The minutes pushed toward an hour, the group in the cave enjoying some light conversation while waiting for the return of their companions.

A groan from behind the men caused them to turn.

Both Nathan and Chris moved swiftly. When they reached Vin, he was struggling back onto his back.

“Easy there, Vin,” Nathan soothed.

“Rolled onto my side. Forgot,” Vin whispered through gritted teeth. Larabee squeezed his best friend’s shoulder. Tanner glanced up at the older man. “I’ll gettin’ sick of this.” There was a lot of frustration and anger in the words.

Chris nodded his understanding. Vin felt vulnerable and he hated that feeling. Most people did, but for Tanner, vulnerability was immediately associated with death.

“Josiah, grab me a couple more blankets. Chris, help me spin him around so we can push his injured side up against the wall,” Nathan instructed.

“Doc?” Vin asked. “Ain’t sensible to lean against the wall.”

Nathan paused, staring down at the thoughtful blue eyes looking up at him. “Why?”

“Walls get cold during the night. Can give a man the chills in his sleep. That’s dangerous.”

Nathan’s brow furrowed. “Okay, we’ll just use the blankets.” Josiah handed Nathan four blankets. The healer began to roll them up tightly and bundled them firmly against Vin’s wounded side. “That should stop you rolling onto the wound.”

“Reckon it should,” Vin agreed.

“You need any more laudanum?”

Vin thought about it and then shook his head. “I’m all right for the moment. Where are Buck and J.D.?”

“J.D. was hungry,” Josiah chuckled.

Tanner smiled. “That boy has hollow legs.”

“I must admit, I too am feeling the pangs of hunger.”

“You know what I feel like?” Josiah asked, physically licking his lips.

“One of Mrs. Potter’s berry pies?” Vin asked.

“Yeah,” Josiah cried astounded. His companions laughed. “What?”

Chris settled on the ground beside Vin as Josiah and Ezra began to discuss the most delicious pies they had ever eaten. The conversation was so simple and easy. So relaxed. Chris watched them and found himself smiling. They had come a long way since the day he had recruited each to defend the Indian village. Then they had been strangers, now... now, they were friends. Perhaps even more than that. In each other, they had found the comforts and frustrations of family.

“Any of you eaten gooseberry pie?” Vin asked.

“No.”

“Now that’s a pie. I like ‘em when the gooseberries aren’t quiet ripe. Real tangy, but it gives you a bellyache.”

“Mulberry,” Chris muttered.

“Huh?”

“Sarah used to make mulberry pies. A man would end up with mulberry stains on every shirt.”

“Who’d see them on your traditional black?” Ezra chuckled.

Chris allowed a soft, reflective smile onto his face. “Didn’t wear black in those days.” Silence. Reality crashed back into place for all of them. Each man’s past entered his mind. All had things they would like to forget. Each had a life he had left behind for one reason or another.

“It’s getting cooler,” Nathan commented.

“Yep. It’ll get cold tonight.”

“I thought the rain would keep things warmer.”

“Sometimes,” Vin agreed. “But you can already feel the chill in the air. Reckon we should start a fire.”

“In here?” Ezra asked. “Surely we’d asphyxiate ourselves?”

“There’s a lean-to at the front.”

“A lean-to?”

Vin flicked his eyes to the mouth of the cave. There was a small wooden roof that extended several feet out from the cave. All of the men had noticed it when they had entered. “You light the fire out under it. The smoke escapes out the sides. If ya hang a blanket this side, it stops the smoke from comin’ inside but not the warmth.”

“You build that?” Josiah asked.

Tanner smiled. “Not that one. But I’ve built a few.”

“All of which is frightfully interesting and ingenious, but we have another problem. Everything’s wet. We aren’t going to get anything dry enough to burn and while the cold concerns me, the idea of having to eat raw ‘whatever’ is enough to...”

At that moment, the heavens opened. The steady drizzle transformed into a blanket of water. The men in the cave stared outside. They glanced at each other and then rollicking laughter filled the cavern.

“I’d give a hundred dollars to see Buck’s face right now!” Josiah laughed.

“One hundred! Mr. Sanchez, Mr. Wilmington’s expression would certainly be worth ten times that amount.”

“I hear one thousand dollars. Do I hear two thousand?” Vin chuckled, attempting to pull himself up. Chris grabbed and assisted him. Tanner grunted and then nodded to Chris as he settled with his back to the wall. A few minutes wouldn’t do any harm. Sleeping against the cold wall all night was a different matter.

“All jokes aside, I hope they didn’t go far. They’re going to get cold quickly and we can’t afford for them to be getting hypothermia.”

The others agreed. None had brought any spare clothes for they had left in something of a hurry. “We’ll have to wrap them up in blankets.”

“Which brings us back to a fire,” Larabee muttered.

“The wood Buck cut is damp,” Josiah agreed.

“Help me up,” Vin requested.

Chris stared at his friend. “You don’t need to get up.”

“I want to check and see if my stash is still there,” Vin insisted with annoyance.

“Stash of wood?”

“When I was bounty huntin’ I used these caves to stop over night with prisoners. Didn’t like goin’ into towns where others could steal my bounty. When I got a bounty on my own head, I stocked up in case I ever had to hide out for a long time.”

“You tell me where it is, Brother, and I’ll go and get it.”

Vin considered the request for several seconds. “There’s a cave about fifteen feet from here. At the back, behind a boulder, you‘ll find the wood. At least, it was still there six months ago. I...” Vin paused and took a deeper breath.

Nathan rose to his feet. “Come on, lay down. No arguments. You were shot yesterday. You need to rest.”

“Look, I...”

“Mr. Tanner. Lying never gets a man anywhere. You are not well and anyone with eyes can see that.”

Vin could feel his anger rising. He didn’t want lay down! It was important that he stay on his feet. Couldn’t they understand that?! “Nathan, I’m fine. I don’t need no nurse maidin’. I’ll let you know if I think...” Vin voice trailed off. Chris had just made a low noise in the back of his throat. “What the hell do you have to say, Larabee?”

“We’re going to have two cold men returning in a moment and we need to be worrying about getting them dry and warm, not worrying about you because you’ve over-exerted yourself and collapsed in a heap.”

“I...” Chris raised his left eyebrow. Vin cursed softly. “One day you’re gonna be wrong, Larabee and I’m gonna enjoy tellin’ ya so.”

Josiah and Nathan exchanged a wry smile.

Chris, too, smiled and taking Vin’s shoulders, guided him back down onto his blankets. “Relax. I’m here to mind your back.” The words were whispered, for Vin’s ears alone.

Tanner sighed and nodded. “I know. I just... yeah, I know.”

Chris tucked the blankets around his friend. “Get some sleep, or I’ll knock you senseless.”

Vin grinned. “Go to hell, Larabee.” The tracker flashed a sincere ‘thank you‘. Chris patted his friend’s arm.

Nathan watched with a certain amount of satisfaction. He’d been right. Vin had refused to succumb until Chris had stepped in.

Vin took a long shuddering breath. “Let me know if ya need help with the fire.”

“We can handle it. You get some...”

At that moment, two very wet, very bedraggled men strode into the cave. Their companions looked at them and burst out into unstrained laughter.

“What?!“ Buck demanded miffed. “Haven’t you ever seen two men who’re wet from the rain?“

“Not two men who look like that,“ Josiah cried, his booming laughter filling the cavern.

J.D.’s face was plastered with huge grin. The youth glanced at Buck and then he began to shake the water off him like a dog shedding water from his coat. Buck, on the other hand, was truly a sight to see. The big man’s cowboy hat was warped, the brim hanging down around his ears. His clothes, while saturated like J.D.’s, were covered in mud. A glob of mud, that was stuck to the middle of Wilmington’s forehead, slid down the bridge of his nose and came to a rest right on the very end.

“What on earth happened to you?” Josiah roared, his laughter, if anything, intensifying.

“Well...,” J.D. started.

“Shut-up, J.D.!” Buck swatted the mud from his nose but only succeeded in wiping more onto his face from his filthy hands.

“What happened?” Ezra hiccuped, his lungs not recovered from his laughter.

“I’ll tell you what happened,” J.D. chuckled. “Old sure-foot here...”

“I’m warning you, boy! One more word and I’ll take out my gun and shoot you!”

“Sure-foot?” Nathan asked.

“Yeah, sure-foot, Wilmington. ‘You just follow in my footfalls, J.D. and you won’t fall,” the Kid mimicked. Buck lashed out, but J.D. had anticipated the move and danced sideways. “Unfortunately, old sure-foot fell flat on his face,” the youth cried, taking a dive onto the ground and doing a very convincing impression of a fish flopping around out of water. His companion’s laugher built to a crescendo. Even Buck was smiling.

“Alright, you two. Out of those wet clothes,” Nathan instructed. Realizing that Vin had all of the blankets, the healer grabbed the four he had placed next to the tracker to stop him rolling onto his side and handed one to each of his wet companions. “Dry off with those and then you can wrap up in one of these. Sorry, Vin. I’m afraid... it don’t matter ‘cause you’re sound asleep,” the healer finished. Tanner’s chest rose and fell in response. The laudanum coupled with his weakness from blood loss and basic fatigue had stolen his consciousness.

“He okay?” Buck asked.

“We keep forgetting, he was shot yesterday,” Josiah stated, quietly.

“Another man wouldn’t be able to get out of bed, but Vin... hell, you know what he’s like.”

“A stubborn son-of-a-bitch,” Buck agreed.

“None of which changes the fact that he’s hurt and considering what he experienced today...” Ezra’s voice faded. The group became quiet, their minds filled with the events that had taken place in Purgatory.

**********

“Any word?” Mary asked the Judge as he returned from the telegraph office.

“Nothing.”

Mary sank down into the chair, her hands clasped in her lap. “We should have tried to...”

“There was nothing anyone could have done.”

The newspaperwoman shook her head. She couldn’t accept that. “They’ve defended us so many times. We should have stopped them from dragging him off like that.” The image of Vin on his knees as Macray’s lackey beat him was one that had been plaguing Mary all day.

Orrin Travis sat down across from his daughter-in-law and sighed. “It will all be over by now. We can’t change what‘s been.”

“Do you think...?” Mary couldn’t even finish the thought.

The elderly circuit judge flicked his eyes to the woman and shook his head. “I’m afraid they would have been too late.” The ramifications of that fact struck both occupants of the room. The thought of Vin hanging was too horrible to contemplate. The thought of Chris riding in and finding his best friend dead left Mary fighting back tears.

“Do you think they’ll come back?” She really meant, ‘do you think Chris will come back?’.

“I don’t know.”

Mary closed her eyes. She had feelings for Chris Larabee, but more than that, she knew what Vin’s death would do to the man in black. Selfishly she cared more about that than the fact that Four Corners still needed their hired protectors. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t, know.”

Mary rose to her feet and strode toward the window. She watched the rain fall and in her mind’s eye she could see Larabee and his men riding back into town... all seven of them. The image faded and with it, her hopes of ever seeing the Seven together again.

**********

The two wet bounty hunters dismounted in the shelter of the cave - a cave less than five hundred feet from the regulators.

“Looks set in.”

“Yep,” Alan grumbled. They had lost the trail once the rain had started. “So, what do we do?”

“There are a lot of caves in this area. They’re probably in one of them. We’ll wait for the rain to ease and then go hunting. That ten dollars is mine,” Manning stated with an evil grin.

“Like hell!”

**********

“How’s that coffee coming?” Buck asked, shivering. He and J.D. were wrapped in blankets and seated close to the front of the cave with their companions around them. Sharing body heat was important if hypothermia was to be avoided. Josiah was sitting on Buck’s right and Chris on J.D.’s left. Buck and J.D. were actually nestled shoulder to shoulder wrapped up like mummies. Nathan was off to one side, monitoring both men’s conditions with a critical eye.

“Won’t be long,” Ezra called from under the lean-to tending to the fire. “So, Mr. Wilmington, where is the feast you most ardently promised? The one that would cause us to laugh on the other side of our face?”

Buck and J.D. exchanged a glance.

“Well...” J.D. started, his hazel eyes enlarging as his mind raced in a vacuum.

“When I fell down the... the precipice...”

“Precipice?” J.D. asked. Buck elbowed the youth. “Ohhhh, that precipice.”

“As I was saying,” Buck continued seriously, “when I fell down the precipice, I had to drop the three... hell, was it three or four bags, J.D.?”

“Five,” the youth offered.

Buck began nodding vigorously. “Five bags of food we had caught.”

Ezra’s right eyebrow arched. “I see. And what, may I ask, were you doing on the edge of precipice?”

Again, Buck and J.D. glanced at each other.

“We were attacked,” J.D. blurted out.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, we were attacked by this horde of men,” Buck agreed.

“A horde?” Nathan clarified, reaching for Buck’s brow to assess the temperature of the scoundrel’s skin. “Out in this storm?”

“Yeah, must have been eight or nine men.”

“I counted eleven.”

“There you go,” Buck offered, his hands dancing in front of Nathan’s face. “Eleven men attacked us and stole our seven bags of food.”

“Couldn’t find anything, huh?” Chris asked in his hushed voice that seemed to echo in the cave.

“Not a damn thing,” Buck conceded.

J.D. shoved the big man. “Hell, Buck. It was workin’. They were believin’ us!”

“I was convinced,” Josiah chuckled.

“Okay, mugs please. The water is boiled and... why am I doing this?” Ezra asked.

“Why shouldn’t you do it?” Nathan asked.

“Mr. Jackson, menial labour is something that...”

“Just pour the damn coffee,” Buck cried, his body racked by shivers at the thought at the hot liquid entering his throat.

Ezra snorted and filled the mug Josiah held up to him. Sanchez passed the mug to a very eager Buck. Wilmington’s hand snaked out of the tightly wrapped blanket and clasped the cup. Without a word, he passed the coffee to J.D. The youth accepted it gratefully and began to sip the boiling hot liquid.

“Get some of that into ya, Kid,” Buck stated, reaching for the second mug.

Coffee was served to all and then Ezra seated himself on the ground. “Two things concern me,” the gambler stated.

Larabee flicked his eyes to the other man.

“First, how long do you think we will be here? If it is more than overnight, I do believe my derriere will bruise badly. This ground is particularly hard.”

This put smiles on his companions’ faces. “And the second thing?” Chris asked.

Ezra sipped his coffee, his brow furrowing with thoughtful consideration. “We only have enough coffee for two more cups each and I get the feeling we will be here considerably longer than a mere twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, that in itself is terrifying, however, we are going to need sustenance.”

The smiles fell from the men’s faces. Normally, they packed something for every journey, but there had been no time.

“He does have a point.”

“Vin said he holed up here for a couple of weeks in the rainy season. He must know where to find food.”

“He isn’t going out in this,” Nathan argued. Again silence filled the small cave, the men staring outside. The rain was still falling in sheets and the cloud above looked as though it had a great deal more to let loose.

“Then, we have a problem,” Ezra muttered.

“It may flood,” Nathan commented.

“More than likely,” Josiah agreed. “The land isn’t used to such heavy downfalls like this.”

“Will we be safe here?”

“If we aren’t, Vin will tell us and move us on,” Chris stated, without doubt.

A loud rumble of thunder caused the men to pause.

“Was that thunder or your stomach, J.D.?”

The youth grinned but the smile faded quickly as hunger pains cramped in his abdomen. “I haven’t eaten since this morning,” the youth whispered.

No one responded for several minutes. “I need to get some food into Vin. It’s the only way he’s going to regain his strength after all that blood he lost yesterday.”

‘Yesterday’. Again, Larabee’s cheek twitched with anger. Chris glanced at Buck. “You ready to try again?”

“Just say the word,” Wilmington stated.

“I’ll go with you this time. We’ll find something.”

“Chris, there wasn’t anything out there. Nothing!” J.D. argued. “I did everything Vin taught me and I couldn’t find a thing. When we couldn’t find any animals or birds, I dug down at least two feet and...”

“The kid’s right, Chris. There isn’t anything out there,” Buck agreed.

“There is.” The group physically jumped. Vin was standing over them, dressed in his buckskin coat and hat and with his mare‘s leg hanging by his side.

“How the hell do you do that?!” Buck demanded, wiping off the burning coffee he had spilt on his arm. None of the men had heard the tracker rise or approach, but that fact didn’t surprise them. Vin could move like a ghost.

“I won’t be long,” Tanner stated in an emotionless voice that the group had to strain to hear. “Have to get enough for a couple of meals.”

“Now, hang on a minute!” Nathan cried, leaping to his feet. “You aren’t going out in that! I don’t want your wound getting wet. I don’t want you getting wet, period.”

“This could set in for two, maybe three days.”

“THREE DAYS!” Ezra shrieked.

Vin was staring at Chris. He wasn’t asking for Larabee’s permission, just the gunfighter’s understanding.

“We wait until morning. If the rain hasn’t eased by then, Buck and I will go. You can tell us where to find it.” Larabee voice was hushed but determined.

Vin stared at Chris for several seconds. He could see the sense in his friend’s words. The problem was, he kept reacting instinctively and his instincts weren’t used to being able to depend on others. “Okay,” he conceded, quietly.

Nathan physically sighed his relief and then took Vin’s arm and led him back to his bedroll. “Now, I’m not going to lecture you, but you have got to get it through your head that you have to rest. Hell, your legs are trembling, Vin!” Nathan cried. The physical exertion had been too much for the weak man.

Vin grunted. Chris and Nathan helped him out of his coat for the second time in less than two hours and then assisted the wounded man to lay down.

“You have got to give your body a chance to heal, Vin. You don’t seem to realise that you were badly hurt, yesterday! I dug a bullet out of you! Damned if I know why you aren’t just laying there sleeping like a normal man! You need to rest. You need plenty of fluid and tomorrow I‘ll get some food into you. If you don‘t listen to me...”

Vin grinned. “I‘m glad ya aren’t gonna lecture me, doc.”

Nathan paused. “Lord, give me strength!”

Chris smiled and patted Vin’s arm. For Nathan’s sake, get some rest.

“Okay, Doc. I reckon I’m tired anyway.”

**********

“Buck, you still awake?”

“Mmm,” Wilmington replied, sleepily. The group had bedded down. None had realised just how tired they were feeling until they had actually laid down. It had been an incredibly emotional day.

“How long do you think we‘ll be here?”

“Don‘t know. Depends on the rain.“

“Hope we find some food tomorrow,“ J.D. murmured, staring up at the unholy shadows that were flickering around the cavern as a result of the dying fire. He was feeling sick. The others had joked about feeling hungry, but J.D. didn’t think it was a laughing matter.

“We will, Kid.”

“I hope so. I’m really hungry. My stomach feels strange. I’ve always been like this if I don’t eat enough. I kinda start to act strange.”

Buck sighed and rolled over to look at J.D. who was laying only a couple of feet from him. They had settled about an hour earlier. Josiah had taken first watch... just in case anyone decided to sneak up on the sleeping group. Nathan was on duty now, sitting at the mouth of the cave, his rifle laying across his legs, his blanket up around his shoulders. Outside of the steady driving rain, the only sound was the thundering of Josiah’s snoring which seemed to be echoing off the walls.

“Look, J.D., try and get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll find some food, I promise.”

“Sorry. Just can’t sleep. Still too worked up after what’s happened in the last two days.”

Wilmington smiled. “Yep, you made a hell of a shot yesterday, kid. Saved all of us.” Even in the dark, Buck could see the look of pride plastered all over J.D.’s face. “Get some sleep, sharpshooter.”

“Night, Buck.”

Some time later, Nathan walked across to wake Ezra for his turn at sentry duty.

“Ezra,” Jackson prompted, shaking his companion.

Standish rolled over and frowned. “It is a deplorable situation when a man must leave the comfort of his bed to sit and...”

“What bed?”

“Good point,” Ezra agreed, rising and moving to the mouth of the cave. “It’s still coming down. I’ve never seen rain like this.”

“I have once, but it didn’t last this long.”

“Mr. Tanner said it could persist for a couple of days.”

“There’ll be floods.”

“Yes. I hope Four Corners is preparing.”

Nathan moved across to Vin and placed his hand on his patient’s brow to check for fever. Vin awoke abruptly, his hand snaking out towards his mare’s leg.

“Easy, Vin. It’s just me.” Nathan waited for his unsettled friend to orient himself. “How are you feeling?”

Tanner thought about it and grimaced. “Sore, but I’ve been sleepin’. How much laudanum did you give me?”

Nathan grinned. “Added it to your canteen of water. Thought it would help you sleep.”

“Thanks,” Vin stated, sincerely. It had been a deception, but one Vin was willing to forgive.

“Soon as this rain passes, we’ll get you home and into a comfortable bed... where you will be spending most of your time in the next couple of days.”

“Now, that sounds real good to me,” Buck commented. “Just what I intend doing. I gonna find me a blond, a red head and a brunette and then I’m gonna find me a room and then...” Buck raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“We get the picture,“ Vin chuckled.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you, Buck, ” Nathan apologised. “I just wanted to check Vin. You need anything before I turn in, Vin?”

“Could use some water.” Buck immediately got up and moved to Tanner’s side. Together he and Nathan helped the weakened man to sit so he could drink from the canteen.

Tanner felt somewhat self-conscious but he shrugged it off. He would have found it difficult to sit without assistance and the others had provided help without thought. The young man who had spent his life since five on his own, not allowing anyone to get near enough to help him was learning the grace to allow others to care for and about him. “Thanks,” Vin puffed.

“It’s really hurting?” Nathan asked, noting the lines of pain around Tanner’s eyes.

“A bit. It’s okay.”

“How about some more laudanum?”

Vin shook his head. “Keep that. I may need it tomorrow. Ain’t no tellin’ how long we may be here.”

Nathan took the canteen from his young companion and then together he and Buck lowered their injured friend back onto his blankets. “No sign of fever?” Buck asked.

“No... not yet,” Nathan muttered, his brow furrowed with thought as he searched for something to help ease Vin’s pain.

“You expect it to get infected?” Wilmington pressed.

“Maybe. It’s been jerked around for a whole day and he got it wet.”

“You got anything to treat it here?”

“Only enough to last a couple of days.”

“You two fellas finished discussin’ me?” Vin grumbled.

Buck patted the younger man’s shoulder, but said nothing. He had grown close to Vin in the last few weeks. He realized that Tanner had ‘allowed’ him to get close. The tracker let few into his tight circle of friends but Buck and the others had earned their entry keys.

“J.D.’s hungry,” Buck chuckled, changing the subject.

“No kiddin‘,” Vin murmured with amusement.

“Yep. Kid says he starts to act strange when he hasn‘t eaten.”

“Stranger than he normally acts?” Vin asked.

Buck laughed.

“If you three are going to remain awake and conducting a conversation, may I suggest you take sentry duty so I can return to my slumber.”

“We’re going to bed now, Ezra.”

Standish inclined his head to Josiah. “How the hell he can sleep through his own snoring I’ll never know.”

**********

Ezra shook Chris roughly. “Mr. Larabee, I don’t believe we are alone!”

Chris sat up immediately, his gun appearing in his fist. Surprised, Chris discovered that Ezra was staring into the darkness above them. While the cavern was not very deep horizontally, it appeared to extend out of sight above them.

“Someone climbing down from above us?” Chris asked, rising to his feet to stand next to Ezra. The pair stood listening to the silence.

Ezra strode across and nudged Josiah with his boot. Immediately the huge preacher’s snoring ceased as he stirred. The cavern echoed with silence.

Above there was movement. Both Chris and Ezra raised their weapons. “Boys!”

Chris moved over to crouch beside Vin, placing his hand on his friend’s shoulder to ensure the young man didn’t attempt to rise without assistance. The other men leaped to their feet, their eyes following the line of their companions’ gaze.

“There’s someone above us,” Ezra whispered.

Vin blinked several times and then burst out laughing. All of the men looked at him curiously. Tanner gripped his side, the convulsions causing him considerable pain, but he could not control his mirth.

“What?” Chris demanded.

“Ain’t no ‘one’ above us,” Vin chuckled.

“I distinctively heard the movement of one, maybe two individuals,” Ezra argued.

“Try a couple of dozen,” Vin stated, nodding to Chris. Larabee took Tanner’s shoulders, eased him up and then sat down beside his companion. He understood what Vin was getting at.

“A couple of dozen?” J.D. asked. Josiah, Buck and Nathan lowered their weapons, they too having recognized the source of the movement.

“Yeah, a couple of dozen bats.”

“Bats!” Ezra and J.D. shrieked as one.

“Yeah. What did you think that smell was?”

“Smell?”

“The musty odour in here.”

“I simply assumed it was the damp, dank... it’s bats?” Ezra asked incredulously.

“Nope, it’s bat shit. It’s all over the place. Look,” Vin added pointing.

“Oh my God, I’ve been sleeping on rodent excrement!” Ezra shuddered. Closer inspection sent the gambler’s world upside down. “It’s all over my blankets. Those disgusting flying rats have been pooing on me!”

“Pooing?” Chris repeated with amusement, leaning his elbow on Vin’s shoulder.

“Yes, pooing. Dropping their dung all over us! Why didn’t you say something?!” Ezra demanded of Vin. Vin exchanged a smile with Chris. “This is nothing to be amused about. We could catch something from this manure. Lord knows what!”

“Ezra, relax,” Nathan soothed, but he couldn’t wipe the grin from his face.

“I say we leave now!” Ezra insisted.

“Calm down, brother. A little bit of manure never hurt anyone.”

“Yeah, manure usually helps things to grow. Hey, J.D., maybe it’ll make you taller!”

“Shut-up, Buck,” the youth snapped, his wide eyes raised to the endless darkness above them.

“Whatever you do, don’t open your mouth looking up there,” Buck declared, breaking out into raptures of laughter at his own joke.

“You’re disgusting, Buck.”

“Ezra, relax. They’ve been up there since we arrived. They aren’t going to hurt us,” Nathan claimed.

“Hurt us?! You may not mind having animal excrement falling on you all night, but I do!”

“Lower your voice, Ezra. Any loud, high-pitched sound will frighten them. Have you ever been in a bat storm? Bats flyin’ in your face. Bat shit all over ya. Ain’t somethin’ I think you’d like,” Vin chuckled.

“Mr. Larabee, I demand that we leave now... this instant!”

“It’s still dark, Ezra and it‘s still raining. We don‘t leave until the rain stops. So, lay down and pull the blanket up over your head.”

Appalled and knowing full well he was not going to receive any satisfaction, Ezra did just that. “One of you will have to take over sentry duty!” the gamblers muffled voiced pointed out from under his blankets.

“Oh, hell, Chris. I reckon we’ll have to stay at least a couple of days,” Vin chuckled.

“Mr. Tanner, I do not find that amusing!” The rest of the group laughed and then, one by one moved back to their beds.

“J.D.,” Chris prompted.

The youth nodded, took one final look at the cavern above him and then moved to the mouth of the cave.

Larabee turned back to Vin, eased his hands under Tanner’s arms and helped him to stretch out again. “Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Wake me if you need me.”

Tanner grunted. As Chris went to move off, Vin reached up and gripped his arm.

Thanks, Chris. What had happened in Purgatory was finally sinking in. Vin was beginning to realize just how close he had come to hanging. We owe Ezra and Nathan.

That we do. Chris reached down and squeezed his best friend’s shoulder. “Take it easy.” With that, Chris returned to his own bedroll.

Silence was restored to the cave... except for passionate curses intermittently coming from under a certain blanket. “Won’t hurt me, ha!... Bat manure falling from the sky like hail and...”

“Shut up, Ezra!”

A small pebble was inserted in a particular child’s toy and fired with precision. It flew across the three feet and struck Ezra on the backside.

“BUCK!” Standish roared. His only reply was uproarious laughter from his six so-called friends.