The sound of yelling met Joe's ears as he rode up to the paddock. He sat back in his saddle and listened to Carl tear into one of his hired horse breakers. Another hand came up beside him.

"He's in a rare mood today."

"So I see." Joe crossed his arms over his chest and was glad he wasn't in the shoes of the man being yelled at. "He must have been turned down in town last night to be this agitated."

The hand snorted but didn't say anything. Carl went through stages of being the worst man alive to work for, but he made up for it in between, and his horsemanship had earned him the respect of every man who worked for him. If he had to have a few short tempered spells in between, nobody was going to condemn him for it. Joe dismounted. He didn't want to interrupt Carl, but he didn't want to wait.

"Carl."

"Later, Joe." Carl turned to face the young hand, but Joe grabbed his arm.

"It's important. Get lost, Roy. I'm sure whatever he was yelling about will still be there when I'm done."

Roy gratefully scurried away, glad of the reprieve.

"What?" Carl snapped.

"Is Tom here?"

"No, why should he be? He doesn't like to break horses, he just likes to run them into the ground once they're trained."

"He went into town to get the mail, and Fred said he'd left, but he's not at home."

"He could be hundreds of places." Carl waved his hand dismissively, but Jed, the other hand, leaned closer.

"That's not like him to run off. And he'd drop off the mail before going anywhere else."

"Exactly." Joe could see that he finally had Carl's attention.

"He's not still in town?"

"No. I looked everywhere. And then Vicki said that the man who was asking about you last night had a run in with you." Joe's eyes unconsciously flickered to the bandage on Carl's arm.

"The man in black?"

Joe nodded. Now Carl was starting to look worried. He rubbed his chin.

"Guess we'd better tell Pa." He couldn't help but sigh. Joe couldn't blame him. If he'd thought interrupting Carl was bad, interrupting the man who'd given him his temper would be even worse, especially to bring him bad news. But the queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach wouldn't let the matter rest.

"I want to have a look around first though." Carl decided. "Go get Jesse; he's up over at the sawmill."

"Right." Joe took off at a gallop, feeling urgency nip at his heels like a pack of wolves. He couldn't put into words why he was feeling so panicked; all he knew was that there was a lump of worry twisting inside his stomach. The twisting turned into a sharp stabbing when Carl came back leading Tom's horse. Joe's fingers ran over the bay as if they could turn up some sort of clue as to where its rider was.

"He was tied off the rode a couple miles out of town." Carl said. He threw the reins over the hitching post and went inside. Joe and Jesse followed.

"Pa's not gonna be happy if we have to pull men off the mill to go look for him." Jesse muttered.

Joe started to say something and then stopped. He was just thinking like his father; it was a habit all the Finch boys fell into at one time or another. Besides Jesse was probably more annoyed than worried at this point. Why shouldn't he be? He had grown up under the shadow of his father's reputation as a sharp business man with a fast draw; he'd never seen what the real world could be like. Joe doubted he'd ever felt real fear or had known that sickening twisting in your stomach that's powerful enough to make your whole body freeze while your mind screams at you to do something. Anything. He doubted Jesse had ever seen a man die right in front of him like he had.

He had only been fifteen, a couple of years older than Joe at the time, and Joe hadn't even known his name. They had stayed down in the mine all night because someone had decided that they weren't making progress fast enough. During the day Joe had thought it couldn't get darker down there; he was wrong. Even though the sun never made it down into the mine, when it wasn't shining on the outside, it seemed to bathe the tunnel in blackness so thick you could taste it along with the dry dust and salty sweat. The easy chatter of the miners and the occasional insult called bled out into silence as they worked, and the only sounds to be heard were the sounds of tools scraping away at the sleeping earth. Joe had lost track of buckets of dirt and rocks he'd hauled, but he hadn't been too upset about working through the night. After all, if he was here at the mine, he wasn't home, and that meant he didn't have to watch his Pa drink himself into oblivion while hoping that the man wouldn't notice him.

One of these days. Joe kept telling himself that. He almost had enough money for a stage to San Francisco. From there he could get a job on a ship or a cattle drive. It didn't matter which as long as he wasn't here.

Joe dumped out his bucket of dirt and rubbed his aching shoulders. He looked up through the shaft to the square patch of night sky, pricked with tiny dots of stars and inhaled deeply then he coughed as the dust in the air stuck to the inside of his throat.

As he started back down the tunnel, a low rumbling made him freeze. For a moment, time hung suspended then the rope if swung from snapped, and the ceiling fell through to the floor, bringing down dirt and support beams with it. Joe fell against the wall and instinctively raised his arms to cover his head as he felt dirt raining down on his skin. Someone cried out, the earth groaned some more, and then all was silent. Joe tentatively lowered his arms, and a pile of dirt cascaded to the floor.

"Hey! Help!" The voice was lined with panic. He followed the sound, fumbling forward on hands and knees in the darkness. The mine shifted uneasily, and Joe froze again, waiting for another onslaught. But nothing happened, and the voice spurred him forward again. Then his hands brushed up against soft fabric.

"My legs… get me out of here!" the miner begged. Joe recognized the voice but couldn't think of the man's name. His fingers traveled down the body until they bumped into a wooden support beam that had the miner trapped. Joe tried to move it, but he may as well have been pushing against a mountain.

"I can't lift it." He said.

A pair of hands shot out and latched onto his arm. "You have to. Please! Don't leave!" Fingers like claws dug into his arm, the nails piercing his skin.

The mine rumbled again, a warning. The remaining tunnel wouldn't last much longer. Joe felt torn. He couldn't stay much longer, but he was blind as a bat; how was he supposed to help the man free?

"Please!" the man's grip was slowly getting weaker. Joe felt along his body again, and then he stopped as he felt a wetness. It was warm and oily. Blood.

"Don't go!" Now Joe could hear the miner's voice getting weaker. The mine began to shake, and Joe jumped up out of instinct.

"No! Don't! Get me out! I don't want to die!" the words rolled together even as the tremors rolled through the ground, making it almost impossible to understand what the miner was saying. But Joe could still hear the tone even if he didn't understand the words. It was of panic and desperation. He pushed against the beam one last time and then felt a trickle of dirt on his neck. The mine was giving up.

Instinct took over, and Joe jumped backwards he heard a crack from above. He closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the tunnel falling in on itself, waiting for a beam or rock to fall on him. But when he opened his eyes, he was still free. The tunnel was blocked; he couldn't see the miner anymore, but he thought he could hear his sobs. Joe shut his eyes again, wishing he could shut his ears as well.

He was glad he hadn't been able to see the miner. Even now he could feel the way his fingers had dug into his skin and hear the desperate pleading, but he hadn't been able to look into his eyes. He was a faceless man with a voice that echoed in Joe's head as Carl spoke in murmured tones with his father.

"I don't want to pull people off the mill yet." Gabriel Finch said. "He probably ran off with some girl or is on another one of his big 'jobs'. You boys look around first. Carl, you follow the road north, Joe, you go south. Jesse and I will get the hands to scout around here and see if we can find any trail." Despite his words, Joe could tell he was worried. His hands were pressed down on his large desk, causing his knuckles to turn white, and there was an agitation in his smooth voice that he'd never heard before. Carl and Jesse picked up on it too, and they suddenly seemed more serious as they left. Unconsciously, Joe felt to make sure his gun was securely in its holster.