The steam-driven contraption wails and judders along, rocking its way over the uneven road ahead of whatever Hell is pounding close from the horizon. Closer to the ranch, dog corpses start to appear in the lanterns' arc of light, stretched and scattered by the roadside, gone to the dark as the waggon rolls by.

At one point Sarah has to avoid the largest lumps of what looks like a dismembered horse. By then, of course, the travellers can see the reason for the ranch's illumination - one of the long, low buildings surrounding the house, possibly a bunkhouse, is wildly on fire. Clemmons swears softly.

Hank also takes it in. "...if the Comanches have already killed everyone, 'least we get the house to ourselves."

Clemmons fights forward from watching the boiler as they slow, climbing the board to try and see the hoarde from the West. "-an' if that's not a war party, what is it?"

"Cavalry?" Hank suggests without conviction.


[[Notice, please!]]

03:38, Today: Sister Sarah rolled 2,2 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 2,2. Notice.

[[reaction to the prospect of everyone being dead? Going to stop anywhere specific? calm the mule? Roast marshmallows?]]

Clemmons tilts his head and raises his pistol fractionally, ready to shoot at something in the shadows of the feed shed. "Survivor or savage, reckon?" he asks, nodding to a wary figure hanging back near the corner of the building.

I was waiting on the fallout from the Notice roll.  Otherwise, Sarah will get out and start poking around.  She'll look for human bodies.

[[Ah, right. It wasn't a I'm-going-to-drop-nasties-on-you kind of Notice roll, though I see in my enthusiasm to get a post in before work I failed to post Wes' positive result which resulted in the above observation:
John Wesley Hardin rolled 6,3 using d8,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 6,3. Notice.

Hank Notices things, too. With a raise, which is helpful:
Hank Miller rolled 5,8 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 5,(6+2)8. Notice.]]

"Whichever, don't miss him," Hank mutters, shifting forwards as Sarah brings the contraption to a halt. "There's something weird all stuck under the roof of the porch..."

[[...and poor Billy rolled 5 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 5. Notice? ]]

At this point Billy gets a scent of something and starts stomping in earnest, ears set back and body tense as though about to take on a mountain lion. He even starts to rear a little, desperate to turn and get down and get away. Hank grabs the side of the wagon to avoid being mashed into it as the mule's actions shake the entire thing on its wheels. "Whoa, there!"

Clemmons tries to keep his gun levelled on the person down by the feed shed, cursing.

Sarah brandishes a cross in one hand, and a shotgun in the other.  "Whoever you are, you best come out now!"

"So's y'all can shoot me? Hell no," comes the reply, faint through the rain. The figure actually backs a step, ready to duck around the building.

"I ain't fixing to shoot ya, assumin' you ain't gonna shoot us.  If you come out with yer hands up, I give you my word, we ain't gonna shoot ya."

"Yeah, and whose word is that?" the man (it sounds like a man) calls back. "Last lot o' folk came by here had a priest and they tried to shoot me...wandered on in to the house, I reckon. Prob'ly caught whatever kind of fuckin'...rabies got the hands by now, and good riddance."

Hank gives an irritated sigh and squeezes out, dropping down into the mud. "Gonna see if there's anyone home," he mutters, signalling Clemmons to cover him.

Sarah sighed, and raised her shotgun ever so slightly.  "Look, if we were here to kill you, my men would be circling around the house and shoot you from behind.  If this is a trap, you're better off out in the open, where you can see where ever'one's coming from, right?  And if we ain't here to kill ya, then you may as well come out so we can talk, face to face.  Am I right?"


00:27, Today: Sister Sarah rolled 9,7 using d10+4,d6+4, rerolling max with rolls of 5,3. Persuasion.

"Well you proved you know jack shit about tactics." The man does jog closer, wary of being out in the open. "You ain't backup from the Rangers, I reckon, though the last one they sent us was plumb crazy."

He comes into the very edge of the lanterns' light, squinting, then steps back again, lit only by the orange-dark flicker of the conflagration behind. "I'd sooner git on out of here than talk, though it sounds like whatever animal you got in there's a-gonna bust out," the soggy longhair observes over the sound of Billy's pounding.

Clemmons drops down too, then stands abruptly alert as Hank goes to move up on the porch step. "Kid! The porch is talkin' about eating yer eyes!"

"Wha-?" Hank gets out, turning, before a black, cawwing cloud of little birds with eyes like cinders erupts from the porch rafters, forcing him to flee back down into the mud. "-the Hell?"

The man by the steam wagon just tracks the smoke-boil of birds rising threateningly above the porch, seemingly having little trouble following their movement despite the rain and dark. "Yeah, they seem t'be guardin' the porch."

"Ye best back up a tad.  Where are we, and what's going on?  We followed the dust trail of a bunch of Comanches, but all we find is you.  What in tarnation is goin' on?"

[[actually, you're about 10 minutes ahead of whatever mass of hoofed things is a-comin' this way...]]

"You are at the Circle W Ranch, some ways out of Blackthorn, middle of fucking nowhere, Texas. It is fucking raining fit to flood, the ranch owner's gone off to deal with something about Injuns awakenin' a consarned heathen god, everyone back here caught some sort of ragin' disease as causes 'em to bite an' come at you shot or not, meanin' t'kill...I might be dyin' of a head wound- why they passed me over when they took the house, I reckon - last bunch of help tried to shoot me, there was a...a thing, it was...Bad," he shudders violently.

"-I think it's gone now, though. That's what caused all that black burnin' where there's been no fire. Don't know where the other survivors are, if there is any, an' if you're a-gonna keep wavin' that fuckin' thing at me you know what, I figger I'll take my chances with the Commanch', Hell an' high water and head back to town..." He does move off as per Sarah's contrary instructions, putting the corner of the wagon between himself and her line of fire.

Hank stomps across the yard to the burning bunkhouse, seeking a brand to wave off the birds.

By the sounds of it, Billy's started actively trying to kick his way through the tailboard in desperation.

[[Billy, rolled 5 using 1d8, rerolling max with rolls of 5. strength! Not enough.]]

Sarah shouldered the shotgun.  "Well, ain't sure what we can do for you, but at least I can look at that head wound of yours.  Kid, why don't you let Billy out, real slow-like?  He sounds fit to be tied."

Hank gives an uncertain scowl at the address, eyes glinting like torches for a moment in the firelight. Then he tromps back over, protesting only with a "you know he don't like me".

Nevertheless, Billy turns out to be too grateful to be out of the confined space to consider kicking Hank's skull in, though he does turn snorting, bowing circles around the lad holding his halter, clearly sensing danger from all directions.

[[Hank Miller rolled 3,8 using d6-2,d6-2, rerolling max with rolls of 5,(6+4)10. mule wranglin'. Amazingly, Hank makes a Raise on his Ride check.]]

"You a doctor?" the wounded man asks, though the hope in his voice is dim. He does come back around the edge of the wagon, very wary. He's clearly unarmed. "It stopped hurtin' a while back, jes' cold, but there's...things I can't remember. What my mama sounds like, how to play banjo, whether I done brushed my teeth this mornin'...big an' little, jes' gone out of me. I am scared I'm dyin'." Perhaps it's because Sarah's a woman, but the aggression in his tone has faded and the words are raw and genuine. "Some dog's death, in the rain. I tried t' save 'em. You believe me, don't you? I tried. An' I'm so cold..."

[[You'll need your hands free to see to the wound properly. Notice or Healing if you want to check it over.]]

Meanwhile, Clemmons walks out front of the house and tries to get the crowlet swarm's attention: "Hey, hey birds! What humans?"

19:04, Today: Sister Sarah rolled 5,4 using d6,d6, rerolling max with rolls of 5,4. Notice.

The little black birds settle on the porch roof, cawwing at Clemmons as though they were laughing.

"How bad is it?" the rough man asks.

"Honestly?  I'm amazed you're still standing.  I don't know if I can help you, but at the very least, I don't think you're going to get any worse."

The damp man relaxes slightly. "You reckon? Well, thank you kindly, that's...yeah, pretty good news. I still feel kinda weak, though, an' powerful thirsty...drank a bunch a rainwater but it must've been too fast or I'm too sick, couldn't keep it down."

"You want him hitched to something?" Hank enquires, of the mule.

Clemmons seems to be deep in conversation with the crowlets over there. "Is there any way in besides the porch, then? You tell me what the Cake Lady looks like, I'll make extra-sure not to hurt her, I swear...I was born in May, actually. Oh?"

"We'll get you some water.  Let me check your pulse, then I'll get a bandage on you."

The man starts to offer his wrist, but sees she's going for his cartroid and trustingly tilts his head to let her take his pulse.


"Birds say there's another way in," Clemmons reports, raising an eyebrow at the field aid.

In reply to Alistair Milburn (msg # 111):

"You're bleeding some, but I ain't gonna put a tourniquet on your neck.  I don't reckon you're gonna get any less alive, so let's go check out this other way in."

The fellow gingerly touches the back of his skull. "Uh...right. Water?" he asks hopefully, then looks to Clemmons. "It's the side door in the carriage house, yonder." He points beyond the porch, though all Sarah can tell in this light is that there's building there.

"If I were you I'd just torch the damn place, though. Those assholes that tried to shoot me went in an' never came out; I figure the infected got 'em. They're prob'ly torn up by now. That disease...you shoot 'em and they don't go down, it's horrible."

"So you want me to just stand in the rain here or what?" Hank asks, still minding Billy.

In reply to Alistair Milburn (msg # 113):

"Go fetch this man some water, please." Sarah asked.  Then, she turned to Hank.  "Don't be a durn fool, tie him off then let's see what's going on inside."

"Ain't been here before in my life," Clemmons says. "'Sides, the stuff's fallin' from the sky anyhow." He does throw their new friend a flask, however. The man swipes it out of the air as easily as if it were full summer daylight.

Hank raises his free hand vaguely like 'tie him off where?', eventually opting to hitch him to the wagon. Billy brays unhappily.

The new addition to Sarah's little band tries to catch her arm as she gets down and sets out with determination. "Listen, woman, they'll kill you in there, it's like they ain't even human no more... You can shelter just as well in the new barn or the feed shed, git warm, git your mule inside afore he catches 'newmonie - there is really no call to go in there. None."