Did you catch Monday's ad feature for Headstall's story, Bearpaw: An Old West Tale? Have you read it or put it on your to read list yet? Even if you have never read a Western fictional tale before, you should really give it a chance. His writing has a way of making you invested in the characters and their lives, and you won't be sorry (even if it's a bit longer than most, though that's the draw for me usually!). Check out this excerpt, if you haven't read it yet. 

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“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” he asked, matching Lucas’s whisper as he came fully awake.

“I heard a voice ahead… might have been two… and then there be a shout. Think you should get in back under the canvas.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Reckon it’s a gut feeling I have. Could be nothing, but have your gun ready.”

“Sure enough I will, if’n you think it best, but what about you? If trouble be planned, they might already know I’m here.”

“Don’t think so or they wouldn’t have shouted like that. Anyways, can’t take the chance of losing my supplies and wagon, nor my horse either. She pulls the plow and moves logs around with no trouble. I ain’t telling you what to do, but I am asking you to trust me. I think keeping you for a surprise would be best. Can you shoot?”

Jubal moved quick and was soon covered in the canvas on the right side of the wagon. He could see under the seat through a crack between the boards of the box. “I can shoot the eye out of a squirrel dancing in the rain.”

Lucas snorted. “I’d surely like to see that one day,” he whispered back, tension clear in his voice.

A couple of miles later, Jubal was starting to doubt Lucas’s gut feeling, but stayed where he was despite how uncomfortable he be. Another quarter mile he heard a voice, clear enough to know it was within shooting range, telling Lucas to stop the wagon. It was full-on dark, but the moon was more than a three quarter one, and high enough he could see a man on a horse twenty yards ahead. He couldn’t make out his face, it being in shadow, but didn’t need to. He was up to no good for sure and certain, and Jubal had enough of such.

Lucas brought the buckboard to a halt. “I don’t want no trouble, mister.”

“Good. Then I’ll be needing you to step down from that wagon. No reason for you to get yourself hurt.”

“Don’t think I’ll be doing such,” Lucas said, sounding calm. He must have put his hand on his gun grip because the man warned him not to draw it from the holster.

“You need more convincing you should do what I tell you?”

“I reckon I do, because I ain’t in no obliging mood.”

“You dumb farmers never learn, do you?”

“I’d say us farmers learn plenty, and I’m warning you to clear yourself from my path before I got no choice but to shoot you.”

Laughter rang out loud into the evening air. “Boys! This here sodbuster needs some persuading to hand over his rig.”

Jubal listened hard, and soon heard the footfalls of two horses, each coming from different sides of the road. Three men. Could it be? Were these the ones what ambushed him? He could now see all of them, and the man in the middle turned his head just right for the moon to light his face clear enough Jubal could see the squint of his eyes. He wore his hat tilted back just like he had at his campsite. It was the bushwhacker he’d seen leaving as he lay there, no doubt for it, and he had to fight the urge to stand up and start shooting. He hadn’t been fooling about being a good shot.

“Well, I guess you got surprise in your favor. Knew you didn’t have the guts to try me on your own.”

At the word surprise and how he said it, Jubal’s instincts took over. Lucas was signaling him, and he caught movement from the one on the right as he began his draw. The man wasn’t fast enough, though, and didn’t see his death coming as Jubal fired unseen from beneath the wagon’s seat. All hell broke loose when Lucas dove sideways at the same time. He heard a shot from his new friend’s gun before he disappeared from his sight. The man on the left, getting off one of his own, dropped from his horse right after.

The bushwhacker he’d recognized was already firing in Lucas’s direction as Jubal aimed for the center of his chest, hoping none of the bugger’s shots had made contact. He heard a grunt as his bullet found its mark, but could tell the swing of the man’s horse had moved it a couple of inches to his left, likely hitting him in the shoulder. To fire again would mean shooting him in the back, something Jubal couldn’t abide doing to any man, much as it might be deserved.

He watched him gallop into the deep shade provided by the trees alongside the road ahead. It was over in less than half a minute, and two men lay dead near as he could tell. The two riderless horses had bolted as soon as the third horse had taken off, but that weren’t his concern for the moment as the hoofbeats faded.

“You all right, Lucas?” he called out, mighty fearful for the man, and about ready to retch.

 

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