Ever Gentle On My Mind (Cooper Howard x OC)

01. Red Sands Ranch

The sun beat down on the red tinted town just like it always did, hot and unforgiving. There wasn't much happening in Red Sands during the day. Most of its tattered residents preferred the cool of the evening and stayed stashed in their ramshackle houses when the weather was the hottest.

Everyone except one lone woman, whose horse kicked up red clouds as it lazily trudged away from the town. A dark hat sat on her equally dark hair, stained with the same red dust as her skin and the rest of her clothes.

The woman kept her head down, reaching for the canteen of water tied to her waist and sighed as it touched her lips. The water was nearly as warm as the air, doing nothing to cool her down.

Her home was a few minutes out from the Red Sand town in a place the locals called Red Sand Ranch. It was less of a ranch than it used to be when her daddy looked after it. Now it was little more than a fenced in plot of dust with a few brahmin wandering the dunes and a house that had seen better days. But it was still a little better than the usual dwellings Red Sand residents inhabited.

The minutes passed slower than the woman ever thought they could before the tall wooden gate of the ranch came into sight. Her horse sped up the tiniest amount without urging, eager to get to the shade of the wooden barn and the trough of water that was in it.

The woman stepped up the front steps before freezing. Something was off.

The door hung open, its hinges creaking at each gust of sand laden wind. Her hand instinctively reached for the revolver strapped to her side, fingers itching to pull it from its holster.

Probably the goddamn raiders, she thought as she stepped through the open door, her boots causing the floor to creak under her weight.

She took a deep breath, taking another cautious step.

"Who the fuck are you?" Her voice was loud and scratchy from not using it as well as the dust that clung to the air.

Something shifted in the kitchen.

The woman stalked forward, her gun now in her hand and pointed toward the sound and she slowly rounded the corner.

There was no one there.

The house was silent now besides her measured breathing. Nothing moved.

She lowered her gun slightly. Maybe she had just forgotten to close the door when she left. Maybe she needed to fix the latch. Sighing she completely lowered her weapon, already sliding it back into the holster.

Click. The sound of a gun readying behind her was unmistakable.

"Now the real question darlin', is who the fuck are you?"

The voice was hoarse and gravelly, its unusual drawl sending a shiver up the woman's spine and she couldn't help the wicked smirk that crept onto her face.

"I think I asked first, stranger," Her voice was calm and calculated, hiding the way her nerves had skyrocketed. Her palms had started sweating.

It wasn't a question of who would break into Red Sand Ranch... she had pissed off enough people that it could be anyone. It was just a matter of figuring out what they wanted and how far they were willing to go.

"I'm Jamboree," She borderline spat out the name, anger at the intrusion rising in her throat.

Jamboree made the split second risky decision to spin around on her heel, her revolver already in her hand and pointed at the stranger behind her.

Her eyes widened. "Well fuck me," like most things she said, the words came out of her mouth before she had time to think them through.

Standing a few feet away was a ghoul. A tall one at that, clad almost completely in leather and she was in point blank range of the revolver he was holding.