The rustle of feathers and the scrabble of claws against wood covered the first snickers of the shaman's reaction, drawing the lawman's attention to the large bird invading his desk.

"Spath'ba," the raven intoned gravely, looking up at him from one dark eye. She dipped her head low whilst the shaman laughed. "Spath'ba."

Sky Dog recovered himself and leant against the wall, calculating on his fingers whilst the bird hopped over to investigate a metal gleam part-hidden under papers.

"Yes. Keep peace, no scalps. Bring the enemies here." The shaman looked up, suddenly serious. "I will watch for bad ground and avakhi also...I only see avakhi in the middle world once outside this country: one of the little ones, the hostages. Here...many tracks. There are demons walking the way men walk, I think. But we know how to deal with them." The grin returned, as though in shared confidence.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:42, Mon 07 Jan 2013.

He couldn't help but deny that something made him uneasy about the native, though he seemed like a good sort of fellow. Earp had something of a knack for picking out bad men. Some people said he could smell troublemakers, and he'd heard stranger rumors about it. None of them were true, though. It was just a gut instinct, and he had a good one about this Sky Dog - or at least definitely not a bad one. Still, there was something so odd, so alien about the man that made him slightly unsure about him.

"Outside this country? You from Canada?" That wouldn't be too strange. Some of the Ottawa tribesmen came to Kansas now and again, by way of the Sioux Nation. "Forgive my curiosity, but you talk differently from most of the Injuns around here. What tribe are you?"

Sky Dog tilted his head with a sharp little gesture like the raven's. "Canada? Ah, no, not Canadas...West, more West...there is ice, and more ice, where I walked across the sea to the Spear-Cousins, who have no deer, and the lands of the Seal People-" the shaman held up a finger, frowning in thought. "-my country has no name, but the Iron Devils...ah, the Russians, they call it...Siberia. They call my people Tungus - we say evenk - that is, people!" Sky Dog laughed. The raven took off with a cartridge, heading to hide it away in the cells.

Sky Dog paced back towards the window, curious. "-but I know your country well - the place before Canadas, I stay with the Spear-Cousins of the Yupiq. Ha! They think I am crazy, to come wearing blood, blood, yes, with my steed and my sister, in the start of the winter...but I was being a bear before that, so I did not die, so I did not fit a man's clothes." The young man shrugged, then laughed at the lawman's expression. "Wyitterp does not have to believe me. Perhaps I am more like a Canada man than a Seal Person, you believe that. Good!"

He was more a man of practical rather than academic education, but he'd chanced to see a few maps in his time and read the paper now and again, so he was able to put it together somehow though the tale was astonishing to say the least - and in part, somewhat confounding.

"You came all the way over from Russia, and then through Alaska, and down to Kansas?" Earp whistled at that.He wasn't going to ask about the bear part, or who the seal people were. Likely, some Indian mumbo jumbo. He usually just nodded when that sorta thing came up, as if he understood it. He'd deal with it when it was required of him, but not before. "Your sister, she didn't make the journey, I take it?"

The pale man repeated the shrug, as though the names meant nothing to him. "Somewhere the world is hurting - all the worlds, I feel it when I walk in the shadows of the middle world, close to the World Above - so I go there. As for Korpi-"

Sky Dog turned his head towards the cells to speak, but the sounds came as a raven's croak. A sound of flapping; the great black bird swooped and up and gripped the shaman's buckskins with her talons, the tin animals shifting and Sky Dog's white-cream hair lifting with the breeze of her settling. "-you see she is here."

The raven lifted her head. "Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" the same bird's laugh, unaffected, from a different throat. "You think we are not kin, one shape and the other, but we are raised together, yes, and have shed blood each for the other, and walked in the other places, us two."

A flicker of that stone-seriousness touched the shaman's face. "Some places I should not have taken her." The bird buised herself in preening her 'brother''s hair; he reached up to scratch her nape as she did so. "Still, that is the past. The ways outside the solid world are tangled here. I think you know this."

Darling steps in from the street and eyes the very pale young man and the very dark raven.

"Mr. Earp, I'm Randolph Darling," he says, "We met last night. I'd like to speak with the prisoner we brought in, Radcliffe."

The jail was a simple building, and where the law man sat casually talking to Sky Dog was not very far away from the cells, where Radcliffe huddled in on himself in a cell.

"I'm glad you came by today to take me up on my offer. Sky Dog, this is Randolph Darling. Randolph, this is Sky Dog." He gestured to the albino indigenous man in front of him.

"Your pal Radcliffe is over there in a cell. Did any of your friends come with you? I was hoping for a few more."

The newcomer drew the attention of the shaman and the raven, their movements mirrored like siblings'. The former spoke, the latter watched.

"He is Randolph Darling, and I am Sky Dog," Sky Dog confirmed, grinning. He leant against the wall by the door to observe; the raven shifted to his head.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Sky Dog," Darling responds, part of his mind trying to figure out what the man might be, as he turned to address Earp.

"You misapprehend me, Deputy. I'm not interested in being a deputy myself. I have employment. I just want a chance to talk to Radcliffe.

"Has the doctor been in to see to his leg?"

Morgan had taken the time for a second cup of coffee befor taking his leave of the Dodge House. He walked slowly through Dodge City's streets as he made his way to Earp's office, appreciating that the early morning was as calm and peaceful as the city ever was.

He'd considered Gabby and Daniel's idea about visiting the widow from Hays. He wanted to accompany them when they called on her. Despite knowing, deep down, that Earp's need for help required his full concentration, Morgan couldn't keep his mind from drifting back to the massacre. He had to help bring a stop to it. Senseless deaths, like those in Hays, was what had prompted him to pin on a badge in the first place.

Morgan stepped inside the Towm Marshal's office. He nodded to Earp as he entered. Seeing that Darling was already present, he greeted the writer. "Mornin', Mr. Darling."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:52, Thu 10 Jan 2013.

A rustle of wings: a ripple of air and half-glimpsed feathers dark as mourning.

"Still yourself!" Sky Dog raised a hand to the tall man, tin animals glittering from under the fringes of the hood about his shoulders. Caleb felt a weight settle on his hat. "Not to worry, yes? My sister believes you are a good man."

"Korb," the weight on Caleb's hat agreed.

"Well, Mr. Darling, he's right over there in his cell. You can feel free to go talk to him if you want, but he may be a little thick in the head. Dr. Smith came over this morning and bandaged him up, though we're pretty sure he won't be walkin' on that leg again. He gave him some kinda medicine too. Prisoner was out like a light since then, though you might could wake him up if you want - can't hurt to try, I suppose," he said, gesturing over to the cell that was clear on the other side of the room.

He was about to greet Caleb as he came in, when the bird suddenly landed on the Marshal's head. "Sky Dog, the man whose hat your sister has landed upon is Caleb Morgan. He's a U.S. Marshal." For most people, he felt that would have been enough of an introduction, but he wasn't sure whether the native was familiar with the concept or how to explain it to him. "He does what I do, but for a much larger place. Many towns, many lands. He brings bad men to justice. And women, I suppose."

"Much obliged," says Darling and he steps over to the cell, "Radcliffe! I want to talk to you."

Radcliffe groaned. His back was flat against the wall of the cell, and he sat on the ground. An antiseptic smell emanated from within the cell, and the fresh bandage on his leg might have covered the wound, but it didn't do anything for how pathetic he looked and how disfunctional his leg was.

"What the hell do you want, journalist?" the man asked. His voice was thick, and his speech seemed a little slurred like he had some cotton in his mouth.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:50, Thu 10 Jan 2013.

Randolph hunkers down to get eye level with the man and speaks in very low tones.

The scientist, shifted in his cell slightly, before a grimace of pain came to him from the movement. He looked at Darling considering the man and leaned forward, speaking in a low voice.

Darling stands and shakes the creases out of his trouser legs: "Well, I'll come back later to see whether you feel more like talking."

He steps over to Earp and Caleb. "I can't get much out of him. Pity, for I think I'd have a great story, if he'd talk.

"Frankly, gentlemen, I think his wound may be turning. Better watch him carefully or you're apt to have a funeral before you have a trial."

Bidding the two good day, he strolls out of the office.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:43, Fri 11 Jan 2013.

Sky Dog looked at the Marshal awhile. "I believe this, and one my sister trusts at sight, I trust," he said, then broke into a broad grin. "You do not smell like an iron devil, Caleb Morgan. Good!"

The shaman went and crouched at the bars at Darling's remark, leaving Caleb to Korpi. A peculiar whistle broke from his lips, dropping to a low hum, the pale eyes studying the prisoner. "Hm. He has arinka, the bad spirit...maybe more than one, in his brains, I think," Sky Dog remarked, not looking away.

"This creature, it is eating, eating - if we send it away he will be crazy. Maybe less bad, less dangerous, but very crazy. As for the bleedings..." Sky Dog glanced over at Dodge's finest. "Will you kill the man Radcliffe, Wyitterp, or does he go to live in the stone house with the soldiers, until he dies there?"

Morgan glanced up mildly at the bird that was now using him as a perch. Unable to suppress a grin, he said, "I'm glad to know I meet with your approval, Korpi."

In his travels, Morgan had met all kinds of people. As a young man, still full of rage over the terrible fate of his family, Morgan had come out of the war believing all manner of monstrous things about Southerners, assuming that they were all cut from the same cloth as the ruffians that had cut a scourge through Lawrence.

He'd quickly found out how wrong he was. Some of the most decent, hard working people he'd met in his life made their home in Missouri. The lesson had been a valuable one: always give everyone a fair shake, no matter where they came from, no matter how different they might seem.

Listening to Sky Dog speak about Radcliffe, Morgan realized he knew very little about the Indian people and their ways. But if Earp counted the man as courageous, that was good enough for him.

"I imagine the others will be along directly," he told Earp, "but if you don't mind me asking, what kind of trouble has got you in need of extra hands?"

"Most likely, he's going to hang, though there'll be a trial first. That's how we like to do things, Sky Dog," he said to the native, standing up for a moment and walking as he talked. There might be a time to get into other types of justice that were rendered 'round these parts, but he didn't think this was the time to get into details.

"The Fourth of July, independence day of the United States of America is coming up. That's a holiday for us, Sky Dog. A festival. Anyway, not everybody in town is so inclined as to celebrate it, or happy that the town is doing so. Now, the political loyalties in Dodge City at the moment are about as divided as they could be, and with the crowd that I'm sure you noticed in town we just wanna make sure everyone keeps a cool head, and nobody gets too riled up over the politics of the whole thing. Just peacekeepers is all we're lookin' for."

Sitting down again at the table, he said, "Now, I've been authorized to take on deputies, and I've done so already to cover other parts of the town, but there's one more area that I don't have covered. Usually one man would be enough to cover that area, but as I said earlier...you've seen the crowds yourself. I figure if we can get some reliable folks like yourself and some of those that helped you bring in this criminal here, that we'd be in a good way. Do you think any of them'll be comin'?"

A sliver of black poked over Caleb's hatbrim, just enough to show the brief glimmer of an eye. "Spath'ba."

The raven shifted balance a little and attended to the maintainance of her flight equipment, making no further noise beyond the soft busy sounds of feathers fluffed and drawn through a heavy beak.

Her brother continued to watch the cell's occupant, pensive. "It is good he can try to...take back himself, with the trial, yes. I do not smell sickness in the wound, but here mostly I smell liqour - Ha! Who knows? If we believe Darling, maybe I look at it, see if there is a thing the white doctor does not do, yes?"

Sky Dog looked back at the talk of deputising, dipping his head to show it was understood. "Festival for Holy Independence Day. I have seen much like among the iron devils: much drinking and shooting the air, the happy ones."

"Wyitterp, you hear me: I protect your women and elders from the drunkens and careless-shooting ones with, without dollars. The unhappy ones...ha! Ha! we show we are tough guys, they will not fight us." The grin was turned on the Marshal, comradely and full of the mental immortality of youth.

Morgan nodded as Earp discussed the upcoming Fourth of July celebration. In a divided town like Dodge, the occasion was like a field of dry grass waiting for a lit match. All it took was the false courage of liquor and one fool too stubborn to let go of an opinion and you had a world of trouble on your hands. No wonder Earp wanted help.

He nodded at Earp's question. "I'm sure they'll get here directly," he told him. "Mr. Clarke likes to talk and doesn't know a stranger. I reckon he just got caught up conversing with someone at breakfast. His nephew will get 'em both here. They might bring a few others with them as well."

Glancing over at Radcliffe, Morgan thought about what Darling had said. "You don't mind me asking, has a doctor been able to see to him yet?"

A flutter and sudden shift of weight above suggested the raven gripping the crown of the Marshal's hat wasn't entirely prepared for all this nodding.
"Yaponsky bog!"

"Darling asked me about that just before I came in, actually. We had Doc Smith come in first thing this morning and bandage him up, treat the wound, all that. Gave him somethin' for the pain. Don't expect he's gonna walk on that leg again. I think Darling was trying to talk some more details out of him for his newspaper story." He said, raising an eyebrow as he observed the bird's fluttering and talking.

"How long does it take to train a bird like that to talk, Sky Dog?"
This message was last updated by the player at 19:46, Tue 15 Jan 2013.

The shaman looked puzzled, straightening, clearly parsing and re-parsing the question. "The birds like that...all the ones like raven - crow, jay, whiskeyjack, magpie...they have words to speak like men, not whistles as the wind does, and the little birds. She speaks words her parents did not teach her because she travels with me and is listening. I have as much of her language, maybe. Ha! It does little good here."

Sky Dog paced up to the others, not without a frowning glance back at the stricken criminal. "-as for the Russian, she sees you are not Evenki and those are all the white man's words she has, though I do not think she thinks you are iron devils." The grin sprang back. "But we do have a trick we are making good here...Korpi! Colt Dragoon!"

" *krtoclik* " From the top of the Marshal's hat came the distinctive sound of a pistol cocking.

" *Pam!* " The shaman mimed firing at the sky, and started laughing.