Читать книгу Big Gun On the Tetons - Amanda Couverme - Страница 5

Meanwhile, fate was twisting and turning, weaving the mortal coil that led John Hoff down from the hills and on his way to Soggy Bottom. His mother, if he could remember her, called him John. Everybody else, if he could remember them, called him Jack, Panhandle Jack. He was a grizzled loner. Well almost grizzled. His broad chest was smooth due to a bad candle accident a few years ago, and the unwaxing had left him bare. To there. No hair. Fortunately it had left his thick raven locks untouched.

But he traveled alone. Except for his horse. And his memories.

His spurs jingled. The sharp cut of his cowboy hat shaded his eyes. His shirt was missing some buttons, but his gun was polished. It was always polished. A man had to know how to take care of his gun.

He guided his horse through the Mission Hole, past Watchit Rise and along the range grass trail that led to Soggy Bottom.

He was on a quest to find the Woman Who Sews as he had always dreamed of a woman with nimble fingers. Plus, he heard she carried a whip, which could be interesting. He went back to polishing his gun... a habit his mother had attempted to break in him, but he didn’t believe the threats of blindness, nor that “it will get stuck that way”. He also had assurance from his older brothers, if he could remember them, that these were not truths.

He finally finished polishing his gun, a long barrel Chubb38 six shooter. He cocked it, eased a finger on the slow trigger and fired off a round to make sure it was working. It was. Firing his gun felt good.

He put on his glasses.

He had to wear them to pack up, do almost anything, for in some ways he was damn near blind. He didn’t know why, but he could still shoot. He rarely let anyone see him in glasses, however. Especially the varmints that inhabited the shitty shanty shacks that surrounded the mining towns.

He put on his black hat. On his thick black hair. His tight leather pants were black. And he was in a black mood.

He had traveled for weeks looking for the Woman Who Sews, so named by the naturist Cannatocknow tribe. Their numbers had been dwindling before she came upon their remote territory.

Jack didn’t mind stealing Elizabeth’s flashback for his own purposes. He hadn’t even met her yet.

The tribes’ wise woman, seeing the seamstress’s vibrant womanhood, had confided that the young members of the tribe were complacent and no babies were being made. She had given Elizabeth her blessing, and with that and several bolts of her best silk she had sewn native nighties and little loincloths out of her magic cloth and given them to all the naked but otherwise lackluster warriors and maidens. Immediately ardor and passion started flowing. Loincloths lifted and nighties fell again and again. The tribe was saved.

Yes, She Who Sews was a name revered by the natives. He would find her. He had left a woman sighin’ in Shiloh. He’d lost the itch in his trigger finger. He needed her magic. She was near, he could tell.

Just thinking of her lifted his mood. He put his glasses in his pocket, adjusted his hat just so, and mounted his horse, his tight leather pants slipping easily into the saddle. He adjusted the horn and the thing that juts up from the saddle and made sure his rope was coiled. His cat and frying pan full of beans were stowed. The wind was whistling thinly in the canyon. He turned his head slightly and the whistling stopped. That was better. He was ready to ride.

“C’mon Ed (a horse of course). Let’s find this woman.”