Chapter 5

We stopped off at Amarillo for a couple of days. That much time in the saddle just made me sore in all of the wrong places. Bob had it a bit easier, since he was more used to it, but even he was tired of riding and looking for a break. Whenever possible, we had stopped in a regular hotel each night, but some of the time we camped on the trail. I'll never understand the charm of "roughing it," and I admit to thinking that a body is crazy for wanting to sleep on the ground, even if there is a bedroll under there somewhere.

Amarillo is a nice place, I guess, but it's too much of a city for me. I must be a small-town girl, because I'm a bit scared of a place big enough to support more than five saloons. There were even brothels scattered up and down the streets, so you know the town is full of unattached men. I was glad to get out of town, let me tell you. I just ain't made for a city of more than a couple thousand people.

I think that Bob was as happy as I was to get back on the road. We did stop off to freshen up our supply of wanted posters at the county courthouse, but that's all I wanted to have to do with a city with that many people. I just felt like I was being smothered by that much humanity.

We didn't know exactly when we crossed over the line into the Oklahoma panhandle, but we could tell the difference when we walked into our first saloon in a town over the line. The place just seemed tougher and full of hard cases. It seemed like every man carried more than one gun, some even had three or four pistols stuck into their belts. I even saw one man carrying a pistol on a leather thong hung around his neck. And that doesn't count the bowie knives, some with blades over a foot long!

As soon as we walked in, I just knew that we had come to the right place to find our stake. It was going to take more than one capture to make as much money as we wanted, but this sure looked like a good place to start.

Yep, right off, I saw two faces from our wanted poster collection. Neither one was a top of the line fugitive, but either one would be worth the effort. It was $600 for one and $750 for the other, and both were real mean galoots, too. Both were the kind you wouldn't mind shooting on the spot, except that you would probably be shot by bystanders. It was a cinch that nobody around here was a friend of bounty hunters. They might tolerate you taking in somebody already dead for the reward, but they wouldn't take kindly to you making him that way.

I subtilely pointed to the two men and raised my eyebrows in question, and Bob nodded, but he held up his hand to warn me to be careful how I acted. I found a couple of empty seats together and sat down in one while Bob went to the bar for a beer. He sat down beside me, and we waited to see what might happen.

Well, what happened wasn't what we expected. A half-drunk hooligan stumbled toward me and said, "Hey, ya're a woman, ain't ya? Come on, let's go fuck."

I said, "No, thank you, I'm married, and I'm saving myself for my husband." I was making an effort to be polite because I didn't want to chance losing our quarry. I was afraid that a big to-do would cause them to run.

The man got a real nasty looking snarl on his face and growled, "Don't no woman turn me down when I wants ta fuck!"

At this point, Bob said, in a milder tone than I expected, "My wife doesn't want ya, now ya leave her alone! I'd hate ta have ta shoot ya over a little misunderstandin'."

I thought, "Oh, my goodness, he must really be pissed to have that much accent come out."

The man didn't wait around for more conversation. Bob was still sitting, but the man tried to draw his gun, anyway. So fast that his hand was a blur, Bob drew and fired one shot. One .45 caliber bullet in the chest was enough to make the galoot loose interest in living right on the spot. The bullet didn't come out, but it must have made one hell of a mess on the inside.

The noise of the shot caused a lot of guns to be drawn, and the bartender called out, "WHAT'S GOIN' ON, OVER THERE?"

Bob answered, "THIS STUPID GALOOT WOULDN'T LEAVE MY WIFE ALONE AFTER SHE POLITELY ASKED HIM TA BACK OFF!"

The bartender waved his hand in acknowledgment, and that was the end of it. The swamper came over to clean up, and Bob asked, "Who was that galoot, anyway?"

The swamper answered, "That was 'Penny' Anderson. I'm surprised ya got him. He was lightnin' fast."

I asked, "Why was he called 'Penny?'"

"Anybody he shot, he always closed the galoot's eyes an' weighted them closed with a penny. It was kinda his mark."

Bob said, "Shit! I heard that 'Penny' Anderson had a $200 price on his head. I think that's worth tryin' ta collect. Kin ya come show me which was his horse?"

Bob and the swamper dragged the corpse out the door and I followed along behind, using the bar mirror to watch for somebody getting ready to shoot one of us. Nothing like that happened, so I went on out the door. They threw the body on a horse, and Bob tipped the swamper a dime, a pretty big tip.

We tied Anderson's body to the saddle and we rode away, back toward Texas. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to us, which I thought was kind of unusual, since we were leading a horse with a body tied to it. I guess that's what happens when there's no law.

We had to ask directions, but we finally found a courthouse. Anderson was beginning to smell kinda strong, but $200 was too much to let slide. The clerk had to search for a bit before he found the wanted poster he was looking for. It was one of those without a picture, but the description was close enough to convince the clerk that we had the real Anderson. We actually collected $220 for Anderson, so we were happy.

We spent the night in a hotel room where we were able to take a bath. It was worth the extra dollar to have a hot water bath instead of bathing in some cold stream. Bob and I had no trouble entertaining each other that night.

We headed back to Gilcrest, Oklahoma Territory, the next day. There had been $1,350 in reward money there, and we wanted it, so that's where we headed. Just to be on the safe side, we did go to another saloon. I had worked on my hair and my shirt so that I looked more like a man. I hoped that this would cause me to attract less attention.

Our plan was to look through the six saloons in town until we found our quarry. We would not make any detailed plans until we had them located. That's when we would try to make our capture. We had no reason to suspect that the two wanted men were together, so we were working under that assumption.

We found one of the men in the third saloon we visited. This was Hard Head O'Malley. There was a rumor that he was called that because bullets just bounced off his head. Well, that I couldn't believe, but I guess you never know for sure until you test a saying.

Later that evening, I think we had the answer to our question of where the name came from. O'Malley got into a fight, and, in the process, he butted the other man in the head with his own head. I swear, O'Malley hit the other man so hard that the man's head split open. The man's scalp was torn to shreds and it sure sounded like his skull cracked under the impact. Whatever happened, the man was still lying in the street the next morning. It looked like he had not moved from where he had been tossed the night before! From the evidence, Bob and I assumed that the man was dead, but we didn't want to attract attention by examining the man too closely.

O'Malley asserted that he was going to spend the night in the saloon with one of the whores, so we took him at his word and found a hotel room for ourselves. This was not what one would call a first class hotel, but, at least, we did not find any bedbugs.