"I don't doubt that she will. She's the smartest child in the school by a mile. Probably a good four years ahead of where she should be. Anyhow, I thought I heard someone ask about the horse. It was a large, chestnut in color, and very skittish."

After the Marshal's statement, she nodded gratefully. "I'm glad that someone is looking into it. Something should be done about it. I heard about what happened in Lawrence all that time ago. I can't believe it's happening again. I had heard that Quantrill had been caught, but I suppose not."

"Do we know for certain the man on the horse was Quantrill?" Gabby asked. "Was he recognized by anyone? Or is it someone usin' the name? This might be a very important distinction."

Sky Dog kept out of Laura and Clementine's way and brought Korpi down to his shoulder on his wrist when she rapped the pew for attention. "Yes," he said, and showed his teeth.

"I have hunted as many white men when they did this thing to the band of my mother's sister, and we were less then." The remark seemed half directed at Morgan, partially a reassurance and almost a promise.

"Skittish...?" the shaman tilted his head as though to see around the word, the raven edging up close on his shoulder. "Skipping? Like the horse runs, and he is picking up his feet strangely, or he skips where he stands, like he smells the wolves?" Korpi murmured something and dropped three scarce-visible strands into her brother's hand.

"Well, I'd never seen Quantrill myself," she admitted. "Or at least, if I had seen him, I wouldn't have known it. I suppose this could be anyone at all, really. If anybody did recognize him for sure, they're dead. It was..."

She sighed, and wiped a tear from her eye. "It was a complete slaughter. We've got some good shooters in town too. My husband wins the rifle competition every year at summer, but they swept in just around dark and nobody was ready for it. We didn't have a chance. They came in, and shot or hacked down anyone that was on the street. They ransacked homes, and killed those inside too. They didn't loot the spoils, or take anything from the empty homes and stores. They were just there for the killing. It was like they delighted in death."

Turning to Sky Dog, she said, "I suppose like the horse smelled wolves. It wasn't happy to be there, I think. I don't know much about horses, but I know as much as anyone that grows up in a farming state does. It was real fussy."

Sky Dog moved a hand towards the pew beside him in quiet invitation to sit, gaze lowered to show he wasn't presently the dangerous kind of wild man.

"Can you say how many they were, Jonsun? They are moving very fast for men on their own feets, yes, if the more-than-ten with the rider, they are going around six, seven of your big houses and trapping all the people." Such grim seriousness somehow made the shaman look very young, as though by contrast. Korpi leant and preened his eyelashes, since that was the mood she was in. Long used to such, Sky Dog simply held still with no other reaction, his attention on the woman.

She stared perplexed at the bird's behavior, and she looked to the others to gauge their reactions. As no one seemed to take it amiss, she said, "I was never very good with estimating the size of a crowd. It was dark, and there was a lot of movement, and I was trying my best to stay out of sight. I think at least twenty were with him. I don't know if anyone else managed to get away like we did, though I figure they would have turned up by now. If I hadn't been out with the children, I would probably be counted among the dead as well. I don't suppose they were any faster than most folks. Hays is a small town, you see. Nothing like Dodge."

Gabby shudders at the description of the slaughter. But the question hadn't quite been answered.

"So who called him Quantrill? Did he shout it himself, did his men do it, or did one o' the Hays folk say it?"

He nodded at the mention of the skittish horse. That brought another question to mind. "It was dark. They didn't have torches or nothin'?"

"Oh, he said it himself - his men didn't talk, just killed. He said his name was Bill Quantrill, and he knew that our town was full of Yankees and traitors, and that he was going to give us our just punishment. The sentiment in Hays does...did...run the Union's way, though, so he was right about that. I hear it's happened in a couple of other towns the same way," she said, sitting down on the indicated pew with a heavy sigh.

"You know, I didn't even think about that. I was too shocked by the whole thing. I don't remember. Some of ours had torches, and were trying to fight them out in the street. They never seemed to hurt them, though. It was like no matter what we did, it just didn't help. I watched one of them take the torch the Mayor dropped after they shot him and burn down the Rawls' family home."

Daniel smiled slightly at the newcomer as she entered, and waved goodbye to Laura as she left with the other child. Xavier was somewhat of a peculiar name, but there was something about it that made him instantly like the lad.

He stood when the children took off, though didn't really feel the need to add anything to the questions asked by the Marshal and his Uncle. He quietly listened and observed.

Korpi hopped up to Sky Dog's head to get at the other eye, working through his eyebrows whilst she was at it. The shaman himself had paled somewhat, becoming the grey-shadowed colour of white glass. He looked over at the light-haloed, slightly blurred form of the giant priest. "I am sorry to ask straightly, Church-Father, but have the burying people gone out already - do you know when they did so?"

The priest looked at Sky Dog, and seemed to look at Daniel, Gabby and Caleb as if asking for help, but returned his gaze to the Siberian.

"I am afraid I do not understand what you have just asked me. What is it you wish to know?"

Gabby nods. "No light to stat with. But they could fight just fine without it, and couldn't be put down easy. That sounds damn familiar." He looks over at Caleb. "What do you think, Marshal? Reckon Radcliffe might have sold off some o' his work to someone afore we took him down?"

Gabby didn't have an answer for the priest's look, but he got the impression Sky Dog was coming to something of the same conclusions he was.

he looked at Mrs. Johnson again. "I got just a couple more questions. Laura mentioned you'd said the men smelled bad and were dirty. Just the sort of unwashed body smell o' men long on the trail, or somethin' else? Also, did ya'll happen to notice some sort o' chill?"

Sky Dog frowned. "The village is of Christians, yes? Christians, they dig a hole and melt the ice until they are a man's length, down in the ground, and they throw the dead Christian in and read a book at him and he is buried."

The shaman looked about to be sure that 'buried' was the right word for this peculiar behaviour, his sister dropping from his shoulder to his knee with a little bounce.
"I think that is how it is called. I believe from this talking that Jonsun did not bury all her village - she is being brave and thinking well for the living, and comes here. I ask if other Christians go to do burying. If they go, when do they go?" Sky Dog's voice had not risen, but it was urgent.

Morgan nodded solemnly at Gabby's suggestion. "It's certainly possible. We may need to pay Vinton another visit and ask him about his business dealings."

Turning to the widow, he said, "Mrs. Johnson, everything you have told us has been very helpful. I know that it was dark and you and the other townspeople were afraid, but do you remember any details about the riders themselves? Is there anything  you remember about them that was unusual or strange? Anything in their appearance that set them apart from other men?"

"I don't know what kind of smell it was, honestly, but it was quite terrible. They weren't men, they were more like dirty, filthy animals. Pigs. I had a really bad cold, and I had for a week before that. The kind of cold that doesn't go away for a long time. Anyway these men smelled pretty bad - so bad that I could smell it through my cold," she said to Gabby.

"The only chill I felt was the chill in my bones. It was a hot summer night, Mister -" She stopped, as she realized that she didn't know his name.

"That is Gabby. This is Daniel, and that is Sky Dog," the priest said, making introductions for those three, as Morgan had already given his.

"Sky Dog, we sent men out to see to the burials. I went myself to ensure that everything was done properly - so that there will be no problems." He shared a glance with Daniel, but did not elaborate about the nature of the problems he feared.

"Marshal, I think I've told you everything I know. There was only one rider, just to make sure you've got that. Other than that....there's only one more thing I can recall - the men wore pretty tattered clothing. Like it was in bad shape, hadn't been washed in a while. Normal clothes for the most part. Two of them had on uniforms, though they were just as tattered and dirty as what the rest of them had," she said.

Sky Dog looked up at the priest, the colour still gone from him. "...and you set protection on their...road, returning here? None looked back? It is good that you know how to stop the hostages, yes, but an avakhi...if there is one walking like a man, it is not the same."

The grim look returned. "But if it walks like a man, he will be caught in the middle world," Sky Dog looked over at Morgan and craned to see Daniel as best he might, white fingers absently preening his sister's nape. "So he can be hunted like a man. We will take up the cold steel...lead or birchwood, they will not work." The grin returned, sudden, feral. "It will be well."

She paused awkwardly after not being able to make head or tail of what Sky Dog said, and then directed her gaze at the others. "If that's all, gentlemen, I think I'd rather get back to being with my son. He's taken this even harder than I have."

Morgan nodded, his mind already working to process all that Mrs. Johnson had told them. "Thank you, ma'am. We're all obliged to you for being willing to talk about what happened. If I can be of service to you in any way, please let me know. If I'm not about, Deputy Marshal Earp will likely know how to find me."

Daniel listened carefully to what Kristen had to say. The lack of cold again was peculiar, but perhaps those rumors were incorrectly remembered - probably caused by fear. When the priest talked of proper burials, Daniel caught his eye and gave him a subtle nod before returning his attention to the mother who had escaped.

"Yes, thankee ma'am. Ye've been mos' he'pful. We don' wanna keep ya from yer son no longer."

"Don't worry, ma'am. We'll find these no good sons of...er, so-and-sos, and give 'em what for." Gabby says. He, too, was puzzled by the lack of cold, but that might just have been a tall tale that got swept up into this. Still, an idea of what happened had begun to form in his mind. He'd run it by the others when the lady had left.

With a sad expression and a gracious nod, Mrs. Johnson left the room.

"What they have said today is consistent with what they have said before when asked about the unfortunate incident," said the priest.

Sky Dog had gone strangely stone-like at the lack of answer, his wariness of the foreign priest becoming something else, something colder.

"Yes. They are bait," he said, getting up and waiting a moment with his face towards the light, as though to give the widow some steps' start before heading that way. Korpi used the movement to leap and land skittering on the back of the pew.

"Bait?" he asked, looking confused as the strange man walked away.

"Do any of you know what he's talking about? I don't know what an avakhi is, if that's what he said - nor am I familiar with this middle world business. I think it is some kind of native superstition."