Clara agreed to visit his claim, the one he’d been digging for years. Fancy meeting after all this time. She hadn’t changed much, wore her hair shorter, but had that same gorgeous smile. If he wasn’t careful he’d fall in love all over again. And she might too, if he struck it rich. If he kept at the digging. Jack lifted another shovelful and threw the rocks, crashing into the wagon. One more and he’d be ready to ‘wash it’.

“Why don’t you just give it up, Jack? This place is done for. I found all the gold.”  Old Henry, his neighbour, had struck gold a long time ago and bounced around the countryside, bragging about it.

“You haven’t found it all, ‘cause I’m going to.” Jack answered. ”Get outa my way, I’m busy.” He pushed the wagon toward the water pump.

‘Wait’, called Henry, ‘who was that fancy blonde I saw you with in town last week?”

“None o’ your business”, Jack muttered. “Leave me alone, I got to work.”

Henry called “Nice lookin’ woman. She available?”

“Not to you,” Jack said, as he reached the top of the wagon and the limit of his patience. When the downhill pump started, a spray of water hit Henry full-face.

He took out his handkerchief. “Watch it there, bud. Any unmarried woman is fair game in this territory. She staying at the hotel?”

“No comment”, replied Jack.

“Okay, I’ll just find out for meself.”

Jack called. “You do or say anything to that fine woman and you’ll have me to answer to.”

“You and whose army?” yelled Henry.

Jack pulled out his pistol and fired a shot over Henry’s head, close enough to make him jump, dive-roll into the ditch.

“What the…you crazy or what?” Henry stood up and pulled his gun. “Would you like to see how fast I can draw at 20 paces?”

”Just name the time and place”, answered Jack.

They agreed to find seconds as witness and see who would or could outdraw whom, two days hence.

And they reported, each man drew, fired their guns at exactly the same instant, the bullets entering each man’s heart at exactly the same time, killing them both instantly.

The blonde woman, actually Jack’s wife, who’d left him years before but had never divorced him, inherited the gold mine and his claim. This property came to their son, who became rich from the oil discovered under it. A happy ending for Jack’s abandoned son.

Written by Judith Bilodeau  in response to the writing prompt: Hoping to impress an old flame, a gold prospector challenges a rival to a duel.

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