Callie Hart

* Casual
* "Business"

## Introduction

**Callie Hart**, a 27 year old originally from New York, is the leader of the Dead Rabbits. To everyone aside from her chosen family, Callie masquerades as a girl from Georgia who took over a family friend's ranch as they got too old to manage it. She often keeps to herself when dealing with new people, though she is not entirely standoffish in social situations. Callie knows when to be friendly and when to be cutthroat, and expresses her anger in reserved and cold ways.

## Biography

### Childhood and Youth

On a spring morning in the year of 1872, a small infant bundled in a nest of blankets was left on the doorstep of a small orphanage in New York City. The owner of the orphanage quickly brought her inside, and christened her Callie - a name he derived from the calico fabric she was dressed in. Callie was only a couple months old at the time she was dropped off at the orphanage - and Mrs. Hart, the owner, was already struggling with an orphanage at its limit. Still, she could not turn away a baby in need. Mrs. Hart housed Callie in her own room, hoping that by the time she grew to need her own space, one would be available to her.

That never happened. When Callie grew too old to be sleeping in the same, small room as Mrs. Hart, she was instead set up in a small corner in the orphanage’s modest living room. Every morning, she’d have to fold up her makeshift bedding so that the space could be used for the other children. Though she and the other children received some education from Mrs. Hart, Callie only knew the basics of reading and arithmetic.

In her free time, when chores were all taken care of, Callie took to the streets of New York. Though Mrs. Hart was always kind, Callie disliked every aspect of living in the orphanage - from the shared amenities and the incessant noise to the messiness of her peers. As such, she would spend every available moment she could outside and away from the orphanage. As she grew older, Callie would often venture further and further away from the slums she lived in, always being careful to stick to herself and not draw any attention - out of fear of being caught for loitering and brought back to the orphanage.

It was when on one of these escapades in her 15th year that Callie met a boy her age who introduced himself as George Albers. He was charming and sweet, and didn’t look at her like the other passersby in the area did. The two spent many hours discussing their lives as they walked around the same block over and over again, completely entranced in their conversation.

Callie learned that George was from a wealthier family - one that made their money from the railroads. He told her about the different places he’d been - and which ones he thought she’d enjoy. He told her about the family business, and how he was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. He also told her how, secretly, he aspired to study law instead, but could never relay that to his father.

In turn, Callie told George everything about herself. She told him that she never knew who her parents were, and that she grew up having to share everything she “owned”. She told him how traveling outside of her neighborhood was always the best part of her day, and how all the places he mentioned sound like a dream to visit. She also told him that she’d never considered what she aspired for her future self, because she didn’t know what she liked to do except be away from home.

From that point on, two met as often as they both could. Callie would rush to finish her chores early to have more time to spend with George before he had to be whisked away for supper. For nearly a year, the two had these secret rendezvous where they shared everything about themselves to each other. They fantasized about trips they would take together, how nice it would be to walk down the sidewalk hand-in-hand, and about George’s career as a lawyer.  All things that would never come to fruition.

### A Fateful Encounter

Eventually, word got around to the Albers that their only son was seen fraternizing with a lower class citizen. The couple kept hold of this information for some time, waiting to see what would come out of their son’s relationship. When George came to them one day, spouting nonsense about going to law school to become a lawyer, the Albers knew it was time to act. Whoever it was their son was seeing was distracting him from his true course, and was a negative influence. She was to be “taken care of” by some of their hired hands before she became any more of a problem for them.

Callie hadn’t even gone five minutes from the orphanage when she was dragged down an alley and beaten to a bloody pulp by two masked men, all the while they warned her to stay far away from George and taunted her for believing she could ever end up with someone of his status. After she passed out from her injuries, the two men fled the scene and left her for dead. By some twist of fate, a passerby saw Callie lying face down in the alley, and rushed to her side. The man - Elliot Cain, leader of the Dead Rabbits - took her to a nearby townhouse, where she received medical care from one of their own. It took a long time for Callie to become coherent enough to hold a conversation, but when she was, Cain offered her a choice: join their ranks and be taught how to survive, or be thrown back into the never-ending cycle of despair she was destined for.

With her already-mediocre life falling apart at the seams, the choice was easy for Callie. Over the next ten years, Callie learned everything she needed to learn from the Dead Rabbits: how to fight, how to shoot, and what the definition of family really meant. They looked out for one another, protect each other, and did what they had to in order to survive in the unforgiving slums.

By the time Callie was 27, Elliot came to the group with a grandiose scheme: rob the biggest bank in New York, and be set for life. The idea was met with many scoffs and raised eyebrows from the group, but after deliberation and discussion, eventually everybody agreed to go through with Cain’s plan.

It was during the escape part of the plan that Elliot Cain was shot in the chest by a lawmen. Callie and another member carried his fallen body through the narrow and maze-like alleys while others kept the officers at bay. Several men on both sides fell, and those who stayed behind were often arrested if they surrendered. By the time they reached their refuge, Cain had succumbed to his bullet wound, and only a few of the Dead Rabbits remained.

With their leader and many more gone or captured, the remaining members were at a loss for what to do. They buried Cain - the only body they had - in an unmarked grave outside of the city. Perhaps prompted by a fear of the uncertainty that lay before them, the group also killed a rabbit over Cain’s grave and distributed the paws to each individual. A legend one of them had heard mentioned that the feet of a rabbit killed over notorious graves held more luck to them, and it seemed only fitting to have such a charm as a memento of their leader.

Splintered and wanted by the law, what was left of the Dead Rabbits skipped town. Callie had heard stories of the west and the frontier before, and figured it was as good a place as any to lay low from the law for some time. It wasn’t until the group was on the road that the topic of leadership arose. Now that they had some time to think, and some room to breathe without being so heavily hunted down, it was important to decide who would take Cain’s place. Callie threw her name into the ring first, and was backed up by Jason Donohue - a long time friend from her early days as an initiate. The rest of the group agreed, and from that point on Callie became the head of what was left of her family.

After arriving in Odessa, the group set up in an old ranch near Tumbleweed - far from the eyes of any prying lawmen - and made up a cover story of being horse trainers and sellers. The market was already well sustained with other sellers, which made it likely they wouldn’t need to worry about actual clientele knocking on their door. Their main goal, for now, is to lay low; but with their entire livelihoods being based in trickery and underhandedness, it’s only a matter of time before they settle into their familiar ways.