Story CROW: Pt 4

CROW: Pt 4

Wub stalked through the grass surrounding the small drug train he and his team was stalking. He knew Neo and Rehqb, one of the new recruits, were following it on the other side. Prox was following Wub. There we some yelling from the gangsters moving the drugs in this train. Three carts pulled by horses were moving down a road toward one of the cartel hotspots outside Shaniko. It was a good place for drug dealing. It had many remote areas where cartels could hide their operating areas, be it in some of the surrounding mountains or in the mesa flats.
Prox signaled to Wub that he was about to move closer, and Wub acknowledged. He kicked his Carcano bolt-action rifle up to his shoulder, and stared down the newly mounted scope Bacca had lent to him.
It was strange that Maf and Bacca, as brothers, had to go on a private mission, and at the same time send their teammates away to keep it that way. Wub wondered what they could be up to.
Prox got right to the edge of the grass field around the road as gunshots began to ring out. Too many to be coming from just the train.
Prox looked towards the rear of the train of carts where all of the cartel members were firing, and he saw a sight that made his blood run cold. He tapped Wub's shoulder and pointed.
“Oh Christ." Wub said. “It's BOTW."
BOTW's main sniper Sphamy popped off a shot with his bolt action rifle and changed positions in the grass. Nezzr returned fire at the train the train with a Mauser pistol. Three more BOTW members Wub and Prox couldn't recognize moved up, firing from their assortment of weapons.
As CROW watched, motionless, one of the BOTW members was unlucky, and a bullet ripped through his head. The BOTW squad paused, and Nezzr holstered the Mauser and grabbed their teammate by the shoulders and dragged him off the road and into the field. Sphamy covered their escape.
BOTW had vanished.
“Damn." Prox muttered. “They got hammered."
“I know" Wub whispered back. The drug train had started moving again. “Let's pay them a little visit."

Harshaw, noon.

Harshaw was such a rundown town that Maf and Bacca had no reason to conceal most of their weapons. It helped to be armed here.
The pair was in the stable area, doing a check on all their necessary gear for their hunt. They had been waiting for their revenge somewhat patiently since meeting their informant two months ago. It had taken time to gather gear and information on the cartel they were specifically looking for. There were a great many surrounding Harshaw.
Bacca was cleaning the bolt of his new Winchester 7mm rifle he had downgraded to from his T-Gewehr 13mm rifle. The Gewehr had been incredibly heavy and painful to move and maintain, and ammunition had been expensive. The Winchester rifle he now possessed was chambered in a Mauser 7-57 7mm cartridge. Powerful, but not overly. It had a range well over 400 yards with its mounted scope. It's magazine could hold four rounds.
Maf slid an ammo clip into the top of his C96 Mauser pistol, pushed the rounds down into the magazine, and removed the clip, releasing the action into the down position. It was now loaded. Maf checked that his shotgun was prepared, and his new cavalry saber was secured across his back. It helped to have a last resort.
“Ready?" Bacca asked.
“Definitely" Maf muttered. “Let's get this over with."
Bacca mounted his horse and watched as Maf did the same. Bacca was a born sniper, hardly losing his cool, and able to think in cold calm clarity in tense situations, using logic as a deadly weapon paired with a long range rifle. Maf, on the other hand, was too worked up over their fathers death to be calm. He was a boiling ball of hot anger and resentment aimed at the world around him. He wasn't the Maf Bacca knew. It was a polar opposite.
The two swerved their horses out of the stable and into the street. And they set off at a walk, Bacca following Maf, down the street.
They traveled like that for a while until they reached the train station, and guided their horses into one of the stable cars. They then stood on the platform and watched the loading process begin. The train was destined to take them to one of the remote train stations, where they could unload and start towards their goal: their father's murderer's base camp.
Bacca was whistling, tapping his foot. Maf just stood, hands shoved in his coat pockets, in deep thought. The pair were surprised when Bacca felt something shoved into his back, same with Maf. Bacca almost turned to look, then realized what it meant.
“Keep your eyes straight ahead. Don't turn to look at anyone, signal anyone, or talk to anyone. You follow our orders. Got it?"
Bacca swallowed. He wasn't whistling and carefree anymore. “Understood."
“Move." The voice said
They were turned and guided back into the train station. They proceeded down a left hand hallway and guided down it. Then, Maf and Bacca were stopped. And three fast knocks followed by four slow ones were heard. A door opened, and they were pushed inside, whoever was guiding them following.
“Keep your hands where we can see them, or you'll be dead before you can even breathe."
Hands searched Bacca, taking his assortment of knives, his two Colt revolvers, a C96 Mauser, and a single shot .45 pistol. Bacca guessed Maf had been searched too.
A new voice spoke this time, one Bacca and Maf very much recognized. “Turn around."
They turned and met Risens eyes. He was holding a Mauser pistol leveled at Maf's head, and BOTW member that neither Maf or Bacca recognized held a sawed off shotgun easily concealed under clothes on Bacca. They were backed up by Avelino and Nxy, holding shotguns on both of them.
“Now that that business is taken care of." Risen began. His voice was cold, calm, and oddly cheerful. “What are you doing in my territory?"
"Not yours." Maf muttered darkly. "Only yours when the sheriffs shut you down around Frisco."
Risen shrugged. “Doesn't matter who's it was or if it's mine. We operate around here, and you don't. Now, I believe I asked you a question."
Bacca spoke this time, just as cold and unemotional as Risen, just a lot less cheerful. “Personal business. The kind you're not involved in and shouldn't know about."
Risen just shook his head. “You're the one staring down a gun barrel, pal. You might give me what I want."
Bacca sighed. “I submit." Maf glanced at him with a look that could dry up a fresh spring in seconds. “Our father was killed recently, and we fracked to the southern desert. We were planning on paying a visit."
Risen nodded, still cheerful. He enjoyed being in control of situations, and currently he was in control of this one. “Funny, because we were planning on paying a friend in the southern desert a visit too. We need to send a message. No interfering with our economy and things like that."
Bacca's insides turned to ice. Risen and the other members of BOTW could simply save themselves the trouble of competition and shoot them here and now, and Bacca and Maf's friends would never know what happened to them. “Interesting coincidence."
“I guess. So, we have ourselves a couple options here." Risen said, again, still cheerful.
Maf was angry now. Bacca could tell. Risen was trying Maf's patience too much. “Easy." He murmured to Maf. “Nothing we can do yet."
“We can shoot you now and save ourselves some trouble, and take our friend out ourselves." Risen said. “Or, we could let you live to take your revenge, and you owe us a favor later. Take your pick."
Bacca had this decision easy, even though owing Risen favors was dangerous and essentially giving him what he wants. “We'll take the latter then. We like staying alive."
“Humor at its best." Risen muttered. A train whistle sounded. “Sounds like you have a train to catch."
Maf and Bacca glanced at each other and moved to retrieve their weapons. There was no fighting their way out of this situation, so they might as well take the best option they had.
It was only until Bacca and Maf sat down in their train seats and the train started moving that they relaxed. Maf stared at the desert landscape passing by. Bacca cleaned one of his Colt revolvers. He was always maintaining something. Even if you had the best gear, you could never rely on your gear to work for you.
You could never completely rely on anything. Except yourself.

Shaniko, BOTW camp.

Wub tightened his headlock on Sphamy's neck and whispered in his ear. “Quit struggling, pal. You might want to listen to what we have to say."
Nezzr, clearly surprised, snapped a rifle up to her shoulder, as Prox clicked the hammer back on a Winchester magnum pointed at Nezzr as a Mauser came up in his other hand, pointed at one of the other BOTW members. This one had his hands on his head, and the last remaining one was in a wrestling match with Neo. Neo swung an elbow around, which landed into his opponents temple, knocking him cold, and released him to where he hit the ground.
Rehqb cycled the action on a shotgun and aimed it at Nezzr. “Drop the rifle."
Nezzr sneered. “Give me a good reason."
Neo drew his own Mauser and cycled its slide. “Three of us. One of you. You can try and drop us with that single shot you have, or you can drop the gun and keep your life before we make you. Forcefully."
Nezzr paused and began to, slowly, set the rifle on the ground. “Fine. What do you want?"
Wub released Sphamy and shoved him forward. “Cooperation. It seems we have a common goal."
“That's not common." Sphamy muttered. “Never expected to be taken hostage either, least of all by CROW. You never take prisoners."
Rehqb shrugged. “We could always shoot you if it makes you feel better."
“Or cooperate, and help us get what we both want." Prox said. “Your choice."
Nezzr and Sphamy looked at each other. “What's to insure that you won't shoot us after we finish?" Nezzr asked.
“What's to prove that you won't turn on us after we finish either?" Wub said. “We're all in the same boat."
Nezzr and Sphamy glanced at each other again. “So we all have something to gain here." Sphamy said. “Deal. Now give us our guns back for goodness sake. I feel naked."

Later. . .

Sphamy dropped in next to Wub, rifle in hand. He used a 7mm bolt action Winchester rifle with iron sights. Wub was staring down his Carcano scope. “See anything?" Wub asked.
“They're coming." Sphamy said, chambering a round. “The others are in position."
“This better work." Wub muttered."
“It will." Sphamy assured him. “Be patient.
They waited for a while. Eventually, the wind carried the sound of approaching carts. The first one rolled into view. Wub had a clear view of the pair of drivers in the first cart.
“Take the right one." Sphamy murmured, staring down his sights. “I have the right one."
Wub sighted in. “Ready."
“Three, two, now."
Wub broke the shot at the same time as Sphamy, taking out both drivers in the front cart. The horses skidded to a stop, forcing the two carts behind it to skid to a stop, or else veer off the road. Gunshots began to sound, and BOTW members alongside CROW operatives emerged from the high cornfield around the train. Within moments, the entire load was secured.
Wub heard a click behind him, and he whipped around leveling his pistol at Sphamy, who had adjusted the safety on his pistol. Nezzr raised her shotgun one handed and pointed it at Wub, and found herself staring down the bores of Neo and Rehqb's shotguns.
There was an awkward silence.
Everyone laughed.
“Now what?" Neo said.
“We take out cut, you take yours, and hopefully, we never see each other again." Sphamy said.
“Now that," Wub said. “we can agree on."
BOTW loaded their cut of the cartel loot into a cart pulled by horses they seemed to produce out of nowhere. CROW broke it up and spread it around on their horses.
It wasn't until later, when everything was all counted out, that CROW realized that BOTW had shorted them.

Later that night. . .

Bacca moved quietly and silently through the small buildings. A sentry who had been sleeping in the tower above him snapped up, alert, swearing he had seen something. He listened intently, and only heard the wind whistling softly. He leaned back and relaxed. His eyes were playing tricks on him. The lantern hanging above his head flickered softly as the flame inside was brushed with the breeze.
Bacca let out a breath slowly, then pulled his knife out from under his jacket and stuck the blade between his incisors in his mouth. Then, he began to slowly and quietly scale the ladder up to the tower.
Maf crouched listening. In his hands was a C96 Mauser carbine, an adapted version of the pistol. The barrel was extended to allow a hand guard, and a stock was attached to the handle, turning it into a semi-automatic pistol caliber rifle. It was accurate at medium ranges, and held fifteen rounds in its extended magazine. It was one of the newer additions to CROW's arsenal.
Maf turned his eyes up to the tower Bacca was making his way up into. The lantern was still glowing. The plan was that Bacca would scale the small tower and overpower the guards, then provide sniper cover for Maf as he advanced forward. Bacca would signal he was ready by pinching out the lantern in the tower. Exactly fifteen counts later, he would open fire.
Bacca reached the top of the ladder, and slowly but smoothly reached up to his mouth and grabbed the knife. He flipped it around so he was holding it in a reverse grip. His eyes flicked to the sentry, who still had his eyes shut. He was on the brink of sleep.
Bacca was running completely on intuition, instinct, and years of practice. He stepped up and placed his foot on the top rung of the ladder. Then, he pulled his other foot up and onto the platform.
He counted down from three, then took two long steps toward the sentry and grabbed the top of his shoulder, and drove the knife home in the side of the sentries neck. There was a spray of blood, and a gurgling sound as the sentry died.
Somehow, none of the blood managed to land on Bacca. He shoved the sentry out of his seat, and slid his 7mm rifle off his back. He cycled the bolt on the rifle and looked across the top of the rest of the buildings. He only spotted one guard armed with a rifle of his own.
Bacca took a knee and stared down his scope, lining up the crosshairs, the hand guard of the rifle balanced against the low wall of the tower.
Bacca then looked up, and pinched out the lantern, and began to count.
“One. Two. Three. Four. . ."
He set his finger on the trigger.
“. . .Eight. Nine. Ten. . ."
He pulled the stock tighter into his shoulder.
“Eleven."
He could count the rest in his mind.
He took in a breath, set his crosshairs on the head of the guard with the rifle, and as he exhaled, squeezed the trigger, as his mind hit fifteen.
The rifle bucked, and the guard vanished from sight. Suddenly, there was movement. Guards were streaming out everywhere. A group of five gathered at the body of the sniped sentry, but there was nothing they could do. They didn't need a professional surgeon to know that he was very, very, dead.
A rifle cracked five times, and the group dropped. Maf slid back into cover, adrenaline having kicked in. He crouched and moved slowly behind the cover of the cart he had been hiding behind, and peeked out the other side. He had dropped the group perfectly, a shot each. Two had been killed instantly by their head shots. One lay in a pool of his own blood, unmoving, and unconscious. The other was yelling in pain. More guards were emerging from the buildings. A bullet splintered the wood near Maf's head.
Bacca had fallen into a rhythm. Sight, squeeze, cycle bolt, and repeat. Bang. An enemy fell, the round shearing through his head. The bolt clacked as he cycled the next round into the chamber. He switched his crosshairs over to another target. They weren't enemies anymore. Just targets with a heart, lungs, and a brain to aim for. One of them raised a rifle and fired a shot toward the cart Maf was hiding behind.
Inhale. Prep the trigger. Exhale slowly. Squeeze.
Bang. A target dropped, a hole punched through his lung. Bacca cycled the bolt again. He had two rounds remaining.
Maf popped up over the cart again and squeezed off two rounds towards an enemy. One missed, and the other caught him in the shoulder. The guard stumbled, but kept running, raising a revolver towards Maf and firing. The bullet grazed his arm, but Maf was too hyped up on adrenaline to feel it. He aimed and squeezed, dropping the wounded guard.
That was when the leader emerged.
He was dressed in a dark leather coat not too dissimilar to Bacca and Maf's. He had a gold played revolver in his right hand. A hat, a must have in the West, sat on his head, concealing his face in the darkness, yet Maf knew with a certainty that it was him.
Bacca appeared to have noticed to. Maf heard his rifle report, but the leader had been anticipating a sniper shot, and threw himself out of the way at the last second, the round hitting one of his associates in the stomach. They keeled over, hands clutched to their gut, blood escaping between their fingers.
The man was now on his feet and running. His guards had been defeated, and he was facing two armed and extremely dangerous gangsters that were hell-bent on taking revenge on him at the cost of his life. It was the supposedly sensible thing to do.
Bacca slid an extra round into the internal magazine of his rifle. He now had two rounds. Hopefully he would need only one.
The ringleader of the gang had noted the movement in the tower Bacca was in. Maf was fiddling with a jam in his carbine. The leader reached inside his jacket and pulled out a quad of dynamite. It was four sticks of the volatile explosive wrapped together and attached to a quad fuse. It would make the resulting blast even more powerful.
The leader flicked a lighter and lit the fuse, tossing it up and into the tower. Bacca was spooked and yanked the trigger, missing his shot. Still holding his rifle, he threw himself forward as the tower exploded.
The last thing he saw was the ground rushing to meet him, and then he felt no more.
Maf looked up at the explosion. He saw Bacca's body thrown like a doll from the tower, and his blood froze. He dropped his carbine and, drawing his pistol, ran forward to where Bacca lay.
Maf rolled Bacca onto his back, and saw that his face was missing a large chunk of skin, revealing the meat underneath his left eye. His teeth were visible through the hole in his cheek. He was breathing, but barely.
Maf looked to where his fathers killer was escaping.
Time slowed down.
Maf reached to where his brothers rifle lay. The rifle had been cushioned by Bacca's body when it had fallen, so the scope should still be aligned correctly. Lifting the rifle to his right shoulder, he stared down the scopes crosshairs.
Breathe in.
Maf cycled the bolt backwards, ejecting the empty casing and preparing the new cartridge.
Breathe out.
Maf pushed the bolt forward. He could now see that the leader of the small gang was mounting a horse.
Breathe in.
Maf wrapped his hand around the wooden handle of the rifle stock, pulling the rifle tighter into his shoulder.
Breathe out.
He set the crosshairs in the slot between the targets shoulder blades.
Breathe in.
He set his finger on the trigger.
He was now in his “zen" state, as Bacca called it. It was a state of complete peace. It was a state every marksman and sniper defaulted to, where no distraction could affect them. They only saw the people in the word as targets, with organs marked as bulls eyes. It brought a whole new meaning to the term “target practice"
Breathe out.
Maf slowly squeezed as the sights hovered.
The shot broke. The firing pin slammed forward into the primer held in place in the brass casing that held the bullet together. The primer detonated, sending small embers forward into the gunpowder in the casing. The powder caught and combusted as a whole, shoving the lead bullet forward, engaging the rifling of the barrel. The bullet spun as it traveled toward the end of the barrel, the rifling carving grooves into the bullet. It reached the muzzle and exited the bore of the rifle, still spinning, traveling in its minuscule arc towards its target.
The bullet slammed home, punching through the targets back and punching through the back, shattering part of the targets spine and sending shards of bone shearing through the targets heart. He died almost instantly, his body being thrown from the horse. The horse kept on going.
Maf cycled the bolt. The rifle was now empty.
He had to get Bacca out of here. He gave him a shot of morphine and lashed him to the back of Maf's horse. Then, he tied Bacca's horse to his, and he set out.
Before they left, he checked the body of the leader. You could never be sure someone was dead until you saw the body, cold and lifeless, for yourself.

The end.

Tags: @TheWubzsters @TheMafias
@NeoGer @Risen_God @nezzr @_Featherpaw_ @Serine1002 @blackbear44 @NeoGer @whileloop

Comment below if I forgot anyone. Sorry for the wait.

 

First day of high school was today. Rip. I'll be around on the forums a lot, just not so much TS and in-game

 

Old as hell but lol