HELL HATH NO FURY (A Jess Williams western novel) (8 page)

             
“You seem to be in a mighty big hurry to ride. Did you find out something when you checked on your messages at the telegraph office?”

             
“Darrel Clemmon was recently seen in Buford, Kansas, and I hope we can get there before he leaves town,” replied Jess, as he turned his horse to head out of town.

             
“How far of a ride is it?” asked Annie.

             
“Not far at all,” replied Jess. “I figure we can make camp a few miles outside of Buford in the late afternoon. I know of a spot where there is a nice river and some huge boulders that can provide us with some good cover. Then, we’ll ride into Buford in the morning and hopefully find Clemmon still sleeping off a drunken stupor.”

             
“If he is there, are you going to let me challenge him to a gunfight or are you just going to execute him right there on the spot?” Annie asked with a somewhat smart tone to her voice.

             
“Hey, if you don’t like the way I do things, you don’t have to ride with me,” retorted Jess.

             
“Don’t take that tone with me! I was just asking so I would know,” replied Annie.

             
Jess stopped his horse and looked at Annie. “I never thought to ask up until now, but have you ever been in a gunfight or killed anyone yet?”

             
“Well—no—actually I haven’t yet, but that doesn’t matter anyway. You’ve even said that I’m pretty quick on the draw with a pistol.”

             
“Well, ain’t that just great! You know, it’s a whole lot different thing killing a man than shooting at bottles or trees. When there is a man shooting back at you, there is no way to tell exactly how you’re going to react the first time,” replied Jess.

             
“You’ll be there and if I miss or get shot trying, you can just go ahead and kill Darrel Clemmon yourself,” replied Annie.

             
Jess didn’t even respond. He simply let out a loud sigh and nudged Gray into a walk and headed for the spot they would camp at. Annie kept on talking and talking, but Jess ignored her and she finally shut up. When they got to the spot that he told her about, she went about making a fire while he took care of the horses and went to the river and caught a nice mess of fish and proceeded to clean them. As soon as he finished up, she told him that she was going to take a bath in the river. She had done that a few times already since she began riding with him and she had made him promise not to try to peek at her when she was naked, which he respectfully obliged. He usually sat on a rock or a log by the fire with his back to her and drank coffee until she was finished up with her bathing, which is exactly what he was doing right now. As he raised his tin cup up to take another drink of his coffee, he spotted a dust cloud and he could tell from experience that it wasn’t a dust devil. He looked closer and then he heard the yelping that Indians usually do as they headed into battle. He threw his cup on the ground; grabbed one of his Winchesters out of its scabbard and turned around to warn Annie, just as she was stepping out of the river, naked as a jaybird.

             
“Jess, I told you not to peek at me when I’m bathing, she hollered,” trying to use one arm to cover her breasts and her other hand to cover her private area and she wasn’t doing a very good job of it, especially in the breast area since they were indeed very large and perky.

             
“Well, I’m sorry, but there are Indians heading straight toward our camp and I don’t think they want to share that mess of fish with us,” retorted Jess. “Now, get back down in that water and behind a boulder, but take this Winchester with you first just in case.”

             
Annie didn’t take the rifle right away because to do so, she had to use at least one hand to grab the rifle. Jess glared at her and cocked his head. She finally gave in and bared her breasts to take the rifle and Jess couldn’t help looking at them.

             
“Well, do you like what you see?” demanded Annie.

             
“That doesn’t matter at the moment. What does matter is that I have to take care of those Indians before they get close enough to start slinging arrows at us,” replied Jess.

             
Annie went back into the water and hid behind a huge boulder while Jess ran to his horse and retrieved his Sharps buffalo rifle. He chambered a round into it and perched the rifle on the top of a large boulder. He took aim at the Indian on the right. He pulled back on the trigger and the Sharps rifle barked and the Indian slumped over his horse and fell off, his horse running away from the other Indian, who stopped to check on his partner. Jess chambered another round into the rifle and started to take aim at the other Indian when the Indian started yelping in the direction of the camp and then turned around and started running his horse in the opposite direction and away from Jess at a full gallop.

             
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Jess, quiet enough that Annie didn’t hear him. Jess usually left Gray saddled up until just before turning in for the night in case of something like this happening. Jess grabbed one of his Winchester rifles and jumped up into the saddle and turned around to Annie. Annie had been watching all of this while keeping all but her head behind the boulder in the river.

             
“What are you doing? He’s running away from you,” exclaimed Annie.

             
“And where do you think he’s going? I’ll tell you exactly where he’s going. Straight back to his camp and get several more warriors and come back here and sneak up on our camp and kill us in the middle of the night. You sure have a lot to learn about gun fighting. Now get your ass out of the water and dry off.”

             
“Why, because you want to see my behind now since you’ve pretty much seen everything else already? And you still have a lot to learn about women because I’m not getting out of this water until you turn around first,” demanded Annie.

             
“Don’t worry about that, I’m taking a ride out there to run that other Indian down and kill him and then round up their horses so that they don’t ride back to their camp because that will just cause more curiosity with the rest of their band,” replied Jess. “You make sure that when you get dressed, take at least two Winchesters and be ready in case they have some other friends running around the area.” Jess spun Gray around and put him into a full gallop and Annie got out of the river and quickly grabbed a blanket out of her saddlebags and dried off and got dressed in a hurry, all the while watching what Jess was doing.

             
Gray could run faster than most other horses and he was quickly making up the distance between Jess and the Indian warrior. The Indian started turning around to see Jess heading in his direction and closing the gap quickly. He finally realized there was no chance of getting back to his camp before the man riding the horse caught up to him so he stopped and turned around and headed straight for Jess. As soon as he got within range of using his bow, he grabbed an arrow and let it fly in Jess’ direction. Jess watched and as soon as the Indian released the arrow, Jess moved Gray over several feet to one side. The Indian let a second arrow fly and then a third and Jess simply moved Gray to the right or left to get out of the direction of the flying arrows. When he knew he was in close range for his Winchester, he waited for the Indian to let another arrow fly, knowing that it would take the Indian at least three or four seconds to grab another arrow and pull back on the bow to send it in Jess’ direction.

             
Jess again moved Gray a few feet and out of the direction of the arrow and then he stopped Gray, jumped out of the saddle and took aim with the Winchester and pulled the trigger a split-second before the Indian could pull the bow all the way back. The slug from the Winchester hit the Indian in the chest and as he fell backward, the arrow flew into the air and way too high above Jess to be any threat. Jess walked over to the Indian, who was still alive. Jess looked down at him and pulled the trigger on the Winchester once again making sure he was dead. Jess jumped back into the saddle and rode toward the Indian’s horse and retrieved it and then he rode to get the other Indian’s horse. Jess rode back toward the camp and stopped at the first Indian that he had shot with the Sharps rifle and he was as dead as the dirt he lay on, but Jess put another slug from his Winchester into him for good measure. Annie had watched all of this from their camp and she was beginning to wonder if Jess was on a warpath of his own or just plum crazy in the head with hate.

             
Jess finally rode back up to their camp and tied up the two Indian’s horses and walked back over to the fire; picked his tin cup up and cleaned the dirt out of it with a little coffee and poured himself another cup of coffee. He sat back down on the rock he had been sitting on before.

             
“What in the hell was that you were doing out there?” asked Annie, pouring herself a cup of coffee and sitting down.

             
“What was what?” asked Jess.

             
“You know exactly what I mean. You riding straight toward that Indian and letting him shoot four arrows in your direction before you finally killed him.”

             
“Oh, that. That idiot didn’t realize that all I had to do was move to the right or left when he released his arrows. There was no chance he could’ve hit me,” replied Jess.

             
“And how did you know whether or not he had a rifle on his horse?” retorted Annie.

             
Jess looked up at her with that same frustrated look. “If he had a rifle, don’t you think he would have used it?”

             
“I don’t know much about Indians or the way they think. Maybe they like to use their arrows first and save their rifle for later,” replied Annie, knowing immediately after saying it that it was a stupid response.

             
Jess looked at her again with the same look of frustration on his face. “Well, let me tell you a little more about those Indians. If I hadn’t of killed the both of them, they would have killed the both of us and then scalped both of us before leaving us here to be food for coyote’s, wolves and vultures,” replied Jess.

             
“The thought of being scalped by those savages makes me shudder,” replied Annie.

             
“It ought to, since they probably would’ve scalped you twice,” replied Jess.

             
“Why in the hell would they scalp me twice?” demanded Annie. Jess didn’t reply. He simply waited for Annie to have a few seconds to figure out what he was referring to. She finally figured it out. Her face got all red as she blushed.

             
“That was a terrible thing to say! I can’t believe you said that,” exclaimed Annie.

             
Jess smiled for the first time in a while as he looked at her. “Hey, those fish ain’t going to jump into the pan by themselves,” replied Jess, as he looked over at the fish he caught.

             
Annie got up with an indignant look on her face and went to Jess’ saddlebags and got out a skillet. As she did, Jess took a long look at Annie’s behind, which he had to admit was as nice as what he had seen earlier.

             
“And don’t you be looking at my behind either,” exclaimed Annie.

CHAPTER NINE

              Jess and Annie took turns standing watch for the rest of the night in case any more Indian warriors showed up and then they headed straight for Buford, Kansas at daylight. They rode into Buford well before the noon hour and headed for the saloon in town. Jess knew the barkeep who worked there, Samuel Davis, and Jess knew that if Darrel Clemmon was in town, Samuel would know about it. Jess walked through the swinging doors of the saloon and Samuel walked out from the back to see who had come in.

             
“Mr. Williams, it sure is nice to see you again. Who in the hell are you chasing down now?” asked Samuel. As soon as he got the words out of his mouth Annie walked through the swinging doors.

             
“Hey, we don’t allow women in here so haul you ass back out of here right now!” exclaimed Samuel.

             
“You don’t tell me what to do or not to do!” exclaimed Annie.

             
Samuel noticed she had a six-shooter strapped around her waist. “And what in the hell are you doing wearing that thing. It’ll just get you killed being a woman and all.”

             
“Are you deaf? I just told you that you don’t tell me what to do!” retorted Annie, a sharp tone in her voice.

             
“Samuel,” said Jess, “she’s with me so I would take it as a favor if you would not object to her being in here.”

             
Samuel quickly calmed down. “Well, if you’ll vouch for her, I suppose I can oblige you, but if I start to lose customers because of her being in here, she’ll have to leave.”