Refreshing walks through the forest can be even more brisk and eye-opening when there is the added stimulus of knowing a group of killers may be after you. With any luck, if Timson and his gang sent anyone to check on their 'witness elimination program,' the burned shack's ruins would convince them that the three intended victims were indeed dead. For right now though, being on the run and almost completely unarmed wasn't a good feeling. Nusker's axe wouldn't be any match for the robber's guns. Artemus hadn't felt quite this vulnerable for a long time. He was grateful beyond words to be alive and to have his best friend and Secret Service partner marching beside him instead of dead and burnt to a crisp. Still, this wasn't the perfect Christmas Eve day he'd anticipated.

None of them spoke or made any extra noise they didn't have to on the way to Nusker's property. But Arte knew that he and Jim must be thinking the same thing. This wasn't just about finding stolen Christmas presents, helping the auctioneers or proving Shepherd's innocence anymore. It was about stopping dangerous men who were fully prepared to commit murder – and a nasty form of it at that – to get what they wanted. If Timson and Anders were willing to kill a sheriff's deputy and federal law enforcement agents, then no one in this town was safe. The gang wouldn't be able to move out all their stolen merchandise at once, so they'd be here a while – or possibly shoot their way out of town over a mound of dead civilians if they had to. Equipping themselves and getting a warning out to as many people as possible, especially Sheriff Kurtz, had to be Jim and Arte's number one task. But how easy would that be given their current situation?

Artemus wasn't about to look a gift rescuer in the mouth, but as they exited the woods for a farmstead surrounded by barbed wire fencing and 'No Trespassing' signs, Jim dared to whisper an important question to Nusker.

"How'd you find us?"

The dour farmer snorted.

"You've Gideon to thank for that," Nusker answered, pointing to his dog. "He might have some parts missing, but his nose isn't! Good thing, too . . . ."

Studying Nusker's expression – not easy, since the man always looked sour – Arte had the impression that the farmer had wanted to say something more, but was waiting until they could be sure they were unobserved. The fences and signs around the property would be enough to discourage most people, and even the outer vegetation seemed to look . . . unfriendly. As they drew closer to the entrance though, Arte saw it was no supernatural force that caused the border of old apple and pear trees to look menacing. They'd been deliberately pruned to resemble something monstrous, and the marks where they'd been clipped were plain to see if one was looking closely enough. Evidently Mr. Nusker practiced the fine and rare art of terror topiary. Beyond the entrance gate, a path led toward a perfectly ordinary and well-maintained farmhouse.

A farmhouse surrounded by a veritable menagerie, that is.

Nusker didn't keep just the usual livestock on his land; he had quite an assortment of pets as well. The chickens pecking at the lawn were usual enough, but the white cockatoo striding atop a fence post not so much. As Deputy Wilson gaped, a llama strutted alongside the sheep and goats that wandered freely within the larger enclosure. Past the llama, a camel chewing its cud turned to look at them placidly. Nusker held out both arms to signal for his three guests to stay back. Then he whistled a particular tune and the llama and camel (or was it a dromedary? Arte never could keep those two straight) walked away from the house toward some field or cleared area in back of it, leaving the path clear for them, or mostly clear, to get to the house.

"Mister Nusker, Sir, do you have an elephant too? Or a tiger?" Wilson asked, with the merest hint of a hope in his voice.

"Neither," Nusker said, shaking his head. "Wouldn't be able to handle 'em. Gave those two a place after a circus goin' broke ditched 'em. Dang fools!" From his tone, he wasn't referring to the animals.

Arte could feel relieved about there being no tiger. He and Jim had experienced quite enough tigers and leopards for one lifetime, thank you very much. But he wouldn't have minded the presence of a few more dogs who might be able to bark and alert them in the event they'd been spotted or followed on the way here. Speaking of which . . . .

"Uh, there was something else you were going to tell us about Gideon?" Arte prompted. "About him finding us, perhaps?"

Nusker gave Arte an assessing stare and a single nod of the head. But he gestured for them to continue following him into his house, not speaking again until they were inside with the front door shut. Nusker's home was as startling on the inside as Nusker himself was proving to be. Given the sinister regard in which this farmer was held by most people, Arte and Jim might have been forgiven for expecting him to live in a cave or miniature fortress of evil, or maybe a warlock's hut with broom and cauldron. In fact, though, the living area they entered was as inviting, domestic and cozy as the ones found in their own homes. Nusker gestured for them to sit where they liked while he set his heavy axe down and went to fetch his guests some food and water – which wouldn't include meat. "I don't eat God's creatures," he told them. "Don't serve 'em up to others either." But Nusker watched carefully before stepping out of the room as a great, gray cat unfurled itself on the sofa from the balled position it had been sleeping in, silently padded over toward Jim and stretched up to sniff Jim's hand and be petted. Jim had always been fond of cats and obliged. Nusker nodded approval. "Ol' Junco's a good judge of people."

Jim sank down on the sofa and let the gray cat claim his lap. Junco trusted him enough to curl up and begin napping again, but the agent didn't give in to the same fatigue. There was the dangerous gang to apprehend, and only hours remaining before their wives and children returned to a town that wasn't yet safe. Dealing with Nusker and his eccentricities required a certain amount of forbearance too, but they still hadn't discovered what he had to tell them, or what he might know about Bobby Timson, the other members of the gang, or possibly the tunnels that ran underneath Millwood Grove.

Artemus felt tired himself, but he had too much nervous energy in his system to sit down. He looked around the living area to see what else he could learn about their enigmatic host. The room had a fireplace, of course – mercifully less menacing in appearance than the one they'd had their narrow escape from. The mantle was adorned with a couple of fragrant pine boughs, not unlike the ones in the Gordon and West homes. Nusker kept a pair of framed pictures over the fireplace too, presumably of loved ones – even he had some. But they weren't photographs or professionally painted portraits, which remained a luxury. These were pencil portraits, drawn by as skilled a hand as Artemus' own, with a bit of color added by tinted chalk. One picture was of a smiling, portly man of middle years, no one Arte recognized exactly, though something about it nagged and tugged at the cobwebs in his head. The other picture showed a beautiful and serene brown-skinned woman with a slightly lighter-skinned little girl on her lap. Mother and daughter, Artemus guessed from their similar features. Were they . . . ?

Jim cleared his throat and Artemus turned around to see Nusker re-entering the room. Nusker had noticed Arte staring at the picture, but instead of snapping in outrage at this disrespect for his privacy, the old man simply nodded and answered the unspoken question.

"My wife and child."

Then, as he saw all three of his guests looking around the room for other signs of another human presence, he set down the tray of refreshments on a table and sighed.

"They're not here. They died in '56 when the Missouri raiders sacked Lawrence," he said softly, handing out the tin cups of water to each of them. Arte felt so numb and startled by this pronouncement he could barely get his fingers to hold onto the cup. As a teenager, he'd heard all about 'Bleeding Kansas' in the ardent New York abolitionist household he'd grown up in. This poor family had lived it – and died it too. Such a loss would be enough to sour any man. "Moved up here after that. Didn't want to stay with 'em gone, so been here ever since," Nusker added.

Artemus swallowed the water reflexively, grateful that it gave him a reason not to talk for a few seconds. The little girl in the picture looked to be about the same age as his Amanda. Jim might have sensed how stricken he felt, because he chose that moment to set aside a reluctant Junco and get up to look at the pictures as well. With his razor-sharp eyesight and memory, Jim knew who the middle-aged man in the other picture was also.

"That's the man who owned the donkey we bought, isn't it? Chester Hartfeld?"

Arte looked again at the drawing. Their Christmas Burro had been owned by a wrinkled old man with a Santa Claus beard all his own, not a younger, clean-shaven fellow. But as he examined the features of the man in the pencil portrait, he saw it now too – the shape of the eyes and the cheekbones. This was Mr. Hartfeld all right, drawn years earlier, and that must have been what was pricking at Arte's memory the first time he saw the picture. Neither Secret Service agent had known Hartfeld at all well, but they'd met him at the town picnics and functions where he'd brought the little donkey for children to ride. He, too, had been someone special to this old farmer.

"That's why you wanted the donkey?" Jim asked. "Because of him?"

Again, Nusker nodded.

"Promised Chester I'd take care of his animals for him. He was my best friend and he knew I'd do it, too. He meant to leave 'em to me, but the will disappeared somehow, and a greedy nephew of his swept in with a judge's order to grab 'em. Put 'em all up for auction before I could stop it." Nusker shot Jim and Arte a sharp glare. "Then you outbid me for Sassy! Wasn't nothing I could do but save the bunnies." There was plenty of bitterness in his voice, but then it drained away. "I seen that horse of yours though," he said to Jim. "Fine animal. Well cared for. That how you were planning to treat Sassy?"

"Yes," Jim said. Never let it be said James West didn't take full responsibility for his actions. He and Arte both confessed the purpose for which they'd wanted the donkey – and the fact that they'd felt they needed to protect Sassy from him. And yes, as it turned out, they'd been exactly wrong about that. Two agents famous for not being gulled by subterfuge had never bothered to dig beyond surface appearances and society gossip in their own backyard because they'd assumed they didn't need to. The fact that so many other people did the same thing on an everyday basis, and that Nusker might be actively encouraging it most of the time, didn't make Arte feel any better.

But as it turned out, that not-so-little misunderstanding was significant in more ways than one.

"And now none of us has that donkey," Jim frowned.

"No," Nusker said. "But I think we can find 'im again."

"What?" Deputy Wilson exclaimed, startling them by his sudden intrusion into the conversation, while Jim and Arte were almost as puzzled. Almost.

"Gideon?" Jim guessed.

"Uh huh." Nusker made a clicking sound with his tongue and the dog in question came limp-running from wherever in the house he'd wandered to. Gideon was still a bit wary, but he seemed to have figured out that he didn't have to be afraid of these visitors. "Wasn't you lot I was looking for," Nusker admitted. "Gideon and Sassy are old friends, like me 'n' Chester were. Figured he could sniff the animals out and I could tell the Sheriff once we found 'em. Wouldn't let Sassy and Chester's bunnies come to harm if I could help it. Knew about the tunnels too. Used to use 'em way back. Wasn't surprised someone might be using 'em now. We kept hidden up top," he scratched behind the dog's tattered ear. "Then when I saw Bobby Timson and a couple guys running and I heard 'em say something about leavin' people hogtied and burning in the shed, and Anders runnin' after with 'em . . . ."

He didn't have to say any more. Young Wilson put it best.

"We sure are lucky you came when you did, Mr. Nusker!"

They sure were. The luckiest men in the whole world.

"Be risky to find 'em again, mind," Nusker added, "but it's got to be done. We can't have killers running loose in this town. I expect that you boys in your profession don't skip from facing that. I don't either, and I know the tunnels and I know the lay of the land as well as any man. Wish I didn't have to risk Gideon too, but we need him and you need me."

Deputy Wilson, pale as he still was, didn't try to back out. He might be green as grass and scared too, but he knew his duty. From the determined expression on his face, he wouldn't soon be forgetting how his own deputy partner had tried to burn him to death either. As for Jim and Artemus, facing danger practically qualified as old home week. Artemus was beginning to gain a very different appreciation for 'Mean' Mr. Nusker – and an idea of why the old man might be so familiar with the old mine tunnels, the land, with hiding out when he had to, and keeping people from spying on his property. The fact that Nusker had been one of the Lawrence abolitionists long before the war broke out . . . . yes, it made sense . . . .

None of the 'Conductors' on the Underground Railroad, as Arte well knew from his own time as one, ever carried any identification or directions, anything in writing on their person, lest it fall into the hands of those who supported and profited from the slave trade. But they had their own ways of identifying one another, secret songs, gestures or signals. The 'railroad' wasn't composed of one group, or any one route, but many. Still . . . .

Now how did it go again? Oh, yes.

Artemus Gordon cleared his throat to get Nusker's attention, and then, with hands, wrists and arms, made a quick series of gestures that he hadn't used in a very, very long time and had expected never to need again. The movements might not have meant anything to Deputy Wilson, or even to Jim, who knew Artemus better than anyone except Lily Gordon. But as he completed them, Arte saw the light of recognition in Nusker's eyes, as well as surprise. Slower, possibly due to a similar rustiness, Nusker responded with his own answering series of gestures. Nothing was said out loud but, yes, they understood one another, Conductor to Conductor. A silent, shared bond from long ago.

"Well, then," Nusker said with a bit of soft, wistful raspiness in his unlovely voice, "we'd better finish slackin' and be on our way then."