Katy stood with arms folded watching the back-and-forth between Logan and the bluebellies. She didn't seem to have drawn any particular interest from anyone in blue, so she was content to wait until addressed by them. She did, however, nod in agreement with both Logan's statement as well as Jackie's.

Wild Bill frowns, apparently struggling with whether to say anything, but ultimately remains silent.

"Well, if this Carter is still in town, we'll have him by sundown." Johnny says. He turns to the others. "Spread the word. I think the DMA has a bounty out on this guy...see if any of those militia boys can aid in the search." The soldiers nod and start heading away. Johnny looks at Logan. "When this is over, we need to get a drink and catch up. You folks can go about your business."

---

Orders are sent to the other clusters of troops, and James Wilder and Belle are given their weapons back. The grizzled soldier talking to Belle shrugs. "I wish I had your faith, ma'am. But you're right. You don't see. And you owe it to yourself to find out."

---

Von Steinhof, meanwhile, has been chatting pleasantly with the band of soldiers surrounding him...

((OOC: Von Steinhof, if you want to use that Tale Tellin' check from earlier, now is the time. Just let me know what you are telling them.))

Daisy pounces on her weapons as soon as she's officially unlikely to be shot for it and is re-armed within seconds. "Sir, we have buisness Ah would like to be about," she says to Matt, dropping the strap of her rifle so that it pins her shirt close between her breasts.

James gladly accepts his pistol back and waits for Carter's pistol as well.

"We free to go or still gotta talk to someone?"

"Sounds like we're lookin' for a fellow named Carter." The soldier says. "You're free to go. If you give us a description of him, though, I'd be much obliged...it'll make finding him easier."

Major von Steinhof took another drag on his cigarette, as the explosion behind him consumed the Bella Union. He offered the bottle of bourbon to the soldiers around him, followed by another round of his seemingly endless supplies of cigarettes.

"My dear gentlemen, this has been a night of some excitement, not true? Fire, explosions.... so much death." He shook his head, sadly.
He raised his tin cup and gave a quick toast. "To our fallen comrades!"
He waited for everyone to take a sip from the bottle, then gave the men a slight smile.
"Alas, battles are work for hard and brave men. And those who survive remember those that have fallen. That way, our friends and brothers in arms, in some way, survive with us. But!"
He turns around and points at the Bella Union. "Perhaps it is even more important to remember our fallen enemies! For our victory means of course their vanquishment.
Oh, and we have vanquished a foe most dangerous in there."
He turns around again, addressing them directly.
"As you will understand, I wanted to celebrate our victory from earlier, yes? My path led me to the Bella Union. A fine establishment, I have to say.
And do you know who I encountered there?"
He paused for dramatic effect. "The very man who was responsible for all the... carnage that happened today. He and his associates had gathered there. We fought them, with pistols and knives and our wits. And we prevailed, of course! Although for the price of yet another lost building.
Well", he shrugged, "buildings can be rebuilt. But this abomination, this caricature of a man, will cause no more suffering. He and his group died in the fight. Some in the fire. One in the explosion. Death is never to be celebrated, I am certain you will all agree. But because of this man's death... Deadwood is a lot safer today. And that is that I will be happy to celebrate!"

((OOC: That's cool. So now that the danger has passed, what, exactly, are y'all doin'? I need to know so I can set up the next chapter stuff, which will get Moses and Art into town.))

Looking around, Matt reached into his pocket and flipped through the meager remains of his salary. He cast a glance Logan and Daisy, then at the other do-gooders around.

"I don't know about you all, but I could use a drink at a place that isn't going to catch fire. Drinks on me at the #10!" he offered to all dozen-odd gathered around, "Marshal West, we should sit down and discuss the state of affairs in Deadwood, I think. Do you agree?"

"You mean that #10?" Wild Bill raises an eyebrow, and points across the street at the gutted wreck of Nuttal & Mann's #10 Saloon next to the collapsed remains of the Gem. "It don't look open to me. And to be fair honest, I wouldn't really be keen to set foot in there again anyhow, considerin'."

"Well, I shall investigate the matter in its own time sir.  Thank you for your service gentlemen.  This experience was, in the words of my people, wicked pissa."

Belle dusted herself off.  This diversion hadn't taken too long, and it seemed the proper sorts had arrived to resolve this all as it should be.  The robbery was thwarted and the fire wasn't given the chance to spread, so the need for citizen involvement was past.

Curious, she gathered some samples of ash and char from around the site, wondering if later she could determine the cause of the explosion or the hallucination.  She wondered where one would get a melanin sample to test the soldiers' strangely spoken hypothesis.

Happily, with the departure of the soldiers no one was paying the least bit of attention to her.  Happy because at present, she had a rail yard to return to.

Marshal Broaddale recoiled with a sound of mild embarrassment as he saw the #10.

"Uh, I mean the Mint!" he corrected, leaning over to Daisy, "The Mint is still standing, right?"

Daisy nods down the street at said building. "Looks it. We'll pro'ly be in time for the afternoon fightin', too."

In reply to Wild Bill Hickok (msg # 372):

"I gotta say-the old man won't wait forever. We need to get you back to him pronto." Zek said to Wild Bill as offers of drinks started going round. "Last thing we want is another attack while you are still in a fragile state, right?" He pointed out. "You may be in control now, but what happens if some drunken fool starts something with you?"

"Is there any particular reason you can't bring him to me?" Wild bill asks. "Frankly, I'm still more comfortable with a band o' lawmen and lawwomen surroundin' me. Cuts down on the drunks tryin' to start things."

"I know I sure as hell ain't lettin' him out o' my sight." Jackie Wells says. "Not until I'm convinced he won't shoot up yet another bar. I may not have a badge anymore, but I still have a responsibility to the folks of Deadwood. But I reckon I still need to talk with Marshal West my own self, and from how Miss Katy was talkin' back there, I reckon she has a few things to talk with him about, too."

In reply to Wild Bill Hickok (msg # 377):

Zek looks at Bill, an clearly looks uncomfortable as Jackie volunteers to babysit. Weather its to keep an eye on Bill or Zek he is not sure.

"Well, for one-if you do lose control I want minimize the amount people who could get hurt. And for two, if anything happens to you while I am trying to get the old man on my own. I wont be able to stop it."

He walks to Jackie and stares into her eyes again. "And you can tag along if you like...but things ain't always gonna fit in a nice moral box that you call 'law', got me? I would recommend you get outta your head right now."
This message was last edited by the player at 19:18, Sat 28 Jan 2017.

Jackie gives Zeke a hard stare. It's a stare that has a thousand yards to it. The sort of stare of someone who's seen things man ought not.

"Tell me. Do you think the ends justify the means?" She says quietly. "Do you think you can still be a 'moral person' if you done reprehensible things, even if the outcome were good? 'Cause I've been where you think you wanna be. I've seen a world without law. I've seen the sort o' folk that take over. And I have to tell ya, you don't wanna go there, son. It's a place where the strong prey on the weak, where them as don't have morals rape, plunder, and murder to their heart's content -- only they ain't never contented. Ever. You think things are bad now? Wait around a couple hundred years. You'll see it. And you'll wish to God you hadn't."

Maddox scowls as Zek talks down to the deposed deputy, still bristling from the soldier incident. "I've been trying to do right by you, so I have, Starkweather. I didn't mean for the mess with my cousins to happen, and you seemed to be doing good with the fire by there...but if you take to extra-judicial murder, see you, I don't care what sad story you tell about how someone pissed in your cornflakes and how that makes it all right for you to do it, or how you think you're the white champion of the helpless Indians: you act like him, I will hunt you down the same way as Carter."

The bounty hunter sounds more weary than furious, though that current's still there. He looks to the Marshals. "It might be best to talk about badges over drinks...I have something of a delicate balancing situation with various parties in Deadwood."

Jackie frowns at Maddox. "I'll say that you do. Is chasin' down whores for them as like to whip their skin off part o' your definition o' justice?"

In reply to Jackie Wells (msg # 380):

Zek narrows his eyes at the women. "I grew up in the world you are describing. Morality is luxury for people who can afford it. The desperate have to do desperate things just to get by. The difference-I no longer live in that world...or any other."

He looks back at Maddox. "As for you? You need to think about the big picture. Your cousins have used you time and again. How many times have you trusted them? How many people paid for it? There is a world out there-the real one-which exists alongside your world of laws, and morality, and little things like up and down. The Indians see it, know it, and one of em opened the door from that world to this one. When that door is closed-for good-then you can start telling how things should be. Because otherwise your world is no longer setting the rules. The world that Bill and I now exist with everyday does."

He shakes his head. "And that world does not care about badges, or lawmen, or rules you say everybody needs to follow. Your cousins living like the lords of the land because they don't follow your rules. You need to start understanding that to beat them at their own game. Because you are gonna lose if you play by your rules-and they don't."

Zek raises and eyebrow and looks over at Maddox, confused by Well's statement.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:23, Sat 28 Jan 2017.

Maddox snorts. "I got over here about as 'desperate' as they get, see you, ten dollars and the clothes I stood up in, and I didn't go about cutting throats willy-nilly and stealing their cash because it's a 'luxury' to let people live in a society. If everyone else's real world isn't the same as yours, you might consider whether you're a bloody sociopath, you might do that!"

He turns to Jackie, arms crossed. "-and yes, sometimes I have to take less savoury contracts to eat, see you, but this is the grand picture, the reason the Celestials need to become part of the community. They can do whatever they like to their slaves and no-one bats an eyelid because they're Johnny Foreigner, it's Chinatown, let's not get involved...but don't think I'd just hand her over to Huang Li any more than any other lynch-happy fellow around here. She's not in breach of contract to him, see you, the notice she's a whore is to flush her out." He looks away, defensive and uncomfortable.

"She managed to rob Huang Li and vanish, see you, she's not dumb enough to hang around other Celestials so long she'd get hurt by that."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:13, Sat 28 Jan 2017.

"The Kangers own the only legal road in or out o' here." Jackie says evenly. "By now, your handbills will have made it all the way to Bismark. What're you gonna do when someone actually finds her, and wants to collect? What do you think the Sioux'll do to her, if'n she decides to try a cross-country trek? They don't distinguish between White and Yellow none. We're all outsiders to them, and they'll drag her back here behind a horse...or string her up on one o' them poles that line the road. What then?"

"It's my name on the bills - they want the money, see you, they'll bring her to me. Alive," he shifts uncomfortably, quite aware of the liberty other bounty hunters might take with 'alive'...or with a Chinese whore with no place to shelter.

"If she's run into Sioux country, she's already dead," he says quietly, finally looking up at Jackie. "They don't let them out, not hardly, you know that. She'll have chosen exposure over being brought back."

"And that allows you to sleep with a clean conscience, does it?" Jackie growls. "You've as good as killed her."

"As well as you or Bullock, I suspect, seeing as he was waltzing all over the Alley with her owner for months," Maddox retorts with a little heat. "I'd choose freezing to death over what they do to those 'ghost girls' as usual buisness - at least if the bounty comes by me, see you, I can get in the way."