Accounts Received the Adventures of Timothy Stone Part 1

Gather around the hearth, Hunters, and warm your hands on the fire, while we tell you a tale about Timothy Stone… Evans was dead, to begin with. But that wouldn't hold the night. By morning there'd be another man walking around with his name and carrying his papers. There was nobody to mourn his death. No funeral to attend. By the time the body had gone cold and the grave had been dug, I'd be the only one who remembered him. People around here are too busy trying not to make corpses of themselves to notice that one more loner from out of town has gone in the ground. People are too busy to notice that - what a coincidence! - another man was suddenly walking around using a dead man's name. Still, I never thought I'd be writing his name under Accounts Received. Evans had been my partner a long time. Business partner, and hunting partner. I hadn't planned on having a partner at all - I like to work alone - but there were certain benefits. I always had an alibi. Not that anybody ever asked for one. But then he went and got himself killed, and I thought, “wilful waste makes woeful want!" and in half an hour I had a buyer lined up. And so Evans would rise again, in a fashion. I liked to think that my services at least offered a kind of immortality. Rise up dead man, indeed. In most cases it went like this: find a buyer, then find some loner who fits the bill. No family, a few accounts, and property a plus. No friends who would bother asking questions. As soon as I joined the American Hunter's Association, I realized Hunters would be perfect targets. Always running straight into Death's arms, like they've been looking for him their whole lives. Petty feuds and greed keeping them infighting. Even if somebody found out I was pulling the trigger, and for a profit, it was likely that nobody would care. Not among that lot. We worked with Trevors to move packages long distance. That man doesn't do anything by halves. If you want to get something valuable to Chicago or New York without anybody knowing about it, Trevors is your man. He's a gruff, morbid fellow, but I guess you'd have to be in that line of work. I wired the buyer, and prepared the papers. There was a fat satchel of coin to go along with them, though I kept most of that for myself. Then I brought the package to Trevors for shipping. Trevors took one look at it and went for my throat.