Before he opened his first whiskey bottle, Chris Larabee wondered what the hell he was doing here, why he had needed to run off from his place and his wife at a time like this. He couldn't explain it. Hell, he could never understood this urgency, this need to just cut loose on occasion and exercise the wilder part of him. Sarah had simply told him to go, and be careful, and come back soon. Buck had looked a bit confused, but no more confused than Chris felt, and said he'd stick around the house just in case. So Chris had unpacked his sidearm, promised to be gone no longer than the night, saddled up and ridden off to park his ass in a chair at a saloon of poor repute, where the only guarantee was that they wouldn't water his whiskey.
The hunger in him wanted feeding, and spirits would sate it for awhile--not as well as fighting and other things, but he was a married man now, and had made promises to himself and his wife that he had no intention of breaking. Licking his lips, he uncorked the bottle and poured his first drink, all the way to the rim of the shot glass. Then he poured again, and again. By the time the bottle was half-empty, that hunger had the upper hand, and he didn't care about anything.
+ + + + + + +
Chris lost track of time in a haze of drunkenness only to wake in his own parlor with a hangover and a sore jaw. It took him quite awhile to figure out what had happened, and when he did, he saw red. He stumbled to the dresser mirror and confirmed the dark bruise along his jaw, looked out the window to the corral to find Don idly whuffing at the ground. "Sarah?" he called out, respecting his wife and watching his voice and not shouting as he planned to do when he found Buck Wilmington. She wasn't in the room, but he could feel her close by.
"Back here," she called from outside.
She was by the well, washing something that looked infuriatingly like Buck's Sunday shirt. "Where is he?"
"Buck?" she asked, not even lifting her head from her task. "Last I saw, he was sittin' under the oak by the barn. Where were you?" But he had already set off.
The bastard was right where Sarah said he'd be, back against the tree trunk, chewing idly on a piece of grass, that absent, idiot smile on his face that told Chris he was thinking about sex. He strode up, casual, to keep from scaring Buck off too quick. "Buck."
"Chris! You awake now, buddy?"
"Yeah, I'm awake. Lemme give you a hand up." Buck, poor bastard, took it, and before he'd even got his balance Chris gave him a rabbit punch that sent him right back to the ground.
"What the hell was that for?!" Buck roared, rolling away and putting some space between them.
"That was for this," he snarled, pointing to his own jaw. Buck danced backward when Chris stalked forward, putting the tree trunk between them. "What do you think you were doing? Who the hell do you think you are, comin' there and draggin' me away like I was some boy and you were my pa?"
Buck looked positively baffled. "You'd been gone for three days, and Sarah was worried, and . . . "
"And you think it's your place to come fetch me like a sack of potatoes!" The man had no idea how mad he was, and the pounding of his hangover just made it worse.
" . . . And I knew where you prob'ly were," Buck continued like nothing was wrong and Chris hadn't spoken, "so I just rode out and got you. Chris, it ain't nothin' to get all worked up over."
"Nothin'?" He could imagine the picture, and while he knew he ought to know better, all he could see right then was all those other people seeing him get hauled out of that place. He'd get called out if he came within a mile of that watering hole, now. "And wipe that smile off your face before I wipe it off for you!"
The smile faded fast enough, and Buck stepped out from behind the tree, straightening to his full height. "You and what army?" he growled.
And the fight was on. Somewhere between the shouting and the punching and the rolling on the ground, came the words he needed to hear.
"All right, I won't do it again!"
"What?"
"I said I won't do it again, now get the hell offa me!"
Chris glared hard at the bloodied face, making sure Buck understood just how serious he was. "You sure?" he demanded, glad that Buck had surrendered before all the fighting made him lose whatever might be in his stomach. He felt like death.
Buck's hands dropped to the ground and he went limp, turning his face away. "A' course I'm sure."
Chris nodded. "All right." He put his weight on Buck's chest to push off, satisfied by the oomph that came out, and stepped away.
"Damn, you're more ornery than a mule with a rattler up his backside."
"Hell yes I am, and you oughtta know that by now!"
He watched as Buck swiped at the blood on his face, then eased up off the ground and walked straight back over to that tree. "You think I didn't know that? Shee-it." Buck chuckled a little, and sat down carefully, and Chris felt his fit of temper fading. "Everybody knows that." And then more softly, "It's not much to be famous for."
"Better that, than being the stud who's trying to cover half the women in the territory," Chris said, in oblique apology. He dropped to the ground beside Buck and rubbed at his throbbing head. It felt like it had been kicked by a mule, and all that wrestling hadn't helped any.
"Well," and Buck was laughing again, "I can't say I agree."
"You wouldn't."
"How's that head, partner?" Buck asked after a while, reaching out and rapping his knuckles on it.
"Ow!" Chris ducked away, trying not to growl at the good-natured ribbing. Buck was the closest thing to a brother he'd ever had: stuck like glue, good times and bad, didn't care one whit when you made a fool of yourself and didn't mind telling you either, and never held much against you. Some days, that was a great thing. Other days...
Buck chuckled, all deep and evil. "That's what I figured." Then more seriously, "Sarah, she was worried about you."
"I know," he muttered, staring at the grass between his feet. "I just needed to get away for a bit."
"Yep. And she understands. Nobody faults you for it--hell, you get more leeway for taking off than I do when I go ramblin'."
Chris lifted his head and looked around at the riches he had somehow earned: green tall grass, sprawling oaks and rolling hills, a wisp of smoke from the chimney. Water, close to the ground and a creek further back. And somewhere inside that house, Sarah sat, probably mad as a hornet at him for breaking his word to her and staying gone so long. "Maybe I do," he whispered, almost to himself.
"What?"
He turned, answering his friend's curiosity, sorry now for the shiner and puffed up lip Buck would surely have. "You said nobody faults me for it. I do."
"Your bender is officially over, don't get all maudlin now," Buck muttered.
"Not bein' maudlin, just. . .
don't know how I c'n keep bein' so dumb."
"Well," Buck said philosophically, "you try so hard, it's no surprise you succeed, on occasion."
The barb, delivered as it was, forced a sharp laugh out of him. But it wasn't just cutting up, or letting off steam, or any of those things Sarah would excuse it as. There was a demon inside him, and when he'd met his wife he thought he'd felt it die, just wither away. No more interest in his name or his reputation, no more interest in fighting. For a long while, it'd been like that. Right up until she'd told him she was with child, and a space right between his shoulder blades had started to itch, like he was being followed. It had itched and itched, making him tense, making him light into Buck and take extra care with his wife, until he'd thought he might go insane amidst all this beauty and peace and hope.
She had put that demon of his to sleep, the demon that made him hunger for a gunfight and kept him from hesitating when one was upon him. . .
that made him love brawling and liquor, and made him almost enjoy killing. His love for her quelled it, tamed it considerably, but he'd half-decided that it didn't know how to die.
He looked back at Buck, whose tongue was lolling out like a dog's, licking the blood from his lip. Chris shook his head and eased back until he too pressed against the tree, shoulder to shoulder with Buck.
"It's different when you go," Chris said, thoughtful. "You go, you stay gone. She won't admit it, but she misses you." She did, too. Buck had the gift of talking with a woman--any woman, not just one he loved or wanted--the way other women might, tea cup in hand, eyes not glazing over at trivia, remembering names and places and stories past. The pair of them hen-partied for hours sometimes on short winter days and long winter evenings, Chris working saddle leather, Buck darning socks and dungarees, Sarah sewing shirts and doing fine needle work, quilting, or preparing food a few feet off at the kitchen table.
Buck grinned, slow and easy, and tilted his head forward and down. "She misses me, huh?"
Chris felt himself flush and looked away. "Yes, her," he growled. "I'm glad of the break, more often than not, and any local boys I hire to replace you cost less and don't hang around the house makin' my wife do their laundry."
"They don't fetch and carry for her, neither, nor keep you out of trouble," Buck shot back easily. "I reckon it's all fair enough in the end."
Chris let the silence stretch before he muttered, "I reckon so. You're gonna have one hell of a shiner," he said quietly to change the subject. Then, making the effort, he choked out, "I'm sorry about that."
"No you ain't," Buck said with a laugh. "But don't go worrying about me, I'm gonna use this face to fish with, and catch me a pretty filly who needs to mother me. I guarantee it."
He smiled a little, something unwinding a little more inside his gut. You could always count on Buck to turn pretty much anything into a chance to get his leg over somebody. "I don't doubt it. But Buck, I'm serious about you comin' and fetching me like that. Don't ever do it again. All right?"
"Hell, I said I wouldn't," he frowned. "What more do you want?"
He sat for awhile longer, the pounding in his head fading as he listened to the birds and the insects and the cackling of the chickens. "I'd better go in there and apologize to her." A hand on his leg stopped him from moving, and he looked down at it, refusing to feel its warmth too acutely. It had been a long time, and there were things best not remembered.
Buck sighed, like Chris was stupid, and the trouble was Chris felt stupid right at the moment. "Just wash the stink off you, and go in there and put your hand on that belly of hers. That's the only reason she was worried."
And the only reason Buck hadn't come with him. She was near six months gone, belly pushing out hard as a rock against the curve of his hand, so he couldn't blame her. "Yeah."
He made to rise when Buck asked, "You scared?"
Scared? Of a pregnant wife and a child to come, and him not knowing the first thing about how to care for it or love it or make it like him? Of the fact that the only fathering he knew wasn't worth more than you could read in a Farmer's Almanac? Of keeping this dream alive and keeping Sarah happy and still somehow feeding those wild urges that rose up inside him on occasion? "Like the devil himself was chasing me," he admitted, then he limped off to the well, Buck's beloved, throaty laughter following him.
+ + + + + + +
A good two years passed, and Adam was taller than his knee and growing like a weed when next he took himself away. Buck had been back for a few weeks now from a three-month wander up San Francisco way, and work had been hard and constant. Chris had wanted no more than a day of quiet, and maybe a day of drinking, a day of not thinking about home and hearth and responsibilities, where he could just be himself and not his obligations, for obligations no matter how sweet could wear on a man over time. Just a day, or a weekend he'd thought; last time he'd gone off, the tale had gotten back to town and embarrassed hell out of his wife, amused Buck to no end, and damned near caused him to get into fistfights with neighbors. She'd glared at him for weeks, even knowing he was no gentleman.
So he'd left Buck retelling tales for Sarah about fine clothes shipped round the horn and silks from China, wanting no more, he'd thought, than a little time alone. He had found a cantina and a quart of whiskey somewhere near the Mexican border, far from home and family and people who knew him. He heard a rattle behind him and turned, gun somehow in his hand. "Who's there!" he demanded, even as he worked hard to focus.
"Who is that?" Buck asked, pointing.
Next thing Chris knew, he was waking up on a floor, head pounding, the side of his face so sore he had to feel for loose teeth. What had. . .
? He looked around, found himself in his own parlor. Sarah was in the kitchen, standing by the stove. He groaned and tried to roll over, and heard a distinct "hmmph" from her direction.
"What the hell?" he grunted, flopping onto his belly like a fish.
She didn't move near. "You forgot about that gentleman comin' all the way from Denver, didn't you?"
What gentleman? he barely kept himself from saying. "Oh," he said weakly, pushing himself up to his knees. "Is it Thursday already?"
"It is."
"How did I . . . " he remembered then, and red fury blazed in him, surging through his muscles and hazing the room over. "Buck."
"Yes, Buck, and you should be grateful he guessed where to find you. . .
" she must've kept talking, but he didn't hear anymore, near-blind and deaf with rage. He forced himself to listen for another sound, and identified the quiet chuckle coming from outside the open front door. Buck sat in Sarah's rocking chair, Adam giggling in his lap.
"Well little man, soon enough . . . "
"Adam, get in the house." Adam looked up, happy child-smile wiped clean off him. He looked frightened, and the frame of mind Chris was in, he was hard-pressed to rein in his temper. Buck's face just softened, looking friendly. More quietly, more carefully, Chris said, "Adam? Go on. I got some words for your uncle you ain't privy to," and damned if Adam didn't look up to Buck before doing what he was told.
Buck sighed and set Adam down off his lap, giving him the gentlest of swats to his backside to push him off the edge of the porch. "You go on now, and mind your pa."
Adam stared between him and Buck, obviously curious, but he skirted between Chris and the wall, darting through the door. "Ma, they're fightin'!" he heard, and turned to slam the door shut himself. Of all the insults to add to injury, here was Buck enjoying the sunshine and playing with his boy instead of skulking or hiding like any sane man should.
He stalked over and shoved the chair back, overbalancing and forcing Buck back into it and using his free hand to hold Buck there. "What the hell did I tell you?" he grated, leaning in close.
"I think I recall you sayin' somethin' about me never doin' that again," Buck said carefully, not pretending to misunderstand.
"And yet there you came, and here I am . . . "
"Looks that way."
"Before I beat the tar out of you Buck Wilmington--"
"Before you try--" he interrupted.
Chris ignored him. "--what have you got to say for yourself?"
Buck reached a hand up and pushed him squarely on the chest. He was still unbalanced enough that he stumbled backwards. "It's Thursday."
"That's got nothin' to do with it, damn it to hell!"
"It's got everything to do with it, Chris. I'm not gonna stop doin' what needs to be done just 'cause you say so. Not if I'm around to do it." Buck picked up a piece of straw lying on the boards, lodging it between his back teeth. "I frankly can't imagine what makes you think I would." He had reached the edge of the porch, and with a little two-legged hop he took to the grass. "Your breath smells worse'n that old mare's with the bad teeth, by the way," he added with a grin. "And you need a bath somethin' awful. I'd get to it if I were you, Mr. Taylor'll be here before long." And when he strolled away, so nonchalant and casual, Chris wanted to go fetch his shotgun out of the pantry and beat him over the head with the stock. He'd taken two steps to launch himself at Buck's back when he caught sight of the horses in the corral. Eight two year olds and a yearling all idled in halter, coats brushed, hooves shiny, manes trimmed. . .
He hung his aching head and walked back into the house toward clothes, and a razor, and eventually the well. When Sarah handed him a saucy grin, he started to get mad all over again. "Who runs this place, anyway?" he growled. She pushed a clean pair of pants at him.
"You do, when you're here. Buck does, when he is and you're not. I do, when you're off acting like fools together." She turned toward the mantle and collected his razor for him. "Don't know who'd keep you two in line if I weren't around," she added lightly.
"You ain't havin' much success, if the way my head feels is anything to go by."
"Now now," she said gently, and her eyes shone when she looked at him, and he wondered what he'd done to deserve her, "I grew up with brothers wilder than any tale you'd try to tell me." She was wrong, but Chris wasn't going to argue his evils with her. "And you," she touched his shirt then, fingers warm and firm to the skin beneath. "You think slipping away twice in five years is goin' to scare me? Long as you ain't with Buck, I reckon I can trust you just fine, darlin'."
He clutched her hand, pressed it more firmly against him. "I'm with Buck, ain't no woman gonna look my way," he assured with a smile. "I ain't with him," he added, "and I ain't gonna notice if they're lookin' or not."
"They'd best not," she teased, "or you'd be here with our boy while I went ridin'." She sobered quickly. "You ought to be thanking him, you know. If he'd left you wherever you were and made the transactions himself..." she glanced toward the front of the house, obviously checking. "He's just awful at negotiating, Chris. It would have cost us." Her eyes returned to him and narrowed, even as her lips thinned out. "And you know it."
Bad enough to be henpecked by his wife, he'd somehow managed to create a situation where he was henpecked by his best friend, too, and she helped Buck do it. "You think it's enough thanks if I just don't hit him?"
She sighed, and touched his cheek. "I swear I don't understand either one of you sometimes, the grief you give each other. You're worse than any two brothers I've ever seen."
She never would understand. He and Buck had promised each other that.
The End
