Jayne hadn’t really minded going with the doc so much.

As much as they both disliked it they made a good team, at least at bargaining.

With Simon to look all proper, stuck up and dandified and him lurking in the background they generally got a better price than either of them alone, or any of the other crew members could get. And they finished getting more supplies in shorter time than any other combination of crew members.

Sometimes it surprised him how good a team they made.

Weirded him out too, come to think of it.

The Doc could be a pompous pain in the ass sometimes, and quite the naïve coreworlder to boot.

Like that insistence on more detailed directions.

What’d the man use his eyes for anyways?

If’n he was using them he’d seen that the land here-abouts was flat, giving a clear view for miles. How could they get more specific directions? The fellow’d told them what direction to go in, where were they gonna get lost? Maybe some tree’s ‘uld pop up outa nowhere?

Though to be fair to the Doc (which he admitted he did as little as possible) different folks knew different things. And some’ a the things the Doc knew made no more sense to him then tits on a boar hog did. So surely some’ a the things he knew made no sense to the Doc.

Still an all what good was being in the top three percent of your class if’n ya didn’t pay attention to the obvious?

Like this house, it was clear to him that they weren’t gonna get what they came for here, but it was clear as day to him that the doc hadn’t noticed a thing.

First of all what was a house like that doing out in the back of the beyond? That spelled trouble no two ways to it. House like that screamed that the owners had money, and out here that was an open invitation for bandits to come calling. That the house still stood and had clearly stood for a number of years screamed power, and not a good kind.

The only kind’ a power that could keep the sort that preyed on the wealthy off was power over those that did the preying or those was protected by those that did the preying.

Either way wasn’t the sort’ a situation a man wanted to walk into blind.

That in and of itself was bad, but add into it the look of the house. Made him wish he’d brought some grenades.

All of them fancy windows had curtains flapping out of them.

He supposed that it was possible that they had opened them to let in the breeze. But he didn’t think so. Folk ‘uld build a fancy place like this would set up environmental controls inside the house, and them things didn’t work too well with the windows open. Besides the curtains weren’t flapping the way you’d expect them too if the windows were opened. They were in odd bunches and jumbles, little bits sticking out here and there, with whole curtains bundled up and waving in the wind. Looked entirely too much like the curtains were hanging out broken windows.

It was quiet too. Too damned quiet. When folk were about there was always noise, they might not be aware of it but it was there, and this place was too damned quiet.

The whole setup was making him twitchy, he felt like someone was drawing his-self a careful bead on his back. He looked over at the Doc, surprised to see him looking concerned and glancing back and forth ‘tween the house and Jayne.

Maybe the Doc wasn’t so helpless as he thought he was. But then again, he’d been surprised when the Doc turned out to be a pretty good shot after Mal instituted crew-wide gun practice; and unlike Kaylee, the Doc actually wore his gun and belt when he left the ship.

Reaching a decision, Jayne stopped the mule and told the Doc what he thought.