Sitting at Joe's bedside, Hoss crossed his arms, leaned back in his seat, and assessed Ben dubiously. "If?" he asked.

"If," Ben affirmed.

Hoss was perplexed. "O-kay," he said, the word exiting his mouth on a long exhale. "Adam said if, but he didn't say any more than that."

"He did not."

"And he didn't explain what he meant by it?"

"No."

"Okay… so… what does it mean?"

"I don't know," Ben admitted. "I'm not sure it means anything on its own. I think it's meant to be understood in conjunction with something else."

"Like the things that little, old gal was screaming at you while you were running away from her?"

Opening his mouth, Ben's bruised pride inclined him to firmly state that he had not, in fact, been running away from the midwife herself, rather the whole strange interaction. Pressing his lips into a firm disgruntled line, he decided against it. After all, in a town that had remained so eerily quiet, the midwife's thunderous goading had been bound to garner attention—Hoss's to be specific.

Poking his head out of the window of their second story room, Hoss had watched his father struggle to evade her words as he rushed down the thoroughfare and eventually locked himself behind the jailhouse door. Ben had learned it was only because of Hoss that the midwife had stopped screaming. It was his middle son's intervention that had stolen her attention away from the door and set it on the room window instead.

"She didn't say anything to you?" Ben asked, the shared detail seeming so inconsistent with his own interaction.

"She really didn't," Hoss said. "She just stared up at me and smiled all wide-like. It was strange. It was almost like my confusion, me askin' her what she was doin' made her happy. I don't think I've ever seen anyone look so downright pleased. I know you raised us not to say unkind things about others, but she really is a very strange woman, Pa."

"In an exceedingly strange town."

"I don't mind saying that when she was grinning at me, the look in her eyes unsettled me a bit."

Hoss's palpable discomfort while admitting such a thing seemed to nullify what had been said. Ben knew his son was unsettled, and, regardless of the claim, this was something Hoss did mind.

"Man," Hoss sighed. "I wish we could just get out of this town."

"So do I."

Looking at Joe, Ben found his son's mistreated body painfully stagnant, his swollen eyes still shut. He had never known a time when Joe was so motionless or quiet. In his short life, the youngest Cartwright son had suffered other injuries; he had endured the complications of incidents which rendered him incapacitated or unconscious for periods of time. But the stillness which had accompanied those recovery periods had not been like this. Nothing else had ever been quite like this. They were stuck in a strange town where Ben had been told nothing mattered. It was a place where, despite the claim, he thought everything seemed to matter too much.

Gaze locked on his youngest son, he felt too far away from his oldest one and the cell in which Adam supposedly still sat, his back tightly lodged against the cold wall. Had he seen him move or even stand since arriving in this town? Ben was certain he had not. It was as though Adam was unable to move or speak freely. He was as stuck in place as Joe.

"Not where," Hoss said absently as he began to mull over the midwife's repetitive exclamation. "Not what, not how, not why."

"Don't start," Ben warned. He had heard enough of the chorus to last him the rest of his life.

Hoss either did not hear or chose not to adhere to the direction. "Not where," he continued. "Not what, not how, not why."

"Hoss."

"Hear me out, that woman said not where, not what, not how, and not why. What was she talking about?"

"Obvious questions," Ben grunted. "Those words are the beginnings of such things according to her. And, in this town, asking questions that begin with those words will not help obtain sought after answers, this is also according to her."

"So, that gal said not to ask where, what, how, or why, and Adam said if." Hoss grew thoughtful. "If… If," he repeated as he began to experiment with the word. "If where, if what, if how, if why." He shook his head. "It don't work, Pa. You can't begin any of them questions like that. So, why would Adam say it, and why wouldn't he explain what it meant?"

"I don't know."

"Knowing him, it's gotta mean somethin'. I reckon with all the things he's refused to say, the ones he has are a little too important to ignore. Let's see, he told you that he found Malice, that you were going to find it too if you didn't leave. He told me to pack up Joe and get out of town, that the risk of Joe losing his life on the trail was minute in comparison to what would happen if he died in this town."

Ben's brows furrowed. Though Hoss had recounted Adam's request, he had omitted the warning. "He didn't say that part to me," he said. As Hoss's expression shifted with slight compunction, Ben wondered why it had not been shared. Who was his middle son trying to protect from the exclusion, his oldest brother, or his father? In the moment, the answer made little difference. "But," Ben continued. "Adam did tell me he wanted us to leave."

"And he told you if, which is not the beginning of a question, obvious or otherwise."

"Maybe it isn't meant to be the beginning of a question," Ben mused.

"Then what's it supposed to be?"

"Maybe… it's supposed to lead away from obvious questions."

"Or lead us right back to them," Hoss said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if Adam did not beat Little Joe, then where is the person who did? If Little Joe pulls through, then what is he going to say really happened? If Adam dies tomorrow, then how are we going to leave town peacefully, and why would we even want to? The three men in charge of this place are liars, we've known that from the start, and now we know that midwife is nothing short of crazy. We don't need to ask any more questions to understand those two things. I reckon there's only one question we got left to ask ourselves. If those men try to string up Adam tomorrow, then what are we going to do to stop it?"

Ben thought this question the most obvious of them all. "We have guns," he provided simply. "The elders do not."

This was not a fact he had intended to draw attention to. The dire situation was not one he had wanted to solve with violence. But if words would not work, then he would do what he had to to protect his sons–even if it meant holding the town hostage until Joe woke up and was able to speak or, if it came to it, killing everyone in it so that Adam would live. He would not be allowed to die here; if Ben had his way, none of his sons would.

Satisfied, Hoss nodded. He took one more prolonged look at Joe, then excused himself to sit and wait out the night in Adam's quiet company.