March 2, 2000
Disclaimers – Nope, I don’t own the boys, only wish I did. Trilogy/CBS/TNN and probably some other PTB own them. Sigh.
Author’s Note – Thanks to Suzy and Judy for beta reading. Thanks to Nancy for the medical info.
Vin woke up in a sweat. He rolled over in the small confines of his wagon only to let out a groan as a dull ache spread across his back. He felt like shit. No doubt about it. Why, though, was what was in doubt. He reached back across his shoulders and tried to soothe the ache, but just couldn’t satisfy it. He sat up and tried to remember if he hurt himself. He closed his eyes tight and fought back the dizziness and nausea his movement brought. He didn’t think he’d drank that much at the saloon, though it was more than usual. Resting his head upon his forearms as they draped themselves over his knees, he tried to bring the previous night’s events into focus.It had been an evening like any other. He and a few of the other six men that made up Four Corners’ law enforcers spent the night in the saloon. Some drinking. Some gambling. Some womanizing. Broke up a fight or three because of the drinking, gambling and womanizing. Nothing unusual. The tracker didn’t think he got hurt during any of the excitement or lack there of. So why was he so damn sore and sick? He thought some more.
He smiled as he remembered what happened after the saloon closed. He and Chris decided that they needed a little company. He’d gone up to Chris’s room when everyone else had been out of sight. The gunslinger had been waiting for him. After Vin had closed and locked the door, Chris took the blanket that had been draped across him off and showed the tracker just how he’d been waiting for him.
Deciding that he needed some water to help cool off and settle his stomach, Vin climbed out of the wagon. He grabbed onto the side for balance as another wave of dizziness hit him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly and willed the quiet town around him to stop spinning. He got about ten feet away from his wagon before he collapsed to the ground.
+ + + + + + +
"Vin? Vin, you okay?" Buck asked, gently shaking the tracker’s shoulder.
Vin blinked his eyes open and let out a small moan.
"Buck? What happened?" he asked, looking around, noting that he was in the middle of the dirt street.
"That’s what I was gonna ask you, pard," Buck grinned as he helped Vin to sit up.
The sharpshooter groaned as he reluctantly accepted Buck’s help.
"Easy there, Vin," the ladies’ man soothed. "Damn! You’re burnin’ up," he added, putting a hand to Vin’s forehead. "Come on, I’ll get you over to Nathan’s."
Vin was about to protest, say that he was fine, when the town began to spin again. He vaguely felt the big man lift him off the ground before passing out.
+ + + + + + +
"What happened?" Nathan asked quickly, ushering Buck into the clinic, making room on the bed for Vin.
"Don’t know. I saw him layin’ in the street on my way home from Miss Kate’s this mornin’," Buck began, smiling as he recalled his evening with the woman. "He’s all feverish," he added.
Nathan nodded silently as he took in the information. He felt the fever Buck mentioned as he put his own hand to Vin’s forehead.
"Vin? Vin can you hear me?" he called, gently putting a cool cloth to the tracker’s fevered brow.
Vin replied with a moan and a fluttering of his eyelids.
"I need you to tell me what ails ya, Vin," Nathan spoke, opening up the tracker’s sweat soaked shirt.
"Feel like shit," he mumbled in response, just before he threw up.
"Look like shit, too, pard," Buck put in with a small grin – he had been quick enough to sidestep the mess.
"You hurtin’ anywhere?" the healer cut in, giving Buck a dirty look as he began to clean up.
"Yeah," Vin answered, just before losing consciousness again.
As Nathan continued to clean up the mess on Vin and the bed, he began thinking about the various patients he’d seen that week, trying to recall if any of them had fevers or nausea. He couldn’t think of any at the moment.
"Okay, let’s get ‘im outta these dirty clothes so I can check ‘im over," he sighed, hoping he’d be able to find a cause for Vin’s illness.
They were lifting the tracker up to a sitting position and beginning to take off his shirt, when Buck exclaimed, "Oh, shit!"
Nathan quickly looked to see what Buck had discovered.
"What the hell happened to him?" the ladies’ man asked. "Don’t look like a bullet wound," he added.
Nathan looked more closely at Vin’s upper back. Just below his right shoulder was a sickly looking wound. It was bruised and raw with green pus oozing out and had a spider web of angry red streaks making their way out from its center. He grabbed a clean rag and wiped away some of the mess to try and identify it.
"Looks like he got bit," the healer remarked, surprise in his voice.
"Think he tangled with some wild critter?" the mustached man asked. "Maybe he was out at Miss Nettie’s looking for those ‘coons again."
"Actually," Nathan began, looking up at Buck. "This looks like a human bite."
"What?!" Buck exclaimed, looking again at the wound.
"See, look at the size and shape of the teeth marks," the healer pointed out. "That’s a man’s bite."
"Wonder who bit ‘im?" the mustached man thought aloud. "Maybe one of those drunks from the saloon last night…"
"Well, it don’t matter none who bit ‘im," Nathan interrupted. "We gotta get rid of this infection and get that fever down. Go fetch me some fresh clean water, Buck."
"Sure, Nate," Buck said, standing. "I’ll let the others know, too."
+ + + + + + +
Buck had just left the building, bucket in hand, when he spotted JD coming out of the jail.
"JD!" he shouted to the younger man as he crossed the street, getting his attention.
"Mornin’, Buck," JD greeted him. "What’s with the bucket?"
"Vin’s sick," the ladies’ man said, coming straight to the point.
He was about to elaborate when JD cut in, asking, "What’s wrong with him?"
"Found ‘im in the street a little while ago. All feverish," Buck began. "Look, can you fill this with some clean water for Nate? I’m gonna let the others know. We’ll have to have someone take his patrol tonight."
"Sure, Buck," he said, grabbing the bucket, eager to help.
+ + + + + + +
Chris reined his horse to a stop beside the small creek and dismounted. He squatted next to the water and splashed some of it onto his face. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he stood. It felt good to be out of town for a while. He’d told Vin that he would be out riding for the day. Just long enough to clear his head a bit. The crowds in town had been a bit too much for him lately. Vin had been feeling the same way and despite the temptation for the two of them to go out together, they both knew that their responsibility to the town came first.
Instead, they decided to meet at his shack the next morning. After some time together, Chris would head back to town and Vin would head out to the open terrain for his turn at some solitude.
Bending down to the water again, the gunslinger filled his canteen and took a quick drink. The stress that had been bunching up his muscles was starting to fade already.
+ + + + + + +
Nathan wrung out the cloth again before placing it on Vin’s forehead. He’d been changing it every fifteen minutes or so, along with wiping down the rest of the tracker’s body, hoping to cool down his fever. He’d already applied a poultice, a pasty mix of herbs and plant roots, to the wound, hoping to draw out the infection.
Vin let out a low moan and the healer watched as the tracker’s eyes fluttered open.
"Vin? You with me?" Nathan called gently.
The healer watched as Vin tried to focus on him, eyelids blinking. Vin’s mouth moved as if to speak, but no words came out. Nathan brought a tin cup of water to his lips and the tracker managed to swallow a few sips. Fortunately the healer had a bucket handy, as Vin was unable to keep those few sips down. Before Nathan had even finished washing the tracker’s face, he had fallen asleep again.
Nathan heard the quick, heavy steps bounding up the stairs, so he was not caught off guard by the clinic door being opened. He was surprised, however, to find Buck at the door.
"How’s he doin’?" Buck asked, walking over to the bed.
"Same," Nathan replied, glancing down at his patient.
"Found and told everybody but Chris," Buck began. "Josiah saw him early this morning, heading out. Said he’d be back in the morning," he added.
"I think I heard him and Vin talking about going for a ride, getting away from town," JD put in. "I know Vin’s been feeling kinda closed in."
"Yeah, and Chris can get that way, too," Buck added. "Alright, I’ll head out toward the shack. Maybe he’s gone up there."
+ + + + + + +
Buck reached the small shack around noon.
"Shit," he swore, not finding Chris there, either. "Where the hell are ya, Chris?"
He dismounted and brought his horse over to the small corral Chris had built, letting the animal loose inside. The water trough was full from the previous day’s rain, and the horse quickly found it.
Buck entered the shack and sat down, trying to think of where the gunslinger might have gone. He’d already ridden by the small fishing hole Chris liked and found some faded hoof prints. But they could have been from anybody’s horse. He stood up and began pacing.
"Shit," he swore again and left the shack.
He went to the corral and called the big gray horse over to him. Reaching into the saddlebag, he grabbed some paper and a pencil. He wrote a short note to Chris and pegged it to the front door of the shack with a small pocketknife, hoping the gunslinger would find it soon.
+ + + + + + +
"Easy, Vin. Easy," Nathan soothed, pulling back the blanket. "Josiah, give me a hand here, I gotta change the bandage again."
"Noooo," Vin moaned quietly, trying to fight the hands on him.
"Vin, come on," the healer pled. "We gotta do this."
He kept talking to the tracker as they worked – Josiah holding Vin down while Nathan removed the old bandage and poultice – even though he was pretty sure Vin wasn’t coherent enough to understand the words.
"You probably been bit by that damn horse a yours too many times to count, by Mrs. Potter’s cat a dozen more and Lord knows how many wild critters you done tangled with. And what gets ya sick? A bite from some drunk in a saloon fight," Nathan admonished.
He grabbed a clean, wet cloth and cleaned the wound. Josiah tightened his grip on Vin as the healer’s actions agitated the tracker.
"Damn," Nathan swore to himself, getting a good look at the infection.
"It hasn’t gotten any better, has it?" Josiah asked, looking up to Nathan.
The dark man met the preacher’s gaze and shook his head.
"Chris?" Vin whispered, pleading. "Chris?"
"We’re looking for him, Vin," Josiah answered. "Buck’s gonna bring him."
+ + + + + + +
Buck sat next to the bed, watching as one of his friends drifted in and out of a feverish sleep. He had returned to town, without Chris, only an hour ago. Telling Nathan and Josiah to take a break and get some food and rest, he’d taken over temporary care of the ill tracker. He once again removed the lukewarm cloths from Vin’s head and chest and replaced them with fresh cool ones.
"Seems like we’ve been doing this too long, pard," he spoke quietly as he worked. "This fever of yours shoulda broke by now. Instead, it’s only gettin’ worse.
+ + + + + + +
Chris rode his horse harder than he remembered doing in a long while. The note Buck left knifed to the door of his shack, still clutched in his hand, had rattled him to no end. His mind churned up all kinds of images of Vin lying sick in Nathan’s clinic. He’d been with the lean tracker less than twenty-four hours ago, and he had been healthy as a horse – a stallion to be exact, he remembered, wryly. And now, according to Buck’s note, Vin was very sick. Sick enough for the ladies’ man to ride all the way out to the shack to find him and leave him a note telling him to get back to town as soon as possible. What the hell could have happened? He spurred the horse onward.
+ + + + + + +
"Alright, time to try something else," Nathan sighed after he’d cleaned out all remnants of the last poultice he’d applied to the nasty bite. "Let’s just leave it uncovered for a bit while I mix up something new," he told Buck. "You’ll be okay while I go to Mrs. Potter’s?" he asked.
"Go ahead, Nate," Buck replied. "We’ll be fine," he added, running fingers, then a cool cloth through Vin’s long, sweat soaked hair.
The healer hadn’t been gone ten minutes when Buck heard the footsteps bounding up the stairs. He turned to see Chris’s lean form come through the doorway, only to come to a dead stand still, as the gunslinger caught sight of his young friend.
"Oh, God," he whispered, finally stepping into the room, never taking his eyes from the prone man on the bed. "What happened?" he asked.
"We think he got bit during one of them saloon brawls last night," Buck answered. "Got infected real bad. I found ‘im lyin’ in the street this mornin’. Nate’s been workin’ real hard to get it under control, but…"
He didn’t finish the sentence, just looked up sadly and shook his head as Chris finally, if briefly, broke his gaze away from Vin to look at him. He watched as the gunslinger gently touched the ugly wound. He couldn’t read the expression on his old friend’s face.
"Chris?" he called, hoping the man in black would tell him what he was thinking.
But instead, Chris kept his attention on Vin. He knelt down so that he was face to face with the tracker. He took a cloth from the wash basin and began to wipe away the sweat from Vin’s face.
"Vin?" he whispered. "Vin?"
For the first time in about two hours, the tracker responded to someone’s voice. His eyes blinked slowly, before lazily focusing on the face before him. He opened his mouth, ready to utter Chris’s name. But no words came forth. Instead, Chris jumped back, as Vin’s eyes rolled back into his head and the tremors began.
"Get Nathan!" he shouted to Buck as he grabbed onto Vin.
He covered the tracker’s body with his own, held him down onto the bed. But Vin’s body continued to shake violently underneath him despite the effort. Less than a minute later, though it seemed more like an hour to Chris, Vin finally stilled. The gunslinger was just climbing off the bed when Nathan and Buck rushed into the room, with Josiah and JD not far behind.
"He was just shakin’ like crazy a few minutes ago," Buck gasped, afraid Nathan wouldn’t believe him.
The healer wasn’t listening to him, though. He had immediately gone to Vin’s bedside, cursing under his breath as he did, and began examining the tracker. He was relieved to find that Vin was still with them.
"We gotta get him cooled down," he said angrily, to no one in particular. "Fever’s so high he had himself a fit."
"What else can we do, Nate?" Buck asked. "We’ve been washin’ him down with cool water and cloths for almost twelve hours, now. Damn! When I find out who took that chunk outta his back, I’m gonna bite him back," he swore.
He looked around to see Chris’s reaction to his threat, but the gunslinger wasn’t there.
+ + + + + + +
Ezra stood motionless in front of the clinic’s door, not knowing whether he should go in or not – it was a rare moment – because he did not know what he would say if he entered. A few minutes ago, he’d seen Chris Larabee, the man that shows no emotion, practically run from the clinic – and the gambler thought he saw tears forming in the man’s eyes. He took a quick peek in through the window. Saw JD and Josiah, their faces drawn, removing soiled sheets from the clinic’s bed. Buck’s expression looked even grimmer. Vin must be dead, he thought.
Finally mustering his courage to enter, to offer his condolences to Nathan, for he was sure the healer did everything in his power to help the ex-bounty hunter, he was taken aback, pleasantly, to discover that Vin was still alive. If precariously so.
Vin sat, held upright by Nathan, in a washtub in the corner of the clinic that had been out of the gambler’s sight. The healer was pouring cool water by the ladle-full over the tracker’s body in a desperate attempt at cooling the fever that raged within.
"Ezra? You alright?" Buck called. "You look like you seen a ghost."
"Actually, Mr. Wilmington," he began, regaining his composure. "It was the lack of ghost that has caught me off guard. After seeing Mr. Larabee’s hasty and emotional departure, I had thought the worst."
Buck nodded as he listened to Ezra’s reply. He had wondered about Chris’s quick and silent departure. He couldn’t understand it, actually. Any other time Vin had been hurt and laid up in Nathan’s clinic, Chris had been the first to arrive and last to leave, giving Nathan all the help he could offer. Maybe it was that fit Vin had had. A sight like that would be enough to give anybody a spook. But enough to scare Chris away? The ladies’ man thought back to that unreadable expression Chris had before the fit. The way he touched the wound. He finally recognized what he’d seen in Chris, then. Guilt. He walked quickly to the door, ignoring the questions from the others, and went to look for Chris.
+ + + + + + +
Chris sat quietly. Getting as far away from the clinic as he possibly could, away from any prying eyes, he had gone to the livery. After making sure he was alone, he’d let himself slide down one of the inside walls. Only then had he’d allowed the tears to slide down his cheeks, but he refused to give them voice.
He didn’t know what to do. He’d been scared by what had happened to Vin. Anybody sick enough to have fits from a fever like Vin did, surely wouldn’t survive. And how would he cope without him? Shit. He looked up, startled, and quickly wiped away the tears on his shirtsleeve when Buck squatted down before him.
+ + + + + + +
"JD, you got that bed made up yet?" Nathan asked as he finished drying Vin off.
"All ready, Nathan," the younger man replied, tucking in the last corner of the sheet he’d just put on.
Nathan and Josiah quickly carried Vin over to the bed and carefully laid him on his stomach, covering up his lower body with another sheet. The tracker let out a small painful moan as they had moved him, but other than that and some unfocused eye movements, Vin was still basically unresponsive to them.
JD watched as the healer mixed up the ingredients for a new poultice in a small wooden bowl.
"Sugar?" he asked, confused as he watched Nathan add some to the bowl.
"Yeah," Nathan replied. "I remember my Ma and some other folk usin’ it and some other stuff back on the plantation. Used to pack the wounds with it. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Figured I’d try it. Nothin’ else is workin’," he added sadly.
"I seem to remember such a remedy, as well, Mr. Jackson," Ezra spoke. "Of course, my mother never used it."
"Well, if this don’t work, I don’t know what will," the dark man replied quietly as he gently rubbed the pasty concoction into the ugly wound.
Josiah handed him some clean bandages and once they were applied, the men sat and began their vigil once again.
+ + + + + + +
"Hey, pard," the mustached man greeted him, picking up a piece of straw.
"How is he?" Chris asked, not meeting Buck’s gaze.
"Last I saw, Nate had him in the tub, tryin’ to cool him down," Buck replied, twirling the straw between his fingers. "How are you doin’?" he asked.
"I ain’t the one that’s dyin’, Buck," he replied angrily.
"No, but you’re the one feelin’ guilty. Blamin’ himself," the ladies’ man retorted, nodding in satisfaction as his remark finally got Chris to look up at him.
Chris stared at Buck, tried to figure out just how much of the truth his old friend knew.
"Leave me alone, Buck," he said, returning his gaze to his boots and his thoughts to the previous night.
A moment of pure lust and passion. An orgasm so powerful that he could not think. An urgent need to be even closer to the younger man – being deep inside him wasn’t enough. He wanted to possess him. To mark him. Make him his and his alone. And so, as he screamed out his release, he buried his teeth into the tracker’s back…
"It’s my fault he’s dying, Buck," he whispered.
"What the hell are you talkin’ about, Chris?" Buck asked, slight anger in his voice. "It ain’t your fault, or anybody else’s for that matter, that Vin’s hurtin’ the way he is. And he ain’t gonna die!"
Chris just shook his head as he looked at his old friend.
"You don’t understand, Buck," he said.
"What I don’t understand is how the hell you can take the blame for another man’s illness," the mustached man retorted. "It ain’t like you put a bullet in him."
Frustration, rage, guilt – they all boiled within Chris Larabee at that moment – until he finally blurted out the words.
"No, I didn’t put a bullet in him…but I’m the one that bit him…while I was taking him," he let out and waited for Buck’s reaction.
"I seem to remember a certain blushing young bride that had a similar mark on her shoulder, when I made a surprise visit to your room one night," Buck responded, not reacting at all to what Chris had said. "She seemed to have enjoyed and survived it."
"Buck," Chris began, before the big man cut him off.
"No, Chris," he said, poking the gunslinger in the chest. "No matter what you’re thinkin’ right now, this ain’t your fault. You didn’t do it to get Vin sick. You did it to make you both feel good. And right now," he said as he pulled Chris to his feet, "you need to get your ass back up to Nathan’s and stop feelin’ so damn sorry for yourself."
Chris was about to begin walking toward the livery doors, to heed Buck’s advice, when he stopped and turned to face his old friend.
"You didn’t even flinch when I told you what I did," he began. "What me and Vin…"
"Remember where I grew up, Chris," Buck spoke up when the gunslinger didn’t finish. "I’ve seen lots of people do lots of things in my life. Men doin’ each other ain’t nothin’ new to me. And if that’s what you and Vin want to do, who am I to say anythin’ about it? Whatever makes ya feel good," he finished.
Chris stood and pondered Buck’s words. He knew the ladies’ man had grown up in and around a brothel. He would have seen many types come and go. So he understood. But…
"I ain’t gonna tell, pard," Buck said, answering Chris’s unspoken question.
Chris just nodded his head, letting his eyes convey the thankfulness he felt, knowing that Buck would not betray his, and Vin’s, trust.
+ + + + + + +
An hour later Chris finally made it back to the clinic. When the sun had gone down, the other men had gone to tend to the town and saloon, so Nathan was there alone with Vin, sitting in a rocking chair on one side of the bed.
"How’s he doing?" Chris asked quietly.
"Holdin’ on," Nathan shrugged. "Bath we gave ‘im earlier brought the fever down a bit. I’m tryin’ somethin’ different on the wound. He ain’t got no worse," he added with a small smile.
Chris nodded before sitting down in a chair on the opposite side of the bed and looked at the younger man lying in it. He wanted nothing more than to touch him. To hold him. To tell him that he was sorry. That despite Buck’s words, it was his fault and that he’d do anything anyone ever asked of him to make up for it, if it would just make Vin well again.
"Why don’t you go get some supper, Nate. I’ll stay here," Chris offered.
"You sure?" the healer asked in reply, remembering how Chris had disappeared earlier.
"I ain’t gonna run out again," the gunslinger said, looking up at him.
Nathan met the gaze easily, saw that Chris meant what he said.
"I won’t be long," he said, getting up and heading for the door.
When the dark man was gone, Chris scooted closer to the bed. He reached a tentative hand out and placed it gently on Vin’s head before smoothing back the damp locks below.
"I’m so sorry, Vin," he whispered. "If I had known this would have happened…"
He renewed the cool cloths that were keeping the fever in check and sat, quietly listening to the quick raspy breathing that plagued Vin in his sleep.
+ + + + + + +
It was around three in the morning that they heard the low whisper.
"Chris?"
The gunslinger was immediately alert, barely catching himself as he almost fell out of the chair.
"Vin? You awake?" he asked, removing the damp cloth from the tracker’s forehead, revealing his eyes.
"I don’t feel too good," Vin drawled, eyes trying to blink away the sleep.
"You ain’t been too good," Nathan replied, reaching a hand out to the tracker’s forehead. "Fever’s almost gone," he told the others as he smiled.
"What happened? What’s wrong with me?" he asked, pausing between questions to take a sip of the water Chris was offering.
"One of them drunks you were wrasslin’ with the other night bit you on your back," Buck put in, giving Chris a quick look, letting him know that that would be the story he stuck with.
"The other night? Bit?" Vin asked, confused.
"We’ll explain it all to you later, Vin," Nathan soothed. "You just go back to sleep and rest up."
Though he fought hard against his sleepy eyelids, the tracker lost the battle and soon was asleep again.
Nathan decided to change the bandage and poultice mix. He was happy to see that the wound had looked better. The red streaks had begun to recede and fade and there wasn’t nearly as much pus being produced as before.
"I guess that sugar mix did the trick," he said aloud, somewhat surprised by its success.
"Well, we always knew Vin had a sweet tooth," Buck laughed in response.
+ + + + + + +
By noon, Vin had regained enough strength and gotten enough rest that he was able to stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time. He’d been told again about how Buck had found him in the street and how he and Nathan had discovered the infected bite wound on his back that caused his illness. Buck mentioned that he thought he had seen one of the drunks on his back during the second brawl of the night in the saloon and that that must have been when he’d gotten bitten. The others regaled how hard Nathan had worked to bring his fever down and stop the infection, finally succeeding with the sugar mix. The tracker gave Buck a dirty look when the ladies’ man mentioned his sweet tooth.
Nathan began shooing the men out when he saw that Vin was losing the battle against fatigue again. Buck, seeing Chris’s desire to speak with Vin alone, grabbed the healer, offering to buy him lunch while Chris watched over the tracker for a while.
When the clinic door closed, Vin opened his eyes and stared at Chris.
"You can stop feelin’ guilty now, Cowboy," he said. "I’m gonna live."
"I am so sorry, Vin," Chris said anyway.
"Don’t be, Chris," Vin replied. "I know you didn’t mean for this to happen. And I’m fine, now. Thanks to my sweet tooth," he grinned.
Chris leaned closer and gave him a kiss, grateful that Vin was indeed going to be fine, now.
"Just one problem," the tracker announced, a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
"What’s that?" the gunslinger asked, wary of the look Vin was giving him.
"We gotta find something to satisfy your sweet tooth, next time you get the urge to sink your teeth into me," he finished.
THE END