Quoted By:
>Friday, September 5th.
>One day remains.
Andrew's Colt M1878 and Smith & Wesson still sat upon your bedspread. The two of you had whiled away last night cleaning your guns, after the meeting, while discussing the day's comings and goings. Andrew had meant to stay longer and take his guns with him, of course, but the man had been pulled away by some emergency and forgotten to bring his guns with him.
You'd thought to return them to him at breakfast-- an action which earned you an abnormal amount of thanks from Andrew. Steele had commented on the occasion in his usual humorous manner, making sure to remind the both of you that such teamwork would be most needed come tomorrow morning...
"You're a lucky man, Steele," you observed between waffle bites. "You get t' sleep in t'morrow without a care in the world. It's a miracle Muyr let you off so easily."
"Such happenstance is one of the few benefits perceived senility can bring," Buchanan half-joked. "Why, an aged man like I would hardly do well on a battlefield..."
You held your tongue, unwilling to make a joke at the expense of your boss at a time like this. Muyr was a respectable general, after all, and evidently not one to rest on his laurels. It was no surprise he'd have insisted on joining the rest of the Staters, even in his less direct commanding role.
"Can't do any worse there than y' do on a horse," Andrew commented. "Yer lucky Buckwheat doesn't mind big men like you. Dora's not so lucky anymore."
His comment was followed by silence. On a better day, the three of you might have laughed off such a comment or considered a different topic. Today, however, it touched too closely upon the uncomfortable possibility weighing down all three of you.
Tomorrow morning, at the behest of a man and his pet movement, the young and able of you three would descend upon Sacramento's second-most sacred building as enemies of an American apparatus. You would attempt to capture this building before the sun was up, in the name of fallen friends and associates, and force the unworthy rulers of this entire Golden State to admit defeat simply to return to their daily jobs.
If all went well, this victory would be quiet and concise-- a simple take-over of a building, a lengthy negotiation session that may determine its fate.
If most anything went poorly... it would do you no good to ponder it now.
