"Tha side with tha thumb," he said. "You know, I can go to the doctor in the mornin'" he said.

Korpi flew in after a bit of scavenging, bemused by the woman outside acting like Morgan had beaten her up and stolen all her shinies. Iron devils, she had to conclude, really were pretty crazy. She perched on the bar with a chunk of abandoned beef sandwitch and looked about for somewhere to hide it, just in case.

Sky Dog looked at the wounded man awhile. "...it would be good to bind it to stillness, at the least."

"-If the bone moves when you are sleeping or not feeling, it may make injury inside the arm which becomes bad very quickly. Like the gone-green, yes? Different sickness, but it moves along the bone and poisons blood in such way. If you you cannot trust my medicine, it is well not to let me help you, because it would work badly, that your mind and onnir fight it, but also it is well to know you risk from fever to the white doctor taking the arm, for waiting."

Randolph hesitates for a moment, his back to the door, the sharp, metallic odor of a great deal of blood filling his nostrils. Taking a deep breath, he pushes away from the door and lights the lamp on the dresser.

By its glow he spends several minutes carefully examining the room: opening each drawer and moving the contents enough to disclose whatever is among them, carefully looking into every corner and under the bed, lifting the threadbare runner between bed and dresser, running his hand under the mattress and the blood drenched pillow. He rinses his hands in the basin on the washstand, drying them on the thin towel hanging there.

Finally, he takes a close look at the shattered window, looking for anything caught on the jagged edges and for any sign of blood, the perpetrator's or the victim's.

Then he examines the corpse, noting the condition of the wounds and the clothing, reaching into the pockets, studying its attitude on the bed.

Satisfied that he has found everything there is to find, he stands at the door for another minute, just allowing the room to imprint itself on his memory.

He extinguishes the lamp and leaves the room.

"I think I can trust ya," he said. "We used to have us some Injuns that would scout for us, and he knew how to put things right, medicine like. None of 'em was as white as you, though I heard there's some Injuns that look like white folk, all pale like. I guess you's one o'them."
This message was last edited by the player at 21:53, Sun 17 Mar 2013.

Sky Dog padded into the kitchen and selected a suitable bit of firewood, trimming it with the large, coarse blade and swiftly returning, content to speak as he rejoined his patient. "Ha! I think it happens with all creatures, sometimes one is born without colour. I have seen several like yourself in Dodge, with more colour-" he set down the things needed and considered how best to deal with the sleeve.

Meanwhile, Korpi separated out a piece of bread and cannily pretended to hide the rest of the sandwitch under the bar, then behind some bottles, then finally dropped it behind the cash register.

"-it is my thought you are a kind of American whose ancestors are from another place than the white kind, yes? Beware not to bite your tongue." This warning given, Sky Dog deftly stripped back the outer sleeve and with a couple of swift cuts along the material and a little careful tying got the arm checked over, splinted and slung.

"Yes? Breathing down to the belly, it will quiet your little heart." He grinned and murmured something over the arm in Evenki, pressing on a spot high on the humerus until the pain from lower down faded. "It is well to trust the medicine of a shamán. White medicine, it makes you as well as you were before. This medicine, it makes you better."

Korpi landed on the table and dropped the staled bread into one of the water glasses from earlier in an attempt to soften it.
This message was last edited by the player at 08:35, Mon 18 Mar 2013.

"Well, Mr. Clarke, I think I'm gonna take charge of Suzy for now and call it a night. I think the best place for her is in a cell until we can figure out what this killin' is all about, and whether or not the killer is gonna come for her next. I'm gonna have to be up early to help finish cleaning this mess up. We're gonna get Doc Smith to take a look at this body bright and early in the mornin', and then get him out and buried. What's left of him anyway. Nasty business."

He shook his head. "I suggest you get some rest. Deputy duty doesn't start till later, but I'd appreciate it if y'all come see me in the morning and I'll update you with the latest. The sooner we catch this killer the better - and I expect there'll be a pretty handsome reward out for those as helped with it." With that, he bid Gabby goodnight, escorting the still trembling Suzy carefully down the stairs. Passing Randy in the hall, he simply nodded to the hotheaded reporter and continued downstairs with Suzy.

Downstairs, he paused briefly and told Coraline, Hank, and Sky Dog much the same as he told Gabby, and left with Suzy.

Recognizing Sky Dog's patient, Coraline ventured over to speak to Walter.  "You again?  I thought we told you to stay out of trouble."  She glanced to his injury and frowned.  "Were those men bothering you again?"

Sky Dog straightened from where he had leant. The flush from Hawthorne's first words left his face starkly, taking the normal tint with it; it was a dog-tense and bone-pale man that stepped up to the lady deputy. "Hawthorn."

He leaned in a little and spoke softly, too close to completely ignore even if she still considered him Earp's talking dog. "A man is not at fault for being set upon and beaten; it is well you do not first say this, yes? You will be doing bad service for the law you are given. It is not dollars only you work for, it is trust. Of Wyitterp, of the people, trust. You worked badly with that woman not of your tribe, to wear the little star but not to help her for your hatred."

He moved back a little, letting her approach the injured man if she would. Korpi, having picked up on her brother's white rage midway through trying to get the sunken bread out of the glass, abandoned it and stood on the edge of the table, head low and hackles up, to show she was ready to jump in if Cora drew on the shaman.

"Oh, hello again, ma'am. I didn't try to start nothin' or hand out no fliers. I just got rid of all o' those. That Simpkins feller, he don't like my kind I guess. Or just Yankees. Either way, he'd already had it in for me and started beatin' me for no cause. I was just mindin' my own business, you can ask anybody. Even that 'no devil liquor' lady'll say the same thing. She seen it all," he said calmly, studying what Sky Dog had done for his arm.

"Hey Injun fella, what you say yer name was?" he asked of the Siberian.

Pondering what he had seen in the murder room, Randolph headed downstairs. Exhaustion from the evening's exertions beginning to take their toll.

Seeing Coraline, he approached the corner table as she spoke to a young Negro with his arm in a sling. With a bit of surprise, he recognized Jackson as the fellow who had been threatened over his Independence Day handbills. Then he saw the albino shaman step up to Coraline in a threatening manner, addressing her in a harsh tone too quiet for Darling to catch what he said.

"Howdy there," he said to Randolph as the man approached. Walter looked the worse for wear, having been beaten up rather badly but his spirits seemed well enough.

Coraline sighed loudly at Sky Dog's admonishment.  "Yet again you lecture me for your own misconceptions, and I do not appreciate it in the slightest, sir.  I was only teasing Mister Jackson.  Perhaps you misunderstood me, yet again, because you are foreign and do not completely understand the language.  Mister Jackson and I had a very nice talk earlier after Mister Darling and I helped him out of a bit of trouble.  I was certainly not insinuating that he was to blame for being beaten."  Turning from strange shaman and his stranger bird, she cast her attention upon the colored man.  "I am not surprised that they came after you again.  They didn't look to be the kind to simply let the matter drop.  We will get witness statements, of course, to build a case against them.  Do you know what happened to the men that attacked you?  Did Marshal Morgan run them off or arrest them?"

In reply to Walter Jackson (msg # 92):

Gabby followed along behind Earp. "I aim to see this lady safe, sir." he says. "You can't stay up all night long. I done pulled many long hours in my minin' days, and I reckon my duty ain't done just yet."

Sky Dog tilted his head slightly. "It is the way of the Americans, to see a man is injured, and tease him?" He moved a hand away from himself in a half-shrug. "I will remember. But for the woman...if she had been the daughter of a drunking kossak, I would have looked on her, and not spoken carelessly. Or do you say 'teasing', also, to accuse of wantful killing someone frightened to weeping, with her bird-soul fled into the shadows of the world?"

"Even if it is sport for you, this casts away the trust for this law, that it is our concerning as for our own tribe." The shaman forced his breathing to a slower pattern, still pale as the drowned. He encouraged Korpi up onto his right wrist and transferred her to his shoulder, then picked up the glass to fish out the dropped crust, pointedly not trying to maintain a conversational stance with Hawthorne's shoulder.

"I am Sky Dog," he supplied to Walter, the usual faint tinge of blood under the skin returning as he held up the bread for Korpi to make a mess of. "The men were allowed to go away only insulted, but if I see them again and they remain wicked, I will curse them."

"Howdy, Mr. Jackson," Randolph replies, "The same man who was harassing you this afternoon, did this?" He shakes his head, "He shouldn't have been allowed to walk away."

Hearing Earp and Gabby on the stairs, he turns to see them coming down with Suzy and crosses to the foot of the staircase. "Mr. Earp, I'm ready to back you when you arrest the man that assaulted this boy, now or tomorrow."

"It's alright, Sky Dog," he said. "It was a joke. This nice lady here and that gentleman over there saved me earlier today from that very same fella that cooked my goose out there. I should prolly spend mo' time with 'em, so's Ralphie don't bother me no more," he said, gesturing to Coraline and Randolph.

"Sounds like a plan to me, Mr. Clarke. You can take the first watch and I'll catch some shut eye. I'll take the second watch," he said, preparing to leave, though he stopped by the door as Randolph addressed him, and passed a glance between Coraline, Sky Dog, and Walter.

"Look, you're all right to think that I should bring in Ralphie Simpkins in for this. We usually let most fights go around here. Got too much more serious shit to reckon with, but he went a little too far with Walter here. I despair of what might've happened if you all hadn't been around. That said, all that's gonna do right now is set this lil' powder keg here on fire. His brother Jake and the Wilderness Riders are gonna figure this is a North-South thing, and God knows who else. Several of you are from back East, Caleb's a United States Marshal, and I used to fight in the Union army. Same with ol' Dog Eye back there. The only one in this posse o' deputies that doesn't have those kinda ties is Mr. Clarke, and I think the Wilderness Riders would be inclined to ignore that fact."

He shook his head, and continued, looking everyone right in the eye. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not gonna go after Ralphie Simpkins till this whole celebration is over and everybody clears town. Then when tempers get settled, we'll bring him in together - that I promise you." He waited to see if there were any other questions.

"How you know he still gonna be 'round then?" asked the injured young man who had been the victim of Ralphie's attack.

The Siberian looked over with curiousity. "What is it shows the difference between North and South men? They wear similar clothings."

Walter's statement got a slightly dubious look, but his choice of companions was not the shaman's buisness. "...it will be well, Jackson: if he is cursed, ha! He will be very sorry."
This message was last edited by the player at 22:20, Tue 19 Mar 2013.

"He's a local character, and has always been around. It's only lately he's been with the Wilderness Riders, since his brother took over the gang. They're based outta here. When this all comes to an end, we'll form up a real posse to take him out, and handle any trouble the Wilderness Riders try to make for us. I'll get my old pal Bat Masterson to come along. He's handy with smokewagon in a tight spot," he said.

Gabby nods at the watch assignment.

He tugs his beard. "Actually, two without northern ties. Don't forget my nephew." he shakes his head. "Still...goddamned hotheads oughta not be blamin' the poor man fer his skin. I could take Danial and talk to them Wilderness Riders tomorrow, if'n you like."

he sighs at Sky Dog's observation. "The difference is a fifteen year war between north an' south. Me an' most o' my friends can pick out a Yankee from a country mile by the way he done talks, dresses, and holds hisself, and I reckon they can do most the same for a Southerner. And even since manumission, there's been a shockin' and distasteful tendency among Confederates to blame the negros for the war an' treat them as less than human, which I ain't never really understood none myself."

Randolph nods to affirm Earp's words, "You're the boss, Deputy Marshall. Say, do you intend to have a sawbones look at the dead man upstairs? I'd be interested in what he might say about the wounds.

"Sky Dog, There's not a bit of difference between Yankees and Southerners, except their opinions. And maybe a bit in their manner of speech, depending where they hail from."

He turns to Coraline, offering his arm, "Miss Hawthorne, will you walk with me to Dodge House. I am dog-tired and would like to re-acquaint myself with my pillow."

Sky Dog just looked extremely confused, considered taking a sip of the water and thought better of it, swapping the glass for the water without the bits of sandwitch and sniffing the same to double-check it wasn't beer or an excessive amount of vodka. Korpi cleaned her beak against the shaman's buckskins and yawned, fluffing, half a beady eye kept on Hawthorne.

"Do you stay here, Jackson? If you go I will walk near you, and seek Dalix and Clemya who are gone, making sure the town is quiet."

"Mr. Clarke, you and your nephew are more than welcome to try to play the peacemakers with the Wilderness Riders, though I think we're gonna have to take Ralphie in anyhow. They may take better to you than they would from me, since you both hail from the South. But don't be surprised if they don't take kindly to you, or accuse you of being 'traitors' or some nonsense like that. I know several upstanding Southern gentlemen like yourself Mr. Clarke, but the Wilderness Riders...well they're cut from a different cloth," he said.

"Mr. Darling, we're gonna have Doc Smith take a look at the body in the morning. I think the idea of getting some shut-eye is a good one. Mr. Clarke and I are going to head back to the jail to look after Miss Winger here and take shifts guarding her - for her own sake."

"I'll come find you all in the morning, to see if we can track down the killer."