Red West II.

Chapter one - On the road

"People should not be judged by their actions, but by the motivations behind them."

Johannes Mario Simmel

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Red West is just (one of many) AKame fanfiction, which is set in the real historical background of the Wild West. The two main characters are based on Akanishi Jin and Kamenashi Kazuya, but they are entirely fictional. RW also includes and uses the names of existing personalities of that time, but any resemblance to real persons, either living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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Wyoming Territory, February 1882

City of Cheyenne - 103 miles north of Denver

Almost all kids from the city watched the leaving train of Union Pacific Corporation; some even ran along the rails until the locomotive sped up so much they couldn't keep up with it anymore.

It had already been fourteen years since the railroad reached Cheyenne, bringing the rapid growth to the region, but the station itself was not used as much as was expected back then. The Wyoming Territory lacked the minerals as gold and silver, which would have attracted more immigrants, even though there could be found some copper instead. The city was basically the only civilized connection to the ways toward the north, so the local population grew slowly, but steadily as the years passed. The arrivals and departures of trains were still kind of an event, especially for small children. That was why they gathered to watch it this time as well.

Mr. Stuart, the city telegrapher, sipped from his afternoon cup of coffee, standing on the privileged spot, which the veranda of his post office was. You could comfortably observe the whole rail station, a good half of the main street and also, the big part of the rails disappearing far away on the horizon from there.

The kids were slowly returning from their futile train chase, balancing at or jumping over the iron tracks, which had already cut through almost all states of the Union from east to west by that time. They were only lightly clothed, despite the winter time of early February. The annual Chinook wind from the Laramie mountain range came quite late that year, so Mr. Stuart expected no more heavy snowing after it would stop blowing. But that expectation could have been changed easily; the whims of the nature in their territory were unpredictable.

Only the small piles of snow were desperately trying to survive in the dark shadows of buildings and trees, but there was no escape from the sun beams and especially the warm wind, which was coming to Cheyenne regularly; each year it allowed the citizens to have a break from the tough winter for a while. A couple of years ago, the warm period lasted for twenty days, so that even the flowers started to bloom, before they were frozen up to the core again.

Mister Telegrapher, as he was called by the kids, faced the sun with a satisfied sigh; it felt great to be warmed up after the mercilessly cold period and storm season. Moreover, he had quite a lot of time off at hand, with the wires destroyed in the last huge storm, which fortunately didn't stop trains from running, but the telegraphic connection took a while to be restored.

As Mr. Stuart finished his coffee and intended to return to the office, his eyes glanced over the main street. He was familiar with almost everyone in the town; he knew most of the citizens by their names thanks to his job as a telegrapher and post man. That was why he immediately knew that two riders coming from the north were not local. The strangers were still too far for Mr. Stuart to recognize their faces, so he took a broom and pretended to clean up the veranda from non-existing mess, waiting for them to come closer.