Steve saw him first. A single man riding fast towards them. Jayne saw him too. Guesturing at the rifle stock, Jayne blurted out “wish we had the rest of the rifle.” Steve looked over at what he was talking about when something that had been nagging at him since the crash finally clicked into place in his mind when he saw the lack of screws in the synthetic rifle stock. “Jayne, give me my gun.” “What’er ya talkin’ ‘bout, it’s right there on ya’r belt.” “No, the rifle stock.” Jayne handed the man the rifle stock and was amazed when Steve removed the butt of the stock and pulled out a barrel, scope, receiver and two magazines and a small gas cartridge. It didn’t take very long to assemble the gun. The receiver plugged into the stock and the barrel into the receiver. He took an additional .22 long rifle round out of the rear peep-sight and chambered it before inserting one of the magazines. Transformed from a useless rifle stock to a well oiled metal delivery system, a Henry Survival Rifle. This one was custom made for Roberts needs as a scout on the battlefield. There had been additional holes made in the stock to accommodate a small scope and what looked like a small propane cartridge with valve. The propane unit was his own invention, a “super-charger”. Hidden just bellow the bolt on the receiver was a small knob, another custom feature, which was used in conjunction with the super charger to flood the chamber behind the with propane bullet, increasing the speed of the projectile to somewhere just north of “most likely lethal if you take the time to aim carefully”. Steve looked through the scope at the man riding towards them, and recognized him not by appearance or facial features, but by the gun he wore on a sling over his shoulder. The thug dismounted. Centering his crosshairs over the man’s left eye, Steve rotated a small dial on the super charger until the small window on the dial was over a single white dot, the lowest setting. As he pulled the trigger back the super charger made a small hiss, filling the chamber with explosive propane, propelling the deadly piece of red hot metal on it’s lethal path. Finding the man’s eye, the bullet penetrated just bellow the pupil and allitle to the right, never once hitting the white of the eye. Shatering the thin layer of bone separating the eye from the brain, the bullet mushroomed and shredded the frontal lobe in the process. Forcefully pushing on, the small piece of copper plated lead blew the back of the man’s head off, filling the air around the base of the man’s back in a bloody mist, bits of smoldering flesh falling to the ground. The shock wave produced by the bullet reduced the inside of the man’s right eye to jell, while the sudden impact forced more blood and fluid into the organ, causing it to burst open. Jolting his head, the same hydraulic shock burst every blood vessel in his brain, liquefying the parts of brain around the bullets path. The man was dead, in more ways than one, before he hit the ground. Afew minutes later the four stranded space cowboys approached what had once resembled a person. Simon looked at the grotesge scene with something between revultion and nasue. Jayne took the corpses six-shooter, an old black powder 1851 U.S. Navy Marshal pistol while Steve took the desperados Thompson single shot rifle for himself, and handed his .22 to Wash, telling him, “That .380 doesn’t have great accuracy at long distances. This won’t have tons of power, but it’s lethal, and the supercharger adds some speed to it. Plus, you can actually hit a target more than 15 feet away.” Jayne looked more than a little confused as to why Roberts got to keep the Thompson. When he pressed the issue the only answer he got was that the gun had originally belonged to Roberts until the outlaw had taken it from him in the little skirmish on the last job they took. After searching the corpsified bandit, they found some more ammunition, and a small single shot pistol, but nothing else of value. Cutting a piece of cloth from the man’s breaches, Steve fashioned a makeshift sling for his new rifle, checked his new single shot pistol, and led the three other castaways deeper into the forest, intent on finding a suitable place to make there last stand. Jayne lingered back, he wanted to have a quick word with simon and the pilot. “Hey, you guys think that ther’ some’at ‘bout his past that he ain’t letin’ us in on? Like somthin’ bout the War” the Merc asked. Simon stopped to ponder this for a while but Wash seemed flustered and hurried to catch up with the rifle toting survivor leading the group, stammering a sentence that sounded like “Why would he have anything to hide. We don’t have anything to hide. Neither does he” “Uh, doc, you think theres some sorta history were missin’” “I honestly don’t know”

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I tried to be more subtle, but it's not one of my strong points. I don;t know when I'll post more, probably not for a while, So I guess you lott are all off the hook;)

Also, I am sincerely sorry if my poor writing style, awful spelling, or anything else caused some to be violently ill.