Finally, a thaw in this god awful weather. We got off the mountain, and rode east into some pretty enough country called The Heartlands.
Ain't been this far east in many a year. Hosea seems to know the country a little.
Ain't been much of a spring. Now holed up at a place called Horseshoe Overlook, outside of some dumpy little cattle town, name of VALENTINE.
Dutch seems a little better. His eyes are sparkling once more and I can see he's thinking a little clearer.
I think we all feel a little happier, in spite of Blackwater and that whole mess.
Met some old drunk in Valentine. Claimed he was a shootist. Seemed more like a clown. Some poor fool was writing a book about him, or trying to. Levin was the name of the writer. Jim Calloway was the killer. Apparently Levin needs more information. Asked me to find a few folk who have spent more time in publicity than me and knew old Jim back when he was a real killer. Their names are Emmett Granger, Flaco Hernandez, Billy Midnight, and Black Belle. Sound like a troupe of clowns. We shall see what kinds of people those who want to be famous murderers is. My hopes are not too high.
Met Emmett Granger. I cannot think of a single man I have enjoyed seeing dead more than this bastard. Pig shit and hatred and he still threw a knife at me.
Found Flaco Hernandez for that silly book. Killed him. Bastard jumped out of the way but I still got him. Didn't seem like the type I was going to befriend, anyway.
Guess Billy Midnight never escaped his past. Guy was deranged about shooting some fella in the back or in their sleep or something else very sensible in my opinion. Anyway, guilt had consumed him, so like a real proper gentleman, he tried to kill me.
Black Belle - what a woman. If she was younger and I was in the market for a woman to go killing with, what a pair we could have made. She told me old Boy Calloway was a poseur and a liar. Big surprise.
Colm O'Driscoll slipped through our fingers once more and I saw my own life slip through mine. That gentle buffoon we kidnapped up in the mountains took us to a cabin. We were planning to kill Colm but he had just gone elsewhere. We shot a bunch of his boys and one was about to end my life when Kieran shot him. This FEUD, it's bled out from Dutch and Colm's mutual hatred into a loathing that permeates all of us and all of them.
Still, I found quite a shotgun in the cabin.
Took a day off and went off hunting with Hosea. He really seems to be getting his strength back a bunch, although he was lucky not to die as this big bear he'd been after turned on us.
I thought when we was stuck up in the mountains that the cold and the misery would kill him, and we'd bury him like we buried Jenny and Davey. But, he's pulled through and he'll live a while yet.
I love Dutch like a father, but in many ways, I love Hosea even more. He's kind and fair and like a human being.
Dutch is something else.
This bear was also something else. Size of a god damn hotel, it was and mean with it.
Got into some god awful fight in the town saloon.
Bill started it. He's wound so tight about something I reckon he'll start hitting himself soon enough. I was stopped from beating some big yokel to death by a local do-gooder.
I could not tell if this made me pleased or real angry. The local crowd seemed to want to see BLOOD however.
Afterwards Dutch accosted me with old Josiah Trelawny, back and quite as slippery and confusing as ever.
He'll come and go again, no doubt and leave none us any the wiser as to who or what he is.
Trelawny told us that Sean had not been killed in Blackwater, but was a prisoner there, held by scalp hunters awaiting payment. Charles Smith, Javier and I met in Blackwater and rescued that loud mouthed maniac. Before we'd even cut him free from the tree he was mouthing off at us.
Javier said Blackwater is an impossible situation and I guess I had better forget about all that money.
All them years wasted earning that stuff!
Guess I'll never quite know what happened, but the upshot is, we're on the run, and known to more folks in authority than we would like.
Met a nice fella taking photos of animals - Albert Mason, I think he was called.
Kind and interesting and entirely lost and unused to real country, even though he seemed to love it. Trying to take pictures of all our biggest predators, before they all got killed off themselves by the modern world. Should have got him to take a picture of Dutch.
He got robbed by a coyote, but I got him his bait back.
Went off drinking with young Lenny. Thanks to my own peculiar genius for trouble when drunk, the evening did not go quite according to plan, but somehow neither of us got killed or arrested for murder, (if you do get arrested) [I mean, we got arrested, of course, but not for murder, at least I don't think it was for murder because they let us out. Whole thing is a bit of a blur.] despite my best efforts in that regard. Somehow, I don't imagine that the saloon owner in Valentine likes me very much after the mayhem I have caused there.
Headed into Valentine with uncle and the girls. Girls went scouting out work while UNCLE and I had a few drinks and he explained more of his theories on existence and bare faced lies about his past.
Things took a strange turn - some fella seemed to recognize me, or us from Blackwater.
Guess we had been holed up there too long while Hosea and I scouted the job that never was. I chased the bastard and he nearly fell off a cliff - I spared him and he gave me an ink pen.
I hope I won't regret my leniency, but I reckon he got the scare of his life. Jimmy Brooks was his name.
Hosea and I went robbing, just like in the old days. A father and son pair of clowns at some farm house. Stole a wagon, sold it to some rat Hosea had met at some odd place called Emerald(?) Ranch. What goes on there, I cannot tell, but this little purchaser of stolen goods has us go rob his own family.
Even by my standards, that was low, but the father and son we robbed was proof that even God makes mistakes sometimes.
I snuck in at night and we robbed the loathsome bastards blind.
(If you choose to rob during the day)
Hosea performer brilliantly as some kind of huckster selling restorative care to crooks' backs. Whole thing was utterly ridiculous and brilliant.
Saw Mr. Mason again - this time he was taking pictures of wolves. Still doing his hardest to get himself eaten.
Herr Strauss is back lending money, and I'm back collecting it.
The work mostly revolts me and shames me. Somehow, robbing people honestly with a gun and fists is less repellant than robbing them fully in accordance with the law.
It'll be the usual sort of desperado - sick farmers, pregnant maids, lovesick young men, and other dupes desperate enough and stupid enough to take Strauss' terms.
A usurer's life may be a comfortable one, but it is foul work.
Met a strange guy — thought he was a prophet. Blind.
I went to call in a loan, some farmer, local do gooder. Think I'd seen him in Valentine before when I was fighting that big fella. He begged and coughed and spluttered and I beat him half to death. Such is life. Such is the world. His boy looked at me like I was the devil and perhaps for him, I was.
The whole thing confused me. Maybe that's wrong. The whole thing revolted me/my part. These sad, desperate bastards, their silly expectations of life and their tawdry reality. The unkindness of existence - I can handle that just fine. But I do not love it, nor those who try to make things otherwise, I guess.
Saw Mary again. I feel like the luckiest man alive and I feel like a fool. That woman confuses me and plays me for a fiddle like no one else alive. Her little brother Jamie had joined some religious order and needed saving, or so she and the god awful DADDY seemed to have thought. I took him home, after a pathetic little squabble. Education and an unpleasant father have been a terrible curse for him, I fear. As for Mary, I trust I will not make a god awful fool of myself once more but somehow I imagine I shall.
Helped Mr. Mason take another picture - this time of wild horses - and he gave me a beautiful print of one of the wolves that nearly ate him.
Met a lady scientist. Deborah something or other. Seemed to be more mad than sane, but I don't have much frame of reference for scientists. Wanted me to see if I could help her find dinosaur bones and send her the details. Maybe.
Met a man - Francis Sinclair - wants me to find some odd rock carvings and send him details. Not sure why. I probably won't bother. Francis had bright red hair and a birthmark and spoke in an odd way.
Took young Jack out fishing as a favor to Abigail. Many years ago, before she fell so hard for that fool MARSTON, perhaps I should have married her. I think part of me has always thought that, yet, God damn you, Mary!
Jack is a good boy. A dreamer. A boy with a momma who loves him. I wonder if he will find what we seek - peace and truth away from all this nonsense and lies. If that is what we still seek? Not that that's a new development. Not sure I know myself anymore.
Sometimes I'm not sure Dutch does.
As we fished, a couple of Pinkerton agents appeared - Milton was one of them. I forget the other fella's name, they knew all about me. That's a new turn of events. Apparently there's five thousand on my head alone. After Blackwater, or maybe before, it seems we may be in real trouble. I just don't know.
Dutch don't seem too worried but I am beginning to have some doubts as to this wisdom in his indifference.
Found a massive skeleton. Wonder how big the man was, or if he was a man at all.
This time, Albert Mason seemed obsessed by getting eaten by alligators. Again, he managed to survive much more by luck than by judgement.