DISCLAIMER: The following is an original work of fan fiction based on the television series "The Magnificent Seven". No infringement upon the copyrights held by CBS, MGM, Trilogy Entertainment Group, The Mirisch Corp. or any others involved with that production is intended. No profit is being made - enjoy!!

Mongoose: A Sensible Man

by
Eleanor Tremayne, Ezquire

ACT FOUR

If you would like to see St. Barb's illustrations, click on the links as you read.

"You'll both stay the he-ck away from him."

Chris managed by dint of long practice to keep from jumping, but J.D. wasn't nearly as used to Buck appearing out of nowhere to yell at him. He startled, and Chaucer swung his head around to investigate the sudden movement by his groom. Chris was close enough to reach across the horse's back and push the kid out of harm's way, and Buck was close enough to steady him up straight before he landed on his ass.

"Of all the dang, dumb ideas," Buck growled, leaning heavily on J.D., who did his best not to keel over with the strain of holding Wilmington up. "What the he-what were you thinkin'?"

Acknowledging Buck's presence with the barest of glares, Chris continued scraping Chaucer down.

"He-heck, you coulda just told him he was gonna live, whether he liked it or not. Y'coulda dressed him down like he was a strawfoot-private and got him just as riled! All ya had t'do was tell him he'd be lettin' ya down if he died."

"Too late for that," Chris admitted, the crumpled letter and the bent card shoved into the pocket of his duster weighing him down. "I cut those ears off."

"Yeah, ya sure did - about five minutes ago." Buck shook his head. "You boxed 'em good when y'made a fool outta yourself about that money, but I got a few thousand chicken bits that tells me they were still there as of this mornin'."

Chris stopped his work, leaning heavily on Chaucer's flank. "As of this mornin', Ezra thought I would leave him behind to rot - or for Stewart James to find."

"You don't think he noticed when ya didn't?"

Larabee shot a sharp glance at Buck, his certainty rattled. Wilmington was right: Maude Standish's darling baby boy had spent his life making a feast out of crumbs.

"He shoulda known better," Chris insisted, his jaw clenching into a stubborn ache.

"He shoulda trusted you, huh? Just like you trusted him to do the right thing with that money?"

"Hard to trust a man who's run out once."

Buck let go of J.D. and took a step toward Chris. J.D. couldn't help his sigh of relief.

"I'm gettin' da-ng tired of hearin' you throw that up in Ezra's face."

"It's a hard thing to forget."

"It's sure been easy for you to forget he came back. I ain't sayin' he didn't try to leave us high and dry, Chris - I'm just sayin' if he couldn't do it then, what makes y'think he could do it now? He-ck, he couldn't even manage to let himself quit."

"Took you and Vin to drag him back."

"Oh, yeah - brought him back hog-tied, didn't we? Next thing you know, you'll be sayin' the only reason he came along on this little soiree was because he was shakin' in his boots afraid of what you'd do t'him if he didn't!" Buck shook his head, barely stopping himself from kicking the dirt in frustration. "You're so durn afraid that if Ezra leaves, you're gonna lose somethin' you don't want to admit you got, you been kickin' him out the front door every dang chance you get!"

Chris said nothing, just got back to work on Chaucer.

Sighing, Buck closed his eyes and counted to ten. "Suit yourself," he finally said. "But I'll tell you both this - you'd better take care of this here horse, 'cause if Ezra survives and Chaucer don't, I'll be visitin' you boys on Boot Hill."

J.D. swallowed hard, reaching out a hand to touch the reassuringly vital animal in front of him.

"You both best give Vin a wide berth until you can make your peace with Ezra," Buck advised. "'Cause let me tell ya, you boys are both walkin' on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon line now."

++++

"Hush," Vin mumbled, groping for Ezra's arm to reassure the moaning Standish. His knee had grown too stiff for him to roll onto his side without damn near passing out, but a pat on Ezra's arm or chest had been enough to quiet the other man's fussing the last dozen or so times he'd woken up from his fitful, fevered sleep.

This time his touch failed to soothe Ezra. Opening one eye, Vin discovered that the sun had risen behind the oppressive gray overcast. Sighing a groan, the tracker opened the other eye. Ezra was the only man he'd ever met who was allergic to the crack of dawn.

"...Uhn..." Standish moaned, loud enough to momentarily rouse J.D., lying beside a snoring Buck. Chris half-lay, half-sat on the other side of the fire, favoring his bad leg and his bruised ass. He was between Josiah and Nathan, keeping watch on the rest of the invalid corps. A reassuringly large pan of coffee, liberated from Ezra's saddlebags and Nathan's medical kit, was boiling on coals raked from the fire and Larabee was blowing on a cup of the hot Rio to cool it down enough to drink.

Gritting his teeth, Vin sat up. Bracing his knee with both hands, he scooted closer to Ezra, leaning precariously over him.

"Mornin' Ezra," he greeted Standish with a yawn.

"...Vin!" Ezra gasped weakly, his eyes flying open. "...Vin!" he repeated, his head turning from side to side. Desperately blinking, he worked a shaking hand out from under his blankets to grope blindly for Tanner.

"Right here," Vin grunted, catching the searching hand in his own. "Right here, Ezra!"

"...Can't... see..." Standish panted, panic rising in his voice and expression.

"Oh Lord..." Vin muttered, his heart racing. Grimacing with the pain the movement caused him, he waved his free hand over Ezra's face

Ezra's eyes squinted almost shut, leaving only a crack of green surrounded by bright, bloody red. Finally, he managed to grab Vin's dirty fingers. "...Vin..." he sighed in relief, closing his aching eyes. "...Water...!" he begged.

'Hell,' Vin cursed silently, his exhausted, beaten-up body refusing to move the way he needed it to. Chris appeared across from him, an open canteen in his hand. Vin tried to take it, but Ezra wouldn't let go of either one of his hands, leaving him stranded.

Taking a deep breath, Chris lifted Ezra's head and shoulders. Struggling to raise his head off Chris's arm, Standish gulped the water with a greedy, gut-turning bleat of need. He passed out drinking, and Chris had to scramble to keep him from drowning, laying him back down on the stretcher.

"Y'might get lucky," Vin said, freeing his hands to pull Ezra's blankets back from his body to check on the state of his bandages. They were loose, and his chest was black with bruises, its flesh swollen so much that the definition between its muscles had all but disappeared. "He might not remember what ya said last night...."

"Maybe," Chris hoped, capping the canteen.

"Wouldn't count on it, though," Tanner warned, holding up Ezra's hand so Chris could see its fingertips, raw and bloody from plucking and worrying at the leather thongs that had tied him into the blankets.

'It must have taken him hours,' Chris realized, imagining Ezra tugging the knot of each lash from the outside of the blanket to the underside, where he could get it untied. Chris wondered if Ezra had even been aware he'd done it, or if some instinct for freedom had kept him at it, silently, carefully, all through the hard trek of the previous night.

Vin frowned angrily at Chris when Larabee presumed to offer him the still-steaming cup of coffee over the now quiet Standish. The two men's gazes locked for a full minute in silence, until Tanner finally spoke.

"What you said... it wadn't right, Chris."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Ain't no other way to mean it."

"If I hadn't given him some unfinished business, he would've died last night."

"Seems t'me there was plenty of unfinished business between you two that you might coulda mentioned."

"I was only takin' your advice," Chris told him with a grim smile. He was pretty sure that Vin wouldn't shoot the only other able-bodied stretcher-bearer until they got back in town - but it didn't take a mind reader to tell that Tanner was sure as hell thinking about doing it anyway.

"Ain't you the one that told me that if I wanted to figure out what Ezra'd do, I should go look in a mirror? Well, I did what I knew would make me dig my way out of my own grave."

Slowly, Vin took the cup Chris held out to him. "One way or the other, ya still left the rest of us with shovels in our hands. He ain't gonna ferget what y' called him - an' he won't forgive ya. Ain't so sure I can, neither."

"That's a fight for another day, Vin. We'll deal with it then."

After a moment's consideration, Tanner grudgingly nodded. Sipping the coffee, he studied the dark, heavy clouds that lay ahead on the horizon.

'Truce,' Chris realized. "Think it's gonna rain?" he asked aloud, conversationally.

"Yep."

++++

Seven hours later, Four Corners was in sight - if anything could have been seen through the driving rain.

"...Buck..." Ezra cried hoarsely, thrashing about in a sudden return to consciousness that made the stretcher wobble, yet again grinding the rifle butts into the blisters layered on Chris's and J.D's palms and fingers.

"I ain't gettin' off this danged horse again," Buck announced, glaring down at the twisting Standish. Every hundred or so weary, mud-slogging steps of the day's long journey home, Ezra would jolt awake in a panic, yowling for one or the other of them and crying that he couldn't see them, until the object of his search touched and spoke to him. Then he'd beg for water, never getting enough before he passed out again....

Buck shivered against the pelting rain and his own fever, unable to decide which was worse, the yowling or the begging.

"...Buck...!"

Sighing, Wilmington yielded to the inevitable, pulling the plodding Chaucer to a stop. The tired horse nickered in resignation, assisting Buck's dismount by kneeling in the mud.

Chris and J.D. didn't put the stretcher down, like they hadn't the last half dozen times Ezra had fussed. By unspoken agreement, they knew that the next time they put the stretcher on the ground it would be the last time.

Chris closed his eyes, lavender scented rain sheeting off his hat onto his shoulders. Damnit, why the hell wouldn't that soap wash out?!

"I'm right here, dang it," he heard Buck say, the stretcher settling down when Ezra recognized Wilmington.

"...Water..."

It was duly provided, Chris waiting for the sounds of choking to cease before turning his head to the side to let Vin know he hadn't fallen asleep on his feet again. J.D.'s eyes had swollen shut, and the tracker was guiding him along the trail with one hand on his shoulder and the other in Chaucer's stirrup.

With grunts, groans, and more than one aspersion upon Ezra's sexual predilections, Buck got back into the saddle, barely managing to stay there when Chaucer heaved himself to his feet. Looking down at Josiah, Buck winced in sympathy. They'd had to cut the crotch out of his trousers to accommodate his swelling. Sanchez had his eyes closed against the rain, one arm under Chaucer's other stirrup, the other around Nathan's waist to give Jackson the benefit of the horse's strength. He and Nathan soldiered forward in silence with a bow-legged waddle that Wilmington privately acknowledged was the most impressive display of courage and personal fortitude he had ever witnessed.

"Go," Vin croaked and their little caravan lurched forward through the treacherous mud that clung to their feet in fifty-pound chunks, dragging their legs down.

"Almost home," Chris gritted out, finally able to make out the hazy outlines of the first buildings of Four Corners. Was it his wishful thinking, or was the rain starting to ease up?

"Almost home," Vin repeated for everyone else's benefit. A chorus of breathless moans and groans acknowledged this piece of news.

'Almost home,' Chris encouraged himself, watching the toe of his lead foot drag a furrow through the mud. He was too tired to wonder when the mental picture of a room in a boarding house had taken over from a cabin on his own spread when he thought of home. 'Almost home....'

He heard the lookout Corcoran would have posted shout, "Rider comin'!" and laughed at how ridiculous a description of the seven of them it was.

'With your shield or on it,' he remembered, steering his brain away from trying to dig up the original ancient Greek lurking somewhere in the distant recesses of his memory.

Other voices shouted out through the lessening roar of the weather, and he thought he heard Mary call his name....

"Stop!" Buck ordered, mustering one last burst of energy to make himself heard.

Chris looked up and realized that he was in the middle of Main Street. He stood there, holding onto the stretcher that was dislocating his arms, blinking stupidly at how bright the day was, now that it had stopped raining....

The voices became faces of people he knew: Judge Travis, Corcoran, Mrs. Potter - Mary....

"We've got him," he heard Corcoran say, and then the weight of the stretcher was taken by other hands, the sudden freedom from the rifle butts painful to his torn hands.

"Chris!" Mary cried, and suddenly she was right there, standing in front of him, bearing his weight as he collapsed into her.

"Your dress..." he murmured, apologizing for what his wet, muddy arms were doing to its pretty, flower-sprigged fabric.

"It's all right, it's all right," she told him, putting his arm over her shoulders and hers around his waist. "Lean on me...."

His buckling knees left him no choice and they staggered on a bit together, until Judge Travis steadied him on the other side.

"What the hell happened?" His Honor demanded, his face old and haggard in the brightening sunlight.

"Ranchers shot Ezra," Chris explained.

"And the rest of ya?"

"Ranchers shot Ezra," Chris said again.

"I'll translate later," Mary told Travis. "Help me get him inside...."

'Inside,' Chris thought, letting Mary urge him a step forward. 'Inside, where it's warm and dry, and there's food and whiskey, and Judge Travis to look after the boys so I can sleep....'

"...Chris...!" Ezra moaned.

Chris stopped, dropping his head to rest his chin on his chest. "Comin', Ezra..." he sighed.

By the time Mary had gotten him turned around, the men carrying the stretcher had put it down on the street, barely managing the feat before Ezra threw himself off it.

"Oh, God-!" Mary cried, getting her first good look at Ezra. He'd thrown off the oilcloth covering him and had wiggled himself half-out of the restraining cocoon of his blankets, his body one big, swollen red-black bruise. Leaving Chris to be taken care of by Orrin, she went to Ezra's side. She knelt beside him, her skirts and petticoats spreading out into the mud.

"Oh, Ezra," she murmured, not quite touching the edge of the oozing stitch holes around the wound he'd taken to save her life, the bandages that had covered them long since fretted down his battered torso. She couldn't remember seeing a man beaten as badly as he was, not even a dead one.

"...Chris...!" Ezra cried again.

"Sssshhhh," Mary coaxed, gently touching the edge of his swollen mouth. "Chris is right here, honey. It's all right, you're safe now - you're home."

"Chr-iii-iii-iss...!" Ezra wailed.

With the judge's help, Chris stepped over or maneuvered around the bodies of his fellows who had dropped without a word but many grunts and groans of pain to the ground as soon as their mission was done. Mrs. Potter and her children were the last obstacle to his reaching Ezra, and they reluctantly stepped backward to allow Larabee to kneel down on one knee across from Mary.

"...Can't see..." Ezra whimpered, his head turning back and forth against the gentle restraint of Mary's hands on either side of his head.

Chris waved Mary away, picking up one of Ezra's seeking hands and putting it over his heart so Standish could feel it beating.

"I'm right here, Ezra," he said for the hundredth time.

"...Chris...?" Ezra panted, his tortured eyes focusing just beyond Chris's left ear, his hand trying to wrap itself into Larabee's soggy shirt.

"Right here," Chris sighed yet again, pressing Ezra's hand against his chest with the last of his strength.

"...water..." Ezra pleaded.

Mary scooped Ezra up in her arms with the skill of an experienced mother, laying him across her knees and pillowing his head against her bosom. Keeping one arm under his neck, she took the uncapped canteen Vin held out to her with the other.

"Slowly," she coached Ezra, letting him sip the water. "That's a good boy...."

"Careful," Chris said, putting a restraining hand on Mary's arm. Ezra had stopped swallowing, holding the water in his mouth until his cheeks swelled up like a chipmunk's.

Ezra made a noise in his throat, his fingers pulling weakly at Chris to bring Larabee closer.

"What is it?" Chris asked. He started to turn his head to put his ear next to Ezra's mouth, but the feeble grip on his shirtfront turned into one of iron, jerking his head around and pulling him nose to nose with Standish. One green eye filled Larabee's vision, flashing fire, and then Ezra spit a mouthful of blood, water, and saliva into his face.

Chris tried to pull his answering punch; in fact, he was certain he did, but a lifetime of fighting for his life sent his fist crashing into the side of Ezra's head, plunging it nose first into Mary's cleavage.

Men gasped, women screamed, Mary slapped him, and Amelia Potter kicked Chris in the bandage wrapped around the knife-wound in his thigh.

"Shit!" Chris bellowed, springing up from the ground. Clutching his bleeding thigh with both hands, he bent over the wound, forgetting the danger snorting behind him in the agony of the moment.

Buck tried to pull Chaucer's head up and around, but he was laughing too hard to save Chris. The bay helped himself to Larabee's flat ass and the seat of his pants, waving the strip of denim in his teeth like the captured colors of an enemy.

The dreadful sound of ripping fabric gave way to a hostile silence, broken only by Buck's giggling.

"It ain't funny, Buck!" Chris snapped, hobbling in front of Vin where the tracker sat splay-legged on Main Street to get something between his ass and Chaucer's teeth.

"Yeah, it is," Wilmington gasped out through his tears.

'It was a set up,' Chris realized, glaring down at Ezra. 'From the moment he woke up this morning, the little weasel's been conning us - conning me....'

It was impossible to know if Ezra was still conning them, pretending to be unconscious, or if he really had passed out, or even died. He certainly looked dead, his black and blue body lying limply in Mary's arms like some damned Pieta.^[i]

Mary cuddled Ezra protectively to her, staring at Chris in anger and bewilderment. Watching Ezra's nose slide further between Mary's breasts, Chris muttered, "I hope you suffocate, y'little weasel."

He heard Vin chuckle and he turned his glare on the tracker. Tanner gave him an "I told you so" grin, cracking the mud that was starting to dry on his face. Without a word, he offered Larabee Ezra's silver flask. Without a word, Chris snatched it from Tanner's hand, thinking that he'd more than earned the right to drink Ezra's whiskey.

Francis Corcoran's laughter barked behind him, taking Chris back to a cool autumn night in the Seminole village. Laughter still shaking his big frame, Francis replaced Chris beside Ezra.

"I'll take him, Missus," he told Mary, a natural respect for the widow Travis and Larabee's warning glower preventing him from plucking the Squire from his resting place. Mary surrendered Ezra reluctantly, laying him back down on top of Vin's coat with help from Corcoran. The Irishman took a moment to assess the injuries Standish had sustained, his hands gentle as they poked and prodded.

"Damn," Francis muttered, the results of his examination sobering him immediately. "Thank heaven y'pulled y'r punch," he said, glancing up at Chris. "Whoever worked him over before you sure as he-sure as heaven didn't." Mary made an unhappy sound and touched the side of Ezra's head with the back of her hand.

"Here we go," Francis grunted, getting his arms under Ezra and rising to his feet. He easily lifted the smaller man, taking him out of the wet and muddy blankets in which he was wrapped, leaving Standish as naked as heaven had made him. It bothered Chris to see Ezra like that, publicly displayed like a side of beef at a market, but somehow it bothered him more when Judge Travis stepped forward and covered Standish with his long black frock coat.

Ezra moaned at the jarring of his body, his neck twisting along Corcoran's worn gray sleeve.

"You're all right, Sir," Francis lied, relieved when Standish sank back into unconsciousness. "I'll bet you were somethin' t'see on the field..." Corcoran murmured, wondering if he ever had.

The words brought unwelcome memories to Chris, catching him in the gut: Fredericksburg, Chancelorsville, Cold Harbor....

'They never give up...' he remembered telling the boys he'd turned into soldiers, all of them hanging onto his words like he was God Almighty, believing that if they listened to him, if they did just as he told them, they would actually live through the coming slaughter. '...They never give up and they never give in, so when you kill 'em, make damn sure they're dead - or you will be.'

Chris's throat squeezed itself shut, his lungs knotting in his chest. He put his back to Ezra, turning away from his ghosts, not giving a damn about his dignity in his need to get the hell away, limping past the throng on Main Street toward the sanctuary of the bathhouse.

Gathering her skirts in her hands, Mary struggled to her feet. She opened her mouth to call after Chris, but Buck stopped her.

"Let him be," Wilmington ordered, sharing a look with Corcoran that only a sergeant could understand.

Jerking his head at the collapsed Josiah and Nathan, Francis addressed his men from the Seminole village and the townsmen he'd organized into a rough and ready militia.

"Pick a carcass, lads, an' let's get 'em upstairs."

++++

"Whoa," Buck called, raising his hands high and wide - or at least as high and wide as the pair of clean pants he was bringing for Chris allowed.

Chris slid his Colt back into its holster where he'd hung his gunbelt from the high back of the empty tub next to him. Closing his eyes, he let his head lie back against the rim of his tub and picked up the flask from where he'd sat it on the floor beside him when he'd heard footsteps outside. A half-smoked cigarillo dangled from the corner of his mouth and he let a thin trickle of smoke drift out from between his lips, sinking back to a mellow half-drunk, near-sleep numbness.

Buck put the trousers on the bench along the wall, dropping his soggy hat down on top of the wet pile of Chris's clothes lying on the floor in front of it. Miss Lucy^[ii] had shown her support for the local law enforcement by laying in two big tubs, long enough for the five six-footers to stretch out in comfortably when they were in the mood to spend the money, though more often than not the kind lady allowed them its comforts on the house.

"Miss Lucy is a good woman," Buck sighed, finally stretching his weary body out in the empty tub next to Chris, crossing his bad leg over the healthy one. He wouldn't have minded a good, hot soak, but he didn't have the energy to take his clothes off, let alone deal with Miss Lucy's tender care.

"Mn," Larabee replied, offering the flask to Buck without opening his eyes. Wilmington took it, grateful for even Ezra's sissy whiskey. There wasn't much left in the silver bottle, a fact attested to by the bemused expression on Chris's face.

"Mary n' Mrs. Potter are lookin' after the boys," Buck yawned. "Yeah, yeah - I'll head up in a minute."

A smile quirked across Chris's face when Buck answered the question he hadn't yet asked aloud.

'Good old Buck,' Chris mused. 'You're the one thing in this world I know I can count on bein' there, whether I like it or not....'

Because he'd drunk nearly a pint of fine old scotch, and because he was tired enough to go to sleep and never want to wake up again, and because Buck was Buck, Chris looked over at his oldest and best friend and asked, "I ever tell you about my baby brother?"

"Not that I recall," Wilmington replied with a grin, recognizing that Chris was in a rare talking mood. "I remember your sisters though - Eustace."

A flat-hand smack on the surface of Chris's bath splashed lukewarm water all over Buck, more than adequate recompense for the stinging pain the blow caused to Larabee's lacerated hands.

Unfazed by the chastisement, Buck chuckled. "Lord, when your womenfolk invaded camp, I thought we were gonna lose half the regiment across the river to the protection of General Lee. Colonel said we oughta give 'em rifles and fall in behind 'em."

"We had, war would've been over by Christmas," Larabee agreed, taking the cigarillo out of his mouth and looking at it.

"Always figgered that's the reason you went career army - to get away from all them naggin' sisters."

"That was one of 'em - probably the strongest one. Adam didn't live long enough to have a chance to get away from 'em. Died when he was seven - took the smallpox in the natural way."

An uneasy prickle chased itself from the base of Buck's spine all the way to the roots of his mustache. 'Adam...?'

"Poor kid - Mama's little surprise.... Them girls thought he was their own livin' doll. They dressed him up, curled his hair, and if he even looked cross-eyed at a speck of dirt, they had him in the tub scrubbin' his hide off."

"How many times you push him in a mud puddle?"

"Daily," Chris grinned. "When he got old enough to be a tag-along. Used to sit on the porch and listen to him howl while they went at him with the coal tar soap. Never would rat me out, though - always said he'd tripped or fell. Stupid kid...."

Chris had to clear his throat before he could continue. "His legs were too short to keep up with me when I was ditchin' the girls, but the little weasel'd holler out "Useless! Useless!" so loud the whole damn valley could hear him, until I had t'stop and let him catch up so he'd shut up. I thought Eudora standin' on the back porch shriekin' "Eustace" was as bad as it could get, 'til she picked up the 'Useless' habit."

Snorting, Buck gave the flask back to Chris. Grinding the cigarillo out on the floor, Larabee finished the whiskey it held.

"I remember one time, when he was about three, maybe three and a half, he was behind me, goin' down hill. Ma'd made me take him fishin' with me, so I was going to the river past this still pond that had about a foot of stinkin' green scum across its top. That little weasel knew he was goin' in it, so he decided on a preemptive strike."

Chris shot his hand out flat in front of him at a downward angle, slicing through the bath with a prodigious fountain of water. "Dropped and rolled and took me out at the knees. Damn near drowned himself when I landed on top of him, and our sisters half-scalded us to death in the tub when we got home. He grinned himself silly for a week."

"Sounds a lot like you," Buck observed, grabbing both sides of the tub to keep the room from spinning.

"Maybe..." Chris admitted. "I always thought he was a little tetched. Broke his leg when he was five, didn't tell anybody about it. I knew somethin' was wrong when I heard him cryin' in our room at night. Little weasel never let me hear him cry... I know I made him, but he never let me hear him. He wouldn't tell me what was wrong 'til I snuck into the kitchen and got him a piece of the cake Ma'd made that morning. Turns out he fell trying to get at it after I'd put it up so he couldn't pick at it."

"Wonder where he got that idea from?"

"Yeah, but I knew how t'do it so Ma didn't notice. He'd a ruined the cake."

'And yer Ma would've figured out it was monkey see, monkey do and taken a damn sight closer look at her cakes in the future.'

"'Course, you couldn't share," Buck said aloud.

"Nah. That wouldn't 've been any fun." Chris sighed. "He made me get him a whole piece and I had to sit and watch him eat every last crumb. When he was done, he wiped his grubby little hands all over my nightshirt - and then he told me what'd happened. I told him Pa'd give him a whippin' he'd never forget for pulling a dumb stunt like that, and he told me I was gonna tell Ma he'd hurt himself falling outta bed after a bad dream - or he'd tell her he'd gotten hurt because I'd made him get the cake for me, and would use the stains on my nightshirt to prove it."

Chris studied his distorted reflection in the hammered silver of Ezra's flask. "The little weasel walked around on a broken leg for a whole day just to set me up," he told Buck, his voice husky. His image in the flask blurred and Chris tightened his grip on it until his hand screamed in pain and his fingers were pressed white. "Dumb kid...."

'And they say lightning don't strike the same place twice,' Buck thought. 'God, Ezra - what the hell have you been doin' to him?'

Chris cleared his throat and pretended to change the subject. "Reckon Ezra's gonna die?"

"Maybe," Buck said. "But I'll tell ya this, Useless Christopher Larabee - I wouldn't bet money on it. I don't think Ezra's done with you yet."

Chris laughed out loud.

"Hey, Chris?" Buck swallowed.

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm gonna be sick...."

Chris watched Wilmington heave over the side of the tub with detached concern. The knot at the end of Buck's rope had finally slipped, and Chris was damned if he knew how the hell he was going to get himself standing, let alone haul Buck out of his tub.

They managed it somehow, like they always did, Chris cussing himself into his trousers before hauling Buck up. They made it to the door on their knees, crawling up the doorframe to stagger arm-in-arm like the town drunks across the street toward the clinic.

They stopped at the foot of the stairs at the side of the livery, staring up at the long, steep flights of steps stretching above them.

"Just who the hell had the bright idea of puttin' a damned doctor's office on the damned second floor anyway?" Buck wheezed halfway up the first flight. "Man'd bleed to death before he ever got a chance to knock on the door...."

"And I thought Ezra bitched," Chris muttered, getting behind Buck and pushing.

++++

"Are heights good for mendin' broken bones?" Francis wheezed, putting the heavier-than-he-looked Standish down on the top of the clinic's surgical table.

"Nathan could afford the rent," Mary explained briefly, joining Gloria Potter in her inspection of Ezra's injuries.

"Where do we start?" Gloria asked Mary, her face grim.

"With the bullet wounds," Mary decided.

"Step," she heard Orrin say. "Step. Stop. Go left." A quick glance revealed that His Honor had taken J.D. under his wing quite literally, guiding the blind youngster up the stairs and into the clinic.

"Stop," Travis told Dunne, turning the kid so that the back of his knees bumped up against the edge of one of the clinic's chairs. "Sit."

With a sigh that honked up from the depths of his being, J.D. obeyed, his throbbing legs collapsing out from under him. He wanted to put his pounding head in his hands, but they were too torn up from the rifle butts for him to actually do it.

"Here ya go," the judge's voice said, guiding his head forward to put a soft support of some kind behind his neck. J.D. leaned back against it gratefully. "Now hold still - this will smart some."

"Oooowwww!" J.D. yelped, the rough feel of the wet fabric cleaning his face making his head spin with pain.

"He hits pretty hard, doesn't he?" Travis sympathized.

"Dhyes," J.D. agreed miserably.

"I'll be after seein' to the pickets,"^[iii] Francis told the judge, giving the kid an encouraging pat on the shoulder. He stood to the side to allow the two men carrying Jackson to enter the clinic before heading down the stairs.

Groaning when his body made contact with one of the clinic cots, Nathan gave into his body's demand, curling up on his side and cradling his bruised self in both hands.

"Nathan?"

Opening one eye, Jackson found the worried face of Josh Potter staring at him over the bucket of water he'd fetched at his mother's command.

"Are you d-dyin'?" Josh asked.

'Only in my dreams,' Nathan thought. "No, Josh, I ain't dyin'," he told the boy.

"What about Ezra?" Josh whispered.

"He ain't dyin' neither."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Josh!" Mrs. Potter called. "Hurry up and get that water to the kitchen now - and we'll need a lot more than just one bucket!"

"Yes, ma'am," her son answered, scurrying away on his appointed mission. Closing his eyes, Nathan listened to Vin curse when the men carrying him up the stairs thumped his bad ankle against the wall. The profanity turned into a clench-jawed silence the moment Tanner saw Mary and Mrs. Potter, cutting Ezra's bandages off his body.

"Those are silk, aren't they?" the judge asked.

"What's left of Mr. Standish's new shirts," Mrs. Potter confirmed, dumping the soiled strips of cloth into the slop bowl sitting on the small instrument table next to her.

"I expect they were expensive?" Travis sighed, getting out of the way of the huffing and puffing men hauling Josiah through the door.

Mrs. Potter stroked the back of Ezra's hand. "Very."

"Well, the bill should at least make interesting reading," Travis said, smiling despite his worry.

"What bill?" Vin grunted.

"The bill to compensate him for materials damaged or destroyed during the unavoidable course of his duties. He sends me one every week. Itemized."

"Y'pay it?" Tanner asked, looking speculatively at his soon to be ruined boots.

Travis's smile broadened. "Let's just say it's in litigation." He didn't mention that the five or ten page 'bills' were one of the highlights of his week - and his most trusted source of information about his daughter-in-law's health and well being.

"Here, mama!" Josh Potter's voice piped, punctuated by the slop of water against the planks of a wooden bucket. Nathan's eyes popped open and he squinted at the boy receiving a pat on the top of his head before disappearing in the direction of the kitchen.

"How - ?" Jackson croaked. Josh had been gone less than two minutes.

"He sent it up on the dumb-waiter," Vin explained.

"The what<?" Nathan blinked.

"The pulley hangin' off the back porch - the one Ezra rigged when y'had him haulin' wood and water when the rest of us were down with the skittles."

"But - he.... He bitched and complained for weeks about his blisters...." By the end of a long day of backbreaking labor he was accustomed to having others do for him, Nathan had even begun to feel sorry for Ezra.

Vin's laugh wasn't kind. "He said y' wouldn't figger it out 'til somebody told ya."

"Dhere goes a week's wages," J.D. gronked heavily.

Thinking better of shaking his head, Nathan dismissed his chagrin for a better time. Peering blearily at the cot across from him, he saw Josiah mirroring his own curl-up-and-clutch posture.

"How you feelin'?" he asked Sanchez sympathetically.

"Wishin' I wasn't," the big man grimaced.

Nathan made a sympathetic noise, once again closing his eyes the better to endure his own misery. The strident aroma of newly cut raw onions made him open them again, and he saw Amelia Potter standing next to her mother, a big blue and white china bowl covered by a tea towel in her arms.

"Here, Mama," she said breathlessly, putting the bowl onto the instrument table where her mother pointed.

"Good girl," Gloria praised.

"Mrs. H and the other ladies are working on getting more onions chopped, and are getting the rest of the medicinals together," Amy blurted, staring at Ezra's scraped and bruised face with huge eyes. "Josh and the other boys have got a dozen buckets of water in the kitchen and Mr. Johanson laid a new fire for me."

"Get the kettle onto boil, and run and tell Hazel to bring up some hot food for the gentlemen, if she hasn't thought of it already."

"Yes, ma'am," Amelia answered, coming up on her toes but staying rooted to the spot.

"Amy.... We don't have any time to waste, darling," her mother chided.

"I know," she whispered, her gaze locked on Ezra.

"Amy?" her mother asked.

"Is he going to die, too?" Amelia whispered.

"Of course not," Mary said briskly, covering for Gloria. "You know bruises always look worse than they are, so give him a kiss and scoot!" She used the same words Ezra did when he gave the girls of the town their marching orders. He gave the boys a handshake, as befitted gentlemen, adding a pat on the back that usually turned into a hug somewhere along the way.

Amy brightened immediately, darting forward and kissing the top of Ezra's head before running out of the room, down the corridor, and into the kitchen.

"You boys are a mess," Mary observed. "Orrin," she called, bringing the judge to her side and transferring to him the duty of handing Gloria the lengths of gauze and bandage strips.

"Anybody else get shot?" she asked briskly, heading for the locked supply cabinet in Nathan's room that held his prepared decoctions and pharmaceuticals.

"Just Buck," Nathan answered, groaning with the effort of making himself heard.

"Reckon Chris'll be bringing him along any time now," Vin told her, the throbbing trio of his aching knee, arm, and ankle making him shift back and forth on the hard seat of his chair.

Taking the brown glass bottle of laudanum from its place on the cabinet shelf, Mary put it into her apron pocket and went in search of Josh's buckets of water.

When she returned to the clinic, she carried two thick pads of soft cotton towels that had been soaked in cold water and wrung out until they were just on the dry side of dripping. She handed one each to Nathan and Josiah, not needing to ask what their injuries were nor wanting a closer inspection of them. She discreetly turned her back while they ministered to themselves, her shoulders flinching in sympathy when she heard their twin sighs of relief.

"...nnnnnhhhh..." Ezra moaned, his neck twisting against the pain the new poultice on his oldest wound brought him.

"Ezra?" Mrs. Potter asked, leaning over Standish.

"Get back!" Vin ordered, failing painfully in his attempt to stand up.

"Sshhhh," Gloria soothed, picking up one of Ezra's hands in both of hers. Mary bustled Orrin out of the way, leaning over Ezra and cupping the crown of his sweaty head in her hand.

"Ezra, honey?" she asked softly.

"Damnit, Mary! Get away!" Vin barked, finally struggling to his feet.

"Whad'z whrong?" J.D. honked.

"Ezra's wakin' up," Nathan gritted out, trying to force his legs to move off the bed and put his feet on the floor.

"Be careful!" J.D. cried, his instinct to protect Mary and Mrs. Potter making him try to go to their rescue, despite the fact that he had no idea where they actually were and couldn't see a damn thing but a thin crack of light through his swollen eyes. His foot slammed into something hard, destroying his already shaky balance and sending him ricocheting off Nathan and into Josiah, putting an agonizing end to all of their noble intentions.

'Ranchers shot Ezra,' Judge Travis suddenly understood, hard pressed to keep from laughing at the sight of the painful knot of humanity strung across the two cots and the floor in front of them.

"Get back!" Vin repeated, struggling to keep his feet under him. "Please, ladies!"

Mary and Gloria ignored them all, continuing to pet Ezra, speaking to him softly.

"It's all right, honey," Mary soothed. "It's all right...."

"You're safe now," Gloria assured him.

"...mmmmmhhhh..." Ezra breathed out, his eyelids fluttering. "...Peghhee...?"

Mary and Gloria exchanged the quickest of glances, each wondering if 'Peggy' was the reason for the gold wedding band Ezra kept so carefully hidden.

"Peggy's not here, dear," Mrs. Potter told him gently. "It's just me and Mary...."

"...Mary!" Ezra cried, coming fully awake. He strained to lift his neck in a doomed attempt to sit up. Mary easily kept him down with a light hand on his laboring chest.

"I'm right here," she assured him, trying to calm him down. Gloria reached out a quick hand, catching the back of Ezra's hot, heavy head before it crashed to the hard wooden surface of the table. She lowered it gently to its resting place on the table and Ezra blinked up at her, his smarting, watering eyes finally managing to recognize her smiling face swimming above him.

"...Missussss...."

"It's all right now," Mary repeated. "You're home...."

"...Home...?"

"Hell," Vin muttered, collapsing back onto his chair in disgust, letting Judge Travis sort J.D., Nathan, and Josiah out.

"Home," Mary repeated firmly.

Ezra caught his breath, holding it against the pain winning out over the resistance of his ebbing adrenaline.

"Breathe, dear," Mrs. Potter instructed.

Ezra finally had to, letting his pent up breath out in a series of quick gasps before taking a desperate gulp of air and holding it tightly behind clenched teeth.

"C'mon, honey, I know it hurts, but holding your breath is only going to make it worse," Mary told him, a stiff, sticking sort of feeling coiling itself into a lump behind her breastbone. Ezra wasn't making a sound, nor was he moving, his whole body frozen. He looked just like he had a little over a week ago, when he'd been lying in the dirt of Main Street, bleeding from the bullet she had courted.

She spared a look toward a thump and scuffle in the corridor from the stairwell into the clinic, the constriction in her chest easing when Chris and Buck reeled into the room.

Breathless, the two new arrivals were stopped in their tracks by the sight of Ezra in the clear light of day.

"Jesus Christ," Buck murmured, reminded far too strongly of the always shoeless, usually naked, swollen and black bodies of the dead soldiers he had spent four years of his life burying.

Ezra tried to pull more oxygen into lungs without having to exhale, until his cramping stomach muscles made him gasp, turning his breathing into a shallow, grunting pant. The thin bubbling edge of a not-quite conquered whimper sharpened the sound of his rapid breathing.

"I know, I know," Mrs. Potter consoled him, she and Mary together rubbing gentle circles across his abdomen like he was a child with a tummy ache, ignoring the blushing men around them.

"Here," Mary said, letting go of Ezra to fish the bottle of laudanum out of her pocket. "This will make the pain stop, honey...."

"No! No!" Ezra shrilled, twisting away from Mary. "Nonononoooooo!"

"Hold still!" Gloria commanded, corralling Ezra's shuddering body in a firm hug. "You must hold still, sweetheart." She pressed a kiss against the side of his head, but it failed to comfort him.

"Nooo!" he cried again, staring at the bottle of laudanum Mary held in her hand. "Please - don't!"

He risked looking away from Mary, turning in Mrs. Potter's arms to look up at her face.

"Please," he begged, his voice as high as a frightened child's. "Please don't - please! I'll be good... you'll see.... Ah promise - please, Ah'll be good - good as gold...."

"Of course you will," Mrs. Potter smiled at him reassuringly. "Put it away, Mary - we won't need it."

"But - we've got to do something..." Mary said, her stomach flip-flopping at the sight of Ezra huddled into Gloria and shaking in fear.

"Put it away," Mrs. Potter repeated firmly. "In my years of domestic service, I saw too many well-bred mothers turn to laudanum to avoid the responsibility of a spirited, intelligent child. I refuse to compound that woman's selfishness."

"Put it away, Mary," Chris ordered.

Ezra startled at the sound of Larabee's voice, his shoulders jumping up to his ears before they sagged. He grew heavy in Mrs. Potter's embrace, his head and arms dropping from around her like an unstrung puppet's, looking exactly like a man who had just passed out.

'Don't,' Chris wanted to shout at him. 'Don't! You don't have to play possum any more, Ezra....'

"Thank God," Mrs. Potter sighed. "It'll be easier this way."

"Let's get that wound on his back scoured before he comes to again," Mary agreed, returning the laudanum to her pocket before getting on with the necessary brutality of cleaning the rest of Ezra's wounds of the dirt they had picked up in defiance of his bandages.

It was hard work, and they went at it with speed and thoroughness taking precedence over gentleness. Ezra's body was graceless, flopping and flailing about on the table with the tugs and shoves and pulls required for them to clean the bloody furrow on his back and secure a fresh drawing poultice over it. When that was done, they searched his body for other cuts and abrasions, scrubbing them with bristle brushes and vinegar. They pressed each bruise with merciless, probing fingers, looking for any sign of a broken bone beneath the discolored, fevered flesh. It wasn't until Mary pushed her fingertips into the mound of black skin marring the Grecian line of his right hip and thigh that there was any sign of life from Ezra; crying out, he raised a hand against the assault, almost touching Mary with a clenched fist before he collapsed back onto the table.

"Don't wake up now!" Mary pleaded.

"No," Vin corrected her, his voice choked. "No - it's all right now, he won't feel it now."

"Dear God," Mrs. Potter breathed, with sudden, horrified understanding.

"Oh, Ezra..." Mary murmured, her eyes filling.

"Ain't your fault," Chris consoled her, his troubled gaze fixed on Ezra. "He fooled us, too."

"We'd better finish while we can," Mrs. Potter said doggedly, taking a deep breath.

"You'd best get that laudanum down him while you can," Nathan advised from his bed.

"No laudanum," Mrs. Potter said firmly.

"Then you'd better tie him down - before he gets a little stronger and that punch he just threw at Mary hits her hard enough to break her neck."

No one said anything, but Buck and Vin exchanged a glance that made it clear to the room at large that they would object - violently, if necessary - to either proposal.

"No," Chris finally decided. Dumping Buck into the last available chair, Larabee went to Ezra's side, lifting his left hand to display its scabbed, stiffened fingers. "Tyin' him up didn't work the first time we tried it. Hell, it just made things worse."

"Laudanum, then," Nathan insisted.

"No laudanum." Chris shook his head, convinced more by the memory of the fear he'd seen when he'd tried to force a dose of the opiate down Ezra's throat a few months ago than by what had just happened in front of him.^[iv]

"It'll be all right," Mary assured the room at large and herself specifically, joining Mrs. Potter in a protective lean over Ezra. "He'll be fine if we just leave him alone and let him rest."

"Mary's right," Buck said. "If we just let him be, he'll settle down."

"Let's get him put to bed," Mrs. Potter ordered briskly, motioning for Judge Travis to take Ezra's shoulders and for Chris to take Standish's dangerous legs and feet.

"On three," the judge said. "One, two, three...."

Ezra didn't wake up during the short trip to the clinic's real bed, the one reserved for the convalescing or the dying. Mrs. Potter arranged Ezra's limbs on the clean linen, covering him carefully with a sheet and a soft quilt.

The effort of lifting Ezra was the last straw for Chris. Wobbling legs almost betrayed him, and if Mary hadn't caught him, he would have wound up adding another bruise to the collection on his backside.

The only place to put him was on the surgical table that Mrs. Potter hastily cleared. Assessing the other injuries waiting to be tended, Gloria shook her head.

"We're going to need some help," she sighed.

While several sturdy townsmen and their wives were duly rounded up, Travis looked over at where Chris was sprawled on his stomach.

"We lost the witness," the judge announced without preamble. "Ezra was right - I sent you off on a fool's errand. Seems one of my sons-in-law sold out to Hopewell."

"Hate it when that happens..." Buck grunted.

"Stewart James, more like," Vin observed. "Reckon he's the one pullin' Hopewell's strings."

"Dhe was ghonna hang us," J.D. told the judge.

"Can you prove it?" Travis demanded.

"It'd be our word against his," Chris answered, his voice muffled by the surface of Nathan's surgical table. "Figure that'd just start the kind of trouble they're lookin' to make. Besides, the scene of the crime ain't there no more."

Travis looked over at Ezra.

"Hnh," His Honor acknowledged, needing no further explanation of what had happened to the physical evidence. "And Ezra? What happened to him?"

"Got shot off his horse and trampled," Vin explained when Chris didn't answer, punching the dents out of the crown of his soggy hat.

"Poor lamb," Mrs. Potter sighed, stroking Ezra's head. Mary made a clucking noise of agreement, giving Ezra's hand a gentle squeeze.

Vin couldn't help himself; he had to spit.

"Mr. Tanner!" Mrs. Potter scolded. "Please! This is a sick room!"

"Sorry, ma'am," the tracker mumbled, cramming his hat onto his head in disgust.

Judge Travis found himself smiling despite the situation. "The news isn't all bad," he said. "The uh, ladies of the town have a present waiting in jail for you boys. Seems he knows a little bit about what the governor's been up to."

"God bless and keep Miss Lucy," Buck sighed, closing his eyes and letting the sharp, narrow wood of his chair's back support his head as the helpers whistled up to the clinic arrived, the room growing smaller with every body added to it.

Vin focused on the ceiling as people crowded in on him, watching a spider dance with the light and shadows from the setting sun. His damp shirt grew wet again with his sweat, and he knew he was going to have to try to bolt down the stairs or through the doors to the veranda, or start screaming and swinging to clear some room around him.

Someone touched him and he jumped a foot, twisting his hat into a knot in an effort to control his panic. He found Mary smiling at him, in her kind way.

"I can't see in here very well," she said. "Do you think you can make it outside?"

"Yes, ma'am," Vin answered, unable to hide his gratitude. She helped him up to his feet, keeping him there when his bad knee tried to buckle. Hobbling along, they made it to the front balcony, and the chair that lived there.

"That's better," Mary sighed. "I don't like crowded rooms, either," she confessed. "They always get so stuffy, like there's not enough air for everyone to breathe, you know?"

"Yes, ma'am," Vin replied softly. "I do."

The simple words sent a shiver prickling down Mary's spine and it took her a moment to pull herself back from wondering what had put the shadows in Vin's tone to the necessities of the moment.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut your boots off," she apologized.

Vin sighed.

"It's all right," she told him. "Go ahead and spit."

++++

It took Mary several trips into the clinic to get what she needed to clean, treat, and bandage Vin's various cuts, bruises, and sprains properly. To their mutual relief, nothing was broken or otherwise beyond repair; two or three weeks would see him almost as good as new, if he behaved sensibly.

Or if Mary got a buffalo to sit on his head, something that she privately acknowledged was probably a much likelier occurrence.

"Will you be all right out here for a little while?" she asked, sure of the answer even before he nodded.

The clinic was much less crowded than it had been the last time she'd come in from the veranda. Gloria sat beside Ezra, her arms around her children. Orrin stood with two of the quiet men Francis had brought with him from the Seminole Village. Everyone else was miraculously gone, though the cursing and moaning from the stairwell assured that they were not forgotten.

"I didn't think they'd leave," Mary said, remembering Ezra's abrupt midnight departure, her open safe, and the telegram with a frown.

"I sent them to their own beds," Travis explained. "They couldn't stay here - every time he twitched, they woke up and half-killed themselves trying to find out if he was all right."

"Ezra does make 'misery loves company' his motto when he gets like this," Mary sighed.

"You mean he's done this before?" the judge boggled.

"It's never been this bad." Crossing her arms, she hugged herself tightly. "He's never been hurt this badly before...."

"He'll be all right," Orrin said gruffly.

"What about Buck?" Mary asked. "He'll need to be watched for fever...."

"The.... Miss Carlotta and Miss Lucy are looking after him, and making sure J.D. won't run into any walls in the middle of the night."

"And Mr. Larabee?"

"Is in his room getting drunker, if he manages to keep his eyes open long enough."

Taking a deep fortifying breath that became a steadying sigh, she looked at the two men standing beside Orrin. "Can I get you two to help me get Mr. Tanner situated?"

"That's what we're here for, ma'am," the one closest to her answered, following her outside.

Vin put up a good fight against being dispatched to his wagon for the night, but pain, exhaustion, the desire to be in his own place, and the authority of Judge Travis combined with the bitter logic that Ezra would rest better with fewer people present finally prevailed.

"If anything happens in the night, you'll be woken," Travis promised, as he'd promised the other five men who protected the town his son had founded. In the case of Nathan and Josiah, who'd gone to their rest on Jackson's bed in the back room with a bottle of laudanum in hand, it was probably a quixotic pledge, but one that he would honor nonetheless.

When Tanner looked like he was about to be stubborn, Travis reminded him, "He might get some sleep if you're here, but you won't. I need you shootin' straight, son."

Vin gritted his teeth and allowed the two men to carry him from the room, successfully fighting back the urge to expectorate his frustration until he was safely on the street outside.

"Is there gonna be trouble, Mama?" Amelia whispered into Mrs. Potter's ear.

"The Gentlemen will take care of it, dear," her mother reassured her.

"Why don't you go home?" Judge Travis suggested. "I'll take the night shift, you two can spell me in the morning."

"Four," Amelia corrected him determinedly.

"You four, then," His Honor smiled.

"I'll bring you up some supper," Mary told him, and they both knew that she would somehow contrive to stay the night as well. Gloria wished she could join Mary and the judge in their vigil, but the two small bodies pressed against her had a greater claim on her attention.

"Make sure they come to tell me too, if something happens," she told the judge, rising and taking Josh and Amy's cold hands in hers.

Mary walked the Potters to the stairwell, kissing and hugging the children good night, and trying not to cling too hard to the solid strength of their mother.

"I'll bring you breakfast," Gloria whispered.

"Thank you," Mary acknowledged, watching them go until they reached the turn of the stairwell. Missing the protection of her shawl, she returned to the clinic.

Orrin sat on the cot closest to Ezra, and in the dimming light, he looked like an old, broken man. Busying her hands with the lighting of Nathan's kerosene lamps, she said, "You don't have to do this - I can manage. Mrs. Pelligrew or - "

"I'll be fine," he interrupted her, and she had the impression that if he'd had a gavel in his hand he would have banged it at her.

"Are you sure?" she asked softly.

"This isn't going to be like Stephen, Mary," he told her firmly. "This time, we'll win."

++++

'No, not like Stephen,' Orrin Travis thought to himself, looking down at Ezra from where he stood at the head of the clinic's one real bed. Stephen had died within seconds, his skull blown apart by his assassin's bullets. Travis didn't resist the urge to reach out and touch the warm, sweaty crown of Ezra's head with his fingertips. 'Stephen hadn't seen it coming....'

Standish stirred under the touch, fractionally turning his head into Travis's hand. The tongue pushing out between Ezra's chapped lips told the judge that the younger man was at least awake enough to drink, and he turned to the table where Mrs. Potter had left him a pitcher of water, a bottle of Glen Morangie, a tall glass, and several neatly cut lengths of clean straw. He was generous with the whisky, using two straws together to stir it into the water he had poured into the tumbler. He wished he had ice to add, but ice in the desert was as rare as the proverbial snowball in hell. Even in the dead of winter, it was hard to come by in this part of the New Mexico territory, something that lived on top of snow-draped mountains far, far away from Four Corners.

Turning back to face Standish with the drink in his hand, Travis found a gleam of green glinting at him through Ezra's swollen eyes. They were nearly as bad as J.D.'s, only the boy didn't have the burst capillaries that gave Ezra's eyes an eerie quality around the edges of their lashes.

"You're awake," Travis said, pointing out the obvious. Somehow, the quality of Ezra's gaze changed and the judge could hear the disgusted, "Ah know" as clearly as if Standish had spoken aloud.

"We'll consider that stipulated," Travis gruffed, not quite able to hide all of his smile. Ezra blinked, whether in agreement, dismissal, or both, His Honor couldn't tell. For a moment, it seemed that Standish had fallen asleep again, and then that active intelligence revealed itself once again. It took the judge a moment to realize that Ezra was struggling to turn his head, to look around him farther than his battered peripheral vision would allow. What he was looking for wasn't hard to guess.

"I sent them off to their own beds after they got patched up. From the looks of things, I'd figured you'd earned the rest."

The edges of Ezra's mouth twitched, and the tongue that licked his lower lip conveyed an undeniable air of satisfied amusement. Then he looked at Travis and the amusement became a smug 'I-told-you-so' sort of satisfaction.

"You were right," the judge sighed. "It was an ambush."

"...Ah know...."

Where Ezra got the strength to say it aloud mystified Travis, but the coughing fit that followed the effort didn't. It was easier than he thought it would be to sit on the edge of the bed and lift Standish, easing the choking paroxysm with the shift in position. Ezra curled in toward him, favoring his injured side. Careful to keep his arm below the bandages that held the poultices firmly in place against Ezra's back, Travis kept the younger man steady until he was drawing ragged breaths more or less regularly.

"Here," the judge said, picking up the whiskey and water. He nearly lost the straws in transit as the light, hollow grass tried to float out of the glass. He caught them against Ezra's chin, wincing with Standish as their edges jammed into the tender flesh of his healing abrasions. The pain didn't stop Ezra from trying to wiggle the straws up from his chin into his mouth, something he managed with the barest of help from Travis.

He drank two tumblers of the whiskey and water before he'd had enough, closing his eyes and turning his face further into the judge's shoulder. Travis let Standish stay there, holding the younger man without a word or a tremor despite the ache in his shoulder. Ezra was a hell of a lot heavier than he looked, but as burdens went, he was one the judge would willingly bear. Finally, when he was certain that Standish was asleep, Travis laid him back down on the bed, covering him with the quilt.

"Aren't you supposed to be in bed yourself?" Travis asked when he was done, looking up from Ezra toward the hallway that led to Nathan's bedroom.

"I'm gettin' there," Nathan replied sheepishly, shuffling as lightly as he could into the clinic. "Wanted to get a good look at Josiah first."

"How is he?"

"Ezra didn't kill him, but I got me a feelin' Josiah's gonna be wishin' he had for a while." Nathan stopped by the bedside, lifting Ezra's wrist to check on his pulse. What he found made him frown and shake his head. At Travis's sharp look, Jackson explained, "It's better 'n it was, but it ain't good."

Pulling the quilt back from Ezra's chest, Nathan gently checked the bandages tied neatly below the breastbone. He was pleased with what he found.

"The back poultice is fine," Travis assured him, patting Ezra's shoulder in a soothing way as Standish began to turn his head on the pillow.

"I was afraid of that," Nathan sighed, shaking his head. "He's been doin' that all the way home - he'd quiet down, then start t'kick up somethin' fierce."

"He'll settle down," Travis said, turning the pat into a circular rub. Ezra's chest was starting to heave, and his eyes were restless beneath their closed lids.

"I hope so," Nathan replied. "He's lost a whole lotta blood, Judge. I don't think he can stand t'lose any more. If he opens them wounds...."

"He won't."

Nathan sighed, having more faith in Ezra's stubbornness than he cared to admit. He'd hoped that familiar surroundings, the whiskey, and exhaustion would be enough to keep Standish from further injuring himself, but it was looking like he was wrong.

"I got an idea," Nathan said. "Can I ask y't' get me a bowl, Judge Travis?"

Travis got the bowl, and the jug of cider vinegar, and the clean rags, and the stoneware bottle that Nathan kept filled with a yarrow brew. Further, he mixed the cider with the yarrow, and along with Nathan, used the mixture to bathe the black and purple bruises across Ezra's body. It didn't help ease Ezra back into sleep, but seemed to make things worse.

"Hell," Nathan cursed, sagging against the bed. "We're gonna have to strap him in."

"No," Travis shook his head.

"I ain't sayin' it's a good idea - but what happens when he throws himself off the bed and starts bleedin' like a stuck pig again?"

Travis hesitated, torn between his instant rejection of the idea and the very real possibility of Ezra bleeding to death in his arms. He hadn't been there to hold Stephen, but he had dreamt of holding his son in his arms, of being covered in blood and bits of bone and brain often enough that it was hard to remember that he'd been hundreds of miles away on the night of the murder.

"I use these for amputations," Nathan said, pulling a strong, wide, brown leather strap up from where it was rolled up and hooked on the side of the bed frame. In the end, Travis had to fasten them, buckling individual cuffs onto Ezra's wrists, thighs, and ankles, and long, double straps across his body from his shoulders to his calves.

"He's going to hate waking up like this," Travis murmured, looking down at his handiwork. Standish was already pulling against the cuffs in his sleep, and the judge knew that the restraints were working their way into Ezra's dreams.

"Long as he wakes up," Nathan reminded him. "We could take 'em off, if'n you'd let me dose him with some laudanum. Probably be a hell of a lot better for him than these."

Travis shook his head. "Physician, heal thyself," His Honor suggested.

"You're damn right about that," Nathan agreed. "You gonna be all right if'n I do?"

"Mary's on her way back," the judge reminded him, all too well aware that his daughter-in-law was going to throw a conniption of the first water when she saw what he'd done to Ezra.

++++

"Gohhd...." Nathan carefully exhaled. 'Home...' he realized, the opium in the laudanum having erased his memory of taking the drug and crawling into his bed. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and go back to sleep, but the early morning demands of nature refused to be denied.

"Hell..." he groaned, nature pressing its suit even more urgently than when it had woken him. Gritting his teeth, he straightened out his legs. Moaning and groaning and cussing, he got himself out of bed and over to the chamber pot. Halfway through his obligations to the biological realities of life, he realized that he hadn't been alone in bed. Josiah was still asleep, his faced lined with pain even through the numbing mask of the laudanum. Nathan frowned, searching for his last memory of the previous evening. He remembered Judge Travis, and buckling the amputation restraints....

His task finally finished, he gently and gingerly took stock of himself.

'You'll live,' he decided. 'But you ain't gonna enjoy it much for a while.'

Essaying a stiff-legged, forward-leaning shuffle to take him to the waiting buckets of cold water and the full pitcher resting in his washing bowl, Nathan looked longingly at the warm hollow in the bed where he had lain. Lord, he just wanted to crawl back under his covers, but the nagging memory of Ezra, bound and tied, made him pick up the pitcher and fill the bowl with water.

It took him forever to clean up and find his oldest, loosest pair of drawers and trousers. By the time he had dressed, he was exhausted, the enforced slumber of the previous night not nearly enough to make up for the physical ordeal of the last forty-eight hours. Abandoning the idea of putting on his socks and boots, he made his tender way out of his room, down the short hall, and into the clinic proper.

Judge Travis was sitting in a chair next to Ezra, and Mary was asleep on top of one of the cots. Ezra's eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow. His face was gray, stubbled where it wasn't scraped, the patchy red beard disappearing into the bright purple bruises blossoming along his jaw. Nathan rubbed his nose, trying to block the smell of dying that filled the room. He'd hoped that Ezra would be better in the morning, but he was clearly worse - and the bed that had been straight last night was now crooked.

"Mornin'," the judge greeted, watching him walk forward with a sympathetic wince. Travis's voice was sandy with fatigue, its normal power subdued.

"Mornin'," Nathan replied with a smile. "Looks like you had a quiet night."

"He woke up a couple of times, but went right back to sleep," Mary said without opening her eyes or moving on the cot.

"Well, now, that's good," Nathan said cheerfully. "Real good."

"He asked for water when he did," Travis replied. "But he wouldn't drink it."

"Give him time. It's all a part of healin' - ain't no cause for worry," Nathan lied.

"It isn't?" Mary asked, giving up on trying to get any sleep and sitting up with a yawn and a stretch.

"Seen a lot a men hurt worse live through it," he told her. 'Seen a lot a men hurt less die,' he reminded himself silently.

"Look, why don't you folks go have some breakfast, get yourselves cleaned up. Ain't gonna do him any good if'n he wakes up and sees the two of you looking like ghosts. I'll stay here and y'all can bring me back somethin' t'eat when you're finished. Someone should probably check on the others, too, see how they're doin'," Nathan suggested with a significant look at the judge. "And I ain't real fond of the idea of tryin' to walk down stairs just yet."

"Will you be all right?" Mary inquired delicately, blushing furiously.

"Yes, ma'am," Nathan answered with a bright smile; even after years of friendship he was still touched by her consideration. Mary nodded, reminding herself that Orrin needed to eat and sleep - stubborn and tough though he was, he was still an old man.

"I'll tell Gloria you're up," Mary said, pushing herself to her feet. "Maybe she'll be able to get Ezra to take some broth."

"She does seem to be able to make him mind," Nathan agreed.

"He likes pie," Mary explained simply, holding out an arm for Judge Travis to take. He rose reluctantly, feeling every minute of his 63 years.

Nathan shuffled out onto the veranda, watching Mary and the judge cross the street and go into the Clarion office. He had a feeling neither one of them would agree with what he was about to do without wasting a whole lot of time convincing them - time he didn't think Ezra had left.

Moving as quickly as his injury allowed, Nathan returned to the clinic, shutting the door behind him and heading for the cupboard in his room. He had to pass by the bed on the way, and he couldn't help looking down at Standish. With a shock that was like a whip across his shoulders, he saw Ezra's blood-shot green eyes glaring back at him.

"...Nice...con..." Ezra congratulated him, his voice a shadow.

"I'm tryin' to save your ungrateful hide," Nathan snapped, angry at his own sense of guilt.

"...None of...your business...."

"It is while you're in my bed."

"...Then... release me.... Now!"

Somehow, the wisp of Ezra's voice managed to convey the idea that he had better be obeyed or else, and Nathan nearly did as he was told, instinctively responding to the authority that Standish could assume as easily as he breathed.

"Like hell I will!" Nathan growled, as furious with himself for the conditioned response of half a lifetime of slavery as he was with Standish for being enough of a damn fool that he'd had to tie him up in the first place. "I ain't gonna let you fret yourself to death."

Ezra's upper lip twitched in a mockery of a smile to reveal the flash of his gold-capped tooth.

" ...Yes sa, Massa..." he mocked, his imitation of darkie pidgin perfect.

"You wanna die?" Nathan demanded, his voice failing him in mid-sentence. Why did a word from Ezra have the power to cut him in two, to make him feel like a humiliated child?

"...It might...be preferable..." Ezra growled, straining against his bonds in an effort to free himself that was as useless as it was pathetic.

"You give me one good reason why I shouldn't use that laudanum to save your life, and I give you my word I won't."

Ezra stared up at the grim man standing over him in a bed he had never asked to be brought to.

"...Mister Jackson..." he wheezed in astonishment, "...are you...askin' me...to trust you?"

"I'm askin' you to let me help you."

Ezra's chuckle became a painful, rasping cough. "...How...magnanimous..." he sneered weakly, his eyes closing because he no longer had the strength to keep them open.

Nathan ground his teeth together, the word he didn't understand ringing in his ears like a slap. "You ain't got a good reason, do ya?"

"...Doesn't... agree with me...."

"I said a good reason, damn it!"

"...Because Ah choose... not to...."

"It's the wrong choice!"

"...The consequences... are mine t'endure...."

"Man don't sleep, he dies. You ready to 'endure' that, you damn fool?"

"...Lived through... worse...."

Nathan snorted. "Man like you wouldn't know sufferin' if came up and bit ya. This ain't about nothin' but your lily-white pride! You just can't admit someone like me might be able to help you."

"...Your... motivation... is suspect... not... your ability...."

"My motivation?" Nathan repeated. "I'm tryin' to save your fool life!"

Ezra's smirk became a smile that slitted his crusted eyes. "...No... you're... tryin' t' own it."

"That what you think? After all we been through together in this town, and that's what you think of me?"

Ezra's eyebrows came together over the bridge of his nose in consternation at the realization that Nathan was completely unaware of the hypocrisy of his words.

"I know I ain't ever gonna be nothin' but a dumb nigger to you Ezra, but I reckon I've earned some kinda respect, even from you."

Normally impervious self-control, already weakened by exhaustion and injury, dissolved in the face of the outrageous absurdity of Nathan's indignation, and Ezra laughed in Jackson's face. He couldn't help himself, and he couldn't stop himself - he laughed until he literally choked.

Uncomfortably aware of how hot his skin had grown with embarrassment and anger, Nathan came to Ezra's rescue. His hands weren't gentle when they jerked Ezra's head to one side so that he wouldn't strangle himself on his own spit.

"...Dear Lord..." Ezra moaned, his arms jerking against his wrists' restraints in an instinctive desire to clutch his aching gut and rib cage. "...Ah don't know...what t'say... Nathan...."

"Give me one good reason to let you die, and I will," Nathan growled, not sure just why Ezra's last words troubled him so deeply.

"...One man's...reason," Ezra panted, his chest heaving with the effort of speaking, "is...another's...folly...."

"Damnit, Ezra!"

"...Made up...your mind...already... Y' just want...me t'... justify whatevah... y' do...."

"Suit yourself, then," Nathan said curtly.

"It would...suit me...t' be...untied...."

"Can't do that."

"...Won't...do it..." Ezra corrected. "Y've been...waitin' your whole...life...for this... huh, boy? ...De yar ob...jubilo^[v]...am heah...." He struggled to get the words out, because words were all he had left, and if he was going down, by God, there would be scars to mark it. "Always...wondered...if that's why...you like...'healin' folks'... so much.... Anyone lyin' here...'s as good...as ownin' 'em.... Nathan be...de massa...now...."

"Go to hell, Ezra," Nathan tried to snap, but all the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

"...Undoubtedly..." Ezra gasped, his smile making Nathan leave the clinic before he did something he would regret for the rest of his life.

"Stupid fool," Nathan muttered to himself, wrenching open the cupboard in his room. He reached for the laudanum with one hand, wiping his eyes and nose with the cuff of the other. He touched the smooth glass of the brown bottle - and then powerful fingers clamped around his wrist and Nathan found himself blinking into the frowning face of a stark-naked Josiah.

"Is he right?" Sanchez rumbled.

"About what?"

"Why do you think I quit the priesthood, Nathan?"

Nathan shrugged. "I figured if you wanted me to know, you'd tell me."

"When Eve offered Adam the fruit of the tree of life, he didn't have to eat it. He chose to - and yet when the Lord asked him if he had, he said "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate."^[vi] One day I looked around at my congregation, and realized that they were my Eve, and I was hiding my own sins behind theirs. Sometimes I still do."

"Josiah, if he don't get some rest, he's gonna fuss himself right to death. You want that to happen?"

"There can be worse things than dying."

"Not when he'd be dyin' for nothin'," Nathan protested. "Nothin' but his pride...."

"What about your pride?"

"I can't stand there and watch him die an inch at a time.... Not when I know there's somethin' I can do to save him."

"It's his choice."

"He ain't thinkin' straight! You saw him - this here stuff scares him like when he was a little boy, and he's so ashamed of that, he'll let himself die because of it."

"Isn't that his choice to make?"

"It's the wrong choice."

"Do you have the right to make that judgment?"

"Maybe not.... But I'd rather be wrong than bury him." He pulled against Josiah's grip and Sanchez let him go. He looked at the bottle in his hand, its cool surface burning into his palm. "I've been helpless so many times, Josiah.... I've had to watch so many people die because there wasn't nothin' I knew to do to save 'em.... So maybe I'm bein' selfish. Fine. Maybe when he's on his feet, he'll ride outta here and never look back. I don't know - I just know I gotta try to help him."

Josiah followed slowly along behind Nathan, every sliding, knee-locked step jolting him painfully.

"God damn him!" Nathan roared, stopping abruptly. Josiah angled his shuffling course to bring him up beside Jackson.

Ezra had disappeared.

One wrist restraint lay on the floor at the end of its strap, its leather bloodstained and its metal buckles bent. One side of the body straps had been cut through, a now blunt knife Nathan had never seen before lying discarded on the tumble of ruined leather and bed covers. Where or when Ezra had gotten it, Nathan couldn't begin to guess.

"He can't get far," Jackson growled, deciding that the back stairs were his best bet to start looking for Standish. "Why the hell is he doin' this?!"

Once again, Josiah grabbed his wrist, holding him back. "Ever see a three-footed wolf?" he asked, pointing at the bloody leather of the wrist restraint.

"It ain't like that - he knows it ain't like that."

"What would you do if I put you in leg irons and manacles - even if you knew I was trying to save your life?"

"It ain't the same thing!"

"Not all shackles are made of iron."

"God damn it, Josiah! It ain't the same thing!" Pulling out of Sanchez's grip, Nathan tried to turn a waddle into a stalk as he went looking for Ezra.

"It never is," Josiah sighed, once again finding himself looking in a mirror.

++++

Buck didn't have any trouble getting out of his bed despite the throbbing agony in his swollen calf. It smelled like Louisa, and he didn't want to think about her right now.

Pulling on his boots was out of the question, so he barefooted it out of his ground floor room, his mustache curling up around his nose when mud squished between his toes.

"Dang, that's cold!" he muttered to himself, limping across the street toward the livery. He'd promised Mrs. Potter he'd come back to the clinic first thing in the morning and get the dressing on his wound changed. It was a good excuse to check in on Ezra, which he would have to do before he went to drag Chris out of whatever hole or bottle he might have crawled into the night before. Then there was the kid....

Buck heard Chaucer sound out when he passed the front of the livery, the noise somewhere between an angry neigh and a plaintive nicker. With a wary eye looking out for manure, he went into the dark interior of the stables. He knew Yosemite had taken charge of Chaucer, but a dreadful fear that they had asked too much of Ezra's bay on the long way home combined with a sense of déjà vu to make his heart beat faster.

"Chaucer?" he called out, allowing his eyes time to adjust to the murky light of the livery before he went further inside.

The horse answered him with the same worrying cry, his hooves banging off his stall to punctuate it.

"Easy there!" Buck soothed, raising placating hands toward the agitated animal. "What's the matter, fella?"

Chaucer neighed, stretching his neck out of the stall door as far as he could get it and shaking his head to make his mane fly. Feeling like a fool, Buck looked where the horse's nose pointed, peering into the shadows thrown by the hay bales stacked against the wall of the tack room for the hired horses.

"Who's there?" he called, seeing and hearing nothing. Looking back at Chaucer, he asked, "You sure there's someone there?"

Chaucer banged his front hooves against the stall door again, neighing angrily. Spinning in his stall, he hit the newly hung wooden door with his hind legs.

"Okay, okay," Buck said, taking down one of the kerosene lanterns hanging on the stall fronts. He lit it quickly, careful to blow the lucifer out to black before dropping it to the floor. Holding it high so its light wouldn't blind him, he drew his gun and walked cautiously into the shadows riveting Chaucer's attention.

His bare toes kicked something warm and soft and he took a startled step backward, cocking his pistol and aiming it even before looking down to see what he'd hit.

It was a hand, lying palm down on the dirt floor of the stables, its steepled fingers flecked with hay, mud, and blood, the ruby on its ring finger glinting in the lantern's light.

"Ezra!"

Holstering his gun and nearly dropping the lantern, Buck ignored the pain screaming through his leg and dropped to the ground on his knees beside his friend. Putting the lantern down at a lean on a hay-bale, Buck rolled Ezra over and up across his lap. Standish was unconscious; the scant rise and fall of his chest was the only indication that he was still alive.

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, y'gotta stop doin' this," Buck growled, picking up Ezra's forearm to squint at his chewed-up wrist in the wavering light. "I never shoulda left ya...."

Ezra moaned, his head moving a fraction in Buck's cradling arm.

'Here we go,' Buck thought, bracing himself for the coming struggle.

Ezra's eyes flickered open. Red shadows danced above him and he tried to blink them into focus. It took him a moment to realize someone had hold of his arm. He tried to pull it free, but he couldn't make it move. He tried to kick out with his legs, but they refused to work as well.

"Jesus," Buck muttered. The sight of Ezra unable to force his hand to make a fist scared Wilmington cold.

"...No..." Ezra whimpered, forcing his neck to twist in an attempt to find something to hide his face against. "...No!"

"It's Buck, Ezra. I ain't gonna hurt ya - you're safe now."

'...Buck..." Ezra recognized, the relief in his ruined voice palpable.

"Right here," Wilmington confirmed. "Right here - and I ain't gonna leave ya again, Pard."

"...Chaucer...?"

"He's fine - just worried about his Daddy."

"...Don't let him...kill...Chaucer...."

"Ain't no one gonna touch that horse," Buck promised.

"...He's yours...."

"Don't do this, Ezra..." Buck begged, clutching him close.

"...Likes...apples...."

"He's a horse, Ezra," Buck said, his voice cracking.

"Buck?" Vin called out of the darkness surrounding them, making Wilmington jump.

"Over here!" Buck shouted back, rocking Ezra back and forth like a child.

Vin's shadow lurched over them, hiding Ezra's torn face until the tracker made his knees bend to drop him on his butt beside them.

"Saw the tracks," Tanner explained, the words not beginning to describe the kind of sign a man leaves when he's dragging his body through the mud hand over hand. "What the hell happened?" he demanded, reaching out to touch the top of Ezra's head and ignoring Chaucer's protest.

"That dang horse," Buck answered. "He's got it in his head Chris is gonna kill Chaucer."

"I knew that was a bad idea," Vin said, shaking his head and hitting his thigh with his fist. "I never shoulda left him last night!"

"...Vin...?"

"Right here, Ezra."

"...Take...mah repeatah...boots... should...fit you..."

"You're gonna need them things," Vin told him, his fingers twisting into Ezra's hair as if he could hold the other man's life in his body that way.

"...Buck...?"

"Hush, Ezra - ain't no call for you t'be talkin' like this. You're gonna be fine - just fine," Buck told him sternly.

"...Take...mah guns...."

"I don't want your dang guns!"

"...Wardrobe... mah room... top right... corner's... money.... Pay Mrs. Pottah... mendin'.... Split th' rest...."

"Ya - ain't - dyin', Ezra!" Buck grated.

"...He'll...kill me..." Ezra answered, managing a coyote smile.

"Damnit, Ezra!" Nathan's voice exploded over them, making Vin and Buck jump and Chaucer neigh and kick out at his door again. "Laudanum ain't gonna kill ya!"

"...Makes mah head... feel funny...."

"It's supposed to!" Jackson snapped. Ezra laughed himself into a coughing fit, his distressed lungs setting off a chain reaction of muscle temblors across his bruised torso. The pain was too much for his over-burdened body to handle. Eyes rolling back into his head, he passed out. Vin crossed his fingers, hoping that this time the faint was real.

"You give him laudanum, Nathan?" Buck demanded, his mustache flattening dangerously over his compressed mouth.

"If you'd let me give it to him last night, he'd a been a damn sight better this mornin', instead of - instead of a damn sight worse. He'd be in bed where he belongs, instead of lyin' here in hay and horseshit."

"So ya did," Vin translated, the edge of a growl finishing the sentence.

"No. He..." Nathan trailed off, unable to say 'escaped first.'

"Git," Buck growled.

"Buck - "

"I said git."

"Nathan," Josiah said from somewhere in the darkness. "You can't help him like this. Come away."

"Josiah...."

"Come away, Nathan."

Nathan let Josiah lead him out of the livery, looking back at the bright spot of the lantern's flame and the three men it backlit into silhouettes.

"They're gone, Ezra," Vin said, just in case Standish could hear him. Shifting his twisted knee to a position he vainly hoped wouldn't hurt nearly as much as the one it was in at the moment, he looked over at Buck. "Now what?"

"Now we gotta find a way to stand up, pick him up, and get up the stairs to his room."

"That's what I figured," Vin sighed, catching movement against the bright rectangle of the livery door in his peripheral vision. Tapping Buck's arm with a knuckle, he pointed the intruder out with a lift of his chin. "Company...."

Buck hunched protectively over Ezra when Francis Corcoran dropped to his haunches in front of him. The Irishman whistled softly, shaking his head in wonderment.

"I see Himself's been out for a mornin' stroll."

"He was feelin' a mite rumbustious," Vin admitted.

"Where's Chris?" Buck asked, one sergeant to another, old conflicts forgotten in the needs of the moment.

"Sleepin' it off in his room," Francis answered. "Are y'after wantin' him fetched?"

"No!" Buck and Vin chorused.

Francis grinned, expecting as much after the events of the day before. "Can I help?"

After a moment's consideration, Vin extended his hand up to Corcoran, letting the bigger man haul him to his unsteady feet. Francis held onto him until they were both sure that he'd stay stood.

"Take him," Buck grunted, angry at having to admit to himself that even if he could make it to his feet with Ezra in his arms, he wouldn't be able to take more than a few steps before they both came crashing to the ground.

Corcoran complied, perfectly understanding how Wilmington felt. The Squire hadn't gotten any lighter over-night, but even in the shadows of the livery, Francis could tell he'd gotten much worse.

Chaucer whickered plaintively, stretching his neck out as far as he could toward Ezra when Francis carried him by the bay's stall.

"Saloon," Buck ground out from behind clenched teeth, using the hay bales around him to climb to his feet. "Go up the back way...."

Corcoran nodded, turning toward the livery's back door.

"Wait," Buck ordered, stripping out of his short jacket and covering as much of Ezra as he could with it. "Go."

Francis went, marching to the accompaniment of Chaucer's hooves drumming on his stable door. Buck and Vin followed him, arms around each other in the hopes that when combined one good leg and three bad ones would get them where they needed to go.

"You see where my capote went?" Vin asked, suddenly remembering why - other than Ezra - he was up when he would much rather be down.

"The Potter coleen an' her brother took it to their ma's house," Francis answered.

Vin made a mental note of his coat's location, hissing in reaction to the mud on the street oozing up between his bare toes, adding another layer of dirt to what he'd picked up already. "Dang, that's cold!" he muttered, wishing that the backstairs to the saloon weren't so far away and so high up.

They made it to the door of Ezra's room mostly unobserved, those few citizens who did see them wisely deciding that whatever was happening wasn't any of their business.

Leaning Vin against the wall outside Ezra's room, Buck hobbled in front of the waiting Corcoran, trying the doorknob. It was unlocked. Smoothing down the hairs of his twitching mustache with one hand, he drew his gun with the other, pushing his way through the door with his shoulder.

"He's filthy," Francis pointed out, laying Ezra down on the bed and taking Buck's jacket off him. "He'll have to have a bath."

"Got any more good news?" Buck asked, collapsing into the rocking chair.

"Looks like rain?" Corcoran offered grimly, bending over Ezra to cover him with the sheet and quilts. Vin lurched through the door behind him, slamming into the doorframe to catch his balance. The noise woke Ezra, and he reacted as he always did when someone he didn't invite came through his door. Stealing Corcoran's gun from its holster, he was able to fire twice before the concussion overcame his strength and he dropped the pistol.

"Shit!" Vin yelped, throwing himself to the floor before the first bullet pinged past his ear, the second one creasing a black streak across the crown of his slouch hat. Francis corralled his pistol, stepping away from the bed and looking down at Vin in dry-mouthed shock.

Taking off his hat, Vin examined the damage to it.

"Hell!" he swore, slamming it to the floor in disgust. "He's aimin' again!"

"Again?" Francis asked faintly.

"Y'might say the town and Ezra have a gentlemen's agreement," Buck explained, tilting the rocking chair up on its forward points so he could pat Ezra's shoulder. "We come in low, and he shoots high. Damn near killed J.D. and Chris the first week he was here."^[vii]

Corcoran's eyes went to the wall above the door, and three neatly drilled bullet holes.

"He's a better shot when he's awake," Vin bragged, rolling over onto his back to get off his knee. Pushing himself up into a sitting position, he scooted gingerly around so that he could see the bed and Ezra.

"I see," Francis grinned. "Damn, it must have been somethin' to see his guns in a fight!"

"Hush!" Buck ordered, leaning even farther forward to try and catch what Ezra was murmuring. Corcoran grabbed the back of the rocking chair, making sure that it wouldn't go skittering out from underneath Wilmington.

"What is it, Ezra?" Buck asked.

Ezra's head turned fractionally toward him, his eyelids struggling to lift open. "...water...."

Shoving his foot under the rocker closest to the washing basin, Francis grabbed the colorful clay water jug sitting on the shelf beneath it. Snatching off the drinking cup that served as its cap, he poured it three-quarters full of water and handed it to Wilmington. Judging by the fresh cut sprig of rosemary floating in the washing up pitcher, whoever saw to the Squire's domestic needs would have seen to it that the water in his cántaro was fresh and wholesome.

"Here y'go," Buck said, getting his hand under Ezra's head to lift it for him. "Easy now...."

The water trickled over Ezra's chapped mouth, bringing him fully conscious. With a cry that might have been 'no', he batted blindly at the cup, trying to roll away from Buck and bury his face in the pillow to get away from the water he desperately wanted and his body badly needed.

Wiping water off his face, Buck picked the miraculously unbroken ceramic cup up off his lap, handing it to Francis to fill again. Heedless of grinding the rocker into the yelping Corcoran's foot, he pushed himself out of the chair and onto the bed beside Ezra.

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey!" he barked, grabbing Ezra's shoulders and pushing him flat onto the mattress. It was painfully easy to do, but Ezra still tried to twist his head away from the inevitable.

"Ezra," Buck called softly, blinking back tears and letting up on the pressure. He kept his hands hovering an inch above the wounded man, ready for when he tried to break away again. "Ezra.... Wake up now. C'mon, you're home, you're safe now...."

"...Buck...?"

"Yeah, it's Buck. I got Vin here, too - we ain't gonna let anything happen to you, y'know that."

"...N-nathan...?"

"Gone."

Ezra turned his head so he could peer up at Buck. His lips moved soundlessly, but Buck didn't need to hear him to know what he was asking.

"He ain't gonna be takin' care of ya no more. I'll send for Old Doc Sinclair and nurse ya myself. I'll take care of ya, Ezra - me an' Vin'll see to it."

"...No...opium...?"

"No opium - I promise Ezra. But you gotta rest, ya hear? Ya gotta rest, and drink water when it's given t'ya, and ya gotta eat, y'understand?"

Ezra's frantic panting started to ease, his gaze locked on Buck's face. Francis slid the cup into Buck's reaching hand and held his breath. Transferring the cup from his right hand to his left, Buck once again lifted Ezra's head so that his lips could meet the edge of the cup.

"That's right," Buck crooned. "You just relax now. Ol' Buck's gonna take care of everything. You'll be fine, just fine...."

Ezra almost swallowed, but lessons learned young and proven again and again throughout his life wouldn't let him.

The cup ricocheted off Buck's forehead, spilling water across his lap and the bed. Vin snagged the cup, snatching it out of the air as it went by in a reflex action that cost his twisted knee dearly.

"Damn it, Ezra!" Buck bellowed, shaking water off his hands. "Now knock it off! I told ya - I'm gonna take care of ya."

Ezra's head moved minutely in a negative shake. "...Y' trust 'em..." he wheezed, the words rattling in his throat. "...They'll... lie.... Outflank ya.... Outflanked...." His voice broke on the last word, his eyes closing over tears. "...Outflanked...."

Buck didn't quite look over at Vin, remembering the last time he'd heard Ezra say that.^[viii]

'They already have,' Buck realized. 'Last night...."

"Damn Yankees," he muttered aloud.

"Was he in the Georgia campaign?" Francis asked Tanner quietly.

Vin fingered the harmonica in his shirt pocket. "Ezra wadn't in the war," he replied, shaking his head. "Just ask him - he'll tell ya.... He'll tell ya all about it."

"That's it," Buck decided, his expression grim. "I have had all of this I am gonna take." Regardless of Ezra's injuries, he hauled the younger man up by his shoulders until they were nose to nose. "Here is what we are gonna do, sir," Buck informed Ezra in a tone of voice that erased fourteen years and the Mason-Dixon line, "and this is how we're gonna do it."

Ezra swallowed around the sandpaper in his throat, and got ready to do exactly what his sergeant told him to.

"First, you are gonna drink this." Buck held out a hand for the cup, which was quickly handed to him. Pulling back only far enough to get the water down Ezra's throat, he growled, "All of it!" when the other man showed signs of stopping.

"Now," Buck continued, dropping Ezra more of less gently back onto the bed, "Francis is gonna fetch Mrs. Potter. She's gonna bring ya food, and you're gonna eat it."

Francis saluted in acknowledgement of his orders, trotting out of the room and down the stairs.

"I'm gonna go wire Doc Sinclair. If anyone else tries to get in here, Vin's gonna shoot 'em," Buck concluded.

In one fluid motion, Vin drew his Winchester and cocked it.

"Don't kill 'em!" Buck clarified. "Just shoot 'em."

Vin shrugged.

"I'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail," Buck told Ezra, starting to push himself to his feet. "And you'd damn well better be here when I get back, mister."

Ezra caught at him with a hand that refused to work properly.

"...Chaucer..." he begged. "...Don't let...Chris...."

"Ezra..." Buck chided, sitting back down on the bed. "Chris wouldn't shoot that damned horse any more than he'd shoot you."

Ezra chuckled, his upper lip curling to reveal his gold fang.

'Hell,' Buck sighed to himself, realizing that sometime in the last few ugly weeks, Chris hadn't known what to say to Ezra, so he'd said something stupid.

"Chris tell ya he didn't want t'have to shoot ya?" Buck asked.

Ezra ignored the question, trying to cover his eyes with a forearm. Buck caught his arm, bringing it back down to his side.

"If Chris wants somebody dead, he just shoots 'em. He don't make threats. The only people he says he's gonna shoot are his friends, and he only says that when he's scared and don't know what else to say - and Ezra... you been scarin' the hell outta Chris nearly every damn day lately."

"...Please..." Ezra strangled out. "...Please... don't punish Chaucer... for what... Ah did...."

"Y'didn't do anything wrong," Buck assured him. "I'll take care of Chaucer - no one's gonna hurt him, I promise."

Ezra shook his head again, his eyes shutting in resigned disbelief.

"I promise," Buck repeated firmly. Patting Ezra's chest through the covers, he struggled to his feet. Exchanging a nod with Vin, he limped out the door.

Vin shifted along the floor until he sat so close to the bed that he could bend his head and touch Ezra's muddy right hand, if he wanted to. Ezra rolled his head to the side, squinting down the length of his arm until he was able to focus on Vin's nose. The fingers of his right hand twitched in acknowledgement, raising a trembling inch off the quilt. Vin put his left arm up on the bed, making sure to put his hand under Ezra's by way of reply.

"It's gonna be all right," he said awkwardly. He wasn't good with words, but he needed to make sure that Ezra knew he hadn't been left alone, that he had Vin between him and whatever might come through the open door.

++++

Anger and worry overrode Buck's pain, steaming him down the stairs and into the saloon. There were only a few patrons in the bar at this early hour, and Chris was one of them. He sat at the table next to Ezra's, nursing a bottle of whiskey and staring morosely at the gambler's empty chair.

'Workin' up the guts to go to the clinic and see how he's doin'?' Buck wondered at his unaware target. He'd snuck up on Chris before, Larabee's killer instinct lulled by an implicit trust he gave to no one else. It was an advantage Wilmington rarely played on, and only if it was for Chris's own good. Buck reckoned today qualified.

Chris was tilting his whiskey bottle to down a swig when someone grabbed the back of his shirt collar and pulled his chair out from under him. He instantly let his body become a dead weight, trying to sag out of the restraining grip. His captor was ready for the trick, riding along with the drop instead of fighting against it.

"Buck!" Chris realized, a moment before the waistband of his jeans was grabbed, Wilmington's four right fingers digging grooves down his back through the thin protection of his shirttails. Then he was in the air, heading toward the nearest wall.

Buck grabbed him on the rebound, tossing him up and spinning him around. Taking great handfuls of Chris's shirtfront, Buck tossed him against the wall a couple more times, just to make sure he had his undivided attention. He was careful about how he threw Chris into the boards, making sure that the other man's already suffering backside absorbed the ferocity of the impact instead of pounding his thick skull through the wall like he deserved.

"Did you," Buck growled, his bristling mustache scratching Chris's nose and the hot snort of his breath emphasizing each word, "tell Ezra you were gonna shoot him?"

With fireworks exploding behind his crossing eyes and his pounding, hung-over head churning his stomach, it took Chris both time and effort to go back two weeks to a short, awkward conversation in the saloon.

"It was a joke!" he wheezed defensively.

Buck bounced Chris's ass off the wall again.

"It ain't funny!" Wilmington roared, snatching Chris's hat off his head and whacking him with it. "It ain't ever been funny!" Buck lowered his voice, shoving rather than slamming Chris against the wall. "How many damn times have I got to tell you that? You got too many notches on your gun for it t'be funny."

"I didn't mean it like that - "

"It don't matter how you mean it, damn it! It's how other people hear it."

"Ezra knows I wouldn't shoot him," Chris denied, with the uncomfortable feeling that he was lying. "I'll - I'll tell him I was just foolin'...."

"It's a little late for that."

"I'll make it right," Chris said, his jaw taking on a stubborn set. He pulled out of Buck's grip, heading for the door.

Buck let him get his hand on its wooden slats before calling out, "Ezra ain't in the clinic."

Chris stopped, turning back to look at Buck.

"Fished him out of the livery a few minutes ago. Seems he's got this idea someone's gonna kill his horse."

"But..." Chris took a few steps back in to the saloon's interior. "He knows I'd never... I wouldn't shoot a healthy horse, Buck - especially not his horse. He should know that, damn it!"

"Should he?"

There wasn't a single thing Chris could think of to say. Licking his lips, he looked away from Buck, toward the stairs Wilmington must have come down to get the drop on him. With even less an idea of what he could say to Ezra, he rushed up them, his long-legged strides almost breaking into a run as he took the steps two at a time.

Collapsing into the closest chair, Buck closed his eyes and wiped the sweat dripping into his eyes off his forehead.

"Don't shoot him too much, Vin," he muttered, tossing Chris's hat onto the table and raising a hand to signal the bartender to bring him a beer.

++++

"Ezra! Damn it, we gotta talk!" Chris barked, barreling through the open doorway into Standish's room, ducking automatically.

No shot pinged into the wall above his head at his entrance. The soft sounds of Vin's harmonica ceased a moment after Chris straightened, the tracker regarding him from the floor beside Ezra's bed.

"You're too late," Vin said, caressing the shortened barrel of his rifle where it lay across his lap with the thumb of his free hand. "He ain't with us no more."

The words roared in Chris's ears, freezing his body breathless. Heart pounding, he forced himself to look beyond Vin, to the bed and Ezra.

'Alive,' he realized, his shoulders drooping in relief and his lungs remembering how they were supposed to work. 'Still alive....' He came closer, standing next to the bed and in front of Vin.

"Ezra...?" he asked softly, discomfort stinging his face red at the realization that Standish was blubbing like a child who was trying not to cry. "Ezra!"

Ezra didn't hear him, lost in his own reality of fever, exhaustion, and fear. "...Ch-chauc..." he gasped, his fingers working like a spider's legs against the pattern of the quilt that covered him. "...Chaucer!"

Chris turned away from the agony of Ezra's desperation. 'I did that to him,' he realized. 'If he dies, I'm the one who killed him....'

Vin startled when Chris kicked the bedroom door, the force of the blow banging it against the outside wall and tearing it from its bottom hinge.

"Shit!" Chris swore, grabbing the foot he'd lashed out with and leaning against the doorframe. In his anger, he'd forgotten all about his flatiron-mangled toes.

"Easy," he heard Vin say, and looked again to the bed. Tanner was struggling to rise, his legs balking at what he was demanding of them. The noise of the crashing door had gotten through to Ezra, and he was trying to raise his arms to protect his head, just as he'd done a lifetime ago when bad luck and worse timing had sent him sailing over Job's head.

"Ah'm sorry, Momma..." Ezra sobbed, his voice so frail Chris could hope he was imagining it. "Ah'm sorry... sorry... sorry...."

"Help me," Vin ordered, conceding that he'd never make it to his feet by himself.

Chris did, wrestling Vin from the floor to the bed beside Ezra. When Vin touched him, Ezra tried to squirm away. Chris got on the other side of the bed, trapping Ezra between he and Vin.

Ezra made himself as small as his bloated, injured body would allow, huddling away from both of them no matter what they said or did to reassure him. He lay silent and still for several minutes, and Chris had to put a hand on his hunched back to reassure himself that Ezra was still breathing. Finally, Ezra started to blub again, hiding his face in his arms.

"Jesus Christ..." Chris groaned, feeling a thousand years old and all caved in.

"Yep," Vin agreed. Taking his harmonica out of his pocket, he began to play it softly, wishing Buck would hurry up and get back.

End of Act Four

ST. BARB'S MONTAGES - The whole collection of Act Four montages in a smaller format.

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NEXT CHAPTER OF MONGOOSE: A SENSIBLE MAN

^[i] The iconographic label for a representation of the Virgin Mary mourning the dead Christ. Possibly the most famous version is the Michelangelo statue.
^[ii] For clarity's sake: in the Third Kind AU, Miss Lucy is the Madam of the local working girls, not Buck's girlfriend from the episode "Sins of the Past".
^[iii] Sentries.
^[iv] In Male Bonding.
^[v] Taken from Poetry and Eloquence from the Blue and the Gray, volume 9 of The Photographic History of the Civil War, Francis Trevelyan Miller, Editor in Chief. I'm not as certain about the 'elasticity' of the defeated Richmond Confederates as Mr. Trevelyan's source is, but I can certainly see Ezra appreciating, at least intellectually, the irony in the song, especially the character assessment of the white soldiers on both sides. It's certainly a song both men would have been aware of, even if they'd never been moved to sing it themselves:
"According to common report a body of Negro troops sang these words as they entered Richmond on the morning of April 3, 1865. George Cary Eggleston adds a special interest to the song: "It is an interesting fact, illustrative of the elasticity of spirit shown by the losers in the great contest, that the song, which might have been supposed to be peculiarly offensive to their wounded pride and completely out of harmony with their deep depression and chagrin, became at once a favorite among them and was sung with applause by young men and maidens in well nigh every house in Virginia."

      "Say, darkeys, hab you seen de massa,
          Wif de muffstash on he face
     Go long de road some time dis mornin',
          Like he gwine leabe de place?
     He see de smoke way up de ribber
          Whar de Lincum gunboats lay;
     He took he hat an leff berry sudden,
          And I spose he's runned away.
             De massa run, ha ha!
             De darkey stay, ho, ho!
             It mus' now be de kingdum comin'
             An' de yar ob jubilo.

     He six foot one way an' two foot todder,
          And he weigh six hundred poun';
     His coat so big he couldn't pay de tailor.
          An' it won't reach half way roun';
     He drill so much dey call him cap'n,
          An' he git so mighty tanned
     I spec he try to fool dem Yankees
          For to tink he contraband.
             De massa run, ha ha!
             De darkey stay, ho, ho!
             It mus' now be de kingdum comin'
             An' de yar ob jubilo.

     De darkeys got so lonesome libb'n
          In de log hut on de lawn,
     Dey moved dere tings into massa's parlor
          For to keep it while he gone.
     Dar's wine and cider in de kitchin,
          An' de darkeys dey hab some,
     I spec it will be all fiscated
          When Lincum sojers come.
             De massa run, ha ha!
             De darkey stay, ho, ho!
             It mus' now be de kingdum comin'
             An' de yar ob jubilo.

     De oberseer he makes us trubble,
          An' he dribe us roun' a spell,
     We lock him up in de smoke-house cellar,
          Wid de key flung in de well.
     De whip am losst, de han-cuff broke,
          But de massy hab his pay;
     He big an' ole enough for to know better
             Dan to went and run away.
             De massa run, ha ha!
             De darkey stay, ho, ho!
             It mus' now be de kingdum comin'
             An' de yar ob jubilo.

^[vi] Genesis 3:12 ^[vii] In "Errant Sparks", a story currently being written.
^[viii] This takes place in a story called "Torments of Hell", not yet written. Apologies. Just know that it refers to the events of Sherman's Atlanta Campaign, his March to the Sea, and his Carolinas Campaign and was inspired by the quote of an anonymous Confederate upon his surrender, "Sherman will never go to hell; he will flank the devil and make heaven in spite of the guards!" (Hammer And Anvil: Sherman and the Principle of the Flank by Stuart Rosenblatt, printed in the American Almanac, March 1997.)