<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/thumb/e/e4/Natehunter.png/437px-Natehunter.png)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Nathan Hunter<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Senior Deputy (Law Dogs)<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 1, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Afternoon<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Camp Gǒu<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Margeurite, Closed<br/><hr/>She was too far distant for him see much more than a suggestive silhouette, but for all his bravado in the face of Rooster and Tom, even the suggestion that there might be little modesty beneath the shift made him avert his eyes by virtue of well-trained manners.  He sent a glance over his shoulder towards Rooster and Tom, waiting for a quick dismissal that suggested he could go and take advantage of his time now.  He gave a broad smile, doing his best to feign the eagerness of a hungry john.  He had little practice at it, though he'd been to enough brothels and saloons that he could adopt a reasonable facsimile.<br/><br/>He had only a tiny window into the tent, enough to see her bending towards the firepit and preparing food.  She'd adopted enough mannerisms that it would have been easy enough to mistake her for any of the other laborers – the attire nearly rendered her so sexless that if it hadn't been for something hypnotic in the sway of her hips, he couldn't have been certain he would have allowed his eyes to be drawn to her.<br/><br/>He forced his gaze away from the intriguing occidental woman, forcing his eyes around to the camp adjacent to them.  He watched guards, noting the porous areas where they looked half-asleep or bored with inactivity – the men who kept vigilant and the men who were more curious about the tall white man in their midst.  He noted the laborers who discreetly studied him and the ones who studiously ignored him.  There was too much activity in the camp, too much business to even dare some sort of half-cocked rescue during the day.  It would be nightfall, and impossible without her consent, her cooperation.  But already a plan was forming in his mind – he noted the locations of gunpowder storage, of ghostrock.   He resisted the urge to reassure himself by touching the gun at his side.  He was just a horny john, looking for a piece of white meat to satisfy his urges.<br/><br/>He knelt down at the entryway to the tent, lifting a flap slightly, balancing on the balls of his feet to keep from slipping his suit into the hard mud.  He was hardly afraid of getting a little dirty, but a certain sense of propriety when calling on a lady simply couldn't be erased.  Not that Nate Hunter had called on many ladies – but an upbringing in New York had at least grounded him in a protocol of presentable appearance.  He looked up then, eyes tracing over her face, her eyes that seemed to shiver through different colors as the dim light of the tents interior.  He let out a breath, shocked at just how beautiful the woman before him was.  The aristocratic features, the composure – though the merriment in her eyes as she spoke brought a genuine smile to his face.  He basked in it, fot a moment, speechless and awed, trying to imagine what god-awful circumstances could have conspired to entrap her in this distant, western hell.<br/><br/>Her words didn't register, at first, and he blinked and forced himself to look away from the eyes, the long lines of her neck.  His eyes never even down down the front of the sack that seemed to pass for attire.  The genuine smile set in a thinner line as he remembered his purpose here.  He finally gave a small nod, reaching into his pocket for a matchbook, and striking it.  He held it over the little scrap of fuel, letting the flame catch the vapors instead of the rock itself – a good way to lose a finger, even with a piece so small – and then quickly pulled the match away as it flared to life and cast the inside of the tent in a sickly glow.<br/><br/>Only a moment later did he realize that everyone outside the thin tent would be able to see their two shadows sitting in hunched conversation.  “The guards think I'm in here to … have my way with you,” he explained, his voice soft.  “Ten minutes.  I – came to speak to you, but I'll need to convince them that we're... engaged, or else they'll be suspicious.”  He licked his lips,, a faint blush coloring his cheeks in the sickly glow of the camp.  “On my honor as a gentleman, I promise I have no untoward intentions to you,” he swore, his voice pitched low but fervent.   There was still the flavor of rage in his voice, the ire at her circumstance.s  Her voice had an Eastern accent to match his own, though the fast-talking New Yorker had faded a bit with life on the open west.<br/><br/>“If you could... lay back?” he asked.  “And I'll... lay on you.  Do you speak... French?  Latin?”  There was a tight nervousness in his tone.  Truthfully, the prospect of a guns-blazing rescue made him less nervous than being alone in the company of a beautiful woman.  He glanced towards the tent's flaps, hoping the ears straining to hear them would not understand either of the dialects he was familiar with.   He moved forward, ready to lie over her if she was willing to go along with his suggestion.  He didn't make a move to strip off a scrap of clothing, confident they could feign the act without the need to strip her of the dignity of her clothing.  It had been a long time since he'd been so close to a woman, close enough to smell her beneath the dirty clothes and the sweat of her day's labors.  He took a breath that came out ragged, crawling on hands and knees towards her, grateful for the thin cover of blankets to keep the cold and dirt of the hard-packed floor at bay.