The Red Valley War
Part Two of The Red Valley Rebellion
The Siege of Red Valley
The horn’s wail fades, but the weight of it lingers.
The riders don’t rush. They don’t need to.
They move forward like a slow-rolling storm, dark and inevitable. Dust rises behind them, a thick curtain that swallows the morning light. There are too many of them. More than Gaines ever had.
Hazel keeps his rifle steady, but his gut is telling him the truth. This ain’t a fight they can win.
Beside him, Maggie grips her gun, knuckles white around the stock. Blackjack is too still. Behind them, Big Bill bleeds into the dirt, chest rising shallow.
Against Hazel’s ribs, tucked in his coat, the kitten shifts, its tiny claws kneading the fabric. Just a small movement, but enough to remind him that this fight is bigger than himself.
At the head of the riders, Lucius Woundwort sits tall in his saddle. He’s older than Hazel expected, his scarred face unreadable, his hands resting loose on the reins.
“You ain’t the first to run here,” Woundwort says, voice dry as sunbaked leather. “And you won’t be the last to bleed here.”
Hazel clenches his jaw. His people won’t survive this fight.
So he does the only thing he can.
He lowers his rifle.
And Woundwort smiles.
They don’t die that day. But they stop being free.
Life Under Woundwort
The next morning, the rules are made clear.
“You work,” Woundwort says. “Or you don’t eat.”
No threats. He doesn’t need them. The guns at his back do the talking.
The settlers are absorbed into the machine.
Maggie breaks horses for Woundwort’s men, hands raw and blistered. Blackjack is sent to the armory, fixing rifles for a war he doesn’t understand. Hazel is put to work digging trenches for irrigation, moving dirt so Woundwort’s men can grow their stolen crops.
Big Bill is left to rot in a dirt-floor shack. No medicine, no water, just the slow roll of a fever that doesn’t let go.
And Eli is nowhere.
They ask. No one answers.
So Hazel listens. Watches. Waits.
The kitten has no name. It stays tucked inside Hazel’s coat during the day, sleeping as he works. At night, when he lays down in the dirt beside Blackjack, it climbs onto his chest, stretching, yawning. A tiny, fragile thing in a world of blood.
Blackjack snorts one night, watching it curl up. “Guess you ain’t got the heart to let it go.”
Hazel scratches the kitten behind the ears. “Guess not.”
Because Red Valley isn’t just a hideout. It’s something else.
At night, they hear gunfire echo across the ridges. They see dust rising from the valley floor, long columns like war smoke.
It takes Hazel too long to realize what’s happening.
Woundwort isn’t just running a gang.
He’s building an army.
The First Rebellion
Hazel is digging a trench when Blackjack finds him.
“Found something,” he says, voice low.
Hazel doesn’t ask what. He just follows.
They slip past the pens, past the crude bunkhouses where Woundwort’s men drink and play cards. The whole place smells like sweat, horses, and gun oil.
Blackjack leads him to the edge of the valley, where the ridge falls into a narrow draw.
Crates.
Stacked high, covered in tarps. More than a dozen.
Blackjack pulls back the canvas. Rifles. Shotguns. Ammunition stacked neat like a soldier’s footlocker.
Hazel swears under his breath.
“He’s planning something big,” Blackjack murmurs.
Hazel exhales slow, his fingers tight on the crate.
Woundwort’s not just sitting on this valley. He’s expanding.
Hazel looks at the weapons, at the wagons loaded with supplies. He looks at the settlers—his people—working themselves raw under the weight of Woundwort’s boot.
The kitten shifts inside his coat, claws catching the fabric. Hazel glances down at it. Small. Helpless. But still alive.
He thought this was about survival.
He was wrong.
This is war.
And if they don’t act soon, they won’t be the ones fighting it.
They’ll be the ones buried under it.
The Cost of Defiance
They start small.
A broken fence here. A stolen rifle there. A loosened saddle strap on one of Woundwort’s best horses.
Testing the edges. Seeing what moves, what doesn’t.
But Woundwort isn’t a man who lets things go unnoticed.
And he doesn’t ask who’s responsible.
The next morning, three men hang from a low branch, their necks twisted like snapped tree limbs.
Woundwort rides slow through the camp, eyes scanning faces, looking for the spark of defiance.
“You think I don’t see you?” he calls, his voice carrying in the dust. “You think I don’t know?”
No one speaks.
Hazel keeps his eyes down. The kitten shifts under his coat, purring softly, oblivious to the nooses swaying in the wind.
Now there’s only one way out.
They have to kill Woundwort before he kills them.
The War Begins
They strike at night.
First, the armory. Blackjack rigs a firebomb out of kerosene and rags, sets the whole damn shack ablaze. Ammunition pops like firecrackers, sending glowing embers into the sky.
Then, the horse pens. Maggie slashes the ropes, throws the gates wide. Horses spill into the night, wild and unbroken, trampling anyone in their way.
The valley erupts.
Gunfire, shouting, the chaos of a fortress turning against itself.
Hazel doesn’t run. He doesn’t hide.
He fights.
The kitten is still inside his coat, pressed against his chest as he fires into the chaos.
And when he sees Woundwort standing in the center of camp, watching it all burn, Hazel knows—
It ends tonight.
The End of Woundwort
A knife. A gun. A fight in the dirt. Fists and steel, blood and dust.
Hazel isn’t stronger. He isn’t meaner. He’s just more desperate.
When it’s over, Woundwort is lying in the dirt, bleeding into the land he thought he owned.
And Hazel is still standing.
His chest heaves, breath ragged.
Then something small moves against him.
The kitten crawls up from inside his coat, paws pressing against his collarbone, blinking at the firelit ruins of Red Valley.
Hazel lets out a breath. He lifts the tiny thing, cradles it in his rough hands.
“You made it,” he mutters.
The kitten yawns.
A New Dawn
The sun rises over Red Valley.
The bodies are buried. The guns are gone.
Hazel stands at the edge of the ridge, looking down at the ruins below.
Maggie steps up beside him, blood dried on her hands.
“What now?” she asks.
Hazel exhales slow. For the first time in weeks, the air doesn’t feel heavy.
“Now?” he mutters. “We start over.”
She huffs a quiet laugh. “Again?”
Hazel grins. “Always.”
The kitten shifts inside his coat, curling against the warmth. Hazel runs a hand over its small body, feeling its breath, steady and soft.
By the time they step onto the road, it’s fast asleep, purring against his heart.
And for the first time in a long time, Hazel lets himself believe—
Maybe they’ll be all right.
For now.
Maybe tomorrow the kitten will even get a name.
Great story......and I love the kitten....