Kills Iron Horse:
Kills Iron Horse stands stock still at that. Walks the Night Alone looks at her. [Language unknown: "Outtraany at evinie..."] He starts, but she makes a curt gesture, cutting him off, and stomps through the mud until she is glaring directly into Belle's face. Her hand snakes out, and she grabs Belle's earlobe and twists, painfully.
"Listen...to...me." She growls, in accented but perfectly understandable English. "I hear your barking just fine...bitch." She tweaks Belle's ear harder. "Do not confuse not wanting to speak your jibber-jabber with not able. I have killed your iron horses, sent them plunging off their trails to their deaths! Do not think for a moment I will let your white medicine man come near me with his poisons!"
That attention Art was trying to avoid? It is now squarely on the group, and people are staring at the scene. Someone starts shouting for the soldiers.
Belle Ivers:
Belle was stunned into silence, though perhaps not in the way the woman had intended.
She didn't yell. She didn't go for a weapon. She just stood there.
"Have you ever been in a train when it goes off the rails because of sabotage? I have." Belle spoke quietly. "The world is fire and hatred, the sound deafens. It was some days before I recovered my hearing, they feared me rendered deaf permanently for some time.
"I woke up in my mother's arms. She was dead. I would have been badly, badly burnt but for her taking me into her bosom. My father was a horrid, burnt husk, I only knew him because I recognized his waistcoat. Our poor housekeeper was full of shrapnel. The little girl I had been playing silly games with was mangled to pieces. Her brother with the pronounced widow's peak was completely obliterated, literal pieces of him stuck to the wreckage."
She paused just a moment to escape the memories. She couldn't linger on them any longer than that or she'd relive her worst nightmare over again.
"Now, I admit it is not a proud time for the industry. Illegal lines and tracks are too common and do have to be forcefully removed, however I have a great deal of experience with this, and often the least effective way of stopping these operations is to attack the actual train directly."
Belle spoke the truth as she earnestly understood it, but there was something that escaped her even now: the larger truth. The strange man she'd been debating with may or may not have been right on every single little point, but Belle suffered from hubris so deep she couldn't even realize it, thanks in no small part to the corruption of her own mind from the very spirit she couldn't believe in.
She had always seen herself as someone who helped turn a savage and disgraceful practice into the least damaging one possible It was true she personally had always thought to set the sawhorses and the warning signs, triply redundant and illuminated, and precisely calculated so that the last of the three was at the point of no return, and the prior two allowed far more leeway that was strictly needed to stop. What Belle didn't understand was that her personal practice was a rare display of basic human decency in an industry which had almost none.
And in one of the great ironies of the universe, Belle Ivers, professional saboteur, had in fact never actually derailed a train carrying passengers, despite her profession. Even if she had been a sociopath who didn't care about the humans inside, Belle Ivers would always spare a train engine. They were special machines unlike any other, they whispered to her.
It was also true she had been praised for these efforts, but only because someone had crunched the numbers and discovered that it cost the rival rail line more to recover a stranded train than it did to simply just lose the train. While they recovered the engine, the fact that the engine was out of commission for so long greatly warped the economics, as did the considerable expense of the recovery operations. Belle's thoughts for the lives of the sabotaged rival's customers and the well being of the machines themselves were never once considered by anyone besides herself and a handful of fellow Enforcers who bothered to listen to her. And even they wrote it off as one of her many known eccentricities.
She thought her methodology becoming standard was a way she had changed the course of the rail wars for the good. And perhaps it had saved some lives where it was followed her and there, but it was only a standard on paper and it was another step to follow that most people who were willing to blow up a bridge didn't care about.
Belle believed this practice she'd innovated to be rigidly enforced. It wasn't.
Art C. Wiley:
Art shook his head at the question, trying to interject himself between the two women. He half-expected the universe to explode when Kills Iron Horse touched Belle, given their combined mass and how opposite they were. Yet the universe survived. For now. And the time for pleasant conversation was at an end. "Okay, I tink we all needa get movin'. NOW."
Art looked around for someplace suitable for them to disappear. And not be trapped. And not draw more attention to themselves.
Matthew Broaddale:
Matt was in the middle of helping Maddox back into the Mint when the white noise of New Science turned into threats and physicality.
He scanned the rain-soaked streets as people began to stare.
"You know," he said in a mildly harried tone, "If everyone would like to go inside, I'm sure we would all enjoy getting out of the rain, out of public. I'll buy everyone a-" he stopped, remembering how Sitting Duck ran off with his money.
"-Well, it's dry inside, anyway."
Union Troops:
Haverford takes the files with him when he leaves, and Von Steinhof heads towards the meeting place...when it occurs to him that he does not, in fact, actually remember where he was supposed to meet up. Must be all the whiskey he downed. It was a saloon of some sort...
As he's pondering that, he sees a squad of soldiers heading rapidly towards the north of town. They had their weapons at the ready, so it seems like something interesting was going on...
Kills Iron Horse steps away from Belle as if she'd been burned. The Dog Soldier looks at Belle with...it looks like she can't settle on an emotion. Horror? Shame? Anger?
The arrival of Matt seems to get them moving, however. The two Cheyenne look over at Moses and Art, apparently looking to them for their lead, while the stocky Sioux just scowls.
"Injuns!" someone shouts. "We got a war party of Injuns in the streets!"
Uh-oh. And now there's a squad of blue-uniformed troops heading their way...Freiherr von Steinhof:
Leopold flicked a speck of dust from his coat, folded his hands behind his back and strode after the troopers.
The Stray:
The soldiers are heading toward what looks like a group of people gathered over by the Mint. He sees a large black man, a red-headed man dressed like a native, three actual natives, that crazy scientist lady who'd been running around, someone with a marshal's badge, and that Maddox fellow.
Someone is screaming about Indians assaulting people, though it doesn't look like anyone's assaulting anyone at the moment. Also, he recognizes the red-headed man and two of the indians -- The man was the one with him when Black Kettle was killed.
Moses:
Moses sighs and reaches out towards Belle.
"You have much pain, Belle Ivers. And Kills Iron Horse has much pain. Little Crow, too. Everyone has pain. We carry it with us, like Buraq carried Mohammed to Jerusalem. When the load becomes to heavy, we lash out."
He takes a few steps and moves precisely between the two women, reaching out a hand towards them both. His staff falls into the mud, forgotten for now.
"Will at least you two allow Moses to bear some of your burden?"
Union Troops:
"Injuns!" someone shouts. "We got a war party of Injuns in the streets!"
Uh-oh. And now there's a squad of blue-uniformed troops heading their way...
Moses looks toward the men, then up into the sky.
"Lord... Thy humble servant begs your help. Enough have died today."
He looks at Art, Little Crow and Walks the Night Alone.
"Let Moses be your shield and comfort." then looks back towards the soldiers.
Maddox:
"They're not a war party, see you, they've just never seen a redhead beside the ginger there," Maddox calls over to the soldiers from cover of the boardwalk, physically flinching if that draws Moses' attention. "They're waiting for Wells, say they've got fair buisness with her, science fiction or church, I can't tell that at all."
"Well I did warn them," he says uneasily, rubbing his arm as though cold, and attempts to slide away inside.
Belle Ivers:
Before she can answer Moses' question, Belle stops to address the looming problem.
"A worthy inquiry sir, but might I make an attempt to prevent a horrendous misunderstanding first? As much as it pains me to say it, my Massachusetts based ancestry may avail us if I should speak to these gentlemen, some of whom may be familiar with me from before..."
Belle raises her hands and turns to face the soldiers.
"No, please do not be so unduly alarmed, it is no such thing as that gentlemen, I assure you. They merely stopped to ask for directions about town. In fact I believe they were just communicating to me they wish to be expeditious about their business. It's okay, I'm a mechanic. I can tell."
Ezekiel Starkweather:
Union Troops:
"Injuns!" someone shouts. "We got a war party of Injuns in the streets!"
Zek heard the cry, and glanced back at Bill and the Coot. Then he glanced back into the direction of the scream once more.
"Bill...keep an eye on the old man for me, ok?"
He headed for the cries of panic, most likely a mistake but he did so anyways. He saw the lady scientist trying to talk down the Union Troops, and saw Marshal Broaddale and Maddox there as well. Clearly they where better off trying to make the troops stand down-but it did not seem like they where having any luck.
"Hey! You folks are pestering my injuns! These are my trackers-and they work for me. I got bounties to find-and the lady in question is needed for our work. So can't a man make a living around here?" He turns to the native people in question, and speaks in their language. It even changes up in mid sentence.
[Language unknown: "U mesti oreee, atompe us ateomerom. Esek pro oulet ove se o seosiv. Ni ulbe-toun allbe redof ndfiul, si ek he oline ichol..."]
[Language unknown: "K siwh na, pebepa anel leutto. Wasec ac ngad sssi n o ticatelat. Ll ectsanugheen ain ofun unarwh, nead nc anwe ne ssle..."]
[Language unknown: "P itout antro, inetedine anos wielfi. Ers icaus un ear k u nceeveers. Us linicaeratra erame ai heurer, are ous paan ortat ndare..."]
