A Bloody Bloody Mess In The Wild Wild West
Justin Bienvenue
A Bloody Bloody Mess In The Wild Wild West
Copyright © 2012 by Justin Bienvenue
All rights reserved.
Book cover design by Gemma Newey No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or by any storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher or except where permitted by law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 1484092104
ISBN-13: 978-1484092101
Http:/jbienvenue.webs.com/
“There’s right and there’s wrong. You get to do one or the other. You do the one and you’re living. You do the other, and you may be walking around but you’re dead as a beaver hat.” - John Wayne
A Bloody Bloody Mess In The Wild Wild West
Chapter 1 Toomswood
Deadtown, Tumbleweed City a.k.a.
Toomswood, Alabama or the laziest place on the Mississippi, whichever you prefer since it’s on the border of both, is a small humble town with all clichés of what makes it so but, with their own unique qualities as well. Founded in the late 1700's, it came to be when many people from another town in Alabama and further west decided to make their own living. It was built during a time of new discovery and invention but no big businesses ever came to be.
While the town was founded like so many others on great promise and expectations, these things were never fully realized or reached in Toomswood. This was due to the fact that no one felt motivated and because no offer or great change was ever brought to their attention. It was a landscape of a place where the mountains can be seen far off in the distance over the horizon and the look even more beautiful when the sun slowly comes up in the morning peaking over the mountain tops.
However, inside the town is anything but beautiful. For men there, more drunk than sober and many go to the saloon to pray to their bottles. They find solace with another bottle, and until they’ve decided not the bartenders that they’ve had enough, either that or they shoot a fellow patron in a duel. Indeed, nothing makes a person feel better than inebriated justice.
To say Toomswood is full of drunks seems a bit harsh because, after all, they’re also women and children and men who actually wish to make something of themselves. But, again these last bit of folk lack compared to their fellow men. Regardless of how they act in town, they all seem to act the same way when it comes to outsiders and criminals.
Toomswood makes for the best in the county for the bad they do. Killing, drunkenness, soliciting, the stuff you’re not generally supposed to be well known for. In this case, the town is every bit as notorious as their
surrounding cities are for being seen in a good setting. From an agricultural standpoint the town isn’t that bad. The dirt is desolate however, this does not affect the great
abundance of oil from underground to which the people will dig for.
The only big business the town does have, aside from a small underground slave trading group from the early days, is a small oil business ran by a slick corrupt tycoon. It’s because of that corruption that the town folk tend not to want to be associated with it and would rather be connected to their other endeavors. It’s also because of the oil business that the town does in fact still stand and run as it does.
No one makes investments or tries to speak up because they know that without the corrupt business they would all have nothing to live off of. The town did once have a prosperous opportunity to be the number one in the manufacturing and transportation business of steamboats but unfortunately this idea never came to be. Since steamboats were a big deal in Mississippi, the simple idea of Toomswood being the place to go for all things associated with it would have been huge.
Taking the effects of the war into
consideration, along with the dark side of Toomswood, and oddly enough it’s found that the dark is the better of the two. Just like so many other towns, Toomswood suffered greatly because of the war; so much so that the chaos which usually takes place there is now ten times worse. However, whatever they might be, surprisingly enough, the people there all cope and come together when they felt the need to. They find hope and meet each other in the middle of reconstruction by compromising and finding themselves coming to an agreement of certain things they cannot stand.
This is where all of them realized that the town wasn’t good before the war but there’s no reason it has to be even worse after it. Since the town is small, half the population was lost to death and famine. This is another reason why the townspeople are close and come together, having bonded due to all losing something from the war. Again, because of the sly oil business, it was the only salvation the town had to still remain on the map and not end up a casualty like a fallen civil war soldier.
These hard times made prominence even harder and all felt the struggle in one way or another. When outsiders come into town they are treated with disdain and suspicion with enough to make one feel as if they’re on trial. This is not because that’s just how people naturally were back then when it comes to outsiders but because the town was so fragile and distant from others that they were cautious about people outside of town.
Also due to the fact that they already had an ugly smug son of a bitch outsider who made his home there is a reason they were on their toes. This may be the case in many towns during this time but Toomswood takes a particular dislike for those who visit. While they have nothing to lose from these outsiders they still felt they do not have to share or explain themselves to them but clearly one man got through the cracks of this. Rifle fire is heard more times than the town bell in the church. Unfortunately, a lot of times it’s over petty feuds or nothing at all.
Needless to say, to catch someone in town off guard seems highly unlikely. Despite not having much, the people of Toomswood were somewhat proud of their town and took a slight bit of initiative in knowing that when you come here you gotta win over people’s trust just like everyone else. While the war changed the living expectations and landscape of many places, it changed and moved Toomswood differently. It was rocked and shaken with turmoil just like everyone else but the
difference is that the people here mixed it in along with everything else that was wrong in the town rather than change because of it.
It was mentioned before that people of Toomswood wanted to try and be better but given all the accounts to which have already been stated, is it really a shock that they embraced the turmoil rather than immediately seek positive change? A promising future was a nice concept but, just like every other town, they were still in recovery. So rather then let the new turmoil finish them off, they saw the good in it and mixed it in with the bad that they were already known for, exceeding other expectations.
One of the men who founded the town originally came from California where he worked as a miner. His idea was to bring mining to small towns where there actually were mountains and shafts, but when he saw that it wasn’t the same culture and opportunity, he settled on another idea. When he saw the large number of steamboats along The Mississippi this became his new idea. He had all the planning mapped out and since Toomswood is on the border of both
Mississippi and Alabama he figured it would be double business and beneficial to both states.
He was the cornerstone of what was to be Toomswood’s legacy but never got to see it through. During
the beginning of the 1800s, he was consumed heavily in his drinking and one day he challenged a fellow worker, one who hadn’t been drinking and never planned on accepting his duel. Rather than accept, he merely stepped foot into the saloon loaded his pistol and shot the founder of the town in the back of the head.
It’s said that the shot was so precise that the bullet went out his forehead and shattered a whisky bottle against the wall behind the counter. Others say the bartender was so shocked and overcome by the ordeal that he left the body and the area untouched for a week just so people could see what had happened, but that’s likely a farfetched tale. Soon after that, the town’s direction slowly drifted and withered away. Without a true leader and idealist the town’s big dreams soon crumbled. The ideas once thought for rebuilding the town drifted away and all expectations became vivid memories. The town grew but it was nothing like what was promised or what was to be of what the founder had in mind.
Toomswood’s very existence of being may not have died the day the founder did but its dreams of being a town for prospering opportunities certainly did. The town did not immediately go into total corruption and bad expectancies. This process was slow and more and more every day something died in the town. It is only a wonder of how the town might have been if the sounds and scenes were of steam rolling in but instead the idea and plans went up in smoke. Toomswood’s only big break came years later after the war when an unknown man from Mexico traveled into town with a once in a lifetime opportunity.
The man told the town that they were sitting on oil and he was looking for a place to run his business and that Toomswood fit the bill. Since it was already on the brink of isolation, the people listened hard to the man’s offer. He told them he was in the oil business and knew for a fact that there was a great abundance around there to make profit. This was news to the townspeople who had settled on this land for generations and never once heard of oil anywhere in the area.
He assured them he was legit. He explained that he had just come from helping his brother secure a profitable business in what’s now San Antonio, Texas. The people were not gullible, but they were eager. They wanted change and a new start and here it was before their very eyes. They had no reason to not believe of this man’s idea, not knowing his deceitfulness and real plans for the town. Yes he was an outsider but he also had an offer, something most outsiders did not bring with them to town. Despite their disdain for outsiders, this man charmed his way into their hearts until they accepted him. Little did they know this man’s heart was colder then a dead corpse and blacker then the ace of spades. However he only did his charming in the very beginning, just to let them know that he had big plans and that he knew for a fact there was oil here on this land and he would use this to his advantage.
Within a few months, the town of Toomswood was the 3rd best place for oil in the United States. Well, at least that’s what they thought. The man who held this vision of helping the town was a man by the name of Javier Jones, known as “Bones” Jones to his gang. Jones was notorious in Mexico. A wanted man for robbing and killing four men (although he’ll say six to exaggerate) in broad daylight. He also once blew a man’s eyes out of their sockets and shattered both kneecaps just because the man looked at him the wrong way. This was the man who was now the big boss of Toomswood.
His plan was discovered but it wasn’t for the townspeople to say a word because they knew that the business itself was in fact making the town prosper in some sort of way. But now the towns people had enough and could not allow this man to control them any further. They would all come up with a plan to take care of Jones once and for all and get the town back to how it was or how it can be without the corruption and decay.
However until then, this is Toomswood as it’s now known. A town of oil but also the town of corruption and crime. The west was in for a rude awakening however. One that would shake not only the core of Toomswood but would alter the direction of Mr. Javier Jones. It would change in a way that he at first would hate but then would come to love even more . . .
The town of Toomswood was a western town where the men wake up every morning and put on their boots, spurs and hat on before their shirts and pants, drank whiskey instead of coffee and cleaned the barrels of their guns better then they cleaned themselves. Yes, this is the town of Toomswood, Alabama or
Mississippi again whichever you prefer, known for oil but also known for a reputation that is as dark as the oil that spews from it.
Chapter 2 Road to Recovery
Salvation. Reconciliation. Rebuilding. Recovery. These were the four main words constantly on the minds of all those affected by the Civil War. Resurrection, was a word not even comprehended but would have a very big impact in the times to come. It need not be said of what went down during the war. We should all have learned that in eighth grade history but for those who don’t know or those who have forgotten, let a long story short help teach and refresh the minds and something you may not have known.
Every town and state was affected in every sense of the word. Toomswood was once of these towns. It was affected in every way possible, financially, politically, economically, but most of all, mortally. A back and forth battle broke a nation into two and had them brutally fighting against one another in one of, if not the most, bloody war in American history. It’s said battles were won, but if losing five thousand plus men every time was winning, then what was losing?
Regardless of how this may have been, it doesn’t make up for the horrendous display of carnage and despicable acts that took place. So many died that sometimes they were buried in unmarked graves, in deep muddy trenches or along hilltops and all across the bloody grass soaked grounds in which they fought. Some were thought to have died but did not die at all.
This is where the resurrection effect comes into play. Quite a thought to consider is what if those who died on the battlefield didn’t die at all? Sure, they stared death in the face and had an untimely end but what if some of them got another chance to see it out that their opponents met unfortunate deaths as well? The only difference now is that instead of fighting for the love of their country they would be fighting for their hunger and lust for blood.
What these men did not know is that many of them would die only to live again and fight once more in another gruesome, bloody all out war. They would be revived and get to avenge their deaths and get back what they once lost. However, they would not come back as themselves but rather as a more rigorous, no longer human like verison of their former selves and they would not be fighting for their civil war cause but something else entirely.
They would be called upon to fight in another war but again if they do have memories, perhaps to them they will still be fighting in the epic Civil War. One thing to note is that their names and who they were during the war serves no purpose and would not be relevant for the war five years after. Their one solid purpose would be to serve and destroy, they would also protect but mostly their agenda would be simple, to unleash an onslaught.
They would be summoned at random from the ground or wherever else their bodies and spirits may have ended up and used for the sole purpose of seeking revenge and every other reason to which has been explained. Since their names would no longer matter they would exist as a number, simply a creature to be unleashed upon the living. If only some of them knew that they would not find peace where they died as a soldier of war but would in fact walk the earth again as a soldier of death. They would not be fighting for the glorious confederate flag they once cherished so. There was no distinct purpose to honor and fight for that anymore it was all up in the air and only a guess as to what these soldiers now thought if they even thought at all.
While not every single man would end up like this, it does cast a darkness on the recovery of all that was trying to come into shape for the good. Like many towns wounded and in the process of rebuilding, the small town of Toomswood was deeply shaken to its core by the war. Located between Mississippi and Alabama, Toomswood relied o
n other bigger cities to give them shape and structure but that of course never happened. So, when the war came and went, the town was left with no way of getting support. It was left in total
devastation and mortally wounded.
Everyone was tending to their own needs. Their own families and their own cities needed to be rebuilt and they were too busy and overcome to help the small, already desolate town of Toomswood. They also tended to come off as lazy and really didn’t try and would rather commit into their debaucheries then try to grow to being a prosperous place. Toomswood is also very vulnerable and open to welcoming in what they do not know. As much as they disdained outside towns for not helping them, they were far too weak and too in need of help to pass up on any other outsider who came with a sense of purpose.
Toomswood was not like other towns around them for another reason. After the war many soldiers came back from the war and made camp and hung out at small towns. These small towns served as sort of a refuge for either those who were far away from home or just needed time to rest after serving. This is worth pointing out for the fact that it’s another reason why Toomswood is so far apart from everyone else. Toomswood was not one of these towns that reached out and helped these men to give them camp which perhaps furthered their isolation from other towns around them. After the war many of the towns welcomed the survivors and while the town of Toomswood held no offense against the men they were already having troubles of their own to which could have been another clear indication as to why outside towns failed to want to help them.
The aftermath of the Civil War still created bitterness and dismay between the North and South that much is clear. Despite what textbooks may say it’s what they don’t say that needs to be known, that the dead would rise again. Many men were merely shot while others faced horrific deaths such as cannon fire, explosions or even decapitation. For a dead solider, thinking would no longer be needed but the thoughts implanted and the commands given would corrode and create a deranged and savage mind.
A Bloody Bloody Mess In The Wild Wild West Page 1