Life is business. It's really just that simple. You provide goods and services, you get something in return. Anything else was not real. Love, hurt, pain, truth, lies....they all fell into the category of "resources" to be doled out for maximum advantage. Obeisance to the law of the land was the same....if it was in your best interest you played by the rules. If not, then you skirted them.
Plain and simple, it wasn't an easy lifestyle. You had to have guts, style, luck and the damn brains to know what the hell was needed at any given time. But Mistress Fate favored the bold. And a knife on your person generally tipped the balance when called for. Of course, it was always best to work out the details without violence. Blood was, after all, the final tally...the final accounting. Best to get things accomplished without it.
Will's history was his own. Starting off in Chilicothe, Ohio, he'd bought a leaky river barge on the Cuyahoga and parlayed that purchase into a thriving regional shipping concern. He sold the company and purchased a riverboat on the Mississippi, the Natchez Belle. With his friend and business rival, Silas Ford, he made a successful run with the boat up through the beginning of the Civil War. With the nation torn asunder, he sold the boat and went into the banking business in Topeka as partner with Silas, but after a short while he found that life didn't suit him. So he left Mr Ford to run the bank and headed to Stillwater, OK to run a brothel and bar. He stayed there for five years, before pulling up stakes and heading to the Arizona Territory and Copper Creek.
He hadn't changed his name. Hadn't run from the law. Just had learned how to stay one step ahead of trouble to begin with. Had plenty of history. Plenty of coin, too. What he didn't have much of was friendships. At times that bothered him. Other times, he didn't mind so much. A man has to stay focussed on the game. In this case, the game was money. He was good at the game, too. Very very good.
