The first half day on the wheel is excruciating for all concerned, but things don't get really interesting (to the chronicler anyway, one imagines that those on the wheels were paying attention) until that night, when each of the three remembers dark incidents of the past. Elder Tanner and James are particularly focussed on Reverend Grimme - all the people who died, the cannibalistic stew, and so on, to the point that in the morning Joseph tries to refuse water (Bart and Tobey hold his nose and force him to drink). Cady remembers the giant worms, and several incidences of nearly being killed.
The next day Cady is troubled by visions of the Flayed Dog, who keeps telling her about all the things it knows, trying to get her to invoke it. It insinuates that her brother is suffering in hell, that it isn't so different from Eagle or the Christian God. Cady might believe it, but she isn't interested in actually summoning it. Apparently she thinks she's paying enough prices at the moment, and doesn't dare pay another.
"He's... let's just say... he didn't go up..." - The Flayed Dog
Meanwhile, James and Joseph hallucinate being crucified. To their credit, neither of them puts themself in the place of Christ, instead imaging themselves as one of the two thieves. The chronicler notes that by process of elimination, Cady must be Christ. Who knew?
That night, each is visited by a spirit, which seems to be the same spirit that possesses them. James's spirit tries to get him to accept the violence that they've done together, but doesn't seem a very subtle creature. Cady's spirit tries to get her to see the advantage in keeping him on - why should she throw away a tool? - and implies that he can do a lot for her. Cady's spirit also says that the Master can clearly do a lot for her if she'll just keep collecting the coins.
"He might have much to offer, but I don't think he has much to share." - Cady
Elder Tanner's spirit, however, takes a much more effective tack, asking him why he is doing this pagan thing (the wheel) rather than going to Salt Lake City and the Church? He doesn't have a good answer, returning again and again to the need to accompany his friends and promises to go to Salt Lake as soon as this is over.
Some sample arguments:
The next day brings even stranger hallucinations. Elder Tanner is visited by his deceased companions - the three other Mormon Elders with which he went out into the wilderness, one after another. They are more understanding than the spirit, but hammer on his already fragile resolve. Cady has a different vision, seeing the incident in which Bart charged the worm (and everyone followed) again and again, with subtle differences each time. Some times one or the other player is too selfish to help, and the others die trying, or no one helps and the pilgrims all die...
"There goes all the cash." - a bad version of Bart watching a good version of Cady charge the worm.
James, meanwhile, is walking among open graves. In each one a body lies, and as he passes it speaks a single sentence about who it was before James took its life.
The final night brings a strange man to visit them. He is a native, but with yellow eyes and black feathers for hair, dressed in a fur robe and carrying a torch. He interrogates them one after another. "Who are you?" "What do you want?" As they try to answer, in becomes apparent that they can talk to each other, that they are not actually hallucinating.
"What do you want?"
"To mean something. I want them to tell stories about me and I want
to be the good guy, instead of the bad guy." - Cady
"What do you do?"
"I kill people."
"Why?"
"Because God won't."
"Why not?"
"Maybe because he can't." - James
Meanwhile, Tobey is awakened by the screams of those on the wheels (when the visitor doesn't like their answers, he burns them with his torch). She and Bart rush up to the hilltop, and see the man... who vanishes in a flutter of dark wings in between one eye-blink and the next. They wait for him to return, but he does not.
In the morning, they are taken down from the wheels, washed, and dressed. Elder Tanner isn't sure he wants to go through with the tattoo, so Too Wet Dog, wisely recognizing doubt, forges ahead with the other two first. Each must first take an oath for the tattoo which will be above the blue bond:
"I pledge to honor and protect this land and her native peoples."
After that, the lower tattoo may be placed, but the oath is different for each one.
Cady's oath: When someone ought to be helped, whether they know it or not, or when someone ought to be fought, whether they know it or not - I'm never going to say "That doesn't affect me or mine" and not bother. And I'm not going to take anyone else's word for whether it's the right thing to do, no matter what sort of supernatural book or being they've got on their side - I'm going to figure the right thing out myself, and then I'm going to do it.
James's oath: to find and follow God's true will for him.
Elder Tanner takes a lot of persuasion from the others, but finally decides that it's not too pagan and will help him get to Salt Lake where if all else fails the Elders can chop his arm off. His oath is to find all of the places where Jesus walked in the new world.
"God, schmod, I'm wearing a white hat in this picture." - Cady
After the ordeal, they rest for a week with Too Wet Dog's tribe of Tinglits. Then they return to Portland, where they sell their mules and prepare to head to Sacramento and thence overland to Virginia City. James decides to stay behind. He doesn't want to kill any more, unsure that that was truly the path that God meant for him. Traveling with the posse, he is sure to kill again. The Tinglits are willing to let him stay and learn more of their ways, and perhaps find some peace. The group is sad that he will not be coming along, but accepts that their path is still likely to be violent.
"Ours is not the road of the pacifist." - Tobey
In Portland they are intercepted by Dr. Thaddeus Vorpwhistle, a researcher who is interested in the sorts of things that happen to them all the time. He has recently come from New Cambridge, and previously from Cambridge Massachusetts. In New Cambridge he talked with Dr. Brock and Prof. Dr. Vlassic about the posse and determined that they are just the sort of people he wants to travel with. They give him a bit of a grilling to determine if he can stand up to the rigors of posse travel, and he is determined to be more or less passable.
"Well then I don't talk, I just kiss her. What kid of questions are these? How could I possibly fail this?" - Dr. Vorpwhistle, upon being given the banshee scenario as a what would you do?
"If I were dead, would you travel with me anyway?"
"Are you kidding? You couldn't pry me away!" - Dr. Vorpwhistle
And anyway, the trip to Salt Lake is likely to be fairly uneventful, so he'll have time to adjust.
Collected Handouts for this Session
LB: We all eventually decided that the guy with the torch was Raven. Of course, we don't know to tell Raven (bad) from Crow (good), so who knows?
LB: Cady has told Dr. Vorpwhistle all sorts of ridiculous lies about Robert ("he hallucinates that he's being talked to by this thing called Eagle. Sort of like drunks see talking rabbits."). She doesn't really expect it to hold up long past actually getting Robert back, though.