𝘊𝘖𝘕 𝘖𝘍 𝘙𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘕𝘎𝘌 | ᴘʀᴇ ʀᴅʀ2

Chapter Twelve

Interestingly enough, the lady Dutch had spent time with at the saloon had now become part of their group. Her name was Susan Grimshaw, a kind yet firm woman, whom Dutch deemed essential for keeping the camp running while they were off doing other tasks. She took on chores such as cooking the food they hunted and washing their clothes. Though more noticeably, she kept Dutch's bed warm, the late-night sounds between them making it clear how they were spending their evenings.

John's reddened cheeks the next morning and Arthur's look of disgust gave Rosalie comfort that she wasn't the only one suffering from the sounds from Dutch's tent.

Rosalie thought Susan was fine enough, though she was irritated by her constant pestering to help with the laundry or other chores as it was 'women's' work. Rosalie was fine with helping out, doing tasks such as washing others' clothes if she was doing her own, or brushing the horses. There was no problem in her mind with chipping in, and there hadn't seemed to be a problem before Susan arrived about how things were done. Even Arthur washed his clothes himself and would take Hosea's if he noticed the older man's laundry was overflowing.

But one thing Rosalie wasn't going to do was hang around camp and simply do chores, and that was something Grimshaw was going to have to get over.

Rosalie had never been the only one to do chores with her father and uncle. Women's work was never a phrase between them. Since her mother had died when she was born, there was never a woman around to do the chores for them. As a result, Henry and Kurt had always had to take care of themselves.

Besides the small tiff she had with Susan over chores, it was nice to have a woman around, albeit different. Rosalie never had a true female presence in her life, so to have a woman near her constantly was different. Her father never dated or showed interest in other women. He was still hopelessly in love with her mother, even years after her death, and her uncle, when he did flirt with a woman, would never bring her around, so it wasn't as though she met the countless women he would have on his arm either.

Throughout their time traveling down south, Rosalie made a point to practice her shooting. Rosalie would do anything to refine her aim and make herself more useful to the group. She was lousy in a hand-to-hand fight against anyone more than twice her size, so the least she could do was make her aim the best it could be so she could hit targets before they managed to get within swinging distance.

Sometimes, John threw bottles in the air so Rosalie could practice with a moving target. They never seemed to run out of empty bottles, thanks to Hosea and his drunkenness, giving her plenty of targets to practice with. So far, Rosalie had only landed a few shots with her rifle, finding it easier to aim with her revolver. Even though when she shot at the moving targets with her revolver, she only landed a few more shots than she did with the rifle.

Even if the progress was slow, there were still noticeable improvements. Rosalie was adamant about making herself useful and perfecting at least one skill so she wouldn't be completely defenseless against an attacker. Knowing how to shoot was one thing, but aiming was another, and that was at least one thing she had learned so far.

After a grueling almost two weeks of travel from Illinois, the group finished their journey down to Louisiana and set up camp outside New Orleans. During their meeting with Reginald Harrington, Dutch, and Hosea discovered that Colm and Cormac O'Driscoll had started running a smuggling operation through the ports of New Orleans. The operation involved tobacco, firearms, and alcohol, likely brought in from the Caribbean to avoid taxes, allowing them to sell it at higher premiums to saloons and in bulk to local businessmen.

Discovering which ports they were coming in from, and where the O'Driscoll home base was would be a difficult task. Figuring that out would take some investigating and poking around, lingering in saloons, or finding a point of contact with the local policemen to get a lead from port owner complaints. Finding those points of contact would be at the top of the priority list for the gang as soon as they got settled.