Authentic Tales of the West: Part 7

Hoss

Arnold Ashford’s Journal Entry #7

For all of its beauty, all of its possibility; both as endless as the plains that stretch away from the sunset, Life Out West can be cruel. All the planning, all of the maneuvering, all of the Resources that these folk had invested so much work in…it was all gone. Eaten up by this Drought. We each felt ready to make our own Zarephathian bargain.

It was then that things took a turn for the worse. Some familiar faces, some new, but what looked like much of the old Fields Gang came riding into town, with that same man who had spit at George Wesley’s feet at their head. They looked almost as bedraggled as the folk of Dodge City, and with a wildness in their eye, to boot.

Alice (I don’t know how she managed, but she still looked as golden and beautiful as ever) immediately burst out of the Jail and hollered across the way. “Hoss!” she cried out. The man stopped and threw her a look that would freeze most men in the place; even the brave Alice Sweetwater took a step back from his venom. “Don’t you come out at me Lady! I have kept these men away from here for some time now, and I’ve watched my horses eat nothing but dust. I’m come for George Wesley’s charger, and that alone, and I am not going away without her.”

Hoss earned a reputation by stealing

his Pappy’s horse at the age of 12.

Illustration by Steven Lambert

At that moment, George came running out of his empty store and without a word Jack Hoss Holloway turned and fired one shot, straight into poor George’s forehead. And with that single loud blast, this hell we had been livin’ in, busted loose.

— Check back next Monday for a new entry in Ashford’s journal —