Chapter 26: The Secrets of the Caves
~~Interlude~~
The man was dead, sure enough. Jake had kicked Jenkins in the head and the man's body had shown no reaction. Between that and the hole in his chest, his status seemed rather conclusive.
"Got what you deserve, you bastard," Jake growled. The Texican took off his old slouch hat and mopped some of the sweat from his forehead. In this case, it was mixed with blood -- Jenkins had fired first, and his near-miss had caused sharp-edged rock shards to pepper Jacob's face.
Jacob had not intended for it to come to this. Not that he had expected to hear that his family's homestead had "gone for taxes" when he had returned home after the war. Come to find out, Alois Jenkins had been buying up lots of acreage in the area. No one knew where he had gotten the cash to pay the back taxes on the land that he had acquired, but the stories being told all involved the sale of the rot-gut whiskey that Jenkins was known for making to Union occupation troops. After all, they were the only ones in the area who had any ready spending money.
Regardless of how he came by the money, Jenkins had used it to buy the land owned by his neighbors when the cash-starved Texans could not keep up with the taxes that had been levied. Southerners had coined the name "carpetbaggers" for the Northerners who had flooded down after the war, eager to take advantage of the destitution that was rampant in the South at the time. But even worse than the carpetbaggers, to the thinking of ex-Confederates, were fellow-Southerners who also took advantage of the situation; these they called "scalawags" . . . and other less pleasant names.
Jacob's mother had passed during the war years, seemingly losing the will to live after hearing that her only son had been killed in the fierce fighting in the cornfield on the Confederate left flank during the bloody battle at Sharpsburg (known as "Antietam" to the Union forces). His younger sister, Jessie, had run off with a sweet-talking, flashy Mississippi gambler-man shortly thereafter, and had not been seen or heard from since.
Jake's father, Joshua, had not lived to see the coming of the war. He had been a good man, but a poor farmer. He had chosen land that depended upon rainfall to water the crops that he stubbornly attempted to grow -- and rainfall was never very reliable in west Texas. Worn out from years of hard toil and that some years had not even yielded subsistence-level harvests, he had passed during the freezing cold of a harsh winter.
So, perhaps it was not surprising that there was no one to even attempt to pay taxes on the Richardsen homestead. Well, other than Alois Jenkins, that is. Not that it would have mattered, not really.
"Ain't nothin' to be done about it, boy. It was all done legal and proper. It went for unpaid taxes. Mr. Jenkins owns that land now," the sheriff had gruffly told Jake when he had inquired. It seemed clear enough that the lawman felt little sympathy for anyone who had worn the gray -- or, in Jacob's case, now, butternut -- during the war.
Jacob thought that something might be done if he walked out and spoke to Jenkins himself. What was done was that Jenkins lifted a rifle and fired at Jake before a word was spoken. Perhaps the sight of the rough-hewn, nut-brown man wearing butternut and carrying an Enfield rifle had spelled trouble to the moonshiner. Or perhaps he had recognized Jacob Richardsen, and given that he was standing on what had been Richardsen family land, that had, in Jenkins' mind, meant trouble with a capital "T".
His reflexes and shooting eye honed by years of warfare, Jake instinctively returned fire. And Alois Jenkins had dropped to the ground, where he lay still and unmoving.
And so it was that Jacob found himself staring down at the man he had just killed. To his way of thinking, he had fired in self-defense. But he doubted that the Sheriff he had talked to earlier would see things that way.
The Texican leaned over and picked up the rifle that lay next to Jenkins' body. It was a shiny new Winchester. Jacob had first seen repeating rifles during the siege of Petersburg (just outside of Richmond), late in the war. Those had been Henry repeaters, which the envious Confederates had dubbed "that rifle that you load on Sunday and shoot all week long."
"May as well be hung for a sheep as a goat," Jake muttered, voicing a saying that dated back to the old country. He decided then and there to keep the Winchester, which would technically make him a thief as well as a murderer in the eyes of the local Law. Hell, it wasn't like they could hang him twice.
~~After all, it ain't lieke Jenkins'll be a-needin' it whaere he's goin'. I reckon the wood would catch on fire, and the metal would melt awaey.~~
Jacob pulled out a bandanna and wiped away the sweat and blood from his forehead. He glanced up at the west Texas sun, which burned down with a white-hot malevolence. Replacing his hat, he looked about himself.
"Tieme to get a move on, Jacob. Ye'll have to leave this place behind, and never look back. Ain't lieke I got anything to bind me here no more, any damn waeys. Nuthin's left here for me."
He glanced down at the fine repeating rifle that he now held in his hand. "I christen thee 'Widder-Maeker'. And I purely do ah-preshiate yore waitin' 'til I claimed ownership uhv thee afore ye commenced to livin' up to thy naeme."
OOC: The rifle claimed by Jacob during this story would have been an 1866-model Winchester. The model referenced in the rules is a Winchester '73. Perhaps the Texican "traded up" to a more recent model at some point, while retaining the same name.
A Club was drawn for Jake. The above story reflects the following Club-based theme: "Backstory: A tale of misfortune from your hero's past, perhaps revealing something of his Hindrances or a dark secret."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:07, Thu 24 Feb 2022.