<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://gunsofold.com/marshal_badge_silver_balltip.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 2, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Midnight<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Camp Gǒu<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Margeurite, Closed<br/><hr/>There'd been talk of the white man, after he left.  Word of how short his meeting with the foreman had been, and Rooster in a foul mood when his promised bounty had vaporized.  He'd stared sullenly at his dinner and growled through the day, making promises to take the deputy's dick as a trophy if he ever returned.  He'd been shaken – there'd been some confrontation between Rooster and Tom and Nate that had left the two inscrutable men shaken, but for once they didn't take out their irritation on her.<br/><br/>Over the next two days, chaos spread slowly through the camp.  It started with the disappearance of a barrel of ghost-rock, set aside for the train when it was to arrive.  Then there was a body, found in the morning – one of the guards, strayed too far from the camp.  Guards were dispatched through the day, and night, searching for signs of a traitor from within.  There wasn't another sign of Nate Hunter, and the guard's whispers turned to the killer who's tracks had gone undiscovered.<br/><br/>Search parties had begun to circle the camp at night, and the ghost rock and gunpowder was moved away from the edge of the track, placed under a pair of guards.  Laborers found away from the camp after dusk were hauled before the foreman and questioned – cruelly.  A silent tension spread through the camp, and another body was found midday.  Knives had done the work in both cases, and tents were opened, searched, seeking a blade to match the one that had left the killing cuts on the guards who'd strayed too far.<br/><br/><em>Two nights later... midnight</em><br/><br/>The cacophony of explosion ripped through the camp, the bright green flash of green ghost rock burning illuminating the night.  The sound of gunpowder followed it moments later, a second explosion that shook the tent, and in a moment every guard and laborer in the camp was on their feet, tearing open the doors of their tents, racing into the green-lit night.  The crack of gunfire rang through the night, then again, the rails looking like a twisted black snake that wound through the dying prairie.<br/><br/>Soot and dust was thrown high on the wind, most of the guards and laborers walking out into a storm of dirt and debris that made it impossible to see.<br/><br/><div align="center">(http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/ii49/vanessasacco/explosion-atomique.jpg)</div>