Devil's Eight Parted Canyon: Battle of The Golden Chips

Chapter Three: Unexpected Detour

It hasn't been long of a travel since Ranger and Billy met up. To ranger Billy was becoming exceedingly annoying, his constant talking and continuing on. Not to mention it seemed like Billy had no idea how to survive on his own well to ranger at least. From the outside it seemed like two people leaching off of each other. As Billy was holding his own. And on Billy's end it seemed like Ranger should not have made it this far. Ranger has no sense of direction hell he can't even read which isn't to rare, but just seemed like the only thing Ranger did good enough was fighting and making camps.

Speaking of camps that's where the duo is right now. One one small fire, two tents loosely put together one of them was the other one was put together well. Their horses barely inside the view of the fire, tied to a mast. And the campsite itself was at the edge of one of the cracks that lead down to the bottom of the canyon. As Billy is walking around the camp slicking his blonde hair back as he's walking and he says

"All right so I get that I shouldn't be saying anything about this to you, because honestly you don't really seem to care. But I need a hat. How can I be a true cowboy without a hat? After a bullet got put in mine, I need a new one."

Ranger who pulled his bandana down then took a moment to drink from his flask before looking at Billy. But about 300 yd away someone is laying on a stone holding a rifle. This mysterious man was under what seems to be a tarp that has similar coloring to the rocks and ground. But as he looks through his rifle it aims right at rangers head. But before he takes the shot he sees Billy. His voice quiet as he whispers to himself.

"Well well well, you got yourself a tag along, plans change the old fellow won't be too mad about that. I guess that mining gear will be used after all."

Before he turns. As he whistles over towards his horse, before pointing over towards the duo. As the horse starts running towards them. It doesn't take long for Ranger and Billy to realize there's a horse sprinting their way. Billy proceeds to yell out.

Is that a horse, what it doing out here?

As the horses running towards them a shot rang out. On that horse was a bunch of mining gear including Dynamite. As the bullet hits the dynamite Ranger quickly turns moments before the explosion to see where the bullet came, from only to see The flash of another bullet. As the explosion rang out, the bullet hit Ranger directly in the chest. An both Ranger and Billy where sent plummeting down the canyon.

This mysterious figure then takes off the tarp. He's wearing a pretty simple mining outfit, brown overalls. Loose-fitting gloves. A black stain shirt. As he walks over he goes to calm down the horses, as horse the horses were spooked because of the explosion. He then tries hopping on the back of Billy's horse but even after untying it. It doesn't budge even after he hits it, it doesn't move. Frustrated he gets off walking over to ranger's horse, and he successfully rides away with ranger's horse, tossing his mining helmet to the side as he rides.

As for Billy and Ranger, they were so far down the light was not reaching it was dark not too dark. Billy Shakes his head he stumbles upwards and looks around. Shaking his head he then sees what seems to be rangers hat. As he rushes over rubble is covering rangers leg. And Billy exclaims.

"Oh my, Ranger you can't die here! Shot in the chest now this!"

As Billy puts all of his efforts. He picks up Rock by Rock each of them probably around 50 to 75 lb. Billy is tired but he manages to push Ranger over and check to see how bad this bullet shot was as he does he rangers poncho. Before exposing his button up shirt but there's no blood it didn't even go deeper than this trench coat. As he moves back to look at the trench coat feeling around for blood he feels the bullet it hit the diamond poker chip the bullet is practically shattered it's almost flattened. That was a high powered rifle made the shoot high caliber bullets, modified for a lower caliper bullet. Billy realized that, and recognized whoever tried to kill them this isn't the first time they've done this. But Billy then feels around and finds a cave as he drags Ranger over towards the cave.

Billy thinks back who could possibly have the knowledge and expertise to modify a high caliber rifle for lower caliber bullets and use it for assassination attempts. That's when he realizes. The person who was after them was John Doe. A mysterious man given an alias of someone without an identity. He was one hell of a marksman, and gun nut, but no one knew who we really was. Which is going to make their situation a lot more difficult. Maybe maybe John assumes they're already dead. Billy has no idea what to go off of, so he just waits for Ranger to wake back up.

But while Ranger is asleep, Billy who is picking apart his own tent, well what was left of it after the fall hears some rattling. As he quickly starts wrapping his tent around one of the sticks that were used to brace it. He then reaches into his pocket and pulls out an old lighter, even for this time. As he sees a snake from the flame the lighters emitting, and it is slithering towards Ranger.

Billy quickly lights his makeshift towards on fire. Before a tumbleweed falls on his head and he bashes it away. Then he runs towards the snake and swings the torch downwards onto its head. As the Snake reels back it goes to bite him but he narrowly dodges. And he ended up dropping the torch onto ranger's hand. But he doesn't have time to think about that for the snake goes to attack him again he reaches down picking up a rock and he swings it at the snake. Before he swings again, and again, and again. Risking his life for a person he barely knew.

But before he can relax he reaches down and picks the torch up off of ranger's hand quickly removing ranger's burning glove and stepping it out before he noticed something. Is that a metal plate on ranger's hand. Billy leans down and investigates and realizes it is there's a metal plate on ranger's hand it seems to be both sides too. But despite how verbal Billy is he just sits down, and waits for Ranger to wake up.

It doesn't take long maybe a few hours but Ranger slowly wakes back up. As he leans up, he looks around and there he sees. Billy has fashioned the makings of his tent into a torch and is currently using that to give them light. As Billy sees Ranger is awake he exclaims.

"Sleep well, because I had to fucking hit a snake with a stick! Anyway we need to get out of here caves really aren't my style. And if you shoot your gun you'd probably cause a cave in. So how are we getting out of here? This would really be a good time for you to talk."

As Billy asked that question. Ranger took a moment to think before realizing. As he quickly grabbed Billy and took both of them out of the cave. Before rangers turned around outside the cave. Billy was confused, but then he saw what caused the explosion sound that day. Ranger pushed a button on his holster as an explosion sound rang out, and rangers revolver was sent flying out of his holster right into his hand. Billy recognized they were really heavy probably hard to draw quickly, so using explosion to knock them out of the revolver was a interesting way of doing it. But there's no time for that. Ranger then pointed his revolver down the cave, and he shot a bullet towards the roof of the cave.

Outside the cave they both looked up and started to see rocks start shaking and falling. Both of them moving to dodge rocks, as the cave itself started collapsing in on itself. It had no structural soundness, and rangers bullet disrupted any soundness it had in general. Is the cave came crumbling down it started to affect the top of the canyon, soon making a clear path up. Which Ranger started climbing up Billy a bit shocked but he didn't hesitate to follow after. Both of them slowly making their way out of one of the crevices of the canyon to where they had their camp. Billy's horse still there rangers not. As Billy then said.

"I think they took your horse. All right how about we just try and make our way to the closest town and buy a horse there. This is so frustrating."

Ranger nodded before climbing on to Billy's horse first. He was on the back end of it as he wanted to make sure of what supplies they still had. Billy got on to the horse and rode off to the nearest town which wasn't too far away. When they got there it was pretty barren. It didn't seem like any people were outside or interacting even more so almost like a ghost town. As Billy then commented.

"You know I expected the town of Itowa. To have more action."

Billy said before getting off his horse Ranger also getting off the horse. Not a single person was outside. When they realize this they went and started knocking on doors, but they got no answer. They then came towards the church as Billy open the door his eyes widened. Ranger slowly walked up before looking in to see the churches insides were picked clean. There wasn't even wooden floorboards but there was something. A flaming horse head. This fire with how it's going it can't even be a day old.