Jayhawkers
Winter is coming to the mid west of America and in a small woodland clearing, stands an even smaller cabin, one might almost call it a homestead, but only if one was being very charitable.
The cabin is surrounded by small fenced areas, mainly containing animals or crops to feed them. The occupier is hoping the stores will see them through the winter but who knows, they’ve never done this before.
The log pile is huge but there’s still plenty of work to do, storing the produce that’s been accumulated for the coming snows.
The cabin is a solid affair; whoever built it knew their stuff. Big thick logs will provide protection, although there is the small question as to why there’s no chimney for the stove……maybe because there’s no stove!!
Why any one would leave their horse saddled is also a bit of a mystery, either they are very insensitive to the animals welfare or they are very wary about needing a quick getaway.
The coral is full of cattle, presumably beef jerky is on the winter agenda, should you look closer you might notice that none of the cattle have the same brand, which might explain the saddled horse!
Pigs are notoriously difficult to borrow from a neighbour and so these animals might not be as hot as the cattle.
Under a spreading chestnut tree is a long forgotten resident of the cabin, maybe, maybe not.
At this point you might be wondering what the hell this is all about, and quite rightly so.
It’s my back story to a campaign the Mad Lord Snapcase wants to indulge in, and DougnotEM4 and myself are being pulled along in his wake as usual. We will be playing a What a Cowboy campaign and we’ve managed to rein him into a 6 game campaign that at the end of it will see dead Gentlemen of Much Piddling in profusion. Not literally I hope and not me either.
The grave is my reason for an implacable hatred of Saveloy ‘Rooster’ Snapcase and Bertram ‘Barmy’ Snapcase, a hatred that will see Rooster dead in some bloody field and Jack (my character) spitting on his inert corpse, although I’m sure Rooster might have something to say on the matter.
I’m hoping for that to be, “AAARGH” as he hits the ground, lifeless.
Usually in these campaigns we all write a back story to our characters, some more fanciful than others and this time there will be only 2 sides. Doug and I will have 2 characters each and be on the same side, the Mad Lord will have 4 characters and be on the losing side. The Mad Lord has decided the 2 sides should hate each other and so there has to be a reason for this enmity and eventually I’ll get around to my reason for it.
To continue this long winded opening to the game/back story, you can see that the resident of the cabin has a small canvas roofed shed and lumber to build another. This is where they will store much of the winter’s supplies, because the skinflint who built the cabin didn’t make it big enough.
However the real reason for this picture is to show off my new tree stumps. Down in the affluent south, Snappers and Dougers have bought resin tree stumps and then painted them. I was much enamoured of these stumps but up here in the grim north I have to make do with sticks from the woods. In addition I found some daz that I opened about 5 years ago to make the sacks you can see by the shed. So waste not want not as my old nanny used to say and I made the brown boxes and put some lips on beads to make pot jars. The daz was a nightmare to work, probably because it was so old, but for nowt the results are ok but I’m really pleased with the pots.
Ok I’m finally getting to the start of the story, as the owner of the saddle horse is putting the final log on the log pile with a great deal of satisfaction, not to say sore hands. Anyone who has heard the song Big Iron will have heard of Texas Red and the Arizona Ranger. Well this is Texas Red, she’s appeared in a couple of my stories and generally done well, with at least one famous victory to her credit.
The scenario, such as it is, is for Red to survive, ideally driving off any Jayhawkers and remain in possession of the cabin for the winter.
Her location on the table was determined by dice roll, as was the arrival location for the Jayhawkers.
Unfortunately for Red, the Jayhawkers arrived just behind where she was working. Four of the meanest hombres west of the Missouri River, Hard Nosed Dave Stone on the left, backed up by Irish Frank with his sawn off shotgun. Waving his Winchester in the air and looking for a fight is Banjo Greg and leading the bunch from behind a big bushy beard is Bertram ‘Barmy’ Snapcase, brother of Rooster Snapcase who will be the victim in our forth coming campaign. Yes it’s a family feud.
Before any of them can react, she turns, smoothly draws her revolver and opens fire on Hard Nose Dave the nearest threat. There’s a soft thruump as a bullet hits the big man, he stays on his feet, staggering a little but it slows him down somewhat.
If you got this far my apologies for not posting the full story here but the rest of it is over on my blog should you wish to take a walk on the wild side.
http://vagabondswargamingblog.blogspot.com/2023/10/jayhawkers.html Just run down to picture number 8, although they're not numbered so you'll have to count down.
Cheers
December 11, 2017, 06:41:08 PM