>>5947313>>5947336>>5947616>>5947644With the loss of the plantation, and your older brother in a madhouse, the responsibility for the family name falls to you. You've been working tirelessly these last two years for a chance to shake hands with someone of real power and authority. Mr. Redwater is one of the richest men in the country. With all the people moving west or south after the war, his fortune, built on the tracks of Redwater Railway Company, seems in no danger of shrinking any time soon. He seldom takes face-to-face meetings, and those whom he favors have had their lives changed overnight.
You find yourself nodding off when you finally hear the sound of boots on the access steps. You quickly rub your eyes and straighten up. The door opens and two men enter. First, a tall, wiry man with a horseshoe mustache and a black hat. He enters as coolly as a tiger, paying you no mind as he beelines to the liquor. The polished iron on his hip winks like broken glass in the lamplight.
Then comes Mr. Redwater, huffing and sniffing with the rain, his enormous coat and tophat dripping large drops onto his paneled floor. You begin to stand up but he waves you down with his hat. He's much thinner than in the pictures. His eyes and cheeks are sunken and you note a slight tremor in his hands when he goes to check his pocket watch.
"Pour one for me too, eh, Zeb?" he says, and slumps into the chair across from you. "Decent weather for a duck," he mutters, and then looks at you. "You're the one Bart's been telling me about."
"Yes, sir."
The man called Zeb comes around with the drinks and hands one to Mr. Redwater.
"You've forgotten our guest, Zeb," Mr. Redwater says.
Zeb grunts and mutters something to the effect of "Can get his own damn drink." Then he goes to the fireplace and starts to warm his hands.
"You'll have to forgive my associate, he isn't used to our lovely New England weather. Normally, I don't travel with such brutes," (he looks at Zeb laughingly while he says this), "but such are the times that they have become necessary. If even Presidents can be fired upon, where does that leave humble merchants like myself?"
You clear your throat, unsure of how to reply.
Mr. Redwater studies you a moment. "Have you read Darwin? One must read between the lines. The thrust of it is that nature is godless, and that man is not exempt its brutality. Might is right! It is only a recounting of Hobbes, of course, but then, there is nothing new under the sun--as a civil war and a dead president can attest. I'm sure a man of your profession can appreciate the inescapability of natural law, despite all our efforts at civilization."
>Soldier: "I was at Shiloh, sir, and Gettysburg. I'm no stranger to the natural state of man.">Politician: "Hobessian cynicism is what keeps me employed, sir, but I prefer to appeal to man's virtues more than his failings.">Merchant: "Quid pro quo is the only law of nature I recognize.">Write-in 