This post is for the group story-mentor. It's also the next installment in "The Man With No Name” Saga.
@michelle.gent said:
Tell me something about where you sleep – you can’t get more personal than that.
I don’t mind if it’s fact, fiction or a mixture, tell me as much detail about your bed, bedroom, sleeping quarters as you possibly can.
Blondie
He pulled the horse to a halt and slid from the saddle. He unhooked the saddle and slipped it from his faithful steed’s back. There was a slit in the rock that served as the entrance to his lair, and just inside was a small boulder that seemed like it was designed to be a saddle rack. He shuffled into the cave, straining against the weight of the saddle after a long day, and stiffly dropped the saddle into place. “The Man With No Name” couldn’t be seen in just any saddle, and since he pushed his equipment hard, he always took good care of it.
The day's ride had been a rough one. Fortunately, he had gotten back before dark. The sun was getting low in the sky and would set soon. He didn’t like being on the move after dark; too hard to know who else was out there. For a man who brought darkness to the eyes of so many, he much preferred the light.
The cave wasn’t much. Most people wouldn’t even call it a home, but the cave on the backside of Sand Hill was just perfect for the pistol-wielding Bounty Killer. He liked the solitude, and the fact that there was only one way in. That meant fewer sightlines to check, just one big one. “When you live by the sword, you die by the sword.” The same thing was true for guns. You couldn’t be too safe, so it was best to have a hideout where you could see people coming.
The horse had been with him through a lot and knew the routine as well as No Name himself. There wasn’t a need for a tether; the only grass in those parts was close to the cave. Besides, the two of them had an understanding; they had each other's back. While the horse started in on a clump of grass, Blondie brushed him until he shined; didn’t want a burr causing the horse to get jumpy when the bullets started to fly. Blondie stroked the muscular brown beast’s nose and gave him a lump of sugar, then he headed into his house of rock.
“Blondie.” He didn’t much care for that moniker, but as No Name was given, people just referred to him by the color of his locks. They could have just as easily called him “Diamond Eyes”, “Legsie”, or “The Nose,” so he just took it in stride… a long, very confident stride.
The cave was still dimly lit by the sun, but Blondie lit a candle and set it on his rock “mantle.” He scanned the room out of habit; just a quick inventory to make sure everything was in order. In the back corner there was a makeshift bed of soft hay. He had one blanket to put over the hay, and another to sleep under. He didn’t have a pillow, but that was ok. He just slept with his head on a folded shirt. This made it easier to know what to wear the next day.
He had a short stool to sit on and a small, low table on which to clean his guns. In the corner opposite the “bed,” there was a chest where he kept a few clothes and his valuables. It was locked, but there wasn’t really a need for it. Who in their right mind would steal from “Blondie?” Besides, no one knew about this place except for him and the horse.
He sat down and carefully went through his routine of cleaning his precious instruments. A well-functioning pistol could be the difference between life and death, so he always took good care of them. He didn’t have any food for dinner, but he had stopped earlier at a monastery where he ate a small meal: beef soup… minus the beef. Times were tough and didn’t make an exception for anyone. By the time he had finished cleaning and polishing the guns, it was well-past dark.
He reclined onto the bed and pulled one of the rough blankets over himself. The ornate pattern closely resembled the one on his poncho. He didn’t bother to remove the poncho, or his boots. He’d just have to put them on again in the morning. Also, it tended to get cold at night. Although he wore his gun belt, his now-clean pistols were on the table. Besides, he didn’t need them right now. He had a special gun under his pillow for night time.
It was an ornate, short-barrel revolver designed for ladies because it was small enough to be concealed in the fashionable dresses of the time. It had an ivory handle inlaid with gold. It was only accurate at short range, but you couldn’t get more short-range than a tiny cave. If he ever had the need to fight in the confines of the cave, this gun would give him his best shot. It was a special piece that had been with him many years and that he cherished. He always held it fondly and its mere presence gave him peace.
He reached for the precious pistol under his shirt-pillow as he prepared to blow out the candle, but his hand returned empty. He threw the shirt aside and searched around frantically, but couldn’t find his priceless treasure.
It was GONE!
Someone had been in his house!
I hope you enjoyed this installment. If you liked it, please feel free to upvote and comment below. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Cliff hanger got me bad, some sort of ninja thief business going off haha! Enjoyed this man. Thumbs up.
I've been running into a lot of comments that I post, but they don't show up. It's annoying. You got one of those, so this is a second draft. ;)
I like the idea of having a ninja, but I'm going to stick to the time frame and setting for now. @michelle.gent talked about not shocking the reader out of the story. I think that could have the shocking effect. However, I do have an idea for something that would allow for input, and when I test that, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
I'm looking forward to reading more, you have much more experience than I, so it's great to learn from for myself, even though you wrote it to learn more for yourself. I guess this means @michelle.gent #story-mentor tag is doing what she intended. You don't improve if you don't try to begin with.
I want to say that the pictures you have chosen for the "The Man With No Name” Saga are awesome!
Thank you! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take all my own photos (like you), but I don't live in the Old West. Ha ha. My goal was that the pictures would help my readers "see" what I was trying to describe. When I'm an amazing author, I won't even use pictures. I'll just describe it so amazingly that it will be like you're watching a movie. :)
Thanks for stopping by!
I enjoyed the story but for some reason I was in Australia at the end of the 19th Century. It was very easy to imagine the cave and the horse so you wrote a great story.
That's ok if you were in Australia. The names of the towns could have been different. It's the setting that I was going for, so if you found it there, I'm happy. Yeah, I would have gotten the story done sooner, but I wrote it too well and the horse stepped on my foot. :D
Thank you for the feedback.
And there it is. The manwithnoname rides thehorsewithnoname.
At least it's always good to be out of the rain.
You got me hooked for the next installment "Legsie".
Ha ha ha, I might have to add that into the story. "He met a character named Infant. Infant always called him "Legsie." Legsie shot Infant. Legsie went to jail. It's not ok to shoot an Infant." :D
Infant was fortunate to recover from the gunshot wound, but he was permanently disfigured. Undaunted he grew up and went out into the world to make his fortune. He was careful not to refer to anyone by a nickname again. Sometimes people don't like their nicknames.
:P
Ha ha ha, that's a great story! Thanks for helping give me ideas. :)
That's what I'm here for...helping.
Brian is the true Western-lover in our family, but I loved this story @themanwithnoname! In my head, there's a wild, beautiful, gypsy creature who has a hankerin' for anything inlaid with gold. But I think there might be a past thing between them as well..not romantic, not sexual, but something passionate nonetheless!
I love hearing people's guesses on where they think the story is going/what happened in the past. It's so interesting. Glad I can entertain.
Oh you do a lot more than entertain, but that alone is pretty awesome!
I read this one all the way through - no shocks to drag me out, although, getting used to the American spelling can be a little distracting - 'gotten' and 'shined' tripped me up a little - but all-in-all, I enjoyed it immensely.
Was it a Derringer you lost? Small, white gold, with mother-of-pearl inlaid butt?
I re-read/re-wrote it two more times than I intended because the voice my brain assigned to you (and the little avatar picture) kept popping up in my head. "Read it again, read it again." I read it one last time right before posting and changed a few more things. I'm glad it flowed well.
I'll be honest, I didn't know what kind of gun it was. I just included things that made the gun what I thought it should be. I'm not sure if such a gun actually existed, but I figured it would be close enough that it would work. But, yes, it was probably something like what you said. If it comes up again, I'll have more details on it.
I've never really considered myself a writer, so this is all new to me. I have an idea of where I want it to go, but some other things are just details that I add because I think they could be something later. (I actually pulled a few details out myself as I read it) I sort of understand what writers mean when they say the story wrote itself.
That's called 'foreshadowing' and it's a great tool if you can use it well.
I'm glad you're continuing with this, because you may not have ever thought you were a writer, but by gum, lad, you are at that!
Thank you for the encouragement!
Nice set up. We get the "bad hombre" vibe immediately, along with some nuances. There's more to The Man With Know Name than just guns of death. He feels his appearance is important. He's not reckless. He knows he is a marked man because of what he does. His horse has been through a lot, too. He's exacting about certain things.
And then, of course, the obligatory cliffhanger ending!
Where's the gun, and more importantly, who took it? Does he madly search the cave now, thinking he might have left it elsewhere, or does he get himself as far away from the cave as he can? Why else would whoever took the gun do so, if not to kill him while he slept? Still a big risk—they must know the first thing No Name would do is reach for it when he laid down. And apparently, there is at least one person who doesn't know, or doesn't care that you don't steal from No Name.
Okay, I think I'm hooked. :)
Good! I'm glad you were picking up on those "nuances." I had my wife read it first, but I wasn't sure if I was getting all of that across. I've rewritten this many times over the last few days. It should have been posted 2 days ago, but I kept doing rewrites. Also, (and you'll be happy to know this) it was originally going to cover more plot, but it got too long, so I had to split it. Therefore, the next part is already written, it just needs to go into rewrite. You'll like the next one. :)
Those are all good questions! They're ones that I was intentionally trying to get the reader to ask.
Yes, there is!
Thanks for your comments. They're insightful and probing, as always. Makes sense that you were in the publishing business. :)
I've had to write myself out of a few corners I've painted myself into, so I've found it's extremely useful to ask those questions before I paint myself into the corner, but strangely enough, I always had fun figuring out how to get out of it, regardless.
Ah, rewrites. Never seems like you have enough of them.
I'll have to start asking those questions to plan out where the story is going long-term... if I decide to go long-term. The advancements in the story have mainly been in response to the prompts from the writing group. I'll have the next one ready soon, but beyond that I'll need to start putting together a storyboard.
Superb narration. Can't wait for the ivory handled gun to be found now!
This took me back to my childhood spent reading about the Wild West! Thanks for that
I'm glad it took you to the wild west and not to space, because that would mean I did a terrible job of writing! Ha ha.
Yeah, I enjoyed old west films and I'm having fun writing about a character that's loosely based on pretty much every western film character ever. I get it give it my own spin though. Thanks for reading along!
I like a good western... who doesn't love Clint Eastwood...great story
I'm glad you liked it. It's my own version of a cowboy with no name. Although I did find a free to use picture of Clint that fit the image I was thinking of.
I'm sometimes able to post, but voting is broken. I like to upvote those who comment on my posts, but I can't right now. Sorry. Busy is being dumb... or maybe just Busy. :)
Quite engaging story, You got the skills :) One request I would like to make : Cite the source of these images, so that it can be recommended for better curation.
I'm glad you liked it! I'm surprised that people are having so much fun on the adventure, but it makes me happy that I can entertain you all.
All images are sourced at the bottom of the post (under the picture of the turtle). I had found that putting sources under each individual picture was detracting from the story. Would love to get on those curation trails. ;)
Thanks for stopping by and for commenting!
@michelle.gent told me to come along and give you an up vote, 'Blondie'.
Well, thank you! You're welcome any time. :D
auvote yure good
Can you be more specific about what you liked?