Chapter 13

As it turned out, the stage line paid us $25 for each of the dead bandits, provided we returned their strongbox—we'd get the money when they got the strongbox. We laughed at the thought of what the stage line was going to do with a strongbox in such sad condition, but we figured that we could take a little ride for $125.

The next morning, Joe rode out to pick up the strongbox while I did some work related to being a doctor. Actually, that was an excuse to get him out of the house while I did some studying. I wanted to go over some surgical techniques in case I had to do an amputation. I was concerned about controlling excessive bleeding.

Toward noon, Joe showed up with the strongbox, so we had lunch, and I rode in with him to deliver it. I wanted to see the face of the stage line manager when he saw the condition of the strongbox. Man, he was pissed! The box had contained about $2,000 in paper money, but it was probably reduced to ashes by the heat of the fire that had consumed the cabin. To add insult to injury, the key would no longer work because the lock was so mangled by the clumsy efforts of the bandits to get the box open. The manager sent for a blacksmith; he brought a file and set to work on getting the box to open.

It looked like the bandits had tried to open the lock by stuffing it full of gunpowder and trying to blow it apart. The fire must have started when the bandits bungled getting the powder in the lock to explode. We guessed that they had been careless where they had set down the powder flask after pouring powder into the lock and a stray spark had set off all that extra powder. The bandits had been lucky that the flask had not exploded and killed them all, but it certainly made no difference now, since they were dead for other reasons.

It took over an hour, but the blacksmith finally was able to open the strongbox. Some of the money had partially survived, so the people could probably recover some of their money, but certainly not all of it. Most of the money in the box had been reduced to a fine gray powder. Nevertheless, we did collect our reward for catching the bandits. But, as we left, we could hear the manager of the stage line wishing that the bandits were still alive so that he could shoot them, himself! We did manage to get out of the office before we broke down in laughter.

Since we were already in town, we went by our favorite saloon to see what we could do to solve the world's problems. We could help our mental processes by consuming beer while we were at it. A little poker helped to salve our conscience about not being able to solve all of the problems, but we did try. We went home for supper and Lupe reported that a man had been around looking for Joe. He was interested in becoming one of our loan agents.

The man was staying in the hotel, so we went to see him after supper. He wasn't at the hotel, proper, but was in the adjacent saloon, drunk as the proverbial pig. We wrote him off right then as not being the kind of person we wanted to represent us and our business. Joe left a note for the man with the hotel clerk to that effect, and we never saw the sot again.

I was tied up the rest of the week with doctoring, so Joe went by himself to try to recruit more agents. He found two more, so Parson County Financial Company was becoming a really significant operation. In fact, we heard that we were being noticed by some of the loan sharks in the county. We hadn't done it yet, but they were worried that we would cut into their business.

Joe and I were out one Saturday, mostly for the ride and to enjoy each other's company when we rode into Henlyville. Henlyville was large enough to have a bank of some size, and it was being patronized by a gang of 5 bank robbers as we rode down the main street. Our attention was jerked to the bank when 3 men ran out to where 2 others were holding their horses. The damned fools would probably have escaped if they hadn't fired their guns into the air, I suppose to make the citizens keep their heads down.

Whatever their reason, the result was just the opposite of my guess. Several people, including Joe and me, drew our guns and joined in the general noise making, but we had our guns pointed at the bandits. Nobody was hit in that first exchange, but the bandits must have realized their mistake, since they mounted their horses and set off out of town as fast as their horses could carry them.

Joe and I were the only ones mounted and in an immediate position to do so, so we took off after the bank robbers. Neither one of us was fond of wasting ammunition, so we held our fire while we were racing on horseback and too far away to have a decent chance of hitting the bandits. They had no such compunction, so several bullets did fly in our direction, but none hit us; however, there was some property damage before we cleared the city limits.

At first, we tried to catch up to the bandits, but that really was not possible, so we slowed down in a effort to keep our horses going as long as they could. We lost sight of the bandits after a mile or so of chasing, since they had cut through a wooded area. Joe was an excellent tracker, so we were not very concerned about losing the trail, but we were concerned about riding into an ambush. We slowed down further, but continued the chase. We had long since left the main road, but there were limits to where 5 men could ride close together, so Joe had no real trouble tracking them.

After an hour or so of careful tracking and watching out for an ambush, we came upon a shelter built in among a close stand of trees. I wouldn't want to dignify the place with the word "cabin," or even the word "shack." The structure had only 3 walls, and I would not have wanted to leave a horse in it in bad weather. About all you could say for its roof was that it had one; I suppose that it would keep out the rain if the wind was blowing in the right direction. The horses were hitched to a convenient tree limb, and the men were sitting on the ground in the shed on a tarp, dividing up the loot from the bank.

The men were so intent on making sure that each one got his fair share of the loot that no one was keeping watch. We had approached at a quartering angle, so we were able to see into the shed through its missing side and had a pretty good idea of what was going on. We hitched our horses around back on the blind side of the shelter and made our way on foot to the open side. Since Joe could handle his pistol very well with his left hand, he approached the opening from its right corner. I, on the other hand, was a confirmed right hand shooter, so I took the left corner. This let us both gain some shelter from the wooden walls of the shelter while still being able to bring our guns into play very easily.

We both reached our places without attracting attention, so we were able to get ready without hindrance. When we were ready, Joe said, "OK, BOYS, THE FUN IS OVER! PUT UP YER HANDS AFORE WE BLOW YA INTA LITTLE PIECES!"

Naturally, there is always some damned fool who can't obey orders. Four of the men started to raise their hands, but the fifth man went for his gun, instead. We were outnumbered, so we could not afford to take a chance. Both of us put a bullet into the chest of the fool, and he died on the spot. However, this caused the other 4 men to go for their guns, so we blazed away. I did pause long enough to switch my LeMat to the shotgun option, about 3 seconds were required, and fired it into the mass of men still sitting on the tarp. Between my shotgun blast and Joe's work with his Walker, the other 4 men were dead pretty much before we had time to blink. They really had no chance, since they were sitting down, so they had to take extra time to get their guns from their holsters; for us it was like shooting the proverbial "fish in a barrel."

We took the time to reload; I was much slower than Joe because I had to deal with the loose powder and cap for the shotgun. Damn, I wish that there was some way to fix that problem.

We examined the bandits and found one who was on a wanted poster to the tune of $40, and another who was good for $25, so our trip was worth while, even if the bank didn't pay us for returning their money. We gathered up the money, which was in gold coins, with a couple of $100 private mint bars. We counted $13,326 as the loot we recovered, all of it readily spendable. It would have been easy to drop the gold in our pockets and disappear, but neither one of us even gave that option a thought. Once the loot was collected and the dead bandits tied to their horses, we headed back into town.