Chapter 7

We got up the next morning stiff and sore—I was stiff and she was sore! No, it was only my muscles that were stiff, every thing else was worn out. We ate breakfast and rode out on our quest. If we could average $60 a week, we would never want for money.

Unfortunately, life doesn't work that way. We were into our third week before we got another one, and I think that we were just lucky with that one. We stumbled across a stage robbery. One man with a shotgun was holding up the north-bound stage, and he had his back to us when we came into sight. He had pulled a tree across the road so that the stage had to stop, and he was standing behind the tree with his shotgun pointed at the driver and guard.

The bandit never saw us until we were well within rifle range. I didn't hesitate, because he could shoot the stage crew at any time. I dropped to the ground and pulled my Henry as I did so. Janet reached over and held the reins for me as I used the saddle as a steady rest for my rifle. I was just above the bandit, so I knew that there was a chance of shooting high, so I aimed for between his shoulder blades.

Some action by one of the crew must have warned him, because he tried to spin around just as I fired. This caused him to bend over slightly as he started to turn, and my bullet, just by chance, hit him in the neck and plowed down into his chest. The one shot was all that I needed, and he was dead by the time we rode up to check on him.

Luckily for us, his face was undamaged, and Janet and I both recognized him as being worth $200 to us in bounty. Not only that, we should be able to collect some money from the stage line for killing a bandit.

Janet went to talk to the stage crew while I searched for the bandit's horse. I found it hitched to a tree limb only about 50 feet from the road. I tied the bandit's body to his horse while Janet used her horse and rope to drag the tree off the road. The stage crew were all of the witnesses we needed to get a receipt from the agent at the next relay station that we could use for our rewards. The agent said that the stage line had so many robberies lately that they were paying $50 for every dead bandit. Now, we were cooking! We would get $250 for this one bandit, and that took all of the sting out of the dry spell we'd had.

One of the passengers, a professional poker player, even chipped in a double-eagle tip. We were happy to get it, so we both tipped our hats to him in thanks.

That little adventure started a string of hits for us. We never got over $50 for a single man, but the run added up to $320 before it ended. We now had enough to carry us through the rest of the year if we didn't get lucky again soon.

At last, it was time to head back to see if my new pistol was ready. It was, and a new feature had been added. The gunsmith had seen another pistol from France that had what he called "top break" reloading, so he copied it for my pistol. He wanted an extra $5 for the addition, and I gladly paid it. This made reloading so fast that I figured I would not need two pistols. I put both of my Starr DAs in my pack and started wearing just the one pistol. Six bullets and quick reloading were features that were sure to give me an edge, and I was happy to take any advantage that I could get.

This pistol was a little faster to shoot than the Starr DAs, so that was another advantage, but I didn't know just how much I could do with it. To my happy surprise, the faster shooting paid off the first time I used the new gun.

We had run into another dry spell, and a sheriff we were talking to recommended that we head over to New Mexico Territory, since they were having all kinds of problems with outlaws over there. We thanked him for the suggestion and headed for NMT the next morning. With no better information to work with, we headed toward the town of Clovis, hoping that it would have a source of wanted posters.

We found that NMT was badly organized and there was not much help for bounty hunters. The funny thing was that if anybody needed the services of bounty hunters, NMT was the place.

We thrashed around for a few weeks and decided that there was no point in us remaining in NMT, so we returned to Texas. Just as we were about to cross into Texas, at least we guessed that, we encountered a large cattle drive. The dust was fierce, and you could see the cloud for miles. The cattle were headed toward Texas, and it looked like there were around 15 drovers working the herd.

We didn't want to get caught in the dust, so we hung back and let the cattle go by. We were in no hurry, so it was easier on us to follow along far enough behind the cattle to miss the dust. We were sitting on our horses on a slight rise when we saw in the distance another cloud of dust headed our way. This cloud was moving very fast, and I remarked to Janet, "It looks like the bunch over there is trying to catch up to the herd over here." She agreed, and we sat there to watch what was going on.

Pretty soon, a couple of riders came up to us and drew their guns before we realized what was going on. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" one of them asked.

I answered, "We're just sitting here watching the rest of the world go by, and if you don't put up that gun pretty damn soon, one of us is going to be dead!"

"You can't talk to me like that! I'm a deputy sheriff and we need to know if you are part of that rustling gang."

"Hell, no, we're not rustlers. We don't know what's going on. Suppose you tell us."

"A gang of rustlers hit the biggest cattle ranch in eastern NMT, yesterday, and we've been chasing them since then. If you ain't rustlers, then maybe you'll join our posse and help us get the cattle back. We're paying $10 to each member of the posse."

Janet nodded, so I said, "OK, sign us up. We'll join your posse. What should we do?"

"Right now, just follow us. Put a bandanna around your left upper arm so we know that you are one of us and not a rustler. When we get there, just shoot anybody without a bandanna on his arm."

Janet and I quickly tied a strip of white cloth around our arms and rode off with the deputy. We used white cloth because we thought that would be the easiest to see.

It took about 45 minutes to catch up to the herd, and a general melee started. Janet and I got separated for a while, but we were the only ones with white cloth on our arms, so it was easy to find each other. I don't know about anybody else, but I fired off 27 shots during the event, and I really appreciated how easy it was to reload. I popped a couple of rustlers while they were struggling to reload their loose powder pistols.

After the fun was over, we collected our $10 each and said good bye. We were asked if we wanted to participate in the drive to return the cattle to the rightful owner, but we declined, citing urgent business in Texas. They knew that was a joke, but they didn't need our help, so let us go with a wave of their hats.

We crossed the border back into Texas and somehow felt relief for "returning home." I had never thought of it before, but Texas did now seem like home to me. For no particular reason, we decided to ride toward Amarillo. It was getting late in the summer and I wanted to head south before the cold weather started, so this was probably our last chance at Amarillo this year.

Texas was lucky, or maybe it was because the state was so big, but there was very little actual fighting in the state during the war. Or, let me restate that, most of the fighting was with the Comanches, who thought they saw an opportunity to drive the Whites out of "their" territory. The Comanches had pretty much given up their war by this time, but there were a few war bands still active, witness the ones that had troubled Janet's family. In fact, we found out about that on a very personal basis before we got to Amarillo.