ON YOUR HORSES, BOYS

Part 16

Ezra felt the world spin wildly in large sweeping circles as huge hands grabbed him by the arms, yanked him from the countertop and threw him to the floor. What next, he wondered morbidly as he drew in his knees and dragged his tattered feet away from the men who had just cut them. He tried to focus on the voices above him but the shouted words were so intermingled with frenzied howls and wails it was difficult to understand what they were saying. A bloodlust had begun and he recognized immediately he was the sacrificial lamb at its center. He wrapped one arm around his knees and one arm around his head in an effort to make himself appear as small and uninteresting as possible – it didn't work. The elbow against his head was jerked roughly behind his back and he was forced upright, shoulders pulled back, legs spread wide on the floor.

"Talk to me, Standish. Tell me where Larabee hid Connelly," a voice barked loudly causing a hush to fall around the room.

Ezra heard the instruction but his brain failed to register its meaning. He instead stared at his feet, wondering with growing concern at the small red pools forming beneath them. Then the person attempting to gain his attention lowered himself into a squat between his knees and grabbed his chin.

"Tell me," the voice repeated.

He tried to avoid the eyes drilling into him but instantly regretted it when his tormentor, Peter Nichols, released his chin and smashed a heavy fist into the side of his face. The skin over his right cheekbone and eyebrow split, and his vision began a sickening dance before him.

"Where is Connelly?" Peter shouted.

The gambler swallowed hard and tilted his head back. "D-don't… know."

Nichols grabbed him by the face again and pulled it level with his own. "You're lying. You work with Larabee, you know how he thinks. Where would he hide?"

Ezra tried to squint despite the rising hurt around his right eye. He sneered as a bloodstained grin slowly crept across his face. "Chris… doesn't… hide."

"Is that right, well look around, he isn't here to save you."

Ezra's mind began to wander to his feet again and he tried to lean around the man in front of him despite the awkward grip on his arms.

Nichols caught the movement and scooted within a hair's breadth of his victim's face. "What're you looking for?"

Ezra startled when he couldn't adjust his focus fast enough.

"Your feet?" Peter asked, looking over his shoulder. "You've got much bigger problems than your feet."

"Can't feel…" Ezra mumbled before he realized he'd spoken.

"Never mind that, just tell me where Larabee has taken Connelly."

"I told you," he said softly and purposefully, "I don't know."

"You do know," Peter replied before he pulled back and struck him in the face again. "Damn it, I'm talking to you, pay attention!"

Nichols stood, removing his bulk from the gambler's view. Ezra was so relieved to see his feet he might have actually keeled over had the arm behind his back not been twisted further still from his body.

Peter's patience disappeared. "If you're so dead set on feeling your feet maybe I should just help you out! Hold him, Luke."

Ezra felt the hands holding him yank hard and saw the man standing between his knees turn sharply towards his right foot. In that instant, a heavy boot rose high above his lower leg and came crashing down – once, twice, three times on his shin and ankle. The action was so severe Ezra felt bone grind and break. He cried out and frantically began battling the man behind him. He twisted and pulled, desperate to free himself, but the grip on his arms only tightened. "Get off me!" he yelled and gave one last, hard jerk. The brother at his back countered his efforts by hauling him upwards. The strain on his body was too much and his shoulder separated itself from its socket. He swore he could actually hear a sucking tear as it let go. Luke, had that been his name, must have heard the same sound because he relinquished his hold and snatched his hands away as if bitten by a snake.

Peter spun around when he realized the Southerner was free to curl himself on the floor. "I didn't tell you to turn him loose!"

Luke stood quickly and brushed his hands on his pants. "Something inside him just tore it's self loose. He ain't going nowhere."

"No, he isn't!" Peter twisted a hand in the Southerner's shirt and pulled him upright off the floor.

Ezra's world again gyrated in a nauseating swirl of bright lights and blurry shadows. He couldn't stand much more of this. So much of his body hurt he couldn't tell where one injury ended and another began. He knew his mutilated feet had been the focal point of his attention before, but now his entire upper torso was so rapt in agony it threatened to pitch him into blackness. Please, he begged silently, please, let me pass out. He felt the whole universe conspire against him as his request was denied and a hot breath blew into his face.

"Enough of this! I've warned you what would happen if you didn't cooperate. I've made it very clear how I feel about your kind and still you defy me. You're playing a dangerous game, Standish, one you're going to lose." He backed away and began pacing. "You know what I have in mind for you so let's just go ahead and be done with it!"

Ezra knew exactly. He heard Peter give the order for his weary body to be returned to the countertop. In the seconds that followed he felt brutal hands grab him off the floor and heave him back onto the unyielding surface. Oh God, they were going to do it this time! He grabbed the edge of the counter and tried to pull himself away, but the effort was a complete waste of time. There were simply too many of them. Every limb of his body was seized and held, a forearm fell across his middle and two hands trapped his head. The only movement allowed him was the painful sucking in of air and that was rapidly becoming nearly impossible to do.

He tried to resist and crane his neck around to search for the Nichols matriarch. Was she still there? She had managed to control her pit of vipers up to now, insisting, oddly enough, that the payment to be exacted from him was with regard to helping Hank escape. Despite what her sons concluded were his long list of transgressions as a gambler, she seemed unconcerned. He suspected she meant to see him dead at the conclusion of her vendetta, but at the moment she was more interested in getting her hands on Hank and Chris. He hoped against hope she would intervene and discipline her offspring but evidently she was out of earshot of what was about to happen. "Don't… do this," he snarled. "Mrs. Nichols…would not approve."

Peter's face swam above his own. "You're mistaken. It's you she doesn't approve of, you and your ways. She fully supports us and our work to defeat evil."

Ezra tried to understand.

"Not all punishment need wait 'til you meet your maker, gambler. You're a disciple of the devil and Ma has walked away from you. You're mine to judge now."

"Who are you… to judge my sins?" Ezra asked defiantly.

"I'm the man with the knife." To emphasize his point, he raised the weapon so his prisoner could clearly see the bloody blade. Ezra struggled against the biting fingers bruising his flesh as Peter turned the knife in his hand. "Then again, I've used this on you most of the day and it really hasn't done the trick."

Ezra remembered the slicing, the digging and the sawing and felt his cramping stomach send a flow of bile up his throat and into his mouth. Slowly the foul liquid leaked past his lips and down his cheek. He knew; he knew just where Nichols' mind was going.

Then the man actually gave voice to his thoughts. "Hand me the cleaver!"

At that moment, he knew this was it. No more warnings, no more threats. "C-Chris!" he cried not really understanding why. Chris couldn't help him; he'd be killed on sight, but again he shouted the gunfighter's name. He cursed his own weakness and ground his teeth and pushed a cry of "No more!" from his lips. Finally it sank in. He closed his eyes against the truth, but he knew. As it had always been in the past, he was on his own.

The last thing he saw were three men, all dressed in black, reaching for him.

M7M7M7M7M7M7M7

Buck listened as Vin Tanner snored. He'd dozed off in his chair not long after Nathan went to get some sleep. Wilmington had suggested the tracker lie down, but his friend insisted he could do his resting from a chair. Apparently, he'd been right because the soft rumbling had been Buck's constant companion for the past three hours and showed no signs of leaving him any time soon.

The ladies man sniffed the air and caught the delicious smell of freshly baked bread. Mary Travis and Archie Sanders had delivered a homemade meal of bread and stew just minutes before and he debated whether he should wake Nathan and Vin to eat or just allow them to sleep. Sleep had won out, but the noise emanating from his own belly was fast becoming difficult to ignore. After a couple of minutes, his stomach won out and he swiped the heal of the bread to nibble on. The growling lessened and he silently admired Mary's culinary skills. He appreciated her personal skills as well. Although she and Archie had been curious about what was happening inside the clinic, they hadn't asked to come inside. She understood how things were among the peacekeepers and respected their privacy. She left with Archie to visit the jail, the intoxicating smell of home cooking trailing in her wake.

Buck was about to reach for a drink when he heard a groan come from the bed. He abandoned the cup and hurried to Ezra's side, immediately noticing the heat radiating off his body. The gambler's head tossed against the pillow and his free hand clutched at the sheet draped across his waist.

"Get away from me," he mumbled.

Vin came awake at the sound of the Southern voice. His sharp move to reach Ezra caught Buck off guard.

"I thought you were sleepin'," Wilmington said.

"Just restin' my eyes. Is he awake?"

Buck shook his head. "I think he's dreamin' again, he's burning up."

"Well, you know what Nate said, we need to get some more medicine in him. Maybe we can wake him enough for him to drink."

Buck stilled the clutching hand. "Ezra, can you hear me?"

"Get," he groaned hoarsely, "get away from me." He tried to pull his hand free.

Buck held tight. "It's alright." He watched the muscles in Ezra's arm tense as he tugged against his grip. "Come on, buddy, wake up."

"D-don't do this," he pleaded as he switched his efforts from his trapped hand to that of his bound shoulder and arm.

"Ezra, be still, you're gonna hurt yourself."

"I can't move! Let go!"

Wilmington lightly tapped the bruised face to gain his friend's attention. "Come on, wake up!"

The eye that had been swollen shut the day before was nearly normal again, but it did little good since neither of the Southerner's fevered eyes seemed able to focus. He backed into the pillows only to have Buck and Vin move with him and pin him down. "No!" He shouted when he felt the weight on top of him. "No more!" He pulled as hard as he could but failed to free himself from the cloth bindings or the well-meaning caregivers. His mind flinched at the sight of the black-clad demons that tortured and disfigured him and his only desire was to escape their reach. His life depended on it. "I w-won't let you… do this to me… I'll see you in hell first!"

"Listen to me, Ezra. It's alright, it's over!"

"No! No more!"

"Ezra!" Buck called loudly as he realized just how badly he'd lost control of the situation. Ezra battled one of the hottest fevers and worst deliriums he'd ever seen and he simply wasn't qualified to help. He wasn't even sure if Nathan had such experience. He was about to send Vin for the healer, when something changed – the body in his grasp heaved itself against the headboard and literally caved in. Ezra drew his knees towards his chest, bowed his back as far his bound shoulder would allow, and let his head drop forward. He pulled again at his hand and moaned miserably, "Oh God, I can't do this."

"Ezra?" Wilmington knew his friend was in serious trouble when the very next word from his mouth was Chris' name. Oh hell, he thought. Please tell me Ezra didn't call for Chris while the Nichols were cutting him up. The one person who could save him… the last person he could pray for. The allusion was too awful to believe. The second time Ezra cried out for Chris, the plea was too much to bear.

Vin looked away, Buck found he couldn't. He was trapped in the anguish which was Ezra's nightmare; his own mind conjuring images of the Nichols as they taunted him, abused him, terrorized him. He knew he would probably never know everything his friend had suffered, but he could definitely see the results of it.

Ezra shifted against the headboard. After a long pause, and with composure he didn't truly feel, he raised blind eyes and asked for the impossible. "Please…just kill m-me."

The request was so unexpected the room fell silent.

No one spoke.

No one moved.

Except for Ezra's labored breathing, not another sound could be heard until someone in the shadows said, "Let him go."

TBC

A/N: To all those who left reviews, meet me at Standish Tavern this afternoon! The first round's on me! Thanks for the amazing support!