A Western End

It has been a long time since I wrote this story, and trust me there is a good reason, but I won't tell you that know hopefully I will be able to reveal by the end of the month. Now, I am back to working on this Western, so before you read today's post go back and recall the first few parts: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

Part 5

The sun hung sadly on the horizon as Norwood Lyle paced along the front porch. A crooked hand rolled cigar stuck between his lips with a Spencer 1860 Saddle Ring Carbine slung over his shoulder, and a Starr 1858 Army revolver tucked in a holster wrapped around his waist. He paces impatiently along the porch scared about the fight that is coming; he can hear the others laughing away from inside the cabin. Lyle’s nerves shake as he thinks of all the nightmares he has had since the day they found themselves stuck at this cabin.

The dreams all start the same: breakfast, that he had prepared. Racist jokes and comments that usually involve him being called a nigger which angers Shelby. It then goes to them all being killed in one way or another. The one from a fortnight ago that has stuck with him and has caused him to jump at the sound of the cabin door shutting, or the banging from the shots they fired at quail; the dream felt too real and he remembers what his mother told him when he was a young boy “dreams are a glimpse into the past, present, and future and shan’t be ignored. Know tha signs an’ do somethin’ when they show tha cards of ya future.”

The dreams have been going on for months, but after that particular one had he awoke with his mother’s words echoing throughout his mind. A dream that even in the rising sun and the cool smell of frozen air he can’t escape.

It started with the scent of coffee as it filled a small one roomed cabin. Lyle stood over a cast iron stove as the grease from bacon splattered singeing the hair on his arm. The smell of burning flesh filled the room as he leaves the bacon sizzling on the pan and heads to the door of the cabin to try and call in the rest of the gang.

The door opened and he was greeted by a sweet Tennessee summer and the white of the cotton fields instead of the cold unforgiving prairies: he wanted to run, but his feet carried him to the field as the cabin faded into a soft white cloud and floated to the sky. The field was empty; no slaves, nor any sign of the overseer, but Lyle began his picking.

The sun grew larger and larger as he made his down through the rows of cotton filling his bag as fast as his calloused hand could move. The sun blinded him but he continued to pick cotton. He could hear the sound of whistling flutes and pounding drums amongst the stamping of a thousand boots. Cannon fire echoed through the plantation and Lyle looked up to watch the sun explode blackening the field. He goes back to picking the cotton the and silence is momentarily returned to the field only to be interrupted by the soft galloping of a horse that now stood in Lyle’s way. Atop the pure white stead sat his master, Tom.

“Masta, I ain’t gonna get this done if ya standin’ in my way!”

“This that nigger that ya looking for right here,” Tom screamed without taking his eyes off Lyle who stared up at the white oppressor.

A whip cracked down across his eyes and his dream turned red. He could hear the muffled sound of voices speaking, but the blood poured into his ears. He screamed, but even his own voice sounded like a distant yelp of a dying coyote.

When the blood finally cleared a second man stood in front of him. The man was Marshal Cummings donning the gray uniform of a Confederate officer, he had a sword pressed upon Lyle’s black neck.

“Yes, this is that filthy animal I have been searching for.” The Marshal lifted his sword high ready to strike down and sever Norwood Lyle’s head from the rest of his body when he was interrupted by gunfire coming from the other end of the cotton field.

Bullets ripped into Tom turning the cotton a deep red, yet his horse remained pristine glowing white against the sunless Tennessee morning.  Lyle turned around and watched as the Kindel Gang stood in the field firing at the Marshal, but their bullets seemed to scatter all around him destroying the crops and the body of Tom who sat lifelessly, yet upright, on the horse; bullets entering his body without ever leaving, blood pouring out without ever touching the angelic stead he sat upon.

With quicker draw than any man he had ever seen, the old graying Marshal lifted his peacemaker from a holster putting a bullet in the head of every Kindel gang member; saving Shelby for last. Shelby begged for his life raising his hands high in the sky; they continue to stretch up to the blackness where the heavens should have been when the Marshal takes a single shot ripping Shelby’s face clean off revealing his black skull; a black so heavy it stood out even against the dark sky. The dead gang leader’s extended arms floated slowly to the ground piling on top of his headless corpse.

Marshal Cummings then turned his attention back to his sword which was once again high above Lyle’s neck. The field vanishes and is replaced by all white; the sky evaporates and is replaced with one giant white cloud that engulfs everything. The bodies vanish and those too are replaced by white. Just Lyle, the Marshal, and the white horse so white and pure only it’s brown eyes stood out against the whiteness of the scene, and Tom still atop it sitting up straight, but still covered in his own blood.

“You have done evil things, my son,” it was the Marshal’s mouth that was moving, but it was a deeper richer voice than that of Cummings, “and your sins in this world will be paid for in the next.” The blade began its descent down from high above; it began to move in slow motion. Lyle was frozen like he had been many times before the whip cracked and slashed against his once scar free back; the other slaves looked at as a sign of Lyle’s courage when in reality it was his cowardice that kept him from running or screaming as the whip rushed down. This time his cowardice of all he had done since leaving that Tennessee plantation froze him. The sword starts to rip through his neck when Lyle awakes from the dream.

A cool breeze rushes through the plains causing the old home to creak and sway slightly as the door to the cabin swings open.

“Everythin’ good Lyle?” Shelby’s voice echoed from the front door, “Ya don’t seem to be here in this world.”

“Yas boss, I’m fine.” Lyle takes a deep breath and feels Shelby’s right hand grasp his shoulder.

“Lyle, you’re a good man.”

“Thank ya boss.” a tear begins to run down his cheek. “I’m scared here, boss. Been havin’ nightmares.

The laughter of the other members of the gang is carried over the air with another strong gust of wind then all the sounds dropout and an eerie silence crept in with a thick gray cloud that blocks out the sun.

“Me too,” Shelby says softly, “Me too.”

A Western End

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 5

Part 4

Marshal Cummings steps off his horse and pulls out a sandwich Agatha packed for him. He sits on the ground to eat as the sun stands high above in the cloudless sky; the frost has melted and the weather warmed, yet the marshal is filled with an eerie feeling that something will go wrong when he reaches the Kindel Gang. Something as awful as the first time he encountered one of the Kindel boys long before he was the law in Red Creek— long before there was a Kindel Gang. Before Shelby led a rampage throughout the American West. Before the name Kindel was synonymous with violence and robberies throughout the godless west.

Storm clouds were rolling into lower Manhattan: an area the marshal hated to go but being as it was a nearly lawless place most of the fugitives that he hunted fled to. He enlisted help from his friend and newly appointed copper, Charles McMurphy, an Irish immigrant who was turned copper when Albany sent down the order to for an organized state-run police force known as the ‘Metropolitans’ that was supposed to replace city run ‘Municipals’. Mcmurphy was a tall thin Irishman, with thick black hair which appeared darker against his pale skin.

“Good ta see ya boyo!” McMurphy smiled and greeted his old friend with a handshake and hug. “Now, let’s get to business. Tha man ya be lookin’ for was seen at tha Ole Brewery.”

“Well, I think it wise for you to not go in there, being as you are in uniform.”

“Aye, ya be right boyo. I’ll walk me route while ya head in an’ fin’ ya man.”

“Thanks for the tip McMurphy, If I am not out soon come find me.”

McMurphy walked around the corner and Marshal Cummings headed into the Old Brewery. His stomach was tied in knots and his heart pounding. The smell of feces and sweat mixed with the scent of rotting flesh. The marshal walked through the halls, looking through every door and down every hall trying to look for the man on the wanted poster back in his office; a man wanted for the murder of a New Jersey man a year and a half prior. Matthew Kindel, a brown haired gray-eyed 24-year-old with a scar across his forehead and a slight limp in his left leg from a fight with other workers in a Paterson mill when he was younger.

Women were having sex out in the open, men divided spoils of robberies, blacks and whites smoked opium together, but no sign of Kindel.

The sun was fading when Marshal Cummings stepped back out into the crowded slum streets. He finally took a deep breath escaping from the wretched air in the Old Brewery, though the scents of the streets weren’t much better.

He found Mcmurphy across the street being harassed by a couple of men from the local Dead Rabbits gang. Marshal Cummings drew his gun and crossed the street. He grabbed the fattest one, whose weight made him a little too slow to escape, by the shirt collar and pressed him against the wall. He put his Colt Peacemaker underneath his crooked nose.

“I see you find it good sport to harass people of the law?”

Instead of answering with his words the pudgy street tough spat in the marshal’s face. Harold reacted by smashing his head into the thug’s forehead.

“Aye, let him be.”

Harold let go of the boy causing him to drop to the ground. He knelt down by the boy who was rolling on the ground in pain.

“Sorry about that, I just thought maybe you could tell me where to find a man named Matthew Kindel. He is known to be running with the scum around here.” The boy remained silent, “Well, if you do see him please let him know that U.S. Marshal Cummings is looking for him.”

The two lawmen left the Five Points and headed back up toward the 6th ward police station on Franklin street.

“Aye, we can try again in tha mornin’, we’ll get him ‘fore long.”

Mcmurphy made his way up the steps into the station house and Marshal Cummings headed over a few blocks to his apartment off of West Broadway.

He had an uneasy feeling of being followed, but he turned and saw nothing suspicious. He entered the building and walked up to his apartment. The scent of potatoes and roasted chicken filled the tiny one bedroom residence. Marshal Cummings walked in and greeted his wife, a red-haired Irish immigrant he met a year prior. Her hair was up in a bun supported with a simple blue ribbon that matched her checkered dress.  She kissed her husband as he sat down at the small kitchen table. She placed a plate with a baked potato and chicken breast. She placed another dish to his left and she took a seat to his right with a plate.

A young boy with his mother’s freckles and his father’s blue eyes walked in from the bedroom and sat down. He smiled up at his father and began eating his dinner.

“Are ya done for tha day darlin’?” His wife spoke softly.

“No, I need to head back to Five Points and find this fugitive before he does more damage.”

His wife reached over and placed her hand over the back of his.

“Just come home safe pops, I got to show ya somethin’.” His son smiled without ever looking up from his plate.

They finished the meal in silence. Marshal Cummings said goodnight to his family and headed back out into the stifling humidity that consumed the Manhattan night. He walked back down to the Old Brewery not knowing what awaited him. The place was dangerous during the day, but under the cover of a clouded night sky it grew much worse. He stopped under a streetlight to make sure his Colt 1851 Navy revolver was fully loaded. His hand was shaking, his nerves always seemed to get to him when facing the unknown.

He crossed the street and entered the dilapidated slum. The foul stench from earlier in the day was only intensified with the brewery now overflowing with the city’s poor and insane. He climbed over bodies that were either dead or too drugged to even notice his presence.

He once again searched the bowels of the Old brewery to no avail: his target wasn't there. He climbed over the motionless meat sacks back out to the sewage covered streets of the Five Points. The city air was stagnate and the sky north of the ghetto glowed an eerie orange. The sounds of screaming women and yelling men echoed through the caverns of buildings.

Harold’s stomach sank.

He ran through the streets pushing past gawking spectators watching two teams of firefighters fighting one another while a building burned: the marshal’s apartment building.

Harold screamed for his wife and son when scanning the crowd for their freckled cheeks. Someone tapped on his shoulder bringing a sense of relief over him, but it quickly dissipated when he turned around to see a pale redheaded girl staring up at him.

“Dey, not out here Marshal. I don’ thin’ dey came out.”

The Marshal turned back to the blaze where the firefighters were still throwing punches in the streets, the only people going in and out of the inferno were a group of Dead Rabbits looting the place. Harold rushed past the brawling firefighters and into the apartment.

Flames were all around him as he bolted up two stories of stairs to his apartment. The door was rigged with rope so it would remain closed regardless of how much someone on the inside tried to pull the door open. He untied the rope and rushed into his apartment.

He found his family lying motionless on the floor behind the door, his wife holding his son and his son gripping a piece of paper close to his chest. Harold tossed his wife over one shoulder and his son over the other and he carried them back through the fire and out into the humid streets where one fire company finally began dousing the fire and looting as the other one fled the scene hoping for another inferno.

The fire illuminated the scene: Harold coughed as a crowd began to gather around him. He held his family close to his body looking at the faces in the crowd as tears rolled down his eyes.

“I see’s who done it.” A child’s voice spoke out above the sound of yelling firefighters and burning city block. Marshal Cummings couldn’t see who was speaking to him through his water filled eyes, but he listened, “It was two kids, dey rans back to five points. One of em had a limp an’ da otha was a short fat man wit a beard an’ a real funny nose an’ a gash on his head.”

His mind wandered back to the young dead thug that was on the receiving end of his ferocious headbutt. Marshal Cummings stood up leaving his family in the street. He pulled out his revolver making his way past the crowd and down the street back into the depths of the Five Points.

He could hear footsteps pounding the street from behind him; he turned and pointed his weapon. Officer McMurphy stood with his arms in the air.

“Aye, it's me, laddie. Put it down, for now, I can’t let ya go on there alone.” Mcmurphy took the copper badge off his chest and slid it in his pocket. “Tonigh’ I’m not tha law.”

Marshal Cummings dropped his gun and shook his friend’s hand. Together they began the trek back to the Five Points.

The slowed down when they neared the Old Brewery and stood across the street in a unlit part of the street where they watched group of five men under a street light rolling dice: one of them had a distinct nose and another had a face the Marshal had etched in his memory and on each of the six bullets in his weapon.

“Now let’s not get carried away, we here fo one man an’ one man only.”

Marshal Cummings ignored his friend’s words and started across the street with his weapon drawn.

“Shit!” One of the kids on the corner screams seeing the approaching lawmen “Get out of here!” The group began to run in different directions.

One of them, one with a pronounced limp, ran toward the Old Brewery. Marshal Cummings fired his weapon hitting the cobblestone street behind the running arsonist. The kid took a peak of over his shoulder to see who was firing at him. The face he saw he thought he had disposed of in a boxed inferno.

Kindel tried to outrun the bullets that were ricocheting all around him, but his limp could not carry him to safety before a bullet ripped through the back of his good leg blowing his kneecap all over the street.

Harold approached with his gun pointing at his family’s murderer as the kid’s blood glistened in the moonlight that now broke through the gray clouds. Kindel tried to drag himself into the old brewery, but before he could creep along the sidewalk the marshal’s foot stomped onto what remained of the back of his knee which was nothing more than a pool of blood and a couple of tendons hanging loosely connecting his thigh to his calf.

“Going somewhere?” The marshal voice shook. “Turn around.” Harold filled the empty chambers of his pistol with steel to steal Kindel’s life.

A gunshot echoed through the streets breaking the near silence. A second gunshot rang out and footsteps clanked the streets headed toward the marshal. Kindel twisted his head around to face the barrel of the marshal’s Colt 1851 Navy.

“A woman. . . A child,” the marshal paused choking back his feelings, “a fucking child.” Harold pulled the hammer back on his pistol.

“Marshal, the otha one be dead. He shot me in tha arm,” Officer McMurphy ran clutching his right shoulder as blood poured out between his fingers. “But I got him righ’ in tha heart.”

“This one is not going to get the same fate.” The marshal holstered his pistol, “This one will sit in the gallows and the city will watch him hang.” Harold took his foot off Kindel’s leg and walked into the moonlight, not sure where to go next.

He could hear McMurphy talk to Kindel as he dragged him along to the police station.

He could still hear him. He could still hear his first family laughing at Sunday dinner in the wind rushing down from the mountains whipping through the plains. He takes off his hat and pulls a slip of paper from its brim and unfolds it. Tears drip down onto the sketch of him his son drew the same one his son had clutched to his chest as he died. It is at times like this that the marshal wishes he had pulled the trigger on that fateful night.

His thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a horse’s gallop over the frozen ground. His heart races as he removes his Colt Peacemaker from its holster and turns to face the oncoming horse.

A Western End

part 1, part 2, part 4, part 5

Part 3

The sound of a crackling of fire fills a small two bedroom farmhouse on the outskirts of Red Creek where Agatha Cummings, a short white haired woman with a face that has yet to show signs of age, stands over the pan of eggs and bacon. She pulls the food off the old stove top and brings it over to the table. She wipes her hands on the white apron that protects her blue dress from the grease of breakfast.

“Elliot, Elba! Come get it.”

Elba, a young blonde girl with Bible tucked under her arm dressed in a similar blue dress as her mother with a, comes in from the porch. She takes a seat at the table, opens up the Bible and begins scanning through the pages.

“Where’s your brother?”

“I not sure mama.” She stops on a page and starts mouthing the words to herself, underlining each word with her pointer finger, “I think he was out feedin’ the chickens.”

“Go out and fetch him.”

“But mama I’m readin’!” Elba began to huff and puff.

“No buts, go an’ get him. Ya wouldn’t be acting this way if your Papa was home.”

Elba stands and runs outside shouting for her brother. He doesn’t answer. She walks around to the chicken coup, “Elliot! Where are you brotha? Mama gonna be mad, ya may even get a whippin’!” Elba laughs, mama never gives her a whipping. She spends her days cleaning the house and reading the Bible, wishing she could fight lions and live in a land far away like Daniel. ‘Oh, how fun and exciting that would be,’ she always thinks.

She comes back alone.

“Where is Elliot?”

“I don’t know mama, but one of tha horses is gone.”

Agatha runs out of the house toward the stable, “Elliot!” One of the horses indeed was gone. She returns to the house with tears rushing from her eyes.

“Where he go mama?”

“Probably to go and find ya, papa.” She put her head into her hands, “Nothing we can do now but pray.”

“Dear God,” Elba begins, “Please watch ova my stupid brotha and my papa. Make sure they come home safe to protect me and mama. Amen.” She forms the sign of the cross with her right hand. “Good mama?”

“Good.” Agatha lifts her head from her hands and grabs her daughter’s hand.

“Why didn’t papa have some men with him? Why did he go all alone mama?”

“Your papa isn’t liked here anymore.”

“Why not?”

“He killed a bad man and the town didn’t like that.”

“But if the man was bad why don’t the town like it mama?”

“Cause he was one of them and papa is from outside.” Agatha serves her daughter breakfast. Elba starts eating, Agatha continues, “The man was wanted for some things he did when he went out to Chicago, and your father being the law here had to go arrest him.”

“But papa killed him?”

“Papa went out to the Sloane house and,”

“Where’s the Sloane house?” Elba interjects.

“It’s ‘bout 50 miles to the east, anyway papa rode out there to arrest him, but when he got there Mr. Sloane shot at him and killed ya papa’s horse and ya dad got hurt bad when the horse fell dead. Ya, papa took his rifle and sent that evil man to the hell that ya read about in that book.” Agatha stands up and walks over to the front window. The high mountains loom off in the horizon, she starts to cry again as she thinks of her only son out there alone.

“Elliot an’ papa will be home for ya know it mama; I prayed, so God an’ Jesus will watch ova them.” Elba walks over to her mother and grabs her arm leading her back to the table, “Sit and eat breakfast” She serves her mother breakfast and returns to the pages of the Bible hoping that her belief in those centuries-old words will protect her father and brother, but her mother knows that the west is godless, so she eats in fear.

A fear she tried to escape from by coming to Red Creek. A fear of losing everyone she holds dear.

She thinks back to a hot September morning many years ago; fog crept in from the Tennessee River as she stared out her bedroom window over dew soaked cotton fields that stretched out below her. She could hear a whip cracking off in the distance﹘ a sound that always brought a shiver down her spine. It meant that somewhere out in those fields her brother was ripping a slave’s back raw. It was sound she despised, but as much as she pleaded with her brother to stop the whippings and free the dozens of slaves working on the plantation she knew he would never allow that.

She walked downstairs and out onto the porch as a cool breeze blew carrying with it the sound of hundreds of voices. The voices grew louder and she could hear the wheels of wagons and the hooves of horses tramping over the road leading to the plantation. Her brother, Tom, came out from the fields atop his white horse as two uniformed men rode up to the great house. A large number of disheveled men waited outside the main gate.

“Ma’am,” one of the men began to speak as he tilted his hat toward Agatha, “My name is General William Rosecrans, my men need a place to rest for a few hours. I hope that you do not mind them taking residence outside of your home for a spell.” He smiled as he stepped down from his horse, “And me and my officers will take up some space in the dining room or study and have a cup a coffee if you do not mind any.”

Tom stepped off of his horse and walked toward the general. Rosecrans removed his white gloves and extended his hand toward Tom. Tom did meet it with a handshake, “Ya gonna stay here cause you got all them men with all them guns, but you will not be welcome.” Tom mounted his steed and rode back into the fields.

Rosecrans tried to hide his anger with a fake smile. He watched as Tom went back to the field where he immediately began yelling and whipping down a young slave.

“I apologize for my brotha General, he isn't an avid supporter of you Union folk.”

“And you ma'am?” He questioned

“I wish this war would jus’ end,” Agatha stared out over the field and watched as her brother took the whip to Lyle, one of the young slaves. Agatha always felt something for the slaves, especially poor Lyle; who her brother treated worse than most. “I wish the violence would stop.”

“I assure once we claim victory this pointless violence will cease,” Rosecrans spoke as he listened to the crack of a nine tails against human flesh.

Agatha waved to a couple of the female housekeepers and had them lead General Rosecrans and his officers into the great house. She followed them in as the sound of ripping skin echoed over the cotton fields.

A few hours past Agatha was knitting in the study when Tom began yelling in the dining room below. Shouting that was followed by the sound of a gunshot. Agatha threw her knitting to the floor and sprinted down the stairs into the foray. Another gunshot echoed through the house.

She entered the lobby as two Union soldiers rushed past her and out the front door. Agatha walked into the dining room where a Union officer sat face down in a piece of white cake; his blood dripping onto the floor. Tom sat across the table with his hand on his chest, blood spilling over his fingers.

“Fuck.” He sputtered, “Bastard shot me. You best run sister, I killed that one,” he motioned his head toward the dead Union officer “an’ lord knows they ain’t gonna take it too well.”

Agatha stepped closer to her brother and cupped her hands on her mouth.

“We ain’t got time for a goodbye,” he coughed spitting up a tiny bit of blood, “Just get a suitcase an’ leave this place, it ain’t safe.”

Agatha rushed out of the dining room, back upstairs past the study, and into her room. She grabbed a few dresses and shoved them into a suitcase. She could hear Tom speaking when another gunshot rang out, then her brother’s voice was gone. tears welled up in her eyes as loud footsteps began pounding the blue ash floors, which was followed by the crackling of a raging fire. Smoke began to seep through the cracks in the floor. Agatha grabbed her suitcase and ran down the back stairs.

She ran across the yard to the stable, she could hear gunshots echoing behind her, but she didn’t know who they were shooting at until she saw the bullets impacting the stable walls: she ran faster.

She hopped on a horse that was to be saddled and ready for a trip her brother was supposed to take into town. She rode the horse west and tried not to look back.

Now she sits hoping her husband would ride back east alive with Elliot by his side bringing their laughter back to the home to replace her pacing footsteps and Elba’s incisive praying.

A Western End

part 1, part 3, part 4, part 5

Part 2

“I’m just plain tired of it.” Shelby slumps forward in his chair spinning the Colt Dragoon resting on the table.

“We’s gone be fine like always Shelby.”

 
Shelby doesn’t look at his younger brother Odum as he tried to comfort him. Odum was barely 22 yet he has see more than most criminals roaming the territory. His smile was that of an innocent man, yet his mind was darkened by with the souls of many people taken at his hands. His hair was light blonde and his eyes a deep blue, when in Red Creek and all the similar dirt towns he is favored by the women and despised by the men.

“Maybe it is jus’ time to let that old marshal get me. Jus’ ride to town an’ let him have me hung. It’s tha only endin’ that I deserve.” Shelby stands up, walks over to the cabin window, and stares out over the frosted plains. Shelby is not as handsome as his younger brother. His hair is a dark blonde and his eyes an eerie grey, but what he lacks in the looks department he makes up for in intelligence. 

“Don’ go talkin’ like tha’ wha’ would mama say?”

“Mama would say we’s givin’ the Kindel’s a bad name. Sometime I’m glad she ain’t alive to watch what I have become an’ the path I led you down.” Shelby leans his head against the filthy glass window, “I wish I could change my path; I wish I could have made mama proud.

“Mama is proud, we ain’t poor no more.” Odum stands up and walks over to his brother placing his hand on Shelby’s shoulder. “Remember where we was when mama died, you saved us an’ all the boy’s dat’s why we loyal to ya an’ believe in where ya take us.”

“Sure I remember.”

Shelby went deep into his memory and watched as the plains turned into the bustling streets of Paterson. 

Snow covered the trees and the Great Falls were nearly frozen over, young Shelby stood by the shore of the Passaic River staring out at the blooming city above. Odum came stumbling down the hill.

“We can’t stay here. We ain’t got nothin’ left.” Shelby spoke without turning around at his brother.

“We gots Auntie Beatrice.” Odum tried to force a smile.

“She can’t even take care of her own how you think she take care of us?”

“But she said mama tol’ her dat we will stay wit her.”

“Mama is dead, Odum,” Shelby turned to face his brother, “look at us. Tha way we dressed there no way we survive winter here.”

Odum looked down at himself he was wearing a torn grey frock coat that once belonged to Shelby and a pair of faded black pants that were once their older brother who was rotting somewhere in the filth of a Manhattan jail awaiting his meeting with the hangman. He looked back at Shelby who was wearing just a plain green button down shirt without a jacket, his face was red from the winter wind.

“Where we gonna go Shel?” Odum began to cry, “Manhattan?”

“We don’ wanna go there. I went to visit Matthew an’ saw where he was livin’. The Five Points ain’t made for no human livin’. We gotta go west.”

“West?”

Shelby wiped his brother’s tears from his cheek and embraced him. He ran his hand through Odum’s blonde hair. “Yea. we gotta go west. I got us some money so we will take a train out to St. Louis an’ make our way from there.”

“How you gets money for a train?”

“I killed a man.” Shelby let go of his brother and turned back around to the river. “I stabbed him in tha neck an’ tooks his money and pocket watch an’ left him to die alone.”

Odum started to cry heavily.

“I ain’t have no choice, ain’t noone gonna take care of us but me.” Tears rolled down Shelby’s cheeks past the scar that he got from working in the mill when he was younger. “It jus’ us.”

“Ain’t ya worried about hell?”

“Hell is where we livin now. I ain’t worried bout nothin’ but getting us out of bein’ poor.”

The cabin door opens and the mills of Paterson turn back into the frosted plains.

“You right Odum, mama would be proud, maybe not of the ways we lived, but that we taken care of each other.” Shelby smiles and walks back over to take a seat at the table.

“Any sign of the ole marshal?”

“Nah, sir, we gots no sign of him.” Norwood Lyle speaks as he piles firewood into the stove.  “If any of tha fellas see someone dey sure run to tell us.”

“Put some coffee on fo’ the boys. Have em come in fo’ breakfast.”

“But boss whas bout dat marshal?” Norwood asks as he starts the coffee.

“Cummings ain’t gone kill no man while eatin’ eggs. He a man of God an’ ain’t gonna kill no one that ain’t out to harm him.”

Norwood wiped his black hands on his gray shirt and heads to the door. he shouts out “Fellas we’s gone have some breakfas’.” Norwood makes his way back to the stove and starts cracking the eggs the gang stole from a nearby ranch.

“Maybe we should move from here Shel.” Odum takes the seat next to his brother at the table. “Maybe we go north ta Canada, they ain’t got no idea who we are there, maybe we can start again.”

“Till Marshal Cummings is out of the way we ain’t gonna be safe no wheres.” Shelby plucks the Colt off the table storing it safely in the holster on his hip. “We gonna stan’ an’ fight. Sides he ain’t gonna be wit no one.”

“How you know he ain’t gonna have no posse?”

“Ain’t no one in that town he can trus’, bunch of crooks and thieves that never forgave him fo’ killin’ Elsworth Sloane.”

Three men walk into the cabin lead by Archie Bruff a muscle bound man who has a flair for flannel shirts and the lumberjack beard to match, following behind him was Walton McMurry a short anger filled Irishman, and Moses Hagerman a plain looking young kid no more than 16 who joined the gang after escaping an orphanage. They take seats around the table.

“Wha tha nigger cookin’?” Archie asks with a smile on his face.

Shelby stares at him anger boils up and he punches Archie square in the nose, blood spills out onto the table.

“Wha I say ‘bout that word? Norwood is one of us an’ ain’t no one call him a nigger.”

“Sorry boss.” Archie holds his nose and tilts his head back in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

“Don’ apologize to me. You apologize to Norwood.” Shelby stands up and walks over to the cabinet and grabs a ragged cloth and tosses it at Archie.

“I sorry Norwood.”

“Ain’t nothin’ I knows you ain’t mean no harm by it. I used to worse anyways.” Norwood walks over with a pot of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs placing it in the center of the table. “Yous is the only family I have, I don’t mind some foolin’.” Norwood smiles and takes his seat at the table with the rest of the gang. Shelby brings cups and plates and joins them.