(Editor’s Note: Today Harpole finishes the bounty hunter’s tale which he began last week.)

On one memorable occasion we were collecting  errant bond clients (or trying to)  in Little Rock, Ark. It is normal procedure to notify the local authorities what your intentions are in their district because even if the rats are yours, the territory is theirs and they sometimes get a little fractious if you disregard that fact.

As a general rule they are helpful and sometimes will come along for the ride because they have plenty rats of their own to catch and don’t need any of yours getting in their way or even contaminating the mix. While we were all getting suited and strapped up a young deputy who was going off shift volunteered to drive out and show us the place and lend a hand if needed.

I expect if he knew how things were going to turn out he’d of remembered something else he had to do, but that’s just how the hand plays out sometimes. When we arrived we parked both vehicles between the house and a small out building. Since I was nearest the house and had the writ, Ms. Gillette and I started for the door while Ms. Gillian circled the house to stop up the back door.

The deputy stayed beside his car mainly as a disinterested observer. His back was to the outbuilding about a hundred feet away. I was about halfway to the front door when what we thought to be a shotgun blast went off from the shed. It was loud and the deputy dropped his gun in the dark. Ms. Gillette spun and retaliated with two shots of her own, one of which hit the deputy’s car.

At this point I pulled my piece and found a convenient lawn tractor to hide behind and take inventory.

Two men exited the shed which was by then on fire which was only natural since it had recently been doing double duty as a meth lab, and was in the process of blowing itself off the premises.

Ms. Gillian, hearing the commotion, abandoned her position at the back door and sprinted around the house where she saw me hiding (oops, I meant crouching) in the dark and shot the lawnmower before I could debrief her on the situation.

The boys gave up as soon as their clothes quit smoking and everything appeared to be getting back to normal when the lady of the house turned the bulldog loose and scattered us again.

Naturally I was the one he came for and I had no choice except to shoot him. The drug team and the fire department showed up in a few minutes and collected the cooks and dog-handling women.

The deputy had moved his car away from the fire and was trying to find his pistol and glancing nervously at Ms. Gillette and at the corpse of the bulldog and contemplating the possibility that he might have some relatives about who might be less dead than he was. It took us until daylight to get the whole mess sorted out, including the bullet holes in the bulldog and the police car and for the deputy to locate his firearm. He’d run over it when he moved his car and it was kinda mashed down in the mud. We didn’t get paid for about six months and later I got charged for the dog but the judge ruled it self defense and threw it out of court.

Several years back there was a related incident that happened right here in Panola County. I haven’t gotten all of the facts but I’ve never let that stop me before, so here it is. A certain bail jumper had been on the run for a year or so and, being a crafty sort, had managed to evade capture.

Somehow the bounty hunter learned that one of the jumper’s close relatives had passed away and decided to crash the funeral. And they did. Walking up and down the aisles and scowling at the mourners trying to flush the man out.

Now let me say this, Mrs. Johnson, who was our boss, would never stoop to defiling a worship service, let alone a funeral, not only because such behavior is illegal, but because it is disrespectful to the family, not to mention unprofessional.

That didn’t make any difference to that other crew. They bailed right on in there and tromped around bristling with firearms and attitudes until the runner lost his nerve and ran out of the church house. Screaming.

He didn’t actually run very far because he was wearing his sister’s dress and hat and even worse, her spiked heels, which considerably slowed his progress. The bounty hunters were charged with disrupting a religious service and wound up in as much trouble as the cross-dressed fugitive, who lost a heel in the cemetery and got a run in his hosiery in the blackberry thicket. The inconsiderate bounty hunters allegedly collected a fair share of chiggers and ticks to go along with their prize and suffered accordingly.

Thankfully, I have retired from such hobbies and just about everything else.

Resting in Peace,

Ricky Harpole