Gabriella
Sheriff Rowe could certainly manage without Dallas. That wasn't so much Max's concern. Max wasn't sure if *Dallas* Could manage, not out on his own. But he wouldn't push. He'd said his piece.

A cat-like animal... Max tried to conjure a picture of what that might be in his mind's eye. Everything he managed turned out too monstrous with eyes that were too knowing, too humanoid. 

He blinked the image away.

"Like a mountain lion, maybe?" Max asked, though he wasn't convinced. He wasn't sure Dally was either. "...Some neighbors have been talkin' like they think it's something else entire. Something not all animal. I don't know. I can leave you to it, if you're set on going in there alone an' all." *Don't do that to your sister, Dally.* "It's only - Well. I don't know."

He forced a quirk of a smile, a little forlorn, like he knew the bait was weak.

"If you'd rather trade the rifle for a botany lesson, like you called it, you're welcome to join me. Probably less excitin'."
Julie
Honestly, the concept that perhaps this *Thing* Was more of an *It* Than a *What* Had certainly crossed his mind. He'd only lived in Briar Ridge a few years now, but he'd heard enough out in them woods to know better than to go poking around too much at night. If you heard something bump in the night, it was best for most folks to ignore it and go back to sleep. Course, he wasn't most folks. 

But perhaps a flicker of a thought about his sister Addie had him second guessing his decision of a one-man army. He sucked his teeth in annoyance and frustration, before he responded to Max. 

"Ain't beyond the realm of possibility, I think. I heard some weird things can happen in the woods. I swear I once saw a deer stand up on its hind legs and look me dead in the eye once." 

That had spooked him straight out of his skin, but he wasn't gonna say that. 

Now, Dallas had never been particularly good at schoolin'. He was a rough and tumble kid, picking up more by working the farm than sitting behind a desk. He was fidgety and didn't wanna sit still for too long, and his teachers constantly threw him outta class. 

So, maybe he was interested in learnin' hands-on, and he wouldn't feel so queasy about leaving Max out here in broad daylight with no gun. "Fine." He said after a second, waving his hand at the plants. "Show me Yer damn flowers."
Gabriella
Max had, fundamentally, not expected this response. He'd been prepared to send Dallas off with a look like the kind Sawyer shot him every day: forlorn and far away, preempting nostalgia, like surely he'd be lost for good this time.

Instead, Dallas offered him the impossible.

*Show me yer damn flowers.*

Well. Alright then. If it'd keep Dally Sinclair out of the woods alone, he'd play botanist. Or damsel. However Dallas saw him; really, it made no difference to Max.

"C'mere," Max said, gesturing Dallas over to a felled tree and a patch of greenery just adjacent to the trail. A pocket where Max had spent a good deal of time. Somewhere the plants could feel the radiation of his personal energy from a distance and stretch their leaves in his direction in greeting.

Hopefully, they wouldn't be too put off by a visitor.

"I can't teach you how I can tell what plants will or won't bother that thing out there." Max could play *Botanist*, but he could not play *Linguist.* Some basics of herbalism and wildcrafting, Max could communicate to Dally in a pinch. Not the secret, wordless language, though. That much remained a mystery even to Maxwell; that was a thing he felt like a hum in his marrow. "I can teach you some tricks, though. Things to look out for. If you'll be careful with the things I tell to you."

Dallas didn't strike Max as an especially careful person, but neither did he strike Max as a person who'd shift his rifle aside and trade hunting beasts for making daisy chains - what Max had to assume Dally thought they were fixing to do. (Then, naturally, Max started musing on whether Dallas ever *Had* Made daisy chains, back when he was caring for his baby sister, and that thought got him all twisted up, so he set it aside before he grew too thoroughly distracted.) He'd already volunteered himself to teach. In return, he had to trust that Dally would hold those teachings with care.
_ _

Carefully, Max knelt down beside the felled tree. Its wood was damp and dark and swollen, the inside all rotted out with moisture from the air. Practiced, he parted some debris around the base and revealed a plant with a distinctive leaf pattern.

He brushed his fingertips along the edges of the leaves. A tiny, almost imperceptible buzz ran along the surface of his skin. A humble 'hello.'

"This is American ginseng, Dally, and this is why I need you to be real careful - 'cuz this plant is like found money. The roots, that is. You bring a hunk into town, you can trade with it, easy." 

Max had done as much for years. During the War, when his brother was overseas, he'd supported himself nearly entirely on bartering with wild herbs. 

"But folks who deal in all this, we have an honor system. Because that plant can take going on a decade to grow big enough to harvest anything from, and you take too much, and you lose it altogether. Here -"

Cupping his hand, he dug out a patch of soil until he hit the root. Then he fished his pocket knife from his trousers, flicked it to expose the blade, and placed it in Dally's hand.

"-Take this and cut out this section, where I'm pointing. If you just take that much, the plant'll recover just fine."
Julie
The woods were home to many creatures and an abundant plant life, but Dallas had never paid too much attention to the latter half. His mother had been big on gardening and sometimes, when he was young, she'd take him and Addie out to the wild berry bushes in the woods and they'd pick baskets of them. He also knew what poison ivy and poison oak looked like out of sheer necessity and stupidity; getting enough rashes when you're a kid was enough to learn ya a thing or two. 

But Dallas wasn't a considerably delicate man, nor was he gentle in most things he did. His big boots tended to mash down whatever greenery he was trampling through, and he'd never been too good at picking flowers or nothin'. In all honesty, he'd made only a few daisy chains when Addie had suckered him into it, but the gentle motions had felt clumsy in his big hands even as a teenager. Addie had laughed at him, poking fun as always, and fixed it before crowning him with it. But that had to be... A decade ago at this point. 

He figured Max wanted to keep his fancy plant secrets to himself, and that was fine with him. Hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket, he watched and knelt as Maxwell pointed out some *American ginseng* Which he ain't ever heard of before in his life. 

"You say you ain't some botanist, but I don't know how you know all this shit," He said, crass as always. He did know his way around a knife, however, and he was good at skinning a rabbit or a squirrel in a minute flat. So, with a practiced hand, he did as he was told. 

"This what you do all day? Root around in the dirt?" He asked as he was fiddling with cutting the root out properly.
Gabriella
Max watched as Dallas worked the knife, nodding his affirmation. He had a feeling Dallas would take to the task if he had something familiar to ground him. A blade was surely plenty familiar.

And he didn't take offense to the crassness either. That was just the way he was. Besides, buried in the brash delivery - as clearly as the ginseng root was buried in the rich soil - Dally paid him a compliment.

"Just personal study and lots of practice. Had to get pretty good at this kinda thing when Sawyer's draft number was called goin' on a decade back. Stuck with it since then. I don't call myself anything special on account of it. You can call me a botanist if that's the word that suits the work, I s'pose."

And he laughed a bit at the question, too, light and airy despite the heaviness that hung in the air from the attacks.

"I've got myself other tasks to tend to also. I'm a damn good cook, to start. But yeah, I spend my fair share of time rooting around in the dirt."

There was risk in introducing Dallas to this spot. The plant was valuable. If he marked the spot on the trail, Dallas could come back anytime he pleased and uproot the whole thing, honor system be damned. But Max promised to teach, and Max learned from some decent men that promises are worth more than ginseng roots.

"It's good for health, ginseng," Max explained, "Sharpens the mind, helps with inflammation, just all over good for you, really."
Julie
Peculiar fella, Maxwell Morton. Far more gentle than the usual man, but nothing he hadn't seen before. Not that he was *Judging* Neither— just that them two didn't run in the same circles, so to speak. Dallas kept to himself, quiet and brooding and rough around the edges. Now, Max wasn't *Timid* By no means. He seemed stubborn nearly, but had delicate hands for this type of thing. As previously mentioned, Dallas didn't have that sensitive touch. His hands were meant for different kinds of creation; with wood and hammer and nails. He'd once smashed his thumb with a hammer and had barely shed a tear, despite the bruising and blood that had followed. Their hands were calloused in completely different places. 

But Dallas didn't do much with trading, and didn't have the mind to underhand Maxwell's secrets like that. He hardly liked going into town to do business on his own, let alone haggle with a vendor trying to sell a root he didn't know shit about. 

"I ain't know nothin' about cooking neither," He said. "You got all kindsa life skills, don't ya?" He looked over at him. He supposed it made sense, from what he knew. Max took care of the homestead at times, all on his lonesome. Dallas had given up on proper cooking once Addie left home, reserving himself to canned goods and meat he'd hunted himself. It was an honest, hard-working man type meal, but not exactly high cuisine. 

"This root sounds like a cure-all kinda thing, don't it? No wonder you can sell it for a pretty penny." He finished cutting the root out and held it up, before passing it off to Max.
Gabriella
Dallas Sinclair couldn't tell the difference between a hickory and a birch and couldn't cook? Well, gee, did he know how to dress himself, at least?

Max regretted the barbed thought as soon as it passed through his mind. Dallas was just a man doing his best, same as him, same as anyone. It hadn't even taken much to dissolve that top layer of briars that cling to him and convince him to dig herbs outta the ground in lieu of a wild beast hunt.

"Well, lemme tell you what," Max said, "You stop on by any time, and I'll graduate you from botany lessons to cooking class. Plants won't do you any good if you don't know how to use 'em."

And he smiled with a little nod, hoping that might communicate the offer was genuine.

When Dallas placed the ginseng root into his hand, Max pushed it right back into Dally's, brushing up against the opposite, complementary callouses. 

"Quit, that's for you, not for me."
Julie
He gave him a look, huffing a little as Maxwell pushed the root right back into his hand. "Now what sense does that make?" He asked him curiously. "What am I gonna do with it?" He looked down at the stump of a root in his hand. He considered it a minute before he sighed and tucked it in his pocket. "Yer mighty stubborn, Max Morton," He said, something almost like amusement as he shook his head. 

He slowly stood upright and dusted himself off, brushing dirt off the knees of his pants. "You takin' pity on me, huh?" He actually did chuckle then, barely there and accompanied with a shake of his head. "You can show me what all to do with this thing," He said, holding up the root again. "Go on, show me more of yer... Stuff." He gestured vaguely, thumb rubbing over the smooth surface of the root idly. 

"You just learn all this from runnin' around in these woods? I dunno how you ain't dead."
Gabriella
Dally's smile was slight, but it softened his words at the edges, and that set Max well enough at ease. 

"Not taking pity! Only being neighborly!" Max defended himself, hands raised in mock surrender. "I've gotta show you what all to do with the ginseng after all, or this lesson's no good! And anyway, I take *Personal pains* To imagine how you've been eating when I know you're on your own and you say you don't know how to *Cook.*

"Good food's one of life's basic pleasures. You oughta have a couple staple recipes in your back pocket and know how to season your food right, at the *Least.*"

Max, too, stood and brushed himself off, returning to the trail's edge.

"I read, too - about the plants. But you learn the most just by workin' with the plants direct."

As he walked, eyes on the ground, he stopped to point out the plants that had useful properties, taking samples of the ones he was running low on: chamomile for stress relief, nettle for pain and allergies, dandelion for stomach problems, goldenseal for luck... And then he paused to check in.

"Sorry. I am getting carried away with all the information. You can interject, stop me if I say too much too quick. Or better - carpentry. You're a carpenter, yeah, Dallas? On top of running the lumberyard, I mean? What's your favorite part of that?"
Julie
"I don't believe that, not even for a damn second," He said to Max as they walked along. "I think you think I'm a hopeless case, yeah?" That's what Addie had always said. That he was a... What was it? A perpetual bachelor? Something like that, mixed in with obscenities. She'd always had a foul-mouth on her. 

"I was never real good at all that. Forget about the oven and burn something all to hell. Last month, thought I'd try and make biscuits— damn near burned my house down and made myself somethin' more like *Rocks* Than biscuits." He made a face. 

But as they walked, he just sank into the silence that Maxwell allowed him. He listened to him chatter on, watching him pluck things up and tuck them into his palm or pockets. Having a knowledge like that, so expansive and *Helpful*, well... He might've envied it a little. He'd never been real book smart, and far preferred to work with his hands over book learnin. 

"Hm?" He snapped out of it a moment and looked up at Max, meeting his eyes. "Nah, you ain't gettin' carried away with nothin. I like listenin'." He cleared his throat and kicked at the dirt as he shoved his hands in his pockets. 

"Carpentry? Yeah, I do that... And the lumber yard," He glanced aside and shrugged. "It's honest work, I gotta tell ya." He tilted his head a little. "I like... Bein' able to make something with my hands and... People really use it," He said after a moment of thinking.
Gabriella
"Hopeless? Nah, I mean - I may tease and all, but there's no teeth in it. You just got a different set of skills. Doubt I could build a table any better than you can cook biscuits."

 Max did not expect Dallas Sinclair to be a good listener. As the list of broken expectations grew in length, Max was beginning to think he may have been too rash in his judgments altogether. 

Maybe Dallas wasn't even throwing his weight around most of the rest of the time. Maybe he was just a little too big and a little clumsy with himself.

"I guess that's not so different. That's what I like, too. Cooking, matching herbs up to ailments - I like working with my hands and connecting folks with something useful. I like breathing a little extra life into them. And you can do that with a tonic made from nettle and dandelion root, or you can do it with fresh baked bread, depending. Just feels good."

Max wondered *Why* Dallas was all on his own the way he was. He was prickly enough, but there was clearly more to him than all the huffing and puffing might suggest. Wasn't there some gal with a little patience and a soft touch who'd coax that out of him? ...Maybe one who knew how to make some decent biscuits, since Dally seemed to need that?

Wasn't his place to ask, he wagered.
Julie
"Then I guess we ain't so different," He said. "But I reckon that your set of skills are a little more useful these days. What, with all the..." He gestured vaguely around. "The stuff goin' on." He shifted a little, uncomfortable to think about it. What, with all the hurt goin' on in town... People like Max were definitely coming in handy. 

"Well, how 'bout this then?" He said, clearing his throat a little. "We make a lil' exchange." Dallas had his hands in his pockets. He was never real good at talkin' to people without sounding like an ass, and always seemed so... Standoffish. Making a kind offer wasn't something he was used to. 

"I'll show you how t' make somethin' if you show me how to... I dunno, cook a dish without burnin' it to all hell." 

He thought, yknow, maybe it would be a good trade off. A trade for a trade... So to speak. "I dunno. Maybe you don't wanna make a table or nothin' but, yknow, good to be handy." 

Dallas gave a glance over at Max. Yeah, he could probably make a table or something.