"Hell and damnation," Morgan said softly as he read over the letter.

Glancing back up at Gabby, he added, "Rabbit hole is right. It's important that we keep this quiet. We need to let Earp know, but no one else. If word of who this man was gets out, it could spark all kinds of hostility from Union and Confederate sympathizers alike. There might not be enough deputies in all of Dodge to contain the chaos."

He looked at the young woman, then back to the others gathered in the room. "It might be best if we take her to Earp as well. See if he might know somewhere safe where she could stay, out of sight. We don't know exactly how this transpired, but she very well may have gotten a good look at who did this."

"If you would like to sleep away from the settlement, lady, I will be going to such a place - you can sleep in my warm coat and I will share the blanket with Igor, whose ears are sharp, yes?" Sky Dog offered. "Maybe it is better comfort than the little boxes in Wyitterp's working-building."

Darling turns up the street to the saloon and finds Daniel out front.

"I found where the killer landed when he jumped through the window upstairs after cutting off that man's head and arms. The trail led to Chestnut here, but then got lost.

"Have they found out anything from that woman?"

Coraline frowned at the body on the bed and stared for several minutes, working through a particular detail in her mind that nagged at her.  Eventually, she glanced to the hapless woman on the floor.  "Are we quite certain that she didn't create this little scene to cover up a murder she committed?  I saw her arguing with this man earlier today.  I assumed he was her pimp."

Sky Dog pushed away from the door and stalked up to Cora, though she had not turned to him. "It is no crime, to have the wolf disease or be the daughter of a bear," he said softly.

"-But the blood is still running when I come here: his little skull is not crunched up with teeths, and it is not a thing done, the knives hidden, window broken, now you scream, there is no time."

Sky Dog stepped around Cora, holding up his knife. Her attention naturally brought to the blade, he used it to point, his gaze sharp, jaw set. "Turn your eyes on her, Hawthorn, that you talk above. See fear. You judge without seeing this, I think."

Gabby nodded at Caleb's suggestion. "I reckon you're right."

He frowns at Cora, and looks at the woman. Then he regards the letter he found. "Hmm."

He nods with Sky Dog's assessment. That fear there was too fresh and too genuine.

"It's a bit deeper than that, Miss Cora. The dead man's a Union spy. Opens up a whole 'nother can o' worms than what you're thinkin'. But Sky Dog's right. You ain't seeing the girl here. We take her to Marshall Earp, hole her up someplace safe until she's able to talk. What was it you was sayin' this mornin'? Somethin' about 'false accusations?' Let's see what she has to say before you start leapin' to conclusions."

Daniel briefly gave Randolph a confused look, though he quickly worked out there must have been a murder where someone's limbs were hacked off and the screaming woman must be expected to know something. He shook his head at the man's query, "I been out here since everbody else ran upstairs. Lookin' 'bout ta see if anythin' showed isslef. How old ya think them tracks is? Shouldn't be no shortage o' eyeballs lookin' round this way earlier an' I dint see or hear nuthin since I came out this way."

He looked around at some of the building fronts in the nearby vicinity. During their beat walking, they had seen plenty of people. "Mebbe it's time ta start askin' some questions o'folk."

"I didn't hear any glass breaking before the woman's scream. So the man could have been dead a while or maybe her scream covered that sound. We better see what she was screaming about and what else she might know."

He glances at the dog at Daniel's feet, "Why don't you take the dog and see if she picks up any scent. The tracks came down that alley there and hit Chestnut street.

"Here, you boy!" he snags the arm of a youngster going past, "Here's a nickel to run down to the Marshal's office and tell him there's a murder at the Dog Eye Saloon and he better come quick. Run!"

The messenger dispatched, Randolph goes up the stairs to the murder room.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:45, Sun 03 Mar 2013.

Daniel watched Randolph recede, his brow knitted together with curiosity at the man's suggestion. He bent down close to Clementine, "Yer a good girl, but without no hound in ya and no scent, ya might jus' need a mir'cle ta find a scent an follow it. Mebbe he don't know the difference 'tween a hound and a retriever. But I do, and yer a damn fine one. Gabby's one lucky feller, I tell you what." He reached behind Clementine's ear and scratched at one of the spots she liked so much. Then scratched along her flanks along her ribs and patted her right flank with his right hand.

He quietly added, "Mir'cles are more my bag o' tricks, but we'll see if ya gotta few in yer bag as well." He then stood and started to walk toward the indicated alley with a whistle in Clementine's direction. Not that he could spot a track to save his life and not that there was any actual light to track by. But even a walk down the alley would give him a chance to figure out who might have been able to see the person that fled the scene. Maybe some folk on Chestnut could help Daniel out.

Clementine barks happily, licks Danial's hand, and sets about sniffing the crime scene to prove him wrong about her bonifides.

"I wasn't accusing anyone or leaping to conclusions," she said flippantly, waving off the strange man with his half-English and uncanny gaze.  "I was simply offering it as another explanation to rule out.  The fact was that I did see her arguing with the dead man only just this morning.  That was before she attempted to proposition Mister Darling while I was standing right beside him on the street."  The scorn in her voice was very evident.

"What's this letter that you found?  I would very much like to read it." She held out her hand.

Sky Dog watched the dismissive waving as though expecting meaning there, then Cora's face, backing off only enough not to be struck by the gesture. "Proposing of what?"

The low lamplight did not conceal the colour risen under the shaman's skin, nor the slim glitter of bared teeth in his expression, but he turned to Gabby and Morgan, sheathing his knife. "Is it important, to capture the one that struck here?"

The question seemed genuine and immediately relevant. Sky Dog's fingers played over his knifehilt, more uneasy about the fact that the position of the bed did not allow the room's corners to be seen at once than the corpse.

Darling stops at the door to the room.

"I've sent a boy for Earp," he reports, "There were some tracks in the alley under the window. I followed them as far as Chestnut, but too muvh traffic there. Daniel's seeing if Clementine can pick up a scent.

"Has she said anything yet? Who's the dead man?"

He catches the tension in the room and notes how bristly Cora is. He hazards an apologetic smile in her direction.

Seeing the knife in the shaman's hand, he speaks quietly to the man: "Why don't you put up your blade, Sky Dog? I don't think there's any danger and it may be frightening our witness." He nods toward the young woman standing in the corner. "What's her name, Morgan?"

"Sky Dog, it's of the utmost importance in any situation like this to apprehend the killer - that is to say, to find him and put him in a cell or put him down if he pushes it to that." He was silent as to the matter of the proposition, though he didn't have any doubts as to what it had been about. If anything, that was between the nameless woman in the room, Randolph and Coraline if they wished to share it.

Turning to the reporter, he shook his head. "Mr. Darling, we don't know her name and I don't think we're likely to get it in the condition that she's in right now. This is a rather gruesome killing. I've seen a lot of that in my line of work, and this one is up there. She's in shock, which is something else I've seen a fair amount of. I think the best thing we can do for her is to get her to someone that's kin to her, who can take her to a doctor in the morning."

"Well, Morgan," Darling replies, trying to keep his voice even, "In order to do that, we'll need to find out who she is, won't we?

"Miss Hawthorne, let's you and I remove her to another room, where we can help her get control of herself. That'll give the Marshal and Mr. Clarke time to figure out who the victim is."

He turns to the shaman: "Sky Dog, I believe your sister is off helping Daniel and Clementine try to track the killer. Maybe you can assist that effort."


"Miss," he addresses the young whore in a quiet tone, but firmly, "Why don't you come along with us to a quieter place and we can talk." He lightly takes her arm and steers her out into the hallway, looking for McNary.

"I think we've established that her identity is important, Mr. Randolph. And though you may find it difficult to believe, I want to see her get the help she needs as soon as possible," Morgan said.

"I'm certain that McNary will know who she is and I'm equally certain that Deputy Marshal Earp will know how to locate any kin she has in town. My immediate concern is for her condition."

Morgan offered the letter to Hawthorne, allowing her to peruse its contents.

Doing his best to swallow his anger at the reporter, Morgan turned to Sky Dog. "Sky Dog, I think you would be a help to Daniel in tracking the person responsible for this. But I'd appreciate it if, before you go, you had a look at this man's wounds, to see if you notice anything unusual about his injuries. Anything that might tell us about what happened to him."
This message was last edited by the player at 06:42, Wed 06 Mar 2013.

The woman was rooted to the spot where she was on the floor, and removing her from the room wasn't as simple as it had must have first seemed as an idea. Fortunately, before the situation could become awkward, the saloon's proprietor made an appearance.

"Oh my good heavens. I didn't imagine it'd be anything this bad," he said, nearly recoiling at the sight before his eyes landed on the woman.

"Suzy! Suzy come here," he said, but he rushed over to the woman's side as she sat there on the floor, ignoring those that were trying to move her. Gently taking her shoulders, she rose to her feet in the presence of a familiar face. After unsuccessfully attempting to elicit a response from her, Dog Eye turned to the others. "Shit. This is messy. I might as well name this place the Red Dog Saloon after tonight. Did...did she..do we know who did it?"

The noise outside from crowd in the street in front of the saloon began to grow louder, and angry shouting could be heard even this far inside the saloon.

Hearing the shouting outside, Morgan immediately understood he had other priorities. He moved carefully through the room, doing his best not to disrupt anything within. Making certain his deputy marshal badge was readily visible, he walked hurriedly downstairs and through the saloon, hoping to bring some calm to the shouting crowd outside.

As he exited the Dog Eye, he silently hoped that the boy Darling had sent had already found Earp.

Darling says to McNary, "Is there another room where we can take Suzy and talk to her? Staring at that mess can't be doing her any good. What's her last name anyway?

"And who's the fellow on the bed?""
This message was last edited by the player at 15:30, Wed 06 Mar 2013.

Hank looked with concern at Suzy. "Her name is Suzy Winger, and she works outta the saloon from time to time. I don't know who the fella is, though. It'd help if he still had a face, wouldn't it? Or at least a head. Maybe some...friend o' hers. I seen 'er talkin' to him before. Think his name is Paul. Ain't one o' her customers, though," he said, leading Suzy along with him.

"She's gotta room here that I let to her, but if yer gonna talk to 'er, I'm gonna have to stick around while you do it. She looks like she been through a rough time, and needs a friend. And I suppose we are that, at least." He lead her to one of the neighboring rooms, and opened it with a key from his keyring.

Sky Dog stopped bristling at Darling and Cora at Dog Eye's words, nodding seriously to him. "It is good you should stay with her."

He paused until the wolf-hearted woman and the shadow man seemed to be moving off before pacing around to the window. "It may be only this man the thing was sent for - I see it in the land of the Western Ice, the shamans put scraps of thing and spirit together until it moves, tell it 'kill my enemy' - after, it is again only sticks. It is not a man does this thing, to come, stay in the corner, cut a man's head like it is a little cranberry and leap head-first through the window."

Sky Dog looked out into the night, frowning at the shouting. "-But my eyes they are poor, like the white-eye sledge dogs'...things fine like hair, I see badly as things far away. I will look at the cutting, but first I will ask the window what shape is going through it."

The shaman closed his eyes and pressed his hand to the remaining pane of glass, his spirit calling to that which had been, the object-soul made up of the myriad ghosts of mountains become sand, plants become ash and furnace-flame, the thoughts and will of its makers. He concentrated, trying to run his mind down the cracks, backwards through the traumas until the point of impact was reached...and let that non-memory run through him, trying to catch the shape of what had passed through.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:49, Thu 07 Mar 2013.

Hank 'Dog Eye' McNary wandered out of the room with his arm around Suzy, who was still weeping. He gestured for Randolph to come after, and he took them into the next room, which was Suzy's. From the outside, one gunshot can be heard, followed by another. Suzy burst into tears again, and Hank just said "Aww, hell."
This message was last updated by the player at 14:38, Thu 07 Mar 2013.

Coraline followed Hank and the others into Suzy's room, though she resented the fact that everyone would automatically assume she was a caretaker simply because she had tits.  She sighed at the sound of gunfire and glanced in the direction of the door.  "Don't worry, Mister McNary.  Marshal Morgan went to check on the disturbance and I'm sure he'll be able to handle things.  He's quite capable with that sidearm of his."

Randolph gives Coraline a small smile and a slightly skeptical tweak of his eyebrow. His voice, when he speaks, is pitched low.

"Perhaps you should try speaking to the woman, Miss Hawthorne. She might find a woman's voice more settling. We need to find out what she knows and what she saw."

Gabby, not entirely certain poor Suzy should be left in the care of the dandy reporter and the woman who seemed to despise her, followed along behind after giving the room another look-over. He arrived to see Mr. Darling whispering.

"Well, now, if'n you want some info, there's this here, which I found on the dead man." He offers the letter he'd found to the pair of them. "The dead man looked to be a Yankee spy. If she was meetin' him, maybe she was givin' him some info."

He crept into the room, hat off, and looked at the girl. "Hey." he says softly. "Hey there, now. It's all right. You're safe now." He kneels next to Hank. Not too close--he didn't want to crowd her, and she knew the barkeep better anyhow.