Chapter 24 – The Devil’s Snare
July 4th, 1863
West Plains, MI
Wild Card Cass
He cried on her tombstone and begged for her forgiveness. "I've made some terrible mistakes," he squeaked out, continuing to cry. "But I saved the boys." He wiped his tears and tried to compose himself, feeling obligated to give her an explanation. "I traded my soul for theirs. Turns out the Devil loves making deals."
Wild Card laughed a little and sniffled. "The only catch is I have to live forever playing his game." Wild Card looked away, too ashamed to go on, "I've made quite a mess for myself, Jenny." he looked back and forced himself to finish.
"Now, I'll never get back to you." Wild Card Cass tried his hardest not to cry again, but the pressure of his guilt was rising, "Unless I beat him at his own game." That was it. Wild Card had decided. His quest to defend humanity, his plight for the goodness of man started right then and there.
He kissed the headstone and pressed down on the amulet around his neck, a device given to him by his sinister employer. A blue wake swallowed him and Wild Card Cass traveled through time with Devil FreeLander, accessing the shadows, meddling in the fates and lives of innocent people just to prove a point, and eventually arriving at their final destination...Washington, D.C.
August 10, 1865
Dodge, KS
Ira could tell he was the last man standing, but he was quickly brought to the ground on top of Marshall and Peyton, after being pummeled by unseen fists and rifle-butts. When Peyton woke up, Marshall was already awake. Screaming like an animal as Slaughterhouse Slater punched him and kicked him repeatedly on the floor. Peyton got to his feet and tried to tackle Slater. Kildare throat-checked Peyton with his metal-wrapped arm, throwing him on top of Ira, and stirring him awake. Ira opened his eyes and looked up. Wild Card Cass was standing between Slaughterhouse Slater and Steel Coat Kildare.
"Cass!" Ira yelled out from the floor, "How could you!"
"I had no choice." Cass confessed, "This is bigger than all of us."
10 Crows came walking out behind the bar next to Wild Card. Ira, Peyton, and Marshall stood up with the Black Pawnee still surrounding them. They left all their guns on the floor. 10 Crows looked them over, while he ordered Steel Coat Kildare and Slater to start the take over. Kildare and Slater were given specific orders to riot the streets and raize the town to the ground, the next phase in their master plan.
10 Crows slapped Ira with the back of his hand, knocking him to the floor, and walked over to Peyton and Marshall.
"You two are hard to kill." He looked at Marshall.
They stood face to face, and Marshall could feel his shadow. It shared an emotional weight that he had not felt since New York.
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"Ah," 10 Crows scoffed, after seeing Marshall beginning to put it together,
"Marshall, I am disappointed in you."
And there it was. A tone that could not be mistaken. His father's voice was in the room. Here in Dodge, on the other side of the world, father was reunited with son. 10 Crows pulled his red headband off along with his long black hair; revealed to be a wig. He wiped his face of the bronzer make-up.
"All this time," Marshall sobbed, "10 Crows has been you?"
"That's right, son" 10 Crows admitted.
"Why?"
"Only when you are willing to do whatever it takes, do you truly know what it means to succeed."
Peyton laughed. And Wild Card echoed it, while behind the bar drinking from a top-shelf whiskey. 10 Crows walked over to Peyton. Peyton desperately tried to figure it all out, "So you knew about Marshall and me from the beginning. Which means this all had to 've been planned out beforehand," Peyton dragged on, "but how?"
"It is truly astounding how much you don't know," 10 Crows belittled, "and yet you think you can change things."
Ira got back to his feet.
"Stay down, you hillbilly inbred." 10 Crows kicked Ira in the chest and brought him down to the floor again. Marshall and Peyton covered Ira.
"Get back!" barked 10 Crows, as he drew his pistol and fired at Ira. "Get back or I kill him." Marshall stepped back, with Peyton beside him. 10 Crows went in front of his son. "I never wanted you to die," 10 Crows walked around, "I hope you both can understand that some day."
"Ha" Peyton laughed, "some day Marshall, ya hear that!"
"Why do you keep doing that?"
"Doing what, son?"
"Someday after we survive his goons tryin' to kill us," Peyton ranted.
"Referring to Peyton and me like we're..." Marshall trailed off.
"If it is complete disclosure in one explanation you seek," 10 Crows interpreted.
Marshall was ready; he knew what he wanted to hear. He was willing to receive one morsel of satisfaction out of all this suffering. 10 Crows went on, "That I cannot give you."
Marshall was utterly spent on being let down. 10 Crows walked over to the door and just before he left, up the stairs, he said, "We are destroying Dodge, and there is nothing you can do about it. This is your last warning. Join us, or leave, either way… take this time to say good-bye to your friend."
Marshall fell down, and Peyton cradled Ira bleeding heavily on the floor, Kid Colt's dragoon just inches away from Ira. Peyton could reach it if he could just swing Ira's body. Marshall looked over at Peyton and Ira, covered in blood and surrounded by bodies. He looked up at Wild Card Cass, finishing that bottle of whiskey by the bar.
Wild Card looked down on the three of them. He was failing them. Somewhere along the way, Wild Card Cass had forgotten what he stood for. When he lost track of the years he lost track of his plight. With his simultaneous take on time, he was forced to see as his adversary did, in order to even the odds. He had forgotten what it felt like to know suffering in one lifetime. But when he looked down at Marshall, Peyton, and Ira he did not envy them, he pitied them. Wild Card spoke up, "I'll tell ya."
"What?" Marshall exhaled.
"I tell ya everything, kid. And I'll give it to ya straight too."
"Why are you doing this?"
"You're good kids. You deserve something decent… Ya know, before you die."
Ira sat up, "That's comforting," he mumbled.
Peyton laughed beside him and discreetly reached for the gun. Wild Card walked around the bar and sat on a stool right in front of them. "Your father was corrupted into the menace he is today. Just like Peyton, and myself, he was once a good and innocent man persuaded to do terrible things and forced to live with the consequences. And everybody deals with that in different ways. Your father was just a fool like me, who got caught in the devil's snare."