He wasn't really a big, strong guy or even tall. Richard was just a man. One of us, it would seem.
He heeded the call of the NCR to support the War Effort. But, like many, the patriotism was mixed with a hint of greed, maybe need?
To feed a family, a man needs currency. And the currency this day and age is caps.
Even if the NCR wanted to pay in paper money, and even if the exchange rates were horrible, it was still money. It was still a cap closer to the next loaf of bread and piece of meat.
But the NCR doesn't always win. Sometimes, grounds are lost, or left unprotected with no real notification.
Left to the bandits, the people groaned. Safety, lost.
In one such homes, Richard had a family.
A tragedy it was to find such a homecoming. Wife and child. Stabbed a few times.
Aside the splats of blood on their chests, they almost looked peaceful. Sleeping ragdolls on the floor.
Like Angels at rest.
Service rifle in hand, he hunted for the culprits.
Tens, hundreds, thousands of miles, he would hunt down the bandit group that did this injustice to his family and torture them all until they beg for death.
Such was his anger.
With the good part of the afternoon gone, his search was unfruitful.
His fellow NCR comrades however had found a man in the area, surrendering himself as he had but a knife.
No match against the mass produced but still effective Service Rifles.
The necklace of Richards wife was found in his hand, used to bargain for his freedom.
He was, by all accounts, a bandit. But he looked more the part of a worn out and desperate thief.
A beggar, a worm.
Richard was informed, and did not take long to find his colleagues.
But by the time he had arrived, gunshots were heard.
The man turned out to have a grenade in his pocket, and seemed intent on using it.
He wasn't fast enough.
So there he was, revenge taken away from Richard, dropping to his knees besides the corpse.
For a moment he stared, seemingly broken.
Not knowing what to do, he turned his gaze toward the dropped grenade.
Slowly he picked it up. The pin was still secure.
"DROP THE NADE, RICHARD. YOU KNOW THE RULES."
He did know. Since the Powder Gangers, explosives were being put tabs on.
Explosives were to be confiscated by a soldier on duty and immediately sent toward storage.
He was off duty, he shouldn't be holding that.
Rules, laws. He clenched his hand around the grenade. Something had snapped within him.
Only too fresh his scars of the war, of his friends, dropping like flies in but one of many battles…
A family gone, his revenge taken by the very country that's now ready to turn against him on the spot.
It was like a bad joke, but nobody was laughing. Nobody would, but him.
So when he was told to stand down by some rookies, fresh meat, boys who never tasted their first battle, he did not comply.
He looked them straight in the eyes. And as they gazed back, they saw there was nothing left to read.
A void where his soul should be, they felt unrefined fear, so they steadied their aim on him.
A cackle starts, and he begins a sudden and fierce sprint, right at them, grenade in hand.
Bullets were fired aplenty, some even hitting him, but stop he did not.
On his stride forward, his hand pulled the pin, and rolled the grenade forward between their legs.
They flinched, a sign of their inexperience, turning toward the impending explosion.
They were ready to jump away, but Richard had dashed right into their back, dropping one of the poor fools right on the deadly pineapple.
The explosion mangled the man, largely sparing Richard.
Raising himself from gory remains, almost resembling a Rorschach test.
The explosion hadn't been entirely blocked. Some of the explosion hit the other soldier right in the ankles.
And as he whined in pain, Richard calmly walked to the lifeless corpse of the Bandit he thought his family's murderer, and took his knife.
The soldier saw him coming, crawling backwards desperately as he waved his hand, begging for mercy.
But Richard had no ears for it anymore. He wanted to drop down to his knees, and plant this knife in the boys chest.
An undiscriminating thirst for blood. Any blood.
Three lie dead now, four if you count the heart of this broken man.
His hands messy with blood, and the sands of the Mojave sticking on it.