No Innocent Men and Wednesdays: Chapter 4 – What We Sacrifice For

Chapter 4 – What We Sacrifice For

Today, I help transport goods to a neighboring state, however, the road ahead is blocked by cars and men with their guns around drawn on us before firing. They’re on all sides of us and drive us off the road with trucks that come out of the trees. By the time we get out of the car, they have their guns in our faces and are beginning to pillage our truck. The man in a brown cowboy hat, tan cloak, and dark brown pants and boots has a look of contempt on his face as if I’ve wronged him in some way. In the second I have to disarm him before he fires, I take his shotgun out of his hand and-

“Jesse! There aren’t any people in these trucks!” one of the pillagers says.

The man in front of me who is presumably Jesse looks at me and I look at him before we fight over his gun. He manages to get his shotgun back while I draw my revolver. Anticipating each other’s move we fire and move to dodge the other’s shot. We end up shooting each other’s gun out of the other’s hand, drawing our rifles, dodging, and doing the exact same thing again. I tackle Jesse to the ground, but he manages to fight me back and we begin to fistfight.

“Where did the slaves go?! Do you have another convoy out there?” Jesse asks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We don’t have any slaves,” I say.

“We know you have them. Confess it and your crimes such as the murder of the Prowling Lions.”

There’s no talking to this guy. The two of us keep fighting until suddenly both of our forces are attacked by a new group of attackers.

“How about we sort this out later and turn our attention to more pressing matters?” I say.

Jesse agrees and we pick up our weapons and work together with our forces to drive back our attackers. By the end of it, we find that we have several men dead and more injured.

“Traitors,” Jesse mutters to himself while examining the bodies of our attackers.

“You know them?” I ask.

“Yeah. They’re bounty hunters, old friends, that told me that you were transporting slaves.”

“Why would you be friends with bounty hunters? All they do is play both sides for money.”

“Because not all of them are like that or at least a few of them aren’t. I used to be one too before I changed and became a protector of a farming town. It’s why I thought I could trust them.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jesse sighs and then says, “You don’t have to be. It’s my fault. Let’s take care of the dead and wounded.”

After hours of cleanup, Jesse and his friends drive me and the remaining watchers with me to his home where the wounded are being cared for. Here, his people prepare food and drinks for us and begin their negotiations with my hometown leaders to make amends for their mistakes. While this is happening, Jesse and I repair our guns and eat with each other.

“I was surprised when you said you were a bounty hunter,” I say, “I thought you were an ex-enforcer because of your eyepatch, at first.”

“I didn’t know ex-enforcers wore them,” Jesse admits.

“We do,” I say as I show my cybernetic eye under my eyepatch.

“I have one of those too,” Jesse says while showing me his under his eyepatch.

“How did you get one?”

“It was a reward from my boss. He tried to give me more things since I was such a great bounty hunter such as cybernetic limbs and enhancements to my body, but I refused them. It felt wrong to do more things to my body. Even all the women, booze, guns, and fancy estates felt wrong to have. It was only after so many empty days, hearing of other states rebelling from Old America, and a new girl I was given did I change my mind.”

“The struggles of our day and age and a good woman can change a man for the better.”

“I assume a woman close to your heart did much the same for you?”

“You could say that.”

“Heh. They’re God sent miracles.”

“Yeah.”

“How’s your town and girl doing?”

“Fine. After the Prowling Lions helped us clear out our mutual enemies, the state as a whole has been doing better. Speaking about them-”

“Don’t worry about explaining. I’m assuming what I was told about them was a lie and you had your reasons for killing them.”

“Still, you should know that the Lions were hypocrites doing evil in the service of good in secret. I only discovered this after my watchers dug up this information and I and some of the guards from the other towns went on a mission with them. They thought they were justified and the good guys.”

“Good guys don’t exist out here. Just repentant sinners and obstinate scum.”

“Exactly my thoughts. There aren’t many places with God fearing people like my town, our allies, and yours.”

“It’s a shame really. Even after killing hundreds, probably thousands of scum, saving the lives of the repentant, and doing our best to make a better life out here, there’s still no end to the struggles and people who want to take advantage of others.”

“That’s just how life is. We may not be alive by the time any real change happens, but we shouldn’t give up.”

“I’m not saying that we should. It’s just that it gets so tiresome.”

“I know.”

Now I’m feeling bad for Jesse since I know how he feels. Thinking of something to do to cheer him up, I ponder it for a bit until the meeting is over. By then, I finally get the right idea.

“Let’s go out for a walk,” I say to Jesse.

Jesse agrees and we take a walk through his town. While out, many people say hi and good afternoon to us. Some thank Jesse for what he does and he responds usually by saying he’s just doing his job.

When we get back to where we were, Jesse asks me, “What was the point of that? I assumed it was to clear my mind?”

“That was part of it. The woman close to me suggested that I do it every now and then to see the fruit of my work and even if I’m not complimented or acknowledged by the people I help, I should feel content to see what I’ve built and who I’ve been fighting for.”

“I see. Thanks for this. It did help a bit. I feel like something is missing from it though.”

Liah and another woman step out of the meeting hall to confront us. I assume the other woman is Jesse’s girl since she has the same look on her face as Liah. They ask about where we went and what we were doing. We tell them and they seem a little surprised.

“It’s about time you took my advice,” Liah says.

“Yeah, I’ve been saying the same thing to Jesse, but next time, you have to go out on a walk with me,” Jesse’s girl says.

The two of them tell us about the deal they made, how Jesse’s town will repay our town for the damages they’ve done, and the dinner they’re giving us today as an appetizer for things to come and as a way to get on friendly terms with us. They are also replacing the damaged goods with their own as well. The strangest thing about eating here is not that I’m eating with people who’ve killed my men, but that it feels right in a way. These are decent people eating and enjoying each other’s company as if nothing is wrong with the world.

“This is what we were missing,” Jesse whispers to me.

After considering it, I agree. This is how life should be. This is what I protect, and even though I’d love to spend the rest of my days like this and let go of my days of constant killing, I know I can’t. Not until my work is done whenever that may be either in dying in battle or in old age. If I could choose, I’d pick old age, especially since I know dying in battle would upset Liah and I still have so much to do for her and ask her something important that I haven’t the courage to do yet. Whatever the future holds, I pray that I have the strength to endure it and conduct myself in a way that God approves. For now, I enjoy this little taste of Heaven.

We sleep in Jesse’s town for the night and get a rude awakening in the morning. The guards at the gates report that there’s trouble coming in and they heard from the black net that they’re friends of the bounty hunters, enforcers, and other people we’ve got mad at us. It’s times like these that I thank God for gate guards that wake us up when we really need them. It also reminds me of the people I must get to rescue since they didn’t have any walls around their settlements. I shouldn’t worry about it now and keep it in my backlog of jobs to do since I have to protect this town. Jesse and I get our weapons and ammo before heading out.

“There’s no rest for men like us is there?” Jesse says.

“We’ll get a good rest when we’re dead,” I say.

“Or when the scum of the earth is dead. I think you know which outcome is better. You hold the wall in the north and I’ll go south.”

Doing as Jesse says, I join my watchers and guards who are already set up with their guns and mounted machine guns. We also have people radioing our allies for help and anyone who will listen. From what I hear, we’ll need all the help we can get. If not, it’ll be a miracle if we survive. Five trucks two of which have mounted machine guns on them arrive at the gate and are only stopped from crashing through our gates by us firing on them. Another two trucks come to back up the others one of which has a man with a launcher that blows open the gate. I, along with the others, retreat while taking out as many of our enemies as we can.

The fallback position we go to is a makeshift barricade made of cars and metal barriers taken from previous engagements with bullet marks and black coloring from explosives. This position doesn’t last as long as the previous forcing us to continue retreating. We keep killing as many as we can and falling back until our back against the wall with our other allies. Seeing Jesse again is a relief, but also worrying since he wasn’t able to hold back the enemy on his side. This last position of ours is near a clocktower that has mounted machine guns and snipers giving us cover from it. Still, this doesn’t look good. I haven’t seen any more reinforcements in, however, they still outnumber us and we’re quickly losing men.

“I’m not sure how much longer we can last,” I admit, “Have you heard anything about our reinforcements?”

“I’ve heard that they jammed our communications,” Jesse says.

“Great.”

“We’re going to need a miracle to survive this.”

To our surprise, Jesse’s girl, Liah, and some of the other civilians come guns blazing out of the buildings to give us support.

“That’s not exactly what I wanted,” Jesse says.

“Neither did I, but it is giving me the kick in the butt I need to keep going,” I say.

With the help of the civilians, Liah, and Jesse’s girl, we manage to fight back our attackers and send them running off. We’re about to celebrate until we see more of them coming in, however, these reinforcements and those who are retreating are killed by the people coming in with their own trucks and cars. Our allies and new faces have finally come to aid us and came just in time. While everyone is helping the wounded and cleaning up the mess of the battle, Jesse and I sit down to rest.

“Well, that was something else,” Jesse says.

“This is the first time your home was attacked?” I ask.

“No. This is the first time I’ve seen strangers come to our aid. Usually, we have to offer something in return for help, but this is the first time people have come to help without offering anything. We’ll end up giving them something as thanks for their help anyways, but still. It’s good to see that there are some decent people out there.”

“Yeah. It’s a surprise to me too. There are more decent people out there than I thought.”

“What’s today?”

“Wednesday, I think. Why?”

“I was hoping it was closer to Friday so I could take a break. After we clean up, we’ll have to go after the people who sent these guys after us.”

“Yup. More days of tireless work are ahead of us. What? Are you saying you’re done? That you don’t want to do this anymore?”

“No, not at all. Are you saying that?”

“Nope. In fact, I’m already ready to go.”

“Same.”

Both Jesse’s girl and Liah overhear us and tell us that we have to help them and rest before heading out.

“Yes, ma’am,” we say.

Our enemies have tried to break us down today and failed. Even though there’s much work that needs to be done before our states will be what we want, we are not tired and out of the fight yet. We have today to make up for the mistakes of yesterday, pick ourselves up, lick our wounds, and do what’s right. Let’s get to it.

The End