<strong>Sangre de Madre, nearing sunset<br/></strong><br/>Whispers fill the street as dusk settles in, the lanterns and braziers having been lit early in anticipation of the nightfall.  A boy scuttles out of his doorway to report the word of a failed exorcism.  "Failed," of course, being a matter of conjecture... a man spits, a Mexican crosses himself and mutters a quick prayer... the demon's been cast out, they say, but the boy didn't make it.  Set extra lights, they say.  The darkness will be about tonight.<br/><br/>Cartwright's saloon-- affectionately nicknamed the Hare for its awkwardly-painted shingle of a March hare in revelry that could, perhaps, be mistaken for a rabid beast-- serves as good a place as any for food and company.  Some of the usual haunts will be closing early at the news.<br/><br/>The common hall is half-full, and the town's marshal-in-residence is prone to card playing at the upstairs table when his 'business hours' are done.<br/><br/>N'emea lands as soft as a discarded hat in the red dust, hardly rustling the sage beside the horse tie, and a chestnut gelding actually gives her a comical double-take as she takes him by surprise, half-snorting his oat bag before resuming his work.  A gray-and-black porch-cat glares up at her lazily and gives a disdainful tail thrash, then resumes its afternoon nappishness.  The saloon door swings outward, the glass glinting in the evening light as a whiskered man dons a bowler hat and swaggers out toward home, gabbing about some election nonsense from his bespectacled nose as his companion, a lanky frontiersman by the look of it, glares in N'emea's direction with steel gray eyes in a tanned face, his flat-crowned hat in his hand until he places it purposefully as he watches her, adjusts his suit jacket and vest on his skeletal frame, and then tips the black brim in a genial way before continuing into the street.<br/><br/><strong>note</strong>The sheriff's deputies will be sitting on the local riffraff at holding cells in the office in the main square, but they're not authorized (or funded) to pay out federal bounties.<br/><br/><strong>Jian-Xi Mercantile</strong><br/>Old man Chen is smoking in the back, and his wife is busy lighting incense and singing around the shop.  She, apparently, has heard troubling news, and John knows she is superstitious... or religious... or magic, maybe.  Who knows.<br/><br/>Smoke wreaths Chen's angular face as he reviews the books, filling out an order for resupply.  He seems worried, and John notices that the store's supplies are more scarce than normal.  It's not difficult to assume that a delivery or two have not been made.<br/><br/>Their daughter, Li, is sweeping the floor halfheartedly in the fading light through the radiant, purpling light from the west.  Her simple dress and apron are characteristically chaste, though this late in the day she seems to have snuck open a couple buttons to reveal a scandalous amount of ivory collarbone.  She must be eighteen or nineteen by now, and there's rumor that the governor's groundhog-of-a-son has shown her more than a share of interest... with good reason.  She's positively lovely.<br/><br/>At John's entrance, the bell over the door rings, and she looks up with lovely chestnut-brown eyes and flashes him a brilliant smile of recognition.  Her mother seems not to hear, but Jian-Xi Chen looks up from his books and gives a curt nod before turning back to his work.  John's a familiar customer, but little consolation in troubling times.<br/><br/>