A Home West of Nowhere

Chapter Four: Greatness From Small Beginnings

         Nebraska, June, 1886

As the seasons changed and so did the land, the much anticipated summer warmth made its way to the West. The forest lands and woods were teeming with velvet-racked bucks and does with large-eyed, spotted fawns at their side. Birds were chirping loudly, singing their sweet songs throughout the green, flourishing outdoors.
Several years had passed since the storm that wiped out the McLaurin ranch, and the coldest winter of the past one-hundred years. The landscape and wildlife were beginning to recover. As civilization advanced, the bands of outlaws and gangs were quickly being chased out and put to justice.
Juliette toiled and learned how to survive on her own in the wilds of Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. Her health began to improve as the weather grew warmer. She was not on her own, as Juliette remained with the band of strangers that kept her warm and fed through the most difficult weeks of her life.
At sixteen years old, Juliette proved to be a valuable member of the Barlowe Brother's gang. She was growing fast, and had become a very beautiful woman.
She found safety and friendship in the gang, and most of the people seemed to like having her around. Judah taught her to hunt, chop firewood, skin deer, and clean rifles.
Tibah taught her how to fish and track game. She had also found friends and gotten to know the other gang members well. There was Sammy, who was the other man on gaurd when Ira caught her. Sam Hartley was a slender man of twenty three, who proved to be a great rifleman and horseman. He always wore the finest buttoned shirts beneath his coat, and kept a thin, curly beard. He was a stablehand all over the Midwest , and knew more about horses than anybody else. He was a scholarly man, who spent his free time reading.

The brother's had a close friend,who they had met in Guerrero only a year after they set out on their own and ended up being chased into Mexico. for several weeks. A teenaged Mexican smuggler kept them safe and showed them how to make money. He had been wanted for petty crimes across four states, and fled with the Brother's to the U.S once the heat die d down. Now fifteen years later, Raphael Estrada was Judah's best gunman and loyal friend. He was an average- sized man with an athletic build. He was quick and cunning, given the moniker of " relàmpago négro", due to his speed, stealth, and shoulder length black hair he often wore greased back into a topknot or tied back. His skin was smooth, the color of the Mexican clay, and he kept a thin  black goatee, creased outward at the edge of his lips. He was handsome man, with smoldering eyes and a strong jaw, who stayed true to his Mexican heritage by wearing garments from all over South America.

There was also Anna Mercer, a tall, boisterous English woman with blonde hair and large spaced, wide eyes, which complemented her feiry temper well. She always wore rouge on her cheeks and kept her lips a bright red tint. She had very pronounced cheekbones, and a round jaw. Anna was twenty six and a widow. She worked as a doctor's assistant in Chicago, and her husband was a mean drunk with a worse temper. After years of abuse, Anna shot her husband and went on the run, then was taken in as the first woman in the Barlowe Brothers gang.

Daniel Turner was a thirty four year old former war veteran. He oversaw the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but the things he saw made him question his occupation. As a very young man, he saw men, woman and children packed into camps where they were forced to give up their name and culture. They learned English and American dress. The elder natives were denied medicine, deemed weak and unworthy to keep alive. The woman were often raped or married off to soldiers as a prize. Daniel left his duty and was deemed a deserter and a traitor. He took Tibah with him and became an advocate for indigenous people everywhere. Daniel was muscular, with tanned skin and narrow hazel eyes. He stood at five feet and eleven inches tall, and had dirty blonde hair and thick brows. He always kept a close shave and was never seen without his spectacles and watch.
      The final lost soul to find sanctuary with the brothers was Alexander Kristiansen.  He was thirty-three, and a barricade of a man, who towered  over the others at six- foot five. He was broad-shouldered, blue eyed, and possessed the strength of four men, though rarely used it. His Norwegian blood showed in his sheer size, brute strength, and the long locks of platinum hair, with a blonde beard  to match, often worn in a knot. Alexander was a fighter and loyal watchdog. He had been a known fence for moonshine and other illicit consumables, and could drink his weight in the stuff as well.
     After one too many beers in a New York taphouse, Alexander nearly beat Ira bloody after a distasteful joke about his ability to pull a carriage  better than a Shire horse. What could have been a funeral was cut short by six more pints between the men, a good laugh and a mutual respect amongst fighters.