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The Walkers in Skin, Episode 02

The task force flies to Utah, is briefed by the Salt Lake City FBI office, and moves into a double-wide on Sherman Ranch, where it meets a gate guard, a goose and a billionaire.
Arc The Walkers in Skin
Episode 02
Setting Salt Lake City; Ballard, Utah; Sherman Ranch
In-fiction date Shortly before the 1992 presidential election (one day, noon to evening); on the exact date see Walkers 03
Players present Andre (GM), Rita, Dante, Ezra, Zack; Ben as a guest
Previous Walkers 01
Next Walkers 03

Synopsis

With Big Bill glad to have them far from any camera, the team flies to Salt Lake City and collects a case file from two local FBI agents who blame the ranch reports on lightning and drink. At Sherman Ranch they meet the gate guard Walt, their client Alberta Wilmarth, her goose Nancy, and the tenant Robert Bigelow, whose instruments record heat and electrical anomalies that stop half a mile from the ranch. A grocery run into Ballard turns up resentment of the town's leaders and their new community center. (Walkers 02)

Plot

Out of the public eye

Big Bill, distracted by the election, sets one condition: stop at the FBI Salt Lake City field office for the files on earlier reports and work with the local agents. The team flies, which costs Kurt Larson his Claymores but not his licensed P90. Andrew Howard books the rental, a 1990 Plymouth Voyager with fake-wood paneling. Dante's 2d6 flight roll is a six: a toddler kicks the seat of the Biz every 25 seconds, and a few passengers double-take at one of America's most hated people. (Walkers 02)

The Salt Lake City briefing

In a second-floor conference room the team meets Carl Gardner, short, hearty and full of "big cop energy", and his tall, silent partner Philip Bishop. Kurt introduces himself as CIA, UTAW division; Gardner knows "those boys, explode the cigars and all that." Gardner's rundown of the ranch: a Native American former Army Ranger on the billionaire's security staff says he shot a snooper by the barn, though Gardner found no physical evidence; a young woman reports seeing her dead mother, and there is no twin; cattle mutilations, put down to lightning; lights and lost time, put down to drinking. (Walkers 02)

Kurt rolls Investigate a Mystery on the room's string-covered corkboard and gets a 9. The board is another case entirely: unacceptable levels of semen in public drinking fountains, the start of the Ballard water contamination thread. While Gardner goes to look up the billionaire's name, Huell Kendrick tries "So— Mormons, am I right?" on Bishop, and four minutes of sweaty silence follow. Gardner returns with the name of the billionaire who "skeeves me the hell out": Robert Bigelow, a real estate baron whose security man fired the shot. He hands over a copy of the file, recognizes the Biz as "the fella who spied on Clinton" ("Had it coming"), recommends funeral potatoes, and tells them to say they are "a friend of Bonaparte" for 20% off gas. Rita tests whether Andrew's appearance alone earns the discount; the receipt shows it did. (Walkers 02)

Sherman Ranch

After a drive of almost three hours the team reaches Ballard, a town of a few hundred with a sheriff's station in a double-wide, and then the ranch gate. Walt, the guard, is the man who fired at the snooper: he says he gave a warning first and the figure came at him "at pretty high speed". He came back from the Gulf War about a year ago. He asks whether they have come about "the sugar heist", a box truck of cane sugar stolen from a truck stop three or four weeks ago. He calls the ranch "haunted as hell": sheep that burst ("You ever microwaved an egg?"), cattle simply dead (see livestock mutilations). (Walkers 02)

Walt leads them to the guest double-wide and is promptly attacked and bitten by Nancy, an enormous goose. He explains the house (furnace on a switch, keys under a ceramic frog, a back door with only a deadbolt) and the rules: headlights on at night, and the big house and its barn are off-limits. From the window he points out the white community center and its gray substation, built four miles out of town and in sight of the ranch. Some of the town's leaders, he says, "make my skin crawl". (Walkers 02)

At the pig pen Alberta welcomes Andrew and admits she "genuinely did not expect to get traction". She makes Walt confess that in the summer of 1986 he tried to get people to call him "Coyote"; Andrew and Kurt adopt the name at once. Something pulled up a couple of fence posts overnight and Walt's dog was cagey, though the animal headcount was fine. Alberta has seen no lights, but the ranch always hums at night, which sets Andrew visibly vibrating. Nancy runs at Kurt at full speed, jumps into Alberta's arms and hisses at him. (Walkers 02)

Bigelow

At the big house a blonde guard with a ponytail and a hip holster, the Ponytail Lady, asks them to leave their weapons at the door. Kurt says no, so the meeting happens on the porch over sweet tea and buttered bread. Bigelow, a sour-faced middle-aged man in an expensive suit, calls Alberta "Madeline" and corrects himself. He has read up on the team ("a lot of interesting stories follow in your wake"), and the Clinton affair "didn't even make the list". His operation logs electromagnetic, thermal and acoustic readings on tape reels: many unexplained heat signatures and electrical events, all within the ranch and half a mile around it, none in town. He dismisses the substation as unrelated. He already knows about the contamination in Ballard's water and adds that it is high in arsenic; the big house filters its own. He stands by Walt's judgment over the shooting, is asked about the team joining a night patrol, and leaves for a satellite-phone call. The guard gives the house rules: keep Bigelow happy, and keep the goose happy. (Walkers 02)

Ballard

At the general store a lifelong resident with an enormous beehive hairdo sells them bologna, white bread and cheap beer for $35.25. Andrew's awkward questioning gets results anyway: the ranch is weird, "but that's the county"; she resents the community center, blames the mayor (Wilford Hiram) and "the goddamn busybody" Deborah Wells, and would rather have a clinic. The team tells her to drink only bottled or well water. On the drive back Kurt informs Andrew that he has no game. The night ends with Kurt taking the toddler's bedroom and test-flushing a toilet that gurgles long and anemically. (Walkers 02)

Cold open and framing

No player characters appear. At night on a desert ranch, a Native American man in a big cowboy hat arrives with a shotgun and a large dog, which growls softly into the dark. He finds nothing and drives off. A coyote steps out from behind the sheep, trots toward the edge of the pasture, and stands up on two legs. Cut to credits. Ezra: "Regular coyote." Andre: "Yeah, just normal." See upright coyotes and The show. (Walkers 02)

Player characters

NPCs

Monsters and entities

Locations

Items

Revelations

  • The audience, though not the team, has seen a coyote walk upright. (Walkers 02)
  • The ranch phenomenon is local: a night hum, heat signatures and electrical events confined to the ranch and half a mile around. (Walkers 02)
  • Ballard's public water contains live sperm and arsenic. Kurt reasons that live sperm puts the source close by. (Walkers 02)
  • The Ballard town government wants the ranch land; Alberta will never sell. (Walkers 02)
  • Bigelow has researched the task force's past cases. (Walkers 02)

Open threads

  • What Walt shot at by the barn "the other month". Gardner found no trace of it. (Walkers 02)
  • Whether the patrolman in the cold open is Walt. He fits Gardner's description of the shooter, but the episode never names him. (Walkers 02)
  • Why Bigelow called Alberta "Madeline". (Walkers 02)
  • The stolen truck of cane sugar. (Walkers 02)
  • Why the community center and its substation sit so far from town. (Walkers 02)
  • The exhumation, the unread case file, and the proposed night patrol. (Walkers 02)

Memorable quotes

Quote

"So, Mormons, am I right?" (Zack, as Huell, to Agent Bishop)

Quote

"You ever microwaved an egg?" (Andre, as Walt)

Quote

"One of these days I am gonna eat that thing. Alberta, I love you. I'm gonna eat that animal." (Andre, as Walt)

Quote

"The number two most important rule of living here is to keep the fucking goose happy." (Andre, as the security woman)

Quote

"Howard, I don't know how to tell you this, son, so I'm just gonna give it to you straight. You have no game." (Dante, as Kurt)

Quote

"The ranch is weird, but that's the county." (Andre, as the store clerk)

Table notes

  • Zack asks whether they are going to "the literal Skinwalker Ranch"; Andre answers that they are going to Sherman Ranch. The players note that Bigelow shares his surname with the real ranch's owner. (Walkers 02)
  • Nancy becomes an instant running gag, popping up at windows and winning every battle of wills. (Walkers 02)
  • Kurt's complaint that dentists' conferences have bumped the team from its hotel on the last three or four cases, and that he once slept in a wetsuit to avoid bed bugs. (Walkers 02)
  • Huell dreads another potato-centered investigation after Spud Hut. (Walkers 02)
  • Andre admits that Bigelow "almost got his own voice, and then I got lazy." (Walkers 02)
  • Dice: Kurt's 9 on Investigate a Mystery; the six on the flight roll. See Running gags. (Walkers 02)

Continuity

  • Big Bill previously sent the team to Dahlonega to keep them off television, which failed. (Walkers 02)
  • The Biz asks Gardner whether he watches Letterman; Gardner is "more of a Leno man" but still knows him as the man who spied on Clinton. The Ponytail Lady then says she recognizes the Biz "from Leno", although his interview in Walkers 01 was on Letterman. (Walkers 02)
  • Callbacks to the exploded man of the Spud Hut case, to the Davy Crockett of The Summer Service, to Dahlonega, and to Andrew taking a shot that did not seem to land ("it can look really, really like that you got shot and you just didn't"). (Walkers 02)
  • Sets up the night patrol, the town leaders, the water case and the sugar thread (sugar clues). (Walkers 02)