<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/0/0c/Doomtown2-Recovered2.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Walter Sinnett<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 4th, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Afternoon<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Mesa outside Town<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Agatha, Open<br/><hr/><br/><br/>Walter Sinnett was out in the wide open world again.<br/><br/>He wondered if perhaps he had been spoilt by living in London his whole damn life. He didn't know how old he was; whores and brothels weren't known for their record keeping, but what he did know that he had spent every year of that life within London. He had literally never left the city. An entire life lived in one place. No countryside for Walter, no trips to the beach, no hikes through the mountains. Just London. Just rain and narrow streets and overflowing gutters. Faces filled with despair, hearts filled with hate. Never leaving. Never looking over your shoulder and watching it fade into the distance. No escape.<br/><br/>And here he was in Gomorra and it seemed that he spent the whole damn day outside the town.<br/><br/>His task today had been a relatively simply one. Intimate some miners who had ideas above their station. Nothing too strenuous. Head on out, give them the banter, get pissed off after they don't understand what you say, sock one of em in the gut, give the other one the stare, watch him crap himself, kick the one on the ground a few times, tell 'em you'll be coming back soon and if you see them there it won't be pretty, show 'em the knife, watch 'em both crap themselves and then walk away. A nice easy day's work, just the way Walt liked it.<br/><br/>The night before hadn't exactly been full of pleasure. He'd thought about goin' for a whore but in the end the temptation of whisky was just a bit too much. Though he wouldn't admit it, even to himself, Walter was a bit lonely. He was a stranger in a bloody strange land, no-one could bloody understand English and no-one talked about the things he could talk about. Not that Walt was really sure what he talked about back home but he knew he talked about something, hunched over the bar in the Nag's Head sipping on beer so dark and bitter you could see bits floating in it. He knew all the names, all the faces. Here he knew bloody no-one and that night he hadn't felt like getting to know anyone. So he'd sat in his room, drank half a bottle of whisky and fallen into a deep but troubled sleep.<br/><br/>And so he'd ridden out again, off to bang some head together and generally be the miserable whoreson his employers paid him to be. His mood was, for once fairly good. He'd left the bloody horse and cart back in town. Someone had offered him an 'orse but he'd taken one look at the blooming thing and decided against it. He knew sweet fuck all about 'orses but he knew a lot about bastards and he could tell this horse was one. Had a malicious glint in his eye that 'orse did. Kinda like Walter's own. And Walt certainly didn't want some bastard riding him so he doubted the 'orse did. No, that 'orse wouldn't do. The donkey next to it on the other hand...<br/><br/>And Walt and the donkey had got on famously. Walt wasn't going to pretend he could outrun anything on it or that he didn't look at least a little ridiculous but he didn't really mind that. Not when he got to sit on the donkey's forgiving back and pleasantly amble along, the sun on his back and not a care in the world. The donkey wasn't temperamental, wasn't angry, wasn't demanding. It simply walked in the direction Walt wanted, a reliable and utterly uncontroversial beast of burden, giving Walter the chance to think further about exactly how one would go about hunting down a Maze Dragon. So far he'd worked out one thing; brass knuckles probably weren't the way to go. Beyond that? Not so much, but it gave his mind something to do.<br/><br/>At least until the gunfire started.<br/><br/>Let us make one thing clear to begin with. Walter didn't like guns. That may seem strange. After all he was a murderous thug afterall. And beyond that he had a great big bloody shotgun on him. But that was necessity. Walter had no real inclination for gunpowder. I mean, he sure he could use a gun and practice if nothing else meant he knew which end to stick away from him but he had no feel for it, no... what's the word? No... connection. He had a connection with his knife, with his club, with his knuckles. He used those because he enjoyed using them. He used a gun because from time to time he had to. Guns were too barbaric, too impersonal. You went fist to fist with a man, knife to knife, then you knew him. You knew his character. But a bloody gun? In Walter's mind you just pulled the trigger until the other guy fell down. Walter would never have been pretentious enough to talk about there being an “art” to hand to hand combat but that's essentially what he was thinkin'. And just as importantly, to Walter at least, was self-preservation. If he had to teach some scamp a lesson then it wasn't really an issue if they just had their fists... he knew he'd give 'em a bit of a do down. Give 'em a knife? Still pretty easy for him. Give them a gun? Whole different kettle of bloody fish. Click, click, boom, bad luck, you're dead. Screw that for a game of bloody soldiers.<br/><br/>So he didn't react too well when the sudden staccato bursts split the otherwise quiet afternoon. And neither did the donkey for the first time...<br/><br/>The fall hurt Walter's pride more than the fall but he still jolted off the hard ground before scrambling desperately to a conveniently placed rock to cower behind. This was why Walter hated bloody open spaces. Nowhere for him to hide, lot's of place for other people to hide. And his shotgun wasn't exactly much bloody use against a rifle. The fact he'd unslung it and was pointing around randomly was more for his own courage than any practical benefit. Sure, in an enclosed area he could simply point the shotgun in a vague direction and riddle anything in front of him with shot... hell, that was one of the reasons he'd got it, making up for his lack of accuracy... but out on a wide open plain like this? Even if he was the greatest bloody shot since Robin Tell... or William Hood or whoever it bloody was... the shotgun was still useless. And his other weapons? Walter wasn't bloody French or Scottish... he didn't believe in suicidal charges.<br/><br/>That said his fear began to slip away when no second volley of shots came. Even the donkey had stopped running away and was slowly making its way back. Walter wasn't sure if donkeys could feel shame but he hoped this donkey did for rearing and depositing him so rudely on the ground. That said, if the donkey was happy to stand in the open then Walter wasn't going to let himself be shown up that way. Cautiously he stuck his head out from behind the rock. He held it out there for ten seconds and, on the basis that if anyone was going to shoot him they'd have done it by now, stood up and approached his once erstwhile steed, grabbing the tethering rope round the donkey's neck.<br/><br/>There was a decision to be made here. He could continue on his way as if nothing had happened. That wasn't really a great option he figured. He could ride in the exact opposite direction. That was probably a sensible option... but it involved riding the very long way round to get back to Gomorra and after his social pariah act last night he was intending to enjoy himself this evening. Heard of a pretty swish casino actually... Morango or some bollocks. Not that Walter gambled much... or hell, at all... most of the time. A man had to know his limitations and when you knew half the sharps of London one knew to keep their money in their pocket, not on the table. And after all, much of Walter's business came from collecting from gambling debtors. He knew the pitfalls. But even if he didn't toss the cards, Walter knew there was still pleasure to be found. Whores and whisky. So Walter knew he didn't want to ride the opposite direction. He could go over and have a look at what was going on. Perhaps it was the fact he had just had a quiet and fairly boring day or perhaps thoughts of battling sea monsters had filled him with a sense of adventure but  for whatever reason he decided that the right decision to make was to head towards the gunfire.<br/><br/>The donkey wasn't quite as agreeable at first, but a few tugs on the rope and some well chose swear words eventually got it going in just about the right direction, up into the mesa. The man in the tattered suit was careful with his approach to the sound. Whatever he walked into he didn't want to end up with a gun pointed at him... or worse, stuck between two groups having a shoot out. No, he wanted to appear in as nice and as safe a way was as he possibly could.<br/><br/>One of the things Walter didn't like about this place was actually quite useful to him here. The wide landscape, the rolling plains... they made it easy to see and easy to be seen. It didn't take a huge amount of walking until he could just about make out a figure in the distance and a little more to see the glint of red hair and the unmistakable shape of someone aiming a pistol. Not anything else to be seen at that distance... but there was certainly something to be heard. He assumed she had reloaded and pulled trigger as once again the unmistakable sound of gunfire rang out... and a tree stump seemed to explode. Whatever the hell whoever was down there was shooting with, Walter did not want to be down the sights of it when it was shot in anger.<br/><br/>He kept his pace slow and gentle as he made his way towards the figure, making sure he gave no obvious cause for alarm, the shotgun slung. If he could see them, they could see him and Walter knew he wasn't exactly the most reputable figure to look at, what with the ragged suit and the tattered hat and well, his general appearance and he didn't want to give any cause for whoever it was to turn that damn firepower on him. He was close enough to make out more details now. Girl. Waifish figure. Long red hair. Walter racked his mind. Shopkeeper, that was it. Seen 'er around town a few times. One of those weird bloody eccentric shops full of gizmos and gubbins that whirled and fizzed and went bang. The one she was using now obviously went “bang” rather a lot. Thought she was a bloody scientist or something. Walter didn't really know what a scientist was but he did know they were old men and had moustaches.<br/><br/>He raised his hand in what he hoped came across as a friendly greeting, waiting till he got a bit closer before tipping his hat at her, approaching from the side but in her vision. His voice was its usual cockney brogue as he called out to her<br/><br/><strong>“Afternoon, Mam.”</strong><br/><br/>He looked appreciatively at the gun she held in her hands, rubbing his eye before gesticulating to it and nodding his head at first it and then the shattered stump.<br/><br/><strong>“That's there's one mighty lookin' barker you got there.”</strong>