home

search

4 - Vows of Vengeance

  Stephen kicked the corpse hard and continued toward the cabin.

  Here were two more bodies, all members of the O'Driscoll gang.

  The way they died was similar to the first one – all shot with a handgun, all killed with a single shot.

  However, these men were covered in black ash, then snow, and their clothes showed signs of scorching.

  Judging from the bullet placement in their wounds and the angle of entry, assuming the bodies hadn't been moved much, there should have been three shooters.

  One at the doorway, one behind the wagon, and one, presumably, the sharpshooter near the barn.

  Stephen went into the barn and, sure enough, a line of huge footprints appeared near the barn.

  Stephen crouched down, closely examining the footprints. Yep, this guy had ambushed the O'Driscolls from here.

  This guy was a sharpshooter. Stephen noticed that only three bullets had been fired from here. Three bullets to take down three bandits, at night. This guy must be terrifying.

  Stephen then went behind the wagon. There was someone here too, and he had killed two men.

  Wait, something on the wagon! Stephen saw something amiss with the wagon. He slowly reached out and gently brushed the snow off the wagon.

  Stephen's hands began to tremble, and he could barely stand. Even though only a small part of the person lying in the wagon was visible, he already knew who it was.

  Tears instantly welled up in his eyes. Mr. Yake, the man who had saved him, taken care of him, and been so kind to him. He had died at his doorstep, at the hands of a gang of despicable bandits.

  Stephen cried silently. In his past life, he had been an orphan. The original owner of this body had also been a street urchin. In his memories, Mr. Yake and Mrs. Sadie were the only people who had given him the warmth of a home.

  He wiped away his tears and carefully lifted Mr. Yake's body down, gently clearing the snow from him.

  He examined the body closely. Apart from the gunshot wounds, there were also signs of beating. And, judging from the lividity on the body, his time of death was different from the men on the ground.

  From the condition of the body, Mr. Yake had been dead for at least a week. Of course, the freezing environment would naturally affect Stephen's judgment.

  But regardless, this was an open-air environment. But the time of death certainly wouldn't exceed half a month.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  That meant, when he was playing hide-and-seek with that white Arabian in Grizzlies West... Stephen covered his face, remorse filling his chest. If he hadn't gone to catch that horse, maybe none of this would...

  Looking at Mr. Yake's unclosed eyes, Stephen clenched his fist and said fiercely, "Don't worry, Mr. Yake, I'll avenge you! I will send all of them to hell!! I will!!"

  He took out his blanket and wrapped Mr. Yake's body in it, then continued searching the house.

  The house was a complete wreck. Stephen searched through the ruins bit by bit.

  Mrs. Sadie’s figure hadn’t been found yet, Stephen’s heart was praying that he would not find her, yet was afraid that he would not find her.

  If she had been captured by those bandits, then...

  Stephen dared not think about it any further. He desperately searched through the ruins, eventually finding only a photo that had been burned at the edges.

  It was a photo of the couple together. Looking at the happy couple in the photo, Stephen's tears flowed again.

  Next to it on the ground was an iron box. Stephen opened it and found a platinum necklace inside.

  He remembered how Mrs. Sadie had proudly shown off the necklace, saying that Mr. Yake had used it to propose to her.

  At that time, Mrs. Sadie's face was full of happiness and longing for a bright future, which Stephen greatly envied.

  He carefully placed the photo and necklace into the inside pocket of his coat, and then searched the house again.

  Everything on the ground had been destroyed by the fire. Stephen made a circle and didn't find anything useful. Now, only the basement was left.

  He naturally knew that there was a basement in the house. He lifted the rubble and pulled open the basement door.

  Stephen then grabbed a piece of wood from the rubble, lit it, and slowly descended into the basement.

  This was the family's storage room, with only some food for the winter and some tools. However, Stephen still found something here.

  Some of the food had been eaten, but not much. On the nearby wall, Stephen saw some scratch marks.

  The scratches were chaotic and deep, left by someone in extreme fear and anger. It seemed that one possibility was that Mrs. Sadie had hidden in the basement.

  The faint smell of excrement in the air also confirmed this.

  Combining the previous discoveries, the whole picture was now clear. The O'Driscoll gang had robbed this place, and Mr. Yake had died at their hands. And Mrs. Sadie had hidden in the basement, enduring a painful period.

  Then three more people had come. They had not only killed the O'Driscoll gang but also burned the place down, and Mrs. Sadie must have been taken away by them.

  But who could they be? Stephen couldn't figure it out. Superheroes? Don't be ridiculous. This world only had supervillains, not Superman wearing his underwear on the outside.

  The most likely scenario was that robbers had encountered robbers. But who would be so bold as to rob the O'Driscoll gang? These men were infamous in the nearby states, and few people dared to directly confront them.

  Stephen slowly walked out of the ruins. Not far away was a stable. Stephen slowly walked into it.

  There was another body here. Stephen could tell at a glance that this guy had been strangled to death.

  The body was covered in injuries from being beaten. It seemed that the guy who had killed him was a real brute.

  That was it. That was all the clues Stephen could observe. He remembered everything here in his heart, carried Mr. Yake's body to the cliff behind the house.

  He found a shovel in the basement, buried him, and found a relatively intact wooden board to make a tombstone.

  Following the customs of his previous life, Stephen lit a cigarette, poured some wine, and opened all kinds of canned goods he had brought and placed them in front of the tombstone.

  "Mr. Yake, don't worry, I will find Mrs. Sadie. Whether she is dead or alive, I will bring her back to your side."

  Stephen drank the bottle of wine in one gulp and solemnly swore to the tombstone in front of him.

Recommended Popular Novels