Butchers Of Blackwater Part One: Fire And Brimstone

Houses

Dear stranger

I hope this letter finds you well and if not, then I hope it at least finds you.
After our conversation some days ago i decided I would write to you in order to answer your questions and tell you my story, the whole thing.

Since I'm not exactly in my prime anymore I thought it would be good for people to know the true story. This is a story of revenge, ambition and greed. Gun smoke and hellfire. This is a story about the rise and fall of The Butchers Of Blackwater. My gang, my life.

To start from the very beginning I will go back to my home town. I was born in Mexico in a town called Alicante, a poor little town with nothing much to offer but cheap booze and even cheaper women. I lived there with my mother and father. My padre would work all day while my mother stayed indoors taking care of the dilapidated shithole we called our home. I helped my mother of course with the cleaning and such but even as a child I knew cleaning was not my calling.

I was without purpose, I found no pride in working myself to death just to be able to eat. I wanted something more and I wanted my parents to be someplace better than the awful town we lived in. I wanted to take what I want, I wanted the world and I wasn't going to ask nicely. Every night I dreamed of being someplace better, being someone else. Someone people look up to.

My father was friends with a man named Ricardo Lopez, a man bound by strong morals and his every action was proof of that. I called him my uncle. Ricardo was my fathers best friend and he used to always help around the house and even gave us money every now and then. He was like family, he and my father were like brothers. Without him we would have been dead a long time ago.

I was about 16 when one day my father came home in a panic, him and my uncle said it was time to leave. I didn't know what for but me and my mother packed what little we had immediately and off we went to the river where a boat had been waiting for us. Climbing inside we had been found by some local bandits. As he pushed the boat off shore Ricardo was shot in the back, his sombrero falling into the boat like the soul had left his body and passed on to me through his hat.

My father grabbed his gun and fought off the bandits and I rowed us away, across the border.

3 years go by after we started our life in Texas, if you could call it much of a life. Same as in Mexico we starved and struggled. My mother did not make it. We buried her in a nearby graveyard.

After that it was just me and my father we lived in a dilapidated shack that wasn't too far from the nearby towns. My father would go out to find work while I looked after the house.

Some days strangers would come by the house asking if my father lived here and try to get a peek inside the house. If only I had known.

I would go into town on days my father was home. I was fascinated by guns and practiced firing them at targets round the back of the gunsmiths hoping one day to put my trigger finger to use. In the land of pots and pans I ruled supreme, my enemies lay strewn across the floor like Swiss cheese.

One day I came back from town and my father was waiting for me. Once again it was time to leave, alone this time. he gathered a few of my things sent me on my way. "Get far away from here son, don't ever look back" he told me. I did what he said but changed my mind 5 minutes in to my journey. When I came back the house was ablaze, my father inside. I tried to get water but it was useless. I watched the house collapse with the last of my family inside, the only thing I salvaged was Ricardo's hat; worn it ever since.

I left my home behind. Survival was my only hope, success my only revenge.

I fled to Cathartis, the bartender took me in.