Red Dead Renegade

by Onkwehonwe Kashatstenhshera

From East To West: 5 people seek their destiny. A lonely tribal renegade warrior searching for his family , an ex slave and civil war veteran , a bandida who sells guns to enemies of the state,a disgruntled worker from China fleeing persecution, & an ex confederate turned outlaw unwilling to accept the Union's victory. Will they find peace after the endless bloodshed?

2. Brutality On All Sides

Pony Expressway Or The Highway

Centralia, North Dakota

Lemuel was inside the bar and Al poured him a drink. "What'll it be?"

"So I can drink here?" Al told him, "Now don't be like that. I aint saying I agree with it god damn but it's just law in this town. I can tell you're at least not a savage. You got a soul, boy. Them dirt worshippers though...they can't have souls cause they're I don't reckon demons have souls. And they don't speak English."

"What's a dirt worshipper? And I thought demons used to be human, mister."

"Those redskins out there they worship worship the moon the trees the stars. Silliest damn thing I ever heard. I know this man...miner outta Deadwood fights them when he can and takes their they pray to something called Wonka Wonka or something like that. I don't know what the hell kinda gibberish that is but I reckon it must be Sioux for Satan. Are you a Christian Lemuel?"

"I was raised to be but I don't know that I's believes in it no moh. I had a hard time understanding da words."

"ah well that' all right, son. Your heart is in the right path. You'll learn eventually."

"I appreciate the ban on the working gals, sir. It's really what the lord wants. Good for all colored folks you ask me. Them aint proper women and my mama told me stay away."

Al reached behind the bar and grabbed his shotgun and said, "You insulting my girls, Lem?" Lem's heart began to race. Just then the bartender burst out laughing. "I was just pulling your leg. While I can't officially condone what you just said you aint exactly lying, Mr. Reeves. My girls are fire breathing whores. Each one as nasty as the next and if ya value your pecker you'd best avoid em. Just looking at them might just give you syphillis. But they make money. And there aint much other work for a woman in this here town."

"You ever get any colored girls? Suppose then you could let me spend some money in your fine establishment."

"I can' say we have. Colored population in North .Dakota aint like the south. Oh that reminds me..." He said as Lem took his shot of whiskey. "You get them letters handed out?"

"No sir. Had to get them sorted into order."

"Well why don't you show me what you got so far?"

He handed him a mail stack and he began to sort through it. "I don't know who sent this but this man's been dead going on near thirty years. Ah ya know what? There's six of these you can drop off with the good people here. The first man here is Rev. Archibald Taylor. Second is...hell...one of my girls. I'll see to it she gets that one but if she thinks her goddamn brother is coming here...ah...I won't bother you with the details, varmint. Third is to the good doctor himself."

"And four, five and six. Thomas Ellesworth, Elizabeth Holvenstat and Ulysses Higgins."

"You can read?!" Al exclaimed. "Yes suh...massa taught me how he was so kind..." Lemuel lied but in his head said, This peckerwood wouldn't believe it was a colored man that taught me to read...best to just play dumb with the white folks around here.

"Well weren't that sweet of him. All right well get to it. In additon to whatever your pay will be from the Pony Express I'll be sure and throw in a litle something extra."

He approached the man of the church,, an older white man in his seventies. "How you doing sir? Got a piece of mail for ya."

He handed it to him. The older man was a bit unsure of how to react at Lemuel's sight but he took the letter. "My word..." He said. "This came from Wisconsin. You're with the Pony Express?"

"Yes sir. Unofficially. Well...maybe now officially now that I saved their bodyguard. Wish I could have saved everybody but we were up to our neck in outlaws."

"Ah yes..." The rev said as he opened his piece of mail. "My word! My grandson...he just got accepted into Harvard. He'd be the first in our family to go to college."

He eyed Lemuel. 'You aint from around here ar ya? Don't get many colored folks around here. No offense. I mean we're all children of the lord. I can assume you know my name since you found me but what may I ask is yours?"

"Lemuel Reeves. I'm from down south. But I aint been back since the war. Don't plan to neither. South Carolina has seen the last of me..." He then asked, "If you don't mind me asking...what can you tell me about this here town?"

The older man chuckled. "What, Centralia? Not much to tell ya really, sonny. Was Dakota Sioux territory. Most folks coming out here came by steamboat. If you was gonna come out here, you'd do it that way by way of the red river. But if you're really with the Express you had to have come by land anyway...especially with what happened to poor Cyrus. He deserved better than that."

"To be honest, I aint so sure i''m staying. I'm after some bad men. Well one in particular."

"Bounty hunter are ya? Well you're not going to want for scum in this town. We get ruffians from all over the state in these here parts. Between the murderers and thieves and the den of inequity that Al's saloon represents, I'd say we got ourselves quite the Sodom of the West wouldn't you agree?"

"I suppose so. But I aint much of a drinker and I aint one for consorting with prostitutes neither."

"Well, it aint just the things of that nature. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. This place...is the divorce capital of the west. Course then previously married men will start to fornicate or even if they remarry and have carnal relations, they've commited adultery."

"How's that, rev?"

"Matthew 5:31-32Furthermore it has been said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.' But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery."

"Well wouldn't you think that any man that beats his woman that's also cause for divorce?"

"Sure. But then you can't remarried. Unless it was a divorce of sexual immorality."

"But aint you a protestant? I though catholics were the ones who believed that?"

"Indeed that may be true. That's one thing the Papists and I agree on I suppose. But then it aint a matter of agreeing or disagreeing. What their church says versus mine. Fact is that's what the bible says. So even if we consider the Catholics to be a false faith..they got that part right nd I suppose we got that wrong. So I try to remember that."

"I suppose so. I best be going mister. Got other letters to deliver."

"Before you go...do you got any children of of your own?"

"No sir. No wife."

"They really are a blessing. It's a good thing when a man and his wife stay together. Divorce is always hardest on the children."

"All due respect I don't see what you see. Where's the men getting divorced around here?"

The older man replied, "oh sure. It aint happening left and right now. But it will. Just this year they signed the bill into effect. Dakota Territory legislature. They allow these people to file for divorce as soon as they come to the territory! Darndest thing I ever saw. You'll have men coming here to divorce and I'm sure they'll be leaving just as fast to go out there and do God knows what!"

Before Lemuel left the church he statted, "Well you can't save everyone."

He delivered the rest of the letters and they proved to be rather uneventful. he got $25 from Al in addition to the salary to be paid for the delivery. Suddenly a voice called out to him. "You there!" He turned to see a Caucasian male in a beige under shirt and a black vest and gray pantaloons. He recognized him as the man riding shotgun on the stagecoach. "Hey how you holding up, Willie?" He asked.

"I'm alive, thanks to you. I owe you one"

"I got a confession to make. Al offered me a couple shots on the house and I indulged. It was just a one time thing when I was working for ya'll anyway. I don't intend to again."

"Well that there's a shame. I was going to offer you Cyrus's old position. You saved my ass."

"Well now...looks like you done violated the Pony Express oath too!"

"Look here, Lem. I was at death's door. Cyrus enforced that there rule to the fullest and I am gonna miss him. I'm a Christian man. Same as Rev Archie. But there's worse things in life to be sore about. Worse sins and right now I just don't think Jesus is too concerned about cursing and drinking. Hell...I won't tell if you don't. So long as if we're both in the position of supervisors I don't mind it one bit. Getting shot changes a man...and Cyrus was more pious than either one of us and he didn't survive."

"I wouldn't know about being shot. Caught some debris from cannon fire though and it weren't pretty."

"and yet you survive too. And you aint so pious. Oh sure you might believe but you aint devout. A blind man could see that. That's perfect though. We don't know if we'll ever see God or if it's all just a lie but a man like you is in good hands if he is real. Jesus was always around people with little faith."

"Well his followers were just plain dumb if you ask me. To have doubt when you observe miracles when we aint getting to see em today...how's that wound of yours any how?"

"Very sore...which is why I violated the other rule..." The dark skinned black male laughed at Willie's revelation. "You telling me you had some of the spirits too? Hot dog!"

"It's a natural pain killer and that's a fact. If it's all right for Isrealites to get drunk I reckon we can too. Them boys in Missouri that run this company they have their rules and all but they don't know what live is like out here. In the west."

"I don't know..." Lemuel disagreed. "St. Loius is the gateway to the west. I'd say they know what;'s going on out there."

"It's still the south. Weighed down by the past. The only way a southern man or a Yankee can ever really start fresh is out west. I fought for the south and I did a lot of wrong. I tried to make up for it this past year best i could being a protector instead of an aggressor but they say ya live by the sword die by the sword."

"What if I was to say yes on your offer? At least for now? I still have business in California. Graff was seen headed out that way last and i can't very well catch him out here. So what if I accompanied you on these routes till then? Better yet given the way it went last time, maybe I should be the one riding shotgun."

Willie took offense to this. "You're pulling my leg, right? The reason I got shot, hell we all got shot except you was you was in the back. And there was too damn many of em! It don't mean I can't shoot!" Lemuel held his hands up. "Calm dowm. I aint mean nothing by it. You're right there was too many."

"We'll BOTH carry guns. but aint no way I'm delivering letters. Hell...you're the one that went around passing out letters so it seems you got the knack for it. I still think you're crazy as hell going after Graff. I never served with the man but I've heard horror stories and he got himself a big ole posse and a single man like you aint getting nowhere near him."

"That'll be my problem when the time comes, Billy not yours. Do I get the job or not? And i want my own shotgun while I'm up there too."

"Fuck that..." Blurted out the Shotgun man. "You can have a couple of six shooters at your side but I'm carrying the shotgun and any Rifles. Hell you gotta steer the damn thing."

"Fair enough..." They shook on it. "Well then you tell me when we're ready to go then."

"I'll need to telegraph Missouri and find out what they need me to do. They'll probably just say it's business as usual but i reckon we may have to go all the way back there."

Lem's heart sank.All the way back? No. i came too far out west to go back that way. I'd just be undoing all the progress I made getting this far! Lemuel caught sight of two black men near Al's saloojn. one was tall about six feet tall and darker than Lem and his hair was getting long in the back. The other wore glasses and had a more lean face standing at 5'9 and he wore a brown duster jacket. "Samuel Larue? Moses Lowery?!"

They both beamed with grins at seeing him and they shook hands and hugged. He had served with the two of them in the war. They had both been slaves that had also escaped, much like him. Samuel had been a slave in Loiusiana under the infamous Code Noir while Moses had been a slave in Florida. "What the hell you doing here, Lemuel Reeves?!" Inquired Samuel. "I could ask you the same thing."

"We're on leave. Accompanying our Captain on a private mission out here."

"Where you boys coming from?" He asked. "Seems a long way to come."

"Not as far away as you might think..." Moses explained. "We're stationed at Levenworth. Sammy's with the 9th cavalry. I'm with the 10th. We reckon we'd be seeing some action out here soon."

"What about the plantations? Didn;'t yall inherit the land?"

"Hell no! You think those old peckerwoods are giving me a damn thing?" Moses grumbled. Sammy on the other hand stated, "I tried to stay behind and work the land but truth be told I didn't wanna spend the rest of my life looking at no mule's behind."

"Hey..." Chuckled Lemuel. "Sherman DID say 40 acres an a mule for what happened in Atlanta..." This earned a laugh from the other two. "Well you know Josiah and Eddie? They're with us too. Josiah's with the 10th..." Moses said.

"And Eddie's with me..." Added Samuel. "Speaking of, Lem you still gunning for Catfish Clemmens?"

"No doubt about it. I wouldn't mind getting my hand on old Master Atkins when I'm done too only I don't know where he went after he took off."

"You should reenlist. All colored cavalry just like before. We go after renegade Indians and outlaws. They want to use our expertise killing rebels to go after them Injuns."

"Killing other free men just for being free aint really my style..." Lem said. "Oh come on now..." Moses scolded. "You saw they had Indians on the same side as Johnny Reb right? Fighting with the graycoats. Don't you want a little payback on those heathen bastards? Besides, you need an army to back you up. If you going after Catfish you must be going after Graff and he got himself a gang. You need an army of your own."

"These aint the same indians out here though...and I could just as easily remind ya'll that Catfish is our color too he still killed my daddy."

"It may not be the same Indians out here but they're just as brutal..." Stated Samuel. "They just had themselves a nasty war over there in Minnesota four years ago. A lot of folks got killed. Not just men. Women folk too and children. Now white, colored or Indian that aint right. And you know this is the best chance you got at going after Graff and Clemmens. What have you got to lose? You want to work for some cracker? We heard about you and your little rescue in the Pony Express."

"It sounds like ya'll taking orders from one yourselves. How they let you on leave anyway? Got you in civilan clothing?"

"Like I said we're scouting ahead. Got us a job to 's got some scouts from some other kind of Indians. Enemies of the Sioux. I aint sure which. But I'm telling you, Lem. Don't go thinking we're just in this to take redskin scalps. It aint just that. You can put in your time and you'll be hunting down them outlaw scalawags in no time. See we're also going west to protect the railroad men. Not just from Indian attacks. From train robbings too..." Moses stated.

"You hoping to catch Jesse James?" Asked Lem with a smirk. "If I catch him in my crosshairs, yes. Or my lasso. i'll take that bush whacking son of a bitch down"

"Besides..." Added Samuel. "Aint it trains that Graff goes after too? Him and that house nigger Catfish? I don't know what they're up to that they all need all that money. Makes me think they could be trying to leave the country. Can't have that. Look brotha. You free to do this however you see it. But you should want to mow down whoever gets in your way. And I mean anybody. You don't want to reenlist that's on you but we're trying to find Catfish too. He's worth more now that he's running with Graff."

"Yeah sure. But that's somehow worse than killing my papa?" The two shook their heads. "Nobody said that..." Moses stated. "But it'd be easier for you to get your piece of Catfish's fat hide yourself if you put on the Union blue again than if you went solo. We got the guns and the resources. The horses, men to go after them."

Samuel noticed, "You don't seem to want to go after Graff as much. I know Catfish killed your daddy but Graff is a mean son of a bitch and he don't deserve to live."

"I aint saying he does but I'm about my father's business above all else."

"You know even though he got Catfish and one other brother in his gang...Graff happened upon a colored church same way as he terrorized white schools in the north burning them down an all. He spared any colored folk that just got they freedom from emancipation or escape but he ended up shooting four boys in that church and one woman when he found out them four boys served in the war. This was out in Arkansas."

"Why he kill the woman?" Asked Lem. "She was nursing people's wounds. I'm telling ya, man. Graff kills civilians on a whim and he might spare some of anybody if he's in a good mood but whenever he get wind of somebody, white or colored that served with the North he gets bloody. That includes you. You might not want to get back with the army. But he'd kill you as fast as you'd kill him."

"As tempting as this all sounds, I don't want to have to take orders from nobody like before. I didn't mind it before when I was fighting in the war and I couldn't find Catfish he vanished at the time but now? I like my independence and freedom. Why would I ask the Army to do for me what i can do for myself? I don't want to have to need a pass to leave. I'm going west with the Pony Express. That'll get me to California where i need to go. And i'll make bounty money and Pony Express deliveries along the way. I appreciate it but no thank you."

"Stubborn fool..." Said Moses as he mounted his horse. Samuel then unhitched his and mounted up saying, "If you change your mind we'll be in Kansas. If we catch up to Graff before you do we aint gonna be able to save him for you. We'd have to deal with him ourselves. The man is still killing soldiers. Don't get left behind, Lemuel!"

He returned back to Willie. "Friends of yours?"

"What are you trying to say we all know each other?"

"That conversation looked pretty dang heated. I didn't reckon they'd be here long on account of Al probably wouldn't serve em. Come to think of it...if Rev Archibald was to know I'm drinking now he would try and get them to get me to stop drinking."

"Seems like you're thinking about drinking a lot, friend..." Lem said. "I get doing it a little for the pain but don't you think you may wanna slow up? You were shot three times. Even me I drink only a little bit."

"What can I say, fella? I lost two of my friends. Come to think of it...had you ever had a drink before all this? Freedom and what not?"

Lemuel chuckled. "You would think not, right? But the truth is back on the plantations that'd be the one day of year we was allowed off work and they'd feed us even decently too. They'd even have beer. I used to look forward to them days and the masters didn't think much of giving even a kid a beer but now looking back on it I know it wasn't out of the kindness of their hearts. It was to keep us complacent."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that. They say every people was enslaved at some pint. I don't know how true that it but it makes it easier to swallow. Listen...that last man...when I lost consciousness did he die? Do you know if he did?"

"I don't see how he could be alive. He was in a bad way when Ieft him. It was snowing pretty badly. I hit his horse trying to hit him and it pinned the bastard. But the pellets still got him. Short of Jesus himself coming from the sky to help that sum bitch, I don't see how he'd live."

"Well if those corpses are still out there you may want to go and collect em. Those men are wanted. There's other men in the county that's wanted too and don't nobody nessecearily know where they are but we know them two might be out there."

"It's five miles away..." Lem said. "There's a good chance somebody already happened upon their bodies and collected em already. It's been a week, Willie."

"Maybe but we don't know that for sure. The storm may have calmed down but it aint like it's stopped snowing. Them boys could be under the snow..." He said, "Don't you think it's at least worth a look? I can go by the bounty office. All I'm saying is we go look. I'm not saying I can't make due with this Pony Express salary but I think we both could use that money. You saved me. But it was my idea. I think we should split it halfway."

"I killed most of them though..." Lemuel said. "Yeah and I got shot. That entitles me to half. I still managed to shoot one of them pecker heads before I went down. Plus two friends is gone. We need to collect them too for proper burial."

Lemuel sighed. All though it was true he had killed most of them, getting a bunch of dead bodies and frozen bodies back wouldn't be easy by himself and it was at least a two man job. He wished that Samuel and Moses had stayed behind and then it could have been a four man job and he knew them a hell of a lot better than he did Willie but Willie was what he had. Even so, 50% of the bounty was a lot better than what he could expect in most other partnerships, he imagined people would try and take advantage of him. "All right, Willie. You got yourself a dead. You should talk to Al then. He can sit on the remaining packages we got. We'll need the space in the wagon. I'm hoping we can do all this in one trip if not, might need to make em a couple."

Johnny Reb

Dalton withdrew his two six shooters both of which were Colt Army Model 1860 Revolvers. With him were some of the men Dalton had served with. A balding blonde haired white male with darkened skin from the California sun was among those who had served and he was a long time friend of Dalton. His name was William Coates. He carried a Colt Dragoon Revolver in his holster but he had his 1866 Winchester Repeater aimed at the Chinese miners. "Alright give it up ya damn coolies!" He bellowed in his deep booming voice. Also among them was a white male with curly brown hair and a scragily brown beard standing at six feet tall carrying a Springfield Allin Conversion 1866 Rifle. He had beady brown eyes. His name was Richard Patterson. He'd been a Sergeant in the Army Of Northern Virginia.

Also among them was a younger man, Eustace Jennings. He was a twenty year old who had been at Battle of Sailor's Creek and had been wounded there by a Yankee sabre. He had served under Richard S. Ewell. Lastly, there was Sid Winthrop, a rather quiet man in his early 40's who had fought at Antietam . He had black curly hair and bright blue eyes and a brown beard and stood at five ten but always seemed bigger than that. He carried dragoon pistols as well.

Graff trained his 1851 Colt Navy Revolver at one of the Chinese gold miners. "Give up the gold" The man did not seem to understand. He spoke back in Mandarin. Graff spotted a Caucasian male in his early fifties with blonde hair and blue eyes wearing a white dress shirt under a red vest and a cowboy hat that barely protected his sunburned face. "You there! Tell these sum bitches that if they want to live they're to get all the gold they collected and give it up. Come on now! I want that basket!"

The man turned to a Chinese interpreter who relayed this to the workers. " The workers began to give up what they had. Dalton ket his pistols trained on a young Chinese man posibly in his thirties with a cue. They all looked the same to a lot of people but not to Dalton he could tell the difference between them but at the same time, he had never actually seen a Chinamen before. He'd headed west and he'd seen the railroads and he'd heard of the mines but he had never seen any of these men of the orient before. The man had yellowish brown skin but it was really more brown than yellow and his clothes were an impressive dark blue. Even though he had multiple guns on him, he stared Dalton down.

This man was their interpreter. "Easy now...I don't want to hurt you. We just want the gold..."

Graff told the boss, "How's about you empty them pockets?" The man growled back, "You'll hang for this..." He vowed. He had a semi southern voice.

He then eyed him. "You serve?"

The older man stated, "Yes I did."

"You sound Virginian..." Graff replied.

"West Virginian. And you're right. I did serve. Under Phillip Sheridan..." Graff smirked. "Damn shame, aint it boys?" With that, Graff put the barel of his Navy Revolver against the man's chest. He pulled the trigger and the man clutched at his chest as the crimson stains spread out on his chest. "That's what happens to carpet baggers."

. Just then, another man, a white young male with shaggy brown hair in a white cowboy hat, a white shirt an a black vest and black pants fired a double barreled shotgun at them. "Son of a bitch!" Screamed Patterson. "They got the Sheriff already!"

Patterson fired into a Chinese worker with two rounds in the chest. The interpeter and another Chinese man caught him so he wouldnt fall. "Oh shit..." The Virginia born outlaw had shot him more out of instinct than anything else.

"It don't matter boys. Our backup is here!" Replied Graff. Five more outlaws arrived carrying Repeaters and they began firing upon the Sheriff and his posse. The next outlaw was a Native male of Cherokee descent. He had a shaved head and dark brown skin and he stood five ten and wore a white shirt under a brown vest and white pants and he also carried a Repeater. He wore a brown war shirt and home spun pantaloons all though his father looked down on wearing pants of the white man so he kept a pair of deer skinned leggings as well. His hair was bald except for a scalplok towards the back of his head tied with a turkey feather, sometimes eagle but today it was a turkey feather though he often switched it up. His name was Yo-nv-a-di-si. But his colonial name was John Water however, resistant to the end, he said it only in Tslagi and so he was Tsoni Ama.

The next man as George H Potts. Potts was a blonde haired white male standing about 5'10 with tense blue eyes. He was in his early 40's and he was from the Appalachian mountains. He carried a henry himself. Potts had lost two missing fingers his ring and pinky that he had lost in the Battle Of Bull Run. He was a quirky and odd fellow with a deep voice that was booming and was so deep that it was rather offputting.

Next was Thomas Lovecraft. Lovecraft was a Negro, of the darker skinned variety and h wore a white straw hat and a white vest over a pink dress shirt and black pants with old brown boots that were old but by no means tacky. He was from Oklahoma and had been owned by the Chickisaw nation, himself and his wife. He had only escaped slavery from the white man because of the brutality etween the Jayhawkers and Border Ruffians. His masters had not beat his family but adopted them however, they were killed themselves in a civil war engagement and the Negro famil fled. Not long after this, Tsoni Ama had taken them in and when it was uncertain the would win, he claimed the slave stayed with him

Next was Marshall Hastings, a nineteen year old with brown hair and brown eyes and chubby cheeks. Originally from Jackson, he was only in a single battle the entire war. He was wounded in the Battle of Trench's Reach. He had been a naval soldier. He had a scar and a chunk of his left leg missing about the size of a fist. He was great on horseback and even more so in just about any steamed boat and he knew the waters like the back of his hand but on foot he always carried a cane. It was something he was self conscious about.

Lastly was Catfish Clemmens. Clemmens was a rather homely Negro, overweight and gluttonous but with a mean streak. He had lost his right eye in a knife fight from his days as a slave and the eye was now blue permenantly. Catfish had a reputation as a man who had often informed on fellow slaves whenever there was a runaway plan. He was forty five years old and he had served in the Confederate Army as a and Lovecraft did not get along. Lovecraft had been no friend of the Yankees and no friend of the Confederacy either. He had simply come to depend on John Water. Dalton did not trust Catfish. He saw him as an oppurtunist snake and to him any man who would derail his own people's chance at freedom was untrustworthy to him even though he had been Graff's water man, and stuck to him the way Lovecraft did to Tsoni Ama, he couldn't imagine how the Negros must have hated him.

Rumor had it that he had killed some Negro back in the south and had fled after to escape the law. There had been a bounty on it but nobody cared to go after a Negro for killing another Negro. His initial bounty was just $25. But when he had regrouped with men of the south including Graff and they had taken to robbing banks, his bounty had gone up to $1000 as they robbed ten banks in the several months since April.

The rounds hammered into the posse as the backup came intent on keeping them all free. With a storm of rounds, the posse was cut down and only Sheriff Meyers himself survived and he had to duck behind his own horse as it was riddled with rounds. His left leg was broken as the deceased horse fell on him. "Sheriff's down!" Announced Potts.

"Good. I hope that leg of his is the end of him!" Stated Graff. "Men like Meyers are cowards. That sum bitch didn't even fight in the war. Yella bellied fence rider..."

"They're going to raise the bounty on our head so high them fellers at Wall Street is gonna want to collect..." Warned Dalton. "Let em come..." Stated Graff. "We'll kill all them Yankee sons of bitches..."

They rode hard wanting to get as far from San Francisco as they could. They rode until dawn until they reached the forests. There they would make camp. "Inventory!" Announced Graff. Lovecraft went first. "I got seventeen shells left for this here six shooter..." Graff nodded saying, "Then you're one shy of two loads. You say you got five in the wheel, there Lovecraft?" The middle aged outlaw nodded. He pulled out a Revolver round and handed it to him. "We'll need to get more soon enough but for now if any more posses come for us you should be good to at least drop anywhere from ten to eighteen of em."

"I have fourteen rounds left, boss..." Stated Tsoni Ama. "Plus two in the Rifle."

"Anybody else carrying the exact sane kind of Repeater?" Marshall said, "Me sir. And i got eight rounds left."

"Give him four rounds. This way he has twelve and you have twelve... I know it aint ideal but this way if he dies you die if you survive he survives. Like being chained together!" Ordered Graff. The Cherokee reluctantly emptied out the two in the Rifle and went for the remaining two shells he had to take out of it but Dalton said, "Graff he was missing a lot of shots, that boy."

"You mind your own damn business, Dalton!" Growled Hastings. "Twelve and twelve is fair!"

"You're not as good with a Rifle as the rest of us and you're only as strong as your weakest link."

"You wanna get off that fuckin horse and settle this, chicken shit? Just cause I'm missing part of my leg don't mean I can't take ya!" Barked Hastings. "Enough!" Ordered Graff. "All right, Dalton. You be my eyes. Out of them how many did the boy get and how many did the Indian get?"

"From what I saw Ama got two and hastings got one. But he fired less shots to get them two. It looked like seven at most. The boy spent an entire cartridge."

"All right then...Water you keep all your ammo then. Keep shooting like that or better. Marshall you better improve or they will put some holes in your hide. You hear me, boy?"

They began to sing as they rode away.

Oh, I'm a good old rebel

Now thats just what I am

And for this yankee nation

I do not give a damn

I'm glad I fought against her

I only wish we'd won

I ain't asked any pardon

For anything I've done

I hates the Yankee nation

And eveything they do

I hates the declaration

Of independence too

I hates the glorious union

'Tis dripping with our blood

I hates the striped banner

And fought it all I could

I rode with Robert E. Lee

For three years there about

Got wounded in four places

And I starved at Point Lookout

I caught the rheumatism

Campin' in the snow

But I killed a chance of Yankees

And I'd like to kill some more

Three hundred thousand Yankees

Is stiff in southern dust

We got three hundred thousand

Before they conquered us

They died of southern fever

And southern steel and shot

I wish they was three million

Instead of what we got

I can't take up my musket

And fight 'em down no more

But I ain't a-goin' to love them

Now that is certain sure

And I don't want no pardon

For what I was and am

I won't be reconstructed

And I do not give a damn

Oh, I'm a good old rebel

Now that's just what I am

And for this Yankee nation

I do no give a damn

I'm glad I fought against her

I only wish we'd won

I ain't asked any pardon

For anything I've done

I ain't asked any pardon

For anything I've done...

They were the very definition of unrepeant. The crack of Rifle fire followed them and two rounds narrowly missed Dalton. His hat was shot off. He looked to see over the hills and sure enough, a posse was on their trail. Eustace was shot through the back with two rounds from a Henry. The man who shot him was wearing a red dress shirt under a black vest and a gray hat mounted upon a mustang. The young man fell off his horse bleeding and hitting the ground.

The next man who was hit was Lovecraft in the left hand. "AHHH! SON OF A BITCH!" He cried out. Graff aimed his Colt at the man who had done this, a man carrying a Springfield. He struck him down with three shots in the stomach. The man fell off his horse.

Dalton spotted another sharpshooter. "Graff! Three O'clock high!" He took the Rifle from Eustace and aimed and he leaned over the side of his horse as he rode and he fired missing a shot at about fifty yards and he closed his left eye taking a deep breath and exhaled with the trigger pull and the man fell pitched from his horse landing on his side as a round crashed through his right side and exited out of his left. "We don't let them take his body! Kill em all!" Screamed Coates as he unloaded two rounds into a deputy at twenty five meters. More rounds came at them and it seemed they were surrounded. They had only one way out. A little bit north.

A round struck Coates in the back and he fell over the side of his horse and he tried to hang on to the saddle but his legs skidded as he hit the ground and was dragged several feet before he hit the ground. Coughing up blood, the wounded confederate outlaw tried to get up but as another deputized man came in with a double barreled shotgun, with the bang that echoed twice in the air, the man fell over with buckshot in his stomach.

Dalton was riding his horse almost to the point that it wouldn't be able to take much more. "Cut your losses, mister! You don't wanna die for a few lousy dollars!" He screamed and he fired over his shoulder and managed to hit the man who had killed Coates with a round that hit his left wrist. "We gotta go back for them!" Shouted Patterson. "Coates would have done the same for us!"

"Coates is done, friend!" Replied Graff.

"Eustace...more like Useless...!" Bellowed Potts. They got a good distance ahead eventually losing them as they went through Niles Canyon. "How could we just leave him like that? He was one of us! Eustace too!" Patterson growled.

"If we'd have stayed behind we'd have died too, Richard. I don't like it either but aint no sense risking our necks for a dead man!"

"What do you know, Dalton? You aint been around long as me! For all you know either of them boys could have survived!"

"Who survives a gutshot twice from a shotgun?!" Cried Dalton.

"Did ya'll see them blue coats?" Asked Lovecraft. "I think they was Rangers."

"Yes sir..." Stated Sid. "California Rangers matter fact...they'll be on us as long as we're in the state. You won't like what they do to their enemies. I heard about what they had going on about ten years ago."

"That was damn Yuma's Winthrop!" Stated Graff. "Only red fella we got with us is Johnny here!"

"Are you trying to say the tribes here in the west deserved to be killed for mining?!" Growled Tsoni Ama. "I aint said nothing of the sort, Johnny. I been nothing but a friend to you and you hate them blue coat federals much as me. I'm just saing twas a different time is all. I reckon if we was Yuma they'd be on us a lot quicker. But at the same time boys..." He said directing his attention from Tsoni to the rest, "That shows how deadly them Rangers can be. We'd do well to stay outta their crosshairs."

He looked at the Cherokee and said, "Besides, fella...i don't want you as an enemy. We needs you to get them Arizona Injuns into the new confederacy , right? Here's hoping you can convince em. We'll try and get the white folk to rally behind us."

"And what about the colored folk?" Asked Lovecraft. "Hell I don't mind staying in my own place long as I got my own place that can't no man take from me i don't mind being separate."

"You shut yer honery black ass up, Thomas..." Spat Grimes speaking up. "You sound like that nigger Frederick Douglass. That old trash talking uppity Negro poisoning people's minds and ears."

"Negro, if it wasn't for Douglass ugly black sum bitches like you wouldn't even be free. Oh and how many of them white boys back there did you kill? What you only good at shooting when Massa tells you?" He was referring to Grimes and his service in the Confedracy but of course, Dalton knew that they didn't allow blacks to have guns or fight. All the same, he'd heard Catfish had picked up a gun anyway. "I could shoot you right now of my own free accord..." Growled Catfish aiming his Revolver between Lovecraft's eyes.

"That's enough!" Stated Dalton getting between the two men. "We're all on the same side! All of us outlaws!"

"That's right..." Graff stated. "Besides ya'll know reconstruction is a joke. And Nathan Bedford Forrest well he went crazy up in Pulaski started his own little merry band of idiots in potato sack masks. He claims to be a real Confederate but he forgets his own history...how quick they forget. No...long before it twas Dixie fighting to keep many of ya'll in chains, it was the Federal's that had slaves first. And it was Federals that forced Johnny's people out to Oklahoma. Andrew Jackson and the like. Let us not forget...the government is the enemy. Them pious bastards turn their noses up at us poor southern folk thinking we're all ignorant welps that just live off corn pones. But we remind them...that it was southern boys helping win the American Independence. Twas a Negro saved George Washington's hide. Twas a Cherokee chief that was one of the finest damn generals we ever did see. Not like that pathetic union dog Parker neither."

He smiled at the rest of them. "I'm telling you boys with the west we can build a new America cause the old one done forgot her ways. No, they'd rather bring in a bunch of Irish and German folk to fight their wars cause they know real Americans up north wanted no part of the war! And Johnson is about as crooked as they come."

They built themselves a campfire and sitting next to Lovecraft, Dalton handed him a heavy bottle of Irish whiskey. "Here, partner this oughta numb what ails ya..."

He took a swig and made an "Ahhhh...' Sound before passing it back closing his eyes and Dalton took a swig. "Say Dalton. Your family ever own any slaves?"

"No sir. Too poor. We tended our own fields."

"Then why fight? Hell I know why I stick by them boys after the fact cause of Johnny but uh...you don't strike me as the type to go along with what others think. Like Patterson.I know he was an overseer. So was Coates when he was alive."

"Well if you're asking why I fought the Yankees they burned my family farm down with my mama in it. Raped my sister and slit her throat."

Overhearing this was Marshall. "Now that aint true, Dalton. Ya'll was fighting them before that. You was at Gettysberg."

"Sure. and I killed men there. That was my first battle. But it wasn't until Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground that i hated em truly. Mostly when I was fighting em up until that point it wasn't no hatred involved. Just survival. Oh sure, I hated seeing my friends die. And I hated the fellers that killed em but then when I killed them...it went away. And I knew that for every Union boy I hated for shooting men I grew up with there was still men on the other side that felt the same way as me and we was killing their friends too."

"My daughter..." Lovecraft stated. "My wife and son...they were burned in a barn too. Johnny Water had me and Matilda hiding out with folk sympathetic to him. Just a bunch of women folk. Me, i was dodging slave patrols that day looking for firewood. The funny thing is...Sherman offered to have Negros that helped him get freedom. Any able bodied Negro men he said...I never cared for no Confederacy either and only person in it I was loyal to was Johnny. But after Atlanta...we met up with other Confederates. We were guerilla fighters and Graff didn't mind giving no colored man a gun neither. I just wish that sum bitch Catfish wasn't with us..."

Catfish was fast asleep. "Real sorry to hear about that, Lovecraft. I kept on fighting but this time for revenge not for duty. I killed men in cold blood when they was surrendering. They killed Johnny's wife too. She was a civilian casualty...so...it don't matter none that the Cherokee lost the American Cherokee war. It don't matter none that we lost the war 'tween the states neither. I'm gonna keep on fighting too. Same as Johnny and same as Graff. You...you seem more the domestic type."

"I was...for a time..."

After a time, Lovecraft expressed desire to try and sleep but whether he would be able to was another story. Even so, Dalton knew that he had the right to try or to just be left alone in the dark if he wanted.

He next approached Patterson who had been sleeping but had gotten up to have a quick smoke. "Hey, how ya doing, Dalton?"

"I'm doing, partner. How about you. you okay? Something seems like it's been up with you lately."

"Dalton, I aint never shot a man that didn't deserve it. Sure, maybe I was quick to the trigger but I's just following Graff's lead. He shot that man from my state. He's seen us through worse times than this. He'll get us through this too."

"You said your state? I thought it was West Virginia now..."

"Hell, it aint my fault West Virginians decided to side with them abolitionists. Still...i didn't never wanna fight them"

"So you supported slavery? How did this never come up when we was fightin Yankees?"

"You never asked. I didn't think we had time for a debate when there was a battle."

"What about Lovecraft and Catfish?"

"I don't deny they're good boys. They know their place. It's better they be outlaws with us anyway rather than try and go with Lincoln's fantasy. A true Negro will see Reconstruction's a joke. A man makes his own way in the world. He don't need no federal government to come in and force others to give what he thinks he's owed. You ask me? The men that owned slaves should have just freed them on their own accord. That's the way the bible would prefer it. But the government getting involved? That aint right. That's going against the book of God. Ephesian 6:5 said they gotta obey their masters. Truth is any Christian is a slave to Christ one way or another. So aint none of us really free."

"What about Romans 13, friend? The bible says to submit to authority. That God appointed them. We may not like it but Lincoln prevailed even in death. Slavery was all right for a time in this country. But maybe now that time is over. It's not like it was a short time. They got their riches off the backs of men women and children. It's time for ths nigras to have their Jubilee. Aint it?"

"I don't know. It seems like they won the war too not just the white Yankees. What do we get for all the blood and sweat we put into it?"

"Nothing, partner. That's why we've taken to robbing. Maybe if I was a more faithful man i'd say we was going against God by fighting for the side that enslaved men in the first place but hell...them Yankees are pious little bastards. Acting like they never owned Negros themselves. And to top it off, Sherman and Grant is both gonna continue to go to war with Indians in the west. The things that happened to Johnny Water's people is just starting. That's why I don't claim to be a moral man. The ones that do often turn out to be some of the worst people. I've done bad things, sure. But is what I did any worse than William Sherman? Is General Lee any worse than Grant? Only thing is that war made me lose faith. Seeing brothers die next to me. Killing boys whose balls aint dropped yet. So maybe if it was ordained by God that the Yankees should win, maybe I don't care. Maybe the Devil is whose side I'm on."

He could also tell that even if he didn't exactly trust Johnny Water, he believed the Cherokee to be more trustworthy than former slaves.

"I don't believe that. We gotta do something. There's about 4 million of em in this country. Now if they wanna live peacefully that's fine but a lot of em might have it in their heads to turn on us again. Like Nat Turner did. I was a boy when that happened and my pa...he was one of the men that went after him. He wasn't just killing men that whipped em. He was killing children that aint had nothing to do with it. I know what the Negros would say. That we killed their kids. Well if they kill ours don't that make them just as bad as us? You wasn't around back then, Dalton. i remember that state of emergency and seeing soldiers marching up the street. I saw them hang him. I know to some he's a hero and I won't pretend to know what being a slave is like. But it could have been me killed had they not got him. It's only been thirty five ears. I don't wanna take no chances..." Stated Patterson.

"I don't know about that, fella. You might want it a different way but if it asn't for them two backing us up we might be dead as Coates."

"Hey, i said i don't believe they're the same as us and that they don't deserve the same rights. Cause with rights come responsibilty but I don't believe in just killing them just cause...no sir. That is low. Nathan Forrest is worse than a nigger any day. He makes us all look bad. I wouldn't mind shooting em down same as any other long as they had guns ti fight back. I'm a soldier not a coward. The ones of theirs i did kill...they was coming for us. In Baton Rogue. I shot near twenty eight of em that day. And I must have killed a little less than that. They was out for blood. Confederate blood. Didn't matter to them whether it was a man like me with the prinicipals I have or just a poor farmer like you that aint never seen a Negro up till the war."

"If you say aint nobody been shot by yiu that didn't deserve it, them why;'d you shoot that Chinaman? He didn't do nothing to us. None of them did. It's not that i don't understand what you're saying. I hated em too at the time. What many of them don't know is I didn't know how to read neither. Nobody in my family did. I just knew a lot of them didn't know how to read but they wanted to. And I was pissed at them for wanting to kill me before i could learn. I wanted to kill them cause they wanted to kill me. Same with the Union. But that Chinamen aint never did us no harm. And he wasn;t armed."

"It was that blue he had on. Honest. Hell, the sun got in my eyes, Dalton and i thought for a second it was a Yankee trying to flank me. Why...my heart started racing and I got sweaty palms when I seen what I thought were Union Blue!"

"But he is a Chinaman. I aint seen any of them in the war."

"I did. And that's what made me jump. I thought it was Joseph Pierce from the 14th Connecticut. I saw that bastard across the fields at Gettysberg. It looked just like him except for with a shaved head and a cue. Do you understand me, Dalton? It was just a reaction. I'm a criminal, sure and a killer and a thief but I aint no monster."

Not A Chinamen's Chance

San Fransisco, California

Ya Lu was doing his part looking for the gold as they were working. He was the translator, a job he grudgingly had working with the Coleman Mining Company. The truth was, he had only been in country for about five years. He was a refugee from China having eluded capture from the British military for what they considered war crimes against their men in uniform. He was thirty years old and he had known how to speak the language of the Gweilo since his homeland. He'd run away to America knowing that the traitorous Qing Dynasty wouldn't protect him from the English.

He even had a family back home and he occasionally wrote to them when he could but he didn't know if the letters he sent made it across those perilous seas. He yearned for the old country. For whatever reason, while the California Gold Rush had ended some five years before he had even gotten there, he also knew that it was illegal. The Chinese Exclusion Act had made life hell for them. The men had been replaced by machines that could gather them from the ground but from what this gold miner, Richard Coleman the man in charge of this operation said, and all though the Chinese had been pushed from the gold fields, he was working for a rich man who had elected himself Territorial Governor of an area of South Eastern California that hardly any Anglos dared settle, what was known simply as the Badlands, an area of hostile turf in which non treaty tribesmen of the Chumash and the Tognva and the Mojave would kill those who tried to settle on their land with the exception of the man that Coleman worked for.

A man by the name of Sebastian Estevez. A Spaniard American by blood, his family had settled in the countr roughly three centuries reasons why Ya Lu and his friends were searching for gold at inferior wages long after it had been largely abandoned was beyond him. His two best friends, Chui-yu Hong, a man from Fuijan. He was a dark skinned man of Asiatic stock with skin deeply golden in the heat. He was a devout Buddhist and had lived some of his life in a monastary before Ya had ever met him but he had broken his vow of celibacy. He was a good humored friend and while he abhored violence, he was good with hand to hand combat. He taught Ya some of what he knew. They had met during their time together as well working in the California Gold Rush. It was all they were skilled at that was of use out here.

Fei Hong Lu was his other best friend, a man he had fought alongside of back home and a man originally from Beijing. Ya himself was originally from Hong Kong but had grown sick of British imperialism and had moved from there to Peking. "Xiōngdì, wǒ gàosù nǐ de..." Began Chui-yu with a smile brushing sweat from his forehead.

(I am telling you brothers)

"Nǐ yīnggāi gēn wǒ lái!"

(You should come with me!)

Ya laughed. "Qù tiělù gōngsī? Nǐ fēngle ma?"

(To the railroad company? Have you los your mind?)

"Hey! Don't ya'll talk too much in that Coolie talk!" Shouted the foreman. "I am only communicating what they must do, boss!" Replied Ya. "They are dependent on me for direction!"

"Well you hurry it up then!"

"Gweilo bastard..." He growled.

Fen Hong Lu said, "Wǒ bù dǎsuàn fàngqì wǒ de gōngzuò..."

(I am not about to abandon a job I have.)

"Wèishéme bù? Nǐ xǐhuān méiyǒu jiégu de láodònglì ma?

(Why not? Do you enjoy fruitless labor?)

"Wǒ rènwéi fójiào tú fǎnduì wéiwù zhǔyì?" Ya asked. Ya was himself a Taoist with no affiliation to Buddhism.

(I thought you Buddhists were against materialism?)

"Wǒmen shì. Dàn zhè bùshì nàgè. Zhè shì wèile shēngcún zúgòu. Jīběn bìxūpǐn."

(We are. But this isn't about that. This is about making enough to survive. Basic necessities.)

"Tiělù gōngsī? Zhè méiyǒu dàolǐ. Xiǎng yī xiǎng. Zhè shì yīgè yúchǔn de xiǎngfǎ. Tāmen zài zhōngguó méiyǒu tā men, jíshǐ tāmen xiànzài dài zài zhèlǐ, tāmen yě huì bèi qítā dōngxī qǔdài!" Snorted Ya.

(The Railroad company? It makes no sense. Think about it. It's a foolish idea. They don't have them in China and even if they are here to stay for now, they will just be replaced by something else!)

"Yǎ, nǐ shì yīgè zhànzhēng de rén. Suīrán wǒ bùshì, dàn wǒ lǐjiě zhànshù. Wèishéme yīngguó rén suīrán rénshù zhòngduō, què dǎbàile wǒmen? Yīnwèi tāmen yǒu bùqiāng, ér wǒmen de dìguó shìbīng shǐyòng nǔ. Wǒ zài zhège guójiā tīng dào de zhèxiē shénmì de hóng rén yěshì rúcǐ. Dǐkàng zhímín huà de gèng chénggōng de bùluò shǐyòng qiāngzhī. Wǒmen bìxū zài tā zìjǐ de bǐsài zhōng jíbài Gweilo. Rúguǒ bùshì zài zhànzhēng zhōng, nàme zài gōngyè zhōng. Wǒ duì zhège tiělù hángyè yǒuyī zhǒng gǎnjué. Nǐ shuō tā bù huì shì yī jiàn dàshì. Huòzhě, rúguǒ shì, tā jiāng tōngguò. Wǒ shuō tā huì cúnzài hěn zhǎng yīduàn shíjiān."

(You are a man of war, Ya. Even though I am not, I understand tactics. Why did the British defeat us despite being greatly outnumbered? Because they had Rifles while our Imperial soldiers used crossbows. It is the same with these mystic red men I have heard about in this very country. The more successful tribes that resisted colonization used guns. We must beat the Gweilo at his own game. If not in war, then in industry. I have a feeling about this railroad industry. You say that it will not be a big thing. Or that if it is, it will pass. I say it will be around for a long time.)

"Nàme bùyào bèi zhège shìjiè de wéiwù zhǔyì fēn xīn ní? Jīngshén shàng de fùyù zěnme yàng?"

(And what about not getting distracted by the materialism of this world? What about being rich spiritually?)

His friend sighed but with patience and a smile. "Rúguǒ wǒ bìxū děngdào xià yīshì cáinéng dádào qǐméng, nà jiù zhèyàng ba. Wǒ shì fójiào tú, dàn wǒ yě guānxīn wǒ de tóngbāo. Wǒ shì zhōngguó hé shìjiè de gōngmín. Wǒ zhǐ xiǎng kàn dào rénmen péngbó fāzhǎn. Yěxǔ zhè jiùshì wèishéme wǒ bùshì yīgè hǎo sēngrén."

(If I have to wait until the next life to reach enlightenment, so be it. I am a Buddhist but I also care about my countrymen. I am a citizen of China and the world. I only want to see people thriving. Maybe this is why I am not exactly a good monk.)

"Yes...that is why..." Replied Fe Hong. "It couldn't possibly have been that working girl who you stuck your turtle head into every hole and then the Buddhist monks catch you with her on your lap while you were giving spanks..."

His English was better than Chui-yu but not as good as Ya and for this reason, Ya burst out laughing. While Chui-yu could not speak English so well he understood what he said. The three men burst out laughing as they worked. Chui-yin shot back, "Wǒ néng shuō shénme ne? Wǒ zhēn de shì yīgè rénmen duì wùzhí shìwù de àihào zhě! Zhè shì wǒ biǎodá zànshǎng de fāngshì."

(What can I say?I am truly a lover of people over material things! It was how I show appreciation)

Shì de, tā duì tā de liǎn hé pìgu dōu yǒu "zànshǎng".

(Yes, she had 'appreciation' all over her face and ass.)

All the laughter was cut short as Ya noticed heavy hoofs beating the ground and he turned to face the source. "All right ya damn coolies! Give it up!"

Several men on horseback had their guns on them and the men who were overseeing the operation. One of the men was Terrance Coleman.

The leader aimed his Revolver at Chui-yu. "Give up the gold!"

"Yǎ, tā shuōle shénme?"

(Ya, what did he say?)

The leader then turned to Woodrow Harris, another guard who normally had a Shotgun but because of the men drawing on him, had dropped it.. "You there! Tell these sum bitches that if they want to live they're to get all the gold they collected and give it up. Come on now! I want that basket!"

Ya translated. "Tāmen xiǎng yào huángjīn."

(They want the gold)

A dark haired somewhat tan Caucasian with blue eyes and thick brown hair trained his weapon on Ya. "Easy now...I don't want to hurt you. We just want the gold..."

He saw one man approach him and ask him about his civil war record. The man had long light brown hair and what seemed like a constant sneer to his face. His face had wrinkles and his eyes were sinister. Coleman admitted he fought for the north. He shot him causing them all to jump. Chui-yu in a panicked whisper said, "Rúguǒ wǒmen bù cǎiqǔ xíngdòng zhěngjiù zìjǐ, tāmen jiù huì shāle wǒmen."

(If we don't make a move to save ourselves, they'll kill us.)

No sooner had he said this when he jerked violently at the sound of a gunshot as he was looking to try and make a move and at least run. He was hit. A second round hit him in the chest as he fell over and he went limp as Ya and Fei Hong caught him. "I...spoke too soon..." He said surprising Ya that he spoke English as for the longest time he thought he didn't. "I will see you...my brothers...perhaps I will find..." He didn't finish the sentence. He coughed up blood violently. "Don't talk..." Said Ya. "Save your strength!"

Roughly a minute later, the light in his eyes that was always brightest when the ex Buddhist monk laughed, dimmed out and flickered like a flame burnt out. Ya stood up as the outlaws were taking off and they soon had a posse after them. "Where are you going?!" Asked Fei Hong. He didn't answer. He mounted the horse that the dead Coleman had been using and he sped after the outlaws and he even took a repeater that had been dropped as one of the guards had been shot in the firefight that followed. "HORSE THIEF!" Cried one of the men, an Irish immigrant who was another guard and he fired two warning shots from his Revolver at Ya but Ya was not hit by the bullets.

He kept following the dust trail and the gunshots. He got to the edge of a cliff overlooking the fleeing was something primal going on inside Ya. He needed to get one of them. Preferably the one who shot Chui Yu but if not him, one of the other gang members. He fired once, twice, three times at the man he thought was the man that shot him as he recognized his hat. He fired a fourth and fifth round and while the fourth missed, a fifth one hit but did not hit him. It instead hit the blonde one who had referred to them as watched him fall from his horse as he was also hit by more of the pursuing posse.

He came to hear a deputy he had never met before who lay on the ground crying out. The man was a white male with greasy black curly hair and brown eyes and a handle bar mustache. He had been shot with a shotgun blast to his left leg from one of the outlaws. He also had been shot once with a .45 round through his left ribcage and again in the right arm. "Hey...can...can you understand me? You got any opium?"

"No opium...in my country we fought a war twice to get rid of it. But the British kept it in the country. We've had two wars with them over this. They will not leave us alone."

"i'm in pain here, mister! Have mercy! I'm gonna die no matter what..."

"I don't use opium. Some of the other workers do. Maybe you should ask them for some. I hope for your sake you treated them better than most do in this country."

"I aint never done no harm...to none of ya'll...i'm just a fuckin shop owner just got deputized by that fool, Meyer. I never asked to get shot...but I got shot trying to get back the gold they took from yall..."

"Where would they go? These men?"

"I don't know...please help me...!"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Kill me..."

"Why?"

"I'm in pain! i aint gonna make it...please...it's the last thing I want! I tried to go after them sons of bitches that did that...all I can tell you is I saw them go north...please..."

"If I shoot you, I could get a bounty on my head. They will never believe it was mercy."

"You was...one of the they will! It's just you and me out here, mister...i don't think even that bastard Meyer made it."

"All right...I will do it..."He pressed the barrel of the repeater against the man's heart. "You're...going after the men that did it...?" Asked the dying man.

"Yes. Chui-yu was a man of peace. A monk where we come from. He was not perfect. Much like your Catholic monks he took a vow of celibacy but he broke it. But he never broke his vow of being a peaceful man. I have worked alongside him for many years. If you see him...i doubt you are going the same place but if you see him, tell him I am sorry."

"Sure...I'll tell him...you just see to it my horse is taken care of..." He replied. Ya shot him through the heart and stood watching as the man lay dying until he was look in his eyes seemed to resemble that of a man relieved of pain.

Unbeknowst to Ya, the Sheriff was under the horse injured and all and he thought he heard one of his deputies talking. Then he heard the gunshot. "O'Bannion?!" Cried the Sheriff. He heard horse hooves coming and he tried to look over his own dead horse. "Son of a bitch...that's his horse..."

Texas/Oklahoma Border

Karonhi:io rode his trusty steed through the desert. He had heard of Cherokee families sold into slavery. He had heard of some also leaving for Mexico and as he was getting to the point of crossing into North West Texas, he wondered if some of them might have gone where Seqoyah had? His wife had been a resourceful woman, after all.

Just then, he heard the sound of war cries and heard gunshots and smelled both gunpowder and flames. He hitched his horse to a tree and made his way towards the sound. He had to head west up the Red River. He saw several wigwams on fire and a small battle. Mounted Indians, maybe twenty of them were attacking a much smaller group of maybe a little over half a dozen people most of them women children and Elders. Two of them were warriors who had stayed behind to protect the women and Elders but maybe the bulk of the men were hunting. The horsemen were firing at one of the warriors riddling him full of arrows. The other loosed an arrow himself striking one warrior off of his horse but the others fired upon him. The women were fightning back too using tools they had been using to skin buffalo hide. The Comanche men fired into the women and one, an Elder of maybe 53 was shot in the right temple.

The other, a woman of twenty or so was hit in the heart. This hurt Karonhi:io's heart to see this. He spotted the horseback men taking a little girl of about four and a woman of about eighteen on horseback. A Comanche warrior was wrestling with another womn in the water. The warrior called to his friends who laughed and then took off with their captives. He realized as the woman threw punches and kicks and the two wrestled at the river bank that the man was trying to rape her. Karonhi:io stayed low but he couldn't sit by and do nothing. He felt pain in his knees as he crept in stealth much as he had when he was a youth.

He withdrwew his hunting knife. He charged at the young man who saw the old man coming at him. He tackled the brave and plunged his knife into the barrel chested Comanche. The Comanche knocked him back with his pistol and he tried to shoot the Mohawk elder but the Elder grabbed his hands. The shot fired off. Karonhi:io had restrained himself from shooting the brute as his own gun was a different type than the Comanche enemy. They would think nothing of their friend firing off a round but if another gun was fired they would suspect something and come back. Karonhi:io went to try and slash at the man's throat but the man kicked him into the water. Karonhi:io only was able to keep the Comanche from stabbing him because the younger man's strength had been sapped from the stab wound but he was still fierce.

His own knife fell into the water. Karonhi:io knew he would regret what he would do next and have a headache later but he headbutted the Comanche drawing blood from his nose, bright and red like a tomato across the Comanche's painted white face. He seized the knife and plunged it into the man's back. The man screamed and Karonhi:io kicked him down and pounced on the younger man stabbing him again in the back severing his spinal cord. As the man bled out, Karonhi:io did not finish him off. He let his bleeding body float downstream and he went to see to the unconsious woman. She had not been raped but her clothes, her blouse had been ripped and it seemed he had intended to. "You are the same as a white man!" Karonh:io called. He wanted to say it in Mohawk but he would not understand it and he probably wouldn't understand in English either.

He put the unconscious Native woman onto his horse and began to ride west along the river since he had seen the Comanche group ride east. He didn't know fow far east their camp would be since he had come along from the north but he didn't want to take any chances. He carried her with him a while then made camp. When she came to it was dark..p grabbing his hunting knife and screamed at him. "I will not hurt you!" He said softly. He stopped realizing he was so used to speaking English as the common language between other tribes in Oklahoma such as the Cherokee and the Choctaw and the Seminole and Creek and even the Shawnee and Kickapoo he had encountered that he forgot that the tribes crossing into Texas either spoke no colonial languages at all or they spoke Spanish.

¿Eres ... Kiowa? ¿Apache?" He asked.

"Apache?" She said. She pointed at herself then at him. "Zuni?"

"What?" He asked. "A:shiwi?" He was puzzled. She held her hand out pointing at herself. "Soy Lipan..." She stated.

He tried only what he thought might work."I am Lipan? That's your name? Okay. Soy...Karonhi:io?"

"Karon..."

"Karonhi:io..." He answered again. He showed her how to pronounce it. "Ga ron hee oh."

"Ga ron hee oh..." She said softly and slowly dropping the knife. He remembered something. He started to sign to her. He said, "I am Karonh:iio. I am from the North East. People of the flint. Who are your people?"

She slowly then signed back at him. "I am Lipan Apache. My land is not far from here. These men...Rattlesnake people. They killed my mother and my little sister. And they made off with our neighbor. I have a husband but i do not know where he is."

"How afar is your people from here?"

She replied, "I will take you to an old trading post my father used to go to. He will know where any of the people from our village may have gone."

They got a nights sleep and the next day he began to take her west to where she said they might be. Before long, they stopped as she pointed at it. A few men of Mexican descent armed with Henry Repeaters and Shotguns were guarding a trading post that looked like an abandoned old Spanish mission and in fact, was. A Mexican woman wearing a dark blue dress came out also brandishing a Double Barreled shotgun. "¡El es un amigo! ¡Me salvó de la gente de la serpiente de cascabel!" The Apache maiden cried out.

(He is a friend! He saved me from the rattlesnake people!)

The woman, a medium brown skinned woman whose skin resembled coffee standing at around 5'5 and had a pretty face yet a strong scowl and thick black wavy hair with the bangs somewhat in her face asked, "¿Cual banda?"

(Which band?)

"no lo sé. Tal vez el Nokoni o Penateka. Son los más crueles. No creo que fuera la Yamparika. Yo habría sabido si se tratara de ellos."

(i don't know. Maybe the Nokoni or Penateka. They are the cruelest. I do not think it was the Yamparika. I would have known if it was them.)

The woman helped her saying, "Ve adentro. Atenderemos cualquier herida que tengas."

(Go inside. We will tend to any wounds you have.)

She kept her Shotgun on Karonhi:io. "Woman...take that shotgun away from my face. I am a tired old man and I have a journey to continue on. I just stopped and helped that poor woman along the way. If you're going to pull the trigger, do it now. Otherwise, I'm leaving."

She reluctantly lowered it. "I'm sorry..." She said and he was relieved she spoke English. "These are rough lands. It's home for me but sometimes, bad things happen to good people. My father and i...we trade with the Comanches but we refuse to trade with the Nokoni and Penatekas. We heard about their raids and it would be one thing if they were just this way to the gringos but they also do this to the other tribes out here. The Quahadi and Yamparika, we have allied with. And some other Comanche bands as long as they promise to not make trouble with any of the other tribes. I am Elena Vargas."

"Karonhi:io."

"Karonhi:io? Karonhi:io what?"

"Just Karonhi:io. I come from back east. I wasn't supposed to be down here but I have family here. They're rumored to be in Oklahoma. Well miss...this is a bit of a funy situation but I married more than one woman at the same time. But I used to war with the white man. I suppose I still am. I'm looking for my family and after the war...they removed my family out here. I have sons. I lost my wife...but I don't know if they're still alive."

"I am sorry to hear that..." She said leading him into the mision fort. "Did your sons fight in the war or did you?"

"What? No they were too young to fight...oh you mean the war between the states? I don't know. The war I'm talking about was the war after the Revolution. About fifty six years ago between the Indians of my homeland, the British and the Americans."

"I don't know about that, senor. I am sorry. Mi padre fought in a war against the Yanquis. Many battles right here in this state. Including the Alamo when he was just sixteen. When they lost the war, I don't think he ever really forgave the Americanos. He still hates them."

She came to a man of Mexican descent standing at 5'6 feeding both her own horse and his. "Papa! This is Karonhi:io. Karonhi:io this is Enrique Vargas."

The man was either forty five or forty six years old. He was dark skinned normally medium brown in the cold seasons and dark in the summer but there was no mistaking his features as mestizo. His hair was curly however and he had handle bar mustache and bright hazel eyes. He was about 60% Indigenous and nearly 40% Spanish. He had no hat on despite the heat. He shook Karonhi:io's hand firmly. "That's quite a grip you got there..." Karonhi:io observed.

"Of course. You can tell a lot about a man by his handshake. So you are the Indio Samaritan who saved this poor woman Elena just brought in?"

"Yes. I couldn't let them dishonor her."

"Well you are a good man. And perhaps a bit brazen. The Comanches dominate this territory. Nobody operates on the southern plains or passes through their lands without their say so. Did you know they rolled back the frontier 100 miles during the war between the states? The Texans...they had to fo fight for the Confederados. So there was nobody to defend the settlements."

"How can you take in women like that poor girl but also deal weapons to the Comanches? You know where I come from a lot of us tried to put past rivalries aside and unite against the paleskins. A common enemy. And none of the tribes I saw back east did that."

"it sounds like maybe you romannticize the wars back east, Viejo. But war is war..." Stated the middle aged Comanchero. "And I'm afraid that gang rape is very common with certain Comanche bands. Especially the Nokoni and Penetaka. They are probably the most brutal out of any Comanche bands. I refuse to sell them guns. I'll openly admit I pick favorites. You see the Quahadi Comanches are our best customers but they have a bit more honor. The Nokoni and Penetaka they love gringas...white women. They'll take anybodies women and kill anybodies men. I made it clear to the Quahadis that I won't sell them guns if I ever hear of them attacking Yaquis. You see me and Elena we are Yaqui. Somos Mestizo but even so."

"Also Pueblo, papa!" She reminded him. "Mama was pueblo..."

"Yes. That she was. Her mother was Zuni. She died a few years ago. Smallpox took her from us... but yes we try to do what you described Viejo. Even tribes that hate each other on the plains if they want refuge from the gavachos, the Tejas Rangers, they must agree to work in here, volunteer to help those brutalized by war and also still help us sell guns and other items. War is a nasty business but even to protect yourself from raiders you must be well armed."

"Gang rape? That wouldn't be tolerated where I'm from. The one chief I can remember who even tried to rape a woman...this man named Main Poc, only tried because he was drunk and luckily this meant he lost coordination. We were trying to defeat the white man back east but he wold take part in raids on other tribes. Tecumseh our great father wouldn't tolerate revenge raids between tribes even among his own people. When his own tribesmen got drunk and tried to kill some captives, he had some sober Cherokees tie them up and leave them in the snow until they sobered up. Little known fact though...one that Main Poc never told nobody...is that I beat him down when I was young and I tied him up the next time he tried to get to handsy with a woman. He didn't know I had Tecumseh's permission to do that. I told him the next time he tried to use his manhood as a weapon, I would disarm him. I had my knife to his throat. I think I made my point because from them on he was a much more behaved ally."

"Not all of the Comanches out here do this, Viejo..." Stated Enrique. "I do not tolerate the more brutal of bands and I will not sell them weapons. I tell them if they raid Yaquis or Pueblos anywhere that I hear about it they are banned from my wares."

"And how do you keep them from just raiding you? Better yet why do you supply any Comanches at all?" Asked Karonhi:io. "They remind me back east of some of the men that refused to be in any alliance with all tribes. The traitors that undermined us back then."

"They are not all bad. As much as I do not like to admit this, they killed more gringos in their raids especially here in Tejas than me and my companeros did in the war between the United States and Mexico..." When he said Mexico, he pronounced it as Me-Hee-Co. "Some of the gavachos...they see me as an ammoral gun dealer at worst and at best as a cowardly man who uses the Comanches as a buffer between them and Mexico. It is true it's better for me if they raid the gringos than Mexico. But the Qhahadis are our friends so they listen more when we suggest what better places to raid."

Elena also nodded. "When we know that they will still raid in Mexico we try to get them to raid in areas where the gachupines live...the Spanish colonials. They are the ones who have spat on us and kept their boots on our back."

"What will become of this girl I brought to you?" Asked Karonhi:io. "Either she will stay with us or if when she gets better she can return to her own people..." Stated Enrique. "But I think she will probably want to go home if she has one to go to. You are welcome to stay the night if you want as well, Viejo."

"i'll think on that..." Stated the 74 year old Elder. "But since you're a man who must know this territory quite well...do you know where I can find a Cherokee family? Their last names would be the Miller's."

"Yo no se. Lo siento, compa. But we can maybe find out. The Cherokee nation is in Oklas. I would start there if I were you."

"I just came from there. No such luck."

The middle aged man thought a moment. "I may have an idea. Across the border there is a band of lost Cherokees. They came down there maybe twenty or thirty years ago. Maybe more. I think they wanted to escape the jurisdiction of Estados Unidos. I would need a day to get things in order and I would need to leave Elena in charge here while I am gone but if you want compa, i can take you down there."

"You'd do that for me?"

"Si. I may need some help from you in the future. I will see to it you are paid. In US dollars or pesos. People may think I am a man who profits from blood money or bloody trade. And maybe his is true but a lot of these Indio tribes out here they need our weapons. The blancos have an advantage over them. They have Howitzers and Gatling guns..."

"Why you being so good to me, friend? What's your angle?" Karonhi:io asked the middle aged mestizo. "It's not a problem. You would likely die down there without my help, Viejo. Just like Estados Uidos, Mexico has a lot of bandidos. It wouldn't matter to them that we are just two simple men trying to go from one place to the next. They think anybody with a horse is richer than them."

"I aint rich..." Stated Karonh:io. "I was rich in my youth when we still lived free and the game was plenty and we weren't fully under the authority of the 17 fires. There was only 17 states when I was young. This is just green paper made from dead trees..."

Coahuila, Mexico

Two Days Later

They made their way to the Cherokee community. Karonhi:io was surprised that they were even here in Mexico so far from home. Then again, so was Oklahoma. "Okay, Viejo...I will ask them. I will tell them that you once married into their nation. We will have to see if anybody remembers you."

He approached a middle aged Cherokee male. Karonhi:io wondered if any of them could speak Tslagi.

The man had wrinkles already from aging and he wore the traditional Cherokee style turban with a feather in it. Karonhi:io smiled as it had been a while since he had seen this and in a way he reminded him of Tecumseh's younger brother the Prophet. "Osiyu..."

(Hello)

The Cherokee leader replied, "Siyu. Dohitsu?"

(Hello. Are you well?)

"Tlaosda..."

(Not so well)

Enrique also spoke to him. "Él está buscando a su familia. Largo largo. Llevado a la esclavitud. La familia Miller. ¿Los conoces? Tendría un hijo en sus 40 y un hijo en sus 50."

(He is looking for his family. Long long. Taken away into slavery. The Miller family. Do you know them? He would have a son in his 40's and a son in his 50's.)

The Cherokee man asked, "Hitsalagi?"

(Are you Cherokee?)

Karonhi:io shook his head. "Kanienkehaka..."

The Cherokee man nodded with realization. "Your wife was Cherokee then...?"

"One of them, yes. But I loved her so...she died some years back."

"I am sorry. I wish I had more to tell you but a lot of the People were lost over the years and relocated."

"'So I've been noticing."

Enrique communicated in Spanish still with the woman that was both Cherokee and Mexican, possibly the middle aged man's daughter. She told Enrique directly. "Lo siento, pero la única persona que conozco de mi nombre fue una mujer cuya tumba se encuentra en el corazón de nuestra nación en Oklahoma. Desearía que toda nuestra nación pudiera unirse de nuevo en un solo lugar y para siempre. Me duele el corazón por nuestra gente en el norte, pero no podemos vivir en la pobreza y la desesperación, y no podemos lidiar con el odio de los blancos que mi padre tenía en Oklahoma cuando era más joven."

(I am sorry but the only person I know of my that name was a woman whose grave is in the heart of our nation in Oklahoma. I wish our nation could all be united again in one place again and forever. My heart aches for our people up north but we can't live in the poverty and despair and we can't deal with the hate from the whites that my father had to in Oklahoma when he was younger.)

Just then, they heard the yelling and panic of several people men and women both of Cherokee and regional Mexican descent running and Karonhi:io recognized the sound of gunshots. "You've got to be kidding me!" The Elder cried out as he went for his six shooters taking cover behind a white fence near a church. The Cherokee man and his daughter plus the mother ducked down as well and they were unarmed. Several men of Cherokee descent fell forward with gunshots and arrows in their backs. Angrily, Enrique seized his Henry Repeater. "It's the Comanches, Viejo! They followed us! They are known to raid this far south! I think they intend to take some of these people as slaves!"

Karonhi:io waited until one of the horseback warriors was close enough and he growled, "Not if I have a say..." He fired two shots from each pistol and the Comanche warrior pitched forth from his horse with one shot in his left ribcage and one shot in his stomach. Enrique fired his Rifle striking another horseback rider hitting the man in the chest. The horseman managed to still stay on his horse even as he bled and he loosed an arrow one of which struck the middle aged Mexican man in the chest. "Carajo!" He cried out.

(Fuck!)

Luckily he was still in the fight despite the wound. He fired again striking the wounded horseman in the side of his face on the left side. The painted shirtless warrior fell bleeding his blood staining the dirt. Several policemen came forth also armed, but there was only five of them. They fired upon the Comanche horseback riders but two of them were killed right away as four arrows hit the first lawman with four in the chest and the second was hit with two arrows in the left thigh the two arrrows landing neatly next to each other with one more inward into the man's fleshy part of the thigh while the other hit closer to his knee.

After discharging several rounds, three more Comanches fell to the earth but there was still more of them. Karonhi:io fired off both pistols and dropped two young riders from their saddles before he had to reload. "I recognize some of these men! At least three of em. They were there killing that poor Apache woman's family!"

"These are the Penetakas, Viejo!" Growled Enriqe in both pain and anger as he reloaded in cover while two flaming arrows hit the fence they were ducked behind and narrowly missed the Mexican's head. "They are the most dishonorable of all Comanche bands! They are the reason they tell the gringos to always save a bullet for themselves!"

"You and me int gringos, partner!" Replied Karonhi:io. "They'd love nothing more than to see us die at the hands of other Indians before I could ever find my own family and you can get back to your daughter and business. I don't know you but out here we have to rely on each other!"

"I could not agree more, compadre! I will need you to cauterize my wounds when we are done here!"

"What makes you so sure we'll survive this?!" Asked Karonhi:io as he reloaded his Revolvers as well. "I've been in worse fights than this all my life but you never know when your last day will be."

"I have a plan..." Stated Enrique. "The Comanches are some of the best horseback warriors in the world. Even the Tejas Rinches. They only got better at fighting Comanches by riding like Comanches..." He stood up and another arrow hit him in the left shoulder. "Aye Cono!" He cried out falling over. "Shit!" Karonhi:io took his Repeatetr. "What's your plan? Are you all right?"

"Si, Viejo! I have been through worse than this. Do you see that man with the horns on his head?" Karnhi:io could. "Yes. What about him?"

"Shoot him. He is their chief. That is the one disadvantage the Comanches have. When their war chief dies in battle, they think it is because their medicine failed them..." Karonhi:io aimed at the man who was throwing his lance into the back of a fleeing Cherokee woman who had fired a Colt at them trying to escape. Even as the lance pierced her back and came out of her chest and she fell dying to the ground as her lungs were pierced from the back, Karonhi:io fired striking the man in the liver. The chief cried out pitching forward and he held the rein falling over the side of the horse. Karonhi:io let off another round and he hit him in the stomach.

Sure enough, the remaining Comanches gave a whoop as they collected their deads and wounded. There had only been about twenty or so Comanche warriors and they had taken about a 40% casualty rate but the loss of their chief had marked the defeat. There was a long ceremony after they took care of the wounded and dead among the Cherokees and Mexicans. Out of respect, Karonhi:io stayed and watched the ceremony as did Enrique. He also cauterized and dressed the middle aged Mexican man's wounds.

"I am sorry for the losses you suffered here today..." Karonhi:io stated addressing the Cherokee Elder. "Yes...it's hard but we have lost many already. They will be happy to go to the creator...death is hardest on the living. I will make sure their families are looked after..."

He hugged the Mohawk Elder and said, "I hope you find your family. Your sons..."

The woman also told him this and she brought him a medicine bag. "For you..." She told him. "It is sad that we can't go home to the Smokey Mountains. But maybe it is better we are so spread out across the land. We may survive because of this. Maybe it makes to harder for them to wipe us out...as Thomas Jefferson wanted to."

The Elder of the Cherokee told Karonhi:io "Donvdagohvi..."

(Until we meet again)

"In this life or the next..." Replied Karonhi:io.

Texas

Three Days Later

He had gotten Enrique back safely to Texas without would keep her father resting. Elena told Karohi:io, "My father wants to see you."

He went inside to meet him. "Viejo...when we were riding together what was those things I found in your saddlebag?"

"Those are wampum. They are shells and beads made from shells. We've used these as currency but for my people they're used to chronicle the history of my people. We have war wampum and peace wampum."

"There is a Comanche chief...a man that was allied with the chief you shot. He wants to talk to people want to fight and are unsure if they want to continue being my customers. I know that we did what we had to down there. But we have to try and salvage our relationship with his band. But I am not healed yet. I don't know if I will survive these arrow wounds. I said that I will need your help. Will you save my trade?"

"Yes. I will try."

"Gracias viejo..." With that he went back to sleep. He went to the front of the presidio and he saw Elena. "He told me what he was told by one of the women down there the daughter of the Elder. There was only one woman buried there. Her remains were reinterred there."

"What about this chief your father told me about? Are you familiar with him?"

"Si. He is a mostly honorable man. I have never heard of him dishonoring women the way you described. But he has been known to torture settlers. And he has killed women and children. But he has also had wives and children lost to the Texans."

"Where do I find him?"

"He waits for you out front of the presidio... I will go with you just to make sure you are okay."

"I appreciate that miss but I can handle myself."

"Men protect women all the time. The least you can do is return the favor. Unless you are too old fashioned?" Karonhi:io said, "I told you miss, in my nation the women are the head of the household. But if you insist, sure."

"I do. He is a mostly calm chief but he has also killed many men in his years. He is a fierce warrior. His son is looking to be as much of a warrior as he is."

He walked out and the aged chief waited out for them. He had three young warriors nearby with horses. The Comanche aging chief had mostly black hair and graying hair with wrinkles on his forehead and cheeks and he had scars from bullets and sabre wounds on his arms. His arms were very scrawny but just because he was not as muscular as other Natives he had seen did not mean he was not deadly."

The chief spoke. "I am Ekapitu Paa. Iam of the first Comanche band. We are the the Puuku band. With these horses we crossed over from the Wind River closest relatives are the Quahadi. Thus, two hundred summers ago, the Numunuu nation was born from our brothers the Shoshone, our fathers. We are the fathers of all other Comanche bands even if others do not remember this, the Quahadi do."

"I see..." Stated Karoni:io. "And you speak the white man's language as I do. I am Karonhi:io."

"Yes. I have visited the Great White Father in Washington. I have even sent my son to be educated in his schools. They treated him cruelly but their ways must be understood if we are to resist them. If we are to survive them. When my people first came to these lands, the Spanish were the first taibos we had ever seen. They were darker than other taibos but they smelled just as badly. But they taught us their language and they taught us the words that are marked down in trees..."

"Books..." Stated Karonhi:io. "I have something for you, to show you I mean no harm. I come from a people far from here. North of Washington DC. I give you this wampum belt as a symbol of peace."

The chief accepted it. "I have never seen anything like this. You called it wampum?"

"Yes. It is white wampum."

"Your words are good. But you killed the chief of our brothers. The man known as Paruuku. You killed several other warriors with the fast shooting gun. i have only seen Texas Rangers use this. So how do i know you are not a scout like the cannibal Tonkawas who eat the flesh of our dead warriors?"

"i have been using the white man's guns to kill him since I was a young man. My people were the first to fight whites with guns. You say two hundred summers ago you fought the Spanish? It was over three hundred and fifty winters ago that the French came to my country. Do you know of the French? You speak English well. You must know them. I passed through land they occupy to get here.'

"Yes. The French. They fear to come to Puuku land. Not since the times of my grandfather did they dare cross over here. It was because of their fear of us and the Spanish that the Spanish and later the Mexicans gained a foothold. You still did not tell me why you have killed the great chief Paruuku."

"He was no great chief. If men in my own nation had behaved the way he did, he would have been executed slowly and painfully..." The Mohawk Elder insisted. "When I first encountered what he had done out here I found a wounded and raped woman of the Lipan Apache. I helped her get nursed back to health. The Comancheros...they explained to me that all Comanche bands are not the same. That this was a viscious band that did this. I then saw a large group of these men carrying off slave women. I thought that some of them could have been my wife. I heard them speaking Tslagi. Then I realized these men had went as far north as Oklahoma to raid at times too. They have attacked Indians on the reservations who have not taken up the guns for many decades against the long knives.

"I have seen the way these Indians have lived on the reservation. They live like old white women. They wither and they die. My Quahadi children have avoided dealing with the Texans for this reason. I do the same. But other bands...they do what they see fit. If you object to the way some of our men treat women you should know that our women are warriors too and many of them do these same things to enemies. If we were to be captured in battle, we would expect to be tortured. If I may be so crude...they have chewed off the penises of men and they have also raped women. Is this not just as brutal as what our men do?"

"Yes, I have seen that. And that is what makes the Numunuu a strange people to me. Your women have it hard. Little girls are expected to do chores while little boys only have to learn to hunt and also play games yet they have standing enough in the tribe to be in charge of torture."

"All that I can say is that life on these plains is very hard. I have never treated women in this way. But my wives have and so did Paruuku's your wives not make war in the North country?"

"They do. They are in charge of torture as well. They skin white men and other tribes alive with jagged sea shells. But I have never seen a Haudenosaunee man or woman who would be so cruel as to kill a pregnant woman or kill an infant. Rape is not tolerated either. i am a believer in uniting all Indians...like a great leader once taught me..." He thought of Tecumseh. "But men like you make such a thing impossible..." Karonhi:io told him, "Understand me fully. The white man has always called my people savages and other tribes. I always thought that it was they who are the savages. but if Comanches behave this way...even to other Indians how are you not the very word they try and attribute to all of us?"

The chief smoked his tobacco pipe and then said, "For years we have hated the Apaches. And the Pueblos. And the Navajos. And worst of all the Tonkawas. They are the white man's dog. But i can see now that the taibos are worse. Even our old enemies, the Cheyenne from the Wind River country never were so fierce as these men. Some have taken to adopting them in. But my people have refused this. I could never imagine allying with the Cheyenne. But if as you say, the Taiblo is coming and he is coming worse than he was before I believe you. Maybe all of the creator's red children should band together. But Paruuku was my son in law. I am supposed to avenge him."

"What if I could teach you how to use this six gun? I have always known how to ride horses but it seems you mastered the ways of warfare on horse before even the 'Taibo' did in this land. And yet the Spanish brought it and you have mastered him at his own game. For my people the Haudenosaunee people, we learned horses only after we had settled in."

"Perhaps I would consider it. I will discuss it with my people. But tell me. Why do you come to my country? What brings you here? You mentioned a wife. I can assure you if any Comanche had gotten a hold of her she would have been killed. Any woman married to you would be too old to skin buffalo hide and do the work around the village we need. I am speaking to you openly. Most men and most women in our tribe do not live to see as many years as you. Most do not live to be my age either. And while you do not approve of the ways my people have treated our enemies, I do not care to live in a boxed in house on a reservation. This is not suited to me."

"I'm not saying I want to live in a reservation. Me and my family would live free wherever we go. I just want us to be together again. The O'serroni...what you call the Taibo...they took them from me and sold them as slaves."

"You offered to show me how to use the six gun. If you can do this...and if Enrique can get us some of those repeating Rifles that the Texans used on us...I would convince my son to not make war on the presidio."

"I will show you. I also noticed that many Comanches did not use cover except for their horses. I know there is not as many trees as where I come from to hide behind but even so. There must be a better way to combine tactics."

San Antonio, Texas

1 Day Later

Elena carried her father's Repeater and she had gone with the Elder man at the request of her father. They had agreed to meet the aging Comanche chief and his son. "My daughter in law is angry and in mourning. She is not here. I thought it would be best or we would not be able to maintain peace."

"This is good..." Elena stated. "We don't want to war with you either. We can both agree that there were people killed on both sides...Karonhi:io acted in defense of his sister nation."

A thirty something year old angry Comanche man carrying a bow and arrow plus his iron lance was angry that they were working with him. "Father...why do we ride with this old fool? We should put our blades into his skull. He is a Taibos Indian..."

Ekapitu Paa told his son, "Calm yourself, Tahma mua...we must put aside our petty need for revenge. Especially when we need the Comancheros and their trade."

"Father, you bow to this reservation dog wearing the taibos clothes? And this...Yuhu taibo..." He said in venom glaring at Elena. Even though Elena did not understand the exact translation she knew this was the word for Mexicans in the Comanche language and while she didn't know what Tuhu meant, she knew that taibo was the word for white man and and to call her a Yuhu Taibo sounded like they were calling her a secondary white woman. Likewise, she had heard the Comanches refer to blacks as Tu Taibo. Stranger than this, the word for cowboys were Kutsuu Taibo and the word for monkey was kwasi taibo.

"You're comparing me and my father to the gabachos?!" She growled angrily. "To the Tejans?! I wonder how well you would do in war against them without our trade."

"Please...let's not rush to any conclusions. We are here to learn from Karonhi:io, son. It is not about what is good for the individual but what is good for the People."

"And what if that had been me killed in a raid, father? Assisted by Vargas? Would you say the same thing then?"

"That's enough out of you..." Snarled Ekapitu Paa. "I have already discussed favorable terms with Karonhi:io."

Karonhi:io began to show them how to use the Revolver as did Elena. She instructed several Comanche warriors as they shot at rocks along the river. She instructed them in Spanish. "Sostenga la pistola firmemente con su agarre adecuado ... Alinea las miras sobre el objetivo. Coloque el centro de la primera almohadilla de su dedo del gatillo en el gatillo Comience a presionar el gatillo hacia atrás, suavemente, sin mover nada más o mientras mueve todo lo demás lo menos posible Una vez que haya creado suficiente presión en el gatillo, se moverá a veces imperceptiblemente hasta que se active el percutor, el percutor o el martillo de la pistola y comience el proceso de encendido, disparando la pistola."

(Hold the gun firmly with your proper grip...Align the sights on the the center of the first pad of your trigger finger on the trigger Begin pressing the trigger rearward, smoothly, without moving anything else (or while moving everything else as little as possibl Once you have created enough pressure on the trigger, it will move sometimes imperceptibly until the striker, firing pin or hammer in the gun is activated and starts the ignition process, firing the gun.)

The Comanches were more fluent in Spanish than English even including Ekapitu Paa and Tahma Mua and they spoke perfect English. The rest spoke only Comanche and Spanish.

The old Mohawk elder also instructed them and the old war chief instructed each of them in Comanche based on what Karonhi:io told them. "For a good stance, you want to have your feet at a ten o'clock and four o'clock position position—your left foot at ten and your right foot at four, or your right foot at one and your left foot at seven if you are left-handed. Next, you want to have your feet shoulder-width apart, maintaining a balance. This stance works much better than your feet being close together, which is the source of want to be relaxed and natural with your stance, as if you are talking to someone in everyday conversation. This is one of the fundamentals that you want to ingrain in your subconscious memory, to always be relaxed on the range, ready to move. In the ten and four position you can move all over with no problems. Keeping your feet together not only is awkward but it prevents you from doing your job at the match—acquiring the targets."

"

He waited for the Comanche chief to translate it as the Comanche warriors stood with their guns extended but were holding their fire. He added, "If we can get all of you good enough with this, we can practice on horseback next. I know that's how you'd prefer it."

The beating hooves and dust that kicked up brought both the sound and the sight that something was wrong. A wounded Comanche boy of about twelve years old with a gunshot wound to the arm carrying a bow and arrow cried out to Ekapitu Paa in their language. The old man told told one of his braves to take the boy back to their village. "What's the problem?" Asked Karonhi:io.

"There's Texas Rangers attacking some Yamparika and Kiowas camps. They are our allies. We will continue our lesson later but we must go and help them. They are attacking the womena and children..." The Comanche chief then looked at Karonhi:io and said, "If me and my warriors are brutal towards our enemies and their womena and children it is only because they have brutalized ours first. It is a hostile world to be a Comanche..."

Elena volunteered, "We will go with you and help you!" Tahma Mua asked, "Why do you want to help us?"

"Because WE are allies..." The Mexican mixed blood of Yaqui and Pueblo descent told him. "Don't you forget it. In fact...if we help you here you must forgive what was done to your brother in law..."

The Comanche warrior sneered, "I'll think about it."

Elena asked Karonhi:io, "Are you coming? I am not going to let them be brutalized. There are children there!"

"Hen. I'm coming. Come on, cowgirl."

They began to ride with the Comanche plains fighters westward. They rode fast and hard until they happened upon the villages where at least fifty lodges were but many were on fire. They spotted four Texans shooting two Elders, one a man and one a woman. Elena aimed her Repeater as she rode towards them and she fired striking one of the men a dirty man wearing a bear fur and a large ten gallon hat and he had an unwashed brown beard. She struck him between the eyes. "Cabrones!" She roared as she fired another shot that missed and struck the flap of the tipi but she struck the man with another shot hitting him in the fleshy side of the right side of his neck. She watched him bleed out in an arterial spray. The son of the Comanche chief loosed five arrows and all of them hit the third man and as he rode upon them before the Texas Ranger could level his own sights at the fierce Comanche warrior, he impaled the man with his lance sending it through his back and it exited his belly.

Elena dismounted as she heard screaming inside another tipi. She went inside and spotted two women being gang raped by six Texas Rangers, one of them was Kiowa and one was Comanche. Elena growled, "Rinche hijo de puta!" She growled as two of the men were on the Kiowa woman and three on the Comanche. She fired striking the first man on the Comanche woman who's buckskin dress was ripped and she had a bloody nose from being punched. She fired striking the man in the right ear blowing it off. She put another into the back of the second man. He fell over and the Comanche woman kicked the last one off of her.

Elena hit the man in the back of the head with the Rifle and she went to shoot one of the Rangers but the big man, a large hairy blonde man of about six two tackled her even with his pants around the ankle. She drove her knee into his naked groin and he cried out but he fell on top of her trying to wrestle the weapon from her. The Kiowa woman got up punching the other ranger as he was trying to help his friend attack Elena.

Elena took the fishing knife from the man's belt and drove it into his right eyeball and watched as it burst in blood leaking even as he screamed and it leaked through his shut eye lid. She kicked him off and the Comanche and Kiowa women ganged up on the last one pumbling him with their hands and feet. He was bloody within thirty seconds and his face was swollen. The Comanche woman who had kicked off the Ranger on top of her, bit the man's fallace taking the tip of his dick off in her teeth. He shreiked, "AHHHHHHH! YOU FUCKIN REDSKINNED SQUAW HEATHEN! GET HER OFF ME!"

The Kiowa woman clawed at his testicles her sharp nails causing them to bleed and she scratched and scratched until his scrotum was sliced open.

Karonhi:io managed to cut the tipi open and he held his hand out for the wounded Kiowa and Comanche woman to get through. They hesitated confused because he looked Indigenous but his clothing looked colonial. Elena told them, "¡Está bien! ¡Es un amigo y un buen hombre aquí para ayudarte!"

(It's okay! He's a friend and a good man here to help you!)

They took his hand and he directed them not only to the Puuku Comanches but also the women that were mounting up to make a retreat while some were staying behind to fight alongside the men, only a few were the rest were trying to get their children and old to safety.

Karonhi:io also hd his bow and arrow in addition to the new Repeater that he had been given by Elena. He loosed arrow after arrow striking down three Rangers in a row as they were trying to shoot fleeing women on horseback. Finally, the Comanches of the band as well as the Kiowa who had been out hunting when the white attackers had come, were returning, many with deer on their mounts and some dragging buffalo.

There was about fifteen of the men in total and adding the warriors that Red River's men had added, this amounted to thirty warriors between Eleana plus Karonhi:io and the Puukuu Comanches and the Yap Eater band and the Kiowas. The women and children amounted to more than that but they were on the run and the Kiowa and Comanche warriors were trying to cover their escape against forty Texas Rangers.

Of the Comanche and Kiowas that Red River had come to help, only about seven of them had guns and they were antiquiated muskets. They rode towards the Texans and let off an initial volley hitting five of the Rangers but since there wasn't time to reload and it would be time consuming to do so, they replaced their empty Rifles with Arrow and lance. Elena realized as Karonhi:io was fighting too that the old man only now was starting to grasp the difference of combat against white men in the North Eastern woodlands where he was from and here in the plains where there was little cover.

She also could have told him and reminded herself to tell him that almost always when the Comanches who had come to their presidio had come to her and her father they not only came for later upgrades on weapons and getting surplus ammo but also the most requested thing she had seen the Comanches request was gunsmithing services and even in treaties now and then with the Anglo settlers they had asked for gunsmith services. Of course, they said it was for hunting but Elena knew as well as her father did, that this wasn't true. Indian tribes used guns for warfare. Arrows were used for hunting so that a hunter's own special marked arrows would be their way of claiming their kill. With gunfire, there was no way to tell which game belonged to which person.

As Elena shot yet another Texas Ranger, this one a Tejano of Mexican descent, a traitor who had been killing several Comanches, she hit him in the left armpit, she spotted two little kids that he had been trying to shoot a little girl who was Kiowa about age six and a boy aged seven also Kiowa. She scooped them both up as she rode right past them because she had just seen the Ranger shoot down their parents. "Vamos a ponerte a salvo. ¡Lo prometo!"

(We're going to get you to safety. I promise!)

She then fired an extra shot into the back of the Texas Ranger before yelling, "MALINCHE!"

Meanwhile, the Comanche and Kiowa coalition lost ten more warriors as the Texas Rangers hammered them with Springfield's. The Comanches and Kiowas had dropped several more of the Rangers even after their initial volley but they were taking high casualties as well. Elena noticed however, that with Ekapitu Paa's band they had killed well over half of the Rangers as they were usin the revolvers. A Texas Ranger fell from his horse as a .45 round found its way into his right knee cap. The rape victims, the Comanche and Kiowa women each now had an arrow and were riding on the back of a horse each of them behind a man, their faces bloodied and their black hair matted, they were enraged and they both screamed in fury firing and striking a Texas Ranger in the back as he tried to flee piercing his left kidney. The Kiowa woman on the other hand, sent three into a tall bald Ranger's chest including his right lung before he could get to them.

Finally, before long all but one of the Rangers lay dead or dying except one who had found a wounded and dying Comanche, a man in his early thirties who had a wife and family whose escape he had covered. This Ranger was a sadistic looking nineteen year old with blondish brown hair carrying a knife and he had indeed shot the large Comanche. "Boy you are one big buck! You sure killed a lot of white men...you know I hear tell that if ya take the scalp of a Comanche he won't go to Injun heaven...well I gotta tell you partner...that there is one fine head of black hair that would look real nice around my belt..."

He grabbed the braided man about to start scalping him when Eleana, who had run empty on her repeater, fired both of her .45's into his back. The man cried out falling over and the wounded Comanche delivered a punch even as he lay dying, to the wounded Texan. Karonhi:io soon stood over the man as well. The bleeding teen coughed blood and would likely not survive his wounds. "Why are you harming these people?!" Demanded Karonhi:io."

"You're on our land!" Cried the Texan. "You wasn' doing nothing with it! And look at you! White clothes and a Rifle. I bet you even know how to read! You think any of that would be possible without us?!"

"This isn't my land...and it isn't yours either..." Karonhi:io growled. With a snarl, Elena hopped onto the dying Texan and began to take his scalp. The Mexican woman spat in his face as she took peeled it off his head getting even more enragged by the sounds of his screams. She held up his bloodied piece of hair and flesh and screamed with rage at the sight of what he and his people had done while he screamed in agony and horror. "KILL ME!" He screamed as Karonhi:io helped the wounded Comanche onto his own horse. The Mexican woman simply walked away from him leaving him screaming like a demon in hell being tortured in the lake of fire.

The Comanche took her hand as she came back to the horse. "Gracias ... por no dejar que me tomara el cuero cabelludo ... tomaron otros cinco cueros cabelludos antes de que llegases ... dos de ellos eran niños ... gracias ..." He said with his dying breath. "Gracias a ti ... puedo estar con mis antepasados."

(Thank you...for not letting him take my scalp...they took five other scalps before you got here...two of them were children...thank you...Thanks to you...I can be with my ancestors.)

As they collected their dead and wounded and proceeded to get ready to take them to their funeral preparations, Elena rode alongside the thirty year old Tahma Mua who was covered in Texan blood but looked distraught at the sight of the people he had seen suffering. "You want a reason why you and your sister should not make war on me and my father and Karonhi:io? Because these guns we showed you to use saved lives. You lost many people today but you would have seen many more die if we didn't help. Your father is right as is mine. You need us and we need you. You saw what the Texans are capable of..."

The Comanche chief had both anger and grief in his face. He could say no more.

---

ekapitu Paa while I am sure I am getting the Comanche language wrong, means Red River as in a reference to the river that runs through several states and this would be where he was born. The same with his on his name means Summer Moon which is the moon in Texas under which Comanches raided. In Texas it's known as a Comanche Moon because it gave them enough light to see who and where they were raiding but it still gave them the cover of dark. In reference to which month it is though that would be August.

You could say that there is a similariy between Rain Falls and Eagle Flies with my Comanche characters but I also pointed out that I think Rockstar copied Call Of Juarez Bound in Blood but just reversed it where the father is warlike and the son is peaceful. Calm Water being the warlike chief while his son Sees Far Ahead is peaceful. In this case I did my own thing and made it that both are warlike but Summer Moon is more so because he is young,

I will also admit i got some aspects of this last battle off the last episode of that AMC show The Son. As far as what happened with the guy about to be scalped that was a scene where Tantanka Means almost was.

As far as the rape in this, I tended to not show it I didn't want to get graphic but it was common back then. See the source of a lot of what I know of Comanches not all but a lot is from the ook Empire Of The Summer Moon but hat book is very biased and pretty Eurocentric. While it does have good information it always talks about how Comanches would rape white women but leaves out how Comanches would be raped by Texans. So I showed both the brutal side of Comanches and the Texans but in the case of the Comanches doing wrong rather than taking the colonial stance of them doing it to Texas settlers who are invaders, I showed that against a rival tribe instead the Lipan Apache.

As far as Karonhi:io I will show flashbacks from his time in the ear of 1812 but for now I wanted to show him now in battle as a bad ass old man.

As far as Elena she is my next protagonist and in a way I would say she is inspired by both Luisa in Red Dead Redemtion and Bonnie Macfarlane and her dynamic with her father which is what she has going on with her father Enrique. But she is still her own character and skin tone wise she's darker than Luisa too.

As for Ya he is my character to represent the Chinese in the west and Dalton is the Confederate represenative. In terms of racism I wnted to show that whites of that era some might be more against Natives than blacks in Al's case but a confederate soldier might be just the opposite. Also Fargo used to be called Centralia until the Wells Fargo Bank people renamed it. And it actually was the divorce capitol of the west before Vegas was and it was because of that bill the Rev mentioned where they didn't have to even be a resident of the territory.

As far as Lovecraft he is visually based on Keith David and his character shares the same surname as ihis character in The Last Outlaw with Mickey Rourke who Graff is based on by his character with the same name. The same is also true of Potts. It's a good 1990's western if you haven't seen it. And yes just like the movie, despite being mostly ex confederates, Keith David was riding with them though they don;t explain why.

As far as what I showed with the Comanches and their volley with the muskets that is what Comanches would do up until and even into the civil war era when they didn't yet have repeaters. In a way, Karonhi:io and the Comanches have a disagreement because he doesn't agree with the way some Comanches use rape in war and they don't like the idea of being a reservation Indian which while he is far from his reserve now he was assimilated and colonized for a time and he can read and write. Also what that Texan said about writing well there are at least 12 Indigenous languages in the Amercias that were written. As far as the Comanche band Pukuu i made it up because many Comanche bands were lost to time because of the genocide in the 1800's there was as many as 13 bands and by the time they were all settled into reservation life there was maybe 5 left. I mean the Comanches at the height of their population had as many as 50,000 people so yeah it's entirely possible I guess i intend this small band to be represenative of those Comanche bands that are no longer here.

As far as Lemuel with his segment of the story you might say it was less action packed this chapter but that's because his chapter the last was the most bloody and action packed. As for Ya and his storyline and why they would be digging for gold after the rush already ended why do you think that is? What's the Coleman Company's angle?

Also, while I have not completed RDR 2 lets just say in a future chapter I will have a character that is related to Arthur Morgan.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that's all for now.