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Chris Larabee, Vin Tanner and JD Dunne rode into Four Corners, eyes straight ahead and oblivious to the effect their return, alone, had on the people watching from windows and from the boardwalk.
Mary saw the three and ran out of the door of the Clarion. Something stopped her. Body language, the expressions on their faces, something kept the part of her that was a newswoman as well as the part of her that was a friend from moving past the boardwalk. She, too, watched the three men ride through the street.
There had been no definite trail to follow. Vin wasn't surprised that the sandstorm had blown away all but a hint of the horses' passage. His instincts told him that those he did find were leading him back toward Four Corners. So they had headed back to the town as well.
They headed silently toward the livery. Vin noticed how much JD was like the silent, solemn Larabee when he didn't have the influence of Buck, Ezra, or the other more social members of their group.
Originally hoping to find only four new horses in the livery, they couldn't help but be disappointed to discover trailhands from a cattle drive were in town. The stables were full and spilling over to the corral.
The repairs from the fire were well underway, but some of the stalls were still uninhabitable. Even the cattle drive's remuda had been brought in for their ferriers attention.
There was no way to try and find the horses they were looking for. The soft sand Vin had originally followed the trail in had not had enough substance to hold an imprint of the detailed scrappings and wear on the horseshoes that might have delineated them from the other shod animals.
They handed their own horses to the liveryman and carefully checked the other horses.
Vin noticed the wagon they had borrowed was not back yet. It didn't surprise him that they had beaten the others back. But he would feel much more comfortable when everyone was in town again
"Vin?" Larabee asked quietly.
"Nothing." He drew his attention back to their immediate goal. " I can't tell if their horses are here or not."
"JD?"
"I'm sorry, Chris, guess I wasn't paying enough attention."
"Couldn't expect you to know which horse they had you on when you were blindfolded" Vin offered the obvious observation because he sensed the boy needed the absolution verbally from his friends.
The duster-clad gunfighter took a deep sigh. "Saloon?" He asked of Tanner.
"Hotel." He responded and headed out the doors.
Neither Larabee nor Dunne hid their confusion, but neither did they hesitate to follow.
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The hotel keeper looked up as the tracker entered and smiled a greeting.
"Mind if I have a look at your registration book?" Tanner asked quietly.
Without hesitation, but with the same curious expression as Chris and JD, he offered the ledger-like book over. Larabee was only briefly surprised to see his friend pull out the pieces of paper that held the writings that had threatened all of their confidences. Then he caught on.
They both carefully compared the handwriting to the registration signatures. Finally the former bounty hunter pointed at a name and said with certainty. "This man wrote the notes to me and Nathan."
Chris raised an eyebrow. "The note," Vin held up the one sent to him. "... made me see how the words... and trackin' were alike. Made me think maybe the same eye for trackin' might help me liken a man's letterin' to how he pens his name."
"They outsmarted themselves." Chris smiled thinly with a feeling of wicked satisfaction.
Chris read the name. "Blake Bishop. When did he check in?"
"Yesterday." The hotel keep offered.
"Alone?"
"Couple, no, three others with him."
Chris's smile turned to a feral grin.
"They're here." JD proclaimed before his hero could.
Vin was still concentrating on the registration book. "Harve, when did this feller come in?"
The Innkeeper looked at the name. "Been here three days."
"Foster." Vin read to himself. Then he looked at his best friend. "He penned your note."
Chris took the scribblings and compared the lettering himself.
"JD, I want you to saddle up a spare horse. Ride out to meet Nathan and the others. I want them to know those men are in town and to watch out for them." JD was off like a shot.
"Saloon?" Chris repeated the question.
"Saloon." Vin agreed this time.
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As JD hurried back to the livery, he was suddenly grabbed from the alley and dragged deep into the narrow passage.
Bannister leered at him as the Bear dragged him further into the alleyway. "Boy, we had an agreement."
The Possum was there as well as one he barely recognized from the night this all started.
The big man's forearm against JD's throat almost had his breath cut off. "Chris and Vin know you're in town." He croaked.
Bannister showed him a pistol that he held concealed between them. "Get the gambler's money for us and we'll be gone."
JD allowed himself to be pushed along. They were taking the back streets to the saloon where Ezra had confided in them that he kept a room. His entire focus was on the fact that Ezra's gun was hidden with the money. He was going to get his chance. He would make these men pay for what they did to his friends.
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Chris and Vin pushed their way into the saloon. It was crowded. They walked over to the bar to be greeted by Inez.
The fiery Spanish senorita had been waiting for these men to stride into the establishment for two days that had seemed like a lifetime. Her heart clinched when they came in alone. She died several small emotional deaths in the time it took them to enter, evaluate the current occupants for any immediate threat, find none and move toward her and the bar.
"Senors?" The question hung, afraid of an answer and yet afraid not to know.
"We found 'em, Inez. JD's with us. Josiah and Nathan are bringing those other two rascals along." Tanner smiled to end her worries.
"They're safe?"
"Some worse for wear." The sudden change in his demeanor told her it was worse than he wanted to admit to her or himself. The undercurrent of anger in this usually easy-going tracker told her someone would pay.
He must have realized she was reading him so easily because the smile returned, the features relaxed and he continued, "Nothing a little sympathy from you wouldn't go a long way to healing with the both of 'em."
"And you've been hanging around those two scoundrels too long when you start talking like that." She relaxed; sensing things were not insurmountable.
"All these fellers part of the cattle drive?" Chris asked, his patience at its limit. He knew Inez deserved to be reassured that the others were safe. But he wanted the potential dangers accounted for before his injured friends, who couldn't take care of themselves, were back in town.
For some reason he wanted to deal with these men before JD had to identify them or be a part of doling out justice. He suspected a part of him was hearing Wilmington acting as his conscience again.
The bartender realized that there was more to the question. "They are all trailhands." She affirmed as hard eyes scanned the room.
"Any other strangers in town?"
"Suspicious strangers you mean?" It's what made her so good at her job, "Three men came in night before last. I think I've seen them before. They met with a man who was in town since before you rode out. They were quiet, stayed to themselves."
She was going to add more, but Larabee had heard enough. "Describe them." He growled.
Inez got the feeling she was about to cause the deaths of these men. It showed in her hesitation.
"Inez, they'll come after us again. We gotta end this now. They don't play by the rules. We'll be more fair with them than they were with our friends." It was Vin who offered the words. Larabee didn't care to explain himself.
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Bannister and Foster kept JD at gunpoint in the alleyway until they at last saw the two regulators leave the saloon and head back toward Bishop's room at the hotel.
Bannister was pretty sure they couldn't have connected his real name, Bishop, to the one they'd heard, so he nodded to Foster who moved slightly ahead of them and led them toward the saloon.
JD was worried where his heroes had gone and that they would run into them unsuspecting. He didn't know if he was relieved or panicked as he finally saw them and watched Chris and Vin step out of the saloon and head back toward the hotel - moving away from where Bannister and his men would be leading him.
The boy, so recently a greenhorn, thought of calling out to the gunfighters, but logic told him his best chance of survival was to bide his time and use the gun hidden in Ezra's room.
He wondered if Josiah and the others were back. He remembered what Ezra had said. The three of them could identify the kidnappers. The outlaws couldn't afford to leave any of them alive. He knew he should try to warn his friends, but didn't know how. Suddenly he felt very incompetent and, all over again, very much like the boy among men. He wasn't sure what to do; what any of the others would do. So he followed their commands.
Inez couldn't catch her breath when she saw young JD Dunne walk into the bar with two of the men his older friends had so recently asked about.
Foster walked casually over to the polished walnut and brass bar. Bannister and JD headed on toward the stairs.
Foster moved to stand across from Inez. He casually placed his Colt .44 between them and smiled as if discussing the weather on a pleasant spring day, "My friend and the kid have business upstairs, then we'll be leaving. A lot of people will get hurt and it will be your fault if you do anything but tend to your guests."
Her rich brown eyes followed the other two up the stairs and realized that there was a gun on JD as well. She was worried and unconsciously wrung the dishrag between her hands.
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JD stepped into the small room. It felt a bit abandoned, even though the occupant had only been gone two nights. There was enough illumination coming through the window that Bannister chose not to trust the boy to light a lamp nor do it himself.
"Well?" The bigger man urged impatiently. He still held the pistol to his side, a tacit threat.
JD was already judging whether to grab Ezra's throw-down gun quickly and take the man by surprise, or draw it out slowly as if he were bringing up the money. Should he try to shoot the man as the weapon cleared the floor? Or risk getting it up where he could actually aim. Buck would say aim. Chris would shoot from the floor. Should he give the man a chance to surrender?
Bannister stood with his back to the closed door. JD turned to face him as he knelt at the foot of the oversized bed and pried at the thin slat of wood closest to the footboard. It popped open easily.
Bannister motioned encouragement with the barrel of the gun. JD reached into the recess. His fingers immediately brushed across two bundles of money. He stretched, seeking the gun. Nothing. He felt as far back and across as he could. Nothing. Fear and a sinking loss of all hope overtook him. He tried not to let it show.
"Hey, Kid, get with it."
JD's mind was racing. He could hand this man the money and hope he left. That wasn't going to happen. And hoping it would happen wouldn't make it so.
He could throw the money at Bannister. At the worst it would surprise him enough that JD could go for his gun hand. At least getting killed, the sound of the gunshot would alert Chris and Vin. At the best, maybe the man's greed would lead him to try to pick up the money and give Chris or Vin time to get here and avenge his death. Maybe he could talk the man into something like Ezra would. He tensed his leg muscles as he grabbed the handful of bills. Practically channeling Chris Larabee, he was ready to move.
"Looking for this?" A smooth voice asked from behind him.
Recognition of the voice turned his spine to ice water. He had only thought he had been afraid a second ago. He had only thought the situation had been desperate a second ago. And the look on Bannister's face said the other man was equally unsettled by the man he saw there.
Neither of them had noticed that the closet door was open a crack.
It was swung open now, and the tall, calm, suave Clay Kestrel was pointing Ezra's throw-down gun into the room in a way that made them both an equal target. The man's dark eyes held delighted amusement. His silky, straight, jet black hair hung across his shoulders and shadowed much of his face in the growing morning light.
JD didn't answer. He recognized the gun as one Ezra sometimes carried in his shoulder holster – the gun that was missing from the gamblers hidey-hole. He closed his eyes in an attempt to fight the despair that was trying to take over.