Halfway to Silver City and the party has committed to young Apache Góyąń to find her parents and, if needed, rescue them.

Winston tracks two on foot and two horses up a trail into the hills around this area. The going is tough, unseasonably hot and pushing through wild, untamed brush.

A shot rings out, and Diago quietens the child. The sound echoes around the hills, but they think it comes from two tall peaks or between the peaks.

Eventually, they come to a split in the trail, but Winston can’t figure out who went where; maybe someone has been covering their tracks. Dutch volunteers to clamber up the higher path, and he makes it to the top of the trail when a bullet ricochets off a rock next to his head. He spots two men with rifles, hidden in the bushes, overlooking a ravine.

Dutch high tails it out of there, back to the others, and they consider their options. Cody and Dutch decide to head back up to the top of the trail and take out the gunmen. Diago and the child, Winston and Danny take the lower trail into the ravine and along a fast-flowing river.

Cody and Dutch put down some suppressing fire as the others in the ravine try to find cover. They can see Góyąń’s parents, her mother Ela, who looks to be injured and her father Turuk, armed with a bow. The parents are pinned down on a plateau in the middle of the river.

Danny is caught by a bullet while running for cover, but limps to the others, hunkering down out of sight. They are still in danger. In a moment of calm, Winston calls out to the shooters, “What do you want?!” One of the gunmen cries back, “We want the injuns killed, we got no beef with you. Just step out and show you’re not armed, we’ll let you go!”

Winston is a pretty good card player and knows when someone is bluffing; there is no way he’s getting out of cover.

Cody and Dutch have had enough. They creep up on the men, and shots ring out. They see one of the men collapse, and the other runs for it. Dutch and Cody give chase. Cody looks down; his leg is throbbing, blood running down it, he pushes through the pain. They run past the downed man, grabbing his rifle, but by the time they reach the slope, they see the other shooter scrambling onto the ridge and unhitching his horse; he’s away.

Back down in the ravine, the others treat Ela; she’s going to make it. Turuk thanks them, and the family is reunited. Safe.

The group gather around the man on the floor. He says his name is Floyd Higgins. They try to get out of him who he is working for, but he’s afraid, and nothing will get a name from him. As he says, as soon as he betrays his boss, he’s a dead man. Danny and Cody treat his wound. Danny leaves him with a bottle of elixir, “I’ll take the cost out of your wallet, friend.”

Floyd offers half of his silver if they kill the Apaches. This is refused. He then offers all of his silver if they let him go. This is also refused. Diago brandishes a knife, one last chance to give up the name of his boss. Grimly, he refuses. Diago leans over him. There is a scream, a brief struggle, then the body is still. The Apache family look on in horror. These people have rescued them, but then killed a man in cold blood; perhaps they’d be safer on their own now.

Dutch searches the body and finds a card from the Homestead Inn, Steaming Rock, on him. Winston now remembers a fellow called Floyd who stayed there; he’d just started working for Ellis Rockcliffe.

Cody breaks the silence, “We need to catch that other fella, all hell will be brought down on us if we don’t, let’s get our horses and ride on after him!”

GM Notes

A fun session, this is still part of the improvisation within the second adventure for Steaming Rock. Filling in the journey as the group heads to Silver City. This started with the plague ranch, and tonight was a rescue mission for an Apache family. Next time we’ll get back on track, but it's likely a horse race across country to catch up with the other gunmen. Or not.

It’s teaching me how to improvise and leverage the sandbox elements, helped by the Stars and Wishes from players at the end of each session, how are doing a grand job of throwing ideas into the mix.

Mechanics-wise, we got into some more combat, figuring out the range, dealing with a broken NPC, remembering the benefit of quick and slow actions combined, e.g. aim and fire. There is a lot to learn in Tales of the Old West, but there is also a gentle learning curve and a well-written set of rules that help you gradually pick up and understand the rules.

We also had our first killing in cold blood, it’s not easy to do, and you have to fail a docity roll to go through with it, luckily/unluckily our preacher(!) only has two docity, so he did the deed.