The unlikely couple of Gaylan Waters and Vin Tanner sat companionably on the small bed in Nathan's clinic, Vin just holding her hand. The food had done wonders for them both, his strength returning, the wound on his hand scrubbed clean and already starting to heal.
"If you're feelin' better tomorrow I'll get you a room at the hotel, take ya to Potter's to buy you whatever you need, maybe a new dress and some shoes. That is if it's fine with you," he said tentatively feeling her out. His intention was to introduce her back into the white world a little at a time. She looked at him, complete trust in her eyes, and knew it would be a hard row to hoe but with his support and help she should be able to have a fairly normal and hopefully uneventful life.
After a while Gaylan dozed, her dreams fitful and disturbing by the way she occasionally moaned and he placed his hand gently against her cheek and wished he could take all her bad dreams and memories and make them his own. Lord knows he had enough of them to where a few more would hardly make a difference. He stayed with her all night guarding her from any townsfolk who might have an issue with her and was only sorry he couldn't protect her from what was likely to come.
In the morning Vin asked her if she was ready to leave Nathan's clinic behind and Gaylan smiled and nodded. The tracker felt as if he were on the right track but that the residents of Four Corners, if only through curiosity, might derail his plans. They weren't exactly waiting for them but gathered around, both inside and out of the hotel, and even Vin felt uncomfortably like an outsider as they gawked. He secured a room for Gaylan and then walked her over to Potter's accompanied by the curious and the down right malicious as one man spat on the street directly at their feet as they passed him by.
Chris watched the procession and scowling walked purposefully up to the couple and turned on the others and told them testily, "I'm sure you folks have better things to do…and I suggest that you get to doin' 'em…now!" and with that the taunting children and malicious gossips, as well as the drunkards and the just plain nosy, fled like a flock of scalded geese.
Once inside Potter's Chris took a vigilant stand at the doorway barring entrance to anyone else as Mrs. Potter showed Gaylan a meager selection of calico dresses from which she choose one in blue. Vin assured her softly that the material would bring out the blue of her eyes. Next they picked out shoes and a pretty lace shawl that would protect her from the chill of the evening should she choose to venture out of the hotel and, two weeks later, she did just that.
At J.D.'s behest, Vin entered the Clarion office announced by a tinkling bell over the door. "You needed to see me, Mary?"
"Vin, I'm so glad J.D. found you." Mary's eyes spoke volumes as she walked slowly from her press to where the tracker stood at the counter, "This just came from Baton Rouge," she told him picking up a telegram stored behind the counter. She then held out the missive and the trackers sharp eyes traveled from the paper in her hand back to her face and, blushing, she asked him, "Would you like me to read it?"
"Please," he replied with an easy smile.
"Mrs. Travis,
In response to your information regarding the rescue and subsequent return to civilization of Mrs. Galen Waters, formally Gaylan Theriot, and, pursuant to our further investigation, Lt. Governor Waters has heretofore been granted a divorce on the grounds of adultery and has neither the inclination nor the desire to see Madame Theriot again.
Regards, Samuel R. Fleischmann, Esquire, Attorney at Law"
Mary looked at Vin again, at his closed face. "It means…"
"I know what it means," he hissed, "The bastard don't want her back. He's no better than the rest."
Although he smiled at her and touched the brim of his hat in appreciation Mary could see the anger in Vin's eyes. "What are you going to do now?" she asked him.
"I'm gonna tell her…everything."
It was a noble gesture but from what Nathan had told her Mary thought it would make no difference. The poor woman was scarred both mentally as well as physically and no one was sure how much, if anything, she would ever remember.
"Vin," Mary called out and the tracker turned to her, "Good luck."
"Thanks," he mumbled wondering if he was doing the right thing.
The things Vin had told her made no sense at all. Her name wasn't Gaylan and she had never been to Louisiana. She had never been married…only a prisoner. He had also told her that she had been a lady of high society married to a successful politician but she knew better. In this time and in this town she was labeled a white squaw and she now found herself cowering outside the saloon in the dark, hands shaking, heart pounding, hoping and praying that Vin Tanner would come back out the doorway that had swallowed him up only moments before. Pulling the new shawl tighter around her shoulders Molly shivered in the twilight's cool breeze just as a tall, mustachioed man rounded the corner behind her, his head down as he refastened the buttons of his fly.
Looking up Buck Wilmington stopped short of running into her and smiled. "Well, well, what have we here," his voice was deep but surprisingly soft, "I've only been gone for two weeks and look what that mean ol' wind's blown into town." He took a step closer and the dark haired beauty that had instantly captivated him looked longingly toward the doorway.
Whiskey, strong on his breath, wafted toward her and Buck, sensing her urge to flight, placed one hand on the rough planked wall beside her head while the other he ran gently and seductively down the side of her face. "Why don't you and me go for a walk? There's such a beautiful moon out and, like I said, I've been gone for two whole weeks."
Five years ago a sharp tongued rebuke and a resounding slap would have sent Buck Wilmington on his way but terror now reigned supreme paralyzing her. She turned her face as he leaned in to kiss her, his lips landing on her pale cheek, and she pushed the tall ladies' man back a step. He laughed at her perceived coyness. "So you're playin' hard to get. I do like that game, I truly do," he said softly throwing his other arm up and effectively cutting off her intended escape.
In the darkness he couldn't see her eyes, he could only hear her ragged breathing which he mistook for passion and the sound of it set his blood to boiling. Leaning in he pressed his lean body against hers and sought out her trembling lips again and kissed her hungrily, drunkenly, tasting the saltiness of her tears. "What the hell?" The thought of her in tears bulled its way through his whiskey clouded mind just as Vin charged into him, the two of them flying off the boardwalk and into the dusty street.
"Leave her be, you son of a bitch!" Scrambling to his feet Vin ratcheted his arm back to deliver a punch to the staggering and dazed ladies' man.
"Hold on there, Vin," Josiah said wrapping the tracker's fist firmly in his large hand stopping its forward motion, "I'm sure brother Buck didn't mean to buttonhole Mrs. Waters." Josiah had been walking down the street, the saloon and a warm glass of beer his intended destination, when he spotted the town Lothario drunkenly accosting a waiting woman. Quickening his pace he watched as Vin exited the saloon, the tracker's immediate actions that of a mother bear protecting her cub, and the next thing the preacher knew the two of them had tumbled pall-mall into the middle of the street, Vin bent on beating Buck to within an inch of his life.
"Now just wait a minute, Vin," Buck whined plaintively, "If I'da known you'd taken a shine to Johnny's new girl…." he started just as J.D. stepped through the saloon door, his arm around the waist of a buxom brunette that Buck had never seen before. Buck looked quickly to his left and realized that the woman, her hands to her face crying softly, was evidently the one the tracker had rescued from the Apaches.
"Buck, you idiot! This here's Wilhelmina," J.D. informed him adding with a huge grin, "Willa for short."
Never missing a beat, Buck picked up his hat, slapped the dust from his clothes with it and nodded to the woman. "Sorry 'bout the misunderstanding, Ma'am," he said sincerely then turned lascivious eyes to Johnny's newest working girl. Stepping up onto the boardwalk he pushed J.D. out of the way, took Willa's arm and, his transgressions all but forgotten, said, "And you, Willa darlin', let me to buy you a drink."