Sarah - Return to Vegas

From last time ...

"Yeah. Jake was a man, Sarge. I was gonna see him, this summer. Maybe ... But now ... now I'm gonna get pulled into this thing, again. I thought I was past it. I thought I'd done enough .. at least I'd hoped that I had, but now I see ... now I know ... it ain't over. It won't be over until ... until they're all taken care of. I gotta go back, Sarge. I gotta go back and finish what I started."

"You be careful, Sarah. Don't take on more than you can handle."

"I'll be careful, Sarge. And Sarge? Thanks to you and Jake, I can handle a lot."

And now ...

Sarah stepped down from the plane onto the tarmac at McCarran Field. The sun was low in the western sky, just about to slip behind the mountains. Even so, it was still hot enough to fry eggs on the pavement.

She saw Billy Two Feathers waiting for her, just inside the gate in the fence outside the terminal building. He held up his hand, as if to wave, but just let it fall to his side as he saw recognition in her face.

"Hello, Sarah. It's good to see you, again."

"It's good to see you, too, Billy. Where is he?"

"We have him down at the Res."

"Take me to him. Please?"

"Sure. The car is right outside."

Billy and Sarah got in the car and headed southeast and out of town, toward the Parump Paiute Reservation.

"Why the Reservation? Jake wasn't an Indian, was he? I mean, I think I would have known."

"He was raised on the Res. His parents died when he was very young and he was taken in by an old Indian couple. Business partner of his father's, I guess. He has always been one of us. We will bury him, tomorrow, in the manner of the Parump Paiute. It's the least we can do for one of our own."

"Thanks, Billy. I was wondering what was going to happen to him. I knew he was pretty much alone in the world - I guess not as alone as I thought."

"He liked you, you know? A lot. You're all he talked about for months after you left. If you ask me, I think he was in love with you."

"I think I was in love with him, too, Billy. I was thinking about coming back and ... well, it doesn't make any difference anymore, what I was thinking. I think we could have had something, together, but it's all over and done with now, isn't it? Now? For now, I'm here for his funeral ... and then I have some other things to take care of."

"I know. Jake told me all about you, and what you and he were doing, together."

"He did? Why? He shouldn't have."

"He had to. About a month and a half ago some old prospector found a couple of bodies out in the desert. Seems these guys had been missing for almost a year. It was Sully and Chico. Jake knew, once those bodies were found, that he was in deep shit. It wasn't gonna take Giamatti long to come after him for killin' those two. He put a bunch of stuff up in Ma's attic for you. I helped him. He left a package for you with Ma, too. Stuff he'd been gathering on Giamatti's organization - you know, newspaper articles and all kinds of stuff about them and they way the operate. He knew they were gonna kill him, Sarah. And he knew you'd come back for revenge."

"How much of this does Ma know?"

"Not much. Oh, she managed to piece some of it together while you were here, but Jake never told her any more than what she was able to figure out on her own."

Sarah sat in silence for a while, obviously deep in thought.

"Billy, after we go to the Res, will you take me up to Ma's? I'm gonna stay there. Besides, I think she and I are going to have to have a long talk. There's some pieces of this she deserves to know."

"Why? What?"

"Well, to begin with, Jake didn't kill those guys."

"He didn't? Then who did?"

"Didn't Jake tell you? No, I don't suppose he did. I did, Billy. I did ... and Jake paid the price."