were just waking up. It was getting a little cold, no one had fed the stove, I did so.
“Well boys, how do you feel, are you getting hungry?” They replied with a string of cuss words and what they were going to do to me.
“Now, now, that’s no way to treat the guy that feeds you, or let’s you starve. The fact is, I might just get tired of taking care of you little boys and just shoot you. What do you think?”
The one that I bent my gun barrel over his head spoke up, I don’t think the one with the sore throat could talk all that good. “You know of course you’re a dead man?”
“Well, aren’t we all? When we’re born, we’re already on the road to dieing. It’s just a question of when. Now when it comes to you two, you have a choice. I see that you both fancy yourselves as gun hands. As such you should be aware of others who have a gun rep. Do you want to know who I am?”
“Just who the hell are you?”
“My name is Trego.” I said, they turned a little more pale.
“Yeah, I’m that Trego. I sort of feel sorry for you two, you’re caught between a rock and hard place. You hired out to do the dirty work for the combine. If you don’t do it, they’ll be gunning for you, that’s the hard place. Me? I’m the rock. Now when it comes to the hard place, sometimes you can find a way through it, but when it comes to a rock, it’s pretty solid. But I’m going to let you two think about that for a couple of days. We’ll talk more later, right now I’m going over to the saloon and see if they won’t send over some food for you fools.” I looked down at Jake,
“You stay here, I’ll have them bring enough food for all of us.”
I walked in the saloon, everyone stared at me, then self-consciously went back to what they were doing. I made arrangement’s with the bartender for four servings of food to be brought over to the jail. He was affable, Randy Fuller was still abed, he wasn’t feeling all that good. Before I left, I asked the bartender, “Say what is your name anyway?”
“Bayard Benoit,” He saw that I had a quizzical look on my face, “It’s French. I used to be a fur trader. Now I stay warm and dry.” I thanked him and turned to leave, “Watch your back friend.” He said……
It wasn’t too long after I got back to the jail, before the food arrived. I paid the boy, and gave him a dollar tip. He was overjoyed.
I slipped the plates under each of their cell doors. They ate without saying a word. I heard them talking after they finished. Couldn’t understand what they were saying though.
I went in to get the plates. “Alright, we talked it over, if you’ll let us go, we’ll get our mounts and light a shuck out of here. Even though we have a months wages coming.”
“You’ve got money coming? That’s not fair, tell you what, where does that Evan Blythe live, I’ll go collect your wages, plus your horses. I take it the horses are at the livery. Do you owe the livery or anybody else?”
“He lives back on the hill, the biggest house, you can’t miss it. He’ll have some guns hanging around, he calls them his body guards. Yes, we owe the livery, plus a tab at the bar, that’s all.”
“Alright, that had better be all. Jake, you watch these two, if they try to get out, kill them.” Jake looked at them and growled, they backed away from the cell door.
It wasn’t too hard to get to Evan, after all I had been taught by the best. I had changed out of my boots and put on my knee high moccasins. They were waterproof, so the snow wouldn’t bother me any.
I was standing behind his chair, just waiting till he knew I was there. He started to reach in his desk drawer, I pushed it closed with my foot. He didn’t argue one little bit about paying those two boys their wages. I even took a little bit more to pay for the food they ate.
Before I left, I sat down on the edge of his desk, “Evan, you’ve been a bad boy, and unless you change your ways, Santa is not going to stop by your house. In fact you might not even have a house for him to stop in. Do you get my drift... he must of, because he passed out.
I went by the livery, Henry was just feeding the stock. I paid him what those boys owed. Then taking their horses and tack, I led them to the Jail. Those two fell over themselves getting out of the door, they didn’t even use the stirrups when they mounted up.
“Well Jake, there’s no use for us to stay in this old jail, how would you like to go to Brie’s place?” He thought that was just about right…so did I.
I rolled up my bedroll with all my stuff inside and we trudged through the snow, when I opened the kitchen door, Brie stood up from the table and ran toward me.
She came up for air, “I thought you were going to stay at the jail?”
“Well it so happens those boys had a pressing engagement, somewhere far away. They drew their wages and lit out. So, where should I put this bedroll, do you have a corner that Jake and I can sleep in?”
“Well Jake can sleep by the kitchen stove, you can put your stuff in the bedroom upstairs at the far end.” I picked up my roll and went upstairs, I opened the bedroom door and went in. I stopped, looking around, it was a woman’s bedroom. I started to back out, Brie was behind me.
“What’s the matter?” She said.
“Well, you must of made a mistake, this room looks like someone already has it.”
“No mistake, it’s my bedroom. Of course if you don’t want to share it with me….”
Now that was a silly statement, “Of course I do, but what will people say, we’re not married yet?”
“Trego, I’ve been a widow for five years, do you think I’m going to let a little piece of paper stand in our way. We both know we’re going to be married as fast as we can. I’ve been weak in the knees from the first time I laid eyes on you….
The only problem that I had with it, was getting that blasted corset off of her…
The snow had stopped, and the moon was shining bright through the frosted pains of the bedroom window. Brie was sleeping soundly on my left arm. Her hair was across her face, I brushed it back. She had a few freckles across the bridge of her cute nose. I leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. Her eyes opened and she stretched a little.
“Hmm, that was nice. What time is it?” She said.
“I think it must be after midnight. The snow stopped and the moons bright.”
“Yes, it is bright. Uh, I have to pee, I’ll be right back.” Brie crawled out of our warm bed. Her nipples hardened as the cold air engulfed her. She bent over and pulled the chamber pot from under the bed, she squatted over it. Then stood up and walked to the window. “Oh, come see, it’s beautiful. The moon is so bright and with the snow it’s just like daylight.”
I got out of bed and went and stood behind her, holding her tight I looked out. She was right it was a pretty sight. But nothing like the view I got when I glanced down over her superb form.
“Ooo,
