Getting Vin into the saddle proved harder than any of the men had first thought. Had the tracker remained asleep, the activity would have been completed quickly. But the moment he was lifted, just as Chris had feared, Vin awoke startled and immediately began fighting against Buck’s and Nathan’s caring hands that held him so tightly. Chris had leaped forward and with a squeeze of the shoulder and three quick words, ‘Vin it’s us!’, stilled the struggling tracker. It was then that Vin insisted on getting into the saddle himself. After two full minutes of arguing and complaining, and trying to stand, he won the battle. His need for independence - and for Vin it was a need, not just a wish - his need for independence and personal space overpowered the dizziness and desire to lay there and sleep. In the end, Chris had pushed the other men away and indicated for Vin to try to complete the activity unassisted. Standing half a foot from his obstinate friend’s side, Chris caught Vin easily when he finally fell after two failed attempts to mount Josiah’s horse. Together Chris and Buck lifted the weak, swearing tracker up to Josiah. By the time Vin was settled in the saddle, the laudanum had once again removed his consciousness.

"Stubborn bastard!" Chris growled, but then, he couldn’t blame Vin for being who he was. It was that independent spirit that anyone who knew him respected him for. Chris watched as Nathan fussed about the sleeping young man to ensure he was indeed okay. "Well?" the Seven’s leader demanded.

"Yeah, he’s alright. For now - the fever that I thought he was developing, seems to have settled."

"Mr. Jackson, from the onset of appendicitis to ....to when the organ must be removed? What sort of time frame are we talking about?" Ezra inquired.

"To tell you truth, Ezra, I don’t really know. The general consensus is just to remove it as quickly as possible. A day at most, I should guess."

"And if it don’t happen?" J.D. asked. Yes, he had heard of appendicitis and he knew it was deadly, but he really didn’t know why.

Nathan glanced at the boy and grimaced. "The appendix perforates. That means bursts. Poisons him."

"Alright, move out," Larabee growled. "I want to be at the coach stop by late morning."

"You want Buck, Ezra and I to ride on ahead and deal with them bandits?" J.D. asked.

"No, we stay together," Chris snapped. Separating had been their first mistake. Chris didn’t intend making it their second as well.

++++++++++

"See," Larry smiled with satisfaction. "I told you not to worry. Fate is smiling on us." The two cold heartless men, watched as their prey set off in a tight convey. "Now his companions have prisoners and a sick man to occupy their thoughts."

"Let’s attack now!" Morgan agreed.

"No. Let’s wait. Tanner looks really sick. Let’s see what happens."

"Damn it, Larry. How much longer are you gonna...."

"We’re talking about the easiest five hundred dollars we’re ever gonna earn. Relax and enjoy the ride. When the time’s right, we’ll just walk in."

Morgan grimaced. "Alright."

++++++++++

Nathan carefully monitored his patient’s progress. Why Vin couldn’t have been shot or stabbed he didn’t know. Hell, bullet wounds, broken bones, stitching up holes caused by knives, he could handle, ut appendicitis?

"How’s he doing?" Buck asked. It seemed that every ten minutes one them were asking the same question.

"Like I keep sayin’. He seems to be holdin’ his own!" Nathan glanced at his friend and swallowed. "Sorry, Buck. I’m just tired."

"I know. We all are."

"No sign of fever, yet, and he don’t seem to be in much pain at the moment. Don’t know whether that’s the laudanum or just exhaustion."

"Probably both," Buck suggested. "That boy ain’t slept for days. Or eaten. If he didn’t have the appendix thing he probably would have been in the same condition anyway."

Yeah, except he wouldn’t be dyin’! Nathan thought cynically.

"How are your arms, Josiah?" Chris called. He didn’t want Vin dropped under any circumstances.

"Just fine. But if any of ya are offering to hold him for half an hour, I wouldn’t protest."

Chris nodded. "Buck?"

"You lift him up here with me, pard. Vin and I done rode an hour that way yesterday."

Larabee called a halt. Carefully, Vin was passed down to Chris and Nathan and transferred to Buck. Vin awoke, but the constant pressure on his shoulder assured him he had nothing to fear.

Josiah stretched his aching arms. "That boy’s heavier than you think," the preacher commented.

Jane watched Larabee speak softly to the tracker as he was settled in the saddle in front of Buck. She heard Vin grumble something to which Larabee and Buck laughed. Chris Larabee did not strike her as the type of man who laughed often. She had been surprised that the gunfighter had not insisted on being the one to hold his ill friend. Jane quietly brokered this question to Josiah.

"If we’re attacked, the man holding Vin can’t shoot. And Chris is our fastest shot. He’s needs to have his arms free."

"Oh."

An hour later and Vin was back with Josiah and beginning to squirm for the first time.

"Laudanum is wearing off," Nathan explained, probing Vin’s abdomen gently after he had been carefully lifted from the saddle and laid out on a blanket for the healer to examine. Nathan had expected there to be more rigidity in his lower stomach by now. "But we’re lucky. His condition is progressing a lot slower than I thought it would. Mrs. Phillips, will you get me my bottle of laudanum, please."

"Don’t want any more of that stuff, just yet, Nathan," Vin argued, trying to get more comfortable on the hard ground he was resting on.

"Why?"

"Don’t want my last few hours to be spent sleepin’." All of the men froze and nervously began glancing at each other. "Chris," Vin called.

The gunfighter knelt down beside his pale companion. "Yeah, Cowboy?"

"We gotta talk. Got some things I need to tell ya. Some things I want ya to do for me."

"We can talk about that when you’re stronger. Right now, we need you to drink the laudanum to help with the pain. Otherwise we’re gonna have to build a litter and that will slow us down."

"What’s your blasted hurry?" Vin demanded. "The prison ain’t goin’ nowhere. And Mindez’s men are probably half way back to Mexico!"

"We aren’t heading for the prison."

"Huh?"

"We’re taking you to the coach stop you and Buck found. Need a clean dry place for Nathan to perform the operation."

Vin Tanner’s eyes narrowed as he flicked them to Nathan Jackson. The healer’s face was mixture of pain, fear, trepidation, hurt, turmoil and alarm. "Ain’t no one gonna gut me like a damn fish."

"No one asked you," Chris murmured, standing up and nodding to Buck and Nathan. It was time to lift the cantankerous tracker back into the saddle. "You haven’t got a choice."

"Stuff you, Larabee. Nathan ain’t cutting me open! You hear me, Chris! Nathan ain’t cutting me open!"

"Drink the laudanum!"

"Drink it yourself! And put me down damn it," Vin ordered, beginning to struggle despite the renewed pain in his stomach. "Chris I gotta talk to you before.....damn it, before I go to hell."

"You aren’t going anywhere but onto that horse. And if you don’t drink the laudanum, we’ll hold your nose and force it down your throat."

"You’re a ...." a pained raked gasp cut of the rest of the retort.

"Stop struggling, Vin," Nathan pleaded as he and Buck quickly lowered their burden back to the ground. "On second thoughts it may be better if he drinks the laudanum before we put him in the saddle." He had hoped to do it the other way around because it would be easier for Vin to swallow if he were sitting up.

"Gotta talk to Chris first," Vin snarled, shoving the bottle away from his mouth.

"We haven’t got time, Vin," Larabee argued, crouching and squeezing his determined friend’s shoulder. "Drink the laudanum and when we reach the coach stop, we’ll talk. Okay?"

"You’re a sorry excuse for a friend, Cowboy," Vin growled, his eyes relaxing as Chris winked at him.

"And you’re’ the worst patient I’ve ever had," Nathan grumbled, holding the laudanum back to his patient’s pale lips.

"Drink," Chris ordered.

Vin sighed in defeat and did what was being asked of him. "What about Carlos and his friends?" the tracker asked, slapping the bottle away from his mouth once he’d taken a couple of halting swallows.

"We’ll deal with them."

Vin nodded. "There’s a big fella called, Miguel. I owe him my life."

Chris eyed the young man carefully, watching as the laudanum once again took effect almost immediately due to the lack of food in Vin’s system. The gunfighter turned to Jane Phillips.

"He helped us to escape. I don’t know why," the woman offered quietly.

Chris frowned and then nodded to his companions. "Alright, come on. We must only be an hour out now."

++++++++++

Vin stirred uneasily. Jane used the damp cloth to wipe his brow.

"Easy, Mr. Tanner." Vin opened his eyes and stared up at her confused. "We are about fifteen minutes from the coach stop. We made really good time. It’s only about ten o’clock. Your friends have gone to deal with the bandits."

"All of them?" Vin asked puzzled.

"Nope, they left me and Nathan to watch over you, Brother," Josiah called. He was slowly circling the small clearing, his eyes never leaving the bushes around them. "Nathan’s just checking the outer perimeter. He’ll be back in a minute."

"I’m thirsty," Vin stated. Jane reached for her canteen, but Josiah shook his head.

"Don’t reckon you should be putting anything in that stomach of yours, son. Nathan is gonna want it empty when he starts." It was at that moment that the healer returned. He stopped on the edge of the clearing, listening to his patient’s mutterings.

"Nathan isn’t going to operate," Vin stated firmly. "Ain’t no use anyway."

"You mustn’t give up," Jane argued, continuing to wipe his face with the cloth.

"Ma’am, you ever known anyone who’s had appendicitis?"

"No," Jane replied quietly.

"That’s because anyone who’s had it is dead," Vin growled.

"Brother, you have got to have faith."

"I do Josiah. In you, and in the boys. But I also believe in fate and she’s calling to me at the moment."

"Doesn’t mean that you’ve got to listen," Josiah preached softly.

"A bit hard when she’s shoutin’ at the top of her lungs, Josiah." The preacher took his eyes from the bushes and allowed them to fall on Vin for a split second. The young man’s face was so pale. His eyes glazed with pain, laudanum and defeat. Josiah’s and Nathan’s eyes met briefly. Both knew what was happening. Vin was giving in. That stubborn streak of determination that he had applied to getting to his companions and rescuing them, appeared to be disserting him as he faced an illness that killed almost every soul it afflicted.

++++++++++

"They’re comin’! They’re comin’!"

Mary moved to the window of her shop and frowned. The miners were earlier today. With anger in her heart, she watched her fellow citizens run about like terrified mice. She had tried to convince them to stand up to these men, but they were all too scared.

"We’re shop owners. Farmers, not gunfighters," one had announced.

"But this is our home," she had argued.

"None this would have happened if them gunfighters we hired hadn’t gone off and left us!" Well, it was at that stage that Mary had lost her temper. These were the same people who had said, less than a fortnight earlier, that the likes of the Seven were not the ‘type’ of citizens wanted in Four Corners.

"Bolt your doors!"

"Has there been any word from the Seven?!"

"God protect us!"

No. Mary thought sadly. God only helps those who help themselves. With those painful thoughts, the young woman slid the bolt on her door into place and prayed that it would once again hold against the onslaught that would inevitably follow.

++++++++++

Jane Phillips stepped back from the bed. Using all of the blankets, she and Nathan had been able to make a comfortable mattress for Vin in the first and largest of the bedrooms. The healer was standing to one side, his face tight. Chris was crouching beside Vin, muttering something to his ill friend. Ezra and Buck were in the main room moving around nervously and J.D. and Josiah were tending to the horses in the stables. The five Desperadoes that had been camped in the coach stop had been long gone when the Seven arrived and so Vin had been swiftly moved to the shelter.

Chris stood and indicated for Nathan to leave the room with him. The two men made their way down the corridor arriving in the main room just as J.D. and Josiah returned from the stable.

"You tell us exactly what you need," Chris ordered of Nathan.

Nathan stared into his leader’s determined eyes and shook his head. "I can’t operate, Chris."

Larabee reached out and grabbed a handful of Nathan’s shirt. His eyes were slits of pure hell. "You can and you will!"

"Chris, I would have, but I can’t now," Nathan stated, trying to ignore the rage on Larabee’s face.

"Why the hell not?!"

"Because he’s given up," the healer informed his choleric friend.

"He’s right," Josiah agreed softly. "He’s not prepared to fight."

"And he’s gonna have to fight like hell if anyone opens him up," Nathan explained, lowering his voice as Jane moved into the room.

"He’ll fight," Chris grilled with absolute certainty. "The stubborn bastard doesn’t know how to do anything else."

"I don’t know, Chris. He’s known two people who have died from appendicitis. Besides, it ain’t just that. He’s tired. Sick of fightin’. If things were different. If he weren’t exhausted from lack of sleep and weak from not eating and being sick two whole days....."

"Longer," Ezra muttered.

All of the men turned to face the gambler. "What?" Nathan demanded.

"Mr. Tanner has been ill almost from the day we left Four Corners," Ezra quietly informed his companions as he focused his attention on his own boots. He could not face his stunned friends. The looks of astonishment that he knew were on their faces would only intensify the guilt that had been festering and eating away at him all day. Unburdening such feelings was supposed to make a person feel better. Ezra was finding that the only thing that sharing his actions was doing, was making him feel ashamed. "Vin’s incessant throttling of that infernal harmonica was his way of concealing his cough. And the day that he took off on his own against your wishes, Mr. Larabee, he only did that to cover the fact that he was vomiting. Vin has been ill for almost a week."

Chris stared at Ezra, his rage building. "Why the hell didn’t you say something?!" he hissed.

"I assure you," the gambler continued, without lifting his face. "I did everything I could to persuade him to seek Mr. Jackson’s advice but he..."

Chris lunged forward, grabbed Ezra and dragged him to his feet. "Why didn’t ‘you’ say something?!"

"Because I gave my word." Ezra couldn’t believe how hollow and ridiculous that sounded now. Now that Vin was lying in there dying.

"Your word!" Chris shouted. "And your word is more important than Vin’s life?!"

"Chris, he didn’t know," Nathan argued, prying Larabee’s hand from the front of Ezra’s jacket. "Vin ain’t had appendicitis for a week. Only since this morning."

"But if we’d known he was ill...," Chris started.

"We wouldn’t have done anything different. We would have picked up the prisoners and you would have sent him on to Tentafield with me," Buck stated evenly.

"He wouldn’t have been doing patrols or scouting."

"Yes, he would," Josiah disagreed. "The moment we picked up them Desperadoes, we needed him to do exactly what he did. Sick or not."

Ezra stared into Chris’ eyes. Finally the gunfighter turned away in frustration.

"I have been thinking," the gambler offered loudly. "Tentafield is a town that is four or five times the size of Four Corners. This being the case, there is likely to be a doctor of some skill there."

Chris turned. "Go on."

"Well, and I hope you won’t take any offence, Mr. Jackson, but part of our problem may be that Vin has given up because of Nathan’s very vocal admission that he does not have the skill to perform the operation successfully. And whether that is true or not, it is certainly a concern to us all. If Mr. Tanner is strong enough, I suggest that we press on to Tentafield. It is around three to four hours ride from here. If we were to leave now, we would be there by late afternoon and Mr. Tanner would be in the hands of a doctor who would have the skills, equipment and confidence to perform the necessary operation."

Larabee turned to Nathan. "Is he strong enough?"

"I think so. His abdomen is still flexible. The journals I’ve read indicated that when his stomach starts to get rigid that’s when we’ve got problems.....yeah, I think he’ll make the trip, but I want him to rest an hour first. He’s exhausted. Give him a chance to gather some strength before we set off."

Larabee studied his men for a split second, his cutting green eyes flicking briefly to Ezra. Without a word, he turned and strode back down the hallway.

Once again, Ezra dropped his face and exhaled slowly as the guilt he felt attacked his very being. Josiah moved up to him and placed his huge paw on the distraught gambler’s shoulder.

"Don’t. I am not in the mood for your empty predictions of absolution and forgiveness!" Ezra snapped, turning to follow Chris and Nathan toward the bedroom.

Chris crouched down beside Vin and studied his friend’s face carefully. It was no wonder the young tracker was gray. Sick a whole week. Four days without sleep, three days without food. Throwing up for God knows how long. And now appendicitis.

Whether Vin heard him or simply sensed he was there, Chris wasn’t sure, but the tracker’s eyes opened almost immediately. "Nathan ain’t cutting me open," the weak man spat quickly.

"Relax. We’ve decided to take you to Tentafield. There’ll be a doctor there that will be able to perform the operation." Chris watched Vin’s face carefully. He had hoped to see a spark of hope or acceptance, instead he saw the defeat and resignation that Josiah and Nathan had spoken of.

"It really don’t matter, Chris."

"Now, what do you mean by that?" the older man demanded, picking up the damp cloth and wiping Vin’s brow.

"Reckon it’s all for the best anyway."

"You aren’t making sense, Vin."

"Sure I am. At least going this way is better than kicking and twitching at the end of a rope."

Larabee’s concerns for his friend deepened. He’d never seen Vin so quick to give in to anything. "You know I’m not going to let you hang."

"No," Vin agreed, impatiently pushing the cloth away. "No, you’ll probably end up getting killed tryin’ to stop it. Or one of the others will. This is better. I die, no one gets hurt and you get rich."

Chris could feel his concern fuelling the anger that had been simmering below the surface of his control for so long.

"Dammit! I don’t want no damn money earned from your mangy carcass!"

"Fine!" Vin snapped back. The fire in his eyes matched the rage on Chris’ face.

"Look you sorry sonofabitch! Four Corners needs you! You gonna run out on all those people who depend on you?!" Chris’ distress was becoming more difficult to hide as was the uncontrollable rage. There was no way he was going to sit here and watch Vin die! The emotions he had felt when Sarah and Adam had been stolen from him, were resurfacing in a rush now.

"Four Corners don’t need me, Chris. If it did, we wouldn’t be here." Vin’s anger suddenly left him as fatigue washed over his weakened body. "It don’t matter, Chris"

"YOU SELFISH BASTARD!!" Larabee bellowed, shoving Vin harshly as he rose to his feet.

"Huh?" Vin spat back, his eyes wide with surprise.

"Is that all you can think about?! YOURSELF!! I thought you were better than that!!" Larabee exploded.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!!" Vin fired, struggling into a sitting position.

"Maybe you aren’t the man I thought you were," Chris hissed venomously. Turning, he stormed out of the room knocking Nathan, Ezra and Mrs. Phillips out of the way as he went.

"LARABEE! Come back here!! Larabee!!" Vin bellowed. In seconds, the tracker had ripped the covers off and was pulling his boots on. Nathan started forward, but Ezra grabbed his arm and held him firmly.

"Don’t."

"But..."

"Let him go," Ezra whispered. Before Nathan could free himself from the gambler’s vice like grip, Vin shouldered passed the two of them, his face almost as dark as the gunfighter who had bolted out of the room only seconds earlier.

"Let go of me, Ezra. I’ve got to stop him before he kills himself."

"If you make him stay in that bed, his death is assured," Ezra insisted, once again grabbing Nathan and preventing him from pursuing his patient. "Let us not mince words, my friend. We both know that Vin has lost the will to live. Whether Mr. Larabee knows it or not, he’s just done our tracker a favor. This is the first sign of life or fight we’ve seen from Vin in the last two hours!"

Nathan glared at Ezra and finally stopped pulling against him.. "You’re right," the healer conceded.

"We have got to get Mr. Tanner emotional enough to fight. If wishing to choke the life out Chris is what provides him with strength he needs, then I say well and good."

"And what about, Chris?" Nathan asked quietly. Ezra swallowed. Yes, he knew how deeply Larabee was hurting. The gunfighter’s helplessness was written all over his poker face, thus his need to lash out at anyone who contradicted him...even Vin. Chris was a strong man, a man who had learned to deal with the loss of his wife and child. Ezra doubted his leader would survive a second loss. This time, the loss of a man who was closer to being a brother, than a friend.