Adventure by the Pound.
An Iron Age Media prompt - The Sloop.
We’re packed like sardines on this rickety old sloop and I don’t see the reality of the situation matching their pitch. Adventure of a life time! Witness the mongrel hordes of the Wilderlands! Hunt and mount your very own trophy! White Squall adventure co. had really done the dirty on these poor saps, advertising it as a luxury holiday, when in reality it is something else entirely.
There are some familiar faces among the newcomers, most seeking a shot of adrenaline by travelling to the outer continent. I spot old Mrs Haddock, a widower and cold fish to boot, she kept the Haddock name so she wouldn’t be evicted from her estate. She’s usually reserved, but when she gets out there on the plains, she is a sight to behold. There’s Mr Guthrie, an heirless trust fund baby, whose father had 9 children, and was a bona fide mining tycoon. People think that his siblings put him up to this excursion, so there was less competition when papa Guthrie kicked the bucket. Then I see Mr and Mrs Gull, surgeons and people of scientific thinking who come to study the biology of the wonders and curios (monsters) not found anywhere else in this world, after they kill them of course.
Me and the boys size the newcomers up. Who will make it, who won’t, who will come damn near to wetting themselves when they see just what they had gotten themselves into. The company calls us enforcers, but we are closer to cattle wranglers, keeping the masses on the right path “to get the most” out of the experience. That’s what White Squall say.
There are five of us total. Five dogs, to reign in and babysit this lot. There’s Burt Sutcliffe, a mean drunk and horse thief, who is a whole 12 days on the wagon and a new disciple of Christ, for what is left of his life. There’s the public nuisance and petty thief Tony Hickman, take heed to his surname because that is precisely what he is, none of his cousins were safe and his momma managed to get the judge to agree to working with White Squall as a sentence. There’s Katie the cat, who castrated her cheating husband and slit his throat. When they found the body, the evidence of the castration was missing, the sheriffs owed it to the cats. Then there’s Carl the Navajo, the son of a cobbler who was taken by the savages when they attacked the caravan his family were travelling in. And there’s me, that’s five of us to enforce this lot.
They herd themselves into groups and try to justify their expenditure by sipping expensive Champaigne, eating horderves and accoutrements. Some seem genuinely surprised with themselves, that they had taken the leap and put down the farm. Some, you can tell that they already have regrets. For what? They won’t find out till they’re there. You can’t blame them though and I always say a little fear goes a long way to survival in a place like that.
A couple expeditions back there was this rich group who had pooled their resources and hired “seasoned men” to watch their back. This they did, until they were all eaten alive. Those poor saps were devoured before word got back to us and we could intervene. Now, I put it down to a false confidence.
There are some that will buddy up to us, somehow thinking that will ensure better protection. I tell them, “You can’t protect stupid.”
Others are paranoid, thinking that the equipment we give them has faults and the ones we use are somehow superior. Which is half true I suppose. Never in a thousand years would I go out there without my own pistols and such. They way I see it, is you wouldn’t want an unproven weapon in your hand when your ass is on the line. In that respect, I don’t blame them.
The truth is, you can only prepare so much. All the stories and advice don’t mean much when you touch down on uncertain terms. Out of your comfort zone and with no help coming, except for the person beside you, who you can only hop would be as cordial as you and spare a bullet for his fellow man.
All the while, White Squall sit back and rake in the money. Adventures for everyman? For trophies? Hell, they’ll find out. Somewhere in it I reckon there’s a politics that I surely don’t understand, nor do I want to. But I suppose there has to be some way of stripping men of their lives and hard-earned money, something akin to the cruelty of war.
This is a savage game conceived by bloodthirsty people and I reckon my luck is coming towards its end. The boys ask me, Wyatt, why do you do it? Keep going back to that hell hole, it must be because of the notoriety because is sure as hell ain’t for the money. I answer, boys, people once knew me a degenerate the likes of which you or God have ever seen, and when my time comes and I have to answer for all my sins, the least of which will be leading innocent, heck, I don’t want to say innocent because who is, in these times. My point is the men I’m in it with are the worst kind that don’t take orders from White Squall or God himself. And they want their pound of flesh.
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