Carl's shoulders start shaking. After a second it's apparent he's laughing, quite hard at that, eyes shut, lips skinned right back off his teeth...just not making a sound.

If the gun gets pointed at him he'll put a boot between Wildcat's shoulderblades and shove her off balance whilst letting go to avoid a fatal stab to the thigh or worse, then gesture again for Evans to go into the undertaker's with a most florid bow of mock-contrition and messengerly correctness.

If it doesn't, he'll keep eye contact with Dave until the latter does something or Wildcat gets dangerous to hold onto, calling Evans' bluff. After all, he's not the only one with a gun.


[[Aye, he's expecting some wildcat fury. He's actually not the one to watch at present, nor attempting assault, not that Wildcat knows that. Is it me or has "dealing with grief" become a strong theme of this game somewhere along the line?]]
This message was last edited by the player at 23:59, Sun 31 Oct 2010.

" With all da dead walkin about, dat seems eerie." She returned, looking over the walls and something.. like a black cage caught her eyes a bit. Hanging on the wall was a latern. She picked it up and came closer to the cowboy as he pulled on his pants.

" Had ya not been ganderin' so hard, I prolly could'a did sumptin about it." She murmured. " well, if ya get a light in this, figure we'll walk down the mine a bit. See how far it winds."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:13, Mon 01 Nov 2010.

Either way Wildcat will at least try to get Carl off of her, will be a bit hard in the shape she's in.

23:05, Today: Wildcat Hawkins rolled 3,4 using 1d6-1,1d6-1, rerolling max with rolls of 4,5. fighting roll w/penalties.

Charging Bear finished his investigation in the room, in what seemed like a matter of moments, and that's when he heard the commotion across the street. Thanks to his second story vantage he saw the events unfold fairly well. Carl and the Adders had a solid advantage over a wounded Ranger and Evans, 9 on 2 huh.  His sense of heroics perhaps got the better of him, as he climbed out the window onto the eave below and took a running leap across the street towards Carl.

OOC: Alright... so I've got to cover 3 squares with this jump based roughly on the map.
09:17, Today: Charging Bear rolled -1,2 using 1d8-2,1d6-2, rerolling max with rolls of 1,4. Strength (-2 MAP).
That won't do. White chip to reroll
09:18, Today: Charging Bear rolled 4,-1 using 1d8-2,1d6-2, rerolling max with rolls of 6,1. Strength (-2 MAP) White Chipped!.
That should cover the distance... but am I on target? Fighting vs Carl w/ a 5 parry
09:19, Today: Charging Bear rolled 1,4 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 1,4. Fighting (-2 MAP, +2 Unarmed).
So close! Spending a Red chip for a +1d6
09:20, Today: Charging Bear rolled 4 using 1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 4. Red Chip.

[[OOC: Wow...*clap* that was awesome. Are you grappling, or doing unarmed damage? Either way, I'd certainly count this as The Drop. I also want you to make an Agility roll to avoid taking damage from the fall and collision.]]

Evans does, in fact, raise his pistol at Carl when the man doesn't let her go immediately.

He watches Carl do his mock bow and is about to respond when there's a blur of motion and it suddenly rains Indians...or at least one very large Indian. Evans yelps in surprise, as does more than a few Dust Adders.

A few of them move forward, but Dave sticks his hand out to restrain them.

OOC: Really just want to shove Carl off Wildkitten

20:13, Today: Charging Bear rolled 7,3 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 7,3. Agility.

[[OOC: Alrighty, then. That's a success in avoiding damage, and a success in knocking Carl away.]]

"I owe you two fire waters."  Wildcat tells the red man, regretting for the second time today not making his acquaintance yet.  Her voice is small but steady as she regains her feet and her equilibrium, eyes cast at the dusty ground.

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.  The voice narrating was her mother's.

It may have been just as well she should have kept looking down, for when the white brim raises, Wildcat's eyes burn like cobalt fire.  She had had enough from these damned Dust Adders and their back and forth ways.  Her patience for the tin-horn lot was gone.  The Single Action Army cleared its speed cut holster and she thumbed the hammer back, her teeth bared.  The bore was aimed square at Carl.

"You yellow dog, you come over here an' talk like yer offerin' some kind of fair fight, struttin' 'round here like the sun comes up just to hear you crow!  I tried to be nice about it, but let me spell it for you."

Wildcat takes one step toward Carl.  It's only one step, but its message is clear.  She looks him square in the eye.

"You.  Ain't.  Killin'.  Me.  Today or any day.  You can put your boots in the oven but that don't make 'em biscuits."

Wildcat keeps one eye on Carl but looks at the rest.

 "Boys it's time to paint your butt white and run with the antelope.  It's time to make six ways from Sunday, right now.  This ain't yer shootin' gallery.  This ain't a place the lot of you are going to ride around like yer anything but the snakes you are.  Ya'll are as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party.

"Now Git.  And tell your boss howdy for me."

In reply to Gangatsu (msg #158):

He laughs. "You know, I never thought of it that way. Undead rising on Easter...that's good! Deaders for Jesus!"

He stops when she tells him where they're going. "Now hold on a moment. That mine's a deathtrap, girl. You so much as sneeze, and the roof might come down on you. There's a reason there ain't been no one down near the cave-in since it happened."

In reply to Wildcat Hawkins (msg #164):

"Horsehit!" Dave spits. "You think you can come here and order us about? This is our fuckin' home, girl. And there ain't shit you can do about that. We ain't done nothin' you can prosecute us for, but if'n you go pokin' yer nose into shit that don't concern you and makin' a nuisance, well, yer gonna get it chopped off and fed to ya. Yer as welcome here as Abraham fuckin' Lincoln, and you'll be as dead as him, too, if you don't keep yer shit to yerself. Go crawl away and find a hole to bleed to death in."

"Oh I beg to differ."  Wildcat's smile is as sweet as sugar.  "Either you git, or I slap the cuffs on yer boy here for attempted bribery and assault of a peace officer.  Ah don't really care."

Evans lays a hand on Wildcat's shoulder. "Peace, Miss Hawkins. We don't want to start a fight, just keep order."

He leans down and whispers. "Remember, we have <i>much more important</i> things to worry about!"
This message was last edited by the player at 08:39, Tue 02 Nov 2010.

" Su. Names Su." She started with a cant of her head at the fellow, that should be easy enough for him to remember. Eyes looked down in the darkness and then back to the cowboy with his warning.

" Don't know bout a sneeze, it's still solid after our cummin'. If d'ere is a reason and not ye just stallin, then al'ight. Tell me."

"Sue? Ok, then."  Gus says, pulling a pack of chaw out of his shirt pocket and carving off a plug. "Maybe not a sneeze. But it sure as hell ain't stable, and besides that, no one goes down there real far without Ward's say-so. Which we ain't got."

"And besides," he says with a shiver, "there's somethin' down there...somethin' mean."

Carl had wondered, briefly, what everyone was looking at. "...-"

Then he found himself several feet down the road, breathless, and pinned by a big heap of warrior. Charging Bear would have seen startlement take over the man's features like flicking a switch - not terror but as strong as that, the brain slammed back to instinct in a situation occuring too fast and randomly to process.

Unfortunately for Carl, the preservation instinct that hits surface isn't from his militia days, rodeos, or even the wrangler's urge to avoid cutting hooves when downed. It's the sheer bone-deep instinct of a nine-year-old boy who learnt to judge whether Pa had had enough to use that bottle by the force with which he was struck across a room. It's not dignified, or intelligent, but for an instant Carl's literally startled out of his wits and doesn't care who's watching: he twists and bites Charging Bear at the bone of the wrist, heart hammering, hopefully causing enough shift to get his arm up to protect his head.


[[I reckoned that probably deserved a fighting roll - 5, which I think would be sucessfully painful but not injurous, which is realistic...]]

As clarity returns, he realises someone's talking to him. The Ranger. He looks back. Before, there was no personal hatred in his gaze; now he is clearly daring Wildcat to pull the trigger. Come on, murderer. Me, or you, someday..

Wildcat may recall she just killed a man who was mostly bark and no bite. It might or might not occur to her to think what would happen if such a boy, years younger, looking for work, fell in with another just his opposite. Forged a common bond in common work until the traits exaggerated. Two boys like two sides of a coin. Two men apt to scrap at every turn but close as brothers. What would happen if one died.

The idea that the offered doctor's fees were intended as a bribe brings a faint, bitter smile to Carl's face. It'll be even funnier when she realises there's no jail and the sole assault charge she has on him is taking her by the arm. He meets Dave's gaze briefly, to show he's unafraid. "..."

Ward..

That man's name comes up around everything that's fishy, but he's not the enemy.. How is that? She looked to Gus a bit, catching the shake in his tone. Maybe it is this location, where those people died.. Maybe they found something down there..

" I felt that.. I had a very.. Very weird, very lucid dream. I hardly rememebr my dreams, but this, I remember down ta de last detail. It had this.. large round room with snakes carved into the walls, a high ceiling with a strange light, and a large alter.. I never been there before, but.." She looked down for a moment and rubbed her eyes a litte. She was too well rested to be hallucinating.

" Do you have any idea of what's down there? Or are we really going to have to talk to Ward about it. Fu'k.. Tis hopin to have gotten to the tribe and ask them about all this... Dun't think i'll get anywhere closer to the end.. "

"Oh, yeah." Dave says at Carl's nod. He turns to Evans. "Dr. Ward would like to deliver his personal apologies to you over last night's 'incident', as well as his assurances that such 'horrible misconduct' will never occur again...if he's in a position to prevent it."

Evans gives him a mock bow. "I see. Apology noted. Now, do you gentlemen have any further business here? If not, I suggest taking your leave. It's nearly suppertime, after all."

The Dust Adders look at Dave and Carl, waiting to see what the two do.

Carl won't be doing anything unless he's freely let up, though he'll happily limp straight over to the Grand Bull if that happens, ignoring any protest by the law up to and including use of firearms. He thinks Dave should state their buisness, though. "..."

In reply to Gangatsu (msg #172):

"Well, I ain't never seen nothin' like that down there," Gus muses, "but I surely can tell you what I have seen. When Ward bought this land, he was thinkin' of doin' something with it to try and get the town back on it's feet. The mine wasn't played out when the cave-in happened...he figured that if he cleared it, he could get it open again, maybe get the town right prosperous again."

He shivered. "Eight of us went down. We got to the block, started trying to prop the area up and clear out the boulders. Made a decent haul of it, too, till we hit the spot where the miners died. There were bones all around the place...and then the bones got up. They rolled into one giant fucking weird thing with four arms and like three legs, and started tearing into the guys. We broke it down...but then the bones got back together and stood up again...and again...and after we broke it down the third time, well, Jeff and Harry were dead and I was down for the count. I heal fast, but not THAT damn fast. Nate had us pack it in and we high-tailed it back to the ranch. Tex wanted to collapse the roof on it again, smash it to powder...but even then we weren't sure that would stop it."

He takes a deep breath. "To tell the truth, that's why we were keepin' them rustlers on the property, instead of turning them over to the Marshal when we caught 'em. Ward figgered they were gonna hang anyhow, so why not make 'em useful and clear out the cave-in. It never did attack them, though...maybe we broke it right the last time, but I ain't ashamed to admit I'm not in a real big hurry to find out for sure, if you catch my meaning."

In reply to Carl (msg #174):

Dave nods at Carl, and then spits. "Yeah, we got business. We were here for the funeral of the friend your bitch-ass Ranger shot in the back last night. And now she's murdered another of our friends in cold blood while some of us were doing the kindness of trying to find the sunovabitch who put all those holes in her just now. So if you're gonna clamp irons on anyone, clamp them on that murderin' whore before she slaughters anyone else."

Evans' face goes impassive. "Really."

"Sure is. May God strike me down if I'm lyin'."

Lightning crashes in the distance.

Charging Bear lets out a loud grunt as Carl bites into his wrist. "Son ofa..." The native son snatches the dust adder to his feet by the collar of his coat. Charging Bear looks down at Carl and in a gruff whisper says, "The hell do you think you're doing... I recall Ward saying ya'll weren't to cause trouble... now you're another man down."

OOC: Sorry folks I don't typically post in the evenings my time (US-Eastern Standard)

"Marshall, in case you can't tell, I'm a little busted up at the moment.  They've prevented me from attempting to recover twice now, and it's not going to happen while they're still here.  One of them will just keep stringing it out.  As much as they say they want an even fight, they don't mean it."  She tells the Marshall.

For Wildcat there was no choice.  The Adders smelled blood, could see she was tore up.  The last one to pledge there'd be no more killing today had tried to set her up for assault, kidnapping, torture, or worse.  It was like having nine anvils chained to your ankles.  She could do nothing about the vampires, or the assassins, or anything else while they were still here.  They were obsessed with her, she could see it now, to the point of blaming her for things that didn't even happen. Either they left town or they'd just keep throwing themselves at her until she gave out.

Still, she'd tried this Evans way one more time, fully realizing they wouldn't listen.

"Either way, your business here today is done, and those two suspects are at large, an' every minnit you spend jawin' at us is another minnit they have to git gone."

She looked at them, hoping to see the wheels turn in their thick skulls.  They knew they were just staying in town to be a pain in the ass, and they knew that their presence monopolized her time.  It was very simple to see that it was to their advantage to let the damnable Ranger and the thorn in their side Marshall deal with the assassins.  Whichever side won, it was a victory for the Dust Adders and they didn't have to lift a finger.

But at the same time, she realized their obsession with her probably precluded such a reasonable argument, even one based purely on selfish desires.  Still it was only this one that seemed particularly preoccupied with her.  The problem was he was the alpha dog.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:29, Tue 02 Nov 2010.

"And every minute we engage in this pissing contest between you and them we grow closer to a possible vampire apocalypse scenario." he replies back. "So for God's sake, Miss Hawkins, let them think they've won for now, so we can get back to saving the whole city from being overrun!"

Carl gives Charging Bear a hard look, steel tempered in grief - the injun saw him try to rein Jesse in, saw it working until the Ranger showed. Can hear it's Dave undermining what Charging Bear knows is true, weakening both his overt control and any chance of patching things properly.

It's as he jerks his head at the two of them to emphasise this that he realises. Carl blinks, frowning, then gives Dave a fey, disbelieving grin. She thought they were going to hurt her. She wasn't mad because she'd been held down - and he'd been counting on that getting her riled enough to go for Dave rather than him - she was mad because she was scared.

Carl shakes mud from himself and shrugs, then gives the gang half a grin.
"..."

He beckons them down into the street and - however many follow - makes his way across the street towards food and warmth and alcohol.

Letting Carl go was as easy as removing his hands from the man's coat, with a slight nod to the silent man Charging Bear did just that. He'd seen this sort of power struggle play out and wanted it to do so outside of town.

The native son walked over to Marshell Evans. He put a hand on Frost's pistol and pushed down gently, as though making sure Evans seemed nonthreatening. "Sorry for not coming back last night, sir. Things got a little ... out of hand out on the Circle W Ranch. I'll tell you more about it else where, preferably with a dry set of clothing." He looked down at the pistol, "I'll take that pistol if you don't mind; I don't see Frost needing it where he is now, and I might be needing it soon."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:39, Tue 02 Nov 2010.