Bad Moon over Rock Hollow
Part 3
A Round Robin
Story
by Flah7, J.Brooks, NotTasha, Sablecain, Tipper, Violette
email
the authors, let them know what you think
41) "Fear of Heights" – Flah7
"Ezra! Move!"
Ezra swung around in the pitch darkness and couldn't help but think, 'move where?'
Then a broad shoulder punched into his midsection sending him flying backward, over crates, a rotting body, and into and through an unseen partition.
Wood splintered and dust floated in the inky black tunnel.
Ezra slammed into the ground and lay open mouth, gasping for an elusive breath.
The growling of dogs and gnashing of teeth meant very little to the stunned gambler.
Josiah immediately started scrambling to his feet, but howled as teeth buried into the meaty part of his calf. He sheered manically at his leg with his booted foot catching the unseen gnawing dog on the bridge of the muzzle. Sanchez continued to kick blindly at the guard dog.
The dog relinquished its grip and caught a second hit to the chest sending it tumbling backward into its pack mate, clambered blindly, trying to gain his feet, mauling Standish in the process.
Ezra continued to try to inhale with little success.
Then from a distance, a distinctive holler could be heard. A single note of distress came from above.
Standish finally gasped an elusive breath just as the rapidly approaching voice became familiar.
"Mr. Wilmington?"
As if in answer, Buck's holler became distinctly closer. It was mingled and punctuated with the sounds of crashing, splintering wood. Then a solid thud landed just above them.
Suddenly, everything was quiet, except for the soft shifting and falling of sandy dirt from above. It rained down upon the two lawmen and dogs.
The dogs paused.
Josiah twisted around looked up in the pitch black seeing nothing.
"Buck?" Josiah whispered.
The unseen cavern roof collapsed in a cascade of dried dirt, broken planks of wood, clods of clay and Mr. Wilmington. Buck landed with an expulsion of breath on top of the two lawmen in a shower of dirt, wood and assorted tools.
Soft gray light streamed in from above, giving the once pitch black tunnel a source of weak light.
The dogs whimpered.
In the distance, somewhere above, a donkey brayed.
42) "Board Games" – Violette
"Buck?" Josiah asked, extracting himself from the pile.
"Ungh." Buck rolled his head to the left and blinked dazedly at Josiah. "Daisy? Tha' you?"
Ezra coughed. "Get... off... me."
Grunting as his bruises and the bite wound made themselves known, Josiah cleared the debris off of his friends and gently eased Buck off of Ezra, who curled onto his side, moaning in pain.
Buck waved his hand about, mumbling nonsensically.
Josiah sat and rubbed the grit from his face. A low growl to his left had him reaching for his weapon. Whirling toward the noise, he had to grin at the sight of the dogs, trapped on the other side of a tangled pile of rubble. They growled and scratched at the pile, but would not be able to reach the men.
"Thank god for small favors," Josiah said with a chuckle. He watched as the dogs seemed to come to attention, and then dart away, down the dark end of the tunnel.
"But Daisy, honey," Buck said. "You promised me a game of strip checkers."
Ezra snorted, and then wrapped his arms around his ribs with a gasp. "Our Mr. Wilmington plays the most interesting board games."
Josiah's laughed echoed throughout the tunnels.
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Chris cursed as he hit yet another dead end. The dark tunnels were an endless maze and he was quickly getting fed up with trying to find his way through them. He turned and started trudging back toward the last intersection. When he reached it, he stopped, listening for any kind of sound to indicate which direction to take. A muted yell came from the tunnel to his left, so he turned and headed in that direction.
He could hear more noise -- voices, it sounded like. He slowed his pace, wary in his approach, lest he encounter one of the hordes of townsfolk that were out for his blood. The tunnel seemed to be brightening a bit, so he kept to the side, not wanting to alert anyone to his approach.
A shadow detached itself from the gloom and came toward him. The low growling made his hair stand on end. Chris took another step forward, freezing when the shadow was joined by a second and then a third. The growling ratcheted up in intensity.
Chris thought about running, but then decided he'd had enough of this crazy town and its crazier inhabitants. The slow burn of anger had been building for hours and it now exploded. He stepped forward and glared and the three enormous dogs blocking his path, matching their growls with one of his own. He stared each of the dogs in the eye and, one by one, they backed away, whimpering as they turned tail and ran.
With a fierce grin, Chris continued down the tunnel, at the sound of Josiah's booming laugh.
"Josiah?" he called into the gloom.
"Chris?" Came the return query. "Chris look out, there's some vicious dogs down here."
"They ain't a problem anymore," Chris answered, quickening his pace. A pile of debris blocked his path, but he was able to shove enough of it aside to squeeze his slender body through. It only hurt his arm a little.
Josiah eyed the gap warily, looking behind him for signs of the dogs.
"Buck?"
"Got his bell rung," Josiah said. "What did you do to the dogs?"
"Nothing," Chris replied, moving to check on Ezra. "They ran away."
Josiah couldn't help it. He started laughing again.
"Mr. Larabee," Ezra said weakly. "I'd like to go home now."
43) "Typhoid Mary" – Sablecain
Bouncing and lurching along the bumpy dirt floor, Vin encouraged JD onward as he eyed the soil raining from above and felt the rumbling earth below.
Bored, worried and hurting, Vin passed the time by collecting random items from the loot that lined the dimly lit tunnel. An unlit lantern was tucked between his knees, a long dingy sword hid under his injured leg. In his breast pocket rattled a handful of tarnished gold coins and a small iron plate and round his neck hung a dirt crusted glass bottle filled with a mysterious liquid. His mare's leg rested ready across his lap.
He was just reaching for an abandoned rusty canteen when JD spoke suddenly. "There's a light up ahead."
"Careful," Vin tried to warn, but Dunne was already moving with renewed energy. "Might be a trap." Vin gripped his mare's leg as JD rounded the bend at full speed.
"Nathan!" Dunne cried out only to pull up short, jerking Tanner hard.
"You should have listened to yer friend." A straggly-haired woman in a horrible green dress leveled familiar looking six –shooters at Vin even as she let out three outrageously loud sneezes. "Drop the rifle," she ordered with a sniff.
Vin obeyed.
Behind her, another woman pointed her weapon at Nathan. "Over here." She motioned for JD to move. "Leave him there," she ordered.
Vin managed to stay upright when JD dropped his end of the carpet. The lady in green came closer and squatted rather unlady-like beside him. She reached out and touched Vin's hair even as he tried to lean away, patting it gently before wiping the same hand under her runny nose and sniffing.
"Mary, leave him be and help me tie this kid up." The other woman sounded exasperated.
Mary blushed and reached out to touch Vin's hair again. "But, Pandora, he's so pretty." She twisted the strands of his hair between her sticky fingers, ignoring his cringe. "Real pretty."
44) "Buyer Beware" – Tipper
"Ezra?" Chris asked, rolling the man over. Ezra hadn't uncurled, a taut ball in the middle of the floor. Above them, a particularly loud shake caused the walls around them to shudder, and dirt cascaded down. Chris grimaced, glancing at the rock overhead with trepidation, and shook Ezra's shoulder harder. "Ezra, if you want us to get home, you need to get up…."
Ezra nodded, and tried to do as requested, only to groan in pain and curl some more, barely visible in the low light where he'd fallen. The little daylight that had filtered in through the trapdoors had faded to almost nothing with all the new destruction.
Chris frowned, and, pulling his matches out of his pocket, lit a brand.
"Oh hell," Josiah muttered, seeing the light reflected in the growing pool of blood at the same time as Chris. "What--?" He struggled to his feet, ignoring the bite wound on his leg.
Chris leaned back and looked more carefully at what Ezra was lying on. And gasped.
What he had taken for loose rock and shale was nothing of the kind—it was gold. Piles of gold. Coins, plates, cups, candlesticks, jewelry…and weaponry. Daggers, swords, sickles, knives and, horribly, an axe with a spike on it.
A spike Ezra had impaled himself on when Buck had landed on him—it was buried in his right side, just below the ribs. Chris couldn't tell how deep it went, but he could see the damage, as red blood leaked out over the shiny gold floor.
Ezra giggled, seemingly oblivious to the danger he was in, blinking softly as he picked up a gold chain with his fingers. "So pretty…." he said. "Could buy whole states with this much wealth."
"It's blood money," Chris muttered. The match burned out and Chris lit another.
Josiah had managed to prop Buck up against the wall, where the normally gregarious man was trying to get his bearings back. Then he slid over to help Chris, tugging out some of Ezra's shirt from his pants to rip for a bandage.
"We need Nathan," Chris said, looking at Josiah as the other man pressed the cloth to Ezra's back in an attempt to stop the bleeding. "Any idea where he is?"
"He's up there," Buck answered, pointing vaguely at the ceiling even as he pressed a hand to his head. "Two harpies have him hostage."
"Hostage?" Josiah asked.
"Long story," Buck said weakly.
"How do we get up there?" Chris asked.
"No idea. How did you get down here?"
"Um…" Chris looked behind him at the gap in the rubble, "I—"
All of a sudden, the ground started to shake like it was made of jelly, the gold covered floor almost undulating. Ezra squeaked, and Chris threw himself over the gambler as Josiah threw himself against Buck to protect him. The match went out, plunging them into darkness as dust, rocks and huge chunks of stone came crashing down on top of them.
After what felt like an eternity, it subsided…and Chris coughed harshly, trying to get the dust out of his lungs. This place wasn't going to hold up much longer.
He lit a new match, and stood up…or at least, tried to. A massive slab of rock had fallen—it had nearly crashed down on them, but had caught on the sides, so it only cut the tunnel in half. Shaking a little with how close they had come to dying just then, he crouched in the tunnel and looked around, trying to find the others.
"Buck? Josiah?"
"Here," Josiah answered, coughing harshly. He and Buck appeared, waving the dust away from around them. They crawled towards Chris from underneath some fallen boulders, and half stood up next to him.
Chris frowned then, realizing that the way they had come was now completely blocked. That only left one way to go, and who knew how far it went. He sighed and gestured towards the other way. "Guess we're going that way."
"Just so you know," Buck muttered, sounding a little more like his old self, "there's also traps in these tunnels."
"Traps?" Chris asked. "What do you mean, traps?"
"Not sure how you avoided them coming down here, Chris, but Nathan was nearly skewered by one, and I fell down another."
"The dogs," Josiah said, looking back at the blocked tunnel. "Must've been another."
"So, you're saying, if we try to get back to where Nathan is—"
"We'll be in trouble," Buck answered.
"We're not already?" Josiah asked weakly.
"Ooh, a medallion," Ezra cooed dreamily. "Look, diamonds."
"But there's also supposed to be another way out of these tunnels, leading out to the desert," Buck added. "If we can get back to Nathan, and get him away from those harridans, we might be able to find our way out."
"What about JD and Vin?" Chris said then.
"What about them?"
"They're supposed to be done here, too," Chris replied. "You seen 'em?"
Buck's silence was long, as was Josiah's. Chris blew the air out of his cheeks. The match went out at the same time, so he lit another. He was going to run out soon.
"Right," he said, half standing as well. "One thing at a time. Nathan first. Then Vin and JD. Then we get the hell out of Rock Hollow."
"So pretty," Ezra mumbled softly from the ground. "Can I keep it?" He was hugging a gold sword to his chest. "There's rubies on the hilt. I like rubies."
"Put it down, Ezra," Josiah said tiredly, before looking at Chris. "How are we getting out of here, Chris? We don't know where this tunnel goes, or if it might be as blocked as this one further down. And you're going to run out of matches soon, so we won't be able to see anything."
"Oh, hey," Buck said then, he patted at his sides, and then looked around at the ground. "Ha!" Suddenly, he was down on his hands and knees tugging a leather bag out from under some rubble and stone. He hissed a little, remembering the cut on his arm, then grinned, pulling out a lantern that still looked intact. Chris smiled back, taking it and lighting the wick.
"And even better," Buck said, pulling out a stick of dynamite.
Chris's grin grew even as the ground started to shake lightly again.
45) "Weird Science" – J. Brooks
Ezra raked his fingers lazily through the gold coins and chains scattered around him, letting the treasure slip through his fingers again and again.
The other lawmen prowled the room, ignoring the gold as they searched for a way out. Ezra's gaze tracked after him as they paced between the slab of rock that blocked the exit and the hole in the ceiling where Buck had come crashing down.
One of Ezra's hands drifted down to brush against the hunk of metal embedded in his side. Josiah had torn his own shirt into strips and wrapped the wound around the weapon, over the blood-soaked bandages that Chris had already applied. He was afraid to try to remove it without Nathan's help.
Ezra knew he should be more concerned about the situation, but his side was comfortably numb and he was surrounded by more gold than anyone could spend in ten lifetimes. His day was actually starting to improve.
Someone caught his wrist and moved his hand away from the weapon and the wound.
"Leave it, Ezra." Chris's face peered down at him through the gloom.
The gold glinted warmly in the dim light. Ezra imagined he could feel the heat radiating from the treasure, warming him through. He reached down with his good arm to pat the coins fondly, fingers closing possessively around a handful.
Chris swatted gently at hand again, wincing as his wound pulled. "Leave that, too."
Ezra huffed and returned his attention to their surroundings, surreptitiously slipping a few gold coins into his trouser pocket as soon as Chris looked away.
Buck, still seeing double from the blow to his head, was nevertheless fiddling with the dynamite. Josiah had thrown one shoulder against the rock slab, pushing for all he was worth to see if it could be shifted. It couldn't.
Ezra stared up at the ceiling, noticing for the first time the extraordinary collection of hooks and pulleys dangling from the ceiling, along with...
"Is that a skeleton?" he croaked. A ragged scarecrow, all bone and rags, grinned down at him from a metal cage in one corner. Blinking, he spotted a human skull skewered through the eye on a rusting spike that jutted out of the wall. The rest the body was a tangled heap of bones on the floor, jumbled together with a stack of gold bars.
Josiah snorted. "I think our bandit leader fancies himself a pirate king."
The preacher abandoned his attempt to muscle past the fallen boulder and limped back to Ezra to crouch beside him. Chris rose and joined Buck next to the pile of supplies, yanking the dynamite away from him. He pulled a length of rope out of the bag and staring up at the ceiling thoughtfully.
Josiah reached out and brushed a hand across Ezra's forehead, pushing back the sweat-soaked hair and frowning at the chilled, clammy feel of his skin. Ezra smiled dreamily up at him, imagining the saloon he was going to buy once he melted the damn ax in his side down into ingots.
Spying a straw-stuffed crate nearby, marked with the gang's red-hand symbol, Josiah dragged it into a relatively clear space, shoving rocks and gold dust out of the way. The gambler needed to stay warm as he fought the effects of blood loss and shock. The rest of them needed light to help them figure a way out of this hole before another tremor brought the whole place crashing down around their ears.
He struck a match and dropped it in the straw, smiling grimly as the straw blackened and curled back to reveal a set of golden chalices nestled inside the crate.
Let them melt, Josiah thought, staring at the grinning skeleton in its cage.
He could hear agitated movement beside him, and a squawk of protest as Ezra registered what was happening.
"Are you insane?" Ezra hissed, attempting to use the ruby-encrusted sword as a poker to extinguish the fire, which was crackling merrily away, hotter and hotter, blue-tinged flames licking greedily around the goblets.
The sword dropped from Ezra's shaking hand with a thump.
"That can't be right..." the gambler murmured, staring at the flames. "Blue?"
Ezra fought to sit up, eyes wild, ignoring Josiah's cry of warning as the bandages around his midsection reddened with fresh blood. Chris rushed over to grab the struggling man's shoulders and stop him from making his injuries worse.
"Blue," Ezra gasped, reaching out and grabbing Josiah's lapels. "Flames burn blue when they come in contact with lead." He jerked his chin toward fire and collapsed back against Chris with a groan of pure frustration. "Just one of those scientific oddities that every counterfeiter knows."
Josiah and Chris turned to stare at the fire. The gold finish on the chalices was melting like wax, leaving behind the dull shine of lead, slowly softening in the fire.
Ezra groaned again. "Some days, I really, really hate this job." He let his head thump back against Chris's shoulder. "Someone's already robbed the Red Bandit. Stole the treasure right out from under him and substituted cheap plate imitations."
He lifted a gold coin from the floor, inspected it disdainfully, and took an experimental bite, wincing as his teeth hit a surface far harder than gold. He let the coin drop with a sigh, his eyes sliding closed.
Chris stared around the cavern, wondering how long it would have taken the thief to sneak around the traps, and the dogs, and the town full of retired bandits to swap out their treasure, bit by bit.
"Got any theories about who might have..." he started to ask Ezra, and then broke off as he realized the gambler had gone slack in his arms.
A sudden commotion overhead brought the rest of the lawmen scrambling to their feet.
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In the corridor above, three hostages and two seamstresses stared curiously at the smoke curling up through the hole in the tunnel floor.
"What in tarnation is your friend doing down there?" Pandora demanded, turning on Nathan. "Why hasn't he signaled us to come collect the gold?"
The healer looked up from his examination of Vin's mangled leg and shrugged. "How d'you know the smoke isn't his signal?" he said, then turned back to check the bandages wrapped around the bullet hole in the tracker's side. The spear wound on his own back still burned, but he could stand it for the time being.
Vin chuckled, then winced. "I could go down there and check for you, ma'am. If JD here doesn't mind dragging this here carpet over to the hole?"
JD brightened and started to rise, reaching for a corner of the rug.
Mary let out a squawk of protest and raised the six-shooters in warning.
"Nobody's going anywhere," she said, then sneezed so hard one of the pistols misfired, sending a bullet ricocheting down the corridor, nearly taking JD's ear off in the process.
A pained roar startled them all. Mary let out a scream, followed by a sneeze, followed by a second shot into the dark.
"TWICE!" a voice bellowed out of the darkness. "That's twice I've been shot! In one day! Why the hell d'you think I retired? To get away from all the goddamn gunfire!"
A massive shape staggered out of the darkness and stepped into the weak circle of lantern light.
Pandora and her sister let out a startled shriek.
"Red!" Pandora cried, turning a sickly shade of green as her rifle slipped from nerveless fingers.
"We thought you were dead!" Mary said, shaking so hard the three lawmen ducked their heads, braced for another misfire.
Without another word, Rufus Deeds, the bandit-turned-sheriff, stooped with a groan and grabbed the sword from the pile of assorted junk Vin had collected on his travels.
The sheriff gave an experimental slice through the air with the sword, ignoring the guns Mary was still pointing in his direction. The front of his shirt was stained with dried brown blood. Fresh blood welled out of a graze on his shoulder. Deeds ignored it all, lost in the swash and buckle of his fantasy life in the tunnels.
"Now," he said finally, leveling the cutlass at the neck of his nearest hostage -- Vin. "You'll find out what happens to those who try to steal the Red Bandit's treasure."
46) "Back to the Future" – Flah7
"I'd keel haul your bilge-sucking landlubber arse from bow to stern if I had me a Galleon." Sheriff Deeds bellowed with a voice as rough as barnacled hull, which made Nathan wonder how the man's accent could change so drastically. "Instead," Deeds went on, "I'll settle for a close shave!" With that he swung his sword with a swift sweeping upward stroke.
Vin rolled to the side, into Nathan. Oiled, gnarled clusters of Vin's hair flew upward into the path of the razor sharp blade.
"No!" JD lunged forward, burying his shoulder deep into the protruding belly of the bandit turned sheriff.
"Papa!" Pandora and Mary shrieked as one. Pandora's rifle hit the dirt floor. The hammer unlocked from its cocked position and flashed forward. The buffalo gun discharged with a roar to rival any swivel gun found on the lower deck of the even the mightiest sea worthy galleon.
Dirt and debris rained down upon them all.
People froze.
Vin stared despondently at the a now unattached lock of hair.
Nathan scrutinized the tangled mass of limbs that made up a wanna-be sheriff, and a would-be pirate who suffered from being born ~100 yrs too late.
JD slowly untangled himself from the sheriff, wrenching the sword from the bigger man's bloodstained hand.
The floor rumbled and vibrated.
Spurts of dirt drifted from the ceiling.
Wood beams creaked and bowed.
A dull roar became a touch louder.
"You hear something?" JD asked. He straightened, gazing up at the ceiling, catching a face full of dust. He sputtered and quickly twisted away, dropping his head and brushed hastily at his eyes.
"JD, simmer down," Tanner whispered. He heard a trickle of water.
"You hear water?" Nathan asked.
Mary sniffled, rubbing her nose on the arm of her dress. "Pandora?" Her voice had a questioning, but slightly frightened edge to it.
Pandora furrowed her brow and then her eyes widened. "Papa?"
Sheriff Deeds, struggled to his feet, slowly gaining a three point position, pausing slightly, resting his forearms across his lower thighs.
"Blimey!" Sheriff Deeds straightened up and stamped his foot in frustration. "First, you scallywags pillage my hard earned treasure, now this!"
"This? This what? You aren't even a pirate! You don't even look like a pirate!" JD blurted with a tinge of frustration. "When did you start talking like that anyway?"
The rumbling was growing intensity. The vibrations were felt more than heard.
Sheriff Deeds stood as straight as he could, with two recent bullet wounds. "Arg, I could have been a great pirate!" he rumbled, his accent becoming even more piratey. "Ruled the seven seas and amassed a fortune, yar!"
"You live in a desert," JD stressed with a hint of exasperation.
The sheriff dismissed the observation with a wave of his hand, "Arrrggghhh, them's just details, me hearty."
The rumblings became more pronounced. The dirt cascaded down around them in waves.
"Pandora, love, you best be running along, it sounds as if that aquifer we built years ago finally gave."
"Not without you, papa," Pandora reached for her father.
"Yaaarrrrr, best git running, dear. Take yer sister with ye." He turned a baleful eye at the three lawmen and pulled revolver from his waistband. "I have some biscuit eaters that need sendin' to Davy Jone's Locker."
A thread of water ate its way across the dirt floor in a slowly widening stream.
"He's insane." JD turned to Nathan in disbelief, "He's insane. Seriously, he didn't talk like that earlier, did he?"
"He also has a gun, JD," Vin pointed out. He ran his fingers through the patch of very short hair on the side of his head.
"Bad combination," Nathan muttered. Water began to pool around his knees.
"Go on now, me loves," Sheriff Deeds spoke to his daughters, keeping his revolver trained in the general direction of Nathan and Vin. He'd be sure to hit at least one of them, should the lawmen make a move.
Pandora gave her father a long look and then grabbed Mary by the arm and disappeared down a side tunnel.
A thick shower of dirt obscured their retreat.
"Now boys, be prepared to meet yer maker."
Three things occurred at once: The three lawmen froze; Sheriff Deeds suddenly disappeared through a sudden collapse in his portion of floor, and a rush of knee high water bowled through the far wall.
Sheriff Deed's screams of frustration were masked by the hollering of three lawmen, the rush of water and the braying of the wayward ass.
The donkey splashed by a stunned JD, with a Rhode Island Red riding its back, wings out trying to keep its balance.
47) "Desert" - Sablecain
Chris was staring at the hole above, straining to hear what was going on, when suddenly the entire cave rumbled once more and, with a gush of water, Sheriff Deeds came barreling down through the dirt and mud.
"What's happening?" Buck tried to ask as a waterfall formed in the center of cave, but there was an ominous roar.
There was no time to answer. Even as Deeds struggled to find his footing in the deepening water, loose coins and loot that'd he'd hoarded for years, a new wave of water and mud rained down from above.
Josiah grabbed Ezra as Chris reached for Buck, but the water was too much. More of the ceiling fell in on them and the fake treasure, bringing the screaming trio of Vin, JD and Nathan and a donkey with it.
The tidal wave picked them all up, tumbling and tossing them in a massive rush through tunnels forced open by the power of the surge.
Gasping, they all fought for air as the current hurled them about. They brushed the sides of the tunnel, picking up more dirt and mud until what was once a watery mix was now a thick, massive wave of mud and debris.
Chris held on to Buck's belt.
Josiah kept his arms tight around Ezra and the ax imbedded in the southerner.
Vin kicked wildly with one good leg and clutched at his side.
Nathan grabbed onto the donkey as it floated past, knocking off the Rhode Island Red that had once again found its back.
JD doggy-paddled to keep his head above the gunk.
It ended as suddenly as it had begun, the flood turned mudslide pushing them up and spitting them forcefully into the desert onto a pile of sludge, well outside of the town of Rock Hollow.
Ezra blinked up at the blooming ocotillo waving in the damp breeze above him as groans and curses sounded from the others trying to untangle themselves from the muck. "What just happened here?"
48) "Sword Fight" - Violette
Nathan brushed the mud from his face and carefully extracted himself from the debris. He surveyed the muck-covered bodies lying around him with dismay. They were all half-buried in mud and debris. Bit of faux gold and jewels sparkled in the fading daylight. A donkey staggered in a drunken path along the edges of the mud pile. A disgruntled-looking chicken flapped its wings and squawked as it tried to free its feathers of the accumulated mud.
"All this mess for a bunch of fake treasure," Nathan groused, brushing a few phony coins off of his pants along with wet clots of dirt. Starting for the nearest body -- who he finally recognized as Buck, once he cleared away enough muck to see his face -- he started checking for new injuries.
The chorus of moans and groans was disrupted by a yell as Sheriff Deeds leaped to his feet, waving his sword in front of him. "Ye scurvy buggers!" he growled. "Steal my treasure, will ye? I'll show you." He homed in once again on Vin, who scrabbled at the ground, looking for a weapon.
His reactions slowed by the sticky, clinging mud and debris, Vin rolled aside, cursing as the sword sliced toward his head. "Crap!" he shouted, as another large clump of hair fell victim to the blade. "Could use a little help here, guys!"
"Damnit," Chris growled. "What does it take to put that bastard down?" With his one good arm, he started digging his legs out of the mud.
"Nathan!" Josiah called, as he carefully cleared the mess from around the wound in Ezra's side. "Ezra needs help."
Nathan was torn between defending Vin from the mad swordsman and taking care of his other injured comrades. Before he could make up his mind, Buck pushed himself to his feet and headed for Vin.
"Toss me that sword, Josiah," Buck called, swaying slightly as he tried to focus on the would-be pirate.
Vin ducked again as a swipe of the sword liberated yet another lock of hair.
Josiah did as requested, throwing him the gaudy bejewelled sword that Ezra had so admired, but Buck fumbled the catch, dropping the sword in the mud. Squinting hard, Buck pawed at the ground until he found the sword. He raised it just in time to deflect a blow from Deed's cutlass.
"Ye can't best me with the blade, ye landlubbin' bastard," Deeds taunted.
"We'll see about that," Buck said, slicing the air in front of him with the flashy sword.
"Buck?" JD called weakly from underneath a pile of detritus.
"Stay there, JD," Buck answered. "I'll take care of this crackpot."
"Can you even see straight?" Chris asked as he pulled one foot free of the mud with a wet, squelching sound.
"Straight enough," Buck said, lunging crookedly toward Deeds.
"Vin?" Chris turned his attention to the downed tracker. "You all right?"
Vin glanced briefly at Chris before turning to gaze forlornly at the clumps of hair clutched in his hand. "My hair."
"What?"
"Bastard cut off my hair," Vin moaned, clutching the tangled locks to his chest.
Giving a disgusted sigh, Chris went back to digging in the mud. His other his leg was still buried under the thick muck.
While the sword fight intensified, Nathan stumbled his way toward Josiah and Ezra. He grimaced at the sight of the axe imbedded in the southerner. "Damn, Ezra. You sure know how to get into a fix."
"My sword," Ezra said with a pout. "He took my sword." He looked up at Nathan beseechingly. "It had rubies on it. Pretty, pretty rubies..." Ezra's head lolled to the side. "Look, it's ocotillo. Ocotillo!" He giggled for a moment before his face went slack and consciousness deserted him.
"Aw hell." Nathan cursed and started searching the area for any kind of medical supplies while the swords clanged in the background.
49) "War of the Worlds" - J Brooks
Buck took an awkward swipe at the sheriff and overbalanced, sprawling flat just as the other swordsman's counter-thrust whistled through the air where his neck had been.
Scrambling backward, Buck hauled himself upright again, swaying slightly as he fought to keep the world in focus. His head ached and he was bruised head to toe from being tossed around dark tunnels by rushing water. The day was stretching toward sunset and the air was already taking on a chill that bit through his soaking wet clothes.
Shaking off his discomfort, Buck hefted the sword, grunting at the godawful weight of the thing and how it pulled at his hurt arm. He brought the ungainly weapon up again to block another brutal swing from Deeds.
The weapons met with a dull clunk and Buck's eyes widened as the would-be pirate's heavy cutlass bit deeply into the soft golden metal of his own gaudy weapon. For a moment, the two swordsmen froze, staring at each other, with their weapons improbably locked together.
Sensing his chance, Buck tightened his grip on his sword and threw his weight backward. The move caught the sheriff off-balance and he lost his hold on his sword. Buck tumbled backward with both swords -- and promptly crashed into Chris, who had finally freed himself from the mud and was rushing to the rescue. The two lawmen tumbled back into the sticky mud.
The entangled swords flew out of Buck's hands. From somewhere behind them, JD let out a startled yelp.
"JD?" Buck called out, shoving Chris's elbow out of his face. His head throbbed in pain, blood pounding in his temples so hard it felt like it was shaking the ground beneath him.
Before JD could reply, Deeds was looming over the two sprawled lawmen, a crazed glint in his eye and a huge rock hoisted high overhead.
"Yarrrr--" Deeds began, and then froze, as a low rumbling noise filled the air around them.
Buck felt hands latch onto him and haul him back. Vaguely, he was aware that Josiah had him under the armpits and was dragging him away from the rock-wielding bandit while Nathan helped Chris to his feet.
Deeds ignored them, pivoting to face the new threat. His jaw dropped. The rock slipped through his slack fingers.
And a moment later, an enormously fat hog barreled into his midsection, sending him flying.
The rumble turned into the low thunder of dozens of hooves striking the ground. Cows, donkeys, a goat and a few squawking chickens stampeded by. The waterlogged donkey from the tunnel let out a delighted hee-haw and trotted off to join the livestock as they continued on their way. The bedraggled Rhode Island Red let out a triumphant crow from its perch on the donkey's hindquarters. It, and the rest of the stampede, vanished slowly into the sunset in a cloud of dust. The occasional moo floated back to them on the wind.
Slowly, the lawmen shook off the shock and looked around, checking on each other.
Vin had thrown himself over Ezra, who was curled motionless on the ground, the bandages around his midsection now soaked thoroughly crimson. Nathan helped Chris back to his feet and rushed to the gambler's side.
Larabee limped over to study the prone form of Deeds, who sprawled face-down in the muck with a line of hog hoof prints tracked across his back. Chris gave the flattened sheriff-bandit-pirate an unsympathetic prod with his boot.
"Yarrrrrrrggh..." Deeds gargled into the dust. Chris shook his head. Deeds was down, but not out.
Buck shrugged off Josiah's hands and staggered over to JD, who was sitting sprawled on the ground with the interlocked swords vibrating in the ground between his legs, narrowly missing anything vital.
"Promise me," JD squeaked, scooting back from his near-gelding. "Promise me you're never gonna pick up a sword again."
Buck let out a breath and leaned against the swords. "Kid, that's a prom--" And with that, the two swords broke apart and Buck tumbled to the ground again.
From his new vantage point, he studied Ezra's golden sword with the one eye that wasn't pressed into the mud.
"Y'know," he said, reaching out to poke the dented sword that lay inches from his nose. "I think this here sword might actually be made of gold."
He poked the sword again, watching the gold glint in the deep cut the cutlass had left in the blade. The rubies on the hilt glittered in the golden light of the setting sun.
Larabee crouched by his side and hefted the sword experimentally with his good arm, grunting at the unexpected weight. Gingerly, he raised the thing and bit down, hard, on the tip of the blade. He pulled back and studied the tooth marks he'd left on the soft metal.
"Gold," he confirmed with a frown.
JD let out a small laugh. "Ezra's gonna be real happy to hear that," he said, glancing nervously over to where Nathan was working on the gambler.
Larabee turned the sword, his frown deepening. "Don't make no sense," he said, studying the beautiful, impractical thing. "Why is this made of solid gold when the other crap in that tunnel was made out of lead?"
"Because," a voice rang out behind him. "We hadn't gotten around to stealing it and replacing it with a lead copy. Yet."
777777777777777
Vin's disgusted groan rang out through the evening air.
Pandora let out an affronted sniff. Three women stood shoulder to shoulder, studying them over the barrel of their guns.
"You're welcome for the stampede, by the way," Lily Wild said with a wry smile. "You think it's easy keeping that many animals running long enough to save you from getting your brains bashed in? It's not."
She cocked the shotgun and gestured toward the sword. "We'll be taking that now."
There was an explosive sneeze as Mary stepped away from her sister's side and pulled the sword out of Larabee's unresisting grip.
Pandora strolled over to Deed's sprawled form and gave him a brisk pat on the shoulder. "Up and at 'em, Papa," she said.
Deeds coughed and rolled onto his back to study the darkening sky with a martyred expression. "Ye know I hate livestock, girls. Fit fer nothin' but salt pork and jerky for long sea voyages."
"There, there," Pandora crooned, throwing the sheriff's arm over her shoulder and hauling him to his feet. She steered him toward an overloaded wagon and ox team waiting not far away. "We're going to a place where you won't have to worry about bullets or stampedes ever again."
Larabee took a menacing step forward, glaring hard at Lily Wild. "What are you planning to do with him?" he demanded. He'd already seen her gun one man down today.
Lily quirked a small smile at him. "We're taking him east with us. We have enough money now to settle somewhere nice. Maybe a little cottage near the ocean."
Deeds brightened, looking remarkably chipper for a man who'd been shot twice, nearly drowned and then trampled by a pig. "The sea?" he called out, hobbling faster as he made his way to the wagon. "Yo ho ho!"
Mary tucked the golden sword under her arm and hurried after him, giving one last longing look back at Vin and Nathan. "We'll get you a little boat, Papa," she called out to him.
"Yarr, a galleon to ply the seven seas!" Deeds crowed, clambering aboard the wagon.
"Maybe a dingy," Pandora hedged, helping Mary into the wagon and climbing up after her.
Larabee turned to study Lily. "You expect us to just let you ride off with your stolen gold?"
Lily sighed and glanced back at the impatient trio in the wagon.
"Look," she said. "My brother, his crooked partner and half the other 'upstanding citizens' of this fine town have been plundering the bandit gold for years. Ever since Uncle Red's mind started to go and he started melting the payroll gold into doubloons and such."
Buck let out a chuckle, still sprawled on the ground. "How'd they get past the dogs?"
"And the spears that come shooting out of the war?" Nathan called out.
"And the trap doors in the floor?" JD chimed in.
Lily shook her head. "Who do you think put the traps in there in the first place? A town full of thieves, trying to stop the other thieves from stealing all the gold before they could. I think they were hoping to kill the Red Bandit, but the man has more lives than a cat. As long as the thieves replaced what they sold with lead replicas, Sheriff Deeds never seemed to mind."
"So you ladies just figured you'd take your share while you could?" Josiah asked. He stepped casually up to Chris's side. Larabee felt the cold steel of the pistol the preacher pressed against his hip. He shifted a hand and took hold of the gun.
Lily tossed her head. "Can you blame us? We had to get out of that terrible town."
"What about your brother?" Larabee asked.
"The doctor tells me he'll live," she said.
"'Til they hang him for shooting the deputy," Chris said dryly.
"The 'deputy' was Deeds' old second-in-command. He was a ruthless killer with a price on his head. If anything, my brother stands to collect a $500 bounty."
Larabee tightened his grip on the gun and waited.
Lily backed slowly toward the wagon, keeping her weapon trained on them.
"Don't follow us," she said, half an order, half a plea.
Pandora clucked at the ox team and the wagon lurched slowly away through the gathering twilight. Sheriff Deeds' voice rang out from somewhere under the wagon's canvas roof, belting out an off-color sea shanty.
Larabee watched for a moment, and then passed the gun back to Josiah.
"You're going to let them go?" Josiah asked, not sounding surprised. He moved away to start a fire so Nathan would have light enough to work. JD helped Buck to his feet and guided the unsteady man toward the healer.
Larabee turned his back on the wagon tracks and turned to study his battered, bedraggled men.
"Not our town. Not our problem," he said.
Somewhere in the darkness, Nathan sneezed.
"Thought you never got sick, Nathan?" Buck said.
"Shut up, Buck."
50) "Overnight Camping" - NotTasha
Ezra awoke, feeling hot and tired and sore and entirely uncomfortable. Annoyed, he blinked at the star-filled sky above, remembering that it had been raining. Funny, that. "Shouldn't it be raining?" he said with great clarity.
Josiah's face suddenly hovered over his. "Ezra?" he called. His face was taut for a moment, and then it relaxed into an open big-toothed grin. "Thank the Lord."
"What is going on?" Ezra asked. "The last thing I remember…"
But he was cut off as Sanchez clamped a huge hand clamped over his forehead. Josiah frowned. "Fever," he muttered, "That explains it. Best keep Nathan from him until it breaks. No sense giving him a cold on top of all this." Then he patted Ezra's face in a most familiar way. "It doesn't seem to be too bad though," Josiah went on, "Hopefully he'll pull out of it soon."
Ezra had neither the strength, nor the inclination to push him away. He felt drawn out, utterly tired, and strangely detached. Besides, the hand at his cheek felt cool and somewhat comforting.
"How you feelin', son?" Josiah asked, sounding so concerned it hurt Ezra to think about it.
Ezra tried to form a barbed retort, but JD spoke up instead, "He awake?"
"Nearly," Josiah answered.
"I'm quite awake and have all my faculties," Ezra growled, which made JD laugh.
"Yeah," the kid said cheerfully, "Not really there yet. But it's good to see you awake, Ezra."
Ezra tried to glare at him, but even that was difficult. His head still hurt fiercely from that drubbing of the previous day. His shoulder scolded him non-stop, reminding him that he was meant for easier activities. He was sore and bruised and scraped and scratched and torn and… GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY!
A new agony assaulted him and he tried to curl up against the pain in his side. He was being ripped apart! Damn it! Damn it! He sucked in air through his teeth as he struggled to get away from the hurt. This is what comes of cataloguing your pains! Hell! Damnation! Son-of-a…
Suddenly, Josiah and JD were on him, trying to calm him, and then Larabee, Buck, Vin and Nathan swam into his hazy, pain-reddened view. He hardly heard them through the buzz in his ears and the swimming world around him, but after a monumental amount of time, the pain evened out and he was on his back again, staring up at the stars.
He panted as the others settled near him. Josiah stretched out his leg with a groan. Vin eased himself down daintily. Everyone, with perhaps the exception of JD, seemed rather done-in. They were talking, but the buzz still filled his head, fading slowly. His vision cleared until the stars became sharp again.
"Was raining earlier," Ezra restated when he was able. "It was raining… a lot."
"What did he say?" Buck asked someone.
"Said it was raining," Vin translated. "Stopped a while ago, Ez."
"No moon," Ezra added, because the stars were so bright.
"Was up earlier," Vin told him. "Gone down about the same time as the sun."
"Strange," Ezra commented.
"The moon in daylight never bodes well," Josiah told him, helping him sit up to take a drink from a canteen. "At least he's talking clearer," he said to the others.
To avoid looking at Josiah, Ezra turned toward at Vin when the canteen was drawn back. The tracker was trying to find a comfortable position beside him, and was obviously in some pain. Standish was about to ask after his health, when his gaze caught curiously on Vin's head. What the…
Great chunks of hair seemed to be missing from Tanner, leaving him looking like a half-plucked chicken. A little burst of laughter escaped him, which only made him wince and moan and hunch against Josiah.
"Ezra?" Josiah asked, carefully holding the gambler against him. "What's wrong?"
Standish lifted one weary hand and pawed at what was left of the greasy locks on Tanner's half-scalped pate.
Startled, Vin scuttled away, and put a protective hand over what was left. "No need to make it worse," he grumbled as he tried to finger the damaged coiffure into some semblance of 'scruffy'. Tanner glanced to the others, looking hunted and forlorn.
But Ezra's attention had already wandered, and his gaze fixed on a chubby donkey that pulled at the grass near a tree. A chicken nested on its back, clucking quietly to itself as it brooded. A bull was bawling and romping outside of their little circle, idling near a small mob of cows that didn't seem to inclined to run away. A large hog wallowed in the mud, acting as a hurdle for the bovines to leap in their lusty chase. Not far from Chris, peaceful-looking big dog rolled on its back and exposed its belly. And a large tan-and-white goat chewed on what might have once been his jacket.
Usually, that would have been tantamount to murder in Ezra's book of grievances, but he was too tired to pay the creature much mind. And besides, the jacket was already ruined.
A quick glance at his comrades revealed that most were bandaged and bruised in some way or another. What the hell?
All around them was destruction -- busted boards, a sword sunk into the ground, swollen ruined baskets and boxes, tossed nails, blown out lamps, an empty whisky bottle and whatnot. Their group appeared to be on the only bit of dry land in the vicinity. The ruin surrounding them was impressive.
Much of their muddied clothing was hung nearby, beside a cheerful fire, drying. His gaze fell on the flames and he was transfixed by the warmth and the movement for a moment or two. It wasn't until something touched his face that he realized that Larabee was calling his name.
"You all right?" Larabee asked seriously.
"What happened?" Ezra breathed out.
The six men sat back and seemed to ponder that question.
"Dynamite," Buck finally stated. "Explosions. Buildings going 'boom!'"
"Gunfire," Chris added.
"Sword fight," Nathan included.
"Fire and flood," JD interjected.
"Rain and hail and thunder and lightnin' and one hell of a tornado," Vin put in, shaking his head.
"Don't forget the earthquake," Josiah stated. "Hard to forget that. It was all a little like Judgment Day coming." And then added quietly, "And the bad moon."
"Stampede, more than one of 'em," Chris added.
"Sickness," Nathan sneezed.
"Wannabee pirates and crooked lawyers and fake lawmen and testy dressmakers and one crazy son-of-a-bitch with too much dynamite and not enough sense," Buck said. "And a wronged woman."
"Underground caves too," JD stated.
"Big dogs," Larabee said, and at the words the black dog rolled off its back and sat up, looking lovingly toward Larabee.
"And traps!" Buck pronounced.
"Lots of traps," Nathan said, dolefully rubbing at a spot on his back.
"It was one hell of a time," Buck said with a wink and a big grin. "One hell of a time!"
Ezra looked at them as if they were all crazy, and settled his head back on the ground, trying to wrap his mind around it all. The scenes that flashed before his eyes were preposterous. It was if the events had been cobbled together from half a dozen different storytellers. Insane. And he closed his eyes for a moment, remembering.
"The crazy man," Ezra said softly. "Was shooting at you?" and he fixed his gaze on Larabee.
"Yeah," Larabee replied.
"Why?"
Chris said nothing, holding Ezra's gaze as if he wished the southerner would give up and fall asleep.
Not liking that response, Ezra persisted, "I would like to know why the man was gunning for you, and getting me in the mix instead," Ezra told him. He brought a hand to his sore shoulder. "I think I deserve that much."
Chris sighed. "Long story," he said.
So Buck explained, "Bastard beat his wife. Chris got her out of that situation a while ago. Wild wasn't happy about it. Came looking."
Ezra blinked as he absorbed this information. "He still breathing?" he asked.
They all waited until Chris explained, "His wife blew his head off."
Ezra nodded, and said, "Good." The head dipped as weariness tugged at him, and the men around him settled, ready to return to sleep themselves until Ezra's head shot up as he finally drew forth the most important part of the puzzle.
"Gold! Coins and goblets and swords and jewels and… ah hell." His hopeful expression fell, remembering more. "All of it lead and worth nothing."
"Most all of it," Buck commented, and then lifted a jeweled ax that had a nasty looking spike at one end.
Ezra shuddered a little at the sight of it, but couldn't explain why. His mouth dry, it took a moment for Ezra to find his voice. "It's all fake," he sighed. "Not worth the time it took to construct."
Buck took the axe closer to the firelight, where it glittered as prettily as the ghastly device could. "This one ain't lead," he said. "Too heavy. Metal's too soft. There here is gold, hoss."
As tired and as hurt as he was, the notion gave Ezra strength, and he sat up a little in spite of the pull at his stomach. "Gold?" The word had an innocent quality to it, like a child asking if angels really existed.
"You sit back down," Josiah ordered, patting him hard enough on the chest to push him back to the ground. "Don't get Nathan riled up, because he's going to want to get back over here and fix you, and we don't need him sneezing on you and getting you sick."
"I'm not sick!" Nathan said nasally, and then sneezed loudly. "I don't get colds."
"Gold?" Ezra repeated, in the same hushed tone.
"Figure we can share it out," Buck said. "'Less of course we can figure out where it came from originally."
That idea made Ezra frown, but his lips turned up a little at the corners as he remembered the weight of the coins he'd heaped in his pockets. Not everything in that cave was lead, of that he was almost certain. He'd smelled gold the moment he'd entered the place, and his nose was rarely wrong.
Since the others seemed preoccupied with other things, he fingered one coin in his trouser pocket. Gold. It had to be!
He glanced over to Vin who was hunched away from the group, pulling coins from his pockets as well, and a few other trifles. If those pieces were gold as well, it would only take a hand or two of poker, and there'd be a switch of ownership.
If Ezra played on the sympathy and the guilt of the others, that axe would be his in no time, and his smile grew more serene.
"Let's get some sleep," Chris said. "Looks like it's nearly daylight. We'd best make use of what night we have left." The black dog slunk to his side, thumping his tail and curling up next to Larabee with a contented sigh.
"I'm just glad to be out of Rock Hollow," JD stated. "I ain't never been in a place as crazy as that! Still, do you really think we shouldn't go back and take care of things? I mean, they're thieves and murderers and such. We should do what's right and get them to justice."
The men put up a shout of disgust, and Ezra closed his eyes as he reached into his pocket and fingered the coins. Gold -- he was sure of it.
And somewhere, in the distance, a serious of explosions sounded as the last of the fire reached the last of the explosives in Rock Hollow. Those that cared looked up to see the glow of orange in the distance.
Ezra, the cows, the bull, the goat, the donkey, the Rhode Island Red and the big black dog just went on with what they were doing. They were happy, after all.
THE END