Chapter Four

Jess slept slouched in a chair in front of the fireplace, his legs spread out in front of him, while one hand supported his head from bobbing to the side as a fist remained balled under his chin. Slumber hadn't been his to claim for long, only finding its escape after the hours of the night had passed the majority. When Jonesy's suggestion for bed had been voiced, Jess had taken the chair while the older man joined Andy in the bedroom, stating the need to keep a log on the fire around the clock as the outside chill was reaching a depth that could make anyone shiver even under a stack of blankets. Several had been added, increasing the dancing glow on the walls around him, but the light flickering on Jess' face showed the intense level of emotions that he carried, that would have kept him awake even if the perfect temperature would remain at a constant.

It was close to dawn when Jess' eyes finally lowered, his head going with it a moment later, but a gentle stirring to come out of it an hour later wouldn't be granted when the rumble of a fast moving stagecoach jerked him out of his seat. Jess was through the door, gun in hand, but his aim wouldn't rise to a face when familiarity was instantaneous, and it was because he knew the wizened old face of Mose, that Jess knew there was something wrong. Holster refilled, Jess turned his head only briefly to see Jonesy and Andy come out the door of the house, and then his pace increased until he was beside the coach.

"Lester's been shot," Mose said during his descent of the driver's seat, still talking as he hurried to the door of the coach with Jess so close behind him he could have rode on Mose's back. "I was rolling an empty coach to Crown Point when I came upon him and a woman walking on the road just after daybreak."

"How bad is it?" Jess reached around Mose to the driver inside, pale from pain, but carrying an even more noticeable symptom was his weakness. "You've lost quite a bit of blood, but it don't look too bad considering the bullet's still in there."

"That ain't the worst of it, Jess," Mose said, tapping Jess on the shoulder as he began to maneuver the injured man's body out of the coach. "Tell him, Les."

"It's Slim, Jess," Lester began, the wince on his face producing a deep groan that came from his chest, and even though he was moving Lester in his arms, everything around Jess seemed to grow eerily still. "He was riding shotgun with me, and the man that did this made Slim take him away on the coach."

"Was Slim hurt?" Jess felt the strain on his muscles relax as Jonesy's hands gripped Lester's feet, but the strain around his heart was growing tighter.

"Got a nick out of his hand when he wouldn't drop the rifle," Lester explained, his voice rising and fading as he hovered near his unconscious door, but Jess wouldn't let him turn the handle just yet.

"Where'd this happen, and why?"

"Not too far from Jubilee," Lester answered, but it was barely finished before he released a rough sigh as he was placed in Slim's bed, and Jess had to shake his shoulder to get him to flicker an eye. "Just a rough neck; do they need reason?"

"I bet this one did," Jess said, receiving a nod from Jonesy as he began to apply a wet cloth to Lester's arm. It had to be him. "What'd he look like?"

"Medium-tall," Lester ground through his tightly clenched teeth, fighting the pain, but the battle was swaying hard in the opposite direction. "Curly dark hair, a little thicker than you around the waist, had a scared look about him, but it couldn't cover up the dark shadows that hovered over him. He was running from something, Jess."

"Yeah. From murder, three times over." Jess' voice was a combination of fire and ice, and both elements were hurling their strength down his throat, ready to sit in his stomach with a hot puddle of fury. He didn't have a name, but Jess knew exactly who the man was that Lester had just described. None other than the man that murdered Scott, Dusty and Papa T, right there just off of the Sherman porch, with their blood still coloring the damp dirt. And now he had Slim. "Dad-gum."

Jonesy shook his head, quickly reaching for a knife to probe for the bullet as there would be no better time. "He's gone out, Jess."

"You gonna be all right here, Jonesy?" Jess was in motion as he asked, not even waiting for Jonesy's response as he reached for his rifle and the box of bullets that would go with it.

"Don't worry about us," Jonesy whispered, his tongue coming out to rest against his upper lip as he concentrated, switching to a slow push of air as the bullet made its exit. "Just go do what you need to do."

Maybe not everyone in the house knew what Jonesy's statement would entail, especially the woman warming by the fireplace and Lester stuck in the darkest corner of unconsciousness, but there was nothing to assume about Jess' departure to the remainder of the listeners. In less than thirty seconds, Jess had every necessary tool for travel in hand, but the one that would hold the most significance was his weapons. His hip was always loaded, and at that moment the other gun was filled with power, ready for at least one piece of lead to be placed inside of a heartless killer if opportunity arose, and it would have been impossible not to carry a blazing streak of hope that it would. A vengeful heart had carried three names during the hunt that had dissolved the night before, but the added name of Slim, his best friend and partner, made the emotion rise to the surface and flood over, its steam noticeable through Jess' every movement.

"I'll get him," Jess promised, his feet stilling long enough to receive a nod from an agreeing head before his steps thundered across the floor, the door banging at his exit a statement in itself that Jess had meant every word.

It was easy to start off in fury, but the more miles that were erased on Jess' journey the internal throb was given a chance to switch to fear. The man Jess was after had already brutally killed three, shot Lester, likely only sparing him for the woman's sake, and then took Slim, not as a hostage, but as a means for escape. Considering what he had just left in the dirt at the relay station, and not knowing what else the man's history would declare, Slim didn't have a chance once the outlaw was finished with him. Slim was going to die, unless Jess could get there first.

Experiencing murder first hand since his youth, a man like Jess could say that he had seen it all, and the hundreds of images of his past, although unforgotten, could be blurred away, except for one. Maybe it was because it had happened only the day before, but his brain was stamped with a picture of Scott's lifeless face, yet it was eerily changing to look more and more like Slim, with one stark similarity. The bullet was right between the eyes. Jess shivered, the reaction not coming from the cold, but the rapidly increasing goose bumps to his flesh made him become more aware of the weather, and that an autumnal blast was about to be unleashed.

The signs in the air were telling. Dark, gray clouds, wind that could slide right through the warmest jacket, intermittent moisture that didn't just fall, but drove to the earth in parallels, and the temperature that changed to a lower degree several times an hour. Pulling the collar of his heaviest coat higher to his neck, Jess hunkered into its shelter, but the wind's teeth still sunk all the way to his skin, wanting to take a bite out of his flesh if he didn't remain vigilant to the changing conditions. They were not going to best him, but if Slim was under the same dismal canopy, Jess didn't want to think how much worse the elements could be treating him.

The road was twisting upward when he hit the squall. If Jess' fingers hadn't remained on his hat, it would have been tossed somewhere behind him at the first gust. With no place else to turn but straight into it, Jess kept Traveler in a steady line, bearing the brunt with stony determination etched into his face, but nature had its own stubborn resolve. A bucket seemed to drop from above, rinsing the ground until there was just as much water on the surface as what was falling from the sky. Trails couldn't stand such lashing, but at least Jess knew a location without searching the ground's battered surface for an already washed away imprint.

Looking up for the mark of the highest peak, Jess searched through the rain, but his chin would quickly return to its lowest position, for the hilltops were shrouded in gloom. He knew he was close to where the stage must have been stopped, but without a telltale sign, Jess might miss the precise setting, and any miss could cost him Slim's life. Blotting the moisture from his face with the sleeve of a drenched coat did little to release the droplets that heavily dotted his skin, but it flicked away enough on his lashes to lose some of the beads that marred his vision, giving him a clearer view of a message left on the ground.

It wasn't hand written, but it could have been placed there by a set of fingers to guide a certain rescuer or fallen amidst a skirmish. Either way, it was delivered. Dropping out of the saddle, Jess dipped his fingers into the mud, pulling a bandana free from the muck that if clean, would resemble the color of red. Slim. It was true that it could have belonged to any number of cowboys that traveled the road, but with a strong instinct sticking inside of Jess' gut, he knew it had come from Slim. Now that there was something to cling to, the surrounding details were searched for with a higher intensity, and Jess soon found the arrow that would point him in the right direction, for the remnant of wheels turning could still be seen. They had turned back toward Cheyenne, but Jess could already make the guarantee that wasn't where the outlaw wanted Slim to take him. Some place less populated would be in mind, like the wide open town of nowhere.

Encouraging Traveler to carry him a few miles further, Jess found the cutoff and took it without hesitation, not even needing to search for a mark that told him to switch directions. Thinking along the lines of an evil mind, this was the target he had made in his mind's sight before he had even reached there, for a man on the run needed a lesser known trail, and a stagecoach couldn't roll on a barely visible line. The previous timeline of the roadway's usage was unknown, but if it had landed anywhere near the darkness that Jess was closing upon, there would be a great need for stopping. Rocks, mud and debris, all posed a dangerous threat to a horse's legs, and Jess would risk his no further. His saddle now bare, Jess tugged on Traveler's line until he reached a better stopping point, giving the reins a loose tie into a tree limb.

The rain could have been described as anything except a drizzle, and Jess tugged his hat lower to his eyes, but stopped short of covering them completely, as he could never shut off the need to search. Nothing could hide from nature's onslaught, as there wasn't a single leaf tucked under a sheltering limb that wasn't wet, but although every color was naturally a couple of shades darker, there was still one hue that couldn't go deeper. Spotting a set of rocks that appeared to be randomly placed, Jess walked to the closest and kicked it over, revealing its blackened side, a symbol of fire. The next rock had the same char to its bottom, and Jess needed to look no further. They had set up camp right where he was standing.

The air was packed with the fullest density of an ominous level, but his discovery was a good sign. Slim might not have been in control with an outlaw's threat keeping him going, but he was still in charge of the horses, and with the animals on his side, they would have remained in this place for the night. Jess would have rather gone onward, but he was being met with the similar fate as the one that had been there before. A tired horse always won in Jess' book, but with the cloud cover remaining in complete control, daylight was dimming rapidly to nothingness. Since there was no light to guide him, and Traveler needed rest, Jess had no choice but to use the same site that Slim had used, and like his friend that night, there would be no refuge from his storm.

He awakened with his arms wrapped around his middle and his nose tucked into the inside fold of his elbow, but even with the movement of a simple flinch, Jess' first reaction was to shiver. The rain had stopped sometime during his slumber, replaced with a blue that was soon to boast a ball of sunlight, but even when it popped over the horizon, it held no promise of warmth. The new day was set to have an even colder bite than what the rain had offered, as the wind had switched from a haggard moan to a bitter howl. Jess topped his mount, angling straight into the invisible wolf, but no matter how hard it tried to tear him apart, Jess continued to face it.

The hours changed far enough that it was no longer morning, but the elements couldn't obtain any success of improvement, made even worse when Jess reached Harry's Peak, for there was nothing to stop the wind from screaming at that height. There wasn't a single line of a wagon wheel on the ground, but Jess kept his pace slow and steady, searching everything around him for a shred of evidence as he began the downward spiral. It was a dangerous stretch of road, with only daredevils seeming to want to make the attempt with a wagon, but even though Slim wasn't a reckless adventurer, he still held the skill to make the corners in a stagecoach without fail. Maybe that was why Jess wasn't looking for the mark of an accident as he rode around the sharpest bend.

Jess' eyes latched onto the second turn, his horse making new tracks on the ground as he proceeded, but then the prints were suddenly halted. Something seemed off, as if he had gone too far, but there wasn't a single sign he could see to indicate that his racing pulse was correct. Or was there? Jess turned his mount, his body taking the first position to dismount, but then his feet landed on the ground in a rush. This was the place. The stagecoach hadn't rolled a foot beyond this point, which meant that there was only one way it could have gone. Down.

Jess stood in the center of the bend, but his feet were as close to the edge as he could keep a steady balance without falling over, stretching his upper half farther away from where his boots pressed to look below him. The coach met his gaze first, upside down and missing two wheels, with one so shattered its pieces could never be fully retrieved, while the other hung like an ornament on an outstretched limb. Feeling his stomach starting to quiver at his precarious perch, Jess started to align his body to be more upright when his eyes caught a man's head, and the way his muscles jumped, Jess almost went over the edge at the discovery. Even at the distance, Jess could see enough detail to know that there was no life left below him. The bend at the neck was too severe, and the rest of the body, mottled by tree limbs only bearing a portion of their leaves, was twisted beyond repair. Bringing a hand to rest against his lips, Jess took a deep breath through the leather, as there was more to register than just the man's fate. Dark haired with medium bulk, he was close enough to fit Lester's description to know that Jess was viewing the killer.

"It ain't Slim." The words exited Jess' mouth on a single breath, and since there was little room left in that stream of air for relief, the dread remained.

Slim might still be down there somewhere. He could have jumped to freedom before the coach took the first spin, but although there was hope in that thought, Jess couldn't put every ounce of faith in one single ray of light. Swallowing the unmerciful thickness lodged in his throat, Jess moved his eyes over the uneven canyon, but as his sharp set of blue couldn't find his partner, the rest of his body would have to do. He took the first step and had to quickly change positions as the rocky support refused to hold him, but it was way too soon to give up. Two strides farther around the corner he started again, following the nonexistent path with his eye over the crags and snags and as Jess successfully made it three steps down, he felt the air rush out of his lungs. Jess' feet had barely slipped, but it wasn't for his life that made the reaction.

He saw Slim, his face just as pale as the dead man's.