"You boys look a little young to be in here," remarked an older lady Jimmy immediately guessed as the saloon's matron and possible owner. "Anyway, I've got enough trouble with that lot just rode into town yesterday, so if you're here to get rowdy-"

"Oh, no ma'am, we wouldn't get rowdy in your fine establishment," Cody said with one of those grins that made you just want to kick his teeth in as he pushed back his hat. "But we were lookin' to talk to somebody from that bunch."

"Well, look around," the matron said with an impatient wave at the saloon. "You couldn't swing a cat in here without hitting one of them. But I'm telling you again, if you aim to get rowdy-"

"We'll take it outside," Jimmy assured her before Cody could get any greasier.

The matron gave them one of those long, eyelash extension up and down looks, assessing how much trouble she imagined they'd be, and evidently deciding it was worth the risk. Jimmy noticed she went to the barkeep and had a quiet word with him though. Probably a shotgun under that bar, Jimmy guessed. Something they sure as hell didn't want to be tangling with.

"Remember, we ain't here to fight," Jimmy hissed in Cody's ear. "Just to get Buck's coat back."

"Well look at you," Cody scoffed. "Jimmy Hickok doesn't want to fight. That's gotta be a first."

"I didn't say I didn't want to fight. I just said we ain't here for one," Jimmy corrected him.

Cody turned his head toward Jimmy, a dark look in his eyes. "You didn't see what they did to Buck. Else you would be here to fight."

"Cody-" Jimmy began to warn, but Cody was already walking away from him and over to a card table.

"So," Cody said much too loudly. "Which one of you weaselly unwashed lowlifes shot my friend's horse out from under him and stole his coat?"

Jimmy rubbed his eyebrow with the back of his thumb in response to a sudden bit of a headache he sensed would be coming along just about any time now, given the only possible response to remarks like that one. He couldn't tell if it was having seen Buck's condition or the guilty way he was feeling, but either way it was pretty obvious Cody was sure enough spoiling for a fight, and that it might be a little difficult for Jimmy to make sure it did indeed go outside as he'd promised it would.

A wiry kid about Cody's age leaned his chair back to get a better, if scornful, look at his accuser. "Boy, ain't nobody here stole nothin' from nobody, and I wouldn't go around braggin' about being friends with no thievin' murderer if I were you."

"Well you aren't me, are you?" Cody asked rhetorically, a fighting grin pulling at the side of his face. "And I'll thank you not to be calling my friend any more names without proof."

"I got all the proof I need," the boy said. "I know it was an Indian burned my brother's stable, and he's the only Indian anybody saw around that day."

"That isn't any proof," Jimmy entered the conversational fray. "That's just coincidence."

"Is it also coincidence that the next station keeper on his route was murdered about the time he got there, or that a man out to Kearney was waylaid and robbed by somebody matching his description?"

"And what description would that be?" Cody challenged.

"Red," Lee Glassner, though they hadn't exchanged names, spat, before adding, "And ridin' a horse a soldier at the Fort says they put your 'friend' up on."

"The victim identify him?" Jimmy asked.

Lee shrugged indifferently. "I wouldn't know. Wasn't me who got the news from Kearney."

"So you've got coincidence and hearsay," Jimmy pointed out.

"You some kinda lawman?" Lee demanded, bristling in annoyance.

Jimmy shook his head slowly. "Nope. Just lookin' for answers to make sense of things with."

"What's to make sense of?" Lee growled, then laughed derisively. "Some savage half-breed goes native and you think there's some kind of mystery?"

Jimmy remembered well the last time he'd gotten into a fight regarding Buck's lineage. He distinctly recalled that the next remark after he and the other Riders had objected was the accusation of being Indian lovers, which was when the fight had started. Buck had interpreted this not as the last straw that started the fight on his behalf, but that they were fighting because of what they had been called. He'd been quite mad about it too. Maybe he was right, maybe he wasn't, but the point was that Jimmy knew what would be said next if he or Cody pushed for them to stop calling Buck names, and he knew it would rile Buck up to hear how it went down after the fact. He also remembered promising not to tear up the saloon, but to instead take things outside.

"Come outside and say that again," Jimmy suggested evenly.

"And just why would I do that?" Lee asked.

"Because I'd like to cave your skull in," Jimmy replied calmly. "But I promised the lady I wouldn't bust up her saloon."

Lee had more friends than Jimmy and Cody, and his friends were all bigger than the both of them, but they had an ace in the hole they weren't aware of until the fight got started. When the whip first cracked near him, Cody thought it was aimed for him, but a few more cracks driving back the three men who'd gotten hold of him got him thinking otherwise.

Jimmy had only bargained on fighting Lee, Cody hadn't planned on getting in the middle, but Lee had about seven friends who had all come out of the saloon with him to fight in the snow, and those were odds Jimmy and Cody knew better than to try to stare down. As soon as the whip shattered the organization of the group, Cody and Jimmy took the opportunity to back up and disengage.

Apparently, Lee had no taste for a match involving a whip, or in escalating the fight to gun play, instead snatching his hat up from where it had tumbled into the snow and issuing an ultimatum, "You just stay out of our way until the trial!"

"Yeah, same to you," Cody called back as the posse returned to the saloon, and then turned to their benefactor. "Thanks for the help."

"Yeah," Jimmy said reluctantly. "Thanks."

"I always favor the underdog," Noah said, coiling up his whip and wiping the snow off it before accepting the hand Cody had extended to shake, and then shaking hands with Jimmy. "Name's Noah. Noah Dixon."

"William F. Cody," Cody said. "This here's Jimmy Hickok."

"Hickok?" Noah repeated. "You mean like-"

"Yes," Jimmy sighed heavily. "Exactly like."

Noah raised his eyebrows and tilted his head a little, but refrained from comment.

"Y'know," Cody said, rubbing his neck and looking at Jimmy. "We never did get Buck's coat back."

"That's because you picked a fight," Jimmy accused, stomping off to retrieve his hat.

"Buck's the name of that prisoner that posse brought in?" Noah guessed.

"Yeah," Cody nodded, settling his hands on his gunbelt. "But he didn't do any of the things they're accusin' him of. Even if I believed he could've, which I don't, the plain fact is that he just didn't have the time to go around setting fires and all the rest. He was on a run."

"Run?" Noah repeated, unclear on the meaning of that.

"Well yeah," Cody nodded again, more vigorously this time. "He's an express rider. Me and Jimmy too. And the simple truth of it is you just ain't got time for anything on a run. We don't even take the time to saddle a horse when we get to a Waystation. If we haven't got time to saddle a horse, who'd be fool enough to think we have time enough to stop off and murder anybody?"

Noah shifted uncomfortably. He didn't want to be picking a fight just now, especially not when getting a job as an express rider was his aim, but he had to admit to having questions.

"But, well, can't a rider be delayed?"

"Oh, sure," Cody said. "Horse can pull up lame, bushwhackers can hit you, all kinds of things might slow a rider down a little."

"So, if a rider were late, nobody'd bat an eye, would they?" Noah asked.

Cody frowned. "Mister, I don't think I much like what you're getting at."

"I'm not trying to get at anything," Noah objected hurriedly. "I'm just asking."

"Yeah, well don't, alright?" Cody snapped. "Buck's my friend, and he didn't do anything wrong, and those coyotes in the saloon ran him into the ground and beat the tar out of him for nothing."

Noah decided not to let his temper get the better of him and backed things down a bit. He waited for Jimmy to come back to join them, then said. "You mentioned something about a coat."

"Yeah, so?" Cody asked, still an edge to his voice.

Jimmy gave Cody a wary glance, not liking the sound and attitude he'd adopted, but not knowing what, if anything, Noah had done to provoke him.

"He wasn't wearing one," Noah told them. "When they brought him in, he didn't have one."

"Well, did any of them look like they had more coats than they oughta?" Jimmy asked.

"I didn't look close, but I'd say no," Noah replied.

Jimmy crossed his arms and chewed the side of his lip thoughtfully. "If he doesn't have it, and they didn't take it from him..."

"What else happened to Buck on that run?" Cody finished.

"Can't you just ask him?" Noah wanted to know. "He's your friend, isn't he? Wouldn't he tell you?"

But Cody shook his head. "I'm not so sure he even knows where he is or what's happening right now. He's hurt pretty bad, probably has a fever."

"He did look pretty dazed yesterday on that bolt of thunder they had him riding," Noah recalled. "I just thought it must be that bucking horse that shook him up. But I don't guess express riders let that sort of thing get to them."

"Not a horse alive we're scared to get up on," Cody said.

"Buck's one of our best horse breakers, come to that," Jimmy ventured. "Sticks like anything."

"Well, he sure stuck on that one… but I think it's 'cause they tied him to it."

"C'mon, let's go see what Teaspoon's got," Cody muttered darkly. "Before I go an' pick another fight."

"Mind if I tag along?" Noah asked.

"Suit yourself," Jimmy replied. "Could be we need somebody a little further from the center of this thing to try and see it more clearly than the rest of us."

There were deep red marks on Buck's wrists where the rawhide had cut him, and Cody couldn't seem to make himself stop staring at them. Cody hadn't even noticed them earlier, but the cut ties now lay on the floor near the door of the cell, wet with fresh blood that had come when they were removed, which told Cody all he'd needed to know.

He didn't need to hear another conversation with that deputy to guess the reasoning. Why cut the ties if you were just going to haul him out and hang him later? Maybe logical to somebody, but coldly inhuman to Cody's way of thinking. Horses about to be turned into glue were treated better.

Buck had been moved onto the cot and settled onto his right side so his breathing was just rapid and shallow instead of erratic and wheezing. He'd either passed out or Teaspoon had persuaded him to try and get some sleep. Either way, he wasn't looking around or talking anymore.

When Teaspoon left Buck to have a word with Cody and Jimmy, the deputy locked the cell behind him and went off to the main room, even though the odds Buck was walking out of there right now seemed about as good as Cody's odds of getting hired to be a dancing girl.

"And just where have you two been?" Teaspoon hissed quietly, taking in their disheveled appearance at a glance.

Ignoring the question, Jimmy nodded in Buck's direction. "How is he?"

Teaspoon sighed and hung off his suspenders. "He'd be a lot better if he'd stayed with it long enough to take some water. Doc Q says he ain't seen any in a while. Says that may even be the worst of what's wrong with him, though it looks to me like he's been thrown and horse kicked while he was at it."

"Buck got thrown?" Cody remarked in disbelief. "Offa what? A tiger?"

"Anybody can be thrown off a horse, Cody. Even Buck," Teaspoon chastised him.

"Not if they're tied to it," Noah ventured softly, leaning a shoulder against the nearest wall.

Jimmy changed the subject. "So what are we supposed to do with Buck?"

"Water him ourselves," Teaspoon said. "Doc said he would stick around, but he had a hot date with a bottle of whiskey in the saloon he just couldn't miss."

"And just how are we going to do that when he ain't even… all there?" Cody asked, still not sure exactly how out of it Buck really was.

"I can get a broth in him," Jimmy ventured, adding a bit embarrassed-like when Cody and Teaspoon gave him odd looks. "Emma showed me how. When Ike was hurt. Ain't so hard."

"How could the doc just leave a patient for some whiskey?" Cody wanted to know. "Can't he see Buck's sick? And what about that deputy? Don't he care he's responsible for any prisoner he holds?"

"It's like the whole town's nuts," Jimmy agreed.

"That's because it is," Noah said, and this time Teaspoon took note of him.

"And just who are you?" Teaspoon asked, after giving Noah a quick look up and down.

"Noah Dixon."

"And, uh, what have you got to do with any of this?"

"I was there when they brought him in, and when your boys here almost got their heads beat in a minute ago. Other than that, nothing."

"Oh," Teaspoon inclined his head slightly. "So how come you followed these boys here?"

A strange sort of offended anger flickered in Noah's eyes. "I was just looking to help make sure your half-breed friend is treated fair, but if that's a problem for you-"

"I didn't say that," Teaspoon interrupted sharply.

"Kiowa," Jimmy said.

"What?" Noah asked, as if he thought he might've heard a slur.

"He's Kiowa," Jimmy clarified with almost deadly calm.

Realizing he'd anticipated and become angry over insults that hadn't even happened, and feeling a bit shamed but not able to admit as much, Noah shifted topics. "It doesn't matter what he is, except not from around here. Nobody from outside gets treated fair."

"You're not from here?" Teaspoon asked.

"Not hardly. I was riding north, looking to sign on with the pony express when my horse came up lame. With the price of horses sold to outsiders around here, I didn't have much choice but to stick around until he got well. Not to mention paying the bill for his stabling."

"I did notice something awful funny about the cost of hotel rooms around here," Jimmy said.

Noah smiled grimly. "Just wait until you see the price of hardtack."

"Right now I'm more worried about the price of broth," Jimmy told him.