Jared, the man that had agreed to the horse trade with Sky Dog, gestured at the native and Clayton. "Come on, we'll walk over there and have it done," he said, pointing at the stables that could be seen just a little bit over from where they were standing, a few horses meandering about in the field. He clutched a rifle that he carried while he was on 'patrol.'

"Whoever learned you English done a pretty good job," he said. "Don't meet too many natives speak that good. Some do, though. Those that done lived 'round white folks. That how ya learned it?"

Clayton followed along as well, medical bag in hand, curious to learn about Sky Dog's mysterious 'wolf disease.' While it was likely some pagan superstition that the savage clung to, it did make him curious.

Sky Dog grinned broadly, walking beside his reindeer. "You are the first to say so! I have learned fast, to speak with the people in the north-west of this country who have no Russian, then the Americans, but some of them do not understand me at all...much signing, yes?" He tugged his sleeve down over his partly-exposed hand, feeling the knuckles starting to burn.

"Are there people...that live on the land before, that live near the settlement?" the shaman asked. Igor eyed the wandering horses warily.

"You mean Injuns, I s'pose. Well, there's mostly Arapaho out there somewhere. Don't reckon I know where they live, but they're around. There's Kiowa and Comanche too, but they mostly like killin' buffalo hunters and people that got a lotta horses. I only keep a few at a time 'round here, so I guess that's why they ain't bothered us. Thank the Lord for that," he said.

Sky Dog listened with close attention, memorising the information. "They will not want this one, at least - their horses live like God's horses; it would not be well for foaling, to let the big one go to such little mares," he remarked, then looked up a little at some subtle movement from Igor.

"Do you live here a long time in this settlement, with your family?" Sky Dog asked, then pointed to the edge of the corral fence. "Is it well to let my kujjai scratch his antlers on the post here, or are your horses frightened?"

This message was last edited by the player at 21:20, Tue 04 Mar 2014.

The shaman nodded, but slipped the lead rope from his deer and let Igor walk past to get some scratching in, holding the slacked line himself. The black stallion paced willingly behind now, ears turned and nostrils flared for the scents of the other horses.

Sky Dog glanced briefly at Mansfield at the mention of cholera, but listened intently, eventually leading the black up close to the fence. He looked at his reindeer, then out at the horses. "It can be hard, to live without family," he said.

"Probably more that the Americans do not understand it well, to share the heart as much, with one that is never human." He squinted at the horse indicated, leaning against the fence and at last pulling his goggles up to see if colour contrast would help. "It looks well! ...but it is to do with the no colour, my eyes are very poor. Will you call the spotted horse here?"

Igor experimentally nibbled up some stray straw from the dust.

"Sure thang, jes' wait right here," he said, hopping the fence and walking out among the horses. He made his way back over to where the horse was and then gently guided it out to the fence where the strange Siberian waited. "You can see it now, I reckon?" he asked again, bringing it over to the fence.

Sky Dog perched up on the fence to watch the horse trader work as best he could, abruptly grinning in delight at the patterns of the horse's pelt. "Ah, like something from the Upper World, this one!" he remarked, leaning to scratch the appaloosa between the ears and judge its reaction to the scent of him.

He stroked the horse's nose. "I am well content, if you are willing to trade this one."

"Works good for me. Jes' gimme a sec and I'll go put this big'un away and come out with yers," he said. Taking the reins on Sky Dog's large black horse, he walked it up to a gate and lead it inside the yard and towards the stables. Reappearing a minute later, he came with the smaller horse and lead it gently out of the stables, it responding well to his guiding hand alone towards Sky Dog.

"Don't have much feed as I reckoned, but you can get some from the general store," he said. He handed the Siberian twenty two dollars in Union scrip.

Sky Dog hopped down to take the funds, slipping the tin horse that had been in the black beast's mane into his shirt. He cocked his head slightly trying to focus on the dollars, clearly having little idea how they translated to worth. "It is much by a very little, I think - if I am alive in the evening, and we are not fighting many kinds of demon for that they come for the doctor's little ones, maybe you would share chai with me? The others, they will probably go to drink alcohols."

He tucked the dollars away and held the rope for the spotted horse to smell and understand as non-threatening before asking the beast by movement to take the loop over its head and be led. Igor watched dubiously from nearby. "The ones in the store will know where the bitten people live, yes?"

"T'be honest, I'll prolly be drinkin' the alcohols too. You'd be welcome, even if ya ain' a drinker. Bring your...whatever it was ya said. How you gonna get that thing to stay put without anythin' to hitch it with?" he asks, gesturing over to the horse.

"I do not think the tavern-man will be so happy," Sky Dog replied, wrinkling his nose and resettling the goggles before breaking into a smirk. "-but I will give to someone to buy you a drink, yes?"

Sky Dog held up the rope now attached to said horse, a little confused. "I do not think-" he leant to glance under the horse "-she will go so far, but if she is wanting very much to wander, I will tie the rope to Igor. I can always find Igor!"

The bells in Igor's antlers glingled as he scratched himself against a fencepost.

"I think that's prolly for th'best, tyin' the rope to...whatever the hell kinda fuckin' deer that is," he said.

"Far as the, uh, bitten people, I s'pose you could ask at th'gener'l store...Brady & comp'ny. Jus' down th'street...look for th'sign. Oh...I forgot you people can't read. I can show you the way if ya want."

The shaman was clearly quite defeated in attempting to parse the profanity, his pale brows remaining deeply furrowed until the conversation reached firmer ground.

"It would be well, if you are willing," he agreed to the proposal. "Who is the company of Brady, that is there?"

"I say Brady? Guess I did. S'pose that's what I get for takin' to drink this early in the day. Ira Bradley is his name. Him and his son Anthony run the place. I suppose that's who the company is," he said, leading Sky Dog down the street. They passed a couple of other buildings marked prominently by letters until they reached one that they stopped at, and Jared lead the way in.

The place looked like any typical western general store. The shelves were lined with a variety of dry foods, like flour, beans, or cornmeal. Smoked and dried meats hung from hooks near the back. Containers of candy sat on the sale counter at the front of the store. One man behind the counter in his middle years idly chatted with another on the other side, and a younger man seemed to be stacking things in one part of the store.

Jared set about helping Sky Dog to identify the items that he wanted. As predicted, they did not have eagle skins.

Hood back, goggles at his throat and as human-looking as the strikingly pale man ever got, Sky Dog was by then too fascinated by the shop's contents to care. His attention was presently focused on the jars of sweets.

"-They are all good to eat?" he asked Jared, tilting the vessel of brightly-coloured gobstoppers in sheer awe at their brightness before righting it to tap another. "-and these the little rats, they are all sugar inside, yes?" He looked up for the less occupied, younger shopkeep. "What do you ask, to trade for these things?" he asked.

"Ain't no rats in here, I don't think. Keep a clean place, Ira does. But yeah, you can eat all them," he said.

The young man, after having unloaded his box, wandered over to where Sky Dog was. "Those are penny candies. You can have 'em for a penny each, two for the chocolate," he said.

"Gonna have to pay them in currency. Can't try to trade 'em no beaver skins or whatever," Jared said helpfully, to make sure Sky Dog understood.

Sky Dog laughed. "But these penny-candies, they are made like rats," he showed Jared the jar of charmingly crisp pink and white sugar mice, then experimentally handed Anthony a dollar. "One dollar, there are how many rats?"

Jared's interjection got a quirked eyebrow before Sky Dog looked to the shopkeep again. "You do not trade for any skins here? I have snakes half-dry, good for belts, tobacco pouches," he offered, moving into buisness. "Perhaps it is your wolf-hunter that likes them better, yes? They are all dead, the wolves that brought the disease to your settlement?"

"These are two cents each," he said, pointing to the 'rats.'  "So you can get fifty for a dollar if you want 'em," he said, holding the dollar up to see if Sky Dog changed his mind. Unless the Siberian objected, Anthony would begin to fill up a small sack with a large amount of the candies.

"We don't need no snakes and skins. It's like Jared said, Injun. You pay us in money," he explained patiently.

"As for wolves, we done killed all the ones that came."

"Damn wolves bit one o' my horses. Had to put it down, it was goin' all crazy like and weren't nothin' else to do 'bout it," he complained aloud.

Sky Dog paid close attention to the currency. "Two cents, one penny?" he queried, then leant on the counter with a 'hold up' gesture before recieving more sugar mice than any sane man could ever eat. "Good. Of the rats, half a dollar, of the other things, I can have...five of five things? Yes?"

"After, it would be well that you would give me to know how much is a dollar, in the grain for horses, in potatoes, in the hard cheese, in the pretty glass notions...yes, also...I think, how much of the oil for lamps. It will be well if there is much burning to do, hunting the walking dead ones. Then I will give you to know how many dollars' worth I wish to have of these things, yes?

He smirked a little at being told to pay with money, then looked seriously to Jared. "It is a brave horse you had - that one had taken the place of a kujjai for you, and stepped between the bad...way the luck went, and your own spirit." The shaman winced slightly.

"It is good it did this, for the prey animals cannot become wolves, only crazy...if it was yourself that was bitten, very soon you would be as a wolf, and try to devour beasts and children, maybe women also." He caught Jared's eye, grave. "Your horses see you are a good man; so, they honour the pact between ancestors. You have buried the body in the ground? It may be well to see if there is some onnir of the sacrificed one still in the blood, if the bitten ones are only in the first quiet."

"Well, a dollar will get you five pounds of potatoes, and about oh, I guess maybe seven pounds o' that cheese there." Figuring the Injun might not know what a pound was, he tried to make representations for each of the commodities he offered with his hands, to show Sky Dog how much he'd get for a dollar.

"Them marbles is five cents a piece, so that's about 20 for the dollar. Oil'll run you about ten cents per gallon. That's one of those. So that's ten of those for a dollar," he said, pointing to some metal containers they had containing oil.

"We'll get you some feed at another place that just sells feed," Jared chimed in. He was having a little trouble focusing on helping Sky Dog with his shopping list and talking about werewolves at the same time.

"Well, the horse didn't become no wolf, that's for sure. It just went all crazy. We burned the body, just like we did with the dead wolves we killed, like Whateley said. Keep the disease from spreadin' to th' rest o' the town."

"It is good that Whateley has some sense! More difficult in curing, maybe, but good that he knows to give the flesh where onnir was corrupted to Our Friend, the fire," Sky Dog remarked, twisting a moment to see where Mansfield had got to and whether he was listening. "Do you know where the bitten ones are living, Bradley's son?"

The shaman watched the gestures with close attention. "I would like...one dollar of cheese, one and a half of potatoes, twenty cents the oil...two marbles for a box of oil, yes? Ah...one dollar, sixty cents the marbles, I have the rats...do you have a cabbage? My steed would like a cabbage, I think."