Fill Your Hand, You Son of a Bitch - A Cowpoke Quest
- Thread starter Rat King
- Start date
- Original
XII
Rat King
Izutsumi-pilled
You turn your trusty horse Patches toward Red Rock and you start riding. It's going to take a little while to get there. At least a couple days, at least if you don't push your horse to the breaking point. That's alright, though. You think you could use a quiet ride after the last few days. The journey itself is mostly uneventful. You have a quiet night wrapped in your blanket and a cold morning drinking camp coffee and eating fried pork and hoe cakes. The scenery is, as always, beautiful (if a bit bleak). You're still not quite used to it after the orange groves and cattle ranches of your childhood home. But you enjoy it.
The hills and mountains get closer over the course of the trip and midway through your second day on the road, you're starting to climb. It's a relatively well-traveled dirt path, packed hard by the sun and by the tromp of hooves and feet and rutted by wagon wheels. Occasionally you pass another traveler - prospectors with a train of mules, a woman in the uniform of the New Alleghenian Mounted Rifles who gives you the sparest of nods as she goes past you, a group of farmers or ranch hands who look like they're of Taxcoco stock who are all chatting happily among themselves in their own language. It's not incredibly busy, but busier than the desert.
Finally, in the late afternoon of day two you come over a ridge and the trading post is situated in a low valley in front of you, settled in alongside a creek, the small valley dotted with pine trees and scrub. The trading post itself is a simple adobe house, where the propriator lives, and a few other buildings (including a tavern-slash-road house of sorts) and a few other houses for the permanent residents. There are also more temporary living quarters - tents and other campsites dot the area around it. Some Inde, some not. You click your tongue and start down the road again - time to see what you can see.
It's a rough and tumble place, situated as it is on the frontier of frontiers (or so say the newspapers), straddling the line between Inde territory and the ostensibly federal territory of New Allegheny. There are Inde, Taxcocoans, prospectors, ne'er-do-wells, and explorers. It's an interesting place, honestly. The tavern-slash-road house seems the best place to start. It's not exactly bustling, but there's a reasonably-sized clientele. Rough-hewn wood floor, sturdy furniture, some interesting wall decorations.
You've seen worse.
There's a rough and tumble looking group at one corner, chatting amongst themselves and nursing some rotgut. A poker game is on-going at another table. There's even an Inde man with a pipe in one corner, smoking and keeping to himself, wrapped up in a blanket. And there's the trusty barkeep. Where to start?
[ ] The rough and tumble crowd.
[ ] The poker game.
[ ] The Inde.
[ ] The barkeep and tavern-keeper.
The hills and mountains get closer over the course of the trip and midway through your second day on the road, you're starting to climb. It's a relatively well-traveled dirt path, packed hard by the sun and by the tromp of hooves and feet and rutted by wagon wheels. Occasionally you pass another traveler - prospectors with a train of mules, a woman in the uniform of the New Alleghenian Mounted Rifles who gives you the sparest of nods as she goes past you, a group of farmers or ranch hands who look like they're of Taxcoco stock who are all chatting happily among themselves in their own language. It's not incredibly busy, but busier than the desert.
Finally, in the late afternoon of day two you come over a ridge and the trading post is situated in a low valley in front of you, settled in alongside a creek, the small valley dotted with pine trees and scrub. The trading post itself is a simple adobe house, where the propriator lives, and a few other buildings (including a tavern-slash-road house of sorts) and a few other houses for the permanent residents. There are also more temporary living quarters - tents and other campsites dot the area around it. Some Inde, some not. You click your tongue and start down the road again - time to see what you can see.
It's a rough and tumble place, situated as it is on the frontier of frontiers (or so say the newspapers), straddling the line between Inde territory and the ostensibly federal territory of New Allegheny. There are Inde, Taxcocoans, prospectors, ne'er-do-wells, and explorers. It's an interesting place, honestly. The tavern-slash-road house seems the best place to start. It's not exactly bustling, but there's a reasonably-sized clientele. Rough-hewn wood floor, sturdy furniture, some interesting wall decorations.
You've seen worse.
There's a rough and tumble looking group at one corner, chatting amongst themselves and nursing some rotgut. A poker game is on-going at another table. There's even an Inde man with a pipe in one corner, smoking and keeping to himself, wrapped up in a blanket. And there's the trusty barkeep. Where to start?
[ ] The rough and tumble crowd.
[ ] The poker game.
[ ] The Inde.
[ ] The barkeep and tavern-keeper.
- Location
- Somewhere in the stacks
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] The barkeep and tavern-keeper.
somnolentSlumber
(Verified Proofreader)
- Location
- hell
[X] The barkeep and tavern-keeper.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] The Inde.
- Location
- Ottawa
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Whatever
[X] The rough and tumble crowd.
InterstellarHobo
Cosmic Vagrant
- Location
- No Fixed Planetary System
We should try to acquire some manner of amulet or talisman from the Inde.
After all, who doesn't want Inde pendants?
After all, who doesn't want Inde pendants?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
XIII
Rat King
Izutsumi-pilled
Well, the barkeep-slash-proprietor probably has a good idea of who comes through the place. He does run the only saloon-slash-roadhouse in town (and town is kind of putting it higher than it has any right to be). So you mosey on up to the bar, getting a look or two from some of the people already there, nursing whiskey or rotgut or warm beer.
The barkeep turns out to be an older woman of some sort of mixed heritage - Inde and Taxcoco, if you had to guess. Some kind of mestizo. She's weatherbeaten and has a few scars and she's got a dark wood pipe dangling from one corner of her mouth, idly puffing and filling the air around her with the pungent smell of Indian tobacco. She's polishing a glass with a rag, although you're reasonably sure that it's not making the glass any cleaner than it already isn't. Her clothing is a dress that's probably seen better days and is about a decade out of fashion, but you're not about to debate the finer points of it with her.
She nods at you as you approach and flashes a smile full of yellow teeth.
"Hey there, darling. You're new around here - what can I do for you?"
Well, at least you stand out? You put on your best smile and lean on the bar with a shrug.
"I'm passing through. You know how it is…"
She nods, apparently not to bothered that you're being vague. She probably hears that a lot from many different people, based on the clientele. Asking too many questions is likely to drive away repeat customers. She turns for a moment with a little 'hmm'.
"Anything to drink for you?"
"Uh - beer. Beer is fine."
"Fifty cents."
Shit. Well, you already ordered. There goes fifty cents. Your wallet is rapidly emptying again. Still, you're looking at a potential payday of $600, so if you think of it as an investment. You slide your handful of change across the counter and accept the glass bottle of beer from her. The label is a bit worn and you're pretty sure this thing was on a train and then on wagon for like three or four months, but hey, it tastes alright and it's kind of refreshing after two or three days on the trail.
"Truth is," you say casually, "I'm looking for a friend of mine. Heard he was out this way - goes by Zachariah."
"Zachariah…?" She wrinkles her nose for a moment in thought, but she also doesn't get hostile or recalcitrant, "Kinda rings a bell, but I duno… think someone with a 'Z' name came through a couple weeks back and picked up some supplies or something. You'd probably have t'ask over at the general store. If he came here for supplies 'fore heading into Inde country, that'd be where he'd end up."
She jerks her head toward that same rough and tumble crowd you bypassed earlier, "Or maybe that lot ran into him out there. Or the old Inde. I haven't seen hide nor hair of anyone callin' themselves Zachariah, though."
Which could just mean he was using a fake name. Damn. You took another swig of your beer, brow furrowed in thought. You could chat with the bartender a little more, try to see if she'd seen anyone, but if you started doing the whole description thing she might cotton to your bounty hunting ways and you're not sure if that would be a good or a bad thing. There's also the general store/trading post proper; they might have heard from the guy.
And of course, there's still the other denizens of the saloon….
[ ] Trading Post Proper
[ ] Chat with the bartender a little more.
[ ] The old Inde.
[ ] That smelly lot.
[ ] Write in.
The barkeep turns out to be an older woman of some sort of mixed heritage - Inde and Taxcoco, if you had to guess. Some kind of mestizo. She's weatherbeaten and has a few scars and she's got a dark wood pipe dangling from one corner of her mouth, idly puffing and filling the air around her with the pungent smell of Indian tobacco. She's polishing a glass with a rag, although you're reasonably sure that it's not making the glass any cleaner than it already isn't. Her clothing is a dress that's probably seen better days and is about a decade out of fashion, but you're not about to debate the finer points of it with her.
She nods at you as you approach and flashes a smile full of yellow teeth.
"Hey there, darling. You're new around here - what can I do for you?"
Well, at least you stand out? You put on your best smile and lean on the bar with a shrug.
"I'm passing through. You know how it is…"
She nods, apparently not to bothered that you're being vague. She probably hears that a lot from many different people, based on the clientele. Asking too many questions is likely to drive away repeat customers. She turns for a moment with a little 'hmm'.
"Anything to drink for you?"
"Uh - beer. Beer is fine."
"Fifty cents."
Shit. Well, you already ordered. There goes fifty cents. Your wallet is rapidly emptying again. Still, you're looking at a potential payday of $600, so if you think of it as an investment. You slide your handful of change across the counter and accept the glass bottle of beer from her. The label is a bit worn and you're pretty sure this thing was on a train and then on wagon for like three or four months, but hey, it tastes alright and it's kind of refreshing after two or three days on the trail.
"Truth is," you say casually, "I'm looking for a friend of mine. Heard he was out this way - goes by Zachariah."
"Zachariah…?" She wrinkles her nose for a moment in thought, but she also doesn't get hostile or recalcitrant, "Kinda rings a bell, but I duno… think someone with a 'Z' name came through a couple weeks back and picked up some supplies or something. You'd probably have t'ask over at the general store. If he came here for supplies 'fore heading into Inde country, that'd be where he'd end up."
She jerks her head toward that same rough and tumble crowd you bypassed earlier, "Or maybe that lot ran into him out there. Or the old Inde. I haven't seen hide nor hair of anyone callin' themselves Zachariah, though."
Which could just mean he was using a fake name. Damn. You took another swig of your beer, brow furrowed in thought. You could chat with the bartender a little more, try to see if she'd seen anyone, but if you started doing the whole description thing she might cotton to your bounty hunting ways and you're not sure if that would be a good or a bad thing. There's also the general store/trading post proper; they might have heard from the guy.
And of course, there's still the other denizens of the saloon….
[ ] Trading Post Proper
[ ] Chat with the bartender a little more.
[ ] The old Inde.
[ ] That smelly lot.
[ ] Write in.