Incidentals

by Kathy Knudsen1

Every episode has both major and minor characters and sometimes there is more to a minor character than meets the eye. Each Chapter will be about one such character. Not all chapters will fall in the same order as the series episodes, and likely one or two episodes will be skipped over (i.e. Return to Devil's Hole because I never watch that one).

19. Chapter 19

Nate (From the Bounty Hunter)

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I don't know who them two fellas really are, but I hope to high heaven they ain't who that bounty hunter claims them to be. If they really are Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry, it'd be a real shame knowing me and the boys was that close to having twenty thousand dollars (that's what the Sheriff told us they was worth when we was getting doctored in town). Me and the boys couldda had a high time spending that kinda money.

But that bounty hunter, he was a right smart fella. Before he took us and left us on the edge of town, he let it slip where he was planning on turning them two in. Well, we told the Sheriff about that and he said if we was right and him and his posse caught up with em, me and the boys would be entitled to at least a portion of that bounty money. But that bounty hunter outsmarted us.

Sheriff and his posse went looking for em and was gone for two days, and Jesse and Hank and me took that time to heal up some. But when the Sheriff came back, he said there weren't no trace of that bounty hunter and them two fellas he had tied up. Sheriff said the only other route they couldda taken was to Big Butte, but if they'd of gone that way, they'd have been there by now. He told us he was gonna send a wire to the Sheriff in Big Butte to see if he had Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry in his jail.

This is where the whole story starts sounding fishy to me, cause that sheriff in Big Butte wired back that a couple of fellas rode into town just the day before claiming some local rancher shot and killed that bounty hunter in cold blood. Well, seems to me, that sheriff wouldda had a hell of a lot of questions for them two. I mean, who's to say them two didn't manage to get themselves free and kill that bounty hunter themselves, then made up the story about the rancher just to throw the sheriff off. Now I seen just how fast and accurate a shooter that fair haired one was, so it wouldn't come as no surprise to me if that was exactly what happened. I wouldda thought the sheriff wouldda held them two while he investigated their story, and now I'm guessing he's afraid that maybe he did up and let Curry and Heyes just ride off.

If that story is true about that bounty hunter getting himself killed by some local rancher who thought he was better than other folks, well that's a damn shame. Joe, that's the name the silver tongue fella used, he weren't a killer. Much as I hate to admit it, Jesse and Hank and me is proof of that. That Joe couldda killed all three of us, but he didn't. Now he was almost as fine a shot as that fair haired fella, and he couldda wounded us bad too, but he didn't do that, neither. I don't know if there's any better justice out here in the west than there is in the south, and I don't hold no real sentiment about that bounty hunter, but if that rancher did just kill him in cold blood, well, that rancher ought to get his comeuppance for what he done.

I can't help it, but the idea of Heyes and Curry reporting a murder and then just riding off scot free, well that does make me chuckle a bit. I guess them stories about Hannibal Heyes having a silver tongue just might be true. If that is what happened, I bet that sheriff in Big Butte is worried that story might leak out, cause that could cost him an election.

Well, Jesse and Hank and me did tell this sheriff how that bounty hunter shot all three of us and we might have employed a bit of a silver tongue ourselves (along with leaving out a few details), cause he said he don't have no call to arrest the three of us. Once we're starting to mend a bit, I suspect we'll be heading home, and when I say home, I mean home. That's back to the Ozarks, where folks may be dirt poor and maybe a little lacking in the notion of doing a hard day's work, but they don't go around shooting people that's just trying to do what's right, and then dumping them on the outskirts of some town neither.

Can't rightly say the same is true about killing a man like that bounty hunter. I mean, I've seen cases where the law has just looked the other way in a case like that, and I can tell you, it happens more often than naught. I suspect it'll happen in this case. I ain't saying that it's right or just. It is what it is, and maybe that'll change one day, but it's gonna take some time for some people to put the past behind em.

Anyway, that's about all I've got to say about all this. There ain't no silver lining to what happened here. One man's dead, three of us are wounded, another may or may not be accused of murder, and the two fellas that just might be Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry managed to escape with nothing but wrist burns.

I guess justice is an elusive thing, indeed.

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Author's note: I have to apologize, but the computer I am using while my other is being repaired, has some key issues and does not print the last letter of the alphabet or the question mark. Spell Check takes care of the former, but I can't do anything about the latter. You'll have to bear with me for a few more days. Also, I have five chapters on the computer being repaired, so I am glad I said in advance that the stories might not come in the order of the series.