DAY 3
The light of morning hadn't even grown enough to cast shadows yet when Opal slipped from the alleyway behind the saloon into the main street. Just as she passed the mercantile at the edge of town, a man's voice behind her caused her to leap in fright. She whirled to stand shaking, one hand pressed to her chest, the other clutching her shotgun. Vin Tanner raised his hands to her from where he sat on the edge of the boardwalk, and smiled. "Well, don't shoot me."
Opal felt herself sag in relief. "You shouldn't scare a body like that, Mr. Tanner."
"You know, my friends call me Vin." He relaxed and went back to peeling the orange he held in his hands, his eyes looking amused. "Come an' sit down here a minute. I wanna' talk to ya'." Opal shrugged, her eyes drawing closed and becoming something she could hide behind.
"What do you want?" She sat down a little distance away from him on the boardwalk, regarding him silently.
They stared at each other for a moment, Vin weighing something there that eluded him. He knew a little about Opal, so he could understand the defensiveness with which she faced him. What he couldn't understand was why she was always shaking. He began to wonder if she was ill. He saw her swallow heavily then, and still the trembling some. Maybe she just startled easily, he thought. It wouldn't be unexpected, given what he'd heard about her husband.
"Saw you headed out by yourself. I'm not sure that's a good idea right now." He finished peeling the orange as he spoke, and tore it into sections. Casually, as he put one of them into his own mouth, he leaned out to hold one out to the woman. She shook her head silently, but he urged it on her and smiled slightly when she took it. The woman looked at the fruit in her hand, then at Vin.
"My saplings will die." Opal shook her head with determination, then bit into the section of orange and began to eat it. "I have to go care for them. I have stayed in town too much lately as it is."
"Opal, there might be some men out along your way here that it'd be better not to meet up with. You oughtta' think about stayin' around town today. Maybe tomorrow, too." Vin lowered his gaze quickly so she wouldn't see the triumph he felt as she finished eating the fruit.
"I have my shotgun."
"Well. . . " Vin produced a napkin from somewhere, again as casually as if he ate his breakfast on the boardwalk every day of the week, and unfolded it to reveal several biscuits nestled inside. He broke one in half and began to eat it, again offering the other part to the small woman nearby. She took it with a little less hesitation, and began to eat it. Vin wanted to laugh with pleasure when he saw her eyes widen, discovering that there was jelly spread inside the biscuit. But instead he picked up the second biscuit and broke it apart thoughtfully as he weighed the words he was dragging out as long as possible. "I don't know," he said finally, drawling in a slow way as he shared out the second biscuit, "Did Buck ever get around to oilin' that thing for you?"
"Yes." Opal held the shotgun out to him to inspect, and Vin picked it up and broke open the breech and inspected the action while Opal finished eating what he had given her. Only when he saw from the corner of his eye that she had finished, did he snap the weapon shut and hand it back to her.
"Well, looks like ol' Buck did a good job for ya'. Enjoy the mornin', then, Opal." He grinned.
Opal stood up and took several steps away from him, and smiled. "Yes. Thank you." She ducked her head shyly, and added, "Vin."
She turned and hurried away. Vin stood there a moment, watching her. There was something furtive and hunted in her gait that made him frown. He sighed and looked up as Chris's lean form headed out of the shadows on the far side of the street and came towards him. Vin stood up and nodded to his friend, folding up the hotel napkin as he did so.
"Havin' a picnic?" The gunman's sardonic smile traveled up and down Vin, and then trailed lazily out to the road where Opal's form was rapidly vanishing in the early morning.
"Somethin' like that." Vin grinned broadly.
"Well," Chris's face narrowed and he looked more serious. "Julianna Carson won't press charges against the man we've got locked up. We're going to have to let him go this morning."
"You think he's connected somehow to all this--?"
Chris smirked. "Think we might find a tracker around here who could follow him and find out?"
Vin nodded, smiling to himself. "Good thing I already had breakfast," he said.
The sun was nearly overhead, and Vin Tanner reined in to take a sip of water from his canteen. Tucker's trail made less and less sense the farther he went, and he was starting to get frustrated as well as hot. The man had headed in a beeline almost due west when he left town, then joined several other riders and turned northward. Then the riders had split up again, and Vin had trailed out several of the individuals before returning to start over again from the split point. By now, he was pretty sure he knew which way Tucker's horse had gone, but not much else; the men had dismounted and milled around at the split point enough, and the way the horse had moved had changed enough, that almost anything was possible. The men could have changed to fresher mounts, doubled up riding, or even picked up a load of something left for them at the site and packed it up over one or more of the horses they were on. The tracker sighed and looked up as a shadow flitted across him, to see a lone buzzard sliding past on the hot air. As he watched it, it swung in a lazy arc back over a low ridge about half a mile distant, and disappeared.
Seeing as how the one set of tracks he hadn't followed yet led more or less in that direction, Vin sighed and legged on his gelding. Probably nothing more than scraps from a nooning were attracting the bird, but he figured he ought to check anyway. When he crested the rise, though, he discovered he was dead wrong.
Vin was off his gelding and moving down the slight slope with long strides before the animal had come to a complete stop, his heart leaping to bang against his ribs. This was -- what was this? Men, lots of them, dead or at least dying and laying in horrible positions all over the slope, their arms thrown wide and eyes staring, all of them stripped of their clothing. He knelt at the first man to touch gentle fingers to his neck, but stopped when he saw the gaping chest wound, no longer bleeding because it was too late. The next one was dead, too. And the next. The tracker moved on, checking, rolling some of them over to feel for a pulse, listen for a heartbeat. Surely some of them were still alive.
But no one was.
Vin straightened, felt the hair rising on his neck as he looked around in confusion. Why and how would this many men come to be here, like this, and who. . . the realization broke over him, and he caught his breath, turned to run back to his horse, back to tell Chris, back to warn the others. How the hell could he have been so stupid as not to see--
Suddenly he was on the ground. He could see the pebbles next to his face clear as day, and a little bunch of gramma grass dry as grasshopper wings from the heat. Damn, how had he . . . Vin blinked against the sudden pain that exploded in his shoulder and the blackness that roared up out of it and broke over his head and knew then what had happened. Still, he thought. He had to lay still. At least until he knew where they were.
Barry Jones smiled with satisfaction and slid his rifle back into the scabbard on his saddle. "C'mon," he said, "he ain't gonna' tell no one nothin'."
"You mean--" Tucker looked at Jones, then back at Tanner's form on the ground 50 yards distant. Jones was starting to ride off, and Tucker grabbed the reins of his horse. "Ain't you gonna' make sure he's dead? I told ya' he's been trackin' us. He was trackin' ME."
"I heard ya'. That's why we came back, was to see if he'd followed you far enough to find all this." Jones regarded the older man with a bitter smile laced with malice. "If you're worried about it, go get his horse. He ain't goin' nowhere, but without a horse he's dead no matter what."
Tucker hesitated as Jones turned his roan and headed back to the others, then nodded to himself as he rode back towards the black that was still standing ground-tied. It snorted and rolled its eyes at Tucker's approach, the scent of blood thick in its nostrils from the dead who were far too close.
"Hurry up!" Jones' voice was dangerously impatient, ripping at Tucker's heels like a slashing knife. The older man leaned out of his saddle to grab the reins on Tanner's horse, turned his own back towards Jones, and moved out in a lope to catch up. The black shied as it stretched its neck out, led, and then settled into a run with its stirrups flapping.
The men and horses dropped over the ridge and silence settled again upon the slope. Heat waves shimmered, and a vulture dropped from the sky and walked cautiously up to one of the stripped men, then prodded it with a sharp beak. It flapped its wings to rise up a bit and perch upon the body's pale back, then cocked its head at the sound of a low moan nearby, shook itself and puffed its sleek black feathers. When the body that had emitted the moan moved, the bird shook itself again and rose into the sky in a lazy circle that dipped and wobbled over the scene of death as others of its kind came sliding in on the hot wind to join it. Then after a while, they settled again.
Vin had laid still a long time, waiting and listening, feeling the short grass under his hands, a large stone under one hip, seeing the impossibly white sky over his head, the sun far too bright all of a sudden. He'd closed his eyes against it, felt the heat baking through his shirt to join the fire that was drilling its way into his left shoulder. Where was the shooter? The question baked into him with the sun, and he was relieved to feel the reassuring heaviness of his gun still in its holster. He wasn't disarmed, at least. But where was the shooter now? He kept coming back to it, wondering if the slightest motion on his part would bring a second shot. Then he heard and felt the hoofbeats through the ground, throbbing into his head and his body, and pieced together the taking of his horse and the being left there. He waited another long moment, to make sure they were gone. Listening.
He heard nothing more except here and there a soft sound he couldn't quite identify, but that he knew should know. A low hissing and an odd click -- he recognized it then for the sound of a carrion birds feeding. If they were here, he realized, the shooter was long gone. It wasn't easy to roll to a sitting position, and he had to laugh ruefully at the explosion of startled birds that rose up when he did, but when he saw what they'd been doing he shook his head. If he wasn't back to town pretty soon, that was what awaited all of them. He had to get back to town and warn Chris and the others.
Somehow.
The tracker sighed as he unknotted his bandanna and slid it from his neck, folded it clumsily into a pad, and pressed it beneath his shirt to the place that was bleeding a little faster than he'd like to have seen. It was a long walk back, and his canteen had gone with his saddle. He looked up into the sky at the vultures that had gone back to circling warily, and shook his head at them.
"Sorry to disappoint ya', Boys," he said softly. He pushed his good arm against the ground to lever himself into a position he could stand from, and was satisfied with the firmness in his legs when he got them under him. All right. This wasn't too bad. He stopped to undo two of the shirt buttons just below his chest so he could slip his left hand in there up past the wrist, and the support made the whole thing feel a lot better. "Yeah," he muttered to himself, nodding. "This is gonna' work fine." He re-settled his hat on his head, steadied his injured shoulder by wrapping his good arm around the bad, and started walking.
At first it was just hot. He stopped carefully at the most open places, and skirted the rises that would throw him into clear relief against the sky, but other than that it was just a matter of going back to town without a horse. Didn't especially like it, but it could be done. He thought about Buck's latest lady interest, Julianna; about the way Opal Jones had looked when she'd found the jelly in the biscuit; of the way Mary wiped her hands nervously on her apron when she was talking to Chris, and how Nettie peeled apples with the peeling all in one long curling ribbon and . . . Man, his thoughts were really starting to get away from him. Vin pulled up, panting, to catch his breath and clear his head. The buzzing he'd thought was cicadas resolved itself into a ringing in his own head, and he sighed. Looked around to see where he was.
Not there yet, that's where. The tracker studied the land and the realized he'd somehow wandered a bit too far north, but a little jog of his trail to the south along the flank of this hillside should remedy that. It stood to reason he'd get a little turned around, sticking to the low places the way he'd been doing. Yeah, that was it. He looked at the sun, felt the wind, took careful bearings and headed out again. By the lengthening of the shadows the sun was fixing to go down soon, and then it would cool off. Hope I'll get back in time to warn Chris, though, he thought. I sure thought I'd get back before this. He stumbled but caught himself, and then hesitated when he saw a small patch of dark shade beneath an overhanging rock.
No. If he stopped now it would be too hard to get going again, and he knew it. And he had to get back. Vin thought of the dead men on the slope again, the vultures sailing in feet-first to land on them, and shuddered. Someone had to get out there and bury them, and someone had to make sure it didn't happen to Chris or JD or . . . Vin paused, realizing he wasn't moving. He was standing, but somehow he wasn't walking and he hadn't been for a while only he didn't really know how long. Well shoot. He took a deep breath, held his arm a bit closer against his body to steady the pain that shot through it with each step, and made himself move along again. He looked ahead to where the slope came out into a little bluff that dropped to a mesquite tree and focused on that as his goal. It wasn't very far -- hardly even a footrace distance away. He'd get there, and then he could see a little farther and decide what next. But first he'd get to that bluff and the mesquite tree and it wasn't very far away and he could do that. Yes.
And then after a little while, he got there. When he did, he looked up ahead and saw a dead cottonwood tree, its branches shattered into stumps by winter winds and rot, and that became his next goal. The cottonwood tree, he thought, I'm just going to go to the cottonwood tree. It's not that far, and when I get there, I can decide again what next. The cottonwood tree. Just to the cottonwood tree.
This time it took a little longer to get there. And when he did, his legs tried to tell him he should sit down for a while and lean up against it, but he didn't listen to them because he knew he couldn't get up again if he did. He looked around hoping to see water somewhere because of the presence of the tree, and the very thought made the thirst he'd kept shoved down leap up like a rattlesnake and strike him so hard he staggered from it. God he was thirsty! But the tree was dead, and there wasn't any water, and he looked ahead and picked out his next goal and kept walking.
After a long time he realized it was getting dark, then after a longer time that the stars had come out. He found himself in familiar territory and knew he was getting closer to town now. Not much farther, Tanner, he said to himself. This isn't bad at all and you can do it. Think how nice a cup of water will be. A stone turned beneath his boot and he hit the ground suddenly, hard, and bit back a cry as his shoulder hit the ground and blew sparks through his head. He couldn't stay there, had to get up, or he wouldn't be able to.
So he got up. He looked ahead at the familiar landscape and the starlight and told himself he could make it easy now, and started walking again. And the night -- and the way home -- stretched out. And out. After a long time he just put one foot in front of the other one, without thinking, without planning, without looking. He knew where he was, and all he had to do was keep moving and he'd get there. Then he could sit down and have a drink and his shoulder would stop -- what would his shoulder stop doing? Why did it hurt like that? He shook his head, trying to remember how he'd come to be out in the night on foot, no past and no future but only an endless aching thirsty hot Now. Didn't matter. Had to warn Chris. Had to tell them -- had to tell them -- Vin's mind paused as he shoved his foot ahead on the gravel and sand yet one more time, and shifted his weight and dragged up the foot left behind by the movement and then pushed it forward and did the same thing. Over again. And over. What was it he had to tell Chris? It seemed to be slipping out of his fingers and he couldn't hang onto it but he knew it was really important.
Oh yes. The dead men, all of them killed and stripped and left there. Needing to be buried, needing to be warned. Someone had to warn them.
And thinking that, Vin found himself standing in front of a darkened building in a darkened street and realized he'd made it back without even realizing it. He looked around, shaking, for Chris or maybe Buck. There was no one. Everything was dark, locked up, closed tight. The tracker took a single step forward towards the building closest to him, trying to see what it was. It was the saloon.
If the saloon was closed, it had to be late. Maybe after 2 in the morning. Chris would be out at his cabin. Vin struggled against the feeling of despair that rose in him at the thought. No more walking; he just couldn't make it out there and that was all there was to it. But maybe JD was at the jail. JD could get Chris, could maybe give him a cup of water. He turned slowly to look down the street towards the jail, the shaking in his legs getting worse, and willed himself to walk towards it like he'd willing every single step for so long he couldn't remember any more. But nothing happened. He tried harder, and felt his legs start to move but somehow it was all wrong and he felt himself stepping backwards, the wrong way, his knees bending and his legs folding up under him and oh no, oh no, can't stop now. . .
But he kept falling and hit the dirt of the street in a deep shadow at the edge of the boardwalk not far from a horse trough, and rolled over to his side once trying to get back up, groaned sharply at the pain that seared his whole being at that movement, and then lay still.
Unseen.
DAY 4
Opal stood in the dark of the saloon kitchen trying to remember where the mop bucket had gone. She always rinsed it after closing and put it here, but it wasn't here. So where was it? She searched her memory only a moment before remembering that she'd been so upset by what had happened to Julianna that she'd never brought it in from the front walkway after finishing the saloon floor the night before.
The small woman hurried out the back and around through the alleyway to the front of the building, to sigh with relief when she saw the dark shape near the saloon doors that she knew was the bucket, the mop's handle even dimly visible still standing up out of it. She went to it quickly and lifted out the mop, frowning at the smell after it had sat in dirty water all night. Oh well, have to clean it too, she thought. But first the bucket. Opal leaned the mop up against the wall and carried the heavy bucket to the edge of the walkway, lifting it in a graceful arc that threw the water in it out into the dark street in a long, low splash. Then she stepped down off the walk and went up to the horse trough, raising the bucket to dip it in and fill it with the cold heavy water there so she could slosh it around and then toss it out once again.
But there was something there, in the shadows, in the street, near the trough. Opal froze, her eyes on the indistinguishable darker patch in the street, the bucket in both her hands and at chest level. What was that? She leaned forward almost imperceptibly, her weight shifting so she was ready to run off even as she did, and held her breath. It looked like a pile of blankets or something, but why would someone have put it there? Was it garbage someone had just dumped in the street? When nothing happened, the woman set the bucket down very softly and took a single cautious step towards the thing. It looked bigger than she'd thought now that she could see it better. And there was something odd about the way -- the way it was --
Opal felt her breath catch in her throat when she realized she was looking at a human being. Oh my god, she thought, someone has died in the street! She took a few hurried steps towards it, whether him or her she could not say, her heart ticking like a watch as terror squeezed her back even as compassion urged her forward. A few more steps, and Opal heard her own voice cry out softly in horror as she ran the final steps to bend over the dark form. She dropped to her knees and reached a shaking hand to touch the man's hand, her mouth suddenly gone dry.
"Mr. . . Mr. Tanner?"
His skin was hot and dry to the touch. He didn't move at all, didn't even seem to be conscious. But how--? Opal leaned closer over him trying to see him in the dark, but the only thing she could really discern was that it was in fact the tracker and that he was unconscious. She put her hand out to shake his shoulder to see if she could awaken him somehow, and felt the warm slickness that she knew had to be blood. Oh god! Blood. He was hurt. She looked up wildly, panic making her uncertain of what to do. She needed to get his friends, run for Mr. Jackson at least, but how could she leave him lying here in the street? She started to stand up, then wrung her hands and bent over him again.
"Please, Mr. Tanner," she pleaded, "wake up. Please."
She slid one arm beneath his neck when he didn't respond, and raised his head to see if she could tell how heavy he was. She was a small woman but she'd learned to put her back and legs into whatever work had to be done, digging holes and putting up fence and planting trees, and just maybe she could raise this man up off the ground if she really, really tried. She got him up into something of a sitting position, although he trailed back over her arm, and then she drew his uninjured arm over her shoulder and got a good tight grip on his wrist, and wrapped her other arm around his waist and grabbed his gunbelt, pressed her lips together, and pushed herself up to a standing position, dragging Vin's dead weight with her. She staggered as he slid from her hold on his arm, his weight pulling against her neck and shoulders so hard that he began to fall across in front of her and pull her off balance. Opal staggered as she tried to move far enough to get back under his weight as it shifted, to keep him from pulling both of them to the ground. But she wasn't strong enough, and she felt her legs going out from under her as the weight of the unconscious man overpowered her. She fell almost on top of him when they finally went down, her skirt flashing up at her heels and her feet flying up at the last moment as she toppled. She lay panting, his arm still around her neck, the heat of it burning through her shirt into her shoulders, and felt tears of frustration sting her eyes. She wasn't strong enough. She just wasn't strong enough.
A slight cough from the darkness of the walkway made Opal look up in surprise to see that Mrs. Lansing, of all people, was standing there watching. Thank goodness!
"Please," gasped Opal, "get Mr. Jackson."
The woman stepped out of the shadows, closer to the edge of the boardwalk, and peered more closely at Opal.
"Is that Vin Tanner with you?"
"Yes. Please, Mrs. Lansing, get Mr. Jackson. I dare not leave Mr. Tanner in this condition."
"I can well imagine." The woman turned with a whirl of skirts that flashed in the darkness of early morning and Opal heard the rapid staccato of her footsteps hurrying away. She looked down at Vin and gently slipped his arm from her shoulder, laid it down next to him, and bit her lips. He was so still! She tried to hold her breath enough to see if she could tell if he was still breathing, but her heart was beating so loud that she couldn't hear anything but that. She touched his hand again, and again felt the heat that burned there. Surely he had to be alive, to be that hot, she thought. He had to be alive. He just had to be.
The rapid knocking on his door woke Nathan from his slumber. The pale light of sunrise was just creeping over the horizon telling him it was still early. He groggily staggered to the door. Nathan tried to keep the look of surprise off of his face when he saw Mrs. Lansing standing on the other side.
"Mrs. Lansing? Are you sick?"
"If I were sick could I be climbing up these stairs to see you?" Her tone told Nathan that she thought that was the stupidest question she'd ever heard. "It's your . . . friend, Mr. Tanner."
"Vin? Vin's sick?"
"Sick? Well, I don't think that's the problem. Unless you consider being dead drunk in the street being sick." She tapped her foot impatiently on the floor. Nathan grabbed his coat from a nearby chair.
"Vin drunk? That don't sound right. Are you sure?" Nathan had seen Vin put back his share of whiskey, but never to the point of being drunk. The ex-bounty hunter cared too much about staying in control, always being ready for whatever might come up.
"You don't believe me?" Mrs. Lansing was offended by his disbelief. "I saw him with my own two eyes. He's laying out in the street in front of the saloon. He's got that half-breed from the saloon with him. The two of them probably spent the night doing who knows what. She's the one who asked me to come get you. I would have let him lay there, if it had been up to me."
She stomped down the stairs disappearing around the corner. Nathan ran down the stairs as quickly as possible. In the dim light he could just make out the forms of Opal and Vin in front of the saloon. Opal's face relaxed in relief when she saw Nathan.
"Mr. Jackson, thank goodness. I tried to move him, to get him out of the street. He's burning up with fever. And he's been shot." She didn't have to say the last part. The first thing Nathan had noticed was the dried blood covering the shoulder of Vin's jacket.
"It's gonna be okay Miz Jones. I'll take care of him. Can you do somethin' for me?" Opal nodded, anxious to do anything to help. "I need you to go over to the church and get Josiah. Tell him to come to my room right away. Okay?"
As she started toward the church Opal stole a look over her shoulder. Nathan had picked up Vin's limp body and thrown him over his shoulder. In the stillness of the morning she could hear Nathan muttering encouraging words to his friend.
"It'll be all right Vin. You're home."
The sun was nearly up, and Chris watched long streamers of pearl light flash and glint as they struck the window pane where he stood looking out, trying not to drum his fingers on the sash. He knew Nathan was doing his best to figure out how bad it was with Vin and that nervous tapping wouldn't help matters any. Nevertheless, he could feel the muscles of his hands twitching with impatience. Most of the time they at least knew who and what they were fighting. But this: Vin disappearing and then showing up in such bad shape after obviously having been left somewhere to die -- his thoughts broke and he turned at the sudden sound of the door to Nathan's room creaking opened. A blast of dry wind swirled dust into the room as Buck slipped in apologetically and shut the door behind him. The wind dropped into silence and Nathan straightened with a sigh from where he'd been bent over the tracker lying on the bed.
"Buck, if you're gonna' go in an' out like that every two minutes, at leas' bring some more water with you next time." He wiped his hands on a towel hanging over the back of a nearby chair and regarded Buck with somber eyes. The gunman blushed and looked away.
"Sorry, Nathan. I'll go get some."
"No!" Chris and Nathan spoke and shook their heads in unison, Chris leaving the window to come between Buck and the door. "At least sit down or something until Nathan knows what's going on," he added.
Nathan sighed again. "Well, I know as much as I'm gonna' know now, Chris."
"And?" Chris's voice was low.
Nathan shrugged unhappily. "I got the slug out an' stopped the bleedin'. It ain't all that bad in an' of itself, but he's runnin' one hell of a fever even though I don't think it's from the wound goin' bad."
"What about walkin' in all this heat, like he musta' done?" Buck pulled his hat off as he spoke and used it to gently indicate the man on the bed.
"Yeah, that's prob'ly the reason it got so bad. Vin's a strong man but it couldna' been easy to walk back to town hurt like that an' without water. It woulda' been hard even if it wasn't hot." The healer regarded Chris with troubled eyes. "Fact is, this is one a' those times I wish I knew more about real healin' instead a' just sewin' folks up."
Chris shook his head slightly and laid a hand on Nathan's shoulder, his eyes softening. "You're too hard on yourself." The healer chuckled softly without mirth and Buck's eyes twinkled for a moment.
"Well, if anyone would know about that . . ."
Chris smiled very slightly and then sighed as his eyes fell to the face of the man on the bed, and Buck's gaze followed. The thin sheet laid over Vin's body rose and fell erratically in time with his rapid, shallow breathing, and his face was sallow against the pillow, his hair damp with sweat around the edges of forehead and flushed cheeks.
A soft knock on the door broke the silence that had fallen in the room. Buck, who was closest, opened the door expecting to find JD or Josiah. A surprised look crossed his face as he saw Julianna on the other side. He opened the door wider motioning for her to enter.
"I brought Mr. Jackson's . . . laundry." Julianna's voice faltered slightly as her eyes fell upon the man laying on the bed.
"Thank you ma'am. I appreciate that." Nathan took the package from her hands. Part of him wondered if Mrs. Lansing had sent her up to gather information, so that she could spread more rumors.
"I also wanted to see how Mr. Tanner was doing."
Nathan began speaking in reply, but his words were just a distant buzzing in her ears. She nodded in understanding even though the words were barely registering in her mind. Julianna moved closer to the bed noticing how fragile this usually strong man appeared now.
The three men exchanged puzzled looks as Julianna made the sign of the cross over Vin's chest. Julianna closed her eyes and began to speak.
"Deep peace of the running wave to you. Deep peace of the flowing air to you. Deep peace of the quiet earth to you. Deep peace of the shining stars to you. Deep peace of the gentle night to you. Deep peace of the son of peace to you. Moon and stars pour their healing light on you. Deep peace to you."
Julianna's voice which had begun soft and quiet, ended strong but gentle as she finished. The words had flowed off her tongue like a song. A blush crept over Julianna's cheeks as she saw the confused looks on the faces of Buck, Chris, and Nathan.
"It's . . . it's an old Gaelic blessing my grandmama taught me. She used to always say it over us when we were sick. She said it would bring a little peace to a person's soul while their body healed. I'm sure it must sound silly." Nathan reached over and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"I don't think it sounds silly at all ma'am. I'm sure it would mean a lot to Vin to know that people were thinkin' good thoughts for 'im."
"Well I best be goin'." Julianna smiled at the trio and turned toward the door. Buck held the door open for her as she left. He watched her slowly descending the stairs, her words echoing in his ears. Deep peace to you . . . Buck knew he'd heard those words before, just like he knew he'd seen Julianna before she arrived in Four Corners.
Chris shook himself as the door closed softly, and stepped closer to Vin, leaning down to lay his hand gently against his friend's face for a moment. He frowned at the intensity of the heat that rose immediately to his palm when he did so. "Any way of knowin' how far he walked? Or how long ago this happened?"
Nathan nodded towards the dusty shirt encrusted with dry blood that he'd cut off the tracker earlier. "You can see for yourself he bled a long time. Walked far enough he got some blisters on his feet, too." Nathan was shaking his head. "Had t' be before yesterday evenin', an' my guess would be closer to noon."
Chris's face grimaced with a flash of pain at the thought that Vin might have been alone and struggling that long. Almost immediately that look of pain was supplanted, however, by one of anger that made him compress his lips tightly and turn towards the door.
"Call me if there's any change. I'll be at the Sheriff's office," he said. He nodded to Buck. "C'mon. With Vin out of commission for a while," he paused to look again at his friend's face and then continued, "...we need to do some new planning about our problem."
"Yeah." Buck nodded to Nathan and followed Chris as the lean man opened the door and stepped out into what was rapidly turning from a fresh morning into an inferno. The door shut softly behind the two men and Nathan sat down heavily on the chair next to the bed, his eyes on Vin's face. He reached into a wash basin on the table next to him and drew out a cloth that he wrung and laid gently across the tracker's forehead.
"C'mon, Vin," he whispered, "fight it. I'll help ya' any way I can, but mos'ly you're gonna' have t' fight this one out yourse'f. An' I know you can do it, too. Jes' keep at it."
The man on the bed moaned softly and opened his eyes a fraction to regard Nathan with uncomprehending dullness. He closed his eyes again, whispering words Nathan strained to hear but lost in the sound of the tracker's gasping breaths. Nathan bent lower over his friend and drew the wet cloth down across the side of his face gently, then rewet it and laid it back in place. Vin stirred and opened his eyes once more, gazing at Nathan until a dim recognition stirred in the depths of his pale eyes and coalesced into something like panic. He struggled to speak but his voice was nonexistent. Nathan held a cup of water to Vin's lips and finally succeeded in getting some in, the sick man swallowing some of it and then coughing and choking on the rest. He looked up at Nathan despairingly, his whole body rigid with the effort to lay out words on the surface that lay between them. But all that came out at the last, a rough whisper that fell to the floor like an ember from a fireplace, was "Tell Chris."
Nathan shook his head and smoothed the bandages around Vin's shoulder as the tracker slid once more into the fever's grip. "I'd tell 'im if I knew what to say, Vin," he whispered to the sick man. "I'd tell 'im if I could."
Buck continued to turn the words over in his head . . . deep peace to you. Where have I heard that before? He could feel the memory floating just out of his reach. Buck thought back to the altercation with Tucker in the saloon. What had he called Julianna? Atchison . . . Atchison whore . . . Atchison . . . His mind wandered back to his own time in Atchison.
It had basically been a quiet town and his duties as deputy had been relatively few. He had to break up the occasional fight in the saloon, arrest a drunk or two. In the time he'd been there only one crime had really garnered his attention. A young girl in one of the brothels had been beaten by a man, beaten so badly she hadn't lived through the night. The sheriff and other deputy had told Buck to forget about it, nobody cared what happened to one of those women. He couldn't do that though. Buck quickly realized that his efforts were in vain. The other women in the house threw a brick wall up feigning ignorance as to who the man was when Buck questioned them.
He remembered the first time he'd seen the girl. She'd lain in a narrow bed in a small windowless room. Dark blond hair matted with blood. Her face bruised and bloodied, swollen so badly her own mother wouldn't have known her. Another young girl was keeping vigil at her bedside. A girl with wavy ebony hair that hung halfway down her back. She was singing to the girl in the bed. No, she was praying. Moon and stars pour their healing light on you. Deep peace to you.
Buck had cleared his throat to let her know he was there. She'd turned and looked at him with clear blue eyes filled with sorrow. The same eyes he'd seen filled with fear the day before, here, in Four Corners.
"Julianna." He said it like a soft swearing, a light suddenly flaming in his eyes.
"Buck?" Chris looked at his old friend, puzzled by the sudden outburst in the silence that had fallen.
"Julianna, the girl at the laundry. I just realized where I know her from." Chris waited for Buck to continue but he didn't. Buck only shook his head with a short, violent motion that Chris recognized as a refusal to discuss it any further at this point.
"I'll be back." Buck stomped out of the sheriff's office. He was angry with himself for not having recognized her earlier. But does she remember me, he questioned silently.
Buck checked behind the laundry first but found only empty clotheslines. He tried to be subtle as he paced back and forth in front of the windows on the face of the building, peeking in for a glimpse of Julianna. He could see Mrs. Lansing fixing the hem to a dress but there was no sign of Julianna. Like the others, Buck had little tolerance for Mrs. Lansing. Not only was she immune to his 'animal magnetism' but she delighted in spreading evil rumors. She seemed to especially enjoy spreading ones that concerned the seven men. Buck felt a flash of anger as he remembered Nathan repeating her words from earlier about Vin. The bell over the door rang cheerfully as he entered, fixing Mrs. Lansing with his most charming grin.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Lansing. You're looking as lovely as ever." She looked up from her sewing with suspicion.
"Mr. Wilmington. What can I do for you?"
"Well, I was looking for Miss Carson. I was hoping you might be able to tell me where I could find her."
"Is she in some kind of trouble?" Her eyes narrowed as she regarded the tall gunslinger.
"Oh no, not at all," Buck hoped he was not getting Julianna into more trouble, "I just needed to ask her a couple of questions."
"About?"
"There was a little trouble at the saloon yesterday and we're just trying to figure out who started the whole thing. Miss Carson was there and might've seen something. We're talkin' to everyone that was there."
"I heard something about that. I told her not to go inside. A saloon isn't any place for a lady. From now on if Mr. Cardiff wants his towels washed he can have them brought over. Isn't that what he's got that little half-breed for?" Buck cringed at her reference to Opal. He knew he had to keep Julianna's past to himself. If it got back to Mrs. Lansing, she'd be sure to fire Julianna.
"I suppose that's a good plan ma'am. Now, do you know where I can find her?"
"Oh yeah, well today isn't normally the day she gets the afternoon off but she'd finished her work and she said she wanted to go to the church and pray, so I let her go. Though it isn't much of a church and your friend isn't much of a preacher." Buck interrupted before she could say any more.
"I do appreciate your help Mrs. Lansing. I'll just be goin' now. I don't want to take up anymore of your time." Buck backed out the door quickly, glad to get away from her. He took his time walking to the church, unsure of what he was going to say to Julianna.
The afternoon sun filtered in the dusty windows throwing long shadows across the wooden floor. Buck entered quietly not wanting to disturb Julianna if she was praying. Julianna sat in the first pew, her head bowed and hands folded in her lap. He stayed near the door letting her finish in peace.
"Amen . . ." Julianna's voice was a mere whisper. Buck watched her wipe away tears with the handkerchief that had been clutched in her hands. A loud clanging outside drew Julianna's attention. She turned and saw Buck watching her. She knew by the look in his eyes that something that changed.
"Afternoon Buck." Julianna's voice wavered slightly.
"Julianna." Buck moved closer and took a seat in the pew behind her. She turned halfway on the bench toward him.
"How's Mr. Tanner?"
"About the same." Buck paused wondering how to bring Atchison up to her. "That blessing you said to Vin earlier. I heard it once before, when I lived in Atchison." Buck noticed her lower lip began to quiver. He reached out laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"You remember?" She was afraid to look at him.
"Yeah, I do." His voice was soft.
"It was him, you know, it was Tucker." Buck's other hand clenched in a fist. "I think in some way I'd forgotten about the whole thing. Until day before yesterday. Seeing him again, it brought it all back. It was like it had just happened." Julianna's body involuntarily shuddered as she talked. "The screams, the sound of her body hitting the floor. He told us if we said anything he'd come back and kill us."
Buck reached out stroking her hair gently. He wanted to put him arms around her and tell her she was safe. She began to wipe away the tears that had started to stream down her cheeks.
"And I remembered you. You were so kind, you only wanted to help us. We wouldn't let you. And him saying he recognized me, all that fear came flooding back. I was so scared that he was gonna tell people about me. Or that he was going to do to me what he did to her." Her words trailed off and she began to cry harder. Buck moved up to the first pew next to Julianna. He enveloped her in his arms letting her rest against his chest.
"It's okay. He'll never hurt you again. I promise you that."