Chapter 9

The next morning the newly formed wagon train moved out. They soon fell into a routine, with the two Irish women doing outrider duties, though the new arrangement still made Shaylee nervous. Two and a half weeks after they had joined forces, Jean approached Maeve.

"We are running low on supplies and the map shows a town to the northeast. I know it is not on the way but..." said Jean with his, by now, familiar Gallic shrug. He proffered the map but Maeve wasn't interested.

She said, "We have plenty of travel rations in our stores that you could buy. That would save us the extra travel."

"I see that you don't like to go into towns. Is there a problem that I ... ah ... we should know about?" Jean asked, concerned but not quite yet worried.

"Nothing that affects you," said Maeve.

"Well, you can stay in camp while we go into town, then."

"I don't think that's wise. With only you able to speak English, the townies may try to take advantage of your women. You need to even the odds a bit."

"Ah ... but yes, you are so right! That has already happened, but my women are not so defenseless as you may think. They are, in fact, quite capable of defending themselves."

"Explain."

"No, you have your secrets and we have ours. Eh?" said Jean with a knowing but subtle smile.

"Fair enough. Let's have a look at your map then."

The town was thirty-five miles away as the crow flies ... but, of course, it was much, much further away by the route that the little wagon train would need to follow. It was decided that the group would turn off the track that they were following, and cut east across the prairie. Then they would turn north, on the road that ran between two settlements.

They hit the road on their fifth day of travel, and turned north. The two Irish women were still doing outrider duty and on that day it was Shaylee's turn. As she rode her circuit she came back to the road approximately three miles in front of the wagon train.

Rounding a corner she saw a stagecoach some distance in front of her. The coach was stopped because of a boulder in the middle of the road. Two mounted men were holding guns on the disembarked passengers, while the driver and guard struggled to get the strong box out of the driver's foot well. It had to hold a considerable amount of gold, because the two men were just able to lift the box from the well and dump it over the side of the coach.

Without thinking, Shaylee drew her converted LeMat revolver, and rode up on the scene. The two robbers didn't have a chance.

Shaylee's first shot caught one robber in the chest and the next shot hit the second man in the shoulder. Her bullet smashed into the man's rib, shattering it. The bone and bullet fragments punctured the top of his lung and also cut his axillary artery—the main blood vessel that carries oxygenated blood to the arm.

Due to the impact of the bullet the robber lost his weapon and almost fell from his horse, still he managed to wheel the animal and gallop away. The man was dead. He just didn't know it yet. He only managed to get just over a quarter of a mile away, before he tumbled from the saddle. He had bled out.

Unknown to Shaylee, there was a third robber on the far side of the stagecoach. As the young woman rode up to the coach the third man fired at her but his bullet only tore her shirtsleeve and lightly grazed her left arm.

Before he could get off another shot Shaylee leaned down to the left of her horse and fired at that robber from under her horse's neck. Her shot hit the man dead center of his chest. As the bullet traveled through his body it shredded his heart and shattered his spine, the man fell from his horse like a rag doll.

As Shaylee regained her seat on the back of her horse the people from the coach stared at her in amazement. How could this 'boy' be that good of a shot? The daughter of one of the passengers was a young woman that was on the market for a husband.

She got all flirty and asked Shaylee, "Are you Billy the Kid?"

"What? Who me?" asked a confused Shaylee.

"Yes you, silly. That was some mighty fine shoot'n you done, they'ah."

"Nope. Name's Shay, plain and simple. Now if no one is hurt, I need to be on my way."

Normally, Shay would have stripped the bodies for anything of value, but the way all of the people were looking at her made her very uncomfortable. With a tip of her hat she rode off down the road. After two miles she turned off of the road and finished her circuit around the wagon train.

Even though her studies in the General's books led her to hide in plain sight, and that meant in with other people, other people made her nervous.

That night she confided the story to her sister. Maeve became troubled but didn't quite know why. Another problem reared its ugly head that evening. The two French girls began to flirt with the two 'young men' at dinner. It was obvious that things could easily get out of hand if not handled fast and done so in a proper way.

The way Shaylee handled things was to practice with her weapons. From then on she spent every free minute at practice. Her regimen was at least an hour at target practice with each brand of pistol that she owned and then when it was too dark to see the targets she would practice her quick draw.

Without knowing it, she was now the fastest shootist in the whole of the Indian Territories.

The fact that Shaylee was always practicing, prompted Maeve to start practicing with her weapons as they had out on the prairie. Jean, seeing the two Irish women working so hard, began to work with his women. Though they were good with their 'hatpin' weapons, they were not as good as they could be with their firearms. The old man also decided that the women needed a better understanding of close combat.

"Would you mind if we stopped here by the river for a few days?" asked Jean of the two Irish women the next evening.

Maeve looked at Shaylee and shrugged.

"Sure, but why?"

"I need to teach the women some self-defense moves. Please do not be offended but I am an old man and the women are beautiful and your towns are not safe."

"No offense taken or argument there, Jean. Why do you think we practice so much with our guns?" asked Maeve.

They moved camp to the other side of the river and hid in a large stand of trees and stayed for two weeks.

First Jean tried to teach the French women Savate but he soon found, however, that it was impossible for the women to fight as he did because of their long skirts. After some thought Jean looked at the women's Parasols but found them to be much too light and fragile to be depended upon in a fight, oh one might get in a good lick or two, but the things were sure to fracture. Finally he settled on a cut down version of the English quarterstaff.

To that end he went down to the river and selected five straight young oaks. After cutting them down and removing all of the branches he stripped them of their bark. Finally he cut the staves to a length of forty-eight inches and fire hardened both ends.

When the two Irish women saw how good a weapon the stave was they asked to be trained also.

There was no way that they could become proficient with the new weapon in the very short time that was available, but all of the women did learn the rudiments and Jean felt a bit more relaxed about entering the next town.

This time the French coach was the only thing that attracted undue attention as the women were wearing dowdy gray dresses and did not have their hair done up.

No, this time it was Shaylee that attracted all of the attention. Several of the passengers of the stagecoach were still in town spreading the story of the dashing young boy with the Spanish saddle, who had saved them from certain death. The story, and Shaylee's deeds, expanded with each retelling.

This was a most uncomfortable experience for the Irish woman!

They split into two groups, Maeve and Jean went to the livery stable to buy more grain for the animals while Shay and the women went into the general store to shop for some needed items for the French women. They needed better footwear, for one thing.

Shaylee's attention was distracted with her translation duties, and so she didn't notice the three dirty men that entered the store. Not until their smell began to saturate the whole place, that is.

"Hey you? You the one that's called Shay?"

Assessing the situation instantly, Shay said in French, "Edmee get your charges to safety."

Edmee did as instructed and began to gather the other three women but Cecile had been looking at some items that were nearer to the front door and was grabbed by one of the roughians.

The young girl took exception to being manhandled and stabbed the man in the hand with one of her pins. At the same time she tried out a new move that Jean had taught her. She raised her foot and slammed her heel down with all of the force her tiny body could deliver, directly onto the arch of the man's foot! There was an audible crunching sound as the bones in the man's foot shattered.

The man's eyes got as large as dinner plates with shock, surprise and then pain. He fell to the floor, screaming and writhing in pain not knowing what hurt more, his hand or his foot.

Cecile backed away while she held her pin out in front of her body like a rapier, in a sort of fencing stance, all the while uttering curses in French on the filthy man that had grabbed her!

All of the commotion distracted the remaining two men for a moment, but not Shay. The extra time had allowed her to slip into that dark place, which was still in her center.

"Who's asking?" Shaylee asked of the man that had spoken.

When he turned back to Shaylee, he saw an altogether different person. Gone was the young boy that he had considered a vulnerable target. Instead; a stone cold killer, ready for a fight, stood before him.

Like all bullies, the big man was a coward at heart. Filled with fear, he wet himself, for he knew that he didn't have a chance against this obvious pistoleer.

Without a word, and holding his hands up in front of himself with palms outwards, he backed out of the store. His friend helped the injured man to get up and leave, too. All three men were terrified. Up until that moment they had never come up against a hard target, Shaylee was a totally new experience for them!

"You best watch out, Mister! Those three are back shooters!" said the storekeeper.

Just as the storekeeper finished speaking, the big man ran back into the store firing as he ran. The man was a terrible shot. His first bullet went wide and hit the storekeeper in the shoulder. Just by luck his second shot grazed Shaylee's head, knocking her out ... but not before she had shot him in the heart!

Edmee saw, out of the corner of her eye, that the second man was not far behind his friend. She jabbed a pin in his side at heart level as he ran past her. He died without firing a shot. The third man, sitting on the boardwalk across the street started firing with his rifle. He wanted all of the strangers dead! However, his injured hand prevented him from being accurate. When his first shot shattered the window everyone dropped to the floor and were way under the line of fire.