He'd suffered a relapse and couldn't find the strength to fight the old man. His heavy eyes rolled behind his heavy eyelids and he limply moved his fingers deeper into the loose straw with pain. Tilbit was trying to help, yes, but he was a big man with big hands, and gentle was probably not in his vocabulary.

But his shoulder needed re-patched and after he was done Jefferson smoothly rolled him over and brushed some of the straw from his hair.

"C'mon boy, let's get you in the house," he whispered, and scooped him up.

Jess moaned, but fell back into his arms anyway. He'd lost a lot of blood the night before, and yeah… relapse.

It was cold out in the air, and the sun was sharp and bright. Harper shivered shielding away as his sensitive ears pricked at each sound.

A horse whinnied.

Not from the barn either. It was soft and gentle and came from the front of Tiblit. Jess opened his eyes. He knew the sound…?

Tilbit swore suddenly and Jess moved his head about to look. Yes there was defiantly a horse and a rider coming up the slope their way. With the sun and snow they probably couldn't see them, but Jess could see him.

Slim.

Suddenly he was wide awake and perfectly perched. He opened his mouth to holler a warning, but they had just reached the house and Tilbit, using Jess to push the door open, took his breath away. The door snapped shut and Tibit got his rifle walking to the window he flicked aside the curtain and waited.

Nothing happened and no one came. The old man frowned.

"Where'd he go…?" He mumbled to himself.

Jess squirmed from the bed silently, and was moving for another gun. Jefferson's handgun. It was laying low and he thought if he could just make it…

An exclamation met his ears and Jess' brain exploded as the butt of the rifle connected with his shoulder hard. He cried with pain slipping off as Tilbit's head jerked with the whinny of a horse. It'd come from the barn, and Jefferson smiled.

"Canny…" he mumbled, and propped the door open just wide enough to peek out.

The wind created dust devils of snow in the space between the door and the bar, and the wind howled gaining speed as the sun got higher. Nothing stirred and Jefferson grew impatiently worried. Where had the rider gone?

Slowly the door opened wide with a creak, and the bigger man stepped onto the porch. The land was still and Tilbit saw nothing, his back plastered to the wall of his cabin.

BANG

The barn door slammed closed and whipped open slamming closed again. Tilbit smiled and dipped across the yard for it, taking care to move with speed and caution. He zipped inside the barn and ducked as a bullet smashed off the doorframe.

Behind a stall he went and waited while it grew silent again.

"Boy?" Tilbit hollered, testing the waters.

A bullet chipped the wood not far from him and he rolled moving away with an exclamation. He wanted to sneak around and get behind him, but in his position he was pinned. He swore again, trying to figure if he had a shot at all, when the barn door opened and Jess stumbled in. Tilbit smiled.

"Jess!" Slim snapped at the same moment Tilbit lunged from his hiding spot and wrapped his arm around Harper's neck.

There wasn't a clear shot, and Tilbit knew it. Judging by the tone of voice, the shooter wouldn't risk it either.

"Throw out your rifle…" Tilbit demanded from the dark shape in the far back of the barn.

There was a pause and Tilbit squeezed harder. Jess coughed groaned and suddenly a rifle was thrown to the ground.

Tilbit smiled. "Now raise your hands high where I can see them, and come out here."

The muzzle of his rifle followed Sherman as he slowly came forward, hands high. Jess was dropped, with a groan and a cough, and Tilbit moved to Slim taking his Colt. He smiled up at angry blue eyes a moment before, without warning, slammed Slim in the gut with his rifle butt and stood over a suddenly gasping Sherman.

The pain that radiated from Slim's abdomen was nothing compared to the pain that exploded in his head. He groaned coughed and wrapped his hands around his middle as his eyes squeezed, trying to calm his head.

Tilbit glared at him his eyes filling with anger.

"I let you go, boy," he snapped. "Why did you have to follow me?"

He spat each word out with venom and in a second he had kicked Slim back the other way, approaching him with a hard set face.

"Guess I should have finished you back there…"

His gun came up as Slim squeezed his eyes at the pain flooding his brain.

"Stop!" Jess groaned from the floor, trying to get up. "I don't know who you are. I don't know what this is all about or what this has been about. But don't shoot him."

Tilbit's head slowly turned and he frowned softly at Jess still struggling to raise himself from the floor.

"Jess…" He whispered so softly, the color draining from his face. Slowly, so slowly he made his way back to Harper and laid a hand on his head. "Jess…?" he breathed.

There was something so soft, so caring about the man. His hands slid to help Jess up, and so thoughtfully, he set him back against a few grain bags and slipped his giant coat around him.

"Jess…" His eyes seemed to rim with tears. "Look at you…"

Harper sighed. "Look… Mister…" he paused lacking the name.

Protests and all sorts of remarks surfaced in his brain, and in the short pause Jess took, he weeded through all options. Trying to find the one that would get them both out of there alive.

"Gone for so long…" Tilbit whispered before Jess could carry on. "Look at you…"