Luis Santiago Davalos: A History

Here's the character sketch I wrote for my role, Luis Davalos. I made a whole bunch of stuff up, but that's what I do.

Luis Santiago Davalos

Luis Santiago Davalos began his life as the illegitimate son of an American merchant and a Mexican barmaid.  He spent the majority of his youth in San Lucar with his mother, but ran away from home at the age of 16 to seek his fortune.  For the next four years, he worked with various smuggling gangs who specialized in transporting illegal goods across the Rio Grande and into Texas.  Luis’s experience in the smuggling business made him into a ruthless man, feared and respected by his colleagues.  He had a particular talent for knife-throwing and became very well-known for his ability to kill quickly and silently.  

Because of a series of mysterious deaths within the leadership of the smuggling ring, Davalos rose to a position of leadership.  By the age of 22, Davalos found himself in control of the most powerful gang in the border country along the Rio Grande.  He used this to his advantage, gaining vast profits from the gang’s lucrative smuggling operations.  As the sale of alcohol became more and more restricted in Texas, Davalos’s services as a smuggler came into great demand, and he was soon in control of a considerable fortune.  

Two years later, however, Davalos’s operation was broken up by the Texas Rangers.  Although many of his men were captured and hanged, Davalos himself escaped unharmed, along with twenty-six of his most loyal soldiers.  After many years of absence, the newly dethroned smuggler king returned to his hometown of San Lucar and began to set up a new base of operations.  His wealth made him one of the richest men in the area, and his influence in the town began to spread.  At the age of 25, Davalos was one of the most powerful men in San Lucar, second only to one General Romero Esteban, a man of equally shady repute.  Together, they were known as the “kings of San Lucar.”  Very little was beyond Luis’s reach.  He could have men killed at a moment’s notice with absolutely no fear of repercussions.  He kept Ed Lovett, the talented American lawyer in his employ, the man who would go on to get Davalos acquitted of murder five times.  Davalos respected Lovett’s skill as a lawyer, but regarded him as a fool outside the courtroom, useless for anything except legal counsel.  Davalos was well-loved by the people of the town, who viewed him as a native son, returned home to bring prosperity to his brethren.  Davalos used an alias, the Kinkajou, and became a Robin Hood-like figure, a hero to the people of the Mexican border country.  Soon after his return to San Lucar, he married Sofia Isabel Espinoza, the daughter of the mayor of San Lucar.  He became very protective of his wife, and was more than willing to kill any man who dared to look at her in the wrong way.  

Davalos soon formed a healthy working relationship with Romero Esteban and the two became business partners.  Their comparable resources and similar goals enabled them to work together, although covertly, on various jobs, ranging from gun smuggling and robbery to escort work.  Davalos’s operation as the Kinkajou allowed both of them to maintain their anonymity and kept both of them safe from the law, and the general’s wealth and his influence within the local governments opened doors that would have otherwise been closed to Davalos.  This partnership would prove to be quite valuable to both parties.  Davalos continued to operate in San Lucar for seven years, until he was 32, when Esteban requested his assistance with a bank heist across the Texas border.  This heist and the subsequent intervention of the Texas Rangers would prove to be the downfall of the two kings of San Lucar.