Chapter 441: The Ashes of Veracruz
Ash, soot, and the embers of a dying fire were all that remained of the scene. That and the bodies littered throughout its landscape. It was as if something apocalyptic had happened here. The reality? War...
For the last eight years, the Nation of Mexico had been embroiled in revolution, and the longer it went on the more unstable things became. It seemed every day now that an assassination of some kind occurred, which prompted an even more violent response from another warlord.
The reality was this wasn’t some organized civil war between government forces and revolutionaries. Warlords came and went, and the men fighting were loyal to them, not the banners they waved at any given moment.
Sure, it was painted in the light of a more traditional civil war, but this matter was far from simple. And now, a new banner was waving over the ashes of Vera Cruz, armed militiamen wearing black armbands with a skull, and a sombrero on its head were executing anyone who still had some breath left.
Not with a shot to the skull, but a bayonet to the heart. Ammunition wasn’t cheap, especially since it was mostly being imported across the sea by the German Reich. In the background was the leader of this latest war band: Colonel Rafael Olivares...
Part revolutionary, part cowboy, part factory worker. Olivares was a former officer of the Mexican Army who had spent the last 8 years of his life fighting for whoever he thought posed the greatest chance at order and stability within the region.
But as things continued to descend into chaos, and when Washington had reached its breaking point, he was quick to accept their offer as becoming their man in the field, their boots on the ground. Hell, even their puppet.
Because nothing else seemed to be working, and things were only getting worse with each passing day. The man’s face was concealed by a black tattered bandana, whose skull print on its onyx fabric had already begun to fade with wear.
Above his suit vest, which he wore without a blazer, and rolled sleeves was A brown leather bandolier over his chest, containing 7.92x57mm Mauser stripper clips—ammo his Winchester 1895 was chambered to fire..
It was a rifle reminiscent of a dying era.