Name: Ezekiel Gillum

Age:35

Occupation: Outlaw

Personality: Ezekiel’s profession makes the time he spends in most towns limited. As such he tries to keep a reserved, but polite demeanor with most people, approaching interactions with a disarming smile and a sly way with words. Ezekiel is as quick with a compliment as he is with his six-shooter when it suits him. 

Appearance: Ezekiel is a man of average height standing at an even 5’10. He keeps his dark brown hair shoulder length and swept back tightly with a mixture of pomade and heavy grooming whenever it's convenient for him to visit a barber. Ezekiel’s age is shown in the form of the salt and pepper prominently displayed on his beard and he sports scars on the right side of his face running deeply down from his cheek to his jaw, earned from a knife fight during the war. 

( [Url=https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a4/42/c2/a442c22fb9059420ced2f31b36cd7f2b.jpg] Ezekiel[/url] )

Possessions: Ezekiel has a [url=https://caballosyyeguas.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Tennessee-Walking-300x225.jpg] Black Tennesse Walker[/url] named Pepper that’s been with him since the end of the Civil war. He carries a [url=https://www.gunsamerica.com/UserImages/6401/921132384/wm_13630721.jpg] Colt Single Action Army[/url] on his hip and has a [url=https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/e7/c3/5ae7c3e2e2e23b3e592f6c9c5dcaeae8.png] Winchester Repeater[/url] Strapped to Pepper’s saddle. 

Biography:

Ezekiel Gillum was the youngest of five in Atlanta Georgia. Although far from the rich plantation owners resident to Atlanta prior to the civil war, Ezekiel’s family was far from poor. His father owned a small tobacco farm and the Gillum family housed at least a dozen slaves prior to the war. When the war began Ezekiel was 16, and he shared the same sentiments many people around him felt when the Union made its declarations. Slavery was integral to the way of life of the south and the Northern politics would mean the destruction of the economy and the bankrupting of his family. His older brothers enlisted in the Confederate army and served from the wars initial start, and although Ezekiel wanted to do his part his mother and older sister refused to let him go, still considering him the baby of the Gillum’s. They instead sent him to study, with hopes of Ezekiel becoming a lawyer and perhaps one day a politician. 

 In 1862 the option of Ezekiel staying behind to focus on his studies became a moot point with the Confederate conscription laws. At 17 Ezekiel was thrust into service against the Union, where he served dutifully for a long time. The war took a heavy toll on Ezekiel however, watching many of his friends die changed Ezekiel. Gone were the fanciful idea of heroism and coming home with medals pinned on his chest for valor on the battlefield. Replaced with an overwhelming desire to just survive to the end of the war, regardless of outcome. The ideals of White Supremacy in Ezekiel also died somewhere on the battlefields of the Civil War as Ezekiel served alongside slaves who were forced into battle and began an earnest friendship with one such man by the name of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was kind, and stoic at the belligerency spouted at him by some of the other confederate soldiers outside of the heat of battle. Ezekiel and Jeremiah began their acquaintance by sharing a drink with one another as well as a joke or two about the eccentricities of their Sergeants, and soon it turned into an exchange of skills. Ezekiel teaching Jeremiah letters, as well as the beginnings of reading whenever it was possible, and away from earshot of the other men in Ezekial’s unit. Jeremiah Taught Ezekiel how to play the harmonica and would speak to him about his family's way of life, unfiltered and without pause a trait about Jeremiah Ezekiel would grow most fond of. 

The pairs friendship was solidified when Ezekiel took part in a repelling of a bayonet charge a few months after their friendship had begun. Ezekiel was quick with his rifle, but still he was overwhelmed by a Union soldier, the man gave Ezekiel his facial scars and would of killed him were it not for his friend coming to his aid and ending the Union man. Jeremiah like all the black men in the confederate unit were not allowed in combat situations, so he had put himself at risk for Ezekiel. 

Not long after this battle Ezekiel’s Sergeant; a man known for his cruelty to the white men and doubly so to the black slaves in the unit made for Jeremiah, grabbing the man up with hollers and shouts, dragging him off to be punished for being caught with a knife. No amount of pleading from Ezekiel would sway the Sergeant, Jeremiah broke the rules and he was to be punished. It was then that Ezekiel made his choice; he ran up behind his sergeant and stole his percussion revolver, putting a round in his back and one into the head of another fellow confederate comrade before snatching up Jeremiah and telling him they were getting out of the service together. 


Ezekiel and Jeremiah made a fighting retreat from the Confederate camp, Ezekiel now a turncoat murderer and Jeremiah a runaway slave. They made their way north, toward the Union lines, and soon Ezekiel would repay Jeremiah’s heroism by taking the man to his freedom. They promised to meet again after the war, but because of Ezekiel’s Confederate ties, he would be imprisoned upon being taken, a notion Ezekiel had no interest in. As such, the man tore off his uniform and shook his friends hand, making off with just his Revolver for a time on his own, he would then steal a black tennessee walker he’d name Pepper and make his way west. 


Ezekiel’s family soon lost their home with the burning of Georgia, but even before that Ezekiel knew he had no home to go back to. By then word that he had killed at least two of his comrades in defense of a black man would have reached his family, and if he dared show his face back there his brothers and father would hang him. Ezekiel faced with the reality of having no worldly possessions other than his stolen horse Pepper and his sergeants former weapon, soon took to the Outlaw lifestyle, moving from town to town robbing men as needed and shooting others as needed, Ezekiel would build a small reputation for himself as well as a bounty that would push him West over the following decades. 

Now at the age of 35, Ezekiel found his way to Longwater. Old and weary, with no family besides his horse and a friend he occasionally sends letters to and almost no money to make his way he would ride into town in hopes of a new score, or atleast cheap liquor to pass the time.