Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6
What Others are Saying about Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6
"The Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6 takes what was started in the first book and cranks everything up a notch. This is quite possibly one of the best adventures you will ever read,"
Tony Healey, author of The Stars My Redemption
"If the first book was the literary equivalent of Firefly, Star Trek and Tombstone, this book stands as the author's Empire Strikes Back!"
Cheryl G., Early Reader Review
Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6
Bernard Schaffer
Published by Apiary Society Publications
Copyright 2012 Bernard Schaffer
Edited by Laurie Laliberte, courtesy of the
Kindle All-Stars
Get Your Guns Ready!
Read the entire Guns of Seneca 6 Series on Kindle:
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. No reference to any real person, living or dead, should be inferred.
Chapter 3:
The Original People of Seneca
Chapter 4:
Thasuka Witko’s Vision
Chapter 9:
Treat 'Em Like a Million Bucks
Chapter 10:
And Have a Plan to Kill 'Em
Chapter 11:
The Passing of Betsy Clayton
Chapter 14:
For Someone Else's Better Tomorrow
Chapter 15: The Man That You Fear
Chapter 16: Is Your Back Against the Wall, or Just Across the Line?
Chapter 22: I'll Be Home Come Hell or High Water, and I Know I Will See You Soon
Epilogue:
Bart Masters' Decision
Interview with Bernard Schaffer
The wagon approached.
It came over the ridge shimmering in the heat, the driver unaware he was being watched.
Bob Ford looked at the man standing next to him and tried not to smile.
“Just like you said it would, Jim.”
“It’s not magic, Bob.
Any fool can read a transport manifest.”
“Yeah, I reckon that’s true, but you knew just before it was coming.
Like you got a gift."
Bob’s eyes glazed over as he spoke.
He looked like a young poet about to break into sloppy verse.
Gentleman Jim hiked his black scarf up over his nose and said, “I told you not to believe any of that nonsense you read about me in the papers, Bob.
I’m just a thief.”
Bob adjusted his mask, trying to see through it.
Just a potato sack with mismatched eyeholes, he had to keep his head tilted to the left to see through it.
The wagon was nearly on top of them when Gentleman Jim unsnapped his Colt Defeater and said, “Come on!”
They rode hard toward the road, working their mounts until they caught the wagon, having to shield their eyes from the billows of dust and dirt kicking up from its wheels.
The two bandits, Bob thought.
He had a newspaper article tucked in his shirt pocket that read Gentleman Jim Strikes Again!
Bob knew every word of the article's fourth paragraph.
The first paragraph recounted the incident of a stagecoach, struck mid-day by the aforementioned Highwayman.
The second, victim’s accounts of the infamous outlaw, including the woman (there was always a woman) who said, “He looked mean and cruel at the other men, so that I swore he was about to send them to their maker, but when he turned to me he held out his hand and whispered, ‘You tuck away those pearls, ma’am.
If I don’t take ‘em, people will begin to suspect I’m going soft.’”
The third paragraph recounted all the other descriptions of the bandit.
Eyes blue enough to ladle water from.
A young man.
An angry young man.
A polite, handsome, young man with six-guns that blazed like hellfire.
And then, the fourth paragraph.
Its words were burned into Bob Ford’s mind like someone etched them there with a laser.
It was the one that reported Gentleman Jim was accompanied by a bold, mysterious assistant.
Mysterious, Bob thought.
Bold.
He adjusted his sack-mask and snapped his reins, charging forward around the side of the wagon to get the drop on the driver.
“What are you doing?” the bandit shouted.
“Come on!” Bob shouted, whipping his destrier’s neck until it screamed and pulled ahead of the wagon’s rear wheels.
The driver turned at the animal’s noise and jumped in his seat.
He stuck his hand between his legs and came up with a shotgun.
He spun with the weapon until the barrel was aimed directly down at the top of Bob’s head.
Gentleman Jim kicked his animal in the ribs and darted around the other side, trying to get a clear view of the driver.
The wagon veered sharply to the left as the driver fired, sending a storm of buckshot flying past Bob’s ear.
Gentleman Jim yanked his Colt Defeater free and leaned into the saddle, pushing his animal as hard as he could until the driver’s back came into view.
“Put it down!
You’re caught!”
The driver spun in his seat with the gun in front of him, bearing down on him with its wide barrel.
The bandit fired once and the driver’s head snapped backwards.
He slumped to the floor and the destriers pulling the wagon panicked and crashed into one another, sending the carriage up on two wheels until its roof was nearly on top of his head.
Gentleman Jim grabbed the forward carry’s lift bar and jumped into the front seat, throwing himself to the other side until it was back on four wheels.
He took up the reins from the driver’s twitching hand and stomped on the brake pedal, pressing it to the floorboards until the animals finally stopped.
Bob Ford rode around the side of the wagon, face white as marble under his lopsided potato sack that was now scored with black gunpowder.
His mouth twitched stupidly inside the mask, moving constantly but nothing came out until he gasped, “That son of a bitch almost shot me.”
Gentleman Jim snatched the riding whip off of the seat and grabbed Bob by the collar, holding him fast, and whipped Bob viciously across the top of the head until he split the sack’s fabric in a mess of tangled, bloody hair.
Bob squealed like a pig but the whipping continued until blood leaked out of his shoulder blades and neck.
Bob screamed for mercy and covered
his head with his hands and squealed for Jim to stop.
The bandit snapped the whip in two and tossed the pieces on the ground, needing to bend forward to catch his breath.
He looked at Bob in disgust and said, “You ever…disobey me again…and I’ll gut you like a fish, you dumb son of a bitch.”
