Chapter 1
The stagecoach thundered into town without a driver.
Chris was on his feet, getting out into the middle of the dusty street, yelling for Ezra or Buck to get out here.
He shouted at the horses as they approached, holding his arms overhead and waving at the horses. Panicked as they were, they were run to the point of exhaustion and slowed until Chris could grab the harness of the lead horses, stopping them completely.
Chris jerked his head at the telegraph operator who had come outside to see what the commotion was, handing the reins to him to hold the team steady while he went to the coach itself.
Ezra and Buck fell into step alongside him.
He had walked into plenty of ugly situations, had horrible surprises waiting for him, and knew how to detach. He could turn the cold dread and sickening discoveries into focused rage and let that drive him without letting any of the weaker emotions in. He did that now, as he reached for the handle of the door, but it wasn't enough to stop the initial flood of horror at the sight inside.
"Aw no," Buck breathed next to him.
A young woman, blue eyes wide with terror and panic scrambled backwards across the floor of the stage and pressed her back against the far wall when the door opened.
Chris got just a flash of blue eyes and then all he saw was the blood. Blood covered the front of her dress, her hands. And the knife she held.
"N-no," she shrieked when she saw Chris. She brandished the knife wildly. Her eyes flashed from Chris to Buck and her breaths started coming faster and faster.
Her dress was torn across the front, buttons missing, her skirts wrinkled and in disarray.
Chris slowed his movements. He held out a hand, trying to show he didn't mean any harm.
"Please, no, no," the young woman pleaded wildly, slashing erratically with her knife.
Buck put a hand on Chris' shoulder and pulled him back from the doorway. "Let me try."
Chris couldn't see Buck's face, but could hear the gentle smile in his voice and imagined he was trying his most charming smile on the lady.
"Hey there, little lady," he said.
There was a strangled sounding scream of terror, and then he was propelling himself backwards out of the stage and falling out onto the hard-packed dirt.
Chris heaved a sigh. He had no doubt they could manhandle to girl and get the knife in two seconds flat, but he hadn't lost enough of his humanity yet to ignore what that would do to her to have two men overpower her on the heels of whatever had happened to her.
He risked another look inside the stagecoach. The lady flinched as soon as she saw him and jabbed the knife defensively at him.
"Gentlemen," Ezra said behind him.
Chris stepped back from the stagecoach again and looked at Ezra.
"You want to try?" Chris snapped.
Ezra glanced at the stagecoach, at Buck, rubbing a hand against the hip he landed on, and back at Chris. "I think I'll decline the offer," he said genially.
"Then what do you suggest?" Chris' temper was fraying quickly, the terror in the woman's eyes and her screams of panic sawing away at the last thread holding his control.
"I suggest we stop traumatizing her worse than she already has been."
Chris flung a hand toward the coach. "So we just let her stay there?"
"Of course not," Ezra said, glancing past Chris and looking at the woman, still clutching her knife, eyes watching the three of them. For the first time Chris noticed a flicker of concern move the gambler's expression before he steadied it again.
"Perhaps a less threatening individual would be hepful."
Chris glanced at Buck. "JD?" he asked, unable to think of any other less threatening option than Buck.
"As new to manhood as young Mr. Dunne is," Ezra said, "I was thinking someone less masculine. The fairer sex may be less of a threat."
"Mary," Chris said.
Ezra nodded.
Chris scanned the crowd gathering and saw JD jogging down the street toward them. Chris jerked his chin to motion the kid over.
"What's going on?" JD asked. "The stage held up? We need to get ready to ride?"
"You need to get Mary," Chris said. Josiah, Vin, and Nathan were heading his way. Chris made sure JD went on his way and strode over to the others. He glanced back at the stage and saw Buck and Ezra guarding the carriage from a distance.
"Trouble?" Josiah asked.
Chris huffed out a breath. "You three need to ride out, see what happened to the stage. Look for survivors."
Josiah grew solemn. "Anyone alive in there?"
Chris grunted. "One. In bad shape."
Vin didn't say anything, but glanced toward the stage. Chris saw him scanning it and wondered what the tracker saw that the rest of them may have missed. He looked back at Chris and gave him a silent nod before turning to go toward the livery stable. Josiah and Nathan went with him, faces grim at their assigned task.
Chris dragged a hand across his face before going back to the stagecoach.
Mary was approaching when Chris got there.
"She's scared out of her mind," Chris said.
Mary looked at him questioningly, but approached the stagecoach.
The girl immediately lifted the knife again, a guttural sound of fear rising in her throat.
"Oh my," Mary said, glancing at Buck, then Chris. She quickly gathered herself and gave the girl a reassuring look. "You're safe here," Mary said, her voice calm.
The stranger finally paused, though she whimpered.
"Come on," Mary said, gently. She raised a hand slowly, reaching to offer it to the younger woman.
Trembling, but still clutching her knife, the young woman started to move.
Chris became aware of the crowd again and turned. "Everyone get on now." He could try to make his words as mild as possible and everyone would obey. He just didn't have much mild in him. The dark history in his eyes and unflinching way he looked at the people had them hurrying away, casting backward glances over their shoulders.
The young woman's light brown hair hung in her face as she approached the door of the coach. Chris hovered as close as he dared without sending her scrambling for safety again, but unwilling to get far enough away to give her a chance to use the knife on Mary or anyone else in her state of delirious fear.
Unsteadily, the girl stepped down from the stage and Mary cautiously wrapped an arm around her.
"Let's get you cleaned up," Mary said. She glanced at Chris, pain in her eyes along with questions.
"Cleaned up?" the young woman echoed in a whisper. She looked up at Mary, then followed Mary's eyes down to her hands.
As if noticing the knife for the first time, she dropped it with a cry of alarm. She stared at her hands.
Mary held her more tightly and guided her the short distance to the Clarion office.
Chris stooped down to pick up the knife, glancing at the name carved into the wooden handle.
Vin T.
#
The blonde woman was gentle, her voice soothing. Lucy tried to focus on that. But the metallic smell of blood filled her nostrils and every time she looked down, she saw the blood covering her. But she didn't think it was her blood. It was hard to tell when she was numb all over, her mind separated from her body.
When the woman walked her into a building and closed the door, the noise from the street and town outside finally dulled.
"Let's see about getting you washed up. I'm sure that will make you feel better."
Lucy didn't feel her feet moving, but they must have been because she climbed the stairs to a living area upstairs.
The woman settled her into a chair at a small kitchen table and set about dipping water from the reservoir on the woodstove into a basin.
Lucy stared down at her hands. There was so much blood. In short, sharp flashes she could see the men. The look in their eyes when they realized she was alone in the stage. The gunsmoke, acrid as it wafted lazily from their guns after they shot the driver. The rattle of her buttons as they tore free from her simple dress and bounced across the floor of the coach. And then the blood. So much blood flowing from the man's neck where she stabbed him with the knife she had kept in an ankle sheath hidden in her boot.
"Here you go." The woman's calm voice brought Lucy back and she looked around the room in confusion. The stagecoach was gone and there were no men there.
Concern gentling the woman's pretty features, she laid a towel and a few washcloths on the table next to the basin, a bar of scented soap on top of them. "I'll see about getting your things from the stagecoach so you can change."
She looked like she was waiting for a response. Lucy looked from her to the things she had set on the table, confused.
"I'll give you some privacy to get cleaned up. If you need anything, I'll be right downstairs." She gave Lucy a small smile. "I'm Mary Travis."
Mary Travis didn't leave right away and somewhere, in the corner of her brain that was functioning, Lucy realized what she was waiting for. "Lucy," she said. Her voice was raw and her throat hurt. Had she screamed? When those men burst into the stagecoach, she hadn't. Not until they had gotten close enough to grab at her. Then she had screamed.
"Lucy," Mary said softly. "You take your time. I'll see about getting a bath brought up for you later."
Lucy stared after Mary, at the plain wooden door that closed behind her, back down at the steam rising from the bowl of water. And then she looked down at her hands. The blood had started to dry, darkening, seeping into the lines of her hand, around her fingernails.
A sob tore free. And then another and another. The blood forgotten, now just a part of her, Lucy dropped her head into her hands as the sobs shook her violently.
#
Ezra heard the sobs from upstairs. Mary paused at the bottom of the stairs, hearing them, too. Her mouth straightened into a grim line. Ezra wanted to shield Mary from the ugliness of what had happened as much as he wanted to turn away from it himself. Instead he shifted slightly and leaned back against the heavy wooden desk covered with Mary's papers.
"She hurt?" Chris asked.
Ezra could tell Buck and Chris were as on edge as he was, waiting for Mary's answer.
Mary shook her head. "I don't think so. She didn't appear to have any cuts that I could see." She hesitated, meeting their eyes. "I don't think that was her blood."
"I hope she killed them," Buck said, his voice a low growl that Ezra wasn't used to hearing from the amiable man. "Whoever it was, I hope she killed 'em and they suffered first."
"You got things under control here?" Chris asked.
Mary nodded. The sobs from upstairs seemed to be slowing.
Chris nodded shortly. "Let us know what you need."
Mary stepped forward, stopping them from leaving. "If she has any belongings, you could bring them here for now."
Ezra nodded toward a worn carpetbag on the desk chair. He had assumed the young woman would need some sort of clothing to replace… He cleared his throat. "That was all I found on the stage."
Mary's blue eyes were filled with appreciation. It wasn't something Ezra was accustomed to, something he certainly didn't feel he deserved most of the time, but it warmed him all the same. "Thank you, Ezra," she said.
Tipping his hat to Mary, he cast a last glance towards the stairs, unsure whether the quiet that now reigned was an improvement or not.
#
Chris sat in the chair outside the sheriff's office. He had cleaned the blood from the knife and turned it over in his hands.
He wondered what the odds were that there was another man named Vin out there. Vin T. Maybe not too unlikely. The odds that man had a knife that had ended up in the hands of a young woman who was heading into the town Vin Tanner lived in? Very unlikely.
Chris saw the dust from the riders coming before he saw the horses. He stayed in his chair, not given to pacing. He watched until he could make out the men he expected, looking for any bodies.
Josiah had one draped across the back of his saddle. Nathan was leading an unfamiliar horse with another man slumped in the saddle. Vin broke away from the trio, heading straight toward the jail.
Buck and Ezra must not have been too far from a view of the dusty track that led into town because they were coming from the saloon and taking up posts next to Chris as Vin pulled up his horse.
"Driver's dead," Vin said succinctly. Found the bandit bleeding out on the ground. Nathan thinks he'll make it."
Chris didn't respond.
Vin tipped his hat back with his forearm and wiped his forehead before settling his hat back in place. "The passenger hurt bad?" he asked.
Chris stood then. "She's over at Mary's now. Don't know what all happened yet.
Vin grimaced.
Chris figured beating around the bush wouldn't do anyone any favors. "You recognize this?" he asked, holding the knife up for Vin to see.
Vin went entirely still. "Where'd you get it?" he asked quietly.
Chris cut his eyes toward the Clarion office and Mary's living quarters.
"Lucy." The name came out a whisper, then Vin wheeled his horse around and sprinted the short distance to Mary's. He was off his horse before the animal had stopped, not bothering to hitch the horse to a rail before he ran into the building.
#