Al Swearengen held out his hand as he looked at Dan looming over his desk, a leather bag hanging from his fist.

"Got the rents and fees from everybody that was in town today, boss. Couple more I need to run down tomorrow."

Al nodded and separated out the cash, dumping the remaining gold pieces and scraps into one pan of his scale and adding counterweights to the other. The nib of his pen scratched in the silent room as he recorded payments and made notes in a leather-bound ledger.

"Duggins is comin' up short." Al checked the scales again. Flipping back a page, he frowned. "Second time this month." He raised an annoyed brow at Dan.

"He says he'll make it good by next week. Didn't figure it'd do to break anything yet, might keep him from earnin'."

Al snorted. "It's more properly called "stealing" not earning…anyways, tell him he gets current or his wife'll be workin' his debts off for him downstairs. If he can't make a living off petty theft with that idiot of a Sheriff we have now, what the fuck's he gonna do when Bullock gets re-elected?"

Dan sat across the wide desk, ankle cocked up on one knee and one arm slung over the chair back. "You think Bullock's gonna have a go at being Sheriff again?"

Al didn't look up from his entries. "Likely. He's been doin' better recently, it would seem. Still won't look in my direction but he seems to get along with Adama well enough." He put his empty pen down beside the ink bottle. "Help me think this through, Dan. You see any missteps in me havin' Adama act as my agent with Bullock over the winter grazing leases and buying into his ranchin' concern?"

Dan took a moment to consider what he'd seen and heard in past days. "Other than you not knowin' him long, and his…peculiarities, no, I don't guess I do. At least Bullock can talk to Adama without clenchin' his jaw or lookin' like he wants to punch him. And Adama seems level-headed, far as that goes."

"Yeah…good to have dealings with a man near my own years for a change." He started filling up his pen. "So, Dan, update me on the peculiarities."

Shoving his hat back, Dan cut his eyes towards the whiskey bottle on the desk's corner. Al shoved the bottle and glass towards Dan and waited for him to pour himself a shot. Glass full, Dan sat back and began.

"There's been a new development, boss. Not exactly sure what the meanin' is…"

"Just tell me what you saw and let me worry about the meaning."

Dan nodded and drank. "Well, he's dropped down to going out to his wagon contraption every other day, what with you havin' him checking into the Bullock interests and such. So today bein' one of the days he went, I tracked him, like usual…he cleared the brush off, climbed up inside, and kinda hovered around, out of sight. He usually closes that big hatch door behind him, but this time he left it cracked open a touch.

"First noise I heard, hell, I thought a nest of rattlesnakes had set up in there, a bunch of hissing, sounded like. Rattlin' and hissin'. I know you don't want no harm to come to him, so I was ready to—well, I'm not sure what I'd done, but I was figuring I could shoot at least a couple of 'em, get him back to town if he'd been bit."

Al laid his pen down again. He shut the big ledger with a sigh and poured his own shot as Dan continued.

"When I got to the door, though, I heard talkin'. He was talkin' to somebody."

Maybe the Adama man has more secrets that I thought, Al mused. "Think he had a woman in there?"

"No, didn't hear no woman. Don't seem likely, either, with what he's got waitin' for him at home."

Al scoffed. "Like that ever made a fuckin' difference. What about a man?"

Dan rolled his eyes. "Nope. Just him, far as I could tell. I figured…well, like you yourself said, he's close to you in years, and I thought maybe he was doing like you do, on occasion, talkin' out a situation to himself."

The wrinkles around his eyes deepened as Al scowled. "You mocking me, Dan?"

"No, sir…but you yourself said talkin' to yourself to work things out, it comes with age. And he ain't got an Indian's head in a box to talk to."

"As far as we know."

"Uh…yeah, far as we know." Dan looked at the box out of the corner of his eye. Even set on a shelf almost out of sight, Al knew the Chief's head still left Dan unsettled and jumpy.

"Hear anything of import besides a suspicion of rattlers?"

"Well, he'd talk, and pause, and talk some more, like you do in a regular conversation. I wondered if maybe he wasn't talking about the Doc."

Al's eyed widened in surprise. "Doc Cochran? I never noticed they had much to do with each other."

"It wasn't Cochran. That's was I thought he was sayin' at first, but that weren't it."

"You gonna tell me a fuckin' name this year, Dan?"

"Sorry, Al…still trying to keep it straight in my head. The name…it sounded like "Cottle". And he said it more than once. Said "Doc," too." He shrugged and pushed himself out of the chair. "He closed everything up, put the brush back around the exposed parts, and seemed to be okay when he got back on his horse, 'cept…" he trailed off, at a loss for the right words. "I'd say he looked…scared, kinda, and sad…mournful, for a minute. And then, he looked mad as hell…teeth-grittin' mad. Nail-chewin' mad—"

"I get the picture, Dan. Sounds like whatever he was mullin' over, it wasn't clearing his head any." He began sorting the gold and cash into bags. Some would go in the office safe. The rest would serve as his excuse to pay a visit to the bank, maybe have an afternoon cup with the widow, he thought.

Dan got out of the chair and paused, turning before reaching the door. "Another thing, boss. I saw Adama's missus this afternoon, and it sounded to me like she thought he was up at that ranch of Bullock's today."

Al turned that over in his head for minute, thoughts of Alma fading as he gestured for Dan to stay put. "I got the impression she knew as much about his affairs as he did, them being wrapped up with each other like newlyweds still, to hear E.B. tell it."

"Maybe so, but she sure thought he was up there, when he was really at their wagon."

Al's eyes narrowed in puzzlement. "He's lying to her?"

"Don't seem likely, but she sure sounded positive he was at Bullock's."

"Hmm…" Al reached for a toothpick. "Go on away now, Dan. I need to think on this a bit." He looked thoughtfully at the Chief's wooden box as Dan closed the door behind him.