November 19th, 1878
And so we returned to Abilene and told our tale, and the people were just a little less afraid. Then we had to figure out our next move…
The next morning, Sheriff Dent leaves early with the Lindsborg refugees to escort them back to their homes. Chigger relays that William took his horse and left in the night, leaving behind his belongings that he had loaned to Holden as well as his wagon. According to the quixotic ranch hand, “he had ghosts following him”.
The party resupplies, pays Al for the damage to the stable, and heads for Abilene proper. They arrive at midday to find the town quiet, people bustling from one place to another, heads down, shadows long. Olivia heads directly to St. Mary’s, Holden diverts to commission a suit of clothes, and the rest of the party gathers in a local watering hole called The Saddleback.
Olivia finds out from Beth Farley, a widow who helps keep the church tidy, that Father Patrick O’Connor had left two days prior to Detroit, Ks in response to an urgent letter. Olivia search the rectory for the letter to no avail.
After Holden arrives at The Saddleback, he finds Onesimus attempting to question the bartender, but the party as a whole is a motley lot and are being met with a hostile silence from the bar’s patrons and tender. Holden and Jacob take over and get very little more from the tight-lipped bartender. A short while later, Thomas Heller, the town marshal arrives to “greet” the party (and find out what they’re up to). Onisimus brings up the name “Wu” and Heller becomes extremely agitated and offers to continue the conversation at the town jail across the road. Once there, Onisimus explains that he’s in town to cause Wu quite a bit of trouble. It becomes clear from Heller, who is not in any way interested in helping, that Johnny Wu is some manner of crime lord who essentially runs the region around Abilene and Salina. He also reveals when pressured by Jacob that when Wu is in town, he holds court at The Duchess, an upscale brothel operated by Madame Chen.
Meanwhile, Ahiga and Ed observe the bartender whisper in a patron’s ear and that patron leave in a hurry. Ed casually takes to a nearby alley to observe, and discovers the bar and jail being cased out by a man several doors down across the road. Ed burrows into the earth and springs up behind the man to surprise him, but finds only a mummified corpse leaning against the alley wall.
The next morning, we discovered that one of the white men had left during the night. He had just saddled his horse and ridden off.
The Rat Girl bought two horses, and gave one of them to me. Maybe she felt guilty that her sleeping in the barn had lost me my last horse. Or maybe not guilty; she did not seem like the kind of person who would feel guilt for that. But it seems she felt she owed me for the dead horse. She gave the other horse to the woman with us; that one was, or so Rat Girl wrote on hear board, payment for the mule that died in the barn. So I concluded the horse she gave to me was to replace my horse that died.
One of them mentioned the name of the man that the Chinaman was looking for. It seemed we still had the same goal, and so we ended up travelling together, sort of, to Abilene.
The towns belong to the white men. Their customs, their rules. I thought we might get into trouble if someone spotted the Chinaman, Rat Girl and me alone together; a white girl and two non-whites? I wasn’t there to look for trouble, so we went to them to one of their drinking places, where they immidiately started drawing attention to themselves by asking too many questions too loud.
The three of us, Rat Girl, the Chinaman and I, watched from near the fireplace. After a short while, a man came in, introduced himself as the town marshal, the local lawkeeper, and as they asked another couple of questions too loud, it was clear that the marshal was uncomfortable. The whole bunch of them left to talk in a more private place, while the three of us stayed behind.
After the others left, the man who owned, or worked, in the drinking place signaled one of the other men in the room, and they spoke quietly together, before the other man left, probably to inform someone about us. The Chinaman followed him, leaving just me and the Rat Girl behind.