Mariners seek vengeance on killer Twins, fail, lose 5-1

The Assassination of Trent Thornton by the coward Byron Buxton

When you set forth on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.

So the saying goes. When one seeks to cause harm on another, they invariably kill part of themselves. A deeply human, deeply vital part. Even if one wins, they return changed and, in general, worse.

The Mariners, for their part, should have dug many graves. Not for their souls that would have been lost. Because the twins would slay every last one of them. The bounty hunting firm set out to bring in the Twins after last month’s duel that claimed Cal Raleigh and Logan Gilbert. When they heard that the gang would be passing through their native Seattle, it was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.

Bryce Miller was the first to set out against the Twins. A recent addition to the PNW, Miller grew up in the rough-and-tumble badlands of the Texas hill country. In the gateway to the west, Miller developed a quick gun hand, ready to draw and slay evildoers at a moment’s notice. But these Twins were notorious for shooting down even the quickest of guns. The famed bandit Michael “Texas Red” Lorenzen had fallen before them not long ago, caught in the crossfire when the Twins robbed a bank guarded by the Texas Rangers.

Mariner Miller knew this and was prepared. Instead of engaging head on and trusting his speed to win the day, he ambushed the Twins after a night of carousing. But his shots missed wide. The twins returned fire, and even though they didn’t get a direct hit, glancing blows and ricochets and near misses forced Miller into cover.

Just then, fellow Mariner Mitch Haniger opened fire. Haniger was a veteran of the agency and came to the young gun’s rescue. Twins member Pablo López left himself open, and with one well placed shot, Haniger proved the danger in that mistake.

Seeing López go down, the Twins fought off the assault with renewed vigor. Ducking and diving and weaving their way into cover, they set up and returned fire. Carlos Santana, a man who used to be a Mariner himself, among them. The line between bounty hunter and bandit is a fine one, and when the agency cut him lose, he eventually found himself in the Twins’ gang.

He spared no effort in enacting his own retribution. He let forth a barrage that narrowly went between J.P. Crawford and Jorge Polanco - a onetime Twin himself. Santana kept up the pressure, making the most of a distraction from Jose Miranda behind him. But it wasn’t until Byron Buxton, that menace, fired a shot at Miller that Santana went in for the killing blow. He slew Miller in the street and brought the numbers back in the Twins’ favor.

From then on it was a battle of attrition, and the arc of the gunfight, as predictable and inerrant as the path of a bullet inevetibly fell to the Twins. After 6 minutes of fighting, Byron Buxton made another move, this one effectively ending the Mariners’ resistance.

“Divide and conquer” is another oft touted saying. An almost surefire way to achieve victory is to split your enemy’s strength apart and crush them in turn. Defeat in detail. In tonight’s gunfight, the Mariners divided themselves before the Twins even got a chance too. Miller engaged on his own at first, and the rest came in piecemeal. Uncoordinated and sloppy, they were easy pickings for the precision marksmanship of Buxton and his companions.

The organization now has a choice in front of them. While the Mariners Investigation Firm is still the preeminent band of guns in the West, others, especially the dominant forces in Houston and Dallas, are starting to win more contracts. If the Mariners want to remain on top, they either have to recruit from outside the group, or learn how to work together with the team they have.

Who’s to say which is easier or more likely to be successful? There is much soul searching to be done. But the good people of Seattle cannot rest easy. The Twins will remain in town for another night of carousing and roughhousing tomorrow. Perhaps then they will finally be brought to justice.