Itching Tree, Idaho by J.C. Hulsey

Author:J.C. Hulsey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J.C. Hulsey
Published: 2020-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

We had traveled about fifteen miles, when we saw three men on horseback, and they looked up and spotted us at the same time. We all reined up and sat looking at one another. They were rough-looking hombres, and wearing slickers even though it wasn’t raining. They had them buttoned up to their necks. The one in front spurred his horse forward and stopped about five feet in front of us. His eyes seemed to disappear under the brim of his sweat-stained, felt hat.

He looked me up and down with his beady eyes. “Hold it right there.” A shotgun seemed to appear out of nowhere, and was pointed squarely at my midsection.

“I suggest you point that scatter gun in some other direction,” I told him. “It'd be a lot healthier for you if you did.”

“I think you should be worrying about your own health right about now,” he growled.

Just as the last words left his lips, he was slammed backward off his horse and onto the ground. As he fell, his reflexes pulled the trigger, and the shotgun blasted a limb off the tree above us, his unseeing eyes missing all the action.

Orville had his shotgun covering the other two bandits. Half Loaf also had his gun pointed in their direction.

"You sure took an awful chance,” said Orville. “That blast could have cut you in two."

"Yes,” I said. “But the important thing is, it didn't."

“You killed Jess,” said one of the men. “He was meaner than a nest of rattlesnakes. And you just knocked him clean outta his saddle.”

“He shouldn’t have pointed a cocked shotgun at me,” I said. “Now I suggest you two gentlemen hand over your weapons, and the payroll you took off that stage. Then we’re going to take you back to Snake River crossing and hand you over to a United States Marshal.”

“Why can’t you let us go?” the man pleaded. “It was Jess done all the killing. We won’t never do nothing like that again. We both swear it.”

“You should have thought of that when you joined up with the likes of someone like Jess. If you’re going to dance, you got to pay the fiddler,” I said. “Now, climb down off them horses and dig a grave for your departed friend.”

They dug a shallow grave, placed his body in it, and shoveled dirt in it. When they were finished, they started walking back to their horses.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “We’re going to pray for your friend’s soul, that God might overlook his sins and grant him entrance into His Kingdom. Bow your heads.”

“I never heard of killing somebody and then praying for them,” said the man.

“Everybody deserves some consideration,” I said. “Even after death.”

I told Orville that he and Half Loaf could go on ahead while I took the two outlaws back to the marshal.

“Are you giving the money to him, too?” asked Orville.

“Do you think it would be right for us to keep money that the soldiers at Ft. Hall are looking to collect to buy food for their families?” I asked.

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