Chapter 2

Three weeks of saloons and poker was my limit, soz I looked fer sumpthin' else to occupy me fer a while. I heard that the federal government was looking to hire some deputy marshals, soz I looked into it. The pay wasn't much, but they did pay in gold, soz that made up fer some of the short comings. There was a federal courthouse not far away, soz I dropped in fer a talk.

Well, the long and the short of it was that I took the job. Judge Abner Jones took a shine to me, soz he sent me to serve some papers on a local rancher. The rancher was a witness to a shooting of another federal marshal, soz the judge wanted him to show up in court to testify. This was supposed to be a nothin' sort of job, one that a body could do in his sleep. Well, I don't do nothin' in my sleep but sleep, soz I was ready for trouble ifen it showed up.

When I got to the ranch, I was invited in fer dinner, since it was just gittin' on to noon. Them was real nice folks, and I enjoyed a mighty good meal of roast beef and all of the fixin's. We was just having desert, a peach cobbler, when a rock came flyin' through the window. Now, good glass is expensive, soz I could sympathize with my host fer bein' right pissed off.

The important thing was that rock was wrapped with a piece of paper. The paper turned out to be a note threatnin' the rancher with harm to his 12 year old daughter ifen he testified. Now, it seemed to me that the threat in a federal case made it my business, soz I had Jack saddled and was on the trail of the rock-thrower in a matter of minutes.

I was on the watch out fer an ambush, since that was the logical way to deal with somebody followin' somebody else. It was only two and a half miles later that I ran into that ambush. Now, I'm sure that my instinct is gonna fail me one of these days, but I'm riding it fer all it's worth 'til that happens. Anyway, I was comin' up on some trees, and I had a strong feelin' that them trees was holdin' some kind of bad trouble. I was right!

I was about 75 yards from the trees when three rifles started pumpin' lead at me. I could tell from the sound that they were Spencer carbines, so they was gonna be kinda old and near worn out. That meant that their accuracy was suspect, which was all to my good. I grabbed my Winchester and saddlebag of spare ammunition and hit the ground runnin'. Jack was one smart mule, and he took off in the opposite direction—I didn't have to tell him what to do.

I dropped behind a hillock and looked to see what I should do to protect myself. It looked like, from the accumulated powder smoke that the three men were pretty close together, and that made it easier fer me ifen they stayed that way. I couldn't see the shooters, just the little bit of smoke that the wind hadn't yet blown away.

I hunkered down behind that tiny mound of dirt and tried to plan my attack. I say attack, because I sure as hell wasn't gonna let them come lookin' fer me. That was a certain way to wind up dead.

There was a lot of pretty tall brush between me and them ambushers, soz I might be able to move closer ifen I was careful, and I was always careful when somebody was shootin' at me. I started out by stayin' hunched over as I crept closer to the ambush site. I needed to know ifen they were still at the original ambush site, soz I picked up a hefty section of tree limb and tossed it into the brush near where I had been hiding behind that hillock. That produced a good 15 shots from the fools what was tryin' ta kill me.

They hadn't moved from the original site as near as I could tell. That just proved to me that they were as dumb as dirt. Either they should of lit a shuck gittin' away when their first try failed, or the should have at least moved to a new location where they would be harder to find. Since they didn't do either one, I figured that I had a pretty easy job ahead of me.

I managed to work my way around behind them, and there they were, as obvious as a wart on a woman's nose. They were lying on the ground behind some trees and not keeping a lookout anywhere but in from of themselves. I almost hated to do it, it was like taking candy from a baby. I crawled up to within 60 or 70 feet of them and took hold of my shotgun in my right hand. I carefully laid my rifle at my feet and stood up. "OK, you bastards, put down your guns and stand up." That was the first they knew that I was behind them.

As I expected, all three of them rolled over and tried to swing their rifles to point towards me. That was a real stupid thing to do! I fired one barrel at the one in the middle and eliminated him from his life of toil and troubles. There was enough spread at that distance that I winged both of the other two fools, and they started looking real uncomfortable. They dropped their Spencers real quick like, and held up their hands.

"Are either one of you wounded bad enough that you can't ride? Ifen you are, I'll just shoot you where you sit." Of course, I wasn't gonna do it, but they didn't know that. Neither one said anything, soz I figured that they weren't hurt all that bad. "OK, sit on your hands." They did that, and I reloaded the empty chamber.

I picked up my rifle, but I kept them covered with my shotgun. I had them pick up their dead friend and lead me to their horses. I kept them covered while they tied his body to his horse. I had them mount and I used piggin' strings to tie their hands to their saddle horns. I tied their feet together out of their stirrups by leading the rope under the horse's belly. That left them kind of hangin' in their saddles with no support from the stirrups. They had to hang on tight to the saddle horn to keep from falling out of the saddle. With their feet tied together, they couldn't get down, soz falling could be quickly fatal. I handed them the reins and whistled for Jack. A minute or so later, Jack showed up—I love that mule!

I mounted and we rode toward town. It took us three hours to get there because we had to move at a slow walk. I took them to the jail where they were used to housing federal prisoners. After I locked them up, I took the body to the funeral parlor where the undertaker gave the federals a flat rate for processing bodies.

I went back to the jail to talk to the two prisoners. The jailer had already called a doctor to look after their wounds. He cleaned them up and sewed the wounds back together. The doctor claimed that they should be safe from gangrene ifen they didn't do sumpthin' too stupid. He also gave them each a dose of laudanum to kill the pain. They had drunk so much of the opium pain killer that they were both asleep by the time I wanted to talk to them. I told the jailer that I would be back later to talk to the prisoners.

The judge was in his office, soz I reported what had happened. He congratulated me on coming out on top in the ambush, then he gave me the bad news: I had to write a report of the killing and the arrests. Shit! I knew that there had to be a catch to such a cushy job, but my instinct for danger had let me down this time!

What with one thing and another, I didn't get back to question the two prisoners until the next mornin'. I was in for a surprise when I walked in. The doctor was there bandaging the night shift jailer's head and setting a broken arm. The day shift jailer had found him locked in a cell and my two prisoners gone.

It seems that three men had shown up during the night and roughed up the jailer before breaking their two friends out of their cell. They had locked up the jailer and taken off. The jailer didn't know where they went, but he recognized one of the assailants. He had probably saved his own life by not saying that he had recognized the man.