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Remember those two guys who rode up on horseback at the end of the last episode? They tell Cullen that the boss wants to give him Johnson's job. They bring him to Doc's head of security, a Norwegian called "the Swede," who starts questioning him about Johnson's murder. Cullen soon realizes that the job offer was a ruse and he's actually being interrogated. When he refuses to cooperate, the Swede locks him up with a promise to hang him for the murder as soon as the gallows is free. (It's been a busy season for hanging.)
Along the way, we learn that, like everyone else we've met thus far, the Swede isn't proud of some things he did in the past. He was a bookkeeper who figured out he could control people like he once did numbers. He's got a little mafia-style business on the side, extorting the entrepreneurs of Hell on Wheels for protection money. Cullen escapes from his prison, thanks to assistance from Elam and the Reverend, but instead of going on the run he pops by Doc Durant's office for a job interview. He confesses that he doesn't know about building railroads and reveals that he blew up one of Doc's bridges during the war. Miraculously, this adds up to a big job promotion for Cullen.
The subplots: Doc meets up with a newspaper reporter who's covering the survey team's massacre. Doc embellishes the story with sensational details in order to sway public opinion. He implies that Lily Bell was kidnapped and "sullied" by the Cheyennes. In reality, Lily is still on the run with those survey maps. She not only hides from a Cheyenne search party but sews up her own wounds using a bit of whalebone from her corset. Just when the Cheyenne finally catch up to her, she's saved by the recently baptized Joseph. Continuing the theme, we learn that Joseph also isn't proud of his past. Jesus may forgive, but Joseph is worried his new white friends won't.
The episode is about math and balancing the numbers and guilt and job interviews, but somehow manages to be much better than the premier. Stay tuned for the full recap.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously: Cullen Bohannon had a silly name. He also asked a Union soldier about Meridian and then shot him before he could answer. He headed west to look for work on the railroad that Doc Durant was building with big government money. An optimistic reverend decided to build a church among the prostitutes and lawless men of Hell on Wheels. Cheyenne Indians killed everyone on Doc's advance survey team except badass Lily Bell, who escaped with the team's precious maps. Cullen ran afoul of his new boss, Mr. Johnson, who was actually one of the Union men who killed his wife. Former slave Elam killed Johnson before he could give up the name of the sergeant who gave the order to hang Mrs. Bohannon.
Currently: We start off with a cloudy Nebraska morning, where flies are buzzing around the corpses of the departed survey team. Some of the campsite's fires are still smoldering, so not much time has passed, but a cleanup crew has already arrived. Dead bodies are stacked onto wagons. The flies are like, "Hey, we weren't done with those yet!" A man in spectacles photographs the scene. He holds up a pan of flash powder and ignites it, startling a nearby horse. As cumbersome as this seems to us now, this was probably, like, the iPod of the day. He's just glad he only got one hernia carrying that thing around.
Three men ride toward the campsite on horseback. The photographer looks nervous as they approach. Two other men ready their rifles. The newcomers draw closer. "It's Durant!" says the photographer to his armed associates. He doesn't look any less nervous, though. Doc's suede duster and white horse are both impeccably clean, although it's a bit disappointing he doesn't ride something like a gold-encrusted lion. "Are you the Chicago Tribune reporter?" Doc asks, dismounting. The multi-talented photographer confirms that he is. Doc is disappointed -- nay, disgusted -- to learn that the reporter has photographed one of the bodies. The reporter tries to stammer out an explanation, but Doc cuts him off: "Just the one won't do!" He orders the corpses taken off the wagon and returned to the crime scene. "I want this scene photographed exactly as you found it," he says. "I want an unblinking look at the horror perpetrated here!" Doc looks around at the carnage and doesn't find it quite horrible enough. He gathers up some stray arrows and proceeds to chunk them into the corpses. Most of the arrows go in without much difficulty, but one corpse proves a bit more resistant than the others. So Doc widens his stance, grips an arrow with both hands and augers that sucker on in there. There is much squelching and scraping. The reporter looks on with horror and confusion. Doc looks up, sees the man's expression and rolls his eyes. "He can't feel anything -- he's dead, for God's sake!"
After he's done turning all the dead bodies into pincushions, Doc turns his attention to the matter of the missing maps. So far, there's been no sign of them. One of Doc's men finds Robert Bell's body in the woods nearby. Doc goes to investigate and seems genuinely saddened by the death. Or maybe he's saddened by the thought of having to find a new surveyor. It's hard to know. He orders his men to pack up everything and take it to Hell on Wheels. As he starts to head back to the campsite, Doc sees something glinting in the undergrowth. He picks up Bell's pocket watch and opens it to find a small photograph of Lily inside. Doc raises an eyebrow. He looks at Lily and sees sweet, sweet opportunity. Cue the opening credits.
After the twangy twanging, Cullen walks the cut as his men labor to clear the rocky soil. A few white laborers have joined the crew, but because desegregation has not yet come to Hell on Wheels, they work separate from the freedmen. This is a replay and continuation of the final scene from last week: Two men approach on horseback, Cullen moves his hand over his gun and Elam gives him a worried look. "They found Johnson's body," Elam says, moving to Cullen's side. "Everybody back at the camp talkin' about it." time y'all murder someone, try to make it look like an accident. Drunken drowning in the river, ignited fart gone wrong, suffocation while steamboating a portly prostitute's breasts -- these are but a few possibilities. Cullen glares at Elam and tells him to get back to the cut. One of the newcomers rides up to Cullen. "Have you heard about Daniel Johnson's murder?" he asks. I don't know this actor's name, but recognize him as someone who frequently plays weaselly characters on Canadian-filmed shows. "Who wants to know?" Cullen asks, failing to look innocent. When Weasel calls him on it, Cullen makes up some excuse about being put off by the sight of Weasel's Union blues. Nothing he's wearing seems especially blue, but maybe people had lower expectations for colors back then. Weasel says, "Boss wants to talk to you about taking Johnson's job." Cullen glances over at Elam, who's still standing at his side and trying to Ackbar him a warning with his eyes.
Back at the new home of Hell on Wheels, the tents are going up. Mickey the twelve-toed Irishman is wearing some truly hideous yellow pants. One can only hope they started out that color. He takes a break from putting up his tent to accept some booze from brother Sean. Did nobody drink water in the 1860s? With everybody drunk nearly constantly, it's amazing the railroad ever got built.
Cullen rides into town with Weasel and the second man. A man hangs from the gallows as people pass by like it's just another day at the office. Cullen gives him a wary look (he gives a lot of wary looks in general) but keeps riding on. He's brought to a sparsely furnished train car. A tall, pale, dark-haired man sits at a modest desk, steepling his hands over a dry biscuit. "Thank you, Lord, for this bounty you have placed before me." Speaking with a Scandinavian accent, he invites Cullen to sit down across from him, but Cullen's still giving the hanged man wary looks. "Horse thief," comes the explanation. He introduces himself: "Thor Gunderson, head of security for Mr. Thomas Durant." He's played by Christopher Heyerdahl, who is becoming quite the go-to actor for creepy TV roles. "They call me the Swede," he goes on, and then gives a tired shrug. "I'm Norwegian." One of my elementary school teachers insisted I was "Guamanian" even after I told her I was from Taiwan. Sometimes it's more trouble than it's worth to keep correcting people.
The Swede brings the conversation around to Daniel Johnson, or "Yonson," as he pronounces it. "He told me you two was cut from the same cloth," he says. Cullen takes exception to that. He's still standing, by the way, having not accepted the seat he was offered. The Swede takes a tiny bite of his utilitarian biscuit. It sounds like drywall, only less appetizing. The Swede tries to make like Cullen didn't like his boss for some reason, but Cullen pretends he didn't have anything against the man. They even had a few drinks together. The Swede segues into the night Johnson was murdered. "You was seen leaving the saloon with him, hm?" His eyes sparkle; he seems like a man who doesn't allow himself many gustatory pleasures, but he obviously finds this exchange delicious. Cullen finally realizes he's not there for a job interview but to be interrogated. He tries the whole "you don't have any legal authority" angle which is sort of adorably naïve. "Mr. Durant," the Swede explains, "has appointed me to bring order to this chaos." Cullen scoffs and points out that chaos seems to be winning these days, but the Swede doesn't bother himself with "harlots and dipsomaniacs." Instead he's focused on the company's assets, of which Daniel Johnson was one. He offers Cullen an out, suggesting that it was "one of the Negroes" who did the deed. Cullen doesn't take the offer. The two of them exchange long, steely looks. With something like sadness, the Swede is left with Cullen as the only suspect. Cullen tries to leave, once again pointing out the Swede's lack of authority, but the Swede reaches under his desk and pulls out an old flintlock pistol. "This here's Beauty," he says, and sure enough, her name is carved on her side. "She's an old piece, but she still shoots true."
thing you know, the Swede and his two henchmen toss Cullen into a cattle car and shackle him by the wrists. "We're going to give you a chance to confess to this crime," says the Swede. With that, he and the henchmen leave, closing the door behind them. Cullen pulls at his chains, but they've been wrapped around a floorboard that's apparently not as rickety as it looks. Through the loosely spaced slats in the car, he can see the horse thief swinging to and fro like a piñata in the breeze.
Somewhere in Nebraska or thereabouts, Lily Bell is trudging along beside a river in an almost impossibly green valley. Her face is ashen, her clothes bloody. Still she clings to those maps. She looks lost and blank until she hears horses approaching from the woods. She drops to the ground, wincing at the pain in her shoulder. She scrambles behind a fallen tree near the water. Three Cheyenne men lash their horses to trees perhaps thirty or forty yards from Lily's hiding spot.
Meanwhile, Cullen is passing the time in his prison by having flashbacks and trying to pick a nail out of the floorboard that's holding down his chains. As he fruitlessly tries to scratch out the nail, he remembers a young woman sitting in a rocking chair on one of those wide, wide porches you think of when you think of a perfect Southern house. She holds a needlepoint hoop in her lap and stitches a blue sky and pink flowers. She looks up and smiles at Cullen as he walks up behind her in his gray, woolen soldier's coat.
Down by the river, Lily passes out behind the tree. The three Cheyennes have started a campfire and settled down for a rest. Do they go to the river for water and notice Lily lying there? No, they do not. Joseph walks out of the woods in a not-particularly-sneaky way and yet manages to startle them as they're brushing their hair. For real. Is it these guys' first tracking experience? Because they kind of blow. "Where is she?" Joseph asks. "Hello, little brother," says the oldest of the trio. "What are you doing way out here?" Joseph doesn't answer. Instead he snatches the silver hairbrush from the youngest one and asks again about Lily. "It's one thing to kill white men, but you kill one of their women and you'll have every damn one of them hunting you down." His brother's not worried, because it just means more scalps for his collection.
Joseph starts to walk away, when his brother calls out to him: "What about the scalps you took? You act so pure now, but I remember there was a time when you loved the taste of blood." Joseph stops and narrows his eyes at his brother. "Jesus has forgiven me for that," he says, not sounding entirely convinced. "Jesus may have forgiven you," says his brother, "but do you think your white friends would?" Joseph looks down, thoughtful. His hair is shorter than his brother's but longer than a white man's, which is how you can tell he's torn between his blood and the life he's adopted. He's the Worf of the story. Joseph stews in silence and walks off again, this time for good. "You better find her before I do," his brother says. Buddy, I think sightless moles three feet underground could find her before you do.
Cullen is still picking at that nail and pulling at his shackles when night falls. Elam whispers to him from outside: "You'd be surprised how fast you get used to the feel of them things." He wants to know if Cullen plans to testify against him. Cullen says he hasn't decided yet, so Elam tells him he knows about the sergeant Johnson was about to name. He says he also heard Johnson talking about the men Cullen has killed. Quite the eavesdropper, aren't you? He lays it out: "I be hanging for Johnson, you gonna drop down beside right me for them folks you done killed." Cullen isn't moved by the threat. He figures that if they both tell their stories, it won't be Elam's side anybody believes. They look at each other through the gaps in the wood slats, sizing each other up. There's a mutual respect there, or at least the beginnings of it. Then Cullen has to ruin the moment by calling Elam "son," which Elam rejects. Cullen's progressive Northerner wife didn't tell him that was a no-no, it seems. Elam scrams when he hears people nearby, leaving Cullen to contemplate his future as a dead man.
Sean and Mickey's Tent of Magic Lamps and Irish Nostalgia. Most of the evening's patrons are just filing out after the final show, leaving only the Swede in the audience. Good Lord, Mickey's yellow pants are actually part of a yellow three-piece suit. "Very moving images of home, boys," the Swede says. Mickey seems especially pleased by the compliment, but Sean points out that the man doesn't sound Irish. The Swede found the show moving nonetheless. He introduces himself. Everything seems more or less pleasant on the surface, but the guy is just emanating creepiness. He compliments the lads on their prime location, right between the saloon and the whorehouse. Mickey is pleased while Sean is suspicious. Poor Mickey. He got the extra toes but was shorted on the brains. The Swede notices this, too. At Sean's prodding, the Swede finally gets to the point, which is that he wants the boys to pay him protection money to the tune of two dollars a week. Even Mickey recognizes what a bum deal this is, but they don't have many options. Either they have to pay up or, as the Swede puts it, they can just move down to the slaughterhouse. And be turned into delicious Irish sausage, I'm guessing.
A hard rain must have fallen overnight, because the ground the morning is all mud. Cullen is still picking at that blasted nail without having made much progress. At the approach of footsteps, he hurries to hide his work under a handful of hay. The door slides open and the Swede is standing there in his meticulously clean boots. Not even mud wants to mess with this guy. He carries with him a bowl of some unknown sustenance, but instead of giving it to Cullen, the Swede sits down on a crate and proceeds to eat in front of him. "You know I used to be a bookkeeper," he says in a pleasantly conversational tone. Just two buddies having breakfast together. Cullen eyes him and says, "You look like a bookkeeper." The Swede admits he's always been more comfortable around numbers than people. Numbers can be controlled. That changed with the war. Cullen studies him some more and comes up with this analysis: "You're suffering from the soldier's heart, Mr. Swede. I can see it in your eyes. You're still fightin' them battles." The Swede corrects him, tells him he was a quartermaster and never saw battle. He never even saw the enemy until his supply train was captured and he became a prisoner of war. Cullen guesses correctly that he was taken to Andersonville. The Swede speaks of the horrors of the camp, the chaos and the thousands dead. This place was truly a horrible one, if you're inclined to read up about it someday. "I weighed 200 pounds when I went in and 86 when I come out," the Swede says, his voice shaking. "I just couldn't make them numbers add up."
He puts down his spoon long enough to lift up his left sleeve to reveal the scars on his forearm. "I woke up one night to find one of my own men trying to eat the flesh from my arm. He thought I was dead." He gives us the reasoning behind the title of the episode: "I realized then I had to control people like I controlled numbers. I learned to practice a sort of... immortal mathematics... and I did some not-so-good things in Andersonville." He struggles with the confessing of it, but whether he's unburdening himself or letting Cullen know he's one scary sonofabitch is unclear. Perhaps it's both. He says he found a way to make the numbers add up. He takes a bite of his gruel. It's probably made of people. He offers Cullen another chance to confess, but Cullen declines. "You know why that man didn't finish eating your sorry ass?" Cullen asks. "Because you Yankees all taste like shit." Hopefully he didn't feel that way about his wife. He kicks the bowl out of the Swede's hands. The Swede is furious, but just for a fraction of a second before he composes himself. "Get right with your maker, Mr. Bohannon," he says quietly. "As soon as we cut down the horse thief, you will hang." As soon as the Swede leaves, Cullen starts scrambling for the forgotten spoon. He can't reach it with his hands, so he stretches out his boot-clad foot. He nearly loses the spoon down a gap in the floor but prevails in the end. He uses the handle as a lever and triumphantly pries the nail free. The way he looks at that nail, you know it's going on his vengeance list.
After a commercial break, the horse thief is finally cut down from the gallows. His corpse lands in the mud with an unceremonious splash. Cullen frantically levers up the nail. He yanks hard on his chains and pulls up the floorboard. He pulls up another board, and another, racing against time as the Swede approaches the car once more. He drops through the hole to the rail below, grabbing his hat as he goes. Once outside, he blends in with all the other filthy workers by holding his hat over his chains.
En route to Hell on Wheels, Doc gives some helpful story tips to the reporter. "Write this down," he says, and proceeds to dictate the entire story to him, playing up the savage nature of the attackers and the Christianity of the poor white souls who were lost. He goes on. "Amongst the murdered were Robert Bell, visionary surveyor of the Union Pacific Railroad, his beautiful wife Lily." Doc thinks for a moment, and is then struck by an idea. He christens Lily as "the fair-haired Maiden of the West [who] was sullied by the savage pack and carried off into slavery in their filthy camp." Flies buzz around him, attracted either to the corpses in the wagon beside them or the plentiful crap Doc is serving up. The reporter looks dubious, but takes notes. Doc goes on about how his railroad will bring civilization to the West. Lily represents civilization, he says. The reporter realizes Doc wants to use his story as a sort of rallying cry to bring out the federal troops to "clear out the savages." Saving Lily would be nice, too.
Lily is just waking up behind her magical fallen tree. She's woozy and momentarily disoriented. She winces with every move, clutching her bloodied hand to her body. She peers over the tree and sees the smoldering remains of the Cheyennes' abandoned campfire. She stumbles to what's left of the fire and drops to her knees in front of it. She gives it a long, despairing look, knowing what she has to do . I thought she was going to cauterize her wounds, but perhaps the embers aren't hot enough for that, and that's why she seems so disappointed. So she does something even more drastic. She unbuttons her blouse and gets a look at the raw, gaping wound in her left shoulder. She pries a bit of whalebone from her corset and uses her teeth to sharpen its dull edge. From her coat she unravels a length of thread and binds it to one end of her makeshift needle. With a heavenward glance, she proceeds to sew up her own wound. The deed done, she falls to the ground in dead faint.
Hell on Wheels. To hide from the Swede, Cullen ducks into the nearest tent. All the tents are filthy, but this one is especially bad. It looks like a horse suffering from explosive diarrhea backed up to it at some point in the recent past and gave up all pretense of modesty. "Welcome, brother," a man says behind Cullen. He turns to see the Reverend. The Reverend recognizes him as the man the Swede is looking to hang. The Reverend picks up Cullen's chains. "Saint Peter himself was chained like this and condemned to die, and he was freed by an angel." Cullen draws back from him, looking at him like he's crazy. "I ain't no Saint Peter, sir," he says, taking back his chains. "And I ain't no angel," says the Reverend. Cullen peers out the tent flap, and then hurries back inside when he sees the Swede coming. The Reverend heads out to distract the Swede. He lies that he hasn't seen the prisoner and the Swede goes along his un-merry way. By the time the Reverend goes back into the tent, Cullen's wielding a heavy metal cross like a weapon. The Reverend takes it from him without a struggle. He tells Cullen to set things straight before he hangs. They have a religious chat in which the Reverend tries to prepare Cullen for the day he has to face God, whenever it may be, but Cullen doesn't see God answering many prayers. The Reverend goes down on his knees and tries to plead with Cullen to ask for forgiveness. Cullen doesn't feel he's worthy of forgiveness and bolts from the tent. The Reverend looks sad. Try to look at it as job security, buddy. Without godless heathens and emo guilt trippers, you wouldn't have anything to do!
The Tent of Magic Lamps and Irish Nostalgia. Sean takes two dollars from the lining of a suitcase. "We can't use that!" Mickey protests. He was going to use that money to buy himself a suit that doesn't make people's eyes bleed. "Ma would understand," Sean says, although he doesn't seem to really believe it. Mickey shows a spark of intelligence by pointing out they'll be paying for this week after week. "It ain't gonna stop -- there's nothing we can do about this bastard," he says. "That's what you said in Boston," Sean says quietly. Mickey looks like he's been slapped. "I thought you said we were never to speak of that." Does everyone in this story have some past sin weighing heavily on them that they reference vaguely? It's already getting to be a little comical and we're only on the second episode. Sean promises Mickey he'll figure some way out of all this and send more money to Ma, as well.
Meanwhile, Cullen has managed to get himself to the blacksmith's tent. Elam hammers away at his chains while another man serves as lookout, peering out of the tent flap in a conspicuously suspicious way. Elam notices Cullen looking at the scars around his own wrists and explains, "Had some jackrabbit in me, too. Master gave me a nice pair of bracelets to sleep in." He hammers some more. "Someone puts you in chains, natural thing to do is try to escape. Am I right?" Elam asks. Cullen doesn't say anything. Elam holds the hammer up in a vaguely threatening manner until Cullen agrees with him. One last blow of the hammer against the chisel and the chain breaks. The lookout warns them that someone's coming. Elam suggests he make a run for it, but Cullen says he's not leaving.
In the meadow of impromptu self-surgery, Lily wakes to the sight a vulture circling high above her. Everything goes all echoey and hazy. She sees her husband Robert sitting in a field, sketching something. She remembers him hugging her and being happy. She reaches out to him, but he fades from view. More vultures have joined the imminent feast. Not far away, the three Cheyennes from earlier are riding along the river's edge when they see the vultures in the distance. Somehow, even though they managed to miss seeing Lily when she was lying right by the river they're following, they realize the significance of the vultures and start heading back. Lily hears them coming, grabs those damned maps and runs as best she can. She heads for the trees. Suddenly, a hand reaches out and closes over her mouth. It's Joseph. He holds her tight. She struggles, her shrieks muffled against his palm. She's a smart, girl, though, and falls quiet as the Cheyennes ride past.
On the outskirts of Hell on Wheels, Doc has moved from the wagon back to his pristine white horse. Probably to make a better entrance into town. The Swede rides up to him. They discuss the slaughtered survey team and whether or not the "Injuns" got Lily. "Put the word out," Doc tells him. "One hundred dollar reward for anyone who finds her. But not a word about the maps."
When Doc gets to his fancy train car, he finds Cullen waiting for him inside. "Cullen Bohannon," he introduces himself, and then holds up one of his shackled wrists. "The man they're looking to hang." Doc misunderstands his purpose for being there, supposing he's there to profess his innocence. Cullen tells him he's actually there to ask for Johnson's job. Doc looks just a tiny bit taken aback. "How do you put your trousers on, son?" he asks. Cullen is naturally confused, so Doc clarifies: "Over those big balls of yours." Finding a supportive undergarment is the first step. Cullen smiles and relaxes a hair. Doc quite seriously aims his gaze at the man's crotch, too. Maybe he wasn't being figurative about Cullen's testicular endowment. Oh, wait, no -- he's actually just watching Cullen lock the door. At least that's how he'll dictate the story to some zebra. Cullen asks for two minutes and gets them, although Doc keeps a pepper-box revolver handy all the same.
Cullen then proceeds to give either the worst job interview in history, or the best. He compares building the railroad to the war. "You got an army out there, you need a leader," he says. So far, so good. "I take it you fought for the South, Mistah Bo-hannon," Doc says with an exaggerated drawl. Cullen says being a Southerner is exactly why Doc needs to hire him. "I can't remember a time I wasn't out-gunned, out-manned or out-supplied fighting you Yankees," he says. "But I damn sure whooped your asses more often than not." Surprisingly, he does not get a belly full of lead for that. Doc is intrigued. Cullen says his men would go to hell and back for him and that's why he should get the job. When Doc asks him what he knows about building railroads, Cullen says he had to learn how they were built so he knew the best way to blow them up. He names one in particular and it happens to be one of Doc's. "I blew it up using half a keg of black powder," he says. "But I'm done destroying things. I want to help you build this railroad." Doc doesn't think he should trust a greyback, but Cullen calls him on his hypocrisy, recalling how Doc trusted greybacks enough to smuggle cotton out of Mississippi for him. Cullen almost loses the interview right there, but he knows that Doc needs to have forty miles of usable track down before the government will start paying him. "You're fighting a war... you need me to win it," he says. Doc stares at him long and hard, wondering if perhaps some sort of scrotal shoehorn is involved.
The Swede walks by just as Cullen and Doc are exiting the train car. The Swede aims Beauty at Cullen. "What the hell are you doing, man?" Doc asks, aghast. "He's the son of a bitch who killed Johnson! We're gonna hang him," says the Swede. "Nonsense," Doc tells him. "This is my new foreman!" Elam, standing nearby, can't help but smile. The Swede, on the other hand, looks both devastated and baffled. "Find me someone else to hang," Doc tells him. Cullen saunters past the Swede, giving him a smartass little wink. He tips his hat toward Elam as he walks by. Elam nods back.
The episode ends with Cullen taking over Johnson's old tent. A man offers to clear out Johnson's old things, but Cullen tells him to leave it. Once inside, he takes a moment to relax. He even looks a tiny bit happy. Then he remembers he's supposed to be all morose and vengeful. Sad string music plays. He takes a bit of canvas out of his coat pocket; it's a tattered piece of the needlepoint his wife was working on. He holds it to his face, breathes deeply and closes his eyes. The screen fades to black.
History Lessons of the Week:
In a pinch, you can suture a wound with a piece your own corset and a bit of string.
Telling your potential boss you blew up his stuff is a valid interviewing technique.
People in the 1860s used alcohol for damn near everything.
If you're going to hang someone, you should probably get right to it.
Norway and Sweden are the same place to idiots.
Vocabulary Word of the Week:
Dipsomaniac: An old-timey alcoholic.
Tippi Blevins is also known as the Guamanian. Email her at b_tippi@yahoo.com, or find her on Twitter.