Sundown, April 10th, 1879

Hours pass in town. The rain finally begins to let up in the late afternoon, but by then the sun has sunk low on the horizon, and the moon's already up, chasing the day away.

A chill settles over the town of Blackthorn. The shadows seem somehow darker, and the twilight hides more than it should. There's a chill in the air that has nothing to do with the clouds still strangling the sky as the day dies. A phantom halo circles the moon as it ascends to lord over the heavens.

---

The Miner's Association Vault

Evans is late. Very, very late. He should have been back hours ago with those provisions. The vault is getting cold. The only light comes from Cantrell's lantern, as he flips through the pages of his battered copy of Fugitives from Justice, trying to match methods to outlaws.

"Well. I think I might have something." he says at last. "I'm not one hundred percent sure on this, but your duo might in fact be a trio. I've found mention of a Jellicle gang that seems to enjoy targeting lawmen, judges, minor politicians, and such. Now, I have a '77 edition, so if you want more up-to-date information you'll have to wire home for it, but it says here that this gang is wanted for bumping off lawmen and local politicians from New Orleans to Tombstone. It's speculated that they're mostly employed by Bayou Vermilion, intimidating towns into giving the railroad right-of-way for cheap. Now, since the Edict of '77 put the brakes on a lot of the rail lines, and Bayou Vermilion is currently running rail through unpopulated desert, it's possible these folk decided to go freelance and work for the highest bidder. The trio consists of two men and a woman. It says here the woman lures the target to an isolated area, then the men catch them in a crossfire. Was there a woman involved in this whole thing?"

---

The Undertaker's Shop

Evans, Fuller, and Fletcher stand silently over the box containing the body of Robert Micklethwait. Evans has his hat off in respect. He's just standing there, stock still, saying nothing, staring down as if her were looking at the floor through the table.

The Marshal had run to the Grand Bull, but by the time he'd arrived the damage had already been done. The brawlers had already departed, leaving three injured in their wake...and one dead.

Fuller managed to gather the story from the patrons. The fight had started when a lady walked into the bar and started getting hysterical about a poster a bounty hunter had hung earlier. Several men surrounded her, presumably because of the bounty offer. The deputy tried to intervene, and that's when the fight started. The deputy was thrown through a poker table, prompting the other patrons to try to spring to his defense. During the fight, the old man was hit but a full bottle of booze, and had collapsed. The fight continued until the lady returned inside, and promised to go with the belligerent men, at which point they departed via the back door.

It was shortly after this that the Marshal had arrived, with fuller and Fletcher bringing up the rear. And it seemed as if something broke within the man as he'd surveyed the damage. He didn't pursue the culprits...he grabbed the deputy's body and rushed over to the undertaker's place, apparently because the Undertaker also had some medical training. The Undertaker did his best, but pronounced the man dead.

The Marshal had been here since, staring at the body, unmoving, for several hours now. What was Elijah to do?

---

The Grand Bull Saloon

Katy Devon finally made it back to the saloon. She was wet (they'd dunked her in a horse trough), sore (then they had paddled her rear with a plank), and shaven (then they'd grabbed her hair and took a razor to it, lopping it off in uneven chunks...she'd need to visit a barber to keep from looking like she'd got the mange).  It was all she could do to curl up on a stool and get a nice, hot cup of tea and try to relax...

Carl paces. He's been pacing an L-shape from his corner since the shivering got bad enough to irk him, focusing on the physical. Carl knows it's a bad thing if the shivering stops. The hunger isn't bothering him any more: he's switched into the state of not expecting food that comes with lean periods and hard drives. Eat it when you got it, don't think about it when you ain't.

Carl paces back the other way. Pace soft, measured, conserving energy. Trying not to think. He hopes like Hell someone has thought to take Hoss in by now.

By that point, Wildcat would have dug into her war bag and offered the inmates trail provisions, most likely self made johnny cakes.

"There were..."  Damn.  "The woman that complained about the Dust Adders raising hell at the undertaker's parlor."

It had to be.  Cantrell had just spelled this out for her, perfectly.

She was concerned Evans wasn't here, but it could be anything.  There wasn't a choice, Cantrell wouldn't leave, and she wouldn't leave Charging Bear with Cantrell for a jailer.  Nothing for it.

"Well, then. That's probably this Jellicle Gang." Cantrell says. "I've only got aliases for them...pretty fanciful stuff, the kind of thing you'd name a cat. They're known as Rum Tum Tugger, Mcavity, and Jenny Anydots." He points out the descriptions in the book. "You'll be glad to know that each of them is worth a few hundred dollars to me, so you've got my help hunting them down."

Carl's willing to accept food provided out of duty, though he won't take any offered in sacrifice/kindness - if there's not enough for Wildcat to take at least equal share he'll feign disinterest. If he gets Charging Bear's ration and can't make the injun seem awake by whistling sharply and/or throwing some at him, he'll eat that too. He's not oblivious to the discussion, however.

Elijah leaned quietly against the doorpost of the Undertaker's.  There were quite a new notes he wanted to jot down, but it seemed a little unmannerly at the moment.    Dammit...  Maybe he was right.  Hard not to feel like a damn crow, just standin' here circlin' over the dead.  Just get /my/ story and to hell with everyone gettin' hurt around me... Some soldier.   He had given the Marshal a while now.  Some space to pay respects and think.  This town can't afford to lose the Marshal too. Maybe I can get him goin' again...  Some focus.  Clearing his throat, Elijah pushed up from the doorpost and began to limp closer to the Marshal, "Sir?  What do you plan to do now, sir?  This town still needs ya.  Prolly now more'n ever." 

Evans looks up towards Elijah. He doesn't look at the man, though...the stare is one the former soldier had seen all too often before, the sort of stare that goes through a man to some point a thousand yards away, on the face of one who has seen too much, who has reached the limit of what they can endure.

"Do they?" he asked tonelessly. "Do they really?"

He picks the badge from his chest and stares down at it. "I...I can't take this. There's just been so much, in so short a time..."

He lets the badge tumble from his fingers. There's a *CLINK!* as the tin star hits the ground.

"I can't do this anymore." he says.


"I quit."

Elijah stares hard at the man.  Exhaling heavily, he shakes his head, "Just let me get my facts straight.  One of your deputies was forced into arrest, but lives to stand trial.  One of your deputies died doing the damn job you hired him for.  There's obviously some other things goin' on that you won't say nothin' about; which makes them damn worrisome.  And now you're jus' gonna up and quit?"  He glances down to the tin star on the floor, "You said out there that the people of this town made you Marshal.  Now that its gotten real bad...now when they need you the most...  Who're you leavin' 'em with?"  Hefting his cane, he points off in the direction of the vault across town, "The bloodied up almost-Ranger?  The bounty hunter?"  Pausing a moment, he considers, "Or are you just concedin' the town to the Dirt Snakes?  If that's true, then we'll need t' take that star on over to the fella at the vault."

"Do what you want." Evans replies. "Everything I've tried to do to makes things better has done just the opposite. He was here two days. Two days! Just helping me out, looking into some problems that I needed some outside help on. And it got him killed in a damnable bar fight!" He sinks to his knees. "And it's all my fault. he was just passing through, and I asked him for a favor, and it got him killed."

There was an adequate supply to go around.  "Not bad huh?  I put a little cinnamon in the cornmeal, makes all the difference.  I'm guessin' this is the first time a woman's cooked for you in ages."

Again, trying to introduce levity into a situation which had none was probably going to fall flat, but this was posturing.  If the Adder could maintain his dark humor, so could she.

Wildcat didn't say anything for a moment to Cantrell as she really had no problem with Cantrell going after a bunch of criminals like that and could find no fault with it even if it was just for money.  But her silence is tacit approval.

"But that, that's not the whole of the problem now is it?  If they're a, free fallin', as ya put it, the question is who the hell is bank rollin' them?  Who sent 'em?  It don't make sense.  I know you make enemies at this job, but I ain't been at it long enough to make that many of those kinds of enemies."

Wildcat looks down at the harmonica, lost in consternation.

"If they were just out to get me I wouldn't mind so much, but they'll just keep doing this if'n they ain't stopped.  Ah cain't let that happen if I can help it.  I'd prefer alive but if they resist, we can't hesitate."  She sighs.  "Why is it the solution to killin' is always more killin'?"

It wasn't so much a lament, just a bitter acknowledgement of a hard fact she knew well.  It was never simple.

"Whoever it is probably doesn't have it out for you personally, and is reacting to the presence of the position of Texas Ranger." Cantrell says. "That means they got somethin' to hide, and if they're willing to send assassins after you after you only just set foot in town, it's somethin' they want to hide bad. Like that Lago business. You hear about that?"

"Not particularly.  I hear 'bout a lot of business but not that 'un."

Charging Bear's sleep was short, one might call it a nap. He awoke as Cantrell spoke. The native son picked up his discarded clothing, taking time to to check how damp they still might be. He slowly wrung the remaining water from his shirt and coat. His movements shouldn't have caused any alarm but who knows what a local bandit, a bounty hunter and a tin-starred ranger would so. So he watched them while he tried to finish drying his clothes. Once he was satisfied with them being at least less damp than they had previously been, Charging Bear put his clothing back on and sat back down. He had nothing to do but wait at this point.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:40, Mon 22 Nov 2010.

"Right. Well, the place is a ghost town now, on account of some weird stuff goin' down. From what the survivors said, a Ranger was killed there because he poked his nose into their mining operation, which was operating on government land. The townsfolk hired on some bandits to take out the ranger, then double-crossed them and sent 'em down the river to jail. When they got released, the folk of Lago hired on a drifter to deal with 'em, but the drifter, if you believe the rumors, was actually the ghost of the Ranger they kilt and used his position as town's 'protector' to execute some mighty nasty vengeance on the place before finally abandoning them to the bandits they hornswoggled."

"That's a hell of a story."  It's all Kat can say, as most of its significance is ironically lost on her.

"Yeah..." Cantrell seems lost for a moment in his own tall tale, before shaking himself out of it. "Anyhow, while the ghost is the part most folk remember, it's the reason the Ranger was offed in the first place that's of importance to us. Now, I don't know much about this place except that it seems to be half dead. You got any more information on what this town's been through, it might give us a place to start lookin' for them that tried to kill you. Hell, I'd lay odds that it's the same reason that judge was bein' bribed to keep away before his demise. You think he was killed because he got too curious about where his extra money was coming from?"

"All I really know about that is there's a man called Ward, big shot around here, who seems to be the one everything important in this town keeps tracing back to.  I think this feller-"  She indicates to Carl.  "-is in his employ, or at least his posse is.  Ah don't think, from what I've gathered, that he'd do something like that, but I bet he's got a piece of the puzzle."

Wildcat looks toward Carl's direction.  "I was going to ride out there, today, to arrest that Frost feller, an' try to talk to that man.  Got side tracked by those assassins an' other problems and it just didn't happen. By God Cantrell..."

The light went on in Kat's head.

"Evans was right."  She directs to Carl.  "There's something going on here bigger than whatever problems we got with each other."

And then it got brighter, when she saw Charging Bear miserably sitting there in the vault.

"Deputy Bear... I know you were out there, you told me yourself.  Did you talk to Ward?"
This message was last edited by the player at 17:18, Mon 22 Nov 2010.

Carl, paused near the door, nods at being identified as one of Ward's, and again at his not being involved with the judge's murder. He just gives Wildcat a flat look along the lines of 'no shit, Ranger' at the mention of bigger problems. It seems he knows something of the nature of these already.

Charging Bear nodded to the ranger, "I have. Was out there last night and this morning."