Deputy Sanders, sitting directly in front of the gun cabinet holding all the convict contraband and weapons, must have blinked... and in that blink of his eyes, Greg made his move, got his pistol, all the ammo, disarmed the Deputy, unloaded every other weapon in the cabinet and in Sanders' possession, and walked calmy and casually out the front door.
The Army was pulling their wagon, loaded with a fully-automatic 50-caliber Gatling gun repeater out front of the jailhouse. The gun opened fire as Greg stepped out, lighting his thin cigar. Someone behind the Gatling gun must have blinked then too, because between the time the bullets left the 12 barrells of the spinning cylinder and the instant later when they shredded the front of the jailhouse where Greg had stood, Greg was gone...
97 Army troops blinked right then, and all their weapons were unloaded, their belt buckles loosened and their drawers dropped round their ankles, while the renegade roughnecks made their escape from the fortified holding cell of Abilene...
"DADBLASTED TARNATION!" Commander Geoffrey Jericho moaned.
"I'll get you Buddy Reno..."
"Dadblasted tarnation!" Deputy Steven Sanders seethed, from inside the jailhouse, pulling up his own drawers and stepping outside. "I'll get you, Luis Pasillas, and your little, Buddy Reno, too..."
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!!" a booming voice beckoned from behind. "Step away from that house, both of you!"
Buddy and Catori froze, and Buddy gulped hard, glancing around as an Army Officer approached from the driveway, a gray bandana over his mouth and nose, a rifle poised on his hip. 4 other Army troops held post at the end of the drive, on horseback, holding the Officer's horse at bay.
Buddy's arms were full of wounded pup, or he may have skinned his pistols just then and made a mad break for the wilderness, hoping against hope that some miracle would force 5 separate men to blink, or something, all at once, to allow him a chance to escape... but, seriously, what were the odds of such a thing as that??
It was a long, tense moment then, Buddy glanced to Catori, and frowned, stepping away from the door and turning slowly.
"That's far enough!" the Officer commanded. "Don't move!!"
-GULP!-
"By order of the Governor of this great state of Texas, I hereby take you into custody to be transported to Abilene..." the Officer explained.
"This entire ranch home has been condemned! James and Francie Polk, the owners and operators of the JP Ranch were recently killed here...
...typhoid fever...
... you may have been exposed... you must come with us now!"
((uhh, yuna... Greg just killed the Inquisitor and the entire gang escaped the maximum security stockade... now, hunted for a crime they didn't commit (and a few new ones they just did commit), they survive as soldiers of fortune... if you're in trouble, if no one else can help, and if you can find them (or if they remember to go back to find you), maybe you can hire, the G-Team.........)) 😱
Buddy and Catori were issued sterile bandanas and gloves, and had their wrists bound to be led back to Abilene in as much quarantine as possible.
"Sorry, but the dog..." the Officer demanded.
"Stays with me!" Buddy defied, holding the large black pup tight.
"But, the fever..." the Officer explained.
"If we've got it, he's got it, and you can be rid of us all..." Buddy volunteered. "Until then, the pup stays with me..."
"So be it..." the officer shrugged. "But if it, or you, slows us down, we'll be just as well to get rid of you any way... and no one will ever be the wiser...
BURN THE HOUSE!" he commanded, leading the quarantined couple to the horses. The 4 troops moved forward and torched the farmstead...
The officer stowed his rifle in his horse's saddle holster, then turned to watch the blaze ignite.
Buddy looked to Catori, to the lone officer, and the waiting horse...
((see, that's how you set up a 'simple escape'... not looking down the barrel of 3 or 5 or 39 various guns, and still make a mad escape against all odds and all logic!!))
... but Buddy and Catori don't make the same moves as their compatriots; no wild rush of adrenalin-charged anxiety as they make a fevered break for freedom, no hysterical hystrionics or hyperbole. Buddy Reno, renegade, rebel, rogue, but not a criminal... hunted unjustly, for a crime he didn't commit, the man who gave his last few coins to children to buy candy, who felt loss and remorse for the death of the blacksmith, his friend, with whose murder he had been charged... escaped the unlawful imprisonment by an unjust sheriff, in an effort to clear his name, hunted and tracked across the land, saving the life of his Native American travelling companion, and thankful she was there to return the kindness while they ran... spared a wounded pup, hoping to find it comfort and treatment, to save its life...
...he would not run, would not leave Catori or a wounded pup at the mercy of the Army or the elements.
"It will be alright..." Buddy consoled Catori, while the JP ranch house burned. "It's the US Army... they have orders, and have to follow the way of Law... not like the sheriff... I know these men... we will be able to find help in town... I promise..."
Catori smiled slightly, and Buddy smiled back, trying in vain to hide his relative uncertainty about the truth of the matter. It had been a long time since he had served with these men, or men like them, in service of his country... a long time... a whole other lifetime ago...
...he was a changed man now... he wouldn't go down that dark and twisted road again...
Except, now, there he was, trailing behind Army soldiers, as the sun set on another long day, passing along the long, dark winding road, bound and quarantined, captive... into Abilene!
Victoria stiffly left the sheriff's office unpleased by it all. Hurriedly she walked on until she was stopped by a man. Grabbing her he pulled her close and uncomfortably she tried to pull away. He held her tighter and almost blocked her lung way. She began to gag and then he loosened his grip.
"Kind sir. . .I beg of you please let me go," said Vic through forced gasps. Her heart pounded slowly. She tried to talk but no sound emerged. The man slowly let go and spun her around to face him. Showing his buck teeth it was that he had some redneck blood in him. Maybe even Rutherford, the only survivor left of that perished family.
Originally posted by SlickRick69
((uhh, yuna... Greg just killed the Inquisitor and the entire gang escaped the maximum security stockade... now, hunted for a crime they didn't commit (and a few new ones they just did commit), they survive as soldiers of fortune... if you're in trouble, if no one else can help, and if you can find them (or if they remember to go back to find you), maybe you can hire, the G-Team.........)) 😱
((hey, I didn't shoot anybody 🙄 ))
ok, guys, I already took off. If you have, or found, a horse of your own, then you could have caught up with me, but I did NOT stick around while the Gatling gun was being shot. I just want to make that clear.
Nat hopped on Greg's horse behind him, and when they had caught up with Luis, leapt with the grace of a gymnast onto his own horse.
The 5-horse convoy of Army regulars trotted into Abilene, its quarantined captives in tow. As they passed down a side-street, avoiding the main drag, in order to keep the possible outbreak of fever as contained as possible. Fortunately, it was after dark, and apparently there had been some sort of excitement not long ago, forcing the Marshalls to impose a strict curfew, so the streets and sidewalks were all but bare of city folk and looky-loos...
Unfortunately, that made it all to easy for Buddy and Catori to spot the many WANTED POSTERS hanging all around town, bearing their likenesses!! The Army soldiers failed to notice the striking similarities, as none of them had really got a good look at the quarantined couple.
Buddy felt the twinge of panic, gulping and breathing heavy behind his mask. This was not good...
Buddy took note of the fact that Luis and Nat and Greg's POSTERS had been torn down or 'X'ed out. Had they been captured? killed? as the convoy neared the Army regimental garrison house and medical facility, Buddy's face paled, as he and Catori watched a young low-rank soldier posting the latest WANTED POSTERS amongst those of Buddy himself and Catori and other mangy low-life criminals...
$3,000 for Buddy... $2,000 for his 'savage' female companion...
"hmm... not bad... $3,000..." Buddy almost smiled.
...$2,500 for the darkie Nat Francis... $5,000 for Luis Pasillas...
"What the--?" Buddy stumbled, shaken. Mexicans and Africanos NEVER fetch that much, regardless the crime!
...$12,000 for Gunslinger Greg Dobson... for murder, jailbreak...
Deputy Sanders charged from the Abilene jailhouse and shuffled hurriedly to the military stockade.
"Hold there, soldier... hold!" Sanders approached even as the officer and the convoy slowed and stopped at the hitching post out front. "I want the bounty raised to $15,000 for the gunslinger's head, for the additional charge of 'Theft'... the scoundrels absconded with the money intended to pay the bounty on their heads!! They must be found and stopped!"
((This, of course, is obviously a lie, another crime they did not commit... but only Sanders knows this fact... for now...))
"Ho there, Captain..." Sanders noticed the new arrivals. "What do we have here??"
"Keep distance, there Deputy..." the officer took charge, "These here are fevered folk from the JP homestead... we've got to get them off the public street and into quarantine immediately!"
"Hmmmm... I see..." Sanders nodded, stepping back, but curiously glaring at the couple behind the bandanas.
Buddy Reno seethed, trying to avert his eyes but somehow drawn to, forced to lock glares with Deputy Steven Sanders.
"Away with them, post haste!" Sanders demanded. "Then rally your men to skin out, after the rabblerousing Reno's Renegades!!"
Amazingly, the Army officer very nearly saluted the lesser law official then and there, but stopped short, ushering the captives past Sanders, off the street and into containment within the military garrison stronghold...
The Capture of Buddy Reno was complete...
or was it?
Leo walked on, his face was covered in sand, apart from two small lines which were paths to his tears. He couldn't understand how he had become so attatched to his horse, it wasn't too old. Maybe it was because it had never run away from him...or maybe it was something else. He soon relised he wasn't sad about the horse at all, but rather letting the person in the barn get away. He found this out when he caught himself muttering, "How could I have let that B****** get away?"
His hat was tied around his neck by a thin piece of string. His left hand dragged Gene's saddle along the ground and his right hand had easy access to either one of his guns or the flask of water that he had put on his belt. His shirt was too covered in sand to even see it's colour and his jeans were torn in several places. Stubble had grown back on his face. He walked on, hoping he would get to a town soon.
As Leo wandered. lost and alone, he came upon the JP Ranch, oustide of Abilene, at just about the time the place was being torched... he couldn't believe what he was seeing! What was going on? Who were the men torching the place? and what of the 2 captives, tied and gagged? Something was not as it seemed...
Blown on the dusk breeze a leather thong, attached to a stick of some sort, tumbled toward Leo. It was a collar, etched with a child's best rendition of a label, and a note: the dog's name ISAAC, and the address of its home, the JP RANCH... seems some of the men were fighting over possession of the dog, held by the scruffy-looking hombre, but demanded by the other man, the uniformed man... was he an Army soldier? And what of the savage girl? What was all this?
(this is a chance for Leo to join the 'group' sorta, again...)
Vic looked all over the town coming upon her sister's poster. There was a check on it that was crossed out. But the reward was scratched out and that really confused her. "Sir why is Sunia not wanted anymore?" asked Vic to the Rutherford survivor.
"Sunia? Oh she got away so they still decidin' on her bounty reward. That's why. Ya look awful lot like Sarah from my ranch. Your a real beauty in looks. Why don't ya settle down?" asked him.
"What? Even if I look like her means nothin'. I know I'm pretty but I'm not that nuts to get married," said Vic and she walked away up to a poster that read, "All scoundrels escaped prison and we are trying to figure out a better bounty escpecially for the darkie and Luis. Sheriff Sanders."
"There you are, Scholar Lady. I missed you today for dinner. I had an outbreak but we will soon have them under control," said Sanders. Vic nodded and took off in confusion to an old medical building. Outside of it she felt a blow hit her stomach. Collapsing she got up and rolled over. She was mistaken for Lily and now she was going to the medical center. Since the jail was filled to the brim with crimnals.
Luis motioned Nat over and said something to him that couldn't be heard by the rest of the group. Nat gave an affirmative nod and fell back with the other two. Now he motioned to them, and broke off to the right, away from Luis, who sped off into the distance. Apparently, he didn't want to have to deal with the others. At least... Not yet.
"Hey there, scoundrel!" Steve Sanders shouted at the goon who puched his other sister "This will teach you to hit a lady, you son of a *****!" The small town deputy throttled the old gnarl-toothed vagrant viciously. The vagrant fell to the ground, stunned but not knocked out, and recovered quickly, with a large rock in hand. He heaved the rock, but the deputy ducked aside, and the rock smashed Victoria in the face instead.
The Army soldiers moved in then, collecting the vagrant, and Victoria.
"Dammit Deputy!" Commander Geoffrey Jericho appeared and stormed forward. "We have enough roughhousing and fist-fighting to deal with with all the bounty hunters thanks to you and your ungodly reward for all Reno's Renegades! We don't need to be distracted with your personal family vendetas as well!! Away with you now, or I shall have you removed from the streets by force!"
Sanders cowered then, frowning at the Army commander as Vic and the vagrant were led into the garrison medical center, just minutes behind the quarantined fever victims, Buddy and Catori (and maybe Leo)...
Greg wasn't so sure if he was willing to completly leave town yet. He had a gut feeling something, or someone was back there. 'Could it be Buddy? There's no way one man has that much luck...is there?' he thought to himself. He wasn't sure. He would have to wait though. Wait for night fall, and either discuise himself, or something of the sort. He already had a 3 week old scruff growing, which had to change his appearance some from where ever they got his description for his poster. He would still wait though, just for a while.