[hider=John Stone][center][img]https://hips.hearstapps.com/digitalspyuk.cdnds.net/17/03/1484759485-12813703-low-res-taboo.jpg?crop=0.668xw:1.00xh;0.218xw,0&resize=480:*[/img][/center]

[b]Name:[/b] John Stone
[b]Gender:[/b] Male
[b]Age:[/b] 30

[b]Appearance:[/b] 

A physically imposing man standing at six feet one inches tall and weighing a little over two hundred pounds John is well suited to his work physically. Many scars litter his body due to his years of brawling and gunfighting, the most noticeable being one from a knife starting above his left eyebrow and running down below his eye. He has been shot twice, stabbed once, cut on several occasions and beaten even more often than that. It hasn't yet been quite enough to kill him, although he does now walk with a slightly noticeable limp.

He keeps his dark brown hair short on the sides and slightly longer on top, as well as keeping a mustache and goatee. He has brown eyes that might often betray pain he’d claim he isn’t feeling, or anger he’ll claim he is. His face has a few more wrinkles than someone of his age should and a coarseness to it that betrays his rough way of life.

[b]Occupations:[/b]

Bounty Hunter
Boxer/Brawler
Outlaw

[b]Weapons:[/b]

[url=https://www.gunsamerica.com/UserImages/1730/937413575/wm_7920375.jpg]Rossi Overland 12 Gauge Shotgun[/url]
[url=https://www.sportsmansoutdoorsuperstore.com/prodimages/57693-DEFAULT-l.jpg]Colt .45 Single Action Army Revolver[/url]
[url=https://acc-cdn.azureedge.net/accliveimages/0009110_primitive-bowie-knife_550.jpeg]Bowie Knife[/url]
[b]Horse:[/b] Black Coated Friesian named [url=https://i.pinimg.com/originals/48/fa/cf/48facf8760a56e2684bedd902be370f9.jpg]Morrigan[/url].
[b]Residence:[/b] [url=https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rL1b7mfObCg/maxresdefault.jpg]A cabin in the woods outside of Strawberry. Mostly used to store spare weapons and supplies.[/url]

[b]Personality:[/b] 

John is difficult to like and he seems to try to keep it that way. A callous and cynical brute of a man he is well suited to the life of a bounty hunter and outlaw, though even among people in those lines of work he is renowned for his noteworthy brutality. Long since used to repressing most uncomfortable emotions it is rare to see him express anything other than anger or annoyance. He’s not a sadist, rarely taking pleasure in any sort of violence but that makes little difference to those unfortunate enough to become his target. He’ll calmly chop a foot off of a bounty who tries to run whether he gets enjoyment out of it or not.

If there’s anything good that could be said about John at all it’s probably that he’s not altogether ungrateful or disloyal. If someone deliberately goes out of their way to do him a solid he’s not simply going to brush it off. The way he sees it genuine selflessness is so rare it’s not right to simply disregard it on the occasions where it truly occurs. He doesn't really have friends but anyone who gets close enough to him and isn't reflexively pushed away by what he is as a person is something of a treasure. Something he's occasionally even sentient enough to appreciate. 

All in all, it's difficult to know who John might have been without the years of emotional repression and numbness and harder still to know if there’s any semblance of that man still in him at all that might one day tunnel his way out.

[b]History:[/b] 

John spent his early years in Chicago. His father was a relatively well known though not quite professional heavyweight boxer there who was the sole breadwinner of their small family. Whether it was the stress of taking care of them or simple bitterness about being a tied-down family man when he didn’t really seem to want to be the man was a vicious and cruel bastard. He would frequently lose his temper at the smallest of things and physically and verbally abuse both his wife and young son. John’s mother for her part was a timid but compassionate and intelligent woman who always did her best to protect her child from her husbands anger, taking many a lashing in his place. 

One day when John was about five or six years old his father once again lost his temper at some insignificant thing and started lashing out at his son, beating him with a broom handle. His mother as always got between them and started trying to push her much larger husband back. The boxer cocked back his fist and punched her hard in the face like he’d done a dozen or more times before. His wife dropped with a sickening crack as her head hit the floor. Unlike all the other times she didn’t cry out, didn’t try to get back up to further defend young John, didn’t move. Both John and his father watched her, all three of them motionless for what felt like an eternity. At that point John kind of blacked out.

By the time he formed his next memory they had fled Chicago and headed to less lawful lands where his father figured he’d be safe from justice. John for his part had buried the memory of his mothers murder so deep he barely even remembered it or her. His mind kind of blocked it all out to protect him, though he’d frequently have nightmares of his father beating and killing faceless women in front of him. Life went on though. They rented a cabin in the plains outside of a town called Valentine and his father found work fighting for money and the entertainment of all those who earned an honest living in and around the livestock town. Sheep herders and hands would come from all around to see the cityboy boxer break the jaw of some dumb yokel that thought he could take him.

John actually had a better time of it out in the country than he did back in the city. He made quite a few friends who taught him how to shoot and how to hunt. In return he used his large stature and sometimes simply his father's fearsome reputation to protect them from older bullies. He occasionally had to fight either for or with them but he found that compared to his father's beatings a teenagers punches felt pretty damn soft. He also found out as well as quite a few others that he could hit pretty damn hard himself too. One of the greatest things about the country though was that it was big enough that there were enough things to do outside both during the day and in the town at night that he barely ever had to see his dad. Though eventually the day came where that stopped being a problem at all.

His dad would occasionally bring women back to their shack using his winnings from boxing and tell John to get the hell out for a while. Now fourteen years old John knew well enough what was up and usually just left without a word and either sat outside for an hour or so or went off somewhere else so he didn’t have to risk hearing anything. This time though he was already tired from a long day of tracking deer and rabbits and hauling them back to town and he simply wanted to wait around long enough for her to leave so he could go back in and get some sleep. Unfortunately that was soon interrupted by the woman screaming and his father loudly shouting back. 

John not really knowing why grabbed his shotgun off the porch and barged his way back inside. There he found his father standing over the woman, blood on his already bruised fists and the lady herself with a bleeding lip. His brain decided then to unlock certain old traumatic memories and both good, loving ones and terrifying, rage inducing ones rushed back to him. “You killed ma.” Was all he said before he raised up the shotgun and blasted his father in the chest. The woman screamed as his father stumbled backwards, knocking over a chair and falling to the wooden floor sputtering blood. The one slug was not quite enough to kill him outright but enough that he wouldn’t last long. John turned to the prostitute and told her to get out and that if she told anyone what she'd seen he’d tell them that he’d last seen them both together when his father told him to leave. After she quickly fled he watched as his father breathed his last breaths feeling little but relief at his passing and grief over losing his mom. 

It took quite some time but John eventually managed to move his dad's corpse from the cabin in the middle of the plains to some woods not too far off. He hoped wolves or whatever else would take care of him soon enough, or at least leave him unidentifiable. After cleaning up the blood back at the cabin he packed up as much dry food as he could, grabbed his own shotgun and his dads old revolver and what money he could and headed west on his father's horse towards Strawberry. He hunted pelts and lived in the woods outside of town for a while until he made enough money selling both them and animal meat to afford a small room in town. He'd also occasionally come across camps whilst he was tracking an animal and hold up whoever had made their bed there. It was usually pretty easy. Once or twice someone stupid tried to draw on him and he'd blow off one of their knees but that was about as serious as it ever got. It was a hell of a lot easier to shoot a man standing still ten feet away than it was to snipe a deer or rabbit at fifty. 

A couple of years of hunting and bar fighting later he stumbled into taking his first bounty at seventeen, accompanying another more seasoned hunter he'd met in the saloon on one of his contracts. It went pretty well, John killed two men without hesitating or taking any bullets himself and they managed to hogtie the man they were after and bring him in alive for the full price on his head. The seasoned bounty hunter tried to only pay John twenty five percent of the bounty since he was apparently only his apprentice but John called bullshit on that and insisted on half or he’d beat the living hell out of him right there in town and take what was owed. The older man was definitely better with a gun but he sure couldn’t take the larger, younger and angrier man in a fair fist fight. He paid up grudgingly and John made his first professional enemy, one of many he later killed on the job.

To this day John has built himself quite the reputation ranging from Tumbleweed to Valentine as an effective and ruthless bounty hunter and occasional outlaw. He’s had to on rare occasions kill a sheriff and some deputies for refusing to pay him what they owed but he'd taken it in stride, even with the occasional bounties placed on him. Just part of the brutal business.

[b]Theme Song:[/b] 

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtHubsyGD8w]Through the Valley[/url] by Shawn James and The Shapeshifters. 

[b]Do you have a personal story arc prepared:[/b] 

Kind of? I know where I want to take John character wise but I'm not quite sure how I'm going to get him there yet.
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