Chapter 95: Threatening Cornwall
“Mr. Cornwall, that joke of yours isn’t very funny.”
Davey refused without a moment’s hesitation.
What kind of nonsense was that—asking him to capture Dutch? Even setting everything else aside, with just him and Mac, it would be nothing short of suicide.
“So, Callander, you’re refusing to be my friend, is that it?”
Cornwall’s tone hardened. In his mind, he’d already offered Davey extremely generous terms—the kind most men could only dream of.
If the Van der Linde Gang hadn’t become such a troublesome problem, and if dealing with Davey hadn’t been such a headache, Cornwall would never have stooped to make this kind of offer.
Yet here he was—flatly rejected.
As Cornwall stood up, tension rippled through the restaurant. Apart from his assistant, all ten of his gunmen rested their hands on their holsters.
Cornwall glared at Davey, as if trying to intimidate him into submission.
“If Mr. Cornwall truly believes that the few men in this restaurant can take down the Callander brothers, then he’s delusional.”
“Or does Mr. Cornwall think that while you can try to kill me, I’m somehow forbidden from killing you?”
“When a man is shot, he dies—whether he’s a cowboy or a tycoon.”
“Perhaps Mr. Cornwall should take a look at his own men and see what state they’re in right now.”
Davey almost laughed. For all of Cornwall’s wealth and arrogance, the man was trying to scare two hardened outlaws with cheap theatrics.
Of course, Davey knew that even if things turned violent, Cornwall himself wouldn’t be standing here in the crossfire.
Cornwall might have done things not too different from robbery in the past, but he was no outlaw. He had no idea what being a gunslinger truly meant.
These were the Callander brothers—men who had carved a bloody path through both the Blackwater police force and the Pinkerton Detective Agency, the only two organized law enforcement groups in the West.
Cornwall followed Davey’s gaze to his own men and finally noticed the fear etched across their faces.
Ten armed men stood with him, facing only two opponents—yet Cornwall felt as if he were the one surrounded.
“Very well, Mr. Callander,” Cornwall said coldly. “I underestimated you—and Van der Linde. But understand this: those who oppose me never meet a good end.”
Realizing he couldn’t do anything to the Callander brothers for now, Cornwall covered his frustration with empty threats.
Davey’s reply was ice-cold. “If my moonshine business suffers any mysterious losses, I’ll make sure that debt is paid by you, Mr. Cornwall.”
“You may have power in the United States, but don’t forget—this isn’t the civilized East. This is the wild West.”
“We might not be friends, but if Mr. Cornwall wants to add another enemy to his list, I won’t mind one bit.”
If killing Cornwall didn’t carry such heavy consequences, Davey would’ve shot him right then and there.
Many people didn’t understand what it meant to be a tycoon in the United States—but Davey wasn’t like Dutch, who’d never read a book in his life.
In 1899, there were around 4,500 people worth over a million dollars, and that number was still growing.
But the title of tycoon wasn’t something just anyone could claim.
Each one was a giant in his field, and across the entire country, only twenty or thirty men truly deserved that title.
Cornwall was known as the railroad magnate, which meant nearly all major railway projects in the nation were under his control.
Killing a man like that would shake the entire country. In the aftermath, to calm public outrage and satisfy the demands of other magnates, the Pinkerton Detective Agency would easily be granted full authority to hunt them down.
A starving camel is still bigger than a horse. Even after six years under the Anti-Pinkerton Act and six years of decline, the Pinkerton Agency still had thousands of men under its command.
Even the best Sharpshooter—someone like Arthur at his peak—could handle dozens, maybe more. But hundreds of fully armed, professionally trained Pinkerton agents? That would be suicide.
A single Maxim gun might not decide a battle—but ten of them certainly could.
That was why Davey didn’t want to kill Cornwall, not yet.
Cornwall’s face shifted between anger and unease as he weighed Davey’s words.
He couldn’t deny that out here, in the West, he had few real means of dealing with Davey.
If pushed too far, even if he managed to damage Davey’s moonshine business, the price he’d pay would be steep.
Dutch’s train and oil wagon robberies might have cost him money, but those losses were a drop in the bucket for Cornwall.
What he really cared about was his pride.
And he had to admit—though Davey might have seemed insignificant before, he had now become a man powerful enough to command even Cornwall’s respect.
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