By Benjamin GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | 2025 Truth Endures©
Chapter Four: Pieces on the Board
Braddock Cain stood in front of a pool table inside The Assembly, lining up a shot with surgical calm. His eyes didn’t leave the cue ball even as Poke relayed the report.
“He bloodied Silas’s nose, bruised Dutch’s ribs, broke Miles’ fiddle, and made Jonas fall on his ass,”
Poke said, leaning against a cracked marble column.
“Didn’t even draw his gun.”
Cain took the shot. The cue ball clicked sharply and sank the eight-ball in the corner pocket.
He stood slowly, placed the cue stick back on the rack, and poured himself a drink.
“And the town?”
“They watched,”
Poke replied.
“They didn’t help, but they didn’t laugh either. Some of ’em even looked –– curious.”
Cain stirred his drink with one finger.
“That’s the worst part.”
Poke blinked.
“Sir?”
Cain turned toward the window.
“Fear keeps Serenity in check. When people get curious, they start to hope. And hope’s just a prettier way of saying ‘trouble.'”
He walked back to his velvet chair, every step echoing in the hollow room.
“I want to know everything about Marshal Finch. Where he came from. What he’s running from. Who sent him? And,”
He added, narrowing his eyes,
“who he’s willing to die for.”
Poke nodded and disappeared.
Cain sipped his drink and muttered to the empty room,
“Let’s see what kind of man rides into Hell on a scooter.”
Across the Rooftops
Wren sat cross-legged on the corrugated roof of what had once been Serenity’s schoolhouse. The sun was setting in a blood-orange smear across the sky. She held a spyglass in one hand and a half-sharpened pencil in the other. A leather-bound journal rested in her lap.
Inside were names. Maps. Notes.
She turned to a fresh page and wrote:
Chester Finch – Marshal – Took a hit, didn’t fall. I watched the Gentlemen leave bruised. He won’t last a month. He might last longer.
Beside her sat a worn revolver wrapped in canvas, untouched. Wren didn’t shoot unless necessary.
Observation was safer.
She reached into her coat and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It was a newspaper clipping, old and faded:
“LOCAL DEPUTY DIES IN FIRE — WIDOW, CHILD UNACCOUNTED FOR”
She stared at it for a long moment before tucking it away again.
Wren wasn’t born in Serenity. She was left here. Left during the chaos, after the fire, after the men in black suits came and went. Cain had taken her in—not out of kindness but calculation. He saw her silence, her memory, her talent for hiding in plain sight.
He never asked questions. Neither did she.
Until now.
She looked back toward the jailhouse, where Chester Finch was lighting a lantern in the window. He moved stiffly, but there was something in the way he held himself. Like a man who wasn’t afraid to die—but was trying real hard not to.
She flipped back through her notebook. She found a sketch she’d drawn weeks ago. It was a map of Serenity. The map had dotted lines marking the tunnels under the old mines. It showed the abandoned telegraph station and the hidden entrance to Cain’s private vault room.
Wren circled Chester’s name, then drew a faint arrow pointing to the vault.
It was almost time.
Elsewhere in Serenity ––
- Petal wiped the dust from her apothecary shelves. She stared at a cracked photo of her brother. He was killed by Cain’s men for refusing to cook meth in the back room. She kept smiling, but her smile was starting to slip.
- Julep Jake, now back in his cell by choice, was building something with matchsticks and chewing gum. “Civic infrastructure,” he explained to no one.
- Silas Crane dipped his bleeding knuckle into holy water and laughed softly. “He’s gonna make me preach,” he whispered. “And I do love a sermon.”
Back in The Assembly, Cain sat alone in the dim light, polishing a gold coin between his fingers. One side bore the symbol of the old U.S. Marshal’s badge. The other side? Blank.
“Flip it,”
He whispered.
“Heads, he burns. Tails, he breaks.”
He flipped the coin into the air and caught it.
But he didn’t look.
Not yet.
Yet another episode to our story concludes. And, still no word on whether the moped is safe. After all, nowhere in this story is it mentioned whether Chester Finch parked it in a loading zone. It also doesn’t say if he used a 1-hour only parking space when he got to town. So far it hasn’t been used to his advantage in any of the dealings he has had. In Chapter Five, you will find out why. There is a secret method to getting about the town. It is about to unfold.
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