Somehow, Joe wasn't sure how, Hoss had eventually gone to sleep with his back against one wall of the cell and his head leaned against the other. Joe had his back against the wall and was huddled up next to Hoss. Usually Hoss' snoring was a source of mild irritation to him, but now it was something of a comfort. He felt somehow safe leaning against his big brother's shoulder and listening to his familiar snore. Regardless of the surrounding circumstances, it felt peaceful and right to be sitting next to Hoss.

Cold sunrise crept stealthily through the window, casting weak rays of light into the shadowy cell and Joe watched them catch on the bars of the cell and throw weird stripes of darkness across the floor.

There was a cot in the cell, but it was bolted to the wall opposite where Joe and Hoss were and the draft blew right on it. Besides which, the cot wasn't big enough for Joe, let alone Hoss. So they'd confiscated the blanket from it and taken to sitting in the corner which was out of the wind's reach.

Long after the sheriff's office had grown dark and quiet, Hoss and Joe had reminisced about Christmases, recollecting their stories in no particular order, and sometimes revisiting ones they'd already talked about. But one Christmas they had not discussed was the first one after Adam left the ranch. It had been different than when he was away at college and couldn't make it home in time for Christmas. It was different because Adam had left the ranch that time possibly for good.

Unlike Joe and Hoss, Adam had never been content being a rancher. The wide open spaces, the smell of pine, the sound of cattle lowing and the feel of a good horse under him hadn't been enough for their older brother. He'd wanted more, and the only thing that had held him on the Ponderosa for so many years was his devotion to his family. He'd wanted to be sure, absolutely sure, that his brothers could look out for themselves and their pa without him. But once he had that assurance, he'd gone to sea and had not been back since, nor was there any indication he intended to ever return.

That first Christmas without him home had been the hardest.

Pa had tried to be upbeat; though he never denied missing his oldest boy, he didn't say much about him. Hoss and Joe had coped then the way they were doing now, talking about Christmases past with their brother, and secretly wondering how they would ever be able to have one without him. It wasn't that they hadn't coped with loss before, of course they had. But with Adam it was different. Adam wasn't dead, he was simply absent. They hadn't been willing to admit it because they'd all told him and each other that they understood and weren't mad at him for wanting something beyond the Ponderosa, something his family couldn't offer him, but they each privately felt abandoned.

Adam had been very busy in building his life away from home, and the first letter he managed to write hadn't reached them until almost Christmas. He'd explained that he'd been busy, and talked about his new life, and he'd asked after the family and ranch business and particularly a yearling colt he'd been in the process of training but left in Joe's capable hands when he left. And he'd admitted he missed them.

Even though he was the one who'd moved away from them, Adam was the only one of them that was able to admit to himself and others that he missed his family. Somehow, that confession on his part made everything okay again. Suddenly, it was okay for them to feel sad, and to miss him and wish he was home with them for Christmas. That acknowledged realization that they missed Adam and that the family and holiday both felt incomplete without him made it okay somehow. Accepting the reality that they weren't totally happy allowed them to share in the joy of Christmas where before they'd merely been going through the motions and not really feeling it.

Even though that Christmas had been a little sad and a little dismal in a way, thinking back on it now, Joe realized that it had actually been a good one, even if it hadn't seem that way at the time.

He wondered if this Christmas would be that way too. Right now, he couldn't see how.

Hank Walker had become sheriff in Dewton because nobody else would take the job. Actually he'd started out being deputy to his uncle, but when the older man was killed in a shoot out with would-be bank robbers, Hank was the only one willing to make any attempt to fill his uncle's shoes. Everyone wanted a safe town protected by lawmen, but none of them wanted to become lawmen themselves, especially not after the former sheriff's violent death.

Hank had been just a kid when he'd taken over, meaning he had more years of experience than his youth would suggest. But, though the town had elected him, they didn't naturally want to respect him. He'd been the sheriff's kid nephew. As a deputy he'd carried the weight of his uncle's orders behind him. As sheriff, he'd had to impose his authority on his own, and sometimes that meant using force where a word should've done the trick. Now the townsfolk were used to him, but strangers tended to give him trouble whenever they came through.

He hadn't much cared for those deputies from Elodie. Those two had talked down to him, almost sneering when he said he'd keep an eye out for their escaped prisoner and see to it said prisoner got returned to them if he was spotted anywhere in town.

Canaday, the name given for the escaped prisoner, had not been what Hank expected. He'd dealt with enough crooks to have some skill at sizing a man up right away. Canaday had treated him with the respect his office was due, but there was a look in his eyes that said a man had to earn anything more than that. But he didn't seem to be put off by Hank's youth, despite that ridiculous yarn he'd spun.

It made Hank wonder, especially as Canaday had asked nothing for himself. He'd asked for a telegraph to be sent to Ben Cartwright, but not to save himself. He'd seemed concerned only with Cartwright's sons. That didn't seem much like the kind of criminal the deputies had described.

What kind of criminal bolted from one sheriff and then literally deposited himself in the office of another? It seemed to Hank that the only explanation was that there really had to be something going on in Elodie. He didn't much care for the idea of sending a message to a man he didn't know, seeing as it might be some kind of secret code they'd devised so one could let the other know he was in trouble. Hank didn't know, but he did know that one way to find out was to send a message to the sheriff of Virginia City, asking about Canaday and Cartwright. The latter name sounded familiar, but Hank didn't have much time to spend on affairs outside his own town. For all he knew, the Cartwrights might ride through Dewton regularly and simply never cause any trouble. He didn't tend to know the people who passed through without raising a ruckus by name, merely by sight.

He also recognized that horse Canaday had ridden in on as being the Jeff Kailen Mare. Ol' Jeff was dead and gone, and the mare now belonged to his partner, Clint Tanner, but everybody still called the red dun the Jeff Kailen Mare. Hank supposed she had a name, but nobody knew it or cared about it. What they knew was that Jeff Kailen had loved that mare more than almost anything, and would never sell her. Canaday had admitted the horse wasn't his, but claimed Clint Tanner had let him borrow her. Hank had his doubts about that, but he knew one easy way of finding out.

It was a long ride out to the Kailen-Tanner ranch, and Hank wasn't inclined to go himself, but there were a few men in town willing to be deputized at a moment's notice, and he could use one of them to run out to the place and ask after the mare. If Tanner really had lent the mare to Canaday... well it didn't make him innocent, but at least Hank could take the potential charge of horse thieving off the list of crimes Canaday might have committed since his escape. Aside from which, those Elodie deputies had said he was a pretty desperate character, and Hank wanted to be sure Tanner and Laura Kailen were alright since he'd come in on one of their horses.

Hank probably would have investigated anyway, but Canaday had actually done more to convince him overnight than when he'd first been arrested. Sometime in the night, fever had set in. Hank had gotten the doctor out of bed to deal with it, but Canaday had done a fair bit of talking without waking up. Feverish and unaware of what he was saying, Canaday had nonetheless stuck to his story.

At the first sign of daylight, Hank set out to rustle himself up a deputy, or maybe two. Hank didn't anticipate any trouble with his prisoner, who -according to the doctor- wasn't likely to have enough strength to get out of bed on his own for a few days at least (assuming he survived the fever), but Hank had made it his habit to always have someone around to keep an eye on things whenever the jail cells were occupied by anything more than Ol' Toby, the town drunk.

No less than twice a week, Ol' Toby got himself so loaded that he fancied himself a wild animal trainer and took to assaulting saloon patrons with chairs. He had to be locked away until he'd gotten sober when that happened. The saloon owner and his employees had learned to recognize when Toby was about to go off, and sent for Hank or a deputy before that happened, or else had somebody haul him off to the sheriff's office. They saved themselves from a lot of damage that way, and Ol' Toby was saved the expense of paying for it.

In the saloon, Hank found his deputies. Jake and Steve Williams, a couple of brothers, had clearly partied way too hard last night. Hank had known they would have. They always got spirited in more way than one around the holidays, because their pa gave them money to spend and dismissed them from their jobs as wranglers and general hands on his ranch. They spent the last couple weeks of December drinking each other under the table. They were never any trouble though.

Going around behind the bar, Hank found the black coffee pot which was kept there for emergency sobering up purposes, along with a bucket full of water. He filled two mugs of coffee and put them on the bar, then picked up the bucket and hauled it over to where the brothers were napping. He heaved and the water splashed across both of them, and they woke up spluttering.

"Time to go to work, fellas," Hank said, setting down the bucket and sauntering over to retrieve the coffee mugs, "I got work for you to do."

Jake and Steve were older than Hank, plenty old enough to have families and ranches of their own had they not been consummate bachelors who preferred to leave the paper and deal making work to their pa. They worked horses and cattle with the best of them, but couldn't -or wouldn't- read to save their lives, and they were easy marks for almost any conman. The tall, dark-haired boys had also given Hank a standing offer to volunteer as deputies at the slightest notice when he'd first become sheriff; an offer he'd taken them up on more than once, particularly in his first year as sheriff when nobody wanted to take him seriously. Jake and Steve had backed him when he needed it most, stood by him in times when nobody else would. So, drunk as they might be at this time of the year, they were his first picks.

"Aw, Hank, what kinda work could you have for us at Christmastime? Everybody's gettin' ready for Christmas parties, they're too busy to cause any trouble," Jake said.

"How come you always hit me with most of the bucket?" Steve complained.

Hank set down the mugs in front of the boys and they hunched over the steaming beverages while Hank took a seat. He explained to them that he had a prisoner whose guilt he questioned, and told them he needed one of them to check on the Kailen-Tanner place, and the other to babysit.

"You think somebody will try to break him out?" Steve asked.

"From what those Elodie detectives said, anything's possible," Hank said.

"Don't you believe them?" Jake inquired.

"Not so much as you'd notice," Hank replied, "But I'm not about to turn Canaday loose until I've gotten everything straightened out. Fact is, I'm more worried about him kickin' off while I'm not lookin'. Doc's with him now, but he's got to go out and tend to some pregnant lady outside town who's apt to give birth any time now."

"Canaday's injured?" Steve asked, "How?"

"Shot," Hank replied shortly, then added, "In the back, no less."

"Suspicious," Steve remarked.

"Mighty suspicious," Jake agreed.

Seeing the coffee was perking them right up, Hank pulled out two deputy badges and tossed them onto the table, "Consider yourselves swore in. Now which of you wants which job?"

Steve and Jake exchanged glances. Clearly neither of them wanted to ride, but didn't say so.

"Coin toss?" Steve asked.

"Coin toss," Jake confirmed.

"Loser rides out?"

Jake nodded, pulling a coin out of his pocket and saying, "Call it."

"Heads," Steve said, while the coin flipped in the air.

Hank caught it before Jake could and slammed it onto the table. The three looked at it.

"Damn," Steve muttered.

"Better luck next time," Jake told him.

Steve slugged down the last of his coffee in a single gulp and left without any other complaint.

"Get on over to the office," Hank told Jake, "I'll meet you there after I talk to Artly,"

Lue Artly ran the Dewton telegraph office. He was also the owner of one of only two hotels in town. Artly lived at his place of work. The building was on a street corner. On one side, it was marked as a telegraph office. Around the corner it was marked as a hotel. If you went in through the telegraph office, there was a room off to the side, which was where Artly slept at night. He took his meals from the hotel kitchen, and seldom left the building if he could avoid it.

It also so happened that Artly was just a little bit deaf. Hank didn't bother knocking on the door of the telegraph office. He went around to the hotel side -which was never locked- and then went through the door in the lobby that led to the telegraph office. He went to the open doorway of Artly's bedroom and banged on the wall until Artly woke up.

"Mornin', Artly," Hank said loudly, "I need to send a telegram to the sheriff in Virginia City."

Artly got up, fumbled around for his glasses and peered through them at Hank.

"You know, you're the second lawman in as many days that wanted to contact Virginia City."

"Really?" Hank asked, "Who was the first?"

"One of them deputies from Elodie. Don't know why. They've got a telegraph office in Elodie, works just as good as mine does. Awful long day's ride for no good reason, if you ask me."

"You read this message they sent?" Hank inquired.

"'course I did," Artly replied, "Gotta count the words, don't I?"

"Of course you do," Hank said, "Now, Art, you remember what that message was about?"

"Boy, do I ever. Strangest message I ever sent," Artly said, "If it hadn't been a deputy that sent it, I'd say it looked like a ransom note. Must be some kinda secret code they're usin' or somethin'."

"What did the message say?" Hank asked.

"Oh come now, Sheriff Walker," Artly protested, "If I told you, that'd be betraying a customer, and-"

Without a word, Hank banged the money he'd intended to use to pay for the telegram on Artly's desk.

"-I'll write you up a copy of it," Artly said, not skipping a beat.