Liberty's Lesson by Vonilyn

He took a header into the water bin, soaking his head, shoulders and the front of his shirt. Ezra came up sputtering, the laughter of the others ringing loudly in his ears. Composing himself, he slowly began pushing up and out of the deep water. To say that he was angry would be an understatement; he was downright pissed. Two days worth of being ordered around, deprived of his freedom, pushed, pulled, and prodded manifested into a rage and the normally composed Southern gentleman let out a string of oaths that would have made a sailor blush. On his feet, he set his sights on the larger of the two men responsible and with a forced calmness approached the laughing man. His mouth formed a tight smile as he looked the other man in the face. "I thank you for the assistance, but normally I prefer to bathe where the pigs and bovine have not. So if you'll excuse me, I'll leave you two to your," he paused and sniffed the air around the man, "Monthly rituals."

Ezra's words caught the man off guard and he had to stop for a moment to figure out which part of the two sentences had been the insult. Ezra used the confusion to his advantage, stepping closer and delivering a fierce punch to the other man's ribs. Struggling for breath, the thug soon found himself sprawled out the full length of the deep trough. The second man who'd done the corralling when Ezra had tried to make his escape seemed to have forgotten Ezra was there now, instead focused on trying to get his friend out before he drowned.

Ezra, satisfied with his work, sat back and admitted that it truly was a funny sight to see someone flail around like that. And he laughed. His amusement was not allowed to last long, but it was worth it. It felt like it had been weeks since he'd been able to laugh like that. He was still laughing when the two men approached him again, the bigger one dripping wet, both of them scowling. Slowly, Standish reigned in on his laughter and looked up to face them. There were tears in his eyes from laughing, and his sides had begun to ache, but he didn't care. At the moment, he didn't care that he was being threatened by someone who was about the same size of Josiah Sanchez. He just thought life in general was too damn funny to care just then.

A muffled grunt from inside the barn caught his attention, followed by a shout. The voice belonged to JD Dunne. Ezra sobered instantly. Of all the times for JD to wake up, it had to be now. Ezra's fast mind kicked into gear, gambling on the dupability of the two men advancing on him now. At the last second, Standish turned on his heel and disappeared into the darkness.

Freezing cold, he forced his legs to move, his arms and shoulders to propel him over fences. He had judged from the looks of the inside of the barn that the farm had not been used to store animals in quite some time, but he was running on a prayer that he would not wind up in a pen with a bull or some equally unpleasant beast. Behind him, he heard shouts announcing his escape. Other sounds met his ears: his own breathing as his lungs struggled to process the cold, sounds of breaking branches as he cleared the last fence and broke into a tree line, the sound of the big barn door closing and the yelled orders to 'Get after him, damnit!'. The one sound he dreaded most, however, never came, and he slowed his pace. Mr. Crane's fine unit of thieves had no dogs.

Ezra took his time looking for a sufficient hiding place. He hadn't taken off in the most obvious direction when he'd run. His aim was not to be caught immediately, but to buy some time for the others. As long as Crane and his men were out looking for him, Mr. Tanner and Mr. Dunne would be left alone. It was Vin he'd heard before JD had cried out, and it didn't take much for Ezra to realize that the tracker was getting the hell beat out of him for not giving up a location. Although it had been obvious from the moment Ezra had seen the five men approach from the window that they had not come in looking for information. They'd come in looking for revenge. Standish idly wondered what tales Jimmie Roberts had told Crane during their conversations through the jail window.

Ezra skirted the edge of the old farm Crane's band was holed up in. By the time the search parties had been formed, Ezra had completely circled the ranch and was sitting against an outcropping of rock in the narrow valley that served as the entrance to the secluded ranch. Judging by the way the blurred lamp light spread out in clumps along the opposite hillside beyond the barn, they'd have combed that whole hill before someone even thought to look anywhere other than that small segment. He had plenty of time.

During that time, he watched carefully, noting whatever moved around the barn. While the opportunity had so easily been given for a complete escape, Ezra was not about to leave the area without Vin Tanner and JD Dunne. He somehow knew that the reception he'd receive back in Four Corners would not be a warm one without their presence.

As if carried by the biting wind, Crane's words came back to him then. ‘Maybe yours didn't, Standish. But according to Jimmie, this one out ranks you among your little troop.’ He shivered as he wondered if his place on the team was really that different, that separate from all the others. If an outsider could pick up on the mistrust the other's felt toward him, if someone else could tell they doubted him, then maybe it wasn't all in his head. Maybe he was fooling himself thinking that perhaps he'd found a place to belong. After all this time, would Larabee really have left him out of the loop on the Roberts case? Had Chris withheld the back-up plan because he didn't trust him? Did they suspect he, Ezra Standish, had been the one to leak the information around town? Right now, what were they all thinking of him? Perhaps it really was possible that they still expected him to turn on them, to side with the enemy and abandon their men to be killed?

And he'd just left Vin and JD there now, alone, outnumbered, and in no position to truly defend themselves. Shit.

His teeth chattering, Ezra stood up from the sheltered hole he'd found between a few large boulders and looked out at the barn again. Things hadn't changed. A few lights still dotted the area behind the barn, but they'd begun spreading out in other directions now.

Standish wasn't sure why, but what the other men on his team thought of him mattered. It mattered just as much, perhaps more, than the approval of his own mother. He hated the looks and the doubt and the mistrust that would occasionally flare up from the other six. He'd never admit to it, never in a million years let them know that he cared enough to see it, to look for the attitudes, but he did. And they hurt to the core when he let them.

He wasn't going to let the two men down there now think he'd abandoned them. Maybe Josiah was right. Maybe they were 'brothers'. Ezra resolved that he'd not let this family slip away from him as easily as his mother could and usually did. He'd stick it out; no more running. Yes, this time he'd been justified in running, but there were other ways he could have handled that situation. He knew that if Chris ever found out he'd disappeared on the other two, Larabee would at the very least kick his ass. Some people lectured, relying on words and guilt trips to drive the lesson home. Chris Larabee just growled out a reason and lit into somebody, letting his fists provide a lesson at least twice as effective as a lecture. But Chris couldn't justify that sort of 'teaching' in every case, and for that, Ezra was extremely thankful. Perhaps, if they all survived Crane's men, every last one of them would survive Chris Larabee as well.

Ezra couldn't be sure if the water he felt on his forehead was perspiration or merely because his hair was still damp with trough water. His face had grown warm as he crept boldly nearer to the ranch, though his fingers and arms felt nearly frozen. He lost count of how many times he wished he hadn't left his jacket back at the barn with JD. As he walked, he'd come up with half a dozen ways he could have tried to retrieve it before he'd taken this little sojourn into the woods. However, the closer he got to the barn, the warmer he seemed to get. He forced his mind to begin thinking about what he would do once he got to the barn. Most likely, he would be unable to just waltz through the big door and up to the stall where the others were hopefully still being kept.

There was an overturned wagon at the end of the beaten path through the valley's pass which Ezra slumped down behind to watch the barn. He thought carefully on the layout of his former cell compared with the layout of what he'd seen of the rest of the barn. From the outside, the barn was roughly twice the height of the stall. That meant that there was an enclosed loft area just above it. So on one end, Ezra assumed he should find an access of some sort that might allow him to get up above the small, makeshift cell. From there, he would at least be able to communicate with the others.

His plan decided, Ezra moved forward again. Surprisingly, there was no one standing guard outside the front of the building, merely a lock holding the doors together. Ezra almost smiled; had he the right tools, that lock would not be a deterrent. However, he did not have the proper equipment, nor did he know exactly how much time he had before someone came by to check on the barn. So instead, he stuck to his original idea: sneak in from above.

The barn's second floor was surprisingly low, but Ezra could not have reached it on his own. Stifling a cough, Ezra nearly tripped over a hay bale in the dark. The errant bale was sticking out from a larger, stacked block of the molding straw at the backside of the building. Ezra was surprisingly amused to find that a large window was set in the side of the wall, just behind the hay. It would be a tight squeeze, but there was just enough room for Standish's compact frame to fit through between the two. He nearly brought a bale down on his head as he looked for a handgrip, but soon enough Ezra had scaled the side of the stacked blocks of old hay. He looked down only briefly once he'd gotten to the top, but he felt proud of himself for the accomplishment anyway, even if it wasn't quite as high up as the climb had seemed. For someone who despised menial labor, he was doing pretty well. The toughest part was trying not to cough and/or sneeze as he slid through the window, once again finding himself face down in a pile of straw.

The floorboards creaked under his weight, and Ezra instinctively moved slower to prevent creating too much noise. But he had been heard, despite his efforts.

"Hello?" JD called out, unsure if he really wanted to know the reason behind all the mysterious noises. Ezra chuckled silently. The boy's dime novels would be his eventual undoing, Ezra was certain. This time though, he was thankful for JD's paranoia for without it, he'd have never been able to find them. Guessing at where he'd heard the voice from, Ezra got down on his knees and began clearing a patch of floor. He found that the boards had shrunk sufficiently to allow him to see what was going on down below, though at the moment it was too dark for that to do him much good. He finally couldn't contain the coughing any longer. JD looked up in surprise at the sound.

"Ezra?" he whispered, his head jerking up to stare at the ceiling. At first, Ezra could only nod, but once his voice returned to him, he sent down a proper greeting before the boy below him had a fit and called back every last one of Crane's men.

"Hell, Ezra, we thought you'd gone ta get some help! They said you'd run and that old man lit outta here so fast... but Ezra? Vin's not doing so good... I woke up and all three of 'em were..."

JD's fever must have died down because the boy certainly sounded normal again. The past two days they'd been concerned with his silences during those brief intervals when his groggy eyes had opened. Now the boy seemed determined to make up for it.

"I know, Mr. Dunne," Ezra finally interrupted, “I had heard some of it from outside, hence the distraction of my disappearance. Now, son, I want you to look around on the floor there for a knife. I do believe Mr. Tanner's switchblade is down there, and at the moment, it would come in most helpful."

JD doggedly took to the ground, his hands reaching out blindly through nearly every inch of straw on the floor. Ezra tried pointing him in the right direction, hoping that the altercation with Crane had not moved the knife too much. While JD looked, Standish turned his attention to finding the best place to begin pulling up the floor beneath him. He moved closer to the stall window. That way they would be able to get a foothold in the window and climb up to the hole that way. He warned JD to stay away, then stood up to try breaking the boards. Ideally, he needed to break them in half without making it too obvious they'd escaped through the loft, so he needed salvageable pieces. That's where the knife would be so beneficial; he'd use it to pry up the nails so that when they were all through, he could just replace the boards and hopefully scare the hell out of Mr. Crane. Ezra let a small smile show as the first board cracked under the force of his boot.

Suddenly JD yelped, "Found it!" and Ezra heard him scramble back to the spot he'd been standing in last time Ezra had spoken to him. Standish called him over to the door, partially lifting the first broken floorboard and trying to pry it loose. He instructed JD on how to get up to him to give him the knife, and JD complied quickly. Ezra noted that due to the darkness, the boy was having a harder time of it. They'd have to find some way to deal with that particular factor when the time came to get all three of them through. Ezra took the switchblade and waved JD back down. In no time at all, he had the first board free and started work on the second. Tanner had yet to comment on any of this matter and it was making Ezra nervous. An unconscious body between the two of them would certainly harbor their retreat.

"Mr. Dunne, could you please endeavor to awaken Mr. Tanner. We shall not be able to leave here without his full cooperation, which at the moment it appears he is unable to give," Ezra finally requested. The second board gone, Ezra lowered his upper body through to both see what was going on and to be sure that the hole was big enough. Hanging upside down as he was, his view was rather odd, but he adjusted and sought out JD and Vin. Tanner was slumped against the wall in the opposite corner, curled protectively on his injured side. There were more dark spots on the remains of his shirt, and Ezra hoped that they were merely there because of the shadows of the room. But as JD slowly talked Vin into moving around, Ezra noticed that the dark spots hadn't moved. It looked like Crane's men were pretty proficient with knives. Ezra felt another surge of anger, but ignored it. He was burning up enough already, they didn't have time for him to get upset further. Now was the time to get them all out of here.

Ezra pulled his head back through the hole and then dropped himself back down, landing on his feet, thankfully, and not on his face. He went over to help JD with Vin. Tanner woke himself up fully with both men's prompting, eventually getting to his feet. Ezra tried not to notice the newest gashes on the other man's stomach as he and JD helped him across the room. He nodded for JD to climb up ahead of them, which the boy did, having fewer difficulties this time around. Vin remained motionless as he leaned against the wall and looked up at JD's progress.

"Aw hell, Ezra. Couldn't ya've just picked the damn lock? There ain't no way in hell I'll be able to climb that like he did," Vin muttered, keeping his pain-filled voice quiet. Ezra wondered if he was trying to keep JD from hearing the complaint and grinned. Ezra pushed Vin gently toward the window.

"That's why we're here," Ezra replied just as quietly. "JD!" he called, louder this time. JD's face appeared in the hole above them.

"You two coming up, or what?" he asked.

"Some assistance, Mr. Dunne..." Ezra intoned, setting about getting the tracker to make an attempt at climbing.

"Oh, right," JD stuck an arm down through the hole, preparing himself on his end to pull someone up. Vin sighed and took the boy's hand. He winced and hissed from the combined pain of having to raise his arm and from bringing his knee up so close to his injuries as he pushed off against the window. Ezra kept an arm around Vin's waist, guiding him up. Then, when Tanner was away from the window completely, Ezra pushed up on his boots to move him through the hole easier, with less pressure being applied to his injuries. When Vin was through, Ezra looked around and saw the jacket JD had been using for a pillow. He grabbed his jacket off the ground and tossed it up to JD before climbing up himself.

Ezra quickly led the way to the window and the hay bales, earning another half glare from Vin. "I think I need to complain more," he heard Vin mutter as JD pushed himself through the narrow window and up onto the pile of hay in front of it. Again, Ezra waved Vin through ahead of him. By the time Ezra had gotten himself out, JD was already on the ground.

"I'm gonna go find the horses!" JD whispered loudly to them. Then he disappeared before Vin had had a chance to say anything against the idea.

"That fool boy better not get us caught," Vin warned, shaking his head.

"Now which of us is sounding like Mr. Jackson?" Ezra replied, lowering himself over the edge of the pile. Vin shot him a glare and growled, "Shuddup, Ez."

Ezra just laughed and dropped down to the ground. He looked back up to see Vin staring nervously down at him. Normally the tracker was a mountain goat, able to climb just about any surface. Surely he wasn't afraid of heights now.

"Mr. Tanner... now would be a lovely time..." he prompted. Vin's head appeared over the edge again to send another glare his way but then quickly disappeared.

"I'm waitin' fer my horse," he grumbled finally. Ezra rolled his eyes.

"You can see just as well from down here, I assure you, Mr. Tanner. You are wasting time being up there, however. We need to leave as quickly as possible," he pointed out.

"Damnit, Ezra..." Vin muttered. But a moment later he was over the edge and attempting to crawl down. His foot slipped part way and he ended up jumping the rest. His usual sure-footed landing, though, seemed to have disappeared because he stumbled back, landing on his backside and holding his knee close. He struggled to his feet and ignored the questioning look Ezra shot him.

Hooves plodding hard packed earth caught their attention and both men froze, hoping it was JD, but ready for anything. Then a rider-less horse came forward and nuzzled into Vin's arm. Vin grinned.

"It's Peso," he informed Ezra. Three more horses appeared around the side of the barn, a smiling JD already on the first one, leading the other two.

"I found 'em!" he whispered, "Found a whole bunch of 'em actually. These four came right to me when I called though. I think this one's Chris'. It was the only other one that had the saddle left on it. I could tell ya for sure in the daylight though. I don't think they much cared for ours. We'll have to take it easy."

Both Ezra and Vin nodded in agreement, Ezra's coughing fit interrupting him. He unfolded his jacket and slung it on before mounting up. Chaucer did a little dance as they waited for Vin and Peso.

"What'd ya do with the other horses, JD?" Vin asked, noting something in the younger man's voice. JD smiled innocently.

"Oh, nuthin... but I think I might have accidentally left the gate open now that you mention it..."

Vin smiled and carefully swung himself onto Peso. The spirited animal took off automatically and the others followed suit.

By daylight, Ezra's occasional coughs had turned into a full-fledged threat to the others' sanity. He had a fever now, and he'd gone through his handkerchiefs in no time at all. Ezra stubbornly limited his coughing spells though, doing whatever it took not to cough; a battle his body always won out on in the end. More than once, JD had told him he needed to cough before he choked, and for some reason, the advice always made Vin grin and shake his head. Eventually, Ezra found it hard to open his mouth and be civil about it. So he remained quiet a majority of the ride. With the exception of his nose blowing and coughing, of course.

Despite the discomfort he felt, and the slight haze his fever kept him under, Ezra began to recognize the area they were now riding through. Thus far, Standish had followed the crowd, trusting the tracker to get them back home, despite the darkness. But the direction they were going did not seem to be 'home' to him now.

"Would you kindly divulge the true nature of our eventual destination, Mr. Tanner?" Ezra finally questioned. JD turned in his saddle with a confused look on his face.

"Huh?"

Ezra chose to ignore him and continued, "Because I am fairly sure that this route we are currently traversing is not that which is bound for Four Corners. If I'm correct, this road goes by Miz Tra..."

"I'm not gonna lead them people straight to us, Ezra. I've been trying to lay enough tracks to confuse the hell out of 'em. Best way I know to do that is to follow a busy trail like this one under our circumstances," Vin interrupted. "So what if it goes by Mary Travis' place? It's a road, ain't it?" He too had not had the most pleasant of nights and it was obvious in his snappish attitude and the way he carried his injured torso as they diligently kept to the trail. Ezra felt a pang of guilt over his behavior, but he kept his mouth shut this time. His mind was still on the idea that Larabee had intentionally not told him of a back-up plan. Vin's actions weren't setting his mind at rest to say the least.

Ezra stared suspiciously at the back of Vin's head as the sharpshooter kicked Peso on a little faster. JD followed right after him, giving Ezra a slight shrug as Vin passed him. Tanner soon slowed down again though, in the interests of his horse or his conscience, Ezra wasn't sure which. He dropped back until Ezra had caught up with him and the two rode side by side in silence for a few minutes.

"The Judge is s'ppoused to still be in town, visit'n Mary," Vin finally informed him. The guilt that was nagging his brain was evident on his face, despite the bruises. "Now, if I was a bettin' man, I'd say that's where they'd'a taken Jimmie after the bust-up on the road. Back to the Judge. So I think that's where we oughta head."

Vin glanced over at Ezra, receiving a simple nod. But there was no mistaking the hurt behind the gambler's eyes. Vin scrunched up his face and shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. Damnit, he'd known Ezra would read into that. He pulled Peso to a halt, letting the animal dance impatiently all he wanted.

"Ezra," Vin muttered. Standish reigned in Chaucer and turned slightly on his seat. The calm, disinterested poker player's mask was in place, though the usual hint of amusement was gone. "Look, JD doesn't even know. There was no plan ahead of time, we just wanted ta go and come back. Ya know that damn well 'cause ya were in the room when we all decided on that one. This stuff with the judge, it was all last minute. I was sp'osed to spread the word: We get separated, we meet back up at the Travis' ranch and notify the judge. But I didn't get a chance to once JD was hit," Vin paused to see if there'd been any difference in Ezra's views, if maybe the wall had cracked even a little. No change. "Damnit Ezra, my point here is that you weren't left outta' nuthin'. That bullshit Crane was spoutin' last night... was just that; bull shit. Yer on the team, Ezra, an that's where you'll stay as long as ya want to. If Chris didn't trust ya, 'n if the rest of us didn't trust ya, ya wouldn't be here. An that's... well, that's all I'm sayin'." Vin let Peso move again, and the big animal took off after JD at a lazy trot. Such a display was unusual for Vin, and that made it all the more striking. Ezra and Chaucer just watched them pass by, Ezra having been left with something new to think on.

"Got bout twenty riders com'n in over here, Chris. Still more'n a mile off," Nathan called from his spot on the porch, staring out at the road back in to town. At the same time, Buck Wilmington stood up from where he'd been leaning against the support post and reported, "We got three an' an extra horse over here. Com'n in pretty fast too, looks like."

The return wire the Judge had gotten had promised that a nearby unit would be dispatched to them at the earliest possible moment. Apparently Crane's name pulled a lot of weight across the Texas lines, where most of the crimes were allegedly committed. So Chris and the other three who were gathered on the porch anxiously awaiting the unit's arrival already knew who the twenty riders were. It was the three travelers off to the west that piqued the most interest. They were the unknowns at the moment. Nathan came around the corner of the house to see for himself, and Josiah Sanchez lifted the brim of his hat away from his eyes, deciding to once again join the world of the awakened. Chris stood up from his chair by the door and went to stand beside Buck.

A smile lit on his face at just about the same time as Buck muttered, "Holy Jesus! Would ya lookit that!" and jumped the three feet to the ground. He walked out in front of the house to await their unexpected visitors. Still grinning, Chris returned to his chair. Nathan took one look at the slumped over rider on one of the mounts and disappeared into the house again. By the time he'd returned with his medic kit, the smile had vanished from Chris Larabee's face and the riders were all three being helped from their saddles.

"Miz Travis!" Nathan called out, jumping off the porch. A blonde woman appeared in the doorway a moment later, in time to see Josiah and Chris carefully hauling Vin Tanner out of the saddle of one of the horses. Buck had paused his brotherly fretting over JD's current health to be sure Vin was alright. Which he wasn't. That concluded, Buck hurriedly took the reigns of the four horses and told JD to take a walk with him. Almost instantly, JD launched in to his version of events. Ezra trailed miserably behind the others into the house, where Mary Travis was preparing at least one bed for the wounded. Judge Orrin Travis was coming from the kitchen when Ezra walked through the door.

"Mr. Standish. Are you alright?"

Ezra pasted a half-hearted grin on his face as he turned to greet him.

"Yes sir, I believe I've merely come down with a slight cold..."

"No kidding," Travis replied, suspiciously eyeing Ezra up and down, as a father would a wayward son who'd intentionally fallen in the river a few too many times. He noted the mud and water stained shirt below Ezra's riding coat and the dirty hair that stuck out from under his now flat-brimmed and unusually filthy hat; all very good signs that Mr. Standish was unwell, even the Judge knew that much about the man. "Well, all the same, you're not going anywhere until Mr. Jackson can get a good look at you, too. There's plenty of free seats in the front room, go and sit down. And where's the young one? Mr. Dunne? By the looks of you and Mr. Tanner, there is no way he could have possibly come out of this unscathed."

Ezra sighed, for once envying JD his exuberance. JD had taken their ordeal better than he and Vin had. And he was going to heal a whole lot faster than the other two could. "To the best of my knowledge, he accompanied Mr. Wilmington in putting away the horses, sir. His injuries have already begun the healing process, so he is in no immediate danger," Ezra replied. He let the judge usher him toward the nearest couch and sat down upon it. Judge Travis began pacing the room.

"Good. Good. Then he should be fine. I'm sure Buck will keep the boy out of harm's way between here and the barn," he said. A moment later he was updating Ezra on the situation with Jimmie Roberts and on the identity of their former captor, one Anthony Crane. Ezra's mind registered the name Crane a few times, whenever the judge said it, but mostly tuned the old man out. It wasn't long before he'd fallen over on the sofa and was asleep.

The Judge smiled. If he hadn't planned on putting the poor man to sleep, he might have been insulted by Ezra's snoring. Instead, he draped a wool comforter over the sleeping man and carefully made sure that the muddy boots did not come into contact with the furniture. As a final measure, he took Ezra's hat from his head and hung it from the coat rack in the entrance hall before venturing out to the barn to check on the young JD.

All in all, Vin had five knife-inflicted wounds on his torso and one on the back of his thigh. Two required stitches, but Nathan merely had to dress the rest to let them heal. Vin had passed out due to blood-loss, and he was still weak from it, confined to Mary's house for the moment. Nathan would only let him leave the room if he had someone helping him. As usual, Vin balked at the rules, and as soon as he was feeling justslightly better, he set about seeing how much he could get away with.

Nathan was concerned with Ezra's 'cold', as well. After hearing Ezra absently rattle off some symptoms and making his own observations, Nathan guessed it was more like walking pneumonia. Ezra was adamant about not taking another bed from the kind Ms. Travis, as she was already putting up more than her fair share of guests, so, much to Buck's dismay, Ezra commandeered the loveseat.

That first day they'd arrived at the Travis ranch, JD had been the only one conscious enough to assist the reinforcements Judge Travis had sent for, but between JD and Jimmie Roberts' witness, they had plenty to go on. Chris, Buck, JD and Josiah had all accompanied the troop, JD in the lead and confidently showing the way. Nathan had deemed Dunne a very lucky man for having survived their first prolonged encounter with Crane's boys, let alone for being able to lead the raiding party against him. He'd examined the wound on JD's head and judged by the bruising at the back of his head and neck that the worst thing the young man had actually received was a concussion from hitting his head on something when he'd reacted to the gunshot. The flesh wound that had scared Chris, Vin, and Ezra so badly was minor, though just a fraction of an inch difference could have killed him. But as it was, Ezra's shredded undershirt had provided more than enough bandage to keep the boy's brains in, Nathan said.

The raid had gone relatively well, from what Ezra had been able to learn from JD, Buck and Josiah. Chris spent his time either with the Judge or with Mary Travis once the Judge had left with the army, bound for Tombstone with their many prisoners in tow. Anthony Crane had been one of the men who had scattered at the first sign of the charging posse. But the fifteen men from the army, plus the four men who had volunteered to assist, ended up bringing back a full thirteen prisoners. Some men had been killed in the initial gun battle once the party had cleared the pass that served as the ranchos front gates, but the others had managed to get away. A day later, thanks to Jimmie Roberts, they now had names of those who'd gone missing, so plans were already in the works to get out some posters.

Vin particularly was angered by Anthony Crane's absence from the Army's caravan of prisoners. He refused to say why however. Chris had had to come to Ezra for that information, as JD did not know Mr. Crane by name. Ezra had reluctantly told Larabee, between coughs and his voice still weak, about Vin's rather one-sided fight against Crane and two of his goons. He carefully avoided mentioning why the fight had ended though.

Chris waited patiently, but Ezra cut the tale off just before the part he'd already heard from the two other members of his team who'd been present. Sitting there in front of the sofa, on a chair he'd taken from the kitchen table, he stared long and hard at the poker faced Ezra Standish. Ezra absently scrubbed at the rough sleeves of his borrowed linen shirt and resolutely avoided eye contact with the man who 'out ranked' him and the five other men still camped out at Mary's.

"Vin told me you ran, Ezra," Chris finally said. Ezra's eyes snapped up immediately, a hard, defensive set to his jaw. He opened his mouth to reply, but Chris continued before he had a chance. "So why'd you go back?"

The question caught Ezra off guard.

"Pardon me?" he asked.

"You were gone. Free. Whatever. You could'a come back and gotten the rest of us, or ya coulda gone and drunk yourself sober at the saloon... Anything. You. Damn. Well. Pleased. But I wanna know why you turned around and went back for 'em," Chris shrugged, accenting his words by jabbing a finger into his black-clad knee.

Ezra was shocked. Was Chris' opinion of him really so low? Despite the fever, he felt his face grow hot and his anger rise.

"Friends do not abandon one another. Mr. Larabee, I don't know what kind of trash you're thinkin' I am, but I could not - no. I *would not* just leave those men there to die alone when I thought there was even the slightest chance I could be of some aide," he answered, honestly giving the other man the first response that made it into his head.

As Ezra spoke, his voice firm, stubborn and growing angrier with every word, Chris began to smile. Standish glared at him, hurt by his attitude. Chris stood up and patted Ezra on the shoulder, the grin still on his face.

"That's what I've always thought. Just had ta hear ya say it, Ezra."

The anger left Ezra in a rush, replaced by surprise. He paused a moment and wondered on what it was he'd said. Ezra was surprised himself by the confession, but on hindsight, he realized that he still meant every word of it. He watched Larabee turn and carry the chair back to the kitchen table. Just before Chris disappeared into the other room, Ezra swore he heard the hard-as-nails gunslinger say simply, "Thanks."

The End