Patty nodded. "Well, that can be your first job. That or find an impartial judge to review the case." she suggested.

"And tell me, am I the first person you've approached with this idea of a lawsuit?  

The woman looked indignant.

"Well, of course you are! Mr. Reeve wasn't in. Now, what's your fee for work like this...? I don't mind paying, as long as that poor girl gets justice." she declared.

Priest smiled.  "I understand your zealousness to make these men pay for their crimes.  I understand," he repeated.  "But let me tell you something about the law."  He pointed to his chest. "Now I've been a lawyer and a judge, and also a town Mayor.  So, I know something about the way these things should proceed."

He sent a stream of tobacco juice into a spittoon beside his chair.

"Now permit me to give you a little lesson in the law.  In order for you to sue, you must have "standing", or locus standi.  It means that you are required to have a sufficient connection to the harm you are challenging.  You have to be directly injured."

He held up his palm in order to thwart any grumpy reaction.

"For instance," he continued. "You cannot sue the stable owner because he sold a sick nag to your neighbor.  So, if the young lady wants to tussle with the Kalispell lawmen, she will have to file suit on her own.  Does that make sense?"

Shin listened quietly though he wasn't familiar with all the various sects of Christianity. He knew it had been banned in Japan for centuries but it had started creeping back in once the Shogunate opened it's borders while he was still a child. He certainly didn't believe in the Christian God, but was surprised to learn Tully didn't seem to believe in him either.

"We don't believe in a single God, as the Christians do," Shin responded. "Though we pay respect to many deities and the Buddha, our focus is more on finding purity and spirituality from within. It is difficult to explain how we worship, as to do so would mean understanding what it means to be Japanese and especially samurai."

"If you want to learn more about what it is to be Japanese and our believes, I don't mind telling you but it could take quite some time," Shintaro adds, not wanting to seem unwilling to share his believes. He didn't think Tully would be interested however, he hadn't met many Westerners who had any true desire to learn about Japanese believes and culture. Most seemed to scuff at it and call them savages or uncivilized. At least that had been his experience during his time living in San Francisco. The people in Kalispell were different, not all of them of course but most he had talked to at any length, were more open minded.

"Why, hello, Arabella. I think we were just about to finish up here, not too sure that I actually accomplished anything, really." She explained.

"Whatever is the problem, Miss Fletcher?" asked the Mudd girl tipping her head enquiringly. 

"I am after a wedding gown, and just having a dickens of a time trying to explain what it is I want" she continued.

"Awwww" Arabella gave the other woman a sympathetic pout.

"Mister Pettigrew here even suggested I see some of those that he made for you, but here you are. How fortuitous for me that you are here. Now, what I was telling Mister Pettigrew, rather poorly, I'm afraid, was that I want a dress that a mine owner's bride would be married in. We're doing quite well, and he has another mine that will be coming online soon enough."

Arabella wondered if, before very long, there wouldn't be not just another little mine on the way, but something else, too. 

"So, you think these designs are a little too froo-froo?" she asked, indicating the fashion plates on the tale. Not a professional dressmaking term, to be sure, but one that got her meaning across. "Kinda too fussy?"

"Now I had thought that I'd need dresses as a professional man's wife as well, and probably conveyed that all wrong as well. This is not something I am accustomed to doing." She looked a bit lost.

"Stay there!" Arabella beamed and ran out the door; she could be heard calling down the stairs to Jemima to come and help her change.

A little later, the door cracked open again and the little actress walked in with the plainest possible slim white sheath of a dress wrapped around her lithe form and the clumsy looking Jemima following behind, like a sorry excuse for a bridesmaid. 

Worcester Pettigrew spluttered "But that's not even a full dress! That's just the base which I build the dress on top of!" he cried, the whole idea of wearing such a simple affair as a wedding dress blowing his Mid-Victorian mind!

Flip 

"No, not them mountains, would take a few hours ta get up there," Justus explained.  "There's a...well, kinda overlook, a ways ahead off th' trail, it's a bit rocky, a little hill ta go up..."

It wasn't the worst trail he could think of, but it wasn't like a wide open, established road.  "We can give it a try, an' if it ain't ta yer likin' we can turn back."

Japan...Tully had heard of that, knew that it was far away, over water so expansive that it took days to cross, something she really couldn't imagine, and almost didn't believe, except that she'd heard it from more than one reliable person, and Mr. McVey had shown her on a globe.

"I ain't no particular kinda Christian," she admitted, "but I go to th' Methodist church now 'cause that's where Mr. McVey goes."  The newsman insisted on church, but let her sit at the back so she didn't feel so trapped.  "Went ta th' Episcopal church when I was little, in...once I left there, though, I didn't go no more."

This was something she hadn't even discussed with Shin, but he was easy to talk to, and she didn't think he'd go yapping about it.

"Kinda didn't much believe in God, had more cause not ta than to."  A common dilemma for someone who was going through a rough time in life, and especially after she ran out on her own and avoided most civilization, she'd become even more skeptical.  "Didn't ever really stop believin' out loud, though, just in case.  Didn't want'a risk that there's a real God an' make him madder'n a mule chewin' on bumblebees!"  

She chuckled at that, then shrugged.  "I do pray now'n then, made things seem less lonely.  Dunno what's right, though, reckon there's no way ta really tell."  At least until you died, and then it was too late!

"What'da they believe where yer from?"

This woman may have thought she was being clear, but to one who was not familiar with the case of characters, her recital was confusing.

"Which Pike is the one who is Deputy Sheriff?"

"Barnabas Pike... well it wouldn't be his wife, would it? Who ever heard of a female deputy?" she asked, starting to sound a little cross now.

"I thought perhaps a brother or father or cousin," Priest countered, a little perturbed by the woman's gusto.  How could she be the mother of the creature who'd so recently involved him in her intimate yearnings?

"And, in what capacity can I help "this girl" who you talk of? Who is she?"

"She's called Cicely Lister, and you can help her by suing the pants off of Pike... Deputy Barnabas Pike" she added quickly, lest they go through that whole rigamarole again.

"Shooting an innocent unarmed girl like that, it's disgusting!" she added, for good measure.

Priest stuffed some chaw into his left gumline.  

"I will have to get my hands on an official sheriff's report about this.  Maintaining such records are a State and County law.  I'd like to see what was officially stated about this.  And tell me, am I the first person you've approached with this idea of a lawsuit?  

Priest settled into the stuffed armchair across from Mrs. Patterson-Forde.  

"I could stop by tomorrow after I'm done for the day," Shin offers. He had a feeling Tully needed a closer look at the kanji on his haori. The mountain pattern should be straight forward enough and he wore a simple kimono and hakama.

"Shinsengumi," he corrected, saying the word slowly so all syllables could be heard. "It means 'Newly Selected Corps', a special police force put together from the finest swordsmen of Japan to protect the Shogunate, the military leader of Japan. We kept the peace in Kyoto and dealing with rebels who wanted to overthrow the government."

Tully's next question gave Shin pause. It wasn't an easy subject for him to talk about. Some within the Shinsengum considered him a traitor but deep down he knew he wasn't. The Shogunate was still subject to the rule of the Emperor even if the Emperor at the time was more a puppet of the Shogunate. Even then, he couldn't bring himself to fight against the rebels when it was clear they had the full backing of the Emperor.

"The Shinsengumi is no more," he responded after a pause. "The Emperor of Japan declared the Shogunate to be disbanded and that included the Shinsengumi." It wasn't the full truth but he didn't think Tully was interested in a lengthy explanation of Japanese politics. In truth he didn't understand it all himself, so much of what was going on he wasn't aware of. It was only during his journey to America did he learn more about what was going on outside of the Shinsengumi.

The last question was far easier to answer and he was grateful she asked it before he even had a chance to answer the first two. "I'm not Christian nor Methodist. I still follow the believes of my homeland."

"Are you Christian?" he asked though in his experience most Americans were.  

He beat a hasty verbal retreat with that let's jump in the water to wash the smoke out of the clothes. Yes, he had been kidding all along. Probably? Anyhow regardless it was time to pack up, they'd finished their lunch and she drank the last dregs from the wine bottle, no point taking that home.

He brushed stray dirt off his pants, then squatted to help gather the dishes. "So, ya just wanna go back ta town an' wash out yer clothes, or...dunno, there's a real pretty view of th' mountains." 

"I certainly am not going to wash them out when I get home, I don't do laundry every day. I will throw it in with the rest of my needed laundry and do it my laundry day.....Sunday as the diner is never open that day. Now, I know, I know, Sunday is the Lord's day but it's also the day in my week I have the most free time. So if the good Lord gets upset about it, I'm sorry," she answered.

However he mentioned mountains. Yes, there were mountains, you could see them from where they were. Hard to miss mountains...

"So you mean ride up one of those mountains over there?" she looked at the closest with a bit of trepidation. She was not a very good rider.