Chapter 2

I made a bee-line for Mexico and got there in two days. This was my first trip to Mexico, but my Spanish had been perfected by talking to local workers and practice in school. I learned the hidalgo style in school, and I learned the common style from the workers. We would all laugh when I would say something much too highfalutin for their speaking style. I was comfortable in the language, but not in the country.

I guess it's what you are used to, but I was very uncomfortable with the very obvious class structure in Mexico, at least in the part where I was. I had trouble getting a job and even more trouble holding it because I would not adapt to the patron attitude. Well, it looked like I had to return to the States or die of starvation, though I still had most of that $100 I had left home with. I decided to head into New Mexico Territory to test my luck there. It had to be better than what I was doing in Mexico.

I'm not sure exactly where I crossed the border, since it wasn't all that well defined. I came to a road and followed that until I came to a signpost with the arrow pointing north and the legend "Las Cruces 20 miles." Well, that seemed like a good choice, so I headed that way.

I had gone about seven miles when I spotted a stage holdup ahead of me. Four bandits in Mexican garb were surrounding a stage coach. Suddenly, two shots were fired and the driver and shotgun guard fell to the ground, probably dead. The bandits were so intent on their prey that they never spotted me as I rode toward them. I managed to get within 75 yards and behind a little ridge when I heard a woman scream.

A moment or two later, there was a scream from another woman, and then a gunshot. I took my hat off and stuck my head up over that ridge just far enough to see what was was going on. A dead Anglo man was lying in the dust near the door of the stage, and there were two naked women being held by the bandits. Well, they were still wearing their stockings and boots, plus their bonnets, but their dresses had been cut and ripped off. It was obvious that rape was next on the agenda.

One of the women was being forced to her knees in front of one of the bandits. I didn't recognize what was going on until the man dropped his pants and forced the woman's head into his crotch. I could see what was going on, but I didn't know why, since I had seen fucking between Ma and Pa, back when we had been living in our one room cabin before Pa got the house built, but I had never seen anything else. Oh well, the woman obviously didn't like it, so it was up to me to put a stop to it.

I drew a careful bead with the sights on my Henry and shot the man who was face-fucking that woman. The bullet hit him between the shoulder blades, and he knocked the woman over backwards when he fell. The dead man also knocked back the other man who was holding that woman, so I ignored him for the moment.

The other two men were getting ready to rape the second woman, so I quickly shifted my attention to them. Fortunately, it only took two shots to put them out of action, so I was able to shift my attention to the one remaining bandit on his feet. The powder smoke had given my position away, so he knew where to shoot.

He managed to get off one shot as I was lining up a shot on him. Pa had always said that your first shot doesn't have to kill, but it has to hit. Well, I still had plenty of bullets left in my Henry, so I wasn't worried about running out of ammunition any time soon. I snapped a shot at the fourth bandit and hit him in the left arm, not the one holding the pistol. Nevertheless, the shock of the bullet strike was enough to make him drop his pistol and grab at the wounded arm. This gave me plenty of time to put a bullet into his chest. He fell down with blood spurting, so I knew that I had made a significant hit.

Both women were sitting on the ground where they had fallen and crying up a storm. I didn't blame them, I would have been scared to death by that experience if it had happened to me. I wanted to make them feel better so I called out to them that I had come to help them. They both kind of screamed and squealed at the same time and jumped up to run to me.

Now, I don't know about y'all, but this was my first time to experience being hugged by two naked women. Yep, them tits did feel good pressing into me, and I got my first hard on from a woman's touch, but I didn't know what to do about it. I laid my rifle down and hugged them back. That was the first time the women realized that they were taller than me. One of them said, "He's only a boy!"

The other one said, "That may be, but he sure knows how to shoot!"

That kind of broke the spell, and one of them said, "Can you help us find some more clothes?"

I asked if they had luggage aboard the coach, and both said that they did. I went to the boot of the coach and pulled out some baggage. The women found their own carpet bags and proceeded to pull out dresses to slip on. Now that they were covered, the women seem to come to themselves and to start acting like adults. Nevertheless, they both acted like I was still in charge. I guess that was because I was the only ambulatory male, and I had proved my prowess in battle.

I was a mite surprised, but, for whatever reason, the two women still looked to me for directions. I asked them to identify themselves and the man lying in the dust. They said that they were sisters and the man was their brother. They lived in Las Cruces and had been traveling to El Paso to visit relatives.

It's a good thing that I am strong, because I had to do most of the work, though I did use the horses and a rope to help me with some of the most difficult parts of the job. The sisters and their brother were returned to the coach, the stage crew was hoisted back into the driver's box, and the bandits were tied across their saddles. I had no idea how to drive a team of six mules, so I put the team on a lead rope and led them back to Las Cruces. It took the rest of the day, but we did get there before dark.

I took the stage to their office and that was when I found out about the reward of $25 for every bandit I killed while he was robbing a stage. I was delighted to get the $100 and figured that this was the easiest way I ever heard of to get money. I figured that it was even easier than stealing it! Ah, the ignorance of youth!

Anyway, the sisters were returned to their family and I went on my way after receiving profuse thanks for my deeds. I was a little embarrassed, but I did appreciate the thanks.

When I expressed my desire to the stage management to make more money from killing bandits, they suggested that I look into bounty hunting. When I said that I didn't know how that worked, I was told to go around to the clerk's office in the court house and I could get all of the information I needed.

So, that's what I did. The next morning, I went to the court house and found the clerk. He explained that there was nothing that I had to do to register as a bounty hunter or anything like that. All I had to do was to deliver a wanted person who was listed on a poster to a sheriff or marshal and get a receipt. Upon delivery of the receipt to the clerk's office, I would be paid the bounty. I was warned that most of the bounties were in the $25-50 range, but a few were for $1,000 or more. Obviously, the higher the bounty, the more dangerous was the wanted person. This sounded good, so I asked for a supply of wanted posters and took them back to my room at the hotel.

In my naiveté, I had not realized that many of the wanted posters had no picture, and, among those, I found my own poster without a picture. A $50 reward was offered for my capture, alive, but there was no reward for me dead. That was a relief! The description was so vague that it was useless, so I relaxed. I figured that if I changed my name, I would be safe. That's when I became John Henry, The Texas Kid! Oh, to be 11 years old again!

I went through the posters and sorted out the ones with pictures. There was quite a stack of these, so I didn't need the ones without pictures. Hell, if the description was too vague for even a drawing, then it was useless to me. I returned the unwanted posters to the clerk, and he laughed. "Dammit, I can't get anybody to take the posters without pictures. I usually wind up using them to start a fire in my stove for coffee every morning."