Graven Images by Diamondback

Warnings: Violence, language, bloodletting

Summary: Months after Vin mourns the loss of a strange new friend, Ella Gaines returns to Four Corners, and with heinous consequences. When Chris´ health begins to decline, the others realize the head regulator has been accepting a midnight visitor, and then the race is on to find a way to save both him and Vin.

Disclaimers: Characters from The Magnificent Seven belong to MGM and Trilogy Entertainment. All content is for entertainment only. No profits are received from the presentation of this material.

Notes: Graven Images is not a part of the Camino Del Diablo (Devil´s Road) AU, and is completely different on its treatment of vampirism. This story was inspired when I came upon an excess of information while researching for another project on the true folk symptoms and instances of vampirism as they arise out of Romania and the Slavic countries, which are in many cases a far cry from what we are used to being fed by Hollywood, and according to some of those legends, there actually is a cure for vampirism. Some of this lore carried with European immigrants into New Orleans and still circulates there today. Feedback is welcome.

Size: Approx 360K

PART ONE

Prologue

“Whoa, fella, whoa there. . .” Vin crooned softly at Peso and carefully pulled the tether toward him. Several passers by had begun to skirt around the corral behind the livery, giving the upset animal and its owner plenty of room.

Peso, obviously feeling like an ornery cuss today, resisted, tromped back and forth, kicking up little clouds of dust, threatening to rear again. Vin gave a downward pull and finally got the horse to plant his hoofs. Peso´s gleaming neck craned forward, his eyes bulged and he grumbled restlessly, telling his owner that he was less than pleased with whatever bug had chosen to sting him on the rump at that very moment that Saul Han had walked by.

Vin shook his head and glared. “Well, there goes that carrot I was gonna give ya.”

The horse gradually eased forward, clomping one hoof to tell Vin he was still not happy.

Vin sighed and wound the tether around the same fence into which Peso had just managed to run his new pupil. He turned to Saul and found the young man inspecting a bloody tear on the hip of his buckskins. Apparently, in his retreat from the agitated animal, he´d managed to run into a nail head that had worked its way outward from the corner of the fence.

“You all right?”

Saul nodded and dabbed a finger into the tear, then winced, air hissing through his teeth. His heavy black brows cinched up in the middle over deep set dark eyes. “Ah, hell, Vin, I´m sorry about that.” The man´s slightly rolling accent spoke of foreign lands Vin had no inkling of, and he had never enquired where Saul was originally from.

“Ain´t your fault. Don´t know what got into Peso.” He leaned down and inspected the tear, could see ripped and oozing flesh peeking through the worn leather. “Best you go get Nathan to have a look at that.”

Saul nodded reluctantly. Vin could see that he´d been excited to go out for today´s lesson in tracking, but what good would any lesson do if the man developed vile humors. Cupping a hand over the wound, Saul eased himself back up into a straight stance and reached out with his free hand. “Tomorrow maybe?”

Unless something came up that required a different kind of attention, Vin didn´t see why not. He didn´t care to charge Saul much for the lessons; wouldn´t have charged him at all except that Saul insisted and claimed it was money he planned to earn back soon enough, when he took up hunting and trapping on his own. So for a tiny sum and a spit of time, Vin took the man out on some of his patrols or on longer rounds out into the valleys to look for animal traces and edible plants. “Let´s see what Nathan says first.”

“Da,” Saul replied casually and shook Vin´s hand. It had taken Vin a little while to understand that “da” was “yes” and there were various other words Saul used that Vin had figured out on his own, words that just slipped into the man´s otherwise fluent English and muddied it just enough to make the tracker scratch his head. Ezra had no problem with it; if the gambler happened to be nearby and cocking a nosy ear; he was even known to reply with comments like, “Da, indeed,” whenever the situation fit.

Vin watched the other man go, longish hair gleaming in the morning sun like a raven´s wings, the slender corded build not too different from Chris´ but clothed in dusty tans – not dissimilar to Vin´s own duds - instead of black. The farther Saul got, the more he began to limp, the wound likely rubbing against the inside of his trousers. His good English lapsed into a tirade of what Vin could only assume were swear words strung together in his mother tongue. Had a nice rolling lilt to it, really. Vin chuckled and shook his head before he turned back to Peso.

“And as for you,” he said, pointing a finger at the animal.

Peso´s ears cocked back irritably and his eyes rolled toward Vin as if to give him a fond “Fuck you.”

“No carrot.”

Peso grunted. Another “Fuck you.”

Vin only shook his head again.

-7-7-7-

Whiskey washed down on top of biscuits and gravy quite well, though Chris had sworn to only one shot that morning. A single shot didn´t go straight to his head, but it did send tendrils of warmth out from his belly and wake up his sleepy limbs. He´d been up since the crack of dawn and keeping an eye on Potter´s Mercantile for any sign of the shipment of timber, chicken wire, and tin sheets he´d ordered to build a coop along side “the shack” as Buck so ungraciously called it. He had his back partially to the door but the mirror over the bar gave him plenty of perspective. Already he could see a familiar silhouette coming into view including a cavalry hat and shoulders draped over with the leather cowl of a buckskin capote.

The creak and flap of the batwing doors and boot steps announced Vin´s arrival, not so long after the tracker had already left once. “Well, looks like I´m free for the rest of the day.” Vin idled toward the chair across from Chris and eased into the head regulator´s view. He kicked back and slid his hat from his head. “Guess I´ll patrol later with J.D..”

“No lessons today?” Chris went ahead and poured another shot, slid it across the table.

Vin took it without question and tipped it back with a gulp. “Nope,” he breathed hoarsely through the after burn. He cleared his throat. “Saul managed to scrape up his hip. I sent him to Nathan. You still plannin´ on buildin´ today?”

“If the damned supplies would get here, yeah.” Chris corked the bottle of Red Eye. He didn´t have to ask if Vin would help, and he appreciated that. It was just there, between them, an understanding that if plan A didn´t happen, plan B automatically went into effect, and if plan B failed, they´d just go to plan D and back around to plan C if necessary with barely a word uttered between them. Strange how that worked. It had always been that way with Vin. Chris had been noticing it more so than ever lately, probably because not long ago he´d nearly damaged that connection permanently.

The tracker´s eyes were particularly clear this morning, sparkling light blue centers surrounded by that naturally darker ring of cobalt that Chris often found himself analyzing quietly but trying not to look like he was analyzing it. Vin had probably been looking forward to taking Saul Han out into the woods to investigate animal tracks and droppings. The temporary job had been a good diversion for Vin in the weeks that had followed the incident at Ella Gaines´ ranch.

Chris still felt a little sting in his heart when he thought of what he´d said to Vin that night, when he´d chastised the tracker for digging into Ella´s business when Vin was only looking out for Chris. In the first week, he´d resented that Vin had been right, but when he finally faced up to it, Vin assured him that he didn´t hold anything against Chris for only wanting to be happy.

Chris didn´t know what was worse, for Vin to be pissed off at him, or to be forgiven. Still, when it came down to it, he´d take forgiveness any day. As he had healed from the bullet he´d taken from one of Ella´s henchman, so had his friendship with Vin, bit by bit, and he´d sworn next time not to be so goddamned stubborn and hear the tracker out. They still had, however, to sweep some final remnants of Ella away. Even after her escape, she lingered between them like an invisible black veil, and Chris had to challenge himself to change the subject of his thoughts sometimes before his anger managed to bubble up and foul his mood completely.

“So, what happened to Saul?” Chris was genuinely curious, considering how much time Vin had spent of late with the foreigner.

Vin fingered the rim of the shot glass. “Damnedest thing. All he did was walk past Peso. Critter pitched a shit-fit-ta-hell. . .”

-7-7-7-

Nathan Jackson listened to Saul´s breath hitch one last time as the final stitch went in. The curved needle pierced the skin and went under the deep gouge - which Nathan had cleaned out with his own astringent brew of goldenseal and burdock root - then popped back out on the other side. Nathan tied off the thread and admired his handy work.

“Now, that´s still gonna chafe for a few days, ya hear?” he asked.

“Da,” Saul agreed. “No riding?”

Nathan stood and walked around the bed to put the bloody needle into a pot of heated water. “Nothing that will rub that scab loose and slow down your healing.”

The patient was stretched out on the bed on his side, his trousers lowered just enough to reveal a dark rim of pubic hair at the front, and something else entirely at the back. Saul had insisted that Nathan lock up the clinic before working on him. It was when the trousers were lowered to reveal the wound that Nathan understood why Saul Han didn´t want anyone to simply walk in on him baring some private area.

The man had a tail.

Nathan couldn´t help but stare, at first, at the little three inch nub of flesh that had grown naturally as if it should be an offshoot of Saul´s spinal column. But it had no bone in it, no means to move; it just tucked neatly into his ass crack as a dog would tuck its own tail. It was a useless growth he´d been born with, Saul explained, his cheeks coloring with embarrassment. Obviously the thing had been the brunt of some sort of family shame, a sobering thought to say the least.

Nathan told him not to worry, his secret was safe here, and besides, the healer was far more fascinated than he was disturbed by the sight. He turned now, just in time to see Saul´s narrow hind end, and the tail, disappear as the trousers were pulled back up then fastened and belted.

“Mulcumesc, Nathan,” Saul said as he turned around and faced the healer. “Thank you.”

“´Welcome.” Nathan pulled a jar from one of the shelves and paddled a huge gob of potent smelling salve into a small tin that he then capped. “Here, you rub this salve on it regularly. Keep the skin soft, it´ll heal quicker.”

Saul pocketed the salve and headed for the door. As he pulled his duster from the hooks by the entrance, he turned back toward Nathan, worry evident in his young dark eyes.

“Nathan. . .”

Nathan waved him on. “I already told you, I ain´t sayin´ a word.”

The young man gave a fragile smile and a nod before he left. Sad eyes, Nathan thought. Saul Han had terribly sad eyes, those of someone who considered himself an outcast. And then there was that tail.

Nathan couldn´t stop thinking about it for the rest of the day.

-7-7-7-

Mary regularly handed out the latest edition of the Clarion News while Billy followed, begging her to let him go play with the Potter children. Buck and J.D. argued on the boardwalk outside the sheriff´s office. Ezra often came strolling out of the saloon with a cat-got-the-cream grin, and Josiah constantly hammered away on the roof of the church, getting it ready for another coming rainy season.

Thus everything in Four Corners persisted, as normal as it could possibly be.

Even though Chris still moved with care not to jar the remaining traces of his wound, with Vin´s help the chicken coop on his property was finished in little time and soon it was filled with pullets and a young rooster. The architects of the little building would often watch, proud of their work, as the hens scratched about. The supports holding up the roof on the coop were unyielding and sturdy to lean against, the chicken wire ran three feet into the ground to keep foxes and coyotes from digging under it.

“Now, about that barn. . .” Chris said and turned a sideways look at Vin.

The tracker shrugged. “When´s the lumber comin´ in?”

Chris had always enjoyed the times when they worked together building, whether it was to repair a fence or chop wood. There was always a feeling of solitude between them, in the quiet moments when they simply worked, handing tools back and forth or sawing a timber. Sometimes they´d break and take the horses out to roam, and that experience, too, was a treasure. Chris hoped after they put up the barn, he wouldn´t run out of other projects they could do. Funny, how these things were becoming more of an excuse to be around Vin than anything. Looking at the coop, and the plot for the barn, and the corral – which they had recently expanded – with Pony and Peso locked in, Chris could honestly tell himself that all felt mended, that Ella´s contemptible presence was finally passing from their lives.

After two weeks, Saul Han´s stitches were out and he was back on the trail with Vin identifying plants, tracks, and droppings, as well as learning how to sleep under the stars without waking up to scorpions in his boots or rattle snakes curled up against him for warmth.

Three weeks later the rains hit.

They ruined any chances of starting the barn on Chris´ property, so the head regulator began to spend more time in town, riding out to the plot primarily to check on his chickens and make sure the cabin hadn´t sprung any leaks. Any sane man would have stayed indoors as often as time allowed, but Saul insisted on going out even during some of the worst downpours. He wanted to see how tracks or other animal signs might still be found even after the hardest rains had pounded them, or where lizards hid when their ground burrows had been flooded. While a chill crept into the air, the grasses and trees scattered through the hills around the Four Corners Gulch turned brilliant green, while the prickly pears drooped and turned yellow, water logged and long past their seasonal fruit bearing. It was a deceptive combination -the cold and the green. Everything appeared as spring when really it was winter that was fast approaching.

Over several days, Saul´s voice dropped to a pebbly grate and he began to cough frequently. He was coughing now, as Vin stood with him, looking down into a wash running with fresh rain water. The young man´s breath gusted white on the air under the brim of his hat.

Vin stared at him with disapproval and finally put his foot down. “All right, enough. Time to head back to town.”

Both Peso and Gryphon, Saul´s horse, were agitated. They obviously didn´t like being out in the rain, and the more Saul coughed, the more both geldings cocked back their ears and grumbled against their bits like they sensed more was going on than merely that ugly hacking sound. Vin rode slightly ahead, his own throat feeling tight the more he listened to the harsh bark of Han´s coughing. The other man covered his mouth with a cold wet hand, or aimed the raucous noise into the collar of his coat, but the sound still carried, chafing Vin´s ears over the hiss of the rain. So when that noise stopped suddenly, Vin couldn´t help but notice.

The tracker turned in his saddle and looked back. “Saul!” He reined Peso to a stop, jumped to the ground, and hurried toward the other horse – Gryphon had simply stopped and stood nipping at a patch of young and tender tumbleweed shoots.

Saul lay on the ground, eyes unfocused, cold and wet and feverish all together. By the time Vin had gotten him back to town and to the clinic, he was mumbling incoherently.

Chris found Vin that evening in the saloon, in a foul mood scolding himself for not refusing to take Saul out the first time he heard one little hack from the stubborn man. Buck joined them, then J.D., then Ezra. They enticed the tracker into a game of cards, which made a successful distraction for only so long before Vin eventually noticed that Josiah had not arrived.

“I. . . I´ve gotta go,” the tracker announced suddenly and his hand went limp, exposing his cards.

“Now, Mr. Tanner,” Ezra objected, “you mean you´re going to throw away a flush? I haven´t even had a chance to practice bluffing on you.”

Buck leaned over casually, pressed Ezra´s cards to the table. “Aces and eights? You wanted to bluff with that?”

Ezra gave an intentionally dramatic gasp and glared at Buck as he jerked his hand back up to hide the cards. “Mr. Wilmington!”

But the attempts at humor didn´t reach the one for whom they were intended.

Numb, Vin stood. Something nagged at him, something beyond his concern for Saul Han, who had become as much a friend as a client. He wandered through the batwing doors, and down off the boardwalk into the soggy street.

In the warm saloon light, Chris and Buck looked at each other, minds suddenly on anything but the game. Buck gave a simple head gesture, and Chris followed Vin out into the rain, brow furrowed with concern, as he kept a distance.

Vin reached the clinic steps and climbed them, his mud-coated boots making a hollow stomp on each board, the night and rain muting every other sound up the way. On the landing, he turned the corner toward the clinic door and stopped to stare through the window.

Josiah was inside, his head bowed on his massive shoulders, as he prayed over the dead man in the bed. Nathan hovered, head bowed as he was forced to give up this cause.

Saul Han´s eyes stared up at the ceiling, seeing nothing, their dark brown more like glossy black ink. The ebony lashes were matted with eye crust and dried sweat. His skin looked waxen in the flame glow from the lamps.

“Vin. . .”

The tracker glanced up as Chris approached and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“It´s not your fault,” the head regulator said softly. “Damned fool knew he was sick and didn´t have the sense to stay out of the rain. Even when you told him to.”

Vin didn´t say anything. His attention turned back to Saul´s eyes again, to the still and parted lips that were cracked and dry.

Then Vin nearly jumped out of his skin when those eyes shifted. It was a simple, sudden movement. The dark voids of his pupils turned toward the window, even while his face remained angled upward, and his lips frozen as if waiting to receive a coin so he could cross into the next world. The gaze directed solely at Vin reflected flame glow that turned reddish gold. Beyond the sense of horror that tugged at Vin, the effect was hypnotic. He stared deeper, some part of him asking could he crawl into those eyes and look beyond death?

Vin gasped, his own breath crackling on the air before him, frosting the glass. He touched the pane, wondered why Josiah and Nathan hadn´t seen the eye movement. Then he blinked and realized Josiah had already reached down and gently closed Saul´s eyes.

The rain picked up, pounded the clinic deck in a deafening roar. Behind him, he could make out that Chris was speaking, but in the din, at most he heard a whispery voice say his name.

Vin took a breath and closed his own eyes.

-7-7-7-

Saul Han was buried two days later. It turned out that he did have family as close as Watsonville, but there was no immediate answer to the telegraph Mary sent to inform them of their relative´s death. Only the seven and Mary attended the little funeral, as Saul also had few friends in the town. He hadn´t been around long enough to really establish himself.

It was sad, Vin thought. So damned sad. He imagined what it would be like to die alone, and was glad that at least he and the others had given Saul a place to be and faces to know before he passed. Vin retired to the little hotel room allotted him as part of his pay by Judge Travis. He slept the rest of that afternoon through, and well into the night, roused only by the odd thump or bump from somewhere else within the hotel.

The next morning it was harder to rise than usual, even after so much sleep. Gray, dreary light broke through a slight part in the curtains and stung through his leaden eyelids. Vin rolled over onto his belly, away from the light, and startled when a sharp soreness struck his right tit. Squirming with the covers, he rubbed lazily at it and felt the soft skin of his nipple pucker slightly at the grate of his calloused fingertips; the area itched a little, too, but he figured it was only a muscle twitch. He was just tired, that was all, and especially didn´t feel like going out in the rainy weather that had killed his friend. With a grunt he adjusted onto his side and dozed back off.

Within a few days, the sun broke and warmed the air. Everything felt clean, and the landscape cast an emerald glow. Vin felt like he was breathing again. Then suddenly Josiah sent word up the street to Chris that something was going on in the graveyard.

Spectators had begun to gather at the fence and watch when the rest of the seven arrived.

“It´s absurd!” old man Conklin could be heard grumbling as Buck passed him by, J.D. on his heels, to catch up to Josiah who was lingering on the inside of the fence.

“What´s this going on here?” The tall gunslinger measured up the gathering of spectators on the outside of the fence versus the little one inside the cemetery over by Saul Han´s grave.

Three men, all in dirty drab clothing, their jackets off and sleeves rolled up, were digging up the grave, while a woman in perhaps her fifties, stood nearby watching, keeping a proper posture, her head bowed and her lips moving in a low chant of something not English; only her body language indicated that she must be speaking a prayer. Her clothes were just as drab, her hair pulled back and hidden under a gray veil of a kerchief. She held in her hands a little pot in which a thorny vine grew, its tips barely budding with the red puckers of soon-to-be roses.

J.D.´s young eyes widened. “Are they doin´ what I think they´re doin´?”

“Are they taking the body home for burial?” Buck added.

Josiah looked perturbed. “I don´t know what they´re doing, they won´t talk to me.”

Buck noted their black hair and olive features. “Look like they might be his relatives.” Then he let out a rough “Oooof” as Vin plunged past him and stomped toward the gathering.

“What the hell are you people doing?” the tracker demanded.

The woman turned cool eyes upon him and broke off her prayer. “Please, stay back. This is our business, not yours.” Her accent was very close to Saul´s but perhaps thicker, even more rolling, her W´s exchanged for a sharp V sound, and her R´s a tight purr.

As the others watched, Ezra stepped among them and angled his hand against the sun for a clearer view. His expression shifted then, first with a glimmer of surprise, and then with strange recognition.

“You know what they´re doin´?” J.D. asked.

The gambler only continued to stare.

Chris sidled up to Buck and J.D., glancing past the cemetery fence. There were plenty of young´uns present – Billy, the Potter children, and others – all too curious to see a dead body pulled up out of the ground even though it would likely prove the source of many nightmares to come.

“Buck, see about getting those little eyes out of here.” Chris gestured at them, squinting against the sun as well.

“Yep.” Buck slapped J.D.´s shoulder. “Come on, kid, you heard what the man said.”

It was with a great deal of effort that they cleared the curious away, and also managed to keep Vin from hovering over the gravesite. Though the grave was opened, the body was not presented. The family opened the casket deep down in its hole to perform some strange and hidden rites uncustomary to the residents of Four Corners. There were hammering sounds, and something made a wet hack of a noise that reminded Vin of the cough which had taken Saul´s life to begin with. Finally, too agitated to witness it anymore, the tracker turned on his heel and departed in a huff. With the crowd suitably controlled, Chris soon followed to maintain peace up the street and attempt to dampen gossip wherever he might hear it.

When the noises stopped, and the elder woman ceased praying, the grave was filled back in, simple as that, and when the family cleared away, they had planted the little rose in front of the wooden marker.

It was late afternoon by then, and only Ezra, Josiah, and J.D. remained at the cemetery gate. As the family departed, Ezra gave the matron a courteous and matter-of-fact bow.

“Madam,” he drawled calmly. “My condolences for your loss.”

She said not a word as her dark piercing eyes stared into his jade ones, before she and her companions moved on.

J.D. turned to keep an eye on them as they left. “What the hell was all of that about?”

Ezra gripped the young sheriff´s shoulder and steered him away from the gate. “Just a cultural ritual, I´m sure,” he replied. “Show´s over.” He gave a look to Josiah, whose ultimate interest had been to ensure the graveyard was left in peace. “It would be wise for one of us to speak to Mrs. Travis about a proper Clarion report to say nothing too out of the ordinary happened here today.”

And so it was. The Han grave looked no different than before, other than that now a sweet little rose sprout jutted up from the fresh mound of dirt.

“What did you say Saul was?” J.D. asked as he and Ezra strolled back toward the center of town. “Russian?”

“Romanian,” Ezra corrected him. “Now if you will excuse me, I have an appointment.” He started to depart then stopped. His head dropped for a moment of consideration before he turned back to J.D., his plans for whatever evening game cast aside, if only for a moment of complete and utter seriousness on the gambler´s face. “Oh, and one other thing.”

“Yeah?”

“You might want to inform Mr. Tanner that his friend is once more resting in peace. I´m sure it will be a comfort.”

Seven Months Later

Out of a grave I come to tell you this, Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss That flames upon your forehead with a glow... - Edwin Arlington Robinson

For the first time since Chris Larabee had arrived in Four Corners, the town was actually facing a boom unlike it had seen before as it flooded with miners attracted to a new vein of silver ore recently discovered in the southern hills. Wagons were lined up and grinding through one after the other, piled with families, their dogs, pick axes and shovels, and leaving an abundance of horse shit in the street. A greater number of miners arrived alone on horse back and ordered or bought what they needed, giving Gloria Potter more business than she could have ever dreamed of.

Buck and Chris were leaning up against the posts outside the Ritz, watching the train of expectant prospectors, when the stage coach came in and broke out of line with the wagons. They were discussing J.D.´s recently announced interest in marrying Casey Wells, a possibility that Buck was both for and against. On the one hand, he loved the idea of seeing J.D. in wedded bliss and fathering a slew of little J.D.s and Caseys, on the other. . . he was afraid his days hanging out with the kid would be numbered. He also couldn´t tease J.D. about not getting any anymore.

“And then there´s the whole thing with our job,” Buck said under his breath.

“It´s up to J.D..” Chris scratched absently at the whisker growth under his chin and settled back again, crossing his arms. He watched a portly little man in city duds clamber off the coach and for a second had the dread thought that Jock Steele, dime novel author, had come back to haunt him. But fortunately this traveler was just a head taller than Steele.

“I know it is, but he´ll have greater responsibilities if he marries that girl. He shouldn´t be putting his life in danger and leaving her at home worrying about him. Especially if they have kids.” Buck shook his head and stared at the ground for a moment before he looked up and cocked his head.

Uh-oh, Chris thought and his gaze followed his old partner´s back over to the stage and its departing passengers, to the small and shapely figure of a woman in black. A widow with her hair up and pinned with a little hat, her face hidden under a shady net. Her small waist, contrasted with the size of her bustle, was what had Buck´s attention.

“Well, ain´t that a sad sight,” Buck said, initial subject forgotten. “She looks awfully young to be wearin´ so much black, don´t she?”

“Down boy,” Chris muttered and watched the woman turn to give instructions to the stage driver as her luggage was handed down. On second glance, there was something about her that gave him a strange feeling. Perhaps the shape of that small waist, or what little he could see of her elegant neck. Still no sign of her face. She unfolded and raised a black lace parasol, using it as further shielding against sun and staring eyes.

“Maybe I should go offer to help carry her bags.” Buck started forward.

“No,” Chris stopped him sharply. “Here comes Vin, it´s your turn to patrol.”

“Is that what we were waitin´ for?” Buck asked and winked as Vin came galloping up on Peso and murmured a soothing “whoa” as he brought the gelding to a stop. “Guess I best get on down to the livery then,” he grumbled, tipped his hat to the tracker, and then moved on.

Chris gave a casual smile after him and shook his head. Incorrigible, as Ezra would say. He turned to Vin as he dismounted and pulled Peso up closer to the hitching post.

“Hey, Chris.” Vin looked out into the busy street and a disgusted grimace ruined his handsome young face. “Nearly tripped over a dozen prospectors checking out the gulches up near your place. They all wanna find their own strike. I made it out by the farm, though. No one´s bothered it ‘cept that critter that keeps trying to dig under the coop.”

“Yeah,” Chris replied irritably. “I filled in that hole two times already.”

“Well, I took care of it again,” Vin continued. “Went out by the Bradock ranch, they´re goin´ to war with a cougar been attacking Alan´s cattle.”

There wasn´t much could be done for that. If the Bradocks asked for help, Chris would send Vin and maybe Buck out to do some sentry duty around the ranch and look for the offending feline, but until that time, he´d keep his men in town where they would be most needed. “You hungry?”

“Starvin´,” Vin replied. Chris gave a gesture for the tracker to step on ahead, and they disappeared into the hotel for a meal.

Just up the street, her luggage now deposited on the ground at her feet, the newcomer turned to stare through the netting on her hat. Her eyes narrowed to see the two regulators as their backs, one in a black long coat, the other a tan capote, disappear into the building.

“Ma´am, I´d be happy to carry that for ya,” the short plump gentleman said, indicating the longest of the suitcases on the ground.

“No, thank you,” she replied tritely and bent gracefully to pick up the case by the handle. “I´ll take this one.” The smaller carpet bag, on the other hand, was of no concern. “That one,” she said, pointing. “You may take that one.”

All the while, her gaze never left the doorway to the hotel.

-7-7-7-

After dinner, Chris elected to head to his room for a quick freshening up before the evening watch. He and Vin would be meeting Ezra at Digger Dave´s for their post, leaving Buck, Josiah, and J.D. to cover Inez´s place.

Vin declined an invitation to come up to Chris´ room, although to continue shooting the breeze would have been nice. Besides, shooting the breeze never seemed to go as far as he would have liked. They talked, they had no problem laying hands on each other´s shoulders, but that was all. Maybe that was all it should be, he thought, even if his heart gave him a little tug every time he considered it. . . every time he wished for more. Chris couldn´t possibly want more than that. Best to let it go.

Right now he just wanted a moment to himself for an evening walk before all was dark. The wagons had cleared out until the next batch that would arrive tomorrow. “See you at Digger´s,” he said as Chris gave him a light smile and turned to go upstairs.

Alone, Vin wandered into the street and simply moseyed, feeling a cool evening breeze stir under the brim of his hat. He passed Josiah on his way to post, and gave a little wave. The street fires were just being lit, and those already ablaze farther up the stretch created a glowing path that seemed to float on the dark ground, beneath a sky that while dark to the east was awash with orange and pink to the west.

Vin felt like he could climb up on the church roof and stare at that for hours, but the fact it was only a temporary view made it all the more appreciable. At the church, he started to loop around and head back, taking the route behind the building Josiah had labored to restore.

The dry air was filling with the sound of crickets and while the fires did not illuminate the cemetery, there was still enough sunset left to cast on the tangle of thorny vines that had grown thick over the Han grave. Vin paused by the white picket fence to look upon the little plot. He still didn´t understand what it was the Han family had done to the grave besides plant that rose bush, but it hardly mattered now. Josiah kept the thing watered, and strangely it had grown faster and thicker than Vin would have ever expected in that sandy soil. It made a right nice addition to the otherwise plain little graveyard and probably kept all the residents company.

“Howdy, Saul,” Vin said casually. “Nice night, ain´t it.” His hands rested on two of the pickets. “You´re lucky, gettin´ to lay out here and look up at the stars all the time, and how about that sunset tonight, huh?” He shook his head to himself. Idiot, standing here talking to someone likely didn´t feel like being disturbed. “Well, I´ll leave you be.” He gave a quick touch to his hat brim.

From Saul´s grave came only silence.

Vin strolled on, completing the trip around the church and back out into the street in the nook where the livery stood next door. He looked up and could see lights in the clinic windows, Nathan there on constant duty since the influx of miners. They came into town every evening now, either wounded or horny, and Four Corners was finally growing to be able to accommodate their desires.

Moments later he moved through the doors of Digger Dave´s and into a veil of cigar smoke, chatter, and giggling women, an environment Mary Travis and her sensibilities had fought hard to prevent, but the wants of the many had outweighed the concerns of the town´s matron prude. Besides, there were no kids out and about by this time, so there was nothing to worry about little Billy´s tender ears hearing, or his eyes seeing, something he shouldn´t.

On the dais to the side of the entrance, Vin spotted Ezra dealing cards to a gathering. He and the gambler gave each other a nod of a greeting then Vin took one last breath of the fresher air coming in through the doors before he stepped full on into the stink of too many bodies and smoke. Beer sloshed in glasses as men staggered to their tables. Vin found a place to lean against the bar and signaled to Dave to pour him a beer of his own.

He sipped at the tepid drink and his gaze traveled up to the mirror. It was a good spot to watch the room without being obvious about it, just as Ezra´s routine poker game had proven a good front.

Vin was halfway through the beer and had seen various ruffians come through the doors, but most of them were settling down fine, perhaps laughing a bit loud for his liking, but he couldn´t arrest them for that. Then a new movement caught his attention. Vin took a sip of the beer and looked toward the doors one more time. Now, this time, something was out of place.

He wiped the last gleams of beer from his lips and frowned, considering this new piece of strange that had come into the bar:

A woman in black.

-7-7-7-

The player piano in the corner chimed away merrily as more patrons filtered into the saloon for an evening of release, and Inez was going to have her hands full by midnight, greater cause for the regulators to be present. Buck couldn´t count how many times he´d tossed out someone for trying to roam up the senorita´s skirts.

“So what do YOU think, Josiah?” J.D. asked, leaning far over the table as he reached for his pint of milk. “What do you think of holy matrimony?”

“I think I´m not touchin´ that one with a ten foot pole,” the big preacher replied and sipped his beer, keeping his eyes focused on various areas of movement in the room.

“He´s had his noggin up his hind end over it for days,” Buck replied and licked the inside of his cheek with a smarty smack.

“Buck!”

“Well, ya have, and I don´t think you´re considerin´ you can´t have one thing without giving up another.”

“What´re you talkin´ about?”

“Responsibility.” Buck sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

J.D. returned the slightest grimace, one corner of his mouth lifting like he was ready to snarl at his so-called mentor. He took a drink of milk and almost forgot to sweep away the white mustache it left behind.

Buck was having a good time teasing J.D., even though his arguments did still carry weight. He was listening to the piano, watching the kid drink his milk, and pondering how to break it to J.D. that Casey, sweet and wonderful girl that she was, wasn´t exactly of the wits to understand why her law-enforcing husband was not at home as much as she wanted him to be. Buck loved her as much as he loved J.D., but considering her adolescence, the idea of her in a bridal dress was rather frightening. When J.D. had first talked about marriage as a dream, it was what Buck would call “cute” but now he was talking about it in very real terms, and that was another thing completely.

And then all thoughts of marital ups and downs disintegrated with the distinct sound of a shotgun blast from the next block over. Everyone started in their seats and silence fell while the piano, oblivious in its task of entertainment, kept playing its tinnish, jangling notes.

Buck didn´t know why, but he´d never felt more dread in his life.

-7-7-7-

Chris had just toweled off his face and pulled on a fresh shirt when he heard the shot. It sounded like it came from the area of Digger Dave´s, but it could have been in Inez´s saloon as well. He immediately frowned and peered past the oil lamp on the table by the window. In the street below, several residents, most of them men, had stopped in their tracks and stood illuminated by the street fires, staring up main street, afraid to go any closer, too curious to run away.

Spinning around, Chris grabbed his coat from where it hung on the bed post and hurried from his room and down the corridor to the balcony. People were staring, some – those who had been in Four Corners long enough to know the arrangement with the regulators - looking relieved to see that their naturally elected head lawman was responding to the report so quickly.

Outside, Mary Travis had emerged from the Clarion office and stared across the street at Digger Dave´s. She pointed Chris in that direction as he came running. At the same time, Buck, Josiah, and J.D. emerged from the saloon across from Dave´s and all four regulators hurried onto the corner and in through the batwing doors into a commotion of raised voices.

Two men, all in rough and dusty coveralls with the leathery complexions of miners, were struggling to control a smaller figure who fought against them, a Winchester shotgun in its hands. Chris had to do a double take to realize the figure was that of the woman in black who had gotten off the stage that afternoon. One of the men managed to wrench the gun away from her, while the other fought to keep control of the woman´s wrists.

Buck and J.D. looked past the tangle of bodies, their attention locked on something else that made their faces go blank as they fumbled deeper into the saloon.

“Let go of me, you bastards!” the woman hissed, and Chris glimpsed the gleam of white teeth gritting behind the black netting still cloaking most of her face. But he knew that voice, and with that recognition his attention drifted to where Buck and J.D. had run to join Ezra over by the bar.

They were on the floor, kneeling over a sprawled body as onlookers gradually gathered closer, blocking the view. Chris´ heart sank as he recognized the tan buckskin trousers, and the mare´s leg shotgun still nestled in its special holster against one thigh.

No. . .

He plunged past the gaping patrons. In his wake the woman calmed against her captors and watched, her hands gripped into determined fists.

“Move!” Chris slid onto his knees and leaned over Vin Tanner, on his back, staring up at the ceiling, his head cradled in Ezra´s lap. Vin´s hat had been removed and Ezra had swept his hair back from his face. The tracker´s breath came raspy and he shivered, already taking a fierce nosedive into shock. Chris´ hand reached out, grabbed J.D. by the lapel. “Get Nathan.” He gripped tighter when he meant to let go. “Get Nathan!” his voice cracked loudly over the murmuring crowd.

“Chris, let him go,” Buck soothed, and wrenched his friend´s hand free.

J.D. scrambled to his feet and hurried for the door, skirting around the woman, and staring at her wide-eyed and in shock that this complete stranger had done such a thing. A near hysterical gale of laughter erupted out of her at his expression before J.D. fled on his mission.

On the floor, Chris reached down, cupped Vin´s face in his hands, damned if he cared what people thought of the intimate touch. “Oh, God, Vin. . .”

Vin shuddered and blood burbled up between his lips. “Chr. . . Chris. . .” he whispered then coughed. There was no way to tell where the shot had really gotten him. So much blood had spread out over his shirt already.

“Vin, hold on,” Buck crooned. “Hold on, buddy.”

Vin´s eyes darted, glassy, searching as if not seeing. “Where. . . are you?”

Chris leaned further over, trying to put himself into his friend´s field of view. “I´m here, Vin. . .” His thumb caressed at a cooling cheek, smearing a drop of bloody spittle.

Vin stiffened up suddenly; any attempt he made at talking was cut off with the spasm.

“No, no you don´t, Vin,” Chris groaned miserably. And before he realized it, hot tears were blurring his vision. “You hang on! Nathan´s coming!”

Vin´s lips moved, formed words that had no more breath to feed them. It was all Chris could do not to grab him and try to shake the life back into him. His fingers gripped tight, clutching into Vin´s sleeves, feeling his taught skin beneath. He felt the precious life in there leak away, like water through his hands.

Then the shivering stopped.

Ezra said nothing as he watched the tracker´s features still. The gambler´s eyes stung, as the weight of the dying man´s head sank more heavily into his lap.

The blue eyes fixed; blood pooled deep down in Vin´s slightly opened mouth.

“Not like this,” Chris whispered. “Not like this. . .”

Josiah bowed his head, closed his eyes. His deep purr of a voice murmured, “Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil. . .”

Chris rose to his feet so suddenly, he nearly knocked the preacher over. Booted feet stomped the floor with vicious determination as the head regulator stormed toward the woman in black. Voices around him gasped as he tore past their owners, pushing aside anyone who was the slightest step in his way.

“Chris!” Buck rose and hurried after him.

Chris reached up, ripped the little hat, pins and all, from her head, tearing the netting away.

Long, dark hair spilled free around Ella Gain´s contemptible face, revealing eyes wild with insane glee. “Now you know what it´s like, Chris!” she seethed. “To have someone you love ripped from you!”

His face burning with angry blood, his eyes tearing freely, Chris snarled as he drew back a fist and let it fly, cracking her in the cheek bone. Ella´s head snapped back, nearly hit the man who was holding her, then she slumped, out cold, and her hair fell forward, hiding her face. Chris reached into the tangle of dark locks and lifted her head on her slack neck, preparing another fist to deliver right into her nose.

“No!” Buck caught Chris by the arms and pulled him back.

“Let me fucking go!” Chris tried to turn on him, gritting his teeth, red creeping into his vision, blinding him.

“No, Chris, listen!” Buck struggled to keep Chris facing the other way, to keep those hard knotted fists from finding his own face. “She´ll hang,” he gruffed out. “She´ll fuckin´ hang for this. . .” he hesitated before adding, “. . . and for Sarah and Adam. Look.”

Chris heaved for breath; his breath. . . oh, his breath. . . he wished. . . oh God, he wished he could give it to Vin.

“They all saw what she did,” Buck said, indicating the onlookers.

Chris shuddered, fought to contain any further tears from spilling over and settled on keeping his jaw clenched so tight his teeth creaked in his skull.

The full skirts of Ella´s dress wrapped around her captor´s feet. The grubby miner gave her a heft, tilted her back and revealed her face one more time before he let her slide to the floor where she collapsed in a heap of midnight satin. “We´ll testify, Mr. Larabee,” he assured in a twangy, Texas drawl. “Make no mistake. We´ll make sure she swings.”

Chris couldn´t find any more words. As his breath heaved, scouring his throat, and his hands clenched eager to reach right out and break the bitch´s neck, he eased up as he felt Buck´s face close, warm lips close to his ear whispering a soft, “Shhhhh. . .”

Swallowing down the hard lump of his heart, Chris got his bearing. Gradually, Buck let him go. He stood over Ella, looking down at her with contempt, fighting the urge to kick her in the belly until blood shot out of her mouth as sure as Vin´s had spilled from his.

Slowly he turned, faced Buck, and nodded.

-7-7-7-

Buck kept expecting Chris´ jaw to fuse in the clenched position. It was clenched when Ella was dragged up the street to the jail and shoved into a cell with no hope of even a cool cloth for her bruised cheekbone; it was clenched when the head regulator stood over Vin´s body watching Nathan remove all of the shot from the tracker´s chest cavity; it was clenched as Chris stood in the telegraph office sending for Judge Travis to make a special trip out to Four Corners.

And it was clenched now, two days later, as they stood under an ancient oak settled up slope on Chris´ property with a view of both the mountains and the sky. The pine box in which Vin´s body rested was supported by three planks over the hole into which their friend would soon be lowered.

Surprisingly, more people attended than expected, despite that the grave site had been chosen so far out of the way. Even old fart Conklin was there. Mrs. Potter stood next to Mary, whose hands rested on Billy´s shoulders. The child watched Chris most of the time. Almost everyone took some time to watch Chris.

He kept his distance, head bowed, hat removed, stolid as a slab of granite, except for that tight jaw. A steady breeze stirred his coat and flipped at the little black string tie he´d added to his collar. The rest of the remaining seven stood closer to the grave site, not a single one of them dry-eyed, with Josiah at the head droning a prayer:

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer. . . My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge. . . My shield and the horn of my salvation. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.”

It was upon the last words that Buck saw Chris slightly shake his head and look up through the tree branches. At last that strong and stubborn jaw came unclenched and Chris drew a breath in deeply, suppressing any of a thousand possible emotions. His eyes glittered and dulled as he looked back down at the dried grasses amid the tree´s roots.

The release came much later, well after everyone had departed, and in private, down in the little cabin. The deep drawn-out cry that wrenched the moonlit night carried so much pain and guilt. It provoked uneasy snorts and snuffles from Pony standing under the little shed addition Vin and Chris had built into the corral. Peso was there, too, as it had been left up to Chris to decide what to do with the gelding.

Buck swallowed down a hard lump as he sat in the saddle, just yards away and cloaked in the shadows of the trees. He´d returned just to keep an eye on his friend, knowing Chris would need time to deal with the loss on his own, so he didn´t bother to approach the shack. The little windows glowed dimly from within, and occasionally there was movement, once a breaking sound which Buck guessed was a bottle hitting the wall, then a clatter – pots and pans falling from their rack. When there was no more banging around and shouting, and Buck could be sure Chris hadn´t knocked over one of the lamps and started a fire, he looked up toward the hillside, where the grave, marked by a simple wooden cross, was situated. Not a cricket chirped, and the owls regularly heard screeching around the farm didn´t so much as twitter.

The term “silent as the grave” came to mind.

“G´night, Vin,” Buck whispered, then he reined his horse away and headed back toward town.

-7-7-7-

Digger Dave´s had often served as a courtroom before, as it did now. But unlike any of the other previous trials held there, this one attracted far more attention. The crowd that gathered outside, spilling up and down the board walk and out onto the street, was essentially made up of Main Street´s primary residents, those who had known Vin well enough to miss seeing him strolling back and forth each morning. Young ladies with fret lines on their faces listened around the edges, and whispers as to the identity of the accused were circulating.

“I heard tell she´s also that woman ordered the killin´ of Mr. Larabee´s family.”

Ezra heard this as he wove his way through and resisted answering. He thought it instead of vocalizing: Yes, indeed, good sir, she is the self same obsessive and lunatic, scum of the fucking earth who destroyed Mr. Larabee´s family. Not only that but she tried to kill the other six of us, his friends, and now she has succeeded to take one of us, and may she burn in everlasting hell.

He silenced his mind, else his cheeks were going to soon be flushed with fury. He stepped up onto the boardwalk murmuring a continuous stream of, “Excuse me. . . pardon me, please. . . excuse me.” When the last barrier refused to shift aside, he announced more assertively, “I´m SAYING EXCUSE ME.”

The two old codgers´ brows shot up and they grunted as they scooted out of the way of the batwing doors, and Ezra strolled in, cool as the proverbial cucumber, to look upon the gathering. He found Nathan, Buck, and J.D. all lined up in the chairs that had been rearranged, and sidled over to sit with them and watch.

Chris stood to the corner of the desk that served as a bench, while Orin Travis was hunched over his papers, all the written and signed testimonies. Ella, dressed in the same black dress she´d been wearing when she came into town, stood before the desk, hands neatly tucked at her sides, posture straight. She and Chris were having a staring contest which neither was winning, though Chris´ poisonous green stare was certainly close to the finish line.

“Ella Gaines, the evidence against you is sound,” Travis finally announced. “Besides the witnesses who saw you cold- bloodedly gun down Mr. Tanner in this very place, there is the hard evidence, and your confidence to Mr. Larabee, that you are responsible for commissioning the murders of Sarah and Adam Larabee.” Travis raised the gavel before he was finished speaking. “Seeing as you are not in the least remorseful of your crimes, I hereby sentence you to hang by the neck until you are dead. May God have mercy –“

“No,” Chris husked, still gazing out from behind his disheveled blond bangs.

Travis took pause to frown, his head angling toward the gruff sound of the angry devil on his shoulder, and then turned back, looked Ella Gaines in the eyes, and let the gavel fall with a hard BANG.

A murmur of relieved sighs circulated the room, and Ella´s façade softened. She´d seen Chris stand by and let this happen. It was official now.

“No, Chris. . .” she whispered. “I love you. . . I couldn´t bear. . .”

Chris walked right past her, and Ezra could have sworn the temperature in the saloon dropped.

“Chris!” she screamed after him as Buck and Josiah stood and went to take her by the arms. “CHRIS!” She tried to dive after him, and when held back turned her wrath upon Travis. “You goddamned old piece of shit! What do you know about any of this! You don´t know anything! ANYTHING about lost love!” She tried to kick toward him, gnashing angry teeth at him.

“That´s enough,” Buck hissed through his teeth and jerked her arm behind her back, pulling up to stress her shoulder joint. She cried out and Buck denied her that by grabbing her around the throat.

Josiah held onto her other wrist while he stepped one leg behind hers and one in front, preventing her from kicking anymore. His lionish eyes narrowed coolly as he stared at her profile.

Ezra could see the tall gunslinger´s knuckles tightening and leaned in close. “Buck, ease up.”

Buck lowered his lips to speak beside Ella´s ear. “You know, I loved that niece of yours,” he spat under his breath. “Hilda. She was the most beautiful soul I ever met, and because of YOU she died. So don´t you even –“ he clenched a little tighter for emphasis, “- so much as whisper about what it´s like to lose someone you love.”

“Buck, come on,” Ezra drawled. “Let go.”

Buck drew in a breath, nostrils flaring, and just like that calmed. His choking grip released and left Ella coughing.

“I´ll take it from here,” Ezra offered, reaching around and laying his hand around her forearm and clamping tight. Buck nodded and gave her over.

It was hell in the streets. As soon as the prisoner saw daylight, a hail of small rocks descended on her along with vicious shouts, the most popular of which used “Child killer!” strung together with a few other creative profanities. Ezra and Josiah fought to shield themselves from the onslaught and hang on to Ella. A final stone struck Ella´s forehead, opening up a bleeding cut and stunning her. It made dragging her to the jail only the slightest bit more difficult, and while the rock throwing stopped, the curses didn´t. Ezra had seen this sort of thing before. He´d just never expected to be party to the center of any such situation. This had been a regular witch trial, only its subject really had been a witch in the purest and most vile sense of the word. The seven were now six, and while this woman was going to die, it wasn´t going to change that.

God, we´re all changed, he thought. How were any of them ever going to recover from this?

-7-7-7-

The winds were up late that afternoon, sweeping dust across the roads and rippling on the tall dry grasses lacing the hills. Chris stood over Vin´s grave, eyes closed, while Buck propped against the old oak and looked up at the purest of blue skies, fiddling a piece of straw between his teeth, much the way Vin had often done.

“She hangs in two days,” Chris said hollowly, and Buck knew he wasn´t the one being addressed. “God, Vin, why didn´t I listen to you before?” Chris opened his eyes and stared hard at the little cross on which VIN TANNER was scrawled. His voice dropped to a new level of regret. “Why didn´t I LISTEN to you?”

Buck frowned. “Chris. . . uh, what are you talking about?”

Chris didn´t seem to hear. “And why didn´t I tell you. . . how I really felt?”

Buck cocked his head, examining his old friend´s numb countenance, the way the life had seeped from Chris´ eyes. How well was the man sleeping? he wondered. “How did you really feel?” he asked seriously.

Chris stood silent a moment longer before his eyes lifted slowly and stared at Buck. “Like he was part of me,” he finally replied.

Buck nodded. There had never been any question that Vin and Chris had found some strange spark between them from day one of their meeting. He had seen it from the moment Vin sidled up beside Chris and stood so casually. “He with you?” Buck had asked and when Chris nodded, Buck knew. . . Somehow, he knew, they were bonded more deeply than the human mind, and heart, generally could grasp. It was a thing below the surface that couldn´t be explained. It just was, and had they ever taken that friendship further, Buck would never have been judgmental. He´d seen men with men before; it was no shock. Every brothel his mother had ever taken refuge in had a “secret” room where men who were specialists with “other” preferences could find their variety of pleasure. It just became a natural thing to Buck that it did happen.

But Chris and Vin had never had the opportunity to explore that side of themselves. It had taken Ella and her cheap tricks to come between them, and just when they´d nearly managed to cast her away. . . this. . .

“Chris, I´m sorry,” Buck said. It was all he could say.

Chris took a breath and turned to walk back down toward the cabin, the winds picking up his coat tails and throwing them about behind him like broken wings. “Go home, Buck,” he said dully. “Please, go home.”

-7-7-7-

That Ella was going to hang for the murders of Sarah and Adam, as well as Vin, made no difference at all. It was the barb at the heart of Chris´ torn emotions. All this time, he´d wanted her head for Sarah and Adam´s deaths, but now that she´d taken Vin, too, that was the rub. It was hard to cope with how much more loss he felt in Vin being gone, than in his wife and child. He cursed himself for that but still couldn´t help himself.

He lay on his bed, looking out through the window at the naked moon and the brushy blue caps of the trees scattered along the hills. Somewhere out there a coyote barked and worked up to a shrill howl. Others joined in, their calls so lonesome even though they sang together, having each other. As the howls faded, the horses outside grumbled, and something startled the chickens.

Chris scooped up the nearly empty bottle of Red Eye, took a sloshing gulp, and set it back down on the floor beside the bed post. He listened, aware that focusing on the noises in the night distracted him from his grief. The winds were still gusting, first a light hush of air, and then a hard drive that wailed under the eaves.

If he just listened to those sounds only, and cleared his mind, let the whiskey do its work, maybe he could pretend that Vin was just back in town, sleeping in his wagon or his hotel room, and the last week had only been a bad dream. He´d worried about Ella enough, it was completely possible she´d only managed to nag her way into his head and throw him into a course of nightmares. The mind played funny games when it was stressed.

“Chris?” a soft familiar voice bled through the sobbing wind from outside.

Yeah, just like that, Chris mused with a sneer and burped up whiskey and acid. He picked up the bottle, hand wavering, and took another hard drink, washed the taste of the burp back down.

And then it hit him how real that voice had sounded. So near, and under the wind, footsteps approached. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking that he felt as if SOMEONE was out there drawing nearer. Closer. . . and closer. . .

On the porch now. Yeah, there was the pad of a foot. Another wind gust screamed around the corner of the cabin, and the chickens let out a squawking fuss.

“Fuckin´ coyotes,” Chris slurred and forced himself to stand up, trousers sagging down from his lean naked belly as he stumbled toward his belt and holster hanging over the back of a kitchen chair. He skinned the gun free and raised it, cocking back the hammer, and wavered toward the door. His feet passed over little squares of moonlight falling in through the other windows. Whatever was out there was about to be eatin´ a bullet if it was trying to get into the chicken coop - the PERFECT coop he and Vin had built together. All that hard work, and every fuckin´ critter from here to the border trying to dig its way in and devour all of their pretty brood.

Well, we´ll just see about that. . .

Chris flung open the door, expecting to see the gray shape of a wild dog scamper through the yard. Instead he halted and immediately lowered the gun as his heart jumped up into his throat and pounded him senseless. Moon glow cast a halo over the wavy long hair of the shape before him, and he looked down into a set of milk-blue eyes and features pale as ivory and so. . . so. . . damned near ideal in their symmetry.

“Hey, Chris,” Vin´s thin whisper of a voice said, “can I come in?”

-7-7-7-

“Is it me, or is our Mr. Larabee in a rather. . . good. . . mood today?” Ezra asked as he observed the head regulator approaching the breakfast table with a huge plate of food. The gambler´s brows knitted with suspicion when Chris actually gave a crooked, if brief, smile as he sat down and pointed at the salt shaker. Ezra handed it across promptly and fingered his chin, frowning.

“Chris,” Buck greeted and leaned forward just so to get a better look at his friend´s face which seemed strangely neutral, no obvious signs that the man had been grieving for nearly a week. “How you doin´?” He casually fingered his mustache as if he were just as preoccupied with that instead.

“Better than expected,” Chris replied, salting down his eggs. He then broke open the yokes with a triangle of toast and sopped it in the yellow mess.

“Appetite´s back up,” Buck spoke with approval even though he was as confused as Ezra as to Chris´ turn of mood, no matter how slight. His eyes roamed over Chris´ plate. Besides eggs, Chris had four strips of bacon, three sausage links, and a big dollop of corn pudding. “Making up for all that fastin´?”

Chris shrugged, all attention on his breakfast. “I wasn´t hungry before,” he finally said between chews.

Ezra resigned to the fact and shook his head in disbelief before returning to his own plate and delicately slicing through a sausage link. “I guess we´ll be particularly busy tonight,” he said grimly.

“The eve of a hangin´ is always busy,” Buck reminded him and sat back in his chair. “Especially in a case like this.” Particularly since the convicted was female; no news traveled faster than when a murderess was about to swing. If Four Corners held a hanging a day for a man, for ten days, the collected gatherings would still have no where near the expected turn out for Ella´s sentence. Some of the ranch families were already coming in on wagons and camping on the outskirts to be sure they got a good view. He pulled free the napkin he´d tucked into his collar and slapped it down on the table with a grunt. “Great, now I´m not hungry.”

“I´ll take Digger´s with Ezra,” Chris said, wiping his mouth. “You take the other.”

“And who gets to stay at the jail?” Buck asked pointedly.

They looked at each other, blinking. Certainly none present wanted to do it. “Josiah,” all three intoned at the same time. The preacher might not yet feel so forgiving of Ella, but he would certainly have the most patience to watch her.

“J.D. can keep him company,” Chris added.

“Nuh-uh,” Buck replied. “I don´t want the kid in there with that woman.”

“I think she´s a far cry from charming him or any of us again, Buck,” Ezra remarked.

Buck sighed and nodded. He really just wanted it all to be over. This thing was a black cloud over the town, over him. . . all of them. He hated to see a woman put to death, but at the same time, he WANTED to see Vin´s, Sarah´s, and Adam´s killer fall on that rope. Worse, some part of him normally repressed wished her neck wouldn´t snap. Let her dangle there gargling ‘til her eyes bugged out and the noose made her neck bleed. Buck shivered that such dark thoughts could stir inside him.

“Just tell ‘im to ignore her,” Chris commented and stood up, his plate already finished. “Hell, they can gag her if they want to.” He took one step, stopped short, and swayed for a matter of seconds.

Noticing the strange pause, Buck perked up. “Chris?” Suddenly the head regulator collapsed to his knees with a groan. One hand roamed up to press against the side of his head. “Whoa!” Buck was up out of his chair in a blink and reaching out to steady his friend before Chris fell forward on his face.

“I´m all right.” Chris´ hand gripped Buck´s forearm, contradicting his claim.

Ezra stood and came around the table to Chris´ other side. He got down to his knees to get Chris´ arm over his shoulders and add support. “I don´t think so. Maybe you should get Nathan to have a look at you.”

“Let´s have a look atcha right here,” Buck demanded, cupping Chris´ face between his hands. The green eyes blinked back at him attempting to focus. Chris looked like his head was spinning but strangely, he didn´t smell like he´d hit the bottle this morning. Come to think of it, he was a little pale. “Yeah, this is Nathan´s department.”

“Let go´a me,” Chris mumbled and forced himself up to his feet. He wavered, glared back at several other restaurant patrons who were staring, and shook it off. “It´s just been a long week,” he griped and took a careful step away from Buck and Ezra.

“Yeah.” Couldn´t argue with that. Buck´s thoughts incidentally roamed back to the hanging and what Ella would sound like suffocating to death. Please, God, let´s just get this shit over with.

-7-7-7-

A dry storm hit that evening. Rains could be seen falling on the horizon but evaporating before they reached ground. Lightning flashed like the clashing swords of angels fighting above the world, and the winds spun up dust devils on Main Street and broke limbs from trees. By nightfall the horizon was lost, but the lightning and thunder remained.

The weather helped dampen the festivities only so much. Many prospectors who might have spent the night in the saloon liquoring up before tomorrow morning´s entertainment, ended up busy battening down their wagons. Others were confined to their camps making sure their tents and supplies didn´t blow away. Everywhere horses were restless, and people in the streets had to squint to keep dust out of their eyes.

Digger Dave´s was fairly calm, most of its patrons clustering up in the corners to avoid the gales that flapped the batwing doors back and forth and puffed in dried leaves and grit. Ezra was damned happy he didn´t have the job of sweeping the place later.

The gambler shuffled cards and dealt them to a table of decent players, all the while aware of the form in black stretched out beside him. Chris had settled back into the corner on the dais where he had a perfect view of Ezra´s cards, if he cared at all what they were – and Ezra did not like this one iota, having someone looking over his shoulder, even if it was Chris – and propped up his legs in a second chair. However, Chris didn´t seem to be concerned with Ezra´s hand, or anything else. The brim of his hat was settled low on his forehead, and he kept his face angled down, only revealing his tightly molded mouth and chin. Ezra tried to ignore him. He and Buck had given up on getting Chris to go by Nathan´s; maybe, they agreed, he just needed more food, more rest, and a hell of a lot more healing time. The good mood, thin though it had been, must have only been a wall of denial.

Occasionally Chris had a shot or lifted his head when someone new came in. His eyes narrowed, examining each patron, and then he lowered his head again, biding his time. It was near midnight, according to Ezra´s pocket watch, when the head regulator suddenly rose, adjusted his duster and hat, and scanned the crowd one more time.

“You going somewhere?” Ezra asked casually as he raised an opponent, taking only quick glances up at the figure beside him.

“Yeah, I´m going home. I´ll send Buck over to back you up.”

“You shouldn´t make that ride in this weather.”

“I´ll be all right.”

Ezra looked around the place. At worst, the tables had been shuffled a little too close together to get them away from the doorway. Not a fight had broken out, nor had a single glass been shattered. “I think I have it covered.”

Chris gave an appreciative pat to Ezra´s shoulder, provoking the gambler to raise a brow, and then descended from the dais.

Ezra continued playing, even while he noticed that Chris was still walking carefully as though tipsy and trying not to show it. Then the black coat and its owner disappeared through the doors, passing through a billow of dust.

-7-7-7-

J.D. was standing by the window in the sheriff´s office, watching the street, taken in by the sweeps of dust that rose up in swirling columns illuminated by lightning flashes. The street fires had not been lit this night, with too much risk of embers flying against the dry wood of the buildings, so anyone passing through had to rely on their wits and whatever light fell through windows and the odd intervals of flashes.

Josiah had settled back behind the big desk, propped up his feet, and read aloud the most angry passages from the Old Testament he could find, while the prisoner sat huddled in her cell, knees drawn to her chest in the corner of the bunk. Ella hadn´t eaten anything, and her stewing ire ensured anyone who bothered to look at her, a glare that made J.D. want to go take a bath. After a while, Josiah´s voice dropped to more of a drone and he read to himself.

“It feels so strange,” J.D. observed aloud as blue brilliance ignited for a full span of three seconds, traveling beyond a distant cloud spread.

“What´s that?”

“I keep expecting Vin to walk in that door.” J.D. sighed and leaned deeper against the pane. “Remember that time he made Ezra wear a dress to get Mary outta Wickes Town?” It was an attempt to find some fond thing to think about, something that could bring a little laughter to Vin´s memory. Everyone had been so sad, it was like they were all holding their breath.

“Now there´s a visual memory could´a stayed happily buried,” Josiah muttered and went back to his reading.

A flash of lightning revealed a horse and rider passing by outside, the rider slightly hunched as if tired, his head angled down for the familiar black hat to shield his face against the wind. In seconds the sight was gone, plunged into darkness with only the muffled sound of hooves clopping on.

“Hey, that looked like Chris.” J.D. angled around to follow the direction the rider was going, but the hoof beats picked up speed into the fading sound of a steady gallop. By the time the lightning flashed again, there was no one there. “Now, where would he be going this time of night in all this wind?”

A snore interrupted J.D.´s observations and he turned to find Josiah´s hands holding the book had gone slack in his lap and his head nodded forward heavily.

“Dammit.” J.D. took three hurried steps and shoved the big preacher´s feet off the desk. Josiah jolted to with a snort and looked around. His deep set blue eyes refocused on the younger man with a glare that soon softened. J.D. gave an underhanded gesture toward the cell and Josiah seemed to understand.

No way J.D. wanted to be alone with that creature in here, even if she was behind bars. Gradually, he went back to the window and back to staring, thinking now how the next six hours until dawn would be the longest in his life.

-7-7-7-

It was a rough hour later before Chris made it to the farm. He´d ridden the trail there and back so many times the dark was no hindrance, and lightning flashed enough to give him sharp glimpses of any obstacles ahead, such as a tree limb that had fallen but wasn´t so large that it couldn´t easily be steered around.

Upon reaching the yard, he unsaddled Pony quickly and let the horse into the corral where he immediately went to go join Peso in the shed. Both animals were agitated by the weather and kept shifting back and forth on their hind legs.

On the porch, Chris turned around and looked up toward the hillside, watched as a brilliant flash of blue-white back lit the forests and ridge line and rendered the old oak in skeletal silhouette along with the little cross at its base.

With that he turned and went inside, took off his coat, and without so much as lighting one lamp, sat down at the table, and waited. Lightning flashed through a window and he felt as if it touched the entire side of his face.

It wasn´t long before he heard the steps on the porch.

-7-7-7-

The trapdoor dropped with a KA-THUNK that made Buck wince as the scaffold was tested out in the street in front of the livery. A sandbag weighted to match Ella, plunged through and jerked to a stop in mid air. The hemp rope creaked eerily as it swung the bag back and forth. Buck was debating choosing to view the event from the balcony outside the clinic, just far enough away to take the edge off the view, but enough to see it was done and Ella Gaines had been severed from this world. Judge Travis and Josiah were already up on the platform discussing something as the executioner – a man from Ridge City – hauled the rope back up, inspected it, and applied more wax to the noose.

Propped on the balcony railing, Buck and Nathan watched. The crowd began to gather, little groups clutching up to form bigger groups of ranchers, miners, main street business owners. Even Mary, whom it was surprising for Buck to see there, though Billy wasn´t in sight and that was a good thing. But then there was Casey. . . sweet little Casey Wells standing next to J.D., the two of them suddenly appearing far to young to be considering matrimony let alone watch a hanging. After a while, the street was completely blocked up, and voices chattered continuously, woven together so that no one single conversation could be distinguished easily among them.

“You seen Chris?” Buck asked. It suddenly occurred to him the one for whom this was for had not shown up.

“No, but Ezra said he went back to the farm last night.”

“I know that, but I figured he´d be here by now.” Buck looked over the crowd, found J.D. had moved up to the boardwalk in front of the Gem Hotel, and Ezra just a little ways up from there in front of Bucklin´s General. The notion to also look for Vin struck him before he remembered not to.

Just as the scheduled hour approached, Buck spotted a rider coming in from the north east, weaving past parked wagons and tents, and trotting as far to the start of Main Street as the crowd would allow. Chris steered Pony around behind the church and disappeared from view, probably taking the animal around to the livery from behind.

Buck made an uncomfortable noise in his throat and stood back from the railing. “I´ll be right back.” He slipped around the corner and down the steps into the alleyway where he turned and eased his way into the street.

Soon the captive was led from the jail and marched to the gallows by several volunteers who had been approved to carry arms for this occasion. Strict warning had already been passed around that if there was any more stone throwing, the perpetrators would be promptly arrested and fined, but it didn´t seem necessary. There was something about that final walk that tended to calm people down.

Ella´s eyes darted resentfully from one spectator to the other, she kept her head up and shoulders straight with pride. Woman has no idea what her problem is, Buck thought. It made her all the more frightening, that she had never seemed to understand that what she did was wrong. Her own feelings and wellbeing were her only concern, and she would never understand why Chris wasn´t flattered by the lengths to which she had gone to try to own him. “Crackpot,” J.D. had called her. Buck realized he was holding his breath and let it go in a long whooshing sigh.

Chris emerged from the front of the livery, having slipped through the back and settled in Pony. Buck raised a hand to get his attention, but the other regulator didn´t see, even as tall as Buck was compared to those around him. Waving again, Buck froze when Chris finally did see him. The face that turned toward him was hollow, tired, and pale. Chris´ eyes were sunken with dull brown shiners. Hung over, was Buck´s first guess.

Chris broke eye contact and turned full attention to finding a place before the gallows. Those who knew him eased out of his way, probably figuring that he had the right to choose whatever vantage point he wanted. Buck frowned as he tracked the figure in black slipping past everyone and going right to the front where he found a suitable angle to see Ella when she was on the platform as well as when she came down through it.

Strange that.

Ella was steered around the construction and toward the steps. At the bottom she hesitated, looked at Chris and softly shook her head, eyes tearing up. “I´m sorry you think it has to be this way, Chris,” she said firmly.

The crowd went dead silent, waiting to hear him reply. He didn´t. He only stared at her coolly. So cool it was giving Buck a chill.

“I still love you,” she went on. “No matter what happens here today. There is no greater love than what I feel for you.” Her martyred attitude put a nauseating rock in Buck´s belly.

Chris´ eyes flashed. Sunken and tired though they were, the light caught in their green irises and cast back a challenging glower at her. “Welllllll,” he drawled casually, voice seething with derision, “you just take that greater love and march right up those steps, sweetheart.”

Buck nearly swallowed his own tongue coughing. Surprised gasps went up, someone snickered at the remark. It clearly stung her. For the first time, tears rose in her dark eyes, and her lips trembled. What had she expected? Buck wondered. Had she thought Chris would have a sudden change of heart, drag her from the authorities and ride off into the sunset with her? On second thought. . . Yeah, she probably did think that.

“Chr. . . Chris. . .” she stammered. “Please. . .”

Chris gave her two wardens a nod. They complied by directing her up onto the first three steps. She started to kick and struggle.

“Let me go! You bastards! Chris! No, Chris! You know you can´t do this!”

The higher she stepped, the more her voice rose in desperation, and the sounds of feet fumbling on the upper platform added to the effect.

Buck found he could only watch Chris, whose eyes followed the objecting woman up the steps and now had her in view as she was shoved over the top of the trap door and made to stand still as her restraints were adjusted and the noose was wrapped around her neck, the knot fitted perfectly behind her left ear.

Was that a smile on Chris´ face? Buck wondered and squinted. And sweet Jesus, it was. The head regulator looked strangely satisfied. Resentful, but satisfied, fueled by Ella´s cries. She must have seen, for she stopped shouting for him to release her – as if that decision were his – and only sobbed now. Her lips drew back into a grimace as she shook. Josiah asked her if she had anything further to say, but she only spat at him and made expressions, teetering back and forth between anger and fear, rivulets of tears coursing down her face. The executioner slid a black hood over her head and jerked it down hard over her face. The whole time, Chris looked. . . wickedly happy.

It wasn´t what Buck had expected. Hell, he´d half expected Chris not to show up. This woman, killer or not, had also been a lover. But never did Buck expect to see such malicious glee in his old friend´s eyes. It was too much.

He closed his own eyes to it and only heard the trap door drop and the crunch of Ella´s neck breaking.

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