Manuel Valero

Manuel Francisco Valero de La Cruz was born on a ranch in Central Valley, the youngest of six. His parents focused on putting him and his siblings to work, as opposed to raising them. Not that they could be blamed for that--the post-nuclear wasteland was harsh and unforgiving, especially to the average individual, and there was never a guarantee that your children would grow old enough to take on your responsibilities after you were gone.

As a result, however, Manuel often found himself drowned out by his other siblings. Worse, still, his parents tried to instill a sense of competition among them. Those that worked hardest--or at least sucked up the most--would be doted upon and praised, while the others would be given snide comments in an attempt to ‘encourage’ them.

Manuel mainly helped out around the ranch by shooting varmints that tried to eat the hay or attack the bighorners. But it didn’t matter how hard Manny worked or how much he tried to prove himself, for he always felt like he was unwanted--that his parents regarded him as another mouth to feed. It didn't take too long for Manuel to start thinking about leaving the ranch, to make a name for himself and change the world. (Those grandiose ideas got you glares at the dinner table, however, so he rarely found himself vocalizing them.)

One day, while Manuel was tending to the market stall in town, a rowdy group of strangers stopped by. They were in town, picking up supplies for a long journey. They were unlike anyone that Manuel had seen before, wielding flashy guns and dressed like proper cowboys. They declared themselves as free men of justice, seeking out bounties and other bad men in the wastes to make it a better place. The leader of the gang likened the posse to Robin Hood and his band of merry men. They would be staying in town for a few days, then hitting the road to new pastures up north.

When the posse left town, Manuel went with them. He was young and naive, but the gang taught him what they knew. They raised him collectively like his own family never had, taught him how to read and write better. Manuel was a crack shot, and could hit any target within 0.3 seconds from a hundred paces away.

Fifteen years passed. The gang found themselves bouncing between locations as more enemies were made. The NCR began pushing against the gangs and raiders in their territory, and the posse slowly found themselves falling into behavior that they formerly punished with their own frontier justice. They justified it to themselves saying that it was only temporary, in order to survive. Within time, ‘temporary’ became ‘habitual’, until there was little difference between the gang’s former targets and themselves.

One day, the posse decided to hit a local caravan route. An independent trader would be running through later that day, with minimum guards. It would be an easy robbery, and no blood would have to be shed. What the gang didn’t anticipate, however, was that one of their number had decided to betray them.

As Manuel charged alongside his posse down into the valley, a group of Legion soldiers attacked. The posse members were slaughtered, with Manuél as the only survivor. He and the caravan survivors were taken prisoner, to be escorted back to the Legion’s camp and enslaved. Thinking quickly, Manuel was able to make a break for it across the Colorado River--but not without dragging along another prisoner chained to him….