Ezra offered a short laugh and looked down at the river that ran along the base of the incline. "It would be nicer if I were starin' at it in portrait form, in a saloon."
"Don't see how anyone can be so against the outdoors."
"Perhaps it stems from only stayin' in them durin' those times when my finances were less than favorable."
Vin glanced at his friend, he had never really thought about Ezra being that far down on his luck. The man always seemed to have a handle on his situation, always seemed to be in control.
The gambler sensed he was being scrutinized and looked at his companion. "What?"
Vin offered a non-committal shrug and stared again at the scenery. "Nothin', just thinkin' how much I been learnin' on this trip."
"Such as?"
The tracker grinned at Standish mischievously, "Such as Buck ain't the only one who's been chased away from a lady by her older brothers."
Ezra stared at his friend for a moment before the realization hit him. His confusion shifted to an embarrassed horror as he wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Oh, I did tell that story, didn't I?" He stared again at the tracker, "How did you remember, you had more of that whiskey than I did?"
"Had to remember, that's just too good not to tell the rest a' the boys."
The southerner fixed a slit-eyed stare on his friend, "You, I'll kill first. Then Chris for sendin' me on this enchantin' venture."
"You should probably get Josiah and Nathan, too. If they hadn't been in Sweetwater, Chris prob'ly woulda sent one a' them."
"Mental note made."
The gambler glanced at Vin and noticed that the tracker had settled back, in what appeared to be an attempt at sleep. He also noticed the arms wrapped tight across the body and the occasional tremors that shook Tanner's lean frame; the blood loss was taking its toll.
Wordlessly, Ezra shrugged out of his coat, biting his lip as a wrong move sent another wave of needles through his now swollen wrist. Though the outside indigo of the jacket was barely recognizable through the dirt, the inner lining was still relatively clean. He lay it across the chilled form and tucked the edges under Vin's body.
Tanner opened his eyes slightly when he sensed his friend's movement but closed them again when he realized what the gambler was doing. After Ezra sat back Vin offered a quiet gratitude.
"Thanks."
"Think nothin' of it…I'll add the cost of cleanin' to your bill."
It didn't take long before Vin succumbed to the pull of sleep, but Ezra couldn't help but note the intermittent shivers were still present. He laid his hand on one of Vin's and frowned slightly, not comfortable with the cold that had come when so much of Tanner's blood had been lost before the wound on the man's leg had been sufficiently wrapped.
Standish sighed quietly, eyeing his sleeping companion. "Well, when in Rome…"
Shifting himself closer to Vin, he lay down at the tracker's right side, hoping to provide some of the body warmth that his friend so obviously lacked. He'd just close his eyes for a minute.
The absurdity of the situation did not escape him and as he attempted
to relax Ezra's brain offered him a final observation. 'I'm lyin' in dirt…Dante
missed this level.'
----
"I heard somebody was asking for whiskey?"
Ezra sat bolt upright and a flood of memories reminded him of exactly why he was resting on the side of a dirt slope, caked in mud with a wrist that would make shuffling cards very difficult.
Larabee had suppressed a twinge of unease when he looked down the hill and saw the two unmoving forms, they had to have heard him and the others approach. Well, maybe not. From what the Norwich boy had told them Larabee's two men had not had the easiest time of it lately. They were probably exhausted.
Ezra glanced over his shoulder, gazing upward to get a look at the man the voice belonged to. He knew what he was going to see but it still brought a smile of relief to his face, nonetheless.
"It depends," the southerner called back. "Is it good whiskey?"
Chris allowed his own sly grin to show, "Nah, we drank that on the way up here."
Vin stirred, hearing his friend's voice. It had only been a few hours but the tracker swore the pain in his leg was worse than it had been before he had fallen asleep.
Tanner attempted to sit up, but the shift made him gasp involuntarily.
Ezra turned his focus immediately toward the wounded man. "You should not attempt to move." Standish hadn't meant for the concern in his voice to be so obvious, but one look at Vin's leg and the gambler forgot his usual reserve.
The ex-bounty hunter knew that between Jackson and Larabee he would be near smothered with advice about keeping still. He wanted to put it off for as long as possible.
"I'm fine, Ezra."
Standish closed his eyes for a second and sighed quietly. "Oh yes, and I am havin' such an exquisite time I cannot bear the thought of leavin'. Now, may we please cease these pathetic attempts at deceit and grasp ahold of reality."
Ezra placed a wide-spread hand across Vin's chest and forced the tracker to lay back.
"If ya'll ain't through jawin' we could come back."
It was a different voice but no less welcome. A tall black man stood next to Chris on the ridge, shading his eyes from the now high sun. "Mr. Jackson. Aren't you supposed to be in Sweetwater?"
"We got back a day early. Why, is there a problem?"
"No. No problems, we're fine. Vin? Problems?"
Tanner shot a sideways glance at his companion, "Shut up, Ezra." He looked up the hill, "Nathan, pleasure to see ya. Be even more of a pleasure if I ain't gotta crane my neck to do it."
The healer shared a smile with Chris. Just the fact that the two men were exchanging their usual style of sharp comments took a huge weight from Jackson's shoulders.
Buck came up to join his companions, his arms laden with rope and he balanced a travois against his leg. "Nathaniel will be along in a second, how is everything?"
But before either of them had a chance to answer, Ezra's voice cut in, "What are you gentlemen discussin'? Throw the rope down. Get me out of this mud!" Then, catching Vin's expression, the gambler looked to his companion, adding with a wide-eyed sincerity, "us…I meant us."
Chris shook his head, answering Wilmington's question, "Everything's normal. Let's get 'em outta there."
Larabee pointed up the trail a bit, not wanting to put undue pressure on the abused patch of earth that had collapsed earlier. "Buck, see if you can secure a line to a tree up there. Nathan, why don't you head down, check on Vin."
Buck wasn't quite sure that what he found was as much a tree as it was a glorified sapling but it was solid and strong and would give them the stabilization they needed.
Nathan waited for Wilmington to attach rope to the travois as well, before easing his way down the slope and across to Tanner and Standish. Ezra stood, jacket folded over his right arm, looking for all the world as if he were doing nothing more than waiting for a train.
The healer crouched beside Vin; not wishing to disturb the bandaging just yet, Jackson decided to forgo an inspection for the time being. "How ya feelin'?"
"Like I wanna get outta here."
"Sounds like a plan. Ezra, you mind givin' me a hand here."
Vin broke in, "It's gonna have to be just one, his right wrist is swolled up worse than a river after floodin'."
Nathan frowned slightly, realizing why the southerner had positioned his coat the way he had. Ezra took a half step back as Jackson rose.
"I assure you, it is nothin' serious, now if we could please--"
Nathan moved without warning, reaching out and yanking the gambler's jacket from his grasp. Standish gasped loudly as the action jerked his wrist and sent a jolt of pain through his arm. Ezra gritted his teeth, "That was not necessary."
"Neither was hidin' that wrist from me. Now, lemme see."
Jackson gingerly examined his friend, pressing gently on the bones and testing the movement of the gambler's fingers. "Don't think anythin's broken, most likely a sprain. Think you can make it to the top?"
"I'm sure I can manage." He scooped up his forearm rig from the ground and attempted to retrieve his coat, but was denied as Nathan held the jacket out of reach while pulling the holster from Standish's grasp. Dropping both items on the ground behind him, Jackson fixed his friend with a steady gaze.
"I ain't gonna spend time on this, Ezra. I'll hold the line taut at this end, ya'll just walk your way up."
The southerner opened his mouth to say something but Jackson just walked away; crossing to the rope, he picked up the loose end and stood ready.
Vin smiled, he could practically hear the same thought running through each man's mind.
'Damn, but he's frustratin'."
Once Ezra was up, Chris came down. He and Nathan eased Vin to the travois.
"Ya'll don't gotta do this."
Nathan refused to acknowledge the remark but Chris couldn't help himself. "Vin you've got a piece of wood sticking out of your leg and it doesn't take a doctor to tell you've got a fever coming on. So shut up and lie still so we can get you up this hill and into the wagon. And if you're real nice, I'll give you Ezra's share of the whiskey."
Tanner was clearly unhappy with the need to be helped but offered little resistance; a definite sign to Nathan that Chris had been accurate about the tracker's body attempting to fight infection.
They had him in the wagon when Vin started to drift in and out, "Where's my hat? Ain't goin' anywhere-"
"It's back there with ya, pard." Buck, now leading the team of horses couldn't help but laugh. It had been Norwich who had spotted and retrieved the weather-beaten soft brim half covered in dirt toward the top of the slope, right next to Ezra's.
Wilmington was still chuckling as he spoke again to the young man sitting on the buckboard next to him. "Nathaniel, ya saved a man's hat today…that's something to be mighty proud of."
Later that night
Chris eased himself down into an empty seat between JD and Nathan. Josiah and Nathaniel were finishing off a platter of Inez's enchiladas. Out of habit, Larabee glanced around in an attempt to spot the missing member's of his team.
JD read the expression on the gunslinger's face. "Ezra turned in already and Buck had an evening planned with Clarice…or was it Caroline?"
Josiah sat back in his chair and looked at Chris, "From what Nathaniel, here, told us I'm surprised Vin is the only one spending time at Nathan's."
Shortly after the small rescue party arrived back in town, Josiah took it upon himself to introduce Nathaniel to the town's bathhouse and a clean set of clothes offered by JD. Once settled, Norwich recounted the tale he had shared with Chris, Buck and Nathan when the four had ridden out earlier in the day.
The young man was just as honest with the other regulators about his past as he had been with Vin and Ezra. When he first located Larabee and Wilmington in the saloon Nathaniel had been vague about explaining his connection with the two men he was attempting to seek out help for. Saying only that they had offered to let him ride with them to Four Corners.
Chris sensed there was more to the boy's story but waited until they were on the trail to begin a series of roundabout questions that eventually led Norwich to explain the real way he had met Larabee's two peacekeepers.
The gunslinger knew that of all his men, Vin and Ezra had a true gift when it came to reading people; if they trusted this boy then so would he.
Larabee knew that what Josiah said regarding their resident healer's patients was too true. Standish had refused assistance for anything other than the wrapping of his wrist but Chris noted the tentative way the gambler carried himself. And though Ezra attempted to cover it with his cravat, his leader also noticed the long knife slice at the southerner's throat.
Larabee had left Vin at Jackson's clinic, unconscious from a combination of nearly a quarter a bottle of whiskey, some odd smelling herb tea that Nathan had brewed up and the sheer exhaustion of a slight fever and loss of blood.
It was never easy for Chris to see any of his men injured but when it was Vin, well, Larabee usually felt the worry a bit more.
Chris ran a hand through his short, blonde hair. "No offense, Doc, but I sure wish sometimes we didn't needed you as much as we do."
Nathan smiled, knowing what Chris meant, "Sometimes I wish the same thing myself." The healer took a sip off his beer before continuing, "Vin should be out till mornin'." Jackson knew that the tracker finally falling asleep would have been the only thing that could have prompted Chris to leave his friend's side.
Norwich remembered the queasy feeling he got when he finally saw Tanner's leg wound up close. He had been amazed that Jackson had handled it all so matter-of-factly. "He really is going to be alright?"
Nathan nodded, "Gettin' that leg patched up was the easy part, keepin' him from puttin' too much strain on it is gonna be where the trouble comes in. 'Course, you would think after the last couple of days he would welcome a little bed rest."
Josiah stood and stretched, "Well, I don't know about Brother Tanner but that sounds like a right golden opportunity to me."
Nathaniel followed suit; the preacher had offered the young man a place to stay and Norwich was happy to take advantage of more of the kindness that the Lord had seen fit to deliver upon him as of late.
As the remaining peacekeepers watched the two men leave JD spoke up with a smile, "Sure looks good for being dead."
Chris and Nathan looked at Dunne, obviously confused. JD realized they had been with Vin most of the day and most likely had not heard of the events that had transpired earlier.
"Ezra sent telegrams to the territory marshall in Tuscosa and Nations Bank of Texas, told them that," he paused as he remembered the wording, "he regretted to inform them that, suspected bank robbery accomplice, Nathaniel Norwich was killed in a mudslide during a prisoner transfer early this morning."
JD pushed some of his dark hair away from his eyes, "He also made sure that Nathaniel sent a wire to his aunt and uncle in Sacramento telling them that he would be joining them before the end of the week."
Dunne shook his head as he recalled Norwich's story of the events that led the young man to where he was now. "I don't get it, how could you be so blind to the fact that you were taking up with a bunch of criminals."
Chris caught Nathan's eye before he offered an answer, "Oh, I don't know, JD, might be kinda easy for a kid as young as him, alone in a new territory to take up with the first group that seems to show an interest in him."
JD barked a laugh, "Yeah, but group of gunslingers?"
Nathan took a drink of beer just so the glass would hide the smile on his face.
Larabee, on the other hand, didn't try to cover his grin. "Well, he'll get hooked up with his aunt and uncle real soon. I think that once a young man like that has a family to look after him he should have an easier time keeping out of trouble."
JD was still oblivious to the second meanings that Larabee was throwing out. "Sure seems like a nice kid, hope you're right."
Chris raised an eyebrow in Jackson's direction, "Oh, I think I am on this one. Stranger things have happened. Wouldn't you say that's true, Nathan?"
The healer returned his leader's grin, "I would indeed, Chris. I certainly would."
fin
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