Chapter 4

I hurt like hell, but I didn't have a whole lot of options. I aimed my gun in the general direction of the two bandits ridin' toward me. I just was not able ta hold

a steady aim, but I did the best I could. I concentrated an' willed the bullets ta hit the men in the chest. I fired, an' the men fell off their hosses. The hosses stopped runnin' about the time they got ta me, soz I didn't have nothin' ta worry about with them.

Annie had screamed when she first saw me fall an' had jumped down from the wagon. She ran toward me an' tried to grab me in a bear hug. I managed ta warn her off afore she did any more damage, but she was fidgetin' somethin' fierce. My arm was hurtin' worse than my leg, so I asked her ta pull on it ta try ta git it back inta place.

Well, Annie knew enough first aid ta know that it was necessary, but she winced when I grimaced from the pain. She pulled on my arm with her foot wedged inta my armpit an' got it close enough that I was able ta use my right hand ta put the bones back in place. The trouble was, we had done all of this without havin' a splint handy. Shit, a fine doctor I was!

In a fit of desperation, I asked Annie ta hold my arm as long as she could. I then willed my arm to knit immediately. I hoped that I had not screwed up, because I felt somethin' happenin' inside my arm. When the funny feelin' stopped, my arm quit hurtin'. I asked Annie ta turn loose, an' she did. My God! My arm felt as good as new! I could move it around, an' there seemed ta be no problem with it.

Now, I took the time ta see about my leg. There was only a flesh wound, an' I might well not have fallen had it not been fer the surprise. I felt kind of silly when I sat there in the middle of the road with my pants pulled down an' Annie starin' at my cock an' balls. Oh, well, I'd worry about that later. Right know, I need ta try ta fix my wound. I stared at the wound an' willed it ta heal. Annie an' I were almost stupefied as we watched the flesh fill in the gouge an' the skin weld itself back together.

I scrambled to my feet an' brushed the sand off my ass. I pulled up my pants an' said, "OK, Annie, ya kin stop starin' at my crotch, now." She blushed, but didn't say anythin'.

We checked the two bandits fer valuables an' found quite a bit of gold. We took their weapons an' rode their hosses back to the wagons. We stopped at the other two sets of bodies an' did the same search an' lootin' of their bodies. Again, we came away with quite a bit of gold an' silver, an' we took what other valuables we could find.

The really strange thing was that second pair of men I had shot at were all hit in the chest just like I had wanted them ta be. Shit, was I able ta steer a bullet around trees ta hit where I needed it?

I didn't want to leave four hosses out in the woods ta die, so we tracked them down. My sensitivity to human thoughts seemed ta work after a fashion with hosses, too, so we didn't have much difficulty findin' them. On the spur of the moment, I scanned the woods fer more hosses an' found some in a corral about a mile away.

We found a trail wide enough to accept the wagons, so we used it ta get ta the hosses. There, we found a campsite that must of been in use fer at least two weeks. There were 11 hosses an' two mules in a rope corral. There was also four wagons at the camp, an' two of them was in very good condition. Hell, we was bein' swamped in an embarrassment of riches!

I started to get out of the wagon, but Annie stopped me. "Hold on, Jack! Ya promised ta tell me what was goin' on an' how ya was able ta do all of those things what are flat-out impossible.

Oh, me, I was trapped, so I told Annie how it all started with the blow to the head an' all of the things what had happened ta me since then. I emphasized that I had no idea why I could do the thin's that I could, but I ain't never hurt anybody with any of the gifts unless they was bad folks what was tryin' ta kill me. I told her that I was just as surprised as she was over this business of us bein' able ta talk ta each other without makin' a sound. I fixed my wounds 'cause there was nothin' else that I could do under the circumstances. She got sort of a funny look on her face when I asked her ifen she could see anythin' wrong with any of my gifts.

She thought about it fer a while an' said, "No, Jack, I can't see nothin' wrong with your abilities or the way ya use them. I just wish there was a way that ya could give the same abilities ta me."

Truthfully, I had never thought about that afore, but I couldn't see takin' a chance on hittin' her in the head with a beer bottle just on the off chance that she could do what I kin do. She agreed ta that an' promised not ta tell anybody else about my abilities. She could see as well as I could that tellin' about me ta a lot of folks would just get us both thrown inta the looney bin.

There was a stream right there, so we decided ta camp where we was until we could git some of this stuff straightened out. Annie went ta work on preservin' the cougar skin while I examined the wagons. Two of them was in real good shape, but the two others was junkers. I climbed through all four wagons ta see what might be worth havin'. Right off, I could see that we was gonna be here more than just a few hours ifen we was gonna get a decent idea of what was in them wagons.

It turned out that the two of us worked like slaves goin' through what was in them wagons. We found a lot of furniture an' clothes that we couldn't use an' wasn't worth enough ta try ta sell. There was all kinds of pots an' pans an' dinner ware that we also left where it was. We did find a number of guns of several types, along with a goodly supply of ammunition.

That brought to mind the scare we'd had when the two bandits found Annie without any sort of protection. Fortunately, we found three shotguns. Two of them were 12-gauge an' one was 20-gauge. The 20-gauge shotgun was chambered fer pin-fire cartridges, an' we found half a case of them. All of the shells was buckshot, so that looked ideal fer Annie ta use.

We spent a few hours letting Annie git used ta that shotgun, an' she got right clever with its use. The nice thing about a shotgun was that yer aim didn't have ta be all that good, an' the pin-fire shells was easy ta load. The combination made it the best choice fer Annie ta keep handy.

We also found a Navy Colt conversion, an' Annie could handle the recoil from the bullets it used. A .38 caliber bullet was no manstopper, but he would know that he had been shot, an' that was almost as good. Between the two guns, Annie spent most of a day learnin' ta use them.

We found a hell of a lot of money hidden on the wagons. All told, we came up with over $2,000 in gold an' silver. The bandits apparently had never thought ta search the wagons fer money, so we wound up inheriting it. That was in addition to the nearly $1,200 we had taken from their bodies. Sheesh, how stupid kin a body git?

It turned out that we were able to dump a lot of stuff from Annie's wagons, too, so we were left with only our two original wagons even after we added what little we wanted from the four wagons we had found. That made life a little simpler, but we still had a lot of hosses an' mules ta contend with. Fortunately, we came ta a town about noon of the next day, an' we were able ta sell all the surplus hosses an' mules that we had. By the time we got through with selling all them animals, guns, etc., we had close ta $5,000. A family could live in comfort fer 10 years with that kind of riches. Added ta that was all of the money that I had picked up in bounties, an' we was practically the richest people in Texas, when it came ta actual cash in hand.

We talked about it fer a while an' decided ta sell one of Annie's original wagons. That night in camp, we shifted what we wanted from the heavily loaded wagon ta the other one. At the next town, we sold the wagon an' its contents, along with the four mules, an' we left town with just the one wagon pulled by four mules. We didn't need the four mules, but we both knew that the team, as a group, was more valuable than it would be ifen we split it up. Therefore, we decided ta hang on ta the four mules 'til we got ta Austin an' sold the whole kit an' kaboodle.