Chris/Vin, All Seven
Author's Note: I don't own them and never have. If I had I wouldn't have lost them.
Since I wasn't tarred and feathered and run out of Four Corners for my first story I thought I'd try it again. Thanks to all who encouraged me.
It was late afternoon in Four Corners, and Buck and JD were strolling down the sidewalk, as was their wont - strolling down the street invariably meant stepping in piles of horse shit, both old and steaming."JD, did I ever tell you..."
They both paused to watch Josiah turn into the post office. In a moment or two he turned back into Josiah and continued on his way.
"That Cherokee shaman sure taught preacher man some good tricks," Buck observed.
JD wanted to say, "Buck, you are so full of crap," but couldn't. JD had to admit, it was a good trick.
"So..." Buck started to continue, but instead stumbled forward as something hit him in the back. He turned, showing JD a large cat glued to his back, spine to spine. It was too startled to yowl, just feebly waved its paws in the air. JD sighed and peeled the cat off, dropping it gently in an alley.
"Damnit, Buck, you need to turn off that animal magnetism once in a while."
"Well, that's not as easy as it sounds, JD."
"Wonder why it's almost always cats, hardly ever a dog or two."
"I told you, it works best on pussies."
JD sighed and continued down the sidewalk. "At least it explains that time we found you plastered all over Yosemite's sheep."
When Buck made no answer JD queried, "It does, don't it?"
"I ever tell you about this little sheep I knew down El Paso way? Wool soft and white like spun clouds, and the biggest, sweetest dark eyes..."
"EEEUUUU," JD groaned.
"Of course it was a ewe," Buck said. "I ain't no pervert."
+ + +
Meanwhile, Ezra sat at his favorite table in the Standish saloon, as was his wont - standing in his too-small but very stylish boots invariably hurt his feet.
Morosely, he rolled the dice. He had been forbidden to play cards for two weeks after his derringer mechanism had malfunctioned, exposing a pair of aces to his fellow players instead of the small gun it was supposed to contain.
He had tried to explain it was for a magic act he was planning, to amuse the town's children, of course, but no one had believed him and Mr Larabee had fixed him with a most unpleasant glare and said, "No cards for two weeks."
As if he had any authority for such a demand, Ezra thought bitterly. However, as Mr. Larabee scared the shit out of him, Ezra thought it best to comply.
Surely I have earned some small measure of respect and trust, Ezra mused, rolling the dice. Of course, he had run out during his watch at the Seminole village, allowing that mad Colonel to capture everyone, but he had intended to share the wealth if the mine held treasures.
Ezra frowned. Surely he had...however, it was long ago and the event was somewhat blurry - but no matter, he had returned and although he was immediately captured himself, their ultimate escape was owed in no small measure to his wiles. If he just hadn't been so....excited about shooting off a cannon... that wasn't the only thing that had shot off... and had hit the Colonel instead of the flag...
And everyone was appalled when he bought Li Pong from her drug addict uncle - even though Mr Jackson had insisted on it. No one gave him any credit for that, though it had cost him a few dollars. And what if he had sent the poor child back to her wretched family who had sold her off in the first place, after a night of enjoying her gratitude---he had splurged on a first class train ticket, but did that raise him in the eyes of his fellow peace-keepers? Noooooo
And just because he was trying to protect the assassin's pay from unworthy claimants...
"Care to join me in a rousing game of Yahtzee, Mr. Sanchez?" Ezra asked as the tall ex-preacher sat down. Josiah responded by baring his teeth.
"No sir, I will not," said Ezra.
The ex-preacher continued to expose every tooth in his head. "Go ahead," he mumbled from behind the ear-to-ear display "Count 'em"
"Again I must decline to count your teeth, Mr Sanchez. I am afraid the joy in doing so has finally run its course."
"Still got 'em all. A man my age. God does work many wonders."
Ezra always thought this was a dig at his own gold tooth, which he was very fond of. Besides giving him a sophisticated sparkle, it was a handy source of collateral in emergencies. He decided to change the subject.
"Mr. Sanchez, I would appreciate your opinion of a matter that concerns me."
"Your mother is a beautiful woman. A crook, but a beautiful woman."
"Yes yes, however I meant concerns ME. Do you not think that my efforts, my abilities, my sacrifices toward keeping the peace in this wretched backwater hamlet should have earned me some soupcon of respect from my fellow peacekeepers? Some smidgen of gratitude, some small measure of appreciation - a modest share of, dare I say - affection?"
Josiah nodded sagely. "Verily I say unto you..."
Ezra waited. And waited. Finally he said "What?"
"What?"
"What is it you say unto me?"
"Verily."
Oh dear Lord in Heaven, Ezra moaned to himself. To think he was actually looking forward to having riveting conversations with this lunatic when they first met. Of course, he hadn't known at the time that Josiah wasn't playing with a full deck. In fact, Josiah never played with a full deck, thinking one-eyed jacks as ill-omened as crows.
"Howdy Ezra!" Buck sat down, holding a beer, and knocked off JD's hat when he did the same. JD picked it up gingerly. Ever since the sheep remark, he'd been leery of Buck's cooties.
"Hey Josiah - one, two, three, yep, thirty-two just like the last time I counted. A man your age. The Lord truly works in mysterious ways."
Josiah beamed and slowly let his lips slide together.
Ezra pulled out the Chinese checkers board and set up the marbles, while planning his stratagems. Buck let his eyes rove around the saloon. They settled on a saloon girl's trim ankles, worked their way up her fine figure, and finally rested on her ample bosom, where they twinkled and blinked like blue Christmas candles.
"Ooohhh, aren't you the cutest things?" Blossom crooned as she gathered them up. She sashayed back to Buck and sat in his lap while he popped his eyes back in.
"You better not let Nathan catch you doing that," JD warned.
"Let Nathan catch you doing what?"
The black healer slid into a chair at the table and looked at the others suspiciously. "Let Nathan catch you doing what?" Damn dumb honkies, it was a wonder they survived a day without him.
Buck was the only one he found to glare at and lecture, as was his wont.
"Messin' with whores? I done tole you and tole you Buck Wilmington, the only things messin' with whores is gonna get you is bastards and clap. No offense, Miz Blossom. So don't you come runnin' to me when your weener is a-burnin' and a drippin', 'pectin' good ol' Nathan to fix you up... I can't fix it. Hell, I don't even want to look at it,..."
Chris and Vin came in from their afternoon patrol; Vin gingerly sitting down and Chris going to the bar for a bottle of whiskey and a glass before joining him. They scooted their chairs as close together as they could, as was their wont.
You'd think, Ezra thought bitterly, the gunslinger would have the decency to get a glass for the tracker, too, but no...
Chris poured a shot of the whiskey and slid it to Vin, who sipped a little before sliding it back. They both looked sleepy-eyed and boneless. Afternoon patrols seemed to do that to them.
"Any trouble out there?" Buck inquired.
A tender smile quirked Chris's lips as he shook his head. "No. No trouble"
Vin seemed to agree without moving a muscle. The man usually showed all the animation of a tree stump, anyway, Ezra thought, but after afternoon patrols he rarely moved at all.
Vin was lost in pleasant memories of that afternoon. He and Chris had ridden out to the mines, and played a rousing game of Inmate 69, The Evil Minded Warden and The Very Naughty Prisoner. He wondered vaguely where Chris had gotten the idea for that particular game, but lost his train of thought as the remembered shouts of, "On yer belly! On yer back! On yer knees!" corresponded with various aches and tingles throughout his body...
Vin paused. He had learned the hard way that the muscles so lovingly loosened sometimes took a while to tighten back up, and he knew to jump up and run the second when even a thought of the outhouse flashed through his mind...
Ezra thought briefly of pulling out the Scrabble board, but decided against it. A few evenings ago he had persuaded the tracker into a game, gone so far as to set up the board; then Vin had proceeded to stare at his rack of letters as if he'd never seen the like before. In fact, Ezra had nodded off, waiting for the sharp-shooter to make the first move, only to wake and find his opponent gone.
And he had had the q and the u, Ezra thought, the fool.
He couldn't help remembering the time Vin had asked him to write down his poem. He really shouldn't have laughed in the young man's face, but then, he had been drunk, and couldn't help wondering what kind of poem the silly fellow had written.
"I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as Lar-a-bee" ?In all his born days Ezra had never seen two friends as close as Chris and Vin. It was almost damn peculiar.
"Casey and I sowed our oats yesterday," JD remarked.
Instant silence. Then Vin leaned forward, white as a sheet, and asked, "Yer wild oats?"
Vin was trembling, and under the table Chris patted his thigh reassuringly. Not long ago the tracker had broken down and confessed that Casey had come to him, demanding to sow her wild oats, after finding JD and the female bounty hunter flopping around on the stable floor. She had gone so far as to grab Vin and touch his belt. Chris had to wake Vin from the resulting nightmares for weeks.
"Naw," JD said. "The special ones we ordered through Mrs. Potter's store. Come harvest time we're going to have the fastest horses around."
She wanted to sow her wild oats with me, Ezra thought bitterly. But, no, instead of taking the poor girl to his room and showing her the delights of revenge, he had to fend her off, thanks to the mule-eared, bug-eyed tracker watching from the safety of outside the saloon doors.
"You spilled your seed upon the ground?" Josiah asked. "The Lord doesn't like that."
"Naw, we sowed it. Didn't spill a one."
JD was remembering the sowing. They had gotten so hot and sweaty that afterwards he and Casey went right to the river, stripped naked, and swam like fish and humped like bunnies for the rest of the day. He was trying to think of something else to sow...
Chris's eyes gleamed dangerously and his reassuring pats to Vin's thigh turned to a sensual stroking. Sowing Your Oats. Sounded like a good name for a new game. He smiled, picturing just who would be the plow and who would be the furrow, and Vin's trembling took on a new dimension.
Ezra thought about bringing out the Monopoly board. Then remembered it wasn't possible. It had never been popular-- Chris insisted on being the battleship, and was apt to glare if someone else claimed it, Buck always insisted his hotels be called brothels, and Nathan demanded hospitals. There were always under-currents of muttering, just because Ezra invariably ended up with Park Place and Madison Avenue, no matter how he explained the game was one of skill.
Then one time Vin drew a card and JD read "Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go, someone else collects 500 dollars," the tracker had passed out cold, flipping his chair backwards, and Chris had shot the board full of holes.
That went well, Ezra thought bitterly.
"I ever tell you boys about a little filly I knew in Kansas City?" Buck remarked. "Beautiful black stockings, you guys like black stockings as much as I do? Black stockings to her knees and her hocks, bright bay with a little star on her forehead..."
The table groaned. The men looked at it in surprised, as it had never made a sound before.
JD rolled his eyes. Nathan caught them on the edge of the table and handed them back.
"You been hangin' 'round Buck too long, JD Dunne! I done tol' you and tol' you you is gonna git splinters in your eyeballs! And that is gonna hurt no matter how much horse-piss tea I give you..."
"Horse piss tea?!"
Six pair of eyes fastened on Nathan and he hastily said, "I mean willow-bark tea. You fellas call it horse-piss so often you got me to doin' it."
The eyes unfastened themselves and went back to their rightful owners, although there was a small mix-up between one of Chris's and Ezra's. Vin didn't understand how that happened, as Chris's eyes were a lovely shade of cactus, complete with prickles, and Ezra's was a pale, unripe watermelon kind of green...
Damn dumb honkies, Nathan thought. Just how many willow trees are there around here, and how many horses? Do the math.
But he resolved to go get some bark, at least for a while.
"And sides that, JD, one of these days that eyeball is gonna roll right off the table, somebody is gonna step on it, and all that's gonna be left is a little splat of jelly. You're gonna come cryin' to good ol' Nathan to fix it, and I can't fix it, you're gonna be a one-eyed JD for the rest of your born days. And even if nobody steps on it, you ever think about what-all is on this floor? The boots walkin' around in here are the same ones that been in the stables and the out-house..."
"One-eyed JD? You'd be a bad omen for sure," Josiah pondered.
Outhouse. Vin suddenly leapt to his feet and tried to run, but he fell flat as Chris was dragged out of his chair to join him. Their spurs had become entangled, as was their wont.
"Well, shit, Vin," Chris said, as Vin kicked himself free.
"Thanks, pard," Vin was glad of the permission, even though it came after the fact. He scrambled out on all fours.
"I realize, Mr. Larabee, that you hold our tracker in such esteem that you envision his excrement having no malodorous tendency, but I must beg to differ."
Ezra fanned the air with his hat.
"Huh?" JD said.
Buck answered, "He said Chris thinks Vin's shit don't stink."
"Oh," JD said. "Well, we all know that."
"You know," Blossom said, "Vin is kinda cute. We gals wish he'd pay us a visit, but we don't see hide nor hair of him."
"'Hide nor hair,'" Ezra snickered. "That's a good one. There doesn't seem to be much to the man except hide and hair."
Ezra suddenly blanched as he realized he had said this aloud, and glanced fearfully at Chris. But Chris was glaring at Blossom like he was about to call her out.
"Hell, we wouldn't even charge him," Blossom went on. "If he took a bath, of course."
"Like you don't charge me, sugarplum?" Buck asked.
"Buck, honey, you are so full of shit." Suddenly Blossom noticed the look on Chris's face.
"Well," she said, getting up hastily. "I better go find some payin" customers."
"See?" Buck said.
"And I know good and well I took Buck's last dollar last night."
Blossom flounced off.
Chris returned to staring moodily at his whiskey glass. Ezra began rolling the yatchee dice. Buck fidgeted nervously.
"You know she was just kidding, right?"
"Amen," said Josiah. He glanced up at a figure in the doorway, and bared his teeth hopefully.
"No thanks, Josiah." Vin's soft voice caused Chris to turn, and almost jump out of his chair. Vin's mouth lay diagonally across his cheek in a waving line.
"Damnit Vin! You're slanting me a crooked grin again! You know that creeps me out," Chris groused, but couldn't help smiling tenderly at the freshly scrubbed tracker. His damp hair was curling into ringlets, and his clean shaven face made his impossibly blue eyes (his family on both sides had been brown eyed for generations) stand out even more. He smelled good, too, or at least better than when he had left.
"You keep doin' that, Vin, yore face is going to freeze like that and all the willow bark tea won't help you a bit. You'll come runnin' to good ol Nathan to fix it and I can't fix it, hell, you probably won't even be able to drink tea with yore face messed up like that..." Nathan scolded.
"Sawry." Vin reached up to pull his mouth back between his nose and his chin, the place Chris liked it best. Well, second best.
He sat down next to Chris and there was a merry jingling from under the table as their spurs greeted each other joyously.
"I think me and Vin will take one last look around," Chris said. "We may have missed something this afternoon."
The rest looked down, trying to hide their grins. Everyone knew what 'one last look around' really meant. Hell, the whole town knew it. Some had even seen them at it.
Just who do they think they're fooling? Ezra wondered. It was common knowledge that Chris and Vin rode out to the mesa every evening to... watch the sunset. Why try to hide it? he mused. It was like they didn't want anyone to know they were...sunset watchers.
The gunslinger and the tracker stood, careful to disengage their spurs, and strolled out the door.
"The righteous shall rise, and they shall march," Josiah said. Then he rose and marched out the door.
Buck had been frowning in concentration. "JD," he said now "I ever tell you about this pretty little rattler that holes up behind the stable?"
"Buck!" JD groaned.
"You ever hold a snake's head, kid?"
"Nope, and I ain't gonna either." JD got up and jammed his hat on his head and walked out the door. Buck hurried after him.
"Now wait a minute, JD, it ain't that hard. I know a couple of fellas that did it easy..."
Nathan got up. "I guess I better go boil some tea. I got me one hell of a headache."
Ezra watched him go. He sighed.
Inez swayed up to him, as was her wont.
"Would you care to go to the back and sample my enchiladas, Senor Ezra?"
Ezra stood and pushed back his chair.
"I believe I would, Senorita Inez. I believe I would," Ezra said, not bitterly at all.
The End