"Ashes of Time"

Chapter 1

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'Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh.'

-Proverbs 3: 25

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Hot, dry sand scalds the back of his throat, coating it in a thick layer that makes him want to gag. But his body cannot cough; he barely has the strength to raise his head, every limb trembling from exhaustion and the abuse his mindless flight has done to it. He's close to dying— gone without water for too long, his body is starting to shut down, leaving him in a haze of confusion and fear, and he's almost forgotten why he's been running in the first place.

He opens bleary, stinging eyes and is surprised to discover that he's lying in a pool of water quickly turning to mud. A spring rain, he remembers now, come down from the mountains— wherever here is. His flight has led him into reaches of the desert he's never been in before, and he realizes he's stumbled blindly into a ghost town. No one to help him. No one to stop the madman on his trail.

And then a thin, easy whistling wafts up like a bad smell on the wind, the familiar tune of 'Frere Jaques' enough to send a bolt of terror racing through him. If he would only look over his shoulder he's sure he would see the tall, thin figure ambling easily towards him with rifle held ready in his arms.

Tanner has caught up to him, and he plans to put a bullet in Joe Cartwright's brain.

Joe's exhaustion prevents him from staggering to his feet. He has no spirit left for survival; he's running on unadulterated terror now, a cornered rabbit wounded and about to be torn apart by the hounds, and they both know it. He drags himself with elbows and knees, hands straining at the mud as if seeking purchase, until he reaches a broken water trough. Tanner is just reaching the outskirts of the town, his whistling low and steady. But the footsteps are suddenly different now, no longer the soft and careful tread of an Army tracker, but heavy crunching under feet that bear a large weight. Three hundred pounds of weight to be exact, and Joe's heart freezes in his chest as he realizes what those footsteps signify. Hardly daring to believe it he looks over his shoulder and the edge of the water trough, and he recoils.

"No,' he whimpers, pleading with a God he doesn't dare believe in now. He's frozen where he sits watching those cold eyes sight him cowering there and he can only wait.

"Joe."

The sweet, soft voice comes from in front of him and he twists back around to find himself facing a vision worse than what's approaching him from behind. He howls his denial and grief to the heavens but there is no answer except for a smile from the burnt and scarred face of his wife Alice. Her long brown hair is matted and crisp with ash, her skin blackened and shriveled; the yellow dress she had been wearing the day she'd been murdered is melted into her body, peeling away like wallpaper from burnt sinew and bone.

Her teeth are perfect and blindingly bright as she steps closer to him. "I'm here, Joe," she tells him happily with that beautiful voice he still misses every day. "Don't you miss me?" He recoils from her reaching hand.

"Wake up," he whispers desperately, trembling uncontrollably. "Wake up, Cartwright, wake up!"

"'Fraid this ain't a dream," comes the voice from behind him, and hoss walks into view holding the rifle ready in his large hands. His clothes are soaked and he's lost his beloved ten-gallon white hat, and there's a hardness to his features that is even more frightening than Joe's dead wife. "And you cain't escape what happens now, little brother." He shifts the rifle expertly against his shoulder, aiming carefully. "Luckily you ain't gonna see the mess this bullet makes of your head."

The rifle's safety clicks in the defining silence as lightning flashes from the grant clouds far above, and the last thing Joe Cartwright knows is the roar of the rifle as his brother pulls the trigger—

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He wakes up screaming, sobbing his brother's name. The bed he's laying in seems too small, the blankets suffocating him as he tries to sit up. The house shakes from the force of thunder and the room is illuminated with another flash of lightning. He hears himself scream again, desperate to escape and run but the bed has captured him and he chokes on a haggard breath.

"Joseph!"

Soft gentle hands take hold of him, trying to calm him before he injures himself more, but Joe bats them away with his freed left hand. "Let me go!" he screeches. "Don't touch me! Let me go!" He can't make sense of anything; his world is hazy and unfocused, and he feels very cold, and although he feels his right arm throbbing with pain he can't seem to move it. That realization makes his elf-control dissolve entirely, and he's screaming obscenities and pleading all at once, and he knocks those reaching hands away once again.

"Ben!" a second voice exclaims. "Ben, let him go! Let him go, he's going to hurt you!"

"He's going to injure himself more, Paul!"

"Let him go— now! Candy— Candy, get in here and help me. Hold down his shoulders. Jamie, you hold down his legs, make sure he doesn't kick out."

There's movement and still caught within the vestiges of the nightmare Joe thinks the red-shirted figure bending over to pin him down is Tanner. He panics and bucks against the bed but his legs are already held immobilized; desperate to free himself he tries to move his right arm again and when that fails he spits in Tanner's face and when the man flinches back he bites him in the arm hard enough he can taste blood.

"Ouch! Sonofabitch! Damn it, Joe, stop it! We're only trying to help you. Doc— you gotta get hm calm right now, his fever's too high for him to be active like this—"

"Hold him, Candy. I can't take the risk of the needle missing the vein, it would hurt him even more. Ben, we need ice up here, and we need it now. I have to wrap him in ice, otherwise he's going to start having seizures if we can't bring that fever down."

Fever? He doesn't have a fever, he's only burnt by the sun, that's why he's so hot. He's fine, why can't they see that? The second pair of hands are there again, holding him down in an angle Joe can't lash out at; helpless, spent, and terrified he tosses his head from side to side, sobbing again. "Let me go," he whimpers, his breath rattling deep in his chest as he tries to get up again. His legs are still pinned, however, and he can't move them. "Please, let me go. Tanner…"

He hears a low sound from the end of the bed; a sob. "You're okay, Joe," his brother Jamie's voice chokes out in the darkness. "We're gonna help you."

Little brother Jamie. Big brother Hoss. Hoss, pointing Tanner's hunting rifle at him in that ghost town. Why? "Hoss," he moans, unable to stop his trembling. "Hoss… I need to see… Hoss." It's hard to speak; his speech is slurred no matter how hard he tries to stop it. The room grows deathly quiet at once. Insensible, Joe demands his older brother again.

It's the hands that hold his shoulders that answer. "Hoss will be here soon, Joe, real soon. Just go on back to sleep, okay? Jamie's right, we're gonna help you. Go to sleep."

The slim prick of a needle signifies he's lost the battle; he hasn't freed himself from his captors and Tanner's still out there whistling and waiting to kill him. Joe can't sleep now, he's got to keep moving, but he's going to die because he's being forced to sleep.

Alice is coming to get him. He recalls her burnt smiling face and his tears flow freely even as he slips away into oblivion. "Alice," he moans. "Alice, don't let him kill me…"

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A/N: Second chapter coming soon.