<hr/><div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/2/21/JacksonJackson.png)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Jackson P. Jackson<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>None<br/><strong>Date:</strong>5 June, 1870<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Afternoon<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Soddom<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Lilah, Closed<br/><hr/><br/>“I got a<em>special</em>package for you  right here in my tent,” the miner had said, and the flash of a five dollar coin had been enough to lure Li-Li inside the dirty canvas tent.<br/><br/>Jackson watched it, his eyes narrowing.  She was young, but Samson had been laughing now an hour before about how she was starting to look ‘old enough,’ and how there was nothing like a girl’s first time ‘riding a stick o’ dynamite.’  He wasn’t the only man who’d looked digusted as Samson crowed about what he intended to do to her, but there was a law in Soddom.  You minded your own damn business.  Even the Sheriff had given a tacit sort of acceptance, well aware he didn’t have the force of numbers to keep anything civil and orderly in the ramshackle mining town that had sprung up on the edge of the nascent boomtown.<br/><br/>Still, it didn’t sit right with him.  He heard a muffled squeal, coming from the inside of the tent, and there was a growl in the back of his throat.<br/><br/>“Don’t do it, Jackson.”  One of the other miners shook his head.  “Samson’s a nasty bugger.  He’ll cut your throat when you sleep.”<br/><br/>“So I heard.  Heard that was what happened to all his old partners out at the Devil’s Crevasse.”<br/><br/>“Nah, I heard it was them Sweetrock boys,” muttered another miner.  “Gone and slit them all open, gonna buy the mine from Samson.”<br/><br/>There was another muffled squeak, and then the sound of a punch, and Samson’s wicked, nigh toothless laugh.<br/><br/>“G’wan, girl!  More you struggle th’more I’m gonna like it!”<br/><br/>Jackson rose, his eyes narrowing.<br/><br/>“Jackson -<em>Jackson</em>,” warned two of the miners, rising and grabbing his arms.  But Jackson was no pushover - he’d won seven fights in a row at the Bloodsport Arena, he’d funded his last prospect into the Maze with nothing more than his fists - and Wiley and Jackrabbit were beanpoles of men.  He shrugged them off and away, scattering them to the ground, and grabbed the top of the tent, ripping it up and out of the ground and tossing it away.  There was a clatter of tent stakes and tent poles, as the canvas was tossed away.  Samson hadn’t even gotten his britches off, and his eyes went wide as hands grabbed him by the neck, and the back of his britches, and hauled him up into the air.<br/><br/>He hurled Samson back down on his belly in a little clearing of tents two steps away, then smashed a savage kick into his ribs that sent him rolling over a campfire and turning over a plate of cooking beans.  Samson scrambled to his feet, yanking a pistol from his belt.<br/><br/>“Yer a dead man,” he growled.  “Yew are too if ye move, ye little slant-eyed whore.”<br/><br/><em>Guns.  I hate guns.</em>Jackson’s eyes narrowed.  He didn’t carry them - or at least, he hadn’t in a long time.<br/><br/>“Think you can cock that hammer back before I snap your neck, Samson?”  His arms flexed, veins standing out on his bare arms.  “You put down that gun and I’ll just beat you like your momma oughta.  You cock that hammer and I’ll snap your neck and toss you off the side o’ this mesa.”  His voice was a husky growl, righteous anger burning in his eyes.<br/><br/>Samson’s lip curled.  “Ain’t in the Arena, boy.  And you ain’t faster’n no bullet.”<br/><br/>Which was true.  But Jackson was faster than the grizzled old miner’s thumb, and as Samson reached for the hammer, Jackson leapt and crashed down upon him.  His teeth set on edge, his eyes saw red, and Jackson pinned one wrist down while his full weight crashed down on the miner.  A shot fired through a tent, and whizzed out the other side, putting a hole through a tin coffee cup, and then Jackson slammed Samson’s wrist down, snapping the wrist.  His other fist slammed down, costing Samson half his remaining teeth in a punch.  He heard the leather on metal slip of a knife sliding free, and his free hand snapped and caught Samson’s as he tried to put a knife in side.  Miners were crowding around, watching the fight, as Jackson slammed his forehead down into Samson’s face, cracking nose and jaw.  His head went back and then slammed down again, accompanied by the deep crack of a jawbone.<br/><br/><div class="floatright">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/2/2a/JP.png)</div>The boom of a shotgun went over the mining camp, and Jackson paused.  He looked up to see two old greybeards - one wearing the tin star of a sheriff, and the other a more familiar face - Whiskey Nick, one of the oldest miners in Gomorra, both with a shotgun levelled at him.<br/><br/>J.P. Coleman’s voice a whiskey smooth baritone.  “Now, I ain’t a man to interrupt a well-deserved whuppin’.  But I ain’t of a mind to let you murder a man, either.  Let him up, son.”<br/><br/>Jackson rose, blood on his forehead and nose and chin.  The grey-haired sheriff looked down to the man on the ground, and frowned.  “Nick, get that fella there to the doctor.”<br/><br/>“He was trying to rape a girl,” growled Jackson, and J.P. Coleman gave a tiny tilt of his head.<br/><br/>“Weren’ no girl,” spat Samson, words barely intelligible around a mouthful of blood.  “She a yellow whore.”<br/><br/>Jackson ignored the shotgun aimed at him to deliver a kick that cracked rib into Samson’s side.<br/><br/>J.P. Coleman cleared his throat.  “You Jon Samson?”<br/><br/>Samson winced, and gave a little nod.<br/><br/>“Jon Samson, you are under arrest for the murder of Miles ‘Slowpoke’ Higgins, and Bradford ‘Tilt’ Higgins.”  His jaw set, and he looked through the crowd of miners, finding the little girl who’d been at the epicenter of the commotion.  She was just getting too old to be a whippersnapper any longer - another year or two and Mr. Lee would probably having her inside that… den of sin he’d set up near Soddom.<br/><br/>“This man force himself upon you?  Or make such an attempt?”<br/><br/>Jackson stepped closer, protectively.