DISCLAIMER: The characters of The Magnificent Seven are owned by MGM, CBS and Trilogy. I am not profiting by their use in any way.
FEEDBACK: Yes, please, this is my first story.
The lawmen lifted their heads slowly and soundlessly from behind the rock ridge. They remained in shadow but the fire in the canyon below outlined their prey in golden silhouettes. This is going to be easy. JD's shoulder pressed tightly to a stone precipice and Ezra leaned against him. It was a close fit on the ledge but an ideal vantage point--it suited their purpose perfectly.
JD's heart raced. He was right. Before dawn, Vin Tanner had led the search heading south but JD figured the escaped convicts had gone west. He tried to explain his reasoning but could not persuade the other lawmen. Except for Ezra Standish who was greatly amused by the unlikely gamble.
Their eyes met briefly, enjoying their triumph. JD silently checked his guns: loaded and ready.
"Wait, Mr. Dunne." Ezra whispered. "The odds are against us. Let's get the others. We wouldn't want a single member of this little party left unattended to." Ezra gripped JD's elbow conspiratorially, his eyes bright.
A long piercing scream erupted from the canyon, stopping their descent. They returned to carefully watch the camp below. The convicts moved in the rock enclave like caged animals. Two pairs were still shackled together. The chains were too thick to shoot through and obviously the prison guards they killed had not been carrying the keys. There were three men moving freely. Three. One must be the young man who had orchestrated the escape; the others were just able locksmiths. Their open, heavy shackles lay by the fire; it's orange glow reflecting on the metal.
The sheriff in Red Fork had speculated that it was Coleman's son who had killed the guards on the prison transport in order to rescue his father. A demented loyalty had driven the boy to help the one man he feared over any other. He looked about the same age as JD. His slight figure retreated back into the shadows as the lawmen watched. The two other men, bloated by comparison, passed a young woman between them. Her long black hair followed the jerky rhythms of her body as they tore at her clothing and shoved her back and forth.
"She's Indian." JD whispered. They watched, horrified. This changed everything. Ezra silently estimated the distance between his comrades and himself, the time it would take to bring the others here, and how long before the woman was ripped apart by these animals. This was not the gamble had anticipated when he joined JD.
"I'll go in, JD. Get the others."
"No, Ezra!" JD grabbed his arm. Their faces were inches apart on the rock ledge. Ezra took a breath and focused on his friend.
"JD, you can ride. I can shoot."
The woman's screams echoed in the rock canyon. JD hesitated a moment longer. He fisted the material of the gambler's maroon coat tightly. "You wait, Ezra. Wait! Give me a chance to get moving. Wait as long as you can."
"Go!" Ezra held JD's wrist so he could slip down the face of the rock quickly. The young man's footfalls were a fast staccato beat as he tore through the woods to the horses. Ezra turned back to the canyon. He checked and loaded both guns, making sure even the little derringer he kept in a rigging up his sleeve was ready.
The woman lay on her back with one man straddling her hips. The other threw himself at the first, a hoarse chuckle bellowing. "I'm the one who found her, gawd dammit! Git off." The first man teetered and fell, as loose as a puddle of water, his laughter rippling in rings.
They're drunk. Ezra latched on to the fact like it was a royal flush. He worked his way carefully around the rock that hid him and inched down into the canyon. The convicts were completely focused on the entertainment provided and Ezra strolled into their midst.
He held two cocked guns on the unshackled men.
"Good evening, gentlemen." Every pair of eyes swung toward him, surprised. "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to free that young lady. I apologize that I cannot kill all of you. I suggest you discuss amongst yourselves which one of you is going to die."
Vin Tanner crouched on the dirt trail a few yards ahead of the other gunslingers. They waited patiently until he stood and faced them.
"JD was right."
"Oh, hell!" Buck laughed and let his chin fall to his chest in mock despair. "We ain't ever gonna hear the end of this." The other men smiled. They reined in their horses, the animals prancing and snorting as they bumped each other to head west again.
"I've been tracking 'bout six men on foot. But it ain't the ones we're looking for."
"What makes you say that, Vin?" Chris tossed the reins of Vin's mount to him.
"They're moving too fast and the trail disappears once in a while. They're real careful to cover their tracks. I'm guessing its Indians. Somethin' curious about it: I think they're looking for the same thing we are."
Josiah Sanchez listened to Vin's translation of small marks in the sand, tiny branches barely clipped and the minor displacement of the elements of nature. Vin read the land's words as surely as Josiah read the Lord's.
"Lead the way, brother." Josiah let the tracker pass. Vin rode quickly, determined to reach the spot where JD and Ezra had split off from the group. JD had learned a lot since coming west from Boston. He absorbed the tracker's teaching like dry earth in the rain. But it wasn't footprints that led him west. He guessed that the convicts took the easy route and walked up the middle of the shallow river. They were too stupid to be covering their tracks so well.
"The convicts stole something important from the tribe along the way." Vin shouted over his shoulder to the others. "The braves are trackin'em. They're gonna find 'em and get back what they lost."
"How the hell did you figure that from the trail, Vin?" Josiah was impressed. Vin twisted in his saddle, not slowing his pace and smiled at the preacher. "It's a technique I learnt from JD."
Xiaoting's sandeled feet sang a song of misery as he walked through the dry brush. He turned to his friend. Surely Sheng-Li felt the same discomfort but the old man continued to walk and continued to smile. No earthy displeasure could distract him from his inner peace.
What I wouldn't give for a bit of rice, some sugar and a pipe of opium... Xiaoting's reverie ended when he saw the Indian camp ahead. He knew Sheng-Li saw it, too. They were prepared. The small group of Indians camped here last autumn as well. They were the elder people of the tribe, brought here by their families to soak in the hot springs that bubbled up from the mountains. The tribe also found time to visit with the Chinese who had taken residence in the large cabin by the water.
The Indians admired the tiny people who walked so deliberately and spoke their English so carefully. Both of their races had ancient, respected traditions and they lived accordingly. It was a pity they had to communicate in the language of whites: crude people who drank milk and alcohol and were incapable of honoring their ancestors, as common sense required. Sheng-Li paused and his smile disappeared. Xiaoting studied him carefully.
"Xiaoting, a great fear abides among our friends." The young man listened to the movements in the Indian camp. He heard only the normal rhythms of life but trusted the old man and patted the oversized knife he kept in his sash.
"They mourn." Again Xiaoting listened and heard nothing. Would he ever hear the enigmatic language that spoke to his friend? He loved his studies and was determined to learn the ancient ways. But sometimes he actually missed the physical work and easy laughter of his cousins from the time when they worked for the railroad.
The two visitors stood respectfully at the edge of the Indian camp and waited. The Indian people sensed their presence quickly and welcomed them to the fire where Running Deer meditated.
The Chinese men clasped their hands in front of themselves and bowed and bowed. Running Deer closed his eyes as if in respect when truly the bowing made him dizzy. He peeked once and saw that the ritual was ended. Thank the gods.
He enjoyed these men, especially the young one. The Indians made an effort to pronounce the unusual names carefully: "Shou ting". Shout ing was so clever with any device. It was a delight to hand him their tools to see what he made of them. And the tiny old man brought lovely, delicately painted bowls for trade. Running Deer hoped to acquire something of value this time. He would give it to his woman to remind her that he was once handsome.
They wanted only herbs in return. The Indian's healing arts fascinated them. The Chinese people at the hot springs were healers themselves, fan wey. On cold nights when Running Deer's old bones ached he sometimes wondered about the yellow people's mysterious methods. His bones ached now but no medicine could heal him.
His heart was broken. His old friend had gone to bathe in the hot springs before dawn. His daughter, Midday Sun, walked with him at his elbow. Later, others had followed and returned screaming. The old man was dead, his head smashed like a melon on the rocks, and his daughter was missing. Running Deer grieved for them. He also rocked in silent prayer for his own son. The young man would never again know peace if he could not find that woman.
Midday Sun had the reflexes of a cat. In the first moment of Ezra's distraction she leapt away from her captors. She hesitated for a single heartbeat and met his eyes. With a quick tilt of his head he indicated that she should go east. East. His pulse pounded so vigorously in his own head he didn't know if he had said it out loud or not. But she understood him, he knew that.
She went north. The woman was gone instantly: a blur of soft buckskin and black hair. She vanished in the woods; as much at home there as any forest creature.
Ezra had only his own hide to think of now and he focused on the stunned convicts who scrambled for their guns. He shot the rifle out of one man's hands and they all froze.
"Well, gentleman." Ezra backed up instinctively. "Have you decided which one of you will die?" His guns were trained carefully on the unshackled men. The leader, Jake Coleman nodded firmly to one pair of men still linked in chains and they picked up their guns and fired. The gambler killed them both with two quick shots. His aim was so true that the men seemed to grow a new eye in the middle of their foreheads just as the original ones closed.
Coleman shot, too. His aim was not as good but the bullet hit it's mark, piercing Ezra's flank and lodging tightly at the back of his rib. Ezra turned to shoot again but his body moved slowly, as if it did not belong to him. The air was suddenly thick and hot and filled with a loud ringing sound. Inside the vibrating resonance he thought he could hear JD. Wait, Ezra. Wait as long as you can.
Coleman was not as intoxicated as the other man and he quickly regained his footing and appeared in front of Ezra. The convict stepped back and swung his rifle like a bat, cracking it against the side of Ezra's head. The gambler's body collapsed bonelessly to the canyon floor. His eyesight flashed and darkened. Colemen pulled Ezra up by his coat and screamed into his face.
"Yeah, you bastard." His spit sprayed, clouding the lawman's vision further. "I decided which ones was gonna die. Them two back there." His laughter roared in Ezra's ears, putrid breath gusting around him.
"And then, later, when I feel like it, yer gonna die." He flung Ezra back to the ground then swung his foot and brutally booted the senseless man. Ezra's body lifted and sagged without resistance. Jake Coleman grunted in frustration and another blow exploded in the gambler's gut. The blows continued and Ezra's arms flopped out at his sides exposing the once white shirt that now mapped a bloody route of injury and filth.
"You idiot!" Coleman screamed. "I was gonna have that woman, dammit!!"
Like a furious child he stamped on one of Ezra's outstretched arms. Instead of malleable flesh he felt the steel of the derringer. He paused in surprise.
"What the hell?" Coleman caught his breath. He griped Ezra's arms, turned him over, and tore off the maroon jacket. He stared at the little gun, fascinated, and pulled it from it's rigging.
"Hey! Lookit this, Bates!"
Bates and the two shackled men who were still alive had moved back from Coleman's frenzy of rage. Coleman's terrified son continued to hide himself near the canyon wall. The danger abated slightly when he had discovered the little gun and the men moved forward. Bates bent down and picked up the other guns Ezra had let drop. He eyed the maroon jacket admiringly.
"Ain't this handy?" Coleman cocked the derringer.
"Try it, Coleman." Bates said absently. "Shoot 'im."
Ezra moaned softly, his head eased to the side. Coleman dropped the derringer into his pocket and glanced at the gambler.
"Not yet." He scooped up his victim by the shoulders and dragged him toward a large boulder near the fire. "If I caint have that woman, I'm gonna hafta have him."
Bates whooped with laughter. Ezra felt the ground scrape under him. He hung desperately to the edge of sanity. Again his body seemed detached but he latched on to a last thread of control. His fist swung out, smashed against Coleman's face and he rolled away.
Coleman fell back near the fire, stunned. He blinked once and then his rage returned in full. He snatched up the open shackles on the ground and reached for Ezra. He flipped the injured man easily and shoved one knee in the center of his back. Ezra's broken ribs seared in agony and he was trapped face down. Coleman clamped one cuff onto the gambler's wrist, wrapped the chain tightly around both wrists and snapped closed the other shackle.
"There now! That's better, aint it?" Coleman yanked Ezra up by his hands, now cinched painfully behind him and deposited the gambler firmly on the boulder. Coleman gripped and shifted Ezra's hips. The air rang with friction as a steel knife sliced through his leather belt.
Reality wavered and the gambler's head pounded. "No...no, please."
As he spoke blood splattered on the ground in front of him. Ezra saw the red drops appear on the canyon floor. A cluster of sage moved gently in a breeze nearby; tiny grains of sand shifted, creating a new pattern. The shouts and laughter of the men faded and then it was quiet. Ezra could not move, could not manipulate his limbs. He waited; his breath came in quick gasps. JD! Please...bring the others.
Coleman's body suddenly crashed to the ground next to him, a thick arrow protruding from his back. Ezra felt himself being pulled up and then seated carefully on the ground against the rock. The Indian woman held his face in both her hands, her black eyes flashing.
"North." She whispered to him in careful English. "I knew my people would come for me. From the north."
Buck Wilmington was worried. He prodded the big, gray horse firmly keeping even with Vin's hurried pace.
Nathan! Buck wished the healer had come with them. First, Billy Travis had tumbled off a boardwalk railing and Nathan thought he had broken an arm. Then a rancher's wife had come to town to stay with Mrs. Potter. Her pregnancy was troubled and she pleaded with Nathan to be near. It was better that someone stayed anyway, they reasoned. Buck had felt sorry for the man: stuck in town. Buck had it all wrong.
He had thought it comical when JD contradicted Vin Tanner. And it was even more amusing that Ezra had agreed to JD's plan. The gambler and the kid had ridden fast, splashing down stream like two boys with a secret plan. It seemed like a great game. When the convicts were finally behind bars, Buck figured Ezra and JD would owe him a beer. Wrong again.
"They're gonna be, OK, Buck." Chris Larabee could see the tension growing in his friend. Fear was reaching out to grip them all and they tried to outride it. "We're almost to the stream." The horses paired two abreast when the path widened at the long stretch down to the water. As they turned the corner they caught sight of a rider coming toward them.
"JD!" Vin called. JD's horse reared when she saw the others. They watched as JD pulled her quickly around and rode back the way he had come. They would follow him, it was clear he knew that. But where was Ezra?
Lean Wolf pulled Bates' dead body up and grabbed a handful of shaggy red hair. He made a neat cut across the man's forehead and tore the scalp from his head. His gut churned. He was a peaceful man by nature but this brute's arrogance was intolerable.
He moved to the bloated man near Midday Sun. He wanted to take her away from this place. He dragged the man some distance and pulled him up, too.
"Lean Wolf," The woman's eyes met his. She squatted on sturdy, short legs in front of the manacled stranger. "We should take him with us." Ezra's head leaned back on the rock. He fought to remain awake but consciousness eluded him. He had no sensation in his arms and the numbness was swallowing the rest of his body.
Lean Wolf tried to stay rational. Her request did not make sense. The white man was sure to die soon. He wanted to dismiss her but could not. She was such a puzzling, disarming woman. In her presence things seemed to glow with a different light. He could refuse her nothing.
He dropped the man he held without taking his scalp. He had enough of death for one day. He went to the woods and brought the horses they had hidden. The other men collected all the white men's weapons and tied the scalps to their belts.
They lifted Ezra up to Red Bear's arms. Bear was a giant of a man and would have no trouble holding on to the stranger.
"We should leave him." The big Indian tried to settle in behind the man's impossibly shackled wrists. "He will be gone before the sun sets."
Lean Wolf saw the look of despair on the woman's face. "Then we will bury him on the land of our people," He said watching her. Bear raised his eyebrows. This was a great honor. "He returned Midday Sun to us. We are in his debt." The big Indian prodded his horse forward and held Ezra carefully.
JD rode hard, back to the spot where Ezra's horse, Chaucer still stood grazing. He leapt from his own panicked mare and raced to the rock ledge. The other men were behind him as soon as he started to climb. He lifted his head slowly and viewed the carnage below. He bolted up but Chris pulled him back. "Wait, JD!"
Chris listened. There was no sound from the canyon floor. They slowly peeked over the precipice again and then climbed over it, their guns drawn. Six bodies greeted the five men. Three of them were missing their scalps.
JD paced the perimeter of the camp. "He's not here." He walked faster, becoming alarmed. He picked up Ezra's maroon jacket stained with blood. Buck stayed near him and grasped his shoulder. "He's not here, Buck! " JD shook with rage. "We're too late. I shouldn't have left him."
"The Indians got here before us." Vin fingered hoof prints at the edge of the camp. "They took him with them."
"We'll find him, JD." Buck was confident. The Indians would not have taken a dead body. Ezra was surely alive. "They can't be that far ahead of us and they're not covering their tracks now." He released JD and viewed the slaughtered bodies on the ground. "Let's get moving." His long arm swept over scene of the convicts' bodies. "We can leave this garbage for the wolves."
As the men turned to leave two shots rang out in quick succession. JD fell violently to his side as if shoved. Jake Coleman had managed to raise his arm even with the arrow still stuck in his back and shoot. Four guns fired in reply. The rain of bullets exploded in Coleman's chest and knocked him flat, cracking the Indian's arrow.
"Dammit! Dammit!" JD writhed in agony on the ground. Buck got hold of him and guided him to sit against the canyon wall. JD squeezed his upper arm, breathing hard and trying to regain some composure. Buck and Josiah knelt on either side of him.
"I'm okay!" He panted. "I'm fine, I'm fine." He pressed his back against the wall, his chest heaving.
Vin came over with Ezra's small derringer and put it in JD's hand. "He had Ezra's gun. The Indians musta missed it. Looks like they took all the other weapons."
JD studied the gun and felt the weight of the warm metal in his hand. Then he slipped it into his pocket. He let his fingers trace the engraving on the gun's hilt, as if it were a message in Braille that would lead him to his friend. "I'll ...I'll give it back to him."
Buck grasped the lapels of JD's coat. "C'mon, kid. Let's see what kind of damage that little pea shooter caused ya."
"No." JD was calmer now. "No, it's okay. He just winged me."
JD pulled his jacket closed and Buck found a single, tiny hole in the sleeve. It didn't seem to be bleeding much. He pulled a long bandana from around his neck, wound it firmly around JD's arm, and tied it off. "Think you can ride? Cause if ya can't, y'all can ride double--with Vin."
Vin gave Buck a shove then helped raise JD to his feet. He was steady, but sore and they gripped his good arm as he climbed back over the rock wall.
Josiah tucked the maroon jacket in with Ezra's saddlebags and tied Chaucer to his horse. "I'm pretty sure they came in from the north," Vin said, doubting himself. "But if Ezra were here I don't know that he'd bet on it."
Ferris Coleman, Jr. was pressed against the canyon wall. Tears ran freely down his face. The explosion of gunfire that killed his father echoed in his mind. It was all over now. After all his years of planning; the escape had become his single focus, his reason to live. Nothing made sense. He felt empty.
He watched as the gunslingers left the canyon. For a long time he was afraid to leave his hiding place. When he finally did, he stood over the butchered corpse of his father. "We almost made it." He spoke to the corpse's blank, lifeless eyes. "That stupid lawman. The whole blasted gang of 'em. I'll kill every one of 'em." Young Coleman paced the camp, talking to each dead body he passed. "I'm gonna find 'em. I'll start where you left off, Pa, and kill the young one first."
Xiaoting waited patiently by the fire of the gray haired leader. He quieted himself and tried to listen and hear more than just the sound that met his ears. He had the feeling that both Running Deer and Sheng-Li were listing to something, too. He struggled to find inner peace but was distracted by an item lying near the fire.
It was a long pole made from the skeleton of a dead saguaro. A shorter pole was fastened across it at one end. He could see that the opposite end was worn smooth by years of gripping. A picking pole: so this is how the Indians gather the fruit from the great, thorny saguaro!
Suddenly, both of the other men stood and faced the woods. Other people in the camp began to run in that direction and shortly, a line of horses became distinct from the trees.
"Lean Wolf." Running Deer pronounced his son's name with a joyful relief. He was happy to see the short brown legs of Midday Sun tucked behind Lean Wolf. The men rode the horses up to the camp and leapt to the ground. Lean Wolf reached back to assist Midday Sun. Running Deer watched. Did the boy not yet realize that this was truly the woman of his heart? If not, then he was the only one of the tribe who did not know.
Only Red Bear remained on his horse. Ezra had collapsed forward but Bear's long arms wrapped around the gambler's chest and steadied his head. The metal shackles were chaffing the big Indian's belly and he was relieved to hand the man down to the others. They carried him to Running Deer and laid him gently on his side near the fire.
Xiaoting was stunned. Wo ren shi ta! Zhe shi ta! I know him. It's him.
Sheng-Li eyes went wide. He wanted to speak to Xiaoting in their own tongue but did not want to be rude to the others. The two stood and bowed and bowed again, backing away from the fire. Running Deer nodded. He could see the alarm in his visitor's movements as if frightened by the body of the white man. He was curious but allowed them the privacy they sought.
"Calm down, Xiaoting!" Sheng-Li spoke in a firm voice with the ease of his native language. "Explain yourself."
"I know him, Sheng-Li." Xiaoting was trembling. "I know that man and owe an important debt to him."
Sheng-Li regarded his protégé carefully. He had great affection for the young man but didn't believe he would ever properly learn the ancient ways. Xiaoting was easily distracted by mechanical workings, never listening. "First you must breathe deeply, son." The Chinese doctor breathed in and out along with him. "Now, tell me, how do you know him?"
"He is one of the seven men who rescued our people from the devils at the railroad camp. This man was especially kind to my cousin, Li-Pong. He even provided her with money so she could return to her family in California."
Sheng-Li was astonished but doubtful. "How can you be sure it is him? Look at his face carefully. It is clear the gods grew lazy when making such a face and repeated it many times over. It is the same face all the white men wear."
Xiaoting hesitated and looked back at Ezra as he lay by the fire. It was true but he felt sure that this was Li-Pong's friend. He closed his eyes and pictured the man smiling with Li-Pong.
"He has a gold tooth!" Xiaoting was proud of his observation.
Again Sheng-Li was surprised. "And if this does prove to be the man, what do you plan to do?"
"We must take him back with us. You can heal him."
Sheng-Li was touched by such confidence from the youth. If this were the gold-toothed man then he would do his best to care for him. He had heard the story many times from those who had survived. Their people were practically enslaved by the railroad foreman: murdered and cheated. When the railroad neared Four Corners the seven lawmen had risked their lives for the Chinese. He nodded to Xiaoting. He understood now. They returned to the fire and approached Running Deer.
They clasped their hands in front of themselves and bowed and bowed again. Running Deer waited. Xiaoting gestured, indicating the white man and they all turned to Ezra.
Midday Sun held Ezra's head in her lap and gently cleaned his damaged cheek. His shirt had been opened and pulled past his shoulders and a woman cleaned the bullet wound. It was on the side of his chest near the bottom rib and nested in dark bruises. He tried to move away from her touch now and then, his torso lurching but the shackles had numbed his limbs and limited any movement. The women were gentle and moved slowly. There was no urgency. They anticipated that he would soon die.
Midday Sun watched Ezra struggle to live. He was lost in a realm of pain between this world and the next. She spoke to him quietly in her own musical language. "Thank you, my friend." The cut on his face bled, tracing the contour of his chin. She held a cloth to the gash longing to stop his pain, willing his spirit to stay. "You have traded your own life for mine when you did not even know me. Thank you."
Sheng-Li listened to the Indian woman's foreign words. It was a precious melody of sound. It would surely sooth the damaged body she held. He turned to speak to Running Deer.
"Xiaoting recognizes this man as a great friend to our people. We wish to take him back with us."
Running Deer lifted his brow in amazement. He looked into the white stranger's face, studying it. "My friends," he said with a calming voice. "How can you be sure that this man is the same man you speak of? All the white men have similar faces."
The Chinese nodded in agreement. "If it is him then he has a tooth of gold."
Running Deer was fascinated. He was pleased and relieved that the Chinese were willing to help the man. His family had come to the springs with only a small group and traveled without a healer.
Sheng-Li went to Ezra's side. Many people moved closer to observe. Midday Sun slid out from under Ezra to allow the Chinese doctor to examine him. Ezra lay awkwardly, encumbered by the heavy shackles, his body soaked with sweat. His eyes squinted open. Sheng-Li saw that they were the color of jade. They also held another more familiar hue: pain. The man grunted and struggled, desperate to communicate, then collapsed, exhausted.
Sheng-Li turned the injured man's head carefully. Ezra's consciousness wavered. The side of his face was torn and bruised where the rifle had smashed into it. The fan wey put a little pressure on the lower jaw and the mouth opened. Blood flowed out freely and the audience stepped back in revulsion.
Sheng-Li was not troubled. He placed his finger in Ezra's mouth and carefully moved it along the ridge of teeth. Ezra pulled back and tried to turn away but Sheng-Li held him still. The source of the blood was a molar that had been shattered by the blow to his face. The doctor extracted the loose pieces and displayed them in his open palm. Ezra's eyes were squeezed shut in pain. A gasp of understanding passed among the people.
Running Deer took the pieces of the tooth. "He has given much to save Midday Sun." Let us hope he has not given his life as well.
Sheng-Li gently pushed back Ezra's upper lip and the gold tooth flashed.
Zhe shi ta! "It is him."
The Indian's trail led to the north. They had not tried to cover their tracks. The five lawmen rode at a good pace but not fast enough for JD.
"How much farther, Vin?"
"Don't know for sure, JD. Reckon they've camped by the hot springs for a while." Vin observed JD carefully; a sheen of sweat coated his face. "Maybe we should stop a minute. Let the horses drink. Rest."
JD slid a sideways look at Vin. He knew Vin was keeping the pace moderate for him. They were all worried about the bullet he took in the canyon. His arm burned where the slug had moved through and strangely, he could feel a deep ache and wetness on the inside of his shirt. As soon as they found Ezra he would inspect the damage. Right now, they had to keep moving.
"How much farther?" He repeated the words again like a chorus to the beat of the pounding hoofs.
Buck reined his horse to a stop. The others follow suit. "You gotta take a break, you stubborn fool." He moved next to JD. "You're gonna fall off that damn horse." Buck unhooked his canteen and took a long swallow. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and handed the water to JD.
"Buck." JD was almost too tired to argue. "I'm fine." JD took a drink and recorked the canteen. He handed it back to Buck. "We've got to find Ezra." He met Buck's gaze, willing him to understand: It's my fault. I should not have left him. The horse turned suddenly and JD rode off. Buck watched him ride. JD's movements were a fluid continuum with the horse's body as if he were an extension of the animal. He held his injured arm tightly to his side but the mare raced on without knowledge of it. She took him forward as he commanded and the others rode after him.
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