Red Dead Raiders (RDR3)

Chapter 3 "Gray"

(A/N: Again, I warn. Some views and expressions portrayed in this book are not expressly those of the author. This chapter gets OMEGA Dark for a moment as well. Also, if you can tell me what kind of 42' Springfield the MC has then you get a cookie... or shoutout. Most likely a shout out.)

Evening of January 7, 1866

Mercer kicked my leg, saying, "Hey! Wake up! Dinners ready."

After a sigh I swatted at insects as I got up. The menu today was the usual: Pecos Strawberries and cornbread, or cornbread and Pecos Strawberries. I spied the canned food from here and knew that we were going to be missing the canned sweet corn or peaches. Antonio was planning on rationing the canned goods so we had them longer and didn't get to spoiled. Antonio can cook a good pot of beans but good God it gets old quick.

"So..." Mercer asked as I sat on the quilts near the fire, "how was your day?"

I reached in my shirt pocket and took out the wanted poster, saying facetiously, "Someone just loves us so much they'd like to meet us..." I added, "and they did my nose too big."

Mercer took it and looked at it, he rose it up to the fire and said dismissively, "Nah, they got your nose right."

"Only one not on there is you Antonio." Miguel said.

"Good, I don't want trouble." He said and I arched a inquisitive brow at him.

"You are riding with trouble, my friend."

"I know Mr. Tyler it's just-," he sighed before he finished, "I owe you my life from that time I was in Tejas."

"Well..." I sobered, "if trouble finds us, say we kidnapped you."

"You say that," Scarlet said, "like we won't be able to handle whatever trouble may come our way."

"Ever since Atlanta I like to have backup plans within backup plans." I popped my stiff neck, "And then plan some more."

"Whatever boy," Mercer teased, "what's the plan then? Providence give it to you in a dream?"

I smirked, "Shut up Mercer."

Miguel suggested, "We need to fence off all that jewelry mi amigos."

"I know and I don't quite know where to go for it."

"Cole," Antonio reassured, "it will be okay." I continued to eat when he added, "All we got now is time."

"Uh, I don't know about that old man but whatever helps you sleep at night." Mercer said, nursing a pipe in his teeth.

"I'll go mingle with the socialites in town tomorrow. Scarlet," Crow gave me a intrigued arch of her eyebrow and I added, "come with me. Leave your bow."

"I'm not leaving my bow, Silver Tongue."

"Alright, alright, sheesh." I hopped up and popped my back with a twist. "C'mon toots. Let's go."

"But I just arrived."

"Brother said so."

She glanced at Waya, made a sound of distaste and then got up to join me. I didn't particularly blame her for being a tad rustled about having to go ride with me. No doubt she had been working all day, helping Antonio limp around and place little traps for small game. I just happened to be the unlucky son of a gun who's now going to teach her how to shoot proper. Riding through the woods and away from the others I gave her the details.

"Alright, this ain't a romantic social call. Waya wanted me to show you how to shoot a rifle proper. Sun's almost down, some decent game's likely to be out soon."

"Romantic social call?"

"I'm not explaining it," I patted the rifle in the leather sheath on the left of my horse. "This weapon is the 42' Springfield." I brushed the stamp, the gunmaker's P&V over a palmetto tree, "This gun was at Harper's Ferry when John Brown, an uppity self righteous murderer from Kansas, tried to start a slave rebellion."

"Has it seen war?"

"It's seen Atlanta and I, so yes." I answered, "This beaut fires a .58 Minié ball, but used to fire .69 musket shot before it was rifled and had a scope put on."

Some time passed and the Scarlet asked,

"So, tell me, why did the South rebel?"

"I believe it was a multitude of reasons. The North monopolized the shipping industry as they are beginning to do with rail. Tariffs were somethin' viscous. Then there was the Abolitionists. I never liked them. Not because of them wanting to free the slaves but because of their hypocritical rhetoric. 'Save the slaves; kill the Southerners' might as well been their motto. Horace Greeley, a Whig close to the President and some Karl Marx guy, published tracts about a plan of poisoning drinking wells, arming slaves and poorer whites and basically taking over the South or something. People ran his ilk outta town."

"And here we are," she stated, "Union soldiers occupying the South."

"Ironic, isn't it?"

"Why were we after Sherman again?"

"He's the one who burned down Atlanta. He was a Southerner himself, Union would have probably lost without him." I slowed my horse down to a trot, "This is unrelated to Sherman but I heard tell of a Draft Riot in New York. Turned into a Race riot; pious, hypocritical, yanks went through the streets killin' blacks and the like. If I didn't know better, the blind idiots can't even see that the oligarchs pulling the strings are paying them starvation wages. We fed, clothed, and housed our workers. Some of the Robber Barons up north with these Carpetbagging pigs? They just pay them and fire them if they complain about it. Leaving them to die in the streets."

"You have such hatred for them."

"Well... they burned down my home. Home wasn't a angelic place either let me tell ya."

My horse reered back, spooked by something on the road. Eyes darting to the path ahead I saw Death, hovering in the center of the path we were on. After a few breathless moments a gust of wind blew through and the apparition swayed with the wind like a puppet. Squinting my eyes, I looked up in the trees and noticed a rope and groaned.

"Somebody lynched him. The world is beginning to unravel."

"When the Union soldiers attacked my camp, ignoring the flags of peace and they cut away my mother's breasts I thought the same thing."

"For some reason I feel like this is only the beginning. God made good and evil, darkness and light, but man made gray. Angels are in both extremes; heaven and hell, but man, with a devil's birth, tries to live an angel's life and please Providence while walking and wandering around in gray. I hope this fool was ready, keep close, no telling what's afoot."

"What path do you think we are on?" She asked, going around the body with me. "Darkness or light?"

"If Northern preachers, and that quack Thoreau can compare John Brown to Christ then the world is so blood covered and gray I really don't know anymore."

Sources:
*(Horace Greeley {or another Abolitionist} published letters for basically invasion of the South. It's in my notes somewhere and this may be edited/corrected.)

*Details about Chivington's Massacre: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chivington

*Springfield Rifle (also a Buffalo Rifle): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_Model_1842

*The moralist, Thoreau, said Brown "had a spark of divinity": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown's_raid_on_Harpers_Ferry

Accessed 1/22/20