Just a cowboy like me

Full Name Cashel Cash Whitaker Aliases/Nickname(s) None DOB/Age September 16, 1830 / 33 Hometown/Time Period Territory of Colorado, 1850’s Citizenship(s) Texas United States

Height/Build 6’2” and rugged with broad shoulders Hair/Eyes Brown hair and blue eyes Cash’s hair is always slightly too long, as if he can’t remember to go get it cut. He typically sports slightly more than a five o'clock shadow and a mustache, but he shaves the scruff off occasionally. He has birds tattooed across his back as if in flight towards his right shoulder: a swallow, wren, paper crane, bluebird, lark bunting and a sparrow. Coordinated tattooed on the inside of his left forearm. He looks like he spends a lot of time outdoors, including a perpetual tan and calloused hands that he’s had since Colorado.

Job Title Wrangler Length of Employment Eight years, including internship Partner Rhodri Housing One bedroom townhouse or house with his new roommate, Rattler Recruitment Cash was ready to put down some roots, so figured the best use of his skills would be as a time cowboy for TEA since he already knew how to rope and ride. Work-related Skills Cash is extremely hardy and hard to kill — his mom would say it was because of his thick head. His life as a rancher set him up with the ability to survive just about anything, have good navigational skills, can adapt easily, knows how to blend in, can tie a mean knot, literally wrangle, is a good shot with a gun or a knife, is very strong, good at hand to hand combat, and can concentrate for long stretches of time.

The Whitaker family earned their place in history by fighting for Texas’ independence from Mexico. As a reward, they were granted a vast tract of land in the northern reaches of the territory in 1836—land that would later become part of present-day Colorado. Whitaker Ranch flourished, managing to steer clear of most of the conflict during the Mexican-American War. By the 1850s, however, Cash Whitaker had little interest in the rising political tensions. He wasn’t keen on spending his life as just another ranch hand on the family spread—especially with his inheritance diluted by a brood of siblings. Cash had bigger ambitions. As soon as Texas ceded its claim on Colorado, he packed up and joined the wave of westward migration, chasing fortune on the Oregon Trail. Was he hoping to strike it rich? Absolutely. Was he also dodging a likely marriage to the neighbor’s daughter? Most likely. It was early October, and the wagon train had decided—foolishly, in Cash’s opinion—to press through a narrow mountain pass before the first real snow hit. They were half right. The storm came early and mean, dropping a white curtain over everything. Visibility dropped to nothing, and somewhere along the ridge, Cash’s horse lost its footing. The animal slid, and so did Cash, both of them crashing down a slope. By sheer dumb luck—or the stubborn Whitaker streak —he didn’t die. A scout found him the next morning, half-frozen and talking to a pine tree he’d named “Margaret.” They hauled him out, reset his leg with a splint made from wagon wood, and poured whiskey down his throat until he stopped shaking and was drunk enough to believe in this thing called the Department of Time Assimilation. He’s still not sure what tea this “wrangler” gave him, but he sure as shit wasn’t interested in actually dying, so he agreed to go with them. Naturally, it took Cash some time to get his boots under him in the new century. He’d passed his assimilation assessment, sure—but that didn’t mean he was anywhere near comfortable in the twenty-first century. Truth be told, he still isn’t. Too many blinking lights, not enough horses. He stuck close to TEA for the next three years, taking a job behind the bar at the Clock and Crown to earn a steady paycheck and keep from going stir-crazy. But that itch he’d always had—the one that pushed him west in the first place—started scratching again. So he packed up, pocketed what he’d earned, and went chasing the version of the frontier he’d missed the first time around. The flight to the Pacific was, in his words, “hell in a metal coffin.” Cash still swears man wasn’t meant to be that high off the ground unless God or gravity had something to do with it. And as for the ocean? Big, loud, and too damn wet. Turns out, he’s a mountain man after all—even if one nearly killed him. At twenty-five, tired of drifting, he came back to TEA for good. This time, he meant to stay. He signed on as an Intern, started learning the ropes, and slowly but surely carved out a place for himself as a wrangler. So here he is, eight years later with two new puppies to raise after his old partner decided to retire.

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