Chapter 30
Payroll and Weapons: 42%
“We ain’t got the time to empty the thing out,” Silver said. “And if this Rainbow Dash is as fast as Highball says she is, then we might barely have the time to grab the payroll and run. But we can’t leave those guns behind.”
Tumbleweed nodded and looked back at the armored car. “A Chatter gun could be a mighty fine addition to our camp,” he agreed. “So long as the ammunition lasts.”
“We’re raidin’ from the Army,” Roughshod said. “Ammunition to last ain’t gonna be too much of a problem.”
“Then let’s get to it,” Tumbleweed said. “The sooner we get the wagons loaded up and movin’, the better. Don’t want this officer to come back and catch us unawares.”
“I’ll stay with Kestrel,” Highball said, looking over his former love. “Make sure she doesn’t get any worse.”
Tumbleweed slowly nodded at that. “I hate to be robbin’ from you, Highball. You’re a good stallion. I hope we can still trust each other after all these years apart.”
“You can,” Highball said, his gaze meeting Tumbleweed’s and lingering there.
Roughshod spat into the dirt. “Ain’t nopony we can trust but each other,” he warned Tumbleweed. “I’d blow him away and be done with it.”
“You are gonna go start disassemblin’ those Chatter guns and gettin’ them out of the car,” Tumbleweed said, gesturing over his shoulder. “Get Snapshot to help when he arrives with the wagons. His magic will be useful. Silvie and I will take care of payroll.”
Though Roughshod scowled at Highball, he nevertheless backed off and began to move down the train cars to the imposing armored carriage in the middle. Tumbleweed waited until he was out of earshot before he raised an eyebrow at Highball. “Stay put, and no funny business. It’s been a while, friend, but it’s only our past keepin’ us on good terms right now. I hope you understand.”
Highball took a deep breath. “I do.”
“Good.” Tumbleweed turned around and began to walk away from the engine. “Come on, Silvie. Let’s take a look at what we got.”
Silver nodded and immediately began to follow, only sparing a last look at Kestrel and Highball before catching up to Tumbleweed. “The payroll car’s this one,” she said, leading him over to the second to last car on the train. Highball hopped up to the door from the ground, forcing it open with his magic, and stepped inside the covered car. Silver followed him in, and her eyes widened some at the crates lining the walls inside.
“The payroll’s probably in bags inside these crates,” Tumbleweed said, moving toward the first. “Let’s open ‘em up.”
It was sweaty, backbreaking work to go pull the crates off of their stacks and force them open with a knife, but every time Silver opened up a box, a few burlap sacks spilling gold would be ready to greet her and motivate her to move onto the next one. Even Tumbleweed was in good spirits, and he slowly began to chuckle and mutter “Well I’ll be,” over and over again as they tore the car apart. When they finally pried open all the crates and laid the sacks out in front of them, Silver could only stare in awe at what they’d accomplished.
How many bags of payroll are in the car? 34
“There’s so many bits,” Silver muttered softly to herself.
“The Army packs a thousand bits to a bag,” Tumbleweed said. “We’re looking at thirty-four thousand bits right here.”
“It’s like the Appleloosa train all over again,” Silver said.
“We got closer to fifty thousand on that take,” Tumbleweed said. He laughed and shook his head in disbelief and excitement. “Trains always do us good, Silvie! Maybe we should just stick to robbin’ them from now on!”
“You owe Kessie and me a bottle of the best whiskey money can buy—each!”
“With thirty-four thousand bits, that ain’t gonna be too hard to manage,” Tumbleweed said. Still, he grabbed Silver with his magic and gave her an excited embrace. “You two mares might just have saved our hides with this score! We get this back to camp, we can live like royalty again!”
“Let’s just hope this time we don’t get the Pinks on us to ruin all the fun,” Silver said, her excitement deflating somewhat as she realized just how eerily familiar the situation that they now found themselves in was. “We didn’t have all that long after the Appleloosa train before we had to run again.”
“That was because of that hotel,” Tumbleweed said. “We ain’t gonna make the same mistake again.” He grabbed two bags of bits in his magic and moved for the door. “C’mon, Silvie. Grab some bags and let’s get goin’! We ain’t got all day!”
Silver hurriedly snatched a bag in her teeth and slung it over her shoulders, balancing it between outstretched wings, and picked up another one in her mouth before following Tumbleweed outside. Snapshot had arrived with the wagon by then, standing in the back while Trixie and Sienna panted in the hot desert sun under their harnesses. His magic lifted a Chatter gun Roughshod had pried out of the armored car and placed it in the back, while Tumbleweed dropped the first two bags into the flat back. Silver tossed hers in as well, and Trixie only groaned as the Gang began to pile the wagon full of their loot.
“When Trixie learned she was joining a band of outlaws and renegades, she did not expect to be used as a pack mule,” she muttered, glaring sideways at Silver as she dropped her bags into the wagon as well.
Silver scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Maybe if you didn’t screw up the dynamite,” she retorted. “Kessie and me had to get this thing the hard way, and she almost died because of you.”
“Trixie has never used her fireworks to derail a train before!” Trixie protested. “You can hardly blame her for this!”
“Yeah. ‘Hardly.’ Sure.” Silver turned around and went back to the payroll car to grab another two bags. “Better learn fast. Don’t want you draggin’ us down, Hoofdini. Pinks find us, you gonna lose your head ‘long with the rest of us.”
Though Trixie fumed at the retort, she kept her mouth shut, and didn’t open it again while the rest of the wagon was loaded up. Soon, the Gang had piled together everything they felt comfortable taking from the train: the payroll, a Chatter gun and four hundred rounds of ammunition for it, along with the scoped rifles Silver had discovered when she first started searching the train for medicine. Lastly, Tumbleweed gingerly placed Kestrel in the back of the wagon, and though the injured mare stirred, she did not wake up.
That just left the matter of what to do with the train and its driver.
Highball watched the Gang strip away the loot he was entrusted to deliver to Rock Ridge without saying a word, but the silence would never last. When they finally loaded the wagon, he cleared his throat. “What will you do now, Tumbleweed?”
Tumbleweed worked his jaw from side to side, his unwavering gaze fixated on Highball and the engine behind him. “Now, I will take my ponies back to our camp,” he told him. “We’ll count out our bits and plot our next move from there. I apologize, but I’m not willing to divulge our plans with somepony the Law will want to talk to today.”
“I see.” Highball’s eyes wandered to the Gang’s guns. “Am I good to go, then?”
Silver looked to Tumbleweed, wondering just how the stallion would pay back his old friend and new liability.
1. Let him run off. It’s too dangerous to bring him back with us, and he might stand a better chance when the Law gets ahold of him if he makes it to Rock Ridge on hoof. He can say he ran off when we attacked the train, not that he worked with us for his life.
2. Send him back with the train. He’ll get to Rock Ridge in one piece, that’s for sure, but he’s gonna have to explain his way outta that one. He might get caught in the crossfire ‘tween us and the Law for it.
3. Tell him to wait with the train. The Law’ll be back out here soon enough, and they’ll find him here. It’s about as natural it gets with a holdup like this, though if them Vipers happen to be around and they see a stopped train in the desert, he might find himself under fire ‘fore too long.
4. Kill him. Sorry, Highball, ol’ friend, but we can’t afford no more witnesses.
(Confidence Required: 40 Votes)
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...Honestly I think 2 is the best strategic decision, now. Since we don't have time to strip it, there's still a bunch of stuff the Vipers could use if they find the train after any of the other choices. Regardless of how things turn out with/for Highball, getting what's left on the train to its destination is the most likely choice to deny resources to an enemy we're probably going to have to confront again, sooner or later.
34 bags of payroll, holy crap.
Make that 34,000 bits, good god.
Nice. This is working out pretty well.
1 seems like the best best shot for Highball’s survival, so that's how I'm voting.
Alright, nice haul! Guns and a load of cash should help out a lot later.
Hmm...but what to do with Highball. Nothing looks like a very good result for him. Definitely not 4, for sure. 3 has me wondering just how many supplies are on the train he can live off of until help arrives, but there's also potentially Vipers to deal with. Returning with the train and explaining his way out of it seems risky, but I think the same thing would apply eventually if he just runs for his life for the law to find him. He still might also have to deal with the elements and possibly Vipers. Also, who knows what the Army does to deserters?...
We don't want the Vipers getting to that train and Highball, so I'm thinking 2 is the best option here
Here's my line of thinking as I went through it; if you're already in the 24cord, go ahead and stop reading now.
Hmm, so here's what I'm thinking, 1 or 2 are the best choices for our bud Highball for sure, but for different reasons. 1 is best for his personal safety, I think, and the chance for him to be a recurring character; also, the sheriff's roll threshold to successful scrutinize Kessie was fairly high if I recall (under 6 was it would succeed?), so putting him under pressure through 2 could bode ill for him getting out with his nose clean from this all.
That said tho, he's just one character, and we have the gang to think about
.. so to 2. 2 can be really good for us if it would work out, as more likely than not, we're going to have a confrontation with the vipers. Maybe not immediately (DEFINITELY not immediately, we gotta Kessie healed up), but eventually. Now here's the thing though, and I wish I was caught up at the time to make the case for this, the most obvious thing the vipers have up on us are numbers... and... they probably have a medic. We ain't got no one to fill that role, and we passed on taking potions to get a defensive gun and those rifles Silvie happened to pick up. Which means with their numbers advantage, and even with the way the gang gets more rolls for wound progression, if we get picked off like that we aren't going to have quick heals incoming. which is Bad.
More to the point of why I'm bringing this up however, is that the potions were left behind, sooo when we confront the Vipers, if they loot the train and nab that shit, our grazing or glancing blows are going to be stuff they can recover from (and that said, they can just throw more bodies down on us) faster than we can dish it out, or worst case scenario, have a prolonged back-and-forth over.
and that's just covering one cart that they can pick up from the others ya know, there's way more in there, but either way its bad news.
HOWEVER, and I haven't seen anyone comment on this yet, there's an opportunity here as well. From an outward observer, if they had a lookout on the train, the stuff in the canyon would have been easy to miss from the terrain (as in, essentially nothing happened to have attracted attention), and essentially two pegas zooming in out of there to take it down out of the blue could have been missed. Officer Dash's speedy departure, and her blue-ness blending into the sky, likewise, could also have been overlooked; if a Viper lookout was peepin' on all this, what they could be seeing? Easy pickings to vulture over with NO IDEA that an officer is bringing reinforcements.
This could be an opprotunity to leave the train as bait and provoke a firefight between the army and the Vipers, and they could whittle the numbers down on both sides. Even better would be if the blame for the train's derailing could be pinned on the vipers from that, 'cause then the Gang as a whole won't have our reputation blown up over this..... even though Kess and Silvie were seen, I imagine the in-universe narrative would probably go along the lines of that those two joined the Vipers; 'cause again, from the failure in the canyon, the rest of the gang is pretty much "safe"
if that's how we'd want to play it, then 1 would be better since it baits that result and gets highball out safely. But it's just as risky since that's literally all just speculation, though I think we can say with a reasonable amount of certainty that the Vipers would be keeping abreast of trains in the area, since even our first lil wagon which was a bust was enough to net their attention.
Parting thoughts: f there is a Viper lookout and if they were watching us take our time loading it up, we're going to look a lot more tempting than if the train starts chuggin' away. But if the train is left there, uhh, curiosity might get the best of 'em?
... So yeah, because I'm scared of hypotheticals, I'mma pick 1.