As they neared the Town Marshal's office, Morgan couldn't help smiling at the raven's efforts to shine the badge. "Are you trying to make friends, Korpi?" he asked as he pushed the door open.

Trying not to interrupt any conversations that were taking place, Morgan made his way to Earp. "If you want people deputized, I'm ready to do that." He shrugged. "But honestly, I'm good with us riding out of here just as we are."

"Oh, you have no idea just how talented I really am, Mister Clarke."  She smirked impishly at Gabby before giving the gathered men a nod.  Satisfied that none of them would make trouble for her, she turned to the door and Caleb's entrance.  Her eyes flitted briefly to the bird on his hat, but the flash of annoyance only lasted a heartbeat before the smile of self assurance returned in force.  Her fan emerged from her sleeve and she waved it lazily in front of her face to create a slight breeze.

Korpi pinned her shiny badge under her foot, tilting her head this way and that at the company. "Amen, amen," she said in distinctly Russian accents, taking advantage of being the 'tallest' in the room to do priest impressions.

This did not help Sky Dog's fit of corvine laughter at Hawthorne's Mysterious Woman Talents; the shaman braced a hand against the wall, laughing himself pink.

Daniel narrowed his eyes at his uncle's need to make any sort of comment concerning Cora's skills. Daniel had hoped his discussion with his uncle would have kept such unnecessary commentary from escaping his lips. At least he didn't say anything outright, but it still made Daniel shake his head slowly.

"The hell's wrong with him?" he asked, pointing to the strange fit that Sky Dog seemed to be having.

"Everyone has a theory.  No one truly knows," Cora answered the Texan.  She gave Sky Dog a long stare before turning away with a shrug.  "He's foreign."  That seemed the best explanation. It covered a wide range of possibilities.

Earp stared for a moment at Sky Dog's fit, and shook his head, seeming content to ignore it unless it was clear the man was having some sort of medical emergency.

"I don't think we all need to be deputized, though personally, I'd take you up on it after we've wrapped everything up. Miss Hawthorne, I reckon' we can leave within a couple hours. Give everyone time to get their gear together and ready for a ride. Before we get to packin' up and deputizin', I thought we might could figure out where exactly it is that we're going." He gestured to Bat.

He nodded at Coraline, satisfied with the answer, and quietly studied the peculiar foreigner, as if wondering if the man might decide to do something dangerous.

"Best as we can reckon, there aren't a helluva lot of towns that show their colors openly, but some do. Hays was one of them. East of Hays, there's Salina. West, there's Oakley, and further west, Colby. I think that might be it that I can think of," he said.

"I don't know about you fellas, but I'm itchin' to arrest me some dead people," he added, unhelpfully.

"Also, I'm all for bein' deputized. I like badges."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:43, Wed 31 July 2013.

Daniel's eyes widened a bit when Bat listed out the names. "Waitasec. Didya say Oakley? Sky Dog, what sorta trees ya been lookin' fer?"  Given Daniel's metaphor about acorns, he was pretty sure it was oak.

Gabby nodded at Danial's hunch. Still, there were other clues to look at. "Which o' these towns hosts a buffalo hunter camp?"

Hearing his name among the scraps of conversation, Sky Dog pressed the heel of his free hand to his forehead as though pushing the laughter from his thoughts. Still very much pink, he straightened and strove to concentrate. "Trees? Yes, they will go to the oak-place, with the low grass...you say lea?" Something had sounded like 'oak lea' whilst he was laughing. "-to the oak-lea, from the east. It is on the land drawn here?" he indicated the map, alert now.

"If everyone is prepared to leave in a couple of hours, I expect Miss Hawthorne and I better get busy. We need horses and gear. I'd appreciate some advice as to what items are essential.

"How long do you figure we'll be gone?"

"Pipe down, Tinhorn! Funny man's tryin' to talk English," said the Texan, pointing at Sky Dog.

"Yeah, it's right here," he said, pointing to Oakley on the map, though not entirely sure what Sky Dog wanted, or what he might do at any given moment. He looked over at Earp.

"Is he drunk?"

"No, that's just how he acts...kinda like a drunkard. I think it's how folks in Siberia act," he said.

Sky Dog shook his head slightly to being called drunk, but the new scar on his cheek was enough to rein back the impulse to retort. "That is where they will go. Is this settlement drawn also? Ah, yes, I have seen the shape-" Sky Dog set an unerring finger on Dodge, despite being unable to read the text and probably never having seen it on a map before. "So. Quanterill is running crazy around here."

He indicated the map west of Oakley. "It is my thought that time is not long for this hunting...do we go to the town and warn them, or to the wilderness there, the better to catch him as a man and in the daylight? As we are many, maybe we do both, yes?"

Daniel considered for a moment, then nodded. "We do both, but we don't gotta split up. Least not right away. First we ride ta Oakley and get sityated. Then we can go huntin'."

"Is there some reason you think Oakley is the likely target?" he asked, looking at Sky Dog, and then Daniel.

"I asked the thoughts of my blood-cousin, who flies high enough to see many things; he gave me to know how Quanterill was moving, crazy circles and to the west, that he has no longer a horse, and that most likely they would go to this place-" he fished the paper out of an inside pocket. "-but after much asking I find it is probably not in the Middle World, but in the shadows of the world, a place of the thoughts of the people, yes? The town is named for a lea with oaks, it has this image."

The shaman gave a tense sigh, aware his profession alone would not lend much weight to the counsel of a man of a mere score of summers here. "Wyitterp, Uncle, will you speak for me that this is true? You have not known me to speak wrongly of such things, I think."

Everyone seemed to stare at Sky Dog for a moment like he was talking nonsense. Maybe because he was. After a moment, though, one of them piped up.

"Look, we gotta pick one of these places anyway, right? Now, I didn't understand a damn thing of what he said," he pointed to Sky Dog. "But I get the general idea. Injun' hocus pocus. Well, if the only lead we have is this fella's hocus pocus, then we might as well go on that."

"Horcs porcs," Korpi tried, shining up the badge as her brother gained a long line of grin.

"Pardon me, gentlemen," Randolph says politely, "About those horses..."

Clementine, who had been snoozing a bit, had started awake at Sky Dog's laugh. Annoyed, she huffed a bit as things settled down, and she set her head down again to nap.

"Well, if that's settled, next we talk logistics. I'm willing to run any supply wagons you have need of for this, but I ain't so strong a rider my own self." Gabby says.