Cowboys And Angels

Chapter 14

Dutch had a way to disappear at the most inconvenient time... For almost four months, Dutch had completely disappeared. Edgar and Archer were really getting up John's ass and John was going crazy. Bonnie's letters were the only thing keeping him afloat, MacDougal never closed his account and after two weeks John received a letter from MacDougal saying he could just use the room and he would pay for it while John needed it. For being a such a weasel, MacDougal came through for John in the end, unlike Irish. However, John was getting tired of sitting around doing nothing, running on wild goose chases for the lawmen and being unable to free his family or see Bonnie... She was experiencing this pregnancy without him, storming into the office he noted the men readying weapons.

"What do you want, Marston?" Edgar asked nonchalantly.

"My family. I've done what you asked!" John roared.

"No, you haven't. This is the land of opportunity and I gave you the opportunity to save your family and you failed. How could I possibly reward you?" Edgar questioned.

"Marston, you're a public menace. We should've had you killed." Archer scoffed.

"I wish you had, but since you didn't, where's my family?" John snapped.

"Oh spare me the noble savage fall on my sword tripe, already. It's nauseating. You don't wish to be dead. You're an insignificant creature, desperately clinging onto life like the rest of the scum in this town. Yeah, I know it's tough. You like Dutch. He's a charming fellow. He makes sense. He's like one of those nature writers from back East. Only he gets things a tiny little step too far. Rather than just loving the flowers and the animals and the harmony between man and beast, he shoots people in the head for money. And disagreeing with him." Edgar portrayed.

"He's a goddamn killer." Archer concluded.

"Now, I'm not a great intellect, but the metaphysical leap from admiring the flower to shooting a man in the head because he doesn't like the flower is a leap too far. So... I know it's easy. You see we—me and Archer—we're the bad guys. We enforce the rules. Now, while the rules may not be perfect, they're really not so bad." Edgar explained.

"Exactly, what's the alternative?" Archer asked with a small shrug.

"Yeah, see I'll tell you what the alternative is. It's not complicated. It's about one man and his gun versus another man. Sure, civilization may be dull, but the alternative, Mister Marston, is hell." Edgar informed.

"And, the way you enforce this civilization, this freedom for men to like or not like flowers or whatever in God's name you were just talking about, is to kidnap a man's wife and son?" John asked, furrowing his brows.

"Well, I know there's contradictions. I'm not going to lie to you. As I said, I'm not a great intellect. Now, after the debacle with the army and the bank, we have to put Mr. Van der Linde to rest ourselves... Unless you want us to take your little tramp in Hennigan's Stead into custody too." Edgar mused, John's eyes widening as a smirk spread across the shorter man's face.

"... The hell are you talking about?" John asked.

"Oh surely Mister Marston, you don't think that my colleague and I are that stupid..." Edgar chuckled and reached into his pocket, pulling out one of the pictures that Archer had ahold of and eyeing it. "She's... What, four months pregnant now?" He asked and John felt his heart fall into the pit of his stomach as Edgar handed him the polaroid.