Chapter 9

Spring in Texas can be beautiful, but beautiful doesn't buy groceries. We decided that a trip back to Oklahoma was warranted to restock the larder. However, as a safety measure, we did choose to visit another town.

We set out with our usual complement of two horses, each, and a pack mule. We stopped in Amarillo to pick up the latest in wanted posters and saw that there were some high-value characters there. We might score as well as we did on our first trip to Oklahoma last year, but we couldn't bet on it.

We pulled into Okchobee, Oklahoma, late one afternoon. It looked to be threatening to rain, so we hurried to get a room in the hotel and then on to the livery stable to put up our stock. It was time for supper by the time we got settled in our room, so we went down to the hotel restaurant to eat. We were in the middle of our meal when Janet's eyes got big and I knew that something was up. She leaned over and whispered to me, "Don't look now, but our expenses for the year just walked through the front door!"

Of course, I really had to struggle not to look, but I managed to restrain myself. Janet said, "That's John Early, The Broken Bow Kid! He's worth $2,000 all by himself! On top of that, he has two men with him who add up to $550!"

I said, "Just eat your supper like you normally would. We'll go out the door before them and wait where we can see the door. We'll decide what to do after we see where they go next." We had to pay six-bits, each, for the meal, but at least it tasted good, so I guess we weren't cheated too much.

There was a bench across the street on the sidewalk in front of a saloon. We sat there and hoped that the rain would hold off a little longer. There was a roof over this part of the sidewalk, so we could sit here even if it rained, but rain would make it more difficult to follow our quarry without being noticed. Oh, well, we'd just have to take our chances—this was too much money to let it go without a try, at least.

The men came out of the restaurant at last. They must have had a big dessert to have taken so long. The three were in no apparent hurry, but they sauntered down the sidewalk, headed toward a livery stable, it looked like. Now, why would they be going there? It was too late in the day to go anywhere, it would be dark within another hour. Besides, there was the threatened rain. Nobody went riding in a rain storm if he could help it, because it was too easy to be struck by lightning out on the flat prairie.

We got up to follow them on the opposite side of the street. I don't know what we did to attract their attention, but suddenly Cactus Jack O'Hara turned to face us and drew his pistol. He was a little too quick to snap off a shot, so he just nicked my shirt. There was no way to ignore that salutation, so we both drew and fired. Two bullets, one a .44 and the other a .38 plowed into his chest before he could fire again.

One down and two to go, and they started it, so we could kill them without drawing the ire of the town. The other two dove behind a watering trough, and we did the same. Bullets flew pretty fast in both directions for a few minutes, but neither side scored any hits.

It didn't seem to me that any of us was accomplishing much but putting holes in the side of two watering troughs. I asked Janet to help me to see if we could time when they were reloading. That was always good for at least a minute or so of down time, even if they were using paper cartridges. My hope was for me to get across the street during the few seconds when they couldn't shoot at me.

Unfortunately, they were smarter than the average thug and were timing their reloading to overlap. That way, they had a constant fire directed our way. OK, my first idea was out, now for plan B. I asked Janet to put up a steady fire to make them keep their heads down. I would take that opportunity to dash to the other side of the street. If she stayed here and I got to the other side of the street, the two crooks would be in an untenable position, with her shooting from one side and me shooting from the other.

Janet started shooting, and I got ready to run. On her third shot, I took off across the street as fast as I could move while still staying low. I made it all the way across before her sixth shot, which they were almost certain to think had come from my gun. Anyway, I plopped down behind another watering trough and got ready to spring a little surprise on them.

They were both busy putting shots into Janet's watering trough while I slipped around to the sidewalk where I could see them clearly. I was lying on the sidewalk, so I was not presenting much of a target; if fact, they had not even seen me.

The two crooks were squatting behind that trough, so they were pretty big targets. I carefully lined up my first shot on Slim Jim Butler's head and fired. The .44 slug caught him just above the ear and hardly slowed down as it passed through his head. It continued on and grazed the head of John Early. He jerked around to see where the shot had come from, and that was a fatal mistake. In turning, he raised his head high enough for Janet's .38 to plow into his left eye and out the back of his head.

Thank God, neither one of our shots had made the two men unrecognizable. We had forgotten that we had to exhibit a recognizable corpse if we were going to collect our money. We were saved by chance, and if that kept up, I was going to take up poker!

Now the rain started. We ran over and pulled all three bodies under a roof over the sidewalk to provide some shelter while we looked through their pockets, etc. Well, there was nothing special to be found there, but Cactus Jack was wearing a money belt that was chock full of double-eagles. Hot damn, maybe we had hit a bonanza! The other two men were also carrying hefty money belts, so it looked like we had come up smelling like roses.

This town had no marshal or telegraph, so we would have to go back to Texas to claim our rewards. It was a bit of hard work, but we dragged the three corpses into the livery stable and discussed our next step.

We concluded that the three corpses were too valuable to leave unguarded overnight, so we figured that we had better spend the night in that livery stable keeping an eye on our evidence. Janet went to the other livery stable while I stayed with the corpses. She brought back our bedrolls and a couple of extra blankets. We would just get by with those for sleeping tonight. There was a pile of hay we could lay them out over and have a reasonably comfortable bed.

Next, she took our coffee pot back to the restaurant and had it filled. The coffee would stay warm enough to be drinkable for a reasonable amount of time. She had also brought one of our canteens of water, so we should be in good shape for the night. We sat and talked for a few hours as we drank coffee, but, finally, it got late enough for me to keep watch while she slept for two hours. We decided to work in two-hour shifts until the worker showed up at the livery stable. We were pretty sure that the horses belonging to the dead men were in this stable, but we didn't know which ones they were. We'd find out tomorrow morning.

It was my turn to sleep, and I was getting my money's worth. Suddenly, there was this tremendous explosion very near my head, and I jumped to a sitting position. "What the hell was that?" I asked, still a bit groggy from the sleep.

"Nothing, now." was the answer. "Some fool was trying to sneak in through that side door. I heard it squeak and looked over just in time to see a head just peeking around the door. Without giving the matter any thought, I fired. It's a good thing that the wood is thick or we'd have another body to worry about. He slammed the door, and I think I heard him take off running. You can see the bullet hole in the door panel right where his head would be." I laughed and went back to sleep.

The next morning, the owner showed up at the livery stable, and we explained what was going on. He grunted and said that we would have to pay the stabling fees if he gave us the horses. I knew that he had already been paid, but I figured that the two-bits per horse was cheap enough to save a lot of fuss. I paid the money and the owner disappeared for a few minutes. He returned with three of the worst looking nags that I have ever seen.