Overlook!
All John could do was look down!
——Climb up the hill and overlook the entire Strawberry Town!
Maybe at this point, towns the size of Western Elizabeth are filled with bounty hunters and police waiting to capture John. As for John himself, he had angered the Lemoyne Raiders, lost Miller, and delayed Mrs. McIver to the point of being displaced. This cowboy with the fire of revenge burning in his heart is getting further and further away from his goal...
Early morning, big valley:
June 5, 1900: The hot summer is coming, and I am still wandering in the wilderness, recalling the spring and autumn journey from West Texas to here. In the hot summer, you can sit under the eaves, and in the cold winter, you can boil water to take a bath. We have We have enough money to pay a woman to give us a bath. But everything changed in Armadillo Town. Miller was separated from me under Lemoyne's expulsion. Damn it! He was carrying all the cash! And what about me? I had no choice but to ask for food from others. Mrs. McIver's canned food was almost gone. I urgently needed to find alternative food. Fortunately, I found some berries, but this could only last a few days. If I starve to death in this wilderness, coyotes will cut my body into pieces for food, and leaving the whole body behind will be a wishful thinking.
It will be difficult for people to survive far away from civilized society, no one is exception. The only thing you can do is to learn how wild beasts survive, lock prey in the dense forest, and miss no opportunity, because once you become soft-hearted, you can only wait hungry. die. However, when there are a group of "civilized people" with guns trying to capture you all day long, it is better to hide in the wild.
John stopped writing. His diary has not been read by him for a long time, let alone continuing to write in the diary. In the past, John still retained the habit of sketching, but this all became more stable as he and Ashley settled down. I just gave up on living my life. Now a lone wolf, John felt the urge to write again.
Thinking of this, John pulled Black Pearl closer and prepared to add an illustration of a horse to today's diary, because horses can better symbolize the unstable life of a western cowboy. That's what John is like now, isn't it?
The sun rose slowly, casting its rays on the leaves of the great oak trees, leaving many swaying luminous islands on the ground. People’s voices came one after another from Strawberry Town—the voices of all kinds of worldly things.
But the difference was that at the foot of the big valley, on the high ground behind the Strawberry Town Hotel, a rough and thick singing voice came.
"We are western pioneers. We came from the distant East China Sea. The bartender laughed at us and the maid looked down upon us, so we were exiled to this uninhabited land. One year, all the redwoods in the tall forest fell down, and Beecher's Wishes was built In the second year, the stone quarry in Plow Village was rich, and the down-and-out Ensa gave up his stone city, just to have something to talk about at the gambling table; in the third year, we marched into Saint-Denis and drove away the Sheriff there. , and became capitalists. Oh...oh, we are the pioneers of the West. We soiled our coats, kicked off our leather shoes, and spat on the ground. Our story is the most exciting!"
Western pioneer? Maybe he was an outcast from the Franco-Prussian society like John. Hunger activated John's curiosity. Maybe it was time to meet new people! There was obviously no malice in the singing.
Even so, John carefully walked down the ravine. He held the rifle tightly in his hand and was highly alert. He moved forward almost slowly. After a while, a row of half-man-high walls made of rocks appeared in front of him. On top of the wall, more than a dozen heads protruded, one of which was almost covered by hair and looked at John cautiously.
"Hey, young man, tell me you're not a bounty hunter!" The head with historical rings spoke, and his voice had the same depth as the previous song. It should be the same person.
When John heard this, a big stone fell in his heart, and he answered the uncle's question generously.
"If I were, ten of your heads would be on the floor."
The uncle enthusiastically invited John to come to the bonfire they had built. On the fire was a sheep from an unknown family on a wooden fork. Not surprisingly, it was stolen by this group of people, but John couldn't care so much. He was starving. After getting the uncle's permission, he stuffed the mutton into his mouth hungrily.
After a while, the mutton was completely destroyed, and the white mutton bones crackled under the flames, exuding golden bone oil. Listening to John's satisfied praise, the uncle showed a knowing smile.
John learned from the pleasant conversation that his uncle's name was Joshua Finger, a deportee from the South Carolina State Prison, who was sent to the backward areas of Louisiana to engage in large-scale development, and he was accompanied by more than ten people. But John thought Joshua's accent was not southern, but sounded like improved southern dialect, even a bit like a northern politician. John suspected that Uncle Joshua had reservations about him, so he came to a man in the entourage who looked honest and honest. The man couldn't resist the temptation of the silver leather buckle in John's hand and revealed the whole truth. .
It turns out that Joshua was a prisoner on the British island of Alcatraz and was exiled to the barren land of Mexico to undergo eagle torture (a method of executing "witches" in Europe at the end of the 19th century, in which the prisoner was tortured until he was depressed and then released into the Mexican desert. Eagles, vultures and falcons share the meal). When his escort ship was passing through Guama Island, it was involved in a local indigenous dispute and was sunk by a Cuban warship. He grabbed a barge with more than a dozen surviving prisoners, passed through the Caribbean Sea to the Gulf of Mexico, and went all the way north to the relative safety of Louis. Anna.
This image was somewhat inconsistent with the kind and kind uncle in John's heart. John returned to his uncle and chatted with him.
"John." The uncle said with admiration: "Do you know how negative we are in South Carolina? The poor lack food and clothing, and the farmers cannot pay food on time because of taxes. And those government officials, who work every day for those empty railways Bonds and oil bonds are running around." The uncle pointed at himself aggrievedly, "They committed murder and then framed me. That's how I got involved by them. Oh, by the way, the economy has finally improved, damn, it's attracted He bought a lot of wealthy businessmen, and as a result, most of the money of those wealthy people was invested in the gambling table. Hahaha, do you know how the economy gets better now? I have to say, those bosses are really clever."
The uncle paused his speech and looked up at John, who saw a look of embarrassment on his face. John was wondering how this foreigner who deliberately concealed his identity could make up such nonsense.
"Oh, I know, my hometown is really terrible, and no one wants to hear it. Let's talk about the war... The war... It's been decades, right? I still can't forget it, However, I dare say that your fathers must have participated in the war. After all, they all fought on the west coast. Who is not affected? Neither the north nor the south is a good thing, and there is no winner or loser in this war."
"The North won and liberated the slaves in the South." John shook his head.
"Oh, well, the North is indeed just, and I have always supported the North. Those slaves should be liberated, and I can't wait for a long time. There are also some foreigners coming by ship, whether they are criminals or businessmen, We all in this free country deserve to be honest with each other."
John felt that the uncle was on the right track now.
"Yes, I want to know what the British Empire is like. Is the state governance as bad as South Carolina? Especially Alcatraz Island." John didn't know why he said this. He thought it would anger his uncle, but he The truth must be told.
Perhaps because of John's intentional entanglement, the uncle's green face suddenly turned red, and there was a murderous intention between his brows. He stood up and pushed John, who was sitting on the wooden pier, to the ground. His followers immediately They gathered around.
"Children, if this lost lamb even thinks about running away, you will skin him." The uncle pointed at John with the whiskey bottle and said.
"Yeah!" Those British country bumpkins gathered around. Even though John was half a head taller than them, they still wanted to do something rough to him. Even the honest man was playing with his silver buckle not far away and laughing happily...
