Lately, he’d been spending more time in the training camp tent than in the sheriff’s office.What Max was focusing on was locking in an organizational structure.And figuring out each man’s individual traits and abilities.Right on cue, Fitch and a man named John Dudley showed up at the tent with an armful of paperwork.“Where do you want this?”“Bring it here. We all need to look at it together.”“All three of us?”Dudley didn’t butt into Fitch and Max’s conversation; he quietly set the stack of papers down on the table.The files held the recruits’ personal information.On top of that, they listed the results of the various tests they’d just finished, plus each man’s specialties and hobbies.“So why’d it take you so long?”“Too many can’t read. I had to explain everything one by one. Wrote it out for them too.”“Guess that’s what makes a teacher different.”“Teaching kids is a hundred times better than this.”While Fitch shook her head, Dudley leafed through the paperwork with his skinny arms.Feels like I’m looking at Lee Maksan a year ago.His body was so gaunt he looked like he might collapse any second. When Dudley had passed out twice during training, Max had asked him,— Is this because you’re not eating, or are you always like this?— …… It’s just how I’m built.— You’d be better off going home.— No! I can do it. I don’t want to live like a coward…— Going home makes you a coward?— Yeah. To me it does.It sounded like there was some complicated story there, but dragging around a guy who fainted every session just wasn’t feasible.— What were you doing before you came here?— College. In Illinois…— Major?— Medical school…— Oh-ho.In the era of westward expansion, becoming a doctor wasn’t hard. You just said you were a doctor, and from that moment on, you were a doctor.The frontier was crawling with quacks without degrees, and even the man who’d performed the first successful Caesarean in the West had worked at a medical school as a janitor.Max had to filter Dudley’s words once.— Say my arm’s been shot. What do you do?— You’d have to… cut it o—— Forget that. How many years did you study?— Two years.— Does being a doctor suit you?Dudley nodded. It all came down to money, in the end. His father had died, and eight siblings had gone their own ways to survive.Dudley had given up his studies and gone to work to keep himself alive. Somewhere along the way, he’d gotten swept up in abolitionist agitation and ended up here.— I want to fight with a gun. I refuse any other job.— Does the president fight with a gun? What about army doctors? Quartermasters? Cut the crap and help me out for now.Max loathed paperwork, but he had no choice at the moment.If he wanted to make his life easier, he needed someone who could read and at least had a working brain.That was how Fitch, the former schoolteacher, and Dudley, the medical student, ended up as temporary clerks.Of course, they trained just like everyone else during the day.Max handed out several sheets of paper and spoke.“Today’s job is to assign each man an appropriate position based on stamina, shooting, weapons maintenance, and what he’s got in that head of his.”After a few hours of work, Max suddenly stared at Fitch in shock.“What the hell. Is this age real?”“What about my age?”“You’re only two years older than me. I thought you were in your late twenties.”“You wanna die? How does that make any sense?”Honestly, she did look a bit worn.Western women tended to look more mature, and it wasn’t like the young ones dressed all that differently.Either way, it was a shock.He really hadn’t needed to be so respectful…Anyway, Fitch wrote ‘detective’ under specialty and desired position.Detective fit right into espionage and information handling. With what was coming, that was a section he needed prepared ahead of time.Max flipped through the files and started classifying the Jayhawkers. ****While the young Jayhawkers were training around Max, Lawrence held the founding ceremony of the Free-state party and proclaimed Topeka as the capital.Charles Robinson became governor, though his office lacked any legal recognition, and he took on the party leadership as well.James Henry Lane remained the number two.But more than that, the conflict between the two sprang from the drafting of the Kansas constitution.The crux of the argument was Black and female suffrage.Lane agreed to abolishing slavery, but he argued against giving Black people the right to vote.Charismatic and resolute, Lane drew considerable support, and from the very start of the Free-state party, factions formed.“This is driving me crazy, I swear. If it starts like this, where the hell does it end?”Holliday, who’d come to the tent, clutched his hair as he spoke.“What’s there to agonize over? Pushing Black suffrage right now is overreaching.”“Don’t tell me you think that too?”“You’ve got to read the public mood. Abolishing slavery and treating Black people as complete equals are two separate questions.”Holliday’s eyes asked why that was a problem.“Biggest thing’s jobs. Picture Kansas with Black voters. Their status is going to rise over time, and in the end they’ll be taking white folks’ livelihoods.”“How’s that any different from what the slavery advocates say?”“It is different. Either way, this is going to be decided by a vote, isn’t it?”Holliday nodded.Slave-state men drafted their constitutions according to their own will, but Topeka’s process respected the opinions of the participants. “Respected” was really about showing they were different from the slave-state side.“Anyway, they’ll move into drafting the constitution soon, and once the vote’s done, they’ll probably publish it next January.”“The president has to accept it and the Senate has to approve it.”Unfortunately, the Topeka Constitution would clash head-on with the slave-state constitution and drag on for years.In the end, the constitution would change names several times and become a source of chaos.“Oh, and about militia weapons.”Holliday hated the term “Jayhawkers.”He didn’t like the meaning, and once Governor Charles took office, he’d begun referring to them as the Kansas militia.“They’ll be coming in by ship soon. They were worried about them getting seized in Missouri, so they packed them as books.”“How many?”“One hundred twenty revolvers, fifty Sharps rifles.”In the big cities back East, far from Lawrence, speeches and newspaper columns calling for abolition poured out daily.The money raised that way was being used to buy weapons.They’d realized armed conflict was inevitable and were determined to make Kansas a free state, even if it meant shedding blood.Holliday knew the numbers and arrival dates because the group behind it all was the NEEAC—the New England Emigrant Aid Company that had founded the town of Lawrence.“You know what’s amazing? Among the people sending weapons is Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”“Oh, really?”Max widened his eyes in feigned surprise.She wasn’t the only one. Many notable figures were spending their own money to help procure arms.The most interesting of them all is… ****Osawatomie, a town sixty kilometers southeast of Lawrence.Its name was made by combining those of the Osage and Pottawatomie tribes. A man had come to this place.Leader of the abolitionist cause.A man whose fierce religious convictions expressed themselves not in “peace” but in “violence,” and who would drive Kansas into bloodshed.John Brown.After tireless activity back East and in the North, he had finally come to Kansas.A log cabin.When John Brown reined in his horse, five men stepped outside.They were his sons, who had been in place here for some time. After his first wife died and he remarried, John Brown had sired twenty children in all.“You’ve come a long way. Must have been hard.”“Let’s get inside first.”John Brown and his sons sat at the table and began to talk over events.“We were delayed gathering funds and weapons on the way. What we sent should arrive in Lawrence soon.”“How was the response?”“Anyone who gathers at a place like that will all be of one mind. Men who shut their ears to me don’t show up at all. However.”John Brown’s voice hardened as he looked around at his sons.“Depending on what happens in Kansas, great changes are inevitable. If we fail here, it will cost much more time and blood. We must hold Kansas by every means we have.”His sons nodded, eyes grim. From childhood they’d been steeped in John Brown’s ideas; there was no dissent.If anything, they admired their father.Then Owen Brown began explaining the situation in Kansas.From Charles Robinson becoming governor to Topeka and the Free-state party, it was quite a long story.But what held John Brown’s interest was, without question, the Jayhawkers.“It’s only natural the governor becomes commander-in-chief. But that’s just a question of office. The man who’s actually going to move the organization is James Lane.”“I agree. I’ve heard he handles all the planning and training.”As John Brown nodded, Frederick cut in.“Have you heard anything about the sheriff of Lawrence?”“I heard he was an Oriental.”“That Oriental is the one training the young Jayhawkers right now.”A glint flashed in John Brown’s eyes as he stroked his chin.“I’ve been going through the newspapers, and it’s no joke.”“Newspapers can’t be trusted these days. Free-state or slave-state, they’re full of lies. Still, it does seem true that Representative Lane thinks highly of the Oriental.”John Brown only counted what he saw and heard with his own eyes and ears as the truth. It was because he had seen the wretched lives and horrific deaths of slaves himself that his conviction could be so firm.Maybe that was why an Oriental he’d never seen held little interest for him.“In a few days, Commander Lane will come here. Some of the Jayhawkers will be stationed at Osawatomie, and we’ll work with them.”“Understood. Things are going to get busy.”After thinking for a moment, John Brown gave Owen an order.“I’ll give you a letter. Take it to Missouri, to Kelly Inn, and deliver it to Bouncer.”“Oh, the stationmaster’s assistant in Jackson County.”John Brown nodded.As an abolitionist, he was deeply entangled in the Underground Railroad.The people involved in that organization regarded John Brown as their real leader.A few days later.John Brown and Lane met.The conversation turned to Max, but Lane brushed it off.— He’s got a bit of talent for teaching, that’s all.If John Brown’s fame was nationwide, James Henry Lane’s was only local.There was a difference between them, and Lane didn’t want Max drawing John Brown’s attention.It’d be trouble if he took him.Not that Max was likely to move just because someone called, but that was its own problem.The focal point of abolitionism.Getting on bad terms with John Brown, backed by famous financiers and politicians, would be a heavy burden. ****The number of Jayhawkers grew by the day.They gathered around Lawrence, then dispersed into the various towns the abolitionists had founded.Even so, the only Jayhawkers whom Max had personally trained—the young ones—still remained in Lawrence.— You put all that effort into raising them. We can’t send them out.Those were James Henry Lane’s words.He might have clashed with Governor Charles, but when it came to Max, the two men agreed.— Let’s leave it up to Sheriff Max.— Let’s do that.And then, a short time later, on November 21.Near Hickory Point, twenty-three kilometers south of Lawrence, a murder took place.It began as a dispute between two men claiming the same plot of land.The problem was that pro-slavery man Franklin Coleman had shot the abolitionist in the back nine times and killed him.To deal with the matter, Douglas County sheriff Samuel Jefferson Jones stepped in.And Jones ruled that Franklin Coleman, the killer, had acted in self-defense.— How can shooting a man in the back nine times be self-defense! The sheriff is clearly taking the slave-state side!— Arrest that bastard!Incredibly, Samuel Jones left the killer alone and arrested Jacob Branson, the man who had protested fiercely.“That crazy son of a bitch sheriff! We have to get Jacob out right now.”“This is a blatant provocation! The slave-state men planned this on purpose!”Listening to the legislators’ denunciations, Governor Charles had no choice but to decide.“We didn’t organize a militia for nothing. Peace is already past its sell-by date.”The governor’s gaze turned to Lane.“We’ll organize the militia and get Jacob out. I’d be grateful if Representative Lane would take this on.”You said we’d get to show the results of training soon. Hell of a sense of timing.As soon as the governor gave his blessing, Lane went to find Max.“Just as you said, the time has come. How long do you need to prepare?”“One minute.”Max stood up as if he’d known it was coming, stepped out of the tent, and shouted,“Fall in, you bastards!”“Yessir!”Time it took to form up in an eight-rank line: ten seconds.“From this moment on, this is not training, it’s a live operation! I believe there isn’t a single squad here that’ll disappoint its instructor. Operation Jacob Rescue starts now!”“Yessir!”Lane blinked.Looking at the young Jayhawkers, brimming with fire, he nodded.Then, watching the back of Max’s head, he thought,Today, I’m dying to know what that country Joseon is like.Meanwhile, separate from Max, there were others going out on the Jacob rescue.John Brown, who put deeds before words.“It’s time to fulfill our sacred duty. Violence for violence. Blood for blood.”His sons and the Jayhawkers.And behind them stood Colin “Bouncer” Madsen, wearing a distinctly uneasy expression.

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