His progress bar was now at 83%. The last battle had yielded another 15 grey pearls and 12 white ones, though none of them, unfortunately, contained a new skill.
After getting himself sorted, Henry went to Linda's house.
The border collie, Paul, was already waiting for him at the garden gate, his tail wagging furiously. Henry knelt and played with the dog for a moment.
Hearing the noise, Linda came out of the house, her face lighting up when she saw him.
"Have you had breakfast?"
"Not yet."
"Then wait just a moment. I'll make you something," she said, and hurried back inside.
A dozen minutes later, Henry was sitting down to a meal of milk, fried eggs, toast, and a one-pound grilled steak. Linda sat across from him, watching with a contented smile as he devoured the food. He was starving; he'd been up since four, after all.
"That was delicious," he said, offering a sincere compliment.
"I'm glad you liked it. Would you like some more?" she asked with a smile.
"I'm full. How is the packing coming along?"
"It's done. We're ready to leave whenever you are."
"Then we'll set out tomorrow morning. I'll make the arrangements today."
"Alright. But there's no rush, Henry. Take care of your own business first."
"The plan is set for now. I should get going," he said, standing to leave. Becky and Andre were still asleep.
At Dwyer Manor, after a long and terrifying silence, five of the male servants finally crept out of their rooms. The entire estate was eerily quiet. They found the main house door open, their master gone. Then they saw the warehouse, its doors also wide open. When they stepped inside, their eyes were blinded by the sheer amount of valuable goods.
The five men were all stable hands, responsible for the manor's seventy-odd horses. They could hear the animals whinnying from the stables; they were hungry.
One of the men, an Irishman named Tad, was the head stable hand who had come here with Sean. "Close the warehouse doors," he said. "I'll go find Mr. Elliot. He'll tell us what to do."
The other four men exchanged a look. The guards were obviously all dead—the sounds of the battle in the early morning had been unmistakable. Their master, Sean, was likely dead as well. That meant all this wealth was now without an owner.
One of the men suddenly looked past Tad, his face a mask of respect. "Good morning, Mr. Elliot."
Tad immediately turned around. A cold sting blossomed in his back as four daggers plunged into him. He let out a choked scream and collapsed, two of the blades having pierced his heart, the other two his kidneys.
The four men looked at each other, pulled their daggers free, and took a step back, watching one another warily.
"Hey," the man with the rotten teeth said to a man with a thick beard. "You're from the Ketchum Gang, aren't you? I saw you once in Dodge City. I'm Rattlesnake Sam's cousin."
The bearded man's expression softened.
"I rode with 'Bull' Jack Pierce," another man chimed in. The last man just grunted a single name: "'Dirty Dave' Rudabaugh."
It turned out they all had connections.
"Since we're all brothers of the same cloth," the rotten-toothed man said, "we should stick together. That butler, Elliot, he'll try to stop us. And there are the other eight Irishmen."
The bearded man's voice was a low growl. "There are enough supplies here to make the four of us rich. I say we work together. We take out Elliot first, then we go after the eight Irishmen and their women in their rooms, one by one. The other twenty-three women won't dare to stand against us."
"Done."
"I agree."
"Agreed."
They found the armory had been completely emptied, so they armed themselves with shovels and pickaxes from the main warehouse and went to find the butler.
At the McKinley smelting plant, after a tense discussion with the facility's manager, Commander Tom dispatched a messenger named Jimmy to ride to Dwyer Manor and report the attack from the night before. Tom hadn't slept a wink, and he was exhausted.
It took Jimmy about an hour to reach the manor. He found the main gate in ruins and the road littered with bullet holes. A faint sound of crying drifted from inside the estate. He rode through the gate and saw several bodies lying on the ground.
CRACK!
A bullet whistled past his ear. He looked and saw a man with a thick beard firing at him from behind a tree thirty meters away. Jimmy immediately grabbed the Winchester from his saddle and returned fire.
The two men traded shots. A man who rides alone in the West is usually a skilled gun. Jimmy's aim was true, even from horseback. After his fourth shot, he managed to hit the bearded man in the shoulder, near his neck. But at the same moment, a bullet tore through his own gut. The searing pain sent him tumbling from his horse.
The bearded man was the last of the four mutineers. The Irishmen had been more trouble than they'd expected. The butler, Elliot, had managed to get a shot off and kill one of them before they'd beaten him to death. The two Irish gardeners had come running from their rooms with revolvers, killing two more of the mutineers before the bearded man had taken them both down. He had then hunted down and killed the remaining unarmed men.
He had just started loading a wagon with supplies when the messenger had arrived.
At least I'm the last one standing, the bearded man thought with a grim satisfaction. A searing pain shot through his shoulder, and his vision began to blur. Just then, a shadow fell over him from behind.
CRUNCH!
A heavy iron shovel slammed into the back of his head, and his world went black. A sturdy young woman named Amy stood over him, raising the shovel again and again, bringing it down with savage force until the man's head split open like a rotten tomato.
"That's enough, Amy," another woman called out. "He's dead."
"They're all dead," Amy wailed, dropping the shovel. "Connor… they're all dead!"
Her husband, Connor, had been one of the two Irish gardeners who had come running with a gun.