Now Playing: One Arm Lightning
New to these parts? To start the story from the
New to these parts? To start the story from the
beginning,click
Episode Fifteen concluded with:
Forrest tied up
his horse in front of Oliver’s General Store and gazed through the window as he
approached the front door. A tattered CLOSED sign took up a quarter of the
glassed area but lights were on inside and Blake Oliver could be seen bustling
about.
The door wasn’t locked. Connors stepped through it.
Blake Oliver’s voice sounded genuinely friendly. “Good to see you, Forrest,
beautiful evening, ain’t it?”
Forrest’s voice was toneless. “Hello, Blake. Yeah, nice evening.”
Blake scooted behind the counter of his store and began to remove cans of beans
from an open case. He grinned malevolently at his one customer as he placed the
beans on the shelves behind him. “I guess you’re here to pay up all the
money you owe me. That’s quite a bill you’ve run up, Forrest.”
Episode Sixteen
“Blake,
I already explained to you. I won the ranch in a poker game. I didn’t have the
money to get it going. The bank wouldn’t give me a loan. I had to buy
everything on credit from you. Look, the ranch is on its feet now, jus’ give me
another three months…”
Oliver laughed as he took a can of
beans from the case. “You know, Forrest, you’d be surprised at all the hard
luck stories a store owner hears. After a while, they all start soundin’ the
same.”
Blake tossed the can in the air and
caught it. “Now, occasionally something special comes along. You know…Sally…the
little redhead at the Shooting Star? Well, two week ago she came in here sayin’
she needed a new dress. One of her customers tore the one she had. But the poor
girlie didn’t have a penny to her name.”
Oliver made a clicking sound with
his tongue. “Let’s just say, Sally got her dress.”
The storekeeper turned and placed
the can on the shelf as he continued to talk. “Now, as to your situation
Forrest, you’ve got solid collateral.”
“What do you mean?”
Blake Oliver paused in his chore and
looked directly at Connors. “I mean, Rebecca Torveen. You’re gonna getcha two
hundred dollars from your girlie and give it to me.”
“Two hundred! That’s almost twice
what I owe you!”
“A banker is entitled to interest. I
am too.”
“I won’t do it!”
“Well then, the next time Miss
Torveen comes by the store, I’ll just tell her about your unpaid debts. I’ll
bet you haven’t gotten around to mentioning that to your dear fiancée, have you
Forrest?”
“Listen, Blake--”
“Yeah, I bet Miss Torveen would be
very interested in knowing the man of her dreams is a penniless drifter who got
lucky one night in a poker game and--”
A crashing sound came from the back
of the store. Blake Oliver made a face of disgust as he looked to his left at
the door that led to the storage room. “Guess somethin’ has fallen off the
shelf.”
“That doesn’t make much sense,”
Connors looked toward the back of the store in a quizzical manner. “How could
something just fall off a shelf all by its lonesome?”
Oliver’s expression went from
disgust to concern. “Guess I better have a look.”
Tomorrow: Episode Seventeen of One Arm
Lightning
