Caroline ushers Joaquin towards her horse, taking the opportunity to stow her camera. Holding out a hand to give a boost up, she says, ”Well, wherever we’re going, I suggest we do it soon. I’m not delighted with the idea of wandering around out here in the dark.”
"Let's at least make our way in that direction for now - if it becomes too dark or too difficult, we can make camp for the night."
Caroline shifts uncomfortably, her nervous gaze turning to the horizon as the sun slowly sinks lower.
"Yes, well, if you insist." is all she says, making sure her shotgun is still loaded as the group prepares to head out.
The first order of business is locating your horses as you're not where you left off... but not too far. They're tied up where you left them, although also tired as hell. Getting Il Brutto on a horse, you put your back to the town and start heading down the trail towards the Pearl Gang's camp. However as you start heading off you hear gunfire roar a short distance behind you, followed by screaming. Something is going down.
”Oh, hell,” Caroline mutters, wheeling around to check out the disturbance without even a glance at the others. She starts to make her way in the direction of the sound, moving as quickly as she can while still remaining relatively inconspicuous. She keeps her shotgun at the ready.
Torn between Caroline’s rushing off in one direction and Joaquin’s mostly prone form plodding off in the other, Mr. Stuthman coughs a quiet ”Ah hell!” before rushing over to turn Il Brutto’s horse around.
Brutto sits dejected and exhausted on a horse, and does not lift his head at the noise. He only raises it when Stuthman turns the horse the other way.
"Ah, vete a la chingada," he mutters under his breath, fumbling his deck of cards out slowly.
You ride on in to Coffin Rock with a disgusting useless lump attached to your horse you should probably get checked out. Also Il Brutto is riding and not feeling too good.
You take a right down 1st avenue, and it looks like that the Sheriff's Office is the sound of the commotion. You see a few of his deputies in an open gunfight with some desperate-looking miners who are pressed up against the doctor's surgery. From within the Sheriff's office you hear a godawful screaming.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
The racket is incredible. The deputies look demented and gleeful as they stand right out in the open fire wildly at the miners. "Yeeehaw! Lookit him dance!" One of their number lies dead but they don't pay him no mind.
Caroline stops short, her shotgun clutched in her hand as she stares uncertainly at the scene in front of her.
Those fools look like they’re beyond reason. I don’t think there’s any talking them out of this. Could they be scared away, or are they too far gone for that too?
She grabs what cover she can nearby and starts to raise her gun, intending to fire a warning shot, but the barrel of her gun wavers, her indecision written across her face.
"Wait!, hisses Joaquin, still on the horse and looking every bit the way he feels. "Not our fight, Senorita. Our fight, it's elsewhere... it's bigger. And Joaquin, he is no good for this now."
He shifts his gaze expectantly to Mr. Stuthman and opens his hands as if to say, Right?
A gun cracks and one of the coal miners collapses to the ground with the back of his head blown off, which sets the deputies to hootin' and hollerin'. The screams of a man in horrific torment continue from within the Sherrif's office - the sound is little metallic like he's shouting from inside a metal box or something.
"They're -murdering- them," Caroline hisses back. "Look at them. We can't just walk away."
Despite the conviction of her words, the barrel of her gun continues to waver, not quite pointing in the direction of anyone in particular.
Il Brutto glares at Caroline from the back of the horse.
"You an outlaw now?", he sneers. "'Cause you gonna be, you kill these deputies. They hunt you down, and they hang you." He points at the rope burns at his neck with a gloved hand before turning his head away harshly.
"Monsters to kill elsewhere, Senorita. Leave it."
Mr. Stuthman glances from Caroline to Joaquin to the chaos; raises his rifle halfway to his shoulder more than once and lowers it as many times. "But... but... We can't leave these men to die, but if the deputies are just... well, not good men, but under the influence of the evil here... We... We should stop this?"
Looking intently at the deputies, Stuthman finds himself imagining mighty gusts of wind pushing the bad men away.
As Stuthman tries to quell a complete panic, something starts to happen. A little dust devil kicks up in the streets while the deputies continue hooting and hollering as they shoot at the miners.
But the dust devil grows.
And grows.
The wind kicks up with a mighty urgency, and the joy of the deputies turn to screams as they are knocked -flying- in different directions. One of them soars a good twelve feet over towards where you are, landing not just ten from you on his belly. The miners look panicked for a moment, but take advantage, firing down at the downed deputies.
Caroline, sensing a shift in the situation, grabs the camera from where it's stowed on her horse. She slings the camera's strap over her shoulder and retakes hold of the shotgun, quickly looking back and forth to try to assess the whole scene.
To the others, she offers only a hurried "Going to get a better angle - try to make it seem like they're surrounded and scare them off."
With that, she hurries around behind the back of the bank, cutting across in the direction of the sheriff's office.
Joaquin is not amazed by dust devil. Something like this was boiund to happen in this shithole.
"You f~&@ing idiots," Joaquin spits, still on the horse. He begins to fumble out his deck, looking with his burning eyes of rage from the deputy to his companions. He shouts so Caroline can hear, hating her camera too. "You stupid, f&~$ing, selfish idiots! You want to be cru-saders, eh? Come from the, the f@$!ing east mebbe, be big heroes? Get Joaquin killed is what you gonna do. F*+*! F$~% you BOTH!"
Despite his words, the mean Mexican does not spur the horse around and flee. Instead, he pulls a shotgun and points it at the deputy on the ground, spitting his tobacco juice onto the man to get his attention.
Caroline doesn't slow or even bother looking back. She does, however, call out over her shoulder, responding.
"Don't let him get killed!" she shouts helpfully.
Joaquin might not be surprised by the sudden wind, by Mr. Stuthman definitely is! "Well if that don't beat all.."
Placing a hand gently on Il Brutto's knee, Stuthman murmurs: "We don't have to kill him, yeah? Let's just tie him up."
Caroline races about the back of the bank while Il Brutto starts cursing the group with incredible venom. The back is just... well, nothing. No back door to the bank but luckily there is a back door to the Sheriff's office which is even ajar. The screaming of the man within continues on unabated.
As you look down at the deputy who simply drops his weapon and puts his hands up, terrified, a soothing sensation seems to flow over Il Brutto. The vicious, horrific headache abates somewhat.
The miners clean up the remaining deputies on the street and take off, dragging their dead with them.
Feeling instant relief, Joaquin slides off the horse and spares Stuthman a sideways, suspicious glance. He disarms the deputy, pocketing his weapon, and pushes him towards the miracle worker.
"You want to tie him up, you do it," he says to Stuthman. "I say kick him the ass, send him on his way."
Caroline, weighing the relative merits of self-defense and journalistic preparedness, fumbles with the straps of her camera and her shotgun. Ultimately deciding that she can't let the moment get away from her, she awkwardly tucks her shotgun under her arm, still suspended by its strap, as she readies her camera and, as quietly as possible, nudges the door open to peek inside. She leans around the corner, trying to get a view of what's causing all those horrible noises.
Awkwardly catching the stumbling deputy, Mr. Stuthman pushes him out to arms length, looks at him sadly, and speaks gently: "Go. Go before we are forced to kill you."
And, pushing the man to one side, leads his horse in the direction of the sheriff's office, following Il Brutto.
The deputy nods quickly and turns to run off into the night - the fight is clearly out of him.
Strapped to a chair is some man, and on his face is a massive iron mask which is muffling his screams. Blood is seeping out of the eyeholes. Leaning over him with a knife in hand is Marshal Bryce. A demonic look is in his eyes. Despite the gunfight having gone on right outside the front window of the sheriff's office, he hasn't noticed a thing. He is too intent on his torture.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
"Man upon this earth must expect everything, and ought to face everything..." mutters the Sheriff.
Joaquin might be feeling better, but his companions' do-gooder actions have done nothing to improve his disposition. He heads right down the middle of the street, muttering under his breath and looking for something to shoot.
Stopping outside the jail, he spits some tobacco juice in the dirt and stands there listening to the screams.
Tying his horse to a post, Mr. Stuthman gathers his rifle and stands next to Joaquin, staring dispassionately at the door: "Y'think Caroline went in there?"
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Despite her time on the battlefield, Caroline only just manages to bite back a gasp. The impersonal horror of war is one thing, but this level of abject cruelty is something else altogether. She starts to let her camera drift downwards as her natural impulses war between fight or flight.
Closing her eyes for a second, she marshals her courage and composes herself. When she opens her eyes again, they look upon the scene in front of her with steely determination. She raises her camera again, framing up the scene, and waits until both Bryce's face and the man in the chair are clearly visible. With only a flicker of hesitation, she depresses the button that triggers the camera's shutter.
Joaquin and Stuthman stand outside of the Marshal's office, listening to the muffled screams from the man inside. Looking around the town, it seems like something bad has happened here. Proper bad. Down the street you see the saloon where another frackas seems to be taking place. Several figures in dresses escape, dragging the limp body of another woman with them. They make for the theatre. You also hear a strange thumping coming from the physician's office, just across the street.
Mice seem to be everywhere. You see them out of the corners of your eyes, skittering here and there. Everything looks gnawed.
Then you hear shouting from inside the office. Sounds like that's where Caroline went.
========
========
While the Marshal is continually muttering to himself and torturing his victim, you manage to calm yourself, and bring up the epitaph camera. The lighting is just right, you can frame the shot and....
click
White light from the ghost rock bursts from the camera, capturing the image. As the flare lights up the room, the Marshal looks up his gaze meeting yours, and for a moment, you see ... antlers. But only for a moment, the flash is gone, and now the enormous, brutish form of the Marshal is there, his knife dripping with blood. His serene face twists into a mask of rage and he howls, showing cracked, yellow teeth.
"I THOUGHT IT TOLD YA TO GIT OUTTA THIS TOWN, GIRL!"
Caroline - 5C
Stuthman - 6S / 7H
Il Brutto - KH
Marshall Bryce - 9S
Il Brutto
--
Marshall Bryce
---
Stuthman
Caroline
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"Y'think Caroline went in there?"
Il Brutto nods once, saying nothing, and spits some more of his disgusting tobacco juice out onto the ground. He seems to be waiting for something, or carefully considering what to do.
Somewhere inside his head, the dragon hums lowly.
"I THOUGHT IT TOLD YA TO GIT OUTTA THIS TOWN, GIRL!"
The decision perhaps made for him, Joaquin steps forward and kicks the door in as his guns appear in his hands.
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BOOM!
Il Brutto boots the door open, his scowl turning into a twisted, happy sneer. He lets the natural meanness he carries abate only enough to sidestep into the doorway so that Stuthman can get in behind him, and so that Caroline is not in his line of fire.
"HOLA, MARSHAL A$$$!#*!" he bellows lamely as he raises his guns, not having a lick of charisma to speak of. "TIME TO DIE!"
Despite what must be done - and how much he looks forward to it, raising both weapons up at shoulder level - the nagging thought that he is about to kill a lawman is also still present. He mostly ignores it. It's killing time, after all.
And there's a shaman to show how wrong he is about Il Brutto.
"What the..."
BLAM BLAM
The Marshal turns to face Il Brutto and suddenly his lil ol' knife doesn't seem too tough. Before he can do a thing his head explodes like an overripe watermelon that was also just shot point blank with two shotguns. The constituent parts of the head and the goo that lay therein spray across the room in an instant, and his body crashes to the ground.
The feller in the mask stops screaming, however Caroline may have other ideas because that was a damn sight.
End of Combat
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Joaquin immediately cracks his weapons open one at a time, moving each under his arm as he begins to reload with practiced expertise. His eyes remain on Bryce's body as he loads each barrel, and the wild happiness found within the sneer a moment ago slowly subsides. Despite his ringing ears and the black smoke in the air, he's already speaking to Caroline.
"What did Joaquin tell you?", he begins, loading the other weapons quickly. "Lawman's dead now, and it's Joaquin that did it, and it's Joaquin that they're gonna try to hang now. All for your stupid, f$@%ing picture."
Holstering the weapons, he kneels over the Marshal's body and begins rifling through his pockets, taking any money or valuables he can. "'Don't do it, Senorita,' Joaquin says to you, he tells you why, but do you listen? No. No, you don't wanna listen to Il Brutto, and so he has to do the dirty work... like mud-Joaquin in hell, not like angel-Caroline and angel-Stuthman floating up in Heaven." He tone is bitter as he tears the Marshal's badge off before pocketing it and rising.
"You take a good look at Bryce," he says, taking as many shotgun shells and bullets from around the place as he can, and trading the deputy's revolver for the best one he can find in the room. "He's dead because of you. You made that happen, Senorita Caldwell. Joaquin, he pull the trigger to help you, but you killed him, ehh? Ehh. Two men, in fact." He finishes up by spitting a large amount of tobacco juice on the body, and finally looks at Caroline to explain.
The Mexican huckster motions at the hooded man. "Can't have no witnesses."
Pulling the Marshals' revolver from his waistband, he checks it over in preparation for the deed.
Despite his earlier attempted nonchalance outside, Mr. Stuthman is shocked by Il Brutto's sudden ruthless violence - it's nothing less than he expected, but his heart beats loudly in his ears.
Breathe!
Drawing in a slow, deep breath, Stuthman drops to his knees next to the marshal's body. Coolly and efficiently, he strips the man even as Joaquin is rifling through his pockets. "C'mon... *hehh* *hechh* C'mon!"
There must be something! It has to be here - some mark, some indication of what went wrong.
Looking grimly at the man's ruined face, he mutters: "At least, *hemmm* this one won't be coming ba-ahh-k-k-k."
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Caroline recoils at the sound of gunfire in such a close space, and the splash of blood from what was once Bryce's head does little to improve her mood. She nearly drops her camera, hanging on only by virtue of the strap around her neck.
"Are you out of your mind?" she asks as Joaquin eyes the masked man. "First of all, perhaps if you hadn't repeated your name multiple times, identification wouldn't be an issue." She gestures at the mask's bleeding eyeholes. "Regardless, that ship has sailed."
"There are two things ENSURING that you won't be blamed," she asserts, looking at him directly. "One of them is that man right there, whose life you just saved from inhumane and unlawful assault - unless you think medieval torture masks are a regular part of Colorado jurisprudence?"
She jerks her chin in the direction of the still-seated man, her eyes hard. The adrenaline and sudden shift in circumstances mean that she's still keyed up for a fight, and the accusing lecture from Joaquin is succeeding at wearing away at the last vestiges of her patience.
"And number TWO," she says stiffly, her anger just barely under control, "is THIS." She taps the camera with one finger. "That 'stupid f~#&ing picture'. The one that shows Marshal Bryce here doing his own personal reenactment of the Spanish Inquisition, knife in hand, while a helpless man sits bleeding in a chair. What jury, do you think, would convict you on that basis? Who -in this town- would, after all is said and done, in light of the massacre of civilians only moments ago? Who would even REPORT it? What was it you said before about this town inevitably ending up covered in blood? A reckoning, remember?"
"But if you want me to be guilty, fine. Blame me. It's my fault a sadistic monster is dead." Her words become more heated with each point she names off. "It's my fault that this man here isn't being tortured anymore. It's my fault innocent miners aren't being massacred for fun. It's my fault that Shelley and her associates are going to be -overjoyed- and in our debt when we finally meet up with them. I did it. He was going to try to kill me, and you stopped him. The responsibility is mine, legal and otherwise."
Her pent-up frustration mostly vented in this last tirade and her adrenaline finally starting to subside, she leans against the furniture, exhaling slowly.
The man in the mask simply moans. "help me...."
Joaquin is smart, but not smart enough to follow the quick, cutting tones of an intelligent person like Caroline when they are at full speed. The overall effect is that he understands about two-thirds of what Caroline is saying. He would say that the latter half of them was part of what he got.
"It's my fault that this man here isn't being tortured anymore. It's my fault innocent miners aren't being massacred for fun. It's my fault that Shelley and her associates are going to be -overjoyed- and in our debt when we finally meet up with them. I did it. He was going to try to kill me, and you stopped him. The responsibility is mine, legal and otherwise."
He would be wrong.
"Okay," he shrugs, taking that more literally than it was intended. He points at Bryce. "You say it's your fault, then Joaquin is good. You tell whoever comes that. I trust you. That makes me happy." Joaquin waves the pistol lazily at the masked man. "Know what else makes Joaquin happy? Joaquin thought you were a cru-sader. Now he sees you're not here to help these stupid idiot people." He grins through his hate, and spits out another glob of tobacco onto the floor. "You're here for the picture."
He adds something in Spanish, and puts the pistol away before moving behind the man and removing the mask. He stops and looks up at her with feigned innocence, like brutes do because they lack further wit.
"Oh. You want to get the camera up? This prolly going to be a good shot."
His eyes darken and his false smile vanishes. Dropping his eyes to the prisoner, he removes the hood.
After checking over the corpse (and reassuring himself that it is truly dead), Mr. Stuthman moves on to look over the prisoner: "What's your name, sir, and why are you here?"
The man doesn't respond to Stuthman's questions and continues just moaning for help. Blood streams from the eye holes in the mask.
The marshal has a pretty nice Colt Dragoon holstered at his side but little else. However the office is now yours. Wanted posters cover the walls, many of of them have identifying information scratched out. A large shiny ornamental star hangs in the window, blocking out the view ot the interior. There are several papers scattered around the desk that you could go through if you wanted to take the time.
Bristling a bit at Joaquin's taunts, Caroline snaps, "The pictures are SO I can help them. No one can fight all of this alone. The world needs to know-"
She cuts off with an irritated cluck of disgust, trying to regain her composure.
As Stuthman sees to the victim, Caroline begins rummaging through the papers, the desk, and anything else nearby that looks like it might be of interest. While taking special care to look for anything that might relate to the property documents the Shelley gang had mentioned, she also keeps an eye out for anything that seems out of the ordinary.
Also done with the argument, Joaquin has pocketed the Dragoon and continues to pull at the iron hood of the man.