Plague

Seth (Timothy Olyphant) is out looking for Jack McCall when he's ambushed and nearly killed by a Sioux warrior. Later, Charlie (Dayton Callie), returning from Cheyenne, finds Seth, and Seth gives him the bad news about Bill. Charlie had already heard rumors, but tells Seth, "As often as he wasn't before, I'd hoped he wasn't this time, too." Back in Deadwood, Al (Ian McShane) has a customer with smallpox, and after conferring with Doc (Brad Dourif) and Cy (Powers Boothe), he calls a town meeting at the Gem to discuss the impending crisis. After seeing how she cared for Andy (Zach Grenier) without becoming infected, Doc asks Jane (Robin Weigert) to join Reverend Smith (Ray McKinnon) (who is suffering his own ailment) in helping care for the sick. E.B. (William Sanderson) manages to get Trixie (Paula Malcolmson) away from Alma (Molly Parker) long enough to get a good look at the widow, and recognize that she is not high. He relays this information to Al, who is uninterested in what might motivate Trixie to deceive him ("I'd rather try touching the moon than take on a whore's thinking"), but warns her that she'll pay if the widow doesn't keep using. Joanie (Kim Dickens) meets Ellsworth (Jim Beaver) when he stops into the Bella Union and tells her about his gold claim. When she isn't put off by his profanity, Ellsworth tells her, "Thank you for allowing me my full range of expression." When Cy later catches her discouraging Ellsworth from gambling all his money away, he expresses his frustration with her recent moodiness. "That's the way I always wanna touch you, just like that," he tells her, gently stroking her cheek. "Don't make me do it different.", Bullock's form of vigilante justice meets resistance from the locals; the town fathers band together to fight an epidemic; Farnum reluctantly agrees to keep an eye on Alma and Trixie; Swearengen adds journalist to his colorful résumé. Doc: Brad Dourif. Alma: Molly Parker. Farnum: William Sanderson.