Walt passed the woman on his way up the stairs to the office, nodded in greeting. She proffered a bright smile and he paid her little attention until she turned up the steps to follow him into the office.

"Oh, good morning," he said, swinging the door open for her. She smiled, struggling with the last two steps.

"You don't have to do that," she stated, limping through the doorway. Ruby looked up from her desk, approval over the top of her glasses.

"Well it's the way my mama raised me. Is there anything I can do to help you?"

The woman's hands were dug down in her pockets by this time, and she looked up from under her hair. "Oh, I'm sorry." She stuck out her hand. "My name is Eileen Music. I…I'm looking for a friend of mine. We served together in the Iraq conflict and when I googled his name it pulled up y'all's office?"

"Oh?"

"His name is Branch Connally?" She asked it. "He was a lieutenant and I guess now he's…."

She stopped, looked up again. Walt's face was suddenly impassive, but if you had eyes the twinge at the corner of his mouth was a dead give away. The pause got heavy. "Ah. Running against the incumbent. Which I would guess is you?"

The smile was tight. Ruby's approval had turned to a frown.

"Boy, me and my big mouth," Eileen half whispered. "I'm sorry, Sheriff…"

"Walt." Longmire's smile eased on out; Branch could be misleading and she seemed nice enough. "Ruby, do we have any coffee made?"

Ruby closed her bible and rose to her feet. "Shortly. I forgot to put the water in. Cady and Henry have both called, and Ferg said he would be late this morning. They have a calf coming backwards and it's gotten dramatic."

"Any word from Vic?"

"She's…."

"Right behind you Walt!" Moretti breezed through and to her desk. "I haven't run those plates yet, so that's on the itinerary and…." She paused.

"Eileen, this is Vic Moretti."

Eileen proffered the same bright smile and sudden right hand. "Nice to meet you, Deputy."

The telepathic 'whatthefuckWaltwhoisthis' sailed over Eileen's head and Walt offered a quizzical smile. Vic HATED it when he did that. "Eileen served with Branch. She was just wondering where she could find him."

Vic turned a megawatt smile on Eileen. "Did you try out at his dad's place? He spends a lot of time out there."

"I hunted for a number, but I couldn't find a way to get hold of him. I didn't wanna just show up unannounced, you know…"

Vic shrugged. Ruby appeared with a cup of coffee for Walt and Eileen. "That's a good way to get shot out here, young lady. Although I doubt Barlow would shoot a woman these days. Civilized as he's become and all." Ruby's smile was more welcoming than Eileen had expected, and she took the coffee gratefully. "I can raise Branch on the radio if you like—he had a long shift last night."

She had almost forgotten what small town drama does to a room when a lot of the key players are present. Geezum H. Roosevelt Crow. "Really Ruby, if he's going to be in sometime soon, would you just give him my phone number?"

The pause. The pass of eyes between the three of them. Eileen ducked back down in her coffee. Ruby smiled easy again. "I'd be glad to, Miss…"

"Music." Eileen rattled off the number and finished her cup. "You make a good pot of coffee, Miss Ruby." She turned, began to limp for the door. "Thank you all for your help."

"Oh no problem at all," Walt drawled. The quizzical had not left his face. They watched in pain as Eileen pulled herself out of the office door and closed it gently behind her. Walt turned to his office. Vic waited until they heard the creak of his chair, snapped on a pair of gloves, and dug out her print-kit.

The secretary watched from behind her glasses as Vic dusted the yellow coffee mug. Vic smirked and lifted three wholes and a partial.

"She seemed like a nice girl," Ruby remarked.

Branch hauled back and belted the teenager in the mouth before she had the chance to raise the four by four again. The meth-addled teen shrieked, found her feet, and launched herself at his face, chipped red nails akimbo. Branch just followed the physics and bear-hugged her. Fortune was on him, because when he clamped down, her arms had somehow untangled and were pinned against his chest. She struggled. He cinched his arms in. She screamed like a banshee and tried to claw at his chest. Branch squeezed some more. She started to wheeze and Branch torqued in one more notch. Her blonde head flopped a couple times at the end of her neck, and then she stopped struggling altogether. Connally flung her off him and looked across the way at her Chicano boyfriend. The boy hadn't moved from where Branch'd dropped him, so he took a long breath, rattled off her rights, and hauled her out to his cruiser. She was still moderately conscious so he cuffed her to the handle over the door and went back for her unconscious boyfriend.

He was tempted just to throw the little asshole in the trunk, but they called that cruel and unusual punishment these days. Kinda like the headache he was growing. The girl had clocked him a good one across the forehead with that four by four and the hole was leaky now. He cuffed the boy to the opposite door and picked up the CB mic on the radio.

"Ruby, come in."

"I read you, Branch. How's your shift?"

"I found'em. The ol' singlewide trailer north of Callahan's."

"Oh good. You have them in custody, then." She stated it, and that was worth something when Ruby believed in you.

"Yeah. I'll be in in a little bit."

"Good. I have a message for you when you get back."

"Connally out."

"Be careful coming back. There's a thunderstorm on the radar."

"Yes ma'am." He half smiled, but that hurt his head too. He pulled out of the dry lot the trailer was situated on and rolled west. Ruby hadn't been kidding. The sky over top of town looked about the color of a new bruise. The color didn't quite go with the white-hot of the late morning, but that would change as soon as he hit the weather.

The meth-heads were conscious before he made it back, and so he had the pleasure of dragging their protesting carcasses out of the back of the car in the pour down rain. Of course he'd left his coat at the office. Getting them up the stairs was a real treat. The lightning strikes were so close the thunder was literally rattling the windows. He gritted his teeth and slammed the cell door behind them. The girl was still screaming. Somebody had cranked the air conditioning up and he shivered suddenly. Goosebumps crawled up his back and popped the sticky-wet shirt loose off his hide.

"You look like you need a band-aid, Branch," Ferg offered. His eager face was accompanied by the first aid kit and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Connally grunted and dragged over into the bathroom. Ruby had the grace to wait all of five minutes before she bustled in behind him.

"Sit down." She was blunt, and because Ruby so rarely asked for anything, Branch did as he was told. The cut on his forehead was around an inch and a half long. She dabbed it clean, but it wouldn't quit bleeding. He held a paper towel to his forehead while they dug through the kit together. They located the last two butterfly bandages on the bottom of the kit. Ruby smeared the cut with Bacitracin and closed the soppy little wound with the bandages.

"You're going to have to go to the drug store before you go home."

"I've got the stuff I need at the house, Ruby. Thank you, though."

"Hang on…." She left the bathroom and he stood and followed her out, wincing. The thunderstorm was easing off, but the change in the barometric pressure was playing hob with his sinuses. Branch felt sour as rotted beef.

Ruby was digging through her purse and came up with an orange prescription bottle. "Here." She wrapped his hand around it.

"Ruby…."

"It's just Tylenol 3. They gave it to me before I finally went and got those cortisol shots in my knees."

"Ruby I can't take these."

"Take two. Drink a pot of coffee. Write your report. Make your phone calls. You probably have a concussion."

For whatever reason, he hadn't thought about that.

"Bwaah." He stretched, fished two pills out of the bottle, and swallowed them dry. The coffee was a couple hours old but he drank it anyway and started another pot. In a place with big sky, like AbsarokaCounty, the light after storms is bright, clear, and a little unsettling. A slash of it was lying across Branch's desk, and adjust the blinds as he may, there was little he could do to protect himself from it. The girl started screaming unintelligibly as soon as he got within her line of sight, and that chill he'd picked up earlier hit him again. His head was beginning to feel like lead and his instinct was to prop the chunk of bone up on his head. Of course, that was out of the question. A man had his pride.

The meth-heads both fell asleep a couple hours into the report. The pain was retrograde now, backing into a dull, consistent thud. The Ferg left to take over Moretti's road shift and the place went quiet.

Moretti came in half-distracted until she realized, part-way through hanging up her jacket, that he was sitting at his desk. He saw her nostrils flare out of the corner of his eye and still flinched when she slapped that file down on his desk.

"Who is this?" She braced one hand on his desk and one on her hip and leaned down into his face. "You look like hell."

When she was like this, you usually had two choices. You could either follow Moretti's train of thought (because she was probably right) or you could fight her.

"Are you on the rag or somethin'?" He half snarled it.

She stood up, her lips pulled back from her own teeth. "She came in here looking for you today, Branch. Whoever SHE is." Ruby looked up over her glasses and hissed in disappointment.

"I'm sorry, Branch. I forgot to tell you!"

He frowned. "Tell me what, Ruby?

"That girl! She came in here and left you her number!"

He frowned harder, and then looked down at the folder. He flipped it open.

Oh. Ooooh. His ears started ringing and he sorted a little deeper.

"Her prints aren't in the FBI data base, that name is fake and that's not her real social security number." Moretti planted a hand on her hip again.

He looked up and his brow slowly released. "Did she have a limp?"

Vic backed up a step. "Yes…"

"Which leg?"

Moretti watched Branch's face. "The right."

He nodded slightly. "Right handed or left?"

"Right handed," said Ruby. She was quiet as she went on. "She…Miss Music said she served with you in Iraq?"

He nodded. Or something like that.

He picked up the sheaf of papers from the folder and dropped them in the shredder. Vic's eyebrows shot straight up, and Ruby took her glasses off entirely.

Branch's mouth had an angle Ruby had only seen once before.

"Ruby, could I have that number?"

"Branch." Moretti was back to that edge again. "Who the fuck is she?"

"She's somebody you violated the privacy of without any kind of reason, Vic." He signed off of the data base he'd been on and turned off his computer. He stood up and eased into his jacket. He was beginning to get sore, and the chill was seeping in around his bones. He came out from behind his desk and took the folded piece of paper Ruby was holding out. "And that IS her real name."

He settled his hat on his head, and then grimaced and took it in his hand. "It's just the first time in fifteen years she's been able to use it."

Walt's door had been cracked open all afternoon and now they all heard him shift in his chair. He swung the door open and leaned on the frame. "So who is she, Branch?" The measure. The challenge. The million reasons Walt Longmire had not to trust Branch Connally.

"Eileen Music…" he paused, because he had never called her by that name out loud. "…..I trust her. She got that limp keeping me alive. That is all you need to know about her. That's all anybody needs to know. Ya hear me?"

He walked out the office door and left it hanging wide open.