August 28, 1900

Tombstone. 

Natalie came to find me this morning and told me that Payton was in the clinic and wanted to talk to me. I wandered over to see that she, Joan and Alex were there, saying goodbye to a woman named Zala. Alex and Joan headed out of the clinic and I sat down beside Payton. 

“Well.. I wanted ta give ya this..” Payton handed me a piece of paper. It had a combination on it to the safe in Ashton’s house. “The black book on the shelf is ... it’s my records of all .. two hundred horses .. that I logged .. an the ones that I got rid of the brands that were on them.. you’ll also find that I made drawings of each brand before I got rid of them.” 

“Two hundred!?” I blinked and shook my head in awe. 

“Yeah.. thats why I am thinkin she needed Rikki... so the amounts ta move could be larger.” 

“Geez... Thank you, Payton. This will help a lot.” 

“I jus wish I knew what happened to her. She said that she needed ta go over the boarder again.. an that the next time I would go too.. an she hasn’t come back.” 

“The next time she might have a bounty on her for horse grading,” I shook my head. “If I can find a marshal by then.”

“Guess it wasn’t such a good secret ta keep huh,” she sighed. 

“Not really, but the point is that you told me now and that’s what’s important.” 

“Lying was making me sick all the time .. which is why I said I wouldn’t make a good outlaw,” Payton nodded. 

“That’s a good thing to be bad at, hon. Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?”

“She got in shipments of guns too .. she had to get a larger gun closet,” Payton said after some thought. “I had access to them .. but obviously I won’t touch a gun ..” 

“That ain’t so much a crime till they’re used.” 

“An she was askin people round town.. bout workin for us.. an .. she had me spyin on the law.. not sure if I told ya that ..” 

“I’m glad you’re not doin’ any of that anymore,” I sighed. 

“Me too. I was tracking who was on what shift.. even you..” she looked down. 

“Sorry.. I guess I wanted a mom again so bad that I was willing to protect a criminal.. and didn’t see that I was just bein used.” 

“I know hon. Sounds like you’re figuring out what’s right and wrong though... Those are important lessons to learn.” 

“Yeah.. need ta know that so I don’t screw up an not be able to have a family .. or worse.. grow up an go ta jail.” 

“Mmhmm.” 

“All the logs I kept are there too.. what law was on when.. and what town.. all the times that you were around.. and .. when Nat was with you.” 

We felt a wind storm rolling through and decided to head out of town. I went to Pearce and relaxed in my tree while I worked on reports. Sabi joined me and we talked for a while about how Rye and Cole were going to adopt her. Jimmy came over after some time too and we spent the afternoon talking and enjoying the peace and quiet.