OOC: Open thread for anyone who wants to join but I ask anyone who does jump in please keep up. Nothing kills a big group thread as waiting forever on someone to take their turn to post.
Early May
Spring had sprung alright, the weather was getting warmer, there was more sun, nature was exploding into all shades of green. And many of the townsfolk tended to be out and around on this fine day.Among them were Clara Lutz and Constance Straub, most locals knew the young ladies from their work in the Lick Skillet cafe. The pair had just picked up some food supplies needed at the diner and found in the General Store.
They were in deep conversation about, unsurprisingly, recipes. They had not even noticed they had been watched since leaving the store. Suddenly their progress down the boardwalk was halted by two men standing in the way. Constance had no idea of who they were, cowpokes by the look of them. Clara frowned, she was fairly certain they were Evergreen men...Steelgrave thugs. Even the way they holstered their guns screamed out 'gunmen'. Both were smiling at the ladies, but those were cold insincere smiles.
"Excuse us," Clara requested calmly.
One grinned, "Why?"
Constance looked puzzled, obviously not gentlemen like her own cowpoke Justus.
"Step aside and let us pass please," Clara was already inwardly seething.
"Yer that sodbuster Redmond's daughter ain't you?" the same man now asked.
"None of your business," snapped Clara who then decided to give this unfruitful conversation up and just go around them by stepping onto the dirt street, "Come, Constance."
She didn't get far, only a step and one of the men reached out to seize her upper arm, almost causing her to spill the bag she was carrying, "Answer the damn question, you bitch!"
Clara now glared, "Unhand me now!" her eyes unblinkingly meeting his.
Constance couldn't help herself, "Leave her be! She is the mother of a baby!"
The second gunman now deliberately knocked the groceries out of Constance's arms, the goods scattering onto the boardwalk including some eggs which splatted all over.
"Oh sorry, did I do that?" he smirked.
Now no one yet in Kalispell had ever seen any indication that Constance had a temper but she did. Amongst her family back in Ohio, her temper was legendary.
"You gibface!" she snapped and hauled off and slapped him right across the face.
He shrugged that off apparently but then launched himself at the young woman forcefully driving her up against the building with one hand around her throat, he was laughing maniacally, "That the best ya got?"
Clara now had enough herself, and whilst trying to pull away from her tormentor tried to give him a swift kick. She hit a glancing blow off his leg but lost her grocery sack in the effort, the contents spilling onto the street. He wasn't laughing like his partner but looking furious, snarled, "Yer Pa killed a friend of mine! Maybe he should lose someone from his family!"
And with that he punched her right in the face and down went Clara on her butt to join her groceries.
ooc: OK, it's on. Feel free to have other folks see this all happening but don't do too much too fast. Remember this is all just taking seconds not even minutes.
"Of course, when it comes to magnetic attraction, the pole description is useful to practicing engineers who design real-world magnets, but real magnets have a pole distribution more complex than a single north and south. Therefore, implementation of the pole idea is not simple..."
Usually Hector found Mr Falmer-Browne's ideas on science and engineering fascinating, but as they spoke on the corner of the high street today, something distracted the lad and he found himself gazing beyond the lanky 'professor's' face and away to two young ladies in the distance.
Falmer-Browne turned and followed the young man's gaze.
"Ah, a magnetic attraction of a quite different nature!" the older man quickly grasped the situation.
"Not Mrs Lutz, I hope!" he enquired rather sternly (and, it so happened, quite hypocritically, for many years ago, Mr F. Falmer-Browne had not been over concerned if a lady he had dallied with was wearing a ring on her finger or not).
"Oh no, no!" Hector replied quickly "She's my best friend's wife!"
"Ah! Then..."
Hector nodded.
"It's Miss Straub. She beautiful..." Hector said wistfully.
Falmer-Browne brought out a pair of pince-nez and clipped them to the bridge of his nose. He thought the girl only reasonably pretty, but certainly well constructed!
"Attached, no doubt?" he enquired.
Hector sighed sadly.
"Of course."
" ... - - - ... "
Hector and Falmer-Browne watched in horror as the situation with the two Evergreen thugs unfolded. For a moment they were frozen in disbelief, but then without even making a conscious decision about it, they were both dashing across the dusty main street toward the one-sided fracas!
Hector, being the younger and fitter by far reached the thugs first, immediately going for the one who was physically thumping Clara Lutz with a shout of "Hey!". Mr Falmer-Browne came puffing up behind.
For the two bullies, this situation was now going from bad to worse. The women were putting up a fight and now a couple of townsfolk were rushing toward the incident. They had just wanted to scare the women only it all just burst out of control. The gunman standing over Clara had indeed threatened the young lady but he probably would not have actually shot her out of hand even though he was noted amongst the Steelgrave gunmen as a hothead. But he also had no intention of brawling with a townful of angry citizens either.
Before the young man could reach him, he suddenly drew his revolver and leveled it at the busybody, hammer cocked back and finger on the trigger.
"Stand back or you'll get one in the guts!" he growled.
Constance was still struggling to get free of the man choking her against the wall but the fellow's attention was drawn to his partner's angry shout.
Not far from this encounter, on the boardwalk, other citizens were scrambling away from the escalating trouble as fast as they could hurry. Most folk had no desire to be caught up in a brawl much less a looming shooting.
" ... - - - ... "
Before the young man could reach him, he suddenly drew his revolver and leveled it at the busybody, hammer cocked back and finger on the trigger.
"Stand back or you'll get one in the guts!" he growled.
Hector skidded to a halt, he wasn't stupid, but in the heat of the moment and with Miss Straub in danger, neither was he cowed.
"You're pretty brave with a gun in your hand, aren't you?!" he yelled at the man with the repeater "Why don't you put that thing away and come down here and see if you can lick a man instead of slapping a girl, you dirty coward!"
Not that he thought he was any great shakes in a fist-fight, but if he could draw the two men away from Clara and Constance, at least that would be something.
Falmer-Browne, his 61 years rather telling on him, had the choice of trying to help Mrs Lutz up or trying to free Miss Straub. He considered that the former was probably safer staying right where she was, so he staggered up to where the latter was in a strangle-hold against the wall and made to grab at Constance's attacker.
"Take your hands off that young lady at once, you disgusting swine!!" he ordered the much stronger, younger man.
Wayfarer et al.
Clara sat up suddenly aware of another male voice, more familiar. It was Hector! And he was shouting at this gun brandishing thug.
"You're pretty brave with a gun in your hand, aren't you?!" he yelled at the man with the revolver, "Why don't you put that thing away and come down here and see if you can lick a man instead of slapping a girl, you dirty coward!"
"Shut up and run before I plug ya!" he was not about to fight anyone, even this boy. No doubt more locals were going to be piling in.
***
Constance was still trying to break free and even more important gasp some air as this brute was choking her. Someone was trying to come to her aid though.
The new arrival staggered up to where the latter was in a strangle-hold against the wall and made to grab at Constance's attacker.
"Take your hands off that young lady at once, you disgusting swine!"
The man let go alright but then drew his own pistol from it's convenient holster and unlike his partner, gave no warning, instead just firing it full in the face of this stupid townie. The shot rang out loud and clear even as Constance sank to the boardwalk, gulping for air.
Constance was horrified, this thug had just shot someone! No, this couldn't be happening.
Gunfire carries a lot further than voices. This shot was going to bring both these men a lot of unwanted attention now and belatedly they both realized it. They were in trouble.
When Hector Wigfall woke up in his own bed two days later, swathed in bandages and wiggling his toes to make sure he wasn't paralysed, and with an unexpected nurse sitting right by his bedside, his memory of the next few moments on that day was not only hazy, but pretty mixed up as to chronology.
He remembered the warm splatter of Falmer-Browne's brains on his face, the loud bang of the gun, a woman or girl screaming in the distance, a brief glimpse of the sky - awful blue and clear that sky, with an enormous Ferruginous hawk flying over - or maybe he'd dreamed that since - his own voice screaming at the skunk that had murdered his friend and sometime mentor, launching himself at the man and... and... no, that was it. After that it was just blackness.
+++
In the Stardust Saloon, the sound of gunfire outside and a scream was immediately followed by the swing doors bursting open and a white faced Sally Cutts running in yelling at the top of her voice.
"Help! Help!! Hector Wigfall and some old feller just got murdered to death on the street! And Mrs Lutz and that waitress from the pie place are next!!!"
Having delivered that announcement she knelt on the floor in an oddly deliberate and controlled manner, pulled a spittoon toward herself and promptly threw up in it.
People dashed to the windows and door to get a look.
"Holy Moley, she's right!!" squawked Hettie Rosencrantz, in her usual voluble voice.
When all the ruckus started Jonah had been on his way from the hospital to the general store, and at first he only gave it a passing glance...it wasn't unusual to have some shouting here and there on the street, especially among paramours who knew how to push each others' buttons. But it was quickly apparent that this was something different, and when he recognized the ladies involved he knew this wasn't just some minor tiff, and when Constance was slammed against the wall, he broke into a jog.
"Hey!" His call was almost simultaneous with young Hector Wigfalls, but Jonah was farther away, and coming from a different direction, so the thugs concentrated on the closer threats. He wasn't really thinking this was going to be anything more than just telling the jerks to back off, but then guns were drawn, shots fired.
Skidding to a stop, Jonah looked on in disbelief as F. Falmer-Browne crumpled in a heap, the flash of surprise on his face obliterated in a blast of blood, skull and hair...just there and gone...
It took a moment to recover, a half-second that held a thousand thoughts, observations, reservations, concluding, bottom line, that Mrs. Lutz and Miss Constance were still in danger, and the Jonah Danforth that was here, now, couldn't let that stand.
Armed with nothing more than a silly little pearl-handled derringer, he started running again, shouting louder. "STOP! Leave them alone!"
But at least, he wasn't alone...
++++++++
Across the street and up a few buildings, Addy heard the shots and dropped the shovel she held, grabbing her shotgun in its place and rushing to the door to see what was going on. It wasn't unusual for there to be shooting on the street, cowboys got rowdy, folks got drunk, so she really wasn't expecting anything.
Weedy was at her side, a curious boy, when she saw that this wasn't just harmless gunplay. Racking a round, she called to Weedy to get inside and close the doors, then she moved closer to the trouble, staying on her side of the street for now.
FF-Browne was laying in the dust, irrevocably dead, Hector down nearby, and Doc Danforth charging into the fray armed with a pea-shooter...And then there were the ladies, trapped behind the miscreants.
"Put them guns down NOW!" she shouted, raising the shotgun, not really sure they'd pay her any mind.
Storyteller / Shared NPC
This was going from bad to worse for the two Evergreen gunhands. Now they'd gone from assaults to killing some old man. And now some well dressed jasper was rushing them and going for his gun while he did so, laughable it was only a derringer. These gunmen knew one thing alright, guns. He'd have to get close to use it and they weren't about to let him.
Both men now fired again, Browne's killer firing at the doctor, yes, he recognized his target as a local physician. Then he turned to bend down and wrench Constance to her feet, "Yer comin' with me, sister! If ya don't I'll blow yer damn head off."
Constance was too frightened to resist now, the man who had tried to help she saw get his brains splattered. It was horrifying!
He now had himself a human shield as he began to make his way down the boardwalk. Hopefully these townies wouldn't shoot one of their own.
The other gunman was about to shoot Hector when he heard the shout from across the wide street. Someone had a shotgun(?) and was yelling at them, it was a female voice. God, now even the goddamn wimmen were after them!!
"Put them guns down NOW!"
That was not going to happen, not now after what already had gone down. They weren't going to get hung, they'd rather go down shooting.Besides, he was standing above a still prone Redmond gal. He doubted that shotgun bearing individual would chance a shot at this disparate group.
He instead fired a wild shot at Hector even while turning to make a run for it, not even seeing if he hit. There was only one thing to do now, make a break for their horses at the hitching post outside of the saloon. Besides, three of their fellow Evergreeners were inside that saloon even now, they'd all rode in together. They'd help out. All the gunmen knew the town hated their boss and Evergreen.
He started moving then but turned to be ready to shoot at any other local heroes who might emerge.
Hector went down and Clara immediately began to crawl toward him to help.
***
Meanwhile, back at the saloon, the one young miss had raced into the saloon shouting about what was now going on, all panicky and excited. The three Evergreen men put down their cards and their drinks and rushed to go check this out. It just might involve their two comrades who had not stayed with them but had said they had a little errand to do. Shots could well mean it was them.
OOC: Just wanted to point something out as things now will get wilder and lead is going to start to fly as more armed folk join in.
In actual shoot outs (as opposed to Hollywood) most shots fired are misses. Please keep that in mind.
Thank you and enjoy the mayhem!