Cha'Nara's Gift

Chapter 12

Chapter 12 Holding Down Our Claim

I took a chance with Emily standing guard, and cut more trees, and even a couple medium sized ones for the start of our cabin. I framed a portal around the front of our camouflaging so we could stand inside and see people coming, but wouldn't be visible to them. I also slapped together some crude chairs and a table using ideas from some survival guides we brought. Mrs. Miller had placed a grate and a iron post with arms on it to hang pots and such. Right now she had a pot of coffee brewing, 21st century coffee boiling in an 19th century pot. She seemed very amiable to Pip but Emily and I weren't sure if it was because Cha'Nara had put the "zap" on her head, or she was just comfortable with Cha'Nara's explanations. I had just finished cleaning my rifle when Ben returned. He had a funny smile on his face and once inside the covered area showed us what he had. Ben produced an MRE entrée bag filled to the brim with gold flakes, there had to be several ounces in there. "Looks like you struck it rich son, don't spend it all in one place!" "There's more in there sir, lots!" "I'm sure there is, I'll check it out, tomorrow. Right now we have to start work on a cabin, the first building in Deakstown, I want to get it up fast so we can ride over to Georgetown to line up a sawmill and workers to start building the town, don't worry we'll be hitting that creek again."

The next day, we were up bright and early felling trees I had Emily down the road at one end and Ben up the road on the other with comsets warning me if riders were coming. Quite a few people passed, but we were lucky and no one stopped. As soon as Ben or Emily warned me I stopped cutting, until who ever was on the road had passed. We used the horses to move the logs into place; I had a book that showed how to build a cabin which made things a little easier. By late in the afternoon the power tube was fully charged, I placed it back in it's cradle in Cha'Nara's "unit." Emily and Mrs. Miller got everything out of the craft we would need and Cha'Nara used her "Dahampa" to make it disappear, it was then placed in a metal chest and locked, we then buried the chest, camouflaging the spot very carefully. Ben and I took a day to pan the stream and did pretty well, but nothing to write home about, while we worked the stream, we selected rocks to build our fireplace with along with a stone lined pit I had in mind.

After a week of bust-ass hard work our cabin was finished. We had dug a pit inside and lined it with rock for the chest with Cha'Nara's "Dahampa" inside. We had reinforced the cabin walls in several places. I was going to have to leave Emily and the other two women by themselves while Ben and I rode to Georgetown, while I didn't doubt Emilie's abilities I worried all the time, I left her with strict orders to simply shoot to kill anyone who approached, no prisoners. Ben and I would have our own problems, we were taking most of our gold to buy lumber and materials and hire workers. The night before we left I simply couldn't sleep. The next morning I hugged and kissed Emily and even Pip goodbye. I had modified one of the saddle scabbards to accept my M1A I wrapped it with a cloth to hide the action and scope from prying eyes. As we rode southwest, I tried to imagine where I-70 would one day run. We arrived in Georgetown late in the afternoon; Going straight to the land office, we registered our claims. Eyebrows raised at seeing the gold we were paying with, I opened up an account at the local bank, I wasn't very comfortable doing this since banks at this time weren't insured and were prone to robbery, and on top of that they had a bad habit of failing. Still, we needed a place to draw funds from. While we were in Georgetown I took notice of how crappy the place looked in comparison to the modern day "tourist" Georgetown of 2012, I also noticed unusual interest in our activities, but I remembered the John Wayne movie "Big Jake" where Jake McCandles and his sons are carrying around a chest filled with money to pay a ransom, they notice interest in their activities as well, and take precautions when they take a room at the local hotel. Good thing I remembered that film.

Ben and I rented a room in a crummy looking place, locked ourselves in, ate MRE's for supper and took turns sleeping. Ben was armed with one of the Benelli M4 shotguns I had my Sig handgun as well as the M1A, Ben covered the door, I covered the window which looked out over a porch, we settled in, rested and…Waited.

Around 2:00am I heard a noise in the hall, I woke Ben and pointed to the window, Ben crouched down along the side of the bed aiming the shotgun with it's aim point sight at the door. I crouched in the opposite corner aiming at the window, the ACOG scope crosshairs centering on the middle of the window. Suddenly a shadow appeared, I squeezed off two rounds just as the door crashed open, I had instructed Ben on using the Aimpoint sight, impressing on him that all he need do was follow the red dot, wherever he saw that dot the slug would hit. I think the adrenaline rush for both of us was so high we didn't notice the noise. In the end, there were four very dead men; Ben kept firing rending ghastly wounds in human flesh. My man was blasted out over the porch into the street. We quickly hid our weapons and pulled out a coach gun for Ben and a Winchester for me (couldn't have people asking too many questions) Although, some were curious about the excessive wounds for the weapons we claimed we used. I slipped the hotel proprietor a gold nugget in compensation for the bloody mess he was going to have to clean up. Ben and I moved to another room, as our old room stunk too much of blood and guts, Jesus! What a mess those slugs leave!. We answered a few questions showed the sheriff the gold we were carrying why we were in town yada yada yada, he kept any "loot" the bad guys may have had, case closed.

At breakfast, people were giving us a wide birth word of the m******e spread like wildfire; the bodies were laid out in front of the undertakers office, flies covering the bodies. Ben seemed visibly shaken by all this, I told him, "Son I saw worse than this in Afghanistan this is the face of war, Hell, I don't think we even knew their names. We spent the next two hours talking to the sawmill owner a freight company to haul all the wood and supplies to us, suppliers to provide furniture and other supplies. We hired four carpenters and eight helpers. By the time we left Georgetown, our "kitty" was pretty much gone. My only concern was that these people would honor their contracts. As we neared our cabin I smelled smoke and heard shooting, Emily's Armalite. "Goddammit! Can't we just be left alone?" Ben and I quickly dismounted and cut through the woods I could see the smoke coming from the cabin, I swung the M1A up seeking targets, I spotted a man on the roof of the cabin, I dropped him as he started to hack at the roof with an axe, another man popped up as soon as I fired Ben fired at him with the shotgun. The slug must have only wounded him because he began to scream. I motioned to Ben to spread out. I then spotted another man hiding near the cabin next to the wagon, I fired catching him in the shoulder, still another man started to run only to be cut down by Emily's carbine. Just when I thought we had them all another man stood up with his hands in the air. "I give up, don't shoot! I walked up to him and butt stroked him as hard as I could, blood flew everywhere he fell back unconscious. I kicked him as hard as I could between the legs, then moved on to the guy I had hit in the shoulder. Ben was covering him with the shotgun, I bent down and stuck the barrel of my pistol right in his face "Who the f**k are you tell me now or I'll do things to you that will make you wish you'd never been born."

Emily and the other women emerged from the cabin, "Gimmie a sitrep Marine! "These bastards showed up this morning claiming to be hungry and asking for a meal, I told them to hit the road, they wouldn't listen. We're all right, they tried to burn us out but the logs were too green." "Lets get these assholes tied up" I said, Ben and Emily dragged the unconscious man over and tied him up next to the guy wounded in the shoulder, the man Ben had only wounded was still flopping around screaming, I walked over to him and calmly shot him in the face, "Damn! I hate that shit." I returned to the man I had threatened. I bent down close to his face, "Around here shitstain, when you f**k with the bull you get the horns. I like to think that when I leave my wife and friends alone for a few days assholes like you won't come around and threaten them, when that happens I go a little crazy and do things that give me bad dreams but that's better than letting crap like you run around terrorizing innocent women." I shoved my finger in his wound causing him to scream, I stirred it a little casing the man to thrash. "Now, tell me your name ass wipe!" "Oh God in heaven please don't do that again!" the mans voice quivered with pain. "My name is Edward Smalls, my brother Andrew, the man you just shot was Samuel Coggins."

"Well Ed, you and you're f*****g brother are just a big complication to me now, I just want to put a bullet in you're face and drag you're bodies somewhere and leave you for buzzards like I've been doing as of late. But looking around, I see I'd be very unpopular if I did that. Right now I don't need the hassle, so I guess it's you and you're brother's lucky day, you two get to live. Consider this a gift from God, a second chance to live, we'll patch you up and kick your f*****g ass down the road, show you're face around here again I'll just simply walk up to you and kill you, no introductions no explanations no nothing. BAM! You're brains are all over the ground, I won't even bother to bury you. You'll be just another dead body out to the garbage dump for the crows. No brag, just facts, are we on the same page son?" "Y-y-yes, please don't kill me or my brother we'll leave we won't bother you again." "I know you won't, because you know what will happen if you do!" I stood up to grim expressions, "Somebody get these two patched up and back on their horses, Ben! Go through their stuff grab everything worth anything, guns money, anything I promised to patch them up but we're not a free clinic around here." Ben silently nodded and went to see what was on the bodies.

Emily and Mrs. Miller glared at me while they cleaned and dressed Ed's wound, his brother began to come around, coughing blood and vomiting. As I passed Cha'Nara she gave me a dirty look, "What's the matter with you?" I located their horses and picketed them nearby. Later, Ben and I threw the dead men over their horses for Ed and his brother to take with them.

As we were finishing up, Ben looked at me and said, "Sir, was that called for?" "What? The way I treated those guys." "Yes, it wasn't right." "What's the matter with you? Going soft on me? They were prepared to do awful things to Emily and your ma. Ben, you don't cut people like that any slack whatsoever, I was prepared to shoot Ed and his s**t for brains brother, but I don't need a bunch of pissed-off women on my case right now, apparently you're on their side." Ben seemed to be wrestle with his conscious "I don't know what to do, what to think anymore, I didn't think it would be like this." I put my hand on his shoulder and quietly said, "Son, men who go to war face this sort of thing everyday, you're right to question these things, however we are living in a lawless land, there's too much at stake for Emily Cha'Nara and I. I have to come down like a ton of bricks, on people like Ed and his brother. A lesson has to be taught, it's a harsh world out there Ben."

Emily's turn was next, "You're starting to scare me lover, if I didn't know better, I'd say you're starting to enjoy all this killing." Emily had a worried look on her face, "Maybe it's because we were attacked in Georgetown, we barely make it out of there, come back here and find people trying to kill you, yeah! Maybe I am. But an example has to be made here. Emily, we're the only law, once we get Deakstown built maybe we'll have to see about a sheriff but I simply won't compromise with these people, you of all people should realize this." "I-I-I know this Deak." I held her close saying, "I asked you before we came here if you were going to be able to handle this, you told me you could, maybe coming here wasn't such a good idea after all but we're here, we've got people looking to us for protection, we've just got to see this thing through. I don't know, look, once Deakstown is up, hopefully things will settle down." I could see the look in Emily's eyes that she desperately hoped that would be the case, but after the incident in Georgetown, I knew we were just whistling past a graveyard.

I announced to everybody that the town site had been properly registered and the workers would be here in a couple days, tomorrow Ben and I would survey the building sites, in preparation for construction.