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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: 2732860" data-attributes="member: 8530"><p><strong>Chapter 157, “Red’s Magic” , Sunday, January 22nd, 1882:</strong></p><p></p><p>Jake checks his watch upon waking. It reads 11:15. He notices the side panel to Red's room is open and that Red is sitting on his bed reading a book. He glaces over and says "Jacob me boy, thought you were going to sleep the day away! Good morning to ye!"</p><p></p><p>"Top 'o the mornin' to ya." Jake replies. He gets up, smoothes his hair with his hand, decides it's hopeless without a comb and water, shrugs and goes and sits in Red's room. "You're looking well, sir."</p><p></p><p>"And to you me boy. Are you hungry? Lunch will ready in around fifteen minutes. Thought we'd do something special for our last meal together for a while."</p><p></p><p>"You are spoiling me rotten. Let me get cleaned up a bit." Jake gets up and stretches again. "Or should I have said wee bit?"</p><p></p><p>"I need to change too," Red says. His change, however, is with the Van Horne chain. </p><p></p><p>Jake cleans up and gets dressed. "Ready?" Van Horne asks. </p><p></p><p>They head out into the Water Hole Saloon's main room and Jake sees a middle-aged woman setting up a table. A nice embroidered tablecloth covers the table with matching napkins, fine china plates and bowls, fine silver and wine glasses. </p><p></p><p>A wooden crate is on the floor near her and she reaches in, taking out a platter with a roast ham. She then gets from the same crate a basket of freshly baked bread, a bowl of mashed potatoes, a bowl of mixed green vegetables, and a ceramic crock that she then ladles some soup from and into the bowls. She finishes with a candle in the center of the table which she light. </p><p></p><p>She then pinches some powder into the flame and says an incantation that Jake recognizes from when Gonzales did one similar back at the El Parador. "Have a nice meal Gentlemen" she says with a hint of a Spanish accent in her voice. She then departs. The only guard in the room is Richard who says "I'll lock the doors behind me." He departs too.</p><p></p><p>"Nice spread. Is that the dweomer that keeps others from listening in?" Jake asks O'Brien. Red is a bit surprised that Jake recognized the spell. "Indeed it is. We should have all the privacy we need but I'm not taking any chances." </p><p></p><p>Red gets a new bottle of Kentucky Bourbon and fills the wine glasses of each "Wouldn't want to ruin the mean with wine," he comments. They sit down and dine for the next hour eating the meal.</p><p></p><p>At the end of the meal Jake proposes a toast. "Perhaps a traditional Irish one. </p><p></p><p>May the road rise to meet you. </p><p>May the wind be always at your back. </p><p>May the sun shine warm upon your face. </p><p>And rains fall soft upon your fields. </p><p>And until we meet again, </p><p>May the gods hold you in the hollow of their hands."</p><p></p><p>Thank ye Jake. I'm going to miss you. This last week has been wonderful, but you have a wife to get back to. Now I do believe that I promised you a story?"</p><p></p><p>"Story tellin' is thirsty work my friend." Jake tops the glasses and leaves the bottle handy. He sits back and is quiet.</p><p></p><p>Red exclaims, “Jacob me boy, You’ve been patient for long enough. I suppose that it’s time I told you how my special trinkets came to be in my possession. As you recall, I was shot during the incident in Kansas City. I managed to get out of the city, holding up across the Missouri river over in Kansas City, Kansas. While I recovered is when Armour put up the reward and several bounty hunters flocked to the area to collect. </p><p></p><p>I headed a short distance west to Topeka. One particularly skillful and persistent bounty hunter by the name of Thomas Luther Price managed to get a scent of my trail. I tried to shake him by getting on the next train to Denver and then sneaking off the train in Salina, Kansas and then making my way down to Wichita. But less than a week later Price showed up in Wichita, so I was off again, this time running east to Joplin, Missouri. He kept dogging me, down into Arkansas as I went from Fayetteville to Little Rock to Texarkana. I had a close call with him there and only managed to get away because of a jurisdictional issue with the law that temporarily delayed him from crossing over the border into Texas. </p><p></p><p>By that point Price was used to my pattern of staying in places a short while and moving on so I changed my pattern, staying in the Dallas area while leaving trailers to indicate that I had moved on. I managed to trick him into several wild goose chases, with him heading off to Houston, Austin and San Antonio while I stayed in Dallas and made a living for myself at the gambling tables. He eventually caught on and decided to stay in Dallas but by then I had managed to lay enough groundwork in the area to indicate that I was hiding somewhere in the nearby towns of Plano and Irving while I then left the area for good. When I hit Abilene I figured I had at least a week’s head start on him. </p><p></p><p>That’s where the serendipity came into play and I met my only friend since we were separated. So Jacob me boy, have you ever heard of a man named John Jarrette?”</p><p></p><p>Jake replies, "The name is familar. I try to keep a name list of gents to avoid, and it rings a bell. Was he one of Quantrill's raiders?"</p><p></p><p>Red replies, "No, he was a member of the James/Younger Gang. He was the brother-in-law of the Younger brothers, married to their sister Mary Josephine. She died in a house fire and he was believed to have been killed in it too, so he laid low after that. </p><p></p><p>He was successful up until the Cajun bounty hunter Jacques Francois DuBois managed to figure out who he was at a Saloon in Idaho. A long distance chase then began, heading down through Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. He showed up in Abeline around the same time I did. Odd coincidence, but it worked out well for both of us."</p><p></p><p>Jake asks, "OK, so you Jarette, Price and DuBois all collided there?" </p><p></p><p>Red answers, "In a fashion. I always kept my eyes out and saw this guy looking for someone. I asked and heard he was a rancher named Kirkland, but he acted more like a bounty hunter. By this point I'd learned what to look for. Turns out it was DuBois, but in a magical disguise. I figured he was a bounty hunter and I assumed he was looking for me, so I found me a good hiding hole, in a shed down a nearby alleyway. Ran into Jarette hiding in the same shed. We compared notes and realized that two people in our positions working together might just be able to arrange something. </p><p></p><p>Took us several days to set it up and I had to make myself the bait a couple of times. I'd been in Abeline for nine days and was starting to think that for once I outsmarted Price, but true to form he finally arrived. The rest was surprisingly simple. </p><p></p><p>We let it get to Kirkland that I was meeting Jarette later in back of a hotel, which just happened to be where Price was staying. We then let Price get a good look at Jarette, who he immediately recognized but was momentarily surprised as he had been looking for me instead. </p><p></p><p>So we get the two of them into the back alleyway but at opposite ends. Jarrette is hiding at one end of the alley behind a pile of garbage. I'm inside a building opposite him with the window open. Price and Kirkland see each other but don't think anything of it until I rotated the barrel of my gun, ah, what a distinct sound that makes, caught both their attention. Jarette then yells out "Look out, he's going to shoot." Kirkland attempts to draw on Price, which is the last thing he ever did. I disappeared into the building when the shot rang out. </p><p></p><p>We had also made sure that Abeline’s Marshall was also nearby, on Price's end of the alleyway. While he's busy with Price and a crowd is just starting to show up at the Marshall's end of the alley Jarette managed to get away, picking up Kirkland's gun in the process. The magical disguise remains in place on DuBois and people vouch to him being Kirkland. So Price gets locked up for shooting an unknown rancher who was visiting town. His claim of self-defense doesn't hold up since his opponent appears to have been unarmed. So Jarette and I solved both of our problems in the short term."</p><p></p><p>"Short term? Is there more or does that bring us to today? I assume the dead man looked like Mr Allister at the time of his demise?" Jake asks.</p><p></p><p>"No, he looked like Kirkland. Other than grabbing the gun we didn't dare even attempt to get anywhere near the body. I'm sure it was loaded with magic but that would have been pushing our luck. </p><p></p><p>No, what the two of us did was get on the first train out of town, before Price could get the law after us to give himself an alibi. Turns out it was an eastbound train. So John and I get to thinking about DuBois, and how we're the only ones who knew that he was dead. John had been doing some checking up on the man hunting him and we knew that he was from near Baton Rouge and was unmarried. </p><p></p><p>So a little over a day later we're at this house, tossing the place for whatever we can find that might be magical. We ask around and find out who both his friends and enemies are. Turns out he once killed a close relative of a French wizardess in New Orleans. We visit the wizardess, who is thrilled to hear that Jarrett is dead. For the next few days she takes a look at everything we lifted and figures out how to use it. She kept half of the stuff and we each took a quarter. But Jacob me boy, these trinkets that I got to keep have been more than enough. </p><p></p><p>So John and I stuck together for the next six months. Price never caught up with either one of us, although we did have a close call near Austin with a bounty hunter named Irby Cole. That was when Mr. Allison made his first appearance."</p><p></p><p>"Cole?" Jake interrupts " Wasn't there a bounty hunter by the name of Cole in Promise City recently?"</p><p></p><p>Red replies, "Yes, that was him. Came looking for Arcade's Gang. But he had seen Mr. Allison before, not Mr. Van Horne. I was careful around him. But the one in town who I've really been trying to avoid is that Scarface Jones. Oh, and you of course, but you still managed to figure it out."</p><p></p><p>"Scarface? That weasel is tied into this story too?", Jake asks. </p><p></p><p>Red says, ""No, just wound up in the same place. I'm surprised you didn't see him in town. Lives at one of the boarding houses and works at the corral. I was just afraid that he would figure out who I was and blow my cover. Jacob me boy, you have to be careful around very intelligent people but you have to be even more careful around the mentally inept."</p><p></p><p>"You sure got him pegged. Oh, I know he's in town. Keeps trying to get me to help him rob the bank." Jake rolls his eyes. "I'm tempted to set him up and put him away. But as you said, he would probably weasel out in some unimaginable way."</p><p></p><p>Red states, "Better watch out Jacob me boy, Isby already considers gamblers to be thieves. All it would take is one word from Scarface naming you as his partner and you'll be seeing the business end of a noose."</p><p></p><p>Jake answers, "I'll be careful. I guess it is time to do something about Danby Scarface Jones. I did give some information to the bank guard to be watching him but nothing has come of that. I won't let that fester." Apparently lost in thought, Jake swirls his bourbon around in the glass a moment before having another drink.</p><p></p><p>They finish up the drinks and check the time. It is 1:30 PM. "Jacob me boy, ye had best thing about heading over to the train station. Your train leaves at 2:00”</p><p></p><p>Jake bids him farewell. "I'm sure I'll understand any private messages you send, I always do. Take care, and I'll see you soon I hope." Red gives Jake the Allister chain and says "Try not to use it unless you absolutely have to. Mr. Allister has not been seen yet in Promise City." They clasp hands and then give each other a warm hug before Jakes heads to the station and boards the train that will take him back to Tombstone.</p><p></p><p>Jake reaches the train station and hands the ticket to the conductor. He climbs on board and takes a window seat in the passenger car, from which he will get a good view of the town an hour later when it arrives in Tombstone.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Silver Moon, post: 2732860, member: 8530"] [B]Chapter 157, “Red’s Magic” , Sunday, January 22nd, 1882:[/B] Jake checks his watch upon waking. It reads 11:15. He notices the side panel to Red's room is open and that Red is sitting on his bed reading a book. He glaces over and says "Jacob me boy, thought you were going to sleep the day away! Good morning to ye!" "Top 'o the mornin' to ya." Jake replies. He gets up, smoothes his hair with his hand, decides it's hopeless without a comb and water, shrugs and goes and sits in Red's room. "You're looking well, sir." "And to you me boy. Are you hungry? Lunch will ready in around fifteen minutes. Thought we'd do something special for our last meal together for a while." "You are spoiling me rotten. Let me get cleaned up a bit." Jake gets up and stretches again. "Or should I have said wee bit?" "I need to change too," Red says. His change, however, is with the Van Horne chain. Jake cleans up and gets dressed. "Ready?" Van Horne asks. They head out into the Water Hole Saloon's main room and Jake sees a middle-aged woman setting up a table. A nice embroidered tablecloth covers the table with matching napkins, fine china plates and bowls, fine silver and wine glasses. A wooden crate is on the floor near her and she reaches in, taking out a platter with a roast ham. She then gets from the same crate a basket of freshly baked bread, a bowl of mashed potatoes, a bowl of mixed green vegetables, and a ceramic crock that she then ladles some soup from and into the bowls. She finishes with a candle in the center of the table which she light. She then pinches some powder into the flame and says an incantation that Jake recognizes from when Gonzales did one similar back at the El Parador. "Have a nice meal Gentlemen" she says with a hint of a Spanish accent in her voice. She then departs. The only guard in the room is Richard who says "I'll lock the doors behind me." He departs too. "Nice spread. Is that the dweomer that keeps others from listening in?" Jake asks O'Brien. Red is a bit surprised that Jake recognized the spell. "Indeed it is. We should have all the privacy we need but I'm not taking any chances." Red gets a new bottle of Kentucky Bourbon and fills the wine glasses of each "Wouldn't want to ruin the mean with wine," he comments. They sit down and dine for the next hour eating the meal. At the end of the meal Jake proposes a toast. "Perhaps a traditional Irish one. May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. And rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May the gods hold you in the hollow of their hands." Thank ye Jake. I'm going to miss you. This last week has been wonderful, but you have a wife to get back to. Now I do believe that I promised you a story?" "Story tellin' is thirsty work my friend." Jake tops the glasses and leaves the bottle handy. He sits back and is quiet. Red exclaims, “Jacob me boy, You’ve been patient for long enough. I suppose that it’s time I told you how my special trinkets came to be in my possession. As you recall, I was shot during the incident in Kansas City. I managed to get out of the city, holding up across the Missouri river over in Kansas City, Kansas. While I recovered is when Armour put up the reward and several bounty hunters flocked to the area to collect. I headed a short distance west to Topeka. One particularly skillful and persistent bounty hunter by the name of Thomas Luther Price managed to get a scent of my trail. I tried to shake him by getting on the next train to Denver and then sneaking off the train in Salina, Kansas and then making my way down to Wichita. But less than a week later Price showed up in Wichita, so I was off again, this time running east to Joplin, Missouri. He kept dogging me, down into Arkansas as I went from Fayetteville to Little Rock to Texarkana. I had a close call with him there and only managed to get away because of a jurisdictional issue with the law that temporarily delayed him from crossing over the border into Texas. By that point Price was used to my pattern of staying in places a short while and moving on so I changed my pattern, staying in the Dallas area while leaving trailers to indicate that I had moved on. I managed to trick him into several wild goose chases, with him heading off to Houston, Austin and San Antonio while I stayed in Dallas and made a living for myself at the gambling tables. He eventually caught on and decided to stay in Dallas but by then I had managed to lay enough groundwork in the area to indicate that I was hiding somewhere in the nearby towns of Plano and Irving while I then left the area for good. When I hit Abilene I figured I had at least a week’s head start on him. That’s where the serendipity came into play and I met my only friend since we were separated. So Jacob me boy, have you ever heard of a man named John Jarrette?” Jake replies, "The name is familar. I try to keep a name list of gents to avoid, and it rings a bell. Was he one of Quantrill's raiders?" Red replies, "No, he was a member of the James/Younger Gang. He was the brother-in-law of the Younger brothers, married to their sister Mary Josephine. She died in a house fire and he was believed to have been killed in it too, so he laid low after that. He was successful up until the Cajun bounty hunter Jacques Francois DuBois managed to figure out who he was at a Saloon in Idaho. A long distance chase then began, heading down through Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. He showed up in Abeline around the same time I did. Odd coincidence, but it worked out well for both of us." Jake asks, "OK, so you Jarette, Price and DuBois all collided there?" Red answers, "In a fashion. I always kept my eyes out and saw this guy looking for someone. I asked and heard he was a rancher named Kirkland, but he acted more like a bounty hunter. By this point I'd learned what to look for. Turns out it was DuBois, but in a magical disguise. I figured he was a bounty hunter and I assumed he was looking for me, so I found me a good hiding hole, in a shed down a nearby alleyway. Ran into Jarette hiding in the same shed. We compared notes and realized that two people in our positions working together might just be able to arrange something. Took us several days to set it up and I had to make myself the bait a couple of times. I'd been in Abeline for nine days and was starting to think that for once I outsmarted Price, but true to form he finally arrived. The rest was surprisingly simple. We let it get to Kirkland that I was meeting Jarette later in back of a hotel, which just happened to be where Price was staying. We then let Price get a good look at Jarette, who he immediately recognized but was momentarily surprised as he had been looking for me instead. So we get the two of them into the back alleyway but at opposite ends. Jarrette is hiding at one end of the alley behind a pile of garbage. I'm inside a building opposite him with the window open. Price and Kirkland see each other but don't think anything of it until I rotated the barrel of my gun, ah, what a distinct sound that makes, caught both their attention. Jarette then yells out "Look out, he's going to shoot." Kirkland attempts to draw on Price, which is the last thing he ever did. I disappeared into the building when the shot rang out. We had also made sure that Abeline’s Marshall was also nearby, on Price's end of the alleyway. While he's busy with Price and a crowd is just starting to show up at the Marshall's end of the alley Jarette managed to get away, picking up Kirkland's gun in the process. The magical disguise remains in place on DuBois and people vouch to him being Kirkland. So Price gets locked up for shooting an unknown rancher who was visiting town. His claim of self-defense doesn't hold up since his opponent appears to have been unarmed. So Jarette and I solved both of our problems in the short term." "Short term? Is there more or does that bring us to today? I assume the dead man looked like Mr Allister at the time of his demise?" Jake asks. "No, he looked like Kirkland. Other than grabbing the gun we didn't dare even attempt to get anywhere near the body. I'm sure it was loaded with magic but that would have been pushing our luck. No, what the two of us did was get on the first train out of town, before Price could get the law after us to give himself an alibi. Turns out it was an eastbound train. So John and I get to thinking about DuBois, and how we're the only ones who knew that he was dead. John had been doing some checking up on the man hunting him and we knew that he was from near Baton Rouge and was unmarried. So a little over a day later we're at this house, tossing the place for whatever we can find that might be magical. We ask around and find out who both his friends and enemies are. Turns out he once killed a close relative of a French wizardess in New Orleans. We visit the wizardess, who is thrilled to hear that Jarrett is dead. For the next few days she takes a look at everything we lifted and figures out how to use it. She kept half of the stuff and we each took a quarter. But Jacob me boy, these trinkets that I got to keep have been more than enough. So John and I stuck together for the next six months. Price never caught up with either one of us, although we did have a close call near Austin with a bounty hunter named Irby Cole. That was when Mr. Allison made his first appearance." "Cole?" Jake interrupts " Wasn't there a bounty hunter by the name of Cole in Promise City recently?" Red replies, "Yes, that was him. Came looking for Arcade's Gang. But he had seen Mr. Allison before, not Mr. Van Horne. I was careful around him. But the one in town who I've really been trying to avoid is that Scarface Jones. Oh, and you of course, but you still managed to figure it out." "Scarface? That weasel is tied into this story too?", Jake asks. Red says, ""No, just wound up in the same place. I'm surprised you didn't see him in town. Lives at one of the boarding houses and works at the corral. I was just afraid that he would figure out who I was and blow my cover. Jacob me boy, you have to be careful around very intelligent people but you have to be even more careful around the mentally inept." "You sure got him pegged. Oh, I know he's in town. Keeps trying to get me to help him rob the bank." Jake rolls his eyes. "I'm tempted to set him up and put him away. But as you said, he would probably weasel out in some unimaginable way." Red states, "Better watch out Jacob me boy, Isby already considers gamblers to be thieves. All it would take is one word from Scarface naming you as his partner and you'll be seeing the business end of a noose." Jake answers, "I'll be careful. I guess it is time to do something about Danby Scarface Jones. I did give some information to the bank guard to be watching him but nothing has come of that. I won't let that fester." Apparently lost in thought, Jake swirls his bourbon around in the glass a moment before having another drink. They finish up the drinks and check the time. It is 1:30 PM. "Jacob me boy, ye had best thing about heading over to the train station. Your train leaves at 2:00” Jake bids him farewell. "I'm sure I'll understand any private messages you send, I always do. Take care, and I'll see you soon I hope." Red gives Jake the Allister chain and says "Try not to use it unless you absolutely have to. Mr. Allister has not been seen yet in Promise City." They clasp hands and then give each other a warm hug before Jakes heads to the station and boards the train that will take him back to Tombstone. Jake reaches the train station and hands the ticket to the conductor. He climbs on board and takes a window seat in the passenger car, from which he will get a good view of the town an hour later when it arrives in Tombstone. [/QUOTE]
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