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The wound burns in your back. You pace first to one end of camp, then the other, gathering whatever scant facts you can about the local tribes. By mid morning you’re staring at the front of the Marshals Office. He is not out front today, sequestered somewhere in the recesses of the building. The pocket on the inside of your vest is all but empty, all that’s left being money promised to another man. You’ve never done any bounty hunting, but it may prove lucrative in a place like this, and you doubt it could be more dangerous than your previous encounters.
You open the loose fitted door harder than you mean to. The Marshal is hunched over some loose papers on his desk, a series of wooden mail boxes stacked against the wall. “You tradin’ mail, er lives?” There are two posters on the wall, one Miguel Pedrera, last seen southeast of Virginia City. The other, Morgan Quail, last seen north of Sutter’s Fort. The bounties for both are $50, dead or alive. The Marshal sees you looking at the posters, the scars on your cheeks disfiguring the daylight crawling across your face.
“My guess’d be lives.” He finishes writing something on one of the papers in front of him, and sets his pen down. “Don’t talk much do ye?” He gestures to the chair across the table from him, and you settle into it. “Actually Marshal-” “Fletcher, call me Fletcher” “Alright…actually Fletcher, my road travels closer to the mountains. Was wonderin’ if ye had any more warrant for the nearer area.” His face furrows in thought. “There may be. An Injun roamin’ round the mountains, goes by the name o’ Grass-under-snow. Takes pelts o’ trappers. Done fer three of ‘em. I’ll pay $40, plus 10 cents a mile it takes to bring ‘im in.”
You spend some thought on that. You aren’t going up to the tribes to make enemies really…but you might find this Indian in passing, he might not be part of a tribe that you don’t need to ally with. Any number of scenarios…you decide it’s better to take the Marshal’s warrant anyway, so you’ll have it regardless of whether you plan to fulfill it or not. “Write it up Fletcher, I’ll look for ‘im out there.” He does so, scrawling a personal letter empowering you to bring the Indian in under the United State’s Law, however much that’s worth. You take the letter, doff your hat to Fletcher, and begin your road north.
