DEAD MEN PAY THEIR DEBTS.

A PROMISE IS MADE.

Silence rings out in the church, and suddenly, it feels like everything is underwater. Casey trembles in every muscle as he stares at the skeleton with so much intensity that Jesse worries he might just set it on fire. No one says anything. 

Colt is the first one to move. He shifts slightly, terrible sadness in his eyes, and puts his hands in his pockets. He opens his mouth, and -

Nicolas laughs harshly. "No, it ain't." His voice is loud in the silence of the church. "No, it ain't."

Everyone's head snaps to him. Casey's chest is heaving as he says, his voice low, "What?"

Noah's eyes narrow. "The hell you talkin' about, boy? That's Sierra, right there. You see that dress? You see that hair? That's Sierra, no doubt, and I'd thank you to know your place when it comes to your elders."

"That ain't Sierra," Nicolas repeats stubbornly, almost viciously, as he glares at his father. Noah opens his mouth, his neck dangerously red, but Colt steps in hastily.

"What do you mean?" he asks, before Noah can say anything. Casey is barely breathing. His eyes dart to Nicolas, then the body, then back to Nicolas again.

Nicolas drops to his knees, across from his father. "You see the shape of this pelvis?" He traces it with his finger. It's mostly bone. Some blackened skin sticks to the bone, but not much. "That ain't wide enough for a girl."

"You ain't -" Noah begins, spitting the words out, but Colt throws out a hand to stop him.

"Go on, Nicolas."

He points at the corpse's arm. "Look here now. You see how that bone is crooked from this point on?"

Silently, the four of them nod. Jesse gives Casey a sideways glance - he's staring at where Nicolas is pointing, knuckles white.

"It means that this arm was broken sometime, probably long ago, from how healed it is. It was broken," he continues. "And it never healed right. Whoever this was had an arm that didn't work as well as the other one." He looks at Casey, eyes sharp. "Did Sierra ever break her arm?"

Casey shakes his head mutely. Nicolas nods slowly, his eyes softening. But only for a moment. The sharp edge to them returns as he looks back at Noah. He reaches over and touches the hair on the head of the corpse.

"Hair is the first thing to burn, so it makes no sense that the body is this disfigured but the hair is still on. And even so, Casey - what colour was Sierra's hair?" Nicolas asks, with the air of a man asking a question he already knows the answer to.

"Dark brown," Casey whispers.

Wordlessly, Nicolas holds the hair up to the light. All four of them lean in, and even Jesse blinks. The hair is light yellow.

"By God, he's right," Colt says wonderingly, after the pregnant silence has stretched on for a long moment. "That ain't Sierra."

"That ain't Sierra," Nicolas concludes with grim satisfaction as he stands up, dusting his grimy hands on his pants. "And that ain't even a girl, dear ol' dad." This is punctuated with a look at Noah, whose face is now several ugly shades of red.

"But then where the hell is she?" Casey's voice is a thin layer of frustration over an ocean of relief. "If this ain't her, where is she?"

"Not only that," Jesse begins, speaking for the first time. "If this ain't Sierra, why is this body wearing her dress? And who is this anyways?"

Silence descends over them again. "It ain't no one from town," Noah says slowly, rubbing at the red of his face. "No one's gone missing other than Sierra. But if my son is to be believed -" He shoots a black look at Nicolas. "- then it ain't no one we know."