Warrens was a nice, clean town, which Meryl always appreciated. And for once, there was a decent café.

"How is your banana sundae, Ma'am?" Milly asked her.

"D'lshs," Meryl said enthusiastically, mouth full. Milly laughed.

They sat outside on the patio, enjoying dessert without a meal first, which Milly seemed to think was almost scandalous. Meryl was watching the townspeople walking across the streets, talking to shop owners and neighbors, and watching children play in the small square that the café overlooked.

Meryl was glad of the chance just to sit and do nothing. She had justified the dessert-before-meal to Milly as a much deserved rest after their rocky two-and-a-half ile hike down into the town. Her boots were designed to cover almost any terrain without problems, but she had become used to the flatlands again and now her feet were aching a little at the sudden change in landscape in their travels.

Scooping out the last of the nearly-melted ice cream from the bottom of the dish in front of her, Meryl's thoughts turned back to business. The notebook in her pocket had finally become a source of almost unbearable annoyance, as page after page filled with conflicting information from eye-witness accounts of Vash the Stampede. There now existed nothing, nothing, consistent between all the descriptions of the man.

"Okay, forget what he looks like," Meryl said, rubbing her forehead as she set her spoon down on the table. "From now on we just look for a gunslinger with the skills."

"Yes Ma'am!" said Milly cheerfully. "We'll just investigate circumstances, not sightings."

Meryl realized she had continued her train of thought aloud, speaking up apropos of nothing, and was glad Milly seemed to have picked up on the cognitive jump as well.

That girl is much quicker on the uptake than she seems...

"Oh, look," Milly spoke again, sitting up straighter in her chair and waving to someone behind Meryl. "Hi, Mr. Vash!"

Meryl was glad she had already finished her sundae because she knocked over the glass dish with her elbow in her hurry to turn around at Milly's words.

Across the street, a man with bristly blond hair and a red jacket looked about as much surprised to see Meryl as she was to see him. After a moment, he waved back to Milly.

"Oh, hello!" said the Idiot, brightly. He looked at Meryl over the rims of his round, yellow glasses. "Ah, still on insurance business?"

"Er—yes," Meryl replied, startled into conversing.

"Keep up the good work!" he called, walking on with another wave.

Meryl sat confused for a moment. What an odd interaction... When she turned in her seat to face Milly again, the younger woman looked at her expectantly.

"What?" Meryl asked, after a moment.

"He answered when I called him Mr. Vash, didn't he?" said Milly.

"But you always call him that!" Meryl said, exasperated. "That doesn't mean anything!"

"But Mr. Vash is here, the same time there are rumors the Humanoid Typhoon is in town," Milly pointed out. Then she added, "Again."

"He's not Vash the Stampede!" said Meryl, trying to keep herself from shouting.

Milly just gave Meryl a look, raising her eyebrows.

"And about those rumors. I want to talk to the sheriff," Meryl said decisively, standing. Milly followed suit. "I want to hear if he's caught wind of the same thing, and what he thinks of it."

"Yes, Ma'am," agreed Milly. "I didn't see the sheriff's office on the way in, did you?"

"No," said Meryl, frowning. It was practically a one-street town and they had come from the other end to reach the café here near the edge of the desert again. "It must be near here, then."

But it wasn't anywhere further down the street. They checked around the secondary streets, even out into the smaller, more residential areas with still no luck.

"I don't understand," said Meryl, puzzled. Her forehead muscles started to ache as she frowned again, pursing her lips.

"Well, let's talk to the mayor," Milly offered. "Town hall was right across the square from the café."

"Good idea," Meryl agreed. She followed Milly back to the main square, where there seemed to be some kind of commotion. Something was drawing a sizable crowd in front of the town's only saloon. Curious, Meryl moved toward the crowd and motioned Milly to follow her. Unlike Milly, she was nowhere near tall enough to see over the heads of most of the on-lookers, so Meryl had to strategically elbow her way to the front, being gentle enough not to upset anyone and still forceful enough to get herself through.

It was the Idiot. He was on the ground, stuck wrestling with another man, and for a moment Meryl couldn't be sure what was happening.

"Buy me a drink!" the other man was shouting, his words slurred to the point that Meryl was quite sure he didn't need another drink.

"Get off me!" shrieked the Idiot, trying to push the other man away. He suddenly spotted Meryl in the crowd and his green eyes went almost painfully wide. "It's you!" he cried, relieved. "Quick! Help me!"

Meryl just rolled her eyes and turned to make her way back through the crowd again.

"Wait!" the Idiot was screaming. "Wait! Don't leave me here! Help!"

"Was that Mr. Vash?" Milly asked curiously when Meryl returned.

"No," said Meryl, firmly.

Meryl climbed the steps up to the town hall two at a time to keep up with Milly's long strides. Inside, a wizened old man sitting behind a desk looked up wearily at their entrance. When Meryl asked for the mayor, he pointed them toward a door to their left. The door was open, and Meryl knocked on the wood frame.

"Excuse me," she called, peering inside. "Mr. Mayor?"

"That's me!" said the round man behind the desk at the far end of the room, looking up at Meryl's voice. He was balding on top, wisps of frizzy black hair still sticking out strangely on either side above his ears. He smiled amiably enough, and gestured the two women into his office, straightening his bow tie.

Milly closed the door behind them and Meryl watched the mayor pull an ornate pipe from a drawer and light it, puffing happily. He looked them over, clearly trying to guess their occupation or at least ascertain their reason for being there. The man didn't give any outward appearance of puzzlement, but he didn't open with any guesses.

"What can I do for you, ladies?"

The room was warm and Meryl realized with a glance around that there were no fans running anywhere, either above their heads or in the corners. The mayor had an interesting collection of ceramic plates and jugs, she noticed, but no means of cooling the room. The man himself was sweating in his suit, the dome of his bald head shining, but he didn't seem to be too bothered by the heat.

"My name is Meryl Stryfe, and this is my partner—"

"Milly Thompson!"

"We work for the Bernadelli Insurance Company," Meryl continued, in their usual litany.

"In what capacity?" the man asked curiously.

"Uh," Meryl said, thrown slightly. That wasn't normally the query that followed the litany. "We're disaster investigators," she explained.

"Really?" said the mayor. He looked genuinely surprised by this. "You ladies?"

There was an odd emphasis on ladies that Meryl didn't like. She frowned.

"Yes," Meryl said, rather more icily than she meant to. "And we are here because we have heard rumors that Vash the Stampede might be in the area." The man looked skeptical at best. "We are assigned to make sure he doesn't cause any injuries or property damage."

"You two are supposed to keep an eye on the Humanoid Typhoon?" the mayor asked, his tone now openly incredulous as one of his eyebrows lifted.

The man's slight on her and Milly, so severely intended or not, grated on Meryl. "Yes," she ground out. "I wanted to talk to your sheriff, but we can't seem to find—"

"We don't have one," the mayor interrupted, looking slightly amused.

Meryl spluttered to a stop. "What?"

"This is such a tiny town!" the man said, laughing and sweeping his arms wide open as though encompassing all of Warrens in one gesture. "Nothing important will ever happen here, all we have to worry about are the occasional overzealous drunks!"

Still a little thrown, Meryl said again, "You don't have a sheriff?"

"No!" repeated the mayor, surprised at her surprise. "Why, are you interested in the job?" The question ended in laughter so raucous that Meryl had to guess at the last word. Her nostrils flared and she let out a low breath in a rush. Enough.

Milly's hand closed over Meryl's shoulder and squeezed, hard.

"Thank you for your time, sir," Milly said to the mayor, and though her voice was cheerful her grip on Meryl's shoulder was severe enough to make the smaller woman cringe. "I'm afraid we have to go now." Meryl allowed Milly to steer her out of the Mayor's office with a curt farewell through her teeth.

"What was that about?" Meryl asked, rubbing her sore shoulder once they were outside of the building.

"You suddenly had on your 'I want to rip his entrails out through his nose' face," Milly said. "It seemed prudent to leave the room before you could do so."

"Ah," said Meryl, surprised. "Hmm." She wasn't aware she telegraphed her anger quite so openly. Then again, maybe Milly just knew how to read her by now. This seemed more likely, or at least she hoped so. The mayor certainly didn't seem to know how close he had come to disembowelment; it sounded like he was still chuckling at his own little joke as they walked under his open window.

"Wait!"

The call came from behind them and Meryl and Milly both turned. Two young women were hurrying after them, both with frizzy dark hair pulled back into identical braids which bounced against their shoulders as they ran. They came to a stop an arm's length away, faces slightly flushed and eager.

"We heard you were looking for Vash the Stampede," said one, trying to mask the excitement in her voice. She was the taller of the two, and was dressed in a fitted blouse—and long men's slacks that seemed out of place with the rest of her appearance. Clearly athletic and lean, the girl looked to be about seventeen by Meryl's guess.

"Delia," the other girl hissed, frowning at the first. She might have been a year or two younger than—her sister? Probably. In a billowing skirt, she was a little rounder of face and was already showing more feminine curves than the older girl. "I'm sorry," she said, to Meryl. "We—ah—overheard some of your conversation with Daddy." Her eyes darted to the nearest window and Meryl had a pretty good idea of the circumstances. Then her eyes practically lit up. "Are you bounty hunters?"

"Daddy?" Milly asked the question before Meryl could.

"Er, yes," said the second girl, still nameless. "The mayor." She grimaced. "I'm sorry about him. Daddy's just a big ol' stick in the mud when it comes to women being... well..."

"Useful?" Delia offered, her tone openly sarcastic. Then she muttered, "Got a big ol' stick up his—"

"Delia!"

"Come on Karen," Delia said, frustrated. "We're never going to do anything as long as Daddy treats us like this."

Meryl could tell this was one of Those Arguments, forever unresolved and frequently repeated, enough to be rote. She and Milly had a couple of these. Well, one was simply, "Hi, Mr. Vash!" "He's not Vash!"

"We're not bounty hunters," Meryl told them, trying to cut in before the Argument could get into full swing. Apparently they hadn't heard the whole conversation in the office. "We work for an insurance company."

"But you're looking for Humanoid Typhoon," said Karen, fixing Meryl with an accusing look, as though the older women had falsely tricked them into excitement.

"Yes," Milly explained. "We want to keep him from causing too much damage."

"From causing any damage, we'd rather," Meryl muttered. "But so far that seems too much to ask."

"So you want to find him, but not collect the sixty billion on his head," Delia said, skeptically.

"That's not our job," said Meryl, though as she said it she realized how odd it must sound. She and Milly had spent more time searching out Vash than any bounty hunter they'd ever come across, and for what? A lousy paycheck, which barely covered the cost of their travels. Why weren't they out for the bounty?

"Is it true he's in town, somewhere?" Karen asked, interrupting Meryl's musings.

"We don't know," Milly told her. "There have been rumors..." She glanced at Meryl.

"Why?" asked Meryl, suspiciously. Now it was the sisters who shared a quick glance. Karen took a quick breath and launched into explanation.

"We want to help you find him," she said. "Well, we did want to, thinking you were bounty hunters. But now..." Karen looked to Delia.

"We wanted the bounty," Delia said, sighing. "Wanted to split it with you, if we could help. Even a fraction of the money would be enough to get us out of this town."

Meryl raised an eyebrow.

"How exactly did you plan on helping us?" asked Meryl. "Assuming, we were bounty hunters. Which we're not," she stressed.

"Well, we hear he's a womanizer, right?" said Delia. She raised her eyebrows as though waiting for Meryl and Milly to catch on to their train of thought. When the older women said nothing, Delia sighed. She gestured to herself and Karen. "We thought, y'know... you could... use us?"

"As bait?" choked Milly.

"That's about nine kinds of crazy," said Meryl, rubbing her forehead. "Crazy stupid." The girls turned identical scowls on her.

"We wouldn't go in unarmed," Karen said, defensively. "Delia's got a gun."

"You have a gun?" Meryl said, alarmed.

"Everybody in this town's got a gun!" Delia said, throwing up her hands. "But nobody shoots."

"What do you mean?" asked Milly, apparently more interested in this rather cryptic remark than in the much more worrying fact that these girls are somehow in possession of a firearm.

"Well," said Karen. "We were too little to remember, but the story goes that there was a gunsmith that went door to door handing out revolvers when a gang of bandits was attacking the town. The whole town fought them off. But since then..." Karen's voice trailed off as she glanced up to Delia.

"They're all put away," said the older girl. Meryl couldn't quite read her expression.

"Why?" asked Milly, fascinated at this local history.

"Later, somebody turned a gun on their neighbors. During a bank robbery. One of us."

Meryl could tell the us referred to the townsfolk as a whole; their friends, their relatives. One of them took up arms against the rest. Karen sounded betrayed.

"And I decided I wasn't going to let it happen to us," said Delia, setting her jaw determinedly. Meryl knew immediately that this "us" was Karen. She could clearly see the over-protective-sister side of the older girl come to the forefront of Delia's character with these words. "We stole Daddy's gun and went out to the west dunes with a bunch of soda pop bottles and learned to shoot. I haven't put it back since."

"You can shoot?" Meryl asked, even more surprised than alarmed.

"I can shoot better than half the men in this town," Delia said. Meryl could hear a hint of pride in her voice, hidden under a layer of clear disdain for the men to whom she referred.

"I can't," mumbled Karen, grimacing.

"Yeah, well, that boy was sweet on you at the time," Delia told her sister. "And it didn't take too long for his leg to heal up."

Meryl and Milly shared a worried glance. Karen noticed.

"I don't try anymore," she assured them.

A shout from above startled all four of them.

"Girls!"

Meryl looked up. The mayor was leaning out the window, looking down at his daughters with an exasperated expression.

"Leave those women alone," he told them, wiping a handkerchief across his forehead. "Stop pestering!"

Delia rolled her eyes. Meryl wondered briefly if the mayor was worried she and Milly might give his daughters ideas. It looked like they already had ideas—not altogether wise ones—and it troubled Meryl some.

"Yes, Daddy," Karen called up to him, in that sighing, resigned voice of a teen who is certain she knows better than her parents. Then she leaned forward toward Milly, whispering, "Can we come talk to you later?"

Meryl frowned, about to argue against this, but Delia spoke first.

"You're staying at the inn by the saloon, right?" the older girl said. "We'll find you there tonight."

"I don't really think that's a good—"

"You two come back here!" the mayor called, ruining Meryl's hopes of dissuading the girls. "Karen! Delia!"

The sisters grinned at her and Milly before turning to race each other back to the town hall doors, braids bouncing on their shoulders with each step.

Meryl sighed.