Disclaimer: All characters belong to MGM, Mirisch and Trilogy; not mine, no money.

Saturday in Sonora

“Saddle up, boys.” Chris stood in the door of the bunkhouse, blocking the late afternoon light with his tall form.  At the sound of his voice, Josiah glanced up from buffing his boots, and noticed the others had given him their attention as well.  “We’re headin’ out.”

“Aw, c’mon, Chris,” JD whined, throwing himself back down on his bunk to sulk.  “We just got settled!  Let some of the others go…”

Buck slapped the narrow bunk next to JD’s head, cutting him off sharply.  “Shut up, boy,” he said, his grin gleaming wide.  “Ol’ Chris don’t mean out on the range… do ya, pard?”

Chris just looked at Buck in that way he had that made Josiah think he was seeing clear through to the soul of a man, but Buck’s grin was indomitable.  After only a moment, one side of Chris’s mouth curled up in a half-smile.  “Nope,” and his voice echoed with satisfaction at his tease.  “Tonight we’re goin’ into town.”

Buck whooped and pounded his hand on JD’s bunk again.  “Well, all right!” The others echoed his approval in their own way – JD gave a higher version of Buck’s hoot, Nathan’s grin was a white slash in his face, and Vin’s eyes creased at the corners with his smile.  Josiah contented himself with his own wide grin, anticipating the pleasures the evening might bring.

“Does this largesse on the part of our esteemed employer Mister Travis extend to the use of the bathhouse?” Ezra asked.  He was seated on his bed, leaning back against the support for the upper bunk, and as if by magic, a deck of cards appeared in his hands.  The cards ruffled back and forth through his nimble fingers.

“S’pose it might,” Chris replied, grin widening a little.  “If you can get clean in less than half an hour, anyway. Aim to be leavin’ then.”

Ezra grinned back, gold tooth glinting. “Now that, Mister Larabee, is well worth a celebration.” Before Josiah could blink, the cards were tucked away by that same magical means, and Ezra was rooting through his trunk for clean clothes and soap.  When he approached the door, accoutrements gathered, Chris stepped aside, lips twitching as he fought not to smile.

Ezra paused in the doorway, looking back with one eyebrow arched while the others watched him in bemusement.  “Might I suggest, gentlemen, that the fine ladies of Sonora would be much more… amenable to someone who doesn’t have the fragrance of horse and a week’s worth of dust and dirt clinging to him like a bad relation?”  Then he disappeared.

There was a moment’s silence, then Josiah pulled his boots back on and unfolded himself from his bunk.  “I do believe Mister Standish said we stink, brothers,” he said, his grin widening even more.

JD swung off his bunk and dropped lightly to the floor.  “Hell, I coulda told ya that!” He made a face at Buck and pinched his nose.  “Hooo-eee!”  Then, laughing, he danced backwards to evade the half-hearted swipe Buck directed at him.

“Well, boys?” Even amused, Chris’s voice cut through the others’ laughter and demanded their attention once more.  “You gonna let those fine ladies ignore you because you stink?”

“Hell, no!” Buck answered, and there was a general scramble for clean shirts and soap and razors.  They couldn’t have been more than a couple minutes after Ezra, Josiah judged, but he was already lounging in one of the four tubs the ranch’s bathhouse boasted when they arrived.

As he passed by to the next tub, Buck casually reached out and pushed down on Ezra’s head, dunking him in his bathwater.  He came up spluttering and Buck just laughed.  “That’s for sayin’ we stink, pard,” he said, grinning, then started arguing with JD about who was dirtier and who should go first.

A short while later, after he’d climbed into the tub Vin had just vacated and was letting the warmth of the water soak into him, Josiah glanced over and saw Chris settling into Ezra’s tub.  Ezra had already pulled on a pair of grey pinstripe trousers and was vigorously shaking out a brilliant red tail coat.

Josiah had seen Ezra wear those clothes occasionally – whenever Mister Travis let the boys have some liberty, they headed into town, and Ezra changed out of what Josiah couldn’t help but think of as his “range clothes” and into his “peacock outfit.” These clothes were much finer than what he wore riding herd, and were clearly tailored to fit him perfectly; white silk shirt, vest with a front of red brocade, fine woolen trousers.

Josiah had asked about that one night on the trail.  Ezra had been reluctant at first to tell the tale of how he was working on the Circle T, until Chris had offered to tell it for him, wearing one of his rare grins.  With a sour face, Ezra had capitulated.  “Mister Travis had come into Sonora in search of some recreation.  In hindsight, it was foolish for me to invite him to play, but in my defense, I was quite flush –”

“You’d been winnin’ and got careless,” Chris had interpreted from the other side of the fire.

“Thank you, Mister Larabee,” Ezra retorted with a glower.  “As I was sayin’, Mister Travis appeared to be a gentleman with deep pockets.   So of course, I invited him to play, at which point, Lady Luck turned against me –”

“Thought you didn’t leave nothin’ to chance?”

“In any case,” Ezra had continued, glaring sharply across the fire, “Mister Travis managed to win… a not-insubstantial sum of money from me that evening, not all of which I was able to cover.  To avoid having to spend the equivalent amount of time in Sonora’s less-than-charming penitentiary, I took Mister Travis’s offer to work off my losses.”

“Which were considerable.”

“If I had desired you to tell this particular tale, Mister Larabee, I wouldn’t have prevented you from doing so!”  When Chris said nothing to that, Ezra had huffed and returned his attention to Josiah.  “Mister Travis keeps half of my earnings to offset my… debt, and I receive the miniscule rest.  So that is the short but dismal tale of how I was forced to lay my fine apparel away and don this…” he plucked at the plain cotton of his shirt, similar in cut and quality to the ones the others wore.  “This less-than-satisfactory garb.”

“Imagine the dust would get into some interesting places if you didn’t have it,” Chris had observed, and at the time, Josiah had wondered at his tone – amused still, but with an undercurrent of something he couldn’t quite identify.

And unaccountably, Ezra’s foul humor had slipped away and he’d grinned.  “Mister Larabee, I believe that is quite possibly the most intelligent statement you’ve made this evening.”

“Hey, Josiah?”  Nathan’s voice drew Josiah from his reverie.  He was strapping his knives to his back.  Beyond him, Josiah could just see JD passing back outside.  “You comin’ or you gonna soak ‘till you’re all wrinkly?”

Josiah grinned.  “Just letting the warmth settle into my old bones,” he replied, and rose from the tub, sending the now-lukewarm water sloshing over the side.

More than Chris’s allotted half-hour had passed by the time they rode off the ranch, but there was still plenty of light.  Probably still get to town just after dark, Josiah thought, casting an appraising look at the sky, even if we don’t hurry.

But they were all eager for the diversions of town, and kept pushing the pace.  They arrived in Sonora not long after sunset.  “Just when things get lively,” Buck said, and the absolute delight in his tone was infectious.

They always went to the same place – all the boys from the Circle T did.  The sign out front announced simply that it was a cantina, but they only ever called it Inez’s.  Josiah had learned the name in Spanish – and it sounded like a song of sin, oh, Spanish was such a wicked tongue – but none of the other boys knew what he meant when he called it that.  So Los Ángeles del Capullo de Rosa went unused.

The mescal was free at Inez’s – “free for us,” Buck had clarified for JD the first time they took the youngster there, “not for everyone, so don’t go yappin’ about it.”  It had been free for them – the boys from the Circle T – as long as Josiah had been with the outfit, but he couldn’t recall having ever heard the story of why.  So JD asked.  And asked.  Buck’s smile, which he never seemed to be without, dried up like a creek in high summer whenever the subject came up. Chris was as silent as he usually was, but it felt like his silence had a colder quality than usual, so much so that Josiah couldn’t contain a shiver, and Ezra, who normally wouldn’t stop talking, kept his mouth shut so tight that his jaw muscles jumped.

Eventually JD learned to stop asking, but Josiah knew that didn’t mean he’d stopped wondering about it, any more than Josiah himself had.  He and Nathan had speculated about it from time to time, leaning over their saddle horns while riding herd, but hadn’t come to a satisfactory answer.  When they had asked Vin what he thought, he had just shrugged in that expressive way he had.  “Don’t guess it matters none,” was all he’d say when they pushed for an answer.

Inez always greeted them joyfully when they strode in, and this night was no exception.  “So very good to see you again, seńors!” she called, and laughed when Buck picked her up to swing her around.

“Where’s my kiss, darlin’?” Buck asked, dark eyes sparkling, and Inez made a show of refusal before relenting to press a light kiss to each cheek.  Chris and Ezra also received kisses, the rest of them bright smiles and warm handclasps.

It was noisy and cheerful inside Inez’s.  There were cowhands from neighboring ranches, and a few vaqueros, dark and swarthy.  A skinny man with a shock of brown hair played a bright tune on the plinky old piano in the corner.  Seńoritas with painted lips and knowing eyes would bring drinks and cigars and dance for a coin, would slip away upstairs for a few more.

Laughing, Maria grabbed Josiah’s arm and towed him behind her to the bar.  Flora was waiting for him after he’d downed his first whiskey, and pulled him to dance.  No sooner was one song done than another one started, and he found himself dancing with first Rosalita, then Annette, who had confessed to him one night that her Ma had named her Maggie, but could put on a French accent with the best of them.

After dancing with Sweet Ana, who had the loveliest disposition of any girl he’d ever met, Josiah, somewhat out of breath, pleaded age and thirst and she settled him at a table with a bottle of whiskey.  Of course, as soon as he’d poured himself a glass, Buck came over to join him, Maria under his arm, then Vin, then Nathan, and each of them poured a glass of their own.  When Ezra sat down across the table, there was only a couple of glasses-worth left in the bottle.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting some, too,” Josiah said, resigned to having purchase a new bottle.

“Now how could I possibly refuse such a generous offer?” Ezra’s sarcasm was blunted, however, when he put another bottle on the table.  “However, as you can see, I am admirably fortified.”

He grinned wolfishly and tossed back his own drink.  “What fine manners you have, Ezra.”

“Instilled in me by my sainted mother.”  Ezra’s hands flashed over his deck and Josiah looked down to discover several cards stacked neatly in front of him.  “Are you perhaps interested in a game of chance?” Ezra inquired with a gold-tinted grin.

Josiah felt his grin fade a little, and he took a moment to examine the man across from him.  He was holding a small fan of cards himself, and looked at Josiah guilelessly over them.

“You know I’ve got strong views on cheating, Ezra,” he warned in a low voice, pouring out the last of the whiskey in his bottle.

Ezra’s smile didn’t falter.  “I have already taken that into account,” he said, and the words were just loud enough to carry across the table in the din of the cantina.  “I am as capable of playing an honest game as the next person, and that, sir, was an honest deal.”

Slowly, Josiah nodded.  “Well then, pass me one of those cigars I know you’ve got in your pocket and we can have us a game.”

Ezra’s grin grew a bit wider as he pulled a cigar from the inner pocket of his coat.  “You won’t be averse if the boys from the 4L eventually join us?” he asked, passing it over.  “Some of them are clearly thinking their chances are good.”

“You mean there’s some that haven’t played against you yet?” Mock astonishment colored his tone, as he stood and grabbed the lantern on the nearby support post.  The chair creaked in protest when he sat back down.  He set the lantern on the table, and leaning carefully in, used the flame to light the cigar.

Having gotten the cigar going to his satisfaction, Josiah looked up and discovered Chris standing behind Ezra’s chair.  Chris leaned over to speak to him, one arm resting on the back of the chair, his other hand curled around a glass of whiskey on the table.  His hat dangled down his back by the stampede strings, and lank fair hair fell into his eyes; in the lamplight, it was as gold as Ezra’s tooth.  He was completely at ease and smiling as he so rarely did, so that his eyes crinkled at the corners.

He spoke quietly enough for only Ezra to hear; whatever it was that Ezra said in reply made Chris’s grin widen.  Ezra gave Chris a smug little smile and nodded toward the table, eyebrows raised in silent question, but Chris shook his head and straightened again.  When he pulled his hand away from the chair, it looked like his fingers brushed along Ezra’s shoulder. 

With a smile that Josiah had never seen him wear before but could only describe as soft, Ezra watched Chris’s lean form until he returned to where Vin stood at the bar.  Then, as if suddenly recalling that he wasn’t alone, his glance cut quickly to Josiah. 

Expecting this, Josiah made sure he was leaned back in his chair studying his cards, shifting them back and forth to organize them so that they’d seem like a better hand than they really were.  He only looked up again when he deemed it safe.

Meeting his eyes, Ezra took a sip from the whiskey glass Chris had left on the table, watching him intently over the rim.  Waiting, perhaps, for him to say something.

He’s gonna have a long wait, Josiah thought, taking a couple of puffs off the cigar.  He’d known for at least the last six months he’d been working the Circle T that Chris and Ezra shared a bed.  Of course, discovering that had been an accident; a late night trip to the privy, the moonlight over his shoulder as he re-entered the bunkhouse illuminating Chris’s bunk and his dozy realization that the blankets there were covering more than one person.

More awake, he had slowly closed the door, let his eyes adjust to the dim light coming through the dirty window before taking a closer look.  The shadows were so thick it took a moment for Josiah to recognize Chris, even though it was his bunk; in sleep, his features lost the tension and the cares that had taken their toll on him, and he looked young, perhaps even younger than his years.

The man in Chris’s embrace slept half draped over him in the narrow bunk, one arm curling over Chris’s chest and under his arm to cup his shoulder.  His head was tucked against Chris’s shoulder, his face pressed to Chris’s throat.  Where the blanket had slipped down, Chris’s arms were pale gold against the moon-washed white of the other’s shirt; Josiah could see dark hair licking over the collar.

It had been the whiteness of that shirt that had made him believe it was Ezra with Chris in his bunk.  He glanced over to the bunk where Ezra normally slept, found it empty and was certain.  When he had turned back to Chris’s bunk, he was pinned by dark eyes glittering in the moonlight.  Chris’s gaze never wavered, and even though the only sounds were the others’ soft breaths and Buck’s occasional snore, Josiah had known exactly what Chris was saying: You can’t accept this, best move on right now, ‘cause I won’t let you hurt him.

Josiah had met that hard stare and nodded once, and felt nothing but relief when Chris’s expression softened slightly.  Then Chris closed his eyes and shifted the smallest bit, so that his cheek rested against Ezra’s hair, and seemed to fall back to sleep.  Josiah had crawled back into his own bunk, but sleep had been a long time returning for him.

Breaking free of the memory, he raised his eyes. Ezra was still studying him across the table, still waiting.  “You know, Ezra” he said, tapping his cards to line them up again, “I’m not nearly drunk enough to play poker with you if this is an example of what you’re going to be dealing.”  He tossed the cards onto the table; they skittered and slid across the scarred wood.

With a slow grin, Ezra set the whiskey glass back on the table and stretched to gather up Josiah’s cards.  “Well now,” he drawled, long fingers shuffling the deck with ease, “if that is truly the case, then perhaps one of these lovely seńoritas will be so kind as to offer you a libation?”

Josiah reached out a long arm and grabbed the dusky-skinned beauty just passing by his seat.  She squealed and giggled as he drew her down to his lap in a flurry of skirts.  “Mescal, por favor, Rosalita,” he rumbled.

“Of course, Padre,” she replied, somewhat breathless from laughter.  Or perhaps it wasn’t laughter, because she laid one arm around his shoulders and leaned against him to murmur, “And after, maybe you will be so good as to help me pray?”

He knew he should have been used to this, but it still took him by surprise each time they called him Father.  It doesn’t do any good to regret lying with Maggie, or tellin’ her I used to be a priest, he thought, ignoring the way Ezra hid his humor behind his glass.  Or that she told the others.  What’s done is done.  Only thing left to do is deal with the consequences.  “Well, why don’t we see what the evening brings?” was all he could say.

Rosalita curved her red lips in a pretty pout, knowing a refusal when she heard one, no matter how gently it was put, but went off to fetch the mescal he’d asked for.

“Best bring the bottle,” Ezra called after her, then turned back to give Josiah an innocent look.

“I think I’m going to need it,” Josiah muttered, and gestured Ezra to deal again.

The mescal was smoky-tasting and strong, and after a glass or two, he was slouched down a little in his seat, considering the third – or was it fourth? – hand, and running a thoughtful eye over his winnings so far. An honest game, he thought wryly, casting a quick glance across the table.  Ezra’s attention was fixed politely on him, waiting for his open.  I should have known better.  He’s playing to lose, just to draw those 4L boys in.

When Josiah collected his winnings from the latest round, two of the cowhands from the 4L wandered over and asked if they could join.  Ezra’s smile was broad and welcoming as they put up their stakes and accepted their cards, and Josiah expected his luck to change.

But it didn’t.

He won that hand, lost the next, won the following, and through the haze of smoke and mescal, he started to wonder just what Ezra was doing.  After another glass, though, he thought, Maybe it’s not Ezra’s doin’ at all.

Across the table, Ezra’s eyes were narrowed, but whether it was at the game or against the smoke from the lanterns and cigars, Josiah couldn’t tell. 

As the night deepened and the noise from the dancers and drinkers ebbed and flowed around them, they kept playing.  The stakes of the 4L hands rose and fell slightly, Ezra’s seemed to gain more only to lose more, and Josiah’s kept steadily growing, even after he finished his bottle of mescal.

Eyes blurry, he kept staring across the table, alternately studying his cards and picking up his empty glass.  After a short while, Rosalita filled it for him, but didn’t leave a new bottle.  She frowned at him when he thanked her, but it was a very lovely frown so he didn’t mind.

One last hand, Josiah decided.  Ezra’s grin still glinted gold at him, but now it didn’t seem quite so pleasant.  He didn’t think he’d won that much from Ezra, but the plain fact was that Ezra didn’t like to lose if he hadn’t set it up that way.  Josiah could see menace in his smile now, and the desire to get even hovering over his shoulder.

It was… unsettling.

Maybe this hand should be over now.  He tossed in his hand and stood – too quickly as it turned out, because when he hadn’t been paying attention, his balance had somehow disappeared, and he had to catch himself on the table.  While there, he took the opportunity to collect his winnings and stuff the money into his pocket.

“Josiah?” Ezra set his cards down on the table, made as if to rise.  “Are you…”

Josiah straightened, felt the room whirl itself about him and caught himself before it could catch him.  That’s better.  “I’m fine,” he replied very carefully.  “Just need some air.” He pivoted with that same caution – never know when the room might take it into its head to go all widdershins again – and made his way to the back door.

Behind him, he heard Ezra say, “Thank you for an entertaining game, gentleman…” but then it was swallowed by the din.  Even after stepping out the back door, he could still hear calls and laughter and a hint of that old piano.

After all the heat of bodies – some unwashed, some very unwashed – and lamps and lanterns inside, the air outside was crisp and cool.  Josiah stumbled his way down the narrow back steps and sagged against the corner of the building, letting it prop him up so that he could get his feet sorted again.  “Now, I seem to recall,” he said, looking down at the toes of his boots, “God made man in his own image… and I’m pretty sure that God don’t have two feet that misbehave like you do.  You don’t want to be agin’ the Lord, do you?  So the two of you do what I tell you to do.”

Having given his feet the talking-to they seemed to have needed, he levered himself away from the wall, managed to grab hold of his balance before it could abandon him entirely and decided he could probably turn around without falling.

“Your life or your money,” the voice whispered in his ear, a low drawl.

It took him a moment to recognize what was going on; his height and the breadth of his shoulders had always been enough to fend off thieves before.  But whoever it was probably thought he was too soused to defend himself.  I’ll show them, he thought.

He went for his gun, sure that he could pull it before the thief noticed.  But he reached and kept on reaching, and felt a moment of blunted panic.  I didn’t take it off… where is it?

Darkness filled up his consciousness, and as it overwhelmed him, his last thought was, Don’t I know that voice?

***

Josiah woke up face down, stretching his length in the alley behind Inez’s.  His mind felt muddled, and he shook his head to clear it, but it didn’t help much, just made the world spin around him until he felt like retching.  Been drinkin’ again, he admonished himself.  Have to do some penance for that…

He managed to crawl up to his knees before his memory started to clear through the alcoholic blur.  Robbed, he thought, recalling the voice behind him, the demand for his money.  I’ve been robbed.  They took my gun and robbed me!

Then he remembered the voice, the way it sounded in his ear, familiar as a friend.  As familiar as the friend it belonged to.  “Ezra,” he growled, fists clenching in the dirt. “Ezra, you son of a bitch!”  Anger swept over him, scorching hot as the desert sun, and with it, a matching thirst for vengeance.  “You bastard, you’d rob a man who won from you fair and square? You’d rob a man who called you friend?”

And what about Chris? blazed suddenly across his mind.  Chris and Ezra had been talking too softly for him to hear.  He’d thought at first that maybe Chris was just letting Ezra know he’d gotten a room upstairs for them to later slip away to, but now that whispered conference took on a much darker cast.  Do you think that Chris didn’t know what he was planning? Do you think that Chris wouldn’t have helped him, his lover?

“They betrayed me,” he told the alley, his voice low and harsh.  “The pair of them…They betrayed me, and they’ll pay for it like the Judases they are.”  Rage drove him to his feet, barely let him stagger as he hurried around to the front of the cantina again.

Their horses were still hitched to the rails along the street.  Pushing in among them, he found his mount and pulled his rifle from the saddle scabbard.  He made certain it was loaded, then entered the cantina once more.

The first thing he saw was Chris.  He’d taken off his hat and duster and was half-surrounded by admiring working girls and the hands from the neighboring ranches.  He was putting on a show, twirling his pistol.   No, two pistols.  And that other one must be mine, Josiah thought, vengeance cranking up another needful notch inside him, because Chris only ever carries one.

There was a faint flush to Chris’s tanned cheeks; one corner of his mouth curled up in a tiny pleased smile. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Ezra, let his hands make those fancy moves on their own.

Ezra leaned one shoulder against a support for the ceiling, watching Chris in turn, grinning wide enough for his dimples to wink.  He’d taken off his tail coat, and his shirtsleeves seemed to glow in the smoky interior of the cantina, barred by his sleeve-garters and the pattern of his vest.  His hands were busy; he let something fall from one to the other, only to pick it up and start again.  Josiah focused on those nimble hands, and whatever it was glittered, throwing back the lamplight in a golden sparkle.

He’s got my money!  Fury coursed through him, catching in his throat and choking.  He’s playing with my winnings in front of everybody!  Unable to stomach an act of treachery so blatantly displayed, Josiah swung his rifle at Ezra and fired.

Instantly a dark stain appeared low on Ezra’s waistcoat, to one side of the double row of buttons closing the front.  He jerked, body snapping taut, and his mouth fell open, only to work soundlessly. Stumbling, graceless, he fell forward.  The support post against which he’d been leaning glistened wet and red.

Sudden screams battered against his ears, but Josiah only had eyes for Chris, and twitched the rifle to the side to cover him.  Chris reacted instinctively to the sound of gunfire, and brought both guns around to point in the direction from which the shot had come.  His eyes widened, and it looked like he said “Josiah?” but it went unheard over the shrieks of the seńoritas and the pounding of running feet.

“An eye for an eye, brother,” Josiah said, keeping his gaze fixed on Chris, even though he was sure Chris couldn’t hear him.  “A tooth for a tooth.”  Satisfaction burned through him; his vengeance was almost complete.

A heartbeat later, Chris dropped both guns and reached instead to catch Ezra as he staggered forward.  “Ezra?”  He wrapped both arms around Ezra to keep him upright, then discovered where the bullet had left Ezra’s body, feeling the blood pumping out over his hand.  The black glare he focused on Josiah as he gently lowered Ezra to the floor was filled with hate enough to kill a lesser man.  “Nathan!” he bellowed, and the anger in his tone couldn’t quite disguise the panic.  “Nathan!”

As his shout faded away, a hush descended on the cantina, still and quiet as the desert night, and into that awful silence, Josiah heard Ezra whisper, “Chris… shot?”

“Lemme through!” Nathan’s deep voice demanded.  Slowly, the crowd shuffled aside for him, and some of the cowhands headed for the door.

Chris held Ezra awkwardly tucked against him, trying to keep one hand against the exit wound in his side, trying to prevent his blood from gushing out to pool on the floor, and failing.  “Yeah, you got shot,” he said, voice ragged.  “Just hang on, all right?”

Then Nathan crouched down at Ezra’s side.  “Christ, bullet went right through,” he muttered, and ripped off his neckerchief, wadded it up and pressed down hard on the exit wound.  Ezra made a strangled sound, a scream behind clenched teeth, and arched weakly away from the pain.  “Chris, lie him down, gotta make sure he don’t bleed out where it went in, too.”  As Chris carefully lay Ezra down, Josiah could see a smear of blood over his stomach where he had held Ezra against him, could see blood coating his hand.  “Buck, Vin, need some help here!  Chris, need you to… Chris!”

But Chris grabbed one of the pistols he’d dropped only moments before and rose to his feet, and fury burned in his eyes.  Before Josiah could do more than read death in his face, Buck grabbed Chris’s wrist and held on with all his strength.  “Chris, stop,” he ordered harshly.

“Let go, Buck,” Chris retorted, his tone low and flat and deadly.  He strained against Buck’s grip, trying to aim at Josiah.

“No, I won’t,” Buck said, and even though he spoke softly, the words filled every corner of Inez’s.  “You kill him, the sheriff’ll take you away instead.  Then who’ll be with Ezra?”

Chris’s eyes darted to Buck, back to Josiah, and his fight against Buck weakened a little.

Vin knelt now on Ezra’s other side, where Chris had been, trying to staunch the bleeding where the round had entered Ezra’s side.  Ezra cried out again, and the sound seemed to arc through Chris like lightning; eyes wild, he almost managed to break loose.  Buck had to hold on with both hands.

Lowering his voice so that no one else could hear, Buck spoke right into Chris’s ear.  Whatever he said made Chris slump, all resistance melting out of him in an instant.  Slowly, he unclenched his fingers from around the gun, releasing it into Buck’s hand, before abruptly turning his back on Josiah to kneel beside Ezra again.

Buck stared down at the pistol for a long moment, then tucked it into the waistband of his pants.

Josiah recognized the gun.  It wasn’t his.  It wasn’t Chris’s.  It was Ezra’s.

The satisfaction he’d felt at seeing Ezra’s blood had already started to wane, as if the blood was the antidote not only to the need to redress the wrongs done to him but also to what had created that need in him in the first place.  He lowered the rifle, staring at the men he worked with, his friends.

One of those friends had been shot, had been shot in the gut, was probably dying.  And I did that, he thought, almost numb.  I pulled the trigger, put that wound on him…

He let go the hand he’d used to steady the barrel, letting the rifle hang by the stock in his other hand.  As they passed his hip, his fingers touched metal, and he froze.  It can’t be.  I was robbed, I didn’t have my gun…

But Chris hadn’t been twirling his gun, he’d been twirling Ezra’s.  If Chris didn’t have my gun, if he had Ezra’s… Dread filled the very pit of his stomach.  He swallowed against the dryness in his throat and looked down.

His gun rode his hip, in his holster same as always.

All he could do was stare at it, the very familiarity of it strange.  They didn’t take my gun, he thought, horror dawning in him.  They didn’t take my gun.  I had it the whole time.

And if my gun was there all along… Heedlessly, he dropped the rifle to the floor, thrust his hands into his pockets.

Gold and silver coin, warm from the heat of his body.  Bills, some crisp, some worn from much folding.  Everything he’d won, everything he’d picked up from the poker table earlier, all there in his pockets.

He hadn’t been robbed.  He’d shot one of his friends, and the reason for it hadn’t even been real.

Who is really the Judas here?

“Merciful Lord,” he whispered.  “What have I done?”

Just then, a man wearing a sheriff’s star appeared beside him.  He wasn’t as old or as tall as Josiah, but he carried himself with an aura of authority that made him seem bigger than he was, an air that said he expected to be obeyed.  “I’ll have to ask you to take off your gun,” he said, eyes solemn.

Moving somehow through the nightmare that this evening had become, Josiah’s hands went to his gunbelt, but his eyes were locked on the knot of his friends.

“Be best if we got him to a bed,” Nathan said.  He pulled his neckerchief away from the wound he’d been pressing on; it was so soaked with blood it was no longer doing any good.  “Damn!  Wish I’d brung my bag.”

“Got a room upstairs.”  Chris’s voice was low.  He sat on the floor, one hand resting lightly on Ezra’s head, the other gripping one of Ezra’s hands so tightly his knuckles had turned white.

“Sure we can move him?”

Nathan’s voice dropped.  “Don’t guess it matters much now.”

Immediately, Chris lifted his head to glare hotly at Nathan.  “Don’t,” he ordered quietly.

“But, Chris…”

“Don’t.” The word was a fierce, grating whisper, and the others fell silent, looking anywhere but at Chris.

Nathan sighed.  “Buck, you get his feet.  Vin, you keep pressin’ on that.  Chris… all right, lift up.”

Ezra moaned as they picked him up from the floor, a sound filled with agony.  Bending forward, Chris murmured a few words to him, then they were moving toward the stairs, following Inez.  Her dark eyes glittered and tears streaked her cheeks.

The sheriff took Josiah’s gunbelt from his motionless hands and slung it over his shoulder.  The movement jarred Josiah, and he was able to tear his eyes away.  The sheriff had already picked up the rifle from the floor.  “Come with me,” he directed, clasping his free hand around Josiah’s arm to guide him.  Blindly, Josiah followed, head bowed.

The sense of eyes on his back penetrated the heaviness of remorse, and at the door, Josiah paused, glancing back into the cantina.

His back against the far wall, JD stood staring at him.  His face was as white as a sheet, and filled with a heartbreaking combination of betrayal and fear and confusion.  He blinked and caught Josiah looking at him, then quickly turned away, hurrying in the direction the others had taken Ezra, following the splatters of blood up the stairs.

***

Dawn had finally come, and the sun had just crept through the barred windows of the jail when a bell started to peal, breaking the cool morning air.  Calling the righteous to church, Josiah thought.  He didn’t move from his position hunched on the bunk, staring down at his hands, folded as if in prayer.

Outside the cell, the sheriff sat at his plain desk, glancing up occasionally.  From the scratch of nib on paper, it sounded like he was writing something.

After the bell stopped tolling, all was silence.  Josiah’s fingers tightened against each other, then relaxed, over and over.  The Lord is merciful and forgives even the vilest of sinners, he told himself.

Bootheels sounded against the boardwalk outside the jail, and Josiah stiffened, listening closely.  As they grew closer, underneath the hollow thuds, he could hear the familiar ring of spurs, and he turned toward the front of the jail.  The sheriff stood and made his way over to the door.

A moment later, Chris appeared in the jail doorway.

The front of his shirt was stained, patches of rusty brown and streaks of a somewhat brighter red, and Josiah knew it was Ezra’s blood.  Both cuffs were soaked, dark with water, as if he’d plunged his hands into a basin without care.  The blond hair was matted, and looked like he’d pushed it back with hands sticky with blood.  His lips were pressed thin, white, his eyes blazed cold fury, and there were lines carved around both that hadn’t been there before.

Before Chris could take a step into the jail, the sheriff blocked his path.  “I’ll take your weapon,” he said firmly.

Chris just stared at him, but the sheriff didn’t back down, didn’t even flinch as he met that icy gaze.  After a moment, Chris pulled his gun and handed it to the sheriff butt first.  The man nodded and stepped aside, setting the gun on his desk.

Chris strode up to the cell and stared at Josiah through the bars, saying nothing.  Josiah could not meet the rage and pain in his face for long, and bowed his head.

“If there was really any justice,” Chris said at last, his voice rough, pitched just above a whisper, “you would feel every minute of his suffering.”

It took every bit of courage he had, but Josiah forced himself to meet Chris’s eyes.  “I would welcome it, brother,” he replied in a soft rumble.

Chris’s hand clenched around one of the bars, and Josiah could see blood embedded in the skin around his knuckles.  His face took on a pinched look, as if he were fighting the feelings roiling inside him.  Then he shivered once, quickly controlled, and sucked in a breath. “Burn in hell,” he ground out, before spinning around and striding quickly to the door.

Josiah watched the empty door way for a long moment before returning to his study of his hands and the old planks of the floor.  I probably will, he thought.

Somehow, that thought didn’t frighten him the way it used to.

“Happened just a little while ago.”  Buck’s voice was soft, but still drew Josiah out of his dark thoughts with a start.  When he raised his eyes, Buck was standing in front of his cell, his whole demeanor telling of grief, from his slumped shoulders to the dampness in his eyes.  “’Least he didn’t have to suffer too long.  Seen men linger for days…” He trailed off.

After a moment, he gathered himself and went on, “Ever since Ezra had worked off his debt to ol’ Mister Travis, he’d do what he did last night.  Playin’ to lose goes against everythin’ I know about him, but I reckon I know why he did it.”

The knife twisted in his own gut.  Josiah just sagged forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his forehead on his clasped hands.  “I can’t bring him back, Buck,” he said.  “I wish I could.  I’ve got no excuse.  I made a mistake, and now I’ll pay for it.”

Buck didn’t speak, and what he didn’t say – you ain’t the only one who’s payin’ – was even more accusing in its silence.

“Well.”  Buck straightened a little.  “Reckon I’d better go keep an eye on Chris, make sure he don’t do nothin’ too…” He cut himself off, sounding a little choked, and turned away.  “Thank you, Sheriff,” he said, his tone a parody of his usual cheerful manner, “for keepin’ Chris’s gun.  I’ll take it with me, just in case he gets it into his head to come back for it.” 

Josiah tilted his head to watch Buck depart, wondering if the others would come, and hoping they wouldn’t.

Just as Buck’s shadow was lost to his view, he heard a clatter of wood and metal, and a shiver ran down his spine.  The gallows, he thought, and closed his eyes.  They’re testing to make sure it works. That’s my destiny, right there outside the jail.

“An eye for an eye,” he whispered.

***
September 15, 2010
© randi (K. Shepard), 2010