AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter contains brief but graphic descriptions of wounds and references to past abuse/torture. If any of these elements make you uncomfortable or trigger you in any way, I ask that you do not read any further. I do not own these characters. This story takes place after season 8 ends. View it as a coda or an unofficial piece from "season 9" if you will.

I listened to the song "Rain" by George Winston nonstop while I writing to put me in the correct mood, so feel free to listen to it while you read to get the full effect :)

Chapter 1: The Night Visitor

In the dead of night, there was a solid knock on Favor's door.

Gil groggily groaned and begrudgingly made his way to the door. He surely wasn't expecting anyone at a little after midnight.

When he opened it, the remorseful, scruffy-bearded face of a familiar man stared back at him.

"Wishbone! What in the world are you doin' here?" Favor exclaimed, shocked to see his former trail cook.

Wishbone hung his head low and bleakly uttered, "it's not just me, Mr. Favor," he stepped aside and revealed the silhouette of a badly bruised and beaten man.

"Rowdy?" barely escaped Favor's lips as the man fell to the ground.

*

Favor instantly descended as he fell, coming to his aid and gently lifting him off the ground. Rowdy's skin was ghastly pale and littered with bruises and lacerations. Favor was careful not to hit any of his wounds, but he couldn't help grazing some of them.

"Wish, what in blazes happened to him?" Favor sharply demanded, his eyes wide with shock. The former cook was hesitant to answer. A Guilt-ridden look was plastered on his aged, weather-beaten face. His droopy eyes looked up at Favor, and then back at Rowdy. He couldn't quite bring himself to look Favor in his wild eyes.

"How the hell did you all even get here? Why are you here? What-"

"It'll be too much to explain in one night, Mr. Favor-," Wishbone affirmed.

"Gil," he sighed, "just Gil, drive's been over for me for quite some time."

He placed Rowdy's limp arm around his shoulders and wrapped an arm around his slim waist, stabilizing him. The boy was somewhat on his feet again relatively speaking, enough to get him into the ranch house.

Rowdy's legs were too weak for him to stand up straight, but he gained more strength in his arms, which clung to Favor's side with no intention of leaving.

Wishbone nodded, "It was over for me a long while before that, but as long as there were men, there was a need to feed 'em."

Favor's expression turned into one that was a combination of both annoyance and protectiveness. "Well let's not just stand here and let him bleed to death!" he shouted like he was giving an order on the drive. Wishbone stood there like he was waiting for the ritualistic "head 'em up, move 'em out."

"Sure thing, boss," he replied out of habit.

Favor glanced down at the hand that rested on Rowdy's side when he felt something dripping. He was taken back when fresh blood ran down his fingers.

Yates occasionally muttered something disturbingly inaudible as though he had been struck with some kind of fever. As tight-lipped as Wishbone was about the situation, he assured Favor that was not the case, not yet anyway.

Once getting inside, they laid his lanky body on the sofa, his feet hanging off the edge. He groaned a few more times and appeared completely disorientated, presumably from pain and the uncertainty of his surroundings.

Wishbone's medical know-how kicked in. "I'll go get a bucket of water and some bandages; you've gotta have 'em around here somewhere," he said, instantly making his way down a hall like he knew Favor's ranch like the back of his hand.

Instead of assisting Wish in finding the supplies, Gil couldn't divert his attention from the boy. One could argue that since Rowdy was currently the same age Favor was when the drive started, he was no longer a boy, but a man; one who was responsible for his own successes, downfalls, and everything in between.

The issue was that Favor couldn't see past the Rowdy he watched grow up on the drive, so young and eager with bright eyes and a boyish temperament. He joined on at the beginning of the drive around the Nueces River at the tender age of nineteen. Spending most of his teen years as a POW in Yuma Arizona both made him mature way beyond his years and accentuated just how young he really was.

As time went on, Favor's opinions of Rowdy differed based on the situations they faced on the trail, but he always made sure he wasn't too far and that he had someone to fall back on if it came down to it.

Gil could hear Wishbone coming back. He moved one callous hand up to Rowdy's face, but he quickly turned it away and balled a fist. He gritted his teeth and pursed his lips, "there's no use getting sentimental; the past is the past."

Wishbone threw down a bucket of water, causing a wave that splashed about a quarter of the liquid on Gil's carpet. "Here, take these," he said, shoving some bandages in Gil's hands.

"Well c'mon, these wounds need to be patched up again before infection sets in!" that moment was the first time Gil had truly empathized with Mushy, who had to put up with the old man barking orders like a disgruntled army captain each day.

Though they had repeatedly expressed it was over, it was just like being back on the drive: them not knowing what the future held, a badly injured man clinging to life, and Wishbone cantankerously handling the situation.

Favor had always respected Wish in this sense, as whatever amount of medical knowledge he truly possessed determined life or death for so many drovers. It was tough when someone could not be saved, and as a result, slipped away to the faraway ranch of the boss in the sky; though Wish said it himself: "we're drovers, and there's dyin' mixed up in it. If we can't handle it, then we ought not to be drovers."

In the fullness of time, this is exactly what made Gil Favor decide to retire and spend his days with his family on a secluded ranch. He had seen so much life slip away due to tragedy, disease, and forced rapid aging as a result of the stressors presented to drovers. He didn't want to return home up north to find that his daughters were full-grown women with husbands and his sister-in-law an old maid because she wasn't granted the time enough for herself to meet a man of her own.

Perhaps he should have retreated back north in the first place. It was a greenhorn mistake to stay held up in Texas, fenced in by cattle drives.

Wishbone carefully placed dampened rags on Rowdy's wounds. He twitched a bit but went limp soon after. Gil followed Wishbone's orders and repatched the injuries. He was growing beyond impatient. "For the last time, Wishbone, what the hell happened to him?"

The old man paused and found the courage deep within to look Gil dead in his piercing blue eyes. He would rather have been caught in the middle of a prairie fire than have to relay the events leading up to that night.

He could only leave his former boss in the dark for so long. There was no choice for him but to bite the bullet and tell him.

"The damn Redwood clan," he gritted with such a tone of venom in his voice that Favor had never heard from him before, he sharply turned his head to ensure that the man he was talking to was in fact still Wishbone.

Favor's face twisted into discomposure. "Redwood clan?"

Wishbone continued, adrenaline being the sole spark that fueled the retelling of events, "rustlers," he said. "A whole bunch of them, the most ruthless and hardened kind."

Favor nodded, he wanted more details, but he was apprehensive. Sometimes ignorance really was bliss.

He kept an ear open to what the old former cook was divulging, but he knew that the most imperative thing at the moment was tending to Rowdy before it was too late. He gently dabbed one of the rags on his forehead again. Even though time had rolled on, Favor was still getting used to his current appearance.

It was more than shocking; it was heartbreaking.

His rugged face was littered with black and purple contusions, mostly present around his eyes and cheekbones. A deep gash on the right side of his face, which appeared to be produced by some sort of whip, stretched from his ear to the side of his mouth. The bridge of his nose was crooked, as though it had been broken.

His neck was just about as bruised as his face, and it appeared as though someone had tried to slit his throat at least once. His torso was covered in bruises and whiplashes. The fact that people would take part in something like this made Favor sick to his stomach.

This was one of the only times in his life that he was truly speechless and felt helpless. Seeing his former ramrod like this made his heart ache.

"Funny thing is he doesn't even know what happened after they rode off," Wish passingly remarked. Favor sharply turned towards him again.

"What the hell do you mean he doesn't know?" he aggressively spoke.

"While the majority of the posse attacked the herd, he, being the trail boss, was captured by their leader," he explained.

"That barbarian of a man wanted nothin' more than his men to rustle the entire herd and to get revenge on a man who did nothin' but his job to the fullest."

It was all coming together and painted a bleak, horrific picture that Favor couldn't get out of his head. Wishbone just kept explaining.

When is this hell going to come to an end? Favor thought. He quickly dismissed his desire, as he felt guilty because he only had to hear it- Rowdy had to live it.

"They kept him held up for days, Gil, and with each day came a whippin' and a-"

"That's enough," Favor jolted out of his crouched position, standing to his full height of over six feet and cutting him off.

Wishbone swallowed hard, briefly studying the pattern on Gil's carpet as a distraction. The water he spilled before had expanded and soaked through to the floor. "When the attackers finished up and we got him back, Rowdy ended up lookin' like he'd been in the stampede himself."

Gil was distraught. He hadn't felt this impotent and downhearted since his wife died. He tried for so long to suppress any kind of emotion that stirred from him so that his men would think he was the invincible trail boss. If this wasn't his wake-up call that he was a human just like everyone else, it simply didn't exist.

He wanted to change the subject to something he thought he could handle better.

"It might not be any of my business anymore, but the herd," he faintly asked, again, dreading the answer.

"All gone."

Favor assumed this was the case, but didn't want to accept it as actuality. A traditional stampede was one thing, but when there were rustlers involved, it was a whole different horror-stricken story.

"Most of the bigger steers were captured and taken back with them and most of the smaller cows were either shot or trampled themselves in the stampede," Wishbone grieved.

Gil was numb. When he opened that door it was like he was transported to the underworld. He realized that all of this could have happened to him when he was the boss of the outfit, if only he had stayed on a little longer.

He knew he had to keep a grip on his emotions, but he was beginning to lose his composure. He began to cry out, "The men, Wish! What about the men?"

Wishbone felt like he was in an alternate universe too, as he had never witnessed Gil Favor in such an emotionally vulnerable state. It almost made him too human.

Most of the men that rode with his outfit had moved on with their lives just like he did. They didn't want to be cow-punchers for the rest of their days and had settled down in various parts of the country.

It was true that Favor didn't know any of the men who were on the trail now other than Wish, Rowdy, and Quince, but they were still drovers and good, hardworking men. He just had to know.

"They're all gone too,"

Gil wished he hadn't heard that.

"All gone, huh? All gone. Can't you say anything other than all gone?" he grimaced.

"I was one of the only ones who was spared," he explained, getting a bit impatient himself but understanding why Gil was lashing out.

"I was able to make a last-minute deal with the Redwoods to get Rowdy back. The only way we could do it was if we agreed to surrender all our remaining weapons, supplies, and cattle."

"Like rubbing salt on a wound," Favor bleakly replied. "This still doesn't explain how you both got here. What gave you the idea to come runnin' back to me after all these years?" he inquired.

"After I mended him up a bit he was only able to mumble some fever-like gibberish. One of his only audible requests was that he sees Mr. Favor."

Favor rolled his eyes, "had it ever occurred to you that he might have been having a hallucination? That he still thought he was the ramrod and that I was still the trail boss?" he accused mainly in his own defense.

"Gil!" Wishbone shouted, almost offended.

"The poor kid's been through enough I just figured with nothin' else left that I grant his dyin' wish, we had nothin' to lose for God's sake!"

Arguing was not going to get them anywhere. "I understand, Wish, thanks for bringing him here. You did the right thing," he replied, trying to sound as sympathetic as possible without it coming off as sardonic.

The old man's eyes danced around the room, so much had happened all at once that he forgot to ask about the obvious. "Where are your girls? They can't possibly be sleeping through all this."

"They're on a trip to Abilene with Eleanor," Favor replied. "I stayed behind on purpose. I've seen enough of Abilene in my day and now I certainly have no intention of going back." he glanced at Rowdy, who had since passed out with a limp arm hanging over the side of the sofa. All and all, he still managed to have a peaceful expression on his face.

"I got a room you can bunk in for tonight," Favor offered, "right down the hall, second door on your left."

"Thanks, Gil, but I think I'll be stayin' out here with him in case anything happens the remainder of the night."

"That's good, Wish, that's real good."

Deadened, Favor walked back to his own room and sat on the edge of his bed rubbing his face again. For only the second time in his forty-seven years, Gil Favor cried.

~~~~~~~~

This is my first ever Rawhide fic, so comments and feedback are definitely encouraged! :) Just know that any disrespectful comments will not be tolerated and will be removed. Hope you enjoyed chapter one!