Cool wind brushed the rough cheek of a stout blonde man, the driver of the wagon which he directed skillfully through the three-hundred and more miles between Galveston and Laredo, a dry Protestant dirge upon his thin lips as he eyed his rather similar surroundings uneasily; spitting out those thick Germanic syllables, tinged with the dialect of far-away Saxony, Herman Beringer could not shake the feeling that something round abouts was not entirely right.

During the Civil War, the middle-aged Saxon had fought on the side of the Union, much like all of Galveston, using the skills he had learnt while growing up - most of them in some way connected to hunting in the dense German forests of his homeland - to scout and track for the blue-coated victors. Sadly Galveston had fallen to the Confederacy after a siege, knocking the port town and its inhabitants out of the war for good. With the defeat of the Confederacy, Herman had gathered up his family - his wife and three children - all as blonde and blue-eyed as himself, hitched up a wagon to his oxen and taken off in a south-easterly direction.

Now he was not the first German Texan, and nor would he be the last, but he would be one of those that would never actually make it to their destination. Yes, the years of childhood and military experience had moulded him well, and there was indeed something wrong with the spot he now found himself in; it was a trickling river around six or seven miles north of Laredo, no-one else around as far as the eye could see, and Herman made the fateful decision to bring his wagon to a halt that he and his family may gather water and rest.

What happened in the next half-an-hour or so would be plastered on the front pages of American papers the very next day.

One moment Herman was splashing about in the stream with his eldest son, an eleven year old with the sweetest smile, and the next a group of specks appeared on the horizon and began to close with them at considerable speed. At first he was unsure of what to do, his rifle laying on the riverbank, his wife and two other children playing unawares in the back of the covered wagon, and at least eight separate blotches getting larger with every passing moment.

"Hanz," he hissed urgently to his half-naked son, "look toward the south, do you see?"

Although confused, not seeing what his father had seen, Hanz Beringer nodded his hea and followed his father's pointed finger.

"Start running in that direction," commanded his Papa, "keep running until you come to a village, a town, or a ranch...do not turn back, and do not stop until then. Tell whoever is there that we are here, that we are under attack, you understand?"

Hanz did not really understand, but he had never refused an order from his idol; without thinking and without goodbyes he climbed out of the river on the other bank, his bare feet finding firm ground and beginning to pound earth in a southerly direction. He did as his father said, ignoring the screeches and whoops that reached his youthful ears, the screams and yells of his family, the gunshots and then the terrible silence that followed...and followed...and followed him all the way to the outskirts of Laredo itself.

By the time he reached the settlement he was half dead, having run with all he had, his trousers covered in a thick later of dust and his lips dried with dehydration, the topless form of this young boy causing ladies to move back in fear and men to cease their idle chattering.

"Help me!" He yelled in near unaccented English, "help..." at first he stumbled, nearly tripping, but righted himself long enough to yell again, and with a sharp intake of breath he fell to the ground in the main street of Laredo. He was not dead, for he continued to breath, but coaches halted and horses reared, voices rising that someone should do [b]something[/b] for the clearly delirious...and clearly terrified...boy.



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Here we are then.

Now, you have a couple of choices here...

You could be in Laredo, maybe help the child or even ignore the child, or if you'd prefer just be doing something else then go for it. Maybe you were asleep and didn't even know it happened, maybe you're too drunk or high? Who knows?!

You could also have discovered what remains of the Beringers and their wagon - the mutilated and scalped corpse of Herman, the fact that his wife and two daughters have disappeared without a trace, and the slaughtered bullocks full of arrows...Injun' arrows...possibly Apache.

How you came upon them, if you have, is up to you; maybe you heard the shots? Maybe you were on your way to a ranch north of Laredo? Tis up to you.

[@Kingfisher][@Sterling][@bluetommy2][@PhoenixWhite][@Sombrero][@idlehands][@User][@Monochromatic Rainbow][/hider]