On a side note, keep your eyes peeled - I'll try and incorporate your characters into the stories. But tell me if you don't want me to.

Preparation Day Meeting

You’re excited. You woke up early this morning and quickly changed into your costume and practically raced through breakfast and saddled your horse in record time. Seriously, it should be in the world record book. This ride is going to be amazing, and you can’t wait to meet your fellow riders. You trot your horse to the meeting place, the back pasture. When you get going, you realize that the “back pasture” is actually quite a ways off the property. According to the map they gave you, it’s down this unused trail, through this ravine, and over this rise. Once you get to the top, you look down and find an old abandoned-looking cabin, and beside it is a good sized, fenced off piece of land. It could be considered a pasture. You start down the hill and find you aren’t the first one here – in fact, you’re probably late. You urge your horse into a jog, just as a lone rider makes his way at a slow, ambling trot to the mass of riders. You join the group just as this scruffy-looking man on a bay mare slows to a walk. All talk amongst the riders ceased, and you take a moment to look over everyone’s costumes, and their horses, taking in some familiar faces and some new ones. This event truly reached almost all ends of the earth. The lone rider stopped several yards away. You note that’s a good distance for someone to pull a gun and shoot – but also a good distance that if you were to draw, you’d better be sure you hit your mark. You might not get a second chance.

“Mornin’ gentlemen,” the man called out. He tipped his hat to young woman, making her giggle and twitter to her friends, “Ladies,”

The riders glanced amongst themselves.

The man straightened up in the saddle, “Name’s Lew Paine. Deputy of Autumn Vale.” There was a hushed silence in the crowd as all the competitors went over the story in their heads. They couldn’t remember anything about a Deputy Lew Paine…

Lew chewed the end of a toothpick and looked over the crowd. His eyes looked critical as he glanced over every horse and rider pair. He raised an eyebrow. “Y’all don’t look like you can handle what the desert can dish out.” He snorted.

Someone made an indignant noise off to the side. All eyes turned to a man with a reddish vest and a black hat astride a handsome bay paint. The man seemed a little startled at first with the sudden attention, and his horse shifted in place, ears pricked. “We wouldn’t have come here in the first place if we couldn’t” The young man snapped to the deputy.

Deputy Forest leaned on the horn of his saddle, and eyed the young man critically. “I don’t believe we’ve met…” He said slowly, rolling the toothpick against his cheek.

The man’s paint mare was starting to toss her head a bit uneasily from all the attention. The man hesitated, before glaring back defiantly. “Brian Walker*.” He growled, “But I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”

Lew narrowed his eyes, and his lips formed a sneer. “I don’t think you realize, boy, anything that goes on in this country is my business.” Suddenly, the deputy squinted at him, and chewed on the toothpick. “Walker, eh? You don’t happen to be related to –“

“Of no relation to Aaron Walker.” Brian snapped quickly, “But from what I’ve heard, I wouldn’t mind calling him brother.”

There was a gasp from the crowd, and Lew instantly stiffened. “You better watch what you say boy! That’s hangin’ talk!”

Instantly there were murmurs and the din grew louder. And just like that, the group split: those who supported Aaron, and those who didn’t.

The paint mare suddenly began to bounce around, and humped her back with her eyes rolling. The sudden tension seemed too much. Brian was forced to focus on his horse and said no more.

“Well, you’re all here now, so there’s no use in turning you back.” Lew said above the din of the crowd. The riders quieted. “I reckon we best be moving along. We’ll meet up with the photographer after our little seminar.”

“First of all, let’s set down some rules about this place. First and foremost is: If you fall behind, you’re left behind. Second, no shootin’ each other – I don’t wanna have to arrest anybody. And thirdly, stay with your group – wanderin too far off is dangerous, and I aint gonna be the one buryin’ ya at the base of boot hill**.” With a flick of his wrist, he turned his bay mare at an angle and wheeled around and started off over the hill behind him. “Come on, photographer’s set up over here, everyone needs to take a picture – Sheriff Ellis likes to know who’s comin into town.”

You and the rest of the group start up after him, making your way to the man who has set up an old fashioned camera booth, and it’s then that you feel it. The tight glances, the hushed whispers, and the shifty eyes. The competition has already begun.

Assignment: Mandatory

Portrait Picture 10pts: Deadline June 1st
You and your horse need to take a picture in all your regalia. It is suggested that this be done in sepia, since we have an old fashioned photographer taking the pictures with an old camera booth.

Assignment: Bonus

Portrait Picture 10 pts possible: Deadline June 1st
If you have the colored version of your sepia, it counts as bonus.
Training or Arrival Picture 10 pts possible: Deadline June 1st
You and your horse arriving or training at AVRRA.

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* Brian Walker and Too Close to Naked [link] (c) *Katha88
** A common slang term of the time period referring to Boot Hill as a place where foolish people were buried because of a fault of their own, most commonly men who talked big but couldn’t back it up.