Francie_Pants
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This one is a set to a western theme, as I alluded to, at the end of my last thread, the conclusion of "....and why?" Just think 1870's New Mexico or Texas.
Farrow's Ranch
I rode up to the Farrow ranch, looking for Richard. No one had seen him for a few weeks, and it wasn’t like him to not come to town, at least once a week. He usually came more often than that.
I stopped my horse about 50 yards shy of the house, though, because I could see that there were other horses there. I walked my horse over to the edge of the woods, to get my profile off of the horizon, and watched for a few minutes. After watching for a while, and seeing that nothing seemed to be stirring, I dismounted the horse and tied the reins to a tree branch.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I whispered to my horse.
I was angry at myself, for not bringing any moccasins, but at least I hadn’t come out here in a dress, riding side-saddled. I was dressed just like any other cowpoke or drifter you might see, wearing worn out brown riding pants, blue shirt and a leather vest, a hat, and my old brown boots, of course. I’d been in a hurry to get out of town, so I hadn’t bothered to put on any socks. I’m wishing now that I had, because I could certainly tell they weren’t on. I carried a pistol, but I wasn’t much good with it, and usually had no need for it. There was always a man around to take up for me, if the need arose.
That wasn’t likely to be the case, this time, so I drew it, and worked my way around in the shadows. It was mid-afternoon, so shadows were around, but I had to be careful not to be spotted. I had a hunch that they were in there with Richard, and that Richard probably wasn’t too comfortable.
After a few minutes of swiftly moving from tree to brush, behind another tree, behind the barn, and around to the side of the house, I made my way to the back window, for the main room of the house. I stayed low, listening to see what I could hear.
There was a lot of chatter going on, but I didn’t recognize any of the voices to be that of Richard. I should know Richard’s voice, he courted me a time or two. We never really hit it off, though. He was always a bit timid, and couldn’t seem to spit out what he wanted to say. I’m not as patient, and let him know that I wasn’t of a mind to spend the rest of my life waiting for him to stop stuttering about.
Tired of waiting around to hear Richard’s voice, so that I could get an idea where in the room he was, I dared to peek through the window. A quick flash of my eyes around the room, and I was no better off than before. I didn’t even see Richard. I began to wonder if he was even there. I was also wondering who these men were, and why there were in his house. I didn’t have to wonder, too long.
Off to my right, I heard the click of a hammer being pulled back. My heart sank, as I heard the voice speak, ‘Ok, snoop. Just unbuckle your gun belt and let it fall, nice and slowly.”
Now, I’m sure everyone has heard of the fast draws. Well, I was definitely not one of them. I’d have probably shot myself three times, before getting the gun out, if I tried. I went with the safer option, and unbuckled the belt, letting it fall to the ground.
As the man stooped in to pick up the gun, he noticed that I wasn’t quite what he was expecting.
“Well, I’ll be,” his voice was annoyingly raspy, like he’d just swallowed a pine cone, and still needed to burp the splinters out, “They didn’t say anything about Richard having him a woman out here.”
He seized me by the arm, and pulled me towards the side of the house.
“You just come on inside, and maybe you can let us in on the big secret about where Richard’s run off to…..and a few other secrets.”
I didn’t like the way his eyes were on me, and I said as much.
“If you keep looking at me like that, I’m gonna slap your eyes right out of your head.”
He laughed, and he had the right to, I guess. He had the gun. I didn’t.
He opened the door of the house and pushed me inside, where there stood four other men. All were faces I had seen in my momentary scan, but there was no sign of Richard. I had already surmised that he wasn’t there, though, due to the hints given by the leering gunman I had recently been acquainted with. He spoke again, pushing me through the door.
“Lookey what I found, out playing in the yard.” I was probably a bit red in the face, already. It was pretty humbling to have been caught so easily, even if I am woman. My red hair left me prone to the reddening as well.
“Bring her in here, and set her down. Tie her to that chair.” If there could have been a man there uglier than the one who found me, it was the one who barked that order. He had one eye that was watching me; the other seemed to be focused on something going on in the backyard. I spoke in my defense.
“Just let me go. I was looking for Richard, he’s obviously not here.”
“What should we do with her, Grimes?” It was another one of the men, speaking to the ugly man, who was apparently the boss. So his name was Grimes, I assumed.
“Well, I think she knows where he’s at. He probably sent her over here to spy on us, and get the layout, so when he came in here with his guns blazing, he’d know where to shoot.” Grimes’ idea was kinda ridiculous, and another man, who seemed to have some sense, chimed my sentiment, without me having to speak.
“A woman? That ain’t Farrow’s style, Grimes. You know damned well he wouldn’t send no woman over here.”
Grimes shot him a dirty look, and answered.
“Hold your tongue, Landry. If he’d shoot my brother, he’d send a woman to shovel manure. My brother was the salt of the earth.”
I could see some people holding back snickers at that remark, and my guess was that Grimes had a much higher opinion of his dead brother than anyone else in the room.
Meanwhile, ugly number one had sat me down in the chair and tied my wrists behind my back, and tied my shoulders to the back of the chair.
“That’s good, Fincher,” Grimes called over to him.
Grimes walked up to me and leaned down to look into my face. He stunk, and I mean stunk. I’ve smelled fresh excrement in the pasture that he could have used for cologne, and smelt better. Then he spoke, and I longed for his body odor again. His breath smelled like he’d eaten the excrement, purged it, and eaten it again.
“I think you know where Richard is at, and you’re gonna tell me.”
I flinched, trying not to lose my lunch from the odor he gave off, and answered.
“I haven’t the slightest idea where he is. Like I said, I came out here looking for him myself. He hasn’t been into town in a few weeks, and we were getting worried.”
He turned, in a fit or rage and pointed his finger at me.
“Liar!” He shook his finger, getting closer to me. “You tell me where he is or I’ll…”
He was interrupted. Landry had risen to his feet, and had his hand on his gun.
“Or you’ll what? You ain’t gonna beat a woman in front of me, Grimes.”
Grimes froze in his tracks, as if the wind had been knocked out of him. I could see the fear of Landry in his eyes. I didn’t see any fear when I looked at Landry, and I knew right away who was the bark and who was the bite of this bunch.
After a moment, Grimes’ face softened and he replied.
“No, I’ve got an even better idea.”
Landry calmed a little, but he didn’t sit down.
“What kind of idea?”
Grimes looked over to the fourth man, who had just kinda been sitting and watching the whole time, and spoke.
“Billy, pull up a chair. Your skill will work good, about now.”
Billy seemed to know exactly what Grimes was talking about, and pulled a chair up in front of me, turned sideways, and pulled my feet up into his lap. I looked at him, and then to Grimes, and then to Landry. I didn’t need to look at Fincher, and didn’t really need to. Grimes was ugly enough for all of them put together and Fincher didn’t miss the mark by much.
“What? What are you going to do? Come on, just let me go, I don’t know where Richard is, ok, you have to believe me.”
Billy grabbed my left knee and held it still, while he started to pull the boot off. I started wrenching my wrists behind me, trying to pull them out of the rope, or to break the rope, or anything. My shoulders were tied tight, so my movements were limited further. I could only watch, helplessly, as he tugged off first my left and then my right boot.
They seemed to get a kick out of the fact that I wasn’t wearing any socks.
“She’s probably glad to get those off, if’n she weren’t wearing any socks, “ Fincher chimed in.
Under normal circumstances, I would have been, but right now, I couldn’t help but think it wasn’t such a safe situation to find myself in. This Billy character seemed to have a few cards missing from his deck, and was already starting to drool at the sight of my feet. I tried to change the subject.
“Ya’ll should get him to a doctor. He doesn’t look so swift.”
I was hoping that maybe Billy wasn’t always like that.
“Oh, Billy’s always like that,” Grimes chuckled, as he spoke.
I groaned. Grimes spoke again, while Landry watched with a puzzled expression on his face. Fincher, meanwhile was using some more rope to tie my ankles together. My pants were a bit long, so he had to tie the rope around them, which kept them from chafing my skin so bad. There, before me, were my clean white feet, having just been washed that morning, before I took a mind to ride out, tied and helpless in the lap of a drooling man with a clear inclination towards the liking of feet. His eyes hadn’t left my feet, since he took the boots off. To say that I was nervous would have been an understatement.
“Now, first of all, what’s your name, miss?” Grimes began his interrogation, while Billy stared, mesmerized by my bare feet.
“F-F-Francie,” I stuttered.
“F-F-Francie who?” Grimes mocked me.
“Francie Ballard, “ I said, hoping he couldn’t see how green I was turning, just from his smell.
“Ok, Francie Ballard,” he continued. “Now, you tell me just where I can find Richard Farrow, and I might just be nice and not let Billy here have his way with you.”
I looked at Billy, and almost laughed. The only thing I could picture someone as goofy as him with could be found out in a pasture, wearing a while wool coat. I kept a straight face though, answered in total honesty.
“I’ve told you, already. I don’t know. I came here looking for him, myself.” As I was speaking he was nodding at Billy.
I was looking from Grimes’ face to Billy’s face, back and forth, and didn’t even see when Billy reached his hand up and started wiggling his fingers against the ball of my right foot. You’d have thought I had been shot, the way I yelped, and lunged against that chair. It didn’t seem to bother Billy though. He had a death grip on my ankles, with his arm, and was giving my right foot a thorough grazing with his wiggling fingers.
I shook my head wildly, biting my lip, and getting red in the face again. I was too ticklish for my own good, and if I knew where Richard was, this was surely the best way to get it out of me. I didn’t know where he was, though, and I tried again to relay that message though.
“I really don’t knohohohohohow!”
By the end of the sentence, I was giving into the laughter. It just tickled too much. There was no way I could keep from laughing, and nothing I could do to make the tickling stop. Billy had tickled before, and that had been implied earlier when Grimes mentioned it as his ‘skill’. I looked over to Landry, hoping that maybe he would find this foolish and make it stop. He seemed to be getting a kick out of it, though. He even said as much.
“Well, even if we don’t get anything out of her, it’ll be a hell of a good time to make her laugh. We’ve got all afternoon for that, anyway.”
My eyes widened. Surely he was kidding. Surely they wouldn’t just tickle me all afternoon, after it was obvious that I couldn’t answer their questions.
“Nooooohohohohohohohohoho!” By this time, I was starting to get hysterical. Tears were filling my eyes and blurring my vision, as I shook my head from side to side, trying to shake the tears out and vent the madness flowing through my veins into something a little less ticklish.
Billy was relentless. He had found this particular spot right there in the center of my arch that just drives me wild, and he was focusing on it with all of his efforts. He did it to my right foot for a few minutes and then my left. Then when I thought he might be giving me a rest, he went back to the right foot and started it up again.
The room was filled with the sounds of my insanity, as Billy’s tickling attack went on without cease. Minutes passed, as his fingers manipulated the ticklish nerves of my helpless feet, while his other hand held them still. Then, it was as if somebody had poked Landry with a cattle prod. He came over and grabbed my right foot, leaving Billy to focus on my left, while he tickled my right foot.
With both men now holding my tied feet still, and tickling my sensitive soles with their work roughened fingers, I was at my wits end. I didn’t know how much more I could take. I thought that surely I would die there, laughing myself to a heart attack or something, while these two playful perverts tickled my feet all afternoon.
I was just about to pass out, when the door burst open, and a gunshot shattered the window next to the door. Richard walked in with both guns drawn, and had two shots off, before what was left of them could even think. The gunshot through the glass had been intended to stun Grimes, and did well, catching him in the right shoulder and slamming him into the wall, behind him. Billy had jumped up, and drawn his pistol. Richard shot him at point blank range, so there was no missing. The third shot was the sound of Landry’s gun, putting a bullet into wall, next to Fincher, an intentional miss, and enough to make Fincher drop his gun.
I was still recovering from my hysteria, as the smoke cleared and I saw Landry and Richard shaking hands, while another friend of Richard’s came over and started untying me.
I looked from Richard to Landry, and they looked at each other and grinned. Richard looked back at me, and spoke.
“Francie, this is my brother Landry. He’s been riding with this group a while, ever since he heard they were after me. He took on with them, and figured to help me be get them locked away for good.”
I was beside myself. I didn’t know whether to be happy, or slap them both. I gave Landry a good hard hit on the arm, though, and said.
“That’s for the tickling!”
Richard’s eyes lit up.
“Tickling?”
I grabbed my boots and brushed past them.
“I’m not talking about it.”
I heard Landry starting to exchange the story, as I walked out the door, and pulled on my boots, and made my way back to my horse. There were a few other friends and people I recognized from town, outside, so this had obviously been a set up; one that I apparently stumbled into. It all worked out, but I found out later, that it wasn’t supposed to go down quite like that. Landry was supposed to get them to come into town, where Richard would be waiting with the posse. When Richard found out I had gone out to look for him, he knew he had to change the plans.
I’m still not talking to Landry, though!
Farrow's Ranch
I rode up to the Farrow ranch, looking for Richard. No one had seen him for a few weeks, and it wasn’t like him to not come to town, at least once a week. He usually came more often than that.
I stopped my horse about 50 yards shy of the house, though, because I could see that there were other horses there. I walked my horse over to the edge of the woods, to get my profile off of the horizon, and watched for a few minutes. After watching for a while, and seeing that nothing seemed to be stirring, I dismounted the horse and tied the reins to a tree branch.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I whispered to my horse.
I was angry at myself, for not bringing any moccasins, but at least I hadn’t come out here in a dress, riding side-saddled. I was dressed just like any other cowpoke or drifter you might see, wearing worn out brown riding pants, blue shirt and a leather vest, a hat, and my old brown boots, of course. I’d been in a hurry to get out of town, so I hadn’t bothered to put on any socks. I’m wishing now that I had, because I could certainly tell they weren’t on. I carried a pistol, but I wasn’t much good with it, and usually had no need for it. There was always a man around to take up for me, if the need arose.
That wasn’t likely to be the case, this time, so I drew it, and worked my way around in the shadows. It was mid-afternoon, so shadows were around, but I had to be careful not to be spotted. I had a hunch that they were in there with Richard, and that Richard probably wasn’t too comfortable.
After a few minutes of swiftly moving from tree to brush, behind another tree, behind the barn, and around to the side of the house, I made my way to the back window, for the main room of the house. I stayed low, listening to see what I could hear.
There was a lot of chatter going on, but I didn’t recognize any of the voices to be that of Richard. I should know Richard’s voice, he courted me a time or two. We never really hit it off, though. He was always a bit timid, and couldn’t seem to spit out what he wanted to say. I’m not as patient, and let him know that I wasn’t of a mind to spend the rest of my life waiting for him to stop stuttering about.
Tired of waiting around to hear Richard’s voice, so that I could get an idea where in the room he was, I dared to peek through the window. A quick flash of my eyes around the room, and I was no better off than before. I didn’t even see Richard. I began to wonder if he was even there. I was also wondering who these men were, and why there were in his house. I didn’t have to wonder, too long.
Off to my right, I heard the click of a hammer being pulled back. My heart sank, as I heard the voice speak, ‘Ok, snoop. Just unbuckle your gun belt and let it fall, nice and slowly.”
Now, I’m sure everyone has heard of the fast draws. Well, I was definitely not one of them. I’d have probably shot myself three times, before getting the gun out, if I tried. I went with the safer option, and unbuckled the belt, letting it fall to the ground.
As the man stooped in to pick up the gun, he noticed that I wasn’t quite what he was expecting.
“Well, I’ll be,” his voice was annoyingly raspy, like he’d just swallowed a pine cone, and still needed to burp the splinters out, “They didn’t say anything about Richard having him a woman out here.”
He seized me by the arm, and pulled me towards the side of the house.
“You just come on inside, and maybe you can let us in on the big secret about where Richard’s run off to…..and a few other secrets.”
I didn’t like the way his eyes were on me, and I said as much.
“If you keep looking at me like that, I’m gonna slap your eyes right out of your head.”
He laughed, and he had the right to, I guess. He had the gun. I didn’t.
He opened the door of the house and pushed me inside, where there stood four other men. All were faces I had seen in my momentary scan, but there was no sign of Richard. I had already surmised that he wasn’t there, though, due to the hints given by the leering gunman I had recently been acquainted with. He spoke again, pushing me through the door.
“Lookey what I found, out playing in the yard.” I was probably a bit red in the face, already. It was pretty humbling to have been caught so easily, even if I am woman. My red hair left me prone to the reddening as well.
“Bring her in here, and set her down. Tie her to that chair.” If there could have been a man there uglier than the one who found me, it was the one who barked that order. He had one eye that was watching me; the other seemed to be focused on something going on in the backyard. I spoke in my defense.
“Just let me go. I was looking for Richard, he’s obviously not here.”
“What should we do with her, Grimes?” It was another one of the men, speaking to the ugly man, who was apparently the boss. So his name was Grimes, I assumed.
“Well, I think she knows where he’s at. He probably sent her over here to spy on us, and get the layout, so when he came in here with his guns blazing, he’d know where to shoot.” Grimes’ idea was kinda ridiculous, and another man, who seemed to have some sense, chimed my sentiment, without me having to speak.
“A woman? That ain’t Farrow’s style, Grimes. You know damned well he wouldn’t send no woman over here.”
Grimes shot him a dirty look, and answered.
“Hold your tongue, Landry. If he’d shoot my brother, he’d send a woman to shovel manure. My brother was the salt of the earth.”
I could see some people holding back snickers at that remark, and my guess was that Grimes had a much higher opinion of his dead brother than anyone else in the room.
Meanwhile, ugly number one had sat me down in the chair and tied my wrists behind my back, and tied my shoulders to the back of the chair.
“That’s good, Fincher,” Grimes called over to him.
Grimes walked up to me and leaned down to look into my face. He stunk, and I mean stunk. I’ve smelled fresh excrement in the pasture that he could have used for cologne, and smelt better. Then he spoke, and I longed for his body odor again. His breath smelled like he’d eaten the excrement, purged it, and eaten it again.
“I think you know where Richard is at, and you’re gonna tell me.”
I flinched, trying not to lose my lunch from the odor he gave off, and answered.
“I haven’t the slightest idea where he is. Like I said, I came out here looking for him myself. He hasn’t been into town in a few weeks, and we were getting worried.”
He turned, in a fit or rage and pointed his finger at me.
“Liar!” He shook his finger, getting closer to me. “You tell me where he is or I’ll…”
He was interrupted. Landry had risen to his feet, and had his hand on his gun.
“Or you’ll what? You ain’t gonna beat a woman in front of me, Grimes.”
Grimes froze in his tracks, as if the wind had been knocked out of him. I could see the fear of Landry in his eyes. I didn’t see any fear when I looked at Landry, and I knew right away who was the bark and who was the bite of this bunch.
After a moment, Grimes’ face softened and he replied.
“No, I’ve got an even better idea.”
Landry calmed a little, but he didn’t sit down.
“What kind of idea?”
Grimes looked over to the fourth man, who had just kinda been sitting and watching the whole time, and spoke.
“Billy, pull up a chair. Your skill will work good, about now.”
Billy seemed to know exactly what Grimes was talking about, and pulled a chair up in front of me, turned sideways, and pulled my feet up into his lap. I looked at him, and then to Grimes, and then to Landry. I didn’t need to look at Fincher, and didn’t really need to. Grimes was ugly enough for all of them put together and Fincher didn’t miss the mark by much.
“What? What are you going to do? Come on, just let me go, I don’t know where Richard is, ok, you have to believe me.”
Billy grabbed my left knee and held it still, while he started to pull the boot off. I started wrenching my wrists behind me, trying to pull them out of the rope, or to break the rope, or anything. My shoulders were tied tight, so my movements were limited further. I could only watch, helplessly, as he tugged off first my left and then my right boot.
They seemed to get a kick out of the fact that I wasn’t wearing any socks.
“She’s probably glad to get those off, if’n she weren’t wearing any socks, “ Fincher chimed in.
Under normal circumstances, I would have been, but right now, I couldn’t help but think it wasn’t such a safe situation to find myself in. This Billy character seemed to have a few cards missing from his deck, and was already starting to drool at the sight of my feet. I tried to change the subject.
“Ya’ll should get him to a doctor. He doesn’t look so swift.”
I was hoping that maybe Billy wasn’t always like that.
“Oh, Billy’s always like that,” Grimes chuckled, as he spoke.
I groaned. Grimes spoke again, while Landry watched with a puzzled expression on his face. Fincher, meanwhile was using some more rope to tie my ankles together. My pants were a bit long, so he had to tie the rope around them, which kept them from chafing my skin so bad. There, before me, were my clean white feet, having just been washed that morning, before I took a mind to ride out, tied and helpless in the lap of a drooling man with a clear inclination towards the liking of feet. His eyes hadn’t left my feet, since he took the boots off. To say that I was nervous would have been an understatement.
“Now, first of all, what’s your name, miss?” Grimes began his interrogation, while Billy stared, mesmerized by my bare feet.
“F-F-Francie,” I stuttered.
“F-F-Francie who?” Grimes mocked me.
“Francie Ballard, “ I said, hoping he couldn’t see how green I was turning, just from his smell.
“Ok, Francie Ballard,” he continued. “Now, you tell me just where I can find Richard Farrow, and I might just be nice and not let Billy here have his way with you.”
I looked at Billy, and almost laughed. The only thing I could picture someone as goofy as him with could be found out in a pasture, wearing a while wool coat. I kept a straight face though, answered in total honesty.
“I’ve told you, already. I don’t know. I came here looking for him, myself.” As I was speaking he was nodding at Billy.
I was looking from Grimes’ face to Billy’s face, back and forth, and didn’t even see when Billy reached his hand up and started wiggling his fingers against the ball of my right foot. You’d have thought I had been shot, the way I yelped, and lunged against that chair. It didn’t seem to bother Billy though. He had a death grip on my ankles, with his arm, and was giving my right foot a thorough grazing with his wiggling fingers.
I shook my head wildly, biting my lip, and getting red in the face again. I was too ticklish for my own good, and if I knew where Richard was, this was surely the best way to get it out of me. I didn’t know where he was, though, and I tried again to relay that message though.
“I really don’t knohohohohohow!”
By the end of the sentence, I was giving into the laughter. It just tickled too much. There was no way I could keep from laughing, and nothing I could do to make the tickling stop. Billy had tickled before, and that had been implied earlier when Grimes mentioned it as his ‘skill’. I looked over to Landry, hoping that maybe he would find this foolish and make it stop. He seemed to be getting a kick out of it, though. He even said as much.
“Well, even if we don’t get anything out of her, it’ll be a hell of a good time to make her laugh. We’ve got all afternoon for that, anyway.”
My eyes widened. Surely he was kidding. Surely they wouldn’t just tickle me all afternoon, after it was obvious that I couldn’t answer their questions.
“Nooooohohohohohohohohoho!” By this time, I was starting to get hysterical. Tears were filling my eyes and blurring my vision, as I shook my head from side to side, trying to shake the tears out and vent the madness flowing through my veins into something a little less ticklish.
Billy was relentless. He had found this particular spot right there in the center of my arch that just drives me wild, and he was focusing on it with all of his efforts. He did it to my right foot for a few minutes and then my left. Then when I thought he might be giving me a rest, he went back to the right foot and started it up again.
The room was filled with the sounds of my insanity, as Billy’s tickling attack went on without cease. Minutes passed, as his fingers manipulated the ticklish nerves of my helpless feet, while his other hand held them still. Then, it was as if somebody had poked Landry with a cattle prod. He came over and grabbed my right foot, leaving Billy to focus on my left, while he tickled my right foot.
With both men now holding my tied feet still, and tickling my sensitive soles with their work roughened fingers, I was at my wits end. I didn’t know how much more I could take. I thought that surely I would die there, laughing myself to a heart attack or something, while these two playful perverts tickled my feet all afternoon.
I was just about to pass out, when the door burst open, and a gunshot shattered the window next to the door. Richard walked in with both guns drawn, and had two shots off, before what was left of them could even think. The gunshot through the glass had been intended to stun Grimes, and did well, catching him in the right shoulder and slamming him into the wall, behind him. Billy had jumped up, and drawn his pistol. Richard shot him at point blank range, so there was no missing. The third shot was the sound of Landry’s gun, putting a bullet into wall, next to Fincher, an intentional miss, and enough to make Fincher drop his gun.
I was still recovering from my hysteria, as the smoke cleared and I saw Landry and Richard shaking hands, while another friend of Richard’s came over and started untying me.
I looked from Richard to Landry, and they looked at each other and grinned. Richard looked back at me, and spoke.
“Francie, this is my brother Landry. He’s been riding with this group a while, ever since he heard they were after me. He took on with them, and figured to help me be get them locked away for good.”
I was beside myself. I didn’t know whether to be happy, or slap them both. I gave Landry a good hard hit on the arm, though, and said.
“That’s for the tickling!”
Richard’s eyes lit up.
“Tickling?”
I grabbed my boots and brushed past them.
“I’m not talking about it.”
I heard Landry starting to exchange the story, as I walked out the door, and pulled on my boots, and made my way back to my horse. There were a few other friends and people I recognized from town, outside, so this had obviously been a set up; one that I apparently stumbled into. It all worked out, but I found out later, that it wasn’t supposed to go down quite like that. Landry was supposed to get them to come into town, where Richard would be waiting with the posse. When Richard found out I had gone out to look for him, he knew he had to change the plans.
I’m still not talking to Landry, though!
