<br/><hr/><div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/2/21/JacksonJackson.png)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Jackson P. Jackson<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>None<br/><strong>Date:</strong>5 June, 1871<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Late Evening<br/><strong>Location:</strong>The Great MAze<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Lilah, Closed<br/><hr/><br/>“Awright,” he said agreeably, as she asked to have the page read over next time.  He stroked her back lightly.  “Wouldn’t mind readin’ that whole chapter again,” he promised.  “Them kids was pretty cute.”  He was quiet, his fingers stroking through her hair while she leaned against him, and he gave a tiny start and a rueful smile when she spoke again after he was sure she’d nodded back off.  “Hmmm?  Aww, that poor old bastard,” sighed Jack.  “That fella can find one tiny nugget of silver after two weeks prospecting, and still drop it in the Maze water on his way back to town.”  He rubbed his hand.  “Ought to try his hand at something … anything… else.”<br/><br/>He gave a little smile when she said she had been keeping track of time.  “Worked out good for me, too.  Man’s fit to lose his mind, being out here all alone for a year.”  He gave her a little squeeze as she leaned against him.  “Worked out real good for me, too.  Real good.”  His hand stroked up and down her back again.  “Think this claim… think we might just be digging deeper and deeper into solid rock,” he admitted.  “Might be time to head back to town.  Get a fight or two… make some money on the bets… get ourselves some more food an dynamite and try our luck elsewhere.”  It had made him more and more nervous to go into town with her - Samson might have swung from the end of a rope, but he had a few friends that still felt they owed some kind of retribution.  There’d been scuffles, and a few more eyes on Lilah as she matured more and more into womanhood.<br/><br/>He realized that she’d nodded off, and he gave a small smile as he heard her dozing.  He curled her a little tighter and tugged the sleeping roll around them both, and then settled his hat over his eyes and drifted off himself.<br/><br/>In the morning it was no small amount of work to break camp.  The mine shaft they’d been digging he left open - Harlot’s Haven, is seemed, was never going to amount to anything more than rock and sweat.  But the deed might be worth something in town, a few dollars, and after folding it into his vest, he set about lowering their rowboat over the side of the mesa.  It wasn’t easy work - The thing weighed near two hundred pounds with most of their gear in it, and the rope was rough twine that cut at his hands.  He trusted Lilah to climb down the side, a rope tethered to her waist in case she fell, and after a half hour of lowering and descending, the rowboat finally settled into the water with a splash, where she could hop within and keep it steady while Jackson began his own descent.<br/><br/>The ropes were a cost of business - Jackson left them tethered at the top and hanging down the side, as he leaned back and descended carefully.  His powerful arms had weakened from lowering the rowboat over the side, but there was still plenty of strength left in them to keep his grip as he worked his way down.  He finally loosed them and dropped into the waters with a splash, grunting and pulling himself over the side while Lilah leaned to keep the whole thing from flipping over.<br/><br/>He grinned and settled into the boat, clothes and hair still dripping wet, but after days on the parched mesa top a little water wasn’t the worst thing to deal with.  “Captain Lilah on the rudder,” he grinned.  “First Mate Jackson on the oar.  Permission to set sail, Captain?”