Elias Hanes

> I'm not a good man. I lie. I cheat. I steal. I kill.
>
> — Elias Hanes

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Eileen Hanes †, Mother (d. 1885)

## Introduction

Elias Hanes was born on July 29th, 1872, growing up to an impoverished and troubled background. He fled west to avoid legal troubles, and settled in New Hanover under the alias of Lucius Gray after being presumed dead by his bounty hunter pursuers. After a failed series of get-rich-quick schemes, Hanes began working as an assistant working for Dr. Franklin Fitzgerald, and is currently under the employment of Sheriff Christian "Church" Caldwell in between his usual scams.

Presently, he lives near the border of New Hanover and Lemoyne at Gill Landing with his fiancée Maisie Winters and their pet racoon Bandit.

## Biography

Elias Joseph Hanes was born in Chicago, Illinois to Eileen Hanes and an unknown man. Though Elias never knew his father, he was often told stories by his mother who claimed his father was a wealthy magnate. For a time, Elias believed his father would return one day to lift him and his mother out of poverty, but these hopes slowly waned over time as he grew up and came to the conclusion that his mother had simply made up the tales.

Though he received a primary education, Elias quickly got involved with local street gangs, learning more about how to pull a scam than to read or write. The streets quickly toughened up the young Hanes, who made that point none more clear than to a boy who had referred to his mother as 'Syphilis Sally'. Indeed, Eileen had taken on prostitution to help make ends meet, much to the family's shame. Elias himself was eventually forced to drop out of school at the age of nine to take a job in the factory, in order to help his mother keep up with the growing cost of living. The work was especially brutal for a child, and the memories of child laborers having limbs crushed in the machines forever would imprint themselves in the mortified boy's mind.

As time went on, Eileen's health waned. She passed from pneumonia when Elias was only fourteen. Unable to meet the demands of his apartment's rent, Elias became unwilling to continue working at the factory and fell off the wagon, leaving his job to go back to his childhood scams. This proved to be a dreary existence for him. Most of his escapades resulted in him being beaten or chased off. Whenever he was successful, Elias often only collected scraps to take back with him. However, one of these failures proved to be a saving grace for him, even though Elias would seldom admit it.

The would-be victim, Wayne Wright, caught Elias dead to rights with a hand in his pocket, attempting to steal a gold pocket watch. Though Wright managed to thwart the theft, he insisted Elias pay back his 'debt', lest he turn him over to the local police. Thus, Elias began working as a custodian for Wright's theater. Though he went a month without pay to cover this debt, Elias was provided a room (albeit merely a broom closet) and amenities, and was eventually paid on top of that. All in all, it turned out to be an improvement for Elias's lot in life, though he still quietly resented Wright for his self-aggrandizement and condescension. In Elias's mind, the man had only done all of this to pat himself on the back for straightening out a dirty street rat, while getting near-free labor in the process.

Still, things only improved for Elias. He quickly fell head over heels for one of the troupe's lead actresses, Rebecca Clinton. In a bid to impress her, Elias learned to play the mandolin and played a song for her backstage. The two struck up a friendship, which quickly escalated to an affair unto itself. Unexpectedly, this musical talent also caught the attention of Wright, who enlisted Elias as part of the theater's musical band.

Eventually, Elias moved out of that dank broom closet and in an apartment with Rebecca. They often spent long nights reviewing her scripts, and in turn she'd use them to help teach Elias to read more fluently. She was a soft and patient soul, from which Elias derived a romantic side he never thought he was capable of having.

After Wright closed the theater, the two lovers moved from Chicago to a little town called Evansdale, near the border of Illinois and Missouri. There, Wright opened another theater, hoping to cater to the entertainment appetite of small town folks while avoiding the competition of the big city. At the behest of Rebecca, Elias was offered a supporting role in one of the first productions, in part to compensate for the limited number of actors available. This turned out to be the best thing that could've happened to Elias up to that point. His performance proved to be very popular with both the cast and the director, and he was offered more leading roles in future productions. In his own way, Elias became a star of the town.

This success, however, proved to be short-lived. The revenue from ticket sales grew to be insufficient to keep up with the debts Wright had began to accrue. As a result, he turned to more illicit means to earn cash, thus converting to his old theater to something of a cellar for illicit moonshine being moved from Missouri into Illinois. Wright enlisted Elias's help to have the product delivered across state line, in no small part reminding him of the "kindness" Wright had shown Elias when they'd first met. The arrangement did prove lucrative for the two of them for a time, and Elias himself became more financially dependent on it was Wright's interest in maintaining the theater itself waned. However, it proved to be quite strenuous on Rebecca and Elias's relationship.

Rebecca, disapproving of such dangerous ventures, grew suspicious of Elias's involvement by his long absences from home. Elias himself was never very specific to Rebecca about the details of his new employment. Indeed, it was very dangerous, as the family which supplied Wright had many enemies who sought their own stranglehold on the moonshine trade. Being chased by both the rival families and the local law wasn't uncommon, though they usually let up once he'd crossed the state line. Still, it was a miracle that his deliveries had gone off without complications as much as they had, but this didn't last. A chase quickly went awry when Elias struck a rock, losing the front right wheel of Wright's wagon. Unable to move the moonshine on his own, he ran for his life, and the product was lost.

Wright was furious about his failure, and viciously took his frustration out on Elias. Furthermore, he outright refused to pay him his due. For Elias, who had already began to suspect Wright was low-balling him on his payout, this was the last straw. He broke into Wright's home and stole what valuables he could from the safe, then returned to his apartment to convince Rebecca to run away with him. She refused and they argued, perhaps the first time he'd ever done so. When he walked out of that apartment, Elias didn't realize that it'd be the last time he'd speak to her, until he returned that morning to find a goodbye letter from her. That was only the beginning of the troubles to come.

It didn't take long for Wright to discern that Elias has betrayed him, and he sent his armed goons to shake him down in an alleyway. When word got back that Elias had fled them, that was all the confirmation Wright needed. Thanks to the wealth his moonshine operation gave him, Wright had managed to exert some influence over the small town and wiggled his way into a few pockets, which he was sure to make full use of. A hefty bounty was put out on Elias, forcing him to flee the town entirely.

Though Elias crossed the state line, he was pursued by bounty hunters over the next several months. He jumped from one town to another, living by different aliases. Most of the money he stole in the first place was used to help keep him mobile. Try as he might, however, the hunters were never far behind. They finally caught up with him in a little town called Springdol, having followed up on the description of a snake-oil salesman who'd been making his rounds. Elias did himself no favors, of course, having attracted more attention to himself by playing in the local carnival to earn an extra buck. His performance was interrupted, and the hunters chased him deep into the bayou neighboring the town. Though Elias thought he'd lost them, he was eventually caught up with by one of the hunters, who attempted to drown him in the river. In a sheer moment of fight or flight, Elias managed to get ahold of the bounty hunter's Peacemaker, which he used to bludgeon him to death with. Without having even a moment to process the unspeakable act he'd just committed, Elias fled and was no heard from again by the people of Missouri. No body was found, leading the hunters to believe that both Elias and their comrade had been eaten by the local wildlife.

With what little money he had left, Elias managed to catch a ride on a river boat, which crossed into Lemoyne and dropped him off in Saint Denis. Quietly, he repressed his recent experiences and recklessly spent what little money he had left having a suit tailored, hoping to start anew with the life he'd always wanted. This turned out to be a horrible financial decision. With no employment prospects in sight, Elias turned to Silas Easton's call for gunpowder in hopes for easy cash. First, he stole the gunpowder around Shady Belle, after discovering the location on a trip with Dr. Franklin Fitzgerald who had befriended shortly after arriving in Saint Denis. Then, he ventured into New Austin and broke into the mine at Gaptooth Breach. The latter incident was disastrous for Elias, who was shot by a fellow traveler on the road. He barely made it to Valentine on his own and had to be taken to Saint Denis for treatment, nearly dying on the journey there. To add insult to injury, Elias had only earned a dollar for his trouble.

After treating his wounds, Dr. Fitzgerald hired Elias as an assistant for his office in Valentine, charging him with maintaining inventory and medical records. However, the two functioned more as a travelling pair, which was how he came to meet Maisie Winters. She grew curious about him, suspecting there was more to him than what he'd let on. Elias, in turn, became intrigued by her. The two started spending time together, which eventually culminated in a conversation at Shady Belle where they revealed to each other intimate details about one another's lives and psyches.