Disclaimer: I do not claim any rights over the Magnificent
7 characters used in this story, which has been written for the joy of writing
only (whether it be good writing or no) and for no other purpose (such as
monetary gain). The Mag 7 characters/aspects of the story are owned by Trilogy
Entertainment Group, the Mirisch Group and MGM. The song is part of the
soundtrack (end credits) for The Devil's Own. Don't know who wrote/performed
it yet - will have to rent the video again.
Warning: Occasional strong language
| Take off my shield Carry my sword I won't need it anymore. Find me a sky And give me my wings Frozen and broken but free And tell them I'm alright I'm coming home. This war is over I'm coming home. |
It'd been twenty years since Daniel Tenney had been back to Four Corners <<home>>. He laughed, a short, raspy sound that brought no mirth to his eyes. He stopped his horse a few miles out and looked at the town in the distance. The memories of the time he'd lived there washed over him, haunting him as they had since the day he'd left.
He'd been a different man then, with a different name. A man with principles, respect, friends - things he hadn't had since, hadn't wanted. But now it was different - things had changed. His fingers idly touched the newspaper clipping in his coat pocket. He didn't need to read it to know what it said, he'd memorised every word in the weeks since he'd first picked up that damn newspaper! He pulled the paper from his pocket anyway, needing to see those words again. The words that had brought him to this spot.
| Four Corners was once a lawless frontier town. Unsafe for workers
and their families. It took seven men to turn this town around. Seven brave
men with compassion and justice in their hearts and guns in their hands.
As this century comes to a close, The Clarion honors those seven men ... |
He folded the paper carefully. <<Seven men. Friends, brothers>> His heart ached as he turned his horse away from the town and towards the distant hills. He didn't like the man he'd become; needed to find the man he was - but not yet, not here. First he'd pay an old friend a visit.
****
Chris Larabee had led a dangerous life, even after he'd hung up his gun belt for good and moved himself and his family out to the ranch permanently. He and Mary had finally married and, though the partnership was often fiery, they'd been happy together and raised a healthy brood of children as well.
The man's dark moods still haunted him though over time they'd lessoned in intensity. He tried not to brood on his past but when the old feelings of pain and guilt coursed through him he became once again the forbidding figure he'd been as part of the seven. At those times he'd head for the hills, taking with him a bottle of whisky, and not returning till he'd layed the demons to rest once again. Those times were occurring less frequently now, and sometimes days would go past before any of the troubling thoughts and memories would invade his peace at all.
Mary watched him in silence. She could always tell when he was remembering, his eyes grew distant and his smile would fade. She could almost feel his heart grow cold as she watched, and waited for the memory to be pushed aside, and then she'd go to him and hold him. She loved him so much - hated to see him in pain, but the man never could let go of his guilt and she'd learned to live with it, praying to the good Lord above that his ghosts would eventually disappear altogether.
****
Daniel Tenney made early camp on the ridge above a small ranch. It had grown somewhat since he'd last been by. Bigger house, larger corral, fairly bustling with activity. He smiled grimly to himself and pulled a bottle of whisky from his saddlebags. He uncorked the bottle with his teeth, spitting the cork to the ground and took a long swig, letting the liquid burning its way down his throat give him the only comfort he'd had over the long years.
He wiped his mouth with one arm and flopped down on his bedroll, doubt suddenly setting in for the first time. He took another long drink, then another and another and waited for the alcohol to numb his jangling nerves. He rested his weary head on his saddle, closed his red rimmed eyes and allowed the alcohol to take him away from his pain.
****
Vin Tanner and Chris Larabee sat at their usual table in the far corner of the saloon watching the drunken antics of the ranch hands in town for their usual payday spree.
"Reckon there'll be trouble?" Tanner asked the other man softly as he sipped his whisky.
Larabee turned to him, one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. "I'd say it’s a sure bet," he replied.
Vin laughed, "Don't let Ezra hear ya say that pard."
The man in question sat at his usual table playing poker with some of the more sober hands. He happened to glance up as Chris and Vin were discussing his propensity for a bet and raised one eyebrow in unspoken question when they both looked at him, smiling. The arched eyebrow lowered to a furrow when he noticed their expressions change from casual smiles to angry scowls, and then he felt the reason why as he was roughly knocked from his seat by brawling cowboys.
He picked himself up and opened his mouth to deliver a stinging retort but was drowned out as the rest of the ranch hands joined in the fight. Chris and Vin rushed past him throwing punches and trying to stop the brawl before it got completely out of control. Ezra soon found he had no choice but to join in the melee as well, if only to defend himself from wild punches and flying debris.
The brawl spread through the saloon like a brushfire fanned by the hot wind of drunken tempers. Chris tried to draw his gun to fire a warning shot into the air but found himself instead buried under a half dozen of the brawlers. He felt himself going down under the onslaught but both Vin and Ezra had seen his plight and started pulling bodies off him as fast as they could.
The last man wouldn't allow himself to be dragged from the battered gunfighter and pushed the two defenders away. This man was big - easily as big as Josiah, if not bigger, and his push sent the smaller men stumbling backwards.
Ezra's backwards fall was forcibly stopped by the bar and he doubled over in pain and fell to his knees both arms wrapped around his ribs, his breathing suddenly laboured. Vin picked himself up from the floor and glanced at the gambler but was waved off.
"I'm fine Mr Tanner, Mr Larabee needs your assistance more than I."
Vin nodded once then picked up a leg from one of the smashed chairs and launched himself back into the attack.
Buck and JD had heard the commotion from down the street and came running, pushing their way through the brawlers that had spilled onto the porch and crowded the doorway - knocking some on the head, throwing others out the door. Buck could see Chris struggling with a bear of a man on top of him and winced as he saw the man punch his fist into his friend's kidneys. Chris' legs started to give out on him, blood covered his face - Buck reached for his weapon and had barely pulled it from the holster when he saw Vin Tanner attack the big man with a lump of wood.
The tracker was now desperate to get the man off his friend as he brought the wood down again and again on the broad back and thick head of the attacker to no avail - the man would not go down. His swung his arms back then and brought the lumber crashing into the back of the man's knees causing the man to lose his footing and his grip on the failing gunfighter.
Chris felt the sudden lightening of the grip that had held him firm and threw himself forward crashing into Ezra's gaming table. He felt a definite thud as his head connected with one of the thick table legs and he saw stars. He pushed the stars and the dizziness away and forced himself to twist his head and prepare for further attack. Blackness crowded his vision and he couldn't make his body move any further. He could do nothing but watch as the man turned to the tracker, roaring his fury at the disruption.
Tanner roared back, his own fury raging through his body and giving him extra strength as he attacked. The last thing Chris saw as he slipped into unconsciousness was Vin Tanner beating the drunken cowboy into oblivion.
***
Tenney woke with a start, a cold sweat on his brow. He reached for the bottle and lurched to his feet fighting the dizziness that spun inside his head. Once balanced he went into the trees to relieve himself propping the bottle on one branch and leaning his aching head against the cold tree trunk.
He stumbled back to the campsite and dropped the bottle by a log - he'd had enough. He put some water on to boil over the fire and slowly prepared some food. While his hands worked his mind wandered back to his years in prison. He'd hated every moment of it - the stench, the violence, and the fear - all of it. Even after all this time he sometimes woke with a feeling of dread, of being trapped between four walls and of never being free again. It'd been years since he'd left that hell - a living corpse, inside and out, and he still didn't feel really free. He just knew he'd wake up one day and find himself still in that dank cell.
With a shake of his head he brought himself back to the here and now and settled down to his meal. Afterwards, when he'd drank at least half the coffee he'd made, he allowed himself to relax slightly and rested his back against the tree he was sitting under. He stole a look at the half-empty bottle but pulled his eyes away from it. <<Don't need that yet>> Instead, he fished about in his saddlebag until he found the small package he kept there. When his hand brushed against the string that bound it he grabbed it and pulled it out, turning it over in his hands.
The package contained everything he had left from his life before prison. It'd been sent to him while he was incarcerated and held by the warden until his release. He'd never opened it.
Daniel thought about that day now - his release finally free! His first glimpse of the wide-open spaces just the other side of the prison gate caused his stomach to churn in sudden anxiety and need. There was nobody to meet him, he'd long ago spurned all friendships. So, he walked, away from the prison and away from his past. He kept walking, stopping only when he was too exhausted to take another step and when he was rested he got back up and kept right on walking, into the wilderness. It took him exactly one year to allow himself to relax and stop jumping at every shadow and unexpected sound. One year to re-learn a lifetime of habits that he'd suppressed in order to learn the necessary skills of surviving in prison.
At the end of that year, he'd decided it was time to go home and he'd almost made it too. But as the familiar town appeared on the horizon the shame that twisted in his soul exploded into full-blown guilt and panic and he'd turned his horse around and rode away. He wound up at some sleazy saloon in some sleazy town, losing himself in the first of many whisky bottles. The next day, when he'd sobered up some, he joined the army as a scout.
***
Rough hands pulled at the string, tearing it from the package then ripping into the stained paper wrapping. The contents, wrapped in a red bandanna, spilled into his lap and he froze. His trembling hands touched the cloth and pulled it back to reveal the pieces of a tormented man's past. He picked up each precious item, felt them in his hands, ran his fingers over their surfaces - some cold and smooth, some rough. There wasn't much there, not much to show at all. At the bottom of the small pile lay a letter. Yellowed with age and addressed to him in familiar handwriting. He closed his eyes, <<Aw, hell!>> his fingers holding tight onto the envelope before slowly and with great care slitting it open.
| I'm probably the last person who should be saying this but rejecting the help of your friends is not going to help you get through this. Please reconsider your actions. You are more than a friend to us, to me, you are a brother. We will always stand beside you, nothing will change that. |
There was no flowery greeting, no fond farewell. It was a short note from a man that had expected to see his friend again sometime soon. How wrong he'd been.
Tenney felt his eyes grow hot and he rubbed them with the heel of his hands.
"Dammit!" He croaked as emotion caught in his throat. He read the note again before putting it back in the cloth that protected the bundle, then wrapped it all back up. He was about to secure it with the string when he opened it back up, pulled one of the objects out and shoved it in his pocket, then quickly retied the string and put the package back into his saddlebags.
Turning back towards the fire he grabbed the bottle and started drinking. Sometime during the night he pulled the tarnished object from his pocket and drew it to his lips. The ghost of a tune circled its way around the campfire and tentatively rose upward to mingle with the stars and the moon.
***
Chris Larabee went from deep sleep to complete awareness within the space of a heartbeat.
"Not again!" he groaned. He'd been having bad dreams, nightmares about the saloon brawl that had irrevocably changed their lives, and the last time he had seen Vin Tanner - angry and bitter.
He got up to get some water, pulling his jeans on before he stepped into the hall and stopping to fish out a cheroot from the hallstand. Filling a cup with water from Mary's blue patterned pitcher he quietly opened the front door and walked out.
The cool night air on his bare chest caused him to shiver slightly as he sat down on the porch step and sipped the water.
<<Damn dreams. Another night with no sleep>>
He lit the cheroot and inhaled deeply, the acrid smoke curling upward to the sky. He sat this way until his eyelids once again grew heavy then he stood to go back to bed, and his dreams.
As he lay back down beside his sleeping wife and drifted off to sleep he thought he could hear the faint sound of a strangely familiar tune.
***
Tenney's years in the army were violent and mind numbing, he barely remembered most of it and he didn't want to. His days had been filled with fighting of one sort or another and the nights lost in a bottle. He'd done many things he was ashamed of before he finally saw himself for what he'd become - a ghost of his old self, twisted and distorted, full of malice and hate, and he saw it all reflected in the defiant eyes of a woman ready to meet her death.
**
His unit had been hunting down the remains of a renegade band when they'd come across a small village where only the day before there'd been none. They waited until dawn spread its dim light across the tepees and, just before the village came to life, they attacked and brought it death.
Bloodlust filled Daniel Tenney as he rode in with his fellow soldiers firing their rifles at anything that moved. The people had no chance to escape or fight back as they were cut down in their beds.
Tenney burst into one of the huts, his knife drawn and already bloody. The anger and self-disgust he kept trapped deep inside himself now roaring through his body released by the violence of the massacre. In his madness he barely saw the people before him - a woman futilely protecting her children. The youngest child began to whimper but the mother hushed it quickly.
"Hush, my child, do not cry
Today is a good day to die."
She sang in a low voice but the words pierced through Tenney's crazed mind, cutting their way through the bloodlust and the rage until they reached the troubled soul beneath, and set it free.
His fingers went numb, the knife falling to the ground, as realisation hit him.
<<What the fuck am I doin'?>>
He looked about him at the wholesale slaughter of the people.
<<This is my fault, I led them here >>
"NOOOO!" he screamed then and ran to stop the killing, leaving his knife where it had fallen. He attacked one soldier after another, clubbing them with the butt of his rifle, firing it when he had to. His change in attack didn't go unnoticed though and he soon went down in a hail of bullets.
Broken and bloody he looked up to see a soldier looming over him, the bayonet point on his rifle hovering over his bared throat.
"Traitor" he hissed "Indian lover" and he raised his weapon high. The bayonet was all ready on its downward plunge when Tenney heard a faint whistling sound. The bayonet never reached his throat and a surprised Tenney looked up to see the hilt of a knife, his knife, protruding from the soldier's chest. The man was dead before the rifle slipped from his nerveless fingers, dead before he sank to the ground to fall across Tenney's legs, dead before he even knew what had killed him.
Tenney kicked at the body to free himself, the movements sending shooting pain throughout his body. He dragged himself to the fallen soldier and pulled his knife free, wiping the blood on the dead man's uniform.
He twisted around to see who had thrown it but nobody was there. His faltering gaze fell on the tepee that had been home to the woman and her children. Its walls were ripped its poles smashed, he could see fire spreading through the crumpled blankets and belongings of the small family. He felt sick to his stomach.
"My fault, all my fault" he repeated to himself as he crawled over to the destroyed home and began searching the ruins for signs of life. He looked up suddenly when he heard a bird call from the nearby woods. He could see the faint outline of a figure standing amongst the trees, the outline of a woman. Relief washed over him and fell to the ground, no longer able to go on.
***
The badly injured man woke up in the back of a wagon; its wheels had hit one rock too many and jostled him into painful reality. He groaned and tried to open his eyes but the sun shone fiercely down on him and he closed them against the glare. He moved one arm up to protect his face but it sank back against his chest as the void took him.
By the time he woke again he was almost back at the fort. He slowly took stock of his situation, he wasn't restrained in anyway but he wasn't going to stick around long enough to find out if he would be. He flexed his hands and feet then gently tried to move his legs. The pain was almost enough to knock him back out but he held on with gritted teeth till the agony retreated to a more bearable pitch and then he tried again.
Sweat beaded his brow as he strained to get some movement back into his limbs without passing into unconsciousness, he had to stop and rest many times before he could pull himself into a half sitting position. He didn't know how he was going to escape, or even if he would be able to but he did know that he had to attempt it before reaching the fort.
His wagon was at the rear of the troops, travelling slow - no rearguard following. He looked about to make sure of it then he slipped from the wagon to land in a painful heap on the ground. The wagon driver continued on, oblivious to his passenger's departure. Tenney made for the tree line just in time as two men on horseback rode passed - the rearguard.
He half breathed, half moaned a sigh of relief then struggled to gain his feet. He needed distance - lots of it.
****
That was eight weeks ago, and now here he was camped in the hills outside of Four Corners. Another world away from where he'd been.
He awoke as the sun rose over the horizon. Opening his canteen he washed the sleep and the effects of the night's bottle from his face then poured the cool water over his head. A shower of glistening droplets went flying when he shook the excess water from his hair before smoothing it away from his face and squashing his hat down on his head. He put his coat back on, packed up his gear and saddled the horse.
Once he was ready he stood, hands in pockets, and watched the ranch below him come to life. The last flicker of doubt rose within him and faded away as his fingers wrapped around the harmonica in his pocket. Before he could change his mind he put one foot in the stirrups and pulled himself into the saddle. He clicked softly to the horse, pulled on the reins and rode down to the ranch.
****
Chris Larabee was up at first light to start some repair work on the western boundary of his small property. He was there when Daniel Tenney rode to the top of the rise behind him, sensing his presence, Larabee looked up. He shaded his eyes with one gloved hand but the glare of the morning sun behind the approaching stranger prevented him from distinguishing the rider's identity.
Larabee tensed, the feeling that he should know this stranger grew in the pit of his stomach. As the lone man came closer the feeling grew until he suddenly dropped the tools he was still holding and started walking forward.
Tenney stopped his horse a few feet from Larabee and waited. When the other man was just a pace away he raised one hand to his hat in a familiar salute, a shy smile breaking through his reserve - he was home.
"Hey cowboy!"
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