Chapter 2

What can I say? Riding for hours along an otherwise deserted road can get boring real damned fast! I even tried counting jackrabbits and rattlesnakes for a while just to keep me awake. The problem was, I kept nodding off and forgetting the count. That shows you how important it was.

The problem with going to sleep was that my horse would stop and would not move again until I ordered him forward. Maybe he was a bored as I was. The one bit of excitement on the road that day was when a stagecoach passed. I had to get off the road to give the coach enough room to get by. I waved at the people on the coach and they waved back, but that wasn't enough to keep me fully awake for very long.

Shit, about 10 miles from Santa Fe, I came to a crossroads, and there was one of those local versions of what would eventually evolve into a full service motel. If nothing else, I could use a beer! It was a little after noon, and I was hot. So was my horse, so I figured to take the rest of the day off and relax in the saloon with my beer. There was an attached restaurant and hotel, so I figured to leave my horse in the livery stable and goof off for the rest of the day.

Like any sensible person, I took care of my horse first, but then I gratefully entered the saloon where it was darker and much cooler. I ordered a beer. It was not cold, but it was wet, and it did have a reasonable alcohol content. I sat in a corner chair so that my back was protected. I had read enough movie scripts to know how important that was!

I managed to relax for half an hour or so, but I couldn't take it any more. I had to have a little mental stimulation. Like every saloon you ever saw in a Western movie, there was a poker game going on. It was penny ante, so it was about my speed. I'm no poker pro, but I do know how to play fairly well, and it seemed like the level of intellectual involvement that I was ready for on that sleepy afternoon.

I joined in, and played for about an hour. I was relaxing my brain as well as my body, so I didn't pay much attention when three men ambled in. They were even more dusty and dirty than I was. They were wearing those yellow dusters that cliché said was the uniform of bank robbers. I continued to play poker and ignored the latest visitors, forgetting that every cliché had to have some truth to it.

All three men were leaning against the bar and drinking beer when there was a great clatter outside. The newcomers acted exactly the way you would expect crooks to react. All three dashed behind the bar and pushed the bartender out of the way. They slapped shotguns on the bar; they had been carrying the shotguns on slings under their dusters. The bartender prudently ran through the doorway into the restaurant and slammed the door closed. I heard a bar fall across the door. That bartender was certainly no fool!

There was a shout from outside, "OK, GRIDLEY, I AM MARSHAL SLOCUMB OF HADLEYTOWN! COME ON OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP! WE HAVE THE PLACE SURROUNDED!"

"FUCK YA, MARSHAL! WE AIN'T COMIN' OUT! Y'ALL WILL HAVE TA COME IN TA GIT US!" With that, one of the men fired his shotgun at the butterfly wing doors leading outside from the saloon.

I heard some cursing coming from outside, probably somebody had been hit. All four of us sitting at the table dove to the floor, hoping that we would not be hit by a stray bullet. It was well that we ducked when we did, because a hail of lead came through the door in response to the shotgun blast.

The exit to the jakes was near where we were sitting, and three of the men made a break for that door. I don't know why I did not join them, but it was a damned good thing that I stayed where I was. All three men were hit by buckshot as soon as they attracted the attention of the men behind the bar. It may well be that there was no malice intended in the shooting, rather it was just the automatic reaction of men in a tight situation. It made no real difference—the three men were still dead.

I was still hiding under the table, and I wondered what to do. I had caught a glimpse of one of the men's faces, and he was on a poster to the tune of $250. Now, that was a man worth going after, if I could do it without getting killed in the process.

I looked the situation over carefully and decided that I might be able to creep from my hiding place to the end of the bar without being detected. I had spent some time in the Marines before becoming an actor, so I did know how to crawl while under fire. No sooner thought than done!

I lay on my belly and slowly wormed my way across the floor. At least the floor had been swept recently, so it was not the mess that it might have been. I feared a couple of times that I had been spotted, but the light was dim enough down near the floor to hide me from casual view. It seemed like forever to get to the open end of the bar, but it was more like 10 minutes. Fortunately, a steady fire from both sides kept the bank robbers occupied, and I was not seen, no matter how much I sweated out that crawl.

I got to the end of the bar and moved into a kneeling position. As it happened, I would be shooting with my right hand, so that nagging wound in my left arm would not make any real difference. I drew my Starr DA and lined up on the nearest crook. I was shooting at him from the side, but he was only about 20 feet away, so I was confident of hitting what I aimed at. Unfortunately, he was still wearing that duster, so I had to guess where his body really was.

At the last moment, he leaned against the bar and that fixed the location of his torso, so I fired before he could move back. I couldn't tell exactly where I had hit him, but the hit was just right to knock him into the man standing next to him. He brushed past the second man and fell to the floor.

The second man, the one brushed by the first, turned in surprise to see what had caused his friend to fall. The roar of gunshots so filled the barroom that my shot was not specifically identified at that time. When the second man turned, he faced directly toward me, and that took all of the guesswork out of knowing where his body was. I could see it outlined against the front of the duster. Again, I proved just how reliable a team I made with my Starr DA. I put a bullet through the breastbone of the man facing me, and that was the end of his interest in what happened on Earth.

The last man also turned to see what was going on, but his shotgun was fully loaded, so he pulled both triggers when he saw the flash of movement as I jumped back behind the protection of the bar. The double blast ripped away a lot of wood from the bar, but I was lucky. The wood stopped the buckshot from reaching me, and the wood sprayed in a lot of directions, but none of it toward me.

The man probably thought of trying to reload his shotgun; he was using shells and it was a breech-loader. However, I snapped off a shot at him before he could reload. I have no idea where the bullet went, exactly, but it was enough to cause him to abandon his shotgun. It fell to the floor with a clatter, and I saw him pull his revolver from its holster.

Ah, now we were evenly armed! I snapped off another shot and he did the same. Well, there was no question that I wanted credit for this man, so I had to hurry to knock him off before the posse knew about the change in the situation inside the barroom. I fired two more quick shots, and that emptied my gun.

I switched to my other gun and pulled off my boots and socks. I wanted to be able to run without making a clatter of boots striking the floor. The man at the other end of the bar had done like me and hidden behind the end of the bar where my bullets could not reach him. The only way I could be sure of capturing or killing him was to attack him at the other end of the bar.

I considered my options and formulated a plan. I fired a shot in his general direction on the side of the bar where all of my other shooting had been done. I wanted him to think that was the only side of the bar I was thinking about. I fired the shot and started running, bent over, toward the far end of the bar, but in front of the bar. I just hoped that nobody from outside happened to get in a unlucky shot and hit me.