Amanda Schim was in a terrible mood. Pieth didn't know what had been discussed but he knew enough to tell that the otherwise easy going woman was wound up. He debated asking more and decided against it. She'd already let him know exactly how she felt about his plan to avenge Lacey Tate. He didn't want her upset over something else and thought he preferred her in her less excited state. It surprised him when, halfway on the ride back to Brody's Cross, Amanda inquired, "What is Ewald doin' there?"

Where? "At grandfather's?"

"Yeah," fumed Amanda. "Why does your uncle have him there?"

The youth answered as honestly as he could. "He thinks he knows where Herman Tate is."

"He should know better than to beat it out of him," the woman said. "He'll go out of his way to see that your uncle doesn't find Herman."

"Oh, I thought Uncle Levi did that to him too," said Pieth. "Turns out they found him like that."

"Like what?"

"You saw him," said Pieth. "He's in a bad way."

"He didn't look all that bad to me," muttered Amanda.

"Miss Lacey's domestics told me he was tore up somethin' awful by that wolfman."

Amanda leaned around to get a better look at Pieth's face in the setting sun. "A wolfman?"

"Right," agreed Pieth, oblivious to the doubt. "The man with the different eyes."

"You're tellin' me that the man who killed Lacey Tate and my husband-- the man with the different eyes-- also happens to be a wolfman." It was wise Cherry hadn't tried that shit with her. Amanda wasn't near as gullible as Pieth.

"You think I need somethin' more than two guns?" mused Pieth aloud. "Mr. Gordon said he used a shotgun to get him off the sheriff yesterday but I've never been good with the recoil. If I'm gonna take this feller down, I need to keep my footin'."

"Gordon?" Amanda blinked. "Gordon Whitefeather?"

"The Tate foreman," confirmed Pieth.

This had taken a strange turn. "Gordon Whitefeather told you he blasted a wolfman off Sheriff Cherry with a shotgun?" Gordon, in Amanda's experience, was a pretty level headed man. He wasn't the sort to tell tall tales.

"He didn't realize he was a wolfman at the time. Miss Rosa and Miss Martine had to tell him."

Amanda shook her head. "If Ewald got tore up by a wolf yesterday, I think it'd show." She reconsidered almost immediately. "Do you think there's a chance you can take me by the Tate place before headin' into town?"

"Why?"

"I want to talk to Miss Rosa and Miss Martine. And Mr. Gordon, if he's around."

Pieth began, "Oh, they're not--" He recalled the trio were meant to be hiding. He wasn't going to be the one to spoil that and relented, "All right."

The scene at the house was as the Tate employees had described it. Pieth noted that the broken window had been hastily boarded up, perhaps something his uncle had seen to in the hopes of later mentioning as an act of charity or perhaps as an excuse for his men to loiter and search for Herman. The window was as far as the act of kindness extended. The furniture remained toppled, the walls littered with buckshot, and an enormous red stain soaked into the floorboards of a parlor.

"Mr. Herman must have been mighty angry to see this," remarked the young man. "If he's lurkin' here, he must have been back by some point before now." He motioned with his candle to a portrait of a woman with a small lap dog ripped up by stray shot. "I mean, that's a real nice picture they've gone and ruined. Miss Lacey would be bawlin' her eyes out, talkin' 'bout how it ain't fair that that one had to be ruined. Mr. Gordon should have aimed better."

Amanda crouched over the floor and frowned. She and Pieth had each taken a candlestick from the entry to help navigate in the nighttime shade. "That's a lot of blood."

"This one," said Pieth, moving along to a crude still-life of a cactus. "It's by divine providence that Mr. Gordon missed. Miss Lacey painted it. It don't look much like anythin', but you gotta look with your heart."

The woman lifted her candle and looked over at Pieth. "The way it's sprayed, you'd think it came from an artery." She wore a concerned and perplexed expression. "How long did you say Ewald was lyin' here?"

"I don't know," said Pieth, moving along to the next painting. "The domestics said they left him behind."

"And your uncle found him here after they left?"

"I don't know when my uncle found him," said Pieth. "He was at the house when I came by to see grandfather after dinner last night."

"He didn't look to me like a man who'd lost this much blood just now," fretted Amanda.

"This one," said Pieth, stopping beside an intact window. "I'm fairly certain Miss Lacey told me her father bought it from an Italian feller. She said you could tell it was Italian by the way the brush--" He spied motion in the low light, the silhouette of several horses coming beside his own tethered out front. "Mrs. Schim! Someone's here!"

"Who?" wondered Amanda, rising to join him. It was impossible to tell, short of there were several bodies.

"Should we hide?" asked Pieth anxiously.

There wouldn't have been time had Amanda answered in the affirmative. With a loud bang, the front door was kicked open and a band of five large men poured into the parlor. The darkness obscured their faces but their ragged, unwashed clothes and smell indicated a life lived on the outskirts of civilization. One stated, "I don't recognize these guys."

"Who are you?" inquired a grizzled bald man. In the flicker of their candle flames, Pieth and Amanda caught a glimpse of his gnarly and missing teeth.

"Uh," said Pieth, suddenly made tongue-tied by a panic he didn't expect. These men unnerved him and he couldn't say why.

"Look," said Amanda, quick on her feet despite a similar feeling of unease. Would Pieth remember he had two pistols if things went south? She doubted it very much. "We heard this place was abandoned so we thought we'd try our luck. There's enough here for us to share."

It proved the right play. The grizzled man laughed. "Little lady, don't tell me it's abandoned. I need to know where the people who live here are."

"They went to Texas," squeaked Pieth, trying his best to help.

"Did they?" The grizzled man stepped closer and examined the pair. "How long did they say they'd be gone?"

"They didn't," said Amanda. "Word is they took Miss Lacey down to recover. On account of her smallpox."

"Oh, this is too good," said the grizzled man.

"You think they actually abandoned the place?" asked one of the other men.

"Herman wouldn't," said the grizzled man. "Not with the fortune his daddy left him. He's around somewhere."

"They think we're stupid enough to think they left?" a third man poised.

"If they're not usin' it, we should stay here," said a fourth.

"No," said the grizzled man. "They won't come out if they see us here. We have to leave it for them."

Pieth looked to Amand and Amanda looked to Pieth. The grizzled man looked back at both of them then pointed to the floor. "What happened with the sheriff?"

"What?" Pieth clenched his candle stick tight. "What do you mean?"

"Did he die?"

"Yes," said Amanda before Pieth could reply. "Yes, he did. A real shame that."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"One less thing to worry about," said the third man.

"You gotta learn to watch your temper, Lou," jeered the final man from the doorway. "Deep breaths, remember?"

The grizzled man clapped his hands together and returned to Pieth and Amanda. "If you happen to see any of the folks who live or work in this household, you let them know I'm lookin' for them."

"What name should we give?" asked Amanda. "If we do run into them?"

"They know who I am," said the grizzled man. He stepped aside and motioned towards the exit. The other men did likewise. "As we'd like the little lost sheep to come back home, it won't do to have their belongin's disappear. We want everythin' as they left it."

"I see," said Amanda. She turned to Pieth and nodded to the door. "Come on, Rufus. Let's get while the gettin' is good."

"What?" Pieth was in his own head, nervously watching the grizzled man.

"We have to go." Amanda set her candlestick upon the table and took him by the hand. "They're givin' us the opportunity to leave."

"Listen to your lady friend," said the grizzled man. He was enjoying this.

"O-oh, yes." Pieth hurried along, half dragged Amanda. As they stepped from the foyer, the man in the doorway abruptly grasped Pieth by the collar. "Eep!"

"Didn't you hear what the boss said," he demanded. "Leave their stuff behind." He dropped his hold on the duster and wrenched the candlestick from the young man's hand, overlooked by the young man in his haste to get away. A sudden sizzle and the smell of burnt flesh had the man dropping the item as quickly as he had taken it. "Fuckin' ow!"

"Run," said Amanda coolly and they made for Pieth's horse.

"You're an idiot," chortled one of the men from behind. "What did you think would happen?"

"I thought it was iron."

There was no attempt to give chase. That didn't stop the pair from galloping full speed back into Brody's Cross, watching behind them the whole way. Arriving in town proper. Pieth stopped before the saloon and blubbered, "We have to report them!"

"To who?" countered Amanda. "The sheriff's tied up at your grandpa's."

"I meant to someone who would do somethin'," clarified Pieth.

"Who would that be?"

"I don't know," said Pieth. Then, "My uncle?"

Amanda was incredulous. "You're gonna tell your uncle you ran into bandits at the Tate place?"

"Hey," Pieth said, lighting up as it dawned on him. "Hey, I bet those were the folks who hit up the train! You know, the bandits from the other day!"

"No," said Amanda. "Because one of those fellers is supposed to have two different colored eyes."

There was a silence shared between them as both realized they never got a look at anyone's eyes and what it meant if those men were the same outlaws. Pieth put his palms on the handles of his pistols. "W-well, then I best go back a-and see about gettin' Miss Lacey her j-justice." This was his time to show his love. This was what he had been saying the whole day. And yet, now that he'd seen the man who'd done it...

Fortunately for him, Amanda Schim wasn't about to let him follow through.

"Don't be rash," she said. She felt a mix of relief to have made it out alive and a wave of rage that she'd missed her opportunity to potentially address her husband's killer. "We don't want to go gettin' mixed up with no bandits."

First thing in the morning, Amanda Schim decided in opposition of the advice she gave Pieth, I'm buying a rifle and going back.

With that, Amanda Schim returned to the Tate house a little after nine in the morning the following day. She carried a hunting rifle under one arm and eased the front door open with her foot. A search of the house revealed nothing she hadn't determined the prior evening. The men were gone. The parlor was the only room with anything of note and she'd seen everything it had to offer. Slinging the rifle across her back, she started the trip back glumly, stopping to feed the sheep strands of grass when they approached the barbed wire. Without the foreman around, they were left to fend for themselves. Amanda pondered where the foreman was, or the others for that matter. Lindsey Pieth said he had spoken with them. She would have liked a word herself. Fresh and clean in time for her noon shift at the Asper manor, she arrived in the middle of a commotion, one that struck her as very odd given the revelations of the previous night.

Sheriff Cherry and Levi Asper stood in the foyer having a row. Cherry stood dressed in clothing that didn't quite fit but served the purpose of modesty. That Cherry stood seemed like it should be impossible. He pointed a finger at Asper as Amanda walked in. "I said I appreciate the care, Levi, but I never said I knew anythin' about Herman."

"Your horse was at the church," barked Asper. "You said you left the preacher somewhere in your fevered ramblin's!"

"Yeah, at the church with Goldie," said Cherry flippantly. "Father Spiegelman said he'd bless him and ask the good Lord to fix his dumb walk. I didn't realize he meant by trepannin'."

"What does that even mean?"

"It means you can't expect me to know what happened to the preacher," said Cherry. He glanced aside at the arrival. "Oh. Amanda." Nothing more.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Asper," said Amanda, looking from her employer to the sheriff.

"Sheriff," said Asper, "I think we should continue this in private."

"I think," said Cherry, walking past Amanda, "I'm leavin'."

"You owe me," snapped Asper. "I nursed you back to health."

"Yeah." Cherry waved a hand. "I'll put in a word with the mayor, have him throw you a dinner or somethin'."

"I want to know where Herman Tate is!"

"I'll look into that," said Cherry with a sarcastic smile. "Seein' as you made it my official duty."

"Sheriff," growled Asper, making to follow him.

"I don't want no trouble from any of your boys," cautioned Cherry as he let himself out. "I might end up tellin' the mayor you're the one who left me on that floor."

Asper seethed silently as the door was shut and latched. In a single motion, he forced a mask of congeniality. "I'm sorry you had to see that, Mrs. Schim. You know how Sheriff Cherry can be."

Amanda ruminated. "He's doin' better, then?"

"Yes," said Asper. "Unbelievably so." He shook his head and wandered in the direction of his office. "I find it hard to think we misjudged his injuries that much but I can't see any other way around it." He paused, considered, and spun on his heels. "Mrs. Schim, you're someone the sheriff gets on with, aren't you? Old friends, the widow of one of his former deputies..."

"I-- yes," replied Amanda pragmatically. "What do you need, Mr. Asper?"

He rubbed his hands together. "I would be ever so grateful if you could find out what he knows about Herman Tate." He reached into his pocket and produced a ten dollar bill. Placing it in her hand, he added, "There's more where that came from. Won't you see what you can find out now that our friend the sheriff is back to his usual self?"

Amanda Schim stared at the bill in her hand and wondered.