quote:
Oh, when I burn
Fuel is pumping engines
Burning hard, loose and clean
And then I burn
Turning my direction
Quench my thirst with gasoline
So gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire
--"Fuel," Metallica
Gun still smoking, Jack runs out of the burning Gem, just as the back wall finally gives way and collapses, burying Wild Bill's body within.
A bucket line has formed, with survivors from Wild Bill's attack on the place desperately splashing the building with water from horse troughs and a line stretching all the way to the creek in a desperate attempt to stem the out-of-control blase.
"MURDERER!" some one screams. Heads point in his direction.
"MURDERER! STOP HIM! HE'S TYING TO RUN!"
And suddenly a dozen men and women converge on him, running towards him...the panic has begun.
Calamity Jane:
Calamity Jane runs towards the burning building...just in time to see it collapse. She spots Black Jack running out, gun smoking...and no Bill following him.
"Murderer!" Someone screams. Then there's a cry to seize him. A group of townsfolk break from the bucket brigade and run towards the Creole, and Jane is still out of range...and where's Bill? What happened to Wild Bill?
Kate Hillary:
Rough hands grab Kate as she stumbles.
"Come on!" Dan says as he hauls her to her feet...not very gently, but the building is collapsing and there's no time to be genteel.
But luck is with them...the collapsed wall is on the other side from where they are. Dan and Kate shoot from the alley none the worse for wear, just in time to see someone else run from the door of the Gem.
A bucket brigade has formed, but the fire from the Gem has already spread to the nearby Nuttal & Mann's saloon, and it's not the only fire blazing. There's at least one more building down the street from the Gem that's ablaze...
But before Kate can take it all in, someone starts screaming about murder, and a band of townsfolk break from the fire line and rush the dark-skinned fellow.
"Oh shit!" Dan breathes.
"They think he did it! They're gonna hang him!"
James Wilder:
James finds the streets of Deadwood in Chaos. He can see the smoke from three--no, four--different fires rising into the night sky. People from the theater are running pell-mell, mixing with the panicking crowd on the outside. soldiers are rushing about, ordering civilians out of their way, and are getting ignored. One of them, frustrated, draws his pistol and fires into the air, but that only makes the chaos in the streets worse.
Someone's going to get hurt, even if the blazes (which aren't anywhere near the theater yet, praise Jesus) do somehow get under control.
((OOC: Which way are you headed, James?))
Here's a map of where the fires are in relation to each other, though there's one more that can't be seen from this map, as it's a bit further away. As you can see, James Wilder's quite a distance away from the nearest fire, which is the one at the jail.
