*Author's Note*
Thank you for the favs, follows, and reviews.
And here is the latest installment of this story. Just took forever, huh?
How Could You Do This To Me?!
Shaw POV:
I was sitting at the breakfast table, staring at Endor (or should I call him fuckin' E.J. now?) while trying to figure out how he grows up to be a time traveler. I mean according to him and his brother (Si er Silas) I die so was he willed the ring or did he find it? I'm fuckin' surprised that Jessa would even let Endor (E.J.?) have the damn ring. She knows what the thing does and how dangerous it is. Leaning in close to my son, pretending to help him with his breakfast, I whispered, "Why're you a time traveler, my boy? Hmm, didn't your mama warn ya 'bout that shit?" He just looked at me and tilted his head sideways. I know he was a baby, but I think a part of him understood what the fuck I was sayin'. I noticed that Si and Lydia were eatin' and chattin' with Jessa and Tad. They were tryin' to expand Lydia's vocabulary since she was kinda shy and wasn't that big of a talker. They weren't payin' me no mind, so I just 'fed' E.J. and whispered my questions and concerns to him.
E.J. let out a tiny baby babble, causin' me to just let out a silent huff and shove a spoonful of grits into his mouth. "I still can't believe ya get yourself messed up in piracy and the Revolutionary War, E.J. I mean, shit, that's some heavy shit." I whispered to my boy as I shoved another spoonful of grits into his mouth. "And the fucked-up thing is you make money writing pirate books about your secret time travel life and everyone that buys 'em just things you're a helluva good writer enough tho you're writing 'bout real things; not make believe." I whispered to my boy before feeding him some soft scrambled eggs.
"What're you whispering to him about, honey?" Jessa asked in between munching on a piece of bacon.
"Oh, nothin' much. Me and E.J.'s just havin' man talk." I lightly told my wife as I finally ate a spoonful of my grits, instead of shoving them down my son's throat.
Jessa's brow quirked up curiously as she asked, "E.J.? You wanna call Endor John E.J. now?"
"Yea." I nodded. Shoving another spoonful of grits into my mouth, I added in, "I mean we did bless him with a weird name so…"
"I don't like my name either, daddy." Silas piped up in between eating his eggs. Of course he didn't like his name either. Shit, what was wrong with me and Jessa's boys that they didn't like their names? Cocky little shits.
"How 'bout Si? Ya like that?" I asked, knowing he would since that's what he went by in 19-whatever. Hell…
"Yea, daddy, I like Si." Silia eagerly nodded his head before going back to eating his breakfast.
Pointing his fork between me and my daughter, my little brother dryly chuckled, "Well, shit, Shaw, looks like you and Lydia's the only ones in the house without a nickname."
"Shut up, Thaddeus." I ordered in a low warning.
"And with that, I gotta get to work." Tad sing-songed, placing his fork on his plate and standing up.
"Yea, I better head out too." I sighed as my brother walked away from the table; making his way over to the front door. "Devil Anse wants us patrolling more of the county's roads since that latest article got printed in the New York Globe." I explained before standing up.
"Stay safe, honey." Jessa sweetly told me as I made my way over to her.
"I will, baby." I assured her, pecking her on the cheek before walking off towards the door.
After placing my hat on my head and collecting my guns, I left the house to go patrol a stretch of the main road in and out of town for my cousin.
Sill POV:
I woke up with a crick in my neck from sleepin' on the hard ground and usin' my jacket, bunched up, as a pillow. As I sat up on the ground, I stretched my neck, left-to-right; causing it to loudly crack and relieve the aching crick in it. With a heavy sigh I put my hat on and pushed myself off the ground. Once standing, I picked up my jacket and put it on before going over to my horse. I untied him from the tree I had him hitched too and mounted him. I knew, from my tracking skills, that a water source was nearby so I was going to find it and let my horse take a drink; refill my canteen too, before continuing on my ride to Mate Creek (which I was close to).
Fuck, I still couldn't believe that my only niece was mixed up with that crazy Hatfield family by marriage. God, poor thing had'a get bamboozled to marry into it young. Damnit, the shit I read in that article made my blood boil with a deadly hot rage. Oh, those Hatfields better watch themselves cause even tho their patriarch's the Devil, Commander Bloody's coming to town on the warpath to get his niece freed from their hellish hold.
Sometime Later…
After riding for hours, I came across some young man perched by the road. It was clear he was patrolling; for the Hatfields too by the look of him. His Winchester was resting on his shoulder as he looked up and down the road, his brown eyes hard and cold. This man had a crazed look in his eyes; this I knew for certain since I'd seen that look in many men under my command in the war. Seen that same look in many men after the war too since the hardships of war messed with their minds.
"You know where Devil Anse is?" I asked the man, coming to a stop right in front of him.
"What's it to you, Yankee?" The man, who's long caramel brown hair was tied back in a messy low ponytail underneath his large black Stetson, asked in a sneer.
"I've got business with him and his son, Cap." I truthfully told the man, since I didn't have anything to hide, before asking once again, "Now where's he at?"
"Oh, you do?" H sarcastically asked. His deep voice was a nasty cold cackle as he snipped, "Last I heard my cousin didn't do business with Yankees that look like feral coyotes. Now, get the fuck out of here before I put a bullet in your brain pan."
This little fucker was getting on my last nerve real quick. I pulled my pistol on him, shot him in the shoulder, and leered, "Now, take me to Devil Anse or the next bullet'll be in between your eyeballs."
"Fuck!" The man exclaimed in pain, looking at his shoulder that was oozing blood from the joint. Oh, that was going to hurt like a bitch come winter. On those cold, frosty winter nights in the mountains are going to make his shoulder ache in excruciating pain. Good for that disrespectful little fucker. Poking his pointer finger into his shoulder, to see if he could feel lead in there or not, he blared out, "You shot me in the shoulder just to see my cousin? You're fucking nuts!"
"Takes a nut to know one, now show me the way or I'll just leave ya on the side of the road with a bullet in the head, dead."
"I'm just taking you to him cause I got three kids and another on the way. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be taking you nowhere." The man snaped, tugging at his horse's reigns; causing it to trot off into the direction I was originally riding in.
"Ah, how sweet, you don't want to leave your old lady a widow. I'm sure she'd survive; most mountain women do." I remarked, trotting my horse right next to the bastard.
"I know she would, but don't mean I want her to on her own." The jackass snapped as we trotted down the road. Giving me the side eye, he inquired, "So, you got a name, Yankee Bill?"
"Sill Payne, the Bloody Commander." I supplied.
His eyes popped out of his head as he declared in a shriek, "The fuck?! Your Allie Hatfield's uncle?!"
"Oh, so you know my niece." I drly remarked. I knew the only reason my niece would be in the company of this assholewas because of her husband, Cap. Nobody with Payne blood could handle being around a little shit bastard jackass asshole fucker like him willingly.
"Unfortunately. The meddling bitch's my wife Jessa's best friend." Ah, so both my niece and her best friend got bamboozled into marrying into the Hatfield family. Good to know.
I cocked my gun and pointing it at him while lowly hissing, "Say one more word 'gainst my niece and you won't be escortin' me to the Devil, but I'll be finding him on my own."
"I ain't sayin' nothin', other then she meddles in shit. That's why she got herself into some trouble a few months back, cause she was consorting with McCoys."
"Her brother's married to a McCoy." I pointed out, reminding the Hatfield kin that Allie consorting with her in-laws was completely normal.
"Oh, so you read the paper?"
"You're a sarcastic shit, ain't ya? Fuck, keep talking and I'll shoot ya again."
The only answer I got was an eye roll paired with a headshake and a huff. Yea, he better shut up and be my guide dog or else.
The jackass didn't bring me to a house, but to Devil Anse's loggin' camp instead. It was set up in a large piece of land in the backwoods somewhere deep in the outskirts of Mate Creek. A large saw was set up in the middle of cleared land while large stacks of logs were on one side with men hauling them to the saw while on the other side of the cleared land were large stacks of boards. Men were plopping boards down onto the stacks with large clanks while lumber jacks were up in the nearby hills fallin' trees. As my guide dog led me into the camp everyone stopped what they were doing and looked our way.
As we came to a stop at a large hitch post, Devil Anse came running up to us followed by the gruffy mountain man with a pot belly and a tall man with one icy blue eye and a milky white one. The latter had a rifle slung over his shoulder and a hard look on his angular face. Devil Anse and the other two men would make any normal man cower and shake in his boots, but I wasn't a normal man. I was a special breed, one of 'Uncle Billy's Devils', a name that Sherman himself called the men under his command while us men fondly refered to our commander as 'Uncle Billy'. Us men still wrote and visited him; he kept in contact with us as well and sent any of us money and/or aid if need be. He truly was a good man; southerners just didn't like his antics of hard war is all.
"Shaw, you goddamned idoit, you just brought a stranger into my saw mill!" Devil Anse roughly hollered as me and Shaw (Who the fuck name's their boy that? Shaw, not Shawn? Was his mama spiking her tea and coffee with morphine and whiskey when she was pregnant? Damn, Shaw's a stupid name.) dismounted our steeds.
"He ain't a stranger, Anse. He's your in-law." Shaw told the Devil matter-of-factly as we hitched our horses to the post. Waving lazily at me, he introduced me with, "Meet Sil Payne, Allie's uncle from Western PA."
"Why're you here? Me and my wife never wrote you." The tall man with two toned eyes, who I now knew was Cap, dryly told me.
"I read about what your daddy did to my only niece in the New York Globe and I decided to come and make sure you divorced her legal; take her and the babies back to Yankee-land where they belong."
"Oh, ain't you a bold one, Yank." The gruffy mountain man scoffed in a loud cacking sneer while at the same time Devil Anse asked, "What makes you think you can demand that?"
"Simple, by my reputation alone, Mister Devil. See, I rode under Sherman's command under the much earned and dserved name Commander Bloody."
Devil Anse's cold ice-blue eyes went wide for a split second, clearly he'd heard of my wartime reputatation. Good, very good. The large and round mountain man just had a look of hatred in his eyes as he asked, "You were around these parts in '63?"
"No, I was marchin' thru Georgia; burning down Atlanta then. Whatever happened to your family was most likely caused by Boswell and his boys; not me and mine." I honestly told the man, knowing that he asked his question cause something must've happened to one of his. Eh, it was easy to read by the look he had paired with the question.
"Uncle Jim, now's not the time to be inquirin' 'bout that." Devil Anse abruptly told his uncle (who I read was crazy) before turning to his son and ordering him in a no-nonsense tone, "Cap, son, bring this man to your home; sign 'em papers you got tucked away in a box and give him Allie and the chil'ren 'long with a wagon and some supplies."
"But Pa-" Cap began to protest only to Devil Anse to cut him off with a loud and stern, "Don't but Pa me, son. I'm already at war with Rand'll McCoy, Perry Cline, and that skunk Bad Frank Phillips; I don't need a war with one of General Sherman's bloodiest commanders as well."
"Looks like we don't gotta worry 'bout Allie selling us up river to the McCoys no more." Shaw mused in an amused huff, only for Cap to shoot him a deadly look.
Well, looks like getting my niece out of the Hatfield family and West Virginia's gonna be easier than I thought. Hmm…guess having a bloody and ruthless war reputation comes in handy in these parts of the country.
Allie POV:
It was mid-morning, not quite early afternoon, and I had just finished my first round of kneading some bread dough whenever the front door flew open and my husband followed by an average height middle-aged man, that oddly resembled Commander Rumlow/Crossbones from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, entered the house. My children were on the floor playing with some blocks and just looked oddly at the man that accompanied their father. Laying the clean tea towel over the dough, so it'd rise, I asked, "Cap, who's this with you? A new logger?"
"Allie, darlin', that's your Uncle Sill Payne." Cap told me as he walked straight to the bookshelf that he kept his strongbox at.
"Uncle Sill, um, what're you doing here?" I curiously asked my uncle, quickly exiting the kitchen to meet him, as he stopped by my kids and crouched down next to them.
"I'm here to take you back to Big Monty Creek after your ex-husband signs 'em divorce papers." My uncle told me, taking me off guard since I had no idea that Cap was still going thru with his daddy's scheme, as he ruffled the blonde hair on my children's heads. "Cute great-nephew and niece ya gave me, sweet heart. Both resemble your mama and you."
"You son of a bitch! How could you do this to me?!" I cried out furiously at my husband as he took the papers out of the strongbox and walked over to a small corner desk. "Why, William Anderson Hatfield Junior?! Why?!" I demanded in a shout as I lunged at him like a heartbroken mad woman.
"Pa ordered it. I'm sorry." Cap sighed, pinking up his pen, dipping it into the ink well, and holding it out to me. "Now sign 'em so you can get sorry."
"You bastard…" I sighed under my breath as I snatched the pen from his grip.
"Your Uncle's one of the worst and bloodiest of Sherman's commanders. He threatened war if I didn't do this cause of that New York paper article." Cap quietly whispered as I quickly scrawled my name under his, which was signed long ago. "I'm sorry, but God knows we're still married in our hearts. I'll come up; visit you and the kids first chance I get." Cap whispered to me, his deep timbre full of heartbreak and sorrow.
I didn't say a word, just handed him back the pen in a shellshocked motion while lightly nodding.
"I'll have Uncle Wall file this right away." Cap told me, setting his pen back onto the desk. Standing up, he announced, "I gotta get back to work. Take as much time as you need to pack anything you want; take a horse and wagon as well."
"Okay…" I let out in a long, heavy and heartbroken sigh.
Cap walked right by me, not daring to make eye contact, and went over to his children, who were playing and bonding with their 'new' uncle. Cap just got done on bended knee and gave the kids a sad smile. "Ya'll be good for mama and your Uncle Sill, okay?"
"Okay, Papa." My son innocently told his daddy.
Cap's chest heaved up and down tightly as he stood up. Without looking back, Cap walked out of the door and in extension out of my life.
"So, I'll watch the babies while you pack up your shit?" Uncle Sill asked while helping my kids stack up their blocks.
"Yea." I nodded before making my way upstairs in order to back my children's things.
Oh hell, just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, they did.