The bird's onslaught had caused her to take several involuntary steps backward as she used one arm to shield herself from the attack.  Thankful that Earp intervened, she took a breath and reached to grasp her other arm.  The color drained from her face the moment Sky Dog dared to utter 'witch'.  Her eyes flashed dangerously between him and the miner.

"Both of you need to shut your goddamned mouth," she hissed.  Swearing was so unladylike, but it was appropriate in this case. "People get burned from talk like that, or driven off at the very least.  You should restrain yourself from speaking of things you know nothing about."  That last was directed at Gabby.

Gathering up her tattered dress so she wouldn't trip over it, again with the hand holding the purse (she had yet to use the other arm), she stiffened and gave them all a withering look.  "Mister Earp, thank you kindly for your assistance.  It is pleasant to know that some men are still gentlemen.  Mister Morgan, I think we had better be on about our business before things escalate once again." While her slashed dress and injured arm prevented her from flouncing off as she would have liked, she did her best, leaving them to deal with the broken Mansfield and bloody corpse.

"No! Of course not!" Gabby says at Sky Dog's query. "How is it an insult if it's true?" he manages to pull off a fair approximation of Cora's tone. "A witch is a woman, ill of temperament usually, who wields magic o' the blackest sort. The sort that makes folks heads explode and unravels drawers an' stitches. I think I know enough about the world to make that sort o' pronouncement, at least." he glares at Cora. "You ain't given me much reason to hold my tongue, missy. You insult my dog, get all huffy about it when I take offense, then turn around and tell me to shut up when Sky Dog here points out that you've made some kind o' pact with Satan fer power? Ain't nothin' ladylike about that."

Sky Dog looked up from agreeing with a statement from Korpi that was clearly along the lines of 'these iron devils are crazy'. "Satan?"

He frowned at Gabby's outburst, leaning partly on the riding-pole. "Uncle! You are more wise than such saying, I think. Hawthorn is not wicked of nature, not more is a noisy woman worse than a noisy man, or shamán. That she must treat others badly, it is the price of bringing up the hungry little ones from the Lower World, else they will devour her onnir and send her into madness. Or worse than that."

Sky Dog gestured at the group. "You see that Clemya is not hurt, and Hawthorn has done well for this law, as you had criticised her for not doing before. She will not be better, that you burn her with words."

"Hawthorn!" Sky Dog twisted where he sat to look after Cora's attempt to storm off, aware he would likely be ignored. "I will not speak where you are not accepted - it is not my buisness. But if you do have need of help, I will also help you, yes? As any who has the ghost-infection or is injured by an animal."

Cora, to her credit, made no indication that she'd heard Gabby's tirade or Sky Dog's offer.  Her only thought was to get away from them both to keep herself from doing something she might regret.

At Smith's door, Randolph squares his shoulders and settles his hat firmly on his head. He raises his hand to knock, then lowers it, frowning. He removes his hat and finally knocks.

Gabby sighs. "I suppose you're right, Sky Dog." he says. He leans against the wall, felling the weight of the night settle on him. "Reckon I've had enough of a bad night that I done let her poor attitude get under my skin. And with her holdin' on to that demon knife, and snapping at Clementine when she tried to get it away...I reckon that's all Clementine wanted. To get the evil thing away, mebbe find some place to bury it. She can't be faulted fer not knowin' better. And then Cora had to start on insultin' her..."

He sighs. "You know, it ain't really got nothin' to do with Hawthorne, really. It's just..." He closed his eyes. A tear squeaked down his cheek. "You don't know what it's like, tryin' to explain to a five year old girl what the word 'mutt' means, especially when she asks you with innocent eyes why they were usin' it in regards to her..." His voice breaks, and he rubs at the tears. "So on top of everythin' else, tonight I had to be reminded o' that day. I guess them monsters done shook me more than I like to admit. Makes me snappish and ornery."

When Daniel had spoken up, Morgan had turned his attention to him. "I think you and Gabby might be right. As grim a business as it is, if you really think there's enough there to convince Simpkins that that's the body of the killer...well, it would probably be worth the trouble." Morgan sighed. "I certainly don't want to see anymore blood spilled. But I think it's something you and Gabby should handle. Simpkins and I didn't get along too well when we met."

As he finished speaking, Morgan heard the sounds of the altercation between Hawthorne, Clementine, and Korpi. He was pleased to see Earp step in the middle of things and calm the situation down. After Hawthorne and Clarke exchanged words, Morgan moved to follow Hawthorne as she began to walk away. But before he departed, he paused to speak to Gabby.

"Gabby, you know I think highly of you. Always have. I don't know what my word's worth to you, if anything. But I want you to understand something. When that thing that Mansfield became attacked us, Darling, Earp and I, we all shot it. More than once. Not one of us missed, best I can tell. But we didn't slow it down at all. The truth is it was well on its way to carving me to pieces."

He shook his head. "If it hadn't been for Miss Hawthorne, I honestly don't think I'd be alive. I guess what I'm trying to say is, you two may not get along, and I'm the last one to tell you that you have to. But I think Miss Hawthorne's on the right side. And I trust her. Just like I trust you."

Clapping Gabby on the shoulder, Morgan turned to follow Hawthorne. Suddenly, it felt as though the weight of the last few days had settled onto his shoulders like a shroud. He was as tired as he had been in many years. But this needed to be finished.

Then, he could put Dodge behind him, and ride on to Hays.

Sky Dog dipped his head a little, the tendons of his hand stark white against the staff's long strips of off-white inlay (it seemed to be single strips of bone or ivory, but no surely living beast had such long limbs or tusks). "It is the want of the hungry little ones, to make a sharp feeling - ow! - it is much thought for them in the Middle World, for them to become stronger."

The shaman tapped Igor a little closer at Gabby's despondancy. He had been mistaken for a white girl once or twice, as a traveller hailed him from behind, but never a half-breed. Not a human one, anyway. Sky Dog was immediately curious, but kept his tone and expression neutral. "It is a hard night, and a hurtful memory, I think. If you would like, after I have gone to warn the dark Americans, I will ask Dog Eye the use of his stove and make chai in the proper manner: it is good comfort."

He looked back at the corpse and Mansfield. "Please, I would ask for the dead man that you do not use him for your lying, if you do this. Already he is unhappy, most unhappy to be of a sudden dead and in pieces. I have told him it is not well to cross me, but a ghost that is...frustrated, it is not safe for the people. But I am being civilised. I will go."

"A neighbor of mine when I was growin' up had a dog, used to keep it 'round the farm. Real sweet, wonderful dog. Farm dog, you know, just let it run wild. Kept the kids safe when they were playin', killed the coyotes when they got too close. Well, one night it killed a calf on another neighbor's farm at night. Didn't matter that they didn't tell the dog to kill that calf. They still had to make right for what their dog did. When you have an animal, you can't just throw your hands up and talk about what it does or doesn't smell or like and say that it wasn't none of your doing. A dog can be a wonderful friend...family even, but you have to take responsibility for your animal. That's part of the price for keepin' one," he said.

"Sky Dog, the same goes for you. You ain't out in Siberia no more, where maybe everybody wants a bird flappin' its wings in their face or on sittin' their head all the time. When that happens, you gotta take 'er in hand. It's like...your duty." He thought that maybe that would be a word that the Siberian might understand.

After hearing Gabby's story, he did seem a little more sympathetic towards the old man. "You know, there are some bastards out there, but that's a step lower than human, to talk that way to a child. I'm sorry to hear that it happened even once."

He paused to listen to what Caleb said, nodding quietly in agreement. He was about to add something himself when the priest, having silently witnessed the proceedings, added his own thoughts.

"Some two months ago now I believe, we had a problem in Dodge City. People were removing the bodies of the dead from the graveyard. They were consuming the flesh of the dead, and turning into something else entirely. There were some men, in town by chance, who came to me with an offer to help. One of these men was British, and he did some things. These are not things of holy origin, what he did. You are using this word...witchcraft...brujería. I think that is what he did."

"And so I found myself at a dilemma. I know this is a wrong thing, but if it is used to fight these things that are worse and more wrong, then I say let it be, left to be dealt with another day. When the dead are not walking, when instruments of medicine are not transforming men into murderers...when all of that has been washed away, there will be time to bring these sinners back to a place where God is at the center of their lives. But in the mean time, if they are fighting the same fight it is a help to me. There can be forgiveness for those who have gone astray."

He looked to Sky Dog, and then the others. "I think, that you know these men. Stay with them. I will go and talk to the negros, and let them know of the danger you believe they are in. I think they might not understand you. It is difficult to understand you sometimes."

Sky Dog looked at Earp for a time. "If I may prevent her going against your custom, I will ask it - for friendship. If you are very much displeased my sister has the custom to be defending ones she would count as friend, again, I say I will return your law to you."

The shaman kept the lawman's gaze. "What I do, I do not seek to mend the wound in the world for one people; a thing is not done well only for the good and the pretty. But if it is one against another one, direly, my tribe goes before your tribe. Always." The raven feather whispered against his tin beasts as he leant back and summarised for Korpi before turning his attention to the priest.

"If there are those, as yourself, that deal only with the Upper World, there will be those that deal only with the Lower." He nodded to the priest's assessment, then flashed a grin at the giant's description of his communication skills. "If you think it well. You will come back after, maybe?"
This message was last edited by the player at 21:29, Sun 30 June 2013.

Like most of the time, Wyatt Earp understood most of what Sky Dog said. Or at least part of it. He couldn't himself imagine what it must be like to walk across half the world and learn another language. He imagined that if he went to live among Sky Dog's people he might sound like a drunken lunatic half the time too. Still, the man's culture was so alien that occasionally he found it frustrating to even deal with him.

"Look, I don't have time to sit around talking about your bird, and your bird's tribe and your bird's friends and all that. If you want to have it keep on flappin' its wings in people's faces, that's your business. Just don't come tell me I didn't warn you when it pisses off the wrong drunken cowpoke and gets shot," he said.

"Until tomorrow, you still have my law, so I think it's time to be about it. Daniel, Gabby, and Sky Dog, I'd like you to escort Mr. Mansfield here to a cell. We'll see about his situation tomorrow. If anybody asks, he was drunk and fighting. Tomorrow we'll figure out what to do with him," He pressed the keys into Sky Dog's hand.

"I've got to go catch up with Deputy Morgan and Deputy Hawthorne, and help them find the smith. He ain't gonna be happy to get his forge runnin' at this time o' night. I'll catch you all up later at the jail." With that, Earp departed, going after the other two.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:06, Mon 01 July 2013.

The Siberian said nothing, the fingers of his free hand unconsciously brushing his hilt then Igor's neck before curling about the keys.

He tapped his mount, steering lightly with the stick more than the rope rein, and circled about the medicine drunkard. Mansfield recieved a not entirely gentle poking with riding-pole. "You will rise up or be taken," he informed the man.

"I'm coming," he said, seemingly like a man who didn't have any fight in him.

Gabby cradled his shotgun and helped Mansfield to his feet. "Hopefully you can start puttin' your life back together, now that you're free o' that thing." He says kindly.

"It's been so long with it that...I haven't known what it is to be a free man since Gettysburg. I hope to find some peace. Somewhere quiet...by myself. I'm not sure that I deserve it after all the things it made me do. But I hope to try for it," he said, solemnly.

Sky Dog continued to lightly herd the 'prisoner' as though he were a wayward reindeer, his own beast head-hung and unhappy.

The priest walked along with them for a time, before indicating that he would make a more direct route to what had been their shared destination for a time. "I do not know that I will join you again tonight, Perro del Cielo, but if you wish to find me tomorrow, I will be at the church building. It is near to where you keep your strange animal."

Without need for many more words, he went off in his own direction, to give warning to the colored people of Dodge City that someone might be looking to instigate a fight with them.

"Delshello," Korpi repeated, pleased by the sound. Sky Dog gave a deep sigh that let some of the tension out of his chest and rubbed his forehead with the heel his hand.

"I do remember...I will come," he said, looking after the priest a moment as he vanished like a Lifter ghost into the night, still unsure what to make of the man.

He looked both skeptical and fearful of Sky Dog, the one who seemed to be leading his escort. Though Daniel cut quite the imposing figure and Gabby had a shotgun, somehow the strange savage seemed to throw him off more.

"I am, uh, I say, I am quite regretful about attacking you earlier. And about all those people, yes, very sorry about that. I wasn't in control of myself, you understand. I didn't have any choice in the matter. I'm a doctor, not a killer. At least...I was, and I think I am again. I tried to do some good whenever it let me go...but I don't know how much good I'm going to have to do to wash out the bad that thing did with me."

The moon touched a ghost-glow to Sky Dog's skin as he looked over, silent for several seconds. Although he had not heard those phrases aloud, the sense of them was familiar, dragging his mind back to long stretches of working alone, trying to keep his own helper-spirits, the land's and the old shaman's propitiated and fed, the herders safe...and failing, sometimes, and a pair of boots by firelight...and knowing that in forty heartbeats a drunken man would lose the use of his feet in the snow. False warmth.

"Much," Sky Dog concluded. "It would be well to offer the unheaded man to sew his body back together, for he was still...shocked at being of a sudden dead when I told to him to quiet himself. You will probably dream him." He leant and angled the riding-pole a little, warningly, to keep Mansfield's path straight.

"If you can yet cease the drunking, that...that is better. I have also some blame in this, for that I did not see the threads between things sooner."

*Uff,* remarked Igor.

"I only drank to drown the memories of those horrible things. I won't be doing horrible things any more, God help me. I suppose it may take me some time to overcome the withdrawal of my alcoholism that I have lived in, but I know how it should be done.

He paused, and then said, "And I suppose I could offer to stitch that poor man's head back to his body. Oh, Lord. I still...I can't believe all of it."

"Yeah, well, there's a lot that most wouldn't believe in this world." Gabby says thoughtfully. "Hell, last week, I was laughing at most o' the stuff printed in the Tombstone Epitaph. But after what I done seen since I left Topeka, well, it puts a whole new light on a lot o' things. I got the feelin' that possessed cutlery ain't the weirdest thing out there by half, and I'm just sorry you weren't able to rid yourself of the thing."

He gives Mansfield a friendly pat. "The thing is, you did get rid of it. And it happened without you bein' killed in the process. I reckon that since the Good Lord saw fit to grant you another chance, perhaps you should be usin' it to help put some o' the dark things in the world back into the black. Marshal Morgan was planning to ride out to Hays an' track down another sort o' butcher. I'll be goin' with him when he does...why don't you come along? I reckon a surgeon might be handy...Danny's fine with first aid and sutures, but I reckon if we keep goin' the way we are we might need some one on our side what knows more about medicine than he does."

The shaman set his jaw against the temptation to criticise, though his look became bemused when Gabby's 'most' seemed to exclude all peoples with shamans trained to deal with such things, whilst all but next to a shaman. He rubbed a knuckle against his brow to knead away the frown.

"Quanterill is no longer at Hays, he is nearer to the oak-place, yes? Though I am starting to think the oaks are not in the light of the Middle World, for that no-one has seen them." He glanced at the two older men. "I do not have time to go flying all over the land in the shadows of the world...but I do not know how the thoughts, the dream-stuff, it would stay. Why for would a place be known or named for its oak-gang, that there is no oak-home there in the Middle World to see?"
This message was last edited by the player at 08:16, Thu 04 July 2013.

Daniel was uncharacteristically quiet while the back-and-forth between Cora and his uncle occurred. He was about to step in when he was asked to escort the prisoner. He figured it might be a good time to talk to the other two, at least once they deposited the prisoner where he was to go.

He listened to the doctor mention his lack of control. "I unnerstan' that ya weren't controllin' yerself. I think Marshal Earp does too."

At the request that the surgeon come along, Daniel perked up a bit. He was always concerned about who might patch him up when he was hurting. Sky Dog could probably do that just fine, though.

"Always nice ta have another pair o' hands along, doc." He then turned to listen to Sky Dog. "The acorn don't never fall far from the tree, ya know?"