RANGO // OӘͶAЯ - Another Outlaw Story [Engl.]

47. John's decision

"Are you sure it will work?"
Coral seemed to have her concerns. But Jake just looked at her meaningfully.
"What else should we do?" he said finally. "And by the way, it's the half of my plan right now."
"And what is the other half?"
Jake stopped. Then he lowered his head slightly and narrowed his eyes. "That's exactly why I have to go back to town. As long as I don't know what's going on there, a blind implementation of the plan would be too risky."
He pulled the sheriff's badge from under his belt and looked at it thoughtfully.
The two rattlesnakes were on their way back to Dirt. Coral was a little worried and, of course, afraid, too. If Jake hadn't assured her that he would protect her, she probably wouldn't have crawled with him.
Jake seemed to feel that. He put the sheriff's badge back and looked at her intently. "Do you trust me?"
She hesitated for a moment. Then she nodded. "Yes."
Suddenly they heard an excited crying voice. "Mayor John! Mayor John! Where are you?!"
In the next moment, Angelique came towards them. The vixen literally froze when she saw the two snakes.
"Mr. Jake? You here?" Her gaze fell on Coral. "Good gracious. You too?"
"What happened?" Jake wanted to know immediately. The secretary's behavior was very unusual.
"Mayor John said he wanted to go for a walk," Angelique said. "He left a little letter. I shouldn't..." She broke off briefly. Without further ado, she took out the letter and pulled out the document.
"But then I opened it. And... read this here..."
She handed the letter to the rattlesnake, which Jake caught with his gun and scanned the lines on it.
The beginning was about how John felt about the current situation and that he regretted not having given the city the shine he wanted. But one sentence made Jake sit up and take notice.
"... I will go to my wife. Take good care of August..."
Jake lowered the letter. Angelique caught his gaze and kneaded her fingers nervously. "At first I thought he was referring to his wife's grave. I went there immediately, but he wasn't there..."
Coral, who had peered into the letter over Jake's shoulder, shivered in the scales. "He won't do it, will he?"
She didn't dare to say it, but everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing.
"In which direction did he disappear?" Jake asked.
Angelique looked around desperately. "People told me that he was seen driving in this direction here. But I don't know where exactly."
Jake tightened his pupils. If the turtle drove this way somewhere, then he could try to find his track.
He pushed the letter back to Angelique and flicked the floor.

The landscape was dusty, but flat, so that the turtle had no great difficulty in getting through the desert in a wheelchair. After a good long distance, John stopped. From here the hill went down steeply and ended into a deep gorge.
The turtle sighed deeply. He released the brake and rolled very close to the steepest drop. All he had to do now was let go of the wheels and it would go down the valley into the unknown.
"Not a really nice end," John said to himself. "But at some point, we all have to say goodbye to this world."
He pushed the wheels back for momentum.
"Mayor John! What are you doing?!"
The turtle winced and looked behind. Not far away from him was not only his secretary, who looked at him in disbelief, but also two other familiar figures.
"Oh, Angelique. Mr. Jake and Miss Coral. What brings you here?"
The turtle didn't seem to be interested in why Jake had suddenly come back. He even gave the impression that he no longer saw the world around him.
Jake crawled a little further. "What are you doing in front of a ravine when the city threatens to sink into chaos?"
John sighed deeply. "I'm sorry, Mr. Jake. I would like to have a little chat with you. But my wife is waiting for me."
"And what will you get out of it?" The rattlesnake asked deeper.
"I just can no longer watching how Margaret's dream fades away more and more," the turtle explained to him.
"I don't think, that your wife would like your giving up so easily."
"What else can I do, Mr. Jake?"
The rattlesnake narrowed his eyes. "I was not born to be a lawman. But this city needs a protector."
"Don't worry about it, Mr. Jake," John waved him off tonelessly. "You have enough problems of your own. Just crawl away and try to live a better life than us."
Jake went deep into himself before answering. "You once told me about faith. That you believe and hope that the next day will be better someday. I honestly have to admit that I never really believed in it. But I guess I just doubted myself. But you are the founder of the town. You always believed in it."
"But we have nothing left to believe in," the turtle objected with regret.
"We may run out of water," Jake replied. "But I know how we can get back the water."
The turtle looked at him skeptically, but also with a tired look. "How are you going to do that, Mr. Jake?"
"We've already come up with a plan for that." He caught Coral's warning look. "Well, at least the half of it. But we could do it. Listen? You can relive the heyday of your town."
John seemed to be thinking about it. For a while there was only the lonely silence of the desert around them. But then he lifted his head.
"And what kind of plan would that be... AHHHH!"
Suddenly, John's wheelchair rolled out of control down the steep hill. Startled, the three watched as the turtle tried to apply the brake, but it didn't grip properly. The loose gravel under the wheels made emergency braking impossible. The mayor drove unhindered towards the slope.
Jake stopped thinking and slid down to him. Even before the wheelchair and turtle fell over the slope, the rattlesnake caught one of the wheels with his poisonous tooth. But the speed of the rolling device had been too fast, and the rattlesnake barely found a hold on the ground, so that Jake came to a halt about half a meter over the slope. John lost his hat in the falling fall, which sailed down into the depths.
The two reptiles hung dizzying above the gorge. John struggled not to be pulled by gravity from his wheelchair, which was still held by Jake. The rattlesnake bent his neck, but he threatened to slip. In the next moment, another long body wrapped around him, dragging him upstairs with the turtle and wheelchair. Shortly afterwards, Jake looked into Coral's face and together they pulled and pushed the turtle up the hill. There they were awaited by Angelique with great excitement.
"Good gracious!" She shouted, agitated. "Mayor John! What were you thinking?!"
Coral and Jake rolled over beside her.
"Nothing happened," Jake reassured her.
The vixen nervously grasped her hair. "My goodness. What an excitement..." and mumbled several French words that no one could understand.
Mayor John had now recovered from the horror and looked up at Jake expectantly.
"You talked about a plan. May I find out what it is made of?"
"That's exactly why you have to tell me what happened in town," Jake requested.
John rubbed his hands in defeat. "What are you going to do? Even if we all together chase these gangsters out of town, they won't take it. Even you couldn't even expel them. What should we do then?"
Jake narrowed his eyes. "We have already made provisions so that we don't have to do it alone. Nevertheless, I need information about..."
Suddenly everyone was shocked. A shadow had flown over their heads. Jake and Coral immediately huddled together until a voice came out of the air.
"Hey, Sheriff, Sheriff!" In the next moment, something sailed to the ground, and Ezekiel jumped from a bat in front of her belly scales. "Hey, Sheriff, we've got him!" Surprised, he looked thoughtfully at the tightly embraced couple. "Everything okay?"
The rattlesnakes looked at each other, then they quickly released themselves from their coils.
The prairie dog giggled. "Did I scare you?"
Jake snorted. "We have an instinctive urge to be careful. It would be nice if you warn us in the future if you are approaching from above."
Ezekiel scratched his head in embarrassment. "Sorry. I just wanted to let you know that we have him."
The rattlesnake raised his eyebrows. "Were there any problems?"
The prairie dog waved it off. "Oh, Pappy manages everything."
"What is he talking about?" John asked, wondering that the sheriff had apparently made an agreement with the merchant's son.
"That would be the half of the plan," Jake explained. "But before we can get into that, tell me exactly what's going on in the town."
Sighing, John raised his arms. "Well, I didn't see too much. But I know the Jenkins family kidnapped Joel's daughters. I'm pretty sure they want to blackmail the stubborn old man with it."
Jake narrowed his eyes. "I already thought something similar... Ezekiel?"
The prairie dog raised his head in interest. "Yes?"
"Do me a favor and fly to the Danby Clan. Tell them what's going on in town. I will eat straw if they would not react."
Ezekiel's mouth twisted. "I'm very reluctant to do it, but... I will do it."
"The Danby Clan?" John was extremely surprised. "Do you want to compete against them now, too? I really wonder how you are going to cope with the clans. In addition, one of them in duplicate."
Jake looked at him understandingly. "Don't worry. If all goes well, then we will have our peace from them in the future. I promise it."