Ghost Town - Magnificent 7/Supernatural - 2/8
Title: Ghost Town (2/8)
Author: strangevisitor7
Beta: Lyl_Devil and Pen37
Rated: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural & The Magnificent 7 (TV series)
Characters: Sam and Dean Winchester; The Seven: Chris Larabee, Buck Wilmington, Vin Tanner, Ezra Standish, Nathan Jackson, Josiah Sanchez, JD Dunne; OMC - Mathew Tanner
Disclaimer: The characters you know and love all belong to their respective creators. Mathew Tanner is mine
Summary: Sam and Dean Winchester investigate the town of Four Corners and find that the ghosts of six men have been protecting/haunting the town for over a century.
Chapter Summary: A brief interlude with Sam and Dean before the major flashback to what happened in Four Corners that turned Six of the Seven into ghosts.
A/N: WARNING! There are character deaths in this chapter - They are ghosts afterall.
Chapter List:
Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8
A/N2: For those of you unfamiliar with the characters of the Magnificent Seven, brief profiles can be found here which should tell you all you need to know or just ask Lyl_Devil who will use her mad powers of persuasion to turn you into a Mag7 fan as she did me.
JD, Josiah, Vin, Chris, Buck, Nathan & Ezra
banner by scrollgirl
Chapter 2
Somewhere in Arizona - Present Day
Sam looked across the table at his brother. “Dude, do you have to make those noises while you eat?”
Dean looked down at his plate brimming with pancakes, bacon and eggs and then to his brother’s fruit plate and toast. “You just don’t know how to enjoy food,” Dean said and shoveled another forkful of eggs into his mouth. “Mmmm,” he intoned loudly.
Sam ignored his brother and caught the waitress’s attention for a refill on his coffee. He had his laptop open on the table and he was reviewing some files for their next job.
“So, anything?” Dean asked around a mouthful of pancakes.
Sam had given up trying to improve his brother’s table manners at the age of twelve for two reasons: one, it was a lost cause and two, Sam suspected most of it was for his benefit anyway. No sense letting Dean know it annoyed him when he talked with his mouth full.
“Yeah, I think so. Four Corners, New Mexico. It’s a town that’s been deserted for most of the last century,” Sam began. “It was scheduled for demolition two days ago. On the day they were set to start, a construction worker claims he saw six cowboys haunting his bulldozer just before it blew up. No one else at the site saw anything unusual before the explosion.”
“The guy crazy or drunk?” Dean snickered. “Or both?”
“Neither. The foreman says they were all under a lot of stress and is blaming the protesters for the explosion.”
“Protesters?”
“The developers have been in litigation for years trying to secure rights to knock down the old buildings for suburban development,” Sam continued. “Protesters were trying to get it declared a historical landmark but they recently lost the case.”
“Lots of potential for bad blood,” Dean said. “What are the local police saying; not that I think they got anything right?” As far as Dean was concerned the police were a bunch of idiots who just made his job harder by getting in the way.
“The police agree with the foreman. They’ve blamed the protesters for the sabotage.”
“Any reason to think they’re wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “They’re still investigating. The bulldozer operator seems very adamant about what he saw. He sounds pretty credible. And not surprisingly, the lawyer for the protesters, Mathew Tanner is supporting the idea that the place is haunted and shouldn’t be disturbed.”
Dean nodded absorbing the info Sam had presented. “Most of these old ghost town legends are hoaxes, you do know that,” he said. “Like a bad episode of Scooby Doo.”
“True,” Sam grinned in agreement. “But my preliminary investigation has turned up a few other references to similar ghost sightings in the area over the past century. Plus, there doesn’t appear to be anyone named Old Mr. Withers associated with the case, so I’m thinking it might be worth our time and we can be there by tomorrow.”
Dean smiled. “Ok Velma, let’s take a look.”
Sam rolled his eyes as he snapped his laptop shut. They finished their breakfasts and were on the road within the hour.
**********************************************
Near Four Corners, New Mexico - The Past
Vin groaned as he swam toward consciousness. His head throbbed like an entire herd of buffalo had decided to stampede across his skull. He grumbled in misery as he tried to open his eyes but the glaring sunlight forced them closed again. A shooting pain, which caused stars to appear behind his eyelids, reverberated up his left shoulder as he tried to raise a hand to block the sun.
He prodded his shoulder with his other hand and winced - dislocated. Damn. Nathan would have to pop it in again. The healer had warned him that continuing to reinjure it would just cause it to dislocate out more easily. Apparently he was right.
Vin smiled as he thought about Nathan. He’d never admit it but the attention from their resident mother hen was always welcome. It was sorta nice to have someone always worried about his well being, which made the man’s absence even more curious. Not like Nathan to leave an injured man lying in the dust.
Scrubbing a hand across his face, Vin tried opening his eyes again and found himself blinking up at a clear blue sky.
Mindful not to jostle his arm and with his head still aching in protest, Vin sat up. As he looked around the desert landscape, he saw no sign of the others.
The last thing he remembered before his injury was - nothing. At least nothing that would explain why he was lying alone on the ground with a dislocated shoulder. He reached up to massage his head, trying to jog his memory and felt moisture. As he pulled his hand down to look at it, he saw blood; his blood. Gingerly, Vin fingered his scalp again feeling an indentation and matted hair.
The pattern of the wound suggested he’d be grazed by a bullet. If he’d been shot, he was even more worried that Nathan hadn’t made an appearance. Why was he alone?
Ignoring the throbbing that pulsed from his aching head down through his damaged shoulder, Vin forced himself to stand. His eyes roamed across the scrub brush and lonely trees that dotted the rocky terrain of the ravine trying to find something that would explain his current state.
His eyes were drawn to a hint of red, incongruous with the dusty brown of the desert scenery and he staggered toward it. As he approached, the shape resolved itself into a body.
He ran the last few steps as he realized whose body it had to be and skidded to his knees beside the prone figure. “Ezra!” he cried. Slowly he turned his friend onto his back. Vacant eyes stared up at the sky.
“NO!” Vin cried out in anguish. This wasn’t happening. He shook his friend but it was no use, Ezra was dead.
His body was trembling as he tried to hold himself together, his brain unable to comprehend the sight in front of him. They’d been through so much together. It was like losing a member of his family. Ezra with his fancy speech and crazy schemes was gone. Vin touched the man’s well tailored red jacket with a bit of reverence. Damn fool loved that coat. He found himself brushing the dust off the lapel and then stopped when he realized that it didn’t matter any more.
Frantically he looked around. The rest of his friends had to be close and most likely hurt too. They wouldn’t have just left Ezra lying here if they were in a position to help. Then Vin spotted the others.
Hesitantly, he moved to the next prone figure. It was JD, the little brother he’d never had, and just beyond lay Buck. He felt the sadness knot his gut as he turned the kid’s body over. It didn’t surprise Vin to note that Buck had obviously spent his last breath protecting JD. The older man had appointed himself JD’s guardian the first day they’d met and he wondered if Buck would continue to protect the youngest of them all after death as well.
Vin allowed him self a small comfort in the idea that even in death they might still be together. He pressed a hand to his forehead forcing back the emotions that threatened to spill out. When he looked up there were more bodies. Was he the only one who’d survived? The idea that all his friends - his brothers - might be gone would not register.
Leaving Buck and JD, Vin moved to find Josiah and Nathan a bit further up the ravine. As he knelt down beside the former preacher, he found his voice. “Help me Josiah. I don’t know no bible quotes. I don’t …” Vin swallowed. He had no idea what to say. Josiah was always the one with the comforting words.
Frustrated by his inability to express anything for his friends, Vin turned his attention to the healer and closed his unseeing eyes as he’d done for all of them.
He stayed there kneeling in the dirt between his friends with nothing but the whisper of the wind to break the silence. Dropping his head into his hands, Vin just held himself still, waiting for the nightmare to be over. When he opened his eyes again the scene was the same; his friends were gone. A tormented cry reverberated through the ravine. It was only after the echoes returned did Vin realize that the unholy sound was coming from his own lips cursing the powers that be who allowed this to happen, and even condemning himself for surviving.
In the midst of his fury, the memories came flooding back to him of the last morning they were all together. The seven of them were headed out to investigate reports of bandits in the hills but they must have been set up, ambushed. How else could the outlaws have gotten a jump on all of them? He had no memory of the others going down and figured he must’ve have been the first one hit. He’d survived but the others - hadn’t.
Then it dawned on him that someone was missing. Someone his brain would not, could not accept as being dead.
Chris. Where was Chris?. Vin sucked in a deep breath and got to his feet. He looked around wildly trying not to see his five friends silent around him. “Chris!” he yelled.
Their friendship was a bond that surpassed any he’d ever known. As close as any brother, Chris was a part of him in a way neither could explain. They had - have, Vin corrected himself - a connection. Vin’s heart was breaking at the loss of his friends, but the loss of Chris might very well break his soul.
Still protecting his useless left arm, Vin started walking, calling his friend’s name and tracking the pattern of horse prints in the dust. Another fifty paces up the ravine he found the man in black, their leader, leaning against a lone tree in the shade and he was still breathing.
“Chris. Chris. Chris!” Vin’s voice broke as he repeated his friends name like a mantra as he settled in next to the injured man.
Chris gasped a weak, “Still alive,” and Vin wasn’t sure who he meant.
“Yep. I’m alive. Let me see,” he said moving Chris’ hand away from the wound in his belly.
Vin’s face fell as he examined the damage that he was pretty sure that even Nathan wouldn’t have been able to heal. “You’re gonna be fine, pard.” He tried to sound positive.
Chris chuckled, “Liar,” and began coughing. Blood trickled out of his mouth. “Anyone else?”
Vin cast his eyes down. “Just us.”
The dying man shook his head and raised one hand to point at Vin. “Just you,” he whispered.
“Chris, you can fight this. I’ll go get Nathan’s bag. Maybe -,”
Chris grasped his shirt with a strength that surprised Vin. “Watch over the town. It’s just you now,” their leader commanded. His eyes looked straight into Vin’s soul, demanding the promise.
“I promise. I’ll take care of the town and I’ll avenge the others,” he said, the rage at what had happened still pulsating through his veins.
Chris didn’t release his grip on Vin’s shirt. “I have your promise. The town comes first,” he demanded weakly.
“Of course. What ever you say -- what ever you want.” Vin struggled to sound positive. If Chris had made him promise to turn back time, he would have figured out a way to do it. Vin would have done anything to keep Chris alive and here with him. “We’ll do it together just as soon as I get you patched up.”
His friend shook his head and then began coughing again. Vin held him until it passed. “I won’t be going anywhere. The town’s your responsibility now. I have faith that you’ll do just fine without us.”
“No. You can’t leave me,” Vin insisted, not caring that he was sounding a little desperate. “We’re a team, I can’t do it alone.”
Chris stared unflinchingly at him. “Yes you can,” he said; none of the weakness in his voice now. “You can and you will.” The command was clear and Vin could no longer deny the inevitable that Chris was dying and leaving him alone.
Vin nodded, unable to trust his voice to respond without breaking.
The man in black finally released his grip on Vin’s shirt and fell back against the tree. “We did great things, us seven. We took care of people,” he huffed out, every word was becoming a struggle.
Vin let his friend ramble as he held his hand. Now that he had extracted Vin’s pledge it was if Chris was letting go, allowing himself to die. Vin could no longer hold back the grief that was threatening to tear him apart. The tears were flowing freely as he watched the life of his best friend ebb away. Chris' speech was slurring and slowing as his body fought for every breath.
“Don’t let them forget,” Chris said, each word a great effort. “Don’t forget us.”
“Never,” Vin promised. “I’ll make sure you ain’t never forgot.”
The hand he was holding went limp. “Chris?” Vin was openly sobbing as he clutched at the lifeless appendage. He lost track of how long he stayed kneeling in the shade, begging Chris not to leave him. But his friend, his brother, was gone and no amount of begging would bring him back.
Finally the pain in his shoulder demanded some attention. He stood and braced himself against the tree. Without Nathan, he’d have to fix it himself. Vin slammed his body into the unyielding wood, a scream escaping his lips as he felt the snap and pop of bone being jolted back into place. He continued to scream, focusing all his rage on the pain in his shoulder.
The emotion flowed out of him until he stood quiet and motionless in the hot sun. His throat raw from his wails of anguish and his eyes rubbed red as he tried to stop the flow of tears. He didn’t want to remember his friends this way; cold and silent. He knelt back beside Chris and took out his knife. He emptied a small pouch from his belt and then reached out to cut a lock of hair from Chris’ head. Placing the keepsake into the leather bag, he walked back retracing his steps, and repeated the ritual with each of the others.
Vin spoke to each one as he took his token. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it but it comforted him to think a piece of them might be with him always. Vin had been a loner before the six of them had become his family and now Chris had made him promise to continue on his own. If he hadn’t promised, he wasn’t sure he would be willing to even try.
The only horse he could find was Buck’s grey and he had no idea where the other animals might be. Talking calmly to the animal, Vin mounted and spared one more glance at the figures in the dust. It was still too fresh; too unreal, but then the finality of today’s events would never feel real to him. They were dead and he was alone but he promised he would find a way to keep them alive in his heart somehow.
Later he’d come back with some of the townsfolk and give his friends a proper burial. He spurred the horse into a gallop and headed back toward Four Corners, leaving the best parts of himself behind.
Author: strangevisitor7
Beta: Lyl_Devil and Pen37
Rated: PG-13
Fandom: Supernatural & The Magnificent 7 (TV series)
Characters: Sam and Dean Winchester; The Seven: Chris Larabee, Buck Wilmington, Vin Tanner, Ezra Standish, Nathan Jackson, Josiah Sanchez, JD Dunne; OMC - Mathew Tanner
Disclaimer: The characters you know and love all belong to their respective creators. Mathew Tanner is mine
Summary: Sam and Dean Winchester investigate the town of Four Corners and find that the ghosts of six men have been protecting/haunting the town for over a century.
Chapter Summary: A brief interlude with Sam and Dean before the major flashback to what happened in Four Corners that turned Six of the Seven into ghosts.
A/N: WARNING! There are character deaths in this chapter - They are ghosts afterall.
Chapter List:
Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8
A/N2: For those of you unfamiliar with the characters of the Magnificent Seven, brief profiles can be found here which should tell you all you need to know or just ask Lyl_Devil who will use her mad powers of persuasion to turn you into a Mag7 fan as she did me.
JD, Josiah, Vin, Chris, Buck, Nathan & Ezra
banner by scrollgirl
Chapter 2
Somewhere in Arizona - Present Day
Sam looked across the table at his brother. “Dude, do you have to make those noises while you eat?”
Dean looked down at his plate brimming with pancakes, bacon and eggs and then to his brother’s fruit plate and toast. “You just don’t know how to enjoy food,” Dean said and shoveled another forkful of eggs into his mouth. “Mmmm,” he intoned loudly.
Sam ignored his brother and caught the waitress’s attention for a refill on his coffee. He had his laptop open on the table and he was reviewing some files for their next job.
“So, anything?” Dean asked around a mouthful of pancakes.
Sam had given up trying to improve his brother’s table manners at the age of twelve for two reasons: one, it was a lost cause and two, Sam suspected most of it was for his benefit anyway. No sense letting Dean know it annoyed him when he talked with his mouth full.
“Yeah, I think so. Four Corners, New Mexico. It’s a town that’s been deserted for most of the last century,” Sam began. “It was scheduled for demolition two days ago. On the day they were set to start, a construction worker claims he saw six cowboys haunting his bulldozer just before it blew up. No one else at the site saw anything unusual before the explosion.”
“The guy crazy or drunk?” Dean snickered. “Or both?”
“Neither. The foreman says they were all under a lot of stress and is blaming the protesters for the explosion.”
“Protesters?”
“The developers have been in litigation for years trying to secure rights to knock down the old buildings for suburban development,” Sam continued. “Protesters were trying to get it declared a historical landmark but they recently lost the case.”
“Lots of potential for bad blood,” Dean said. “What are the local police saying; not that I think they got anything right?” As far as Dean was concerned the police were a bunch of idiots who just made his job harder by getting in the way.
“The police agree with the foreman. They’ve blamed the protesters for the sabotage.”
“Any reason to think they’re wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “They’re still investigating. The bulldozer operator seems very adamant about what he saw. He sounds pretty credible. And not surprisingly, the lawyer for the protesters, Mathew Tanner is supporting the idea that the place is haunted and shouldn’t be disturbed.”
Dean nodded absorbing the info Sam had presented. “Most of these old ghost town legends are hoaxes, you do know that,” he said. “Like a bad episode of Scooby Doo.”
“True,” Sam grinned in agreement. “But my preliminary investigation has turned up a few other references to similar ghost sightings in the area over the past century. Plus, there doesn’t appear to be anyone named Old Mr. Withers associated with the case, so I’m thinking it might be worth our time and we can be there by tomorrow.”
Dean smiled. “Ok Velma, let’s take a look.”
Sam rolled his eyes as he snapped his laptop shut. They finished their breakfasts and were on the road within the hour.
**********************************************
Near Four Corners, New Mexico - The Past
Vin groaned as he swam toward consciousness. His head throbbed like an entire herd of buffalo had decided to stampede across his skull. He grumbled in misery as he tried to open his eyes but the glaring sunlight forced them closed again. A shooting pain, which caused stars to appear behind his eyelids, reverberated up his left shoulder as he tried to raise a hand to block the sun.
He prodded his shoulder with his other hand and winced - dislocated. Damn. Nathan would have to pop it in again. The healer had warned him that continuing to reinjure it would just cause it to dislocate out more easily. Apparently he was right.
Vin smiled as he thought about Nathan. He’d never admit it but the attention from their resident mother hen was always welcome. It was sorta nice to have someone always worried about his well being, which made the man’s absence even more curious. Not like Nathan to leave an injured man lying in the dust.
Scrubbing a hand across his face, Vin tried opening his eyes again and found himself blinking up at a clear blue sky.
Mindful not to jostle his arm and with his head still aching in protest, Vin sat up. As he looked around the desert landscape, he saw no sign of the others.
The last thing he remembered before his injury was - nothing. At least nothing that would explain why he was lying alone on the ground with a dislocated shoulder. He reached up to massage his head, trying to jog his memory and felt moisture. As he pulled his hand down to look at it, he saw blood; his blood. Gingerly, Vin fingered his scalp again feeling an indentation and matted hair.
The pattern of the wound suggested he’d be grazed by a bullet. If he’d been shot, he was even more worried that Nathan hadn’t made an appearance. Why was he alone?
Ignoring the throbbing that pulsed from his aching head down through his damaged shoulder, Vin forced himself to stand. His eyes roamed across the scrub brush and lonely trees that dotted the rocky terrain of the ravine trying to find something that would explain his current state.
His eyes were drawn to a hint of red, incongruous with the dusty brown of the desert scenery and he staggered toward it. As he approached, the shape resolved itself into a body.
He ran the last few steps as he realized whose body it had to be and skidded to his knees beside the prone figure. “Ezra!” he cried. Slowly he turned his friend onto his back. Vacant eyes stared up at the sky.
“NO!” Vin cried out in anguish. This wasn’t happening. He shook his friend but it was no use, Ezra was dead.
His body was trembling as he tried to hold himself together, his brain unable to comprehend the sight in front of him. They’d been through so much together. It was like losing a member of his family. Ezra with his fancy speech and crazy schemes was gone. Vin touched the man’s well tailored red jacket with a bit of reverence. Damn fool loved that coat. He found himself brushing the dust off the lapel and then stopped when he realized that it didn’t matter any more.
Frantically he looked around. The rest of his friends had to be close and most likely hurt too. They wouldn’t have just left Ezra lying here if they were in a position to help. Then Vin spotted the others.
Hesitantly, he moved to the next prone figure. It was JD, the little brother he’d never had, and just beyond lay Buck. He felt the sadness knot his gut as he turned the kid’s body over. It didn’t surprise Vin to note that Buck had obviously spent his last breath protecting JD. The older man had appointed himself JD’s guardian the first day they’d met and he wondered if Buck would continue to protect the youngest of them all after death as well.
Vin allowed him self a small comfort in the idea that even in death they might still be together. He pressed a hand to his forehead forcing back the emotions that threatened to spill out. When he looked up there were more bodies. Was he the only one who’d survived? The idea that all his friends - his brothers - might be gone would not register.
Leaving Buck and JD, Vin moved to find Josiah and Nathan a bit further up the ravine. As he knelt down beside the former preacher, he found his voice. “Help me Josiah. I don’t know no bible quotes. I don’t …” Vin swallowed. He had no idea what to say. Josiah was always the one with the comforting words.
Frustrated by his inability to express anything for his friends, Vin turned his attention to the healer and closed his unseeing eyes as he’d done for all of them.
He stayed there kneeling in the dirt between his friends with nothing but the whisper of the wind to break the silence. Dropping his head into his hands, Vin just held himself still, waiting for the nightmare to be over. When he opened his eyes again the scene was the same; his friends were gone. A tormented cry reverberated through the ravine. It was only after the echoes returned did Vin realize that the unholy sound was coming from his own lips cursing the powers that be who allowed this to happen, and even condemning himself for surviving.
In the midst of his fury, the memories came flooding back to him of the last morning they were all together. The seven of them were headed out to investigate reports of bandits in the hills but they must have been set up, ambushed. How else could the outlaws have gotten a jump on all of them? He had no memory of the others going down and figured he must’ve have been the first one hit. He’d survived but the others - hadn’t.
Then it dawned on him that someone was missing. Someone his brain would not, could not accept as being dead.
Chris. Where was Chris?. Vin sucked in a deep breath and got to his feet. He looked around wildly trying not to see his five friends silent around him. “Chris!” he yelled.
Their friendship was a bond that surpassed any he’d ever known. As close as any brother, Chris was a part of him in a way neither could explain. They had - have, Vin corrected himself - a connection. Vin’s heart was breaking at the loss of his friends, but the loss of Chris might very well break his soul.
Still protecting his useless left arm, Vin started walking, calling his friend’s name and tracking the pattern of horse prints in the dust. Another fifty paces up the ravine he found the man in black, their leader, leaning against a lone tree in the shade and he was still breathing.
“Chris. Chris. Chris!” Vin’s voice broke as he repeated his friends name like a mantra as he settled in next to the injured man.
Chris gasped a weak, “Still alive,” and Vin wasn’t sure who he meant.
“Yep. I’m alive. Let me see,” he said moving Chris’ hand away from the wound in his belly.
Vin’s face fell as he examined the damage that he was pretty sure that even Nathan wouldn’t have been able to heal. “You’re gonna be fine, pard.” He tried to sound positive.
Chris chuckled, “Liar,” and began coughing. Blood trickled out of his mouth. “Anyone else?”
Vin cast his eyes down. “Just us.”
The dying man shook his head and raised one hand to point at Vin. “Just you,” he whispered.
“Chris, you can fight this. I’ll go get Nathan’s bag. Maybe -,”
Chris grasped his shirt with a strength that surprised Vin. “Watch over the town. It’s just you now,” their leader commanded. His eyes looked straight into Vin’s soul, demanding the promise.
“I promise. I’ll take care of the town and I’ll avenge the others,” he said, the rage at what had happened still pulsating through his veins.
Chris didn’t release his grip on Vin’s shirt. “I have your promise. The town comes first,” he demanded weakly.
“Of course. What ever you say -- what ever you want.” Vin struggled to sound positive. If Chris had made him promise to turn back time, he would have figured out a way to do it. Vin would have done anything to keep Chris alive and here with him. “We’ll do it together just as soon as I get you patched up.”
His friend shook his head and then began coughing again. Vin held him until it passed. “I won’t be going anywhere. The town’s your responsibility now. I have faith that you’ll do just fine without us.”
“No. You can’t leave me,” Vin insisted, not caring that he was sounding a little desperate. “We’re a team, I can’t do it alone.”
Chris stared unflinchingly at him. “Yes you can,” he said; none of the weakness in his voice now. “You can and you will.” The command was clear and Vin could no longer deny the inevitable that Chris was dying and leaving him alone.
Vin nodded, unable to trust his voice to respond without breaking.
The man in black finally released his grip on Vin’s shirt and fell back against the tree. “We did great things, us seven. We took care of people,” he huffed out, every word was becoming a struggle.
Vin let his friend ramble as he held his hand. Now that he had extracted Vin’s pledge it was if Chris was letting go, allowing himself to die. Vin could no longer hold back the grief that was threatening to tear him apart. The tears were flowing freely as he watched the life of his best friend ebb away. Chris' speech was slurring and slowing as his body fought for every breath.
“Don’t let them forget,” Chris said, each word a great effort. “Don’t forget us.”
“Never,” Vin promised. “I’ll make sure you ain’t never forgot.”
The hand he was holding went limp. “Chris?” Vin was openly sobbing as he clutched at the lifeless appendage. He lost track of how long he stayed kneeling in the shade, begging Chris not to leave him. But his friend, his brother, was gone and no amount of begging would bring him back.
Finally the pain in his shoulder demanded some attention. He stood and braced himself against the tree. Without Nathan, he’d have to fix it himself. Vin slammed his body into the unyielding wood, a scream escaping his lips as he felt the snap and pop of bone being jolted back into place. He continued to scream, focusing all his rage on the pain in his shoulder.
The emotion flowed out of him until he stood quiet and motionless in the hot sun. His throat raw from his wails of anguish and his eyes rubbed red as he tried to stop the flow of tears. He didn’t want to remember his friends this way; cold and silent. He knelt back beside Chris and took out his knife. He emptied a small pouch from his belt and then reached out to cut a lock of hair from Chris’ head. Placing the keepsake into the leather bag, he walked back retracing his steps, and repeated the ritual with each of the others.
Vin spoke to each one as he took his token. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it but it comforted him to think a piece of them might be with him always. Vin had been a loner before the six of them had become his family and now Chris had made him promise to continue on his own. If he hadn’t promised, he wasn’t sure he would be willing to even try.
The only horse he could find was Buck’s grey and he had no idea where the other animals might be. Talking calmly to the animal, Vin mounted and spared one more glance at the figures in the dust. It was still too fresh; too unreal, but then the finality of today’s events would never feel real to him. They were dead and he was alone but he promised he would find a way to keep them alive in his heart somehow.
Later he’d come back with some of the townsfolk and give his friends a proper burial. He spurred the horse into a gallop and headed back toward Four Corners, leaving the best parts of himself behind.