Maeve walked behind Mr. Twain; the doctor, not the author. Once they were out in the street it seemed the chaos had not ended with the death of John, but had escalated to something entirely different. The Sheriff seemed a mess and the bodies were piling up and no one seemed to be paying much attention to John or the man Mark had. For a moment she pictured a dime western in which some hideous villain would start yowling and shooting blasts into the air while the law men hollered back and the women and children dove for cover.

If there is one thing you can always find in chaos, it is opportunity. 

Maeve knelt down next to John, the red and black of her skirt puffing about and getting that tinge of dust that seemed a daily battle out here. She wasn’t complaining. It was better than the filth you could never clean out of the city. She wrapped her fingers like a claw around a chain on John’s neck and with a quick whip of her wrist she pulled it free of the dead man. She dug through his pockets like a pro, masking her movements as if she was adjusting him for the pearly gates he’d never see. She didn’t waste her time looking through what she’d attained and instead pushed all of it into the tight confines of her corset. She’d figure it out later.

As she stood she gave John a little kick. She had caught the fuss about Westbrook not being dead and for just a moment she hoped maybe John wasn’t dead either. She didn’t want to have to torture his wife. She’d never been fond of hurting women for their husband’s faults. God knows how easy it is to get caught up with the wrong man. John didn’t move. She assumed they were talking in metaphors or something about the dead not being dead, she’d just have to accept that there was no more thoughts to steal from the stiff. She kicked him once more for good measure. Yep, he was dead.

She smoothed out her skirt, mind set to follow Twain to talk to the Sheriff but as she looked around the street she realized Twain was gone. The body he’d been carrying was being shuffled about by the puppy dog deputy who was, surprisingly, handling this situation even worse than the Sheriff. The Sheriff at least knew what he wanted as he walked purposefully towards the saloon howling back something about needing a drink.

She should probably go back to work. This was something of a rush for Brogden. Everywhere she had ever lived, death makes people thirsty. The thought made her smile, until the weird atmosphere permeated herself and she became more conscious of her surroundings. She watched as the Sheriff disappeared into the saloon and then glanced around the street. It appeared she was alone. It would have been growing dark but the moon hung high enough for her to make out the shapes of the main street, the most welcoming light flooding from the Saloon. Her smile was replaced by a chill as she instinctively rubbed her bare arms. She thought she heard something of a whistle, but immediately following was the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.

It rattled her from her hallucinations of monsters coming out of the night. This wasn’t tumbleweed terror of the unknown; nope, those were real life bullets. She hiked up her skirt and quickly ran towards the Sheriff’s building, slamming the front door as she went. She looked around at those still gathered in here, appearing a bit surprised. One, someone had left a native in here practically unsupervised and two, she had a straight line of sight to the back door and the darkness. She thought about bolting the front, but who is to say these occupants weren’t the trouble makers?

“Who the hell is shooting now?” She wasn’t asking anyone in particular and she was keeping a steady eye on the backdoor. She pulled up her skirt to the garter and palmed a collection of throwing knives, keeping them at the ready. She silently cursed her luck. Stuck in a Sheriff’s station and her rifle was in the Saloon, with the Sheriff. Someone was having a serious case of the monday’s.