DeletedUser
Justice!
Sally Henderson rode her horse across the still wet field. The sun was just beginning to rise behind the mountains and the dew dampening the grass had not been banished yet. Ms Henderson’s horse was strong, a great gray gelding with huge shoulders and a long mane. She wore a flower print dress and rode in a side saddle, it wasn’t proper for ladies to ride astride, like a man. Sally’s long blonde hair unfurled behind her, like a golden banner. Her blue eyes flashed with pure joy, as they should at the tender age of fifteen. Around her, the soaring peaks of the Absaroka Range in southern Montana territory reached for the big sky. She had no idea that this would be her last ride, last morning, last good memory. Her father didn’t know and would have forbidden her to ride out without an armed escort and that made it even more delicious, she had denied authority.
Her father, Nelson Henderson, was trying to keep from hiring the rowdy toughs that loitered around his arch enemy’s ranch, though he knew that this would not stop Gunter Hammerschmidt from burning hsi home to the ground. Nelson Henderson owned the greatest range, water and a large expanse of mountain range, this was why he and his enemy Gunter Hammerschmidt, also a cattleman, hated him with a passion. Gunter wanted Nelson Henderson’s spread. Gunter knew what none other knew, not even the likes of Nelson Henderson, those mountains were filled to overflowing with ore, Hammerschmidt could smell it. He wanted it more then anything and he was willing to lay waste to all who stood between he and those mountains Man, Woman and, child.
The hideous sound of a Repeating rifle barked from the tree line and suddenly, Sally Henderson’s horse fell forward. Sally was thrown from the saddle, her flower print dress was instantly muddied and grass stained as she came to a sliding halt on her stomach. She could feel the sting of rocks biting into her stomach, where a small portion of the dress her mother had made for her had torn and the stones had bit into her exposed torso. Sally tried to stand, but she had fallen from a galloping horse and the wind had been knocked from her pale slender body. So, she could do nothing but lay there motionless, as the jingling of spurs came closer and closer. And she wept, she knew what was coming.
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Van Harman, a retired gunfighter, was the first to find that young Sally had gone missing. He rushed around the compound of the Circle NH ranch, checking every hiding place, every possible location. Van even lowered a oil lamp into the well, praying that she had fallen in, instead of what he thought had happened. There was no sign of her, none whatsoever. Her gelding, Baby, had disappeared from his private paddock, as had her side saddle.
Nelson and Lilly Henderson were both shocked and walked around the Circle NH in a state of complete confusion. Lilly, Nelson’s wife, openly cried for her daughter, screaming until her throat gave out for her to come home. Nelson Henderson, stayed silent, but Van Harman and the group of cowboys that tended the ranch could see their boss had a bloodied lip, where he had bitten it badly to keep from crying himself.
Van, leaving all but his most trusted friend, Frank Dermot rode out later in the morning, looking for Sally Henderson. They followed her tracks, to where they found Baby, the ten year old gelding lying dead in the grass, a rifle bullet had cleanly hit his head and blown the horse’s life out the back of it’s skull. Van dismounted his horse and walked to where the dirt had further been disturbed by a falling body, Sally Henderson’s petite frame was obvious.
It was at 3:37 in the afternoon that Van Harman and Frank Dermot found the poor girl. To their dying days, the two gunfighters proclaimed they had never seen such a terribly battered human being. Van laid a blanket over the now dead body of Sally Henderson, he hoped to give her a little modesty, at least in death. The flower print dress was nowhere to be found, merely stray pieces of ripped fabric laying around the ditch they had found her in. Sally Henderson had died hard, it had taken her a long time to die, from beginning to brutal end. Knife wounds and deep purple bruises stood out livid on her ghostly white frame. Deep indents in the flesh of Sally Henderson’s wrists revealed that she had been bound with a stout length of rawhide rope.
“She never even got to fight back.” Frank mumbled under his breath
“Those animals” he cursed afterwards.
“We‘ll see them all dead in the ground, Frank” Van vowed, looking upwards, towards heaven.
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Van Harman, Frank Dermot, Willy Nicelson, John Sanders and three other lesser gunfighters rode into the small town of Little River, Montana, at exactly 8 PM that same night. They rode in a proud, self righteous line, an assortment of firearms openly displayed across their saddle horns. Willy Nicelson and John Sanders were like Van and Frank, best friends and so they broke away together and circled around to the back of town. While the other five Circle NH hands rode directly towards the Apple Orchard Saloon, owned by Gunter Hammerschmidt.
Inside, ten men who worked for Gunter sat around a table, dealing a game of cards. Van Harman and Frank walked straight through the batwing doors, two double barreled shotguns clutched in front of them. The other three gun hands came in behind them. The men working for Gunter Hammerschmidt, who’s ranch was called the Serpent Spread, looked up in shocked horror, as the two gunfighters standing in the batwings leveled their greeners at them.
The quadruple load of buckshot killed five of the ten men instantly, red and pink intestines slithered from their bodies and blood slicked the floor. Five dead snakes lay on the floor or in their chairs, blood soaked playing cards grasped in their dead fingers. The remaining men, stood as one, pulling their Colts and Winchesters. Willy and Sanders picked that time to enter in the back door and leveled weapons of their own at the five living Serpent riders. Willy’s first bullet punched easily through the bridge of a Serpent’s nose and grey brain matter splattered the wallpaper behind him in a shower of gore.
One of the lesser gunfighters on the Circle NH side went down gut shot, the offending outlaw was blown in half by another sawed off shotgun, which Frank had pulled from the back of his belt.
Soon it was over, ten dead pieces of trash for the single little girl who’s life had been taken from her so wrongly. Van didn’t think it was a fair trade.
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Character Sheet and Rules
Name:
Age:
Profession:
Weapons:
Side: Nelson Henderson or Gunter Hammerschmidt? Circle NH or Circle Serpent?
Biography:
There are a few rules here, my friends.
No God Modding.
Keep in character.
Be realistic.
Have fun.
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Name: Jack Balance "Peril"
Age: 38
Profession: Mountain Man and when he believes in the cause, a Gunfighter.
Weapons: Plain Walker Colts, wore low on each leg.
Side: Nelson Henderson
Biography: Jack Balance left his home in Ohio when he was twelve years old. He loved his parents dearly and they had never mistreated him, that was not why he ran away. When Jack looked westward a greaturge overcame him to start running towards the west and not look back. So, one night, he dropped a bag filled with bread and other food items from his window and disappeared.
He found his very first job, working on a boat that ran up and down the Mississippi River. While on a trip to New Orleans, he on impulse, lied about his age and joined the revolutinary army and participated in the battle of New Orleans, where he was served and soon after left. Later he would recall "We fired our guns and the british kept a comin' wasn't quite as many as there was a while ago."
Jack drifted south, eating deer he killed with a liberated rifle and drinking from rivers and streams.
Once again, however, war found him and Jack Balance found himself caught inside the Alamo, with General Santa Anna's troops busting at the gates. Because Jack never enlisted, he was never recorded as a participant of the Alamo, however he had been there until the very night the Alamo had fallen. He had been entrusted with a urgent package of letters. The last words of the men who died inside the Alamo. Jack disappeared into thee night, like a ghost. He killed a mexican scout with a bayonet and stole the dead man's horse. Three days into his journey to the capitol of Texas, he was backshot from his saddle, by a scouting party of Mexicans. The letters were stolen and the last words of those valiant souls in the Alamo, were never heard. A kind family of Texicans found him, near death on the road and kept him in their ranch house until he had been strong enough to ride. In shame, Jack Balance disappeared westward.
He had once again, been near death, a savage bear attack had caused him to lose much blood, when an stinky, racist, heavy drinkin and throughly irate mountain man had found him. He was taught all there was to know about the mountains, how to survive and how to kill. "We are in great peril!" he had called, when a band of renegade Chyenne had came upon Jack and his mountain man friend in a box canyon. Indians are strangge people, but even they stopped their charge, wondering what the hated white man said. Then, all at once, they turned and rode away, not a single man dead on either side, the Indians told Jack Balance later that killing a man who was touched by th egreat spirit would bring bad medicene upon them. The name had stuck and soon he had an actual name, Peril. Peril The Mountain Man.
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Peril kicked his horse's sides. Horse the horse was an aging appaloosa mare, with a kind heart and a mother's patience. Judice the mule, however, was not, in fact, Judice the mule was probably a hell hound, if Peril guessed correctly. Once, Judice had bitten Peril so badly on the buttocks that he still had a scar to this very day. Still, the mountain man loved each of the animals fiercly, they were his family, as important to he as any person could ever be.
Ahead of him, Peril could smell the smoke of a settlement and sighed in despair, he didn't much like to go into towns people always shunned him and though tof him as a heathen. However, there are some things that a man has to have once in awhile. Like a shave, haircut, bath and an actual bed. Peril was sure Judice The Mule and Horse would enjoy a day of having their every whim pampered.
The mountain man turned Horse's head towards town "Let's go Horse."
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