“Nobody ever thinks about how much it costs to feed a bunch of good-for-nothing bank robbers. They think it’s all excitement and ladies swooning into your arms. I have to do figurin’ and book-keepin’. Gives me a headache.”

“See, your problem is you’ve got too many people. You can run most any job good enough with three or five people, two if you’re smart about it.”

“Don’t really have that problem anymore. Thanks to Meyer,” Caldwell said. He grabbed the bottle and took another shot. He didn’t really want to think about that right now. He’d done enough thinking about all of his dead.

“I’m sorry,” the Marshal said softly. They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Well, I’m sorry about Mercy. Sounds like she was important to you,” Caldwell poured another round for them both and raised his glass. “To absent friends?”

“To absent friends,” the Marshal replied, raising her glass and then downing it. “You know, it’s interesting. Guess I'm more likely to think about her here. This was one of her spots. Whole reason I ever kept an eye on these kids is because of her."

"Really? What's the connection between them and Mercy? She know their parents or something?"

"She took them after their pa was shot," the Marshal said quietly. "Would have kept them, too, if her man hadn't talked her out of it. He was right, though--having the kids would have only brought down a load of grief on them."

She paused for a moment.

"I shouldn't have mentioned it. Jed doesn't know."

"I can see why ya wouldn't mention that. Jed don't seem to be able to see nothin' but black and white. Lotta grey out here in the West. And the last thing you want is him pickin' away at how you happen to have known Mercy," Caldwell said.

The Marshal smiled wryly.

"He doesn't need any more reason to hate me," she sighed. "Though I think he'll find it, whether I like it or not. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't have been best for me to leave the kids alone, myself."

She shook her head.

"It's hard, though. Especially when they're little. They just kind of reach in and grab your heart, and you feel like you're always going to be ripping it apart if you leave or if something bad happens to them."

"I know how ya feel. I reckon you remember me mentionin' my sister?" Caldwell said. "We was young when our folks died and we didn't have no kin to take us in. Ended up in one of them factories makin' steam golem parts, workin' 18 hour days, gettin' one meal a day. So we ran off. I took care of her best I could, but she weren't never strong. She got real sick a few years later. She didn't make it. Like to killed me too. Not a day goes by I don't think about her, wishin' I'd done better, been smarter, kept her safe."

The Marshal studied her glass and said nothing for a few minutes, a bit ashamed that she hadn't remembered Caldwell's sister. Then again, this was perhaps the first time that she had truly listened to what he was saying. He had talked before, sure, but he had been irritating and whiney, so she had done her best to ignore him.

"I wish Jed would listen to you, since he's not listening to me," she said quietly. "Sounds like you know where he's at better than I do."

She picked up the whiskey bottle and inspected it, then decided against taking another shot and set it back down between them.

"What was her name?"

"Eleanor, Ellie we called her," Caldwell answered. "Our folks gave us fancy names, but we was just Ellie and El unless we'd made momma mad. Then it was the whole thing."

"What is it with parents always giving kids names they'll never actually use?" the Marshal gave a short laugh. "They all grow up and start going by their surname or using a different name. People never do seem to use their given names."

Caldwell turned a speculative eye on the Marshal and asked, "All this time we've been knowin' each other and I ain't never heard your real name. It's not Marshall, is it?"