<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/Jagwaar/Sloane_zps29c9cdf3.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Deacon Sloane<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>Unknown<br/><strong>Date:</strong>April 20th , 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Just past midnight<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Casino Morongo<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>(closed)<br/><hr/><br/><br/>In a small, private room in the back of the Casino Morongo, Deacon Sloane curled one hand around his ear and leaned forward.  “What’s that you said?  I didn’t quite catch that.”<br/><br/>Tied to a chair in front him, and looking very worse for the conversation they were having, was one Jeb Miller, a recent addition to the Gomorroan landscape with a penchant for gambling, hard drinking and women. Plus, he tended to lose more than he won. As such, he was exactly the kind of customer that Sloane liked to cultivate. That is, until he started asking for credit and welching on his bets.  Ostensibly, he was a miner that had managed to find a small cache of valuable minerals out in the desert, but now … well, now he was fast becoming a thorn in Sloane’s side, one that he didn’t take kindly too.<br/><br/>In answer to the question, Jeb began to blubber, spit forming into bloody bubbles with each exhalation of breath; but it was hard to talk when your jaw was broken, and you were sure that you’d swallowed a couple of teeth.  Still, Jeb tried. He sputtered and babbled, tears running down his cheeks as his bound hands flexed behind his back, wrists burned raw from the rough help rope that held him there. “…m’ boo’th,” he managed finally, after gulping and swallowing hard.  “..n’ thth heelth.”<br/><br/>Sloane nodded to one of the men standing behind Jeb, a big Russian immigrant by the name of Yanko Jofranko.  He was six foot seven of bulky, ugly as sin muscle, with a scar splitting his mug and absolutely loyal to the Morongo’s owner.  He bent down to retrieve Miller’s boots from where they’d landed earlier, flung after he’d pulled them off in order to get to the man’s toes.  Blood soaked into the wood under the chair from the abuse he’d sustained.  Shaking one boot, Yanko ripped off the heel and peered inside before tossing it away and repeating the action with the next one.  This time, his effort was rewarded with the sight of a folded up paper wedged into a cavity inside the stacked leather heel.  He pulled it out and passed it over to his boss without question.<br/><br/>Taking the paper, Sloane carefully unfolded it, glancing at Jeb several times in the process before turning his full attention to the document in his hands.  “This might cover your original debt,” he said, eyes glued to the claim.  “Might.  But it sure as hell doesn’t cover the interest.  Not to mention that I can’t have word spread that I’m a generous man that forgives debts that are rightfully owed.  And I happen to know that I’m not the only one you’re indebted to.  You gambled in my house, drank my liquor and had your fill of pussy on the condition of payment.  Most folk don’t take kindly to debtors, and I’m no different.  So … I’m afraid I need to make an example of you.  Nothing personal, you understand.  This is purely business.”<br/><br/>Jeb began to whimper and shake in the chair, the best he could do to plead for his life. Unfortunately, it fell on deaf ears.<br/><br/>Very carefully, Sloane folded up the claim, and then handed it over to Yanko , who took it between two meaty fingers and tucked it into his pocket.  “The cliffs?” he asked in a thick accent.  Sloane shook his head.<br/><br/>“Once he’d dead, take him to the Chinaman’s pigs. I don’t want anything left of him, you clear?” Sloane replied.<br/><br/>“As crystal,” Yanko said, setting a huge hand down hard on Jeb’s shoulder.  It set the man off once more and a string of desperate pleas began to tumble from his bruised and swollen lips.<br/><br/>“And then go out to this ‘claim’ of his,” Sloane continued, ignoring Jeb’s pitiful mewling.  “Take everything of value in his camp, and anything else you can find and bring it back here.  And if there really is something to be found out there, you make sure no one else can find it, understood?”<br/><br/>“Got it, boss,” Yanko replied.<br/><br/>“Good.”  Glancing down at his suit, Sloane spent a moment brushing dust from the lapels and front.  “Say hello to the devil for me,” he said to Jeb, before leaving the man in Yanko’s capable hands.<br/>