((Thanks, as always, to the ever amazing and talented Madi-mun!))

The Penny Moon was a quiet skeleton of a building at this hour.

It seemed a ghost in the light of the moon, shining with stray sparkles of light here and there that glimmered with an otherworldly luminescence. Up on one of the higher floors in a room too large for one man but too small for any one man to live in sat Glenn Douglas. The bed was a mess of tossed and wrinkled up blankets with thin pillows, half hanging off with the ends dangling over the floor. On the window sill was a beer bottle filled with the ashes and butts of cigarettes. A tall but small wooden table sat in a corner with just a single rickety stool beside it. Newspapers were strewn across its surface with markings here and there, circles around photographs or articles mentioning Hexx, Foley, Leo, and anything that Glenn Douglas might have been able to connect to the triad of nightmares that seemed to follow him wherever he went. He?d hoped, but never really suspected, that Foley would be the end of things. Just as he had when he and Madison Rye went about to Lofton and then the Belltower and killed all those Hexx bastards way back when.

Way back when.

That felt like a lifetime ago.

?You?re gettin? funny, aren?t you, Douglas?? he spoke aloud to himself, laughing wryly. ?It was a lifetime ago. You died and came back from the grave like a ghost. Whatever kinda monsters those Hexxen were, you?re a worse kinda abomination.?

Beside the wooden table the wall was covered in red twine wrapped around pins. The lines went this way and that and made a crisscrossing web of seemingly infinite complexity. He?d had to make due with some other colors here and there and it made for an eyesore, but all paths led to Leo Ortiz. The man in the middle of a wall of mysteries.

Glenn Douglas was sitting there with a class of rye in his hand staring at the window in a chair he?d stolen off the street and carried up there himself. He held in his lap an old, old leather bound book with a buckled clasp holding it shut. He?d been too afraid to open it. Imprinted in the old soft leather where the initials J. A. D. They stood for, he?d been told, James Arthur Douglas. That was his old great-grandad.

He wondered about the contents of that journal. He wondered about who sent it, who had written the letter that came attached with it explaining that it had been left to their care for some time just before James? passing, and that it was time Glenn came to understand his family legacy a little better. He wondered if it was all some game, if this really was his great-grandfather?s journal and if there was any merit to reading it.

?I need a fuckin? distraction.?

There was a rattle of a knock at his door. Madison was behind it; flustered, in most every way. Her eyes wide with a sort of panic, a checkered cotton shirt thrown on haphazardly over a white tank, buttons in the wrong holes and jeans that hugged her mothering hips a little tighter. She was a woman in a hurry, a woman moving against the current. Her hair tossed like waves of a sleep that hadn't come to her. Only the old, reliable, sturdy boots on her wandering feet were stoic, were ready, were the anchor, where the rest of her seemed wind tossed, and the kind of wild she'd been when he'd been at her door all those years ago. She exhales shakily and knocks again. "Douglas, it's me."

Speak of the Devil, he thought.

He rose leisurely and drained his glass of rye and set it and the journal down on the table as he passed by and made way for the door. He paused and pressed his ear up against it and he could almost hear her breathing through the thick wood. He breathed deep and for a second his mind went to a time in the past that was not unlike now, when a glass of whiskey had been placed by the door and they spoke through telling lies to one another. Not much had really changed, when he thought about that night.

?Annie?? he opened the door.

A hand rose to rake back through her hair - she swore, she could hear his breaths, the sound of his heart, and as she looked off down the creaking, dark hall and then back to him, it was with a small, embarrassed smile as the door revealed herself to him. Then he said that name and it was like a rifle shot the way it stunned her in place as her hand fell back to her side and she very quickly wondered why it is she was really there at midnight, by his door. "We gotta talk."

A wry smile touched his face and he stepped aside, lifting a hand to sweep about the room as though it could all be hers, this grand spectacle of a space that was directly representative of the mind that inhabited it with its dirty sheets and piles of clothes, its guns left out on the nightstand and rags stained with oil from cleaning them. Bottles were strewn here and there. Glenn lived like a rat and this was his cage and all along the floor was scraps of paper that he?d torn out of the news and tossed aside because it wasn?t necessary. He didn?t seem embarrassed by the mess in the least. He buttoned his unbuttoned shirt and walked away from the door, leaving it open.

?You got news for me??

She walked inside with a scan all over. Taking in the dishevelment and dissonance of his things, of his life. There was a sadness in that room, which had once been her very own for a time and how the passage of time had moved them apart and again, together, and that he was here, in this room of all rooms. Madison turned her back to him because she didn?t want him seeing how vulnerable she felt, how concerned, how confused, and she crossed her arms and stared out the window. "I'm going to join you. I rang Elijah and told him. He's been shootin' off the small packs of the 'yotes and doin' what he can Lofton side. He said he'd help us too. He..." she looks down at the boards of the floor and then suddenly turned. "You got a cigarette?" A dark brow rose up her face as she looked into his face.

Glenn went over the the window sill and grabbed a crumpled pack of cigarettes and tossed them over to her. ?There?s a lighter on the table,? he said, gesturing to it. He took up a lean against the window sill and the light of the moon cast his figure in a dark silhouette. He cocked his head to the side and frowned at her like he was just now understanding what she had said.

?Madison.?

He didn?t know what to say.

?Why? Are you sure? You know what kinda hell this could rain down on you, on Tag, your kids.?

Catching the pack she moved towards the table to take up the lighter while she shook one free. With shaky hands she lit it up and held that breath inside behind the tight squeeze of her eyes shut, before exhaling a long, smooth stream of smoke and sliding one long leg over the table corner, seating herself. But the way she held herself spoke of all the tension in a pulled bow string. She lowered the smoke and searched his eyes out in the sullied darkness around him. There was a moment she caught herself on, as his fingers worked the buttons of his shirt and she spoke. "If not now, then later. There's...there's no more waitin', or hopin' it's ever gonna change. I've had my head in the sand for a few years. And, I rang Eli, to see what he had to say, because, like you, Douglas, he ain't never given up on this cause. On knowin' there's more to be done. And..." she took her eyes away and took another tremoring draw from the cigarette. "I can't just sit around. It's our problem, not yours, not his. I'm involved, as much as you. I have...a family, I ain't willin' to lose to them, but I'm doomed if I do or if I don't." She grit her teeth and exhaled a sigh. "I've been wrong about a lot of things." And then, even in the dark, she found his eyes. "Been lyin' to myself." She tensed a bit, then continued. "I've been lyin' to you, too." Her hand fell to her knee.


Glenn turned about when she started to speak and his back was to her. He rolled up the sleeves of his white button down, wrinkled as they were, and then reached to lift the latch of the window and pulled it up to let in the warm breeze that was coming in on wind from the west. He took a step back and hunched over so he could rest his forearms on the window sill, leaving his shoulder only just poking out over the streets below. He liked that feeling. Of being above it all, of the wind in his hair and the whole world beneath his feet.

?Madison Rye I don?t reckon you?ve ever told me the gods? honest truth since I?ve known you. Not really.?

?Not that I can blame you for it. I ain?t a man you wanna go confessin? your deepest, darkest secrets to. Tell a man like me about the depths of your heart and soul and I?m liable to abuse that trust and take advantage of you. It?s how men like me work.?

?So you?re gonna help me with this. Eli, too,? he clucked his tongue, a habit he?d picked up from an old cellmate. ?How??

"I don't know yet. He's...gonna do what he's always done, out West. But...you tell me what you're thinkin'...and I'll work with you on it." There was a flash in her eyes; summer storms and determination. She nodded a few times, like she was convincing herself then paused to backtrack to what he said. "About that..." another suck of the cigarette. "We never really did... " a roll of shoulders, "talk, did we?" She looked away at the room. The turned sheets of his bed, the empty bottles and glasses, twisted turns of newspaper. "You say that to me. That I shouldn't talk. That I shouldn't trust you."

?I?ve said that to you many times,? he said. ?But you ain?t never listened. I don?t figure you will now, not after all this time.? He shrugged and ducked back in from the window and turned to look at her once again. In the dark his eyes seemed too-blue. Too bright. They weren?t electric, they didn?t contain the excitement from their days riding along with that westward wind at their backs. His gaze possessed an otherworldly quality like the shimmer of starlight off a deep pool of clear water. It possessed the knowledge of what lay on the other side of things in this life, beneath the surface of the world that they saw before them in that very moment. Glenn knew what existed beyond the realm of normal sight and deep, deep down, he was terrified of it.

Yet deeper still he was exhilarated by it. He just needed to remember what it was like to have that kind of adrenaline in your blood, that kind of power in your life. It wasn?t the same as robbing bars and doing dirty work for the local two-bit crime lord to be. No, it was something far greater that had first pulled at his heartstrings all those years past when he first shot Charlie Walsh and then ran off to Cossol to make a name for himself, when he joined up with the Hexxen and took the Coyote?s Bite. He was remembering what it meant to live in a world where not everything was as it seemed, only he didn?t realize how much he liked it that way.

Lost in the woods.

?Truth be told, I don?t think we ever did talk much,? he smiled and despite his cavalier tone, the expression looked a little sad on his face. Maybe it was the way the shadows were playing off sharp features. ?I know less about you than I reckon you know about me.?

But I still love you just the same.

?That what you wanted to do? Talk??

((Thanks, as always, to the ever amazing and talented Madi-mun!))

The more he spoke, the more the tears fell, except that she was not curling in on herself because of it, but listening to him, like letting the rain wash her clean. She'd led so many lives and sometimes she wondered which one was real. Being a mother had had the ability to soften her hard edges, to bring her clarity and love. Being a wife, again, had shown her what it meant to a part of something complex yet untied to the world and the incessant wind that sought always to claim them. It had shown her a harmony to life, a poetry that made her feel understood, and made her feel like she could, at least mostly, really understand another. But the way she felt and behaved beside Glenn had always been something else. Their love had never been allowed to grow into a shape that set them free, as she had spoken of her love for Tag on that rooftop on Cossol, instead, it had controlled them, it had pulled Glenn and her together, against their will, or so it she had believed. But even with letting that truth be known, and go from her hands, it didn't alter the significance of him to her life.

She got to her feet and looked down at him. "What do you do with this, Glenn? I can't keep pretendin' anymore. It's gonna kill me."

?What are you pretendin? at, Madison?? he asked. ?You got a husband and two kids. Ain?t no pretendin? goin? on there. You love Tag, I know you do,? he shrugged at her and stood at the same time. ?Face the truth and then decide what to do with it,? he walked over to the table and picked up the journal that was still lying there, waiting for him to brave the pages and the knowledge hidden within. His fingers brushed over the initials. J. A. D.

?You wanted out of this life.?

"But I can't have out, Douglas." She marched over to him and tore the book out of his hand, tossing it to the table with a heart attack thump. "I can't. It came before you, before us, it came when I decided to go lookin' for my goddamn dead husband. And then I met you, and you're apart of this too...we all are. Don't you get it, Douglas? This is my life. And by goddamn, fucking proxy, Tag and Penny and Ame. I don't got a choice in anythin' here, anymore than you do. Puttin' my gun in a drawer ain't stopped the West ever. Didn't stop Foley cuttin' the head off of my patron, or you robbin' my bar." She was gritting her teeth again as she looked at him. Steel eyed and breathing hot, angry breaths. "This is life. And..." she licked at her lips, "you are...so much to me. It doesn't mean I don't love him, or my family, I always wanted kids, I did...but you're..." She inhaled and looked towards the door which still sat open. Waiting for her to make her decision. "I'm facin' up, I'm gettin' honest. We love each other. And we...we can't keep dancin' forever around it. I mean... " she made a soft groan, raking those nails through her hair, "this means somethin'. We...we mean somethin'. And no matter what, I'm gonna do this with you, we're gonna... deal with the top, whoever is up there. But it's time, we deal with what is right here. With us. Down on the bottom. You and I have seen too much to deny. And we ain't seen the whole picture yet."

A look flashed across his face that was like murder when she tore the journal from his hands. There was blood in his ears, he could hear it rushing, but his now emptied hands just tightened into fists and then he let go. She couldn?t have possibly known what that book represented. What it meant to him, who it was from. He looked up at her and his face was impassive as ever. There was little to be seen in the blue of his gaze, though he was watching her closely as she spoke. At the end of her speech he rolled his eyes.

?What do you want me to say, Madison? I already said all there is to. You know where I stand.?

?I get that you wanna help, and fine. I?ll have it. But what else is there to say about us, now, that ain?t already been said? You act like I got the answers to some question that you ain?t even asked. Like somehow we can sit here, talk it out, and then everything will be okay. But it won?t. You?ll go home to your husband and your kids. I?ll be here, tearin? through newspapers and keepin? my ear to the ground for the next move of a man I don?t really know anythin? about. What?s the alternative?? he ran his hands through his hair and when they came away it was all messed up and it made him look wild like he had been when they found Maida and that house out in the middle of nowhere amidst the rolling, dry hills of the Deep West.

?Fuck, Madison. Some shit just can?t get sorted out. Some questions never have answers. Sometimes there?s no happy endin?. There never is for men like me, anyhow.?

"You and I do seem to do a lot of talkin' without ever really sayin' what we want to. What we should. And I guess..." she was fighting the tears, poorly. "Is maybe...I thought comin' here, after weeks and weeks...and weeks...of nightmares, that you died, that maybe when I walked..." she pointed over to the door, "that maybe when I walked in here, and we talked about how we might change the world we've known...it would be ok. And then I see you over in the darkness and this room..." she had to stop to collect herself, rubbing the side of checkered cotton against her cheeks, "and it makes me feel...like I let this happen. You're living in this shit hole, and men like Foley tryin' to take advantage. And you died...and I lived...and I don't think I can ever repay you savin' my life." She looked towards the door. "But I can love you. And I guess maybe, when I came here tonight. I hoped...I thought..." she met his eyes tearfully and ground her teeth. Sniffled. "I thought you'd say the thing you never have. Not that you loved me. I know you do, I knew that you did, before...before the tower."

She sucked in a breath and saw, perhaps, that there was a futility to it, the way it raked her insides in fear and uncertainty and that longing that teared at her heart. "I didn't know until I came here tonight, that I want you. And I suppose I was thinkin' you would want me too. But...you've got your convicted heart, your criminal thoughts, and they lead you elsewhere as they always have. It was mistake comin'. And if anyone here is sorry... " she gasped a little with her tears as she started for the door, "then it's me." And she moved across the room, dampening her sleeves as the tears fell like stone.

Glenn?s eyes were on the journal then, but he was listening to each and every word she was saying and replaying them in his head even as she went on to the next sentence and then the one after that. He frowned and wondered, not for the first time, what he was supposed to say in the face of all that. Glenn had never been verbose, but tonight he had said more than he ever had.

?It?s never enough, Madison. I don?t know what you want me to say, and when I try to guess it I?m wrong. I?ll always want you. Even when I?m half-mad and don?t know where or who I am, I can see your face in my mind?s eye and it?s the only thing that brings me back to myself. I?ll always want you. But you don?t want me, not the way you say you do. You want the idea of me.?

?It was a mistake. Comin? here,? he agreed as she walked away from him.

"The idea of you?!" She laughed, hard and raw as she stalked away and then turned, in place. "What idea of you is there to be havin'? If I had any ideas about you, lord knows I wouldn't be here right now. I'd have some sense. I don't got no ideas about you Douglas. No ghosts and no delusions and no fantasies. We are the same thing to one another that we've always been. A mess. A lie. Only now, I'm givin' you a chance to do somethin' truthful and noble. Not keepin' the eyes of dead men, or killin' coyotes, but bein' real with someone else. Do you even..." she paced then, pulling at her hair, "do you even know what it means for me to be here right now with you sayin' this all? What I'm doin' and how wrong it is? That is enough for you to know I don't live in ideas of what you are. I know exactly what you are and I still love you. I know you're not a liar, Glenn Douglas. I know you speak how you see fit, but damned if you ain't a goddamn coward. Standin' there telling me that it's never enough. What isn't? Huh? Seekin' you out for months and months and all you got to tell me is you wanna kill me. Huh? Is that what idea you're sellin' to me? Is that what I'm meant to be caught up in? Is that so?" Shooting him a glare, an upward nod. "Huh? Huh? Fucking coward." She blasted out the door and moved down the hall. A fist slamming into the wood as she went. "Fuck."

Glenn didn?t go after her, nor did he try to interrupt her when she got going. When she stormed off he fell back into that old wooden chair and watched that empty doorway with the door still open and stirring only just so in the breeze coming in from the window. He heard the shuffling of people in neighboring rooms milling about uncomfortably after hearing the exchange come to such a heated, abrupt conclusion. He sat there and watched the dark emptiness of the hall outside his room, half hopeful and half dejected that she would turn back around and fill his vision again. But he suspected, as he often did in the face of anything resembling hope, that it was a waste of mental and emotional effort. Glenn Douglas let out a chest heaving sigh and he felt exhaustion come over his body like a great wave crashing down over the tiny schooner in a storm. He could feel the thoughts inside his head capsizing and losing their coherence as the conversation of the night played over in his head and he lost track of what was said by whom and and what order. It was all a jumbled mess of sounds that had no meaning by the end of it and he couldn?t parse it out no matter how hard he thought.

That feeling came to him in an instant and it was gone just as quick.

Then he was left there alone, without even his thoughts for company.

The Penny Moon was bustling. It was half-past six on the Thursday and a number of out of towners were checking in and checking out and the kitchen to the west of the entrance hall was four tables packed and raucous with voices and the lively cheer and clatter of plates and silverware. The sounds all brought a strange unease to Madison as she set foot inside and walked down the hall to peer into the kitchen and further on and around to the lounge. It had never been the kind of hotel to attract much attention, part of why she had taken refuge there in the past and why Douglas had done much the same.

And now, so had Elijah, only, he wasn't in sight.

So around she swung to finish the hall where it fed off onto another set of stairs climbing to the left, up and around to feed into the hall that came directly from behind the check in area at the front and out into a tea room, the kitchen doors and the large doors that went into into the back. There an average sized hall and door to the modest garden where a few stairs were usually spilled around in the patterns that spoke of older conversations.

It was there, walking through the hall, when she heard his laughter. It was a friendly, easy sound that gave her cause to smile if narrow her eyes some as she pushed wide the door and headed outside.

"Speak of the devil. Is it isn't the lady herself."

How long had it been, since they had been in the same air, sharing the same ground? It had been at least six and the thought of it was enough to put a heady sadness into them both. He rose at once, pushing back the metal chair from behind and approached her with arms at his side. Behind him, at the table, a voluptuous redhead in a low-cut top and black skirt who watched on, humour still in her face from the exchange in hints of pink at her cheeks.

"Were your ears burnin', Eli?" They came face to face and looked at one another hard. A similar cant of heads and look of each other over before stepping into one another and clutching one another in a hard embrace.

"My feet were too, Madi. Always could feel you comin'."

"That's because you're always gettin' to feelin' guilty about somethin'."

She leaned back and looked up at him with a lift of a dark brow and a warm smirk. Elijah returned it. "You ran me good, woman. And you're probably right. I probably was. But some people are worth gettin' in trouble with and for, again and again."

Madison frowned gently. Elijah still had his arms around her, and she stepped back to break their embrace. He muttered an apology, hung his arms back at his side and gestured to the metal table set and the redhead.

"That there is Lanie, been tellin' her all about what brings me here."

"Pickin' up already, Eli. Never can trust a cowboy" Madison drawled with teasing laughter as she moved over to take a seat at the table. "Anythin' he told you is a lie" she remarked to the woman. Eli was a flash of white teeth behind a golden beard at her back.

"Nice to meet you Madison. This man sure thinks highly of you, actually. Are you two...?"

The pair roared with laughter as Eli settled himself back down at his chair and passed over a waiting bottle of beer to Madison and then taking up his own. They shook their heads and clinked bottles.

"That there is old news, Lanie. We've been divorced a little while but separated longer."

Lanie looked between them and smiled to herself. "Most amicable divorcee's I have met! Don't see that much where I'm from."

"Hasn't always been" Madison informed over a sip. "Takes time to get to the place where the resentin' stops. As with the gettin' easier of most things, it's all down to the clock."

Lanie smiled a bit wistfully. "I should excuse you both anyway. You look like you've both got some catching up to do. It's been great meeting y'all!" The woman jumped from her chair, gave a little wave and wandered back into the hall and across it. The pair of gunslingers watched her go in silence.

"I wasn't hittin' on her." There was another half-hidden smile in a beard and Madison nudged at the leg of his chair weakly with a small laugh.

"You're lookin' well. Can't believe it's been as long as it has."

Elijah, last she'd seen him, had not been much different, only now, his thick, sunbleached ponytail came to his shoulders and no longer with greys peeking through the hairline and his beard. His face seemed warmer, less of chipped stone, and his disposition far less bristling, tense, on edge. It seemed as if he fit easier on his bones, like the man she had met all those years ago, and the twinkle had returned to his eye.

"How's Birdy?"

"We split."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that Eli." And she was. "What happened?"

"Wasn't the right fit. Birdy's a good girl but we're both too headstrong. Ended up bein' that she wanted to go ridin', work one of the ranches a little further south and decided it was better we did the splittin' before hand. Said distance kills things. I supposed she knew what I did. Time and distance can kill love."

Madison met his eyes and nodded. "Don't we know."

"That we do."

They sipped in silence and stared above at the open sky for a while.

"This Douglas, what happened with you two. You were ridin' for a while."

"Things happened, Eli. As they do. He was in a bad place for a long time and kept pushin' me away. It became too painful. I went away for a while because of it, because he didn't want nothin' to do with me. And when I came back..." A shoulder rolled and she took another sip. "Tag happened."

Eli nodded thoughtfully and considered her, chewing on the flesh inside his cheek. "And what's the deal now, exactly? You two ridin' still?"

"We intend to. Deep West."

Again, he considered her words and looked back up at the sky. "Hmm."

"What is it?"

"You're both known out there. Might be too much in the riskin'."

"There's risk anywhere in the West."

He grinned and looked at her, tapping the side of the bottle with the thick, titanium rings on his index and ring finger. The sound met her heartbeats. Met the fat silence they chewed.

"Coyote thinned off around Lofton. Most would have headed back inland, but to where you would be headin' that way. That's what I'm errin' on Madi."

"We've dealt with it before."

"Might be though that there's other things out there to be watchin' for too."

"You tryin' to tell me somethin' Elijah?"

The man placed down his empty bottle on the table, clasped his hands and sat forward, smacking his lips and working fingers through his beard in a thoughtful scratch. "I'm sayin' that the moves your Douglas has made and Foley's death make waves. Waves still bein' felt out thattaway if not here. I think if you're goin' out there again you two might find the Deep greatly unwelcoming when it comes to the likes of you both."

"Good thing we don't care about bein' uninvited."

Eli nodded shortly and chuckled. "Good thing you've still got your spunk. When you lookin' at doin' this."

"Soon."

He nodded. "Before the month is over. Days get real dark real early out there. Don't want lack of light against you along with everything else."

"I think Douglas has some ideas for that. Don't know just what yet. But, I need to know somethin'."

He reclined, placing the side of his leg on his knee and regarding her with a curious and amused expression. "What would that be?"

"Was Leo the one who ran you off, originally? Is he the reason you...." she placed the bottle between her thighs and sighed, "why you played dead?"

"Him mostly. And Glass Eye. Leo was the one who ordered my collection. Why I don't like this none but now or later don't matter, man would be needin' to be taken care of."

Madison raked a hand back through the dark storm of her hair. "He ruined our lives. It was him."

Eli reached out to her and grabbed her hand hanging lose at her knee. "Can't be killin' him over that. He ruined lots of lives. But I'd be lyin' if I didn't say it'd be givin' me a measure of satisfaction to know the man who stole a chunk of our lives was dead for that and that alone. Only seems fair."

They both looked at the stars again and he let go of her hand. Even in the face of the blanket of endless sky, their hurt seemed significant, large, spanning far too long and still touching on the present.

"Why you got to go bringin' that all up, Rye?"

"Because we're workin' together for the first time, ever, and it's time some talkin' is done around here."

Elijah snorted lightly and climbed up the hill beside her, reaching out to clutch onto the outcrops of the rock face that lent themselves to grip. "This the only way up here?"

"Only way to avoid detection. Quit your complainin'."

He made another sound in the dark of disagreement but clambered up alongside her until they breached the thick line of poplar, both breathing hard and sweating under the layers of their clothes. She exhaled roughly as did he, coming together beneath a skeleton branch and staring out along the property below.

"Rich asshole. Man, I'd put some cattle on that land. That grass is so green I could cry."

Madison gave him a look and smiled. "Always business with you, isn't it?"

"Dry year back in Lofton. Worse yet. Been hard."

Her eyes softened and she reached out to grab his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Elijah."

"Hard year all 'round."

She thought of Birdy leaving him behind, of thin cattle, of a declining herd. It made her stomach tense and her heart race and she felt sick about it all was what it was. Like Douglas, Eli had suffered for her and looked to still be doing it. If it wasn't for her, consequences that altered the lives of these men wouldn't have happened. Her face grew hard and she looked back to the estate of Leo Ortiz.

"Look, maybe now isn't the time, Eli, and maybe that's the thing. There's never a right time for the talkin' to be had." She inhaled again and dropped her shoulders back, narrowing her eyes on the details of the house as they blended into the trees and crouched down. "But I need you to know that I'm sorry for everythin' that went down between us. I'm sorry that -- "

"Rye." He brooked, moving his head once to the left and then the right sharply. "It's not up for discussin'. I did what I did because I love you and if I had to go back and do it all again I would. I'll be hedgin' that Douglas might be sayin' the same. We did it because we care and because, when you're not bein' a pain in the ass, you're a good woman, Madison. Not for any other reason. Not out of duty. Many a man who thinks himself in love don't do the obligin'. Ain't about that here, with us. Wasn't then and wasn't now. We had us an agreement. You need something done, it is done. You'd do the same for me back home. I know it." His eyes were like mica, gleaming and filled with passion. His face like a statue, so impressed with meaning, carved out with emotion. "Hear me? That's all there is to it, kid."

Madison swallowed and sighed.

"You been doin' a lot of that."

"There's a lot pent up in me, Eli."

He had to grin at that. "Don't I know it."

He turned to look back over the ridge. Pointed out the west of the property. "There's a way in there, perhaps. Get us a sniper."

"You'll go from up here?"

"I would do so, yeah. You and Douglas and hit the yard and I'll have your asses from up here need be. This guy gets spooky, there's Tag too, he can take the east. We'll have a few eyes and ears on the play."

"If he gets spooky, we're goin' to be needin' more than guns, Eli."

"Ain't Douglas a spooky son of a bitch?"

"Can be."

"Then he can lead on that. I'm here with the bullets. Like you, like your husband. If things go haywire with magic bullshit then, then we deal. Maybe he won't go throwin' that kind of dice our way."

"I dare say he will. He's a monster."

"You need to fill me in on this some more then."

"I don't know half of it. Why we might be ridin' out Deep."

"I'll come with. Worse'n when you were last there."

"How so?"

She looked over at the blonde cowboy ducked low in the shrubs as he lifted his angular, golden-bearded jaw from the brush where he was ducked down and fed her his intense stare. "Coyote all ran out, ones I didn't pick off. And things bend out of whack there, you know it. Hearsay comin' down the trail that things are more dangerous thattaway. Gone sideways."

"Wasn't it already?"

"It's layin' on its side waitin' to pounce is what I'm sayin'."

Madison looked out over the property below again. "You don't have to come with. You can do things here."

"Like I can't. You two need all the help you can get."

Prairie blue eyes found the man in their regard and she frowned. "I don't want you riskin' more than you got to, Eli. I know you're here to help, but you don't have to come out to that forsaken place with us. I asked if you'd help with Leo. Not journey Deep West and find another grave."

"Madison, can't tell a cowboy what to do. When you gonna learn that?"

"Douglas wants us to hit West in a week."

"Christ, Rye. I just got here. Enjoyin' my time."

"Eli.."

"Calm it, I'm toyin' with you. I'm there." He spat the tobacco into the tin trash can to the left of the chair out back of the Piper and watched through a squint as Mako thugs parted and threaded their way through the crowd and inside.

"You don't have to come, Eli."

"Okay, Madi-girl. How's about you tell me what it is that you want me to do and I do it? Always was easier thatta way yeah?"

"Eli."

"Trim the fat and keep it lean with me, girl. What is it. Can hear it in your voice."

"Thought you said I couldn't tell a cowboy what to do." Rhetorical. Curt.

"I'm too tired to argue with you. Caught me in a weak moment. Plus, easier if'n I get you thinkin' you got a way with me." He snorted with a slight laugh.

Her own amusement was silent. Written in a smirk as she walked around her office, cradling the phone against her ribs, the receiver by her ear. "Hold onto some of my things. Pick off any of the dogs sure to come sniffin' around."

"Hold onto your things? What things exactly?" He chuckled coarsely and stuffed another few strips of the bitter past his lips, rending them with his teeth beneath the golden beard chew and eyes that kept on the door of the bar. He was sat low and slouched in his seat, legs wide and feet propped up, toes to the sky, heels digging into the splintered boards. He sucked at a tooth and ran a thick knuckled hand, covered in chunky, titanium rings, through the straw of his whiskers.

She didn't humour the cowboy any and continued. "Box of some ... souvenirs, if you will. I need you to watch them. And take to the d--"

"Indeed, we got to that part clearly. I'll screw the pooch... Make you no mistake. My bullet in their backside."

"Well, okay then." She changed ears and wound the cord up around her wrist in that small room and stared at the desk where a cigarette burn marked time. It almost resembled a claw or talon's purchase. Scrape. Then she wondered what that burn recorded at all; what aspect of the stars, what way-fared symmetry, or, if the minutes would gather and bring the culprit to the second floor again for her to ever guess.

"Okay then."

"Night."

"Night, Madi-girl. You just tell me if there's trouble you're in."

Madison hesitated on the line and drew the tips of her fingers across the scored wood; like a black star, a wound, a bullet hole, its edges flaring outwards. The more she poked at it, the more she had to fight against the sensation of heat in the fingertips that probed at the scar.

"Ain't no trouble more than usual" she lied.

Click.

Friday night, late.

"Sure you're ready about this, Madi-girl?"

"As I'm ever going to be, Eli."

A fierce hug.

"Don't get bit you hear. By bullet or dog. Love you, Acony."

Stepping apart she nodded and kissed his cheek. "Love you too, cowboy. I'll see you when I'm back. You be careful, too."

"As I'm ever gonna be."

A hard stare at one another in the sore street light before she turned with a slight smile, leaving Eli to watch her walk off towards Charlie's in shadows that looked like teeth in snarling.

In a day or two I'm on the road again. Haven't told a soul except Fin whom I'm going with. To everyone else only the why. I feel like I need to protect the man though he doesn't need it, not in the physical sense. There's going to be things to answer in time and I don't want to bring anything to his door that doesn't need be brought.

I'm meant to be picking up something for him, in his West. I haven't been thattaway in a long time. It always unnerved me, how red it got out there, especially at sunset. Looks like the world been poured with blood.

Tag doesn't understand my reasons. He thinks I don't love him or that I don't want to protect them. I hope one day he knows how wrong that is and I get to thinking as I write this, that that is the heart of the conflict. He doesn't know me if he thinks I'm abandoning the family. Like Glenn, he wanted me to be someone else despite what he has said and like Mack told me, it's not fair that I should have to choose.

I'll be there for the lambs in every way a mother has to, but right now I am physically absent because I have duties I have neglected for too long. Duties that impact home.

I've had to go out West because Leo meant ill. Now I go West because a friend asked me to and I need to know that I'm still capable of what was asked of me a long time ago.

But my head has to be in this job. I don't know much but what I do know is that there is peril. Something troubles me about it, something is off. Haven't dared tell Creeley that. But I get like this before a trip. I did before hitting the Deep. I need to know I can still do it. I need to rise to this like I haven't much else in a long time. My shadow has evaded me and I'm seeing to the dark of its path.