Courier Work Sucks

Posted on Sat Apr 11th, 2020 @ 12:59pm by Security Johannah "Mack" Shepard

Mission: Bright and Shiny things
Location: Planet Deadwood
Timeline: Sometime Prior to Mack's Arrival

Mackensie “Mack the Knife” Shepard hunkered down behind some rocks and sighed. It was supposed to be a simple job. A simple favor for a local broker. Of course, the favor seemed to pay really well, which should have given Mack pause. But ever since the war, Mack seemed at times to have a death wish.

As stated, the job was fairly simple courier work. Transport a rare and apparently valuable medicinal herb to a nearby town and bring back the item offered in trade. There was some kind of sickness in the town and one of the local brokers had arranged a deal. It seemed that someone else thought they might horn in on the transaction. Black Tom Flaherty’s little gang of hired guns had picked up a contract to intercept Mack on this little adventure and he had Josephine “Joker Jo” Valentine with him. Jo Valentine and Mack Shepard had history. Jo had served in the Brown Coats with Mack. At Mack’s urging, Jo had surrendered at the end of the war. Only Jo didn’t have an influential Colonel for a father and didn’t get a full pardon. Instead, Jo spent five years in Newgate Prison and she resented Mack because Mack was released after less than a month.

“Mackensie,” Jo said. “I don’t know what’s going through your head right now, but this doesn’t have to end badly for you. Just surrender and hand over the package and we’ll let you go.”

Mack finished attaching the stock to the grip of her Shanxi Type 22 pistol, turning it into a carbine. She double checked the magazine and made sure she had a round chambered.

“My head,” Mack shouted down the hill, speaking in the colonies’ syntax and slang she’d picked up over the years . “My business. But I reckon I know what’s about to go through Black Tom Flaherty’s head, same as I do that guy standing to his right.” Mack planned on killing all of them, but shooting the first two through the head in rapid succession before the others could even think about reacting would give her a psychological advantage.


Flaherty laughed. “Oh yeah?” he asked. “What’s that?”

“Oh, shit…” Jo Valentine started to say as she started to pull her gun. “Flaherty! Get the Hell--”

Before she could finish her sentence, Mack popped just over the top of her rock and calmly put one bullet right through Flaherty’s forehead and one through the forehead of the guy standing to his right, then calmly flipped the selector to two-round bursts and put down the other three of Flaherty’s men. When she was done with them, she fired two at the ground directly in front of Jo Valentine. “Holster it, Jo, and I mean right now! Holster it and ride outta here! You ain’t gotta die for this. I know you need the money and you want me dead. I know you were figuring you could make both dreams come true today, but that ain’t gonna happen. So just walk away, Jo. You’re good with a gun, but I got the drop on you. There’ll be other jobs, and you can try and kill me some other time. Maybe when the odds are more in your favor.”

Jo scowled at Mack. She wanted Mackensie Shepard dead so bad she could taste it. It was why she’d taken the job in the first place. Besides, with Flaherty and his men dead, she could collect all the pay from the job herself.

Mack grimaced. She had always felt a little guilty about what happened to Jo, so she decided to give her another chance, a chance to do the right thing.

“This here package,” Mack said. “Yeah, it’s worth some currency. But it’s also gonna save some sick folks, kids among ‘em. Is this how you want to make your living Jo? Stealing medicine from sick kids?”

“Life’s hard, Mack,” Jo said. “And I ain’t some fancy rich bi--”

Mack put two rounds through Jo’s face without any further hesitation. Moving slowly and carefully, Mack went from person to person to make sure they were dead. When she got to Jo’s body and verified that the woman was dead, she sighed.

“Dying ain’t much of a living, now is it?” Mack said. Mack removed the shoulder stock from her carbine, turning back into a pistol, which she slid into the holster on her right thigh. She stripped the bodies of anything valuable, including Jo’s, and slung the Flahertys over their horses and tied them in place. She’d lead them to the next town and collect the reward for them from the local law. They’d be happy to be done with the Flahertys. There was no bounty on Jo that Mack knew of. She took one last look at Josephine Valentine’s corpse and then decided not to bother with a burial..

“Scavengers gotta eat,” she said. “Same as worms.”