Volume 8 Rough Draft Preview 1
The Ero-Sennin
Shitposter no more
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The following represents an unfinished scene and may be altered or dropped at a later time. Thanks for reading!
Warning: Good ol' fashioned turn of the 20th Century cultural mores.
In 1847, a caravan of California-bound settlers led by Bonson Bonner descended into a valley northeast of Los Angeles following word of another party of California settlers being devastated by poor preparation and a particularly cruel winter while trying to find their fortunes further north. With this decision, some clever dealings, back-stabbings that would make the Northwest family proud, and a battle against some extremely determined marsupials, the settlement of Echo Creek was established.
For the next few decades, Echo Creek would grow and flourish, going from a small settlement to a prosperous rival of neighboring Los Angeles in short order. A pastoral town centered around ranches and vineyards. Echo Creek became known for being a restful retreat for visitors back east–a place where one could relax and find peace from the hectic world at their own pace.
Then, in 1890, Oil was discovered.
By 1899, the vast stretches of rolling cattle land and rows of vineyards that one could look on from the slope of the valley were gone–replaced by a forest of iron and steel wreathed in the haze of industry. Echo Creek was all but no more, a cloistered city center surrounded by oil derricks and pumps, siphoning the vast reserves of black gold that lay beneath the Earth.
The nascent Southern California oil boom has made Echo Creek extremely prosperous. But even as wealth is pulled straight from the Earth and into pockets, the ravenous need to overflow every cup has seen the aforementioned forest of metal spread. It climbs the hills–spreading into neighboring lowlands and valleys of the San Gabriels. To the remaining farmers and vinters in Echo Creek, the growing forest approaching the edges of their lands is an inevitable progression–heralded by an inexorable force that would sooner see fertile grounds turn to worthless dust if it meant one drop more of the bounty beneath.
Three such heralds stood on the other side of a plain wooden fence separating them from the front yard of a farmhouse overlooking the encroaching forest. In the afternoon heat, the men were dressed in loose white button down shirts, blue jeans, boots, and wide-brimmed hats iconic of the formerly wild west. The leader of the men, holding a stack of papers in his hand, held them aloft like a flag of truce–displaying it to the man who stood on the porch armed with a double-barrel shotgun.
"Now Mr. Baldwin, there is no need for any of this hostility. We're only here to persuade you to consider the handsome offer that's been presented."
The bare-chested, bearded man on the front porch of his home closed the breech of his loaded shotgun, and answered promptly–his voice heavy with contempt. "Handsome offer?! You boys come here demanding I accept not even half of what my pappy paid for this land, just so I can watch my family starve while you oil jockeys get rich?! I'll tell you what, you can take that offer of yours and see if the Devil himself will take it! Then you come back to me!"
The man holding the papers raised his other hand. "Whoa, whoa, whoa…! Hold on there, sir! This does not have to resort to violence!"
"You come past that fence and I'll have every right to!" Mr. Baldwin raised the shotgun and aimed at the three men, everyone involved aware that at this range all he would have to do is squeeze the triggers of his weapon to solve most of his problems. "I'll leave you right where you fall so the Sheriff knows it!"
The two men accompanying the paper holder went to their left sides. The man to the negotiator's right reached straight down with his left hand, while the man to his left reached across his own front, to shiny revolvers nestled none too snugly in their holsters. Seeing this, the man holding the papers called out. "Hold, damn it!"
He looked back at Mr. Baldwin. "We don't need to start somethin' unavoidable, gentlemen. Cycles of violence happen when you shoot one man, then another man shoots back, and the shooting goes on until something truly tragic happens and a family loses everything."
Mr. Baldwin narrowed his eyes at the negotiator's word, understanding full well their intent.
"This can all be resolved peacefully-like; you can take the offer, we can leave, and we won't have to come back." The man shook the papers again. "It's either that, or these tense and meaningless confrontations keep happening, sir, until someone slips and does something they can't take back."
"I'm plenty firm where I stand," Mr. Baldwin replied. "The only ones here having a problem with slippin' are you boys with the oil on yer shoes and blood on yer hands."
Lowering the papers, the man trying to negotiate realized that terms would not be arrived at so easily. "This is the best deal you're going to get, sir."
Mr. Baldwin's attention shot past the three men and to the path behind them as his opponent drawled on.
"Men with less land than you have made much more agreeing to close, it's a seller's market."
Behind the three men, the voice of a young man called back. "A seller's market? Oh Mr. Hutchinson, do go on."
The men beseeching Mr. Baldwin turned to face a caucasian man with a dark goatee and mustache calmly stepping off a bicycle and setting it against the fence bordering the path up to the home. In spite of the afternoon heat he was impeccably dressed in a purple suit over an orange vest and a yellow ascot tie with purple top hat. He carried in his hand a cane he slipped from a basket aligned with the legs of the bicycle's front fork. Twirling the cane and setting it down, he began a leisurely stroll to the three men, beckoning them as he did.
"As a matter of fact, I would like an appraisal of my own land while you're in the neighborhood. Because I've heard that you've–" He stopped when he saw Mr. Baldwin on his porch, and recoiled a full step back, his dark eyes widening in amazement.
"My word," the newcomer addressed the man he called Hutchinson, holding the papers. "Are… are you shaking down a white man?"
Hutchinson glowered at the newcomer. "Well if it isn't the alleged Doctor. This ain't a matter involvin' you, son. Why don't you hop on your fancy bicycle and mosey off to where you came?"
The newcomer shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm here for an appointment. Mrs. Baldwin is several months along and I'm here to perform a weekly checkup."
"The hell you are," Hutchinson replied. "A sane man wouldn't trust a snake like you with a haircut, let alone his wife and child."
The man in purple brought a white gloved hand to his chest, as though in pain. "Don't besmirch my handiness with a blade either. I've cut plenty handsome heads of hair in my time, and guarantee you won't find a closer shave west of the Mississippi or south of Skagway–but I digress."
He gestured past the men to Mr. Baldwin, and then side to side, indicating the farmer's land. "I was under the impression that your employer was more discriminating when it came to land acquisition. Are you genuinely out here going back on what I recall was… your word?"
Hutchinson's glower intensified. "This is strictly business, it's something a new resident like you wouldn't understand."
"Oh, my disciplines are wide and varied, Mr. Hutchinson. I'm no stranger to the 'You and Yours Discount.'"
"You and Yours?" Hutchinson repeats.
"You and Yours. A buyer offers to take the land from you at a lower price than what it's actually worth… one you accept so that nothing happens to you and yours."
He looked to his right, at the derricks off in the distance. "I've lived here in these parts long enough to see it as the standard model of business. Except, it would appear your employer is all out of Mestizo and Tongva to force off their lands, so they've gone after the white growers and herders. I applaud the progressive shift, but it's no less abominable."
Hutchinson's left eye twitched. "Good God man, you talk too much."
The newcomer walked right up to the three men, his lips curved up in an amicable smile. "Sirs, I am a man of confidence, it is my nature to talk a great deal."
Seeing hands moving to revolvers, he stops short and brings up his left in a halting gesture. "With that in mind, I would like to make a counteroffer on behalf of Mr. Baldwin here."
Hutchinson rolled his eyes. "You're no one's representative, Hill–"
It all happened suddenly, explosively. The cane in the newcomer's right hand came up and smashed into the chin of the man on Hutchinson's left. The man on his right reached across for his revolver, but found it already snatched clean from the holster by the newcomer's white gloved hand. Hutchinson himself dropped his papers, for the pistol in the shoulder holster he wore, when the glint of sun off steel stayed his hand.
The cane clattered to the ground, and Hutchinson looked at the slender, razor-sharp knife that slipped from the purple sleeve of the man's suit.
Underneath the brim of the man in purple's top hat, a cold and level voice calmly intoned. "You'll pass on the closest shave of your life, Mr. Hutchinson, take your man I've dinged good, and you'll leave these fine people alone."
Hutchinson, persuaded by the metal against his jugular and the man to his right holding his hands up in quiet fear, slowly nodded.
Dropping the knife, the man in black pulled the pistol from Hutchinson's holster and gave it a look in surprise. It wasn't a revolver, nor was it one of the unmistakable Mausers that were becoming popular back east. It was a black, slide-operated semi-automatic pistol with the magazine stored in the handle. "Good God man, how much are you being paid to afford one of these Brownings?"
Stepping aside, he gestured to the two men with both guns as he used his foot to slip the revolver of the downed man from its holster and kick it away. "Go on now, be on your way and don't let me find out that your employer has sent anyone else up this hill to start persting people for their homes."
Hutchinson glared at the man, as he and his remaining associate complied, gathering up the third man and leaving. "Don't you worry, none! We'll be coming straight for you, Hillhurst! You'll see!"
Dr. Aloysius Hillhurst watched the three men go staggering off, headed towards several horses tied up at the very edge of the property. Satisfied to see them go, and doubly sure his coat was well-lined with the ammunition of the heavier weapons the men kept on said horses, he turned towards the Baldwin farmhouse.
And stared at the barrels of the Baldwin farmhouse's shotgun. "… Well."
Mr. Baldwin gestured with a quick upward motion of his barrels. "You'll be on your way, too. I don't need the sympathies of no damn Mexican lover."
Putting the pistols away, Dr. Hillhurst picked up the cane and knife–slipping the latter back up his sleeve. "No good deed goes unpunished, I see. No worries, I have no intention of lingering."
Dr. Hillhurst returned to his bicycle, climbed onto it, and spared the farmer a final look before he rode off. Making sure Hutchinson and his friends were well ahead, he began coasting down the long slope from the verdant hills overlooking Echo Creek and down into the haze of the derrick forest that surrounded the town and stood on every other block.
Meet the man who started it all...
Warning: Good ol' fashioned turn of the 20th Century cultural mores.
|Echo Creek, 1899|
In 1847, a caravan of California-bound settlers led by Bonson Bonner descended into a valley northeast of Los Angeles following word of another party of California settlers being devastated by poor preparation and a particularly cruel winter while trying to find their fortunes further north. With this decision, some clever dealings, back-stabbings that would make the Northwest family proud, and a battle against some extremely determined marsupials, the settlement of Echo Creek was established.
For the next few decades, Echo Creek would grow and flourish, going from a small settlement to a prosperous rival of neighboring Los Angeles in short order. A pastoral town centered around ranches and vineyards. Echo Creek became known for being a restful retreat for visitors back east–a place where one could relax and find peace from the hectic world at their own pace.
Then, in 1890, Oil was discovered.
By 1899, the vast stretches of rolling cattle land and rows of vineyards that one could look on from the slope of the valley were gone–replaced by a forest of iron and steel wreathed in the haze of industry. Echo Creek was all but no more, a cloistered city center surrounded by oil derricks and pumps, siphoning the vast reserves of black gold that lay beneath the Earth.
The nascent Southern California oil boom has made Echo Creek extremely prosperous. But even as wealth is pulled straight from the Earth and into pockets, the ravenous need to overflow every cup has seen the aforementioned forest of metal spread. It climbs the hills–spreading into neighboring lowlands and valleys of the San Gabriels. To the remaining farmers and vinters in Echo Creek, the growing forest approaching the edges of their lands is an inevitable progression–heralded by an inexorable force that would sooner see fertile grounds turn to worthless dust if it meant one drop more of the bounty beneath.
Three such heralds stood on the other side of a plain wooden fence separating them from the front yard of a farmhouse overlooking the encroaching forest. In the afternoon heat, the men were dressed in loose white button down shirts, blue jeans, boots, and wide-brimmed hats iconic of the formerly wild west. The leader of the men, holding a stack of papers in his hand, held them aloft like a flag of truce–displaying it to the man who stood on the porch armed with a double-barrel shotgun.
"Now Mr. Baldwin, there is no need for any of this hostility. We're only here to persuade you to consider the handsome offer that's been presented."
The bare-chested, bearded man on the front porch of his home closed the breech of his loaded shotgun, and answered promptly–his voice heavy with contempt. "Handsome offer?! You boys come here demanding I accept not even half of what my pappy paid for this land, just so I can watch my family starve while you oil jockeys get rich?! I'll tell you what, you can take that offer of yours and see if the Devil himself will take it! Then you come back to me!"
The man holding the papers raised his other hand. "Whoa, whoa, whoa…! Hold on there, sir! This does not have to resort to violence!"
"You come past that fence and I'll have every right to!" Mr. Baldwin raised the shotgun and aimed at the three men, everyone involved aware that at this range all he would have to do is squeeze the triggers of his weapon to solve most of his problems. "I'll leave you right where you fall so the Sheriff knows it!"
The two men accompanying the paper holder went to their left sides. The man to the negotiator's right reached straight down with his left hand, while the man to his left reached across his own front, to shiny revolvers nestled none too snugly in their holsters. Seeing this, the man holding the papers called out. "Hold, damn it!"
He looked back at Mr. Baldwin. "We don't need to start somethin' unavoidable, gentlemen. Cycles of violence happen when you shoot one man, then another man shoots back, and the shooting goes on until something truly tragic happens and a family loses everything."
Mr. Baldwin narrowed his eyes at the negotiator's word, understanding full well their intent.
"This can all be resolved peacefully-like; you can take the offer, we can leave, and we won't have to come back." The man shook the papers again. "It's either that, or these tense and meaningless confrontations keep happening, sir, until someone slips and does something they can't take back."
"I'm plenty firm where I stand," Mr. Baldwin replied. "The only ones here having a problem with slippin' are you boys with the oil on yer shoes and blood on yer hands."
Lowering the papers, the man trying to negotiate realized that terms would not be arrived at so easily. "This is the best deal you're going to get, sir."
Mr. Baldwin's attention shot past the three men and to the path behind them as his opponent drawled on.
"Men with less land than you have made much more agreeing to close, it's a seller's market."
Behind the three men, the voice of a young man called back. "A seller's market? Oh Mr. Hutchinson, do go on."
The men beseeching Mr. Baldwin turned to face a caucasian man with a dark goatee and mustache calmly stepping off a bicycle and setting it against the fence bordering the path up to the home. In spite of the afternoon heat he was impeccably dressed in a purple suit over an orange vest and a yellow ascot tie with purple top hat. He carried in his hand a cane he slipped from a basket aligned with the legs of the bicycle's front fork. Twirling the cane and setting it down, he began a leisurely stroll to the three men, beckoning them as he did.
"As a matter of fact, I would like an appraisal of my own land while you're in the neighborhood. Because I've heard that you've–" He stopped when he saw Mr. Baldwin on his porch, and recoiled a full step back, his dark eyes widening in amazement.
"My word," the newcomer addressed the man he called Hutchinson, holding the papers. "Are… are you shaking down a white man?"
Hutchinson glowered at the newcomer. "Well if it isn't the alleged Doctor. This ain't a matter involvin' you, son. Why don't you hop on your fancy bicycle and mosey off to where you came?"
The newcomer shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm here for an appointment. Mrs. Baldwin is several months along and I'm here to perform a weekly checkup."
"The hell you are," Hutchinson replied. "A sane man wouldn't trust a snake like you with a haircut, let alone his wife and child."
The man in purple brought a white gloved hand to his chest, as though in pain. "Don't besmirch my handiness with a blade either. I've cut plenty handsome heads of hair in my time, and guarantee you won't find a closer shave west of the Mississippi or south of Skagway–but I digress."
He gestured past the men to Mr. Baldwin, and then side to side, indicating the farmer's land. "I was under the impression that your employer was more discriminating when it came to land acquisition. Are you genuinely out here going back on what I recall was… your word?"
Hutchinson's glower intensified. "This is strictly business, it's something a new resident like you wouldn't understand."
"Oh, my disciplines are wide and varied, Mr. Hutchinson. I'm no stranger to the 'You and Yours Discount.'"
"You and Yours?" Hutchinson repeats.
"You and Yours. A buyer offers to take the land from you at a lower price than what it's actually worth… one you accept so that nothing happens to you and yours."
He looked to his right, at the derricks off in the distance. "I've lived here in these parts long enough to see it as the standard model of business. Except, it would appear your employer is all out of Mestizo and Tongva to force off their lands, so they've gone after the white growers and herders. I applaud the progressive shift, but it's no less abominable."
Hutchinson's left eye twitched. "Good God man, you talk too much."
The newcomer walked right up to the three men, his lips curved up in an amicable smile. "Sirs, I am a man of confidence, it is my nature to talk a great deal."
Seeing hands moving to revolvers, he stops short and brings up his left in a halting gesture. "With that in mind, I would like to make a counteroffer on behalf of Mr. Baldwin here."
Hutchinson rolled his eyes. "You're no one's representative, Hill–"
It all happened suddenly, explosively. The cane in the newcomer's right hand came up and smashed into the chin of the man on Hutchinson's left. The man on his right reached across for his revolver, but found it already snatched clean from the holster by the newcomer's white gloved hand. Hutchinson himself dropped his papers, for the pistol in the shoulder holster he wore, when the glint of sun off steel stayed his hand.
The cane clattered to the ground, and Hutchinson looked at the slender, razor-sharp knife that slipped from the purple sleeve of the man's suit.
Underneath the brim of the man in purple's top hat, a cold and level voice calmly intoned. "You'll pass on the closest shave of your life, Mr. Hutchinson, take your man I've dinged good, and you'll leave these fine people alone."
Hutchinson, persuaded by the metal against his jugular and the man to his right holding his hands up in quiet fear, slowly nodded.
Dropping the knife, the man in black pulled the pistol from Hutchinson's holster and gave it a look in surprise. It wasn't a revolver, nor was it one of the unmistakable Mausers that were becoming popular back east. It was a black, slide-operated semi-automatic pistol with the magazine stored in the handle. "Good God man, how much are you being paid to afford one of these Brownings?"
Stepping aside, he gestured to the two men with both guns as he used his foot to slip the revolver of the downed man from its holster and kick it away. "Go on now, be on your way and don't let me find out that your employer has sent anyone else up this hill to start persting people for their homes."
Hutchinson glared at the man, as he and his remaining associate complied, gathering up the third man and leaving. "Don't you worry, none! We'll be coming straight for you, Hillhurst! You'll see!"
Dr. Aloysius Hillhurst watched the three men go staggering off, headed towards several horses tied up at the very edge of the property. Satisfied to see them go, and doubly sure his coat was well-lined with the ammunition of the heavier weapons the men kept on said horses, he turned towards the Baldwin farmhouse.
And stared at the barrels of the Baldwin farmhouse's shotgun. "… Well."
Mr. Baldwin gestured with a quick upward motion of his barrels. "You'll be on your way, too. I don't need the sympathies of no damn Mexican lover."
Putting the pistols away, Dr. Hillhurst picked up the cane and knife–slipping the latter back up his sleeve. "No good deed goes unpunished, I see. No worries, I have no intention of lingering."
Dr. Hillhurst returned to his bicycle, climbed onto it, and spared the farmer a final look before he rode off. Making sure Hutchinson and his friends were well ahead, he began coasting down the long slope from the verdant hills overlooking Echo Creek and down into the haze of the derrick forest that surrounded the town and stood on every other block.
Meet the man who started it all...
