A/N: Starts sometime between POI 3.2 "Nothing to Hide" and 3.4 "Reasonable Doubt," goes more strongly AU at 3.5 "Razgovor"; spoilers for Cheyenne 2.11 "Test of Courage," 3.2 "The Conspirators," 4.7-8 "Gold, Glory and Custer," 5.1 "The Long Rope," 5.12 "Massacre at Gunsight Pass," and 6.8 "Legacy of the Lost." (In some ways it's an "in spite of a nail" AU for POI—until it very definitely isn't.) I'm plugging this into my Crossed Swords multiverse mostly because of the plot devices involved, but it stands entirely alone; there are only two references in the epilogue that tie in with the larger series. On the Cheyenne side, it also fits with my stories "Bequests, Birthrights, and Brothers" and "Happiness Is a Cold Nose," but you certainly don't have to read either before reading this one.

Unless I've missed a dedicated archive, KayValo87 and I appear to be the only people writing Cheyenne fanfic at the moment—I'd found none on FF.n or AO3 before we started—so I'm running on the assumption that she's the only person reading this story who knows that show even slightly. Unfortunately, POV being what it is, a physical description of the character will have to wait for Chapter 2… but you can look him up if you're intrigued.

Please note that all shifts in the way one character refers to another in this fic are 100% intentional. Also, warning for sensitive history that plays an important part in Cheyenne's past.

Title inspired by Pistols 'n' Petticoats. Many thanks to Kay and jennytork for the beta, to st_aurafina for the art, and to DesireeArmfeldt for the audio trailer (on AO3, for those inclined)!

The story is complete in fourteen parts. I'll post a chapter a day, but if you can't bear to wait, the full story is posted on my fic LJ (sarosefics) and on AO3.

Carbines and Capacitors
By San Antonio Rose

Chapter 1
The Fallen Man

Pain. Heat. Noise. Stench—rotting food, burning pitch, death. Something hard and gritty under him that wasn't rock.

He wasn't at all sure consciousness was his friend right now… not that he could stop its return any more than he could stop the footsteps running toward him.

"Is he alive?!" a male voice asked from somewhere above him as knees brushed his side and fingers pushed at his neck for a pulse.

He groaned in involuntary answer.

"Don't move, sir," commanded a second voice, closer, female. It seemed to go with the knees and the fingers—in fact, when she spoke, the fingers left his neck and turned into a hand pressing on his shoulder. "That was one hell of a fall you just had."

Fall… he remembered falling, but he didn't remember this noisy, stinking place. Maybe he would if he could get his eyes open, but they felt heavier than mine carts, and everything hurt, especially his head. The heat wasn't helping, either—it was a damp heat, like on the Gulf Coast, and the air was so heavy with it that it threatened to suffocate him. He was sure he'd been in the mountains when he'd fallen from the ridge… but he'd already worked up a sweat, and now it wasn't drying….

"Water," he moaned.

"Laskey," the woman ordered. When there was no reply, she repeated more sharply, "Laskey!"

"Huh?" asked the man—Laskey—young, probably new to the job, whatever the job was.

"Water."

"But—"

"There's a cooler in the trunk," she stated with particular emphasis. "Go get him some water."

"Water. Right. Got it." And young Laskey ran off.

"Rookies," the woman muttered in the tone of a battle-hardened sergeant saddled with green recruits, and earned a chuckle for her trouble. "All right, sir, I'm gonna have to move you a little to check your head and get you at an angle where you can drink. It's probably gonna hurt, but I promise I'll be as gentle as I can."

'Sir' (he had a name; it would come to him in a moment) grunted his understanding. True to her word, the woman—colored, from the timbre of her voice—was as gentle as a mother while she eased his head and shoulders into her lap and kept up a running tale of what she was about to do before she did it. Moving did hurt, and he thought he might have some cracked ribs, but having his shoulders raised made it slightly easier to breathe. He could smell her jasmine perfume better, too, which was a welcome relief.

"Thanks," he managed once she'd gotten him settled. He wanted to apologize for bleeding on her skirt, but it felt more like she was wearing trousers, which was almost as puzzling as the fact that he couldn't tell what fabric they were made of.

"You're welcome," she replied and brushed his hair back from his forehead. Then she sniffed, apparently at her hand, and asked, "What do you use on your hair?!"

"Bear grease."

"Bear grease?!"

Before he could come up with a response, they were interrupted by Laskey's voice as he returned from his errand, though he was clearly not talking to either the fallen man or the woman in trousers. Instead, Laskey seemed to be calling to someone else—how, the fallen man couldn't begin to guess—using some sort of code to request help. By the time he finished his message, he'd rejoined the other two. "Water," he reported, "and wipes."

"Thanks," said the woman, plainly relieved. "Gimme the wipes while you get that cap off."

Laskey evidently complied; there was a series of clicks and shuffs that the fallen man (he had a name, darnit!) couldn't follow. After the woman had wiped her hands, she washed the man's face with a cool, damp cloth that didn't quite feel like flannel and directed Laskey to do the same to the man's hands and arms, which stung.

"All right, now," she said and lowered the… bottle? canteen? to the man's lips as Laskey worked on his arms. "Slow and easy."

She tilted whatever it was, and water flowed into his mouth, sweet and cold as snowmelt. He drank gratefully, but she was careful not to give him more than a mouthful at a time and let him catch his breath between swallows.

"You've… done this… before," he surmised.

"Sorry?" she asked, surprised.

"Desert… water… fallen… comrade."

There was a pause before she huffed, apparently amused. "Yeah, few times when I was in the Army. Iraq and Afghanistan."

That didn't sound right at all—he didn't even know where those places were. "You were… in the… Army, ma'am?" That part wasn't so odd—there were warrior women among the People, and he'd met Cathay Williams*—but it was still unusual.

"Yeah. How 'bout you?"

"Off and on." He wasn't having much success in remembering details yet, but he knew that much.

"Where'd you serve?"

"No place… you'd have heard of… none of the… big battles, like… Chickamauga or… Manassas or Bull Run." He had a sudden flash of being bound to his horse and forced to watch the massacre he hadn't been able to prevent at the Little Bighorn, but he didn't want to talk about that, even now.

She gave him some more water and washed his face again, which helped greatly. Then she said, "Okay, sir, I'm gonna ask you some questions, mostly so I can tell the paramedics when they get here. Just answer the best you can. Understand?"

"Yes'm."

"What's your name?"

"Pó'ėhóóhe." There it was.

She paused. "What was that?"

Pó'ėhóóhe winced… where had that name come from? He hadn't used it in years. He was white, despite being raised by the People; he had a white name now. "Sorry, that's… just… Bodie." That was it. "Cheyenne Bodie." Why had that been so hard to remember? He'd been Cheyenne Bodie a lot longer than he'd ever been Grey Fox. He must have hit his head pretty hard—the gears of his mind felt like they were rusted over.

"Where are you from?"

"Wyoming Territory." Exactly where he'd been born, Cheyenne never had found out, but Father's band hadn't traveled as far east as the Dakotas.

"How old are you, Mr. Bodie?" Laskey asked.

"Forty-three." That was the best guess, anyway. Father had never been sure how old Cheyenne had been at the time of the raid that had killed his white family.

"You have any ID?" the woman asked.

Cheyenne wasn't sure what that meant, although her enunciation was such that he was sure she'd said ID and not idea. "What kind?"

"Uh, a driver's license, military ID, handgun license…."

What on earth was she talking about? "I'm… I'm sure if you wire Fort Bridger, someone there might…."

"Never mind. What day is it?"

"Hm." Cheyenne ought to know this, but the words weren't quite coming. "It's… it's the fifth day of Planting Moon, which…." He tried to picture a calendar, failed, and grimaced.

"Could you… try that again in English, sir?" Laskey asked hesitantly.

Cheyenne sighed heavily, which hurt, which made him cough. Fortunately, he still had his bandana around his neck, and the woman got it pulled up over his nose and mouth before one cough turned into a coughing fit. That stopped him not only from coughing on her but also from gagging on the smell that was worse than being in a slaughterhouse.

"Sorry, ma'am," he wheezed when the fit passed.

"That's okay," she said gently and pulled the bandana down again. "So you don't know what day it is?"

He shook his head a little.

"Do you know what year it is?"

"Eigh… 18-… 80."

There was a pause, which probably meant that was the wrong answer. If so, Cheyenne didn't know what the right answer could be. The mess at the Republican convention had been in all the papers in June, and while he wasn't sure yet who he would be voting for, he'd been very sad to read how shabbily Blaine and Sherman had treated Pres. Grant. And he'd woken up just after he'd fallen, so it didn't make sense that he could have lost more than a minute or two.

Maybe he'd slipped into the language of the People again? "Uh, sorry if I—"

"No," the woman interrupted quickly. "We understood you. Do you know where you are?"

"Besides on the ground?"

She laughed.

With an effort, Cheyenne peeled his eyes open to get his first glimpse of her face—pretty, nice smile, maybe had a grandmother who wasn't white or African. She was wearing a black shirt with a colorful shield patch on each short sleeve, possibly some kind of uniform, with a strange device clipped to one epaulet and… a badge that read NYPD.

That couldn't be right. He must be having trouble reading upside down.

There was a name plate below the badge that read CARTER. At least Cheyenne had a name for her now. He looked at the badge again. It still said NYPD. Maybe that meant something other than New York Police Department. Uncertain, he looked over at Laskey—tall, lanky, pale, sort of Russian-looking, wearing the same uniform and badge. They were outside a red brick building with a metal staircase weaving back and forth up the wall. The sky was clear but hazy, and there was a similar brick building a short distance away with strange signs painted on the ground floor wall.

"No, ma'am," Cheyenne admitted, looking back up at Miss Carter. "I've never seen this place before."

"You're at…" she began and rattled off some words that he didn't understand. When he blinked at her in confusion, she said, "New York City."

"New—what?! How'd I get here?"

"You tell me. What's the last thing you remember?"

Cheyenne sighed, more carefully this time, and thought. "I was scoutin' for a wagon train… headed west from Fort Laramie into Idaho Territory. They needed an extra gun because… there were rumors that Powder Face… had escaped the reservation and was… on the warpath again."

"Powder Face?" Laskey echoed.

Cheyenne nodded. "Shoshone chief with scars… from a bad powder burn… on his right cheek, from a rifle that misfired. He hates white men generally… and me in particular 'cause… I bested him once in a fair fight, man to man. But he's not to blame this time."

Miss Carter looked concerned. "So what did happen?"

"We were… camped at Eightmile Lake, and the wagonmaster decided… the folks needed a few days' rest. There'd been some… trouble in Rawlins, and we'd had to push on. He wanted me to scout around, 'cause… that's a good-sized basin leadin' to Bridger Pass, but there's… plenty o' places to hide among the peaks… off the main trail. I'd just watered my horse at… at Ninemile Spring an' was… headed up to the ridge, when… a bunch o' white outlaws bushwhacked me. Didn't even have time to draw my gun. I was doin' all right, but one of 'em got behind me, and…." Cheyenne put a hand to his throbbing head. "Think I remember 'em… tryin' to throw me off the ridge, and then… well, I woke up here."

Miss Carter studied his face for a moment and seemed to come to a decision. Then she looked up at Laskey. "Go wait for that ambulance."

"Yes, ma'am," Laskey replied skeptically but did as he was told. He shot Cheyenne a backward glance, though, one that revealed more than he probably meant—Cheyenne had seen it before on youngsters that age.

The boy wasn't to be trusted. Not bad at heart, probably, but he wasn't reliable by a long way. Cheyenne needed to tell Miss Carter as much.

Miss Carter watched Laskey go, waiting until he was well out of earshot before speaking to Cheyenne again. "He thinks you're crazy," she said quietly, not looking at him.

Cheyenne blinked and lowered his hand. "What?" That wasn't where he'd expected this conversation to go.

"You're in the wrong place and the wrong year; you sound like you're talkin' gibberish sometimes." She shook her head. "Hell, most people would think you're crazy or lyin'."

"But you don't?"

She sighed and looked down at him. "I've been an interrogator and a homicide detective. I know when I'm bein' lied to. I know when someone's not right in the head. You? You're concussed, but there's no lie in your face and no madness in your eyes." She shook her head again and looked away, clearly troubled. "When you rule out the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, has to be the truth." That seemed like a quotation, but he didn't know what it was from.**

He wasn't sure what to say. "About that gibberish, ma'am…" he began hesitantly.

"It's a real language, isn't it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What, uh… what was your father's name?"

"Well, I don't know who my white parents were. I was raised by a Cheyenne chief named White Cloud."

"That's what I thought." She nodded slowly, still looking troubled.

"You've heard of him?"

"No. I just… I knew it had to be somethin' like that."

When she didn't say anymore, he asked, "What's the trouble, ma'am?"

She sighed heavily and finally met his eyes again. "I saw you appear out of thin air, about five feet up and fallin' fast. Laskey didn't see you until you hit the ground. But the thing is, we're not gonna be able to prove you are who you say you are."

He frowned. "Well… since I hit my head…."

"That may not be enough." Something beeped, and she pulled a black thing the size of a deck of cards out of her breast pocket briefly, looked at it, and shook her head as she put it away and looked at him again. "There's no record of a Cheyenne Bodie ever existing, even in Wyoming in 1880."

His frown deepened, which hurt.

"But. I have a friend who can create a new identity for you that'll hold up in the present day. I just need two things from you."

"What?"

"Let me do most of the talking when the paramedics get here, and try to come up with another name that we can use to build you a cover story."

He sat up gingerly and quarter-turned to face her better, holding his head again as he thought. "I've… been undercover a few times before," he admitted slowly. "I think one of those identities might still be good. I don't know as I can remember all the details, but…."

She nodded. "That's okay. It's better if you still have some blanks we can cover by sayin' you've got a concussion. It just needs to be somethin' that'll work with the story Laskey already heard, like… maybe you're an actor, or…."

"Yeah. Yeah, one of 'em was an actor. Just as long as you don't expect me to go on the stage for real—I'd rather not have to wear greasepaint again."

She smiled. "I think we can work with that."

There was still some water left in the bottle, which was made of some clear substance too thin and flexible to be glass, so she traded him the bottle for his gun belt and let him sip water while they waited and he tried to dredge up the character he'd had to put on while assuming the identity of a drunken secesh jellyfish of an actor who'd happened to be Cheyenne's double. It had been ten years or so, and his head was splitting, but if he focused… the smell of greasepaint and gaslight, the creak of the boards underfoot, the feel of the tuxedo, the songs, the dances, the applause….

"Here they come," Miss Carter alerted him.

Cheyenne nodded, finished the water, and handed the empty bottle back to her just as Laskey returned with a young woman in a different uniform, also wearing trousers and with a… a heart-listening tube—stethoscope, that was the name—around her neck. They were followed by a portly, curly-haired man in a civilian suit that was cut differently than any Cheyenne had ever seen.

"Fusco!" Miss Carter exclaimed, surprised.

"Yeah, hi," replied the portly man—Fusco?—as Laskey ushered the young woman toward Cheyenne. "Heard you might have a lead for me."

"Hello, sir," the young woman whispered to Cheyenne. "My name's Mandy. I'm gonna check your injuries, okay?"

Cheyenne nodded. "Fine."

"You workin' that shooting we just cleaned up?" Miss Carter asked Fusco.

"Yeah, me and Detective Happy," Fusco said. "We were just about back to the precinct when I heard Junior over here call for a bus. Olson thought somebody mighta seen something."

Miss Carter tilted her head. "It's possible. Looks like somebody threw 'im off the fire escape. Said he doesn't remember how he got here, but he does remember that a buncha white guys jumped 'im."

Fusco looked at Cheyenne skeptically and back at Miss Carter. "What'd they use, Kryptonite?"

Cheyenne decided not even to try to figure out what that meant.

Miss Carter shrugged. "You know how it is, especially with the Russians. But it would make sense if they thought he witnessed the attack."

Fusco looked at Cheyenne again. "Is that what happened? Did you see something?"

Cheyenne chuckled ruefully. "If I did, I sure don't remember it now." Then he flinched as Miss Mandy began cleaning one of the sore spots on the back of his head with what smelled like rubbing alcohol.

"It does look like somebody struck him on the back of the head," Miss Mandy reported as she worked. "There are two wounds here, but only one of them could have been caused by the fall if he landed on his back."

"Defensive wounds on his arms and hands as well," Laskey noted.

Fusco nodded, took out a small notebook, and addressed himself to Cheyenne again. "What's your name, sir?"

"Merritt," Cheyenne lied. "James Thornton Merritt, from Atlanta, Georgia. I'm an actor—on the legitimate stage," he hastened to add as snootily as he could.

Laskey looked at him oddly. "What happened to being a trail guide for a wagon train?"

Cheyenne scoffed. "My dear boy, New York's a theatrical town. Surely you must know that an actor must immerse himself fully in the part he's to play."

"Oh, a method actor, huh?" Fusco asked with a look that meant he knew perfectly well Cheyenne had no idea what a method actor was.

"Precisely," Cheyenne bluffed anyway. "And with the blow on the head, why, it's only natural that I should have become confused."

"Two blows," Miss Mandy corrected. "We really ought to take you to the hospital for a CT scan to make certain there's no bleeding or fluid buildup in your brain. Your GCS score's pretty good at the moment, but given the short interval between injuries, I don't want to take any chances."

"GCS?" Cheyenne asked, fearing that asking what a CT scan was would give the game away.

"Glasgow Coma Scale," Miss Mandy answered, not sounding surprised that he didn't know. "It's a tool we use to assess a patient's alertness after a traumatic brain injury."

"Oh." However that worked, Cheyenne was glad he was doing well for the moment. "Well… I'm not fond of hospitals, but if you say there's a risk, then perhaps we should."

Miss Mandy paused, as did Fusco in his note-taking.

"That's, like, the third time he's done that," said Laskey.

"Do we need to get an interpreter over here?" Fusco asked Miss Carter. "I don't even know what language that is."

Cheyenne grimaced and tried again. "I'm not surprised." That must have been English; Fusco seemed to understand him. "I've been studying the Cheyenne language of late, as my character, Mr. Bodie, was raised by the Cheyenne."

"Yeah, I think the CT scan's a good idea," said Miss Carter as Miss Mandy stuck something to Cheyenne's scalp and another man in a medic's uniform came from wherever Laskey had fetched Miss Mandy from. "You said you think you've got some cracked ribs, too, right, Mr. Merritt?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Cheyenne. "It still hurts to breathe."

"We'll have them check that at the ER, too," said Miss Mandy.

"Does that mean he's a transport?" the newcomer asked.

"Yep," Miss Mandy confirmed. "Would you get his details, Brian?"

"Sure." Brian, who Cheyenne could now see had a clipboard tucked under one arm, came around to stand next to Fusco. "What's your name, sir?"

"James Thornton Merritt," Cheyenne answered.

"Date of birth?"

"August 5, 18—" Cheyenne caught himself with a huff and a wry smile. "There I go again."

"Nineteen sixty-nine," Miss Carter supplied.

"Thank you, dear lady," Cheyenne said as his brain steadfastly refused to do the sums to work out the current year, and not just because he had a concussion.

Brian duly wrote down the revised date. "Address?"

"Uh." Cheyenne had never been to New York before; he tried to think of a suitable lie. "Well, I'm… I'm staying at the Grand Hotel."

Fusco and Miss Carter looked amused; Brian and Laskey just looked baffled. Apparently the Grand Hotel no longer lived up to its name. Oh, well, that just went with Merritt's bravado; from what Cheyenne had gathered, Merritt hadn't been that good of an actor, either.

"O-kay," said Brian and wrote that down. "May I see your insurance card, Mr. Merritt?"

"I, er…" Cheyenne made a show of checking his pockets while wondering what kind of insurance required one to carry a card. "I… seem to have lost my wallet."

Miss Carter gave him a wink. Good, that had been the right answer.

Brian, on the other hand, looked concerned. "Well, is there anyone we can contact who might have that information? Spouse, friend…."

"My wife left me years ago. As for friends…." Cheyenne put a hand to his head, which was hurting worse than ever from the effort of trying to recall information he may never have had. The Thalia Reportoire Company*** must have played in New York at some point, and Merritt had likely had friends here; but since Cheyenne had joined the tour in Atlanta and stayed with it only until its closing performance in El Paso, Col. Forrest hadn't made him learn those names. And it wouldn't matter if he had, because even if Merritt hadn't been killed by his confederates who'd mistaken him for Cheyenne… if the year really was… well, whatever the year was, Merritt's friends would either be dead or have disowned him by now.

"Forgive me," Cheyenne said, rubbing his forehead. "My head is paining me frightfully, I'm afraid. I can't think."

"I'm sure Det. Fusco will be able to locate someone," said Miss Carter and stood with a pointed look at Fusco.

Fusco blinked. "Hey, whoa, you're leavin' 'im with me?"

Miss Carter looked surprised that he was surprised. "It's your case."

"Yeah, but you found 'im. Aren't you gonna—"

"Uh-uh! Me an' Laskey gotta get back on patrol! I don't have time to babysit your witness!"

"Yeah, my witness who can't remember a damn thing!"

"Well, maybe he'll remember more when his head stops hurting."

Fusco huffed in frustration.

Miss Carter ignored him and turned back to Cheyenne. "I'll try to stop by at the end of my shift, Mr. Merritt," she said, offering him her hand. "In the meantime, you'll be safe with Det. Fusco." That confirmed his surmise that Fusco was working with her in more than their official police capacity.

Cheyenne nodded his understanding, took her hand, and kissed it gallantly. "Thank you for everything, Miss Carter." The real James Merritt wouldn't have done such a thing, of course, but then, Cheyenne didn't share Merritt's views or sympathies.

Miss Carter ducked her head with a smile that was equal parts pleased and embarrassed as Cheyenne let go of her hand. Then she drew a deep breath, collected his gun and Laskey, and left.

It was only another few minutes before Miss Mandy had Cheyenne's arms and hands bandaged and declared him patched up enough to be taken to the hospital. That brought the challenge of trying to stand. Fusco gave Cheyenne a hand up, but the change in altitude made Cheyenne's head swim; he staggered, caught himself against Fusco's shoulder, and nearly blacked out again. By the time his vision cleared, Brian and a third medic were returning with some sort of bed on wheels.

"Sorry, Detective," Cheyenne murmured and tried not to lean so hard on Fusco.

"'S a'right," Fusco murmured back. "Gonna be okay there, Cowboy?"

"I dunno." Without Miss Carter's perfume there to focus on, Cheyenne was nearly overpowered by the smell of the… alley? they were in. "Startin' to feel kinda sick."

Miss Mandy heard that. "Nausea?"

Cheyenne didn't dare nod. "Yes, ma'am."

"We can give you something for that in the ambulance. You wanna lie down on the gurney for me?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am," Cheyenne agreed, guessing she meant the wheeled bed. It stood just about waist height for someone like Fusco, who was nearly a foot shorter than Cheyenne, but that still meant that when the medics brought it to a stop behind him, Cheyenne didn't have far to go to sit down on it. From there, the medics helped him to lie down slowly enough that his stomach wasn't upset further. The bed was barely big enough for him, but the medics covered him with a cotton sheet and strapped him down for safety, and then they wheeled him down the alley head-first, away from the smell but toward the noise. Fusco disappeared behind the medics for a moment but then caught up, waving Cheyenne's hat to assure him that it hadn't been left behind.

Once they reached the street, everything grew stranger still. The edges of the street were lined with metallic things on rubber wheels, more of which whizzed past at a high gallop with nary a horse in sight; that explained some of the constant roaring noises, but it made Cheyenne's head spin again just to watch them. He couldn't really get a good view of the ambulance, as they wheeled him up to the back of it, but it seemed to be like a tradesman's wagon, only with flashing lights and bleating machines and just enough space inside for the bed and the medics. They were met at the back door by a fourth medic, who helped Miss Mandy steady the bed while Brian and the other fellow did something to it to reduce the height of the wheels so the bed would fit into the wagon.

While they were doing that, Fusco came up to stand beside Cheyenne's head. "Just hang tight, okay?" he told Cheyenne. "I'm gonna meet you at the emergency room."

Cheyenne nodded a little. "Thanks, Detective."

Fusco nodded back and left, and the medics hoisted the bed into the wagon. Brian and Miss Mandy climbed in beside him while the other medics closed the door and went around to the driver and shotgun seats, and then they were off—though Cheyenne couldn't suppress a groan when the horses bolted.

"You'll be all right, Mr. Merritt," Miss Mandy assured him as Brian stood to rummage in a cupboard above the bed. "We'll be at the hospital in just a few minutes."

Cheyenne nearly told her to spare the horses because he wasn't bleeding that badly, but then something let out a loud honk and a wail that tore through his skull like a Crow tomahawk. After that, he wasn't capable of saying anything and barely managed to un-grit his teeth long enough to swallow the pills and water Brian offered him. At the hospital there were more bright lights—he would have cheerfully murdered Thomas Edison if given the chance—and more beeping and people shouting and people wheeling him here and there and sticking his head in one machine and his back against another, and by the time all the hurly-burly stopped, Cheyenne was more than half convinced someone had spiked his canteen with peyote juice or locoweed before he'd left camp that morning.

But no, here came Fusco slipping through the curtain with Cheyenne's hat in his hand. "Hey," he said as he walked up to Cheyenne's bed. "How you holdin' up?"

Cheyenne groaned. "If this is the future, I don't want it."

Fusco chuckled wryly. "That good, huh?"

"It's gettin' better," Cheyenne admitted. "They gave me pills on the way here, but I don't know what they were."

"Yeah, Dr. Tillman said you were pretty out of it. Has she been in to talk to you yet?"

"No."

Fusco nodded and sat down in the chair beside the bed. "I expect she'll be in pretty soon, give you the test results, probably let you go after that."

Cheyenne frowned. "Let me go? They haven't even tied up my chest yet."

"Nah, they don't do that anymore. Turns out it makes you more likely to catch pneumonia."

"Oh. Huh." Cheyenne supposed that made sense, but it seemed kind of cruel not to do anything to support the ribs.

"Hey, listen." Fusco scooted the chair closer. "I found your phone under your hat. It was busted, but I got the data off the Simm card and found a number for a friend of yours here in New York." He raised his eyebrows, as if prompting Cheyenne.

"Oh… good." Cheyenne didn't know what most of that meant—he knew what a telephone was, of course, but not why one would be under his hat—but if Fusco was working with Miss Carter, this 'friend' probably was, too. "Did you talk to him?"

"Yeah, he's on his way to come get you."

Cheyenne nodded. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. So, uh… you remember anything about that homicide yet?" Fusco asked with a hint of a wink.

Cheyenne huffed. "I'm doin' well to be speakin' English right now, Detective."

Fusco smiled kindly. "Yeah, I get it, big guy. Just had to ask." He patted Cheyenne's shoulder. "You wanna close your eyes for a while, it's okay. I'll stay with you until your friend gets here."

Cheyenne nodded and let his eyes drift shut, although it was still too bright and beepy for him to do more than doze lightly. Even so, he'd completely lost track of time before Fusco shook him awake just as the curtain was pulled back and a young lady in a white coat came in, closing the curtain behind her, and introduced herself as Dr. Megan Tillman. Cheyenne didn't follow much of her explanation of his condition, but the upshot was that his brain wasn't actively bleeding and that as long as someone could wake him every two hours whenever he fell asleep over the next few days, there wasn't much chance of his getting any worse and he could leave the hospital. He did also have three cracked ribs, but they weren't so broken as to threaten his lungs, so since the head injury meant morphine was out of the question, he was allowed only (!) the sort of pills he'd gotten in the ambulance, which she said could be gotten "over the counter." Fortunately, she'd printed her instructions on a sheet of paper for him to take with him, and Fusco waited until she'd gone to whisper what "over the counter" meant.

Cheyenne was still trying to decipher the unfamiliar pill names when the curtain opened again to admit a tall man in a black suit that was cut similarly to Fusco's. "Jim!" the newcomer exclaimed in concern and rushed over to sit on the edge of the bed. "I came as soon as I heard! I didn't even know you were in town—are you all right?"

So this was the 'friend'? Well, that gave Cheyenne enough of a cue. "I suppose I shall have to be, as long as I can remember my lines. We start rehearsals tomorrow."

The 'friend' shook his head. "No, you don't. I called the theater on my way over. The angels backed out this morning, and the whole tour's been cancelled."

"WHAT?! Why, those scalawags, don't they know who I—" Cheyenne's feigned outrage was cut off by a very real coughing fit that left him gasping for breath.

"Hey, hey," said Fusco. "Take it easy, Mr. Merritt."

"Scoundrels," Cheyenne wheezed. "Mountebanks… they can't do this to me."

The friend sighed and shook his head. "Jim, I told you to lay off the sauce. First it cost you your wife; now it's cost you this job, not to mention what the Russian mafia's already done to you. When are you gonna get sober, huh?"

Cheyenne shook his head. "Spare me the lecture. Just take me back to my hotel."

"What hotel? Your director had to use the last of the money to pay off your bills and get your bags out of hock."

Cheyenne didn't have to pretend his dismay at that. "Well, then… where am I to go?"

The 'friend' sighed and smiled a little. "You can stay with me until this is over."

Cheyenne relaxed. "Thank you."

"Hey, what are friends for?" The friend's smile broadened. "You haven't seen my new place. Only one bed, but the couch is pretty comfortable. Haven't met my dog, either. His name is Bear."

Cheyenne smiled back. "How long has it been since I saw you last?"

"Oh, five years, give or take."

The friend then started catching Cheyenne up on all the 'news,' which Cheyenne was reasonably sure was all as false as their relationship, although Fusco seemed quite entertained by it. They were interrupted only when a nurse came along with Cheyenne's discharge papers, which he duly signed. Then Fusco presented him with his hat and the friend gave him a pair of dark specs "to help with the glare," and he managed to walk out of the emergency ward under his own power and with only minimal assistance from Fusco and the friend. Outside, they helped him into the shotgun seat of one of the wheeled metal whiz-boxes that they called a car and strapped him into it. Fusco took his leave, and the friend strapped himself into the driver's seat, which had a steering wheel a little like a ship's tiller in front of it; then he turned a key, which started a rumble, and drove off at a high lope.

It wasn't until they were out of sight of the hospital that the friend took one hand off the wheel and offered it to Cheyenne. "John Reese."

Cheyenne shook Mr. Reese's hand. "Cheyenne Bodie. Much obliged, Mr. Reese."

.

* The one woman known to have served with the Buffalo Soldiers—she enlisted in the 38th Infantry as "William Cathay" and served in New Mexico for three years before a doctor figured out she was a woman.

** The first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, was published in 1887; the line Carter's paraphrasing (actually "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth") is from The Sign of the Four, published in 1890.

*** This is in fact the way the rep company's name is spelled on the sign board in "The Conspirators."