Chapter 7

Before leaving town, we purchased a Henry rifle for Jane to use. I wanted her to try the shotguns out, because I wanted to get at least one for her to use. If necessary, I was willing to drop down to 16-gauge for her, but that was cutting awfully far into the number of balls in each shell. I hoped that she could use a 10-gauge or a 12-gauge, but we did need to experiment.

The gunsmith was willing to let us test fire some shotguns to see which one would do best for her, so we gave them all a try. Jane was an unusually strong woman, thank God, and she was able to handle the 10-gauge shotgun, but she didn't dare fire both barrels at the same time!

I went whole hog and bought two 10-gauge shotguns for her. She messed around with her .44 pistol on the range, but she just had a hell of a time controlling it well enough to be worth the effort.

I suddenly had a brain storm! The gunsmith had a junk 16-gauge single barrel shotgun that he was offering for $2 without any takers. I bought it on the condition that he saw off the barrel to 14 inches. Jane tried that and found that she could use it just like a pistol. Now there was a weapon! We could get shells for that 16-gauge that held six #00 buckshot and that was enough at the close range that pistols were normally used for.

No man was going to challenge a woman to a duel, so she did not have to worry about being a quick draw with it. Anyway, I bought a 16-gauge double barrel for her to use instead of the .44 Remington. We went to a cabinet maker and had the stock sawed off and fashioned into a pistol grip. A long leather strap let her hang the shotgun across her shoulder to make it easy to carry. She carried it slung from her left shoulder, across her body, and hanging convenient to her right hand. Now there was no way she could be mistaken for a man the way the strap fell across her chest and emphasized her cleavage! I didn't say anything, but I wondered how much trouble that was going to cause.

I had explained to Jane that I was a bounty hunter, and she was very excited by this. She wanted to join me in the hunt, so that was why I had outfitted her with the shotgun, instead of the pistol. If she was going to back me up, she had to have a gun that men would take seriously. Well, let me tell you, a 16-gauge shotgun pointed at your belly had to be taken seriously!

Our first chance to test Jane's new gun came the next day. We were stopped by a road agent who was concentrating on me and pretty much ignoring Jane. He had slipped up on us from some bushes near the road, and he rode out with his gun already drawn and cocked. We had been heavily engaged in conversation and not paying the kind of attention we should have been to our surroundings. Chalk up one for the foolishness of newlyweds.

Anyhow, he must have assumed that I would be the dangerous one, since I was the male member of the pair. There was no doubt that Jane was female, the way her breasts were pushing out her shirt. Jane acted so flustered that she even had me fooled, and I had a moment of worry. The sequence of events was like something choreographed for a movie.

"Stand and deliv..." BOOM! BANG! BOOM!

Jane's first shot with the shotgun was aimed at his gun hand. It was hit by at least two of the buckshot and the gun was blown off target as the bandit reflexively pulled the trigger. There was no telling where his bullet went, but it certainly missed me and my horse. The second shotgun blast was at the man's chest, and at least five buckshot went into his heart and lungs. Jane was so close when she fired that the man was practically lifted from his horse as he fell to the ground.

Now I was really glad that I had a partner! Jane quickly reloaded and returned her shotgun to her side. That's when she burst into tears and grabbed me in a strong hug. "Oh, Craig, I was so afraid that I was going to lose ya! Thank God that ya are OK!"

I hugged her back and said, "Honey, you saved my life, and I can never thank you enough for that. I am so lucky to have you to support me. I don't know what I would do without you!"

We both went on in that vein for several minutes until our adrenalin highs ran down. When we finished, we examined the bandit to see if he was on the wanted list, and to see what we could get from him. Apparently, he was reasonably successful as a road agent, because we found $153 in gold and silver on him. He had some paper money, too, but we ignored that as being too heavily discounted to be worth bothering with.

He was not on our wanted posters, so we left him lying on the roadside. We did take his horse, guns, etc., and I complimented Jane on not shooting him in the face so that we could have something to work with when it came to identifying him. She was very pleased at my compliment, and that was another star on my chart.

Jane was surprised when I had her take the $153 in cash that we found. That was a fantastic amount of money for a woman to have in this era when men kept all of the cash for themselves. I told her that she had made the kill, so she had earned the money, and, as far as I was concerned, the money was hers by right of conquest. She thought about that for a moment, then she hugged and kissed me again. "Oh, ya are gonna git so lucky, tonight!"

We came to a town and sold the loot from the bandit. That I kept to be used for general expenses.

OK, it was time for the big experiment. I needed to talk to the bartenders and Jane wanted to come with me. Women were rarely allowed into saloons, unless they were the whores who worked there, so Jane should get an interesting reception. I had no idea what to expect from the saloon whores, so I was in for a surprise when they were quite willing to talk to Jane.

It turned out that the whores were a gold mine of information. They knew a hell of a lot more than I had ever expected, based on what they had heard from their customers and from general conversation around the saloon. It was interesting to put together what I heard from the bartender and what Jane heard from the whores. She had no trouble getting them to spend time with her, both because they did not see her as a threat to their livelihood, and because she paid them for their time spent talking to her, usually double their normal rates.

That was how we found out about Abner Carlisle. He ran a ranch about seven miles out of town, and he was a notorious outlaw under the pseudonym of Kid Carter. His specialty was train robbery, and he had a price of $500 on his head. His ranch hands were actually part of his gang, and we hoped that some of them would also be found on our posters.

He was notable at the saloon because he was interested in one of the whores, and visited her regularly. She made quite a bit of money off of him, and one of the other whores was very jealous. The jealous whore was a fountain of information, and very happy to stick it to her rival. I think that she never considered what was going to happen to Carlisle.

Anyway, we were full of useful "intel" as the military would say when we rode out to look over the Bar AC Bar ranch. Oh, yeah, it was a ranch, but even I could tell that it would never turn a penny profit the way it was being run. We saw a few longhorns wandering around scrub brush, but nothing in the way of organized pastures.

We had decided to play the parts of a couple of saddle tramps on the make for a handout, so we rode up to the kitchen door. I looped my reins over the hitching rail and knocked on the door. A woman came to the door, and I said in a whiny voice, "My woman an' I are mighty hungry, an' we hear that Kid Carter is always good fer a handout. Kin ya help us out?"