Josiah studied the forlorn tracker in the light of the setting sun. He was seated in front of the jail. Sanchez felt he was looking at another man. The relaxed 'I know who I am, for better or worse' Vin Tanner wasn't there. This one was tensed, his nervous fingers fidgeting with the harmonica instead of playing it …

As he moved silently closer, Josiah was surprised to see that what he had assumed to be the mouth organ was instead a slip of paper the younger man was folding and unfolding without looking at it.

"Evenin', Vin," The big man greeted him as he deftly snatched the paper from the jittery fingers.

"Damn it to hell! Josiah!" Damn if he almost didn't go for his gun at the intrusion. Josiah noted as he read. Even after taking in each word, the preacher couldn't quite absorb what he held. "What is this?" He was indignant for his friend.

"Please, Josiah …"

"Is this what has you distracted?"

"What do you think of me? That I'm frettin' over such as that with Ezra and ..." Josiah put a gentling hand on his friend's shoulder. It gave the shy tracker the encouragement he needed to try to explain himself. "It's like the part of me that... that felt those words is the part that helps me read nature - and the changes a man causes when he moves through it. Can that be true, Josiah?

"Your confidence is gone?"

"I can't find the tracks. Eight horses…How can I be so messed up just 'cause someone don't like the way I threw a few words together I…" He trailed off, not knowing what to say or how to say it.

Josiah was quiet for a moment before he spoke softly, sincerely, intensely so that Vin would listen, "It may be many years before we understand how one part of who we are is a part of all else we are. It took a lot of courage to put your thoughts in writing. Whoever knew to attack that knew he was attacking all that you are. Don't let it best you." Josiah's words grew in intensity. "They were words to be proud of."

Vin didn't meet his eyes, he stared at the paper and wallowed in the silence. No matter how he tried to pull himself out of the anonymous words, they held him tight. But Josiah, reading his mind, threw him a life line. "Why is it easier to believe one hard word from a stranger who hides behind anonymity than your friends?"

Vin squinted at the words. Then Josiah remembered that English was almost a second language to the man who, as a boy was raised by the natives of the plains. His knowledge came from common sense and the need to be in touch with the land that kept him alive. Too bad so many more didn't realize that was as important if not moreso than 'book learnin'. "Anonymity means someone who isn't brave enough to tell you who they are, maybe because they know they are only trying to cause you pain or to lose your trust in yourself.. or because he knows that if he was identified you couldn't get to him before six other men had beat him into coyote food." The wise man added with an evil, toothy smile, to ease the tension and, at the same time, remind Vin he was not alone.

"You wouldn't say anything if you were thinkin' the truth would be hurtful." Tanner said in a small voice. This was not Vin Tanner. Was this the memories of a young 10 year old Vin Tanner speaking? No violence or threat of a beating or bullet would have brought this proud, honorable man this low.

Josiah, understanding men who attacked with words, his father being one of the best, suddenly had him hating the breed all over again. "We wouldn't let you embarrass yourself."

"You didn't know."

"Mary showed us before it went to print."

"But there weren't no name…"

"She was afraid it was too good and too sensitive..." There was no need to open up the discussion that the gentle yet strong words sounded all the world like the man Vin Tanner showed himself to be everyday. There was no doubt where the words came from, not to the newspaper lady who was teaching him to read or his friends who knew him better than he realized. Instead, he smiled softly at Vin's embarrassment at the word, "... she was worried that it would open you up to physical attack. No one could expect this profane emotional violation." He thumped the paper with his finger angrily.

"Chris saw this before…?"

"Said the part of you that the poem comes from is what keeps the bounty hunter a man. He said no one should be afraid to feel. I think he spoke from his heart. Personal experience."

There was a silence then, growing too long between them. Josiah repeated his earlier question to stop the silence, "Why is it so hard to believe the truth in the words of friends over the lies on an enemy? A stranger?" He watched the younger man struggle with the ideas. This one and the one planted by the critical paper. "Try it, Vin. See which one you're afraid of and which one feels right."

"Ya know," Vin started, with a self-depreciating grin, "JD etched marks in all of our horses' shoes. Said he wanted to make them easy for me to find… didn't have the heart to tell him I knew the natural wear of all those shoes well enough to follow..." And just that quickly the conversation over the power of words was over. There was just so much two men could share. But it was clear that Vin had come out on the other side as his old self if not better, because he was now clearly seeing something in the search for their friends he had missed before. That was the conversation that was important.. or so Josiah had thought...

Tanner jumped up, suddenly angry. He surprised Josiah. "This ain't' me. Frettin' over words - mine or anybody else's. Questioning something I've been good at all my life it's... It made me forget I could follow the horse shoes closest to Buck and JD's horses. One had a deep cut..." He could remember the shoe now, clear as day. He'd seen it, would always recognize it, but the part of his mind that would know how to use it had been so very distracted, "I'm getting soft."

"You ever have a friend before? A real friend?"

Vin stopped instantly and stared at the Preacher as the big man continued. "We ain't men geared for that. I never had so much to lose before. You?"

Vin thought back to the older man in the tribe who raised him. "I'd just forgotten how it felt."

Vin sat back down. Josiah sat beside him. The shared peace that was again between them was something Vin had always been able to read. Come morning Vin would revisit the outer edges of where the horses stampeded from the stables. As the hoof marks became further apart, he would find that cut horse shoe. Come morning, they would act.