FORTITUDE
By: Heather F.
Night stretched across the land. The monochromatic dark gray of late twilight blurred the land. The boundary time between twilight and true night seemed to be the invisible time that everything held the same hue. Animal, beast and plant life carried the same shade of gray. Things black became deep holes in the environment. Whites stood out brilliantly but the rest slid into a blinding gray. Night encroached quickly from here.
Dark banks of thunderheads rolled toward them. Lightening streaked across the sky over distant mesas. Clouds turned a surreal pink with each jagged flash. Wind howled, sending night creatures for cover. A hawk rode the thermal currents swooping and spiraling, frolicking in the freedom.
Josiah put a restraining hand on Chris' upper arm.
Chris heeded Sanchez's silent request. The dark gunslinger rechecked his gun.
Nathan sat on the ground checking his knives.
Josiah flexed and unflexed his fists. He raised his face to the darkening sky and prayed for strength and speed.
Seven captors against six lawmen. The odds weren't favorable but Sanchez figured the outlaws should have known to bring more men to even the odds.
Ezra screamed for JD, desperately reaching to grab hold of something or someone. Nettie, Inez, and Mary pushed him back down.
He threw his head left and right, fighting enemies only his mind's eye could see. He struggled and fought. Again a howl of anguish escaped as he thrashed wildly, lost in nightmares.
Vin fumbled with the key he had taken from Rosenburg earlier. Numb, swollen fingers did not readily cooperate.
Tanner felt the ground shudder at the encroaching explosions of thunder.
The shackles slipped free. The tracker remained still, fighting the smile that desperately wanted to mock his captors.
Wilmington turned his head and stared at the tracker. JD had succumbed to feverish dreams. Buck knew tonight would be the night. People would die under the veil of this storm.
Chris slipped through the desert, nearly obsessed with retrieving his men and avenging the abuses that had befallen them.
Sanchez had melted into the night circumventing the area.
Nathan slid from the north, flanking Larabee's left and Sanchez's right.
The clouds above cracked with a deafening cacophony of thunder. Rain poured in sheets from the heavens.
Visibility quickly diminished in the thickness of a stormy night.
Tanner unpeeled the metal cuffs from his wrists. Rain splattered his head and body. Water cascaded down his face, stringing his hair to his scalp.
Buck nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand rested on his shoulder. Wilmington felt the key press into his palm. The ex-Texas Ranger never said a word.
"Hey, Vin, jist remember the kid 'n me are on yer side." Wilmington's half smile was met with a smirk and a wink.
Tanner disappeared into the night like a drop of water into a river.
Wilmington wrestled with his manacles. He jumped when a voice rumbled over his shoulder. "Which one left Ezra in the desert?" Josiah leaned so close that his breath warmed Buck's ear.
"Rosenburg, the one with Vin's teeth marks on his face." Wilmington continued to wrestle with the lock hoping the others saved one of the captors for him.
Lightening flashed. Sheets of rain beat the ground. Earthworms struggled and drowned in accumulating ground water. Thunder rolled in ominous warnings before cracking with bone chilling intensity. The sheer volume of sound seemed to vibrate through the earth.
Chris hesitated just beside the smoldering campfire. Josiah to his left, Nathan to his right. Both men lost in the thick veil of rain and smothering blackness.
Lightening split the night again. The roll of thunder gathering intensity before the staccato of flashes disappeared all together.
It was then that Larabee saw him. In that brief illuminating flash Larabee saw the tracker, as clear as midday.
Through the rain, under the hue of a lightening strike, Vin stood silent like a creature spawned from hideous nightmares, behind Cletis. The glint of finely worked steel sparked in the light.
As quick as the lightening flashed it dissipated. Thunder boomed, cracking the sky as if to split it in two.
Larabee cursed and prayed for the next bolt of light.
It came.
Tanner was gone. Cletis lay twisted on the ground his head nearly decapitated from under the jaw line.
Sweet Jesus.
A form tackled Larabee from behind. Chris tucked and rolled, springing to his feet. With a growl of relief, the leader of the Seven attacked his unseen assailant with vigor.
Nettie ducked the flaying arm like a seasoned boxer. With both hands, she pinned the outstretched elbow hoping to keep it still.
Mary struggled with the other arm.
Kerosene flames flickered and wavered with each cascading burst of thunder. Lightening cracked and hissed the air.
The fight in Ezra's room escalated.
With wild blood shot eyes, he struggled and fought demons from another time and place. With terror born of fever and bred of panic, he vainly strove against the forces attempting to subdue him.
Inez, Nettie and Mary - disheveled and scared - felt the twinges of fear and frustration.
"We need help." Mary knelt on the biceps area, keeping the flaying arm from tossing punches at Nettie.
"I saw Yosemite downstairs," Nettie ground out between clenched teeth.
"I'll get him." Inez put down the cup of herbal broth and ran from the room as another thunderhead shattered the night. She shut the door drowning out the hoarse cry of the southerner.
JD opened a bleary eye. He heard cannons. His face felt wet. Water dripped down his cheek, across his nose and into the dirt. Was he crying? Gawd, he hoped he had not succumbed enough to show such blatant weakness. He needed to be strong for Buck and Vin.
Dunne blinked water out of his eyes. More pelted his body. It was raining and night. The cannons transformed into banks of thunder. With each rattling boom, lightening split the sky.
With fevered eyes, Dunne thought he saw Josiah heave a man over his head. For a terribly brief moment, he though the preacher looked something like a crazed bear. 'Perhaps he was dreaming?' In one instant, Rosenburg had been suspended over Sanchez's head and the next, the lightening winked out under another frightful crack of thunder. Thick blackness collapsed over the area. JD couldn't see his own feet.
Rain cried from the heavens.
Lightening shocked the night again. The night sky became brilliant, almost like morning. Rosenburg lay broken and unblinking, his mouth gaped open in a silent scream. His back had a strange hitch in it. 'Maybe it wasn't a dream after all.'
JD couldn't find Josiah.
The lightening flashed off as thunder crashed overhead. The wagon rattled.
Nathan stood off to the left. Twin blades flew from his hands. Dunne watched mesmerized as they turned, handle over blade, across the camp and over the smoldering campfire to embed themselves into the dark silhouette of a body.
Darkness recaptured the land under the roar of thunder.
JD closed his eyes against the pain and burning in his body. He struggled weakly with his bound hands trying desperately to help. Buck and Vin had disappeared. Thunder boomed and the lightening strobed on and off too fast to make any sense. JD wiggled tiredly against his bonds.
Why he opened his eyes a second time the young sheriff would never recall. Feverish, hazel eyes tried to focus in a hazy dream world. Someone leaned over him. Someone with a knife. The foul breath foretold of one of their captors . . . Cletis? Tiny?
JD tried to move his hands. The old iron shackles merely dug deeper into the worn grooves of his wrists. He wanted to swing his legs up to buck off the person straddling him. Muscles quivered and strained.
The knife descended. Dunne couldn't see it in the claustrophobic darkness, but he knew it sliced its way toward his throat. Knew it with a certainty . . . .
