Note on Chronology: The bulk of this story occurs several years before the manga or anime begin. Aside from making use of the Manga calendar, in which July has not yet become "lost," this should work equally well for either universe.

Spoilers mostly only if you haven't seen the anime episode #13 "Vash the Stampede" or else read the chapter in the Trigun manga (yes, that's "Trigun," not the later "Trigun Maximum") titled "Scars."

Misc: In my head, I envision this as a movie. I hear it with Milly's voice also providing Martha's voice, Vash's voice (of course) doing Vash, Meryl's voice also doing Sally and one (or more) of the ladies who bring food, and Wolfwood's voice doing either Dusty or else Ike and Frank. Perhaps that idea may increase your enjoyment as you read this. ;-)

Ownership: I do not own Trigun, Trigun Maximum, "Meryl Stryfe," "Milly Thompson" or "Vash the Stampede": all of the aforementioned belong to the incomparable Mr. Yasuhiro Nightow. "Martha Fitzgerald" and the other inhabitants of the village are my own invention. I did my best to keep each one consistent with the world of Trigun.

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The Second Man

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Chapter 1: Tragedy

Year 0110 month 8 day 17

I put Milly's letter down on my desk, and smoothed it slightly with my left hand. I've nearly memorized it, since its arrival yesterday. There is really no need to read it again, nor to re-familiarize myself with its contents.

I will probably read it again anyway. I briefly smile at my own foolishness.

I turn and walk away from the desk, unintentionally rubbing at my left wrist with my right hand. When I realize what I am doing, I feel one corner of my mouth quirk upward again. I move the toes on my right foot, and smile more widely.

I am again remembering the second man. Thinking of him always makes me smile. His brief visit, nearly 20 years ago, completely changed the lives of every soul in this small farming village - including mine.

Those changes are a vast improvement over what we were becoming.

Everyone has been curious about his fate after he left us. As far as I know, I am the only one here to whom he ever told his name. Thanks to that, and thanks to Milly's letter on my desk (which came yesterday), I now know what nobody else does.

Or at least, it's something that nobody else here knows… Milly probably knows, or at least guesses. Otherwise, she'd not have written me this letter.

I am glad that I had told my young niece enough that she could recognize him. If I hadn't, she could not have written and sent me this letter. The letter has quickly become as precious to me as my own memories of the man it describes.

Since the baby was safely in her cradle for her afternoon nap, I sat down and relaxed. I let my mind drift back through the years, to a day that came slightly less than two months before my big-big sister's youngest daughter was born.

My thoughts drifted all the way back to that day when he arrived at our village...

...

Year 0092 month 2 day 8

Ike yelled at me at 11:32 am. I happen to recall it so precisely because I chanced to look at a clock at the time.

"Peggy!" Ike Hansen called down the stairs. There was an extra sharpness to his voice, making him sound more impatient than usual… perhaps even angry. "Get Sally and the kids locked into the cell for safety, and throw the key in. We're bringing down a prisoner!"

I rose unsteadily to my feet, and hobbled to obey… careful of my bad leg, as usual. My right foot and leg hurt every time that I stepped on it, as it always had. I grimaced, but tried not to let the pain slow me down too much.

Delaying while Ike was in this mood was not wise.

I did what Ike had ordered me to do. He was the sheriff, after all. My middle-big sister, Jane, had married him. That made him family, too. Both were good reasons to avoid provoking him, especially when he was in a foul mood.

I knew without being told that I should wait outside the cell after locking my sister and the little kids into it. If the prisoner somehow broke away from the deputies, I should try to fight him and keep him away from Sally and the little kids. While fighting the prisoner, I should be screaming loudly for others from upstairs to come and help.

Nobody cared what happened to me. I was the least valued person in the whole village, and I knew it.

"Done," I called up, when I had accomplished all that he asked. I began hobbling toward them, curious to see the prisoner. I folded my arms across my chest, tucking my malformed left hand under my right forearm. That kept it warm, and out of sight.

At least my status as the last-ditch effort to protect my big-big sister, and the little kids, permitted me a front-row seat to whatever was happening.

Ike and Dusty had a lanky blond man whom they were wrestling down the stairs. His hands were cuffed. The little I could see of his face, through his abundant unruly hair, looked as if his face was swollen and bruised. He was doubled over and stumbling, and clutching at his gut as though he'd received some kind of injury there. Since he was all doubled over, it was difficult to tell how tall or short he was.

I winced, too familiar with those pains. I couldn't help sympathizing with a fellow sufferer. My right hand instinctively rose to the crescent-shaped scar that disfigured one side of my face. When I felt my own fingertips against my cheek, I quickly lowered my hand to its former position.

I had more than my fair share of scars. My bad foot made me clumsy when walking, so it wasn't especially unusual for me to trip or stumble, and fall onto something sharp. Rakes, hoes, or even shovels could cut skin deeply enough to leave a scar. And that's only the smaller stuff… It wasn't unusual for some of the other kids to "help" me fall, either.

The man wore a long coat that was so covered with dust and dirt that it was difficult to tell its color. Daylight coming through the windows shone on a silvery loop attached to his left earlobe. Dark leather boots covered his feet.

"Please," the prisoner said softly, through his swollen and bruised mouth, "let me go so that I can stop him from hurting anybody else."

"Do I look like some kind of idiot?" Ike snapped.

He and Dusty threw the man through a doorway and onto the floor of the nearest cell.

"Like he-" Dusty glanced past me, probably at a disapproving expression from Sally, and hastily revised what he had nearly said.

Dusty was the next youngest, except for me. So a disapproving look from Sally, our big-big sister, would remind him of his manners.

"Like heck we're going to turn you loose, so that you can kill more people!" he shouted. "We may be farmers, but we're not stupid!"

They both repeatedly kicked the man in his sides and stomach, with their pointy-toed Thomas-riding boots. He curled up, trying to protect his body with his arms and legs, but they kept kicking him.

"No!" I shouted.

I pulled at their arms, and tried to get between them and the man on the floor. I was hoping to stop them from hurting him. They pushed me out of the way, and continued.

"Don't," the prisoner pleaded.

His protests quickly grew weak, and then faded away unheeded. The man spit blood, and then he went completely limp.

Dusty swung back his leg, as if he planned to kick the helpless man lying unconscious on the floor - again.

"Stop it!" I screamed. I desperately grabbed my brother's arm with my good hand, and pulled hard enough to turn him around. "You'll kill him!"

"So what?" he snarled. "He killed almost everyone in the southeast fields of the O'Dell farm today, before we got there. That includes our little-big sister, Nancy, and both of our brothers. They were all cut up, Martha. They were sliced to ribbons. He was bending over old Mildred McCall when we arrived, holding her wrist where he'd cut it. Bob, Liam, Joe and Seamus are looking after her and Hank… Mildred and Hank seem to be the only ones that he didn't finish killing before we arrived. We don't know yet if they will survive."

"Oh, no!" I gasped, horrified.

Tears came into my eyes, and, for a few heartbeats, I was as still as a stone. It was too much to take in all at once. Then I looked down at the man who hadn't fought back – not even to defend himself. Somehow, I just could not believe that he was the one who had done this terrible thing.

"Did you see him kill them?" I asked.

"No, but the bodies were there and he was there," Ike said. "That's all the evidence we need."

"But he might be telling the truth," I said, edging more completely between them and the unconscious man. "He didn't fight back, not even to defend himself, while you were kicking him. If Hank or Mildred lives, then they can tell us what happened. Shouldn't we at least wait to see what they have to say? If we don't, we will be worse than whoever killed the others!"

Dusty growled something that I couldn't quite catch. He and Ike both scowled at me.

"We'll still strip him," Ike finally said. "We need to make sure that he doesn't have any other weapons. Get out of our way, Peggy, so we can do our job."

I reluctantly moved out of their way. I quickly wiped tears from my face, and watched.

They took off his long dusty coat, which revealed a strange leather outfit. His leather clothes reminded me of some of those very old pictures of people who had survived the Great Fall. There were an insane number of buckles holding his leather clothes in place.

Ike reached into his back pocket. "I'll cut these &^#% things off!" he growled.

I quickly volunteered to undo all those buckles, before he could cut any of them.

"What if he's a lawman?" I said. "He might not like it if we mess up his clothes. I'll undo the buckles, if you don't want to do it."

"If he was a lawman," Ike said, "he should have a badge. And he should have identified himself as a deputy, or a marshal, or whatever he is."

"Don't be stupid, Peggy," Dusty said.

Ike uncuffed the man, and gestured to Dusty. They stepped back a few paces, with their guns aimed at him.

"Go ahead and undress him, Peggy," Ike said. He was starting to sound more tired and less angry, but I knew from prior experience that this was also a dangerous mood. Even though when Ike's hand flew at me, it was usually open... I still wished to avoid provoking him, especially when he was already this riled.

I began working on the prisoner's buckles and straps. Soon I was blinking back tears. I had thought that I was badly scarred, but this man… the more I uncovered, the more scars I found. He had perhaps ten times as many scars as I did.

I suddenly felt guilty for every time I'd pitied myself, because of my scars.

It took time to unfasten his clothes. I only have one functional hand, and there were a lot of buckles. It was especially uncomfortable work with Ike and Dusty both glowering impatiently over my shoulders the whole time. I was surprised to see that his left arm was artificial. I couldn't help glancing at my own useless left hand, and briefly wondering if his false hand worked any better than my misshapen hand. I quickly continued unbuckling his leathers, fearful of kicks aimed at me (or him) if I dawdled.

I finally got the stranger stripped down to his underwear. More blood had trickled from his mouth as I worked. There was a gurgling sound when he breathed that worried me.

"Please," I said, "at least put him up onto one of the beds? Give the poor soul a chance to live, and answer the charges against him."

"Be cheaper for everyone if he dies," Dusty said angrily.

I turned enough to stare Dusty straight in the eye. "Not if he's innocent," I said.

We glared at each other for the space of several heartbeats before Ike muttered, "You're both Fitzgeralds, all right. You lot are all too dang stubborn for your own good."

Ike said nothing more, but he did gesture to Dusty. They grabbed the prisoner by his shoulders and heels. They lifted him up with – for them – reasonable gentleness, and laid him on one of the prison cell's beds.

This cell, like each of the other four, had three bricked-in walls and one that was bars. The wall to the outside had two small, barred windows in it near the ceiling. The wall that was made entirely of bars, and contained the door, faced the wide hallway.

Two bench-beds were attached to two of the brick walls, filling one corner of the bricked-in walls. The other corner with two brick walls had the sink and toilet. Some of the other cells also had upper bunks, but this one did not.

There were two cells on the side of the building with the staircase, and three on the opposite side. There was a barred door at the foot of the stairs, in addition to the barred walls and doors of each cell. The hallway between the individual cells could serve as another cell, if needed. The hall had benches along its center, with rings in the floor to secure chains.

Most times, the hall and its benches were used by people who were visiting.

I persuaded Ike and Dusty to lay the poor man on his side. They grudgingly shifted him so that he rested on his left side. They shackled his wrists and ankles before they left the cell, which seemed a needless precaution since the poor fellow was hurt so badly that he was struggling simply to breathe. The shackle chains ran through rings in the floor.

"I'll look after him," I said, as I hobbled into the cell and sat down on the other bench-bed. I held up his head a little, worried about that gurgling sound when he breathed. I didn't want him to drown, inside, in his own blood.

"Please," I said, "bring a bucket and some rags to wash him, a blanket to cover him, and a few pillows to prop up his head."

"Anything else you want, your highness?" Ike mocked, performing an elaborate bow.

I glared at him. "I'll not leave him alone so that you can kill him while my back is turned!"

"It should keep her out of our hair for awhile," Dusty said grudgingly.

"Fine," Ike said. "You go get what she wants, and see how lunch is coming along while you're at it."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Dusty grumbled. "When Peggy's busy, I get all the dirty work."

"Get used to it," Ike said, sounding slightly more cheerful. "She may be busy for awhile."

Dusty glared at him as they locked me into the cell with the hurt man. They both went upstairs.

"Hold on, please," I whispered softly, hoping to encourage the battered prisoner. "Don't die." I could smell his sweat and blood, but I could also smell the desert winds on him.

I'd enjoyed the smell of those winds when breezes came, on days when I helped work in someone's fields. I wondered how long he'd been out in the desert, to have that smell on him strong enough to even notice along with the stronger smells of his sweat and blood.

I heard Sally turning the keys in the door of the cell where we'd been playing with the children. She came to stand just outside the barred wall of the cell I was in. She was moving carefully, because she was nearly 8 months pregnant.

My sister had to move carefully because of the size and weight of her coming child. Sally already had several children, but that experience hadn't helped her to move gracefully in the last months. She'd started talking constantly about what a relief it would be when the baby was born, so that others could take turns holding him or her, over a month ago.

The town had a betting pool going as to whether this child would be another girl, or else another boy.

"If Ma had lived longer, Dusty might be more civilized," Sally said sadly. "I still sometimes wonder at Jane choosing Ike, too. Thankfully, my Jake is a man with both justice and some kindness in his heart. He will stand with us, when he hears what happened."

I nodded silently, too torn between grief and anger to find any polite words to say.

I knew that Sally didn't mean to hurt me. She was the closest thing to a friend I had in the whole town, except, perhaps, for old Mildred. They were the only ones who always called me "Martha," my real name, instead of "Peggy" – a reference to how my right foot was crippled, and functioned more like a peg-leg than a foot.

I could never forget the glares that most of our neighbors bestowed upon me, when they reminded me that my mother had died on the night when I was born. It hurt, every time I saw those glares or thought about them. There had been absolutely nothing I could do, but they all blamed me anyway.

It had been my parents' anniversary. Pa had rented a Thomas-carriage, and taken Ma to a fancy restaurant in December, 173 iles away. Something had spooked the animals, and the driver had lost control of them long enough for their excitement to overturn the carriage. I was born prematurely, with a damaged hand and foot. Ma had died.

I've seen pictures of her. She was beautiful. People tell me that she was kind, wise, gentle and courteous, and had a way about her that brought out the best in others.

She'd been the town's schoolteacher. She was replaced by a grumpy man – so grumpy that his wife had left town ten years ago, and never come back.

The younger school-age children are currently taught by his younger sister, who's nearly as stern and impatient as he is. Those two make the children grumpy, which causes grumpy parents, and that results in people glaring at me a lot.

It hadn't helped when Pa drank himself to death, five years after Ma's death, either. I've been told that he had never touched a drop of alcohol… before she died. I wish I could have known him then, instead of the way he was during those five years.

The other children act on their parents' feelings. I am the brunt of every joke, the target of every prank. I learned long ago that there was no use in complaining about it. They've all made up their minds about me, and nothing I say or do will change that.

They treat me as if I'd killed her. They don't think my life is worth my mother's death.

I'm not sure that I disagree with them. Unfortunately, I cannot trade places with her. Ma's gone, and I'm here. That's simply the way it is. It's not much of a life, but it's all that I have.

The injured prisoner stirred, pulling my meandering thoughts back to the present and giving me a fine excuse to avoid saying anything to my big-big sister. He grabbed my right forearm, near where my normal hand supported his head.

"Children?" he said softly, and then he coughed and gasped in pain. His grip loosened, but he did not let go.

"Shh! Don't try to talk," I said gently. "You might hurt yourself. Yes, there are children here, but I won't let them bother you while you're healing."

He coughed, winced, and gasped out the words, "Not here. Where they caught me. Children, crying…" his grip my forearm tightened again. "Help them, please!" His wide, blue-green eyes – which were partly swollen shut, from the beating he'd received – spoke eloquently of his concern, until they were again closed as he grimaced in pain.

"O my God," I blurted out. Believing that God knows all that is in my heart, the rest of my prayer was a heartfelt, wordless hope that the (unattended?) children were all right.

I looked up at Sally, shocked by his words. "Were Ike and the deputies so eager to beat this poor man that … could they have forgotten the children? Did they leave the little ones there, in a farmhouse surrounded by their parents' dead bodies?"

Almost everyone in our village took turns helping, when harvest time came. Each year we started at a different farm, and rotated around the village clockwise until all of the farms were completely harvested. It had been an extra-hot summer this year, so harvest-time came a little earlier than usual. This year, it was the O'Dell farm's turn to be harvested first.

That's where the killer had attacked.

Most of the children's parents were probably dead, killed earlier today. Their elder siblings would still be in school at this hour, so nobody would be asking about them… at least, not yet.

"I'll go upstairs and ask," Sally said. She looked a little pale.

I nodded at her, and then looked down at the poor prisoner. "We'll send someone to check," I told him. The children won't be left there alone."

"Mildred… Hank?" he asked softly, still struggling to breathe.

"They're probably being taken to December, to the hospital," I said. "They're still alive, or at least they were the last I heard."

"Thank …" he began. He coughed, and passed out, before he could say anything else.

The little children were all standing crowded against the barred wall, peering in. Their eyes were large with curiosity.

The severe heat of any summer was best escaped by going to a room that was at least partially underground. There were three buildings with basements in our town. One was the bank, where the vault was. It wasn't a place for children, the bankers said. We chose not to argue with them about that.

Another was the building whose purpose changed according to each day of the week. On Sundays, it was the church. On Saturdays, it was the courthouse or the town meeting house, or (mostly in the evenings) a potluck and dance hall. On those days, the little children could play downstairs there.

Monday through Friday, it was the schoolhouse. Older kids were upstairs, taught by the grumpy schoolmaster. Younger kids were downstairs, taught by his sister. On school days, that wasn't a fit place for those too young to take classes to go and escape the heat.

The third building with a basement was the Sheriff's office. The downstairs area held the jail cells, which were usually empty. When any cell had someone in it, the occupant was generally one of our village lads who'd "had a few too many." He could sleep off his excesses there, instead of making a nuisance of himself elsewhere.

It became the practice for half the little children to be cared for in the jail on weekdays, while the other half were at whatever farm was getting assistance, during the harvest. That's how the community looked after the youngest children, freeing up the individual parents to help out with the harvest.

At 16, I'd already discovered that the really little kids had not yet learned to despise me for being a cripple. They were just happy to have someone who would play with them.

So I knew that their stares had nothing to do with either my bad foot or my misshapen and useless hand. They were all wide-eyed about the stranger among us, and nothing else.

I hoped and inwardly prayed that Sally would return before the questions started. I felt ill equipped to provide answers to these young children right now. I didn't want my own bitter disappointments to injure their innocent young minds.

I turned my attention back to the man whose head rested on my right hand. His grip on my forearm was gradually releasing. He might have bruised me, in his urgent concern for the children.

He might be dying. Yet when he could speak, his concern had all been for our children and our injured people – not for himself. This, added to his lack of resistance as they beat him, persuaded me that he must be innocent of the murders of which he was accused.

Besides, the reason they suspected him was from finding him there bending over someone who was wounded but still alive. They never said they found any kind of cutting weapon on him, even though they'd said everyone who died had been sliced up.

This man who might have spent his last breaths worrying about our children and our injured people… he seemed like the last person in the universe who would deprive those people of their lives, or those children of their parents.

I heard Sally's careful footsteps coming down the stairs, and sighed with relief. "They've returned to the O'Dell farm, to check on the children," she said. "Between learning who brought it up, and the scolding that I just gave them, hopefully they'll be more willing to help you look after this poor man, Martha."

I looked up gratefully, and smiled at her. She was carrying pillows and blankets, and trying to balance those well enough around the substantial bulge in her middle to unlock the door of the cell that I currently shared with the injured prisoner.

"Thank you," I said.

She smiled back, and then worked her way through the door and closed it behind her. "You were right," she said. "They went much too far. They should have known better. I just hope that we're not too late."

She dropped the bedding on the end of the bench where I sat, and quickly separated the pillows from the blankets. She helped me prop up his head and shoulders (which took three pillows), and then we covered him with most of the blankets.

I kept one pillow, and a couple of blankets, for the bench-bed where I sat. I was afraid to leave him. I didn't know what might happen if nobody was there to help or protect him. Even with Sally's scolding, they might still be willing to let this poor man die… or even to encourage that to happen.

"Dusty should bring down a bucket and rags soon," she said. "If he doesn't, I'll go back up and get after him until he does."

"Thank you," I said again.

"It's what Ma would have done," she said. "I think in resenting that we've lost her, everyone has forgotten what she valued. She would be disappointed by this. She was the kind of person who would rather be remembered for her life, instead of her death. I've tried, but…" she sighed.

I reached out toward her, carefully making sure it was only my right hand that might touch her. "We have to keep trying," I said. "Maybe, someday, they will finally hear us."

She smiled at me, and then glanced at the silent, wide-eyed children. "So," she said brightly, "Who wants to play a game of 'button, button, who's got the button'?"

The children immediately began jumping up and down, and raising their hands and voices. "Me, Mrs. Thompson!" each said, in one way or another, reasonably loudly.

"Shh!" Sally said, smiling. "We'll need to be a little quieter than usual, because there's a hurt man here. But we can still have fun!"

My sister winked at me as she stood. She went to the door, unlocked it, let herself out, relocked it, and then shepherded the children back to the cell where we'd all been playing before Ike and Dusty had interrupted us.

I placed my hands on my knees, and waited. I glared at my useless left hand, as I had done countless times before. I could completely understand why nobody wanted it to touch them. I didn't like it much, either.

Perhaps because the nerves had been severed slightly above my left wrist when I was born, my left hand had never grown properly. It was about the size of a preschooler's hand. A few of the bones had grown a little more than that, making it even more misshapen than it might otherwise have been.

Its flesh was less full than a healthy hand of that size should have, and it looked bruised and swollen all of the time. The circulation to that mangled hand was poor, so it was often cold. I habitually kept it either pushed into a pocket or else folded across my chest under my other arm.

My crippled foot was much the same, except that its nerves had been severed just below the ankle instead of slightly above it. The severed nerves had not been noticed at my birth, but only several months later when I had trouble learning to crawl. By that time, it was too late for repair attempts to be effective on either my left hand or my right foot.

If we still had all the technology of our forefathers, something might have been done. Unfortunately, most of that technology was lost after the Great Fall. So there was nothing that the doctors in December could do, which would improve the functionality of my damaged hand or foot.

The sound of steps descending the stairs pulled my attention from my own troubles to the present situation. Dusty was coming down. He had a bucket, filled with rags that I could use to wash the prisoner. He brought bandages, too, which could be a blessing.

I stood, tucked my bad hand into my jeans pocket, and hobbled toward the cell's door. Dusty handed through the bandages, and I accepted them. That freed up one of his hands to work the lock.

I turned and hobbled over to the unoccupied bench. I placed the bandages on the end nearest to the injured man. As I did this, I heard the key turning in the cell door's lock behind me.

I turned to face my brother again. He held out the bucket, extending it through the cell's currently-open door. I hobbled back, and took it with my right hand.

"Thank you," I said.

He shifted his feet uncomfortably, and avoided looking at my face. "If he was worried about the children…"

"He also asked about Mildred and Hank. By name," I said.

Dusty winced. "Okay," he grudgingly admitted, "so maybe he wasn't lying. Do what you can for him."

Without another word, my brother turned and walked to the cell where Sally and the little kids were playing.

"Ike says that lunch is about ready," he told them. "After lunch, there won't be room here for all the little ones. We've talked to the schoolteachers. They will dismiss class for the oldest students, at least for today. The younger schoolchildren will take their lessons upstairs. So all of our littlest ones can be downstairs in the schoolhouse this afternoon. Some of the older girls will assist you."

"All right," Sally replied. "Thank you for letting me know. We're coming!"

Dusty walked back past the cell that I was in. "I'll have someone bring you … and him… something to eat, after everyone else is finished," he said as he passed.

"Thanks," I said.

I watched silently as he went past my cell and up the stairs.