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azombiewritesTitle: A Rescue Gone Wrong
Third story in 'The Continuing Ezra Standish Saga'
Rating: PG
Warnings: Bad writing ahead!
Fandom: The Magnificent Seven
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Summary: Ezra, Buck and JD rescue a woman from eight men who she says are chasing her. Ezra is injured during the resuce and they are three days away from Four Corners. But the woman has not told them the real reason for being hunted by the group of men.
Main Characters: Ezra, Buck and JD and yes, and a couple of OFC's *shudder*
Disclaimers: The guys are owned by CBS, MGM, Trilogy Entertainment Group, and The Mirisch Corp.
Beta: Not betaed – written in the early days when I didn’t know what the words grammar and edit meant. *shamed*
Notes: Third story in the ‘Continuing Ezra Standish Saga’.
Spoilers: None.
Word Count: 18,211
Part Four
The Jackson gang had begun moving as soon as it was daylight. JJ wanted to catch up to the people that he was chasing. He knew that it would not be long now. It was a couple of hours before they found the area that they had spent the night. Then later in the day, they found the place in the road where they had met Jean. Dawson told JJ that a wagon had turned around here and that it was possible that it was the way that they were now travelling. If they were travelling faster, now then, they would only be a little over a day from Four Corners and he decided that they should move quicker as he wanted to get them before they reached there.
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It was only a few hours until nightfall and they were making better time now with the wagon as they were able to move a lot faster. Ezra seemed to be comfortable in the back and Jean was taking good care of him. His fever hadn’t lessened any though. Jean was wiping the sweat from Ezra's face when he moved. He grimaced against some sort of pain that only he could feel.
"Ezra," she said gently not wanting to force him awake. She wanted him to wake on his own. Buck turned at the sound of her voice.
"Is he waking up?" he asked.
"Maybe," she continued to wipe his face watching for any other movement. It was a few anxious minutes before he did move again. "Yes he’s coming out of it."
"Buck?" Ezra croaked, his throat sounding dry.
"I'm here Ezra. JD!" he called.
"Please, don't yell," moaned Ezra as Buck's loud voice made him grimace against the pain that was in his head. He felt like he had a bad hangover. "Where are we anyway?"
Jean watched him closely for any sign that might tell her what was happening to him. He had still not opened his eyes and he was in some sort of pain. She could see this on his face.
"You’re in my wagon," Jean said quietly.
Ezra opened his eyes at the sound of a female voice. He winced at the small amount of sunlight that was shining through the wagon. It took him a few moments to adjust and then he opened his eyes more widely. He looked towards the sound of the voice that he had heard. He saw a young woman sitting next to him. He couldn’t see her too clearly as his vision was blurry. He tried to focus but he couldn't.
"Do you think that you could drink some water?" she asked him looking into his green eyes. She noticed that he seemed to have trouble focusing on her.
He nodded his head and grimaced again at the pain that he could feel. He felt her hand under his head to help him lift himself up and he drank from the cup that she had placed against his lips. He drank slowly as it hurt to swallow. It caused him to cough and he felt pain in his chest. He lowered himself down hoping that the pain he had before wasn’t going to come back.
During this time, JD had arrived to find out what was happening glad to see that Ezra was awake. Buck had slowed the wagon down so that he could join him on the driver's seat. He looked at Buck and could see the relief that was on his face but then it turned to worry again as he heard Ezra coughing. They could tell by the look on Ezra's face that he was in pain and hoped that he wasn’t going to go through what he did before.
"Ezra?" Jean said again. "Do you think that you’d be able to tell me what you’re feeling at the moment? What you say might help me work out what’s wrong with you."
Ezra turned his head towards her and she could see many emotions flash through his eyes. He could still not focus though. He went to nod at her but changed his mind, as he knew that it would only cause his head to hurt. He spoke slowly. He had to stop at times to catch his breath.
"I seem to have a very bad headache and my vision is blurry . . . I'm having trouble breathing and my chest also hurts . . . my body is aching but not as bad as before." he stopped here to get his breath. He also closed his eyes again as the light was causing them to hurt.
"You also have a fever," Jean added for him. "The pain that you had last night, it was bad."
Ezra nodded and regretted it. "It was all over my body, like someone took a razor to me," he grimaced at the thought.
Jean thought about this for a moment. "You were feeling fine before you got shot?"
"Yes."
Jean noticed his expression change as though he was trying to hide something. "Buck, I don't know if Ezra is sick. It seems to have come on too sudden. He should have felt some symptoms first. Headache, tiredness, loss of appetite. Did you notice any of these or did he mention anything to you?"
"It's hard to tell with Ezra. He's very stubborn and he wouldn't tell anyone if he wasn’t feeling well. He did have a headache though but as far as I know it was due to a hangover." Buck had a confused look on his face as he was wondering what Jean was getting at. "What's wrong with him then?"
Jean thought she had an answer to that confused look but she didn’t want to voice it yet as she wasn’t positive. "Let me think on it a bit longer. But I will tell you this, the sooner you get to Four Corners the better. We should stop for a couple of hours to rest the horses and then keep going."
Buck just felt all the confidence that he was starting to feel that Ezra would be all right drain out of his body. He looked at Jean. She was watching Ezra. She noticed that he had fallen asleep again. She placed her hand on his chest and felt it slowly rise and fall again. She also heard a slight rattle in his breathing. Thirty minutes later Ezra had begun to toss and turn on the makeshift bed that Jean had prepared for him. His fever had suddenly gotten a lot worse. Jean noticed a movement behind the wagon and saw Jane watching Ezra. She thought she saw a smile on the woman's face but it was gone before she could confirm it.
Jean looked back towards Ezra. She had to watch that woman Jane she thought to herself, as there really is something wrong there. The heat coming off Ezra's body had increased. The fever was causing to him to thrash about. She tried to hold him down but in even his weakened state, he was too strong for her.
"Buck I need some help here. He's going to hurt himself."
Buck made a movement to stop the wagon. "If you’re going to help then get JD to drive, we don't have time to stop."
He passed the reins over to JD who hadn’t gotten back on his horse, as he wanted to stay close to Ezra in case he woke again. He looked back to see Jean struggling to keep Ezra still. There wasn’t a lot of room in the back of the wagon and he could easily hit his head against the side. He glanced at Buck as he passed him on his way into the wagon.
"I want you to hold his shoulders down. I'm not too worried about the rest of him but I don't want him hitting his head." As Buck held, Ezra down Jean continued to wipe Ezra's face and chest with the damp cloth being careful of his shoulder wound. He wasn’t getting any better and this confirmed her suspicions of what was wrong with him. Buck was worried sick about the whole situation. He seriously thought that Ezra was going to die. He watched as Ezra continued to move about and then he stopped. He just lay there not moving. Buck thought it was like last time, that his fever had broke but he was wrong.
"Has his fever broken?" he asked Jean hoping that she would say yes, as Nathan had done that time.
Jean felt Ezra's forehead and kept her hand there for a few more moments. She looked up at Buck. "No, it's still high."
Buck hung his head and then turned to look at JD. "JD, head to Four Corners as quick as you can and get Nathan and the others. We'll keep moving through the night." JD took one last glance at Ezra hoping that it wasn’t the last time that he would see him alive. Buck moved back up and took the reins that JD had dropped and watched him ride off towards town silently praying that he would get help back to Ezra before it was too late.
"You really care about your friend don't you?"
Buck actually smiled at that idea. "Yes, but the only problem with Ezra is that you don't want to admit it until something like this happens. He doesn't really know how we feel about him. He’s finally accepting the fact that we think of him as a friend and are concerned about him in situations like this but he doesn't know how we would feel if we lost him."
Jean looked at Ezra, watched him move his head side to side but not with as much vigour this time. Why would it be so hard for them to tell this man what they thought of him? "Have you ever tried telling him?"
"You don't know Ezra."
"Mother?" muttered Ezra.
Jean quickly turned back to Ezra thinking that he had woken up but he was still in a deep sleep. She could see the sadness on his face as he asked for his mother. "It's alright Ezra; you’re going to be alright." She brushed some of his sweat soaked hair away from his forehead.
"Mother, don't leave me again. Please." There was also sadness in his voice.
Buck also heard it. He and the others knew very little about his relationship with his mother. They had all liked Maude, she told them stories of Ezra when he was a child but they were funny stories that didn’t include details of their real relationship. Ezra himself had never told them anything in regards to his mother or his childhood. Buck was aware of him being left with his Uncle Jack but what he was saying made it sound like leaving him with relatives was something that she did often.
"Mother!" The sadness in his voice was changing to anger. "Why do you keep leaving me?" He was starting to thrash about more now but it was due to the anger that he seemed to be feeling.
"He's becoming delirious," said Jean. "How long do you think it’ll take JD and your other friends to get back to us?"
"Normally we wouldn't get to town until the early afternoon tomorrow but if we keep going through the night like you suggested then we’ll save about nine hours and with JD on a horse and then them coming back I would say hopefully about three or four hours."
Jean hoped that would be soon enough. She hoped that the one called Nathan would have what they needed to get the poison out of his system. She had decided that Ezra had been poisoned in some way. It was the only way to explain what was happening to him. Poison seemed to work in stages, they suffer from severe pain, which then can cause a bad fever and even a coma, and Ezra had gone through all of these stages. He said that he had been fine before he was shot and Buck said that he had seen no symptoms that he would have had if he was becoming sick. Jean had learnt a lot about this in the war when she used to help take care of the sick. Some of them had suffered from some sort of poisoning due to things that they ate or drank. If only they knew, what Ezra had eaten or drunk. She still didn’t want to tell Buck what was wrong with him as he was already worried enough. If he knew that Ezra was suffering from poisoning then he would give up hope as most victims die from it. What she didn’t know was that the woman following them and who was constantly watching Ezra suffer was the person responsible for what he was going through.
She began to run her hands through his hair hoping that it would comfort him and noticed that it was working as Ezra had become quiet again. His tossing was beginning to slow down until he stopped altogether. He just lay there then very quiet, very still and his breathing becoming even more shallow.
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Jackson and his men was only a couple of hours away from catching up to Buck and the others. He wasn’t a stupid man. He realised they were now able to travel faster because they would have put the wounded man in the wagon. They may also even continue until late in the night, so he decided they would also keep moving until they got close enough to see them. As soon as it became daylight, they would make their final move.
He knew what he wanted to do to the girl when he got his hands on her and the men who helped her. First, he would make them watch as he finished what his other men had started with the gambler and then he would kill them because they had jailed his brother and helped a woman who had stolen what was important to him.
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Jane who was riding behind the coach began to smile again as she listened to the conversation between Buck and Jean. It would only be a few hours before Ezra would get the help that he needed. She didn’t know if this help would save him though as he was now in the last stage where it was just a matter of time before he died. It was now a waiting game. One that she was willing to play. She watched and she waited.
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Jean had moved up behind the wagon hoping that she would be able to watch Ezra when the delirium started. She was smiling when she saw the woman who had ruined her plans look at her. She quickly dropped the smile hoping that she didn’t see it. She was glad that she was going to be able to watch. She smiled again when Jean looked back at Ezra.
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JD was riding as fast as he could, he had to stop every now and then to rest his horse because he knew that if he pushed him to hard that he not make it to town and he would have to travel the rest of the way on foot. He was still an hour from town and he hoped that Nathan and the others were there. They would need Nathan to help Ezra and the rest of the guys in case the men that had shot Ezra in the first place caught up to them. Buck and JD knew that they would be following them but they hadn’t found them when JD had left, he hoped that they had still not found them.
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Jackson and his men were getting closer, it was now dark and they expected to see something ahead of them at anytime.
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Jean had to keep her hand on Ezra's chest to make sure that he was still breathing, because it had become so light that she couldn’t tell by just looking at him anymore. His fever had still not improved.
"Buck can we go any faster?" She saw the look of worry on his face as she asked this question.
"Is he dying?" Buck was feeling guilty over the whole situation. He still blamed himself for Ezra being shot. He didn’t know what was causing his sickness but he thought that it would have to do with him being shot therefore if he died then he would be to blame.
Jean couldn't lie to him. "Yes he is." she saw the worry turn to determination as he sped the horses on. She turned back to Ezra and looked at the slack expression on his face. She knew he was near death, that he would probably only have a few hours left at the most and they had to do something fast if he was to survive.
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JD could see the lights of Four Corners in the distance and hurried his horse on. When he finally reached town he headed straight for the saloon expecting to find most of the other lawmen there. He brought his horse to stop and jumped off. He didn't even bother to tie the reins to the rail post, he just dropped them where they were and rushed in side. He looked around and saw the four of them sitting at the same table. He let out the breath that he was holding, as he had feared the worst, which was that he would not find them here and he'd then have to waste precious time finding them.
He ran to the table. The others looked up to see JD standing there trying to catch his breath. They glanced behind him expecting to see Buck and Ezra but they weren't with him.
"Where's Buck and Ezra?" asked Chris.
"We got to Hampton's Creek after some trouble but on the way back we helped a woman who was being shot at by a bunch of men and Ezra got shot . . ."
The four men jumped up together. "Where is he?" demanded Chris.
"It's not that," continued JD. "Buck fixed up the wound fine there's no infection or anything but there's something wrong with him. I think he's dying."
Nathan stepped forward then. "What do you mean dying?"
"There's no time to explain. Buck sent me on ahead to try to save time, we have to get back to them and help him.
Jean's doing the best she can but he's not getting any better. I don't know if he will still be alive when we get to them."
JD headed towards the door knowing that they would be following him. "The men that attacked the woman may still be after them too." He added.
Chris didn't ask any more questions. If it was as bad as JD said then they couldn't waste any more time, he would ask his questions later. When they got outside, they saw the condition that JD's horse was in.
"Don't bother with your horse JD just grabbed one of the others standing there and we’ll explain to the owner when we get back." Vin nodded towards a bay gelding standing next to his own horse. JD let go of his own and got up on the fresh horse then he turned back towards the direction he came in and took off a gallop with the others following him, all of them instantly worried about what he had said about Ezra.
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Jackson heard Dawson before he saw the wagon. "There they are," he called to him.
He smiled at the thoughts that were forming in his head of what he was going to do them. He was going to follow the plan that he had decided on earlier until Dawson told them that there were only two horses with the wagon with the woman Samantha was on one of them. That meant that either one or two of them were missing. One of them could have even gone onto Four Corners to get help. They had to act now before it was too late.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five
Master Fan Fiction List
Third story in 'The Continuing Ezra Standish Saga'
Rating: PG
Warnings: Bad writing ahead!
Fandom: The Magnificent Seven
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
Summary: Ezra, Buck and JD rescue a woman from eight men who she says are chasing her. Ezra is injured during the resuce and they are three days away from Four Corners. But the woman has not told them the real reason for being hunted by the group of men.
Main Characters: Ezra, Buck and JD and yes, and a couple of OFC's *shudder*
Disclaimers: The guys are owned by CBS, MGM, Trilogy Entertainment Group, and The Mirisch Corp.
Beta: Not betaed – written in the early days when I didn’t know what the words grammar and edit meant. *shamed*
Notes: Third story in the ‘Continuing Ezra Standish Saga’.
Spoilers: None.
Word Count: 18,211
Part Four
The Jackson gang had begun moving as soon as it was daylight. JJ wanted to catch up to the people that he was chasing. He knew that it would not be long now. It was a couple of hours before they found the area that they had spent the night. Then later in the day, they found the place in the road where they had met Jean. Dawson told JJ that a wagon had turned around here and that it was possible that it was the way that they were now travelling. If they were travelling faster, now then, they would only be a little over a day from Four Corners and he decided that they should move quicker as he wanted to get them before they reached there.
It was only a few hours until nightfall and they were making better time now with the wagon as they were able to move a lot faster. Ezra seemed to be comfortable in the back and Jean was taking good care of him. His fever hadn’t lessened any though. Jean was wiping the sweat from Ezra's face when he moved. He grimaced against some sort of pain that only he could feel.
"Ezra," she said gently not wanting to force him awake. She wanted him to wake on his own. Buck turned at the sound of her voice.
"Is he waking up?" he asked.
"Maybe," she continued to wipe his face watching for any other movement. It was a few anxious minutes before he did move again. "Yes he’s coming out of it."
"Buck?" Ezra croaked, his throat sounding dry.
"I'm here Ezra. JD!" he called.
"Please, don't yell," moaned Ezra as Buck's loud voice made him grimace against the pain that was in his head. He felt like he had a bad hangover. "Where are we anyway?"
Jean watched him closely for any sign that might tell her what was happening to him. He had still not opened his eyes and he was in some sort of pain. She could see this on his face.
"You’re in my wagon," Jean said quietly.
Ezra opened his eyes at the sound of a female voice. He winced at the small amount of sunlight that was shining through the wagon. It took him a few moments to adjust and then he opened his eyes more widely. He looked towards the sound of the voice that he had heard. He saw a young woman sitting next to him. He couldn’t see her too clearly as his vision was blurry. He tried to focus but he couldn't.
"Do you think that you could drink some water?" she asked him looking into his green eyes. She noticed that he seemed to have trouble focusing on her.
He nodded his head and grimaced again at the pain that he could feel. He felt her hand under his head to help him lift himself up and he drank from the cup that she had placed against his lips. He drank slowly as it hurt to swallow. It caused him to cough and he felt pain in his chest. He lowered himself down hoping that the pain he had before wasn’t going to come back.
During this time, JD had arrived to find out what was happening glad to see that Ezra was awake. Buck had slowed the wagon down so that he could join him on the driver's seat. He looked at Buck and could see the relief that was on his face but then it turned to worry again as he heard Ezra coughing. They could tell by the look on Ezra's face that he was in pain and hoped that he wasn’t going to go through what he did before.
"Ezra?" Jean said again. "Do you think that you’d be able to tell me what you’re feeling at the moment? What you say might help me work out what’s wrong with you."
Ezra turned his head towards her and she could see many emotions flash through his eyes. He could still not focus though. He went to nod at her but changed his mind, as he knew that it would only cause his head to hurt. He spoke slowly. He had to stop at times to catch his breath.
"I seem to have a very bad headache and my vision is blurry . . . I'm having trouble breathing and my chest also hurts . . . my body is aching but not as bad as before." he stopped here to get his breath. He also closed his eyes again as the light was causing them to hurt.
"You also have a fever," Jean added for him. "The pain that you had last night, it was bad."
Ezra nodded and regretted it. "It was all over my body, like someone took a razor to me," he grimaced at the thought.
Jean thought about this for a moment. "You were feeling fine before you got shot?"
"Yes."
Jean noticed his expression change as though he was trying to hide something. "Buck, I don't know if Ezra is sick. It seems to have come on too sudden. He should have felt some symptoms first. Headache, tiredness, loss of appetite. Did you notice any of these or did he mention anything to you?"
"It's hard to tell with Ezra. He's very stubborn and he wouldn't tell anyone if he wasn’t feeling well. He did have a headache though but as far as I know it was due to a hangover." Buck had a confused look on his face as he was wondering what Jean was getting at. "What's wrong with him then?"
Jean thought she had an answer to that confused look but she didn’t want to voice it yet as she wasn’t positive. "Let me think on it a bit longer. But I will tell you this, the sooner you get to Four Corners the better. We should stop for a couple of hours to rest the horses and then keep going."
Buck just felt all the confidence that he was starting to feel that Ezra would be all right drain out of his body. He looked at Jean. She was watching Ezra. She noticed that he had fallen asleep again. She placed her hand on his chest and felt it slowly rise and fall again. She also heard a slight rattle in his breathing. Thirty minutes later Ezra had begun to toss and turn on the makeshift bed that Jean had prepared for him. His fever had suddenly gotten a lot worse. Jean noticed a movement behind the wagon and saw Jane watching Ezra. She thought she saw a smile on the woman's face but it was gone before she could confirm it.
Jean looked back towards Ezra. She had to watch that woman Jane she thought to herself, as there really is something wrong there. The heat coming off Ezra's body had increased. The fever was causing to him to thrash about. She tried to hold him down but in even his weakened state, he was too strong for her.
"Buck I need some help here. He's going to hurt himself."
Buck made a movement to stop the wagon. "If you’re going to help then get JD to drive, we don't have time to stop."
He passed the reins over to JD who hadn’t gotten back on his horse, as he wanted to stay close to Ezra in case he woke again. He looked back to see Jean struggling to keep Ezra still. There wasn’t a lot of room in the back of the wagon and he could easily hit his head against the side. He glanced at Buck as he passed him on his way into the wagon.
"I want you to hold his shoulders down. I'm not too worried about the rest of him but I don't want him hitting his head." As Buck held, Ezra down Jean continued to wipe Ezra's face and chest with the damp cloth being careful of his shoulder wound. He wasn’t getting any better and this confirmed her suspicions of what was wrong with him. Buck was worried sick about the whole situation. He seriously thought that Ezra was going to die. He watched as Ezra continued to move about and then he stopped. He just lay there not moving. Buck thought it was like last time, that his fever had broke but he was wrong.
"Has his fever broken?" he asked Jean hoping that she would say yes, as Nathan had done that time.
Jean felt Ezra's forehead and kept her hand there for a few more moments. She looked up at Buck. "No, it's still high."
Buck hung his head and then turned to look at JD. "JD, head to Four Corners as quick as you can and get Nathan and the others. We'll keep moving through the night." JD took one last glance at Ezra hoping that it wasn’t the last time that he would see him alive. Buck moved back up and took the reins that JD had dropped and watched him ride off towards town silently praying that he would get help back to Ezra before it was too late.
"You really care about your friend don't you?"
Buck actually smiled at that idea. "Yes, but the only problem with Ezra is that you don't want to admit it until something like this happens. He doesn't really know how we feel about him. He’s finally accepting the fact that we think of him as a friend and are concerned about him in situations like this but he doesn't know how we would feel if we lost him."
Jean looked at Ezra, watched him move his head side to side but not with as much vigour this time. Why would it be so hard for them to tell this man what they thought of him? "Have you ever tried telling him?"
"You don't know Ezra."
"Mother?" muttered Ezra.
Jean quickly turned back to Ezra thinking that he had woken up but he was still in a deep sleep. She could see the sadness on his face as he asked for his mother. "It's alright Ezra; you’re going to be alright." She brushed some of his sweat soaked hair away from his forehead.
"Mother, don't leave me again. Please." There was also sadness in his voice.
Buck also heard it. He and the others knew very little about his relationship with his mother. They had all liked Maude, she told them stories of Ezra when he was a child but they were funny stories that didn’t include details of their real relationship. Ezra himself had never told them anything in regards to his mother or his childhood. Buck was aware of him being left with his Uncle Jack but what he was saying made it sound like leaving him with relatives was something that she did often.
"Mother!" The sadness in his voice was changing to anger. "Why do you keep leaving me?" He was starting to thrash about more now but it was due to the anger that he seemed to be feeling.
"He's becoming delirious," said Jean. "How long do you think it’ll take JD and your other friends to get back to us?"
"Normally we wouldn't get to town until the early afternoon tomorrow but if we keep going through the night like you suggested then we’ll save about nine hours and with JD on a horse and then them coming back I would say hopefully about three or four hours."
Jean hoped that would be soon enough. She hoped that the one called Nathan would have what they needed to get the poison out of his system. She had decided that Ezra had been poisoned in some way. It was the only way to explain what was happening to him. Poison seemed to work in stages, they suffer from severe pain, which then can cause a bad fever and even a coma, and Ezra had gone through all of these stages. He said that he had been fine before he was shot and Buck said that he had seen no symptoms that he would have had if he was becoming sick. Jean had learnt a lot about this in the war when she used to help take care of the sick. Some of them had suffered from some sort of poisoning due to things that they ate or drank. If only they knew, what Ezra had eaten or drunk. She still didn’t want to tell Buck what was wrong with him as he was already worried enough. If he knew that Ezra was suffering from poisoning then he would give up hope as most victims die from it. What she didn’t know was that the woman following them and who was constantly watching Ezra suffer was the person responsible for what he was going through.
She began to run her hands through his hair hoping that it would comfort him and noticed that it was working as Ezra had become quiet again. His tossing was beginning to slow down until he stopped altogether. He just lay there then very quiet, very still and his breathing becoming even more shallow.
Jackson and his men was only a couple of hours away from catching up to Buck and the others. He wasn’t a stupid man. He realised they were now able to travel faster because they would have put the wounded man in the wagon. They may also even continue until late in the night, so he decided they would also keep moving until they got close enough to see them. As soon as it became daylight, they would make their final move.
He knew what he wanted to do to the girl when he got his hands on her and the men who helped her. First, he would make them watch as he finished what his other men had started with the gambler and then he would kill them because they had jailed his brother and helped a woman who had stolen what was important to him.
Jane who was riding behind the coach began to smile again as she listened to the conversation between Buck and Jean. It would only be a few hours before Ezra would get the help that he needed. She didn’t know if this help would save him though as he was now in the last stage where it was just a matter of time before he died. It was now a waiting game. One that she was willing to play. She watched and she waited.
Jean had moved up behind the wagon hoping that she would be able to watch Ezra when the delirium started. She was smiling when she saw the woman who had ruined her plans look at her. She quickly dropped the smile hoping that she didn’t see it. She was glad that she was going to be able to watch. She smiled again when Jean looked back at Ezra.
JD was riding as fast as he could, he had to stop every now and then to rest his horse because he knew that if he pushed him to hard that he not make it to town and he would have to travel the rest of the way on foot. He was still an hour from town and he hoped that Nathan and the others were there. They would need Nathan to help Ezra and the rest of the guys in case the men that had shot Ezra in the first place caught up to them. Buck and JD knew that they would be following them but they hadn’t found them when JD had left, he hoped that they had still not found them.
Jackson and his men were getting closer, it was now dark and they expected to see something ahead of them at anytime.
Jean had to keep her hand on Ezra's chest to make sure that he was still breathing, because it had become so light that she couldn’t tell by just looking at him anymore. His fever had still not improved.
"Buck can we go any faster?" She saw the look of worry on his face as she asked this question.
"Is he dying?" Buck was feeling guilty over the whole situation. He still blamed himself for Ezra being shot. He didn’t know what was causing his sickness but he thought that it would have to do with him being shot therefore if he died then he would be to blame.
Jean couldn't lie to him. "Yes he is." she saw the worry turn to determination as he sped the horses on. She turned back to Ezra and looked at the slack expression on his face. She knew he was near death, that he would probably only have a few hours left at the most and they had to do something fast if he was to survive.
JD could see the lights of Four Corners in the distance and hurried his horse on. When he finally reached town he headed straight for the saloon expecting to find most of the other lawmen there. He brought his horse to stop and jumped off. He didn't even bother to tie the reins to the rail post, he just dropped them where they were and rushed in side. He looked around and saw the four of them sitting at the same table. He let out the breath that he was holding, as he had feared the worst, which was that he would not find them here and he'd then have to waste precious time finding them.
He ran to the table. The others looked up to see JD standing there trying to catch his breath. They glanced behind him expecting to see Buck and Ezra but they weren't with him.
"Where's Buck and Ezra?" asked Chris.
"We got to Hampton's Creek after some trouble but on the way back we helped a woman who was being shot at by a bunch of men and Ezra got shot . . ."
The four men jumped up together. "Where is he?" demanded Chris.
"It's not that," continued JD. "Buck fixed up the wound fine there's no infection or anything but there's something wrong with him. I think he's dying."
Nathan stepped forward then. "What do you mean dying?"
"There's no time to explain. Buck sent me on ahead to try to save time, we have to get back to them and help him.
Jean's doing the best she can but he's not getting any better. I don't know if he will still be alive when we get to them."
JD headed towards the door knowing that they would be following him. "The men that attacked the woman may still be after them too." He added.
Chris didn't ask any more questions. If it was as bad as JD said then they couldn't waste any more time, he would ask his questions later. When they got outside, they saw the condition that JD's horse was in.
"Don't bother with your horse JD just grabbed one of the others standing there and we’ll explain to the owner when we get back." Vin nodded towards a bay gelding standing next to his own horse. JD let go of his own and got up on the fresh horse then he turned back towards the direction he came in and took off a gallop with the others following him, all of them instantly worried about what he had said about Ezra.
Jackson heard Dawson before he saw the wagon. "There they are," he called to him.
He smiled at the thoughts that were forming in his head of what he was going to do them. He was going to follow the plan that he had decided on earlier until Dawson told them that there were only two horses with the wagon with the woman Samantha was on one of them. That meant that either one or two of them were missing. One of them could have even gone onto Four Corners to get help. They had to act now before it was too late.
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five
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