"You could go." JD argued. His body shivered involuntarily. It was partially from the chill as darkness set in, partially from the shock caused by the sunburn to his upper body.
"Then they would be expecting subterfuge. We need them off guard to have the best chance of success."
JD took the offensive, "And with me, they'll think it's just some dumb kid riding along like you do."
"We haven't thought that for a long time." Buck assured him, but there was a tiredness in his voice that colored the sincerity.
"I can help." JD turned from the offensive to pleading.
"You are helping. When they look at you JD, let'em see a boy." Buck's voice intensified. "And when they are stupid and let their guard down because of it, you stop 'em. You get away and get Chris or you kill'em. Don't wait for them to draw first. Don't give 'em a chance to surrender. You stay alive, boy. You hear me?"
"Buck could go…" JD repeated. They all knew that Wilmington was suffering from his head wound as well as the blistering sunburn.
Ezra was sitting between JD and Buck. Shirtless, water blisters were beginning to appear on their shoulders. He was sure their backs weren't fairing any better. Salt-burning sweat kept dripping into his eyes as fast as he could rub it out with his shoulder. Gritty sand had somehow worked its way between his skin and waistband. It reminded him of the fairy tale The Princess And The Pea because his attempts to lead a sheltered existence made the sensation singularly uncomfortable.
The entire situation was making the southerner impatient and testy. He turned to speak directly to the young Easterner. "They would watch Buck too closely. JD, please, take a moment - and we only have a moment - to examine this logically. If Mr. Wilmington were to accompany the felons to town, he is too disoriented, and his reflexes too slowed to be effective against them."
"You're hurt, Ezra." JD was hell-bent on arguing.
Ezra leaned into the boy, barely aware of protecting his own wound. "Mr. Dunne, you are very possibly Buck's only chance. He's already weak from his injuries. That sun will leech our strength in short order. It is up to you to get these men back to Four Corners, elude them and return with help. We're trusting you with our lives." JD's eyes slid to where Buck was watching and turned back to meet the gambler's eyes.
"If I accompany them and you remain, Mr. Wilmington will push himself too hard to get you to safety."
"You don't know how he worries about you, Ezra, when you're not around."
Ezra gave him a smile. "Will you trust me to watch out for Mr. Wilmington? While you take care of your responsibility and yourself?"
"Thank you, Ezra."
Buck couldn't hear what was being said. He'd let Ezra play it his way and trust him to get JD out of this. He had almost dozed when a glance down showed him a bluebottle fly had landed on his friend's wounded side. Fighting panic, the gunfighter immediately tried to shoo it away before the Southerner noticed, but it wasn't to be.
At first Ezra simply swatted at the nusincing feel at his side. But suddenly memories erupted, he realized it was the insect and he began slapping at the nasty beast like it was poison. He shifted roughly into JD. The damned creature didn't move fast enough so he would move from it. Even with his hands tied behind him, he tried to swat at the spot. Then immediately and frantically he was trying to twist his arms to swat, not at the fly, but at the barely healed scar along his shoulder blade.
His agitation startled their captors who were on their feet, guns drawn and at the ready. Wide-eyed, JD was looking for the threat. Buck's body responded to the drawn guns and Ezra's panic with an insurgence of "fight or flight" adrenaline. The reaction seemed to help his questionable coordination and, on his knees, hands tied behind him, he got in Ezra's face. "It's gone! Ezra, Pard, it's gone. I saw it light. It was only there a second. Are you hearing me?"
Ezra slowly stilled. He looked into Buck's eyes for the truth. He found it there. Then he shut his own eyes to regroup. Of all the memories that would ever haunt the fine-boned gambler, the maggots, boring into his flesh and the helplessness of that moment in the POW camp, were the ones that would always remind him that there were some things worse than death.
When he finally opened his eyes, he saw that the men who had rallied to the excitement gradually lowered their weapons. But Ezra's memories were still trying to pull themselves from the past. His voice, when he spoke, left no doubt how disturbed he still was, "Gentlemen, make a decision. Now. Or I will make it for you. I will force you to shoot me and my secret will die with me." A bit over reactionary, he had to admit to himself as he calmed down. He had been in worse situations before – especially since he had met one Buck Wilmington, but that day, not so long ago, the sentiment was apprapo. He would die before he lived through that again. So he met Bannister's eyes, allowed some hint of crazed panic to show and defied the leader of their kidnappers.
Bannister's eyes slid from Standish to Wilmington to Dunne. The youngster was worried about what he had witnessed, but was as confused as the others. The seasoned gunfighter had some insight into the strange behavior of the gambler and he was afraid that it wasn't a bluff.
"This better be worth it." Bannister growled as an acknowledgement of the terms.
"You'll let the boy go when you have the money and give him a chance to get us help?" Ezra knew it was a farce, but he had to play up the false optimism for the men to believe his motives.
"That's the terms." Bannister smirked.
Everyone stood in anticipation, finally Ezra commented dryly. "Gentlemen. It would defeat the purpose of this exercise if I were to tell the lad the location of my funds with you in hearing distance, no?"
Taking their lead from Bannister when he finally backed off, the men moved away from the peacekeepers.
"One last thing, Mr. Dunne, there is a Colt .45 to the side of the money. Don't hesitate to use it." This brought a glimmer of hope to JD's brown eyes.
Buck leveled his shoulder into JD to get his full attention and locked eyes as he gave a last order. "You kill'em, boy. You don't give 'em a chance. They won't give you one. You stay alive. You hear me?"
"I don't want to leave and worry about you…"
Buck wished he could pull him forward with one large hand around his neck. Instead, he whispered, "I'm proud of you, Boy."
JD held his eyes wide and blinked several times to dry out the childish, stinging tears that threatened. He won that battle. He couldn't trust himself with words so he nodded as he backed away toward the men who were preparing to leave his friends at the mercy of the sweltering sun.
Bannister suddenly grabbed his upper arm and dragged the boy to the horses. As he turned, JD noticed it. He forced himself to keep from reacting. They hadn't picked up the canteen he had dropped when Ezra was shot.
"I'll be back, Buck. I'll bring help."
"Or maybe we'll just kill him for fun once we got the money." The bear snarled as he towered over Buck and Ezra. For the first time, Ezra noticed the remnants of Union blue on the man's clothes.
"One thing we left out earlier...Larabee and the others? You don't have to worry about any of them. Anything happens to that boy, they won't be able to get to you before I do." Buck's voice was matter-of-fact as if there was so much truth in the statement that it needed no reinforcement through vocal emphasis.
Bannister and the Bear laughed the statement off and mounted their horses. As they rode away, Bannister pulled his Colt and fired a single bullet into the canteen almost hidden behind Buck. With a loud guffaw he led the small band away.
JD could tell both of his friends had been well aware of the canteen and were disillusioned with this loss. JD, hands still bound behind him, held on with his knees as Bannister's men led him and the two spare horses away. He kept turning back to see his friends shrink into the distance God, this felt so wrong. Finally his friends were lost to him, swallowed up by the night.
Josiah knocked perfunctorily before he let himself into Nathan's clinic. His longtime friend barelyglanced up from where he was rolling strips of bandages to take with him, but began speaking as if they had been together all evening. "I figured to take the buckboard. It might slow us down, but Vin following such an old trail... that'll take time in itself."
"We'd best tie their horses behind and carry the tack. If they're able to ride, they'll take our mounts afore they use the wagon." There was something special about the bond forming between seven loners, but there wasn't a more stubborn, hard-headed bunch, either.
Nathan moved over to put some herbs and tinctures in his bag. "I'm thinking I don't know how Buck will react to these tonics. The man can come through without a scratch where everyone else is laid up, then, he gets hisself near killed in that hellhole and don't give himself time to heal before .." He carefully wrapped his few precious instruments and stowed them in the bag. "... And Ezra and JD? Walkin' accidents waiting to happen."
"Nathan…"
"What do I waste my time for? Chris's too private to take help. Vin - he thinks nature can heal him better than I can... he thinks being inside my four walls is punishment…"
"Nathan." Josiah tried to break through. Something was wrong.
"JD's gotta prove how tough he is .. Buck and Ezra afraid to need help - afraid no one will give it!"
Josiah blinked at this surprising insight Nathan kept to himself. He wished he had time to consider the healer's intuition, but by the way he was working himself up, it was his friend who needed help this time. "Nathan!"
"What!?" Nathan turned angry, worked up eyes on his friend. "What about you? Is it penance that makes you rather suffer than let me help you?"
They stared at each other. Brown eyes met blue. Nathan had let his guard down again with the one man he knew would accept him through it. "What's really bothering you?" Josiah asked softly.
"What if I'm not good enough?"
"Where the hell does that come from?" Josiah's voice was tinged with anger. Now Nathan was questioning himself?
Nathan, subdued now, handed him a sheet of paper. Josiah started reading then scanned, although there were only two short paragraphs. Danger to the community... practicing medicine without a license...false hope...illegal…"
"What the hell is this? Where did it come from?"
"Found it on my door."
"We've been through this before." Josiah said softly. "Do you think the people you've healed care if you have a license?"
"It's coming, Josiah, people with more education than me, people who've been schooled... they'll care that I don't know the terms and scientific names…"
"That's true. Because they want to feel they are an elite group. They want to feel that you must go to school, not that you can master your craft through the learning process."
"Progress, civilization. That means you'll have to have a piece of paper that says you know what you're doing."
"People who think they know better and say so in words." Josiah spat. "Do you think the person who penned this can heal? Has your knowledge? Or just an opinion?"
"I gotta be careful. Not to overstep what I know or they'll be right."
"No one can be harder on you than yourself. Don't let words make you second-guess your God-given talent. We have friends who can't afford that right now."
"I just ain't sure." It wasn't lost on Josiah that these were the same words Vin had used. So Josiah decided to use another friend's answer to this same appeal. "To paraphrase our Mr. Larabee, healing is more than medicine and instruments. It's knowing your patient. It's an instinct. You've got it." There was an uncomfortable silence. Finally Josiah'd had enough. "What about you, Nathan? What about how you refuse help when you're hurt?"
"I at least understand the logic of healing properly, giving the injury time to heal."
"Uh-huh."
Then Nathan realized Josiah was speaking of this emotional wound as well as any physical damage. And putting it in that light, he needed to let the hurt from the words heal as well. They had friends to find and save. "Thank you, Josiah." Josiah pulled him into a comforting bear hug that spoke volumes.
The preacher hid the slow anger that was growing inside him with practice he'd perfected since childhood. They needed to get moving, now wasn't the time, but something was niggling at the back of his mind. Written attacks on Nathan and Vin, along with their missing comrades might not be coincidence. But what would be the reason for someone to be moving his friends and their emotions around like pawns on a chess board? Who could have a mind so complicated as to work it all out? What would be the end game? No matter, if he learned all of this was connected, there would come a time and there would be hell to pay.
"Good God, Mr. Wilmington, the desert runs as hot and cold as many a woman I've met." Ezra drawled as he shivered from the chill that overtook his body. Night fell quickly in the desert. "Is it really freezing out here?"
"It's a might chilly; 'specially with no clouds to hold the heat in. But part of it's brought on by that sunburn." His friend conceded as he twisted his arms about behind his back. He never allowed for the fact that his own skin was just as red and blistered. "How bad are you hurt?" He asked, referring to the bullet wound.
The moon wasn't up yet, and although the sky was clear, there wasn't enough light to see anything but black shadows tinged with blue outlines. Now that he was finally free to take a closer look at his friend's wound, it was too dark to see.
"It stings, but truly it's just gouged out some meat. It'll grow back. More immediately, if you'll maneuver around perhaps we can work on our ropes..." His jaw dropped open as Buck pulled his free hands before him and finished loosening the loops from his left wrist. "Hidden talents?" Ezra asked, duly impressed.
"One of my Ma's lady friends taught me." Buck volunteered casually as he rushed to the shot riddled canteen. He wedged it into the sand at an angle to save as much water as possible. Then he skooched around to start working on Ezra's bonds. He could hear the gears turning in his friend's head. A lady residing in a brothel that good with ropes... "The trick is to tense your muscles right tight while they're puttin' 'em on ya. That's a good start. There's a little more to it."
"Indeed." Ezra seemed to decide whether to continue the discussion and finally changed the subject - for now. "A course of action?"
"I ain't gonna lie to ya, Ezra. We're gonna be hurtin' when that sun comes up." They shared a portion of the precious water. "Our best bet is to make what time we can tonight and hole up at any shade we find during the day."
"I bow to your experience." Ezra forced himself resignedly to his feet and started in the direction the horses had gone.
Buck grabbed his belt loop to stop him then wrapped his long fingers around his scalp to turn the gambler facing 45 degrees from his intended path. He avoided touching any of the aching, irritated skin. "I don't know why they're taking an out of the way path, but if it was to throw us off, they ain't givin' ol' Buck the credit he's due."
Ezra unquestioningly moved in the direction his friend directed.