Disclaimer: All the characters from the "Magnificent Seven" T.V. series are property of Trilogy Entertainment, The Mirisch Group, MGM Worldwide.
It was inevitable that this day would come.
The men who ran supreme over much of the West had watched and waited for decades, stemming the tide where it was possible and being swept away when it was not. They waged their campaign against the intruders like generals on the battlefront, fighting for each hill and every patch of land that was waiting possession by those who arrived first to claim it. For a long time, they held their ground through sheer determination because it took raw courage to thrive in a land though supposedly flowing with milk and honey required nothing less than blood and sweat to yield such ambrosia. Nations built across the globe on the hard work of such individuals, whose character and strength were largely responsible for the opening of new frontiers.
In the West, it had been no different. Some would say it was even harder because it was more than just the land they had to fight, it was a way of life. The axioms of the Old World did not apply here and while attempts were made, as it is always was by new colonists in a strange land, to make life in the image of the one knew, the land itself had a way of teaching them otherwise. In the earliest days of the West, it was the ranchers who ran supreme. With their herds of livestock, they brought civilisation into a terrain most had deemed beyond the ability to tame. The coming of the ranchers opened a new era of opportunity for those who trapped in the slums of urban living in the great cities of the East. They would come by any means necessary to plunder the spoils of a new frontier and from the first day of their arrival, the lines were drawn and the battle for the West began.
Twenty years before the end of the century and the war was more or less lost by the patrician ranchers who were the first conquerors of the new territories. Settlers, some from the cities, others from further across the Atlantic had swarmed in on prime land once used for grazing and cultivated it with cash crops and the formation of small communities, none of which could be displaced once its roots were driven into the ground. The settler had won the war through sheer numbers, like a plague of locusts that had found a particularly tasty field upon which to feed. Their volume grew until the rancher was driven back by mass alone, retreating in the face of overwhelming forces.
Stuart James and Guy Royal were men whose fortunes had built on the work of their forebears and understood how eminent defeat was. They were raised in the traditions of their fathers who believed that there was no such thing as defeat so long as the will to fight still remained. For them, there was no possibility of surrender and they allowed the new arrivals to believe that for the moment, they had been overwhelmed into complacency. They watched and waited, their resolve giving way to a begrudging acceptance that this was the way things had to be. After awhile, it almost became tolerable, the loss of prestige dulled by the taste of stagnant power and the invasion of what they deemed to be theirs had ceased. For a time, there seemed to be no further indignity to which they were forced to succumb and they came to a painful yet necessary realisation.
The settlers were here to stay.
As much as they disliked admitting it, James and Royal could deny that settlers to the West had mettle that could survive most trials. Those who could be forced out were not meant for living here and only made room for those who could when they departed. In the town of Four Corners, both men had learned how that its townsfolk was a testament to the frontier spirit and nothing could not dislodged the settlers who had dared to encroach upon land that should have been theirs for the taking. It was not to say that James and Royal did not try. The attempts to remove the troublesome colonists had proved unsuccessful, almost to the point of being fatal for the men who were the architects of the forced exodus.
Eventually the ranchers agreed to leave things as they stood for it would serve no one by expending too much time and resource on removing the usurpers when there was little hope of victory. Particularly when there were seven guardians who would ensure failure of any plan to such an end. Despite all efforts to rid the town of the seven, each fresh attempt was met with failure. It was almost as if the town was as protective of its guardians as the seven were about Four Corners. A curious symbiosis had formed between the town and the lawmen almost as if the prosperity of all involved were somehow linked to one another.
For a time, a stalemate had formed between Stuart and Royals' feud with Four Corners and its burgeoning prosperity. However, the lines of tension continued to tighten with the influx of more and more people and to all involved, it was only a matter of time before matters came to ahead. It came sooner than anyone expected, owing to outside forces that had little to do with the ranchers or the settlers in Four Corners.
It had to do with the railroad.
Guy Royal had been perfectly aware of the railroad coming for some time now and had prepared himself for it by buying up as much land as he could. He had hoped to make the company's purchase of land as difficult as possible buy owning as much of the required territory. However, even he had to concede to the pressures from government bodies insisting that he sell up or face the wrath of Federal authorities. Royal had made himself a great deal of money from the sale but even he knew what the coming of the railroad would mean to him and his kind. True, the grazing land would not be affected but settlers would be coming on a scale that the ranchers could not hope to circumvent or cope with. The moment the first train rumbled down its new tracks, both Stuart and Royal knew it would sound the death knell of the power they had once wielded in the Territory.
"So you appreciate our problem." Guy Royal said to the woman who sat across his on the porch of his spread.
"I do," she nodded, lifting the glass of lemonade to her lips. "Unfortunately, what you want will not be cheap. My services alone will cost you."
Stuart James tried not to be sceptical, even though he had been examining the woman closely since his arrival at this luncheon arranged by Guy Royal. Both men who had been discussing the dilemma facing them with the arrival of the railroad had agreed that the time to do something was now with Royal taking the steps that saw them here today. The woman who made the triumvirate at the table was every much the siren, with her mahogany coloured hair and deep coloured eyes. Her ability to turn heads was without question although he doubted her assertion that she could mount the expedition to rid them of their present problem with Four Corners.
She was dressed like any well-bred woman with red riding coat, high-necked shirts and riding boots under her flowing skirt. At the moment, she seemed more at place riding on a manicured path in one of those fancy gardens common in large eastern cities, not sitting here with them plotting mayhem and murder.
"We have the money if you can do the job." James said with unmasked doubt in her ability.
Royal threw him a dark stare at the remark because Royal was perfectly aware of the lady's reputation even though it took some shifting to find it and her. Although most of the intelligence had first indicated that she was dead, it had taken more money and underground contacts to learn that she was still very much alive and making a good living, hiring out her services as a mercenary. From what he knew about her work, she was very good at what she did and rarely failed at undertaking a mission. Royal wondered how much that had to do with her being a woman because it was easy to be disarmed by her looks.
"I can do the job and I won't be hiring just any rabble to help me, when I do so either." She pointed out, making reference to the time when Royal and James had hired men to drive the residents of Four Corners out of town. Not only were the men selected to the task amateurs who ran at the first sight of the army coming in their direction but they had also been dumb enough to fall prey to a rather clever ploy by the seven.
"That was a bad decision." Royal swallowed, unable to deny that they were lucky to escape that debacle without being implicated. If it were not for one of the seven killing Earl, the man they had hired to organise the whole affair, Royal had no doubt that Earl would have spilled the truth to save himself and both he and Stuart James would now be languishing in jail. "However, I gather you have a better idea?"
"Well for starters, I know men who would fight an entire army if paid well enough. A job is contract to such men, not to be discarded when it becomes inconvenient. For what you wanted to do, you should have had professionals, not any rabble that can carry a gun. Furthermore, you want people to leave; you just make it very uncomfortable for them to stay. Chasing them out will simply make their defiance all the more persistent. You want someone gone; you wear them down continuously until they are grateful to leave. Its all a matter of knowing the target."
Although James was begrudged to admit it, he was impressed by her words. "Where do you find men like this?" He was genuinely curious.
"I know a few," she said with a faint smile, meeting his gaze because she knew he was underestimating her because of her sex. It was not a new experience. This was after all the West and this was a land tamed by men who usually forgot the women who were working alongside them. It was the height of chauvinism to assume that they were alone in their harsh existence, nevertheless this was hardly the time for such debates. "However the man I have in mind is south of the border."
"You mean Mexicans?" Guy wrinkled his nose in distaste.
"Bandits to be precise," she replied, not caring if this offended his delicate sensibilities. "These men do not care who they kill or what uniform they are shooting at. As long as they know that there is a great deal of money waiting for them at the end of the road, they will do anything and do it with a song in their heart."
"I don't care." James said firmly. "I just want that town gone. I want it to be an example to anyone who even considers settling on its burnt ashes for the next twenty years. I want the railroad to take one look at the mess and decide that it isn't worth the trouble and go somewhere else. I don't care whom you have to kill to get the job done as long as Four Corners is nothing but a bad memory by the time you're through. If you can do that and I'll pay whatever you want."
"That can be arranged." She answered coolly, a stark contrast to his vehement outburst. "Any particular requests?"
"Yes," Royal nodded without hesitation. "I want you to personally see to it that the seven lawmen who protect that town have their hides nailed to a wall."
"That is not a problem," a slow smile stole across Selena Quint's face. "I had always intended to do that. I have some history with them."