Chapter 8

In Amarillo, we stocked up on the recent wanted posters and checked to see how many of the old ones were no longer valid. There were a lot of new ones and not many to be scrapped, so maybe we got back to Texas just in time. We weren't hurting for money, but we could always use more of the stuff.

We decided to ride north from Amarillo, since that would put us up against the section of Oklahoma that nobody claimed, so it was perfect for outlaws to hide out in. Of course, the border wasn't marked, but that made no difference to us. Bounty hunters were not limited by borders the way regular lawmen were. We were free to go anywhere we wanted without regard to jurisdiction. A lot of outlaws didn't know that or forget it or something, but, for whatever reason, the ones in Oklahoma seemed to get careless, which would make it easier for us if we ran across any on our posters.

We rode on north across the border and headed for the town nearest to Texas. There wasn't much to steal in this part of Oklahoma, which accounted for so many faces on Texas wanted posters. We rode into town and headed for the nearest saloon. Damn! We hit paydirt on our first try. There was Texas Jim Haskell, and he was worth $1,000. Standing next to him was Soulful Sam Wanamaker, and he was worth $750.

The question was, how could we take these two down with so many of their friends around, especially since they were not likely to be fans of bounty hunters? I looked around, and the solution to our problem suddenly occurred to me. I had Janet go around the buildings and up the alley to cover the door that led to the jakes. Eventually, our quarry was going to have to visit said facilities, especially considering how much beer they were consuming.

I told her to follow whichever one came out first into the jakes and stick a gun into his ribs while his hands were busy elsewhere. The question of whether or not to shoot the one she had covered I left up to her, but I wanted her to fire a shot after she had arrested her man, even if she wasn't in the process of shooting him.

I expected the sound of the shot to draw people out there, and it would give me a chance to brace the other one if he stayed in the bar. If he went out to investigate, I would follow and arrest him while everybody else was distracted. We had handcuffs, even if we did not often use them, and Janet could use them to control her man, whoever he was. Janet had no better idea, so that's what we tried.

We had a pretty long wait, but Soulful Sam finally needed to release some of the waste water he was carrying around, so he left for the jakes. He was tipsy enough that Janet had no problem arresting and cuffing him. She said that he persisted in thinking it all was a big joke that some of his friends were pulling on him, so he didn't give her any trouble.

Once Janet had her prisoner under control, she fired a shot into the pit to continue with the rest of our plan. Several of the people inside the saloon reacted to the sound of the shot by rushing out to investigate. Texas Jim was one of those whose curiosity was greater than his desire for another drink, so he joined the five other people who were going out. I stepped in behind him without arousing any suspicion.

Once we were outside, I stuck my gun in Texas Jim's back and told him that he was under arrest. He didn't believe me and got belligerent, so I had to shoot him. This attracted more people outside, but Janet and I were the only ones with our guns already drawn, so we didn't get much more than some cuss words thrown at us, including accusations of being "unfair." Now that was funny, but I didn't laugh at the time.

The swamper was one of those who had come out, so I paid him a dollar to fetch the horses belonging to Texas Jim and Soulful Sam. I tied Texas Jim across his saddle and helped Soulful Sam to mount. We then got our horses and mule and got out of town without further delay. We only needed to travel about 12 miles to find the first Texas town with a marshal and a telegraph, so we were able to take care of business before dark on that day.

We considered going back to Oklahoma, but we decided not to press our luck. It was too likely for somebody to ambush us, so we decided to settle for our $1,750 for these two and head back to Amarillo. I, for one, was just as glad that we did, because we had an early cold snap, and I wanted to get as far south as I could before the real cold and windy weather showed up. I wanted to get as far as San Antonio or even Laredo before winter set in. Hell, I was willing to go all the way to Brownsville if that's what it took!

Janet convinced me to give El Paso a try before I skedaddled that far south, so that's where we headed. El Paso was a good place for us, at least as it came to not getting bored. This was a wide open town with crime more common than legitimate business. Cattle rustling was a big business all up and down the Rio Grande River. You could get as much as $2 a head for cattle in any condition from the hide buyers, so there was no such thing as culls in a herd.

Kind of for the fun of it, Janet and I hired on with a big ranch as guards against rustlers. We didn't do any of the regular cowboy stuff, our sole job was to keep rustlers away from the cattle. The only problem was, we were on duty pretty much 24 hours a day, so it did cut into our personal time. We had a little shack out on the range away from the main ranch house complex, so we were sort of acting like any other married couple, except that we both rode out on patrol.

The secret of our success, such as it was, was that we had no rigid schedule for our patrols. Sometimes we went out in the morning, sometimes we went out in the afternoon, and sometimes we went out at night. The rustlers didn't know when to expect us, so we did a good job of keeping them away. Oh, we had contact with rustlers when we first started our patrols, but they soon found that it didn't pay to mess with us.

Early on, we were out on a morning patrol when we came across half a dozen vaqueros who didn't work for the ranch pushing about a hundred cattle toward the river. Janet and I galloped around to get ahead of them and I fired one shot into the air. Well, they didn't take the hint, so a regular gunfight broke out. The problem, from their point of view, was that they couldn't shoot worth shit, so they never came close to hitting either one of us.

They had a hell of a time reloading their loose-powder pistols while riding at speed, so they spent a lot of time with empty guns. This was the edge that Janet and I needed to make our work easy. Our pistols shot faster than theirs, and our pistols reloaded a hell of a lot faster than theirs. The upshot was that we were soon facing six dead vaqueros and a herd of cattle too big for us to handle by ourselves. I took the time to loot the rustlers while Janet rode for cowboy help.

We kind of worked ourselves out of a job. The boss decided by the middle of January that there was no further need for our services, so we went back to El Paso. I had to agree with Janet that we were far enough south for the winter, since it didn't get all that cold to somebody from New Hampshire, and the wind was not nearly so bad as it had been in Kansas.

We were whiling away the time, one day, in a saloon when Janet overheard some disturbing news. She happened to be sitting in the line of chairs against the wall and I had gone to the bar for more beer. Two of the saloon whores sat down near her and got to talking. One of the women was real upset, it seemed that the saloon owner had sold her services to a brothel in Mexico. She didn't want to go, but she had no choice in the matter.