Big Bucket, born Cato Dahlia, was a member of the Black Company recognizable by his wild hair. Bucket would become a noteworthy sergeant and a father figure to Sleepy, future Black Company Captain. He almost certainly knew that Sleepy was a young woman in disguise before anyone else.
Shadow Games[]
Bucket was accused of common theft in Opal and joined the Company to escape from the authorities. He was accepted into the ranks along with Sparkle, Red Rudy, and Candles in Shadow Games. Like all newcomers, he often did scut work to earn increasing responsibilities.
Bleak Seasons[]
Flashbacks to siege[]
As recounted in Murgen's flashbacks in Bleak Seasons, Bucket had become a "pretty fair sergeant" within the Company by the time of the Siege of Dejagore. During the siege, Bucket was a noteworthy member of the Old Crew when the Company splintered into two rival factions (the other being Mogaba and his Nar). He witnessed a young Vehdna teenager being raped by her uncle (possibly Rafi). Bucket threw the rapist over the city walls, and the youngster, now disguising herself as a male Shadar, latched onto the Company. This was Sleepy, who would go on to become Annalist, and then Captain, of the Company.
Current events[]
A few years later, during the current events narrative of Bleak Seasons, Big Bucket was still a Company sergeant but was now simultaneously a captain in the Taglian military, specifically, an "advisor-commander of a battalion of Taglian border rangers." Murgen described him as "a hardass leader with a reputation for getting his jobs done and bringing his people back alive." When Bucket's rangers were constructing a new Taglian outpost north of the Loghra Hills deep in the enemy Shadowlands, they spotted a sizable force of incoming Shadowlanders. Bucket had his men conceal themselves, and then they ambushed the enemy elephants. Nearly overwhelmed, they were saved when Lady arrived on a black stallion, assumed her Lifetaker armor, and used her sorcery to turn Longshadow's mind-controlling lines of power lethal against the Shadowlanders. Bucket revealed that the raid was directed by the Howler for the purpose of picking off Company men.
She Is the Darkness[]
A male member of the Nyueng Bao De Duang unofficially became Bucket's bodyguard out of a profound sense of loyalty and gratitude, because Murgen and the Old Crew helped saved the remainder of their pilgrimage during the siege of Dejagore. Bucket's bodyguard was Suyen Dinh Duc, whom he rejected, but became close to nevertheless. Bucket, a white man from at least 7,000 miles away from the Nyueng Bao homeland, even learned Nyueng Bao burial rituals.
Bucket became a well-respected battalion commander in the army of Taglios. One of his favorite subordinate was a Taglian Gunni nicknamed Lhopal Pete.
Bucket, accompanied by his shadow Duc, followed Croaker through the Shadowgate onto the glittering plain. There, Duc and Bucket were among the 13 people who escaped becoming one of the Captured, but at the cost of their own lives. Duc saved Bucket from a sorcery booby-trap that had been laid by Soulcatcher to cover her escape. Bucket took the time to pose Duc's body in the position called "In Respect of Patient Repose", a Nyueng Bao custom when a proper funeral has to be delayed. Then, as he continued his escape, he was killed by ravenous shadows. Fifteen years later, during Water Sleeps, Sleepy and her party discovered the remains of both men on the plain, and she was deeply moved. She realized that, despite Bucket's rejection of Duc's protection, "they became friends when nobody was looking."