Breakfast at Norah's

Anthony was taken aback. "Shenanigans, sir? I'll have you know we Livelys are a very respectable family! What, are you implying there's something wrong with havin' a civil conversation with an accomplished musician and respected member of this here community?"

"Livelys? Respected? My horse's hiney, respected. I should have known that rascal was behind this," the sheriff grumbled. "Look, boy, there's a better life to be had than fiddlin' with other people's livelihoods. Now, what are you getting at?"

Anthony opened his mouth, but under the Sheriff's steely gaze, all the wrong words came out.

"Getting at?" Anthony spluttered. "Look! All I've been hearing is that you're the guy to fix things, but I've not seen much of that. We just want to go home, and that's on you, Doc. Iffin you can't do more than insult a guy's friends, well..." Anthony's brain tried to catch up, but the words kept coming. "Well, maybe you deserve to have a resort built in this here town!"

Sheriff Milner and Grace exchanged a look.

"I think it's time we take a walk down to the hoosegow," Milner said. He pushed his chair back and stood, gripping Anthony's arm with a strong hand. "Come on, son."

This had gone on far enough. Faye was hoping that Anthony would be able to jog Dr. - Sheriff - Milner's memory, but clearly things had taken a terrible turn. She stepped in front of the Sheriff before he could take Anthony any further, and told him, "It's not just Anthony, sir. We were all there at the lecture - we listened to you talk about the history of westward expansion." Faye reached for her sketchbook - leatherbound and parchment that it was - and flipped to the pages of sketches she'd taken during the lecture, sketches of old buildings and wagons. "See? I drew this based on photographs you showed us in your slideshow."

She didn't care that, if he was truly from this time period, some of her terms would make no sense to him. In fact, she was kind of counting on it. She gave him no time to think before continuing, "After the lecture, Anthony talked to you for a while, and then you left. I guess I assumed you went back to the Inn Between or wherever else you were staying in Ditto Town. The rest of us stayed to chat for a while, when suddenly there was a flash of light, and... we found ourselves standing in the middle of this town. We didn't walk here, and you know we didn't take a train or coach. We just appeared, and couldn't think of any explanation that would make any more sense to you than it does to us."

There. All cards were on the table. Now if the Sheriff wanted to arrest someone, he'd probably have to try to take them all in, and she was hoping that was more trouble than he wanted.

A Moment in Time

Anthony had a good view of Faye's sketchbook. Her drawings stood out stark and clear: buildings like the jail and saloon and Thamer house, as well as others he knew from his own brief foray into Ditto Town--buildings that wouldn't, couldn't, exist in some previous time period.

A cloud must have crossed the sun, because the room grew dim. The entire setting, except for the Dittotopians and Milner, suddenly seemed to be poorly rendered, with only blocky shapes where moments ago there had been tables and chairs, windows, and a full meal. Squinting, Anthony thought he could make out something else 'behind the curtain' so to speak.

Was this it? Was this the moment they all woke up?

Of course, if Anthony was waking up, there was something with a very firm grip on his arm. Looking away from the sketchbook--which seemed very important--Anthony saw that the sheriff's hand was still completely substantial.

The sheriff stared at the book, almost mesmerized, then shook his head to clear it.

“Alright, that’s it, both of you, let’s get a move on,” he glowered. “I won’t stand for this sort of sedition in this town.”

Grace quietly rose from her place and walked over to Faye. She slipped one hand around the woman’s waist and closed the sketchbook with the other.

“Perhaps the young miss should stay with me,” she suggested.

The Sheriff frowned.

“Well, I—I suppose, if you feel you’re up to it.”

“Please,” Grace tsked. “I’m always up for it.”

Milner nodded, and escorted Anthony out.

“Why don’t you have a seat, and finish your breakfast?” Grace said, guiding Faye back to a seat on the bench.

She and Norah exchanged glances. It didn’t seem anyone was much in the mood to continue eating.

“You know,” she began slowly, “out here isn’t like wherever you hail from. This place got history that’s older than all us put together, even when ya include Norah.”

“Child!” Norah slapped at Grace playfully and chuckled. Grace smiled.

“Place is old, and it’s got memory,” she continued. “Most folks don’t know it, and they don’t care to know. Some folks know it and don’t do anything with it, and some folks don’t know anything and act like they do.

“Same way, we expect folks to do right by us, and if they don’t, we make sure we are done right by. An’ that gets messy sometimes, because we’re people, and we aren’t perfect. Someone who you think is good probably has done a lot of living otherwise; they’ve just chose to learn to be good now. I know it’s like that for me, despite gettin’ paid to tote a gun around. I know it’s like that for Benjamin. Pretty sure it’s the same for Norah, too.

“You see, the beauty of the Wild West is a body’s free to choose the sort of person they want to be,” Grace said. “An’ that means sometimes you pick up from one place where you’ve made a mess of things and move to a place where you can do better. Lord knows how many gunslingers settle down to be sheriffs, or snake oil salesmen become good doctors. Back East, you don’t get those chances. That’s partly why we don’t want Eastern money or Eastern attitudes: city folk want to track everything and know all bout your past, when most that’s nobody’s business. They don’t let a body learn, an’ change, an’ grow.

“Now, I don’t know what Sheriff Milner’s past is. I don’t know if he’s this doctor, an’ if he is, I don’t know why he quit. Coulda been he lost a kid he thought he could save, coulda been he saved someone who shoulda died, coulda been he was slow gettin’ to see some old biddy cause she was always complainin’, and this time she really was hurt. Could be somethin’ else entirely. I don’t know, and I don’t wanna know. He’s a good sheriff, and that’s all I need to know.

“Short of it is, we’ve all got pasts, and we’re trying to do right by folks and live past our pasts. We do pretty well at it, until someone comes and digs it up. Whatever it is, you don’t seem to hold it against him. I’ve a feelin’ you won’t be leavin’ without him, though, so ye best think of it from his way of seein’ it. Might be he thinks ya hold it against him, or he might hold it against himself. Whatever it is, if ye keep trying to be city folk, he won’t hear you. He chose this place of his own free will, an’ he’s got no good reason to leave it. Until he does, all ye will be doin’ is makin’ more bad blood, and this town has enough of that.”

Faye listened to Grace, at least as best as she could as her thoughts swirled around what was happening to Anthony. She couldn't help but feel responsible, since she'd encouraged him to try talking to Milner, and now... now she didn't even know what was happening to Anthony. It was hard to believe that the Sheriff was the same hedging, nervous man who gave the lecture, even though the more and more this whole misadventure went on, the more she was convinced of it. She needed to escape this conversation as quickly as possible, and get over to the jail to try to help Anthony. She didn't know what she would do there, but she couldn't abandon him.

Once Grace had finally finished, Faye could only flatly say, "He wasn't that kind of doctor. He was a professor, a scholar." She paused a moment, trying to think of anything more to say. She knew that Grace was just trying to explain things, but she so drastically misunderstood the situation. That one complete inaccuracy just encapsulated the whole problem in Faye's mind.

But, it wasn't going to do her any good to nitpick like this. Faye sighed, shook her head, and continued, "I don't think Ditto Town, where we come from, is as different from Original as you say it is. It was also a place where people could come, settle down, begin new lives." She shrugged. "It's where I decided to settle down after my young adventuring days were over. I know many of the townsfolk did the same, some with more reasons to start over than I had. We formed quite a community out of it - much like you did, by the sounds of things."

She narrowed her eyes and added, "But that's why I'd also like to get back there. And I'm responsible for a young man who was separated from his family when whatever happened to bring us here happened, and he's not the only one separated from family," here, she glanced vaguely back at the Baxters, but decided not to involve them any further unless they wanted to involve themselves. "We have to get home. I don't know how we got here, but your Sheriff - my Doctor - Milner, is the only connection we've found." She sighed. "I don't know how to explain it any better than that."

“That all may be true,” Grace said slowly, “and I can’t speak to that. But I think what you are saying seems to indicate that the problem is where I think it is.
“Back when I was on the coast, there were some problems with a, well, for lack of a better word, assassin, picking off travelers. Everyone was up in arms about it, and running about trying to catch them. No one bothered to try and find out why, except for one person. What he eventually found was those travelers were all men who were harming and taking advantage of a particular group of folks who couldn’t much defend themselves, least not legally or anything like that. Once that got fixed, travelers quit dyin’.
“You think your problem is the sheriff, and that may well be, but you won’t solve that, unless you solve his problem. He chose to come here and start a new life here. Goin’ back is a tough business, especially when you’ve got no reason to.”

Faye had to stop and think at the end of Grace's story. She hadn't thought about it that way. Part of her had assumed that Milner was confused, or something had happened to his memories, or.... Well, any of those could be true, but now that Grace mentioned it, Faye hadn't entirely realized that Sheriff Milner seemed a much happier man than Dr. Milner. At the very least, he spoke much more confidently, and she had a hard time believing the nervous man who gave the lecture would've run Anthony in like that. They seemed almost like entirely different people.

She quietly murmured aloud, though almost as much for herself as anyone listening, "He said he enjoyed stories of the Old West as a boy. This place must be like a dream come true for him."

Hannah had been listening to the stories and was getting a little confused, she did not want to interrupt however and kept quiet for the time being in case there was more to be said.

At the Jail

The bars on the cell were very solid.

So was the cot, with its scratchy wool blanket.

Sheriff Milner had firmly directed Anthony inside and the snick of the key in the lock was very final. For lack of a better idea, Anthony sank down onto the cot and rested his chin in his hands. So much for enthusiasm and making Milner see reason. So much for hanging on to his violin.

Anthony wondered how many prison ballads he could remember. If Faye and Molly--or anyone else--didn't come up with something brilliant, he was going to have to improvise a concert. Right about sundown seemed appropriate.

"Hey, Doc," said Anthony. "I... ah... got a little carried away. Earlier. Said some things I shouldn't. I didn't mean it about the resort. Your town is pretty nice the way it is."

"We've all said things when we shouldn't have; it's why we sometimes need a bit of space to cool off," the Sheriff replied kindly, carefully studying the papers on his desk.

At the Jail

From his seat on the cell cot, Anthony could see most of the inside of the jail. The walls and floor were weathered pine boards, and the bars of his cell were heavy iron. Sheriff Milner was at his desk in the front, and didn't seem to be paying much attention to Anthony.

"Thanks, Doc--err, Sheriff--Milner. Say... how did you get to be sheriff here anyway? It sounds like quite the story but no one's told it yet."