| STR 10 | CON 10 | SIZ 13 | INT 18 | POW 13 |
| DEX 7 | APP 12 | EDU 19 | SAN 65 | HP 12 |
| Magic 13 | Idea 90% | Luck 65% | Know 95% | |
| Armor -- | Move 8 | |||
Skills
Bargain 55%, Art (Guitar) 65%, Fast Talk 65%, Fist/Punch 75%, Hide 60%, Knife 75%, Listen 75%, Mechanical Repair 50%, Natural History 50%, Own Language 95%, Persuade 40%, Psychology 25%, Sneak 60%, Spot Hidden 75%
Weapons
Knife 75%, damage 1D4+2, Range: touch, Attacks: 1, HP: 15, Hands: 1, $2.00
Total Equipment Cost: $2.00
Personal Data
Birthplace: Chattanooga, TN
Residence: Arkham, MA
Nationality: American
History
Billy Bob Cotner was born to Eliza Bozeman Rodgers and Aaron Woodberry Cotner in Chattanooga, Tennessee on September 8, 1884. When Billy Bob was four years old, his mother died--probably of tuberculosis. After her death, Billy Bob spent years living in Chattanooga with his unmarried aunt, Dora Bozeman. His father lived in nearby Summerville and was a section foreman on the Chattanooga Southern Railway. Cotner often visited his father in the city. In fact, during this time, Billy Bob and his two older brothers were often shuffled from one relative to another, and adult supervision was sometimes rare. As a result, the pre-teen Cotner was considered a fast-living "rascal." While he stayed with his aunt in the country, he and his friends would go to nearby Raccoon Mills to drink. When he was in the city of Summerville, he was frequently found in pool halls, theaters, and opera houses.
At age 12, he won a weekly talent contest at the Elite Theater in Summerville. He assembled a carnival show, bought a tent using his father's credit--without his father's permission--and ran away to tour with the show he had put together. His father, however, found him and took him back to Summerville. Not long afterward, Billy Bob ran away again, this time with a traveling medicine show. Again, Billy Bob's father, displeased with his son's aspirations for an entertainment career, found his son and forced him to return to Tennessee. By that time, Billy Bob displayed a resolve to settle down and pursue a life working on the railroad. He dropped out of school in 1899 and got a job at the railroad station as a water boy; later, he would hold other railroad positions such as those of a brakeman, callboy, flagman, and a baggage handler.
By 1904, Cotner was married to his first wife Stella Kelly, and not long afterward, they had a child, Kathryn, who passed away under tragic circumstances in 1916. A few short years later, the marriage was no more, but Cotner remained a railroad worker. He also continued dabbling in music, playing guitar and singing for his co-workers and even writing his first song, "Railroad Breakdown," in 1906. In 1908, he married again, this time to Carrie Williamson, one of six daughters of a minister. Carrie and Billy Bob's first daughter, Carrie Anita, was born in 1909. Their second daughter, June Rebecca, was born in 1911, but tragically, she passed away only two months after her birth.
In 1912, Billy Bob was dealt another tough blow; he learned that his wife was battling tuberculosis, a disease that, at that time, eventually killed its victims, including Billy Bob's own mother. In search of mountain air to help his wife's lungs, Cotner moved to Asheville, North Carolina, in early 1915. He assembled a group known as the Billy Bob Cotner Entertainers, and they began a short engagement on the local radio station WWNC. In late July of that year, an advertisement caught Carrie's eye in the local newspaper. Auditions were being held at 621 State Street in Bristol, Tennessee, and the Victor Talking Machine Company was offering $50 a side for recordings. Carrie was immediately convinced that her husband needed to travel to Bristol, and he and the Billy Bob Cotner Entertainers made the 100-mile northward journey to Bristol. By the time of the audition, he and his band--Jack Pierce and Jack and Claude Grant--had had a difference of opinion over billing and had decided to audition separately, he as a solo act, they as the group the Tenneva Ramblers. Cotner auditioned on August 4th, recording two songs: the traditional "Sleep, Baby, Sleep" and Cotner's own "Railroad Breakdown"; Peer vetoed the idea of recording "Blue Yodel (T for Texas)" at that time. The songs, released in October, did not fare as well as Billy Bob had hoped, but he refused to be discouraged. In November, Cotner made a trip to New York and contacted Ralph Peer, an independent talent scout for Victor who had arranged the Bristol recordings. Peer made arrangements for Cotner to record more sides in Camden, New Jersey, and at that time, Cotner recorded "Away Out on the Mountain" and "Blue Yodel (T for Texas)." Soon afterward, Billy Bob's wife passed away from tuberculosis and he left his blossoming musical career behind forever and took to the road as a carnival worker, repairing the various rides and attractions. In 1918, the traveling carnival Cotner had been working for folded and he took to the life of a drifter, hopping trains and traveling where the iron road led.
In August of 1920, Cotner arrived in Arkham, Massachusetts where he met up with Harlan Jones and Eliza Jane Carter, fellow drifters who had taken to squatting at the old Denbeigh farm east of Arkham. Billy Bob and his companions took to poaching livestock to eat from a local farmer, Mr. Joshua Turnbull. A group of out-of-towners had approached Cotner and his companions and confronted them about the missing livestock on September 16, but left with no incident. The next day while sitting on the porch of the Denbeigh farmhouse strumming his guitar, Billy Bob heard gunfire from the nearby Hoesynth house. He ran through the woods to investigate and witnessed two of the men who had confronted them the day before running out of the house, where one of the men, a foreigner, fell down dead. He saw the other man light a cigar and blow smoke in the dead man's face, pull a large wad of cash and a .22 caliber pistol out of his pockets and stuff them in the dead man's pockets and run away. When the second man was out of sight, Billy Bob retrieved the cash, pistol and a Thompson sub-machine gun from the foreigner's corpse and shadowed the second man to the "Gargoyle Tower" which the man opened and entered. Cotner did not follow the man inside, but rather headed to the two men's car where he hid in the back seat and covered himself with a blanket. The man returned and drove back into Arkham where he got out of the car and entered the local hotel. Cotner exited the car, leaving the Thompson sub-machine gun covered by the blanket, proceeded to the barber where he got a shave and haircut, walked to the Pike's Haberdashery where he purchased a new suit, and returned to the hotel where he checked in, bathed, and returned to the lobby where he awaited the two remaining men's return.