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🕑 Added 2025-02-27 02:35:28 +0000 UTCWind in the Smoke
Chapter 151 - Things Start to Change
Dutton Ranch, hunting cabin behind the main lodge.
Dante's greatest desire had always been to keep the family together. That was the main reason he had built a cabin near the main house—to spend some seasons close to his father.
Some of his siblings had expressed their wishes to leave home.
Their father, John, had kicked them all out at some point, but they still wanted to stay united. However, Dante knew that wouldn’t last many more years, as his siblings were getting older.
All it would take was for Cupid to do his job with the single members of the Dutton family—helping them find a partner, fall deeply in love, and wish to start their own families.
Dante wasn’t here for an inheritance or anything like that. He wanted to keep alive the legacy his father had worked so hard to maintain intact until now.
“This place is a mess…” Dante crouched on the ground, holding a rusty can in his hands, his brow furrowed.
The surface of the can was greasy and sticky, covered with a thick layer of dust. The label was faded and blurred, with only a few incoherent letters barely recognizable.
He shook the can, and a dull sloshing sound came from inside.
Obviously, the contents had spoiled and were no longer safe to eat.
The floor was littered with cans of all kinds of food—jams, beans, pâté. Every single one of them was covered in dust, and the air was thick with a stale, musty smell.
“Are you really not coming back?” Lee watched his brother, who seemed lost in thought. It had been a day since Dante arrived in Montana, and his actions were giving the family the wrong impression.
“She’ll come,” Dante said calmly. As a businessman, he had to think strategically and give Susie the space she had always wanted, free from worries.
She was fine, enjoying some time without pressure. This was something Dante’s family couldn’t understand, but there was no need to explain everything to them.
“I’ll be in the barn if you need help with the mess in this cabin…” Lee had no interest in whatever Dante was doing in this abandoned place.
“Get out of here.” Dante sighed in disappointment, scanning the room. He had hoped to find some family relics in the hunting cabin, but in the end, everything he found ended up in the trash.
He swept up the cans one by one, stuffing them into a bag, planning to take them later to the compost bin for disposal.
He was here for a simple reason—besides distraction. This was therapy for him, a perfect moment to reflect on how things had escalated with some of the family’s most complex enemies.
Now that he had initially dealt with his personal foes, he felt the need to bring that same peace to his family here in Montana.
But he was unsure how to do it.
He had already killed many people—more than he could stomach.
He wasn’t a man eager to wipe out his enemies. He was more refined than that. But his rivals, who were now dead, had favored swift actions, so that’s exactly what he had given them.
But he couldn’t act that way in his father’s home.
He needed time to make sure things would turn out much better.
That was why, to think, Dante had simply chosen this hunting cabin near the main lodge and started cleaning it.
Dante stood up, his eyes landing on the old hunting gear hanging on the wall.
There were various hunting tools hanging silently—spotted hatchets, jagged animal traps, some old hunting rifles, and a crossbow that had long since lost its shine.
Their handles were covered in scratches, and the once-smooth wood had worn down over time, becoming rough to the touch.
These had once been hunting weapons, perhaps belonging to John or previous owners of the Dutton ranch, but they hadn’t been used in many years and had now become nothing more than useless decorations.
Dante’s fingertips gently traced over a hatchet. The rough texture brought back memories of hunting with his father when he was a child.
The air inside the storage room felt a bit heavy. He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt slightly, sighed softly, and continued searching.
The family's collection of treasures had to be more than just this.
In a discreet corner, Dante found a worn leather hunter’s bag.
He opened it and found only a few old matches with yellowed tips.
Dante tried lighting one, but the spark flickered and died at his fingertips.
He tossed the matches back into the bag, dusted off his hands, and walked toward an old wooden wardrobe on the other side of the room.
This wooden wardrobe covered an entire wall. The wood looked a bit loose, and the drawer corners were polished smooth from years of use.
It was rumored that the older members of the family used to hide some of their “gold bars” in this wardrobe, and Dante’s older brothers often joked about it.
Now that the obstacle was out of the way, Dante might find something interesting.
As he gently opened a drawer, the wardrobe let out a deep creak, as if struggling to wake from a long slumber.
Inside, there were several old, yellowed notebooks recording the weather and past hunting seasons, along with some trivial notes.
Dante flipped through a few pages at random and saw his father John’s scribbled handwriting: “I came across a hare. The wind was in my favor, so I slowed down a bit.”
Beneath the words was a rough diagram depicting the prey he had spotted in the woods.
Dante couldn’t help but smile. These notebooks held the hunting stories of the past heads of the Dutton ranch.
Digging deeper, Dante’s fingers touched a small iron box.
The box was heavy, its surface almost entirely covered in rust.
Dante carefully brushed away the rust and unhooked the latch with his fingernail.
Inside lay a small hunting knife.
The leather handle had been polished smooth like a mirror and was engraved with the Morgan family crest.
Though the blade was old, it still gleamed with a cold light.
"This knife... How did it get here, and what is its story?"
Dante's heart raced with excitement. Who was he kidding? He loved things where mystery was the main element.
Beneath the knife, there was a piece of letter paper.
Dante took the letter and unfolded it, revealing the familiar handwriting of Sesame's father:
"Merry Christmas, John. I hope you keep it."
"On this ranch, you will face ups and downs. There will always be enemies trying to take this land from your family's hands."
"But you can always look at this knife and remember that you are a descendant of a great ranching lineage and are destined to be one of them."
On the back of the letter, a few more lines had been added in different colored ink:
"They had to protect this land. It's the only thing that will give meaning to our lives when we are near the end."
Dante shook his head and chuckled, looking at the knife in his hand as if the person who wrote the letter were sitting right in front of him.
Only now did he imagine how tragic it would be if his brothers ended up selling the ranch.
Fortunately for him, he could buy the shares his father would leave to his children and keep the ranch together. No matter the outcome of all his problems, being here definitely made everything worthwhile.
Dante carefully examined the depths of the closet and found a wooden box covered in dust, as if it hadn't been opened in years.
He carefully took out the wooden box, and the scent of old wood filled his senses.
Inside, a Winchester repeating rifle lay still, its metallic body gleaming faintly.
The sight of it made Dante’s heart sink. It wasn’t unfamiliar to him—his own blood had once spilled upon it.
It was from his first hunting trip as a teenager.
Dante had been eager to use a large-caliber weapon alongside his brothers.
John calmly handed him the rifle and said, "This rifle is too big for you, but you'll have to learn the lesson yourself."
The duck flew into the air, and Dante fired.
The recoil sent the rifle’s stock slamming into his face, fracturing his nose and making blood pour down his face.
Dante still remembered Jamie running to find John, crying and shouting, "Dad! Dante is dying! Dante is dying! ... Why are you laughing?"
Although the rifle looked a bit worn, Dante could still faintly see traces of his own blood.
After that, he hadn't dared to go hunting for a long time.
Dante gently picked up the rifle and examined it carefully.
There were some scratches on the stock, marks left by time, carrying the hunting history of its previous owner.
A strong desire arose within Dante—to restore the weapon to its former glory.
He understood that this wasn't just for its previous owner but also for the blood he had once shed.
Dante quickly found the cleaning tools and began carefully performing a basic maintenance on the Winchester rifle.
He wiped the weapon gently with a cloth, trying to remove the dust covering it.
As he cleaned, the rifle slowly regained its former shine.
"I will protect everyone..." Dante murmured, lost in thought, as a dangerous glint appeared in his eyes.
Comments
Nato J
Watch out, Dutton foes.
