THE RISE AND FALL OF A MIDWEST PRINCESS

[ 05 ] Like A Woman Scorned

CHAPTER FIVE
Like A Woman Scorned

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THERE'S SOMETHING AFOOT IN THE enemy camp. Brandy can feel it.

Now, she's not claiming to be no Pinkerton after a few days of sitting around and eavesdropping, but it's painfully obvious to her that some kind of problem is on the rise.

   It's visible in the way their sanguine leader has been wide awake in the ungodly hours of morning, paranoia budding in his mind so clearly that she can practically hear his thoughts from her prison against the tree; it's equally as evident in his delusional ramblings that have Brandy yawning, not to mention how the grass surrounding his tent has been eroded by all his pacing. The signs are glaringly obvious, even to an outsider like herself.

   Although, much to her surprise, it appears that he isn't alone in these suspicions. He seems to be offloading his worries onto a man with silver hair, who sits and listens with an even temperament that Brandy's secretly in awe of. Despite his shared anxieties over a matter she's none the wiser to, his quiet patience is admirable — she reckons that if she had to be on the receiving end of all that man's incessant stressing, she'd be driven to lunacy.

And even with these quiet uncertainties going on in the background, they seem to have more than their fair share of calamities to deal with anyways. If Brandy thought the girls she runs with were bad at steering clear of trouble, she was in for a shock with this lot.

The gang hardly seems capable of sparing a moment without something hectic intertwining in their lives, which are by definition a helter skelter of misfortune and the like. When she isn't being interrogated for information that she doesn't have or watching as silly arguments unravel between these fools, she's been catching snippets of their ridiculous plans and scoffing at the incredulity of it all.

She's caught throwaway comments about the two feuding families, the Grays and the Braithwaites, as well as the hidden fortune they're believed to be sitting on. Brandy can only shake her head — why anyone would want to get involved with any of those inbred numbskulls is beyond her. Perhaps it's just the Lemoyne heat making them delirious, or maybe these particular outlaws really are that stupid.

   She memorises their chatter by the campfire with a sour twist to her lips; talk of illicit moonshining dredged up old memories of a lost sister and witnessing the aftermath of a failed coach robbery gave her a good laugh. However, she only ever manages to catch the tail end of all their elaborate plans before she's left in the dark, her back aching against the grisly tree as her captors duck in and out of camp.

Brandy digresses. It isn't the whole double agent situation with those two families that's getting to their leader, though. No, not entirely... this trepidation runs deeper than all the typical surface level giveaways. Brandy has noticed how he's grown twitchier than usual, which didn't seem possible to her before she witnessed it with her own eyes. She's caught stray syllables and words coming from his tent at all hours of the day, straying whispers of another gang and an old friend causing her ears to perk up with interest.

He's worried. It makes her grin.

Now, she doesn't like admitting this, but Brandy can't deny that beyond his mild megalomania and asphyxiating testosterone, there's a certain air about him that's just screaming Bonnie Diamondback to her. The thought has sat with her for a few days now and the more she lets it fester in her mind, the more she can evidence the truth behind it.