bakerstreet | Once again, if I'm not mistaken, this can contained tomato paste.

[Anne was there, with an antique rifle propped against her shoulder. She'd tell anyone who asked that it was one of Annie Oakley's rifles, one of the ones she performed with in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

A lucky few might even get to see her demonstrate some of Annie's famous trick shots.]

That a Marlin model 1891? Damn, looks like you take real good care of that. Never do like pump actions myself, bolt actions always done me much better. Got one I can't even pronounce the name but she's a damn nice rifle.

_{[He saw the gun first, but then he realized who he was talking to. It's rare to recognize a face somewhere that's not a history book.]}

Pleasure to meet you, miss Oakley. Always wondered if I'd ever run into you or Buffalo Bill one day.

_{[He offered a hand.]}

John Marston.

There was an easy smile at the first, "You've got a good eye." She was also fully prepared to use her usual explanation of 'some kind of great aunt or something' when the rest of that caught up to her as well and the smile went a little warmer and far more genuine.

She shifted her grip of the rifle so she could accept that handshake with a wink and: "Real good eye. Not used to being recognized at all, let alone so quick." The name niggled at something in her memory, one of those things that she'd mostly stored away and would take a minute or two to connect, "And I have to say it's always nice to meet a fan, Mr. Marston."

His handshake was likewise firm and he gave a little bow to his head, still just as much a gentleman as he was raised to be - in addition to all the other things he was raised to be. He gave a shrug to her surprise that she was recognized.

"Yeah, I got one of them minds. Can't tell you anythin' practical, but I know my guns, my horses, and pretty women of note. Had a cigarette card of you, back in time."

John nodded towards her rifle. "You wanna give a demonstration? I don't got my rifle with me, but," He tapped one of his holsters. In them, he had a pair of twin Smith & Wesson Model 3 Schofield revolvers in disgustingly fine condition.

"Could see which one of us needs target practice."

"Oh well that's going to be me, I can tell you that one right now." She replied, amusement curling under the answer, "Aside from a few of the tricks I don't keep sharp in general, not like I probably should." Not the same way she kept up on swordplay, but that came into use at work as well as at home as often as not.

Her brow lifted then, smile spreading, "But that ain't a 'no', I'm always down for a little friendly competition." That much was true, and anyone who knew her would say so.

"Friendly competition's the only kind of competition I abide by, anyway." The things that he doesn't abide, however, really don't want to be on that side of the line.

He nodded, "Ladies first." Not only was it polite, but it was because he couldn't not watch her take the first shots. He could show off later, right now he wanted to see the professional at work.

"I do like the sound of that." She replied, smiling and turning so she could gesture at the gallery set up in what was probably usually used as a dog run. A few paint cans and various sizes of glass bottle, even some canning jars with and without rocks to weight them.

Basically a whole lot of things that made the real good noises, plus a couple of paper targets pinned to the front of the hay bales everything else was set on top of.

"Now, I know it's not as exciting as cigarettes or edgewise cards, but safety's sake and all that." She handed him a billiard ball, "Go ahead and pick a target, lob that into it, if you would be so kind." She could reliably hit the ball twice and knock over -or shatter- whatever can or jar it would have landed in before it could. On a good day she could hit the ball three times before vacating its landing zone.

"I got playin' cards if you want to test out that crack shot aim you had, Miss Oakley. No doubt you still got it somewhere in you."

After a pop of his neck as he craned his head one way then the other, John did as instructed. He could have hurled the ball at almost absurd speed towards a jar, but decided, rather, to give her a chance to show off. Tossing it towards a mason jar, he kept his attention on Anne.

Hell, if she didn't take that offer up on the playing cards, he might have to let her throw them up for him.

As she'd expected, she hit the ball twice before shattering the jar he'd apparently aimed for, and because she was feeling saucy, she hit the ball again to knock it into one of the paint cans with a thunk.

She nodded once, clicking her tongue against her teeth, "Not bad. About as good as I've been doing lately." A wryly amused tilt of a smile followed, "Could always get better though, muscle memory and all, just have to warm up, it ain't gone to full atrophy yet."

Impressed, John gave a whistle, and nodded slowly, opening up one of the breast pockets of his vest, and set the deck of cards and their box down on a nearby table. "Not bad, Ms. Oakley, not bad," he commended, "Wasn't expecting the last bit there, that was pure flash."

He then looked at the setup and then the cards, before looking back at Anne. "I'll peg the ace and three beer bottles before the cards hit the ground." It was doable by human standards, but only if they had ages to perfect the trick. Now, were he to say he was going to do it with only one gun, that would've been pushing the line. He could, but he decided to use both his revolvers.

"At your go, miss."

"I wasn't expecting it either." She replied with a laugh, "Can't always pull it off, because, like you said, it's all flash." She considered the statement, but nodded all the same, "Ambitious. I like it." She also wasn't going to be the one to call someone out on having one party trick, because it wasn't like she was that much better off all in all.

She did however, accept the cards, performing a quick one-handed shuffle, mostly just to make sure they'd scatter properly, before squaring them with a solid tap against the edge of the table, "On three." She did, in fact, give a full three count before tossing the cards, one solid flick of her wrist and sweep of her thumb to make sure they formed a proper maelstrom.

John kept his hands just off his handguns, hovering in exactly the right place once Anne started to count. On three, those revolvers were out and shooting, the ace pegged first, and the bottles basically exploded. And just for a little more fun, he hit the last two beer bottles, which were on the far end of the wall from the others.

Then he performed a flourished spin of his guns and re-holstered them. "Yours was far more entertainin'."

"Don't sell yourself short." She replied, having given a brief, quiet clap at the demonstration, "Takes skill to do what you just did."

There was another easy smile, "Though I reckon anyone who recognizes this face." A quick gesture at her own, "Probably had some time to practice." Which wasn't a bad thing either as far as she was concerned, it was the only reason she could still get anywhere close to what she'd used to be able to do.

"I got some practice," John agreed, then lit a cigarette. "I even use it from time to time." Looking over at Anne, he knew she'd already had him clocked. It wasn't hard to do, for as blatant as he was about it.

"But hey, you gotta respect someone who does it for a livin'," Meaning her, "And makin' honest money with it. I never learned how that worked. I done honest work, but not with these." He leaned back against the table and crossed his ankles in front of him. "You got injured and had to retire, didn't you? Train accident?" He had a feeling he was right, or at least on the right track. "Woulda gone on 'til you was old and gray, I reckon."

Then he smirked and pointed vaguely at her hair, "Not that you go gray."

"Oh there's more snow on the mountain than there used to be, but I have, somehow, managed to avoid going fully gray." A nod followed, "Honestly me and Frank had already been looking for an excuse to retire, the accident just gave us one."

That smile twitched into place again, a little more impish than before, "And I'll let you in on the secret of making honest money at it. First thing is you've got to be born a woman, because after that anything you do as good as or better than a man is going to get branded 'a trick' and they'll pay you to keep doing it, like some kind of juggling bear."

"Well, I failed step one," John laughed, "But it makes plenty of sense. Most of the women I met got to work twice as hard to be seen as just as good as the men, when they wind up bein' even better than most everyone." He took a drag of his cigarette and tilted his head as he remembered:

"Knew this girl, way back, back when I was a kid practically. She was one of the most skilled cons and thieves I'd ever known. Folks'd fall for it every time 'cause they underestimated that a girl could even think to rob them, much less do it without them noticin'. She was somethin' else." And she was pretty as a picture, which had to have helped.

"But a lot of them trick gunslingers, they ain't no good in actual danger. You can hit a tin can, but how 'bout a movin' target that's shootin' back? You, I bet you could. Your gentleman coulda. Some of them fancy showmen though? Probably hadn't even seen that sorta thing up close."

He'd met his share of real gunslingers, and all of them save for one was lackluster at best, washed up for the most part, but at the worst, they were poseurs and morons.

She smiled, "No one ever suspects the girls, especially the pretty ones, it's how they get away with murder."

A thoughtful sound followed at the rest, nodding, but giving a little shrug as she replied, "Well, honing my skills with a flintlock on the rolling deck of a ship kind of makes trick shooting, even a moving target, an easy thing to pick up."

Mostly considering that firearms had improved in the hundred and fifty years or so between the two instances, it definitely made things easier on her in the long run.

"Hold up." He held his hand up and run ran his hand over his forehead, trying to figure out that puzzle. "You're sayin' you was sailin' before you was doin' western shows?" He needed to clear that mental hurdle before he could figure a little more out.

"Can't say I recall that part of your written history." Not that he necessarily read any of those histories. And he was a firsthand reason why going by written history was a bad plan, so he knew better than to take what may as well have been rumor as fact.

"And you'll have to forgive me on that one, I ain't so smart as to really figure how that fits in."

She laughed warmly, "I'd be surprised if anybody managed to make the connection, since it was a hundred and a half years beforehand and I was a different Anne at the time." That was usually enough of a clue for people to figure it out, as it was rare that anyone -even other immortals- knew enough about both Anne Bonney and Annie Oakley to patch together similarities, and rarer still that anyone would recognize her as both.

One particularly historically-minded Angel had, once, which had been a surprise to them as well as to her, and she made a quick mental note to get in touch, as it had been a while.

Immortal even before she was Annie Oakley? That was one mystery that John was having trouble figuring out, even when she offered that she was another Anne from history.

A hundred and fifty years prior to 1900. 1750. She predated America, even.

"You look damn good for someone pushin' 275, miss," he joked in lieu of a proper guess to her riddle. But then he got around to answering in a, "I don't know a whole lot about before the foundin' of the country, but I'm guessin', since you was fightin' on ships way back then, that means you were a pirate?"

That was the only possible, logical conclusion he could come to. He knew women were thought to be bad luck on ships, and that her using flintlocks and swords was indicative of the nature of her prior life.

He was still pondering it, though, as he finished his cigarette and then flicked the butt of it away. John was going through names in his head of pirates he'd heard about to jog his memory- Blackbeard, Captain Kidd (Who he now wondered if he'd become Billy The,) and then Calico Jack.
Calico Jack had women on his crew.
What the hell were their names? Mary... Reed, Reid, Read, something, and Anne--

"Anne Bonney. No kiddin'."

She could practically hear those mental gears grinding, but she wasn't going to interrupt, curious now to see if he would figure it out, though she did nod at the question of having been a pirate, because it was a logical conclusion, given superstitions at the time.

She grinned outright when he did finally puzzle through it, nodding again, "That's the one. And fair's fair, I'm still not entirely sure how I went from one to the other, lost myself for a while in the middle, I think. But here I am, living proof of the adage that legends never die."

John smiled as well when she confirmed his guess as correct, straightening up a bit and nodding. "You got a leg up on me, then. I didn't have a chance to live forever in a fine way like you. Kinda got thrown onto me on accident."

He shrugged one shoulder, not really that upset by it, at least not anymore. "You take what comes. But damn, two legends in one woman. That's a lot of work to live up to, I hope you know. You're givin' women somethin' to aspire to." And that alone was something for John to be impressed by.

"Oh I know it. Hear it at the museum sometimes. And not just from the interns saying they want to be just like me when they grow up, either, because they don't know, really.
But from the little five and six year olds who just beat their brothers at a swordfight, that's always the best."

She tilted her head from side to side, "Sometimes from the teens and twenty-somethings, too, that's always different though. That age is usually running away from something instead of aspiring to something like the littler ones are."

"I can't imagine havin' your job," John said honestly, "I get kids coming by the ranch for tours on occasion, sometimes gotta bust out the old stories of how the place was built by some gunslinger back in the day." He tilted his head over a proud grin. "Tell 'em that the writer grew up there, all that stuff that earned the ranch a place on the historic register. It's not exactly the same, I don't think, but kids aren't there to look up to nobody. They're there to hang out with horses."

That part was a-ok in John's book. He always encouraged kids to learn about horses. How to ride them, teach them, and take care of them. Luckily, his was one of the closer ranches to town, so a lot of folks brought their kids down to teach them.

"Aye, usually I leave the storytelling to Pat, he likes doing it and he's theatrical enough that the littler kids like it, but he usually talks me into it for the older ones, the almost-teens and teenagers who need something more romantical."

A shrug, "And I don't mind it, it's taking questions that does me in." A small smile, "And the way I figure, it'll be another century and change before I'm the same kind of comfortable sharing stories of the traveling show. Distance makes it easier."

Anne Bonney | Pirate of Legend & Lore (sort of) | OTA

Vampire variant? Vampire variant.

Don't see why not! She's cool with vampires

We all been knew she keeps weird company.

Always has!

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