Blogger’s Note: Today, you’ll hear from Trig Rambler, who is the antagonist in Operation Pale Horse. He’s a man with ambition and one desire that’s been years in the making. Learn more about what motivates him below.

I’m probably a quintessential rags-to-riches story that makes up this American culture. That’s right. I grew up in poverty in the great city of Charleston, South Carolina. So poor that sometimes, many times, I went to bed hungry. But I didn’t go to bed hungry just because we were poor. That happened way too often because Marty and Elaine couldn’t stay sober enough to cook a meal or even lay out breakfast for me.

Yes, I called my parents by their first names because in the end, they weren’t really parents to me. I’m a product of the hippy generation. Marty and Elaine Rambler were drifters from Long Beach, California, who crossed the country and somehow wound up in Charleston. Elaine told me Marty picked Rambler for their last name because they were drifters. Why they picked this town, I have no idea, but it’s where we wound up.

When I was six or so, Marty, who couldn’t keep a job because he couldn’t stay sober, had gone door to door asking if he could clean out gutters. He was at one house, high as a kite on LSD and weed, and cleaning out gutters on the second story. That’s when he decided he could fly and wound up breaking his neck instead.

Elaine followed a couple of years later by ODing on heroin. Which meant I wound up in the foster system and bounced from home to home for a bit. But, I have to say that I wound up with a family, a good family who adopted me when I was in middle school.

I dropped my very odd first name (Smith & Wesson, I kid you not) in favor of Trig, which is short for the nickname I got when I was a kid, Trigger. Even though I could have taken the last name of my adoptive parents, I kept Rambler as a reminder of where I came from. I never, ever wanted to forget.

I worked my way through college, got my pilot’s license, and flew for an air cargo company for many years before venturing out on my own and starting Pale Horse Exports. The tagline says it all. “Your boutique air cargo company.” That’s right. I fly cargo for the uber rich. Like, if you have to ask who my clients are, then I’m not going to tell you. Seriously, though, they like goods transported all over the world, and I deliver on that. I’ve also started transporting much more than that. I’ll leave you to figure out what that is.

Years ago, I hatched a plan to get back at all of those people who insist on using drugs, who will do anything for that high. In my opinion, they don’t deserve to live and cause those they love such hardship. This plan has to do with the other thing I transport. And when it launches, watch out.

What do you think I’m creating?