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Sotozu Hewoskani (AKA: Misty Mountain Ridge)

FreeMustang

Don't Be Afraid To NAG Me! =D
Role play was created for FreeMustang and Pheebs. We might consider one other person.


Role Play Here =)
 
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OCC: Here we go! Let me know if you want me to change anything about Vic's portion; I don't know what your plan is exactly for Rie so I left it kind of vague.


BIC:


Someday, Evangeline Barry swore to herself, she was going to go somewhere that wasn’t so fucking
hot. First Bakersfield, then Ft. Worth, then Afghanistan, and now Montana in bright, sunny weather. It wasn’t just the heat, either. Even after spring rainfall, her worn Ariats and Mo’s hooves were kicking up enough dust to choke a camel. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t used to it, but being used to something and liking it were two completely different things, and Evie hated nothing more than she hated dust. She stuck out her tongue to lick some off her lips, then remembered quickly that licking her lips would only dry them out further. Mo seemed to have the same thought, although he clearly hadn’t gotten the memo that saliva was drying. Poor guy. He was limping down the abandoned mountain highway, gone up lame in his front left leg. Evie was almost certain it was just a strain of his flexor tendon, but unfortunately, the only cure was time and rest, and even though they had all the time in the world, they had no place to rest. She was hoping she’d find a campsite up ahead, but so far purple mountain’s majesties and cows surrounded her. Mostly cows.


She slowed to a stop, Mo’s nose bumping her shoulder as he came to a stop behind her. She’d picked him up back home when she’d returned from her final tour. As long as she could remember, her neighbor down the street, a kindly old man who always greeted her when was out riding, had had an old wooden sign next to his mailbox. On it, in shaky letters, was written, “Horses for Sale. Inquire Within.” Evie had never had to inquire within; from the age of 8 she’d been bothering a different neighbor to let her ride in exchange for doing chores. By the time she was 14, she was helping to train, and had ended up with a couple of her own – problem horses no one else wanted to deal with. If she wasn’t at school, she was at the barn, giving lessons, cleaning stalls, and training other people’s horses in order to pay board for her own. When she left, she’d given them both – May and Teddy – to a teenager in whom Evie saw a lot of herself. She missed them.


At any rate, when she’d returned home, life had been exactly the same as it was when she graduated high school and took her father’s old Chevy down to the recruitment office in LA. Daddy had been sprawled on the couch with a beer in his hand and a glazed look on his face. Mama spent days that she wasn’t working at the 7-11 smoking cigarettes and playing the lottery, bent over her tickets at the table as if the harder she scratched, the more money they’d be worth. It had been only a week of living that aimless life again that Evie decided she couldn’t do it anymore. She walked down to Old Man Walters’ house and inquired within. He’d been more than delighted to show her his latest prize – a grulla mustang gelding, adopted from the Red Rock Lakes herd up north. He was gentled and saddle broke and, Walters added with a wink, quite the looker. That, at least, Walters was right about.


Mo was tall and leanly-muscled, bigger than most mustangs, though California herds were known for that. His coat was sleekly silver-brown, like a grey fox’s pelt, and his long, clean legs and big eyes were a deep black. He was sweet and gentle on the ground, but upon getting him out into the yard, Evie quickly found that “saddle broke” was more of a loose term. He let her mount up, but as soon as she was onboard, he was a completely different horse. He didn’t seem to do anything he didn’t feel like doing; a leg cue might work once and then be ineffective the next time. He’d speed up when half-halted, slow at a squeeze of the legs. It took six months – and a lot more of her savings than she was planning on using – to condition him to a point where she felt comfortable taking him out onto the road. It was another two months before she felt he was ready for the journey. By that point, they were old pals, and she trusted Mo at least as well as she’d trusted members of her unit overseas.


They struck out at dawn, packed only with essentials in the saddlebags – a sleeping roll, a simple tarp shelter and poles, a couple changes of clothes, some provisions, and a 20-lb sack of grain strapped to the back of the comfortable Western saddle in case of emergency. They traveled as far as they felt like going every day; Evie would consult her map to find the nearest campsite, and she hobbled Mo so he could graze while she unrolled her sleeping bag. She almost never needed the shelter; even throughout Nevada and Utah, she’d found the weather was mostly mild. Evie’d decided to go north through Montana when she discovered that it had more easily accessible campsites than some of the more southern states.


That was starting to seem untrue.


She scratched Mo’s forehead as she pulled her water bottle from where it was strapped to the saddle horn. “Sorry, buddy,” she muttered. “I didn’t plan as well for this as I thought I did.” She’s brought a couple of tools she could have used if he’d hurt his hoof, but for a strained tendon, all she’d been able to do was wrap his leg and rest him as much as possible. They were down to walking for only three hours a day, and Evie was already worried they’d have to cut it back even more. She raked a hand through her long blonde ponytail and took a long drink of water. Uh-oh. Perfect. Now her water was running low.


Well, soldier, looks like the Marines don’t prepare you for everything.


--


It had become obvious some time ago that a little red Fiat was not really appropriate for fronting as oil prospectors, but Victor had not been able to convince his partner otherwise, so he puttered the wretched thing down the long back roads, muttering to himself all the while. “This piece of shit,” he snarled, poking viciously at the dash in an attempt to find any radio station that wasn’t blaring country or gospel. They were looking for a new place to squat, which fucking sucked. It meant groveling in front of some rich, fat ranch owner and promising to find oil. That part was easy; for the last fifteen years, oil prices had stayed so high – even when they fluctuated – that everyone was desperate to hear they might be sitting on millions of dollars.


The shitty part was managing to cook meth and run it up to Canada without raising the suspicion of the ranchers. Of course, there was also the part where Vic had to fake being a geologist, which was particularly hard given he didn’t have a college degree and had slept through most of his science classes in high school – when he’d even bothered to attend. All told, Vic thought he was really doing pretty well for himself. And Pops never thought I’d amount to anything….


Misty Mountain Ridge was somewhere ahead – the next target, as it were. He and Rie had gotten kicked off their last holdout for the mess – thankfully not for the meth. No doubt Buford Wayland of Rolling K Ranch was spreading the news about a rather odd prospecting couple that hadn’t found a drop of oil on his property and had made a mess of the outbuilding he let them stay in, to boot. It didn’t matter. Vic and Rie were careful; they used different backstories, different styles of dressing, even different slang to speak to the ranchers, and so far no one had ever identified them as being the same people.


A sudden shriek of steel guitar from the radio startled Vic, and the little red car swerved a little bit as he struggled to regain control. There was something in the road up ahead.... He reached over and slapped the thigh of his companion. “Look. Up ahead.” In the middle of the road was a big grey horse – Vic wasn’t great at identifying the beasts – and a slender, blonde woman in a baseball cap, jeans, and a delightful tight tank top. Vic couldn’t quite keep the leer off of his face.


“What do you think, Rie? Should we help the poor lost lamb?”
 
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Rie jumped when Vic slapped her "I'm warning you.... If you hit me one more--" she stopped midway through her sentence when she saw Evie. It have been a while since they found any ranch owner to accept their offer to test for oil. After all they had already checked on three other locations just to get turned down and Misty Mountain Ridge, as the gringos called it, didn't seem very particularly promising either. If this girl was just on a trail ride and ran into some bad luck with her horse they could more easily sweet talk their way into squatting on their ranch simply because these normally sweet natured country folks would feel they owed them! "Of course we have to stop and help her!" she said, smiling slyly and reaching over to honk the horn lightly as they drove up behind her "Hello there honey! You look like you could use some help. Is there anything we can do for you? Maybe give you a life back to your ranch?" she suggested, getting right to the point.


Kip was just headed home from an auction, a solid $75,000 richer after he sold the last of his Quarter horse stock off. Finally he was rid of those rechid beasts and all the problems that came with them. He couldn't understand why anyone would be so crazy for pencil necks and straight hocks which made them unsuitable for anything other than a halter class. He had been very careful to convince his father not to taint the good Appaloosa lines they had with them so that they stayed very close to foundation stock. Suddenly he spotted Evie on the road and shook his head when he saw a couple of city slickers honk their horn "how stupid could people be...?" he muttered to himself as he pulled over and rolled down his window "is everything ok?" he asked Evie, looking over the couple in the sports car.


Rie turned to look at the handsome rancher and smiled back at him, after all they needed to treat everyone they met as a potential victim or well customer "Why we were just asking her the same thing" she laughed lightly "I'm Reily Maddison By the way" she introduced her self, getting out of the car and shaking the rancher's hand before taking two steps toward Evie and thinking better of getting any closer as the horse looked a bit wild eyed for her liking "My partner and I are geologists" she explained offhandedly "we've found oil for country folk from Oregon to Texas and now we're here to strike it big for the lucky folks of Montana!" she started the pitch "You wouldn't happen to know anyone wanting to make millions quickly, would you?" she asked both Evie and Kip, hoping to real them bother in.


Kip raised his eyebrows in surprise, he'd known other parts of Montana to be rick with oil and the prospect of him getting in on that profit was very tempting "I might know someone...." he grinned but looked back at Evie "but first I think this young lady might need some help...."
 

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