Chapter 2: The Vice Chairwoman
Beyond the square, the carriage journeyed a short distance before entering the Sheffield family estate. Numerous carriages already waited within, signaling an important day ahead.
Adjusting his necktie, Sheffield stepped slowly from his carriage. Just then, another coach halted nearby, disgorging a middle-aged woman. Though no longer youthful, she exuded a sharp, modern efficiency rare for the era. Her short blonde hair and piercing gaze marked her as an unyielding force.
It was January 1895. Texas winters were mild, hardly requiring heavy attire, yet the woman wore thick sable fur—a clear sign she'd just returned from colder climes.
"Aunt Isabella!" Sheffield greeted respectfully. "Back from the North? How was your trip?"
Isabella glanced at her nephew and sighed bitterly. "Dreadful. NRA membership keeps shrinking. People these days aren't buying guns anymore. A headache, really."
"Terrible news! Though that's the chairman's concern—you're just the vice chair," Sheffield shrugged, feigning sympathy.
The National Rifle Association, headquartered in Virginia, traced its roots to the Civil War. The location spoke volumes: Virginia had been the Confederacy's heartland, where hunting culture and "gun-toting rangers" thrived. This cultural rift had initially given Southern soldiers superior marksmanship over their Northern counterparts.
Although the industrialized North had dwarfed the agrarian South in population and wealth during the war, yet suffered exponentially higher casualties.
The Civil War coincided with a firearms revolution—Minié balls and rifled barrels magnifying Confederate advantages. Post-war, a Northern veteran's rallying cry—"Teach all Americans to shoot!"—sparked the NRA's creation.
When Edward Sheffield, wounded and dying, learned of this Northern initiative, he adopted a "if you can't beat them, join them" strategy, infiltrating the fledgling NRA.
"Vice chair or not, declining membership hurts our family's arms factories!" Isabella snapped, eyeing her privileged nephew. "You may excel academically, William, but practical matters elude you." She left unspoken her disdain for his father—the family's true heir, a Paris-dwelling playboy.
"I meant no offense, Aunt. Without wars, what can we do?" Sheffield spread his hands. For the NRA—a self-proclaimed "nonprofit"—this membership drought was inevitable. Yet Southern infiltrators like their family kept trying to monetize it, twisting its purpose.
Isabella cared little for the NRA's ideals. Shrinking membership meant dwindling rifle sales, and as vice chair, she fought relentlessly to protect their profits.
Sheffield harbored no illusions: had murder been profitable, his family would've pioneered the industry. Unprofitable ventures gather dust; bloody ones draw crowds.
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Inside Sheffield Manor's opulent conference hall, Annabelle—silver-haired, elegant, and unshakably composed—listened to the heated debate. Gradually, the room fell silent. The once-indignant men now held their breath, eyes fixed on the matriarch. Her lingering beauty mattered less than her authority; they attended not as admirers, but supplicants.
"A thorny problem," Annabelle mused, twisting her wedding ring. "My Edward warned ,those who fled to Brazil would regret it. Even against the Yankees at full strength, we only secured conditional surrender. What hope did they have in foreign lands? Now they face the same reckoning."
"Annabelle, this isn't about repeating mistakes!" protested one man. "The Brazilian government refuses compensation for plantation losses—billions at stake! Just like the Yankees' emancipation edict thirty years ago. We let that pass, but these Brazilian planters are our kin! Families split apart. They're drowning. What do we do?"
"No reparations? It's robbery!" another growled.
The room erupted, Brazil's crisis reopening old Civil War wounds.
"What would you have me do?" Annabelle's voice turned glacial. "Rally the clans for another war? Were it not for Edward's sentimentality, our reformed family would've abandoned this cause long ago. My husband took a bullet that slowly poisoned him. I became a widow in my prime. No wealth can restore what we lost."
"Six years since Brazil's abolition act—six years of hoping Britain would mediate!" She scoffed. "Edward always said the English were false friends. More trustworthy were the Slavs I imported from Eastern Europe!"
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*(End of Chapter)*