8/27/99

This is a part of the TM7 Fic List Challenge series of stories that began with "Gratitude," although I think it works as a stand-alone.  Each story focused on a different character, and no one had done Mary Travis, so....

Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way that you feel
Things are gonna work out fine if you only will

SHOWER THE PEOPLE ~ James Taylor

~~~

It is as it always is, when one of them is hurt.

Sometimes, I know because I hear the gunshots, and I fight the panic that chokes my breath before I go out into the street, looking for them. Sometimes, I wait and watch out of my office window for their horses; when they return I count the riders, my heart in my throat, and when I see an empty saddle, I feel the fear ... is the seventh riding double, or....

And then I do what I can. I make the coffee and the broth and the biscuits and put them on a tray and hurry to Nathan's, climbing the stairs and trying to keep my legs from folding under me. Often, I help Nathan. I hand him the instruments, boil the bandages, bundle up the bloodied clothing, sit by the bedside. And I watch the others, wishing I could help them ... so often they seem to need it more than the injured one.

This time, it's Vin. Dear god ... Vin. I can't think on that just now....

I worry about all of them equally, but in different ways. Like a mother does her children. Sometimes it seems as if we are a family, those seven men and I.

Josiah is their father. I saw him going to the church, where I know he will light seven candles and say a prayer. Somehow I know that the faith of this man, tested and broken by things in his past, now rests on how his god treats the men he loves and looks upon as sons. He doesn't say that, but I can see it in his eyes. Every time one of them is hurt, he is there, picking them up and cradling them in his strong arms, carrying them up the stairs to Nathan's clinic as if he were carrying Billy to bed. I've seen him do it with all of them, even Chris. And now Vin....

Vin likes those peach preserves. I'll put some on the tray.

Buck likes them too, and JD. Those two ... they are like brothers, my older children who I cannot restrain and who I must trust to look out for each other. Buck won my heart from the first, with his broad smiles and winks, his jokes and grand gestures. He seems so light-hearted, and yet that soft voice turned sad and serious when he shared Chris' past with me. I will owe him always for that insight. It hurts to see him on the balcony now, keeping his vigil, hiding his worry behind a self-assigned duty.

JD, his shadow, sits at his feet, his eyes as large and haunted as Buck's. It's often hard to remember that JD is really a young man, not a boy. But Buck turns to him for reassurance as often as JD looks to Buck for it. Especially now, when they're sitting together, waiting to hear about Vin....

I'd best add some milk to the tray for JD. And Nathan will need more than biscuits and coffee. He's worked through the afternoon, and I know he'll be up all night, tending Vin....

I sometimes treat Nathan like a son, too. He often needs as much caring for as whoever it is he's tending to. He forgets to eat, he doesn't sleep, and he strains his eyes leafing through that ragtag library of his, looking for answers and berating himself for not knowing everything there is to know about healing. I wish he could see how much more he gives to the sick and injured, beyond his skills. Sometimes I think he brings them back to life by sheer force of will. He'll do everything he can for Vin, I know....

I think I have some of that ham that Nettie gave me put away in the ice box at the hotel. I'll drop by and pick it up. And perhaps they'll have some of that chicory coffee that Ezra likes so much. If they do, I'll bring him some. He'll be up all night with Nathan, and Chris, watching over Vin....

I'm surprised he's there at the clinic at all. Usually, when one of them is hurt, he hides. He sits on the boardwalk playing with his cards, or in the saloon, or the restaurant; always where he can see Nathan's stairway, yet pretending he isn't watching. This time, though, he's in the room, sitting by Vin's bed, unable to hide his worry. I misjudged him so, when we first met; now I've seen the way he treats Billy and me, and the children in town, and the men he rides with ... and the way his mother treats him ... and I wonder why I didn't see from the beginning the heart he carries on his sleeve. This has shaken him; I could see it in his eyes, and it was all I could do not to draw him into my arms and hug him as I do Billy, when he's hurt.

Foolish, to want to mother a grown man. But Ezra's not the only one that I find myself wanting to treat like Billy. Vin....

Oh, he's a grown man, to be sure. And a very attractive one. Those sparkling blue eyes, that knowing grin, the easy way he walks down the street or leans on a porch railing, shouldn't inspire motherly feelings at all. But when he smiles at me the twinkle in his eyes is so boyish, and his manner is so shy and soft-spoken, that I can't help but think of him that way. Nettie Wells feels the same. We both know he lost his mother when he was very young, growing up alone and making his own way. Now, even as a man, there's something about him that calls to the mother in us and makes us want to make that up to him somehow. Nettie Wells and Gloria Potter try to spoil him with treats of food and mended clothing. I'm teaching him to read and write, loaning him books and sometimes reading to him just for the pleasure it brings us both. And he plays with Billy, teaching him how to track the chickens and the dogs in town, showing him how to hit a target with his slingshot, letting him play with that harmonica or look through the spyglass.

Dear god, please, keep Vin with us ... He's as much a big brother to Billy as Chris has been a fa--

Dear god. Chris. If we lose Vin, we lose Chris too. I lose Chris....

Dear god.

There. Coffee, biscuits, preserves. Ham and chicory at the hotel. Tie on my apron; I'll need it, if Nathan needs my help. Cover the tray, and head out the door. Walk to the clinic, and climb the stairs. Don't let my knees go weak. Don't let my hands shake. Don't let on that I'm terrified for my family....

Dear god, don't let me cry.

~ 30 ~

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