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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Karl Green" data-source="post: 132381" data-attributes="member: 1467">Dinner with the Pastor... and a requestOCC Running Wolf you might have meet Alice once a few years ago. She has always been a quit child but she seems even more reserved and shy nowAlice bring Running Wolf some fresh water in a wooden cup, and lemonade to Dustin and Felix. She give a weak smile to each of you before excusing herself to get supper ready. Pastor O'Donnell points out the water basin if you want to wash up before super, and says "Well thank ya again for coming in my time of need. I knows you all got a million questions but I would prefer we wait a bit before I tell you to much. Let me just saying that this here town has something evil walking its streets and I need yer help to stop it or a whole lot of people are going to suffer." With that O'Donnell get a sad look in his eye and tries to cover it with a smile "But lets talk of that after we get something to eat, and damnation if it isn't good to see you all again. You have all grown into right good people"Alice comes in again and says that dinner is ready. Pastor O'Donnell leads you all over into the dinning room and kitchen. There is a large table with five places set. Four of places have nice china set out, while the fifth is set with a wooden plate and spoon which Alice leads Running Wolf to. In the center of the table is a large pot with a very nice smelling beef and vegetable stew, and homemade bread and honey next to the pot. The Pastor waits for you all to sit and says a short and silent prayer, and then serves you all a large helping of food. After all have eaten their fill, Alice pull a fresh apple pie out of the oven and serves up a slice to everyone and then returns to her chair...As everyone is finishing up eating the Pastor clears his throat "Friends I do hate to tell you this tale but I am afraid that I can trust no others… something evil is here in this town and I needs ya all to find out what it is and to stop it. I'm guessin' I should start at the beginning… I started getting concerned about a month and a half ago when some miners up in the Lake Hills all done disappeared one day. They were 8 of them and they were a living here in town and would work up in the mines and come home at night, except one night. The next day the sheriff, one Donald Patrick, went up to check up on them and found all their tools and equipment and everything else just abandoned outside the mine. He look around and could not find their horses or any tracks as to where they might have gone. He yelled into the mines but got no answers and did not go in very far. Most of the mines up there are coal and copper mines and go back pretty deep and he didn't want to get lost.""Then about a month ago some homesteaders, the Owens, all disappeared. They were regular chruch going folk and when they did not come in fer Sunday services I got worried and asked the sheriff to go look in on them. When he got back he said that it looked like they all pulled up their steaks and done moved west. Well this was not what I would have expected of them and I went and rode out myself the next day. I don't know what the sheriff was a thinking but all the Owens stuff was still there, their cloths, their wagon, all their house hold goods… only their livestock was a missing. There was 6 of em in the family, Kirk and Wanda, and the kids Jessie, Luke, Hank, and John. I guess I am a bit suspicious of the sheriff now. Their homestead is about a days ride to the east of here.""We also had some bodies disappear from the local boot hill about that time. Someone dug them up one night and there an't no trail or reason to it. About this time a old medicine man friend of my from the Sioux Nation, Son of Many Mules, came to me with a terrible tale… someone had stolen a number of the bodies out of a scared burial site just north of the Big Horn Canyon, what they call the Yellow Tail Land. That is about two or three days ride to the south of here." "Anyway, while all of this did make me nervous and worried I wasn't really afraid until about two weeks ago… and something my niece did see…" He looks over at Alice with very sad eyes "Tell em if you can dear, they needs to know..."Alice is sitting in her chair with here hands in her lap and her eyes down cast. After a moment she takes a deep breath and looks up meeting each of your eyes briefly "A couple of weeks ago I was on my way to the Rising Star Saloon. There was a town meeting there over the Fourth of July celebration. Well most everyone in town was to be there but I was running a little late as I had taken a nap in the afternoon and overslept. Well I came around the corner of Wells and Central Ave when I heard something funny from the ally. It was pretty dark and there weren't nobody around so I looked in…" Tears well up in her eyes and it takes her a few minutes to compose herself. Pastor O'Donnell sakes his head sadly but does nothing more.Finally Alice continues "I thought at first that I heard something like a sucking sound and it looked like two people struggling or something. I thought maybe I had stumbled onto two lovers or something and was quit embarrassed and was a turning to leave when I finally got a good look at them… I saw someone laying on their stomach and someone else standing over them. The person standing over the other was cover in blood… so much blood… not like a little bit of blood mean they was cover, head to foot in blood. And he or she was standing over the other and holding the others head and seemed to be licking the back of it. I couldn't see it all that well and I do thank God that I could not, but what I could see still haughts' my dreams. I let out a scream and ran. Whoever it was cover in blood looked back at me and for a second I saw their face and it weren't no man or woman that ever did live. The face looked more like a skull with some flesh attached… it was horrible. Well I ran… and ran right into Deputy Wess Becker not a half a block away. He asked me what was the matter but I was near mad with fear right then and could not say anything and just point back toward the ally. He lead me back there… it was no more then half a minute from the time I did scream when their was a swoosh or something and a huge fire came up out of the ally. The Deputy said that I should come with him for questioning and right then and there I knew if I went with him I would be dead. Lucky for me, a couple other people came around that time… I did not think about it at the time but they was all suppose to be at the meeting also and were all late I guess to… lucky for me as the Deputy started organizing a bucketed chain to fight the fire and I took off." With that she again lowers her eyes an quietly cries for a minute or two before regaining her composer.Pastor O'Donnell is quite for a minute before continuing "That is when I decided that I needed help… and outside help at that. I don't trust the Sheriff or his men any more. And I am not sure who around town can be a trusted. People are starting to get mighty suspicious of each other, and you can just tell some of them is afraid of something but no one knows what. Then last week, after I did send for ya all, the graves down in Chinatown were disturbed and a number of bodies were stolen. The people down there were near rioting over it and everyone is darn afraid. Someone stealing bodies of the dead, people are disappearing and others are acting mighty funny.""So… something is might wrong in this here town and no one is doing anything about it. I'm getting too old to run around and figure this out and I need ya all to get the bottom of it and mighty quick. I an't got a lot of ideas on where to start but I can make some basic suggestions. First, there is the mines and the homestead where the people did disappear that started this all. It has been a number of weeks but you might find some clues there. There is the missin' bodies in the boot hill grave and the Chinatown grave also. I want to warn ya about pocking your nose into the Chinatown to much as the people the be mighty suspicious of most folk that an't their own, but they are basically good hard working people… they are just afraid. You might want to check out the Sioux burial ground also but ya best get permission from Son of Many Mules and it is a few days ride from here. The last thing that I can think of is you might want to check up on the Sheriff and his deputies (there are two deputies… Wess Becker and Joachim Schneider) or the people that showed up right after Alice saw the bloody man in the ally. They was all suppose to be at the meeting and all claimed to be late for some reason or another. They are Dina Taylor, one of our local school teacher; Stephen Rosenthal, owner of the Wells Dry Bank; and Marc Phillips a local cattle baron who own the MP Ranch to the south of town. I don't know what else I can tell you but I will do my best if ya got some questions."</blockquote>

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