Men on horseback approached the town.Three of them came on, glancing around.From the way they openly carried pistols and rifles, they weren’t ordinary.Holliday, standing beside Max, spoke.“Border Ruffians have never shown up to a town like this.”Until now they’d set other settlers forward to wreck a town; they hadn’t ridden in armed like this.“We’ll see. Let’s ask.”While they talked, the distance closed.Townspeople murmured, showing their unease.“For now, stay right here.”Leaving Holliday behind, Max walked toward the group.“Huh?”“What’s this guy?”They were startled that he was Oriental—and when they saw the badge, their eyelids twitched.“End times, end times. A coolie playing sheriff.”“If you came, state your business.”“Hey now. Watch your mouth. We’ve got business with the grown-ups—go keep playing, you coolie punk.”Max spoke with an irritated face.“I’m the sheriff of Lawrence. If you’ve got business, you tell me.”“Sheriff?”They looked at each other, shoulders shaking. Then they burst out laughing.“Heard you didn’t have a sheriff. What crap is this.”“Whatever you call it—Lawrence, whatever. If you’ve put up an Oriental brat as sheriff, that says it all. Out of people much? Hell, I’ll—”“Say one more word.”“You impudent little—!”Before the leader could draw,Max’s gun was already out and aimed at him.Bang!A hole punched through the hat on the leader’s head.At the sheer speed, eyes went wide and throats clicked.The leader knit his brows and took a step back.“Not saying one more word?”“……”This paper-badge lunatic…He could shoot like the devil.The leader, spooked, wiped sweat from his brow.Then—“Die, you bastard!”In that instant, the one half-covered among the three yanked a gun.Bang!Bang!“Eek!”“Graaah!”Two shots, two screams.The first was Max’s—he took the shooter’s left earlobe clean off.Startled, the hit man fired, and the bullet smashed into his comrade’s arm in front of him—the second report.Team kill!?Max was startled; so were his own opponents.“Y-you idiot bastard!”The cursing turned on their own man.Judging by the torn cloth at the end of the left sleeve, it looks like it skimmed skin.Thankfully the townspeople didn’t know.They were making a fuss that Max had hit two men at once.Max wore a baffled face.“What are you, a circus troupe?”“Urk.”It wasn’t so much that he’d struck a nerve—their groans were from pain. The man missing an ear and the two in the botched team kill were groaning.The leader shrank in on himself.“Get lost—before that bullet lodges in your forehead.”Glaring at Max, the leader edged back toward his men, glancing over his shoulder in case Max shot him in the back.Then they moved off away from the town.What were they aiming for?When Max turned his back on the receding men,the townspeople waved and cheered.Some stuck up their thumbs.“A sheriff really does make you feel safe!”“The rumors were true.”“Whew. Now we can relax.”Fitch, who’d recommended Max for sheriff—when their eyes met, she snapped her head away and disappeared.No telling what that woman’s temperament is.The children’s reactions were hot too.“That was so cool!”“I want to be like you, mister!”“This is a sheriff.”As Max grinned, Holliday came up beaming.“Wow. Honestly, I hired you on rumor, but I didn’t expect this much. You chased three of them off like mangy dogs.”He exhaled in admiration and went on.“But why did they come?”“Well. There’s one thing to suspect.”It was still a time when there weren’t many outlaws.Even if there were, most were shooting and robbing in California or New Mexico.So what would a gang want from a frontier town like this?“The ones who sent them are likely from the slave states.”“To gain what?”To seed fear and anxiety among settlers and kick off open conflict with the free states.By the light of future knowledge, it was a reasonable inference.“It’s the same vein as the land harassment.”Stroking his beard, Holliday asked Max:“What do they get by fomenting fear and anxiety?”“The vote.”March 30.The legislative election in Kansas would split it slave-state versus free-state.Missouri was a slave state. What they wanted was to make Kansas one too.You could see all of this as groundwork laid for that day.“When fear and dread soak in, towns break into infighting. Even if they don’t show it, on the day of the vote they’ll fold at the slightest violence. The slave states are testing it—which towns are vulnerable.”Lawrence wasn’t the only place in Kansas.Even Lawrence itself was split into several nodes by settlement group.Max was only the sheriff of a very small town made up of emigrants sent by the NEEAC.Leavenworth, Kickapoo, Delaware, Atchison, Lecompton, Mound—besides Lawrence.The Border Ruffians’ goal was to seize voting rights across all the towns of Kansas.Holliday stared hard at Max.“Why do you know it so well?”“Wasn’t the House election three months ago the same? Look at how things are moving—you can sketch it out.”“I didn’t see it coming at all.”Liar.Even if not down to the details, Holliday surely knew the flow of the board very well.He might look like a man with no defined role on the Lawrence council and plenty of idle time.But he was a man thinking several moves ahead.On slavery, on the town’s future, on the business side.It was obvious he spent all day turning complex schemes in his head.Here’s why Max was so sure:Because he knew Holliday was planning a new town—not Lawrence—where he’d leave his footprint.It was a big part of why Max took interest in Holliday in the first place.And perhaps because of today’s events,he meant to show a slice of that plan.“In a few days, come somewhere with me. There’s a place I want to show you.”“Far?”“No. Half a day’s enough.” ****Leaving the town for a bit,Max followed Holliday northwest along the Kansas River.“That town you see there is Lecompton. The governor stays there, so you could call it the center of Kansas right now.”The town’s bent was packed with those who favored slavery. And the slave-state men treated Lecompton as Kansas’s de facto capital.“When we met Representative Lane the other day, the Border Ruffians must have been headed there.”“If you ran into them coming from Leavenworth, that tracks.”It was a risky town for Holliday, but to show Max, he took the closer road by it.Past Lecompton, Holliday led Max into open prairie—nothing but land.It was twenty-four miles—thirty-eight kilometers—from Lawrence.“This is the city I’m planning as the new center of Kansas. And the land where free men will live as they please.”Free men, huh.Max glanced at Holliday.He was looking at the prairie and painting a future.A place where Black and white would live freely as equals.And the place where your grave will be.Not in a bad sense. Dying in the city you built could be an honor.“What do you think of it here?”“It’s good.”“In what way?”Holliday pressed him.“For starters, the location isn’t bad. Frankly, Lawrence is too close to Missouri. High chance it gets caught in slave-state riots.”“Wow—you think the same as me. That’s why I talked Chairman Charles into it. I figure a blood-wind is coming to Kansas soon. I wanted as much distance from the slave states as I could get.”Max nodded. Holliday had the situation sized up.“Know what this place is called?”Topeka, surely.“Topeka!”“I see.”“Know what it means?”“No.”“‘A good place to dig potatoes.’ Truth is, potatoes grow anywhere, but the Indians especially called this place that.”“Doesn’t seem to mean much.”“It sounds light on the tongue. Topeka.”Holliday was immersed in this place.Lawrence was where his body stayed; Topeka was where his mind perched.“Honestly, when you said you’d be sheriff, I wasn’t sure. But the other day, I got convinced.”“Of what?”“The thought that you’re the one who’ll hold this place.”“If it works out later, do I get a seat?”“Of course. If we grow this city together, that would mean a lot.”Holliday looked at Max with a face of genuine feeling. He hadn’t planned it like this from the start.It had started with gun-hand, but after taking Max’s measure, this was his conclusion.Maybe I should plant my history here too.Max thought the same, looking over the wide prairie.As Holliday dreamed, he too wanted a shard of history.It wouldn’t be famous like the big American cities, but joining at the start had a meaning of its own.“If you’ve seen enough, let’s head back.”“Yeah. We shouldn’t leave the town empty too long.” ****Back from looking over Topeka, Max sat at the office desk.Holliday sat across, leisurely reading a book.Tap, tap.Max drummed his fingers and ran the numbers in his head.He pulled out old knowledge and looked it over.At length, Max spoke to Holliday.“We’ve looked at land. Now talk of something else?”“About what?”“I hear there are conditions for sitting as governor or other posts.”At Max’s words, Holliday nodded.“There are. The Northwest Ordinance. It sets that a governor has to reside in the district and hold a certain amount of free soil.”Holliday explained it in detail. In Lawrence as well, the beginning of ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) a town was land—absolutely.That’s why Max was curious about Topeka’s situation.“How’s the city-building fund for Topeka coming?”“Eastern men with money are showing interest, but it’s still short. Ongoing. Why are you asking? You’re not…”Holliday’s eyes went wide.“Put five hundred of my thousand into it.”“!”He’d entrusted the money to Holliday for this very purpose.Topeka’s meaning was that of a starting settlement.Above all, Topeka would become the capital of Kansas.Max had passed through there in his former life, and he’d seen the big buildings.Holliday would seize most of the city’s land, and that would be the footing to leap into the railroad business.So I’m getting in too.

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