I write with what I think of as the "Clint Eastwood" theory of western heroes. They seldom speak about themselves and what we learn about them is what others say or how they react to situations. I believe still waters run deep and these characters think about a lot of things they can't or won't talk about. I like to imagine the thought processes that bring them to their actions and decisions. If, when you read, you separate the spoken dialogue from the thought processes, I think you'll recognize the characters you are used to in the TV series. I just like to imagine what makes them tick that they don't say.

M7M7M7M7M


The nine men that appeared out of the fog loped their horses down the middle of Four Corners' main street as if they owned it and defied anyone to take it back. It was late and dark so few people observed the impressive arrival. But confidence and strength came naturally to these men and it was not something put on for show.

Josiah Sanchez stood on the balcony outside the clinic and waited for Nathan Jackson. He observed this band of riders from the outskirts of town until they dismounted their horses and entered the saloon.

It was the way his mind worked that at the same time this observer of men noted the fog creeping into the small town of Four Corners it occurred to him that it held many similarities to the cigar and roll-your-own smoke in the tavern - as many similarities as it held differences.

The texture and density of both the fog and smoke were similar. They both enhanced their dark and shadowy environs that held, each their own, kinds of secrets. They both had their own wild smells; one from the vast frontier surrounding the town, the other from the humanity packed too tightly in too close quarters.

And they both wafted away, like sentient things, from this particular company of men that passed through them.

M7M7M7M7

When the nine entered the saloon all eyes were drawn to them.

Inez Rocillios couldn't help but notice how these men moved with the same confidence as the seven regulators who protected the town. Something about them said the whole was more powerful than the sum of the individual parts.

Chris Larabee, slouched low in his usual straight back chair, long legs stretched far in front of him, watched the men from beneath the brim of his hat. Trouble. He appraised easily and finished off the last half of the shot glass.

Buck Wilmington didn't let his evaluation of the men affect him any more than his old time friend did. Capable of trouble and looking for it were two different things. Maybe they just wanted a drink.

Vin Tanner, hunter of men, evaluated the individuals rather than the group. He didn't like what he saw.

JD Dunne watched the men with the same impressionable awe with which he still observed all things that were so uniquely The West. Men like these personified this territory to him - bigger than life. The young easterner was unaware of the fact that he seemed to have this same fluid grace when he moved as one with the six other lawmen he called friends.

Without a word seven of the new arrivals broke off and took possession of a pair of tables. Rowdy, boisterous and loud, they scattered the local men and working girls who found somewhere else to be without a word spoken. The men took over the chairs.

With a heavy sigh Larabee pulled himself to his feet. Before he stood in front of the newcomers, Vin Tanner and Buck flanked him, casually, but with a combined air of authority to match those at the tables.

JD arrived a moment later. He wasn't as adept at reading Larabee as the other two men, but he was good at reading Wilmington. He moved to cover his partners until this most recent disruptive force had been assessed.

The leader of the men was obvious, despite the fact that he was probably one of the youngest in the gang. Vin put him at 24 or 25 years. He had light brown eyes, almost yellow. The golden brown bangs were as long as the hair on the back of his head. It fell across his eyes and gave the impression of a lone wolf watching them through dry winter straw. He sported a sawed off shotgun in a well-worn, modified holster.

Buck Wilmington saw in those golden eyes a frightening element. He saw deadly similarities between those eyes and the eyes of the man he stood by now. It was the look of one who had lost someone dear; lost part of what made him human.

Buck was glad that he only rarely had to see that look on his old friend's face these days. He didn't want to linger on those thoughts too long. They broached questions that reminded him that there were times that he wasn't proud of the man he himself had been; the man that had stood beside Larabee in those days. But damn, what a motivator guilt can be.

He forced his mind back to evaluating the young blond and his gang. The other men followed him because they respected him? Or feared him? Or did they respect the kind of thing that he was?

Buck had always held a secret hope that part of what had brought Larabee back - or kept him alive to bring himself back - or kept him alive to let Vin and the others bring him back - was the fact that Buck did not respect the man he was in those days. He didn't respect the anger or the willingness to gun a man down in the street. He didn't respect hiding in a bottle or lashing out in anger at anyone around whether they were the cause of the anger or not. And he didn't respect betraying a friendship under the justification of anger.

These men, or a majority of them, did respect those things. A casual side-glance at Vin said that the astute tracker had come to basically the same judgment.

Buck wondered briefly what part of Vin's shuttered past let him identify these emotionally dead traits in one so young and the men who followed him. He hoped Vin never had the same frame of reference from which he himself had to see this. He prayed Vin would never see that Chris Larabee.

The evaluation took a heartbeat. Vin met Buck's eye and was once again amazed how intuitive the scoundrel was that he could read men so easily. Wilmington tried to give the impression he rarely pondered on things.

But Vin knew these men. He had looked down his mare's leg at their kind and down the scope of his rifle at them. And some of them he had killed with no more consideration than if they had been rabid dogs.

Vin mentally shook his head to clear the thoughts. He would have been surprised to know how much like Buck he was in this aspect. Now that he had found this town and these men, he didn't want to remember the past. He didn't want them to find out the sordid details.

Vin's eyes slid across to glance at Larabee. The fact that Chris didn't like what he was seeing, the anger, the bloodlust, the arrogance, the lack of respect for human life, ratcheted the tension up a notch.

The dark gunfighter met the group's young leader's eyes with hooded lids and casualness gauged to antagonize the hotheaded youth.

Ezra Standish, ensconced in a poker game, didn't join in the posturing but came to a higher level of alertness in case he was needed. No one at the table was able to tell he was aware of what was going on.

"Even crowded as it is, I don't rightly think Inez would appreciate you runnin' off her regular customers," Buck opened the conversation. Careful to never get between Chris and Vin's guns and the other men, he did, as was his habit, walk right up to them with the clear indication that if they were asking for trouble he would accommodate.

"Didn't say a word to 'em," the leader replied. As he had been sized up, so had he sized up this man in the long duster and his compadres. He didn't see anything to back down from.

"Didn't tell 'em to keep their seats." Chris was pushing now, by force of will more than words. If these men wanted to start something, better to know now. The blonde met his cool gaze with eyes slanted up at him lazily and defiantly that said, Bring it on.

It was then that the last of the two strangers wove their way through the peacekeepers and distributed the beer mugs and pitchers among their friends. One, an older, ruddy complected redhead was in the lead. His graying, grizzled beard had a natural, untrimmed look.

"We forget we're a little rough lookin'," he volunteered, with a brilliant smile that would rival Buck Wilmington. "Just finished a cattle drive. Headed back to Oklahoma. Name's Red Clayton." He sat down the beer to put a beefy paw out to shake.

They've already dropped the trailhands. These are the men who work the ranch year 'round. Their loyalty is to the kid-rancher. Larabee added this new information to the mix.

"This here's the boss of the rockin' J's, Jason Miller," he introduced the defiant one that was still trying to stare down Chris Larabee. He didn't offer his hand. "That one's his kid brother, Kyte." Red nodded toward the reedy youth with slightly darker and wilder hair who had helped him distribute the beers. He was trying to grow a mustache and goatee, probably in an attempt to hide his still youthful features. "We'll be headed out in the morning."

Red still held his hand out. Buck took it and shook it amiably. Then Vin followed suit.

Chris gave a curt nod and moved on. Red's jovial smile turned into a smirk that reminded Vin of Standish. But the good-natured foreman did nothing more to recognize the slight; he didn't seem to be bothered by it.

Maybe there was something to this civilization stuff Josiah smiled. He and Nathan had entered during the confrontation. The alpha males and their packs had faced off and it hadn't resulted in immediate bloodshed. He clapped Nathan on the back and steered him toward the back table to arrive there at the same time as Chris, Vin and JD.

Chris didn't miss the fact that Buck wandered back toward a pair of saloon girls and Ezra on the raised dais. There was no hostility in the absence. But after the potential threat was evaluated, he just had places he'd rather be than sharing a table with them. Been happening quite a bit lately. Larabee thought. He was used to Buck sharing these moments.

It didn't bother Chris when, after one of these altercations, Buck, instead of coming to Larabee's table, took the time to spend with JD. He would explain what had happened or why, or tease out any residual nervousness that the situation had caused the kid.

But JD was with them at the table. He still thought the burning whiskey tasted like medicine, but he was sipping a beer instead of milk. The nervous, unsure episodes were fewer all the time.

No, Buck had wandered over to heckle the gambler. Those two shouldn't get along like that, Larabee thought. Buck was all honesty and loyalty. Ezra Standish was deception and probably had more loyalty to that deck of cards than to any man.

Wilmington had best not be expecting the con man to be there to watch his back. Not like I am... That thought frozen in the dark gunfighter's brain. There had been times Buck had expected him to "be there" and he wasn't.

Maybe Buck knows Ezra won't be there. If he doesn't expect anything he won't be disappointed. Yeah, there had been times The thought started for Larabee, ... no, damn it, still and all, those two were too much trouble when they were together.

Larabee felt eyes on him and realized he'd been focused on Buck making his way across the room - walking away from him. JD was watching his friend now, trying to see what his hero was seeing. If Josiah and Nathan had noticed they had the good graces and good sense not to acknowledge anything and continued an amiable conversation.

Only Tanner blatantly met his eyes. The tracker seemed to read something that even the gunslinger wasn't aware of. Figure it out, Larabee. Vin screamed in his mind. He didn't let the thoughts out in word or facial expression.

Tanner remembered a night not long enough passed when Buck had told him how to gauge Larabee's drunkenness and then left him to care for their friend. Buck had said he himself was nothing but a vessel for old, painful memories for their friend.

Buck was still pulling away - leaving his best friend with new amigos that didn't reflect bad times.

Wilmington thought he was doing what was for the best, and deep down believed Larabee would appreciate the distance. But more recently, in the desert, when a delirious and hurt Wilmington turned to Ezra Standish for comfort, the gunfighter had not appreciated it at all.

And there would come a time if things kept going the way they were, when Larabee would be jealous as hell. The tracker wasn't sure Larabee would recognize the emotion. All of his feelings came back to anger in the end. Sometimes the somber widower knew what he was angry about. Sometimes he had to look for a target for the anger. And the tracker wasn't sure what Larabee would do if he ever got the chance to see the gambler as having betrayed their friend.

Vin felt a partial responsibility for Buck's withdrawal. The closeness between the infamous gunfighter and himself probably, on some levels, seemed to push the other man away.

Vin wished Buck could see that, on a superficial level, he had just as much trouble connecting and communicating with the taciturn shootist. It was on a deeper level, which he himself couldn't explain that he knew the loyalty he shared with Larabee.

Just as clearly he knew that bond was still there between the two old friends if they would wake up to it. Figure it out, Larabee. And figure what you want to do about it before it's too late. Vin took another drink as he realized that Larabee, too was lost in thought.

"What do you think?" Larabee was startled by the question, partially because he wasn't interested in sharing his current uncomfortable observations. Neither his surprise nor his discomfort at the question showed as his eyes slowly made it around the table, trying to think back and remember where the conversation had been heading before he was distracted.

Then the healer broke the moment by nodding toward the nine ranch hands and Chris realized he was referring to them.

"A powder keg," was his evaluation.

"Best stay close... make sure no one lights a fuse," Josiah observed.

M7M7M7M7

It didn't take long before the Rockin' J's men drifted apart. When they did, JD noticed, with some reflection, they lost the formidable aura they maintained as a group.

Dunne snorted derisively at the youngest, Kyte, who was flirting in a juvenile way with a saloon girl.

"That one stumbles and goofs around like a wolf pup posturing for the pack," JD made this observation to Josiah as he accompanied the elder of their group to the bar for refills. "Well, he does," the youngest of the seven added defensively in response to the inscrutable look on the Preacher's face.

Josiah forced himself not to shake his head or rub a big hand over his face as he reflected on the young man who made the statement - as that young man turned around too fast from the bar and "goofily" stumbled into one of the trailhands.

The grizzled, leathery man with the handlebar mustache, Mike, shoved JD away and into a town regular who smiled patiently, steadied him, smiled at Josiah and sent them on their way. Yep, the packs made allowances for their own whelps.

Behind them, Kyte's eyes went wide and he barely remembered his manners to excuse himself from the courtesan as he hurried back to his brother.

Kyte couldn't wait to work his way back to their tables with his news. "Do you know who that was?" He asked, awestruck as he nodded to the somber man in black that had recently confronted them. "That's Chris Larabee."

Still no one seemed impressed. "Chris Larabee," he said in a smaller voice.

Jason finished his beer in a chug. "I'm gonna see how much of this trail dust I can wash off." He pointed his forefinger at his kid brother meaningfully.

"I know. I ain't gonna get in trouble," Kyte replied defensively.

Jason cut his eyes to his left. Red met the look and knew what it meant. "I'll watch out for him."

"Don't need watchin' out for," the youngster pouted.

Jason gave a brotherly snort of skepticism and strode out the door.

As JD sat back down, he pretended not to watch Buck kibitzing behind Ezra with one of the new girls on his lap. It was only town regulars at the poker table tonight. And they knew their mustached peacekeeper delighted in teasing Standish on the rare occasions that he would lose, and so they enjoyed the light banter between the two.

Even so, Buck carefully sat behind his friend so that no one would suspect him of giving tells as to the other men's hands.

And Ezra indifferently let the lanky gunslinger sit behind him where even six months ago he would never have trusted his exposed back to any man, even a so-called friend.

"Geez, Ezra, there ain't many spots on them cards in your hand," Buck laughed as he winked at Lilith.

"That, Mr. Wilmington, is because these are called face cards," the Southerner deadpanned. "They do not have 'spots'. Perhaps we have found a partial explanation for your abhorrent poker skills."

The other players laughed. Buck stretched forward and tipped the gambler's hat over his eyes.