Rating: G

J.D. Dunne stood watching the wagon of women disappear beyond the edge of town, Nathan Jackson and Buck Wilmington acting as their escorts. The longest, deepest kiss he had ever experienced lingered on his lips, touching him in ways new to the young man. Still reeling from it's effects, the town's sheriff wandered into the saloon. Allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim light, he looked around the nearly empty room. Spotting Chris Larabee at his usual table, he bought himself a beer and strode over to the man in black. Chris was watching him of course. Very little escaped the gunslinger's attention. He nodded at the young man as J.D. neared the table.

"Chris can I ask you a question?"

Motioning toward a chair, Chris said, "long as I don't have to promise an answer."

"It's about Buck..." J.D. hesitated, staring into his beer for a long moment.

"J.D.," Chris finally prompted. "What about Buck?"

"Well...he told me...well...about his mother..." the young man stuttered.

Guessing at the reason the young Easterner was blushing, Larabee said only, "oh."

"Was he pulling my leg, Chris? I mean, he seems to enjoy doing that."

"No," Chris said with a small smile. "No, he wasn't pulling your leg, kid."

"Then she was a "

"Prostitute? Yeah, she was. Is that a problem?"

"What? No! I just...well, I was wondering...that's all. I was wondering..." again he trailed off.

Chris started to let it drop, but knew the expression on Dunne's face too well. The kid would be worrying at whatever it was that he was mulling over, for days. The gunslinger was pretty certain that he did not want to deal with that. "Wondering about what?" he sighed.

"Well, the look on Buck's face back in Wick's Town...after he shot Wicks...and then with his mother being a..."

"Saint?" He couldn't help goading the naive young man a little. He knew how Buck felt about his mother. He often described her as a saint.

"Uh...yeah, did you know her?"

"No," Chris said, "she died before Buck and I ever met."

"What happened to her?"

"She died," Chris repeated.

J.D. knew that he would probably have to fight for every scrap of information, but he decided that he would try. He wasn't certain why, but it seemed important that he know this part of his friend's past. "How did she die?"

Downing his shot and pouring another, Larabee said, "that's Buck's story son, not mine to tell."

"I know," J.D. said with a sigh. "But I was just wondering...I mean, the look on Buck's face back there..."

He wasn't sure what made him do it, but Chris decided that, just this once, he would relax his personal code of conduct. Perhaps it was a petty response to Wilmington's telling Mary Travis about Sarah and Adam. He preferred to think of it as sparing his old friend the pain and frustration of being set upon by a curious J.D. Dunne when he and Nathan returned from their escort duties. Pouring and downing another shot of whiskey, Chris slouched back in his chair, making himself comfortable and keeping the rest of the saloon in sight at the same time.

"Alright J.D., I'll tell you what I know. But," he emphasized the word, "when I'm done, you drop it. You don't ask Buck about it; you don't mention it. You understand?"

"Sure, Chris, I understand."

Staring evenly at their youngest member for a full minute, Chris finally nodded and began his oldest friend's tale.

"Her name was Angela Starr Wilmington, but she usually just went by Angel Starr. She was twelve or thirteen when she left home. Don't know why, don't think she ever even told Buck. She ended up in a brothel, and when she was fifteen she had Buck.

"From the way he describes her, Angel was a lot like him...quick to smile and quicker to back up a friend. Anytime, anywhere, anyhow. She pretty much took care of the other ladies at whatever house she worked in. Kept them from being hurt, or taken advantage of. Buck told me once that his earliest recollection was of Angel standing over a too-drunk cowboy she'd just laid out, with a poker in her hand. Man had tried to hurt one of the other women, one of 'her girls' she called them. Didn't matter to her that some of them were old enough to be her mother, she protected them; stood up for them; fought for them.

"But pretty soon Buck noticed something. No one stood up for his mother. They'd take care of her if she was beaten, but they wouldn't stop the beating from happening. It didn't make her angry or stop her from protecting them, though. She'd tell Buck that she didn't expect people to be more than they could be. It sure bothered Buck, though. And he started taking it on himself to be his mother's protector.

"The first fight he go into with one of Angel's customers, he was nine I think. He used to go sleep out on the porch, right outside their room, when it was nice. That's where he was this particular night and heard her cry out. He snuck over and looked in the window. There was this big man, standing over his mother, hitting her with the buckle end of his belt. Buck couldn't take it anymore. He jumped in the window and started hitting the man with everything he had.

"Well, the man took about three seconds to lay the boy out. But Buck never backed down from a fight again. By the time he was twelve, he could finish most of 'm on top. The house they were at then, they put him on the payroll and he kept things running smoothly for them. According to him, all the women adored him."

J.D. laughed, breaking the spell Chris' tale had cast over them both. "Well, from everything I've seen so far, I don't have a lot of trouble believing that."

Joining the other man, Larabee chuckled. "Reckon not." Chris had another shot, and then continued his tale. "Anyway, he spent the next four years taking care of Angel and the other women. But then, right after he turned sixteen, something happened..."

"The thing that put that look on his face out there?"

"Yeah..." Chris downed two more shots before continuing. "Buck had gotten pretty close to a girl in town. Now her parents weren't particularly happy at the thought of their daughter seeing this roughneck that lived with the town whores, so she and Buck had to sneak around and meet whenever they could.

"Business was slow one night, and Angel convinced him to go see the girl, have a nice evening out. Buck wasn't sure, but she kept talking til he finally agreed. He did have a good time, and returned to the house pretty late. When he got there, he found out that all hell had broken lose about two hours after he left. Cowboy came in, drunk, and tried to start something with one of the girls..." Chris dropped his head, staring into his whiskey glass. He seemed to forget that the other man was still there. J.D., knowing that Larabee wouldn't continue until he was ready, sat quietly nursing his beer. When Chris continued, he seemed far away.

"Angel had tried to get the man to stop, but it only made him angrier. He started taking it out on her. He beat her so badly..." Larabee shook his head. "She died three days later. The doctor couldn't do much for her, other than give her something for the pain and set her broken bones.

"Buck never left her side, the entire three days. He barely ate or slept. Sometimes she'd wake up enough to tell him how proud she was of him; how much she loved him. But all he knew was that she had needed him and he hadn't been there."

"But, he didn't know what was going to happen," J.D. said.

"I know, kid, I know. I think that Buck finally accepted Angel's death for what it was; that it hadn't been his fault. By then, all he had was anger and hate for the man who had killed his mother."

"What happened to the bastard?"

"Buck went after him," Chris said in a soft voice edged with anger and disgust. "The son-of-a-bitch didn't even bother to hide. None of those pious, good people cared what happened to a whore, no matter how good a person she was. So, Buck buried his mother and then when after the man. Found him outside of town, too..." He let the words trail off.

"He killed him?" J.D. said in sudden realization.

Chris nodded and downed another shot. "He had packed up and rode out, just like he was leaving town. He came up on the man as the cocky bastard was on his way back to town. They squared off, and Buck left him bleeding into the dirt. He rode out and never looked back. Never heard that they were looking for him. Reckon the town fathers didn't give a damn about that cowboy, either."

Both men were lost in thought, trying to envision the dark chapter of Buck Wilmington's life. Chris walked over to the bar and returned with a fresh bottle and another beer for his audience of one.

Cerrado