circumstances.

I stayed low, but I was sure that the fools who had attacked us were not even aware that they were in trouble from a flank attack, so I moved rather freely. I got around to the side so that I could see them as they hunkered down behind the very small mounds of dirt. I counted three able bodied shooters in the bunch, so I knew what I had to face.

I dropped to the ground so that I practically merged with it and worked my way toward the three enemy. I was in my element when I was doing this—I think that there was no other human alive who could do a better job of slithering over the ground so completely unnoticed.

I got up to withing 20 yards of the other side and drew my pistol. My first shot hit the nearest man in the torso just under his armpit. He collapsed with a grunt, and the others looked to see what had happened. This gave me an upper chest shot at the next one in line, and I easily took care of him. The third man tried to surrender, but Janet was not taking any chances and hit him with a head shot from the rifle the moment she had enough of a target. I did not object because I don't know what we could have done with a prisoner except try to hang him, and that would be difficult without a nearby tree.

I called to Janet to hold her fire and walked up to where the fools had been lying in ambush. It looked to me like we were their first victims, since I could see no sigh of loot, and the ambush site looked reasonably fresh. Janet came over and we looted what little there was worth taking. I was certain that they had horses stashed somewhere nearby, and I found them after a minimal search. The horses were the most valuable things we collected that day. In fact, one of them looked good enough that I simply selected it to replace the horse that they had killed. However, I preferred my own saddle, so we worked a bit to recover my saddle from the dead horse. I tied the old saddle to one of the other horses and put mine on the horse that I had selected.

Overall, the battle and its aftermath had taken nearly three hours, so we were hungry. We moved out of sight of the carnage and ate some lunch. We wanted to get rid of the surplus horses, tack, and guns, so we rode to the nearest town. It turned out to be Okchobee where we'd had our fabulous luck last year. Just in case the townspeople remembered us with animosity, we wanted to do our business and get out of town as soon as possible.