Free ROMANCE: His Reluctant Heart (Historical Western Victorian Romance) (Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Fantasy Short Stories) by Jane Prescott

shooters who have to sit for long periods of time at the ready. Dillard would be good to go, and Jerry knew that. It wasn't the first time they'd ridden out on some fools errand to find a group of people waiting to do them in. And every time that happened they managed to either get away or scare enough of them off that they could finish off the rest.
                  “I've got one of them explosive things the miners gave us after that one job,” Dillard said, then spit tobacco off the side of the stagecoach.
                  Jerry chuckled.
                  “You mean the metal balls filled with gun powder? I didn't think those worked very well the last time we tried them,” Jerry said.
                  Dillard spit again before continuing.
                  “Well I had them etch a deep pattern onto the ball so that when it pops it should break into chunks, unlike the other ones that just shot off in one direction like a rocket.”
                  Jerry chuckled again.
                  “Yeah, those other ones sure didn't work that great that one time we threw them into the downtown Denver saloon to kill the McKinley brothers. All they did was shoot into the church across the street and start the damn thing on fire!”
                  Both of the men were laughing as the remembered. They were being too loud, and they both knew it, but neither cared. The could hear the stamp of impatient horses waiting around the bend in the road. They'd learned to listen for little things that most of the bandit folk just didn't think about. Like the jingling of spurs if they were close, or the strike of a match. But a horses stamp could be heard at a distance if you knew what to listen for and if it was the dead of night and there wasn't anything else going on.
                  “They'll be on us,” Jerry said.
                  He pointed the gun down the road in front of them and sure enough a posse of bandits thundered out from around the bend, about ten abreast, as if at of nowhere. It was an old trick meant to scare and intimidate. Jerry muttered to Dillard to hold his fire until he let loose with the shotgun. The bandits slowed their horses to a slow trot and kept approaching them. Right when they were within a stone's throw Jerry let loose with the shotgun. The nail heads and wire must have dug into a few of the horses, and they whinnied and took off. The remaining men shot wildly toward the flash that had just blinded them and scared their steads, but were quickly put down by the combined fire of Jerry and Dillard. It took less than a minute and there was no one left but them and a few riderless horses milling about the road.
                  “Didn't even have to let off the popper!” Dillard said. “These boys might be softer then we make them out to be.”
                  “Might be,” Jerry said. “Or might not be. Maybe that was just the skirmishers, sent out to draw fire and see what the rest of the posse would be up against.”
                  Dillard thought about it for a minute before spitting again.
                  “They'd have to be the God damned stupidest sons of bitches if they actually knew that was what the posse was using them for.”
                  Jerry grunted an acknowledgment and then leaned back and told Bell to be still back in the stagecoach, that she didn't have to worry. Bell didn't answer. When Dillard checked on her the tremor in his voice told Jerry something was really wrong.
                  “She's asleep,” Dillard said. “But not in a natural way. Someone must have slipped something into her drink at the saloon. But that means that they knew she was in Boulder.”
                  “And that means that they know we are here now,” Jerry said.
                  Jerry checked