Character Profile: Braden Cole

Character Profile: Braden Cole Braden Cole is another one I wanted to catch up on from Salem's Daughter. When we meet him, he's already deep into a revenge story. Darius murdered his wife and child, and Braden has spent weeks tracking him. He's a very capable gunfighter, but the man he's hunting keeps turning that skill into a frustrating answer to the wrong problem. He can win a gunfight. He can get through armed men, shoot accurately under pressure and put Darius down. The problem is getting him to stay down. Braden shoots him at the jail and finds that the body has disappeared. At the gallows, he does far more damage, and Darius still finds a way to continue through somebody else. You can feel Braden working through this with the tools he actually has. He knows how to fight a man. He doesn't yet understand what he would have to do to finish this particular enemy. That's why I think he works well alongside Anna. She has access to things he can't see, while he has the practical experience she desperately needs. Neither one starts out with all the answers. When they leave Salem, Braden openly admits he doesn't know how to stop Darius. Anna doesn't pretend she's ready either. She asks for time to make sense of her power and argues that they have a better chance together. His rescue of her also matters beyond giving him a traveling companion. He's hunting the person who destroyed his family, but he still makes room for somebody else's survival. During the hanging, he gets underneath Anna to support her while the rope is cut by a shot. The fight around them is chaotic, and he still gets her out. After her father dies, he stays with her through the immediate aftermath and helps her leave. I don't think his marksmanship needs a made-up supernatural explanation. These early issues present a dangerous, experienced gunslinger. They also let him get hurt. In the prelude's succubus encounter, he's stabbed badly enough that Anna has to get him to a healer. Whatever he can accomplish with a revolver, he isn't walking through this untouched. The small moments between them help sell it. Anna wakes him because she's seen something terrible. He's exhausted and wants some sleep. Then he goes with her. He complains like somebody who has already had more than enough trouble, but he's there when she needs him. He begins with a very clear purpose: find Darius and make him pay. Traveling with Anna gives him other people to think about along the way. The revenge doesn't disappear, and the loss doesn't get fixed. But he starts doing something with his life besides chasing the man who took the rest of it from him. That's the part of Braden I wanted to make sure didn't get lost beneath all the gunfights.