Project Blackthorne

Chapter 5 Meeting The Crew of Misfits

The plane didn't shake a bit as Sam and Jim Donovan made their way down a narrow corridor. In all the transports Sam Tyler had found herself in this corridor told her that she was stepping into some very new uncharted territory. Even from just the little things she had seen thus far Sam had seen a lot of bells and whistles she and her team would have killed for in anything they had been flown around in. Jim stopped by another door pausing for a heartbeat. He then turned to Sam. " Like I said before. I will never ever not tell you everything I know about any given situation we as a team will face together here with our little group. " Jim punched in his code into the keyboard on the right side of his door. "This is my accommodations so welcome too my room." Jim held out a hand for Sam too enter first. She couldn't explain it but Sam couldn't shake the feeling of being like Alice in Wonderland about too enter the rabbit hole. Sam slowly made her way inside what she thought should have been a ultra small nondescript cubicle. She was blown away at how roomy this space was for being on an airplane. The room had a rather homey feel to it reminding Sam of a hunting cabin that her father used too take her to when she was younger. There was old wood paneling on three of the walls with different bits of western memorabilia that her father would have killed for covering every available free space. Sam was drawn too the nearest piece too her position there in the doorway. It was a beautifully hand woven Indian blanket hanging on the wall. The colors jumped out at you as one stared into them. The blanket looking more like a work of art than that of a mere simple blanket cover. Sam looked at the figures that were depicted on the fabric. There was a cowboy or at least a silhouette of a cowboy standing down in front of another man with a wolf shaped head. The cowboy looked like he was readying too draw on the wolf headed man. If she didn't think that Jim might have thought her crazy she could have sworn on a stack of bibles that the figures were moving there on that damnable blanket. Sam was about too ask a question when another memento caught her eye drawing her towards it. It was two very old navy Colt forty fives in a double draw rig with hand tooled leather. Upon closer inspection Sam could tell that these guns were original not not the usual replicas everyone could buy from any gun shop or specialty store. Upon further inspection Sam could see that the ivory grips of the Colts were wore and yellowed which came from being very well used as well as age. These matching Colts were real antiques that deserved too be in any museum. Sam turned towards Jim who simply stood there in the doorway his arms crossed leaning against the door frame. Jim had an infuriating smile on his face as he looked back at Sam seeming too be able too read her inner most thoughts. Sam steeled her nerves then turned around going on about the room. Her eyes fell upon a grouping of pictures that drew her too them. There were about a dozen different tin type photos that were grouped together. Sam looked close too see a group of Indians grouped together around a large blazing fire which if Sam remembered anything from her father the General meant they were most likely at a war council or maybe some kind of celebration. The light from the fire light each members leathery face quite clearly while shrouding everything else behind them in a deep dark gloom. But something else in the picture caught Sam's eye making out a slightly different shade of a shadow standing close behind what looked too be the senior most eldest Chief in the group. Sam had too strain but from working plenty of night mission around the globe she could just make out a lone cowboy clad figure seated among the large group of Indians. The fire light as well as the mixture of darkness around the edges made it hard too make out the complete features of the lone cowboy. But something deep down gnarled at Sam's brain as she looked at the cowboy. Sam shook her head minutely still not quite ready too believe what she was seeing so moved on to yet another photo of a old country town Sheriff's office in a dusty plain wood town one might have found in a million places out in the Midwest at the time. That seemingly now familiar Lone cowboy was standing there on the landing of the sheriff office a rifle casually resting in his folded arms. At the foot of the steps were three nude male bodies even from the picture it wasn't a stretch too figure out they were all dead. Sam noticed that the features of the three dead men appeared weird longest in all the wrong places. She had flash backs too simular images from her past on one of a few of strange incidence in her army career. Sam shook her head negative dismissing them as she got a closer look at the cowboy in the picture. There was the star of a US marshal pined on his chest. The Stetson the marshal wore looked a little too familiar for Sam's already fragile comfort. But as Sam stood there staring into the eyes of the Marshal a cold chill fell over Sam as she began to finally except puting two and two together. She whirled back around to find Jim Donovan standing there casually the exact same Stetson from the picture on his head as well as the exact same stare from those damnably very same eyes.