JW and his men led by Doug O’Connell crept into Asante a few hours before dawn just as he had planned. There wasn’t a resident in sight on the street. This didn’t seem strange at all to JW who just thought that his plan for a sneak attack was working out even better than he imagined. What most would have considered an unusual silence he just chalked up to expert planning and ideal timing, a pretty arrogant assumption for someone who has never set foot in this town at this time in the morning. Nor did he have time to have anyone scout it out under such a short timeline—probably not the best idea to go from the planning phase to the execution stage in just over twenty-four hours. Fortunately for me, this was the fool hearted, misguided confidence that I expected to drive JW’s overly zealous raid.
I watched from my position in the bell tower atop the church as they made their way through the center of the town. From this location I could see the entire town, and because of where the church was positioned at the edge of the town, it was a safe distance away to strike without much threat of any returned force. This gave me a little piece of mind because I wasn’t alone. As much as I was against it, Millie would not allow me to discourage her from participating in defending our town, so this was the safest place I could think of since she insisted. I must admit she is quite a shot with a long rifle, so having her here as a sniper is a plus.
“How many do you see, Ben?” she asked me, no doubt just to confirm her own count.
“I make about fifty, give or take,” I responded.
“For some reason I was expecting more.”
“Once again his arrogance shows. What man in his right mind tries to take over an entire town with just fifty men. He must have thought that we would just come running and begging for mercy.”
“Wrong town.” She cocked her rifle. “Wrong family.”
“I make about ten on horseback, so focus on taking them out first. Only about twenty with rifles and maybe only ten of those have the range to reach here with any accuracy so as soon as you can take them out as well. No matter what happens, as soon as they zero in on this location, you get out of here and go to the fallback position and wait for me. You got that?”
“Got it.” She didn’t seemed too thrilled about running away and not finishing the fight, and her tone represented her displeasure.
“I’m serious, Amillia. I need for you to get back to my son and get both of you to a safe location. I do not need those worries on my mind. Promise me you will do as I ask.”
“Our son.”
“Amillia!”
“I promise, sweetheart.”
I had called for the evacuation of the town the day before after Mac told me what JW was planning. I finalized my plans and gave assignments to my handpicked volunteers. Everyone was in place, and they knew to wait on my signal. As I continued to survey the situation, I noticed JW, who was one of the men on horseback, signal to some men. They lit torches and ran over to one of the boarding houses and set it on fire. It was a hard thing to watch, but I couldn’t show my hand too soon. As they approached the first phase line of my plan, I motioned to Millie to get ready. We both took aim with our rifles on our primary targets. Once they crossed the point of no return, we both fired. Two clean shots took out two men on horseback.
From that point on chaos ensued. More shots rang out from rooftops and top-floor windows, taking out the rest of the men on horses. JW, who was thrown from his horse in the commotion, and his men were in full-blown panic. There was no contingency plan for this or any type of resistance. This was another misstep that I had anticipated because of his overconfidence and lack of respect for us as opponents.
We had baited them all to a bottleneck in town where they were faced with two options for escape. One was to turn and head back through town, which meant dodging bullets from an enemy that had an elevated position and plenty of cover. The second option was to press forward and try to make it to the other side of town. Some of the men decided to press forward and make a mad dash, but to no avail. They were rudely thwarted by a huge dynamite blast that was set up and triggered by Bear and Mac. I couldn’t thank them right now, but after it was all over, I was going to certainly treat them to a few rounds of drinks on me.
At some point during the melee, Doug O’Connell managed to escape. Now after seeing more than half of his men killed and the rest abandoning him and running for their lives, JW was desperate and alone. I watched as he ran up to the town hall and kicked in the door. I told Millie that now would be a good time for her to make it back to a secure location.
“Go. I will come for you when it is all over,” I said to her as I kissed her good-bye.
“Ben, you better come back for us. Your son needs his father,” she commanded in a frightened tone.
“Our son,” I kissed her once more, and we went our separate ways.
I had no doubts she would be safe, but her worries for me were more than reasonable. She knew exactly where I was headed and what I planned to do. Although most of his men were either dead, injured, or fleeing for their lives, JW had surely lost the battle, but I wasn’t foolish enough to think that he would give up without a fight.
I finally made my way over to the town hall entrance, which was still half opened from where JW had kicked in the door. I slowly and quietly made my way inside, pointing my rifle as I scanned the room. As I made my way toward the back of the hall, I still didn’t see JW, so I called out to him.
“Give it up, JW, it’s over. Come out and maybe we can discuss a way to resolve this.”
Just as I said that, I heard his voice from behind me. Damn, how did I slip up and let him get behind me.
“Drop the rifle, you troublemaking, uppity son of a bitch,” JW said as he cocked his Colt revolver.
I did as he said and dropped my rifle and put my hands up where he could see them. I fully expected him to shoot me in the back without ever giving me the chance to look him in the eye. But he didn’t, he commanded me to turn around slowly.
“I want to see the look on your face when you realize that I beat you.”
“Beat me? Beat me at what? There was never any competition between us.”
“That’s where you are wrong. For all your strength and intelligence, your weakness was always that you were so naive when it came to dealing with people who were more ambitious than you could ever imagine being.”
“I’m not naive, I’m just not greedy. All I ever wanted was what I deserved and earned, but I don’t expect you would ever understand that.”
“I don’t have to, my boy,” he said as he raised his pistol at my chest.
“And why is that?” I asked, attempting to stall.
“Well, I will tell you. You see, you think you have won here today, but all you really did was help my cause. You think I was foolish for coming in here with just fifty men. But the fact is, any greater show of force would have been seen as just that, force. However, fifty men accompanied me today to peacefully bring order to a lawless town, and they were murdered in cold bold by the angry mob that resides here. So you see, by the time I put my little spin on this story, I will still win.”
I stood there for a moment and digested what he had said. It all made sense. Maybe he did calculate that I would assume that he would be overconfident and make stupid mistakes. Maybe I played right into his hands instead of vice versa.
“But the number one reason that it doesn’t matter anymore is because soon you will be dead like your brother and things will go back to normal.”
He laughed and spit at the ground to mock my brother.
“Whoever said my brother was dead?”
He stopped laughing and began to look puzzled. Just then Joshua stepped from behind the door. As JW turned around, Joshua shot him twice in the chest. He fell to the floor and struggled with his last breaths. I walked over and kneeled by his side.
“Oh yeah, he’s alive. I guess we dumb black folk misrepresented the truth just a little bit. At least you will die knowing I did learn one thing from you, always let the other guy think he has the upper hand.”
JW took his last breath and went limp. Josh walked over and shot him two more times.
“Just in case he is faking,” he said.
I hugged my brother, and we walked outside. The sun was completely up by now and daylight showered down on what was a few hours ago a battlefield. The residents were returning from their hiding spot and began working on putting out the fires and removing the bodies of the dead and wounded. Josh and I made our way up to the center of the town where we saw Mac outside of one of the saloons. He was leaned back in a chair with his feet propped up on the railing. He called us over as he pushed the brim of his hat back.
“We got something inside. I figured you fellas would want to see.”
Josh and I walked in and saw Bear sitting with Doug O’Connell at a poker table. Doug was tied to his chair and badly beaten. He was literally slipping in and out of consciousness. Bear had dealt a hand of poker and had the table set up for five players.
“Yall are just in time. I think Doug is cheating, but I can’t prove it. Pull up a chair and the winner of this hand takes all.”
Looking at Bear like he had lost his mind, Josh and I sat down, and Mac took the dealer’s position. When he laid the cards for the flop, it turned out that Doug had five aces.
“Well, I guess he wasn’t cheating. You win, Doug,” Bear said with the dullest sarcasm I had ever heard.
“What does he win, Mr. Dealer?” Bear asked Mac.
“Well, he either gets this well-maintained legendary Colt revolver, which has killed more than its fair share of people. It’s a collector’s item by the way. Or he can have this nice big shiny knife, handcrafted by one of the finest blacksmiths I know and a very good friend of mine, I might add.”
It was clear that they had both been drinking and was deep into the sauce by now. I knew the pain Bear felt when he thought we had lost Joshua, which was equal to the anger felt by Mac when he thought he had let me down. I was certain that Doug was not leaving here with his life.
“Well, Doug doesn’t seem to want to pick one, so which do you think he deserves, baby brother?” Bear asked Joshua.
“I tell you what, he has been such a good sport about it. I say let’s give him both.”
Bear nodded and picked up the knife. In one swift motion, he buried it to the hilt in Doug’s chest. Although he was gagged, he gasped for breath. His eyes got as big as cannon balls as he struggled for air. Mac picked up the Colt and shot him twice in the chest and once in the head, the last shot knocking him over in his chair. Bear poured them both another shot of whiskey, and they toasted each other’s handiwork.