Lieutenant Willard Leighton
Lt. Willard Leighton, a British expatriate and former officer in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, is the regional supervisor of the Territorial Rangers in the northeast portion of New Mexico including Ranger Jared Rockwell. He is also the brother of former Explorer's Society, Brimstone Chapter head Captain August Leighton.
The Lieutenant is currently residing as a guest at Cross Bar Ranch, a small ranch 25 miles southwest of Brimstone. This location has been agreed upon by both the Territorial Rangers and the Agency as “neutral ground” for the purposes of secret Twilight Legion meetings.
The Leighton brothers hail from the city of Colchester in Essex County, England. Their family was wealthy and aristocratic, however they were both avid hunters and in their twenties became career soldiers in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. August was very analytical from a young age, and Willard was more emotional and easily riled. Even though August was six years older, the boys were always intensely competitive in everything they did. In the early 1870s they were stationed in South Africa, August as a Captain and Willard as a Lieutenant, and fought in the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. During the conflict, both of them saw something entirely strange that completely changed their worldview. After the war, they both requested dischargement from the Army and relocated to the American Southwest, so they could more freely explore the strange and unknown.
In 1880 the brothers were hired by the Explorer’s Society branch in Santa Fe, NM. They became reliable employees and helped to document and hunt the strange creatures in the desert for over a year, traveling to other towns in New Mexico and elsewhere in the West. However, during this time Willard became intensely aware of the lawlessness of the region, how acts of justice were few and far between, and how the critters they were studying often preyed on innocent townspeople. He approached the leadership of the Society with his complaints, and surprisingly they let him in on a powerful secret: the Society is merely a front for the Twilight Protocol, the joint operation between the Agency and the Texas Rangers to seek out and eliminate supernatural threats. They offered both brothers positions with the Rangers so they could continue to do their work in the region. Though they would both be Field Rangers, Willard would actually be out in the field while August would manage Explorer’s Society missions.
After three years, Willard had attained the rank of Lieutenant (the same rank as his Royal Army designation) and was stationed near Brimstone, NM. In 1884, August also relocated his Explorer Society chapter to Brimstone. His outward reasoning was that he wanted the group to be closer to the critters that they meant to study, but a betting man would say that it was to keep tabs on his little brother and make sure that he could continue to one-up him.