April 8th, 1879. South Texas, CSA

The day was dying, slowly but surely. A bitter wind whipped in from the coast, pushing dark purple thunderclouds west across the Texas plains. The light from the setting sun lit the bottoms of the dark clouds a brilliant orange. The smell of rain was heavy in the air.

A storm was coming. It would be here soon.

Not a good time to be lost. But such was the fate of two riders, who'd bumped into each other and decided that it was safer to ride in numbers. August Colby and John Smith rode against the wind, following a trail which had been helpfully marked "Blackthorn--4 miles". Neither of them had heard of a town called Blackthorn on this route, but then again Texas is vast, and it's easy to lose towns in it. that was assuming, of course, that the town was still active, and not one of the many ghost towns that appeared, prospered, then died.

Still, even a ghost town would provide shelter from the oncoming storm...

[[OOC: I'm going to let you chat a bit and interact before I spring anything on you...]]

August took a deep breath, and the smell of rain cut straight through the familiar mix of dust and horse and sweat.  Storm was still rolling in, for sure.  "Well, shit," he muttered, for the fifth time in the past hour.  He tugged on the brim of his hat with one hand, securing it a little tighter.  This wasn't where he'd hoped to be watching the day's end - not even nearly.  Hell, not even in the same damn province.

Still, it never hurt to look on the bright side.  "I reckon we can make it afore the storm hits," he called, tossing his fellow traveler a quick smile.

John sat in his saddle and eyed the incoming clouds and then the sign and nodded toward his fellow rider. "I reckon." he said simply as he began to close and fasten the upper portion of his duster against the wind. "Should we pick up the pace a bit for the next couple miles to be on the safe side?"

"Yep, that weather ain't foolin'," August agreed, nudging his horse to a smarter pace.

He glanced sideways at his companion to gauge his speed, then back at the trail ahead.  In this fading light and on an unknown course, he was mindful of the risk of rough footing.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:52, Mon 09 Nov 2009.

John pushed his horse into a light trot, he wanted to increase the pace not run the animal into the ground, or worse, break one of it's legs. "If it gets much darker  before we get there we'll slow again." he said as much to himself as to his companion.

The pair pick up speed as it starts to rain, lightly. They appear to be coming to a fork in the trail. One branch heads north, one heads south. The south fork has a corpse laying in the middle of the road...