"Shit." Wilmington thought when he opened his eyes to the late night sky. The moon, still almost full, was well up and blocking the Milky Way and most of the stars. It would make it easy to see. They had to move in the night, while it was cool, before the moon set and made travel more difficult. He began to panic. How much time had he wasted sleeping? They would have to move far enough to find shade before the sun rose in the east.
His tight, burned skin didn't seem so painful. Might be the cool desert night breeze across it. He knew he was as weak as a kitten, and God, it felt good to lie here and sleep. Just ten more minutes. What could that hurt?
He jerked up quickly and the action caused his head to throb unmercifully to the beat of his pulse. Ezra. Where... there he was.
Buck Wilmington wasn't here alone. He might could give up on himself, but not when the life of another friend weighed in the balance.
On shaky legs and arms, he crawled over to rouse the gambler. He almost thought he heard voices; Chris's raised in anger as it was so often lately. No surprise there. It must be the wind. "Ezra, hey, Standish, we gotta move.. .C'mon, you Southern cuss, we gotta make up some time." The voice was raspy and wouldn't get above a whisper. He shook the smaller man who grumbled angrily and rolled over onto his back.
The combination of the sudden pain when his sunburn touched the ground and Buck's voice brought the gambler awake and he turned his head back to the voice. "Mr. Wilmington?"
"We gotta move out, try to find water before that sun gets up …"
It concerned the gambler that his friend was not aware of his surroundings and thought they were still alone. "Buck, we're safe here..."
"Damn it, Standish, no more mirages." Ezra, still exhausted, closed his eyes for a blink.
"Shit! Ezra, damn it, wake up!" was Buck's desperate response.
Before Ezra could open his eyes to comfort the other man, the others were there.
"Buck!" JD called and grabbed his arm, without thinking.
Buck swung a weak fist in his direction, thinking Bannister and his men had returned and they were under attack.
The fist never made contact. Larabee easily wrapped the man in a bear hug from behind and pinned his arms helplessly at his side. "Buck. Buck, it's Chris. You're safe. We found you." He regretted the pain this must be causing the burned and blistered skin, but he didn't dare let go until his friend was aware of his surroundings.
"I'm gonna kill you, Bannister."
"Buck, it's Chris. Wake up." His old friend kept struggling and showed no reaction to the voice. Nathan poured water over his head trying to bring him around. Buck still struggled.
Ezra staggered to his feet and reached out, "Mr. - Buck. JD brought help. Your friends are here." Vin didn't miss the fact that the conman had said 'Your friends' not 'Our friends'. He needed to have a talk with the gambler.
Nathan put a cup in Ezra's hand and helped him raise it to the other man's lips. A quick glance got a quick reassurance, "It's just water." Nathan smiled despite the situation. Apparently the man wasn't going to be any party to feeding his friend the aloe and salt potion.
As they helped get the contents of the cup into the other man, Nathan explained, "Confusion's a part of heat exhaustion sometimes. Ain't the concussion, I don't think. It'll pass." The others looked relieved.
Chris loosened his hold on his old friend from confinement to support.
Finally there seemed to be some recognition come into the eyes. "JD?"
"Yeah, Buck, me and the guys, all of us."
Wilmington smiled as his tired eyes swept the others. Then he frowned and looked back at Chris. "Was Zach here?"
The other man looked like he'd been punched. "Zach Monahans ain't never here when you need him." He answered abruptly.
"He's there, Chris, just doesn't always know how to show it." Buck added in a small voice as he gratefully took the water.
Chris, Josiah, Vin and Nathan helped Buck and Ezra sit down.
Doesn't know how to show it any more than you do, Larabee. Ezra heard the rest of the statement in the tone of voice if no one else did. Damn. Two father figures who hate each other, Ezra amended his earlier insight. But this wasn't the time for that discussion.
"This Mr. Monahans came up in our talks during our travails in this hell land. I believe, as Mr. Jackson mentioned, our friend is confused as to what is real and what was merely conversation."
Larabee gave the gambler a glare that seemed to demand, 'What do you know about it?'
"Everything's alright?" Buck looked directly at Chris when he asked. There was something bothering his old friend. He didn't get an answer. "Chris?"
"Everything's fine." It came out a little harsh, not so believable, but then he knelt down and said more softly, "That is if you can figure out a way to sleep with that burn, so we can move out in the morning."
Buck nodded. Chris left Nathan, JD and Josiah to make their injured friends comfortable.
Vin started to help Nathan, but sensed Chris needed help himself.
Chris went back to stare into the fire. Tanner walked up and tried to read what his friend was seeing in the flames. "You don't think this is because of me?" He asked the younger man. He trusted his perceptions.
"They were tryin' to get to you, with those words. Like they did with me and Nathan. Someone is attackin' all of us."
"Tell that to Wilmington." Their leader said with some bitterness. Larabee had always thought he would be the first person the lady's man would turn to. But it was Ezra, then JD who had been able to bring him back to his senses tonight.
Vin was confused by the statement. He didn't see what Chris was seeing. Hell, Larabee wasn't sure what was bothering him. Except he thought he might be losing something he thought could only be lost through death. He held onto guilt long after any evidence proved he didn't need to.
Tanner sat across from his friend. Sooner or later he would want to talk. The tracker planned to be there.
Josiah had followed the two friends back to the fire because he was aware of the fragile group dynamics that had been rocking and shifting from the first time they united in Four Corners and had escalated since Clay Kestrel had laid the seeds of doubt among their group. He knew what was bothering their dark clad leader even if he didn't see it himself. "Buck and Ezra have been through a lot together lately."
Vin looked between the other two.
"He blames me for this." That explained to Vin and Josiah at least why the gunfighter thought he should blame himself. He thought Buck didn't respond to his voice because he no longer trusted him. Was this really the first time Wilmington had turned to someone else before he turned to Chris?
"He knew to expect to hear Ezra's voice, being out here together and all…"
"Buck is supposed to depend on me."
"Does he know that?" Josiah asked harshly, "If you're questioning Buck's loyalty, don't try to put it on the attack of strangers, Chris. You have been begrudging in giving your support for that friendship since you arrived in Four Corners." The ex-Preacher was in no mood to be ignored in this. If Chris must doubt himself because of the words on that note, let it be from a real disruption in what was going on around him, not an imaginary one.
Chris turned on Josiah as if attacking the man would lessen the truth in what he said.
Snarling, groveling, spitting truth
What gives you the right
To make men make you what you are
Tactfully hidden in their blind fright?
The poetry again came into Vin's mind when he didn't want them. He tried to ignore them as he turned to his friend, "Chris," He was also cutting Josiah off before he continued defiantly. The tracker knew what Sanchez was about to say and he cut in to say it more pacifyingly, "Whoever is doing this knows you well enough to trigger these feelings. Don't let him."
With Buck and Ezra having returned to restless sleep, but sleep none the less, Nathan left JD watching over them and returned to his friends around the camp light. The tension was palpable. He waited for someone to speak and let him in on what he had missed.
Chris was silent for so long the others didn't know if they should move Josiah out of harm's way, or ask if they could help or pretend nothing was going on and act like it never happened.
Vin couldn't stand to see his friend upset like this; being manipulated. But at least it helped put the attack on himself in perspective.
Finally Chris spoke. "If there is a man out there that… that..."
"Devious," Josiah offered up.
"I'm going to find him and finish him." Before anyone could ask how, he continued, "Those men who had JD. We're going to find them and get it out of them."
"I'm going with you." JD stated flatly.
No one was sure how long he had been there or how much he had heard. Chris met his eyes. JD didn't know if the man was seeing a boy, trouble, incompetence or nothing at all. "You need me. I know what they look like. And I owe them." He sounded a lot like Larabee.
The young Easterner waited. He was determined to go if he had to follow after them. But surprisingly, Chris nodded. "We leave at sunup." And that was it. He reached to pour himself coffee in one of their battered cups.
Josiah threw a relieved wink across the flames at Nathan and Vin. They were all together and now they were working on a plan. The downward spiral that had been so carefully planned and fueled with guilt had been diverted. God help whoever had masterminded it.
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Buck hadn't seemed surprised when he was told Chris had gone after the men responsible for the current events instead of staying with the wounded.
He hadn't been surprised that Vin had accompanied him. But when he heard that the gunfighter had let JD ride with them a light had gone out of his eyes. And that light had yet to return now, as they traveled in silence, back toward Four Corners, three men short.
Nathan and Josiah knew something was going on that had nothing to do with the most recent attack against the seven. They remembered hearing parts of what Buck had said about JD becoming more like Larabee. But only Ezra knew how much their easy-going friend feared that fate. And he regretted that he had no words of comfort, no words that wouldn't sound superficial since it seemed to be coming to pass.
Their friends had left early, on the hunt before, anyone could talk.
. Enough time had passed that, for Ezra and the others, Four Corners was finally in sight. All they could do was get there, rest up, and wait.
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