The Cowboys

Matt

Matt stepped into the town with a sigh. I hate people he thought, but I need a new knife so, I'll have to bare it. He walked up to the store and looked in the window. It was late, so he wasnt much surprised when there were no lights on inside. He sighed again and walked across the street to the saloon and inn. Even from outside he could hear the piano and the screams of the drunk cowboys. If I have to listen to this all night, I might as well kill myself now.

Matt stepped into the saloon and walked over to the man behind the counter. "How much to sleep in the stables?" he asked.

The man looked at Matt strangely then said, "Stables? We got an extra room if yo-"

"No thank you i just want to sleep outside."

"Ok... It's umm... seven dolars a night."

Matt gave the man the money and walked outside as fat as he could. A voice from behind him froze him in his tracks. "What? You think youre too good to sleep with some honest people you Fu***** Injun."

Matt's hand dropped instinctively to the handle of one of his pistols but he calmed himself. It's not worth it, you dont need to kill him to prove anything... but it never hurt to intimidate somone. He slid his pistol from its holster and shot without looking. From the gasps of the people around the room and the instant silence from the piano player he could tell he hit his mark. When he glanced over his shoulder the man's hat was on the ground and his face was white enough o belong to a dead man.

"Where are all these f****** strangers coming from!"

Jade:
Tossing restlessly in her sleep, Jade confronted a familiar nightmare. She tossed restlessly as the scene played out before her as she slept.

Soldiers were running around wildly. Some fell to the ground, some ripped open their gunpowder with their mouths, loading and firing, over and over again. But it was different than real life, because their was no sound. She wandered through the desolate battlefield, confused by the strange silence. She knew the noise should be echoing through her mind, but where was it? Suddenly, with out warning, a sound came through. A single shot rang through her ears.


Jade sat up in her bed, the Union cap flying off her head and onto the floor. That was a real gunshot, not a dream. She grabbed her hat off the floor and fastened her guns on. She ran down the stairs, wondering what had happened.

Prabably just some bar fight that got out of hand, she thought to comfort herself. As she entered the saloon, she noticed that it was unusually quiet. Then she saw him. A brown-haired, half-drunk man standing with a dumfounded look on his face, staring at his hat on the floor. Jade alomst laughed at his bewildered expression, then looked over and saw that a bullet had ripped through it.
"What happened?" she asked him as she walked over.
"That blaster Injun shot at me!" he shouted. Jade grimaced. She hated racism, being the victim of it more than once. She stood and sighed. He looked at her then, and noticing her eyes gasped. He quickly looked away. The man continued talking.
" As soon as I saw them grey eyes and that shaggy brown hair, I knew he was up to no good." Jade wanted to slap him, but she hesitated. The description sounded familiar.
"What was he wearing?" She asked, her multicolored eyes narrowing and her mouth curving down into a frown.
"Why do you wanna know?" the smelly man asked. Jade scowled and reached for her pistol. She pointed it at him.
"Just tell me," she said, her eyes fixed on his. The man shuddered.
"Just some dirty looking' white jacket," he said sheepishly.

Dang it, she thought. Just what I need. More trouble.


***RiderofDamar, I'm not sure how Jade knows your character, but you can decide. Or we can just not know each other at all. Let me know on your next post. Vet***

*didn't meen to shoot his shoulder, i wanted his hat, but thats ok. how about we were in the same unit and our oposing views on violence made us uneasy friends*

Matt took of his gun belt and layed it next to his cot. He slid one pistol under his pillow and layed down to get some sleep. He had barely closed his eyes when he heard the door to the stables open. He sighed and pulled the pistol out from under his pillow.

A short figure stepped into the stables. He didnt think that there was anyone of authority that short in this town so he layed back down.

"Matt, I know you're in here, get up."

Matt cussed this time and dropped out of the loft, his pistol in hand.

Georgia Lawson


At first, I wondered how the conversation went from one thing to another in five seconds flat.

"Oh, um... Yes, of course" I said, stuttering a bit and probably seeming confused.

"You sure do like looking at my sister, Mr. Cook" Jude had said after a moment of silence between us.


Jude Lawson


I wanted to make the conversation interesting, and maybe I could have possibly said something better, but that was all I could think of.


**i'm lost, hope this is fine... :3*

Jade:

Jade stared cooly at the figure in front of her. She eyed his pistol and placed her hand on her's... just in case.
"Alright Matt, what the heck are you doin' in town? Last time I saw you we was in Pennsylvania whoopin' the tails offin them Rebs. I know ya didn't just drop into town for a nice visit." Jade saw the grimace on his face.

***Riders, I fixed it so that you shot off his hat instead of his shouder.***

"When the war ended I decided to come west. If I'm not travelling between the indian tribes Im taking jobs guarding caravans or working with the rangers down in Texas. Iwas actually on my way bac down but two days ago my knife broke and a tracker told me where this town was. I decided to stop in and get it replaced."

He slid his pistol back into it's holster and dropped onto one of the sacks of hay.

"And dont try and play tough, you know you didn't like the killing. It's surprising that you came west, killing is all you are gonna find out here",he said.

*sorry thats all i can think of right now*

Jade:

Jade's eyes narrowed and she glared at him with spite.
"I'll fight in battle, but I won't kill in cold blood. We've had this conversation before, and I don't want to talk about it again." She sighed, then grinned slightly.
"I wouldn't have minded shooting off that fellow's hat though. You should off seen the expression on his fat face." Jade let out a laugh.

***That's alright. With Christmas just around the corner, everyone's being distracted! Now, lemme see... Ah!***

Adriane

I smiled appreciatively as I followed Tyrel outside, out of the busy room and into the open night air. It was much more welcoming than the stuffy, busy house had been. I felt more at home.

"Thank you, sir," I responded, more timidly than I liked.

He chuckled. "Don't call me 'sir.' I'm not that much older than you."

I chuckled, my face flushing slightly. Thank goodness it was dark outside, so he couldn't see. "If you insist."

I cleared my throat, hoping to change the subject to something more casual. "Now, where are the horses?"

Tyrel;

Tyrel led her out to the barn where all the horses were kept behind it in a big corral. "We just brought in a new herd, none of these guys are broke, they're all real scared of people too. We didn't give them reason to, but I'm sure we weren't the first to try and catch them." He said leaning against the fence watching the wild horses in front of him.

"This is a large herd." She said leaning against the fence next to him.

"Ya, biggest I've ever brought in. This is only half the herd, we left the rest of there so it will continue to grow. Doesn't make sense to bring them all in." He shrugged.

Adriane

"It's actually good for them and us. Why keep the wealth for yourself? Like the Indians; the horses are key to their lifestyles. We just keep up with cattle, more than likely fenced in. But them...they have to chase buffalo and rival tribes."

He nodded.

I sighed then, moving to climb up the fence. I guess he didn't expect that, for he grabbed my arm to stop me. "What are you doing?"

"I know what I'm doing. Just watch."

He reluctantly let me go; I clambered carefully over the rail, completely aware of the nervous pawing and nickering inside the corral. That didn't faze me. I kept a calm, patient, docile air about me as I sat a few feet from the fence, legs crossed and hands in my lap. I would sit there as long as I had to...

"What are you doing?" Tyrel broke the silence.

She whispered her response, "As long as I'm still, they won't be afraid of my presence. Before long, they'll warm up to me and come closer. Give me about an hour or so, and I'll have the whole herd sniffing and nudging me, completely curious to everything about me."





***And I know what I'm writing. I have actually done this before; it's how I gentle horses: show them I mean them no harm, let them warm up to me, then use gentle training methods.***

***I know what it is. I want to gentle horses when I get older.***

Tyrel:

"Pippa will kill me when you don't come back inside. But if you die, then that's up to you." He said quietly. "Come inside when you want. I'll come check on you in a bit."


*UGH*

***I use to do it, before school got too crazy for me to keep horses. I actually gentled an orphaned colt when I was about ten; mare was 25 when she had my Dusty, had collapsed hocks and was aneimic and was dying. We put her out of her misery when the foal was only a month old. I bottle raised him and trained him all on my own. Had that baby a year before we had to sell him; we couldn't afford to have a hernia fixed and sold him to a friend of ours. They got him fixed up and "finished" training him. But it was funny; the first time they put a saddle on him, he never bucked.***




Adriane

I smiled as I listened to him walk away. I sighed, keeping that welcoming, cheerful mood as I sat there.

Time seemed to drag on; I daydreamed of wild horses on the prarie, colts relaxing to my touch, wild horses nudging me in the face. I lost track of how long I was out there; all I knew was I was somehow in tune with them, aware of everything about them. Every nicker, every snort, every shift, every paw.

Then I was jerked out of my daydreaming. A soft, warm muzzle touched my forehead. I exaggerated control so I wouldn't jump at the contact. The horse continued to check me out, sniffing and lipping at my hair and face. It was a harmless action. Then there was another muzzle against my shoulder. Then one on my other side. Then one to my back.

Finally. I had won them over.

Matt laughed. "Yeah, I took some of your advice to heart. Don't always have to kill people to prove a point.

He lounged back on the sack. "So... you never answered my qustion."

***Cringe***

Jack

By the time he'd reached the paddock, the thought that maybe he was only doing this to get some relaxation time had occurred to him. He'd been on the run for almost a year and a half now, and the fact that no one could possible know where he was right now gave him great comfort.

He leaned on the fence of the paddock, staring up at the sky as a cool breeze blew about him, at one with the world. A cow watched him for a while before going back to whatever had been doing, earning a wave from Jack.

It was a good fifteen minutes or so before he quit his daydreaming and got back to checking for possible points of entry for any rustlers who might try for Tyrel's place. His old friend had picked the spot well, Jack saw, with few easy points of access that didn't lead there from the house. But there were two points Jack would've tried from, if he'd been a rustler. The paddock he was at sat at the foot of a small hill, and rustlers wouldn't have too much trouble leading the cows over it. The hill took up the right hand side and opposite side from where Jack was standing, but was broken on the left hand side by a gully. That was the other place Jack thought he'd try from, given that it provided better cover. At the same time, it would be easier to fence off, and didn't lead directly towards the town. He looked from one to the other, trying to decide which would be more likely, then started making his way back towards the house, stopping every few minutes to take a deep breath of the crisp air.

Jade:

She hesitated; his coolness irritated her. Finally she sighed.
"I came out here after the war because I missed the excitement. After the war ended, everything I did seemed dull. I also came 'cause I needed the money. I'm broke, I'm always broke. I've changed. I'll do almost anything for money now, to stay alive." She looked at her feet, feeling like she had completely exposed herself. Why was she opening herself up to her rival?