Chapter 6

Neither man carried a bounty, but we did pick up $66.81 in total cash. Their other stuff looked like it might be worth as much as $35, so we had a nice little haul from this dustup.

It was late in the afternoon, so the women wanted to camp. Our clothes needed washing and there was a stream handy. The connection was obvious, and we stopped for a little necessary housekeeping. I had an uncomfortable feeling about what was going on, but I could not put my finger on it. We were late enough in the summer for the Indian war to have started, so maybe that was what was bothering me. I couldn't get over it, but I kept having this feeling of impending doom.

Whatever it was, the women decided that it did not keep them from washing clothes. I now had two sets of clothes, so I was not discommoded by having my clothes dumped into the stream, so I sat down to try to figure out what was bothering me so much. My ruminations had not gotten far when I heard a series of pistol shots. The women had moved down the stream about 50 yards where there was a more convenient place to do the washing. That was where the shots had come from. I picked up my Winchester and ran toward the shooting.

When I got there, I found two very proud women standing beside a large black bear. They had emptied their pistols into the animal, and it had not stopped moving until the 12^th shot had plowed into it. Well, the dumdums had done the job, though it was a close thing. As I had taught them, they had already reloaded by swapping cylinders.

I congratulated them and carried on about how happy I was that they had remembered to carry their guns with them. We worked well into the evening on skinning that bear and salvaging every bit of meat that we could from the carcass. The women started immediately to smoke the meat. They put me to hauling in wood for the fire while they worked on preparing the bearskin for tanning and making as much jerky as they could. This turned into a big deal, and we stayed at that place for three days before the women were satisfied.

That was a fine bearskin, and we debated what to do with it. Certainly, we could get a lot of money for it if we sold it, but I thought that it would make a better keepsake for our kids. The women could spend hours with the kids telling over and over the story about how they had killed the bear all by themselves without my help. The women thought that was a great idea and immediately made plans for making sure that the bearskin was well preserved. Besides, it would make a great blanket when the weather cooled off!

On top of all that, we had enough bear meat to keep us happy for a long time, plus we had a lot to sell at the next town. Also, I noticed that the women seemed to take even more interest in their shooting practice. We discussed learning to shoot with one hand, but they were quite happy with what they could do with two hands and were in no hurry to "progress."

I wanted them to practice with both the rifle and the shotgun, and I dithered a bit over which one to take up next. I finally kicked myself off of dead center and had them try out my .44-40 Winchester. The main thing that I was concerned about was the recoil. I hoped that they could handle the .44-40 rifle simply because it would simplify the ammunition situation. However, that was not such a big deal as long as we had the use of the wagon. If they could not use the .44-40 rifle, we would drop back to the .38-40, which was actually .40 caliber and should have been called a .40-38. I wonder who screwed that one up?

The first item on the agenda was to have the women shoot the .44-40 and see how they handled it. We stopped at a safe place to shoot the rifle, and I had the women try it out. Both women objected most vociferously to the recoil, so that took care of that. The next thing to do was to stop at a gun shop and try out a Winchester .38-40.

We did that at our first opportunity, and, while we were about it, I had the women try out various shotguns. It turned out that the women could manage the recoil from the .38-40 rifle and the 16-gauge shotgun. I bought two of the .38-40s and two 16-gauge shotguns. I also bought enough ammunition for them to learn with.

We decided to rack the shotguns where they could be easily and quickly reached from the driver's box on the wagon, but the rifles were racked behind that seat. I had a steel box made to stow those weapons in when we stopped for lunch at a restaurant. That may not have been necessary, but I didn't want to take a chance.

I had the women practice first with the shotgun, since I figured that they would be more likely to need that before they needed the rifle. The Indians were now using rifles instead of arrows, but they would still have to come in close to do much good, and that was where the shotgun could be so helpful. We had an extension put on the driver's box to raise the walls another two feet. The extension was made of oak two inches thick. That was enough to stop a pistol or a rifle bullet powered by black powder. We would have needed more if we had faced smokeless powder, but that was at least 20 years in the future. We might need loopholes, but this was good enough for now.

Neither one of them liked the shotgun; Hell, I didn't like the shotgun! Nevertheless, it was a good weapon to use against men on horseback who were riding past. The spread of the buckshot would overcome some aiming difficulties, and was worth the effort under normal circumstances. The women practiced diligently and soon got the hang of the weapon. They always hated the massive recoil with their small body structure, but they managed to cope.

Once they had the shotguns mastered well enough, I had them start practice with the rifles. The rifles were marginally better than the shotguns as far as recoil was concerned, but the women really preferred the pistols whenever they were practical. I did not object to that, but I did insist that they practice with the rifles because I knew that we were going to need them the first time we ran up against Comanches.

We had two more run-ins with road agents before we needed to use the shotguns. Neither case was a big deal because the men refused to take the women seriously, even when the women were actually pointing the pistols at the men. Part of that was because of the use of the Starr DA. The men saw that the hammers were not in the cocked position, so they were caught completely by surprise when the women were able to shoot at them.

In one case, I didn't even have to draw my pistol because the robbers were already dead. Those dumdum bullets really played Hell with a man's insides! In the other case, there were three bandits, and I was present to even up the odds. Nevertheless, the women hardly needed me, and I was afraid that they would get too cocky because of that. I was afraid that they would start taking unnecessary chances because of their confidence in themselves and their pistols.

The situation with the shotguns developed when the women were approached by six bandits. I think that the men were more interested in rape than they were in robbery. The bandits saw the women before they saw me, but they started to shoot as soon as they caught sight of me. There was no way I was going to be able to face down six pistols, so I was forced to dash out of range and pull out my Winchester.

Somehow, this seemed to piss off the women something fierce, and they jerked up their shotguns. As usual, the men were ignoring the women until the first shotgun blast went off, and two men fell from their saddles. That was only one barrel fired by Sue, but she soon fired her second barrel, and Joan was right behind her with her two shots.

The women put down their shotguns and drew their pistols. By this time, I was blasting away with my rifle and got one of the men, but the women punched holes in the other man until he was "well ventilated." I rode up and finished off the wounded men with my knife. Two of them were on wanted posters to the tune of $45, so we certainly paid for our expended ammunition right there. I also found $57.43 in cash among the six men, and we still had the horses, etc. to sell. That was definitely a profitable encounter!