Jamison Jakes is a well meaning - but friendless - heavy drinking drifter who left his boyhood home in Kentucky in search of nothing; and found it at every turn. Now, at age 34, he is merely surviving and in desperate need of something to give his life purpose. After signing on as a wrangler in Dakota Territory and working a four-month cattle drive, he finds himself in Cheyenne, once again out of work. But it's in Cheyenne that, by chance, Jakes meets two people who will change his life forever: a brash, cocky illiterate teenage boy and a college teacher turned bounty hunter.
As promised, Daniel True set a more leisurely pace after the two men broke camp at mid-morning. "We'll just go fast enough to keep the horses from getting too cold," he said. The sky once again looked snow-filled, clouds having arrived in the night, but the wind was calm. The two men had little to say as they rode. There was one question Jamison Jakes wanted to ask, but was waiting for the right moment. In the solitude of a gray noon, he decided the time was right.
"Daniel, what's it like to kill a man?"
"What kind of dumb-assed question is that?"
"Hey, no offense," Jakes said quickly. "I was just wonderin'."
"Didn't you ever kill anyone, boy? You told me you were in the war."
"I don't rightly know if I killed anyone. I fired a lotta rounds into crowds of blue coats enough times, but I don't know if I ever took a man out. Even if I did, I got no idea who it was. And I maybe killed a renegade Indian who was tryin' to steal some cattle from a drive I was on, but I'm not even sure 'bout that."
"So what you really want to know is what it's like to look a man square in the eye and kill him, is that it?" Daniel True's voice was sharp.
"Yes, but you don't have to say if it's goin' to bother you. I can get along okay without knowin'."
Jakes gave up on the tense discussion and the two men rode on in silence for miles.
"I think about their clothes mostly."
"What's that?" asked a startled Jamison Jakes.
"The men I've killed. Just before I shoot, I think about when they might have buttoned their shirt for the last time, or pulled on their boots, or tied their bandanna. I think about whether they knew that was the last time they'd ever get dressed. A man does something every day of his life, then he does it for the very last time and there he is, waiting to die in that shirt he buttoned and the boots he pulled on.
"And after he's dead, I think that this man was a little boy once. A happy carefree little boy who threw rocks in a pond, and chased cats, and skipped school to go fishing. And I wonder what happened to change that little boy into a man so bad that I have to kill him. That's what I think about. Sort of silly, don't you think?"
"No sir, Daniel, not silly at all."
About Jim Kennison
Jim Kennison is a writer who combines his experience as educator, world traveler, and student of the human condition to provide in-depth views into the thoughts and emotions of his characters. Letters From A Bounty Hunter pulls together action, adventure, history and romance to create a truly unique Western novel. Jim and his wife Elletta live on the central Oregon coast.
Jamison Jakes is a well meaning - but friendless - heavy drinking drifter who left his boyhood home in Kentucky in search of nothing; and found it at every turn. Now, at age 34, he is merely surviving and in desperate need of something to give his life purpose. After signing on as a wrangler in Dakota Territory and working a four-month cattle drive, he finds himself in Cheyenne, once again out of work. But it's in Cheyenne that, by chance, Jakes meets two people who will change his life forever: a brash, cocky illiterate teenage boy and a college teacher turned bounty hunter.
Jim Kennison is a writer who combines his experience as educator, world traveler, and student of the human condition to provide in-depth views into the thoughts and emotions of his characters. Letters From A Bounty Hunter pulls together action, adventure, history and romance to create a truly unique Western novel. Jim and his wife Elletta live on the central Oregon coast.