Daniel nodded at the opinions and was satisfied that no one was injured enough to speak up.

He went over to the headless corpse that he had previously bent over and cut into it where the heart ought to be.

Sky Dog shrugged slightly at Cora's lack of desire for skincare and turned to supervise the crazy Americans.

"They will not have ghost rock inside, it is...what do you say, straight up witchcraft...if we were all very stupid even I could tell you the these are made," he gestured bemusedly at the headless ones. "It is these horses from the Lower World and the pumpkings that are strange...but if you will throw their little hearts in the fire, it is well. I will salt them, so that the wolves around do not take in the bad...medicine here."

"Mansfield, if you will listen I would tell you about the plague-demons, for you have the clear sight of them, I think," the shaman remarked, gently tipping his handful of leaves into the edge of the fire and rousing it again before fetching the tin horse from among his effects, clearly intending to take it to the live one.

It took some time, and left his hands and the surrounding area more stinking and messy than they had been before, but Daniel managed to perform the bloody operation. Even before making any incisions, he would have noticed that there were no previous incisions indicating any surgical cuts were made to the body's torso. Still, as he was determined to operate, he managed to uncover the rotting remains of the heart and Sky Dog's words were shown to be true; he found no traces of ghost rock or anything else, for that matter.

The leaves dropped into the fire produced a faint, pleasant smelling smoke, that the doctor took note of even while watching the operation take place. When their curiosity was at least partially satisfied, he turned to Sky Dog.

"Sure, I'll listen to your plague demon story," said the doctor."Hell, I'll listen to anything if it's as good as the bear story!"
This message was last edited by the player at 18:24, Wed 08 Jan 2014.

Randolph hitched the sling of his Gatling around to keep the weapon out of his way and watched Coraline closely for several moments to see whether she needed immediate attention. Satisfied that she was coping with her injuries at the moment, he produced his notebook and went to make observations of the corpses.

He sketched the tattoo of one that Daniel wasn't cutting on. He also took note of the hands and fingers of all three to determine whether they bore any rings. He made rapid notes as he walked about the site.

"Well, the best thing for now, I think right now is to lump all these bodies up together - not near the fire, but somewhere we can see 'em. You know, in case they get back up. Hopefully we put enough lead and whatever else in 'em to keep 'em down, but you never know. I'd rather have them all in one place so Shotgun John and Gabby and hose them down with their shotguns if and when they start to rise again," he said.

"Then we probably want to set up a watch rotation. Probably not too much longer till it's light and then we can set out again for Oakley. What do you say you and me take the first watch, Wyatt?"

"Works for me. We'll wait till everyone's had their fill of corpse pickin' and then I'll set up a watch order," he said, noting that the strange group of erstwhile Dodge deputies were still busy peering and poking at the corpses.

Sky Dog had tied the tin horse into the black beast's mane and come to watch, taking a little time to salt the bodies. He crouched some yards from Mansfield, then apparently thought better of it and made himself useful, tugging over a corpse and divesting it of anything potentially useful or tradeworthy as thoroughly as a Comanche.

"It is said as it was, straight as my back," he remarked to Mansfield with a bemused grin, running his blade neatly along the superficial muscle and pectoral attachments from an incision at the hollow of the throat. "They do not often try to take white people, the kind of plague-demons I speak of-"

Putting his weight behind the blow, Sky Dog knelt over the dead man's chest and buried his large knife in the corpse's sternum with a wooden 'thunk'. Using the blade as a lever, the shaman worked and heaved the thing's chest apart as he talked. "-but medicine, it does not know one kind from another, yes? I hope."

"The ones that cause the plague with the...ah, blisters? -they come with the white people. Where I am from, they come with the traders, looking like white women with red hair, and the traders do not see them. In asking the chief trader how many are in the party, that one will not be able to count the demon. Sometimes they look and they think they see, and the count is different, but they cannot see her." Sky Dog turned his blade to prop the gap he'd made, simply reaching in and tugging the half-rotten mess from its moorings to cast it into the fire before retrieving his knife. His sister came to sit on his shoulder and tried to polish her coin still further on his head.

"By the time the demon has been seen, it is too late for the village - they will all die from the plague unless a shamán or a strong medicine-worker steps up to fight it. The old shamán that taught me..." Sky Dog paused, getting off the body and wiping his hand on the ground, otherwise unmarked.

"...he fought one in my sight, saving my life also: you have different ways, perhaps, but when he called out to the demon and she rose up, uncoiling herself into a thing of red hate and iron claws, he fought her with salt and with silver, with his strong songs and dancing, and his own knife." Sky Dog mimed the hack and slash at that terrible foe, Korpi fluttering on to his head to stay clear of the action.

"She spat the boiling blood from her belly, and tried to blind him - I watched this from the woods, with the baby we had come to bring under my own coat, for its mother was too weak to leave the camp - blinding with spitting and the claws, yes? Two days, he danced, and at last she was weakened enough for him to call in a helper spirit other than his grouse, so he called the black wolf, and it jumped on her for the dogs of the camp to tear her up. Then there was no disease. He was a good man, my master. Until he took to alcohols, a good man." The Siberian stood, and wandered over to the lawmen, hearing their discussion.

"I do not think it will be easy to move the dead horse...but if we go on some small way, the wolves will take the dead ones for us. They are already here, yes?" He looked about, though no wolves were bold enough to be obvious quite yet. "Always, little wolves in America. Wolves and chairs!"

Mansfield sat fairly well spellbound by the tale, though whether he was compelled or confounded by what he heard was hard to discern to the casual observer. He didn't know quite how to respond, so he just sat there for a minute thinking.

"Salt and silver. I guess that's how you fight some of those things. Well, I knew about the silver part, but not so much the salt. Or the singing and dancing," said the doctor finally.

"I don't reckon these were powered by no smallpox-spirit." Gabby says, watching the disposal of the rotten hearts with a grim expression. "I was expectin' Ghost Rock, but I guess that was always jest how Radcliffe were controllin' his bunch, not how he made them. Wilder weren't very clear on how he made that hand thing o' his move about. The question is, were these some of Quantrill's outriders, or somethin' sent out by some other asshole?"

"Kor," Korpi remarked, pinning her shiny underfoot to yawn at some length and clean her beak on her brother. Sky Dog laughed.

"Ha! No, we would all be very dead-" he looked over at the last corpse and went to attend to it before Daniel decided to excavate his way through that one's viscera with a tiny blade, too. Korpi went to hide her shiny amongst their things. "-It is rare even a powerful shamán can defeat - smallpox? - smallpox, with dancing. Mostly, everyone dies."

He looked over at Mansfield. "The man Mansfield has medicine, but his hands were taken from him, direly, for that he had no good knowledge of where even the white medicine crosses the shamán's way. I believe he wishes to do well for the people."

"Iron, also," he added to the doctor, making use of his. "If you are attacked in the Middle World. Of all that exists, only God and the blacksmith can make iron: it is powerful for that. Only the wicked spirits steal it - it makes them mad with their own hurt!"

The speculation as to the origins of the wandering undead brought only a shrug from the shaman. "It is not always the good and pretty spirits, that come for singing."

Korpi landed near Daniel to see what he was doing, curious if half asleep on her feet. "K'wip? Krrp? Kor kor..."

Coraline grimaced while watching the hearts being cut out and burned, not out of queasiness or reluctance; she understood the necessity to take the precaution. Her grimace was more for the dull but not insignificant pain that could be felt in her arm after the burn. The second time in days that something had happened to her arm, though the first had been a calculated risk of her own. This had just been her not being quick enough on her feet to avoid that flying, burning pumpkin.

She sat down on a tree stump nearby, and watched them work, waiting for it to be over.

Daniel looked over at Korpi after finishing his dirty work and smiled as the bird landed near. He went to run a hand over her head, but thought better of it at the last moment, showing the bird that his paws were a bit dirty.

Daniel put his tools away and looked around at the others conversing. He enjoyed the stories, even those that were unbelievable or only half-understandable.

"I dunno if it matters s'much what kinda spirit drove 'em here, or powered 'em or whatever. But if these were sent by anybody, do we jus' wanna sit here in th' same spot? I vote fer movin' camp, at least a little."

He looked about for something to use to wipe and wash his hands while listening to what the others had to say.

Charlie wandered over by John Collins. "Ya sure took a long time ta get that boomstick o' yers goin'. Afraid o' re-killin' someone ya know?"

"Nyyyyet!" Korpi ducked away from Daniel's stinky mitt and also looked about for something to clean him with.

The shirt taken from the deadder Sky Dog wasn't currently working on suggested itself; Korpi pattered over there and picked it up, dragging it Dalixwards with a hop, skip and flutter that made the fire flare away and cackle. After getting about two-thirds of the way she halted at the edge of the mess of liver and lights and called for her target's attention. "Dalix!"

Since cleaning all a Dalix with one's beak was tiring, however, Korpi soon let him see to his own hands and jumped up to set his hair in order, which was far easier.

"Jes' dint want to risk getting blood on Bat's suit," Collins said mildly, offering tobacco. "Not like we've got the time to send the Deuce a cleaning bill, after all."

"Talking o' which..." Collins frowned. "I was sure that last pumpkin-bomb got the lady's arm, y'see her sleeve is burnt...reckon she's tryin' to stoic it out 'case we laugh at her or leave it to th' Injun boy."

He tried calling over, just in case. "Hey Miss! You sure you don't want the Doc to look at that?"

Daniel smiled at Korpi and her assistance, and kept his hands away from her otherwise clean feathers. He walked over and used the shirt she suggested to wipe most of the mess away. A little alcohol should take care of the rest. And there shouldn't be any shortage of that given present company.

Korpi made sure the near side of Dalix's hair was preened and smooth, then hop-scrambled over his head to get at the other side. Her efforts were noticeably lessening in intensity, however, and after a few longer pauses it was quite clear the bird was in the process of falling asleep on Daniel's shoulder.

"Well, I'll thank you for that John," he said. His suit looked a bit rumpled and worse for wear for the journey, but somehow seemed to avoid having been bloodied.

"Mr. Clarke, I'm inclined to agree with your nephew for the moment. I'm not sure what kinda spirits are involved in all this mess, but for the moment, I think maybe we move camp and find some rest. Maybe like chalky says, wolves'll do for the rest of these deaders."

Coraline's head raised at Shotgun's call.  Her lips thinned at having to seek anyone's help, much less a man's, but her arm was uncomfortable and throbbed painfully whenever she thought about it.  Which happened to be all the time.

Pushing herself off with her uninjured arm, she sighed visibly and tucked her fan away.  "I suppose, if it isn't too much of a bother."  Lifting the hem of her skirt, she headed over to the doctor.

The doctor wandered over to Coraline's side, and took a look at where her arm had been burned, pulling back her sleeve. "Oh my. Well, this doesn't look good. But it isn't bad either. I reckon it should heal soon enough, given the right treatment. Fortunately, I treated more than a few burns for our good men during the war, so I know how to take care of this," he went on, his Carolinian accent as on as it ever was.

Digging around in his medical bag, he pulled out a tube of some ointment and gave Coraline a stern look. "Now, grit your teeth and don't make a fuss, because this is gonna hurt a little bit, but it'll make you all better. Why, by morning, you'll be good as new!"

He seemed distracted, and then started to ramble into a strange story. "You know, when I was a young man, I met a woman that looked something like you, except that she had a wild red bird on her shoulder all the time. I think she was from off, somewhere in Europe. Don't know where she got the bird..." While telling the story, he gently applied the ointment to her arm, but kept on talking, in the hopes that it would help distract her from the sensation that would come with the applciation of the ointment. When he was done applying it, though, the pain would gradually subside, followed by a coolness and a tingling. At the end, he wrapped it up for her.

"Don't pull that off or mess with it!" he warned her sternly, wagging a finger at her.

As the doctor sets about his work on Coraline's arm, Darling comes up on her other side, wordlessly offering his hand, in case she wants something to grip onto.

Gabby nods at Masterson, and moves to help pack up the camp.

The shaman looked up from neatly packing up his makeshift samovar, coals still glowing in the warming-can. "Do any here wish to eat snakes, in the morning? Some that have given themselves to my hunting, I have kept them three days and will not eat them tommorrow." He held up a couple of live snakes from his sparse baggage to illustrate.

Daniel didn't bother Korpi as she fell asleep. He briefly wondered whether Sky Dog would care if his sister was sleeping with him, but he mentally shrugged that off at the mention of snake. He raised a hand. "I'm sure I'd find that thar snake mighty tasty. Count me in. I might even have got some spices in muh barber case."

Daniel then went about the business of getting the camp moved. He wondered about burning the corpses versus leaving the wolves to them. He didn't want any possessed wolves running around.