Chapter 3:

Top Of The World

Jack sits at the top of a dull cliff face, nestled in the curvature of a tall hunk of rock on the cold mountain top, with only a wool blanket beneath him to shield the ice. He has covered himself in layers and blankets. Dutch is beside him, holding a firm twig. Both are waiting for coffee to heat.

"What's the story?" Jack asks.

"Blizzards got us trapped here, too much snowfall... We have to stay here; for how long: I don't know."

"We were planning to hold up here right?"

"Yeah..." Dutch jabs the ground with a stick.

"So we're prepared for this - How much food do we have?"

"We could have enough. Just depends where the temperature gets to, and when."

"What are our chances, do you think?"

"We gotta' keep people fed, and we gotta' prepare to stay here as long as it takes. The meat won't spoil as fast - we can bury it in the snow, which means we gotta' have men'll hunt. Those men'll have to be well fed and some of the others... they won't like it."

Jack turns his head forward in deep contemplation, then whips it back, "Why not?"

"Because they're going to get just enough - but don't you get it? We're the hunters, we're the guys who know how to use the guns."

"...We lead them up here."

"All the men here are going to think we're lettin' 'em die. When there's not a damn thing we can do."

They look over, to the seventy five or so liberated railroad men who have joined their camp, and their cause. Many with families and small children. Desperate to be free from the bonds of indentured servitude, coerced into leaving one agony for another, working under the wing of a criminal, because no one else will stand for them.

Many of them are already malnourished, and weak, it seems obvious that many of them will not survive.

Two months from that point, a Chinese worker is thrown to the ground at the foot of Dutch, by the hand of Javier Escuella. The five powerful bearded men stand before their congregation like viking giants. Bearded and healthy - their subjects, bearded and withering. "I caught him stealing meat." Escuella tells Dutch.

"Did'ja now."

The man is unable to stand, or even crawl. He lays still.

"I thought that we had an understanding... We don't dole out food to everyone, because there isn't enough food to go around. Hunting is hard, hard to teach, and many of the animals up here are carnivorous beasts, there isn't enough time, weaponry, or even ammunition to teach all of you, and get you going. So we do the best we can. We do the best we can - and we have to eat - to get you any of it, we have to have our strength. I'm sorry that this man is starving, but this can't be tolerated. Williamson, take him into the cave and whip him."

The man begins screaming in Chinese, as they lift him. Apparently he knows by now what 'whip' means, and it gave him his energy back. Enough to scream, anyway.

"What's he saying?" Dutch asks, almost indifferent.

"He says he's sorry. He says that he's afraid to die." A young woman answers in a calm clear tone.

Dutch looks into the man's face, and he appears angry or spiteful. Not pitiful. "That ain't what he said..."

She looks at her feet, "He says you lead us here to die. He says you keep for yourself what could be shared with the rest of us. He says you're just like the men you say you hate."

"Really?" Dutch asks with lifted brows, "Fuck him." he walks away.

The young woman Hua, is the man's younger sister, stronger than most of the men in the little mountain village by now. The next night, over warm drinks she speaks with Jack about the incident, her brother's lashed back bleeding inches from them. "He's given me most of his food. He always says he isn't hungry... He told me when we first heard of being snowed in, that he thought one of us was going to die, and he was going to make sure it wasn't me. I haven't gained nor lost any weight. As one of the few healthy people left in the village, people look at me - I feel like a fat cow."

"Don't hate yourself for surviving."

"Father used to tell us stories when we were children. He called them folktales but I'm sure he made them up. One was about a young man who lived forever, and couldn't die. He watched men die all around him, but could do nothing..."

"What are you getting at?"

"It's just... sometimes I feel that way."

Jack looks out of their tent, a young Indian girl looks in, her face is quiet, and she looks into his eyes, his eyes drift down. Her feet are bare. "Hey!"

He jumps out of the tent as she walks away, but she's gone. Hua follows him. "Did you see someone?"

He spins all the way around in the other direction. Still no one. "You didn't see her?"

She shakes her head. "Perhaps you need rest."

"Maybe." he places a hand on her shoulder. "You tend to your brother."

"He keeps begging to die, I can't stand seeing him like this."

"I'm very sorry," he says "good night."

The next morning he's awoken by a sharp kick to the boot, he lifts his head, and the flap of a blanket wrapped around his eye. It's John standing over him with a rifle. "You ready to go huntin' - what're you still sleepin' for?"

"I'm up!" He says.

Out in the woods they trek through the snow searching for - deer - if they're lucky, but anything really, they walk and talk casually. "Miss your wife yet?" Jack asks pulling out a flask.

"Hell yeah, I miss my wife - what kinda' question is that?"

"Just a question..."

"Do you miss my wife yet?" They both look at each other. "That sounded wrong didn't it."

"Yeah, I do, sort of. - I miss her cooking."

"That'd be a first."

"You're right, I was only being polite, the woman is a terrible cook."

"I cooked all your meals..." John says as they stop in the snow.

There's an extra awkward pause, "Then I guess... you're no cook either." They continue on, amused. "Don't see her much now."

"What? My wife?"

"Yeah."

He shrugs, "Dutch says there's two kinds of women, whores and mothers, and only one spends her time on the road."

"What do you say?" Jack asks.

"I say I miss my wife." John says trying to diffuse the issue. "...Miss my son - and both Abigails. Hey Jack, how come you never had kids?"

"Maybe..." Jack says stopping.

"Maybe? What the hell kinda answer's maybe? What's wrong with you?"

"Shsshhssh!" He puts his hand up.

"What?"

"Did you... hear that?" A twig snaps, and Jack whips his gun around, firing in the direction of the noise. They hear a very human grunt, as a figure hits the snow. "Who the fuck was that?..."

In the distance ahead, they begin to hear screaming, maybe Chinese. - The man in agony.

"Great. You shot a Chinaman."

The two run toward him.

"Well what the fuck was he doing out here anyway?"

"Maybe he was hunting."

"If that's true he shoulda told somebody, don't they know we're out her with guns?"

When approached the man begins to speak in a hushed whisper. They realize that the language is not Chinese, but some Native dialect. - An Indian - He appears to be asking them something. The man startys to cry, looking above his head in hopelessness. "How'd he get up here?" John asks... "Get help."

"John he's," John looks at him angrily, "he's not going to make it."

They look down at him, and he's already dead. "I'm goin' to get somebody. -" John stands, and in front of him is a massive grizzly bear, it lets out a violent roar, and takes a swipe at John. It strikes his face, knocking him over the body of the dead man.

Jack raises his gun and shoots the Animal in the throat. It lumbers off. Blood trailing in the snow.

"I'm going to get help." Jack says, he picks up John's rifle, and sets it on his chest. "Case he comes back, huh?" And Jack leaves for camp.

Upon returning there is an uproar. He finds Hua's brother tied up at the wrists, upon a wood platform, Dutch van der Linde pointing a knife at his throat. "If you steal from one of us, you steal from us all!" Dutch decrees, "It's time ya'll learned that!"

"HEY!" Jack screams, rifle at the ready, pointed down. "What the fuck is this!"

"Jack... Just in time. I was about to make an example..."

"An example? Example of WHAT!"

"Half our meat is gone. I found the culprit..."

"You!"

"Yeah, me - what me!"

Jack laughs, shaking his head, "You. You know I'm really getting sick of all this shit! You're our 'wise and powerful leader'. You think he stole our food! A man who could barely walk yesterday - yesterday before you BEAT him half to death!"

"Who then?"

"I just shot some Indian, moving away from camp... You can ask John, but first we have to go and get him..."

"Why? Where is he?" Dutch asks.

"He was mauled by a grizzly. He'll be fine - I - I think, but, he needs help, now."

Dutch whistles. "Javier, Williamson. Let's go."

Jack points his rifle up at Hua's brother. "What about him?"

"Oh yes." Dutch takes his knife, and lets it drop out of his hand, the tip of blade stabs into a wooden plank next to his feet. He calmly draws his gun, and pulls the trigger at the side of the man's head. Leaving him to hang by his wrists.

He walks through the hushed crowd.

"What the hell do you call that?" Jack asks.

"I said I was setting an example didn't I... Half those people don't even know what you said."

"Or what you said." Jack points out.

Dutch's eyes burn through him, and then he treks into the woods.