Late night at Downs Ranch.
The deep night is always quiet. Birds and beasts, men and women, all fall asleep at this time. Even the moon rising in the sky hides its radiant body behind the clouds at night.
Mattie Rose, who won't turn ten in another month, is perhaps the only one who can't sleep now.
She was just an ordinary little girl in Valentine Town, and perhaps she once enjoyed a relatively wealthy life.
His father’s name was Frank Ross. He was a businessman during his lifetime, mainly engaged in the business of selling cashmere. He purchased high-quality cashmere in Valentine and Emerald Ranch, and then resold it to Annesburg further east, or to the West Elizabeth State in the west. Blackwater Town, or Saint-Denis in Lemoyne State in the south, or other places where there is a demand for fine cashmere, in order to make profits. In addition, livestock selling, fur transportation, as long as it is the business of western merchants, as long as If there is a suitable business opportunity, he will take it.
This business was quite profitable, at least enough for Mattie and her mother, who settled in Valentine, to live at least a middle-class life in a big city. However, Mattie only enjoyed this kind of life for eight years. , if we count from the time she started remembering, it would only be six years at most.
One day more than a year ago, due to work reasons, Frank Ross hired a cowboy named Tom Chaney in Van Horn, south of Annesburg, to help him train a group of mustangs he had just purchased, but he did not expect that This Tom Chaney was actually a habitual criminal who stole livestock. He took a fancy to Frank Ross, a wealthy and generous trader. He used smooth talk to get the horse training position, and then when they went from Van Horn to Wa On the road to Lundin, on a night as dark as tonight, Tom Chaney killed Frank Ross with a Litchfield repeating rifle, took away the property and horses he carried, and walked away go.
The body of Frank Ross was discovered by a vendor who passed by there early in the morning. Seeing that the body could still be identified, the kind-hearted vendor took the body back to Valentine. Only then did the orphan and widow know that The pillars of the home collapsed.
Mattie's mother is just a housewife who can't settle accounts, is illiterate, and is short-sighted. After her father died, various complicated situations followed one after another, leaving the mother overwhelmed. In the end, Frank Ross's original business partner purchased all the properties left by Frank Ross at a low price in a "legal" way. What's more, the money never comes singly in the next month. All the housewives invested in a so-called "sunrise industry" owned by a respectable gentleman named Tobin Winfield, who was once the mayor of a town. The small family went from middle class to abject poverty in one step.
Therefore, the only literate, numerate, and knowledgeable person in the family, that is, Mattie, took the lead. The family's accounts, arrangements for food, clothing, housing, transportation, and interactions with outsiders were all placed on her shoulders. .
In addition, she also has to shoulder some of the responsibility for making money. Her mother now mainly works on the ranch in the town. Female workers are weak and timid, and cannot do many jobs, so they don’t earn much. In order to maintain this almost broken family, Mattie works in Warren Although Ding's hotel, grocery store, clothing store, and even a mixed bag of tavern helpers didn't earn much, at least it was a small amount of income.
The hardships of life have trained this girl, making her perseverant, brave, and sharp-tongued. In addition, she is naturally much smarter than the people around her who have mediocre lives, making this girl who is not yet ten years old even smarter than some older people. She was much more mature at ten years old.
However, it is inevitable that a little girl of this age will have some girlish feelings. Take Mattie herself as an example. She has always liked the white floral dress in the tailor shop in the town. Of course, she cannot be like that. Like other girls, when she sees something she likes, she will just beg her parents to pay for it. However, she has already calculated it. She can save at least 10 cents every week. According to this progress, she can just do it. Giving this dress as a birthday gift to herself on her tenth birthday may be a very personal wish, but at least it will give her more motivation to live hard and make money.
After all, the pursuit of a better life is right for everyone.
However, her luck seemed to have never been better, or perhaps the god in charge of misfortune had never gone away at all.
Earlier today, she remembered that it must have been shortly after noon when a man in strange robes and a slovenly cowboy came to town. They clamored wildly and asked Sheriff Malloy for someone. She also knew a young gentleman who had just left the town not long ago. He was a bounty hunter, generous in spending, and very capable. Mattie respected him in her heart. Seeing those two people so arrogant, she was still young. She was a little angry, knowing that if she pushed forward, she would definitely suffer misfortune, but she still taunted and laughed at the two people loudly, so now she stayed in this ranch, tied up and locked in the barn, with a group of people. Dirty and smelly horses were kept in the same room together, making it difficult to sleep all night.
She knew that this ranch belonged to the town's pastor, Thomas Downs. He was a consumptive man and his family was not very wealthy, but he was kind-hearted and never gave up on supporting the homeless and suffering children. She had been sponsored by him before she officially started working, so she knew that Pastor Downes was a good man. Their family, Mrs. Edith Downes and Pastor Downes’ son Archie Downs, were all helpful and helpful. A good person with a kind heart.
However, this place has now become the domain of people wearing strange robes and sloppy cowboys. The original owner here, Mr. Thomas Downes, was hung on the gate of the cattle pen. The dirty blood showed that he had suffered inhuman abuse.
As soon as Mattie arrived, she was thrown into the barn by the sloppy cow who spoke with an Irish accent. There was another young man in the barn who was also tied up and still inside. It was Archie Downs. At this time, he was sleeping with his eyes closed, but his sleep was not restful. From time to time, the words "Dad" and "Mom" would pop out of his mouth, his face was painful, and his head was covered in cold sweat.
As for Mrs. Downs, Mattie did not see it with her own eyes, but only heard her voice, Mrs. Downs's pleading and crying, but every time she heard this voice, it would always be quickly replaced by evil men. Laughter and obscene language cover up the past in a most brutal and outrageous way.
Mattie only had a partial understanding of what happened to Mrs. Downs, but at least Mrs. Downs was still alive, which was actually a good thing, although she didn't know how long a woman could sustain herself in that situation.
In fact, from a personal selfish point of view, Mattie hopes that Mrs. Downs can be tenacious enough to last as long as possible, because she knows that according to the nature of these heinous gangsters, if Mrs. Downs is played by them A cold corpse, then she is the most suitable successor to Mrs. Downs.
As for whether someone will come to save them, Mattie doesn't know, and she won't put her hope on it. More than a year of hard life made her understand that it is better to seek help from others than to ask for yourself in everything. Even relatives may trick you, and other people cannot be completely trusted, let alone a person who sees rough roads like those in third-rate knight novels. A fictional character who comes to the rescue.
Therefore, although she did not accept her fate from the bottom of her heart, she had to admit that she might really have to deal with it here in her life.
Suddenly, Archie let out an extremely frightened cry and stood up straight. However, due to being restrained by the rope, his attempt to lift the carp ended in failure, and he could only roll on the ground twice like a dead fish.
"Damn scum," Archie cursed fiercely and finally adjusted his posture. He raised his head and noticed that Maddie was staring at him with her beautiful blue eyes. He couldn't help but feel a little shy and said, "Oh, hey, Mattie, aren't you asleep yet?"
"Can't sleep," said Mattie, "What are you dreaming about?"
"Oh, it was just a nightmare. It's nothing. I can't remember it at the moment." Archie said pretending not to care.
"It must have been a dream about the dead father and the humiliated mother." Mattie did not say this sentence. She had noticed very early on that this young man, who was probably powerless, seemed to have been pretending to be strong since she arrived. He seemed to want to use this emotion to appease what he considered to be a little sister. Mattie.
"I'm the one who should play this part," Mattie thought. "After all, I have far more experience in this area than he does."
"Go to bed early, Mattie," Archie said at this time, "save your strength and don't let those bad guys think we are weak."
Mattie suddenly asked, "Archie, haven't you thought about escaping?"
"Escape?" Archie asked in surprise at first, and then said with a wry smile, "This is my home, where can I escape?"
"Go to Valentine," Marty said, "go to Sheriff Malloy. He won't sit idly by. As long as we escape and tell him what's going on here, he will definitely bring everyone in the town with him." Police, destroy all the bad guys here."
"Don't be stupid, Mattie," Archie said bitterly, "Chief Malloy is the Sheriff of Valentine. He will only manage the cases that happen in Valentine Town and will not care about us. On the other side. And do you know how many people are here? There are more than 20 people! And everyone is armed and vicious. Even if the police chief comes, he will not get any benefits. "
"Then what should we do? Wait to die?" Mattie was a little angry at this time.
"No, we are not waiting to die, Mattie," Archie joked and laughed at himself, "We are trying to live and then wait for the miracle to happen."
"I think you've lost your mind." Mattie turned away angrily and stopped talking.
Archie did not argue with Mattie, because he knew that Mattie was a girl who had her own opinions and was stubborn. So, he turned around and leaned on a pile of stacked sacks filled with horse feed, while praying. Stop having those dreams while drifting off to sleep again.
The night is short for those who fall asleep, but very long for those who have insomnia.
After all, Mattie is just a child. She has experienced too many thrills today. She is already exhausted physically and mentally. Therefore, no matter how many thoughts are in her mind, she cannot resist the waves of sleepiness that are coming to her. After a while, he entered a state of half-dream and half-awake.
Half asleep and half awake, she seemed to hear some noise, like the clicking sound of someone stepping lightly on the dead branches that fell on the ground, and the subtle creaking of the fence when someone climbed over it, and the sound of someone landing, and then, It was a sound similar to the sound of a sharp knife being pierced into pork and a muffled sound belonging to a human being.
In addition to being more rational and smart, Mattie also has a talent that ordinary people don't have, which is excellent hearing. She can identify the number of a group of livestock from dozens of meters away simply by hearing. If she gets close to 20 meters away, she can even directly use her ears to hear the age and health of the livestock, thereby judging whether the fur it produces is of high quality. .
Those strange sounds disturbed Mattie, but she couldn't be sure whether they came from reality or from dreams. The surge of sleep overwhelmed her, and she gradually became unable to hear any sounds.
It wasn't until a gunshot suddenly rang out in the quiet night that Maddie woke up like a person who had fallen into the water and was pulled out of the water by a sudden force.
Mattie heard intensive gunshots coming from outside the barn. The sound both frightened and surprised her.
"Archie, Archie, wake up!" Mattie shouted to Archie.
Archie was so asleep that the gunshots outside didn't wake him up for a moment, but Mattie's shouts still managed to wake him up. He woke up with sleepy eyes, but the intensive gunshots instantly pulled him out of his sleep. He asked with some horror: "What's wrong? What happened?"
"I really didn't expect that you were right," Mattie said happily, "Someone came to save us!"
At this time, in the Downs pasture outside the barn.
After Brandi, Arthur, Charles, and Lenny assassinated six or seven people who were on guard duty, they were eventually discovered by others in the ranch, and a fight broke out between the two sides.
As the gang's melee combatant, Charles bravely rushed to the front. While using his bow and arrows to give powerful counterattacks to the enemies who shot at him, he slowly pushed the battle line forward.
He turned his head to avoid the enemy's insidious shot, and he opened his bow and nocked an arrow. The sharp arrow flew out from his hand and the bowstring, accurately piercing the head of the enemy who fired the shot. He glanced at the man who had just died. The man in white robes in his hands expressed his opinion loudly: "Cultists and the O'Drisco Gang, this combination sounds awkward."
"I feel the same way," Arthur said, holding a Lancaster repeating rifle behind a haystack and knocking down two enemies hiding behind the wall of a house with two accurate shots. "Our big shot is still here. Are you really going to find trouble for us?"
Brandi, known as the "Big Shot", knocked down an enemy who was trying to knock him down from the side with the butt of his gun, shot him in the face, and said angrily: "Okay, okay, it's all right." My fault, are you satisfied?"
"Brandy, don't forget the mission of this trip," Lenny fired three shots in a row to temporarily suppress the opponent he faced, then retreated to the bunker and reminded, "We are enough here, you go quickly Look everywhere to see if there is the little girl you are looking for."
Brandy nodded, ducked down to avoid the incoming bullets, climbed over the wooden fences that could be seen everywhere in the ranch, and began to look for the person she was looking for.
There are only two facilities that can be called buildings on the Downs family's ranch. One is their family's hut, and the other is the ranch's barn. Now, the largest number of enemies are gathered over the hut. It is currently difficult to find them there. Realistically, so, Brandi headed to the barn.
He shot through the head of the O'Drisco gang member who was guarding the door of the barn with a gray-black hood, and then kicked open the door of the barn.
In Brandy's expectation, there should be a few enemies hiding in this barn who were waiting for an opportunity to launch a sneak attack, but in fact, he only saw a group of dirty and smelly horses tied in the corral. As well as two hostages, one large and one small, who had almost untied the ropes around them.
"Don't be nervous, I'm here to save you." Brandy first spoke to comfort the two people who looked a little panicked after seeing him, then turned his attention to the little girl and said, "I guess you must be the police chief." Is that the little girl who was kidnapped? Have we seen it somewhere? "
"Yes, Mr. Munny," Mattie said happily, "My name is Mattie Rose. You must not remember this name, but you must remember the little girl who helped in the hotel."
"Ah, I remembered, it turned out to be you," Brandi suddenly realized. Then he noticed the broken oil lamp on the ground, the cut rope, and the glass shards in the little girl's hands, and said, "Broken the oil lamp, Cut the rope with shards of glass? I can’t tell, you’re pretty smart.”
"You also know that the boss will not allow a little helper under him to appear too smart." Mattie smiled cutely, but spoke like a little adult.
"Funny little girl," Brandi smiled slightly and then asked, "Can you shoot?"
"My father taught me how to use a gun," Mattie replied.
"Very well," Brandi said, pulling out his own Schofield revolver from his waist, "Take it, and if you see anyone who threatens your lives, don't hesitate to shoot him. My friends You are still fighting hard outside, so I will stay soon. Before I come back, remember to protect yourself."
"Sir, sir," Archie stopped Brandi at this time and asked eagerly, "Sir, have you found my mother? How is she now? Is she still alive? Did those people abuse her?"
"We haven't reached that cabin yet, Mr. Downs," Brandi replied, "but I believe your mother will be fine. Just wait for me here. It won't take too much time." .”
By the time Brandy came out of the barn, the battle had shifted from long-range shooting to close combat.
Arthur held his own hunting knife, and slashed his opponent's arm with two lightning-fast knives. Then, when the opponent retreated and retracted his hand, he grabbed the opponent's collar with his free left hand, and neatly grabbed the hunter with his right hand. The knife was sent into the opponent's throat.
He threw aside the bleeding corpse of his opponent like garbage, turned around and shot an enemy who tried to sneak attack him. He caught a glimpse of Brandy coming out of the barn and running towards this side, and asked loudly: " How is it going?"
"It has been found," Brandy replied. "The person is not injured, but he has been tied up for too long, and his hands and feet are not very agile at the moment."
"Great," Charles held an Indian hatchet and hit his opponent's head with the ax, causing blood and brains to splatter. Then he pulled out the hatchet with force and threw it backhand. The ax blade hit the opponent not far away who was holding a gun and was ready to shoot. In front of the enemy, he rushed over to take back his short ax and said, "We have avoided an unnecessary tragedy, haven't we?"
"You can say that, but I think if we can find the mistress of this family in this house, then we can avoid one more tragedy." Brandi pulled out the "Major" No. 3 revolver from her waist Pistols and Flacco's revolver, began to harvest the heads of the remaining enemies one by one.
"I can only say stop the loss in time," Lenny's hands were like lightning, he grabbed his opponent's neck, punched twice in the face, then pressed his opponent's head with both hands, and smashed him to the side. On the wooden fence, he said, "The one hanging on the cowshed over there must be the male owner of this family."
"Is Downs dead?" Brandy turned her head to look at the hanging body of Thomas Downs and thought, "This is really an unexpected surprise."
The battle ended quickly. The twenty rabble-rousers of the O'Drisik Gang and the "Seventh Generation" sect were no match for the four heroes of the Van der Linde Gang. Even Lenny, who was not good at fighting, was I don't know how much better than these rabble.
Arthur found the weak Mrs. Downes in the back room of the cabin. She had been mentally disturbed by the torture of the past few days. Brandi returned to the barn and brought Archie and Mattie out, and the Downs mother and son were finally reunited.
Ten minutes later.
Brandi put a wad of about one hundred U.S. dollars in bills into Mrs. Downs's hand and said, "This area is no longer peaceful. The accomplices of these guys may come here in the next few days. Don't delay and leave quickly." Here, you can go anywhere from now on, the money should be enough for you to settle down."
"Thank you, sir, thank you," Mrs. Downs burst into tears of gratitude. "If it weren't for you, I might really die in the hands of these scum, just like my poor husband. You saved us and gave us back Money, I don’t know how to repay your kindness.”
"It's enough to think in your mind," Brandi smiled, turned around, helped the little girl Mattie onto the horse, then climbed onto the horse, and said, "Remember, there is nothing wrong with being kind to others and helping others. , but we must also act according to our ability, and don’t be like Mr. Downs, who has to borrow money for charity even if his family can’t take the blame.”
Mrs. Downs and Archie looked at Brandy in surprise and asked, "How do you know..."
"Of course I have my own way of knowing," Brandi held up the brim of his hat, turned his horse's head with a smile, and greeted, "Let's go, brothers! We still have a lot of serious things to do behind us!"
After leaving Downs Ranch, the four horses ran non-stop towards Valentine Town. At this time, the east was gradually turning white.
"We stayed up all night to do this job with you," Arthur said with a big yawn, "Boy, how are you going to compensate us?"
Brandi smiled cheerfully and said: "When you come to Valentine, I'll treat you to a drink!"
"Little girl, where is your home? We will take you back later." Lenny wanted to ask the little girl some questions, but seeing that the little girl didn't respond, he turned his head and looked at it and said, "Hey, are you asleep? "
Brandi lowered his head and glanced at the little girl who was sleeping naturally on his chest, and couldn't help feeling a little affection for the child in his heart. He raised his head and said to Lenny: "This child has been struggling all day. Let her have a good sleep first."
The sky is getting brighter and a new day has begun.
