Don't Poke the Bear!

Chapter 2

I DRAW MY gun and race out the door. First thing I see is an old man lyin' in the street, badly wounded, and a fancy-dressed man walkin' toward him, gettin' ready to shoot him in the face from point blank range.

"Hold up!" I shout.

The fancy dressed man spins and shoots the gun right outta my hand. I dive for the dirt in the opposite direction from where the gun is flyin', and he wrongly assumes I'm outta the action. The shot he made was amazin'! A shot like I never seen or heard about. But I don't have time to admire his gunplay, 'cause he turns the gun back toward the old man's face and starts cussin' him in some foreign language. By then I've got my derringer in hand, and start bringin' it up. The fancy guy cocks his gun and shoots. But his shot goes wide, because my bullet hits the side of his head just as he pulls the trigger.

I hear people behind me comin' out of the saloon and other businesses up and down the street. I scramble to my feet and run to the old man. By the time I get to him, there's maybe ten men there, and a couple of women, includin' Gentry.

"You saved his life, Emmett!" she says.

"He ain't survived yet."

"I'll work on him."

I'm crouched over the old man, so I have to turn to look up at Gentry. "Why not the doc?"

"He's deliverin' a baby at the Manson Ranch."

"Again?" Lord, but that woman spits 'em out! "How many is that, nine?"

"Thirteen, I think."

"This'll make fourteen," someone says from the gatherin' crowd behind us.

Fourteen kids! Holy Christ! I figure Mavis Manson must fuck day and night. If only the county crops had such a fertile field to grow in, we'd never want for food. While I'm ponderin' thoughts of havin' fourteen children underfoot, someone standin' over the fancy-dressed man says, "Why this here's Bad Vlad!"

"No shit?" someone says. "How do you know?"

"I seen his show. He's the world's greatest marksman. No offense, Emmett."

"None taken," I say.

I have to admit, a guy that can shoot the gun out of my hand from forty feet, at dusk, without takin' the time to aim his weapon, well, that's a helluva shooter. I never knew anyone to be more accurate than me, till tonight. But there's no way I could've made that shot at that speed with a hand gun.

I get to my feet. "Everyone see what happened here?"

They all murmur awhile and come to the conclusion I shot the younger man to save the old one.

"Don't matter," one of 'em says. "We ain't got a sheriff anyway."

"All right, then. If two men'll carry the old guy to the Spur, Gentry'll tell you where to set him down. Then she and the girls'll do what they can for him till Doc comes back."