A man can have but one life and one
death,
One heaven, one hell.Robert Browning
There is a story Vin Tanner remembers, a story that comes from one of the people, but not a tribe he's known. Cherokee, he thinks, maybe, but he can no longer recall for certain.
It says there are gates to the Land of Souls, and those gates are guarded by two dogs that we see as two stars in the heavens. You must bring food with you on your journey to the Land of Souls to get past those two dogs and enter. If you give food to the first dog, he will let you pass, but if you fail to save some food for the second dog, you cannot go past him. You are trapped between the dogs, the stars, forever. A lost soul.
He watches his friend, Chris Larabee, now, and wonders if you can be trapped among the living that way. If you can be a lost soul here on earth, because that is what Chris seems to be. Vin wishes he had enough food for both dogs so Chris could go forward, or some secret trick that would work to bring him back out of that place. Wishes he could find him, or that Chris would let himself be found and led home. But Chris appears to want to stay lost there, Vin believes, or else he doesn't know that someone can find him if he just turns around and looks back, back toward Vin, who is waiting for him.
At least two months had passed since the shooting, but it seemed as if Chris would never really heal from his wounds. At his most sour and angry, Vin believed that Chris didn't want to heal either physically or mentally, and he felt tasked by this. He sat across the table from Chris on the boardwalk, a checkers game between them, Chris's attention focused far away and not on the pieces. In the lingering quiet and out of boredom, Vin cleaned Chris's Colt Peacemaker. Waiting for Chris to move, waiting for him to change.
The bandage on his chest had long since gone away. Nathan Jackson had decided Chris was fit enough to even target practice a bit, but no one could interest Chris in doing much of anything except sitting around, drinking glumly and silently.
Vin wouldn't have minded so much if it had just been silence, but the level of Chris's hostility unnerved him at times. And it wasn't helped by his own hostility; Vin had made it clear how poorly he thought Chris had handled the whole thing with Ella Gaines, not least of which was failing to shoot her when he had a clear line of fire.
He tried to understand it by putting himself in those shoes, but couldn't quite wrap his mind around Chris's willful stupidity. It wasn't as if he himself hadn't done some damn fool things over a girl before, but this had been something more than foolishness. Despite all that, Vin couldn't stop feeling sorry for Chris, couldn't fight the feeling that somehow, if he had been a better friend, he could have stopped Chris before it got to that point.
No one had stopped Chris, though, and now here he was, lost within his rage, stoking the fire of revenge inside him. It was a slow poison, one that would only eat away at the healthy part of him and prevent the wounded part from healing.
Vin put his hand inside the pocket of his coat again, something he'd done often lately, and wrapped his hand around the small doeskin bag there. The past few weeks he'd gone back and forth trying to decide if he should give the items in the bag to Chris, and what he should say. There were words that someone like Josiah Sanchez or Mary Travis would know to say, but they were not familiar to him.
"Side seems better today," Vin said lightly, pointing the revolver toward his eye and sticking his thumb underneath the barrel to reflect light up into it. Satisfied, he clicked the cylinder into place and wiped down the outside. Then he glanced at Chris to see if he'd even heard. "It's still your move."
Chris looked up at him from under his brows, a lock of his blond hair hanging in front of his left eye. He knew what Vin was trying to do, what Vin had been trying to do for the past few weeks, and it was beginning to grate on his nerves. Between him and Buck alternately playing nursemaids and accusers, he'd been thinking it was time to leave Four Corners. If he hadn't bought the land outside town, he would just get on his horse and ride until he found Ella again, and when he found her, wrap his hands around her throat and squeeze the life out of her. Everywhere he went, from Mary to the boys, he met those looks of pity and disappointment, and it was slowly driving him mad.
"I'm tired of playing." He rose from the table gingerly, pulled his coat over the one good shoulder and then shrugged into the other side, and went to his horse. "When there's something to do, let me know." He didn't look at Vin as he turned away, knowing that Vin was disgusted enough with him for the whole town. He didn't really care about Buck's disappointment in him, he'd seen enough of that over the years, but he hated seeing that look in Vin's eyes. Those words of Vin's kept coming back to Chris -- "Sorry you didn't shoot her when you had the chance." Even if Vin had let go of it, Chris hadn't, couldn't.
Vin morosely watched him leave, aware that he hadn't helped the situation. He knew he should talk to Chris, but the words kept coming out wrong each time he tried. They were either mean or soft, and neither was the kind of thing that sat well with Chris. As Chris rounded the corner of the last building, Vin decided it was time to stop playing at all this and do something. The worst part was not knowing how to talk to him, to feel cut off from his closest friend and hopeless about connecting and understanding. Like one of those explorers he'd heard of who searched for the Northwest Passage only to find themselves trapped in ice, starving and freezing. As if all he could do was write lines in a journal in his poor hand, detailing the floundering failure of his mission, and leave it for Chris to find later. "Men are starving or dead. Ship being crushed by ice pack. All hope lost." Only then maybe Chris would know what had happened and where he'd gone wrong.
He strolled over to the church, where he could hear banging and crashing from inside -- meaning Josiah was in there, working on the interior as usual. He peered in, not quite willing to go inside all the way. As if by not making his presence known to Josiah, he could change his mind and go back, not talking about what he wanted to talk about. Just as he turned to go, thinking better of it, he heard Josiah's clear baritone preacher's voice from off to his left. "Tricky, aren't you?'
Vin shook his head and entered, closing the door behind him. "Aw, I changed my mind. Didn't want to bother you when you're so busy."
Holding up the planer in his hand, Josiah grinned at him. "Much as the devil may love idle hands, at times I wouldn't mind being a bit more idle. I've been trying to get this doorway fixed and my hands are numb."
Vin touched his hat and sat down in the last pew, watching Josiah as he dusted off the wood shavings from his shirt and pants.
"So, what did you want to talk to me and then not talk to me about?" He sat down across the aisle from Vin and waited. It was always slow going to get Vin to talk about anything, even when you could tell he wished to. He seemed to consider each word as carefully as an assayer might a pouch of gold, and never wanted to let too much out in case he came off as too sentimental.
"Well..." Vin trailed off, staring at the pulpit up front. "I ain't real good at this sort of thing, you know."
Josiah didn't say anything; he knew this was Vin's way of leading up to something. Ever since Vin had helped him when he'd been accused of murder, Vin was more inclined toward talking to him, to confessing his feelings about things he'd no doubt kept to himself his whole life. Yet it was still clearly a struggle for him each time, as if he'd only just discovered what it meant to be part of the human race.
"I been wondering if Chris is going to get better."
"Better how? Physically he's fine, Nathan says. He was hurt badly, but he seems to have recovered for the most part. So I believe you must be hinting at his emotional state."
Vin nodded.
"Hmm. Because he's angry, or because he talks even less than before?"
"Both, I reckon. He just -- it's like he won't even try to get better."
"Have you ever given much thought to the fact that he's probably humiliated?"
Vin pulled his head back and looked skeptically at Josiah.
"Well, think about it. He was all set to leave here and stay with her. He believed everything she said, even to the point of arguing with you and Buck in her favor. To find out that she'd set him up the whole way, and that he didn't shoot her, has probably made him feel awful foolish."
Josiah didn't mention how much he also thought it had to do with Vin, specifically. He was willing to believe that Chris could forget arguing with Buck about his information that something was wrong with Ella's situation. But he wasn't so sure Chris could forget the harsh words to Vin, and that he'd given up so quickly on him. They'd forged a fast friendship in their short time together, and Josiah believed Vin was completely ignorant of just how much his good opinion meant to Chris. To have thrown Vin's friendship back in his face, only to be proved wrong, would be a humiliation greater than any other.
"Hadn't thought of it like that."
"We're all exiles from the garden, Vin."
Puzzled, Vin looked sideways at him with a scowl on his face.
"Ella Gaines was no different than any of the rest of us. We're all sinners, cast out of paradise for our actions. Some of us spend our lives trying not to be sinners, to rise above it. But some people, they only know what they want, and they'll do anything to get it. Everything that drove us from the garden is there in their meager souls."
Vin thought on that for a while, staring at his boots and tossing his hat around and around in his hands.
"I said something to him," Vin explained. "I keep wondering if it was too much. I think he was already damn steamed at me."
"For pointing out to him the truth about Ella. Well, he was mad at Buck too, if that makes a difference. Sometimes when a man is thinking with his heart instead of his head--"
"Or his britches."
"--the last thing he wants is to have that pointed out to him." Josiah looked at Vin to see his reaction, but Vin was just staring at his hands. "What did you say to him you're so worried over?"
"I told him he shoulda shot her when he had the chance."
Josiah raised his eyebrows and nodded. Well, that would certainly help Chris along in his guilt, and Chris generally didn't need much help in that direction.
"He didn't disagree. He said 'next time.' But I keep wondering if he ain't hanging on to it. Hating me for saying it. Hating us all for thinking it, because you know we all are."
"Hard for a man like Chris to forgive himself for doing something wrong." Josiah wondered if Vin had any idea how much Chris had come to need Vin's friendship, or how important he was to Chris's recovery. In fact, at times he wondered if Chris even realized it himself.
Vin cast him a baleful look, and Josiah laughed. "All right, I know, how's he different about that than the rest of us? I'm just saying... I've come to believe he has a grudge against himself, at times."
"Against God," Vin said.
"You noticed that too, hm? I think my job will be complete when Chris steps more than a foot inside these doors." Josiah and Vin were silent for a while, thinking about that. Then Josiah said, "He'd never believe it, but I think that God brought Chris here. To you, to us. Especially to you." Vin eyed him dubiously. "I think it was part of Chris's healing. Buck, much as he's friends with Chris, will always remind him a little of things he wants to forget. So I kind of think that God put him in this place to heal those sorrows, brought him to you at a time when you also needed a friend."
Then Josiah grinned that madman's grin, shook his head. "Or maybe it don't mean anything at all, and you should ignore everything I say."
"Guess that brings me round to my question. Is he ever going to get better? I got something for him, but I don't see as how giving it to him in this state is gonna help him."
"Mind telling me what it is?"
Vin pulled the doeskin bag out of his pocket. He considered it for a moment before opening it. "She had a room -- it was filled with stuff about Chris. Of his things, too. It was like..."
"A shrine. An altar."
"Yeah. That's it. When Nathan was patching Chris up, I went up there to get his things. I saw that room. I ain't a superstitious man, Josiah, but that room was full of evil. It was everything evil about her. There was pictures of Chris and his family with Sarah's face scratched out or Adam torn out of the picture. She had articles from the paper about the fire. And I found this on the floor." He unfolded the doeskin and pulled up the locket, which glimmered faintly in the low light. "And this picture. Ella must have marked Sarah's face like this."
Josiah took the items from Vin's hand. He looked at the locket, thought of the coldness it would have taken to steal such things from the dying family and bring them to Ella. "Sarah's picture has been removed." Vin was right, it was pure evil. The evil of his own Bible, the darkest part of the human soul.
"We are all exiles from the garden," Josiah said again, softly.
Vin hadn't heard him. "What?"
He shook his head. "I don't know how much of your scripture you recall, but all those things we were thrown out for, we can never escape them. Pride, greed, jealousy, deception. Ella, Chris, all of us, we can only give in to those very sins that led us to fall."
Vin looked down at his hands, considering it again.
"The thing of it is, I don't know if'n I should give them back to Chris, or if it's just going to make him feel worse than he already does. If he's only going to get angrier. And if he's like you said, humiliated, then what's this going to do?"
Josiah weighed his options about what to say. Vin would trust him to know and put more faith in his advice than he could give himself credit for, so he had to be right. He almost felt like the balance of their friendship was in his hands, a friendship he had watched become the salvation of both their lives.
"Yes. I think you should give it to him, but not without an explanation. You need to clear the air -- you need to forgive him."
"Me!" Vin burst out. "What on earth do I got to forgive *him* for?"
"For not listening to you. For not believing in you."
Vin sat quietly, unable to take that thought in. He couldn't understand that he should be the one with the power to forgive. So he turned his thoughts away from that, from the hot-edged knife of pain he'd felt when Chris had shoved him aside as he'd tried to tell him the truth, and said to Josiah, "I been thinking about that house. Her house."
"What to do with it."
Just then the door opened behind them and they turned to see Ezra Standish, dusting off his coat and hat. Josiah was mildly irritated that Ezra always waited until he was *in* the church to dust off, instead of doing it outside.
"Ah. There you are, Mr. Tanner." He sat next to Josiah. "So, what am I interrupting here?"
Vin didn't answer. Josiah wasn't sure if he was avoiding it out of embarrassment or loyalty.
"We were discussing Ella's place, and what we should do with it," Josiah said.
"What do you mean, what we should do with it. I would think that's evident."
Vin frowned at Ezra. "I don't want to know what you're thinking."
"Now, there you go again, assuming I'm only interested in personal gain. This would be for all of us, not just me."
"And what exactly are your plans?" Josiah asked calmly.
"Burn it. To the ground," Vin said bitterly.
"Bur-- You must be joking!" Ezra exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. "You cannot burn that place down! We simply could not commit such an egregious error. We have a responsibility."
"We ain't the owners," Vin said.
"We are now. We can seize that property as officers of the court. Since a crime was committed there, we have an obligation to take it. And it's a beautiful piece of land and the house is very attractive, as well. A prime opportunity for an investment. And we reap the benefits."
"Off of the suffering of others," Josiah said mildly, fixing his most tolerant but warning gaze on Ezra. But Ezra wasn't going to budge.
"You see, this is the difference between the rest of you and myself. You are all blind to the opportunities that present themselves. Stuck in your prosaic, limited lives with no vision. Have a little vision this time."
"And who exactly would you sell this place to, even assuming you're right and we can do that legally?" Josiah asked.
"There would be plenty of buyers for such a spread. Why, just the other day I was reading that many of the landed English gentry are coming over here to make their fortunes as cattle barons. Especially the ones whose own fortunes are failing fast. The mystique of the west intrigues them, from what they're reading in dime novels and newspaper articles about it. Think of this -- we place an advertisement for Ella's spread, and then we reel in the cash."
Vin glared at him. "You're forgetting people died there. Not to mention the ones who have to find themselves a new place to live. And everything that Chris lost."
"I realize that," Ezra said soothingly. "I have not forgotten that lovely songbird of Buck's, nor have I forgotten all that happened between Chris and Miss Gaines. But the fact remains -- we stand to make up to them for much of what happened, and to help ourselves in the long run. Not make a profit off of others' misery, but maybe to set things right by moving on, moving forward."
They both just stared at Ezra, their brows wrinkled in dismay.
"Oh, now, look here. I know you have this unfailing attraction for the person with a broken wing, Vin. And I realize no one's could be more broken than Mr. Larabee's. But hanging on to that place just to let him shed his demons isn't necessarily the most productive path to choose."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Vin snapped.
"He's saying that you have a soft spot for the wounded and the downtrodden. In just the same way that Chris needs a cause, you seem to want to help the hurt." Josiah sighed heavily. "Unfortunately, for once, Ezra is right in his character assessment."
Ezra bristled, even though it was a compliment of sorts. "I'll have you know that I am a student of the human condition. Just because I'm not a member of the clergy doesn't mean I don't understand what drives people, what motivates them. To be a good confidence man, you must know what makes people tick."
"If you knew what made a man like Chris tick, you wouldn't be telling us to hang on to that place. Everything he suffered is tied up in that land. Everything he can't forget and move on about, until we do something." Vin gave him a challenging glare.
"And selling it off would be doing something about it," Ezra said mildly. "If Chris really is the kind of man who, to use Josiah's words, needs to prosecute a cause, then here's a cause for him -- get rid of that place, move on to better things. Another cause -- say, finding the wicked Miss Gaines and bringing her to justice. Let him move on from the place. And in the meantime we can use the money for something good, for something necessary. I'm not talking about personal gain, about avarice run amok. I'm simply talking about getting something back out of it considering what we -- and the poor unfortunates who suffered her as a family member -- lost. Do you think any of her husband's relatives inherited his money? Do you think that her husband died of natural causes? They lost a great deal, especially those lovely young ladies who will now likely be tossed around from relative to relative until such time as they can catch a husband."
Josiah just looked at Ezra, not willing to say anything for right now. Ezra wasn't entirely wrong, even if he had the wrong motivations. But Josiah was more inclined to a wrathful revenge, just like Vin, and he wasn't so sure that Chris really could move on until the place was gone, wiped completely off the earth, using the same purging fire that had so altered his own life.
Vin stood and put his hat on, not even looking at Ezra, but up at the altar and the candles burning there. "I ain't even gonna discuss this more with you. It's Chris's decision. Whatever he wants, we're gonna do. Understood?"
Ezra opened his mouth but Vin turned away, and Josiah shrugged at him, holding his palms upward. So Ezra got up and walked behind Vin, following him out the door.
When they got outside the church, Vin turned to Ezra. "What did you want?"
"What?"
"You said you was looking for me. What did you want?"
"Oh, I was merely bored and saw you go into the church. When you didn't come back out I assumed something interesting was going on."
Vin just rolled his eyes and shook his head as he walked away.
In the morning, Vin saddled up his horse and rode hard all day in the direction of Red Fork. He hadn't even thought it when he'd gone to bed the night before, but after he awoke, his first notion was to take a look at Ella's place. In some way, he hoped to see if he could put things in order, or begin to understand why any of it had happened and what he could do about it.
Most of his life he'd been removed from the kinds of emotions that seemed to drive other people. He wasn't detached or aloof, only more evenhanded and calm about things, enough so that he could look at most situations from both sides before deciding how to act. That was the one advantage of his lonely upbringing, with the early death of his mother and the loss of his father a while before that. He'd learned to keep things back, to hang on only to what was really important, and act solely on that.
But after coming here and meeting Chris, he'd been acting more on the same kinds of emotions that drove other people. It rubbed at him, this uncontrolled behavior, letting his feelings get the better of him. He knew that one of these days he would get himself into real trouble, something would get the best of him. All because he couldn't separate himself from these people the way he'd always separated himself from others.
Riding out to Ella's spread wasn't likely to accomplish anything at all, but he felt drawn there. And he wanted to see if it was still as empty as it had been when they'd left, her husband's family and friends dispersed to different points in the aftermath of the destruction. They didn't know whether squatters had taken the place over or not, since it was just far enough away to be outside their influence and away from the gossip.
At the edge of her property he crested the hill above the east and looked down at it, the buildings they'd hidden in not so long ago spread out before him, now silent and peaceful. There was still a buggy and a buckboard in the wagon yard, but no horses in the corral or the field behind; the beautiful blacks Chris had been working to train long gone. He couldn't see the bunkhouse in detail, but imagined the wall to be still full of holes from the ambush.
When it had gone down, he hadn't even been a full mile away. He'd heard the riders from a distance, something that hadn't sounded right. Too many horses, too much noise for it to be anything but a great many men riding with a purpose. He'd doubled back, worried for Chris most of all, and when he got there saw the ambush on the bunkhouse and rode ahead, firing, as fearful as he'd ever felt, the hollow in the pit of his gut spreading out into his body, making him feel like jelly.
It had been the one time he'd doubted himself, doubted the rest of them and whether they could beat the odds. Seeing Chris shot in front of him and watching him hesitate with Ella, remembering his own hesitation, only shamed him more. He could have shot Ella as easily as Chris could have, but he'd been afraid in that instant that if he'd done it Chris would never have forgiven him. Then Chris had been hit and all Vin could even think about was Chris's safety, so had missed his only chance. He'd not known then just how far things had gone with Chris and Ella, but knew enough about her then to know what she was and what she was doing to Chris.
His horse began to pace restlessly on the overlook, pulling hard at the bit and stepping sideways. He ran his hand down its neck, trying to calm it, but that didn't work. The horse began to step back hard, trying to rear. And strangely enough, Vin thought he could feel something, as well, something that made him almost equally nervous. Maybe there was an animal nearby, a puma or a bear, something big enough to frighten it this way. He looked around, trotted the horse over to the other side, but could see nothing there. Still he felt as nervous as the animal, and he pulled the Winchester out of the scabbard and cocked it, just to be safe.
As he rode toward the porch he called out, "Hello, the house!" and waited a moment to see if anyone came at the call. By the time he got to the front the horse was so anxious he had to tie it hard to the railing, fighting with it all the way. He could still see nothing there, but he cautiously went inside anyway, feeling trepidation overcome him in small waves. The living room was nearly as they'd left it after everyone had dispersed to other points, with a few things left haphazardly lying around. Dust was slowly covering everything, leaving a blanket of time behind.
The hairs on the back of his neck and his arms were standing up. It was as if Ella's evil had seeped in here, between the floorboards and the cracks in the walls, the edges of the window panes, the way sand did in a desert storm. He wasn't so certain about a spirit world, but he wondered now if the people Ella had hurt could have come back here. Ghosts seemed more probable to him now than ever before.
Hilda's piano stood over by the stairs, the key lid still open. Vin went over and pushed the keys tunelessly, listening to the sound echo unpleasantly through the empty room. He closed the lid and went upstairs.
In all that strange, unreal time afterwards, before they'd left, he'd never gone all the way into Ella's room to pick everything up. The room she'd shared with Chris. It had embarrassed him, how overcome with irritation he'd been then, how jealous. Vin opened the door slowly, peering inside. There was the bed, still unmade, and nearby on a chair, Ella's watered silk dress that she'd worn that night. The waistcoat from Chris's suit -- the one *she'd* made him wear -- lay on the floor near that, the jacket tossed casually at the end of the bed.
He'd taken Chris's rig that day, his hat, shirt, and boots, and left everything else behind, too worried and angry and hurt to care about anything else.
Vin felt disgusted with himself, with their actions, and it welled up bitterly in his throat. He closed the door behind him and walked over to the room where Ella had kept all of Chris's things. He very slowly opened that door and stepped in, feeling the presence of something cold and bleak here. Items were still strewn around the floor; he'd put away nothing nor ordered it when he'd been here before. He searched through the contents of the table, the shelves, looking for anything that Chris might yet want. Only photographs remained of the family, ones where Sarah had been torn out roughly, or Adam's face marked out. He didn't take those; everything else was newspaper clippings of the tragedy, or items of Chris's. Nothing he wanted Chris to have as a memento of pain.
Feeling more and more spooked, Vin left, nearly as jumpy as his horse, which was sidestepping back and forth, pulling at the bit. Maybe, Vin began to think, someone really was here; not just ghosts. He couldn't imagine Ella being careless enough to come back here, and anyway, it was too fanciful to think that she was so awful a woman she could panic a horse. He was clearly letting his imagination run wild in the silliest way.
Nonetheless, he held the rifle in front of him and walked toward the bunkhouse. There had been a root cellar, he remembered Buck saying. Maybe someone was hiding down there. He went in, brushing the cobwebs away with his hand, then stood still for a long time, listening carefully. With better hearing than almost anyone he knew, he should be able to tell if someone was down there without lifting up the cellar door. It was too foolhardy to open it himself without someone to back him up. After listening for a long time, Vin could hear nothing. He closed the main door and made some noise, seeing if he could trick someone into thinking he'd left, but nothing stirred below the cellar door. Finally he gave up, his skin still prickling.
Quickly going to his horse, he mounted up and spurred the horse hard, wanting to get out of there as fast as he possibly could. He would have to make camp tonight before he could make it back to Chris's place, but he wanted to get as far away from here as possible. Whether it was a haunt or he was just being silly and superstitious, even if it was just an animal or someone hiding there, he wished to put as many miles between himself and Ella's spread as he could. Whether he'd sleep tonight was another subject altogether.
By the time he'd ridden miles away and dusk was falling across the horizon, Vin made camp, slightly calmer. He was still spooked and nervous, although he couldn't reconcile to himself why. If anyone else had been there, he'd have been embarrassed. Or maybe they too would feel the same way? He made himself coffee, cooked some beans and threw in a little salt pork, then settled in, wondering if he could sleep after that. It would be embarrassing to tell Chris about this, so he would best keep this to himself when he stopped by Chris's tomorrow. He'd hoped to bring some news, maybe that he'd found more things of Sarah's that Chris would want, but now all he had was this ridiculous story to tell. And that, he was keeping to himself. In order to sleep soundly, he put the yellowboy next to his hand, and the cut-down rifle even closer.
In the morning he hit the trail before dawn had broken completely, hoping to reach Chris's before he might leave -- although Vin had no reason to believe that Chris was going anywhere, especially in light of his behavior recently. Vin kept thinking back to what Josiah and Ezra had said, trying to make some sense of it, but he truly didn't understand their way of thinking. To him, people were just people, and you dealt with them however they needed to be dealt with. He didn't look at them and decide that they must be hurting, and he was the one to fix them. And Vin didn't think Chris looked at folks that way, either.
But Josiah and Ezra were the kind of men who spent entirely too much time thinking about things, looking at them from every angle. They were smarter than the rest of the boys, smart about how people were, so he couldn't completely ignore what they were saying. Vin hated the idea of being examined like that, of having other people tell him about himself, but he wasn't dead certain they were wrong about either him or Chris. And something about being known by others frightened him as much as the skin-crawling sensation of evil he'd felt yesterday at Ella's.
Already the corral was a shambles. The chair on the porch was smashed and the new lumber that he'd been cutting was strewn everywhere. Chris didn't feel any improvement for having spent the better part of yesterday hurling everything around, so today he was taking an axe to it, just to see if that helped.
It wasn't helping. He swung wildly, smashing the corral railings and hurling pieces of wood everywhere, then began whacking at the porch. The more he swung and the more damage he did to all the hard work and money he'd put into this place, the less satisfaction he got, but he didn't stop. He began to bellow, screaming with a rage that came from some dark place beneath his soul, yelling and swinging the axe, kicking at everything. And finally he began to tire, feeling the tears of rage swelling up and over the edge of what tiny shred of control he had left. He dropped to his knees, throwing the detritus away from him, letting the tears come out as hard and fast as the shouts.
He was sick of it all. Sick of them, sick of the misery, sick of being in this place and being reminded day after day of what he'd lost. Reminded of how foolish he'd been, how humiliatingly blind. That he'd been willing to throw Vin's friendship in his face, to turn his back on all of them, to embarrass Mary by flouting her affection for him. And most of all, to be human, to be failingly, abysmally human, to suffer the same pride and stupidity that everyone else did.
He couldn't afford to be that human. He had to lead these men, had to stay on the course of his mission to find his family's murderers and bring them to justice. He'd had that in his hand, and his pride, his vanity and willful blindness, had made him let go of it, grains of sand slipping between his open fingers.
If he could let go of the memory of Vin's face, the way he'd seemed to shut himself off when Chris had hollered at him that night, he might at least take a few steps forward. But he couldn't let go of it, couldn't stop thinking of how betrayed Vin had clearly been, how disappointed in Chris he was. And then the look of pure disgust when he'd reminded Chris that he should have shot Ella when he had the chance. All the words that lived underneath what Vin wasn't saying, harsh words and pained words that hid, waiting to pounce. Vin had only ever tried to protect him, to help him, and Chris's response to such a friendship was cruelty and rejection.
Standing up, Chris threw the axe as far as he could, screaming out loud. All of this was pointless, it was nothing to him now. He'd betrayed Sarah's and Adam's memory, shared the bed of the very person who'd been responsible for their horrible deaths. He'd kicked Vin and Buck down like they were dogs when they tried to help him, and he'd let Ella get away. He couldn't even begin to atone for his sins because they were too great, they were the deadliest of sins.
Even if he tried to scream and cry it all out, it would only come back to him. Chris stood in the middle of his empty land, amid the rubble of his rage, and sobbed.
Vin had been riding through the trees just outside of Chris's land when he heard loud, cracking sounds -- wood being splintered, an axe chunking into something heavy. Then he heard Chris screaming, knew that distinctive bellow almost as well as he knew his own voice by now, and he spurred his horse hard, running straight through into the clearing while drawing his gun. There he saw Chris standing, hands at his sides, head down, body shaking and jerking. It took Vin a moment to realize that everything around him was smashed and broken, but there was no one else nearby to have caused such damage. He dismounted, holstering the gun, and stood there dumbly, not knowing what to say to Chris.
Clearly Chris knew he was there, but he made no effort to even look at him. Just stood there as Vin realized he was battling back wracking sobs. He walked toward him, hand outstretched. "Chris," he said quietly. "Chris, it's just me."
Hands clenched into fists, unclenched, and then Chris looked up at him, a hank of blond hair fallen in front of his eyes. He said nothing, but he didn't have to, really, Vin suddenly understood. Josiah was right, Chris was eating away at himself over his failures, humiliated, enraged, not at them, but at himself.
Vin walked toward him, closer, and Chris recoiled. He didn't mean to, but he was ashamed again, frightened of showing such naked emotion, especially in front of Vin. No one else thought so much of Chris, he knew that. Not even Buck, who'd seen him through the worst of times. That he couldn't live up to Vin's expectations of him, his own hopes for their friendship... Chris felt like the biggest failure of all. And still Vin stood there, concerned, not moving away from him.
Then Chris stalked over to the south wall and stood against it, gulping in air, his back pressed tightly to the wood. What kind of a stupid thing had he done now? If Vin doubted his sanity before, he'd most certainly want to keep his distance after this. How could he have let himself get so wild?
Just as he slid down the wall, Vin came up and stood beside him, sliding down next to him, taking his hat off and then putting his hands on his knees. "Been having a tantrum?"
Chris laughed bitterly behind his tears, a hiccuping sound coming out instead. "Yeah. A bit of one."
"You managed to undo all your work in one big fit, haven't you?" Vin sounded mildly amused instead of disgusted, and Chris couldn't figure out why he was being so soft.
He wiped at his face, the grime and tears mingling in streaks across his face. "Aw, Vin. I'm a fool."
"Nope. I'd do the same myself."
"Naw, you wouldn't. You got a better head on your shoulders. I'm the one always going off half-cocked." He took some deep, gulping breaths. Vin held out a canteen that he'd somehow managed to produce out of nowhere, gave it to Chris, and he swallowed the water down harshly.
"Chris. All this hiding, all this being angry at everything and everyone. Are you...is this because you think we all look down at you? Because you think we think you're a fool?"
Chris turned to look at him then, really look at him, and saw something he'd never thought to see. Even after all this, Vin still trusted him somehow.
"I don't know, Vin," he answered slowly. "I don't know anymore. It's just... I keep thinking of it. What I said to you. Who I let down. That I shared a bed with her, that I thought I cared for her." His voice cracked again, he could feel the tears of shame creeping back up inside him.
Vin put a gentle hand on his shoulder, squeezing it. "You don't got to explain." He looked at Chris's haunted eyes and thought of what he'd felt yesterday at Ella's place.
Taking his hand away, he then pulled out of his pocket the small doeskin bag and held it toward Chris. "I got something I wanted you to have. I been thinking about this, wondering if I should give it to you when you was feeling this way. Maybe I'm making a mistake, maybe it's only going to hurt you some more. But I thought you should at least see it. Then you can tell me if I was wrong."
Chris took the bag from his hand and opened it. He pulled out the locket and held it up to the sun, twisting it this way and that. Then he pulled out the picture. Even though Ella had damaged Sarah's face in it, Chris traced his fingertips over the image as if absorbing it through his fragile skin.
"When Nathan was patching you up, I went up there. I saw that room. These things was on the floor with some other stuff. Looked like you'd had a fight or something. Wasn't hard to figure out what happened. And before we left, I took these for you."
Chris held the items in his hand, staring emptily at them. Once again he was stunned by Vin. He'd never understood who this man really was, the true depths of what he was capable of doing and feeling. Shame washed over him again in a violent wave as he thought about what he'd said to Vin at Ella's, how quickly he had dismissed him. That Vin had supported him every step of the way since then -- had saved his life, had tried to find Ella, had tried to help him heal -- only served to make him feel unworthy.
Looking sideways at Vin, he said, "I can't believe I said those things to you, and you're doing all this for me. I'm ashamed at how I treated you and Buck."
"You don't got to apologize. You had feelings for her. None of us knew she was that bad, not even me. I didn't trust her at the beginning, but I'd never have expected that someone could do the things she done."
Making a fist around the locket, Chris put his hand against his chest and lowered his head. He could only whisper, his strength had left him completely. "I should have seen it. Should have understood what all those strange things meant. But I didn't want to. I forgot everything Sarah taught me, everything I learned about love. I didn't even honor her memory and just went to Ella without even thinking it through."
There was no response from Vin in return, and eventually Chris looked up to see Vin studying him carefully.
"Did I --" Vin said after a time, "did I make it worse when I told you you shoulda shot her?"
Chris shook his head in bewilderment. "What?"
"You was reading her letter." Chris had never told Vin what was in the letter, or anyone else for that matter; it only made him more ashamed and bitter and helplessly angry. "I told you you should have shot her when you had the chance and you said 'next time.' I figured on how that was only making it harder for you to get better -- that you been hating us all for all this time, not letting yourself get better."
He let a small, harsh laugh escape. "You been talking to Josiah again, haven't you?"
Vin shrugged and looked away. "Didn't know what to do. You gonna be angry at me about that, too?" But there was a light in his eyes when he looked back at Chris.
"Wasn't really steamed. Just ashamed and foolish. And... everyone expects something from me. Everyone wants a piece of me. Bucks wants me to forget and move on. Josiah wants me to forgive God. Mary wants something I can't give. Ella wanted me to be some picture of who she thought I was, and she was willing to kill for it. Sometimes I think there isn't a body around who don't want something from me. Except you. You're the only one who's never seemed to want anything from me, till now. I don't know what to do about it. I liked it better when you didn't want anything."
Vin looked hard at him, unflinchingly, despite what Chris said. "The only thing I ever wanted from you was your friendship. I had that up till Ella came along, and for a while it's been like you took it away. All's I want is to have it back," he said flatly.
All Chris could muster was a rueful smile. "You never lost it. I just couldn't find my way along. Ain't your fault."
Nodding, Vin looked away. "You really think everyone wants a piece of you?"
"I've seen everyone's faces. That's all I ever see, every damn day. The way the boys look at me, the way I let you down. I can't get away from all those faces and their eyes expecting something from me."
"You let *me* down? That what you think?"
"Didn't I? You tried to tell me."
"Weren't much more to tell than that she was a liar. The rest of it, I was as blind as you."
Chris smoothed his hands over the knees of his pants, the dust rising up in a cloud around his hands. "I was, wasn't I? Blind. Acting no better than Buck when he sees a pretty face."
"You were in love with her once. That's a mighty big difference in my book."
He looked away, past the line of brush at the edge of his property, and Vin watched him carefully. "Mary looks at me that way, too. I know what she's thinking of me."
Vin couldn't argue with that, much as he wished to. Mary would feel differently about him. Everything that had happened, she'd have heard about, and so many of the expectations she had about Chris would have changed.
There were Rules here, rules they all followed, that ruled their lives. Mary had broken a number of them -- spending time in the saloon, time alone with men -- but she was in a position in the town that she could sometimes break them. Not this time, this rule would not allow her to break it. Even she knew this rule was a brittle eggshell held in her hand, one she couldn't let go of or mishandle, or it would spill itself all over the ground. She had to Stay Back, she had to Let Chris Be, and she could not talk about her feelings for him. Not with him, not with anybody else.
And Chris knew his side of the Rules; he was not allowed to stay in that same place with her he'd been in before, pretending they were friends, wondering if they'd be anything else. Now he had to move along, because he had rejected her as his potential object of affection, had thrown himself into the web of a spider, right in front of Mary, and they were both caught on the spider's silk, spun in it and sucked dry of life. He had caught Mary's hopes and feelings in the web, had dragged them along with him on their silky wings. No words of apology could change the rules. Now they had to Move Along. Move Forward. Alone.
Would Chris be heartbroken over this? How far had his affections for Mary gone? Chris kept his own counsel about that and Vin didn't ask questions, but now he wondered. Mary had asked Vin a few times when they had met to learn his letters, in her subtle, lady-like way. But Vin knew what she'd been asking under the heart of it. She was aware that she'd lost Chris, and Vin wondered if she'd known at the beginning. He'd seen her recoil from Ella; maybe there was something ladies recognized in each other, something none of the men had seen. But it was too late, anyways, Chris had already been gone by then and nothing Mary could have said would have stopped it.
Vin wondered if he would have been as sad if Chris had said he was staying with Mary, the way he'd felt when Chris had said he was staying on with Ella. Was it just that he hadn't liked Ella, or that he simply didn't want Chris to go?
Those weren't even things he should be thinking about, though. Right now, he needed to be Chris's friend, and Chris needed to be his.
"You never let me down, if that's what you think," Vin said gently, and put his hand again on Chris's shoulder. "Here all this time, I been thinking you're angry because I didn't find Ella, because we knew things about her. That all I did was to let you down, only you been worrying at the same thing."
It surprised him that Chris made no motion to shrug off his hand, so he squeezed once and then pulled away.
Chris said, "What do you think happened to her?"
"I found her as far as the railroad. I think she followed the tracks to the nearest station and got herself a train, and paid people to keep quiet. With her money, that'd be no trouble at all. And that's one thing even I can't track."
"I think she thought it was all taken care of. That she had no idea I wouldn't stay with her even if I found out." He said bitterly, his teeth clenched tightly so the words came out in guttural sounds, "She seemed so damn surprised."
"She's not right in the head, Chris. She probably thought you'd be flattered."
Chris studied Vin for a while. "You're right. That's exactly the way she acted." He shook his head. "I shoulda listened to you and Buck. Now poor Hilda's dead, Ella's still out there, and I've completely dishonored my family. I'm a sorry excuse for a man."
Vin leaned over and put his face nearly in front of Chris's, very close, forcing Chris to lift his head and look him in the eye. "You know better than that."
"I have these dreams, Vin," Chris said of a sudden, as if he was in a rush to unburden himself of something. "I dream of Sarah and Adam, and even though I can't quite see their faces anymore in the day, at night in sleep, I remember. It's never the same dream, they're always different. Sometimes it's just a memory of something that happened, sometimes it's like today, and they're back. We all know they're dead, but they're both here anyways, like it's normal. I keep trying to figure out what they all mean, but I can't understand it."
"Feels like you're being haunted?"
"No, not bad like that. Just dreams of our life, I suppose. Like I have a life with them still."
Vin merely nodded, letting Chris know he understood, which seemed to be all Chris needed.
Then he rose and dusted off the seat of his trousers. "I'll tell you what. I'm gonna ride into town and get some cut lumber. You find some green wood for that corral. I'll let the boys know I'll be out here for a few days, helping you. If they need us, they'll know where to come."
Chris looked up at him and smiled, then rose to stand in front of him. "You're a good friend, Vin. Better than I deserve."
Vin gave a little shake of his head in response, but he smiled nonetheless.
"I suppose you're going to expect me to give you some money," Chris said playfully.
"I could take that horse of yours and go sell it, if you want." Seeing that smile again after all this time was thrilling.
"Touch that horse and I'll skin you alive." Chris reached out and knocked Vin on the shoulder, almost laughing.
Vin poked him back. "You're forgettin' I know where you keep your money." He made as if he was going to the house where Chris's coat was hanging. "Inside pocket of that big, black coat. And you got a special stash of bills inside your hat."
Chris lunged after him and grabbed him by the arm, such a happy look on his face Vin thought he looked almost boyish. They tussled for a few moments, laughing, but when Vin's hand came up on Chris's collarbone, he let it linger for a moment. They stood there looking at each other, taking panting breaths, and then Vin became dimly aware of his hand on Chris's chest, and he let it slide slowly down. Both of them stopped breathing for just a moment, looking at each other, waiting for something, until Vin's hand fell away completely. Chris cleared his throat and looked away, and Vin shifted on his feet.
He smacked his hat against his hand a few times, then put it on and walked over to his horse. Coming over to him, Chris put his hand out and Vin clasped Chris's forearm above the wrist, and Chris did the same in return. They stood like that for a moment, looking at each other, before Vin moved away. He turned to look at Chris as he mounted, smiled again, then touched his fingers to his hat in acknowledgement. Chris held the locket and photograph up, secure in his hand, and nodded at Vin, a look of gratitude on his face that warmed Vin's heart.
Buck Wilmington looked up from his hand through the distance of the window to see Vin dismounting his horse. He fanned the cards on the table. "I've seen better hands on a duck," he said, while JD Dunne looked at him quizzically.
"Ducks don't have hands," JD said seriously.
"Well now, son, that would be my point, I believe. Neither do I!" He shoved the cards away.
"I swear, Buck, the things you say are getting stranger and stranger every day."
"His metaphors and similes are growing strained, is what you're trying to say," Ezra said, moving the cards in his hand around.
Ignoring them, Buck said, "Here comes our wayward traveler." He got up to greet Vin, and Ezra put his cards on the table, making noises of objection.
"You cannot simply leave in the middle of a hand," he said grumpily, although by now JD was following suit and walking out behind Buck. Ezra sighed theatrically and joined them. At least he could find out what Vin had decided about the Petrie house and stop anyone from doing anything foolish.
Vin walked past the three of them, though, and straight to the bar, where he ordered a whisky. He still hadn't shaken the concern he'd felt the day before out at Ella's place.
Buck slapped him on the back and Vin nodded at the three of them. "Boys."
"So where you been, pard? Josiah said you took off for parts unknown."
"I went and had a look-see at Ella's place." He knocked back the shot and took another one. "Ezra and I got a disagreement over what we should do with it."
JD looked skeptically at both of them. "Well, what could we do with it? I mean, it's not ours to decide, is it?"
When JD said that, Vin cast a look at Ezra, who responded with mock surprise.
"I merely pointed out to Mr. Tanner that we have the right to take control of it, and that we should at least make amends for some of the terrible events there by selling it and providing the money to the family members Miss Gaines so cruelly cast adrift."
Shaking his head, Vin said, "Ezra, you think too much. And it wears me down."
"I don't mean to come in in the middle of this, but I don't know as we have the right to make decisions like that," Buck said.
"That's what I'm trying to tell him," Vin said wearily. "That it's Chris's decision."
Ezra threw up his hands. "If you all choose to remain ignorant of the possibilities, then I can do nothing more. I despair at your inability to see anything but what is right in front of your faces." He turned away, muttering what sounded to Vin like "hopeless cretins," but Vin didn't pay him anymore mind.
Just then Nathan walked up. Ezra pointed an accusing finger at Nathan. "And you! I know just what you're thinking, and it is incorrect!"
Nathan held out his hands in a confused gesture, as all the boys laughed. He didn't ask what was going on, which was typical of him. He would just wait it out to get the gist of the conversation, something Vin admired in him.
"I don't know as I want to have that place on my hands, even for a little while. A lot of bad things happened there," Buck said quietly and sadly. "I'd almost say it was evil, but no place that Hilda was a part of could be evil."
Nathan looked at Buck with concern, and the rest nodded in agreement. No one really knew what to say to such a sentiment, it seemed that too many people lost something along the way there. Chris and Buck most obviously, but Vin wondered if they knew how close he'd come to losing something as well, something not obvious to anyone but him and Chris.
"Superstition won't help feed those family members displaced by Miss Gaines's actions." Ezra was beginning to wonder if anyone would ever think his motives for anything were decent and morally above reproach. At least Chris he expected to mistrust him with matters of money, but that the rest of them still didn't understand he could have honest intentions irked him no end.
Nathan said quietly, "We can talk about that when Chris gets back to his old self. Wouldn't be honorable to do anything else, and that place'll keep. Folks think there's a ha'nt, they won't be wanting nothing to do with it for the time being. What's a couple days waiting for Chris?"
"And where is our old friend these days?" Buck asked. "Last I saw of him he was stomping off in another huff."
"He's back at his place. He -- well, he was... he did some damage to it. Got real crazy and just wrecked it."
Buck laughed loudly, slapping his hand against his thigh. "Old Chris, he always was a bit hard on the furnishings."
JD looked sideways at Buck, his eyebrows raised and his mouth open.
"Ah, it don't mean anything," Buck said, looking at JD. "That's the way he is. Means he's getting better, really. Once he throws himself a real tantrum, he's on his way to mending."
"I told him I'd come on into town and see if y'all could do without us for a few days. I'd get some lumber and go back and help him fix things up a bit," Vin said. "Think you can manage?"
"Ah, well, I don't know. What do you think, JD?"
"Well, gee, Mr. Tanner, do you think we can?" JD asked, and Vin knocked him on the shoulder with his fist, smiling.
"You'll know where we are if anything comes along," Vin said as he wandered out the door.
They watched him walk away, and JD trailed Ezra back to the table. Nathan paused for a moment, looking at Buck, and Buck returned his look with confusion.
"You be getting all sad again, ain't you?" Nathan asked. "Every time we mention Miss Hilda, you get that look. Guess you really did have feelings for her."
Buck nodded, gazing back out the door of the saloon. "I know you probably thought those words I said to her weren't but a bunch of hooey to make her feel better because she was dying. But they were the truth."
Nathan put his large hand on Buck's shoulder and patted it a few times. "You a sweet-talker, Buck, but you ain't no liar. I knew you meant every word. And you know it helped her, to know she was loved at the end."
Buck shook his head. "I waited too long. Why do we always have to wait till it's too late to do the right thing?" he asked, not really to Nathan but to no one in particular. Just to hear himself say it and know that it was true.
When Vin returned to Chris's place, he could hear the sounds of hammering even before he got into the clearing. He hollered a greeting before coming into the clear, and Chris stood up, shielding his eyes with his hand, watching Vin as he rode in with the buckboard of lumber behind him.
It was as if he saw a different person here, as if the two men he'd seen standing in this same spot, just today, were separate people. One angry and wretched, the other strong and serene. He liked all these qualities in Chris, but they were better when balanced among each other, when no one characteristic overruled the other.
He dismounted and the two silently began unloading the lumber. It was getting late in the day, even on these drawn-out summer evenings, but he didn't feel tired in spite of the heat and what they'd been through already in the day.
Once they'd finished stacking everything, Chris dusted off his hands and asked Vin if he was hungry, noting that it was long past supper.
He hadn't really thought about it, but he'd had nothing to eat all day so he agreed eagerly. Chris was a pretty decent cook, he'd come to learn, maybe because of Sarah's influence. Vin washed up at the bucket of water Chris had drawn.
They took their food outside when it was ready, sitting on the ground as they watched the sun set over the tree tops. Vin sipped at his coffee, enjoying the quiet of this place, listening to the crickets chirping and the horses eating. He could see why Chris liked it here and how much he needed a place like this away from town, away from the boys. After he'd been married and had a true family life, he would need a place with roots, with soil he could feel underneath his feet and know that it was his, that there was room for him to grow.
After a time, Vin asked Chris gently, "What was it like? Being married, I mean."
Chris looked out toward the west, following the line of pink and gold on the horizon. No one had ever asked him a question like this before. "It was... the only words I know make it sound so boring. Content. Comfortable. Happy. They sound boring, don't they? But they're not." He thought for a while, trying to come up with something else, but he couldn't. "I never knew what I wanted when I was younger. I was always raising hell, looking for something without knowing what it was. And then when I married Sarah, I finally figured out that I really just wanted someone to know me. And to know someone else, to know what they were like inside."
Vin watched him carefully as he said this. Chris could see that out of the corner of his eye; a look of quiet mystery on Vin's face. Vin had lived a very isolated life, and those questions came from the heart of someone who'd never known such feelings.
"I think Adam was like that, too. Even though he was so little, he knew me, trusted me. When you see your child, who they're becoming as they grow older... I don't know a word for it, but there's something that happens to you, a warmth in your heart. It was wonderful, being married." He looked at Vin and smiled sadly. "You're the only person who's ever asked me about the good parts. Everyone wants to talk about the sadness and the loss. No one ever asks me what it was like to feel that good."
Vin ran his fingers through his long hair, looking away. Chris wondered if he'd pushed Vin over a line, had made him feel embarrassed for asking or for seeing Chris so soppy. But then he said, "I'm glad you had that. Sorry as hell you lost it, but I'm glad you had that, at least once."
It would be too easy to get choked up listening to Vin say such things, so he got up and took the tin plate from him. "Getting on time for bed," he said, trying to disguise the hitch in his voice.
"Think I'll sleep out here in front of the porch," Vin said, getting up and grabbing his blanket and a bedroll out of the buckboard. He set to work building a small fire to keep the varmints off while Chris went inside and put things away. As he lit the Lucifer match and watched the flames flicker and play upwards over the kindling, he thought of what Chris was saying, and how much he'd lost. It was a wonder Chris got on with his life in any respect. To be lonely and then to have such love in your life, only to lose it, was too painful for any human to bear. Even if it hadn't been in a fire, if it had just been illness or a common accident, it would still be unbearable. And then to confront the person responsible for such loss, to think you loved her...
He heard Chris behind him on the porch as he pulled the blanket up over his shoulders, but Chris didn't say anything. Chris stood there for a while, silently, until Vin heard the door creak, but there was no distinct sound of it closing. Maybe it would make Chris feel more at peace to have the door open, knowing Vin was out here. And this, he began to understand, was the sign that he had Chris's friendship back. No doors between them now, just back where they'd been before.
In the morning Vin woke just as dawn began to lightly paint the sky. He walked to the little creek Chris drew water from to fill the bucket and splash off a little, knowing the day's work would wring a sweat out of both of them. Even though Chris was what Vin considered a dandy, with his nice clothes and that fancy rig, spurs, and tack, he wasn't generally fussy about things in other people. Nevertheless, Vin didn't enjoy feeling like a dirt-rolling hog next to him; something about Chris's characteristics brought out different behavior.
By the time he got back to the house Chris was cooking up some biscuits, which smelled heavenly, and some of his thick, black coffee. In just this short time together, Vin was already feeling as if he belonged here. Something intangible in the way Chris didn't really say anything but acknowledged his presence, silently though warmly, made him feel more like he'd found exactly his right place than anything he'd ever experienced before. It was similar to only one time in his life -- the same sense of completion, of knowing his destiny, that he'd felt when he'd first decided to go to the Seminole village with Chris, way back when. The thought gave Vin a little shiver. Thinking about fate and destiny always made him feel a little strange.
Chris pointed to the side of the building, the way two of the boards hung raggedly down like splinters, cracked nearly down the middle. "Thinking we should start there."
Vin nodded, hefting a hammer in the air and catching it, and they set to work. By midday they had the outside wall damage repaired, and moved on to the porch after a brief break for grub. Vin whistled at the holes Chris had managed to punch in the flooring of the porch. "What'd you use on this? Your shotgun?"
"Yeah, but not that end. I was swinging it like an axe." He grinned.
Vin shook his head in wonderment. "You're something when you get going, I'll give you that."
"Guess it don't do to get me on my bad side, does it?"
"Just so long as you don't point nothin' in my direction, you're okay."
Chris kept ripping up the ruined boards while they spoke, then they lapsed into silence, which was not what he wished for now. Chris wanted Vin to talk, on and on. He looked over at Vin. "Tell me about your early days."
This surprised Vin, and he looked curiously at Chris. "What do you mean?"
"Just... what did you do when you were younger? How'd you get to buffalo hunting? Or chasing after bounties?"
Vin stopped for a moment, looking at Chris with bafflement, before answering. For a moment Chris wanted to laugh, Vin seemed so confused and surprised, but he stifled his amusement because he knew that would destroy any desire to talk Vin would have. Chris liked the sound of his voice, its rasping, dry quality, and it was rare to hear him use it for longer than a sentence or two. He knew there was a real storyteller in Vin hiding behind that quiet, thoughtful front, even beyond the poems he'd written for Mary's newspaper and the hunting stories he frequently told Billy Travis. Someone interesting lived there inside him, someone who deserved to be listened to, and Chris enjoyed doing the listening.
Once Vin got going, they rambled away the early part of the afternoon swapping tales, until they heard some commotion coming from the western part of the property. Both went quickly for their guns, when they heard the sound of Buck's voice, arguing with someone else -- most likely JD -- and then a booming wail, "Buck coming in!"
Just as expected, Buck and JD burst through the treeline, already in the middle of another good-natured argument. Chris looked at Vin and they shrugged in unison, trying not to laugh. It had been a while since Chris had felt like laughing. In less than a full day, Vin had changed him back. He no longer felt as though he would buckle under the weight of his shame and failures; instead, he was a man who could laugh at the liveliness of his friends, who could happily appreciate the stories of someone he cared for and wanted to know better. Everything is different now, he realized, looking from Vin to Buck and JD as they dismounted their horses and tied them to a broken corral rail.
Buck slapped his shoulder and said loudly, "Vin told us you been making this place a real showcase!"
Chris smiled at him benignly. "What brings you two out this way, Buck?" He'd always found that ignoring Buck's smart comments was the best way to get him on a different tack.
JD was wandering off to inspect the damage around the corral, and Vin just stayed put behind Chris, waiting to hear.
"Well, we had a spot of trouble right after Vin came back. Had ourselves a visitor to town who got a little roostered up and tried to take advantage of Miss Sally. He hurt her bad, and Josiah and I didn't take much of a likin' to that."
Behind him, Vin chuckled softly. "How bad did you hurt him?"
"Aw, no more'n he hurt her. Nathan says she's got a couple busted ribs, broken collarbone, and her face looks like a pulp. All because she didn't want to go to his room with him. She ain't no working girl, she told him that. Anyways, he tried to take a shot at JD there, and we hauled his behind right into the jail."
JD had found his way back to them and he nodded at Buck's story. "He was real wild. Most commotion we seen since the governor came to town."
"You thinking you need help?" Chris asked, trying to figure out what Buck was here for.
"Nah, that ain't what I'm here about," Buck said. He sat down on the porch and dusted off his hat. "I just wanted to check in and see when you two'd be back in town. I got this feeling..."
JD jumped in as Buck trailed off. "There's something familiar about him. None of us can place it, even Mr. Standish thinks we should know who he is, but we can't figure it out. And he ain't giving us a real name, that's for sure."
Vin asked, "You wire the judge?"
"Yup, he'll be back, but not for a couple more days." Buck sighed. "It just sticks in my mind, and I can't get it out. Something's familiar about this good-for-nothing. And I ain't exactly predisposed to doing anything kindly to him to find out."
"No, you ain't going to waste your silver tongue on him, I'm sure of that. We can hold him for as long as it takes," Chris said testily. "He did that much damage to a saloon girl, he ain't going anywhere, as far as I'm concerned. Just wait for the judge -- he always says he never forgets a face."
"Well, that's true, but if you boys saw your way to coming in tomorrow, maybe..."
Vin nodded. "We'll be done by then. Don't worry."
"Well, I ain't exactly *worried*, Vin, I'm just looking for a little help." But he was laughing when he said it.
They walked back to the horses. Buck motioned his head to the left a little, and JD caught the look, so he walked around past the small house and loudly asked Chris to show him how far his property ran. Chris gave them a befuddled frown, but went with JD to walk him around.
Buck turned to Vin and asked, "He getting any better?" He'd gone from loud and brash to gently concerned, something that tended to make Vin's head spin at times.
Scratching his head, Vin paused for a moment before answering. "I think maybe so. He's actually laughing today."
"Been a long time since I seen him so down on himself. Not since Sarah and Adam died, and he spent the next couple of years inside a bottle. I was worried this thing with Ella... well, I wondered if he could get back on his own feet."
"Takes him a while, I reckon. But he's too strong for that."
At the edge of his line of sight, Buck watched Chris and JD walking around, Chris pointing at things, proud of his place. "Yeah, but strength only goes so far. Some things you can't get over. Even though I know it ain't my business, I think you helped."
Surprised, Vin pulled his head back a little and looked at Buck quizzically. "Aw, I don't think so."
"Nope, you got that wrong. You been a good friend to him, in just the way he needs it. You two are a lot alike."
"No, we ain't. He just needs people to give him some room to breathe. He said that everyone wants a piece of him. I think that was all he wanted, just some room."
Stopping and turning, Buck looked hard at Vin, a funny smile on his face. "You can say what you want, but I've known Chris a mighty long time. And I know when something's changed him."
Vin was mute with surprise, not knowing what he could say to that. Buck turned away from him and undid the reins, then grabbed at JD's horse.
"JD! We are getting ourselves on the trail right now!" he bellowed toward the other two.
Vin and Chris watched them go, and Chris turned to him and asked, "You think we can finish all this by tonight?"
"Ah, no problem. We're almost done now anyways. You finish the porch and I'll do these railings."
He would have enjoyed staying next to Vin, but Chris knew they had work to do before they could get back to town and they'd best get to it. From the far end of his property he'd watched Buck and Vin talking, wondering what they could be saying to each other, and if they were talking about him or just passing the time. He wasn't prone to thinking that everything related to him, but it was the way Buck and Vin would look in his direction, or the way they smiled, that made him wonder. And it wasn't unlike Buck to talk about him to others, no sir, he'd shown that time and time again. His happy-go-lucky nature made him oblivious to the fact that he was a blabberer and frequently violated people's privacy; yet that same nature made it hard to stay mad at him.
Of all the people who could know things about him, though, Vin was certainly the last person he'd get worked up over. Chris liked thinking maybe Vin was curious enough about him that he'd ask Buck questions, and that was the strangest thing of all. To want one person to know about him... he hadn't felt that way for a long time.
They worked for the rest of the day finishing everything up, until the sun had halfway set, and Chris sat down to admire his handiwork. He rolled his shoulders around, then rolled his head back and forth a few times trying to work out the painful kinks in his neck and back. Quietly, nearly without his being aware of it, Vin had come up behind him. Chris could feel his warmth, and then Vin was rubbing his shoulders and neck, pushing out the knots and kneading his sore muscles. Chris sagged forward, letting himself fall into the feeling, the heat spreading throughout his upper body. He felt sleepy, solid and yet dreamlike, and after a time he shrugged his left shoulder up and then leaned his face sideways to rest his cheek upon Vin's hand.
Vin went motionless, no breathing sounds, no more movement of hands. Chris was vaguely aware of it, had a sense of what he was doing. But it felt right to do this, to press his own skin against Vin's sun-warmed, roughened hands.
In an instant he remembered fully where they were, what was happening, and quickly jerked his head away, leaping up and dusting off his trousers. He didn't dare look at Vin, couldn't imagine what Vin was thinking of him right now.
Vin leaned down and picked up a canteen, took a swig and offered it to Chris, who took it without looking directly at him.
The moment for understanding hovered awkwardly between them; then with their inaction it passed. Its weight was too great and it dropped to the ground, broken, and there would be no chance for piecing it together again.
"Time for some grub?" Chris asked finally, and looked at Vin at last. In spite of his embarrassment, Vin wasn't looking at him funny; he was, in fact, looking as if nothing had happened.
"Sounds good to me," Vin said, trying to sound casual, to soothe Chris and let him know that everything was all right. The last thing he wanted was to have Chris disappear back inside that bad place he'd been in for so long.
When Chris went back to gather something for dinner, Vin took the bucket for more water off with him to the creek, puzzling over what had just happened. Chris was clearly ashamed of himself, but Vin wasn't so certain he was all that bothered by it. If Chris had wanted that connection, had wanted just to feel warmly toward another human being, who was he to argue with that? Vin knew that feeling well enough. And the truth was, it felt nice to touch Chris, to have him that close both physically and emotionally. It was a connection like he'd always searched for himself.
It wasn't unlike Chris to wear his heart on his sleeve, either. Vin had always been surprised when Chris would be nakedly emotional in front of people, but he just chalked it up to Chris's strong sense of who he was. The thing Vin most admired about Chris was that he cared little what other people thought of him. Sometimes that meant letting loose his bad temper, and sometimes it meant such tender feelings as he'd just shown to Vin. It was a bit exciting to Vin, never really knowing which way Chris would go, how much he'd show or how he'd react. Kept it interesting.
But this... this was different. Like the way they'd been yesterday, and how Chris had stood there behind him last night, just watching him before going back inside. As if there were things he was looking for. Vin had always known there was this part of Chris that searched for connections to people even while pushing them away, not wanting to admit to himself that he was doing either.
What Buck said to him earlier came back, that maybe there were things Chris wanted from Vin which were different from what he needed in others. It made Vin a little nervous wondering if he could be what Chris wanted in a friend, wondering if he could make the right kind of connection to Chris. He was so easy to hurt now. When you held someone's future in your hand, the responsibility was almost too heavy to carry.
He walked slowly back through the brush, where he could see the smoke rising from the stovepipe above the house. But instead of going forward, he stopped just outside, watching the place. When they'd been at Ella's and Chris had told them all he was staying with her after it was over, Vin had tried to be accepting of it. In his heart he'd known that Chris would not always be around, that at some point they'd all go their separate ways, but he hadn't expected it at that time, for that reason.
Even at the beginning he was mistrustful of Ella, although he hadn't totally understood why at the time, not until he found out the truth of who she was and what she was doing to Chris. And maybe that was what had troubled him so -- not that she was someone who couldn't be trusted, but that she was after Chris. Vin had never met anyone like her, so bold and forward, so obvious and calculated. While Vin kept his distance from most people, he wasn't cold, and it always had the capacity to surprise him when he met someone who was. He had seen through her right away. Yet he'd kept his mouth shut because it was Chris's life, and not his business. He'd said his piece, Chris had denied it, and that was all there had been to that.
By and by he walked back to the house and knocked on the door, pushing it open to see Chris standing there, looking at him helplessly.
"I'm sorry, Vin," he said with a kind of anger. Vin was amused that Chris's idea of an apology was as furious as a fight. "Didn't mean to embarrass you."
Something else was obscured behind Chris's words. Vin knew him well enough to understand that Chris wanted to say, but hadn't, that he didn't know what had come over him.
"Aw, it was nothing to be embarrassed about." He wasn't sure who he meant was embarassed -- Chris or himself. They each looked away, and then Chris gave Vin a plate of beans and a cup of coffee. Vin went outside and sat on the edge of the porch, staring at the sky and idly pushing the beans around on the plate.
When Chris eventually came out and sat beside him, they both tried to pretend that not only had they not just had that conversation, but that all the emotions building up over the past few days hadn't surfaced, either. They ate silently and nervously, and as soon as they were done, Chris was up and back in the house scrubbing up.
By now it was dark, so Vin again made himself a small fire and lay down on the ground. He stepped silently out onto the porch and looked at Vin, curled up with his back to Chris, the orange-red flickering light of the fire dancing around him.
If Vin had thought him foolish and weak before, by now he must certainly have no high opinion of Chris left. Yet Chris knew Vin had touched him first, had not flinched when Chris pressed his face against his hand. Tomorrow they would go into town and see what they could offer the boys in the way of help, but Chris wondered if any of their lives would ever be the same. If Vin decided to take leave of them, if he couldn't stomach looking at Chris again, then what would he do? If he couldn't rely on Vin's friendship and support, how would he go on again?
There were only so many losses one could endure. This life was the only thing he had left; he didn't want his pain and loneliness to steal it away from him. For a moment, watching Vin as he lay there against the red glow of the fire, he wanted to do it again, to touch Vin, just pat his shoulder or smooth a hand over his hair. Make a connection to him, something physical that could express the depth of his feelings. But there were rules in this place, too, rules he had already run a great risk of breaking, rules that frightened him too much to test.
He watched for a few minutes longer, then went inside, this time closing the door all the way. Under the skin of a dream, in the early hours, he heard a rumble of thunder and could see the sky lit up by lightning as he opened his eyes. He wondered if Vin would come in if it rained. Only he knew in his bones that Vin would stay outside, where he felt he belonged, come hell or high water.
In the morning Vin woke him with the smell of frying bacon and cooking biscuits, and coffee placed beside him on the chair next to his bed. He started when he saw Vin, surprised that he had come in without hearing it. Surprised as hell that Vin would come in at all. He must have been more tired from yesterday than he had imagined; he rarely ever slept like that when he wasn't drunk.
He took the coffee gratefully and rose to put his trousers and shirt on when Vin turned his back to him, pretending to busy himself with the cooking, although it was clear that that was already done. Over his shoulder Vin said, "We best be getting on if we want to get to town."
Chris didn't say anything, just drank his coffee while sitting on the edge of the bed. He still felt like he was supposed to apologize, like he needed to explain, but that would probably pain Vin even more.
Vin threw the thick, salty bacon and the biscuits on a plate and handed them to him, looking seriously at Chris as he did so. "I'll be outside," he said, and took his own plate outside. Chris could see him through the sliver of the door sitting on the porch, sipping his coffee and staring out into space.
When they were ready and saddled up, Vin gave Chris that exact same serious look, but this time he said, "I want you to stop apologizing and feeling bad. You didn't see me getting troubled, did you? You was finally getting back to your old self, stop feeling bad again." He reined around hard and put his horse into a trot, leaving Chris behind in his dust.
Chris stared after him, spurring his horse, shocked once again by the person Vin had shown himself to be. Every time he thought he knew who Vin was, there was a new twist to his character. It didn't stop him from feeling bad, but it gave him such a tender feeling in his heart that maybe it didn't matter.
They rode silently the rest of the way. Buck was already waiting for them on the boardwalk in front of the jail, and Vin saw Mary Travis watchfully keeping an eye on them as they arrived, standing outside the door to her office.
"Let's see your troublemaker," Chris said to Buck, and they went in to find Ezra and JD sitting inside, playing cards.
Buck opened the outside door to the cell and Chris stepped inside, looking at the man sitting on the bunk. He turned to Buck and Vin and shook his head. "Don't look familiar to me. You been looking at the wanted posters?"
From the desk, Ezra said impatiently, "Every single one we have, numerous times. After a while, all the miscreants begin to look the same." JD smirked at that and shuffled his hand around.
"Guess we'll have to wait for the judge and hope he's seen him before," Buck said.
But Vin was still staring at the man inside the jail, who, admittedly, was pretty bruised and roughed up, but did indeed seem familiar. The prisoner defiantly looked in the other direction, his disgust made all the more evident by the fact that he'd thrown his food against the wall at some point and dried bits of it hung there, stuck to the wall.
Vin stepped forward and stared at him for some time. Then he turned around and looked at Chris and Buck with surprise. "I remember him," he said harshly. "He was with Handsome Jack Averill and his guns. When I rode up, he was taking aim at Buck." Vin looked back at the man, then to Buck. "He's one of them fellows who took down Miss Hilda."
End Part 1
10/6/01
Author's blatherings: Knowledgeable readers will notice I've moved Serpents up ahead of Obsession for this story. Because, you know, I can, and because I wanted Obsession to be last for the purposes of the tale.