Goose McGraw

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Gus McGraw came into the world in the year 1840 in Pennsylvania. Specifically the part of Pennsylvanian smack dab between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh or to put it another way, northeastern Hicksville. The McGraws were just farmers trying to get by, with Gus, or "Goose" as he quickly came to be known, showing a decent talent at hunting and caring for animals on top of tilling the land, though nothing truly exceptional. The third child of six, when Goose entered his later teenage years, wanderlust hit him, which he satiated by joining the postal service as a delivery driver, delighting when he even got to go as far out as Ohio.

Goose was 21 when the Civil War began and initially supported the Union Army by transporting food, arms, ammunition, and other supplies. However, as the conflict dragged on over years and it became clear that the war was grinding into a bloody statement the young McGraw felt compelled to enlist proper in '66. Over the course of five years Goose made Sgt., though in all honesty he thinks it was mainly just because he kept on surviving and tended to charge under pressure rather than run.

Near the end of the war in 1871 Sgt. McGraw ended up as part of the 251st (there was a lot of shuffling thanks to the complete dearth of manpower), a mostly green regiment assigned to home guard in D.C. Compared to the front lines earlier in his enlistment it almost seemed like a reward. One of his new subordinates was a doggedly determined sixteen year-old kid almost only half his age by the name of Jackson Tanning. whom he was fond of, much as he rode the youngin's ass. Unfortunately for both of them, the Battle of Washington happened. Goose doesn't talk about the Battle of Washington, but the way he flinches in the presence of large amounts of flame says everything anybody needs to know about it. The Army of the Potomac went until the very end, and after that, like so many soldiers, he was left in a devastated nation with an unknown future.

An optimist deep down despite his gruff demeanor and the scars of war, McGraw came to realize that it was time to leave the scarred east behind and finally set out west. Far west. Further than Ohio. At 31 he still had a Hell of a lot of living left to do, and past the Mississippi it was said a man could be anything. So he picked up stakes, and left, and over the next decade or so did a little bit of pretty much everything. Goose likes to joke he took after such legends as Wild Bill and Wyatt Earp, because he at times was a prospector, gambler, cowboy, bartender, buffalo hunter, bouncer, and rail police officer. His was the life of a hard working, hard drinking, hard scrabble frontier man.

Three years ago he finally found steady employment that stuck. An acquaintance of a mutual friend convinced him to ride shotgun on her stage and it was a good thing that she did. A few wannabe stagecoach robbers aiming for valuables ended up dead for their troubles, and soon enough Goose was hiring himself out as a shotgun rider and/or stage coach driver, escorting passengers and the mail in equal measure. He developed a solid reputation and with that regular jobs and with that came decent pay dirt. By late '82 he was able to afford his own coach and set up his own business: McGraw's Frontier Transport. And while the business is steady his routes varied as he drifted from hotspot to hot spot. And today he pulls into a not-so-little boomtown called Brimstone