Barlowe Station

Barlowe Station, Kansas

Barlowe Station is just that: a rail station on Black River’s main line and really nothing more. It serves primarily to replenish the water supplies on locomotives. The facilities are limited to a small office and a water tower, and the station was staffed by a single person. Few, if any, passengers ever get off at Barlowe, and even fewer board there.

On traincar your posse arrives at Barlowe. Upon arrival you find it eerily empty of human life. There should at least be a station manager, but no one gets the train.

The engineer gets out, intending to refill the water hopper, and tells you that he'll leave in about two hours, after he's drawn enough water from the tower. You step onto the platform, stretching your legs from the long ride. The train is short, the engine, the coal car, a passenger car, and a freight car wherein your horses are, along with true freight.

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Let's start with them usual. Take this opportunity to describe your characters and why you're on this train going through Kansas. Are you a posse of people looking for something in particular, travelers in search of an important goal, or disinterested bystanders who have no place being player characters?

"Come on now, girl! Come on!" Dirt soothes, as he maneuvers his horse out of its place in the carriage, and guides her down the ramp and out of the carriage altogether. The ramp makes an awful clanging racket as the horse puts her weight on it.

"They say you can lead a horse to water…" Dirt starts, calling to the other passengers he’d shared the journey with, but leaves the other half of the saying unsaid. "… and I intend to do just that! Reckon she must be wicked thirsty."

He feels the stiffness slowly leave his body, and knows that the beast must feel the same. He claps the animal on the rump:

"Stretch it out, girl. Get that blood moving."

It’s only once he has fully disembarked and gotten the blood back into his legs, that he notes the heavy quietness in the air.

"Wicked quiet out here, ain’t it?" he says, chewing the words, and their possible meaning, even as he says them.

Delilah Dillon, soon to be Marshal Delilah Dillon, once she makes her way to the emerging town of Good Intent and pins on the star, has been on this slow-moving train all day. So she takes the trouble at every stop to stretch her legs and get some fresh air, and as it rolls up to Barlowe Station she looks from the window to the others in the car and shrugs.

"Not exactly the welcome wagon here," she says with a soft and pleasant drawl. "I don't see a soul out there, y'all. This might be a longer stop than intended if our engineer don't have no help loadin' up on coal and water."

Dillon, daughter of the famous Marshal who used to rule the roost in Dodge City, and sister to no less than four big brothers, follows the others off the train car once they've come to a full stop. Del -- her family sometimes also calls her DD, or Lilah -- wears her brown hair in a braid down her back, a Stetson, a simple enough blouse and skirt, and a light shawl over top. Less expected, she wears a gun-belt and four and a half pounds of steel on her rounded right hip -- a Colt Dragoon, her pa's horse pistol from the war that she had converted over to fire cartridges some years ago. Delilah is pretty, her smiles disarming and not in short supply, and she flashes her pearly whites as the passengers disembark.

"Good to stroll instead of sit for a spell, right? Hopefully we won't be here more'n an hour or two."

Kane steps off the train after Briggs and watches him lead his horse.

"Mighty fine horse ya got there." He didn't know whether that was true or not but it felt right to compliment the man on his animal. Horses were a means to an end for him. He considered them a bother that needed carin' and feedin'. He'd just as soon do without. The irony of this was he wore a rattler-hide duster and wouldn't be parted from it. That and his Sharps Big 50.

"Yayup. It is too damn quiet," he replies. "Two hours in this God-forsaken place. Sheeit." Adjusting his hat, he takes in the station platform and the general area. Withdrawing a pinch of chewing tobacco, he shoves it in his right cheek, finds a pole to lean against, and waits.

"You here for the posse call at the end of the line?" he asks Briggs or any of the other passengers. "Seems like a good deal. A wad of cash and a horse provided. Can't beat that with a stick."

"Not me," Dillon says as she paces the platform, shielding her eyes from the sun as she scans for -- well, anyone. "On my way to Good Intent. Landed myself a job there."

She wants to ask about the rifle, but instead responds to Briggs' comment. "Yep. Real quiet. Kinda strange. Pretty horse. What's her name?"

Dirt adjusts his wide hat, so he can better see the faces of those talking to him, while still blocking the sun.

"Nor me neither. I’m just passing through." he says, keeping things close to his chest. The question, followed by another about his horse, turns his thoughts dark for a moment. He pats the horse on the neck, and takes a moment to pay it close attention, so as to hide the scowl that had come over his face momentarily.

The man saw the word carved into the wood of the pen door. Thin, shallow cuts into the wood suggested a child’s hand had done the cutting.

Blossom…

The horse was inside, protesting Brigg’s being there with snorts and thrashing against the pen. How the man had calmed the beast and broke it to his will he could barely remember. Those days were a haze to him now. Last he remembered was the pool of blood making for his feet, and the heap of bodies left around that dining table…

He clears his throat.

"This here? This here is Blossom." he says, laughing at the name. If they thought his daughter gave the horse its name, all the better. "She’s a fine animal, alright!"

Ruby Reyes steps to the exit of the train car, a small steamer trunk held by a handle in one hand, a leather satchel in the other.

"Would any of you mind giving a lady a hand?" she asks in an a silky voice tinged with a Hispanic accent.

Ruby hardly ever needed to ask twice. Her dress would be scandalous in most parts of the world: a black bodice laced tight to accent her bosom and a divided skirt with no petticoats underneath revealed brown legs when the wind blew hard or she tactically stood in a posture to show them off. Her hair was long and wavy and blew freely in the wind giving her a wild and carefree aura that was at odds with the severe and matronly styles of many women in these parts.

There are four buildings and the water tower at Barlowe Station.

At the edge of the platform you unloaded on, a sign marked "Barlowe" swings from a post outside the single-story, unpainted building that is the station house. A wooden platform surrounds the building, and two wooden benches sit on the side toward the rails. Barlowe Station is a two-room affair. The front room holds the station master’s desk and a wood stove. The station master’s log book sits on the desk. A large map hangs on the wall behind the desk. There's no one visible inside.

Kane notices Delilah's eyes dwelling on his Sharps Big 50 as he takes in the Dragoon perched on her shapely hip.

You gotta respect a lady packing that kinda iron which is just as well ... a fine woman like that traveling alone an' all.

Turning his head to the side, he spits a slug of tobacco, burying it between the platform boards with the heel of his boot. He had noticed the female passengers in the train car. Of course he did. What else was there to do? One of them emerged now, looking for help. Another fine-looking woman.

"Ma'am I'd be happy to help ya. Kane's the name. Victor Kane, at your service." Kane extends an arm to the woman.

Watching as Ruby Reyes -- brief introductions had been made earlier in the day -- exits the train and Victor Kane predictably moves to help the gorgeous young woman, Dillon just tips her hat at the others and moves into the station house. Her pappy always told her to not judge a book by its cover, but land's sake what a cover.

Inside the building, Del tries to get some idear on just what's goin' on. How long since the place was last occupied? Is fresh coffee made? Are there muddy boot-prints that haven't yet dried? Dated copy's of Denver's Rocky Mountain News or Leavenworth's Kansas Weekly Herald lyin' around?

Barrin' that, DD walks into the office to take a gander at that log book.

The engineer has got two buckets, 4 gallons each, and is heading to the water tower to fill it up. He'll be making a few (dozen) trips, but he looks fit enough to handle that easy.

There were no other passengers.

In the logbook, DD finds the last entry was yesterday evening, a Black River express to Denver. The rest of the entries also appear fairly mundane stretching back months to the beginning of the logbook.

Ruby grimaces in disgust at the spit tobacco. She eyes Kane hesitantly but as no one else offers she reluctantly hands over her traveling luggage first and then and debarks from the train. Once down she says, "No offense met, but even a handsome man like you might have trouble finding a wife with such a disgusting habit. If you're looking to quit, I have just the thing to help you." She opens her steamer trunk and pulls out an amber flask with a paper label. "'St. Jezebel's Syrup' is just the cure. It will take away the desire to ever put tobacco in your mouth again." She beams at him and presents the bottle. "On sale, too, for handsome gentlemen looking to improve their lives. Just $2 and your habit could be a thing of the past."

"So I've been told, Miss ... what was it again? I'm not sure I know. I was kinda sitting alone. I tend to keep to myself."

Kane takes the woman's luggage and stifles a scoff when she mentions finding a wife. "I ain't a family man Ma'am, so no worries there about finding me a wife. I ain't a fan of little kids neither, damn rascals.

A few steps later he enquires about her destination. "Just where am I delivering your luggage to? I'll be especially careful of your St. Jezebel's Syrup. That is curious though. Way back when I was raised a Catholic, I ain't never heard of a St. Jezebel. Anyways, I like my tobacco and a man's gotta have his simple pleasures.

Dirt was more than happy to let the others jaw on, so as to keep the focus off of him and his animal. He ties Blossom up, and lets her find what she might on the ground to pass the time with chewing.

He steps into the building, a moment after this Marshall Dillon, and stands in the doorframe, taking in the quiet.

"Something prodding at you, Marshal?" he asks, seeing how freely the woman moved about the room. If she was expecting the proper company, she’d have surely acted more reserved.

When trying up his horse on the grass, Dirt notices some tracks in the dirt near the station.

"Only, I reckon I saw some tracks out there in the dirt. I ain’t much of a tracker, mind. Figure that might be your thing more than mine." he says, assuming the woman passed at least some of her time tracking down fugitives from the law.

"I'm not a Marshal just yet, Mr. Briggs," Dillon says idly from where she's looking through the logbook, and from where she then scans over her surroundings. "And yeah, you could say that. Sometimes you just get a feelin', y'know? Somethin' feels off here. Could be the clerk's slept in or run off to the commode... but it don't feel that way, does it?"

Delilah's eyes are on Dirt as she finishes her sentence and her inspection of the office. When he tells her what he saw outside, she nods. "Well now, good spot. Can't hurt to take a look, can it? Let's see what we see."

Heading back outside, she gestures for Briggs to show her the tracks as she announces her findings to Reyes and Kane. "Was a train through here just last night, Black River Express to Denver, so might be the station manager is just under the weather today..."

"You ain’t the furthest thing from a Marshal neither." the man offers, with a chuckle. "Pays for a fella to be cautious, I reckon."

Dirt shows the woman where he stumbled across the tracks, and then posits:

"Might be those boys coming up out of Coyote? Some of them don’t play too nicely, if I can say so."

Reyes. Ruby Reyes. St. Jezebel was a local saint in Colombia. You can set the bags down here, I can take them now. You don't like kids, you say? Coincidentally I have an ointment to prevent that as well. But seeing as how your simple pleasures don't include women, I guess you won't be needing that as well," she smiles teasingly.

As she's about to pick up her things she sees two of the other passengers inspecting something on the ground near the station house. "What do you think they've found?" She saunters over to see what is going on.