If you want to read 20 Chapters ahead, be sure to check out my Patreon!!!
Go to https://www.patreon.com/Tang12
...
The surprise on their faces told him he'd planted another seed of hope. By the end of the meeting, the gang looked less like a band of hunted wolves and more like a messy, stubborn family trying to learn new habits.
After that, the night at house filled with sounds of, laughter echoing through hallways, Abigail humming while brushing Jack's hair, Karen arguing with Sean about whether curtains were necessary for "a bunch of outlaws pretending to be respectable."
Arthur watched it all with a happy but also wary expression at the same time, as if happiness were a wild animal that might bite if he got too close.
One the evening Caleb found him sitting on the porch steps, cleaning his revolver.
"Place is starting to feel strange," Arthur muttered.
"Strange good or strange bad?"
Arthur shrugged. "Both. Ain't used to walls that don't leak."
Caleb sat beside him.
"I leave for Annesburg tomorrow," Caleb said in respond. "Could use your advice on how to move quiet through a company town."
Arthur snorted. "Quiet ain't my specialty, but I know the type. Keep your head down, don't ask too many questions in one place, and never trust a man wearing Cornwall's badge."
"Simple enough."
Arthur studied him sideways. "You really think you can find something there?"
"I have to."
The older man nodded slowly. "Then come back in one piece. Mary-Beth'd skin me alive if you didn't."
Caleb smiled. "She'd skin you regardless. She just hides it better."
On the morning of the fourth day, Caleb prepared to leave. The potassium bromide was in Dutch's system, the decline underway. The gang had a plan, a budget, and guards for his restaurant. Mary-Beth helped him pack a saddlebag, her hands lingering on his.
"You'll be careful in that awful place?" she asked, her voice tight.
"I'm always careful," he said, kissing her. "I'll be back before you know it. Keep everyone in line while I'm gone."
"I will," she promised, managing a smile.
Arthur met him at the hitching post where Morgan was saddled. "Annesburg," he said, handing Caleb a box of bullets. "Remember what I said. Head down. And… about the other thing…" He glanced back at the house.
"It's in motion," Caleb said quietly. "It'll look like his mind finally broke his body. I leave the key to Swanson for now, he will confirm it. There'll be nothing to question and worry about. He also have promised other than giving food and medically checking Dutch, he wouldn't open the door."
Arthur's jaw worked. He gave a single, grim nod. "Good. Then ride fast, and ride smart. We'll hold things down here."
Caleb swung up into the saddle. He took one last look at the homestead, the smoke curling from the chimney, Charles already leading a workhorse toward a field, Jack and Cain playing by the fence. It was a picture worth fighting for, worth killing for, and worth a quiet, merciful murder for.
He turned Morgan's head east, toward the gorges and the gloom that are southeast of Roanoke Ridge, toward the last great threat to his family, which he haven't go this hands on yet, which was at Annesburg.
Caleb rode out beneath a pale Heartlands sky, the homestead shrinking behind him like a warm dream he was forcing himself to wake from. The road first carried him through Valentine, the town already busy with wagons and the clatter of blacksmith hammers.
A few folks daw him, the "Hero of Valentine" some still called him, and tipped hats in passing. He answered with polite nods, keeping his expression that of a man simply traveling on honest business.
Past Citadel Rock the wind picked up, rolling across the open plains in long breaths that smelled of dry grass. Morgan's hooves kept a steady rhythm as they moved beyond Twin Stack Pass, the familiar landmarks slipping by like mile markers of a former life.
Caleb let the motion settle his thoughts. He replayed the last mornings at the house, the laughter in the halls, Pearson banging pots like church bells, Mary-Beth standing on the porch with flour on her cheek. Those images steadied him more than any revolver.
By the time Emerald Ranch appeared on the horizon, the sun was climbing toward its noon throne. Caleb decided to stop. Not only did Morgan need water, but Seamus the fencer was a man who heard more than he ever admitted.
He hitched Morgan to the post and crossed toward the toolshed beside the barn where Seamus worked. The Irishman looked up from his tinkering, wiping grease on a rag.
"Ah, Iare my eyes damning me or I'm just hallucinating. Look what the coyote dragged in," Seamus said, wiping his hands on an oily rag. "Haven't seen you in a coon's age, mister. Figured you'd got yourself hanged or rich."
"A little of both, maybe," Caleb said with a thin smile. "Been busy. Too many matters, not enough days."
"Ain't that the curse of livin',"Seamus replied. He leaned on the counter. "So what brings you to my humble establishment? Business, is it?"
Caleb nodded. "Buying today, not selling."
That perked Seamus right up. "Music to my ears. What sort of… equipment you after?"
Caleb lowered his voice a touch, playing the part of a cautious traveler. "Something that could make a door reconsider being locked. Or a rock reconsider being a rock."
Seamus's eyes, usually dull with perpetual dissatisfaction, lit up with a merchant's glee. He chuckled, a wet, phlegmy sound. "Finally decided to invest in some of my cute little party favors, huh? Two dollars a stick. Standard issue. How many you lookin' to liven up your day with?"
"Ten should do," Caleb said.
Seamus whistled low. "Big party huh. Wait here."
He disappeared into the gloom at the back of the shed, behind stacks of questionable goods. He returned cradling ten sticks of dynamite, their waxed paper and ominous labels a stark contrast to the mundane clutter of the shed. He laid them on the counter with a practiced nonchalance.
Caleb counted out 20 dollars, the bills crisp. As he accepted the bundled dynamites, he made a show of placing them in his satchel. The moment they were out of sight, he willed them into his system inventory.
They vanished from the physical world, stored in a conceptual space only he could access, safe, dry, and undetectable.
"Pleasure doin' business," Seamus said, pocketing the cash. "You need fuses or a celebratory drink to go with 'em?"
"Information," Caleb said, leaning slightly on the counter. "Heard any interesting gossip lately? The kind that doesn't make the papers."
Seamus's smirk faded into a more serious, calculating expression. He glanced toward the door, then back.
"Information costs extra, but for a n interesting customer… it's free. Saint Denis is a damn hornet's nest right now. Word is Angelo Bronte's turned the place inside out. Somebody embarrassed him bad, he have killed a many men and even several Pinkerton bigwig ls that are said to be disturbing. He's looking for ghosts, and he's breakin' a lot of real people in the process. You plan on headin' that way, you tread lighter than a feather on a baby's breath."
Caleb kept his face impassive, though internally he noted the scale of Bronte's reaction. Good. Let the him look elsewhere and weren't wsitny for his return yet then.0
"And the other rumor?" Caleb prompted.
"Closer to home," Seamus said, dropping his voice. "Cornwall. The old lion himself. He's taken up residence in Annesburg. Don't know why he'd wanna breathe that black air, but he's there. Brought a small army of private guards with him. Town's locked up tighter than a nun's… well, you get the idea. Started a week or so back. Seems permanent."
Confirmation. The intelligence was solid. "Appreciate it, Seamus."
"Just don't blow up anything I might wanna buy later," the fencer called after him as Caleb left.
Back on the road, the confirmation sat in Caleb's gut like a stone. Cornwall wasn't just visiting, he'd dug in. Annesburg wasn't just a base, it was a fortress he'd retreated to, likely to plot his next, more furious move against Angelo Bronte who have humiliated him in Siang Denis and now they are in war. And Caleb, the "meddling deputy" who'd rallied Valentine against him, was personally on that list.
He crossed the sluggish, polluted flow of the Kamassa River, the water running gray. At a bleak three way intersection, he turned north. The landscape grew more scarred, the trees sickly, the very earth stained.
Van Horn Trading Post loomed ahead, a grim collection of shacks clinging to a filthy waterfront. He rode through without stopping. The place reeked of despair and cheap whiskey.
It was a town that could be bought or bullied, but it offered nothing Cornwall's money hadn't already claimed or crushed. Annesburg was the true seat of power here.
Finally, as the afternoon sun struggled to penetrate the perpetual haze, he reached it.
Annesburg was not a town, it was a wound. It sprawled in a steep valley, dominated by the monstrous, screeching apparatus of the Cornwall owned coal mine. Towers of black timber, grinding machinery, and the endless, rattling movement of mine carts filled the air with a deafening industrial clamor.
The buildings were uniformly grimy, the streets thick with mud and coal dust. The people, miners, their families, shopkeeps, moved with a slumped exhaustion, their faces smudged and hopeless. The air tasted of sulfur and defeat.
Caleb's first order of business was a base of operations. There was no proper inn. The only place that offered lodging of any sort, according to the sparse information he'd gathered, was the gunsmith.
It made a twisted kind of sense, in a company town where everyone was either owned by Cornwall or hiding from him, traditional hospitality died.
He rode to the small, fortified looking building that housed the Annesburg Gunsmith. He dismounted, tying Morgan to a post.
He took a moment to adjust his demeanor, pulling his hat lower, affecting the slightly weary, slightly dangerous slouch of a man who lived by the gun. He was no longer Caleb, protector of the homestead. He was a bounty hunter, a drifter passing through, a man named Jim Callahan.
The inside of the store was dim, smelling of gun oil, coal dust, and stale tobacco. A grizzled man with suspicious eyes and forearms thick from gunsmithing looked up from behind a counter lined with rifles.
"Help you?" the man asked, his voice like gravel.
Caleb shook his head, letting his gaze wander over the shelves without interest. "Not here for iron today. Heard a man can rent a room here. That true?"
The gunsmith's eyes narrowed. "Maybe. Who's askin'?"
"Name's Callahan. Jim Callahan." Caleb let a hint of impatience color his tone. "Just need a roof for a few nights. On the trail of a skip who might've come through here. Don't need trouble, just a bed."
He took 5 dollars from his pocket and placed them on the counter with a deliberate, flat sound. The money was a universal language, especially in a town like this.
The gunsmith looked at the money, then back at Caleb's face, assessing. A bounty hunter was a plausible story. They were solitary, paid in cash, and asked few questions about things that didn't concern their quarry.
"Five days," the gunsmith said, scooping up the money. "Room's upstairs. Back door, outside stairs. Don't bring trouble to my shop. You see Cornwall's boys, you look the other way. You get in a fight, you get dead somewhere else. Understood?"
"Crystal," Caleb said.
The man jerked a thumb toward the back of the store. "Through there. First door on the left at the top. Don't touch nothin' that ain't yours."
...
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: 3,370 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., & 10 Dynamites
Bank: -