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By 1899, the age of outlaws and gunslingers was at an end. America was becoming a land of laws. Even the west had mostly been tamed. A few gangs still roamed but they were being hunted down and destroyed.
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$1000 REWARD
WANTED
DEAD OR ALIVE
FOR ROBBERY AND MURDER
DUTCH VAN DER LINDE
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I bought this new journal, after the last one got destroyed in that fire all those months ago, whenever it was.
Haven’t written or drawn much in the past few months, but I was missing it more than I thought I would, and finally near a store, so here I am, I guess.
After all that business up North and the fire, we spent a few months in the wilderness, traveling down from the Northern Grizzlies, stuck mostly in the western foothills of the mountains during the worst of the winter. Food was easy to find and life was good.
Dutch had a lead for some land we were going to buy, but the land did not match up to his criteria, or he got spooked we were being watched by the law and that somebody knew who he was, and we never bought it and we are wandering still.
We picked up a couple of new folk in the Grizzlies.
Jenny, a sweet young girl we met abandoned on the roadside, and Micah - an outlaw Dutch met in a bar someplace. Dutch seems very taken with Micah, who is pretty hot-headed, argumentative and full of himself. Hosea and I are less sure.
Guess we shall see.
Eventually, we came out of the wilderness and are now holed up outside of Blackwater, although sometimes I stay in town, hunting for opportunities.
I might be on to something. We got plenty of money, and the trail we took was so torturous and slow nobody would have followed us south and east, or figured out where we was heading.
We was thinking about California, but then Dutch and Hosea brought us down to Blackwater.
Blackwater has apparently grown a whole lot since any of them was last here - I was told to expect little more than a trading post.
But the place is growing fast, and it’s almost a small city. The town seems to be riddled with corruption, but there’s certainly plenty of money here.
It’s good to be sleeping in a bed from time to time and living a more civilized life after so long under canvas, but I do not particularly like being this near a town.
We are living here, camping outside town mostly, hidden in plain sight, I guess. Life seems pretty easy.
Abigail and Marston keep arguing. I wonder why exactly he came back. He cannot seem to decide if he wants to be a father to that boy of his or not.
The arguing is exhausting. I heard talk of a man sounded like Trelawny, but we haven’t seen him for many months.
Hosea and I are onto something. Something pretty big - might be a lot of cash coming in to do with a real estate scam Hosea thinks he may have discovered.
I am not sure yet. The perfect crime, we think - one where we rob crooks. We are being real careful.
It’s fun working with Hosea again. The man is an artist of nonsense. Even if nothing comes of it, we are having an amusing enough time.
It’s good to be running scams again. Hosea is a born huckster. He is getting anxious, worried that by lingering in town, we are going to bring undue attention on ourselves.
But Dutch thinks he is also onto something big, his words, not mine, bank money being brought in by boat, apparently, so for now, we are working on both things and seeing what happens.
Plan is to flee west into the desert country someplace if we can.
Micah and Dutch are planning to rob the ferry in town. They think it’s laden with riches - cash coming in for the banks, coming in by boat.
For once, I am not getting involved with the job. Hosea and I are too taken up with our business, which I believe could go very well, and Dutch seems confident that with the group assembled, all will be okay.
Plan is for them to carry out the job, then flee into the wilderness out to the West. The next day, Hosea and I carry out our scam and join them.
Dutch seems happy and excited. He’s talking again about California, but he’s also talking about a lot of other places.
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Let me see some more smilin’, boys, c’mon. Life is actually pretty good. A hundred years ago, we’d’a been indentured men. My people were peasants starvin’ in a field someplace. My momma’s were in Lincolnshire, my daddy’s were outside’a Rotterdam -- ‘least that’s what they told me. The modern world is ugly. But the old world… was worse. Our job… our job… is to make a better world for ourselves. Not go backward, but go forward… with hope and dreams. Seriously. An’ that hope… that hope begins now. By bein’ hopeful, an’ happy. So cheer up! All’a you, cheer up!
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Blackwater Ledger scrap (May, 1899)
Outlaw gang wanted over heist
Pinkertons increase search.
A gang of criminals, believed to be under the outlaw Dutch van der Linde, escaped with approximately $150,000 after a bloody gunfight with Pinkerton agents in Blackwater yesterday. The bank was moving the money out by boat after a string of stage coach robberies in the area. The authorities believe that the men must have stashed the money in Blackwater before fleeing and the town remains on high alert. This is one of the largest robberies in recent years