Chapter 3

The next day, I hurt even more than I did on the first day when I was shot. Shit, I was going to have to take another day off. Oh, well, I could play some more poker. That would keep me amused while I waited for the pain to ease off. I was dead set against taking laudanum because I was afraid of opium addiction. Besides, it would mean that I was fuzzy in the head, and I would not be able to do anything but lie in bed the whole day. That I refused to do!

The most obvious result of the added pain was that it seemed to sharpen my wits to the point that I began to win consistently. This caused some comments from the other players, but it was obvious that they were joking. Hell, if I could do this on a regular basis, maybe I should take up poker as my regular way to make a living. I said, "Don't worry about it—everything should be back to normal in a day or so. My wound along my ribs is hurting like Hell, and I think that has forced me to concentrate more so that I can play."

Another player said, "Well, if getting shot is what it takes ta become a good poker player, I had rather stay the way I am!" That produced a laugh, and no further mention was made of my improved skill.

Just for the Hell of it, I found a more expensive game after supper and tried my luck. Dammit, I was still winning just like I had been doing all day. Late that evening, I didn't hurt so much, and the quality of my play fell off, just as I had expected. I left the table a winner, but I could tell that pain was not my idea of the best way to become a good poker player!

By the next morning, my side had quit hurting, and I decided to resume my journey. For one thing, my freedom of motion had returned to what I needed to use my gun effectively, and I figured that was good enough to let me move on. The next four days were not what I would call comfortable riding, but the pain was finally gone. I figured that I would get the stitches removed at the next town with a competent seamstress. I asked at every town I came to, but it was two more days before I found someone I trusted to remove the stitches.

Now that I was no longer hurting from the wound, I started putting on a little more pressure to get through Kansas. I had nothing against Kansas as such, but I did have that self-imposed deadline to get to Texas before the Indian war started. I didn't know when I crossed over into the Indian Territories, but the whole complexion of the towns changed, and I didn't mean the skin color. Suddenly, there were relatively fewer saloons in a town. I found out that this was because they were not patronized by Indians. Saloons were purely a White man's habit, simply because the Indians preferred to drink in private unless there was a special celebration going on, and no White men were invited to those gatherings.

I gave up my guise of bounty hunting while I was in the Indian Territories because I would have had to take my quarry to an appropriate adjacent state to collect any money. That was just too much trouble, and the Indian Territories were overrun with White men for that very reason.

The Indians didn't care as long as the fugitive behaved himself, and most did, but a few became a problem. The Indians still did not bother themselves with these problem men because the White men would soon become disgusted or otherwise annoyed with the troublemakers and kill them off. As a case in point, I ran into one of these individuals three days after I entered the Indian Territories.

I was stopped at a wide place in the road; I don't know if it even had a name. I was eating lunch when a rough looking hombre walked into the restaurant and demanded immediate service. This probably would not normally have been a problem, but the waitress was busy with another order. The obnoxious patron demanded her attention. She said that she would get to him in a moment.

The idiot pulled a gun and put a bullet into the floor near her feet. "When I want service, I want it right then."

This scared the waitress nearly out of her wits, and she collapsed into a chair, crying in hysterics. The fool yelled at her. "GET YER ASS OVER HERE RIGHT NOW! IFEN YA DO NOT, I WILL PUT A BULLET IN YER PUSSY!"

That was just more than I could stand. I pulled my own gun and pointed it at the troublemaker. "Put up your gun right now, or I will be forced to shoot you. I am not joking."

The fool looked at my gun and saw that the hammer was not cocked. I guess that he knew nothing about double-action guns. With a sneer, he pointed his gun at me and prepared to cock it. Well, I didn't wait. I put a bullet into the center of his chest. Hell, I couldn't miss at that range! It appeared that he was dead before he reached the floor as he oozed out of his chair.

A man ran out of the kitchen and thanked me profusely for killing the bastard. It turned out that he was a regular troublemaker and caused problems at least once a week. He had actually shot the previous waitress because she had not moved fast enough to suit him, and the current waitress knew about the event. She obviously had collapsed because she expected him to shoot her.

I helped the cook to drag the man out the door and dump him beside the road. Animal scavengers would get rid of the body before morning. I did go through the man's pockets, etc. to see what he might have on him. I found a total of $27.93 which I gave to the recovering waitress. The dead man's guns, horse, etc. I took to sell at my next opportunity. There was almost no blood on the floor because the man had died so quickly, and the restaurant returned to normal very soon. I received a bottle of Mexican beer as a token of appreciation, and that was when I developed my taste for the stuff. It was expensive at 10-20¢ per bottle, but it was worth it, compared to the usual horse piss normally sold as local beer.

I was quite happy to have that as my only untoward experience as I rode through the Indian Territories until I reached the vicinity of the Red River. This river was big enough even in the peak of the dry season to make it worthwhile to take one of the few ferries across the river. Certainly, there were fords, but they were plagued with quicksand, and it was very dangerous for a single traveler to try to use them.

The bandits probably knew more about the available ferries than did the people who wanted to use them; therefore, it was common to find that all of the regular routes to a ferry were covered by one or more road agents. I had been warned of this situation at the last place where I had stopped for dinner. I did not want to be caught unawares by a road agent, so I was paying close attention every time I came to what looked like a good place for a robbery.

I got very lucky at my first encounter with a bandit. He rode out of the bushes with his gun in hand. The hammer was cocked, and he looked like he meant business. I didn't hesitate to duck as low as I could behind my horse's head and draw my Starr DA. I fired in the same motion as I drew, and I hit the bandit in the arm holding his gun.

The gun went off, but the force of my bullet striking him was easily enough to knock his aim aside. I quickly put another bullet into him, this time in his chest, and the bandit fell to the ground. My God, this guy was almost a gold mine! He was wearing a money belt that, when I had time to count it, held $2,375 in gold bars and coins. I figured that a bandit that was that successful must be wanted in Texas, so I tied him to his horse and led it toward the ferry.

I got maybe 150 yards farther down the road when I saw wagon tracks heading off into the woods. The tracks suggested a heavily loaded wagon, and that suggested a valuable wagon, so I followed the tracks as they led me away from the road. I had to travel about 500-600 yards before I saw a campsite. There were two wagons parked there, and there were six mules in a rope corral. I also saw a young White woman working at a campfire, and the unusual thing was that she was chained by her left leg to a wagon wheel spoke.