Seven Minus One
WARNING: Violence and disturbing content.
Part 1
"SHUT UP! OK? Just shut up!" The door of the jail slammed shut with a bang that rattled the bars inside, and Buck Wilmington hurled himself from the walkway into the street, his face livid with fury.
Behind him, the door opened again and Chris Larabee stepped into it, his face tight. He stood silently, watching his friend stalk across the wide street to the saloon to enter it with an angry gesture to two men exiting at the time. Chris slowly took a cigar from his shirt pocket, bit the end off with a short motion, and spit into the street. Eyes brittle and still fixed on the now-swinging saloon door, he struck a match and held it to the tobacco.
A voice behind him floated out gently, a trace of tiredness lacing the edges. "He was just tryin' to be a friend, Chris." The man in black turned his entire body rigidly to look back inside at the speaker, and took the cigar from his mouth with an icy move.
"I don't see where it's any of your call to say, Vin."
The tracker who was perched casually on the edge of the sheriff's desk flushed slightly at that, and stood.
"Guess I know when I'm not wanted," he said. He nodded to Chris shortly as he started to pass him to go into the street. "Maybe I need a drink." He looked steadily at Chris. "And maybe you don't."
Chris leaped as if struck and ground his teeth. "I'll tell you the same as I told Buck. Mind your own damn business."
Vin stood eye to eye with Chris, not backing down an inch.
"No man makes his way alone Chris, and you can't wall yourself up inside and not expect anyone to try and break it down. Buck was only tryin' to help, but if you can't accept just a little bit of friendship then you might as well crawl back in that bottle and stay there. You don't want anyone to care..........well fine, have it your way." And with that Vin strode from the jail house letting the door slam just as loudly as Buck had.
Half an hour later both Vin and Buck watched Chris ride out of town, his horse looking just as determined as he was to leave. Buck sipped his beer and narrowed his eyes. "Going out to stew I see. Same old Chris: can't face his demons head on so he has to run from them."
"Shouldn't someone go after him?" JD asked. He had been sitting with the two brooding men and had pieced enough together to get the gist of the problem. But he felt torn. He admired Chris, respected him beyond question, but he also knew that Buck and Vin were not prone to exaggeration. If they were riled at Chris, there had to be a good reason.
"Chris can take care of himself. And even if he can't he wouldn't want anyone following him. He just needs to let off some steam, get drunk someplace and then come back when he's good and ready." Buck said.
Vin continued to stare at his mug of beer, not looking at the faces of the two men around him.
JD regarded the tracker silently a moment. "Vin?" His voice was soft with worry and confusion. "What do you think?"
The tracker looked up at JD, his usually calm eyes flashing with irritation. "I think," he replied, "that Chris Larabee is bound and determined to be an S.O.B. today. So let him."
JD sighed and slumped against the bar dejectedly. It had already been a miserable week, and now the outlook for the next few days had grown even more dismal. He looked again at Buck's angry scowl and Vin's set lips and knew there wouldn't be any fun around a card table or swapping yarns to ease the evening tonight. He tossed a coin on the bar as he put his hat on, nodded to the friends pointedly ignoring him and each other, and left the saloon.
Chris rode for what seemed hours, his mood only improving slightly as he got further and further away from Four Corners and, more important, the group of men who for some reason thought it was their job to "save" him from himself. What business was it of theirs? They knew nothing of what he was, and had been going through. No one did.
Chris pulled his horse up suddenly and whirled it around to face where he had just come from. He could no longer see the small town, but he could still feel its pull. It held him somehow by some invisible thread, a tie that he had started to feel like a noose around his neck. Was it the responsibility, the obligation he had taken on when he had agreed to watch over the town for the Judge? The beautiful and fiery Mary Travis perhaps? Or just the six men who looked to him for direction on every move they made? Whichever it was, he was sick of it. He was through being depended on! "You can all go to hell!" He yelled back into the swirling wind, and with a rage of fury, he jerked his horse back and spurred him on, not looking back.
It was late by the time Chris got tired enough to feel it over his anger. He reined in his horse at the sight of a town's lights far below in a small valley, and hesitated. His horse stretched its neck against the reins and shook itself heavily with a tired snort, allowing Chris to pat his withers absently. With a sigh, Chris turned down toward the town, for water if nothing else.
The street was dark, but tinny music rolled out the doors of a small building as Chris rode in. He paused, eyeing the saloon and thinking of the feel of whiskey in his mouth and in his mind. But then he remembered the words Buck had thrown at him that morning. Not to mention Vin. It made his eyes glitter with anger. With a bitter gesture, he stepped from the saddle, dropping the reins of his tired black over the hitching rail near a large water trough where he could drink his fill. Chris then entered the saloon to do the same.
Inside, Chris seized a bottle of whiskey and dropped heavily into a chair near the back of the room. He filled a small glass, drank it in a single swallow, and filled it again. He sighed, anger still tugging against his face, pulling at the corners of his eyes. He took off his hat and set it on the table, and rubbed a tired hand through his hair.
He looked up as several men entered the saloon, their clothing dark and travel-worn, and eyed them silently as they approached the bar to stand against it. The door swung again to admit two more, who trailed to the other side of the room to lean against the wall. Chris sat up a bit straighter in his chair, his eyes growing more alert. Something was wrong here, this many men coming in at one time in such a small place.
It was the soft creak of a door behind him, opening, that made him leap and lay his hand to his Colt. Even then, he barely had time to clear the holster before the saloon erupted in a crash of pistol fire from several directions.
Chris felt the force of the bullets rip through his flesh as he spun and went down. His gun flew from his hand and he watched it slide across the floor out of his reach.
The pain was overwhelming and he lay there hardly able to catch his breath. He strained to reach his gun, but it was too far away. And then he saw a boot come forward and step on his outstretched hand, grinding his palm with the heel. Using all his remaining strength he turned his head to look up and face the man in front of him. He saw a pair of cold eyes, dancing with a perverted sense of pleasure glaring down at him above an evil smile.
"So we meet again Larabee." The man said, his voice like the hiss of a snake.
Chris recognized him from his voice only, for his face had changed over the years, but he would never forget that voice.
"Shawn .........." he spat, over the pain coursing through him.
"Right you are, Mate," the man said, his voice cold. “Matthew O'Shawnessee at your service.” And he raised his pistol to align it with Chris's forehead as his eyes grew dark, like coals gone out on a hearth. His voice sank to a whisper. "So glad to know you remember me..."
Chris jerked as Shawn pressed down even harder on his hand. He could hear the pounding of his heart inside his chest, beating frantically to pump blood to the wounds that were letting it spill from his body. He could feel his life ebbing away, until only the sound of the pounding, like thunder in his ears remained. He could no longer feel the pain of the bullet wounds, or the pressure being applied to his hand, but instead a calm serene feeling came over him. He looked up at the man called Shawn but instead saw only the face of Sarah Larabee smiling down at him. As he reached up with his good hand, trying to touch her, to feel her, to find comfort in her presence, a sudden burst of light in his head made all his thoughts and vision go black.
+ + + + + + +
Ezra Standish leaned back in his chair against the wall, shuffling a deck of cards absently. He looked up in surprise as the normally staid Mary Travis burst from the newspaper office, loosened strands of hair trailing in disarray. She cast a wild look about the street, and when her eyes landed upon the gambler, she broke into a run that caused him to rise and step toward her in alarm. "Mr. Standish! Mr. Standish!" Her voice broke on the last syllable as she reached out to him, and he saw that tears were running down her cheeks.
"Mrs. Travis, do get hold of yourself." He took her elbows in his hands and guided her to the chair he had just vacated. She wouldn't sit, but swallowed heavily and began to weep more openly. She held a newspaper out to him, her hand shaking. "Mr. Larabee--" She choked and could not go on. Ezra took the paper from her with a frown and glanced at the headline, only to feel his knees buckle under him. He steadied himself against the wall with one hand and bellowed in a voice he hadn't known he possessed.
"BUCK! VIN!"
The sound of Ezra's voice brought every one of the other five running, for the normally calm gambler sounded anything but.
Vin, Buck, and JD were the first to arrive, coming out of the saloon. They were followed quickly by Nathan and Josiah running down the street from the clinic. When they saw the look on Ezra's face and the tears and near hysteria on Mary, they knew that what they were about to hear would change their lives.
"What is it Ezra?" Vin asked, narrowing his eyes against the answer he didn't want to hear. Ezra was unable to speak as well. That or he just didn't know how to form the words. Instead he simply handed the paper over to Vin in the profound silence.
Vin read the paper silently, unable to bring himself to utter the words he saw: "Gunman Larabee Killed in Broken Ridge Shoot-Out." It reached out like a slap in the face.
He looked up at Buck and cleared his throat. "Says here," he said finally, softly, "that . . . " He looked at each of the men around him, their faces grim with the heaviness of what they knew was coming. Vin jerked his hand suddenly, his eyes flaming. He tossed the paper to Ezra. "That damn paper says Chris is dead, shot down in Broken Ridge. But I don't believe it."
He stepped towards Mary, who was crying with her face in her hands. He said her name gently but with enough insistence that she was forced to look up at him. "You know the feller that wrote this?" he demanded.
Mary nodded wordlessly.
"Wire 'im." Vin's voice was tight. "Find out how he knows for sure it was Chris."
Mary nodded, wiping her eyes on her fingertips. Her face eased as she grabbed at the possibility she suddenly saw Vin holding out to her.
"Yes," she said, "Yes, that's a good idea. I'll wire him right now. There has to be some mistake." She turned and stepped quickly from the walkway towards the telegraph office, the six men on her heels, their faces dark.
Mary entered the telegraph office and all the men piled inside after her. The small man wearing glasses and a visor looked up in fear at the deadly expressions the men wore.
"Can.....can I help you?" he asked, in a shaky voice.
Buck slammed his fist down on the counter, making the man's eyes grow wider, if possible. "We need a telegram sent right now, and if you value your life you better not drop one letter off of this one!"
The little man gulped, and nodded as he pushed a piece of paper towards the men. "Just write here what you need sent," he told them
Vin took the paper and wadded it up and tossed it aside with an angry gesture, then reached out and grabbed the man by the shirt collar. "You just send what we say, and do it NOW," he instructed, releasing him and shoving him back. He then looked at Mary, some of the anger leaving his voice. "Tell him what to send."
Mary cleared her throat, forcing the lump in it to subside enough to get the words out. The little man dutifully tapped in what she said, fearing for his very life should his shaking hand fail him.
Once the message was sent, the wait for a reply was almost unbearable. The tension in the room could be tasted, breathed ....smelled. Vin clenched and unclenched his fists, feeling the sweat trickle down between his fingers as the minutes ticked by.
JD fiddled with his guns, silently dying inside over the news that his idol might have been slain. How could that be? Not Chris............never Chris.
The sudden clatter of the telegraph key in the room's stillness electrified the men and the woman standing there. The operator wrote the message silently, handed it to Mary when it was done with an apologetic hunch to his shoulders that caused Buck's stomach to drop into his boots. She looked at the telegram and held it out from her, as though to drop it to the floor.
"He says he --" She paused, her voice dropping as her eyes fell to the floor. "He saw . . . the body . . . himself." She looked up at Buck, then to Vin. She silently handed the paper to them.
Buck reached out, took the small yellow slip, and looked down at it, his eyes dark with grief. Mary turned away, her hand over her mouth, as he read it. "This newspaper man says he has Chris's gun and horse. For us to come pick up."
JD sat down suddenly, hard, on the bare wooden floor. And no one laughed at him.
Suddenly Vin turned on his heels and shot out of the room like a bolt. He didn't care who followed him, he was not even sure if he wanted them to. He only had one thought on his mind.
Get to Broken Ridge.
Sire perked his hears as Vin approached, somehow sensing the dangerous mood his master was in, and he paced nervously as Vin began to saddle him. Vin ignored everything except the horse and getting him ready for riding. He clenched his jaws as he threw the heavy saddle up and dropped the offside stirrup, then leaned with a heavy expulsion of breath beneath the black's belly for the cinch. The leather snapped as he jerked the cinch tight and looped it with several quick motions through the rigging. When he led Sire out of the stables to leave he realized that the five others were waiting there, their own horses saddled for the road. He looked at each one with a questioning stare, as if to ask "we go as a team?" and from the nods and unspoken words, he knew he had his answer.
Vin looked down at Mary who stood on the sidewalk, her arms wrapped around herself in grief. He wanted to say something, reassure her somehow. But he couldn't even offer himself any hope, let alone her. So instead he just nodded, and kicked Sire into a run, leaving the town behind him.
Vin knew that once he left the boundaries of Four Corners, things would never be the same again. Not ever.
The only one of them to look back at Mary as they left it all behind -- the town, the good times, the days and memories they had shared -- was JD And he was crying.
+ + + + + + +
The ride to Broken Ridge was one of the longest and most stressful that JD had ever experienced. No one spoke more than two words the entire time, and then only to call for a rest for the horses. But even that didn't last long and they were on the move again in no time, eager to get to their destination, yet fearing what they would find once they arrived.
They reined in behind Vin when he stopped his black silently in the center of the town's wide and empty street to cast a level gaze at the buildings to either side. JD saw his eyes stop at the sign indicating the newspaper office, and saw a slight tremor run through the tracker's body. He turned his horse to the hitching rail there and dismounted without a word. The men's spurs jangled somberly as they climbed the steps to the walkway and pushed open the door into an interior dark with the smell of mold and dust, and of old oil on old equipment. A small man working over the press across the room straightened to look at the group of men standing just inside the door, backlit by sunlight from the street. He slowly pulled the wire-rimmed glasses from his face as he watched them approach.
"May I help you gentlemen?" he asked, stepping forward.
"You write this?" Vin asked, putting the newspaper on the counter.
The man looked down, recognizing the article and immediately knowing who the six men were. He had been more than fascinated by the idea of the seven men protecting the nearby town of Four Corners and had pumped Mary Travis more than once for information concerning them. And now he had the privilege of meeting them..........at least six of them...... and he regretted the circumstances that surrounded this meeting.
"Yes, I wrote this, and I am sorry I had to. I offer my deepest sympathies on the loss of your friend." he said.
But Buck was not in the mood for platitudes, and he stepped forward with a wild look in his eyes. "We don't want your sympathy, we want some answers. You see this happen? You know it was Chris Larabee for sure? What proof have you got?"
The man was taken aback by Buck's vicious tone, but he composed himself quickly. Grief did different things to different people and Harry Ainsworth could understand the man's pain.
"I did not see the actual shooting but I did see the body before the burial. The Sheriff is holding his personal possessions, and his horse is still at the livery." he told them.
"You say you saw the body?" Nathan stepped in front of Buck, "What did he look like?"
Ainsworth grimaced. "Well, he was wearing a black duster, about your height I'd say." He paused and eyed both Buck and Vin with caution. "I can't say more than that, because most of his ..." he swallowed. "he was shot in the head. The face."
JD turned suddenly and ran from the newspaper office into the street. Josiah sighed softly and followed him. Ezra breathed a curse and slapped one hand against the wall behind him in anger.
"Where'd it happen?" Buck's voice had dropped to a threatening growl that made Ainsworth take half a step back.
"The saloon." He nodded with his head in the direction. "But I have to warn you, he was there a while before they removed him. There are some ... stains on the floor. Your younger friend there, " he gestured to JD visible outside the window, "should probably not go in."
As Buck and Vin stepped away and turned to leave, Nathan drew closer to Ainsworth. His eyes were large, and dark with pain. "Where's he buried?" he asked softly.
Ainsworth sighed. "Cemetery's east of town. You'll see it. It's marked." He watched as Nathan turned to follow the others, then called after him in a gentle voice. "I really am sorry, you know. It's hard to lose a friend."
Nathan turned to look at the newspaper man very steadily. He nodded finally, slightly. "Thank you,” he said.
Vin and Buck were already disappearing inside the saloon several doors down by the time Nathan caught up with them. The interior was impossibly dark, even darker and dirtier than the newspaper office had been. Nathan stood inside the doors a moment while his eyes adjusted enough to see. When they did, he noticed Vin kneeling near the back of the room, looking at the floor, Buck standing behind him in an angry posture.
He approached them as Vin looked up at Buck, then turned flat eyes to Nathan. "Still fairly fresh," he said. And sighed, standing. "Two nights ago seems 'bout right."
Nathan looked down at the dark stain on the floor, a deep black on the brown wood. He sat down in the chair at a nearby table, surprised at how deeply it could affect him even after so long working with blood and wounds. But this, he thought, was different. This was personal….this was a friend...
He looked up with a heavy heart as Ezra scraped back a chair next to him, a bottle of whiskey in hand, and several glasses. Nathan took the offered drink, grateful for the temporary distraction it would provide. But when Ezra handed a glass up to Vin, the bounty hunter just looked at it in silence. He needed the drink but he didn't want it. This was what had caused the trouble in the first place, Chris and his drinking and the two of them telling him to stop. Vin set the drink down on the table, and pushed it away from him. No, not again.
Buck noticed Vin's actions and knew exactly what he was thinking. Scowling suddenly, he downed his drink and took another one, then another. Vin sat down in a chair and set his hat on the table. He looked up as a large man, florid scalp shining through yellow curls, sauntered over with a leer on his face.
"You gents hear about the big to-do here t'other night?" Buck looked up and eyed the man angrily before pushing his face into his glass again.
Ezra leaned back in his chair, eyes glittering. "You know about that, do you, Mister...."
"O'Shawnessee." The large man stuck a ham-fisted hand out to Ezra, who shook the tips of the fingers with a look of distaste on his face. "Matthew O'Shawnessee. Yes, I was here all right! Quite a row, that one! You should've seen it." He pulled out a chair noisily from the table and joined the men there, ignoring their sullen looks and cast-down eyes. Rubbing his jaw, he smiled broadly as he shook his head. "Never saw the like o' THAT before in all me born days! Quite a story, doncha' know!"
Vin's voice was quiet as cicadas on a summer evening. "Why don't ya' tell us about it, then?"
"Gladly! " He looked around at the men seated near him, then gestured to the whiskey bottle near Buck. "Say, you don't mind if..."
Buck slid the bottle to him with a sharp and silent motion, and O'Shawnessee poured several fingers of the liquid into his glass, licked his lips, and downed it in a gulp. He sighed and leaned forward conspiratorially. "Sat right here with him, I did, and drank bloody hell to the rotters he'd left behind!"
Vin started at that, although his eyes did not veer a fraction. Buck slowly raised his face and turned dark eyes on the blond man as he continued speaking.
"A man hangs out with his mates for a long enough time, he thinks he can count on 'em. Then something happens and he finds out how it really is."
Vin's gaze was level, steady. Flint and ice. "So what'd he say?"
"Well, it seems this feller, this 'Larabee' had his own friends turn on him! Just like that!" He snapped his large pink fingers for emphasis, looking around the table with a beaming face. "Said they tried to tell him what to do, and when he up and told 'em to mind their own beeswax, they told him to go to hell! You can't blame a man for walking out on a situation like that, now, can you?"
Vin and Ezra exchanged fleeting glances, and Ezra stood to walk across the room and stare out the window into the street.
"Still," the man grew more contemplative, "it's sad, seeing as how but for that he'd be alive this minute."
Buck sniffed deep in his throat, a sort of coughing sound, and turned in his chair to completely face Shawn. "You care to explain that, Mister?" His eyes were unnaturally dark, flat as a snake's.
Shawn shook his head. "Simple as pie, Mate." He pointed to the doorway, and then to the counter and wall areas. "Two fellers comes in there and goes to the bar, see? And two more comes in and goes over there." He nodded. "Then some more comes in the back. A man alone, he ain't got no chance at all in that situation." He paused to regard Buck with the same thoughtfulness with which he was, himself, being regarded. His voice grew lower. "A man with those kinds of enemies has to have friends to survive.”
Buck leaped to his feet and threw his glass against the wall of the saloon with a savage gesture, and shoved his chair from behind him to stalk out the door. The saloon fell silent in the aftermath.
"What's eatin' him?" Shawn regarded Buck's retreating back with a puzzled look on his face.
"Let's just say," said Ezra, from the window, "that he knows what it feels like to lose a friend." The gambler turned away from the window to face Shawn a moment with a brittle gaze, and then he went out as well.
Shawn stood then, and extended a hand to Vin. "Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to offend."
Vin looked up at the man, then to his hand, and then he turned away to look again at the stain on the floor. Shawn cleared his throat, coughed nervously, and withdrew the offered hand.
"Well, then. I'll be off. So sorry to have offended your friend." He moved quickly to the door and peered outside, then left in a rush.
Vin let out a heavy sigh after Shawn had left the saloon. His words had cut deeply into all of them. He stood suddenly, letting the chair scrape on the floor and walked out of the saloon. He ran into Josiah coming in.
"Buck took off towards the graveyard and JD followed him. I couldn't stop them," he said with a touch of worry in his voice.
Vin closed his eyes and shook his head: that was the last place Buck and JD should be going now!
Nathan and Ezra joined Vin and Josiah and the four of them headed up the slight rise to the little graveyard on the hill. They could see Buck and JD from a distance as they approached, standing together, looking down..............down at Chris's grave. When the four were standing beside Buck and JD, again silence reigned. It was not a fancy grave, no marble headstone, no flowers, only a simple wooden plaque that read "Chris Larabee".
"It don't seem real some how. He just can't be dead." JD whispered, his hoarse voice cracking in the stillness.
"We all die, JD. Chris knew that. It is the circle of life we must all face." Josiah said, putting his hand on J.D.'s shoulder in comfort.
"But not Chris........" JD insisted, letting his voice trail off.
"Should we say some words or somethin'?" Nathan suggested, thinking it might help ease the pain they all were feeling. They all looked to Josiah, but he shook his head in sadness.
"I don't have any words right now. I don't think I could do him justice," the large man told them, and from the crack in his voice they knew not to push the issue. It was silent for several long moments, and then JD looked at Vin.
"Still," he said softly, "it seems like we should say somethin'."
As Vin became aware that the rest had turned their eyes to him, he was suddenly back in the cemetery at Four Corners, lowering a coffin filled with rocks. Because Judge Travis wasn't really, really dead, but only wounded --and would be all right. He heard again J.D.'s young voice, saw Chris's half-contained grin of amusement at his request to "say something." He clenched his jaws at the memory, his pain bursting fresh and hot in his chest as he turned away and stalked angrily down the hill, his steps growing faster as he left the lonely grave behind him. Left his friends behind him, staring in surprise and dismay at one another before hurrying to follow, their eyes squinted in grief.
When the men caught up with Vin he was standing by his horse, checking his rigging, as if trying to focus on some mundane task to keep his mind from going wild.
"I think we've learned all we came here for." Vin said, not looking at the other men.
"What about Chris's horse and guns?" JD asked, not wanting to leave any part of his fallen idol behind to be discarded or sold off as souvenirs.
Vin halted his movements and let his head drop a bit. He gave a heavy sigh. "Buck, you and JD go down and get his guns and stuff from the Sheriff. Josiah, you take Ezra and get his horse. You know how he don't like strangers handling him, he'll be happy to see a familiar face or two." Nathan noticed that Vin didn't volunteer to go do any of this himself, and he knew why. Nathan spent a lot of time healing wounds and easing pain, but what Vin was feeling now was a pain that Nathan could not help him with. It was a wound that only time could heal and from the looks of Vin, Nathan wondered if there was enough time in the world.
The other men shuffled off, not looking forward to the tasks they were assigned, but knew must be done. Vin continued to check and re-check his saddle and bridle, and had just reached over to unhitch Sire when he felt a hand on his arm. At first he thought it was Nathan, looking to comfort him, and jerked away, not in the mood to welcome any expressions of sympathy now...............if ever. But when he looked up, he saw a pair of deep green eyes looking back at him from under a bevy of golden curls.
Had the young woman not laid a slender hand on Vin's arm, he would not have seen her, so silent was her approach. She sidled up to him and Nathan with a sly look up and down the wide, empty street. Vin turned startled eyes to her, that narrowed to distrust at the realization that she had come from the saloon. She blushed when she saw that, and looked down in confusion before she raised bold eyes to him with a toss of her pretty head
"Think what you will of me, Mister," she whispered, "But I know somethin' you'd like to know."
Vin and Nathan exchanged a quick glance and then Vin nodded shortly to the girl. "Speak up."
She frowned, wrapping a long forefinger in a blonde curl before her ear. "Well..." Paused then, tipped her head to regard Vin and then Nathan with a saucy and smug grin.
Vin sighed. "How much?"
"Oh, I dunno..." She twisted her feet a bit where she stood, flirtatiously. "...maybe a coupla' double eagles?"
Vin searched his pockets and tossed the large coins to the girl, who caught them in her two hands and giggled as she dropped them down her blouse front. She leaned forward then, toward the two men, looking again up and down the street before speaking.
"I know where the men went that gunned down that Larabee feller. I know 'em."
Vin started, felt his blood run like a winter thaw down the insides of his arms into his hands. "Where?" His voice was hoarse. "And who are they?"
"Jeffries boys, and the Tatums. They've gone to Selbyville." She smiled coyly and turned on the balls of her feet, her skirt swinging. "Thanks for the eagles, boys."
She glanced up, her eyes dilating, as Buck approached leading his gray, JD behind him. Tossing him a sly smile, she darted suddenly into the saloon. Buck sighed and shook his head wearily. "What was that all about, Vin?"
The tracker exhaled slowly as his gaze drifted to the big blued Colt in J.D.'s hands, then across the street to Ezra and Josiah returning with Chris's black following them, its saddle empty. His gaze flickered back to Buck's face, then down to the street as the men drew together. It was Nathan who finally spoke, as Vin was mounting in silence.
"Saloon girl there told us she knows who did it, and where they are. Fellers are in Selbyville, names a' Jeffries an' Tatums."
"Selbyville? That's only a day or so the other side of Four Corners, ain't it?" Buck looked quickly from one to the other of the men. . "Been there a time or two, not much of a town, only a few shops and a saloon, a relative hole in the ground if you ask me," said Josiah.
"Kinda' place the scum who killed Chris woulda' gone?" Buck asked, his eyes narrowing.
"Good a place as any." Josiah nodded.
Vin drew his reins to back from the hitching post, but Buck laid a restraining hand on his horse's bridle. "Care for a little company?" His voice was soft but dangerous.
Vin nodded shortly, whirled his black from the hitching rail, and raced away at a gallop. The others leaped quickly to their saddles to follow, Chris's black lurching a moment on its lead rein before settling in behind Josiah's chestnut.
+ + + + + + +
It was getting late and Mary was toying with the idea of going to bed, but she just couldn't bring her mind to relax enough to sleep without knowing. Chris Larabee had come into her life like a wild summer storm and had completely turned her world upside down. He had brought danger, excitement and perhaps a bit of forgotten romance into her life and she just couldn't face the idea that he was gone.
She had just decided to go inside, when she saw movement on the quiet street at the far end of town. Out of the night, like silent specters, the figures of riders appeared. She felt her heart leap to her throat as she strained her eyes to see.
She could make out Vin..............then Ezra..........and JD for sure, but with night's cloak wrapped around them and the light of the fires littered along the sides of the street casting eerie shadows as they passed she could not make out how many of them there were. But at last Mary saw what she had been looking for: Chris's horse! And although she couldn't be sure she dared to hope that she saw his figure in the saddle as well!
She stepped forward, her hand to her throat, her breathing growing more quick and shallow as her heart began to beat in hope. Yes, it was surely Chris's black walking steadily and wearily into town behind Josiah's dark horse and its sagging rider. She took yet another step forward as the flickering light again threw a dark shadow, all black, into the saddle. She drew her skirts into her two hands and began to run, her face breaking into a glad smile even as she felt hot tears spill onto her cheeks.
Just then, the riders drew into the full light falling from the saloon into the broad and silent street. It was a pale light, but steady. And it lit clearly the empty saddle on Chris's horse, the bare leather glimmering dully as Josiah led it to the hitching rail to dismount.
Mary felt her throat catch as on a thorn, and felt the world spin around her and then drain into her boots as one by one the men dismounted and turned to face her. Their faces were grim and dark, lined with grief, and Mary knew suddenly that she did not want to know the things they knew. She took a step back, faltering, as Nathan approached her with a look of gentle compassion on his face. He stopped, then, and nodded to her, then over his shoulder to the black at the rail.
"Miz Travis," he said, "we boys talked it over, an' we thought maybe..." he paused, cleared his throat, his eyes shining suddenly, "we thought maybe, if it's all right with you, that... well, we thought Chris'd be mighty happy for Billy to have his horse."
Mary choked and nodded, and bit her lips as she looked into Nathan's' dark eyes. He nodded to her again. "We'll bring 'im over to the liv'ry for you. Don't worry about it. Maybe you should try to get some sleep."
Mary nodded again to Nathan, not able to form any words. The sight of Chris's horse standing there.......riderless, was almost too much for her to bear. How would she ever break the news to Billy? For that little boy, the sun rose and set with Chris Larabee, something she had not seen in him since the death of his father. Mary looked over at Vin, a silent plea in her eyes.
"I don't know what I will tell Billy. He will be here to visit in a few days..............will you help me break the news to him?" she asked.
Vin gave her a somber look and shook his head. "Won't be here. Headin' out tomorrow at first light. Got a lead on the bastards who killed Chris." Vin did nothing to disguise the venom in his voice and Mary flinched at the sound of his unleashed hate.
The woman nodded, knowing that this was something the six men must do, to ease their suffering, to put a close to the murder of their friend. She only hoped that they would come out of it alive. She had grown close to each and every one of the men, some more than others, but she couldn't imagine losing any more of them. The loss of Chris was a pain deep enough, must she grieve over them as well?
"Please get some rest Miz Travis. You look all worn out." Nathan insisted, taking her by the elbow and guiding her towards the newspaper office where she had her lodging behind. Mary followed his gentle urging, unable to think much, her mind so full of grief.
"I will see you in the morning." She mumbled as she went inside and closed the door. Once it was shut, she leaned her head against the smooth wood and began to weep openly.
Buck and JD had begun to walk off towards the saloon, Nathan and Ezra nearby but already veering off to head to their quarters. When they noticed that Vin and Josiah weren't behind them they stopped and turned back around.
"You comin'?" Nathan asked, looking at the two men.
Josiah looked from the four men back to Vin, then gave a quick nod of his head as if to tell them to go on without him before he turned back to the other man. The others looked concerned, but knew that if anyone could help Vin, it was Josiah. The big preacher approached the smaller man, who stood in front of his horse, stroking its nose gently, his eyes far, far away, back at Broken Ridge.
"You want to talk about it Vin?" Josiah asked quietly.
The tracker was silent for so long that Josiah shifted his weight on his feet uneasily, thinking perhaps he would not answer. Finally the clear eyes, dark in the shadows beneath his hat, rose to meet Josiah's face. The preacher felt his heart constrict at the look he saw there, and knew that saving this man would not be easy. Vin stared at him evenly for several moments, then shook his head very slightly.
"No," he said, the single word drifting from his soul and out into the night, barely audible. Vin turned, then, and walked off slowly, his spurs jangling very softly. Josiah stood and watched him go, then sighed heavily.
I need, he thought, to talk to Nathan. And he turned hurrying steps towards the healer's rooms.
Nathan was packing bandages and implements into the black maw of a satchel standing open on his bed when Josiah tapped lightly on his door and entered the room. The preacher's eyes scanned the scene quickly before he drew up a chair and dropped into it with a grimace and a shake of his head.
"Brother Nate," he rumbled, "We have a problem."
"Yeah." Nathan glanced at Josiah's face as he rolled several shirts into a bundle that he tucked into a side pocket of the satchel. "The question is, which one of our problems is it you wanna' talk about?"
"Vin for one. He ain't gonna' last long if he keeps up like he is now."
"Yeah, I seen that. Buck, too." Nathan shook his head almost angrily remembering the way Buck had dashed his glass against the saloon wall, and fastened the latches on the case. "He's gettin' that wild look a' his, but this time there's somethin' to it I don't like."
Josiah sighed. "I thought the same thing."
Nathan stood in the silence for a moment looking at Josiah, the two of them turning over the situation in their minds. He sat down on the edge of the bed then with a deep breath, and rubbed his face in his dark hands. "So what are we gonna' do?"
"Only what we CAN do, I guess. Vin won't even hardly talk now. Buck's gettin' drunk."
Nathan looked up from his hands, his eyes red with fatigue. "What about Ezra?"
"He's takin' it hard, but I think he'll bounce back after a while." He bit his lips thoughtfully, and the two men suddenly said the same word simultaneously:
"JD..."
"Yeah," Nathan stood up and trimmed the wick on the lantern carefully so that the room faded to a golden-lit hue. "JD is bad off, but I think he'll make it if we get a real good grip on 'im, and hang on tight."
"If," added Josiah, "he don't follow Buck to hell."
"Yeah."
Josiah stood then, and nodded a final time to Nathan. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow, in the morning. This place sure isn't goin' to be the same if we start losin' ‘em, is it?"
"No," Nathan's voice was rich with emotion. "It sure ain't, Brother, it sure ain't." He looked up again at the preacher he'd known so long. "Let's see how many of 'em we can hold on to, shall we?"
"Agreed. But you'd better get your grip ready, Brother Nate. It's gonna' get bad fast."
Buck and JD stayed in the saloon long after closing time, but one look at the expression in Buck's eyes and the bartender was willing to stay open a bit longer............afraid of what Buck might do if he asked them to leave. When at long last Buck rose silently from his chair and walked out, JD followed, throwing a few coins on the table with an apologetic look at the bartender. Buck went straight to his room and shut the door, as if not even noticing that JD had followed him all the way there, ready to catch him should he fall down drunk in the street.
JD stared at the closed door, feeling as if it were not only a hunk of wood before him, but somehow Buck himself. He had shut himself off from them, all of them, just like Vin was doing. And it scared JD With Chris gone, he now looked to Buck and Vin for support, leadership, camaraderie...........but perhaps it was JD that should be offering the support to them? He knew that Buck and Chris went way back, but they hardly talked about the past. And although Vin and Chris had met only minutes before he himself had first laid eyes on them, JD knew that there had been a bond of friendship there not measurable by the mere passage of time. JD narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He would be strong for them.............yes, he would be there for them to lean on. That is what Chris would have wanted.
JD turned and walked back out to the street and over to the hotel. He needed to talk to someone and for some reason, Ezra seemed to be it. He knocked on his door twice before it opened. A tired looking Ezra greeted him with only a silent stare.
"Can I come in?" JD asked.
Ezra seemed to think about this for a moment then stepped aside, opening the door to allow him to enter. JD stepped into the room and looked around. He had never spent much time in Ezra's room, and he had to say it was a heck of a lot nicer than any of the others the boys occupied. But what struck JD as odd was the way all his drawers were open and his clothes strewn here and there. Then it hit him.
"What are you doing?" JD asked, his voice rising to an almost squeak as he realized that Ezra was packing.
"What does it look like I am doing?" Ezra retorted, irritation and weariness in is voice.
"You can't leave!" JD protested.
"And just what remains, my dear boy, to keep me here?" Ezra asked, returning to his packing. "With Chris gone it is only a matter of time before we all go our separate ways. Sooner is just as good as later."
"But.........but, what about going after the guys who did it? You gonna' just leave and not help us settle it?" JD could hardly believe what he was hearing. How could this be? It was not supposed to end this way.
Ezra gave a heavy sigh and looked at the boy with eyes that seemed to hold the pain of the world behind them.
"I will go with you, I will see that justice is served for our friend. His death will be avenged, that I promise. But once that is settled, I will not be returning to Four Corners...not ever."
JD felt his blood turn to ice. It was true. There would never be a magnificent seven again, or even a magnificent six. This was the end.
"Now if you would excuse me, I have a large amount of things to go through before morning." He shook his head and spoke in a low voice as if to himself. "How the hell did I acquire so many possessions? You would think I had planned on taking up residence in this little hole in the wall town. It is time you were moving on, Ezra -- past time."
JD could tell that Ezra had pretty much dismissed him and was no longer paying attention to him, so he walked to the door. He looked back, and seeing Ezra put several decks of cards into his pack, he turned and rushed away.
The streets had grown darker with the deepening of the night, and JD stopped on the walkway when he got there, panting and staring around him at the shadows with a feeling of tearing pain in his throat. As he stood there, his hammering heart easing slowly to a more steady rhythm, he heard the soft, breathy sound of a harmonica faint upon the night breeze.
"Vin," he said softly to himself, his eyes scanning the deeper shadows for the tracker.
A shape at one end of the boardwalk caught his eye, and he stepped closer to see that it was, in fact, the lanky tracker. He was almost entirely reclining in a wooden chair, one foot stretched out almost to the steps and the other laying on its outside ankle beneath his chair as he relaxed there. The harmonica flashed briefly in the moonlight as Vin moved it slowly, breathing a soft and mournful note or two through it. He stopped as he saw JD approaching, and laid the instrument in his lap silently.
"Evenin' Vin." JD stood over the tracker awkwardly, his hands clenching and unclenching.
Vin simply eyed the younger man quietly, the shadows on his face making his expression unreadable.
"So," JD suddenly wondered why he'd come. "You all packed, too?"
"Why would I pack, JD?" Vin's voice was so hoarse that JD flinched at the sound.
"Well, Ezra says he's not comin' back. An' he says we'll all be goin' our own ways now. After --" he paused, swallowing.
"After what?"
"You know, after we come back from killin' those guys."
Vin nodded sadly, his eyes still on J.D.'s face. "JD," he breathed, his voice hoarse with pain, "there ain't gonna' BE no 'after'."
JD felt the shock of Vin's meaning, the import of his words, strike him physically like a blow. He staggered backward, nearly falling from the steps of the walkway. Vin simply stared at him, still, silent. JD turned then, and ran. He ran, breathless, unseeing, until arms reached out and caught him, held him fast. He struggled against them, then beat his fists upon the one who held him before collapsing against the man he knew to be Josiah, although he couldn't have said how. And Josiah stood in the dark street, keeping JD in his arms until he was safe, until the grief subsided enough for him to see again and hear again. And then Josiah took him to his room and put him to bed. And sat there until he was certain the younger man had dropped into an exhausted sleep.
+ + + + + + +
The eastern sky was barely flushed with color as the men mounted to leave before having to face the town and its memories again by daylight. Mary Travis was the only one who had come out to see them off, the only one who cared. She stood silently, her shawl wrapped around her tightly to keep out the morning chill, watching them mount. She knew that this could easily be the last time she ever saw any of them. The last time to say goodbye, but no words would come. Perhaps it was better this way........at times like these, words always fell short.
Josiah stirred uncomfortably in his Mexican saddle as he gazed at the angry red shade of the light growing on the clouds. Nathan drew up next to him in the near-darkness, and his voice was low. "Red like that in the mornin' means a storm, I always heard."
Josiah shook his head, looking with troubled eyes at Vin and Buck. "I always heard it was a worse omen than that." He looked back at Nathan, his eyes dark beneath his hat. "I've seen it mean death."
A low jingling of harness that carried far in the stillness of early morning signaled that Vin had begun to jog away, Buck at his heels. The others legged their mounts to follow, and then pushed them to a lope to keep up as the two men in the lead suddenly urged their mounts to a run. Their shadows were but a dark and bloody shade of brown upon a road fiery with reflections of the angry sky.
A final lingering gust of night breeze blew the dust of their passing away, and it was lost on the heavier winds of the coming storm.
+ + + + + + +
Vin pushed the men hard all that day, riding as if the devil himself were on their heels. No one dared to protest though; there was hell to pay, and if Vin intended to be the one to deliver it, they could not argue with him. Nor did they want to. The heat began to rise, yet the sky never lost its stormy appearance. Josiah and Nathan were ever on the watch, looking for the first sign of rain in hopes that it might drive them to stop, forcing rest for both the horses and men. But the rain never came and they rode on. Dusk began to settle, with the riders slowing only as necessary for the sake of the horses, fearing they might lose their footing as darkness approached.
Vin was lost in thoughts of revenge and the battle that lay ahead, when Buck rode up beside him. The two exchanged grim looks of determination, each knowing the other would ride till they dropped before relenting. Suddenly Vin felt a searing pain in his shoulder, followed a split second later by the report of a rifle. He was thrown backward off his horse, hit the ground and rolled to one side, then rose into a crouch.
"WHAT THE HELL?" Buck yelled.
Tired bodies responded to shock with a burst of energy; the rest jumped from their horses diving for cover, Nathan and Josiah grabbing hold of Vin and dragging him to shelter, with JD, Buck and Ezra laying down a barrage of cover fire. The shots were coming fast now, causing them to realize just how many ambushers they were facing.
"Could this be just a coincidence?" Josiah asked, reloading his gun as a bullet hit the rock just above him, causing it to explode in a shower of shards and smoke.
"Not bloody likely," Buck told him, shaking his head in anger.
Nathan grabbed Vin's shirt in both hands and pulled him up against the large boulder they'd sheltered behind, tearing frantically at the buttons to see how badly the tracker was hit. But Vin reached out to Nathan's own shirtfront, wrapping long fingers in his collar to twist it with his right hand as he shoved the healer back from him with flashing eyes. Nathan found himself in the dirt, Vin rising to his feet above him, his left arm hanging limp and already bloody but his right pulling the Winchester from his holster with a furious move. Nathan scrambled to his feet to catch him, realizing only too late that Vin was too angry even to recognize that he'd been injured. But the tracker was already moving swiftly away from him.
Vin slipped quickly behind a large rock to join Ezra, who was rising above it every few moments to return fire at their unseen assailants. He fired several times in quick succession while the gambler reloaded and as Nathan rolled to a position to Ezra's other side to join them.
Then in the sound of returning fire, there came a low growl -- a growl that rose in intensity until it had escalated into a full cry of rage. JD watched in horror as Buck leaped to his feet, his face twisted in anger as he jumped out from the cover and ran towards the source of the gunfire, shooting and screaming as he went.
Buck charged up through a field of boulders into a hail of gunfire, vanishing into a storm-cloud of white smoke edged with roiling black puffs. The flash of muzzle fire lit the inside of it like heat lightning as darkness dropped ever more heavily on the hillside, and JD ran scared, dodging and weaving, hoping to find Buck in the swirling dark confusion. He could sense one of the other men on his heels, but neither hear nor see him in the smoky din. Suddenly, then, he rounded an enormous boulder and ran almost directly up against several men who were at the moment in a furious struggle. Several shots were fired, the roar of the weapons simultaneous with the leaping tongues of flame that shot from the barrels. A silhouetted figure with hair standing up like a stiff mane roared back, as loud as the rifles it seemed, and returned their fire.
JD raised his own pistols, shaking, uncertain in the maelstrom that he could defend Buck without striking him accidentally, but then saw Josiah race past him to drop to one knee a bit to Buck's left and in front of him, raising his long rifle to his shoulder and aiming as he did so. JD stepped between them, discharging both his pistols at the same time, and seeing several of the men facing them go down under their combined firepower.
Immediately, Buck was running again, through the downed men, up to the next source of shooting. JD screamed to him, but his voice was drowned in the continued roar of guns all around them. Shivering, he began to run after Buck again, trying to reload his pistols with shaking fingers as he slipped on the rocks and grass of the steep hillside, as he struggled to keep up with his enraged friend. Josiah leaped several large rocks, and then reached out a long arm to grab JD by the collar and jerk him roughly behind a downed tree as several large-caliber shells tore up the ground where they had just been running. Dirt and grass showered around them, and when JD tried to raise his head, Josiah shoved it down none too gently.
"DAMN that Buck!" roared Josiah in JD's ear. He shoved JD's shoulders down with a final push as he leaped the younger man to run up the hillside again, toward an area bounded by several live oak trees where a thicket of flames leaped from all directions at once. "DAMN YOU, BUCK! WAIT!"
JD rolled against the dirt, feeling the dampness of the soil, and sprang up to follow, his heart in his throat. He could see Josiah nearing Buck now, the two of them firing almost in unison for several shots. Just as he neared them, he realized they had emptied the chambers of their guns. Both men dropped to the ground under the cover of the drifting smoke to reload as JD ran into the breach firing at the hidden men behind the trees. In moments, Buck was on his feet again and running through the hail of fire to dodge behind the trees and drop the men there.
With a sudden pounding, the rest of the assailants behind the trees broke cover on horseback, several turning back to fire over their shoulders a last time. Buck raced after them on foot, firing still, dropping one more from the saddle so that his horse raced terrified and riderless, reins flapping, with the rest.
JD ran up to Buck, caught at his elbow, and spun him around with terror clutching at his gut. Buck was white, smudges of dirt and gunpowder across his face, his eyes black as a cave and as deep. He jerked his arm from JD's grasp and flung the younger man away from him as Josiah caught up with both of them.
"Stop that, Buck!" He, too, caught at the tall man's arms, and was shoved away. But Josiah grabbed at him again, and this time held on. "I said STOP IT!" His deep voice was as threatening as JD had ever heard it, and it made Buck finally look at him, his eyes slowly coming to focus on Josiah's face, the fury in them unabated.
Josiah slapped Buck's pistol from his hand angrily, then swept it from the ground and handed it to JD. "What the hell is your idea, Buck!? Just 'cause you're so mad you think you can walk on water, that don't mean you should drag JD to hell WITH you! Don't you EVER do that again! YOU HEAR ME!?" Buck jerked his arm even harder, broke from Josiah's grasp, and snatched his pistol from JD's hands as the younger man took a step back from him, suddenly terrified almost as much BY him as he was FOR him.
Vin had narrowed his eyes when the sudden furious roar of intensified fighting had first burst out at the position where Buck, JD, and Josiah had taken shelter. He'd been trying to pierce the smoke and darkness to see what was happening when several more shots ricocheting off the boulder next to his head drew his attention in the opposite direction. The men shifted their positions, diving for cover from the assailants behind as well as the ones in front of them.
"Hell!!" Nathan shouted. "We're gonna' be cut to pieces if we don't find a way out of here!"
Vin's lips thinned and the color drained from his face. Nathan realized a split second too late that Vin was going to charge them, and found himself again chasing his friend, Ezra at his heels at first, but veering off to one side within moments to provide more fire protection.
The smoke drew down more thickly, choking and acrid, and Nathan coughed. He dropped flat momentarily as he realized he could see neither Vin nor Ezra any more, but only the bursting pattern of muzzle flashes like deadly fireflies, lighting the smoky dusk. A quick succession of shots then was clearly from Vin's weapon, and Nathan regained his feet to run toward the sound. He found himself stumbling over a body on the grass, and looked down to see the open-mouthed face of a dead man he did not recognize.
A cry, almost a howl, from just ahead a bit to one side froze his blood. He raced, heart pounding, toward that sound, as Ezra rose up suddenly in the din with both of his weapons throwing long trailers of flame through the dark smoke, firing at dim and retreating forms dropping back down the hill to the left. As Nathan joined him, Ezra suddenly grasped his forearm with the other hand as a dull smack rang out. He dropped his weapon and fell to one knee, Nathan standing over him to return fire at the fleeing men. The smoke began to lift as the wind picked it up and swept it down the hill, and Nathan caught sight, suddenly, of Vin standing entirely in the open with his Winchester to his shoulder, aiming down the site. A dark group of riders was drawing together to race away, and one of their number dropped backward from his horse at Vin's final shot.
Nathan dropped to one knee next to Ezra to take his arm gently into his hands. He raised his eyes to the gambler's face only to find that he was staring at Vin. Nathan glanced back to see the tracker striding angrily down the slope to the lower area where they'd left their horses, and then looked down a little farther to see that Buck, Josiah, and JD were approaching from a different direction. He looked back at Ezra's arm quickly, tore the shirt opened from the cuff, and nodded. "Thank God, it's not bad," he breathed. He helped Ezra to his feet.
Ezra nodded downslope to the other men, who were now checking the bodies sprawled in various places around the battleground, nudging them with the toes of their boots. "I'm afraid you are mistaken this time, my friend." He turned sad and weary eyes to Nathan. "It looks very bad indeed."
Vin and Buck had already begun to draw the horses together. As Nathan and Ezra arrived, Buck was looking at Vin with dark eyes. "I count six of ‘em," he said.
Vin nodded. "And at least that many got away." He mounted suddenly, throwing a leg over the saddle and jerking on the reins to turn his horse back on the trail. Nathan and Josiah stepped forward quickly, blocking him.
"Just hold it." Josiah's voice was menacing. Buck mounted and drew up next to Vin so that the two men on horseback faced the two men on foot in a threatening way that no one could fail to notice.
"That saloon girl set us up, Josiah." Buck shifted his weight in his saddle. "Now get out of our way."
"Ezra needs tending to." Nathan swallowed, held his breath. Vin stared without change of expression, but Buck suddenly dropped his gaze and looked away. When he did, Vin's posture relaxed slightly in the saddle, and Nathan knew they would wait for a few moments before heading back to Broken Ridge to question the girl who knew more than she'd said.
"Give me your canteen, JD," Nathan said quickly, and getting his satchel from his horse he began to clean and wrap Ezra's arm. He threw nervous glances at Vin and Buck, who still sat their horses in a restive way, as he worked. Josiah had not moved, but stood in front of them in a posture of quiet determination.
"OK, Ezra," Nathan smoothed the bandage a final time. "It's gonna' be fine. Bullet went clean through and didn't hit no bone."
"Thank you, Nathan."
Nathan looked up into Ezra's face in surprise, to see the man's eyes on his face with genuine gratitude and friendship there.
Nathan smiled gently. "You're welcomed, Ezra."
He looked back toward Josiah and the two men he held with his willpower, and stood up. "Vin," he said softly but clearly, "you need to let me bandage you up, too."
The tracker's response was to slowly focus his eyes so that he was looking at Nathan for the first time. They were dark, mere flickers of light beneath his hat in the nearly-dark evening. But the gaze was intense and grew more so as he focused. With a sudden motion, then, he spurred his black to break through Josiah's hold on him, and drive between the other men still on foot.
Buck was at his heels immediately, his posture once again tight-strung in the saddle, almost vibrating with fury. The others ran for their horses to catch up, following the sound of hoofbeats more than sight in the dark. For long hours then, the group was again moving rapidly, down a dark night road lit with silent heat-lightning, back towards Broken Ridge, two days distant.
Nathan was bone weary and his eyes would hardly stay open. He had not gotten much sleep the night before back at Four Corners, and now he was feeling the effects of it. Vin was like a man possessed, continuing on only from pure adrenaline. But Nathan knew that it could not last forever and when it ran out, he feared that Vin's chances would too. He needed to make him stop, to fix up his wound and talk some sense into him.
Nathan rode up until he was side by side with Vin. He could see through the darkness the stain that had been steadily growing on Vin's shirt, the arm and hand also covered in blood.
"Vin." Nathan began, but Vin didn't look at him.
"VIN!" he shouted, reaching out and taking hold of the reins of his horse, bringing him to a sudden halt. "WE have to stop. It is dark, the horses are spent and JD is about to fall out of his saddle, not to mention the rest of us. LOOK at him............Look at what you are doing to yourself!"
Vin slowly turned, almost as if in a dream, and let his haunted eyes fall over the rag tag band they had become. JD was slumped in the saddle, hardly aware that Vin had stopped, Ezra was not far behind either, still clutching his arm to his chest in an attempt not to jar it with each step. Josiah was the only one who seemed alert but even he showed signs of fatigue.
"Vin, you will run us into the ground with the pace you and Buck are setting. Broken Ridge ain't going nowhere...........we have to stop." Nathan again insisted.
It was a long time before Nathan saw any sign of relenting in Vin's face, but at long last he gave a sigh, and stepped from his horse, leading him over to the side near a clump of trees. Nathan felt like he had won the battle.........but not the war. Calling out to the others, he headed them over to where Vin had gone, giving out instructions to them all as they made camp for the remainder of the night.
He made certain that provisions were unpacked and that the exhausted men ate and drank before they lay down on their bedrolls, but Vin refused both nourishment and comfort. He sat on the ground leaning against a large stone, his eyes staring unseeing into the night. Nathan tried once more to get Vin to let him look at his wound, offering him some laudanum to ease the pain if nothing else, but the tracker wouldn't even look in his direction. He had to admit then that Vin was beyond his help, that he needed more than the healing his hands could do.
So Nathan turned and looked to Josiah for help.
The healer and the preacher drew away a bit from the others, all of whom slept as if they'd been felled where they stood. Except Vin. The two men sat side-by-side a bit upslope and far across the camp, glancing at the tracker from time to time as they spoke softly. Nathan sighed.
"So. YOU got any ideas?"
Josiah flaked bits of hardtack off a larger piece, and chewed on them slowly as he thought about it. His voice was low. "Nope."
"If we don't get an idea, an' soon, we're gonna' be down two instead a' one." He looked back over at Josiah, who held out the dried biscuit to him, and shook his head. "An' if Buck does that runnin'-through-bullets thing again..." He lowered his gaze as his voice fell.
Josiah shifted a bit on the rock where he sat, and sighed very softly. "I know. But I've got to confess I'm stumped. I couldn't get Vin to talk to me last night, an' he's a lot worse now than he was then. As for Buck . . . I don't know what he was thinkin'. He nearly got JD killed more'n once."
"He wasn't thinkin', Josiah. That's what." Nathan scowled up at the storm clouds flashing lightning overhead, thinking again of the rifle flashes in the smoke of the battle. "I'm gettin' real scared, Josiah. That we're gonna' lose all three of 'em: Vin, Buck, AND JD. They're RIGHT HERE but I can't stop it. They're just slippin' through my fingers--" His voice broke abruptly, and Josiah reached out to place a comforting hand against the other's shoulder.
"You've done all a man can do, Brother Nathan. You can lead a man to salvation, but you can't make him drink." His eyes were shadowed as he looked over the three sleeping men and the one not sleeping. "The fact is, I think Vin and Buck WANT to die."
Nathan nodded wordlessly and then cleared his throat. "I know," he said. "That's what I'm afraid of."
Josiah nodded towards JD's sleeping form. "That one we might hang on to, though," he said. "I'm sure as hell gonna' try." He looked down at Nathan and his eyes grew more compassionate. "Try and get some sleep, Brother Nate. I'll stand watch."
+ + + + + + +
Vin lay back against the boulder behind him, his wound feeling like a fire in his shoulder. He'd refused to take any of the pain medicine that Nathan offered, not wanting to run the risk of it slowing his reflexes and dulling his mind. The pain kept him alert, it kept him angry. And it was no less than he deserved. His body was past exhaustion, his mind reeling from the events of the last few days, but sleep would not come. He lay awake for a long time, listening to the night sounds and the rustle of the wind through the trees.
Josiah had said a storm was brewing, and from the lack of the stars, or even a moon, Vin knew it to be true. Summer storms like this were long in the making, and Vin at last drifted off thinking about how nice the rain would feel when it fell.
Vin was walking. . . walking alone. He couldn't make out where he was or what he was doing there, but he could feel the tension and the fear around him like an approaching fog. Then out of the mist he saw a figure step forward. It was a tall man, dressed in black wearing a long duster and flat-brimmed hat. Vin squinted to see the man's face, but it remained hidden in the shadows that seemed to follow him as he approached. Vin kept waiting for him to emerge into the light, but every time he thought he would be revealed the shadows increased making it impossible to be sure. At last Vin found his voice and called out to the unknown man.
"Chris...?" At that the man did look up, but Vin now wished he hadn't. For the look of pure hate in his eyes stunned Vin. He had never seen such an expression from Chris before, not even when he had been chasing after Fowler. And worst of all, this was not just some random look of hate, this one was aimed directly at Vin.
"Where were you?" Chris accused in a cold voice that echoed over and over in the mist, bouncing back at Vin like a sharp knife. "Where were you when I needed you? You could have saved me. I died because of YOU!" And with that he drew his gun and began to fire at Vin, striking him time and time again as the tracker staggered back from the impact.
"NOOOO!!" Vin yelled back reaching out to Chris as he was pushed further and further away from him............until he woke with a start.
Vin sat up like a released spring, his face bathed in sweat and his heart pounding. He felt a pair of eyes on him and looked around to see they were Josiah's, filled with concern. Josiah had been alert on guard duty and had seen Vin become restless in his sleep, but his unexpected awakening and sitting up had taken the preacher by surprise. He wanted to say something to Vin...........anything to help ease his pain, but what could he say? Nothing seemed good enough, nothing would bring back Chris and that was the only thing Josiah knew that would stop Vin from this suicide path he was taking. He watched silently, thoughtfully, looking for a chance to help.
Vin wiped his face with his hand, doing his best to push the memory of the nightmare he had just experienced away from him. He got to his feet, wincing in pain and walked towards the horses. Josiah saw where he was heading and leaned down to wake Nathan. The healer followed Josiah's gaze and seeing Vin swing into the saddle, he jumped to his feet with a curse.
"Damn it Vin!" he yelled, as the tracker turned his back on them and spurred onwards.
"Get up everyone, Vin is back on the warpath," Nathan yelled, grabbing his bedroll and heading for his own horse. Vin was going to die for sure unless they were able to keep up with him and catch him when he crashed. Nathan only hoped it would be soon, before he used up all his reserve energy and had nothing left to sustain him while he healed.
JD rubbed his eyes, and stumbled to his horse. Ezra walked beside him, his face full of concern.
"You going to be all right?" he asked the younger man.
JD looked over at the gambler and lifted his chin slightly. "I will be just fine," he told him, and he even believed it himself. He had to be all right; he had to be strong for the others. He would become a man now, fully and completely, and he would do it in the memory of Chris.
The next day of riding, skirting Four Corners to cut towards Broken Ridge, was through a sweltering heat that choked the men with its closeness. The air grew steadily warmer and heavier as clouds thickened again in the sky, growing dark once more towards evening. A second night they paused only for brief rests, sometimes waking to discover Vin or Buck again already heading back onto the trail, and other times knowing not to sleep too deeply. Recognizing their friends' restlessness.
Buck began to ride next to Vin, keeping him steady if silent company although never even looking at him directly. His eyes sank into dark hollows and lost any sparkle they'd had left in them. And Vin grew entirely without words, without ears, without thought except for getting to Broken Ridge and the truth behind the ambush and Chris's death. As the miles wore away he grew more grim and steadily more pale, the blood caking and drying on his shirt and sleeve without his noticing or caring. A few times Nathan was able to force water on him, which he drank almost in a trance, but he refused food or sleep. His eyes began to glow unnaturally, lit with the internal fires of rage that held him up and kept him in the saddle. At the last, he and Buck would have entered Broken Ridge by themselves, so far had they pushed ahead of their companions in their relentless drive to get it done and over with. The noon sun was rising overhead, still hidden behind the ominous clouds that covered the sky when Broken Ridge came into view. The other men had ridden hard to catch up with Vin and Buck during the early morning, finding them at last only because they'd had to slow to a walk to spare their horses. It was again as a group, then, that they rode into town -- but a group whose edges were visibly fraying.
The six men entered the saloon, Vin somehow in the lead but with Buck close behind. He scanned the room with sunken eyes, and found the person he was looking for standing by the bar with her curvaceous body pressed up against a love-sotted cowboy. Vin advanced on her like a vulture, his face dark as death. Men stood aside as he walked steadily and with grim determination toward her, the ringing of his spurs strangely at odds with his mien and with the trembling of the blood-covered hand that hung limp at his side. Buck swung wide as they approached her, his eyes lit with a building fire.
The saloon girl looked up and saw who was heading her way, and blanched white at the sight of the six men. "You're.....you're supposed to be......" She stammered, backing up until she collided with the bar.
"Dead?" Vin finished for her, his eyes narrowing.
"What?" The girl gasped, looking frantically for a place to run.
Buck stepped forward taking her by the arm and pulling her to one side, away from the rest of the patrons. His eyes were dancing with anger and his voice came out like a hiss of a snake. "You sent us right into the middle of an ambush! You didn't think we would come back did you? Well guess what missy, we ain't that easy to kill, and we want to know: who put you up to this?"
"I......what....." The girl's eyes were wide with terror now. In the faces of the six men, she saw she didn't stand a chance. "I know nothing about an ambush, I swear..........I was only doin' what I was told." She fought against Buck's grasp but he held tight and would not let go.
"Told by who?" Vin asked, stepping in closer until his face was so close to hers that it was all she could see.
"I'll be as good as dead if I tell," she argued.
"You'll be dead if you don't," Buck growled.
This put even more fear in the girl's eyes if possible. "It was.........It was..." she looked around the room as if trying to decide if she should give this man up. But one hard shake from Buck and she burst into tears.
"It was O'Shawnessee! He told me to tell you about the men going to Selbyville. I swear I thought it was only to get you out of town and stop you from snooping about your friend. I had no idea he planned to ambush you. Now please let me go!!" She reached out to tear at Bucks' hold on her, escaping just long enough to push forward and be caught in Ezra's embrace where he held her tightly to him, not letting her escape.
The woman was weeping openly now, and it softened the heart of Nathan, who came to stand between her and Vin and Buck. "Calm down miss, no one is going to hurt you," he insisted, eyeing Buck and Vin. He put a calming hand on her shoulder. "What is your name?"
The girl sniffed, and tried to compose herself. Still caught securely in Ezra's arms, she looked up at Nathan.
"Angel, my name is Angel. And I swear I knew nothin' about no ambush. Shawn told me to make up a story that would get you out of town and on your way to Selbyville, that's all. I'm a good girl; I would never send a man to his death."
Buck reached a long arm over Nathan to grab for the young woman, a growl rising in his throat. Nathan blocked him and moved to protect her. Angel shrank more deeply into Ezra's grip, her eyes dark with terror. Buck's voice shook: "And just where would we find this 'Shawn', ANGEL?"
She looked around the saloon wildly, only to run into Vin's dark gaze to the other side of Nathan. She started at its intensity and pain, and licked her lips nervously. "I...I don't know," she stammered. "He comes in a lot. If you wait around..." The men's gazes flickered quickly to one another, and they nodded silently.
Miles away Michael O'Shawnasee sat at a small wooden table, eating a sumptuous dinner of cold fried chicken with biscuits and apple pie, provided for him by one of his men from town. He was just finishing up, wiping his mouth and fingers on a fine linen napkin when the doctor came from the back of the abandoned mine.
"He'll live, but you should have him taken to town. This damp air isn't conducive to healing his wounds," the doctor told Shawn, looking at him as if he were the devil himself. He had been leery about coming out to the mine to begin with, but the man holding the gun to his head had insisted.
"Well, that just ain't possible now, Doc, so he stays here. You sure he will live, no complications we need to worry about?" Shawn leaned back in his chair, taking a long drink as he regarded the man with almost an air of concern.
"He should be all right in a few more days, but he will need to take it easy if he wants to heal up proper. Keep him resting for at least a week." The doctor opened his bag and took out a small bottle of brown liquid. "Give him this if the pain becomes too much, but only in small doses, it is very strong stuff." He handed it to Shawn.
"Thanks Doc, you're a real humanitarian." Shawn took the bottle from him.
"Yeah, well I really need to be getting back now," the doctor said, looking nervously around at the men standing at the entrance of the mine.
Shawn laughed, tipping his chair back on two legs, and raised a hidden shotgun up from his lap and shot the doctor through the table. The man's arms flew out as he was hurled against the earthen wall behind him. Shards of chicken and table and the man's clothing rained to the floor. Shawn stood up and gestured at him, dismissively, speaking to the men in the opening. "Drag 'im out of here."
A man came from the side and grabbed the doctor by the arms and began to drag him out as another man came running inside, his clothes a mixture of dust and sweat, his face flushed. He was breathing hard.
"Boss!!" The man said, stopping just short of the demolished table and looking at the man being dragged out in startled surprise.
"What is it, Riley? You better have good news for me." Shawn said, narrowing his eyes at the man.
"I......we......we did like you said............. just like you said. We hid in the rocks outside of Selbyville and waited for those men to come along. We were able to wound a few, one pretty bad by the looks of things, and maybe more, but they fought back too damned hard and we had to light out or be killed ourselves."
"There were only SIX of them and over a dozen of you?? You let them get away??" Shawn threw his chair across the mine furiously, and it shattered to splinters. Riley backed slowly from the mine, shaking. Once clear, he turned and ran for his horse, mounted, and galloped away.
Shawn stood in the wreckage of his supper, panting, and frowned. Slowly his face relaxed and a cruel smile began to tug at the corners of his mouth. Turning then, he walked farther into the mine, picking up a lantern from where it hung on the wall as he went. The shadow and light danced crazily on the patchwork of earth and timber. He stooped to go under a low beam, and set the lantern on a barrel.
"So," he said softly, his voice laced with hate. "Want to hear the latest news about your friends? It sounds like at least one of 'em is dead by now. . . Or will be soon." He smiled and held up the bottle of laudanum. "And where you're going, you won't need this." The brown liquid spilled out onto the mine floor to the sound of Shawn's insane laughter.
In the distance, thunder rumbled.
Part 2
Chris Larabee sat on a mine floor, his head down in the dark shadows. Both of his wrists were tied to an overhead beam, his arms and hands limp, his posture slumped forward against the restraints. His shirt hung opened over a clean bandage around his midsection, and another was wrapped around his thigh, over pants that had been slit opened at the site of the wound. He raised a weary face to Shawn, slowly, as his words sank in. The ones that echoed in his mind just now were ones about “friends” and “news” -- with interlaced laughter than sent shivers along Chris’s skin. Chris had never known Shawn to be very stable. And if had turned his attention to the boys then this was bad news. Nothing good could come from it. For Shawn was like a snake: when he was mad he would strike the nearest target.
Shawn leaned against the wall of the mine, inspecting his fingernails casually, glancing at Chris and watching the meaning of what he’d said sink into the wounded prisoner’s mind. He smiled a very small smile, tight with malice.
“You see,” he said, “I sent your mates into an ambush day before yesterday. A right big one. Twelve men hidden in the rocks along their trail.”
Shawn's words and their meaning ripped into Chris and exploded in his mind, causing more pain then the bullets had. He half-rose from his sitting position and lunged outward against the ropes that held his arms to the beam overhead. His mind was filled with a sudden image, a desire to get his hands around Shawn's neck, to squeeze the life out of him, to let him feel a taste of the pain he was inflicting on Chris -- and now on Chris’s friends. Shawn merely stepped backward, laughing as Chris's hands clawed at the air, his wrists held tight by the ropes that limited his reach.
"You Son of a ...." Chris began, but he jerked to halt in mid-sentence, overcome by a wave of pain, a surge of fire that left him limp. He collapsed again to the dirt floor, panting from his exertion.
"Tsk! Is this the thanks I get for walking all the way down here to deliver a message to you? I just thought you might want to hear about your mates………but I could be wrong."
Chris looked up slowly, his jaws tight with rage. Shawn took a slow and cautious step closer again, his head cocked to one side and his eyes bright with satisfaction.
"Now, now, Larabee," Shawn said, squatting down in front of him. "The doctor said that you need to take it easy. And I’m sure you’d hate to disobey his final words." Shawn gave a laugh at Chris’s look of shocked understanding.
Chris shook his head, drawing himself together with a visible effort. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Shawn. I ride alone. Always have.”
“Oh! Nice try, Larabee! I like that.” Shawn picked up a small tool laying nearby, stood up, and turned the tool over in his hands, looking at it with idle curiosity. Suddenly he looked up into Chris’s eyes. “Except I happen to know it’s a lie.”
He paused, tapping the small tool on the palm of one hand, regarding Chris with thoughtful and angry eyes. Chris willed himself to calmness, refusing to believe the implications of Shawn’s words.
Shawn’s voice was suddenly strident. "I have been hunting you! Too damn bad your family is already dead…………I would have enjoyed making them suffer just to see the pain it would have caused you. But I am content to just kill your six mates.”
Chris looked up, his eyes blank but a shock vibrating along his frame.
"Yes." Shawn nodded, pleased. "I know there are six. I told you: I have been hunting you and them." He tossed the tool to the table. "I know, for instance, about the one called Tanner -- awfully close to you, isn’t he? And then there's your good old buddy, Wilmington. Then there is that stripling, what's his name? Yeah: JD Dunne. What a shame to die so young. I bet he hasn’t even had himself a member of the fairer sex yet." Shawn laughed at the fury in Chris's eyes, knowing it was fueled by a deeper pain. "Let's see, then there's that fancy gambler fella', and that darkie doctor of yours, and that man of the cloth. Quite an odd assortment of men, I'd say. Although I do hear you've all cut quite a swath through some of the tougher elements in this territory. Until now."
"You know, that fight you had with those two mates of yours in Four Corners was a pure stroke of luck for me! Oh yes," Shawn nodded, "I was there, watching you, waiting for the perfect opportunity. But with your 'gang' always on hand I was at a loss as to how to get you alone. But that little row you had, and the way you lit out of there -- it couldn’t have worked better if I'd planned it myself. And you know what the best part is?" Shawn squatted again. His voice dropped a notch, became sibilant. "They think you're dead."
Chris blinked then, the room beginning to spin. It had been a long time in the dark, with only occasional lantern-light, and he'd lost track of night and day. The pain had been wearing and steady, and the position he'd been tied in increasingly untenable. The things that Shawn was saying suddenly fell into pieces with the rest of the fabric of reality, swirling slowly. Shawn saw, realized what was happening, and scowled. He grabbed a dipper of water from a nearby bucket and tossed it into Chris's face. The man flinched from the shock of the cold, shook his head, and turned cleared eyes on his captor.
"Now you listen to me, and you listen GOOD, Larabee!" Shawn’s voice was thick with fury, edged with madness. "I want you paying attention to every last thing I say to you. I want you knowing EXACTLY what happens. Because that's what this is all about. You are going to suffer like you never have before, because your mates are about to die -- ARE dying -- because they think THEY are responsible for your death."
"I killed the bleedin’ bastard that shot you, because I TOLD them to wing you only. And I put your coat on him and buried him under your name. The sheriff in this town didn't even see you; we pulled you out of that pub too fast. We gave him your guns and your horse, and the local paper published a story about how you died. And, just like I thought, here came your pardners. All grim and beady-eyed, and looking for YOU." He laughed shortly.
"And I gave 'em what they were looking for. The story of how you died. Cursing them. Alone, abandoned by your mates. Betrayed.” He paused. “I have to say, they were even more upset than I thought they'd be. They bought it all, swallowed it whole." He chuckled with delight. "You should've seen them all standing around ‘your' grave!" He moved away laughing more loudly, his face turning red with it.
"Now HERE is the part I can't wait for you to hear. Ready?" His eyes glittered in the lantern light, tiny flames mirrored in them, dancing. "I paid a local pub lass to tell them who killed you. And where they went."
He laughed again at Chris's expression, the burst of anger that caused him to jerk again on the ropes that bound his hands to the beam.
"And then I set up that ambush I told you about. You know, the one with a dozen of my good men? I had your mates attacked as it was getting dark, from rocky hills alongside the trail. Good cover for my men to pick yours off." He grew serious once more, an almost greenish glow shining like polish over his eyes now. "I hear one of them got shot up pretty bad. And another one wounded. Now--" he leaned back against the wall. "--I wonder who that dying man could be? Which one of your mates is it, Larabee, that's the first to go? You won't have to wait long, you know. I'll bring his body here for you to identify. And then, one by one, those of the others. You see, I want you riddled with guilt as I toss the bodies of your mates at your feet. They are fighting my men and dying for YOU, Chris Larabee. You will be the one to blame for their deaths......only YOU."
Chris raged in fury, an almost animalistic scream twisting its way from his throat as he rose to his feet to pull on the ropes as hard as he possibly could, struggling to escape. His hands grasped the ropes that ran from his wrists up to the beam, and he twisted and fought against them until they bit into the skin. A long shudder of pain ran along him, suddenly, and he fell as his wounded leg gave out and he collapsed over it. He curled over his side, panting, reeling again from all that had happened, all that he was hearing. Several long minutes passed while he struggled to regain control over both emotions and body. Then he spoke again, his voice hoarse, his head still down and turned away. "Why all these damned games, Shawn? Why don’t you just kill me now and get it over with?"
"YOU KNOW WHY!" Shawn spat. "Do you think I could ever forget what you did to me? I spent years rotting in that military jail, living only for one reason: revenge on you! Revenge for getting me thrown in that hell hole, for having to watch my mates fall sick and wither away before my eyes, for every blister, every broken bone, every nightmare I still wake up from screaming at the top of my lungs. YOU did that to me Chris Larabee, and now you are going to pay!"
"You got what you deserved." Chris's jaw was clenched against the pain only now beginning to fade again. "You did far worse to the men under your care when you were running the prison. The things you did to those men were unspeakable: hundreds of men died needlessly because you just didn’t give a damn."
"They were the enemy. What did it matter?" Shawn frowned thoughtfully, resentment suddenly flashing across his features. "But you had to go and stick your self-righteous nose in it all didn't you? So what if a few prisoners died? That just meant less of them to be out there plugging OUR mates full of lead."
"They were human beings, and proud men....you had no right." Chris said quietly.
"I HAD EVERY RIGHT!" Shawn leaped to his feet, screaming. "I was in charge, I ran that place as I saw fit and no one ....NO ONE questioned my authority. Until you! They sentenced me to ten years hard labor in that military camp.....ten years of back breaking work and with each day I grew to hate you more." Shawn paced up and down in front of Chris like a wild animal.
"But what made me want to rip out your heart was the fact that only I made it out alive....only me! Sean and Pat never did. They died in there, brought down by fever and dysentery, and I was forced to stand by helpless, watching as my only mates in the world met their end. And THAT is what I plan on doing to you." He halted, panting from his rage, from the remembered emotions.
Chris moved slowly back to the sitting position he'd found was most comfortable, but his arms ached and he wished he could draw them down, even for a moment. Shawn was beginning to look odd again, dancing in and out of his vision, flickering like the lantern light. Chris shook his head, thinking of Vin and Buck, of Nathan and... DAMN! He shook his head again. He felt fear clutch at him as he realized how entirely helpless he was. As he realized that Shawn could and would get away with it. He looked up at the man, dazed and weak, and horror finally showed in his eyes. He couldn't block it any more.
Shawn threw his head back and laughed loudly.
He turned, then, and walked away, taking the lantern with him, the light bobbing its way up the shaft until Chris was left alone once more in the dark.
Shawn emerged from the back of the mine and set the lantern down on the ground by the now demolished table. He looked thoughtful and concerned as he signaled for one of his men to come over.
"Yes, Boss?" The man was dusty from recent long contact with the trail. Shawn eyed him angrily, suddenly.
“Were you one of those flaming idiots that let Larabee’s men get away on you?”
“Sorry to say so, Boss, but I am. They’re a hell of bunch of fighters.”
Shawn paused, his hands opening and closing spasmodically. Finally he relaxed with a slight shake of his head.
"Take half a dozen men or so and go to town. I want you to tie up a loose end for me." Shawn told him.
"Loose end? What loose end?"
"That saloon girl........Angel. I think it is time she ascended to heaven......." He gave a wicked smile, one that was shared by the other man as he turned to carry out the orders.
Chris sat alone, the only sound around him the constant drip of water from deeper down in the mine. He could hear his own heart beat and his ragged breath seemed like the roar of thunder .......or was that coming from outside? It was hard to tell, his mind was so full of hate and frustration and pain. Images that seemed suddenly in the dark to rush in from all sides and coalesce into a nightmare. And above all of them, standing out as the only Real thing was this: Shawn was right. Chris had put the others' lives in danger the minute he left town.
Their deaths would be on his head. A cry of anguish slipped the bonds of his throat and trailed down the mine tunnel, to float into the storm gathering outside.
+ + + + + + +
The afternoon was getting closer and more humid by the hour as Chris Larabee’s six friends waited in the Broken Ridge saloon for O’Shawnessee. Nathan and Josiah sat side by side at a table in the back of the saloon, their eyes tracking Vin and Buck. JD had fallen asleep with his head on a nearby table, Ezra sitting next to him shuffling and dealing cards to himself endlessly, never letting his gaze stray off from the saloon girl Angel who sat next to him, still looking as frightened as ever. Thunder muttered in the near distance, and a puff of dust rode under the saloon doors on a sudden gust of storm-breeze. The breeze died almost as soon as it was born, and hot, still air fell again over the room like a blanket.
Nathan's dark eyes were riveted on the figure standing against a far wall, his eyes fixed on the street visible through the saloon window. Vin had stopped paling, and was instead getting a slightly flushed look to his face that Nathan had been cautiously monitoring as best he could without setting off the tracker's defenses. He’d noticed the way that Vin was leaning against the wall -- in a position that caused it to support an increasing amount of his weight -- and he didn’t like it. He also didn’t like it that Vin had put on his heavy coat not long after they'd decided to wait for Shawn. He suspected the tracker felt the healer's probing gaze on him, and had chosen to cover the wound rather than have to deal with Nathan's repeated and insistent attempts to treat it. Nathan frowned again, thinking about it, angry that he could no longer see whether or not the wound was still bleeding, and angry because he knew the coat was only making the wounded man hotter. Even in his shirtsleeves, Nathan himself felt like he could hardly breathe in the stifling atmosphere.
The healer sighed, pursing his lips, and turned his glass of beer around to watch the murky sunlight play through its depths.
Josiah heard the sigh, and his deep voice was low in response. "Troubled, Brother?"
Nathan glanced up again at Vin, then looked back at his beer helplessly. "That damned Vin is gonna' die standin' there, an' I won't even know when he did it."
Josiah laughed very softly, but without real humor. "I expect you'll notice when he slides to the floor."
Nathan shook his head and then nodded shortly toward the tracker. "You ain't lookin' at him close enough, Josiah. He's got himself propped into the corner there in such a way he can stand about as long as he's got a breath left."
Josiah frowned, studying Vin more intently. "I see what you mean," he said finally. Then, "Well, the thing that'll tell the tale is how long it takes Shawn to get here."
Nathan looked up as Buck paced by the table, strode angrily to the far end of the room, turned to drum his fingers nervously upon the bar counter, and then paced back past them. His spurs jangled incessantly as his boots beat against the wooden floor, and he pulled and worried at his mustache as he grit his teeth.
"I'll tell you this," said Josiah, watching, "About another 5 minutes of Buck's pacing an' we ARE gonna' lose another one of us." He looked at Nathan, smiling very gently, his eyes sad. "I, for one, can't take much more of that."
A scraping and slightly different jingle marked Buck’s turn at the far end of the room and heralded another return trip. Josiah ran a hand through his hair and grinned wryly as their friend passed them again. Nathan’s eyes followed Buck, noting the hollows around his eyes, the dullness to them, the pallor of his complexion.
"What are we gonna' do, Josiah?" Nathan's eyes were anguished, his strength blocked by the two men's refusals to let him come near them any longer.
Josiah shook his head. "I still think that depends on Shawn." He lifted his head as another puff of storm breeze blew in under the saloon doors. "I smell rain," he said.
The back door to the saloon opened suddenly, causing everyone to jump and reach for their guns, but they eased back a little when they saw two women had entered, not the man they were looking for. The shorter woman pointed to the men and at Angel, then whispered something to the taller woman. This caused her frown to deepen as she stepped forward, her hands on her curvaceous hips.
"What is the meaning of this," she snapped. The tall, buxom woman had auburn hair coiled in a resplendent coif and a none-too-happy voice. "What is the big idea of coming in here and terrorizing one of my girls and then holding her against her will?"
Angel spoke up, fear in her eyes. "They said they were gonna’ kill me Cat!"
"I assure you Miss, the notion never crossed our minds," Ezra said. “I am aghast at the mere thought of such a thing happening to such a lovely lady as yourself.”
"But he said.........." she insisted, pointing at Buck, "....he said that if I didn't talk I would be dead" -- quoting his exact words.
"But you will notice that you did talk, and you are only being detained temporarily, my dear." Ezra placed a hand on hers and patted it gently.
"Regardless, you had no right to threaten her in the first place." Cat strode regally towards the table and, taking Angel by the hand, pulled her up from her chair. The movement woke JD and his hand went instantly to his gun, stopping when Ezra laid a hand of warning on his arm.
Buck stormed forward and stood before Cat and Angel. “The girl stays!" he growled. "I ain’t gonna’ have her or anyone else running off to warn that bastard Shawn before he comes here."
In the face of Buck's rage, Angel started to cry again. JD tossed a withering look at Buck, stood up, and grabbed the older man forcibly by the arm. He shoved Buck to a farther corner of the saloon where, to everyone’s surprise, he threw Buck down into a chair, sat down angrily opposite him, and began to speak to him in low, urgent tones.
Cat stood where she was for a moment, undaunted, looking ready to kill. Then taking Angel by the hand she headed for the swinging doors. This time, just before she was able to exit, it was Vin who stepped in her way and blocked their passage. His ragged breathing, as he faced them, did not belie the cold and deadly intent in his voice. "No one leaves until we get what we came for."
Cat looked from Vin to Buck, staring again at her from where he sat with JD, and then at the rest of the men who were spread out over the room. She knew when she was outnumbered.
Ezra stood and gestured towards the empty chairs before him. "Ladies, if you please.”
Cat huffed her affront and returned herself and Angel to the table, where they sat down with cold faces. Ezra grinned. “Would you care to partake in a game of chance while we wait?" he asked, gesturing towards the deck of cards he held in his hand.
Buck watched Ezra dealing out cards with blank eyes, JD’s voice buzzing angrily at him. He turned to look at the younger man, and saw him grow silent.
“Buck, have you heard ANYTHING I’ve said?”
Buck struggled with that a moment, and then his eyes focused on JD’s face and he shook his head. “Sorry, kid,” he mumbled. “I guess my mind’s elsewhere.” He started to pull his long frame together to rise, but JD reached out a restraining hand and laid it on the older man’s arm.
“Buck.” His voice was different, Buck suddenly realized. He looked again into JD’s face. He felt his skin crawl suddenly with the realization that this was not the same kid he’d known all this time. Something had changed. He shook his head, bewildered.
“Buck, you have to listen to me. I’ve listened to you since I got out here, and you’ve never steered me wrong. But this time you need to listen to me. You’re not thinkin’ straight, Buck. You’re doin’ all the things you always told me not to do.”
He paused, and Buck looked down suddenly at the table, and then twisted his neck slightly so that his hat brim hid his face from the younger man. But he didn’t get up. JD swallowed and continued.
“I know you’re mad, Buck. I am, too. Hell, we all are. But you’re so busy bein’ mad that you’re forgettin’ about anybody or anything else.” His voice dropped a notch, grew more serious and penetrating. “Buck, have you even looked at Vin lately? I mean REALLY looked at him?”
Buck started to nod, then instead raised his head slowly to turn it in the direction of the corner where Vin was watching out the window. He stared at the man a moment in silence, then looked back at JD
“Yes,” he said softly, “I have.” His eyes grew even sadder, which JD had not thought possible. “You’ve gotta’ face it, Kid. He don’t intend to live past gettin’ this job done.”
“But that’s not RIGHT.” J.D.’s voice was a tearing whisper. “And it’s not right that you’ve got the same hell-bent intention he does!”
Buck jerked as if struck, and his face darkened. “You leave me out of this, JD. What I do is my own business.”
“Yeah? Well that’s what Chris said if I remember right!” Buck’s eyes snapped suddenly at J.D.’s words. “Yeah, you BETTER remember that! At least then maybe it can keep you from makin’ the same mistake he did!”
“Chris didn’t make no mistake,” hissed Buck furiously. “WE let him down. Me and Vin.” He shoved his chair back angrily and rose. “Everything I taught you is true, JD. Those are the rules for survivin’. They just don’t apply this time.”
A sudden low throb of hoofbeats rumbled through the saloon floor from the street, and rose until it became the clearly audible sound of many horses galloping together as a group. The six men sat up into alert postures, their eyes flickering quickly to one another. Ezra rose and gestured to Cat and Angel to move to the far wall of the saloon.
Vin drew back from the window, still peering out cautiously, and a startle ran through his frame. He turned to Buck. "At least two a’ these fellers out here are the ones that ambushed us!" He turned back to the room, drawing and levering the action on his Winchester as he did so. “They’re comin’ in hot, Boys!”
Buck drew his big pistol, his face suddenly white with fury, as the first of the group burst through the swinging doors. The entering man recognized the group in the saloon too late, started, and fired at the same time that Buck's pistol exploded in fire and smoke, the report deafening. Vin slid quickly down the wall in the corner into a deep crouch, his Winchester firing so rapidly that he could hardly be seen through the smoke. Immediately, Shawn's men dropped, rolling in under the door to throw over tables and shoot from behind cover, as others who were still outside broke away to run to the back of the building.
One of the men who made it in the front door scanned the room from his position on the floor, and noticed Cat and Angel hunched down against the wall. Recalling Shawn's orders he leveled his gun on Angel. He knew how Shawn got when he was angry, and not following orders was the fastest way to die. Cat saw the man, and saw him aim his gun at them with deadly intent.
"NO!" She cried, grabbing Angel and pushing her down as she covered her with her own body.
Ezra heard Cat’s cry and followed the direction she was looking, spying the man about to shoot. He sighted down his pistol and snapped off a quick shot. The man jerked back as the bullet stuck him, killing him instantly. Cat and Angel looked up, their eyes darting from the now-dead man to Ezra. He winked at the two women and flashed his lady killer smile before he rolled across the open space between himself and Vin, and then slid and crawled closer to the tracker's position to cover him as he reloaded.
The back door burst open in a hail of gunfire from outside, and Buck whirled to return fire as JD leaped behind the bar. Nathan and Josiah dropped a table to its side to cover them, and shot at both parties of invaders. Buck, his arm extended straight, his pistol firing again and again, began to advance on the men who'd come in the back door, a roar of rage slowly rising in his throat. JD saw, threw down his pistols, and reached across the bar to grab Buck's torso in a bear hug and drag him over it, the two of them crashing in a heap on the back side.
Josiah and Nathan split up, then, one to draw closer to the back doorway fight, the other to pin down the rest of the attackers so they could not circle around Vin and Ezra.
Smoke filled the room even faster than the steady roar of gunfire. The steady din was broken only by the crash of heavier caliber weapons here and there. Lightning suddenly cracked directly overhead and thunder rocked the room, overpowering the barrage of gunfire. Immediately, rain was pounding on the tin roof, and then slacking away again almost as quickly. The group of attackers nearest the front doors scanned the saloon quickly, and seeing that they had made no progress but lost several of their men, and that their companions at the back of the room had been held back as well, they suddenly screamed to the others at the back door, calling out for a retreat. They drew back, then, and ran for their horses. Buck yelled in rage and leaped the bar to follow them, running, JD close at his heels.
Ezra put a hand under Vin's arm as the tracker struggled to stand, and Nathan and Josiah rose from their positions, reloading as they ran to join their friends. Buck was already mounted, spurring his gray furiously, and JD was whirling his bay from the rail to follow as the others burst out of the saloon into the street, Vin and Ezra only slightly behind Josiah and Nathan. Nathan turned to lay a restraining hand on Vin, only to see him mount grim-faced, paling visibly as he gathered the reins and pulled away from the hitching post. He spurred the black into a pounding gallop and raced after Buck and JD as the others once again found themselves watching their enraged companions head off, bent on hell itself.
"Damn it all to hell!" Nathan roared as he reached for his own horse and mounted up. Josiah and Ezra were doing the same as Cat and Angel ran out of the saloon behind them. Cat grabbed hold of Ezra before he could mount and turned him around to face her.
"They will be heading back out to the old mine where Shawn is. He has that place wired with explosives. I’ve seen it." Cat looked almost ashamed to admit to this, the implications of her words all too clear. "He is a deadly man, be careful." She suddenly pulled Ezra to her by the lapels of his red jacket. Her kiss was one of gratitude for saving their lives, but also one of luck. A kiss to send a man off with, in hopes it would keep him safe during the battle he must soon face. When she pulled away, she could see that it had had the desired effect on him. "Be safe." She whispered as she stood back, allowing him to mount up.
Ezra was taken aback by the power of the woman's kiss. He touched his lips as he turned his horse once more to look at her before he dug in his heels and raced after Nathan and Josiah.
Three men chased the fleeing attackers, their horses’ bellies stretched low to the ground as they flew in pursuit. The sky burst opened again, lightning flashing with a roar and crack, the wind leaping up and dashing in swirls that caught Buck’s hat and swept it foreward from his head, then threw it up into the sky as they passed on. Three more riders followed behind, gaining slowly, their faces grim and their eyes on the clouds as well as the pursuit. They saw Buck’s hat skidding across the ground as they passed it. Rain beat again, a swift curtain that passed by leaving them in a supernatural silence of still, hot air and the wind holding its breath. The fleeing men ahead of them drew their mounts farther from each other, stringing out into a long column, and the dust rising from their horses’ hooves grew yellow as the clouds blackened and the air grew thick and greenish.
The trail they followed rounded the base of a low hill to enter a mining camp, the black mouth of a mine shaft dark in the rapidly darkening afternoon. Leaping from their horses at the entrance, the men being chased darted inside, some of them dropping behind rocks and edges of the hillside just outside the entryway. They turned to face their backtrail, and leveled long rifles at the men who burst around the bend to catch up to them.
Buck reined his gray in so sharply at the volley of gunfire roaring in his face that the animal slid on its haunches, mouth opened in protest. His hat gone, hair a wild mane shining in the rapidly yellowing storm light, he shrieked a curse and leaped to the ground, both pistols extended and firing. JD, tearing into the camp on Buck's heels with Vin behind him, sized up the situation in a second, and his heart rose to hammer in his throat. With a scream to Buck, a scream torn away and tattered by the wind, he spurred his horse to intercept his friend.
Rolling back immediately in front of Buck, he both shielded his friend and blocked any forward movement. Eyes blazing, he leaned far over the side of the bay to scream into Buck's face, his own hat blowing off as it was caught by the sudden rising storm wind.
"BUCK! IF YOU DIE, I DIE WITH YOU!"
The older man recoiled from JD’s words as if they were cannon fire. He jerked backward, gasping, then leaped to the saddle and turned his gray for cover with the others now arriving. His eyes turned back to land on JD, making sure the younger man understood the choice he had made.
J.D.'s face relaxed for the first time in three long days as he spurred the little bay to leap into a gallop. At that moment, lightning cracked again, a long white shower of sparks forming a writhing silver thread between a nearby tree and the sky. J.D.'s horse half-reared in terror, its hooves sliding in the thin layer of mud forming over the dirt with the beginning rain.
As Buck leaped from his gray's back behind a mine cart and turned to welcome JD to cover with him, his horrified eyes instead saw his companion go down with his horse practically at the mine entrance, the horse whinnying in terror. Simultaneously, a blur on a black horse flew past Buck, headed for JD in the rain that was suddenly driving again.
"Get him!" Shawn screamed, his hands gesturing at JD, struggling to get up in the slick soil and to clear the equally-struggling horse. "GRAB HIM!"
Three men ran out into the storm, grabbed JD before he could draw his weapons, and drew him back into the mine entrance, as a barrage of gunfire burst from the arriving Josiah, Nathan, and Ezra. Shawn was waiting to grab JD roughly by the shirt as one of his men quickly tied the young man's hands. The other men still returned fire at Buck and the others.
"Get them this time, you idiots!" Shawn screamed in fury. “If any of you live to tell me they got away this time, I'll kill you myself!"
Grabbing the rope between J.D.'s hands, he jerked him to a near-run, dragging him down the mine tunnel, picking up a lantern as he rushed past it. The darkness closed in, the sounds of the storm grew more distant, and soon all JD could hear was the ragged push and shove of his own breath as he struggled to stay on his feet, unbalanced by the way Shawn was towing him. He tried to glance back twice, terrified of Buck's reaction to what had happened, but all he could see behind him was darkness. With a sudden cry, Shawn threw JD to the floor with an infuriated gesture, the young man rolling and sliding in the dirt on one shoulder and the side of his face until he collided with the wall.
"Here is the first one Larabee, just like I promised!" Shawn roared, his laughter like the sound of a grizzly as it bounced off the rock walls. "And the rest of your buddies will be along to follow in just a few minutes."
JD shook his head, trying to adjust to the low light and the pain in his head where he had hit the wall. What had Shawn just said? Larabee?
JD rolled over, his hands still tied in front of him, keeping him off balance as he struggled to sit up. His gaze fell on a figure sitting only a few feet from him, and his eyes widened with shock and a wave of pure joy.
"CHRIS!!" he shouted, his youthful exuberance bursting out as tears sprang to his eyes. "You’re alive!"
Chris nodded at the young man, happy to see him but grieved at the circumstances. He glanced at Shawn and opened his mouth to explain, but was interrupted when Shawn stepped forward angrily.
"Yeah well don't get used to the idea, Dunne!" Shawn barked, grabbing JD and hauling him up by the shirt front. "Because you ain’t gonna’ live long enough to enjoy it and neither is HE!"
"Leave him alone!" Chris shouted straining once more to get his hands on Shawn. "You bastard, it’s me you want..........just leave him and the others out of it!!"
"Ohhhh, No! This is way too much fun!" Shawn drew a large knife from his belt and held it up to JD's throat.
JD could feel the cold steel pressed against his skin and he tried to move backwards away from its bite but Shawn held him tightly. Any extra movement on his part only made the blade move more against his skin and he could feel the small trickles running down his neck.
"SHAWN!!" Chris could take no more of this, he was ready to do anything to make him stop, even beg, but he knew that would only heighten the man's sadistic pleasure
A louder roar of gunfire from the mouth of the cave made Shawn take pause, then looking back at JD he put the knife back into his belt and pulled out his gun instead.
"I would like to kill you slowly in front of him, little boy, but time just won't allow it. Perhaps the last one can have the pleasure of that..........after I have killed the rest of you that is."
Shawn pulled the hammer back on his gun as he put the muzzle to JD's face.
JD turned slightly looking at Chris once more. He was not scared though, he realized with wonder, he was amazingly calm. He gave Chris a slight nod and a half hearted smile as he closed his eyes and waited for the blow.......
+ + + + + + +
When Vin had seen J.D.'s horse going down, his first thought was to pick the young man up and drag him off to safety against the side of his own horse. But he hadn't gotten there fast enough. Not halfway across the distance remaining between him and the mine entrance, he'd seen the men run out to grab JD and drag him inside. He'd also seen the blond man they'd been looking for, seen him grab JD and drag him back into the tunnel. Vin slid from the back of his horse to the ground at the outside edge of the mine entrance, sheltering behind a pile of lumber.
He glanced back at Buck and the others, and swallowed against the dizziness that suddenly caught at him. He couldn’t bear to lose another of his friends because of his failure, again, to be where he needed to be, he thought. Especially not one so young, with so much to live for. He shoved against something inside himself, pulled back to alertness, looked to Buck again.
Buck had screamed when he saw JD taken. He slammed his fists against the side of the mine car, and tears burst from his eyes to rage down his face as he roared curses. Nathan drew his breath sharply, fearing what would happen next.
Josiah ran behind Buck to come up on the other side of him, laying down a pattern of shots that would keep the man from being immediately killed if he leaped to his feet in his grief. Instead, he heard the man gulp noisily, his voice torn and ragged, and then cry, "Let's lay down cover so Vin can get in! He's waitin' for us! " He looked to the other men with him, and ran a sleeve shakily across his eyes. "Come on! Let's go!"
With a scream of fury, he led the other men across the open space to a stack of materials that was closer to the mine entrance, and in a better tactical position. Their furious and sustained gunfire drove the mine defenders back step by step as one after another of their number dropped under the onslaught. As they focused their fire on one side of the entrance, those defending the other side slowly moved over to meet the challenge, leaving a small area undefended. This was the opportunity Vin had been waiting for.
His Winchester in his hand, he rose silently and ran around the pile of lumber to slip into the mine along one wall. Looking back, he made quick eye contact with Buck, who whipped the other men into an even more furious volley of shots to distract the men in the mine from Vin's presence.
Ahead of him, he caught a dim and distant glow deeper in the recesses of the trailing shaft, and jogged quickly toward it. He ran along one edge of the tunnel, close to the wall, sometimes brushing against it as he occasionally stumbled in the dark. The throbbing in his shoulder grew as he ran, and he realized suddenly that some of the darkness that was causing him to stumble was of his own making. He began to pant, slowing, leaning against the wall a moment trying to draw a steadier breath. He could hear voices ahead now, knew he was nearing Shawn and JD.
Fighting the weakness that started trying to fold up his knees, he braced and walked on, incapable of running now. The hand holding the Winchester touched the wall here and there as he sought balance against the increasing dizziness. He set his lips and clenched his teeth, determined to free JD, at least, from this madman before he let go.
As Vin rounded the next turn in the tunnel he stopped suddenly and jerked back, plastering himself against the wall. He had seen Shawn standing in a sphere of dim light within the dark tunnel, only 15 or 20 feet away, holding JD up close, a knife pressed to his throat.
Vin leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He wiped the rain dripping from his hair off his face, the coolness feeling good against his fevered skin. At least JD was still alive, he thought as a slight weight was lifted off his heavy heart. Now he just had to hang on long enough to see that he remained that way. Vin tried to steady himself against the slight shaking that made it hard to stand, as he took a deep breath. He knew he had to move quickly, and that he had to knock Shawn physically away from JD if the young man was to have a chance of surviving, but the words he heard next made it all the more clear how urgent the situation was......
"I would like to kill you slowly in front of him, little boy, but time just won't allow it. Perhaps the last one can have the pleasure of that..........after I have killed the rest of you that is."
Vin burst out from his cover like a shot from a gun, lunging at Shawn with all the strength he had left. Shawn was taken off balance and went down hard as Vin rolled over him, more because he couldn’t stop his momentum than anything else. The two rolled over one another, each fighting to get a vantage point with their guns as JD was thrown back against the wall once more.
Vin felt a white flame burst inside his shoulder as Shawn reached up and grabbed hold of it, trying to force Vin off of him, but he refused to acknowledge the pain, instead focusing all his energy, all his hate on killing Shawn.........killing the man who had murdered Chris. But Shawn had seen the flicker of pain in Vin's eyes as he had grabbed his shoulder and realizing that it was a weak spot, drove his fist hard into it once more, causing Vin to cry out and loosen his hold on him slightly.
This was all Shawn needed as he drew his hand up and fired his gun, the impact throwing Vin back several feet away onto the floor. JD, having just made it to his feet yelled out as he saw Vin go down, taking a step toward him only to be halted as Shawn spun back to face him and turned his gun on JD once more.
Chris had watched all of this nightmare unfold before him, helpless to stop it. And now his worst fears had been realized. One of his friends was dead! Vin lay motionless on the ground behind Shawn, his gun having dropped from his limp hand. Chris saw blood growing at a steady pace against his shirt.
"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Chris shouted, his mind ablaze with despair.
But it was not over yet, for now Shawn had his gun aimed at JD, and Chris knew that there was nothing stopping him from killing the kid. Chris fought with all his strength, all his hate, all his anguish to free himself and stop this madness. If he could have taken the bullet that killed Vin he would have in a heartbeat, but it was too late for him...........but not yet too late for JD.
But the ropes held secure. Chris knew it was useless.
Shawn looked over at Chris one last time, his smile almost inhuman now, his eyes glowing a pale yellow in the flickering lantern light.
"I told you that you would pay Larabee, I told you!" Shawn said, as he squeezed his finger on the trigger.
But the shot that rang out was not from Shawn's gun..............but from someplace behind him. Shawn jerked to one side, fell to the floor rolling, and then scrambled to his feet, clutching his chest in pain. JD stumbled back, relief showing on his face as he saw where the shot had come from. Vin Tanner’s head wobbled as he tried to hold up his Winchester high enough to fire it again, clearly trying to focus enough to get off another shot at the retreating Shawn.
Shawn had dropped his gun when the shot had ripped through him, and now seeing the look in Vin's eyes, he backed away down the mine shaft, clutching his wound. He let his gaze fall on Chris one last time before he disappeared into the darkness.
"This is not over Larabee.......not by a long shot." And then he was gone, swallowed up by the darkness that had already consumed his mind. Vin wavered a moment still training his rifle on the darkness where Shawn had disappeared, and then crumpled with a groan.
JD stared after Shawn, then to Vin. His trance was broken by the sight of Chris struggling with his ropes.
"Untie me!" Chris screamed, wanting to get over to Vin.
JD struggled with the knots for what seemed like forever, until at last they gave way, freeing Chris from the hated bonds. Chris tottered to the place where Vin had collapsed, falling to his knees and crawling the last steps.
"Vin! Vin!" Chris drew back the heavy coat to check the wound, saw the older mass of dried blood higher up, and glanced silently at JD. He pulled back the cloth at the edge of the newer wound, and grimaced when he saw what lay beneath the bounty hunter’s bloody shirt.
"Get Nathan in here now or he’ll die for sure!" Chris said to JD, only realizing after he said this that he was taking it for granted that Nathan still WAS alive.
JD looked from Chris to Vin, and then back to where Shawn had disappeared. He did not want to leave the two injured men in a cave with a mad man, but he knew he had no choice. If they were to live, he needed to go get help. JD reached down and picked up Shawn's gun, noticing that Chris had moved Vin's Winchester a little closer to him as well.
"I will be right back." JD said, but his words held more meaning than they spoke, and he could tell that Chris understood.
"We will be here." He nodded, looking back at Vin as if those words were enough to make his dying friend hang on.
JD turned and ran up the tunnel, determined not to let them down.
The silence of the tunnel that had been his only companion reigned again as the sound of JD's footsteps disappeared once more. But this time Chris was not alone..........this time Vin was with him.
"Vin?" Chris said, scooting over further, and picking up Vin's head and lying it on his outstretched leg. He reached out and grabbed his friend’s hand, squeezing it tightly as he felt Vin fight against the pain and realized that he was, at some level at least, still conscious. "Come on Vin...........hang in there. Nathan is on his way." Chris tried to sound hopeful, but the walls that bounced his voice back to him told him different.
Through the fog and haze that threatened to overtake him, Vin thought he heard a voice calling him. He fought to pull his way to the surface and see who it was...............it sounded oddly familiar but he could not be sure. He opened his eyes finally and stared up at the face above him, blinking several times in order to make the vision focus and steady.
"Chr.... Chris?" He choked, his back rising up off the floor a bit as a wave of pain raced through him.
Chris held on to his hand tighter, gritting his own teeth as he watched Vin ride out the pain. “I’m here. It’s all right.”
Now Vin knew he was dead.........Chris was there with him..........but why did it hurt so much? He’d thought that being dead would be a lot different than this. He gave a soft laugh then regretted it immediately as his chest rose and fell with the exertion. He was probably in hell, he thought, that would explain a lot.
Chris found himself smiling at Vin when he heard that laugh, shaking his head at this always surprising friend. "What's so funny?" he asked softly.
Vin startled at Chris's question, recognizing the cadence of reality in it. He struggled to see more clearly, to see beyond the blackness invading his vision. "Chris?" His voice was strained, hoarse, soft with wonder.
"Yeah. I'm right here, Vin. Shawn lied to you. I’m all right. Just hold on. J.D.'s getting Nathan."
"JD--" he broke off, swallowed against the pain that burst in him then, gained control over it, and tried to see Chris. "He -- all right?"
"Yes. He's fine. You saved him, Vin. Now hang on."
Chris felt tears filling his eyes as he watched Vin struggling to stay conscious, to stay alive. The younger man's face twisted as the pain grabbed him again and shook him like a dog would shake a snake. He raised the hand that Chris held, his grip tightening nearly unbearably as he arched his back against the floor, pressing the back of his head against Chris’s leg. Chris saw him losing, saw him going away. He shook his friend in desperation, but saw him sliding out of reach.
"God damn it, Vin, don't you die on me now!"
"VIN!" Chris realized he was nearly screaming, a frantic feeling rising in his throat as the younger man grew still. "VIN!!!"
The tracker shuddered, his head lolled and would have fallen to the floor but for Chris's hand there. The hand Chris held did fall limp to the floor. Chris bent over Vin's head, ragged sobs tearing from him.
"No, no, no, no, no." He began to rock over his friend, gently, slowly, moaning the word over and over. Everything else he could stand. His own pain, the darkness, the fear, the discomforts. But not this. Shawn had been right. He couldn't stand this.
Buck had nodded to the others as soon as they’d seen Vin slip successfully into the mine. He and Josiah split off from Nathan and Ezra, their varying positions allowing them to generate a serious effort to overpower the mine defenders. Advancing from position to position, providing cover to each other, firing with calm and deadly deliberation, they steadily pressed the men in the mine away farther and farther back into the interior, and away from the entrance. As Shawn's men dropped back, their lines of fire narrowed, freeing Buck and Josiah to advance even closer, to a point from which they could fire almost into the mine itself.
One of the remaining defenders dropped at a sudden burst of gunfire from the back of the mine, and they saw JD race into a position behind Shawn’s men, to drop behind several large crates and set up a steady firing. Caught in what was now a heavy cross-fire, all the remaining men threw their weapons down, flinging them far to catch the attention of their assailants, hoping it would save their lives.
Ezra and Nathan rose from their positions, and Buck screamed to the men raising their hands. "GET OUT OF THERE! NOW!" They began to run, their arms still in the air above their heads, terrified eyes on Buck's furious face. Nathan and Ezra herded them out as they came, and Buck whirled on them. "GET OUT OF HERE! IF you want to live, RIDE!!!!"
"Buck! Nathan!" JD was running out of the mine, too, stumbling in his haste.
Buck turned back, worry flashing across his face. "JD? You all right?"
He caught at the younger man as he stumbled to a halt and bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath from his long run down the tunnel.
"Fine. Vin's been shot again. Bad. He's back further in the mine shaft. And--"
The men were all running then, leaving JD panting, unable to tell them the rest. JD watched in frustrated exhaustion as all the men vanished into the mine before he could tell them about Chris. He pulled himself up again as his breathing evened, and hurried after them.
Buck was in front. He heard the sound for several moments before he realized what it was.
A low keening, a sound of muffled grief, a repeated word echoed and re-echoed off the tunnel walls, slowed his steps. Nathan, who had run up next to Buck in his hurry to get to Vin, looked at Buck, his eyes large with confusion. They hurried their steps, then, unable to imagine what they would find. They rounded a last bend to burst into a scene of yellow light, two figures on the floor, one held in the other's arms. Buck took a tentative step forward.
The seated figure bent over and grieving was in black. A lean form, a familiar head. He felt time slow down and gently bump to a halt.
"Chris?" His voice was so low it was barely a whisper, the question so uncertain of an answer it almost defied a reply.
The man on the floor looked over his shoulder, turned an agonized face to Buck, and then saw Nathan. "Nathan!" the man cried. Buck saw his lips move, heard the voice, but stood rooted to the spot. "Nathan, help him!"
Nathan walked forward silently, and knelt on the ground next to the two men. He looked quickly at Vin and then up at Buck again as Josiah and Ezra entered the light, their steps slow with amazement. A rapid patter was JD, running again into the light to join them.
"Chris is alive! He's alive! You didn't let me tell you!" he ran into the middle of the circle of light, turning to look at the other men, then looking down at the two on the ground, Nathan somberly lifting the blood-soaked shirt on the one that was too still. Buck ran forward then, an inarticulate cry choking from his throat, as he dropped to his knees on the floor to throw a long arm around Chris's shoulders, his hand dropping gently to Vin's head.
"Oh....God." Buck shook his head.
Josiah stepped forward to lay a large hand on Chris’s other shoulder. His deep voice vibrated with emotion. “Glad to see you, Brother.”
Ezra stammered suddenly, running a nervous hand through his hair. “How . . . I . . . but . . .” He broke off to shake his head. “I don’t understand it, but I’ve never been so happy in my life to find out I’ve been bluffed.”
“Ain’t gonna’ be happy much longer if we don't . . ." Nathan’s reply was interrupted by a muffled roar from deeper in the mine.
The roar become a steady rumble, and the floor of the mine began to vibrate and hum beneath their feet. The men looked at one another, one thought forming in an instant. Shawn had set the charge to collapse the mine on them.
+ + + + + + +
The rumble began to grow, the sound coming up from the tunnel like the approach of a locomotive, barreling towards them on its path of destruction. Without a word, each man flew into action. Josiah and Nathan quickly grabbed for Vin, the larger man picking him up under his arms while the other took care of his legs. Raising his limp body from the floor, they began to run down the tunnel as quickly as they could.
Chris groaned as Buck and JD quickly helped him to his feet, each drawing one of his arms over their shoulder, and they, too, began to run. Ezra grabbed Vin's Winchester and the lantern and ran past the others to hold the light high, lighting the way for the men burdened with injured companions.
The slight upgrade to the tunnel floor, which they had not previously noticed, was suddenly a serious impediment to the men's straining legs. Their muscles began to burn as they struggled to keep moving quickly, keep running, the dead weights of their friends loading them down. Chris tried to run, too, at first, to help JD and Buck, but several tens of feet into their flight, he cried out as the pain in his side and leg reasserted itself. JD and Buck felt his body recoil against them and then sag. Buck's face grew grimmer, and he put his head down as he forced his legs to run even faster, lifting as much of Chris's weight as he could off of JD's smaller form.
Ezra's bobbing shadow, flickering in the light cast by the lantern swinging in his hand as he ran, loomed up and down against the sides of the mine passage as they ran and ran, the tunnel suddenly endlessly long, endlessly dark. A pressure of air, a thickness, began to grow behind them, a warm exhale coming from deep in the mine, deep in the regions where Shawn had set the charges, where even now the tunnels were being smashed by tons of rock. The mass of air grew heavier, began to feel like a wall that pushed against them, rushing them even faster for the opening to the outside world and safety. Dust began to filter into the air, dimming the light, turning its pale yellow into a dull red, a murky shade that looked as choking as the air began to feel in their lungs.
Nathan felt one of Vin's legs begin to slip from his hands, and grabbed wildly at it as it began to slide. It threw off his stride, so that Josiah, behind him, stumbled. Feeling the break in their pace, Josiah looked over his shoulder into the thick darkness, now moving and stirring as though with a hundred specters of dust, unseen but alive, and pressed on faster and more urgently as Nathan regained his grip and speed.
JD thought his lungs would burst from trying to keep up with Buck's long legs, Chris dragging against him with every step, bumping against him and pulling down on his back. JD had already been winded once, and now his lungs burned to the point where the only thing that could have kept him running was hell itself on his heels. He glanced back, and ran even faster.
They realized suddenly that they could see Ezra running ahead of them, in silhouette, and knew the entrance had to be near, the light of day a beacon to life and safety. It grew, became brighter, the rumble growing in intensity at the same time, the roar of the collapsing tunnels behind them increasing in volume until their ears were deafened by it, their pulses were overwhelmed by it, their running footsteps were swallowed up by it. And still they ran, and faster.
The cool rain-swept storm air from outside hit their faces just as the wind from the blast caught them from behind. The enormous surge of dust and dirt and small rocks and wind threw them forward, a gigantic hand that pushed them toward safety. They saw that Ezra had reached the entrance and stopped on one side, throwing the lantern clear of himself, and reached up with both hands to brace the entryway timber where it formed a joist with the supporting beam. He grimaced as weight fell on the arm that had been injured two days before.
As they neared, they could hear, threaded through the crashing roar of the tunnel collapse behind them, the sharp cracks and groans of the timbers snapping, could see that Ezra had propped his body into the breaching framework to support it long enough for them to run past. The dirt walls of the tunnel buckled and bowed out around the timbers, the wood splintering in long streaks that popped dust out with sounds like gunshots.
They could see that Ezra was screaming to them to hurry, his face red and contorted with his effort to hold the mine entrance together long enough. But they could not hear his voice over the screams and groans of the dying mine. One foot into daylight, two, a man carried free, and then another. Gray and dark storm clouds, a wind that caught away their breaths, and they felt the gathering blast from the original detonation and all the air forced out of the tunnel by the collapse roar out of the entryway in a thick cloud of dirt to pick them off their feet and hurl them long yards into the open.
Josiah and Nathan did their best to bear the brunt of the fall, protecting Vin as much as they could from the unexpected blast of air that sent them flying. Chris and the others landed none too softly either, just to one side of them, and rolled to the ground, gasping for the heavenly fresh air. But as Nathan sat up, looking back with words of gratitude on his lips for the heroic feet of Ezra, his words died in mid air.
Ezra was nowhere to be seen.
"EZRA!!" Nathan shouted, shielding his eyes from the dust and debris that continued to belch from the mine as it groaned its last.
Josiah and JD quickly sat up, turning to look at what Nathan was saying. Buck helped Chris up into a sitting position and the two of them watched in horror as the mine settled down, a wall of rocks and dirt all they could see from the entrance.
"Where is Ezra!!" Buck yelled, frantically looking around.
"He never made it out!" Nathan yelled, springing to his feet and racing back to the collapsed shaft. Josiah was fast on his heels, followed by JD and Buck, leaving Chris with Vin.
"Come on, DIG!" Nathan yelled, knowing that if they were going to have any chance of saving Ezra it would have to be soon. The stack of lumber near the entrance that had sheltered Vin from gunfire while he waited to slip into the tunnel had also deflected a significant portion of the cave-in away from that side of the entrance. Here the rocks and soil had not rolled out so far upon the cleared apron of earth in front of the opening, but had stayed more inside the region that had once been encased in the timber framework. That meant, thought Josiah, that with any luck at all, Ezra would be only 6 or 8 inches from their clawing fingers. If they could go fast enough, it would be the saving grace. If they could not, it would not matter whether it was 6 inches or 6 miles. The man would be crushed to death, the air driven from his lungs by the weight of half a mountain.
The rain began again, with an intense fury that matched the men's own desperation, as they threw rocks aside and burrowed with frantic hands through the dirt. Suddenly Nathan found his hands brushing dirt away from cloth, beneath it appearing through the soil a boot. "Here he is!" Nathan redoubled his efforts, and as the others could see now where and how Ezra was positioned beneath the rubble, they began to dig him out with furious purpose. More of the pantsleg, the other leg, both turned to show the man was face-down against the mine floor. Josiah gripped a long shard of timber fragment, fully 10 feet long and the thickness of a pickhandle, and grit his teeth as he cracked it loose, to break it so they could dig beneath it to get to Ezra. It gave with a shattering crack that echoed with the thunder overhead, and the hole in the rubble elongated along the prone form beneath. A red coat, brown now, arms, the back of a head, face down. Several rocks and chunks of timber from the pile of debris tumbled and bounced down, suddenly, disturbed by the digging, and Josiah again stepped forward, blocking Ezra from them with his own back. They thumped against him with heavy sounds and he recoiled under the impact, but held firm.
"Pull him out!" Nathan was screaming to the others, "Pull now! Drag 'im outta' there!" They caught at the man's legs, tugging him loose of the grave that had collapsed over him, pulling his arms and face clear of the choking embrace of the soil. He was released, suddenly, slid quickly toward them, and Nathan stepped forward in haste to roll Ezra to his back.
It seemed for a moment that even the storm stopped breathing, so silent was the group as Nathan touched Ezra's face, laid his head against the gambler's chest. Ezra's face was gray and still, dirt adhering to every inch of his skin and clothing. He was not, JD realized with a sudden lurch of his stomach, breathing.
With a quick motion Nathan opened Ezra's mouth and ran two fingers around inside it, scooping out dirt that he threw to one side. Then placing his fingers on the gambler's nose, he tipped the man's head back, placed his mouth over the gambler's own, and exhaled. He lifted his head to look at Ezra's chest, and JD clearly saw it rise once, then settle back and remain still. Nathan repeated his effort, and then did it again. He kept going, then, pausing only every few breaths to observe the effect on Ezra Just as JD was feeling like he could not bear up, could not face another death, Ezra coughed.
His body jerked spasmodically several times as he gasped, struggling to inhale on his own.
Nathan put an arm beneath Ezra’s shoulders and raised him to a sitting position, then braced one hand against his chest to support him there. "That's it, Ezra." He was still looking grim, but his face had relaxed at the first cough. "Just breathe deep an' easy, now. Try to relax. Just in an' out, easy now."
Ezra moved his head, slowly, as consciousness returned, then winced and gasped as he took a deeper breath.
Nathan spoke to him again, soothingly. "Easy, now. You've probably got some broken ribs. Maybe other bones, too. Don't move around much, OK? Till I can check you out."
Ezra raised his face, his eyes clearing. He looked slowly about him at the men nearby, the pile of rubble, the hole where he had clearly been only moments before. JD grinned. "Nathan saved ya', Ezra. He breathed his own breath right into ya'!"
Ezra eyed the healer speculatively, still coughing. "Is that true?"
"Yeah. I learned about that stuff in the War. Sometimes it works real good."
"I see." Ezra looked around once more. "Shall I assume this means we are now betrothed?"
Nathan chuckled and started to stand, "Well, I don't know now, Ezra. That purple dress you wore to Wickestown--"
Buck interrupted Nathan with a cry of pain, his hand flying to his thigh, as a shot rang out and another immediately ricocheted from a rock in the debris field behind them. The tall man dropped to the ground writhing in pain, his knee drawn up with one arm around his leg as he fumbled for a kerchief to press against the wound.
The men dropped again, weapons in hand, scanning the surrounding ridges. Buck hissed through clenched teeth, his eyes on JD. "Shit! There, now ya' happy? Ya' SEE what happens when I act responsible? I let them fellas go an’ one of ‘em just can’t leave it alone.”
JD grinned at Buck’s words even as he tried to grab the kerchief and help staunch the flow of blood. He ducked, as another shot bounced off the soil not 2 inches from his head. A crack from another direction caused them to look up, to see Chris standing unsteadily, Vin's sawed-off carbine raised in his hands, with the barrel pointed across the distance between himself and the rocks above the mine, and from the way he dropped the smoking weapon to his side and then sat down heavily, they knew they were clear to rise.
Ezra was helped to his feet and brought over to where Chris and Vin were, his arm wrapped protectively around the ribs that he well knew were cracked, even without the experience in healing that Nathan had. Josiah lent an arm to Buck, and he too sat down near Chris and Vin. The rain had started to come down harder now, and Chris did his best to try and shelter Vin from the onslaught, but it was hopeless. Each man was soaked to the bone, dirt and mud running in stripes down their faces before it was washed clean. Nathan took a second to check out Buck's leg, nodding with concern that the bullet would have to come out soon. But Buck pushed him away, nodding to the other men.
"They need you more than I do, this is just an inconvenience. You tend to them first." He insisted.
JD looked at Buck, but he had no worry in his eyes this time. This time Buck was not acting in a frenzy of blind hate, this time he really meant it. He no longer had the look of a man wanting to die, he was back to his usual self, the old Buck that JD had been missing the last few days.
"We need to get back to town and out of this weather." Nathan said, standing up, shielding his face from the almost sideways rain that the wind was throwing at them. "But there is no way Vin can ride and I doubt that Chris and Ezra could stay long on a horse either."
JD stood up as though it wasn't even raining, the water running in rivulets out of his hair and down his neck. "I'll see if I can find a wagon or something. They're bound to have one around here." He ran to his horse to pull the rifle out of the scabbard there, and checked to be sure it was loaded, then set off at a jog to scout the perimeter. Four pairs of eyes followed him silently, then turned to one another.
Chris nodded to Buck. "Looks like your trainin' is finally startin' to pay off."
Buck shook his head, grinning. "Think you got that backwards, Chris. I'll have to tell you all about it." He indicated JD with a nod of his head as the young man stood briefly on the rise before jumping down the other side of it. "That one ain't no pup any more, and if he keeps going on this way, he just may live to a ripe old age........just like you, you old war dog." Buck smiled and gently clapped his hand to Chris’s shoulder. Then Buck’s voice dropped to a deadly serious tone that Chris was unused to hearing out of his usually jovial friend. "You had us pretty scared there Pard. We thought we lost you."
Josiah smiled at Buck's words, regarding his conversation with Chris with a glow of satisfaction in his deep-set eyes. "Seems to me," he said, "that JD ain't the only one who's changed the last few days."
Chris nodded, realizing just how much Buck and the others had gone through. But then his eyes strayed to Vin and his heart grew even heavier. It was not over yet. The rain slowed a moment and trailed off. Chris shivered, his shoulders drawing together, as he leaned over Vin's head protectively, a hand on his good shoulder. Josiah craned has head back to scan the sky, and stood, an apprehensive look on his face.
The rain picked up again suddenly, the drops large and heavy, and Josiah dropped to the ground again to lean over Vin and Chris with his large frame. "It's gonna' hail!" He shouted, and Ezra and Buck rolled to present their backs to the sky, Nathan dropping to help shelter the two seriously wounded men, as tiny bits of ice began to pelt the ground and the men.
The hail eased to a trickle, the rain stopped again, and the air grew deathly still. The greenish cast deepened, and Josiah glanced up to see JD far across the basin, leading a big team and a wagon toward the group at a run, his coat over his head. With a tremendous roar of wind, the hail began again, the stones larger this time.
Josiah again dropped over Chris and Vin's heads, the hailstones drumming off his back and head like gravel thrown by a strong man. The rain mixed with it was as icy as the hail itself, and the wind drove it into this collar and through his shirt to the skin. The onslaught let up a second time, and in the silence that succeeded it they could hear the horses' hooves and complaining wagon wheels approaching. Nathan stood up to run help the younger man hold the terrified horses as a new wave of hail began again.
This time the stones lived up to their name. Buck rolled so that the wound in his injured leg was against the ground, and Ezra groaned as the hailstones bounced off the ground and struck his back. Chris and Josiah bent lower over Vin, but there was no way to protect him any more. The prone man jerked reflexively as the hail struck him, moaning sharply several times. Despite the pain he knew it was inflicting on the wounded man, Chris was gratified to see him responding. Vin had been far too still and lifeless for Chris’s comfort and any movement now was an encouragement.
Buck leaped to his feet suddenly with a roar, his weight balanced on his good leg, the injured one bent at the knee to reduce the weight on it. Looking up, he shook his fist at the sky, his hair a wild mane of black flames in the wind, hailstones bouncing unheeded from his shoulders. "Dammit!" He shrieked, "Enough is enough!!!! You want hail? I'LL give you hail!" And with that he began to scoop up handfuls of gravel and hailstones and fling them onto the wind furiously. For several moments the air was thicker with hailstones around Buck's furiously dancing form, everyone else ducking their faces and huddling against the storm. Then the storm stopped, and a breeze with a sweet taste on it ran gently across the men.
Buck grinned and swayed off-balance, his dripping clothes hanging loose on his frame, his eyes sparkling. "That's BETTER," he said, dropping to the ground with a short laugh. He called to JD and Nathan. "Get that team on up here, now! We've got some Pards to get to someplace warm and dry!"
Josiah looked up to see the clouds feathering apart, blue sky showing through clear and fine. The darkness had moved away, the storm drifting elsewhere. He looked at Buck and laughed, shaking his big head.
"Well, I have to say you really faced it down this time, Buck. And if you ever get to the pearly gates -- and that is a strong IF with your known life style -- I wanna' be with YOU."
Buck looked back at Josiah, his face smug with the old look of satisfied humor.
Nathan ran up, leaving JD holding the team, and knelt next to Vin. Chris looked intently at him. "He moved a little during the hailstorm, Nathan."
"Good." Nathan lifted the unconscious man's shirt again, checking both wounds, and felt of his pulse. The others' faces sobered as they watched, their eyes moving from Vin's still face to Chris's haggard one. Now that the light was increasing as the storm blew out, they noticed for the first time the dark circles that ringed his eyes, and the sickly pallor on his face.
Buck reached out a steadying hand to his friend as Chris closed his eyes and bit his lips together at the sight of the dismal expression on Nathan's face. "It's gonna' be OK, Buddy," he said softly.
Chris shook his head wordlessly, and opened his eyes to look at Buck with anguish that constricted the other man's throat.
"OK, Josiah. Help me get 'im in the wagon," Nathan said.
Josiah gently pulled Chris back a ways from Vin, scooting him across the ground as if he was a child. Then he leaned down to Vin's shoulders as Nathan took the wounded man's legs in his arms. They looked at each other. "Ready?" asked Josiah. They nodded. "One, two, three," he counted, and on three they raised Vin together in a single quick motion, and began to carry him carefully toward the wagon JD had found.
JD, holding the team, watched as they carried Vin past him, his eyes never leaving the tracker's face. He felt the team jump slightly as they gently slid Vin into the wagon bed and pulled him up behind the seat. Then they went back for Chris. Nathan eyed Buck and Ezra sternly as they approached the group. "You two stay put while we get Chris in the wagon," he said. "Let us come back an' help y'all. I mean it."
He and Josiah bent to Chris then, to raise him to a standing position and carry him between them, but he faltered so greatly as they drew him off the ground that they exchanged a quick glance and switched to the same carrying position they had used on Vin. More quickly, then, they took him to the wagon and slid him into the bed as well.
One last time the two men returned to the place where they'd all sat. Josiah eyed Nathan. "Which one you want?" he asked, causing Ezra to laugh shortly.
"I would prefer your company at this moment, Mr. Sanchez, if you don't mind." He looked at Nathan. "I am not entirely certain I trust Mr. Jackson any longer."
The four men chuckled and Josiah wrapped a long arm around Ezra's back to help him stand, and Nathan took one of Buck's arms over his shoulder and let him lean his weight upon him. With several missteps and slow going, the party once again traveled to the wagon and the two last passengers were loaded into the back.
Josiah lifted the wagon gate and slipped the chain in place. He nodded to JD. "Can you drive this thing?"
"Yeah." JD slipped his fingers over the thick reins as he moved away from the team's heads and climbed to the seat. "Just tell me when and where. I'll follow you." Josiah nodded to JD and Nathan and sprinted to where they'd left the horses, returning quickly on horseback with the others tied in a long string to one another's saddle rings.
+ + + + + + +
Nathan's horse was loose, and Josiah handed the reins down to the healer to take as he rode up to the wagon, his other hand stretched out behind him with the string of his companions’ horses trailing from it. He watched Nathan mount, and then said, "You let me know if I go too fast." Then he turned and led out, JD whistling to the team and whipping them up to follow with several hard shakes of the reins. Nathan rode alongside the wagon bed, his eyes on its passengers. Buck looked up at the sky and around at the mine as they left, and then shook his head as he eyed his companions.
"We sure are one sorry-lookin' lot," he said.
"But at least we're all here," said Ezra. His gaze fell on Vin's still face, pale as ivory and streaked with fine strands of wet hair that stuck to his forehead and cheek, and Chris's face as he bit his lips against the pain of the jostling wagon, his eyes closed and shadowed. And sighed. "For now anyway.”
+ + + + + + +
JD leaned against the wall in his chair and tried to keep his eyes opened. He knew he wasn’t succeeding, and finally stood up to walk around so he couldn’t fall asleep. He glanced again at the door to the small infirmary where Nathan and Josiah had been working for hours now, assisted by the young woman whose father had been the town’s doctor. He’d tried to help, too, at first, but the space was simply too small for so many people, so he had left since he was the least familiar with the things that needed to be done.
He shook his head remembering the grim speed with which the impromptu medical team had worked once they’d gotten the injured men into the building. He’d helped Ezra to a chair and gotten him water, wrapped a quick bandage around Buck’s leg, and then run back and forth from the infirmary to Cat’s quarters lugging piles of warm, dry blankets and clean cloths. Then he’d led the team and all the horses to the livery and unhitched, unsaddled, and undone everything -- a thousand buckles and straps it seemed -- and rubbed down and grained and watered all the weary animals. For an hour or two, it had seemed he was back at his old home, caring for so many animals at once.
But now all he could do was wait. He turned at the sound of the door opening, and saw Marie come out, her eyes still red from grief, her arms around a basket piled high with wet clothing and bloody rags. She stopped and looked up at him as he stepped forward and put his hands up to take it from her.
“I’ll be happy to do that for you, Miss, if you’ll just tell me where to take it.”
She looked into his eyes and nodded silently, releasing the basket to his arms, and then walked past him to open the door to the street. Leaning out, she pointed down the way. “There’s a laundry down there. Mrs. MacGregor will take care of these things if you leave them on the walkway by the door.”
JD stood regarding her a moment in the open doorway, and felt compassion tug at him. “Miss Marie, I . . .” he paused, watching to see if he had permission to continue. She looked at him silently with dark eyes full of pain, and he continued. “Thank you for doin’ all this. The same day as your own grief. You’re awfully brave.” He was horrified to see big tears well up in her eyes and spill over at his words, but she pressed a small hand to his arm and smiled gently.
“Thank you. That is the highest compliment I could receive. You have just made my father very proud.” She turned then as her voice caught, and stepped quickly back to the infirmary door, glanced back once, and went inside.
JD nodded and took the basket to the laundry. He started thinking about where to get coffee for Marie and the men, and then about food. Nathan and Josiah, at least, must be hungry by now. He started trying to remember what food it was that Nathan had said recently always made him think of family and home. He’d see if he could find any of that around while he was at it. JD thought about Buck and Ezra, and made a mental note to get a bottle of whiskey, too.
+ + + + + + +
Chris pulled his arms against the restraints that held him as Shawn leveled a gun at JD’s head, and jerked himself out of the cave and into someplace confusing. He lay quietly for several moments looking around, and his eyes finally fell on Buck, sitting in a chair and leaning against the wall. Fast asleep. A grin flitted across Chris’s face and he studied the room in which he found himself, walking his mind carefully through all that had happened, reminding himself that everything was all right now. Shawn and the mine were both gone.
“Hey, Buddy.” He turned his head to face Buck as his friend, awakened, leaned across the space between his chair and the bed to lay a hand on Chris’s forehead. “Just one minute, OK? Don’t you go anywhere, now, all right?” Buck smiled and stood, his hand on the back of his chair, and then hopped on one foot to the door to open it and speak to someone in the hall before he returned to his seat to smile again at Chris. He looked up as Nathan came into the room, and scooted his chair back from the bed to make room.
“How you feelin’, Chris?”
Chris was surprised at the gray pallor of Nathan’s face, the deep weariness in his eyes.
“Better than you, by the looks of it.”
Nathan grinned. “Well, at least your sense of humor’s intact.”
“So’s his.” Chris nodded his head toward Buck. “How’s Ezra?” His eyes fixed on Nathan’s, his gaze suddenly clear and intense. “And Vin?”
Nathan pulled a second chair from the wall and sat down next to Chris with a sigh. “Ezra’s mendin’. He has several broken ribs plus a bullet wound in his arm, but he’ll be OK. Vin’s . . . alive” he paused, looked again at Chris’s intense eyes. “It’s still touch-and-go, Chris. But he’s fightin’. Until two days ago, he wasn’t. So that’s good.”
Chris wrinkled his brow, puzzled. “What was two days ago?”
“That’s when we found out you weren’t dead.”
Chris let that thought sink in, remembering what he’d seen when Vin first came into the mine, and a sinking feeling dragged at his heart. He closed his eyes. Nathan’s voice was gentle.
“Give it time, Chris.” He patted the wounded man’s arm gently, and stood.
Chris’s voice was hoarse, his eyes looking at the wall. “Why has it been two days?”
Nathan studied his friend’s face. “Chris, you were hurt pretty bad, and that mine wasn’t no fit place for an injured man. Then you got wet an’ cold. It’s a miracle you didn’t take pneumonia.”
“Help me up.”
“No.” Nathan’s voice was suddenly urgent. “Buck, you keep him here.”
“I’m getting up.” Chris’s voice was quietly determined.
“Now Chris, you ain’t goin’ nowhere. Stop him, Buck.”
“I’ll shoot you if you try to stop me.”
“You ain’t got no guns in here, Chris. Would you HELP me, Buck?”
Buck’s laughter stopped them both, and they turned irritated faces to him. He shrugged. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’ve been waitin’ a long time for this! Don’t let ME stop you! Go on, go on!” And he laughed again.
Nathan looked at Chris and laughed. “Look, you need to stay in bed a while longer. Please.”
“I need to see Vin.” Chris’s eyes were steady on Nathan’s.
The healer guaged Chris’s strength, the determination he saw in those eyes, the probable things that Chris could talk Buck into doing once he left, and sighed.
“All right.”
Chris was pulling back the covers immediately, reaching to Nathan for help in sitting up.
“But take it slow an’ easy, OK? An’ only for a minute. An’ I really COULD use a hand, here, Buck!”
+ + + + + + +
Vin was floating, floating somewhere between the realm of dark and awake. He did not want to leave this place, for here he was safe from the pain he knew awaited him when he moved out of it. But he had allowed himself to be cradled in its comforting embrace long enough, and he knew it was time to fight his way back to reality now if he was ever to have a chance of doing so.
Voices had swirled around him off and on, marking only their coming and going, not the passage of time. How long had he been in the dark, he wondered. And what awaited him once he awoke? He fought against his clouded mind to remember the events of the last hours before he’d remembered no more, but it all seemed like a hazy dream. He remembered JD being taken, and how he had made his way inside to find the youth. Shawn, and the shot that had ripped through him like an explosion also came back to him in a wave of memory. But what happened next was where Vin's mind became confused. Chris? Had he truly seen Chris? Or had it all been a cruel dream brought on by the pain? Something deep down inside him knew that it was for this reason alone that he had held on to life..............he had to know if it was true.
Vin forced opened his eyes, his lids heavy and as unwilling to part as if they’d grown together. Finally he saw a sliver of light, and his vision swam momentarily. Double images slowly began to come together to make one shape. It was the face of a woman. Her dark hair was pulled to one side off her face and she was leaning over him, her eyes intent on what she was doing. Vin could feel the tug of something around his belly and realized that she was adjusting bandages. He gave a sharp intake of air as her gentle probing hit a nerve.
The woman straightened up with a start, looking down at his pained eyes and quickly apologized.
"I’m so sorry I hurt you! But I am happy you’re back among the living. Let me go fetch Mr. Jackson." She smiled as she ran to the door, talking softly to someone just outside before she came back into his line of vision. "I sent one of your other friends to fetch him. We convinced him to take a few minutes and rest himself. He has been running himself ragged trying to care for all of you.” She shook her head to herself slightly, regarding Vin with sad, dark eyes. “Mr. Jackson has been fighting tooth and nail to keep you alive, Mr. Tanner. It was touch and go for a while, and no one could believe how you hung on so long. You are a very strong man.”
Vin knew it was not his strength, knew what it had been instead. He had hung on for one reason and one reason alone. He had to know if it was true.........was Chris really still alive. That though alone had been his life line, his reason for not dropping off the edge as his entire body had screamed for him to do. But now he welcomed the pain, it mean he was alive, it mean he had fought it and won. Now he needed to know about Chris…..
He tried to speak, but could not force any words past the dryness in his throat.
The girl saw his trouble. She quickly poured a glass of water for him and slipped a firm hand beneath his neck to raise his head a few inches from the pillow to sip from it. When he had taken all he could handle for the time being she laid him back gently, seeing that he was almost completely spent from the small exertion, and smoothed the hair back from his face. She turned her head at the sound of the door opening, and Nathan entered Vin’s field of vision. He leaned over with a gentle expression on his face.
“How you doin’, Vin?” His voice was soft.
Vin tried to nod, the only words that mattered to him rising in his throat. He stared at Nathan, trying to ask them, but somehow they wouldn’t come out. He struggled a moment pushing at them, but Nathan laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Take it easy, Vin. Don’t try to talk right now. Just rest.” He stood and said something to the young woman as Vin felt himself dropping away again in the dark, his fists clenched in frustration.
The next time he opened his eyes, it was to awaken from a deep sleep. The light that fell across the quilt over him had the pale yellow cast of morning, and he could hear birds singing from somewhere outside. Vin’s gaze wandered slowly around the silent room, his mind collecting itself once more around the single thought that had haunted him even in the dark. He saw that the young dark-haired woman was there again, and she chuckled when she turned from smoothing blankets to see that he was looking at her.
“Well,” she said, “all they have to do is leave and you wake up. They’re going to get hurt feelings if you keep that up.” She poured water as she spoke and lifted it to Vin’s lips. He swallowed gratefully, and found his voice at last, rusty with disuse but at least beginning to work again.
“Where...?”
“I sent your friends off to rest again, Mr. Tanner. I’ll send for them, though. They’ve been wanting to see you.” Once again she went to the door and spoke to someone unseen, and then returned to look down at him.
“Your friends had a lot of faith that you would make it, and it seems you proved them right." She shook her head. "Your other friend, the blond one who was hurt pretty badly too, he’s refused to leave your side the last two days, despite Mr. Jackson's constant insistence. He’ll probably be mad at me for making him go lie down just as you were about to wake up. But it was that or have him fall down." She gave a slight laugh. "You have some truly extraordinary friends there Mr. Tanner."
Vin was about to ask her about the blond man she had just mentioned when the door opened with a bang and Buck all but flew inside, coming directly to Vin's side. A big grin spread across his face as he looked at the now awake tracker.
"You gave us all a mighty big scare there." Buck said, his smile growing even wider as he saw the returning color in Vin’s face. "How you feeling buddy? Can I get you anything?"
Vin did his best to smile but even that hurt. He looked up at Buck and said the only word that was on his mind.
"Chris...?" It was almost more of a question than a request.
Buck smiled understandingly and looked up at the girl.
"Marie, would you please wake our friend in the next room and tell him to get himself in here," Buck asked, giving her a wink.
"Glad to." Marie knew what this news would do for the man who had been holding a round the clock vigil over his friend, and she was only too happy to deliver such a message.
Buck limped slightly as he came over to stand closer to Vin. "About time you decided to stop lolly-gagging around and get ready to go back to work again," he said, the humor not hiding the dark circles under his eyes that spoke of recent hardship and worry.
Vin noted the pain in Buck’s step and nodded to it.
"What happened to you?" His voice was still raspy but growing stronger by the minute.
"Nothing serious, no piddly bullet wound can keep Buck Wilmington down for long. Besides it’s a great opener with the ladies. Brings out their mothering instincts and they just want to take care of me……..and who am I to argue with them?"
Buck’s words made Vin laugh, which he immediately regretted. He tried to hide the look on his face as the pain gripped him from all sides and would not let go, but it was hard.
"Hey take it easy, Pard." Buck said, sorry to have caused Vin the pain, however unintentional. "You keep this up and all the pretty ones will be in here trying to nurse you and forget all about me."
"I will…try to…. remember that." Vin said through clenched teeth.
"Don’t try and talk, Vin." Nathan walked into the room and threw an exasperated look at Buck. "You need to rest."
"Yes my friend." Ezra had entered behind Nathan and now leaned forward to smile at Vin. "I strongly suggest you take our most capable doctor’s advice. He expended a lot of effort in facilitating your speedy recovery, and it would be pure ungratefulness on your part should you do anything that would hamper his efforts."
Nathan looked at Ezra with a touch of surprise. They had begun as almost enemies, moved to acquaintances, progressed to a strained comradeship. Could they now be taking the next step to true friendship?
Vin looked around the room to see JD and Josiah had slipped in behind the others. JD was nodding his agreement and Josiah smiling. "Good to have you back, brother Tanner," he said.
Vin smiled at the faces around him, happy to see that each of them seemed none too much the worse for wear. But regardless of how glad he was of this, there was only one person he truly wanted to see…….
The side door opened then, and as Nathan and Buck stepped aside, Vin saw Chris enter the room, partially supported on one arm by Marie. Vin’s eyes bounded to life at the mere sight of his friend, and Chris returned the energy of his gaze with equal measure. Buck looked at the other men, jerking his head towards the door as if to say, "We best git," ushering them out the door like a shepherd.
+ + + + + + +
Nathan hung behind until Chris had made it to Vin’s bedside and Marie had helped him sit in the chair there. "Only for a little bit." He warned both of them. "You overdo yourselves and I will personally hog-tie both of you for a solid week!" He raised his index finger warningly at the two of them, a grin spread across his face, and then he left the room as well, taking Marie with him.
Vin’s voice was low and still a little rough, but he smiled a wry half-grin. "Hey, cowboy," he said. "Someone told us you were pushin' up daisies."
"Yeah, well you don't look so good yourself." Chris told him, stretching his legs out and smiling. His eyes grew more serious, then, lit with concern. "Nathan told me you refused to let him treat you, Vin. What were you thinking?"
"I guess I wasn't." Vin swallowed, broke eye contact, and looked away.
"I just -- " Chris's voice broke, and he reached out to lay a hand on Vin's forearm.
"Chris. I thought you were dead." Vin broke in, his gaze snapping back to Chris’s face.
Chris was silent for several long moments. "Ah Hell!" he said suddenly. He raked his hand through his hair and looked at the floor, avoiding Vin's eyes. "No one told you to give a damn about me!"
“Too late.”
Chris smiled at Vin’s laconic statement. “Yeah? Well do you have have to care so much?" He nodded to the mountain of bandages around Vin's body and grinned. "I mean I care, too, but this is what I call going to extremes."
Vin smiled slightly at Chris, silent. Chris waited a moment, and when he realized there was no reply forthcoming, he sighed. "The fact is, Vin, I hear you kinda' figured to go to hell before it was all over."
"Always said I would."
Chris eyed Vin steadily, affection lighting the depths of his eyes. "I'd rather you didn't."
Vin shrugged uncomfortably against his bandages, wincing slightly, and Chris paused to help him get propped up a bit better against the pillows piled behind him. Then he poured a cup of water and gently and slowly held it to Vin's lips so the wounded man could drink. When he put it down, he looked at his friend again.
"Maybe I should go now." Chris pulled his legs toward him to begin to rise from the chair.
"No."
Chris paused in his motion, with a troubled look on his face at the tone he’d heard in Vin's voice. He laid his hand back on his friend’s forearm, and his voice grew more gentle.
"What's wrong?"
Vin swallowed and sighed, his eyes beginning to look tired. "You need to know, Chris."
"What? Can't it keep? You're getting tired."
"No." He paused, collected his strength. "It was different. Without you." He looked into his friend's eyes. "Ezra packed to leave. Buck an' I. . . " his voice trailed off. Chris drew closer to Vin to better hear his words, coming more quickly and more softly. The wounded man paused, panting, to catch his breath from the exertion of speaking, and then he continued.
"You gotta' understand, if somethin' happens to me, it just goes to six. Somethin' happens to Ezra, it goes to six." He closed his eyes with the effort, and Chris's lips thinned. But he knew Vin needed to finish and waited for him. Finally Vin opened his eyes and looked at Chris with great earnestness. "Somethin' happens to you," he said, "it goes to nothin'. Buck an' me, we don't want no part a' nothin'. You understand?"
Chris was silent for a long time, his head bowed as he studied the pattern of his own hand laying across Vin's pale arm, the quilt's colors gaudy beneath it. Finally he sighed, and looked up, his eyes filled with sorrow.
"That’s a heavy load for a man to bear, Vin."
"Can't be helped. Like I said: too late now." Vin looked at Chris carefully.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" Chris smiled wryly at his friend.
"Waitin' to see if you're gonna' run off again."
Chris started, and looked down again as his face flushed slightly.
Vin swallowed painfully again and sighed. "Thought you'd come back. But you didn't."
"I would have." Chris looked at Vin. "I think."
"Chris, I gotta' know." Vin held his breath a moment against pain that was rising as he tired, and Chris laid a steadying hand on his chest gently.
"Vin, we can have this talk later. Right now you need --"
"NO!" The word was equal parts pain and exasperation.
Vin struggled for a moment to get his breathing back under control enough to speak, his eyes closed with concentration. When he opened them again, they were filled with pain that was not just physical. And it slapped Chris like an open hand.
"If you're gonna' run away... every time... we care..." Chris leaned closer.
"It's ok, Vin. Just rest."
"Stop it, Chris!" Vin's voice twisted with his frustration and rage, his powerlessness. "I can't fight hell an' you, too. One or the other." He opened his eyes again, his meaning suddenly clear to the older man.
Chris swallowed in the sudden silence that fell into the room. Vin looked at him steadily, waiting for an answer, his eyes narrowed with the effort it took him to stay present. Finally Chris nodded, parted his lips with a small sound like a door opening far away.
"Fight hell, then, Vin. I'll stand with you."
Vin relaxed visibly, and Chris was surprised to see him sink back against the pillows in a way that showed how tense he had been during their exchange. He pulled the quilt up as the injured man closed his eyes and his breathing evened out.
"You rest now, or else Nathan will be giving us both hell," Chris told him, watching as Vin's mouth curved up into a smile even though his eyes stayed shut. "I’ll be back to see you later." He got up to leave, bracing himself on the chair as he rose.
He had just turned when he felt more than saw Vin's eyes open again. He looked back at the prone man patiently, waiting for him to speak.
"Good to have you back Chris." Vin said at last.
"You too, Vin........you too."
+ + + + + + +
Mary Travis was as impatient as an expectant father pacing outside his wife’s birthing chambers. She must have caught herself looking at the clock six times in the last 15 minutes alone, she thought to herself with a sigh. The telegram had said that they were to arrive back today, but not at what time. She felt as if the minutes were ticking by slowly just to spite her.
When the first telegram from Josiah had come nearly two weeks ago, telling her that Chris was alive, it was as if the nightmare she had been living had been just that: a bad dream from which she was now being awakened. Where she had agonized over how to tell Billy the horrible news of Chris’s death, fearing the effect of a second such tragedy in her young son’s life, suddenly it had no longer mattered.
Chris was alive, she thought again, her fists clenching, and the seven of them would be riding back into town soon. But now soon? The wait was quickly becoming unbearable.
She could only imagine how frustrating it had been for the two men that Josiah had said they were waiting on to heal before starting back. She knew that neither Chris nor Vin was the type to lie around idle, and she could just picture the lengths that Nathan’d had to go to in order to keep them quiet for so long. The others had probably been restive, too, making his job harder, because since none of the seven wanted to ride ahead and be parted from the group they’d fought so hard to keep whole, they’d all remained in Broken Ridge until Vin and Chris were strong enough to ride. She was smiling over the mental picture of Nathan fighting with the two strong willed men, with little support from four others restless to be on the move, when Billy came running inside the newspaper office, his face flushed and his smile as big as she’d ever seen it.
"They're back! They're back!" he cried, grabbing his mother’s hand and pulling her out towards the street. But little did Billy know that Mary needed no such urging. Her heart was in her throat and her eyes began to mist up at the sight of the seven men riding into town, their horses’ heads bobbing gently with bridles jingling. Chris was in the middle, slightly in the lead, with Buck and Vin on either side as the rest fanned out next to them.
The eyes of the residents watched them, some with curiosity, others with relief, and yet others with admiration. Several nodded silently to themselves in satisfaction. Two men riding past on their way out of town touched fingers to their hat brims and nodded. A woman waved gaily to Buck, and a store owner out sweeping his walk grinned openly as he paused in his work to watch them ride by.
The rode in silence up the street to stop in front of the newspaper office where Mary and Billy waited. Billy was still grinning from ear to hear, only happy to see his friends return, not realizing how close he had come to never having seen most of them alive again.
But Mary knew. She had seen the look in Vin's eyes as he rode out of Four Corners two weeks ago. It had been the look of death. But now she saw, even though he was weak and pale, that the old spark of life was back in him, the quiet calm and assurance that had always impressed her. And Buck, whose usual wild nature had been turned into something more dangerous two weeks ago, had returned to his normal cavalier attitude, riding almost half-reclining, with his left hand tucked into the his pantswaist.
The rest of the men seemed relaxed and at ease too, although casually vigilant of each other, their eyes flicking quickly from time to time to Chris or to Vin. She knew they were watching protectively for fatigue or weakness, and it warmed her heart to see it. Nathan caught her eye and nodded, smiling, to let her know he was keeping an eye trained on both of them, too, and not missing a thing.
There was only one man Mary had trouble looking at fully at first, though her eyes longed to find his face: Chris Larabee. She had not known how much he meant to her until she had thought he was dead. And seeing him now, returned to her, she knew that she would not let this second chance pass her by.
Chris looked down at Mary with a half smile pulling at the corners of his lips, and let his eyes drink in the sight of her. Billy broke loose from his mother’s side suddenly, his exuberance no longer containable. “Chris!” he called, as he ran up to the side of the horse. "When are we gonna’ go fishing again?" He tugged on Chris’s pant leg and looked up at him with eyes full of boyhood hero worship.
"Soon, Billy,” Chris promised looking down at the boy. He had missed him while he was away, and was looking forward to spending as much time with him as possible during his visit. And if that meant spending time with Mary as well, all the better. "We’ll take Sunday and make a day of it, how does that sound? But right now I don't think I am up to going much of anyplace, OK?"
The little boy looked up at him and smiled. Chris could tell him anything and Billy would agree to it.
"Sure thing Chris. I understand."
Chris dismounted slowly, wincing slightly. He smiled when he recalled that the last time they’d gone fishing he’d been sore from a recent injury, too.
"It is good to see you …………all of you." Mary said, stepping forward.
"It’s good to be seen as well." Buck laughed as he came around the side of his horse, limping only slightly now. "And I don’t know about you all, but I am ready for a drink." Buck ruffled Billy’s hair as he walked past heading for the saloon.
Nathan watched Vin dismount stiffly and cleared his throat. "Vin, you and Chris should go rest now."
Vin looked at Chris and they smiled at each other. And started to follow Buck.
"Hey, I said you need to rest. I am not going to be ignored. . . Do you hear me?" Nathan called after them, but they didn’t look back. The saloon door swung closed gently behind them.
"Well, Brother Nathan, as a very wise man once said: if you can’t beat them, join them." Josiah laughed as he dismounted and walked past Mary with a tip of his hat. JD and Ezra followed, JD grinning broadly.
"I am anxious to see if they have rented out my table in my absence," Ezra said to JD as they walked past Nathan to disappear inside.
Mary smiled at the lone man left standing on the sidewalk as if his words had been spoken to the wind.
"You might as well join them, Nathan." She laughed. "You know they’re going to do what they want no matter what."
"Yeah, I guess I should know that by now," Nathan said, returning her smile.
"And you wouldn’t have it any other way. Would you?"
Nathan only smiled wider, a twinkle in his eye as he, too, disappeared into the saloon.
"Can I go too, Mommy?" Billy asked eagerly, looking up at Mary.
"No, not until you are older…….much older." She laughed, taking his hand and led him back into the newspaper office.
The bar was dark and cool when Chris entered. The familiar noises of clinking glasses and tossed poker chips felt comfortable to him, like he had finally come home. They all sat down at their normal table and Nathan entered, his smile showing that he harbored no ill feelings over being ignored as he joined them. As he sat, Chris could not help but feel a sense of well-being wash over him as the circle of friends was completed.
Ezra raised his hand to signal the bartender with a grin. "A bottle of your finest, my good man," he called. The bartender brought over a bottle with a yellowed label and a number of shotglasses. "On the house, boys," he said, nodding.
The men began to pass around glasses as Josiah stood to wrestle the cork from the bottle, his eyes resting on the others' faces. The cork came loose suddenly with a sigh, and he began to pour the richly-colored liquid into one glass after another, each man watching the glasses fill in succession.
"Kinda' reminds me of servin' communion," he said, his eyes twinkling. "Covenant an' all that."
"What's a covenant, Josiah?" JD looked up with a smile as the preacher filled his own glass last.
"A bond, JD. A bond between the people who share the drink."
Buck twisted in his seat and grinned. "Sounds kinda' like you're sayin' we're blood brothers, there, Josiah." He looked around the table at the other men. "I can drink to that. We sure as hell spilled enough of it this time."
Everyone laughed at Buck's comment, nodding their agreement as a few of them winced at the pain the movement caused their healing wounds. When the laughter died down, each man sat in silence, reflecting on his own thoughts and the events of the past few weeks.
JD suddenly broke the stillness by lifting his glass.
"To the seven of us." he said, with a big smile on his boyish face, a face that somehow now looked older.
Each man then raised his glass in turn, and nodded his agreement or signalled it with a quiet "here, here," and downed his drink in one gulp.
It was not two seconds later that a curvaceous woman walked by their table, catching the ever wandering eye of Buck Wilmington. "Well, well, what do we have here?" he asked, leaning back in his chair in order to see her better as she walked away, looking back at Buck with an inviting smile. "If you will excuse me boys......." Buck pushed his chair back and walked over to the bar and leaned on it, his elbow supporting him as he smiled at the lady. "Did you know that I was just wounded in a terrible and potentially dangerous gun fight?"
Josiah grinned as he leaned over to Nathan to speak in a low voice. “Potentially dangerous?”
“He’s been listenin’ to Ezra too much,” replied Nathan with a chuckle, “pickin’ up on a’ some those fancy words, but not quite gettin’ it right.”
Ezra was the next to announce his departure, having spotted a very lucrative card came in progress over in the corner. He stood up, straightened his sleeves -- sleeves that the other men were sure held several aces -- and gave them all a wry smile.
"I have been very lax in my profession during the last few weeks, and I wish to see if I still possess the needed skills in order to facilitate the life style to which I have become accustomed."
The men looked at one another and laughed. They all had complete faith in Ezra's ablilities, and they were sure that each man at the card table would soon realize their mistake in letting the unassuming gambler sit in with them.
Nathan scraped back his chair from the table. "Well, I better be headin’ over to the clinic myself, get unpacked and see if there are any other patients I need to see. After patchin’ and stitchin’ all a’ you up over the last few weeks, I’m lookin’ forward to a few sore throats or scraped knees." He eyed Chris and Vin as he rose. "Now don't you stay long. I want the two of you to get some rest, you hear!" Both men nodded, satisfying the healer enough to allow him to leave.
"I will go with you, Brother Nathan. I, too, need to check on my place of business. I was just gettin’ started on the church floor when we left, and I know that it has not fixed itself in my absence," Josiah said, rising and walking out with Nathan, the two of them laughing and talking as they went.
JD poured himself another glass of whiskey, stood up, and drank it in a smooth, unhurried swallow. He rested one hand on a pearl handled pistol and used the other to wipe his mouth before he put on his bowler hat. "Well boys, since things are getting back to normal, I better go let the town know that the sheriff is back on duty." He sauntered off, his step betraying both joy and pride.
Chris eyed Vin across the empty table and grinned. "I guess that just leaves us."
"Yup." Vin smiled a little and shook his head slightly. "I guess I'll be lookin' for that bed Nathan keeps carryin' on about." He pushed his chair back and winced as he started to rise.
Chris stood, too, and came around the table to place a firm hand beneath his friend's arm. Vin looked at him and nodded his thanks, and the two men began to walk out together.
"You know," said Chris, "you look like you could use a shoulder to lean on about the time you hit those steps."
"Think I could at that." Vin smiled and regarded Chris as they stopped in the sunlight outside the saloon and looked down at the stairs. They were both silent a moment.
"In fact, I think *I* could use a shoulder to lean on about the time we hit those steps." Chris grinned.
"Well," Vin wrapped an arm around the back of Chris's waist and grabbed his gunbelt. "Folks might talk, but not as much as they would if we both took a header down the stairs."
Chris laughed and steadied Vin in a similar fashion. "That WOULD be embarrassing," he agreed.
The two men carefully stepped down the stairs to the street, Vin's face tightening as he drew in a sharper breath, and Chris pressing his lips together. When they got to the bottom they let go of one another, laughing. Vin immediately tottered several steps to one side, and Chris quickly reached out an arm to catch him.
"Whoa, there, Cowboy! Maybe you better let me hold on to you the rest of the way, too." Chris steadied the smaller man and watched him a moment to make sure he was all right.
"You know we look like two old men, don't you?" Vin grinned as they headed to their rooms, leaning on each other for support.
"At least we’re not gumming our food yet," Chris said. Both men laughed.
Vin stopped walking a moment, and his face grew serious, his eyes light. "You know,” he said, “I really do feel like crap. Let's not do this again."
Chris cast a sidelong glance at Vin and smiled. "Not planning to, Friend, not planning to."
The End