This was our last session before Christmas (and possibly before the new year) and so we took a break from our Willoweed campaign, got some pizza for everyone, exchanged some gifts, and had a little holiday gaming session. Everyone in my group got an Explorer’s Edition version of Savage Worlds Deluxe and Deadlands Reloaded Player’s Guide since, at some point in the not too distant future, I want to pick up the Deadlands campaign that we briefly played a bit back. I got some cool
mouseling tavern figures so now we’re going to have to play some Savage Mouseguard at some point too.
In our prior Deadlands game, Rachel was playing Margaret “Maggie” MacAllan, an ex-Wichita Witch and a not yet reformed killer. Todd was playing Graham MacAllan, a huckster and Maggie’s younger brother. Lastly, RJ was playing Pierre Bascou, an up and coming reporter for the Epitaph (or so he hopes). Bridgett wasn’t playing back then so I put together a character for her that I thought should would like, Caitlin “Kate” O’Kelley, a rather fiery tempered woman with a strong sense of right and wrong, despite a having developed a few larcenous skills, and the gift of healing from the Holy Father.
Everyone understood that this was a one-shot and NOT related to our prior sessions and that this session would not have happened or have any impact on things when we pick up the game again next year. With that understood, I described that everyone was on the Union Blue Line–heading west for whatever reason–and were the only passengers on what was mainly a freight train and away we went.
Spoiler Alert: We played the Deadlands one-sheet “Silent Night, Hungry Night” from Pinnacle. The are, not surprisingly, major spoilers for the adventure below My GM comments, as always, are in [italics and brackets] as usual.
John Clum
Editor of The Tombstone Epitaph
Dear Sir,
I hope my letter finds you in good health. It is with great excitement that I send you this story. I realize–given your lack of response–my last story was not quite up to the standards of the Epitaph but I hope that you find this one worthy of publication in your fine newspaper.
My pen is at your service,
Pierre Bascou
~
There are many, Dear Readers, who seek out danger and adventure of their own volition. Rest assured, despite my chosen vocation, I am not truly one of those. I prefer to view danger and adventure from a relatively safe distance so I can write down what I view to share with all of you. My reluctance, however, has not served me well since I set about traveling the frontier West. I bring you yet another tale in which I barely escaped death and worse…though one with rather humble beginnings.
It was Christmas Eve and it was snowing softly as the train steadily churned down the tracks of eastern Colorado. A few days earlier, I had boarded this same train to travel west in search of stories. There were very few passengers on board as it was primarily a freight train. In fact, other than myself, only three had boarded the train; one, I learned later, back in Chicago and two others had boarded earlier that morning just as I had. While we had each gone about our business privately throughout the morning, hunger brought us all together in the dining car for lunch.
As we dined, I struck up conversation with my new companions. Kate had been on the train since Chicago, although I could discern from her slight accent that she had emigrated from Ireland. The other pair, Maggie and Graham, were sister and brother and, like Kate, were a fairly close-mouthed about the reasons for their travel and their past. Maggie and Kate, particularly the former, looked like they had had more life experience than their fairly young ages would indicate. Maggie wore a pair of pistols at her hips with a degree of comfort that was frightening. I had to wonder just how much use they may have seen.
Just as the trio—and Kate in particular—were warming to my charms, our meal and conversation was suddenly interrupted by a loud bang and the train coming to a rather abrupt stop. Both of the ladies were not fazed by this turn of events and hardly swayed with the stopping train. Graham was not quite so composed. The sudden deceleration left him on the floor with his drink soaking the front of his fine suit. Myself? You should know by now from my prior writings, Dear Reader, that it takes much, much more to shake me and a lack of grace and composure would be a lack of good manners in front of the good ladies.
[Pierre, as has been his past style, was taking a few liberties with the truth here. None had warmed to his so-called charms and both Kate and Maggie were finding his attentions to be just below the level of eliciting violence (both had significant experience fending off suitors). Neither was it Graham who found himself on the floor. It was, of course, Pierre and it was also he who had spilled a drink on Graham on his short trip from his chair to the car’s floor. Poetic license and all I suppose.]
As Graham recovered his composure and I handed him a kerchief to assist with his misplaced drink, our cook informed us that he would go and inquire as to what had just happened. A few minutes later, the train’s conductor joined us and explained that there had been a small explosion in the engine that had brought the train to a stop. The repairs, he explained, would take a day or two. We were free to stay on the train but it would be rather cold. He suggested, instead, that we might want to head to the nearby town to seek shelter at Rosie Stone’s Steakhouse and Saloon.
Hooverville, it turned out, was only about an hour walk from the train. Despite the light dusting of snow already on the ground and that which was still falling, the prospect of a cold night on the train was not appealing to any of us. Our sparse belongings gathered, we set off for the town. As promised by the conductor, it only took an hour or so for us to reach the outskirts of the small town at the foot of a mountain peak.
As we approached, Maggie and Kate both slowed and become very cautious.
“I don’t like this.” Kate mentioned. “No one is out on the street.”
“Do you see that?” Maggie nodded towards a couple of the buildings. “A lot of the windows look boarded up and that looks like blood on the snow. I better go ahead and check things.”
Graham piped up, “I’m coming too.” Maggie gave him a stern look and he held his ground as she started towards town.
Kate barely paused before she started after Maggie. “You both better wait here.”
Maggie didn’t seem to have a problem with Kate catching up with her. The pair moved quickly but cautiously towards the first building, Maggie had her hands resting easily on her pistols. As they neared, Kate circled around the back of the building but soon came back out front.
Disobeying his sister’s look, Graham started towards the pair. I followed the impetuous fool as much to protect him from his sister’s wrath as to be close enough to hear her chastising for a more accurate reporting. We had not made it too far before the ladies approached the porch of the first building. Some sort of gun barrel poked out from the boarded up window.
“That’s far enough, stranger!”
“We only want to know what happened here,” responded Kate. “Do you need help?”
“We ain’t got nothin’ else to steal.” The man answered with a gesture of the gun for emphasis.
“I just want to help. What happened…” Kate tried to continue the conversation but was rudely interrupted.
“Get away from my home or I’ll shoot!”
As the group had approached town, Kate heard a small sound come from this particular building. She also noticed some furtive movement behind one of the boarded up windows and that was what had drawn their attention to the home.
“Come on, Kate. If he don’t want your help, there’s no point in forcing it on him. We’d probably have to shoot him just to get on the porch.” Maggie turned and kept walking down the town’s street. She gestured for Graham and I to follow as well. Kate looked torn about pushing on and trying to help the man and whoever else might be inside but another glance from Maggie got her moving.
Maggie pointed at a couple of other houses before she knelt down near a red splotch on the snow. “There are some shell casings in front of each of those homes. This blood is pretty fresh, probably from last night. It looks like whoever was shot, headed off in that direction.” She pointed down the street towards the center of town. “Let’s find Rosie’s and get some rooms for the night.” Maggie said all this so matter-of-fact that she could have been talking my grandmother’s crochet and not a town that seemed terrified and blood on the snow.
Rosie’s wasn’t hard to find. Like in many small, frontier towns, the saloon was the largest building and it was right in the middle of town. As we started up the steps, the doors swung open and a woman, presumably Rosie herself, stepped out.
“We’re closed.”
Graham had been having trouble with everything that had been happening so far and he just started rambling quite fast. “The train broke down and the conductor told us to come get a room here and there is blood in the street and someone just threatened to shoot us just for asking if he was okay and…”
Maggie placed a rather firm hand on the boy’s shoulder and he immediately stopped his rambling.
“I said we’re closed.” Rosie continued, “Besides, I ain’t got no food or liquor left. The Goodman Gang took it all last night.”
The golden-hearted Kate started to ask if there was anything that we could do to help but Rosie cut her short, pointing at the jail across the street.
“If you got questions, you best go ask the Marshall.” Rosie turned and went back inside, closing the doors behind her.
Maggie, who had not yet released her brother’s shoulder, steered Graham in the indicated direction. “I guess we’re going to go talk to the lawman.” Something in her voice made it seem like she didn’t seem thrilled at the idea of talking with the marshall. I was starting to wonder if, perhaps, she was wanted by the law.
Kate knocked on the door but there was no response. When she opened the door, she was greeted by a shotgun barrel.
“Put your hands where I can see them. Nice and easy now. Good. Now tell your friends out there to do the same. Good. Now come inside…slowly…and put your guns down…nice and easy…on my desk here. Good. Now have a seat. What can I do for you?”
The Marshall, Ted Leseig, was not in good shape. He was sitting in a chair with his leg up on his desk and pointing the shotgun at us. He had bloody bandages on his torso, one leg, and one arm and looked like very pale. If he wasn’t talking—And holding a shotgun pointed at us—I might have thought he was already dead.
“Can I help with your wounds?” Kate asked hopefully as she stood and started to approach Marshall Leseig.
“That’s close enough, I’m fine. Sit back down.”
“I’m pretty good at patching folks up.”
“Thanks but Miss Rosie already took care of me. She’s a pretty good barber in a pinch.”
Kate looked crestfallen and sat back down. The poor girl had wanted to do nothing but help folks since we arrived in Hooverville but her charitable advances had been rebuked each time.
[Kate, if you haven’t looked at the character sheets, has the Breech Birth Knack and Bridgett, I’m sure, wanted to use it to heal the Marshall. He didn’t look too good to Kate and I noted that he might not survive his wounds, especially if he had to get active. In his mind, though, Miss Rosie had already down everything that could be done for his wounds. Kate couldn’t really just blurt out that she could heal him.]
In her steady, almost cold, manner, Maggie asked, “So what happened here?”
“To be honest, I’m not sure I quite know. The boys from the Goodman Ranch rode into town last night and started stealing everything they could get there hands on, especially food. Now, Gerald Goodman, he ain’t ever been the friendliest fellow but he ain’t never got violent. His boys were actin’ all crazy and it was all any of us could do to just keep from gettin’ killed by them.
Once they left, folks started to figger out that the town didn’t have no food left and then things started gettin’ real crazy. People started fighting over scraps and I had to put a stop to it. That’s how I got these nice, new purty holes in me. A couple of folks started shooting and I caught a few bullets before I could get everyone calmed down. I guess they’ve all barricaded themselves in their homes since then.”
The Marshall winced in pain as he shifted his leg a bit. Kate looked like she could hardly sit and watch without doing anything but the Marshall’s renewed grip on his shotgun—which Still pointed in our direction—deterred her from any rash, though helpful, action.
“I’m afraid that if we don’t get the food back, folks are goin’ get crazy again and Hooverville will become just another failed frontier town. Ain’t much I can do about it in the shape I’m in. ‘Course, I could deputize some folks…”
Kate nearly jumped at the chance to help but Maggie beat her to it.
“What’s it pay?”
“Well, if you can bring back all of the food, it’ll be $300. That’s good money but the town needs that food. I could also loan you the last horses we got so you can get to the ranch quickly, unless you got some already.”
Maggie shook her head no and said that we had been on the train and had just come to town for the night.
“I gotta ask something.” Looking pointedly at Maggie, Marshall Leseig asked, “You wanted?”
The Marshall confirmed my earlier suspicions. Even if she wasn’t wanted, Maggie had the look of a killer. A beautiful killer but a killer none the less. There was just no way around it. I held my breath as I waited for her answer.
“No.”
“It ain’t like I’m in much shape to do anything about it now anyways and the town needs your help. If you run off with those horses, I’m going to track you down as soon as I’m able and I will make you regret it. They might be the last food we got.”
I know I was relieved.
“How about some guns too?” Maggie had released Graham’s shoulder earlier—Since she had to raise her hands in the air for the Marshall—and the young man took that as permission to join in the conversation when he wanted. “Can I get a shotgun?”
I don’t know what glance passed between the Marshall and Maggie but it was clear that neither was too taken by the idea.
“You sure he won’t end up shooting one of you or himself.”
Maggie responded, “If you’ve got a shotgun to spare, give him one.”
The Marshall tossed her some keys and said, “Your funeral. Guns are locked up over there and the barn is locked out back. Grab some guns and get the horses and bring me back the keys.”
Graham’s excitement over getting a shotgun only confirmed the previously stated concerns. Since it appeared that I was now deputized, I decided that I should arm myself as well. I calmly selected a trusty Winchester. As I mentioned in my preface to this fine tale, I prefer to keep my distance from danger and the rifle seemed the best choice for that preference.
[More poetic license at work. It was actually Pierre who wanted a rifle and the concerns voiced were over his being so armed.]
After we got the horses and returned the keys, the Marshall gave us directions to the Goodman Ranch.
“Remember, Gerald and his boys ain’t never been violent before but do what you must to get that food back.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get it back.” As Maggie turned away from the Marshall, I could see an excited look in her eye. I think she was actually looking forward to a fight. As we rode out of town, I could only hope that I never get on her bad side.
~
Mr. Clum,
Part two will follow in a second letter.
~P~
[This is already long enough. The rest of the session will follow later this week. I hope that none of the players find that I took too many liberties in the retelling of what happened.]
