"Looks like blood," the longhaired tracker said as he knelt by the arroyo and poked at the ground. He picked up a piece of dried matter, crushed it between his fingers and held it close to his nose. "Puke," he then said, the distinctive odor still faintly present in the sun-baked offering.

Peering over the embankment and down into the dry stream bed JD could see the distinct imprints of shod hooves. "Down here, Vin," he shouted and pointed to where a horse had stumbled down the embankment, stopped and then come back up a few feet further down the wash.

JD stepped closer to traverse the steep bank and sand and rocks spilled down the hill before him and the silence was broken by warning rattles. The kid launched himself back and away from the edge and, landing on his backside, turned his head and stared up into Buck Wilmington's concerned face. The ladies' man offered him a hand up and brushed the dirt off of the younger man's seat.

"Always best to look 'fore ya' leap, J.D. although it looks like somebody didn't heed the warnin'," Buck then added pointing to the boot and hand holds coming back up the wash in front of the two of them. The young Bostonian's face was positively white with fear, his eyes wide with shock and when he had recovered somewhat he smiled sheepishly at him.

"Mr. Tanner, have a look at this." Ezra stood a few feet away from the others, his coat powdered with a dusting of dry desert residue draped over his arm.

Vin walked over and squatted next to where the gambler stood and looked at the three sets of tracks, those of a man and a horse and, of all things, a wolf. Vin ventured, "Mighty strange travelin' companions if you ask me."

"You think it's Chris' horse?" JD asked leaning over the Texan's shoulder to get a better look.

Vin figured the boot prints were too small to be Chris' and the wolf prints were unusual but not unheard of in the desert. Only the hoof prints gave him some small comfort. At least Chris' horse wasn't down and maybe the gunman been aboard when Sire had been led away. "Chris' horse has a sand split and Yosemite fitted him with a special shoe a few weeks ago," Vin told them.

Well, whoever he was he was more than likely dead by now, Nathan thought but kept his foregone conclusion to himself. Someone had been snake bit and sick but there was no sign of a body. If the rider was as full of venom as the healer believed him to be even the deserts most voracious scavengers would have given the corpse a wide birth.

Josiah, not ready to believe their fearless leader and friend had been unfortunate enough to have ridden into a gully full of rattlers, said, "Could be a hundred other horses with that kinda shoe."

"Only one way to find out," he said as he picked up Peso reigns and swung up into his saddle.

The others followed suit and the six of them headed due east.

Santa Muerta walked to the edge of the porch and listened as six voices carried on the hot wind. They were close and made the wolf anxious. "Yes, I hear them, too," she said petting the beast's massive head soothingly, "They are near...but still so very, very far away."

The gunfighter groaned and she returned to his bedside. "You hear them, too, don't you Chris...Christopher," she whispered rolling his name off of her tongue as she looked down on him. She thought he was still asleep but his eyes fluttered opened, his lids heavy, and he smiled weakly.

He thought he'd been dreaming when he heard the voices of Vin and the others and he half expected them to come walking through the door at any moment but the woman only smiled and sat down on the bed next to him.

"They won't find you. You are far too lost," she told him and believing her he closed his eyes again. Taking a wet cloth from a water bucket next to the bed she gently bathed his brow and his flushed cheeks, the one almost fully healed. She continued down to his chin, the cloth tugging gently on his whiskers, then pulled back the blanket that covered him and bathed the sweat from his chest, her ministrations clearly arousing him as she pulled the blanket lower.

As she continued to listen to the outside world she was startled when her patient sat up. He reached for her and dragged her down on the bed to lie next to him and kissed her hungrily, desperately. Santa Muerta hesitated only a moment before she opened her mouth and her body to him granting the gunfighter sanctuary between her legs and in her arms...if only for a little while.

Later, as they lay together in the evening's twilight, she said to him, "Your name, it means the anointed one, the messiah. Are you the redeemer of the men who search so diligently for you? Are you their salvation?"

Chris shook his head sadly. "I can't even save myself," he admitted to her with a halfhearted laugh.

"Then why do they bother to look?" she asked him as she ran her fingers along the faded fang marks on his thigh.

Chris closed his eyes wearily and shook his head. "I don't know," he told her truthfully.

"There are six men who search, each for a different reason. One looks to you as he would a father while another has grudgingly grown to respect you. One has healed your body while another has soothed your soul. One thinks of you as a brother while the last cherishes your friendship above all others."

"And when push comes to shove I can't save any of 'em. Not my wife and son. Not any of 'em!" he finished angrily.

"If they were lost would you look for them?" she asked and he thought it was a foolish question.

"Of course I would," he answered indignantly.

"Why?" she asked simply.

"Because they've stood by me, " he answered without hesitation.

"For most men that would be enough," she said softly.

"Because they stood by me, " he answered without hesitation.

"For most men that would be enough," she said softly.