"Hellfire! You know what he's doing now?!"

Chris and Vin were sitting in straight chairs on Nettie's porch. Supper was over and they'd been shoo'd outside while she cleared up and made coffee. Vin was reading one of JD's penny dreadfuls. Maybe teaching him how to read had been a mistake, Chris thought as he listened to him voice at least one complaint with every sentence he read out of the thin book.

"No, what's he doing?" Chris asked.

"Shooting from the back of a galloping horse and hitting everybody he's aiming at. Everybody who's riding galloping horses, too. Nobody can hit galloping anything on the first try from the back of a galloping horse. Who writes this claptrap? Somebody who never fired a gun?"

Chris didn't answer because he figured Vin didn't really want an answer and he was saved from not answering when Nettie came out the door, carrying coffee and pound cake. Chris stood up to take the tray from her and set it on the small table next to the two chairs. Vin didn't even seem to notice she was there.

"God almighty! What – how do they – " he was already onto his next complaint. "Without reloading his six shooter, this dadblamed show-off shoots –" he stopped complaining long enough to flip back a page and tap his finger in several places. "Seventeen outlaws. Seventeen. With a six shooter he didn't reload."

"What are you going on about?" Nettie asked as she took the chair next to Vin.

"This book JD's got me reading. S'posed to be about outlaws and gunslingers and the full wild west." He sounded aggravated. "I spent my whole life here and a goodly part of it bounty hunting and I ain't yet read one thing familiar in it."

"Those books aren't written for people who've actually been and done all those things," Nettie said as she handed out the coffee. "They're for people who want to experience what they think living here and fighting outlaws is like."

Vin tucked the book into his pocket and accepted his cup and cake. "Pfft. Somebody oughtta write some pages on what it's really like, living that kind of life."

"Why don't you?" Chris asked. He sat back against the porch railing.

"Why don't I what?"

"Write those pages. Write what it's really like, so somebody who's never experienced it will know."

Vin tilted his head a little and gave Chris a look like he mighta unexpectedly just turned stupid.

"I can't write. I ain't got all the hang of reading yet. How's a fella still learning to read supposed to write?"

"Because there's a difference between 'writing' and 'writing down'," Nettie said. "To write the life you've lived, all you'd have to do is recall it. I can help you with writing it down."

Vin scowled and ate some cake. "My life? Nobody'd want to read my life. Nobody should have t'read it. It's just – it's just me. All dust and blood and hoping I don't die alone. That's nothing. That's nothing worth reading, it's –"

Whatever he was going to say was cut off when Nettie stood up fast, dropping her cake and coffee cup onto the porch and hurrying into the house.

"Did I make her mad?" Vin asked, confused. He leaned down to set the fallen cup and cake on the tray.

"I think you made her cry," Chris said and Vin's expression turned to alarm.

"Crying? Nettie's crying?" He pushed his own coffee and half eaten cake onto the table and headed for the door, but before he could step inside Nettie was out again with a grip of pencils and a sheaf of blank paper in her hands. She slapped them against Vin's chest and held them there. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were damp.

"Your story isn't nothing. You hear me? I want to read it. There's plenty of people who'd want to read all about the life you've lived, but even if there wasn't, I want to read it."

Vin swallowed hard but kept Nettie's gaze and she shoved the paper and pencils against him harder.

"You take these back to town with you and you write it down. You write it all down. You hear me, Vin Tanner? It's not nothing. You're not nothing."

Vin ducked his head and swallowed again but took the paper and pencils from her. "Yes, ma'am. I hear you."

And they stood still a moment like one or the other of them was waiting for something more to happen or something else to be said. Then Nettie hugged Vin hard and fast and turned back to her door. "I'm going to get myself a clean cup," and she was gone back into the house.

Vin stared at what he held in his hands, then folded the paper neatly in half and carefully tucked it all into his coat pocket. He took his chair again and picked up his cup of coffee.

"You all right?" Chris asked him.

Vin gave a short laugh and looked up at Chris then down again fast, then up at him. "Better than I thought I was, maybe."

"Yeah, I'd say so," Chris agreed.

The End

A/N: I started writing this (when the Boss was at lunch) intending it to be a funny story. Then all of a sudden it wasn't funny anymore.