They rode into town on beautiful horses, one white and one black. You could tell they were well kept but dusty and tired from days on the trail. The town watched as they rode by, they weren’t from around here. City boys that’s what the barkeep would call them. Not by the bowler hats on their head those were common, it was the continental suits they wore. “What will you boys be drinking?” “Champagne,” came the response. The barkeep smirked, “City boys like you would be drinking champagne.” “We know it’s not water’d down, you’ll have to pop a new bottle.” The barkeep couldn’t argue that. “What brings you boys to town?” “We are looking for someone, we assumed you know where to find them.” The barkeep laughed, “I don’t give information to nobody, especially to folks like yourselves.” One of the men struck a match as he put a cigarette in his mouth. “Have you ever heard the story of the white dove?” The barkeep felt a chill run down his spine as he grabbed the glasses. “It’s just a story to scare school children and invalids.” The man pulled aside the right side of his suit jacket exposing the nicest silver colt the bar keep had ever seen. It had polished pearl white grips engraved with a dove. The barkeep wrote the location on a piece of paper and passed it across the bar. “The drinks are on the house sirs.” They tipped their hats, “thank you.”
John Wilson scratched his belly as he stood up from his bed. His head hurt from a night of too many. There were days in the past that wouldn’t bug him when he used to ride with the Jennings gang. At least that’s what they called themselves. John liked to tell stories, mostly of all the women he’d been with, and the people he’d killed. He wouldn’t tell the parts of the story where the women were held down while the gang took turns with them or the bank tellers begging for their lives as he pressed his barrel to their head, but he wasn’t reminiscing now. He was thinking about the nice quiet little town he found himself in, a place to grow old in. John stepped out onto the porch of his cabin and stretched his arms up high as he yawned in the morning sun. His eyes adjusted to the sight of two horses on the horizon. One white and one black, it took a second for John to see a man standing behind one of the horses with his rifle rested across the saddle. It was a second to late. The bullet ripped through the back of John’s head and embedded itself in the door frame. He fell back through the cabin door.
The marshall handed over the reward and the two men tipped their hats. The marshall looked on with suspicion as he watched the two men ride up and over the hill. And so the story of the white dove continued on.
Housed and Fed 