The Bad Girl Blog Fest - Casey Keeps The Gun

I am participating in the "Bad Girl Blog Fest." Writer bloggers are posting scenes featuring a bad girl. The deadline is the end of the day today. Since I only just found out about it, I couldn't write something specifically for it. But I did have something that I've been working on, so I decided to join in.



This is from Have Gun, Will Play, a novel for my Mick and Casey mystery series about a pair of very young, recently married gunslingers. Mick and Casey have escaped from the badguys with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a bag of toys belonging to a kidnapped girl. Mick (the narrator) has lured one of the bad guys into the stable where Casey is hiding, in hopes of an ambush....

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I left the door open as I went in, so he could sneak in after. Casey wasn't anywhere to be seen. Not that you'd see her if she didn't want to be seen, but she didn't show up when he came in and saw me. Had she got what I intended? I couldn't imagine she'd missed it. Casey wasn't one to give up on a chance for ambush--not even if I hadn't meant it.

I didn't see him but I could feel him behind me as I went past the row of stalls and stable clutter. I slinked on by the wall of gear and glanced back. He was there all right.

Casey wasn't at the back door either, so I scooted out into the alley, and around to the carriage house. Still no Casey.

He wasn't hiding any more as he followed me in. I could see him resting his hand on his gun. I scrambled off to the other end of the carriage house. I didn't want to lead him upstairs to our hideout, so I scrambled around a carriage, and found myself facing him on the other side. He had just drawn his pistol. I put my hands up, and gave him a nervous smile.

"You're a hard man to lose," I said.

"Hold still," he said. I did, but it didn't matter, because that's when Casey swung down from the top of one of the carriages. I saw her arm swing.

CRACK!

She hit him just behind and above the ear, and he went down like a sack of potatoes.

"Damn!" I said. "What did you hit him with?"

She held up a leather bag--a bag of marbles that had been among the toys. That was where the crack came from. It was the marbles, not his skull. I bent over him. He'd gone down hard, but he wasn't quite out. I rolled him over to get his gun. Casey grabbed it away.

"Give it to me," I said.

"No."

"You already got the marbles and a knife," I said. She held out the bag of marbles to me. I didn't take them. "Come on, Case."

"No, I got it. I'm the sharp-shooter. I back you up. I need a gun."

"You aren't that good with a pistol."

"Am too."

I sighed and took the marbles. Then I remembered and I straightened up to look at her.

"Wait a minute," I said. "You already got a gun. You got your boot gun."

"You want it?"

"No."

She shrugged. I sighed and held out my hand, and she squirmed around to get it while keeping an eye on him. She handed it to me; a little one-shot derringer, with no range and maybe enough power to get through a leather vest if it wasn't too thick. I took it and stuck it in my pocket. She was right. I was the one up front and talking, so I probably could make better use of it.

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Later tonight I will continue with my regular blog posts. (In the meantime, you can check out some published Mick and Casey short stories at Mick and Casey Mysteries.)