Mad bounty
This was inspired by a post by ironage.media prompt on July 5,2023
A grizzled old cowboy walks into the mostly empty well, decorated saloon. As he gets to the bar, he calls over to the saloon keeper. “Whiskey”
The well-dressed saloon keeper gives him a grimace and says, “Sir, this is the dry county of new Deseret. We only have synthetics. All the taste, none of the effects."
With a smear on his face, the cowboy says, "Alright then, synthetic Whiskey then," and then he mumbles to himself, "Dang Mormons and no alcohol" A machine beeps in the corner and spits a piece of paper. The saloon keeper walks over and picks it up. After pouring a drink from a bottle, he walks over to the cowboy.
"Here is your synthetic whiskey and your ticket for public obscenity. You can cuss all you like at this establishment, and we will collect the bill at the end of the night.”
“What the muh, I'd say something, but I'm affair of being charged 20 dollars every time I say something. When did you people come up with this scheme?"
“About five years ago to keep the riff raff like you out of our town.”
“Well, I’ll be a son of a can’t say the next word, but don’t worry about me when my business is done. I'm outta this town." The cowboy moves over to a table with his drink and his ticket. Sits down, leaning, taking a drink, he says, “Oh boy, that’s bad!", he puts down the glass and puts his head to his temple. He then pulls out a device from his pocket. "Zeva, how long til they get here?”
"The device responds the tagged targets will arrive at the Smithville bank in 5 minutes."
"Now, Zeva, when you said this town was strict on rules, you could have warned me that they fine you for everything.”
"And that makes it a perfect target for gangs, as you assessed, and your targets should be arriving." A bunch of commotion starts on the streets as several men come into town on horseback, creating a general disturbance hooting and hollering as they arrive.
"Amateurs, well thank you folks; you've been stuck up as all get out, time to go to work" The cowboy goes over to the saloon keeper and pays with a clip swipe, and he is off out the door.
The landscape is a bleak desert frontier town in a world with a large moon always seen in the sky. Just across the street, four men are about to walk into the Smithville bank. When the cowboy calls out for to them
“You boys the Hatcher gang by chance?”
One of the young men in a Brown Stetson, red shirt, and jeans with blonde hair announces, "Your damn straight mister, and we will rob you after we are done with this here bank; we will take care of you too.”
"Amateurs!" The grizzled cowboy yells, and he quickly draws two guns like Luger-style pistols with switches on the back. And fire two shots from each gun. The shots hit two of the gang, causing convolutions, and they collapsed to the ground. The grizzled cowboy immediately goes for cover behind a watering trough for horses. He waits a minute to check his guns, then fires at the remaining bank robbers. He moves, pegs another in the arm, and locks up before he gets the voltage that makes him have convolutions. The last man of the gang is cowering behind the doors to the bank. Panicking, he tries to reload his gun, but the grizzled cowboy closes the distance. And it is just about at the door when the final gang member loads his gun. The petrified gang member shook his gun at the cowboy asks.
"Are you gonna kill me, mister?” With a voice cracking in fear.
"Son, that's not in the contract. My employer doesn’t want you’d hang without a trail, so you go to the Sheriff alive" explaining in a manner of fact. Then the cowboy shoots the gang member, and he goes down. The cowboy gathers all the guns and ropes of all his prisoners. A young boy is the first of the townspeople to come out from cover.
He approaches the grizzled cowboy and says, “Mister are these me dead?”
“No, son, these men are just stunned. They are young enough to give them no ill effects. They will wake up in a bit. Go quickly, get the Sheriff so these boys can be arrested for their crimes.”
“Alright, mister," the boy runs off to get the Sheriff as the rest of the town gathers around the bank to see the commotion. The townspeople ask many questions, and the cowboy answers the best he can as he collects and ties up the would-be bank robbers.
When the Sheriff arrives, he is annoyed with the disturbance in his town. Coming with two deputies, “What the Sam Hill is going on here?”
“How-die Sheriff, this here is the Hatcher gang, and they were about to rob your bank.” The cowboy explains, “They are wanted in several counties, and there is a bounty for their arrest. Zeva brings up the bounty for the Sheriff.” The cowboy’s handheld device displays the Hatcher gang’s arrest warrant. And the cowboy hands over the device.
“This looks in order, but I want to confirm this through my network. In the meantime, we will take these boys into custody. What's your name for the collection of the bounty?”
“Bert Callahan”
"Bert Callahan, weren’t you involved in that ruckus down in New Abalone.”
"Yes, sir"
“I may have a job for you. That job in New Abalone was a tough bit of turf. If you’re interested.”
"Money first for the Hatchers, then we can discuss your new bounty.”
“Well, we can put you up at the saloon with some of our discretionary funds.”
“Grr. Is there anywhere else you can put me up for the night.”
“Faird not. The jail is full, and thanks to you, I don’t have any room in the jail.”
“I suppose that will do.”
***The next day***
Bert arrives at the Sheriff's office and notices two other men laughing as he enters the office.
With the Sheriff. “Now, what's going on here, sheriff?”
"Ah, Bert, howdie partner, you want a cup of coffee?”
“No, I’m fine. Who are your friends?"
"Well, why don't I introduce you to more bounty hunters. This is Derek Johnson”. Pointing to a man of mixed racial features that you can’t tell what race he is. And then he points to a dark-skinned Asian man, "This is Samuel Cao.”
"Nice to meet you. If you guys hope to work with me, you are out of luck. I work alone."
"Not on this mission. You're gonna need help. Cause you’re gonna have trouble. But let’s discuss the bounty. A scientist in the area named Herman Jondeses has been working on some interesting experiments.”
“What sort of experiments are we talking about?” Cao asks.
“From what we heard, he is de-evolving animals." The Sheriff answers.
“How does someone do that?” Johnson inquires.
“Well, I'm not quite sure about the specifics, but it must have something to do with manipulating DNA markers?”
“What are we up against manpower-wise?” Bert, somewhat annoyed, asks.
"Well, at last count, he had 20 men, but who knows what has happened? Our information is two months out of date."
“What is the country in the area?”
“That is the interesting part and why we assembled you men. The area where we thought he was operating was mostly desert, with the pass of the main observation satellite about a week ago. The satellite had to shift orbit, so we couldn't get a picture until this week. And take a gander at it.” They go to a screen in the next room that is a little run down, that looks digital but has seen better days. It looks like nothing has been replaced for a long time. "This was a week ago." The Sheriff explains.
"Alright, that looks like anywhere on this God-forsaken hell hole," Johnson says as a beep goes off in the distance. As you see a large mud hut surrounded by grasses.
“Now look at it now” The screen shows rapid plant growth and is starting to become a different environment. As you see the same hut beginning of large tree growth and several large crops, the beginning of a small prehistoric juggle.
“Well, that’s downright odd. Jondeses did this in a week of rapid terraforming in a local area. This guy is a genius! It takes us a year to do that to a small area.” The excited Cao rambles
“And that’s why we want him alive; the men, the creatures do what you have to do, but Jondeses stays alive.” The Sheriff expounds.
“How much is the bounty?” Bert demands
“6 million total for you boys plus a bonus for a sample of his scientific work, but Jondeses must be alive." The Sheriff points out.
“That sounds good to me.” Cao exclaims, "I can't wait to see what this guy has made!”
“I think this is all crazy, but if Cao is in, I guess I am too." Johnson reluctantly declares.
“2 million a piece is a lot of money, plus whatever we can scrounge from the experiments sounds like a good deal. It might be worth working with you, fellas. I'm in.” Bert responds, "Any of you boys have been out that way?”
"Bout a year back, I was herding some cattle near there. It’s about a two-day ride.” Johnson says.
“Alright, boys, grab what you need from town. We will head out tomorrow. Cao, grab a wagon in case we get any samples.”
As the bounty hunters are about to leave, the sheriff pipes, "Hu Hum Johnson, there is a small manner of a fine to pay.”
“Junk change for the bounty sheriff. This will be easy." Johnson exclaims.
***The 2 days from the briefing after gathering supplies and leaving on a long and mostly uneventful journey about a half days ride from the compound***
“So, if our ancestors had cars and trucks, why are we back to horses?” Johnson questions
“When colonizing a world, you have very few resources, most of which are spent terraforming it, but when it comes to transportation, worlds will need to develop resources independently. But having a pig, donkey, or horse that can reproduce on a world is better than having a car or tracker that will need more resources to maintain its existence on a planet.” Cao explains.
Quickly Bert pulls out his spyglass and sees a lot of dust in the air. "We got company," Bert announces. Bert switches his guns from stun to kill and prepares for a fight. Cao grabs his rifle, and Johnson pulls his guns. As the enemy gets closer, Bert can see large dinosaur raptors-like creatures that men are riding and large dog-like creatures with collars. "Dismount, boys, this is gonna scare the horses, and you don’t want to be thrown.”
The bounty hunter dismounted or let undo the reins from the wagon just in time for the large dogs to start running after the horses. From this vantage point, you can see that the dogs are the size of the size of the horses but with mighty jaws. A set of 10 Raptor dinosaur-mounted men are paired, and they begin to go after the bounty hunters. As a man starts to pull out a gun, Bert fires, killing him. And the mess of a fight begins with attempts at using ropes and tasers on the bounty hunters. The hackmen begin to corral, but Bert managers to get away behind the wagon shooting two men and stunning a bird dinosaur. As the corral starts to close, a raptor slashes Cao with his claws. On reflex, Cao deploys a transparent stream of energy particles to block the slash, and it only manages to get his face. He goes down, knocked unconscious from the impact. Shortly after, Johnson is roped in and captured. The henchmen taking heavy losses in the fight, retreat with their prize.
After the henchmen run off with the dogs, Bert is left with a huge mess on his hands, 6 dead bodies, several wandering Raptors going after parts of horses, and a partner. He is unsure if he is alive or dead. He goes to Cao first to check his pulse. "Alright, you’re alive. Let me see, I got some stimulation that should wake you up," he murmurs. He administers a small capsule injection to Cao and puts a cloth over Cao's face to stop bleeding. And Cao wakes up.
“What the heck happened to me?” Cao asks.
“You got knocked out by a dinosaur.”
“De-evolved bird, actually probably a chicken," Cao explains.
"Alright, that's nice, but the question is, how do we get rid of the guy making them?” Bert inquires.
Cao looks around. “You ever ride Raptor?”
The speed at which the raptor moves cuts down half a day’s travel to a quarter day. As Bert arrives at the compound not too far behind the henchmen, he sees they are exhausted from the day's labor. The new plant growth hid Bert’s approach up until the outer perimeter, which is sparely guarded. "Time to act like an amateur," he says to himself. He rides in hard and pulls out both his guns. He shoots the first perimeter guard defending the mud hunt compound as the other two moves to begin to come around and shoot him. Shots from the juggle ring out, killing the other two men. Six other men hurry out with guns trying to get cover. Still, between Bert’s speed and Cao's accuracy, they are gunned down in their confusion.
Bert moves into the compound switching, reloading his guns and switching them to stun. As he goes down below ground, he sees various animals and plants in cages being experimented on horrifyingly. He keeps his cool and begins looking for Jondeses. He finds him in the human section, where Bert sees people being de-evolved into more primitive humans. "Well, I see this is what happened to the rest of your men.”
The doctor turns to him and says, “Don’t you see this is….” A shot rings out.
“No Monologuing. You are being collected." As Bert looks over the cages, he sees Johnson unconscious in a cage. "Zeva let Cao know that he has to get Johnson out of a cage.”
After some time, Cao gets Johnson conscious out of the cage, and the trio rides off with their bounty into the sunset.