<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/0/0c/Doomtown2-Recovered2.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Walter Sinnett (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=200832.msg9812108#msg9812108)<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 11th, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Afternoon<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Casino Mor... wait, wait, the bastard place is called<strong>Babel's Tower</strong>now right? Feck it, he's sat in a corner away from the bar.<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Open and he's got an eye on everyone there right now...<br/><hr/>Do you know what words you really shouldn't say to Walter Sinnett?<br/><br/><em>“You're a wanker.”</em><br/><br/>Well, yes, those words of course or anything else even vaguely insulting. Walter wasn't a smart man and he didn't always pick up when someone was using long and fancy words to belittle him (not that he really understood what “belittle” meant either) but if or when he did work out someone had been flappin' their gums in his direction his first reaction was normally to make those gums flap a little bit more by removing the bugger's feckin' teeth with his bloody fist. So yes, you'd technically be correct; anything insulting was probably the best answer to “what words you really shouldn't say to Walter Sinnett”. But it isn't the answer I'm looking for. No, the answer I'm looking for is much more specific to the situation he now found himself in.<br/><em><br/>“Free whiskey.”</em><br/><br/>Walter “Do Down” Sinnett was at heart a simple man. He liked fightin', fornicatin' and downing a lot of feckin' whiskey... not necessarily in that order. These yanks may not be able to brew a beer worthy of the name, their yellow piss-water a pale imitation (quite literally) of the thick bitters he'd spent far too many hours and farthings on drinkin' back in the Nag's Head in rainy Millwall but they could make a good glass of whiskey and Walter found himself takin' rather a liking to the substance. Harsh, smooth, sweet, smokey, Walter didn't give a feck. All he cared about was that it was strong and, in these circumstances, that it was free. The openin' of Babel's Tower? It gave Walter a chance to indulge in all his pleasures. Drink a bunch of whiskey, get in a fight with a few other bastards who had been goin' to hard at the poison and then grab the cheapest whore (yes, yes, Walter knew they were meant to be called “soiled doves” but feck it, a whore's a whore right?) he could find, give her a right seein' to, maybe have another fight on his way out and then go find somewhere to pass out. Simple man, simple pleasures right?<br/><br/>Wrong.<br/><br/>Because things had been anythin' but<em>simple</em>for Walter this past week. Ever since that bastard<em>thing</em>had pulled him from his cups a week ago.<br/><br/>Walter weren't even sure he should be 'ere. It felt like disloyalty and while Walter's wasn't exactly bothered about<em>bein'</em>disloyal he was bothered about<em>lookin'</em>disloyal to his employer. Since that bastard former owner had run off to wherever the feck he'd run to, Sweetrock had owned this joint (even if the buggers wouldn't give him a staff discount). And then some other bastard had blown it up. Crash, bang, wallop, bits of wood and shattered glass everywhere. Walter had even heard the explosion down at “Stiffies”, the name give the disreputable, cheap and nasty Scared Stiff saloon where he spent most of his evenings. And while Walter had never been told to guard the bloody place it was still his employers' buildin' and it had still been blown up and it had still had to be sold on the cheap and Walter still felt a little disloyal sittin' here and drinkin' whiskey.<br/><br/>But it was free and unlike the potato-water they served down at Stiffies it actually tasted of whiskey so here he was.<br/><br/>He couldn't say he liked the bastards around here either. The Mayor was a right arsehole, one of those feckers who made sure he was associated with everything good that happened but made no effort to actually do any of the feckin' work. Show up late, take all the bloody credit. Liked the sound of his own voice too and while Walter also liked the sound of his own voice that's because it was his voice, not the bloody mayor's. While Cochran had been speaking Walter had found himself imagining what it would feel like to repeatedly punch him in the nose. That had brought a smile to his face, only for it to be swiftly replaced with a scowl when someone in the crowd noticed and smiled back.<br/><br/>But Walt liked the mayor a hell of a lot more than he liked the other bastard.<br/><br/>Walter Sinnett had no real reason to dislike Abraham Solomon beside the poncy name and the fact he didn't really like anyone. But there was somethin' about the guy that just made Walter's hairs stand on end. And the stare. That feckin' stare. Walter knew a good stare when he saw one, hell, he liked a good stare. His own wasn't half feckin' bad and it made his job a lot bloody easier. Yeah, sure, it was fun to do down a few miners here and there, kick 'em in the nuts, punch 'em in the nose and stamp on 'em a few times but sometimes you just wanted to get the bloody job done and get back home to your whiskey. So Walter would give 'em the look, let 'em really suck it in, give 'em a stare that promised pain and death and humiliation, watch 'em piss their britches, let his baleful red eye flicker just a little and watch 'em feck right off. But Walter couldn't help but get the feelin' that if he locked eyes with Abraham Solomon he'd be the one with piss rollin' down his leg.<br/><br/>And he didn't bloody like it. Really didn't bloody like it.<br/><br/>It's not like Walt had seen the man roll into town and immediately challenged him to a staredown. Even Walter was more bloody subtle than that. But he'd seen him in passin' and he'd seen the effect the new man's stare could have on people. No-on held his eye, not for long. And Walter didn't want to risk not bein' able to himself. Walter was a predator you see, the bloody apex predator in his mind but who respected a predator that couldn't even hold some other bastard's bloody gaze? Better not to find out rather than test it and lose. There was somethin' not just right about the fecker and Walter really feckin' didn't like it even if the man was offerin' free whiskey and cheap shags. Well, cheaper than normal. You couldn't really get cheaper than Scabby Sally down at Stiffies but then you paid her to make sure she left the bed and didn't tell anyone about your little encounter rather than to stay in it.<br/><br/>See, not so bloody<em>simple</em>.<br/><br/>And those two bastards weren't the only things. First there was that bloody<em>thing</em>. The thing that had ripped right through Gomorra, torn those poor bastards apart and then run off. Walter didn't even know what the fuck that was. If it wasn't for the lack of bloody fur and full moon he'd have thought it was a damn werewolf. Not that he'd seen a bloody werewolf of course but he'd heard of them and that feckin'<em>thing</em>... so fast, so strong, so agile... seemed to fit the bloody bill. He'd put a few shotgun rounds in it, seen that feckin' wannabe law dog shoot it a few more and they hadn't even pissed it off. You want to talk about bein' an apex predator, about bein' the monster that mothers get their children to do their chores with tales of? In one night Walter had felt himself tumble down the food chain. That<em>thing</em>, that feckin'<em>thing</em>... Walter still couldn't get the bastard out of his mind. It would have killed them... well, killed the rest of them, Walter would have kicked the crap out of it obviously... if it hadn't been for that bloody bridge collapsing. Nothin' had been the same since. Nothin' had been<em>simple</em>.<br/><br/>First the rumours of the bastard Chinese Maze Rats hookin' up with that bastard Blackjack and his bastard raiders to do whatever bastard things those bastards wanted to do. And considerin' the fact that the bastard Rats made their bastard livin' stealin' bastard ghostrock from bastard miners and the bastard Blackjack thought he was a bastard folk hero and hated the bastards at Sweetrock that probably meant Walter was goin' to have to spank the bastards at some stage. Especially after the bastards raided the bastard steamboat. Had to be a bastard alliance... Walter knew enough about gangs to know one didn't piss in the other's yard without either permission or wantin' a war. No way the maze rats let Blackjack take somethin' on the water without their permission; they were the pirates after all. Not that Walter cared about some people getting' robbed, but Sweetrock did and he worked for Sweetrock. Sort of.<br/><br/>Not<em>simple</em>.<br/><br/>Then the bloody Indians goin' bloody rampant. Well, supposedly goin' rampant, Walter didn't really know after that family who were meant to be dead showed up. Disinformation, all that bollocks... Walter didn't bother with it. He just punched people. But he knew enough to know that sometimes a lie turned itself into the truth. You tell everyone the Sioux are actin' up, are goin' around with their damn hand axes and cutting people's scalps off, you have a prospective sheriff show up with a bloody arrow stickin' out of him and soon people will be bayin' for Indian blood. And once the bayin' starts it doesn't matter what the Indians did before, soon there'd be blood and then the Indians would start actin' up. In some ways Walter was actually lookin' forward to the chance to feck up some Indians... he'd never met one but he thought they were like the Welsh and that meant they were right bastards but again...<br/><br/>Not<em>simple</em>.<br/><br/>Then they finally get over the graveyard to search for that thing... Walt had smartened up this time, so he'd stayed right the feck out of it... and of course they don't find it, they only find the bodies it left in its wake. Even if they were feckin' loonies Walter felt bad for those bastards in the asylum... no-one deserves to feckin' die like that unless it's Walter killin' 'em. And then they'd found that feckin' Whateley who everyone else thought had fecked right off or been killed and it turns out had been stuck in the Gomorran equivalent of feckin' Bedlam. Jesus feckin' Christ. Walter didn't like the Whateley's, didn't like any stuck up rich cunts and especially didn't like stuck up rich cunts who live in a damn haunted house on a mesa where all the feckin' trees had died. Made his feckin' skin crawl almost as much as that Solomon bastard to even think about them. And now this one not only survives a feckin' beasty that can't be hurt by a shotgun and can rip people in two, but she's feckin' insane. If Walter was less interested in self-preservation he'd have grabbed a crowd and marched down to their mansion with pitchforks and torches in hand and burnt the feckin' place down. Something wasn't right there and wasn't right about them. And they were supposedly Welsh and that just made them even bigger bastards. Although that Ginny bird wasn't exactly bad to look at he guessed.<br/><br/>Not<em>simple</em>.<br/><br/>Then the feckin' nightmares. Walter didn't have nightmares... he drank too much whiskey for that... and you might be surprised to hear that a bastard like Walter who killed men for pleasure was bothered when a bunch of kids had a feckin' nightmare but Walter was a superstitious man and when a whole bunch of bloody kids all have the same bloody nightmare then he knew somethin' was up. Especially the same bloody week as that, that, that feckin'<em>thing</em>attackin' and those crazy bloody Whateley's havin one of their number be even more bloody crazy than usual. Somethin' wasn't feckin' right, not feckin' right at all and it all felt like it was comin' to a bloody head in Gomorra. The air tasted wrong.<br/><br/>Not<em>simple</em>.<br/><br/>And of course, the miner's union was getting' angry. The miner's union was always angry about bloody somethin' but this time Walter wasn't sure he could blame them. Maze Rats killin' and shuttin down mines? Nasty business that and if the thing with Blackjack was true it looked like a deliberate effort to starve Gomorra of its true lifeblood; ghost rock. The miners may not be an organised army but Walter had seen enough union action back in Millwall when the dockers took up in arms to know that if you combine a disorganised mob with industrial tools.. especially of the explosive kind that the feckin' miner's had easy access to, you got one hell of a mess. The miner's may be complain' about the Law Dogs not doin' enough to help them but they also didn't like Sweetrock and a riot was the perfect time for some scores to be settled. And Walter especially hoped that they didn't pay attention to a few of the “Maze Rat” attacks in particular. They might have noticed that a man in a ragged suit was seen ridin a donkey in the vicinity shortly before the brutal attacks. That would be bad for Walter's health.<br/><br/>Not<em>simple</em>.<br/><br/>And oh, yeah. Walter had been marchin' though Gomorra one day when he say a bloody sign for a new detective. In and of itself not that much of an issue. Much bigger issue when it turns out the bastard was an ex-rozzer. An ex-rozzer from England. Not just England but London. From feckin' Scotland bloody Yard. Walter had never liked the feckin' rozzers... they tended to want to stretch his neck and he liked them even less since he'd driven his knife into one of their guts and been forced to flee London and everything he knew for this feckin' place. And now here one of the bastards was. In Gomorra. In<em>his</em>feckin' Gomorra. Walter should have just walked into the office, knifed the cunt and taken his chances but for whatever reason he hadn't and now he had to put up with the bastard being there. Being here. In Gomorra.<em>His</em>Gomorra.<br/><br/>Not<em>simple</em>.<br/><br/>And thoughts of the girl with the swan-like neck and a lovely dress. Thoughts he couldn't get out of his head however hard he drilled a whore.<br/><br/>Not<em>simple</em>. Not<em>simple</em>at bloody all.<br/><br/>If this place had opened two weeks ago Walter would have been parked in the middle of the bar, ordering whiskey after whiskey till he could barely stand and the bottles had run empty. But it hadn't opened two weeks ago, it had opened tonight and so Walter had gotten his whiskey and found a table in the corner of the bar and was currently brooding there. Getting the whiskey hadn't been a challenge. There may have been a horde of people charging for it but everyone was still sober enough to realise they needed to give Walter his space. One glance at him, one glance at the ragged suit, the dirty duster, the scowl etched on his features, the piercing eyes, the top hat hung slightly askew on his head and people realised that it was probably best not to get in his way even if they didn't know his reputation. As much as possible in a place as packed as Babel's there was space surrounding him, space as people picked up on the latent hostility, on the sense of impeding violence that hung around Walter. Walter was and remained a man apart.<br/><br/>He tried to distract himself with thoughts of better things. With thoughts of friends. But that wasn't much help at all, because there weren't really any. There was his donkey, tied up back at Stiffies and still the only creature in the place that actually ate any vegetables. Probably had the best feckin' manners too. Technically it wasn't “his” donkey, but no-one had asked for it back yet and the donkey didn't seem to mind Walter riding it and occasionally feeding it a carrot so he guessed it was “his” now even if he hadn't given it a bloody name. But even the feckin' donkey had been off the last few days and not with the usual sarcastic streak that he detected in the supposedly mindless beast. No, even the donkey realised something was wrong, something wasn't right, that things weren't simple. If a beast who's only ambitions in life appeared to be eating carrots, shittin' on the floor and occasionally throwing Walter off his back and then hehawing with pleasure could work out that there was something in the air then there was<em>definitely</em>something in the bloody air.<br/><br/>Then there were there usual patrons of Stiffies, the fecking scum even a scum-sucking place like Gomorra refused to allow into the nicer establishments. The owner and barman Ethan, a man with a long and ignoble history as a drunk and a bar brawler when he was a miner before an argument with a rock face led to him losing an arm. There was Billy the Knife, a rat-faced petty thief who as far as Walt knew had never used the knife he claimed her got his name from. Dirk, the bruising wagon driver with the lazy eye and a taste for moonshine so vile it would be rejected as paint stripper. Handsome Taw, a man who was neither handsome nor really called Taw. Scabby Sally, the previously mentioned whore so mean of temperament and repulsive of look that she seemed to make most of her coin through scaring young men into paying her to go away and Apache Matt... well, his name was at least 'Matt' but no-one knew why he had decided to take on the 'Apache' moniker. But they weren't “friends”, they were people Walter could just about tolerate as he pissed his evenings away there.<br/><br/>Perhaps there was the one item of good news, the fact that the bloody crazy red head lady hadn't blown herself up when she was flying her new fangled airship for the first time. Walter liked Agatha and he liked her a lot more when she wasn't pointing some outrageous looking barker in his face and threatenin' to make him even more ugly. She may have agreed to make him a gun (please note; she hadn't agreed to make him a gun but little things like “facts” rarely got in the way of Walter's limited imagination) but she wasn't exactly a friend, even if he had bullied the other bastards at Stiffes into not attempting to rob her house or her workplace... and probably saved their lives in the process. They'd spoken once, she'd pointeda  gun at him and eventually he'd walked off. Such was the extent of their friendship. But she made big guns and Walter may not have liked barkers but he had a dream and that dream required a big feckin' gun. There are some things in life you can't defeat just by punching it in the face, even for a man like Walter.<br/><br/>But yep, there it is ladies and gentlemen, the true extent of Walter's friendships in his time in Gomorra. A donkey, some scumbags and a crazy readhead who he'd talked to once, had stuck a gun in his face and likely didn't even consider him an acquaintance, let alone a friend. Welcome to the bloody punch. Walter had never really wanted or needed friends... things like friendship got in the way of doin' business and frankly, let's be honest, Walter wasn't exactly the kind of person it was easy to make friends with. He was mean and nasty and petty and if you were a man he'd probably try and smash you and if you were a woman he'd almost certainly want to shag you. And if you could get past all that bollocks you'd find that even once you got under under the cloak of hostility and anger there wasn't much worth seekin' out. Normally Walter didn't care, but on a night like this, on a night where he could sit at the bar and watch the world go by he did occasionally feel a pang when he saw a shoulder slapped in camaraderie or a pair of people laughin' at some bloody joke. Walter didn't really laugh at jokes. He laughed at pain and suffering, especially if he was the cause of it.<br/><br/>Not<em>simple</em>. Not bloody<em>simple</em>at all.<br/><br/>Not bein' friendly and not bein' caught up in conversation did give Walter the chance to do some people watchin' at least. Sat in the corner with his whiskey and his anger he could look out and see who else had been temped by the free drinks and cheap pussy. Gomorra had been awash with new people these last few days, be it the poor sods robbed blind on that poncy steamboat or the usual stream of bastards and bitches who made their way into this god forsaken place. And an event like this tended to draw in even those who rarely ventured into the town itself, those who lived out in the shattered maze or the few bits of flat, unbroken land which dotted the landscape. People he hadn't really seen before. There was the bloody mayor and the bloody bastard Solomon. There were some day labourers and others tryin' to drink their sorrows away, there were some already eyin' up the prettiest of the soiled doves as they flittered around showin' off their merchandise. There was one feckin' huge bastard sat by the bar. Looked like a feckin' farmer but was far too pretty than any bastard who worked the fields all day had a right to be. And there was some Mexican lookin' bird crushed up against the bar lookin' decidely uncomfortable even if her curves spilled out of her shit dress in all the right places. If Marcus thought of the Indians as the Welsh then he thought of the Mexican's as the Irish and let me tell you, that wasn't a complement. On a different day he'd have fought one of the pair and fucked the other but it weren't a different day and so Marcus sat and downed his whiskey, fixing the nearest serving girl with a stare so awful that she quickly worked out it was in her best interests to quickly get him another whiskey and bring it to him. That at least was simple.<br/><br/>Nothin' bloody else was<em>simple</em>. Everythin' else was bloody complicated and scary and filled with visions of blood and death.<br/><br/>So Walter took his simple pleasures as he could. He sucked down on whiskey, he glanced at soiled doves, he watched who came in or out of the bar, he watched who drank and who didn't, he noted who looked comfortable and who looked ill at ease.<br/><br/>And he wondered why life couldn't just be feckin'<em>simple</em>.