Watching the vines shrivel in the fields, Earnest nods and whispers, "Thank you, Father."

Leaving the children singing, he walks to the other end of the porch in time to hear Segovia's confession.

Kate smiled at the Ranger in that sarcastic ill-intentioned way.  They could discuss it later.  It was okay for the bait to know he was bait because that much would be obvious regardless, but beyond that she didn't want to go into details.

Classic mistake that, treating prisoners like they were deaf or not present.

Segovia’s attention shifts nervously between Kate and Lee. Shaking his head, he says, ”The only person that ever gave me any orders about this place, or about the kids, was Jesse. We all work for Mr. Murphy out at his ranch, and Mr. Dolan’s our boss, but neither of them ever said anything to me about all this.”

The mare readily follows Castillo back to the farmhouse, her demeanor calm. She doesn’t protest when the scout hitches her to the cart.

Cooper does not find anything in the cellar worth collecting. Back in the library, he finds that Lee has scooped up all of the books of interest, but, tucked in the back corner of the dusty desk, he discovered a bundle of yellowed letters, bound together neatly with a couple of pieces of twine.

Jacinta took a few minutes to hitch the mare to the cart before leading both around the house to where the others were gathered.  She whistled for the children and gestured to the cart.  "Let's get you loaded up, niños."

"Imma scavenge a rope."  Kate said it ominously, smiling at her fellow outlaw, the infamous El Pendejo.

"Tell me, son," urges Allgood in a gentle voice, "Tell us all what you think this Jesse was talking about."

Tamsin watches quietly, hands on her hips,  only moving to grab a handful of the dust that  was the vines.

The children move eagerly to the cart, most of them clearly eager to be far away from the crumbling farmhouse and its empty fields. Castillo checks the cart once the young ones are loaded into it, reassured that the vehicle is sturdy enough to make the trip to Lincoln without incident.

Kate locates the rope that had been used to restrain Segovia a few paces away from the porch. Around the left hand corner of the house, she finds a second length, mud stained but plenty strong, hanging from a nail on the side of the sagging building.

Segovia looks at Allgood with a nervous frown. ”Nobody around these parts who’s crossed L.G. Murphy has come to a good end, Padre,” he answers, ”You don’t have to take my word. Just ask a few who have lived in the valley for a long time. They’ll tell you.”

Kate does nothing fancy, just a good knot to re-restrain their hapless captive.

In reply to Manuel Segovia (msg # 97):

"But I am interested in your fears and experiences. We all have to die sometime, but you might want to approach God's Judgement with a clear conscience. What form do you expect Jesse's punishment to take, a simple bullet? Or something less merciful?"

After he and Jake had gathered up what they could, Albert made his way back toward the others. "Oh...you woke him up. What did he have to say?" As this fellow was a potential danger to Albert's aunt and uncle, he was quite concerned with how they were going to deal with Segovia.

"Long story short, he claims the scarecrow was Old Man Blair, which is what snatched up the kids, and that Jesse Evans instructed him to be their jailer," he said. He shook his head, not knowing what to think of it. Satisfied that he had learned what the man was capable of telling them, he clapped Cooper on the shoulder and wandered back into the house to take one last quick look around for anything that might aid their investigation.

OOC:

Bombed the notice roll, but basically looking to find any readily apparent (laying around in plain sight) papers, books, notes, or plans that he might find inside the house - and hopefully a kind of sack to put them in. Anything on magic, or any correspondence (beyond what he's taken) that could help in the investigation.

09:53, Today: Bryan Lee rolled 2,1 using d6,d6, rerolling max.  Notice.

This message was last edited by the player at 21:30, Tue 26 June 2018.

Lee finds a burlap sack on one of the shelves in the storage room, just above the corpse of the fallen cattle hand. With it, he collects several of the volumes from the library, focusing primarily on the books on the desk that are written in English, disregarding the tomes that are authored in languages that he is unable to identify. The ranger also collects a few papers that have been placed in the center of one of the recently perused titles on the writing table.

Segovia mutters a few curses under his breath as Kate restrains him again. Looking back at Allgood, he says, ”A lot less merciful, Padre. No question.”

Glancing around at the other members of the group, he says, ”Look, if you’re not planning on taking me in to Sheriff Brady, why don’t you just cut me loose? You have my word, I’ll be out of the county by sunrise. I’ll head west and never look back. You won’t ever see me in New Mexico again.”

Kate chuckled at that.  "Yer an optimist, Pendejo.  Ah like that about you."

In reply to Manuel Segovia (msg # 103):

"If you won't tell us all you know, then I cannot help you. God have mercy on your soul."

Earnest leaves the group around Segovia to help Jacinta with the children.

Albert nodded at the info from Bryan. "Jesse Evans, eh? So I guess that helps frame this picture a bit more, don't it? Kidnappin' bein' a capital offense, I guess we got good reason ta string up that fella. As if we didn't already." Not that doing so would be a particularly easy task. In fact it would be the polar opposite.

He looked over at Segovia and barked out an incredulous sound. "Ha! Chances of ya goin' ta Sheriff Brady are nil. Only lawman in town I trust is right over there." Albert tossed a thumb over his shoulder to point it in the general direction of Bryan. "If he wants ta incarcerate ya somewhere 'sides Lincoln, then mebbe ya live ta see trial. Course accessory ta kidnappin' one child is a hangin' offense. Think I counted more'n one. Not sure why that rope ain't tied 'round yer neck yet. But mebbe yer still a bit useful."

Once Bryan came back, Albert nodded at the ranger. "Got some letters here, might be of some interest ta us." The ranch hand waved the notes about briefly so Bryan could see what Albert was talking about.

Jake leaned back against the wall, watching things proceed. He didn't really have an opinion one way or the other about Segovia -- the man struck him as just another thug for hire, and he'd seen plenty of them get whats comin' to them during the Rail Wars. Though just as many didn't. They'd prospered. So he didn't mind everyone else putting the fear of God into the man.

"You know, it occurs to me," Jake finally said, "that we might want to let our friend here talk to Tunstall's folk. I'm sure they'd be right interested in hearin' about Jesse Evans messin' about with witchery to put the scare on decent folk. Especially after what happened to Tunstall himself."

After settling the kids, Jacinta leaned against the edge of the cart, searching for one of her smokes but found all of them gone.  Repressing any swears (for the sake of the children), she contented herself with checking the ammo in her rifle and adding replacement bullets to her belt.  Removing the blanket from her satchel, she passed it to the oldest of the kids so they could bundle up the littles.

Seeing the rest of the crew arguing over the fate of Segovia, she finally whistled loud enough to get their attention.  "Hey!  Are we getting these niños back to their families sometime tonight?  They're scared and hungry and cold.  Load up el pistolero and let's get going!"

Bryan emerged with his bag, taking the pages from Cooper in hand and glancing over them. He didn't look up when McGraw stated his idea, but he did voice his opinion while he finished up skimming the papers.

"I like that idea, Jake. And Jacinta is right, we do need to get the kids back quick. Maybe Cooper and I can take this fella over to the Tunstall Ranch and see if we can have a friendly holding place for 'im there, and the rest o' y'all can see the kids get back safe?"

OOC: Stop stealing my color, man. You're cramping my style!

Albert nodded at the suggestion from Bryan. "Sounds good to me, General. Any objections?" Al looked around at everyone else as he asked his question to see if they had anything to say.

"Just don't leave him there long, if'n ya give a damn about them bein' alive."  Kate advised.  She saw the practicality in it however, as much as she wanted to use him as bait they needed to set that up first.  Kids made her work too damn complicated.

Segovia looks at Lee and Cooper, his expression suggesting that he wants to protest their plan, but is smart enough to recognize that doing so will get him nowhere. The three depart the farmhouse, Lee carrying the burlap sack containing the books and correspondence that he and Cooper had collected. The gunman remains silent as the group reaches the road, turning in the direction of the Tunstall Ranch, his eyes filled with anxiety.

The remainder of the group begin the journey back to Lincoln. Some of the children look to Reverend Allgood for continued comfort, and Esther Wood asks the pastor if he could recount the story of Joseph to the group, explaining that it is one of her very favorites. Several of the young ones echo her request. The boy that had enthusiastically declared his intent to become a lawman attempts to engage Kansas Kate in a discussion about the Schofield on her hip. Michael Kibbee Junior’s newfound crush on Castillo keeps his attention fully on her, while another girl asks the scout about how she learned to shoot her rifle so well, explaining that her father still views her as being too young to handle a gun. The youngest boy of the group is completely fascinated with McGraw’s flame spewing device and begins peppering the engineer with questions about how he built it.

Segovia’s horse remains notably calm throughout the trip, pulling the cart steadily and without complaint.

Soon, in the distance, the dim lights of Lincoln become visible.