“Jayne, River,” Mal ordered, and the big man and his wife ran outside to make sure they weren’t going to be interrupted by anyone else, guns and other weapons at the ready.

Dan Jefferson pushed his way through the crowd. “Trouble just seems to follow you around, doesn’t it?” he commented.

“You have no idea.”

Simon went down onto his knees next to the fallen man, feeling for a pulse in his neck, his free hand checking for other injuries as the Sheriff dropped to his heels beside him.

“Well?”

The young man looked up, a hint of surprise on his face. “He’s dead.”

“Any idea how?”

“Not a clue. I can’t see any blood, and there’s no broken bones so far, but … help me turn him over.”

“Okay.” Jefferson threaded his hands under the body, and between them they rolled him carefully onto his back.

Staring eyes greeted them, wide and bulging, the skin taut over the planes of the skull, and sporting an unnatural redness that contrasted with the faint blue tint to his lips. His clothes, while originally expensive and probably made to measure, were now a mere shadow of their former selves, torn and encrusted with dried mud.

Jayne and River came back inside. “No-one out there, Mal. Looks like he might’ve walked in from the desert, ‘cause there’s no vehicle in sight.”

“That would explain the sunburn,” Simon murmured, and Jefferson nodded.

“Got any better reason why he’s dead, though?” the Sheriff asked.

Simon looked back down at the body. “Without an autopsy it would be difficult to –“

“Best guess.”

Running experienced hands over the corpse, Simon detected no internal damage, nor bullet holes, stab wounds … “There’s borderline malnutrition, and possibly severe sunstroke due to dehydration … no pitichial haemorrhaging, so I doubt he was suffocated or strangled –“

“Since he walked … well, staggered in here under his own steam, I kinda doubt that too,” Jefferson said dryly.

Simon fixed him with his blue eyes. “You asked for my opinion, Sheriff.”

“’Cause you seem to be the