The whisky sits like a well of acid in Vin's gut when Ezra rises to his feet in the courtroom.
He feels hot, worse than when he was up there himself, constricted by the obligation to sit quiet where he is.
The place is packed to the gunnels, downstairs and up. More people than ever have forced their way in to get a good look at Four Corners' infamous son of the south in his finery. There's an atmosphere of hostility so self-righteous that Vin's beginning to realize just how powerfully the Palmers have got a grip. He rubs at his hairline with the back of his wrist.
Giving an ostentatious show of tugging the creases out of his jacket and straightening his tie, Ezra faces down Gawtrey, who watches him walk across the room. And then he steps up on the stand and faces down the massed ranks of Palmers with nothing but breezy confidence.
He swears his oath as if it's the most heartfelt thing he's ever said. Makes Vin and Chris quirk a brow at one another in spite of themselves.
Tate, who's giving every impression that he's already on the run, asks him a few tame questions about his occupation. Then inquires hopefully if he remembers anything about the apprehension of Gabe and Ring Palmer? Ezra is very sorry, says he regrets not. When Tate dares a question about the effect of injuries received, Gawtrey pops up instantly with an objection that such a line of questioning is not germane to the point in hand. The Judge agrees.
Chris is bubbling like a volcano ready to erupt. The word "germane" seems to particularly stick in his craw. Like it was put in there just to fox them.
"No more questions," says Tate. It's been his favorite phrase.
"Your witness, Mr Gawtrey." The Judge slides his gaze across to the witness stand, adjusts his spectacles and sits back. There's a hum of anticipation throughout the gallery.
Silas Gawtrey sits where he is for a long time, regarding the pile of paper on the desk before him. As if suddenly pulled back into his present whereabouts he looks up apologetically, gets slowly to his feet. As he comes out from behind the desk and walks across to the witness stand his confidence is even more breezy than Ezra's.
"Ah yes," Gawtrey begins, "the mortally injured Mr Standish."
There's a ripple of amusement through the court and Tate leaps to his feet with a squeak of "objection!" which somehow gets drowned out. The Judge wipes his face with a handkerchief and waves Gawtrey on with a slight frown of admonishment.
"How are you feeling, Mr Standish?"
Ezra gets hold of the end of a sleeve between his thumb and forefinger and tweaks it. He does the same with the other sleeve and then says, "I am tolerably well. Thank you."
The knee-jerk politeness sparks another wave of amusement.
"And you suffer no ill effects from this incident?"
Vin feels himself bristle.
Excuse me .. we goddamn ger-mane all of a goddamn sudden? Come on, Ezra. This is ya chance.
"None at all, I assure you."
Vin has the sudden conviction that Ezra won't tell the truth - he can't - because Chris Larabee is sitting there listening. Because he, of all people, mustn't know.
Damnit, Ezra. Just a nugget. Just somethin'. Somethin' , so's they'll know.
Ezra doesn't look their way once.
"Well of course," says Gawtrey, "that's good to hear. But ... it does make me wonder about the testimony of your fellows, Mr Standish, who both swore under oath that you came close to expiring from your injury and that you have suffered unusual symptoms ever since."
"Mr Tanner and Mr Larabee worry entirely too much," Ezra says. He lifts his hand from the shelf in front of him as if it's made of lead, drags the back of his fingers distractedly from eyebrow to ear.
Chris stiffens like he's been poked with a sharp stick.
Vin wonders what'll happen should Ezra choose this moment to black out in front of the entire courtroom. Crashing face first from the witness stand would certainly have dramatic impact. He has the wild hope that perhaps Ezra will do it anyway, even if he feels fine, because he is - when it comes down to it - a conman from his head to his toes.
"Well," says Gawtrey, sticking his thumbs in his vest pockets, "We are all very glad to know that the infamous peacekeepers of Four Corners have suffered no harm at the hands of the defendants."
"I'm not sure it's our health and well-being that should be concerning you," Ezra drawls. "You should perhaps worry more about the citizens of this community who had money stolen from them, or the wives of the men shot dead while trying to safeguard it, or the unfortunate folk who've had their faces rearranged and their families threatened."
Ezra's words cause a hubbub that the Judge takes several minutes and repeated bangings of the gavel to silence. When the room is quiet again, Gawtrey shakes his head sadly.
"I might have more sympathy with your story of bleeding hearts, Mr Standish," he says, "if we had heard one witness - one single eye-witness - to these supposed crimes, stand up in court today to corroborate what you claim. But we have not."
"They have all been intimidated, Mr Gawtrey." Ezra is at his withering best and Vin would smile if he didn't feel so pissed at the world.
"Pure conjecture. At present, as I intend to outline in my summation, the only unresolved question is whether or not Gabriel Palmer is guilty of a serious assault on your person. Something more than simple self-defense. And I would respectfully suggest that he is not."
"Well if that's all that this court is here to discuss," Ezra says, "then we might as well terminate proceedings right away." He gives Gawtrey a dimpled smile, although something suggests to Vin that his confidence is beginning to unravel. "As I have explained on several occasions, I awoke from a period of unconsciousness to learn from my associates that I had been struck on the head by Mr Palmer. I have the scar to prove that something of this nature did indeed occur. The reason for our apprehension of these scoundrels is, alas, a mystery to me. I have no recollection of the payroll robbery. I have nothing but my complete faith in Mr Tanner and Mr Larabee to inform me as to why and when the injury was sustained."
"You have complete faith, you say?" Gawtrey is wide-eyed at that.
"Yes, sir, I do."
"You have complete faith in the word of a bounty hunter who is himself at risk of arrest for past grave misdemeanors, and a gunslinger who many feel ... yes, even in your fortress town, Mr Standish ... who many feel is unstable at best, downright dangerous at worst."
"Objection!" screeches Tate at last. "Your honor, this is irrelevant tittle-tattle and as such has no place in a court of law!"
"Sustained," the Judge agrees tiredly. "I am sure the characters of the witnesses for the prosecution are of great interest, Mr Gawtrey, but they are not the ones on trial here."
"Very well, your honor. In that case, I have no more questions."
"Mr Standish," the Judge says, peering at Ezra over the top of his spectacles. "You may stand down."
Ezra squares his shoulders and steps off the stand. For a split second, Vin thinks he's not going to find solid ground. There's a small waver as his boot touches the well-shined boards, almost too slight to notice, and Ezra scrubs at his brow again, nearly missing the target. As he walks back towards them, each footfall looks to be landing in invisible treacle. Chris gets a good handful of jacket soon as it's in range, practically drags him down on the seat, holds him in place.
"That is not an inexpensive piece of tailoring," Ezra mutters testily.
"Just try not to speak, pard."
Vin turns his shoulder, flattens the inside of his arm across Ezra's chest, casual as he can make it. Much as he wants the jury to learn how very far from insignificant Gabe Palmer's crunching blow has been, he thinks perhaps now's not the time after all. He's aware that Ezra fears public humiliation nearly as much as he fears personal abandonment.
Ezra looks down at the arm but doesn't say anything. Then he stares straight ahead, concentrating hard, knuckle in place. Vin can feel the anxious rise and fall of ribcage, the elevated heartrate. He doesn't drop the arm until the galloping rhythm slows down and Ezra clears his throat, fists his hands on his knees.
There isn't much more to be said in the Ridge City courthouse.
At least, nothing Vin wants to hear. It soon becomes clear that they're going to get nothing from this day. Worse than nothing, in fact.
Most of the jury look like they've already heard Gawtrey's summing-up speech. Tate has all but capitulated. He's not prepared to put his head on the chopping-block a minute more, just wants to get the hell out of the asylum. There's another recess, but it's only short, just a matter of the jury sitting in their room for a respectable number of minutes.
The Palmers are acquitted.
From what Vin understands, through the rage that's making his jaw ache, the jury seems to agree with most of the gallery that testimony from the peacekeepers from Four Corners - an ugly little blot on the desert landscape - is more or less untrustworthy.
Because, of course Larabee and Tanner would back each other up ... didn't mean Gabe and Ring Palmer did what they said, though ... and as for that southern sonofabitch, he isn't half killed at all ... besides, there were no actual witnesses to the payroll robbery, just a whole bunch of people who swear blind the Palmers were in Wyoming at the time ... so sure, we don't like the Palmers much, and we sure hope they leave quick as they came, but we'll do as Mr Gawtrey suggests ... he seems to know what he's talking about ... and the Palmers do have an awful lot of guns.
It's a fight to get out of the melee that boils up once the verdict is delivered. The Palmers are whooping and raising the roof, too ecstatic for a while to notice that Larabee and his men have slipped away to reclaim their weapons. Vin, freed from the confinement of the hated courtroom, leads them out the back door.
"Surely," pants Ezra, jacket between his knees as he struggles his way into his rig, "they've not got anything to berate us for now? Their precious boys are free. We'd be in whole lot more trouble if they were on their way to Yuma."
They stand on the corner out back of the courthouse, watching folks bustling past the end of the street on their way to spread the news.
Vin leans both hands on the rail in front of him. The disorderly tide has its own force and momentum, like it could pick you up and carry you downstream before you realized. He doesn't want them to get caught up in the current.
"This ain't justice," Chris growls. He's wound up tighter than a rattler about to strike.
"It's a pile a' shit," Vin agrees, "But it's a done deal. Palmers're gonna be all over this town, Chris - we need to get ourselves away. Too many of them and we ain't got our back-ups."
"You shoulda spoke up, Ezra," Chris pursues. "Shoulda told 'em."
"Told them what exactly?" Ezra is watching the people too, shifting his shoulder about trying to get his rig comfortable. He's plainly not in the mood for sparring with Chris, and Vin feels the familiar tension start to draw tight between them. It won't help, in the business of getting out of Ridge City in one piece.
"They got away with everythin' else - least you coulda done was ya best to get 'em locked up for tryin' to kill ya. It was you, I believe, lyin' at Nathan's out of your mind with a brain fever? It still is you that's been passin' out for no reason and scarin' the livin' shit out of us? Why in hell dintcha say something about it 'stead of rilin' up that Gawtrey feller spoutin' how you don't remember nothin'!"
"I don't remember nothin'," Ezra mimicks, and Vin wonders why in hell he'd want to goad Larabee further by quoting back his own words in that damn mocking way of his that made you want to remove his teeth. "You wanted me to tell the truth, and I told the truth."
"Sonofabitch, Ezra! You remember how god-awful sick you were."
"Gentlemen, as I think we suspected all along, the cards were stacked completely against us from the moment we arrived, whatever we had to say. The Palmer brothers are not going to enjoy the stay they deserve in Yuma jail. They are going to live to fight another day."
"Yeah," Vin interrupts. "And if we're real unlucky they're goin' to live to fight it today, against us, 'less we get the hell outa here."
Chris drags his eyes off Ezra, looks at the continuing tide of people flowing past the end of the street. Vin knows it really eats at him, that Ezra won't get mad, that he doesn't have a drop of vengeance in him - leastways, not the kind that Chris would recognize. Larabee just can't fathom it - how Ezra can be so full of fatalism that he wouldn't do his damndest to somehow get Gabe Palmer onto the nearest prisoner transport to Yuma for all the pain he's caused.
Not that Ezra Standish is exactly full of sweetness and light. In fact, far from it. Vin's seen him get wilder than a polecat in a pit if his preferred weapons of guile and subterfuge are used against him. Seen a look of steel blank out the light in his eyes. And he doesn't take kindly to threats against any of the myriad array of lost causes he periodically decides to champion. Beyond this, though, all other slings and arrows he seems to accept as being no more than his lot in life. Which makes him an odd kind of fish, Vin feels, with a thud of affection he can't rightly explain.
Yep, and it's something Chris won't be able to drop, Vin knows that, too. Larabee's put what's left of his heart and soul into the peculiar set-up at Four Corners, took the blow to Ezra as a personal affront, an attack on one of his own. The fact that the one of his own in question drives him to distraction every damn day of the week is neither here nor there. That's just grist to the mill.
"You nearly goddamned died, Ezra. That counts for something in my book."
Ezra frowns. "Obliged, I'm sure." He's polite, but baffled.
"Real nice, boys, but we need to go." Vin hauls their focus back to the situation in hand.
The horses are in the Livery on the other side of town from where they're now standing, but they can't take the chance of waltzing up Main Street to get there. Or, at least, Vin doesn't want them to take the chance. He'll fight any fight that comes, but he wakes up every day praying none does and determined to side-step all but the inevitable. Chris and Ezra will be happy enough to beat a hasty retreat and call it wise instead of chicken. Vin is relieved he doesn't have Buck and JD to convince. Anyone would be hard pressed to prevent those two from walking out any damn which way they pleased if their blood was running hot, and the more trouble the better.
"I suggest we take the circuitous route," Ezra says, right on cue.
Vin grins at him. "I suggest we go round."
They make it up the street out the back of the courthouse without meeting anyone, down a series of alleyways that reek of piss and garbage, through a shady wooded area behind the church and schoolhouse and straight across the railroad track where it bends away into a tree-lined gully heading out of town. None of them know Ridge City well, but Vin's sense of direction seems to come to him on the wind - he can practically smell where they've got to get to. He leads them down between warehouses and a storage yard and then finally back on to a narrow street. They mount the boardwalk and round the corner.
"Shit," Vin says in disgust, skidding to a stop.
Milt Palmer and three other men are standing at the bottom of the steps right in front of them. There are four more at the wide-open doors of the Livery, another group of three all with rifles standing a few yards away. The horses have been brought out and saddled, are standing in a line by a water trough. Everything else, the bedrolls, blankets, canteens and saddle-bags are in a pile on the ground.
"How kind," says Ezra coming to a halt so that Chris nearly barges into him. "You really shouldn't have bothered."
Milt Palmer already has a gun in his hand. He's a meaty bear of a man, solid and bearded, pretty sure, like the rest of his clan, that the world owes him something that he'll take by force if it isn't handed over without a squeak. His face is expressionless and he shakes his head, raises the weapon and cocks it, aims squarely at Ezra's chest.
"Don't you start, you lyin' reb bastard. I don't like you, don't like you at all. I don't wanna hear you." Palmer's voice is as expressionless as his face.
Vin slowly turns his head towards Ezra, tries to convey to him that he really better not open his idiot mouth again.
"What's the escort for, Palmer?" Chris asks. He's managed to sidle far enough past Ezra to get one shoulder in front of him.
"Need to make sure you leave, Larabee. Need to make sure you know not to come back, not you or your little gang of heroes."
"You got what you wanted," Vin says. "We ain't gonna make trouble."
"Need ta make sure," Palmer repeats. "Need ya weapons."
Vin hears Chris suck air through his teeth. He's already weighed up their options. They won't take on eleven armed men at this close range. Especially not mean, stupid ones.
"Listen, Palmer. Like he said, we ain't gonna make trouble. We're gonna leave, glad to, but we need our firearms."
"You don't need nothin', Larabee. Hand 'em over or we'll drop you right here."
A few seconds pass, and then Chris begins to unbuckle his belt. Vin and Ezra follow his lead. When the handguns are gone, Palmer sends up the three men at the foot of the steps to frisk them down. Ezra gets his coat dragged off him, the rig removed with brute force when it becomes clear the mechanism's not a simple one.
"Look at this, boys," one of the men hoots, turning the Derringer over and over in his hand. "A lady's little pea-shooter!" Another one removes the deck from Ezra's vest pocket, flips the cards carelessly down the steps. "That how it goes, reb?"
"You robbin' us, Palmer?" Vin asks, feeling the pull in his gut as his Winchester is removed. The guns are transported in silence over to the men at the Livery. One stays to stand guard over them, the others walk back to stand with Palmer.
"It's not robbin', it's insurance," says Milt Palmer. "Can't have you circlin' round and comin' in to bushwhack us dead 'a night."
"Well ... we may hafta come back some time. Collect what belongs to us."
"Nah, you won't come back."
Chris rubs at a knot in the floorboard with the toe of his boot. "You seem very sure."
"Yuh."
Milt Palmer holsters his gun. He turns to the group of men with rifles and nods once.
Vin thinks, in that second, that they're dead. He feels the same bolt of certainty crackle into Chris and Ezra. It seems harsh and unfair to be taken down without a chance to fight back.
The shot the marksman fires is pinpoint accurate.
It takes Vin's hat clean off, has enough heat and power to knock him off his feet. A second shot splits a wooden beam inches above Chris's head, rains splinters down on them. The dual distractions are enough that Ezra hardly has time to uncurl from his defensive crouch when a fist catches him under the chin and he hits the rail, goes right over.
Vin realizes he's being rushed and strikes out best he can. He cracks the assailant's forearm with the sole of his boot, gains his feet and drives him down the steps into the dirt. Frankly, he doesn't rate their chances for one second, thinks this must be how a deer feels when a pack of coyotes closes in - no matter how spiritedly it kicks and struggles, how fast it runs, deep down it knows it'll be overwhelmed.
But, for a trio of cornered prey, they put up a good fight for a time. Ezra goes under first, although not before having floored a man nearly twice as wide as he is and a good head taller. It's kind of a bad choice on his part, though, because he never manages to get upright after the follow-through.
Vin's vaguely aware that Ezra bangs his head on the side of the boardwalk as he's taken to the earth, but he doesn't have time to verify if he moves again after that. He feels split skin, tastes copper, sees the world red and white, spinning into infinity.
Chris is still fighting when the shutters come down.
--------
He wakes on his back in the dark.
Before he even opens his eyes, Vin knows he's out in the open. There's a chill, a night breeze blowing across his face, he can hear noises of the desert night, sense the vast space above him.
He lies for a while, assessing his condition, thinking about what happened, wondering if there's danger in the near vicinity. His right eye doesn't want to open properly, there's dried blood caking his nostrils and his bottom lip feels ten times fatter than it should be.
Carefully, Vin flexes his hands, moves his arms a bit off the hard ground, rotates his shoulders. Everything stings and aches but there's no breaks. Then he does the same with his legs and back, moves the joints gingerly one at a time. Left knee's been trodden on, maybe. When he moves it there's a bolt of pain up his thigh and into his hipbone.
God. Damnit.
He rolls himself on to his side, tries to get a look round, croaks out a few words.
"Chris .. you there? ... Ez?"
"Here," comes a voice over to his left. "Ya hurt?"
"Herd'a buffalo .." is all Vin can say in explanation. "You?"
"Nothin's broke."
There's a shuffling sound, the low whinny of a horse not far away.
"Good Lord," groans another voice in the dark.
There's some labored movement, boots scraping on loose earth, then the troubling sound of Ezra hacking up bile and misery on to the dry ground.
"Stay where y'are, stop movin' around," Chris calls at him crossly.
"You deal with your ... misfortunes, Mr Larabee, and leave me ... to deal with mine."
"Didja hit ya head, Ez, you bleedin'?" Vin gets himself on to one knee, plants his hands on the ground.
"Yes I did, Mr Tanner, and no I am not ... just ... "
Ezra alternates another bout of heaving with a string of uncharacteristically foul-mouthed invective. Vin would laugh at that, only he doesn't think Ezra banging his head and throwing up is funny at all.
Chris is angry, his voice clipped. "Ezra, stay where you are for one goddamn second, stop trottin' about and let me get to ya." Vin can see the shadow of Larabee on the move now his eyes have gotten accustomed to the dimness.
Ezra coughs a few times, goes quiet.
Vin concentrates on getting to his feet. He can't put his full weight on the bad knee, but at least he can stand. Leaving Chris and Ezra to deal with each other, he charts a course for the sound of hooves stamping the ground impatiently out in the dark.
"Horses're all here," he calls out. "But we should make camp where we are if Ez isn't doin' so good."
He can hear them grumbling at each other. "Nah, he's okay," Chris calls back. "Reckon you c'n guide us home?"
Vin moves a pile of their belongings with his foot. He reaches down and snags his hat, sticks one finger through the hole and nearly laughs again. Two forms are coming at him out of the gloom and they seem to be holding each other upright. There's a break in the fast-moving clouds overhead that frees a watery moonlight long enough to see that Chris and Ezra are about as banged up as Vin is.
Vin clucks in sympathy. "We could get a few hours rest, git goin' first light."
"Well I'm not sleeping out here without mah guns," Ezra says.
"Hell, who said anythin' 'bout sleepin'? You c'n take first watch." Larabee is caustic with irritation and worry.
Vin slides a hand down the nose of one of the horses, gives it a calming pat.
"Movin', standin' still ... somethin' gets our scent it won't make no difference."
"You mean cats?"
Vin can't smile because his lip hurts too much, can't even crinkle his eyes. "Critters're as thick as hops out here, Ez."
"Huh," Chris muses, evidently thinking on it, while Ezra mumbles to himself. "Any idea where we are?"
"North," Vin hazards. "They prob'ly brung us straight out the road the Livery's on. Wouldn'ta brung us far. I don't think it's more'n midnight or thereabouts."
The moon flits behind clouds again.
"There's cover back there," Chris says. "Enough. We got provisions?"
Ezra makes one of his expressive noises. "Hardtack and moldy biscuits if ah remember correctly."
Chris seems to find that amusing.
Vin does, too.
tbc