When Shadows Fall



    Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. We don't own these characters. This story is not intended to infringe upon the copyrights of MGM, The Mirsch Group, Trilogy, CBS or any others with claims. We neither seek nor receive any profit from writing this story.


    WARNINGS: This story contains some violence, harsh language, and spoilers for various episodes. It is rated PG13.

    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
    26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
    51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75
    76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
    101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125
    126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150
    151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158

    Part 51

    Damn, damn, damn. If it wasn't one thing, it was another, and Ezra had gotten to the point where he was about fed up with it. He'd been gracious. He'd been gallant, even. He'd been a nurse, a scrubwoman, a confidante, a clerk, and a sobering influence. He started to smile wryly at the thought, then frowned again. If only . . . oh, never mind, he told himself crossly. Just never mind. Just ride on out to the Godforsaken Indian reservation and drag Mr. Tanner out of whatever heathenish ceremony he was partaking in -- by the collar of that dead animal he facetiously referred to as a coat, if necessary -- and get him back into town to take over this entire mess. Ezra had done more than enough already. MORE than enough. He nodded to himself as he rode along at a brisk jog, his brow furrowing in indignation at the very thought of the way everyone was starting to impose on him, just because he'd had the decency and breeding to step into the breech in a crisis. It was temporary! Gads, didn't these people understand _temporary_? And now they were all excited about this mining business and . . .

    Ezra's face grew serious and he legged the horse into a slow lope. He didn't even want to think about the possibility of what they were turning up turning out to be true. How could it be, really, that someone was doing something so insidious? It was a ridiculous notion. He knew how much effort and money it took to pull off a complicated scam, and this one would be . . . well! Ezra shook his head and smiled to himself, showing his gold tooth. It would be insanity even to contemplate.

    Yet, Chris was gone. And Buck. And someone had poisoned Nathan. Why?

    Ezra couldn't get the question out of his head. Every time he ran around the impossibilities and unlikelihoods of the whole thing, it always came back to that. If there wasn't a scheme of some sort, if there hadn't been some secretive and concerted effort directed against them, then why had Nathan been poisoned? And by whom?

    He was relieved to see the tops of several lodge poles appearing above the low rise ahead of him on the trail, and took off his hat as he slowed the gelding to a walk. He wiped the back of his coat sleeve across his forehead and looked up at the sun, grimacing at the very thought that he was out here in the heat, instead of inside some decent, civilized--

    "Ho." A man had stood up next to the trail, materializing it would seem out of nowhere, and Ezra drew rein in some surprise. He hadn't remembered anyone being stationed as a guard or sentry here before.

    "Hello," he said. He felt suddenly awkward, and smiled ingratiatingly. "I'm looking for Vin Tanner, who's--"

    "Wait here," said the man.

    "No, I--" But before Ezra could say another word, the man was gone as silently as he had come. Ezra looked around the vicinity and thought seriously of continuing onward, but decided to wait at least a little while. The last thing he needed was for Tanner to come flying out of some hovel in a rage over his having . . . well, actually he couldn't remember ever having seen Tanner in a rage. Perhaps a cold fury. Or a tight--

    "You are Standish." The familiar timbre of a voice he knew as Kojay's interrupted Ezra's musing and he looked to see that the man was standing on the trail practically in front of him. He didn't, Ezra thought, look particularly welcoming.

    "Yes." Ezra dismounted and grinned nervously. "I need to speak with Mr. Tanner."

    "He is not here."

    Ezra blinked, opened his mouth, and then shut it again. He cocked his head and waved one hand in frustration. "There must be some mistake," he said at last. He looked very intensely, puzzled, at Kojay. The man merely looked back at him, and shrugged.

    "He is not here," he repeated.

    "When did he leave?" Was it growing hotter by the minute? Ezra ran a finger around the inside of his shirt collar.

    "He has not been here at all." Kojay just kept staring at Ezra in a manner that was beginning to approach rude. The gambler sighed in exasperation.

    "I _know_ he came here to your festival, to that - that - _corn_ thing," said Ezra, "so don't tell me he never--"

    "Vin Tanner has not been here," said Kojay. He folded his arms across his chest. "I have been worried because of it. I thought perhaps trouble between our people was growing faster than I knew."

    "Well, no, I--"

    "But now you make me worry that he is the one in trouble," Kojay continued. "I think he must not be in town, either, if you come here looking for him."

    "No," said Ezra. He was starting to dislike where this line of thinking was going. A lot. "No, he's not in town. You're right."

    "How long ago did he leave?" Kojay's eyes were steady and clear, and Ezra found himself held by them suddenly, unaccountably, wondering when _was_ the last time he'd seen Vin. In the saloon, he remembered, with Josiah. No -- it was the next day, in the morning. With Chris. "Vin's gone," Chris had said. Ezra frowned slightly, his gaze drifting inward as he remembered.

    "Three days," he said softly, almost to himself. He raised his eyes again to Kojay's. "He left town day before yesterday."

    "That is not good." Kojay turned to the man next to him, the one who had been standing watch, and spoke briefly in their own tongue. The man gestured subtly with his chin as he replied. Kojay asked him something else, it seemed, and the man replied shortly and sprinted back towards the village. Kojay turned back to Ezra. "Please forgive my lack of hospitality," he said softly. "We are at a time in our ceremony that is very sacred, and that cannot be interrupted by an outsider. But there are some hunters we need to speak with. He has gone to get them."

    Ezra nodded as if that made sense to him, and waited. It was only a moment before two young men were standing next to Kojay, their dark bodies lithe and shining with the sweat of some exertion. A rapid exchange took place, and then Kojay spoke again to Ezra.

    "They were out yesterday morning, early," he said. "Over that way." He pointed with one gnarled finger, to the east. "They heard the sounds of guns shooting, maybe five miles away."

    "Where were they then?" Ezra slapped at a fly that was hovering annoyingly around his ear, and tried to remain dignified.

    "At the edge of the reservation. That was why they could not go see what it was," explained Kojay. "They said it sounded like it came from the base of that ridge there." He pointed, and Ezra saw the long ridge of desert and scrub, and he sighed. Great, more riding. He looked at the hunters, and made one last effort to get out of this apparent trap and go home before it was too late to get any supper.

    "Why do they think it had anything to do with Mr. Tanner?" he asked.

    Kojay had started to turn around, but at that he faced Ezra again, and he was very still. Ezra toyed with the reins in his hands, looked at the ground uncomfortably, and then cleared his throat.

    "Yes. Well, I'll be off to check it out then." He put his foot into the stirrup and swung up as he coughed lightly. "Just . . . check it out on my way back to town," he mumbled. He glanced out from under the brim of his hat to see that Kojay hadn't moved a muscle and was regarding him with the same silent, expectant look he'd had a moment before. Ezra turned his horse, and headed for the ridge.

    So much for dinner, he thought.

    Part 52

    "Mary asked me to bring this up to you."

    Josiah opened the door to Nathan's room wide enough to take the broad tray from Casey's hands, then pushed the door shut behind her with his foot after she came in. The girl smiled shyly at Nathan in the bed as she went to the table next to it and began to take things off and set them on the floor. "Just a minute and I'll fix a place to set the tray. There's supper here for both of you." She glanced at Nathan. "Mary told me to let ya' know she made it herself this time, so you don't have to worry."

    Nathan chuckled and pulled himself up higher against the pillows that were propped behind him. "I ain't worried about that," he said, "but I sure hope she sent me somethin' my stomach can handle. I'm hungry, but . . . "

    "Chicken broth." Casey looked at Nathan again and smiled when she saw him nod with satisfaction. "Here, Josiah. You can set it down here now." The big man slid the heavy tray to the table and Casey started pulling off the heavy cloths Mary had placed over the covered dishes to keep everything warm. Nathan straightened up even higher on the bed when he saw the bowl of broth Mary had fixed him. She'd set it on a large china plate and laid a spray of snapdragons next to the bowl, and Nathan looked up at Casey and grinned.

    "That's gotta' be the prettiest lookin' bowl a' broth I ever seen," he said.

    "Mary said it showed how glad she was that you're gettin' well." Casey blushed, and then handed Nathan the dish and a napkin. She turned to Josiah to see that he had pulled up a chair and was sitting in it regarding Nathan with an expression of pure joy on his face. He looked up when he realized Casey was staring at him, and a sudden flash of grief and shame ran across his face and he looked down at his hands. "She sent you fried chicken, Josiah. An' mashed potatoes, an' . . . " Casey's voice trailed off and her young face knit together as Josiah ran a hand through his silvering hair and stood up with a deep sigh. He wandered to the far side of the room as if unsure of where he was going, then turned around to face Nathan and Casey and leaned against the wall behind him with his arms folded across his chest. Nathan looked up from sipping the broth.

    "Gotta' eat," he said. "It'll help finish gettin' all that alcohol outta' your blood."

    "How can you care about that, Nathan?" Josiah's voice was soft and rough, and it made Casey sink down gently onto the foot of Nathan's bed.

    "I thought . . . I thought things were gonna' be ok now." Her voice was young and filled with sad longing, hope sliding from her fingers as she realized it might have been her own imagining.

    "I don't know." Josiah rubbed the back of his neck.

    "Can't get better unless you eat somethin'," observed Nathan. "Start gettin' things back to normal."

    "Normal." Josiah laughed softly, shortly. He came back to the chair and dragged it out a little ways, sat down, rested his elbows on his knees and looked at the floor. "I've done a lot a things in my day, but . . ." He sighed, and then rubbed his face with a tired hand. He roused himself to look at the tray and then at Nathan. "I shoulda' offered you some a' this coffee," he murmured. "You want--?"

    "Thanks." Nathan handed the nearly-empty broth bowl to Casey, who smiled delightedly when she saw how well he'd eaten. He reached across to take the cup of coffee Josiah poured and held out to him, and nodded to the preacher as he closed his eyes in satisfaction to sip of it. "Ezra 'n' Vin'll be back soon." He opened his eyes and looked at Josiah. "We'll get it all figured out."

    "Figured out ain't the same as put right." Josiah shifted uncomfortably in the chair and looked up from under his brows at Casey with a shamed light to his eyes. "I'm right sorry you had to see all that," he added.

    "I just wanted to help," said Casey in a small, troubled voice. "Things are so . . ." She leaned forward from her perch on the foot of Nathan's bed and an earnest look crept into her face. "Josiah, can I ask you somethin'?"

    The big man nodded silently, but looked again at the floor between his feet.

    "Why'd you believe her . . . over Buck, I mean?"

    Josiah shook his head wordlessly, then exhaled long and sadly. "I wish I knew," he said.

    "Is it 'cause she's, you know, someone you like?"

    "I s'pose that's part of it." Josiah looked up slowly at the girl.

    "Do you . . . _love_ her?" Casey's voice was a little breathless. She'd never asked a real grown-up man such a question before, and for just a moment she thought her Aunt Nettie might come flying in the door to grab her by one ear and drag her out for being too big for her britches. But what happened instead was that Josiah's eyes grew limpid, and he said in a choked voice:

    "I thought I did. Now, I don't know." He turned his sad expression to Nathan. "Why would she lie to me like that?"

    Nathan turned the coffee cup in his hands as he thought. "You know what Ezra thinks." It was all he wanted to say right now. No need to kick a man who was already down. Things would come out in the wash soon enough if they were there.

    "Josiah?" The big man looked back at Casey, who had scooted to the very edge of the bed. Her eyes had gotten large with wonder and determination. "Did you ask her to _marry_ you?"

    "Yes I did, Casey." Josiah smiled sadly at the look of amaze and thrill that raced across Casey's face at his words.

    "An' . . . an' did she . . .?"

    "She said yes." He stood up and rubbed his head again, stretching his long back and closing his eyes. Then he looked at Casey again, and then Nathan. "That's why I thought I could trust her. We was gonna' . . . we was gonna' announce it this comin' Sunday. At the end a' services."

    "That sure is odd, her doin' that an' then sayin' what she did about Buck." Nathan's eyes were unfocused as he thought about what Josiah had said. Casey looked at him with her heart racing way up high in her throat like it was a runaway yearling colt. Josiah had asked Belle to marry him! And she'd ACCEPTED! Casey clenched her little hands into fists and reminded herself that a wedding probably wasn't going to happen, though.

    But it nearly had. A wedding. JD would probably have been best man or something. He'd have worn a nice suit and maybe handed Josiah the gold ring. Well . . . maybe it could still be, though. Maybe the kinds of things that had happened didn't destroy that. A wedding could still happen, JD could still stand up in a nice suit, looking handsome, holding a gold ring. She bit her lip.

    "Josiah?"

    The big man smiled at the girl, sat down and drew his chair closer to her. He looked into her face kindly.

    "What is it, Casey?"

    "Do you think . . . Will you still . . . I mean, you know, get married?"

    "No."

    "No?" Casey's eyes unfocused as she puzzled out why Josiah wouldn't . . . and then they widened in horror as realization flooded her with shame. Both men saw it crash over her little head in a tide of paling as she shrank in on herself, although neither could quite understand why. The girl felt like she was choking suddenly. How could she have forgotten, just because JD had been nice to her. Just because Vin was coming back and then Buck and then Chris and they'd all be here again. That wouldn't change what had happened to her, not at all. Nothing could. And if Josiah . . . Then JD . . . Tears rose to stand in her eyes and her voice shook. "It's because . . . because of what happened to her, ain't it? She was right. If a woman--"

    "Casey?" Josiah had reached out to lay a hand on the girl's shoulder, but she kept going as if he hadn't said anything.

    "--gets . . . you know, 'ruined' . . . by another man, then she can't, that is she isn't, she's never--"

    "Casey, Casey. Casey, Stop." Josiah shook the girl gently by her shoulder and took one of her hands in his other one. Her voice trailed off and she looked at him with a pain in her eyes that he thought might have driven him to drink if he hadn't already been there. Then it hit him: he HAD been there, and Casey had seen him there, and she knew why. And he'd acted like-- "No," he said quickly, suddenly. A wedding, he thought. She's got it all tangled up. "No, Casey. You've got it all wrong."

    "But--"

    "Listen to me a minute. Please." He glanced over to see that Nathan was watching both of them with a concerned expression, and he nodded almost imperceptibly to Josiah now. "Go on," his nod said, "talk to her. Do something."

    "First," he said, "it didn't matter to me at all, what Belle said had happened."

    "But--"

    "You said you'd listen." Josiah let go of Casey's shoulder and took both her small hands in his now. He felt like he was holding the girl's whole life in his clumsy hands all of a sudden, hands that could plane wood but that . . . He shook his head. No, he wouldn't go there, not now. Casey needed him now. "The reason I was so upset was because she wouldn't listen to me. I told her it made no difference, but she wouldn't hear of it. It was her refusin' me that made me so upset, not that she'd said she'd been . . . you know." The big man paused. "Well, that an' the idea that someone had hurt her. And that it mighta' been someone I'd trusted." He looked into the girl's eyes again. "But that's somethin' else entirely. If she'd been willin' to see it my way, it wouldna' mattered so much. I still loved her. I still wanted to marry her."

    "But Josiah," Casey's voice was as small as he'd ever heard it. "Other people, they'd've thought . . . they'd've known . . ."

    "Casey, there are two things about this. About this type of thing. It's not right or fair, but you've gotta' see it. A woman gets hurt two completely different ways when a man hurts her like that. The first way is whatever happens at the time. Do you understand what I mean?"

    Casey looked away, her gaze skittering across the floor to take refuge in a dark corner of the room. "Yes," she breathed softly. "Bruises an' stuff."

    "Yes," said Josiah. He had to work to make sure the anger that flared in him at her words didn't show. She'd never realize, right now, that it was directed at the men who'd hurt her a lot more than he'd realized up until this precise moment. She'd think he was angry at her. He kept his face calm, but repeated the word once more. "Yes. An' the second kind is a hurt against what the woman thinks of herself."

    Casey kept looking at the corner, her hands limp. Josiah took a deep breath. 'God,' he thought, 'I could use a little help here, please.' He looked over at Nathan suddenly and raised one eyebrow in an unspoken question. The other man understood him immediately, and nodded with a solemn expression.

    "Think a' Nathan a minute, Casey."

    "Nathan?" That brought Casey's eyes back to Josiah at least, he noticed. She looked at him puzzled, then glanced over to Nathan's face.

    "Yeah. Nathan. You know, he could say he's ruined as a healer now."

    Casey's face snapped back to look at Josiah's with alarm. "What? Why?"

    "'Cause he got so sick himself, and it was from someone poisonin' him. He could say, an' others might say, that if he fell into somethin' like that he wasn't fit to heal others. You know: 'Physician heal thyself.'" He threw another quick glance at Nathan to make sure he was on safe ground with a man who still had to feel pretty sick, but the dark man's eyes were soft with affection for the girl as he sat listening, and he nodded to Josiah to continue.

    "That wouldn't be right," said Casey, confused by the line of discussion. "It wasn't Nathan's fault that--" She drew up short, suddenly seeing what Josiah was trying to point out to her. She cocked her head sideways and started to say something, but each time she did, the answer came right into her lap all by itself.

    Other people might still say something about her, though. Just like they'd been saying things about Nathan before the poisoning, and might still say them now. Didn't matter what people said.

    It didn't change the fact that those men had hurt her. Had scared her. Well, Nathan had still been poisoned. Someone had tried to kill him. That was scary, too.

    People would know what had happened, that they had touched her and thought about her body in certain ways. But people knew what happened if you got poisoned, too. Everyone in town knew that Ezra'd had to touch Nathan in certain ways to save his life. It didn't matter. That's how it was. If you didn't know that, then you had no business being out west. Best go back to Boston or New York.

    There were women who would die of shame if it happened to them, and there were probably people who would die of shame if they'd been poisoned. But they weren't the kind of people she knew or cared about. They weren't the kind of people her friends cared about.

    The girl's eyes cleared some as she looked into Josiah's face. He could see she was still struggling.

    "So, the reason you won't marry 'er is because . . . because she wasn't strong enough not to be ashamed a' what happened?"

    "No, Casey. Feelin' ashamed is normal. Ain't that right, Nathan."

    Casey looked over to Nathan and saw him nod. She thought about what Ezra had done for him and knew why. OK. She looked back at Josiah. "Then why. . ."

    "I would've married her no matter what, if she woulda' had me," explained Josiah. "Up until the moment I found out she'd lied to me about Buck."

    OH! Casey felt the room tip around her. That it'd had nothing to do with WHAT Belle said had happened, but that she HAD said it had happened when in fact it hadn't . . . the girl felt like everything was turning upside-down. Josiah pressed her little hands firmly within his own.

    "Casey, if there ain't trust between two people, there can't be a relationship. There has to be trust, above all. And she destroyed my trust in her."

    Casey's brows knit. "You mean, you can't even be friends with her now?"

    "No, Casey."

    "But you'll be friends again with Buck," she pointed out.

    Josiah swallowed as the girl dragged him onto ground he hadn't even seen coming. He answered slowly, with reluctance. "I'm not sure I will be, Casey."

    "WHAT!?!" The girl leaped to her feet, her face corded with outrage.

    "Calm down, Casey." Nathan set his cup of coffee down on the table and reached for her, but she evaded him and faced Josiah angrily.

    "What d'you MEAN you don't know if you can be friends again? What are you TALKIN' about!?!"

    "I'm not sure Buck can forgive me, Casey." Josiah looked up steadily into the girl's hurt eyes and thought to himself he just couldn't seem to stop hurting people he cared about lately. Just one after another after another. "I said some bad things to him. An' I thought even worse things of 'im. An' he knew it."

    "But . . . but it wasn't your fault!"

    "A man always has a choice what to think, who to believe." Josiah sat calmly, looking at the girl as she struggled with what he'd said. She sat down suddenly, sagging, and her face fell.

    "Oh," she said. "Oh, then you're sayin' it's all ruined after all." She looked up with tears trembling in her eyes. "What'll we do?" Josiah placed his hand on her shoulder.

    "We'll do our best."

    "You'll still try?" Her voice was small, bereft of hope, trembling.

    "I didn't think I could, until you put it that way." Josiah touched a huge thumb gently to Casey's cheek, to wipe away a tear that had spilled over to run down her face. She closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly, all her unshed tears overflowing to run in long streams down her face; she grabbed Josiah's hand in hers and pressed her face against it tightly and wished her heart didn't feel like it was breaking.

    "Casey." The gentle voice was Nathan's. The girl swallowed against the pain in her throat and turned her face to look at him. "There's more goin' on here than jus' hurt feelin's." He threw a meaningful look at Josiah and went on. "Fact is, findin' out what's been goin' on might just change things a lot. No sense givin' up right now."

    "OK." Casey sniffed and rubbed one hand across her face.

    "An' remember this: Buck never lied to us about any a' this. Belle did, but we don't know why yet. Buck never even _met_ Belle. Shoot, _I_ never even met Belle. There's too much we don't know, to go jumpin' to conclusions."

    "Yessir." Casey smiled tremulously, and looked shyly at Josiah. "Thank you, Josiah."

    "For what?"

    "For explainin' things to me. With Aunt Nettie gone--"

    "Come here, Casey." Josiah smiled broadly and pulled the girl to him into a bear hug. "Just think of me as your Uncle Josiah whenever she's not around."

    Casey looked up at Josiah and smiled.

    "Well, in that case, I'm gonna' make you eat your supper."

    Josiah pushed Casey away from him at arms' length in mock astonishment. "An' why is that!?"

    "'Cause otherwise _I_ have to carry it back down all those stairs again, 'Uncle Josiah'!" Nathan and Josiah both laughed lightly, and Josiah sat down and pulled the table closer to him.

    "Never let it be said Josiah Sanchez is mean to his niece," he said. "Pass me the pepper."

    Part 53

    The base of the ridge. Well, he was at the base of the ridge, and he didn't see anything. Not that he'd thought he would. Ezra sighed and looked at the westering sun to see how much daylight he had left. Enough to search a while and still get back to town before dark, he thought sadly. Might as well do it. They'd all figure it out anyway if he cut corners and then there'd be hell to pay and another ride to make tomorrow, all over again. He sighed once more and took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. How was it Mr. Tanner did these things, when he did them? Oh yes. Circles. He rode in circles. Ezra laughed to himself, suddenly. I can do that, he thought; it's all I've been doing for two days anyway, going in circles.

    Legging his chestnut into a jog, he began to describe large irregular circles outward from the base of the ridge Kojay had pointed out to him nearly two hours before, his eyes scanning the ground for something he wasn't sure he would recognize if he found it. Maybe a gun emptied of its bullets, he thought wryly, then with a flash of pride in his thinking: perhaps the carcass of a deer. Or . . . he frowned and tried to remember what sorts of things the others picked up when they got down off their horses at times like this. Spent shell casings. Pieces of torn cloth.

    A coat.

    Ezra froze. For a moment, it seemed like it had to be a practical joke. A neatly rolled coat lay on the sand beneath a tree as if someone had set it there intentionally for him to find. The gambler looked all around the area warily. Nothing. Not a soul. He looked back at the coat and rode a little closer. He didn't particularly like what it was starting to look like, and it didn't make any sense, either. If it didn't make any sense, he told himself as he dismounted, then there really shouldn't be anything to worry about. There had to be . . .some . . . . . .logical . . . He paused about ten feet away from the garment and felt his heart drop into his boots. It was Buck's. Unmistakably.

    Ezra closed his eyes a moment, and then opened them again. What on God's green earth was Buck's neatly folded coat doing here, sitting on the sand beneath a hackberry tree, in a place where someone had been shooting yesterday morning and where he was looking for Vin? Ezra frowned. Leave it to Buck to screw things up, he thought. He bent to pick up the darned thing and then looked around. It was all too easy to see that something had happened here, maybe twenty feet away. Even someone as untrained as he was could hardly fail to see the . . . blood. Ezra knelt to touch the dark stain on the hard, light-colored ground. The gravely sand was cut up from horse hooves and something he couldn't identify, and the blood trail led off from the place . . . he stood up . . . in _that_ direction. He pulled his horse to him by the reins without taking his eyes from the cluster of rocks that lay directly in his line of sight as he stood looking down the trail made by the splotches of dried blood that was probably Buck's, and he mounted with a grim face and rode there with a horrible feeling that he'd finally found a job even worse than the others he'd done the last two days.

    When he got to the rocks and saw that whoever he was following had gone inside the barrier they formed, he stopped his horse and closed his eyes again. If it had been 36 hours in this heat, this was not going to be good. He pressed his lips together and exhaled, then dismounted and climbed the rocks with a hard face and an even more hardened heart. Buck Wilmington, he thought, if you do this to me I swear I will look you up in hell and get even.

    What he saw when he got to the top of the stones wasn't Buck's vulture-chewed body, though. It was Vin's hide coat -- laying rumpled and abandoned in a depression on the rocks inside the cleared area. And for just a moment it made Ezra think he was going to fall, he got so light-headed from the overwhelming sense of unreality. It was just impossible! He put a hand to his face, and wondered if he could be dreaming. It made NO sense! Ezra shook his head, and walked slowly up to the coat as if it might suddenly leap up with a bear hidden beneath it. He bent slowly, then, to pick it up, his eyes falling soberly on the large hole in the shoulder of it, the stain of blood on the front and sleeve. He looked at the stone, but there was nothing else. No other sign. He looked at the coat again, now held in both his hands, crushed together, as he fought the sense of totally unreasonable panic that was threatening to choke him. Vin's coat. Buck's coat. Dear GOD what was going on!?!

    Ezra practically ran to his chestnut, threw the hide coat over the pommel of his saddle, and mounted up as if any moment he would see yet another sign of some horrible, inexplicable thing that had happened to the men who were missing. The men he'd been so sure were fine. The ones that no plotting had taken place against, no machinations had moved against, no --

    Ezra suddenly shivered, and pushed the chestnut into a gallop. He had to get help, and get back out here and follow the trail and find them. And he had to do it fast.

    Part 54

    Every time Buck got half a thought together, it seemed to skitter away across the sharp, hot river of pain that was the wound in his leg. Every motion of his horse seemed to fire it until he thought it wouldn't be possible for there to be any more pain. And even with all that he was having trouble staying awake. He couldn't remember the last time he'd really laid down and slept. There'd been this morning, when they'd stopped, but that hadn't hardly been enough, didn't seem like anything now.

    But in a way, none of that seemed important, not when he could look ahead of him, and see Vin up there, just hanging on. He hadn't been conscious since Sullivan slapped him on the shoulder and Buck couldn't help but be grateful for that. He knew now, what Sullivan wanted, though he didn't understand it. As long as Vin stayed unconscious Sullivan would leave him alone. And at the moment, that was the most Buck asked for.

    He tried to concentrate on three things: what he and Vin had talked about, back at the river, what Sullivan had said to him, and where they were going. They were in territory Buck wasn't familiar with, high up in the mountains. Why, he thought. Can't be bounty hunters. It _isn't_ bounty hunters, he told himself. Happy just to know one thing. Sullivan had said that someone had paid him to do this. Someone had paid him to hate Buck. Who? Why? And Vin thought Sullivan was the one who'd attacked Buck at the river, heading him toward the reservation. Again, why? Who hated him enough? Who wanted that kind of thing from him? And if it was Buck they were after, why the arrows, why send him to the reservation? It didn't make any sense.

    'Twenty-four hours to bring him back.' That thought popped into Buck's mind so suddenly that his head jerked up from it. 'Chris Larabee, you son-of-a-bitch,' Buck thought, glad in an odd way to have something else to think on for a minute. How could he think that? Even for one minute? How could he suspect that Buck would do _that_ to a woman? After all these years? Vin might say Chris didn't think it, but Vin was a good man and he couldn't hardly say anything else. And this was what Buck knew. Chris hadn't come himself to ask. He hadn't backed him against Josiah. And he'd made that threat, the one men made when they thought a guilty man was about to get away--'Twenty-four hours and then I'm coming after you.'

    Well, maybe it was just a sign. Buck had hung onto his friendship with Chris for a long time. It had been his fault Chris had stayed that extra night in Mexico. His fault they hadn't been there when Sarah and Adam needed them. Chris had pushed him away and pushed him away and Buck had finally left and found his own way for a couple of years. Then, they'd come back together in Four Corners. And it hadn't been easy. Chris had threatened him with a straight razor the first day back in town after the Seminole village, but something had seemed different and it had seemed worth sticking there for awhile to see what would come. And, Buck had to admit it'd been something new. Men to watch his back. People to take care of and to care about. Worrisome at times, all the pressure of it, but satisfying too. And then, it had all shattered as if it had been just an illusion all the time anyway. And Chris Larabee had given Vin twenty-four hours to bring him in.

    Buck closed his eyes. He was so tired. And for a moment he let the rhythm of the horse carry him along, drifting closer and closer to the sweet welcome arms of oblivion. But, he opened his eyes again, he was too thirsty, too hungry, and his leg was hammering at him too insistently for him to slip easily away. Gotta think, he told himself. Gotta figure this out.

    Why had this man taken them and what did he want? That was the question Buck figured he needed an answer to. Why does he hate me, Buck wondered. It couldn't be what he'd said, that he was paid to hate Buck. No one hated like that just for the money. It wasn't natural. Revenge, maybe. Maybe he was Belle's brother come to avenge her honor. Buck smiled without humor and stifled a groan as his horse stumbled on the broken ground and sent a shaft of pain spiking up through his leg.

    Sullivan looked back at him. His eyes seemed to glitter in the afternoon light. 'Who are you, you son-of-a-bitch?' Buck wondered. He continued to stare at Sullivan, willing the man to break whatever sadistic rule he was following and come after him, straight up. Sullivan just looked at him.

    After a minute, he jerked on the lead rope and pulled Vin's horse up to ride beside him for a moment. Buck's stomach twisted as he watched Sullivan pull Vin closer. He could feel the muscles in his arms stretch into tight angry cords, pulling against knotted ropes that wouldn't budge. The heavy, dark weariness that had been dragging at him rained off him in sheets and he knew that if Sullivan did one thing--one thing--that he would explode. His breath was short and tight and his eyes were narrow as he watched. When Vin was beside him, Sullivan looked back at Buck again, then he reached out and lightly touched Vin's forehead. He looked back at Buck. "Got a fever," he said. "Might not make it." And then, he just let the lead rope loose and let Vin's horse drift back along it and kept on riding.

    Buck could feel a growl building deep in his throat. His arms pulled so hard against the ropes that one of his wrists started to bleed and small black spots drifted across his eyes. Damn! God damn you, you son-of-a-bitch! Buck closed his eyes and then opened them. He forced himself to relax, to be quiet, to wait. They weren't dead yet. Neither one of them. And that meant that a chance would come, some time, and Buck would need to figure out a way to be ready.

    *****************************************************************************************************

    Chris had been awake for the last three hours. Blindfolded, with a head that ached like a sledgehammer had hit him, he had been sick and disoriented for most of that time. Gradually, the world had begun to make sense to him again. He was on horseback. His hands and feet were tied. Judging the sun by the heat he could feel on his skin and the way it changed as time passed he figured they were headed directly north. The sun was already low in the sky and he figured they'd been travelling a good five or six hours.

    He sat and tested the rope around his wrists and listened to the sounds. He couldn't be sure but he thought there was only one other horse besides his own. One man. What had happened to the other one? There had been two at the cabin. Chris was sure of that. The one he'd seen. The red-haired man with the beard. And the one who'd been there, waiting when he rode up to the cabin. The one he hadn't seen, had only heard him say his name--'Mr. Larabee.' Chris would remember those words and the voice that had said them.

    So which one was it now? The red-haired man or the other? And what the hell did either of them want? Not to rob him. They'd have hit him and then left him right there on the ground. Or maybe killed him. But they wouldn't haul him like this--blindfolded and helpless.

    His horse kicked into a quick jog as his unseen captor hauled on the lead rope and the change in the rhythm jounced him and sent a sharp stab of pain spiking through his right temple. Damn it! They'd known who he was. That was the thing that ate at him. Known how to get to him. Wife. Son. Burning cabin. Someone had known all that. Gone to a lot of trouble it seemed. Had they followed him when he left Four Corners? And if they had, then he came straight back to the same question. Why?

    "Who are you?" Chris's voice was raspy and dry and when no immediate answer came he cleared his throat and tried again, louder this time. "Who the hell are you?"

    A dry chuckle came from the man he couldn't see. "I expect," said a cool voice, the same one Chris had heard at the cabin right before everything had gone black. "it'd be very interesting for you to know that."

    "Untie me, you bastard."

    "Well, now, that isn't going to happen."

    "Then tell me where you're taking me."

    The man laughed again, a dry cool sound like an early winter wind through dying tree branches. "Now, that isn't going to happen either."

    "What do you want with me?"

    "That," the man said with a certain finality, "will be clear in time."

    *****************************************************************************************************

    Striker allowed himself a small feeling of satisfaction as he watched emotions play across Chris Larabee's face. Things were really going very well. Not perfectly perhaps. But then, they never did in a plan like this. It was critical to have contingencies. And the contingencies were paying off. The regulators were in disarray. Three of their members had disappeared. One of them was rapidly becoming a drunkard, felled by a tiny woman. The plan had backups and backups and backups and soon the final phases would kick in and...well, Striker wouldn't, perhaps, get what he wanted. But the person who paid him to do the things he did would obtain the outcome he so ardently desired. And that was all Striker asked. That someone pay him. And that there continue to be plans to enact.

    He looked up at the sky and the setting sun and figured he'd find a place to camp soon, maybe in a couple of miles when they reached the river. He wasn't in any particular hurry to get where he was going. Thompson would deliver his message to Hammersmith who could be counted on to do what was necessary back in town. The last two inciting incidents wouldn't happen for several more days. Everything in motion now would stay in motion until then. Small things would come to fruition. Lives would be ruined and perhaps lost. And Striker would have had a hand in it all.

    Part 55

    The sun was getting low in the sky. JD had pressed his horse hard to get to the Delano Mine before sunset. He had made really good time and he drew his horse up before he made a final descent into the valley where the mining operations were located. JD dismounted and saw the cemetery off to his right and his breath caught as he saw the three freshly dug graves. Mining could be extremely lucrative but the price could be high.

    "Put the cemetery here so the men would spend eternity in sunshine after a lifetime in the dark," Delano had walked up the hill to meet JD, "hell, probably don't make no never mind, they're six feet under."

    JD looked over the graveyard, the neatly maintained site surrounded by a freshly painted picket fence. Someone had gone to great deal of effort to plant flowers. JD's thoughts hearkened back to a grave in a Massachusetts churchyard. He wondered if someone tended his mother so well.

    "I think you're wrong, Mr. Delano. They know," JD quietly responded.

    Delano just nodded. He extended his hand to JD, "appreciate you comin' up and lookin' around again. Hoping a fresh set of eyes can see what I've been sayin' all along -- someone is out to take over this mine."

    JD shook the hand firmly, "I'll do my best, sir."

    "Come on, let me show you the lay of the land. Was busy with rescue efforts the last time you were here - didn't really get a chance to talk."

    "I was surprised by the size of this place." There were at least 50 buildings, many neat houses to the right of the valley with most of the mining operation buildings on the left side of the valley nestled against the foothills.

    Delano smiled proudly. "Started this operation almost 25 years ago--just me. Now I have 200 miners and with support staff and families, there are almost 500 people that this mine provides for. Two years ago was our best year ever and the prospects looked good for this year. Discovered a new vein, almost assuredly the apex. Our hopes were so high - assay came back at five thousand to the ton." Delano chuckled humorlessly, "hell, you can't bribe an assayer to give you that kind of certificate."

    "The apex means all the ore in the vein, no matter where it's located belongs to Delano Mining."

    "That's right. I'm impressed, not many non-miners know about The Apex Law," Delano looked at JD with new respect.

    "I can't take the credit. Mrs. Travis, the editor of The Clarion, wrote an article when the bill was passed by Congress and what it would mean."

    "Mr. Delano, I'll take care of the horse," the liveryman approached and took the reins proffered by JD.

    "Thank you. Could you please grain him extra, been rode hard?" JD asked.

    "Certainly sir." The man tipped his hat respectfully at Mr. Delano as he led the horse away.

    "Mr. Delano, you were saying it had been a tough year."

    "We've had four major cave-ins. Lost men each time. But it's been other things as well. Heavy equipment failures. Supplies not arriving as expected. Hard time hiring new men," Delano couldn't keep the defeat out of his voice. "Men here deserve better."

    "Have you dug out from the last cave-in?"

    Delano nodded his head. "We're back to full operations. You probably never got a chance to meet my manager last time you were here. Let's go get him and then, we'll show you the mine."

    As they walked through the town that was Delano Mine, it was clear to JD that Delano was clearly respected and liked by his miners. To a man, they all greeted Delano and several engaged him in conversation.

    "Mr. Dunne, this is Steven Borall, manager of Delano Mines." Steven Borall was a big man, at least as tall as Buck but much beefier. With graying hair and a bushy moustache, he reminded JD of Buck and what he would look like in 30 years. JD half-wondered if he would see his friend again. He left JD, packed up. JD couldn't let himself dwell on it. He couldn't afford to. He was here to do a job.

    "Mr. Dunne," JD found his hand taken in a firm grasp, "pleased to have you come out again."

    "Mr. Borall."

    "Please, call me Steve, won't know who you're talking to otherwise," Steve smiled broadly.

    "Mr. Delano, excuse me." Another man came forward and made his apologies to JD and Steve. "Need to talk to you about lumber operations."

    "JD, this is Richard Browne, manager of lumber operations. Mine like this uses a lot of lumber. Having a mill on site ensures a ready supply. If you both will excuse me."

    JD's eyes followed Delano as he walked off with the lumberman. Delano must have been in his early 50's. He was about 6 feet with a medium build but it was obvious his stature in this community was much taller.

    "Good man," the mining manager quietly commented.

    "The people here seem to think that," JD agreed.

    "It's more than that. Most owners know that to some extent they have to take care of the men. Since the placer mines were overtaken by heavy equipment operations, you need a man of capitol to support all this," Steve's hand swept the valley. "Over those mountains is Apex Mining," Steve jerked his head to the mountains to the west, "Owner there is Sterling Michaels. Got a sweet operation over there and Michaels pays his men better than Delano. But he also charges more at the company store, for medical care, and for food," Steve sneered. "Fools, the only one lining his pockets over there is Michaels."

    "You don't think much of Michaels, do you?"

    Steve shook his head no. "He lives in that big house, even got him a house-full of servants. In another place, in another time not so long ago, you'd almost consider it a plantation with the big owner lording over his slaves. Mind you, he does it with style and grace. But hard to see him getting his fingers dirty if his men were trapped in a cave-in."

    "Have they had trouble over there?"

    Steve shook his head. "Not that I've heard of. But it's not that miners talk. Don't want to let the other guy know about your operations."

    "If another miner wanted Delano out of business, would Michaels be your first choice?"

    Steve didn't answer for a minute. "Yeah," he agreed slowly, "probably would be."

    Delano rejoined them. "Let's show JD the mine and where the cave-in was."

    "We were just talking about Sterling Michaels," Steve informed Delano.

    Delano grimaced. "Don't think much of the man. A vulture swooping in to take over after the hard work of others."

    "Mr. Michaels wasn't the original owner of Apex Mining then?" JD asked.

    "Nope. Used to be owned by Roscoe Graham and it was called The Mazatzal then. Graham had operated the mine for several years but was killed in a freak mining accident two years ago and next thing you know Michaels had bought it out. He's heavily bankrolled so he had the funds to move in fast."

    "Do you think he killed Graham?"

    Delano chuckled morbidly. "Never heard any word that was the way the man operated. But he has his eyes set on a much bigger prize -- statehood and being the first governor. Wouldn't think a man with those aspirations would risk that type of operation? But then again, till what's happened here recently, I attributed Graham's death to a mining accident. It ain't unheard of in this business."

    "If another miner wanted you out of business, would Michaels be your first choice?"

    "Well don't quite know about that. Michaels would be taken an awful risk forcing me out of business. Wouldn't look good and I've been letting it be known that there has been sabotage at my mine. We have such a rich new vein, don't just bring one vulture but a whole flock."

    "Yeah, anymore you have to set up security." Steve pointed to the road into the mine, "We have gates on the access roads and have a 24-hour mounted patrol."

    JD was handed a helmet as they approached the mine entrance. "Mr. Delano, I meant to ask you. I only noticed three new graves in the cemetery. I thought there were two other men presumed dead."

    "Totally dug out the cave-in and never did find them. Half-thought they might have been involved with the sabotage," Delano shrugged. "We have men decide this isn't the life for them and up and leave. May have been what happened in this case."

    If JD thought he'd ever be a miner, he was quickly dissuaded. The tunnel narrowed sharply so that within twenty steps of the mouth, any daylight was completely gone. The walls were a dark brown-black color and water dripped incessantly. The air was dank and heavy. At every shoring there was a lantern hung, but the light they cast was so small and there were many dark shadows. JD shuddered with the damp chill and fear raced through him when he heard the ominous words "fire in the hole."

    He ducked close to a wall but noticed that Delano and Steve didn't even flinch when they heard the yell. There was a brief, mild shake and a little dust was kicked up and that was it. JD felt sheepish for being a little scared, but this place was eerie.

    "Fire in the hole," JD cringed but was proud he kept step with Delano and Steve this time.

    Delano pointed out the start of where they had to dig out from the previous cave-in. They had added shoring in the area. JD looked around carefully for signs of a recent blast but didn't see anything. They continued further into the mine. Cold, wet, musky -- how could the men stand it for hours on end?

    "Fire in the hole," JD cringed again and did lean a bit closer to the wall. And how could they stand the shudders from the explosions and what was keeping it all from falling in on their heads?

    JD looked back over the route they had traveled and down the tunnel further. At regular intervals there was wood shoring. JD half-smiled, he could see why'd you want a steady supply of lumber. JD cocked his head and was trying to figure out . . .

    JD looked closer at the beam. "What the hell is that?"

    "Fire in the hole," JD lurched forward and slammed his body against the vertical beam of the shoring, with his hands he grabbed the overhead brace and held it up. The weight of the wood was straining his arms and he felt another person come up behind him to help hold the support. Immediately a whistle started blowing and more miners came to support the post and overhead beam.

    Delano recovered from the shock of the near cave-in and immediately ordered shoring to support the damaged brace. Several burly miners who brought in bracing to support the overhead beam relieved JD and Delano.

    "Thank you, JD" a relieved Delano clapped JD on the back, "great save."

    JD smiled broadly and ducked his head thinking it was more a miracle than anything he did, "you're welcome, sir."

    JD looked around, puzzled. "What would cause a beam to go out like that?"

    Steve carried over the damaged wood. It was clear a saw had been taken to the wood and with the explosions from blasting, it was enough to finish the job."

    "Well, that's it then. Finally, have proof." You would have thought in some measure Delano would be relieved. But he seemed more disappointed than anything else. "Steve, stop all operations. We need to inspect all shoring," Delano quietly ordered.

    JD accompanied Delano and Steve on the inspection and five more beams and supports required replacing.

    "JD, thanks for your help." Steve shook JD's hand. "Don't know about you boys but I'm ready for some grub." Delano remained at the mine to discuss some matters with the shift supervisor.

    Steve escorted JD to the dining hall. On a blackboard outside was the evening menu. JD never thought he'd smelt food so good and couldn't decide if it was the mountain air or that he hadn't had a decent meal all day.

    "Serve four meals a day."

    "Four?"

    Steve smiled. "Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight chow. Ever hear the saying an army marches on its stomach. Well, a miner digs on his."

    There was festive feel to the dining hall. The walls were painted white, eyelet curtains hung on the windows, and checkered red and white tablecloths adorned every table. There had to be at least 30 long tables that could sit 10-12 men. At one end were the kitchen and a serving line.

    Dinner tonight consisted of a choice of prime rib or lamb chops, Yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes, peas, and carrots. Fresh bread was served to every table on a cutting board and there was a soup starter and a choice of chocolate cake or pecan pie for dessert. Actually, you didn't need to make choices, you could have some of everything if you so chose. And many chose. JD, who had eaten in many restaurants, thought this was the best food he'd ever tasted.

    Halfway through dinner, Delano rejoined Steve and JD. He had gone through the line, just like his men.

    "Doing another inspection before we resume digging," Delano shook his head disgusted, "It'll take the better part of the night."

    "Do you think it was the sawn boards that caused the cave-in last week?" JD asked.

    Delano shook his head no. "We would have discovered it during the clean up. No, this was a new attempt to shut down the mine. Bolder than previous attempts. Whoever it is, is either getting desperate or running out of time."

    "Running out of time, how?" JD was curious.

    Delano shook his head wearily. "Don't know really. I just said that." Delano slammed his hand on the table, "damn, this is so frustrating."

    "Sir, do you have a map of the area?"

    "In my office. Let's take our coffee and dessert back there and look at it."

    Delano, Steve, and JD rose to leave the dining hall. JD sensed he had eyes on him as he left. As the door was held for him, he casually looked back, noting a man that had been sitting directly behind JD and Delano. JD was certain he hadn't been there when they sat down. It was late for dinner and the dinning hall was emptying out with most of the late comers sitting near the serving line in easy reach of seconds. This man was sitting alone and quite far away from the serving line.

    "Steve, who's that man in the plaid shirt?"

    "Homer Beckwith, been with us about three months."

    "Probably need to keep an eye on him. I recognize him from when Josiah and I were here last week. Awfully convenient him sitting behind us at dinner. May not want to talk business in the dining hall anymore?"

    Steve looked over at Delano. "Know that's not your way but what he says makes sense. Also think you should lock up all the papers in the safe and post guards at the office and your house."

    "Damn, I feel like I'll have no place of my own. No place to talk freely," Delano complained. "But you're both right. See that it's done, Steve."

    Steve nodded.

    The threesome reached Delano's office where a map of the region was spread out. It was a topical map that showed the land features as well as the location of towns, mines, roads, and rail and stage lines. JD brought the two men up-to-date on the research Mary and Casey had done. Both men were surprised by the extent of the turnover at the different mines.

    "You mentioned running out of time. Could it be that whoever is doing this needs to make sure he has the apex to the vein he's currently mining?"

    Delano nodded, "Or they can just want a rich vein."

    "What's this area?" JD pointed to an area with no mines.

    "Indian reservation, Kojay's tribe. Never had no problem with them." Delano commented.

    "Hmm. That's interesting. Been talk of Indian troubles in town."

    That statement gave Delano pause. "JD, they could be a target too. This area is rich in silver veins, no reason not to think that there would be some on their land too."

    The three men spent several minutes discussing the area and mining operations till JD couldn't prevent himself from yawning deeply.

    Delano chuckled. "Sorry about that young man, I could talk all night on this stuff. Let's see about finding you a bed."

    "That'd be great, sir. I'd like to get an early start in the morning back to Four Corners and report what we found here."

    JD was shown to a guestroom in Delano's house. By no means luxurious but it was comfortable enough for JD's needs. JD quickly washed up and settled down for the night. It had been a long day and he was exhausted. He'd been up before dawn, rode out here, and put in several hours in the mine. But before he could settle down, his thoughts returned again to Buck and Chris. Think I did some good work here, fellas. Don't know if it means anything but sure wish you'd guys would be back in town when I give report. Then, we could all go after the men who are doing this. The Magnificent Seven. JD chuckled as he remembered the words from Jock Steele's dime novel. Would the legend ever ride again? JD just couldn't be sure. So much had happened. Exhaustion soon overwhelmed his morose thoughts and JD fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

    Part 56

    It was dusk when he rode into town, and the brown-grey shadows of the buildings stretched all the way across the street from one side to the other so that Ezra rode through them like a series of shallow ponds. He drew up, feeling almost numb, in front of the Clarion office when he saw Mary step out onto the walkway. Her door had been standing opened and she stood framed in it with the yellow lamplight from inside tumbling past her to spill onto the boardwalk. When she saw the look on his face, her hand went to her mouth.

    "We all have to meet," said Ezra. "Go up to Nathan's. We have to get anyone who's not there already, and tell them to come. Where's Josiah?"

    "With Nathan."

    Ezra nodded. "JD?"

    "Still at the Delano Mine."

    Ezra closed his eyes. Damn. Of course. The boy couldn't possibly have made it back yet. Not until tomorrow. Dear God. He opened his eyes again. "Find Casey," he said. "Bring her, too." He legged his tired chestnut on, towards the livery.

    Behind him, Mary grabbed the doorframe as she felt her legs try to give way. Stilling the questions fighting their way into her mind, she slipped inside to grab a thin shawl and put out the light. She was glad, suddenly, that she'd sent Billy to spend the night at Gloria's. Casey was there too at the moment, and she'd stop and pick the girl up to come with her. But . . . Mary paused and looked down the empty street towards the livery. Shivering suddenly, she shut the office door and hurried to Gloria's.

    By the time Ezra climbed the steps to Nathan's room, Mary and Casey were there. He went inside and stood looking at the women and at Josiah and Nathan, the way they turned expectant and fearful eyes to his face, and thought: three men, one of them sick, one woman, a girl. He sighed and lifted his arm to deposit the bundle he carried on the bed over the top of Nathan's legs. He didn't know what to say, so he said nothing. Nathan threw a worried look at Ezra and reached slowly to the things he'd thrown down. Every eye in the room was on them, knowing and not wanting to know. Nathan pulled a big brown coat free, unrolling it as he did. Casey gasped. The one tangled with it tumbled loose at the same time: leather, with fringe. A big hole in the upper right-hand corner, and blood stains. Casey whirled to bury her face against Mary's breast, her arms crushing the woman as she grabbed her. Mary looked up at Ezra, then Nathan, then Josiah, and held Casey silently. They all sat a long moment, letting it sink in.

    "Is this all you found?" It was Josiah. He had risen slowly and was reaching to the bed to finger the coats.

    "That. And blood stains on the ground."

    "Where?" This time it was Nathan.

    Ezra swallowed. Their questions were helping his mind work again. It felt like it had been stuck since he'd found those things. "About--" He had to stop and clear his throat, and Josiah silently poured a glass of water and handed it to him. Ezra drank it gratefully, suddenly realizing just how thirsty he was. "About 6 miles southeast of the reservation," he said. "Close to each other, but not together." He pressed a tired hand against his face. "It looks like they were ambushed there, and taken prisoner. I don't know if they were both shot or--"

    "NO!!!" It was Casey, wailing as she flung herself from Mary's bosom and whirled around to face Ezra. "Don't you say that! You don't know NOTHIN'!"

    "Casey, honey--" Mary tried to calm the girl, but her eyes were wide with horror.

    "NO!" She jerked away from Mary and threw herself at Ezra, flailing small fists at his chest. "Take it back!" she screamed, "take it back! They're fine! They're both fine! I never even got to THANK Buck for-" She collapsed, sobbing, to her knees, her face on her hands, and Ezra bent to put both his hands on her arms.

    "They may both be fine, Casey," he said softly. "It may well look worse than it is."

    The girl looked up at Ezra with a miserable face, and swallowed. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Ezra." He gathered her into his arms and raised her from the floor, then set her on the side of the bed.

    "Quite all right," he said. "I'm experiencing much the same condition myself." He rubbed his eye with one hand and looked at the others. The room was darkening as night fell outside, and Josiah reached over to raise the wick on the lamp. It flared higher, and Mary silently folded Vin's coat over so that the blood on it was not visible.

    "Start at the beginning," said Josiah.

    Ezra nodded, and sighed. The beginning. He laughed softly to himself. Did anyone know when this nightmare had begun? He shook his head and licked his lips. "Vin never got to the reservation. Kojay made that very clear. But he said some of his men had heard shooting the day before, some distance to the southeast. They pointed out where, and Kojay insisted I check it out. He seemed to think Mr. Tanner's absence at their fete was significant."

    "I agree." Mary's soft voice made Ezra look at the woman, and he nodded.

    "I suppose, in hindsight. . ."

    Nathan's mind was racing. Yesterday, they'd said. "What time was it they said they heard the shots?"

    "Mornin'." Ezra sighed once more. "Anyway, I rode over there, and found Buck's coat. An' there was blood on the ground there, an' even I could see something had happened. I followed the trail to a sort of collection of rocks, and it was in there that I found Vin's coat."

    "Were the coats just layin' there?" Nathan asked.

    "Vin's was, yes. Rumpled. But Buck's was rolled up, almost folded. Neatly."

    Josiah and Nathan exchanged quick glances. "If it was morning," said Josiah slowly, "then maybe Buck had slept there, used his coat as a pillow."

    "That makes sense," said Nathan, "but why would he an' Vin have been together? They didn't leave town together."

    Ezra shook his head. "They're together now," he said. "That much is clear." He threw a cautious look at Casey, and then continued. "And there seems reason to believe that at least one of them may be injured." The girl bit her lip, but this time she maintained her composure. Mary laid a proud hand on her shoulder, and Casey looked up sharply and smiled a wavery little smile at the woman. Everyone was silent a while, thinking.

    "Could this have anything to do with Apex Mining?" Mary's voice was tentative. But she felt like someone needed to say it.

    "We know someone poisoned Nathan," said Josiah. "We know someone tried to get Buck jailed. We suspect someone shot Vin. That's a lot of coincidence."

    "But how . . . and why?" Mary's face had drawn into a puzzled frown.

    "Maybe Vin found somethin' on his way out to the reservation," said Nathan.

    "An' maybe Buck heard the trouble an' came to help," added Josiah.

    "This is all speculation, gentlemen." Ezra stood up and began to pace nervously. "We need to stick to what we know."

    "And what is that, Ezra?" Mary was not challenging him, he saw. She was asking him. "We can't prove anything. We can't point to anything certain. All we have are too many things happening to be just coincidence."

    "That's what worries me all of a sudden," said Ezra. "I don't know why it took me so long to believe it."

    "To believe what?" Nathan leaned forward from his pillows.

    "This, all that's happening: it bears the earmarks of a well-laid and high-stakes con." Ezra ran his hand through his hair distractedly. "I might have seen it sooner if I hadn't been . . . "

    "What earmarks do you mean?" Mary asked softly.

    "Just what we're experiencing. Events that seem unrelated but that add up to accomplish some effect, to move people a certain direction -- usually against their will and in a way that feels confusing to them."

    "That's sure how I feel lately." Josiah sighed.

    "You might be right; I don' know," said Nathan slowly. "All I know is that it looks like Vin's been shot, an' that it was nearly two days ago. We need to find 'im. Right away. Whether there's somethin' else goin' on or not."

    "Agreed," said Ezra softly.

    "Ezra," Mary's voice was thoughtful. "You said a con moves people a certain direction. What direction would that be, here?"

    "Dear God," said Nathan suddenly, softly, "Away from each other." He looked up and met Ezra's gaze. The others were silent, turning over what Nathan had said.

    "I better get somethin' more solid than broth in me, if I'm gonna' ride tomorrow," said Nathan grimly.

    "Nathan, you can't--" Mary started to correct him, but Josiah was shaking his head.

    "We have to, Mary. No choice at this point." He looked at Nathan. "I'll get you what you need. Just tell me, when we're done here."

    "But, you mean you're _all_ . . ." Mary felt like she was going to choke for a moment, but closed her eyes against it and recovered.

    "They separated us for a reason," said Ezra. "That means we have to come back together if we are to stand a chance. What _they_ did tells us what _we_ must do, to fight them."

    Mary nodded. It made sense. Still. She looked at Casey and saw that the girl was as scared as she was. She'd load the shotgun, she thought, and put Billy and Casey to sleep on pallets behind the heavy cast-iron press the nights the men were gone. It would be ok. They would be back soon, and things would be all right again.

    "I'll ride out with you first thing," said Nathan. "I'll be ready."

    "I'll go out to Delano's an' get JD. We should be able to join you not long after you get there," said Josiah.

    Ezra stood up. "I'll go ask Yosemite to grain the horses extra tonight."

    "I'll fix you some food to take with you," said Mary. "You come help me, Casey."

    "Yes." The girl stood up, her hand in Mary's. She looked at Josiah. "Tell JD to hurry back safe," she said.

    "I will." Josiah's eyes followed the two women out the door, and when it had shut behind them he looked once more at Ezra. "Casey missed what you said about blood stains on the ground in both places, but I didn't. What makes you think Buck an' Vin are alive?" he said.

    "Their bodies weren't there," said Ezra. "We may find them a mile up the trail for all I know, but all I found was two coats. I have to hope that means something."

    "Wish we knew where Chris was," said Nathan.

    "Amen, Brother." Josiah stood up, too. "Tell me what food to get you."

    Ezra went to the door as Nathan began to explain, and turned to look back at the two friends talking softly in the glow of the lamplight. He didn't have the heart to point out to them that Chris's absence was as mysterious and coincidental as the others'. Which meant he was snared in whatever plot there might be as deeply as Buck or Vin or any of them were.

    Which meant they might find another body on the trail -- one they weren't expecting to find at all.

    Part 57

    Vin had been awake for some time, though it had taken a slow layering of awareness, minute by minute, before it had completely dawned on him that he was awake. The pain in his shoulder almost completely filled his brain, like a blue so dark it was almost black, and left only a tiny clear section at the very top where there was almost no space left at all, where he could think.

    He'd been shot. By bounty hunters? That didn't seem quite right somehow but it was the only thing that made sense really. And they were in the mountains. The air alone told him that, cool and crisp. Buck would be having trouble with it--the mountain air--harder to get his breath and after he'd lost all that blood...Thinking of Buck snapped him up a little higher. Where was he? Straight ahead there was the man in buckskins, but Buck wasn't there and he'd been there before. Hadn't he? What had happened? Vin's heart beat a little faster. Don't panic. They won't kill him. But the truth was, Vin didn't know what 'they' would do. He didn't know who they were. They didn't act like bounty hunters.

    His horse stumbled on a loose rock and the dark inky blue of the pain in his shoulder surged sharply and threatened to wash over everything and drown him. NO! He couldn't let go. He had to hang on. Though everything ached and he couldn't quite think and the pain just kept building, burning hotter and brighter and sharper with every single step and...Where was Buck? That was the thought he had to cling to. The one that made sense, sort of.

    Where was Buck?

    *****************************************************************************************************

    Buck had spent the afternoon worrying at the ropes that bound his hands until his fingers were sore and his wrists were raw and bleeding. But he'd felt something start to loosen a bit and thought maybe one thick strand of the coarse rope had started to fray under his fingers. He straightened in the saddle and looked ahead at Sullivan and at Vin who seemed to have come around some time back. Good, Buck thought, that would make things easier when his opportunity came.

    The trail they'd been on for the last hour suddenly broke out of the rocky pine forest into a long, narrow valley. Under other circumstances, Buck might have appreciated the combination of the fading late afternoon sky and lush summer grass and bright yellow wildflowers. But today it could have been the entrance to hell for all he cared. The trail itself led down the long slope into the valley and then back up and through the pines again between a set of low rounded mountains. Buck didn't even waste his time wondering where they were going; he'd wondered too long now and he no longer had the energy to spare.

    *****************************************************************************************************

    Sullivan stopped the horses near a small stand of pine trees. He dismounted and looped his horse's reins over a low hanging branch, then he looked back at the two men he'd been leading behind him for the last day and a half. Both of them looked like hell--the tracker was conscious, trying to sit up in the saddle, but not really having much luck. His face was tight from holding in all that pain and his eyes were dull and glazed. And the other--Sullivan looked at Buck who for once looked straight back at him, his eyes unreadable--his face was pale, there were dark, deep hollows under his eyes and he didn't look like he could stand up to much of anything if pushed. Sullivan observed the two of them with a sort of deep satisfaction. Or at least as close as Sullivan came to ever feeling satisfaction.

    They were less than two miles from their destination and Sullivan knew that once they reached it everything would change. He would no longer be the one controlling these men's lives. He might not have any more contact with them. So, he decided to take one more opportunity.

    'Can't kill them.' Striker's orders echoed in his head. 'No,' Sullivan thought. 'But I can make them wish they were dead.'

    *****************************************************************************************************

    Buck watched Sullivan approach Vin. 'Don't you touch him, you bastard,' he thought. 'Don't you touch him!' He could feel every muscle in his body strain, almost against his will. If he could have killed Sullivan with his thoughts alone, the man would be dead, lying flat on the ground.

    Sullivan cut the ropes on Vin's legs and he had just reached up to cut the one that bound his hands to the saddle horn when he stopped suddenly as if an important thought had just occurred to him. He turned to Buck.

    "You know," he said in a thoughtful voice. "I noticed a while back that you seem unhappy with the way I'm treating your friend." He walked back along the lead rope to Buck's horse, letting his knife blade flash in the late afternoon light. He reached out with a quick motion and cut the rope binding Buck's right leg to the saddle. He raised the knife, coming dangerously close to the wound in Buck's thigh, which Buck by now knew was on purpose. 'Push me a little more, you bastard,' Buck thought. 'Just go ahead and do it.'

    Sullivan didn't even look at him, just walked around to the other side and cut Buck's other leg and his hands free from the saddle horn. Then, he just stood there, jam up against the stirrup so Buck wouldn't have any choice but to get off on the right side, putting all that pressure on his bad leg. He didn't do it, though. He nudged his horse a half-step to the right and he grabbed the saddle horn and swung himself down to the ground. Then, he stood toe to toe with Sullivan and ignored the white spots of pain from the wound in his leg.

    *****************************************************************************************************

    It had taken Vin a minute or two to figure out what was going on. They'd stopped moving. That was, as always, the important thing. And the man in buckskins had been near him, had cut the ropes on his legs by the feel of it. But,...he carefully flexed the muscles in his good arm, his hands were still tied to the saddle horn.

    Where was Buck? He tried to look around without moving much and he saw that Buck was standing a few feet to his left, squared off with the man who'd been hauling them further and further into the mountains. There was a look on Buck's face that Vin knew meant trouble, meant he'd had enough and more than enough of everything that had been happening to them for the last two days and he was setting up to push back and damn the consequences. Vin could understand that feeling. If he had a little more room in his head outside the pain in his shoulder, he imagined he'd be feeling like that himself. But Buck wasn't up to his usual standards and Vin wasn't entirely sure that he realized it.

    He nudged his horse gently in the left flank to get him to move sideways a bit. If either of the other two men noticed the movement neither one acknowledged it. Vin looked at them and felt the tension in the air like it was a live thing and tried to think of something he could do that would make a difference.

    "Buck," he said. Just that one word. And he could see it, the unspooling of something black and nearly overpowering that had seemed to fill the air around the horses and the trees and the three men bent on something only one of them could name. Buck looked up and over at Vin and Vin could see the blankness there, the remote and deadly look of someone who was ready to try anything. But then, something changed and Vin wasn't quite sure what it was. It wasn't the look in Buck's eyes, still far-off and savage, but something else that made Buck shift a little bit and move away from Sullivan toward Vin. He looked up at the tracker with a message in his eyes that Vin couldn't quite read, but he decided he'd just do the best he could to be ready for anything. And he knew that the time was past where anything he could say would make a difference.

    *****************************************************************************************************

    The minute Sullivan had come near him, Buck had let the fury of the past few days wash over him and carry him along far beyond what his body should have been capable of doing. He knew, somewhere deep in the back of his mind that when it was done he would be done too, but it didn't matter. One way or another, this was his one chance and he knew it. It had almost been too much, though, he'd almost pushed too soon, and it had been Vin's voice that had recalled him to the particular moment, to the realization that he couldn't just let go, he had to get Vin out of this too.

    So, he took a deep breath and he walked over to the tracker and after he was there he turned back to Sullivan. The man in buckskins looked from one man to the other, his eyes glittering with some kind of malevolent satisfaction. Then, he came over without a word and sliced the knot that tied Vin to the saddle. He stepped back and waited.

    'Waiting for me to drop Vin on his face,' Buck thought. But that wasn't going to happen. Not right now. Even with that determination, though, and with Vin helping as much as he could, it staggered him to take Vin's weight. For a minute he thought it was all over then. Useless. Futile. Finished. But then, Vin was on the ground and, miraculously, standing. And Buck was breathing like he'd run all the way to the top of a mountain, but just a minute...he could get a minute, somehow. He pushed gently at Vin's horse so that Vin was just between him and Sullivan and he uncoiled the one loose cord of rope around his wrists. Vin nodded once to let him know he'd seen it.

    Then, Sullivan was there, walking up between them and lifting his hand and this time Buck could see it coming, could see him reaching out to push Vin in the shoulder and in that single space of time as Sullivan turned just slightly away from him, Buck stepped back and in the same moment reached out with the loosened rope around his wrists and hooked it around Sullivan's neck and pulled.

    *****************************************************************************************************

    As Sullivan was jerked backward by the rope in Buck's hand, an exulting surge rushed through him, even as he was gasping for breath--this was what he'd been waiting for, his own hatred reflected back at him. One hand rose to grasp at the rope around his neck and he felt it give slightly even as Buck wrenched on it more desperately. Sullivan choked, his hand reached for his gun, but he couldn't bring it up and black spots were forming in front of his eyes. Damn! He slammed the revolver against Buck's wounded leg. Slammed it again and Buck went to his knees, his pull on the rope loosening almost involuntarily. Sullivan could hear Buck's breath coming in deep, harsh gasps and he wrenched himself around slipping free of the rope and turning to face Buck, his own breath sounding loud and strident in his ears. A smile began to form. He raised his revolver...and was knocked to the ground by a heavy weight slamming down on top of him, sending him face first into the hard ground and knocking loose his pistol so that it skittered away from him when it hit the ground.

    Sullivan pushed and heaved and scrambled out from under Vin Tanner, who was lying face down and nearly motionless, but not yet unconscious, trying against all odds to push himself back up. Sullivan kicked him viciously in the chest. Vin groaned loudly and then lay still. Just as Sullivan was turning, though, Buck hit him as hard as he could in the back with both hands like a club and Sullivan dropped, but even as he hit the ground, he was rolling, scrabbling along for something, some weapon that he could use. His hands grasped a tree branch and he reached back and swung it with all his might, slamming Buck in his right leg, right in the center of his wound. Buck's leg collapsed out from under him and he fell with a cry, rolled a few feet down the slope and was out.

    Sullivan stood and looked at both men for several minutes, breathing hard. Then, he went and retrieved his pistol. He lifted it and pointed it at Buck Wilmington's head, cocking back the trigger as he did so. He could, if he wanted to, kill both of them now and light out for the north country. He had the power completely in his hands. Odds were good that Striker would never come after him. Why bother? Everything was his. Right in this moment.

    Sullivan looked down at the current object of his hate, lying defenseless on the grassy slope and he knew that he _could_ do it, without pity and without remorse. But...he holstered his gun and went back to the horses, preparing to throw the two men over them and haul them the rest of the way. He wasn't ready for this to be over yet. It would be better, he figured, if they lived. It would be so much better for them to wake up still trapped, with the bitter taste of failure in their throats.

    And for Sullivan to be there to see it.

    Part 58

    "Come in, Sullivan."

    Sullivan stood in the doorway to the library and regarded the man across the room with a fixed and emotionless gaze. The light from a chandelier glowed brightly on cherry-wood paneling and floor-to-ceiling bookcases that were filled with first editions and manuscripts from dim and distant places. The big man standing at the sideboard smiled to himself, faintly amused, wondering if this rough-hewn savage had any appreciation for a thing such as his library was, or for the Greek and Roman antiquities arranged here and there on side tables and the desk. He poured a cut-glass snifter of brandy and turned to eye the filthy man with a shade of the pleasant expression still on his face, then gestured pointedly towards a heavy chair with his drink. His manicured smile faded. "I said 'come in.'"

    Sullivan crossed the room silently, the sound of his heavy boots swallowed by the thick rug on the floor, and he stood just behind the chair that had been indicated to him, one hand resting on its red velvet back.

    "Sit," said the man with the brandy. He was strolling lightly across the room on the balls of his feet, his eyes dangerously intense. They were nearly colorless and looked almost amber in the lamplight. Sullivan trailed his gaze from the man's diamond stick-pin to his silk trousers, and scowled contemptuously. Smooth skin, pink with vitality, gleaming nails, soft hands. Every time he saw Sterling Michaels, he found himself wondering all over again how he'd managed to claw out a mining empire in silver. It was inconceivable to him, to imagine the man having anything to do with rocks or picks or dynamite. He scowled and fixed his stance more firmly.

    "I been sittin' most a' two days an' a night," he said. "I'll stand, if it's all the same to you."

    Michaels drew up short several feet away, his face drawing closed. He was a powerful man -- in physique and personality, both -- and not used to being crossed. That someone so filthy and rough-hewn as Sullivan would think to do it in his own house . . . He raised the snifter to his lips and sipped from it thoughtfully, his eyes on the man in buckskin. Then he sighed heavily as if it required great patience on his part to give in on a thing of such importance, and rubbed the finger of one hand across the bridge of his nose. He sat down in a chair that matched the one Sullivan was now leaning against, and crossed his legs casually, then eyed the dark man with a flash of scorn.

    "So," he said, swirling the brandy in the snifter, "Report."

    Sullivan's face darkened a fraction at the shortness of the demand, but he locked his eyes with those of the almighty Sterling Michaels, and began.

    "We had to go to the backup plan," he said sullenly. "I brought Tanner an' Wilmington in just now. Thompson went after Striker an' Larabee."

    Michaels was silent a long moment after this information had been laid out, and he sipped at the brandy and then stared into space a moment. He rubbed a thumb along the carved wood at the front of his chair arm, and then looked up at Sullivan slowly and with menace.

    "Whose fault was it?" he said softly.

    Sullivan flushed deeply and then frowned. "Theirs. Tanner's mostly." He started to gesture, but Michaels cut him off.

    "Facts, Sullivan. Let us be concise." He set the brandy snifter down on the carved mahogany side table next to him, then raised one hand to touch its forefinger with that of his other hand. "Sanchez," he said.

    "Belle did what she was supposed to," growled Sullivan. "Last I saw of him, he was so dark-drunk he'd kill you as soon as look at you."

    "And did he attack Wilmington?"

    Sullivan nodded. "An' Wilmington took out mad, yes. Only--"

    Michaels held up his hand, palm out. "I am in charge of this. Just answer the questions, please." He steepled his fingers together and eyed the veiled fury that raced across Sullivan's dark features. "I take it Tanner did not go to the reservation as he'd planned to."

    Sullivan shook his head angrily, his eyes defiant as he pushed Michaels' own rules of this "report" in his face. Ask away, he thought. Go ahead. Michaels saw the insolence, and stood up. He turned suddenly on his heel and walked over to the heavy desk and laid his fingers upon the globe sitting there. "Why didn't he go there?" he asked.

    "Thompson said Tanner went to bring Wilmington back to town."

    "I see. But you had gone after Wilmington, so when Thompson apprised you of this . . ."

    "I'd already shot 'im," said Sullivan shortly. "Like we planned. I took care of it, left stuff around. Tanner tracked him an' found it, though, and then found him -- or Wilmington woulda' hit that reservation like a bat outta' hell anyway, whether he found Tanner's body on the trail or not."

    "So why," said Michaels slowly, "did you not kill Tanner anyway and let Wilmington do just that?" He looked at Sullivan almost benevolently. "That _was_ the idea," he said, "to make sure the whole thing was entirely self-contained."

    "Wilmington pulled the damned arrow out of himself," said Sullivan. His face was growing even harder as Michaels pushed him. "Lost so much blood I wasn't sure he'd make it to the reservation. Thompson an' I watched how things developed, and--"

    "I see." Michaels turned the globe slowly on its axis and studied the moving patterns on it. "I see," he said again. He sighed and looked at Sullivan. "And Thompson?"

    "Went to get Striker."

    "You left town early, so you know the status of none of the other plans."

    "Right."

    "And is Wilmington still alive?"

    "Yes. Tanner, too, although he may not be that way for long."

    Michaels frowned. "That they remain alive was a very clear part of your instructions in the event we used the back-up plan," he said in a low voice. "So explain this to me, how it is that Tanner is apparently not all that alive."

    "They're good at what they do," said Sullivan shortly. "It was that or kill them, or die ourselves. They don't just--"

    "Very well." Michaels waved his hand at Sullivan and shifted his weight in some indefinable way that indicated the interview was at an end. Sullivan felt a low fury course through his veins at it, and he shook his head.

    "Why is that such an all-fired big deal to you, Michaels?" he said, "that they're alive? Why not just kill 'em?"

    Michaels vibrated at the challenge, and his eyes grew dark as he advanced towards Sullivan slowly. The nerve of this man, to question him! He looked the man in buckskins up and down as if he'd detected a sudden odor emanating from him, and then his eyes narrowed and he spoke slowly, carefully enunciating each word, his gaze boring into Sullivan's like a diamond-bit drill.

    "You _never_ know when you can use a man to serve your purposes," he said, "and once you kill him, the chances of using him drop to zero. I never -- NEVER -- kill a man until I know for a fact there is nothing else he can do for me. One way or another." He stood there, his eyes still locked on Sullivan's, and the dark man felt himself grow cold under it.

    Sullivan turned suddenly, breaking eye contact, and headed for the door. Just as he got to it, Michaels' voice called him back. He turned to see that the man was running his fingers along the velvet of the chair Sullivan had been leaning against. He looked up at Sullivan and smiled pleasantly. "Tell the kitchen help to take food down to them tomorrow. And _you_ take some water down there tonight and leave it, so they _stay_ alive. And useful."

    Sullivan flushed, furious, and vanished from the doorway.

    Michaels stood looking at the space he'd occupied, then looked down at the dirt the man had tracked in on the carpet, and then he laughed softly to himself and went to pour another brandy. The man didn't even know enough to wipe his feet off before he came into a fine house, and he thought he could best Sterling Michaels! Michaels sniffed the brandy's aroma and studied the map of his enterprise that hung framed behind his desk. Always a back-up plan, he thought, always. That was how he'd come so far, and succeeded so often. Men don't always do what you think they will -- even if you've had them watched for months and learned everything about them -- they still surprise you. Ripping out arrows so they bleed too much. Riding after a wanted man instead of going to an important ceremony. But he'd had a back-up plan in place, like always, and it was well-orchestrated. Now it was playing out despite the wrinkles, and soon it would reach its climax.

    It was going to be wonderful.

    Part 59

    His two hands were in two different places. Buck flexed his fingers, aware of that one thing before anything else sank in. For at least a long day and a long night, plus most of a day before that, his arms had been drawn together across his torso and his wrists had been pinned tightly in a way that was almost suffocating, somehow, if he let himself think about it. So he hadn't thought about it. He'd just made do trying to give Vin water and--

    God. Vin. Buck sat up slowly. The last thing he could remember of Vin was a flash of seeing Sullivan kick the shit out of him for his part in the near-escape. After that . . . Damn. No wonder his leg felt like hell, thought Buck. But he had no idea where Vin was now, or even where he was. Wherever it was, it was pretty dark. He looked up as hollow footsteps sounded overhead, and shivered. Probably a cellar somewhere, he realized, and from the feel of it not a real big one. He moved his good leg tentatively, and found his feet weren't tied either. Buck sat still a moment, feeling the floor around him with his hands, palms out flat and fingers spread, trying to get a clearer idea of where he was. Damp, hard earth, cold to the touch. It was irregular, a little bumpy here and there where harder areas had resisted the shovels that dug out the space. There was a thick timber column a few feet from where he'd been laying, and beyond that . . . Buck froze as his exploring hands encountered the sole of a boot.

    "Vin?" Buck's voice was hoarse and low, and it seemed to him that the damp darkness swallowed it completely. There was no answer. The tall man scooted carefully closer to Vin, wincing as the movement pulled at the wound in his leg, and felt around again until he found a hand laying on the floor, palm-up and fingers half-curled. The skin was warm, too warm in fact, but at least it wasn't cold -- and Buck heard himself exhale the breath he'd been holding. OK, he thought, OK. Nothin's been done yet that can't be undone. He sat in the darkness thinking a moment.

    They were in a cellar. People stored stuff in a cellar, and had to come down in there to get that stuff. Slowly and carefully he stood up and ran his hands cautiously up the wooden column he'd found, until he found where it joined a beam that ran overhead. Buck leaned on the timber for support and ran his hands along the beam, then smiled when he encountered what he'd thought had to be there: an oil lamp hanging from a hook in the beam. He shook it slightly, and heard the liquid slosh heavily in the base of it, and wondered if these folks stashed their matches where most . . . yep. Buck's fingers found the small sticks laying in a little scraped-out area atop the beam, right where he'd have put them himself. The tiny flare of the match flame became the warm glow of the lantern in only another moment, and Buck replaced the chimney on it and shook the match out as he turned around to get a good look at his surroundings.

    The last few steps of a rickety staircase dropped down out of the darkness a few feet away, and piles and crates of things lay stacked all along the walls and on the floor. Vin was lying partially on his right side with his head near one of the larger crates, and Buck limped heavily the two steps to get back to him, hissing as a flash of hot pain ran through his leg when he put weight on it. He dropped to the floor next to the tracker with a groan, then lay a hand on the younger man's left shoulder to gently push it back and downward, rolling Vin flat onto his back so that there wasn't any pressure on the wound. He pulled back the edge of the wounded man's shirt, then, to examine the injury, and shook his head when he saw it. The whole area was more swollen, and the fluid draining from the wound had gotten much thicker. It looked almost yellow against the angry flush of the skin around it. Buck slid the fabric back in place as Vin moaned softly and moved his left hand in a low, weak arc as though to wave something away. Buck caught it and held it a moment before laying it back on the floor. He studied the tracker's flushed face as he did, and realized Vin was coming around now that he was laying flat.

    "Easy," he whispered. Vin rolled his head slightly, and moaned again, and Buck lay a calming hand on the center of his friend's chest. "Easy, Pard," he repeated.

    "Ah." Vin opened his eyes, and looked at Buck. "Buck," he breathed.

    "Yeah." Buck sat back and took his hand off Vin's chest, knowing he wouldn't move suddenly now that he was fully awake. "We seem to be there -- wherever 'there' is," he said. He looked around the room as he spoke, and the lamplight threw long black shadows across the planes of his face and darkened the deep hollows beneath his eyes. Vin shuddered, and Buck looked back down at him. "You cold?"

    "No." Vin had closed his eyes again, and Buck sighed.

    "Well, I am." He leaned back against the crate behind him and rubbed a tired hand across his face. Vin opened his eyes and looked at Buck very quietly.

    "You're pale, Bucklin," he said weakly, "Need t' lay down. Or you'll . . . pass out."

    "Naw." Buck tried to grin at the tracker, but he knew it only ended up looking ghastly; he could feel it. He gave up trying and looked away uncomfortably. "I'm ok," he said.

    This time it was Vin that sighed. "Don't make me force you," he whispered calmly.

    Buck looked at Vin in surprise, then burst out in a soft, astonished laugh. The tracker smiled weakly. "Well shit," said Buck, "now you've gone an' threatened me, a poor wounded gunslinger! Ain't you ashamed?" He looked around the room with a smile pulling at his lips, and muttered again under his breath, "...make me FORCE you..."

    "Buck." The taller man looked down again as Vin started to speak, but then grimaced and shifted around as a spasm of pain from his shoulder caught him suddenly. Buck lay a steadying hand on his friend's chest again in a place where it wouldn't hurt him, and just sat with him while he rode it out. After a moment Vin relaxed and opened his eyes to look at Buck. "You gotta' get outta' here," he said softly. His voice was noticeably weaker, and he'd paled. Buck nodded grimly.

    "We will, just as soon as--"

    "No." Vin's voice suddenly had a desperate quality to it. "I can't make it, that ride back. But you can."

    "I ain't leavin' you here, Vin." Buck pressed his lips tightly together and almost felt angry. Was that the kind of man Vin thought he was?

    "Stubborn jack-ass," said Vin softly. Buck smiled and snorted.

    "Takes one to know one," he said. He rubbed his hand through his hair, then, and realized it was shaking. He closed his eyes, suddenly tired beyond it making any sense, and just at that moment there was a heavy sound from the darkness above, but very close. It was an unbarring and unlocking sound, and then an opening of a door. A pool of brighter light than that from the oil lamp tumbled down the steps and then spread across the cellar floor as boots appeared and then legs and then a man.

    Sullivan.

    Buck felt the room tip unnervingly. Sullivan. Again. Still.

    The dark man had a big lantern in one hand, and a pail of water with a dipper in it in the other. He set the pail down with a thump that splashed water over the side, and shoved it towards Buck with his foot, his eyes locked on the gunman's face. Buck felt himself starting to rise. He wasn't bound this time. His hands were free. Let's just see, he was thinking, let's just see what you're made of when--

    He drew up short, suddenly, as a look of cruel joy race barefaced across Sullivan's hard features. Buck clenched his hands into tight fists and eased himself back to the floor. Sullivan's eyes shot sparks then, and he cocked his head at Buck with insolence.

    "What's the matter?" He took a single step closer and licked his lips. "I thought maybe you'd wanna' get in a lick or two at me again, now you're not tied up."

    Buck sat quietly, but refused to break eye contact with their captor. He knew the moment he did, the man's gaze would drop to Vin. And Vin couldn't take that right now. Sullivan stood there a very long moment, then he frowned. "Water," he said shortly, his face growing harder. "My choice would be to just lock that door up there an' not come down again for a week or two." He looked around the room then, casually, and almost seemed to smile when his gaze fell on Vin. Buck sat perfectly still. Sullivan looked at him to see what he would do, then he leaned against the stair railing behind him. "You know," he said, "I think Tanner looks feverish."

    Buck bit the inside of his cheek and remained silent.

    Sullivan stood up straight suddenly and turned to go back up the stairs. He stopped three steps up and turned back to Buck as if he'd been struck by a sudden, brilliant thought. "Hey, I know what to do." He locked eyes with Buck a final time, and his voice slid into a tone of mock cheerfulness. "If he ain't better in a few days, I'll come down here and fix him up. You know. Cut the bullet out for him." He looked at Vin and raised his voice. "Wouldn't you like that, Tanner? Get that slug out? I bet so." He looked at Buck again and almost smiled. "It's gotta' hurt you know," he explained. "Gettin' it out would help a whole lot." He turned then, suddenly, and went lightly up the stairs.

    The two men sat in the sudden silence left behind by the slamming and barring of the door, and then Vin chuckled softly. Buck looked at the tracker and shook his head.

    "You have got a weird sense of humor," he observed.

    "Not so much," said Vin, "just thinkin' how surprised he's gonna' be if he tries that."

    "Because?"

    Vin turned his head very slightly to look at Buck, and his eyes grew suddenly hard. "Because I ain't tied up no more," he rasped, "an' the first time that man comes in reach a' me again, I'm gonna' fuckin' kill 'im."

    "Only if I don't beat you to it," said Buck. He looked up the stairs and thought about Sullivan being out there, just the other side of the door, and he knew he could bide his time. He looked down at Vin, then, and saw that the flush had crept back into the man's face, along with a renewed sheen of sweat that glistened in the lamplight. The younger man suddenly shivered and then went limp without making a sound, and Buck put out a tentative hand to lay several fingers on the side of Vin's face. Suddenly Buck shivered himself as it hit him, and as he wondered why it really hadn't until now, that he couldn't bide his time after all.

    Because Vin was running out of it.

    Part 60

    The night air was almost damp with coolness after the heat of the August day. Josiah lowered the stirrup fender over the leather and ran a slow hand down his horse's neck under the mane, patting it gently. He sighed heavily then, took up the reins, and led the animal from the dark livery into the empty street. The heavy sound of its hooves on the hard-baked ground thumped in a rhythm that was almost comforting.

    Comfort. Now there was something in short supply. The preacher shook his head silently to himself as he looped the reins over one arm and turned around to slide the livery doors shut behind him. Then he lifted the reins over the gelding's head and grabbed the pommel and swung into the saddle in a single quiet move that made the horse back a step. Josiah settled more deeply into the saddle and legged the animal forward. Comfort, he thought, was something he sure hadn't given to anyone around him lately either.

    Take the horse. Yosemite wasn't a man to mince words, and he'd made no bones about the fact that if Tanner hadn't taken it on himself to care about the abandoned horse and brought Josiah's old friend to the livery from the saloon - -- hadn't rubbed it down and walked it out that day, after Josiah had run it hard all the way back from Belle's -- that Josiah wouldn't have had a horse any more. The old man had been downright mad about it, in fact. Good animal, he'd said, don't deserve to be treated that way just 'cause a man is upset. No excuse for it.

    And the hell of it was, he was right. Josiah felt the deep, old ache of guilt in his gut, and looked up at the moon. It was just a sliver in the early sky, wasting away towards the dark of a new moon and rising later -- closer to sunrise -- each day. Not even enough light now to cast a shadow or light the trail, it hung in the sky like a punctured sack, drained of light and hope and usefulness.

    Buck, he thought suddenly, hadn't deserved to be treated that way because he was upset, either. No excuse for it. He legged the chestnut into a jog and pulled his hat down harder on his head and stopped looking at the damned moon and thought about the task at hand. He needed to get to Delano's before JD left, so he wouldn't waste any of his horse's energy on a ride back to town that was without meaning now. There was somewhere else to go instead. The kid just didn't know it. He'd thought, when he left, he'd be coming back home.

    Coming back home. The thought turned slowly in Josiah's head as the smaller stars, the ones that were like shimmers of dust motes in the church when the sunlight streamed in the old windows, began to fade into the darkness of the sky. When had he started thinking of that town as home? Of that old church as home? He'd sworn off even the notion of something like that a long time ago. At least, he'd thought he had. No, he shook his head, he _had_. It had given him the power to be free, to grab things that tried to choke him or beat him down, and to throw them aside so he could go on past them, stride right on out into a place where NOBODY could do that. Not ever again.

    And when he'd thought Buck had acted the way the others had acted and had cuckolded him and blindsided him and shoved him out of the way like he didn't even exist, he'd made sure Buck knew he existed, by God. Josiah groaned. Oh God, he thought, oh God. What had he done? How could he not have seen that this wasn't the same? How could he have let what happened bring the past rushing back like a flash flood to sweep him away as if the present had never existed at all? Was he never to be free of it? Never to climb finally to high ground? Never to stop hurting the people who had the misfortune to be within his reach when it happened yet again? And again?

    Josiah bent his head and grabbed the big, flat horn of his Mexican saddle and felt like his heart was being torn out through his chest wall. What he had said to Buck! He'd known even as the words came out of his mouth that they were the deadliest weapons he'd ever turned on anyone, ever, in his life. And he'd seen them hit home. He'd seen the look on Buck's face, felt the sting of their landing in the way the man had moved in his grip, and -- God help him -- rejoiced in knowing he'd hit his mark so hard and so well. It had felt good then, felt strong. As if he'd hit everyone and everything that had ever hurt him.

    But _they_ had never been hit at all. Ever. They had gotten away scott-free, leaving only Josiah's friends within reach of his blows -- to bear them in their stead.

    *****************************************************************************************************

    Buck had been sleeping when something woke him up. He lay in the shadowy light of the oil lamp and wondered what it had been, and had almost fallen back into exhausted oblivion when he heard it again. It was Vin's voice, very soft. "No," he said.

    "Vin?" Buck propped himself up on one elbow and tried to blink the too-heavy sleep out of his eyes enough to see.

    "Don't," breathed Vin. He moaned softly, but it was a sharp sound, and then he shifted around against the dirt floor. Buck shook his head, trying to pull himself out of the morass of bone-numbing fatigue that wouldn't seem to let him wake up, and reached out to put his hand on Vin's good arm. He was thinking, somewhere in a hazy part of his mind, that he'd shake it lightly to rouse Vin from whatever dream he was having so he'd go back into a better sleep. But the intensity of the heat he encountered beneath his fingers when he grabbed the other man's arm brought Buck up and awake in an instant. He looked at Vin with eyes that were suddenly clear, and saw the tracker writhe again very slightly, pushing against the ground beneath him as if he could get away from the unrelenting pain that had dogged him for two days and nights now. Even as he did, Vin moved his head against the floor and sighed, and said again, "No."

    Buck felt a shock of panic start to run through him, but brought himself up short and reached for the dipper instead. He ladled out some water, and then raised Vin's head slightly on one arm as he held the water to his mouth. "Drink some a' this, Vin," he said.

    The tracker rolled his head against Buck's arm, and moaned. Buck pressed the edge of the dipper against Vin's lips, trying to gently pry them apart so he could pour the water in somehow, to lower the fever. Vin moved again, and the water spilled and trickled down the side of his face and then his neck. Buck cursed softly, and stretched over to refill the ladle while still supporting Vin's head. He brought the dipper back and tried again, and this time he got a little of the water in. Vin swallowed it, and then his eyes opened very slightly. He regarded Buck dully for a long moment, then closed his eyes again as the tall man pressed a little more of the water in the dipper on him and he passively took it.

    Buck lowered Vin's head gently to the floor, then, and laid a large hand on the side of the injured man's face to gauge the fever. Vin's eyes opened a fraction when he did, and the uncomprehending dullness of his gaze sent another shaft of fear through Buck's fatigued mind. "Hey," he said, "how ya' doin', Buddy?"

    Somewhere in Buck's mind, he expected Vin to weakly smile in some sort of wry way and make a dry comment about how did Buck think he was doing, laying on a cellar floor with a slug in his shoulder. But the tracker just blinked slowly, the light not even reflecting off the darkness beneath his eyelids, and he rolled his head very slightly to one side and whispered soft, broken fragments of sound that ended in a deep sigh.

    Buck felt fear well up in his gut again, but shook it away. He just had to get the fever down some, he thought. Just get the fever down and it would be ok; he'd be all right. He knew how to do it, too. Knew just what would work, yes. He opened Vin's shirt quickly and then pulled his own enormous bandanna over his head with shaking fingers, poured a dipperful of water onto the cloth, and began to sponge off Vin's face and neck, his chest and shoulders. After a few moments, the tracker shivered heavily and Buck hesitated for a long moment when he saw it, wondering now whether he was doing the right thing or not. He touched his hand against the man's bare skin to see if he'd messed up or gone too far, but what he felt still was heat -- dark somehow, even sullen. As he wondered what to do, Vin moaned again and shifted uncomfortably against the floor and his breathing suddenly grew more shallow and rapid. Buck closed his eyes and decided to keep trying to sponge the fever down, whether it made Vin shiver or not. He had to do something; he couldn't just sit there and watch it get worse.

    He rewet the bandanna and began to wipe the sick man's face and chest again. If only there was some air moving down here, Buck thought, or if there was a window he could open . . . his thoughts trailed off as he redoubled his efforts, feeling the heat from Vin's skin coming right through the wet bandanna and into his own fingers now. Then somehow he ran his hand too close to the wound itself as he tried to sponge off the injured man's chest, and Vin cried out suddenly and jerked away from Buck's touch with a gasp of agony. The gunman dropped the cloth like he'd been shot, and leaned back against the wooden column behind him and felt just plain sick. Of all the things to have done, he thought. After all this. He had to pull himself together, though, had to reach out again, to restrain Vin so he didn't hurt himself as he thrashed about in the spasm of pain he'd ignited by moving so suddenly. In the process, somehow Vin's flailing hand hit the wound in Buck's leg, and the gunslinger saw stars and thought he was going to laugh and cry at the same time. It was impossible, he thought. The whole thing. It was just impossible and ridiculous and obscene.

    He laid Vin gently back down on the ground as he quieted, and picked up the bandanna again in a shaking hand. He hoped his leg wasn't bleeding again, but he wasn't even going to look. It wasn't like it would kill him at this point if it was, anyway, he thought, and there wasn't anything he could do about it if it did.

    *****************************************************************************************************

    Three flights up, Sterling Michaels was dreaming. "No," he said softly, and then, "Don't." The breath-takingly beautiful woman in his dream obliged him by not leaving, but by coming back instead to wrap her arms around his shoulders. A sound woke Michaels up, suddenly, and he lay in the bed feeling cross and wondering what it had been. He'd almost drifted off again when he heard it once more -- the clatter of the shift bell down at the mine. Damn! He sat up in bed and rubbed a large hand across his face. Either he needed to take that idiotic bell away from them, he thought, or make them adjust their shifts so they didn't start the morning one in the middle of the damned night. Suddenly he laughed softly and rubbed his cheeks in chagrin.

    "Aw hell," he said aloud to himself as he swung his legs off the bed, "the day I start worrying about the shifts is the day I get too soft to run this place any more; I'm just pissed I didn't get to finish that dream." He grinned, thinking about it, and found himself wondering how much longer it would be before Belle came back. Maybe he ought to send for Conchita again, he thought, have himself a little reward for all the hard work he did.

    He stood up with the soft warm anticipation of pleasure running through his belly, then grinned when he saw that little Pedro at least had done well this morning -- had brought up his morning tray without waking him. Its silver gleamed richly from the inlaid mahogany table that stood beneath the east window, and the low light of the lamp he lit danced off the heavy silver coffee service on it that was nearly 200 years old and from Ireland. The sight of it always made him feel proud, knowing he was part of that and that it was part of him. Sterling, he thought, rolling his own name around as he poured a thin stream of the steaming black liquid into a bone-white china cup. How perfect that his father had chosen that name among all others, had lifted him to aristocracy and blessed his future with it, created the man he would become. Michaels lifted the cup of coffee to his lips and sipped it slowly, savoring the heavy blend he had made especially for him, relishing the powerful taste of antique silver that was laced around the edges of it somehow. A loud crash from the mine yard outside as someone dropped a piece of equipment made Michaels' hand jerk, and a tiny bit of the coffee spilled and ran down his chin and then his neck, burning him slightly. He cursed and jumped up to grab a napkin from the silver tray and dabbed angrily at it, then set down the cup and walked to the window to look outside.

    The waning moon had cleared the mountains to the east, and it hung like the edge of a thumbnail in a sky already being scrubbed of stars by the distant sun. It wouldn't be light yet for over an hour, but Michaels frowned seeing its approach; he hated summer and the heat, even in these mountains. As it was, the lingering staleness of the previous day had combined with the heat of his dream to make him awaken uncomfortably warm. With a sudden gesture of decision, Michaels undressed quickly and poured water in a deep rushing plunge out of the big pitcher on his dressing table, into the washbasin. He splashed it liberally on his bare chest and neck, and along his arms and face. The cool water was invigorating, although he was still too warm when he finished washing. Striding to the French doors on the other side of the room, he threw them opened to admit the night-breeze onto his wet skin, proud of the brilliance of the way he'd laid out the house so he could do that. He shivered as the dark wind flittered in across him, and smiled in relief.

    Turning back into the room to dress, he stumbled against the leg of a massive plush velvet chair that the maid must have moved out of its proper place, and barked his shin so badly that he had to sit down on the offending piece of furniture a moment to get his breath back. For several long moments he sat bent over with his hands to his leg, thinking he might even have broken it, but slowly the pain subsided and he studied it closely, to see that there was only a slight bruise and that it was apparently going to be all right, although no doubt sore. He stood up and tested it carefully, then went on to the matter of dressing and beginning the day. He was going to have to speak to the maid, though, he reminded himself. A man could get himself killed tripping over furniture that people moved around carelessly like that.

    *****************************************************************************************************

    Three floors down, Buck laid the wet bandanna carefully over the nearest crate so he could use it again later, and laid back down, exhausted, to see if he could get a little more sleep. Vin's fever had finally gone down and the tracker was resting more easily. Buck laid down, himself, and let the darkness of the deep fatigue he couldn't seem to shake any more pull him back into oblivion.

    *****************************************************************************************************

    Josiah pulled his coat closer around him and shivered, settling in for the long haul. It was a very long ride to the Delano Mine. And the journey was going to be a dark one.

    Continued...

    Please email DesertSage, Deb, and Joby with any comments.

    Magnificent7.com | Fan Fiction

    webmaster@Magnificent7.com