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New Austin
Armadillo
Law Enforcement
Leigh
Leigh Johnson
"My cause is to keep this town from turning into a living Hell for the folks who live here."
Voiced by: Anthony De Longis
The no-nonsense District Marshal of Armadillo.
- Cool Old Guy: He might be older, but there's no denying you shouldn't get on his bad side if you value your freedom, or your life.
- Cowboy Cop: He’d kind of have to be given the setting of the game. Johnson would much prefer that the town of Armadillo stay quiet, but when trouble comes around he certainly isn’t afraid to go for his gun and put down any bandits causing problems for the people he is charged with defending.
- Guns Akimbo: In cutscenes only, unfortunately.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Has quite a cynical view of Armadillo and of his profession, but he protects the town and surrounding area nonetheless.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: To an extent.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: According to the epilogue, he eventually retired as Marshal and moved as far away from Armadillo as he could.
- The Sheriff: Despite being a Marshal.
Eli & Jonah
Eli and Jonah
Eli on the left, Jonah on the right.
- Voiced by: Frank Noon and Brad Carter, respectively.
Two deputies in Armadillo. They accompany John and Marshal Johnson on a few early New Austin missions.
- Ambiguously Jewish: Which Herbert Moon helpfully points out.
- Butt-Monkey: Often on the receiving end of John's jokes, especially Jonah.
- Clueless Deputy: Jonah in particular is as dumb as a post. Eli is at least a little more competent.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: They may look and act like incompetent buffoons, but they are definitely capable of holding their own in a fight.
- Fat and Skinny: In a bit of an inversion, the heavyset Eli seems to be smarter and more competent than the rail-thin Jonah.
- Nice Guy: Eli is very friendly and easy-going, compared to his hotheaded Jerkass partner, Jonah.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Jonah doesn't view Native Americans very fondly, though this is shown to mostly be ignorance, he's never met one, and all he's heard are that they are "savages".
- Those Two Guys: Their brief screentime is largely comic relief.
MacFarlane's Ranch
Bonnie
Bonnie MacFarlane
"Change is only good when it makes things better."
Voiced by: Kimberley Irion
A Rancher that helps out John early in the game.
- Action Girl: She is one of the few female characters capable of handling a gun.
- All Love Is Unrequited: It's implied that by the last time she meets John, she develops a crush on him. However it seems that she's moved on by the epilogue, where it's stated that she's married.
- The Cameo: She's one of the Strangers in the Online Mode in II.
- Deadpan Snarker: Like most characters, she has a dry wit.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Blonde and the most prominent of probably the handful of truly decent people in the series.
- Hanging Around: In the aptly named mission “Hanging Bonnie MacFarlane”, a number of thugs kidnap her and endeavour to rape her before lynching her. Depending on the player’s choice, John either gets in close and cuts the rope with his Bowie knife, or shoots the rope in order to save her life.
- Nice Girl: One of the friendliest characters that John meets in the game.
- Old Maid: Bonnie's 27 and unmarried, which counts for that era.
- Put on a Bus: While she shows up in the Online Mode in II (which takes place sometime during the very beginning of the main story), she and her family are not present in the Epilogue, having left the ranch during that time to avoid the cholera epidemic that's been plaguing New Austin.
- Shoot the Rope: One possible way to save her life in the mission “Hanging Bonnie MacFarlane”.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: She's implied to have started falling for John when he risks his life to save the ranch's horses when the barn is burning. Later, he saves her from being raped and hanged by thugs which likely added some Rescue Romance to her feelings. Even Abigail notices it and pokes fun at John for being oblivious. As mentioned above, however, the epilogue implies that she eventually got over him.
- Vague Age: She says she's 27 in 1911 as does some official out-of-universe material, but one of the in-universe newspapers claim she's 29; as there's more mentions of the former and Bonnie would knows her own age more than a newspaper writer, it's assumed she's 27.
Drew
Drew MacFarlane
"I've never once doubted my life here."
Voiced by: Chuck Kelley
Bonnie's father and the head of the MacFarlane ranch.
- Dented Iron: Bonnie remarks that he is frailer than he looks, despite being built like a bull.
- Determined Homesteader: He has certainly seen it all.
- Fire-Forged Friends: With John.
- Outliving One's Offspring: The poor guy lost five sons; two to disease, one to a bar fight, one to attempting to milk a bull, and one to a gunshot wound to the head.
- Rancher: He has headed his own ranch for many years.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never do find out what exactly his fate was in the epilogue.
Other Residents of New Austin
Nigel West Dickens
Nigel West Dickens
"...And I can tell you, with no uncertainty, that miracle cures are no laughing matter!"
Voiced by: Don Creech
A self proclaimed exposer of "Hippocratic frauds", though his own home remedies aren't especially on the level themselves. He ends up working with John on a number of occasions, and they develop an unusual friendship.
- Action Survivor: It's hard to notice, but there's scarring on his neck that comes from rope burn—meaning that he's survived at least one attempted hanging none the worse for wear.
- At Least I Admit It: He knows full well that he's a swindling cheat and prides himself on his transparency, at least when customers aren't around.Nigel West Dickens: This is America! Where a lying, cheating degenerate like myself can PROSPER!
- Became Their Own Antithesis: It is suggested that he did used to be hunter of charlatans, but later became one himself.
- The Chessmaster: He takes on this role for John's planned assault on Fort Mercer. Nigel is the one who arranges for Seth and Irish to get involved in the scheme, and even offers up his personal carriage to use as part of the "Trojan Horse" gambit.
- For Science!: Claims to be a man of science, but the truth is somewhat murky.
- Hidden Depths: Nigel may be an out-and-out charlatan and snake oil salesman, but he has a few tricks up his sleeve.
- His "cure-all" potion increases John's Deadeye ability, suggesting that it does have some curative powers.
- He proves a remarkable Information Broker for the assault on Fort Mercer, using his connections with Seth and Irish to get both men involved in the heist. He also devises a scheme based on the Trojan Horse to equip his carriage with a Gatling gun and have John emerge to give them an upper hand.
- During the assault itself, Nigel bravely enters the fort (which is full of armed criminals) and makes one of his grandiose speeches, buying the rest of the group time to get prepared. When the firefight begins, Nigel is right alongside the others, firing a pistol without flinching.
- In Undead Nightmare, his potions turn out to be excellent zombie bait. He also constructs the Blunderbuss for John; the gun is the most effective weapon against the undead in the whole game.
- Jerkass Has a Point: He's a swindler and chiseler, but he's right in that John's history of armed robbery takes away any moral high ground he may have had.
- Just Like Robin Hood: When John claims the Van Der Linde gang only robbed wealthy people to give their money to those who needed it, Nigel sneeringly refers to it as "a Robin Hood with spurs" and dismisses the idea out of hand.
- Large Ham: He's a Snake Oil Salesman in a time before microphones, it comes with the territory.
- Milking the Giant Cow: It's a rare occasion when his hands are still.
- Snake Oil Salesman: A classic example - though his tonic does actually make John's Deadeye go up, suggesting it may be Real After All.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: By the end of the game, his and John's relationship could be seen as this.
Seth
Seth Briars
"I don't eat, I don't sleep, I don't wash, and I don't care."
A maniacal treasure hunter that West Dickens sends John towards.
- Depraved Bisexual: States that he's had a wife and child once while implying that his relationship with Moses Forth was more than just partners.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Subverted; while robbing a grave he expresses disgust at one of the corpses he exhumes laying with his sister... but that's just because he doesn't like women, full stop.
- Hidden Depths: He might be a treasure-crazed, cadaver-befriending wretch, but he had a wife, kids and business before he went mad. It makes you wonder about the man before the map. And he shows a surprisingly honorable side when he holds up his end of the deal, helping John get into the fort even after the treasure is discovered to be nothing but a glass eye. Granted, John wasn't going to let him back out regardless, but Seth didn't make any attempt to dispute it or skip town.
- I Love the Dead: He expresses his fondness for the company of corpses over the presence of people openly and affectionately. It mostly seems platonic, but some of his lines suggest a willingness to take it further.
- The Mole: His role as part of the assault on Williamson is getting inside Fort Mercer and opening the gates for John and the others.
- The Pig-Pen: He's absolutely filthy due to his maniacal, narrow-minded obsession with finding the treasure.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The "treasure" he has Marston help him find turns out to just be a glass eye, upon which Marston forces him to fulfill his end of the bargain.
- Ultimately subverted. A newspaper that can be read after the epilogue shows that he ended up finding treasure after all, and has returned to his family and reopened his business.
- Shout-Out:
- West Dickens nicknames him Seth of the Dead.
- In Undead Nightmare he also plays cards with his now undead friend Moses, in similar fashion the ending of Shaun of the Dead shows Shaun playing video games with zombie-Ed
- Throw the Dog a Bone: In the epilogue it is mentioned that he actually found real treasure and became rich.
- He also has a prominent role in the Undead Nightmare DLC and generally fares very well within the Zombie Apocalypse.
- Younger Than They Look: You'd be forgiven for thinking he's maybe in his mid-late 40's or so. But he's actually around his late thirties. All those months of digging graves and looking for treasure hasn't been kind to him.
Irish
Irish
"They say God invented whisky to stop the Irish from rulin' the world."
An alcoholic arms dealer allied with West Dickens. Dickens sends John to look for him so he can find a machine gun to use during the assault on Fort Mercer.
- Accidental Suicide: How he ends up dying in the epilogue.
- The Alcoholic: You only ever meet him sober once.
- Cowardly Lion: While he does have a tendency to run away or show up late to most gunfights, he does fight back alongside John when they're attacked during the boat ride to Mexico.
- Dirty Old Man: At one point he holds two nuns at gunpoint and demands them to lift up their skirts.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": He's only ever referred to as "Irish".
- Nominal Hero: He's a sleazy, crass arms dealer. The only reason he can really be considered a "hero" is because he's assisting with the assault on Fort Mercer.
- Oireland: Well, obviously.
- Pet the Dog: His last words to John before he leaves for Mexico.Irish: You're an angry and a feck ugly man, but not a bad one.
- Undignified Death: A newspaper that can bought in the epilogue reveals that he (identified as an "Irish male, of unknown name") accidentally shot himself while using an outhouse.
