America 1883: The Western Homeland

Chapter 53 Being Targeted by Bandits

Tom remained expressionless, flicked his wrist to put away the still-hot revolver, turned and left as if he had only done a trivial matter.

The crowd fell silent, automatically parting to make way for the boy in his pajamas, who looked like a god of death, as he disappeared behind the tent.

Only after Tom had completely disappeared did Shay walk up to the fat man who was slumped on the ground, his face ashen.

He pulled a money pouch from his pocket, counted out a few bills, and coldly shoved them into the man's arms: "This is the protection money you paid. Take it. Now, take your men and leave my group immediately! We will no longer protect you!"

After saying that, he strode away without looking back.

James silently walked back to his own camp.

Margaret was tending the campfire, cooking bean and meat porridge, the firelight reflecting her worried face.

"Where's Tom?" James asked.

"He's back in his tent." Margaret's voice was even lower, tinged with lingering fear. "I knew something was wrong with him! Just now... just now, who didn't think he was really going to fire that last shot?"

James looked at Tom's tightly closed tent flap, his eyes deep and thoughtful.

The camp seemed to have returned to a superficial calm. Tom's shot that morning, and the few families of grain robbers who were driven away, seemed to have been deliberately "forgotten" by everyone.

Tom sat on the bumpy carriage, his gaze seemingly casually sweeping over the wilderness on both sides of the road, but in reality, his "field of vision" was expanding and scanning in his mind.

Suddenly, his sharp gaze locked onto the entrance to an inconspicuous valley in the distance!

A strong sense of crisis, as if being spied on, welled up inside me.

"Zack!" Tom shouted suddenly.

Zack, the skinny man lazily herding cattle at the back of the group, suddenly sprang to his feet and spurred his horse forward.

"Drive!" Tom said succinctly, shoving the reins to Zack and then quickly leaping onto Mudfish's back, ready to charge toward the suspicious valley.

Just now.

"Clatter clatter clatter!" The rapid sound of horses' hooves grew louder as they approached! Wade, who was in charge of patrolling the outer perimeter, galloped towards them on horseback.

Bad news arrived: they were being targeted by bandits!

The group followed Wade to a campfire he had found.

The ashes still retain warmth.

"Six hoofprints, six men." Thomas, a former scout, bent down to examine the area carefully and confidently reported the number of bandits.

But Tom knew there were seven.

At this moment, the seventh pair of eyes is hidden in the shadows of the valley, spying on them with cold telescopes.

In order to shake off the bandits who were clinging to him like leeches, Captain Shay made a quick decision: quicken your pace and create some distance!

Tom rode up to Elsa. "The cowboy team now has more men, including Zach and Cooper. You'll be going back to the caravan for now."

Everyone thought that only a group of bandits had their eyes on them, but that was not the case.

At least three packs of greedy jackals had their eyes on the convoy; perhaps the herd of fat, strong bison was simply too conspicuous.

Elsa wandering the wilderness with the cattle was tantamount to exposing herself to the fangs of hungry wolves.

"I'm fine, the herd needs me, right, Ennis?" Elsa insisted.

Ennis stared at Tom's eyes, which could freeze one's soul, his Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty, and he was momentarily speechless.

"Tom, they wouldn't dare do anything reckless in broad daylight!" Wade quickly intervened to smooth things over.

"Yes," Tom's voice was eerily calm, "I will 'deal with' them."

"You'd better watch yourself!"

Leaving behind these cold words, Tom turned his horse around and returned to the caravan.

"We've gotten ourselves into big trouble..." Wade glanced at the pale-faced Ennis and muttered to himself.

"Who?" Ennis's voice trembled almost imperceptibly.

Wade did not answer, but simply continued his patrol on horseback.

Tom returned to the camp and found James: "They're still behind us, haunting us."

James immediately understood who Tom meant by "them"—the band of bandits who were always following him around!

"Are we just going to keep running away?" Tom frowned.

"No," James said sharply.

Tom neither agreed nor disagreed with James's words.

He spurred his horse up to Fatty Cooper and said in a deep voice, "Cooper, the cattle are in your hands now. Keep a close eye on them!"

Cooper nodded vigorously: "Don't worry!"

Although the cattle are grazing together, their respective abodes can still be distinguished.

Tom kept looking back along the way.

The bandits, like hyenas that have smelled blood, stayed far behind the convoy.

Under the command of Captain Shay, the convoy quickly adjusted its defensive deployment.

When resting, the carriages are lined up end to end to form a circle, and people are inside the circle, forming a simple fortress.

As night falls, double shifts are arranged for night duty.

James had already brought Elsa back from herding cattle at night.

In the dead of night, Tom was preparing to quietly leave the camp to deal with the annoying group of tails following him.

To everyone's surprise, they hadn't gone far when they stumbled upon a shocking scene—Elsa and Ennis were hiding in the shadows, their bodies pressed together, their actions passionate, and it looked like they were about to alert the entire camp.

"If I were you," Tom's icy voice pierced the ambiguous atmosphere like an icicle in the cold night, "I wouldn't choose this time, in this place."

The sudden noise startled the two of them, causing them to separate abruptly.

Elsa, enraged and embarrassed, growled at Tom, "What are you doing here?!"

Tom stared at Elsa, whose mind seemed completely blank, his face grim. "This is a camp! You want to put on a free live sex show for everyone? Shouldn't you think about how your family feels, Elsa?"

Elsa regained some of her senses, her face flushing red and then pale: "We...we didn't do anything!"

Tom didn't bother to look at her embarrassed appearance; his cold gaze shot straight at Ennis like a blade.

Ennis was now deathly pale and drenched in cold sweat.

Tom simply stared at him silently and with an oppressive intensity.

"Tom! What do you think you're doing?!" Elsa instinctively stepped between the two.

"Now, shouldn't everyone return to their positions?" Tom's voice was deep and commanding. "Ennis?"

"Yes...yes!" Ennis felt like he had been granted a pardon and practically scrambled to his feet and ran away.

Women are wonderful, but you have to be alive to enjoy them!

At that moment, Tom felt that the bandits behind him were more pleasing to the eye than the two troublesome creatures in front of him.

Slaughtering bandits? I'm not in the mood for that right now!

Let's keep those bandits and just kill these two brain-dead idiots!

The next day, as the convoy set off, someone with sharp eyes noticed that several thick black plumes of smoke were twisting and rising into the sky on the distant horizon!

The location was exactly where the group of grain robbers they had driven out yesterday had last stayed.

Their car was burned!

The person... is probably in grave danger.

The moment the convoy chose to abandon them, the cold death sentence had already been signed by those jackals who had followed them!

Tom silently turned around, his gaze sweeping over the convoy.

Compared to the bustling crowd at the start, the number of people had decreased by nearly half, and the emptiness was chilling.

"They're about to bite!" Wade's voice was anxious as he rode up from the rear of the column.