Raylan Givens being quiet and a bit withdrawn pinged Art's radar. Hard to pin down exactly what the issue was, and Art was tempted to leave it at that, but then AUSA David Vasquez entered the fray with a new deal for Arlo, and things got worse.

Team barbecue at Art's brought things to a head.

Afterwards Art couldn't even be sure who brought the subject up, but religion and Raejeanne Givens were not exactly friends. She reserved, with a pointed glance at her brother, particular contempt for a church in Harlan.

Art's curiosity was piqued, and he wanted to know more. But Raylan was not in a sharing mood, in fact he looked downright uncomfortable and miserable.

So Art cornered Jeannie and asked her straight.

"I genuinely don't get it, Art. I mean, you people, you have to know what happened when me an' Ray were young, so why did Dan Grant send Ray back here?"

"I know Raylan had a rough childhood." Art began cautiously.

"Rough?" Jeannie's bark of laughter was hard and bitter. "You really don't know, do you?"

Art was beginning to think that he didn't. Jeannie reached into her pocket and pulled out her wallet. The picture was old, a boy and a little girl. The little girl sitting on the boy's knee, arms wrapped tight around him, the boy's face was bruised, his good arm around the child, his other arm, the left, was in a cast. From knuckles to shoulder. Resting on the boy's other knee.

Raylan couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen, Jeannie four or five. Art couldn't see a mark on the little girl, but the boy's face was bruised, Art could see pain and fear on Raylan's young face and a sorrow so deep that it almost hurt to look at it, "there's one lousy file, Art. It's sealed, but I'm sure some Marshal magic will get it unsealed. That's if you want to know."

He looked old and a little tired right then, and Jeannie was almost sorry that she brought it up. "It's partly my fault too, I should have made the effort to find him sooner. I thought he had got away, become a Marshal and that his life was good and he wouldn't want his Harlan past coming back to bite him. By the time I realised that my brother might need me, twenty-three years had got away from me." She shot him a very hard look. "That's what Harlan does to you."

[][][][][][][][]

"Hundred twelve thousand dollars!"

Jeannie could tell by the mulish look on her brother's face that he was going to be stubborn, which is why she had redacted the prices off of the house details with a thick black marker pen before she gave them to Raylan in the first place.

Rolling her eyes with irritation at the realtor's stupidity, Jeannie moved quickly, wrapped both hands firmly around her brother's arm, clung tight and said "We'll just walk around the rest of the house, if you don't mind." Less a question than a statement as she guided her brother away from the idiot who would surely not be getting a commission from her.

Raylan was snarling again, "hundred twelve thousand dollars."

"Yes," Jeannie shot back, infuriated, "because this is Kentucky an' not New York, I can buy three of 'em and still have plenty left over. Look at this place, Raylan." She would have liked to have made a sweeping gesture indicating the niceness of the house, but two hands wrapped round Raylan's bicep were preventing him from stalking out the front door, and she knew he would rather die than suffering the loss of dignity escaping from his sister's clutches would bring down on him.

"It's nice. You can have a proper bedroom. And a bathroom and a real kitchen." She ramped up the charm, played on every past emotion between them, made him smile, which nearly made her tear up. Raylan hadn't smiled much of late.

"And the fact that you and Tim live two streets that-a-way, makes no nevermind, huh!" He was grinning, that sweet cockeyed smile he had that was reserved solely for those he really loved.

Her hands stayed where they were, not because she thought he would flee, but because they were sharing the moment and that was the most important thing to Jeannie. Sharing the love with the brother who had loved and protected her while no one protected him, until he had to leave or not get out alive.

She leaned against him, rested her head against his shoulder, Raylan leaned into her and brother and sister took a moment then. "I should have come sooner." Raejeanne whispered. Raylan shook his head. "You came at the right time. I need you, Jeannie."

"I need you, darlin'" she whispered back.

"So it's decided then." She beamed at the idiot realtor who had come in search of his clients. "We'll take this one. Cash purchase."

[][][][][][][][]

The file was thin, almost insignificant, but Art had taken to staring at it rather in the way a lion tamer would when confronted by a lion without his customary whip and chair. He could feel the explosive nature of its content without even opening the covers.

If he looked inside, he sensed that his relationship with Raylan might change forever. There was understanding a thing, and knowing a thing, and in this case what was clearly understood was adequate.

Conscience dictated that he needed to know a thing.

The office was quiet, everyone had left, so he pulled the file towards him and opened the cover. The report was short. There was no proof who had broken the boy's arm in three places, or who had supplied the bruises. The boy played a lot of sport, the chances were that the bruises were from the normal rough and tumble of young teenage boys, and the broken arm was as a result of a play fight that went too far.

Art picked up the pictures and snorted. He could see the marks of a footprint on the flesh, tried not to think of the terror and pain Raylan must have felt as someone's size eleven workboot had come down on the young boy's arm and broken it above the elbow. His left arm. Raylan was right handed, they would do nothing that might have interfered with his ability to pitch. On the outside chance that he might make them a lot of money one day.

Each picture made Art wince. The bruises, the way Raylan's left arm just dangled by his side. The closed-off expression on his young face. That a little boy should believe that no one cared, no one was coming to save him, hurt.

There was an envelope at the back of the report, a letter and a picture. Art stared at the picture for a long time. Raylan in a hospital bed, broken arm set and in a cast, asleep, a little girl, Art assumed was Jeannie, curled up next to him, her head on his good shoulder, her skinny little arms around his neck, his good arm curled firmly around her.

Brother and sister holding onto each other in sleep. An endearing picture. Art wondered where the children's mother was in all of this.

Suddenly, something clicked in Art's mind. Raylan's bizarrely dismal performance in court that day that Dickie Bennett waltzed out a free man. Art knew what Raylan wanted to say, what they had all discussed. And he had sat there open-mouthed as Raylan proceeded to screw that up so spectacularly. Now Art realised that the outcome was exactly what Raylan expected to happen, that all the Marshal training in the world wouldn't overcome the conditioning of childhood. Raylan expected Dickie Bennett to get away with it, and that had nothing to do with the childhood baseball incident, and everything to do with Raylan's expectation that he was alone.

Raylan was brave and loyal, but he believed he was alone.