Bad Moon over Rock Hollow - Part 2
A Magnificent Seven - Round Robin Story
by Flah7, J Brooks, NotTasha, Sablecain, Tipper, Violette
Thanks so much for the reviews. We're all enjoying them so much!
18) "In case of emergency, break glass" - NotTasha
Buck, Nathan and Vin hunched into their collars as exploded bits of building rained down, and the ladies' man uttered a heartfelt, "Son of a bitch!"
About a dozen horses bolted from town, heading in the opposite direction and Buck was fairly certain he saw Chris' big black among them. Cattle calloyed as they collided down the street. An ass barged past their little group, looking tight-lipped and thoroughly put-out. Chickens squawked, trying in spite of centuries of controlled evolution to fly. The birds managed to get little higher than a man's height, and battered the terrorized townspeople about the heads and shoulders in their terror.
Some of the townspeople gripped rifles; a few held pitchforks; one young fellow - with a fluttering Rhode Island Red on his shoulder - was wildly swinging a pendulum from a grandfather clock in the chaos.
The three swung down from their saddles, trying to calm their mounts as bits and pieces of the town's best livery and the adjoining saddle shop clattered and rattled and shattered down on them, mixed with the relentless rain. Buck and Nathan slung their wet serapes from their shoulders and onto their saddles as they searched about for any sign of their friends.
"Hell," Vin, muttered, "Looks like Chris and Ezra have gotten themselves into more trouble than usual."
"Explosion came from that way," Nathan said, unnecessarily. He pointed toward the wreckage near the center of town. A man was climbing into the mess, digging through it. "We'd best join him. I figure that's where we'll find Chris and Ezra."
"Chris? You mean 'Larabee'?" one of the townspeople remarked as he turned toward them. "Chris Larabee?"
"We're lookin' for him," Buck explained. "He and Standish are friends of ours. We need to find 'em."
"They're friends with Larabee!" the man shouted. "They're with the man who shot our sheriff!"
And the townsfolk, who had finally managed to avoid the exodus of animals and falling debris, turned toward them and started to advance, menacingly.
"Get 'im!" the young man with the chicken shouted.
"What the hell?" Buck exclaimed and turned about, trying to figure out how to escape without having to actually shoot any of them. There was nowhere to go the three were trapped against the big pane window for the dressmaker's shop. They pulled their weapons and held their ground. "Damn," Buck muttered.
Someone in the back of the group sent up a startled shout. The again-terrified crowd parted like the Red Sea, and a big black bull charged through them and straight at the three men in front of the dressmaker's shop.
Buck, Vin and Nathan had nowhere to go except straight behind them.
19) "Where the Wild Things Are" - Tipper
"Wait!" Chris yelled, raising a hand towards the crazy looking rifleman.
Wild pulled the triggerand nothing happened.
"Fuck!" he shouted, pulling the rifle back. "Stupid bullets!" He cracked open the empty bullet chamber and scowled. He started fishing in his pockets and, unfortunately, fresh copper bullets slipped out across his fingers.
Chris breathed out heavily, and patted around for his own gun.
Nothing. He swore softly, and looked up at Wild. He had to buy time.
"At least tell me who the hell you are!" he demanded.
Wild hesitated, wiping away the driving rain from his face with his sleeve, and glared down at Larabee.
"Don't you know, you wife-stealing, son of a bitch?"
Chris blinked. Wife-stealing? He felt Ezra tremble slightly, and looked gambler was actually giggling. Chris grimaced, and looked up again.
"You're gonna have to be more specific, Mister."
"Wild," the man snarled. "The name's Neville Wild. You saying that don't ring a bell, you adulterous, tick-faced bastard?"
"Not really."
"My wife's name was Delilah. She went by Lily. And you were the ugly piece of shit that poisoned her against me!"
Chris's gaze narrowed. Lily Wild? Sounded like a whore's name. "I"
"You took her away! Told her I was a drunk and a bastard and that I weren't allowed to discipline my own wife when she cheated on me! You took her in the middle of the night, you mass of pus!"
Chris's eyes softened, as the memory of a beaten woman crying in his arms came to mind. She'd nearly been killed by her husband, beaten after he'd been drinking too hard. And he wasn't the only one. Chris had been so deep under the spell of whiskey at that time, he only remembered what had happened in patches. He'd tried to protect her, to get her away, trying to save her where he had failed to save Sarah. He'd carried her out of town on his horse, nothing but the clothes on her back, in the middle of the night. He'd wanted to get her to the next town, to safety. He couldn't remember if he'd succeed.
He realized Ezra had stopped laughing.
"You took her away from me," Neville whispered, slotting in the last fresh bullet into his rifle. He lifted it and pointed it down at the Larabee's head, still swaying drunkenly, but no one could miss at that range. "And now you're gonna pay."
Luckily, that's when Ezra apparently remembered he too carried a gun.
20) "Avatar" - J Brooks
The bull charged, huffing and snorting - saliva flying. Without taking his eyes off the charging beast or the mob, Vin unholstered his mare's leg and cracked it against the plate glass window behind him.
The big pane cracked, held for a moment, then shattered, cascading down like a jagged waterfall. The bull pulled up short, confused by the sound and the splintering glass. It snorted again, snorted longer, and inhaled long and deep and raised its snout to the air. And then, almost as if it had a sudden and awfully fine idea, it turned tail, and headed after a little group of cows that waited demurely by the roadside.
The crowd let out a rumble and surged forward, only to stop short when Buck and Nathan cocked their weapons warningly.
Vin swung his gun around to cover the mob as well, even as he carefully stepped over the display window sill and into the dim floral-scented interior of the dress shop.
"Fellas?" he murmured, and Buck and Nathan slowly maneuvered backward to join him. Buck let out a hiss of pain as he brushed against a jagged shard of glass that sliced deeply into his arm.
Glancing around the shop interior, Vin took stock. Shelves crowded with bolts of shiny, frilly, floral fabric. Dressmakers' dummies clustered about the shop floor, modeling the latest fashions from back east. The front door would lead them right back out to the mob.
There had been no new explosions for several minutes now, and that made him almost as nervous as the detonations had.
"Come out and face us, yella bellies!" a voice squawked from the street outside. Within seconds, the townsfolk with rifles had opened fire on the shop.
The three lawmen dived for the floor as bullets ripped through the open window and punched into the walls and display shelves inside, sending torn fabric swirling around like some bizarre colorful snowstorm.
Vin covered his head as a shelf above his head shattered, raining spools of thread down upon him.
Craning his neck, he continued his survey. There was a narrow hallway behind the sales counter that probably led to the back door. Unfortunately, to reach it, they'd have to cross directly in front of the window.
The pendulum from a grandfather clock hurtled into the shop like a thrown hatchet. Nathan rolled to avoid it and bumped into the nearest dummy, which wobbled, tilting toward the window. The shots from outside immediately shifted, biting into the mannequin from all angles.
The perforated dummy crashed to the floor and there was a pause in the gunfire outside. A few of the braver souls edged up to the window, craning to see who they'd hit. Vin fired off a few shots over their heads and they quickly fell back. He didn't want to have to hurt these idiots. Unless they'd done something to Chris or Ezra. Then all bets were off.
Something moved beside him. He turned to see Buck crawling on his elbows toward the nearest mannequin, blood streaming down his right arm, but a demented grin shining out from behind his mustache.
Buck grabbed the mannequin around its skirted ankles and hugged it tight.
Nathan squinted through the dim light. "Buck," he sighed. "This really ain't the time."
"Not as lively as your usual lady friends," Vin drawled, blinking as Buck began inching across the floor again, the dummy scooting along with him, drawing a fresh hail of gunfire as he made his careful way toward the back exit.
The mannequin jerked about as the bullets found their targets, but held together, the stylish feathered cap on its featureless head still tilted at a jaunty angle.
"Don't come much livelier!" Buck hooted, his voice muffled by the mannequin's crinolines.
Vin and Nathan exchanged a grin, grabbed the nearest dummies and followed after him.
21) "(Forest) Fire" - Flah7
The threesome carefully made their way toward the back exit, mannequins jerking and snapping about.
Buttons dotted the worn dust-covered floor. Bolts of material were scattered throughout the store. They leaned haphazardly against walls, tipped to the side or unfurled, stopped only by a wall or corner. Spools of thread rolled willy-nilly about, crisscrossing the floor over bullet casings, broken glass and clumps of mud.
The mob converged on the store. Long-legged homesteaders stepped through the broken window. Mud-covered boots crunched on shards of glass.
The more refined citizens strode through the dangling door, brandishing hot barreled rifles and pistols. The young man, with the perching Rhode Island Red, retrieved his slightly dinged pendulum. He twirled it smartly in one hand. The curve nearly shaved the bartender's whiskers.
Mr. Connelly took one last draw on his ragged, bent cigar. The end flared a sharp red before dimming slightly. He slipped it from his mouth, contemplated it a moment and then flicked it absently into the far corner.
It rolled and then settled next to an unraveled bolt of material. The fine cotton threads of the corn yellow and blue fabric smoked and curled. A small ember quickly crawled along the strand to the frayed hem of the cloth. The short fiber sparked to flame.
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Ezra fumbled for his Remington, trying hard not to jostle his throbbing shoulder. He kept his eye on Mr. Neville, a seemingly unstable man if one was to be had.
Neville curled a muddy middle finger around the trigger. It was then Ezra noticed that Mr. Neville had not only lost his mind at some point in his life, but had also lost his trigger finger.
Neville suddenly furrowed his brow and sniffed. He sniffed again, raising his head.
"Do you smell smoke?" He looked over his shoulder, "I smell smoke."
Ezra's fingers quietly closed around the hidden stock of his Remington.
Somewhere, someone shouted, "Fire!"
22) "Paranoia/paranoid" Sablecain
Vin, Buck and Nathan abandoned their abused dressmaker dummies, leaving the now shredded doppelgangers as fuel for the growing fire as the three of them scurried out the back door and down the alley way. They could hear the townspeople shouting and stomping around inside the shop while others obviously had abandoned the building the same way they had entered it.
In unspoken agreement, the trio hurried around behind the shop toward the center of town and the pile of debris they feared they would find Chris and Ezra under. As they came around the corner of the building, they pulled up short.
"What's he doing?" Nathan asked in a whisper. He glanced anxiously behind them as a roar exploded from the burning dressmaker's shop. A portion of the roof had just caved in, but the fire was smoking heavily now as the rain had better access.
The man, who at first appeared to be helping extract Chris and Ezra, stood atop the pile of wood and beams, his gun half pointed down into the wreckage even as he stared distractedly back at the burning building.
"You there!" Buck hollered.
The man turned toward them, readjusting his aim and firing.
Vin shouted as the bullet clipped his side, spinning him back into Nathan.
"Dang!" Buck fired back at the man as he helped Nathan drag Vin back around the shelter of the burning building. "Call me paranoid, but I don't think he's here to help!"
23) "The female of the species is more deadly than the male" - Tipper
Buck managed to nick the stranger in the shoulder, and he staggered backwards. Another shot, and the man went downbut not for the count.
"Damn," Buck muttered as his gun clicked on empty, and the stranger rolled onto his side, pulled another gun, and started firing anew. A bullet whizzed past Buck's ear, and he took that as a sign to get the hell down.
He ducked down behind a chunk of rubble, clutching at his arm where the glass had sliced into it, and watched through a gap between the chunks of wood.
The stranger rolled a bit more, scrabbled to his feet, and ducked around a corner, out of sight. Blowing the air out of his cheeks, Buck glanced at Nathan and Vin a few feet away, Nathan pressing a cloth to Vin's side. The tracker was hissing in pain, and glaring at his wound as if his body was somehow to blame for him getting shot. At least he didn't look like he was dying, which was a good thing.
"You okay, Buck?" Nathan shouted across to him, eyes fixed on where the blood seeped through clutched fingers.
"Just a scratch," Buck assured, then raised his voice as he shouted, "Chris!" into the rain and wind, not wanting to risk raising his head up again into firing range until he had to. "Ezra!"
"Still here!" Chris shouted back, sounding a bit strained. "I need a gun andohthanks, Ezra. Took you long enough. Forget the gun, I got Ezra's."
"What the hell is goin' on, Chris?"
"That guy shot the sheriff. Almost took out Ezra. Shot me. Blew up half the town. And now we're trapped under here."
"Why're the townsfolk mad at ya?"
"'Cause they think we shot the sheriff."
"Why?"
"Does it matter? Just go get that guy! He's the bad guy!"
"Right." Buck looked at Vin and Nathan. The former nodded, and took over holding onto the bandage from Nathan. Buck pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and did his best to fashion a bandage for himself.
"I'll be fine," Vin said. "Go on. I'll see what I can do about getting Chris and Ez out."
Nathan sighed, but stood, pulling his gun. "Don't think we got much choice. But don't go killin' yourself trying."
"I won't."
Buck nodded, arched an eyebrow and then pointed behind the healer. "You go thataway. " He pointed behind himself. "I'll go thisaway. We'll try to flank the bad guy."
"Works for me," Nate replied, already turning and going. Buck smiled and scrabbled to the side of a small store, keeping low and aiming for the far alleyway. After checking to make sure it was empty, he jogged down the alley, and then peeked around the far corner to the back.
Not seeing anyone, he stepped out and jogged over to some crates next to the back door of the store, keeping low and watching all the possible hiding places in the vicinity. That stranger couldn't have gone.
A rifle pressed against the back of his head. Shit.
He turned his head slowly, trying to see over his shoulder. "Look, mister," he began, "I don't know why you're trying to ki" He stopped talking when he caught sight of skirts. Fluffy, bright yellow, skirts. "Uhhello?"
"Not one more move, cowboy," a woman hissed. "I watched you and your friends from the window up yonder, and saw what you did to my store. Name's Pandora, and you owe me and my sister Mary one new dressmaker's shop."
24) "Deja vu" - NotTasha
Nathan traveled along the path that Buck had indicated, going vaguely 'thataway'. He hated leaving Vin alone while he was ailing, and having Buck up and moving with that nasty gash - the man definitely needed stitching - but there was little choice in the matter. Chris and Ezra were in a world of trouble and a mad-man was on the loose.
The man was shooting at people and blowing up anything in his way. He and the others had to bring the shooter down before anyone else was hurt.
Jackson swung behind a couple of barrels as a human shape appeared before him. He ducked down and held his weapon ready.
"I saw ya go on in there," the shape drawled, "and you better come on out. Ya'all are with Larabee - that fella which killed the sheriff, ain't cha?"
"He didn't shoot your sheriff," Nathan stated emphatically, keeping his head below the level of the barrels, and not lowering his revolver. "He didn't do it!"
"Ya don't say?" the man stepped into Nathan's view, coming around the barrels that formed his stronghold. "And why do ya think that?" He was a quiet looking man, with straw blond hair and a narrow face. He held his gun steady as he aimed at Jackson.
"Cause he said as much, and I believe him," Nathan returned, standing slowly.
The two men regarded each other as the rain continued to fall while Pandora 'n Mary's dress shop snapped and crackled in the fire and nothing else immediately exploded. Neither of them lowered their aim. Rain ran down in rivulets from Nathan's hat. The other man's straw hair was matted down like a helmet. His steel blue eyes stayed fixed on Nathan's darker ones.
"Well." The man drew out the word as if it had four syllables. "Imagine that." His gun remained pointed at Nathan. Jackson kept his gun aimed as well. The man continued, "I have a pretty good idea of who actually may've... ACK!"
Nathan heard the shot and ducked, but the other man reacted differently, performing a tight pirouetted as he snapped a hand to his chest. He clutched the spreading stain on his shirt as he watched Nathan's face - his eyes wide.
It was then that Jackson noticed the star pinned on the man's vest. Nathan reached forward to grasp hold of the man, but he could already tell it was too late - the life was leaving his eyes, and the man fell with a clatter to the boardwalk.
"The deputy!" someone else shouted! "They just shot the deputy?"
Nathan turned and ran.
25) "Rock, Paper, Scissors" - J Brooks
Buck pivoted slowly toward the enraged duo of dressmakers. The rifle barrel stayed pressed against his head the entire time, scraping slowly from the back of his neck, catching painfully on his left ear and coming to rest finally just under his nose.
He took a small step back, trying to put some distance between the cold steel and his mustache. Pandora, her sister glaring balefully over her shoulder, advanced, jamming the gun even harder into his face.
Buck did his best to smile around it.
"Ladies," he cooed. "I surely do understand why you're upset with ol' Buck right now..." He broke off, swallowing hard as Pandora huffed and shifted the gun until its barrel was jammed under his chin, forcing his head to tilt painfully toward the sky.
"A prettier little shop I never did see in my life," Buck pressed on, rolling his eyes to study the sisters, looking for any signs of a softening in that homicidal glint in their eyes. "The minute I laid eyes on the place I knew that all those pretty frocks had to be made by a pair of real pretty girls..."
A metallic snipping sound cut him off. Mary the dressmaker stepped out from behind her sister, brandishing a pair of sharp steel fabric shears in each hand. She was scrawny, with limp dishwater hair, wearing a lime-green satin dress that clashed hideously with her sallow complexion. Her nose was chapped and runny. She let out an explosive sneeze, scrubbed at her face with her sleeve and glared at Buck, opening and closing the scissors a few times in warning. Snip snip snip.
Buck talked faster. "Lovely as a field of morning wildflowers, those dresses. And I hope you ladies realize that we never would have raised a finger against your merchandise."
Mary stepped closer, let out an explosive sneeze, and sneered at him. Snip snip snip went the scissors, moving closer.
"Doggone it, we didn't burn your shop down!" Buck yelped, his hands moving down to cover the territory Mary seemed to be aiming for.
Pandora's rifle shifted until it was targeting the real estate below the belt as well.
Buck cringed, and then went flying as someone plowed into him from behind.
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Nathan ran, weaving through the rain, trying to draw the mob away from the pile of rubble where Larabee and Standish were trapped.
"Ow!" he yelped as a rock, hurled by somebody in the mob, bounced off his shoulder. More rocks followed, most of them flying wild and shattering windows up and down the street. The townsfolk must have used up most of their ammunition blowing the dress shop to kingdom come.
Nathan risked a glance around, trying to get his bearings. He couldn't just run in circles all day. He needed to ditch these idiots and -
A jagged hunk of rock caught him in the temple with enough force to drop him to his knees as his vision dimmed to swirling stars for a moment. Dimly, he heard the mob roar and surge toward him. His dazed mind called up images of another day, and another mob and the feel of a rough hemp rope biting into his neck as he dangled from a cemetery tree. *No!*
He staggered to his feet and blundered down the alley, blood streaming from his temple to soak his collar.
He didn't notice Buck or the ladies in the garish dresses until he crashed into them, knocking the lot of them into the mud in a tangle of crinolines and gun barrels.
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"Right," Vin said with a sigh, clambering up the pile of debris that trapped his friends. The torn muscles and cracked ribs cramped in protest and he leaned against a shattered support beam, breathing hard and taking stock of the mess around him.
One side of the livery wall had crashed down on his friends. He could see the remaining frightened horses prancing nervously in their stalls, but no sign of Chris or Ezra's mounts.
The dynamite had knocked a great crater in the building opposite - the town newspaper, judging by all the papers lying in soggy heaps in the mud and the tangled wreckage of what looked like a printing press. Vin shook his head. What kind of monster blew up a newspaper office?
"Vin?" Larabee's impatient-sounding voice filtered up through the debris and got Vin moving again.
With a grunt, he shifted a few beams and was rewarded by the sight of a Remington, clutched in scraped, bleeding knuckles, reaching for daylight, followed by a black coat sleeve, a shoulder, and finally Chris Larabee's top half.
Larabee squinted at the bloody bandage pressed against Vin's ribcage as he heaved himself out of the hole. The tracker shrugged off the unasked question, and gazed toward the bleeding gash across Larabee's arm. He turned his attention back to the wreckage.
"C'mon up, Ezra. Ain't got all day," Chris called down, peering through the gloom at the gambler's too-pale face, glaring up at him from the bottom of the pile.
"Why, thank you for that timely suggestion," Ezra snapped, shoving at the beam that trapped his leg, then falling back with a discouraged grunt. "Ow," he voiced and clutched at one shoulder.
Vin could clearly see the blood tracking down the side of his head. Ezra closed his eyes, his words starting to slur. "I was having such a delightful time here in my bed of mud and splinters, the thought of leaving never would have..." His voice trailed off.
"Ezra?" Larabee snapped, holstering his gun and tearing into the debris pile, tossing wreckage in every direction. Vin joined him, pausing from time to time to look around. Something nagged at him, a warning prickle at the back of his neck.
A sudden hiss and a flare of light brought him spinning around, mare's leg leveled. In the shattered wreckage of the newspaper office, back-lit by the light of the burning shop across the street, stood Neville Wild.
He was holding yet another burning stick of dynamite in his hands. Sparks spit and fell from the fuse, setting the papers on the floor at his feet smoldering.
"Not dead yet?" he said. "We'll soon take care of that."
26) "Count me in!" - Flah7
"Gosh, Josiah, do you think it could rain any harder?" JD snugged his coat tighter to his chest, rolling his shoulders.
"40 days and 40 nights more powerfully," Sanchez muttered. He tried hard not to shoot an accusatory glare at the young sheriff.
"Why do you think the Judge sent us off to find Buck and the others?" JD swung in his seat searching the surrounding territory with a wary eye.
Josiah bit his tongue. Judge Travis was a righteous, stern, fair man of the law. He was also just a man and could only take so much of Mr. Dunne's enthusiasm. Apparently, not even a few hours.
Since Buck, Vin and Nathan departure from town in search of Larabee and Standish, JD had been persistent in his inquiries and constant chatter - his excitement.
Josiah had found amusement in the constant chatter that buzzed around the judge. Young JD was like a worrisome mosquito. Sanchez had kept his distance and own counsel and hid within his church and the saloon late at night. That might have been a mistake.
It was all fun and games and hilarity until Judge Travis strongly suggested that JD and Josiah hit the trail in search of their fellow law men. The judge would watch the town. He smiled slyly at Josiah and sent the two law men on their way.
They had been on the trail too long. The persistent rain changed only in the speed in which it fell. Despite the torrential rains, Josiah figured they should catch up to the other three sooner rather than later. In fact, he was surprised he had not caught them already.
Josiah was thoroughly soaked, his toes pruned and he chaffed.
Mr. Dunne had to be a test, a test not unlike the suffering of Job in the Hebrew bible.
"Josiah?" JD sat up straighter and tested the air. "You smell smoke?"
JD swung back and forward scenting the air, "I smell smoke." He sat back in saddle, seemingly unconcerned for how wet he was. His head swiveled left and right, eyes searching, nostrils flared. "Something big is burning. I think I see smoke." JD stood in his stirrups and learned forward, gaining only a few inches in his line of sight. "Definitely something big burning. Buck and Ezra must be close by."
A deep rumbling sound reached them.
"That was an explosion," Dunne stated. Awe mixed with wonder and a touch of worry.
Josiah sighed, 'why must he be tested'. "Probably just thunder, brother."
Another deep rolling percussion reached them. "No, that was definitely an explosion." JD sat abruptly back in his saddle and kicked his horse into a canter. "That's dynamite. Buck and Vin must have caught up with Ezra and Chris!
Josiah took a deep breath and raised his face to the sky. "Why me, Lord? What have I done recently to deserve this?"
To be continued
