Out Of Time

Hanging Dog Ranch

It took another day before Sadie and Sam got to Big Valley.  They'd camped outside the territory for the night and awoke in the morning, only bothering with coffee.  Sadie had scouted ahead and came back, saying there was a lot of them...and drunk ones.

"But one of them, he's a fat feller with a beard.  Him?  He's mine," Sadie said with a possessive tone.

Sam nodded.  "Well, if I run into him first, I'll be sure to save him for you," Sam said.

They started walking over, Sam holding her rifle on her shoulder.  "It's a big ranch, run down.  Lots of folks there, but spread pretty thin.  I'll set it off and then we'll...we'll take it from there."

"Ha!  Alright, you're the boss."

As they got closer, some of the men spotted them.  "Hey, they're from Dutch's gang!" one of them said.  "Go tell Colm!"

Oh good.  The boss was there.  Sadie pulled out a fire bottle, lit it, and hit one of the houses.  "Come on!  Let's finish this!" Sadie yelled.

Immediately the shooting started.  Sam hid behind a boulder with Sadie and they peeked over to shoot.  They made a couple of headshots and Sadie laughed.  Bullets zoomed past them and it made Sam laugh too.  Man, these guys were horrible shots.  Men were screaming and crying out as the two women shot them all to hell.  Suddenly a bullet grazed Sam's cheek and she ducked behind the outhouse.

"The barn!  There's a sharpshooter in the hayloft!" Sadie pointed out loudly.  Sam took a deep breath, peered out from behind the outhouse, aimed for the sharpshooter, and fired.  She knocked him right on his ass via a shot to the face.  Damn, she was getting so good at killing people.  "Jake Adler, Sadie Adler...we was good people!"

Sam wasn't exactly sure what had transpired in Sadie's home the night her husband died, but she knew it had to be really, really bad.  Other than Jake dying, she meant.  Sam kept on firing on folks, as did Sadie.  Sadie was going on about how she and Jake were ruined and quite frankly, Sam had no idea how much spent up anger Sadie must have had.  Well, Sam understood some of it.  When Arthur came back from being kidnapped, a big part of her wanted to go find the men that did that to him and slaughter them all.

Back to the present, Sam.  Once all the men outside were dead, Sam went running.  Sadie was going to take the farm house and Sam was going to take the barn.  "And remember, if he's fat and he's got a beard, he's mine!" Sadie reaffirmed.

"I hear ya!" Sam shouted.

Sam neared the barn, her rifle raised.  "You come near this barn, we'll open up on you!"

"Hey Sadie, you got another one of those molotov cocktails?" Sam asked.

"What's that?"

Sam sighed.  "A fire bottle.  You got another one?"

"Yeah!"

Sam ran to Sadie and grabbed one from her, then Sam lit the cloth and tossed the thing into the barn.  Men started yelling fire and Sam began shooting them as they came running out.  She counted at least five men that she shot but the last one came running out burning alive.  The barn was ablaze and Sam backed away from the heat.

"Barn is done!" Sam shouted.  "You see Colm?"

"No!  I'm goin' into the farm house now!"

Sam went running after her, switching to her revolver.  They both charged in and started shooting whomever was in there.  When they were dead, Sam and Sadie reloaded.  They heard some footsteps upstairs and they both went to the staircase. 

"Hey, what's Colm look like, anyhow?" Sam asked.

"Oh, you'll know him when you see 'im," Sadie replied bitterly.