A Safe Way Home (5/14)
Title: A SAFE WAY HOME (5/14)
Author: JoJo
Genre: Gen, OW, angst, h/c
Length: 70,000 words (5,719 this part)
Rating: PG-15 for graphic violence, graphic language
Characters: All Seven, Mary Travis, Orrin Travis, original townspeople and baddies
A/n: Many, many thanks to the wise and talented farad for the beta. Any oddities are mine alone :)
** please note rating above and warnings below**
Story so far: It shouldn’t be so hard for the Magnificent Seven to dispense justice to a cornered, addled bunch of outlaws, but events at the mill are taking their toll and the boys just aren't looking too magnificent ...
Parts 1 and 2 Part 3 Part 4
Part Five
Family is just accident ... They don’t mean to get on your nerves. They don’t even mean to be your family, they just are ~Marsha Norman
Chris had ridden out on foolhardy expeditions more than once in his life. He’d done it as a kid, he’d done it in uniform under orders, and it’d been a regular pastime since Sarah died. If Judge Travis had provided an actual contract of employment, he guessed there’d be a line about it in there somewhere, probably in the small print. He was aware that, as long they rode together, there probably wouldn’t be any other kind of expedition.
But, like Vin, Chris didn’t see the pursuit of the six men up the trail in this light and figured he might have been able to deal with them by himself. They weren’t gunfighters, not even Bracken. Camino had been the closest to that, which was why Vin had nailed him from distance before a single other shot had been fired. The only worry was that their quarry had lost their senses and no longer much cared what they did. Not unlike Colonel Anderson, he thought, although that insane bastard had brought half a regiment with him and the remains of Camino’s gang were now outnumbered.
There was a kind of sickly shock in the air, though, that made Chris feel more than uneasy. Made him wonder if the trusty, well-oiled machine that had ridden into Sharpeville two nights ago hadn’t started to fall to pieces.
“Damn, we ain’t lookin’ too magnificent,” Vin commented when it looked like they were about ready to head out. He referred, with a good helping of hearty Tanner irony, to a nickname coined by some bright spark in Four Corners. The moniker embarrassed them mostly, but it had served on more than one occasion as a rueful private joke.
“Shit,” was all Chris could come up with in response.
Nathan hadn’t quit giving his opinion since he opened his eyes first thing. Said there was no point in him even being there if Larabee was going to ride roughshod over his skills and knowledge. In his view, neither Ezra nor JD was fit to be on horseback. Chris agreed, but said it came down to the same thing as before. Unless anyone was inclined to tie either of them down they’d get no joy telling them to stay where they were. He took Jackson aside to tell him so.
“Didn’t you have a gutful of tryin’ to lasso Ezra yesterday? Man wants to ride, he can goddamn well ride. And JD’ll manage. He’s tough. Buck’ll watch him.”
“Fine,” Nathan replied stiffly. Chris noticed he reined in his instinct to stick to Ezra like glue after that. A hawk-like, covert surveillance was in operation instead.
Some cloud of tight-lipped despondency had descended upon both Buck and Josiah. Chris felt like they were listening to him, but not hearing a goddamn word.
“Any of those bastards who don’t get themselves shot are comin’ back with us,” he said as they got ready to mount up, just to make sure everyone else understood what he understood.
Buck seemed to hear that all right. “I don’t aim to leave any of ’em standing, Chris.”
“We’re going to do what we have to, Buck. Like always. That’s never meant execution. Now stop gettin’ yourself in a twist and go look out for JD.” He waited until Buck had moved away and then looked to the man still poised at the side of his horse, one foot in the stirrup. “Ezra?”
Ezra looked up impatiently. “Rested and ready, Mr. Larabee.”
“Like hell you are.”
Chris didn’t like being lied to, but he knew they were all doing it. They were all pretending it hadn’t happened, or that it wasn’t so bad, or that Ezra, being Ezra, would somehow be perfectly all right.
Yes, said the cool look directed back at him. I’m lying, of course I’m lying, what do you damn well expect?
Once he was mounted, Ezra sat with his head bent. He’d wound the reins round one hand and was clutching the saddle horn with it. The other remained braced against the cantle.
“You’ll break ya goddamn arm trying to bear ya weight like that, Ezra. You shouldn’t be riding.” Nathan had never been one to suffer fools gladly, although right now his voice was more full of concern than annoyance.
“You make things any worse than they already are, Ezra, nobody’s gonna thank you.”
“Fuck you, Mr. Larabee!” A snarl packed with pain and fury. “Just ... fuck you.”
Chris capitulated, didn’t say a word more. He’d never heard Ezra talk like that, a baffling mix of politeness and expletive, and thought that by rights he should have punched him off his horse. Figured, though, that maybe some rage might help.
Vin led them off and they rode at a lick. Their progress lasted no more than half an hour before Ezra pulled to a stop. He suddenly held up a hand and Chris felt a prickle along the back of his neck to hear him apologize. Rage had seemingly given way to good breeding.
Damnit, Ezra.
Josiah and Chris got to him as soon as he’d begun a ragged dismount. He wouldn’t have stayed on his feet without them but he wasn’t best pleased to be grabbed at either. Surrendering to the forced assistance with a granite jaw, he let them walk him a few shaky paces from the trail. Silently they kept him from spilling on to his face while he vomited gritty mess into the sagebrush.
“Hell, you bin swallowin’ earth?” Chris asked him, before remembering how they’d found him back at the mill.
They stayed in place while the damaged ribcage throbbed and burned in retaliation, Ezra gritted his teeth and a silent wash of tears slid down his face. He wiped the wet away carefully with the flat of his hands and they steadfastly ignored the action, staring over the top of his head in different directions.
Nathan had bounced from his horse soon as they’d come to a standstill. “See?” he growled.
Larabee laid a firm hand across Ezra’s shoulder-blades, ignored the shrug of resistance. “Changed ya mind?”
Ezra scrubbed his damp hands together, dragged them down his pant-legs. He spoke slowly and quietly to Nathan without looking directly at him. “Before you start, I’m not bleeding. Could tell if I was. So ... I’d be truly grateful if you’d keep some perspective, Mr. Jackson. It hurts like hell, but if Mr. Tanner’s on the money we don’t have far to go.” He huffed in a painful breath, let it out. “When they sprout wings and transport themselves across the other side of the territory, then I might think again.”
Nathan didn’t seem to be as impressed as Chris was by the amount and strength of Ezra’s words. “Perspective my ass.”
“No, Mr. Jackson. Perspective my ass.”
“You ain’t amusin’. You’re a fool.”
“We stoppin’, Ezra?” Vin called from his horse.
Chris was tempted to shout back that Ezra wasn’t running this goddamn show, except that he probably was.
Towards the middle of the morning, Vin pushed ahead again, left the others behind. They were moving too slow for his liking, although he appreciated the reason. He never enjoyed riding too long in formation anyhow, but right now he seemed on a mission that was practically burning him from the inside out and Chris just let him go. If anyone was going to be able to drag things back from the edge of disaster, he figured it could be Vin Tanner.
Vin rejoined them when they’d stopped for a short rest. He looked suddenly exhausted, eyes rimmed red, his pale, set face blotched in dust and stubble. When he slid from the saddle it looked like he’d carry right on down and make a heap on the earth. Josiah made a move to catch him, but Vin’s keen look at Ezra, standing hunched by his horse with his forehead dropped on to its neck, seemed to steady his legs.
Still not too magnificent, though.
“Up ahead of us, Ez,” he said in a hoarse, dust-slaked voice. “A full six. They stopped to take on water, lyin’ about like they won’t be leavin’ for a stretch. Looks like they’re slowin’ down.” He turned his head. “We can take ’em, Chris. Anytime we want.”
Chris squashed his desire to make some sarcastic comment about how grateful he was to be included in the conversation. He just nodded, laid a hand on Vin’s shoulder. “Remind me what they’re packin’?”
“Coupla rifles, looks like. Some of ’em have side-arms. Can’t be too careful. They’re ready to shoot what moves.”
“Have a bite, Vin. We’ll see to your horse.”
Vin glanced at Josiah, but looked back to Ezra before he moved. “You ready for this?”
Ezra lifted his head, kept a tight hold on a handful of trail-matted mane. He patted the outline of the Remington under the duster. “I intend to see them reach the end of their road.”
“Right with ya there, Ez,” Buck growled.
“There’ll be no blood-letting.” Chris’s voice was taut. “You all hear me? Any one of ’em who surrenders, we’re takin’ back with us.” Silence. “Is that clear?”
Buck just shrugged.
“Sure, Chris,” JD said.
“You’re in charge, cowboy.” That was Vin. Chris was pretty sure he wasn’t being funny.
“Josiah?”
“I’m not looking to add to the burden of shame and guilt, brother.”
Chris hesitated at that. Josiah had something on his mind.
He looked hard at the man, who looked steadily back. Something made Chris flick his gaze to Ezra and then JD but Josiah didn’t follow the look, didn’t confirm anything one way or another. Dissatisfied, Chris swung his attention to Nathan, busy pulling the remains of the jerky out of the corner of the nearest saddlebag.
“You’re askin’ me?” Nathan was as curt as Larabee.
“I’m sorry?” Chris felt a flare of anger, hated the way it licked through him, made his bones ache.
Ezra spoke up, sounding weary beyond measure. “I think Mr. Jackson is wondering why you think this exploit should be different to any other we have undertaken? Why we should behave out of character this time? It has never been our custom to butcher miscreants, however tempting.”
“Why this should be any different?” Chris echoed his words, could sense the quake of surprise from the others that this particular conversation had been allowed to get going. He ploughed on regardless. “It ain’t any different. Did I say it was any different?”
More shrugs from Buck and nothing from anyone else.
Only Ezra would take him on. Even now, it was only Ezra who’d dare.
“You suggested it, Mr. Larabee. By your particularity.”
“I ain’t suggesting nothin’. I’m telling you.”
Ezra opened his mouth in response but Vin cut right through him, quiet but firm. “And we’re hearing.” He held out his hand for the water, biscuit and strip of jerky Nathan was offering. Chris was grateful for Vin choking him off when he couldn’t do it himself. Last thing he needed was to butt heads with Ezra. Well, any more than he already was. Their spikiness underpinned most days, was a running refrain they all comfortably relied on to tell them things were normal. Right now, though, it felt too destructive, like it would take more than just the two of them down if it got out of hand.
“We’ll move out in twenty,” he said shortly, and caught Nathan’s eye. “JD, go sit. Ezra, get off ya damn feet.”
Vin took his sustenance aside, watched everyone narrowly while he ate. He chewed slow and steady, took water in small, regular gulps.
----
Across the clearing, Ezra lowered himself carefully to the ground. He stretched out on his side, as far from the others as he dared, didn’t close his eyes even though that was what he wanted more than anything. That, and to roll up into a ball and cry like a baby.
Apart from his ribs, which never stopped jangling for one goddamn second, it felt as if there was a spike lancing through him at an angle from his tailbone to his navel. His knees were like sponge and he needed a drink. It was not unfamiliar, the need-for-liquor feeling. He pulled his flask from the duster pocket with difficulty, and shook it in dismay.
He felt many more things worse than dismayed, of course, but it helped to fix on one emotion at a time. Especially those of a less powerful variety. This one was engendered by the fact that his flask had emptied so quick and that none of the others had seen fit to bring anymore whiskey with them.
Bunch of unreliable numbskulls.
Ezra didn’t mind that Buck had borrowed the flask for medicinal purposes while JD was leaking blood. He was used to providing emergency courage and pain relief, and never left the outskirts of Four Corners without the shiny receptacle full to the brim. Would have taken care of young Mr. Dunne the same way himself if he’d had the chance. But anyhow, it was all gone now, that was the point. He would have credited at least Josiah with the intelligence to stash an extra supply, however small, in some spare corner.
Apparently not, which was frankly disappointing.
Whiskey, common firewater or vintage malt alike, would have provided a three-fold comfort. It would have warmed him, for certainly he was cold. It would have helped numb the pain that flared over him, inside and out. What’s more, in sufficient quantities, it would have prevented him from being clear enough to think. At present, that seemed by far the most important thing.
In the absence of liquor, Ezra was unsure what might make him feel better. It certainly wasn’t food. That wouldn’t go down right for some reason, and if it did then it didn’t seem to want to stay down. Coffee had worked for a while, but now he didn’t appreciate his heart racing, the number of times he had to absent himself into the bushes, the burn as it hit his twisted, empty stomach.
Ezra watched the camp, wondering how soon he could get back on his feet before Larabee or Jackson harangued him. He felt a chill shake his bones and wound the duster close, a shroud over his shame.
Ah, that word.
Josiah and his God seemed to think it fit. Ezra wondered if he would ever again have the strength to challenge the preacher on the matter. Perhaps better just to leave it, an insidious, self-fulfilling prophecy of a word that they could all understand.
Nathan might have given up asking to look at his hurts, but he wasn’t going to stop demanding to help. Ezra knew that, knew he should keep a curb on his temper when he saw the healer wending a way over to him. But he wasn’t going to just lie here and be goddamn well talked down to, he knew that much.
Nathan frowned as he saw Ezra getting first to his knees and then to his feet. He held wads of snowy-white cotton in one hand, and a cup of hot water with what looked like pieces of bark floating on the surface. Ezra was always amazed how quickly these men could get a fire going and a kettle on the boil.
“You still feverish?” was the opening gambit and Ezra cursed the fact that he hadn’t managed to stifle his shivering fit.
“I am quite well, Mr. Jackson.”
“You need to eat.”
“Perhaps later.”
“Look like you’re in pain, Ezra. And drink the damn tea, don’t just look at it. Even if you spit up, something might help.” Nathan stood back as if to prevent an unintended touch, cup still held out. “Well, are you in pain?”
“Cracked ribs hurt like the Devil, as you know yourself.”
“Anything else?”
Ezra might almost have smiled at the indirectness of the question.
I was shackled, stamped into the earth, violated. You may trust that it did not agree with me at all. No indeed.
He did not want to dwell on the dull ache in his lower back, the feeling that he’d been sitting in acid for the last several hours. He didn’t know if it reflected some actual, physical hurt, or if it was his mind playing tricks on him, making him imagine he could feel ... he did not even want to give room to what he imagined he could feel.
“I appreciate your concern, Nathan. Really, I do.”
“My concern don’t mean shit unless I can help.”
Ezra wagged his head. “You are wrong, you are very wrong. But here, if it makes you happy ... I’ll drink your confounded ditch-water.”
“Not about me being happy,” Nathan muttered as Ezra downed the cup of liquid. He looked at him anxiously when he’d finished. “Ah hell … what is this, what’s goin’ on with you, Ezra? Damn it, you ain’t gonna ... are ya?”
Ezra took several deep breaths, squeezed his eyes shut while the world tilted and his stomach rebelled. He tried to talk through it. “Seems that nothing … will stay down.”
“Ride it out.” Nathan’s voice was persuasive. “Come on now, you need that ditch-water.”
Ezra suddenly felt a hand on his arm. It was the gesture of a healer, of a friend, one that had always been welcome, but Ezra felt it sting him like a brand. His eyes snapped open, he jerked backwards from the contact, dropping the cup with a clatter. For a split second he didn’t know whether he was going to hit Nathan or black out.
“Hell,” Nathan said, freezing. “Hell, Ezra, take it easy.”
“What’s going on?” Chris made long, anxious strides across camp to get to them.
“Nothin’” Ezra bit out. He dragged the back of his hand across his forehead. “Nathan just ... caught a bruise or some such.”
Chris and Nathan stared at him in silence. Ezra couldn’t make his mind work quick enough, couldn’t fix on the best way to extricate himself from any of this. They felt bad, really bad, that was plain from their expressions. Such concern made Ezra even more sick to the stomach than he already was, although he hardly knew why. Other people’s anxiety couldn’t be borne, it was too much for him to support and he didn’t want it.
Determined to draw the poison, he managed to dredge up a small smile that almost dimpled his cheek. It was not a sincere smile, but it was a sincere effort to reassure and, if he’d but known, almost took their breath away.
“It appears there are very few parts of my anatomy that have not been mis-treated.”
Ezra very much wanted them to respond to his attempt at levity but it seemed that neither man had it in them. They just continued to look at him with something in their eyes that Ezra was inwardly distraught to identify as pity.
The dimple disappeared before it had even arrived.
The ditch-water reappeared shortly after.
-----
A mile and a half further down the trail there was one man on watch while another five slept the afternoon away.
Once they were back together, Bracken had pushed them as hard as he could. It was a thankless task. They were feeble from lack of food, too much liquor and those bitter roots of Camino’s they’d been chewing on and off for the last hell knew how many days. He wasn’t a good judge of character, never had been. Nando had been that. But when it became clear that they were all too strung out and exhausted to herd in any direction at all, he made a quick decision. Randomly guessing Cal Winterman, a fellow Californian, was the most wide awake, he threw him one of the rifles and then planned to join the others in a headfirst leap into unconsciousness. He couldn’t lead anyone anywhere unless he got some good rest.
“You know who that was dontcha ... that shot Nando? Feller with the Winchester?”
George Wilton, last man to rejoin them, poked Bracken in the shoulder before he rolled into sleep.
“I wasn’t lookin’ that way. Was busy.” Bracken’s eyes were heavy. His stomach was empty but his head was too full of wool right now for it to keep him awake.
Wilton, a slaughterman from Kansas, was anxious. Like he nearly always was. Mouthy sonofabitch but prone to flaking out. Been working them all up to have a poke at one of Larabee’s men, then backed right off soon as they’d gotten down to it. Bracken kind of wished Wilton had never made it away from the mill. Would have preferred Nando to be at his side, mumbling mad plans and obscenities in his ear.
“Was a good shooter, a tracker.” Wilton was definitely rattled. “Think he’s wanted. If it’s who I think it is, they say he can track anyone or anything.”
“Good. Let him track his own butt.”
“He won’t be far behind, Mattie.”
Bracken rolled on to his back and yawned. He refused to be perturbed. “Even trackers hafta rest. They ain’t caught us yet. They’ve been on the trail a while, and they’re hurtin. Prolly still busy pettin’ their poor beat-up boy.”
“Cal?” Wilton called out. “You wake us in two hours. No more’n two hours.”
Cal, sitting against a tree with his knees drawn up to his chest, tapped the rifle on the ground to say he’d heard. He didn’t look much like he was about to mount a close watch.
While the others sank into slack-jawed slumber, he stayed wide awake. For going on an hour and a half he kept pulling at his hair to keep himself alert. He wondered resentfully when the hell he was going to be allowed some rest. There was a gnarly wind shivering the trees. Everything else was quiet. When he felt his eyelids dropping, Cal crawled to his feet, went for a stroll around. Rounding a juniper thicket, he stopped and stretched.
The teasing touch of a double-barreled smooth-bore shotgun slipped against the back of his head.
It was the kind of thing Mattie did sometimes as a joke.
“Shush now,” said a voice, and it sure wasn’t Bracken’s. “Best keep real still. We got you covered.”
Cal felt the rifle being removed from his hands. A flush of anger reddened the back of his neck, some idiotic impulse that made him turn, fuss to snatch the weapon back.
Bracken woke sluggishly as a shot fired. He knew at once, before his eyes were even properly open, that he was cornered. Almost like he was still asleep and dreaming, he watched two of the more clumsy of his fellows get themselves killed. His own instinct for self-preservation was considerably stronger than his instinct for a fight. Slithering himself into the protective side of Link Chain, something he had done for much of his life, he pressed both hands on his head in surrender.
“Shit,” Wilton said, slapping the ground next to him in frustration before doing the same. “Knew we shouldna damn well gone to sleep.”
Bracken crouched where he was, suddenly wide awake and staring. He searched for a sight of chestnut hair under a black hat.
“Weeell,” he said cheerfully when he spied it coming right up towards him. “Tough as well as sweet. He done come to get me!”
The barrel of a Remington .45, securely handled and gripped steady, was jammed squarely into his chest and Bracken winced.
“Aw, that ain’t nice. I do something to hurt ya feelins?” He figured he’d already be dead if the Southern boy had killing on his mind.
Lifting his head, he met feverishly bright eyes for just a second and then an unexpected punch sent him reeling. He didn’t stay conscious long enough to know he was hit so hard his skull bounced off the rocky ground.
----------
None of Bracken’s men got off any shots, although some tried.
Chris had expected a fight, a dirty one. He was surprised to have as many as three prisoners left breathing by the end. Cal, the watchman, had been shot dead from some distance by Buck as he’d wrestled with Vin for his rifle. That shot was either brilliant or goddamn lucky. Chris grimly counted Vin fortunate not to have half a head right about now. He told himself to have a word with Buck about that, when he had the chance.
Two of the others had woken and gone straight for the remaining weapons. Chris had shot one, JD the other. It almost felt like putting sick dogs out of their misery.
“If we’re going to bury these men, maybe I should at least know their names.”
Josiah, arms folded, gazed down on the covered bodies.
Behind him, Vin and Nathan were going through the assorted packs. Didn’t look like they’d discover much to commandeer. Most of the fleeing men’s supplies had been left back at the mill anyhow. Buck and JD had started to make full camp right here and the fire was already smoking. Three men were dead and Bracken was still unconscious. Link Chain and George Wilton sat one either side of him, hands tied, eyes cast down.
Ezra wandered to Josiah’s shoulder, poker-faced. He tried to push past the preacher but an arm sprang out and attempted to hold him back.
“I don’t think you need to look on ’em, brother.”
Ezra turned his eyes to the arm. “I think I need to do what I please without being pushed around, Mr. Sanchez.”
“They’re dead and gone, Ezra.”
“Need to see their faces.”
“I don’t think you do.”
Ezra made a familiar gesture of frustration, like he was loosening a kink from his neck. He pulled himself free, bent at the knees and grasped a corner of the saddle-blanket laid across the heads and torsos of the bodies. Then he crouched where he was, looking from one gray and bloodied face to another. Josiah glanced behind him, exchanged a doubtful look with Nathan, who shrugged.
Buck prowled over too, took a look at the dead men, at Ezra, back at the faces.
“Ez?”
Ezra shuffled his shoulders, made the neck gesture again. “Well, ah didn’t get to look them in the eye so to speak but ... ”
“Him with the beard.” Buck jabbed a finger, looked off into the distance, then, unwillingly, back to the bodies once more.
Ezra closed one eye, chewed the corner of his thumb-nail.
“Yes,” was all he said.
Buck sighed. He seemed reluctant to speak but grimly understanding of what Ezra wanted to know. There was the sound of him sucking air through his teeth.
“And this ... he’s the feller Bracken called Cal. This one on the end.”
“Really?”
The wan fascination in Ezra’s voice made Chris prick up his ears.
Maybe another. That was what Buck had said. There’d been Bracken, and maybe another. The fact that neither Buck nor Ezra seemed able to drag their eyes off the dead man’s face convinced Chris that Cal was maybe another.
Buck looked away first. “Won’t forget it.”
Ezra flinched at that. “How unfortunate.”
Josiah put a hand out, curled it round Ezra’s shoulder but was shaken off again with some force.
“Care to tell me?” Ezra asked him as he rose to his feet, “Just where you might be apportioning that shame and guilt, Josiah? They were the words you used, I do believe?”
“Brother ...”
“Don’t brother me. Don’t brother me, don’t son me.” It was that hostile voice once again, the one you’d be foolish to try and bluster your way through.
Josiah held up his hands. As Ezra walked away towards the fire, he bent down to replace the blanket over the corpses.
Chris handed Ezra a canteen as he came near. He dearly wished there was something stronger in it than stale water.
Buck drifted over to stand next to them for a second or two. There was an instant in which it seemed Wilmington might be about to say something. To Chris it looked like the perfect moment for Buck to get off his chest whatever was goddamn well sitting on it, but the moment splintered before his eyes. Buck stared into the fire as if gathering his thoughts and then seemed to get antsy. Nervous as hell, Chris readied himself to follow where he moved.
Ezra, for his part, stayed rooted to the spot, the canteen hanging loose in one hand, untouched. His eyes moved towards Buck and Chris as they strayed away but the rest of him remained still.
Twitchy, Buck stalked across to the seated prisoners and stood in front of them in a slouch, hands low on his hips. “Yep, you’re here,” he said when he saw Bracken sitting up taking notice, looking closely at his surroundings. The man had been hit hard enough to have a lump above one eyebrow but his Stetson had saved him from a split skull.
Bracken made a pull at his bound wrists. He glowered for a second, let his eyes pass over Buck and then Chris as if they were entirely unimportant. Then he went back to staring around, noting where Link Chain and Wilton sat, where the horses were, who was in camp and where they were situated. Finally his stare came to rest on the man nearest the fire. Bracken focused hard, didn’t manage to provoke eye contact.
He looked back to Buck, angled his chin towards the fire.
“Came back for his sweetheart.”
It was as much as Chris could do to stop Buck drawing his gun right there and then. His own hand was out and clamped round Buck’s forearm before Wilmington could make that move. Ezra didn’t react except to gaze coolly across at the prisoners from under his hat. If he’d been one of the three, Chris figured he might have been more spooked by Ezra’s apparently tranquil stare than Buck’s freewheeling rage.
“You can’t let him get to you, Buck.”
Buck laughed bitterly at that. He allowed himself to be drawn away and then brushed Chris aside, spoke in a low tone, keeping the conversation just between him and Larabee. “Get to me? You think he gets to me? I want to fuckin’ kill him, Chris. All of ‘em.”
“I know you do. But we have to let the law deal with them.”
“Remind me again why we have to have that kind of shit stinking up our jail?”
“Not right confident about the Marshal in Sharpeville, but I know Judge Travis. And I know us.”
“Ezra don’t want them there.”
“He told you that?”
“I can tell by his face.”
“You can’t tell nothin’ by his face. None of us can. Now, have you finished bellyachin?”
Buck looked disgusted and stumped away. Chris watched him go, the set of the retreating back familiar. He and Buck had weathered some spectacular clashes over the years, despite what they owed one another. Felt like they were dancing around the edges of one now and it wouldn’t help. It goddamn well wouldn’t help. And Chris didn’t even know who to blame for it, either.
Ezra, meanwhile, had broken from his trance-like state and begun a careful walk around the outskirts of the camp. The duster was pulled close and his chin was sunk into its upturned collar.
“There he goes,” Bracken called out. “How you feeling, pretty?”
Several heads turned in his direction, all stunned to hear him speak. That he dared speak to Ezra.
Chris was gut-punched to see Ezra’s steps falter. Would have hoped he’d just walk on by.
“Hooowheee ...” Bracken gave one of his little laughs, like he was the funniest person alive. “It’s hard watchin’ you strut about, all trussed up in ya big coat. Not how I like to see you, pretty.” He tapped his head meaningfully. “Can still see what’s underneath though ... always be able ta see that.”
Because Ezra wouldn’t speak, for which he was eternally grateful, Chris answered himself. It wasn’t much of an answer, but there seemed nothing else to say.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“You can’t change nothin’,” Bracken said and he was addressing his words to all of them now. “Can’t change I fucked the tail off your sweet boy. Can’t change that he asked for it.” He paused, lit the fuse. “Or, that he’s still askin’ for it.”
Bracken got his explosion.
Chris would have placed bets on it being Buck, but he was wrong. Although both Vin and Buck swore loudly, it was Nathan, coming from nowhere, that flashed across the clearing. Nathan, with fists flying and vengeance in his heart.
In a second, Josiah had scrambled from the ground where he’d been wrapping up the bodies. Joined Vin in racing over to try and head Jackson off. Not fast enough.
Nathan was a powerful man and packed a powerful punch. When he reached Bracken, barreling straight through the restraining arm of Josiah and Vin’s wild grasp to the back of his jacket, his fists opened. Both hands wrapped around the man’s windpipe.
Bracken lurched, his eyes round with surprise. He was slammed hard against the tree at his back, so hard that Link Chain, sitting only a few feet away, yelled in protest. Clenching his teeth, Bracken stared up at his attacker. His black eyes positively glittered, almost as if he were enjoying himself. It was plain how he gained his nickname.
“He ain’t nobody’s sweet boy!” Nathan rattled Bracken viciously. “Hear me? Nobody’s. And if he doesn’t get around to slitting your throat while you’re asleep, you worthless piece of shit, then maybe I will.”
“Nathan! Take it easy! You ain’t helpin’ .... come on, now. Git offa him, what’s the matter with you?” Josiah hauled with both arms, made only a little progress in dragging his friend away. While Chris knew from experience that Sanchez could out-muscle the others, even Buck, this was a wholly different physical challenge. Vin piled in too. It was the only way.
They had to wrestle Nathan’s hands loose from Bracken’s throat. Even then he bucked and strained against them, while Bracken sank back against the tree, hacking and spitting out insults.
Chris was ready. Ready to clear leather and fire a broadside, but, abruptly, Nathan stopped resisting. He didn’t seem to lose any of his anger, just maybe became aware of the struggle he was having with two men who he didn’t want to be patching up later. Chris could practically see the power drain from his muscles, some of the tension fading away. He was walked, rather than dragged, back towards the fire. There he stood, breathing hard, Bracken still in his sights.
“He should pay, Josiah, we should make him pay.”
“He will pay.” Josiah’s voice was calm. “Be sure of that, Brother Nathan. He will pay.”
Vin rolled one shoulder, poked it dubiously. Nathan looked across at him and Vin scowled.
“Don’t say nothin’.”
Chris was there now, standing between Nathan and the prisoners, blocking their view of each other. He glanced around, saw Buck and JD looking nervous.
“Where’s Ezra?”
“River.”
His heart sank. “He’s going to damn well wash himself away.”
“I’ll go git him,” Buck said, making a move in the direction of the water.
“Let him alone. Man needs his privacy.”
Buck shook himself impatiently. “Even if he takes a lung fever paddling about in that cold like a goddamn duck every five fuckin’ minutes?”
Shit. It would be so easy to take a swing at Buck. That he didn’t do it told Chris that maybe he’d started to grow a little since he and Wilmington had first battered one another into the dust over something and then hauled one another up and into a saloon.
“We’ll make sure he gets warm,” he said evenly. “Now, all of ya. Just settle down.”
Chris let them get back to what they were doing, cast a long look over at Bracken, who now had his eyes closed. Then he joined up with Vin and they took a stroll a little way out of camp.
“How long ’til we’re home?”
Home.
Chris wished it didn’t feel so bitching important. He wished he hadn’t obliged them all to drink to it. Now that little gesture of solidarity, so comforting at the time, felt like a whole big, ugly temptation Fate hadn’t been able to ignore.
“At this pace? Three days, maybe four. If we was to push on ahead ... Buck, Josiah and us ... could make it in two.”
Chris breathed in a draught of evening air, caught the whiff of food on top of the breeze. His stomach growled. “Sharpeville ain’t exactly the place for JD and Ezra to rest up, and I don’t want to leave Nathan out on the trail with ’em.”
“We’ll take it slow then, stick together.”
Stick together. Vin had found the magic words.
“He’s holding up.”
Vin rolled his newly-sore shoulder again. “Yep.”
“Just want to get those sons of bitches behind bars.”
Vin made a face at him. “Bought ourselves a passel of trouble there, cowboy.” There was no censure in the voice, even though Chris knew full well that if he’d held back, had kept them all together in the first damn place, they’d be well on their way home, intact, right about now.
“Reckon we can do anything for him?”
Vin looked out across the plain, blew a long breath. “Beats the hell out of me. Hafta watch out for him real close. And JD. He’s shook up good. Gonna take a while for him to come round.”
“Hell!” Chris began to seethe. “It’s like having a goddamn family all over again, only this one’d never give you any peace and comfort. This one’d turn around and bite ya bitchin’ hand off soon as look atcha.”
“Better’n none at all.”
“Ya think?”
Vin laughed quietly. “You’re doin’ all right.”
“Reckon I need to do better than that, else he’s going to do something stupid. Or he’s going to walk away. And he might not be the only one.”
Vin slapped him on the side of the arm. He had that look on his face, like he thought life was pretty strange but it was kind of what he was here for.
“With you at the head of the table? Shit, Chris, none of us’d fuckin’ dare.”
Author: JoJo
Genre: Gen, OW, angst, h/c
Length: 70,000 words (5,719 this part)
Rating: PG-15 for graphic violence, graphic language
Characters: All Seven, Mary Travis, Orrin Travis, original townspeople and baddies
A/n: Many, many thanks to the wise and talented farad for the beta. Any oddities are mine alone :)
** please note rating above and warnings below**
Story so far: It shouldn’t be so hard for the Magnificent Seven to dispense justice to a cornered, addled bunch of outlaws, but events at the mill are taking their toll and the boys just aren't looking too magnificent ...
Parts 1 and 2 Part 3 Part 4
Part Five
Family is just accident ... They don’t mean to get on your nerves. They don’t even mean to be your family, they just are ~Marsha Norman
Chris had ridden out on foolhardy expeditions more than once in his life. He’d done it as a kid, he’d done it in uniform under orders, and it’d been a regular pastime since Sarah died. If Judge Travis had provided an actual contract of employment, he guessed there’d be a line about it in there somewhere, probably in the small print. He was aware that, as long they rode together, there probably wouldn’t be any other kind of expedition.
But, like Vin, Chris didn’t see the pursuit of the six men up the trail in this light and figured he might have been able to deal with them by himself. They weren’t gunfighters, not even Bracken. Camino had been the closest to that, which was why Vin had nailed him from distance before a single other shot had been fired. The only worry was that their quarry had lost their senses and no longer much cared what they did. Not unlike Colonel Anderson, he thought, although that insane bastard had brought half a regiment with him and the remains of Camino’s gang were now outnumbered.
There was a kind of sickly shock in the air, though, that made Chris feel more than uneasy. Made him wonder if the trusty, well-oiled machine that had ridden into Sharpeville two nights ago hadn’t started to fall to pieces.
“Damn, we ain’t lookin’ too magnificent,” Vin commented when it looked like they were about ready to head out. He referred, with a good helping of hearty Tanner irony, to a nickname coined by some bright spark in Four Corners. The moniker embarrassed them mostly, but it had served on more than one occasion as a rueful private joke.
“Shit,” was all Chris could come up with in response.
Nathan hadn’t quit giving his opinion since he opened his eyes first thing. Said there was no point in him even being there if Larabee was going to ride roughshod over his skills and knowledge. In his view, neither Ezra nor JD was fit to be on horseback. Chris agreed, but said it came down to the same thing as before. Unless anyone was inclined to tie either of them down they’d get no joy telling them to stay where they were. He took Jackson aside to tell him so.
“Didn’t you have a gutful of tryin’ to lasso Ezra yesterday? Man wants to ride, he can goddamn well ride. And JD’ll manage. He’s tough. Buck’ll watch him.”
“Fine,” Nathan replied stiffly. Chris noticed he reined in his instinct to stick to Ezra like glue after that. A hawk-like, covert surveillance was in operation instead.
Some cloud of tight-lipped despondency had descended upon both Buck and Josiah. Chris felt like they were listening to him, but not hearing a goddamn word.
“Any of those bastards who don’t get themselves shot are comin’ back with us,” he said as they got ready to mount up, just to make sure everyone else understood what he understood.
Buck seemed to hear that all right. “I don’t aim to leave any of ’em standing, Chris.”
“We’re going to do what we have to, Buck. Like always. That’s never meant execution. Now stop gettin’ yourself in a twist and go look out for JD.” He waited until Buck had moved away and then looked to the man still poised at the side of his horse, one foot in the stirrup. “Ezra?”
Ezra looked up impatiently. “Rested and ready, Mr. Larabee.”
“Like hell you are.”
Chris didn’t like being lied to, but he knew they were all doing it. They were all pretending it hadn’t happened, or that it wasn’t so bad, or that Ezra, being Ezra, would somehow be perfectly all right.
Yes, said the cool look directed back at him. I’m lying, of course I’m lying, what do you damn well expect?
Once he was mounted, Ezra sat with his head bent. He’d wound the reins round one hand and was clutching the saddle horn with it. The other remained braced against the cantle.
“You’ll break ya goddamn arm trying to bear ya weight like that, Ezra. You shouldn’t be riding.” Nathan had never been one to suffer fools gladly, although right now his voice was more full of concern than annoyance.
“You make things any worse than they already are, Ezra, nobody’s gonna thank you.”
“Fuck you, Mr. Larabee!” A snarl packed with pain and fury. “Just ... fuck you.”
Chris capitulated, didn’t say a word more. He’d never heard Ezra talk like that, a baffling mix of politeness and expletive, and thought that by rights he should have punched him off his horse. Figured, though, that maybe some rage might help.
Vin led them off and they rode at a lick. Their progress lasted no more than half an hour before Ezra pulled to a stop. He suddenly held up a hand and Chris felt a prickle along the back of his neck to hear him apologize. Rage had seemingly given way to good breeding.
Damnit, Ezra.
Josiah and Chris got to him as soon as he’d begun a ragged dismount. He wouldn’t have stayed on his feet without them but he wasn’t best pleased to be grabbed at either. Surrendering to the forced assistance with a granite jaw, he let them walk him a few shaky paces from the trail. Silently they kept him from spilling on to his face while he vomited gritty mess into the sagebrush.
“Hell, you bin swallowin’ earth?” Chris asked him, before remembering how they’d found him back at the mill.
They stayed in place while the damaged ribcage throbbed and burned in retaliation, Ezra gritted his teeth and a silent wash of tears slid down his face. He wiped the wet away carefully with the flat of his hands and they steadfastly ignored the action, staring over the top of his head in different directions.
Nathan had bounced from his horse soon as they’d come to a standstill. “See?” he growled.
Larabee laid a firm hand across Ezra’s shoulder-blades, ignored the shrug of resistance. “Changed ya mind?”
Ezra scrubbed his damp hands together, dragged them down his pant-legs. He spoke slowly and quietly to Nathan without looking directly at him. “Before you start, I’m not bleeding. Could tell if I was. So ... I’d be truly grateful if you’d keep some perspective, Mr. Jackson. It hurts like hell, but if Mr. Tanner’s on the money we don’t have far to go.” He huffed in a painful breath, let it out. “When they sprout wings and transport themselves across the other side of the territory, then I might think again.”
Nathan didn’t seem to be as impressed as Chris was by the amount and strength of Ezra’s words. “Perspective my ass.”
“No, Mr. Jackson. Perspective my ass.”
“You ain’t amusin’. You’re a fool.”
“We stoppin’, Ezra?” Vin called from his horse.
Chris was tempted to shout back that Ezra wasn’t running this goddamn show, except that he probably was.
Towards the middle of the morning, Vin pushed ahead again, left the others behind. They were moving too slow for his liking, although he appreciated the reason. He never enjoyed riding too long in formation anyhow, but right now he seemed on a mission that was practically burning him from the inside out and Chris just let him go. If anyone was going to be able to drag things back from the edge of disaster, he figured it could be Vin Tanner.
Vin rejoined them when they’d stopped for a short rest. He looked suddenly exhausted, eyes rimmed red, his pale, set face blotched in dust and stubble. When he slid from the saddle it looked like he’d carry right on down and make a heap on the earth. Josiah made a move to catch him, but Vin’s keen look at Ezra, standing hunched by his horse with his forehead dropped on to its neck, seemed to steady his legs.
Still not too magnificent, though.
“Up ahead of us, Ez,” he said in a hoarse, dust-slaked voice. “A full six. They stopped to take on water, lyin’ about like they won’t be leavin’ for a stretch. Looks like they’re slowin’ down.” He turned his head. “We can take ’em, Chris. Anytime we want.”
Chris squashed his desire to make some sarcastic comment about how grateful he was to be included in the conversation. He just nodded, laid a hand on Vin’s shoulder. “Remind me what they’re packin’?”
“Coupla rifles, looks like. Some of ’em have side-arms. Can’t be too careful. They’re ready to shoot what moves.”
“Have a bite, Vin. We’ll see to your horse.”
Vin glanced at Josiah, but looked back to Ezra before he moved. “You ready for this?”
Ezra lifted his head, kept a tight hold on a handful of trail-matted mane. He patted the outline of the Remington under the duster. “I intend to see them reach the end of their road.”
“Right with ya there, Ez,” Buck growled.
“There’ll be no blood-letting.” Chris’s voice was taut. “You all hear me? Any one of ’em who surrenders, we’re takin’ back with us.” Silence. “Is that clear?”
Buck just shrugged.
“Sure, Chris,” JD said.
“You’re in charge, cowboy.” That was Vin. Chris was pretty sure he wasn’t being funny.
“Josiah?”
“I’m not looking to add to the burden of shame and guilt, brother.”
Chris hesitated at that. Josiah had something on his mind.
He looked hard at the man, who looked steadily back. Something made Chris flick his gaze to Ezra and then JD but Josiah didn’t follow the look, didn’t confirm anything one way or another. Dissatisfied, Chris swung his attention to Nathan, busy pulling the remains of the jerky out of the corner of the nearest saddlebag.
“You’re askin’ me?” Nathan was as curt as Larabee.
“I’m sorry?” Chris felt a flare of anger, hated the way it licked through him, made his bones ache.
Ezra spoke up, sounding weary beyond measure. “I think Mr. Jackson is wondering why you think this exploit should be different to any other we have undertaken? Why we should behave out of character this time? It has never been our custom to butcher miscreants, however tempting.”
“Why this should be any different?” Chris echoed his words, could sense the quake of surprise from the others that this particular conversation had been allowed to get going. He ploughed on regardless. “It ain’t any different. Did I say it was any different?”
More shrugs from Buck and nothing from anyone else.
Only Ezra would take him on. Even now, it was only Ezra who’d dare.
“You suggested it, Mr. Larabee. By your particularity.”
“I ain’t suggesting nothin’. I’m telling you.”
Ezra opened his mouth in response but Vin cut right through him, quiet but firm. “And we’re hearing.” He held out his hand for the water, biscuit and strip of jerky Nathan was offering. Chris was grateful for Vin choking him off when he couldn’t do it himself. Last thing he needed was to butt heads with Ezra. Well, any more than he already was. Their spikiness underpinned most days, was a running refrain they all comfortably relied on to tell them things were normal. Right now, though, it felt too destructive, like it would take more than just the two of them down if it got out of hand.
“We’ll move out in twenty,” he said shortly, and caught Nathan’s eye. “JD, go sit. Ezra, get off ya damn feet.”
Vin took his sustenance aside, watched everyone narrowly while he ate. He chewed slow and steady, took water in small, regular gulps.
----
Across the clearing, Ezra lowered himself carefully to the ground. He stretched out on his side, as far from the others as he dared, didn’t close his eyes even though that was what he wanted more than anything. That, and to roll up into a ball and cry like a baby.
Apart from his ribs, which never stopped jangling for one goddamn second, it felt as if there was a spike lancing through him at an angle from his tailbone to his navel. His knees were like sponge and he needed a drink. It was not unfamiliar, the need-for-liquor feeling. He pulled his flask from the duster pocket with difficulty, and shook it in dismay.
He felt many more things worse than dismayed, of course, but it helped to fix on one emotion at a time. Especially those of a less powerful variety. This one was engendered by the fact that his flask had emptied so quick and that none of the others had seen fit to bring anymore whiskey with them.
Bunch of unreliable numbskulls.
Ezra didn’t mind that Buck had borrowed the flask for medicinal purposes while JD was leaking blood. He was used to providing emergency courage and pain relief, and never left the outskirts of Four Corners without the shiny receptacle full to the brim. Would have taken care of young Mr. Dunne the same way himself if he’d had the chance. But anyhow, it was all gone now, that was the point. He would have credited at least Josiah with the intelligence to stash an extra supply, however small, in some spare corner.
Apparently not, which was frankly disappointing.
Whiskey, common firewater or vintage malt alike, would have provided a three-fold comfort. It would have warmed him, for certainly he was cold. It would have helped numb the pain that flared over him, inside and out. What’s more, in sufficient quantities, it would have prevented him from being clear enough to think. At present, that seemed by far the most important thing.
In the absence of liquor, Ezra was unsure what might make him feel better. It certainly wasn’t food. That wouldn’t go down right for some reason, and if it did then it didn’t seem to want to stay down. Coffee had worked for a while, but now he didn’t appreciate his heart racing, the number of times he had to absent himself into the bushes, the burn as it hit his twisted, empty stomach.
Ezra watched the camp, wondering how soon he could get back on his feet before Larabee or Jackson harangued him. He felt a chill shake his bones and wound the duster close, a shroud over his shame.
Ah, that word.
Josiah and his God seemed to think it fit. Ezra wondered if he would ever again have the strength to challenge the preacher on the matter. Perhaps better just to leave it, an insidious, self-fulfilling prophecy of a word that they could all understand.
Nathan might have given up asking to look at his hurts, but he wasn’t going to stop demanding to help. Ezra knew that, knew he should keep a curb on his temper when he saw the healer wending a way over to him. But he wasn’t going to just lie here and be goddamn well talked down to, he knew that much.
Nathan frowned as he saw Ezra getting first to his knees and then to his feet. He held wads of snowy-white cotton in one hand, and a cup of hot water with what looked like pieces of bark floating on the surface. Ezra was always amazed how quickly these men could get a fire going and a kettle on the boil.
“You still feverish?” was the opening gambit and Ezra cursed the fact that he hadn’t managed to stifle his shivering fit.
“I am quite well, Mr. Jackson.”
“You need to eat.”
“Perhaps later.”
“Look like you’re in pain, Ezra. And drink the damn tea, don’t just look at it. Even if you spit up, something might help.” Nathan stood back as if to prevent an unintended touch, cup still held out. “Well, are you in pain?”
“Cracked ribs hurt like the Devil, as you know yourself.”
“Anything else?”
Ezra might almost have smiled at the indirectness of the question.
I was shackled, stamped into the earth, violated. You may trust that it did not agree with me at all. No indeed.
He did not want to dwell on the dull ache in his lower back, the feeling that he’d been sitting in acid for the last several hours. He didn’t know if it reflected some actual, physical hurt, or if it was his mind playing tricks on him, making him imagine he could feel ... he did not even want to give room to what he imagined he could feel.
“I appreciate your concern, Nathan. Really, I do.”
“My concern don’t mean shit unless I can help.”
Ezra wagged his head. “You are wrong, you are very wrong. But here, if it makes you happy ... I’ll drink your confounded ditch-water.”
“Not about me being happy,” Nathan muttered as Ezra downed the cup of liquid. He looked at him anxiously when he’d finished. “Ah hell … what is this, what’s goin’ on with you, Ezra? Damn it, you ain’t gonna ... are ya?”
Ezra took several deep breaths, squeezed his eyes shut while the world tilted and his stomach rebelled. He tried to talk through it. “Seems that nothing … will stay down.”
“Ride it out.” Nathan’s voice was persuasive. “Come on now, you need that ditch-water.”
Ezra suddenly felt a hand on his arm. It was the gesture of a healer, of a friend, one that had always been welcome, but Ezra felt it sting him like a brand. His eyes snapped open, he jerked backwards from the contact, dropping the cup with a clatter. For a split second he didn’t know whether he was going to hit Nathan or black out.
“Hell,” Nathan said, freezing. “Hell, Ezra, take it easy.”
“What’s going on?” Chris made long, anxious strides across camp to get to them.
“Nothin’” Ezra bit out. He dragged the back of his hand across his forehead. “Nathan just ... caught a bruise or some such.”
Chris and Nathan stared at him in silence. Ezra couldn’t make his mind work quick enough, couldn’t fix on the best way to extricate himself from any of this. They felt bad, really bad, that was plain from their expressions. Such concern made Ezra even more sick to the stomach than he already was, although he hardly knew why. Other people’s anxiety couldn’t be borne, it was too much for him to support and he didn’t want it.
Determined to draw the poison, he managed to dredge up a small smile that almost dimpled his cheek. It was not a sincere smile, but it was a sincere effort to reassure and, if he’d but known, almost took their breath away.
“It appears there are very few parts of my anatomy that have not been mis-treated.”
Ezra very much wanted them to respond to his attempt at levity but it seemed that neither man had it in them. They just continued to look at him with something in their eyes that Ezra was inwardly distraught to identify as pity.
The dimple disappeared before it had even arrived.
The ditch-water reappeared shortly after.
-----
A mile and a half further down the trail there was one man on watch while another five slept the afternoon away.
Once they were back together, Bracken had pushed them as hard as he could. It was a thankless task. They were feeble from lack of food, too much liquor and those bitter roots of Camino’s they’d been chewing on and off for the last hell knew how many days. He wasn’t a good judge of character, never had been. Nando had been that. But when it became clear that they were all too strung out and exhausted to herd in any direction at all, he made a quick decision. Randomly guessing Cal Winterman, a fellow Californian, was the most wide awake, he threw him one of the rifles and then planned to join the others in a headfirst leap into unconsciousness. He couldn’t lead anyone anywhere unless he got some good rest.
“You know who that was dontcha ... that shot Nando? Feller with the Winchester?”
George Wilton, last man to rejoin them, poked Bracken in the shoulder before he rolled into sleep.
“I wasn’t lookin’ that way. Was busy.” Bracken’s eyes were heavy. His stomach was empty but his head was too full of wool right now for it to keep him awake.
Wilton, a slaughterman from Kansas, was anxious. Like he nearly always was. Mouthy sonofabitch but prone to flaking out. Been working them all up to have a poke at one of Larabee’s men, then backed right off soon as they’d gotten down to it. Bracken kind of wished Wilton had never made it away from the mill. Would have preferred Nando to be at his side, mumbling mad plans and obscenities in his ear.
“Was a good shooter, a tracker.” Wilton was definitely rattled. “Think he’s wanted. If it’s who I think it is, they say he can track anyone or anything.”
“Good. Let him track his own butt.”
“He won’t be far behind, Mattie.”
Bracken rolled on to his back and yawned. He refused to be perturbed. “Even trackers hafta rest. They ain’t caught us yet. They’ve been on the trail a while, and they’re hurtin. Prolly still busy pettin’ their poor beat-up boy.”
“Cal?” Wilton called out. “You wake us in two hours. No more’n two hours.”
Cal, sitting against a tree with his knees drawn up to his chest, tapped the rifle on the ground to say he’d heard. He didn’t look much like he was about to mount a close watch.
While the others sank into slack-jawed slumber, he stayed wide awake. For going on an hour and a half he kept pulling at his hair to keep himself alert. He wondered resentfully when the hell he was going to be allowed some rest. There was a gnarly wind shivering the trees. Everything else was quiet. When he felt his eyelids dropping, Cal crawled to his feet, went for a stroll around. Rounding a juniper thicket, he stopped and stretched.
The teasing touch of a double-barreled smooth-bore shotgun slipped against the back of his head.
It was the kind of thing Mattie did sometimes as a joke.
“Shush now,” said a voice, and it sure wasn’t Bracken’s. “Best keep real still. We got you covered.”
Cal felt the rifle being removed from his hands. A flush of anger reddened the back of his neck, some idiotic impulse that made him turn, fuss to snatch the weapon back.
Bracken woke sluggishly as a shot fired. He knew at once, before his eyes were even properly open, that he was cornered. Almost like he was still asleep and dreaming, he watched two of the more clumsy of his fellows get themselves killed. His own instinct for self-preservation was considerably stronger than his instinct for a fight. Slithering himself into the protective side of Link Chain, something he had done for much of his life, he pressed both hands on his head in surrender.
“Shit,” Wilton said, slapping the ground next to him in frustration before doing the same. “Knew we shouldna damn well gone to sleep.”
Bracken crouched where he was, suddenly wide awake and staring. He searched for a sight of chestnut hair under a black hat.
“Weeell,” he said cheerfully when he spied it coming right up towards him. “Tough as well as sweet. He done come to get me!”
The barrel of a Remington .45, securely handled and gripped steady, was jammed squarely into his chest and Bracken winced.
“Aw, that ain’t nice. I do something to hurt ya feelins?” He figured he’d already be dead if the Southern boy had killing on his mind.
Lifting his head, he met feverishly bright eyes for just a second and then an unexpected punch sent him reeling. He didn’t stay conscious long enough to know he was hit so hard his skull bounced off the rocky ground.
----------
None of Bracken’s men got off any shots, although some tried.
Chris had expected a fight, a dirty one. He was surprised to have as many as three prisoners left breathing by the end. Cal, the watchman, had been shot dead from some distance by Buck as he’d wrestled with Vin for his rifle. That shot was either brilliant or goddamn lucky. Chris grimly counted Vin fortunate not to have half a head right about now. He told himself to have a word with Buck about that, when he had the chance.
Two of the others had woken and gone straight for the remaining weapons. Chris had shot one, JD the other. It almost felt like putting sick dogs out of their misery.
“If we’re going to bury these men, maybe I should at least know their names.”
Josiah, arms folded, gazed down on the covered bodies.
Behind him, Vin and Nathan were going through the assorted packs. Didn’t look like they’d discover much to commandeer. Most of the fleeing men’s supplies had been left back at the mill anyhow. Buck and JD had started to make full camp right here and the fire was already smoking. Three men were dead and Bracken was still unconscious. Link Chain and George Wilton sat one either side of him, hands tied, eyes cast down.
Ezra wandered to Josiah’s shoulder, poker-faced. He tried to push past the preacher but an arm sprang out and attempted to hold him back.
“I don’t think you need to look on ’em, brother.”
Ezra turned his eyes to the arm. “I think I need to do what I please without being pushed around, Mr. Sanchez.”
“They’re dead and gone, Ezra.”
“Need to see their faces.”
“I don’t think you do.”
Ezra made a familiar gesture of frustration, like he was loosening a kink from his neck. He pulled himself free, bent at the knees and grasped a corner of the saddle-blanket laid across the heads and torsos of the bodies. Then he crouched where he was, looking from one gray and bloodied face to another. Josiah glanced behind him, exchanged a doubtful look with Nathan, who shrugged.
Buck prowled over too, took a look at the dead men, at Ezra, back at the faces.
“Ez?”
Ezra shuffled his shoulders, made the neck gesture again. “Well, ah didn’t get to look them in the eye so to speak but ... ”
“Him with the beard.” Buck jabbed a finger, looked off into the distance, then, unwillingly, back to the bodies once more.
Ezra closed one eye, chewed the corner of his thumb-nail.
“Yes,” was all he said.
Buck sighed. He seemed reluctant to speak but grimly understanding of what Ezra wanted to know. There was the sound of him sucking air through his teeth.
“And this ... he’s the feller Bracken called Cal. This one on the end.”
“Really?”
The wan fascination in Ezra’s voice made Chris prick up his ears.
Maybe another. That was what Buck had said. There’d been Bracken, and maybe another. The fact that neither Buck nor Ezra seemed able to drag their eyes off the dead man’s face convinced Chris that Cal was maybe another.
Buck looked away first. “Won’t forget it.”
Ezra flinched at that. “How unfortunate.”
Josiah put a hand out, curled it round Ezra’s shoulder but was shaken off again with some force.
“Care to tell me?” Ezra asked him as he rose to his feet, “Just where you might be apportioning that shame and guilt, Josiah? They were the words you used, I do believe?”
“Brother ...”
“Don’t brother me. Don’t brother me, don’t son me.” It was that hostile voice once again, the one you’d be foolish to try and bluster your way through.
Josiah held up his hands. As Ezra walked away towards the fire, he bent down to replace the blanket over the corpses.
Chris handed Ezra a canteen as he came near. He dearly wished there was something stronger in it than stale water.
Buck drifted over to stand next to them for a second or two. There was an instant in which it seemed Wilmington might be about to say something. To Chris it looked like the perfect moment for Buck to get off his chest whatever was goddamn well sitting on it, but the moment splintered before his eyes. Buck stared into the fire as if gathering his thoughts and then seemed to get antsy. Nervous as hell, Chris readied himself to follow where he moved.
Ezra, for his part, stayed rooted to the spot, the canteen hanging loose in one hand, untouched. His eyes moved towards Buck and Chris as they strayed away but the rest of him remained still.
Twitchy, Buck stalked across to the seated prisoners and stood in front of them in a slouch, hands low on his hips. “Yep, you’re here,” he said when he saw Bracken sitting up taking notice, looking closely at his surroundings. The man had been hit hard enough to have a lump above one eyebrow but his Stetson had saved him from a split skull.
Bracken made a pull at his bound wrists. He glowered for a second, let his eyes pass over Buck and then Chris as if they were entirely unimportant. Then he went back to staring around, noting where Link Chain and Wilton sat, where the horses were, who was in camp and where they were situated. Finally his stare came to rest on the man nearest the fire. Bracken focused hard, didn’t manage to provoke eye contact.
He looked back to Buck, angled his chin towards the fire.
“Came back for his sweetheart.”
It was as much as Chris could do to stop Buck drawing his gun right there and then. His own hand was out and clamped round Buck’s forearm before Wilmington could make that move. Ezra didn’t react except to gaze coolly across at the prisoners from under his hat. If he’d been one of the three, Chris figured he might have been more spooked by Ezra’s apparently tranquil stare than Buck’s freewheeling rage.
“You can’t let him get to you, Buck.”
Buck laughed bitterly at that. He allowed himself to be drawn away and then brushed Chris aside, spoke in a low tone, keeping the conversation just between him and Larabee. “Get to me? You think he gets to me? I want to fuckin’ kill him, Chris. All of ‘em.”
“I know you do. But we have to let the law deal with them.”
“Remind me again why we have to have that kind of shit stinking up our jail?”
“Not right confident about the Marshal in Sharpeville, but I know Judge Travis. And I know us.”
“Ezra don’t want them there.”
“He told you that?”
“I can tell by his face.”
“You can’t tell nothin’ by his face. None of us can. Now, have you finished bellyachin?”
Buck looked disgusted and stumped away. Chris watched him go, the set of the retreating back familiar. He and Buck had weathered some spectacular clashes over the years, despite what they owed one another. Felt like they were dancing around the edges of one now and it wouldn’t help. It goddamn well wouldn’t help. And Chris didn’t even know who to blame for it, either.
Ezra, meanwhile, had broken from his trance-like state and begun a careful walk around the outskirts of the camp. The duster was pulled close and his chin was sunk into its upturned collar.
“There he goes,” Bracken called out. “How you feeling, pretty?”
Several heads turned in his direction, all stunned to hear him speak. That he dared speak to Ezra.
Chris was gut-punched to see Ezra’s steps falter. Would have hoped he’d just walk on by.
“Hooowheee ...” Bracken gave one of his little laughs, like he was the funniest person alive. “It’s hard watchin’ you strut about, all trussed up in ya big coat. Not how I like to see you, pretty.” He tapped his head meaningfully. “Can still see what’s underneath though ... always be able ta see that.”
Because Ezra wouldn’t speak, for which he was eternally grateful, Chris answered himself. It wasn’t much of an answer, but there seemed nothing else to say.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“You can’t change nothin’,” Bracken said and he was addressing his words to all of them now. “Can’t change I fucked the tail off your sweet boy. Can’t change that he asked for it.” He paused, lit the fuse. “Or, that he’s still askin’ for it.”
Bracken got his explosion.
Chris would have placed bets on it being Buck, but he was wrong. Although both Vin and Buck swore loudly, it was Nathan, coming from nowhere, that flashed across the clearing. Nathan, with fists flying and vengeance in his heart.
In a second, Josiah had scrambled from the ground where he’d been wrapping up the bodies. Joined Vin in racing over to try and head Jackson off. Not fast enough.
Nathan was a powerful man and packed a powerful punch. When he reached Bracken, barreling straight through the restraining arm of Josiah and Vin’s wild grasp to the back of his jacket, his fists opened. Both hands wrapped around the man’s windpipe.
Bracken lurched, his eyes round with surprise. He was slammed hard against the tree at his back, so hard that Link Chain, sitting only a few feet away, yelled in protest. Clenching his teeth, Bracken stared up at his attacker. His black eyes positively glittered, almost as if he were enjoying himself. It was plain how he gained his nickname.
“He ain’t nobody’s sweet boy!” Nathan rattled Bracken viciously. “Hear me? Nobody’s. And if he doesn’t get around to slitting your throat while you’re asleep, you worthless piece of shit, then maybe I will.”
“Nathan! Take it easy! You ain’t helpin’ .... come on, now. Git offa him, what’s the matter with you?” Josiah hauled with both arms, made only a little progress in dragging his friend away. While Chris knew from experience that Sanchez could out-muscle the others, even Buck, this was a wholly different physical challenge. Vin piled in too. It was the only way.
They had to wrestle Nathan’s hands loose from Bracken’s throat. Even then he bucked and strained against them, while Bracken sank back against the tree, hacking and spitting out insults.
Chris was ready. Ready to clear leather and fire a broadside, but, abruptly, Nathan stopped resisting. He didn’t seem to lose any of his anger, just maybe became aware of the struggle he was having with two men who he didn’t want to be patching up later. Chris could practically see the power drain from his muscles, some of the tension fading away. He was walked, rather than dragged, back towards the fire. There he stood, breathing hard, Bracken still in his sights.
“He should pay, Josiah, we should make him pay.”
“He will pay.” Josiah’s voice was calm. “Be sure of that, Brother Nathan. He will pay.”
Vin rolled one shoulder, poked it dubiously. Nathan looked across at him and Vin scowled.
“Don’t say nothin’.”
Chris was there now, standing between Nathan and the prisoners, blocking their view of each other. He glanced around, saw Buck and JD looking nervous.
“Where’s Ezra?”
“River.”
His heart sank. “He’s going to damn well wash himself away.”
“I’ll go git him,” Buck said, making a move in the direction of the water.
“Let him alone. Man needs his privacy.”
Buck shook himself impatiently. “Even if he takes a lung fever paddling about in that cold like a goddamn duck every five fuckin’ minutes?”
Shit. It would be so easy to take a swing at Buck. That he didn’t do it told Chris that maybe he’d started to grow a little since he and Wilmington had first battered one another into the dust over something and then hauled one another up and into a saloon.
“We’ll make sure he gets warm,” he said evenly. “Now, all of ya. Just settle down.”
Chris let them get back to what they were doing, cast a long look over at Bracken, who now had his eyes closed. Then he joined up with Vin and they took a stroll a little way out of camp.
“How long ’til we’re home?”
Home.
Chris wished it didn’t feel so bitching important. He wished he hadn’t obliged them all to drink to it. Now that little gesture of solidarity, so comforting at the time, felt like a whole big, ugly temptation Fate hadn’t been able to ignore.
“At this pace? Three days, maybe four. If we was to push on ahead ... Buck, Josiah and us ... could make it in two.”
Chris breathed in a draught of evening air, caught the whiff of food on top of the breeze. His stomach growled. “Sharpeville ain’t exactly the place for JD and Ezra to rest up, and I don’t want to leave Nathan out on the trail with ’em.”
“We’ll take it slow then, stick together.”
Stick together. Vin had found the magic words.
“He’s holding up.”
Vin rolled his newly-sore shoulder again. “Yep.”
“Just want to get those sons of bitches behind bars.”
Vin made a face at him. “Bought ourselves a passel of trouble there, cowboy.” There was no censure in the voice, even though Chris knew full well that if he’d held back, had kept them all together in the first damn place, they’d be well on their way home, intact, right about now.
“Reckon we can do anything for him?”
Vin looked out across the plain, blew a long breath. “Beats the hell out of me. Hafta watch out for him real close. And JD. He’s shook up good. Gonna take a while for him to come round.”
“Hell!” Chris began to seethe. “It’s like having a goddamn family all over again, only this one’d never give you any peace and comfort. This one’d turn around and bite ya bitchin’ hand off soon as look atcha.”
“Better’n none at all.”
“Ya think?”
Vin laughed quietly. “You’re doin’ all right.”
“Reckon I need to do better than that, else he’s going to do something stupid. Or he’s going to walk away. And he might not be the only one.”
Vin slapped him on the side of the arm. He had that look on his face, like he thought life was pretty strange but it was kind of what he was here for.
“With you at the head of the table? Shit, Chris, none of us’d fuckin’ dare.”