Coyote Waiting
~~ Ezra ~~
Later that night I stood in the darkness outside the saloon and looked up at the clouds as I pondered the possibility of it starting to rain. It was too hot to sleep and what was worse - I was too bored to play cards. Tonight's game hadn't paid enough to be worth the time wasted, nor had it been in any way intellectually challenging. I couldn't think of a way either to make it more challenging. Maybe the answer, at least for now, was not to think much at all. I had drunk enough after the game that this state of mind was now a blessed option and I had filled my hip flask too so I'd have plenty of fuel to sustain it.
I took a drink out of my flask and stepped away from the boardwalk into the deserted street. As my thoughts drifted around leisurely in my mind my body found itself on the way towards the glowing light coming from the church. I don't know why that was. The saloon is my haven, not the church, but I got along reasonably well with Josiah. The man was intelligent, he could start a conversation, or lecture depending on his mood, on just about any subject. I wanted to hear about something other than what had been discussed at the tables in the past week. The conversations there all revolved around how our current weather would affect crops or the price of cattle, things I'm not even remotely interested in.
I like words, I like the way they roll off my tongue to form complicated sentences that hold beauty as well as meaning. It's also a good way to keep my mind as nimble as my fingers and keep people guessing as to what I'm up to. Words mean knowledge, knowledge means power. This is especially true if you have to keep one step ahead of the cardsharps that usually converge in the glorious gambling halls in big cities. You have to keep your wits about you, it's your foremost weapon and if that fails, well, it's good to have a hidden gun to fall back on.
I took a drink out of my flask again and sat down on the church steps, not ready to go in yet. I sat there for a while lamenting the fact that it had been a long while now since I had been involved in a really entertaining conversation. I remembered all the effort I had put into working my way into different communities in the past. It was always a challenge to my mind and spirit, gathering information and storing it until I could slip effortlessly into the role I had decided on. It was a lot of work but I had seldom felt that it wasn't worth it. If the game didn't pan out you could always move on. Unfortunately the money never lasted and the friendships seldom did either in my profession but I had never cared enough to make it last. The company I was keeping these days held more of a promise of respect but less hope of enjoying a challenging conversation. I took another sip. It was confusing to say the least.
Some of our gathering were easier for me to get along with than others. Buck and JD were likable enough and could talk a great deal, in fact they were hard to shut up once they got started. Their conversation, however, lacked finesse most of the times although it could be very amusing to overhear or join in. Out of all of them Vin was the biggest puzzle to me. He never used two words where one would do. What was even more puzzling was that he was content that way. He seemed at ease wherever he was, a quality that could easily be thought of as damned annoying to those less fortunate in fitting in. Vin seemed happy to be on the outskirts of the group and yet he connected effortlessly with the rest of the group whenever needed, especially with Chris Larabee who was also quite an enigma. I drank to that.
A gust of wind interrupted my meandering thoughts as it blew a piece of paper into my eye. My eye smarted and watered and I swore a great deal as I looked down on the scrap now in my hand. Another piece of verse and as incomprehensible as the first. It read,
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk
the Law runneth forward and back -I swore again and must have been louder than I thought because next thing I knew I felt a touch on my shoulder and looked up to find Josiah looming over me.
"I thought I heard something out here," he said as I got to my feet.
"Are you drunk?" he continued as he dragged me into the church and I felt I had to protest that assumption and clarify the matter.
"I'm not intoxicated." I put on my most earnest expression but I was having a curiously hard time getting the words out properly. "What a preposterous idea, I'm just not quite sober."
"Uh-huh," Josiah answered and deposited me on one of the benches in a way that immediately made me fall off. Anyone would have fallen off, the way that happened. I certainly didn't deserve the look he gave me, like I had done it all to myself. I got back up and sat down very carefully since my head hurt a bit. After a while I decided it would be better to lie down and I took off my coat and folded it neatly to use as a pillow as I stretched out on a bench. It surprised me that I was so tired and I wondered why that was since I really hadn't drunk that much.
My thoughts started to wander again and I looked at what Josiah was doing and talked some with him although I can't remember what about. My eyes started to drift shut a few times as I talked and I think I was dozing lightly when some sound alerted me. I raised my head towards the door and noticed a man standing in the doorway. It was Buck but I was too tired to do more than nod at him before I lay my head back down and closed my eyes again.
One observation occurred to me as strange but I was too worn out to fight sleep anymore. The observation was that Buck's steps sounded wrong somehow as he walked towards where Josiah was standing. The last thought I had before darkness encompassed me was that it didn't sound like a man's steps at all. Instead it sounded very much like the soft patter of paws moving slowly across the wooden floor of the church.
~~ Josiah ~~
All day long I had looked for signs that weren't there and now it was nighttime. I should have been sleeping but I was not yet tired enough to sleep without dreaming and I didn't want to experience another dream like the ones I'd already had. So instead I went back to stripping the paint from the walls like I had done before the wounded crow interrupted me. I hung a lantern outside the church and kept the doors open in case somebody else wanted to join me and I lit a few candles in an old candelabra I had found to give myself some light to work by.
It must have been around midnight or so when I heard a sound coming from just outside. I walked out to find Ezra sitting on the steps. It was obvious that he had no idea I was standing behind him and he almost jumped out of his skin when I touched his shoulder. I could see that he was as drunk as a skunk and I had to move quickly to stop him from falling down the stairs when he attempted to stand. He got real irritated when I said something to that effect to him as I steered him into the church.
"I'm not intoxated," he said and peered up at me much like a wayward child trying to convince a stern parent. "What a prosiperrous idea, I'm jus no- no- NOT - quite sssober."
I had to work real hard to keep from laughing when I heard that so I just answered,"Uh-huh," and sat him down on one of the benches. He immediately leaned too far to the side and fell off and when he crawled back up he gave me an indignant look like it had been all my fault.
Seeing Ezra falling down drunk was a rare occasion. When he decided to get really drunk it was usually the result of something personal and he was hardly benign at those times. Most people steered clear of him then and he liked to keep to himself anyway. The other times, when he didn't drink out of a need to quench some inner turmoil, he held his liquor well and seldom got drunk enough to lose control. I had no idea what to make of his behavior tonight, though. He didn't seem in a mood to be mean, more like a bit sentimental.
I hesitated between trying to sober him up with the help of coffee or letting him sleep it off. Ezra himself seemed more inclined to sleep it off, if the way he kept clinging to the bench as he tried to stretch out on it was any indication. My main concern soon turned from wondering if I should make coffee into keeping Ezra away from the lit candles at all costs as he wrestled with his coat like he thought it was a man-eating snake. After nearly being punched in the jaw by his flailing arms as I rescued the candelabra for the second time in as many minutes, I decided that a little sleep wouldn't do him any harm. I doubted he would agree with me when he woke up again, though. When Ezra finally, with a little help, managed to pull his coat off he immediately bunched it up and put it under his head to use as a pillow. As soon as he had put his head down on it he was out like a light. He didn't stay asleep for more than an hour at the most before he woke up again, wondering where he was and making comments on how my work was progressing when he found himself in the church.
Ezra's mind kept flitting from subject to subject in way that was quite fascinating but very hard to follow. One second he told me that I should paint the ceiling blue to match the boundless sky outside and the next he was rambling on about the price of cows and the fine art of conversing. How all these subjects were related in his mind I have no idea. I was tempted to take a sip out of that flask of his just to find out what on earth could be in it to cause such a reaction.
After listening to five minutes worth of incoherent ramblings I could see him start to yawn again and then he dropped off in the middle of telling me how he envied Vin, of all people, because of his way with words. A few seconds later he was snoring softly, properly asleep at last.
During Ezra's monologue I'd spotted Buck standing in the doorway. Buck grinned as he listened to Ezra's last statement and moved carefully over the creaky floorboards so as not to wake him again.
"Hey, Josiah," Buck said cheerfully and I nodded back at him in greeting. We walked over to the corner furthest away from where Ezra was sleeping on the bench by the door so we wouldn't disturb him.
"Has he been like that all night?" Buck nodded in Ezra's direction.
"Pretty much," I said. "What brings you here, Buck?"
"Oh," he said slowly. "I just saw the lights and didn't feel like sleeping just yet."
I could sympathize with that since I was in here working rather than trying to sleep, myself.
"I was thinking, Josiah...." Buck looked thoughtful and sounded almost hesitant.
"Yes?"
"I was thinking about moving on." He looked at me to see my reaction to his words. All I could think to say was, "Why?"
He shrugged. "It just seems like the time to do it."
"What about JD?"
I couldn't believe he would just up and leave without taking that boy with him. Buck gave me a blank look and said, "JD?" in a way that made it sound as if he had no idea who I was talking about.
"JD - the youngster trying so hard to be one of us...." I said and Buck smiled and walked over to look out the window. Over his shoulder I could see the moon hanging low over the horizon. It was barely half full tonight.
"JD," he said wistfully as he studied the night sky. "Yeah, it would be hard to leave him behind but maybe it's for the best. We're all drifting apart anyway. Vin's already gone."
"He'll be back." I said as I tried not to show that I was suddenly feeling uneasy. It was as I had feared. We really were drifting apart, but not of our own free will, I was certain of it.
"You're so sure he'll come back?" Buck sounded surprised by my conviction.
"Yes," I said. If Vin had any say in the matter he would come back, I knew it deep in my heart.
"He's happier out in the wild," Buck pointed out and I couldn't deny that.
Vin was more at home out there and we all knew it but still he kept coming back to town. There was something he needed, something we all needed to counteract the loneliness of our existence.
"Maybe so," I said. "But there is something that he shares with all of us that goes deeper than that."
"What's that?"
"Friendship."
Buck neither looked nor sounded convinced.
"You really believe that?" he said and it was clear that he didn't.
Someone to guard your back against enemies, to know your name if you fell. To know what you stood for, good or bad. Most of all just to care. A man was lonely indeed if he died without a friend to take note of his passing and I think that Vin had come to feel that way too. That was why I was so sure he would come back to us.
"A man's gotta believe in something," I told Buck and he gave me a brief grin.
"Have you ever not believed, Josiah?"
"I question everything, all the time. But when I look at the world it seems impossible to me that all this should be without a purpose."
He looked at me and slowly nodded as if he had been expecting this answer and I had just confirmed some conclusion he had come to.
"Well, since we're talking about belief and life and death ... " Buck started. "I know of a story I think you might find interesting, Josiah. I was told this long ago. Let me see ... it went something like this - In ancient times, long, long ago, animals were human beings. The two most important were Wolf and Coyote. The Wolf - the Creator- was easy to deal with while Coyote always tried to go against Wolf's wishes. Wolf said that when a person died he could be brought back to life by shooting an arrow under him. But Coyote did not agree: he thought it was a bad idea to bring people back to life, for then there would be too many people here and there would not be room for them all.
'No,' he said, 'let Man die, let his flesh rot and his spirit glide away with the wind so that only a heap of dry bones will be left.'
Wolf agreed, but he decided within himself to let Coyote's son be the first to die. Therefore Wolf wished that the boy should die and, by his very wish brought about the boy's death. Soon Coyote came and told Wolf that his son had died. He reminded Wolf of his statement that people could get a new life if an arrow was shot under them. But Wolf reminded Coyote in his turn that he himself had said that Man should die. Therefore it would be so."I was captured by the story but wondered why he was telling me this now. I could find no reason for it. While Buck was not a shallow man I had never figured him for one to ponder in depth the vast field of questions raised in regards to the demise of our mortal coils. Buck struck me as a man who preferred very much to just plain live instead of sitting back and thinking about life. All I could think was that it just didn't seem like him. Something was different with him, a slightly different look in his eyes, a slightly different way of speaking. Differences so subtle that you had to question if you just weren't imagining them all. A small voice in my mind told me that it all fit in too well with the other strange things happening in Four Corners.
"And there was nothing Coyote could do to change that?" I asked. There was a message in this story and I had to find out what it was. I had heard some tales of Coyote from plains indians I had encountered and I knew of him as a powerful being. I had never heard this particular story, it wasn't the Coyote I knew of. Usually he was more of a mischief-maker. This was a more serious story and Buck sounded weary as he said, "Coyote has to follow the rules that are set out too." There was a faraway look in his eyes now, as if he was lost in a painful memory.
"What about Wolf?" I asked to bring him out of it.
He gave me a long look before answering.
"We are all bound. I thought you of all of them would understand. What if all your wondering is just a waste of time? You're looking for an answer when you can't even begin to understand the question. What makes you think you can even begin to understand this purpose you so believe in?"
I stayed silent as Buck walked over to look out of one of the windows. When he spoke again it was so softly that I knew he was speaking more to himself than to me. "In all this time ... all the death I've seen ... I still don't know what lies beyond all this or what it means to die.
"Who are you?" I whispered the question I should have asked as soon as he set foot in the church. I could see the reflection of Buck's eyes in the window pane suddenly fasten on me. He grinned.
"That's a stupid question, Preacher," he said softly. As he turned away from the window I could see the flickering flames reflected in his eyes for a moment, turning them an eerie yellow. I took an involuntary step backwards.
"I'm me," Buck said, he sounded amused. "Nothing else."
I could do nothing but stand there, mute and frozen by the look he gave me as he spoke. My hair was standing on end at the back of my neck and my pulse was pounding in my ears. Something not of this world was in the church with me now and it was wearing Buck's face. I became painfully aware of the fact that I was nothing more than a man and that a being I could not even begin to understand was looking at me from behind Buck's eyes. The power surrounding us was so obvious it was almost crackling in the air like distant thunder. I could see Buck smile once again and then move towards the door. I couldn't move, I couldn't do anything at all to stop him from leaving.
"Josiah...." Buck called from the doorway. "I have a riddle for you.You have until the new moon to answer it."
He was looking right at me as he started to recite what sounded like bits of a verse of some kind.
"The strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack, ye must fight him alone and afar, Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the Pack be diminished by war."He was silent for a second and turned slightly away from me so I could no longer see his face, it was completely in shadow. His voice was soft but I had no trouble hearing it and I was reminded of my dream earlier. I shivered as he continued,
"Now this is the riddle so listen good; what will happen to the Pack when the Wolf is all alone and in trouble? Should it fight? Will it fall? You decide."
Suddenly a cool wind swept through the church and extinguished the burning candles. I was momentarily blinded and blinked in the darkness as my eyes adjusted themselves. When I could see clearly once again the doorway was empty and Buck was gone.
~~ JD ~~
Just before sunset the clouds had started sneaking up from under the horizon and now, as it was just past midnight, they covered almost half of the sky. I wished for rain to wash away the dust clinging to my skin but what I got was sweat trickling down my spine under my clammy shirt and that wasn't the same thing at all. At least one of the clouds blotting out the moon had to have a little bit of rain in it but, unfortunately for me, it kept it to itself. I wondered if this heat would continue. It was a bit late in the year for it to be this hot and the old folks in town swore that they had never seen the like. My mom would have said that the air had thunder in it, it felt thick enough to carve with a knife.
I stood a while in the doorway to the Sheriff's office and let my eyes follow the long line of the empty boardwalk until it curved around a corner. It was late and I was dusty and tired but not tired enough to sleep. There was no denying it - I was starting to get bored. Waiting forever for something to happen wasn't what I had come here for. For the first time I thought that maybe I had made a mistake coming west. Not that I had expected every day to be an adventure but I had thought it would be a whole lot more exciting than this.
Closed down for the night the town looked deserted, like I imagined a ghost town would look like. I had done a round of the town once already tonight but the only thing I had seen was Ezra drinking on the steps of the church. Not another soul seemed to be up and about and even the saloon that was normally open all night had decided to close tonight for lack of customers. Maybe one more walk around town would make turning in easier but I doubted it.
Ezra was gone from the steps as I passed the church this time but as I was coming up on the saloon I noticed something strange. The lamps were lit and the doors were open but I had seen it dark and locked down for the night half an hour earlier. It didn't make sense for it to be closed down and then open again almost right away. Something must have happened.
I decided to move very slowly towards the building so whoever was in there wouldn't see or hear me coming. There was a stack of abandoned crates across the street from the saloon and I crouched behind them as I tried to figure out what to do next. Buck was always nagging me to be prepared for anything so I drew my gun. My heart was pounding away in my chest as I listened for the faint sounds of someone stirring in the saloon. The best chance I could get would be to nab whoever it was when they got out on the street. Just as I was thinking this a man stepped up to the batwing doors and opened them wide. I could see him clearly outlined against the light coming from inside.
I froze in shock and lowered my gun. The man's face was in darkness but I was sure I knew him. The hat, the coat, the gun by his side - it was Vin. As soon as I stood up straight and was about to leave my hideout the light in the saloon went out. I had been staring so hard at it that I was suddenly as blind as a bat.
When my eyes finally got used to the dark again Vin was gone. The saloon was locked up tight, dark and silent as before. I ran out into the street and looked around. What had happened? Had I dreamed it?
Out of the corner of my eye I could see something moving further up on the left side of the street. It was nothing more than a dark shadow, there was no way to figure out who it could be without getting a closer look and I quickly followed. I was pretty sure it had to be Vin but I didn't want to holler and wake up the town or startle him and get myself shot. I just had to get a little bit closer before I greeted him but a funny thing happened. No matter how much I tried I couldn't seem to get close enough to say anything. As soon as I started to walk faster so did he. He must have because he was always just out of reach. Finally I could see him turn a corner up ahead and I knew it would take him into a small alley where three buildings met and with no way to get out except past me.
When I cautiously looked around the corner he was waiting for me. He was leaning against the far wall and looking as if he didn't have a care in the world. The moon was only half full and didn't give me much light to see by but it was enough to see that it really was Vin. I couldn't make out his face clearly but I could see his blue eyes under the brim of his hat as he looked right at me. Some trick of the moonlight made them seem almost as if they were shining, like animal eyes.
"Vin, you're back-" I started to say as I took one step forward but he shook his head and held up his hand to stop me from going any further. He put a finger to his lips in a hushing gesture and then he smiled as he pointed towards a mountain of burlap sacks over in a corner. It groaned and shifted a bit and I realized that someone was there, sleeping among the sacks. Right then a cloud travelled over the moon and darkness dropped like a cloak over us. When the moon came back and shone new light down where I stood I could see that I was alone once again. Well, not quite alone, the man sleeping on the sacks was still there but Vin was nowhere to be seen.
Damn! This was starting to irritate me and even scare me a bit. I couldn't figure it out.
It was like watching Ezra doing a card trick. You knew it had to be a trick but his hands moved so quickly that you couldn't see how it was done. It was like magic, you just kept wondering what it really was you had seen.
"Vin?" I softly called. "Where did you go?"
He couldn't be far away but why had he gone in the first place? I was sure he hadn't passed by me in the dark, he had to have gone into one of the buildings in front of me or something ... but why? Was he playing a joke on me?
Suddenly I remembered something ... wasn't there a door in the far wall? I could have kicked myself. Yeah, there was a door and I soon had it open and could slip inside. There was a lantern hanging on a hook beside the door and I lit it.
Vin had to have come in here. Except he hadn't. The room was empty and there was no other door or window to be seen as I looked around. I was starting to feel real uneasy now. Vin had told me some things about looking for tracks and I stared at the dirt floor but could make nothing out other than there having been a lot of people in here. The freshest prints seemed to be from some kind of dog that had gone up to the back wall and squeezed out through a hole near the floor. It wasn't quite big enough to fit a man but an animal or a child would have no trouble getting in and out. I made a note to myself to go talk to the owner in the morning so it could be repaired if he was gonna store something in there come winter.
Feeling bewildered I took the lantern and walked back out and over to the burlap sacks. I should have known or at least guessed. After all, it wasn't the first time I'd had to lock up old Marty after a hard day of drinking. It must have been a good day for him, drinkswise I mean, 'cause he was sleeping like a baby and didn't stir as I shook his arm. Usually I could get him up and about and moving on his own towards the jailhouse but he was so still now that I started to worry a bit. When he didn't answer me I decided to go and wake up Nathan to make sure Marty really was all right.
I figured Nathan would be angry at being wakened so early but as it turned out he was up and about and didn't look as if he had been to bed at all. Seemed like I wasn't the only one who had trouble sleeping in this heat. I told Nathan that and he agreed that the weather was strangely hot. Other than that he said nothing until he got his first look at Marty.
I stood to the side and held up the lantern as Nathan leaned in close and checked Marty's heartbeat and eyes. He even opened Marty's mouth and sniffed at his breath but quickly straightened up again and took a step backwards.
"Whouf!" Nathan said as he fanned his hand in front of his face to get fresh air. "Lord, that moonshine is strong stuff, enough to make your eyes water. Better not light any matches near him, JD, or we could set the whole town on fire."
I could agree with that. Marty stunk to high heaven of cheap whiskey, the fumes would probably make him go up like a torch if he got near any flames. It was enough to make me feel queasy and I was standing a whole lot further away than Nathan.
"He looks okay," Nathan said after taking a second, closer look at Marty. "Probably just drunk enough for the whole town."
"But he's so quiet," I said. And Marty was just that. In fact he looked dead but I didn't want to say that out loud.
"Don't worry," Nathan reassured me. "He's likely built up some tolerance to the rotgut they serve in the saloon, he's been drinking it for so long. Large amounts don't affect him as it would you or me."
Marty chose that moment to move about some and mutter something that I doubted even he himself would have been able to make out, had he been sober.
"See?" Nathan grinned at me. "Tomorrow he'll be back to his old self. Trading stories for drinks and -" Nathan suddenly broke off what he was saying and looked like he'd just been hit on the head.
"Dang," I think I heard him mutter but I wasn't quite sure I heard it right. He looked at me and said more urgently "JD, I need you to go fetch Josiah. I have something to tell him."
"What about Marty?" I couldn't just leave him there.
"I'll take him over to the jail. We need to keep an eye on him for a while - look, I'll explain later. Just fetch Josiah and get him over to the jail."
He seemed real insistent about it so I left. I was still some ways from the church when I spotted Buck going down the steps. He must have been inside talking to Josiah. I was glad to see him back but I hadn't thought anything would be able to drag him away from Laura Jennings before sunrise.
If there was anyone who could make sense of what had happened tonight it was him. I wasn't sure yet if I would tell him, though. I had a feeling that if I told him he was gonna act like I was a little kid again that needed someone grown up to scare away the monsters living under my bed and I didn't want that. I really didn't want that.
I stopped in surprise as I saw him turning away from me instead of towards me as I had expected. Where was he going? He wasn't about to go into town at all, he was walking away from it. Just as I was about to call out to him he disappeared around the corner of the church. I took a step down from the boardwalk to follow him and almost got myself run down by a horse. I had been so intent on looking for Buck that I hadn't seen the rider coming up the street the other way.
"Whoa!" The man abruptly reined in the horse and it whinnied in protest. I recognized the rider in a split second. It was Buck.
"JD!" Buck hollered at me and he sounded mighty irritated. "Ain't you old enough yet to watch where you're going?"
It was him all right. It sounded just like him, looked just like him. It had to be him. Then who was it that I'd just seen leave the church?
I tried to speak but no words came out. I could only stand there gaping at him.
"What's wrong, kid?" Buck said, sounding more concerned this time. "The way you're staring a man would think you've just seen a ghost."
Maybe I had. Two of them.
~~ Buck ~~
Miss Laura Jennings ... now that was a special gal. Golden hair down to her waist and curves to match the curls in her hair. Too bad about that pa of hers, he was mighty suspicious of me and I had done no more than talk to the girl a time or two. In spite of that I had decided to ask her out to the dance next month and so I had just spent a pleasant evening out at their homestead. Well, as pleasant as it can be when you have a man with a loaded shotgun by his chair watching your every move to see you don't get as much as a good night kiss. Lucky for me that she was both clever and a bit more on the wild side than her pa was aware of. When she was sure he had fallen asleep she slipped out to meet me down by the creek but whatever happened there is just between her and me. Ezra once said that a gentleman don't kiss and tell. I ain't denying that I like to brag a bit, who don't? But I can hold with keeping some details to myself all the same even though I know that both Ezra and JD would fall over laughing if they ever heard me say that out loud.
I didn't hurry on my way back to town, instead I enjoyed the coolness of the slight breeze. It was still some hours until sunrise but the clouds were starting to take over the sky now and I hoped it would rain some. In the past week the town had been hit with a heatwave that sucked the strength out of men and creatures alike. Strange thing was that it was much cooler when you rode just a mile outside town and the weather there was more in setting with the season. I had stayed out of town as much as I could in the past couple of days by way of volunteering to patrol the roads. They were mostly deserted and for some reason people didn't want to stay much in town right now so I could sneak away to the creek and take a dip to cool off whenever I felt like it.
Riding back from the Jenning's homestead I was in a good mood but that stopped as soon as I had gotten some ways into town. I was on my way towards the livery when that dang fool boy suddenly steps right out in front of me like he's asking to be run down.
"JD!" I bellowed at him as soon as I had reined in my horse and was sure I could avoid trampling him. I could see JD look up and take notice of me and then quickly jump back onto the boardwalk where it was safe.
"Ain't you old enough yet to watch where you're going?" I said and I couldn't keep the anger out of my voice since my heart was still racing from the scare he had given me. He just stood there gaping and staring at me. I could see his mouth open and close a few times, it reminded me of a fish caught on dry land.
"What's wrong, kid?" I asked and tried to calm down a bit. "The way you're staring a man would think you've just seen a ghost."
JD must have become aware of the fact that he was gaping at me cause he suddenly shut his mouth and blinked a few times as if he was waking up from a dream.
"Buck," he said. "Buck, is that really you?"
"The one and only," I told him as I dismounted and tied my horse to the nearest rail. JD was looking a bit shaky. "Who did you think it was? You mistake me for Vin all of a sudden?"
I don't know why I said that, I didn't mean anything by it but when I looked closer at JD I could see that my words had hit him like a fist in the gut.
"JD, what's the matter?" He was really starting to worry me now. Ever since JD decided he wanted to play sheriff he'd been a constant worry to me. He didn't know the first thing about staying alive while wearing a tin star when he first pinned it on. There are different rules you just have to follow or you'll be snuffed out quicker than a candlewick. I think he had the notion that the star was his protection while all it really did was make him a better target. A badge is no good unless you have the experience to back it up, Lord knows I tried all I could to give him some of mine, but JD just had to go his own way.
Well, I have to admit, he didn't do too bad a job, but then he had six mean fighters to back him up. I just hoped that was enough to keep him alive and keep him the way he'd been when I'd first met him. Coming into the west full of dreams and hopes and not knowing yet that life out here wasn't just an adventure but that it could grind your soul down to dust long before it did your body.
He looked tired and scared now and that made me worry even more. Something must have happened while I was out of town, something bad.
"I saw something," the kid almost whispered to me.
"What JD?" I asked him, as gentle as I could. Something must have spooked him good 'cause his eyes were large and his face was pale and he looked all of twelve years old all of a sudden.
"I saw Vin," he continued in the same quiet voice.
Vin was back? I couldn't understand why JD was so upset. Why would seeing Vin make him look like he'd just found something scary hiding under his bed? This was good news ... unless Vin had come in hurt.
"Was he hurt, JD?"
"No. I don't know, I don't think so. I saw him but when I went after him he just wasn't there. Then I found Marty and when I went to get Josiah I saw you. Only it wasn't."
I felt an urge to grab JD and shake him good. The more he explained the more confused I got.
"JD... you're not making sense here," I told him.
"I know that," he replied and gave me an irritated look. "I saw Vin and then he disappeared and then I saw you leaving the church and then you disappeared...."
"Hold it JD," I tried to stop the flow of words. Sometimes when JD got started real good he could go on for an hour or two. Disappeared? What was he talking about? Heck, I was standing right in front of him.
"The church?" I asked him. This was just some misunderstanding, I would soon have it cleared up. The kid had probably fallen asleep and then seen something while he was waking up and thought it was real. I just had to make him see that.
"I haven't been near the church all night. You mean you saw someone that looked like me."
"No, I saw you," JD said, stubborn as all that. "You came out of the church and walked around the corner. It looked just like you Buck, I swear it did. It was you."
Dang it if that boy wasn't hard to reason with when he got an idea in his head.
"JD, you must have been dreaming," I interrupted him when it seemed he was about to get worked up again.
"I wasn't!" JD looked so angry that I expected him to try and take a punch at me but he held off from actually doing it.
"You sure?" I tried to sound understanding but that didn't appease him one little bit. My attempt to calm him down just made him angrier and I couldn't understand why. I had no time to think much on it as he grabbed me by the arm and tried to drag me towards the church, supposedly to talk to Josiah. Since it wasn't such a bad idea I followed him without resisting. Maybe Josiah could make some sense out of what JD had told me.
We found Josiah sitting on a chair by the small table in the middle of the room. He looked up as we entered and suddenly his gun was in his hand, cocked and ready to fire and it was pointing right at my head. I could see Ezra's hip flask lying empty on the table in front of Josiah while the man himself lay stretched out on a bench by the door, sleeping soundly.
"Josiah, it's us, Buck and me," JD said quickly as if Josiah hadn't eyes in his head to see with. There was a funny look on Josiah's face as if he too had seen something unexpected tonight. When he drunk a lot he could get crazy, real crazy, like when he'd gotten drunk over Emma Dubonnet. He didn't look that drunk now but sometimes you just couldn't be sure. I hoped this wasn't one of those times or we might not get out of here alive.
"I can see that," Josiah said slowly and gave me such a piercing look that it felt like he was trying to look right through me and into my soul. You don't argue when a man's got a gun on you so JD and I waited in silence until Josiah made up his mind that we weren't a threat. The barrel of his gun seemed as large as a cannon to me but then he suddenly lowered his gun and secured it again. I suddenly realized I must have been holding my breath the whole time and I forced myself to draw a shaky breath. I could hear JD doing the same thing beside me and when I looked at him he was whiter than a ghost.
"I just wasn't sure who you were for a minute," Josiah said and gave me another strange look.
I decided not to comment on that since I really wanted to get out of there before things turned ugly again. JD was still frozen from fright and seemed to have forgotten why he had dragged me into the church in the first place so it was up to me to ask Josiah.
"Josiah, JD told me a crazy story earlier and I just want your help in making him see the truth. Now tell the kid that I haven't been in here all night."
"I'm sorry..." Josiah said and he did sound a bit sorry too."... but I can't do that, Buck."
I was so sure of what Josiah would say that it took a while for what he really did say to sink in and I had already turned towards JD, saying, "See JD, didn't I tell you -what?"
Struck dumb I turned to gape at Josiah much like JD had done when he'd first seen me.
"Why not?" I managed to croak out.
"I can't say that since I did see you in here just a short while ago," Josiah said. He was silent for a while before continuing, "Except I doubt very much that it really was you."
My head was starting to hurt. I wondered if there was locoweed growing in the town drinking water supply cause they sure acted crazy, both of them. Maybe I had fallen asleep on the trail and this was just a dream I was having. Maybe it was the heat, it could do things to a man's mind and they had both been stuck in town for the past two days with the heat eating away at them.
Ezra chose that moment to stir and mumble something and we all turned to look at him. He opened his eyes and quickly shut them again as if even the faint candlelight was painful to him. Ezra must be the reason that Josiah wasn't as drunk as I'd first thought. There had probably been next to nothing left in that flask for Josiah to drink judging by the state Ezra was in.
"Could someone please stop those cannons from firing again," Ezra complained and then groaned at the sound of his own voice. He didn't open his eyes again.
"There are no cannons here, son," Josiah told him.
"Sorry, explosions then," Ezra said. "Tell them I'll gladly pay-"
"Ezra, there aren't any explosions either," JD shot in. I was glad to see that the kid looked more himself now.
"Gunfire then?" Ezra sounded a bit uncertain now.
"Everything's quiet," Josiah said and Ezra opened his eyes again and I could barely keep from laughing at the sight of them bleary eyes trying hard to look in our direction without much luck. Ezra was a real spectacle with his hair standing every which way and his eyes just thin slits since he was squinting at us so hard. The aftermath of a night of hard drinking wasn't a pretty sight.
"You sure?" He frowned and then groaned as he tried and failed to sit up. "'Cause I seem to hear a very loud pounding in my ears and it has to come from somewhere."
"It's all in your head, Ezra," I said as I moved to help him up.
"More like in my stomach," he muttered. I could see he was a bit green about the gills and quickly helped him outside. I almost had to carry him down the stairs and we barely made it down before he started to throw up.
When he had stopped heaving and spitting he leaned his head against the churchwall for a moment and asked me very seriously to take him directly to the temperance league.
"I'm not sure we have one in town, Ezra," I said and this time I couldn't keep from grinning. He gave me a long and serious look as if he was thinking something over and then said,
"Then would you kindly shoot me? I promise that I won't hold it against you."
I was tempted to say that I would think about it but Ezra was such a sorry sight that I decided to take pity on him instead.
"C'mon," I said and had to grab his arm since he still had trouble standing upright on his own. "Let's go find Josiah and see if he's got some coffee."
On the way up the stairs again we were headed off by JD and Josiah going the other direction.
"Where are you two going?" I asked.
"To the jail," JD explained. "Nathan told me earlier to go fetch Josiah for him."
"What's Nathan doing at the jail?" I had the feeling that things were starting to get strange again.
"He's tending to Marty," JD said and that was all I could get out of him.
Marty, the town drunk? JD had gotten to know the old coot real well, seeing how he had to lock him up at least twice every fortnight or so. The kid liked to hear him tell of how the land had looked before there had been a town here and the people Marty had encountered. Myself, I think old Marty made up at least half of what he told JD but I didn't have the heart to tell the boy that.
Since there was more chance of getting coffee at the jail I herded Ezra in that direction. Maybe Nathan could make sense of what JD and Josiah were talking about. I sure hoped he could. Otherwise I'd just have to get on my horse again and ride around till I found the real town and not this nightmare version of Four Corners where the people all seemed to know something I didn't.
As soon as we got inside the jailhouse I knew that all hope of getting a reasonable explanation was gone. Nathan was there all right but he barely glanced at me and Ezra. Instead he was looking at Josiah and grinning like he'd just struck gold.
"Josiah," Nathan said. "I remembered. I know now."
"Know what?" Josiah replied.
"Ghost Country," Nathan said. "I know where it is."