Coraline didn't have to walk more than a couple steps before she saw Wyatt Earp pushing his way through the crowd, a very grumpy, sleepy and somewhat bedraggled looking doctor in tow. As he had promised, it appeared that he had roused the physician from sleep and brought him to the seen.

"Deputy Hawthorne, I present to you Doc Smith. If Deputy Darling," he paused and looked at the doctor, "that's the man's name," he said, looking now again to Coraline, "is still in the outhouse, I hope someone else is watchin' the body. If you will, go ahead and take him to the scene for me. Be sure to get me if I'm needed." So saying, the law man put the doctor into Coraline's custody.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:06, Thu 30 May 2013.

Doc Smith tried to give Coraline something of a polite smile. "Evenin' ma'am," he said.

"Hello again, Doctor," Coraline nodded.  "Please forgive the sudden summons, but the others thought that you should have a look before the body is moved.  You have been informed as to what we've found?  The location and state of the body?  It is, like the first killing, a rather gruesome thing."

The doctor handed her a lantern. "Miss Hawthorne, f you could just hold this up while I work...it's a bit dark out here. Mr. Darling, could you get another lantern? I'm going to need a little more light than we have here at present if I'm to do anything out here. By the by, I think Suzy will be taking up her room again here at the saloon. Maybe tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest. She's made a recovery, thank the Lord."

He knelt by the body, and in the lantern light that Coraline held close, he examined the wounds. After a moment, he said simply, "damn," and drew a deep breath, releasing it before he stood up.

“Back in ’63, I served in the Confederate Army as a surgeon. During the Battle of
Gettysburg, I was stationed in a field hospital, and the wounded were coming in thick and heavy. I was stitching together some poor young man’s arm when I heard a tremendous commotion from the triage tent where other men were waiting for our attention—or were long past needing it. It was a hot night, kind of like it’ll be tonight, and although it was 10 years ago to the day, I remember it like it was only last week."

“I handed my needle to my nurse and trotted out to see what the hullabaloo was about. At first I thought the Yankees had outflanked us and were attacking us in the night. It turned out to be worse—much worse. Apparently some butcher in surgeon’s clothing had been working his way among the wounded, amputating healthy limbs as he went. No anaesthetic. No bullet to bite on. Just a quick cut with the knife, and the arm or the leg was gone. In some cases, he took heads. God, that was a terrible night." He paused, kneeling in the dirt again near the body to examine more of the wounds.

“There was one man by the name of Ketchum who spotted him. Ketchum was near to death himself, but he’d been awakened from his delirium by the screams of those the Butcher - that's what we took to callin' him - was dismembering. The soldiers standing guard outside the tent had ignored the yells. After a while of listening to wounded men scream, knowing you can’t do a thing about it, you just try to shut it out."

“Anyhow, Ketchum managed to reach his sidearm and plug the Butcher full of lead. The gunshots were what finally got the guards to come running. When the soldiers arrived, they saw the Butcher standing over Ketchum, who was still firing his empty pistol at the killer despite the fact that his right eye was impaled on the tip of the Butcher’s bloody scalpel. The madman ran off cackling, despite the fact the guards swore they’d hit him with their rifles as he fled."

"Now...maybe I'm just getting carried away and letting my mind take me on these flights of fancy, but this killing and the other...the removal of the limbs in this precise, surgical fashion...I can't help but be reminded of that night."

Coraline's lips parted slightly as she listened to the doctor's tale, her imagination running wild, especially after what they'd already seen.  She fanned her face, suddenly feeling unsettled as a trickle of sweat rolled down her back.  Her eyes flitted to the shadows, half expecting the Butcher to be waiting in each one.  After the brief surge of fright, she silently chided herself for being so foolish.  They were safe with so many people around, weren't they?  But then, had the dead man thought that as well?

She swallowed thickly.  "No, I do not think that you're foolishly jumping to conclusions, Doctor.  This seems eerily similar to your tale.  You said it yourself that the killer cut away the victim's limbs with surgical precision.  What if another madman is on the loose?  I don't understand why no one has witnessed the crime, however.  Surely there would be screams... or something... to alert others."

"Please concentrate on the actual cause of death and poor Ralphie's condition when his assailant commenced his surgery. I'll get you that lamp." He goes in to the saloon.

"Morgan!" he yells up the stairs until the Marshall responds, "Doc Smith is here! Out back with Miss Hawthorne!"

Doc Smith, who had been attending to his examination of the body even while he spoke, glared at Randolph as the man departed.

"'Please concentrate on the cause of death'? What does he think I'm doing, having a picnic?" he asked Coraline, obviously sounding irritated with Randolph. One of the serving girls came out with another lamp, and he instructed her on where to place it.

"These are hardly the ideal conditions for such a thing," he grumbled, muttering unintelligibly as he continued his examination. "Someone slit his throat. That's the first wound here, then the cut across his face, then his legs were taken last. And then apparently he's missing an eyeball too, though that seems to have been torn out. Not like the others."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:04, Tue 21 May 2013.

Coraline pursed her lips.  "Don't mind Mister Darling.  He's often distracted by his own story telling that he forgets others have advice to offer as well."  She wouldn't call Randolph a bully, but he certainly had a knack for ignoring whatever he didn't particularly feel was important.

Tilting her head at the doctor's explanation, she pondered the meaning behind the murder.  "If his throat was slit first, then this wasn't done to revel in the man's agony, otherwise he would have been left alive so he could feel every ounce of pain.  He would have been dead in a matter of moments from that wound.  Can you tell how the throat was cut?  Was it a slash from the front?  Or one that would have been carried out from behind, as in the murderer sneaked up on him and took him unawares?"

Morgan ventured downstairs but saw no sign of Darling. Stepping outside, he walked to the alley and spied Hawthorne speaking with a man he presumed to be Doctor Smith. He walked up to the pair, remaining quiet to hear what Smith had to say.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:38, Wed 22 May 2013.

"The cut to the throat was quick, not surgical and precise like the others. A quick killing blow, likely from the front." He mimicked a slashing motion.

"Whoever did it was very much aware of what he was about. It's a killing cut. This man wouldn't have had much of a chance after that. As for whether he was taken by surprise, I imagine so. There don't seem to be any defense wounds here that I can detect in this light."
This message was last updated by the player at 19:59, Wed 22 May 2013.

Morgan cleared his throat, keeping his voice low so that only Hawthorne and Smith could hear him. "It appears that the killer is Mansfield. He appeared to be a hopeless drunkard, but even in his cups, he was able to set a young man's arm that had been broken."

"I was just in his room at the Dog Eye with a couple of the other deputies. They found a carpetbag full of...trophies for lack of a better term, under the man's bed."

Scowling, Morgan shook his head. "I spoke to him last night. Right after it all happened."

"The colored boy's arm? He told me about that. Whoever set that arm knew his business, I can say that much. Odd that, isn't it? If what you're sayin' is true...this man Ralphie here beats up the colored boy and breaks his arm. The drunk doctor comes and sets the boy's arm. Then comes and kills Ralphie," he said, shaking his head.

"I daresay Ralphie mighta deserved it. The way I see it though, many people suckin' down air deserve to die. Some folks that die probably deserve to live, but you can't give it to 'em, hard as you try."

A line formed between Coraline's brows as they drew together.  "The drunkard?  That doesn't seem right, does it?  I mean, I fully understand why someone would feel the need to repay someone in kind for the pain they've caused, but why would the drunk doctor do that for a negro boy he barely knows?  And what was his motivation for killing the other man with Suzy?  Did the man hurt her in some fashion, perhaps?"

"Still, that doesn't explain the broken window upstairs that the crazy indian believes was done by a monster.  Nor does it explain why Suzy was so traumatized over the event.  Seeing someone murdered horribly would be a shock, of course, but would it be as jarring as how Doctor Smith explained her condition?"

"Could someone have planted the evidence in his room, knowing he was a doctor and possibly once a skilled surgeon?  Could Mansfield be insane, not knowing what he's doing?"

Morgan nodded slowly. "Right after the war, Miss Hawthorne, I did a fair bit of drinking. More than a man should. I did it in a vain attempt to rid myself of memories I didn't want to hang onto. Never worked. I can't help but wonder if Mansfield is doing the same. Maybe he is mad. It could be that he loses control to some murderous rage that comes upon him. But I'm inclined to guess that he remembers his actions and afterward, he tries to drown the pictures in his head."

Looking down at the corpse, he said, "Or maybe you're right. It might be that he isn't the murderer at all. But I'm not certain that the evidence Gabby found was planted. I'm more inclined to think that, if Mansfield isn't the killer, he's cooperating with him or her. Helping hide the evidence of the crimes. Or saving the trophies for some other terrible reason."

He paused, his jaw tightening. Clearing his throat, he added, "One other possibility occurs to me. You're right. Sky Dog has always referred to the killer as a monster. Strange as it might sound, it could be that Mansfield changes...that he becomes something else, something inhuman, when he commits these crimes."

"It may seem far fetched, but we've seen some things that were just as strange not long ago."

"I wish you the best of luck in your investigation, truly," he said sincerely.

"But I think I've done all I can here now. I'm going to have some of my regulars come for the body to bring it back to my office. I'll conduct a more thorough examination in the morning. A goodnight to the both of you." After waiting a few moments to listen to anything more they might have to add, he made his way back towards his home.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:31, Wed 29 May 2013.

"Thank you for your assistance, Doctor.  We'll be here to guard the body, so if you could tell your people to hurry, we would be very grateful."  She glanced back to Morgan as the doctor left, considering his theory.  "What, exactly, was in that bag that you found?  I don't quite know what you mean by 'trophy'.  Were there body parts from the deceased?  Blood?  Or something else entirely?"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:32, Wed 29 May 2013.

"Body parts, as I understood it," Morgan answered. He suddenly felt foolish for having used a euphemism for the find. There was no point in trying to politely shield Hawthorne from what had transpired. She had seen just as many horrors as the rest of them.

Morgan took a few steps away from Simpkins' corpse, staring at the ground and the hopeless tangle of shoe and boot prints that had made following the murderer impossible. He frowned in frustration.

Shaking his head he said, "There wasn't any way to track the killer from here. By the time we arrived, the crowd had tramped away any sign of his escape. Once they've collected the body, the only thing I can think to do is return to the Dog Eye and wait. Mansfield still has his room there, so hopefully he'll return. Unless he's somehow figured out that we're on to him."

He thought about the saloon and it's various entrances and exits, along with the abundance of windows. Mobility certainly wasn't a problem for the killer. It might be hell trying to keep him there, or to follow him if he got loose.

A couple of young men arrived on the scene with a stretcher, and an explanation that they had been ordered by Wyatt Earp to take a body over to Doc Smith's, and a note written by Earp authorizing them to do as much.

"Perhaps we can check a few places within town and ask around.  If it is the man and is a perpetual drunk, he wouldn't be able to resist imbibing during the celebration.  That's assuming that he isn't off somewhere with his... ah... trophies."  It turned her stomach to think what such a man might do with human flesh.  She paused as the men approached to take away the body and accepted the note, reading it through and verifying that Earp had signed it.  She passed it to Caleb for his inspection.

Morgan read the note, noting that it bore Earp's signature. Folding it and returning it to one of the men, he stepped back to allow them to collect the body.

He nodded at Hawthorne's suggestion. It was a sound idea, one that would at least make him feel as though he was doing something, not idly waiting for another tragedy to transpire.

"You're right," he said, "It would be good to take a look in a few of the saloons. Even if we don't find Mansfield, we might learn about other places he frequents. "

He pointed down the alley toward Chestnut Street. "The Cowtown Saloon's just across the street. The Lone Star, Long Branch, and a few others are on Front Street, facing the tracks." He smiled ruefully. "Not sure any of them are a place for a proper lady. But I'm certain you can handle yourself just fine."

"At last!  A man that won't treat me like a delicate flower or think that I can't fend for myself simply because I'm wearing a dress."  She returned the smile and flicked her chin in the direction of the street.  "Let's go have a look about, then.  There's nothing more that we can do here.  I'm certain our companions have everything covered upstairs."

Before Caleb and Coraline could leave to seek after the suspect in one of the other watering holes nearby, a young woman ran up to where they were standing.

"Miss Hawthorne!" said the girl, and she began to spit out her story as best as she could remember it. "I mean, Deputy Hawthorne. Y'all gotta help us! Deputy Darling came over just a few minutes ago, and I wasn't gonna let him in, because it wouldn't be proper to have him over with just us two women at home. But he said he was there to protect us from a murderer, and so I did. And then he started being really mean to Suzy! And then he said he was gonna take her to jail as his prisoner! So I picked up daddy's shotgun and said that he couldn't, tried to get him to leave, but he wouldn't. Then daddy came back, and took the gun from me, and said that Deputy Darling couldn't take Suzy because she was his patient. And...oh, I don't know what's gonna happen! Daddy told me to come get y'all so you could help us. You have to come!" she said insistently, on the verge of tears from nervousness and fright.