[center][color=Gray][h1][u]Knight Phineas Holiday Cassidy[/u][/h1][/color][/center]

Finn didn't drop the smile as he moved towards a small kitchen, giving a tip of the hat to Emil as he greeted him, the pots look clean and more importantly he was using clean water for cooking. [color=Gray]"I'm from Vault fifty-five down at the end of the Appalachian mountains, a little place called Carolina creamery. We are a big group of ranchers and traders, even got a method of turning that radioactive milk into pure clean cold milk."[/color] He added sighing. [color=Gray]"Course, when I was a boy we had a time herding cattle on foot... Course after we started trading with Raceway we started getting parts for these old toys called Giddy-up Buttercups, well we had a bright idea to upsize'em. We traded with the guys out on the Broken Banks for horses as well, so we had a good mix of robots and real horses for herding cattle."[/color] He explained as he pushed back and started to cut a cooked piece of Brahmin meat very carefully.

[color=Gray]"So after a while, we had a handful of these robots and horses. Used them to heard cattle a hell of a lot easier, had a time getting the servos to work with the speeds we needed."[/color] He yawned and then moved on to a Tato, slicing it carefully. [color=Gray]"Course I never worked with the Brahmin, mom said I had way with words and a knack for shooting... So I would go out to trade with Pa."[/color] He explained stretching as moved to grab a carrot making a vegetable stew for the group's dinner. [color=Gray]"Stew's to get us started, I've got mashed Tato's and gravy with Deathclaw steak. Few other tasty treats, fair warning though might not taste something this good for a while afterward!"[/color] He hummed softly cutting up more and more food. [color=Gray]"Hope that's answers your question Servius."[/color]

Of course, Finn's mind began to wander. Thinking back to years passed, in a far more humid land where farmers hung tobacco and cattle rustling was as common as brahmin shit. He remembered when he rode a beautiful chestnut mare, she was named after Paul Revere's horse Brown Beauty was her name, she thundered across the hills like lightning and the crack of Finn's pistols the thunder to follow her as they rushed away from danger when the caravan was attacked. The horse had never been his, the mare had belonged to the caravaners but Finn had loved that mare but he left when he stopped traveling as a caravaner, the stable hands told her she never took to anyone else as she did to him.

She had been the first mount he ever rode, but to this day she was always the one he thought of when he remembered home. He remembered the day he'd gotten his own horse... After he'd found Jessamine with a bullet in her heart and alongside her brother and father. Pulling a cigar from his pocket he lit with the burner from the stove and reached for a tall bottle of Tennessee whiskey laying out a line of shot glasses.[color=Gray]"Y'all drink up, the trip in here gives ya a mighty thirst for something powerful."[/color] He added as poured the shots, going back to making far more food than he usually did. 

His mind drifted back to that spring when Jess and her kin were going to make their first cattle drive to sell'em all and get out of the farming business. His face never betrayed the sadness in his heart, on the outside he was as happy as he could be but Maine and Armann were about the only one who knew the truth. Finn hurt and but much like at poker his facade of happiness was how he hid true feelings, only a few could ever see how he felt about the world on the inside. 

Some nights he told things he to Maine, who would never answer but simply nod or grunt in reply even rarer still was the moment Maine would give Phineas a pat on the back. All they had here was each other, like brothers they trusted and depended on each other. Cooking was simple work for his hands and his mind drifted back to Carolina, just after he'd turned nineteen. He'd helped out some farmers, the Blossom's, getting them started selling beef in exchange for board and bed, he'd gone to see about a home in the Creamery for the family. It was the week after he'd proposed to Jess, three days after she'd been killed. 

It was that day he got his own horse... And Phineas Holiday Cassidy knew he'd never have the future he wanted.

**

Phineas Holiday Cassidy stood in a [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6BQKFs3-VM]bar[/url], a glinting pistol on each hip the old bartender hummed he cleaned glasses. "Boy... I know they done you wrong but throwing your life away it's ten of them against you." Finn didn't answer, the clock ticked. Ten minutes to noon he was dressed in black, an ivory handled forty-four on one hip with a ebony handled partner on the other end of the belt.

[color=Gray]"It's gotta be done. They will face justice or I'll die trying to see it through, she would have wanted it that way."[/color] He added as the bartender reached for the top shelf and pulled down a bottle of whiskey, the old man smiled. 

"Well... I ain't got any breakfast left but a few shots of the good whiskey before ya go, son... And good luck to ya, them rustlers deserve. Especially Ezrah... Can't believe he shot his own brother." He left the bottle on the bar and Finn drank down three shots before he heard the sound of boots and spurs, Ambrose brothers he could tell by the stench of brahmin shit. They were the worst of Ezrah Blossom's gang, they had probably come in because they were too stupid to read a clock.

[color=Gray]"I got eight minutes fellers, go wait outside and let a man drink his breakfast,"[/color] Finn spoke his arms on the bar he as he poured another shot and shoved the bottle down to the bartender, who decided to go in the back and check stock.

"Awww what, you yeller Finn?" Grinned the oldest brother. "I mean we killed your boss, your friend, that girl you was all lovey-dovey with... Maybe we ought to wound you and let a big old wild boar eat ya alive!" He and his brother broke into laughter, that died when Finn rose his seat and turned every one of them frozen reaching for a gun.

[color=Gray]"You boys are awful jumpy considering you come in here to harass me... Four of you and one of me, Y'all nearly shot me just for standing."[/color] He smiled tilting his hat up slowly. [color=Gray]"I supposed that all you Ambrose boys yeller."[/color] Finn added winking at them before he rolled over the bar ducking behind the counter just before the damn fools reached for the pistols they carried. 

"Fuck you Phinea-" The youngest began, as to the horror of the brothers Finn came up from the bar with bartenders shotgun, the coach gun rang out five blasts... And four young men clattered to the ground clutching guns they had barely started to draw. Finn slid once more over the bar drawing his revolvers, they had come for blood and he aimed to spill all of it. Two more were waiting outside rifles in hand, arguing whether they should go inside or check around back. 

A bullet ripped from each iron as the two cattle rustlers collapsed clutching at the lever rifles. [color=Gray]"Six dead... Odds getting better by the minute."[/color] Finn called out, he saw three more standing by horses at the end of the street. Jed and Jeb were brothers up from South Carolina, deserters, he'd heard they didn't have a spine between them. Blythe however, she was scary as she was cutthroat her mother had been a raider to hear her father tell it and she had shot the sheriff here in Boone when he tried to run her in for counterfeiting caps... It's how Finn had found them all. 

The female rustler just smiled, brushing her platinum blonde hair back unlike her friends she was clean and dressed like any field working cowgirl. The pistol on her hip was an old model, taking hand-tooled rounds she'd no doubt done herself he'd seen the rounds in the backs of Blossom family. "Mr. Cassidy you come all this way just to see little ole me? I'm touched, truly though... I'd start to think you were sweet on following me all the way up from that nice little dairy you call home." 

She smiled like a cat with a mouse between two paws as she stepped forward, Jeb and Jed moved toward the horses, deciding it best to get away before they were gunned down too... Without missing a beat she pulled her pistol and gunned both down, Blythe was the one who had shot her, no doubt in mind about that.

[color=Gray]"You got quite the draw..."[/color] Finn answered as he moved to stand in the street, watching as she slammed her pistol back in the holster. [color=Gray]"You need a count Blythe? I know you ain't letting me take you alive."[/color] She smiled what she thought was sweet but to Finn it was a mocking grin of those he lost. The clock ticked, a minute until noon now as the sun hung high above the two clouds moving away, she watched as Finn turned his duster letting her see a Marshall's star on his chest. [color=Gray]"I made sure I was doing it the legal way... I prefer to send you to a court, but you ain't gonna give me that chance huh?"[/color] He added as her hand twitched closer to that lead belcher on her hip.

"You always was the only man I couldn't charm Finn... If I was riding with you instead of these boys I wouldn't have to do this, too bad you were always cute." She reached for her iron as the clock struck twelve but Finn proved faster the first bullet struck her shoulder and she spun around so the second hit her lungs. Finn was fanning the hammer of the ebony pistol as the third bullet went right between her eyes from the back of her skull, Finn fired the last two rounds in the ebony pistol into a crawling Jeb and Jed who lay bleeding out, it was the only mercy he'd give them.

[color=Gray]"Ezrah Blossom!" [/color]Yelled Finn as he walked towards the church, he knew the coward had gone inside to wait things out. [color=Gray]"I'ma calling you out!"[/color] Yelled Phineas as stopped outside the building, inside sat a man who couldn't have been shaking more if the earth was quaking under his spurs. If that Cassidy boy was here it meant all his men were dead, that he'd be facing a man less than half his age, but he was ready. He grabbed his laser rifle and kicked open the church door, taking shots as Phineas ducked his way into cover near one of the shanty metal buildings.

"You ain't gonna get me, Cassidy! I'll kill you like I did your girl, she died cursing your name you know!" He laughed, firing again and again as from his spot on the church steps. "You're a kid playing dress up, can't even afford a proper gun!" He challenged before Finn popped up from cover, five rounds from ivory pistol buried into the laser rifle's plastic frame. He reached for the nine mil pistol on his belt but Finn had rushed him shattering his nose from first punch he landed. 

[color=Gray]"You son of a bitch! You had your own brother and his kids killed! For what! A shit piece of land, fifty brahmin, and a fistful of caps."[/color] He threw Ezrah inside as he ripped the gun from his holster, leveling it at the monster of man. He was just over fifty, grey beard on his face had started to shift the color of his oily black hairs sideburns. He was a skinny man and small of height as well, Finn lifted him up pistol against his back he marched him from the church as the town gathered... The Undertaker was preparing ten coffins as the gallows outside city hall waited, the people were free and they had one piece of scum left to deal with.

Finn marched him to the gallows, letting the executioner take over as he stepped back and pulled from his pocket the wanted poster for Ezrah Blossom. [color=Gray]"For kinslaying, murder in the first degree, cattle rustling, and horse theft. The towns of North Carolina sentence you to death Ezrah Blossom, do you have any last words?"[/color] Finn added turning to stand in front of Ezrah as they tightened the noose and prepared to pull the lever.

"Yeah, I got some last words... Phineas Holiday Cassidy, you will never be happy again for the rest of your days. I hope they are long, miserable, lonely, and sad. Because you just get everyone around you killed, I curse you with that burden and I'll enjoy watching you suffer it." Ezrah Blossom died laughing in Finn's face.

That night Finn took Blythe's gun... He couldn't keep his twin forty-fours anymore... They were a gift from Jess for his birthday. Instead, he took the caps they had and gave them to the bartender to fix the old player piano and rode out into the night with the guns and gear they had. Finn took the four horses towards the south, and alone in wastes, he began to sob. Crying over Jess, Danny, and Galen who he had avenged but had yet to mourn. Finn had set out to roam when he was sixteen full of wonder and curiosity, now he set out to roam to escape his past.

**

Finn's hand had subconsciously gone to tapping on Smokewagon's handle, once the pistol that had killed his fiance was now one he used to bring down anyone who dare raise a weapon at his loved ones. He finished stirring the stew and nodded. [color=Gray]"Come and get it!"[/color] He yelled for all to hear as he laid out bowls, starting to spoon up the hot stew. [color=Gray]"We got food to go around Y'all best dig in and while ya do I'll grab us another bottle of whiskey!"[/color] He added with a soft laugh to reassure those around him after his few moments zoned out, remember the thirty minutes of his life that had defined the last few years.