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Vin/Hannity McCall (OFC)
Adult/Het
All spelling and grammatical errors are intentional.
Chapter 1
Being interested in neither a game of chance nor the gentle ministrations of one of the soiled doves that flitted so enticingly around Taylor's Saloon, Vin Tanner stepped up to the bar and tossed down his coin for a mug of warm yet thirst quenching beer. Receiving said libation he tugged on the brim of his hat and in a voice loud enough to be heard over the din of the crowded smoke filled room he said, "I'll be needin' a room for the night."
"Plenty of rooms right here…with the bed warmer of your choice," the barkeep said and nodded toward the second floor where doors opened and closed noisily like clockwork as drunken cowhands, too long on the trail and bent on spending every last cent doled out by the trail boss, took their pleasure with the eager and willing whores.
Leaning over the bar closer to the bartender's ear Vin added, "I need to sleep more'n half an hour. Been on the trail four days and I'm headin' back out at first light."
"In a hurry to get home?"
Thinking momentarily the tracker rubbed a hand across his smooth shaven chin and smiled and nodded, "Yeah, home." When had the small town south of nowhere become home to him? And when had the six other men hired to protect Four Corners, men of such diverse backgrounds and decidedly differing temperaments, come to feel as brothers to him?
The barkeep ran a tattered rag across the damp bar top and said, "Roomin' house just down Main Street next to the General Store. Real nice, real clean."
Vin opened his mouth to speak again just as a particularly drunken cowboy was none too gently escorted to the landing and pushed down the flight of stairs by a very large and very angry whore. The cowboy's pant less tumble caused the room to explode into raucous laughter and catcalls that drowned out his thanks so he simply nodded his appreciation for the information.
Hoisting his brew the tracker took a long, heady drink, when the sensation of being watched suddenly came upon him yet again. Dismissing the feeling as quickly as it had come, Vin concentrated instead on how good the warm beer felt sliding down his dust parched throat and thought about his eminent departure come morning.
Having set out four days prior to deliver some sort of official papers to a lawyer in the bustling town of Prairie Junction for the Judge, the trip had for the most part been uneventful. Vin had enjoyed the peace and solitude and the cleansing of his lungs, his mind and his soul in the wide-open spaces of the prairie with only the niggling feeling of being watched coming upon him now and then to mar the trip.
His papers now delivered he would remain in the town only long enough to have a decent meal and a good night's sleep. Pushing off from the bar, mug in hand, he made his way to a small table on the edge of the raucous goings-on content to just sit back and watch the fun.
With his back safely to the wall Vin looked over the rim of his glass at the gamblers intently studying their cards. His gaze then drifted to the many drovers still smelling of cattle, sweat and now whiskey as they laughingly pulled the scantily clad whores onto waiting laps amid squeals and laughter and the continuous tinkling of the new piano recently brought all the way from St. Louis.
A smile played on Vin's lips and he began to relax when one particular lady of the evening caught his eye. She walked slowly through the smoke hazed room neatly rebuffing all comers, slapping away grabbing hands and pushing eager young cowboys back into their seats until she made her way unerringly toward the poker tables. Flipping a tendril of long blonde hair over one shoulder she leaned over, full breasts threatening to spill from her tightly laced corset, and whispered into a dark haired, mustached gambler's ear.
Vin watched appreciatively sipping what was left of his beer. She was tall, maybe only a couple of inches shorter than himself, with thick cascading blonde hair and ice blue eyes rimmed heavily in black. Her unsmiling lips were full and painted red, the color of the delicate ribbon threaded through the yoke of her camisole and around the lace at the bottom of her bloomers. As she bent low to speak to the black haired gambler again Vin caught the look of disgust on her face when the cardsharp ran a finger across the globe of one breast.
Straightening up, the whore looked toward the back of the room and her eyes suddenly locked with his and Vin smiled in spite of himself. Her interest piqued; the whore's return smile was radiant as she cocked an eyebrow questioningly but Vin, still set on a good night's sleep and an early start, simply shook his head and declined the obvious offer. Whereupon the woman simply winked and headed back the way she'd come.
His mug now empty, the tracker continued to sit as the urge to stay put a few minutes longer grew stronger and fatigue began to settle in. The barroom became extremely warm as more cowhands found their way into the town's best and only whorehouse and Vin stood to remove his buckskin jacket, his muscles rippling under the clean, blue cambric shirt he had donned after his bath.
He turned to drape the garment over the back of his seat and when he turned back a red headed whore stood before him. Her tongue flicked over her rouged lips, invitation brazen in her eyes, but before the redhead could speak there came a sharp rebuke.
"Go on and spread your disease somewhere else!" The blonde whore hadn't let Vin's rebuff discourage her in the least and she had come to his table with a beer in hand and a harsh glare for the redhead who quickly moved on to the next table.
The scrawny blonde bitch was new to Taylor's but had already forged a reputation with a knife and although she had only sliced off a shock of another whore's hair, Red was taking no chances. None of them had seen a thing until Blondie tossed the handful of hair back to the owner, a nasty brunette who had tried to steal away a John. Besides she had been feeling poorly of late and if word got around she'd be forced to leave and find a new town where her suspect well-being wouldn't be an issue.
Watching the redhead sidle away the blonde placed the beer on the table and sat, not in Vin's lap, but across the table from him crossing incredibly long, shapely legs sheathed in white cotton stockings. The rest of her ensemble consisted of short white bloomers, the white, red-ribboned camisole covered by a stiff, cream-colored, whale boned corset from which her voluptuous breasts burgeoned. She wore no boots and the soles of the stockings were stained as she trod the filth covered, rough-hewn boards of the bawdy house.
"You look like you could use this, cowboy," she said and pushed the warm beer nearer to him.
"Guess I could at that...but I ain't a cowboy," he smiled gently correcting her.
Assessing him boldly with bright eyes, the whore slowly nodded her head. "No, I guess you're not. I can see you've bathed at least once in the last month." Vin laughed, his smile infectious and the whore smiled in return revealing straight white teeth between her full lips.
"Not more 'en two hours ago," he assured her reaching for the mug.
"And I, for one, appreciate it," she told him and leaned forward in her chair placing her elbows on the table.
"Thanks for rousting that one for me," Vin said jerking his head toward the redhead who, though plying her trade with a filthy drover at the next table, still looked at him as if he were the Blue Plate Special on the menu of the finest restaurant in town.
"Some of Johnny's girl can be hazardous to your health," the blonde told him with a deep and sultry laugh.
Thankful for her intervention and surprised that she had taken an interest in him at all, the tracker put aside all thoughts of food and fatigue and settled back in his chair intent on spending a little quality time with a beautiful woman.
Chapter 2
The room was bathed in soft lamplight and was quite small. It contained a few pieces of cheap utilitarian furniture consisting of a single bed, a bureau and a dressing table on which a few personal items were laid out. Aa rouge pot, a faded family portrait behind broken glass, a few silver dollars for contraceptive purposes and two nondescript, small brown bottles. It was a whore's room and it smelled of perfume, sweat and maybe a few tears.
The blonde stood before him her skin bathed golden in the same soft light and Vin Tanner watched her as she unhooked the busk of her corset and let free her heretofore restrained breasts. She shucked off the camisole and slid the bloomers down her well-muscled legs and then bent to peel off first one stocking then the other, her bare breasts swaying heavily as he watched her surreptitiously through hooded eyes.
The woman's body was not softly padded and well rounded as most of Taylor's whores, whose only exercise was to lie back while the cowhands did all the work, but well defined and well muscled. She was almost too thin. Only her breasts were ample, soft and rounded, her nipples large and dark.
Never saying a word or offering up her name the whore undressed him quickly and expertly then crossed the room to the small bureau near the window leaving him standing naked and aroused next to the bed. He watched her tilt her head back and drink from one of the brown bottles then return to him. She placing warm hands on his smooth, well-muscled chest and pushed him back onto the small iron bed where she slithered up his naked body like a snake.
Vin felt fire everywhere her skin touched his and he groaned and closed his eyes for a moment. He quickly thought of other things, like mending a harness, and his heartbeat slowed and with his emotions better under control he returned to the business at hand as her fingers circled his shaft. He breathed out "Bruha" and she smiled well pleased with his reaction...both verbally and physically.
After a few minutes of soft ministrations that bore him to the edge of sanity she brought her lips to his for a kiss. He was surprised at the flood of hot liquid that ran over his tongue and down his throat. It was laudanum, warmed in her mouth, and it soon sent his head gently reeling and more blood pumping to his loins...if that were possible.
Vin was in exquisite pain and desperate for release, which she offered him, her sweet, wet warmth sheathing him as she straddled him. She rose up and lowered herself again and again until he, most times an ardent but non-vocal lover, cried out as he came into her.
Sweat dripped lazily from his face onto his long, sun bleached curls and from his heaving chest as the drug and the woman continued to heat him body and soul. Falling next to him on the small bed the whore molded herself to his side and threw a wet thigh across his and, with her head braced on a bent arm, she stared at his chiseled features.
She thought him exceedingly handsome with a straight nose and firm jaw. Long eyelashes fanned his cheeks as he lay, eyes closed, sated and to her amazement still lusty and she wrapped her hand around his member once more.
Vin moaned, grabbed her hand and holding onto it turned toward her and stared thoughtfully into her eyes. She wondered if she'd done something wrong and smiled tentatively at him and he smiled back then turned over to cover her completely. Guiding himself he pushed into her gently but with an urgency he'd never felt before.
He made love to her and when she cried out, her muscles gripping him tightly, he continued to move slowly and forcefully inside of her to make sure she came once more before he would allow himself release. Of all he had learned from his time with the Indians pleasing a woman was one of the more important life lessons and he prided himself on being a model student.
Much to her pleasure and delight Vin made love to his "witch" a few more time while she plied him with alcohol and more laudanum. It was a bad idea, he knew, but she had bewitched him and with her mouth driving him very nearly insane over and over again he found he could deny her nothing.
Lying next to him in the bed the whore sighed with pleasure. Most times she hated what she did but this time had been a rare exception. She'd enjoyed both giving and receiving pleasure as she doped him to the gills and milked him dry. He now slept like a baby, his face even more handsome, unlined and so peaceful in sleep.
Standing up she wrapping herself in a faded dressing gown and leaned over to softly kiss his lips one last time. She then pulled a small canvas bag from beneath the bed and, pulling his arms above his head, handcuffed him to the bedstead.
Chapter 3
Something had awakened the tracker. A noise or maybe just a feeling had found its way through the murky dullness of his drug-fogged mind. Vin opened his eyes and the oil lamp on the dresser had long since been extinguished making it hard for Vin to see in the dark. He could make out a shadowy figure near the bureau. "Chris?" he said aloud. He then tried to lower his arms but found them numb and useless, his wrists cuffed to the iron headboard.
The clatter of metal against metal rang in his ears and he tried to no avail to free himself while the mysterious figure remained silent and still except to sip from a small bottle now and then. "If this is your idea of a joke, Larabee..." Vin said angrily and wondered why the black clad gunman would follow him and why he'd seen fit to cuff him to a whore's bed. If leaving him naked and restrained and totally vulnerable was the taciturn gunman's idea of a joke it was a piss poor one at best.
"It's McCall, Vin Tanner. Hannity McCall." It was her voice, the whore's, coming from the black clad figure and he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his swimming head in a vain attempt to clear away the cobwebs. When he opened them again he saw that it was indeed the practiced whore of the night before looking uncannily like his friend, Chris Larabee, even down to the blonde hair now slicked back and tied with a thong of leather.
Hannity McCall. Damn! He knew the name, knew her reputation. Hannity McCall, bounty hunter. Vin moaned aloud and the woman continued to sit, balanced on the back of a sturdy chair, her feet resting on the chair's seat, her long black linen duster flowing down on either side of her. She reminded him of one of Josiah's crows perched on the chair as she was and just as the Indians believed a crow or a raven was a trickster with changing attributes, this whore com bounty hunter had surely tricked him.
Watching the reaction on his face carefully Hannity said to him, "I see you recognize my name. That's good. Maybe you've also heard that I'm very good at what I do so the choice is completely up to you."
"What choice'd that be?" he wanted to know and angrily pulled on his chains again but to no avail.
"A gun or a rope. If you try to get away I get paid whether I bring you in dead or alive and it makes absolutely no difference to me."
Vin's fingers tingled painfully with returning blood flow and the cuffs dug deeper into tender skin but he spoke softly, his voice tightly controlled, "Death now or in Tascosa. That's mighty obligin' of ya."
Shrugging her shoulders the bounty hunter took a last pull on the bottle then shoved it deep into the pocket of the duster. She jumped down from the chair and two rusted iron keys jangled in her left hand. With her right hand she drew the Colt .45 Single Action Peacemaker from her gun belt and approached the bed cautiously. "Have you made your choice, Vin Tanner?" she asked and waited for him to make up his mind.
Did he want to die now or later? Vin simply stared at her feeling impotent and somehow betrayed and told her, "I'll take the rope…for now."
Hannity nodded and slipped a key into one of the iron cuffs. The clatter of metal on metal as the chain slipped through the iron sliced through Vin's throbbing head and he sat up. He was, for the moment, extremely disoriented and for the time being, thoroughly defeated.
"Fair enough," Hannity said and stepped back away form him gesturing with the barrel of the pistol, "Now I want you to dress like my husband's banging on the door because we need to be out of this town, pronto. Didn't like the looks of a couple of those thimble riggers downstairs last night and the sooner we're on our way the better for you and for me."
Vin stood naked before her this time rubbing his arms to bring back the circulation. His hands stung unmercifully as he shook the blood back down to his fingertips. As he did he weighed his options. No doubt she knew how to handle the gun she held loosely in her hand and she probably wouldn't hesitate to use it if he went for it making his choice of the rope waiting for him back in Texas a moot point. He took a deep breath and felt the slight discomfort of the wheals that ran the length of his chest. The scratches were the brand of her fingernails and he asked plaintively, "How can you do this to me? We made love last night."
The woman snorted derisively and smiled briefly at the crestfallen look on the killer's young and handsome face and told him, "It was nothing but copulation, pure and simple. Very enjoyable but copulation none the less." The bounty hunter's eyes ran the length of Tanner's tall, lean body and she remembered the gentle way he had made love to her on the small iron bed and wondered how a man so caring in one aspect could be so cold blooded in another. She just shook her head because there was just no way of knowing what snakes lay coiled up in a man's head.
Vin, his ego strangely bruised at the woman reducing an act he never took lightly to something done by cattle, huffed in disgust. "Fine time to be actin' like a moonin' calf, Tanner," he admonished himself under his breath as he pulled on his long handles, breeches, socks and boots. His blue cambric shirt came next followed by the buckskin jacket and slouch hat.
Hannity saw that he was done and bade him turn around. She pulled both of his hands behind his back and attached a different pair of manacles to his wrists, ones with a length of chain between them. The extra chain allowed him limited movement but still kept his hands well behind his back. He was still virtually helpless and opening the door the bounty hunter indicated he was to go first.
Vin stepped out of the door and onto the landing. She followed him closely down the steep stairwell, her eyes, ever moving, surveying their intended path while the tracker prayed he wouldn't slip in the copious amounts of fluids that were puddled on the floor and fall, breaking every bone in his face.
The two of them traversed the nearly empty barroom without incident or notice and made their way quickly outside and down the sidewalk to the livery where her mount, along with his waited, saddled and outfitted for the eight days it would take them to reach Tascosa. To his chagrin he realized that the whore had been busy since leaving him drugged, sated, deeply asleep and shackled to her bed.
Chapter 4
With the dawning sun to their backs they set off to Toscosa. Vin rode Peso, his hands still shackled but now in front of him, a lead rope tied to his horse. The leading end of it was wrapped tightly around Hannity McCall's hand. If the tracker or his horse veered from the trail she would know immediately and if he chose to run she'd simply shoot him in the back.
On his forced march Vin spent the first miserable hours squirming in his saddle trying to find a comfortable position in which to ride. Drums banged inside his skull while the sparse scenery gently wavering in front of his blood shot eyes. Hoping to gain an edge by learning the bounty hunter's strengths and weaknesses he tried to engage her in conversation but Hannity remained steadfastly silent and, as his frustration grew, Vin began to think of ways to slow down their progress. Throwing up was the first of his first ruse.
The relentless rocking, side to side and to and fro, in the saddle quickly unsettled his drug and alcohol-laden stomach and soon he had no other choice but to lean out over his horse and heave noisily, splattering his mount's front quarter and his boot with vomit. "Wait!" he shouted as the lead rope continued to pull Peso forward keeping pace with the bounty hunter's horse, "Wait up a goddamn minute!"
Hannity looked back over her shoulder and a bemused look broke out on her face as she watched him hike out as far over the side of his horse as he dared and throw-up once again. "For pity's sake," she said under her breath and pulled her mount to a halt. She dropped the lead rope and turned her horse around to sidle up next to his so she could ask the obvious, "You sick?"
Vin looked askance at her from under the brim of his hat. He wore a grim smile and sweat popped out on his forehead as shaking hands gripping his saddle horn in a death grip. He replied crossly, "Musta been something I drank."
"Can you sit your horse?" she wanted to know and frowned at the odious offerings running down his horse's hide.
"I reckon but I'll need to go slow for awhile." Purging his system had actually relieved his discomfort to a good degree and the lie came easily to his lips as his sickly pallor began to return to a more normal shade of tan.
"If you can't keep up you'll ride double with me," she stated flatly although she reckoned the worst of his drug-induced gut-ache was behind him..or rather on him. Reaching down Hannity scooped up one of the canteens hanging from her saddle horn and quickly doused his horse and his boot. She took a swallow and offered it up to Vin.
With shackled hands he clumsily removed the wild rag around his neck and wet it down to wipe his face. He then took a swallow to rinse out his mouth and handed the canteen back to her
Replacing the canteen on her saddle the bounty hunter leaned over to snatch up the lead rope again and laughing turned her horse and called out over her shoulder, "You don't get out much, do ya?"
"Just long enough to get tangled up with a harmless parlor gal with a penchant for laudanum," he shot back.
"Maybe you'll be more careful next time," she countered then realized the probability of Vin Tanner having a next time was highly unlikely.
"Next time…right," he replied sarcastically, the absurdity of her words not lost on him, "You can bet on it."
As they rode on McCall occasionally sipped from the small bottle as she kept a watchful eye out for trouble ahead and trouble behind. They stopped only to water the horses, answer nature's call and to refill canteens. The bounty hunter kept up a fast pace endeavoring to put as many hot, dusty, bone-jarring miles as they could between them and Prairie Junction.
As the day dragged on the very air around Vin's face was abuzz with flies attempting to alight and drink the moisture that rolled down his face. He watched as heat rose in shimmering waves in the distance and swiped the sleeve of his leather across his damp forehead the moisture stinging eyes. The monotony of his horse's gate and the continued silence of his traveling companion lulling him into a state of near unconsciousness and his thoughts wandered.
How could the woman keep up the pace, mile after mile, hour after hour without a single break, without speaking another word? How could she have so easily duped him? And lastly, but most importantly, how was he going to escape? Raising his shackled hands to take yet another swipe at the sweat that continued to bead on his forehead, Peso suddenly juked to the right unseating him. Vin crashed to the ground, his breath expelled forcefully from his lungs and he lay stunned and speechless as dust roiled up around him to settled back down on his face and clothing.
Felling the pull on the lead again Hannity pulled up. "Damn it, you will do anything to lollygag won't you, Tanner?" she stated with disgust though the corners of her mouth threatened to turn up in a genuine smile at his unconventional dismount.
As he lay on the ground the absurdity of his situation dawned on him in full force and he began to laugh. "I can't take it anymore, McCall," he whined plaintively, "I've asked you a hundred questions and all you've done is grunt at me. I admit I always liked my solitude but the closer we get to Tascosa and the rope that's waitin' there for me the more I find I want to be near people, to hear their voices, to hear what they have to say."
Hannity just stared at him with a bemused look on her face as he continued to bitch.
"But I get stuck with the only person on earth who talks even less than Chris Larabee."
"He one of the lawmen in Four Corners?" she asked innocently enough.
Vin suddenly realized that the bounty hunter had been in Four Corners and that she'd followed him for almost three days before heading to Prairie Junction to set her trap. His feeling of being shadowed had not his imagination after all and he'd trust more in his gut in the future. The thought that he might not have a future flitted through his mind but he pushed it aside. They were still a long way from Toscosa.
"Yeah," he told her content to lay where he'd fallen now that he had her attention, "Along with JD...John Dunne, a crazy kid come East lookin' for adventure and tryin' to make a name for himself. And an ex-preacher man, Josiah Sanchez, and a healer name a Nathan Jackson...”
“And the gambler?” Hannity had counted seven all told.
“Ezra Standish." Vin offered and found that once she showed the least bit of interest in anything he had to say he didn't want to shut up. Perhaps if she got to know him she just might believe him when he told her that he was innocent.
Hannity dismounted to stretch her sore, cramped muscles and stood over him. She pushed her hat back off of her head and it fell down her back hanging suspended by a stampede strap and, much to her chagrin, her bounty continued to talk.
"And Buck...Buck Wilmington…" Vin smiled thinking of the lanky devil-may-care ladies' man.
Hannity recalled him, too and added, "A fine looking, smooth talking tom cat...with a hell of a lot more than just nine lives."
"You know Buck?" he asked. But by her all too accurate description of him it was obvious that she knew him well, "You know Buck," he corrected himself
"Buck and me, we go way back. Never knew a man who could turn a phrase so shamelessly and not smell of manure all the while."
"Is that why you didn't take me in Four Corners? He would'a recognized you?" Vin wanted to know and Hannity looked at him in surprise.
"Oh, I can handle Buck just fine," she told him as she pulled off her gloves and stuffed them into the duster's pocket, "I didn't like the looks of the one in black."
Vin sat up slowly and slapped away some of the dust that had settled on him with his hat and told her, "Yep, it would've been a neat trick to get me outta town without Chris havin' my back."
Hannity hunkered down next to him to check his bonds and found that the cuffs were rubbing the skin on his wrists raw. "We might as well set camp here. Not much daylight left", she told him and he smiled, his eyes fairly sparkling. Had this man had been so alone in his life, she wondered, so bereft of family, friends and companionship that some simple conversation with the one person bent on doing him the utmost harm would liven up his sad eyes?
With a sigh she stood up and offered him a hand, which he took. He held onto her longer than was comfortable and the bounty hunter finally pulled free and, to his disappointment, she stepped away to pointedly put some distance between the two of them. For her it was the only safe and sane thing to do because Hannity found her latest prisoner to be an affable man, charming in a shy way and so unlike all the others she had run to ground that she found herself warming to him even as she steeled herself against that very same charm. Some of Buck Wilmington had defiantly rubbed off on this man.
Hannity knew that her first instinct to keep her silence had been correct. To keep some distance between them would allow her to do her job and maybe stay alive a little longer. Her silence kept her from getting to know him or anything about him and it had worked right up until his spill from the horse. Prior to that she had only known that he had killed a man in cold blood. Now she knew he had friends, good friends, friends who would presumably miss him and who would rescue him if given half a chance.
"So Hannity McCall, out of all the whores in Taylor's, how'd you know I'd pick you?"
“You picked me?” Hannity said incredulously then caught herself.
But it was too late. She was talking to him...finally...and Vin smiled, well pleased with his small victory.
Chapter 5
Three days on the trail and they were being followed. He knew it and she knew it. Too early for Chris or the others to have decided he had truly gone missing, Vin figured it was someone from Prairie Junction. They kept up the grueling pace across the plains headed for the desert and the Texas panhandle the rider on their trail content to keep his distance as he matched their pace.
Hannity set up camp in the shelter of a small rock outcropping and attached one of the heavy leg irons to Vin's leg and secured the other around the trunk of twisted mesquite near by, the pungent smell of the scraggly, prickly tree wafting on the gentle breeze. She then released his hands so he could feed himself a meager fare of beans and hardtack. When he finished Hannity reached to take the battered tin plate from his hands. He let go of the plate easily but stopped her short when she tried to redo the shackles.
"I might have a fightin' chance if ya was ta leave my hands free," he said quietly, his eyes downcast. He didn't want a confrontation; didn't want to make her uneasy or suspicious, he just wanted to air his concerns and quite possibly save his life.
She looked at him through slitted eyes expecting some sort of ploy but he remained seated quietly and Hannity decided she could wait a few minutes before re-cuffing him. Instead of cutting him off when he opened his mouth she let him speak.
"I know someone's been followin' us and I'd feel a mite more at ease if I could just have my hands free; even if it's only to fold 'em and pray the bastard don't shoot me while I'm shackled to this tree," he said and looked up directly into her eyes, "'Sides Laudanum makes some sleep heavier than others."
Ignoring his comment about the elixir she drank and convinced the leg iron was well secured to the tree; she found no reason to secure his hands again before she went to her bedroll. From her place across the fire from him she took off her hat and ran her fingers through dust-matted hair and told him, "He's bedded down for the night. I figure he'll let me do the dirty work of dragging your sorry ass all the way to the Texas line before he'll come in and try to jump my bounty."
"You know who it is?"
The bounty hunter didn't seem concerned, only tired and more quiet than usual, if that was even possible. "I have my suspicions. Saw a few of my ilk back there in Prairie Junction. Can't trust anyone nowadays."
"Can I trust you?"
McCall stared at him briefly; surprised that he doubted her word, her intentions and although he didn't know her, per se, her reputation was that of a tough but fair bounty hunter, a reputation well deserved. "I never second-guess a man. You made your choice back in town, the rope, remember? I'll take you back to Tascosa upright unless you give me no choice."
"No," Vin said and rose up onto his knees to look at her as she sat, well out of reach, on the bedroll across the fire from him, "What I mean is can you take whoever's behind us when the time comes?"
Shrugging tired shoulders, the bounty hunter hoped to God she could. Her addiction had permeated every facet of her life and limbs, including her reflexes.
"Laudanum has a way of slowin' down a body," Vin then said and looked at her pointedly. After a short pause he asked, "Why do you drink that poison, anyway?"
Hannity pinched her lips in irritation. "It's none of your affair, Tanner…although it does make some of us better lovers than others."
The remark caught him off guard and his face turned red while his mouth closed with an audible snap, cutting off his next question. She was right on that point and he wished she would oblige him one more time, give him something pleasing to remember in his numbered days. His wish shown in his eyes as he looked at her but Hannity just laughed, laid back on the rough bedroll and pulled her hat over her face.
She was asleep in minutes while Vin sat uncomfortably by the warming fire watching her. He wondered what had brought the two of them to this crossroads and he took stock of the woman breathing softly a few feet from him. Pretty enough and definitely as skilled as any lady of the line it seemed to him that making a living flat on your back was easier by a long shot than hunting bounty. It puzzled him why she had chosen such a profession and why she had fucked him when she could just as easily taken him any time on the trail to Prairie Junction.
Vin figured he'd go on wondering because she was still as closed mouthed as Chris Larabee. He sighed wearily and turned his head in the direction of the unseen entity trailing them and his thoughts turned to his friends, the six men he most likely wouldn't see again in this lifetime.
He was now only a day overdue and wondered if the others had begun to feel the same unease he himself had felt when Chris Larabee had gone missing, the black clad gunman ending up falsely imprisoned in a labor camp outside the town of Jericho. Vin figured that if Buck and the others waited as long as they had to finally begin tracking Chris, he would most likely already be hung and moldering in a grave in Tuscosa long before they caught up with him. All he could do way pray that they'd all learned a valuable lesson and would at least wire the sheriff in Prairie Junction to try and discover his whereabouts.
A moan interrupted his musings and Hannity, deep in the throes of a frightful nightmare, swatted the hat from her face, her hands flailing out as if fighting someone or something. Sweat covered her face and her breath came in ragged gasps, the potent laudanum unable to calm her this night, even in sleep. Chained to the mesquite and unable to go to her, Vin softly called out her name in the hopes of waking her gently. She did wake but with her gun drawn.
"You was havin' a bad dream!" he shouted out hoping to bring her back to the here and now before she shot him.
Dropping the Colt into her lap the bounty hunter wiped the sweat from her face on the sleeve of her duster then pulled an amber colored bottle from the pocket and took a deep pull. The laudanum had worked for many years to keep the memories at bay but now it seemed that no matter how much of the potent preparation she took the ghosts came upon her with a vengeance.
Looking across the fire at her prisoner Hannity saw the worried look on the tracker's face and found she couldn't blame him. If Tate changed his mind and tried to rob her of her bounty, sooner than later, she didn't know if she could protect him. She had seriously considered giving up the business just days before she had first spotted the wanted man sitting before her and the way she felt at that moment, the way her hands trembled as she reached for a canteen, she would more than likely hang it up after discharging her duty in Tascosa; Vin Tanner's timing the absolute worst.
Quitting would be easy. She had no expenses other than buying a fast, solid horse every few years and she had a good some of money put away in a bank in Denver, enough for her to retire and slip further into her addiction and the madness that was sure to follow. She had felt that as long as she continued to hunt bounty the sparing of her life had some meaning and she felt less guilty for having been the only one to survive, the only one left. But that fail-safe was gone and she would surely go insane from the memories.
Vin Tanner continued to stare at her and a different type of guilt tore at her. McCall knew she owed it to him to keep him safe and doping herself into a stupor every night wouldn't cut it and she took the half full bottle in her hand she tossed it to the man across the fire. She knew sleep would evade her for the remainder of the night but she felt he deserved an explanation, along with the bottle, and she moved to sit nearer to him.
Vin hefted her offering in his hand and sent it crashing against the rocks behind her head and after a few false starts Hannity McCall began to speak.
Chapter 6
"The first sign of trouble was the sound of gunshots from our top acres. I thought it was my husband John and my nine-year-old son John Jr. scaring us up some rabbits for supper. I didn't know how wrong I was until Sonny Needham and his gang rode up to the house."
"I hearda Sonny Needham," Vin told her dreading the hearing of her tale. Sonny Needham was a butcher of men, women and children, of whites and Indians alike.
She nodded. Most people on the plains had heard of Sonny Needham. "By way of an introduction, he forced me back inside and pistol whipped me. He then threw me to the floor and assaulted me while my five-year-old daughter clutched the baby in her arms and watched in terror. The five of them took turns using me every way a man could then beating me for good measure. As each man left me for another to take his place I looked up into my daughter's face and saw God's only mercy on that day...she was no longer there."
The bounty hunter's hands gripped the fabric of her trousers at the knees as she spoke and her knuckles were white in the firelight. "God hadn't seen fit to strike down those animals but He had spared my precious daughter the sight of her ma's certain death. My Polly wasn't even aware when Needham put the barrel of his gun to the baby's back and pulled the trigger. His single shot passing through them both killing them instantly and he bragged about saving the cost of another bullet."
Hannity McCall's face remained passive but her eyes had taken on the hollow look of a person reaching far back into her memories as she told her story to the Texan, her voice strangely flat and devoid of any emotion. "Neighbors found us two days later when buzzards lead them first to the pasture and then to the house. I was taken to town, sewn up and dosed with Laudanum…my Godsend…and my curse. The townsfolk buried my husband and my babies and two weeks later, still fighting a fever and against the doc's orders, I went back to the house and watched as it burned to the ground."
Her family dead and buried, her home burned down and she barely reacted...simply continued, "Watching the flames destroy what was left of my life I knew then that I would never farm again, could never remarry and raise up another family to be butchered at the whim of a man so evil the devil himself probably thought twice before letting him into hell. I had no other family and only enough money to get me to Denver so I turned to the only profession left to me; that of a whore."
"I was working at Mattie Silks' place in the Tenderloin when the first of them came through the door. He never recognizing me it was child's play to entice the bastard upstairs where I tied him to the bed with my silk stockings and gagged him with a filthy rag. I sent one of the other girls to roust the sheriff and a week after the hanging I had a horse and gear and a new mission in life."
Watching her twist and turn the fabric of her pants, Vin leaned over and pried Hannity's hands loose and took them in his. They were small boned and cold to the touch and she clutched his calloused and warm hands in a death grip as she continued her narrative.
"It took me six long years to get them all and after all that time, focused on only one thing, I couldn't even remember what it was like to be a wife or a mother. Bounty hunting had been a natural progression and now, after ten years, it's all I know."
Vin watched her in the soft firelight and didn't even think the heart broken woman realized she was crying until, his own heart breaking, he let her hands go. He lifted a hand and gently wiped her tears with his thumb and suddenly she was back with him shivering in the cool night air.
Her startled eyes met his and she moved, not away from him, as he'd feared, but to press her cheek against his strong hand. He heretofore very private pain had raged through her like a fever, leaving her spent and Vin slipped his arms around her and pulled her close, into his chest. She closed her eyes and let out a labored breath and they sat in a silence broken only by cricket song.
The bounty hunter was quiet for so long that Vin thought she might have drifted off to sleep until she heaved a heavy sigh and pulled away from him. She looked up into his face and spoke again in the same hollow voice, her story not quite finished.
"I still don't know why God saw fit to spare me and take my family. Maybe it was to seek vengeance against Needham and his gang. But having finished it I feel like I'm on borrowed time, my memories growing stronger instead of weaker as time goes by."
Vin looked into her pained, pinched face with pity in his eyes. He had no words of comfort for her, only questions.
"You asked me why I take the laudanum. Well, without it I would have put a bullet in my head a long time ago. But even now it doesn't help." She lowered her head to rest again against his chest taking comfort in the strong beating of his heart.
Vin had never seen such stark desperation in a person's eyes nor had he ever heard such defeat in a voice, not even in his own ma's when she lay dying of putrid fever, and he wondered again at the seemingly random cruelty of God. Having been taught that there was a reason for everything he wondered just what the Almighty's reason was for the utter destruction of this woman and her young family? Her story bothered him greatly and her words repeated in his mind. "A man so evil..."
"Do you think me evil, Hannity McCall?" he asked softly.
Lifting her head she looked at his profile, his chin up defiantly as he stared out into the darkness past the fire's light afraid of what her answer would be.
"Not evil, Vin Tanner...but a murderer none the less."
He turned to her but before he could speak again she pressed her fingertips to his lips.
"You say you didn't do it but it's not for me to decide. You'll have a fair trial."
Barking out a humorless laugh Vin knew without a doubt that the moment they rode into Tascosa he was as good as dead. Eli Joe had seen to it and seen to it well. But to comfort her, as well as himself, he pulled her close again and tilted his head to rest atop hers and closed his eyes realizing just how tired he was himself. Tired of the running, tired of always sleeping with one eye open, tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop in the form of a bullet. At least Hannity hadn't shot him in the back the way so many other bounty hunters did.
He knew it was far less trouble to lead a wanted man into town tied across a saddle than to keep up a vigilant watch for days on end. The fact that she had dropped her guard so completely and let him get dangerously close to her this night was either a testament to her weariness or to a newfound trust in him. A quick pull against her neck with his arm and he would be free. She, in turn, would be dead and Vin Tanner was no murderer despite what Hannity's papers read...nor was he evil.
This night he would just be content to comfort this tortured soul as he hoped he'd comforted, in some small way, the black clad gunman in Four Corners, Chris Larabee's life paralleling Hannity McCall's in so many ways. As Vin sat, the warmth of the woman in his arms as soothing as any balm, he wondered who would comfort him in the days to come as he sat in some filthy jail cell, dank and smelling of urine and lost hope, awaiting his own death. He hoped one or two of those who had come to know him over the past months would think of him now and again. He also hoped that Hannity McCall would think of him and know that he had died well.
Chapter 7
"He should have been back two days ago. Two days there, two, maybe three days at most back," Chris Larabee figured as he squinted his eyes against the noonday sun searching the road north into Four Corners for any sign of his closest friend on this, the sixth day of waiting and wondering.
His gut feeling was to take off for Prairie Junction as soon as he had the black saddled but Buck Wilmington held him back. "Listen Chris," Buck tried to reassure him, "Vin's a young stud in a big town. Maybe he stayed on a coupla extra days to partake of Prairie Junction's good food, fine entertainment and exceptionally fine whores." Buck placed a encouraging hand on the gunman's arm but Nathan; standing with the two of them as they waited and wondered, shook his head quickly dismissing the notion.
"Not Vin. Never saw a man so fidgety as when he's 'round people."
Overhearing their remarks Ezra Standish stepped up onto the sidewalk and flicked dust from his wine colored jacket with a folded piece of paper he held in his hand. "Gentlemen, it seems Mr. Wilmington is partially right. Mizz Travis received this reply to her query not five minutes ago and it seems our Mr. Tanner did indeed take up with a lovely whore with hair of gold."
Smiling Buck chucked Chris on the arm and clucked, chiding him for worrying like a mother hen. "See, I told ya. He's just sewing some of them wild oats JD's always talkin' about."
The youngest of the seven felt his face flushing and complained, "Aw, Buck..."
"Unfortunately..." Ezra continued in a voice loud and commanding attention, "this particular fair haired whore may be none other than Hannity McCall."
"God Damn!" Throwing the cheroot forcefully into the street Chris stepped off the sidewalk and headed directly toward the livery followed quickly by a now somber Buck Wilmington.
"Who's this Hannity McCall, Ezra?" JD wanted to know.
"She is a bounty hunter, Mr. Dunne, one of the very best." Ezra watched as JD's face paled. The young lawman's hands went instinctively to his mid-section as if to ward off the shot the gambler was sure the young man relived again and again; the wound that had almost killed him, the bullet from the gun of Mattie Stokes, another female bounty hunter. "Mr. Dunne, please locate Misters Jackson and Sanchez and advise them we will be leaving forthwith," Ezra suggested forcing JD out of the past and into the present.
Holding his bowler hat firmly on his head J.D. took off at a run, skidded to a dusty halt halfway down the street and shouted, "Where to, Ezra?"
"Why to Tascosa, Mr. Dunne, the devil's own playground," he said and finished under his breath, "And may the Lord have mercy on us all." The gambler headed directly into the bar, his silver flask in hand, and turned just in time to catch a glimpse of Larabee's black shooting past the opening above the batwings. Reaching behind the bar he grabbed a bottle of whiskey; not the Kentucky sipping whiskey he would have preferred but something that would have to do in a pinch. It was going to be a grueling trip and the southerner never went anywhere ill prepared.
Opening the cap of his flask he poured until it was full and filled a glass for good measure and as he downed the whiskey he spotted Buck reining in his big gray in front of the saloon, four horses in tow including Ezra's own chestnut. Yes, it was going to be a grueling trip. Chris Larabee was on a mission.
Chapter 8
"We don't have all day, Tanner," Hannity called out over her shoulder. Though he hadn't fallen from his horse again, or aired his paunch, everything else the tracker did seemed to take more and more time. Time she suspected put to good use by six men from Four Corners. If they were to follow, and Hannity had no reason to believe they wouldn't, they needed to keep as much distance between the two factions as possible because Hannity was a sworn officer of the court and honor bound to bring him in one way or the other. For her prisoner's sake she didn't want to be forced to kill him and make their possible rescue a moot point.
To complicate matters further she had grown quite fond of the gentle man with his soulful blue eyes and engaging smile. She hoped a jury would find him innocent but with him being caught with the body of Jess Kincade, instead of that of Eli Joe, Lady Justice might well have to be deaf and dumb as well as blind for him to walk free of the gallows.
Her growing feelings for her prisoner made her uneasy and confused and she wanted to quicken the pace and be shed of the disquieting man as quickly as possible. She yanked hard on the lead rope, kicked her mount and felt the horses pick up speed...but only for a short spurt as the tracker's horse slowed down yet again. Disgusted, Hannity made a mental note to switch horses with the Texan the next time they stopped. The paint was most likely an Indian pony well trained in knee commands.
The bounty hunter stopped to set up camp next to the Canadian River, a small lazily meandering stream well on its way to drying up altogether as the summer wore on. Hannity allowed Vin to bathe off the trail dust in the cold water, then wait, his leg shackled to a thick scrub oak, as she bathed.
Vin had a clear view of her as she squatted in the calf deep water and sluiced herself the cold water sparkling in the setting sun highlighting her golden skin and her long hair, wet and tangled down her back. The Texan grew hard as he watched her and thought back to the first night when she had played the whore so well for him and suddenly he realized he was now utterly taken by her.
Hannity McCall was an unassuming beauty who had undoubtedly turned many a man's head including his own...and evidently Buck Wilmington's. She was also a woman with undeniable strength working a man's job and making it look easy. But more importantly she was learned...like Mary Travers...the quality he admired most in a body, man or woman. And as he pondered further the woman of his thoughts, both philosophical and sexual, was suddenly standing unabashedly before him wearing only her boots and a clean black shirt, jingling the accursed keys in her hand.
Released from the tree Vin groaned aloud as he stood stiffly. A smile crossed her lips but her face turned dark when he balked when she attempted to reattach the cold metal to his raw wrists. Staring into her eyes he gently cupped her cheeks and brought his lips to hers in a sweet kiss. He no longer tasted the drug on her lips and probing with his tongue he felt only the drug of his own desire as it surged through his body. Pulling back he kept his fingers on her face and looked into her eyes and asked, "Will you honor a condemned man's last request?"
Knowing what his request would be, Hannity swallowed hard and let the shackles fall to the ground. She then lifted his hand and tenderly kissed the raw ring of flesh around first one wrist, then the other. They made love by firelight, bodies caressed by the cooling desert breeze. Hannity's Colt was slung over her saddle and well within his reach but Vin remained where he was.
The tracker was now bound to the bounty hunter as if still shackled in iron and chain. He had no intention of escaping her this night. Vin Tanner would stay right where he was riding the splendid woman, her strong legs wrapped around him, her eyes dark with passion and, if given a choice, he would choose to stay in that moment forever.
As they lay together, Vin's arm wrapped possessively around her and Hannity's leg thrown familiarly over his, he wondered aloud, "Why'd you play the whore in Prairie Junction? You coulda just taken me into custody then and there or on the trail for that matter."
Hannity smiled and told him, "The Indians call it ‘sneak stalking' but you're good and I knew you felt me from time to time on the trail. I didn't want to spook you any more than I already had and once I figured you were headed to Prairie Junction, I just road on ahead and paid one of Taylor's girls to take the night off. I kept my eye on you and you looked ready to bolt if the room got any more crowded so I figured I'd take your mind off leaving any time soon. The Indians call that trust stalking."
"You hid in plain sight."
"Exactly," she told him and looked at him with uneasy eyes, "But the plain fact of the matter is that you're a fine-looking man and I do get lonely." Hannity hadn't wanted to admit the last sad fact to him...or to herself. She hadn't wanted to admit that she had simply wanted him...as a man and not just a bounty because doing so hammered home the fact that she didn't have anyone to turn to...other than strangers from time to time.
Chapter 9
Toeing her boot lightly into his ribcage, Hannity sought to rouse the tracker as the sun's first rays splintered on the horizon. When he did finally open his tired eyes she stood towering oven him smiling her deceptively easy smile the damned shackles hooked at her waist over her gun butt.
"Aw, McCall," he whined sitting up and automatically rubbed his wrists.
She squatted next to him, her duster splayed out around her and confessed, "I knew I could hold you prisoner last night between my legs but the night's gone and we're only two days from Tascosa."
"We made love last night goddamn it, Hannity!" he avowed passionately.
His face was pained and her tone softened. "Yes we did, Vin Tanner. It was real and it was wonderful …but I respect you, respect your cunning, your strong sense of self-preservation and I know the only reason you aren't a hundred miles away from here by now is that you'd have had to kill me to do it… and you're no killer."
"You believe me?" It had become imperative that she believe him, believe in him, but the knowledge was for him alone because it wouldn't change the situation. Hannity wouldn't turn him loose no matter her feelings for him. It just wasn't her way and he respected her for it.
Sweat ran down the sides of Hannity's face despite the coolness of the morning and when she handed her prisoner hardtack and a piece of jerked beef, a stabbing pain caused her to grab his shoulder to steady herself. Lifting her head, her eyes met his and for the first time he saw fear in them. A second stabbing pain blanched her face and her hands began to tremble visibly as she vainly tried to reattach the hated hardware and Vin grabbed her shoulders and squeezed.
Couldn't she see that he wouldn't escape, leave her alone and sick to be overtaken by whoever followed them, day after day, mile after dogged mile? His only wish now was that she trust him enough to leave his hands unfettered.
"Hanni, please! Leave the irons be. I'll get us to Tascosa."
Knowing he spoke the truth the woman simply let the shackles fall into the dust, her days of hunting bounty quickly coming to an end. With his help she mounted her horse and they started for Tascosa at a dead run, Hannity bowed low over her horse's neck and Vin now in the lead.
Barely a mile later Hannity pulled her mount up abruptly and threw herself from the saddle. She stumbled to a scrubby bush where she vomited blood and bile, her years of addiction to the potent drug literally tearing her up inside.
She leaned over and retched again and gentle hands pulled back her hair and soothingly rubbed her back. Vin could feel her body tremble and the sweat that had soaked through the fabric of her shirt. He suspected the laudanum might kill her sooner than later but the more immediate danger was whoever followed them.
Jackson Tate followed them and watched from a small rise not fifty feet away with a smile on his pock marked face. The formidable Hannity McCall was on her knees, sick and maybe dying while Vin Tanner, a murderer worth five hundred dollars in the sovereign state of Texas, tended to her.
Hannity McCall's addiction was common knowledge and Jack Tate watched satisfied as the drug took its toll. For many years the drug that had made her a seemingly fearless hunter was now a demon riding her for all she was worth. He'd watched her change over the years and had most recently seen the effect of her dependency in her eyes when she threatened him at the poker table in Prairie Junction.
Urging his horse forward the dark haired bounty hunter figured he had only to shoot them both to be free of the bitch and five hundred dollars richer. He would take the killer's body the rest of the way into Tascosa and Hannity McCall? Well, he would leave her for the buzzards.
Helping Hannity to her feet Vin took her arm to guide her back to the horses where the cocking hammer of Tate's gun brought the tracker's head up. They were now both sitting ducks and Vin stared hard into Jack Tate's eyes trying to anticipate the man's next move. Convinced he would shoot Hannity first Vin deftly stepped in front of the woman just as Tate fired, his well-aimed bullet making a solid hit to his chest and his mind reeled with blinding pain.
Vin heard a second shot ring out and watched as Hannity dropped to the ground and unable to stay upright he fell to his knees just as Tate's boot tips came into his blurred field of vision. The bounty hunter now stood directly in front of Vin, gun cocked, barrel pressed to his forehead while blood dripped down his chest, soaking his shirtfront, seeping through the soft leather of his jacket to leave a dark stain that Jack Tate watched in fascination. He'd never seen a man bleed out so quickly.
Tate's momentary lapse allowed Hannity to roll silently under her unmoving, well-trained mount and regain her feet on the far side. She pulled a coach gun from its scabbard and laid it across the saddle seat and then spoke up in a voice surprisingly strong and steady, "This is the last bounty you'll ever jump, you son of a bitch."
Tate turned toward the voice and shock registered on his face. He couldn't believe that the woman was still alive let alone on her feet. He knew his aim had been true but there she stood, her mouth set in a grim line, finger gently pulling first one trigger then the other.
The buckshot stung at first then became excruciatingly painful as the pellets burrowed into his cheeks, his nose, his eyes and finally into his brain. Moments later Jack Tate ceased to feel anything as his lifeless and faceless body pitched forward into the dust.
Hannity dropped the shotgun and circled around the horses to go to Vin who swayed gently but remain upright through sheer force of will.
Kneeling before him she inspected the wound and found it bleeding freely. She untied the wild rag at her neck and bunched it up and pressed it to the wound. The thin fabric was soon limp and colored a darker hue and she knew he was in trouble. "Vin, can you hear me?"
He could but her voice was muffled and far away and raising his head he smiled wanly at her, his eyes bright with pain.
"Stay up on your knees, Vin," she commanded and ran to her horse. Quickly she untied the blanket at the back of her saddle then pulled his gun belt from her saddlebags. She unbuckled hers as she rushed back to kneel before him. She shucked both holsters from the belts and buckled the two together then wrapped the coarse woolen blanket tightly around his body. She wrapped the makeshift cinch around his chest and pulled it tight.
"Come on cowboy, let's get you back up on this damn pony of yours," she said and pulled desperately on his arm to get to his feet.
Biting his lip to keep from screaming Vin made it unsteadily to his feet and with her help he made it into the saddle. His strength waning, he leaned forward, his face pressed into his horse's neck.
Hannity took the reins and turned the horse in a tight circle headed the direction they had just come. Removing the brass spyglass from Vin's saddlebag she scanned the horizon for the familiar plumes of dust. Riders had been hard on their heels, probably the reason Jack Tate had jumped the gun and gotten the drop on them. She snapped the glass closed and shoved it back into the worn leather bags on Peso's rump and stepped forward to place a hand on the tracker's leg. "Vin?"
The Texan opened his eyes and reached out with his hand to brush her cheek with his fingertips, the question in his eyes if not on his pale pinched lips.
"I'm fine, Vin. Tate was a worse shot than he was a bounty hunter," she told him and gathered both of his hands in hers. She placed them around the saddle horn then bound them securely with the reins as sweat dripped into her eyes. Shhe swiped an arm across her forehead.
"Hannity..." Vin started but she cut him off with a raised hand.
"You know as well as I do that your friends are only a mile behind us if that, what with me being sick and you dogging it every step of the way. It was only a matter of time before they caught up to us." She squeezed his bound hands in hers and smiled wanly.
"Hannity, please listen…" Vin tried again but to no avail.
"Jack Tate and Lady Laudanum forced my hand. You'll never make it to Tascosa alive so you keep this blasted pony of yours headed west. Your healer can fix you up right as rain," she said. Letting go of his hands she stepped back and added, "Keep heading west, Vin …and watch your back."
"I'll find you again Hannity McCall, wherever you go," he vowed and she just shook her head.
"You deserve better, Vin," she said and moved closer again to the horse and rider. She touched his face briefly, gently, her smile sad. Stepping back she slapped the horse smartly on the rump and shying a few steps to the side, Peso took off at a good clip with Vin holding tight to the saddle horn and against the pain.
"I've given you everything I have left, Vin Tanner. I only hope it's enough," she whispered. An errant tear slipped down her pale cheeks as she watched until horse and rider were out of sight. "Please keep him safe," she whispered and realized it was the first request she had made of God in over ten years.
Chapter 10
Spotting an object on the horizon heading directly toward them Chris Larabee could make out the familiar markings of Vin's horse but could see no rider and, swearing vehemently under his breath, he spurred his horse unmercifully and Sire lunged, his thickly muscled neck straining.
Vin, bent low over the saddle horn resting his head on his horse's neck, watched as the ground sped by beneath them and prayed as he felt his life's blood drip slowly from his wound. Willing himself upright in the saddle he scoured the horizon for Chris and the others and spotted the great cloud of dust that grew ever closer. He laughed feebly and relaxed his legs, the pony's heaving sides, signaling to the beast that the wild sprint was over.
Easing up the horse slipped into an easy lope, a bone-rattling trot and finally to a slow walk and Vin looked up one last time to insure he had indeed been spotted. He then simply let the darkness, kept at bay through sheer determination and Hannity's assurance that he would meet up with the others, finally overtake him and he slipped sideways off the horse where he hung still bound to the saddle horn.
Chris Larabee had breathed a sigh of relief when he'd seen a figure in the distance but sucked in a sharp breath as horse and rider come to a stop and the man astride tumble off the far side. Raking his spurs over the big gelding's sides he closed the distance quickly. Circling around Peso Chris saw Vin, his hands tied to the saddle horn, and blood marring the horse's neck.
With a leg over his horse's neck Chris jumped from his saddle and strode up to gentle the winded horse with a strong hand and a gentle but firm voice. He reached down and felt the tracker's neck for a pulse. It was there but it was weak and barely discernible. Lifting the younger man to take the dead weight off of his bound hands, Chris waited for Josiah to unbind the reins and the two of them then laid the wounded man gently on the ground.
Nathan, thankful he had grabbed a few supplies before riding hell bent from Four Corners, knelt down and removed the belt and the makeshift blanket bandage while Josiah eased the unconscious man into a sitting position. Nathan removed the leather jacket and sodden shirt and examined the wound. He felt around to the opposite side and feeling no exit wound knew the bullet was still inside and most likely very near his heart.
The healer considered surgery briefly and quickly dismissed the notion. With the amount of blood loss even the most skilled surgeon in the most up to date hospital would probably kill him and, despite Chris Larabee's anxious looks, he wouldn't even attempt to treat the wound other than to stop the bleeding.
Pulling strips of rough cloth from his kit Nathan folded and pressed the thick wad firmly to the wounds while Chris secured it by wrapping and tying off lengths of sheeting around Vin's torso. "We need to get him someplace close where we can hole up and he can rest. If we move him too much or too soon he's gonna die."
"What about the bullet?" Chris demanded, his voice sharper than he intended, angry only at his own helplessness.
"He's lost too much blood. Any more and it could kill him," Nathan said, “We need to make camp here.”
They made camp where they'd stopped and a few hours later Vin's curtain of darkness parted slowly, his vision now lit by the light of a crackling campfire. He realized it was now night and that he was stretched out on a bedroll, shirtless, with his chest bound tightly and on fire. He looked around he saw two dark figures deep muted conversation on the far side of the camp and tried to speak. His mouth and throat were raw and cotton dry and he only managed a feeble croak for water that was barely heard by the men across the fire.
Walking around the fire ring Chris squatted next to him and with a cautious smile said, "Welcome back, cowboy."
Nathan squatted next to him canteen in hand and lifted it to his mouth and warm water trickled over his cracked lips and down his throat. When the healer pulled the container away he asked for more.
"That's enough for now," Nathan cautioned. He placed the canteen by Vin's head and turned to a small pot warming to the side of the fire's flames.
"Hannity?"
The one word took Chris by surprise and he told him, "I sent Buck and Ezra on ahead to see if they could find her and whoever was followin' you but I don't know if they'll have much luck in the dark."
"Jack Tate," Vin wheezed out.
Nathan looked to Chris and the gunman's face was a cold mask in the firelight as he explained, "Another bounty hunter."
Squatting again by his patient Nathan checked the bandages and found them relatively dry. The wound had finally stopped bleeding and now his only worries were Vin's ability to rally after so much blood loss, infection and lead poisoning...a piece a cake.
Nathan picked up a small bowl and spoon and explained to his patient, "This here's some broth made from jerky, a few herbs and water. It don't taste like much but it'll help build your blood back up." Spooning a small measure into Vin's mouth the healer laughed softly at the tracker's grimace but continued to spoon-feed him until Chris stopped him. Vin was asleep, his ribs rising and falling evenly.
"He needs to take as much of this as he can," Nathan insisted as he poured the remains of the makeshift soup back into the pot to reheat.
Chris said quietly, "Looks like all he wants to do now is sleep."
"This has got willow bark in it to help with the pain but I sure wish I had some a that laudanum that girl's been swillin'. I found ten bottles if I found one 'round their last two camps."
"Riders headin' in!" JD called from his post east of their small encampment and Nathan and Chris turned, one with a gun drawn, the other with his hand on a throwing knife.
As they dismounted Buck and Ezra's voices could be heard over the jingle of tack and the squeak of leather but the wounded tracker heard nothing and slept on, his dreams disjointed and unpleasant. Unsaddling their mounts, the two of them turned the animals free to drink from the river and to graze among the cactus and walked into the light of the fire, Ezra holding something from the tips of his fingers.
Chris took the odious offering from the gambler, swore softly and promptly dropped the long chain and leg shackles into the fire. Sparks floated and swirled up into the night sky.
"That was all that remained at the spot Mr. Tanner and Mizz McCall were set upon by the blackheart who'd been following them."
"Jack Tate," Chris told them and Buck nodded at the revelation.
"I heard tell of Jack Tate jumpin' bounty all over the territory for years," Buck told the others.
"Did Mr. Tanner enlighten you as to how he came to be in such dire straits?" Ezra asked glancing at Vin's prone body.
.
"He only just woke up, asked about the woman and went back to sleep," Nathan told them.
Buck turned to where Vin lay, fire shadows dancing over his slumbering form and continued, "From what we could tell two horses took off headed east, one horse leadin' the other. There was blood all over the place so I don't rightly know the outcome. But my guess is that Jack probably shot Vin then tried to take Hannity on. He musta come out with the short end of the stick 'cause Jack never woulda sent our boy back to us."
"She knew we were behind 'em?" It was the youngest member of the team come to stand with the others.
Buck picked up a tin cup, poured himself some of Nathan's coffee and chuckled quietly. "Yeah, JD, you can bet she knew the moment we picked up her trail. She's real witchy when it comes to knowin' things."
"What are the chances she'll back track to get Vin?" Chris asked shoving his Colt back in its holster but not before opening the gate and spinning the cylinder.
"Slim to none," Ezra chimed in confidently, "Mizz McCall sent Vin back to save his life."
Buck sat down on one of the large rocks surrounding the campsite that offered them some shelter in the vast desert and added, "There were two blood trails leadin' up to where the horses were tethered. I think Hannity's headed to Tascosa to lick her wounds and Jack Tate's on his way to perdition. She'll be back for Vin another day."
"Let's pray it doesn't come to that," Josiah said handing a plate of hastily heated beans to the ladies' man.
Chapter 11
Josiah, Ezra and JD headed out the following morning headed back to Four Corners while the others remained camped on the Texas plain. Buck and Chris scavenged for food while Nathan sat next to the wounded man and wondered what he should do next.
The bullet was lodged far in and operating in a makeshift surgery without most of the implements and the medicines he would need would be risky at best. On the other hand, Vin was sure to die of lead poisoning if he didn't and as he sat and bathed the tracker's fevered brow with cool water he knew that they needed a miracle. A day later one showed up in the guise of a peddler.
Jacobson, the old man whose name was emblazoned across the side of the wagon, and his daughter were on their way to Tuscosa. Having been to the rough border town many times before, their wagon was loaded up with whiskey, rudimentary medical supplies and, when it was empty and the side opened, the floor made an excellent makeshift operating table.
As they emptied the wagon Nathan found casks of whiskey for sterilization, brown bottles of laudanum for rudimentary anesthesia and pain control, a couple of bolts of linen for bandages and sewing kits for suturing the site. Nathan's bag held the instruments he would need and he started to cut into the tracker's chest, to widen and lengthen the entrance wound. Vin cried out in pain and bit down on the piece of leather stuck hastily into his mouth and Nathan knew that, despite all that they had done to prepare, the Good Lord now held all the cards.
The bullet was close to his heart and it took some time to find it and to extract it but Nathan did so cleanly and efficiently, aided by the fact that Vin had finally passed out and had stopped moving around. And Jacobson's daughter, a much better hand at sewing than any of them and, to Buck's estimation and satisfaction, stitched him up “prettier than a French whore's bloomers”.
The immediate threat of lead poisoning had been averted but infection was still a real possibility. They needed to get Vin back to town and the Jacobson's volunteered to take him the rest of the way to Tuscosa with them but a look from Chris Larabee made them reconsider. He would instead be taken by wagon to the closest place he would be safe and well cared for, Nettie Wells' ranch, and a day later Vin lay in Nettie's own double marriage bed.
It was the same bed, along with the Sharps rifle, that she and her husband had brought with them when they had settled their small ranch years before Four Corners was even a bump in the road and just as Nathan had feared infection had set in. With Nettie's help he opened up the wound site just enough to insert a lamp wick to help it drain. Nothing seemed to work and the tracker hovered between the world of the living and that of the dead, calling out from time to time for his mother and for Hannity.
"Who's this Hannity he keeps calling to?" Nettie asked as she dipped a cloth into a bowl of cold well water. She wrung it out and placed it back on Vin's forehead as Chris watched from his chair by the window.
"The bounty hunter who was takin' him to Tuscosa."
"He do this to him?" Nettie asked pointing to the wound.
"As far as we know she didn't. There was a second bounty hunter who wanted to take Vin in dead."
"That why you're always lookin' out that window?" Nettie asked with a knowing look.
"If she doubles back I'll be waitin' for her."
Vin moaned and twisted agitatedly in the bed. The old woman soothed him as best she could and he opened his eyes. "Ma?"
Although Nettie liked to think of herself as a surrogate mother to the comely and well-mannered Texan Vin was clearly delusional. He mother had died when he was a small boy, herself almost a child, but if he saw his ma in her face she would do nothing to shatter the illusion. "I'm here, son," she said in a soothing voice and her patient immediately calmed down.
He asked for water and she obliged him holding a cup to his pale lips. In contrast his cheeks were flame red from the fever that continued to rage inside of him and she continued to worry and fret over him while Casey and JD sat outside on the fence together, presumably to keep a look out for Nathan's return.
At his wit's end the healer had gone to Eagle Bent to try and find something that would cure the infection and when he returned both Casey and JD ran to meet him. He had returned with silver nitrate, carbolic acid and willow bark, the first two to irrigate the wound and the last to bring his fever down to a manageable level. He also had new lamp wicks with him.
Nathan dosed the Texan again with laudanum and pulled the old wick from the wound. It was soaked with putridity and smelled accordingly. He then drenched a new wick in the silver nitrate and wiped Vin's chest down liberally with carbolic acid and inserted the new wick into the wound. The only thing left for him to do was to pray that these ministrations would do the trick.
It took a few more days of waiting and hoping...and praying but the tracker finally took a turn for the better. He looked more dead than alive but his skin was cool to the touch and the wound was threatening to close around the wick. Nathan offered up the laudanum before he pulled it out but Vin declined. He left the small opening for the wound to drain and to continue to heal on its own.
Under the diligent care and watchful eyes of the Wells women Vin was soon able to sit up. A few days later he could walk from his bed to sit at the table where he quickly gained back some of the weight he had lost. He even spent a short amount of time sitting on the porch each day watching JD mend the corral fences he himself had told Nettie he would fix just days before his ill fated trip.
Vin's head was soon clear and his thoughts were lucid but something niggled at the back of his mind when he replayed the ambush over again in his mind, something he couldn't quit put a finger on. But it didn't really matter because it was just a matter of time before he saw Hannity again and hopefully anything that was bothering him would be forgotten.
Chapter 12
Vin gently touched the cross shaped scar on his chest. The skin was still an angry red but would soon turn pink then fade to silver. He was no longer in pain although he felt a twinge as he shrugged into a clean shirt. Wiping the steam from the mirror that hung from a rusted nail in the bathhouse he looked at the face staring back. His pallor was still a little gray from his long days spent recuperating at Nettie's and a melancholy hung on to him like a bad winter cold. But tonight he would join the others in the saloon in a concerted effort to lift his spirits.
Pushing the batwings open Vin entered the noisy room. It was thick with the haze of cigars and kerosene lamps and boisterous with the laughter and shouts of drunken revelers. An old piano had come to life under the multi-talented fingers of one of the whores and she started into a rousing rendition of 'Oh Susanna' as he sauntered over to a large table where Ezra held court, dealing cards.
"Evenin' Mr. Tanner. Will you join us in a hand or two?" the Southerner asked with a gold-toothed smile.
Studying the pile of chips in front of the gambler and the dour look on the faces of the others Vin shook his head. "Lady Luck ain't been too keen on me lately."
"On the contrary, Vin, I think Lady Luck and a certain lady bounty hunter were especially keen on you." Buck had come up behind him and placed his arm around the tracker's shoulder. He steered him to the table where Chris and JD sat.
The tracker took a seat next to the taciturn gunman while Buck took the seat across the table from him. Vin stared at the smiling ladies man in confusion.
"Hell boy, it ain't everyday ol' Hannity McCall turns loose of a $500.00 bounty," Buck explained.
"Gee Vin, you'll be famous. Vin Tanner the only man to escape the great Hannity McCall," JD gushed. "Did you know that Buck knows her?" JD had been hanging on Buck's every word as he shared his tales and the woman soon loomed larger than any heroine of a penny dreadful.
"I met Hannity in Deadwood, up in the Dakota territories. Just as I was leavin' town she was heading in haulin' the putrifyin' remains of some sorry son of a bitch. I still don't know if the townsfolk gave her such a wide berth because of the stinking carcass or the look of pure meanness on her face."
As Vin listened his stomach twisted into knots. He had seen that determined look on her face as they made ready to leave Prairie Junction and again when Jack Tate had bushwhacked them but when she was alone with him on the trail she'd been pensive, wary, heartsick and passionate...but never mean.
"I do have to say this for the woman though," Buck added, "She sure cleaned up real good."
As the evening wore on Buck's recounting of his time spent in the company of the bounty hunter seemed to entertain JD while Chris sat back and never ventured a word. He just watched as the tales, obviously painful for Vin, began to push the tracker toward an anger Vin didn't quite understand himself.
The piano-playing whore started in on 'Amazing Grace', a somber tune more befitting Vin's steadily souring mood as Buck described, in no small detail, Hannity's drug abuse and how she'd slept with him many times over the years. The Texan's façade began to crack precipitously and Vin struck out verbally at his friend.
"You may have bedded her Wilmington but you don't know her! You'll never know her!"
"Now what a minute, partner…" Buck started clearly flustered. He'd assumed they'd all been having a good time but clearly Vin thought otherwise when he continued.
"You don't know the why of her takin' the laudanum or the reason she's chased bounty all these years. To you she's just another conquest, just another whore, and to JD she's someone bigger 'en life now. But she's neither. She's just a woman who's been made to suffer by a God she don't even believe in anymore."
Stunned, Buck watched as, unknown to the Texan, a single tear of remorse slid down the tracker's wan face as he continued, "She's trapped in a world of other's makin', left behind by the men that butchered her family then used her badly. But they didn't finish the job and she went after 'em even though she was broken. The laudanum's so she can forget and the bounty huntin's all she's got left in this world."
The three of them stared at Vin after his passionate outburst and he finished softly, his head bowed, in an effort to make them understand, to treat her with some dignity and with the respect she deserved. "The whorin's just to ease the loneliness."
Buck tried to lighten the mood when he leaned back in his chair and said with a smile, "Well, she was one mighty lonely lady when I hooked up with her."
Vin leaped up and his chair fell back with a crash. He reached across the table and grabbed the lanky lawman by the shirtfront and pulled him toward him. Too distraught to put his thoughts into words Vin just glared at him and when Buck raised his hands to beg off he angrily pushed him back into his chair. The tracker then picked up his hat, looked into Buck's still startled eyes and reiterated, "You...don't...know."
Vin Tanner walked out of the saloon and Chris Larabee finally spoke up. “Buck, sometimes you're a bona fide jackass."
Chapter 13
United States Marshal Thomas Whitehall, a rail thin man of approximately forty years of age and with a shock of thick white hair under his hat, walked unannounced into the small jail where Vin, JD and Ezra Standish were all currently on duty. The Marshall hadn't been to the small prairie town in months but planned to rendezvous with Judge Orin Travis later that day, something about raids into the U.S. over the Mexican border.
"Marshal Whitehall, what brings you back to our fair town?" Ezra asked as he moved quickly to put himself between the territorial lawman and wanted fugitive, Vin Tanner.
"Got some business in town and while I'm here I thought I'd do a little housekeepin'. Where do you keep your wanted posters young sheriff Dunne?" Whitehall asked as he pulled off his coat and hung it on a hook by the door.
JD, a look of stark terror on his face, bounded out of his chair and looked to Ezra for guidance.
"I believe you'll find them in the bottom left hand drawer," Ezra volunteered before Whitehall could get a good look at JD's stricken face or wonder at the young man's inability to answer.
Vin stood motionless at the cell door, his back to the lawman, afraid to move and call any undo attention to the back of the jail. His heart beat erratically in his chest as the appearance of the brusque lawman took him completely by surprise.
"Mr. Dunne, would you be so kind as to bring our visitor a cold drink or something to eat? I'm sure Marshall Whitehall must be famished." Ezra barely finished his sentence before JD was out the door, not to find food for the visiting lawman but to find Chris Larabee.
"Mighty thoughtful of you, er."
"Standish, Ezra Standish at your service."
Whitehall remembered very few lawmen as he traveled the territory, the vast majority of them either quitting or getting themselves killed in the time it took to make the circuit, and he gave Ezra a quick glance. If he'd met him before he didn't remember. The marshal sat down in the newly vacated seat and retrieved a heavy brown leather bound book and dropped it on the table with a resounding thump that made Vin flinch, a motion that Ezra caught out of the corner of his eye.
Whitehall pulled a sheaf of rumpled papers from inside his vest, unfolded them and laid them in a neat pile before him and began to turn the pages of the book. Coming to a particular poster he stopped and pulled it free of its page. "Bill Blessing," he said in a rumbling baritone, "Wanted in four states for murder and other heinous crimes. Shot in the back by bounty man Jubilee Forrest whilst playing the wheel at Belle's Birdcage in Capitol City." Wadding the printed bill into a ball the marshal pitched the sorely outdated wanted poster toward the small barrel that served as a wastebasket. He missed by a country mile and shrugged as he placed a newly printed poster in its place and continued to flip through the book.
The lawman then slowly turned a few more pages while Ezra watched intently over his shoulder. Whitehall hesitated, his hand over the likeness of Vin Tanner, and Ezra surreptitiously moved closer behind the lawman and placed his hand on the back of his chair. If the need arose he could simply lift his arm and, with a twist of his wrist, the two shot derringer would be aimed squarely at the lawman's head, giving Vin the few seconds he would need to be out of the jail and on his way to freedom. Ezra would then smoothly explain away the events as an unfortunate malfunction of the elaborate device.
But before he could lift his arm Whitehall grabbed the corner of the poster of Vin's likeness and snatched it out of the book. He crumpled the sheet into a ball, tried again with no luck for the barrel, and Vin's wanted poster came to rest against the wall. Whitehall noisily cleared his throat and pronounced, "Vin Tanner, wanted for murder most foul, shot point blank in the face by one Hannity McCall whilst trying to escape custody...just one day out of Tuscosa."
Ezra heard the sharp intake of breath and leaned over the marshal's shoulder hoping to mitigate the sound, "You're sure it was this Tanner fellow, Marshal?"
"Sworn to by Hannity herself...on her deathbed so to speak. Came ridin' into Tascosa big as you please haulin' the bastard's body. She got him all right but not 'fore he gut shot her. Nothin' the doc could do. Swore that it was Tanner and refused the reward money so's there'd be no question it was him. Kinda hard to identify a man without a head."
Whitehall pressed another poster into the page that had moments before had held Vin Tanner's and again started to go through the book.
Ezra turned slightly and glanced at the quiet man from Texas whose body language spoke volumes. Vin's head was bowed and his arms grasped the iron bars in a knuckle-whitening grip, the man clearly shaken by the sudden and saddening news.
"We're sure gonna miss that gal. Not many bounty hunters better'en Hannity...and not a one easier on the eyes that's for sure."
The distinct jingle of bobs could be heard on the sidewalk outside the door. JD had found Chris who entered the room and quickly sized up the situation. Whitehall was still going through the book and, as far as Chris could tell, didn't even realize the tracker was in the room.
"Marshall Whitehall." Chris nodded curtly.
Whitehall did remember the black clad gunman and was a surprised to see him alive and still on the other side of the bars. "Afternoon, Larabee."
"The good Marshal is attempting to update our woefully outdated compilation of wanted posters," Ezra explained and glanced toward Vin.
"That so?" Chris said evenly as he too glanced to the rear of the jail.
Ezra pointed to the growing pile surrounding the bucket and continued, "Yes sir, no need to keep outdated posters of such men as the likes of Bill Blessing and Vin Tanner. No indeed, not when these nefarious villains have been duly apprehended and turned over to the law or, even more fortuitously, sent to their maker."
A barely perceived nod passed between the two men and Chris waited patiently for Whitehall to finish before he escorted him to the hotel for his meeting with the Judge.
Chapter 14
Vin took the death of the bounty hunter hard and left the jail shortly after Chris and the marshal. He headed straight for his wagon, then to the livery. Ezra followed him inside and watched as Vin led his horse from the stall.
Anger beset the gambler and he grabbed Vin's arm and spun him around to face him. "And just where do you think you're going, Mr. Tanner? Surely not to Tascosa."
Vin pushed the Southerner away and glared at him, "What if I am, Ezra? You gonna stop me?"
"What do you hope to accomplish? Would you negate the woman's sacrifice?" Ezra looked at the Texan and saw only confusion on his face and sighed impatiently. "If someone were to recognize you in Tascosa she would have died for nothing. She chose not to seek medical attention from Nathan and instead took Jack Tate's body into Tascosa to swear it was you...after blowing his fool head off. She has given you a second chance and you're just going to throw it away."
Vin turned away from Ezra and grabbed the pummel of his saddle but instead of vaulting into it, as Ezra feared he might, he simply laid his forehead on the seat and let his tears fall unchecked. The urge to return to Tuscosa, to see where she rested, was so overwhelming and painful that it tied his insides up in knots and stretched his nerves as taught as gut on a bow.
Ezra moved next to the younger man and laid his hand gently on his shoulder and Vin lifted his face from the saddle and said, "She was so strong, Ezra. So strong and so beautiful...and so lost."
"As are we all," the gambler assured him.
"Ah, but God has a plan for us all."
Vin wiped his tear-streaked face with his hand and turned around to find Josiah standing next to Ezra. Anger flared in his eyes and he demanded, "Preacher, you tell me what God's plan was when he let her husband and her babies die."
"Vin, the Lord does work in mysterious ways. He could have been testing her for the journey that followed...her journey as his sword here on earth making the most evil of men pay for their sins against His laws."
The explanation smacked of empty platitudes and Vin turned to mount his horse.
Josiah grabbed him and turned him back around. "Maybe this was all for you, my young friend," Josiah then told him, "God let you catch a glimpse of pure love and sacrifice, a sacrifice that's sure to make your days ahead easier... if you'll just accept her gift."
Chris Larabee moved from the shadows and spoke up. "Don't take that away from her, Vin," he implored him, "Not if you felt anything for her at all."
Chris' words were like a kick to his gut and Vin finally let go of the reins. He looked to his friends, first to Ezra, then to Chris and finally to the man of God and suddenly he didn't have the words. He hoped that his nod to each of them in turn conveyed his silent gratitude.
Josiah smiled sympathetically and put his arm around Vin's shoulder. They took leave of the gambler and the gunfighter and the two of them, the tracker and the preacher, walked in companionable silence toward the church where Josiah Sanchez would continue his labor of love and of penance and Vin Tanner would sit in quiet solitude and reflect on a beautiful woman's unspoken love for him...and his for her.
FIN
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.