Jerimiah's Gold

Chapter 20

The man to his right pulled the hammer back on his revolver, and the one on his left stood with his thumbs in his belt loops. I blinked then lied completely flat on the dirt with my face soaking the sun. Birds flew overhead, and I could hear crickets and other various insects chirping. The man in the middle approached me and stood over me, blocking my view of serenity.

"It's time Klara, you're lucky we aren't filling you with lead for what you did to my partner." He put his hand out for me to take it.

I sat up, spat on his hand, then stood with my hand raised to my chest. The man with his thumbs tucked approached me and put handcuffs on my wrists. There was no wagon, just their horses.

"How are y'all going to transfer me to a jail without a wagon?" I asked.

"Guess you're walking then." The agents mounted their horses.

They began riding west in a slow walk, and I followed on foot. I walked for two hours before my legs gave out and I fell to my knees. My hands were behind my back, so when I fell I landed face down on the dirt. I sat up and took in deep breaths. The sun bled orange across the sky as the evening began to set in.

"Get up." The man who I assumed to be the leader barked at me.

I picked myself up on wobbly legs, like a fawn standing for the first time. I was exhausted, too exhausted to fight back, but I knew surrendering was the first mistake. What could I have done? Surrounded and out of ammo, what was expected of me? To accept death so easily after everything? No, I refuse. I will find a way out of this, so help me god.

A town etched itself on the horizon, a mining town. The smell of gunpowder and sulfur formed itself as a black cloud that shifted atop the settlement. I limped behind the agents as they drank whiskey and threw apple cores off to the side of the road. My throat was parched and my knees threatened to buckle once more.

We made it to the town about twenty minutes later. My feet were on fire by the time they had tossed me into a cell at the local sheriff's office.

"Try to rest, Blaine, you have six hours." The presumed leader said.

I crumbled to the floor as the three agents exited, leaving me alone with a fat and old sheriff. He was a white man with a cartoonish mustache that was so bushy, it covered is lips entirely. The man's hair was white with greasy black strands sprawling across his roots.

"Welp," he bellowed clasping his hands over his stomach, "seems like you and I's got some time. You look familiar, I know you?"

I didn't respond. I instead rocked back and forth on the cold floor in the fetal position. The sheriff stepped closer to the cell, causing me to recoil back until my back pressed the wall. He pulled a cigar from his breast pocket and began smoking it, exhaling deliberately into the cell.

"I know the name. You're a Blaine, dirty murdering scum. You and your group of degenerates are running on a thread, now that we got these fancy government agents taking the jobs of us fine self respecting lawmen. Damned glorified bounty hunters, and what am I to do other than give up one of my cells to them?" He ranted for what felt like hours.

He cursed the federal government for not bringing more order to the west, he condemned the Pinkerton Detective Agency as a whole, he praised President McKinley's aggression in the ongoing Spanish-American war. I sighed and endured his belligerent speeches on economy and justice, until finally I fell asleep curled in a ball in the corner.

I awoke to gunshots and explosions. One of the Pinkerton's burst through the door. "We've got Indians surrounding the town, Sheriff." He barked.

"The Hell you want me to do? You boys is the ones gettin' good money to wear suits, how's 'bout y'all start working for your worth?"

"We ain't got time, old man." He said before grabbing the Sheriff by his collar and practically throwing the man out the door.

The Pinkerton followed, slamming the door behind him, and I was alone to listen to the bloodshed and screams of pain. A fire could be heard roaring, and there was mass hysteria. There were no windows in my cell so I had no way of telling what was happening. The only view I had of the outside was by the cracks in the door; I could see a lot of orange light from under the door, and the shadows of fleeing feet. Another explosion erupted, this one was a lot closer. Another one went off just as close. It didn't take long for me to realize what they had done. The very tactic used by my own family.

They had trapped the entire town. They were going to kill everyone. I remembered New York, I remembered the massacre. One hundred and eighty innocent lives were taken that day. One hundred and eighty. Tears stung my eyes before they bursted down my cheeks like a broken faucet. I was about to suffer the same fate my own family had put so many others under. I shot to my feet and ran to the bars of my cell.

"Help!" I screamed from the top of my lungs. "Help me! I'm still in here!"

Another explosion went off, this time sounding directly in front of me. My hands and legs trembled in fear and grief. I supposed it was only karma. Those lives from New York and all the other towns we've destroyed, all those lives were seeking vengeance upon me for my family's actions. I had no choice but to accept it, trapped in a cell. No where to go, no cover whatsoever.