Horrible Harvest

One thing they had plenty of in Kansas City in those days was trouble, and we got our fill, me, Tate, and Douglas. Our train had some sort of mechanical problem that put our trip to Sioux City on pause. That pause put us in the Missouri town longer than an outlaw like me had business being there. I’d ruffled more than my share of feathers over the years, and there was bound to be a fella or two anxious to ruffle mine back. The town was full of cowboys and roughnecks who’d seen their lion share of trouble on what was then the gaping wound of the frontier, and most of that trouble had a heavy dose of Bunning Brothers business attached to it.

As luck would have it, a half dozen such fellas fount me making my way through the streets of Kansas City proper. They was all displaced clansman come up from New Orleans. I didn’t recognize a one of ‘em because the last time I’d seen them, they was wearing some such idiotic animal pelts and various animal skulls atop their melon heads.

I didn’t pay them no mind as they skulked after me in the shadows. It was Tate that took notice of ‘em first. He’d seen the same faces at the eatery we’d took supper and the provisions shop where we resupplied for the rest of the train ride. Once he pointed them out, I give ‘em my attention and scolded myself for not noticing them before. They was the clumsiest bunch of stalkers I’d ever seen.

I didn’t put much worry in ‘em at first because – One, I didn’t recognize em, and two, they was so bad at not being seen, I thought them too incompetent to be a threat. Maybe I was too focused on finding Mr. Miller or maybe I’d just grown lazy, but I shoulda put more concern into them than I did.

“How are we going to address this development?” Tate asked.

“What development?” I said, puzzled.

“Our friends who’ve taken an interest in us. They are growing in numbers.”

I looked around and seen some of the faces of the fellas he was referring to mixed in with other folks going about their business. “Not much we can do.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I’m guessing they don’t like you, and that’s why they’re following us.”

“All the more reason for me to be uneasy.”

“Unless you got a way not to be black, we’re just gonna have to wait it out until the train’s ready to run.”

Douglas chimed in. “We can take refuge in a church.”

“Fuck that,” I said. “I’d rather take refuge in the ass-end of an outhouse.”

“You’ve gotta come round on this, brother. You love the Lord, and he will give you shelter from foe and woe.”

“Good Christ, just ‘cause you feel the spirit enough in you to spew out your bullshit in a rhyme don’t make it any less nonsensical. Church in Kansas City will give you shelter from bad actors on the street only so’s the preacher can rob you at gunpoint from the pulpit. We’re just gonna have to face it. We’re stuck in it until we get word the train’s been mended.”

“Well, I’ma pray if that’s alright with you,” Douglas said.

“Pray all you want. Just keep it to yourself and don’t drag my name into it.”

He grumbled out a reply that come close to sounding like the old Douglas, and I was relieved to know my old brother by half was still in him somewheres. He was much more useful in the mess we was riding into than a man hellbent on praying us into good fortune.

We turnt a corner with intent on finding as public a place as we could find to wait out the repairs to the train, but instead we come up on a face I recognized right off. Judge Christopher Landry was marching up the street straight at us with four of his clan fuckers flanking him on either side.

Kansas City delivered onto us the one thing it had in abundance. Trouble.