He walks with slow deliberation - rarely walks any other way, but this time more from intent - for the best part of an hour, eyes roaming the muddy tracks that score the woodland floor. Now and then he stops and throws back his head and listens and sometimes he swears the thing rustling in the undergrowth is bigger, a lot bigger, than a possum or a racoon and he has the unsettling prickle between his shoulder-blades, the feeling that unseen eyes are on him and his hand rests on his hip, fastening and unfastening the holster, fingers brushing the butt of his gun.

He grew up with the woods but never felt all that much at home in them. Too many places for people to hide and while he can appreciate the necessity for and the tactical advantage of that in certain situations, he still always prefers things out in the open.

A twig cracks, breaking under something heavier than a wild animal and his body crouches automatically and this time his hand does go for his gun and his finger on the trigger is a reflex action, eyes looking for the target and he's ready for the shot.

"Raylan."

His finger twitches before he truly recognizes the voice and the tension in his muscles eases. Or, at least, his hand lowers a little.

"Boyd?" Cautious.

"Never been so glad to see a hat." Boyd moves out onto the track, curiously silent, a hunter's tread. "So, Ava called."

"She did. At dawn."

Boyd's head lifts, tilts back slightly and his gaze goes out somewhere beyond Raylan's head. "My apologies; I had not expected her to interpret twenty-four quite so literally." His gaze comes back. "Is she all right?"

"She's okay."

There's a grimace. "She's pretty mad, huh?"

"Oh, only hugely."

He looks Boyd over and it's both strange and familiar - he's seen him like this, almost, before, only then it was coal-dust instead of mud and his eyes still glittered behind their deep weariness.

"You look like you slept under a pile of leaves."

"Well now, it's funny you should say that seeing as that is more or less what I did do; well observed, Raylan - is that what they teach you in Marshal school?" He leans on the rifle like it's the only thing keeping him upright, takes a step and a grunt explodes through his lips, beads of sweat on his forehead. His skin is waxen under the layer of dirt.

"Where are you hurt?" Practicalities not concern. Never that.

"Ankle," Boyd says shortly, teeth clenched.

"How bad?"

"It'll mend."

"What happened?"

"Dickie decided to start the party a little earlier than I had planned." Boyd's eyes move, quick but calm. "Him and his boys are still crawling all over these hills."

Raylan presses his lips together, teeth gritting so hard his jaw aches with it and instead of all the things he wants to say, or yell, all the things that will rend the air and the ties to the past he asks,

"Can you walk at all?" His eyes scan the landscape estimating the distance back to his car. Boyd leans against an oak, breathing hard. He braces himself with one hand, using the rifle as a cane, and takes a tentative step. His face twists in pain, but the leg holds.

"How far you plannin' on hikin'?"

"Down the ridge ... maybe half a mile. Once we get past the trees it flattens out and the car's not far. Think you can make it?"

"As long as we're not racin' and they don't come back around."

Raylan falls into place on one side, supporting Boyd with a hand on his arm as they begin to move, using the trees for cover. "How'd Dickie get the drop on you anyway?" he asks, annoyed.

"I'd imagine the same way he got the drop on you not so long ago." Boyd grunts and leans heavily on the rifle. "I was momentarily distracted."

They move out of the cover of the trees and Raylan's gaze slides left to right and back again searching for any signs that they've been followed. "Can you move any faster? We're going to be in the open now, until we get to the car."

"Don't look like that car's gonna do us much good," Boyd says, pointing at the flattened tires. " 'Less you've got a trunkful of spares."

"Shit!" He grabs Boyd's arm roughly and pulls the other man back into the brush at the edge of the woods. Crouching down, he feels through the leaves and dead grass on the ground and pulls up a branch. He snaps it in half across his knee. "We gotta splint that leg, see if we can get you movin' any better. Sit down."

Boyd sits and gingerly stretches the leg out in front of him and Raylan lays half the branch on each side. "We're gonna need somethin' to tie that with."

"I don't suppose we got any rope?" Raylan asks.

Boyd shakes his head. "Dropped my pack with all my stuff before you found me."

"You wearin' a belt?"

Boyd lifts his jacket and undoes the buckle, sliding the worn leather through the loops. Raylan wraps the belt around the make-shift splint several times and pulls it tight. "That'll have to do. Try standin' on it."

Boyd eases himself up, grasping hard the hand that Raylan holds out to him. He puts his full weight on his bad leg, straightens, and his body still stiffens and his face is white but he nods and says, "I can make it."

"Your truck ain't that far off."

"I realized that," Boyd says as they start moving again and he walks faster than before but still limping badly. "I was headed that way when I saw you."

"Let's hope Dickie hasn't got to it first."

He's alert and his senses tingle with the same uneasiness as before but even with that when the gunfire starts it's still a shock. Bullets hit the ground at their feet and Raylan's gun is in his hand, lets off two shots in the direction he thinks they came from and his eyes rake the undergrowth and the trees and find nothing.

How long, he wonders, how long were they watched, stalked, hunted through the woods until Dickie decided to start playing?

More bullets and they start moving fast, down the track and he's aware of Boyd dropping further back behind him, turns and makes a grab for him, feels something like a massive punch land at the top of his right arm and he almost drops his gun. He stumbles and feels a hand grab at him, Boyd pulling him along, still using the rifle as a crutch but running in a way that can do him no good.

Gunfire from ahead, Raylan realizes, cutting off the path to the truck, to the road, to safety, to Ava's house and Winona and the women who are waiting for them.

They turn off the track, head deeper into the woods, following a path long since overgrown but one that he remembers even now, one that he could have got to blindfolded back in the day.

There are still shots in the air but muffled now, further back and ahead is the clearing and the hut. Still standing and he's almost surprised that it's still standing but it's always surprising what lasts in Harlan.

Holes in the roof and the door hanging open on sagging hinges. They run to it like it's home.

Through the door, dragging it shut behind them and they both hit the floor, chewing dust. The air is stale, laden with disturbed dirt but they drag it in, tasting its musty bitterness. Boyd rolls over onto his back, his face a sickly waxen color and clammy with sweat. Raylan feels the tear in his chest and thinks that he's getting too old for this.

"Shit," he says, gasps. "Boyd, what the hell did you go starting this for?"

"His retribution was coming." His voice shakes between breaths and his injured leg lies at an awkward angle. "What he did to Ava... I could not abide it."

"So you decided to play hero. Which you're shit at, by the way."

"You remember what Confucius said?"

"Not off the top of my head."

Boyd's lips pull back in a smile, a rictus grin. "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."

Raylan rolls his eyes. "Maybe you should've thought of that before you 'embarked'."

He scrambles across the floor, peering out of the window. All is still and quiet, for the moment, but the shadows of late afternoon are already starting to gather and the play of light through the trees is deceptive. Boyd pulls himself after him.

"You've been hit," Boyd tells him.

"It's fine." He tries to shrug and swears instead.

"Let me take a look."

Raylan glares at him. "It's just a scratch."

"That's as may be but if you get dirt in it you could end up with an arm off and I don't think you'd like that - especially as it's your shooting arm."

He allows Boyd to help him peel off his jacket and the blood is everywhere. It is a flesh wound, a gash across his upper arm, vicious and oozing. The skin all around is stained red and a metallic tang joins the dusty air. The torn sleeve of his shirt is ripped away in its entirety and Boyd binds it tight around the wound, staunching the blood. It's a dull throb that he's aware of every second and as if in sympathy the healed bullet-hole in his side answers with its own deep ache.

They sit either side of a window, backs against the wall. Boyd keeps his injured leg out flat, the other bent at the knee with the rifle resting against it.

"How many guys has Dickie got with him?"

"Three."

Raylan squints at him. "You sure?"

"I spent most of yesterday tracking them; I'm sure, Raylan."

"You know who they are?"

A spasm of pain crosses Boyd's face and he sits forward, gripping his ankle, sits back again when it passes. He breath comes short and hard. "One of 'em's Nate Harris. I don't know the others."

"Nate Harris..." Raylan repeats the name, frowning.

"He was good enough to let me know Dickie's whereabouts."

"Yeah, well, he seems real trustworthy- Hang on, Nate Harris? Isn't he Dickie's cousin?"

Eyes closed, Boyd nods. "He is."

Silence and then his voice rises. "And you still came up here?"

The eyes slide open. "I was aware that his intentions might be duplicitous."

"Oh, were you? So you decided to invite me along as back-up? Thanks a lot."

"I am mighty grateful you elected to respond to Ava's call."

Raylan turns sharply, sucking in a breath and clutching his arm; the throb becomes a burn and can feel the blood still oozing. "I don't want your gratitude. I don't want anything from you, nor anyone else in Harlan, neither."

He sits back and breathes through his teeth, trying to find a way of holding himself that doesn't hurt.

"Who was the other person?" he asks after a while.

"What other person?"

"Ava said you got two calls."

Boyd grins at him and he thinks about extracting those big white teeth slowly, one by one, and without anaesthetic. But his face has regained something of its normal color, so far as Raylan can tell, and he looks less like he'll pass out at any second. "Now, Raylan, surely you do not propose that I should compromise my sources of information."

Raylan rests the back of his head against the wall and closes his own eyes for a moment. "You are unbelievable."

Any paint that had been on the walls has long since flaked off, adding to the gritty powder that covers the floorboards. Old tarpaulins, broken boxes, detritus that looks as though it hasn't been disturbed for as long as the roads in Harlan haven't been repaved.

"Don't think this place gets as many visitors as back in the old days," Boyd comments and Raylan rolls his eyes, a spear of irritation that even his own thoughts don't appear to be private. But he shakes it off and he even smiles to himself.

"Came up here once with Ginny Faraday."

"Everybody came here with Ginny Faraday." Boyd grins.

"That's true," Raylan admits.

"She was just shy of pretty but she made up for it in enthusiasm."

Raylan chokes back a laugh. "That's one way of puttin' it." He glances around the dim interior. "Brought Trisha Jenkins here on prom night, too."

"Trisha? Boyd looks at him quizzically. "You dated Trisha?"

"My whole junior year." He gives Boyd a raised eyebrow. "Why?"

Boyd laughs. "I never realized our similar tastes in the fairer sex went quite so far back."

"You and Trisha?" Raylan scoffs. "She don't seem like your type, even back then."

"And why's that?"

"Well, she was sweet, but about as smart as that log over there. Seems like you appreciate a woman with more intelligence."

"Seems like you do, too, from recent examples. Why'd you date her?"

"Like I said, she was sweet."

"And built like a brick shithouse, as my daddy would've said."

"Well, there was that."

A pause.

"I wonder where that comes from."

"What?"

"That saying - a brick shithouse. It seems a little counterintuitive when applied to a woman of some appeal."

"Counterintuitive?"

"Yes. I like that word, counterintuitive; it means-"

"I know what it means."

Boyd sits forward again, adjusting the makeshift splint. "Maybe it was meant to be ironic."

"By Bo?"

His fingers still over the belt. "My daddy was a very literal man. He didn't really go in for things like irony. Not intentionally, anyway."

Gunfire rips through the space, splintering wood and filling the air with it harsh, deafening rattle. When it stops Raylan scrambles to the opposite window, gun ready in his hand. There's movement in the trees but nothing he can really target; and there isn't enough ammunition for blind firing. He glances across and Boyd has the rifle raised, his hands steady.

The voice comes from outside: Dickie, all sing-song vowels and crowing triumph.

"Well, Goddamn it but if it ain't Federal Marshal Raylan Givens in the house! Now we got ourselves a real party."

Laughter, whooping, and then another bullet bites into the wood.

Raylan raises his head cautiously, peers out. "He's got more guys and more guns - why doesn't he just come in here?"

"Because he's enjoying it too much."