Title: Demons 1/3 Author: Shawna Disclaimer: The characters contained within are not mine and I am making no profit from this. Author's Notes: I don't now where this came from but it's been eating at me the last two days. I think it can be contributed to the challenge series recently posted to the list. My muse asked "would anyone go after Ezra if he left town after Vin took a bullet meant for him?" I'm not sure if this is what would really happen but its where the muse took me. This was supposed to be an Ezra Josiah fic but Buck showed up in it, too. I hope you enjoy. Feedback is always appreciated. ************************************************************************ Vin shouted Ezra’s name trying to warn him of the danger he was in. Between the gunfire and the sounds of racing horses, Ezra couldn’t hear him. Vin watched in horror as the gunman hiding behind the freight wagon took a bead on the conman. Ezra was pre-occupied with fighting off the two men exiting the bank. Vin shouted Ezra’s name again. There was no response from the gambler. Vin tried to get a line on the third gunman but couldn’t get off a clear shot from his position. Finally, Vin broke cover and began running towards the gambler for all he was worth. Ezra never heard Vin. He just felt the weight of the tracker crash into him as he was slammed into the ground. Ezra’s head hit the boardwalk with stunning force. Dazed. He tried to figure out what had just happened. Had he been shot? It took a minute before he felt the weight of the body above him. Ezra panicked squirming around under the deadweight until he managed to move around to his back. Dear Lord, it was Vin. “Vin!” Ezra called to the tracker desperately. The only response he received was a groan. He rolled the man off of his legs and knelt beside him. It didn’t take Ezra long to find the bullet hole high in the tracker’ s shoulder. “Good Lord, Vin,” Ezra muttered as he clamped his hand over the tracker’s shoulder. Blood welled through his fingers. “Don’t do this, my friend,” Ezra softly told the tracker. Vin groaned as he leaned all his weight on to the tracker’s shoulder. Ezra closed his eyes trying to shut out the tracker’s misery. He whispered a prayer. An entreaty to a God he had never believed in. Dammit, Vin, he thought to himself as he gazed into the tracker’s pale face. Vin’s eyes fluttered open but he didn’t seem aware of Ezra’s presence. The tracker just moaned and once more tried to move away from Ezra’s hands. “Lie still, Vin,” Ezra pleaded softly. He was only distantly aware that the sounds of the gun battle had ceased. The morning air was filled with the smell of gun smoke and dust. The sound of booted feet on the boardwalk warned Ezra that someone was approaching them at a fast rate. “Vin, Vin!” he heard Nathan yelling as he scrambled towards the tracker. He slid to a halt beside Ezra and almost roughly pushed the gambler out of his way. His normal good manners were overcome by his worry for the hurt young man. “Out of my way, Ezra. Let me see,” he said gruffly as he pushed Ezra’ s hands off of Vin. Blood welled up once again when the pressure was released. Ezra sprawled onto the boardwalk. Nathan used his knife to cut away the shirt from the tracker’s shoulder. “No, Vin, leave it alone,” Nathan tried to soothe the pain-ridden man. One hand caught Vin’s left hand as he tried to claw at the pain in his shoulder. Nathan didn’t think the carotid artery had been hit but Vin was still losing blood at a fast rate. He had just finished his examination when Chris and Josiah made their way toward the scene. They’d been forced to deal with the last of the would be bank robbers. Chris knelt beside the injured man. He took Vin’s hand in his own freeing up Nathan to work on the injured man. Vin’s grip on his was almost crushing. The tracker wasn’t completely unconscious and he whimpered in pain unable to suppress the moans. Chris didn’t want to interrupt the healer but he needed to know. “Nathan?” Chris voice held an edge as he watched Nathan desperately trying to stop the flow of blood. “Not now, Chris, we gotta get him up to my room,” Nathan never released the pressure on Vin’s shoulder as Chris and Josiah scooped Vin up between them and carried him towards Nathan’s small clinic. Ezra remained where he was sitting on the boardwalk. Alone. Dear Lord, he thought, what have I done? >>>>>>>>>>> Ezra climbed the steps to the clinic slowly. Dread filling his heart. He neared the top step when Chris Larabee’s angry voice cut through him. “What the hell happened out there? Why’d he break cover?” Chris asked. He hadn’t seen the shooting just the aftermath. Nathan had finally kicked him bodily out of the sickroom when Chris had protested the additional pain Nathan was causing Vin as he tried to quell the bleeding. Josiah remained inside to help Nathan and try to keep Vin calm and still. “I don’t know, Chris,” Buck said. He’d been on the rooftop above Ezra’s position. He hadn’t known the tracker was hurt until he’d descended from the roof and seen the men kneeling around him. It was JD who broke the news. “He took a bullet meant for Ezra,” the young man spoke up softly. Chris was intimidating at the best of times. This certainly wasn’t the best of times. Chris’ anger and over-protectiveness of Vin spoke before his brain thought the situation through, “He did WHAT? What was that damn Southerner doing now? I’ll kill him when I get my hands on him!” His anger cut through the other two men on the landing and the man leaning against the stair railing just out of sight. Neither Buck nor JD chose to take on Chris’ anger. They remained silent as the black-clad man spit out a string of obscenities. He wasn’t really angry with Ezra but the man did have a tendency to do some rather unusual things in the midst of a gunfight. Vin didn’t have much more sense. It was enough to turn Chris’ hair grey worrying about the other men. Bile rose in Ezra’s throat and he closed his eyes trying to shut down the rising nausea. He knew Chris Larabee had little use for him. Hell, he could hardly blame him. Ezra sometimes had little use for himself. Ezra quietly began backing down the stairs. He was pretty sure his presence would not be welcome. Chris swore to himself long after the verbal tirade ended. When that damn tracker is back on his feet, I’m going to kill him. The rest of us are perfectly capable of watching our back thank you very much. He keeps taking bullets at this rate and one day he won’t live through it. No one, least of all Ezra he was sure, would want to be responsible for the tracker’s death. It would be a harsh thing to live with. Yeah, when Vin woke up they were going to have a nice heart to heart talk. Maybe he’d just let Ezra join him in dressing Vin down. >>>>>>>>>>>>> Nathan dried his hands on the rough towel as he watched Vin lying in the bed. It had been damn difficult but he’d finally got the bleeding to slow and stop completely. Vin lay quietly now his shoulder wrapped and his right arm bound tightly to his chest. Any sudden movement on his part would likely cause the bleeding to start again. He’d dosed him good with laudanum and the tracker slept deeply. He was pale though lying against the muslin sheets. The amount of blooding staining the rags on the floor a testament to how close he’d come to dying. The damn fool. If they could keep infection from setting in, the tracker would be back on his feet in a matter of weeks. The trick now was to keep him in bed and still. That wasn’t going to be easy. Nathan finally turned to the door and opened it. The sun hung low on the western horizon. He’d been fighting for Vin’s life for a long time. Chris materialized in front of him and Nathan blinked. God, he was so tired. “How is he?” the gunman asked softly. Nathan saw that Buck and JD were leaning against each other on the bench outside the door. Both men were fast asleep. “He lost a lot of blood,” Nathan began. He watched the tightening of Chris’ jaw as the tic against his temple began to twitch. It was a sure sign that Larabee was extremely irritated with someone. “I think he’s gonna be okay, though. Take him awhile to get back on his feet but he’ll make it.” “Can I see him?” Chris asked the healer although Nathan knew the man just wanted to barrel by him to get to his friend. “Yeah,” Nathan laughed softly and moved out of the doorway farther onto the landing. He settled down tiredly on the bench next to Buck and JD and leaned his head back against the wall closing his eyes. Josiah looked up when he heard the hollow ring of Chris’ spurs as he made his way quietly into the room. He smiled at the gunslinger before he relinquished his chair by Vin’s bed. Chris sat in it as he watched the shallow rise and fall of Vin’s chest. Josiah gave their leader’s shoulder a squeeze before he stepped from the room to join the other men on the landing. Buck and JD had awakened when Nathan joined them on the bench. JD was tiredly rubbing his eyes and even Buck looked a bit peaked, Josiah noticed. He was the first one to notice the absence of a member of the Seven. “Where’s Ezra?” he asked as he searched the street below. “I don’t know,” JD replied a frown marring his features. “I haven’t seen him since the shooting.” All four men looked at each other but no one could place Ezra after that. Chris overheard Josiah’s question. He cast his attention out the open door. Concern laced his voice, “Has anybody seen him?” Shrugs and soft replies of no answered his question. Buck finally broke the heavy silence; “I got a bad feeling about this.” >>>>>>>>>>>>> “Yeah, he was here,” Inez told Josiah and Buck as they leaned against the bar. Her voice was tinged with anger. Buck raised his eyebrow at the Mexican woman’s sarcasm. Ezra was usually on very good terms with the barmaid. “He came in here and got very drunk on my cheapest whiskey,” Inez continued angrily. She had been surprised at the time. Ezra usually drank beer when she didn’t have any Scotch available. This time, he’d spoken in a series of grunts as he’d dropped a Double Eagle on the counter and helped himself to a bottle of rotgut. Stuff usually reserved for the cowhands who didn’t know better. Then, he’d proceeded to knock the stuff back almost non-stop as he sat at a table alone. “He took offense to it when one of my other patrons bumped his chair. He was very drunk, Senors. And very mean,” Inez told them. She hadn’t really been surprised at Ezra’s demeanor. She’d seen Ezra drunk before. He had not been kind on any of those occasions either. However, he had limited himself to scathing remarks directed at whatever poor soul dared to approach him. This time, it had turned physical. “What happened, Inez,” Buck asked as he tried to curb his patience. Obviously, a shooting had not taken place or he and the other men would have been called to put a stop to the problem. Or arrest the offending party. “He pulled his gun on the poor fellow,” Inez said. “And?” Buck prompted again. Lord, sometimes the woman was danged irritating he thought to himself. “I put a stop to it,” Inez said. “My shotgun proved to be bigger than both their guns.” Inez hand slipped down to pat the double-barreled gun she kept below the bar. “I told him to go upstairs and sleep it off. And not to come back until he was ready to apologize.” With that Inez turned her attention from the two men to serve a customer at the end of the bar. “Well, now what?” Buck asked looking towards Josiah. “We check his room.” >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Ezra’s room looked like a tornado had hit. Buck stopped shocked in the doorway. He was whistled softly at the mess. “Looks like someone left out of here in an almighty hurry.” Josiah moved past Buck into the room. He surveyed the chaos. “Left most of his clothes.” “Yeah, but he took his guns. Probably kept a stash of money in here. No doubt that’s gone.” Buck was surveying the closet where he knew Ezra kept his Spencer. The rifle was missing. Buck knew Ezra hadn’t been using it in the streetfight. “What the hell’s going on, Josiah?” “That my friend is something only Ezra can answer. But I have an idea.” Josiah stared into the tossed room without really seeing it. Buck turned to look at Josiah when the preacher stopped speaking. “Well?” The man was as bad as Inez he thought irritated. “I think he blames himself for Vin’s being injured.” Josiah said knowingly. He couldn’t say how he knew this was the demon Ezra was dealing with. He just had a gut feeling. He’d overheard Chris’ reaction to Vin’s injury. He wondered exactly what Ezra had heard. “Now why the hell would he go and do a damn fool thing like that for?” Buck exploded. “If he had any sense in his brain, he’d know Vin wouldn’t blame him for it. Hell, none of us blame him. It just happened. He was doing what needed to be done.” “Yeah, Brother Buck, but does Ezra know that?” Josiah studied the room, heartsick. It would be just like Ezra to keep the group at arm’s distance the way he did. Then, turn around and blame himself when harm befell one of them. Buck sighed in frustration. Damn the man, when he got his hands on him, he’ d shake some sense into him. He was worse than JD, for God’s sakes. “Where do you think he is?” “That is a good question,” Josiah answered. Studying the room a second more he turned and headed out the door, “Let’s check the livery.” Buck followed him out carefully closing the door behind him. >>>>>>>>>>>> Josiah had dreaded the sight that greeted him in the livery stable. The stall was empty. He turned to the hostler who had followed the two men into the building. “Did you see him leave?” “I surely did. Man was drunk and meaner than a skilletful of rattlesnakes to boot. I done stayed out of his way.” Yosemite had always gotten along with Ezra Standish but the old man had been around a long time. He knew when it was time to leave a man alone. Today it had been Ezra Standish’s turn. “Where’d he go?” Josiah asked. “Don’t know but he lit out of here heading North towards Durango. He still owes me for this month’s board.” “He’ll be good for it,” Josiah assured the hostler but in his heart he wasn’ t convinced of the truth of his statement. “Saddle a horse, Buck. We got a ride to take.” Buck never questioned Josiah’s insistence that they ride out immediately after the errant gambler. He too was becoming very worried about one Ezra Standish. Besides, riding after Ezra would be better than worrying about Vin sitting out in front of Nathan’s clinic. “Yosemite, will you see that a message gets to Chris Larabee from us?” Josiah never slowed down as he pulled his horse out of its stall and slapped a saddle on it.Home ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fate brought them together. Destiny would make them heroes. Against overwhelming odds, they fight for justice. The legend rides again... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------