Setting: Manifest Destiny – Out West
They started to emerge in the War Between the States. The Touched.
Whether they were touched by God or the Devil was anyone’s guess.
Men, women, slaves and indians all started having powers that weren’t normal.
You could shoot a man and he wouldn’t fall down dead.
A slave would tear the iron chains binding him to pieces and walk across water to freedom.
Heck, I even met a woman who could take a chicken, cut off his head, pluck ‘em, toss ‘em in an empty pot, and then pull up a live, new baby chicken out of that same pot. She made a soup out of the dead one. Damn tasty, too. She made a nice living selling eggs and fryers.
After Lee’s surrender, the nation had enough to deal with. With free slaves moving North, carpetbaggers moving South, and veterans coming home minus a limb or two, there was no room for the Touched.
We pushed them Out West.
Out West, a man who can throw cannon balls stands a good chance of making a life for himself – if he can survive the harsh winters, burning summers, and indian raids.
Out West, a former slave can farm his own land and maybe not get lynched. If that slave can harvest crops faster than ten men combined, he might even make some coin.
Out West, life is hard and only hard men will make it. Problem is, we’re not just sending the hard ones – we’re sending them all.