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Your first introduction to the cocoa plant was down in Mexico, and you’ve always taken it as the Mexicans have, boiled with chilis until frothing and drank, instead of eaten solid. The sight is magnificent out of proportion to itself. Somehow an 8 oz. cloth packet of cocoa powder massages every knot of fright and worry into a placid tide of carelessness. Aside from the canned goods, there are also empty tin cups for sale, along with a trail kit, consisting of a fry pan, stew pot, coffee pot, and other necessaries. You make your purchases and inquire as to firearms in the camp. Every man has one but you saw no stall proffer them, and elsewise from the general store there’s but a Marshals office and saloon.
Both hands heavy on the counter Brown leans over, “Gots me’n baffalo raffle i cud port wit fer fitteen er dust.” Not what you were hoping for, a Plains Rifle was a muzzle-loader and at .50 caliber it packed some wallop but was as overlong as the ammunition was overheavy. Another customer in the store hears an opportunity for commerce and chimes in, “I got me one o’ them kentucky rifles, ain’t failed me yet pardner.” The man sucks on his mustache, “Now that’n I’d let go fer $17, seein’ as it’s newish and all.” Newish…the longrifle, or as you first knew it the Pennsylvania Rifle was another muzzle-loader, .45 caliber, used back in the Revolution. You very much doubted it was ‘newish’. Not only that but both men were overpricing you by about $10. You tell them you’ll consider it and let them know by the end of the day, then make your leave.
Back out in the crisp you decide to meander to the odd stall out at the end of the thoroughfare that you’d ignored. As you approach you see it’s manned by an Indian. He stares level, as if looking past you, even as you approach within twenty, ten, five feet. Even as you step up to him behind his wooden stall. He is possibly the fattest man you’ve ever seen in your life. He stares straight ahead still, passing breath after labored breath through his open mouth. He sits on some tortured construction that could loosely be considered a chair, its screams muffled under the press of his bulk. He is almost as wide as the stall itself and what little space left around him is filled with various plants, seeds, and powders. From the ceiling of the stall hangs herbs, flowers, and various groupings of bark.