The only public transportation in Escondido. If you want to catch a train, I believe they will have reached El Paso in a couple more years. ;)  (Actually there are minor tracks in El Paso for transporting cattle and such, but the main train lines haven't reached there yet.)
This message was last updated by the GM at 00:15, Wed 24 July 2013.

Home.  The dusty streets of Escondido, but more so the family farm.  What was left of the family, at least.  Lola sighed and looked out the window of the coach.  They were getting close now, she knew where they were.  Not that much changes in less than five years, after all.  Not like her, she had changed drastically.  From a scrawny little chica easily mistaken for a macho.  A regular marimacho, she had been.  Today, at least in Boston, she was a belleza, something some men was happy to tell her and some women was quick to claim made her into a bad woman.  The men could get overbearing and she barely avoided punching them on the nose at times while the women who would insult her openly had, on occasion, been known to experience their first fist-fight, and subsequent loss.  Being a proper lady was dreadfully boring, her tomboy years had been so much better.
            A lazy grin appeared on her face as she recalled the days that she would spend running around the woods and streets, getting into fisticuffs with the local boys and having what seemed now as fun and endless adventures with her best friend Taron.  The smile faded as she remembered him.  They had exchanged letters for a while, her mostly complaining about the stupid school and Taron, well, about his father, mostly.

She sighed again and looked down at the oh so feminine dress she was wearing.  Modest and proper, just as they liked it at the school.  It was warm and itchy, almost impossible to run in and too tight around the waist.  She could not wait to get back home and change into trousers and a comfortable blouse and bolero, all of which she had managed to pick up in Boston.  It was insane how many stores they had there, and other things.
            The gun store was the best one, though.  She looked at the handbag where she kept the new Colt revolver.  She had fired it a few times, when she had managed to sneak out with her only friend, but she still wanted more practise.  Same with the new Winchester on top of the coach.  That one was a beauty and handled like one too.  The grin returned, this time in force.

The sounds from outside changed and she looked up and out the window, seeing the edge of town approaching.  It was still ugly and dusty, but it was her home town.  Now that Luchadora was back in town the bad guys had better watch out, she had ideas now, and education.  Plus, she had picked up the skill of throwing knives.  Good for those moments when silence was preferable.  Not that she really could think of any such moment so far in her life, but that is what her friend back at the school insisted upon.

Her hands went up to check her hat and hair before she caught herself doing it.
            "Madre de..." She stopped herself and glanced up, crossing herself.  "Perdone."  Starting out offending God would be bad.  It annoyed her, though, that the school has made her so used to putting her hair up in what took ages and wearing stupid little hats.  And dresses.  And all those unmentionables.  What was so unmentionable about those any way?  Most people wore them, if perhaps less frilly.  Ludicrous city people.

She reached up anew and plucked the hat off her head, pulled out the hair pins and shook her head to loosen the hair.  Then, for good measure, she stuck her fingers into it and ruffled it up some more.  Finally satisfied she crammed the hat into the handbag, planning to never wear the thing again.  Why it had taken her this long to lose it she had no idea.  She spotted the Colt in the bag as she jammed down the hairpins and reached down to pull it out.  With a well practised move she opened the loading gate.  Empty, of course.  Closing it up she felt the weight in her hand and nodded.
            Once more the sounds from outside changed.  They were near the depot now.  Father would not be there, he had written.  She had not expected him to be.  It would be his most trusted ranch hand that he could spare, probably with some old buckboard rather than those fancy two-seated cabs that were popular in Boston.  If only he had brought her a horse, but evidently riding in a dress in a normal saddle was a big no-no, she had found out at school.
            "Imbecilidad."

The coach started to slow down and she quickly put the gun back in the bag.  She would rather holster it, but there was only one place she could put it without a holster and that would not be proper even for her.  Plus it would be awkward to draw.  She laughed at the mental image it produced in her mind and shook her head as if that could throw it out of there.

Rocking to a halt the coach stopped outside the depot and someone scurried over to open the door.  That, she noted, had been a pleasant thing in the big city, all the gentlemen doing things like that, although not all of them remained gentlemen for very long.  All that pretence and window dressing annoyed her, she had always preferred to be straightforward.  Not necessarily brutally honest, because honesty is all that is required.  Brutality merely rubbed people's faces in it and could have the opposite effect.  Admittedly, a fist to the nose was pretty brutal, but at least it was not window dressing.

Preoccupied with her own thoughts she ducked to step out of the coach, forgetting one of the essential lessons taught at school.

The hem.

The homecoming turned into an uncontrolled dive and as the ground approached her she had time to think several things that would require at least one extended session in the confession booth.  By the time she landed she had felt a hand from the person at the door trying to steady her, but to little avail.  She barely had gotten her arms up in front of her to at least cushion the landing, but the wind was knocked out of her nevertheless.  A sacred vow was given to at the earliest possible opportunity set the accursed dress aflame.  Now if she only could catch her breath in the stupid contraption and pick herself up.
            Then she would have to kill anyone laughing.  Possibly while making them wear the dress.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:55, Sun 28 July 2013.

  Taron always hated these morning trips to meet the stage. 'Ole Biehn was expecting a package and Taron was hoping it would be on todays stage, unlike the two previous morns. Must be an important package, why else would the old fart be sending Taron and not one of the other hands. No matter, one thing he did enjoy were the morning rides on Cocoa, and the chocalate colored dun seemed to enjoy them too.

  Arriving before the stage, Taron set a top Cocoa with one leg thrown over the nape of his neck with his arms folded and eyes only half open. To most he prolly looked asleep if they weren't so use to seeing the half-breed in his nonchalant ways. It still amazed him how the people in Escondido non only excepted him but actually liked him. Show's the love this place had for his late father. Sure wasn't due to 'Ole Biehn, the cantankerous bastard. A slight grin crossed Tarons face as he thought of his father and grand father. They were as different as night and day, but he loved them both.

   His thoughts were stopped short when he heard the approaching stage. Looking up he slid off Cocoa's back and landed effortlessly to the ground as the stage pulled to a stop. A mexican man rushed to the open the door, Taron couldn't remember his name but he knew him as a trusted hand of Chino Montoya Alvarez. Again Taron grinned, this time his mind went to the daughter of Chino and his dear friend Lola. He missed her, he could only imagine how mad she is that he had quit writing when she left for Boston, maybe he'd write her when he got back to the ranch.

  Once again his thoughts were cut short when the Montoya ranch hand opened the door, and a young woman in a pretty dress started to step off the stage. She must have been tired from the trip or maybe just not use to how wobbly those contraptions could be, no sooner than she took a step, that pretty dress seemed to trip her and there she went face down towards the sun baked earth.

   Taron was already in motion with the speed and grace of a cat he was heading towards the flying pretty dress. He was just a tad late as he got there just as she hit. Taron could hear the wind leave the small frame and he quickly knelt down scooping up the woman and raising her to her feet. Gently he grapped her arms and started to raise them above her head, hopefully in the attempt to stretch out the lungs and allow her to breath in fresh air easier.

   He stopped with the girls arms only half up, it was at that time he looked into her face. He knew that face, but that wasn't the fifteen year old girl that he knew looking back at him. His jaw dropped and his mouth opened, he must've looked like the town jester with that stupid look on his face. He looked at her and grinned, still amazed at the 'Woman' standing in front of him. With a shaky voice he said "Lola" because that was the only sound he could muster up.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:55, Mon 17 Feb 2014.

Lola had experienced having the wind knocked out of her before, but it did not make it easier.  As she began to struggle to get up someone else came to her aid.  At that point three thoughts rattled noisily through her mind a close together as rail-cars.
            Maybe there are some gentleman even in old Escondido.
            His hands would be all over her, she was going to punch his nose in.
            It was familiar, the arms being lifted.  Only one person had done that before, when she fell on her back out of that tree all those years ago.  It had been...

"Taron!"

She gasped in some air, still not fully recovered.  Perhaps that is why her smile was more like a cat having cornered a little mouse rather than that of old friends meeting again, or perhaps it was merely spurred by the silly grin he featured.
            Allowing gravity to work for her this time she leant forward and gently forced her arms out of his grip and down around his neck, giving him a tight hug, her cheek resting against his ear.
            "Mi estimado,"she breathed heartfelt past his neck, in part using him for support and inhaled deeply.  She could smell him and it was almost painfully familiar.  "I am very cross with you for not writing, pícaro!"  The scolding came with a stern tone, her breath somewhat recovered.
            "You haven't changed one bit!"  She almost laughed where she clung to him, fearing he would vanish should she let go.  In addition the support he provided her with was still needed, or so she told herself.  She had missed him so much, but just how much she did not realise until right there and then.  Now she was home, truly home.

Behind her the man who had opened the door began the process of retrieving bags and coffers, loading them at a mellow pace onto the wagon.  He did his best to not look at them, focusing at the task he had been assigned.  It was not his place to tell others what to do where and when, regardless of what proper etiquette demanded.  Rubbing herself all over him in such a way.  But from what he had heard she had always been a strange one.  He could only imagine what confessions the padre must get from her.  No, actually, he could not even imagine it.  The upper class, always getting away with outrageous acts.  But God was watching, always, and in the end he knew it would all be balanced out.  So he resumed his work, pretending he did not see anything.

Unaware of such things Lola continued her effort to coalesce with Taron.

"Beggin' yer pardon, Miss. We've retrieved your bags from the wagon. Is there gonna be somebody fetchin' ya or should we deliver them to the hotel yonder?"

    When Lola laid her arms around his neck, the rugged looking half blood Comanche was as week as a new born colt. He couldn't believe it was her, but it was it was really her. Many a time he had wished she was with him riding along the creek and then jumping in to cool off. He wished she had been here when his Pa was killed. Taron hadn't written her since that letter, she had a right to be mad at him. That could wait though.
   He shakes the memory form his head and holds her tight, enjoying her scent and feeling her breath on his neck as she spoke. He had missed the sound of her voice, even now as she was given him hell, it was the best sound he had ever heard. He dropped his hands to her waistseperating them just a bit, her arms still around his neck. He looked at her and his grin widened. It was really her.

   "Well you have changed my 'Pequeña Uno'." He lightly chuckled at his poor spanish, it was passable at best. But as he looked at her she was no longer the little one he had grown up with. Nope she surely wasn't.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:06, Wed 07 Aug 2013.

"Just leave them here, thank you," she told the man in response to his question before returning her attention to Taron.  She felt his hands slip down around her waist and she briefly flashed back to Boston and all the 'gentlemen' that would try to lay hands on her, but there was also something else in the feelings that stirred, something pleasant.  But then he spoke and she could not help but burst out laughing at his still broken Spanish.
            "Oh, you certainly haven't changed, you still can slaughter my language, you silly boy!  Only pequeña, not uno.  And even then it should be una.  Good thing I speak better English!"

She pulled back from the embrace and her gaze lowered to the ground between them, the smile slowly fading as she spoke.  "I am so sorry about your father.  Sorry I was not here."
            At the time she had little say in things, despite having come of age.  Family honour and all that.  Later on she had felt  bad writing to him about her petty problems after reading his letter, even if at the time she continued to write a couple more times, partly being angry with him that he never wrote another letter.

She looked up at him in time to see the grin and expression before they changed after her words about his father and she realised she was perhaps too close to him for proper manners, maybe even embarrassing him.  She had indeed changed and she was no longer the little tomboy she used to.  At school they tried to teach her that and the effect it could have on men.  For better and worse.  Later on she learnt first-hand how it did indeed affect men.
            Then again, she might have misread the grin and the look he gave her.  Even so she backed off another half-step to gently free herself and started to straighten out her dress, still dusty from her fall.
            The thought of her fall caused a spurt of laughter, quickly halted by a hand and an apologetic look at Taron.
            "Perdóname, I just remembered my ladylike homecoming."  She dared a tentative smile, awaiting his reaction.  It was so good to see him again, and he was no little boy any more.  While he did look very much the same he too had grown, and she did not mind what she saw, not one bit.  She was unaware that she had begun to stare and how her smile shifted towards a more alluring nature.  She really was home and it really was him.

  He still could not believe she was here, right in front of him. Shaking his head he could do nothing more than laugh like a star struck school boy.
"It is great to see you Lola, we need to catch up, I can't wait to hear about how you became a lady" He was still grinning but he wish he'd never said that. Sure she was a tomboy, but there was no mistaken she was all woman and no longer the fifteen yer old girl that had left at the insistence of her father. Not that the five years mattered to Taron, at fifteen he knew she was always going to be special to him, and the look she was giving him now showed, at least to him, she felt the same.
   To break the silence and the awkwardness of his stupid grin, he looked over at the Montoya ranch hand, Tomas was his name if Taron remembered right, and he nodded over in his direction. " Looks like your father sent for you, I'll lend a hand in stowing yer bags on the buggy, and if it's okay with you I'd love to accompany you home"

Lola's expression reflected the brief puzzlement and amusement of his behaviour, but only for a moment.  Upon his mention of her becoming a lady she had to laugh, however, and bent her head to give him a mock scolding.  She was not convinced that she had become a lady at all.  A woman, yes, but a lady?  Not really.  The school mistress would probably agree with that conclusion, if not to her face of course, or even to her father.  It was a matter of pride, or something.
            Taron diverted the attention to the ranch hand sent by her father to transport her home and her gaze followed his.
            "Yes, I much rather ride home, but, oh, these things aren't made for riding properly in," she said and looked down at her getup, "if you try to sit in a proper saddle you end up with a bunch to sit on, and if you try to ride in one of those sideways monstrosities they call 'side saddle' or whatever, trust me, you feel like you have no control over the horse beyond trotting and turning, por el amor de Dios, what a nightmare!"  She lifted the skirts to show him what an insane contraption she was wearing, briefly exposing her calves in a highly unladylike manner, before dropping them again.
            "I am telling you, first thing I will do is to tear this porquería off and cram it as far into the wardrobe I can!"  A proclamation and a sacred vow all in one.  "Oh, but wait until you see what I picked up!  Absolutely great for riding and shooting and running around in!  Oh," she said again, getting rather excited, "and guns!  I got me a new revolver and rifle, my very own!  I need to shoot them in a bit more, but I'm sure you'll like those too!"

She turned around quick enough to cause her now loosened hair to fly towards Taron's face then bent over to reach into the coach for her handbag.  Her teacher would have been distraught at the outrageous display she offered with her derrière facing him.
            "Yes, please, do come with us, I have so much to ask you!  And I want to hear what you think of my new outfit too," she said still facing away and not thinking of his offer to help with the bags.  Old habits die hard, she was a living proof of that.
            "Ah, there!"
            She pulled herself out and turn around again, a bag in each hand, beaming happily at him.  A lock of hair caught on her face and she blew at it to move it away from her eye, in vain.  She grinned and blew again while tossing her head, yet without much success.  The face shifted into a slightly annoyed one as she attempted to focus her best angry stare at the offending lock of hair.

  As much as he tried, he couldn't shake the stupid grin on his face. Lola wasn't making it any easier for him. She just rattled on, just like always, some things never change. Try as he might he couldn't keep up with her. She just went on and on. Taron caught enough to know that he had missed her, more than he would like to admit.
  Next he knew she had her hands full with a couple bags. Tomas had gathered up the rest and was strapping them down. Still grinning he looked at her and that wayward strand of hair. Her face was priceless and he knew she hated not being able to move that damn lock. That alone made him giggle as he reached up and lightly brushed her cheek with the back of his hand as he brushed the hair from her face, his hand s[ending an extra second or two there. Then he winked.She should have known what was coming next.
  Fast as a rattler, Tarons knife was in his hand, he looked at the dress Lola seemed to despise. His eyes moved over to where he had left Cocoa and then back to Lola and he grinned. "Well, My Lady we can fix that contraption your wearing to ride."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:46, Tue 18 Feb 2014.

As always Taron was there to help her when she needed it most, whether it was to get up a cliff, secure a stubborn knot or overcome an errant lock of hair.  True, this was the first time for the lock of hair but Lola sort of hoped it may perhaps not be the last.  His lingering hand melted away any remaining annoyance and spawned a small, almost shy smile.
            The smile vanished as he drew his knife, though, and she back-stepped, shaking her head wildly.
            "No nonono no!  I need to at least let my father see me in this once, and beside, mi amigo, this cost more than your old café nag over there!  No, once I'm home and bañarse, maybe then you can cut it to pieces...  But you can't stay for bañarse!  And not while I'm, ah, usar it!  Wear.  Not while I wear it!"

She laughed and shook her head again, less wild this time, trying not to think of bathing and Taron at the same time.
            "Now, don't be fjolo, help me with the bags.  But you can ride  along, if you want?  Hm?"  She gave him a big smile and half offered him one of the bags she was holding.  The one without the gun in.