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"And…" he leaned in slightly, lowering his voice. "Her family have an… elder family member. His mind isn't what it was. Gets terribly agitated, violent sometimes. They've been using chloral hydrate to calm him when it gets bad, but I worry about the long term use. Are there other… sedatives? Something maybe herbal, slower acting? Something that might just help him sleep more peacefully, for good?"
Doc Calloway peered at him over his spectacles, his gaze look deeply at him. But Caleb's Acting and Persuasion Skill held firm, presenting the image of him the Hero of Valentine who was just caring for the relative of the girl he like who was managing a difficult situation.
"Chloral hydrate is potent," the doctor said slowly. "Long term use is hard on the heart and liver. For agitation… there's potassium bromide. It's a sedative, used for fits and nerves. It's cumulative, builds up in the system over days. Too much, and it causes weakness, confusion, slurred speech… can lead to a stupor, then death. Looks a lot like a stroke or the brain finally giving out."
He said it clinically, a statement of fact. "It's not fast. It's a gradual decline."
Caleb nodded, absorbing the information. Potassium bromide. Gradual. Symptomatic. Untraceable? Likely not if someone looked, but who would look? The gang's own makeshift doctor, Swanson, was a recovering addict, not a toxicologist. To everyone else, it would look like Dutch's madness had finally burned out his body.
"That sounds more… manageable," Caleb said carefully. "And you have this?"
"I can prepare a tincture," the doctor said, turning to his shelves. "It's bitter. You'd need to mask it in strong food or drink. Dosing is critical. For a man in decline, a slightly stronger dose each day…" He let the implication hang as he mixed a clear liquid into a small brown bottle. "This should be sufficient. Administer it in his evening meal. The effects will be slow to manifest."
Caleb paid the man 20 dollars for it, the transaction feeling both surreal and chillingly ordinary. He pocketed the small bottle, its weight negligible compared to the key, yet infinitely heavier in implication.
He met Lenny and Pearson at the stables. The wagon was piled high with their hopeful future: seeds for life, tools for building, nails to hold their home together.
"Get what you needed?" Lenny asked.
"I did," Caleb said, swinging up onto the wagon seat beside Pearson. "Something to help an old friend finally rest."
Pearson, misunderstanding completely, clapped him on the back. "Good man! Thinking of everyone! That's the spirit!"
As the wagon rolled out of Valentine, heading back toward the promise of the homestead, Caleb felt the two objects in his pockets,the iron key and the glass bottle, click together with a soft, decisive sound.
The path was now clear. He had the means. He had Arthur's agonized consent. All he needed now was the right moment, and Hosea's final, sorrowful nod. Then, the last ghost of the old life could be laid to rest, and the new one could truly begin.
The return to the homestead felt like crossing a threshold into a new reality. The wagon, laden with the mundane staples of settled life, was a far cry from the wagons loaded with stolen plunder and desperate hope.
Caleb, Lenny, and Pearson made quick work of unloading, carrying sacks and crates into the kitchen where Pearson began his joyful process of organization, crowing about proper pantries and spice racks.
From the kitchen window, Caleb watched the work in the yard. Charles, Kieran, John, and Javier had set up a makeshift carpentry station under a large tarp strung between two trees.
The sounds of sawing and hammering were a new and pleasant music. Piles of raw lumber were steadily transforming into recognizable shapes, bed frames, half finished chair, and half finished tables.
After stowing the last sack of flour, Caleb rolled up his sleeves and joined them. "Room for one more?"
"Of course," Charles said, handing him a plane.
What followed was a small revelation for the others. Caleb's hands moved with an unnatural, preternatural efficiency. His max level Crafting Skill wasn't just knowledge, it was muscle memory, an intuitive understanding of grain, joinery, and balance.
Where John fumbled with a tricky dovetail joint, Caleb's chisel seemed to dance, producing a perfect, seamless fit in minutes. He sighted down a board for warping with a single glance, corrected a wobbly table leg Javier had been cursing at with a few strategic shims, and showed Kieran a faster, cleaner method for sanding.
"Where in the hell did you learn all this, Caleb?" John finally asked, blowing sawdust off a nearly finished chair. "Last I saw you build anything, it was a damn fences around the swamp at Shady Belle."
Caleb didn't miss a beat, his Acting Skill layering a veneer of modest recollection over the truth. "When I was having my restaurant built in Saint Denis, I spent a lot of time on site. Didn't trust city folk not to cut corners. Picked up a thing or two from the carpenters, watched how they worked and helped here and there as well. Guess it stuck more than I thought."
He shrugged, applying a smooth finish to a bedpost. "You pay enough attention to people who are good at their jobs and also learned how to do it, you picked up very fast."
The explanation, bolstered by the subtle influence of his Persuasion Skill, was accepted without question. It was plausible, and more importantly, it fit the image of the capable, observant man they knew.
And his help was undeniable. By early afternoon, what would have taken them two days was complete. They had four sturdy bed frames, a dozen chairs, two large tables, and three smaller side tables.
The work of hauling the furniture inside became its own celebration. The empty rooms began to feel lived in. The large table took pride of place in the main room.
Chairs were arranged on the porch, inviting evening conversations. Caleb and Charles carried the last bed frame up to the third floor room Sean and Lenny had claimed, the sound of their boots on the bare wood stairs a solid, promising rhythm.
With the carpentry done, Caleb stepped out onto the porch, a pleasant ache in his muscles. He leaned against the rail, fishing out a cigarette.
His gaze found Mary-Beth in the side yard. She, along with Karen, Tilly, Abigail, and even Molly, had strung lines between two posts and were hanging washed clothes and linens to dry in the afternoon sun.
They were laughing, the wet sheets snapping in the breeze, their faces bright and unburdened. Mary-Beth pinning up a shirt, caught his eye and waved, her smile so radiant it felt like a physical warmth in his chest.
'This,' he thought, the cigarette forgotten between his fingers. 'This is what it's all for.' This peace. This normalcy. The sight of her, safe, happy, and part of a functioning family, made every ruthless calculation, every grim step he'd taken, feel justified. It was worth any price.
But the price was not yet fully paid. The serenity of the scene sharpened his focus on the remaining threats. Milton was gone, a gift from Bronte.
But Leviticus Cornwall was still out there, a wounded, furious titan with bottomless resources and a very personal vendetta. The gang's safety, this fragile peace, would remain an illusion as long as Cornwall drew breath and had the will to hunt them.
He lit the cigarette, the smoke curling into the still air. His mind, so adept at crafting furniture and managing camps, now turned to darker logistics.
Saint Denis was Bronte's domain, and while the crime lord have thought of him as his trusted henchmen, where he was also indebted to Caleb's great actions while doing all of his biddings, that relationship was a knife balanced on its point.
Bronte was not an ally, he was a temporary convergent interest. He have promised him for some intelligence on Cornwall and he should live up to his promise so he could still be trusted.
'The game's knowledge is useless now,' he mused. 'Cornwall wasn't holed up on his riverboat, complacent. He was angry, proactive, and locked in a street war. His private ship couldn't dock in Saint Denis anymore. So where was the man himself?'
His Past Life Memory Skill sifted through a fully remembered details of the game's world. Not plot, but geography. Industry. Control.
Annesburg.
The word surfaced with cold clarity. The grim, polluted mining town in the gorges of Roanoke Ridge. Cornwall owned the mine, the town, everything in it. It was his absolute fiefdom, the source of his coal fortune.
If his Saint Denis operations were compromised, where else would a man like him retreat to but the heart of his industrial power? It was a fortress, remote, easily defended, and filled with loyal, paid for men. It was the perfect base for a protracted, bitter campaign.
That was the target. Not Bronte's court, but Cornwall's citadel. He needed to go there, to scout, to listen, to understand what the old titan was planning next. To find a weakness, or at least a warning.
He was so deep in this strategic reverie that he didn't hear the soft footfalls on the porch planks.
"A penny for 'em, son," Hosea's voice came, gentle but startling.
Caleb turned, a fraction of a second late, his poker face snapping into place. Hosea leaned against the rail beside him, pulling out his own pipe.
"Just thinking," Caleb said, offering a match. Hosea accepted, puffing the pipe alight.
"Thinkin' awful hard for a man who just helped build a small furniture store's worth of goods," Hosea observed, his eyes keen. "I take it yo unplanned to propose to Mary-Beth wit how to u are looking gat her? Or is the mind was thinking on a big problem?"
Caleb chuckles before he took a drag of his cigarette, deciding on direct, if partial, truth. It was time to bring Hosea into this specific fold. "Oh I have planned for that don't worry, I was thinking of the big problem. Cornwall. The Pinkertons are gone, but the bigger beast is still out there, wounded and furious. We can't just hide and hope he gives up. We need to know what he's doing. Where he is."
Hosea's hands stilled for a moment in the process of lighting his cigarette. He finished, took a long puff, and exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Cornwall. Yes. The author of big part of our grief after reaching Valentine. You're right. He's a spiteful man. He won't stop."
He looked out at the women laughing by the laundry lines, his expression profoundly tired. "I'm sorry, Caleb. This burden… it should fall on me, or Arthur. But I'm an old known face, and Arthur… well, subtlety isn't his strongest suit, God love him. And the others have bounties plastered across the three states."
Caleb shook his head. "It's no burden, Hosea. Not really. I do this for them." He nodded toward Mary-Beth, who was now helping Jack fold a small blanket, her movements tender.
When he spoke again, his voice was softer, the genuine emotion slipping through his controlled facade. "For her. For this. This is the family I found. I'll do what it takes to protect it."
Hosea studied him, the old conman seeing past the skills to the core of resolve beneath. He placed a gnarled hand on Caleb's shoulder, the grip firm.
"I know you will. And we're grateful. More than we can say." He paused. "You have a destination in mind for this… scouting mission?"
"Annesburg," Caleb said, the word dropping between them like a lead weight. "It's his town. His mine. If he's not licking his wounds on a train back to his headquarters gods knows where, he's there. It's the only place that makes sense."
...
Name: Caleb Thorne
Age: 23
Body Attributes:
- Strength: 8/10
- Agility: 8/10
- Perception: 9/10
- Stamina: 8/10
- Charm: 8/10
- Luck: 9/10
Skills:
- Handgun (Lvl MAX)
- Rifle (Lvl MAX)
- Firearms Knowledge (Lvl MAX)
- Past Life Memory (Lvl MAX)
- Knife (Lvl MAX)
- Blunt Weapon (Lvl 2)
- Sneaking (Lvl MAX)
- Horse Mastery (Lvl MAX)
- Poker (Lvl MAX)
- Hand to Hand Combat (Lvl MAX)
- Eagle Eye (Lvl 2)
- Dead Eye (Lvl 4)
- Bow (Lvl 3)
- Pain Nullifier (Lvl 4)
- Physical Regeneration (Lvl 3)
- Crafting (Lvl MAX)
- Persuasion (Lvl MAX)
- Mental Fortitude (Lvl MAX)
- Cooking (Lvl MAX)
- Teaching (Lvl 3)
- Trilingual Language Proficiency - G, I, & C (Lvl MAX)
- Inventory System (Permanent - 10x10x10)
- Acting (Lvl MAX)
- Alcohol Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Treasure Hunter (Lvl MAX)
- Drugs Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Business (Lvl 1)
- Leadership (Lvl 1)
Money: 3,395 dollars and 60 cents
Inventory: 250,392 dollars and 61 cents, 11 gold nuggets, 65 gold bars, 1 Double Action, 1 Schofield, 2 Colm's Schofields, land deed (Parcel), 1 Mauser, 1 Semi Auto Pistol, 1 Lancaster Repeater, 1 Old Wood Jewelry Box, 1 F.F Mausoleum small brass key, 1 Ruby, 1 Braithwaites Land Deed, 1 Broken Pirate Sword, 1 Milton's Safety Deposit Key, 1 Senator Pendleton Sealed Envelope, & Proof Of Marlin-Thorne Firearms Co.
Bank: -