LITMIR.BIZ

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thing.”

      The incognito scout sat on the ground with his back against a planked wall pretending to rest. After some time, he slowly got up and disappeared behind a barn. Some moments later, a fire broke out. He must have hidden some burning fuel in his leather pouch. That must have also been the signal. While the townspeople came out into the open to try to tame the flames, the group of outlaws galloped toward them. They rode in like a wave of death and caught the townspeople by surprise, taking out anyone brave enough to draw their weapon. A few anxious moments were enough for the few surviving inhabitants of Little Pit to have been disarmed and lined up for interrogation. Of the assailants, only one seemed to have cashed in his chips.

      Meanwhile, some of the outlaws began raiding homes to avoid being shot from behind. The risk was real. In fact, before they could react, someone had fired a couple of shotgun blasts from Sean's house. The first of the two made its mark, taking out another of the invaders.

      “Only six left now”, said Hugg.

      “Wrong... You didn’t count me.”

      Clack

      The unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked sent his words from the tip of his tongue down to the pits of his bowels.

      Father and son both put their hands in the air and slowly turned around. A thin man with hate in his eyes was pointing the business end of a shotgun at them. With a barely-there mustache and a grin like a fox in a hen house, his appearance was a real slap in the face. He was, however, on the right end of the barrel, so all said and done he had the upper hand. Hugg, making the best of his predicament, contented himself with a smirk and spat on the ground.

      “I came up this hill to get a bird’s eye view of the plain. Y’know, we don’t like surprises,” he tilted his head back, “Lo and behold, look who I find perched on top – two ugly ass buzzards ready to dine with the corpses.” The man ran his tongue across his lips. “C’mon! What you just standing there for? Unbuckle them holsters and throw ‘em under my feet. Any funny business and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes.”

      Their choices were few. They had to do what he said.

      “All right now, maggots, kick that shootin’ iron over the cliff.”

      It wasn’t just some old, shoddy gun, it was a buffalo gun, and a damn good one at that. Hugg hesitated for a moment. He instinctively looked for reassurance in his son’s eyes, but found none, as the boy was pointedly looking down at his feet. It was as though the man had asked him to drop his drawers. Without his precious Jagg he felt naked as a worm. The forefinger of his tormentor began to put pressure on the trigger and once again, Hugg had no choice but to do what he was told. He sent his weapon - his beloved weapon - to its violent end, smashed on the rocks below. If he got out of this alive he would first have to find himself another rifle, or at least a decent pistol.

      "Come on, gentlemen! Let’s go join the others down there. You sure don’t wanna miss the party!” Badfinger realized he despised the man’s voice even more than he despised his face.

      “You didn’t happen to’ve run into a gunslinger on horseback in the past few hours, did you? We’ve been searching for him all across the desert. He just means so much to us,” said the ruffian during their descent. He walked a few steps behind them keeping them at gunpoint.

      In situations like this, it’s always best to keep one’s mouth shut. Both hostages stayed silent.

      “I get it - you don’t want to sing. On the other hand, I always thought vultures loved to be heard. It’s pretty sad to have to go to a party without being able to serenade the crowd. But don’t worry; once we’re down there I’ll introduce you to Lane, and I guarantee you he knows how to make you sing like finches.”

      Yep, he talked too damn much. In any case, Hugg felt his blood freeze in his veins at the prospect of being tortured.

      The day had started out to be the best day he had ever had, but now it was on its way to conclude as the worst one.

      BANG!

      “You two! Turn around slowly.” That most certainly was not the same irritating voice as before.

      Their former captor stared wide-eyed at the sky from a rocky shelf several feet down from the path. It seemed that his look of surprise was due in part to the hole in his forehead. A man with an icy glare and fairly well-groomed travel clothes peered at them from behind a Colt. He had another revolver on the left side of his belt, along which a battery of pre-loaded charges were visible. The guy was the very picture of a lawman.

      "I'm Cardigan Smith. Texas Ranger. Are you going to tell me what you were doing in the company of that criminal?” He was a lawman, and a dangerous one. He wasn’t the usual high-ranking windbag. He was a Ranger. That meant that he was a skilled gunman or a former bounty hunter who had chosen to work for the state. The operative arm of the law.

      "Thank you for saving us, Mr. Lieutenant. We’re nothing but poor pikes tryin’ to find a living in this cursed land," Hugg began.

      "I'm not a Lieutenant... I wish. Anyhow, please continue.”

      “Yessir. We live close by, in Little Pit. Up yonder is where I buried my beloved wife and my other son when they died of smallpox.” Hugg pointed to a nearby hill where he knew that there were two mounds without an inscription. The real story was that bodies of his spouse and his offspring had been left to rot in their old house in Louisiana. After having committed the crime he skipped town and was on the dodge. He pretended to choke back a sob, wiped away a non-existent tear and continued, “Today would’ve been our anniversary. Sixteen years. So me and m’boy came up here to spend some time with ‘em. When it started to get dark we headed back home, but then we saw smoke coming from our town. Fearin’ the worst, we climbed this here mountain to figure out what was goin’ on. That’s when that man attacked us. He kept askin’ us about a gunslinger, but I didn’t know what he was talkin’ about. We didn't know what to tell him, so he said he'd take us to some person named Lane who would make us talk." A half-truth was always better than an outright lie.

      “Lane... Lane Sadlann, I suppose,” He said to himself. “There we go - finally!”

      "What? I don’t get it." Hugg tried to speculate.

      "No, nothing that concerns you. I have to thank you, though. You saved me from having to retrieve the body of that outlaw over there. Now I don’t have to, ‘cause I've already gotten what I needed. Your faces don’t seem to be on any wanted flyer, at least not from what I can recall. Anyhow, I still don't fully trust you, so you’ll have to come with me to my company’s camp. If you are who you say you are, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Where did you leave your horses?”

      “We don’t have no horses, Sir. How great it would be to have one. We could cross this desert in a few hours.”

      “I suspected as much. Damn! It would take us too long to get to the others at Cactus Cross.” The man was cautiously aware that they could be in cahoots with the band of outlaws he was hunting. Therefore, in order to avoid any unpleasant surprises, he would have preferred to take them with him. Everything appeared to be pointing to the contrary, but in outlaw country one could never be too careful. On the other hand, he intended to get back to his company’s camp as soon as possible to get the necessary reinforcements. If he was any bit the bounty hunter he once was he would have taken them out at even the slightest suspicion just to get them out of his way. However, he was a man of the law now, so he had to put aside the more cynical part of himself.

      "Ok son, tie your father to that tree," he ordered, throwing him a rope. When he saw the young man hesitate, he added, "Don't worry. It's just a precaution. I have to do something first, then I'll come back and untie you. Look, I'll give you my blanket to keep the chill off."

      Regrettably, Weasel did as he was told.

      "Now, I have to tie you up too. I suggest that you don’t do anything stupid or try to take off.”

      “I’m not takin’ off! I’m not leavin’ my Paw,” he whined, emulating the insufferable voice

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