"It's not a brain sucking machine! There's no such thing, that I know of, and I don't see the point of one if there was. Look, nobody's innocent. Some people are just less guilty than others - and certainly your friend Wilder here is no angel himself. He was working for Hellstromme studying the reanimation of dead tissue, and spilled those secrets to me."

"Hellstromme did hire me, and that was my job, to study those things...Yes, it was interesting but...I only told you what I knew because I thought you were my friend. Apparently, I was wrong...very wrong."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up 'ere." Daniel was still waving the bloodied sword about, happy to remind these fellows that he could end their life with a flick of his wrist. "Mebbe start from the getgo. Who hired who ta do wha'ta whom now? An' who betrayed t'other? I'm confused."

"Wait, who brought a kid here?" he asked generally.

"Young man, I worked for Hellstromme Industries - the primary enterprise of Dr. Darius Hellstromme. He also owns the Wasatch Railroad." He looked around for any signs of recognition from any of them before continuing.

Daniel gave Radcliffe a contemptible look, "At yer age, must be errybody looks lika kid, huh?"

He then turned toward Edwin and nodded. "So yeh work fer one o' the railroads. Iziss part o' one o' them rail wars er somethin'?" He sincerely hoped the answer was no as he didn't really have much of an opinion concerning who won a profit war.

"No, I didn't work for the railroads. Hellstromme Industries is a scientific enterprise. Like Smith & Robards? Have you heard of them, or looked at one of their catalogs?"

Daniel nodded, "Sure, sure. Them catalogs with all them fancy hardware an' drugs an' whatnot. Flyin' machines and horseless carriages and dine-o-mite throwin' things. You make anythin' so interestin'? Or jus' mess with dead bodies?" Daniel's tone changed to underscore how he felt about stitching together the dead.

"The kid's my nephew, and ten times the man you are, you gutless brain-suckin' Frankenstein." Gabby growls at Radcliffe. "Maybe you oughta hold your tongue fer a minute, less'n you want him to cut it out like he chopped up the heads o' them deaders you made." he turns his attention back to Wilder. "I heard o' Hellstrome. Read all about him and his inventions in the Epitaph, which don't have many nice things to say about him. Why's he want to raise the dead?"

Morgan snapped open his Colt, loading bullets into the cylinder as he listened to Wilder and Radcliffe. "Honestly, I'm not certain there's too many judges in this territory that would fault any of us for shooting you both dead, once they understood that you were behind these dead men coming to life." He emphasized his point by closing his loaded pistol. "There's a bunch of people back at that train that are hurt...or dead because of these things and I'm beginning to think that you're both responsible for that, at least in part. So you'd best start talking. Who's sent those things to the train and why? Did Hellstrome order it?" He looked at Radcliffe. "Or was that just your doing?"

Coraline's fan closed with a snap and she approached Radcliffe, studying him with open curiosity.  "Exactly what were you trying to do here?  Create some sort of army?  And why did that hulking creature try to steal way the woman from the train.  Was she to be your prize?"

Randolph spends a minute or so replacing the mostly-spent magazine of his Gatling pistol with a spare from his kit bag.

When he's done, he steps over to the device Gabby had 'de-activated' and peers closely at it. He speaks over his shoulder: "Mr. Wilder, would you be so kind as to explain to me the purpose and operation of this device?"

"I think you're mistaken. I don't know anything about dead men, and I certainly don't know Mr. Hellstromme personally. I make things like this. Simple, harmless things." He affectionately stroked the detached hand that was now perched on his shoulder.

"I didn't know he was going to use it for things like this - and I have no idea what the device is. I didn't make it - he did.  Though I could field a guess or two, I'd wager."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:50, Fri 16 Nov 2012.

"Well, then," Gabby says. "Start guessin'."

"He doesn't have any idea what this does," Radcliffe sneered arrogantly. "He couldn't invent it if he had his whole life and the schematic right in front of him. It connects the wearer of the headset to the corpse, through the connection with the ghost rock. Each fragment of the ghost rock imbedded in their heads comes from the same original hunk, which was in the machine. Which has now been destroyed, but I can rebuild one now that I know how. The next one will be even more efficient."

Randolph turns cold eyes on Radcliffe and his voice is even more freezing when he asks, "Why? Why do you want such a connection?"

"For the sake of science, of course. Research leads to progress. Who knows what great works will come from my discoveries? The next inventor will stand on my shoulders, and perhaps he will make something truly incredible. This is only the first step, the first stage. What more can we do? For example, when someone dies that had certain knowledge they took to their grave, could we then enter their minds and take that knowledge?"

"Progress, huh?" Gabby says. "Where'd you get all them bodies in the first place? Most o' them look a bit fresh to have been mouldering in a boot hill fer long. How many folks here died to fuel yer 'progress'?"

The local marshal stepped up beside Gabby, pointing an accusing finger at Radcliffe. "Oh, I'd love to hear about that. And Zachary Hanover, right there. What in the hell did you do to him? I'd recognize that face anywhere, but God didn't make him like that."

At the mention of name 'Zachary Hanover', the large monstrosity of a man winced as if expecting a blow and began to groan, releasing a long, and awkward but low noise. baaaaaaahhhhb. Otherwise he remained in his half quivering with rage and half reeling from fear state.

Turning to Gabby and the others, he added, "Oh, and I know where he got the bodies. The town's undertaker passed on shortly after Doc Hodges...or I suppose I should say Radcliffe now...moved to town. He'd set up his shop as a doctor, but volunteered to 'help out' and stepped right into the undertaker's shoes."

"Did he, now?" Gabby says, raising an eyebrow. "Ain't that a mite convenient?"

"A bit too obvious now, I suppose," he said. "As for our friend over here - he prefers the name Bob now. After the terrible fall from his horse that left him mostly mentally incapacitated, he was in quite a bad state and didn't last very long. All I did was reanimate his tissue and his mind....oh, and I gave him some horse muscles."

The scientist chuckled a bit mirthfully. "I killed the horse that killed him, and gave him the horses muscles. He'd always been a strong one and none too bright in life. Now he's much, much stronger and also much, much dumber."

Morgan turned to Phelps, keeping his voice low. "With all this, I figure there's more than enough to justify putting Radcliffe in jail and keeping him there until a judge can decide what to do with him. We probably need to get him to Kinsley as quick as we can."

He glanced over at Wilder, then back at Phelps. "For the moment, until we can establish just what is role is in this mess, I'd suggest we lock Wilder up as well. I know he claims his 'creations' are all harmless, but I'm not sure I believe him just yet. Even if he is as innocent as he claims, keeping him somewhere safe would be smart, in case there's more like Radcliffe that are after him. Hellstromme's people, for instance."

Holstering his Colt, Morgan stepped over to the giant Phelps had known as Zachary Hanover. Looking up at the enormous creature, Morgan felt a deep and genuine pang of sympathy, sharply aware that hidden within that monstrous exterior was a man. "Bob? Big fella, I want you to know something. Nobody here wants to hurt you, you hear? Not at all. In fact, I want to see what I can do to help you. My name's Caleb. Caleb Morgan."

Randolph thinks the Marshall's sympathy toward the creature called Bob is misplaced and likely to cause trouble. Townspeople are unlikely to see him as anything more than monster. A bullet in the brain would be a mercy. Still, that's not his decision to make.

"What do you plan to do with that fellow, Morgan? Leave him here on his own or take him back to Kinsley? Does he have any family hereabouts, Phelps?"