Elam and Cullen have been spoiling for a fight since the moment they met and now tensions are even higher because payroll is two weeks late. Thanks to Doc, they finally get to duke it out in a testosterone-soaked boxing match. Doc sees it as an opportunity to distract everyone from the fact that he has no money, while Cullen sees it as his chance to put Elam in his "place." Elam, who's been angling to become the freedmen's walking boss, sees it as a chance to stand up for himself. Elam looks to be losing the match until his friend Psalms fires him up, reminding him of the white man who fathered him by raping his mother. Cullen becomes a proxy for the slave owner who oppressed Elam; when you've got that kind of rage fueling you, it's kind of hard to lose. Plus, Sean dosed the bandages on Elam's fists with pepper and then bets against Cullen at 30-to-1 odds.
Lily sees the match from afar and recognizes it for the cheap distraction that it is. Doc is desperate and losing ground. She confesses to him that she has the maps he so desperately wants and that her husband Robert did, indeed, find passage through the Rockies. But she's not ready to give them up just yet, and tells Doc that she wants what Robert was owed. Whether this is money or respect or something else remains to be seen.
Elsewhere, Joseph and Reverend Cole are just about set off to warn Joseph's father that soldiers will be coming to avenge the survey team deaths when the Reverend's daughter shows up in town. Young Ruth hasn't seen her father in fifteen years and has come to tell him her mother is dead. The Reverend, who's so welcoming to strangers, is almost cruelly cold to his daughter. He allows her to stay in the church tent and then goes to meet Many Horses. Many Horses agrees to come into town to talk peace, but another of his sons has had a vision brought on by enduring a flesh-piercing Sun Dance. He saw himself fighting and killing a great metal beast. Symbolic! Stay tuned for the full recap.