The Hour of Separation

by TrueEnough

Vin leaves Four Corners after he is nearly killed by a bounty hunter.

The Hour of Separation
TrueEnough

And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

The Prophet
Kahlil Gibran

…

Sometimes Mary reads to Vin.

He quickly learned his letters and their order and sounds but reading the words they make is strangely exhausting. Slowly he sounds out the letters, hunching over the short list of words, pausing and sputtering, interrupting Mary to correct himself impatiently before she can do it gently.

"P. Pah, pah. P. I. G, jah." And for one awful moment he wonders, What's a pige?

Mary opens her mouth to assist when he blurts out, "Pig!"

Her smile is beautiful and worried. "Yes, yes that's it. Wonderful, Vin." There are more words but Mary tugs the list away from him. He is always reluctant to give it up, still tracking the next one as if there were a bounty on it.

She distracts him with another list. One of names. First his own and then at his request, hers. He sits for a long moment and stares at the compact form of his mark. Memorizing it like it's a map for an exotic journey. When Mary sees how much he is enjoying the sight of them, being able to recognize them to some degree, she adds more.

Chris. "Remember Vin? C-h can sound like kah. Ch-ris. Ch-ris."
Ezra. Zzz-ra.
Josiah. Which sounds the way it looks.
Bucklin. He would tease Bucklin later.
Nathan. The all important thuh sound. Nathan.
They share a laugh over the ease and genius of JD's name.

At the end of the lesson she busies herself elsewhere so that he can claim that scrap of paper and roughly fold it into the brim of his hat as if it has no value or sentiment to him.

Mary's reassurances that he is progressing at an admirable pace do little to assuage his frustration. She can see that he is someone who is used to acting decisively and that it pains him to creep along. In her worry that he will grow to find reading and writing nothing but a chore she gets up in the middle of one lesson and pulls down a small volume from one of the many shelves. It is cloth bound and green, and weathered as a fall leaf. Obviously a favorite.

"My husband use to read this to our son," and then smoothes her hand over it in memory.

Vin straightens his aching back and tries not to bristle at the thought of being read a Childs story. He owes Mary and is determined to sit there and listen even as his pride crumbles around his feet.

Casting a furtive glance at the open book he sees that there are no large drawings of small animals as he had expected. Instead, the pages are brimming with words. His head swims until he focuses on his own folded hands.

"Sing in me, Muse," she begins, "and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy."

To Vin's ear it is like listening to Ezra read Josiah's bible in his own tongue. Impressive and pretty, to be sure, but he understands little of it.

Mary pauses to explain. "Odysseus had fought for ten years at Troy and then spent another ten years trying to return to his wife and son. No one knew what had happened to him and on the way home he lost all of his ships, all of his men and the spoils of Troy. The poem begins near the end." Vin quickly nods and she continues on in this fashion, editorializing here and there until Vin signals his understanding.

Mary finds a stopping point and closes the book to find Vin staring after the shuttered pages. "We'll read more tomorrow," she reassures him and slides the book carefully back onto the shelf.

He gathers up his hat and coat, always worried that he has overstayed his welcome. Despite this notion he stops at the door and asks, "Did Billy understand what his pa read to him?"

She smiles sadly. "No. I think he just liked to he just liked to hear his papa's voice."

Vin nods. "Thank you, ma'am." And then tips his hat and leaves.

Little does he know that if she thought he would allow it she would hold him in her arms as she does her own son when he is scared and in need of wordless comfort.

~7777777~

It's doubtful that Chris will ever recover from the injuries he has sustained at the hands of Ella. God bless Nathan for his heartrending eagerness to heal. Because of him Chris grows stronger every day. The scar that will be left behind will turn pink and harmless looking despite all the damage it has done. Underneath the blanket he pulls closer around himself Chris's hands are balled into fists. He shivers under the setting sun. As vulnerable as he is, wounded and undermined, he greets curious, pitying looks with an unblinking glare. His six friends fare only slightly better.

Each resists the urge to comfort, cajole, bribe Chris away from his rage and all the blame he will share with no one else. Josiah especially fights the impulse to haul Chris Larabee past the entrance of his empty church all the way to the front where he can kneel at the stained glass feet of Jesus and finally forgive himself. If not for the violence it would surely involve Josiah would have prayed with him long ago.

Slouching further down into his blanket Chris watches Vin leave the Clarion after yet another lesson. Unlike Mary, who does not look for him anymore, Vin searches across the dusty street and tips his hat at Chris who pretends to be looking somewhere else.

~7777777~

A season passes although it is almost impossible to tell into which one. Is winter windier than summer or the other way around? Four Corners rests in the eye of a storm with the railroad circling around and the drums for statehood banging loudly. The empty whiskey bottles that Chris, no longer under Nathan's care, hurls at any solid surface are the loudest commotion in town.

The lack of any true threat allows the Seven to drift towards their own wants. Ezra shuffles a deck of cards and becomes a richer man. JD finds Casey's company sweet as well as competitive while Nathan courts Rain openly. Josiah waits patiently for his congregation to show up. Buck searches for love, looking twice the way Hilda taught him to do. Vin remains in town, out of throwing distance from Chris but not out of sight, where he studies his letters.

With more and more ease Vin can follow the words as Mary reads them out loud but when he tries to read them himself it is still an arduous task. And yet, the words of Homer and now Shakespeare have become unlocked and alive for him. Doomed Hamlet and lost Odysseus remind him of Chris. Everything sad and beautiful reminds him of Chris. He bites his tongue to keep from pointing this out.

It's become routine for him to leave Mary's, order enough supper for two and find Chris who will not eat unless it's put in front of him. Vin sits near him and hovers over his plate as if there's not enough. Chris pointedly ignores him. Vin takes a large bite of roast beef and lets Chris watch him chew happily from the corner of his eye.

"Mmmm," Vin hums around another bite. Chris glares.

After stirring butter into the mashed potatoes Vin pushes the plate closer to Chris as he tucks his napkin into his shirt collar and over his favorite blue bandana. Leaning forward he digs in again. Curious, hungry and distracted by Vin's enthusiasm, Chris eats.

Hence, one plate, two forks.

A good day.

Other days Vin finds Chris too drunk to share anything.

He ignores Chris's snarls and rants and easily deflects any half hearted punches and drags Chris to his feet. He tightens his hold around his waist and pulls his arm securely around his neck as Chris throws his weight around all the way up the stairs to his room. "Dammit, Chris," Vin chides, "you're heavier than you look." This makes Chris laugh but the sound of it holds no joy. It comes from his chest and catches in his throat.

In his room the smaller pieces of furniture have been broken or hobbled but the unmade bed is still intact. Tired and disgusted, worried beyond the telling of it, Vin threatens to drop Chris and bury him where he falls. This also amuses Chris. Vin stretches him out carefully on the bed and answers Chris's slurred protests with his own grunts and sighs. Chris makes it harder than it should be for Vin to pull off his boots making Vin manhandle his feet until they tickle. When Vin reaches across him to pull a blanket over him Chris pulls Vin's hat off, the tie catching him under the chin.

"Larabee! You dang near took my head off!" Vin grabs for his hat that Chris somehow manages to keep out of reach.

"Stay a while," Chris issues his first invitation in months.

"You confuse me. I don't know what to make of you anymore."

Chris lets Vin capture his hat but doesn't let go. "You, on the other hand, are the only thing that makes sense to me."

Caught flatfooted outside his usual territory Vin tells Chris to, "Go to sleep," and then smoothes back a lank of hair from his sweaty forehead.

He does not know what it is about himself that makes him his most daring when he is most afraid. His hand feels heavy and awkward tangled in Chris's hair and yet Chris moves into his touch and does not flinch or growl as he expected. He strokes his thumb up and down his forehead and is amazed and amused to see Chris blinking slowly, fighting sleep for this small comfort.

You taught me how to do this, Vin thinks, almost blaming him. All those casual touches Chris is so proficient at. Casual and filled with a gravity that lingered on Vin long after Chris's hand had slid off his arm or shoulder. Vin is unsure if Chris knows how far he has breached his usual defenses. His near silence and nervous good manners, his deadly aim with a gun have done little to stop Chris from acknowledging him with a touch or a look or sometimes with his own silence. And yet Vin, for all his skittish hesitancy has from the beginning remained within reach.

The first time Chris had set his hand on Vin's shoulder had shaken him. There was the weight and heat of it and the unflinching strength and reassurance behind it. There was also the realization that Chris's hand did not swipe clean through him. What a shock it had been to have irrefutable proof that he was as real and aching as any other man. It was a realization that implied he had been haunting his own life.

Vin reminds himself that Chris was once a husband and father. He suspects that Chris has always kept most people at a distance only to return home to reach out and hold close his wife and son. What must it have been like, he wonders, to have two people rush up to you with all the affection a wife and son must possess? Did they teach Chris to reach out the way he does or was he born to it?

For himself, Vin fears that it's something that once it's tapped into will spill over uncalled for, unwanted, unforgivable. Too late, really, to worry about that since the hair he rakes his fingers through is proof that it has already happened.

Perversely, he thanks God that Chris will not remember this drunken night any more than he has the others.

"Go on now," Vin says, reluctantly removing his hand. "Sleep. I'll watch your back."

Laxly holding onto Vin's hat, Chris sleeps.

As always, Vin finds it impossible to stay upset with Chris. After all, he has a long history of courting seemingly formidable, difficult people like Chris or Miss Nettie despite his love of peace and quiet. His solitary ways are deceiving even to himself. The day he put down that broom that would never catch up with the dust in Four Corners and stepped out into the street alongside Chris was the day that he discovered the width and depth of his own longing.

Longing. For Vin the word has both universal and deeply personal meaning. Not blind to his own needs he knows he is part of a world population that longs to be called Son, Brother, Husband, Papa and in turn call out Friend, Pastor, Animal Spirit. Claiming and being claimed; bowing low to the twin desires to hand over everything and shout, You are nothing but mine!

Chris, mercurial and wounded, has threaded his way through Vin's longing, feeding a mutual appetite for a need neither one is willing or able to name. Both are older than their years and brimming with intelligence and yet the emotions that make their skin sting are often a mystery to them.

Chris came closest to that mystery with a wife and a son even though he has no clear memory of calling out for them. Sarah, who brought the rough tumble of his life to a wedding and married his passion and his ghosts and then let him rest his cheek on her belly after braiding together love and sex. Impossible to top that, he thought, until his son was born. She asked him to name their child and her generosity left him with a lump in his throat that he could not swallow and so he knew his sons name was Adam long before he could say it out loud.

Chris knew that Adam was not the first son to be born to adoring parents and would surely not be the last and yet, no one - not even Sarah - had looked into his eyes so steadily and let him see both his own history and his own possibilities. Anything, Chris promised. Anything for you. And then held his son close to him so that Adam could look into him, if he so chose, or gurgle in satisfaction when he captured one of Chris's ears instead.

This is what he grieves for: to be wide open to another soul; to have his ear tugged.

Vin has learned from his own history that human nature is not fixed. It does not travel a straight unimpeded path from the cradle to the grave. Josiah would point out that this is what makes redemption possible. A mans last action is not his definition nor the way he is born a watermark for the rest of his life. Nathan, once a slave and now a healer, is the most obvious example of this fact although all Seven of them can be held up as witnesses. It's with both gratitude and fear that Vin acknowledges the fact that his life could trip down yet another path without warning or much effort on his part. It is, after all, exactly how he became one of Seven.

This makes him smile despite the worry he holds for Chris as he slowly rides out of town. He knows that he has been sent on an errand meant to grant him a reprieve from Chris's self destruction. Josiah has tried to reassure him that sometimes a man has to find the bottom of his soul before he can recognize it at all. For Vin's benefit, he also pointed out that it's a journey made alone. As desperate as he is to meet Chris half way he knows that Josiah is right.

Eagle Bend is a day away. A night under the stars is inviting to his own tired soul. A pang of guilt rears up as he feels the grip of frustration and dread loosen their hold on him the further he rides out of town. Spurring Peso to a gallop he's eager to enjoy his solitude in the hope that it will better enable him to return to his vigil.

In his haste, in his remorse, Vin does not notice the man tracking him. Carefully, methodically, this stranger from Texas will wait until Vin makes camp and then capture him, dead or alive, for a $500 reward.

~7777777~

Annette is plain and agreeable and nearly invisible except to Buck who smiles at her warmly from across the saloon. She strolls towards him, only looking over her shoulder once before reaching his table. To Ezra's consternation Buck pushes back his chair so that she can perch on his lap and see his cards. She swoons and wraps her arms around his neck. Buck laughs.

Ezra rolls his eyes and throws down his hand. "Does anyone in this town believe in the sanctity of this game?"

No one answers.

Annette grows more lively under Buck's attention, eventually squealing and upending another game when she sees JD and Josiah amble towards them. Ezra tosses his cards face up on the table.

"Oh," she giggles, "did Mr. Tanner's friend find him?"

Buck squeezes her to her delight and laughs. "What friend, darlin'?"

"Last night a gentleman asked me if Vin Tanner lived in these parts and all I had to do was point across the street where he was eating supper with Mr. Larabee." Her own smile fades when she notices how pale and quiet Buck has become.

"Now sweetheart," Buck tries to collect himself, "do you know if this 'gentleman' is still here?"

"Oh no," she says, hoping to get back to the ease of before, "he nearly tripped over me trying to leave this morning."

To her disappointment Buck hurriedly deposits her into his empty chair with a quick kiss and leaves with JD, Josiah and Ezra in tow.

Not meaning to, she fades once again into the background.

When Buck bounds into Chris's room Chris is on his bed with an arm flung over his eyes. He does not even look to see who could be after him in such a rush. A tray of food Buck sent up earlier sits on the floor untouched.

Buck tosses Chris's arm away from his face and pats his face roughly to rouse him. "C'mon ol' dog, we need you."

Chris grumbles and rolls away. Buck pulls him back and slaps his face. Chris grabs Buck's shirtfront and tries to stare him down with bleary eyes.

Buck is not cowed. "It's Vin. Someone's after that reward."

That's all it takes. Chris staggers to his drunken feet and leads them where they need to go.

~7777777~

Abram earns his rewards from being patient. He sits under a setting sun and patiently watches Vin stoke a fire. The stick Vin absently prods the flames with slips from his hand. A small twist of a smile crosses Abram's face at the sight of Vin clearly distracted by his own thoughts. Believing himself to be more practical than cruel he has already decided that Vin Tanner, being worth the same alive or otherwise, will be easier to deliver to Tascosa if he is dead. With this thought in mind he raises his rifle and aims for the center of Vin's forehead. He has brought down buffalo with just as much kindness.

Just beyond the nub of Abram's site he can see Vin looking to his side, distant and unfocused. It's the look of a man unused to being in love. Hints of a smile flicker across his face so it must be true and run deep while the crease between his brows suggests that it's unrequited. Abram feels a brief hitch, low in his gut, at ending any possibilities Vin might have but it's not enough to keep him from squeezing the trigger.

Vin stands up in response to some far off sound. Abram's bullet catches him solidly in the low left side of his belly. Cursing under his breath, Abram walks into Vin's camp to end his misery.

Knocked onto his back, not knowing who or what gut punched the air out of him, Vin struggles to breathe as he pushes himself to sit up. Unsteady, his arms suddenly too weak to hold him he falls back onto the hard packed ground. He stares up at the sky painted blue and gold and orange by the setting sun, the last of it's rays trying to shine through the tree leaves above him as a parting gesture. It's so beautiful to him that he can think of little else. Not the cold that is seeping into his bones or even the breath that still escapes him. A shadow passes over him and then blocks his view. A man backlit and full of even more shadows, holds a rifle with the stock braced on his thigh. He's not one of the Seven and this is all Vin needs to know about him before he loses interest. The sun is fading quickly as Vin struggles to move out from behind this darkness, to feel the warmth on his skin one more time - so much like being touched.

The sharp crack of a gun fired startles Vin as the dark ghost above him tumbles out of sight. For only a brief moment the gold light shines on his face before dust kicks up around him and Chris is by his side, breathless and sweating, looking scared and hung over. He feels Chris's rough hands cup his face and is not even a little surprised that Chris is yelling at him and yet he can barely hear a word.

What a strange dream, Vin thinks, and then closes his eyes.

~7777777~

Buck spurs his horse on , leaning low over his saddle as Chris is, both their animals lathered in sweat. They have ridden like this before, years ago, when Chris saw black smoke far off on the horizon where his home and everything precious to him had already burned down. There's a desperateness to reach Vin, to stave off any further tragedy.

Ironically, another lazy plume of smoke alerts them that they are close to Vin's camp. Chris curses his horse for not being able to go faster, for not being able to fly. The terrible echo of a rifle rips through the air and then Chris is off his horse before it can stop and cutting through the trees towards Vin, gun already in hand. Buck is right behind him and only briefly sees Abram begin to swing his rifle away from Vin and towards Chris when Chris fires. A single tear of blood runs down Abram's forehead before he tips over like a felled tree.

"Vin! Vin!" Chris cries out before he takes in the blood soaking Vin's shirt. Buck is nearby looking over Abram and confirming with his indifference that he's dead. With shaking hands Chris gingerly lifts Vin's shirt away from his wound. The sight chokes a moan out of him. Buck is suddenly beside him, reaching under Vin and then grimly shaking his head. No exit wound. Abram's bullet is still inside.

Buck races to his saddle bag, nearly spooking his exhausted horse and pulls out neat wads of bandages that he keeps at Nathan's behest. Together Chris and Buck apply them to Vin's wound and then wrap a strip around his waist to hold it in place. Before they finish it is already soaked through. Chris places his hand over it and Vin stirs.

Chris is at once heartened to see signs of life and anguished to witness the pain Vin is in. "Buck, help me get him on his horse," he nearly pleads and then barks, "No! Leave it!" when Buck reaches for Vin's saddle. He lifts Vin under the arms while Buck carries him under his knees. Vin's forehead lolls against Chris's chin while he holds the brunt of Vin's weight as Buck lifts his leg over Peso's bare back. With more grace than a drunk should have Chris slips behind Vin. Pulling Vin against him and tucking Vin's head between his chin and shoulder, Chris regains some of his authority. "Take his horse," and he deigns to glance at Abram's soulless body, "and get Nathan to meet us at my cabin - it's closer than town." Vin groans as his blood seeps between Chris's fingers. "Ride like the devil!" Chris calls out to Buck who is already on his way.

Chris tries to swallow the bile of his own panic as he secures his arms around Vin and spurs Peso on. The reins of his horse and Buck's are fisted in with Peso's as the worn down animals travel on either side of Chris and Vin. Their pace is maddeningly slow and despite Peso's smooth gait Chris's hands are slick with Vin's blood. Vin begins to shiver. Chris drops the reins of the two horses and pulls the back of his serape off over his head and then over Vin's. Chris wraps his arms around him again, in effect, warming him with his fear. The untethered horses slow to a stop and then heads carried low begin to follow. Both have already been forgotten.

Vin feels something scratch and then tickle his forehead. He raises a heavy hand to swat it away only to have his fingertips rake over what feels like stubble. With great effort he opens his eyes and cants his head back to see Chris's stern, worried profile. Chris cups the back of his head and takes a moment to look into Vin's eyes before he tucks his head back against his cheek. Vin would be amused if not for the anguish he sees in Chris's burned eyes, the deep worry lines between his brows and the smear of blood across his chin.

"Chris?" Vin asks, his voice sounding rough and far away.

"Yeah, pard."

"You all right?"

Vin feels Chris smooth is hand over his shoulder before he answers, "I'm OK, Vin. Just need to get you to Nathan."

With weak fingers Vin plucks at the serape that engulfs him. Dun and red, the colors of the desert floor with black shot through it. Chris wears black. Like a flag with each battle sewn into it. Or a warning. I am dangerous. I am grieving. I am dangerous because of my grief. Black, too, like the night sky.

Vin looks up. The moon is full and her light shines through the clouds. The sky is littered with stars. It's a small blessing on a terrible night. "The moon is out," Vin says. His vision clears and for a long moment it seems as though the entire world has been illuminated for him in blue and white. It's vast and beautiful and he can see it all within the confines of his friends clothing, within his arms and his bloodied hands. "Can you see it, Chris?"

"Yeah," Chris clears his throat. "I see it." He carefully tightens his hold on Vin and hopes to reassure him further. "It's going to lead us home."

The realization that Chris understands chokes him with emotion. He gulps for air and his gut bites back until he is curled over in pain.

Chris reaches across his chest and eases him back. "Easy, Vin, easy. That's it. Slow down…" With his head thrown back against Chris's shoulder and Chris murmuring in his ear, Vin slowly regains his breath.

Chris's demonstrative strength and soothing voice belie his fear but Vin hears it and feels it running down his bones. Wanting only to ease Chris's anxiety Vin places both of his hands over the one Chris has covering his wound. "I'm all right, Chris," Vin lies, "It don't even hurt no more." His words seem to have the opposite effect as Chris tenses behind him. Vin struggles to tell him more but the effort cuts him low. He nestles his forehead back into the crook of Chris's neck and finds that he is the one reassured by the now familiar scrub of Chris's stubble. Right before he gives in to his exhaustion he feels Chris turn his head slightly and then the long press of lips to his temple - although he might have imagined it as he has so many times before.

They make their way to Chris's cabin in this fashion. Both scared, both exhausted, both desperately trying to spare the other.

~7777777~

At the sight of Nathan running towards him Chris feels his eyes burn in relief and gratitude. He comes to a stop and suddenly there is a commotion around him. He has been traveling for so long with his ear trained to any sound that Vin might make that the urgent commands that Nathan is issuing are almost deafening. Buck and Josiah are a blur on either side of him. His hands are tangled with Vin's and also with the reins and it's only Nathan's sure handling that releases them. Finally letting Nathan pull Vin into his arms Chris immediately feels the cold loss of him. Vin's head hangs low over Nathan's arm as the toes of his boots point towards each other. It's a horrible sight that leaves him wondering how long he has been whispering to a dead man.

Something tugs at his sleeve and with no real interest Chris looks down to see Josiah gaining a firmer grip on his upper arm. "You've given up too soon," Josiah preaches. "Come down off that horse and help your brothers." Wanting desperately to believe Josiah's admonishment Chris uses what's left of his determination to slide off of Peso and let Josiah lead him inside.

Chris's cabin is little more than a shack. To the right of the door is a small round table with two mismatched chairs. A large bed in the left hand corner seems to be the only concession to comfort and practicality while the stone fireplace looks hardly big enough to roast a rabbit. Despite this, boiled water cools on the hearth and Nathan has laid out the bottles of laudanum and carbolic along with the terrible instruments he will use to try to save Vin.

Vin's dead weight sinks him into Chris's bed and makes him appear smaller and younger. His breath is quick and shallow. The bleeding wound that Abram cut him down with is the most obvious sign that he's still alive.

Chris steps over the bloodied serape now in a heap on the floor with the rest of Vin's ruined layers and stands numbly behind Nathan and Buck. Nathan sits on the edge of the bed and checks Vin's pulse at his throat with one hand while the other lifts an eyelid to reveal a blown pupil. Dropping his head momentarily Nathan quickly regains his composure and with a look to Buck sets about to remove the bullet. Buck places his hands on Vin's legs just above his knees. Chris realizes it's a restraining gesture and swallows hard. Pulling himself out of his stupor he steps to the other side of Nathan and crouching down places his hands on Vin's shoulders. His stained hands are shaking but strong. He hopes they are of some comfort.

Nathan douses Vin's wound with carbolic and then makes a small incision to reveal the pathway of the bullet. Buck ducks his head and stifles a groan while he tightens his grip on Vin's unmoving legs. Slowly and with a deliberateness that speaks of his skill, Nathan follows the bullet. Vin remains utterly still. Even his pain does not stir him. Buck loosens his hold and without thought begins to soothe and pat Vin's calf. One of Chris's hands settles in Vin's hair and scratches gently at it. Nathan leans in closer and finally withdraws his bloody instrument and drops a small pellet of metal onto a pristine cloth. It is almost impossible to believe that such a small thing could devastate not only Vin but also the men he rides with.

Chris lets out a relieved, exhausted breath and then shifts to look into Vin's eyes as if the removal of the bullet would release Vin from his suffering. When Vin's eyes don't open Chris cups Vin's face in his hands and thoughtlessly shakes him. "C'mon now, Vin," he scolds. "Wake up."

Nathan exchanges a worried look with Buck and then says, "I'm gonna stitch up Vin here and then wash him up." Sparing a glance to Chris's sullied hands still holding Vin's slack face Nathan brooks no argument. "You go on now and wash up, too."

Chris does not question Nathan's authority in these matters but it's hell for him to let go. Carefully and with a nagging reluctance Chris rests Vin's head back on the pillow and slowly rises to his feet. Buck has already gone to a chest by the bed and retrieved a clean set of dark clothes for his friend and laid them by a basin on the table. Chris walks stiffly over to the basin and looks over his shoulder to watch Nathan working on Vin.

"Chris…" Buck whispers but all Chris can offer him is a distracted glance.

It is Ezra, who has shown up with JD sometime during this ordeal who steps through the open doorway and rolls up his sleeves to reveal strong, pale arms bare of any tricks or weaponry. Running a hand across Chris's shoulder as if he were walking behind a spirited horse that might kick Ezra turns him towards the basin and then tugs on Chris's soiled shirt and asks, "Mr. Larabee?" Chris seems disinterested in anything that might be done to him and Ezra takes advantage of the moment. Pulling Chris's shirt out of his pants he begins to unbutton it. "I know you think the world is setting itself to put you on your knees again," and the truth of Ezra's statement gains him Chris's attention, "but you forget that our Mr. Tanner has always gone his own way and will not be led to his death easily." Buck turns away and covers his face with a shaking hand. Ezra drops Chris's shirt on the pile already on the floor. Calmly soaking a cloth in the basin Ezra squeezes out the excess and then dares to wipe off the sweat and blood from Chris's face. "But you already know that, don't you?" Using the audacious truth to breach Chris's usual defenses Ezra pulls Chris's hands into the basin and washes them thoroughly with a plug of soap that JD has found. "Look around you," Ezra says as he dries Chris's hands. "You are not alone." He hands Chris a clean pair of drawers and pauses while Chris steps into them. "Vin's friends are here." Josiah places a blanket around Chris's shoulders while Buck smoothes out a bedroll at the foot of the bed. "Your friends are here." Slowly, so as not to spook him, Ezra leads him to the bedroll and coaxes him to lie down. "When you wake up we will still be here." Unable to keep his eyes open a moment longer, Chris sleeps.

Through the open doorway the predawn light creeps in.

~7777777~

Chris is chagrined to find that he has slept while Vin continues to fight. Rising to unsure feet he dresses in the clothes laid out for him the night before. Ezra's word is good. Each of his friends are quietly busy in his small home. Like the grudges he sometimes holds, Chris will never forget it.

A small wooden crate sits on his table and is filled with ham, coffee, bread and apples. Good food and the absence of whiskey implying women were involved. Ezra sorts through the provisions and begins to make coffee. A quick look out his window and he sees JD watering the horses including Abram's gelding. Josiah brings in his saddle bags and empties out more bandages and carbolic onto the chest. Buck brings in a emptied basin and fills a pitcher from a bucket of spring water. He takes both over to Nathan who is soaking Vin's brow with cool, wet cloths. Vin groans and shrinks away.

Sober and half awake Chris is defenseless. He places a hand on Nathan's shoulder, almost restraining him.

Without looking back or stopping his ministrations Nathan informs Chris, "He's got a fever." His tone tells Chris that it is both expected and dreaded.

Vin's eyes drift past Nathan to Chris. Chris can only see a sliver of blue. He wonders if Vin sees him at all. Vin shivers despite the heat radiating off his skin. Chris cringes in sympathy.

"Heeey," Chris chokes, "Vin…"

Nathan leaves one cloth draped over Vin's forehead and then runs another across his throat and chest, down his arms. Shivering, Vin continues to watch Chris. Chris wants to reach out to Vin and reassure him, and in effect, reassure himself but despite Vin's steady gaze he can feel him slipping away. All the intangible connections that they made from the start are lifting from his skin, unwrapping themselves from all his better instincts. Vin is letting go and it's unbearable.

Suddenly his cabin is too small, overcrowded with good intentions and the possibility of loss. Stumbling back, startled when Josiah tries to steady him, Chris breaks into a cold sweat and runs out the door only to stop when there is nowhere to go. The band of ne'er do wells that he is proud to be a part of have already seen to everything. Unable to catch his breath Chris tries to regain some measure of his composure and only partially succeeds.

Buck, always eager to comfort with his proximity starts out after Chris but Josiah's large, gentle hand restrains him completely. Buck turns back to Vin and it takes all his self restraint to keep from pushing Nathan aside and lifting Vin across his lap. He would do it. He would cradle Vin's fever in his arms and woo it until it tired of his sentiment and went on its way. He would do it if only Josiah would stop ironing his hand across his shoulders making it impossible for him to lift his chin off of his chest much less move decisively.

While Vin's fever burns the rest of the Seven dance slowly with their helplessness. Nathan refuses his own fatigue trying to help Vin fight. As the day passes on Ezra finally rests his hand on Nathan's shoulder and takes the wrung out cloth from his hand. A plate has been set on the table for him with hot food and strong coffee. Nathan throws a hand up in resignation and begins to eat not from hunger but out of gratitude. While Ezra settles himself in Nathan's place Buck pushes his shoulder behind Vin so that Vin can rest against his chest. Barely conscious, Vin talks to spirits that only he can see in languages only he can understand. At times it seems as if he is calling out for someone. Buck wraps his arms warmly around Vin and whispers in his ear, "We're all here, Vin. We're here." JD, already full of his own innate high emotions is unable to take in anymore and scrambles past Chris who is haunting the doorway. Josiah goes after JD in his slow, sure way, gripping Chris's arm on the way out. Nathan puts down his fork and stares out the small window no longer able to even pretend that he wants anything that is in front of him.

Chris remains just outside his own door, not entering even for the slow burn of whiskey he has tucked away inside. He waited outside a door similar to this when Adam was born, flinching and pacing when Sarah cried out and crying himself when he heard Adam wail. What a relief it had been to finally burst through the door to find Sarah exhausted and yet lit from within. As Sarah held Adam, Chris wrapped his arms around them and let his wife and son comfort him with their tears.

There will be no way for him to get his arms around this. He is sure of it.

Vin's slurred voice carries out to him. An unreasonable anger wells up. Why don't they let him go? Just let him go instead of holding him here with their arms and useless medicine and their soft words. Why make him suffer like this? They should take their turns and bless his forehead with their rough palms or even a kiss and then let him go. Heaven is the least he deserves - not this unending hard scrabble for freedom with no room for family except for the men who surround him now. Except for his own tight fisted…love.

This time when he steps off the porch he makes it to the creek that runs through the shade of trees. He cannot hear Vin calling or any response. The sound of water tumbling over smooth stones fills his ears and he's grateful for it. He paces in a tight knot and then suddenly stops and sits in the dirt, as still as a rock.

Hours later he flinches as the sky turns purple and then completely black. The moon shines over him and without thought he follows it back to his cabin. The doorway and the windows glow with lamp light. He can see Buck in the doorway before he disappears inside. By the time Chris is back on his porch Buck is smoothing out a bedroll underneath a window. Chris steps back into the doorway in time to see Josiah trying to ease a cup of water past Vin's lips only to have most of it pour over his chin and down his throat uselessly.

Chris looks over at Buck who is sitting on the bedroll with his back against the wall. With one more look at Vin, Chris joins Buck and wraps his arms loosely around his drawn up knees. Buck moves quickly for such a tall man and before Chris can think of an objection Buck is in front of him pulling off his boots. Once they are off Buck keeps a hold of Chris's foot. Buck is a strange man, Chris thinks, not for the first time. But he knew that from the start and at times like these he's more in debt to him than ever.

He drifts into a fugue state, lulled by a far reaching stillness that not even Buck seems willing to rattle. He thinks of Sarah and Adam and hopes that they will know Vin in the sweet hereafter but it's a weak hope based in his contrary lack of faith. Better to think of him when they met. A look, a nod and they strode after the hanging party as if they were walking down the aisle to the wedding of two archangels.

Maybe he slept, using the memory like a pillow, he would never be sure about it afterwards. The thud of bare feet scrambling around inside bring him fully awake. Pulling his foot from Buck's lax hold he stands up and edges towards the open door. Nathan rushes past him. Once again Vin is in a boneless sprawl in his arms.

"Wha - ?" Chris asks Nathan's disappearing back.

JD sidles up to Chris and places his hand briefly on his shoulder. "Vin's fever is burning. Nathan wants to cool him down in the creek."

Chris is already off the porch running in fits and starts towards the creek he hid by earlier. Nathan is eases into the shallow water and then crouches low until Vin's shoulders are below it. The shock of its coolness twitches Vin to a weak form of consciousness, his eyes barely open, his hands out and fall without any strength.

Chris comes to an abrupt and breathless stop at the waters edge.

Vin tugs at Nathan's shirt. "Nate, it's cold," he pleads, and then with more of his usual grit, "It's too cold, Nathan."

Nathan cups some water in one hand and then pours it over Vin's forehead and into his hair. "Gotta get this fever down, Vin. You gonna give me trouble? Huh?" There's no heat behind his words. Only urgency and an ever present tenderness.

Still, Vin shivers and frowns as if considering his options before finally shaking his head no.

Nathan smiles despite himself and pulls Vin closer while continuing to baptize him. "Good…that's good, my friend. Just a while longer."

Chris wades into the water and for a brief moment Nathan's frustration flares. Vin reaches down to some unknown source of strength and then reaches out to Chris as if he is finally there to save him.

"Chris," Nathan quietly admonishes, "we have to - "

"I know," Chris assures, and then holds out his arms. "Here…" Vin clutches weakly at Chris, pressing his face into his armpit. For a moment Chris squeezes Vin against him in an instinctual effort to warm him. It tears at him to pull Vin away from him and sink him back into the water. Vin shudders and mumbles his protest and them quiets himself to take a long look at Chris. Despite his bleary eyes he subjects Chris to the most intense study since his son was a baby. Blue eyes as dark and blown as a storm look at him and through him and then blink slowly closed.

Vin loosens his hold and settles back into the cradle of Chris's arms as much as the fever will allow. "Awright. I know. Sorry. I'm sorry, Chris." Even fever drunk and dulled Vin struggles not to wear out his welcome.

"No. You got nothing to be sorry for," Chris scolds and then softens his voice. "You just…" but Vin has already drifted off, mumbling in a native tongue.

Nathan approaches and Chris fires him a look that is equal parts determination and desperation. He shifts Vin in his arms as if he has forgotten how to hold someone between them - as if he is afraid he will hurt Vin further with his want and his tenderness. It seems entirely possible that he might drown them both in less than three feet of water with the grief that he is already nursing for Vin. But Nathan has worked with wounded and skittish animals before and so it's with a sure hand that he continues to pour water over Vin's burning forehead while the other steadies Chris's shoulder.

Vin quiets himself under their attention and then goes completely still. Nathan rests his hand on his forehead and Chris braces himself for the worst.

Nathan nods to himself and then looks at Chris. "His fever's gone down. C'mon, let's get him out of this puddle." He reaches for Vin but Chris will have none of it. Together though, they pull the soaked sheet from Vin and make their way out onto dry land. Buck and JD wait for any sign that their help would be accepted while Josiah marches forward, unafraid, with a dry blanket that he places over Vin. Nathan lopes ahead to find that Ezra has already set up a basin of water, clean bandages and bottles of carbolic.

Chris strides in with Vin while the others peer into the small cabin from outside. Again, Vin's stillness unnerves him more than his fevered talk. With great care he lays Vin back onto the bed and then wheels around in search of the one thing that might save him. "Where is it?" he demands, upending baskets of food, pushing aside folded blankets. "Where is it?!"

Mr. Larabee…" Ezra solicits.

"Where are his clothes, his…?" he pounds his chest with an open hand unable to name what he so desperately wants.

"They were ruined, Mr. Larabee. We burned - "

"No!" He roughly pushes Ezra out of his way. "No. His coat and war bag, his…" and again he is unable to name it.

Buck enters and pulls out a chair by the window to reveal what's left of Vin's valuables. "Chris! Chris, here - " Chris lunges at the war bag only to toss it aside when it fails to produce what he wants. Another pair of buckskins joins it. He rifles through the pockets of the buffalo hide jacket and while the harmonica and the spyglass that he finds there slow him down they do not stop his search. Finally, lost in a soft wad of colorful bandanas is the small medicine bag that Chanu gave Vin. It almost makes him smile.

What is it between men that can set them fiercely against each other only for one to bless the other with freedom and the other to place his strongest medicine around his pursuers neck? Indian ways, to be sure, but then that would make all Seven of them Indians, also.

Chris carefully straightens the leather thong that carries the medicine bag and quietly approaches Vin. Nathan, who has learned not to be distracted by Chris has already dressed Vin's wound with a clean bandage. He moves aside as Chris slowly nears. Chris takes in the sight of Vin. Again, he sees that Vin is smaller than he imagined without all the layers of animal skins and bandanas to fool him. He is strong but not rough at all. Long muscles run close over bone as if he were bred to be a fast horse and turned up a man instead. Scars from past battles ironically give Chris hope that he might survive this, too. He is pale and sick from blood loss and still beautiful for all his familiarity.

Suddenly unsure, he kneels beside the bed and bows his head the way his own religion had taught him to do. "Vin, please," he pleads and then remembers his desire not to make Vin suffer any longer. He places the medicine bag around Vin's neck and then bows his head again and lets it rest in the crook of Vin's neck. "It's all right. You go on now and rest. You go on if you have to." It's the best he can do since there will always be a part of him that holds on to the people he loves.

He begins to cry. Not his usual commotion, full of rage but an aching pouring off of fear and dread. Resting one hand over the medicine bag and the other in the wet tangle of Vin's hair he finds the small hard pebble of his true self that has kept its vigil in the low center of his body. It is the part of him that recognized Sarah and also the men in his home. It is the part of him that Adam smiled at.

Silence rules him now. His voice is useless. It is this resounding pure silence in himself that Vin will respond to as he has from the first. It is only when he is quiet and still in mind and body that this silence makes itself known as it will never interrupt him. And it is there that all his faith and love lies in wait. Without a sound, his face as untroubled as a newborns, he lets his tears soak Vin's pillow until he sleeps.

Vin will live or die and meet his fate according to whatever elements he believes in. There is nothing left to do.

~7777777~

Another day dawns as Chris scratches his stubbled chin and wakes. Some kind soul has thrown a blanket over his back. Bury me where I fall , he thinks and opens his tired eyes. Vin's hand is so near to his face that it blurs his vision. One long finger reaches out and scratches his chin. Startled completely awake he rears up to find Vin looking at him as if wondering what all the fuss is about. Nearly out of breath he slowly begins to notice that Vin's hair is wet as if he has been taken down to the creek again. The sheets that he grips in his hands are damp and sour smelling. Chris reaches up and places his palm against Vin's sweaty cheek. It's warm but no longer burning with fever and while Vin's eyes are still not completely focused they track Chris's every move.

Josiah's hands rest on Chris's shoulders a moment before they reach under his arms and help lift him to his feet. His back and knees protest as does his pride but it's impossible for him to feel anything but grateful. Vin has survived the night, his fever has broken and if the need arises he apparently has more than one friend who will pick him up off the floor.

Ezra pouring hot water into a basin breaks him from his reverie. He does not step outside as he did the day before. His grief having been replaced by hope allows him to help Buck find the last of his clean sheets and blankets. Smoothing out a bedroll he looks up to find Vin watching him still. He ducks his chin to hide his pleasure.

Nathan reaches for Vin and then steps aside when Chris hurries over. Slowly, and with great care, Chris slips his arms under Vin's legs and back and lifts. As gentle as he is, Vin flinches from being moved at all.

"Shh, shh, shh," Chris soothes. "I'm sorry," and then sits him on the bedroll letting him rest against his shoulder. It's a gift to have Vin alive within the circle of his arms.

JD brings over a cup of water and holds it for Vin when he sees that he can't. Vin pulls at the water until it's nearly gone. JD dares to smile at Chris before he asks, "More, Vin?"

"Let's see how he holds this down," Chris advises gently.

"OK," JD agrees, and can't help another smile.

Nathan nudges JD aside with a water basin and together he and Chris make short work of bathing Vin. His arms and legs are heavy, nearly dead weight. The simile chills Chris. "You were starting to smell like a cowboy there, Vin," Chris teases in an effort to distract his own thoughts. Vin makes a raspy, exasperated sound which delights Chris.

Nathan waits until Vin is settled back into the remade bed before he changes his bandages. Vin accepts Nathan's ministrations as stoically as possible. While he catches his breath he looks around the small room and takes in the sight of six men who are peering back at him. Ezra's clothes are as rumpled as everyone else's and all of them look in need of sleep.

Vin's voice is torn and barely audible. "What are y'all doing here?"

There is a long, silent moment where Vin has everyone's stunned attention. Ezra throws up his hands and turns to share a smile with Josiah. Buck looms forward and with affectionate exasperation exclaims, "We just came over to say 'Howdy'," and then raises his hand open hand to confirm his statement. "Howdy!"

"Buck…" Chris warns but a smile carries his voice.

Vin raises his fingers from his chest. "Howdy." If he weren't so tired he might try to figure out what his friends think is so funny but he can barely keep his eyes open until he finds Chris again.

Chris steps forward and leans over him and says in a quiet voice over the noise behind him, "Howdy, partner." He places his rough palm over Vin's forehead. "You rest now." Vin blinks tiredly at him. "That's it. Just sleep." Vin finally gives in. "I'll watch your back."

Chris stands and swallows and chokes on his relief. Buck turns him and opens his arms. Chris rests his forehead on Buck's shoulder and for a short while lets Buck wrap him in a warm hold.

~7777777~

While Vin's wound quickly heals under Nathan's care it's the fever and its insistence on revisiting time and again that wears everyone to the bone. Vin sleeps long hours waking only long enough to drink and take care of his most basic needs. He remembers very little of this time. Worried faces and the unusual gentle sound of their voices stay with him and sometimes haunt his dreams. Each time he wakes Chris is sitting by his side or standing somewhere near, looking over his shoulder as Vin quietly stirs. It's such a common sight that very quickly he finds it difficult to focus on anything until he has sharpened his eyes on Chris.

Nettie Welles has somehow stormed the gates that other kind women have left their best dishes at. It's not unusual to wake to the sound of her bullying the lot of them. He smiles and escapes back to sleep.

It's wonderful to have the smell of her cooking wake him up long enough for him to sip at the broth of her soup. The others, too, look well fed if not well rested. It's wonderful to know somehow that Chris is near as he opens his eyes to find him sitting in a chair, elbows on his knees, his eyes smiling. It's funny to see Chris in that same chair with Nettie behind him cutting his long, lank hair close to his skull. Vin struggles to stay awake - and sober - at the sight of Chris trying to retain some of his fierceness as Nettie pushes his head this way and that.

Vin falls back asleep wondering what Chris's bristled crown would feel like against his palm. When he wakes again Chris is sitting nearer, leaning forward, daring Vin to say anything. Like any sheared lamb, Vin finds Chris silly and vulnerable looking without all his wool but instead of using his strength to tease he reaches out to satisfy his curiosity and places his hand on top of Chris's head. It's somehow softer than he remembers and yet it still manages to tickle his palm. This is how Nathan finds them, with Vin scratching Chris's scalp in a lazy benediction.

"Miss Nettie says you're next, Vin," Nathan tells him over Chris's shoulder and then watches Vin's smile slide off his face. His snorts and then steps in front of Chris who never moves completely out of the way and lays his hand on Vin's cool forehead. It crosses his mind that this is how they will greet each other from now on. Not with a handshake or a firm grip of the others forearm but instead, with a well meaning, heartfelt check for fever.

"What's tickling you?" Vin asks with some of his old salt.

"Aww, nothing. Just glad you're rid of that fever. Here…," he leans awkwardly over Vin and then scolds Chris with a look. Chris finally moves as Nathan checks the small pink scar on Vin's belly.

When Nathan stands to leave Vin tugs on his sleeve. "Uh, Nathan. I just wanted to thank you. All you boys. For taking care of me."

Nathan watches Vin suffer with his gratitude and then he does it. He sits on the edge of the bed as he has for many nights and rests his palm on Vin's forehead. He lets him feel with the press of his hand that if Vin ever needs him he will be there - unquestioning, never late and with his own gratitude. Vin lets out a surprised huff of air that lets Nathan know the he understands.

It's night when he wakes again. A fire crackles reassuringly while a single lantern provides just enough light to show Chris standing in the doorway. He sips absently from a coffee cup, his thoughts obviously somewhere out in the dark center of the night. Vin remains quiet, not wanting to distract Chris away from the answer he seems to be looking for. But Chris is a sensitive animal so it's not long before he straightens and looks over he shoulder to find Vin awake. He sets his cup on the bedside table inbetween the bandages and bottles and looks down at Vin.

"Hey, pard. You need anything?" Vin shakes his head no. "You thirsty? Hungry?"

"I could go for a drink." Chris reaches for the water pitcher. "Maybe something a little stronger." Chris pours the water anyway, ignoring his meaning.

"First some water." He crouches down and slips his hand under Vin's head. The water is sweet and satisfying, almost making up for its lack of potency. Chris lets him finish the cup before he pulls it away and reaches for his coffee. Vin lifts his own head to get to the cup which makes Chris smile. "Easy, cowboy. It's still hot." And strong and almost worth the wait. He supports Vin's head again, letting him sip and measure with his eyes what's left against how much more he wants. When it's almost gone Vin remembers his manners and lets Chris finish off the rest of it.

With his hands free Chris fusses with the blanket and then places his palm on Vin's forehead.

"No more fever," Vin smiles. "Just a little tired."

Chris nods and lets his hand fall back into Vin's hair and tangle his fingertips slowly in it. He clears his throat. "Quiet - without all the boys here."

"I can't say I noticed."

Chris smiles and then grows serious. "No. You were busy."

They share a long silence that Vin finally breaks. "That feller who shot me - "

"He's gone."

Vin presses on. "A bounty hunter?" Chris sighs and nods. "I was a bounty hunter."

"He wasn't even trying to bring you in alive, Vin. He was just hunting you."

"There'll be others."

"We'll watch your back."

"You can't kill 'em all."

"Yes. We can."

"No. Chris. It ain't right."

It's obvious that Chris wants to argue his side but there is no good argument for murder and he knows it. "Vin…"

"No. Listen…listen to me, Larabee." When Chris finally looks at him Vin can see that he has aged before his eyes. It's a sight that almost silences him but what he has to say is true and inevitable and there is no easy way around it. "There'll be others," he repeats. "And I don't want any of you risking your lives to save mine or laying to rest every bounty hunter who's carrying my picture around." Then it's his turn to look away and confess to the wall. "Aww, Chris, I been such a fool. I never meant to stay here this long. Letting folks know who I am - hell, even telling that writer feller that I was wanted. I'm only surprised there haven't been more." He turns back to Chris. "I just got too comfortable - lazy." Sighing, he spells it out. "My only hope is Yates. And that's if I can find him and what? - make him tell a judge that he heard I was innocent but he going to help hang me anyways?" He is suddenly out of breath. Winded by his own realization. "I ain't ever going to be a free man in this country."

Chris holds still despite the muscles in his legs that ache to run. "Then you have to go," he bites off. "You have to go wherever you'll be safe - and Vin, I have to stay here…"

"I know."

"I have to stay and find Ella."

"I know…"

"But not until you're strong. You'll stay until you're strong again."

"OK."

"All right. Are you hungry? Do you need anything?"

"No, Chris. I'm just tired."

"OK then. You just rest and I'll…go see how much of my property that damn horse of yours has destroyed."

He rushes out of the cabin leaving Vin wide awake.

~7777777~

The next morning when Nathan and Josiah ride up to Chris's cabin it's to the sight of Vin sitting on the porch steps.

Nathan calls out, "Vin, is that you sitting there unraveling all my hard work?"

Vin is unrepentant and simply raises his face back to the sun. "I heal faster out here," he says as Nathan and Josiah settle on either side of him.

"No," Nathan counters, greeting him palm to forehead, "you're getting sunburned faster out here." Vin scowls from under Nathan's big hand but Nathan is also unrepentant.

"Good morning, Brother Tanner," Josiah greets. "It's good to see you upright under your own steam."

"It's good to be upright, Josiah."

Nathan rolls his eyes. "I need to check that wound, Vin."

"OK, Nate," Vin acquiesces and then remains where he is.

Chris comes through the doorway with coffee cups that he hands to Nathan and Josiah. Vin reaches for his own cup between his feet and the strong brew goes a long way with simmering everyone down. Chris rest his elbows on the railing and sips from the cup he left there. He has resumed his post somewhere in the middle distance, not close to Vin where he'd like to be but never far in case he's needed. Nathan and Josiah exchange a brief glance to acknowledge that something significant has happened in their brief absence and both know that only time will tell and not their taciturn friends.

They pass the time this way for a while only moving about to get more coffee and then settling back into their places like chess pieces.

"This is a beautiful stretch of land, Chris," Josiah speaks their thoughts. "A fine place to raise horses if you took a mind to it."

"It's crossed my mind a time or two," Chris confesses. Josiah toasts him.

Off in the distance JD and Buck ride up with Nettie's small wagon between them. Long before they are near Chris throws the remains of his coffee over the railing while Nathan and Josiah unpack their horses of medical supplies.

"Look," Buck calls out with what he hopes is appropriate sounding enthusiasm. "We ran into Miss Nettie in town."

Chris steps down off his porch as fearless as ever and helps Nettie down from her wagon as much as she'll allow him to do. Another large basket of food is brought inside along with blankets and clean sheets that Chris has no memory of her taking. "Thank you, Miss Nettie, for everything you've done for us. We're much obliged."

"Nothing at all, Mr. Larabee," she reassures him. He starts to ask her to call him Chris when her attention shifts quickly to Vin. "Do you plan on sitting in the dirt all day, Vin?"

"No, ma'am," Vin dares, while the others admire his bravery. "Just getting a bit of fresh air."

"Very well. But you need to take in something besides coffee." The men around her drop their heads knowing they have been scolded. "I brought a stew if that sounds agreeable to you."

His stomach growls. "Yes ma'am. It sounds right good."

Not a sentimental woman she leaves him on the step like the others have done and goes inside to oversee the reheating of her stew. Abandoned, Vin scoots to the edge of the step to leverage himself forward when Chris's strong hands catch him under his arms and lift him to his feet. Carefully he wraps his arm around Vin's waist and pulls his arm around his neck.

"Larabee…" Vin warns, "if you carry me in…" Chris's eyes glitter but he allows Vin his dignity and walks him slowly inside.

It's a strange comfort to have Vin near him despite the reason why. Would it be perverse of him to hope for a slow recovery so he can have Vin under his roof, tucked under his arm? Vin stops him by the doorway to catch his breath and then refastens his hold around Chris's neck. Chris squeezes his hand. Take your time, Vin. Take your time. But it's not in his nature. Vin pushes himself the last few steps until he is deposited on clean bedding. Chris puts his hands on Vin's shoulders to ease him back but Vin pushes back. Stubborn and out of breath, he stares down the floor and remains upright. Chris rest his hands just above Vin's knees and lets Vin bear his weight. I know you're strong. Out loud he says, "Let me get you some water." Vin nods.

"Mr. Larabee, I'm right behind you with a hot dish," Nettie warns as if he didn't know exactly where she was at all times.

Vin tries to swallow his smile as Chris straightens to his full height. They reshuffle themselves in the small space with Nettie setting up Vin's meal, Chris pouring a cup of water and the rest of them escaping to the porch. There is a small commotion. A rattling of dishes, a rattling of nerves and then Chris is outside with the rest of Vin's errant pardners.

Nettie doles out a bowl of stew for each of them and then informs them, "My apologies, gentlemen. I'm not going to be able to stay long today. Now that Vin is on the way to recovery I need to see to some of my own business."

"Much obliged," Chris repeats and stifles a relieved sigh. "I hope you'll let us know if there's anything we can do for you."

"Thank you, no," she says, climbing into her wagon before any of them can assist her. "It's good for an old woman to get her hands dirty in a garden now and then."

Chris feels his tenderness reaching out to her inbetween bracing himself. "JD, why don't you ride with Miss Nettie?"

"Nonsense," she protests and then hands out her orders. "JD, if you would, just stay here and finish your food and then when you're done you can bring back some of my dishes. If you're a mind to it, I can send you back with whatever the rabbits haven't eaten from the garden."

"Yes, ma'am," JD agrees while the others chorus, "Thank you, ma'am."

"Gentlemen," she nods to them and then without further ado snaps the reins smartly and is off.

When she is some distance away JD wonders aloud, "Do you think Casey will be like her?"

Most of them laugh and shake their heads. Only Josiah answers. "JD, she already is." The truth of the statement sets them off except for JD who seems to be weighing the possibility.

Chris hears Vin call for him and goes inside to find Vin trying to untangle his feet from the bedding that Nettie must of tucked him into. Chris sets his stew on the table and goes to him.

"Chris…," Vin's voice begs for freedom.

Chris laughs a little and then takes it back. "Alright, alright. Take it easy." It turns out that it's only one foot that's caught in the blanket and Chris frees it once Vin stills himself. A sock, nearly lost to the battle, hangs off of Vin's foot. Chris straightens it with another chuff of laughter and then rests his hands again above Vin's knees. He takes a long look at Vin's exasperated face. "You look a mite tired. You sure you want to be up?"

"I'm tired of this, Chris," Vin struggles to hold his temper but still pushes his clean bedclothes roughly away.

"OK," Chris tries to sound nonchalant knowing that Vin would bristle even more at being soothed. "Let's see what the boys are up to."

Vin nods, a little shamefaced and then lets Chris help him back outside. When they make it through the doorway they are greeted with a small celebration. Chris notices that Vin is heartened by the fresh air and the good company as he settles him back on the step and then goes back inside to retrieve their stew. He hands Vin his bowl and then forgetting himself sits down beside him with a sigh. While the stew is tasty it seems like a lot of work for one meal but he keeps that thought - like so many others - to himself.

He lets his friends voices drift over him, only responding when he is spoken to directly. His attention, which has been fatigued for so long, rests near Vin who he knows will allow him his silence.

Josiah dries the plates that JD dutifully washes while the others remain outside. Occasionally Buck will call to them over some argued point that Vin has somehow managed to tie him knots over despite his condition. By the time one of them opens their mouth to respond Buck is on to another point. Chris almost smiles when he realizes that that even when he had a small child in his home it was never this busy or noisy.

Ezra, a man of impeccable timing, arrives just as the last dish is being dried. "Gentlemen," he calls out as he dismounts. "I came here to see if I could provide some form of distraction," and pats the deck of cards tucked into his breast pocket, "but I see that you already have the sun on your faces."

"Pull out that deck of cards that's tickling you," Chris squints up at him. "I reckon we can handle both."

As Chris goes inside to fetch Ezra some coffee Josiah dries his hands and joins the rest. Chris watches as JD carefully packs Nettie's dishes into one of her baskets and takes some comfort in that he is not the only one who walks lightly around her. He pats JD reassuringly on the back on his way out which puzzles JD a bit but Chris is sure he will survive the uncertainty.

Ezra has usurped Chris seat next to Vin. Chris hands him his coffee for which he interrupts himself to thank him for and then barrels on. Vin catches his eye and they share an amused look. JD breaks the exchange by none too gracefully stepping over Ezra's legs and causing a minor uproar by narrowly missing his head with the basket he carries for Nettie.

As he climbs up on his horse Chris reminds him, " Be sure to thank her, JD."

"And say hello to Miss Casey," Buck winks at him.

JD scowls at Buck and tips his hat to the others and then is off at a gallop. Nary a plate rattles.

They settle around Vin as Ezra deals a hand. Chris begs out and sits in a chair that Josiah has brought out along with one for himself. He begins to whittle as the game starts and stops as they eat the oatmeal cookies they are betting with. The wood in his hand begins to look like a ship when Ezra's voice catches his attention.

"Mr. Tanner…?" Ezra begins and then tries to hide his worry. "I do believe that you have lost your poker face."

Chris flicks his knife closed and crouches down beside Nathan who is lifting Vin's chin off of his chest. Vin's eyes are barely open, his winning hand spills onto his lap.

"He's all right, he's all right," Nathan reassures as he pats Vin's cheek. "Just tuckered out." He goes to lift him but, of course, Chris is there ahead of him to cradle Vin in his arms. Nonplussed, Nathan escorts them inside where he turns down the bed as Chris eases Vin into it.

Vin takes that moment to rouse himself and when he sees that he is back in bed he groans, "Aww, hell."

Chris smiles down at him. "Take it easy, pard."

"You've had an eventful day, Mr. Tanner," Ezra points out over Chris's shoulder.

"Yeah, it's been a hoot," Vin fires back. "All ninety minutes of it."

Ezra laughs, showing his fine gold tooth. "Until tomorrow, Mr. Tanner." But Vin is already asleep. He begins to leave when he notices that Chris is sitting on the edge of the bed, bowed over as if he doesn't have the energy to sit up straight. "Mr. Larabee…?" When there is no answer he starts towards him when he sees Nathan gesture with a heavy hand that they should just leave him be. Ezra agrees and leaves with Nathan.

Buck, who has been standing in the doorway is not so easily dissuaded. He comes in and places his hand at the base of Chris's neck.

Slowly Chris looks up at him and is finally able to whisper his fears. "I don't know what I'm going to do when he goes."

There is nothing for Buck to say.

~7777777~

By some unspoken agreement Vin and Chris are left mostly to themselves while Vin makes his recovery. Vin takes over his own convalescence making Nathan's visits purely social and brief. It's heartening to see Vin up and around, taking slow walks with Chris around his property with his hand on Chris's shoulder to steady himself. Just as often Nathan or one of the others will arrive to find Vin sound asleep with Chris somewhere nearby ready to ward off anyone or anything that might disturb him. Nathan believes he is not the only one who knows that Vin's fatigue does not come from his injury but instead from some sadness rooted in resignation. He has set his will to do one thing and it will be done no matter how it pains him. It's also obvious that Chris shares this weariness even as he stands guard.

While others wish to celebrate Vin's recovery his pards gently discourage any further acknowledgement. All of them know that as soon as Vin is well he will leave Four Corners. It is not unlike looking up at a blue sky and being certain that bad weather is on its way.

The sun is setting when Vin joins Chris around his small corral. Chris is idly scratching Pony's soft wide muzzle, nearly putting the big black to sleep while Peso tosses his head and prances around him. Vin cuts a green apple in half and hands one part to Chris and then holds his share out to Peso. While Pony savors it quietly, Peso nips the apple out of Vin's hand. Unfazed, Vin pulls another apple from his pocket and cuts that one in half for him and Chris. He watches Chris take a big bite and then squint happily at the tart taste. Vin goes to take a bite when Peso nuzzles him and then steals the apple away, trotting to the other side of the corral.

"I'll shoot him for you," Chris offers.

Vin watches Peso map the corral. "Nah, I got plans for that ole glue pot."

Chris smiles and holds out his half of the apple for Vin. After only a moments hesitation Vin takes a bite and then watches as Chris gives the rest to Pony.

Sharing with Vin makes Chris feel optimistic and ready to deny all the other thoughts that have been crowding his head. "I've been thinking about making this a proper ranch. Start small - let it grow with the town."

Vin nods. This is where he should throw in his lot with Chris but he cannot and they both know it even as Vin encourages. "I can see it. Sounds like a fine idea."

It is a fine idea but it will never happen. That green apple will be their supper. They will pass the evening with as little talk as possible and at sunrise Vin will leave Four Corners and all that it has held for him. The townspeople will whisper of him running to Mexico, Brazil or California while his friends will say nothing at all. Chris's cabin is emptied once again. Baskets and dishes are returned to their rightful owners. His small corral remains as it is.

Chris, always a man of few words becomes near silent.

~7777777~

Anyone who speculated that Vin would head south or even west to California is proven wrong when instead he rides east. East through long miles of desert under blue skies and the cover of the moon and the stars. And while he moves with all the stealth that any desert creature might possess he feels no urgency to escape or reach his destination. The realization that these are his last days in this still unbowed country open his eyes as never before. The hard earth floor he sleeps on is a blessing because it allows such a spectacular view of the night sky. During the day the wind is at his back, lifting him up and urging him on even as his body tires. The cactus he drinks from is sweet nectar.

One night, without thought, he removes all his layers that protect him from the heat and the cold, that protect him from any exposure, and lies down on his bedroll with his arms outstretched. A supplication for flight.

While the night air is warm and still its mere presence on his skin is enough to set him shivering. He closes his eyes and listens to the sound of his breath become slow and deep. The muscles in his arms and legs become heavy as if he is about to fall off to sleep. His stomach drops and he inhales sharply but he is not falling but instead being lifted. He keeps his eyes closed for as long as his curiosity will allow and then slowly opens them to the sight of his body stretched out below him.

Once again, the world is before him. He stretches his arms out above his head and is immediately surrounded by other stars. Reaching for a constellation just at his fingertips he is flooded with memories of his mother. Her face, nearly forgotten over the long years becomes vivid and heartbreaking. Blue eyes and brown wavy hair. Part of her beauty is now his. A warm, throaty laugh over something he did to please her. The sound of her voice blessing him with sweet names and nonsense and he loves it even as he blows tunelessly into a harmonica over her words. She is reaching out for him, too.

With just the touch of her fingertips she is gone again only to reveal a blue moon, not unlike a child's marble and he knows that the rest of his family is there.

Josiah, who he has entrusted with a gift for Chris, sits on the steps of his church and silently praises the moon and the stars with his eyes. Yes, Josiah. You are closer to heaven than you know.

Rain is with Nathan and they strain against each other quietly, whispering each others names breathlessly.

Ezra tosses profits to the wind and sits at his piano and plays a slow and beautiful song that brings his saloon to a reverent standstill. Buck and JD are caught in his spell. Poker hands are forgotten as they drift in their own thoughts.

Vin reaches for Chris but he's not with them. In his empty cabin he lies on his belly in worn drawers that leave his back and feet exposed. He stares at the opposite wall but Vin knows that he is lost without sight or sound and sunk in too much emotion. Look up Chris, Vin wants to brag, I'm part of the night sky. I'm shining down on you. Chris stirs but only to hide his face in the crook of his arm. You are - you are beautiful even when you curl up with your pain. Willful. And contrary. I have never loved someone so dearly. I love you dearly.

The declaration cuts him loose. He is hurtled through a blur of stars until he is back in the desert he traveled so far from. He is breathless, almost choking. A tear tickles his cheek and runs into his ear. He tries to sit up but cannot. One hand rests on his chest and he feels something warm, like blood, splattered there. He reaches down and finds his cock too tender to touch. He stays awake just long enough to rub his seed back into his skin.

The light of day passes over him but it's well into noon before he can rouse himself. His first thought is of Chris. He sits up and looks back over his shoulder at the trail he has already traveled. His back straightens at the thought of reclaiming his place there. If he was there he would be able to do whatever he had to do to clear his name. He knows six people - fierce men, all of them - and one in particular who would lay down their lives for him. They would set themselves against whatever stood in the way of Vin's freedom no matter the cost. They would die for him as he would for them and call the price fair. It is this certainty that reestablishes Vin's course.

He packs his meager belongings back onto Peso and continues east through the New Mexico territories, into the Texas Panhandle. East to Tascosa.

He feels himself start to shake. Chris would skin him alive - or least threaten to - if he knew what Vin was set to do.

By the time he reaches Tascosa's main street Vin is well aware that he has already set events in motion that in turn will likely treat his fate as a matter of little consequence. He's a wanted man, worth more than his salt, thanks in part to a large bounty put on his head for another mans crime. He is tempting his own fate, daring it to judge him harshly or let him be.

Eli Joe is dead but in truth, he met his fate without paying for his crime. Vin has no idea how he would explain to anyone - and especially to Chris - how the death of a man he knows only by name has haunted him even more than being framed for his murder. No one has paid the price for the death of Jess Kincaid who died only because he had the misfortune of crossing paths with Eli Joe. Vin is ready to pay that debt. And if he is honest with himself - which he can't seem to avoid - he would also admit that he is through with running and hiding despite the travel plans he has made. He is proud of his name and can no longer abide having to whisper it as if it were gossip.

He rides into town slowly, not bothering to shadow his face. At the livery he leaves his name and two bits to the stable boy and carries his warbag to the nearest bathhouse. The beaded doorway rattles and sways as he sinks into the hot water. He assumes the posture of a man determined to enjoy a long soak and yet he is ready to stand of his own accord if anyone burst through the rosary door to finally bring him to court. It is, after all, exactly what he is seeking for himself. But his bath is uninterrupted as is the close shave he also tries to enjoy. He is almost out the door when he turns to the old Chinese man who has waited on him and asks, "Where can I find the sheriff in this town?"

The man looks up at him sharply and Vin would swear that he is trying to suppress a smile. "No sheriff. Over a year now. We ask and we wait but no one comes."

Vin is not surprised. "What passes for the law around here?" At this, the man raises his palms up and shrugs. His meaning is clear enough. "Thank you, mister. Much obliged." He tips his hat and steps out into the fading light.

The hotel across the street is boarded up and empty leaving the saloon his next stop. He orders a whiskey that is watered down and sits at the battered bar using the cracked mirror behind it to watch his back. Fights break out between men too drunk to land a solid punch. Ill used saloon girls move out of the way with slow and sad movements, like ghosts.

He leaves the saloon and buys himself some sweets at the general store just as it's about to close. The livery proves to be quieter and have better company and that's where Vin sleeps on his bedroll just outside of Peso's stall. In the morning he rises and finds a small barely open restaurant willing to fix him strong coffee and eggs and bacon. He has a long journey ahead of him if he can reach the end of town.

He feeds Peso a couple of sugar cubes and laughs along with the stable boy when Peso stomps the ground for more. Finally, he rides out of town offering his freedom this one last time. At the end of the street he turns in his saddle to see that he is already forgotten. It occurs to him that men have traveled long distances to bring him back to this hard scratch of a town and now that he is here no one can be bothered to cross the street to collect him.

He stops at the cemetery and stands with his hat in hand over the small marker for Jess Kincaid. There are no words. Vin pays his respect with his silence and then leaves Tascosa just as quietly.

He has tempted fate, as he knows better than to do, and has left his hanging tree behind him. Now he can go on even as his loneliness settles in his joints. His body aches and pulls from the bullet wound and at night when he is tired and unreasonable afraid his fever revisits him. He is ready to cry out a friends name as if Chris is merely sleeping soundly nearby and needs only the sound of his voice to bring him closer still.

He sometimes hopes that the distance he is putting between himself and those he left behind will diminish his longing for them but the possibility that that might actually happen is cold comfort. It's better to find a way to put his arms around his near grief than to push his memories of Four Corners to the back of his mind as if it were one more sad thing to be outlived.

As he continues his journey south and then east he reminds himself that he has done this before. He reminds himself how he used to itch to leave Four Corners which only serves to remind him that he no longer did.

Once he reaches New Orleans he is tempted to stay. The ornate architecture, spicy food and boisterous, barely understood accents make him feel as if he is already in another country. Instead, he puts away his wishful thinking that he can ill afford and bides his time until he is able to book a passage on one of the trading ships. He soon finds one that is trading cotton and tobacco for sugar from Salvador and coffee from Rio de Janeiro. He watches as Peso is led wall eyed onto the ship and then boards with nearly the same amount of trepidation. His boots slip on the planks as barefoot crew members run around him and climb creaking ropes. The sails unfurl and snap open not unlike Nettie folding her sheets. There is no lurch or sense of movement. The port with its small throng of well wishers seems to float away from the ship and not the other way around. It's only when they have maneuvered out to sea that Vin finally feels the wind in the sails pushing the ship onward. The ocean splashes up against the sides but does little to slow it down.

It hardly seems real. Too beautiful. Josiah had warned him that he would feel like he was in a dream or that he had stumbled into Paradise. The rigors of sailing keep Heaven at bay with sea sickness and rationed out food and yet Vin spends as much time as possible out on the deck, the wind in his face. Underscoring his near happiness is a sense of guilt for being witness to it all and an ever present longing for having no one to share it with. It will forever be something that he holds in his minds eye, so much like a dream, vivid and aching and never something he will be able to put into words.

With his spyglass he documents all that is before him and just out of reach. The ship sails out of the Gulf of Mexico, across the Caribbean and then down along the eastern coast of South America. Past the sugar cane and white sand beaches of Bahia, past Salvador and other cities named after saints, down along the green coast until he takes his first wobbly steps in Rio de Janeiro only to continue further south on Peso's back.

I'm free. But he is too haunted to really believe it.

He decides that when a man is lost there is only one thing he can do: draw a circle in the sand, step into the middle of it and call it home.

~7777777~

Chris puts down his fork and glares at JD. For a long moment JD stares back, placid as a summer sky until Chris cocks his head and asks, "Is there something about me that you'd like to study up close, JD?"

Caught, JD stammers, "Uh, no Chris. Just haven't seen you in a while. I - I was just wondering how you been."

Buck nudges Chris. "He missed you."

"That ain't what I said," JD protests.

Ignoring JD, Buck nudges Chris again. "I didn't miss you. Not even a little."

Chris glares at them all as a chorus rings around the table with each taking their turn to deny their concern.

Josiah raises his glass and says, "Chris, if I had known that you had left town, well, I woulda missed you."

It's enough to crack Chris's scowl into a smile that he hides behind a shot of whiskey. Buck carefully shakes Chris by the neck and then lets his arm rest along the back of his chair, protective, whether Chris would accept it or not. In the long months since Vin left Four Corners it's become rare for so many of them to be at the same table and Buck is glad to have any excuse to share a laugh with these men. Only Ezra is missing. Off to see his mother in San Francisco.

Buck takes a drink of his whiskey and being somewhat more wily than JD he steals a look at Chris. The long trips in search of Ella, and the men who conspired with her, have left Chris worn down and weary beyond his years. Cutting through dangerous territory he has already made his way to Albuquerque and Santa Fe and then down into Mexico where they might have fled for a quick get away. If not for the exhaustion writ across his face and into his bones, Chris would be on his way north to Kansas City. "A woman like Ella will hide where she can be waited on," Chris reasons. He will find her, he swears. "It's not like she's some kind of ghost," no matter how she haunts him.

Buck tries to hold his smile but it's hard when he can smell the sour stink of Chris's nightmare sweat and see the deep hallows of his cheeks. The muscles in Chris's neck look drawn and strained, ready to break the bone underneath if they are taxed any further. He looks like he's dying, Buck thinks, and tries to chase the thought away with the rest of his drink. His sense of helplessness chokes him and as Nathan pounds him soundly on the back Chris warns off his concern with another tired glare. Undeterred, Buck pours himself another shot and rests his hand back on Chris's chair.

The next day Buck receives a telegraph from Ezra.

Returning to Four Corners ASAP STOP
Important news for Chris STOP

With those two lines they are left to wait.

Chris tries to bide his time at his cabin but it passes too slowly there and so he returns to town to wait. Once there, Buck feeds him as often as possible while JD and Josiah nonchalantly block all exits. Nathan's good company slows him down but he still drinks to rest and passes out more than he sleeps.

When Ezra's stagecoach finally rumbles into town Chris is brittle with anticipation. He sits at one of the saloons tables and pours another whiskey for himself and one for Ezra and waits in stony silence for him to arrive. JD bursts through the saloon doors to greet Ezra with one question after another until Buck pulls him off. Nathan and Josiah welcome Ezra back warmly and prepare to leave when Chris urges them all to stay.

"Might as well get this out in the open," and then gestures to the chair beside him for Ezra.

Ezra shakes Chris's hand firmly and accepts his seat and drink without his usual fanfare. The whiskey burns all the down to his belly the same way Chris's look burns him. He clears his throat and begins.

"My mother recently met a gentleman by the name of Garnet Montrose." Chris shows his impatience by pursing his lips and looking away. Ezra continues as he began. "Mr. Montrose took his inheritance and left the south before the war and against his families wishes came out west and made another fortune during the gold rush. He settled in San Francisco and it was there that he finally met his wife a little over a year ago. Unlike many men of his wealth he is a kind man and still grieves over his young wife's sudden death."

Chris looks back at Ezra. "Does this story have an ending?"

"My mother, being who she is, wanted to offer him some pleasant distraction from his loss - "

Chris smirks.

" - and together we visited his house for supper. Throughout the house there are photographs of his wife who died in her sleep after suffering for years with debilitating headaches." Ezra pulls an unframed photograph from his breast pocket and sets it in front of Chris. "Mr. Larabee, this is a picture of Mr. Montrose and his wife Ellen, but I believe we knew her as Ella Gaines."

Chris stares hard at Ezra and Ezra holds his eye and yet there is no challenge behind it. "Mr. Larabee, please…"

Slowly Chris leans over the picture without touching it and takes in the sight of a man in a fine suit and hat, soft and blurred with age, his arm proudly holding the small hand of the woman beside him. And there she is, pristine and dark and lovely. Ella.

Without looking up Chris asks, "She's dead?"

"Yes. Five months ago. I believe Mr. Montrose knew her only as a lady of society from St. Louis who had been recently widowed. Miss Gaines has already devastated so many people I didn't see any point in replacing his grief with humiliation."

"How kind of you," Chris mumbles.

Ezra looks to the others. They had been foolish to imagine toasting her death. JD stands silent and panting for air despite his uncommon stillness. Buck will look at nothing but the floor. Nathan sits heavily in a chair and leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Josiah watches Chris and prays. A piano plays brightly around them.

"Mr. Larabee…Chris, I can only hope that now that the architect of your misery has finally met her judgment that you can begin to grieve for all that you have lost and find a place beyond that to enjoy all that you still have. If there is - "

"Begin to grieve?" The accusation staggers Chris. "I've done nothing but gr - "

"You have been angry and hurt - without a doubt - but you have not grieved."

"How dare you!" Chris seethes, knocking back his chair when he stands up.

Buck steps forward, the born peacemaker, and places a placating hand on Chris's arm. "C'mon, Chris…"

Chris turns on him leaving a cut above Buck's eye from the barrel of the gun in his hand. The piano stops.

Blood rolls into Buck's eye as he throws a near blind punch that bloodies Chris's nose. The saloon empties except for the six regulators as Buck lets loose years of pained frustration. Another blow connects with Chris's cheekbone and then his last punch splits Chris's lip as Josiah and JD pull him away. He struggles against them as Chris sits heavily on the floor. Ezra takes the gun from Chris's lax hand as Nathan crouches by him.

"You've always blamed me for their deaths!" Buck shouts at Chris. "Haven't you?!"

"Mr. Wilmington, now is not the time - " Ezra pleads.

"You blame me for taking you away when they were killed. If I hadn't of taken you away Ella wouldn't of had a chance to hurt them, isn't that right?" Some of the fight goes out of Buck but his friends still hold him. "Chris, you damn fool. I loved them, too. You know that. I would have never asked you to go with me if I thought they would have been harmed." Suddenly weary, Buck hangs him head. "I loved them, too."

Chris looks up at Buck from where he has remained on the floor. Tears cut a path through the blood on his cheek. His face slack, he nods to himself and then to Buck. "I know," he quietly confesses. Buck dares to look at Chris's ruined face and tries to swallow his shame. Something in the way Chris looks up at him implores him to listen one more time. "There's a wild thing in me that never went away even after I was married - even after I was a papa. I used to wait for you to ask me to go somewhere - anywhere. To ride hard, drink. Kick dirt around until we found trouble. I loved them…but not enough."

Buck moves unsteadily from his friends hold and sits ungainly on the floor facing Chris. He takes one of Chris's hands and smoothes it between both of his. His bloody knuckles sting from the effort. "What's enough, Chris?" he asks with a rough voice. "When you're dead, too."

At a loss, Chris mutely shakes his head and then leans forward and rests his forehead on Buck's shoulder. Buck lets go of his hand and wraps his long arms around Chris.

Nathan stands and rests his hand on the top of Buck's thick hair. "I'll be waitin' for you at the clinic." Buck nods and pulls Chris closer. The others leave as the old friends reclaim their hold on each other.

~7777777~

It's only early evening. The sun having just set leaves the sky dark blue. The watch fires have been lit, the piano plays again in the saloon while the rest of the town sets lanterns burning.

Josiah lets himself in to Nathan's clinic with a soft knock. Nathan greets him with a tired smile and continues to clean up while Buck sits by a sleeping Chris. Josiah approaches Buck and tips his chin up. Cocking his head he appraises the stitches above his eye. "That scar will go nicely with your mustache."

"Why, thank you. Nathan said the same thing so it must be true."

Josiah nods and then crowds Buck out of his chair as only a friend can do. Buck wanders over to Nathan as Josiah rests his large hand on Chris's face. He takes in the split lip that holds a single stitch, the swollen nose and blackened eyes, the heat from the bruise just under his hand. It's as though Chris has been to war, and won, simply by surviving, but has yet to make it home. Josiah believes he can rectify that.

Chris stirs and opens his sore eyes. "Josiah?"

"I have a gift for you." Josiah removes his hand and reaches under his serape. "A friend of ours said I'd know when you needed it most." That said, he pulls out a small doe skin pouch attached to a leather thong. Vin's medicine bag. Chris's eyes well up but Josiah is not disturbed by it in the least. He carefully places the pouch around Chris's neck and then rests his hand over it where is sits on Chris's chest. "He assured me that it's strong medicine made to heal all kinds of wounds." Josiah smiles down on him as Chris's eyes spill over.

"I have to find him," Chris chokes out.

Josiah nods. "I don't know why you stayed."

Chris moves his arm over his eyes to hide any further emotion but it's no use.

Josiah keeps his hand where it is. "I'll tell you everything I told him about the trading ships that leave from New Orleans and sail around the whole of South America. I'll tell you what it's like to stand on one of those ships and see nothing but God's blue ocean all around you. How easy it is to believe in Him again when you are surrounded by the wild things he has made. I'll advise you to be careful of the spicy food when you stop in Bahia but to try it nonetheless." Chris's arm falls slowly away from his eyes. "My good brother. I want you to see as much of that beautiful country as possible on your way to Rio de Janeiro and from there, you will need to follow your own soul to find him." Josiah pats his chest. "But I have no doubt that you will."

Chris places his hand over Josiah's.

My soul followeth hard after thee...
Psalms 63:8

In the predawn hours Chris walks with his usual crooked gait to the livery. The wind is high and strong and pulls at his hat that he has set firmly over his brow. Even from a distance he can see his friends waiting for him.

JD holds the reins to his horse as well as his own. Chris secures his warbag and then without preamble wraps his arms strongly around JD. He expects JD to feel small in his arms but he does not. This boy. This young man that he has chided and intimidated is as strong and solid as any friend could hope for. He smiles down at his startled, puzzled face and carefully adjust his terrible hat.

While his gentleness is genuine it's also a cheat, and he knows it, but he cannot stop himself from trying to give these men something better to remember him by. Hat in hand, with his faulty affection guiding him, he offers both his firm handshake and his wide open arms.

Nathan holds him silently and lets go with great hesitation.

Ezra shakes his hand and then stalls until Chris confesses, "What a surprise you turned out to be." In agreement, he pulls Chris to him and with emotion choking his voice he wishes Chris, "Safe travels, my friend."

Josiah holds up a folded serape which makes Chris laugh past the lump in his throat. He hands it off to JD to stow in his warbag. He shakes Chris's hand in both of his and then holds him just as securely. "I'm almost sure," he intones in Chris's ear, "that we'll hear from you in happier days." Chris can only nod against the soft wall of his shoulder.

Buck stares at Chris's offered hand and steps past it to embrace him. The heels of Chris's boots lift off the ground as Buck rocks him but Chris only holds on tighter. "People will talk," Buck jokes.

"Let 'em," Chris tells him and keeps him arms around Buck's neck for a while longer.

With the sun beginning to rise they mount their horses and ride out of town. They are a magnificent sight even in their abbreviated number. Chris rides in the center, each horse running to its full length. Four Corners reaches as far as it can into the wilderness and it is there, where all wild creatures thrive, that five of the riders come to a stop while Chris rides ahead. The morning sun soaks him in amber light while the wind blows his long coat out behind him. He stops and turns and raises his hat high in the air and then he is at a gallop again.

Chris pushes Pony to put as many miles behind him as possible. He passes quickly through the sparse desert towns staying just long enough to rest and then move on. Soon he is in Houston and from there he heads east. The spare beauty of the west gives way to the overgrown lushness of the south. A small precursor of what he will soon see from the deck of a ship.

He bides his time impatiently for over a month waiting for the ship that will take him where he needs to go. When she finally docks he sees that her name is Sojourn. He tries not to be awed by her working class beauty but it's difficult when he can stand by her and look up and up and still see her height reaching for the sun. He smiles to himself.

Finally the day comes when he and Pony are brought aboard. The long planks bounce under his feet until he is on the ship looking back at the empty spot where he had stood just minutes before. His eagerness shifts its weight. This is it. He is seeking his future and not leaving it to chance or fate despite his lack of an exact destination. With shaking hands he is casting his lot into the fathomless ocean before him.

As Sojourn moves out to sea he pats his pockets down, unable to shake the feeling that in his rush to stand where he is, he has forgotten something important.

~7777777~

Once Sojourn is out to sea she suddenly feels very small. The sights should astonish him but they don't. The ocean stretches out as far as his eye can see - bigger than any lake he has ever known - and full of creatures at once terrifying and beautiful. By day dolphins - Josiah's mermaids - effortlessly keep pace with the ship, rolling to their sides to look up at him while at night Jonas' whales call to each other in voices high and clear and haunting. The salty air grows warmer and heavier. Palm trees stretch out over unending beaches. The food is indeed spicy. All of it should move him, make him think of God in kinder terms. But it does not.

He closes his eyes and feels the sun and wind try to win him over. He is tempted to open his arms in an imitation of flight but instead holds tightly onto to Sojourn. Everything is bright and strange. Beautiful and unfamiliar.

Vin. He remembers and smiles. Vin is familiar despite his long absence. He's nothing like himself and still Chris knows him. A solid soul made up of unfinished journeys. His mama's son, a Tanner, if only for a short while. A Kiowa. A Comanche. A scout and sharp shooter for a bloody war. Hunter and hunted. Older than he looks unless you look in his eyes.

He has left five friends to find one. The math should be wrong but it's not.

Still keeping his eyes closed he gives in and opens his arms and lets the wind take him where it will.

The days pass like this. Small windows of hope and anticipation look out over boredom and a creeping sense of futility. The sheer size of the country is daunting. What he thinks is another ocean a young barefoot crewmember calls a bay. Each port is filled with ships like the one he is on and some that are even bigger. Small consolation comes from another casually dropped piece of information that most of Brazil's people live along the coast and do not venture too far into it's dense interior. Chris reaches a point, half mad and ready to break windows, where he knows he will find Vin only because he has to.

Finally the day comes when Sojourn sails into Guanabara Bay. It's as wide as the mouth of a river and displays Rio de Janeiro growing at the foot of a mountain sweetly named Sugarloaf. Clouds pass over the sun changing shadows. The slow passage of time Sojourn seemed to sail under lifts and suddenly every able body is running and calling out commands. As cotton is unloaded coffee and sugar replace it. Chris and his horse are quickly herded off the ship along with his fellow travelers.

He steps onto solid ground only to find that his legs still feel like they are sailing. Pony stomps and throws his head as Chris tries to lead him through the throng of people at Rio's port. A large marketplace gives way to saloons and hotels. Women leaning over wrought iron balconies call to him in Portuguese, French and English.

His sweat soaked clothes weigh heavily on him. He is tired and not a little overwhelmed. The only sight that holds any promise for him is a livery where he takes the time to brush Pony down until the horse drops his head and nudges Chris gratefully. Chris leans against his powerful neck and then with a sigh collects his warbag and searches for the nearest hotel with a bathtub. He soaks only long enough to get clean and then falls asleep on his belly in the first bed he's slept in since New Orleans a lifetime ago.

He rises early in the morning greeting a quieter city not quite up to it's usual pinwheel speed. He hopes that he is walking in Vin's footsteps as he heads back to the livery. He can't imagine Vin staying for any longer than it would take to get directions to a smaller city, as beautiful as this one is.

At the livery he greets an old slender black man with the few words of Portuguese he learned on the ship. "Bom dia." Good morning.

The man stops cleaning the tack in his hand. "Bom dia, Senhor," and then waits for Chris to ask for more.

"Por favor," What's 'no bueno' mean? "Voce fala ingles?" Please. Do you speak English?

"Yes, sir. I do," he says with a soft southern accent. A freed slave who has probably seen more of the world than Chris.

The thought makes him smile. "I'm looking for a friend. Name's Vin Tanner."

"No, sir. I don't know no Vin Tanner. Sorry, sir." He resumes cleaning his tack.

Chris watches him and then continues. "He's about yay tall," Chris gestures at the man who will not look at him, "long brown hair, blue eyes, probably wearing a cavalry hat, kinda skinny."

"I'm sorry, sir. Haven't seen no one like that."

Chris cannot let go. "He's a friend of mine. Had to leave his home through no fault of his own. I'm his friend." Chris takes off his hat. "And I need to find him."

The man finally looks up and studies Chris and then goes back to his tack. Chris puts his hat back on and takes a step to retrieve Pony.

"Does this friend of yours have a fine black horse like yours?"

"Yes." Chris holds his breath. "With a white blaze."

"Beautiful animal. Mean as sin."

Chris smiles. "Not the first time I've heard that."

The man nods and sets the tack aside. "He came through here about a year ago. Quiet. Made him stand out more than his horse."

"Sounds like him. Did - did he say where he was headed?"

"I told him about Parati. It used to be a great trading port but now there are roads that pass her by. She's a beautiful city - but forgotten." He smiles at Chris. "That seemed to appeal to your friend."

Chris smiles back. "Yes. It would. How do I get there?"

"It's a little more than a 160 miles down the Costa Verde. I tried to talk him into waiting for one of the ships that still go down there but he said he could find it on his own."

"He wasn't bragging. He can."

"I don't doubt it. I reckon you'll find your way, too."

Chris takes off his hat again. "I'd like to know your name before I leave."

"Joseph. Joseph Thomas."

"Chris Larabee." He shakes Joseph's hand warmly. "Thank you, Joseph."

~7777777~

Chris's first day of travel is blessed with dry weather and a trail he can easily follow. The second day it begins to rain and seems disinclined to ever stop. He continues on, soaked to the bone, tired, irritable. The trail gives way to lush undergrowth, small bridges are washed away and have to be traveled around. Mud pulls heavily at his boots when he gets off Pony to lead him up a high mountainside and then threatens to send both horse and man skidding off the negligible path as it winds steeply down to the shoreline. Vines pull at his hands and feet as he tries to keep himself moving forward. He eats jerked beef and dried fruit from the marketplace and not much else; he sleeps sitting up while the rain lands heavily on his shoulders.

Soon he loses any sense of progress. The brittle, easily broken parts of his nature come to the fore and the landscape around him seems determined to snap each part off. He is no longer traveling but instead merely making his way through one day to the next.

He comes to yet another washed out bridge and sets about trying to find his way around it. He misses finding the trail and is fed out into a storm tossed cove. Turning around he heads back to the bridge only to find that he has turned and turned again and made a perfect circle back to the cove.

It's too much.

He lets go of Pony's reins and suddenly feels as if they are both untethered. Using the last his strength he removes his useless clothes. Mud has found a way into his boots and through his buttoned down shirt and pants. His legs, chest and back are slicked with it. He lets his head fall back while the rain continues to bruise his skin.

It's not enough.

He walks into the water and finds that he has to go out far before it reaches his chin. The ocean is so unlike any lake he has been in before. Seemingly alive with a salty taste like skin after sex. He swims further out and lets it pull him under. It stings his eyes. Vin's medicine bag floats around him and up as if trying to pull him to the surface. He catches it in his hand and holds it to his chest.

What a fool he has been to think he could find Vin. He remembers how the tracker could materialize out of shadows and disappear into them just as easily. Vin is the kind of man who finds you and not the other way around. He has been stubborn and contrary and there is no way for Vin to know that he needs to be found.

Chris has never been so tired. The rain clatters above him and tries to find its way to him. He sinks deeper. He has never been this tired and so he closes his eyes and sighs and sleeps.

…

The cove comes alive with the rising of the sun. Birds call out to each other while small monkeys move impossibly from one tree limb to another. Raindrops hang from enormous leaves catching light before they fall into the sand. It is warm and bright and the rain falls no more.

The sun shines warmly down on Chris's pale body. The wet sand beneath him is cool and firm. He wakes up with a shiver that ends as soon as he rolls to his side and lets the sun find his back. He remembers the day before and shivers again. He is sure that anyone who has ever loved him would be ashamed of him now.

His eyes burn the way the sun has burned his skin. The tears he cries are different than the one that have come before. There is no anger or gritted teeth determination for revenge. There is only the grief that he has battered into a corner for all these years and now it is upon him with a gravity that brings him to his knees. His grief is heavy and painful and there is nothing he can do to stop it from running down his face and throat. A scream builds in his chest and threatens to overtake him and yet when he opens his mouth there is only silence.

At last the courtship with death is over. He has reached out for the last time to embrace her and has been soundly set on his backside in the wet sand - naked, shaking, crying, born again.

The sunlight refracts through the pool of tears in his eyes and for a moment he is nearly blinded. Not wanting to flinch from anything again, Chris squeezes them shut and then opens them to meet the brilliant sunrise. All the while he cries for his martyred wife and son and for the fear and pain they must have known. Did they think that he had abandoned them? Did they feel his love even when he was far from home? Do they know he loves them still? All the questions that have haunted him run through his body. He swallows and swallows again trying to catch his breath and trying to accept that he will never know their last moments any more than he has been able to force or predict his own.

Sitting up he wraps his arms around his middle and draws his knees up and holds himself this way for a long while. His tears stop and then roll down his face again moments later of their own accord. He pays them no attention. A sigh escapes. He looks around for Pony but the untethered animal is nowhere in sight. The dark muddied clothing that he had left in the very spot he sits is also gone. The tide which barely reaches over his toes has washed his widowers clothes out to sea. It pains him that the medicine bag he had held so tightly is no longer around his neck.

Voices sound off behind him in the dense foliage. He pushes himself to his feet and rises to his full height determined to meet whatever comes his way. Two men, one wrinkled and brown and handsome, the other a younger version of the first meet Chris's proud, tear streaked face with their own astonished ones.

Chris swallows and holds himself steady and tells the truth. "I lost my horse."

~7777777~

Vin's house is small and plain by local standards. Perfectly square with its brown tiled roof and weathered deep blue shutters it lacks the baroque flare of its distant neighbors. Nestled among lush foliage on the tip of a cove it is easy to miss unless you know to look for it. A wide veranda runs around it allowing a view of the Atlantic from the front, coffee growing in neat rows on the hills to its back, a half circle of beach to the south and a rarely used path running from its doorstep into town on the north side. It's small and plain and still more than he ever thought he would have.

Like so many things that Vin comes to love it had been an empty house for a long time. Built as an afterthought from spare materials it contains four rooms. Or more precisely, four areas as the only thing separating the sitting room from his bed is a curtain of beads. Both look out over the cove. To the right is a pot bellied stove with shelves on either side. Across from Vin's feather bed, whose luxury makes him toss and turn, is an open area with a bookcase built into the wall. The beginnings of a library for a man still courting the written word.

Several people had advised Vin in whispered voices not to buy the property. The long untraveled path that led to it left it far from town and vulnerable. The main house that had been built in the hills above it had been burnt to the ground suggesting ill will for the previous owners if not the land itself. A storm only a year before had battered the small house but only managed to wreck its shutters. Indians whose ancestors had long ago been taken from the interior for slave labor were now free to live on the periphery of the property, no longer able to maintain their culture and not a part of Brazilian society, either. All this was said to discourage Vin but the promise of solitude and the threat of bad weather was an irresistible combination. With money saved by living as unobtrusively as possible and not gambling with Ezra he bought the property and settled in a best he could.

In short order the shutters were repaired. He salvaged a sturdy dark brown leather couch with flat wooden armrests along with a round supper table and, of course, the ridiculous bed with its new ticking. The few books left on the shelves were far too weather damaged to save and this pained him despite the fact that they were written in a language he was only beginning to understand. An empty ornate birdcage, its door flung open, hangs from the front of the veranda as if it is a piece of art or a promise.

He hired workers from town, not wanting to completely alienate them, and several curious and hungry Indians who trust his quiet ways, to plant coffee over the ashes of the long gone main house and watched amazed as a new life literally grew around him.

Chanu, he would think to himself, I have walked into a dream.

Other discoveries are also shared within the privacy of his own thoughts, ironically, to make them more real.

Josiah, today I took my boot off and with some other fellers punched holes into the blackest soil I've ever seen with our big toes and planted tomatoes and corn, squash and sweet potatoes. They think I'm funny and try not to laugh but sometimes they can't help it.

When he thinks of JD he wants to tell him about one of the rich men in town who owns stallions that are born with black coats that turn snow white when they mature. When they trot they look like they're dancing.

There are times, at the end of the day, when he is heading downhill while his neighbors disappear over the top of it that he can almost feel the heat and weight of Chris's hand on his shoulder. If he keeps his eyes on his footing or the beach below, he can see Chris's black hat from the corner of his eye. It's a hopeful daydream so deeply rooted in need that he fears for his sanity when he catches himself indulging in it. A mere glance to the side proves that Chris is nowhere near. The shame he feels that so obvious a fact can still elude him leaves him winded.

In the morning he rolls out of bed and drinks strong black coffee with lots of sugar now that it's so easy to acquire. He never sits at the table but instead wanders around the house from window to window. Each one affords a beautiful view but the one he stops at looks out over the path leading to his home. Sometimes the coffee in his hand is forgotten as he stares at the narrow archway the foliage has created over it. I'm surrounded by every shade of green and blue. The shadows within the archway shift and he holds his breath. A form begins to take shape, tall and lean. Relatively pale hands contrast with black clothing. He waits. A bowed head slowly lifts. He waits.

Chattering from his neighbors coming to work break the spell. He sips his cool coffee and wait's a while longer.

It's poured for over two weeks. My rain barrel is always full.

~7777777~

Senhor Emiliano's son Pedro offers Chris his shirt to wrap around his waist. He speaks rapidly in Portuguese to his father who nods, smiles at Chris and is off and quickly out of sight, Chris assumes, to find Pony - or a jailer.

He is escorted into town with such little fuss that Chris begins to wonder if he is the first naked man that has been rescued or one of many. People stare but continue about their business unfazed if not amused. Children jostle around Emiliano for the candy he throws into the air. Chris cinches the shirt around his waist a little tighter. He is ignored completely.

Once they are at Emiliano's home his wife, Maria greets them with a hand to her mouth before tottering off. Mumbling to herself she brings back more of her sons clothing and handing it to Chris she gestures to a room where he can wash up and change. He closes the door behind him and rests his forehead against it to gather himself.

When he comes back out he looks just as abashed as he did when he went in. Somehow he manages to look more vulnerable fully clothed than otherwise. All of the lean muscle and scars defining a life lived hard and at times desperately are covered in pale loose clothing draping over him instead of worn close to the skin. The V of his gauze-like shirt reveals the sunburned expanse of his chest while the billowy sleeves hide his strong arms. Sandals protect the soles of his feet but leave his long toes grasping for cover.

Maria hands him a large cup filled with coffee and hot milk. She is as fine and wrinkled as her husband. He nods his thanks and follows her to a bench just outside the front door where Emiliano waits for them. They sit on either side of him, like bookends, and smile. He sips his hot drink and enjoys the creamy taste with the kick of coffee behind it. When he swallows he swears he can feel it rushing to his head and to the ends of his fingertips and toes. He smiles back.

Tucked between their quiet good company Chris can finally take in how beautiful the town is. Pushed up against rolling green hills by a waterfront it moves at a much slower pace than Rio and Chris is grateful for it. All the buildings and homes are whitewashed with roofs that from a distance look like they were tiled with brown pebbles. Vines grow over every doorway. Palm trees sway next to church bells.

Chris clears his throat. "Parati," he begins, still hoarse, "how far is Parati from here?"

They both smile and nod and gesture out towards the town. "Parati…"

Chris points down at the ground. "This is Parati?"

They also point at the ground. "Parati, Parati," they both assure him.

Chris laughs at himself and they join in until he suddenly stops. "Vin Tanner. Do you know Vin Tanner?"

Maria smiles and nods, pats his hand to quiet him when he twitches to stand. She sips her coffee. Following her lead he settles back inbetween them with all the tired discipline he possesses and waits for their son to return with his horse and hopefully more answers.

~7777777~

Pedro passes several workers heading for Senhor Vin's coffee plantation. Plantation seems too ambitious for the small crop he grows. It's common knowledge that he shares the fruits and vegetables that grow on his land with his workers and rumored that he pays them well with the last of his money. Pedro hopes that the coffee that grows on the hills will reward him handsomely.

He remembers the fear many of the townspeople lived in when a panther had gone from hunting the cattle they raised to hunting the men who herded them, only to disappear back into the hills. Senhor Vin had tracked and killed the animal and then knelt down beside it and seemed to mourn its passing with a prayer in a language he didn't understand. Still, the gesture spoke to him and allowed a measure of respect for Vin that he had only felt for his father until that day. While Vin remains a mystery to the town that surrounds him they are grateful to him.

The path narrows as he nears Vin's small house. Not for the first time he thinks that Vin needs more visitors to widen the way. It worries him further to come out of the foliage pulling at him to see Vin standing at a window as if waiting for someone. Vin seems to collect himself and then greets Pedro at the steps of the veranda with a hand tossed in the air.

"Tudo bem, Senhor Vin?" Pedro asks, with a toss of his own hand.

"Tudo bem," Vin assures. All's well.

Pedro practices his English. "A man," he gestures towards Vin and Vin understands that he means a white man, "he lose his horse - and everything." He pats his own bare chest and throws his hands up to convey he doesn't understand how this could happen - and then shrugs - but it did. Vin barely suppresses a smile. "Will you please help to find his horse?"

"No problem, my friend. Where did you find this feller?"

Pedro adds 'feller' to his growing vocabulary. "Not far from here. Redeemer's Cove. You know it?"

"Yes. I'll bring the horse to your house, if that's all right?"

"Si, si. And stay for supper, yes?"

"Yes. And - thank you."

"No, no, no. Thank you, yes?"

"Do you want a ride back to town?" Vin asks, to put an end to all the politeness.

Pedro looks over at the corral that contains Peso and decides to walk. "Uh, thank you, Senhor Vin. I stay a while and say good morning to Eduardo." He points up to the hills. "This, OK?"

Vin nods. "Of course. Ate logo, Pedro."

Pedro swats Vin heartily on the back. "Ate logo, Senhor Vin." And then lopes back to the path and disappears.

Until soon.

~7777777~

As soon as Vin enters Redeemer's Cove he sees a black horse chewing contentedly on the bark of a palm tree growing out over the water. Chris, he thinks, trying to roust his spirits, Pony has jumped the fence. It's strange how this country which is like nothing he's ever known can still remind him of so many things that are familiar.

Peso stomps around as if getting ready to bolt. Vin reins him in hard to no avail. "Mule, what's gotten into you?" He dismounts, narrowly missing getting stepped on and tethers Peso securely to a nearby thick branch. He approaches the more docile horse on foot. Once he's close he takes off his straw hat and holds it out to the animal. Curious and probably thirsty the horse presses its muzzle inside. Vin collects the reins and places his inspected hat back on his head. "Yeah, there you go, boy," Vin soothes as he gently scratches the geldings powerful neck and jaw. The horse uses its wide muzzle to push against Vin's chest. Almost marking him. Almost recognizing him.

The world becomes a silent place, no sound of water or birds calling as Vin focuses entirely on the horses black muzzle. Entirely black until Vin's heavy hand pushes aside the long mane to reveal a small white star just above the brown eyes staring at him. He knees quake as he moves around the horse to run his hand over the fine saddle. Black and silver studded. Expensive and showy. Something he teased Chris about as often as possible.

Vin sits with a soft thud in the sand. Breathing is suddenly a mystery.

Pony nudges his hat off his head.

~7777777~

Chris follows Emiliano up a ladder to an attic that is flooded with noonday light and filled with beautiful paintings. Emiliano sits at a small square table near a large window at the front of the room. While his host gathers up several yellow blossoms and unceremoniously begins to grind them to a pulp in a small ceramic bowl Chris takes in the view. The waterfront and nearly the entire town stretches out before him. It's the perfect place for an artist to try and figure out how to paint sunlight on water. Chris's fingertips run over several of the paintings as he passes them by.

Everything is vivid and round and bold. A brown skinned woman, shoulders bare, hair loose, sits cross legged in front of a basket of flowers. Fishermen pull at sails. One painting, still on an easel, shows a nude woman lying on her belly seeming to look out at Chris and call to him. Emiliano shuffles up beside him and using the pain the has made reincarnates the yellow flowers into her hair.

When he finishes Chris turns to him and confesses, "I thought I knew everything until I came here. I don't know a damn thing, do I?"

Emiliano, understanding Chris's tone if not his words, raises his hand to Chris's face and gently pats his cheek.

Maria calls excitedly from below.

"Ah," Emiliano says, and then pantomimes holding the reins of a galloping horse. Chris smiles and follows him back down the ladder.

Vin stands in the sitting room, hat in hand, telling a delighted Maria in stuttered Portuguese that he thinks the horses owner is an old friend of his. A dear friend. As soon as the words are out of his mouth he begins to worry that he has somehow cursed himself with his own hope. Maria calls Emiliano to her to explain the good fortune taking place under their roof.

Vin watches as sandals and not the black boots and clothing he was looking for reach for the floor as the horses owner descends the ladder. His disappointment is so heavy that it threatens to crush him while Maria cries happily into her hands. He bows his head as Chris turns around.

"Vin?" a hoarse voice calls. "Vin, is that you?"

Vin looks up to a sight he can make little sense of. There is Chris, in another mans clothes, sunburned and coyote thin, staring back at him. He remains still, afraid of breaking yet another spell. Chris walks towards him and holds out his hand. Finally, Vin grabs his forearm in a familiar hold and then finds he is unable to let go. "Chris…?" Vin asks, though his voice fails him.

Chris tugs his arm. "I'm right here, pard." But he can see the disbelief in his eyes. I still know him. He knows that Vin's disbelief is not in Chris traveling so far, but in Chris traveling so far for him. He steps closer. "Hey…" Using his free arm he wraps it around Vin's shoulders and pulls him into a tight hug. Vin does what he has always done when Chris has reached out for him and remains utterly still, barely breathing. Chris moves his hand to cradle the back of his head.

"Chris," Vin finds his voice and his nerve and grips the side of Chris's shirt and lets his fist rest against his hip. "I have so much to tell you."

…

Pedro arrives in time for his father to bring out a dusty bottle of sweet red wine and join a toast to "love and family, art, good friends and a good horse!" Vin translates for Chris who bows his head, smiles and raises his glass. Pedro shows them some of the plants and flowers he has collected for his fathers paints while Maria wraps up candy made up of coconut and sweetened milk. Handing it to Vin she issues another invitation to supper, some other day, when the reunited friends have caught up. With a kiss on the cheek for each of them she sends them on their way.

Riding home Vin hears Pony's sure steps behind Peso's. I'm not alone, he reminds himself and yet when he turns his head to confirm it he's still surprised to see that Chris is really there. The closer reality comes to his longing the quieter he becomes. Chris allows him his silence and when Vin cautiously looks over his shoulder again he lets Vin catch him staring back.

Despite Chris's strange clothing he's not the only one who has changed although Vin's changes are more subtle. His face has lost the last of its baby fat making his wide jaw even more pronounced. His eyes seem to hold even more history. Gone are the layers of clothes to be replaced by lighter ones in both color and material. The knee high boots he wears are worn on the outside of his pants. Chris tries not to envy them when his sandals slip from his stirrups. He smiles at the familiar red bandana worn around Vin's neck and notices that his hair is gathered there and then runs halfway down his back in a long plait. A practical straw hat sits low on his head in place of the cavalry one.

Ever adaptable, he is still the only thing that makes sense to Chris.

When they reach Vin's property Chris breaks their silence with an impressed whistle. Vin accepts the compliment with a small smile and invites Chris to look around while he puts the horses up in the corral. When he's finishes he takes a moment to catch the breath he's been holding. He leaves the corral expecting to find Chris inside the house or on the veranda but instead he's standing on an outcropping of granite looking out over the cove. Vin walks heavily to let Chris know he's approaching and follows his eyes through the foliage and down onto the beach.

"Is that where Pony was?" Chris asks.

"Naw. There's dozens of coves in this area." Chris still seems unsure of something. "He wasn't far away, though."

Chris lets out a gust of air that might be a laugh and then visibly collects himself. "Why don't you show me around?"

Vin doubts that he wants the long tour and so he turns and points to the hills behind them. "My first coffee crop." Chris nods as Vin lowers his hand and points to his house. "My house with the whiskey bottle inside." Chris grins and walks with Vin towards the house. "The stairs leading to the whiskey bottle inside." And then swats Vin's hand down when he points at the double doors. Vin opens them wide and then the shutters. Chris stands just inside the doorway as light begins to take over each room. A cross breeze, warm and salty soothes him. He follows Vin to the back of the house where a wide bed and what looks like a small library are located. Vin sets Chris's warbag by the bed and passes him again to fetch the bottle of whiskey from a shelf by the stove. "Do you wanna sit outside?" he asks, collecting his only shot glasses and Maria's candy. Chris answers by following him out the door and sitting on a bench, much like Emiliano's, tucked under the shade of the veranda.

Vin pours and sets the bottle between them. He raises his glass. "To good horses," and then tosses the entire drink back.

Chris watches him pour another as he sips at his own. "I suppose I'm going to have to hear about that for a long while?" Vin tries to hide a smile and drink at the same time and ends up coughing instead. "Slow down, cowboy." Vin glares at the name and then smiles at it, too.

They share the impossibly sweet candy that goes surprisingly well with whiskey.

The view of the beach seems to change continually. Clouds pass over the sun turning the blue of the water into one gemstone color into another. The blue and gray of the sky gives way to a slow sunset, orange and pink. The constant clamor of the bird calls quiets, if not entirely.

Vin goes inside without a word and then returns with a plate and two oblong pieces of fruit and a small sharp knife. He puts the plate next to the bottle and then sits and draws his leg up so he can face Chris. Chris does the same as he watches Vin cut the fruit lengthwise and then into narrow strips. A sweet smell fills the air between them as Vin hands a portion to Chris who follows Vin's lead and bites into it like a small piece of summer watermelon. Vin grins at Chris as the flavor widens his eyes. Sweeter than a peach and tart as a green apple.

"What is this?" Chris asks, finishing one piece and reaching for another.

"A mango," Vin informs, wiping juice from his chin.

Supper is served.

Whether from his long journey or the whiskey and nighttime sky, Chris's chin grows heavy until it nearly rests on his chest. Vin watches him and remembers how his own exhaustion had hit him when he finally had a place to rest. He's comforted, almost proud, that Chris still allows himself to close his eyes and sleep open handed in his company.

Vin stands and leans over him and touches his forearm briefly. "Chris…," he whispers, not wanting to wake him entirely. Chris lifts his head and tries to open his eyes. "Hey, pard. I'm going to sleep. How 'bout you?" he asks trying to head off any protest that he's actually wide awake. It works. Chris nods and stands and without thought rests his hand on Vin's shoulder and follows him blindly inside to the wide welcoming bed. He sits heavily on the edge, groaning and breathing in huffs through his fatigue. Vin tugs on his shirt and then lets Chris pull it haphazardly over his head and toss it at his warbag. The sandals are easily removed. Vin warms his bare feet in his hands.

"Vin?"

Vin freezes as if caught. "Yeah, pard?"

"Don't tell the boys that I lost my horse."

Vin is absolutely solemn when he promises, "I won't." Lifting his feet onto the bed Chris falls back and is asleep before Vin can pull a light cover over him. He watches him again, his hand reaching across and holding his shoulder where Chris had leaned on him. It burns.

Chris stirs in his sleep and this small movement releases Vin from his vigil. Soundlessly he lowers the shutters and closes the front door. He spreads out his bedroll near the library, not wanting to crowd his friend even his sleep. He removes his shirt and boots and falls into a light sleep listening to Chris's soft snoring.

Sometime during the night Chris inhales sharply and wakes from a long dream about rain. This small noise brings Vin crouching to his side. Chris has come so far and still it's necessary to reach a little farther until he has a firm grip on Vin's wrist. He tests his strength, flexing his fingers, almost letting go before he pulls Vin over him and onto his other side in one slow motion. Raising up on an elbow he looks down at Vin who is holding still with all his might.

Not trusting his roughened palm to tell him what he needs to know Chris runs the back of his fingers down Vin's temple to his cheek. The slight stubble there sensitizes his skin making Vin's mouth feel softer, still. He feels a moist catch against his knuckles. Maybe a kiss, maybe a protest. Moving his hand down Vin's throat he lets one finger register the quickened heartbeat there. The end of Vin's plait rests on his chest. Chris slips the leather thong easily off and slowly begins to unbraid it. Vin's hair is bed warm and soft especially at the nape of his neck where Chris buries his hand. A sound catches in Vin's throat, his eyes drop closed. A shy hand raises and then falls. Chris shifts over him letting one leg settle between Vin's. Their bodies react, moving against each other in a rhythm as old as time. Vin's shoulder cradles Chris's forehead. Warm breath soaks into his bones. Stubble reddens the skin around a nipple.

Without warning Vin rolls Chris onto his back and straddles his legs. Chris lets his arms fall open. The sight makes Vin feel as though he has swum too far out where his feet no longer touch the bottom. Chris takes a moment to read him in the dim light before he sits up to place a dry kiss to Vin's chest. Resting his cheek there he wraps one arm around Vin's lean waist while the other hand presses between his shoulder blades. He waits while Vin catches his breath and then holds him even tighter when Vin's hands finally reach across his shoulders. Slowly, Chris eases him onto his back again and then breaks their contact to rise to his knees and remove the loose pants that aren't really his. Tossing them out of the way he unbuttons Vin's to expose a shallow bellybutton, a light dusting of hair and his sex. Vin lifts his hips as Chris pulls the last barrier between them off. Sprawling out beside Vin he kisses his bellybutton with his tongue and enjoys the feel of Vin writhing under this small attention. He moves one arm under Vin's waist to hold him and then brings his mouth to join his hand around Vin's cock. The precaution taken is wise. Vin pushes into his mouth with a whimper. A hand falls on his shoulder with a slap and then squeezes it erratically. The other hand rests lazily in his hair.

"No," Vin grates out but Chris ignores the protest and listens to Vin's body instead. He knows how pleasure after a long draught can leave a man aching and contrary. He knows because he feels it, too. It stings his eyes and works its way between bone and muscle until it floods his body and nearly shakes him apart. His mouth slips off of Vin and rests on his hip while he tries to catch his breath. His slippery hand leaves Vin crying for air.

Chris holds him tight. Vin lets go.

When Chris eventually lifts his head his eye catches sight of a small scar. Vin's terrible wound - the one that almost took his life has also brought them both to this wild, overgrown country. It has brought them to a soft bed. Chris blesses it with a chaste kiss as if he is making peace with an old enemy. Vin sighs.

Vin lets his hands fall from Chris's hair and shoulder when Chris stands on sea legs to go to the basin. Soaking a cloth he wipes his chest down and then rinsing it brings it back to bed. Vin reaches out for it to wash himself but Chris smoothes it over his waist and chest for him and tosses it back in the general vicinity of the basin. It's the small gestures that leave Vin flustered and unsure and it's the sight of Vin trying to make sense of the tenderness he invokes that touches Chris all the more. He crawls back into bed and follows Vin when he tries to make room for Chris to sleep untouched.

Resting his cheek on Vin's shoulder and his arm across his ribs Chris asks, "Is this all right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not too heavy?"

"Nah," Vin assures him and then lets his itchy palm cover Chris's hair again. You're my anchor.

Chris squirms and makes settling in noises. Little grunts and sighs.

They fall asleep listening to the rain.

~7777777~

Vin prods an amber piece of glass with his toe before crouching to pick it up. A green piece has also washed up. Both have been tossed around in the South Atlantic until their sharp edges are smooth and rounded. They shimmer wetly in his hand. A sailors broken wine bottle transformed into gemstones.

I find the green ones all the time. The gold ones are rare.

How strange it was to wake under the weight of affection instead of resignation. Chris is heavy. But the thought of it makes him smile. He begins to feel foolish for crawling out from under it.

His toe finds a shell that's small and white, ornate as a pastry and iridescent. Looking up he sees Chris walking towards him, shirt untucked, pants rolled up, barely awake. Chris shows him a smile that leaves him humbled. Suddenly the glass in his hand seems like a poor offering.

Chris does not stop a polite distance from Vin but instead wraps him a warm hug that keeps him from catching his breath. Chris laughs his funny hiccupping laugh right into his ear while Vin sways in quiet disbelief in his arms.

Chris straightens and reaches for the fist that Vin holds to his back. "What's in your hand?" he asks, holding out his palm.

Embarrassed, Vin shrugs and shakes his head. "Nothin'." And lets the glass fall back into the sand.

Chris crouches down to gather them up again and then with one eye squeezed shut against the morning sun he teases Vin, "You couldn't just hand 'em to me?"

Vin prefers being teased to being unsure. "It's just glass." Worn down broken glass.

Chris stands. "Uh huh." He holds each piece up to the sun and seems to appreciate the effect.

"The gold pieces are rare," Vin blurts out and then feels foolish for calling broken glass rare.

Without hesitation Chris hands him the amber one. "You take this one then."

Looking out over the water Vin is ready to throw it back into the sea if Chris is making fun of him.

"Can I have this one? Vin?" Vin turns back and is chagrined to find that Chris is sincere. "Can I have this one?"

Choked, Vin can only nod.

"Thanks, pard," Chris says as he puts the glass into his loose pocket and then watches as Vin does the same. "You all right?"

"Yeah…"

Chris shuffles from foot to foot. "I was thinking…that…now that I know where town is I could probably find a place to stay there."

"Don't," Vin says, angry that he hasn't dared to make himself clear. "I want you to stay. And," he looks out over the water again, "if you can't stay then I want you to visit for a long time." He looks back towards Chris, if not at him. "For as long as you want."

"Well, we'll see if I've worn out my welcome by the time the next ship comes around."

"No need. I've made up my mind."

Chris waits for Vin to look at him. "So have I."

…

Their kiss is their seal and their bond.

They set the watermark high from the very beginning. Sweet and hesitant and yet bestowed in broad daylight with the tide tickling their feet. Both are unable to keep their eyes closed, stealing glances of a flushed cheek, long lashes or an ear too small to hold all the hair Chris tries to tuck behind it. It's a dilemma he solves by sinking his hands into the unruly mass of waves. It's also his undoing. Vin is inconsolable, head thrown back, eyes closed, mouth parted and waiting. Unable to collect himself Chris pants into Vin's mouth and then abandons himself to a kiss that contains more heat than expertise. Vin rewards him nonetheless using his own considerable strength to hold Chris close.

The small complex negotiations of a kiss.

The warm good weather that shines down on them is paid no attention. They seek the solitude of the house with the shutters opened wide and the sunlight pouring in.

Undressing silently they crawl back into bed, sparing only a moment to be shy over what they mean to do. Kneeling, facing each other, amazed at their good fortune, Vin topples them both. Neither will ever be able to figure out how the other skipped a stone across all the isolation between them. Only that it was done without a word and with the smallest of gestures.

Vin, always a brave soul, holds his arms open to the unfamiliar pleasure of carnal love and then squirms under the details of it. Chris, strong and unusually patient, lets him go where he will as long as it's within the confines of his affection. Nerves give way to curiosity. Tenderness governs even the most passionate exchange.

Chris falls asleep twining Vin's hair around his finger. "I want a lock of this." And then wakes to find Vin kneeling beside him and cutting a long wave of it with his knife from the nape of his neck. Chris takes it, still warm and incredibly soft, still smelling of Vin's sweat and gets out of bed to place it in a folded piece of paper with the green glass set on top of it. His most valuable worldly possessions.

Vin reaches for him as he returns to bed.

The months pass and more than one ship that is traveling back to Rio and then onto the Gulf of Mexico pass by just beyond their cove, unhailed. This pleases Vin greatly although he keeps it to himself except when he's in bed and unable to hold anything back. Chris makes the too soft bed more comfortable with his long limbed sprawl and his tendency to blanket Vin up against the wall. This lack of space should make him nervous and cramped but instead he tangles the knot further with his arms and legs.

Vin discovers that he can take Chris anywhere once he gets his arms around him.

On a warm day Chris pauses at the edge of the water. Vin sees him standing there, steeling himself against some unnamed trouble and wades back to shore. He stands in front of Chris unknowingly guarding him from the calm water so much like the cove he was lost in. "That's all right," Vin reassures him and puts his arms around Chris's neck. "We don't have to go for a dip." Chris squeezes him and then still holding on walks them both into the water. Vin laughs into his neck and kisses him before he swims off, all the while watching him from the corner of his eye. An old trick they both use.

Chris ducks under the water and some of his tension eases at the sight of colorful fish and his feet sinking into the sand. He stands and breaks through the surface gasping until he sees Vin watching him. He swims over to Vin who wraps his arms around his neck again. Chris pulls him closer letting the tide lift them off their feet. He looks into Vin's eyes which have always reminded him of great lakes, deep and dark blue and finally compares them to the ocean that cradles them and finds the Atlantic lacking.

Vin follows his line of sight and looks over his shoulder only to see the beautiful expanse of the sea ending far off on the horizon. Still looking he asks, "What's got your attention?"

Chris soundly kisses his cheek and then places his hand there. "Look at me, Vin."

Vin looks expectantly at Chris for his answer and when it finally settles on him all he can do is hide his face against Chris's neck. He pulls back enough to kiss a rough cheek and tastes the cool salt water of the ocean and the hot salt water of Chris's ever present high emotions for him. For a while it's enough to press and pull and squeeze while the pool they swim in lifts and resettles them inconsequentially.

Chris moves his mouth to Vin's ear. "Put your legs around me."

Vin rest weightlessly around his hips, his mouth a wet seal wherever it lights on Chris's face, neck or shoulders. Chris's hands smooth Vin's back until one hand slides between his backside. Chris presses a kiss to the bridge of Vin's nose and then presses his fingertip against a part of Vin's body that makes him squirm and smile against his cheek. Vin stills himself and then slowly pushes down on Chris's one digit. The pleasure that washes through him in the wake of this small discipline is almost his undoing. Writhing against Chris tenuous hold Vin holds Chris's face to steady his shaking hands and wonders how Chris can be so emotional and so precise at the same time.

"Love you," Chris grates out. "I do. God…love you."

Chris's words are so sweet they almost make Vin mad. He grabs Chris's wrist and pulls his hand away with a gasp. Before Chris can unravel him again Vin reaches for Chris's cock and presses his body against it. It's awkward and not completely painless but Chris is beautiful in his determination and Vin is desperate to feel him. His legs tighten their hold while his hands grab the back of Chris's neck or swat his shoulder only to grab it, too. Under the surface of the water Vin relaxes around Chris despite the strength of his emotions. Sighing against Chris's cheek he tries to press Chris further into him but Chris holds him where he is. Barely in him, he begins to move, letting the tide set the rhythm. The pace and depth are maddening. Vin's body struggles for more but Chris's hold is strong and sure.

Something in Vin tips and he ceases his little war with a kiss to the sweet hallow of Chris's lower lip. He follows Chris's lead which is the ocean itself and lets the water pull him this way and that as he mimics their movements with the tip of his tongue in Chris's mouth. Chris is dark eyed and relentless. "Dammit, Chris," Vin admonishes through gritted teeth. It's no use. The sound of Chris's breath tips him again and he is coming as though caught by a wave that's pressing against him, blood warm and strong, and then through him. Not at all a headlong crash into some final act but a slow, dreamlike careen off of intense pleasure. He is still shaking, barely able to hold on when he feels Chris move all the way into him leaving him limp and sobbing up at the sky. The water slows Chris's thrust and stings his over sensitized skin. Chris clutches at Vin and holds him tightly as he tries not to cry out.

Both are breathless. A moan escapes Vin as Chris leaves his body. He lowers his legs and tries to steady his breathing. An ache in the center of his body beats along with his heart. Chris kisses his cheek.

Chris has discovered that he can move Vin anywhere with a kiss.

They swim towards shore. Gathering up their clothes but not bothering to put them on. Chris's tired body shivers at the sight of water turning Vin's hair into a dark blur running down his back. Still unused to Chris's fine appraisals of him Vin ducks his head with a smile.

That smile contains the width and depth of Chris's satisfaction. That smile triggers his own.

They sleep late the next day.

Small pleasures dominate their lives. Vin's crop brings in a fair profit with Chris throwing in his lot for the next one. Somehow fishing becomes part of their daily chores. Books steadily fill the shelves with every other one a gift from Chris - in part payment for a lost medicine bag. Emiliano's art hangs from their walls. Chris buys new boots and yet frequently goes barefoot. His dark clothing remains in his warbag. Vin writes long letters that begin with, 'Dear Friend' and then sends them to Maude Standish in San Francisco who forwards them on to Ezra. Letters from Four Corners are sent to them through the same means and most begin with, 'Dear Brother'.

Their days are long and lazy. The ocean they swim in is warm and shallow. They will never be rich men. They have lived alone and in good company, been embraced and burned down, learned new languages and kept their silence. One is never far from the other.

They walk quietly, side by side, in the way people do who have been to war and survived and no longer wish to tax their God's attention for good or naught. They are alive and well - foot soldiers reunited only after they had made peace with themselves.

Sometimes when the moon is full Chris pulls their bedrolls out onto the veranda and makes a place for Vin to rest between his legs. Sometimes they fall asleep in a sweaty tangle. Sometimes they are quiet.

And sometimes, Vin reads to Chris.

…

The stars that once confused me seem now to light a path that is clear - that I have, in truth, been traveling for all these days; where I met what came and left behind all my sorrows and am traveling, still.

Restoration
Screenplay by Rupert Walters

End of The Hour of Separation

For X, with gratitude, whose art inspired me to find out more about Chris and Vin.

Feedback welcomed at: trueenough@msn.com

May 1, 2004