Part Five
At some ungodly hour in the middle of the night Ezra manages to lift up his head.
He gets on an elbow, pats Buck vaguely and says, "Enough. That's enough."
Thirty minutes later he falls into a messy daze in his own bed.
JD doesn't quite know how he and Buck managed it. Isn't sure at what point they finally decided the worst was over and Ezra had enough wits about him that they could try and get him up and out of Josiah's. Certainly he was sitting up, was talking again. JD's as sure as he can be that the three of them had a rather troubling conversation on the way over to the saloon, in which Ezra seemed almost inhumanly lucid given his recent condition, and insisted the whole incident had to be forgotten.
Forgotten, for chrissake.
JD's far from happy that they seem to have agreed, but he takes Buck's lead, figures maybe it's okay, if only to keep Ezra calm. Calm seems like a good idea.
In between shuttling cups of coffee back and forth, JD's been keeping the night watch and avoiding telling Vin, who won't go to bed, what's been going on. Nathan's still out. Must be birth or death, Vin says.
JD re-fills Buck's cup, climbs the stairs to Ezra's room.
Buck's perched on the side of the bed, one big paw on the crown of Ezra's head. He doesn't move it even when JD comes right in. Ezra's practically face down, one cheek sunk deep in the pillow, his hands jammed in an uncomfortable and highly defensive-looking tangle under his chin. Although his eyes are tight shut he doesn't look a bit peaceful, just kind of wrung dry, like he's been in a fight. One he's more or less prepared to leap up and start again, if necessary. Buck's said over and over that he didn't know if he should have done it - held Ezra down so fierce - but he couldn't stand to see him pounding his own skull a minute more.
Buck looks wrung dry himself.
JD nudges him. "Here ya go, Buck. Keep your strength up." He lowers into a chair across the room, leans forward to peer at Ezra. "He don't look good."
Buck brings the coffee to his lips and croaks, "Looks a whole lot better'n he did," into the cup before he drinks.
"Think his head's still hurtin' him?"
Buck swallows several mouthfuls, makes a face as if he thinks maybe this was a cup of coffee too far. "Shit, kid. I think his head's always hurtin' him. He just won't say."
"Well all right then. What we gonna do about it?" JD asks.
Buck doesn't hesitate. "What he asked."
JD doesn't like it one bit, not now he knows that Buck wasn't just stringing Ezra a line. "You sure, Buck?"
Buck's wearing one of those faces. A this-is-a-lesson-in-life face. JD hates it, even though he usually gets to hear something he needs to remember.
"I am a long damn way from being sure, JD, but see ... reckon he's got his reasons. I know ... it's Ezra and you never can tell what the heck's goin' on with Ezra ... but see ... he's our pard, ain't he?"
Buck sounds a little surprised by this notion himself.
"I guess." JD leans back. "It's just ... well it wasn't a triflin' little thing, Buck. He was nearly out of his mind. That's not somethin' I can forget about."
Bucks lifts the hand from Ezra's head, rubs his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. "Listen. I know we didn't swear a blood oath or nothin', JD, but he asked us to keep our traps shut. So I, for one, am gonna keep my trap shut."
"Would he do it for us?"
JD actually wishes he hadn't said that, soon as the words are out. He really doesn't want to get into the trust conversation because it never seems to go well, not for anybody.
"Well that depends now, don't it? On whether he thought we were worth it."
"What if ...?"
"Shit!" Buck snaps. "Don't what if me, JD!"
Ezra mutters, flings one arm out, shifting like he's about to wake up or is trying to throw Buck off the bed. Buck rises carefully to his feet, lays his cup down on the nightstand. He beckons JD to the door.
"Let's leave him be."
"He might get sick again."
Buck's smile is faint. "Don't you go worryin' about that. He's a big boy, I think he can throw up by himself."
"Damn nearly choked before."
JD feels the warm hand of Buck grip the back of his neck, shake it a little. On a normal day he might fight him off, but JD's tired and miserable. After this evening he's getting an idea of why the others are so riddled with fury about all this. Of how violence changes lives and of how those changes can't always be undone.
They're just crossing the dim interior of the saloon downstairs when they hear the sound of riders coming in.
"You sure you cleaned up at the church?" Buck says as they get outside.
Chris and Josiah are visible outside the jailhouse where Vin has been sitting what seems like all day, all evening and all night.
"Josiah won't know any different," JD assures him. "Lessen he's particularly attached to that bucket."
"An' it's bin all quiet here, right?" Buck continues as they head across the dark street.
"We've bin through this, Buck ... I'm not stupid."
"We're both stupid, JD."
Chris looks round as the two of them hop up on the boardwalk. "Evenin', boys."
"What's goin' on?" Buck asks.
"Driver and one passenger dead." His voice is neutral but JD knows the man well enough by now, knows that he takes such things to heart.
"Anyone we know?"
"Brother of Bill Dunnett, was comin' out to see his farm. We bin over there already." Chris purses his lips, exhales through them. "Two more shook up but good. They've bin taken into Eagle Bend, got kinfolk there."
"Any sign of who did it? Where they went?"
Chris just looks at Vin, then looks away again. JD figures that means they couldn't read the tracks well enough, needed Vin. Vin knows that, too. He's gnawing on his bottom lip.
"Got these," Josiah says, unfastening something from the side of his saddle. It's a couple of gun-belts and a long rifle which he holds out towards Vin. "Met a deputy from Ridge City out there. Whole world's on the move."
Vin heaves himself out of his chair, shuffles up close, takes the Winchester, a spark in his eye. Ezra's belt and Remington are slung over Josiah's arm, the shoulder holster and Colt too. Josiah's holding the Derringer rig in his gloved hand. It looks a little misshapen.
"Seems the Palmers have left," Chris supplies. "Split up, lit out like they weren't plannin' to come back."
"Out the territory?"
Chris shrugs.
"Was it them?" JD asks. The question has been bubbling on his lips since Chris first spoke.
Nobody answers, almost as if he hasn't asked the question. JD could spit. They heard him all right. They even had thoughts about what he asked, for sure, but they all decided, like they often did, that he wasn't worth answering. JD knows better than to complain about this when they're all balancing on the edges of some trouble. Buck would slap him upside the head and Chris would give him that look. The look that generally made grown men quail.
"All quiet?" Chris asks instead.
Buck nods, doesn't elaborate.
Larabee rubs his forehead with the flat of his hand, takes a hunted look around. "Don't care for what's out there," he says. "We need a rollin' watch, startin' now."
JD wants to say, "it's that bad?" but something stops him.
Vin hefts the Winchester over one shoulder. "I'll finish the night," he says.
"You sure?"
"Don't need m' goddamn knee to ring a bell."
"Fair enough." Chris nods at Josiah, simultaneously thanking and dismissing him. Then he addresses JD and Buck. "Get to bed, need you fresh." He narrows his eyes. "Nathan?"
"Out."
"Huh." Chris steps off the boardwalk, takes up the reins of his horse, walks a few steps away and then turns his head. "Ezra?"
"Sleepin' like a baby."
"Huh," Chris says again, keeps walking.
Josiah ghosts JD a toothy smile, unwinds the leading rein from the hitching post and holds it out. "When a man's spectin' trouble, he don't always like to chat."
"What?"
Buck tuts. "What he means is, take his horse, JD, and don't go askin' stupid questions."
----------
Whole town's twitchy next day, and the next few days to come.
Word spreads fast that Bill Dunnett's brother, a father of three from Denver, is dead, shot by robbers. Some folks want to go after them. Others just want Larabee and his men to get out there and do whatever the hell it is they're paid for.
"Sheriff in Eagle Bend's raisin' a posse," Chris tells Mary Travis, who, as ever, seems to be the conduit for the town's feelings.
"Are we under threat?"
"Always."
Larabee's monosyllabic conversation gets under her skin. She has to work hard to keep her temper with him sometimes. "Yes, I know. But ... more than usual?"
"Reckon." He scowls at her. "You don't need to go tellin' everybody that."
Mary supposes she can't be the only person in town aware that there's suddenly always a lookout posted on the roof of Watson's Hardware. That Larabee's men have shucked off all signs of relaxed bonhomie.
"Please tell me what's going on."
"Lot of men ridin' with the Palmers, Mary, all of 'em rootless, nothin' to go back to. Until we know for sure they're not comin' here, we can't let our guard down."
"Why would they come?"
Chris's eyes rove from the church at the top of the street, down past the businesses and Bank, the saloon and newspaper office, down to the Hotel. Mary knows what he's looking at. Four Corners is busy, but it's still only half a town. There's just as much not working as there is working, just as much insecurity as contentment. There's a smattering of boarded up store-fronts, half-built buildings alongside those actively trading. For some, every day is still a struggle.
"This is just the kind of place they could run over."
"Even with seven gunmen to get past?"
He smiles, that thoughtful smile that suggests something grimly humorous has just occurred to him.
"Even."
Mary feels a familiar flutter of anxiety. Seems like no sooner has some progress been made, something else comes along and undoes it. She sometimes fears that Four Corners will never be the place she wants it to be, will never be the community that Billy will remember as a background to his childhood. It'll always just be a name, that wild and dusty burg his Mama insisted on staying, while he got an education and put his roots down elsewhere.
For the moment, when she sees some combination of Larabee's men meeting up on a corner, talking in low voices, passing each other going on and off patrol, she wants to run up and demand what's happening. She doesn't. She concentrates on her work, hopes stories of mercantile success and upcoming nuptials will make the Clarion a good distraction.
Nothing passes her by, though. They're covering an ever wider area when they go out in their pairs, she can tell. Mr Tanner's spyglass glints in the sunlight on the roof. Mr Standish goes out back of town and shoots spots off a deck of cards pinned to a tree like a clock-face. They stop meeting up in the saloon, start meeting up in the jail instead, like they don't want anyone to overhear what they're discussing.
"They make me nervous," someone says to her. "You seen all the ammunition they got lined up in there?"
"I really think it's preferable to the alternative," she soothes. But she's not completely sure. She keeps to herself the intelligence that Mr Dunne and Mr Wilmington spotted a group of men circling north of town at a distance of ten miles. And that Mr Larabee and Mr Jackson saw the same group, or maybe another one, over to the east.
The next time a patrol rides in, heads straight for the jail and bangs shut the door, she feels her patience wearing thin.
Mary Travis knows perfectly well that men hate to be interrupted when they're having a pow-wow. She also knows that the less she pushes, the less she'll learn. So she marches over the street and walks right in without knocking.
Josiah and Nathan, the two who've just ridden in, are showing Mr Larabee something on a big map pinned to a wall. They turn around and stare as she enters.
"Mary," Chris says, controlled, calm and everything in between.
She takes in the guns lined up on the desk, the fact that Mr Tanner has his mare's leg open on his knee, is cleaning it while Mr Dunne waits to hand him some bullets. The hardware on display makes her heart thump anxiously, makes her press a hand to the base of her throat. Chris doesn't miss the action.
"Precautions," he says.
Fear makes her irritated. "It feels like we're a fortress town, like we're doing nothing so much as sitting here waiting to be attacked. People are feeling threatened by all this."
"That's why we're headin' out," Larabee announces. "Seen 'em comin' a bit nearer every day. Time we posted a warning."
"Nearer? How much nearer?"
"Near enough," Vin Tanner tells her.
"You're not leaving us unprotected I hope?"
"Josiah and Nathan will be here."
Mary wonders how Chris makes his decisions. How he calculates how many he needs to "post a warning", as he says, how many to leave behind. She watches Mr Standish slide his gun in and out of the shoulder holster under his jacket.
"Anythin' else?"
She knows it's nerves that makes her wish Mr Larabee would soften his tone.
"No. Just --"
His voice is suddenly understanding. He looks her directly in the eye. "We're always careful, Mary."
Mary turns to go, hears Ezra Standish mutter, "We are?" and Buck Wilmington's answering snort.
----------
It takes a long gallop at full tilt and one hell of a lot of bullets, but Chris thinks they get their message across in the end.
The warning is posted.
A wave of very temporary euphoria races over them when they finally slow down. Chris lets them enjoy it for awhile, listens to them as he stays atop his mount, scanning the horizon east and west.
"I hit one," Vin says. He may be grinning like a loon but his leg's still troubling him and he's as white as a ghost.
"Them?" Bucks asks.
"That was Burton Palmer at the head. Big feller in the white hat."
"Helluva hat."
"More of 'em than we saw out here before."
"I counted twelve," says Ezra. He rubs an eye. "Unless I was seeing double."
"They could've joined up. Maybe we just seen the last of 'em. They sure were on the run."
Chris is moving off before they have time to discuss it anymore.
He's very afraid that the only thing to convince him they won't see the Palmers again is if he actually watches them go down one by one, with his own eyes, and not get up again. He knows such a thing would cost them dear.
Six miles back towards town they stop to let the horses drink, tether them up in the shade of clump of silver spruce. Chris won't stop looking behind them.
Vin's got his eye on a high vantage point to their right, a jumble of rocks and cliffs several hundred yards away from the trees across sage-speckled flats. There's another one, not so high, just behind it. When he limps off towards it, Chris motions to Ezra, who's nearest, to go with him.
Not five minutes after the two of them disappear, a rifle shot cracks out high above and echoes off the two sets of rock. Chris, Buck and JD have their guns out in a second, begin across the flats, take the lower slopes at a run.
They're just about out of sight of the spruces when a volley of gunfire clatters the rock at their feet, sends them scrabbling for the only cover there is.
"Up!" Chris yells, "Up, go up!"
They scramble.
"Where the blazes are they?" Buck mutters.
There's a sustained burst of fire from two or three different directions, sending them low under shelves and spits of rock, none of them safe enough. Higher above them Chris can see Vin's already pinned down. There's no sign of Ezra.
"On the ridge!" Vin shouts. "They c'n take a clear shot. Get yourselves the hell up here!"
And Vin starts shooting.
They charge through a hail of gunfire which sends shards of granite raining down on them. It's coming from more than one direction, rends the air like a Gatling gun.
For a long time after he gets into cover, Chris doesn't move. Not a muscle.
All he can think is how they're outnumbered. Completely cornered. How it might be his fault. How he knows four good men will die here by his side unless he can think of a way out of this.
Not a chance.
A sick moment of hopelessness washes over him.
He remains flattened against the rock-face, gun arm crossed over his chest, breathing as shallowly as he can to avoid getting any more dust in his lungs. He can feel blood sliding down one cheek, the sting of flayed skin. After a few minutes he slithers slowly down until he's in a crouch. Only then does he turn his head to see.
First he locates Vin again, in a similar position to himself but a little higher, bad leg flat.
"How many?" His voice is cracked and wheezy.
"Ten? Twelve? Maybe more." Vin looks up from re-loading and Chris can see he's pale. He looks clear-eyed, though, focused on the job at hand.
Chris feels that balance again, swinging him back on an even keel.
He twists a little to find Buck.
Buck's belly down on a ledge slightly to his left, both hands on his pistol as it peeks over the edge of the rock. He looks exposed and Chris grimaces at him, makes a hand signal to get him to shift. JD's a few yards behind, squatting down behind a rocky outcrop. There's room in his little space for Buck and Chris flaps his hand again, fiercely this time.
"Move, Buck!" he hisses, "or you'll get your fat head shot off."
Buck moves backwards with difficulty, trying to keep as flat as he can. When he's near enough for JD to grab him, Chris twists again to home in on Ezra.
"No," he finds himself murmuring as a flash of green marks Ezra out, shoulder hunkered into a curve of granite on the other side of a cleft in the rocks, below which is a thirty foot drop. "No, no, not now ... damnit, Ezra, not now."
Ezra has his Remington in one hand. The other hand - damn it, god damn it - has tight hold of the side of his head.
Vin seems to guess what Chris is looking at, just by the expression on his face. "That Ezra? He in trouble?"
Chris doesn't answer him, instead hollers across, "Ezra! You with us?"
Ezra jumps slightly at the voice, whips his hand away. He locks eyes, waves his Remington rather feebly, gives the ghost of an inappropriate smile.
Yeah, you keep smiling, you sonofabitch. I am not losing you out here, Ezra, I swear to God.
Chris grits his teeth.
"How far to the horses, Vin?"
Vin leans out a little. "Hundred yards, no cover." He shakes his head. "Go out there now they'll cut us down."
"Maybe. Maybe not." Chris motions to the flat square of rock just past JD and Buck's position. It's sheltered on three sides, has just enough room for them all. "Need to parley, boys."
There's a flurry of shots as they move, feels like half a mountain falls before they all get to the spot Chris has indicated. Vin, sweating some by now, presses into one wall where he can keep an eye on the high vantage point that their unseen enemy gained ten minutes ago. There's no-one visible there, but Vin has his rifle on his shoulder, ready. Ezra slithers in next to him. The other three take the opposite wall. It seems they're out of the line of fire where they are, but they're completely trapped. All of them are breathing heavily.
"Stay here, we'll run out of ammo," Chris says. "We have to get to the horses. Josiah and Nathan'll need our help. There's another whole battalion out there. Shit, maybe more than one." He shakes his head at them, disbelieving. "Fuck, we don't know how the hell many there are."
"Love your plan, pard." Buck re-loads as he speaks. "Problem is, no-one's making it all the way over there. We'll be shot down before we get ten paces. And Vin can't run anyway. And Ezra ..."
"And Ezra is just fine," Ezra says.
"We're gonna run for it, boys." Chris feels four pairs of eyes jump to him. "One at a time."
He lets this sink in, can practically hear the cogs turning.
"That means someone's gotta go last," Buck says slowly.
"It sure does, Buck."
Another beat of silence.
"I have the rifle," Vin says. "I can't run. I'll go last."
"We'll see." Chris is non-committal. "JD, you're first up. Reckon you can reach the horses if we give you cover?"
"I ..." JD looks to Buck for back-up and gets none. He wants to stay and fight, Chris knows.
"You run fast, kid. I need you to get to your horse and get to town. And listen good ... you don't wait to give cover for anyone else, you just ride, got that?"
JD peers down between the rocks at the open space, looks right along it towards the silver spruces.
"If you get that far in one piece, kid, their fire won't reach you. So you gotta run like hell, you hear me, JD?" Buck has his hand on JD's shoulder. He's staring him intently in the eyes.
"Yeah, I hear you."
"Let us get in position, okay? I'll give you a sign. And don't worry about shootin', you just worry about runnin'. We'll take care of the rest." Chris give him a nod. "See you back in town, JD."
JD nods back. He holsters his gun, gives a quick look round. Chris jerks his head.
"Hold ya breath, boys. Time to go back out."
A cloud of dust is kicked up by the volley of bullets that greets their move from the back of the rocks. Chris feels the air whoosh out of his lungs as he slides the last couple of feet and slams his back against the cliff face behind him. He waits until he gets JD clearly in his sights. The boy's already a target, his bobbing head not quite tucked in far enough.
Shit.
What a fuckin' mess.
---
It's time to run.
JD's afraid to run, but maybe he's more afraid to stay where he is.
Chris trusts him to make it, and to be able to ride fast. Maybe faster than any of them, excepting maybe Buck, but there's no chance Buck would leave a fire-fight before him. JD's heart's pumping fit to bust and he hasn't even started to run yet. He can't afford to think about what comes after him. He just has to think about running. Putting one foot in front of the other, quicker than he ever has in his life. JD suddenly decides that perhaps he shouldn't even be thinking of it like that, 'cause that would mean he was thinking too much. He needs to go on instinct, like Vin would. Brute courage, like Chris would. Or a prayer, like Josiah would.
Hell on a stick.
"Go," mouths Chris and JD feels the spring uncoil in his back and legs.
He doesn't know what propels him in the end. All he knows is that four sets of guns pounding out bullets behind him makes one hell of a noise and that his friends are doing enough to at least keep the assault at bay. The incoming fire is sporadic, skitters once or twice just ahead of his feet.
Ten yards from the horses he hears a whine, feels something white-hot scythe through the back of his hand. His flat-out sprint slows, momentum driving him forward. There's another skittering of fire in the ground behind him, making the horses jostle and stamp.
I'm hit, he thinks.
Damn, Buck, I'm hit.
It's not easy untethering his mount one-handed. All the reins have got tangled as the horses have pushed each other nervously around. Blood runs down his sleeve, but adrenaline has swept his mind clear.
Ride, you sonofabitch, he thinks, surprising himself with the vehemence of his own silent oath.
----
"He hit?"
Buck's twisting about from one side to the other trying to see.
"Vin, he hit?"
"Maybe. Can't tell. But he didn't go down, he's on his horse. Think he made it."
There's just a dust-cloud now, indicating where JD's got to. The gunfire from across the way has stopped again and they've all slid and jumped back into the parley.
Buck gives a nervous laugh. "Hell," he says, distinctly rattled, "I can't run that dang fast. I'd better stay right where I am."
Chris is looking up between each re-load. They can see him figuring out who goes next.
"I can't run," Vin says. "But I can shoot."
"Buck ... Ezra ..."
Buck opens his mouth to say something, but Ezra waves him quiet. He's laid down his Remington, has dug something out of a pocket.
"I suggest we toss for it, Mr Wilmington. It's only fair."
Buck grimaces, looks to Chris, who just shrugs. Saves him deciding who's the better shot and getting it wrong.
"Heads," Buck snarls.
The coin flips up, comes down next to Vin, who gets a boot on it.
"Heads it is."
Buck gives Ezra a self-satisfied smirk. "Sorry, hoss. That means I get to stay."
"Nuh-uh," Chris says. "You win, Buck. That means you get to go."
Ezra picks up his Remington, flips it open, spins the barrel defiantly.
----
"This is shit," says Chris with feeling.
"Don't you give me that look." Vin's sour as a lemon. "You need my gun. I can't run, Chris. I ain't runnin'."
They think they've just seen Buck hit. The big man can sure run, but he went way off course the last ten or twenty yards, like something had practically lifted him off his feet. It's a shooting gallery out there, and they're the ducks. They know they've seen Buck ride away but he was sprawled forward over the horse's neck and there's a tense silence when they get back out of range and into their little stone prison.
It's plain who Chris thinks should go next.
Ezra's breathing a little too fast. Coughed up so much dust he's been bent double for the last thirty seconds.
"Ezra?" demands Chris.
"Ah'm fine."
"Don't look fine."
"Now you listen to me, Mr Larabee." Ezra's voice is surprisingly clipped and clear. "There are two alternatives now. Either Mr Tanner stays and covers one of us. Or he goes now while he has two men at his back. One way or another, he has to run." They're in a tight enough spot that Ezra won't flower up his words.
"I ain't goin'"
"Vin, listen. Ezra's right. You ain't got no chance if you stay. Go. And you don't wait around for us, y'hear? You just ride."
"Aw hell," says Vin.
"Oh yes," agrees Ezra. "Hell, fire and damnation."
----
Chris realizes that JD was the only one who didn't argue.
He hopes he'll gets a chance to tell the kid how much he appreciates that.
His shirt is sticking to him back and front. His eyes are full of grit and his ears are ringing.
Vin made it. They're pretty sure. Saw him sprinting in a crazed zig-zag over the ground. Saw his leg give way, sending him into a snake-like crawl the last few yards. They saw him make the trees but got forced back out of sight before they could tell if he was on his horse.
"He wasn't hit," Chris says. "He musta made it."
"They were closer that time," Ezra observes. "They've come down off the ridge."
"Yep. Time to go. You ready to run?"
Ezra seems to be having trouble keeping his eyes open, never mind re-loading. Never mind running.
"I don' think that's a good idea."
"It's a terrible idea, Ezra, but it's all we got. I'll do my best, but you gotta run like the fuckin' wind."
Ezra seems to find that amusing. He's holding himself upright by jamming a shoulder into the cliff-face and one hand pats his pocket.
"Toss for it, Mr Larabee?"
"No chance."
"Come now." Ezra leans his head on the stone for a second, eyes closed. Then he seems to jerk himself awake. "Mah whole life is a gamble. Indulge me." The coin appears in his hand.
Chris stares at it.
"Why can't you just do as I say? Why can't you ever just do ... as ... I ... say?"
Ezra's head drops back against the granite again. His tooth flashes. "You are an undeniably fast draw, Chris. But I am an undeniably good shot."
Chris feels a powerful pang to hear Ezra use his first name. "Yes, but can you run, you sonofabitch?" he growls. Ezra huffs a laugh.
"Call it," he says.
"Tails."
There's a a smart slap as Ezra brings his palm down on the back of his hand. He tips it open, drops his chin to his chest.
"You win, Mr Larabee. Tails it is."
"Good. Now get your ass outa here."
"That," Ezra says, head snapping up again, "is not how it worked last time around. Are you changin' the rules?"
"I'm entitled," Chris says. "As leader."
One way or another, whatever they do, they have to do it quick.
"Well I never cared for authority," Ezra says. "Seems to me, whoever's left, with no covering fire, would only survive by being inhumanly fleet of foot. Which I believe, to my chagrin, might be me." He brings a hand up, cards the fingers through his hair, leaves it pressed to the side of his head.
"Goddamnit." Chris sticks his gun back in its holster. "I ain't arguin' anymore. There's only one way to go, Ezra. Together. You up to this?" He grabs hold of the arm, pulls it away from Ezra's head. "You ain't gonna take a dive? Cause I don't think I can carry you."
Ezra swallows thickly. "On the contrary. I never felt more like runnin' for mah life ..." He pauses, struggles for the words, makes Chris's stomach drop into his boots, "... in mah life."
"Just ... don't run in a straight line."
"Ingenious."
"And whatever happens, if you get to your horse, just ride. Don't look back. Don't wait."
Ezra thumps the heel of his hand against his brow-bone, scrunches up his eyes. "As if I would come back for the likes of you."
"Let's get the hell out of here then."
"Yes," Ezra agrees. "Let's."
------
Chris will always remember the sound of Ezra's banshee yell as they lit out into the open.
It will stick in his mind even more than the long seconds pelting through a firestorm, the wicked bite of metal across his forearm, the feeling of falling while still running.
He'll remember, too, being dragged into the trees and the sound of a rifle cracking right over his head.
Vin's been giving them what cover he could.
"I told you to ride!" Chris yells at him as soon as he can get as far up as his knees. "What's the matter with you?" He's bleeding, clipped the back of Ezra's leg when he fell, brought him down too. They're both stunned. Stunned by the fall, and by being in one piece.
Vin doesn't answer, is too busy bundling Ezra up off the ground and on to his horse.
"He means thank you," Ezra interprets, making a wild grab for the saddle horn to avoid going right over.
"God damn right he does," Vin replies, slapping Ezra on the thigh. "You gonna stay up there or do I have to rope you on?"
"If I fall off, Mr Tanner, you have my permission to leave me to die peacefully in the dust."
"'kay then."
Vin's not even hobbling anymore. He's practically dragging his bad leg behind him.
Chris mounts one-handed, waits for the others. He watches Ezra struggle to control his skittish horse and Vin throw himself bodily at his, kicking it off before he's even upright in the saddle. He wheels around, puts his full weight into getting a start, throwing a desperate look back over his shoulder.
"Holy shit they're comin'" he says.
tbc