Suddenly, Korpi pulled her head back and took a few measured steps back, and then another two, making sure sure she was well away from the bag. The bird jumped up and down once, before taking flight again and alighting on her brother's shoulder.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:47, Mon 27 Jan 2014.

The shaman looked at his sister. "?"

Korpi blinked and preened among her breastfeathers a moment whilst he cleared up, not entirely sure what she'd wanted up here. The corvid seemed to mentally shrug it off and reached over to try and do something with Sky Dog's recently-washed hair, which seemed to have ambitions towards becoming a cloud.

Sky Dog let her make the attempt, but tugged his bandanna up over his nose and cheeks, feeling the former starting to burn even in this weak morning sun.

The men managed a vigorous and efficient cleanup of the camp and repacking of their equipment.

"I think it's just a regular horse, Sky Dog," he said, looking over at the black 'demon' horse the Siberian had tethered nearby. "How long you reckon it'll take you to track down your ridin' deer?"

The shaman made no correction, resaddling the animal and loading it whilst Korpi supervised from the pommel. "A small time-" he threw a short request to Korpi, who flew off, "-he will be near, yes, but afraid of the wolves and the Americans, so we do not see him here. It will be well! If we fall behind that you cannot see us, my sister can still see you, but I do not think we will be as far." He took up his Russian snow goggles and put them on, then pulled up his hood, staring at the merciless sky for direction, then the ground.

A little further on he crouched, estimating direction from the tracks, then wandered onward, leading the black behind him. "A little time. Igor!"

Coraline wore a satisfied smile as she picked up the bag of sugar and stitched up the hole with a bit of needle and thread from her pack.  After securing it, she went back to eating, though spared an eye to the sky where the bird flew free.  When she was finished, she cleaned up after herself and moved to ready her horse for travel.

"I'm pleased to hear it, Miss Hawthorne." As he finishes his coffee, Randolph watches with amusement as Coraline deals with the black-feathered sugar-thief. He wipes out his cup with a scrap of flannel and stows both items, then sets to saddling his horse.

He's ready to set out for Oakley.

Jack eats a bit of snake just to be sociable. "Not bad," he opines, "Could do with some chilis howsomever. I've et most things made a flesh that wander th' Western prairies, comes t' that, 'ceptin' th' human animal, that is. Much obliged."

He goes about the campsite once he's got his paint saddled up, to make sure nothing gets left behind.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:57, Tue 28 Jan 2014.

"A smart deer to be scared of wolves and Americans! We both like to eat deer," he said, with a chuckle. "Not that we're gonna eat your riding deer. Unless we're near starving, that is."

"Ha! I will remember," Sky Dog responded in passing, heading northwest with his riding-pole as a staff. "-feed the Americans well, or eat them first!"

It didn't take more than an hour before the Siberian found the rest of them again, a little time after they first saw his bird fly above them. On Wyatt Earp's call, they took a brief rest and waited a bit, to have the Siberian ride up to them on Igor's back, and they pressed on towards Oakley. A single lone oak tree waited on the road up ahead, and even from a distance they could see what was hanging from it - a body, held up by a noose. It wasn't far from the outskirts of what they could see as buildings as they came upon a town.

Gabby, still clinging to Daniel, sighed with relief as the town came in sight. He still hated riding, gosh darn it!

"Hey Sky Dog!" he calls to the shaman. "Is that there tree the one you done seen in your vision?" He points to the lone oak as they pass...then blanches at the body hanging from the noose. What was going on here?
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:32, Wed 12 Feb 2014.

Daniel frowned at the sight as his uncle brought attention to the oak tree with the body hanging from it. He wondered if this body would need to be dissected like the pumpkin tossing ones. The cause of death seemed clear...

Still keeping some paces to the side for the sake of keeping the stallions apart, Sky Dog glanced over. "It is one of them, yes - the others must be long cut down, under the settlement." He looked at the remaining Oakley oak with curiousity.

Korpi at once glided down from her soaring to go land on the branch over the corpse's rope to see if the body had any eyeballs or shinies left.

"His kin do not want him, this one?" Sky Dog asked, gesturing at the tree with his riding-pole as they advanced.

During the ride, Darling had kept his mount close to Coraline's, anxious to aid her if she became faint from her injury.

His mouth tightens at the site of the corpse hanging from the tree and his hand goes reflexively to his Colt.

As they advanced towards the tree, the body dangling in the wind became clearer to them, Korpi now perched atop the head trying to pry free one of the eyes. The further and further they got, the clearer it was the identity of the departed. The body of Jake Simpkins hung limply from the tree.

"Well, that's one problem that worked itself out," he said looking at the body.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:42, Wed 12 Feb 2014.

Sky Dog tapped Igor forwards a little at the sight of what he took to be townsfolk stirring at the edge of the settlement, pulling down his bandanna out of courtesy. He glanced up as he passed the dead man within range of his short sight, but made no remark.

Igor's summer-hardened hooves raised small puffs of dust ahead of the horses, the ringing glitter of the bells strung between his antlers bright in the morning sun. Korpi cast an eye over the proceedings, then cast one of Simpkins' eyes over them out of sheer exuberance, performing an acrobatic drop-loop to catch the morsel before it fell on Charlie. The raven finished up by swooping around the horses and flapping back up to the end of the hanged man's branch. "Ha! Ha!"

Behind them, Collins quietly checked his shotgun was ready and loaded.

As Sky Dog moved forward, a figure emerged from within the crowd. He wore a dark cattleman hat with a center crease, a bound kettle-curl brim, and a dark hatband. He looked to be wearing a dark suit, that seemed more rumpled than it usually was. As the figure approached, it was clear that it was none other than Caleb Morgan. The lawman looked a little worse for wear, wasn't as well groomed as he traditionally kept himself, and there was a shadow under his eyes like he hadn't slept in a week.

He turned around momentarily after coming out a distance, and yelled something to the townsfolk before walking up closer to them.

"Good to see you folks again," he said, greeting them each in turn, tipping his hat to Coraline.

"That's the older Simpkins brother. They hung him before I got into town. Apparently, him and his Wilderness Riders tried to hit the town, but the folks here were a lot better prepared than they expected. Simpkins is the only one that wasn't gunned down, but they caught him and hung him."

The shaman leant back a little to halt his deer and waited until Morgan was finished with the buisness of taking notice of people, wary that the huge black horse roped behind him did not get it into his head to bite. "The other ones, they are buried?"

He nodded to Sky Dog's question. "It's kept the undertaker pretty busy, that's for sure. They apparently wanted to leave this one out as a warning to any other bushwhackers." He shook his head, looking out into the distance for a moment. It looked like something was bothering the Marshal.

"There's something strange going on here. Everybody's on the ragged edge. I just got here a few minutes ago, so I don't know too much more than the basics - what I've already told you. I told them help was on the way, and I think they'd appreciate it."

Korpi clung to the the now-eyeless corpse's shirt as it twisted in the breeze, hanging upside-down partly for the fun of it and partly to see if he had anything good.

The shaman grinned, sliding off his reindeer. "Ah, we will help them." He squinted through his goggles at the amount of activity at the edge of town, pensive.

"Do you think it would be good for them to know, that we have ended some un-dead coming here? They were very annoying and without respect, those ones, and may have been frightening the farmers before they came to the Americans' singing. If they have spoken of things that throw..." Sky Dog rubbed his chin in thought, looked around for inspiration, but the word was not forthcoming. "The fruit, it begins with Puh...those things are ended." He shrugged slightly.

"I dunno about that...were the pumpkinheads part o' Quantrill's boys or a different group?" Gabby muses, his thought still on Simpkens. He hadn't liked the man much, but he hadn't really wanted to see him dead. "What about Wainwright, Marshal Morgan? Last I heard, that snake was callin' the shots o' the Wilderness Riders, or at least was jerkin' 'em about. Any idea where he got to?"

"What difference? I do not think Quanterill would trouble himself to make such, that cannot even speak of him to gain him...being, in the Middle World, but they were unusual things that might trouble the people." He looked idly over at the same.

Undead? Pumpkinheads? Caleb looked a bit confused at the turn the conversation had taken. "Clearly I've missed something. Could I trouble you for an explanation of what you're referring to?" he asked.

Earp launched into a brief but succinct explanation of what had transpired the night before, letting the others add in details as they saw fit.