Saturday, April 6, 1875; Missouri Wilds [1. This was a bad session for timing; people were late and a session break in the middle cut down on the “in world game time”.]
At breakfast, I brought up that thorny topic, the madman’s money. It was not as hard as I thought it would be; the demon dollars couldn’t grip tight on me. I told the Doc and Malachai that they were the victims of the madman’s blade, that they had more of a claim to the cash he was carrying than any other man. So I handed them the fat wad of money I’d taken from the dead man– Lucien’s wallet. They set about protesting, but could not come up with a better plan. They promised to think on a proper division during the day, and we’d talk around our fire tonight.
As we rode along I felt better and turned my attention to the road and countryside. It’s still a wild land, the end of winter and bright spring greens just popping out along the ruts worn by generations of travelers west. A pretty country, but filled with bandits and indians, and lawless.
In the afternoon we all came to a halt; William Miller’s wagon broke an axle crossing a deep rut. I went forward and did my part, helpin to unload the wagon and hold it up while the next axle was put up and secured. While we were workin, there was shots from the back of the caravan. My hands were full of wagon, but I later heard that some wild dogs were menacing the cattle at the back of the caravan, tried to savage them. Malachai and Walter Armstrong fought them off. Malachai and Walter are working on becoming fast friends– and he invited Mr. Armstrong to dinner tomorrow night.
While I was cookin dinner tonight, Malachai came to me and whispered about the bars of gold. He wondered if I was thinkin along the same lines for them– that I didn’t want anything to do with them.[2. This Malachai conversation actually happened after our “around the fire” conversation in play, and was retconned.] I admitted that I was avoiding thinking on it, but yes, I had no claim. We talked for a long time; I had to have Mr. Cain and Doc Brown watch the cookfire while Malachai and I talked in dead Lucien’s wagon.[3. This is one of the most “promising” signs that we’re thinking about this like real people. Drop $100,000 in someone’s lap and it’ll derail their evening too. The drawback is that we talked about it in real time, which killed the session’s already slow momentum.] After a lot of jawboning, we came out to a scorched dinner.
We talked around the fire. I asked Mr. Cain about his adventure yesterday an’ he told us about his brave riding ahead warning the caravan ahead, the horse thieves slipping into the campsite, the people of the caravan staying huddled around the fire instead of stepping forward to protect their horses and livelyhood. It makes me appreciate that our everyman contributes, whether a wheel falls off or gunshots crack out in the night.
Then we got to the meat of the matter, the cash. Malachai and Doc insisted on spreading it out– they insisted they’d have been killed if James and I hadn’t helped stepped up to stop him.That was Malachai’s cue– he then told them that we had a lot more to split than the wallet– and he showed them the two painted gold bars. [4. This was what Jim and I decided, in the end, mixing some in character reasoning and out of character “what’s fair around the table” thought.]
The Doc was quick to figure that we had more than five thousand dollars in gold there– he didn’t even need paper to figure out the numbers! Since our next stop is Independence, Malachai’s hometown, he’s gonna look up a friend and try to cash the bars. ‘Cause, as he pointed out, there ain’t much a bar of gold can buy once you’re in the wild. One good thing they were thinkin’ is that we could use the money to hire a wagon or three to follow us west with supplies. If it arrived a few weeks after we got there, it could make setting up a new town much easier.
We’ll get on gettin on– Malachai’s going to ride to town early and see about getting the gold changed. We’ll have a few days in Independence preparing for the long journey west. Supply should be easy with all of those dollars in our pocket. I should have enough, and more than enough, to send some back home to Dad. I’ll have to think hard on how to get him dollars intact– I suppose trusting a bank is a must.
I should sleep better tonight; my thoughts are clear now that I have unburdened myself of the secrets of Lucien Brown. Though already my thoughts turn to supply and the struggles of the route west.