TWO
Ezra dismounted and took the tracker from JD. Although he had used Vin’s weight as an excuse for passing him to the young sheriff, really there was not much to the tracker at all. His multiple layers of clothing usually concealed the fact that he still had the slenderness of youth. Just how much older than JD is he? Ezra wondered, not for the first time. From what little he knew of the tracker’s past, he had seen enough hard times to cover several life-times and always put up a self-protective front of being considerably older than Ezra suspected he actually was. Interestingly Vin never teased JD about being a kid like the others did at times. Not that Vin was apt to really tease anyone, except on occasional Buck and, surprisingly, Chris. More often he would come out with some pithy comment and leave it at that, but even then he did not direct his gibes at JD’s youth. Perhaps an attack on JD for youthfulness was too close to home, Ezra thought.“I think it might be advisable for one of us to proceed to town to obtain a wagon plus the assistance of our esteemed healer,” Ezra said. “Mr Tanner is demonstrably in no condition for horseback riding and I fear that if one of us were to drop him it would not be conducive to his recovery.”
“Okay, I’ll go,” JD said decisively.
Ezra had anticipated that reaction. JD hated to have to sit around waiting and was always open about his self-doubts when it came to caring properly for someone who was injured. However, the split in jobs suited the gambler so he wrapped a saddle blanket around Vin and settled down beside the tracker to wait.
However, by the time JD returned, Ezra was starting to have second thoughts, as he doubted his own adequacy to deal with his desperately ill companion. Vin was burning with fever. As his delirium built, he muttered incoherent words and phrases, asking repeatedly for Chris and, desperately hot, tried to throw the blanket from him. Knowing that it was not in the tracker’s interests to be exposed to the chilly day, Ezra did all he could to prevent that, but had his work cut out for him in spite of his patient having one arm out of commission. With his thrashing around, Ezra feared that Vin would start his shoulder bleeding again and he had lost too much blood already.
Unfortunately, a sickly sweet smell suggested that the bleeding had not ceased because blood had clotted over the wound in Vin’s shoulder, but rather that pus and swelling had stemmed the flow. “Please, God, don’t let him get blood poisoning,” Ezra whispered, fully aware that such meant a sentence to a particularly unpleasant death. He was not a praying man and so it was with a sense of shock that he realised what he was doing.
The gambler sat there marvelling at how the unkempt tracker had managed to worm his way into his heart. They had nothing in common that Ezra could see, but he knew his life would be immeasurably poorer without the scruffy sharpshooter and his occasional, quietly humorous comments on both the gambler’s values, or lack thereof, and his sybarite lifestyle. Not that the tracker could have used a word like ‘sybarite’, but he never had any trouble making Ezra know exactly what he meant and, on occasion, had roused a conscience that the gambler had though he had satisfactorily disposed of years before. No, somehow the dratted sharpshooter had gained a permanent place in Ezra’s heart and was not going to be dislodged. He had to survive … he had to!
Ezra had seldom experienced such a feeling of relief as when he saw the others approaching and knew that he could at last relinquish his charge into the far more capable hands of Nathan Jackson.
Nathan removed the rough bandage Ezra and JD had applied as gently as possible, but it had become stuck to the wound, pulling at it and starting blood seeping once more. He shook his head worriedly as he saw and smelled the pus. Then he set to work to clean the injury as best he could.
“From the position of the wound, I’d say all vital organs have been missed, but that infection, combined with the loss of body fluids through bleeding and dehydration, has got me worried,” Nathan admitted. “He is in no fit state to travel, but if he is going to survive, we’ve got to get him back to Four Corners.”
They lifted him carefully into the wagon bed and began the slow journey back.
The journey seemed never-ending, but finally the little cavalcade trooped into the town and conveyed Vin to Nathan’s surgery.
Nathan then ordered all, but Chris and Josiah, to leave him alone with his patient. He knew only too well that he would never budge the gunslinger from the clinic while Vin was badly hurt, so it was easiest just to bow to the inevitable and select him to assist.
With Chris’ help, Nathan stripped the tracker. He then suggested that Larabee sponge Vin down to try to cool his overheated body while he dealt with the injuries.
He set Vin’s broken arm and then turned to the knife-wound in his shoulder. The cut was short, but deep. The area around it was red and the injury itself full of dried blood and pus.
Nathan applied a hot poultice to try to drain the wound. Over the following hours he tried several more. Even in his unconscious state, the tracker seemed to sense when a new one was to be applied and turned and twisted in a desperate attempt to forestall the torture, necessitating the assistance of both Chris and Josiah to hold the patient steady.
Vin was so hot with fever that it seemed to be consuming him. For hours, Nathan, Josiah and Chris took turns at sponging him down to try to lower his dangerously high temperature.
For much of the time Vin was oblivious to all but the dark hell of heat and pain in which he was submerged. However, every so often he heard someone speaking softly to him. The voice was low and soothing, calming him when he cried and raved in hurt and fear. A gentle touch of a hand accompanied the voice and drew him back from the terrible nightmares and hallucinations that engulfed him and the darkness that threatened to claim him for its own.
The hours dragged past and all three men were trying to hide their desperation, as they watched the tracker tossing and turning, his breath rasping in his throat. Then suddenly the harsh noise ceased. The three moved forward in trepidation, fearing the worst.
To their collective relief, a moist sheen had appeared on the tracker’s pallid skin.
Nathan felt Vin’s cool forehead and smiled. “Fever’s broken at last,” he proclaimed, smiling wearily. It had been the longest two days any of the three could recall.
He then set to work to remove the shoulder bandage. Even in his unconscious state, Vin sucked in a sharp breath as the wound pulled. The healer pronounced himself more than satisfied with the appearance of the wound. “It’s much better,” he said. “I’ll leave it unwrapped for a few minutes to air and just pop over to the saloon to tell the others the good news.”
“The fever has definitely broken at last and the inflammation is retreating,” Nathan announced in relieved tones. “The worst definitely seems to be over.”
The group had breathed a collective sigh of relief on hearing the first statement, but at the second a disbelieving Buck caught Ezra’s eye and he murmured, “How the hell can Nathan say that? Doesn’t he remember it’s Vin he’s dealing with? How could he forget our tracker is the world’s worst patient?”
An hour or so after Nathan’s return to the clinic, Vin roused. Disorientated and very tired, he could only drink a little water before falling asleep again. He then basically proceeded to sleep the clock round, with only brief periods of awareness and few of lucidity. Nathan considered the rest would do him good.
However, on the fourth day, he awoke and finally recognized his friends and was soon demonstrating the accuracy of Mr Wilmington’s expectations. The first days had been stressful enough in that Nathan had been very worried about Vin’s chances. However, now things became even more tense and difficult because, even allowing for an element of exaggeration in Buck’s comment, no one could have said that Vin was a good patient. Indeed, he was anything but.
In fact, trouble started only a few minutes after he awoke when Nathan went to bandage his shoulder wound again after checking it. He padded the injury and then started to wrap a bandage not only around the shoulder, but also round Vin’s chest, securing his arm against it. “What the hell are ya doin”? the tracker demanded, trying to twist away.
“Hold still, Vin,” Nathan said.
“No! I don’t want my arm bandaged like that! A sling’s bad enough!”
“Havin’ trouble, Nathan?” Chris asked entering the room.
“Mr Tanner objects to my plans for bandaging.”
“He’s tryin’ to tie my fuckin' arm down, Chris,” Vin complained. “Tell him it’s a stupid idea,” he appealed.
“How come, Nate?”
“It’s a bad break, Chris, and knowing Mr Tanner, now he’s getting better, he’ll try to use the arm before he should. You know what he’s like. If he’s got a sling he slips the damn thing off all the time. This way the arm will be immobilised so it can heal properly.”
“Sounds sense to me.”
“Not to me!” Vin said pouting. “And it’s my arm and I’m not goin’ to let ya do that.” Couldn’t they understand how vulnerable he felt? A sling was bad enough, but at least the arm could be used in an emergency. However, what Nathan wanted to do was going to totally preclude that option.
“Be sensible, Vin,” Nathan expostulated. “It’s your gun arm. You don’t want that permanently damaged.”
But it was precisely because it was his gun arm that he did not want it bound. In spite of the fact that he was reasonably ambidextrous and had managed to dispatch four of the bandits with his left hand, it made him feel too defenseless. Not that, being Vin Tanner, he could put that feeling into words. Instead he just stubbornly said, “I don’t care!”
Chris looked at Nathan and then said, “It’s your call, Nathan. If you think it’s necessary, I’ll help you and I’ll get Buck in too if needs be.”
“No! Stay outta this, Larabee!” Vin protested, no longer interested in Chris’ opinion since it was not what he wanted to hear.
But both men ignored him and he found he lacked the strength to stop them despite his best efforts.
When they had finished, he sagged back down against the pillow gasping and as weak as a baby, but silently vowing to pay them both back with total non-cooperation thenceforth.
Mind you, that vow probably made little difference to his subsequent behaviour anyway. As Buck had predicted that was always going to be bad because the tracker hated being confined to bed, he hated being indoors for an extended period (which by his standards meant more than a couple of hours), he hated medication and, above all, he hated being fussed over. Accordingly, as always happened when he was ill or injured, his temper got worse and he became increasingly uncooperative, to the extent that Buck and Josiah had to hold him down so Nathan could pour the medicine into him. When they released him, he was coughing and spluttering and producing swear words that were even unfamiliar to Buck, much to the latter’s amusement.
Even after Nathan had allowed him to leave the clinic for the boarding-house, his behaviour did not improve. Indeed, the fact that Buck and Josiah carried him there on a stretcher, on the healer’s instructions, had made him worse.
Normally the most easy-going person imaginable, Vin became increasingly peevish and snappy, constantly complaining about his treatment and whining out reasons why he had to get out of bed, to which all apparently turned a deaf ear, although away from Vin’s hearing, Buck and JD sniggered about his inventiveness. Both knew Chris’ already short fuse was diminishing rapidly and were constantly anticipating an explosion of volcanic proportions. The pair agreed that the tracker was living incredibly dangerously and that they would not have dared to gainsay Chris Larabee in the way he was doing.
They were quite correct in their reading of the situation as Chris had had more than enough of Vin’s behaviour and was reaching the end of his tether. That annoyance grew when Vin rejected a perfectly good breakfast as inedible, this from the man who recommended such delicacies as rattlesnake, and then positively ballooned when Jim Hudson had called in later in the morning to ask after the patient.
Now Chris did not exactly like Hudson. The man made him slightly uneasy, but if asked why he would have been unable to provide any logical explanation for that feeling. After all, Hudson and his friends might get drunk and be a bit loud at times, but they did not cause any real trouble and always treated him and the others in a friendly manner.
However, it became immediately apparent that, for some unexplained reason, Vin had taken a violent dislike to the man. No sooner had Hudson entered the room than Vin demanded he leave, using words that made even Larabee blush, let alone Caseywho happened to be there as well.
Chris was furious at this unwarranted rudeness and had followed Hudson out of the room to apologize. “I’m sorry, Jim, I …” he started.
But Hudson had smiled and interrupted, “Don’t worry about it, Mr Larabee, I guess we can all get a bit grumpy when we’re ill. I expect I just caught him on a bad day.”
Hudson then left apparently as good-humoured as ever, and Chris had stormed back into the room. “I’ve had enough of this, Vin,” he scolded, glaring at the tracker. “Mr Hudson has gone so you will have to apologize to him later, but you had better apologize to Casey right this minute.”
“’M sorry, Casey,” the tracker mumbled, shamefaced. In his anger at Hudson’s nerve in entering his room, he had quite forgotten her presence.
“Th-That’s all right, Vin,” she replied. She glanced apprehensively at Chris. Even though she knew his ire was directed at Vin rather than her, he frightened her more than somewhat. “I-I’d better go. I’ve got some errands to do for my aunt,” she added hurriedly.
As soon as the door closed behind her, Chris swung back to Vin. “Now what the hell was that all about?” he demanded. “A man pays a civil call and …”
“There’s nothing civil about that fuc-”
“Vin! I’m not prepared to listen to another outburst. What have you got against the man?”
Vin bit his lip. He couldn’t, he just couldn’t tell Chris what the man was like.
“Well, I’m waitin’”
“I-I just don’t like him,” he muttered lamely.
“That’s more than apparent. What I want to know is why.”
“I just don’t! I don’t fuckin' have to like everybody.” He was getting quite agitated.
“Well, ya carry on like this, cowboy, and ya won’t have many people likin’ ya either.”
“Don’t care,” the tracker muttered petulantly. With that Vin pulled the covers up around his face and turned away from Chris apparently sulking.
Larabee had turned on his heel and stalked out at that point, but his anger grew steadily as the day progressed and both Nathan and JD in turn commented to him about the surly way Vin was behaving.
However, early in the evening, Chris decided he ought to go in and try to talk things out with Vin. He hated being at odds with the tracker.
However, his well intentioned attempt to talk got absolutely nowhere. Vin was still unwilling to offer any explanation for his hatred of Hudson and clearly did not want to speak to Chris at all. So Larabee walked out and went straight to the saloon.
Chris went into the bar and began to drink heavily. He knew he should not, but after the stress of the last few days, the escape that alcohol offered was alluring.
Meanwhile Vin fell asleep, but he did not sleep easy. Soon he was tossing in sweat-drenched nightmare. Just as Hudson had dogged his days over recent weeks, now he haunted Vin’s dreams. Vin was in a small, dark room and Hudson was coming after him. He couldn’t see him, but he knew the man was there and he could hear the creak of floorboards beneath the man’s heavy tread. The tracker glanced around frantically, but there were no windows. The only way out was the door and he was sure Hudson was just outside waiting. He could hear the man’s breathing, as he pushed the door open. Vin tried to get up, but his legs didn’t seem to work. He groped desperately at the bedside table in search of his mare’s leg and his hand upset the glass of water there. It fell with a crash.
The sound of breaking glass roused the tracker. His eyes flew open and he glanced around in absolute terror. His heart was racing uncontrollably and his body shaking. The room seemed stifling, the walls closing in on him, the shadows menacing. He had to get some air.
He rolled awkwardly out of bed and snatched his trousers from the nearby chair. Then he sat down on the bed again. Not bothering with underwear, he bent over and managed to draw these over his feet, wincing as he did so. Then he stood up unsteadily and dragged them over his slender hips. It was difficult using only one hand, but he managed it. They hung low on his hips, but the nature of the bandages precluded the use of his suspenders.
He did not bother to look for his boots. He knew his friends had deliberately taken them to forestall any precipitate attempt on his part to get up. Buck had taken great delight in informing him about that the previous day. Well, no matter, he could go barefoot. What counted was just getting out.
In moments he was outside. He glanced around, keeping his back to the wall. His night terrors had receded a little, but were not gone. He did not want to be alone, but knew he would be in trouble if any of his friends saw him, especially Chris. He could see the lights of the saloon. Maybe if he just went a bit nearer to them, he would feel better, feel safer.
Shivering, both from the recent dream and the chilly air, he moved slowly along the porch and was just about to sit down on a seat a few feet from the saloon when the batwings swung open.
‘Oh, hell,’ he thought as a black-clad figure appeared. He shrunk back against the wall, but there was nowhere to run, not that he could have run, but the thought was definitely there. He knew there was no way that the gunslinger would not spot him, as Chris seemed to have a seventh sense as far as he was concerned. His worst fears were immediately realized.
Larabee was furious when he spotted the slight figure on the boardwalk. Vin! Outside in his condition and clad only in his trousers. He hurried forward, muttering a curse. “What the hell do ya think yer doing?” he demanded.
He did not wait for an answer, but clutched Vin’s good shoulder, spun him forcibly around and propelled him bodily back towards his room. The pace was somewhat faster than the still weakened Vin was comfortable with, but he knew there was no stopping Chris when he got his dander up.
They reached the boarding-house and Chris shoved Vin towards his room, not releasing him until they were inside it. As Larabee let go, the tracker staggered, but managed to turn to face the irate gunslinger. “Ch-Chris, I …” he started.
But Larabee had had enough. The worry of the past few days combined with the excessive amount of alcohol he had just consumed and he interrupted snapping, “I don’t want to hear it. I’ve had enough of you. Just get those pants off!”
“Chris, please …” Vin appealed.
“NO! Do as yer bloody told for once!” Larabee ordered angrily.
The tracker flinched at the venom in his voice. He had heard Chris speak like that to others before, but not to him. Never to him. Hanging his head, he began to fumble awkwardly with his fly-buttons with his good hand.
“Hurry up!”
“I-I’m sorry.” As quickly as he could he undid the fly-buttons and then flushing with embarrassment dropped his trousers and stepped out of them. He kept his head down hiding his burning face beneath his long hair.
However, the operation had been too slow for the irate gunslinger. His hand snaked out and grasped Vin’s left wrist in a crushing grip. “Look at me!” he ordered.
“No! Let go! Leave me alone!” The tracker tried to pull free, but could not have broken the hold of those iron fingers on a good day and this was not a good day.
Chris’ temper flared uncontrollably. Hardly aware of what he was doing and certainly with no prior intent, he suddenly twisted Vin’s wrist inwards and down forcing the smaller man to turn back on to him, and then yanked the suffering wrist up the tracker’s back.
Vin gasped in pain as Larabee forced him down across the bed, heedless of his broken arm trapped beneath him. He started to protest, “What the hell …” but broke off in shock as Chris removed his belt and lashed him across the buttocks with it.
Several stinging blows followed. Vin bit his lip and kept silent.
Finally, Chris released his arm and stood up. “Perhaps a sore arse will remind ya I mean to be obeyed in future,” he commented. “Now get back into that damned bed and stay there.” He reached down and scooped up Vin’s jacket and trousers and then he turned on his heel and stalked out, slamming the door.
Vin lay sprawled across the bed where Chris had left him, shaking both with reaction and cold. He felt unaccustomed tears beginning to course down his pale face. He attempted to blink them back, but they were unstoppable. He tried to raise his good hand to scrub them away, but a sharp pain made him aware that Chris’ rough handling had twisted that wrist. ‘Can things get any worse?’ he wondered unhappily.
His heart seemed to be contracting and the pain in his chest was agonizing. He cursed himself for his weakness. He had had far worse beatings in the past in the orphanage and various foster homes, but none that had hurt so damn much.
The trouble was he had never expected anything else from his previous tormentors, as he knew he was worthless in their eyes, but this was different. He had thought Chris liked him and he knew he loved Chris.
He remembered the odd feeling he had had the first time he had locked eyes with the gunslinger. At that moment, he had lost himself. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that at last he had met someone he would die for, someone he desperately needed as a friend. And he had foolishly believed Chris liked him.
Obviously he had been wrong again. He knew he frequently misjudged things. All the adults of his childhood had seemed to delight in pointing out his stupidity.
However, he had managed to avoid any feelings of affection for any of them and had never expected or even hoped for any on their part. That detachment had served him well. If only he had not lowered his defenses when he met Chris Larabee he would now be all right.
Oh, God, it hurt!
He cursed his contemptible weakness. Yer a flamin’ wimp, Tanner, he reprimanded himself. Get a grip on yerself! Yer blubbering like a damned kid. However, the tears continued to trickle down his bone-white face.
His immediate impulse was to leave, but how could he? Chris had taken his clothes and he did not know that he could have managed to dress anyway.
His shivering was getting worse. He knew he ought to get into bed, but that was easier said than done.
Using his left elbow for leverage, he pushed himself backwards, but instead of gaining his feet, he slithered off the bed onto his knees and gradually subsided onto the hard wooden floor.
He raised his left arm and tried to pull a blanket after him, but they had been tightly tucked in on the wall side and he could not seem to shift one. The effort was just too much and he gave up and slid into unconsciousness.
Meanwhile, an extremely angry Chris Larabee had stormed back into the saloon. He stomped up to the bar and demanded, “Whiskey!”
“Trouble?” Ezra questioned, observing his barely contained fury.
“What?”
“Has Mr Tanner been causing more trouble?”
“Why?”
“Those are his clothes, aren’t they? Surely no one else has such woeful lack of sartorial nicety as to wear such disreputable apparel.”
Chris stared at the clothes. He had been so angry that he had actually forgotten he had thrown them over his arm. He cursed and dumped them down on the bar. “Damn him!”
“What act of foolishness has he committed now?”
“He was outside. In this weather!”
“And?”
“And now he’s not!”
“I mean why?”
“I’ve no idea. I was in no mood for his excuses.”
“So one may assume his ears are now burning after one of your little lectures.”
“That’s not all that’s burning. I …” Larabee stopped, appalled as a realisation of what he had just done suddenly hit him.
“I beg your pardon?”
Chris said hurriedly. “He’s p-probably … a bit annoyed that I’ve … taken his clothes.”
“An admirable move that. And may I humbly suggest an even more desirable one would be to take advantage of the wondrous opportunity to dispose of the ghastly things.”
“I don’t think we’d survive that,” Chris said. “He’d probably come gunning for us both.”
“No, I consider that we would actually be completely immune from any retribution on the part of our disreputable associate,” the gambler said smugly.
“Huh, how do ya figure that out?”
“Well, you must have noticed that our contumacious young friend has a rather excessive modesty when it comes to disrobing with others present. Since, as I strongly suspect, he has but one set of clothes, he will be permanently bedridden.”
“Good point!” Larabee said, his brisk tone belying the sick feeling that assailed him. Oh, God, he thought, what the hell did I do that to Vin for? He’ll be so humiliated. He had frequently threatened to beat Vin in the past for various misdemeanours, but had never had any intention of really doing so. He had no idea what could have possessed him to actually do it and he knew he had no right to do such a thing.
Unbeknownst to the pair, they had a very interested audience. Jim Hudson had edged his way surreptitiously along the bar and was listening intently to the exchange. Of course, he had no notion of what Larabee had just done to Vin, but it was clear from the conversation that the tracker was actually alone in his room or the confiscation of his clothing would have been unnecessary.
The confiscation of his clothing! Images of a naked Vin filled his head nearly overwhelming him with desire. He could not wait any longer. And, more to the point, the tracker was in no condition to resist him.
Hudson had always resented the fact that the sharpshooter seemed to have considerably more respect in the town than he did. As far as he was concerned, a pretty boy like Tanner had only one function, and ever since he had first laid eyes on Vin, Hudson had been determined to have him. He had had no clear plan for achieving this goal, but had bided his time. In the meantime, he had enjoyed himself with harassing Vin whenever he could. Of course that was not as good as actually taking the tracker would be, but it had satisfied, to some extent, his desire to dominate.
So now he vacated the bar and headed hurriedly towards his wagon. He blessed his lucky stars that he had brought it into town rather than riding his horse. He climbed aboard and drove to the grove of trees on the outskirts of town.
Leaving the wagon there, he took a coil of rope from the back and hooked it over one shoulder. Then, removing his neckerchief, he moved silently back into the town. He kept off the main street, moving along behind the buildings until he reached the boarding-house. Then he cut up the dark alley alongside, glanced along the street to see no one was in sight, and moved quickly and stealthily along the porch and into the boarding-house.
He considered how fortunate it was that he already knew which room the tracker was occupying. His visit that morning had been a happy coincidence. He had only called in to bait Vin, but as it turned out, his timing had been excellent and meant he did not have to risk a room search. Furthermore, if Vin had taken off once, it would be assumed that he had decided to do so again and there would be no hue and cry for an abductor.