Realistic or Modern yee mf haw [private]

[Finnie]

1873

YC is an outlaw on the lamb from his group (either because they are trying to set out for their own shenanigans/or they are trying to leave the life and become a better person) But something goes wrong and YC and ends up injured at my character's farm and they have no choice but to stay.
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Name: Charlotte (Lottie) Anne Westfield
Age: 22
Hair/Eye Color: Brown/Brown
Family: Only child, living alone with her father. Her mother died when she was a baby, so she
does not remember her. She helps care for the farm and the animals.
Societal Status: Her and her father's farm is small, they don't have a lot of money. They need
help on the farm but her father is too stubborn to hire help on their slim means.
Religion: Christian

Lottie is a good-natured and sweet girl, but she is anything but soft. Her small
family is struggling and she is doing everything she can to help her father.
She is not afraid to stand up for herself. However, no matter how much she might
argue otherwise, she is still a home-grown, home-schooled girl who knows little
about the outside world. She can be naive about more than she'll admit. It is because
of her naivety that she is sometimes more bold or brave in situations than she should be.

 

[ireadtoomuch]

Name: William Jonathan Goode
Age: 26
Hair/Eye Color: Blonde/Grey
Family: His father was an outlaw, Will, his younger brother Charles, and his mother following wherever Mr. Goode's gang led them. Mrs. Goode died of a gunshot wound after the gang's camp was raided, and Charles died of yellow fever a year after their mother. Mr. Goode was arrested and hung when Will was 15, leaving him on his own.
Societal Status: Lower class turned outlaw. The gang has money, but not legally.
Religion: None

William comes off as rough and cold-hearted at first, but he is loyal and passionate to the death for those he cares about. William isn't the most eloquent in social situations, often finding himself fumbling over words in serious conversations. He has a strict code as to his activities as an outlaw. After his father died, William fell in with a gang that he has been with ever since. After getting away with a big score, one of the gang members viciously murders and brutalizes an innocent woman, so William kills him in retribution. The gang chased William away, vowing to exchange blood for blood, and he left the money behind.

 

[ireadtoomuch]

It had all gone so bad so fast, and that was saying something for someone who was used to things going sideways in some form or another. The gang had all been hanging out at camp, and William scolded himself for not thinking the man's absence was odd, relaxing and enjoying themselves after robbing a bank in a big city south of where they'd pitched their tents. Then one of the Davies twins came riding into camp splattered with blood, hootin', and hollerin' about something unintelligible. It wasn't until his horse reared onto its hind legs and Jeremiah Davies hushed up that the group noticed a woman on the back of his horse. She was hogtied and dirty like she'd been dragged through the mud.

The argument had started with Will asking Jeremiah what the hell he was doing kidnapping a broad and bringing her back to camp when the gang was supposed to be laying low. They didn't need much attention on them at the moment considering the law was no doubt searching the outskirts of the city limits for them.

At some point Jeremiah didn't care for the way William and some of the others were telling him how much he screwed up, that he'd solved the problem then and thereby shooting the poor woman dead. It certainly solved a problem, and William had promptly taken care of it. He'd shot Jeremiah Davies square in the forehead, but it was when the rest of the gang had pulled their guns that William knew it was over.

Throughout the night he'd ridden his horse, and he'd ridden the poor thing hard too. He could hear the gang chasing after him, calling for blood. Now here he was sometime later, deep in the prairie and away from those he once called family, bleeding and leaning against his horse for support. He knew he'd need medical attention, so when he finally saw a ranch with the lights on, he rode towards it with the little bit of consciousness he had left.

Just as he'd crossed the property line and the fence outlining it, William could feel the darkness settling over him like a blanket. It was comfortable and for a moment he wondered if this is how Charlie had felt in his last moments. Eyes yellow and skin blistering with fever.

Before he knew it he was sliding off his horse and onto the ground, clutching his side as he hit the dirt directly over it. William groaned and was pretty sure he looked like a mess if he'd ever seen one. His horse started to rear and make all sorts of noise as she circled William anxiously.

 

[Finnie]

A soft tune filtered through the cool summer evening, mingling with the calls of cicadas and the low rumble of thunder. Charlotte sat criss-cross on the worn bench that squatted by the entryway of the barn, whistling. Beside her sat a leather saddle which she methodically brushed. At the foot of the bench laid Scout, their old dog.

It was peaceful.

In her mind, Charlotte ticked off each of the chores she had completed in her head. After this, she was done for the day, and her aching arms were the proof. She rolled her shoulders and took a break from whistling to sigh heavily. She didn’t mind the work- it was good to keep busy. Idle hands were the devil’s plaything after all. She just wished her father wasn’t being so stubborn about hiring help. It was almost hay season, and if it was anything like last year a quarter of their crop could go to waste simply because they didn’t have enough hands to reap it all.

Papa wasn’t a spring chicken anymore, but he couldn’t seem to accept it. Maybe if he were a younger man and she had been a son they could have gotten it all done themselves. But it simply wasn’t realistic the way things were. If he would just let her go into town and strike a deal with one of the shop owners, maybe they would have enough to-

Her thoughts were interrupted with the cry of Scout below her, the scruffy old dog jumping to his feet. His back stiffened with a protective growl, focus sharp on the horizon. The hair on the back of her neck stood straight when she heard a horse’s whinny in the distance.

They never had visitors. And no decent person would be calling this late.

Charlotte’s mind raced as she jumped up, bolting into the barn with Scout at her heels. The house was too far to get her father before the rider got to them. If she tried to run she’d be totally out in the open. She grabbed the rifle off the wall. She would do what she had to protect herself and her home.

She rushed back to the entrance of the barn, but thought better of it and turned to grab a hat off the wall. Balancing the gun between her knees, she quickly wrapped her long chocolate curls into a bun and tucked it under the hat. She was still wearing work pants and a cotton shirt from the day, with any luck the visitor might think she was a man. Heart in throat, she bolted back outside to meet whatever might be coming their way.

Sure enough, a strange horse was pacing by one of their fences, clearly distressed. But… no rider? Charlotte lowered the gun in her hands and inched closer. The horse wasn’t just pacing. It was circling something. It was difficult to make it out in the dim moonlight. Catching the horse’s reigns, she hushed the animal and tried to get a closer look. It was… a man? The alert in her mind went off again and the gun was back up and aimed at the stranger’s back.

“What are you doing here?” She barked, trying to sound as menacing as possible.

 

[ireadtoomuch]

He could see and hear his horse acting out, and William was half-worried that Briar Rose was going to trample him in the process of acting out the way she was. That is, if he didn't die of that damn gunshot wound first. William's waist throbbed with each breath he took, but he could tell it went through from the warm blood trickling down his back.

William wanted to roll onto his back and take the pressure off his wound, but his horse still wouldn't stop prancing around anxiously. He closed his eyes and focused on trying to breathe without making his entire body spike with pain. He hadn't put much thought into how loud his horse was being, or what someone would realistically do when they found a man bleeding next to his horse with nothing to his name except the clothes on his back and the money in his pocket.

At least, he hadn't thought about it until he heard the soft tinkling of Briar's reigns being taken and a voice trying to calm her. William was oddly surprised when Briar Rose started to calm down and shorten her strides. Breaking her in had taken an immense amount of effort and she was always picky about which members of the gang had been able to even feed her.''

His thoughts were snapped from his horse and back to the situation at hand when he heard the familiar rattle of gunmetal, no doubt being aimed at him. In an attempt to communicate peace, William shakily held up a hand so the person behind him could see it.

He couldn't quite tell if it was a man or a woman, but it was the middle of the night and no man would send his lady out to meet an intruder, so he presumed the former of the two.

"Please sir, I been shot. Ain't-ain't no reason t' aim that gun at an injured feller now is there," He tried to keep his voice even and free of pain. If he conveyed just how hurt he was, who knows what this man might do. William didn't know him. Would he rob him? Shoot him like a sick dog? "I jus'-jus' need some help, tha's all." He sure hoped he was saying the right things to make this man lower his firearm, but William also had a tendency to say the incorrect things in a situation from time to time.

"Now you don' need t' worry, the fellers that did this t' me are long gone, but uh, I think I do need some medical assistance of sorts, sir."