Chapter 8: The Story

Not going how they had originally planned, the captured outlaw now laid unconscious on the ground, everybody still in shock but also snickering at what had happened. Only a few days had past and both bounty hunters had found one bounty and captured another. Things finally seemed to be looking up for those two.

"Ok, get his weapons off him, then we will take him to the jail here in town till we can figure out what to do with him." Surprise said to the group.

Stripping Tuf of all his weapons and possessions, they now had the task of getting to the jail, problem was Tuf wasn't exactly small, and he was unconscious still, so it was dead weight somebody was going to have to carry.

"1,2,3, NOT IT" Onion said in a loud tone of voice being the first not to carry Tuf.

"What?" Surprise looked confused at Onion.

"Not it", "Nope" Both Luna and Friday exclaimed out loud.

Surprised just looked confused at everybody, then quickly figuring out why everybody was blurting out like that.

As Surprised was dragging Tuf on the ground with a rope wrapped around Tuf's ankles, cussing almost every step he took while everybody just walked behind him. They made their way to the jail house across town. Suddenly a shot rang out from behind Surprise. In one motion, Surprise dropped the rope, readied his bow with and an arrow and took aim at the noise. Pointing directly at Luna.

Luna holding Tuf's short double-barreled shotgun, looking at it and playing with it, had accidently squeezed the trigger, firing a shot in the air, scaring the shit out of everybody, not only in her group but everybody in town too, causing the towns folk to duck and dive for cover. Friday, who was next to Luna was holding her ears as they were sensitive to the loud noise it made, and Onion just dove straight into the ground as to duck from the blast, and the blast itself, being loud enough to wake Tuf up from his unconscious state.

"You know, it's wise to keep your fingers off the trigger if you're not going to shoot anybody. " Tuf said with a groan as he began to sit up off the ground.

The moment Tuf spoke caused almost everybody to go into fight mode with Surprise pointing the bow at him while Friday took out her knife, ready for whatever trick the outlaw may have. Onion finally lifting their head up from the ground to see what was going on. Luna still in shock of what happened didn't even notice Tuf was now sitting up from the ground. Luna finally looked down at Tuf as he was sitting up with his back to her, but his head turned in her direction.

"You, ok?" Surprise asked Luna but keeping his bow draw toward Tuf.

"Yea. Just rattled me a bit." Luna said as she laughed nervously had what had happened. Then taking the shotgun and pointing it at Tuf.

"My own guns against me, gee, I've never had that done to me before." Tuf stated as he rolled his eyes, turning his attention to Surprise.

"Can Y'all explain to me, why got me tied up, dragging me through the street, or better yet, why my junk hurts and why I have a headache? You know what, I know about the headache so skip that one." Tuf stated all this to the group, snickering at the headache part.

"You Thomas Ulysses Fredrickson?" Friday asked with a demanding tone as everybody was walking around to the front of Tuf now.

"Huh? I'm sorry I couldn't understand you underneath all that growling you're doing." Tuf stated to Friday with a small grin.

"Are...You... Twin... Gun... Tuf?" Luna said with a serious tone of voice, hoping the threating tone would intimidate him.

"That's the rumor." Tuf said to Luna without a care in the world, making sure that Luna seen that he wasn't intimidated one bit.

Onion getting off the ground and dusting off. made their way to the rest of the group, walking next to Luna and Friday.

"Oh, looky. Another unicorn. My lucky day." Tuf continued to speak in a sarcastic tone. "I thought your kind went extinct." Tuf stated to the two, causing Onion to look down and pissing off Luna.

"Just what in the hell is going on here?" A voice cried out behind everybody, causing everybody to turn toward the voice except Surprise. Keeping his bow trained on Tuf.

"Marshall, we just caught a known outlaw." Friday said the Marshall of the town that was walking up to where the voice came from.

"I don't want to hear it, somebody reported to me that a gunshot was heard in "MY" town and now I come to see a bunch of yah-hoos dragging somebody down "MY" road. Somebody better have a damn good explanation as to why you all are scaring the shit out of everybody here." The Marshal yelled at everybody. finally making his way to the group.

Everybody's eyes went wide at what the Marshall was saying, then looking at all the people in windows of building and peaking around corners looking at them. Bounty hunters have the right to collect bounties in any town or city but under the law, if that towns law officials say no or do anything that would break any peace keeping law, then any bounty in mentioned town or city would be null and void. With the Marshall being already in a not pleasant mood, everybody would have to play nice at the moment.

Friday trying to be the voice of reason to the Marshall handed him the bounty paper and was fixing the explain to the Marshall that the gun shot was an accident.

"Give me that." The Marshall demanded as he ripped the paper out of her hand, causing Friday to growl under her breath at the Marshall. Luckily the Marshall didn't hear the growl.

"Wait...This is" The Marshall said in shock as he slowly lowered the paper he was reading.

"Hey, Frank." Tuf said in calm tone to the Marshall.

" Mr. Fredrickson." Frank said with a hint of concern in his voice. Frank continued. "I dually apologize for my outburst; I beg your pardon on this."

"How many times do I have to tell ya, just call me Thomas." Tuf said to Frank the Marshall still using a calm tone.

Without hesitation the Marshall gave the group an order to release Tuf from their custody, shocking and confusing everybody in the group.

"Wait...WHAT?!" Luna exclaimed her disapproval of this from the Marshall, clearly this guy is out of his mind to just let a dangerous individual and roam around freely.

"I said release that man." Frank stated to Luna. Surprise never took his bow of Tuf the entire time.

"So, you got the law around here bought off, HUH?" Surprise said with venom in his voice at Tuf.

"Buddy, I ain't bought nobody off and unless you want you and your friends to be put under the jail then I would do as you were told." Tuf spoke back to Surprise giving him a smirk that just pissed off Surprise even more.

"Why would we release such a dangerous person?" Onion asked the Marshall with genuine curiosity in their voice causing Frank to sigh and take a deep breath.

"We know he is wanted, but he helped this town out a few years back." The Marshall stated to everybody in a much calmer tone.

"Your arm getting tired yet?" Tuf asked Surprise still smirking.

"Yea, it is, and I might just let this 1 go right between your eyes." Surprise spat back to Tuf getting a chuckle and a response back.

"Surprise, lower your bow." Luna commanded him to do so as she was still looking at Frank the Marshall.

"Yea, listen to your girlfriend, she seems to be the reasonable one." Tuf mocked Surprise causing him to narrow his eyes on Tuf.

The Marshall looked at Tuf as if asking for permission to say something, catching Fridays attention.

"Go ahead, Frank. It's fine." Tuf said in his calm voice.

" A few years back, we had a bad crime problem here, before I was Marshall." Frank began the story. "You see, the old Marshall was a crooked and wicked man. Ran this town with an iron fist and he enjoyed that power of what he had." Frank stated as he continued. "We all wanted to fight him but standing up to him meant your house burnt and family killed." Frank told the group, causing everybody to look to the him as he spoke. "Thomas just entered into town and headed to the Breakneck Bar to do some drinking and gambling." Frank said as he pointed to the bar.

"Yea, that was a fun night." Tuf interrupted the Marshall causing Luna to shush him.

"Any who." Frank began again. "At the card table, some guys were getting rowdy with some of the staff, acting wild and the like. Things were quickly getting out of hand." Frank stated. "One of the waitresses at the time was getting harassed by one of the Marshalls men, and that's when Mr. Thomas enter." Frank continued.

"How do you know all this?" Onion inquired to Frank.

"Cause I was the bartender at the time." Frank stated to Onion, causing any doubts in the group to go away.

"My ass is numb; can I stand up now?" Tuf asked everybody causing them to turn his way, getting an immediate "NO" from everyone making Tuf flip the bird to everyone in the group.

"Well Thomas was at a table as I said when this was going down, and Thomas yelled to the guy harassing the waitress for 1 hand at cards. If Thomas won, then the guy would leave the bar and town, never to return." Frank stated to everyone.

Now everyone was kind of getting a better idea of just who Tuf was at this point but still skeptical on a few details.

"The guy lost and went ballistic in the bar, and he had pulled on Thomas, and Thomas just sat there, didn't even flinch not once. I thought Thomas was a dead man for sure." Frank said in his story to the group.

"All I remember from that moment was a shot rang out and the guy fell backwards dead, his buddies got up and they all ended up dead as well. I haven't ever seen anybody move that fast in my life." Frank stated.

"I was the waitress that night." Said the goblin woman from the Inn that Tuf stayed at, walking up to the group.

"He shot those assholes dead and didn't even bat an eyelash doing it." The goblin woman said to everybody.

"Unfortunately, one of the guys that was killed, was the old Marshalls' brother and once he found out the Marshall didn't take to kindly to that." Frank stated with a tone of sorrow.

"Yea." Tuf said now looking down.

Frank the Marshall stopped his story feeling he had told enough to everybody.

"Well, what happened to the old Marshall?" Luna asked Frank.

"Thats a question for Thomas to answer." Frank simply stated to Luna making everybody turn to Tuf.

"The slimy, sap suckin, snake in the grass did a grave injustice to me and mine." Tuf said with now anger in his voice.

Nobody said a word for a few seconds, waiting on Tuf to speak.