CHAPTER 9 - BOATHOUSE CASINO FERRY

Kid Colt sat at the black jack table on the casino floor of the ferry. The lavish setup inside the ferry passed for eloquent. But if you knew where to look you’d see the wallpaper coming off in the corners and the rust setting in on metals not meant for marine life. Of course, Kid Colt noticed none of this as he drank away his acute awareness. Luckily for him, the dealer at the table was also the bartender. They called him Bombay.

Three men sat along with Kid Colt. He had sufficiently eyed up each of them. There was an old man on his right, who talked too much about treasure. He was fat and wore a top hat, with a piggish nose and high voice. The character to the right of the old man was sly and greedy looking. His beady eye and forked tongue were overshadowed by his black eye-patch, and greasy thin facial hair. He twisted his long mustache and grinned at Kid Colt. The final card player was the last to sit down. It was the Iroquois they had chased from Owensboro. He burnt the soldiers at the docks and escaped with Captain Jack Bennett. Upon recognizing this, Kid Colt's plan was to take all his money and then that was it.

It was a one step plan.

The other guys will be able to figure out the rest once they caught up with him. When Ira got downstairs and found Kid Colt, Bombay was serving the kid another drink.

"It's okay," Kid Colt said waving his hand at the drink and saw Ira and Marshall gathering at another table behind the bartender, "I'll just have whiskey."

"Take it," the bartender insisted, "It's gin and soda."

Kid Colt tried the drink. It was good. After a big sip he was dealt his cards: the ace of diamonds, and a black jack. It was really good. The greedy looking man banged his fist on the table.

"Easy…" said Bombay.

Peyton ran his hand through his hair and replaced his black hat on his head. He adjusted the rim, a snug fit. He saw Marshall and Ira posted up next to Kid Colt at the black jack table. This was all very predictable. What he saw next wasn’t. The Iroquois was now face to face with Quade, Ira, and Marshall inside the Boathouse Casino. Any manner of subtly was blown, that’s when Peyton’s suspicions were confirmed. This was the same man he ran with all those years ago, the man that tried to kill him, the man that he and Charlie left for dead, Ticonderoga the Iroquois.

Kid Colt sipped on his gin and laughed to himself. The greedy one-eyed man across the table from him was livid. The fat man was on his last chip, “I have no more to raise with, unless you're interested in this…" He pulled out a raggedy old piece of paper. It looked a map.

He flattened it out on the table for all to look at. “Coyote Caverns” the only words on it said. Besides that, there were the markings of terrain and a dotted line weaving through the map to an X.

"You're on!" he exclaimed.

Kid Colt wanted that treasure map. He wanted it badly. The Iroquois, on the other hand, wanted no part in it, now staring at Peyton across the casino. The one-eyed man had yet to see him, facing Bombay at the table. He went all in along with the old man and Kid Colt; and they all showed their cards.

One-eye had taken two hits, showing fourteen, his other card made it nineteen. The old man, absolutely positive that Kid Colt would not have another two card twenty-one, revealed his twenty: two black queens. Kid Colt had a king facing up. He pulled his other card out from below it and flipped it over, another blackjack. He won the pot, and the Coyote Caverns Treasure Map.

The fat guy cried and shouted as he left the table, and Kid Colt laughed. The crooked Iroquois was too concerned with Quade walking towards them, and the one-eyed man was getting suspicious. Kid Colt slipped the map into his pocket and finished his drink.

"You know what, Bombay?" He went on, "Make one of these for everyone, on me." Kid Colt leaned back on his chair and put his hands behind his head, "Especially sourpuss over yonder..." he pointed at the one-eyed man.

That was it. He jumped out of his seat at Kid Colt, now facing Quade.

"Easy, Stacks," exhaled Bombay.

Quade froze. The greedy one called Stacks said to Kid Colt, "You’re done here, boy."

“Oh yeah?” Kid Colt scoffed, “Think I’m just gettin’ started.”

But before he could do anything else Peyton shouted as Blackheart Quade, "Rotten Johnny Stacks!" with his hands over his charcoal guns.

Johnny’s wide face dropped at the sound of the voice. It didn’t look like he saw a ghost. It looked like he saw the Lord himself return from the dead on Easter Sunday. Johnny flinched at the sight of his old orphan brother.

"You're alive?" he asked.

Ticonderoga did not move, but left his arm flat on the table, holding his cards.

"Get you, and your rotten ways off this boat," ordered Blackheart, watching both Johnny and Ticonderoga, "This is my casino tonight."

Rotten Johnny Stacks face went through three clear emotions, confusion, outrage, and then resentment settled in with a thin veneer of contempt. He would have no mind to listen. Peyton had to be fully prepared to kill him. Ticonderoga was caught off guard. Marshall and Ira walked up around Quade. In his current position, the giant Iroquois would be powerless against them.

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"Got a new gang now, boss? Gave up with that psycho Crow? I told you-"

Marshall's ear twitched as he thought he heard mentioned the man his brother died looking for.

"I'm warnin' you Johnny," Quade gave his demands, "I'll kill you right here, where you stand, if you don't leave, now."

"You'd kill your own brother?"

Kid Colt watched from in between them quietly as a witness to the legends his dime-novels told of.

"You are...not...my...brother."

"No. Of course not, neither was Charlie."

"I have no brothers."

"Is that what he told you, Marshall?" Stacks unexpectedly turned the conversation away from Peyton.

"How do you know me?" Marshall asked, feeling out of place.

Stacks looked at the four of them after Marshall's question but ignored him. He returned to Quade, "This is bigger than you, Peyton. I'd get out while you still can." forewarned Johnny Stacks, his last brotherly act.

Part of Peyton wanted to listen to him. He already didn’t want to have to shoot his old friend infront of all these people, staining his impression onto his new friends with fresh blood. No, he could not let a product of his old life drag him down to that despicable level. He was a changed man, a reformed man. If he could be redeemed then so could Johnny. There was still good in him.

But before his good nature could prevail, his mouth got in the way, and Rotten Johnny Stacks could not help but ask, "Did Peyton tell ya'll about Maggie yet?"

Flash. A glimpse of smoke escapes from the ignition.

Peyton did not blink. Rotten Johnny Stacks fell silently to the floor. A shot thundered around them and snapped everyone back into reality.

Ticonderoga had dropped his cards. Kid Colt backed away from the collision, bewildered over its implications. Marshall and Ira stood behind Peyton, their guns drawn, Marshall aiming his revolver at Stack's limp body, and Ira wielding his rifle. Peyton lowered his charcoal Schofield revolver as the smoke dissipated. Johnny's eye-patch had flipped over in the exchange, revealing his other eye, completely intact, and lifeless.

October 1850

Dodge, KS

Peyton

The clouds opened. Charlie rode in on Peyton's horse, holding him up. No stars would be found in this night’s sky as the rain poured down upon them. Johnny was able to ride on his horse after his tomahawk injuries. The horses splattered through the turning mud. They ran in for Dodge. Maggie's first thought was to go to the Orphanage. But when they got there, it was gone, burnt to ruin. The rain battered the hollow ground. Something did not sit right here. The guilt ran deep into her bones upon realization. The town blamed the orphanage for the bank robbery after Maggie left the bag on their door.

Some evil and unrest put insurmountable pressure on the atmosphere. After the town could not find the orphan outlaws, a mob burned down the orphanage as recompense. It was an act of impulse. The town wasted their meek and needy in one burn-off. They collectively sacrificed the abandoned and justified it as preventing another robbery, or cleansing the scum for the well-being of the masses.

Peyton opened his eyes. The horse had stopped. Maggie, Charlie, and Johnny were all on their knees in the rubble, sobbing uncontrollably together. Peyton looked around and felt the fires on his back. He turned to face them, and nothing was there. He fell off the horse and stumbled his way over to them.

They cried together in each others' arms. Quade held Maggie. He lifted her head up and kissed her. The rain washed his pain away for the time being. And her lips made him feel like a new man. They did not leave the site that night, but instead gave themselves to it. Peyton let the darkness take him and welcomed death.

A man covered in shadow walked into Dodge, unseen. He grabbed a hold of the last remaining support beam in the orphanage after its destruction, while the four outlaw orphans slept and bled out into the carcass of their old home. He charged his rival with the bet as he chose four more souls for their game. Somewhere else in the west, far from Dodge, a brave hero with a white beard watched on as Death surrounded the fallen orphans. And as they were chosen, they are reborn.

Quade was the first to wake up the next morning. Why was he still alive? Peyton looked down. His wound was gone. How could this be?Johnny and Charlie's wounds were gone too. And yet, they felt terrible, dead as if. Maggie woke up and her lips and hair were black. When Peyton awoke Charlie, he would forever remember his brother's blood red eyes, how they had changed. A binding was placed on their mortality so strong, that nothing would be able to destroy them, nothing except each other.

The church bells rang. The town of Dodge woke up and started to move.

Quade stood up and fixed his belt. His ashy palms smoothed the handles of his revolvers. He walked into town, his suit covered in soot. His gun metal fused with a garnish of ash to create his signature charcoal revolvers. He joined the community as they assembled before the church and the minister.

Blackheart Quade walked amongst them and shot his guns into the minister at the top of the stairs. Three blows to the head, three bullets from his left revolver, the same revolver taken from the Dodge deputy. The minister fell back with a mangled face, into the church as Quade took his place atop the stairs.

"I’ll see to it that him along with all ya’ll burn in hell for what you've done!" He said as he spat on them.

Charlie Slater was not satisfied with Quade’s retaliation. He shot at them from behind and forced most of them into the church. He barricaded the doors, locking them all inside, and threw bottles of oil into the windows along with a torch. Charlie guarded the outside.

Watching the church burn down with his gun out he never blinked, never reacted. The flames raged in the reflections of his eyes. As the fire grew and the heat rose it muffled out the screams and the roof caved in. The walls began to deteriorate after that. Burnt arms, dark with the mark of their clothe singed into their flesh clawed at the burning walls for freedom. Charlie shot their hands and ankles, downing them, but careful not to release them from the inferno of suffering.

This was a repaying slaughter, dealt back sixfold for what they did to those poor children. There was no other way of vengeance for Charlie. He accepted his role as the hand of death. Two things happened after that. Dodge would never have a church again and Charlie was christened the name, “Slaughterhouse Slater” by the newspapers. The four of them rode out of Dodge under a smoke-stained sunrise, a town they plagued and tarnished. Four cursed children of Dodge, outcasts, and exiles ready to raise havoc on the frontier.