Korean Mercenary’s Wild West

The man who drew Max’s interest in the present situation was the one in front of him—Cyrus Kurtz Holliday.
He starts things on every front, doesn’t he.
There were plenty like Holliday in this era, of course. But he still had more he hadn’t told Max.
He’s like an onion.
For Holliday, Max was just as interesting.
An Oriental who should have been panning for gold in California had burst out of slave-owner Missouri. He’d taken down the Five Joaquins, a heavyweight gang, and claimed a hefty bounty.
And now he’s investing in Topeka?
“Why are you staring like that.”
“You, Max. Ever since you handed me that thousand, I get the feeling you already ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Topeka.”
“Then I’m a genius.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
Holliday clicked his tongue and didn’t push the talk further.
 
****
A few days later.
[My beloved wife, Mary.
I am building a new city twenty-four miles from Lawrence along the Kansas River. Many are helping, and it sits at the center of the “settled” district.
Comparing all possible sites, this may be the very best. I am confident in the decision.
While untamed land is transformed as if by magic, the sun shall shine brilliantly upon the whole process.
Here, with Our Lady and God’s kind permission, our own home shall be raised as well.
Ah, and when you come there is someone I wish to introduce. A most entertaining friend.
The word friend is a little different in this case.
He is the sheriff of the town of Lawrence, and I believe he will be a partner in my business.
You will be quite surprised when you meet him.
To our lovely daughter, Lily, and the child soon to be born.
The day draws near when our family will be together. Keep yourself in good health.
—Holliday, to his beloved wife, Mary Dillon.]
As Holliday sealed the envelope, Max asked:
“I didn’t know you were married.”
“About two years now. She’s in Pennsylvania. I’ll bring her out once we have a proper home. A tent’s a bit much, isn’t it?”
Holliday gave a brief laugh.
“I’m late to it, but out West they marry young. You’re nineteen—you could start thinking about it.”
“What about women?”
“There are three here on their own. Two run an inn, and you know the other one. Looked like she had an eye on you.”
Emilie Pound Fitch.
Her interest probably didn’t go beyond curiosity about an Oriental. Even if it did, Max had no mind to pursue anything.
“I prefer being on my own.”
It was hard to break the West’s hard ground alone; most people married early and had children in a string. It was the common scene of the time.
But that was their life.
Why chain yourself down at a bright age, like you’ve gone crazy.
“By the way—about what we talked over the other day.”
Holliday brought up Topeka.
“Your status still isn’t clean, so I’ll invest in my name, and we’ll keep our contract between us.”
“Of course.”
“So I drafted this.”
“Oh, fast.”
Holliday had once aimed at the law. With an actual law degree, he excelled at drafting official papers.
“By regulation, public land sales are two dollars an acre…”
“Heh. I know it’s one twenty-five. And I know public-purpose tracts can go lower by special bid. Don’t try to sell me snake oil.”
“...Ahem. In any case, that would allot you six hundred and twenty-five acres.”
Six hundred twenty-five acres is seven hundred sixty-five thousand pyeong.
A little under Yeouido’s nine hundred thousand pyeong. About one-point-five percent of Topeka’s total forty-eight million pyeong.
They would raise a fund through land allotments, lodge a deposit with the government to mark the pre-emption, then sell selected parcels to individuals and fold the proceeds back into the town’s public treasury…
In short, a fairly tangled structure.
“Any preference on siting?”
“South of the Kansas River. If possible, about two miles—three point two kilometers—from the water.”
“Why south of the river?”
“I’m a south-of-the-river man.”
Holliday gave Max a long look.
“You and I think too much alike. Want to see this?”
He handed over a town sketch he’d drawn up. It looked much like Max’s thoughts.
It figures with me. But this man has a nose for land, too.
To be clear, Topeka as the capital wouldn’t rival a great city. Call it leaving a mark in a scenic, quiet place, more than a pure investment.
But with this investment, Max laid a foundation to move toward Kansas’s center—governor, mayor, and other core power would come from Topeka’s founding circle.
 
****
A meeting convened in Lawrence.
A sheriff can’t skip a meeting; Max was there.
The question on the floor: start construction as soon as timber arrived, or wait. Views split.
“We should wait for the land question to be resolved.”
The sawmill at Leavenworth had already loaded out timber. But Vice-Chairman Pugh wanted legal resolution first.
“The slave side will try to block us, that’s certain. If the papers are clean, we should break ground at once.”
“And if that causes trouble?”
“What trouble? Are they going to start a war?”
The back-and-forth rose. Holliday also raised his voice—start the work.
Chairman Dr. Charles Robinson settled the room.
“If the opposition is severe, we risk casualties. That is precisely my concern.”
He fixed his gaze on one spot and asked:
“Let’s hear from our sheriff.”
Eyes turned; Max stood.

“I believe we should press on.”
“If the governor sides with the other claim in the land dispute, he could order the buildings pulled down.”
While pitying risk, Robinson put his finger on the essence.
Is he testing me.
Maybe because he’d heard about Topeka from Holliday. He was feeling out Max’s reach.
“The governor is delaying because of pressure from the slave-owners. You know that.”
“Which makes it more awkward, no?”
“The key is why he is delaying. He wants to side with us but lacks a respectable pretext. Isn’t that right?”
Robinson stroked his jaw and checked him:
“What do you mean by pretext?”
“His escape hatch. A way to say, ‘It couldn’t be helped.’ A kind of excuse.”
Judging from the governor’s soon-to-be wavering acts, you could guess this much.
His head leaned toward abolition.
His body was ringed by pro-slavery men.
That was the present governor’s reality.
After a spell of thought, Robinson asked Max:
“If we force the issue to create that pretext and there’s a physical clash—what then?”
“Stop it. That’s what you sat me in the sheriff’s chair for, isn’t it?”
The overflowing confidence came from knowing the land issue would break our way.
The slave side wanted only to stall until the election. But they had no legitimate grounds to halt work already begun.
And then the governor—begrudgingly—would side with us.
“By your logic, the sooner we build, the better.”
“That would be doing the governor a favor.”
 
****
January 10.
The first timber arrived.
A train of wagons behind mules set off from west of Leavenworth and finally rolled in.
A three-hour haul had taken two full days—the load was that heavy.
And with Representative Lane’s escort guarding against ambush, they reached town without incident.
As he watched the line amid the cheering townsfolk, a middle-aged, bearded man came up to Max.
Isaac Cody, the sawmill owner.
Father of Buffalo Bill.
He seized Max’s hand in both of his.
“I should have thanked you sooner.”
“How’s the shoulder?”
“Fine as rain. Thanks to you.”
Isaac rolled his shoulder to show it worked.
Onlookers peered at the two with curiosity, murmuring their guesses.
“How’s your boy? He looked sharp.”
“My boy… ah, William. He’s never at home. Always off with his Indian friends doing Lord-knows-what.”
He didn’t seem to consider that he himself was too busy to see the boy.
In any case, Isaac Cody had married three times and had eight children. The firstborn son had died, so William Frederick Cody was the practical eldest. Above him were all sisters.
Spending time with Indians—learning horses and bow, picking up the laws of the wild.
Those experiences would lay the groundwork for William Cody to become Buffalo Bill.
“Since that day, any trouble?”
“Hmph. Those curs can’t do a thing to me. And I won’t be changing my convictions.”
Isaac Cody’s eyes didn’t change. If anything, he was searching out ways to fight more actively for abolition.
“Oh, and James asked me to bring you this.”
Isaac handed over a fairly heavy leather basket—food inside. Likely from Mary to James, then on to George.
A swell rose in Max’s chest. He bowed his thanks to Isaac Cody.
“See you again.”
Isaac and his workers started unloading timber from the wagons.
For now they clustered under tents, but soon each would scatter to his allotted plot and raise a house.
A settler’s life—the hard, grinding life—was truly beginning.
 
****
Tack tack. Clang clang.
Max was helping raise a building.
Most of the town had turned out. The project was a school.
“You fit a carpenter better than a sheriff.”
“Everything fits me.”
“Now I don’t feel like talking.”
Emilie Pound Fitch. She worked at Max’s side as helper—not by choice; the foreman had paired them that way.
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen. You?”
“A gentleman doesn’t ask a lady her age.”
“...”
“You can read, right?”
“Is that surprising? Because I’m Oriental?”
“You’ve got a chip on your shoulder. Lots of white folks can’t read. That’s why I asked. When did you come here?”
Max kept swinging the hammer.
“A few years back.”
“Being Oriental, you must have come to California. No land, I’m guessing?”
“If I had land, then what?”
“A man’s nothing without land. Especially out West.”
Max paused and looked over at Fitch.
Her features struck him anew—keen, intelligent lines. What came out of his mouth was different.
“You’re getting in the way of the work.”
“Fine. I’ll be quiet.”
Fitch mimed sealing her lips. After that, she didn’t say another word.
Strange.
Max shook his head and focused on the hammer.
The school was finished three days later.
January 16 became Lawrence’s first school opening day. The town gathered to celebrate its start.
A church followed, then a common hall for the council.
No one tried to interfere.
And Dr. Charles Robinson, who summoned Max, delivered one piece of news himself.
“It’s as you said. The governor sided with us.”
A decision that had dragged on for months landed just fifteen days after work began. Max’s prediction hit.
“Good.”
“Holliday’s told me a little, but Topeka may need your hand as well.”
“If we do it together, the honor is mine.”
“Let’s work well together.”
Gentle by nature, Charles Robinson could be bold when needed—unyielding when it came to slavery.
Though he wasn’t NEEAC, he chaired the settlement council—proof of his leadership and ability.
With the land dispute resolved, construction ran smoothly.
Saloons, general stores, hardware shops sprang up one by one. In this stretch, Max wasn’t a sheriff—he was a carpenter.
And at last, March 2.
A sheriff’s office rose in the middle of Lawrence’s main street.
 
****
A space of roughly seven hundred square feet.
A small iron stove and a coat rack.
Max sat at the desk with sunlight at his back through the window.
Let’s see.
He propped his boots on the desk and settled deep into the chair. He put a cigar to his lips.
Ssssss.
“Hoo.”
That’s it.
He blew smoke at the ceiling.
The sheriff’s office made a man take up cigarettes again after quitting in his former life. The place drove you a little mad.
Still—don’t overdo it.
Call it a taste for the special mood.
Max was grinning to himself when—
Creak, creak.
The swinging door spoke as a man came in.
Bearded like Jesus, with a broad brow—George Washington Brown, editor of the Kansas Herald of Freedom.
He’d come out with the NEEAC emigrant party, publisher of the first paper representing the free-state cause in Kansas.
Thud.
“Hot off the press.”
“What brings you in person?”
“That’s how important the news is.”
Brown dropped into a Windsor chair—its back spindles fanned like ribs—and clamped a cigar between his teeth. In a breath, their smoke filled the office.
“The slave side’s moves aren’t normal.”
“They never are.”
“This time you can see the aim from a mile off. Do you know what they’re blasting through their papers?”
At the sheer absurdity, George Brown chuckled dryly and spoke:
“For this election, the free states are sending thirty thousand emigrants into Kansas. That’s the line they’re printing.”
“Wow. Lunatics.”
A textbook lie.
But it would work.
What they were after:
The free states are planning thirty thousand settlers just to tip this election. At this rate, the slaves might actually be freed.
So—pro-slavery men, hurry and move to Kansas.
Go vote.
Keep the slave system alive.
They pushed that message in their papers without pause.
“Twenty-seven days to the vote.”
“The governor ordered a count of eligible voters today. The totals will be the basis for the returns.”
The Kansas Territory’s legislature was to be seated.
The vote to choose its representatives was close at hand.
Lawrence was relatively calm, but tension rose by the day in Leavenworth and other towns.
Immigrants grew in number across Kansas—and most were pro-slavery.
 
****
“What brings you here.”
Max had gone to see James Henry Lane.
Lane kept his quarters a mile from Lawrence’s center.
“Did you see the paper?”
“Just read it. The slave side’s whipping up a storm.”
“Which brings me to this.”
Max laid out what he had in mind.
In short:
“You want to form a militia? Because of the vote?”
Lane’s eyes went wide.
“In a season this uneasy, if you, Congressman, raise a militia, no one will object. The townsfolk will back you, and your standing with the free states will rise.”
He would soon become commander of the militia, but he hadn’t foreseen the vote tipping to violence.
By the old timeline, the militia would form after the election; Max meant to move that forward.
If we’re going to build it anyway, better to build it early.
The gains were twofold.
Guard Lawrence’s safety. And build a base for Max to take hold of a militia that Lane would otherwise warp later.
“Hm.”
James Henry Lane thought it over. A politician with a popular touch, he could chalk a militia now as an accomplishment. There was no reason to refuse.
“I’ll put it to the meeting.”
That day, true to his word, Lane proposed founding a militia.
The conclusion came quickly.
Found a militia for the town of Lawrence.
With no opposition, the details filled up the meeting’s time. Naturally, Lane took the post of captain.
And a few days later—
“Form a line!”
Under Max’s lead, selection for the militia began.