Chris Larabee drowsed lazily on his blankets, enjoying the feel of the morning sun on his skin, but taking much more delight in the warmth of the naked body pressing so closely against his own. He'd forgotten how many small, simple pleasures there were in simply lying with another -- the brush of a curl against his fingers, the whisper of a breath against his skin, the weight of an arm draped across his stomach, the supple curve of a body fitting itself to his. He'd had all these once, but had lost them and thought them gone forever. Now, though, he had them again, and, knowing what it meant to lose them, considered them more precious than ever. Just as he considered their source.

He looked down at the face -- or what he could see of it through the veiling tangle of long hair -- pillowed upon his chest and had to smile. Vin Tanner. Former buffalo hunter, former bounty hunter, former God-knew-what-all, now a wanted man, a dangerous man, a deadly man... and the man who'd become the heart and soul of Larabee's world. He still wasn't sure exactly when or how that had happened, wasn't sure when a shared glance of mutual purpose across a dusty street had grown into this all-encompassing, all-consuming passion, but decided that the when and the how didn't really matter. What mattered was that Vin was here, Vin was his, and he was Vin's. For the first time in three years, his life was as complete as he could ever hope to have it.

"Yer lookin' almighty pleased with yerself," Tanner drawled sleepily, turning his face to Larabee's. "You know somethin' I don't?"

Chris gave a slight smile and reached down to brush Tanner's hair back from his face. Eyes bluer than the sky itself gazed up at him, and he marveled yet again at the startling mix of youth and age in their depths. Not for the first time, he wondered exactly how old Vin really was, and then, not for the first time, decided a man like Tanner could never be measured in mere years.

"Hell, pard," he teased, "the things I know that you don't would fill a barn!"

Vin rolled off Chris and scowled at him, blue eyes narrowing. "Uppity sonuvabitch, ain'tcha?" he growled. "Think jist 'cause I letcha have yer way with me that you c'n--"

"Let me?" Chris interrupted, sitting up and staring at his lover. "Let me? As I recall, Tanner, you were beggin' me--"

"I ain't ever begged nobody, least of all some high 'n mighty, slit-eyed gunfighter--"

"Horseshit," Larabee barked, green eyes gleaming wickedly. "You were beggin' not two hours ago... Hell, you were damn near cryin'! If I hadn'ta taken pity on ya--"

"Pity?" Vin rasped, glaring furiously at the older man. "you took pity on me? Well, hell, I like that! Who was it moanin' 'n whimperin' 'n pleadin' fer more--"

"I never whimper," Chris corrected archly.

"My ass!" Vin snorted derisively. "Shit, you was so damn desperate-- Hey!" he yelped hoarsely as Larabee suddenly pounced upon him and flipped him onto his back. "What the hell--"

"Now," Larabee purred, straddling his lover and leaning down, his face only inches from Tanner's, "let's talk about yer ass."

"I ain't... Unnh," Vin groaned as the gunfighter's lips claimed his with a devastating mastery. Larabee's full, firm mouth moved hungrily against his own, tongue stroking, teeth nibbling, driving away whatever thought he had been about to voice. Another groan escaped him and he opened his mouth helplessly beneath Larabee's onslaught, unable to deny the man any part of himself. His whole being, body and soul, surged to burning life and aching awareness of Chris's every touch, and he wanted nothing more than to join his fire and pain to Larabee's, to be one in every way with the man who'd become the very center of his existence.

Chris felt the lean body beneath his shudder and tense, heard the quickening of Tanner's breathing, and chuckled softly as he nibbled at the corner of the tracker's mouth. "Like that, do ya?"

"Might could... git used to it," Vin rasped, doubting he'd ever really get used to this man's effect on him, even if he lived to be a thousand.

Larabee chuckled again and began licking and nibbling his way along that beautifully square jaw, delighting in Tanner's small moans and soft growls. He'd discovered that, for such a quiet man, the tracker was incredibly vocal during lovemaking, announcing his pleasure with a wide variety of sounds. And he was making it his business to learn every single one.

"Oh, Lord!" Vin gasped as Larabee's mouth found its way to his ear, as that nimble tongue danced lightly over its shell and then slipped into the canal, as warm lips closed about the tender lobe and sucked slowly. The gunfighter's hands, meanwhile, burned a path across his chest to his nipples, the callused fingers deftly stroking the dusky nubs to immediate hardness, and his lean hips thrust downward, grinding his cock into Tanner's. Lightning jolted along the tracker's every nerve and his flesh reacted at once, stiffening and twitching hungrily. "Chris!"

Larabee felt the same fire shoot through him as his insatiable need for Tanner again consumed him. The tracker was writhing and thrusting against him, that hard, compact body bringing his to full and fevered arousal, the man's wildness awakening an answering one in him. Tanner's hands clutched and clawed at him, those long, strong fingers raking down his naked back and digging into his muscles, tearing a wrenching groan from him. All at once, though, the groan sharpened into a howl of pain and pleasure as Vin turned his head and sank his teeth into his shoulder.

"Jesus, Vin!" he cried. Immediately, though, Tanner began blowing gently over the bite, then lapped cat-like at it with his tongue. Chris groaned and shuddered and instinctively flexed his shoulder, then howled again as the tracker shifted once more and bit into his pectoral. Warm breath and a wet tongue soothed the bite, and Larabee damn near came on the spot.

Vin was in no better shape. He slid a hand between their thrusting, sweat-slick bodies and found Chris's hardness, wrapping his fingers about the steel-in-velvet length and stroking urgently, torturing the gunman and himself. The feel of Larabee's heat and hardness brought his own cock dangerously near bursting, and, as he stroked and pulled at Larabee's thick flesh, he grew ever more painfully aware of the hideously aching emptiness in him that only this man could fill.

"God, cowboy!" he whispered hoarsely. "Need ya... somethin' fierce!"

Chris growled low in his throat, almost blinded by lust, and reached frantically for the tin of oil he knew had to be somewhere near. At last he found it and snatched it up with a snarl of triumph, his whole body shaking from the effect of Vin's hand on his throbbing, burning flesh. He buried his mouth in Tanner's for one more hard, punishing kiss, then pulled away and sat up, staring down at his lover through glazed green eyes.

God, he was beautiful! A wild mass of tangled curls spilled over and about his face, glinting red and honey-gold in the sun, and wide eyes of shifting shades of blue -- now light, now dark -- stared up at him and glowed like heated kilns. A dark red flush suffused the sun-browned skin, the slender, supple body quivered with anticipation, and long, sinewy limbs were tensed, waiting to twine about him.

"Jesus, Tanner, you're a goddamn marvel!" he breathed in rapt adoration.

"Ain't s' bad yerself," Vin rasped as Larabee positioned himself beneath him. "Now, take me, goddamn it, 'fore I shoot ya!"

"You sweet-talker, you," Chris sniped, wrenching the lid off the tin and dipping his fingers into the oil to scoop out a generous amount. "You been takin' lessons from Buck?"

"Asshole," Vin hissed through gritted teeth, watching Chris coat his hands and twisting his own into the blankets.

Larabee smirked. "Guess you'd know. And, speakin' of..."

Vin howled and nearly shot off the blankets as Larabee slid an oiled finger into his opening. Groans and growls and curses in a variety of languages tore from him as that finger played tormentingly inside him, stroking, stretching, bringing him ever nearer the edge. He closed his eyes and thrust down upon that finger, then hissed sharply and shuddered as a second entered him.

"No more sweet talk?" Chris teased in a strained voice, his own nerves agonizingly on edge. He found the pleasure spot in Tanner's body and brushed a finger against it, grinning wickedly as the tracker yelped and bucked violently. "What was that, pard?"

"Fuck you!" Vin gasped, panting heavily and trembling uncontrollably as a third finger entered him. "No... fuck... fuck me... Goddamn it, Larabee!" he snarled as the gunman again hit his gland. "Do somethin' 'fore I kill us both!"

"Some folks... just got no patience," Chris rasped, coating his leaking, burning cock with oil and removing his fingers from Tanner's body. "No... control..." Gritting his teeth, forcing that control upon himself, he positioned his swollen head at that dark, inviting opening and pressed inside.

"Oh... Jesus!" Vin groaned harshly, arching off the blankets as Larabee entered him. "Chrissss..."

"Easy, pard," Larabee murmured hoarsely, grabbing the tracker's narrow hips to still him. "Don't... wanta rush... Oh, God!" he moaned as Tanner's wet heat engulfed him.

Vin grabbed at the hands holding him, clinging to Larabee's wrists and clenching his teeth until the familiar cramping subsided and his body accepted his lover's intrusion. Then, as ever, his need overwhelmed him, and a wrenching cry escaped him.

"God... Chris... move!" he begged desperately.

Chris's own urges overcame him at that plea, and he slid slowly into Vin, pressing ever more deeply into that moist, hot channel, sheathing himself in his lover's body. Once in, he pulled out just as slowly, leaving only his head imbedded, then pushed in again, torturing himself and Vin with the forced slowness of his movements. Each time he started in, Tanner rose to meet him, their bodies quickly finding a familiar rhythm and working in perfect unison. Deep, guttural sounds of sheer pleasure tore from the two as they came together, as their rhythm built in speed and force, as their lovemaking took on the unbridled ferocity both men knew and needed.

Driving furiously into Tanner's body, loosing the full force of his hunger upon him, Chris reached at last for his lover's swollen cock and worked it with that same intensity, stroking and pumping Vin as he impaled him, his hand as hard and ruthless as his demanding flesh. As ever, the feel of the younger man writhing and thrusting against him destroyed whatever restraint he'd thought to show, plunged him into a maelstrom of want and need that stripped him of all control and left him at the mercy of raging desire.

Vin cried out harshly as Larabee drove him into a mounting frenzy, as the man launched a shattering assault upon his senses and sent him into paroxysms of unspeakable pleasure. Worked inside and out, filled and claimed and damn near pulled apart at his soul, he thrust frantically down upon that punishing flesh, into that masterful hand, nerves sparking, his flesh all but seared from his bones.

Deeper and deeper into Vin Chris pounded, losing himself, finding himself, becoming as much one with the tracker in body as he was in soul. With each long, hard stroke, hot waves of pleasure crashed over him, tore through him, freeing all that had ever been bound within him. He gave himself wholly over to the pleasure, surrendering completely to his all-consuming need for Vin.

They loved without restraint, holding nothing of themselves back, giving all they had and all they were to their wild and wanton union. And in one shattering, convulsive rush they came, bursting together into explosive climax, Chris erupting into Vin, Vin jetting over Chris, each emptying himself and, in that moment of release, taking in the other. Their cries rose together and mingled in the morning air, joined as closely and as surely as their bodies.

Chris shuddered violently and collapsed onto the blankets and Vin's side, utterly spent and shaking. With rubbery arms he reached out and gathered Vin to him, cradling the slick and trembling body to his own, stunned, as always, by the heights to which the quiet tracker could lead him.

"Damn, Tanner," he whispered roughly when he found his voice, "you tryin' ta kill me?"

"Helluva way ta go," Vin rasped, his voice as ragged as his breathing.

"Can't think of a better one."

They lay in silence for long moments, reveling in this intimate closeness, each feeling the other in the beating of his own heart, each knowing he carried the other in his blood and his bone. They knew they'd never be able to publicly declare what they had found, yet they could not help but see it as something sacred, a wondrous gift from some benevolent fate that had led them from their separate paths of pain and joined them as one on this road to love and life.

At long last, though, Chris stirred, knowing this idyllic time could not last. The town waited, and obligations in that town, and, though he wanted nothing more than to spend forever in his lover's arms, he could not turn his back on those obligations. And knew Vin would only kick his ass if he tried.

"Judge'll be waitin'," he said quietly, gently unwrapping his arms from Tanner and sitting up.

"Reckon so," Vin murmured, a shadow darkening his eyes. He knew why Judge Travis was waiting, and could not help feeling a chill despite the warmth of the day. He'd ridden out as the gallows had started to take shape, unable to bear looking upon that stark reminder of his own possible fate. "Chris--"

"Ssh," Larabee breathed, reaching out to lay a forefinger over the tracker's mouth. Soft green eyes searched his lover's blue ones, and understanding shone in them. "Ain't no need you goin' back. Blackfox ain't dangerous, just stupid. The six of us'll be more than enough ta handle any trouble that might come up. You stay out here as long as you want."

Vin gave a slight, wan smile and nodded, grateful for Chris's understanding. He'd seen a fair number of hangings in his time, but he'd never enjoyed watching them, had always felt sickened by the sight. But the unease he'd felt all his life had turned into outright horror once the shadow of the noose had fallen over his own life, and not even the knowledge that John Blackfox was guilty as sin was enough to make him go back into town and face his own personal nightmare.

"Reckon I'll be back this evenin', then," he said softly. "That oughtta give the Judge time ta git Blackfox hung 'n the town settled down again." He sat up and crossed his legs, and an expression of worry crossed his face. "He's gonna notice I ain't there. That gonna be a problem fer you?"

Chris shrugged lightly. "Don't see why it should." When Vin's worry did not abate, he added, "He knows how towns get for a hangin'. Folks come in from all over, everybody's in an uproar... I'll just tell him seein' all them people in one place got you skittish. He knows you; he'll believe it."

"Yeah, he knows me," Vin sighed. He winced and dropped his gaze to the ground. "Wonder jist what he knows, though?"

Larabee had wondered that himself. Orin Travis was a tough old man, sharp and shrewd and possessing a sense of justice that went clear through to his core. And sometimes, when he fixed those keen, penetrating dark eyes on Tanner, Chris could almost see him measuring the man against his poster, judging the tracker as he'd judged so many others and weighing the course of true justice against the demands of the law.

"You know JD's always quick ta take your poster out of any new ones we get, right?" Chris asked quietly, needing Vin to know just how many people he had on his side. "So it ain't like the Judge is gonna see one while he's in town."

"While he's in our town, ya mean," Vin corrected. "Ain't got nobody lookin' out fer me anywheres else, 'n you'd be surprised how far 'n how fast them posters c'n spread. Still," he forced a note of confidence into his voice, "I reckon if he was gonna send me back, he'da done it already. He ain't one fer pussy-footin' around."

Chris leaned forward and pressed a tender, loving kiss to Tanner's mouth. "Don't you worry, Vin," he said softly, "ain't nobody gonna hang you, not even Judge Travis. I just ain't gonna let that happen." He ran a thumb gently against the tracker's whiskered cheek. "I'm gonna take care of you, you hear? You ain't alone no more."

A shy smile spread slowly over Vin's face and lit his blue eyes. "Yeah, I know," he murmured, "'n it's a right nice feelin'." He reached for Chris's hand and held tightly to it, entwining his fingers with the gunman's and gazing intently into those deep green eyes. "You take care of me, 'n I take care of you. You watch my back 'n I watch yers. From here on out, we're ridin' this trail together."

Chris had to smile at that, recognizing in the tracker's rough, simple words a vow as solemn and as binding as those he'd exchanged with Sarah all those years ago. He squeezed Vin's fingers and nodded slowly, his heart full, his soul at peace.

"Together," he repeated, pledging his whole life, his whole self, to the man before him. His smile widened, and his eyes gleamed brilliantly. "And somethin' tells me it's gonna be one helluva ride!"

---

The honorable Orin W. Travis, federal territorial circuit judge, paced slowly about the sheriff's office, seamed and weathered face more deeply lined than usual, dark eyes somber. He hadn't spoken in at least half an hour, not since John Blackfox had blurted his incredible news in the hope of saving his neck. But, in all that time, his mind had never ceased working.

Could it be true? Could the half-breed drifter and horse thief possibly hold the key to the tragedy, the crime, that had taken the lives of Chris Larabee's wife and son? And if it were true, what then? What were his obligations?

Horse thieves hanged; it was the law. And there was no doubt Blackfox was guilty; Tanner, Wilmington ad Dunne had tracked him down and caught him with two stolen horses. Nope, no doubt at all.

But... if Blackfox did know something about that fire, about those deaths, didn't justice demand that he be heard? Yet what incentive, what reason, would he have for speaking if he knew he would hang anyway? Men like Blackfox, regardless of what the crusaders and reformers back East preached, didn't give a damn about clearing their consciences before they met their Maker. It wasn't a matter of easing their burdens, but of escaping the noose. If he were going to hang no matter what he said, then why say anything at all?

Yet what guarantee was there that he knew anything helpful, or knew anything at all? He certainly wouldn't be the first man ever to concoct a pack of lies just to save his wretched life. The deaths of Larabee's wife and son weren't exactly a secret in these parts; anybody who'd been here long enough to know the gunfighter's name knew what happened to his family. How hard would it be for a talented, and desperate, liar to make up a story out of gossip, rumor and innuendo?

But... God, it always came back to "but." Travis had been a judge long enough to know every argument in the world against granting a convicted prisoner leniency, knew if he did it now, it wouldn't be long at all before the story got out and every other prisoner he tried from now on would suddenly remember "important information" about some crime or another. But if he didn't show leniency, and John Blackfox went to his death in silence, withholding information he truly had about the Larabee deaths...

Where was Solomon when you really needed him?

JD Dunne watched the judge in silence in silence from behind his desk, feeling for the man in his dilemma and wondering what he would decide. Over the short time he'd known Travis, he'd come to respect him enormously, to consider him a man not only of knowledge, but of wisdom, a firm arbiter of the law, and an even fiercer advocate of justice.

And the boy wouldn't be in the man's shoes right now for anything in the world.

Travis reached the far end of the office, turned and started toward the other side, knowing by now exactly how many steps it would take to get him there. After only three, however, he glanced out the window and came to an abrupt halt, his sturdy frame tensing, his firm jaw setting, his sharp gaze snapping to a familiar figure striding out of the livery stable. He stared for several long moments, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, then, without a word to the young sheriff, strode purposefully to the door, grabbing his hat on the way out and slamming the door behind him.

Startled, JD rose from his chair and went to his window, searching the street until he found what had caught Travis's attention. At the sight, a cold wave of dread twisted through him and, once again, he was desperately grateful he wasn't the judge.

Chris Larabee had just ridden into town.

---

Travis watched Larabee go inside the boardinghouse and hurried after the gunman. Along the way, he looked around for any sign of Tanner, and swore under his breath when the tracker didn't appear. Like so many others, he'd grown accustomed to seeing the two together, to thinking of one almost as an extension of the other, and he knew one was usually -- usually -- less likely to go off half-cocked and do something stupid with the other there to exercise a calming and rational influence.

He could really have used Tanner just now.

He entered the boardinghouse and went up the stairs to Larabee's room, knocking quietly on the door. When it opened, the gunman's surprise at seeing him was clear.

"Judge," Chris greeted, stepping aside and allowing the older man to enter.

Travis did so, and took a cursory look around. Larabee's hat hung on the bedpost, and his black duster and saddlebags lay on the bed. The room was small but tidy, the man's few possessions arranged neatly on the dresser or otherwise put away, out of sight. That described Larabee himself -- his surface carefully arranged to give nothing away, and anything that would have given a true sense of the man kept out of sight. Hidden.

Well. Travis was about to pull him out of that hiding.

Chris watched the older man carefully, studying his expression, noting the tension of his sturdy body and the way he nervously -- Travis, nervous? -- toyed with the hat he'd removed from his head, turning it around and around in his hands by its brim. Infected by the judge's unease, he felt a tendril of anxiety coiling through his gut.

For one of the few times in his life, Travis was at a loss, and so, rather than attacking the problem head-on, as was his wont, he side-stepped it. "I expected to see Tanner riding in with you."

Chris tensed at that, not liking at all the way the man avoided looking at him. God, Vin... "No, he decided ta stay out a while longer," he answered carefully. "All these folks in town... Makes him nervous."

"I see." He noted the stiffening of Larabee's body, the narrowing of the sharp green eyes, and almost smiled. The gunman was worried. Worried that he knew the truth about Tanner. Which, of course, he did. Hell, he'd known about it all along. He'd found the wanted poster that first day back in town, less than an hour after Tanner and the others had sided with him against Lucas James. But he hadn't said anything, because he'd been intrigued by the notion of a man wanted for murder stepping up in defense of a federal judge.

Orin Travis had spent most of his adult life judging men, and he'd learned to trust his instincts. Those instincts had urged him to do nothing, to say nothing, to bide his time and watch. And what he'd seen in the days following, and the weeks since, had convinced him that while Vin Tanner was no innocent, he was no murderer, either. Travis had torn up and burned that poster, and never lost a minute of sleep over having hired a wanted man as one of his peacekeepers.

But now Tanner wasn't here to keep the peace, and Travis missed him sorely. Still, he was no coward, and had never gotten into the habit of avoiding unpleasant duties. And while this one ranked right up there, he steeled himself and did what had to be done.

"It's all right," he said quietly, stilling the turning of his hat and lifting his head to meet Larabee's gaze steadily. "What I have to say concerns you, not him."

Chris frowned, liking this less and less as time wore on. Travis was clearly uncomfortable, and it took a lot to make him so. "Judge?" he prompted quietly.

Travis grimaced deeply. "Hell, there's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it. Blackfox claims he has information about... about the fire... that killed your wife and son."

Chris stared at the man in stunned surprise, eyes wide, mouth open, not at all certain he'd heard correctly. But when Travis nodded slightly, all the air left his lungs in a rush and his legs turned to rubber, dropping him clumsily onto his bed. He sat there for long moments, dazed, unseeing, unable to breathe, unable to think.

Blackfox... fire... Sarah... oh, God, Adam...

Travis sighed softly, tiredly, and sat down gingerly on the bed beside Chris, wanting to reach out to him, but not certain he should. He knew something of what the younger man was feeling, knew only too well how it felt to lose a son, how it felt to have that part of your life, your heart, your flesh, torn away, never to be replaced. But at least he still had Evie, at least he'd seen Steven grow to manhood, at least he had a grandson to warm the days of his old age.

What did Chris have, except the desperate ramblings of a doomed horse thief?

"I wish," he began softly, sadly, "I wish I could say he's telling the truth, or say he's lying. But I can't, because I don't know. I just... don't know."

"What... what did he... say?" Chris whispered, his voice strained, his eyes still fixed on something only he could see. Fixed on the burned out ruins of his home, his life, on the charred corpses of his wife and son.

Travis winced and bowed his head. "He said he was there. Said he didn't do anything, but he was there."

Chris turned raw, tortured eyes upon the judge, his soul torn anew by all the pain he thought he'd put behind him. "Do you believe him?" he asked in a rough, thick voice.

Travis sighed heavily. "I don't know, Chris," he admitted. "He seems sincere, but he's a man bargaining for his life. And I'm just not familiar enough with... with the details... to know for certain--"

"I'm familiar with 'em!" Chris snarled, shooting to his feet as fury erupted through him. "And if this bastard's lyin', usin' my wife and son ta save his neck, then he'll wish ta God he'd let you hang him!"

Travis rose slowly to his feet, willing upon himself a calm he prayed would reach Larabee. "Chris--"

"He's got no right!" Chris spat, enraged at the thought of Blackfox dredging up his pain, dragging Sarah and Adam out of their graves, just to save his own worthless life. "Goddamn it, they're dead! Why can't he just let 'em be, let 'em rest in peace?" An ugly scowl twisted his face, and murder kindled in his eyes. "He won't get away with this," he growled in a low and deadly voice, dropping a hand to his gun. "He's got no right speakin' of 'em, and I'm gonna put a stop to it right now!"

But Travis reached out and grabbed his arm, staring compellingly into those burning eyes. "You listen to me," he ordered in a low, hard voice. "I will not condone murder. If you want to talk to him, fine. But the only way you get into that jail is without your gun."

"You can't--"

"I can, and I will," Travis said coldly, never releasing Larabee's arm. "You know me, Chris, and you know I never utter empty threats. If you do this, you do it my way. Because if you cross the line, you will face me in court, and you will hang. Justice may be blind, but she will not turn a blind eye. Not while there's breath in my body." He continued to stare up at the man he'd come to respect, to like, and his expression and stance softened. "Don't force my hand, Chris," he pleaded gently. "Don't make the same mistake Lucas James did. He lost, and so will you. And you're too good a man for that."

Chris clenched his teeth and returned that stare without softening. "Bastard deserves ta die--"

"If it turns out he's lying, he will. And if he played a part in their deaths, he will," Travis assured him. "I hang horse thieves. You think I won't hang a murderer? But you owe it yourself, and to them, to find out the truth. And I'm giving you that chance."

"But only without my gun," Chris sneered.

Travis arched graying brows. "I'm no fool," he chided Larabee. "I've seen what you can do. And I'm not going to give you the chance to do it. As I said before, we do this my way, or we don't do it at all."

Chris' stare bored into Travis, but, even as he tried, he knew he'd never bend the old man to his will. Too many others before him had tried and failed. Travis hadn't gotten where he was by being weak.

"You know I don't have ta shoot him ta kill him," he said in a low voice, reaching down to unbuckle his gunbelt.

"I know," Travis agreed easily. "But I also know it takes a while to beat a man to death, even for you, and I'm betting I could stop you before you succeeded. Besides," he accepted the belt Larabee held out to him, "you want to know the truth, and you'll never get it from a dead man. Even you aren't that good."

---

Chris stormed into the jail and shot a hard look at the young man sitting behind the desk. "JD," he greeted coldly. JD took one look at Larabee, saw the barely-controlled rage radiating from the lean, tight body, and rose to at once to his feet, knowing anywhere was a better place than this to be right now. "I was, uh, just about ready to take a break," he said, setting his hat on his head and getting the keys, tossing them to Chris.

Larabee waited for the young sheriff to leave the jail, then went to the only occupied cell and opened it. A wolfish grin teased his mouth as he beheld the man who would use the dead for his own ends. "I hear you're interested in makin' a deal," he said easily. "You an eyewitness to the Larabee killings?"

Blackfox rose to his feet, hope stirring within him. "Yeah. Who are you?"

Chris's grin widened as he stepped forward. "Chris." His fist rocketed out and up, connecting solidly under Blackfox's jaw and sending him sprawling to the floor. "Chris Larabee."

Before Blackfox could say a word, Chris bent down, grabbed him by his shirtfront and hauled him to his feet, then drew back another fist and hit him again, knocking him across his bunk. "Now, you piece of trash," he spat, towering over the dazed man and staring down at him with murder burning in his soul, "you're gonna tell me what you really know, or I'm gonna take you apart, one bone at a time."

Blackfox lay huddled on the bed, blood streaming from his nose and split lip. All at once he wasn't sure hanging was the worst way in the world to die.

"I c... I can't... I don't..."

"You'd damn well better!" Chris snarled, reaching down once more and jerking the man upright. "You said you wanted ta talk," he threw Blackfox into the wall, "so talk!"

Blackfox crumpled to the floor, barely able to think, his head throbbing. Before he could protest, those merciless hands grabbed him again and hauled him to his feet. "Please--"

"Shut up!" Chris hissed, dragging the man from his cell and through the office into the street. "Now," he stopped at the nearest water tough and thrust a hand into his captive's long, lank hair, "let's see if we can't clear your mind a bit!" With that, he thrust the man's head under the water and held it for long moments, heedless of the shocked stares of the townsfolk watching him in horror.

No one interfered, though. Not with Chris Larabee.

When he felt Blackfox's body jerk as the man instinctively took a breath and sucked in water, he pulled him up and shook him. "The woman's name was Sarah," he gritted, the words and the memory of what he'd lost clawing strips from his soul. "She was my wife. The boy's name was Adam. My son."

"I didn't kill 'em, mister," Blackfox gasped, wondering just what kind of hell he'd unleashed.

"Who did?" Chris demanded harshly.

"I don't know that neither..." Again, he was dunked, held under, and pulled up just as his lungs burned from need of air. "But I was... I was there!" he declared hoarsely, desperate to appease the man he knew would kill him.

"Tell me."

Blackfox struggled to remember all he could of that night three years ago. "I was hired," he said slowly, forcing the memories into focus. "Me and two other cowboys. One night in a saloon. We was all pretty much drunk. A man comes in, offers us fifty dollars apiece. Said it was to scare some folks off their land..."

"Go on!" Chris shouted, shaking the man roughly when his words faltered.

Blackfox trembled uncontrollably, more afraid than ever he'd been in his life. "We rode out," he went on, "the four of us. By the time we got to the spread, I was soberin' up and I didn't like it. So I told the others I'd stand guard and watch the horses. When I seen the flames, I... I got scared and I took off."

"You're lyin'!" Chris snarled.

"No, I'm not--"

But Larabee had had enough and again thrust him under water, little caring if he drowned. The man was a coward, had profaned Sarah and Adam's memories with his lies, and deserved whatever death he could get.

Again the horse thief's body jerked as he breathed in water, and again Chris pulled him up. "Everybody around here knew about that fire!" he raged, hating the man for dredging up this unbearable hurt. "You're tellin' me nothin' but jailhouse lies ta save your miserable skin. You're goin' back ta jail!" he spat, shoving the man forward.

Blackfox stumbled, then caught himself and turned to face Larabee, desperation shining in his eyes. "No, no, I'm tellin'... I'm tellin' the truth," he insisted, wishing bitterly he'd never accepted that fifty dollars. "I seen it happen." A sudden flash of memory came to him. "The house and the porch with the windmill beside it."

Chris stopped, his heart faltering. Houses had porches; that was nothing uncommon. And most had windmills... Most, but not all. And not all had the windmills beside them... "You see a corral?" he asked quietly.

Blackfox tried to remember. "I think so."

"Where was it?" Chris pressed him.

The horse thief's desperation deepened. "I don't remember! It was three years ago--" Larabee grabbed him ruthlessly and shoved him back toward the jail, but he resisted. "No, no... it was..." He forced the faded picture back into his mind, forced himself to concentrate upon it. "It was past the windmill... maybe fifty yards?" He thought again, then remembered what had struck him as odd about the corral. "It was empty. I could tell you more if I was standin' there," he added hopefully.

Chris stared hard at him, fighting past the hideous pain that came with the dawning realization that this man was telling the truth. That he'd been there, had seen the fire, and done nothing to help. That he'd just ridden away and left Sarah and Adam to die. "Yeah," he said coldly. "I bet you could."

He grabbed Blackfox and dragged him back toward the jail, a new determination burning in him. He'd spent three long, empty years scouring the countryside for answers, for the reasons behind and the bastards responsible for the deaths of his wife and son.

This time, he wasn't coming away empty-handed.

---

Travis agreed readily to let Chris take Blackfox back to Eagle Bend, knowing what this might mean to the man and deciding he owed him. Hadn't Larabee and his men protected Billy and brought Steven's murderers to justice? Could he deny him his chance at the same?

Within an hour, they were ready to ride out, Nathan and Josiah having gotten the horses ready and Blackfox mounted, the healer and preacher going along as much to keep an eye on Chris as to help guard the prisoner. Travis had made it very clear he would look closely at any "accident" that befell Blackfox while he was under Larabee's care.

When Chris strode out onto the boardwalk, fully armed once more and draped in his black duster, he was relieved to see that all was in readiness. Impatience to get this done gnawed at him, a driving need to put his ghosts to rest and finally close this chapter of his life so that he could get on with the next. To give Sarah and Adam the peace they deserved, so that he could begin finding his own with Vin.

God, Vin...

The tracker's absence hit him hard just then, and, for a moment, he was tempted to delay until Tanner returned. His whole world had been turned upside down and inside out, and he was desperately in need of the Texan's quiet strength, the steadiness that anchored him. All this would have been so much easier to bear with Vin's calm, soothing, gentle presence at his side.

But, almost as it hit him, he let the temptation pass. He had no real idea when Vin would be back, and didn't want to wait one minute longer than he had to. Sarah and Adam were calling to him, begging him to put this right, and he could not have denied them for the world. Vin would understand that. If anyone on this earth could understand, Vin would.

Fortified by that thought, he started toward his horse and suddenly noticed the little man with the odd voice talking to Nathan and Josiah. Clearly an Easterner by his dress, which was even more ridiculous than JD's, and he was scribbling something onto one of those notebooks Mary Travis always seemed to have handy. Anger stirred within him at that thought.

Wonderful. One more reporter makin' up lies about him.

He pushed past the man without looking at him, without acknowledging him, hoping he'd simply go away. He hoped in vain.

"Chris Larabee, right?" asked the little man eagerly, hurrying after the gunman and holding out his hand, as if he honestly expected Larabee to shake it. "Jock Steele, Steele Publishing from New York. Mr. Larabee, I'm going to make you a very famous man by comin' along. I'm gonna chronicle your search for justice. Larabee's Bloody Revenge," he announced with a flourish.

Chris turned and swept a scathing gaze over Steele, scowling deeply and regarding him with outright contempt. Worse than a reporter, the man was a writer of those goddamn dime novels that JD was always reading, cover-to-cover lies that didn't have a word of truth in them. His scowl deepened, his eyes hardened, and he swung himself up onto Pony's back, determined to ignore the annoying little man.

But Steele wasn't about to let that happened. "See?" He pointed toward a heavily laden mule. "I'm all packed. Even brought the camera and the developer."

"You're not comin' with us," Chris said in a low voice, his eyes hard as flint.

"But I have to!" Steele protested. "I'll miss the story... Whoo!" he yelped, ducking as Larabee swung his horse's head around, right where his own had been.

"Won't stop you from writing it," Chris pointed out bitterly, remembering the lies Mary had fabricated the day he and Vin had saved Nathan's life. He spurred Pony down the street, impatient to get started, and in no mood to entertain the likes of Jock Steele.

But the little writer had other ideas. As the four men rode out, he hurried to his mule, sputtering all the while. These Westerners, they just didn't understand! Didn't know how eager folks back East were to read about their exploits. But he'd change that. He'd go along, get it all in writing and pictures, make Larabee famous, and make himself rich.

By the time he got his foot into the stirrup and himself on the mule's back, Larabee and his men... no, his gang... were out of sight. Well, that didn't matter. He took the reins in hand, sawed them back and forth for a few moments in an effort to get the mule turned, and finally succeeded, though it seemed the stupid animal would only turn right by going left and circling all the way around, costing him even more time.

Ah, well. How hard could it be to follow four men in open country like this?

---

Chris struggled against his own chaotic emotions as he tried to get more information out of Blackfox about that night. The horse thief gave him precious little to go on -- one man wearing a single silver spur, the man who'd hired them riding a big gray horse -- and he felt his fury, frustration and pain deepening. Who was the "hard man" Blackfox couldn't, or wouldn't, describe? And why had he paid three men to burn Larabee's ranch, to kill a woman and child? Why? God, why?

For three years, those questions had haunted him, mocked him, tortured him. Who? Why? He could understand someone putting money, time and effort into killing him now. Hell, he had no shortage of enemies, had made more in three years than most men did in a lifetime. But, then? Then, he'd just been a horse rancher, working a small spread, raising a few animals, always more interested in quality than quantity. What had he done to draw that kind of hatred toward him?

Yeah, he'd been a rounder in his youth, a real hellion. But no worse than any other boy his age who'd left the family farm in search of something more exciting. And when the war had come along, he'd found all the excitement, along with all the carnage, he could stand. He'd come out a sadder, wiser and much more careful man. He'd always been good with a gun, had been born with the sharp eye, fast hand and steady nerves, but making a name by killing other men didn't hold nearly the allure after the war that it had held before.

And when he met Sarah, the last vestiges of wildness had left him completely. The man who'd spent almost his whole adult life drifting suddenly discovered what "home" meant and was gripped by the powerful urge to put down roots so deep he'd never be budged again. The man who'd gone from woman to woman without a second thought found his every thought filled by one woman alone, and never once missed the ones he'd left behind. She'd become his whole world, and, when Adam was born, his world was made perfect. He'd wanted nothing more than to live and work on his ranch, with Sarah and Adam and whatever children followed, to spend his days and end his days in the peace he'd never expected to find.

But that peace had been shattered when he'd come back from Mexico to find his home turned to ashes, and his wife and son burned beyond recognition. He still couldn't remember much of the days immediately following, had gone into a shock that had lasted for weeks. He'd gone through that time like a sleepwalker, eating only when he had to, sleeping only when he collapsed, drinking to keep the hideous images at bay. He'd buried them, he knew that, had dug their graves and made and marked their crosses with his own hands, but he just didn't remember doing it. Couldn't allow himself to remember, for the sake of his own sanity.

It had been more than a month before he could bring himself back to life enough to begin the hunt for his family's killers in earnest. By that time, though, the trail was cold, and, though he'd never given up, he had lost hope. He'd asked the same old questions in every new town he entered, and always gotten the same old answers. Yet even when he knew what the answers would be, still he kept asking. Those questions, that search, had become all that held him to this life, all that gave him a reason to go on, all that got him through the days, through the nights, and gave him a reason to get up again and start the whole agonizing routine again. Hell, he'd still been asking when he hit Four Corners all those weeks ago. Nobody had known a thing there, either, and he'd resigned himself to leaving for the next dirty town...

Until he'd been jolted from his empty existence by a pair of blue eyes that had stared at him from across the street and seen straight into his soul. God, how could he explain that feeling? It had hit him like a bolt of lightning, searing through him in a flash and leaving his whole body charged and tingling. After three years of walking death, he'd suddenly been brought back to life, had taken his first real breath since the day he'd laid his wife and son in the ground.

And hadn't stopped breathing since.

He clenched his jaw, and his hands tightened reflexively on the reins. God, how he wished Vin were here now! How he wanted to look into those young-old eyes and see the love in them, hear that soft, raspy drawl assuring him that it would be all right. That he'd be all right. Because, just now, he wasn't at all certain that he would. The pain was back as it hadn't been in some time, as real and as raw and as unbearable as ever, tearing his heart to pieces and leaving his soul in shreds, driving warmth and air and everything he remembered about living from his body. He'd buried them, he knew he had, but Blackfox and his damned jailhouse confession had ripped them right out of their graves and laid their burned bodies once more before him.

Again, when he breathed, he could smell and taste only ashes and smoke.

Nathan's voice broke into his thoughts, offering a welcome distraction.

"Rider coming up fast," the healer announced, looking over his shoulder and seeing the big gray horse running at them through the trees. "It's Buck."

Wilmington joined them quickly and reined Beavis to a slower pace at Pony's side, falling in beside Larabee as he'd done so many times before in his life.

Chris glanced past Blackfox to his old friend, not at all certain how he felt about his presence here. "You out for a ride?"

Buck smiled slightly. "Heard you were goin' back."

"No need for you to come along," he said coldly. He knew Buck didn't deserve it, but he also knew that, right now, coldness was his only defense against the pain threatening to cripple him. And Buck was so much a part of that pain, a living, breathing link to Sarah and Adam, that having him near was too much like having them near.

"Yes, sir, there is," Wilmington contradicted softly, his blue eyes filling with sorrow, his heart heavy with guilt. "I'm the man that talked you into stayin' down in Mexico that night. And I keep thinkin', if we'da just rode back..."

Chris's jaw tightened, and he shook his head. "I coulda come back alone. You didn't keep me there." And it was true; Buck hadn't had to work all that hard at talking him into staying. To be honest, he'd enjoyed that little bit of freedom, had enjoyed the chance to cut loose and relive some of the wilder times he and his old friend had known together. If he'd truly wanted to go home, no one would have been able to talk him into staying. Not even Buck. "Let it go."

Buck heard the ice, the distance, in Chris's voice and was pained by it. He understood it, understood Larabee better than the man thought he did, but that didn't make it hurt any less. Chris was fighting all the demons he'd thought he'd laid to rest, and no man should have to go through that twice.

Still, Larabee needed to know that he wasn't the only one in pain here. "Sarah was my friend, too, Chris," he reminded him, remembering vividly the beautiful, fiery woman who'd stolen Larabee's heart and claimed a large portion of his, as well. "And I think you know how I felt about that boy of yours. So, if it's all the same, I think I'll ride this one out with you."

Chris had to look away. He did know how Buck had felt about Adam, had seen it every time the two were together. Given his wandering ways, Adam might have been the closest thing to a son Buck would ever have. And Chris couldn't have wished for a better "uncle" for his little boy. He knew this was something Buck had to do, knew this was something the big man felt he owed his murdered surrogate family. Felt he owed Chris.

"Suit yourself," he said quietly, drawing back once more behind that protective barrier of detachment.

---

Vin rode back into town near sundown, certain he'd given himself more than enough time to miss the hanging and the uproar that would have followed it. He'd never figured out why folks carried on so at them, couldn't see what it was in killing a man by breaking his neck or, in the botched cases, strangling him that made people want to celebrate. Even before Tascosa, he'd found that kind of bloody-mindedness more than a little disturbing.

But, then, civilized people had always been a never-ending puzzle to him...

An instinctive shudder rippled down his spine as he rode past the gallows, and he studiously averted his gaze from its stark outline. Absently, a hand crept up to his neck and tugged at the collar of his shirt, as if seeking reassurance that no rope lay beneath the fabric.

Stupid! he chided himself silently, self-consciously dropping his hand to his thigh. Ain't nobody gonna hang ya whilst Larabee's around.

Still, he couldn't help spurring Peso to carry him more quickly past the shadow of the gallows.

Orin Travis saw the familiar slouched figure ride past on the big blaze-faced gelding, and stopped on his progress with Mary toward the restaurant. He turned and watched Tanner rein in at the saloon, then returned his attention to his daughter-in-law. "Why don't you go on without me, get a table and order. I'll be along shortly."

"Orin--"

"It's all right, Mary," he said, smiling reassuringly into her worried eyes and patting her shoulder gently. "I just need to speak with Mr. Tanner. I'm sure he'll want to know what's going on, and I don't want him going off half-cocked because of whatever rumors are circulating about town just now."

She arched two slender blond brows at her father-in-law. "And you don't think the truth will send him off half-cocked'?"

He frowned thoughtfully, considering what he knew of the tracker. Tanner was a thinker, a man whose lazy posture and slow drawl concealed the lightning-fast working of a very shrewd brain, whose keen blue eyes saw everything without giving away anything. The man was as deliberate as they came in his actions, and didn't believe in hasty decisions.

But, Lord, when he did decide to strike...

"No," he murmured at last, dark eyes narrowing slightly, "I don't think he'll go off half-cocked at all. I think when he does go, it'll be fully cocked, and then may God have mercy on whoever's in his sights!"

---

Vin quietly entered the saloon and stepped immediately into the shadows, shielding himself from all attention while he turned his own upon the room. Alert for any sign of danger, the instincts of both predator and prey rising to the fore, he studied the crowd with a sharply focused intensity, searching faces, gauging moods, taking in all the silent clues given off by men's postures and gestures. And only when he was certain nothing and no one threatened him here did he make his way to the bar and order a beer. While waiting for his drink, he could not help overhearing the conversations about him. He'd long ago learned that if he kept silent and still, people would overlook or forget his presence and talk as freely as if he weren't there. It had helped him catch any number of careless bounties, and had helped him evade more than a few overconfident bounty hunters.

It also gave him just one more way to irritate the hell out of Larabee, when he turned up knowing something the gunfighter did not. Nobody hated not knowing everything like Chris did, and Vin delighted in using that against his lover.

Now, though, as he listened to the talk around him, he was not delighted, just confused. The hanging had been called off, and Chris had damn near drowned Blackfox in a water trough, then had left town with the man. No one seemed to know just why, seemed to know anything, except that Larabee had been in a rage. Uneasiness settled heavily on Vin, and his hackles rose. He took his beer from the bar, then turned and made his way to the table occupied by JD Dunne.

"Hey, kid," he greeted softly, slipping gracefully into the chair that put the protection of the wall at his back.

JD started at the tracker's appearance, wishing he would learn to make some kind of noise when he approached. "Jeez, Vin," he snapped, scowling at the Texan, "I really hate it when you do that!"

Tanner sank into his customary slouch and frowned at the boy. "Do what?" he asked, reaching for his beer and raising it to his lips.

"You know," JD said in exasperation, "just appear all of a sudden outta nowhere, without makin' a sound." He settled back in his own chair, unconsciously trying to mimic Tanner's relaxed but vigilant air. "Could get you shot one day!"

Vin took a long drink of beer, then set the glass down and wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. "I'll whistle 'r somethin' next time." He studied JD for several moments, noting the way he shifted frequently in his chair, toyed with his beer mug or fidgeted with his hat. Every so often, the boy ran a hand through his thick black hair, a sure sign that he was on edge.

JD knew Vin was watching him, and hated it. The tracker's eyes were fixed on him like a wolf's upon its prey, sizing him up, seeming almost to stare right through him, seeing his every thought and measuring his every move, even before he made it. Most folks thought Chris Larabee had a blood-chilling stare, and he did. But JD decided Vin Tanner's ranked right up there, too.

And, hell, with Chris, at least he usually knew what that stare meant. With Vin, he didn't, and he figured that made the man that much scarier.

Vin saw the boy's nervousness, and gave a slight smile. "Relax, kid," he rasped softly, knowing JD was still struggling to find his footing among six older, more experienced and far more dangerous men, "I ain't gonna hurt ya. Jist tryin' ta figger out what the hell is goin' on."

JD exhaled deeply and scowled deeply, again running a hand through his hair. "You and me both," he muttered. "I mean, first we're gonna hang Blackfox, then he says he has ta talk with the Judge. And suddenly we're not gonna hang him, and Chris is draggin' him outta jail and tryin' ta drown him in the street. And then, then, Chris and Nathan and Josiah are ridin' outta town with him, and I have ta tell everybody the hangin's off." He leaned forward in his chair ad glared at Vin. "Have you ever tried ta tell a crowd all set for a hangin' that their entertainment's been called off?"

Vin swallowed hard, and again his hand crept to his neck. Entertainment. Lord, was that what it was?

JD suddenly realized what he'd said, and felt a rush of horror. He sank back in his seat, hazel eyes wide, his face draining of color. "Oh, God, Vin, I'm sorry!" he gasped strickenly. "I didn't mean... I mean, I wasn't thinkin'... I keep forgettin'... Oh, jeez, I'm sorry!"

Vin swallowed again and forced his hand down to the table, then gave the boy a small, strained smile. "'S okay, kid," he breathed. "Hell," he reached for his beer, "wouldn't bother me none if the whole world fergot!"

JD watched Tanner drink from his beer, and felt a deep sympathy for him. He still remembered how shocked he'd been at finding Vin's wanted poster, doubted he'd ever forget the way his stomach had dropped when he'd seen those eyes staring out at him from that paper. He'd taken it at once to Chris, who'd ripped it out of his hands and torn it to pieces and snarled that JD was not ever to tell another living soul about it. Then he'd said that Vin was innocent, had told him about Eli Joe. And JD had never felt even the smallest twinge of doubt. Whether from hero-worship or shrewd judging of the man's character, the boy simply could not believe that Vin Tanner was guilty of murder.

But the law did, and, to some, that was all that mattered. He tried to understand how it must feel to be hunted, to have men he didn't know coming after him for money, to know that every face he saw in the street might be that of his killer. But he couldn't imagine it, couldn't imagine how he'd keep from going crazy, and couldn't imagine how Vin did it.

How could he always be so calm, so relaxed, when men carried his picture around and dreamed of making money by his death?

"I'm sorry," he said again, his voice soft and sad.

Vin had an inkling of what the boy was truly sorry for, and was touched by his compassion. "'S all right," he assured JD. "They ain't got me yet. And, hell," he chuckled, "ain't like a rope's the only way of dyin' out here. Mebbe I'll show 'em all 'n git m'self shot ta death!"

JD snorted and shook his head at the tracker's bizarre sense of humor. "You are not right, Vin!" he laughed.

"Seems I've heard that before. Now," he fixed his compelling gaze once more upon the boy, "you wanta tell me why'n the hell Chris took off with a feller we's s'posed ta hang?"

"Mind if I join you?"

Vin looked up and stiffened reflexively at Travis's approach. Despite what he'd told Chris, he had no doubt the old man knew about him, and couldn't understand why he wasn't cooling his heels in jail.

Travis sat down in the chair between Vin and JD, but his gaze went immediately to the tracker. He saw the wariness in the blue eyes, saw the tension in the lean frame, and had to wonder yet again about the man before him. What would make a hunted man stay in one place and work for the man he knew could send him to his death?

"There'll be no hanging today," he finally said, not talking about John Blackfox.

Vin understood that, and relaxed, giving the judge a slight nod and a small smile. Lord, he'd never understand this in a hundred years!

Travis dropped his gaze to the table and frowned thoughtfully. "By now you've heard that Chris has taken Blackfox out of town," he began, certain Tanner would know that much at least. "You've probably also heard about the dust-up in the street."

Vin nodded once, his gaze never leaving Travis. "Heard Larabee was in a towerin' rage, like ta drowned Blackfox in a horse trough."

Travis sighed, his frown twisting into a grimace. He laid his hands on the table and laced his fingers together, staring intently at them. "Blackfox claimed to have information about the deaths of Chris's wife and son."

Vin sat up sharply, those soft words hitting him like a blow to the gut. "What?" he gasped.

Travis lifted his head and met the tracker's gaze, then had to look away again. The eyes were wide and dark, filled with a shock and horror he would never have expected to see in this man. He knew Larabee and Tanner were close, had seen in them a bond that defied description, but only now, only when he saw in Tanner's eyes almost an exact replica of the pain he'd seen in Larabee's, did he begin to think that what one man felt, the other shared.

"What did he say?" Vin demanded harshly, suddenly fierce eyes boring ruthlessly into Travis. "What lies did that bastard tell--"

"Apparently," Travis broke in softly, sadly, "Chris is convinced they're not lies. And he's taking Blackfox to the Eagle Bend area, hoping the man can lead him to his family's killer."

"No," Vin rasped, tortured by the knowledge of the pain his lover would be feeling. "No, he cain't... He cain't put himself through that again! It's been three years!" he said hoarsely. "A trail that old, that cold... Hell, there ain't nobody who could pick it up again! Folks come 'n go, 'n them that stays, fergits... He's jist bringin' more pain on himself! He ain't gonna find nothin', 'n that's gonna kill him!"

"I hope you're wrong, Vin," Travis said quietly. "I hope to God you're wrong."

"God ain't got no part in this," Tanner snarled, startling Travis and JD with the pure venom in his voice. "God don't set fires, don't burn women 'n kids ta death. It's only people that does that. They're the only ones got it in 'em ta tear out a man's heart 'n soul by killin' the ones he loves." He shot an accusing glare at Travis. "I cain't b'lieve you let him go!"

"And how was I supposed to stop him?" Travis asked calmly, meeting that furious stare unflinchingly. "Shoot him? Lock him up? Tell me, Vin," he leaned forward and fixed the tracker with a steely glare of his own, "if Chris Larabee stood before you and asked -- hell, begged -- for the chance to find out why his family died and who killed them, would you have refused? Could you have refused?"

Vin exhaled unsteadily and turned his head, staring at the wall and clenching his jaw as he fought to bring his raging emotions under control.

But Travis was not through. He leaned closer still and, with unmistakable knowing in his voice, asked quietly, "If there were something in your life, some great, terrible wrong that needed to be righted, and if there were any chance that you could right it, wouldn't you want to try? Wouldn't you have to try? And don't you think Chris would be the first man to help you do it?"

Vin closed his eyes tightly at those words, and whatever doubt had remained that Travis knew vanished entirely. Tascosa. Would he do it?

God, wouldn't he do it?

And Chris would be with him every step of the way.

Travis saw the rigid shoulders slump, and knew Vin had given him his answer. "Give him his chance, son," he urged gently, "as he'd give you yours. As a friend," he shrugged, "what else can you do?"

"I c'n go after him--"

"Wait," Travis advised. "Give him some time. Let him do this his way."

Pain flared in Vin, and he knew that pain was Chris's. "He needs--"

"He's got Josiah, Nathan and Buck with him now. Let them help him. If he needs the rest of you," again he shrugged, "he can wire. Eagle Bend's not the end of the earth." He fixed a compassionate gaze on the young tracker, easily able to see how this was tearing at him and marveling at the depth and strength of a friendship that would exert such power over the independent, solitary man. "With any luck," he said gently, "Chris will find the answers, and the peace, he needs."

"He won't," Vin said softly, knowing it with a terrible, aching certainty. "Ain't gonna be no answers, 'cause this trail's done gone too cold. 'N it's only gonna end in pain."

---

Chris lay wrapped in his blankets, listening to the night sounds and the snores of the men about him, but unable to sleep himself. The pain was raging again, the hideous, searing sense of loss grown almost too sharp to bear, and he wished more desperately than ever that Vin were here to help him through it.

God, Vin! He closed his eyes and summoned a picture of the man who was never far from his thoughts, saw blue eyes deep and dark and still, a full mouth curving into a crooked, boyish smile -- sometimes shy, sometimes wicked -- and the shaggy head tilted slightly to one side as some thought worked its way through that sharp but maddeningly methodical brain. He conjured the sound of the Texan's voice, with its sandpaper-on-leather rasp and the slow, soft drawl that could turn even the vilest curse into sweet music, and imagined the feel of callused hands turned to velvet as they wandered over him in a tender caress. Even the smell of Vin came to him now -- leather, sagebrush and wind, and the warm, distinctive musk that was his alone -- and he took refuge in it, drowning his senses in memories of Vin to hold the pain at bay.

He knew some -- hell, most -- would find it strange, even consider it wrong, for him to seek escape from memories of his wife and child in thoughts of his male lover, but, to him, it only seemed right. He had loved Sarah -- God, with everything that was in him he had loved her! -- and had found the rising and the setting of the sun in Adam. They were as precious to him now as they ever had been, held sacred in his heart.

Yet so was Vin. All his brokenness had been taken up and made whole by the tracker, his wounds healed, and he'd found pieces of himself he hadn't even known were missing in the quiet man who'd become such a powerful presence in his life. So he'd seek his healing this time, too, in Vin.

And know that Sarah, at least, would understand.

---

Buck gazed uneasily about the yard of the burned-out homestead, haunted by the sight of the gaunt and blackened skeleton of the house. He hated seeing it this way, wanted only to remember it as it had been before, alive with love and laughter, rather than the grimly silent testament of pain and death it had become. So much of his own happiness had been contained within those walls, and so much of his own heart had gone to ashes with them.

If he closed his eyes and listened, he could almost hear Sarah's voice upon the breeze, the rich, sweet sound of it warming him even now. And he could see her as he had on that last day, her dark red hair gleaming in the sun, her honey-colored eyes lighting with love whenever they'd settled on Chris or Adam.

Lord, Adam...

He raised his face and stared up into the sky, his eyes filling, his throat closing, as he thought again of the little boy he'd adored. A bright, happy, mischievous child, never walking when he could run, never asking one question when ten would do, his daddy's spirit and his mama's sweetness wrapped in a laughing, ginger-headed package. And Buck had loved him as he'd never loved anyone before or since.

He'd had been there when Adam had been born, and remembered almost having to tie Chris to the chair to keep him from pacing a hole in the floor. He'd been there when Adam had said his first word; and, to his everlasting delight, Chris's guilty horror and Sarah's grim dismay, that word hadn't been "mama" or "papa," but "damn." Lord, he'd nearly laughed himself sick over that one! He could still see the look on Chris's face when that sweet treble had piped up in imitation of his daddy, and he'd been sure Sarah was going to beat one of them to death with the wooden spoon she'd gripped like a weapon.

But, to his credit, Larabee had never sworn again around his son.

Buck sighed and dropped his head, smiling softly, sadly, as he recalled how naturally Chris had taken to fatherhood. A tenderness he'd never imagined was there had been born in the man the day Adam came into the world. Hands so adept at brawling just as easily turned to cradling a sleeping infant, wiping away a child's tears or tending the hundred and one hurts that little boys suffered in the course of their days. He'd heard Larabee's stern voice pitched low and soft while reading bedtime stories, growling playfully while he chased a laughing little boy around the yard, or murmuring gently when soothing Adam through some nightmare or other. It was as if Chris had been waiting for a reason to let that part of himself out, and Adam had been that reason.

Just as he'd been the reason Chris had walled that part of himself in again.

Buck turned and looked for him, and his heart broke yet again when he saw him leaning on the fence around two graves, the lean frame bowed and radiating unbearable pain. Gone was the loving husband and father, gone even was the formidable gunfighter. Now all that remained was the broken, hurting man surrounded once more by the wreck and ruin of his dreams.

Then, as he watched, awash in a pain of his own, Larabee pulled himself upright and turned, burning eyes seeking out Blackfox. As the tightly-coiled dark figure stalked toward him, Buck barely suppressed a shudder as he looked into the hard, twisted mask of grief and deadly fury that was his old friend's face.

Chris stared at Blackfox through seething eyes, memories of his wife and son when they were alive colliding in his brain with images of their blackened bodies, and rage poured through him in raw waves. His hand found its way to his gun, and, for long moments, it was all he could do not to draw and shoot the man on the spot.

"You're going to tell me exactly what happened that night," he spat through clenched teeth. "You understand me? From the moment you set foot on my property till the moment you took the lives... of my wife and son."

Blackfox felt the cold hand of death settle upon him at that moment, and knew killing him would come easier to this man than breathing. "I told you," he insisted fearfully, "I didn't do..."

"Chris!" Nathan called from across the yard, interrupting Blackfox and quite possibly saving his life. "We found something!"

---

It wasn't much, only the remains of one of Blackfox's partners from that night, yet it gave them more than they'd had so far. Their killer was probably left-handed, and enough of a professional to execute employees who might become liabilities.

Their mysterious "hard man" was getting harder all the time.

From the ranch they rode into Eagle Bend, and, despite the bartender's initial unwillingness to talk, an unwillingness that disappeared when Larabee hauled him across the bar and threw him onto the floor and loomed like the Angel of Death above him, learned a bit more. Tall and lean like Chris, smoked cheroots, and was unusually neat. He also wore a special glove to disguise a deformed or crippled hand.

And he still frequented the area.

That last gave a new surge of hope to Chris. If the man was still around, then he'd inevitably hear that Larabee was asking about him. And he might get bold, or nervous, enough to venture out of hiding to confront this latest threat.

It was at that thought that Chris realized just how unprepared for such a confrontation he was. He couldn't concentrate right now, his thoughts careening about inside his brain like twigs tossed upon a storm, his body exhausted yet his every nerve stretched almost to snapping. He needed to eat, needed to rest, and doubted he could do either. He wanted to curse, to cry, to scream, to fall to the ground and die in the dirt or kill someone with his own hands. He didn't know where to start, or to stop, where to go or what to do, didn't know anything...

Except that he needed Vin.

He needed the tracker's cool head with his own in such a frenzy, needed the tracker's calm to counter his confusion, needed the man's strength to lean on and hold him up until he could stand on his own again. Mostly, though, he just needed Vin, needed to sink into the arms that he knew would catch him and rest in the heart that he knew would shelter him, just needed Vin to hold him and assure him that somehow, God, somehow, it would be all right again.

You take care of me, 'n I take care of you. You watch my back 'n I watch yers. From here on out, we're ridin' this trail together.

Vin's words from yesterday morning came back to him, stopping him in his tracks and nearly dropping him to his knees. Jesus, how he needed that now! Needed his blue-eyed guardian angel to watch over him, to take care of him, until he could take care of himself. Until he could separate his past from his future and do what he needed to put the one to rest in order to turn his attention to the other.

God, Vin, come to me now! he pleaded silently, desperately. I need you ta ride this trail with me, or I'll never make it to the end!

---

Tanner pushed through the batwing doors into the saloon, forgoing his customary silent, shadow-hugging entrance and ignoring the attention stirred by his grimly determined appearance. With not a single wasted movement, he strode to the table where JD, Ezra and two town men sat indulging in a low-stakes game of poker, his spurs ringing as he walked, emphasizing the unusual force of his steps.

Stopping just behind one of the town men, he stared across the table at his two fellow regulators and growled, "Y'all git yer gear, meet me in the liv'ry. We're ridin' ta Eagle Bend."

JD gaped up at him in surprise, startled not only by Vin's abrupt entrance, but also by the edge in his voice and the hard set of his face. Ezra, however, sat back and gazed calmly up at the tracker, arching one chestnut eyebrow in an expression of cool disinterest.

"And why, pray, would I wish to undertake such a long, uncomfortable and undoubtedly filthy journey at this hour of the day?" he asked. "Taking flight across the barren waste with the mid-day heat beating down upon my person is a most unappealing notion--"

"I don't give a damn," Vin interrupted in a low, harsh voice, fixing a fierce stare upon the gambler. "We're goin' after Chris 'n the boys. Trouble's comin', 'n I aim ta find 'em 'fore it does."

JD swallowed, his eyes widening in alarm. "What makes you think trouble's comin'?"

Vin turned hard eyes to the boy. "'Cause Chris is raisin' ghosts, 'n they don't never rise without trouble. And a man who'll burn a woman 'n child ta death won't hesitate ta kill a man." His stare cut back to Ezra. "So y'all git yer stuff. 'N if you ain't at the liv'ry in ten minutes, I'll come 'n git it for ya."

Without another word, he turned and stalked out of the saloon, leaving a collection of confused and startled stares in his wake.

"But..." JD sputtered, wondering just what the hell was going on and wishing that, just once, Tanner wouldn't leave him wondering that.

Ezra was neither confused nor startled. He'd heard the warning in the tracker's voice, seen it in his eyes, and knew Vin had meant every word. And having the irate Texan manhandling his cherished possessions, or his cherished person, was not a prospect he relished. With as much ease and dignity as he could manage, he laid his cards face down upon the table, reached out and took JD's from his hand and did the same with them, then rose to his feet.

"Gentlemen," he addressed the two perplexed town men, "I must regretfully put an end to our game. Duty has once again reared its ugly head, necessitating our immediate departure." He smiled, his gold-capped incisor gleaming. "But I do hope to see you back at my table soon. It has been a most delightful and profitable day." He bowed slightly and stepped away from the table, then turned back and hauled JD to his feet, pulling him away, as well.

"Ezra, I don't understand," the boy protested. "What--"

"All you have to understand," Standish told him, "is that, undoubtedly having received some mystical vision through communing with the natural world, Mr. Tanner has pressed us into service in the defense of our comrades."

"What?"

The gambler heaved a long, martyred sigh and shook his head. Then, scowling at the boy, he clarified, "The man can shoot the wings off a fly at one hundred yards. When he says we're leaving, it is in our best interest to leave!"

---

In exactly ten minutes, the three were off, racing out of town and along the road to Eagle Bend, with Vin leading Ezra and JD at a hard pace.

On the boardwalk outside the jail, Orin Travis stood and watched them go, knowing he'd been right last night. Tanner had waited, had weighed, had deliberated, turning over everything in his mind. And had made his decision. He was going, but not at all half-cocked.

He was flying out as straight and as true as a bullet from a carefully aimed gun.

---

Chris had thought this day would never end. He'd forced down a brief meal at Nathan's insistence while questioning Blackfox further, then had deposited the man with the sheriff. And had nearly choked on his apology for Sarah and Adam's deaths.

God, he was so sick of that! He didn't want apologies or sympathy, damn it, he wanted explanations! Reasons. Answers. Something that he could point to and say, "There, that's why they're dead!" Something that would make it all make sense. All the apologizing and the sympathizing in the world wouldn't do that, wouldn't bring them back, wouldn't change a thing. Knowing why wouldn't either, but at least it might let them rest easier.

As he hoped it would him.

He went to the livery and tended Pony, not ready yet to go back to the room he'd taken. It was strange, cold, not at all what he was used to or wanted. And empty. If Vin were here, he knew he'd have company in the night, someone to make the room warmer, the bed more inviting. But Vin wasn't here, and he was left to bear this crushing weight alone. So he took his time brushing down his horse and cleaning and oiling his tack, finding some small comfort in turning his mind to such a familiar, uncomplicated task.

Yet even here, memories of his family and thoughts of Vin found him. How many peaceful Sunday afternoons had he spent on a chair outside his barn cleaning or repairing his tack, Adam at his knee and Sarah bringing cookies and lemonade? And how many afternoons had he spent in the livery in town with Vin doing this, delighting in the deep and intimate silence between them while admiring the supple play of tracker's long and nimble fingers over leather?

Strange, how much of the peace he'd known in his life with Sarah he'd found again with Vin. Strange, how much alike the two of them were when he thought about it. Both blessed with a strength that had nothing to do with their physical builds, but had everything to do with their souls. Both able to stand in one moment and find all the joy, all the peace, there was in it before moving on to the next. Both coming to him when he was certain he'd never find their like, both giving themselves to him completely, without reservation, both teaching him what it meant to love with his whole being, and to be loved like that in return.

Then again, maybe it wasn't so strange after all. Sarah had always done her best to look after him, to take care of him. Maybe, just maybe, she'd done it in death as she'd done in life. It would be like her to send someone across his path to free him from his pain and isolation. It would be like her to send someone to take care of him in ways she no longer could.

It would be just like her to send Vin.

His tack finished, he put it away and retrieved his saddlebags, then left the stable and went to the boardinghouse, finally ready to face sleep. He trudged wearily up the stairs and found his room, unlocking the door. Once inside, he hung his hat on the wall rack and tossed his saddlebags onto the bed. As he turned toward the wash basin, he looked down and saw the thick red pool standing beneath the closet door, then smelled the distinctive coppery odor.

Blood.

Gripped by a deep uneasiness, he went to the closet, faces from his past and present colliding in his mind. Sarah... Adam... Vin... God, who...

He opened the door, and saw the blood-soaked corpse impaled on the rack.

"The bartender," he murmured flatly, recognizing both the dead man, and the message he'd been meant to deliver.

The hard man was back.

---

Josiah frowned deeply and stared again at the slip the telegraph operator had handed him; the reply to the one he'd dragged the poor man out of bed to send. Just a few words, and not from anyone he'd expected to answer.

"COMING STOP TRAVIS"

Josiah scratched his whiskered jaw, shook his grizzled head slowly, then shoved the flimsy paper into his pocket and drew out a coin. Flipping it to the operator, he bobbed his head in thanks and walked out of the office. He saw Buck and Chris standing in the street, talking with the sheriff as the bartender's body was loaded into the wagon, and started toward him.

And, as he drew near enough to feel the anger and frustration rolling off Larabee's tight body, understanding hit him, and a wry chuckle escaped him.

Of course Travis had been the one to answer. He wasn't saying the boys were leaving, he was saying they'd left. Vin Tanner, God love that boy's mysterious soul, had known he was needed long before the summons came, and likely was dragging Ezra and JD behind him right now as he flew across the miles.

He joined Chris and Buck, and almost flinched as the gunfighter's diamond-hard gaze snapped to him. Larabee was walking a razor's edge here, and one wrong step would plunge him once more into the black pit from which he'd only recently begun to climb. And he might not make it out a second time.

"You send word?" Chris demanded of the preacher, his need for Vin's steady, soothing presence a raw ache in his soul.

Josiah nodded, adopting as calm a manner as he could, almost able to see the younger man's nerves fraying right before him. "Had to drag the telegraph operator out of bed." He glanced at the wagon, then back to Chris. "That poor soul supposed ta be our invitation to leave?" He shook his head mournfully. "Not very hospitable."

"Really," Buck snorted, still enraged that the bastard had come close enough to Chris to leave a corpse in his room, yet go unseen by anyone. "Good reason ta stick around, teach him some manners." He was startled to see Chris abruptly turn and walk away. "Where you goin'?"

Josiah sighed. "Saloon," he said knowingly, suddenly wishing Four Corners were a whole helluva lot closer to Eagle Bend.

And pitying anyone who had to close the distance with Vin Tanner.

---

Ezra Standish no longer had to wonder what hell was; he knew. It was being dragged across the desert at a grueling, punishing pace by a hard-eyed, nearly silent Vin Tanner, allowed only brief stops for water and rest when the horses demanded it, and only slightly longer stops for what, to the tracker, might pass as food but that, to Ezra, was a personal affront.

Jerked beef, dried biscuits and bitter coffee. And, good Lord, the buckskin-clad barbarian actually seemed to enjoy it!

Even his hopes for a fairly decent night's sleep had been cruelly disappointed. When the light had faded, Vin had been forced to stop, much to Ezra's relief. A scant few hours later, however, he'd been roughly hauled from the sparse comfort of his blankets by the tracker, who'd growled that the moon was up and it was time to ride. A full moon, Standish had noted with surly displeasure, declared by Tanner to be almost as good as sunlight.

Well, wasn't that wonderful?

Reflecting bitterly on the opportunities to fatten his purse back in town that he was missing by being out here, Ezra hastily rolled his blankets, choked down yet another offensive "meal," and hauled himself onto the horse Tanner had already saddled. Someone was going to have to pay for this. Someone needed to die.

Better still, someone would have to lose a fortune at cards.

JD, for his part, was torn between nervousness and excitement. He knew there had to be trouble, else Vin wouldn't be acting the way he was, and the boy fervently hoped they would arrive before it overwhelmed his friends. At the same time, he couldn't help the tingle of exhilaration running through him. This was why he had come West, this charging into the unknown, facing danger, having nothing to rely on save his guns and his wits. He felt more alive now, even tired, hungry and dirty as he was, than he ever had back East.

And he was unabashedly in awe of Tanner. The tracker was a damn marvel in the wilds, ghosting silently over the hard-baked earth, slipping in and out of the shadows of the night as if one of them himself, so deeply and intimately attuned to the rhythms of the earth he seemed sprung from its very bosom. Not a breeze stirred that went untested by the Texan, who would lift his head and sniff wolf-like at it, eyes as dark as the midnight sky narrowed slightly as he processed every scrap of information received by his senses through that lightning-fast brain. JD watched the man saddle the horses, pick up camp and douse the fire, all without making one sound more than was absolutely necessary, and moving with the easy, fluid grace that seemed to have its only mirror in nature itself.

Although, it would be nice if Vin talked a bit more...

The tracker hadn't spoken much since they'd started and, as they rode through the night and into the dawn, he seemed to speak even less, communicating only when he had to and then in terse, one- or two-word sentences or mere grunts and gestures. In contrast there was Ezra, who could use more and longer words to say nothing than anyone JD had ever known. The boy wasn't certain which of the two was harder to understand, and he found himself missing Buck.

The big man might sometimes be a pain, but at least he spoke, and spoke English.

Vin knew he was pushing his two companions hard, but he couldn't help himself. The knowledge that Chris needed him, and needed him now, was a driving, relentless force inside him. He felt as if invisible hands were pushing him onward, heard a voice whispering in his mind that he had to hurry. He couldn't explain it, but didn't have to. He'd always been a man completely at home with the Spirits that moved unseen in this world, had no difficulty letting himself be guided by those Spirits.

So if they wanted him to haul ass to Eagle Bend, he'd do it. And if now and then, from the corner of his eye, he caught what looked to be a glimmer of dark red hair in the moonlight, well, that could just be his little secret.

---

The delay was gnawing a hole in Chris's gut. He'd been up since dawn, had hastily choked down his untasted breakfast, and now sat watching his friends lingering over their meals, a bottle clutched firmly in his hand. Reason told him it was much too early to be drinking, but his jumping nerves needed something to calm them. The bastard was out there, watching him, mocking him, yet here he still sat, waiting on men who seemed to think they had nothing important to do and all the time in the world to do it.

They should have been out hours ago!

Buck could see Chris seething, could see the anger building in the burning green eyes, yet knew there was not one thing he could do to calm him. Larabee was being driven by his grief and rage, was being consumed by them, and was an explosion waiting to happen. Josiah had told them Vin, Ezra and JD were on their way, and, while it made sense to the rest of them to wait for the three men's arrival, Buck knew that sense was not exactly a big factor in Chris's thinking just now.

God, he hoped Vin hurried!

For some time now he'd suspected -- hell, known, if only he'd admit it -- about the turn the relationship between Chris and Vin had taken, and was still trying to decide exactly how he felt about it. Right now, though, his feelings didn't matter worth a damn. What mattered was that Chris was about to snap, and the only living person who had the power to hold him together was Vin Tanner. Buck might not necessarily like all the implications of that, but he was unselfish enough to admit that, if it meant having Chris happy and sane, there were things he was ready and willing to overlook.

And it helped enormously that the two men were not ones to flaunt their relationship. Buck doubted anyone else suspected, simply because Larabee and Tanner were experts at keeping whatever they felt under tight rein, at giving nothing of themselves away. Hell, he might not have noticed it himself, but for the few times he'd glanced unexpectedly at Chris and caught the man looking at Vin the way he used to look at Sarah, with a light and warmth in his eyes that could only be described as love. And only when he'd forced himself to watch for it had he seen Vin looking at Chris the same way.

But, hell, he supposed he'd come across worse things in this life than two men loving each other...

"The son of a bitch is close enough ta kill a man in my hotel room," Chris snarled, his patience at an end. "Why are we sittin' here eatin' breakfast?"

Without really thinking, Josiah quipped easily, "It's the most important meal of the day."

And Chris snapped. Slamming a hand against the table, he shouted, "You think this is a joke, preacherman?"

"Easy, partner, easy," Buck soothed, reaching out to grab Chris's arm, knowing he was about a breath away from murder.

"Calm down, now!" Nathan urged, grateful only that Larabee was clutching a bottle instead of his gun. "Calm down."

"Nobody thinks this is a joke, Chris," Josiah said gently, calm blue eyes fixed on Larabee, his big body relaxed. Chris was wrapped so tight he was shaking, was as brittle as a piece of old glass, and Sanchez knew one wrong word or move would shatter the man completely.

"Our search party's gonna get bigger real soon, and that's gonna help, Chris," Buck reminded him, praying Tanner would hurry. "We're gonna find him."

Jock Steele chose that moment to appear, and Larabee nearly choked on his anger. "Great!" he muttered, surging to his feet and stalking toward the bar.

"Mornin', boys," the little man greeted brightly, oblivious to the dark currents swirling about the table.

"You picked a bad time," Buck said in a low, angry voice, blue eyes glaring as the writer pulled up a chair and sat down beside him. "Mister, you're like a piece of somethin' a man can't scrape off the bottom of his shoe. Did you follow us?"

"I had no choice," Steele said pointedly. "You left me out there wanderin' around for a day without food." He eyed Nathan's plate. "You gonna eat that?"

Nathan passed the man what remained of his breakfast with a disgusted scowl, wishing he'd just stayed lost.

"I'm gonna go down to the dry goods store," Josiah announced, deciding he might as well do something useful while he waited. "Maybe this man orders his gloves custom-made."

Nathan nodded, formulating a plan of his own. "I'm gonna go down t' that horse liv'ry, see if I c'n find Big Gray."

Steele saw a perfect subject in the black man, and was not about to waste this opportunity. "Mr. Jackson," he called, "Mr. Jackson, I heard you're a doctor of sorts."

Nathan rose to his feet. "No, sir, I ain't no doctor," he insisted firmly, the distinction between what he was and what he wished to be almost sacred to him. "I'm jest inter'sted in healin' folks."

Fascination gripped Steele. "Interested," he mused, gripping his pencil tightly. "May I ask you a few questions? Please, step outside with me for one second," he invited as he tagged along after the man who was leaving without him. "From Slave to Surgeon," he said grandiosely, already seeing it in print. "You know, there's a story in your life, Mr. Jackson. If you'd just allow me to..."

The bark of gunshots interrupted his speech, and a new exhilaration shot through him. A gunfight! Happening right here in front of him! He'd imagined them written about them, but now was seeing one with his very eyes, hearing the crack and slap of bullets, smelling the sharp, acrid tang of powder, watching the smoke billowing on the breeze...

"Chris, one in the wagon!" Buck yelled, taking aim at the man targeting his friend. Then, his attention was caught by the idiot standing in the street like a goddamn statue, and anger at such incredible stupidity flared within him. "Steele, are you crazy?!" he shouted. "Get down, ya fool!"

The writer was in heaven, already framing new words with which to describe such a scene. Oh, it was even better than he'd imagined! "Hey, it's all right!" he called confidently, secure in his untouchable status os objective observer. "They're not shooting at me..." A bullet ripped through his pad, bringing the reality of what was happening brutally to life. "Ah!"

"Chris!" Buck called to his friend as Josiah hauled the writer behind cover. "Get down here! We'll cover ya!"

Still shooting, Chris looked around for the best way to join his friends, then, seeing no better option, simply charged down through the hail of bullets. But his new position did nothing to increase his confidence. Their attackers were everywhere, high and low, seemed to have every angle covered, and superior numbers, too.

Okay, now he understood the logic behind waiting...

"They're all over us!" Buck shouted unnecessarily, unconsciously echoing Larabee's thoughts.

The bray of a mule got his attention, and everyone else's. The gunfire ceased as everyone stared in surprise and confusion at the riderless wagon being pulled slowly down the street. Even Larabee was gaping, his astonishment plain.

Then, as was his way, Josiah put all their thoughts into words. "What in heaven's name is that?"

---

They stopped one last time, as Vin reluctantly gave in to the demands of exhausted flesh. Everything in him cried out to keep going, but reason prevailed over desperation. He'd pushed them at a brutal, punishing pace, and, if they went on like this, they'd be in no shape to face whatever trouble might be awaiting them. So, at dawn, he bowed to his friends' obvious exhaustion -- hell, to his own -- and granted them all three hours of sleep.

Even Ezra accepted the very small favor without complaint, warned by the tracker's hard-as-granite face that to say anything would land him in a shallow grave.

So they slept. Or, rather, Ezra and JD slept; Vin simply sat and let his mind wander. And not surprisingly at all, it ran straight to Chris, taking his heart with it. He hurt so for the man he could not reach, ached for the pain he was not there to ease. He could feel Chris's torment as if it were his own, then realized it was. Chris was his; how could the man's suffering not be his, as well?

Exactly three hours later, he roused his friends and got them once more on the road to Eagle Bend. His pace this time was no more merciful than it had been before, but neither of his friends complained. In fact, they seemed now to share his sense of urgency, as if understanding that he would not be riding like this without cause. So, infected by the same grim purpose that gripped him, they kept pace with him, all watching the horizon eagerly for any sign of Eagle Bend.

And when, at last, the vague outline of the town glimmered before them, they spurred their horses with a single accord, little knowing what awaited them there, but certain it would not be good. By the time they reached its outer limits, Eagle Bend was already stirring to life, with folks starting to go about their daily lives.

But, as they drew near the livery, Vin suddenly reined in Peso and stiffened in the saddle, his every sense on high alert. Blue eyes swept the street before him, then lifted to the rooftops, and a chill shot down his spine. In a moment, the fleeting shadow was gone, but he'd seen it, and his hackles rose.

"Up on the roofs," he growled to his companions. "Guns."

"Ambush," Ezra said quietly, his instinct for trouble also aroused. "But for whom?"

Vin's mouth twisted into a feral smile. "If'n there's trouble," he rasped, "who's most likely ta be in its middle?"

"Chris," JD and Ezra answered in unison without hesitation.

Vin narrowed his eyes and thought a moment. "Cain't jist go in. Don't know how many of 'em there are, 'n there ain't no sense tippin' our hand." He looked around, saw an old wagon behind the stable and two mules in the fence, and grinned. "You boys need a li'l rest?"

Ezra felt a deep sense of unease at Tanner's grin, knowing personally what devious and degrading ideas it could herald. "And what vile humiliation, pray tell, will I be forced to endure this time?"

"Don't worry, Ezra," Vin answered mischievously, "I ain't askin' ya ta put on a dress again. Likely once was enough fer us all." He tipped his head toward the wagon. "Jist thought you boys might like a ride, is all, seein's yer likely ta be saddle sore."

Ezra saw the wagon, saw the mules, and sneered in disgust. "Good Lord, you are not suggesting--"

"Ain't suggestin' nothin'," Vin informed him, the hard edge returning to his voice. "I'm sayin' flat out. We're gonna hitch them mules ta that wagon, we're gonna git inside, 'n we're gonna ride real easy-like inta town ta git the lay'a the land."

"Mules," Ezra groaned. "Yet another blow to my dignity. Really, Mr. Tanner, what have I ever done to make you loathe me so?"

Vin eyed the gambler steadily. "Don't know 'bout loathin' ya," he rasped, "but if ya don't quit yer belly-achin', yer dignity won't be the only thing takin' a blow. Now, we're gonna ride around the liv'ry like ain't nothin' wrong, take our horses in the back way, then see if we cain't git them mules hitched t' that wagon without anybody seein'. Then--"

"We?" Ezra interrupted sharply. "What is this we? I have never hitched a mule to anything in my life, and certainly do not intend to take up the practice now. Horses are the only steeds fit for a gentleman--"

"I've never worked with mules, but I'm game ta try," JD piped up, eager to take on a new challenge. "Can't be too different from horses, right?"

Vin eyed his two friends and sighed tiredly. One who wouldn't and one who couldn't. Lord, why him? "I'll do it m'self," he said tersely. "This ain't the time t' be teachin' y'all somethin' new." He glared at Ezra. "You think keepin' watch fer bad guys with guns would set all right with yer dignity?"

The gambler considered a moment, then smiled. "Why, yes, I believe keeping the rear guard would be quite agreeable--"

"You c'n guard yer rear from the wagon jist like us," Vin growled. "Now, let's git 'fore them bad guys ain't the onliest ones with guns yer gonna have ta worry about."

JD struggled to conceal his smirk at Standish's outraged expression, and quickly spurred his bay after Tanner's black. He could still hear the Southerner muttering behind them, and suspected Vin enjoyed getting under the man's skin.

Their task was accomplished quickly, Vin getting the mules in harness with an ease born of much practice. JD, watching closely to see how mules were handled, asked about his obvious skill and was surprised to hear the tracker say he'd once been a mule-skinner, working for a freight office back in Texas. The boy couldn't help wondering if there was anything his six older friends hadn't done.

The easy mood, though, was abruptly shattered by the sound of gunfire. Knowing instinctively that their friends were involved, the three hopped into the wagon and Vin took the long reins, driving the mules from inside. Quickly formulating a plan and filling the other two in on it, he turned the wagon onto the main street and headed toward the saloon, his heart in his throat.

Lord, Chris, don't die! he pleaded silently. Jist, please, don't die!

---

"What in heaven's name is that?"

Chris stared intently into the street, barely noting Josiah's question, his whole attention focused on the wagon before him. The silence hung thick and taut as everyone waited to see what lay behind this bizarre intrusion into the battle. Then, all at once, the canvas covering was pulled down and three men came up firing, picking off targets with a cool precision. Chris's heart leapt when he saw the blessedly familiar figure in that damn hide coat stand to get a better shot, and it was all he could do not to laugh aloud in violent relief.

Vin!

The three turned the tide, and the battle lasted only a few minutes more as the ambushers realized they were badly out-classed. Three men reached their horses, and made their desperate escape.

Chris rolled out from under a wagon in time to hear Ezra's gleeful whoop, and he smiled up at the newcomers. "Now, that was good timin'," he complimented, his gaze immediately going to Vin.

But the tracker was still focused on the job at hand, and hit upon a way to make that job just a bit easier. Seeing the three men fleeing into the distance, he casually raised his rifle and flipped up the sight. "JD, Ezra," he called laconically, taking aim at a man in a dark coat and red bandanna riding a big paint horse, "ya'd best git down."

The two did so immediately, and Vin squinted down the barrel, then squeezed off a shot. As all watched in amazement, the man on the paint jerked violently, Vin's bullet finding its mark. Ezra turned to regard the tracker with unconcealed amazement, yet it was the relief and welcome in Chris's warm green eyes that teased a small smile from him.

He felt those eyes upon him and wanted to drown in them, wanted to grab Larabee and take him somewhere away from all this and show him how much he'd missed him. Instead, he only nodded at the man and said, "Let's git after 'em."

---

Chasing after the three men didn't give Chris and Vin much time to talk, or any time to be alone, yet both took comfort in simply being back together. Two halves reunited into a whole. Larabee felt more grounded almost immediately, less likely to be torn apart by the chaos raging in his soul. In Tanner, he had his stormbreak and shelter. Vin was torn between anxiety and relief. He'd known this would have taken its toll upon the man, but not even he was prepared for the depth of the anguish he saw in the haunted green eyes. Larabee looked at once harder and more fragile than Vin had ever seen him, as if he were fighting against some darkness waiting to reclaim him.

But it would not. Not while Tanner had breath in his body. He was back at Chris' side, where he belonged, and he would fight heaven and hell to keep the man here, where he belonged. He no longer had to worry from a distance, no longer had to imagine what demons were clawing at his lover. He was here, he was with Chris, he could see the man, touch him. Protect him. He still feared this would only end in more pain for Larabee, but at least he would be here to hold him if it did.

And, if he had his way, to kill whoever was responsible for that pain.

The trail, augmented by the blood being lost by the one he'd shot, led right where instinct had told him it would. "Figgers their track's lead here," he said in his soft, gravelly voice as he stared out over the town before them. "Back under the rock they crawled out from. Welcome ta Purgatory, boys. A real hell-hole."

Chris's gut clenched as he stared down at the outlaw haven. Vin had told him he was sure they'd end up here, and he'd tried to talk the tracker into staying away. Tanner was too well known there, had too many enemies from his bounty hunting days, and five hundred reasons for one of them to seek revenge. As much as he needed Vin with him right now, he was tortured by the fear of losing him, too.

But Vin had been adamant, had refused even to listen to his arguments. Stubborn as only he could be, Tanner had said he'd either go with 'em, or behind 'em, but, one way or another, he was goin'. And he'd shot Larabee a glare that had dared the man to try and stop him.

So, knowing he'd lost that argument, and not at all happy about it, he simply spurred Pony down toward the town.

"Might wanta take one of 'em alive," Buck suggested as Chris rode past. "Find out who's payin' 'em."

"Three men," Vin reminded them, slipping a piece of straw into his mouth. He knew Larabee was pissed, but didn't care. He hadn't come all this way just to be separated from the man again. "One of 'em was on a paint."

"Howdy, boys!" called out a voice behind them.

Buck looked to their rear, and a wave of anger sliced through him. "Good God almighty!" he spat, spurring Beavis after Larabee.

Vin looked back, saw the odd figure on the mule and sighed in weary disgust. JD had told him about Steele, a writer of one of them God-awful books the boy was always readin'. Not wanting any part of the man, he shook his head and rode away with his friends.

But Steele was not so easily evaded. Having come to terms with his mule, he caught up with the Seven and joined their company as if he belonged, fixing his attention on the man in the hide coat. He'd watched his last shot in awe, and just knew someone with that kind of skill must have a story to tell. Yet each time he tried to approach him, the man pulled away, or Steele found a mount belonging to one of his friends blocking his way. At last, he settled in frustration in place alongside the boy he already knew.

"That man, Sheriff Dunne," he asked, nodding his head toward his elusive quarry, "the one with the long hair. Who's he?"

"Oh, that's Vin... Vin," the boy supplied, remembering only at the last minute that spreading Tanner's whole name around might not be a good idea.

"Vin," Steele repeated, storing the name inside his brain. "That was quite a shot he made back in town. I've never seen anything like it!"

"Oh, Vin's the best there is!" JD boasted, his eyes shining with pride for his friend. "There's nobody who can handle a rifle like him. Or find a trail. Buck says Vin could track an ant in a rainstorm!"

"A-ha!" Steele chortled triumphantly. "A marksman and tracker. I'll bet he's got a story worth telling!"

"Oh, uh," JD demurred, suddenly nervous, "Vin... he ain't much of a talker. And he ain't real comfortable around strangers..." He swallowed hard and turned worried hazel eyes upon the writer. "Maybe you just better stay away from him, Mr. Steele. I mean, Vin ain't exactly the friendly type."

"Then that makes him my type!" Steele exclaimed. "Tracker, sharpshooter, a man of the wilds by his look... rough, tough, dangerous... Oh, Sheriff Dunne, he's exactly my type! And my readers' type, too!" With that, he kneed the mule forward, renewing his attempts to get close to the mysterious "Vin."

JD watched him go and grimaced, hoping Vin didn't hurt him too badly. Or kill him too slowly.

Once in Purgatory, they split up to begin their search for the three men. Chris took Blackfox with him, but no one else, which worried Buck. He saw Vin start to follow Larabee, but subtly managed to get Beavis in front of Peso, stopping the tracker. Instead, he turned to the healer.

"Hard ta tell what he's gonna do," he said quietly. "Keep a good eye on him."

"All right," Nathan agreed, sharing Buck's concerns. Chris was like a hound scenting blood now, and God alone knew what the man would do if anyone crossed him.

Buck saw Vin glaring at him, and sighed. He'd been dealing with a half-crazy Larabee for three days now; he just wasn't sure he was up a fully enraged Tanner. Still, he knew the younger man deserved some explanation for being kept from going after his... friend.

"JD," he called, sliding wearily from the saddle, "you're with me. Take care of my horse, would ya? I need ta talk ta Vin."

"Sure, Buck." The boy hurried forward to take Beavis's reins, then glanced up at Tanner, who still sat atop his horse, who still stared stonily at Buck. "Uh, Vin, I'll take Peso if ya want," he offered uncertainly, suddenly realizing just how old and just how deadly the tracker could look.

Tanner dismounted without a word, without showing a sign of the exhaustion that gnawed at him. For three days, all he'd wanted was to be with Chris, to watch over him and take care of him; and now that he'd found him, Buck had denied him that chance. Purposely. He thrust Peso's reins at JD and stalked after Wilmington, seething with anger at the big man.

Buck stepped up onto the porch in front of an abandoned store and turned to Tanner, who was right behind him. When the tracker looked as if he were preparing to throw a punch, Buck held up his own hands and said, "Hold on a minute. I know yer pissed, but I wantcha ta hear me out."

"Talk," Vin snarled, knotting a fist, but not raising it. Yet. He was fairly certain that Buck knew about him and Chris, and feared this was an attempt by the big man to keep them apart.

Buck sighed and bowed his head, crossing his arms against his chest. He knew he had to choose his words carefully, didn't want to cross any lines here that shouldn't be crossed. That he wasn't ready to cross. "First of all," he began softly, "Chris is in a real bad way right now. He ain't thinkin' straight... Hell, he ain't thinkin' at all. And he's a heartbeat from killin' somebody. Anybody." He winced at his next thought, but knew it had to be spoken. "The way he is right now, he needs somebody with him who can step in and stop him if he starts ta do somethin' foolish. And I don't mean just talk him out of it. I mean step in, grab him, wrestle him down and hold him until he's ready ta listen ta reason." He raised his head then and fixed sorrowful eyes on Tanner. "And I'm sorry, Vin, but you just ain't big enough ta do that. I know you're tough, but I also know, from personal and painful experience, what it takes ta subdue Chris when he's like this, and I just ain't sure you could do it."

"That all?" Vin demanded tersely.

Buck winced again; he was now facing that line head-on. "No," he sighed, "that ain't all. I also didn't wanta take the chance that, if he did snap, he might hurt you when he went. I know..." He licked his lips and turned his head, looking away from Vin. "I know... how close you two are..." From the corner of his eye he saw the tracker tense, and knew the man understood. "Right now, I don't think Chris could take knowin' he'd hurt you, and I sure as hell don't wanta put you in the position of havin' ta hurt him ta calm him down. I just... don't think either of ya needs that right now. Y'all got enough shit ta deal with as it is."

Vin stared at Buck in confused disbelief. He'd come expecting anger, condemnation, but had found a kind of protection instead. He shifted uneasily, not at all certain what to make of it. He really hated surprises.

Buck realized he'd caught the tracker off guard, and had to smile at that; he knew it didn't happen often. "Close your mouth, son," he advised gently. "You're lookin' like JD right now." The tracker's mouth snapped shut, without a single smart-assed reply coming from it, and Buck arched a brow at the man's unusual submissiveness. "That brings up another point," he said. "For you and Ezra and JD ta get ta Eagle Bend when ya did, it had ta mean y'all were ridin' like hell. And I'm bettin' that, even if you let the others sleep, you didn't do it yerself. Hell, I can tell that by lookin' at ya. You're tired, Vin, and that's gonna make it hard ta deal with Chris. The last thing we need is for the two of you, exhausted and edgy, ta tear inta each other. Couldn't any of us deal with that right now. Especially not you or Chris."

"I cain't stay away from him," Vin said softly. "Hell, I won't stay away!"

"And I'm not askin' ya to," Buck assured him. "Fact is, I figger you're the best one for him right now, the one he's gonna need most ta help him through this. He sure as hell ain't leanin' on the rest of us. He's wrapped so tight inside himself that I'm not even sure he sees the rest of us. But he'll see you, and he'll lean on you. Which means you gotta be strong enough ta bear his weight. You gotta take care of yerself, Vin, 'cause it's the only way you'll be able ta take care of him, too."

Vin nodded slowly. "Reckon that makes sense," he allowed, still trying to figure all this out. But, Buck was right; he was tired, and deeply worried about Chris. He needed time to sort out what Buck had said... and what he hadn't.

"He loved her, y'know," Buck said suddenly, softly. "She and that boy were his whole world. And when they died, he did, too. Or I thought he had, until lately..." His voice faltered, and he had to look away from Vin to hide the tears in his eyes. "I just... don't wanta see him go back ta that," he whispered harshly. "If this don't turn out like he hopes, I just... I don't know... how many more blows he can take..."

Against his nature, Vin reached out and gripped Buck's arm, deeply touched by the big man's distress. "I'll take care of him," he said in a low, firm voice, his blue eyes burning with determination. "I won't let him go back ta that, I promise. I will take care of him."

They were simple words, yet Buck recognized them for the solemn vow they were. He looked at Vin, saw all that the man could not say shining in his eyes, and gave a small smile.

"Yeah, I reckon you will at that, pard." His smile broadened, his big frame straightened, and he clapped Vin soundly on the shoulder. "All right then, let's go search the town for them three sonsabitches, see if we can't make 'em tell us what they know. Oughtta be pretty easy," he winked at Vin, "since you marked one so nicely for us. Just gotta look fer a fella who's sprung a leak."

Vin chuckled ruefully and shook his head. "Yeah, 'n I expect Larabee'll have words with me over that. Seein's how I shot him in the back."

"Oh, I don't know," Buck mused, slinging a long arm over Tanner's shoulders and leading him to where JD waited for them, "I think Chris is smart enough not ta rile a man who can shoot like that. 'Sides, we c'n always put a bullet in the bastard's front if that'll make Larabee feel better."

---

As it turned out, that second bullet wasn't necessary; Vin's had done its work adequately. JD looked down into the coffin, reached out and turned the body over, then let it go and looked back at the tracker, awe in his eyes. "It's the one on the paint pony. You are one hell of a shot, Vin!" he marveled.

Tanner said nothing. Shooting came as naturally to him as breathing; he'd always had the long eye, the steady hand. He knew his ability with a rifle was often mystifying to others, but, to him, it was just what he did.

Any further thoughts were interrupted by a gunshot from the cantina, and immediately the three men hurried in that direction, Buck and Vin worried that Chris had finally lost his brittle control. Pushing through the strands of beads that formed the door, however, they were greeted not by the sight of murder, but by an atmosphere of raucous gaiety. The cantina near overflowed with bad men of every description, bristling with guns, knives and a vast assortment of scars, a collection of desperadoes who looked as hard as any men who'd ever walked the earth. Yet, rather than menacing some innocent populace, they were now swarming around Steele like bees around a flower, jostling for position, almost childishly eager to tell their bloody stories and have their ugly faces photographed.

Ezra came up to meet them, handling a wad of cash and grinning from ear to ear, a man clearly in his element. "Well, welcome to the festivities!" he greeted happily.

"We heard the gunshot," JD explained, looking around the cantina in rapt wonderment. This was his first visit to the legendary Purgatorio, and, so far, it was shaping up to be just as bad -- and just as thrilling -- as he'd imagined.

"Thought somebody'd killed the little feller," Vin said more laconically. He and Purgatorio were old acquaintances, and he knew many of the faces here from his bounty hunting days. And there were more than a few here who knew his, as well.

"Kill him?" Ezra laughed. "Hell, they're about ready to elect him president!"

At that moment, Steele noticed the new arrivals and beamed ecstatically at them. "Howdy, boys. Be with you in a minute."

Ezra was still amazed by the reception the little man had gotten. He'd been sure the outlaws would tear him to bits; instead, the moment he'd introduced himself and told them why he was here, they'd greeted him like a king. "He said he that he was a writer who was willing to pay for anyone's story as long as it was about murder and mayhem."

"Of course, that appealed to the congregation," Josiah quipped from the table where he sat. "After that, the only fight was to see who was going to be first in line."

Steele came bustling up to them, his round face wreathed in a huge, ecstatic smile. "This is fantastic!" he crowed. "Better than I ever dreamed. Do you know who that is I was just talking to? Dan Barnes." He swept glowing eyes over the men about him and nodded, exceedingly pleased with himself. "Uh-huh, the Dan Barnes."

"`Bloody-hand' Barnes," Vin clarified with a lift of his brows when Ezra looked to him with a puzzled frown.

"He told me how he got his name," Steele said excitedly. "Ooh! Story's gonna sell a million!"

"Congratulations," Standish said wryly, not at all certain he wanted to know how a man earned such an appellation.

Vin merely shook his head and ambled away from the annoying little man to join his friends at their table. He did not sit down, but stood in the corner, choosing a vantage point that would allow him to see everyone in the place while keeping his own back protected. He didn't plan on being a chapter in one of Jock Steele's books.

"Hey, Steele!" a voice from the crowd of outlaws called. "Come take another picture over here!"

"Oh," Steele chirped, feeling as if he'd hit the motherlode and eager to flaunt his accomplishments before these men who'd so constantly snubbed him. "Let me see, here. My photograph should be dry by now." He puffed up considerably and said cockily, "I took a shot with me and the boys."

Chris came in with Blackfox and Nathan behind him and went straight to the bar, his insides still tied in knots. He'd come within a heartbeat of killing an innocent man, would certainly have killed him had Nathan not been there to stop him. And he'd come damn close to killing Nathan. In pulling Chris's gun away from the terrified outlaw, the healer had pointed it into his own body. At that proximity, the shot would have been fatal.

If his finger had so much as twitched on the trigger...

Vin saw Larabee come in, saw the almost painful tension of the man's body, and longed to go to him. But he doubted he'd have restraint enough to keep his deep concern for the man, and all the love that lay beneath it, from showing. And a cantina full of blood-thirsty desperadoes eager to see themselves written up in some dime novel was probably not the best place to reveal his feelings for Larabee. But Steele's mention of the photograph gave him an idea for a practical -- and publicly acceptable -- way he could help Chris. If he could see that picture, he might recognize in it someone who would know such a man as the one Buck had described, and who might be persuaded to share that information.

And he knew lots of ways of persuadin' folks.

"Here it is," Steele announced proudly, coming to the table to show off his prized photograph. "That's me."

"Lovely," Ezra quipped dryly, finding the man as unattractive on film as he was in the flesh.

But while Steele passed around the photo and unnecessarily pointed out himself, Vin's keen eyes narrowed in on another figure, one who looked decidedly out of place among such a rough and dirty group. Without a word, he reached out and snatched it from Josiah, then strode to the bar and showed it to Chris, indicating the man who'd caught his attention.

"Right there in the corner," he said. "Notice the glove 'n the cheroot."

Chris took the photo, stared hard at the trim, neat figure in the corner. Steele came up to them and again unnecessarily identified himself, but Larabee wasn't listening. "Where was this taken?" he demanded.

Shaken by the hard voice, and even harder eyes, the little man swallowed nervously. "Uh... here. About an hour ago."

Chris shoved him away and turned. When Nathan pushed Blackfox to the bar, Chris showed him the picture. "Look at it," he ordered. "Is that him?"

Blackfox studied the figure carefully, knowing his very life depended on his answer. "Yeah," he said at last, his memory stirred by the man's eyes. Even in a photograph, he didn't want to look into them. "That's the man who killed your family."

Buck shoved Blackfox away and, with Vin, took his place at Chris's back to deal with anyone who protested or interfered. Chris walked slowly around the cantina and searched every face present, matching them all to the photograph in the hope of finding the man in the corner. He was not there. At the bar, though, was a man who'd stood next to the elusive bastard.

He stalked forward and thrust the picture under the man's nose. "You know him?" he snarled.

The outlaw merely stared defiantly at Larabee, so Buck stepped up and shoved his gun into his ribs. "Answer him," he snarled.

Knowing instinctively the gun was not there just for show, the outlaw took a look, and answered, "Yeah, I seen him."

"What's his name?" Chris asked. When the man didn't answer, he leaned closer and hissed dangerously, "What is his name?"

He hadn't lived this long without hanging by being stupid; the outlaw recognized the deadly menace in the blond and knew better than to try him further. "Fowler," he answered. "Cletus Fowler."

Buck shoved him away and stepped closer to Chris. "That name mean anything to you?"

But, rather than providing an answer, the man's name only deepened the mystery. "Never heard of him," Chris answered in complete confusion.

---

As soon as he'd seen him in the picture, Vin had already known the man they sought was gone. From long and painfully learned habit, he'd memorized every face in that room, noted who left and who entered, catalogued who was a threat and who might be an ally. Tanner never missed much, and he certainly wouldn't have missed an overly-tidy, cold-eyed dandy wearing a specially made black glove.

So, staying only long enough to hear the man's name, he caught Buck's eye and passed him a glance that told the big man he was entrusting Chris to his capable hands, then slipped out of the cantina. Keeping cautiously to the shadows, knowing there was no shortage of men in this town who would remember him from his bounty hunting days and gladly slit his throat, he found a vantage point that provided a clear view of the cantina and settled in to wait, blue eyes filled with grim determination.

The hawk was on the hunt.

He stood in the shadows for a good fifteen minutes, a man of infinite patience, and watched the cantina, wanting to see who left, and in what direction they went. This man, Fowler, always seemed one step ahead of him, which meant he had eyes and ears everywhere. Tanner figured he would have left someone behind to watch them, to see how much they learned about him, and he intended to catch that someone and palaver with him.

Maybe deprive Fowler of a couple of those ears.

At last he saw someone, one of the men he remembered from Steele's photograph, slip out the back way and head for the livery. Not liking the furtive way the man looked about him, Vin struck out after him, a shadow flitting among shadows. The man kept a keen eye on his back, and Vin gave a cold grin.

Bastard was good; he was better.

After a long, circuitous route, the man reached the livery and slipped inside. For all his previous care, however, he left the door open a bit, just enough for his "shadow" to slither through. Vin made a quick visual search to make sure they were alone, then drew the Bowie knife from his belt and crept on silent feet toward his prey.

The first indication the man had that he was being followed was the strong hand that grabbed him from behind, spun him around and slammed him into a wall. The second indication was the sharp tip of a blade being pressed into his gut as a hide-covered forearm was jammed across his throat. A terrified, airless squeak escaped him as he stared into glittering blue eyes set in a grim, rock-hard face.

"Let's you 'n me play a game," Vin growled. "I ask a question, you answer. 'N fer ever' answer I don't like," he gave a thin, teeth-baring smile, "I git ta cut somethin' off. That sound fun ta you?"

A cold chill rippled through the man as he felt the blade moving slowly down his abdomen and stopping at his groin. "What--"

"Uh-uh," Vin grunted, finding the man's cock with his knife and pressing the tip against it. "I ask the questions, remember? Now, where can I find Cletus Fowler?"

The man tried to swallow against the arm pressing against his throat, then licked his lips, all too keenly aware of where that knife rested. "I d... I don't know... nobody..."

Vin sighed and shook his head, frowning. "Nope, don't like that answer." With a quick thrust of his wrist, he jabbed the tip of his blade through the man's pants and just into his cock, rewarded by a shrill cry. "Might still be able ta use it if ya tell me 'bout Fowler," he rasped coldly. "Lie ta me again, 'n I'll cut it off."

The man had no doubt he would. He'd seen eyes like that -- not that color, but with that same expression -- once before, when he'd had a run-in with some truly pissed-off Comanches. Still, Fowler wasn't a man he wanted to cross, either.

"He'll... he'll kill me... if I do," he gasped, shaking violently from head to toe.

Vin smiled again, a cold and terrible smile that would have sent a rabid wolf running. "Yeah, but he won't have the same fun with ya that I will if ya don't. Y'see," he withdrew his knife from the man's cock, then drove a knee viciously into the injured organ, letting the howling man fall to the ground, "I hear Fowler's got manners. 'N I been told I ain't got none at all."

The man writhed and sobbed in agony at the feet of his tormenter, clutching at himself as blood darkened the crotch of his pants. Then, to his horror, the blue-eyed savage straddled him and sat down upon him, then leaned over and knotted the fingers of his free hand into the dirty brown hair at the left side of his head and pulling it back. Then that knife came to rest at the junction of his skull and the top of his ear.

"Been a while since I took a trophy," Vin said casually, pressing the knife into flesh and cartilage. "But I reckon there's jist some things ya never fergit how ta do. So," the blade pressed deeper, starting a trickle of blood, "where's Fowler?"

"Please... AAAaaahhh!" The man's plea ended in a scream as that knife sliced off the top of his ear. Blood gushed forth as pain and shock ripped through him.

Vin leapt aside to avoid that first rush, then, as it settled into a steady flow, reached out and shoved the injured side of the man's head into the ground. Letting him bleed into the straw and dirt, he took his place once more atop his victim.

"I ain't got nowhere else ta be!" he snarled. "'N I c'n keep ya alive fer hours!"

"Ea... Eagle... Bend," the man sobbed in agony. "Went back... Eagle... Bend!" His attacker shifted his weight atop him and he screamed, expecting another strike of that knife. For long, horrible moments he cowered there, certain he would die.

Only when the vague realization that he was not dead sunk in did he open one eye and turn his head, badly startled to realize he was alone.

The blue-eyed Comanche was gone.

---

Buck saw Vin slip back into the cantina and nodded him over to the bar, where he sat keeping watch over Chris. The gunman was seated alone at a table nearby, hat hanging down his back, a fresh bottle of whiskey and an untouched plate of food before him. As Tanner joined him at the bar, Buck couldn't help noticing how the younger man's gaze drifted to Chris and rested there, their depths flooding with a sorrow the likes of which he'd never seen.

No, that was wrong. He had seen it, once before. When Chris had beheld the bodies of his wife and son...

Feeling as if he were intruding upon something too intimate to be shared, Buck looked away, giving the tracker time to collect himself. Moments later, Vin turned toward the bar and laid his hands atop it, bowing his head and closing his eyes.

Buck gave him still more time, and found himself staring at Tanner's hands. In contrast to the rest of him, which was still covered in dirt from the trail, they were immaculately clean, even under and around his fingernails, as if they'd been vigorously scrubbed.

Now, why in the hell would Tanner take the time to scrub his hands?

"He say anything?" Vin asked at last, raising his head. He looked and sounded bone-weary.

"No," Buck sighed, hurting deeply for his old friend. "Just been sittin' there, starin' out that dam window, lookin' at God knows what."

"God knows," Vin echoed. "But so do you."

Buck winced and bowed his head, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Yeah," he breathed, "I reckon I do, at that."

Vin looked at the big man then, saw the heavy slump of the broad shoulders, the bow in the strong back, the worry and weariness and age that had nothing to do with years in his face, and felt a sharp twinge of sympathy. Buck had been so wrapped up in not letting Chris get lost in his pain that he'd ignored his own. And some things, he knew, couldn't -- shouldn't -- be ignored.

"Gotta be a terrible thing," he said softly, "losin' a boy like Adam. Losin' a friend like Sarah."

Vin's words didn't register at first. "Yeah," Buck murmured. "Chris loved..." Then he realized what he'd heard, and frowned in confusion. A friend... "What?" he gasped, turning startled eyes upon the tracker.

Vin held that gaze, his own dark and deep. "She was yer friend, too," he rasped. "Chris ain't the only one who lost 'em. Mebbe yer loss ain't the same as his, but that don't mean it don't hurt. He's half-crazy with grief, but at least he's grievin'. You been so busy takin' care of him, though, that I don't reckon you've had much chance ta do that yet. Havin' all this come back this way... Well, I reckon it's gotta hurt you, too." He shrugged and abruptly looked down at his hands, suddenly realizing how much he'd said, and not at all certain he'd said any of it right. "Guess I jist wanta be sure you're all right," he finished softly.

Buck stared at him for long moments, surprised not just by the length of the speech, but by the words themselves. Tanner wasn't a talker, they all knew that; the man seemed to regard words as a trap waiting to snare him. But when he did speak, it often revealed some unexpected insight, and this time was no different. He would've thought that Vin would be focused only on Chris, so intent on him that he wouldn't notice, much less worry about, anyone else. He realized he'd badly underestimated the young man. Again.

"I don't know," he answered at last, his voice soft and sad. "You're right, I loved 'em like they were mine. Hell, I guess in a way they were. And ta come back and find 'em like we did..." He flinched, the pain again flooding his soul, and he looked away and closed his eyes tightly, recalling a sight he'd prayed for three years to forget. "There's no describin' it," he whispered shakily. "I was there when that boy was born. I sure as hell never thought I'd be there ta see him buried!"

Vin simply sat in silence. Even if he had been good with words, he knew he wouldn't have any for this.

And Buck appreciated that. He was a talker, he knew that; had been one all his life. But Tanner was a listener, a true listener, and there were damn few of them in this world.

"I did grieve, though," he went on. "Grieved long and hard." He turned back to Vin and gave a strained smile. "Maybe you ain't noticed, but I ain't one fer keepin' what I feel inside."

"Cain't say I've noticed," Vin quipped. "Always took ya fer the silent type, m'self."

Buck chuckled and shook his head. "Damn, son, no wonder Chris always looks like he's about ready ta shoot ya! But... thanks. Been a while since I laughed." He sighed heavily, and his smile faded. "All this... it's just brought it back. It's like I'm seein' 'em all over again... I want this bastard, Vin," he said, voice and eyes suddenly turning hard and cold. "I don't care if we have ta turn over every rock in Purgatory--"

"Ain't here," Vin interrupted quietly. "He's gone back ta Eagle Bend."

Buck stared intently at him, studying his placid face and unrevealing eyes. "And how do you know that?"

Vin shrugged lightly. "Met up with a feller who told me, 'bout half an hour ago."

Buck narrowed his eyes slightly, frowning thoughtfully. "Half an hour ago?" he asked softly. "You waited half an hour ta tell us?"

Vin shrugged again, then dropped his gaze to the bar, still not certain just how much of himself he dared reveal to these men. It had been so long since he'd belonged anywhere, and he was coming gradually to the realization that his love for Chris wasn't all that kept him with these men. He didn't want to lose what he was only now beginning to admit he'd found.

"Had ta clean up a bit first," he said at last, his voice even softer than usual.

Buck caught a flicker of something dark, something predatory, in the tracker's eyes just before they lowered, and felt a chill ripple through him. He glanced down at the tracker's hands, saw again how scrupulously clean they were...

And decided he didn't want to know any more.

---

Less than an hour later, they thundered out of Purgatory, headed back to Eagle Bend. And, as if he'd been formally invited to join their company, Jock Steele followed on his trusty mule. He'd gotten enough stories for ten books from the outlaws in the cantina and knew he could get even more if he stayed, but there was something about this odd mix of seven men that called to him, that compelled him to stick with them and find out exactly what held them together. That, he knew, would be his greatest story.

By the time they reached Eagle Bend, the sun was setting and no one wanted to ride another mile; even JD was dragging. He and Josiah took the horses to the livery to tend them, Nathan escorted Blackfox back to jail, and Ezra went to the hotel to secure rooms for them all.

Chris, Vin and Buck went to the saloon.

"I just don't understand it," Chris said, the first words he'd spoken since leaving Purgatory. He poured himself a glass of whiskey and slid the bottle to Buck, who poured shots for himself and Vin. "Why would a man I don't know, a man I've never even heard of, kill my family?"

Vin slouched deeply in his chair, trying to find some position that would ease the ache gnawing into the tired, strained muscles of his back. He'd ridden too many miles with too little rest, but he doubted that would change anytime soon.

"Y' ever have any run-ins with anybody?" he asked, trying not to wince as he reached for his whiskey.

Chris shook his head slowly, forehead creased in thought, his green eyes narrowed. "No. Hell, I didn't have time! Took every minute of every day just ta build the house, run the ranch, buy and sell the stock..." He shook his head slowly, still deeply confused. "Hell, it wasn't big enough to attract anybody's attention."

"Attracted somebody's," Vin said softly, not liking at all the suspicion forming in his mind. He didn't know Fowler, but he'd known men like him. Professionals, men who sold their skills for hire. They had no connections to their victims, no ties, and knew only as much as they needed to ensure a job done well.

A job. That's what Chris's family had been.

Larabee bowed his head and scrubbed his face with both hands, then slid one around to his neck and rubbed at the tight, aching muscles there. God, he was tired! More tired than he'd been since...

"Whyn'ta ya find yer room, git some rest?" Vin suggested worriedly, his heart torn by his lover's obvious frustration. "We ain't gonna find out nothin' today. We're all too tired; ain't none of us thinkin' straight. Need ta eat, sleep, git a fresh start on it in the mornin'."

"By doin' what?" Chris asked flatly, too exhausted even to feel the familiar pain that had taken up residence in his soul. "How're we gonna track down a ghost?"

"He ain't a ghost," Buck put in quietly, firmly. "Ghosts don't get their photographs took. Ghosts don't carve up bartenders and leave 'em hangin' in closets, don't hire gunmen for an ambush. He's as real as we are, he's alive, and, if that man Vin found was tellin' the truth, he's here."

"He was tellin' the truth," Vin assured them coldly. "Didn't have no other choice."

Chris lifted his head and stared at his lover, studying that suddenly hard-set face. He realized there were many things about the younger man he still didn't know, and wondered at that moment if he really wanted to know all of them.

Vin refused to flinch before that scrutiny, though he recognized the sudden uncertainty behind it. He'd realized long ago that what he considered proper and what others considered civilized weren't always the same. He wasn't ashamed of what he'd done, knew he would've done far worse had it been needed, but wondered if a man with Larabee's background could understand that.

At the moment, though, Chris was too tired to wrangle with the question or morality and means to an end. "All right," he sighed, "he ain't a ghost. So what do we do?"

Vin shrugged. "We go lookin' fer him. He keeps comin' back here. Somebody's gotta know him. We jist keep askin' 'til we find that somebody."

"I tried that three years ago," Chris said harshly. "Didn't work."

Vin settled back in his chair and folded his hands lightly over his stomach. "Three years ago ya didn't have a name 'r a face," he pointed out. "Now ya do. 'N ya got six men helpin' ya. We split up, we c'n cover a lotta territory, ask a lotta questions." He shrugged again, his blue eyes steady. "Ain't sayin' we'll find anything," he cautioned. "But I reckon by the time we leave, we'll know what the underside of ever' rock around here looks like."

"All right," Chris sighed. "Tomorrow." He rose slowly to his feet, suddenly feeling every kink in every muscle he had. "Gonna find my room."

"Plan on eatin' anything?" Vin asked.

Chris scowled at him. "You takin' Nathan's role now?"

Unperturbed by either the growl or the glare, Vin arched a brow. "Nathan's right more'n he's wrong. 'N I ain't seen you eat anything since we joined ya. So I'll ask ya again -- you plan on eatin' anything?"

"No," Chris said flatly, not at all certain he could eat. "And anybody who brings me anything will likely end up wearin' it." He stared meaningfully at Tanner, then turned and stalked out of the saloon.

"That went well," Buck breathed, pouring himself another drink. He heard Vin sigh, saw him bow and shake his head, and felt a pang of sympathy for him. Tanner looked as worn to the bone as any of the rest of them, but Buck doubted the tracker would rest until he was certain Chris was doing the same. "So, what're you gonna do?"

"First off," he held his empty glass out to Buck, "I'm gonna have me another drink. Then," his gaze went to the door through which Larabee had disappeared, "I reckon I'll find someplace that serves a decent meal, fill this empty hole in my gut, then take a plate to the hotel and find out jist how good I am at force-feedin' grizzlies."

Buck refilled Vin's glass, then raised his own in a toast to the younger man and smiled at him. "Well, pard, it's been nice knowin' ya. I'll put in a good word at yer funeral." And he tossed his whiskey back in a single swallow.

Vin emptied his glass more slowly, shifting in his chair as he drank. But, hell, at least if Larabee killed him, his back wouldn't hurt no more!

---

Chris reclined against the pillows he'd stacked behind him and puffed slowly at a freshly-lit cheroot, staring into the distance at nothing. A shock of uncombed blond hair tumbled down his forehead and into his eyes, a day's growth of beard and a day's layer of dust darkened his sculpted jaws and chin, and his dirty black shirt was unbuttoned and hung open to reveal the pale length of his powerful chest. A bottle of whiskey he'd dug out of his saddlebags sat on the bedside table, and he'd already made good progress at depleting its contents.

This was the only supper he wanted.

He knew he'd been wrong to snap at Vin like he'd done, but, at the moment, he couldn't summon the energy to care. How the hell could Tanner expect him to care about food when Fowler was out there, somewhere, keeping one step ahead of him, mocking him?

Wasn't that what the bastard's presence in that photograph had been? A deliberate taunt? He knew Larabee was after him, yet he'd stopped running long enough to challenge him. To laugh at him. And then had vanished again, like smoke on the horizon.

And, goddamn it, Chris was tired of seeing everything he wanted in life turning to smoke.

He reached again for the bottle and drank from it, not bothering with a glass. Didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Wouldn't matter until he'd found and killed Fowler.

He wondered if the others knew that was his intention. He wasn't chasing the man to bring him back for trial, to justice. The bastard would meet his justice at the end of Larabee's gun, as soon as he'd explained who he was, and why in the hell he'd killed Sarah and Adam.

Then maybe he could rest. Could eat again, without tasting ashes and smoke...

The knocking on his door was quiet, but unmistakable, two measured raps of a knuckle that carried insistence in their softness. Larabee closed his eyes and swore, knowing only one man who could knock like that.

Tanner.

He thought of saying nothing, of simply ignoring the intrusion and hoping it would go away. But he knew it wouldn't. With all the patience of a wolf on the prowl and all the stubbornness of a Missouri mule, Tanner was fully capable of standing in the hall all night and knocking on the door until his knuckles bled. And would still be there in the morning when Larabee opened the door to resume the hunt.

Goddamn no-good, long-haired, hard-headed, sorry-assed, meddling son of a bitch...

Still cursing the tracker, Larabee rolled from the bed and rose unsteadily to his feet, crossing to the door and yanking it open. "What the hell do you want?" he snarled.

Standing hip-shot in the doorway, holding a napkin-covered plate in one hand and tucking the thumb of his other into his gunbelt, Vin stared coolly at the older man and arched a brow. "Nice ta see yer mood's improved," he drawled.

Chris glared at the tracker, his eyes burning, his jaw clenching. "So leave."

Vin sighed and shook his head slightly, then just slipped past Larabee and into the room, too tired to stand out in the hallway and exchange barbs with him. He'd come to make sure the man was all right, and he intended to do just that.

If that meant they were gonna tangle, then so be it.

Chris watched in angry disbelief as Vin glided into the room and stood just beyond his reach. "Y'know, Tanner," he gritted, infuriated by the Texan's arrogance, "it's usually considered polite ta wait for an invitation."

Again, that cool blue stare met the fiery green one. "Ain't ever said I's polite," Vin countered. He titled his head slightly to one side. "You gonna close that door, or you want ever'body on this floor ta see us fight?"

Chris closed the door without thinking, frowning at the other man. "You come here ta fight?" He was suddenly uncertain, suddenly off balance. He'd expected, had wanted, Vin to back off in the face of his anger, to leave in disgust and abandon him to his brooding.

Hell, he should've known better.

Vin shrugged one shoulder. "Knew it might be a possibility. You c'n be a mean sonuvabitch when ya try, and, Lord knows, yer givin' it yer best shot now. But that ain't why I came."

"Then why did you come?"

Vin did not answer. Instead, he looked around the room, saw the whiskey bottle and flicked a wry gaze back to Larabee, then walked over and set the plate on the dresser. Still without a word, he turned his back to Chris and removed the napkin from the plate, folding it carefully and setting it aside.

Larabee watched him for long moments, frustrated by the tracker's unfailing calm, irritated by his deliberate, unhurried movements. He scowled deeply, bitterly, and clenched his hands at his sides, wanting to rush forward and grab the man, spin him around and... and...

Vin watched him in the mirror without seeming to, noted the heat in the green eyes, the tension of the hard, lean frame, the tight clench of his jaw and fists. Still not rushing, he reached into his pocket and drew out another napkin, unrolled it carefully and pulled out a complete set of tableware. Knife. Fork. Spoon. He set each piece on the napkin he'd laid by the plate.

Chris watched those long, nimble fingers at work and swallowed hard, feeling a sudden quickening in his belly. He licked his lips and went over it again in his mind. Rush forward, grab the man, spin him around...

Vin's eyes met his in the mirror then, eyes bluer than blue, deeper than any mountain lake, wider than the sky, young and old and completely ageless, with all the sorrow and all the wisdom of the world showing in them. Eyes so unguarded, so naked, they were almost painful to behold, eyes that even reflected in a glass could strip away every cold, hard layer Larabee had built around his heart and shake him to the foundations of his soul. Eyes that knew him...

And that loved him without reservation.

"Oh, Jesus, what am I doin'?" he whispered strickenly, staring helplessly into those eyes.

Vin turned around slowly and shook his head sadly. "I don't know," he rasped softly. "But I ain't gonna let ya git away with it, so ya might as well stop it now."

Chris took an unsteady step forward, then staggered to the bed and collapsed upon it as his knees gave out beneath him. With a harsh, wrenching sob, he leaned forward and buried his face in badly shaking hands. His anger deserted him in a rush, leaving only confusion and pain in its wake.

Vin exhaled deeply, relieved that Chris had finally dropped his hard shell, but not liking this aching desolation any better. Praying he could help his lover through it, he went to the bed and settled himself close at Larabee's side, then reached out and drew the older man into his arms, cradling him to him with a loving tenderness.

"Ssh," he whispered, pulling Chris's head down to his shoulder and gently stroking his blond hair, "it's all right. I'm here now, 'n we'll figger out a way through this t'gether."

Chris shuddered and gasped, clutching at his lover and clinging tightly, desperately to him, his whole body shaking uncontrollably. Violent storms raged within him and battered at his tired and fragile soul, yet here, in Vin's arms, he knew he was safe.

For the first time since this whole ordeal had begun, he allowed himself to weep.

Vin tightened his arms about him, rocked him gently, but said nothing, knowing there was nothing he could say. He and Chris had never needed words between them before, they certainly didn't need them now. What words could possibly express his love, his sorrow, or Chris's pain?

Larabee had no idea how long he cried, knew only that, once the dam holding in his anguish burst, there was no restraining the flood. He couldn't have stopped himself if he'd wanted to, never even tried. He simply let all the pain, all the grief, all the sorrow rise, let it sweep through him in waves and crash upon the rock that was Vin Tanner.

And, like a rock, Vin withstood that onslaught, never once wavered beneath it, never once tried to turn from it. He faced the full, crushing weight of Chris's torment and let it roll over him, found the strength to do so in the knowledge that, just now, his was the only strength Chris had.

And he'd be damned if he'd fail the man he loved more than his own life.

At last, at long last, spent, shaken and exhausted, Chris pulled himself out of Vin's arms and lay down upon the bed, turning onto his side and closing his eyes. But his hand reached for Tanner, and was immediately taken in a warm, strong grip. He sighed as long fingers laced themselves through his.

"Shoulda known you'd come," he murmured roughly.

"Reckon so."

A few more moments passed, then he felt Vin's hand slip from his and frowned. But the frown disappeared as he opened his eyes to see Vin removing his hat, jacket, gunbelt and boots. A slight, strained smile crept across his face.

"Makin' yerself right at home, ain'tcha?"

Vin set the garments he'd removed aside, hung his gunbelt over the bedpost, then padded to the door and locked it. He returned to the bed, crawled onto it and stretched out at Larabee's side, turning his head and gazing into tear-washed green eyes.

"Yer the only home I got," he said simply. "Thought ya knew that by now."

Tears again stung Chris's eyes and he rolled over, laying his head on Tanner's chest and pressing his face into the strong and steady throb of his lover's heart. "God, Vin, help me!" he pleaded brokenly.

Tanner wound his arms about Larabee and held tightly to him, his own eyes filling. "I'm tryin', cowboy," he whispered, tears sliding unheeded down his cheeks. "Ain't ever gonna stop tryin'. Jist hold onta me fer all yer worth, 'n I'll get us through this somehow."

The love in that embrace and the determination in that voice gradually restored Chris's calm, infused him with a strength and peace he'd begun to fear he would never know again. Once again, with no more than a touch, Vin was gathering all the broken fragments of heart, his soul, and putting them back together.

"I'm sorry for earlier," he breathed, "for tryin' ta push you away. Don't know what made me think I wanted ta be alone." He grimaced. "Guess I was just bein' an ass."

"Yep."

Chris raised his head and scowled down at the tracker. "You don't have ta agree with everything I say, Tanner."

Vin blinked and shrugged, blue eyes wide and innocent. "Don't agree with ever'thing. Jist when yer right."

He wanted to be irritated, but chuckled instead. "Y'know," he growled, cupping a hand to Tanner's whiskered cheek and gently stroking with a thumb, "one'a these days, I really am gonna shoot ya." His eyes shimmered with warmth as he gazed down at the younger man. "But not today." He bowed his head and pressed his lips to Vin's a slow, tender kiss not of passion, but of love. "Thank you."

"Yer welcome," Vin whispered breathlessly, stirred to his soul, as always, by the wealth and depth of emotions this man awakened in him. Once or twice before in his life, he'd thought he'd been in love. But not until Chris Larabee had he truly known what that word meant.

"You gonna stay the night?" Chris asked, still stroking that incredibly beautiful jawline.

"Want me to?"

"Would I ask if I didn't?"

Vin laughed softly. "Now who's the sweet-talker? Yer like ta charm the pants right off me."

Chris arched a brow and leered wolfishly. "Now, there's a thought!" He slid his hand to Tanner's shirt and began unbuttoning it, then sighed and shook his head as he caught a glimpse of the shirt beneath it. "There some reason you like ta wear all yer clothes at once?"

He winked and grinned. "Jist like ta see how serious ya are 'bout undressin' me."

"Yer an awful lotta trouble, Tanner."

"Yeah," he breathed, twining his arms about Larabee's neck and pulling him down for a deep, hungry kiss, "but I been told I'm worth it."

---

They were awake the next morning before their friends and went down to the hotel dining room for a real breakfast, the first either had eaten in days. Chris looked steadier than he had since this had started, and Vin's eyes were no longer darkened by shadows of worry. Both were relaxed and smiled at each other over steaming mugs of coffee. They'd not done much more than kiss and caress and simply hold each other last night, but it had been enough. It had been more than enough.

Both were whole again.

The other five drifted down over the next half hour and found the two already mapping out the next phase of the hunt. They'd split up into groups of two or three and canvass the territory, asking every rancher, every farmer, every drifter they encountered, about the mysterious Cletus Fowler. Vin wanted desperately to ride with Chris, but Larabee had insisted it would be more efficient if they split up.

Chris could be counted on to miss nothing, and he wanted to make certain Tanner's hawk-sharp eyes, keen instincts and hunter's mind were at work where he himself couldn't be. Ezra, with his gambler's knack for catching even the smallest, most insignificant detail, would lead yet a third group.

So, after a good, sustaining breakfast they departed, seven men determined to track down and bring in their nemesis, determined to put Chris's ghosts to rest.

And one man determined to chronicle the hunt.

Chris asked Buck to ride with him, gripped by the need to set things right between them. He knew his old friend still struggled under his burden of guilt, knew he himself was responsible for part of that burden, and decided it was high time Wilmington was set free. Sarah wouldn't want this for either of them.

"When I said before that you didn't keep me away," he began without preamble as they rode out of town, "I meant it. I was where I wanted to be. Wouldn't've been there otherwise." He swept green eyes over the countryside, reaching inside himself for the words he wanted and the strength he needed, then turned to his old friend and fixed those clear, steady eyes on him. "None of this is your fault, Buck, and I don't hold you responsible. Maybe I did once, but..." He winced as a twinge of shame bit through him, and knew he had to say this. "I was wrong. And I'm sorry."

For once in his life, Buck Wilmington was without words, was without even the ability to speak. His mind reeled and his heart lifted, and his big body shuddered as a crushing, unbearable weight dropped away from his soul. Tears filled his eyes and he let them fall, making no attempt to conceal or wipe them away.

God...

Chris had to go on. The pain of it was like a hot knife scoring him, but he had to do it. Too many things had been left unsaid for too long. "I know... you lost 'em, too," he said in a rough, unsteady voice, his throat painfully tight. "And I know you'd give anything... if we could change what happened. But we can't. What's done is done, and can't be undone. All we can do... is make our peace with it... and go on."

"Sounds good ta me, pard," Buck whispered, unable to manage more. He knew true healing for both of them would be a long time coming, but at last, at long last, it had begun.

---

Two days, and nothing. Some of the local ranchers recognized Fowler's description, but no one would admit to knowing him, or even to having seen him. Tired, frustrated, hungry and saddle-sore, they drifted back to town and convened in front of the livery, trading what few, insignificant scraps of information they'd collected and realizing yet again just how little they knew. It was as if they were chasing a man who didn't exist. Except that Chris knew he did.

"I need a drink," he said tersely, striding away from his men and toward the saloon, feeling an odd, instinctive itch between his tight shoulders.

"Ah, you know, this is for the birds," Steele groused in disgust. He'd gotten as involved in the search as any of the others, had begun to think of their quest as his own, and couldn't bear the thought of it ending like this. "We have to do something," he insisted, looking around at his tired, dirty companions. "Come on, everything's gonna grind to a halt if Larabee starts wallowing around inside of a bottle!"

Angered by the little man's words, and by the contempt he heard in the grating voice, Josiah loomed before Steele and planted big hands on his hips, fixing a cold, hard gaze upon the writer. "I'm gonna assume your concern is for a man who lost his family," he said in a deep, warning voice.

Steele immediately realized his misstep. "Uh, yes," he murmured, eyeing the big preacher fearfully. "Of course."

Vin let Josiah handle Steele, wishing he'd find some way to get rid of him. The man had renewed his attempts to get close to him, fascinated by the notion of a bounty hunter-turned-bounty. He'd put together Tanner's whole name, had gotten part of his story back in Purgatory, and wanted to hear the rest of it, easily able to envision the books he'd sell, and the money he'd make.

Except that Vin didn't care to have his story spread all over creation and lining the little man's pockets.

He took Blackfox back to the jail, spoke briefly with the sheriff, and headed for the saloon. He wanted desperately to soak his tired, aching body in a tub of hot water, but knew he had to see how Larabee was holding up first.

Then they'd have to draw up a new plan...

He entered the saloon and saw Chris at once, seated at a table with a bottle and glass before him, his dirty, unshaven face deeply creased by lines of exhaustion, frustration... and concentration. He was almost startled to realize that Larabee wasn't drunk, that the bottle had hardly even been touched, then swore silently at himself. Hell, of course Chris wouldn't be drunk. Not with Fowler still running loose.

He stopped before the table and shoved his thumbs into his gunbelt, shifting all his weight to one hip to ease the ache that had taken up permanent residence in his back. "We're ready ta keep lookin'," he drawled. "Sheriff 'n some of the local boys've agreed ta help."

Larabee raised his eyes to his lover and studied him intently, needing those hunter's instincts more than ever. "Where do you think he is, Vin?" he asked softly, thoughtfully.

Tanner shook his head slightly. "I don't know." Unable to bear standing any longer, he pulled out a chair and eased himself into it with a long, involuntary groan. "After that brush in Purgatory," he went on, slouching as deeply as his back would allow, "he knows there are seven men gonna hunt him down. Hell, he's probably long gone."

Chris sat with his elbows on the arms of his chair and his hands cupped together. "My gut tells me different." He fixed narrowed eyes on Tanner, knowing he better than anyone would understand what he was about to say. "Back when I was ranchin', I had some trouble with a mountain lion. Kept comin' down at night and killin' my stock. So I went after him. Tracked him for seven days up in the mountains." He regarded Tanner evenly. "Fifth day out, I woke up, my pack horse was dead. Cougar had gotten him durin' the night. See, I was trackin' that cat. All the while he was behind me... Watchin' me." He nodded slowly as Tanner suddenly turned and glanced over his shoulder, as if he could feel it, too. "That's how I feel about Fowler."

"Fine line 'tween hunter and hunted," Vin murmured with the certainty of one who knew that line well, and had crossed it. He nodded firmly and started to rise. "All the more reason for us ta go get him first--"

"Wait," Chris called, smiling slightly. He poured a drink and pushed the glass toward the tracker, green eyes catching and holding blue. "Have a drink."

Vin frowned and narrowed his eyes, studying Chris carefully from beneath the broad brim of his hat. He knew that look, knew that tone, knew that smile.

Larabee had a plan.

---

They mounted their horses with as much stir and ruckus as they could create, wanting to draw as much attention to themselves as possible. Even Vin, who seldom raised his voice, forced himself to shout.

"Okay, we'll meet back up here in three days."

"I can't believe Larabee's not coming," griped Steele, who had not been privy to the plan.

Vin shot the little man an exasperated glare, then raised his voice again. "Let's head out."

Steele urged his mule after the tracker, and, as JD touched his spurs to Milagro, he called over his shoulder, "Sure you don't wanta ride with us, Buck?"

The six split up and rode out in their appointed directions, accompanied by a few volunteers from town, while their leader, the man for whom they were doing this, sat in the saloon and got acquainted with the bottle.

Or so it seemed to the hard man watching from the shadows.

---

The sun sank below the horizon, and darkness fell over Eagle Bend. Normally, the Sandpiper Saloon would have been crowded and noisy at this hour, but the black-clad man had chased all the patrons, and finally even the bartender, out with his dangerous, volatile temper. Bottles littered the floor around him, and he reeked of all the whiskey he'd consumed.

The once-proud Chris Larabee was gone, replaced by a stinking drunk.

He leaned heavily against the bar now, barely able to stand on his own, and shot at whatever caught his eye. "Fowler!" he screamed between gunshots. "Where are you? Fowler!"

He shot wildly at the chandelier, and was satisfied to hear glass breaking as one of his bullets hit a fixture. He tried another shot, but heard the hammer click on an empty chamber. Pushing himself away from the bar, he staggered back toward the table, tossing aside his empty gun. But his legs were too unsteady beneath him, and he stumbled heavily, falling to the floor. As he lay there, the door opened with a squeak, then closed, and footsteps fell against the wooden planking of the floor.

"Get up, you drunk," Cletus Fowler ordered, nudging the fallen man with a foot. "You found me."

Chris stared up into the face of his nemesis, and felt waves of bitter hatred surge through him. "You killed my wife and son. Why?!" he demanded, finally able to ask the question that had haunted him for three years.

Fowler joined his three henchmen at the bar and turned contemptuous eyes upon the drunken Larabee. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," he quipped coldly. "At least the money was right."

Chris levered himself clumsily to his feet and rushed Fowler, only to be caught and thrown back to the floor. "Who hired you?"

"Son, I'm a professional," Fowler said. "I guarantee the anonymity of my clients. What I can tell you is, I was hired to go after you. Your little family was just unlucky. I do apologize for killing them but," he smiled thinly, "I have to admit I enjoyed it."

Enraged, Chris lurched to his feet again and once more rushed Fowler, but was flung to the floor. The assassin watched him fall, and continued his taunting.

"I'd have enjoyed killing you, too. But you ran off."

"You ran off!" Chris shouted, his hatred of the man growing every second. The thought of Sarah and Adam having suffered at the hands of this cold, ruthless, vicious bastard was more than he could bear. "I've been lookin' for you for three years! You ran off!"

Fowler reached into his pocket and drew out a thin cheroot, putting it to his mouth. "However, it was good enough for my client. But now you're back and I'm back on the payroll."

"What about Blackfox?" Chris asked, needing to know whether the horse thief had been telling the truth about his part in all this.

"Blackfox?" Fowler struck a lucifer on the bar. "He's local talent. Hard to find good help these days. I had to eviscerate him in his cell." He lit his cheroot, and watched through flat, cold black eyes as Larabee dragged himself back to his table and pulled himself into the chair. "I see you've got a symbiotic relationship goin' with that bottle. Too bad." He shook out the match. "Makes a man sloppy. Could get him perforated."

Chris settled himself in his chair and stared at Fowler's three men, appraising them and their abilities. "You look like you brought an awful lotta men to kill one drunk," he pointed out with a humorless smile.

"Yeah. Well, I have no problem delegating authority," Fowler said, turning his back on Larabee. The man disappointed him. He'd hoped for a challenge, someone worthy of his talents. Instead, all he found was a drunk who couldn't even stand on his own. He'd let one of his men kill Larabee; the job was beneath him.

Chris put on his hat, and the green eyes staring out from beneath the brim were as clear as glass. "Hey, Cletus," he called, reaching under the table and pulling the gun he'd hidden there, "you sure do use big words for somebody so stupid."

Fowler turned as he heard a hammer being pulled back, drew his own gun by instinct and turned. As he did, he suddenly saw shadows rising on the floor above him, saw other guns come out of hiding, and knew he'd walked into a trap.

All he'd heard about Larabee hadn't been a lie, after all.

Thunder erupted throughout the saloon as guns began to fire, and bullets whipped and whined in all directions. Bodies darted here and there as cover was sought or broken, as men tried for better angles. Glass shattered and wood splintered, here and there a harsh cry sounded as flesh was hit, and still the desperate fighting wore on.

Fowler darted toward the door, and Chris looked up to see Wilmington drawing a bead on the escaping assassin. "Buck! Don't kill him!" he shouted. He rose and started after Fowler. "Cover me!"

He ran out of the saloon, and saw Fowler heading for the livery stable across the street. Taking off at a run, he leapt over a water trough and ran inside just as Fowler was pulling himself onto a big gray horse.

"Where you goin', boy?" he yelled, launching himself at the man and knocking him to the ground.

The two men fought with a wild fury, each knowing his life was at stake. But, for Chris, much more hung in the balance. Here, in the vile person of Cletus Fowler, was every explanation he'd ever sought, every answer he needed to put his past to rest. And he was determined not to lose it.

But Fowler was equally determined not to be taken. He grappled with Larabee, traded punches, and was knocked down. He came up with a pitchfork, and wielded it with deadly intent. He lunged at the gunman, missed and knocked a lamp off its hook instead, setting the hay in which it fell ablaze. Still the fight raged on. Fowler got an arm around Larabee's throat and squeezed, trying to choke him to death.

Chris was given strength by his rage, and managed to break the assassin's hold, then dealt him several more hard, punishing blows and knocked him to the ground. It was not enough. He wanted Fowler to resist, to fight, to give him an excuse to beat every answer he wanted out of him.

"Come on, Cletus! Get up!" he shouted, bending over the man and grabbing him. "Get up!" He dragged Fowler to his feet and out of the burning livery. Once outside, he threw him to the ground, taking a vicious, vengeful pleasure in the man's obvious pain. Fowler landed hard, and Chris stalked slowly toward him, like a black shadow of death.

Kneeling at Fowler's side, he grabbed the assassin's once-immaculate coat and hauled him up roughly. "Tell me who hired you!" he spat, shaking Fowler hard. "Tell me!" The man mumbled an answer, and Chris thrust him away and rose to his feet, waiting for the name he had prayed for three long years to hear.

Beaten and bleeding, Cletus Fowler drew himself to his feet and locked gazes with Chris Larabee, who stared back at him with all the wrath and pain of hell unleashed. "I will," he muttered. He turned to glance over his shoulder at the burning livery, then returned his gaze to Larabee. "It was, uh... Lemme think now, it was, uh..." He reached into his vest and pulled out his pocket watch, glanced at it, then fished in a pocket for a cheroot.

Chris watched him, hardly daring to breathe, his need to know who was behind the deaths of his wife and son warring with his almost uncontrollable desire to tear apart the man who had actually done the deed. Rage pounded through him in hard, hot torrents, turning his blood to fire, and every fiber of his being screamed for vengeance. He would kill Fowler, but only after the man had uttered the name of the man Larabee would kill next.

Fowler put the battered cheroot in his mouth and chewed on its end, still staring at Larabee. "His name was, uh..." Something dark and ugly flared in his eyes, and a faint sneer twisted his bleeding lips. "No, on second thought, go to hell." He turned and walked calmly into the burning stable.

"NOOOOoooo...!" The scream ripped from Chris in a wrenching cry of rage and horror as Fowler committed himself to a fiery death and took the name of his employer with him into oblivion. Unable to bear watching all his hopes consumed once more in flames, he launched himself forward, intent upon going after Fowler and dragging him back.

"Chris, no!"

Immediately, hands grabbed him, held him back, then held him down as he was pulled, pushed and wrestled to the ground. He fought the men restraining him with a strength and wildness born of his desperation, but there were too many of them, and, despite his best, most furious efforts, he was overpowered. His howls and curses gave way to wrenching sobs as the reality of his defeat crashed in upon him.

Once he stopped fighting, his friends released him and stepped back, not wanting to intrude any further upon his grief. All except Vin. The tracker continued kneeling in the dirt at Larabee's side, his head bowed to conceal the tears sliding down his own cheeks, and kept a firm hand on Chris' shaking shoulder, saying nothing, merely letting his lover know he was near.

Buck stood off to one side and stared in mute, shocked horror at the burning stable, his face streaked with tears. They'd never know. They'd never know who, they'd never know why. It had all been for nothing. None of it had made a damn bit of difference. It had all gone to ashes.

Again.

Seeing the look on his face, JD went immediately to him and, not knowing what else to do, unable to think of a single word to say, simply put an arm around him and held him as Buck had so often held him. And when he felt the big man's frame begin to shake from the sobs he could no longer hold back, JD slipped his other arm around him, then lowered him gently to his knees and cradled Buck to him while he cried.

Josiah, Nathan and Ezra exchanged long, worried glances, then Josiah went to Vin and Chris, and Nathan went to Buck and JD. From the corner of his eye, Standish saw a familiar figure hurrying toward the scene, and, with an uncharacteristically foul oath, turned on his heel and set himself on an intercept path.

"I cannot allow you to intrude upon their grief," he told Steele in a hard, cold tone. His gaze dropped to the pad in the man's hand, then snapped back up to his face. "And I will not allow you to make a spectacle of their suffering. This is not a matter for public consumption."

Steele looked around at the devastation before him, at the two grief-stricken men being comforted by their friends against the backdrop of the burning stable, and pocketed his pad without argument. He didn't understand it himself. He'd made a career capitalizing on blood, tears and violence, and had assumed that these men, and their desperate quest, would provide more of the same. Except that, somewhere, somehow, this story had become more than just the usual blood-and-thunder adventure. Something deeper.

And it would be that story he'd tell when he wrote about these men.

"I'll just go on back to my room then," he said quietly. "Do some packing. I think I've got all I need anyway." He nodded once to the gambler, then turned and left.

And Ezra watched, dumbfounded, as the little man walked away.

---

It was a somber and nearly silent group that mounted up outside the hotel the next morning, with seven faces showing plainly the signs of a sleepless night. The sheriff was there to see them off, torn between relief that men who drew such trouble would be going and sorrow that their search had come to such a bitter end. He wanted to offer his condolences to Larabee, but the gunfighter -- pale and utterly withdrawn -- was unapproachable. Instead, he turned to the long-haired man in buckskins, upon whom the mantle of leadership seemed to have fallen.

"I'm truly sorry it ended this way," he said softly, sadly. "I wish he could've found his answers."

Vin sighed and nodded. "Reckon we all do," he breathed. He gazed up at the sheriff at nodded. "But we're grateful fer yer help. 'N sorry 'bout the liv'ry."

The sheriff suddenly frowned, remembering having seen this man prowling through the wreckage early this morning. "You find what you were lookin' for in there?"

Vin's eyes hardened, and his stance stiffened. He'd wanted to make certain Fowler had really died in that fire, hadn't gotten out some other way to continue preying on others. And he'd vowed that, if Fowler had escaped, he'd hunt him to the ends of the earth.

But that wouldn't be necessary. He'd found the body, or what was left of it, had wrapped it in blankets and taken it outside town, where he'd carved the charred corpse to bits and scattered the pieces for the scavengers to eat. Fowler's spirit would never trouble anyone again.

"Yeah, I found it," he said softly.

The sheriff felt a chill ripple down his spine at the coldness in the young man's tone, at the light of savagery in those blue eyes. He suddenly realized he didn't want to know any more.

"You fellas have a safe journey," he bade, touching a finger to the brim of his hat and hurrying away, needing to put some distance between himself and the soft-spoken young man with the killer's eyes.

Vin turned and made his way to Peso, who stood waiting for him with uncharacteristic patience. But the big horse had been ridden hard over the past five days, even for him, and Tanner knew the gelding had to be about as played out as the rest of them. He stopped and swept a loving caress down the blazed nose, then slipped a molasses cookie he'd saved from supper into the waiting mouth.

"Jist git me home," he murmured, resting his forehead on Peso's and closing his eyes briefly, feeling every bit of his exhaustion settling upon him. "Then mebbe we both c'n rest."

He patted Peso's nose once more, then walked around and hauled his weary body into the saddle. Chris was at his left, looking so utterly lost that it broke his heart, and Buck was at Larabee's left, in no better shape. Vin leaned forward in the saddle and glanced across the two men to JD, who rode next to Buck, and got the boy's nod. With the other three behind them, Vin raised an arm in a habitual cavalry gesture and swept it forward.

"Let's ride," he said in a tired, throaty rasp, kneeing Peso forward.

---

They made it as far as the cut-off to what had been the Larabee ranch. There, Chris seemed to come to himself, and reined Pony to a stop. The others drew up around him, their worry obvious.

He swallowed hard and met those looks, grateful for what they represented. These men had ridden with him without being asked, without ever asking a question of their own, and with nothing in it for themselves. Buck alone had shared some personal stake in the hunt, yet, from the first, he'd been willing to push his grief aside for the sake of his old friend's, and shouldered whatever part of Chris's grief he feared Larabee couldn't handle. And Vin...

God, what would he have done without Vin?

"I wanta thank you boys for what you done," he said softly. "And I don't want any of ya thinkin' you coulda done more. It just... wasn't meant ta be."

"God holds all the answers we seek, brother," Josiah intoned quietly, his blue eyes sad. "And, in His own time, He reveals them." He shrugged his thick shoulders resignedly. "But it's hard for us to remember that God's time is not always our time."

Chris nodded, still struggling with that. "I want you all ta go on back ta town. There's..." He glanced over his shoulder at the cut-off and clenched his jaw hard. "Somethin' I gotta do," he finished in a ragged voice.

"Chris," Buck called softly, worriedly, "you--"

"It's all right, Buck," he said, turning a sad smile on his oldest friend. "I'll be along soon. I just... need some time here, first."

Buck studied him a moment, then nodded, still worried but not afraid. Chris was tired, was hurting, but he didn't have the bleak, desolate look about him he'd had three years ago. The grief was still here, but the demons had gone.

"All right," he said at last. "We'll tell Travis what happened. He'll wanta know about Blackfox, anyway." He gazed steadily at his old friend, his heart in his eyes. "You take care, and we'll see ya when you get back."

Chris nodded, then touched his spurs lightly to Pony's flanks and set him down the road where once a dream had been, and where now only ashes waited.

When Larabee had gone, Buck turned to Vin. "You take care of him, hear?" he said softly.

The tracker was startled by the words, and his face showed it. "What?"

Buck had to chuckle; the boy must be truly exhausted to look and sound just like JD. "You go after him, watch over him. He don't need ta be alone."

Vin licked his lips, uncertainty in his eyes. "Ain't my place," he whispered. "If he wants ta be with them--"

Buck fixed a compelling gaze upon the younger man. "I've known him a long time, Vin, and I know that what he wants and what he needs ain't always the same. Maybe he does need ta be with them right now, but he don't need ta be there alone. He's lookin' for a place with the dead, when he's already got one with the livin'. And he's gonna need somebody ta remind him of that." He grinned mischievously. "Since yer the one he's least likely ta shoot, I'm thinkin' that makes it yer job."

Vin scowled at the big man, but knew he was right. It was his job. And he'd pull Larabee kicking and screaming back to the world of the living if that was what it took.

"Jist remember," he rasped, blue eyes narrowed menacingly, "you better have some nice words at my funeral!"

---

Chris slid off Pony with a stiff, tired grace, then ground-hitched the horse and made his way slowly to the wooden fence. For the first time since he'd buried them, he let himself inside the fence and walked forward, then sank to his knees between the graves of his wife and son. He slipped his hat from his head with trembling fingers, dropped it to the ground and buried his face in his hands, giving in to deep, wrenching sobs. Some distance behind him, close enough to protect him but not so near as to intrude, Vin sat Peso with all the patience and stillness he had in him, and watched his lover grieve.

---

Chris had no idea how long he cried, knew only that it was long enough to pour out three years of hurt, to empty his heart and soul of every bit of pain, anger and bitterness that had festered in them since Sarah and Adam had died. He told them about Fowler, and from there told them everything about his life, holding nothing back. He knew much of it wasn't pretty, but he also knew he owed them nothing less than the truth.

He wasn't certain exactly when during his emotional outburst he'd become aware of Vin's presence, but, by the time his last tear fell, and though he never looked around, he knew the tracker was with him as surely as he knew his own name. Could feel it in the beating of his heart. Tanner's presence was little more than a whisper of calm amid the storm, but it was there, and Chris was thankful for it.

"You'd like him, Sarah," he heard himself saying. "He's a lot like you. Strong, patient, honest to his core." A fragile smile curved about his mouth, and a faint light kindled in his eyes. "But he don't take nothin' off me, just like you never would. He's a hard-headed, smart-mouthed, infuriatin' sonuvabitch when he tries, or even when he doesn't. Speaks his mind, even when I wish he wouldn't, and won't back down, even when I wish he would. But there's a quiet in him, like there was in you, a peace... I was tryin' ta learn that from you. Now," he sighed, "maybe I can learn it from him."

He leaned over and idly plucked a few weeds from the graves. "I shoulda come out here before now, I know, and I'm sorry I didn't. But... I just couldn't. It was too hard. Hurt too much. Made it all too real. I'd like ta say I'll come out more often now, but I've never lied ta you, and I won't start now. We'll just have ta see."

He heard a horse snort in the distance, and had to chuckle. "That's Peso. Sounds like he's losin' patience." His eyes softened. "Vin's waitin'. Watchin' over me. Like you used ta do. Like ya still are. I know you had some hand in sendin' him to me. You never could resist match-makin'. Couldn't believe two people would ever manage to get together without your help. Well, maybe this time you were right. I gotta admit, I'm grateful for it. You knew what you were doin'."

He reached out, pulled another weed, then sighed and shook his head. "God, I miss you! Miss you both so much... Sometimes it doesn't seem like three years that you've been gone. Other times, it feels like forever. But I have to keep goin'. And now I've got somebody who gives me a reason to. I'll love you 'til I die, Sarah. But I love him, too. And, with him, I can love while I'm alive."

He placed his hat back on his head and rose slowly to his feet. He stood for long moments, gazing down at the graves of his wife and son, seeing their faces in his mind, hearing their voices on the wind. Then, feeling stronger than he had in days, he turned and left those who waited for him in death to the one who awaited him in life.

Vin watched him approach, noted the firmness of his step, the straightness of his posture, and loosed a small sigh of relief. Then he saw the peace in the green eyes, and knew Chris was back where he belonged.

Larabee stopped at Peso's side and gazed up at his lover. "There's a place not far from here," he said. "A hill that overlooks the valley. You can almost see forever from there. Wanta see it?"

"Ya really want me to?"

"Would I ask if I didn't?"

Vin smiled and slipped easily into their familiar banter. "There ya go again, sweet-talkin' the pants right off me."

Chris stepped closer and set a hand on Tanner's thigh, green eyes alight with love. "I'll take whatever I can get," he said softly, seriously. "So long's I also get the man who's in 'em."

"Aw, hell, cowboy," Vin breathed, laying his hand over Larabee's, "y' already got me, don't you know that? You've had me from the first."

"Well, then," Chris squeezed Vin's hand, "let's go see exactly what I got."

---

They sat atop the hill in silence, listening to the wind stirring the leaves of the trees about them, feeling it ruffling through their hair, and staring out over the wide, green valley that stretched out below them. A sun-dappled stream meandered through the valley, while, in the distance, slate-gray mountains lifted their jagged heads toward the sky. It was as beautiful and as restful a sight as either could ever remember seeing.

"Gotta say, cowboy, ya got a real good eye fer land," Vin murmured, almost able to see the horses Chris would have raised dotting the landscape below. He was sitting between Larabee's legs, his back to the gunman's chest. "It's a breeder's paradise."

"Yeah," Chris breathed wistfully, even now feeling the pull of this place upon him. He'd fallen in love with this valley the first time he'd seen it. In the years since he'd ridden away, he'd forgotten how beautiful it was. "All these hills shelter it from hard weather. The grass down there stays green a good long time. Horses can stay there right up until the first snow-fall before bein' moved to winter pastures. And that stream's spring-fed, so it's always good, even when everything else's dried up." He fell silent a moment, then said, "I thought seriously about sellin' it after they died."

Vin turned around and stared at him, frowning. "Why?"

Chris shrugged and dropped his gaze to the ground. "Couldn't see no point in keepin' it. All my dreams for it had included them. And when they died..." He shrugged again. "My dreams died with 'em."

"So what kept ya from sellin'?"

Chris chuckled and returned his gaze to Vin, arching a blond brow. "Couldn't stand the thought of anybody else havin' it." Green eyes gleamed with warmth and wry humor. "Like I said before, I ain't ever been good at sharin'."

Vin scooted closer, then reached out and laced his fingers into Larabee's. "I like that in ya," he rasped, his blue eyes deep and dark. "I'm glad ya brought me here. Seein' what it means to ya... She liked ta come here, too, didn't she?"

Chris thought he should probably feel some unease at hearing his male lover speak about his dead wife, but he didn't. He thought he should probably feel embarrassed or ashamed for bringing Vin to a place that had been his and Sarah's, but he didn't. Couldn't.

Not when it felt so right.

"Yeah, she did," he answered at last, almost able to hear her voice whispering through the trees. "I offered ta build the house here, but she said no. Said she didn't wanta see it spoiled." He chuckled and shook his head. "She wouldn't even let me cut down any of these trees for the house. Had ta go way 'round ta the other side of the property, cut 'em down and haul 'em in from there. I musta cussed for a week straight..."

"But ya did it, 'cause she asked," Vin put in softly. "'Cause this meant somethin' to her." He tilted his head slightly to one side, then raised a hand and lightly stroked Larabee's cheek. "'At's why ya couldn't sell none'a this," he breathed knowingly. "Not 'cause ya couldn't stand nobody else havin' somethin' that was yers, but 'cause ya couldn't stand nobody else havin' somethin' that was hers. Couldn't stand the thought that mebbe somebody'd spoil what she loved. Mebbe cut down one'a them trees that whisper to ya in her voice."

Chris stiffened in shock at those words and stared at Tanner in stunned disbelief. "Now, how in the hell did you know that?" he whispered.

Vin smiled slightly. "Ain't so hard. I c'n see ya listenin', c'n see the look on yer face when ya hear it. She's still here. She's all around. This is her place."

Chris frowned slightly, studying the tracker carefully. "That bother ya?"

"No." He raised his face and closed his eyes, letting the sun shine on his face and the breeze tug at his hair. A small, contented smile curved about his mouth and he lowered his face once more, opening his eyes and gazing at his lover. "Don't bother her, either. She's jist glad yer here."

"Jesus, Vin," Chris breathed, slipping his arms about the younger man and pulling him close, burying his face in the sun-warmed wealth of his hair. "You say the damnedest things!" He nuzzled his face into Vin's hair, pressing kisses into it and giving silent thanks yet again for the incredible man in his arms.

"Got a way about ya yerself," Vin whispered, shivering as Chris's mouth found its way through his hair to the tender flesh behind one ear. "Lord, cowboy, don't stop!"

Chris had no intention of stopping. Not when this man who smelled of sunshine, wind and earth filled his senses and set his every nerve tingling. He swept his tongue along the edge of Vin's ear, then dipped it inside the delicate shell, tracing every curve and hollow and blowing gently.

"Lord!" Vin whispered sharply, shuddering as waves of pleasure shot through him. He clutched at Chris's shirt and tilted his head, giving the man greater access to him.

And Larabee took it greedily. Unable to resist its alluring length, he trailed his mouth over Tanner's neck, starting at the hollow beneath the tracker's ear and working his way slowly, slowly down to the throbbing pulse, licking, kissing, nibbling, using tongue, lips and teeth as instruments of worship. He felt Vin reeling and grabbed his shoulders, holding him tightly, refusing to let him fall.

As Vin had done so often for him.

Tanner knotted his fingers more tightly into Larabee's shirt, then began fumbling with the buttons, his hands clumsy in their haste. Fire burned at every point where Chris's mouth touched him, and his whole body throbbed with the ache of urgent need. He doubted he'd ever get used to the feelings Chris awakened in him, but knew he'd die if he ever lost them.

Chris raised his head, saw the sheer ecstasy written on Vin's unguarded face, and near wept with love for the man. "Let's do this right, pard," he breathed. "Get our blankets spread, our clothes off. I want this ta be more than just a quick roll in the dirt."

Vin groaned helplessly as Chris pulled away from him. "I don't know," he rasped, blue eyes almost black with desire. "That quick part sounds purty good right now. Y' got me hurtin' somethin' fierce."

Chris chuckled softly, then leaned forward and kissed him. "Don't worry, pard," he whispered against the tracker's wet, warm lips, "we're gonna take care of that. Now, c'mon, get up and outta them clothes. Been too long since I seen yer skinny ass."

"Ya got a real way with words, Larabee," Vin growled, rising to his feet.

Chris grinned and arched a brow. "Didn't think it was talkin' you wanted, Tanner." He dropped his gaze pointedly to the tracker's bulging crotch. "Not with that little problem ya got there."

Vin scowled deeply. "Who you callin' little'?" He dropped a hand to his crotch and slowly stroked himself, watching Larabee's eyes go wide and dark. "Ain't ever heard ya complain b'fore. 'Course," he shrugged and started to turn away, "if I ain't up ta yer standards--"

With a wordless snarl of desire, Chris reached out and grabbed the tracker, spinning him around and crushing him to him, bowing his head and burying his mouth in Tanner's. He clutched Vin to him, imprisoned him against him, and kissed him with an unbridled savagery, love and lust colliding within him and exploding into a fireball of hunger.

Vin moaned and shuddered and went weak in the knees, collapsing against Larabee and clutching at him as dizzying torrents of pleasure pounded through him. His mouth ached beneath Chris's onslaught, but he would not have stopped it for the world.

Lord God, he loved this man!

Chris seized Vin's lower lip sharply between his teeth, then sucked hungrily at it, drawing a hoarse, throaty groan from his lover. He scraped his teeth down Tanner's chin, nipping at moist, whiskered skin and tonguing every bite. The man's taste and scent were more intoxicating than any liquor, and Chris was growing drunk upon him.

This would be one helluva binge!

They tore themselves apart just long enough to spread their bedrolls and undress, yet, even then, could not keep their hands and mouths from seeking each other. Time and again they came together, indulging a long, deep, hungry kiss while trying to shrug out of a shirt or toe off a boot, or trying to pull down trousers with one hand while fondling a lover with the other. It made for slow and awkward but incredibly stimulating work, and, by the time both men were naked, they were fully aroused, bodies slick with sweat and chests heaving in the ragged rhythm of their hurried breathing.

Chris lowered himself to the blankets they'd spread together, pulling Vin down with him. Tanner went eagerly, covering Larabee's body with his own and feeling the gunman's long, hard legs clamping about his. Chris thrust his hands into Vin's hair and pulled his head down, reclaiming the wet, swollen lips with his in a hard and hungry kiss.

They writhed together and clawed at each other, bodies melding, limbs twining, mouths meeting and mating, until neither man knew any longer where he ended and the other began. Flesh rubbed against flesh and ignited sparks along nerves, nails scraped, fingers pinched, teeth marked, and howls of pain were interspersed with groans and growls of pleasure.

Vin buried his face in Chris's shoulder and thrust his hips in a furious, fevered rhythm, grinding his hard, hot cock into Larabee's and torturing them both. Chris writhed beneath him, against him, in a mounting frenzy, racked by pain and driven nearly insane with pleasure. Then Tanner's weight was gone, and a wrenching sob tore from the depths of his soul.

"Easy, cowboy," Vin whispered hoarsely, harshly, his trembling, sweat-bathed body darkly flushed with desire. "Jist gotta... git somethin' ta help us along." He pulled himself to his knees and retrieved the saddle oil he'd set nearby. "Didn't have time ta pack nothin' fancy," he breathed. "But I reckon this'll do."

"Goddamn it... I don't care... if it's fuckin' coal oil!" Larabee gritted, fighting the urge to take his aching, throbbing cock into his own hand and end his torment. "Just get your ass over here!"

"Patience, ol' man," Vin urged, pulling the top off the tin.

"I am patient," Chris spat. "I haven't shot you yet, have I?"

"Now, now," Vin breathed, settling himself once again over Larabee's body and nibbling at the gunman's mouth as he rubbed his cock against Chris's, "is that any way t' talk to the man who c'n end yer pain?"

"Oh, God!" Chris moaned helplessly as bolts of white heat shot through him.

"Ssh." He kissed Chris again, then rose to his knees and lifted Larabee's legs, getting himself beneath them. He scooped a generous amount of oil into his palm and tossed the tin aside, then coated his hand and his cock, sucking in a sharp, hissing breath as his fingers slid over his thick, throbbing flesh. "Gonna take care of us both," he whispered, sliding a finger over the crease between Larabee's heavy balls, then rimming the dark hole behind them with it. "Won't be long at all."

"Jesus!" Chris gasped, arching violently as that finger pushed into him and began to play. It pulled out slightly, massaged the tight muscle, then slid inside again and brushed against his gland. "Vin!"

"'S all right," Tanner rasped, holding one hand against his lover's hip to steady him and sliding in a second finger. Licking his lips and closing his eyes, near the edge himself, he stroked and scissored and stretched, then pressed a third finger inside.

Chris groaned harshly and thrust down against those fingers, desperately needing relief. His head thrashed from side to side and his breath escaped in heavy, tearing gusts through tightly clenched teeth.

Feeling at last the give in the muscle ring, Vin pulled his fingers free and guided his cock to that sweet, beckoning hole. Controlling himself with an effort, he pushed the tip inside, then stopped when he felt Chris tense from the intrusion.

"Breathe, pard," he urged, barely restraining the urge to thrust. "Jist breathe, and relax."

Chris did so, felt the pain subside, and felt his need for Vin take over. Reaching for his lover's hands, he laced his fingers into Tanner's and grunted a desperate, "Move!"

Vin did, and nearly wept as Chris's wet heat closed about him. A hoarse, shuddering cry escaped him and he pushed in further, needing this more than he needed air to breathe. He pulled out slowly, then slid in again, losing himself in his lover's body.

Chris was in agony, in ecstasy, consumed in the fires of Vin's making. He thrust desperately against Tanner's every long, sure stroke, seeking to drive the man deeper, needing more, always more, his hunger for the tracker insatiable.

Then they were moving together with a frantic urgency, thick grunts and harsh groans tearing from them as flesh slapped against flesh, their slick bodies joined in a perfect, primal rhythm. With a feral growl, Vin closed a hand about Chris's thick shaft and pumped with that same urgency, tearing a scream from the gunman. Harder, faster, deeper he drove into Chris, knowing his only salvation lay within this man.

Chris clutched at his blankets, at Vin, and writhed in a mindless agony, thrusting against the tracker's hard, hot flesh, into that furiously working hand, not knowing where the greater pleasure lay. Then Tanner's flesh hit against his gland, hit it again, and he screamed, arching off the blankets and shooting his juices in a pungent spray as he burst into orgasm.

Larabee's climax triggered his, and Vin came with a shattering force, throwing back his head and howling as he erupted into his lover. He shuddered heavily and thrust furiously into Chris, pouring into him all that he was and all that he possessed. Tears streamed down his face, mingling with his sweat, as he felt his lover's warmth pulsing about him, as, for long, precious moments, they were one.

Then, empty and shaking, he withdrew his softened flesh from Chris and sank into his lover's waiting arms, was wrapped immediately in a close, loving embrace and cradled to the long, beautiful body that was his torment and his delight. He closed his eyes, pressed his face into the strong throb of Chris's heart, and merely let himself breathe in this man.

As always, Chris treasured this time after their loving, this intimate, measureless span of moments when he and Vin lay together, as naked in soul as they were in body. During this time, as at no other, they were both completely vulnerable, stripped of all defenses, all barriers, left utterly and achingly open.

It was their gift to each other.

He tenderly kissed the top of Vin's head, smiling at the feel of silken strands of hair against his lips. "Thank you," he whispered.

Vin raised his head and smiled lazily into the warm and sated green eyes. "Hell, cowboy, weren't jist me," he drawled, his own eyes as heavy-lidded as a sleepy cat's. "Ya done purty good yer own self."

"No, I don't mean that," Chris said, reaching up to stroke his lover's hair. "I mean for... hell, for everything. For givin' me back my life. For makin' that life worth livin'." He gazed into blue eyes that went on forever, that drew his soul into a place where there was no pain, no fear, only sweet, blessed peace. "I loved Sarah, you know that. Loved her like I never thought I could love anybody. And Adam..." His voice broke, and tears pooled in his eyes. "When they died, I wanted ta die, too. Couldn't see any reason for livin' when everything I'd lived for was gone ta ashes."

He stopped, drew a deep breath to control his quavering voice, and looked again into those eyes that led him to his peace. "But I was wrong," he breathed, once more running his fingers through Vin's hair. "God, so wrong! I've still got a whole lifetime ahead of me, and I wanta live every moment of it with you."

Vin leaned over and tenderly kissed him. "Want that, too," he whispered. "Ain't ever wanted anything more." He sat up and crossed his legs, staring thoughtfully out over the valley below him. "Funny thing about ashes," he murmured thoughtfully. "Most folks look at 'em, 'n see only death. What used ta be but ain't no more. 'N I reckon that's one way of lookin' at it. Ashes means somethin's been burned away. Destroyed."

"But?" Chris prompted, sitting up and watching Vin, knowing how his lover thought.

Vin turned his gaze upon Larabee. "Y'know what happens in a forest after a fire? Rains come, pour down on all them ashes, and set somethin' in 'em loose. Somethin' that feeds the earth, heals it. Ya go back the next spring, brush away them ashes, and damned if ya don't see new life. Heaven's tears healin' nature's wounds. Through ashes." He saw the drops clinging to Larabee's lashes and leaned forward, tenderly kissing the gunman's eyes. "Let 'em fall, cowboy," he urged softly, taking Chris into his arms and holding him close. "New life cain't grow without the rain."

Cradled safely in his lover's arms, Chris once more gave in to his tears, let the knowledge of all he'd lost wash through him even as he clung to what he'd found. He wasn't through grieving, he knew that now, would not be through for a long time yet. A love as powerful as his for Sarah and Adam demanded an equally powerful grief.

But he wouldn't grieve alone, he knew that, too. Could feel it in the way Vin held him now, and in the way the tracker's tears fell upon him and mingled with his own.

Heaven's tears healin' nature's wounds.

And cleansing Chris Larabee's soul of the last traces of ashes and smoke.

THE END