Chapter 2

To my way of thinking this was just weird. I knew I hadn't seen everything at this early point in my life, but damn. How could I enter a cave at one entrance and come in out of a bright early morning and walk out the other cave entrance into a young rain storm. I went back in the cave, tied Red up, and went to my pickup to fish out my slicker. When I had it on I went back to Red, mounted up, and headed out the back way.

It was pretty much a miserable ride to town in the rain, but there was nothing for it. I had it to do. When I made it to town this time I tied Red up in front of Bill's hardware store. When I walked in it was almost like I'd stepped back in time. The stock wasn't what I'd expected even if it was hardware.

It was hardware for real though. It was old hardware. There was no section for electric cooking things as I'd expected to find. In fact I didn't see one thing to work off electricity. No drills, no air compressors, nothing, not even one damned toaster. Nothing electrical.

They had hammers and saws for sure, but they looked like much older models than I was used to. Hell, they even had a nice selection of butter churns. They had handtools for sure, but they were old fashioned for real hand tools. The only drilling equipment I saw was the old brace and bit and the only bits available were the old auger bits for making a hole in wood.

They had hammers, hatchets, and axes but every one of them had wooden handles. There were none of the more modern fiberglass handles in anything. It looked to me like what a hardware store would have been a hundred years ago. I walked around and found a collection of firearms and they were all old as the hills too. Nothing at all modern. In fact they didn't have any of what I thought of as shotguns. They had a couple of old double barrels but they didn't break open for loading, they were muzzle loaders.

I didn't want a muzzle loader and I sure as hell didn't need any of the black powder or shot to load one with. I finally decided I needed out of there. I made my way to the exit and out, I did see something that let me know for real I had stumbled into something odd though. I saw a man paying his way out after buying one of the churns. He was paying with what looked like gold dust and a man at the counter was weighing it out. It reminded me of the strange way the woman in the cafe had looked at me when I paid for my meal earlier. It had been dirt cheap to start with and I'd paid for it with pocket change. She looked at the coins as if they were strange to her, but I'd passed muster at the last and she called us even.

I left Bill's hardware without making a purchase and went directly back to Red, mounted him and left town. Something was wrong here and I couldn't get a handle on it. I rode out of town heading back down the road I'd used coming to town.

It would have been a wasted trip if I hadn't run into trouble. About five miles out of town I heard gunshots and as I went around a curve in the road I saw an old time stagecoach stopped in the road and two men with guns drawn were ordering people out of it. Like a dumbass I just kept approaching and suddenly one of the armed men looked my way and shouted at me. I didn't understand what he said at first but there was no mistaking intent when he pointed his revolver my way and fired a shot. I kicked Red into the roadside woods, bailed off him, and pulled my Marlin out of the saddle scabbard on the way off.

I heard hoofbeats coming down the road and I figured the asshole was coming my way. When he came up into the woods from the road I was sure of it. He spotted Red right away but I'd stooped down behind some brush. He came looking for me with his revolver in his hand and he even fired a shot or two at random. I guess he was hoping he'd hit me by luck. I pointed the Marlin his way and shot him in the chest and it put and end to his fucking around.

Damned if I didn't hear more hoofbeats start my way after that and so I took another hiding spot and waited. Sure enough the other one came into the woods a couple of minutes later and he was calling out for Clem and he headed right for Red and no doubt Clem's horse. He had his revolver out too but I didn't shoot him, yet.

He rode over to Clem's body and dismounted. He was bending down over him and facing away from where I was hidden now and so I stood up, Marlin in hand, and spoke up.

"I don't know what in the fuck is going on here mister, but if you want to live much longer you'd better stand back up with your hands above your head. Remember, I ain't asking." I said.

Damned if he didn't do it. I eased up behind him and put the Marlin's muzzle against his back, just to let him know I was serious. He flinched a little when I did it and so I told him to drop his revolver out of its holster onto the ground. He reached for it, but I could see he had no intention of dropping it and so I jabbed his backbone hard with the Marlin and it made him lose his balance and when he was falling he put his hands out to break his fall. When he hit the ground I turned the Marlin around and gave him a butt stroke across the back of his head.

I set the Marlin down and tied his hands behind him with a rawhide piggin string off his saddle. I removed his weapons then and even took a big bowie knife off his belt.

I had to help him back up on his horse and then I tied his feet together uner it without letting him put his feet in the stirrups. I tied his hands to the pommel of his saddle and then took hold of the reins, mounted Red, and then led my captive out of the woods. We headed back to the stage coach and confusion was reigning supreme there.

The driver was dead and the only other man there was wounded. I got the story out of the women, but it came all in a rush. Finally I got a lovely young blonde to settle down enough to tell what had happened. Apparently it had been exactly what it looked like to me, as in, a holdup. I didn't let on how surprising it was to me of course. I mostly just listened and wondered where we'd go from here.

Thankfully, there was a shotgun rider with the coach and he said he needed to ride into town to tell the marshal about this robbery. He unhitched the lead mule, made some changes to the harness and reins and then hopped on his back and took off. Just before he left, Janet, the blonde, asked him to send a doctor out to see about the wounded man and he told her he would.

I didn't really see the need for me to stick around for the law to arrive, but Janet was a looker and Betty, a fine looking and lustily built redhead were staying right near my side and I didn't have the heart to just leave them. There was also an older looking man with his wife who had been in the stage too, but I didn't feel the proper vibe from him to trust him with the situation.

It took about an hour for the marshal to show back up and in the mean time Janet and Betty told me their stories. The wounded man, who had since died, had hired the two of them to come to town and work in a saloon. Janet said he'd promised them they wouldn't have to be whores when they got there, but Betty said she haedn't been convinced.

"He said he was the owner and now we don't even know what will become of us," Janet said, and started sniffling looking to me like she was getting set up for a good crying jag.

"Don't worry a thing about that now. I'll take care of you two for the time being," I said, but I didn't really have any idea why I'd said it.