He grinned savagely in the night. "I think I'd like that very much."
"Good." I simply stated. "We'll need to plan an attack." With that, he started to lead me inside.
"What's to plan? We walk in, shoot up the place and kill anyone that resists!" He said quite stupidly.
"Sure. If you wanna kill half your men, believe it or not, farmers know how to shoot. Probably better than some of your men." I nodded my head towards the scum looking men that were evidently smoking something stronger than tobacco in a corner of their base.
"My boys will fight harder than any farmer!" He insisted ignorantly.
"Maybe, but that won't stop a round from flying through their skull. A plan might." His grin fell.
"And who's planning it, you?" He asked.
"Unless you've had men who ran with mercenary groups since they were six?" I asked sweetly, he shook his head quickly.
"Then I suppose, yes. I will plan it." I stepped inside the shack and called for a map of the region to be delivered. Soon enough, one appeared and I set myself to the task of fucking these assholes over so bad, they wouldn't live to regret letting me into their base.
When I was done, Cobb decides he wanted to look it over and declared. "This looks like a fine plan… Thanks friend." He then raised his hand from inside his coat to blast my face away.
Turns out, I was faster. All one hundred and eighty pounds of me flew into him as he struggled to find his aim with the heavy revolver. My shoulder slammed into his chest and he went down onto the ground.
Now, I wouldn't consider myself an expert in martial arts, I won't lie, I'm more comfortable with a rifle in my hands. But I'd fought too many goddamn tribals that insisted to charge me and try and fight me with a knife or a club or some other Paleolithic era type weapon that I'd say I'm experienced.
So, while I had the experience of years of melee combat, Cobb had the advantage of years of gang warfare and prison fighting. He was able to roll out from under me and onto his feet, spreading his weight into a evidently familiar fighting position. I quickly charged him again, he went to slam a fist into my face, but i ducked out of the way. A few jabs here, a few there, his defense wasn't great and eventually i was able to get a solid hook in.
He slammed into the door and swiftly made a retreat, calling for his men to gun me down, but I sprinted out after him quick enough, his men's hands were on their guns, but in a relaxed sort of way, like they were watching two rabid dogs fight but weren't too sure what would happen when it was over.
"Come on Cobb!" I called out a challenge. "What're you? Some chickenshit coward? Fight me you goddamn candy-ass!" his nostrils flared and like a bull, he out all his weight into a full fledged frontal assault. I jumped to the side and he nearly slammed into the wall of the shack.
"Hey Cobb." I said with a grin infecting my voice. As he turned around to look at me, at the half moon of men that had begun to surround us, he finally noticed one, little, crucial detail.
I snagged the revolver off the ground before I left.
His eyes widened, full of fear, and i was deaf to the protests that started out of his mouth. I shot the yellow-belly in the head. Twice, three times, his skull was a mess of demolished mush, but i really didn't want to be in checker's position, so i made sure i got the job done.
The crowd was silent as i turned to face them. "Well?" I asked while i dusted myself off. "Get back to your positions! Meeting at eight o'clock AM, sharp! If a single man isn't there, i'll slit your throat myself."
And quite unceremoniously, they departed and left me with a bloody lip and a heaving chest. Though a good feeling in my gut.
I'm not dumb.
At least, I don't think I was.
I really hope I wasn't, that wouldn't be good.
Although for now, the shock of the death of their leader was enough to keep these cowards in line, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to take me out.
Therefore, I had to put my plan into action much sooner than I anticipated.
"So," The Gangers, all seventeen of them, glared at me as I stood in front of their collective. "You were led by a man of incomprehensible stupidity, that much is obvious." The men assembled in front of me made no reaction to this. "However! Now, I have come! Do you want to spend the rest of your lives as some two bit raiders that can barely scrape two caps together?"
Their interest evidently started to rear its head at this statement, after all, if you need an alcoholic to do something, offer him a drink.
"I say, we take this force of nature that is us, and we become conquerors! No more caravan raiding! No more petty squabbles between us!" Some of the men, those of lower class, who had less to lose, began to get feral grins in their faces. They were fucking cowards, they were hungry for power, lusting for dominance, but would refuse to grab it for themselves.
At the very least, three men, evidently men who had been leaders before Cobb absorbed them stood up and started to argue against me. "That's our way of life! You just got you you outsider prick, fuck off with that "us" talk!" One protested.
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Please, calm yourselves, I have a proposition I believe you'd rather listen to!" Two of them glanced uneasily at me, but shut their mouths. The third however, a short, stocky Hispanic man still argued against me.
"And how are we supposed to trust you? Huh? How do we know you won't just waste us?" He had a angry look on his face, I could tell that it was faked. He couldn't give a damn for the men around him, this was a power grab.
"Well if you come here, I'm sorry what's your name?"
"Name's Rico." He mumbled.
"Rico, my friend if you could come here, I'll show you!" He tentatively took a few steps towards me, and eventually gathered his courage, though his hand was glued to the pistol obviously in his pocket. "If you'll see here." I raised my arm out towards the direction of Goodsprings. "There's a small town called Goodsprings over that hill, and it's ripe for the picking. Cobb, he would've killed you in a full frontal attack, you'd have been cut down!"
He scowled at the ground and said. "Yeah, sounds like that bastard."
"Exactly!" I nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. "So Rico, I won't do that! I served for years in multiple mercenary companies, I have experience!" He gave me a glance out from the side of his eyes.
"You're obviously no coward Rico." He turned his head fully towards me in surprise.
"Follow me my friend, and I'll make you my lieutenant." The other two started to protest behind me, Rico had a split look in his eyes. I nodded and smiled at him.
As the other two were advancing behind me, I still stood facing towards Goodsprings as the morning air blew around me, the sun had already warmed it to legendary proportions.
I heard the two gunshots I was expecting.
Rico appeared beside me again, and held a handgun in his left hand, it was shaking slightly.
"Coffee?" I tilted my head as I asked him.
It was six in the evening, the sun was starting to set and the wind was growing cool again.
"Rico," he glanced up at me from his position kneeling with binoculars. "Status of the town?"
"Lightly defended, Mr Hiram sir." He said as he went back to peering through the binoculars. "I don't like it, town that size? Should have more than six or seven people on guard."
"So you're thinking an ambush?" I asked. He knew I was testing him, even if he was going to die soon that doesn't mean I couldn't teach him.
"Yessir, that's what i'd do. Probably saw us getting ready and figured an attack." He had put down the binoculars now and was loading a magazine.
"Rico, if you suspect an ambush, there are only a couple of ways to know for certain, unfortunately, we have no long range ordinance in order to flush them out, so we must commit a piecemeal of our forces in order to test the water." He glanced up at me with a questioning look and I nodded slightly.
Using a flashlight, he sent in first squadron. With four men left at base to defend, I had ten left to work with. Three were in three squadrons, first squadron was the largest with five men, armed with regular rifles and dynamite, they were our main staying force. Second squadron was three men, armed with heavy automatic weapons, they were our fire support. Finally, third squadron was two men. A sniper and a spotter.
Rico and I were acting as reconnaissance and command.
As first squadron engaged and he saw there was no ambush, I motioned Rico to send in second and third squadrons. As these men were cut down by the less than optimal positions I had put them in, Rico looked towards me in utter surprise and fear. "You fucking liar!" The young man screamed.
I looked sadly down at him, his rifle was held limply in his arms.
"I'm sorry Rico." I said. "But you don't have to share their fate, you're a smart young man, you could do something good with yourself!" I urged him.
He glanced up at me with hate in his eyes before he shot upwards and slammed the butt of his rifle into my face.
As I tumbled off of the hill we had been standing on, I heard gunfire come from behind us, the camp was falling as well.
Rico, panicked and angry, sent a shot into my gut.
The pain was intense, it went right through my clothes and I could barely see through the haze of pain but I saw Rico take off into the distance.
As I lay there dying, I propped myself against the hill and took the pipe I had stolen from Chet out of my bag. I unraveled a cigarette I had in there and tipped the tobacco into the pipe. I sat there, dying and puffing on a pipe as the sun went down and everything slowly grew cold.
The last thing I saw before I passed out was someone running towards me…
AN: Cliffhanger! Sorry to leave you on the edge of your chair like that, but it's for story! I'm able to write this more easily than anything else I've written. I don't know why exactly, but this is easy for me to write even with less time. So I guess we can expect more chapters? Thanks for reading! Please leave a review so I can improve what's bad and do more of what's good! Thanks again! - Cryosmith.