Reiner quickly made use of the distraction as the guard on the water tower turned around and caught Tungsten rounds through his chest and throat. A quick long-range double-tap that left him choking before being mercifully put out of his misery. Reiner proceeded to pick off Targets as did Javier.
With him and Javier providing overwatch, and Bill and the Rat attacking opposite Arthur and Dutch, the O'Driscolls all too quickly fell beneath their bullets.
It was honestly a little bit unfair between him and Javier doing overwatch and sniping, the O'Driscolls never stood a chance. The dynamite exploding in the air as it did caught everyone by surprise and it provided significant distraction and cover to quickly double-tap the O'Driscoll on the water in rapid succession, before anybody was the wiser, and Javier was not messing around ever. Before anybody realised that they were under attack, he'd dropped four of them in rapid succession.
Within five minutes the O'Driscolls and their reinforcements were dead. Such a shame Colm would outlive Dutch - however briefly.
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Tilly Jackson honestly never expected that she'd find love in the Gang. As a colored woman in a predominantly white gang she always imagined if she did end up with someone it would have been Javier or Charles. But in the last five months she had fallen in love with Reiner and he with her. And there was security being the woman of the Gang's top earner.
His first contribution to the Gang's camp fund had been a mouthwatering fifteen hundred dollars. And over the course of the following weeks his average contribution was approximately the same. Very quickly they learned that Reiner had once led the White Oak Syndicate.
The White Oak Syndicate had been around for six or seven years at this point, and while Reiner no longer rode with them, he was still its leader in the shadows. Once a month a portion of the Syndicates profits was sent to Reiner. After deductions for his personal supplies, and her needs and a bit of spending money for them both, Reiner deposited a regular average of at least twelve hundred dollars at the end of each month. She never expected to land quite such an earner as her partner.
But more than that she never honestly expected she'd be okay with sharing. Mary-Beth was her best friend, and before Reiner she and Mary-Beth often slept beside each other. Last night, not for the first time she'd engaged in carnal passion with Reiner in their private room. But in that same room on the same night, she'd had her first carnal experience with a woman. It was strange, but not unpleasant. She wasn't certain she'd be okay if it was anybody except Mary-Beth, and it would take getting used to, but she honestly enjoyed watching Reiner dominate someone else, before bedding her, and Mary-Beth really seemed to enjoy it. Tilly certainly had.
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After looting the bodies for about three minutes, Reiner and Arthur discovered the Dynamite.
''That look right to you Reiner?'' Arthur asks.
''Hard to say really, looks and smells right, but honestly? I wouldn't use this even if we didn't find it in an O'Driscoll camp. The cold and storage mean it's likely a dud now, assuming it wasn't already a dud before it arrived here. If we can get into the storage caverns beneath Colter we can get into my hidden armory. There's always dynamite there.'' He replied.
''Mmm, hardly a surprise, these bastards are as likely to blow themselves up as any train.'' Says Arthur.
''Don't need to tell me that, their moonshine stills are disasters waiting to happen, my boys and I frequently changed one thing in their stills because not changing it was an atrocity and the things blew up shortly after. They couldn't brew a decent batch to save their life.'' Says Reiner with a laugh, as they head out.
''Did we get everything?'' Dutch asked.
''Think so, boss. Found this on one of them.'' Micah said, handing Dutch the roll of paper.
''Thank you.'' Dutch said, taking possession of it.
''This is perfect.'' Micah replied eagerly.
''Oh yeah, interesting. This is something about the train they was gonna rob. A mister Leviticus Cornwall.'' Dutch said.
''Cornwall's no joke Dutch. He makes what Colm has done to you and everyone else look like the actions of a saint. He burned an entire town alive because they refused his offer to buy the land it was on, wiped out another town with the plague, and engages in the foreign slave trade, and he's also a shareholder in the Pinkertons, and he has connections to the Army.''
''Jesus fucking Christ.'' Lenny spat clearly disgusted.
''Well then, he's likely not going to miss one train now is he.'' With that arrogance, Dutch reinforced Reiner's intentions to remove him and Micah from the equation. With his take of just one month's profits in moonshine, he'd do a land grab that made John Dutton I look like pansy. ''Mount back up, let's keep moving.'' Dutch said.
Dutch had his chance, many chances, the time was past for doubts. Once they settled in Horseshoe Overlook the plan would be set in motion.
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A couple of weeks had passed since the Ewings Basin Massacre, where nearly fifty O'Driscoll's were killed. Reiner had regularly gone out hunting, looking for his supply caches with Charles and every time they were found empty. The hidden armory beneath Colter at least wasn't empty, as he had the sole key. The Dynamite was there and ready to use, he gave it to Bill and now with the Snows clearing, they were ready to move on the train. He'd be glad to get the hell out of the Grizzlies, after the robbery he'd be sent on ahead with Lenny to scout Hosea's camp site of Horseshoe Overlook, Reiner would take the opportunity to ride through Valentine and signal his men, before sending a message via the train station.
The time was almost upon them.
''...Now Bill, you ride ahead and set the charge at the tunnel entrance, bring it down before we get there as Reiner suggested.'' His attention was caught by Dutch and the others leaving the room, Reiner had said his goodbyes to Tilly and Mary-Beth.
''Ain't a problem.'' Bill responded.
''Why are we doing this? The weather's breaking, we could leave, I thought we was lying low…'' Reiner tuned the rest of the conversation out instead focusing on checking his ammo and weapons, as well as his emergency food stores on his horse. Bucephalus was a walking baggage train even if he was too good for such a role.
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The White Oak Syndicate was an extremely profitable source of income for Pierre Leroux. Mr Reiner was easily one of the richest criminals in the United States, heck one of the richest people in the US. He took a cut of the profits from just Moonshine, letting everyone else profit from the other stuff. As the man's banker, and broker, he was under constant guard.
Seven Pinkerton Security officers guarded him, it was a modest cost keeping them as guards, but Mr Reiner easily paid the cost. He was told to expect a letter soon around this time and be prepared to transfer large sums.
Captain Reiner would likely be stretching his bank account if not outright draining it. He didn't do half-measures, if he committed to something he went all in. He had the companies set up to disguise parts of whatever grand purchase his employer had planned. Still, he was admittedly uneasy. The Syndicate was still bringing in cash, but it seemed to be falling away from its original ideals. Mr Hernandez was in seclusion, and thus the Del Lobo muscle they relied upon was thinner than usual, Mrs Belle was in hiding right now following the loss of her own gang of enforcers spreading their ranks thinner still. Himself, Miss Fike, and Master Horley were all that was really keeping the Syndicate together at this point.
They needed their leader back sooner rather than later, the name of the Ghost Bison was one that carried respect and fear, many had tried impersonating Captain Reiner's moniker, every one of them had been publicly executed for it. The Ghost Bison needed to return.
One way or another things would eventually return to the status quo, or a new normal would have to be reached for everything to continue being profitable, safe, secure, and efficient.
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(Author's Note:)
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Well, here we are, Chapter 3. Not feeling well, and we're expecting a Cyclone tomorrow at the time of this writing, so I'll take the next two days off to mentally recover and decompress but in the next chapter we'll probably end up skipping the first part of the Train robbery to make room for the rest of the chapter because otherwise the fifth chapter will be relatively short. Anyways, Reiner's a corrupter more than anything, Tilly is his queen, but not the woman who will be his wife. Mary-Beth is the gateway to allowing Reiner bringing in two important pieces to his planned land grab, I'll say this much, his bank account if it also takes a cut of the businesses outside of moonshine can easily buy the entirety of Lemoyne, West Elizabeth, New Hanover, and Ambarino. But just the Moonshine trade he's built up and will soon burn and rebuild? That'll get him the land he needs to become even more wealthy than he already is and the influence and power to prevent the government from locking him away as their prize golden goose that keeps on laying eggs.
Not that any prison can hold Reiner, mind, he has a certain ability that he keeps locked away for a situation where fire, napalm, and brimstone is needed to deal with a situation. He breaks that out and scorched earth is an understatement.
Anyway, it's late as fuck at the time of this writing so see you guys next chapter!
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Very Special thanks to Mitchell Howard, David Martinez, ROGUE505 Saver, Mathew T Linderman, Luck George, Kyle Diano, Julien, Morgan Sinn, Tom A, Nicholas Berenguer, Arimar26, Robin Kristiansen, Dragon emperor87, Daniel Setchell, James Fleming, Zero 12995, Spencer Davidson, Rowdy_Rich, Beastmode2003, Birhaledin, Blood For The Blood God, Dymarkus Tillman, Lorra Thorsdottir, Parker Kessinger, Ryan, Jacob Hixson, Kazim Zaidi, Cameron Krueger, and Natalie McCowen for their support on P-atreon.
And also a very big thank you to Cody, Luci Alarra, TJ Cruz, Kunta, Availon90, Gavin Barclay, Dragonslayer29, Jacarya Robinson, Nathan Just, Francisco J Guzman, Axlii, Reece Hutton, Ken Harris, Zeldris Wrath, Duy, lonelynib _, Austin, D3EATH707, Cutler1812, Aleksander_402, Lewis Wilson, Profound Magician, Arzard, HxC 740 VxD, Attila Kovács, Ruby Uzumaki, Mudit Chadha, Maciek, Joao Goncalves, Dwhateverprof, Jibreel Kamal, Luis, Luis, Zeca, Bent, Jason, Solus 1994, Evil King, Manuel, Benoit Valtin, Craig Butler, Joseph Brann, Cristobal Ahumada, Nathaniel Lessord, GGbeejee, Trey-Way, FisherKing711, Calvin Ellis, adrian szydlowski, Robert Hernandez, James Lloyd, Ryan, Meet Parikh, Kyle Santora, Toros Silver, Vlone_Icy, reikon aijin, and weird song for their past support on Patreon.
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