Country For No One ( Blood & Wealth )

A story about the American badlands in 1866.

This story takes place in a place that welcomes those that are willing to work hard for their keep. It's a place that is still wild and unclaimed by industrial progressive expansion. Cati are the closet structure to any tree here lizards run with the sand that flows like an abrasive stream in the gust of wind cutting at the skins of those that have not grown accustom and have not developed the proper hide to make it out here in the territory. Coyotes howl at the moon in the frigid night, delivering messages straight to the prospector core, and sending icy shiverers down the lonely travelers spine, reminding all would be settlers that this land, this country, belongs to no one.... Circa 1860 a man by the name of Johann Magdelene, a short slightly round fellow with wispy dark thinning hair and a bread of grey that sits upon his somewhat round wrinkled and aged face, has acquired somewhat of a preeminent name due to shrewd and opportunistic business strategies, has begun to capitalize on yet another profitable yet volatile investment, the cattle drive. Johnny, as he is known as, takes the chance and buys whole sections of the of land that is now at an all time low and inexpensive plethora of sorts. He soon implements his plan after purchasing so much of the lands in the territory and starts the construction of the railway system, "Magdelene",that will run through several settlements and towns connecting this system into others making its way up into Chicago, Illinois. This course of action will make many people, including Johnny M. himself, very rich of course do to increased production efficiency and in effect help give way to the great western migration due to large profits and bigger wages being made in the newly rising towns and cities, all thanks to the railroads of these wealthy few men. This news may sound great to some, however there are a number of those to whom this information and cultural shift will prove to be a cancer to their ways of life, namely the proud and resilient original residents of the territory, the Apache, and the rough dirt clogged cowboys of Skeetzee, a town that is set on the border of the Republic and the territory itself, and whose name translates to "best of friends". The town started out as a homestead and soon quickly grew due to a positive and mutual beneficial trade relationship between Franklin "Frank" Cutter and his people and the Apache tribes and chieftains during a time which those two groups of people, i.e. Settlers and natives, seemed to rather slaughter one another than to try and make amends. The good relations insured safety for the Cutter ranch an it's livestock as well as the people. Word started to spread and more and more settlers from other settlements, some as small as a half a dozen people, quickly came and made a life near Frank Cutter's family's ranch which sits right on the edge of the now prosperous town in which it self is surrounded by the Apache native tribes. Towns people often hear ceremonial drums beat in the night accompanied by ritualistic chanting and predator calls, an attempt to align the spirits of the ancestors with ones own self; which to European settlers who are attempting to "civilize" the earth and it's people, is incomprehensible and archaic. But neigh, no one, not even God can stop the mechanical cog and gears of human evolution and progression into its next stage of development. Magdelene is set to lay down its tracks, cutting through the expansive a of the wide open plains, making a drop and grab stop at the Skeetzee telegraph station, which doubles as the town's post office as well. This will effectively bring an end to the town's cowboy, era rendering them absolute to the never hungry or fatigued fiery coal devouring smoke belching machines of modern day, as well as pushing the native tribes further and further from their ancestral land do to the unrelenting expansion of cities.