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"Revenge, Renewal and the Promise of a New Year" (Boot Hill/D&D)
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<blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 1769668" data-attributes="member: 8530"><p><strong>Chapter Eight, “The Saga of Silver Jake Cook” Wednesday, January 4th, 1882, 10:00 P.M. :</strong> </p><p></p><p>Acknowledging Ruby’s comment Jake Silver Cook says in a monotone voice, “So you’re thinking, Silver Jake Cook you’re a scoundrel. Well, I admit that given my current life style not many a cultured lady would be in any rush to take me home to meet the parents. But I’m not a bad sort. I never lie to, cheat, steal from, or shoot anyone that doesn’t deserve it.” In a more lively voice, “Silver Jake stands by his friends and pays his debts.” </p><p></p><p>“Where are you from?” Katherine asks. He replies “Where am I from? All right I’ll tell my story if you tell yours.” He begins, “I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as Jacob Alistair Cooke with an e, the third son and fourth child to a moderately successful family. The family business was bookkeeping, scribing, and notary public; we served the population of lawyers and politicians that grows in that city like weeds. At an early age I learned to read and write and was put to work copying the less important documents and as a delivery boy. Copying documents I didn’t mind, and eventually got pretty good at not only avoiding mistakes, but making nearly identical copies. I don’t think my father ever noticed that, but mother did and would give me that look of ‘don’t you dare’ and send me on my way.” A faraway look and smile cross Jake’s face. </p><p></p><p>“The delivery work I didn’t care for. You see our offices were fairly far away from the lawyers’ quarters and you either walked the long way around the city where the proper folk went, or you could take the shortcut through the dark alleys and dirty byways of the less desirables.” Jake pauses and looks at each of you in turn before continuing. “I think it was a famous philosopher that said life is a journey of discovery; you travel not only from place to place but from truth to truth in yourself.” Jake smirks and adds, “Or perhaps I said it after a long night of drinking, I’m not sure. Either way at an early age I learned a truth about myself. I don’t like hard work.” </p><p></p><p>“So I started taking the first of many short cuts in my life.” Jake smiles broadly. “It was terribly frightening and exiting traveling the labyrinth where proper folk feared to tread. It was also an early lesson in odds, though I didn’t know it at the time. I had made a number of safe trips through, becoming bolder each time. Then I ran into him. He was a large uncouth kid with a nasty disposition and a long thin knife. I suppose he was just exercising control of his ‘territory’, but he surprised me and cut me bad with that pig sticker of his. I managed to get away, I was always pretty quick, and I made up a story for my parents. I avoided the alleys for a time. But I struggled with a new emotion, I was angry. I hadn’t come in with a quarrel for that bully, and I didn’t want anything that he valued. I just wanted to pass through. And he was making me work harder than I liked. I remembered that my family had an old trunk of one of my uncles that had passed away. He was a trapper and a hunter, and left us a big old hunting knife in the bottom of his trunk. Well I oiled and sharpened that knife for days until it was sharp enough to shave with, and then I sharpened it some more. All the while I also practiced drawing it from the sheath for hours at a time. </p><p></p><p>I went back to the alleys, but I no longer skulked. It didn’t take long for bullyboy to find me, but before he could even get his hand on the pig sticker of his I had pulled my knife and cut him across the chest. Now we are even I told him with my big old hunting knife pointed at his right eye. This is your alley; I just want to walk through it. Fair enough? He nodded his head up and down. I smiled and managed to go a couple hundred feet and disappear before I threw up. He and I never had a problem again.” Patting his right boot lovingly Jake says quietly, “I still carry that knife.” </p><p></p><p>“Well that created another problem,” Jake continued. “It was taking me much less time to travel to the lawyers’ quarter than it should have, and I didn’t want my father to know I was taking the short cut, so I had to do something with the extra time. And the people in those back alleys had become accustomed to me and didn’t seem nearly so threatening, so I started spending some of my free time there. I got quite an education in a very short time,” he finished nodding his head slightly and grinning a half smile. </p><p></p><p>“Is that where you picked up your bad habits?” Ruby asks with a laugh. In response to the question Jake cocked his head to one side and looked up at the smoky roof of the saloon at nothing in particular. “No, I wouldn’t say I learned all what you call bad habits there. There was a bit of drinking, gambling, and stealing from each other but it was all petty stuff.” He looks her straight in the eye and says, “It’s different for everyone I think. It may be a quiet night with the stars burning like diamonds in the dark sky; or the smell of fresh baked bread; or perhaps the melodious notes of the nightingale that go to the soul of a body. For me it’s the rip ‘n snap of bridging a fresh deck of cards; the smooth taste of fine crafted whisky; and the sweet curves of a pretty woman.” His eyes become unfocused for a moment, and then look back with just the hint of a grin. “Begging your pardon of course.” </p><p></p><p>“So you ran away from home?” Katherine asks. Jake replies, “No, I didn’t run away from home. It was with a touch of sadness and a great sigh of relief on their part that my family threw me out. I owed them that much. If I had run away from home it would have caused them all kinds of guilt and shame. No, this was simpler. I made them so angry they threw me out. You see, it will be easier for them to come to grips with the other emotions because the anger will justify it. I still write them, let them know I am fine. I don’t leave a return address and wouldn’t be around for more than one letter at any town anyway. No regrets. And I didn’t mess up the sign on the business, Cooke and Sons, because there were still two loyal sons at home committed to the business. I would have suffocated in that life style, it would never have worked. Sometimes I wonder how my sister is doing…” He says and doesn’t quite finish the thought. </p><p></p><p>“So that is when you learned to play poker?” Ruby asks. “Poker?” His eyes grow bright at the question. “No, long before then. I picked the game up when I was doing delivery work. One of the lawyers often had his successful lawyer and politician cronies sitting around the table drinking their fine whiskey, smoking their expensive cigars, dressed in their tailored silk shirts and pushing their piles of silver and gold coins across the felt table. It was mesmerizing. Sometimes they wouldn’t really notice me and I would watch for a while before the servants chased me out. There was something magic about it. There IS something magic about it.” </p><p></p><p>Katherine then asks “So do you now consider yourself a gambler or a gunslinger?” as she eyes the Colt revolver holstered to his belt. “No,” Jake shakes his head with a serious expression on his face, “the gun is not like the other vices. The gun is a necessary tool. I’m not particular to shedding of blood. But since I value my blood over those that would mess up my shirt or my friends, I use it as necessary. I’d rather talk my way out if at all possible.” </p><p></p><p>Ruby glances at the firearm and comments, “The holster looks well used.” He listens in earnest as you ask your question. “The holster has wear marks because I practice. Don’t get me wrong, I have used it and for sure use it again. But I don’t have to like it.” He touches the holster with a single deliberate finger not alarm anyone in the room who may be watching. “The Colt Peacemaker, forty-five caliber five shot US Army issue single action revolver with some fine adjustments by a master gunsmith in Missouri. My life depends on being able to be the first one to draw and not miss. I take my practicing very seriously.” </p><p></p><p>Jake pauses to drain his glass and get a refill. He then continues “I met an Irishman and a gambler in Missouri by the name of Patrick O’Brien, though most folks there knew him as ‘Red’. I had moved up to the big time tables” at that Jake rolls his eyes, “and was feeling pretty intimidated and losing pretty steadily. Red took me under his wing and taught me some poker, how to use a Colt, and when to run away. We traveled the state for a while together. Sitting at a table without a piece when everyone else can standup and shoot your belly full of lead can be a bit distracting. Red helped me overcome that.” </p><p></p><p>Here Jake pauses and looks down. “Red got into a bit of trouble near Kansas City, got himself shot. I covered his getaway, but I don’t know if Red made it or not. I couldn’t stick around or go after him, I shot the fellow who shot Red and I don’t know if he survived. I don’t think rotten ambusher’d be missed any, but I couldn’t know for sure.” He looks up again and rubs his neck unconsciously. “If I recall they are fond of hanging in that part of Missouri.” </p><p></p><p>Katherine had gotten pensive when Jake was talking about his mentor and the anguish of not knowing his fate. The table becomes silent. Ruby decides to move the conversation along and asks, “How do you get along?” “What do you mean how do I get along?” He says with an easy laugh and stands up, stretching his lanky two inches shy of six-foot frame. “Let’s get some air.” Jake tosses back the rest of his whiskey with ease. Taking the ladies one each by the arm he escorts them out into the cool evening. “Sometimes I make enough playing poker to get by; often I take short term employment. You might be surprised at the different ways I have learned to make a living. . And Miss Ruby, how do you get along?” Ruby replies, “A gentleman does not ask such things.” Laughing, he responds to your admonishment, “Yes, you’re right a gentleman would not have asked.” </p><p></p><p>They walk quietly for a minute or so before he is asked another question, Katherine stating “And your nickname Silver?” He replies “I earned quite a few nicknames during my wanderings since leaving Philadelphia, most of them I am glad they didn’t stick. I tried ‘lucky’ Jake for a while, but that seemed to mess up my poker game. I had trick that I used for a while where I challenged some punk with some coin in his pocket to a quick draw contest with a silver dollar as a target. I earned quite a few drinks that way. I think Silver Dollar Jake just shrank to Silver Jake. Maybe it’s my silver talkin’ tongue?” He looks up expectantly. “OK, maybe not.” </p><p></p><p>Katherine then asks, ““What are you looking for?” He scratches his bearded chin a moment before answering. “Finding an honest poker game in the evening and a clean pressed shirt in the morning. Maybe finding a pretty woman who knows to keep the chattering down before noon. Even better if she knows to bring me a double shot of smooth Kentucky bourbon and a char-broiled rib-eye second thing in the morning after a long poker night.” He is quiet for moment or two. “Mostly I’m here in Promise because I’m not somewhere else.” Then he says with a grimace, “I got to tell you though, that raw egg in the morning nonsense isn’t going to last, raw anything after a night of drinking just makes me ill.” </p><p></p><p>“Well all, it’s late. Sorry I rambled on there. Thanks for the company,” Says Jake as he starts to walk them back to the El Parador. “Not sure why you would want to keep me around. Thanks again for saving me from Crummy the wordsmith and for putting me up for a couple of days. I have to tell you though, when I’m sitting at the table and I get dealt two pair of ladies I don’t throw them away. Now maybe there was and maybe there wasn’t two pair, but I usually go with my first gut feel. I hope I’m not being a pest following you around. You two in particular are clever and I’m not quite sure what else is going on with you and your companions here; but I have a feeling things won’t be boring. Like I said before Silver Jake stands by his friends and pays his debts. Besides I like that saloon and I could do a far sight worse than keeping an eye on two attractive young ladies. Good night.”</p><p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 10px"><em>Special thanks to Baradthegnome for his assistance with writing this chapter.</em></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Silver Moon, post: 1769668, member: 8530"] [B]Chapter Eight, “The Saga of Silver Jake Cook” Wednesday, January 4th, 1882, 10:00 P.M. :[/B] Acknowledging Ruby’s comment Jake Silver Cook says in a monotone voice, “So you’re thinking, Silver Jake Cook you’re a scoundrel. Well, I admit that given my current life style not many a cultured lady would be in any rush to take me home to meet the parents. But I’m not a bad sort. I never lie to, cheat, steal from, or shoot anyone that doesn’t deserve it.” In a more lively voice, “Silver Jake stands by his friends and pays his debts.” “Where are you from?” Katherine asks. He replies “Where am I from? All right I’ll tell my story if you tell yours.” He begins, “I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as Jacob Alistair Cooke with an e, the third son and fourth child to a moderately successful family. The family business was bookkeeping, scribing, and notary public; we served the population of lawyers and politicians that grows in that city like weeds. At an early age I learned to read and write and was put to work copying the less important documents and as a delivery boy. Copying documents I didn’t mind, and eventually got pretty good at not only avoiding mistakes, but making nearly identical copies. I don’t think my father ever noticed that, but mother did and would give me that look of ‘don’t you dare’ and send me on my way.” A faraway look and smile cross Jake’s face. “The delivery work I didn’t care for. You see our offices were fairly far away from the lawyers’ quarters and you either walked the long way around the city where the proper folk went, or you could take the shortcut through the dark alleys and dirty byways of the less desirables.” Jake pauses and looks at each of you in turn before continuing. “I think it was a famous philosopher that said life is a journey of discovery; you travel not only from place to place but from truth to truth in yourself.” Jake smirks and adds, “Or perhaps I said it after a long night of drinking, I’m not sure. Either way at an early age I learned a truth about myself. I don’t like hard work.” “So I started taking the first of many short cuts in my life.” Jake smiles broadly. “It was terribly frightening and exiting traveling the labyrinth where proper folk feared to tread. It was also an early lesson in odds, though I didn’t know it at the time. I had made a number of safe trips through, becoming bolder each time. Then I ran into him. He was a large uncouth kid with a nasty disposition and a long thin knife. I suppose he was just exercising control of his ‘territory’, but he surprised me and cut me bad with that pig sticker of his. I managed to get away, I was always pretty quick, and I made up a story for my parents. I avoided the alleys for a time. But I struggled with a new emotion, I was angry. I hadn’t come in with a quarrel for that bully, and I didn’t want anything that he valued. I just wanted to pass through. And he was making me work harder than I liked. I remembered that my family had an old trunk of one of my uncles that had passed away. He was a trapper and a hunter, and left us a big old hunting knife in the bottom of his trunk. Well I oiled and sharpened that knife for days until it was sharp enough to shave with, and then I sharpened it some more. All the while I also practiced drawing it from the sheath for hours at a time. I went back to the alleys, but I no longer skulked. It didn’t take long for bullyboy to find me, but before he could even get his hand on the pig sticker of his I had pulled my knife and cut him across the chest. Now we are even I told him with my big old hunting knife pointed at his right eye. This is your alley; I just want to walk through it. Fair enough? He nodded his head up and down. I smiled and managed to go a couple hundred feet and disappear before I threw up. He and I never had a problem again.” Patting his right boot lovingly Jake says quietly, “I still carry that knife.” “Well that created another problem,” Jake continued. “It was taking me much less time to travel to the lawyers’ quarter than it should have, and I didn’t want my father to know I was taking the short cut, so I had to do something with the extra time. And the people in those back alleys had become accustomed to me and didn’t seem nearly so threatening, so I started spending some of my free time there. I got quite an education in a very short time,” he finished nodding his head slightly and grinning a half smile. “Is that where you picked up your bad habits?” Ruby asks with a laugh. In response to the question Jake cocked his head to one side and looked up at the smoky roof of the saloon at nothing in particular. “No, I wouldn’t say I learned all what you call bad habits there. There was a bit of drinking, gambling, and stealing from each other but it was all petty stuff.” He looks her straight in the eye and says, “It’s different for everyone I think. It may be a quiet night with the stars burning like diamonds in the dark sky; or the smell of fresh baked bread; or perhaps the melodious notes of the nightingale that go to the soul of a body. For me it’s the rip ‘n snap of bridging a fresh deck of cards; the smooth taste of fine crafted whisky; and the sweet curves of a pretty woman.” His eyes become unfocused for a moment, and then look back with just the hint of a grin. “Begging your pardon of course.” “So you ran away from home?” Katherine asks. Jake replies, “No, I didn’t run away from home. It was with a touch of sadness and a great sigh of relief on their part that my family threw me out. I owed them that much. If I had run away from home it would have caused them all kinds of guilt and shame. No, this was simpler. I made them so angry they threw me out. You see, it will be easier for them to come to grips with the other emotions because the anger will justify it. I still write them, let them know I am fine. I don’t leave a return address and wouldn’t be around for more than one letter at any town anyway. No regrets. And I didn’t mess up the sign on the business, Cooke and Sons, because there were still two loyal sons at home committed to the business. I would have suffocated in that life style, it would never have worked. Sometimes I wonder how my sister is doing…” He says and doesn’t quite finish the thought. “So that is when you learned to play poker?” Ruby asks. “Poker?” His eyes grow bright at the question. “No, long before then. I picked the game up when I was doing delivery work. One of the lawyers often had his successful lawyer and politician cronies sitting around the table drinking their fine whiskey, smoking their expensive cigars, dressed in their tailored silk shirts and pushing their piles of silver and gold coins across the felt table. It was mesmerizing. Sometimes they wouldn’t really notice me and I would watch for a while before the servants chased me out. There was something magic about it. There IS something magic about it.” Katherine then asks “So do you now consider yourself a gambler or a gunslinger?” as she eyes the Colt revolver holstered to his belt. “No,” Jake shakes his head with a serious expression on his face, “the gun is not like the other vices. The gun is a necessary tool. I’m not particular to shedding of blood. But since I value my blood over those that would mess up my shirt or my friends, I use it as necessary. I’d rather talk my way out if at all possible.” Ruby glances at the firearm and comments, “The holster looks well used.” He listens in earnest as you ask your question. “The holster has wear marks because I practice. Don’t get me wrong, I have used it and for sure use it again. But I don’t have to like it.” He touches the holster with a single deliberate finger not alarm anyone in the room who may be watching. “The Colt Peacemaker, forty-five caliber five shot US Army issue single action revolver with some fine adjustments by a master gunsmith in Missouri. My life depends on being able to be the first one to draw and not miss. I take my practicing very seriously.” Jake pauses to drain his glass and get a refill. He then continues “I met an Irishman and a gambler in Missouri by the name of Patrick O’Brien, though most folks there knew him as ‘Red’. I had moved up to the big time tables” at that Jake rolls his eyes, “and was feeling pretty intimidated and losing pretty steadily. Red took me under his wing and taught me some poker, how to use a Colt, and when to run away. We traveled the state for a while together. Sitting at a table without a piece when everyone else can standup and shoot your belly full of lead can be a bit distracting. Red helped me overcome that.” Here Jake pauses and looks down. “Red got into a bit of trouble near Kansas City, got himself shot. I covered his getaway, but I don’t know if Red made it or not. I couldn’t stick around or go after him, I shot the fellow who shot Red and I don’t know if he survived. I don’t think rotten ambusher’d be missed any, but I couldn’t know for sure.” He looks up again and rubs his neck unconsciously. “If I recall they are fond of hanging in that part of Missouri.” Katherine had gotten pensive when Jake was talking about his mentor and the anguish of not knowing his fate. The table becomes silent. Ruby decides to move the conversation along and asks, “How do you get along?” “What do you mean how do I get along?” He says with an easy laugh and stands up, stretching his lanky two inches shy of six-foot frame. “Let’s get some air.” Jake tosses back the rest of his whiskey with ease. Taking the ladies one each by the arm he escorts them out into the cool evening. “Sometimes I make enough playing poker to get by; often I take short term employment. You might be surprised at the different ways I have learned to make a living. . And Miss Ruby, how do you get along?” Ruby replies, “A gentleman does not ask such things.” Laughing, he responds to your admonishment, “Yes, you’re right a gentleman would not have asked.” They walk quietly for a minute or so before he is asked another question, Katherine stating “And your nickname Silver?” He replies “I earned quite a few nicknames during my wanderings since leaving Philadelphia, most of them I am glad they didn’t stick. I tried ‘lucky’ Jake for a while, but that seemed to mess up my poker game. I had trick that I used for a while where I challenged some punk with some coin in his pocket to a quick draw contest with a silver dollar as a target. I earned quite a few drinks that way. I think Silver Dollar Jake just shrank to Silver Jake. Maybe it’s my silver talkin’ tongue?” He looks up expectantly. “OK, maybe not.” Katherine then asks, ““What are you looking for?” He scratches his bearded chin a moment before answering. “Finding an honest poker game in the evening and a clean pressed shirt in the morning. Maybe finding a pretty woman who knows to keep the chattering down before noon. Even better if she knows to bring me a double shot of smooth Kentucky bourbon and a char-broiled rib-eye second thing in the morning after a long poker night.” He is quiet for moment or two. “Mostly I’m here in Promise because I’m not somewhere else.” Then he says with a grimace, “I got to tell you though, that raw egg in the morning nonsense isn’t going to last, raw anything after a night of drinking just makes me ill.” “Well all, it’s late. Sorry I rambled on there. Thanks for the company,” Says Jake as he starts to walk them back to the El Parador. “Not sure why you would want to keep me around. Thanks again for saving me from Crummy the wordsmith and for putting me up for a couple of days. I have to tell you though, when I’m sitting at the table and I get dealt two pair of ladies I don’t throw them away. Now maybe there was and maybe there wasn’t two pair, but I usually go with my first gut feel. I hope I’m not being a pest following you around. You two in particular are clever and I’m not quite sure what else is going on with you and your companions here; but I have a feeling things won’t be boring. Like I said before Silver Jake stands by his friends and pays his debts. Besides I like that saloon and I could do a far sight worse than keeping an eye on two attractive young ladies. Good night.” [SIZE=2][I]Special thanks to Baradthegnome for his assistance with writing this chapter.[/I][/SIZE] [/QUOTE]
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