"It's not my fault, Jed was being fool-headed again. You should shout at him some more while you save his life," Caldwell replied. He was feeling less than charitable toward Jed now that the kid's stubbornness had gotten Caldwell on the wrong side of the Marshal's temper.

"I can't leave you two boys alone for any reason, can I?" she grumbled. She tossed the reigns in her direction. "Bring him along, and get Jed's and yours out of range, just in case."

She hurried down the track to where Jed was, biting her lip to keep from demanding why he had acted like such an idiot. She had already said there was nothing there. Why did he bother to go pick through it? Then again, she had been the one to drop the mines, hoping that they would catch some of Meyer's scavengers unawares. But if the fool hadn't decided to be a smart idiot, he wouldn't be in this mess, anyway. Why did he decide to be so butt-hurt over her shooting one man? She had trained him to be stronger than that. She had also trained him not to get his nose up into her business, and he obviously had not remembered that.

"What happened?" she snapped, running up and stopping a few feet away. She closed her eyes for a second and shook her head. "Never mind that. I actually don't want to know."

She pulled her hat off and threw it on the ground, her jacket following a moment later. She pulled a tool out and studied it, then looked at Jed and held it out between them.

"The moment I insert this, it takes away most of the propulsion. The problem is, it won't diffuse the whole thing, it will just make it a bit less dangerous. By doing this, if anything goes wrong, you'll just get hurt. I'll die. Now I know that whether I live or die is not important to you, but here's the thing. I know where Char is. You don't, and you aren't a good enough tracker to find them without me. Also, for living here as long as you have, I still know the riverlands better than you ever will. Even if between you and Caldwell you could cobble together and figure out how to track them, you won't get her back alive. You understand that?"

"Yeah, I understand. Listen Marshal, I don't hate you. I'm not sure what I think, but I sure as heck don't want you to die and not just because of Charlotte, Okay? So if you need to be in charge in order to operate to your fullest, I'll do it. Just get me out of here and lets get my sister back."

The Marshal stopped looking at the thin piece of metal in front of her and looked up at Jed, squinting in the sunlight.

"I know," she said quietly. "Jed, you've got to understand something. Well, I don't expect you to understand fully, not yet anyway. But you and Char are the closest thing living I have to kids. I'm not going let something happen to you."

She shook her head and lay down at the ground, scraped away some of the dust around the edge of the mine, then looked up at him.

"Now put your weight on that thing and don't move until I tell you."

"Yes Ma'am." Jed said, obeying orders. He had but one more thing to say, now that the two of them were finally not screaming at each other. "Marshal, after all of this is over, you have got yourself some explaining to do."

"What for? Why I shot Abe?" she asked, studying the mine and then beginning to work. "That's quite simple. There's some things that you don't need to know."

She stopped and looked up at him.

"And sometimes people keep secrets for a reason. You don't want to know what I know about your father. Why do you want to know about something that's got nothing to do with you?"

"I'm not a kid anymore, Marshal. Charlotte might idolize you, but I've seen just enough to know that you aren't exactly who you say that you are. You just said that I'm the nearest thing to a child that you've got. But I can't work with you, I can't completely trust you when there is a whole other you that I've never met."

"I'm exactly who I say I am," the Marshal huffed. "I've never said much about myself, which is why you don't know much. But I've never lied to you, Jed."

"Whether you've lied or not, it doesn't matter. You've kept some truths away from me, and that is enough."

She glared up at him, then turned back to pulling apart the mine.

"Have you ever considered that if I told you everything, you might regret it?"

"Have you ever consider that whether or not I regret it is up to me? That's my choice to make Marshal, Not yours."

"Have you ever considered you don't have a right to know everything about me?"

Jed ran his hand through his hair, "the way I see it you only have two options. Either you let me in or I show you the way out of my life after we get Charlotte back. That's your choice."

The Marshal sat up and glared at him.

"Diyu! Why on earth do you think I realized your sister was gone at the crack of dawn? I already made my choice. You're an adult now. You should be able to take care of yourself."

She sighed and looked down, then over at the mine, then toward where Caldwell stood, a fair distance away, holding the horses and loitering by the edge of the track.

"Though I might be wrong about that."

Caldwell waved at the Marshal and shouted," Are you done yet? The horses are bored and so am I!"