Red Mike

Tracker and Manhunter

War Machine -- Jeff -- Jeff's Characters

"It was a great party while it lasted. I trust it will continue elsewhere."

Background Story

Jurgis Rudkis is a Lithuanian immigrant (from a book I like). Before coming to America, he worked as a laborer building the railroad in Russia. After working there for a year, he returned home with the money he made to the small villiage he had come from. He, his family, and his bride to be moved to America. They emmigrated to Chicago and there he got a job in a cattle slaughter house. After less than nine months working there, he was married, and then ruined after he was injured at work. His wife Ona was taken advantage of and in his rage, he nearly killed the man responsible who was a boss at the meat packing plant.

Jurgis went hoboe-ing for another year, working for honest money and not stealing as other hoboes do. But after a season on the road, he returned home to see his first son die, and then his wife Ona die in child birth a few weeks later. When he crawled out of the bottle a couple months later, he was in St. Louis. From there he went west because it seemed like a good idea at the time. He worked as a cow puncher and ranch hand. In various altercations on the ranch along the Nebraska-South Dakota border he showed himself good with a gun and resolute enough to use one. Mike went on livin his life, doin what he could do best. Shootin' things. He served as an army scout and as a general utility shootist. It was on a sunny April morning that he was approached by a local sheriff and a tin horn businessman from out east, that he got a job offer that would change his life. The tin horn was a Mister Alexter Gardner, of Boston Mass. He had been looking for his daughter, who had disappeared in a train robbery/raid three months ago, and he heard that Mike was good with a gun. He was hiring from among the best trackers, shootists, and horse riders in the territory to find his daughter. They were being led by an ex-Army Colonel to find and get his daughter back. Mike doesn't take a job he isn't going to finish, and this one sounded like it needed doin’.

Alexter's daughter is one Anabell, who is known for her outstanding beauty and eccentric ways. She was one of the first women to study medicine and from an early age had studied mathematics and engineering (though it seems contradictory, her father was a railroad magnate). She had been traveling to San Fransico when she was taken as a slave by the Commanche, a notoriously savage bunch. Mike found them on the high plains of Montana, and in a nightime raid the group of six killed them all around their campfire. Ana was in a complete state of shock and didn't talk or even focus her eyes for two months, all she would do is cry if Mike was in the room. There was progress when she actually reached for human contact and tried to be held by Mike. Her recovery has been slow, but the family moved to Denver because of the war, and Mike visits them often. Ana talks now, and Mike is utterly enamored with her, though she is far above his station in life. What she feels for him, he does not know, and he is hesitatnt, given his luck in wives. He however continues to serve their family and the railroad when he can. Other people have been in need of services Mike can provide and Alexter has been Mike’s main contact with those people.

With the war between the states however, he joined the army of his new nation and has fought in units of irregulars and scout cavalry for several months now. He serves as a mobile rifleman and marksman to target Southern officers, gunners, messengers and the feared Kentucky rifleman.

Demeanor/Motive: Jurgis, though people call him Mike, is a simple man who tried hard to have a simple life, a simple wife, and a simple house. But the powers that be weren’t going to let it work out that way. After being ground under by the system, and with no safety net for him, he turned to a life on the road, the range, and eventually ended up a gunman. Mike is not a mean man, or unwantonly cruel, but will fight fire with fire, trade an eye for an eye, and do onto others as they do onto him. He has an intense dislike, nare I say hatred, of powerful people who abuse and or take advantage of the little guy. At the same time, has a reverence for women, the elderly and children especially. He will not hurt a child who isn’t going to kill him, but will not hesitate to gut shot an assassin and leave him to bleed to death.

Description: Mike is a big burly square jawed eastern European lookin slav. He has bushy black hair, and a big square cut beard. He wears riding clothes, an akward hat, and gloves.

Mike's Advice

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.

Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled.

Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.

Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

You cannot unsay a cruel word.

Every path has a few puddles.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.

Don't judge folks by their relatives.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't botherin' you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you

from the mirror every mornin'.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad

judgment.

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin'

somebody else's dog around.