(Chapter 27: Descending Law)
The three indians that had helped out the Marston Gang during the Sisika Raid, had built up their own tribe. At first, they were three lone native americans with different goals in life, until society drove them out of their home. The town of Blackwater was expanding, with plans of turning into a full fledged city like Saint Denis was. The bridge that was to be built across the Flat Iron Lake was only a small bit of Blackwaters expansion.
The governor of West Elizabeth discovered their tipis in the wooded area around one mile away from Blackwater, after a minor skirmish with the law, the three warriors were forced to flee. Since their leave from Blackwater, the indians have been fairly hidden within the forests in Ambarino. They also had a huge amount of hatred for the growing society, longing for a more old school feel with no cities around. They preferred the days of the old west, small towns and vast land to explore, than the growing times in which would be called The Prohibition, far in the future.
Not too long after the Sisika Raid, they vanished into uncharted territory beyond Annesburgh, this territory was the same land that Jack Marston had discovered during his struggle with Nicholas Lanza, not too long ago. Several members of their new tribe consisted of fleeing prisoners from Sisika, and indians that have also wanted to go against the tyrannical rule of growing society.
The three leaders of the tribe were savages went it came to combat, the most battle crazed member of the three was War Eagle, he had a tendency to go out into violent outbursts, he previously didn't have a name but due to his savage attack style, it earned him the name. Chief RainWater was the leader of the group, and the least violent. FireMaker loved to create fire arrows and would usually rally up the warriors to combat, starting fires within the hearts of all he stood around.
Their large tribe didn't have a name, no one decided, and they all suggested that they shouldn't have a name. If they ever did label themselves, they could get caught more easily. It was night, and the tribe of twenty seven members, all of whom were trained in combat and endurance, were asleep. One of the members was Ahote, he would watch over the tribe at night. He was a nocturnal native american, taking several naps during the day so he could stay up all night to defend the tribe or alert them of danger.
The loving partner of FireMaker, Awenita, woke up to see Ahote standing guard at the star shaped land that was the shore of the river, it was called "Star Land" by all of the tribe. Ahote wore armor made of leather and bone from the bison that they had killed, he also held a shield and a spear. Still as a statue, he gazed into the hilly forests on the other side of the river.
"Ahote, why are you still awake? Nothing has came after us, you should fear not of what is going on over in Annesburgh." Awenita asked, Ahote had been staying up for quite some time as of today moving into the night.
"You never know what may menace our people beyond those hills, what if the prison guards from Sisika come hunting for us? The three chiefs have a huge bounty on their heads, especially after War Eagle apparently raped the prison owner's wife before killing her. Unless we move further away from this spot, which I do not find to be a good idea, I should stand guard no matter the wind, rain, or whatever the weather happens to come across the skies."
The reason why Ahote and quite a few other tribe members didn't want to leave the "Star Land," was because the land by the stream contained various natural growing foods such as potatoes and beans, potentially carrots too.
"Well, I thank you for protecting us. Goodnight."
Awenita then went back into her tipi and went back to sleep with Ahote keeping guard over the tribe as long as he could until morning. At one point during his watchtime, he saw what appeared to be a horse with a saddle on it's back, moving in the shadows from across the river. Night went on and on with Ahote never growing tired as he kept still like a statue as he watched over the tribe.
(The next morning)
Jack Marston sat in the BlackWater restaurant, his hair cut and his attire looking completely different so he wouldn't be noticed by any law enforcement within the area. The building smelled great, the aroma of baking bread in the ovens and various food being cooked, there was also the distinct smell of beer as well. The outlaw happened to be sitting next to two authorities, the police officers were speaking of the government crackdown within West Elizabeth, and expanding throughout the state.
"Nate Johns has been working on a way to get rid of all possible gang threats in West Elizabeth and the state, I've got duty this afternoon. We're gonna be searching throughout Tall Trees for a few hours, if we find anyone lurking within that area that we find suspicious, we bring 'em to jail or something." The officer spoke to his partner, whom happened to not know who Nate Johns was at the time.
"Nate Johns? Who the hell is Nate Johns?" The other officer asked with a chuckle trailing off at the end of his question.
"He's a piece of shit, the only good thing he's really done is set up the FBI over here in Blackwater, thanks to him, the Van Der Linde Gang is no longer a menace. John Marston was killed a few years back, then he just fell off the map."
This explanation made Jack infuriated, at first he was curious about this man known as Nate Johns, but now he learned that Johns was the one who started the FBI in West Elizabeth. It seemed that even these police officers despised him, the leader of the Marston Gang now had another goal in his mind, kill off Nate Johns at some point, and some point soon.
As for Bill Pierce's half of the gang, the law was already descending. The prize fighter was lurking throughout the forests in Ambarino, over by the Doverhill laboratory. It was a bright and sunny day this morning as the rays of light shined within the cracks between the trees. Food was scarce in the cold mountains in Ambarino, the only thing that they could find was big horn rams and a few deer. There would rarely be a single bear or a moose down by a frozen basin with an empty shack right next to it, the only large animal that was common was elk.
Bill Pierce was hunting for food, to deliver to his half of the gang. He felt that he was finally in control, that he could make decisions. He wanted to leave out on his own with this gang, and to start a fighting arena once again in an isolated area. The former fighting champion could hear the clopping of hooves against the dirt road path that was close by, Bill knew what happened the last time he was in this area. He was attacked and followed by Markus Van Der Linde, and the BlackJacks came soon afterwards.
The prize fighter took shelter behind a large bush, looking through the small cracks to see beautiful brown horses with men in blue uniforms riding on them, it was the police. Bill wasn't aware of the government crackdown of gangs within the entire state. The small squad of police came to a stop, Bill's heart started to pound in his chest, he found it hard to not make a move.
"Alright, now that we're here. I want you all to look in this forest and in the mountains, we need to find any member of the Marston Gang and bring him to justice." A voice spoke, Bill presumed this to be the leader of the squad. The prize fighter had hidden himself at a decent amount away from the treeline, the light peering in through the trees would make it hard to steal through the shade full of stealth.
Bill didn't know how many officials stood there, but he felt that it would be a decent sized squadron. If he broke out of cover, he would be overwhelmed and brought down by gunfire or by numbers. The prizefighter felt that he would need to use his dead eye ability, he closed his eyes slowly with the crunch of dead leaves growing nearer and nearer to him. He controlled his breathing to be calm and slow and he opened his eyes slowly, the world was slowing down around him.
Bill sprung out from cover, the surroundings still slow. He seen a few police making their way towards him, some of them gasped and took aim on the prizefighter, but they were all gunned down within a matter of seconds, all with blood splattering from wounds on their heads as they fell back. Three more police ran around the large patch of shrubbery to try and outflank the fighter, one of them fired at Bill's head, the prizefighter turned his head to see them. He watched in slight awe as the bullet slowly flew by his head, he dug in his pocket while firing with one hand. He managed to get one cop in the gut twice, causing him to lurch over and fall to the ground. Bill shot the revolver out of the second cop's hand, causing him to gasp and run for cover. A throwing knife was hurled at the third officer by Bill, nailing him right in the chest.
He started to backpedal away from where he stood, more and more police officers charged at him with several bullets going in his direction. Bill turned around and rushed through the forest as he felt the dead eye ability fading away, he ran in between trees and smashed through shrubbery, trying to juke out and outrun the authorities that were chasing him. This move was risky, he was heading South towards Annesburgh. He whistled for his horse as he ran, the prizefighter could hear his steed neighing out of panic as it approached him.
The officers continued to fire at Bill, many of the bullet missed him while some hit him in the back and some others grazed his arm. He ran down a hill and slid under a fallen white log that was resting against a tree, he continued to slide down the hill before running out into an open area, going past an abandoned trading post, right close by to Brandywine Drop. As he made out into the open, he was able to have enough time to hop on his horse.
"There's that son of a bitch, get him!" Another officer could be heard shouting, Bill looked over to see another squad of cops coming at him from the right. He rode his horse forward, the animal rushing forth and away from the squad as fast as it could. Bill's heart raced, he didn't want to be put in jail at the risk of being hanged, this couldn't be happening to him.
The horse didn't make it far as it was shot in the leg, making it fall forward, hurling Bill Pierce off of it's back. The prizefighter slammed into the ground with a thud and a pained grunt came from his lips, but this was risky to stay down as he heard the horses of the police squadron galloping closer towards him. He slowly turned around and used as much dead eye ability that he had left within him, firing once into the head of an oncoming officer. The horses around the fallen officer panicked and made them run around wildly, the police struggled to get a good aim on the prizefighter. Bill decided that this would give him the opportunity to run some more.
He ran on foot, with the officers gaining back control of their horses moments later. He ran down a hill, his heart racing, sweating from the pure intensity of the situation, and he was starting to run out of breath from running without stopping for a good amount of time. He broke through a small tree, shoving the limb away with his arms as he heard shot after shot ring out from behind him. Bill happened to be in a particularly shady area, and he only focused on what was in front of him, not the ground.
Suddenly, his foot got caught in something and he fell down into a hole. Bill groaned in pain, grasping at his hurt ankle before crawling forwards into darkness. He could hear the rounds going off from the police as he sat underneath a rock within some sort of tunnel. He noticed that he could stand up once he moved further into some sort of underground chamber. The sun provided just enough light for him to see. The walls around him appeared to be made out of a stone brick material that had moss all over it, he had never seen anything like this before. He moved right into a different chamber of whatever this place was, there was a shelf to his left once he entered the chamber.
Much to his surprise, there were four skulls sitting on this shelf of rock, it startled him and made him jump, but there wasn't enough room to jump up which meant that he hit his head on the stone ceiling. He moved further into this chamber to see more skulls on the wall, one of them even had a viking helmet on it. The prizefighter stayed in the chamber, feeling safe even though he was surrounded by skulls in which were several centuries old. The voices of the police faded away with each passing minute, Bill took a sigh of relief, walking out of the chamber out into a wider space.
There was a large stone in the center of this above ground chamber, it appeared to be an altar or something you would place a body on. On Top of the stone was a skeleton, there was also several bones and skulls surrounding the altar too, the prizefighter came to the conclusion that this was an age old tomb where warriors were put to rest. After leaving the old tomb, he came out to a river where he saw two whitetail deer drinking from the Kamassa River.
The moment was perfect, Bill launched a throwing knife at the deer where the vitals was supposedly located, the deer flopped to the ground and kicked it's legs violently as a lasso was thrown around the second deer's neck, the second deer struggled and thrashed around, but Bill's grip was strong as he approached it. The deer in which was on the ground let out a loud cry before dying at the prizefighter's feet right when he plunged the knife into the lassoed deer, killing it instantly. A satisfied smile came upon his face, now he had a good deal of meat to feed to his half of the Marston Gang.
As he skinned the first deer that he killed, the prizefighter couldn't help but feel as if he was being watched, as he carefully removed the pelt from the deer's body, he looked around the area but seen nothing. Bill has never really been in this area before, so he jumped to the conclusion that his mind may have been playing tricks with him. He walked the length of an entire football field through forest just to give his horse a healing syringe, right in the spot where it had been shot. The horse groaned in pain as it slowly got back up, Bill gave it a gentle pat on the side out of love and respect for his steed before stowing the deer pelt on the back of the horse right behind the saddle.
Bill decided to ride his horse back to the river where he had killed the two deer to make up for all the walking and running he had done to get away from the police, it could've went wrong, very wrong. Once he made it back, the feeling that he was being watched, it returned to his head once again.
"Bah!" He growled, shrugging the sensation off as he went to skin the next deer. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something bolt out from the bushes from around fifteen yards to his right.
A cougar was making a wild dash towards Bill, it had been stalking him ever since he arrived at the river. The animal had previously eyed down the deer as potential prey, but Bill was larger and contained more meat, the deer were already dead and the prizefighter was the only one standing now. The cougar roared out, making Bill's eyes widen and it forced him to look up.
"Shit!" He screamed as the cougar pounced on him, the big cat biting at the back of his throat as he spun around and thrashed in a circle to try and get the predator off of his back. He shot his elbow back into the stomach of the cougar, the beast clawed deeply into his upper back in retaliation before sliding away and leaving for just a moment.
The pain was great, he would need to get those claw marks on his back patched up as soon as possible. He growled out in pain as he lurched forward, limping back towards his horse. The heart within his chest was once again racing a mile a minute. The Saint Denis champ removed a bolt action rifle from his horse and turned back around to see the cougar preparing to charge him again, he slowed down his breathing as much as he could, trying desperately to get into a calm state. The dead eye ability was working but ever so slowly as time wasn't slowing down as much as he wanted it to, the cougar growled with saliva visibly dripping from it's maw. The fangs of the big cat were bared and ready to sink into the neck of Bill Pierce, the prizefighter aimed at the cougar as it charged at him once again.
Bill was able to shoot the cougar in the shoulder as it lunged at him, but it wasn't enough to stop the feline from charging. He received another brutal slash from the claws of the large cat, causing him to yelp out in pain and turn around once again to face where the cougar was going. The horse fled from the scene as the prizefighter and the carnivorous animal were fighting each other, Bill seethed in pain. It was so great that he was fighting to hold back tears, he felt every bit of blood that was dripping from the large cuts that the claws of the cougar dealt to his back and shoulder.
"D-dammit.." He groaned, his lips quivering as he aimed at the cougar again with his arms shaking from the pain in which he was in right now. The cougar growled again, smelling the blood on it's claws. It charged once again, and this time, the cougar brought down Bill.
The prizefighter raised the rifle up to his face to block as the cougar was on top of him, biting into the rifle and hissing at him as it thrashed around, trying to break the rifle from Bill's grip and to get the jaws locked around his throat. Bill screamed in what was a mixture of fear and strength, he viciously kicked the underside of the cougar with all of his might. The feline wasn't letting up as it had Bill pinned down, his face could be shoved underwater where his vision would go blurry and he couldn't see if it happened.
The cougar placed it's paw down on his face and pushed down as it continued to thrash and rip at the rifle that was still blocking his throat. Bill noticed what this animal was trying to do. His grip was slipping from the rifle, this was it.
The rifle was successfully dislodged and the cougar struck down at his throat, but Bill wasn't going to let himself die so easily. He grabbed onto the jaws of the big cat and held them as far away from his throat as possible, the strength of this animal was incredible and he wouldn't be able to hold the jaws away for long. They were mere inches away from his neck, he could feel the saliva dripping on it as the teeth were slightly pointing into it.
"Fuck!" Bill exclaimed out in horror, fearing that this is where he would die. He kicked and thrashed around in horror while trying to frantically to save his own life. The cougar hissed once again and retracted it's claws, ready to end this futile struggle.
Then, when hope seems lost, the blade of what seemed to be an axe, slammed into the side of the cougar's skull. The big cat stopped moving violently and it fell to the side while painfully growling loudly, Bill rolled away from it as far as he could. Indians could be heard rushing into the scene, horseback with weapons drawn. The prizefighter recognized one of them from the Sisika Raid from not too long ago, his mouth hung agape as what was once just three native american men, now a huge tribe was circled around him.
"I remember you three, you guys helped us out at Sisika. I thank you for saving me." Bill Pierce said with a sigh of relief, being helped up by FireMaker.
"It is great to see you again, as you can see we are no longer just three men, but we are an entire tribe now. We've settled beyond the boundaries of this entire state, we are off the map. It is a place where no law hunts for us, it is why we are still here. Had we lingered around in the general area of Sisika, we would all have been hanged by now. We want to join your gang."
Bill was taken aback when he heard the chief say that his entire tribe wanted to join the Marston Gang, it would be a stupid idea to move their tribe into an environment in which they weren't used to at all.
"It is a mistake to join us, we have since moved away from our previous camp to the Grizzlies Mountains and the Redemption Mountains, we split up to hide ourselves from the law. To make matters worse, The governor of this entire state has issued a crackdown on all gangs and potential members. So now they have random squads of police stalking and hunting around, I just recently fled from a squad and escaped with luck." Bill explained to the tribe in full detail of what had gone down since he had last seen the three chiefs.
"Hey, no worries. You can join us, if you'd like to. The entire gang can join us as long as they don't rat us out or turn us into the law. One member is back at the camp, he guards the place. His name is Ahote. We leave our area to hunt for food or go scavenging for the plants of the land, I see that you have some deer meat on the ground right there."
Bill was quick to intervene with the tribe taking away the carcasses of the deer he had just skinned, walking over to them and standing over them in a protective manner.
"I don't think so, I have to feed my own tribe. Or should I say my own half of the entire gang, we live in the unforgiving cold. We use the hides and pelts of these deer for good use, we can make warm clothing out of them all. Food and pelts are scarce, the only large animals that shows up is nothing but elk. There is rarely a bear up there, so I have to move down into these forests and hunt for them. I'm terribly sorry, but Mr. Marston isn't going to be happy if members of my half start dying up here."
"I understand completely, if you and your gang ever form into one massive militia. Come back to see us at what we call 'star land' and it is a nice place devoid of law."
"Much obliged."
Bill continued on with his hunting, there was no more problems aside from that cougar that he had just been saved from. That was by mere luck, if he had been attacked again, the prized fighter of Saint Denis might have not lived.
The coming weeks for the Marston Gang, would be the best time for information. As Jack Marston and Rebecca McIntyre would soon discover by luck.