Re: Chapter 2: Have Fun Stormin' the Homestead!
"Meriwether, I respect your counsel. Indeed, they may face indignations and worse, but their deaths are not acceptable."
"Silas, what plan have the lot of you concocted? Do you intend to shoot windows and doors and aerate them to submission? Do you seek to huff and puff and blow my house down? What stoke of brilliance have you arrived at that will both free my family and find Cole? Has Edwin spoken to you with an inspired tact?" Chance's hand gestures are brisk and staccato.
"Silas, your aim is true, but your trigger finger is too fast. Where will your plan leave me and my family? In haste, naught but ruins will remain."
"I have restrained myself until now, but it is time. This is MY family and MY house. What do you care if anything happens to them, but that they live? What do you care of my home, but that it remains?"
"It is my expectation to return to my home WITH my family. If MY approach is cautious, it is because I wish not to lose all that remains to me. If it is my plan that fails my family, I will have that burden. If any other plan spells the doom of my mother and brother, .... well.... well." His hand gestures are elevated to random and uncontrolled.
"If you rush the house and they destroy my mother and brother, then place the barrel of your Henry to my temple and release me of this mortal coil. I cannot abide their loss." Chance presses the finger tips of his left hand to the left side of his head.
With significant delay, Chance realizes he heard something which only now registered. "What did you say, Meriwether, some of his men are dead? Do tell."