(Chapter 28: Big things in small packages)
An entire day had passed since the ordeal between Bill Pierce and the law enforcement squadron that had almost arrested him, he still wore the scars and bite marks from the cougar that had attacked him mere minutes after he escaped the law. He now approached the gunsmith at Annsesburg, right across the bridge over the Lannaheechee River.
"Hello there, what items do you need today?" The gunsmith asked, standing behind the counter while keeping his eyes on Bill Pierce.
"I've come to get bigger guns, I got attacked by a cougar yesterday and it almost killed me. I also might need some gun oil to clean up the weapons I already have." Bill answered, looking at the shelves to see what was in stock or on display.
"Darn, that sounds like one hell of a mess. How much gun oil do you need?"
"I need 3 bottles of it, that is all I really need."
Bill took three bottles of gun oil and approached the counter, placing them down before going to look for his gun of choice. His eyes were set upon a sawed off shotgun, two of them were on display on the counter nearby. The prizefighter of Saint Denis figured that he would be more menacing and respect commanding with dual wielded sawed off shotguns.
The prized fighter slapped his pockets to feel if he had any money, he only had twenty four dollars for the pelts he turned in for profit yesterday afternoon. Bill Pierce placed down the two sawed off shotguns on the counter before the gunsmith and handed in the twenty four dollars that he had.
"Well, partner, this isn't going to be enough for three gun oil bottles and dual sawed off guns. Come back next time with some more money and perhaps you can buy all of this."
"Listen, I don't have time. I am in a rush, can you lend me these items for free?" Bill asked in response to the smith, the gunsmith's expression shown a look of annoyance.
"You need to give me money my friend, nothing in this world is free."
Bill answered by leaning over the counter and snagging the gunsmith by the collar of his shirt from out of nowhere, yanking him over the counter and onto the floor. The gunsmith grunted in pain and struck at Bill's legs, the feeble punches did nothing to the prizefighter.
"I am in a rush for time, I've got a family to help." Bill growled as he forcefully jerked the clerk up and nailed him with a brutal right hand that knocked him out cold. Now the fourth in command leader of the Marston Gang could take anything he wanted for free.
Bill decided to be sneaky and rob the drawers for any money that he could potentially gain, he was able to get away with two hundred dollars worth of cash. His pockets were stuffed with money, and now he had two powerful guns at his disposal. An arrogant grin cracked on his lips as he marched out of the store, leaving the gunsmith on the floor to wake up hours later.
Around an hour later, Bill returned to Colter with two hundred dollars all with a cocky grin on his face. He felt more powerful than Jack's half of the gang now due to the reason that he had essentially performed the first robbery, sure it wasn't a great amount, but it was still the first one.
When Bill returned, he had seen a few people hard at work, building up some extra buildings in the cold. Some were eating some cooked deer meat by a fireplace, others were doing their own things to contribute to Bill's half of the gang.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I've got some good news. I just brought home two hundred dollars from a gun store, the clerk wouldn't comply with me and I had to knock him out. No one was near the store and it was all too easy." This got a few people to cheer, others gave him a nod of respect.
The reality dawned on Bill that if he was ever to return to Annseburgh, he would instantly become wanted. His face would be seen all over posters, he didn't want to go back down into that settlement unless absolutely necessary. He was glad that he got away with the robbery, he sat down under his tent with a happy smile on his face.
"I'm not useless." Bill repeated to himself twice as he looked at the wad of cash in his gloved hands, his heart and mind only getting more satisfied the more he looked at it.
Meanwhile, Jack Marston and Rebecca McIntyre were walking down the streets of Blackwater to take a break from building the new Cochinay base. The two were holding hands, they had officially became a couple overnight. They had sat uptop a cliff, the same cliff that Dutch fell off of in 1911. The two were looking up at the moon, speaking about their pasts and goals. Eventually a kiss was made when the moon was highest in the blackened sky, to celebrate the beginning of their relationship, they went to the Blackwater Theatre to watch a vaudeville show.
The couple made sure to be silent as they walked through Blackwater, they didn't want no law enforcement to hear their voices. Once they got inside of the theatre, the couple sat on the balcony. The two were the only ones at the balcony, everyone else was on the first floor. Jack put an arm around Rebecca's shoulder and gave her a happy smile.
"Rebecca, I am so proud of how long and how far we have made it. We have survived in desperate situations, we've fought our way out of danger. Yet here we are, alive and well. I am so proud of you, you've taken so much pain and damage through your years at Saint Denis. How you ride with my crazy gang is beyond me, but I love the fact that you stand by my side."
"As I am proud to stand by your side as well, dearest Jack."
"So, are you ready to rob your first bank? It won't be a big score, but it will be a small amount that is good for a first time. We're gonna put that money to good use too, we've been doing a great job at keeping our gang healthy and strong."
"Yes, but will you tell us when we need to do something or when the gang is in potential trouble?"
"Of course I will, I need to know what will happen. You and I, we decide our fates." Jack answered with an encouraging smile on his face, then patting Rebecca on the back.
Light briefly filled up the auditorium up as the doors opened up, Jack and Rebecca looked down with curiosity only to see a few men in all black clothing walk right in and selected a spot to sit at. Jack instantly recognized one of them as Shaw, one of the leaders of the BlackJacks.
"Ah damn, we can't have any peace or love to ourselves when we want it." Rebecca cursed silently, the couple then heard a gun click and the sound of boots approaching the curtain behind them. The gunslinger and the irishman gave each other a nod, both ready to defend themselves.
Jack whipped out a knife and so did Rebecca, the two approached the black curtain, the footsteps got louder, which only meant they were getting closer. The two leaders of the Marston Gang were sure to stay quiet, so they could determine if this approaching threat was really BlackJacks.
"Those sons of bitches are probably gonna be here, we've been looking for them all day." A voice was heard complaining on the other side of the curtain, thus confirming that these people were BlackJacks. The sounds of cheering and clapping, even booing of the audience to the performer on stage; was blurred out as the two were so focused on what would happen when those curtains would open. The silence was intense, and then the curtains swung open. Jack instantly struck forth with his knife penetrating the stomach of the random BlackJack member, he then used the curtain to blur out the screams of pain.
Rebecca used the curtain to wrap up the BlackJack member, there was a gunshot that broke through the curtain, missing the irishman. This alerted the audience and the other members of the BlackJacks downstairs that a struggle was going on in the balcony, everyone screamed in horror and started to flee from the theatre as Shaw and two other men headed for the stairs down the hall. Jack decided to help out Rebecca by tackling the struggling BlackJack member from behind and throwing him off of the balcony, he went falling down into the auditorium, crushing some people underneath him.
The BlackJack member that had been stabbed was slowly getting up to his feet, he had dropped his revolver. Rebecca was fast to end him with a quick shot to the head, but she still wasn't done. She picked up the body and charged it towards the stairs, only releasing it when it slammed through the banister and fell down on Shaw and the two other members.
"We need to get the hell outta here, we must move!" Rebecca screamed as she stood where the banister once was, both her and Jack firing down upon Shaw and the two BlackJacks. Not giving them any room to breathe.
"I know that." Jack responded calmly, trying to think of a way to escape.
"Well, do you have any ideas, love?"
"Police crackdown is still in effect, they will be all over this theatre in a matter of minutes. We need to escape through the rooftops. Running through the streets will get us both killed." Jack explained, turning back to the balcony and then climbing up a ladder that was against the wall.
"Follow me, darling!" Jack called out, getting Rebecca to follow him up the ladder on to the rooftop of the theatre. This gave them a good lookout over Blackwater, the large buildings within this town were right next to each other. This would allow them to traverse along the rooftops within Blackwater, but they would eventually be stopped. Law enforcement was descending upon the theatre.
"Find them sons of bitches!" a police officer was heard giving orders, Rebecca and Jack got onto their stomachs so no one would see them up on the roof.
"What now, we are fucked." Rebecca said, her voice sounded fearful. Jack shook his head, staying calm and confident in this sticky situation that they had found themselves in.
At the entrance of Blackwater, up the hill by the church, a small posse of Marston Gang members rushed in on horseback, rifles trained on police officers and BlackJack members alike. Explosive gunshots burst out and echoed across the streets of Blackwater, civilians started to panic and flee to wherever they could.
"Here comes the cavalry." Jack chuckled, several BlackJacks were downed as they tried to find a way to scale to the roofs in order to get a good vantage point, after around five BlackJacks were put down, they started to turn around and fight back. At the same time, a BlackJack and a Marston Gang member was shot dead. Bullets were flying in the streets with several civilians getting hurt in the process.
Jack and Rebecca were using their firearms to down some BlackJacks with headshots from above, some it took two hits to kill due to the headshots missing. Bodies were dropping into the streets second by second, chaos unfolding within Blackwater.
"Up there on the rooftops, kill them!" Shaw was heard, a bullet flew right by Rebecca's head moments later, startling her, causing her to fall back into Jack's arms. The Irishman looked up at Jack and gave him a sweet smile after he caught her when she fell.
"Thank you, dearly." She goes before getting back to her vertical base, the gunslinger and the Irish ass kicker began to fire their pistols down towards the streets again, the police were making their presence felt now as they started to kill BlackJacks and Marston Gang members left and right.
Shaw was ready to end things as he marched into an alleyway, getting away from the carnage in the streets as twenty one people had already been shot dead. He came out to another street where he seen four cops riding on horses, blowing whistles as they rushed to the scene of the massive gunfight in which was underway. He saw a ladder to his right after taking cover behind a pile of boxes so the lawmen wouldn't see him.
A smirk grew on his face as he could hear Jack and Rebecca talking far above his head, it was very faint but he could make out their distinctive voices that he remembered from when they ambushed the two at Beecher's Hope at the dawn of the Marston Gang.
"Now, Rebecca. We need to move. The police and the BlackJacks are distracted, it is practically gang warfare. That is only a small amount of our gunmen and gun women, this is our only shot." Jack explained, Rebecca nodded her head as they started for the ladder only to see Shaw standing at it with a sawed off shotgun aimed at the two of them.
"You two aren't going anywhere, you've gotta get through me first." Shaw growled, placing his finger on the trigger of the sawed off.
"Look, we don't want any trouble. Let us get out of here without this escalating any furth-" Jack's sentence was cut off when Rebecca fired her revolver with lightning fast speed, quickdraw. The bullet went right into the gut of Shaw, causing him to drop his sawed off to the floor.
Shaw fell to one knee and reached down for his sawed off again, but Rebecca finished him off with a quick shot to the head from her revolver again, another lightning fast shot from the irishman. Jack's eyes widened, he was impressed with his partner and he sarcastically clapped.
"Let's move Jackie, we can't stay up here any longer." Rebecca suggested, the two of them climbed down the ladder after finishing off one of the few BlackJack generals. They crouched down into a low walking position, creeping silently to go undetected by the lawmen.
"As soon as we hit the road and not grass, we whistle for our horses and haul ass back to camp, got that?" Jack asked, as the two carefully approached the end of the alleyway.
Rebecca nodded her head in agreement, once the two made it out into the road, Jack blew the whistle and so did Rebecca. They could hear large amounts of gunfire and screaming going on in the streets all around them, freedom was just ahead of them though.
The horses of the couple bolted into view, the top two leaders of the Marston Gang dashed forth towards their horses, fearing more lawmen would come after them if they had stalled any longer. Jack was first to make it onto his horse, followed by Rebecca.
"Follow me!" He exclaimed as he gave his horse a good tugging on the reins, the white arabian horse darting out of Blackwater and towards the heartlands. Rebecca rushed after him on her horse as well, Jack knew the area well through his travels before he gave life to his gang.
He took a sharp left turn and then a sharp right turn, his horse running down the hill with Rebecca following close behind. The two of them fled Blackwater, not looking back, not even once.
Later on that day, Jack and Rebecca was at Cochinay. Helping each other build a new segment of the large camp, suddenly, the two of them heard their names being called to their lodging in which they had constructed a few weeks ago.
Jack had sent Dred and Tonya scouting in Blackwater, hours after the shootout. They came back with some good information about their bank robbery in which was soon to unfurl within the next forty eight hours.
"We have some information about our robbery. There is a newly built bank over by the docks, right next to the Flat Iron Lake. It had just recently finished construction two weeks ago, money from Saint Denis is coming to Blackwater to help fund the expansion of the town into a city. According to word of mouth, it should arrive via ferry." Dred explained, revealing the info to the top two leaders of the Marston Gang.
"Excellent. I say it is time we all rest up, because our robbery will be tomorrow. I will tell you all my official plan once we arrive, but here is basically how I see things unfolding. We will need scouts to let us know when the ferry is approaching, once this happens, a few of us will go on the ferry, disguised as citizens riding up towards Saint Denis. That is currently all I can think of, it is best if we rest now. This will be our first robbery, so we should pray and hope for the best of us and the best of others tomorrow. I don't want to kill any innocents, so we should not aim to cause harm!" Jack spoke loudly, after several weeks and a few months of constant movement, the gang is finally about to rob their first bank..