A/N: Big things this chapter, guys! Thanks so much for reading, guys. This is officially my longest and most complex story. It's not easy coming back into writing, and I haven't re-established my voice yet, but it means a lot that y'all are willing to stick around anyways. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter Five: Something Vile

Candy woke well before the dawning. His nerves were alight with the first fingers of color that reached up to paint the skies beyond the treetops. The back of his neck tickled. His stomach knotted. Something dark and terrible was building. The cowboy slipped out of bed and into his boots, avoiding the sagging places in the floor that might give him away. He swung his door open soundlessly and listened to the sounds of ten sleeping men. A vile taste of premonition crept up his throat.

Tom Lawton slept nearest the wall- he was quieter than some: didn't snore, didn't toss, just slept stiff-backed and straight-limbed like a corpse awaiting burial. Candy cupped one hand over the man's mouth and braced himself for a strike. He shook Tom's shoulder once. Tom felt like an empty pile of clothes. He didn't so much as twitch. Candy jostled him again and the man's breath caught and his dark eyes slid open. Candy shook his head. The eyes relaxed. A hot, ragged breath sighed into Candy's open palm.

"Get up."

Candy monitored the room while the Marine peeled off his vomit-stained skivvy shirt and threw his dungarees on over his bare chest. He felt wrong, crooked, like he was part of a robbery- vile, like he was committing a murder. Candy hardly breathed until they were out of the bunkhouse and saddling horses.

"Candy!" Lars crashed into the bunkhouse about midmorning. He was breathless from a hard ride and pale as a sheet. A couple late-risers glanced his way and among themselves. "Is Candy on the ranch?" They'd never heard the boy so frantic.

Milton, their bunkhouse cookie and oldest hand, waved his hands in a calm down gesture, and tried to grip the boy by the shoulder. "Left early to check the yearlings. What's the matter, son?"

Lars tugged away from him and was out the door before the question had fully left his mouth. He shouted as he sprinted toward the big house.

"Mister Cartwright! Mister Cartwright!"

The other hands filtered out of the bunkhouse and watched him flee- his horse, worked into a lather, stood with its feet spread wide beneath it and its sides heaving. A murmur of unease passed among the men. Lars vaulted onto the porch and pounded at the door.

Hoss answered the door and nearly caught a pounding fist to the chest.

"Gosh darnit, Lars, what's got into you?" Hoss caught the heaving kid in both hands. "Settle down now, settle down."

"It's Davey!" Lars's voice was so high he sounded almost girlish, and his eyes were rolling in their sockets like a wild horse. "Davey's at the hotel, nearly dead. Cleaning lady found him in his room- he's hardly breathin' Hoss!"

Hoss took a steadying breath. Joe and Ben came up to the door to flank him, dark with worry.

The ride into town was silent. Ben sent Lars to the trap corral to calm down and try to occupy himself, and took the lead among his sons. When they made town, riding in like a war party at a swift trot, people looked up from their chores. Some looked nervous, others content. Word of something had spread through town, but not swiftly and not to every corner. Lars advised them that Doc Martin was tending Davey in the hotel- that he feared to move the young cowboy even only as far as his office. They found the good doctor in the hotel lobby, scribbling out his notes. He looked weary.

"He's alive, Ben," Martin opened.

"Where is he, Paul?"

If they weren't led to his very bedside, the Cartwright men could not have recognized him. The bed had been stripped out from under him but there was still a rusty stain of blood where his head must have lain the night before. Davey's eyes were black and swollen shut. His nose and his jaw were both swollen, broken, his face distorted. A line of stitches pulled tightly at the skin of his brow. Ben felt a sudden swell of emotion for the still boy on the bed. Davey was so still-

"Are you sure he's alive, Doc?" Hoss watched the boy's chest with a singular focus.

Martin pressed two fingers to Davey's neck, and nodded.

"Do we have any idea who did this?" Joe growled.

"Not entirely," the doctor hummed. "It happened in his sleep. Poor boy didn't even wake up."

"Will he wake up?" Hoss asked.

Doc's sigh was all they needed to hear. He'd done a bit of the investigative work after doing what he could for the young cowboy. The night clerk very conveniently didn't see anything out of the ordinary, just Davey, and what must have been Lars and Tom come in around midnight. A couple other hotel guests- yes, their names are in the ledger- filtered in or out, but no one and nothing that rose suspicion. The sheriff was tending other matters.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well there's a couple other things you oughtta know, Ben. Let's run down to the Silver Dollar."

"Surely you don't mean to get a beer at a time like this."

"Couldn't get one if I wanted to. Sam's new barkeep is dead."

Three men huddled around the empty bar. Sheriff Coffee and his deputy glanced up when the saloon doors slid open, but the third, broad and black-hatted, remained bent over a stack of documents. There was something in his posture Ben couldn't quite place. The lawmen shared a look. Coffee came out from behind the bar, met them at the door, and exchanged handshakes with a grim expression.

"Before we get into the dirty end of it, Ben, you might want to take a seat."

Ben objected, glaring between the doctor and the sheriff. "For God's sake, you two- one of my employees is dying in a bed right now, and the pair of you are being vague and brief with me for the sake of theatrics. I will not sit down, I just want you to tell me what you know about that boy's attacker!"

Hoss touched Ben's elbow gently, his eyes on the bar. "Pa."

His sons were stock still on either side of him, like stone walls. If it weren't for Hoss's gentle grip he might have sank into the man at the bar was Adam. Adam, turning his black hat in his hands. Adam, with a silver star on his lapel. Adam crossed the space between them like a cloud, his face unreadable. There was age to him. Forty-five years would do that to a man. He'd shaved his head, but a trim dark beard preserved his good looks and something of a youthful vigor.

"Afternoon Pa. Brothers."

Ben's mouth worked soundlessly.

"Sorry I'm not here under better circumstances." Years abroad had softened his accent to something both foreign and Universal.

"What are you doing here?" Joe's voice was hard and distrusting. He felt like a spring coiled at Ben's side, ready to take off.

"Officially, investigating a series of unfortunate events that have led a trail from the Dakotas all the way-"

"I mean what are you doing here? Like this? Seven years without a word and all of a sudden you're here because a bartender was murdered? Is that all it took?"

"Joe." Ben almost didn't get the reprimand out. He was still weak with shock. Adam was eyeing Joe with some measure of softness. Not guilt, or anger, or even fondness, but something brotherly and a little tired.

"Let's sit and talk this out," Adam suggested. He pulled out a chair for his father, and with reservations, clapped each of his brothers on the shoulder. Hoss pulled him into a crushing hug, and even Joe, mad as he was, joined in. Ben's heart ached to see them together again.

The long and the short of it was that Adam was a district US Marshal for the Dakota Territories. His investigation of a sabotaged mine in the Black Hills led him along a string of robberies and murders that led him rapidly out of his own jurisdiction.

"It took some time to get the necessary approval to come here- they almost passed the case on to another Marshal, but he, conveniently, is on trial for lewd acts against a nun," Adam allowed a bit of humor to creep into his voice.

"So you think the man is here?"

"Or men," Adam shrugged. "There's evidence it's a ring."

"And what about my ranch hand, and the bartender? What have they got to do with it?"

Adam shifted in his seat. He glanced up at Roy, who glanced down at him. With a bit of a sigh, mindful of being scolded for "theatrics", the sheriff deadpanned:

"We think Tom's got something to do with it."

The Cartwrights shared an incredulous look. "Tom?"

Roy counted off on his fingers as he replied: "He's fresh in town with a history of violence; the saloon girls noted he seemed very agitated and snapped at a couple patrons; he got the boys kicked out of the bar for fighting, and he was last seen coming out of the hotel with blood on his hands. Ben, there's not a whole lot left to wonder about."

"Tom ain't violent," Joe argued. "Just jumpy. And he has a right to be- God knows what happened to him in that war over there."

Adam shook his head. He was fingering the brim of his hat and studying his family's faces. He cut in before the sheriff could. "There is no war over there, Joe."

"What are we doing out here?" Tom's voice was thick and his eyes rimmed red.

Candy scanned the range. The ride had settled his nerves. His skin no longer burned. He was able to gather a full breath. "Riding the herd. Checking the yearlings. Making sure they're eating good now that they're off their mamas." The younger man curled his nose, so Candy added, "while we're out here, we're going to discuss the trouble you're in. Before you bring the law down on the Ponderosa."

Tom's eyes widened. His face gained color as he picked up his reins with new purpose. "What kind of trouble am I in?" His breathing grew ragged. "Shit Candy, if it's about the drinking I can stop-!"

"Drinking?" Candy scoffed. "Christ, Tom, I'm talking about whatever brought you in at two o'clock this morning with bloody knuckles and a black eye!"

Tom looked down at his hands. His knuckles were crusted a rusty brown and his fingertips almost black. He dropped them, gazed into the middle distance at a swaying bush with his eyes narrowed in concentration. The morning was waking around them to the song of sparrows in the grass. Yearling heifers and steers of all colors milled in the valley, some watching the horses with dewy eyes and working jaws.

"It was just a brawl?" Tom licked his chapped lips, uncertain. "Some guys came up to our table saying we were running a bad game. We got kicked out of the bar for knocking the shit out of them, but that's it- what kind of trouble…?"

Candy sighed. A pair of yearlings found them to be a curious form of entertainment and watched them from a dry stand of last year's grass. Their eyes were big and empty and yawning like caverns. He felt a drifter's uncertainty. An uneasiness of spirit. A growing discontent he hadn't felt since the Cartwrights had picked him up and shaped him into something decent and useful.

"Something happened that had you scared," was all he could say. "Real scared."

Tom nudged his horse through patches of winterfat and chewed his lip. Candy, feeling like a jailor, followed.

"If it's as bad as you made it seem," the foreman sighed, " I-... You've been a good hand. If I can, if it comes to it…"

Tom didn't respond. They rode the herd and dropped the ridge into the next pasture to check on cows that were due to calve in the fall. A fence was down. With a skill that Candy alone was responsible for building in him Tom gathered the few strays, pushed them back through the gap in the fence, and dismounted to repair the damage. He still worked bob wire barehanded.

The foreman watched all of this, feeling the growing, looming, crushing premonition that he was soon to lose a friend.

Something made Tom falter while mounting his horse. The Marine planted both feet on the ground. His knuckles grew white, and darkness fell across his face. He was unarmed- always was, since Ben found him in the alley with his alien gun clenched between his teeth. But when the man's shoulders tightened and a hard edge came over him, Candy's trigger finger itched.

"I don't think there's anything you can do." his voice was quiet. It was empty. Hazel eyes that had never been quite so clear flashed up to meet Candy's. "It wasn't the fight. There was another man. A Marine. A Major. Someone told him about me."

"What's wrong with that?"

"He thinks I'm a deserter."

"Are you?"

"I can't prove that I'm not."

Candy grit his teeth. "Go."

"What?"

"Go. Get out of here," Candy made a vague gesture- away- "I've got a bad feeling, and I'm not gonna let you hang because some other fella thinks you didn't serve your time."

Tom shook his head. He made no move to mount his horse.

"Get lost before we both lose our jobs," Candy snapped.

"I don't have anywhere to go-"

"You're a good hand. You'll find work wherever you go. Don't get yourself killed over something as stupid as desertion- especially when you didn't even do it."

He was still shaking his jerked his chin toward the south, where five shapes were already threading their way down the valley trail. Candy's stomach turned.

"It's too late anyway."

They met the party halfway. The Cartwrights, with somber faces, the sheriff who'd never trusted Tom in the first place, a dark-eyed stranger- they approached with rifles half-raised. Tom stepped out from behind his horse and raised his hands. Candy pushed them down.

"What's this about, Ben?"

"Seems like Tom already knows," Sheriff Coffee grunted.

Candy ignored him. There were deep lines in Ben's face, and a weariness in his eyes. The man showed his age. He motioned for Tom to mount his horse.

"Davey was assaulted in his hotel room last night, and the new bartender at the Silver Dollar was killed. Tom is a suspect."

"He what?"

Tom nearly fell out of the saddle. He looked like he had in the alley, in the jail cell, in the cold and snow with blood running down his hands and twisting in the fence wire. He opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out. His hands shook as he picked up his reins. Wide eyed and unblinking, as if tied to a string, he pushed his horse up to join the posse.

He felt as if the last four months were but a dream and waking, he found himself sitting in front of the same cell, with that same stranger who looked so broken and lost. Tom sat on the narrow cot with his head in his hands. He'd asked to see Davey. They denied him. He asked- begged Candy to go, to look, to check on him. Candy didn't even think Tom had liked the other hand that much, but the terror in his voice shook something loose in all of their hearts.

Candy did go. Davey was still alive, but he hadn't woken, or moved, and there was blood and fluid in his ears- Doc Martin ushered him out of the room after only a moment, but the image stayed with him for hours.

"I didn't do it." Candy wanted to believe him, but his eyes were drawn to Tom's bloody hands on the cell bars. "Christ Candy, I didn't even go into Davey's room."

The rumors said otherwise. Candy was keeping a fair and level head, but talk was flying. Tom and Davey were chasing the same woman. Tom owed Davey poker winnings and didn't want to pay up. They had some feud that went back farther than their days on the Ponderosa, even before they came to Nevada.

Then there was the Marshal. The prodigal son. Candy hadn't spoken to him, only listened to the hushed conversation he shared with Ben and Roy. Adam's suspicions went somewhere deeper and darker. A collapsed mine, a train robbery, a string of murders-

"Where were you five months ago?" Tom's eyes went cloudy. "Before you came here."

"I told you before-"

"Tell me the truth this time. There isn't a war in Japan."

Tom's grip on the bars tightened.

"Do you have any record of your service, Tom? Anything to give you an alibi?"

The Marine- not-Marine- sagged and sulked back to the narrow cot. His hands shook. Candy refrained from offering him a cigarette. He thought he knew the answer before Tom spoke.

"There are no records."

Candy sank back into his chair. He felt Tom's eyes. There was something alert in them, alert and frightened. He'd seen it before.

Tom ran his hands through his hair, a tic he'd picked up but that Candy hadn't entirely deciphered. Candy's eyes followed the wicked scar trailing up his wrist.

"What would you say if I told you," the man's voice was almost a whisper, "that I got these burns off a screaming Japanese man wielding a machine that breathed fire?"

"Where did you really get those scars?"

Tom stood again and paced his cell. "Let me out. Give me a smoke, something please."

"I can't do that and you know it. Answer the question."

The Marine breathed raggedly through his teeth. His hands formed fists at his sides and shook with horrid fury. With his head against the wall he spoke with harsh, measured tension. His voice was surprisingly soft.

"It was on an island called New Britain, a jungle island north of Australia. We landed at Cape Gloucester. It seemed to never stop raining. The jungle cover was thick and smothering, and we couldn't see more than a couple yards ahead of us." He paced back to his cot but didn't sit. "We had a weapon that would spray burning fuel- the damn thing weighed seventy pounds and was a bomb waiting to go off, our operator was hit-"

"What were you doing over there?" Candy cut in. He dragged a stool over in front of the cell and rested his elbows on his knees.

"Fighting the Japanese."

"Your Major pal and the Marshal both confirmed that the US has no conflict with Japan."

"They don't." Candy almost didn't hear him. Almost didn't hear him move, as he approached the bars and knelt to be eye to eye with the other man. Tom was quiet a long time, studying Candy's face. There was a fervor in his eyes, a desperation, as he whispered: "And they won't for another sixty-five years."

Candy's skin prickled.

'You have to listen to me."

"You're lying."

"Listen to me, Candy!"

Candy stood and backed away from the cell.

"Tom, you're crazy." Tom shook his head. "Tom, what you're saying is fucking crazy."

"The tank exploded. Fuel went everywhere. Robles was closest to the operator, I tried to grab him-"

"Robles roasted to death in a tangle of barb wire."

"Stop it."

"Candy, I've never lied to you." Tom clutched at the bars of his cell as if trying to pry them apart. "Not once. You have to believe me. When has my story ever contradicted itself?!" He was shouting now. Red-faced, his white-knuckle grip failing on the bars, Candy turned his head away.

"I was born September 17, 1921 in Bakersfield California. My dad left when I was a baby. He was a soldier in a world-wide war that was fought the decade before and he left his soul Over There. When my grandmother couldn't raise me anymore my mother took me across the country to live in New York with her brother who raped and abused the both of us. He wound up dead. No one ever learned how. I joined the Marine Corps after the US was attacked by the Japanese in 1941. I've been at war ever since. The year is 1945. I don't know why I'm here. I don't know why I'm here."

Tom couldn't stop the words falling out of his mouth. His voice wavered, and rose, and fell quiet again. He was crying. He sank to the floor and pressed his back against the stone wall and sobbed. He kept murmuring, "I didn't do it, I didn't hurt Davey, why didn't you let me see him, I swear to God I'd never hurt one of our own men…"

When he fell finally quiet, Candy offered him a cigarette. He took it in shaking fingers and struggled to hold it to his lips. Candy's mind was smooth and blank. He had no bearing on how to respond, on how to process what he was told. He watched Tom's shoulders shake and fixed his eyes on the glowing end of the cigarette. The sun was starting to set outside the jail. Candy puffed a small sigh.

"The Marshal will be here soon. I'm going to check on Davey one more time before heading back to the ranch." He hesitated, chewing his lip. "Do you want me to say anything to him?"

"Will he even hear?" Not likely.

"I'll tell him you're thinking about him. You and everyone else."