Missing Scene: Vendetta
by Helen Adams
(500 Words)
(Moved to Blackraptor November 2009)
“I suppose you thought that was cute, climbing up on that wagon and
blowing it up with a bottle of whiskey.”
Ezra blinked, startled by the
comment. It had been two days
since the battle with the Nichols family.
Mrs. Nichols and her remaining sons had left town yesterday, and
Chris’s former father-in-law had been buried this
morning. Chris had hardly said
a word to anyone in all that time.
To Ezra, not at all.
“Cute?”
“You didn’t even know Hank
Connelly. He wasn’t your
responsibility, any of yours, but you all stood by and damn near got yourselves
shot because of him.”
Because
of
me.
Ezra could hear the unspoken words
clearly. Attempting to mollify
the gunslinger, he said in his most reasonable tone, “While it was a
shame that Josiah, Buck and JD were injured due to the Nichols obsession
with Connelly, we could hardly leave you to deal with the situation
alone. Turning our backs on
y’all simply because we had no personal stake in your battle would have
been the worst form of cowardice.”
Roughly, Chris grabbed the gambler’s left hand and held it
up to the light, displaying the discoloration of his fingertips where they
had been burned pulling open the smokestack on the armored
wagon. “You’re lucky
this is all the injury you got. You
could’ve been killed, you stupid son of a
bitch! You all
could! Doesn’t that mean
anything to you?”
Ezra snatched his hand back.
“Of course it does. I
have no wish to hasten my departure from this earthly plane any more than
you, or the rest of our comrades do, but shooting at that armored contraption
wasn’t doing anything but wasting
bullets.” Seeing that Chris
was unconvinced, he pressed his point.
“We could have waited them out, hoped they would run out of
ammunition before we did, but for all we knew they had enough extra boxes
of bullets stores in that wagon to fire at us all day and night, picking
us off until there was none left to oppose
them. Something had to be done,
I saw an opportunity and I took it.”
Chris stared at him with hard eyes, but was met with an equally
challenging glare from the gambler.
With a growl of frustration, Chris stood, snatching his whiskey bottle
from the table as he moved toward the exit.
“That went well,” Ezra murmured, assuming the last word
had been spoken and he had been condemned by his own defense.
To his surprise, Chris paused and looked at him again, the anger
having given way to something that looked suspiciously like
gratitude. “I may not be
able to keep any of you from taking stupid chances, especially if that’s
the only choice available, but do me a favor and be
careful. I ain’t got so
many friends left in this world that I can afford to lose any.”
Ezra stared open-mouthed at the swinging batwing
doors. Then, thoughtfully rubbing
his injured fingertips together, he smiled.
END
