"Sorry ya didn't shoot her when ya had the chance."
"Next time."
Chris looked away from Vin, the letter and photo Ella Gaines had sent him falling down on the blanket he was wrapped in. The blanket had slipped down a bit, enough to reveal a part of the bandage around his shoulder and chest.
Ella Gaines Larabee she had written under the letter.
He had been prepared to stay with her, to at least give living with her a try. He had been so tired of the bleakness and emptiness his life had become after the death of his wife and son three years ago. A life spent with only one goal in mind: revenge. Get the bastards who had killed his family. But the last months had changed things. Protecting this little town with six men who had become friends, more than friends, who had become his new family, had started to heal him a bit inside. He had become more the man he had once been, the man who had loved being a horse rancher, and who first and foremost had loved his family, his wife and son. More than anything, more than life, he had loved Sarah and Adam.
They were gone, but this new life and the friends that had come with it, especially the man standing next to him, had brought some of Chris Larabee back. Not all, but enough to want some normalcy back in his life. It was why he had claimed a piece of land and had build himself a cabin outside of Four Corners. It was why he had started buying some horses again, keeping them in a corral on his property.
It was why it had taken a chance when Ella had offered it all back to him: a ranch, horses, a beautiful woman he had once loved, a woman he thought he knew. Only to find out that she was the one who had had his family murdered, and was also planning to murder his friends. He felt sick thinking about the nights he had spent with her, spent with the woman who had ordered the murder of Sarah and Adam. He felt like he had betrayed them, all over again, betrayed their trust in him again. First by not being there when they were attacked. And now...
He felt utterly sick knowing that what he had always feared was true after all, that he was the cause of his wife and son's death.
He looked back at Vin, and saw the worry in those sky blue eyes.
"I'm fine."
Vin only tilted his head a bit, and with that small gesture revealed just how much he believed that particular statement.
"We'll find her, Chris. She can't jist drop from the earth. We'll find her and the bitch'll pay."
We...
Chris felt strange hearing that we. Vin had left him at Ella's, left because Chris would not listen to his warnings about her.
"She lied to you... up and down the line. The woman's no good, Chris."
"I'm gonna forget you said that."
But he had listened after all, because bottom line, he trusted Vin Tanner. From the moment their eyes had met across a wind swept street and they had set out together to keep an innocent man from being hung, he had trusted this man to guard his back.
Unbidden another moment surfaced.
A wagon train they had escorted and protected, and the immense pain when Vin had just disappeared with a woman he met on that wagon train, Charlotte. Disappeared without even saying goodbye. That had hurt more than seeing Mary with another man. He had thought he could trust Vin, that they would be there for one another. It was something they had never spoken about, like they seldom spoke about anything, seldom needed to speak. It just was.
And then it wasn't anymore.
Vin had come back though, to warn them that more bandits were coming their way to attack the wagon train but still, the hurt had been there.
After fighting off those bandits, Vin had tried to talk about it with him. Told him he would like to set things straight.
"It's your life. None of my business." But he had thought it had been, in a way. That they had build a friendship in which such decisions did become the business of the other as well, something they should at least tell each other about.
"Reckon you think I'm in the wrong here."
"What I think is you're already gone."
"I'm right here."
But he'd had to know, had to ask. "For how long?" And then: "I need to know I can depend on you, Vin. Let me know when I can."
He knew that had stung Vin, but it had been the utter truth for him. He needed to know right up until that horrible moment when Vin had come rolling down that hill, blown down by a stick of dynamite, and suddenly nothing had mattered anymore. He had just rushed to his friend and held him close, praying he would be alright.
Well, not exactly praying. He and God were no longer on speaking terms as far as he was concerned.
Luckily Vin had been alright and had hardly been wounded. He had overcome the fact that Charlotte had chosen to stay with her husband after all, and things had gone back to normal.
They had, hadn't they?
Chris had looked away for a moment with the memories flooding him, but now he looked back at Vin.
"So that means you'll be there? Come searching with me?"
Vin's eyes narrowed and a flush appeared on his face. But then something in Chris' voice seemed to penetrate, Chris had sounded... hopeful. It wasn't meant as criticism, that question, it was a real question. Chris wasn't sure he would be there, but he hoped.
"I only left 'cause ya didn't trust me anymore, Chris. Ya didn't believe me, didn't trust what I told ya, and I didn't wanna stay where I wasn't trusted."
Chris looked down on the letter in his lap. When he looked up again his face was strained. "But you came back anyway."
"Heard the shooting, couldn't... couldn't let y'all be killed."
Blue and green eyes locked and something passed between them.
"Ya never really trusted me again like first, did ya, after Charlotte?" Vin suddenly asked. "That's what it was, back with Ella. Ya didn't take m' word like ya used too before Charlotte."
"I did trust you Vin. It just had to, had to penetrate... It started to make me wonder though and made me look around later that night..."
"Still..."
"I don't know, it was a shock. You just up and left with her, without even saying goodbye."
"But I came back."
"Yeah, you did. And you came back at Ella's too." Chris sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, Vin, I don't know, I just don't know."
He closed his eyes and laid his head back wearily. There was a moment of silence.
"Trust you a lot more than myself right now."
Vin looked sharply at the blond when he heard those words, spoken so softly that he had almost missed them. "Damn Chris, we all make mistakes! Ya don't make mistakes, y'ain't livin'! I made plenty m'self, it's jist good to know someone will be there ta catch ya if ya fall."
Chris looked a bit amazed at his younger friend. Jeezus, Tanner, how did you get so wise so young? he thought. Then he smiled, his first smile since he found out about Ella. It wasn't a full bloom smile and was gone in a second, but it was there and it made Vin smile his lopsided grin in return.
"You know, Tanner, you're right 'bout that. Was mighty glad you were there to catch me at Ella's. That was a deep fall."
"Was jist glad I's still there, pard. When I saw ya shot, I jist knew it didn't matter whether ya trust me or not, jist didn't wanna lose ya."
"Don't wanna lose you too, Vin. Not then, not now."
Eyes locked again, then Vin looked away and, leaning at ease against a pole, started observing the town with a deceptive laziness over him.
Chris leaned back again in his chair and let the letter and photo drop to the ground, not wanting to have anything to do with them anymore. He just hadn't the strength left for them, not now.
No words were spoken, all was said, but the silence was easy and the understanding was there.
Ezra was pissed, really pissed. Don't ever run out on me again, that's what Chris had told him after his little slip at the Seminole village. Don't ever run out on me again, after he had come back and saved them all. Well, sort of, Chris had managed to free himself, but his help had certainly been invaluable.
Chris had never trusted him fully after that. Ever. Not even now, after months of risking his life and proving his worth. They had found ten thousand dollars in the hotel room of a dead killer, a hired assassin. He had offered to look after it, but Larabee had downright refused.
"Mr. Larabee, am I to assume that you have doubts as to my honesty?" he had asked, peeved.
"Josiah can look after it."
Short, but said with just that look and that tone. Mr. Larabee sure had a way without words.
"Josiah can look after it", he mimicked angrily, sitting in his room looking at the money right at that moment. Josiah had given it to him after all, although he wasn't sure why, and against Larabee's wishes, because Larabee didn't trust him.
If Larabee had been fair in whom he trusted or not, it wouldn't have rankled as much. But look at him and Mr. Tanner, fully joined at the hip again. Bursting into the saloon together to stop a brawl. Stepping into a riot in the streets back to back, with Larabee totally confident that Tanner will protect his.
And Vin had ridden out on him twice.
"Twice!" Ezra murmered darkly. "But I bet he never told Mr. Tanner to never run out on him again!"
He thought about the other peacekeepers. His friends, sure, but all snickering when he tried to convince them he could be trusted with the money.
Staring at that money wasn't good for his peace of mind, not good at all. He tried to ignore its lure, but, well, it was MONEY, it was lots of money.
When he finally cut open his jacket and hid the money behind the lining, and ran out to the livery to leave with it, he was filled with self hatred. But he couldn't give it up now that he had it, he just couldn't.
And that was when fate kicked in. They had found out who the killer was and that he didn't work alone. He worked with his son, a fellow named Stutz, with one false eye. And right before he entered the livery, guess who he saw! Stutz, right there in the crowd that was gathering to hear the visiting governor speak. The governor whom they had figured was the target for the two hired assassins. Stutz wasn't on a rooftop or behind a window as they all had suspected, but right here in the middle of the crowd.
At that moment, Ezra forgot the money, just tried to get to the killer who had already disappeared between all the people milling around on the street.
Where was the sneaky guy, where had he gone too? He did bump into Chris though.
"I saw Stutz!" he called. "He's in the crowd. He's not going long range. We gotta get the governor down."
"It ain't the governor he's after. It's Mary."
Mary? Stutz was after Mary? Ezra's head reeled a moment from that news. Didn't matter though, where was Stutz? He had to keep looking.
And then he saw him and did something he would never have expected he would ever do. He threw himself between the killer and his target, yep Mary after all, just as the assassin took his shot. There just hadn't been any time for something else.
Oh dear, but that hurt! And mother, she would be appalled! He could never ever let her know about this... and was that more shooting he heard?
Then Nathan was there. Good, Nathan would know what to do. Appalling ideas about what was right and what wrong, that man, but he would at least know what to do... and Mary was there. She kneeled next to him.
"You saved my life."
"I did? I did."
And then Chris was there as well.
"You done good, Ezra."
Those words felt good, really good, Chris didn't give praise easily. To his horror Ezra felt a silly grin settle on his face and then Nathan had to come and spoil it all. Grabbing hands full of money from behind the lining of his coat and holding it up for all to see.
"He'd be dead if it weren't for this!"
Ah well, perhaps guarding money wasn't his forte after all. "Mr. Larabee", he managed to gasp despite the pain, "in the future, I believe it would be best just not to burden me with other people's money."
"Yeah."
The man definitely had a way without words.
But then Ezra saw the looks, the smiles on the faces of his friends and suddenly it hit him. They did trust him. Just not with money, because they also knew him. You think you know what kind of man you are? Josiah had asked him when he had given him the money.
They had known. And they hadn't mind, they just hadn't mind, he was still one of them.
For the first time in his life Ezra felt fully accepted. And it felt good.
THE END