Chapter 21

He reached inside the gate and hammered on a gong. It didn't take long before there was a troop of armed men heading over to the gate to see what was up.

"Hey, that's the boss," said a muscular fella wearing a brass gorget.

Must be an officer. I'll bet. Jack thought.

"Somebody killed the boss." He looked at Jack, "Did you do it?"

I won. He nodded at Sultry. "She did it."

"Her? That snip of a thing? I don't believe it."

I won ... twice. "Yeah ... she did it. With that stick she's carrying."

"Who cut off his head?"

"I did ... he wasn't needing it," Jack explained. Although ... it was obvious. Still, he was dealing with an officer ... even if he was Chaosian. Sometimes one has to explain the rules. "She wants to inspect her ranch."

"Where's the rest of the body?" Mr. Gorget said.

"We're assuming you knew he was a renegade hero. Is that true?"

"Well, he said he was ... and his women said he was. What ever that means."

"His corpus has been returned to whence it came," said Jack.

"I guess we better go up to the house and talk to the women about it." said Mr. Brass Plaque.

Since most houses on Chaos are built of wood, a house of stone and brick was unusual ... but there she stood ... brick and stone ... and work going on to make a castle out of her. There were two obviously Damsels on the veranda. Absolutely beautiful ... both of them.

Jack rode right up to the stone steps, "I'm Hero Jack. What was your Hero's name?"

"Butch Miller," said the blonde, "Wait ... Was?"

"Uh huh. Miller is deceased. Sultry there," he nodded at his wife, "She broke his neck when he was trying us on. Turns out we were too big for his britches."

"You killed him?"

"Sultry did the deed," Jack confessed.

"Well, if this isn't a crock. Wait. You're a Hero?"

"Yeah," Jack agreed.

"She's your companion?"

"One of them."

"You have more?"

"Sometimes one and sometimes seven."

"Which is it? One or Seven?"

"Hold on. Seven! Come on up her and show her what we mean by sometimes one and sometimes seven."

"Ooh! That IS disgusting," said one of the Damsels.

"Some assembly required." Well, Jack thought it was funny.

Discussions of ownership continued while the finely honed and trained sub-military guard and private army of Miller ran away ... melted into the surrounding neighborhood and hid.

Lest arguments arise, when your local area has no militia or any cohesive force other the power of a few bandit bands, thirty highly trained, well armed troops constitutes an army ... Miller had fifty. The infiltration of the local area was part and parcel of the Miller doctrine.

Hide out until you find out what's what. While the locals squabble over the bones, wait. Cream rises to the top.

If the Hero of the moment takes off and makes a run for the bank ... what is left is easy pickings.

Here Jack had a pair of Damsels who ... while not necessarily in distress ... were constrained. Unknown to them Miller had eliminated several ... well, a couple ... of rescue attempts. So ... if Crossroads has a pecking order of distressed damsels ... these two are either at the top of the RED Card list as exceedingly dangerous ... or at the bottom of the wait and see list; Not in danger and having a pretty good time.