Chris Larabee stuffed his hands deep inside his pockets and pulled out a fresh cigar he forgotten about over the course of three days. He stuck the cigar between his index and middle fingers balancing the soft covering of the limp stick. Looking over its brown body he figured it was still good enough to smoke so he lit it up and stuck it in his mouth, sucking on it gently.         

As he took his first puff Vin approached him.

“You ready to leave?”          

Chris looked at his friend for more than thirty years. How they became friends was still a mysterious to the gunslinger, and how they stuck with each other through thick and thin, heated tempers and calm solutions, was almost a miracle to him. Vin had been his right hand man during a number of gunfights, and Chris enjoyed every single one of them. He enjoyed Vin more than anyone else he knew. If now when he never found love again, mostly because he never looked for it, he could see Vin growing old with him, sitting on a porch at their own built home in the country, rocking back and forth in man built rocking chairs, and enjoying the days as they slowly passed them by.          

Chris was more than ready to retire with Vin at his side.         

Four Corners didn’t need him anymore. Never had for the past twenty years but Chris continued to live in the town that grew with life, and children, and businesses galore. The lovely Mary Travis finally got her wish, and fulfilled her husband’s dreams. The town was now safe to raise a family in, and that is what most of the youngins’ that grew up in Four Corners did.          

Like JD. The town’s respected and fastest gunman sheriff.         

He married Casey of course. That was no surprise to anyone in town. Together they had two daughters. They grew to love their father, and help their mother in every way possible. JD was lucky and smart to move his young family out of town, however, and he built himself a two-story house five miles outside of town.          

Then there was Buck. He finally grew up and raised a family of his own. He had two growing boys, twins, looking remarkably like their burly, but lovable father following in his footsteps of being a lady’s man. Buck couldn’t have been prouder. But tragedy stuck hard for him when his wife died during the birth of their daughter. Buck raised his three children on his own, and Chris was with him every step of the way lending a hand to his oldest friend.         

But Buck had moved away from Four Corners shortly after his daughter, Sammy, had her eighth birthday. That was twenty-two years ago, and Chris never heard from him again. No letters, nothing personal, empty.         

Chris was always saddened by that. Before Buck left, not giving Chris or the others any indication he would come back, he told Chris he loved him more than a friend, more as a brother and had always looked up to him. He also told him he was his only family then, but he had to leave for his children’s sake because he wanted to give them a better life. He wanted to show them the world before their old man got to be too old to travel. Chris respected Buck with everything he had, and accepted Buck’s dreams. So, he let him go never to be heard from again.         

Chris patted Vin on the back, his grip still fierce as ever, as he led his old comrade to the barns to retrieve their horses.          

“The house is built. All we have to do is move in.” Vin said, then covered his mouth for an oncoming cough, pulling out a hankie from his jacket pocket. Vin traded in his old buffalo jacket he made himself a long time ago, and over the years he had made his own clothes from sheep skin, more buffalos, and wolves when he took his long journeys to find himself again. Vin had been away for over five years straight, again without word, but giving Chris and everyone else his word he would be back to grow old in Four Corners.         

And he kept his word.         

But when he had left he met and fell in love with a Native American woman he saved from a tribe looking to sell her off to a drunken old man who wanted nothing but to ravage her and make her his own. The very idea detested Vin’s thinking, and her last night with the tribe he snuck her out of the captive tent, and ran away with him. He told Chris she had stuck with him through most of his trip, helped kill the animals, and collect the fur. Nina became his wife, and the mother of his only daughter, Lola.          

With Lola in her late twenties and living in Charleston with her husband, Henry, Vin rarely got to see her. After her mother passed away from the fever when she was eleven years old, Lola was trapped inside her own mind, never talking, hardly looking at the people in town, and the townspeople began to wonder if the child was mentally okay. She was simply devastated her mother had left her, and Vin couldn’t be the one to console his only daughter because he simply didn’t know how. He loved his child with every fiber of his being but he couldn’t help her. Accepting Lola was in a deep hole unable to pull herself out of, it broke Vin’s heart when he had to send her away for her own good before she did harm to herself.         

Chris opened the barn doors and remembered Vin had cried for days after the doctors from the hospital came to take his fifteen year old daughter away. He felt worthless he couldn’t do a damn thing to help her. He felt powerless after she was gone, and lost a part of his soul forever.          

Chris could relate.         

But years have passed, and Lola was better. She was a growing woman, writing her father letters every week, and married. Vin couldn’t believe she was married already. She told him in her first letters that she was okay now. That it was a good move on his part to send her away because she wasn’t sure if she stayed she’d ever have resolved the problems following her mother’s death. Vin accepted her words, and kept all her letters close to his heart with every ending promising her daddy she could come visit him soon, and Vin was more than ready to see her again after so long.         

Vin took a deep breath as he unlatched his horse and followed her outside the barn and into the fresh, cool air this morning. Chris was right behind him with his horse, and he stopped beside Vin looking at his profile. He knew Vin was thinking about Lola, and where she was and what she was doing at this moment.         

A slight smile teased Vin’s lips, and Chris shook his head with a slight grunt of delight. It was always good to see Vin content with the world.         

 “How long is this little trip?” they both turned to hear a voice come up behind them. Chris smiled when he spotted Billy Travis, cradling his week old son in his arms.          

“Billy, it’s good to see you!” Chris was thrilled to see the boy he grew to love over the years walk up to them. He stole a quick glance at Billy’s son, then swung his gaze at the man before him.         

“How are you, Chris?” Billy asked, showing just as much delight to the older gunslinger he looked up to as a father since his own passed away when he was just a boy.         

“I’m good, Billy,” Chris said, nodding his head. “How’s your mother doin’?”         

Billy was calm for a moment, and his son squealed a bit in his arms waking up. He looked down at the baby, making cooing noises to calm him, then looked back up at Chris. “She’s not good, Chris. The doctors have pretty much given up. Told us to just wait. To let my mother die before my eyes…can you believe that?”         

Mary Travis was suffering from breast cancer. A cancer Chris had never heard about until it hit Mary, and Chris was determined to read up about it every chance he got. The cancer was untreatable, he’d read over and over. She’s had this cancer for three years now, the doctors telling her she’d only have six months to live, but Mary wouldn’t listen. That stubborn woman fought for three years and now looking into Billy’s eyes told Chris and Vin that it might truly be the end for her.          

“Billy, I am sorry. So very, very sorry.” Vin said, and squeezed the man’s forearm to show his condolences. “Is she in any pain?”         

Billy shook his head. “If she is, she isn’t showing it.”          

“Because she’s a stubborn woman,” Chris spoke aloud. Billy looked at the old gunslinger, still dressed in his black attire, and nodded gently. He held his baby boy that much closer to his chest as he was hopeless to do anything for his mother who was dying in her bed at this very moment.         

Chris looked about ready to explode. Through the years, he had grown to love Mary more than a friend. She came to be his partner in life, his very pushy, stubborn, beautiful partner who loved to laugh, express, and share. And now she was dying, and he was leaving her behind. He never wanted to think he was giving up on her, but several doctors had told him she was beyond help. They simply did not have the medication to treat her anymore.          

Chris remembered he threw a fit and practically kicked the doctors out of Mary’s bedroom because they were just as worthless to him as they were to her. Mary laughed at his outrage, and he was right beside her bed, kissing her face, trying to see whether or not he could take some of her sickness from her body and pour it into his. He wanted to take her pain away so bad, and it broke his heart after Mary told him she accepted her illness, and she would accept death when it was time.         

“Is she sleeping yet, Billy?” Chris asked after a few minutes of fighting with his thoughts.         

Billy looked startled by his question because he wasn’t sure how to answer it. Did Chris mean was Mary asleep for good, or was she just resting her eyes?         

Chris saw the confusion in his big blue eyes. “Resting, son, is she resting?”         

“When I last saw her, she was sitting up in bed just looking out the window.” Billy replied, then shook his head and adjusted his hold on his son. “If I’d say so she was thinking about my father, about her life with him, about her life period. She was slipping down memory lane.” Billy gulped, holding in his tears. “I haven’t heard her talk for hours. She just keeps looking out the window. She doesn’t even know I’m in the room with her sometimes. She keeps calling me Stephen.”         

Chris gazed over Billy toward Vin, and they exchanged looks. Before Chris left for his new home in the hills, he couldn’t leave without having a fear in the pit of his stomach of never being able to hear Mary laugh again, or smile, or heck, even criticize him about still getting down and dirty with gunfights at his age.         

“I’m going to go see her again. This might be—“ Hell, Chris even had to choke back a rush of emotions filling his voice and eyes. He handed Vin his ropes to his horse, and Vin gave him an understanding nod. Chris had long gone pitched his cigar, and he coughed a few times to get his voice back from the overwhelming emotion he was experiencing, and wouldn’t go away. But how was he not going to be emotional when he was about to tell the woman he had been so crazy about romantically and frustrated with over the years— goodbye?         

He already had to tell Judge Travis, Nettie Wells, Maude Standish, and his favorite ex-preacher, Josiah Sanchez, goodbye. He didn’t want to have to tell Mary too!         

Chris led Billy from the middle of town to the porch where the Clarion still resided. Billy took over the business after his mother became ill three years ago, and when a group of tourists came through town a young woman snuck a peak at the fresh newspaper print and caught the good looks of Billy Travis… she was in love. Minnie ditched the tourists, moved her things to Four Corners, and married Billy after three months. A year after that she had their first child; a girl they named Jean, Mary’s middle name, and now a baby boy two years later they called Christopher.          

A carriage passed by the two men as they headed for the doors to the Clarion. Chris stopped when the carriage caught his attention when he read ‘Jackson Clinical for the Needy and Suffering’ colored on the side. Chris caught himself off guard and smiled.         

Nathan moved out of town some time ago after Josiah’s death and swore on every grave in the cemetery he was going to make a name of himself, and become a licensed doctor. It took seven years, and Chris couldn’t believe he achieved his dreams. He knew Nathan could do it… all he needed was a little push.          

“Chris?” Billy’s voice came back to him and he walked into the warm Clarion front room, and looked longingly up the dreadful stairs leading to Mary’s bedroom.          

Minnie walked out of the kitchen and took her son out of her husband’s arms. She cradled Christopher’s gentle head to her shoulder as she walked slowly to a rocking chair by the burning fire in the fireplace. She sat before Jean laying on her belly coloring, her long legs kicked up and swinging back and forth.         

“Has she said anything yet?” Billy asked his wife.         

Minnie shook her head, “I’m sorry.”         

Chris took off his hat, and began up the stairs but Billy caught his elbow. Their gazes locked. “If she…if she dies while you’re up there tell her I…” Billy struggled trying to find the right words. “Tell her…”         

“I know, Billy.” Chris gripped his stiff shoulder, holding firmly. “I will, son.”         

Billy looked into Chris’s green eyes, still seeing the man he grew up with, the man who taught him everything he knew today. Chris was his father and right now he needed him to be his voice more than anyone else.          

Chris released him, then walked up the wooden staircase ever so slowly and opened Mary’s bedroom door. When he was fully inside, he shut the door behind him and took his time to look around the room.         

So many memories happened inside this room. Their first kiss. Their first screaming out loud fight. Their first time making love. So many firsts, so many memories, so long ago…         

When he landed his eyes on Mary now, lying so still and stiff in the middle of her bed, in the middle of the bedroom, Chris froze himself thinking she was already dead. But a soft groan escaped between her tight lips and he sighed heavily, his limbs shaking, his breathing staggering.         

“Mary…” Chris walked slowly to the side of her bed and took a seat in the only chair in the room. The chair Billy must have sat in all day, every day with the doctors. Demanding answers to his questions.         

Chris sat, tried to get comfortable but it was useless. His woman was laying in the bed right next to him and he was powerless to heal her. He tried that already, and failed.          

“Mary, can you hear me? It’s Chris.” He leaned forward and put his palm against her forehead. She was surprisingly warm, but when he reached down to hold her fingers, they were ice cold. “Oh, Mary, what’s happenin’ to you?”         

Then her eyes drifted open lazily and she stared right at him. He looked up into her once full of life blue eyes that turned into a gray cloud color. Her skin was chalky, her body aged a hundred years since he last saw her, and he was dying inside because he couldn’t take it all away. He was waiting for her to leap out of bed and into his lap and yell at him, smack him, tackle him with kisses like she use to. But she just laid there so still, her eyes dead set on him, and he couldn’t help but shiver.         

Chris had lived with death all his life. From the time his wife and son were taken away from him, to the murder of Ezra Standish from a straight shooter up high and out of reach over cheated gambling, and Ella Gaines killing herself in front of him because she couldn’t stand to be without him, to Josiah Sanchez dying of old age.          

Like his wife, son, Ezra, and Josiah, Mary didn’t deserve to die either. It wasn’t fair.         

After a moment of locked gazes, Chris stroked her cold cheek with his finger. “How are you feelin’ today?”         

Mary scoffed, and Chris almost laughed because she was still so stubborn even when death was staring her in the face.          

“I’m sorry this is happenin’ to you. It shouldn’t be.” Chris said softly.         

Mary swallowed then said as best she could. “Don’t…don’t be sorry. You didn’t…put this sickness on me.”         

Chris smiled, “A number of times through our lives I wish I could have.” He turned grim. “But not even my worst enemy I’d wish for something like this to happen to ‘em.”          

Mary closed her eyes, and swallowed again, trying to moisten her throat. She felt so cold, so hot in other parts of her frail body, and she wanted to scream but couldn’t because she didn’t want to die. She was more scared now than she was when she accepted the facts of her life.         

But she wasn’t going to fight it anymore. She told herself not to. She couldn’t. It was too hard with each passing day to keep going on. She needed to die…         

“Chris…” Mary reached for him, her lightly spotted gray hair tangled with her blond highlights swayed on the pillow. She took his hand. “In my life, you gave me more to love and appreciate than I could let in. After my husband died, I thought my life was over, too. But then I had…had Billy to think about and…and I couldn’t give up. You knew me…me. You know me well. My heart was broken and you…you mended it for me. Like…like I mended yours…yours.” She squeezed his hand as hard as she could, which wasn’t much, and she gazed longingly into his eyes. “I really did love you…you know?”         

Chris, again, choked back his tears. Here he was, the healthy one when he should have been dead long ago, sitting before Mary, holding her delicate hand in his, and on the verge of tears. He was ready to jerk up and curse at the heavens for taking another woman he loved away from him. Then he wanted to fall to his knees and cry like a baby for days. But he had to be strong for Mary. He would not fall for her. He loved her, and she needed him now…         

Mary leaned back on the pillows again, her hand still holding his. She bit down on her bottom lip, feeling another rush of pain in her stomach, lightning up to her chest, her heartbeats hammering inside her chest. She hated these rushes of unexpected pain. Made her feel like tearing her own heart out. It was a miserable image.         

And Chris was with her every step of the way. “It’s okay, honey. Fight it. C’mon. You can do it.”         

Mary let out a loud, painful gasp. “Oh, I don’t want to fight it anymore. I don’t! I don’t…” She tried to catch her breath but that proved to be harder than she thought.          

“Take a breath, Mare.” Chris said, his legs shaking, his body shivering from watching her go through this pain. Mary tried to take a breath but it was near impossible anymore. She continued to hold his hand but her body felt flat on the bed, angling awkwardly off to the side toward him, her head dipped back laying against the edge of a pillow. Her eyes stared at him, her mouth was slack, and a long tear fell.          

“Don’t forget me, Chris…” she whispered. The battle was almost over. And Chris suddenly panicked when he remembered Billy. “You’ve raised one hell of a son, Mary. He’s proud of you just like you were proud of him.”         

Mary started to cry harder now. “I’m still…still proud of him.”          

Chris wanted to cry, but he cradled her face in his palms. “Damnit, Mary, don’t give up.”         

“I…I can’t…” she cried and brought her weak arms and clasped her hands over his. “Please, let me go.”         

“The Mary Travis I know wouldn’t say can’t.”          

 “I’m not the Mary Travis you remember, Chris.”          

Chris took a deep breath of his own, and bent down to kiss her lips gently. It was the first contact either had had for a long time. Ever since she found she had cancer the doctors had sworn she do nothing physical. She had to lay off her job, which nearly killed her on the spot, and she wasn’t allowed to touch Chris by her own rules. She didn’t know much about this cancer and didn’t want Chris to get sick.          

Not like that would happen. Chris would have devoured her, even in their old age, and love every second of it. But now she was truly dying, and all he could do was sit back and let it happen. That nearly killed him.         

Chris never let her drop her gaze from him, as she tried to take soothing breaths, but again it was pointless. She was ready to die.          

“Now…” Mary whispered, and Chris loosened his hands on her face and let her head drop slowly back on the pillow. He took her hand again, holding it slack in his, and watched as she took her last few breaths.          

Mary tried weakly to squeeze his hand, and when she loosened the tension, her eyes fell shut, and she died…         

The room became still again. Quiet. Controlled. Deathly. As if someone walked through the wall, took Mary from this bed, from her pain, and from Chris’s body, and left just as quickly as they came. It was an odd feeling, and also heartwarming.          

Chris gazed at Mary’s face, her entire body slack from exhaustion and emptiness. She was gone, he knew, but as he searched her complexion she looked no more than asleep.          

Then letting out his tears, Chris bowed his head, said a quick pray as he continued to hold her hand.  

Two months later…          

Vin refolded the letter he just received from his daughter, Lola, telling him she was expecting her first child by the beginning of the new year which was still a good six months away.         

Vin told Chris the news, nearly jumping out his chair happy, and Chris told him to calm down before he gave himself a heart attack. He didn’t want to live through another death before his own. Being in the room when Mary died, burying her the next day, and staying a few extra days for Billy and Minnie took a great effort on his soul, and he was grateful to leave, knowing he could trust Billy with everything, and JD even with his life. Four Corners was in full swing, and the town seemed much livelier after Mary’s death. All in a good way of celebrating her life, and accepting her death which became to almost life threatening for most people in town who adored the woman who managed to keep the town together through its ugly days.          

Chris sat in his rocking chair, puffing on a cigar, as Vin sat beside him. They both rocked in unison almost, and Chris almost laughed out loud at that. Not in a million years would he have thought to retire on a ranch with wide open fields with another man beside him. He always wished it was Sarah with him, but life was never very fair to him, and he learned to accept whatever apples were handed to him.         

And this funny picture of he and Vin just sitting on the porch, enjoying each other’s company and quietness, Chris had to chuckle.         

“What’s funny?” Vin asked, still with a smile plastered across his face knowing he was going to be a grandfather soon.         

Chris shook his head, and took another puff. “I just never pictured my life to end this way. I’m actually relaxin’, enjoying myself, with a nice, well built home. I thought it’d be long dead by now.”          

“That’s not funny, Chris, it’s a miracle.” Vin said.         

Chris thought about what he said, then smiled again. “I think I’ll put away my pistol then. I won’t be needing it anymore unless trouble comes looking for us. I’ll keep it handy then.”         

“There’s always goin’ to be trouble.”         

“I think this will be called my retirement.” He looked at Vin then, and took another puff. “You want to retire with me, old friend?”         

Vin took a second then nodded. “Yes, I would like to very much.”         

“Good…” Chris took the glass full of beer in his hand and lifted it up for Vin to do the same with his. “To retirement!” He clanked Vin’s glass of beer before drowning his, and he took another long drag of his cigar. 

THE END