I Had This Coming

It was almost 10pm when I got back to my room, I threw my pack next to the bed and pass out feeling exhausted from the whole week. I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of footsteps down the hall. The footsteps were very noticeable since people didn't usually get rooms that late at night. Checking the copper pocket watch by the lantern, I saw it was 1AM on the dot and the footsteps stopped just outside my door. I heard whispering and then there were three loud knocks on my door. Creeping out of the bed, I threw on my boots and slid the other shotgun out of my pack.

I said in a deliberately sleepy manner, "Go Away Sulik! Isn't housekeeping at 9!?" There was nothing but silence.

I knew whoever was outside my door was not someone good, and knew I'd been making quite a commotion the past few days. I wasn't sure, but I thought that maybe, "Fat Jimbo" figured out where his money went. I felt ridiculed that I didn't play this game more carefully. Everyone in town knew that I was a parasite clawing at the gate for the past few months. Then I showed up a few days ago buying the whole town drinks and selling goods that I inexplicably acquired. Word spread fast and I knew this exact situation was a possibility, but I spent the past five days too intoxicated or hungover to care.

Three more knocks, two shells in my shotgun, and as I threw on the rest of my things; I said, "Torr? If that's you, I'm too tired to play your stupid Moo Moo games right now!"

Then the door burst open.

Just as I suspected, two thugs with pistols drawn stood in the center of my room but I had the shotgun trained on them. They looked shocked to see that I was armed; maybe they thought I had sold their lost guns. The two thugs were nearly identical to the frozen corpses I saw in the woods. They had leather armor and bandoliers, bald heads, and face tattoos.

One of them said, "We shoulda killed you on your way into town. You're lucky it took us a few days to put two and two together."

I instinctively and dumbly blurted to these adversaries, "Yeah, you guys aren't the brightest are you?"

The other one snarled and raised his pistol to me and I pulled the dual hammers of the shotgun back immediately. The other thug elbowed his enraged friend, "We need this fucker alive!"

I asked curiously, aiming the 12ga shotgun at the first one's head, "Why you want me alive? I can make a deal with you guys if you want?"

The thugs looked angry as hell. The one lowered his gun from me and responded, "Boss wants you personally as interest for what you stole from him! You stole from US! That was our payroll! Do you even have any idea who you fucked with!?"

I said holding my gun rock solid, "I didn't Steal anything, I just found two dead guys in the woods. A scavenger's wet dream, Haha! I'll tell you what, wanna make a deal right now? So, your boss doesn't lose two more men?"

The two thugs gripped their pistols tightly restraining their anger. The one on the left said ferociously, "What kind of 'Deal'!?"

I reached into my satchel with my left hand still aiming at the two. I said, "I have 200caps left of the original amount, I'll give you two what's left and you tell your boss that I skipped town. Take the caps for yourselves; how does 100 each sound?"

The two thugs stared me down for a full tense minute. They looked at each other and gave nods. I gave an internal sigh of relief and the one on the left said, "Hand it over!"

I pulled the sack of caps out of the satchel and threw it on the floor between them. The one on the right looked inside and gave the other a nod. The one on the left said to me, "You better run really far and run really fast."

Without saying anything, I bolted out the door and into the cold January night. Morning was coming and my mind raced a million miles a minute. Within an hour I made it back to my old residence in the hollow house and packed up everything I owned. I didn't really make a contingency plan, so I hurled my stuff into the other bags and bolted out the door going west. I ran frantically through the snow speckled scorched woods for 30 minutes and found a rundown old barn near the Klamath Canyon a bout a mile west of the "Trapper Town" part of Klamath.

I closed the barn door, set my packs down next to each other and looked into the woods through a hole in the wall. I did a quick inventory thanking God that they believed I only had 200 caps left. I checked my satchel and pack. There, I tallied the few trades I made and the caps spent over the past few nights. I had nearly 300 caps left! Still paranoid, but feeling triumphant, I looked out the crack in the barn watching for people and praying the snow would cover my footprints. Just as I checked the time, I saw it was almost 2:30am and I heard a strange noise in the distance.