Chapter 1 - What's Going On?

All I knew was I had to protect Kitty. The headache and dizziness didn't matter. It did matter that a horse was saddled and ready for me to ride. I didn't care why it was, but it would save me time getting back to her. I led the buckskin from the stall, opened the barn door and mounted as soon as I'd closed it again. Somehow I knew it was important to ride away from here. Yeah, but where is here and ride to where? Maybe it was pure instinct, but I turned west. I knew that was the direction I took as I spurred my mount forward, racing at a full gallop before I passed the house. Even so, I heard a rifle fire and felt a sharp pain in his my shoulder as I raced past out of the yard onto the road. Again, I don't know how I knew it was a rifle or why I should even care what they were using to shoot at me. I sure didn't know why they were trying to stop me except that it had something to do with Kitty, whoever she is. All I'm sure of is she's a girl who's important to me in some way.

I sped onward, giving my horse his head. Right now there were only two certainties in my life. I had to get to Kitty to keep her safe and this horse would help me do that. We began to slow as we approached a town. At least that's what I thought it was through my increasingly blurred vision. It had been bad enough when I started out from that dilapidated old farm. I only had a sore head to contend with before someone put that bullet in me. Maybe it was the same someone who hit me on the head. That hard ride isn't something I'd recommend to anyone who wanted to control the bleeding from a bullet wound and stay in the saddle, let alone remain conscious. Somehow I managed until my horse halted in front of what appeared to be a saloon. The last thing I remember, until I awoke, was hearing two cowboys shouting for the town doctor, Doc Adams, as I slid to the ground and lost consciousness.