Disclaimers: Not mine, etc.
"Ok, Chris, turn right. Here." Buck gestured towards the road appearing rapidly through the windshield.
"Are you sure?" Chris shot him a skeptical look. "I think we need to keep going straight."
"Uh, yeah," Buck frowned discreetly at his map. "Yep," he said more confidently. "Turn here."
Chris made a face, but swung the wheel as ordered. Chris grinned nastily as a pothole in the road tested the truck's shocks. The truck didn't seem to have any.
"Hey!" Vin hollered from behind him, "slow down will ya?" In response the truck bounced through another couple of ruts forcing Vin to brace himself on the ceiling to avoid hitting his head. Grumbles filled the vans interior as everyone, save JD and Chris himself, made their discomfort loudly known. JD on the other hand cheered loudly encouraging Chris to "put the petal to the floor."
"Ya know Buck," Chris remarked casually after a few minutes, "I think we took a wrong turn."
"You think!" Ezra snarled from the middle of the second bench where he was stuffed in between Vin and JD. "We are suppose to be in the middle of Denver."
"This is a short cut," Buck barked, annoyed that his map reading was being questioned.
"He's right," JD announced, holding his compass up, "we're still going North. The direction we're suppose to be going," he added for Ezra's benefit, since it was a well-known fact that Ezra had no sense of direction what so ever.
Chris mumbled something from the drivers seat that could be taken several different ways, most of them bad. He stepped on the brake, hard, eliciting several more colorful curses from his passengers. He leaned over to frown at the map Buck was reading. After staring at it for a second he yanked it out of Buck's hand, turned it 180 degrees and put it back in his hands.
"Oh, umm, well...." Buck stuttered as Chris started the truck moving again, "I think we were....uh....damn it, JD!" he finally hollered, turning around to glare at JD. "How can anyone concentrate with you making so much noise!"
Ezra made a rude noise, pretty much the only kind of noise Ezra had made the entire trip.
"Wait a minute!" JD interrupted, ignoring Buck. "Now we're going South. This is the wrong way."
"Son, where did you get that compass?" Josiah asked, leaning over the back seat to peer over JD's shoulder.
"Miss Nettie bought it for me during her trip to Austral- oh," he finished lamely. "Oops." He pried the window open and chucked it out.
"Wait, no-" Vin made a grab for JD, to no avail.
"What?" JD turned innocent eyes to Vin.
"You could have just read it backwards," Vin pointed out.
"Oh. Right," JD shrugged, unconcerned.
Nathan and Josiah exchanged long suffering glances. At this rate they'd never get to the conference. Of course, maybe that was the point. It was just a week ago that Travis had dropped the bombshell. The entire team had to attend this conference, or else. Chris had tried to weasel them out of having to attend, but to no avail. Finally, to ensure that everyone would arrive they had decided to take Josiah's van. Unfortunately, Josiah's van was literally on it's last legs and didn't even make it out of his yard. Using a credit card borrowed from Ezra's wallet, Josiah and Chris had rented another van. They had left late, consequently, but Buck insisted he knew a short cut that would get them in no time flat. Results had yet to prove this.
"Ya know what's missing?" JD asked no-one in particular. "A radio," he answered, before anyone had a chance to guess.
"No," Chris and Buck said at the same time.
Buck squinted at the map tracing his finger along a road, frowned, and turned the map around. "No, that's still not right," he mumbled to himself. "Are you sure this is the right map, Nathan," he bellowed in the direction of the back seat.
"Any idiot can read a map," was the answer. Buck was mildly offended.
"Home, home on the range," JD belted out suddenly, loudly and off key. "Where the deer and the antelope play."
Chris lunged for the radio dial and twisted it as far right as it would go.
EVERYONE BLAMED HIS OLD MAN
FOR MAKIN' HIM MEAN AS A SNAKE.
WHEN AMOS MOSES WAS A BOY HIS
DADDY WOULD USE HIM FOR ALLIGATOR
BAIT. Tie a rope aroun' his feet....
"What in the hell kind of music is this?" Buck complained reaching for the dial.
-Gonna git th' boy, but he never
come-out agin. Well, I wonder
where th' Louisiana Sheriff went
to, you kin sure got lost in th'
Louisiana bayou
the radio added, seemingly in protest to Buck's question.
Chris slapped his hand away. "I happen to like this music. Touch it again and die."
Buck glared, pulling his hand back. He thought Chris was kidding, but you could never be to sure.
Named him afta a man of the
cloth, called him Amos Moses....
"Oh my sainted aunt," Ezra hissed, staring out the window.
"What," the rest of the van demanded, momentarily distracted from the radio, which kept on blaring music unbothered by Ezra's exclamation.
"Who in the world would go to all the trouble of painting their cows?" Ezra asked incredulously, unable to tear his eyes away from incredible sight along the side of the road.
"What!" Chris just had to see this. He slammed the brakes on and purposely ignored the thuds and hollers from the passengers and turned to see what had captured Ezra's attention.
"For Pete's sake, Ez, they're just cows!" Vin looked annoyed. Whether it was from having to pick himself up off the floor or because Ezra was making such a fuss over cows, no-one was sure.
"I quite realize that, thank you, Mr. Tanner," Ezra drawled sarcastically.
"No, he's right," JD interjected. "Look at them." JD pointed, just in case someone wasn't sure where they were looking. A herd of about twenty cows stared curiously at them from the pasture they were in. the were almost entirely black except for a wide band of white which stretched around their girth. All the cows looked the same, it was almost like looking at one cow which had been xeroxed copied and pasted all over the field to confuse tourists.
"Dutch Belted," Chris stated calmly.
"Beg pardon," Ezra raised his eyebrows
"It's a beef cow," Chris explained, "they all look like that."
"So, uh...they're suppose to look like that?" Ezra asked.
"Yeah," Chris smirked to himself and put the van back into drive.
"Damn," Nathan commented loudly to Josiah. "And I was hoping Martians came down and painted them like that."
The statement tickled JD's funny bone and he burst into laughter. Ezra crossed his arms over his chest, quite a feat considering he was jammed between two guys who weren't being generous with the room they left him, and attempted to appear seriously peeved.
"Alrighty," Buck hollered suddenly. "I know where we are."
"No offense brother, but I'll believe that when I see it," Josiah offered from the backseat.
"Everyone's a critic," Buck muttered. "Wait! The next road will be Wilson Road!" he announced triumphantly after squinting at the map.
Chris shot him a skeptical look and leaned forward to read the sign as they went by it. "Watermelon Hollow," he read.
Buck slumped dejectedly into the seat and glared at the traitorous map.
Pig Pen this is the rubber duck. I'm
about to put the hammer down
the radio crooned.
"Crank it up, Chris," Josiah yelled. "I love this song."
Callin' all trucks this here's the duck,
we about to go huntin' bear.
"We got a great big convoy rockin' through the night," Josiah caterwauled along with the radio.
JD covered his ears, "and you thought my singing was bad."
"Oh, it is, son," Ezra said dryly. "Trust me."
We crossed the line and went for broke with a
thousand screaming trucks, and eleven long-
haired friends of Jesus, in a chartreuse microbus
"Come-on and join our convoy, nothings gonna git in our way," Nathan joined in whole-heartily as the song wound down.
"Chris," Vin called as Josiah and Nathan finally shut up. "Any chance for some real music."
"Sure," Chris called, suspiciously cheerful. "About as good of a chance as Buck figuring out where we are."
Vin groaned loudly, earning him an elbow from Ezra. "Don't irritate Fearless Leader or we'll have to endure to something far worse than this."
"Worse," Vin said incredulously. "Name one thing that could be worse."
"Josiah and JD singing together."
Vin gulped.
"Wait!" Buck yelled. Chris jumped, causing the truck to stutter as his foot came briefly off the gas petal. "Sorry," Buck apologized half-heartedly. "Ok, bear right at this fork," he waved the map at the fork coming up.
Chris turned the wheel left.
"Hey! I said, 'right'," Buck complained loudly. He reached over and wrenched the wheel right. Chris shoved him away and jerked the wheel left again.
"Hey!"
"Watch the road!"
"Cut it out!"
"Aaugh!"
A sickeningly slurping sound cut off the yells of protest from other passengers and the van came to an abrupt stop.
"Now look what you did," Buck accused Chris. Chris turned his head slowly to pin Buck with a glare.
Buck quickly buried himself in his map.
"Uh, can you back up," Vin asked, hesitantly.
In response Chris put the truck in reverse and floored it. The tires spun shooting mud in front of them. Chris jerked the stick into drive then back to reverse trying to get enough momentum to back out. He finally stopped after doing nothing but digging a deeper hole.
Wordlessly, Chris opened his door and peered out at the drainage ditch they were now stuck in. Mud oozed up to the bottom of the van, threatening to leak into the door. Chris stood up on the floor, his head sticking out the door and surveyed the situation.
"Well," Nathan asked.
"We're buried," Chris said flatly.
"Now what?" Ezra demanded.
"We walk," Chris informed him. He took his shoes and socks off and rolled his pants up to mid-calf level. He stepped out into the swamp and promptly sunk up to his knees. He sighed and sloshed towards the road. He stopped halfway and turned to find the others staring at him. "Let's go people," he called, his tone threatening bodily harm if they didn't cooperate.
JD swung open the side door and peered out into the swamp. "Cool," he declared finally, jumping out into it without bothering to take his shoes or socks off. The others followed him a tad more gingerly, with the small exception of Ezra who managed to situate himself on the hood with the hopes of being able to jump to land. Alas no, land was about two feet to far. He winced at the thought of getting his suit dirty.
"Josiah, carry me," he called.
"Sure," Josiah said amicably, turning and sloshing back to the van.
"Wait, no, I can-" whatever protest or change of heart Ezra was about to offer died a messy death as Josiah seized his arm and jerked him off the van. Ezra floundered wildly, flailing his arms in an undignified attempt to grab something to stop himself from examining the swamp up close and personal.
He missed.
He a loud splash, Ezra flopped face first in the mud and muck of the swamp.
Chris stuffed his fist in his mouth and turned away. The others had no such qualms about sharing their amusement and burst into loud laughter.
Ezra stumbled to his feet and shoved Josiah's helping hand away to stalk ungracefully to the bank. He dragged himself up onto the side of the road and sagged to the ground, flashing the others who were either holding their ribs in agony or trying not to fall in the mud laughing, a very rude gesture.
He glanced down and tried to peel some of the mud off his clothing.
"My suit!" At the forlorn expression on his face, which indicated he was very close to bursting into tears, Josiah felt mildly guilty.
To ease his guilt and Ezra's distress, Josiah helpfully pointed out that at least there were no large crawling creatures or for that matter little crawling creatures in the mud.
"Yeah," JD chimed in, "at least not that you can see." This brought a new round of hysterics upon the men, with the exception of Chris who allowed a few chuckles and crawled up on the bank next to Ezra.
"I fail to see how I am the only one who got absolutely filthy when this incident was not even remotely my fault," Ezra groused to Chris.
"Suck it up, Ezra," Chris returned about as sympathetically as normal, which wasn't saying very much.
Ezra made a face 'suck it up Ezra' he mimed. Chris pretended not to see.
"Well, Ez, seeing as how I am in such a good mood," Buck began slogging through the mud towards him. "I might even be able to be bribed not to say anything about this incident."
Ezra snorted. "Since it was your fault Mr. Wilminton-"
"Hold on right there pard." Buck cut him off. "If someone," he said loudly, turning to stare pointedly at Chris, "had turned when I told him to we'd be there by now."
"If I listened to any more of your directions the next sign we'd see would be welcoming us to Wyoming," Chris shot back.
Buck jumped to his feet, infuriated. "I don't have to listen to this," he hollered.
"The hell you don't," Chris retorted, climbing to his feet to face Buck, much to the amusement of Ezra, who was watching with gleeful fascination the scene he'd started, and the rest of the team which were privately placing bets. "How am I going to explain this to Travis?" he demanded. "We were suppose to be at that conference center fifteen minutes ago."
"Well it's not like we wanted to go anyways," Buck countered. "Just tell the judge-"
"I'm not telling the judge anything," Chris interrupted, stabbing his finger at Buck. "You are. You're going to explain this recent fiasco. I'm sick of explaining all your shenanigans to him."
"Fine then," Buck said huffily. "I can do it better than you anyways."
"And stay away from his wife this time," Chris said, very rudely in Buck's opinion.
"Why you-!" Buck shoved Chris backwards, which in retrospect, Buck admitted was a highly stupid thing to do. In normal circumstances, Chris would have drawn his gun and shot him on the spot or perhaps pounded his face into a resemblance of Daffy the Duck getting hit by a steam roller. But fortunately for Buck, this was not a normal set of circumstances. Chris was forced to take a few steps back to recover his balance and neglected to remember that there was a rather sharp hill behind him which ended in pure mud. Needless to say, Chris recalled that hill rather quickly when he fell down it landing with a sickening slurp and sending mud flying everywhere.
Chris was nearly submerged in mud, from head to toe. He could feel the ooziness in places he hadn't realized he had. He dug himself out enough to wipe the mud out of his eyes so he could see and for a moment thought he had gotten to much of it in his ears. It was deathly silent. He couldn't even hear the birds singing. He blinked the mud out of his eyes and focused on Buck's thoroughly horrified face staring down at him. Buck opened his mouth and then closed it. He repeated the procedure a few times which only served to convince Chris he was now deaf.
Until, of course, he heard a slight chuckle from behind him. He twisted around to see JD, Josiah, and Nathan eyeing him with similar expressions of horror and fear, but Vin...no, Vin was clutching his stomach with one hand and his mouth with the other. Tears were rolling down his cheeks and his shoulders were shaking in an effort to contain the laughter that threatened to burst out.
Chris slowly climbed to his feet eyeing Vin like a bull ready to charge. His appearance only served to further intoxicate Tanner who was now half bent over. This suited Chris just fine. He grabbed a huge handful of mud and charged. Vin was alerted to the attack and tried to dodge, but the mud that had covered Chris only moments before, now served to aid him as it hampered Vin's escape. Chris dumped the entire load of mud on top of Vin's head and shoved him backwards. Vin had time for a yell before the mud in his mouth obstructed his voice. He frantically spit the mud out and glared at a much more amused Chris Larabee.
"Oh, this is war," Vin launched himself up out of the mud, fully intending to tackle Chris, who had, fortunately been expecting the attack and sloshed smoothly out of the way. Vin bowled over Nathan instead, who quickly retaliated by dunking JD.
A good fifteen minutes later found all seven men, coated in a thick layer of mud, sitting side-by-side on the bank next to the road. Vin was sprawled on his back watching the birds fly by, next to Josiah who was chewing on a piece of grass and contemplating the mysteries of the universe. Chris was staring at the van as if he could will it out of the mud. JD was drawing pictures in the mud with a long stick, to the amusement of Buck who kept throwing pebbles in the middle of his drawings. Nathan was trying to clean the mud out of his cell phone and Ezra was picking mud off his designer suit and occasionally whimpering quietly.
A mud splattered pick-up rattled up to them and coughed to a stop. An older gentlemen with a least a two days growth of beard leaned out the window and carefully surveyed their van and then finally them.
"You boys stuck?" he offered.
"What ever would give you that impression, Sir," Ezra inquired sarcastically. "We were merely conducting a study on the effectiveness of several brand name solvents on the underside of the van."
"So far they've all failed miserably," Josiah added solemnly.
The old man guffawed loudly, before swinging open the door and stepping out. He wore ragged jeans and a faded plaid shirt. "If ya'll want I can call Lester to pull ya out?"
"Lester?" Chris asked.
"My son," the man puffed up proudly.
"We'd appreciate it," Nathan thanked him.
Before Nathan could offer his just cleaned cell phone a ringing sound came from the old man. He reached in his pocket and pulled out an expensive, ultra modern, flip, digital phone.
"Yeah," he said into, some how dragging the word out a full four syllables.
"Nope ... yep ... yep ... nope ... some city slickers missed the Kilin Turnoff ... yep," he snickered loudly, "yep." Apparently finished, he slapped the phone shut with the finesse of someone who used it fifty times a day.
Ten minutes later Lester showed up in a John Deere 4240 and had them pulled out in record time. After being profusely thanked the two continued on their way leaving Chris and the rest of the boys standing in front of their rented van.
Chris surveyed himself and the rest of his team before shrugging. "It's only a rental," he reasoned and signaled for the others to get in. They piled noisily into the van, dirty clothes and all. Chris in the drivers seat, Nathan the now designated navigator in the window seat opposite him. Buck had been ordered into the back seat. He could keep Josiah company and nurse his wounded ego at the same time.
A snore sounded from the second bench where Ezra had somehow managed to get himself a window seat, claiming that he planned to sleep for the rest of the trip and unless either Vin or JD offered their shoulders as pillows they better damn well move over. Apparently he hadn't been lying, though Vin had still been grumbled about being stuck in the middle seat at an average of every two seconds. Chris's knuckles were white where they clutched the steering wheel and Nathan finally intervened, telling Vin, very politely, to shut the hell up and live with it, before Chris totally lost it and killed them all in the process of shooting Vin. Vin was still grumbling, but at least the intervals between grumbles had been lengthened by a good twenty seconds.
In between yelling at Vin, Nathan had been studying the map, trying to figure out where in the world they were. He was about to admit to himself that this might be the wrong map, although it would take a herd of wild horses to make him admit that to Buck. Just as he thought he might have their location pinpointed, the road they'd go by wouldn't match. His brow furrowed at this thought, perhaps someone was just playing a practical joke on them by changing all street signs. He pondered this for a moment before deciding that, no, no-one would go to all that trouble. At least they were approaching civilization, little stores began popping up in random places, although as of yet, no towns signs.
"Ya know," he commented. "Maybe we should have asked Lester and his father for directions."
The van was silent as the occupants thought up suitable comebacks to this statement. On one hand, they were men. Men did not get lost, and if they did, they did not admit it. Not to mention the fact that they were not lost, they were simply ... uh ... turned around. But, on the other hand, one Orrin Travis was going to be very upset and irrate if they didn't make it to this conference, which started at least a half an hour ago.
A heavy sigh came from Chris's corner of the van. "Yeah, maybe," he agreed.
The van was silent for a second time in less than a minute as the passengers stared at each other in confusion and worry.
"Alright," Buck demanded. "Who are you? And what have you done with Chris?!"
Chris twisted back to pin back with a glare. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" he shot back.
"Of course I do," Buck said indignantly, peering discreetly at his watch. "It's ... uh oh."
"The road!" Nathan yelled, "watch the road!"
Chris twisted back towards the road in time to wrench the wheel to the right, narrowly missing a horn blaring milk truck. "Stay the hell out of the middle of the road," Chris hollered at the truck.
"Hey look, Chris, it's a convenience store," JD pointed excitedly, "stop will ya?"
"What for?" Chris growled, not slowing down.
"I have to take a leak," JD admitted, trying to hide the blush stealing across his face.
"Yeah, come-on, Chris," Vin sided with JD.
In response, Chris stepped on the gas. Vin sighed. JD whimpered. Ezra snored.
"I know!" Buck yelled. "We can tell Travis we got-"
"Lost," Josiah interrupted. "Stuck in the mud, and then lost again?"
Buck glared. "Noooooo. We can tell him we thought it was tomorrow."
Chris laughed, a short ugly laugh. "Nice try. He called me this morning to remind me off it."
"Oh,"
"Tomorrow is yesterday and today is tomorrow," Josiah said cryptically.
"Are you still watching that Alfred Hitchcock movie?" Nathan inquired over his shoulder.
"Which Hitchcock movie?" Chris asked, looking a tad more sociable now.
"Trouble with Harry," Nathan supplied.
"I love that movie," Chris announced.
Josiah stared in surprise. "Really?" he and Nathan asked together.
Chris sighed.
"Here comes a restaurant," JD pointed out, hopefully. "...And there goes a restaurant," he finished lamely.
"Come on, Chris," Vin pleaded. "We're dying here."
"I'm not the one who made you drink that much coffee this morning," Chris said, reaching down to turn the radio on. He immediately turned it off as his phone began to ring. He jammed a hand into his pocket trying to reach the phone without driving off the road. He finally succeeded and answered it on it's seventh ring with, "yeah."
"WHERE IN THE WORLD ARE YOU!" Orrin Travis's angry voice could be heard quite clearly in every corner of the van. The van jerked as Chris flinched and yanked the phone away from his ear.
Ezra jerked awake with a muffled snort and blinked owl-eyed around. "Have we arrived?"
"Judge, I can explain," Chris said in his most pacifying manner.
"This had better be good," Judge Travis was not a happy man.
Any explanation that was going to be made up was interrupted by a loud bang which came from the right front tire. Chris swore creatively and immediately winced as he realized who he was on the phone with. He struggled to keep control of the van, steer it to the side of the road, and explain his last commentary, until finally, Nathan took pity on him and took the phone.
Nathan quickly reported that the tire had blown and they were going to put on the spare tire and they would be at the conference with all due haste, and were incredibly disappointed to have missed the first part and would of course have a proper excuse, and would of course agree to work overtime to catch any important parts they missed. He managed to appease the judge enough and hung up, handing the phone back to Chris, who stuffed it in his pocket.
"I'm not working over-time cause we missed the damn conference," Buck hollered from the back seat.
"Open the damn door," Vin ground out at JD, who was struggling with the handle.
In the front seat, Chris grinned evilly. He loved child proof locks.
"It was your fault we're late," Nathan snapped at Buck. "You should work late for all of us."
Buck sat back and fumed.
JD jerked at the door until he was nearly on the verge of hysterics. Finally, Chris relented. He wasn't completely heartless. JD and Vin tumbled out in a heap and quickly scrambled over the culvert on the side of the road to the relative privacy of a bush.
"That was mean," Nathan commented, still trying to figure the map out.
"I know," Chris grinned, and stepped out to check the tire.
Ezra climbed slowly out and stretched his arms over his head and was promptly shoved out of the way as Buck piled out, followed immediately by Josiah. Ezra shot Buck a dirty look which Buck returned with a bright grin as he was pulling out his cell phone.
"Calling a tow truck?" Ezra inquired.
"Hell, no. I've got a date this weekend, just checking my messages," Buck put the phone up to his ear and wandered away.
Ezra shrugged and stalked over to where Chris was knelt in front of the tire.
"Well, at least the footings a tad more solid this time," Ezra pointed out leaning against the hood.
"Hmmm," Chris answered distractedly.
Ezra leaned down to survey his work. "It's flat," he pointed out helpfully. He frowned at Chris's response, or lack there of. "What?"
Chris didn't answer right away, instead, he ran his hand over the hole in the tire. Then abruptly he jumped to his feet, latching on to Ezra's shirt he dragged him back around to the right side of the van.
"What are you-" Ezra started to sputter indignantly before being cut off by an worried shushing sound from Chris.
"Buck! Vin, JD, get back here," he hissed.
"What's wrong?" Josiah asked.
"There's a bullet hole in that tire," Chris explained quickly.
"What!" Buck asked slapping his phone shut, "who could possibly know we're out here?"
"Where ever here is," Vin said mildly.
Chris carefully scanned the area, "I don't see anyone around, let's give the area a once over, something smells funny."
Buck sniffed Chris's sleeve. "Uh, pard, that's you."
"Speak for yourself," JD ribbed him.
"I do agree, Mr. Wilmington," Ezra added. "You could definitely work on your personal grooming habits."
Buck sneered at them. "Nice to know I always have pals around."
Chris gave Josiah a look of long suffering. "We get shot at way to much."
Vin moved silently through the heavily wooded area.. He glided past shadows and over broken trees without so much as a whisper of noise. Twigs were carefully stepped over and leaves that might crackle were noticed and avoided. His senses were alert for any movement or any sound. He was constantly watching, waiting, listening....
Unfortunately, the only thing he could really hear was the unbelievable noise the figure behind him was making. Ezra crashed through the undergrowth with all the stealth and finesse of a 500 pound wild boar. He stumbled over trees roots, broke through rotted trunks, and crackled dead twigs and leaves.
"For Pete's sake, Ezra. Why don't you make some more noise. There are probably people on the other side of the state who don't know where here yet," he drawled, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"For all you know we could 'be' on the other side of the state," Ezra shot back, trying to wipe dirt from his hands after picking himself up off the ground. This was the second time he'd tripped over a tree root.
"You're already filthy," Vin pointed out. "Does it really matter if you get any more dirt on you?"
Ezra muttered something which Vin pretended not to catch.
"Anything?" Buck called, moving through some bushes to join them.
"Nope," Vin admitted.
"We've got something," Nathan and Josiah pushed in from the other direction. "Look at this."
Josiah held up a recently shot rabbit. "It's a bunny," Ezra said, annoyed. "So?"
Vin rubbed the back of his neck as an alternative to smacking Ezra. "Someone had to shoot the rabbit," he said with mock patience.
"Probably the same person who shot our tire," Nathan added.
"So it might be an accident," Buck looked slightly disappointed.
"Have you seen JD or Chris," Josiah asked suddenly.
Buck looked around as if expecting Chris or JD to appear from thin air. "Now that you mention it, no," he shrugged.
"I thought JD was with you?" Nathan asked him.
Buck shook his head, "no, he went that-a-way." He pointed behind him and waved a hand. He snickered, "he's probably lost."
"I think we are too," Ezra glanced nervously. "Where's the van?"
Nathan pointed one way and Josiah pointed the exact opposite. Vin snickered and pointed in still another direction. Ezra moaned.
"You got tired of waiting for us and decided to catch dinner?" A voice drawled sarcastically from behind them.
The group turned to see Chris and JD emerge from the trees, Chris in the lead, limping heavily, and JD following looking worried.
"You're clean!" Buck said in surprise.
"You're limping," Nathan frowned in disapproval.
"No. I'm not," Chris said with such finality that Nathan decided it would be wise not to press the subject.
"You're not clean?" Buck feigned confusion.
"What happened?" Vin asked.
"What happened?!" Chris echoed. Vin caught a glimpse of JD frantically making slicing motions across his throat with his hand. "Yes, what did happen?" he swivelled casually around to face JD, ruining the smoothness of the motion when he stumbled on his sore knee. JD stopped his motions in mid-slice, smiled weakly, and rubbed his shoulder.
"Uh ... I ... that is we ... uh," JD stammered under Chris's gaze. He swallowed and continued. "There's a rather steep cliff over there and I ... uh ... tripped over a root and fell off it and Chris tried to grab me and uh ... we both fell off. There was a river beneath it." JD finished lamely.
Nathan blinked and turned to see Josiah's expression. Josiah shrugged, trying not to smile. "Well, at least you're clean now," he offered.
Chris grimaced, whether in pain or from annoyance no-one was sure.
"Is it broken?" Buck asked curiously, eyeing Chris's knee.
"No," Chris snapped.
Buck looked slightly disappointed. "Too bad."
Ezra snorted. "Yes, I do find myself annoyed as well when one of my comrades aren't as injured as they could possibly be."
Buck had the grace to flush, slightly. "I only meant that it would have been a nice excuse to give to Travis."
Chris raised his eyebrows and regarded his knee as if actually contemplating the idea. Nathan was about to object to the idea when Chris finally shook his head. "Recovery time would be to long," he decided.
"I knew I hit something," someone announced cheerfully, striding, uninvited, into the clearing.
They turned to see an older guy, heavyset, wearing heavy waterproof boots, a loud plaid shirt, and a coonskin cap. He swung a rifle expertly onto his shoulder. "Mighty nice of you chaps to retrieve that for me," he pointed to the bunny Josiah still held by the ears.
"Who are you?" Chris demanded.
"Oliver McGovern at your service," the older guy declared doffing his cap to them all.
"You were hunting rabbits?" Vin asked.
"Yes sirree," Oliver chortled. "The missus will be pleased tonight."
"You should be more careful," Nathan scolded. "One of your bullets blew out our front tire."
"Did it?" Oliver looked genuinely surprised. "Terribly sorry."
"Yeah, well, watch where you're shooting next time," Chris responded grumpily. He waved his hand at Josiah who tossed the dead rabbit to Oliver.
"Jolly good, chaps," Oliver saluted them with the rabbit and shuffled back into the woods.
"Well, know that that's settled, let's see if we can find our way back to the van," Ezra rubbed his hands together.
"If we can find it," Nathan frowned into the trees.
"It's over there," JD pointed to their right, looking confused.
Vin eyed him distrustfully, "how do you know?"
"I can see the light glinting off the window."
"Now hold on just a dog gone minute!" Buck hollered. "I am not riding in a van being driven by someone who can't even stand."
A muscle along Chris's jaw twitched. "Fine, walk then," he shot back and surveyed the step up into the drivers seat. With a great deal of difficulty and pain and managed to maneuver himself into the seat. Buck grumbled, but climbed into the van and made a show of fastening his seatbelt.
"Why don't you at least let me look at it?" Nathan appealed again. One glare from Chris answered that question for him.
"Have you figured out where we are?" Josiah asked, tactfully changing the subject.
Nathan winced. "No," he said softly. As if their location no longer mattered, Chris started the van and drove off.
Fifteen minutes later Chris pulled the van back to the shoulder of the road and sat there for a minute before smashing his open palm against the steering wheel.
"What?" With some difficulty Nathan pulled his attention from the map and focused on Chris.
"Drive."
Nathan blinked, he had been making some headway on this map too. "Alright," he agreed. He hoped out and jogged to the other side of the truck fully expecting Chris to go by him to get to the other side. Instead he simply pushed the arm rest and levered himself through the empty area between the bucket seats, and picked up the apparently foreign map.
"Good luck," Buck called nastily from the back seat. Chris ignored him and stared at the map, as if it was the sole reason for their predicament.
"Turn the radio on," Vin called, once again in the window seat.
"No," Chris answered, without looking up from where we was tracing his finger along the map.
"We need some noise," he complained, "Josiah snores to loud."
"That's Josiah?" JD asked, "I thought that was the airbrakes on the truck behind us."
"Look," Nathan pointed. Another convenience store loomed up ahead. "I'm going to ask for directions."
"Great!" Buck enthused, "I'm hungry."
"You're always hungry," JD pointed out.
"Not true," Buck argued.
"Who cares," Ezra bite out finally. "Open the damn door."
JD raised his eyebrows at him. "Testy, Ezra?"
"This map is useless," Chris growled from the front seat.
"I could have told you that," Buck returned.
Chris eased himself out of the van and then promptly disappeared from view. JD glanced over at Ezra, Chris's action had just reminded him of a prairie dog ducking down a manhole cover. He frowned softly to himself, slightly confused as to why he had chosen this particular analogy.
Ezra pushed past JD and leaned over the front seat. "Are you alright?"
Chris was in a heap on the ground, one hand still holding on to the door handle while the other hand clutched at his knee. His head rested on his extended arm. He was making small moaning noises every time he exhaled, which was rather frequently.
Nathan came around to that side of the truck and made tsk, tsking noises. "I told you, you should have let me look at it."
"I was right," Buck said smugly. "It is broken."
"You can't break your knee, Buck," JD informed him.
"Yes you can," Buck insisted. "Can't you break your knee, Nathan?"
"Yes, you can break your knee," Nathan said distractedly.
Buck hmmmphed at JD who blew a raspberry at him in return.
"Can you stand?" Nathan asked, trying to make Chris look at him.
"No, I'm crippled for life," Chris snarled sarcastically.
"You just might be," Nathan retorted. He grabbed Chris's arm and dragged him rather cruelly to his feet. "Come-on, we can get an ice pack inside." He offered his shoulder, which Chris utilized, and led the way inside.
"Wow," the kid behind the counter, Pete as his name tag announced, exclaimed. "You guys get stuck in a swamp or something?"
"Or something," Josiah said evasively.
"You have ice packs?" Nathan asked, easing Chris onto a stool by the ice cream soda type counter. He stretched Chris's bad leg out on the nearby stool, despite Chris's objections.
"Yep," Pete answered. "Over there," he waved a hand in the general direction of the back of the store. Nathan left Chris sitting there and moved to search the rear of the store.
"How do you get to Denver from here?" Josiah asked.
Pete raised an eyebrow and shot a pointed glance at the direction there truck was parked. "Well, first you should probably turn around."
Chris groaned and glared at Buck.
"What!" Buck turned to find everyone glaring at him. "This is not my fault!"
"Sure, Buck," JD seemed to be taking a particular delight in the situation.
"Hey, Nathan was map reading for a while here too," Buck pointed out.
"After you got us hopelessly lost," Nathan defended himself, juggling the cold ice pack from hand to hand. Buck sniffed haughtily. Nathan laid an experimental hand against Chris's knee which was swollen to about twice it's normal size. Chris hissed in pain and Nathan quickly removed his hand.
"Wow," JD said conversationally. "No wonder that hurts, look at it. Your knee is on the wrong side of your leg."
Intrigued, Vin leaned over for a look. "Ouch," he offered sedately.
Chris frowned in mild annoyance at his knee which had appeared to be on the side of his leg instead of the front. "Damn it. Can this day get any worse?"
Just then, Nathan slapped an ice pack, non-to-gently on his knee. Chris cut back a yelp by biting down on the inside of his mouth.
Nathan gave him an unsympathetic look. "Ya know, if you had stayed on crutches after tripping over Ceurvo, for as long as they told you to, you wouldn't be having trouble with this knee."
Chris glowered unhappily. "I couldn't afford to," he snapped back.
"Yeah, and know you're paying the price," Nathan looked a tad to smug with his little pun. "You'll probably need to get surgery this time."
"Surgery!" This was from Buck. "Great!"
The rest of the team, plus Pete, turned to stare at him with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.
"Now we have an excuse for missing the conference," Buck explained, quickly.
"You mean I have an excuse." Chris smirked, maybe this injury was going to be worth it.
"Someone will have to drive you home," Buck was grasping at straws and he knew it.
"Hands up! This is a robbery!"
Everyone swivelled to the doorway, except for Chris who just peered around Nathan. There stood a kid, probably not more than 18 or 19, brandishing a pistol and pointing it in their general direction. He was wearing a ski mask, which was more than likely roasting hot by now. Pete immediately threw his hands in the air. The others tried not to look amused.
"This is a robbery," the kid repeated, with slightly less bravado than before. He waved the gun as if making sure they saw it. "Hands up."
Pete tried to thrust his hands up even more. The others glanced over their shoulders at Chris. Chris sighed and didn't so much as hold his hands up as he did open them. The others looked slightly disappointed that he wasn't going to 'pull some heat and throw down'.
"Alright," the robber seemed a tad more sure of himself now. "Everyone over there." he gestured with his gun towards a corner of the store. The gesturing was an incredible tactical error, one error which Vin immediately noticed and normally would have taken advantage of, but Chris seemed in the mood to humor the kid, and hey, Vin wouldn't mind a small vacation either.
Nathan looked in the direction the robber pointed and frowned. "why don't we all just move over here?" he asked politely.
The kid blinked behind his ski mask., "oh, umm... Well, I guess that'd be ok too."
"Good," Nathan looked pleased with himself. Pete inched around the counter and dashed for a spot of relative safety behind Ezra.
"Wait!" the robber pointed at Pete, using his hand instead of the gun. Pete visibly deflated. "You, empty the cash register. Pete quickly did as instructed, handing the bag to the robber. He took it and after waving the gun again, in the direction of the other patrons in the store moved to the door and peered out. He obviously didn't see what he was waiting for and began pacing in front of the window. He kept this up for a few moments before spinning back around as if hoping to catch the other men doing something they shouldn't be. He looked disappointed to find them sitting there watching him.
"Waiting for someone?" Ezra questioned.
"I might be," the robber snapped. "And then again I might not be." He shot a glance out the window and then took a seat on the counter, his gun still pointed at the ATF team.
Fifteen minutes he was still sitting there, getting more agitated by the minute. Chris was drumming his fingers on the counter to the tempo of the throbbing pain in his knee. Nathan was drinking the root beer Buck had procured for himself, Nathan, and JD. The others had declined refreshment. Josiah was leafing through a fashion magazine and occasional commenting on the vulgarity of the outfits the women wear wearing. Ezra was rapidly making his way through a box of handy wipes, trying to clean his suit. He wasn't having much luck. Pete was still behind the counter, alternating between looking terrified and bored.
The robber hopped off the counter, stalked across the floor and back, and jumped back up on the counter. He raked his hand roughly through his hair and sighed. He turned to watch Chris, who was still drumming his fingers across the counter.
"Must you do that?" the robber finally yelled at him.
The room went deathly quiet. You didn't just yell at Chris.
Chris let his fingers play across the counter once more before letting the room bask in the stifling silence. The robber gulped, suddenly realizing that he might have just made a terrible mistake. Chris raised his eyes slowly to meet the kid's, who unconsciously backed up a step. He pointed his gun in Chris's direction, although it might have looked more effective if the barrel wasn't shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.
"I'm the one with the gun," he insisted, sounding like a child who was getting scolded.
Chris raised an eyebrow. "Really?" he asked icily.
That was the signal his team had been waiting for. In less than a heartbeat there were six loaded, cocked, and very dangerous looking guns pointed directly at the robber's head.
Chris tilted his head to the side and smiled. It was not a nice smile. The robber felt a shiver run down his spine as if the foreboding fingers of doom were walking up his back. He blinked once and then did probably the smartest thing he'd ever done in his entire young life. He dropped his gun.
Buck immediately grabbed him by the collar and slammed him against the counter. Vin bent over to pick up the gun and worked the chamber. As he'd suspected. "It's empty," he reported to Chris, who merely nodded.
"Who guys were going to rob me yourselves weren't you!" Pete suddenly shrieked.
The seven looked at him incredulously. "And then this guy beat you to it!" Pete continued.
"Bingo," Chris said flatly. "Go steal me some aspirin will ya, kid?"
It sounded like a question, but Pete knew better. This man had to be the boss of some kind of organized crime ring. Look at the clothes he was wearing, no-one wore all black unless they were in the mob or going to a funeral. He quickly dashed towards the aspirin aisle and then returned with at least five different bottles of pain killers. He wasn't taking any chances on getting the wrong one.
Chris reached for the nearest one, shook six into his hand and swallowed them, with the help of a gulp of stolen root beer.
"What do we do with him?" Buck asked, referring, of course, to the kid who was pinned, rather uncomfortably, against the counter.
Chris thought about it for a moment. "I guess we have to call the police," he decided finally.
Buck looked disappointed, "can't we just kill him?"
The robber whimpered, Pete's eyes widened even more, if that was possible. Chris seemed to debate this possibility and then turned to Josiah. "Any qualms?"
"None what so ever," Josiah drawled, munching on a Twinkie we'd procured illegally.
"Knock yourself out, Buck," Chris waved a hand, apparently unconcerned.
"Would mind taking this outside?" Ezra interrupted.
Buck looked annoyed. "What for?" he demanded.
"You might get blood on my suit," Ezra explained.
"Heaven forbid," Buck returned sarcastically. But, he shoved the robber in the direction of the door. "Let's go kid."
"No, wait, please. I'll turn myself in," he pleaded.
"And your partner?" Buck asked, pausing in his move for the door.
"I don't have a partner," the robber insisted.
Buck pushed him towards the door.
"Alright, alright! Jimmy Turner. It was his idea," the robber whimpered. "He was suppose to come pick me up, but he never showed."
"How inconsiderate!" Ezra stood up abruptly, slapping his hand against his thigh.
"Highly!" JD agreed, toasting Ezra with his rootbeer glass.
"Do we have to wait for the police?" Nathan asked, slowly.
"It would probably be polite," Josiah pointed out.
"Why wouldn't we?" Buck asked, "this is kind of fun."
"Yeah but, think of all the paperwork that's going to be involved," Vin pointed out.
The team winced collectively at that.
"We could just tie him up and let Pete here watch him," JD suggested.
"I'm for that," Chris decided, swinging his leg off the bar stool. Luckily for him, Nathan had very sharp reflexes and caught his leg as Chris suddenly realized that the muscles in that leg were severely hampered by his injured knee and could only gasp in pain as his leg took an abrupt fall to the unforgiving cement floor.
Chris, rather sheepishly, grunted his thanks to Nathan and massaged his kneecap. Nathan straightened up as Chris pointed to some clothesline rope hanging in one of the aisles. "That'll do. Someone tie our pal here up."
JD obediently grabbed the rope and tied the robber securely. Buck, meanwhile, was stocking up on snack food. He'd filled about to grocery bags to the limit with assorted sugar filled sweet things, soda, and because he was such a nice guy, aspirin.
"Your going to pay for that stuff? Right, Buck," Josiah asked casually.
Buck wrinkled his nose up. "No, why."
Josiah grinned and jerked his thumb at the upper right corner of the store. "Son of a- " Buck cut off a swear and yanked a twenty out of his pocket. "Here." he tossed it at Pete and stalked out of the store muttering something about damn surveillance cameras.
Nathan and Vin followed, supporting Chris who was rapidly finding out just how stiff his knee could get after sitting for only a half an hour.
Nathan frowned thoughtfully at the truck. "To bad you couldn't stretch that knee out," he commented.
Chris let go of his shoulder and hobbled closer to the van to grab onto the door handle. "What do you propose? Tying Vin and JD to the roof?" he asked sarcastically.
"Hey cool," JD enthused, bouncing up. "I'll do it."
"Shut up, kid," Buck shoved him aside and wrestled his bags of food into the van.
"Middle seat is the best we can do I guess," Nathan decided.
"Huh?"
"You can put your leg up between the driver and passenger seat," Nathan explained.
"What? No!" Chris growled. "I am not sitting in the middle."
"You put the elbow anywhere near my ribs again and you're going to be minus an arm," Chris snarled.
To Vin's credit he did try to stuff his arm a little closer to his body. "Move over JD," he snapped.
"I'm nearly on the floor as it is," JD whined back.
"Move to the backseat then," Nathan hollered over his shoulder.
"No way!" Buck vetoed that idea. "There's no room back here."
"Well there's no room here either," JD snapped. "The roof would be more comfortable," he mumbled under his breath.
"That can be arranged," Chris growled back.
"I don't understand why we are still en route to the conference," Ezra complained. "It's more than likely over by now."
"Nope," Josiah checked his watch to be sure. "Fifteen minutes left."
"Well, great!" JD bashed his fist against the back Ezra's seat making him jump. "We'll get there in time to applaud whatever the moron said."
"Ya know, it might have been my imagination, but I thought we were going to the hospital?" Ezra asked.
"You were right," Chris said flatly. "It was your imagination."
"Ah." Ezra dropped it.
"Why are we going anyways?" Vin demanded. "Look at us, Chris and JD are the only ones not caked with mud, they're not even going to let us in the door."
"You heard Travis," Chris interjected.
"You be at the conference or you can kiss your break-room kitchen good-bye," the rest of the men chorused in admirable similarity to Travis's threatening voice.
"We could simply buy a new microwave and put in your office," Ezra suggested reasonably.
"Are you volunteering to buy it?" Chris asked. By Ezra's silence he took that as a no.
"Look!" Nathan hollered excitedly. The others looked, although with slightly less enthusiasm. A sign welcoming them to the city of Denver flashed by. "Ok, I know where we are now," Nathan promised, quickly pulling the van onto the highway.
Within ten minutes Nathan was pulling the van to the side of the road about ten meters from the three star hotel the conference was suppose to be in. "What the hell?"
"What's going on?" JD demanded trying to see around Ezra's seat. "I can't see."
"Well, at least we know this isn't our fault," Ezra pointed out. Nathan turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow. "Well, at least I'm pretty sure it isn't....." Ezra finished slowly.
"What isn't?" JD asked again.
"Stay here," Nathan instructed, unbuckling his seat belt. "I'll find out what's going on."
He slid out of the van and approached the nearest officer. The cop looked him up and down and then sneered. "Playing in the pig pen again?"
"Har," Nathan retorted, not amused. "What's going on?" he waved his hand at the hotel, which was surrounded by police cars and men in white outfits. A few German Shepards wandered around attached to K-9 cops. "I thought there was going to be a conference here?"
The cop frowned at him. "Nope. It got canceled about an hour ago. Someone called in a bomb threat. We had to clear the building out."
Nathan nodded slowly, "alright, thanks." He turned and made his way back to the van.
"Well?" Vin hollered out the window.
"It's canceled," Nathan answered, climbing back into the drivers seat.
"Really?" Buck asked, a sly smile playing on his lips.
"You're kidding!" Vin demanded.
"Nope, the cop said a bomb threat was called in," Nathan clarified.
"Uh oh," Ezra groaned. "It wasn't meant for us, was it?" "Not that I know of," Nathan shrugged and turned the motor on.
"Buck." Chris drawled out dangerously.
"What?" Buck was the absolute picture of innocence.
"You made a phone call back when the tire blew, didn't you?"
"You called in the bomb threat?!" JD asked incredulously. "Cool!"
"Mr. Wilmington," Ezra twisted around in his seat to regard Buck. "I do believe we're all in your debt.
Buck stretched his arms over his head, promptly scraping his knuckles on the ceiling and feigned modesty. "A few free drinks from each of you ought to do the trick," he said, humbly.
"Yeah, until you find you the DPD has traced that phone call," Nathan called back.
Buck's grin melted.
"Ha!" JD cried triumphantly. "I'll see that and raise you ten dollars."
Ezra smirked, allowing his poker face to slip for the moment. He had these amateurs. "Mr. Wilmington?" he questioned. "I do believe it's your move."
Buck scowled at his hand and then scowled at Ezra. "Fold."
Ezra shrugged, unconcerned. He raised his eyebrows at Josiah who still had to move. Josiah surprised him and matched his bet. Ezra shrugged happily. All the more money for him. With a triumphant flourish he laid his hand down on the coffee table in the hospital waiting room.
"Morning boys," a cheerful nurse called on her way by, momentarily interrupting Ezra's winning moment. But, it had been like old home week. Doctors, nurses, and other staff had all been calling hellos on there way by or actually stopping to chat. It wasn't often that the men were actually in sociable moods when they were at the hospital.
"Chris?" the nurse asked, scanning the group.
Josiah nodded back towards an exam room. "He threw out his knee," he explained.
"Ah, well good luck. I'm on rounds." with another bright smile, she was gone.
Ezra turned his attention back to the game.... And froze in surprise. His royal flush should have won the game, and to all rights he still had, but...it seemed Mr. Tanner had also utilized the ace of spades.
"What the hell!" Buck snapped, noticing the double cards. "Alright, who's cheating?"
Vin's eyes opened wide. "It wasn't me. I'm not good enough to cheat."
That was true, Ezra admitted privately. But, surely he would have realized if he himself, had given both of them the ace of spades. Hmmm.
"You expect us to believe that," Ezra said instead, pointing his finger accusingly at Vin. "Very smooth, I'll give you that. You've been hustling us all-"
He broke off as Nathan, who had been eyeing his extended arm curiously, suddenly reached out and latched on to it. Nathan pulled two cards out of Ezra's sleeve and held them up for the others to view.
"I knew it!" Buck hollered triumphantly, earning him warning looks from the nurses at the desk.
"You do cheat," Nathan said, flabbergasted.
Ezra's mouth dropped. "I don't know who put those there!" he sputtered. "When I catch the blackguard!"
Nathan threw the cards back at him. "I want full compensation for all the games I've lost to you." he demanded.
Before Ezra could think of a good comeback and refusal he was interrupted by a scream coming from the exam room area. It was quickly choked off, but quickly followed by a more muted swear. The men instantly jumped to their feet, brandishing weapons as the entire waiting room and reception area froze.
"Damn, that was Chris."
"What the hell is going on?!"
"Where was that coming from?"
Voices piled on top of one another until Vin finally pinpointed the direction of the yell and swung the door to exam room five open. The rest piled in behind him. They stopped short when the saw Chris flat on his back on an exam bed, his back arched and teeth gritted in pain. A doctor stood a foot away from his bare leg, his hands held out as if he had been working on the leg. The doc's eyes were wide with shock as he took in the men with guns bursting into his exam room. One thing immediately noticeable was that Chris's kneecap was now on the front of his knee where it belonged and a rather lovely shade of purple.
"Chris?" Buck asked experimentally, unsure of whether he should just shoot the doc, or let him explain first.
"I don't-" the doctor started to stammer and then pulled himself together. "That shouldn't have hurt, with all the pain medication he's...." his voice trailed off with a horrified "....uh oh."
The men followed his gaze to the IV which hung, still on it's stand...
Unattached to Chris's arm.
Chris began groping blindly for the gun he always carried and the rest of the seven jumped into action. Buck and Vin moved to restrain Chris while Ezra and Josiah quickly hustled the doctor from the room for his own safety.
Josiah clapped the doctor on his shoulder and suggested that the doctor prescribe a powerful painkiller and then take great care to make himself scarce every time Chris visited the hospital, which was quite frequently Ezra added, and that perhaps he should consider investing in a bodyguard. This was when Ezra helpfully enlightened the doc about the uh, incident involving the last doctor who made a mistake one on of them.
The doctor swallowed hard and then with a shaking hand wrote out a prescription, handed to Josiah and dashed to the nurses desk. He grabbed for the nearest phone and began asking about a job in a one room hospital in an unheard of town in northern Alaska.
Following Buck's suggestion the nurses had quickly hitched up the IV and began pumping painkiller into Chris's bloodstream. In about fifteen minutes he was sedated enough that they could attach one of those nifty plastic, blue knee braces to his leg without fear of being shot.
Josiah had handed the prescription to JD and told him to go get it filled while they finished with Chris and then they'd get out of here. JD had eagerly agreed to go since he was hungry and there was a great deli across the street from the pharmacy. He'd come back finishing a grinder
The men had loaded a still drugged Chris Larabee into the van and proceeded to his ranch with the plan of dropping him off, doing chores, and then each returning to their own humble adobes. Josiah agreed to return the van in the morning after running it through a car wash. That was the plan at least.
They got Chris settled on the couch in the living room, since no one really wanted to lug him up the stairs until he was a little more coherent and could help, and gathered around the coffee pot in the kitchen.
"Ok, who wants to do chores?" Ezra looked around, hoping for a volunteer. The men merely shifted and looked at each other.
"Why don't we draw names," Josiah suggested, ever the voice of reason. "Two of us can do chores and everyone else can make dinner."
"Dinner?" Nathan raised his eyebrows.
"That works," Buck said quickly. He happened to be starving since JD had thoughtlessly not brought him a sub, besides Chris always some decent food lying around.
Nathan shrugged and passed out paper and pencils. Josiah collected the names and placed them in a hat. "Ok, doing chores we have.....Ezra." Ezra looked surprised. "And...uh...Ezra..."
"What!" Ezra snatched the hat out of Josiah's hands and pawed through the names. "Ezra. Ezra. Vin. Ezra. You all wrote my names!" he threw the hat down and assumed a shocked, hurt expression.
"Yeah, and you wrote mine," Vin shot back.
"Serves you right for cheating at cards," Nathan retorted to Ezra, still sore about that incident at hospital.
"Alright, Buck, you and Vin can go do chores. Ezra will cook dinner," Josiah pronounced.
Buck looked disgusted.
"And may I ask what you all will be doing?" Ezra asked mildly.
"Nothing," JD grinned, patting Ezra on the back. He sauntered into the living room, parked himself in front of the tv and switched it on.
Ezra glared at him and then switched to Josiah. "We'll help you, clean, and take turns taking showers," Josiah said soothingly.
Ezra grumbled but, stalked to the kitchen leaving the others standing there.
Buck frowned at Nathan and hooked a thumb at Ezra's back. "Make sure he makes something edible."
"Git," Nathan ordered in response.
Buck pushed his way back into the house, after finally finishing watering the horses, man those things drank a lot. He found Vin standing over Chris, staring down at him with a funny look on his face.
"Vin? What are you doing?"
Vin jumped slightly, not having heard Buck charge into the house. He shrugged, "I was just thinking about what a great chance this would be for a prank."
Buck narrowed his eyes, giving the suggestion some serious thought. "What were you planning on doing? Painting his fingernails or something?"
From the expression on Vin's face, that had been one of his ideas. "Pard, no-one will ever find your remains," Buck warned.
As Vin opened his mouth to deny that statement Nathan's startled voice sounded voice sounded from the kitchen. "Ezra! Put down the knife. What are you trying to do? Kill someone?"
Vin and Buck exchanged a glance and hurried to the kitchen to find Ezra backed up against the refrigerator, his arm thrown up over his eyes, tear tracks staining his face, and a steak knife in his other hand.
"What's going on?" Vin demanded.
"What wrong with him?" Buck asked at the same time.
Nathan nodded towards the counter. A half chopped onion lay on the cutting board. Buck grinned.
Ezra groaned. "I'm going blind," he half whimpered.
Nathan peered at him. "Haven't you ever chopped onions before?"
"No!" Ezra sniffed haughtily, "and if all goes well, I never will again."
Buck moved forward and managed to grab Ezra's flailing arm at the wrist and removed the knife from his grasp. "Put a wet towel over your eyes," he instructed.
"What's for dinner?" Josiah asked, coming into the kitchen, sparkling clean.
"Yeah, what is for dinner?" Vin inquired, moving to the counter to see what Ezra had been working on. "Uh, I'm not sure, something with potatoes, sour cream, cheddar cheese, and onion."
"Mmm, you can't go wrong with that combo," Buck licked his lips in anticipation. Then he realized what Josiah standing, clean, in the kitchen meant. "Showers free! I'm next!" he bolted for the stair case and promptly collided with JD who had the same idea.
"Hey!"
"Ow, let go of me!"
"Out of my way, kid!"
"No! I was here first!"
"Damn it, you're clean! I'm not!"
"Then it won't kill you to wait!"
"Hey! No biting!"
"Ow!!"
While Buck and JD were wrestling on the floor, Vin had managed to sneak around them and was halfway up the staircase before either JD or Buck realized what he was doing. The both let out a holler and dashed after him. They were to slow. Vin dived into the bathroom and slammed the door in their face. Both men slammed into the door and began pounding on it and yelling.
"Hey!" Nathan bellowed up the stairs. "You break that door, you explain it to Chris!"
Both JD and Buck immediately backed off with a few threats thrown Vin's way. Vin merely laughed, rubbing some more salt in the wounds.
An hour later diner was ready, finally. Ezra had done a credible job of making a gourmet potato casserole and meatloaf. Buck and JD had finally gotten showers and managed to set the table with a minimum of broken dishes.
Nathan meandered over to wake Chris up, who had someone managed to sleep through all the ruckus.
"Is he still out?" Buck asked, chewing on a carrot stick.
"Either that or he's faking it real well," Nathan joked, leaning over Chris and shaking his shoulder. "Chris?." No response. "Chris," he said, a little louder this time.
"He's not dead is he?" JD asked casually.
"Chris!" Nathan hollered, grabbing both shoulders and shaking him.
Chris moaned once and squinted up at him. "The radio been fed already?" he slurred. Nathan blinked, glanced over at Buck, who nodded encouragingly, and frowned back down at Chris. "Uh...yeah," he said. Chris nodded, looking satisfied. "Dinners ready. You hungry?"
"Dinner?" Chris asked.
"It's the meal you eat before you kick your shoes off and go to bed," Buck offered.
Chris wrinkled his forehead up and seemed to consider this.
"What the hell did the doctor give him?" Nathan straightened up and turned to stare accusingly at Ezra and Josiah.
Ezra shrugged innocently and turned to stare at Josiah. "I don't know," Josiah admitted. He nudged Vin who trotted out to the kitchen and pulled the pills out of his bag.
"Here." He handed the bottles to Nathan, the huge prescriptions were lost on him. As far as he knew, in order to actually be pronounceable words needed vowels.
"Who the hell okayed this!" Nathan hollered. "For pity's sake, the man didn't loose his leg!"
"Did he ever find it?" Chris asked, from where he had managed to maneuver himself into a sitting position and was experimentally pulling at the velcro straps on his knee brace.
"Don't touch those," Nathan slapped his hand away.
"No," Vin chimed in happily, thinking of the possibilities of this conversation. "But's that's alright. He now has a wooden leg."
"Oh," this only seemed to confuse Chris more.
"How powerful are those things?" JD asked, motioning to the bottles in Nathan's hand.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Nathan sighed.
"So what do we do now?"
"Eat." Buck decided. "Let him sleep it off. We get some decent medication tomorrow."
"Most definitely," Ezra agreed. "It would be horrible if my culinary expertise went to a complete waste."
This appeared to be the consensus of opinion and after Nathan convinced Chris that it was still nighttime and he should go back to sleep, the group trouped into the dining room and sat down to sample Ezra's dinner.
Buck, being the brave, self-sacrificing person he was, agreed to try the meatloaf first. The others watched closely as he took a bite and chewed carefully. His face immediately went up in flames. He jumped up, grabbed the nearest glass, JD's milk and downed it in one gulp. When he finally came up for air, he gasped like drowning sailor.
"My word, Ezra! What did you put in that? Cayen pepper?!" he gasped.
Ezra assumed an annoyed expression. "The recipe called for pepper," he said stuffily.
"Normal pepper," Buck clarified, emphasis on normal. "Not Cayen pepper. Man!"
Vin hesitantly took a small bite of meatloaf. He raised his eyebrows. "Buck, you wuss. This is great."
"Thank you," Ezra gushed. "At least someone appreciates fine cooking."
"Potatoes aren't bad either," Josiah admitted, taking a larger spoonful. "Where'd you get the recipe?"
Ezra shrugged, "in one of Chris's drawers. Someone had written 'excellent' next to it."
Buck froze, his fork half-way to his mouth. "In a woman's handwriting?" he asked warily.
Ezra furrowed his brow. "Yes, why?"
The table paused, waiting for Buck's answer. A nervous tension hung in the air.
"Let's just say we had better get rid of all the evidence," Buck decided after a moment. Glances were exchanged around the table and JD and Vin immediately reached for more potatoes.
They continued eating in relative silence, until finally Vin slapped his fork down. "I can't stand this!" he exploded.
Ezra jumped, looking shocked. "You said you liked it!" he protested.
"huh?....oh! No, I do like it," Vin stammered. "I meant that we have a perfect opportunity for the perfect practical joke and no-ones doing anything!"
"I kind of like my neck where it is," Josiah said, around a mouthful of meatloaf.
"He was going to paint his fingernails," Buck volunteered.
Nathan snickered. "There wouldn't be enough bandages to put you back together."
"Gentlemen," Ezra began. "It has occurred to me that it would be very unethical of us to play such a trick on a member of our team, especially while they were in such a vulnerable state."
Vin frowned disapprovingly at him and then looked at Buck, JD chewed thoughtfully and glanced at Nathan. Josiah scratched his chin and regarded Buck then Ezra.
"I'm in," Ezra dropped his fork and rubbed his hands together gleefully. "What do you have in mind."
Vin grinned and leaned forward. The others crowded around listening with growing delight as Vin outlined his plan.
"You genius," Buck smacked him on the back, nearly bowling Vin over. "I couldn't have done better myself."
Vin parked his jeep and cautiously surveyed Chris's house. There was a light in the kitchen on, leading to the conclusion that he was up and about. He had come over to do morning chores for him, and apparently Chris had actually read and listened to his note and was at least waiting for him. Some of the others had been a tad concerned about his going to the ranch by himself. But, Vin had assured them that there was no way in hell Chris would realize what they had done until later at the office.
He climbed out of the truck and walked up the stairs to the large, wrap-around style porch surrounding the house. A muffled 'yeah' served as his invitation into the house and he entered to find Chris's crutches leaning against the breakfast bar and Chris himself hobbling around the kitchen, still in the clothes he'd worn the night before, his hair disheveled. At least his knee brace was still on.
"Just get up?" Vin questioned, accepting the cup of coffee Chris offered.
"Yeah."
Vin nodded, slowly sipping his coffee, he was in no hurry. They didn't need to be at the office for at least two hours.
"Vin?"
"Yeah."
"What happened last night?"
Vin brought his head around and regarded Chris curiously. "Do you remember anything?"
"The hospital," Chris answered with a shake of the head.
Vin nodded, "you were pretty out of it," he conceded. "And nothing really. Ezra and Josiah scared the doctor a little too badly and the drugs he prescribed were a tad too powerful. We did chores, ate your food and went home."
Chris stared at him with a disturbing intensity. "That's it?"
Vin stopped himself from squirming. "Yeah, why? What's wrong?"
Chris chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip. "Nothing," he decided. "I'll help you with chores and make breakfast."
Vin shook his head. "I'll handle chores. Go take a shower." He watched Chris seem to struggle with something and then nod. He grabbed his crutches and made his way towards the stairs. Vin, feeling sufficiently guilty at this point, offered help on the stairs.
Chris turned him down and, blissfully unaware of what was waiting for him at the office, continued with only minimum difficulty up the stairs.
Vin jumped as Chris's phone suddenly rang. He grabbed it before it rang again.
"Hey pard," Buck's voice came through cheerfully. "How are things going?"
"How do you think they're going!" Vin hissed back. "He knows! I'm dead! I don't know why I thought this would be a good idea!"
"Calm down," Buck ordered. "Has he said anything? How do you know he knows?"
"He knows. I can feel it." Vin paced nervously around Chris's kitchen.
"Well pard, if your acting as jumpy as you sound then of course he'll suspect something," Buck informed him gently.
Vin forced himself to take a deep breath. "Ok, you're right," he conceded. "How are things on you're end?"
"Perfectly." Vin could see his famous smile on his side of the line. "Chris won't know what hit him."
Vin hesitated in the elevator, cramming himself in the corner, waiting until Chris got off. After the incident getting into the elevator involving Chris, his crutches, his unbendable knee, the elevator door, the crack between the elevator and the cement floor, and Vin's poorly timed stumble, Vin was not going to move until Chris was safely off the elevator. Unfortunately, Vin probably should have re-thought that move.
Chris stepped, or rather limped, off the elevator, carefully avoiding the crack right after the elevator floor, and was practically mauled by five women who were fussing, cooing, and just generally falling all over themselves to help him out of the elevator. He jerked in surprise and placed his crutch right in the crack he was trying so hard to avoid. He wavered, swaying, before he felt Vin's hand on his arm, steading him and making an attempt to shoo the ladies away. For their part, they giggled and pushed him out of the way to cluster around Chris as he attempted to make his way to the front desk and the metal detectors.
"The flowers were so sweet!"
"That's a horrid brace, does it hurt?"
"We'll take care of you."
"Are you busy next week?"
"Now you tell them you're all mine."
"This way, sugah."
The purrs, cries, and whispers piled on top of one another. Chris shot a frantic look to Vin who was staring fixedly at the bright blue poster in front of the security office. The guards were finally forced to shoo the women away so Chris could get through the metal detectors. Surprisingly, they didn't go off. Vin frowned at the upright poles and then caught the sly smile the girl in the booth gave him. Behind her Vin caught a glimpse of a bouquet of flowers. He flashed her a bright smile to make up for the one Chris neglected to give her. She waved and Vin slipped through the detectors and hurried to grab the elevator before any of the women managed to get through security. But, he was confident that the woman in the booth would hold them up.
Vin watched, as the doors slid shut, effectively barring anymore women from this floor from entering and turned to see Chris staring at him, an odd look on his face.
"What?" Vin played innocent rather well. "Did they hurt you?" he asked, going for the concerned best friend act.
Chris wasn't falling for it. Vin could tell this straight off by the tell-tale narrowing of the eye's and the thinning of the lips. He backed up against the door as if trying to put some more space between the two of them.
"What did you do?" Chris growled, ennounciating each word with painstaking clarity.
"Me!?" Vin's vehement denial of any wrongdoing on his part came out in sort of a high squeak.
"Yes," Chris clarified. "You."
Vin hesitated, trying to think of some way out of this mess. Nothing ... not a damn thing ... he was dead ... why did he listen to Buck ... he should have run when he had the chance ...
"Look, Chris, this wasn't my fault," Vin started babbling. "Buck started it-" That was all he managed as Chris took a threatening step towards, well about as threatening as a man could be on crutches. Vin tried to stuff himself a little tighter against the doors, just as they opened.
Vin stumbled backwards, as the doors slide neatly apart, and landed in a heap on the floor outside the elevator. Slightly stunned, he laid there staring up at a very ticked off Chris Larabee and silently prayed.
"What'cha doing down there, pard," Buck's too jovial voice echoed down the hall.
For about two seconds Chris gaze was distracted. Vin scrambled to his feet and backed away from him.
Buck slowed as he realized he'd just walked into something, and from the look on Vin's face, something dangerous. "What's going on?" he asked, testing the waters.
Chris cut his gaze to Buck and then dropped the crutches, lunging forward, his hands stretching towards Buck's neck. Buck jerked backwards, but not quick enough. Chris slammed into him and they both went down in a heap, Chris's hands firmly around Buck's neck.
Buck made some sort of weird choking noise and tried to pry Chris's hands off his neck. He wasn't having much luck.
"What did you do?!" Chris yelled in his face, and then shook him. Buck gurgled.
Vin stared in abject fasination at the scene from a safe five meters away. He figured after that fall Chris took their was no way he could possibly get up and grab him before Vin could make a run for the stairs and then, well then Vin was home free.
"Chris!?"
"Hey, let go of him!"
"Grab him!"
"Vin, what did you start!"
Voices piled on top of one another as Ezra, Josiah, JD, and Nathan appeared to find out what the commotion had been about. Josiah and JD quickly detatched Chris from Buck and dragged him to his feet. Nathan hauled Buck up and Ezra held him on his feet until the color flooded back into his face.
"What is going on?" Nathan demanded, assuming a disgruntled expression.
Chris merely glowered, first at Buck and then Vin. But, was saved from having to answer as Judge Travis climbed out of the elevator. He smiled, apparently not noticing anything amiss.
"Chris, my boy, glad to see you're on your feet again," he greeted, shaking Chris's hand firmly.
"Yeah, well. I'm glad to be here," Chris answered, settling for shooting Buck a nasty look over the Judge's shoulder.
"I just came to let you know that the conference was rescheduled for this afternoon."
Shoulders drooped as Travis's news hit them all like a ton of bricks. "Oh, and Mary wanted me to thank you for the roses," Travis added. He leaned forward conspiratively . "She loved them."
"Flowers." Chris snarled as soon as the judge was out of ear shot. "You sent her flowers." The men took a collective step back.
"But, she liked them, Chris," JD pleaded, trying to stay behind Ezra, who was trying to stay behind Josiah.
"You sent her flowers?!" Chris demanded again. He stepped forward, matching their backwards steps.
"Chris, use the crutches. Do you know how close you came to having to have surgery on that leg," Nathan scolded, trying desperatly to change the subject.
"You sent her flowers?" Chris asked again.
"Yes!" Vin finally yelled. "We sent her flowers! In fact, we were so tired of watching you tiptoe around her that we sent every women in this building flowers from you!!"
Buck closed his eyes, Josiah prayed, Ezra groaned, JD whimpered, and Nathan reached in his pocket for band-aids, waiting for the inevitable blow-up.
"You sent her flowers." The rest of the team looked at Chris in confusion.
"Why does he keep saying that?" JD asked.
"Ah, Chris?" Buck took a cautious step forward. "You ok there, pard?"
Nathan nudged Ezra. "Maybe you should get him a chair," he suggested, noting Chris's suddenly sheet white face.
"You sent her flowers," Chris said again as Ezra approached with a chair and Nathan gently forced him into it.
"Yeah, we sent her flowers," Nathan clarified. "What's the matter?"
Chris blinked. "I never send her flowers."
"We know," Vin said from behind Nathan. "That's why we did." He shrugged. "She thinks they're from you."
Chris was quiet a moment, digesting this information. "But the rest of the department?" he asked quietly.
Vin shifted, looking over at Buck. "Well, uh, it seemed like a good idea at the time."
Buck grinned, "just thought you might like a little excitement there you'll dog."
Chris raised his head and glared at Buck. "It was your idea," he snarled.
Buck backed up from the suddenly feral man in front of him. "Whoa, hold up there. This was Vin's idea." He stabbed a finger in Vin's direction.
"It was not!" Vin protested. "It was ... uh, Ezra's idea."
"What!"
"Chris." The men froze at the sing-song call of an unmistakably feminine voice. "Chris?" The voice asked again, this time slightly uncertain. They tensed. It was Mary.
"Mary?" Josiah finally answered for Chris. "Over here."
She appeared around the corner, obviously having taken the stairs. She spotted Chris who stood up as she approached and smiled warmly. "Thank you for the flowers," she gushed.
"Uh, your welcome," Chris stammered. Buck and Vin gave each other high fives from behind him.
She turned to the rest of the men. "You might want to send someone to check on the elevator. There was a huge line downstairs." Ignoring any response the men might have given her she turned back to Chris, retrieving his crutches from JD she led him towards his office. "I was wondering if you'd like to escort me to the luncheon at the Plaza this afternoon?"
They heard Chris groan. "I've got that conference this afternoon."
"I already talked to Orrin," Mary began, not sounding at all detered. "He didn't think you were up to it and thought this would be a great break."
Buck turned to glare accusingly at Vin at the two disappeared into the office. "She got him out of it!" he hissed accusingly, poking a finger at his chest. "And now we still have to go!"
Vin batted his hand away. "It's not my fault," he retorted bitterly. It wasn't. Some things a man just couldn't control and a conference detailing the proper etiquette arresting officers are required to maintain just happened to be one of them.
Finis
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