"Matthews! You're up!"
Hot on his feet, Danny Matthews scampered over to where Mac and Davey were, assisting in repairing one of the caravan's over a loose wheel. Just behind the caravan Danny slept in front of, the teen assisted the Callander brothers by doing whatever the brothers told him to do, most of which involved handing them tools.
The front of the caravan was decorated with boxes, blankets, books and components for knitting.
Mary-Beth was postured erect on a small box laid on its face, her hands and fingers occupied with knitting a scarf for no natural purpose except for something personal. The chatter going on on the other side of the caravan distracted Mary-Beth, her hands unconsciously knitted in a slow rhythm while Jenny sat on her legs, washing clothes and hanging them on a line extending from the corner of the caravan to a tree two metres away.
"When you're fixing a wheel, you need to have a few people - three at the most - lift up the caravan here, and here, while another person hammers the wheel back on this thing. Hit it a few times real hard, then you get a hammer and just nail it in place a bit more." Davey instructed calmly.
"You listening?" Mac grumbled.
"He's listening. Leave the boy be."
"You done yet or what?"
"Shut up."
Davey banged the wheel a few times with an additional three for assurance with a hammer.
Once the job was completed, the caravan rocked slightly before it settled like the tombstone of someone's grave.
Danny attended to his next duty which involved transporting hay bales to the horses for feeding, followed by refilling the water drum next to the cooking caravan. His slim body only carried so much strength until he began to struggle carrying the second and third hay bale to the horses. As soon as that was done, he moved on to his next task which took just as much effort, if not more, as the first task.
The entire time, Mary-Beth watched him labour and strain himself. Meanwhile, Miss Grimshaw hounded folks for being lousy, lazy slobs doing nothing in contribution to the camp.
By that time, the Callander boys had mounted their horses and ridden into town to escape Miss Grimshaw's terrorisation while others did their best to ignore her and do whatever they could to keep her off their backs. Even those who were brave enough to face a mere preview of Miss Grimshaw's wrath paid little to no mind of her aggravation.
When the sun was high over everyone's heads and the atmosphere had barely changed from its chill, Danny Matthews took a break from his physical labour and made his way over to the food caravan and helped himself to an apple.
Then, he heard a voice belonging to a woman - accented identically to that of Sean's.
"Yer Hosea's kid, ain't'cha?" A redheaded woman addressed the young boy in an unsavoury manner.
Danny perked up at the sound of the voice and smiled cautiously at the ginger woman in the green dress.
"I am. I didn't catch your name, miss...?"
"M' name's Molly O'Shea."
"Danny Matthews. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Molly-"
"It's Miss O'Shea, ya twit."
"You Dutch's girl now?" Danny asked, lacking any modicum of respect for the woman.
The sense of entitlement was a behaviour Danny had never come to face before but now that the chance had presented itself to him, he did not like it one bit.
YOU ARE READING
Red Dead Reborn
FanfictionThe Wild West had seen it's fair share of gunslingers, whoremongers and murderers. It's in the late 1880's and a new gang has arisen: the Van der Linde Gang. This is the story of how Dutch grew his infamous family of misfits and outlaws, all workin...
