This is the story of Busted Gulch from its beginning to current times. An opportunity for readers who were unable to follow all the comments and the time line. Here is your chance to know the whole story and follow the future events of this famous t...
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At the hay bale meeting Crazygoose added to the information Lean got from her interrogation of the dancer. Seems the horse-race was just a distraction for bigger things. Cadmus Croc was in league with Steel Diamond and they were planning a train robbery. 3Gun sat thinking about all that while listening to Crazygoose slurp gingerale.
Steel Diamond made her start as a riverboat gambler and parlayed that into a lucrative business. She knew what made the cowboys and the slickers easy marks and she gathered a group of girls to entertain the men while Steel cleaned them out at cards. When word reached her that there was to be a big, wild west horse race in the town of Busted Gulch, she moved her entourage from the river to the hard land of cowboy country.
In Busted Gulch, she met Cadmus Croc, who had already been scheming with a young cowboy named stannbear. They were planning on fixing the horse race as well as using it as a distraction for another plan they had. Never one to miss an opportunity, Steel curried favour with Cadmus and soon they were in cahoots. It seems Steel was an accomplished lock picker, a talent essential to Cadmus' plan.
3Gun and Lean got all excited because they thought the robbery had taken place during the race and at the end, stannbear had hightailed with Steel Diamond and their loot. Crazygoose came up with yet more information, saying that the race was a distraction for a test run on the robbery; it had not happened at that point.
When Lean and Hunter finally finished their interrogation of the dancer, they learned that she was a fake and was pretending to know Crazygoose but was really a spy sent to find out what 3Gun and the others knew. She had an important paper in her purse that Lean would reveal at the saloon. Meanwhile, Hunter, who suddenly seemed to be very well informed about everything, confided in Crazygoose some information he had about Lean's dad, Alister. When Lean arrived, Crazygoose never mentioned what she had been told and simply accept the paper Lean had discovered in the dancer's purse. When she looked at it, she was stunned by what it read, and confused, went to join the others at the card table.
Cadmus Croc was at the bar and they invited him to play. He agreed, apparently not concerned about what they thought they knew. As the cards were being dealt, Lean said they had to decide on the stakes and Crazygoose blurted out that it should be a limmerick about who would be getting arrested. There was a pregnant pause as guilty looks and smirks passed over the faces of the players, then Lean dealt and the game began, lasting long into the afternoon and evening.
