Django Glass. Twenty-four years old. The Outlaw.
For a long time all Django knew was the wide open road. Long stretches of dirt, grassland, mountains, rocky rivers. Sleeping beneath the stars and pleading shelter from homesteaders. Boots worn clean through, a belly goinâ hollow. They were camp followers, see, he and his old man. But if anyone from the law came sniffing around after the white man and his strange-lookinâ son, they were just travelers looking for work. Mining, ranching, poaching: anything that could turn a coin. Django knew better. He was his fatherâs little shadow, being small enough to slip through crowds and empty pockets, or to crawl beneath bar tables as his father played the role of the drunk. They were a duo, a regular thieving partnership, and sometimes, rarely, when they stole enough for beer and bread, his father would recline by the fire, tip his hat, and name the constellations, one by one. Hokutoshichisei. Know what that means, kid? Itâs your mommaâs language. It means the Big Dipper. But it sounds prettier when itâs cominâ from her, donât you agree?
They didnât talk about Djangoâs Ma. There was no point. Da was here, and that was all that mattered. Until Django was twelve years old they wandered, free as minstrels, carefree as the Southern sky. They were ramblinâ folk, and that was how it should have stayed. But as any God fearing man knows, what goes up must come down, and everything must come back around. Heaven and Hell, Eden and Nod. See, Old Glass had morals, but they were morals suited to brothels and saloons, back alleys and a midnight rendezvous, and, needless to say, not everyone agreed with his loose grasp on fidelity. They found Old Glass by the river three miles out of town. Django only knows what the men told him afterwards: how they, quiet as bob cats, came up behind his father crouching by the water. How they pressed the gun to the back of his head, and how his father froze like a deer. How the shot woke Django up, sleeping in their camp up the way, and when he came skidding down the embankment, a body was pushed into the current facedown. Youâve got two choices, kid. Either you end up like your daddy, or you pay off his debt. Whatâll it be?
The rest, as the rumors will have it, is history, but the truth depends on who you ask. Some folk down South swear on the grave of their forebears that a Chinese boy set fire to that saloon. No, no! That was someone else. No, youâre thinking of the Indian kid, the one with the colt black as night. Django was the tobacco-spitting clean-up at the bank. He was the stick-up on that train headed East. He was tall, thin as a reed; he was muscled and broad-shouldered. He was white, mixed, a visitor from the far East. He was familiar as a ghost, and he had a bounty on his head that stretched across three different states.
See, itâs easy to tell the story like this. As if Django was but a passive player in the utter shitshow of his life. The truth is, itâs simpler this way. How could he explain what it felt like, to watch blood blossom through his fatherâs white shirt? To have those men grab him as he kicked and struggled, screaming and screaming, letmegoletmego, them jeering, jostling, throwing him on the back of some horse, Hold on, mutt, âless you wanna be trail mix. What about that first night, when hands came creeping through the dark? And the weeks that followed, lying stiff and afraid on his side, shivering, waiting for the rough beard at the back of his neck, the murmur in his ear, with him mustering the courage, urging himself on, until at last he whipped around like quicksilver and thrust a stolen knife to the manâs jugular. At first the man froze. Then he laughed and laughed. Well, well. So you have got balls, after all. Then he grabbed Djangoâs wrist hard enough to make bones crack, and twisted him âround like a hare in a trap. Donât you ever do that again, hear me? Second time lucky. You slashed his throat as he pissed against a tree. The others didnât go down without a fight, but by the time you towered over their corpses, breathing heavily with eyes black as marble, there wasnât a prayer to be heard.
Youâve never had anything in your life. Nothing, not even the clothes on your back. Remnants from other people, other lives. Things bought with hard-earned money. Django knows what itâs like to work for your bread, but that lesson was lost somewhere along the way. Now there is only the quick draw, the steady shot, an unwavering, cold gaze. Youâve never had anything but freedom. Running from the law is second nature. It was Djangoâs soul occupation, until the dead started to walk.
It was over in a moment. If Django were a different person, someone less touched by violence and grief, he might mourn the loss of his motley crew. They were mainly kids like him â wiry as coyotes, desperate and hungry, a ragtag brotherhood of those too young to know such sorrow â and if he concentrates, really thinks about it, thereâs a pang of mourning for them. He remembers their faces and names, where and when they earned his respect. They got too greedy in Saint Clemens. Django knows that now. When the world turns upside down, people like him know best how to survive. Django isnât sophisticated enough for the take: he didnât concoct some elaborate routine about protectinâ the townfolk from the walking men. They were so afraid, they practically gave him all they had. Food and booze and money. Guns and knives. Like rats from fire they fled, and Djangoâs crew enjoyed the spoils. For a few days they watched the mass of black approach on the horizon. Kinda looks like a storm, Billy said through a mouthful of stolen tobacco. Like sumkinda monsoon or somethinâ. What the hell you know âbout monsoons? Awshuddup, man, Iâm just tellinâ it as I see it! Â
âShut your mouth.â Django, alert as a dog, staring at the far boundary of the town. Figures in the dust. âThere are more of them, the walking men.â
Ainât no trouble. That was Thomas, handsome and cocky, standing and spitting and unsheathing a Civil War sword that had hung behind the bar. Weâll take âem.
They couldnât. They didnât. One by one, stupid dumb boys, each of âem, dragged down in howls and squeals like wild pigs. And Django did what he should have done as a kid, all those years ago, when those men shot his daddy by the river: he ran. He tore his way through the horde and leaped on the train as it started out of the station. The walking men stumbled after him, hands grasping at the dust-clogged air, mouths gaping soundlessly, eyes unseeing, blood and rot and clot. Django, turning away to vomit noisily on the planked floor. Some big outlaw you turned out to be. Some hero. Heâs a kid. Just a kid. And this is a terrible new world to grow up in. Kill or be killed. Die or live dead.
Constitution; Five.
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Strength; Five.
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Intelligence; Two.
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Perception; Four.
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Charisma; Four.
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Luck; Five.
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