RDR: NO REGRETS - Chapter 296: The First Wave Converges (Patreon)

The gunfire around them grew more intense by the moment, yet Charles only grew calmer.

He had always been a calm man.

Whether in everyday life or in the middle of a fight, he almost always wore the same expressionless look.

But beneath that composed exterior, he still had emotions.

Right now, his heart was pounding hard in his chest. He took several deep breaths before finally settling himself.

Everyone’s lives were in his hands now.

He had no idea whether reinforcements would arrive. There might not even be any reinforcements coming.

He had to get these people out quickly, then make for the dock as fast as possible.

The town was crawling with enemies. No one knew how long Stephen and Juan could hold out at the dock on their own.

Once the enemy realized they planned to escape by boat, they would definitely send a large force after them.

Charles tightened his grip on his dagger, then darted out.

Despite his bulky build, he moved with startling speed between the buildings, climbing and dropping from one level to another and slipping through several windows before reaching a narrow alley.

He cautiously leaned out and studied the group surrounding Sadie and the others.

There weren’t many of them, only around twenty men.

They clearly knew they were dealing with dangerous opponents, so they weren’t being overly aggressive.

Instead, they had surrounded the small house where Sadie and the others were holed up and were attacking at a steady, deliberate pace.

Their commander was obviously a cautious man.

He knew that keeping them trapped here was enough. As for everything else, he could wait until the main force arrived.

Charles frowned.

This was exactly what he didn’t want to see.

If they had launched an all-out assault, he might have found openings around the edges and picked off as many of them as possible.

But with them fighting this cautiously, things were much harder...

Hard or not, he still had to do something.

Charles drew a deep breath, tightened his grip on the dagger, and charged out.

He was going to attack the rear of that twenty-man force all by himself!

He would only get one chance to catch them off guard. He had to make it count.

Charles moved fast. In the blink of an eye, he was already behind one of the detectives.

The man seemed to hear footsteps behind him and hurriedly turned around, only to see a massive fist flying straight at his face.

One punch.

The powerful blow sent his head spinning and knocked him backward.

Charles followed with a long stride. The dagger in his left hand flashed lightly across the man’s throat, slicing it open.

The attack was fast, vicious, and precise. Before the other detectives could even react, Charles had already killed one of them.

And he didn’t stop there.

He grabbed the corpse and held it in front of himself as a shield. Three or four bullets immediately punched into the dead man’s body.

Charles then snatched the revolver from the man’s waist and fired three times at the detectives nearby.

Three shots. Three men down.

In the span of a few seconds, Charles had killed four enemies in a row.

But that was as far as the surprise attack could carry him.

The detectives weren’t fools. They weren’t about to stand there and let Charles slaughter them.

Those who had been firing into the house immediately swung their weapons around, trying to kill the man who had suddenly attacked them from behind.

Charles charged instead of retreating.

Bracing the corpse against his shoulder, he rushed straight at them.

Once he was close enough, he hurled the body forward, then dove and rolled across the ground, narrowly avoiding the incoming bullets.

At the same time, the dagger left his hand in a silver blur, flying seven or eight meters straight toward the commander’s throat.

After all, Charles was damn good with a throwing knife!

None of the detectives had expected that. They could only stare as a dagger suddenly buried itself in their commander’s neck.

Taking the commander’s head in the middle of an enemy force had been almost effortless.

Inside the house, Sadie saw Charles tearing through their attackers and immediately kicked the door open.

“Come on! Break through with me!”

With a roar, Sadie raised the sawed-off shotgun Charles had left behind and charged out.

Ms. Grimshaw was no pushover either. She had quite the temper herself.

Seeing Sadie rush outside, there was no way she was going to stay behind. She grabbed her pistol and charged after her.

“My God, have they all gone insane?”

Watching the two fearless women charge into the fight, Uncle stared in disbelief. “Or have women taken over the whole damn world?”

“Whether they have or not, we need to get out of here now.”

Strauss clutched a broken table leg in both hands and spoke with a slight tremble in his voice. “Because if they die, we’re dead too.”

Strauss understood the situation perfectly well.

If any of them fell into the Pinkertons’ hands, nothing good would come of it.

A quick death might actually be a blessing.

With that, he suddenly shouted, “Aaaaaah! Wait for me!”

“I suppose we sinners should do something too...”

Reverend Swanson’s legs were still trembling, but he picked up a chair leg from the floor and ran out after Strauss.

“Have you all lost your minds?”

Seeing even Reverend Swanson charge into the fight, Uncle turned and looked back at Tilly and Little Alice inside the house.

“Oh, this sort of thing really isn’t friendly to old men.”

Uncle muttered under his breath, then raised his pistol and hurried after them.

If he stayed behind now, he would never live it down in the gang.

Not that his reputation had been all that great to begin with...

The entire scene descended into chaos.

Sadie and the others knew perfectly well that the enemy had the advantage in both numbers and weapons. If they stayed at range and traded gunfire, they had no chance.

Besides, Charles was already out there.

Their best option was to rush in immediately and force the detectives into close combat.

After all, if it came down to hand-to-hand fighting, their side at least had Charles.

So the moment Sadie emptied her shotgun, she led the charge and threw herself straight at one of the detectives.

The detectives had never expected these people to be so reckless with their own lives. With Charles attacking them from behind as well, Sadie and the others caught them completely off guard.

By the time the survivors recovered, the two sides were already tangled together in a chaotic melee.

Shooting was no longer an option.

Enemies and allies were mixed together so tightly that no one could tell whether the next bullet would hit the person they wanted or one of their own men.

On top of that, the people who had charged out with Sadie were mostly women and old men, while the detectives were all large, burly men.

Convinced they had the advantage, the remaining detectives simply gripped their rifles like clubs and fought Sadie’s group hand to hand.

Unfortunately for them, a chaotic melee was nothing like a fair one-on-one fight.

Being stronger than the person in front of you didn’t guarantee victory.

One detective pinned Strauss to the ground and raised a knife to finish him off.

Before he could bring it down, his vision suddenly went black.

“Damn bastard!”

Ms. Grimshaw stood over him with her pistol raised. She smashed the butt of the gun into the back of his skull several times, then fired a final shot into his back, finishing him for good.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Strauss gasped for breath. “Perhaps I should exercise more.”

For an accountant, this sort of situation was far outside his usual line of work.

Ms. Grimshaw ignored him.

She tossed her pistol to Strauss, picked up the rifle the dead detective had dropped, and charged back into the fight.

“What a brave woman...”

Watching Ms. Grimshaw’s imposing figure from behind, Strauss couldn’t help but sigh in admiration.

He struggled to his feet, pistol in hand, and followed closely behind her.

He might not be much of a fighter, but he could at least manage the simple stuff.

From then on, whenever Ms. Grimshaw knocked someone down, Strauss would hurry over and put a bullet into the man lying on the ground.

For a while, the two of them actually made a surprisingly effective team.

Ms. Grimshaw truly lived up to her reputation as a flower of the West.

A damn formidable one.

“Help! Somebody help me!”

Reverend Swanson and Uncle were just as hopeless in a fight.

The moment they engaged the enemy, both of them were knocked to the ground almost at the same time.

Seeing the sorry state they were in, Charles had no choice but to take a knife wound in order to quickly finish off the man in front of him, then rush over to save them.

But Charles himself wasn’t doing much better.

The prolonged fighting was draining his strength fast, and the knife wound only made things worse.

Panting heavily, he kicked one detective to the ground and turned to help the other man.

Before he could, the detective he had just kicked scrambled back up and tackled Charles to the ground.

Another detective immediately joined in.

Outnumbered two to one, Charles could barely hold them off.

By now, they had figured it out.

Charles was the real threat. Those two old men weren’t going to cause much trouble.

“Oh, God! You have to help him!”

Seeing Charles losing ground against two men at once, Uncle anxiously shouted at Reverend Swanson beside him, “Do something!”

“My God! What am I supposed to do?”

Swanson shouted back in a panic. “You have a gun! Shoot them!”

Only then did Uncle remember that he was carrying a pistol.

He hurriedly pulled it from his pocket.

“Bang!”

The man on top of Charles took a bullet straight through the head, spraying blood all over him.

“Oh! Since when were you such a good shot?”

Swanson stared at Uncle in astonishment. “When did you learn to shoot like that?”

Uncle looked just as stunned.

He lifted his pistol and stared at it blankly. “I haven’t even fired yet!”

Of course, Uncle hadn’t fired the shot.

“You all right?”

Stephen came limping toward them, leaning on his long knife for support, with Juan following behind him with a rifle.

Juan had fired the shot.

When the others still hadn’t shown up at the dock after so long, Stephen had finally lost patience.

Then he heard gunfire coming from this direction. Realizing something was wrong, he immediately decided to bring Juan with him and come help.

Fortunately, they hadn’t arrived too late.

Stephen grabbed Charles and hauled him to his feet. Seeing him covered in blood, he asked worriedly, “How are you holding up, buddy?”

Charles shook his head. “I’m fine. Nothing serious.”

After fighting for so long, there was no way he could have escaped without a scratch.

A bullet had caught him too.

Fortunately, it hadn’t hit anything vital. A couple of days of rest should be enough.

With Stephen and Juan joining the fight, even though neither could exactly be called fresh reinforcements, the battle finally began to turn in their favor.

Fortunately, after a short rest, some bandaging, and a little food, Stephen had recovered a bit of strength.

He certainly wasn’t stupid enough to charge straight into another melee.

This whole experience had taught him one thing.

He could die too.

He really needed to break this habit of risking his life at every opportunity.

Stephen and Juan both drew their pistols and opened fire.

Charles picked up one of the detectives’ guns and shot down a man who was trying to gang up on Sadie.

Uncle and Swanson hurriedly raised their own weapons as well.

At this point, every little bit helped.

After Sadie beat another detective to death, the remaining four or five finally realized the fight was lost and turned to run.

Sadie tried to chase them, but Stephen immediately stopped her.

“Don’t! We need to get out of here now!”

Sadie glared at the fleeing detectives and spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the ground.

She was injured too.

Someone had struck her hard across the face, leaving a large, ugly bruise.

“How bad are your injuries?”

Sadie looked at Stephen, who was covered in blood and breathing heavily. “You didn’t have to come. I could’ve handled it.”

“Cut the crap.”

Stephen forced the corners of his mouth upward, then braced his hands on his knees. “What about the others?”

“They’re still in town. I don’t know how they’re doing right now...”

Sadie drew several ragged breaths before dropping onto a nearby mound of dirt.

“What do we do now?”

What else could they do?

Run.

Among the people present, the ones who could actually fight, Sadie, Charles, Stephen, and Juan, were almost all injured.

Even Ms. Grimshaw had taken a bullet graze to the arm.

And what good would it do for the others, who could barely fight at all, to go back?

They would only be throwing their lives away.

Given the situation, Stephen had no choice but to wave everyone onward and lead them toward the dock.

As discouraging as it sounded, at this point, they could only save whoever they could.

Stephen had already done everything he could. More than he should have been capable of, really.

As for everyone else, their lives were in their own hands now.

With nothing more he could do, Stephen led the group slowly toward the dock.

“I’ve never been on a ship this nice before.”

Looking at the large ship moored at the dock, Uncle sighed. “Shame we’re running for our lives. Otherwise, I could find myself a few pretty women, stretch out on the deck, have a little drink...”

“Shut your filthy mouth!”

Ms. Grimshaw shot him a vicious glare. “If you’ve still got that much energy, grab a gun, go back into town, and rescue everyone yourself!”

Uncle shrank back slightly at the sight of Ms. Grimshaw covered in blood and radiating murderous fury.

He normally didn’t dare talk back to her anyway.

After seeing how fierce she had been in that fight, he certainly wasn’t about to start now.

“There are guns in the cabin. We’d better arm ourselves.”

Stephen leaned on his long knife, breathing heavily. “We don’t know who’ll reach us first, the enemy or Arthur and the others. We need to prepare for the worst.”

“Sadie, get the boat started. If things go wrong...”

Stephen didn’t finish.

He didn’t need to.

Everyone knew what he meant.

If Arthur and the others arrived first, everything would be fine.

But if the enemy got there first, then in their current condition, they would have no choice but to leave without the others.

Ms. Grimshaw pursed her lips but said nothing.

She was worried about everyone still in town, but she couldn’t gamble all these lives on them.

She sighed, then quickly climbed aboard.

Charles opened the cabin, and everyone brought out the weapons stored inside.

Fortunately, there were plenty.

There were enough guns for everyone to carry two or three, with more ammunition than they could possibly need.

Naturally, there wasn’t anyone in the gang who didn’t know how to shoot.

Everyone armed themselves with two guns and took up positions around the boat, carefully watching every direction.

Tilly quickly found bandages and medicine and gave the wounded some basic treatment.

Charles had been shot in the arm and had a knife wound across his chest.

Neither injury was life-threatening, but he was effectively out of the fight for the time being.

Not everyone was like Stephen.

And even Stephen was barely holding himself together now.

Uncle and Swanson had only just managed to catch their breath when Ms. Grimshaw ordered them into the cabin to bring out some food.

Everyone had been fighting all the way here and was hungry.

Since they had food on board, they might as well eat something while they still had the chance.

Some time passed.

Just as everyone had finally managed to steady their breathing, another burst of gunfire erupted from the town nearby.

Everyone immediately tensed up, eyes fixed on the road leading toward the dock.

Sadie and Stephen stood in the wheelhouse.

Sadie gripped the ship’s wheel tightly, while even Stephen stared nervously into the distance.

Tilly hid inside the cabin, holding Little Alice close as she silently prayed.

“Almighty Lord, please let them come back safely.”