My name is John David Wilkins. I was born in Portersville, Indiana, 24 years ago, this July. I was too young for the War of the Rebellion, but two of my older brothers fought for the Union - one never came back from Spotsylvania Courthouse. Despite that, the tales that my brother, and the other men of Portersville brought back ruined me on farming forever. I’ve always been good with horses, so when I turned 18 I signed up at the mustering office in St. Louis, and asked for the cavalry. I spent four years hunting Cheyenne, Comanches, and Apaches, across plains, up narrow canyons, into mountains and across vast open deserts. Thanks to the schooling my mother gave me in the Good Book, and some reluctant years in the local schoolhouse, I was pretty good with writing up reports and dispatches, so I ended up getting made sergeant. Not that it made the riding and tracking any easier.

Most folks back East don’t understand how big this country is - how wild and untamed it is. I’ve seen herds of buffalo, darkening the plains. I’ve seen dry gullies turn to raging floods in the blink of an eyelash, and storms coming in out of the high country. So I started writing down what I have encountered. I do not claim to be a clever writer like Artemus Ward, so rather than adorn fiction with fine words I try to set the truth out as best I can.

I became what they call a ‘bounty hunter’ almost by accident. I had mustered out of the 5th Cavalry, when the bloodshed and mayhem in our war to take the land from the Red Man began to overshadow the siren song of bullets, and the lure of adventure. I weighed heading West to California, to perhaps find a sensible woman and settle down, when I was in Tucson, and I saw a wanted poster for: ‘Brian Patrick McSweeney: Deserter and cattle rustler.’ They were offering $100 in gold for him. And then who did I see coming out of the Silver Dollar Saloon just then? He was drunk as a skunk, and before I could think about it I hit him over the head, threw him over my saddle and rode out of there before his friends could react. It was the easiest money I’d ever made. And I was hooked - a little danger without wholesale slaughter is a heady combination. And $100 will buy you some fine times with some of Miss Kitty’s (slightly) ‘soiled doves’.

They say bounty men are ruthless, and some are, but in two years of the work I have only had to shoot men dead on two occasions. I prefer getting them to go quietly. And every man that I ever brought in was a truly bad man, as most of them would quietly admit.

So I came to Laredo following a lead on a fugitive out of Abilene which turned out to be false. But with a town right here on the border, I'm sure my services will be needed soon.