Ever a Long Journey

by Jann

Alternate Universe: Garrison's Gorillas

Fare thee well. We go to fight

For the tribe's protection,

Yet we know the road to war

Ever is a long journey.

~ A Chippewa Woman's Song for a War Party

*~*~*

 

"They say he's a killer."

JD Dunne offered those words with a degree of enthusiasm that had Buck Wilmington shaking his head at the younger man's affinity for mayhem, war up close and personal apparently not enough to have slaked his thirst for the worst men could do to one another. "Who's a killer?"

"The new guy we got coming. Tanner."

"Well, now, of course he's a killer." Buck's tone was that of an older and wiser man suffering a young fool bent on proving just how foolish he truly was. "He's a sharpshooter. Killing is sort of his job. Same as it is ours -- in case you haven't noticed."

JD shook his head. "His job is nothing like ours. And he's nothing like us. Not if what they say about him is true."

Buck rolled his eyes and then smiled across the pub to the barmaid trying to catch his eye over the heads of a table of raucous GIs. Gracing her with his best come hither smile, he dutifully made reply to JD, saying, "And what do 'they' say?"

"Just that he likes what he does and never misses. That he's stone cold whenever he's got someone in his sights. That he's like one of them dogs trained to kill, and that he don't much care who takes his bullet." JD rattled off his list in a tone that sounded more of admiration than it did disapproval. "They say the officers even are scared of him. That that's why none of them have ever made him cut his hair like they should have." JD thought a moment, then said, "That's probably why we're getting him. Because no one else wants him."

"I wouldn't let Chris hear you say that." Buck murmured the words distractedly, his attention fixed on the barmaid giving him a smile that not only invited him to come hithering in turn, it begged him to stay awhile and have fun.

JD sighed, the sound that of a long-suffering and sadly misunderstood youth faced with a boring old relict. "Oh, come on, Buck. You know our team is nothing but a dumping ground. I'm a green kid. Ezra's only on the team because it beat getting sent to some prison Stateside for that scam he tried to pull. You're lucky that colonel settled for busting you down to private instead of shooting you for messing around with his mistress. And Chris has never met an officer he liked, which is maybe why he's still a lieutenant instead of a captain or major like he should be. So if this new guy is getting stuck with us, it can't be because anyone else wants him."

Buck waggled his eyebrows at the barmaid in a reply that had him counting the minutes until the pub closed. When the barmaid widened her smile and headed for the bar to collect the orders she'd taken, Buck turned back to JD, took a sip of his warm beer, and said, "Yeah? Well, Chris don't seem too unhappy."

JD rolled his eyes. "What? Like you've ever seen him happy to know the difference?"

"For sure I wouldn't let Chris hear you say that."

All the enthusiasm earlier shown seemed to leak right out of JD. He slumped back in his chair and glumly said, "It's not like he's had anything to be happy about lately. I don't think we've had a mission go right since I've been on the team."

"Maybe that's why. Maybe it's you bringing us bad luck."

JD huffed out a breath that sounded more like a sigh. "That ain't hardly funny, Buck. I've heard what they call us -- the Death Squad. And it ain't because we're so good at what we do."

Buck took another sip of his beer, then wiped his mouth and shrugged. "So we've lost a few men."

"A few?" That time the breath JD let out was clearly one of frustration. "Hell, Buck. Can you even count how many men the team has lost? Two have bought it just since I've been here."

"We've had some bad luck. That's a fact."

"It's more like a curse."

"Now, JD, talk like that is just plain hooey. There's a reason they say war is hell, you know. Men die. That's the way it goes."

"This many?" JD's voice rose an octave. "On one team?" He shook his head, a curse known when he saw the results of it. "No, what it is, they give us the worst jobs. The ones they figure no one will come back from. If they've got to lose someone, I reckon they figure it might as well be us."

"That may be. But we keep coming back, now don't we?"

"Not all of us."

His enthusiasm for mayhem forgotten when not only mayhem but murder was aimed right at him, JD stared at the beer in front of him like he was figuring the odds of his being replaced on the team in the very near future. Buck tried then for an optimistic tone, saying, "Well, maybe things will change. We've never had us a sharpshooter before. Could be we'll be getting different kinds of missions now, with Tanner doing all the work and us just along for an easy ride."

JD's gloom remained unrelieved. "Yeah? Well, it don't seem like whatever team he was on before could have had it so easy. Otherwise, why would he be needing a new one?"

Buck's gaze drifted back to the barmaid who was then behind the bar and leaning over it, her cleavage thus nicely displayed in an invitation all its own. "Quit your worrying," he found breath enough to say to JD. "Chris is on top of things, same as always. Won't nothing get by him that would make your momma holler."

"My momma's dead."

"Then won't nothing get by him that would make your momma swoop down and clunk him over the head with her halo." Buck grabbed his nearly empty mug and JD's half full one and stood. "I believe I'll go order us another beer. For some reason, I've got me a powerful thirst tonight."

He headed for the bar, and JD sighed and said, to his retreating back, "Well, you know what they say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die."

*~*~*

Chris Larabee looked up from the report on his team's last disastrous mission and squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to find a word to describe his superiors at HQ that wouldn't get him tossed into the brig. Again. Two hours he'd been working on the stupid thing. Two hours in which he'd seriously considered going AWOL. Permanently. It wasn't bad enough they had him leading suicide missions for a living, they expected him to write those missions up as if there were some kind of sense to be made of them?

He wondered yet again how it was he'd ended up an officer. Likely one of the Fates had taken an interest in him. One of the meaner ones, given the way his life had gone in the past few years.

He sighed. He'd been down that particular road too many times to want to travel it again. Best to focus on the reality of what his life had become and get the report done, get it off his desk so he could put to better use whatever free time he had before the next mission came along. And that one would be along soon he didn't doubt. Two days they'd had to rest since their last mission. They had to be due for another jaunt into Occupied Europe again. Not the next day, not with a new man joining the team. But likely the day after that. It wouldn't do to let them go soft, after all, maybe get a decent night's sleep and a few hot meals in them.

He opened his eyes, ready if not willing to get back to work. His report was forgotten, however, when he opened his eyes to discover he had a visitor -- a young man seated on the sofa across from his desk, his head back and his eyes closed in what appeared to be sleep. Chris hadn't heard him come in, didn't know how long he'd been there. Neither did he recognize him.

It wasn't hard, however, to guess who he was. His overly long hair at odds with the Army fatigues he wore was a dead giveaway, as was the nonstandard rifle lying at his feet next to an Army-issue backpack. The new guy, no doubt. Tanner come a day early.

In no mood to deal with both him and the report with which he'd been struggling, Chris made use of that descriptive word he'd been trying to avoid.

Tanner raised an eyebrow at the sharply uttered word, that the only portion of him that moved. "That the kind of thing they teach you at officer school, Lieutenant?" He spoke with a lazy drawl that sounded of mild amusement, as if full-blown amusement would have required more energy than he had to give or was willing to.

Chris, in turn, was far from amused, a bad day just turned worse. "That the kind of thing they teach you in prison, Tanner? I'd have thought the guards would have beat that sort of attitude right out of you."

"Funny," Tanner said, his drawl unchanged. "That's what they thought too."

Still he kept his eyes closed, and Chris leaned back in his chair to study him.

He wasn't quite what he'd expected. Not the look of him. Not the way of him. He looked, with that fresh face beneath several days' worth of stubble and below that tangle of long hair, like some kid come straight off the farm, some farm so far off the beaten track that he'd never learned what company manners were much less how to put them on. Or not a farm, maybe, judging by the wild look of him that wasn't so much a look but a feel, something coming off him and stirring the air around him, something that smelled of danger. Not a danger one would expect from a man with his record, the law an inconvenience to be broken at will, spilled blood and destroyed lives nothing to him. He was instead like a mountain cat Chris had once tracked, a creature of the wild come down from the hills to dine on horseflesh instead of its more usual diet of deer and rabbit. Not an outlaw had that cat been but a follower of a natural law sometimes at odds with Man's. A free spirit. And deadly.

Chris eyed the tangle of hair curling around the deceptively innocent face, the color of it not that far off the soft brown of that mountain cat's coat. He made sure then of his identification. "You are Tanner, I take it?" He knew he was, there surely not another like Tanner running loose in the war.

"That's what they tell me." Tanner kept his eyes closed and his pose relaxed.

"I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow."

"Yeah, well, I never was much of a one for doing what people expect."

That claim was made with a hint of pride sounding that Chris suspected would have sounded louder had Tanner made effort enough to boast.

Chris lowered his gaze to his desk, searched out the file he'd buried under a stack of other files, Out of Sight Out of Mind his preferred method of filing. He fished the thin file out, flipped it open, and made a show of reading it that Tanner couldn't be bothered to watch. "I don't get it." He shook his head at the pages clipped together there. "I've been through your file front to back, and nowhere does it say anything about you being insane. Yet here you are. At your own request."

He'd wondered about that. He'd worried about that, too, seeing as his team was generally not at the top of anyone's list of preferred assignments. Hell, for sure it wasn't on his list. That it had been on Tanner's had had him thumbing through the file again and again and putting in more than a few calls to whoever he could think of who might have answers. Not that he'd gotten any that had satisfied him. So either he'd missed something or Tanner really was crazy.

"I ain't crazy," Tanner said, his drawl so lazy Chris wasn't sure he'd be able to get all the words out before they caught on something. "I am a Texan, though. Folks sometimes get the two confused."

Chris looked up and fixed him with a belligerent eye. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning Texans don't too often do what makes sense to most folk. We got our own ways of doing things."

"Like getting yourselves killed by picking the wrong team to play on?"

"Well, there was this one time, in a little place called the Alamo...."

Tanner quirked one corner of his mouth into a smile that had Chris more curious than ever to know what he was doing there. Hoping to ferret out an answer he hadn't been able to come up with anywhere else, he said, "A man like you, my guess is you had your pick of teams. So why pick mine?"

Tanner twitched a shoulder in what Chris assumed to be a shrug. "Yours is the only one that's got any of your original members left on it still. I figure you must know what you're doing."

"Hell, Tanner," Chris said with huff of breath. "We never know what we're doing."

"Even better then -- you got luck on your side. Times like we got us now, I'd rather me a pocket full of luck than a head full of smart. I reckon it was smart men that got us into this mess, after all. Chances are then that it'll be the lucky ones that get us out."

Chris cocked his head. "You figure it's luck then that brought you here?"

"I do. I just ain't figured yet whether it's good luck or bad."

Tanner quirked the other corner of his mouth upwards, opened his eyes, and fixed Chris with a look of amusement. Not the put on or sardonic amusement Chris would have expected either, but a genuine amusement, life not yet having found a way to knock Vin Tanner down and keep him down. As long as he could make it back to his feet, life was good.

It wasn't what Chris was used to, too much gone wrong in his own life for him to quirk a smile at it. Life to him was something needing to be wrestled to the ground before it had a chance to get him down instead. He wasn't sure what to make of a man who seemed to look on that contest as a dance with a Fate that sometimes tripped him up rather than as a fight to the finish.

It being too late to even try to figure that one out, he slapped Tanner's file closed. "All right. But let's get one thing straight -- I don't want you here, fought tooth and nail not to have you on my team. Unfortunately though, the Army has other ideas. So here you are. But Army or no Army, and regardless of whatever deal you've made with them, this is my team. And enlisted or not, General Travis' pet shooter or not, you're under my command now. Which means you do what I say when I say it, no questions asked. You got it?"

That grin of Tanner's faded, and a look came over him that Chris couldn't quite read, the lines of his face having somehow smoothed so that his expression blanked out. He sat up then and reached down to collect his rifle and backpack. "All's I care about, Lieutenant, is making it to the end of this war breathing and able to put one foot in front of the other. How I get there don't much matter to me."

"Fine." Chris tucked the file back beneath the stack from which he'd dug it out. "See the sergeant, then. He'll get you squared away."

Tanner nodded and headed for the door.

Chris stopped him, saying, "Oh, and Tanner? Next time you come into this office, you'll act like it's mine and not yours. You got it?"

Tanner looked over his shoulder, his expression still that blank one that had Chris worrying at what it hid. "Oh, I got it, Lieutenant." Again he spoke with that lazy drawl that said he had neither the energy nor the will to stir up trouble, no matter that file claiming Trouble was his middle name. "From now on," he said, "I'll walk soft, like I'm treading on the holiest ground I know."

"Let me guess -- the Alamo."

Up went one of Tanner's eyebrows. "I was thinking more on my favorite saloon back home. It's been stormed a few times, but only by the Shining Light Ladies' Temperance Society. Them ladies are as mean as they come, but they ain't killed nobody yet. They come close to it once though when ol' Jesper Johnson thought more of saving his whiskey than he did his hide. A few stitches though, and he was right as rain." Tanner cocked his head. "Speaking of holy ground, you got a place around here a man might go to worship at?"

"The Thistle. It's a pub in the village. The sergeant will give you directions."

Tanner nodded. "Much obliged, Lieutenant. A man oughtn't to go too long without consulting the spirits. Happen you're a spiritual man yourself, maybe I'll see you there." He turned then and went through the door, closing it softly behind him.

Chris stared at the closed door for a full minute, then snapped out that descriptive word again and went back to work on his report.

*~*~*

Ezra Standish raked in the pot he'd just won and happily bade farewell to the other players given up in disgust and headed for the bar.

"How much did you cheat them out of this time?" JD asked as he claimed one of the just-vacated chairs and set his beer on the table in front of him.

Ezra looked up from his lovely pile of filthy lucre and raised an eyebrow at the young man seated across from him. "Why, Mr. Dunne, I do believe I find your language insulting."

"What? You saying you didn't cheat?"

Ezra grinned. "I'm merely saying you lack a certain subtlety when it comes to choosing your words. You should work on that, lest someone not so refined as I take offense."

"I thought you took offense."

"Yes. But I'm too much the gentleman to take my offense out on your nose, as someone else might one day be inclined to do."

JD rolled his eyes and changed the subject. "You hear about the new guy we got coming?"

"Indeed." Ezra shifted his gaze back to his winnings and began gathering it into neat piles according to denomination.

"What kind of odds are you giving him?"

"Far better than I've ever given you, my friend."

JD rolled his eyes again and said, "They call him The Ghost, you know."

"So I've heard."

"Have you read his file yet?"

Again Ezra looked up with an eyebrow raised. "Now, would I go snooping in confidential files in a locked cabinet in a locked office in direct violation of orders?"

"Yeah. You would." JD leaned forward, as if to be sure not to miss whatever interesting tidbits he was sure Ezra was about to share. "So, what did his files say?"

"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

JD didn't bother to roll his eyes that time. "Come on, Ezra. Spit it out. Who is this guy? Is he anything like they say?"

Ezra considered the confidential file he'd fished out of its locked cabinet in Lt. Larabee's locked office in direct violation of orders. "And more," he said. "Much more."

"Is that good news or bad?"

"It depends on your perspective."

"How about from the perspective of us all coming out of this war alive?"

"Then I'd say our chances have likely just improved."

JD sat back in his chair, his expression a mixture of surprise, dismay, and delight. "He's that good?"

"The Army certainly seems to think so."

"Well, if he's so good, what's the Army doing sending him to us?"

Ezra fingered one of the stacks he'd been building, his thoughts not on it but on that file he'd perused. "It wasn't the Army's idea to send him to us."

"What? Then whose was it?"

"His."

"The new guy?" JD blinked, then blinked again. "He asked to join our team? Why?"

"I have no idea. Perhaps he has a death wish. Or a very macabre sense of humor."

JD fell silent as he tried to make sense of the nonsensical. Then a thought occurred to him. "Wait a minute. How'd he manage to have any say in where he goes? What kind of enlisted man picks his own assignment?"

"No kind," Ezra said, fingering the stack before him still.

"What? You're saying he's an officer? He's replacing Chris?" JD sounded less than pleased at the thought. "No one said anything about that."

"That's because he's not replacing anyone. He's not an officer. Nor is he an enlisted man. He's only with the Army by special arrangement."

"What arrangement? By who?"

Ezra rearranged the stack of bills in front of him by height, shortest to the tallest. "It seems our Mr. Tanner is here by special request of General Orin Travis. Feeling a particular need for a man of Mr. Tanner's special talents, he made arrangements with the state of Texas for the use of his services."

It was JD's turn to raise an eyebrow. "What kind of talent does he have? And what was he doing for Texas that the Army had to get permission to borrow him?"

Ezra made one final adjustment to the stacks before him and settled his hands in his lap. He then shifted his gaze back to JD. "His talent, it would seem, is one well suited to our present endeavor. And the general needed permission to make use of that talent since it landed Mr. Tanner in one of Texas' finer correctional institutions, where he was serving a life sentence for murder."

JD's other eyebrow joined the first, the two competing to see which could climb the highest. "He killed someone?"

"That is generally a prerequisite for being charged with murder, yes."

"And they let him out of prison? Just like that?"

"With the promise of a full pardon in exchange for his services. Assuming, of course, that he survives the war."

Again JD fell silent, his eyebrows being given a full workout as his expression went from surprise to consternation to concentration and back again. At last he said, "Who'd he kill?"

"His file didn't say."

JD shook his head as if hoping to shake loose an answer that refused to make itself known. "I don't get it. He killed someone. They let him out of prison. And now he's going to be bunking with us, going on missions with us? With a gun and everything?"

"It's rather hard to sharpshoot without some sort of weapon."

JD's eyebrows settled into a frown and his tone became one of indignant complaint. "That just ain't right. It's bad enough we've got to sleep with both eyes open out there." He waved a hand Ezra assumed was meant to indicate Europe across the Channel but that was instead aimed in the general direction of the Arctic Circle. "We shouldn't have to do it here, too."

Ezra raised his hands from his lap again and began collecting his winnings. "Apparently the Army doesn't consider that to be a concern. From what I can tell, Mr. Tanner has been allowed more freedom than most. And there's nothing to indicate such has ever proved a problem."

Back up went one of JD's eyebrows. "You sound like it don't bother you having someone like that join the team."

Ezra shrugged. "Mr. Tanner would hardly be my first -- or last -- choice for a dinner companion. But out there --" He nodded in the proper direction towards the European continent. "I suspect we'd be hard pressed to come up with a better choice."

"Maybe. But I don't like it."

"This is the Army. If you find anything you like, chances are very good that someone somewhere has fouled up more than usual."

*~*~*

"A full house." Ezra Standish fanned his cards out on the table and grinned happily at JD across the table from him.

JD squinted a suspicious look at him. "Are you sure you're not cheating?"

Ezra leaned forward to rake in yet another pot, JD's pockets having been lightened considerably through the course of the evening. "I assure you, such is remarkably unnecessary. I would tell you why, but I find I like your money far too much to risk losing such easy access to it."

JD glared around the room in search of Buck. This was all his fault, after all. If he hadn't gone chasing after that barmaid, leaving him to seek out other company, this would never have happened. Buck, however, was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the barmaid. Which meant he wouldn't be seeing Buck again until morning's light.

JD let out a breath of disgust and started to turn his attention back to Ezra collecting a goodly portion of his pay. Then the door to the pub opened, and JD shifted his gaze in that direction, hoping to see Buck returning to save the day -- not to mention what was left of his money. His hopes, however, were dashed, as the doors swung open to admit not Buck but a stranger dressed in fatigues. JD would have dismissed him and turned away had not his attention been caught again, that time by the soldier's nonmilitary haircut. If hair that reached nearly to his shoulder could be considered to have been cut in recent history.

JD hissed at Ezra. "That's him. Tanner. He just came through the door."

There came a beat of silence while Ezra picked out Tanner. He then said, "I thought he wasn't due until tomorrow."

"It's got to be him though, right?" JD's gaze never left the newcomer as he crossed to the bar. "Who else could it be?"

"Who else, indeed?" Ezra murmured.

Tanner spoke to the barkeep then turned to lean against the bar, his gaze traveling over the assembled crowd.

JD looked hurriedly away before he could catch him staring at him. "He doesn't look like what I expected." He spoke in a low voice, as if there were some chance that Tanner could overhear him across the noisy pub.

"Too corporeal, perhaps?" Ezra asked, amusement sounding in his tone.

"What?" JD tried for all of three seconds to puzzle that one out then got back to the discussion at hand. "He looks too normal. Not like they say. Not like a killer."

Ezra fixed a curious eye on JD. "And what, pray tell, does a killer look like?"

"I don't know. But not like him."

The doors opened again, that time to admit a group of GIs, that not the first pub they'd visited that night if the noise they were making was anything to judge by. They headed straight for a table in one corner of the room, bumping into those seated at other tables as they went, raucous laughter ensuing, the GIs drunk enough to find their clumsiness funny.

JD took advantage of the distraction they offered to get another look at Tanner at the bar with a beer at his back and his gaze on the drunken GIs as they made their way to their chosen table.

He was tall, that much JD could tell despite the lean, and young, if older than JD by several years. And though lean, he was solidly built. Nothing out of the ordinary, then. Even his face was unremarkable -- if rather scruffy, several days' growth of beard making him look a bit ragged. In truth, he could have been any GI but for that long hair curling down towards his shoulders.

A new note sounded then, the drunken GIs having turned mean, their voices raised not in laughing fun but anger.

JD searched them out again and found them stopped in the middle of the room, one of their number leaning forward to rest his weight on one hand splayed on a table at which sat a couple of civilians. One was a gray-haired old man hunched inside a fuzzy sweater. The other was much younger, if years older than JD, his dark cast making him stand out in a sea of fair skin. He looked up at the GIs with a closed look, his expression unreadable.

"We don't need your kind here," the GI leaning on the table slurred, his gaze on the younger man, the four men at his back growling their agreement.

"Now, see here," the old man seated at the table said, his tone indignant. "You've no call to come in here and insult the good doctor. He has every right to be here. More than you lot, I should say."

"Doctor?" The drunk echoed the word with a laugh. "There ain't no darkie doctors. Not real doctors, leastways."

"Back where I come from," one of his companions said, the twang in his voice placing him well below the Mason-Dixon line, "his kind know their place and keep to it. And if they don't, we know how to deal with them."

The doctor said nothing, only continued to stare at the men facing him with that closed look that had JD wondering what odds Ezra was giving him should worse come to worst.

"Well," the old man huffed, "this isn't where you come from. So you'd best be on your way."

The leader of the drunks transferred his gaze to the old man, the look he gave him ugly. "You know, back home we've got a name for people like you."

"And here," the old man said, his tone gone harsh, "we have a name for men such as yourselves. I am far too much a gentleman, however, to utter it."

The doctor laid a hand on the old man's arm. "Let it go, Henry. Your blood pressure's high enough. You don't need to go getting it any higher."

He spoke with an American accent that was Southern in origin, and JD wondered how he'd strayed so far from home.

"Listen to him," another of the drunks said with a sneering laugh. "Acting so high and mighty. I'm thinking we need to take him down a peg or two."

"You know what I'm thinking, boy?" The lead drunk's gaze on the doctor hardened further. "I'm thinking you should step and fetch us some beer."

A new voice joined in, the barkeep rounding the knot of GIs and taking up a spot behind the doctor and his companion, a rolling pin in one hand. "All right, you lot, we're having none of that, now. From the looks of you, you've had plenty to drink already tonight and more you're not needing. So let's be off with you."

"I don't think so, Pops," the leader of the drunks said. "The only one going anywhere is the boy here. Just as soon as he gets us our drinks." He turned to his fellows. "Ain't that right, boys?"

"Damn right," one of them said.

"There will be no drinks for any of you," the barkeep said, his jaw jutting. "So I'll thank you to leave. Now."

The drunks remained in place, their belligerent gazes fixed on the doctor looking right back at them as if daring them to get any stupider than they'd already proven themselves to be.

"We should do something," JD said to Ezra, his gaze remaining fixed on the drama unfolding across the room.

"Such as mind our own business, perhaps?"

"You don't think it is our business?" JD looked to Ezra in surprise. "They're Americans, same as us. And Army to boot. It ain't right the way they're going on. This ain't even our country. They got no call to come in here like that and decide who gets served."

"He should have known better." Ezra's tone was dismissive, his gaze on the card he was manipulating between his fingers, the drama taking place half a room away apparently of no interest to him.

JD frowned at him. "He should have known better than what?" When Ezra made no comment, didn't so much as spare JD a glance, JD let out an exasperated breath. "He's got a right to be here, Ezra. Same as anyone."

"Does he? Perhaps so. But it is neither our establishment nor our problem. So I advise you to stay out of it."

JD started to make reply, only to refrain when the leader of the drunks loudly said, in a voice that warned he'd reached the end of his patience, "You hear what I said, boy?"

JD turned back to the beleaguered doctor just as the drunk pulled him out of his chair. Before the doctor could gather his feet beneath him, the drunk shoved him towards the bar, and he stumbled and fell to the floor.

Voices were raised in protest, and the barkeep rounded the table, the rolling pin he held upraised. Before he could make use of it, however, one of the drunks shot out a fist and knocked him down, an empty chair clattering to the floor with him.

"Hey!" JD cried as he jumped up from his seat.

"Sit down," Ezra snapped out.

JD ignored him and instead headed straight for trouble. When he got there, he pushed past the GIs to the doctor on the floor and starting to sit up. "You boys had best be getting out of here," he said over his shoulder. "If you're still here when the MPs arrive, you'll be spending time in the brig."

"Who the hell do you think you are, you little pipsqueak?" one of the drunks said. "This ain't your fight."

"It is if I say it is." JD reached the doctor and held a hand down to him. "You okay, doc?"

The doctor looked past that hand to JD. "You sure you want to get mixed up in this? Like the man said, this isn't your fight."

"Any fight's mine that has five men ganging up on one." JD kept his hand held out. "And the way I look at it, if worse comes to worst, you can fix me up. For free. I figure you'll owe me that much."

"The odds aren't exactly in our favor, you know."

JD looked over his shoulder to the drunks waiting to see how many lights they'd be punching out. He then turned back to the doctor looking up at him. "As drunk as they are, I figure we can take them." He waggled his hand. "So, you in or you out?"

The doctor reached up a hand of his own and took firm hold of JD's. "I ain't been stupid in a while. Guess I'm overdue. So count me in."

JD pulled him up with a grin, and together they turned to face the drunks.

"What do you say, boys?" JD said in enthusiastic tones. "You want to call it a night? Or do you need to be taught some manners?"

"The only teaching that's going on tonight," the leader of the drunks said, "is us teaching you to mind your own business." He stepped forward, his right arm swinging up towards JD's face.

JD ducked then threw himself forward at the other drunks joining the fray. A jab, a solid thump, and a shove later, he let out a whoop, only to have it cut short by a chair swung down hard on his back. He crashed to the floor and took a moment to catch his breath. When he did, he crawled to the closest table and pulled himself up in time to see the doctor take out two of the drunks with his own chair swung wide, while the barkeep back on his feet took out a third. The doctor then knocked a fourth man down, only to have the leader of the drunks ram into him. They fell back into a table, the patrons there scattering, some with drinks in hand, others losing theirs as glasses rolled and fell. Then the drunken leader flew back to crash into another table, hitting hard but managing to stay more or less upright. He swore and grabbed a bottle that rolled to the edge of the table. Taking it up, he brought it down, shattering it and sending whiskey flying. He then regained his feet and headed for the doctor with the remains of the broken bottle held ready to slash and tear.

He took two steps, then something flashed through the air six inches in front of his face. With a thunk it sank into one of the thick oaken posts scattered about the pub and presumably holding up the roof.

The drunk came to a dead stop and turned to stare at what proved to be a knife imbedded two inches deep in the post. A moment he stood staring at it as if it had sprung there by magic, a conjurer's trick he couldn't quite figure out. It was no trick, however. That much JD discovered with a turn of his head towards the bar where Tanner still leaned, his gaze on the drunk standing in the middle of the pub with his broken bottle still upraised.

When the drunk turned to him as JD had done, following the likely path the knife had taken, Tanner said, in an amiable tone, "The next time a man wants to have a quiet drink, it might be a good idea to let him have it."

The drunk stared at him a moment longer. He then blinked and said, "Who the hell are you?"

"A man wanting to have a quiet drink."

Still Tanner spoke in amiable tones, his voice soft. Some undertone sounded, however, that had another of the drunks scrambling up and across to his leader. He then whispered in his ear. JD figured he must have recognized Tanner or known who he was, as the leader let drop that bottle in his hand and looked to Tanner, saying in anxious tones, "We didn't mean to cause no trouble."

"Like Sherman didn't mean to march on Georgia," Ezra said from his seat at his chosen table and safely out of the line of fire.

JD scowled across the room at him. "We could have used some help here, you know."

Ezra waved a hand towards Tanner. "And help you so ably received."

The barkeep dragged up one of the fallen drunks and shoved him in the direction of the front doors. "Off with you, now. The lot of you. And don't you be coming back."

The drunk who had whispered in his leader's ear hurried towards the door, and the leader was hard on his heels, the remainder of the troop following behind.

When the doors closed behind them, the doctor turned towards Tanner at the bar and said, "Now that we got us some quiet, how about that drink? On me."

Tanner crossed the room to the post where he'd buried his knife. Pulling it free, he said, "I am a mite thirsty still."

The doctor looked to the barkeep next. "Lou, you want to bring us a bottle and some glasses? One for yourself too, if you're of a mind to join us."

Lou nodded and headed for the bar, and the doctor looked to JD. "What about you? You got anything wrong with you that a glass of whiskey won't fix?"

JD grinned. "Make it two glasses. That way if anything's still wrong I reckon I won't notice."

The doctor returned that grin. He then held his hand out and said, "The name's Nathan. Nathan Jackson."

JD took the proffered hand and shook it. "I'm JD Dunne."

Nathan looked to Tanner and waited expectantly.

With a nod, Tanner said, "Vin Tanner."

Nathan led the way then to the table at which the old man, Henry, still sat, and a moment later Lou joined them with a bottle and glasses in hand.

As they settled and waited for their drinks to be poured, JD looked to Nathan and said, "You aren't Army?"

Nathan shook his head. "Nope. The Army hasn't got much call for the likes of me."

"But we do, don't we, Lou?" Henry took the glass the barkeep held out to him and shared a look between Tanner and JD. "Dr. Jackson was the answer to our prayers. A real lifesaver."

"Now, I don't know about that." Nathan's tone was one of embarrassment. "I'm just lending a helping hand is all."

"So how'd you end up here?" JD asked, taking his drink in turn.

"Our doctor died some time ago," Henry said before Nathan could make reply. "And with the war on, there aren't exactly doctors to spare. We made some enquiries, let it be known we were in need. A doctor in one of the London hospitals suggested Dr. Jackson. They'd been corresponding about some matter or other." He wrinkled his forehead and looked to Nathan. "What was it, Doctor?" He shook his head in dismissal and turned back to the others. "Some surgical procedure or other. Something none of us can pronounce or remember if we could." He took a sip of his drink. "And here he is."

"Indeed," a new voice said as Ezra appeared at JD's back.

JD looked around to him. "Hey, Ezra. Sit and join us. There's room. And Nathan's buying."

"Thank you, but no. It's late, and we should be getting back to the estate. So, if you're ready?"

"No, I ain't ready." JD frowned. "I'm getting to know the doc, here."

"Then I expect you'll find your own way to our charming little domicile?"

"If I have to."

"Then I bid you good night."

Ezra nodded and left, and Tanner watched him go. "Friendly sort," he said in a tone JD took to be sarcastic.

"Aw, don't mind him." JD turned back around in his chair. "You'll get used to him."

"Now why would I want to go and do that?" Tanner looked at him like he maybe thought he'd gotten some sense knocked out of him in the fight.

"He's on the team," JD said. "We both are."

Tanner raised an eyebrow. "You're Larabee's men?"

"Same as you now."

Tanner looked like that wasn't quite what he'd wanted to hear, and JD knew why when he said, "Tell me you're older than you look."

JD bristled. "I ain't a kid, if that's what you're getting at."

Tanner snorted. "Hell, I got a pair of boots back home that are older than you." He shook his head as if at the folly of an Army that would draft a child to do a man's work. "How long you been on Larabee's team?"

"Three months."

Tanner apparently decided to make the best of what was no doubt starting to look like a bad bargain. "Well, you ain't got yourself killed yet, so I reckon you must not be as green as you look."

He downed the last of his drink, set the glass on the table, and looked around at those there with him. "Like the man said -- it's getting late. So I'd best be going." He nodded to Nathan. "Doc, my advice is that you stick to doctoring. Either that or learn to keep your guard up and stop leading with your left. And next time, the drinks are on me." He looked then to Lou. "Lively place you got here. It always like this?"

Lou shook his head. "Tonight was a bit on the quiet side."

Tanner grinned. "Then I reckon I'll be seeing you again. Soon."

He stood, then looked down at JD. "You want to make old bones, you'd best learn to duck."

With another nod around to the group, he made his way to the doors and slipped into the night without.

*~*~*

The sun was well on its way to a new day when Buck tried to sneak his way past Chris back at work on the report that had given him fits the night before and that he wouldn't get finished any time soon, thanks to the call from headquarters he'd received at first light.

"You just now getting in?" Chris asked in a conversational tone as Buck tried to make all six foot four of himself invisible -- or at least unnoticeable enough to get past Chris's office door without being seen.

Buck straightened and tried to look as if he had merely been out for a stroll and not sneaking in after yet another night's carousing. "I was in a… diplomatic… meeting all night." His expression was solemn but his eyes were bright with amusement. "I wanted to make sure things stayed nice and friendly between us and the locals."

"Not to mention keeping civilian morale up?"

"Among other things."

Buck grinned, the look one that usually had people forgiving his lapses and often thinking those lapses really rather endearing.

Not immune to his charm even after a dozen years of knowing him and being exasperated by him, Chris let the matter drop in favor of another. "I've got a mission briefing at headquarters in an hour. Get the others up and fed. I want them ready to be briefed when I get back."

All amusement faded from Buck's expression. "We just got back from a mission. They're sending us out again already?" He paused, searching out some way around this latest bad news. Then, his hopes brightening, he said, "What about the new guy? Shouldn't we wait for him?"

"He's here. Got in yesterday."

Buck's hopes were forgotten in favor of curiosity. "Yeah? He pass muster?"

Chris had yet to decide. Vin Tanner wasn't one to be easily classified, even if Chris dismissed that file that almost seemed to have been compiled on someone else. Someone more dangerous. Or someone less so. That was another thing Chris had yet to make up his mind on. Having then no answer of his own to give, he gave the one he'd been given. "He says that all he wants is to make it out of this war alive and kicking." He shrugged. "For whatever that's worth."

"I'll take alive and kicking any day of the week," Buck said. "Assuming, of course, that Tanner takes me to the end of the war with him." He straightened further, seemed to be working the kinks out of his back. Then, with a yawn, he said, "I guess I'll go up then, make sure he didn't murder JD in his bed."

*~*~*

JD stood behind a tree at the edge of a field that had once fed sheep and that now served as a kind of killing field, that where the team was used to sharpening their skills, with man-shaped targets, climbing walls, and obstacle courses set up at various times. There was only one thing set up that morning, however -- a single target set so far down the field that JD was only sure it was a target by the familiar shape of it and by the fact that Vin Tanner was shooting at it.

He had awakened early that morning, a curiosity working in him that had been too sharp to allow for restful sleep, his dreams invaded and a demand to be appeased pricking him into waking as the new day cracked its eyes open. He'd gone down the back stairs to the kitchen, had taken an early breakfast of tea and crumpets with Mrs. Willerton, who, as always, delighted in fussing over him as she'd never again be able to fuss over a son lost early in the war.

He'd hoped to run into Tanner there, had wanted a better look at him than he'd had the night before, had hoped to reconcile the man who had gone to a stranger's aid with the one in the file Ezra had read, the man who had taken a man's life for reasons JD was curious to have made plain.

Never before had he known anyone who had killed another, not as a soldier did for God and country and to keep himself alive, but simply to serve his own ends. It had made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up to think of sharing a roof with such a man, of having him at his back on missions with a gun in his hand. And it had bothered him that he was the only one bothered. He would have expected the others of the team to be outraged, to threaten mutiny. Instead, there was Ezra happy to have him and Buck more worried about getting into some barmaid's bed. Even Chris seemed not to care. For sure he hadn't refused to take Tanner on.

JD wondered then what he didn't know. Not about Tanner, but about.... JD sighed. He didn't even know what it was he didn't know. So how was he supposed to figure anything out?

He'd gone for a walk after that early breakfast, had tried to come at what it was he needed to learn so he could figure out how to go about learning it. Then he'd heard distant shots.

They had seemed like a kind of answer. Or maybe not an answer so much as a promise of one. He'd followed the sound of the shots then to the practice field and had there found Tanner lying stretched out on his stomach in the short grass, his rifle at the ready and his gaze on a distant target set up. JD had gone no farther towards him than the tree behind which he then sheltered, had wanted that look at Tanner he hadn't gotten the night before.

Not that he'd gotten much out of standing there watching him. In fact, Tanner had barely moved in all that time. He'd lain for minutes on end, unmoving, as if lying in wait. Then he'd let off a single shot at the distant target. Several times he'd repeated the process, leaving JD more bored than he'd been since he'd fallen asleep and out of his desk during a lecture in a high school English class.

He'd just about decided to give it up and go see if he could snag a few more crumpets out of Mrs. Willerton when Tanner showed signs of life. Lying flat and unmoving still, his gaze still on that distant target, he'd said in a voice loud enough for JD to clearly hear him, "Folks have got shot for a lot less than skulking in the bushes spying on a man."

JD wondered how long he'd known he was there and what had given him away. Having been found out, he stepped from behind his tree and crossed the field to where Tanner lay. "You ever the one doing the shooting?" he asked as he stopped at Tanner's feet.

Too late JD realized what he'd said, wished he could take the words back, worried how Tanner would react. He figured the man from the pub would likely write the question off as the stupidity of youth. He didn't know what a man used to lying in wait to shoot at something more than paper targets might do.

Tanner didn't look at him. He didn't shoot him, either. Instead, he said, "I've shot more than a few men. But never a one of them for that."

He didn't sound mad or even annoyed. But then he hadn't sounded mad or annoyed in the pub the night before either -- and still he'd thrown a knife so that it had missed a man's nose by only a few inches.

JD knew he should drop the subject, should be grateful Tanner hadn't taken offense. But he'd spent too restless a night wondering about the man to let his questions go that easily. So he gave in to that curiosity working in him and said, "If you've never shot a man for that, then what have you shot them for?"

"For asking dumb fool questions, mostly."

Still Tanner didn't sound mad or annoyed. He didn't exactly sound amused either, but JD decided Not Mad was as good as a welcome, so when Tanner pushed up from the ground and started walking towards the far target, JD tagged along beside him.

"How'd you learn to shoot like that?" he asked.

Tanner flicked him a look, shifted his gaze ahead again, and said, "You always ask so many questions?"

"Yeah. Pretty much."

Tanner huffed out a breath of air that could have been either amusement or disgust. JD wasn't sure which and didn't care when Tanner said, "The place I grew up at wasn't much for company or entertainment. It had lots of snakes, though. Rattlers, mostly. My dad used to pay me a penny apiece to get rid of them. Shooting was easier than any other way I could come up with to do that."

It wasn't what JD had expected to hear. He didn't know what he had expected, knew only it wasn't that. He searched out then other answers. "Where'd you grow up?"

"West Texas."

That was a little more what JD had expected, a country as wild as West Texas a fitting enough place to have given rise to a man the world hadn't been able to tame.

JD's curiosity about the past satisfied for the moment, he set his sights on something more current. With a look to the rifle Tanner carried, he said, "How far can you shoot with that thing?"

"About as far as a bullet cares to go."

The words should have sounded boastful. Instead, JD thought they were no more than a truth stated. He wondered then what other truths were yet to be told.

A silence fell as he thought on that, a silence Tanner refused to let lie between them. "You might as well ask it, kid," he said, his tone no different than it had been.

Still caught up in his thoughts, JD worried that he'd maybe missed something. "Ask what?"

Tanner said nothing more. Instead he turned his attention to the target they'd reached and gave a slight shake of his head as if not entirely pleased with what he saw. Not that JD could see anything to be less than pleased about. Hell, if he could shoot like that, he'd be handing out cigars. Eight shots Tanner had made, all of them kill shots -- five to the target's heart and three to its head. What Tanner found to shake his head at JD didn't know. Wanting to, he said, "What's wrong? Any one of those shots would have killed your man if he'd been real."

Tanner yanked the paper target free of the board and folded it up. He looked then to JD. "You figure that's what it's all about? Killing your man?"

"Well, yeah. Ain't it?"

"No more than romancing a woman is all about getting her in your bed." Tanner let out a huff of air again, and that time JD was sure it signaled amusement. "You even old enough to know what I'm talking about?"

It was JD's turn to huff out his breath, the sound an obvious one of disgust. "I ain't a kid, you know. I've been with a woman."

"Been with one, maybe. But you ever romanced one? You ever tracked down what made her happy? Ever figured out what she herself didn't know she wanted and give it to her? Make her want to come to you instead of going out and chasing her down?" Tanner shook his head. "Getting a woman in your bed ain't all that hard, JD. It's the other stuff that don't come easy. And it's the other stuff that makes all the stuff that goes on in that bed worth the doing."

JD wasn't sure what Tanner was talking about. He wasn't even convinced Tanner himself knew what he was talking about. "You ain't making much sense," he said. "You don't have to make a man happy before you kill him."

"No. But sometimes you got to romance him a little. Get to know him. Know him sometimes better than he knows himself. Make him want to come to you."

"Why? What difference does any of that make? In the end, your man will be just as dead."

Tanner sighed. "Something tells me you didn't leave a girl pining away for you back home."

JD thought about being insulted, then decided it was more trouble than it was worth. Instead, he tried tickling the cat curiosity had killed. "What about you? You leave a girl pining away for you back home?"

Tanner shook his head. "Texas grows its women too smart for any of them to go breaking their hearts over a man like me."

His thoughts turned again to the question of just what kind of man Vin Tanner was, JD thought of that question Tanner had maybe waited on. "Is it the same? What you do. Is it the same as killing snakes?"

Tanner was silent for a moment, long enough that JD thought he wasn't going to answer. Long enough that he thought he maybe shouldn't have asked the question. Then Tanner said, "You ever seen a man snake-bit? A kid? A dog, even?" His tone was mild, still nothing sounding in it of anger or annoyance. Yet there was an edge to it, as of something so thin the light had to shine at the right angle on it for a man to avoid cutting himself.

Wary of that edge, JD said, "There weren't too many rattlers roaming around where I grew up."

"Well, I've seen it." That edge in Tanner's voice had turned razor sharp. "And I'd have killed as many rattlers as I could have even if I wasn't getting paid to do it."

He looked down again at the paper target and tucked it inside his shirt. Then, to JD he said, "Tell me you got someone in that fancy pile of a barracks of yours who knows how to cook. Someone who ain't getting paid by the Army."

"We got Mrs. Willerton," JD said, as glad in that moment of the change in subject as Tanner apparently was, that sharp edge in Tanner's voice one he thought best to steer clear of. "She came with the estate. Some of what she cooks is kind of strange, but she ain't made anything yet I couldn't get down."

"Then she'll do." Tanner hefted his rifle in his hand and said, "Come on, JD. Let's go grab us some grub."

*~*~*

After they ate, JD showed Tanner around the estate until Chris returned from his trip to headquarters. The two then trooped into the small den on the lower floor of the estate that had been set up for briefings. The others were already there, gathered about the small table set in the middle of the room.

"Well, hey, JD," Buck said with a grin as they entered the room. "I'm glad to see you made it through the night."

JD ignored him, took a seat across the table from him and next to Ezra, leaving Tanner to claim the chair next to Buck.

Buck turned his attention then to Tanner. "Buck Wilmington," he said with a nod of acknowledgment. "I'm guessing you've already met JD, and I know you've had the pleasure of making Chris' acquaintance. That just leaves Ezra." He nodded to Ezra across the table.

Ezra inclined his head. "We nearly had the pleasure last night. And since JD appears to have suffered no further attacks upon his person, I assume the remainder of the night proved uneventful."

Buck raised an eyebrow. "Meaning things were plenty eventful after I left?"

He turned to JD, that eyebrow still raised, and JD shrugged. "It wasn't all that exciting. Some GIs were pestering a local. Well, not a local -- an American doctor who's been living locally. Tanner and I stepped in to help out, is all."

Buck squinted a closer look at JD. "I don't see any fist prints, so I'm guessing you didn't need to avail yourself of that doctor's services."

JD cricked the back that was more than a little sore that morning and said, "No one laid a hand on me."

Buck's eyebrow went up again, higher than before. Before he could add further comment, Chris reminded them of their reason for being there. "You ladies can finish your quilting bee later. Right now we have a mission to go over."

"What is it this time?" Buck asked, settling back in his chair. "We get to try to end the war single-handedly again?"

"Something like that." Chris moved to a wall switch and turned off the overhead light. He then moved back to the table and flicked on a slide projector set in the middle of the table. A photo appeared on the screen set up, the image that of an older man in a German officer's uniform. "General Friedrich Gerhardt," Chris said. "One of the German Army's finest. Or he was. Lately there's been some question as to just who it is he's working for."

"You saying he's friendly to our side?" Buck asked. "Or maybe wanting to be?"

Chris shrugged, the gesture visible in the projector's weak light. "The word is that he's Old School and fiercely loyal to his country. Apparently, however, he hasn't proved quite so loyal to Hitler and his gang. Seems he's none too happy with the current administration and the way the war is being handled. Some of the Fuhrer's nearest and dearest are starting to think he's more of a hindrance than a help -- at best -- and a traitor at worst."

"So what do they want us to do?" JD asked. "Grab him?"

"No. The thinking is that he'll do the most good for our side if he stays right where he is. Our job, then, is to convince the Germans he's solidly on their side."

"And how, pray tell," Ezra said, "do they intend to do that?"

"They figure a bullet should do the trick."

"A bullet?" JD looked around at the others to see if he'd maybe missed something. "I can see how killing the general might convince the Germans he's not working for us. But how is it going to do us any good?"

"No one said anything about killing him." Chris cued up a new slide, and what appeared to be a public building of some sort appeared on the screen. "Gerhardt is in France, and this is where he's headquartered. We get in, Tanner plugs him somewhere none too vital, and we go home."

"Easy as that?" Buck eyed Chris like he was none too sure he was sober. "We shoot a German general and no one's going to come looking for us? Half the German Army won't swoop down on us before we get half a block from headquarters?"

"Since when," Ezra said with a drawl, "are any of our missions easy?"

"Since never. But I figured things would change once Vin here came on board. The Army might keep coming up with new and better ways to kill us, but I don't reckon they'd be too keen on losing him."

"If we do this right," Chris said, "we won't lose anyone."

"And since when have we done things that right?"

"Since now." Chris spoke as if it could be just that easy to insure they all came back alive. The matter thus concluded to his satisfaction, he fixed his gaze on Tanner and moved on. "Allied Command seems to think you won't have any trouble putting a bullet just where you want it. You really that good?"

Tanner shrugged. "I can put a bullet anywhere you've a mind for me to, but I can't tell it not to tear up whatever arteries might be close by. A bullet goes through one, I can't guarantee your man won't bleed to death before anyone can do anything about it. It'd be safer to have me miss. I can make it look good enough that the Germans won't question that it was meant to kill."

Chris shook his head. "Allied Command figures a bullet hole will be more convincing than a near miss."

Again Tanner shrugged. "It's their war."

"That's it, then," Chris said. "We'll be out of here at 23:00 tonight. Get your gear together and get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

"Sounds like fun," Buck said with feigned enthusiasm.

"About as much fun as a firing squad," Ezra said in turn. He shook his head. "If Mother could see me now."

*~*~*

"You have a mother?" JD asked Ezra in surprise as all but Chris filed out of the briefing room.

"Funny," Buck said. "I always thought he was raised by wolves."

Ezra sighed. "Alas, you aren't entirely mistaken. Mother rather enjoys patterning herself after the Big Bad Wolf of Red Riding Hood fame. There's nothing she likes better than to lure some unsuspecting prey close enough to be gobbled up."

JD frowned. "That's how you talk about your mother? What did she ever do to you?"

"I would fill you in," Ezra said, "but we haven't time enough for me to provide full details before we take off on our little jaunt to Europe."

"Well, maybe you can fill us in on the highlights," Buck suggested. "And if your tongue is in need of a little loosening, I happen to have found where whatever Lord owns this place stashed the good stuff." He waved the others on. "You go on and go. I'll catch up with you in a few minutes."

He hurried off, and JD led the way to the drawing room the team had appropriated for use as a common room, a table there set up for poker and an occasional meal. JD gathered glasses from a sideboard in preparation for the good stuff Buck was purloining. He then joined Ezra at the table and watched while Tanner wandered about taking in the room and its various accouterments.

"Pretty fancy stuff," Tanner said after he'd thoroughly inspected a silver bowl on a side table. "How'd you boys come to score such high falutin' barracks? The other teams I was with never had it this good."

"We didn't either," JD said. "Not until Ezra ran a con a couple of months back on whoever owns this place."

Ezra raised an eyebrow. "Yet again your choice of language leaves something to be desired, Mr. Dunne." He looked to Tanner. "I merely persuaded Lord High and Mighty that it was his patriotic duty to loan us the use of his domicile."

JD grinned. "He's never said how he managed that, but me and Buck figure he must have blackmailed him into it. We just can't figure out what it is an old stick-in-the-mud like Lord Muckety Muck must have done that he didn't want anyone finding out about."

Ezra shook his head. "So young and, alas, so disillusioned. What a sad pass the world has come to."

JD rolled his eyes then turned his attention back to Tanner. "I guess they don't have houses fancy as this in West Texas."

Tanner joined them at the table. "Closest I ever saw was General Travis' house, and it had nothing on this place."

"General Travis? Orin Travis?" JD raised both eyebrows. "You and him are friends?"

Vin shrugged. "I did a job for him a few years back. Went to his place to seal the deal. The whole time I was there I kept waiting for him to check my pockets, make sure I wasn't trying to steal the silver or something. Not that he ever did."

"You did a job for him? What kind of job?"

"Hunting bounty."

JD raised his eyebrows another half inch. "You were a bounty hunter? What kind of bounty did you hunt for the general?"

"His son got murdered. The law knew who'd done it, but they couldn't catch him. So the general offered me a reward to track him down."

"And did you?"

"Tracked him. Caught him. Took him in."

"Alive?" Ezra asked in tones that said he didn't expect the answer to be in the affirmative.

Tanner didn't answer, only looked at Ezra like JD figured he must have looked at those rattlers back in Texas before he shot them. Instead of shooting Ezra, however, he said, "Something tells me a man like you has managed to wiggle himself into more than one place this fancy."

Ezra inclined his head. "I'm not exactly unused to the finer things in life."

"I'll bet." Tanner took up the glass set before him and twirled its bottom on the table, the move casual. The look he gave Ezra was just as casual, but JD suspected he was witnessing just how it was a man went about romancing a target. He was sure of it when Tanner said, "Those finer things in life wouldn't have had anything to do with that mother of yours, now would they?"

Ezra took up his own glass and raised it in salute to a hit well made. "Some of them would indeed. Mother had a talent for finding husbands with healthy bank accounts. Unfortunately, she didn't have as much talent for keeping them."

"How many did she have?" JD asked.

"Five."

"Five! What happened to them all?"

"They wised up."

Tanner seemed unsurprised -- and JD figured nothing much ever surprised him. "Divorced her, did they?"

"Each and every one. And not a one found it necessary to pay for the privilege."

"In other words, she got out with the clothes on her back and nothing more?"

"Precisely. And in a couple of instances, she was lucky she got away with that much. In fact, to this day she dare not show her face in those old stomping grounds for fear the local law might decide to ask awkward questions." Ezra spoke in a tone that suggested he was somewhat disappointed the law had never had the chance to make his mother's acquaintance.

JD frowned at him. "What's with you, Ezra? You make her sound as shady as you."

Ezra raised one corner of his lips in a mocking smile. "Heaven forbid, my friend -- Mother is far shadier than I. I assure you."

Tanner turned his gaze to JD, his glass still twirled on the table in front of him. "What about you, kid? You don't exactly strike me as someone who grew up on the right side of the tracks."

"Well, now," Buck said as he entered the room, a dusty bottle in hand, "you couldn't be more wrong. JD here grew up on a big ol' estate in New England somewhere that probably made more than one cover of Fancy Homes and Colonial Gardens. I think George Washington even slept there a time or two."

JD snorted. "What he means is -- my mom was the estate housekeeper, and we had an apartment over the garage. And anyone who slept there before us likely had feathers."

Buck laughed and slapped JD on the back as he took up a seat next to him.

JD turned from Buck to Tanner. "What about you? What's West Texas like? Is it anything like you see in the movies?"

Buck looked at JD like he'd just fallen off the turnip truck. "You know, JD, the movies aren't exactly true to life."

JD huffed out a breath. "I know that. That's why I asked." He looked to Tanner again. "So, what's it like where you grew up?"

Tanner stopped twirling his glass so Buck could pour a couple of fingers of purloined Scotch into it. He then took a sip of the golden liquid, sighed his appreciation of it, and said, "The usual way people have of describing West Texas is that it's miles and miles of miles and miles."

"I've been in West Texas," Buck said as he poured a measure of Scotch into Ezra's glass. "And believe you me -- that's a kind way of putting it. Very kind."

JD held out his glass for his share of the Scotch and waited while Buck poured. He then went back to his own attempt at romancing, his gaze on Tanner again and the Scotch left untouched. "You said you didn't have much company as a kid?"

Tanner was back to twirling his glass, his gaze on the liquid catching the light. "My dad was a wildcatter, so we moved around a lot. He'd find what he thought was going to be the next Spindletop, and off we'd go."

Buck poured himself some of the Scotch and settled back in his chair, his glass in hand. "I'm guessing he never struck it rich."

Tanner shook his head. "He never struck oil even once. My dad, it turned out, had something of a talent for finding dry holes." His tone was no different than it had been, nothing, JD suspected, ever given away by tone or words that he didn't want known.

Buck took a sip of his drink and set the glass back on the table. "You said he was a wildcatter. He give it up? Or is he gone now?"

"He died a dozen years back. He decided he'd maybe have better luck in Alaska. Got halfway there and got sick. A week later he was gone."

"Leaving you and your momma to fend for yourselves?"

"Just me. My momma died when I was five." Still Tanner spoke as before, as if he no more than discussed the chance for rain.

JD forgot then that Tanner was a killer, had murdered someone in cold blood. Forgot how he'd once made his living and how he made it then. Instead, he remembered how it had been to lose his own mom, to be left alone in the world. "So what happened to you?" he asked. "You must still have been a kid when your dad died."

"Not by much, I wasn't."

Ezra joined in with a question of his own. "So you assumed control of your life? Or did you have family to whom you could turn?"

"We were in Montana when my dad died. I didn't have any family left to speak of, so I kicked around a while. After a time I made a friend who lived on one of the reservations out there. I ended up staying with him and his people."

JD raised both eyebrows. "You lived with Indians?"

"For a couple of years. Then my friend got killed by some locals carrying a grudge for what happened to Custer. So I headed back to Texas."

"Is that when you took up bounty hunting?"

It was Buck's turn to raise his eyebrows. "You hunted bounty?"

"For a while."

"So, how'd you end up in prison? You take someone in dead you shouldn't have?"

"Something like that."

They were back to that, to files and facts JD had started to think hadn't told all there was to tell about Vin Tanner. Still, he held to that hope. "Did you really kill someone?"

Tanner eyed him curiously, some note perhaps heard in his tone. "Would you believe me if I said I didn't?"

JD was slow to answer, his vision not having been met by the reality of the man sitting before him, no look about him of one who preyed on his fellow man, nothing in word or look that set him that far apart and below. Still, there was that file. Then again, files had been wrong before. Unsure then of his answer, he said, "I don't know. Maybe."

It was the wrong answer. "I'm guessing you ain't been hanging around Ezra anywhere near enough," Tanner said. "A man like him would tell you it don't pay to believe any man or to turn your back on him. Not if you want to get old enough to shave more than once a week."

JD felt a measure of disappointment that made him feel like a kid again, one young enough to believe still in Santa and his lists. "You're saying then that you did what they say you did?"

"I'm saying it don't matter what I say. You want to know the truth of a man, you get lost in the desert with him with but one canteen to share between you. You both come out of it alive, you'll know all you need to. Anything less, you don't know a thing."

Tanner swallowed the last of his Scotch, set the glass down, and stood, saying, "Thanks for the drink, boys. Reckon I'll see y'all later."

He took off then, and JD found himself wishing Santa was real, so that he could sneak a peek at his lists to see which one Vin Tanner might be found on.

*~*~*

They ate breakfast the next morning at a sidewalk café.

The setting, JD thought, should have been one of romance. Hadn't he seen it in the movies enough times? A French café. A suave hero. The beautiful girl. Wine. Cigarettes. Talk heard only in the movies. And there he was in France and at a café. Only, instead of a beautiful girl keeping him company with whispered promises of things to come, he was sitting with four other men, all of them dressed in German uniforms pretending they belonged there and willing no one to look or to listen too closely.

Obviously he'd been assigned to the wrong movie.

He thought he'd have to talk to someone about that. Until then, he ate the food set before him and tried to blend in.

That was always the worst of it. Not jumping out of a plane or setting foot on enemy soil. Not making their way through the woods at night alert for enemy patrols. Not even infiltrating some German stronghold. It was always those times when they walked the streets of a town as if by right, meeting the eyes of the town's citizens, nodding at those who thought them comrades. Hiding in plain sight behind thin cloth, that all the protection they had and a death sentence if they should ever get caught out of their own uniforms.

There was always a tightness in his back at those times, an expectation of discovery contracting the muscles there. A question asked he couldn't understand or answer. Some wrong thing said or done. A traitor pointing them out. A bullet coming out of nowhere.

His back was always ready.

Sometimes he thought it was crazy what they did. What he did. It wasn't normal. He knew it wasn't. Only, sometimes it was. Sometimes it seemed that was the way the world had always been and always would be. Other times though, he would walk the streets of some foreign town and meet the eye of a stranger, a young man such as himself. He'd wonder where he went to school. If he liked to laugh. If he had brothers he fought with or a mom who nagged him to wear a sweater when it was cold. He wanted to smile, to say hello. To ask him where he was going, where he was from. For a moment, he would forget. Then he would remember, and his back would tighten. He would then plan out an escape route, would note enemy positions, obstacles, cover. And he'd think how crazy it was.

He looked to the others sitting at the table with him and wondered if they thought it was crazy too or if it was only him. Most of the time he thought it was only him. Well, maybe Ezra did, too. Although, with him it was hard to tell if he thought what they did was crazy or just plain stupid. Chris never seemed to worry about whether or not it made sense. He just worried about getting the job done and them all home again. And Buck -- well, Buck half the time didn't seem to know they were doing something that could get them killed. The other half he spent telling JD what to do and what not to do and all but measuring him for the pine box he seemed to think JD was going to get sent home in.

Now there was Tanner. JD had watched him on the ride to the air strip and the flight across the Channel. Had watched him as they'd trudged through an unnamed French woods and ridden in a truck and walked the streets of the town. And all that time there had been a quiet about him that wasn't just of few words spoken -- although he'd certainly had little enough to say since they'd left the estate. There was a quiet beyond that, a stillness JD couldn't quite put his finger on. He hadn't closed himself off. He'd smiled at Buck's stupid jokes on the plane. Had noticed JD right off when his chute got tangled on a fence and had cut him free. He'd pointed out obstacles barely seen in the dark as they'd walked to the truck stashed for them. He'd been right there with them on the long ride to that place. But it was like he was some place else as well, some place set apart. JD started to understand then why they called him the Ghost. He was like an apparition -- there but not, seen but untouchable. He'd wondered what it was Tanner thought of what they did. Of what he himself did. Then he'd thought that maybe he didn't want to know, worried that maybe that stillness, that quiet, was who he really was beneath the smiles. He'd wondered if maybe that was what a killer looked like.

He looked to Tanner and away, away from those at that table and past the old men and young women on the street going about their lives as if nothing crazy was going on all around them. He looked up, at the roof of a building half a block down the street and half a block away from German headquarters. It was there Tanner would set up his sniper's nest, its roof offering the best view and the right angle.

They had reconnoitered the town first thing, had chosen the best spot to leave the truck. Had mapped out escape routes and rendezvous points, laid plans and envisioned the worst. Had determined how they would all come out of that place alive. As if it would be just that easy. As if it had ever been. As if he hadn't seen teammates fall and not get up again, hadn't had to wipe off bits of them from his clothes, his face. Still, he always felt better for those plans, for knowing there was at least the hope of a way out and through and home.

Plans made, they'd taken up seats at that table, there to wait until it was time to put their plans into motion. Only Chris and Ezra had spoken, the German flowing fluently between them. JD and Buck were always under orders to stay silent. Buck's German was pretty bad, and JD's was almost nonexistent. Better then to say nothing than to say the wrong thing and with the wrong accent. Their French was some better, but not by much, JD finding it easier on the tongue and Buck all for learning any language that would have women back home eating out of his hand. Chris and Ezra spoke it fine, and Tanner not at all beyond a few phrases he'd managed to pick up. His German was worse, as he said he'd yet to manage wrapping his tongue around those long and harsh words. So that silence of his had echoed even louder.

Then it was time. Time to go do something even crazier than sitting at that table eating breakfast.

"Let's go," Chris said in a low voice and in German, that one of the first phrases JD had been taught.

JD turned back around, pushed out of his chair, fell into step with the others as they set off down the sidewalk. He bumped into an old woman who wasn't fast enough to get out of their way, wanted to stop and apologize. Wanted to make sure she didn't need a hand to steady her. That was, after all, what people did when life was perfectly sane. When it was crazy, however, they did as they'd been trained to do and went on as if they'd no more than brushed a fly out of their way.

Tanner peeled off when they got to the building he'd picked out, marched into an alley without a look around, as if he had every right to be doing just what he was doing. JD went with him, Chris having appointed him to watch Tanner's back. Tanner hadn't expected that, had looked at Chris as if he'd suggested shooting that German general in the nude or something. He'd then told Chris that he always worked alone. Chris had given him that look Buck claimed had once stopped a stampeding herd of horses and said that they'd watch his back the same as they expected him to watch theirs. That had been the end of it.

JD had been glad to be the one chosen, wanted to see Tanner in action, wanted to know who he was, what he did. How he did it. He wanted to know if it was like killing snakes or something different. Not that Tanner would be killing anyone. Not that day. Not if things went like they should. But JD figured things probably didn't work that much different even when his man ended up shot instead of dead.

Around the back of the building they walked and to a fire escape they had to jump to grab hold of. Then up they climbed, Tanner going first, the rifle on JD's shoulder bumping against his back as he followed Tanner to the roof.

Tanner went straight to the spot he'd picked to set up and looked a long moment over the edge of the roof to where intel insisted Gerhardt would put in an appearance the same as he had every morning for the past few weeks. He then settled himself and adjusted his rifle -- and didn't move again.

JD cast him more than an occasional glance from his position by the fire escape, and not once did he see Tanner move. He couldn't even tell he was breathing.

Long minutes they waited, Tanner never moving, JD taking the occasional careful peek down into the alley then back again to Tanner. He wanted to ask him what he saw, why he stayed so still. What it was like to kill a man who didn't see the bullet coming, who wasn't shooting back. He wanted to ask if he would do like Chris had said and watch their backs, the same as he was watching his right then. He wanted to stand where he could see Tanner's face, his eyes, wanted to see what a killer looked like when he killed. Wanted to know, to understand. To be sure. Instead, he stayed where he was in silence and watched Tanner's back.

*~*~*

He didn't see it coming. Even though he was looking right at Tanner when he pulled the trigger, he wasn't expecting it. He wasn't even sure at first the shot he heard had come from Tanner's rifle. It sounded like it had, but he hadn't seen him move. And for three seconds after he fired the shot, Tanner still didn't move. Then he was up and running across the roof to the fire escape.

"Did you get him?" JD asked as Tanner brushed past him to the ladder.

Tanner kept moving. "You want to stay here and chat or do you want to get gone before we get trapped up here?"

He set foot on the ladder, started climbing down, and JD didn't wait for a second invitation to join him.

As they raced down the ladder, an explosion sounded, then another. One came from the street in front of the building down which they climbed, the other from the street in front of the German headquarters -- diversions set to cover their escape, to delay pursuit, to give the team time to get out of town before road blocks could be set up.

They'd meet the others back at the truck left two streets away. Straight to it they went, running fast, not worrying about attracting attention. No one would be looking at them, not when there was something of more interest to wonder at. If anyone did look, they would see only a couple of soldiers hurrying to do their duty.

If anyone paid them heed, they didn't notice. Nor did they notice any eyes on them as they climbed into the truck, Tanner into the cab to get the engine started, JD into the passenger side ready to open fire if need be. Then Buck and Ezra were there, Buck grinning that grin he always wore when things went right -- which wasn't often or for long. Tanner slid out of the truck, let Ezra take over the wheel in case they needed to talk their way out of trouble at some point. Buck went straight to the back of the truck and climbed in, while Tanner waited by the door of the cab ready to take on whatever trouble might present itself. Then Chris raced around a corner and waved them on.

Ezra put the truck in gear, and it jerked slowly forward. Tanner waited for the back of the truck to draw even, then jumped in.

JD checked through the divider between the cab and the back of the truck to make sure he got in okay. When Buck pulled him in, JD turned to Ezra, saying, "He's in." He turned his gaze ahead then to Chris, his back tight, his finger on the trigger of his rifle.

Ezra hit the gas, only to hit the brakes a few seconds later as they reached Chris.

JD started to open the door, to let Chris have his seat in the cab, but Chris shoved the door closed and ran to the back, where Buck and Tanner were waiting to pull him in. "Go!" he yelled even as he hit the truck floor.

Back to the gas pedal went Ezra's foot, and again the truck jerked forward.

"Anyone follow you?" Chris said as he sat up, his question directed at all of them.

Tanner shook his head. "Me and JD got away clean."

"Me and Ezra, too," Buck said. He looked then to Tanner. "That was mighty fine shooting back there. I don't expect Gerhardt will think so, but last I saw he was alive and not dead, so that's all right."

Chris dropped the canvas flap over the opening at the back, looked to Tanner seated on one of the hard benches to either side. "Watch our back. Let me know if anyone shows an interest in us."

Tanner nodded and scooted to the end of the bench. As he pulled the flap back enough to see outside, Chris moved to the divider between the sections of the truck. Peering ahead as Ezra dodged what little traffic was out and about that early in the morning, he said, "Don't attract too much attention. They won't get the town blocked in this fast. But let's not do any sight-seeing, either."

A minute later a troop carrier rounded a corner ahead and raced towards them. JD's back shouted a warning. As if his heart and shortened breath weren't serving as warning enough.

"Keep it steady," Chris said.

JD knew he was talking to Ezra behind the wheel, that a warning not to give anything away, not to give those inside the carrier time to wonder why they were headed away from trouble rather than towards it.

The carrier reached them, drew even with them, the distance between vehicles little enough that JD caught a quick glimpse of the driver looking straight ahead and not at them. Then they were past the carrier and that much closer to the edge of town and escape.

"How's it look back there?" Chris asked.

JD turned his gaze to Tanner at the canvas flap, tried to see beneath the bottom edge of it, without success.

"Looks like everyone's headed the way we just came," Tanner said, his gaze never leaving their back trail. "Doesn't look like anyone's paying us any mind."

Chris turned back to the road ahead. "We're coming up on where they'll have a checkpoint if they've set one up. Get ready."

JD's back was already ready. His trigger finger was, as well.

"Here it comes," Ezra said as he slowed the truck to make a corner.

As they edged around it, JD shot his gaze ahead to where the town petered out. There was no checkpoint, no roadblock. There was, however, what appeared to be the beginnings of one -- a handful of soldiers scrambling off the back of a truck, with an officer to one side directing them.

Ezra slowed the truck, nearly braked to a stop. JD wanted to scream at him to go, to hit the gas. To get them out of there. Instead, he sat silent with his finger on the trigger of the rifle in his lap and pretended he was bored.

The officer looked over to them as they slowed, and Ezra said something in German that had the officer snapping to attention like Ezra had just threatened to take the shine off his boots. Ezra then hit the gas, and they rolled past the soldiers at work.

Still JD kept his finger on the trigger, and still his back kept ready. It had been too easy -- and nothing they did was ever that easy. But then, they weren't out of danger yet. They'd barely escaped the town and had miles of road ahead. There would be regular checkpoints to get through, not to mention whatever roadblocks might be thrown up to catch them.

"Now, that was fun," Buck said from his place on the bench opposite Tanner. "We might just have to do that again sometime."

"Perhaps we should conduct a tour group," Ezra suggested. "Fit in visits to Europe's finest museums and cathedrals in between assassinations. We would no doubt have to turn business away."

Buck grinned and looped his hands behind his head, his pose one of contentment. "Are we getting good at this or what?"

"Don't go getting comfortable," Chris warned, his eyes still on the road ahead. "Last I checked, the fat lady hadn't sung yet."

"She will though. And it will be something right pretty when she does." Buck looked to Tanner watching their back trail. "You got any requests, Vin? I'm thinking you should get first choice seeing as we probably have you to thank for such an easy mission for once."

"How about 'Nearer My God to Thee'?"

Tanner spoke with a dry tone, and Buck responded with a laugh. "How about we make it 'The Eyes of Texas' instead?"

Buck continued to make teasing suggestions that Tanner mostly ignored, only an occasional quirk of his lips providing evidence that he was listening. And the dumber Buck's suggestions got, the more JD's back relaxed. Maybe Buck was right for once and they'd really gotten through a mission that easily. He turned back around, eased his finger off the trigger of his rifle, and started humming "The Eyes of Texas" beneath his breath.

*~*~*

They hit the first road block twenty minutes later.

They'd more or less expected it. Maybe not in that exact spot, but somewhere. Their luck was never so good that they would possibly have had clear sailing all the way to their pickup point.

"You know the drill," Chris said to Ezra when they rounded a bend to discover the barrier set up ahead and five soldiers manning it.

"The next stop on our tour," Ezra murmured as he eased up on the gas.

Their luck was good enough that there was only one vehicle ahead of them -- a car driven by a civilian. Not so lucky, there appeared to be a problem. Two of the soldiers stood beside the driver's side door, while a third stood nearby with a rifle not quite at the ready but with that threat there. The remaining two soldiers stood on the other side of the barrier keeping an eye on what was going on at the car.

A man shot his arm out of the car's open window and waved it about in what JD assumed to be some form of expressive Gallic communication. And judging by the reaction of the soldiers at the car, the sentiment expressed appeared to have been less than friendly. As Ezra braked the truck to a stop a short distance behind the car, the soldiers yanked open the car door and pulled the driver out into the road.

The soldiers were clearly angry and the driver obviously frightened. The soldiers said something in raised voices, and one of them snatched a sidearm out of its holster. The driver said something pleading in turn and fell to his knees in the dirt of the road, his arms upraised.

"It doesn't look good," Buck said from behind JD, close enough that his breath tickled JD's neck. "Looks like a couple of bully boys to me. And I don't much think they're planning on letting that poor slob go with just a warning."

"We should do something," JD said with a look back to Chris at the divider. "You and Ezra both outrank them, right? So tell them to knock it off before things get too out of hand."

"Uh uh," Buck said before Chris could reply. "Bullies like that you don't want to rile up. They might figure a soldier's duty trumps an officer's rank and decide to make things a bit difficult. And difficult we don't need. We're looking for a quick 'howdy do, here's our papers, and have a nice day.' Anything more complicated than that might get too complicated, if you know what I mean."

"Buck's right." Chris kept his gaze on the drama taking place ahead. "They probably won't do any more than scare the driver, maybe rough him up a bit. We can all live with that."

JD wanted to protest, thought he probably should. But he'd been a soldier long enough to know that war wasn't too often about doing what was right. He turned back then to the road ahead, and a woman with a baby in her arms climbed out of the car, both of them crying. The woman then wailed what could only have been a plea for her husband's life.

"Damn," Buck said. "Things are about to get ugly. And you know how I hate ugly." He patted JD's shoulder. "Ezra, you'd best be ready. JD, get on out that door, but stay put. I'm going to go watch Chris' back."

JD started to turn to him, to ask what Chris was about to do. Then a movement outside Ezra's window caught his eye -- Chris moving toward the car ahead, his face what JD liked to call his Mask of Aryan Superiority. That look that said, 'I am a German officer, and you, sadly, are not.' Then a sound outside his window had him turning to see Tanner getting into position at the front of the truck, his angle giving him a clear shot at the two men on the other side of the barrier.

JD pushed open his door to join him, staying back and out of the way, his rifle up and ready but nothing given away by making it too ready.

Chris barked out a command in German, and the soldiers snapped their gazes to him. They then snapped to attention.

Chris kept moving forward, said something more JD couldn't make out, and Buck moved past Ezra's window after Chris, his rifle slung over his shoulder.

That should have been the end of it. And it probably would have been had the woman not flung herself at one of the soldiers, her crying hysterical, the baby's cries become screams. Ugly apparently not ugly enough, the soldier whose arm she grabbed swung up his other arm to knock her aside.

He hit the baby.

There was no way then that was going to be the end of it. The mother screamed, the baby screamed louder, and the father shot up out of the dirt of the road to go to their defense.

The other soldier brought up his pistol, aimed it right at the father's head.

JD swung his rifle up as well. Before he could get it into a position to fire, a shot sounded, and he waited for the father to fall. Instead, the soldier with the pistol fell back and down. Before he even hit the ground, two more shots sounded in rapid progression, then a third and a fourth.

Five shots sounded. Five soldiers fell. And still the woman and the baby screamed.

"Clear the road out, JD!" Buck yelled over his shoulder, his rifle in his hands and no doubt at least one of the Germans dead by his hand. "You and Vin get it all on the truck. Ezra, you watch our backs, be ready to roll out of here soon as we get this mess cleaned up."

The father stood with a body at his feet and looked at Chris drawing near as if at death approaching. Chris said something to him that JD didn't catch as he ran to the first of the fallen soldiers, Tanner going past him to the men fallen at the barrier. As JD then dragged his chosen soldier towards the Jerry truck parked to the side of the road and beyond the barrier, Buck moved to the mother and her child, said soothing words to them.

By the time JD had a second soldier dragged to the truck for loading, Buck and Chris had the family in the car and the car started. Then, even as Tanner dragged one of the barriers to the side, the Frenchman put the car into gear and roared off in a cloud of dust.

"So much for Ezra's tour, huh?" Buck said as JD went back for the third soldier. "I'm thinking maybe we should leave this part off the itinerary from here on out."

JD grabbed the soldier's legs, leaving his upper body to Buck. "I vote we skip the tour altogether the next time."

"Even better."

Chris moved past them with a couple of rifles, a helmet, and a pistol in his arms. With a look to JD, he said, "This is why we don't do difficult."

Buck shook his head at him and heaved the upper part of the soldier's body up. "Come on, now, Chris. We haven't even broken a sweat. You want difficult, try dating sisters who don't get along. Now that's difficult."

He saved his breath then to haul the body to the truck and to the pile of bodies Chris and Tanner were already working on loading into the back of truck.

"Give us a hand here, Chris," Buck puffed as he and JD reached the truck with the body.

Tanner climbed into the truck to pull one of the two bodies already loaded out of the way. Chris, in turn, grabbed hold of the belt around the newest arrival's waist to help heave him into the truck. Even as they lifted the body high enough to clear the truck floor, Tanner flashed forward, one arm coming up in a sweeping gesture as he threw his knife towards the remaining bodies piled at JD's back.

Chris let go his hold of the body and spun around, his own arm coming up with his pistol in his hand. JD let loose his hold as well and reached for his sidearm even as he turned.

He didn't need it. Tanner's knife had found its mark, taking out one of the soldiers that hadn't been quite as dead as JD had thought.

Buck rounded on him, anger sounding as he took him to task. "What the hell have I told you about making sure a man's dead before you go turning your back on him? How many times do I have to tell you?"

Before JD could think of a reply that wouldn't make him sound like some kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Chris said, "Deal with that later. Right now we have to get this truck loaded and out of here before someone comes along. So grab a hold."

He bent down to take hold again of the body they'd dropped. They then lifted it up and into the truck. And a few minutes later, all signs of battle cleared out and the truck and its contents hidden in a clump of trees well off the road, they were again on their way.

*~*~*

Chris rode in the cab of the truck with Ezra that time, leaving JD to sit on the hard bench in the back opposite Buck and Tanner. JD suspected the switch wasn't so that Chris could ride in comfort and be handy to deal with whatever problems might lie ahead but simply to make it easier for Buck to give that lecture on Making Sure They're Dead he'd had to delay, with a side bar of And Make Sure You've Got All Their Weapons, Too while he was at it. And lecture Buck did. For twenty minutes straight. Going on and on like JD was some green kid who didn't know what he was doing. Like he hadn't been doing something right enough all that time to keep on breathing.

JD only half listened to him. The other half of his attention was on Tanner cleaning the knife he'd stuck in that Jerry back at the road block. He'd seen the knife before, of course, at the bar when Tanner had sent it sailing inches away from that rowdy drunk's nose. Then, however, he hadn't paid it much mind, his interest at the time all for Tanner. Too, the knife hadn't had a man's blood on it then, hadn't had Tanner rubbing and oiling it, hadn't had him looking at it like it was only him and it left in all the world.

JD thought then that maybe that was what a killer looked like.

Not that Tanner looked even then like what JD would have expected. He wasn't wild of eye. Wasn't wound up. Wasn't yakking about what he'd done or what it had felt like. Didn't seem crazy or mean. He wasn't even sitting there all cold and … different. He was just quiet. And still, even though he wasn't really. Over and over he ran a rag along the blade of his knife, six inches of bright steel that shone dully in the weak light filtering into the back of the truck. But for all that he wasn't physically still, there was nonetheless a stillness about him as of something within lying in wait. It was that same stillness JD had seen on that rooftop and in the field back in England. And it had JD wondering what Tanner was waiting for still.

Finally Buck wound down, his tone drawing JD's gaze back to him as he said, "Have you heard a word I've said?"

JD sighed. This was the part of Buck's lectures that he hated the most, when he had to act like he was grateful for being treated like a dumb kid. Only, he didn't feel like acting just then, not with that baby's screams and its mother's cries still ringing in his ears. Not with Tanner sitting four feet away with a knife he'd just cleaned of blood. So, instead of nodding his head and being a good little soldier, he said, "Yeah, Buck. I heard all five million of your words. Same as I have all the billions more you've thrown at me the past few months."

"Well, you might be hearing them, but I don't imagine very many at all have made it through to whatever it is you're using for brains in that head of yours."

"Yeah? Well, maybe a few more would get through if there weren't so damned many of them trying to fight their way in. You ever think of that?"

JD knew Buck was right, knew he could have gotten them all killed. Knew he didn't have a good excuse for not doing his job like he should have done, that maybe he was even that dumb kid Buck liked to think he was. But he was tired of Buck carrying on like it was his personal mission from God to keep him from being stupid. He was tired of sitting in the back of trucks or marching through foreign woods worrying on what he'd done wrong and what else he might yet do wrong. He was tired of having to be glad someone he didn't know was dead just so he and those he did know got to live. He was just plain damned tired, and he wanted not to have to worry just then. Wanted not to have to listen to how bad wrong things could go and probably would.

He glared at Buck, held back words he wanted to say but was too tired to form. Buck, however, wasn't tired. Or at least not so tired that he couldn't start a whole new lecture, which he seemed ready to start on right then and probably would have if Tanner hadn't beaten him to it with one of his own.

"One of the most important things I ever learned about snakes," he said, his gaze gone from that knife of his to JD, "is that they don't much care that your momma loves you. They don't care that you got mouths to feed or how much better the world is for having you in it. It ain't personal with them. You get too close, they bite. Life's that simple for them. Ain't no right or wrong, no politics or religion. All that matters to them is you getting close. So if you do get close, you'd best make sure you get the snake before it gets you. And you'd best make sure it's as dead as you can make it before you get any closer."

He held the knife up, looked from it and back to JD. "Do it right the first time. Don't make it personal. Don't wonder if that snake's got a momma who loves it. Just think about who you love that might die if that snake gets too close, that might die if you don't get the job done and done right the first time."

Chris turned to look at JD through the divider, this lecture apparently an equal opportunity one. "Listen to him, JD. Chances are you won't get a second chance if you blow the first one."

"And rarely," Ezra added, his gaze still on the road ahead, "will you get a third."

Buck sat back with a look of satisfaction. "That's all I'm trying to say."

JD blew a breath out at him. "Five million words you threw at me, and I'm supposed to pick that out of them all? A man could die of old age waiting on you to get to the point, Buck."

"Better that than you dying because you turned your back on someone you hadn't ought to."

JD rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, sometimes I'm not so sure about that."

Tanner flicked his knife shut, the blade disappearing into the handle with a push of a button. "He might take a while to get where he's going, JD, but a smart man will tag along with him. Or he will if he aims to stay alive long enough to die of old age." Tanner looked around to the others there in that truck, then back. "You got four men here, JD, who'll look after you. But you can't necessarily count on us not to get snake-bit. If that happens, you need to be able to look after yourself. And you ain't so young you can't do that."

"You ain't so young either," Chris said, "that you can't look after the rest of us while you're at it."

"Amen to that," Buck said.

The lecture thus ended, JD refused just then to think on all that had been said, his brain too stuffed with Buck's five million words still to want to chew them up and make sense of them. Instead, he turned attention to someone else. With a look up from the closed knife Tanner was twisting between his fingers, he said, "How old were you when you killed your first snake?"

"Five."

Tanner having replied without hesitation and with no annoyance sounding in his tone, JD pressed his luck. "And how old were you when you killed your first man?"

Tanner wasn't so quick that time with his answer. The knife stilling in his hand, he looked square at JD for a moment then said, "We ain't been lost in the desert so long that I got an itch to be telling you a thing like that. Ask me again when we've been lost awhile and the water in the canteen's getting low."

He flipped the knife and pushed up his right sleeve to reveal a leather band at his wrist that went halfway up his forearm. Too big to be serving a decorative purpose, JD realized what it was when Tanner slipped the closed knife into it. A sheath. One that must have had a spring mechanism in it that would shoot the knife out into his hand since it had seemed, back at the road block, to have materialized out of thin air. The rig looked to JD to be the kind of thing a killer might have. A killer who was maybe used to killing and who didn't always need a gun to do it.

His curiosity stronger then than Tanner's rebuff, JD nodded to the sheath and said, "How'd you come to have a rig like that? I mean, you being so good with a gun and all, why would you even bother with a knife?"

"'Cause they don't let you have guns in prison." With that, Tanner made a last check of the knife in its sheath and pulled his sleeve back over it.

"I wouldn't have thought they'd let you have knives either," Buck said.

"They don't exactly hand them out."

Tanner's tone was dry, but still no annoyance sounded, so JD pressed his luck even further. "Where'd you get yours from then?"

Tanner turned his attention to the canvas covering the rear of the truck and pulled it back for a look behind. Keeping his attention there, he said, "The first few I made from whatever bits and pieces I could. Then I traded up."

"What could you have had in prison to trade with?"

"You'd be surprised what a man locked up and away will think worth trading for."

Tanner's tone was still that dry one of near-amusement, but an edge sounded that had JD saying, "Was it bad? Prison, I mean."

JD didn't know why he asked that question. He wasn't that dumb kid Buck thought him. He knew prison was no place any man in his right mind wanted to be. But figuring a thing to be true and knowing just why it was weren't the same. And sitting there in that truck in a land an ocean away from his own among men that would scare most decent folk into going inside and locking their doors, he wanted to know what had brought them all there. Wanted to know how likely it was that the man across from him would be handing over their only canteen if it should ever come to that.

Tanner, however, wasn't in an obliging mood, said only, "I'm here instead of there. You do the math."

Maybe that was another topic reserved for a longer stay in the desert, and JD figured he knew the reason why. "I guess it must have been awful."

"Awful?" Tanner echoed the word like JD had just offered him a ball and chain to jump out of a plane with instead of a parachute. "I reckon that's one way of putting it."

JD couldn't help himself. "And another way?"

"War ain't the only hell the world's got going."

*~*~*

An hour of near silence later, they came upon a checkpoint.

It wasn't unexpected or at all unusual. Nothing about it screamed a warning. Or at least nothing about it screamed any louder than any other checkpoint ever did. Still, JD's back tightened and near silence became complete.

It was busier than the roadblock had been. Ahead, on their side of the barrier, were two German military trucks and a civilian car. On the other side was another truck, that one civilian and loaded with what JD figured were French workers on their way to a job somewhere. In whatever field the war hadn't torn up, maybe. They stood leaning against the wooden sides of the truck, all of them turned to look ahead at the soldiers who had taken their country for their own.

They looked none too happy.

JD was tempted to look away, to not see that reminder of where they were and why. But he wanted more to keep an eye on things. So he continued to stand at the divider between the cab and the back of the truck, Buck beside him and Tanner at his post at the rear of the truck.

There was no trouble to be seen or even hinted at. The guards at the checkpoint didn't seem to be looking for trouble -- or for Allied assassins. In fact, they looked bored. Bored enough that the one checking papers stood and jabbered with the driver of the civilian car stopped at the barrier.

JD wanted to yell at him to get on with it, couldn't stand sitting there stopped among so many of the enemy. Couldn't stand waiting.

No one there in the truck said anything. Four pairs of eyes looked ahead, while one looked behind. And they all waited.

Another couple of minutes and the soldier at the barrier stepped back and waved the car on. Another soldier lifted the barrier's arm, and away the car went. Then down went the arm and the next vehicle in line moved ahead, taking the place of the one just let through.

The guard stepped forward, his hand held out for the driver's papers, the Frenchmen in their truck ignored -- and JD wondered how long they'd already sat there waiting for the invaders to be cleared first. Probably not long, seeing as they didn't have that look of boredom worn by the guards. Nor did they seem angry at having to wait. Instead, they all sat looking ahead.

The guard at the barrier looked over the papers he'd been handed and said something to the driver. He then laughed and handed the papers back. Laughing still, he waved the truck on, and up went the barrier arm.

That left one truck between the team and relative freedom. Or potential disaster. Depending on how their luck was running.

The truck ahead of them jerked into gear and rumbled towards the checkpoint behind the departing truck.

Chris looked through the divider to Tanner peeking through the canvas flap. "How's it look back there?"

Tanner kept his gaze behind. "It's clear. Nothing is coming up on us for a good long ways."

Ezra eased his foot off the brake, let the truck roll forward, took care to keep back from the truck ahead in case they had to move fast around it.

As they moved ahead, JD thought that at least the Frenchmen wouldn't have to wait too much longer to get through the checkpoint. He shifted his gaze to them, to see if they were getting impatient, hoping they'd continue to sit nice and quiet so as not to rile the guards that stood between them and a boat ride home. And sit they did, nice and quiet as the just-cleared truck rumbled beneath the raised barrier.

Then they stopped being nice.

Some signal must have been given, as all at once they jumped up with rifles in hand. All that JD recognized in an instant. An instant that went by too fast for him to shout a warning before all hell broke loose.

Bullets sprayed, the Frenchmen's truck jerked into gear, and the windshield of the truck the team was riding in shattered.

JD didn't need Chris' yelled warning to hit the floor of the truck. Dropping down beside Buck with his rifle in hand and his finger still on the trigger, he put his free arm over his head and waited. Waited for a bullet to tear through the side of the truck. For the shooting to stop. For the sound of the Frenchmen's truck passing. For Ezra to get them out of there.

Chris must have had the same idea, as the shooting no sooner stopped than he yelled at Ezra to get going.

JD heard a murmur that sounded like it came from Ezra, but he couldn't make it out. Chris said something in reply, but JD was already up and heading for the back of the truck along with Buck, so he didn't even bother trying to figure out what he'd said.

Tanner was on his feet and lifting the canvas flap up and out of the way as JD scrabbled to the tailgate for a look out. He expected to see the Frenchmen's truck swinging back around for another pass. Instead, it kept going.

"Back's clear!" Tanner yelled to Chris. "I don't know for how long though, so we'd best get a move on."

The truck jerked into motion, and JD had to grab at the tailgate to keep from falling over. As the truck began to roll forward, a shot sounded ahead. Someone shooting after the departing Frenchmen, JD figured.

He worried that the Frenchmen would come back, would try to take them out. Worried that they'd either have to shoot back or get shot themselves. "What do we do if they come after us?" he asked Buck beside him at the tailgate.

"Let's just hope they don't."

It wasn't much of an answer, but JD figured there wasn't one he'd like much better, so he let it go. With any luck -- and if the Frenchmen kept right on going -- they wouldn't have to worry about it.

Not surprisingly, their luck wasn't that good.

As their truck picked up speed and passed the second of the German trucks at the barrier, the Frenchmen's truck turned.

JD looked over his shoulder to give the bad news to Chris, and he discovered that Chris was behind the wheel while Ezra sat hunched over in the passenger seat. Refusing to wonder at the switch, he made his report. "They're heading back this way."

"And they aren't that far behind," Buck added. "So get us out of here as muy as you can pronto."

Another shot sounded. Then another. JD saw then a couple of soldiers moving towards the back of the truck at the barrier as they began to pass it. Someone else shouted something in German. JD couldn't make out what was said, didn't know if the Jerries were shouting commands at each other or if they were demanding they stop and help in the fight. He worried then that they might start shooting at them instead of at the Frenchmen.

Then the Frenchmen stopped well down the road.

"What are they stopping for?" JD asked.

He couldn't think of a reason that made sense, but Tanner must have suspected something, as he leaned over the tailgate and twisted the upper half of his body for a look to the side and ahead. Then he pulled back in and yelled, "We got incoming!"

He dropped to the floor, dragging JD down with him.

Almost as soon as JD hit the floor, the world seemed to go more than a little crazy. First there was a noise. Then a bright light and a rush of air. Then the truck decided to ignore gravity and switch up for down and back again. JD tumbled and spun and bounced off both hard and soft objects while the truck tried to make up its mind as to which way was up and which down. Not that he knew what was happening while it was actually happening. Then he was too busy being scared and confused and hurt. Later though he put it all together. Once the world got over its latest fit of insanity. After the truck rolled to a stop and JD rolled to a stop with it. After he figured which way was up and which down, even though they didn't quite make sense. After he took stock enough to know he was alive and not dead. Enough to know he had all his bits and pieces, even if all of them weren't quite in the condition they'd been in before the world went crazy.

He lay on his back inside the truck looking up at what was supposed to be the side of the truck but that was now serving as its top. That much of the world figured out, he turned his head to check out the rest of it -- and discovered Buck lying three feet away, face down and unmoving.

JD convinced his bits and pieces to coordinate enough for him to sit up -- or all of his bits but his right arm. He no more than put his weight down on that hand than a pain shot up his arm that warned his arm was likely broken. Or his wrist maybe. He didn't care which, didn't let it slow him down any longer than it took to shift his weight to his other side, to get his legs under him and crawl the few feet lying between him and Buck.

"Buck," he said as he reached him. "Are you okay? Can you hear me?" He put his good hand on Buck's shoulder and shook him. "Are you with me?"

Buck stirred. "Not now, darling," he mumbled. "You've plumb wore me out."

JD shook him again. "You're going to be more than wore out if you don't get up and get moving. So come on." He shook him again, hard that time, and Buck only mumbled again in response. Trying a different tack, JD raised the pitch of his voice and said, in as feminine a tone as he could manage, "Oh, mercy, Buck! That's my husband at the door!"

Buck jerked up, looked around as if in search of discarded clothing. He then blinked and turned to JD. "What the hell happened?"

Before JD could even try to come up with an answer, shots sounded -- one rifle shooting close and several from a distance.

JD looked around for his rifle, saw it lying a few feet away and scrambled after it. He saw too Chris and Ezra in the truck's cab tumbled together, one of them moving but none too surely. He yelled Chris' name, but didn't have time to do more than that. Not with the Frenchmen likely coming back to finish off the job they'd started.

He grabbed his rifle, turned towards the rear of the truck, and vaguely noted Buck none too surely going after his rifle. He noted too, in surprise, that Tanner was nowhere to be found. And even as that thought hit him, Tanner was there, poking his head through the opening at the rear of the truck, blood trickling down from a scrape on his forehead, his helmet gone and his wild hair even wilder than usual.

"Move out!" he yelled. "Get behind the truck. Now!"

He reached into the truck and grabbed hold of JD's free arm to hurry him along. JD wanted to pull back as his broken wrist complained at the too rough treatment, wanted to scream, to curse. But more shots sounded and it seemed wiser to simply follow where Tanner led. Still, he looked over his shoulder and through the divider to Chris and Ezra showing only vague signs of life. "What about them?" he said to Tanner dragging him out of the truck. "They need help."

"They're fine where they are for now." Tanner jerked him free of the truck. And when JD would have fallen, he shoved him so that he fell behind the truck on its side and off the road but still too close to the two Jerry trucks -- or to what was left of their burning hulks.

Shots continued to sound, and JD no sooner hit the ground than a bullet pinged off the truck six inches from his head. Ducking away from it, he fumbled his rifle one-handedly into a close approximation of a firing position and edged to where he could see around the truck to the road and to the French truck a dozen yards away and coming fast. Before he could take aim at it, however, Buck and Tanner tumbled into him. The three then ducked as more shots sounded.

"Anyone hit?" Tanner asked with a quick look around. When Buck and JD both assured him they hadn't picked up any lead, he said, "We won't stay that lucky if we don't do us some parlaying and fast. So one of you tell me how to say 'We're Americans' in French. And don't worry about getting the accent right."

"Nous sommes Americains," Buck said. "And you might as well add in 'Ne tirez pas.'"

"What's that mean?"

"Don't shoot."

Tanner quirked a corner of his mouth up. "Even better." He moved then to the front of the truck and peeked over the hood, keeping an eye, JD assumed, on the retreating Frenchmen.

Buck looked from him to the top of the cab, as if in hopes of seeing through the roof to Chris and Ezra within. "You check on them?"

JD knew the question was aimed at him. "I didn't get a chance. But one of them was moving for sure. I think maybe both of them. Not like they were awake though. At least, not all the way."

"Well, don't you worry. We'll get this situation taken care of and get them out of there, maybe even knock a few French heads together when we're done."

As if in disapproval of Buck's plan, more shots sounded, not from the road ahead but from the direction of the burning trucks. JD thought a Jerry had somehow managed to survive the explosions, then realized the shots were aimed not at the Frenchmen but at them.

"Ne tirez pas!" Tanner shouted from behind the hood of the truck. "Nous sommes Americains!"

More shots sounded, and JD thought that maybe Tanner's accent was bad enough that the Frenchmen hadn't understood a word he'd said. Either that or they'd simply chosen not to believe him.

"Where the hell are those shots coming from?" Buck asked.

"The French in the truck were a distraction," Tanner said. "To fix it so others that came out of woods to the side could get close enough to let loose some grenades."

Buck shook his head in disgust. "There's nothing like getting blown up by your own side."

"Not to mention shot," JD added, "if we don't convince those fellas we're the good guys."

Another round of shots sounded, and one spurted into the ground at Tanner's feet, kicking up not only dust but Tanner's temper. "What the hell's wrong with you fellas?" he shouted, his tone that of a man who'd been pushed too far and who was aiming to do a little pushing of his own. "Something wrong with your French that you ain't getting we're Americans? I hope your English is some better, 'cause if y'all don't quit shooting at us and quit it now, I'm liable to get seriously pissed!"

The shooting stopped.

"Well, hell, Vin," Buck said with a shake of his head. "If we'd known it would be that easy, we'd have sicked you on them sooner."

As always, however, things proved to be not quite that easy.

An engine sounded on the road ahead, and JD was sure it was the Frenchmen heading back for another pass at them. "Are we going to have to fight it out with them?" he asked, his gaze on Buck.

As if in answer, the Frenchmen's truck picked up speed. Tanner then tried another warning. "You out there -- you'd best call off your boys. You don't, I'm going to plug more than a few holes in them."

Someone nearby yelled something in French, and the oncoming truck slowed and then stopped.

"We have done as you have asked, Monsieur Americain," that same voice called out in heavily accented English. "Now, if you are who you say you are, you will throw your weapons down where we can see them. You will then move from behind the truck with your hands in the air. Just as they say in your American movies. Yes?"

"Hell, no!" Tanner said in reply.

"Then so it is that we must shoot you."

A new delegate joined in on the diplomatic meeting, the upper door of the cab flipping open and Chris sticking his bloodied head out. "Ain't nobody shooting nobody," he yelled, no matter that his tone suggested he was ready to do some shooting of his own. "I've got an injured man in here, and I'm not feeling all that great myself. So somebody give me a hand here. Now."

Buck jumped up. Slinging his rifle over one shoulder, he hopped onto the hood of the truck behind which Tanner stood keeping an eye out. He then moved to the open door of the cab and lowered the upper half of his body inside. Apparently, however, he wasn't able to get a good grip on Ezra inside, as he popped back out, turned towards the burning Jerry trucks, and yelled, "Some of you Frenchies want to help us out here?"

JD risked a look around the end of the truck and watched as two men darted between the burning trucks and to Buck's aid. With a lot of cussing and more than a few grunts, they managed to extract Ezra from the cab.

"Is he okay?" JD called up to Buck.

Buck didn't answer him. Instead, he jumped down to the ground and gestured to the two Frenchmen balanced on the top of the cab to lower Ezra down to him. JD then went to see for himself how badly Ezra was hurt and to lend what help he could with only the one good hand to offer.

As he drew near, he saw that Ezra was a mess. His face was covered in blood -- although JD couldn't tell where he'd been hurt. Since he seemed to be unconscious, JD thought maybe he'd hit his head.

One of the Frenchmen jumped down from the cab and took enough of Ezra's weight that they were able to lower him to the ground. Buck then checked his head for the source of the bleeding.

"He got cut," Chris said as he climbed out of the cab past the remaining Frenchman and all but fell to the hood and on to the ground. "By flying glass, back when the shooting first started."

Buck moved to check the rest of Ezra's lax body. "Doesn't look like anything's broken. And he's not bleeding anywhere else I can see." He went back to checking his head. "He's got a knot though on the back of his head that's about the size of a hen's egg." He looked to Chris and pointedly eyed the blood trickling from various points on his face, Ezra apparently not the only one to get cut by flying glass. "What about you? You hurt anywhere?"

"More like everywhere. But there's nothing you need to worry about." Chris looked to the Frenchman standing looking down at Ezra. "Who's in charge here?"

The Frenchman hesitated a moment, then said, "That would be Marcel."

"Get him over here." Chris spoke like he expected to be obeyed and wouldn't take too kindly to being kept waiting.

That tone having a universal meaning easy to comprehend, the Frenchman moved to the end of the truck and waved an arm to his unseen companions. JD figured he was either passing the buck or calling in reinforcements. Either way, a minute later, men trooped around the ends of the truck, three to either side. They looked wary but their rifles weren't held quite at the ready, so JD ignored the tightness in his back. He kept, however, his own rifle in hand and needing only a moment to bring it to bear.

Chris looked around at the new arrivals. "Which one of you is Marcel?"

A middle-aged man with dark hair and a decided paunch stepped forward. "That, Monsieur Americain, would be me." He shifted his gaze to the unconscious Ezra. Shaking his head as if in regret, he said, "A most unfortunate occurrence. He is hurt badly?"

Chris wiped some of the blood trickling from various cuts. "I don't know. Looks like he took a blow to his head. And he had trouble with his eyes before you lot decided to try to blow us all to Hell. We need to get him back to England as fast as we can."

"That will take some time, no?" Marcel scratched his chin. "I can perhaps offer you the services of a doctor we sometimes use. He is nearby and very discreet. No doubt he will fix your friend up in no time. We will then see that you get to wherever it is you need to be."

Chris looked at his watch then back to Marcel. "You say this doctor of yours is nearby?"

"We can be there in perhaps twenty minutes."

"And can we get in and out without being spotted by anyone?"

"You can if we take the doctor to your friend rather than your friend to the doctor." Marcel nodded to one of his men. "Thierry has a small farm that is all but hidden away. You will be safe there."

"All right, then. Let's get out of here before someone else comes along."

*~*~*

Buck and three of the Frenchmen carried Ezra to the truck Marcel waved over. They no sooner deposited him in the back and climbed aboard, however, than Tanner quietly said, "We got company coming."

JD turned to look down the road in the direction they had earlier traveled, and there he saw a staff car and a troop carrier heading right for them.

"Ditch the rifles," Chris hissed at the Frenchmen. "We play this like you were passing by and stopped to help. No one does anything stupid, we might just get out of this without anyone else getting hurt."

The Frenchmen looked to Marcel, and when he seconded Chris' command in a few words of French quickly spoken, the Frenchmen stashed their rifles beneath a pile of sacks on the truck floor. Chris then jumped off the truck, staggered as he got his still shaky legs beneath him, and waited for the approaching car and truck to draw to a stop a dozen feet away.

As he headed for the car, an officer hopped out, his sidearm in hand and a dozen men disembarking from the troop carrier to back him up, their rifles at the ready.

The officer barked out a demand to know what had happened, that much JD was able to follow with ease. What came after that, however, he had to guess from an occasional familiar word and the tone of the conversation.

Chris must have been pretty convincing in the story he told, as the officer holstered his weapon and said something to his men that had them lowering their rifles. Chris then said something more, and the officer shook his head. He turned again to his men and said something that had four of them heading for the truck and the rest scattering about the battlefield -- searching for survivors, JD guessed.

He looked from Chris to the approaching soldiers, not at all sure what to expect. Not trouble, apparently, as the soldiers slung their rifles over their shoulders as they approached. He shot another look to Chris, but that told him nothing but that Chris wasn't at all happy about whatever turn events were about to take. Then the soldiers arrived at the truck and went straight to Ezra laid out on the truck's floor. Two took a leg each and the other two said something to JD and Buck in the truck. It wasn't hard to figure out what they wanted, but JD looked to Chris before complying. When Chris gave a sharp nod, he exchanged a look with Buck then reached down to lift Ezra and pass him to the waiting Germans.

He exchanged another look with Buck, wanting to know what they should do, and Buck waved him out of the truck and after Ezra. His back screamed at him not to listen, but he knew he had no choice. He therefore jumped down to the ground and started after the men carrying Ezra, Buck and Tanner following at his back.

He felt like he was walking to his own execution, worried that that was exactly what he was doing. There seemed no way things wouldn't end badly. Let anyone try to strike up a conversation with him, Buck, or Tanner, and they were dead. Let Ezra start to come to and mumble something in English, and they were goners. Any number of things could go wrong. And with their luck, any number of them would. It was just a matter of when.

Not to his surprise, the question of when things would go wrong was almost immediately answered. One of the soldiers searching for survivors shouted something out. JD turned, his left hand automatically reaching for the rifle slung over his shoulder. Buck stayed him with a hand on him in warning. JD saw then that the shout wasn't one of alarm -- it was instead a cry for help, a survivor apparently having been found. Or at least that was what JD guessed from the fact that one soldier stood over another waving others to him.

Two soldiers ran to his aid, and the three then picked up the fourth and started carrying him towards the troop carrier.

JD looked towards the Frenchmen in their truck and noticed they'd edged closer to the pile of sacks hiding their rifles. He noticed as well that a couple had slipped grenades into their hands.

"This all goes to hell," Tanner said softly, "you boys had best hit the dirt and fast."

The three stayed where they were, their gazes on the approaching soldiers. Then JD looked over his shoulder to Chris standing with the officer. The officer was jabbering about something, and Chris looked like he wanted to sit down somewhere before he fell down. The officer must have thought the same thing, as he took hold of one of Chris' arms as if to steady him. He then called to one of the soldiers who had been searching for survivors. As the soldier started towards the officer and Chris, JD thought he should probably go to Chris' aid before the Jerry could. He turned, took a step, then a querulous voice rose behind him.

"Es ist sie," the speaker said. It is them.

JD turned around again to see the wounded soldier looking wide-eyed at the Frenchmen's truck. One of the soldiers carrying him said something in a soft voice, and again the wounded soldier said, "Es ist sie." He was more insistent that time, and the soldiers carrying him slowed and looked to the truck filled with Frenchmen. Then one looked towards the officer standing with Chris. He looked ready to give an alarm -- or at least to direct the officer's attention to possible trouble. Whichever it was they weren't to discover, as one of the Frenchmen in the truck tossed the grenade he'd been holding towards the small group, while two others tossed their grenades at different targets.

JD hit the ground, as did Buck and Tanner, Tanner with his sidearm in hand as soon as he hit and aimed over JD's head. He let off three quick shots, and JD figured he was taking out the soldiers carrying Ezra. Maybe the officer as well. Whichever it was, Buck joined in, and JD left them to it. Rolling over so that he could get at his own gun with his left hand, he snagged it out of its holster and rolled back onto his stomach to search out a target among those who had been looking for survivors. Finding one the Frenchmen hadn't yet taken out, he loosed a shot that missed. As the soldier swung towards him, JD loosed a second shot. That one found its target, and the soldier fell, his rifle discharging harmlessly into the air.

JD then sought another target and found none, none apparently to be found, as the shooting stopped. Into the silence, however, came another sound, that of someone shouting something in German about shooting someone. JD noticed then that Tanner and Buck both had their guns aimed over his head still, and he twisted in the dirt to see what they were aiming at.

A dozen feet away, the officer was backing towards the staff car with Chris held before him as a shield, a gun at Chris' head, and Chris looking like it was only the arm around his throat that was keeping him upright.

The officer shouted something more, that time in French, and JD didn't need to know the language to know what he was saying.

"Let him go!" Buck yelled over his shoulder to the Frenchmen. "It ain't worth someone trying something stupid. You understand me?"

"We understand," Marcel yelled back at him. "It will be as you say."

The officer reached the staff car and barked something out, to the driver ducked down in the car, apparently, as he sat up and started the engine. The officer then removed his arm from around Chris' throat to reach behind him for the door handle. Chris started to sag, and the officer caught him again.

Tanner tossed aside his gun, grabbed the rifle lying in the dirt beside him, and stood, the rifle aimed at the officer.

"Don't try taking him," Buck said, "unless you can be sure of your shot."

The officer tried again to get the door open behind him, and that time he succeeded. He then dragged Chris into the car with him, taking care to keep him between him and any bullet Tanner might try to send his way.

He no sooner sat than the driver gunned the engine. The car then shot forward, and Tanner swung his rifle to keep his target in sight. Then he swung it further still and fired. The bullet having found a secondary target, the driver jerked and slumped to one side. Even as he fell, the car jerked to the right. Its forward momentum then carried it straight into the first of the still burning trucks, and it hit with enough force that Chris and the officer were thrown forward and to the side.

Even as they fell, Tanner fired a second shot.

JD couldn't tell if that bullet found its target or not, but Tanner was certain enough that he lowered his rifle and took off for the car at a run, yelling over his shoulder as he did so, "You boys get Ezra onto the truck."

Buck and JD did as they were told, scrabbling up and over to Ezra lying unknowing in the dirt where he'd been dropped, four German soldiers scattered about him -- and in one case, over him.

Buck pulled the body off him, then he and JD each grabbed an arm and started dragging him towards the truck. They were met halfway there by a couple of Frenchmen who picked up Ezra's legs. Three more went past them headed for the staff car to help Tanner collect Chris.

Tanner, however, refused their help. "Get to the truck!" he yelled. "This thing is liable to blow!"

JD turned his head and saw that Tanner didn't need help. He'd already extracted Chris from the car and the flames threatening its occupants -- and presumably the car's gas tank -- and was headed for the truck, Chris stumbling at Tanner's side, his right arm slung across Tanner's shoulders, Tanner half supporting, half dragging him.

The Frenchmen who had intended to go to their aid turned back and raced to the truck, their fellows pulling them in. Then those carrying Ezra reached the truck and handed Ezra up. And as JD started to climb into the truck, the car's gas tank blew.

*~*~*

JD was knocked forward by the blast and onto the still unconscious Ezra. He rolled back and away, cradling his broken wrist. He then sat up to search out Chris and Tanner.

They'd made it halfway to the truck before the car blew. The explosion having knocked them off their feet, Chris lay face down in the dirt of the road while Tanner lay half on top of him. Neither moved.

JD slid off the truck. Several Frenchmen and Buck were ahead of him. And by the time he got his feet under him, Buck had reached the fallen men and was checking them out. Then the Frenchmen joined him and two gently lifted Tanner off Chris.

More Frenchmen piled off the truck, and JD ran with them to the others. Everyone then grabbed whatever part of Chris and Tanner's anatomy they could and started running, the two men carried with them.

JD hadn't had time to more than notice that both men were unconscious before he grabbed Chris' right leg with his good hand. He didn't see any obvious new wounds and thought the two men had likely just been knocked out by the blast. Then again, they would have taken the brunt of the blast from behind, so there was no telling what damage might have been done to their backs.

He looked to Buck at Chris' head, tried to gauge the extent of their comrades' injuries by his expression. He couldn't tell much. Buck's normally relaxed face was tense, but JD couldn't tell if that was because he was worried or if he was simply concentrating on the task at hand. Then they were at the truck and lifting Chris up so those Frenchmen who had remained behind could take hold of him and lay him beside Ezra on the truck floor. When Tanner was squeezed in on Ezra's other side, everyone climbed aboard. Someone then thumped on the truck's cab, and the truck lurched forward.

JD jostled his way through the knot of Frenchmen crowded into the remaining area of the truck. Again Buck was ahead of him, already having made his way to Chris' head.

"He okay?" JD asked.

Buck picked up Chris' wrist and checked his pulse. With a nod of satisfaction, he said, "Strong and steady." He then felt around what he could reach of Chris' anatomy. "Doesn't look like anything's broken." He looked to those huddled at the far end of the truck. "Someone check his legs. Vin's, too."

JD ran his good hand down Chris' right leg, but could find no obvious signs of a fracture. He then started running his hand down Chris' left leg -- and Chris kicked him. Not hard, but enough that JD lost his balance and fell against the Frenchman at his back. Chris then bolted upright and tried to scramble back and away from whatever danger he thought he was in.

Buck caught him. "Hold on there now, pard. There's nobody here you need to worry on."

Chris blinked, brought his eyes into focus, and twisted to look at Buck behind him. He then looked down at the arm Buck had wrapped around his chest and said, "You want to let me go before folks start to talking?"

Buck laughed and released him. He then patted him on the back and looked to JD. "He's fine. Ornery as ever." He stood and helped Chris to a shaky stand. "Let's get you out of the way so I can check on Vin."

Chris allowed Buck to help him to a seat on the bench running along one side of the truck, taking care not to step on Ezra. He then looked at Tanner with a puzzled expression. "What the hell happened?"

Buck knelt at Tanner's head. "The car blew. Lucky for you, Vin got you out before you could go with it."

"His legs they are fine," Marcel said as he finished checking Tanner. "His back, however, is perhaps not so fine."

"What?" JD looked from Marcel to Buck. "What's he talking about?"

Buck picked up Tanner's wrist and checked his pulse. "Strong and steady enough, I reckon." He started checking Tanner's torso and arms. "Let me finish here. Then we'll take a look at his back."

JD tried again. "What's wrong with his back?"

"He has a spot or two of bleeding, is all. Probably got hit with some shrapnel from the car." Apparently finding nothing to alarm him in his inspection of Tanner's arms and legs, Buck moved to his head. "No bumps or bleeding. Likely he just got the wind knocked out of him then." He looked to Marcel. "Let's turn him over, get a look at that back. But gently, now."

They weren't gentle enough. Tanner groaned as they moved him, consciousness enough regained that he waved an arm feebly about as if to shove away whoever was hurting him.

"You're all right, now, Vin," Buck said, his voice having that soothing tone JD had heard him use on women he was working his charm on. "We just have to take a look at what's hurting you. Then we'll fix you up right as rain. You just lie still. Okay?"

Tanner groaned again and tried to roll, away from Buck or from whatever was responsible for the patches of blood on the back of his uniform.

Buck grabbed his shoulders, held him down. He then looked to the assembled Frenchmen. "Some of you want to move Ezra over, give us some room to work?"

Several hands reached down to gently slide Ezra to the side, opening up a gap between him and Tanner.

Buck then looked to Marcel. "I need you to get over here and hold him still so I can take a looksee at his back."

"I can do it," JD offered.

Buck shook his head. "I need someone with two good hands."

Marcel moved to Tanner's head, taking Buck's place. Buck then moved to Tanner's side and inspected what he could see of his back through the rents in his uniform. Apparently not able to see well enough, he took hold of the material around the wound that was bleeding most and pulled, tearing a larger hole. One of the Frenchmen handed him a fairly clean kerchief, and Buck wiped away the worst of the blood. After a moment's inspection, he said, "It doesn't look too bad. A few stitches, and he'll be good as new." He then checked the other cuts and pulled a fragment of metal out of one.

Tanner bucked, let out a choked groan, and went still.

"Sorry about that," Buck said. "That's the worst of it though. The rest of the cuts look clean. We'll get them taken care of as soon as we can." He patted Tanner's near shoulder. "You feel like sitting up now?"

Tanner shook his head. "You missed something. Something's still sticking me."

Buck rechecked the wounds. "I don't see anything, Vin. Could be it's hidden under your uniform, though. Why don't you sit up and we'll get it off you, take a better look." He looked to Marcel. "Let's roll him over and sit him up. Careful, now."

Tanner groaned as they rolled him. As they then raised his upper body so that he was sitting on the floor of the truck, he went white.

"You okay?" Buck asked.

Tanner nodded, even though he looked anything but okay. Buck, however, took him at his word and moved to where he could unbutton his jacket and the shirt beneath. He then undid the gun belt at his waist and set it aside. "Okay, now, we're going to take your shirt and jacket off. You let us know if we hurt you."

Again Tanner nodded. He said nothing, however, when Buck and Marcel began to peel off his clothes and his face turned even whiter.

JD said then what Tanner wouldn't. "I think you're hurting him."

"It's all right," Buck said as he got the clothes on his side free. "We're almost done." Then Marcel pulled the jacket and shirt completely free, and Buck said, "Okay, now, Vin. I want you to lean forward as far as you can. JD will keep you from falling. Okay?"

Tanner didn't even bother to nod that time, simply leaned forward at a 45° angle, JD bracing him as best he could.

Buck inspected his back. "I don't see anything. I'm going to run my hand along your back, see if I can feel whatever is sticking you. Okay?"

"Do it," Tanner said in a rough voice.

Buck ran his hand over his back twice, couldn't find anything. "Where does it feel like it is? Can you tell?"

"The middle."

Buck put his hand on the center of Tanner's back, a few inches above the worst of the cuts. "Here?"

"Lower."

Buck shook his head. "There must be something in that cut I missed." He looked to Marcel. "Let's lay him down again."

A minute later, Tanner lying face down, Buck wiped more blood away from the cut on his back. He then more closely inspected it and shook his head when he was done. "I don't know, Vin. I still don't see anything. I'm going to feel around it, see if I can find whatever it is that's hurting you. So you lay as still as you can. You hear?"

Tanner nodded, and Buck ran a finger along the cut, slowly and carefully. Apparently not finding anything, he ran his finger along the length of it again, saying, "This the place?" Again Tanner nodded, and Buck frowned. "Whatever it is must have broke off." He wiped more of the blood away, from the cut itself that time, and bent down to make as close an inspection as he could. He then straightened and said, "Whatever it is, it's too deep for me to see. And there's not much we can do about it right now, bouncing around in this truck like we are. But we'll be at that farm Marcel mentioned before long. Then he'll fetch that doc like he said, and he'll fix you and Ezra right up, get whatever is poking you out. In the meantime, you rest easy as you can."

He picked up the discarded uniform jacket and spread it over Tanner's bare and bloodied back. He then sat back, looked to Chris looking ready to drop, and said, "I'm thinking we need to reconsider this touring business we've got going. Seems to me we just aren't that good at it."

"I don't know about that," Chris said, his voice weary. "We're still alive. More or less."

"Yeah. But for how much longer?"

No one having an answer to that, they rode the rest of the way to the farmhouse in silence.

*~*~*

An hour later, the team was ensconced in a small farmhouse set well back from a road that was little more than a track leading to and from the middle of nowhere. Most of the Frenchmen had disappeared along with the truck. Only Marcel and Thierry, the farm's owner, remained behind, and they busied themselves, once Ezra and Tanner had been established in the farmhouse's two bedrooms, with feeding the rest of the team. By the time they were done with their hurried meal, the doctor arrived as promised, in company with one of the men who had earlier disappeared.

Marcel introduced the new arrival as Dr. Moncrief, then escorted him to the bedrooms upstairs. Chris and Buck followed, leaving JD to sit and wait. And wait he did for longer than he thought reasonable. Then, at last, Chris came down the stairs and took a seat again at the small kitchen table.

"What did the doc say?" JD asked when Chris didn't volunteer any information. "Ezra and Tanner going to be okay?"

Chris poured himself a glass of wine from the bottle left over from lunch, took several swallows of it, then set the glass down on the table. "The doctor thinks they'll be fine. Ezra's still out of it, but the doctor isn't worried. He said he's got a concussion, and he'll come out of it soon. He wasn't too happy when he checked his eyes and found some glass in them, but he cleaned it all out, seemed to think his eyes will be fine once they've had a chance to heal."

JD shuddered. "He had glass in his eyes? And he'll see okay again?"

"That's what the doctor thinks. He said his eyes don't look too bad. They'll be painful for a while though, and he'll have to keep them bandaged."

"And he's not worried that he's been out of it for so long?"

"Not as long as he wakes up soon, which he thinks he will. He was already showing some signs of waking up, so it looks like he'll be okay."

"And Tanner?"

"The doctor's with him now, putting stitches in some of the cuts on his back."

"He find whatever was sticking him?"

Chris raised his glass again, took another long swallow of wine. He then set the glass down again and swiped a hand across his face. "He didn't have any better luck at that than Buck. He thinks Tanner probably took a bit of shrapnel and it went deep."

"Is he going to dig it out?"

"He can't. It's too close to the spine, and he's no surgeon. He doesn't even want to try digging around for it. He gave him something for the pain that knocked him out, said he'll do until we get him home."

"So, they're okay to travel?"

Chris nodded. "If things work out like they should, we'll be out of here as soon as the doctor is done."

JD shifted his right arm in an effort to find a position his broken wrist would find comfortable and refrained from pointing out that things rarely worked out for them like they should.

*~*~*

When the doctor finished sewing Vin's back up, he descended the stairs with Marcel following. He then got to work on splinting JD's wrist. "That will serve until you can return to England," he said. He took a sip of the wine Marcel poured for him and eyed Chris. "And you, monsieur? Have you as much need of my services as it would seem?"

Chris waved him off. "There's nothing wrong with me that a week in bed wouldn't cure."

Moncrief took up his glass again and drained it of the wine it held. He then thumped the glass on the table and stood. "I shall then be on my way."

Chris stood as well, bracing himself with one hand on the back of the chair he'd been sitting in. "I appreciate everything you did for my men, Doctor. Thank you."

"You are most welcome, monsieur. Although it is little enough that I have done." Moncrief looked around at the men there in that small kitchen. "It is perhaps I who should be thanking you. All of you. I do not know what it is you do, what it is you have done. But this I do know -- you are brave men. And when France is again free, it will be with thanks to you and those like you. Merci, mes amis. And may God go with you."

He took his leave then, along with the one who had brought him there.

When the door closed behind them, Marcel looked to Thierry. "It is done?"

Thierry said something in French that JD couldn't follow.

When he was done, Marcel looked to Chris. "You understood?"

Chris nodded. He then looked at his watch. "You know our timetable. Are we going to make our pickup?"

"It will be, as you Americans say, a piece of cake. Many times have we made deliveries such as this. All of them without fail. This time, it will be no different. You shall see."

*~*~*

JD figured Marcel's pronouncement was pretty much the Kiss of Death for them. So when the panel truck that was to deliver them to their pickup point arrived at the farm and turned out to belong to a fish monger, he didn't even crack a smile when Buck grinned and said, "I think something a mite fishy is going on here."

The driver stepped out of the truck and eyed the group that gathered at the rear of the truck. Marcel waved him over, saying, "Come, Paul. Meet your newest fish out of water."

Paul joined them and nodded in greeting. He then unlatched the back door of his truck.

As he did so, Marcel said to Chris, "The smell, it is not so good. The Germans, however, they think it as well, so they do not look too closely inside -- if they look at all."

Paul climbed into the truck and squeezed past bins half filled with fish.

JD wrinkled his nose. "You expect us to hide in there?"

"But no," Marcel said. "There is a compartment in the back in which you can hide. It will, I fear, be a tight fit. But you need only use it to get past the checkpoint into town. Paul will show you how to open the false panel."

Chris, Buck, and JD trooped into the truck and watched as Paul showed them how to open the panel along the back of the compartment. The space behind it was small. And while five grown men could -- barely -- fit into it, they could no more than stand in the confined space. With two of those five unconscious, JD didn't see how that particular method of concealment was going to work.

"I've seen sardines packed with more room than that."

Buck patted him on the shoulder. "You can always walk back to England if you're of a mind to."

JD ignored the remark. "What about Ezra and Tanner? How are we going to keep them on their feet?"

"We can hold them up long enough to get past the checkpoint," Chris said, his tone indicating he wasn't worried about a minor detail like that. Not when they'd survived worse already that day.

Deciding he was probably right, JD made no further objections. Covering his nose, he then led the way out of the truck.

Chris looked to Marcel as he stepped down onto the farm's dirt drive. "We'll need help getting my men loaded."

Marcel nodded to Paul, and all but JD went into the house to collect Ezra and Tanner.

When the small troop returned a few minutes later, they carried the remaining members of the team with them. Ezra's eyes were bandaged, so JD couldn't tell if he was conscious or not. Since, however, he wasn't moving -- or talking -- JD figured he was out of it still. And from the look of him, Tanner was out of it as well. Another few minutes, and they were all safely stowed in the back of the truck, the false panel open and ready should a sudden need to make use of it arise.

As the truck started up, Chris looked at his watch in the meager light filtering through the dirty windows set in the back doors. "It'll be close," he said when Buck looked a question at him. "But if we don't run into any trouble, we'll make it."

"Well, then," Buck said with false cheer. "We're all set. 'Cause, you know, we never run into trouble. We're kind of lucky that way."

"Yeah, well, we've run in to more than our fair share of bad luck this time out, so chances are we've run out of bad luck straight into good."

"From your lips to God's ears."

They rode then in silence for a time, long enough that JD was almost able to forget about the smell of fish. Or at least pretend that he had. Then Ezra began to stir.

He and Tanner were laid side by side in the narrow gap between bins, with the rest of the team crowded against the panel at the unconscious men's heads. Buck having demanded the middle position so he could stretch his long legs out between the two prone men, he was closest to Ezra. And when Ezra moaned and raised a hand to his bandaged eyes, Buck reached out a hand to pat his near shoulder.

"Hey, Ez," he said. "You with us?"

Ezra felt the bandage over his eyes and went still. "I don't suppose we're having a rousing game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey?"

"Not even close."

Ezra's nose widened as he took a breath in, then pinched as he rejected that breath drawn in, his mouth beneath it turning down in a frown. "Someone please tell me we aren't someone's catch of the day."

Buck laughed. "You're getting warmer."

"We're on our way to the fish market," Chris said. "Courtesy of the French Resistance."

"They decided not to kill us then? How generous." Ezra paused, then added, "At least, I assume we're all here."

"All present and accounted for," Buck said.

"And all in one piece?"

"No one's missing any bits or pieces, if that's what you mean. But Vin took some shrapnel in the back -- that's him laid out cold next to you. JD broke his wrist. And Chris came close to getting the ornery knocked out of him. Other than that, things couldn't be better."

Ezra touched a hand to the bandage covering his eyes. "Indeed. Lady Luck has taken a decided shine to us."

He didn't ask about his eyes, but JD figured he was worried, so he said, "The doctor said your eyes are okay. At least, they will be. But you have to keep that bandage on until they heal."

"Doctor?" Ezra's brow above the bandage wrinkled. "Apparently I have missed something."

JD filled him in, with a few asides from Buck.

When they were done, Buck said, "How's your head, Ezra? It took a pretty good whack."

Ezra thought a moment then said, "Have you ever come off a three day drunk and wakened to wish yourself dead?"

Buck laughed. "I have indeed. A time or two."

"Then you will understand when I say that I would give all I own to feel that well."

Buck laughed again and patted Ezra on his near shoulder. "I reckon you'll want to skip this part of the tour next time. Maybe go straight to that three day drunk?"

Ezra shuddered. "I believe I would prefer domestic excursions in the future. In the good old U. S. of A. Excursions featuring fine dining and beautiful women."

"You can sign me up for that one," Buck said. "But what I'd really like --"

What more he might have said was lost as a thump sounded on the rear wall of the compartment, Paul in the cab signaling that they were nearing the checkpoint into the town through which they had to pass to make their rendezvous for pickup. The team got then to its feet and moved into the hidden compartment, Chris helping Ezra, Buck holding the still unconscious Tanner up, and JD squeezed into the middle, the rifle slung over his shoulder digging into his back.

It was dark in the compartment, as well as cramped. And what little air they had smelled strongly of fish. JD had never minded tight spaces, but he was seriously considering developing a raging case of claustrophobia. Then the truck rolled to a stop, and JD concentrated on a different fear.

He fully expected to hear voices raised, the thump of boots, the rattling of the doors. Shouts and shots. Instead he heard nothing but the soft breathing of the men crowded into the hidden space with him.

The truck lurched forward again, and that easily they were through the checkpoint.

JD thought it too easy and waited for what more would come. When the truck rolled to another stop a few minutes later, he braced himself for disaster. But again the truck lurched forward. And long minutes later it again rolled to a stop. That time, however, it remained in place.

They had perhaps made it through town and to the rendezvous point. Then again, maybe they'd been stopped, were about to be searched and possibly discovered.

JD could hear Chris' quickened breathing practically in his ear, felt Ezra stiffen next to him and thought how much worse it must be for him not being able to see whatever trouble might be headed right at them. Then he heard a soft moan, Tanner apparently coming to and hurting.

"Take it easy, now, Vin," Buck said, his voice barely above a whisper. "You have to be quiet and as still as you can. You hear?"

JD didn't know if Tanner heard, but he made no further sound. And a minute later, the truck's rear doors rattled.

JD thought then that he should have gone into that compartment with his rifle in hand instead of at his back and unreachable. Not that it would likely do him any good anyway if they were discovered. Still, he would rather be ready than helpless.

Tanner let out a breath, a ragged sound of pain unborn, and JD felt a slight movement as he seemed to find his feet.

A clanging sounded of the rear doors opening and swinging to the side. Then there came a thump, and the truck shook, as if someone had entered the rear compartment.

JD grabbed the rifle sling at his shoulder, ready to slide it off, to take hold of his rifle.

Footsteps sounded, drew near.

JD tightened his grip on the sling, planned his moves.

The footsteps stopped.

JD tensed his muscles, prepared to spring out of concealment.

There came a scratching noise on the panel, and a sliver of light opened up before JD's eyes. He started to pull the sling off his shoulder, felt the rifle at his back, and the sliver widened into a crack. Then a soft voice sounded, saying, "It is safe, messieurs. You may come out."

The panel slid back further, revealing Paul on the other side of it. He slid the panel open all the way and stood back. "Your boat is here, waiting. All is clear, but you must hurry."

They'd made it then. At least, they'd made it that far.

Eager to complete their interrupted journey, JD almost jumped out of the hidden space. He would have kept going, wanted to, but he remembered that Ezra was unable to see and that Tanner needed help as well. So he turned and helped guide Ezra into the rear compartment. He then led him out, Paul going before them and helping Ezra step down to rocky ground. Behind them came Chris, and behind him Tanner and Buck, Tanner stumbling, Buck doing his best to keep him upright and moving forward. Then hands reached up to help him out of the truck.

Buck was the last out, and as soon as his feet hit the ground, Paul waved them on. "Come, messieurs. We must hurry."

Hurry they did, JD leading Ezra, and Chris and Buck half carrying Tanner between them, his arms slung over their shoulders. Around the truck they went, to find a rocky beach stretching away and around a small inlet. A quick look told JD the area was deserted -- but for a small fishing trawler two hundred yards out in the water and a small rowboat manned by what appeared to be a French fisherman and headed towards the beach.

Paul led the way to the water's edge, then waded out to help drag the small boat in as it neared the shore. JD waded into the water after him, taking Ezra with him and warning him he was about to get his feet wet. He then helped Ezra into the boat, and together they sat on the rear plank serving as a seat. A minute later, everyone was aboard who was going aboard and safely stowed. Buck then helped the Frenchman row the boat back to the trawler.

As they reached it and climbed on board, JD realized that for once things had gone exactly as they should.

*~*~*

Chris apparently having been right about their turn of luck, the rest of the trip back to England was uneventful. It wasn't, however, without its problems. While Ezra soon fell into a peaceful slumber, waking only for the transfer to an English vessel, Tanner remained more or less awake. Whatever he'd been given for pain seemed to remain in effect, to some degree at least, but it didn't totally ease his pain. He therefore couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep and couldn't quite seem to fully waken.

JD sat with him for most of the trip, and after a time he discovered that he had only to ramble on for Tanner to cease his restless movements. He didn't know if Tanner found what he had to say that boring or if just having someone there made him feel better. Whatever it was, as long as he kept talking, Tanner remained relatively still and quiet. Until, that is, the boat hit a rough wave. Each such jolt had Tanner going stiff with pain and returning to his quest to find a comfortable position -- until JD was again able to soothe him.

So it went, all the way back to England and on to London, where Tanner and Ezra were installed in the hospital the military had more or less taken over. It was night by that time and even later when JD's broken wrist was x-rayed and placed in a cast. By the time the staff was done with him, he was tempted to seek out the nearest empty bed and make use of it. Instead, he trudged his weary way to a waiting room a nurse directed him to.

There he found Chris in a chair and apparently asleep, his eyes closed and his head resting against the wall at his back. Of Buck there was no sign, and JD guessed he was probably off chasing nurses. Wanting nothing more then than to follow Chris' example, he sat a few chairs down from him, leaned his head back against the wall -- and someone shook him. Hard.

He blinked his eyes open and focused his bleary gaze to discover Buck sitting in the chair next to him. He blinked again. "Where'd you come from?"

Buck shook his head at him. "Now, JD. You mean to tell me your momma never told you about the birds and the bees?"

"What?" JD blinked again. "You weren't here."

"And how would you know, Mr. Sleepyhead? With you out like you were, Hitler could have held a rally in here and you'd never have known. Not that anyone could have heard anything over your snoring."

Again JD blinked. "I was asleep? I couldn't have been. I just sat down."

"And now you're going to get up."

"What? And go where?"

"To sleep. In a bed."

JD groaned. "I'd rather stay here than go all the way back to the estate. Besides, what about Ezra and Tanner? Aren't we going to wait and see what the doctors have to say?"

"I've already talked to the docs, and Ezra and Vin are both fine."

"They got that shrapnel out of Tanner's back?"

"No. The docs haven't decided yet what they're going to do about that. We'll talk to them again in the morning, see what they have to say."

"And Ezra?"

"His doc said just what that Frenchie doc said, that there's nothing we need worry on. So, come on. I wrangled us some beds down the hall, and I'd like to hit mine before the sun comes up again." Buck moved then to Chris, went through the same routine he'd just gone through with JD. Once Chris and JD had stumbled to their feet, Buck led them down the hall to a half-filled ward. There they grabbed the first beds not occupied, and JD was asleep again as soon as his head hit the pillow.

*~*~*

The morning was half gone when next JD awoke. He lay listening for a few minutes to the bustle of the busy hospital and to the murmurs of men talking there in the ward. He was tempted to try for more sleep, but decided he was more in need of sustenance, so he got up and went to see what he could find in the way of food.

Chris and Buck having already risen before him, he thought he might find them in the waiting room they'd used the previous night. When it proved empty, he asked a nurse where he might get himself fed. To his delight, she took pity on him and slipped him an untouched patient tray. When he'd eaten every last crumb, he asked which room Ezra could be found in, thinking Chris and Buck might be there and wanting to see for himself how Ezra was doing.

He'd been installed in a private room, his status as a Special Forces member dictating special treatment. JD figured he'd have Tanner for a roommate, but when he pushed through the door into the room, he found only Ezra in residence. The space where a second bed should have been was empty, and there was no sign of either Buck or Chris.

Ezra was sitting up in bed and manipulating a card in one hand. On hearing the door open, he drew down his brows above the bandage covering his eyes and said, "If you have come in search of some new place to stick me with one of your many -- and varied -- instruments of torture, I must warn you that I have been trained to kill with my bare hands."

JD snorted. "I've seen you fight, Ezra. I don't reckon any of the nurses here have anything to worry about."

He sat in the room's only chair and nodded at the empty space Ezra couldn't see. "Where's Tanner? I'd have thought he'd be bunking with you."

"He is." Ezra palmed the card he'd been manipulating and made it disappear. "They took him for tests a while ago."

"What kind of tests?"

"I didn't enquire."

"What about Buck and Chris? Have you seen them this morning?"

Ezra flicked his wrist and the card reappeared in his hand. "Buck popped his head in a short time ago -- long enough to catch the scent of a nurse come to add her bit of torture to the mix. No doubt he is sniffing around her still."

Ezra went back to manipulating the card, and JD wondered if he was already bored out of his skull. "The doctors say anything about letting you out of here?"

"They seem inclined to keep me until the bandages are removed."

"And when will that be?"

"They didn't specify a date. I assume, however, that it will be at least a few days."

Ezra seemed unconcerned, but JD figured he had to be worried. Worried himself, he said, "But your eyes are going to be okay, right?"

"So they tell me."

"Do they hurt?"

"Somewhat."

The card in Ezra's hand stilled, and he fumbled it onto the deck sitting on the over-the-bed table. "And what of you?" he asked. "Buck said you'd hurt… your wrist, was it?"

JD raised his right arm in its plaster cast -- not that Ezra could see it. "It's fine. I'll have to wear a cast for a while, though."

Ezra sighed. "Perhaps they should change our nickname from The Death Squad to The Maimed Squad."

"Speaking of which -- how's Tanner?"

Before Ezra could reply, the door swung open and Buck stepped in and to the side, holding the door open for the orderlies bringing Tanner in his bed back into the room.

"Look who followed me home," Buck said. "You think Chris will let me keep him?"

The orderlies swung Tanner's bed back into place, then went back out the door Buck held open for them. When Buck let the door close behind them, JD jerked his head to Tanner looking to be asleep and said, "How's he doing?"

Buck shrugged and moved to sit on the foot of Ezra's bed. "No one's said anything new since last night. I guess whatever tests they did are supposed to tell the doctors what they want to know."

"What kind of tests did they do?" JD asked. "Why don't they just go in and get that shrapnel out?"

"I guess it's like that French doctor said -- it's too close to the spine for them to go digging around without knowing exactly what they're up against." Buck took up Ezra's pack of cards and shuffled them. "But don't you worry. They'll get it figured out and fix Vin up as good as new. In the meantime, what do you say we take advantage of Ezra not being able to cheat and win back some of that money he's taken off us?"

*~*~*

An hour later, Ezra was twenty dollars richer, and Buck was working harder at figuring out how he had to be cheating than he was at trying to win the poker game he and Ezra had going, JD having been drafted to serve as Ezra's eyes. As Ezra raked in the current pot, Buck bent down from his seat on the bed and forward, twisting his head so he could search out a gap he was sure existed at the bottom of the bandage covering Ezra's eyes.

"I'm telling you," he said to JD for the fourth time since the game started, "he can see beneath that thing. It's the only explanation."

JD gathered the cards together and placed them in Ezra's hands. "You dealt that last hand, Buck. Remember?"

"Uh huh. And you notice how it is you're supposed to be helping him, yet he always insists on dealing the cards himself?"

Ezra shuffled the cards, halved the deck with one hand, exchanged the bottom half for the top, and shuffled again. "Far be it from me to be a burden to my friends. I feel badly enough that JD need serve as my eyes. To make him serve as my hands as well seems unkind."

Buck snorted. "Too bad it doesn't seem unkind to unburden me of my hard-earned pay."

Ezra grinned and began dealing out the cards. As Buck ducked down again to try to catch him peeking beneath the bandages, Chris pushed through the door of the room. Taking one look at Buck's contortions, he said, "Ezra get you all bent out of shape again?"

Buck straightened and shot Chris a look. "You're so funny, you should be on the stage. Or better yet," he muttered as he turned back to the game, "under it."

Chris ignored him in favor of the pile of money before Ezra on the over-the-bed table. "I see he hasn't lost his touch."

Buck slapped his forehead. "His touch. Now why didn't I think of that?" He picked up the cards Ezra had just dealt him and laid them face down on the bed. He then proceeded to run his fingertips over them.

Chris shook his head at him, then looked to Tanner in his bed with his head turned away. "He sleeping?"

"No," Tanner said as he turned his head to reveal eyes wide open. "I'm just smart enough to play dead so's I don't get fleeced."

Buck grabbed his cards from the bed and threw them in disgust on the over-the-bed table. "Too bad I'm not that smart."

He glared at the money piled in front of Ezra, then grinned and snaked a hand towards it. Just as he was about to grab hold of a bill sitting on the top, Ezra slapped his hand.

Buck shook the offended hand and assumed an innocent expression that was lost on Ezra. "I was just aiming to straighten your money up for you. Keep it from falling to the floor and getting lost."

"How exceedingly generous of you," Ezra said. "It well behooves a man to have friends such as you."

"Yeah, well, it well behooves me to quit while I'm behind." Buck turned to Chris, the subject as well as the game abandoned. "You talk to the doctor?"

Chris shook his head. "The nurse said he's on his way." He looked to Tanner. "You want us to clear out, let you talk to him alone?"

Tanner fastened his gaze on Chris then swept it around to the others there in the room and back again. "I reckon you can all stay if you're of a mind to."

JD wasn't sure why he agreed to let them stay. Maybe it didn't much matter to him one way or the other. After all, they'd end up knowing everything he knew anyway. And maybe that was all it was. But something in that look he'd given them seemed to say he wanted them there, was maybe glad to have them stay. And maybe it didn't matter so much who he had to stick by him just then. But maybe it did.

JD realized then that they'd known Tanner for less than seventy-two hours. Just three days ago he hadn't thought it a good idea to have him on the team. And now Chris was alive and in that room with them because of him. Because he'd kept that Jerry from driving off with him. Because he'd pulled him out of a burning car, had maybe even shielded him from the car exploding. What was it Tanner had said about knowing a man? That you had to be lost in the desert with him with only a single canteen to share between you? Well, they'd been lost, sure enough. And thanks to Tanner, Chris had made it home again.

It was what the members of a team did for one another. And as JD thought on that, he realized that was truly what they were -- a team. Whoever and whatever Tanner had been, he was now one of them. And maybe that was why he wanted them to stay.

Even as JD reached that conclusion, the doctor arrived. He no more than took in the apparently unexpected audience than Tanner said, "What's the verdict, doc?"

The doctor -- a youngish man with glasses and whose name JD later found out was Weiss -- moved to the foot of Tanner's bed and said, "I wish I could give you better news, Mr. Tanner. I'm afraid though that it looks like surgery to remove that bit of shrapnel you picked up is out of the question. I consulted with three of our staff surgeons and none of them think it a good idea to try to dig it out."

"You're just going to leave it in there?" JD said in surprise. "That doesn't make sense."

"I'm afraid it makes more sense than attempting to remove it. At least right now it does. It's simply too close to the spinal cord. If we try to dig it out, there's too great a chance we would do more harm than good -- paralysis being a definite possibility."

A silence fell, no one apparently knowing quite what to say to that. JD didn't even try to come up with anything. Instead, he looked to Tanner to see how he was taking the news. Not that he could tell much other than that he was hurting -- the way he kept himself so still gave that away more than did the lines of pain etched on his face, like he was afraid the least little movement would set his back to hurting more than it already was. And the doctor wanted to leave him hurting like that? It didn't hardly seem right.

Chris must have thought so as well, as he said, "If you leave it in, won't that cause problems of its own?"

"Possibly. These things are sometimes known to shift. And if it shifts in the wrong direction...." The doctor shrugged. "Mr. Tanner could end up paralyzed after all."

"Then wouldn't it be better to go ahead and get the shrapnel out now?"

"Not really. If it shifts at all, it could be years from now. And it could well shift in the right direction, making removal easier."

"So it's a crap shoot," Buck said. "And that's it?"

The doctor fixed his gaze on Tanner. "I'm sorry. I know that's not what you wanted to hear. And it's certainly not what I wanted to say. But the chances are very good that you'll be able to lead a fairly normal life from here on out."

"Fairly normal?" Buck said. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"It means he'll probably continue to have some pain. But it can be managed."

Again JD looked at Tanner lying still and not saying a word. "Look at him, doc. He can't even move, he's hurting so bad. How's he supposed to manage that?"

"I know it seems impossible right now. But he won't remain at this level of pain. We expect it to decrease as the wound heals and as his body adjusts to its new reality. And, as I said, with proper management, he'll be able to resume a fairly normal life."

"And by that," Ezra said, "I assume you mean a life that is none too strenuous? A desk job, perhaps?"

"That would certainly be best."

"And the job he has now?"

"Obviously he'll be discharged."

"Obviously."

Again a silence fell. And again JD looked to see how Tanner was handling the news. From the deeper lines of pain on his face, JD guessed he wasn't taking it too well. He tried then to look on the bright side. "At least you'll get to go home," he said.

Tanner jerked his head to him, looked at him like he'd just suggested they go up to the nursery and kill babies. He then turned back to the doctor and said, "I'd just as soon give surgery a try, doc. Even if it is a mite risky."

The doctor shook his head. "I'm sorry, Mr. Tanner. But surgery is simply not an option at this time. The surgeons won't even consider it."

He spoke as of a closed matter, but Tanner stuck his foot in the door and held it open. "I'll sign whatever paper you want saying I won't blame the surgeon if something goes wrong. If something does, it'll be on me, not him."

"And if it were simply a matter of liability, Mr. Tanner, that might work. But what this comes down to is a doctor's sacred oath to do no harm. And given the likelihood that something would go wrong with such a risky surgery, our surgeons can't in good conscience operate. They simply can't."

The doctor sounded truly sorry and not at all inclined to be swayed from the decision already made, but Tanner wasn't done yet. "And you think you won't be doing worse harm by doing nothing?"

The doctor frowned, his look one of puzzlement. "I don't see how your situation could be improved by rendering you unable to use your legs. Surely a bit of pain is worth avoiding such a possibility?"

Tanner ignored the question. "I want that surgery, doc. And if none of you here will do it, I'll find someone who will."

"You're certainly welcome to try. And, in fact, you'll undoubtedly have better luck in that regard back in the States. After your discharge."

The doctor spoke in a reasonable tone, but Tanner was apparently feeling anything but reasonably inclined. "I'll crawl out of here first," he said, his tone that of a man determined to have his way at any cost. "To a butcher in some back alley if that's what it takes."

The doctor's frown deepened, but his tone remained reasonable as he said, "You're upset, and understandably so. You need time to consider and adjust. I'll leave you to it then, stop by again this afternoon. In the meantime, let the nursing staff know if you need anything." He then nodded his good-byes and took his leave.

As the door closed behind him, JD looked to Tanner glaring at the door as if considering whether or not it would be worth the pain involved to get out of bed and give it a good thumping. Hoping to help him decide against such a move, JD said, "Maybe the doctor's right and the best thing you can do is to go back home. I bet there are plenty of doctors there that are better than any the Army has."

Tanner turned his glare on JD. "You figure the State of Texas will pay to hunt one of them doctors down for me?"

"What? What's Texas got to do with anything?"

"They got a prison cell with my name on it waiting for me still."

"How come? I thought the deal you made was that you got to go free if you came over here and fought."

"If I fought clear through to the end of the war was the deal."

"What kind of deal was that?" Buck asked, his tone saying he knew exactly what kind of deal it was.

"Unfortunately," someone new said as the room door again opened, "it was the best one I could make."

JD turned to discover a general standing in the doorway, and he snapped to attention, almost clonking himself in the head with his cast as he attempted to salute. Buck and Chris snapped to attention as well, and the unknown general waved them off, saying, "At ease, gentleman."

He moved into the room, headed for Tanner's bed, and looked around at the others there. "This, I take it, is the famous Death Squad?"

"I thought," Ezra murmured, "we had decided to dub ourselves the Maimed Squad."

The general chuckled. "I can certainly see where that would be appropriate." He moved to stand beside Ezra's bed. "I'm General Travis. The man, I suppose you could say, responsible for putting you in that bed. The word is, however, that you won't be there long."

"And I don't suppose," Ezra said with a hopeful drawl, "the word is also that I'll be shipped back to more civilized climes in order to recuperate?"

"For a few cuts and bruises?" Travis snorted. "Nice try, Standish, but no cigar." He looked around at the rest of the team but Tanner then. "What about you men? You seem to have come through the mission in one piece." He settled his gaze on the cast on JD's right arm, then added, "More or less."

"There's nothing wrong with us that a few weeks in London wouldn't cure," Buck said, his tone as hopeful as Ezra's had been.

"A few weeks in London and more than a few young ladies?" Travis' tone warned he didn't get to be a general by falling off a turnip truck.

"We're fine, sir," Chris said with a glare to Buck.

Travis turned then to Tanner. "And you, Vin? You don't look so fine."

Tanner tried to smooth out the lines of pain on his face and assumed what was apparently meant to be a cheerful tone. "Don't you worry none, sir. I'll be right as rain just as soon as they dig out that bit of metal that took a liking to me."

Travis raised an eyebrow. "The doctors decided to operate then? Last I heard they didn't seem to be leaning that way."

"They still aren't," Chris said before Tanner could say anything more. "Doctor Weiss was just in here. He said none of the surgeons on staff will operate. The shrapnel is lodged close to Tanner's spine, and they're afraid they'll do more harm than good if they try to remove it."

Travis raised his eyebrow another notch. "They intend to leave it where it is?"

"Yes, sir, they do. They also intend to ship Tanner home."

"Only I ain't going," Tanner said, his tone turned stubborn. "If they won't do the surgery here, I'll find someone else who will."

Travis frowned. "The surgeons offered no hope?"

Again it was Chris who answered. "Weiss didn't say it was impossible for the surgery to work, just that it was a risk the surgeons here weren't comfortable taking. He said Tanner could maybe find someone back in the States that could do the job. After his discharge."

"He didn't suggest anyone more local?"

"No, sir. Could be though that he's not too familiar with the locals."

"Then I'll find someone who is." Travis turned again to Tanner. "I'll make some calls, see if we can't get someone in here by tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll stall any talk of sending you back to the States."

He looked ready then to leave, and JD forestalled him. "Begging the general's pardon, sir, but what if you can't find someone to operate? Will Tanner have to go back to prison?"

"It depends."

"On what, sir?"

"On whether or not I can talk sense into fools with stars." Travis shook his head. "I might have an easier time talking sense into Hitler, but it's possible my fellow officers will see reason."

"But why wouldn't they, sir? I mean, Tanner did what they wanted and got hurt doing it. It's not right that all he'll get in return is a back that won't ever stop hurting and a trip back to prison."

"Some men would disagree. In fact, those same men were none too keen on letting Vin out of prison to begin with. In the end, they only agreed because they figured the odds were against his being able to hold up his end of the bargain."

"But, sir, that just ain't right. He deserves better than that."

"Some would say a man who murders another deserves far less than that."

JD snorted. "Vin no more murdered anyone than I did. And the Army would be one lieutenant short if not for him. So the way I figure it, they owe him more than a parole or whatever will get him out of prison." JD colored as he remembered those stars on Travis' uniform. He then added a hasty: "Begging your pardon, sir."

Travis smiled. "No need to apologize, young man. In fact, I might just take you with me if I need to do any convincing." He turned again to Vin. "I'll go make those calls, see what I can do. I'll be back when I can."

He took his leave then, and as the door closed behind him Vin looked to JD and said, "What the hell was that about?"

JD blinked at him. "What was what about?"

"You telling the general I didn't murder no one."

"Well, you didn't, did you?" JD realized even as he said those words that he believed them. In fact, he wondered how he'd ever believed anything else.

"And how would you know I didn't?"

JD didn't have to think on his response. "Because men who kill for no good reason don't share their canteens. And they don't risk their necks to save someone they barely know." He then added a more practical reason. "Besides, General Travis doesn't think you murdered anyone, or he wouldn't have gone to all the trouble he has for you. And if he thinks you're innocent, then who am I to think different?"

JD looked to the others to back him up, and Buck nodded and said, "JD's right. I don't know what the folks back in Texas think they know about you and whatever it is they think you did, but I reckon we've seen enough by now to know we don't need to watch our backs around you."

"Which proves to be a very good thing for some of us," Ezra added with a hand to the bandage covering his eyes. "And to prove how much I trust you, Mr. Tanner, I shall be delighted to deal you in on the next hand in our little game here."

"Which we'll start up again just as soon as we hunt us up a fresh deck somewhere," Buck said. He looked to Chris. "You in?"

Chris shook his head. "I've got reports to write."

"You heading back to the estate then?"

"Yeah. And seeing as no one has handed out any leaves yet, I expect you and JD to sleep in your own beds tonight. Alone."

Buck wrinkled his nose. "JD's not exactly my type, Chris. So you don't need to worry any on that."

Chris rolled his eyes. "Call me if you hear anything."

He took off, as did Buck in search of a deck of unmarked cards. JD then looked to Vin lying with his eyes closed, his face a sick shade of grey. "You okay, Vin?" he asked. "You need me to get a nurse?"

Vin opened his eyes and turned his head in JD's direction. "That's the second time you called me by my first name instead of my last like you've been doing."

JD realized with surprise that Vin was right. "Yeah. I guess it is. You don't mind, do you?"

"No. I just thought it a mite curious, is all."

"Why? I didn't know you before. Now I do."

"You sure of that?"

"Sure enough, I guess."

Vin studied JD a moment, like he was none too convinced. He didn't refute his statement, however. Instead, he shifted his gaze to Ezra. "What about him? I ain't heard him call anyone anything but 'Mister' in the three days I've known him. That mean he ain't too sure of any of us?"

"Aw, that's just Ezra. He thinks that if he pretends we just work together, that we aren't buddies like we are, it won't hurt if one of us eats a bullet."

Ezra cleared his throat in a bid for attention, then said, "Need I remind you gentlemen that I'm blind, not deaf? And that I can speak for myself should anyone care to know what I think?"

JD ignored him, kept his attention focused on Vin. "He forgets sometimes though. Sometimes he calls us by our names just to try and wheedle us into something. But other times he slips."

Vin studied Ezra that time, and JD wondered what conclusions he was drawing. Whatever they were, he chose not to share them. Instead, he opened another study. "And the lieutenant? How come you and Buck call him by his name? No officer I ever worked under let enlisted men do that."

"Well, Chris isn't exactly like any officer you've ever worked under. Mostly he thinks officers are --" JD turned to Ezra. "How was it you put it, Ez?"

"He thinks officers are the bane of Man's existence and the scourge of the Earth."

"But if he feels that way about them," Vin said, "how'd he come to be one?"

"Buck said that when he got offered a field promotion he was going to turn it down. Then he got to worrying on who they'd send to lead his platoon in his place. He figured he couldn't trust anyone to look after them near as well as he would, so he took the promotion. But he doesn't like to think of himself as an officer."

Vin shifted, and his face turned an even more sickly shade of grey.

"You okay?" JD asked.

Vin took in and let out a few ragged breaths, then managed to say, "I'm fine. It was just a twinge."

"From the looks of you, it was a hell of a lot more than that. I'd better get a nurse."

"No." Vin's tone was sharp. "I just need a minute, and it'll settle down."

"They can give you something," JD said. "There's no sense hurting if you don't have to."

"Let it be." Anger sounded in Vin's tone that time. Or maybe just pain.

"But --"

Ezra cut off what more JD intended to say. "You're not helping, son."

"But Ezra, you can't see him -- he's in a lot of pain."

"And no one knows that better than he. When the pain is more than he can handle, he'll ask for assistance. Until that time, I suggest you do as he asks and leave him be."

It sounded like a bad idea to JD, and he didn't much like it. But he did as both men advised and left Vin to deal with his pain as he saw fit. He nonetheless watched him, ready to go after a nurse if it got to looking like he had more pride than sense. After a few minutes, though, Vin's breathing eased into a more normal pattern and his skin tone improved, if not by much.

Remembering then how it had seemed to help when he'd talked to him on the boat ride back to England, he started talking. He didn't hardly pay attention himself to what he said, just rambled away about whatever came to mind. Vin at first seemed to be listening. Then his eyelids gradually drooped, and his breathing eased further. Finally his eyes closed, and his soft breathing told JD he was asleep.

JD fell silent then, and Ezra softly said, "He'll be fine, JD."

"Not if he goes back to prison, he won't." JD turned, looked to Ezra unable to see him. "We should do something."

"Such as what? Perform the needed surgery ourselves?"

"No. But there must be something we can do."

"Not unless you are acquainted with either Ike himself or a skilled surgeon."

JD brightened. "I might not know Ike, but I know a surgeon. Dr. Jackson. Remember?"

Ezra frowned as he puzzled that one out. Then, understanding dawning, he drew his brows down further. "Surely you don't mean that fellow from the pub?"

"That fellow is a doctor. And I think I remember his friend saying something about him writing to some surgeon friend of his. So if he isn't a surgeon himself, he knows one. And seeing as Vin helped him out when he needed it, maybe he could be persuaded to return the favor."

Ezra's frown eased not at all. "Perhaps you should leave the procuring of a surgeon to General Travis. I'm sure he'll be able to find one far superior to any we could find on our own."

"Maybe. But it won't hurt to try. Just in case." JD started for the door, then turned back. "You going to be okay if Buck and I take off?"

That time Ezra's brow smoothed out. "I believe I'll be able to manage. The nurses here do love a war hero, after all. So I doubt I'll lack for care and comfort."

JD snorted. "A war hero? You? You're only here because you didn't duck fast enough."

"A minor detail that will, I assure you, get lost in the telling. And should you, upon your return, bring me a sufficiently nice gift, I will be sure to feature your daring exploits heavily in future installments. It would no doubt do wonders for your lagging love life."

"If you work that story of yours so that no nurse will look twice at Buck, you've got a deal."

*~*~*

As soon as JD pried Buck away from the nurse he'd hunted up instead of the fresh deck of cards he'd set off after, they requisitioned a jeep and headed for the small town of Blessing where Nathan Jackson was to be found. As they drove, something that had been at the back of JD's mind worked its way forward. Turning to Buck behind the wheel, he said, "Chris didn't say anything. When the rest of us were telling Vin we didn't believe he'd murdered anyone, Chris didn't say a word. You think that means he still thinks Vin is a killer?"

Buck gazed at the road ahead for a moment then said, "I've known men who killed. They've got a look about them. It's in the eyes and the way they look at a man, like they think they're smarter than anybody else. Like they know something no one else does. And that's not Vin. Now mind, he's no Boy Scout. I'm guessing he's done things and been things he wouldn't want his momma knowing about. And for sure I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him." He flicked a look at JD. "I know you've taken to him. And I'm not saying you hadn't ought to. But you've got to remember who and what he is. You treat him like some cute little kitty you can dangle a string in front of and tell all your secrets to, you might just find out that little kitty has some mighty big claws. Not to mention teeth."

"You saying you think he's dangerous?"

"Hell, yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's the kind of dangerous I want on my side, but that kind of dangerous can lead to all kinds of trouble. And I'm betting that's got Chris more than a little worried."

"Why? That kind of dangerous saved Chris' life."

"I know that. And you can bet Chris knows it, too. But it's his job to get us where we're going on a mission and back home again. And right now he doesn't know if Vin is going to help with that or hurt. Until he does, you can bet Chris isn't going to be leading any choruses of 'He's a Jolly Good Fellow' any time Vin walks into a room."

JD sighed. "It won't matter anyway what Chris thinks unless we can find someone to get that shrapnel out of Vin's back."

"Don't you worry. If we strike out, I'm sure General Travis will be able to scare someone up."

JD said nothing in reply to that, and they rode in silence for a time, JD considering what kind of dangerous Vin was. The kind of dangerous, maybe, that had men running out of a pub when they found out who he was. The kind of dangerous that generally saved him from getting a chair across his back.

Shifting in his seat to ease back muscles suddenly gone twitchy, JD looked to Buck and said, "Do you think I'm dangerous? You know, like Vin is." Buck stared at the road hard enough that JD figured he was trying not to laugh, and JD amended his question. "Okay, I know I'm not that kind of dangerous. But I figure that anyone who does what we do must have a little bit of dangerous in them. Right?"

"I reckon."

Buck didn't sound like he was trying not to laugh, but neither did he sound like he was any too worried about the length of JD's claws and teeth.

Indignation rose in JD. "I've done all right on missions so far, haven't I?"

"Well, you haven't gotten anyone killed. Yet."

That time amusement sounded in Buck's voice, and JD tried again. "I'm serious, Buck. Not everyone could do what we do. What I do. Some of the guys in my old platoon thought I was nuts wanting to be in Special Forces."

"Well, that's generally what it takes. Because for sure anyone with any sense wouldn't jump out of a plane into enemy territory without half an army jumping with them."

Still amusement sounded in Buck's voice, so JD searched out whatever truth lay behind that tone. "Why do you do it, Buck? Why did you sign on to the team?"

JD expected Buck to laugh the question off. Instead, he said, in an even tone, "I didn't sign on -- exactly. When the brass decided Chris has what it takes to lead a team, they told him he could pick his own men. He picked me. And I was too drunk at the time to know what I was getting myself into when I agreed to go with him. By the time I sobered up, I had my eye on that colonel's mistress, so it didn't seem like too bad a deal."

JD wasn't sure how much of that was truth and how much was Buck thinking he was funny. Knowing Buck, JD thought he had maybe told the truth. Or at least part of it. JD considered then other truths. "You ever get scared, Buck? On missions, I mean."

"Haven't you ever heard my knees knocking together?"

Buck was back to sounding amused, and JD thought he should maybe let the question go. But he wanted to know. He wanted to know if it was just him that ever wondered what he'd gotten himself into and how he could get himself out again just as fast as he possibly could. "I'm serious," he said. "My old sergeant always said a man would have to be a fool not to be scared when bullets start flying. But nothing ever seemed to bother him."

Buck looked to JD then back to the road. "There's a difference between being scared and not letting it stop you from doing what needs to be done. And I reckon that sergeant of yours knew what he was talking about."

"So then, you do get scared sometimes?"

"I'm no fool, JD."

JD thought on that for a time, then said, "So, it's okay, then? It doesn't mean I'm not cut out for what we do if I get scared sometimes too?"

Buck shot JD a look that said he was trying to figure out just how long ago it was he'd fallen off the turnip truck. "You think anyone is cut out for what we do?"

JD didn't even think on that one. "Chris is. Vin, too."

Buck shook his head. "Because a man is good at what we do doesn't mean he's cut out for it. The truth is, the only men cut out for this kind of life are men who like killing. The rest of us just try to get the job done so we can go home and forget we were ever here."

That wasn't at all what JD had expected to hear, and he wasn't sure he believed it. "You're not just saying that to make me feel better?"

"Son, the last thing I worry about is making you feel better. If a smack upside the head will keep you and the rest of us alive, you can be sure I'll give you two for good measure. So if I'm not smacking you, you must be doing okay. All right?"

That was about the most praise Buck had ever given him and probably as much as he was likely to give -- in between smacks. So JD smiled and said, "All right, Buck."

"Good. Now, you got any more questions? Or can my poor ears get a rest?"

"Well," JD said with a widening of his smile. "There is one more question I have for you."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"Do you know you just missed our turn?"

Buck sputtered and looked over one shoulder. He then braked the jeep, made a tight turn back in the direction they'd come, and reached out a hand to deliver not one smack to the back of JD's head but two.

*~*~*

When they reached Blessing, they found Nathan Jackson's small office without much trouble. Inside, a nurse manning a desk in the reception area was susceptible enough to Buck's charm that she let them in to see the doctor as soon as he was done with a patient -- and ahead of two people seated in chairs waiting patiently for their turn.

When Nathan walked into the exam room and saw JD, his face lit with recognition. Then he took in the cast on his right arm and said, "Don't tell me you got that in that fight the other night."

JD raised his casted arm. "Nope. This was from a different fight. One where they were throwing more than chairs at me."

"Is that why you're here? You need me to take a look at that?"

JD shook his head, then looked to Buck. "This is Buck Wilmington. He works with Vin and me."

Buck held out his hand. "I'm glad to meet you, doc. I heard about that fight you boys had. I'm sorry I missed it."

Nathan shook the proffered hand, then eyed the two men curiously. "What brings you here? One of you sick?"

"Not us," JD said. "It's Vin. He got hurt."

"In the same fight that left you with that broken arm?"

JD nodded. "He took some shrapnel in his back, but the doctors in the hospital won't take it out. They say it's too close to his spine, and they're worried they might do more harm than good if they operate."

"He have any paralysis?"

"No. He's hurting a lot though. And Vin's doctor said the shrapnel could maybe move on its own and leave Vin paralyzed the same as if the doctors mess up taking it out."

Nathan frowned. "How big a piece of metal are we talking about?"

"I don't know," Buck said. "But it can't be too big, seeing as the tear in Vin's back is nothing much."

"The thing is," JD said, "Vin wants it out. And if the Army doctors won't do it, he wants to find someone who will."

Nathan's frown deepened. "And you thought you'd ask me, see if I'd do it?"

"Would you? Operate, I mean."

"I can't. I'm not a surgeon, JD. I had some training, but from what you've said, you need someone who knows a lot more than I do."

JD's face fell. "Oh. The way your friend talked the other night, I thought maybe...." JD took in a breath, tried again. "But maybe you know someone who could do it? Someone here in England?"

Nathan's frown eased not at all. "I can recommend someone, but that doesn't mean she'll do what you want."

Buck perked right up. "She?"

Nathan ignored him, went on as if he hadn't interrupted. "Patricia's good, about the best I've seen. She can sometimes do what other surgeons won't even try for. But she won't risk what she doesn't have to. I'll ask her to take a look, see what she says."

JD grinned his relief. "That's great, Nathan. And can you have her do it today? Look at Vin, I mean."

Nathan eased his frown enough that time to raise one eyebrow. "There some reason you're in a hurry?"

"It's just that the doctors are talking about sending Vin back to the States."

"And that's bad? They've got lots of good surgeons back home, you know. I can even give you a couple of names."

"That's nice of you, doc," Buck said. "But Vin has a real good reason for not wanting to go home just yet."

"Good enough to risk losing the use of his legs?"

"He thinks so."

Nathan shifted his gaze between the two men, searching out what they weren't saying. When they offered no further explanation, he sighed and said, "Vin's in London, right?" JD and Buck nodded. "I'll go call Patricia right now, see if she can see him tonight."

*~*~*

The surgeon having agreed to take a look at Vin that night, Buck and JD drove on to the estate to fill Chris in on the latest development. A few hours later, they piled into the jeep for the ride back to London.

When they arrived at the hospital and walked into Vin and Ezra's room, both men were awake, Ezra playing a game of solitaire with his marked deck and Vin talking to Nathan Jackson seated in a chair he'd pulled next to Vin's bed.

"Hey, Nathan," JD said in surprise. "I didn't know you'd be here."

"I thought I'd stop in, visit Vin and Patricia both."

Nathan looked then to Chris, so Buck introduced them. "Dr. Jackson, this is our lieutenant, Chris Larabee."

Nathan stood, held out his hand. "This is quite a team you've got here, Lieutenant."

"And I'd like to keep them," Chris said as he took Nathan's hand and shook it. "I appreciate your helping out in that regard."

"I didn't do nothing but make a phone call. And speaking of which, Patricia is in with Vin's doctor and the Army's Chief Surgeon right now. She said she'd meet us back here when they're done."

"This doctor friend of yours really good?" Buck asked. "She been at this a while?"

His expression was sincere, but JD knew better. "That's his not so subtle way, Nathan, of asking if the doctor is young, single, and unattached."

Buck looked offended. "You saying I'm not looking after Vin's best interests? I just want to make sure Dr. Jackson's friend is qualified."

"Oh, she's qualified," Nathan said. "As for whether or not she's unattached, last I heard she was keeping company only with her cat."

Buck's expression eased into one of interest. "That's good, Doc. That she's qualified, I mean." He tried then for an innocent look. "And, um, how old would you say she is?"

"Oh, I never try to guess a lady's age."

"And you being so interested in her… qualifications," Vin said, "you might want to know she's tall and slender and has hair so fair it's white. Plus, she's got the sweetest way of talking. I could sit and listen to her all day."

"Yeah?" Buck was so interested JD expected him to start drooling at any minute. "You met her, did you?"

"She stopped in for a minute before she went to talk to the doctors." Vin sighed. "She reminds me of a real special lady I used to know."

"Oh?" Buck ran a hand through his hair and across his mustache. "And when are you expecting her back?"

The door swung open, and Nathan said, "Right now, I expect."

They all looked to the door, and through it stepped Dr. Weiss. He stopped and held the door open, and through it that time stepped a tall, slender woman with white hair -- and looking old enough to be JD's grandma.

"Hey, Patricia," Nathan said.

JD turned to Buck with a grin that widened when Buck shot a look at Vin that warned he'd find a way to pay him back for leading him on like that. When Vin returned Buck's look with a grin that said he wasn't worried, JD choked on a laugh and turned back to the doctors moving into the room.

Nathan looked to Chris. "Patricia, this is Vin's lieutenant, Chris Larabee. Lieutenant, this is Patricia Hillary."

Chris nodded in acknowledgment. "Dr. Hillary. Thank you for taking the time to consult on the case. I appreciate it."

"It's Miss Hillary," the doctor said in a cultured voice that sounded as sweet as Vin had claimed. "And you are quite welcome, Lieutenant."

"'Miss'?" Chris looked in confusion to Nathan. "This isn't the surgeon?"

"She's a surgeon, all right," Nathan said with a grin. "It's just that the British don't call their surgeons 'doctor' like those of us who know how to speak English the right way do. So I guess you could say they talk funny in more ways than one."

Miss Hillary laughed. "And here I thought you adored everything about me, Nathan, my dear." She moved further into the room and patted Nathan on the cheek as she went past him to Vin. She then took the chair Nathan had been sitting in and fixed her gaze on Vin. "Now, let's see if we can't get you sorted out, young man."

"That mean you'll do the surgery?"

"Perhaps." Miss Hillary crossed her ankles and made herself more comfortable in the hard chair. "Having studied the x-rays, I must say that I concur with the previous finding that the bullet is lodged in a most inconvenient spot. But I rate the chance of a successful removal as somewhat higher than my American colleagues." Vin's face brightened, and Miss Hillary raised a hand to forestall a premature celebration. "However, it is still far riskier than I like. So, before I agree to operate, you shall have to convince me there is sufficient reason to risk such a surgery and that you fully understand the risks involved."

Vin's expression went blank. His tone, however, when he spoke sounded of anger. "In other words, you'll decide if I got reason enough and smarts enough to know my own mind?"

"It sounds rather arrogant put like that, doesn't it?" Miss Hillary sounded apologetic rather than offended. "But in medicine a choice must sometimes be made between the lesser of two evils. And in this case, the choice would seem to argue against surgery. You, on the other hand, argue for it. In order to weigh the choices and the evil therein, I need to be fully apprised of the reasons for your choice."

"It ain't enough that I'm willing to risk something going wrong?"

"It might be did I know you well enough to trust in your judgment." Vin started to say something more, and again Miss Hillary stopped him with a hand held up. "You must understand, Mr. Tanner, that doctors must use their own judgment in deciding a course of treatment. To hold the welfare of another in one's hands is a sacred trust that must not be abused. And when patients are in pain or emotionally distraught, they sometimes make unsound decisions. A doctor must therefore rely on his own unclouded judgment, even if it is in opposition to the patient's stated wishes. It is what patients deserve and what society rightfully demands."

Vin said nothing to that. Instead, he set his jaw in stubborn lines and turned his gaze away.

Miss Hillary wasn't content with that as a response and tried for more. "It has been said that I am frightfully easy to persuade. So why don't you have a go at it?"

Still Vin remained silent, so Nathan said, "There's nobody here, Vin, that wants anything but what's best for you. And I know you're the best judge of that, but you're asking folks to maybe do you wrong. So they got a right to know that what you want really is what's best. And they can't do that unless they have all the facts."

That won a response. Vin turned and flashed a look of anger that took in both Nathan and Miss Hillary. "You want facts? Then how about this -- if the Army cuts me loose, I'll go back to Texas and straight into the prison cell they let me out of to come here."

Nathan looked surprised, but Miss Hillary seemed unfazed. Her expression no more than thoughtful, she said, "I see."

"Do you?" Vin's tone was sneering, his expression angry. "You got any idea what it's like in prison? What it's like to have people looking down on you like you're nothing, like you're worse than nothing? To have to fight for space, for the right to be left alone, to keep living even? You even begin to know what it's like to have someone deciding when and what you eat, where you sleep, how you spend every blessed minute of the day? You know what it's like to live behind bars and want more than you want to breathe to get past them and out into the world again?"

Still Miss Hillary was unfazed. "It sounds frightful. And I can certainly understand your desire to escape such a life. I'm not convinced, however, that the choice you have made is a valid one."

JD saw Vin's chances slipping away and tried to arrest their slide. "He didn't do what they say he did, ma'am. He deserves not to have to go back there."

Miss Hillary looked to him. "My dear boy, it matters not to me whether he is innocent or guilty of whatever crime someone somewhere thinks he has committed. Either way, I should do no less than my utmost for him. And I would not be doing that utmost did I not question Mr. Tanner's judgment. To have two such choices laid before him is not to be envied. And I can certainly understand the rush to choose what might appear to be his best hope. In that rush, however, I fear he has failed to adequately assess the risks, to consider that he might, in fact, end up worse off than he otherwise would. Certainly to be incarcerated is a terrible thing. But how much worse might it be if he were paralyzed?"

She looked again to Vin. "I understand your choice. And I cannot say you are wrong to make it. Neither, however, am I convinced you are in the right of it."

"What does he have to do to convince you?" Chris asked.

Miss Hillary turned to him. "Are you convinced, Lieutenant? You know your man better than I. Do you believe he has thoroughly considered all aspects of the matter and arrived at a logical decision? Or has he instead reacted emotionally, without proper thought having been given? Is he a man of impulse or reasoned response? Is he used to making right choices? Or is he prone to hasty ill-thought decisions? Do you normally trust his judgment?"

She looked at Chris like she really wanted to know, and he shifted a look to Vin and back, then said, "He's only been under my command for a few days. So I really can't tell you any of what you want to know."

"Maybe she could talk to General Travis," Buck said. "I reckon he knows Vin better than anyone else in these parts."

"That might prove useful."

"More useful," Vin said with anger sounding, "than talking to me? Or are you going to keep talking around me like I ain't here?"

Before anyone else could say anything, Ezra spoke up. "Mr. Tanner has a point. No one knows him as well as he does himself. Perhaps then you should let him speak for himself -- to one trained to listen and to hear, to sift through all the lies we tell each other and ourselves and to arrive at the truth of a man."

JD frowned. "You want to get an interrogator in here?"

Ezra's eyebrows rose, and JD suspected he had rolled his eyes behind his bandages. "Not an interrogator, son. A psychiatrist. I assume there is one on staff here at the hospital."

"There is," Nathan said. "And I know just the one for the job." He looked to Dr. Weiss. "Josiah Sanchez. You know him?"

Dr. Weiss nodded. "Certainly. I'll contact him first thing in the morning, ask him to consult on the case."

Chris looked to Miss Hillary. "Will that do?"

She nodded. "I think it a fine idea." She turned to Vin and smiled. "I know you see me as the enemy at the moment, but believe me when I say I would like nothing more than to restore you to good health and a chance at a good life. I therefore eagerly await hearing from Dr. Sanchez. Until then, I shall bid you a restful night's sleep." She stood and nodded to those in the room before going out the door again, Dr. Weiss in her wake.

When the door closed behind them, Buck looked to Vin and said, "That must have been some lady the doc reminded you of. Someone you took in while bounty hunting, maybe? Some sweet little old lady in the habit of poisoning lonely old men and burying them in her basement?"

"Patricia can be tough," Nathan said. "That's a fact. But she's a good woman. Not to mention a good doctor. If anyone can do right by Vin, she can."

"What about this psychiatrist?" Chris asked. "You figure he'll do right by Tanner, too?"

"Josiah's a hard man to know, but it seems like his main mission in life is to help folk. There's a church-run orphanage in Blessing he helps out at -- that's where we met. He's done a lot of good. There are kids there he's likely saved from lives gone bad. So if Vin doesn't have his head screwed on right now, he will once Josiah gets done with him."

Vin sighed, the sound loud and designed to be noticed. His gaze on the ceiling above him, he said, as if carrying on both sides of a conversation, "That all right with you, Vin? You want I should set up a meeting with this new doc?" He fell silent for a moment as if considering the proposal, then said, "I reckon that would be all right. Thanks for asking."

Buck chuckled. "Okay, Vin. We get the message. No more talking around you."

Chris looked at his watch, then to Ezra and Vin. "We'd best be getting back to the estate. You boys need anything before we go?"

"A nice thick steak and a chilled bottle of wine would not go amiss," Ezra said.

"Yeah, Ezra, I'll get right on that." Chris looked then to Nathan. "What about you, Doc? You need a ride back to town?"

"Thanks, but I'm fine."

Chris held his hand out and said, "Thanks again for all your help."

"Just returning the favor." Nathan shook the hand extended, then turned to Vin. "I'll stop back in again when I can, see how things are going. Until then, you take care. You hear?"

"I hear, Doc. And thanks."

Nathan took his leave, and JD followed Chris and Buck to the door after him. He stopped though when Buck paused at the door, turned to Vin, and said, "Who does that lady doc remind you of?"

One corner of Vin's mouth quirked into a half-smile. "My grandma. She was a sweet little thing -- except when she got together with the other women of the Shining Light Ladies' Temperance Society. I once saw her lay out three rowdy drunks, one right after the other. After that, big, strong men with whiskey on their breath would run when they saw her coming."

Buck laughed. "With blood like that running through you, you're going to be okay."

"You won't be though," Chris said with a growl, "if you don't get a move on."

Buck moved through the door then with a quick, "Good night, boys."

As JD moved behind him and the door began to close, he heard Ezra say, "Now, Mr. Tanner, my own family tree having a few nuts in it, I have more than a passing acquaintance with the psychiatric community. Here is what you'll need to do to convince the doctor tomorrow of your good mental health. Not, of course, that I am suggesting you aren't of a perfectly sound mind."

JD held the door open for Vin's response and smiled when he said, "Not if you want to keep breathing, you ain't." His smile widening into a grin, he thought Buck was right. Vin would be okay. The team would make sure of that.

*~*~*

"Vin Tanner?" Josiah Sanchez stepped into the patient room and eyed the sole occupant quizzically.

The man Josiah took to be his patient fixed him with an expression Josiah was long used to seeing, his chosen specialty not one that generally had his patients happy to see him. "You the shrink?" Tanner asked.

Josiah moved into the room towards the chair set between the two beds, one of them empty but showing signs of recent use. He nodded to the empty bed. "Your roommate get discharged?"

Tanner shook his head. "They took him for a change of scenery so's we could talk in private."

Josiah reached the chair, sat down in it, and studied the man who wasn't quite what he'd expected, that long hair of his not exactly up to Army standards. "I assume you know why I'm here."

Tanner nodded. "You get to tell the doc it's okay to cut on me."

"Or not."

Tanner angled his head on the pillow. "You another one of them doctors that figure they know what's best for a man?"

Josiah chuckled. "Son, I rarely know what's best to eat for lunch even. Knowing what's best for someone I don't know is beyond me." He settled more comfortably in the chair. "Suppose you tell me what's going on. I know about that metal you've got in your back and that the Army surgeons refused to take it out. Now you've got yourself a civilian doctor?"

"That's right. And she's worried I haven't given things enough thought, wants you to make sure I know what I'm doing."

"Then suppose you tell me what could go wrong and why it is you're willing to bet on the surgery going right."

Tanner kept his gaze steady on Josiah and said, "What did they tell you about me, Doc? Did they say I'm a con, that if this surgery doesn't work I go back to prison?"

Tanner's voice was tight, his words clipped, and Josiah read not anger in his tone but defiance, as if he dared Josiah to judge him, to move away so as to keep from being too close to one beneath contempt. Not a man then used to being judged a lesser being. Pride maybe hadn't gone before his fall but it had certainly taken a beating.

"Dr. Weiss told me only about your back and the surgery," Josiah said, his tone even.

"Nathan Jackson didn't say anything to you either?"

"Nathan? What's he have to do with this? He get drafted in the past few days?"

"No. I met up with him a couple of days before I got hurt. When the Army docs wouldn't operate, some teammates of mine hunted Nathan up, asked for help. He suggested the lady doc -- and you."

"I see," Josiah said, what wasn't said as interesting as what was. "It sounds then like you're pretty determined to have the surgery. Why is that? To avoid going back to prison?"

"You don't think that's a good enough reason?"

"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."

Tanner turned his gaze away, fastened it on the ceiling, frowned at it. He was silent for a long moment, not as if he hoped to avoid giving an answer but as if he searched one out. Then, answer found, he said, "You think you know what it's like. Leastways I did before I got to prison. I figured it was all about bars, about being trapped in a place I couldn't get away from. About freedom -- or the lack of it. But that ain't the worst of it. The worst ain't even being surrounded by men who'd stick a shiv in you just to relieve the boredom of a day that's the same as the one before and the thousand that went before that one. It ain't even the guards who treat you worse than they'd treat an animal, who are worse sometimes than the men they keep locked up. And after a while, it ain't even about how all that makes you feel, like you're nothing and nobody, that you don't deserve any better than you get. The worst is how it changes you."

His frown deepened, some lost quality added to it, to his voice as well as he went on. "You go in thinking you'll never be like the other men there, that you're better than that. You can't believe you'd ever fight a man over a half-smoked butt or the best spot in the exercise yard to catch a bit of winter sun. You try to stay the man you were -- or that you'd like to think you were. But you can't be in a place like that, among men like that, and not become one of them. It's like falling into a river and hoping you won't get wet."

Tanner jerked his head, as if to escape an unwanted thought. "It's nothing like what you think it will be, Doc. And maybe none of us are ever who we think we are." He shifted his gaze back to Josiah. "If I go back there, I'll never leave. They could throw the prison gates open, pardon me, whatever. No matter where I am or what I'm doing, I'll still be there, in that place. I'll still be Prisoner Number 70389 willing to hurt a man for some sun."

"And you figure it's worth any risk to stay out of that place, to keep from being that man you're afraid you'll end up being?"

"I'm here, ain't I?" Anger seeped into Tanner's tone. "You think I didn't think about dying when I agreed to be the Army's pet sniper? You think I didn't think I could end up dead or worse? Let me tell you, Doc, dead is better than what I had in that place. And there isn't much worse than going back. War might be hell, but it don't last forever."

"And prison does?"

"I got a life sentence, Doc. Only it ain't life but a living death. And if there's anything I can do to keep from going back there, I'll do it." Tanner set his jaw. "You figure that makes me crazy?"

"What do you think?"

"I think the only hope I've got of staying sane is to keep out of that place."

That defiance was back in Tanner's tone, a warning given that he wouldn't be backing down from his goal. That something not unfamiliar to Josiah, his own life one of a stubborn determination to find his own way no matter the bumps and bruises collected, he said, "Tell me what you do. You said you're a sniper. On the lines?"

"Special Forces."

"So you go behind the lines. That must get pretty hairy."

"It has its moments."

"And it beats prison?" Tanner said nothing to that, didn't have to. "You said you're part of a team?"

"Yeah. Right now it's me and four other guys."

"You've been together long?"

"I got hit our first mission together. We'd been together all of about two days by then."

Josiah raised an eyebrow. "Yet your teammates sought Dr. Jackson out for you, a man you'd met once. And he, in turn, suggested not only a surgeon but me." Tanner looked at him like he didn't know where he was going and wasn't sure he wanted to go along for the ride. "Does your team know about your record?"

"They do." Tanner's tone was wary, that uncertainty working in him become suspicion.

"And I'm guessing Nathan does too, or you wouldn't have thought he'd told me about it."

"Yeah? So?" Tanner's tone that time was one of challenge, that earlier defiance returned.

"So, it sounds to me like you're a man that others take to right off."

Tanner eyed Josiah a moment, tried to work through his assessment of his character, to find a trap set. Unable to discover what he figured Josiah must be up to, he said, "So? What if they do? That mean something?"

Josiah, however, wasn't going to do his work for him, said only, "Oh, it means something. Most everything does." Tanner frowned at him, and Josiah went blithely on. "Tell me, when you and your team go out on a mission, are you restrained in any way?"

"You mean, do I go on missions in handcuffs?" Tanner hesitated a moment before answering, his frown in place and that trap suspected still searched out. Unable still to figure out what path Josiah was leading him down, he said, "I wouldn't be much good as a sniper if I couldn't hold a rifle -- or if they couldn't trust me with one."

"What about here in England? I didn't notice a guard on your door when I came in. They don't keep you under lock and key?"

"No."

Josiah cocked his head, the gesture that of a man who'd come upon something curious that warranted further study. "Now, why is that? A desperate criminal like you, I would think they'd treat you like one."

Tanner narrowed his eyes, his suspicions not eased but their focus at least narrowed. "They did at first."

"But not now?"

"No."

"You know why that is?"

Back came that defiance, Tanner apparently not much of one for a game whose rules he couldn't divine. "I never asked. I figure it's best not to mess with a good thing."

"So your freedom is no more restricted than any other soldier's?"

"Except I'm not a soldier. I'm not enlisted." That was a point Tanner seemed to think an important distinction, as if he was determined to throw his status as a convicted criminal in his own face. Before anyone else could do so, perhaps.

Josiah went on as if the distinction didn't matter -- although he knew it did, if not in the way Tanner thought. "That explains the hair. It doesn't, however, explain how it is you're wandering around free. Nor does it explain why you haven't taken off."

Tanner's eyes widened, as if to better scout out that path Josiah was leading him down, landmarks recognized and the path's ending suspected.

Josiah pointed out other landmarks. "You say you'd do anything to keep from going back to prison, that you'd risk anything. And I'm guessing the deal you made with the Army was that if you couldn't keep going on missions, you'd have to go back. So why risk getting hurt if you don't have to? Why risk getting sent back? Why didn't you take off the first opportunity you had to escape? Wouldn't that have made more sense?"

Tanner ducked down a side trail, his tone that of an insult taken as he said, "You saying I'm not too bright?"

Josiah took pity on him, set him back on the right path. "I'm saying it looks to me that, despite what you say, you wouldn't risk anything and everything to keep from going back to prison."

Again Tanner narrowed his eyes. "What's that mean? That good or bad?"

"Oh, I'd say that was good. It shows you've got sense, that you think a thing through and don't just grab at whatever looks shiniest."

Tanner had no trouble following the path that time, was ready to skip ahead to an ending not yet sure. "So you'll tell that lady doc to go ahead and operate?"

"Not just yet."

Tanner let out a frustrated breath. "What more do you need to know? How I felt about my mother? What kind of dreams I have? What?"

"You dream about crows lately?"

"What?" Tanner frowned, the question obviously not one that made sense to him. Still he answered it, saying, "No."

"Then your dreams aren't important. What is important is looking ahead to all that could go wrong and deciding if it's something you can live with. Did the doctors explain what could happen if that bit of metal in you takes out a piece of your spinal cord when they try to remove it?"

"They told me."

"And did you think about what it would mean not to have the use of your legs? Not to be able to walk, to go to the bathroom by yourself, not to be able to make love to a woman again?"

Tanner let out a scoffing breath. "You think they've got women in prison? And you can't go to the bathroom there without someone's eyes on you."

"Then let me ask you this -- as bad as prison is for a man with two good legs, how bad do you think it would be if you were paralyzed from the waist down?"

"About as bad as it gets, I reckon." Tanner let out another breath, that one the sigh of a man admitting he'd come up against something he couldn't quite get a handle on. "And I don't know how I'd deal with that. Hell, I haven't even figured out yet how to deal with prison with two good legs. I do know this though -- however much worse things could get if I have that surgery, I've got no chance without it of things ever being better."

Josiah studied him a moment, considered all that he'd so far said. Then, more yet he wanted to know before they were done, he said, "All right. Let's talk some more. Tell me about your childhood."

*~*~*

Chris sat in Weiss' office wishing he was anywhere else. Not only was Weiss there waiting on Dr. Sanchez's report along with Miss Hillary, General Travis had decided to hear the psychiatric evaluation in person. Like having to keep company with the two doctors wasn't bad enough? So there Chris sat trying not to nod off as the two doctors discussed not only Tanner's case but others even more involved and boring. Which left him to entertain the general. Or try to. Small talk, after all, wasn't exactly his strength, and he found military talk nearly as boring as the medicalese the doctors were engaging in. Still, he played the good little officer he wasn't and kept a semblance of conversation going with the general.

And all that he did for a man he hadn't wanted on his team and still wasn't any too sure about.

It would have been different if he could have asked the general what he knew of Tanner, get him to reveal his reasons for getting him out of jail and turning him loose on the Axis Powers. For all, however, that Chris fell short of the military's idea of an officer and a gentleman, he wasn't fool enough to question a general's judgment -- which any question about Tanner coming from him would be.

Then Travis himself broached the subject, saying, "How's Vin working out for you, Lieutenant?"

Chris thought at first the general was making small talk of his own, that he wasn't all that interested in whatever reply Chris might make, that he expected him to smile and say how grateful he was for the general's generous loan to his team of a convicted murderer. But Travis' expression was controlled rather than bored, and there was a sharp interest in his eyes that warned he wouldn't be happy with platitudes or a convenient lie.

Figuring he wouldn't be too happy with the truth either, Chris turned the question back on him. "I'm surprised you allowed him on my team, sir. A man as valuable as Tanner, I'd have thought you would insist he have the best team you could find at his back."

Travis smiled. "You haven't known Vin very long, Lieutenant. He has a knack for getting people to see things his way." Noting the look of distaste Chris couldn't keep from flashing across his face, Travis added, "Oh, I know. You're thinking 'manipulative bastard.' After all, he got out of prison, is wandering around loose. But it's not what you're thinking. Vin isn't what you're thinking."

He flicked a look at the doctors still involved in their discussion, then looked again to Chris and said, "I had a son. He was a reporter, and a darned good one. He had a wife, a son. A mother who thought the sun rose and set on him. And one day, someone murdered him. Put a bullet in him, and that was that." He fell silent, then said, "Do you know what that's like, Lieutenant, to lose a son? To lose your only child?"

Chris hesitated only a moment before saying, "Yes, sir. I do."

Travis looked taken aback, but only for a second. Then he went on. "The police investigated, found a suspect they were pretty sure of. Before they could arrest him, he took off. They tried to hunt him down, but no one could find him. I hired detectives on my own, and they couldn't track him down either." Travis' gaze lost its focus. "I had a wife grieving herself into what I began to fear was an early grave. A daughter-in-law and a grandson who couldn't understand why such a thing had happened. They looked to me for answers -- but I couldn't understand any of it myself. And knowing my son was dead and the man responsible for that was out there running free...." Travis focused again on Chris. "It was more than obscene. I couldn't rest, couldn't go on with life until my son's murderer was brought to justice. Nothing else would ever be right until that was."

Chris figured he knew how Tanner fit into the picture. According to his file, he'd been a bounty hunter. That was just one of many things that had had Chris trying to keep him off his team.

Not to his surprise, Travis said, "I heard about a bounty hunter. A young man by the name of Vin Tanner. The word was that he was good. Very good. So I arranged a meeting with him, expecting someone rough and more than a little wild. And that was Vin." Travis flashed Chris a smile, an amused fondness shining there. "But there was something else about him, a quietness that was like the calm in the center of a storm. He didn't promise me anything, didn't ask for money. He just said he'd do his best. And three months later, I got a call from the county sheriff. He said my son's murderer had been caught."

"Alive?"

Travis nodded. "When he said that Vin was the one who had tracked him down and caught him, I invited Vin to the house. I don't know why, really. I could have wired him the reward I'd offered. I guess maybe I wanted to make it more real." He shrugged. "Anyway, he came to the house, answered my questions, and collected his reward. I showed him to the door, and that was it. Only, it wasn't."

A look of grief remembered flashed across Travis' face and his eyes again lost their focus. "I told you my wife had trouble dealing with my son's death. She wouldn't talk about it, wouldn't talk about him. Wouldn't talk about much of anything anymore. She just drifted through the days trying to keep from touching anyone or anything, to keep from being touched. I thought I was going to lose her. I really did."

Chris understood that way of coping, that need to curl up in a ball so tight that nothing could get through. It was still how he got through most days.

"Shortly after Vin left," Travis went on, "I looked out a window that overlooked the front of the house, and there he was, standing by the corral across the way. And with him was my wife, Evie. They were talking -- about what I never knew. At the time, I didn't know what to think. I figured he was telling her about catching our son's murderer, and I couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or a very bad idea. Then I noticed that Evie was talking to him, really talking. Not like she did with me anymore, a few words in passing until she could be alone again. Words seemed to be pouring out of her."

Travis shook his head. "I watched through that window for a good hour, Lieutenant, before Vin Tanner took his leave of my wife and drove off. When he was gone and Evie was alone again, I went out to her. She didn't say anything, just took my hand and led me on a walk around the property like she had always loved to do. After that, she began to come back to me, bit by bit. And every so often, Vin Tanner would stop by, and the two of them would sit and talk, sometimes for hours."

Chris didn't know what to make of that, didn't know what he was supposed to make of it. Working the conversation around then as much to his own area of interest as he dared, he said, "And after he was arrested?"

"She got mad." Travis chuckled. "She did everything she could for him, including calling the governor, more than a few state legislators, and both of Texas' senators in DC. And when nothing she did worked, when he was convicted and sent to prison, she went to him. Every Sunday. And still they talked. In fact, it was after one of those talks that she figured out how to win his freedom."

"It was your wife's idea to use him as a sniper in the Army?"

Travis put a finger to his lips. "Let's not let that get about, Lieutenant. I've been taking credit for that particular idea, and I'd just as soon it not get out that my wife is the brains of the outfit."

Chris wasn't sure that was saying much if Travis went along with the plan to get Tanner out of jail. On the other hand, he probably would have done the same for his wife, so he let it go and said, "Does she know about Tanner? About his back?"

"Not yet. I'm waiting until I have something definite to report." A knock sounded on the door to the office, and Travis looked towards it. "And speaking of which...."

Weiss called for his visitor to enter, and the door swung open to reveal an older man with graying hair. "Ah, Dr. Sanchez," Weiss said. "Please, come in." He waved Sanchez to a seat next to Miss Hillary and made introductions all around.

When he was seated, Miss Hillary said, "Have you determined Mr. Tanner's suitability for surgery, Doctor?"

Sanchez nodded. "I'd say that if ever a man knew his own mind, it's Vin Tanner." He looked to Chris. "That's quite a young man you have on your team, Lieutenant."

"And will he be staying on my team?"

Sanchez jerked his chin to Miss Hillary. "I'd say that's up to the good doctor there. But as far as I'm concerned, there's no reason to refuse the surgery on psychological grounds."

"I'll consult with the Operating Theatre then and get Mr. Tanner on the schedule," Miss Hillary said. She looked to Dr. Weiss. "If you have no objection, that is."

Weiss shook his head. "I'm still not sold on the advisability of the surgery, but you've convinced our Chief Surgeon it's doable, so I'm certainly not going to turn thumbs down on it. I'll simply wish you the best of luck."

"Thank you, Doctor." Miss Hillary stood, looked to Travis and Chris. "I shall visit Mr. Tanner as soon as I have the surgery scheduled. Perhaps you would like to see him now and give him the news?"

"We'll do that," Travis said, as he climbed to his feet. "Thank you."

Miss Hillary took her leave, and Travis turned to Dr. Sanchez. "I'd like to thank you as well, Doctor. You've been most helpful."

"I'm glad I was able to help, General." Sanchez stood as well. "If there's anything else I can do, let me know."

"No offense, Doctor, but I'm very much hoping your services won't be needed again."

"Amen to that, General."

With that, Sanchez took his leave, and Travis and Chris left Weiss' office on his heels. They then headed for Vin's room to deliver the good news.

*~*~*

"He asked about your childhood?" JD frowned in confusion at Vin. "Why?"

"Hell if I know."

The team was nearly all together again, Buck and JD having wheeled Ezra back into the room he shared with Vin a few minutes after Josiah Sanchez left. Vin had then told them how his session with the doctor had gone.

"Did he ask about your sex life, too?" Buck waggled his eyebrows at Vin, like he thought Vin would actually share lurid details of his life with him.

JD rolled his eyes at him. "His sex life? Why would he ask about that?"

"It all comes down to sex for those fellas."

"Yeah? And how would you know?"

Ezra laid a black ten on a red Jack in the game of Solitaire he had going on his over-the-bed table and said, "I have always suspected insanity ran amok through Buck's family tree. And they do say the nut doesn't fall far from the tree."

"Hardy ha ha," Buck said. "And I suppose with a mother like you've got you don't have a few squirrels running loose through your family's attics?"

Ezra grinned. "More than a few, actually."

JD got pointedly back on topic, his gaze on Vin as he said, "But, in the end, after all that talking you and him did, the doctor said he was going to sign off on the surgery?"

"He said he would."

"So it's settled. You'll have the surgery and be back on the team in no time." JD raised his arm in its cast and made a face at it. "Before I will, more than likely."

Vin looked from JD to Buck, his expression sober. "No matter what comes of all this, I just want you boys to know I appreciate what you did for me, talking to Nathan like you did."

JD stood a little straighter. "You don't have to thank us. We're a team. That's what team is all about -- watching each others' backs."

"The kid's right," Buck said. He then grinned and added, "Besides, we can't afford to lose you and miss out on nice easy assignments like this last one we had."

The door opened before anyone could reply to that, and Chris and General Travis entered the room.

Once the formalities of being in a general's presence had been observed, Buck didn't waste any time asking what they'd all gathered to hear. "Did you talk to Dr. Hillary? Has that shrink been to see her yet?"

"We have," Chris said. "And he has."

"And?"

"And she's talking to the OR now, getting the surgery scheduled."

All eyes turned to Vin, who said, "She say when she's going to do it?"

"As soon as she could get it on the schedule, I guess. She'll be in as soon as she knows."

Even as Chris spoke, the door opened again, and Miss Hillary stepped into the room. She swept her gaze around those gathered there and settled it on Vin. "You are, I assume, still eager to proceed with the surgery?"

Vin's answer was immediate. "When can you get it done?"

"How about now?"

Vin blinked. "Now?"

Miss Hillary nodded. "The Operating Theatre had a cancellation, so if you're agreed, we can start getting you ready right away." She looked apologetic. "I know it's rather rushed. We can reschedule for tomorrow, if you'd rather."

"No." Vin's response was again immediate and most emphatic. "Right now is fine."

"Very good, then. There is, however, one thing I need to make clear before we proceed any further. I feel reasonably certain that I can remove the shrapnel from your back without undue risk. However, should the risk prove unacceptable at any point during the surgery, I shall be forced to leave the shrapnel where it lies. Is that acceptable?"

Vin didn't much look like it was. Frowning, he said, "Do I have a choice?"

"No. I'm afraid not."

Vin tightened his jaw, then let out a breath and said, "Then I guess I accept."

Miss Hillary nodded, the matter settled and things to do. "Very well, then. I shall inform the nursing staff. They'll be in shortly to get you ready to go." She looked to the rest of those in the room. "You gentlemen will be staying?"

Chris spoke without hesitation. "The boys and I will."

Then it was General Travis' turn. "How long is the surgery likely to take?"

"A bit of time, I'm afraid."

Travis sent Vin a look of apology. "I'm afraid I can't stay -- I have business to attend to. But I'll be back as soon as I can. In the meantime --" He turned to Miss Hillary. "Take good care of him. He's not only one of the Army's more valuable resources, he means a great deal to my wife."

Miss Hillary's expression softened. "You can be sure I will take very good care of him, General. And so you may tell your wife." She looked again to Vin. "I shall take my leave of you then and see you shortly."

She took off then to get ready, and Travis followed after her.

When the door closed behind them, JD looked to Vin and uncertainly said, "Is it okay to wish you luck? Or should I maybe tell you to break a leg or something?"

Buck rolled his eyes. "This isn't the theater, JD. And I'm thinking it's not a good idea to go wishing bad luck on someone who's lying in a hospital bed and about to go under the knife."

Vin ignored him, centered his attention on JD. "Wish away, kid. I reckon I can use all the good luck I can get."

"One should never count on luck, my friend," Ezra said. "Better to keep an ace up your sleeve." He swept an arm through the air, flicked his wrist, and an ace of spades appeared in his hand. "And I have every confidence that Miss Hillary shall prove to be your ace. The question then will be -- which of us shall win our release first?"

"You taking bets on that?" Buck asked, his tone one of interest.

"Naturally."

"Then count me in -- and put my money on Vin."

The door opened again, that time to admit a couple of nurses. "Sorry, boys," one of them said. "We need to get the patient ready for surgery. You can wait in the Waiting Room down the hall."

Buck and JD wished Vin good luck and started for the door, only to stop when Chris remained in place and said, "I didn't thank you for what you did back at that checkpoint."

"There's no need for that, Lieutenant," Vin said. "Like JD said -- a team watches each other's backs."

Chris nodded, started again to leave, then again turned back, saying, "You figure it out yet?"

Vin cocked his head, his expression one of puzzlement. "Figure what out?"

"Whether it was good luck or bad that brought you to the team."

Vin shrugged. "I'm thinking Ezra has the right of it -- a man makes his own luck. Even if he has to cheat to do it."

Ezra grinned. "There is hope for you yet, Mr. Tanner."

Vin returned his grin, then turned again to Chris. "I don't regret signing on with you boys, if that's what you're asking. No matter how this goes down."

Chris said nothing to that, said only, "Good luck with the surgery."

He turned then and herded JD and Buck out of the room before him.

*~*~*

Once Vin went into surgery, the remainder of the team reassembled in the room he shared with Ezra. The room seemed, however, to grow progressively smaller and smaller as JD gave vent to numerous worries and concerns. At last, Buck sent him off to wheel a less than delighted Ezra around the hospital for a change of pace. He then leaned over from his seat on Vin's bed, took up a glass of water sitting on Ezra's night table, and offered it to Chris seated in the chair between beds.

Chris looked from the glass to Buck, his expression puzzled. "What's that for?"

"To wash down what's sticking in your craw."

Chris narrowed his eyes. "Meaning?"

He didn't much sound like he was really looking for an answer, but Buck gave him one anyway. "Meaning, I don't imagine that thanking Vin for saving your neck went down any too well."

Chris narrowed his eyes further. "You going somewhere with this?"

"Yep -- wherever it is you've already gone." Buck ignored the look Chris gave him that warned he didn't much like being followed to whatever place he'd gone to. He then set the rejected glass of water down on the table and eyed Chris curiously. "Did you mean what you said?"

"About what?"

"About wishing Vin luck."

Chris blew out an angry breath. "You think I'm hoping he ends up paralyzed?"

"No. But can you really tell me some part of you isn't hoping he lands back in prison?"

Chris clenched his jaw, looked like he was going to say something, then apparently thought better of it, said instead, "I never wanted him on the team. You know that."

"I do. And I reckon I know why."

"Then why are we getting into this?"

"Because the fact is -- Vin is on the team. Until that lady doc tells us otherwise, that is."

"And? So?"

Chris' tone was one of challenge and warning -- and Buck ignored both to issue a challenge of his own. "Why do you think Vin picked our team to join up with?"

Chris looked like he thought he was on safer ground, said in a milder tone, "He said he figured we must know what we're doing, seeing as at least some of us who started out on the team are still alive and kicking."

"You buy that?"

Chris no longer looked quite so sure of the ground beneath him. "Shouldn't I?"

Buck shrugged. "That might figure into it. Likely it even does. But I have trouble believing that's the whole story. Think about it. He goes to prison, gets out so he can come over here and kill Krauts for the Army. He's not even an ex-con -- he's a convicted criminal still serving time. A murderer -- or so the State of Texas says. How do you think his other teams felt having a man like that shoved on them?"

"Probably about the same as I do."

"And you think Vin didn't know that? You think he doesn't know that?"

"And you think it bothers him? A man like that?" Chris' tone was scoffing, and he looked at Buck like he'd just suggested the Tooth Fairy was real.

Buck frowned at him. "Just what kind of man do you figure he'd have to be not to be bothered?" He blew out a breath. "Hell, if it was me, I'd be bothered plenty. And I'd look around for a team I could fit in with a little better. A team made up of screw-ups and misfits that maybe wouldn't mind so much having someone on the team that made them look good."

"Except I do mind."

"Because you think he's trouble. And, hell, he probably is. But I'm thinking he's our kind of trouble."

"Only if he's innocent. And you really think he is?" Chris looked at Buck that time like he not only believed in the Tooth Fairy, he was insisting he'd dated her and her sister. "You honestly don't think he killed anyone?"

"Not whoever it is they say he did. Or at least not for whatever reason they said."

"And why would you believe that? Because he told you he was innocent?"

Buck shook his head. "Vin never said a word about it -- and it wouldn't have mattered if he had. I've got eyes, Chris. I can see he isn't that kind of man."

"And what kind of man would that be? The kind who would murder? Or the kind who kills?" Chris put a hand up to keep Buck from arguing semantics. "Don't tell me there's a difference. I know there is. But how much difference? Enough to bet your life on?" He took a breath in, let it out slow, spoke as if stating the obvious to one who wasn't too bright. "He's a sniper, Buck. It's his job to kill people. Not in the heat of battle. Not shooting at a distance into a mass of the enemy and hoping he hits one. He takes out a man not shooting back and maybe not even armed. And you're telling me that's not killing? That it's not killing a man in cold blood? Hell, I'm not even sure it's not murder."

"What it is," Buck said, "is war. And say what you like, sniping at the enemy isn't the same as shooting a man in a bar because he spilled his drink on you. A soldier goes home, he leaves the killing behind him. That man in the bar will kill whenever he's of a mind to, would maybe even come to enjoy it. You think that's Vin?"

"Maybe not." It was a concession, but Buck could tell by the tone with which it was uttered that such a fine point didn't much matter to Chris, his vision too farsighted for him to focus on anything that close up. "But you can't say Tanner isn't a killer. And maybe he doesn't do it indiscriminately or much like it. But he does it. And whether he likes killing or not, he sure as hell likes the hunt."

Buck was no longer sure what point they were arguing, wasn't sure Chris himself knew. Hoping for clarification, he said, "And why does that bother you?"

"Because a man like that likes to win. And that kind of game has no rules."

"Rules?" Buck wasn't sure he'd heard right, thought he couldn't possibly have. "Since when are you a by-the-book kind of a guy?"

"There are rules that a man doesn't break." Chris spoke evenly, his tone that of a man speaking of something sacred. "Not if he wants to be able to look himself in the mirror. Not if he wants to be human."

Buck still wasn't sure what Chris was getting at. "And you think Vin's broken a few of those rules?"

"I don't know. That's what has me worried."

And that was what it came down to then, that uncertainty, Chris a man who liked being sure of things, who hated the color grey. Buck tried then another tack. "All right. I can give you that. But let me say this -- you don't want him on the team because of who and what he is? Well, that's just why I'm glad to have him -- maybe he can keep us alive and breathing a little longer. Hell, he's already done that for you. And while we're at it, let's not go getting too full of ourselves. Vin Tanner is a killer? Well, so are we. We just wrap our killings up in prettier paper."

He decided then to leave Chris with that food for thought. Getting up from the bed, he said, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go rescue Ezra. It's bad enough him not being able to see. He doesn't need JD talking his ears off too."

He went then in search of the two missing members of the team and found Ezra in a wheelchair in the hospital's back courtyard. JD not in sight, Buck grinned as he neared Ezra and said, "Where'd you hide the body?"

Ezra jerked his head in Buck's direction. "Quick. I sent our young friend for a cup of tea. Let's get out of here while the getting is good."

Buck's grin widened. "Now, come on, Ezra. That wouldn't be nice."

"I'll pay you."

Buck moved behind Ezra's wheelchair and took hold of the handles. "In that case," he said, his grin firmly in place, "where do you want to go?"

Ezra waved a hand. "It doesn't matter. Just make it fast."

Buck did just that. Pushing Ezra's chair at a fast clip back inside the hospital, he stopped at the first waiting room they came to and took up a seat across from Ezra's parked chair.

Ezra cocked his head at him. "I take it that I'm not the only one hoping to avoid a member of our team."

Buck sighed. "You ever notice that Chris Larabee is a hardheaded, mule-stubborn, it's-my-way-or-the-highway, ornery son of a bitch?"

Ezra nodded his head. Repeatedly. He then said, "What's he being stubborn about this time?"

"Vin. He's still not too happy about having him on the team."

"Did he say why?"

"Yeah. But I guess what it comes down to is, he thinks he's trouble. And I reckon he figures he's liable to get one or more of us killed."

Up went one of Ezra's eyebrows above the bandage covering his eyes. "He doesn't think a man like Vin Tanner might be more likely to keep us alive?"

"That's what I told him. And it's not like he didn't do just that this last mission -- at least where Chris is concerned."

"He doesn't think he's proved himself?"

"I guess not."

Ezra drew his brows down, seemed to be working something out in his mind. Then he said, "Did he ever tell you why he chose me for the team?"

That was a question Buck had himself asked at the time. And he well remembered Chris' response. "He figured a cheat would come in handy."

"And you don't think he'd figure a killer would come in just as handy?"

Buck blinked, the obvious so… well… obvious. "So then what's got his tail in a twist?"

Ezra tapped his fingers on his chair for a moment, then said, "What would you say Lt. Larabee likes best about being in charge?"

Buck didn't have to think on that one. "Being in charge."

"Exactly. He likes being able to do things his own way. And while he can't pick and choose his assignments, he's been able to pick his own team. Until now."

Buck frowned. "So you're thinking Chris doesn't want Vin on the team just because he didn't pick him?"

"Perhaps not just for that reason. But if the lieutenant was solely worried about whatever trouble Mr. Tanner might cause, such a concern would have to be a recent development given his previous choices. Has he ever, after all, chosen someone who wasn't trouble of some kind or another? Present company not excluded."

It was Buck's turn to tap his fingers on the arm of his chair, angles viewed and possibilities considered. "So all we need to do then is to convince Chris it's his idea to keep Vin on the team?" He tapped his fingers some more. "And just how do we do that?"

"We begin by convincing him that he wants Mr. Tanner on the team. And that could take some time."

"Well, time we've got plenty of for the next little while, what with you, Vin, and JD all out of commission." Buck slapped his hand on the arm of his chair, the matter settled even if the details weren't quite worked out. "For now though, we'd best get back to the room, see if there's any news on Vin yet."

*~*~*

JD was in the room when Buck and Ezra arrived, jawing away to Chris about something that had Chris shooting Buck a look that warned he'd be doing some jawing of his own sometime soon. Buck merely grinned and assumed his most innocent air as he said, "Hey, JD. Where'd you get to? Ezra and I looked all over for you."

JD cut off whatever it was he was going on about and turned, his brows drawing down into a frown he shared between Buck and Ezra both. "Where'd I get to? It's a good thing a nurse saw a tall, ugly-looking man with a mustache wheel Ezra off, or I'd have thought something happened to him."

"Ugly, huh?" Buck shook his head and wheeled Ezra to the bed. "Imagine that. A hospital having a nurse on staff with eyesight as bad as that. Someone ought to report her."

JD huffed out a breath of air. "Better bad eyesight than bad judgment like all the other nurses that keep letting you catch them when you go chasing after their skirts."

"Now you know that isn't the way of it," Buck said as he helped Ezra into bed. "Those women are drawn to me, plain and simple."

"Yeah," JD muttered, loud enough for Buck to hear. "Like moths to a flame."

Buck chose to pretend he hadn't heard that last remark. Instead, he picked up the deck of cards left lying on Ezra's over-the-bed table and said, "Anyone want to play? I've got to warn you though -- I'm feeling lucky."

JD frowned. "I hope that doesn't mean you've sucked up all the luck without leaving Vin any."

Buck rolled his eyes. "Now, don't start that again, JD. Vin's going to be fine."

"Yeah? Then how come that lady doctor's been at it so long? Shouldn't she be finished by now?" JD flicked a look at his watch. "It's been hours."

"And that's good," Buck pointed out. "If she'd gotten in there and found out she couldn't get that shrapnel out, she'd have been done by now. So stop worrying, and let's play us some poker."

*~*~*

Twenty minutes later, their game was interrupted by the room door swinging open to admit General Travis. All but Ezra stood, and Travis waved them back to their seats. His gaze on the cards and money on Ezra's over-the-bed table, he said, "Am I interrupting something?"

"Just a friendly game of Pinochle," Buck said with his most innocent air.

"Pinochle, huh?" Travis said, his gaze on the pile of money in the middle of the table. "You mind dealing me in? It's been awhile since I had a chance to play, and I've always found… Pinochle… to be quite relaxing."

He took the chair Chris offered him, as well as the cards Buck gathered up. He then shuffled the cards, waiting for the others to find their seats before saying, "Dealer's choice?" When the others nodded, he said, "All right then, gents, it's time to play a little Six Card… Pinochle."

And play they did, for another twenty minutes, at which time the door again opened, that time to admit Miss Hillary. Before she'd more than taken a step inside the room, JD said, "Did you get that shrapnel out? Is Vin okay?"

Miss Hillary smiled. "Yes. And yes." She moved further into the room and her smile eased. "The surgery didn't go quite as well as I'd hoped, but in the end I managed to prevail. The neurological signs all look quite good. So, given a bit of therapy, I feel quite certain Mr. Tanner will soon be as good as new."

"He'll be able to return to duty?" Travis asked.

"In a few weeks. Assuming his therapy goes well and no complications develop."

"Complications?"

Miss Hillary waved Travis' concern off. "I don't anticipate any real problems."

"Where is he now?" JD asked. "Can we see him?"

Miss Hillary shook her head. "He is in recovery and will be for a few hours yet. He'll be asleep for hours beyond that, so I suggest you gentlemen return to your bases and come back again tomorrow."

Travis stood and moved around Ezra's bed to the surgeon. Taking her hand, he said, "Thank you, Miss Hillary. I appreciate everything you've done." He looked then to the others there in the room and said, "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go call my wife."

After the team had added their thanks to the general's, he escorted Miss Hillary out of the room. Chris then collected what remained of his money and said, "We'd best be getting back to the estate. I've got reports to finish."

"You go on and go," Buck said as he gathered up the cards abandoned after the last hand. "I haven't gotten all of Ezra's money yet. And I'm still feeling awful lucky."

"All right, I'll see you boys later then."

Chris no sooner took off than the game resumed. And as he picked up the cards Buck dealt Ezra and started sorting through them, JD heaved a long and loud sigh of relief. "Life is good," he said, his tone that of a man at peace with his world. "Ezra will get those bandages off in a few days. My arm will heal in no time. And Vin's worries are over."

"Not entirely," Buck said.

JD stopped arranging Ezra's cards for him and looked at Buck in confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just that the shrapnel in his back wasn't the only thing standing between Vin and a permanent place on the team."

"What? What else does he have to worry about?"

"Chris."

JD frowned his continuing confusion, and Ezra said, by way of explanation, "The lieutenant isn't exactly Mr. Tanner's biggest fan."

"Yeah," JD said, his earlier good mood rapidly fading. "I've noticed that." A look of alarm then spread across his face. "You think he might try to find a way to get Vin off the team?"

"That possibility has occurred to us."

"So what are we going to do?"

"Come up with a plan, of course," Buck said. "But first I've got more of Ezra's money to win." He eyed the money piled on the table before him, fished out one of the larger bills, and tossed it onto the middle of the table. "And did I mention I'm feeling awfully lucky today?"

"Enjoy that feeling while you can," Ezra advised. "The winds of change they are upon us. And I believe my own luck is about to take a turn for the better."

Buck grinned at him, fully confident still. "Well, you know what they say. It's an ill wind that doesn't blow somebody good."

"It already did," JD said, his voice low, his tone serious. "We're all alive and, if not well, then we soon will be. We'll be a team again. A real team. One that watches each other's backs. That would never leave anyone behind. Just like this last mission. We fought together and came back together. And before too much longer this war will be over, and we'll all go home. And maybe we'll never see each other again. But maybe we will. Either way, we'll never forget that once we were brothers." JD flushed then and set his jaw as if bracing himself for ridicule to come.

Buck, however, didn't feel at all inclined to laugh. Instead, he nodded solemnly and said, "Amen to that."

"Indeed, JD," Ezra said in turn. "That was very well said."

JD straightened, his expression become one of pride and gratitude. He then said, in a tone more serious still, "It could all have gone wrong. The mission. The surgery. But we did okay, didn't we? Vin saved Chris, and we saved Vin. So it'll all turn out right in the end. Won't it?"

It was a hard question with no easy answers, life not that simple and war more complicated still. They would march forward and fall, get up only to fall again. But with five of them marching side by side, there would always be someone on their feet still to help those fallen to rise again. And if they should all fall, they'd find their way up again together.

"It'll all turn out as right as we can possibly make it," Buck said, that the only answer he had to give. "As right as the five of us together can make it."

And make it they would. Of that Buck was very sure.

The End