Buck couldn't help but remember the night before, less than twenty-four hours before, he stood at the door to the clinic, tired and anxious, and dreading that first step back inside. Here he was again. He put a trembling hand on the latch and took a breath and a step inside. It was still daylight outside, but inside the clinic was growing gray shadows. Buck stopped just inside the door - the room needed fresh air. It smelled of sweat, medicine, and lamp oil. He left it open and came in. If Nathan wanted it shut, he figured Nathan would shut it.
Buck saw Vin in the bed, so pale and thin he was practically spirit already. His eyes were closed and his breath came in ragged gasps. No wonder JD had been in such a lather to find him.
Chris was in the chair, arms on his knees, staring hard at Vin. Buck wondered for a split second what was going on in Chris' mind. Chris' heart and his intellect were once roughly the same size; since his family's death, his heart had shrunk small as a pebble. As sad as this moment was, it gave Buck a small amount of odd comfort that Chris had let his heart open up enough to let this boy in.
"How're you doin'?" Buck crouched beside Chris.
"He's gettin' worse." Chris said, not hearing what Buck was asking. "All of a sudden..." His eyes were red and Buck knew he'd been crying.
"How are YOU Chris?" He put his hand on Chris' shoulder. "You ain't been outta this room in almost a day. You get any sleep last night?"
"Slept in the chair." He indicated the one he was sitting in.
"Chair maybe - slept, I don't think so." Buck told him. "You need to lay down."
"NO. I won't leave him."
"Just over to the cot Chris...when he wakes up, he's gonna need you rested and alert."
Chris' voice was hoarse and he sounded dazed.
"He ain't gonna wake up."
Buck didn't know how to answer that. He wanted desperately to say something that would encourage Chris, but it was going to be hard enough keeping Chris alive if Vin died, Buck didn't want to make it worse by offering him false hope now.
"You don't know that Chris. He ain't died yet, he could still pull through." Buck still had his hand on Chris' shoulder and he nudged him a little to get his attention. "How many scrapes y'reckon he's got himself through already? And most of 'em all by his lonesome, nobody around to help him. Look here, now he's got himself six of the most stubborn men I ever met, each one bound and determined to bring him back from this."
"What if he don't want to Buck? What if he don't want to come back?"
"What d'you mean?"
Chris looked back down at Vin. He wanted to but didn't reach his hand out to touch him. "Before - just before he - got this way - he was calling to his mother. Don't you see - he'd rather be with her. I told you he said there's been times when he almost went to be with her. Well, now he don't have to do anything but let go and he'll be with her. Maybe he'd just rather let go than fight to stay here."
All of it was true - and frighteningly so. But Buck wasn't going to give up that fast, no matter if Vin wanted to or not. "Well, it's just too bad if he wants to let go. We ain't gonna let him, are we? None of us. We got medicine, fresh water, clean pillow cases - hell, he's got half the town praying for him right this minute. If that don't -"
"I ain't prayed for him." Chris admitted. Buck was taken aback.
"Y'aint?"
"Nope, I tried. I been trying. I can't find the words. I been angry at God for so long about Sarah and Adam, how do I go to Him now asking a favor?"
They'd been through a lot together, these two friends. Buck thought the hardest was behind them when they'd picked through the smoking, smoldering ruins of the farmhouse to find the nearly unrecognizable remains of Chris' wife and child. Maybe that would always be the hardest - there were no words then, nothing to be said that would bring comfort to the grieving, no oaths that would bring the vengeance of God down on the guilty. But there were words now. Hard though they might be to say, Buck heard himself saying them: "I'll pray with you."
M7*M7*M7
Josiah left to get Miss Nettie. Ezra picked up the broom and began to sweep distractedly. Mrs. Potter asked: "JD? Is there anything - anything at all - that Vin needs? Anything that'd be helpful?"
"I - I - don't know Ma'am..." JD stammered out his answer, still in shock from seeing Chris broken down and crying. "Nathan said this was it." He started crying then, scrubbing his eyes to make it not happen. Mrs. Potter went to him and hugged him.
"I know how hard this is JD, I do know that. You let me know if there's anything that boy needs. Either to make him comfortable or - or - well, you just let me know what I can do afterward..."
"Yes Ma'am."
Not sweeping anywhere near the mess, Ezra set the broom aside and had to clear his throat once or twice before he could speak. "JD, why don't we remove ourselves to Mr. Jackson's clinic and determine first hand if anything might be lacking in Mr. Tanner's comfort?" JD nodded and they headed out the door and down the street. M7*M7*M7
Chris kept his eyes shut. That seemed to make it easier. So many things he'd done in his life that he ought to be ashamed of, here he was uneasy about praying for a dying friend. Buck had shifted position to sit on the edge of the bed and had one hand resting where Vin's hand lay under the blankets. He took a deep breath.
"Lord, this ain't...easy...for any of us. We got us a sick pard here 'n it seems like you're the only one can keep him with us now." Buck's voice wavered between a whisper and a louder tone. "Maybe you got people prayin' for him who care more about you than we do Lord, but I warrant you ain't got nobody prayin' who cares more about Vin. .."
M7*M7*M7
Nathan leaned back against the wall outside his clinic. He'd let the door stay open and heard them praying inside. He joined his own prayer to theirs. Buck was right - the good Lord had the final say here. He saw Ezra and JD approaching and walked the few steps to meet them near the stairs.
"How is he?" Ezra asked. Since there were no sounds of destruction coming from inside the clinic, he gathered Vin was still alive.
"Holdin' on - barely. He ain't conscious, hard to get water or medicine into him without chokin' him. How're you doin' JD?"
I'm okay." JD obviously lied. "Mrs. Potter asked what she can do, now or...later."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"Are Chris and Buck in there with Vin?" Ezra indicated the open door.
"Yeah, I'm hopin' havin' Chris nearby will keep Vin alive. And I'm hopin' havin' Buck nearby will do the same thing for Chris."
M7*M7*M7
Buck sat on the edge of the bed awhile, then moved to sit against the wall under the window next to the head of the bed. It put him nearly at eye level with Vin, if Vin's eyes had been open. He noticed that, even though it'd been a few days, Vin was only now showing signs of needing a shave. Maybe he should've thought to take care of that last night when he was changing the bedding.
"Have to get him some more long johns." He said absently.
"What?" Chris was sure he didn't hear Buck right, and Buck realized that it might not matter now.
"Long johns, he said he ain't got but one set of 'em...he'll need 'em when -" if "- he gets better...winter comin' on and all..."
"Yeah..." But Chris found it hard to think of anything past the next breath Vin had to take. Winter was so long off. Hell, tomorrow was too long off if Vin was going to get better, and too soon coming if he wasn't.
Buck looked from Chris to Vin and back again. Chris had looked like hell last night, sitting in the saloon. He still looked bad, but perked up some, when JD's trick had got him back up here. Now, he was back to looking like hell. Buck knew, he was back to being IN hell.
"He means a whole lot to you, don't he?" Buck asked. "More'n just bein' a friend. He's somebody you can look out for."
"Seems I got a whole town to look out for." Chris reminded him.
"Naah, you ain't got a whole town you'd go against Federal Marshals for." Buck said, thinking of Eli Joe.
"They weren't Federal Marshals."
"You didn't know that when you went tearin' across the countryside to save Vin or die tryin'."
"I recollect goin' down to Purgatory to save some fool I known ten years." Chris briefly let his attention turn from Vin to Buck.
"Yeah, but y'sent Vin back home from Purgatory so's he wouldn't get into trouble with some of his old bounties...and I thought we knowed each other twelve years?" And the two old friends smiled at each other, like old times, over another misery they were seeing each other through.
"He said we're like brothers." Chris said, nodding down at the tracker.
"You 'n him?" Buck was surprised by the little needle of jealousy he suddenly felt.
"Nahh, me 'n you. He said we spit and fuss at each other, then go on like it never happened. Like brothers."
The needle was replaced by a genuine feeling of closeness with Chris that had been missing a long time. Set down as it was in such a sad moment, Buck felt tears in his eyes and he thought fast to overcome them.
"No, what we are Chris, is a couple old biddies, tryin' to keep Vin 'n JD outta the way of the chicken hawks..." Still, such a sad moment might be the only time to say it. "I think he's right though, 'bout you 'n me. No matter what bad blood comes between us, you're my oldest friend Chris. You're my best friend. Time like this -" He nodded to Vin. "-just wanted to be sure y'knew that."
Chris never had words like that inside of him. He always figured actions counted more than words. Anybody could say anything they wanted, it was what you did for a person - or to them - that really spoke how you felt.
"I'd have gone after them Marshals for you too Buck."
To be continued