By Ato
nia and Jo
Jo writing Maximus, Caroline, Bud, Marie, Sid, Hope, Cort, Lachlan, Ben
Atonia writing Terry, Dee, Alex, Linda, Jack, Tarwyn, John, Bethany, Dino
PART 1:
The boxcar that was used for prison transport disappeared off the 3:10 to Yuma as though it had never been a part of it. The cars behind and in front of it were quite securely coupled together and eventually the black horse simply tired of chasing after the train and returned to Contention where the man who ran the stables claimed it as his own.
There was a brief void of darkness with some flashing blue lights, but nothing extreme enough to cause untoward discomfort in the group of people who found themselves inside the boxcar. Then the void was gone, as were the lights, and everything was quiet and very still.
Ben Wade had been standing with his left hand gripped onto the metal strapping and he blinked, aware at first only that his fingers hurt from gripping so hard. He let go, staggered slightly, and flexed his fingers, a motion not unnoticed by Maximus, who had often done just such a motion when his fingers were over-tired from the use of his sword.
“Where the fuck?” Bud was the first to speak. Standing, he slid open the door, forgetting about his abdominal wound.
“Bud, be careful!” Marie called out. “You might…” But then she saw where they were.
Bud was standing there staring in astonishment. Dropping away from the side of the rails was a gravel-covered steep slope that gave onto a flat area with a narrow ditch then another slope up to pine woods.
“What is it, Bud?” Maximus asked, rising to look over Bud’s shoulder. “Ah!” he said, then shook his head. They were on the exact spot where Sid had tied Caroline.
“He completes his circle.”
“Who?” Ben asked. “What circle? What are you talking about?”
Cort looked up at him almost compassionately. “You’ve been…retrieved, Ben Wade.”
“Dan? I thought I saw you. Why are you here?” He looked around the car. “Why am I here?”
“You are here, Ben,” Cort continued, “because Sid wished you to be here.” He looked over, exchanging a knowing glance with Maximus. “Just as he wished all of us to be here and not where we once believed we belonged.”
Maximus came closer to Cort. “You know this…again?”
“I know I’m Cort, Maximus, but I’m rather blurry on what might have been going on. Did Sid send us somewhere?” He glanced at Ben. “He sent us to…Yuma?”
“Indeed, my friend. We have done the whole film from beginning to ending. You do not remember being Dan Evans?”
“I was…oh…ah…that explains why I…why…”
“What, Cort?”
“Why I do remember…kind of…being in the little depot with…him.” He looked at Ben. “I was there…with you…right?”
“You were there,” Ben said, his voice low, “but I don’t know who you are now or why you look like a younger me. Or…,” his eyes moved to Maximus, “that man does…or him.” That was Bud in the doorway.
“There is much to be explained, I’m afraid, but right now all I want to do is fall in my bed and sleep until next year.”
Terry wasn’t sure why Ben was here. He’d seen him in action…up close. He looked at John. “Now what?”
John shook his head. “He’s a brother.”
“Not one of mine.” Terry pulled Dee to her feet. “Looks like we’re back where we started from.”
Jack jumped down from the train car and reached out for Tarwyn. She fell into his arms. He almost dropped her. “Oh, my dear.”
“You’re too tired to carry me around. Let’s lean on each other until we can find a bed.”
Alex jumped down and skidded down the embankment. He waited for John, who eased himself out of the car and came down the embankment a little wobbly.
“You okay?” Alex asked him.
“Ah, no.” John looked at him with a half grin. “I imagine Dr. Canfield will be making a house call shortly.”
“What do you think about Wade coming out?”
“Alex, the last thing I want to think about is Wade.”
“Yeah, me too. I don’t like the company he kept.”
They trooped through the pines, battered and weary beyond measure.
Ben knew of nothing else to do, so he followed behind them, keeping to himself. He did not feel welcome among them, but he needed to find out where he was before he could make plans on what to do next.
Cort was aware of Ben’s discomfit. “Maximus,” he said, keeping his voice almost to a whisper, “he will be lost here if we do not help him.”
Maximus was thinking deeply. Benjamin had done much evil in his time, but in the end he had become fond enough of Dan Evans that he had risked much to help the rancher. He would try to think on that aspect of the man rather than his ability to throw a man off a cliff or stab another in the throat. It would, he knew, take some effort to adjust to the presence of such a one.
But he, too, was very tired and wanted his bed, well, the bed upstairs in the blue house that had been his and Caroline’s before Sid had come and destroyed their peace. Had Sid done this whole charade merely to retrieve Ben Wade? There was no way to know but Maximus was not at all sure that with Benjamin now here there was much need for vexations to come from Sid. Ben all by himself might prove quite sufficient.
Tarwyn glanced behind them as they went through the pines. “Was he supposed to come with us?” she asked Jack.
“He would not be here if he didn’t belong. I must confess I am at a loss to understand it.” He thought his brothers all honorable men. Ben Wade was on his way to prison…
“Hiya, Jack.” Terry came up beside him with Dee. “Haven’t had a chance to talk to you since Bisbee. Good job on saving Alex. How are you…did you come out without injury?”
“Nothing to mention, Terry. I’m more exhausted than anything and long for a bed.”
“You and me both. I don’t know where they’ll put Ben Wade. If we come up short a bed you’re welcome to come home with us…I’m including you Tarwyn.”
“Thank you, Terry. We shall see what’s what. What do you think of Wade?”
“Not much. I saw him kill a man with a fork. A more vicious attack I can’t remember. He threw Bud off a cliff.”
“I have not had contact with him as we were sent after Alex. I have not seen his movie. I do know what he did to Tarwyn and I will not forgive him that.”
“I have but I don’t think I’ll watch it again.”
Tarwyn kept quiet. She’d seen the movie and although he was a vicious and feral animal there was something in him that wished for something else. Like wanting her to jump out the window with him.
Ben stopped at the edge of the pinewoods, looking at the blue house. Houses were not painted like that in Arizona, a blue almost like the sky. Sitting near the front of it were several strange conveyances with wheels but he could see no way to hitch a horse to them. Were they for decoration? He had no real relationship with any of these people he could ask questions, so he kept them to himself and just followed the others.
The woman from the saloon in Bisbee was among them and he wondered at that. She had not wanted to go with him to Mexico. She seemed to be keeping close to the blond man. The can can dancer was also there. And…Alice. A fourth woman he did not recognize. That one was with…who…Byron? Was that Byron? He frowned, feeling confused, not liking the feeling. These men, at least some of them, were his fellow travelers. Weren’t they? Doc Potter. Hadn’t the vet been killed there near the tunnel? Even Butterfield. He could feel Butterfield’s dislike even across the distance between them. Well, he did not require the liking of other men. If only he didn’t feel so confused by everything.
He stopped some way back in the yard as everyone else went up the steps to the porch. Cort turned at the top of the steps and said, “Come on in, Ben. This is as much your home as anybody else’s.”
Ben had no idea what that meant, but Dan, who had somehow become this man people called Cort, was the only one among them he could at all relate to. A black-haired man kept close to this Cort’s elbow and Ben sized him up, figuring him for a military man by his bearing. In his turn, he was very aware of that particular man sizing him up. He didn’t think he’d seen him before, not until they were in the boxcar.
Alice stepped up beside that man, sliding her arm around his waist as if it belonged there. Ben thought of her as Cort’s wife, but Cort did not seem to mind at all this public display of affection. Then there was that other one over there that had been Cort’s boy. Only now he seemed much older somehow and the black-haired woman from the train was obviously with him. He backed up a step or two, wondering if he went back to the boxcar there might be some way to return to Contention. Ribbon was there and if he could get to his horse, he’d soon be on his way…wherever. He wasn’t sure just where that might be now that his gang was dead. There wasn’t really anywhere, was there?
Maximus saw Ben’s backward steps. “Come,” he called. “Come inside and let us see what may happen.”
Beth jumped up from the sofa and ran to John. “You lived…oh, John, you have no idea what we’ve been through!”
John looked at her strangely. “I need to sit down. Somebody call Doc Canfield,” he called out. “What you’ve been through?” His eyes widened.
“I know what you’ve been through. I watched it all. I realized I couldn’t stand it if…if you didn’t come back.”
Alex stood back, letting everyone get in the door including Ben. He hadn’t noticed the car in the drive. There were so many out there.
Linda backed up against a wall. Beth had explained it all to her and she’d watched most of the movie with her. Where was Alex?
Alex moved through the throng and headed for the kitchen. He wanted about a gallon of water.
Finally Linda went over to Beth and John. “I…I haven’t seen Alex.” She tried to keep her voice even.
John looked around. “He’s here somewhere.” He looked up at her with some interest.
“John, this is Linda Calhoun. She’s been seeing Alex.” Beth made the introductions.
“Ah, nice to meet ya.”
Dee went into the kitchen. Unlike the others, hers had been a quick stay in the movie. “Hey, Alex, there’s a good looking woman out there looking for you.”
“Me?” He pointed to himself.
“Um hm. I know it sounds strange and probably a big mistake but…yeah.”
“A mistake…I’d better go see.” He blinked his eyes a few times. They still felt raw. He made it to the hallway before Linda claimed him.
“You told me to come and get you and then you disappeared. I know all, Alex. You don’t have to explain a thing to me.”
“You know…and you’re still talking to me?”
“You bet I am and unless you need to stay here for some reason, I’d like to take you home with me.”
“That’s the nicest thing anybody’s said to me in two days.”
She noticed the bandages on his hands. “You need medical attention. I’ll call my private physician. She’s very good and very discreet…and she makes house calls.”
He draped his arm around her shoulders and told Jack as he passed him where he was going. “You can, um, tell the rest of them I’m okay.”
Terry sighed and looked around. Jack and Tarwyn looked like they were asleep on their feet. He went back to the kitchen for Dee. “What are you doing Nolia?”
“I was thinking food.”
“Think again. We need to get out of here and go home. Tarwyn’s packed a bag for her and Jack and they’re both done in…so am I.”
“All right. I’m so glad to be back and to have you here with me. It was hard, Terry, sitting here and watching it all happen.”
“That was your punishment. Mine was being there and watching it all take place and not being able to do anything about it. I want to go home and not think about it.”
“I’ll drive. Let’s say our good bye’s.”
Ben stood quietly to one side, his head tipped slightly down, his eyes up, watching from under the brim of his black hat. It looked like some of these people were leaving. No one was saying good-bye to him so he didn’t have to be a part of it and could just observe. He found himself hoping that Cort did not leave. He might be able to get some answers from him if there were fewer people around.
Dr. Canfield showed up and did what he could for both John and Bud. Bud he wanted to take to the hospital but knew, what with all that had happened with NanoCorp, that he would not go.
“At least the bullet is out,” Canfield sighed, giving Bud a shot of penicillin. “Who did that?”
Bud looked across the room where John was putting his shirt back on now that Canfield was done with him. “He did.”
Canfield’s eyes opened widely. “John? With what?”
“Near as I could tell, doc, it was a plow.”
John grinned, “A giant pair of tweezers. My first and only operation.”
“And you had nothing for the pain, I suppose?”
“Spoon. I had a spoon.”
“Oh, good God! Well, I don’t understand just why, Bud, but for all you’ve been through, you’re in fairly decent shape. But you need to rest and take it easy for a while here. I mean that.”
“I’ll see to that, Dr. Canfield,” Marie smiled.
“And you are…?”
“She’s my personal nurse,” Bud grinned. “Do you want to go back to the safe house tonight?”
“I’d, um, rather have, if…if you don’t mind…a somewhat more, um, private place to…well, to take care of you. Could we go to my apartment instead?”
“Well, I guess there’s no real need for us to be at the safe house. Place has given a bad name to safe houses around the world anyway. Nothing safe about it at all. So, yes, I’d definitely like to go to your apartment.” He glowered across the room at Ben. “Don’t want to be staying anywhere near him, that’s for sure.”
Beth helped John button up his shirt. “My place or yours?”
“Let’s go to yours.” Beth’s apartment was homey and he had need of homey. John was still dressed in Potter’s clothing. “We may need to stop by mine and pick up some clothes.”
“Why don’t we pick them all up?” Beth was ready for him.
John wasn’t quite so sure. Things were moving awfully fast with Beth. “Take too much time and I don’t feel like it today.”
“I’m sorry, honey, I know you’re hurting. We’ll stop by the pharmacy and get your prescriptions filled. All you have to do is rest and heal. I’m going to take good care of you.”
He smiled a little and looked across the room where Ben stood observing them. Unlike Terry, he wasn’t ready to write Ben off as a bad idea. He was a brother and whatever he was in his film may or may not transfer into real life. He’d take a wait and see attitude about Ben.
“Guess that leaves me at the safe house right now. Most of my stuff is there,” Lachlan said.
Hope looked from Lachlan to Cort. “Daddy,” she sucked in a breath, “I know you think of me as your baby girl but I’m just not her anymore. I’m your daughter and I’ll always be that and I’ll always love you with everything that’s in me…but…I’m going to the safe house with Lachlan.”
“You are?” Lachlan’s mouth dropped open.
“I am,” she smiled. “Please say you understand, Daddy. I need that from you.”
Cort sighed. “I do understand, ba…Hope. It just takes me a little time to adjust, you know, to how quickly you’ve grown. So, yes, go do…be…what you are now.” He walked up to her and put his arms around her, whispering into her hair, “I love you so much, Peaches.”
Ben had cocked an eyebrow up. That woman grown was Cort’s…daughter? Now that, indeed, was a strange idea. He studied her as she went hand in hand out the door with the man he’d thought was Cort’s son. Perhaps he was more off the track than he’d ever thought.
Maximus put an arm around Caroline’s shoulders. “If you will excuse us, Cort, I will take my lady upstairs now. It has been a long journey with little rest.”
“I understand, Maximus. I’ve barely had the chance to tell you how glad I am that you are you again. Means the world to me.”
“I know that, my friend, and I am likewise most pleased that you are you. Sid has toyed with us far too much.” He looked across the room to where Ben was standing, watching, curious as to why the military man was taking Cort’s wife to bed. “And as for Benjamin…I will remain with you if you feel more comfortable that I do.”
“No, it’s fine, Maximus. I think he and I need to have a talk.”
“Then I shall depart. Remember there are three vacant beds in the other room upstairs should he require a place to sleep.” He smiled down at Caroline. “I have no need for one of them, not now.” Marcus, who had been overjoyed at the return of his people, practically pranced alongside the couple as they headed up the stairs.
Dee opened the door to the guest room at her house.. “I think it’s pretty clean. It hasn’t been used in awhile.” She went into the adjoining bathroom to make sure all was stocked.
“Thank you, Deidre.” Jack removed the coat he’d worn in Deadly Outlaw and tossed it on the floor. “I don’t want to see that again.”
Dee brought a garbage bag in for them to put their clothes in. Tarwyn went into the bathroom and started the shower.
“I’m not sure I can stay awake for a shower,” Jack said, leaning in the doorway of the bathroom.
“I need one.” She looked away from him. She wanted more than anything to wash away Ben’s body from hers.
“Then I shall join you.” Jack began removing his clothes.
Tarwyn actually would have preferred to bathe alone. Jack wasn’t angry with her about Ben. He understood how it was and blamed Ben for what happened upstairs in Bisbee. She knew and yet she still felt different…unclean.
In the shower she turned her back to him. He soaped her up and turned her around. “You belong to me. You are mine as I am yours. Nothing can change that.” He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Tarwyn.” His kiss left little doubt as to how he felt about her.
She began crying and would have sunk to the bottom of the shower if he hadn’t held her up. “We are both exhausted and are in need of rest.” He turned the water off and wrapped her in a towel.
They were asleep within minutes after falling into the bed.
“You’re unusually quiet, Terry.”
“I’m just tired.” Terry rubbed his head with a towel. He’d showered and was ready for bed.
Dee was tuned into to him and knew there was more to it than fatigue. “You don’t want to talk about it?”
“About tired?”
She looked at him and he threw the towel towards the shower. “I take that as a no.”
“Later, luv.” He gave her a quick kiss and turned back the covers on the bed. “What I need right now is a warm soft woman to cuddle with.”
She slipped in the bed with him and he wrapped his arms around her snug against her breasts. “Terry, you are the most capable, strong, and dependable, passionate and caring person I’ve ever met. What happened in Bisbee needs to stay there. It had nothing to do with who you are. You could never be Butterfield. You handled it as well as could be expected. You’re my hero and always will be. I love you beyond words.”
His even breathing told her he was asleep. She kissed his damp hair and pulled the sheet up over his shoulders.
Alex was soaking in a Jacuzzi. He kept his hands out of the water and Linda bathed him. Gone was the smell of smoke from his hair and his body. It felt awfully good to have her hands all over him but he was too exhausted to respond.
He was dried and in her bed by the time her doctor arrived. She had to wake him to look at his eyes. She was doing things with his hands but he was too far gone to care. He heard bits of conversation.
“Drops…eyes…clear up…days…apply twice…keep them dry…all right.”
Linda closed the drapes in her bedroom and turned off the bedside light. Leaving a light kiss on his forehead she moved to a chaise lounge and stretched out to watch him sleep.
Now that she knew about him he fascinated her even more. From her purse she took the DVD Beth had found at the blue house and slipped it in the player. She wanted to know who he was before he came into her life. Rough Magic what an apt name for Alex Ross’s movie.
“Ben,” Cort said, “would you please come and sit on the couch. There’s something I want to show you.”
“It goin' to explain why that man took your wife to bed?”
“She’s not my wife, Ben. Never has been. She is Maximus’ lady, not mine.”
“She was your wife last I saw of her.”
“I know it looked like that, Ben, but she’s really not. My wife is dead.” Just those four simple words almost choked him up as he said them. Ben could see it on the man’s face.
“You’re not Dan Evans?”
“Name’s Cort, Cortland Wells, and I’m from pretty near the same time and place you are so better than any of us, I can understand what this will be like for you.”
“What will be like for me?”
“To discover what I’m about to show you. It’s not an easy thing, Ben, not at all, but since you are here, you need to know.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin' about.”
“I realize that, Ben. It’s always that way at first.” He put in a DVD. It wasn’t Yuma, it was The Quick and the Dead. He didn’t say a word, just let the screen come to life.
“Moving pictures? You got moving pictures in that box?”
“Yes, I do, Ben. It’s called a movie and this is my movie. This will let you see who I am. I think that’s a good place to start.”
So, together, with very little comment from Ben, the two 19th century westerners watched the moving pictures move in the box. After a while, Ben sat further back on the couch, cocking his head, from time to time looking away from the screen to study Cort. As was his way, he took the measure of the man he saw on the screen and he respected how good he was with a gun, was interested that he used to be an outlaw like himself, and that he’d try to find his way spiritually. He thought he might even like Cort better than Dan.
When it was over, Cort turned the TV off and waited for Ben to speak.
“I see you here and I saw you there. You gonna tell me how you were Dan the last few days?”
Cort was very tired, but he knew this had to be done. So he did the explanation about being a story and how the story was made so that lots of people could see it.
He explained that he had lived inside that story as it was told over and over and over and that, for him, each telling was as though it were the first time, that those in the story were not aware they were in a story.
Then he spoke of Sid, and Sid’s story and how he had gotten out of his story into the real world, that he was the first to do that and then Sid had figured out how to get other characters out of their own stories, but always it was a story in which the same man had been the characters. He tried to explain about actors. Ben had seen stage plays in San Francisco, so that wasn’t too hard. He’d seen the same actor in more than one play.
“It’s why we look alike,” Cort said. “The same actor who played Cort in my story played Bud in his story and Maximus in his. I’ll show you those another time.”
“You sayin’ you’re not real? That you’re just from some storyactin’?”
“Oh, no, Ben. I’m very real. When Sid takes you out of your movie, you bring with you everything you were in the movie, all your likes and dislikes, all your memories, your abilities, everything.”
“So I look like you because…”
“Because we have the same source, Ben.”
“This don’t make a lick of sense to me, Cort. It’s about the wildest thing I ever heard. I’m me, Ben Wade. I ain’t no storybook invention.”
“That’s the hardest part, Ben, and has been for each one of us. Nobody wants to think that about themselves. It’s natural not to want to. But, nevertheless, it’s still true. Here, let me show you just one scene from another movie. He put in 3:10 to Yuma and fast forwarded it to when Ben was sketching the bird. Ben’s eyes widened as Charlie came up and started talking and the bird flew away.
“That can’t be in that box! That can’t be! That’s me! I done that. Charlie done that.”
“Ben, you have done that over and over and over and, as I said, each time it was as the first. I can take this movie out and put it in again and you will be doing it again. The same thing. Here, watch this part.” He let the whole robbery scene play.
“This ain’t right!” Ben stood up and began to pace back and forth across the floor.
Finally he stopped and looked at Cort, eyes narrowed. “How was you an’ them others in my…movie?”
“Sid can do that, too, Ben. He can take someone who was not in a particular film and send them there. He messed with me somehow so that I really thought I was Dan. But I’m not Dan, Ben. I’m Cort. The others, he left alone except he made it so they had to say the words that were said, but they knew all along they weren’t really those people. Jack’s lady was not Emma at the saloon, John was not Doc Potter and they knew they were not.”
“Why would, what’s his name…Sid, why would he do somethin' like that?”
“For amusement, Ben. That’s how he amuses himself, always at our expense.”
“Sounds worse’n me.”
“Much worse,” Cort grinned. “You only kill folks. Sid tortures them, lets them live, then tortures them some more.” His expression changed. “No, that’s not always right. He killed my wife. He killed Decimus. He’s tried to kill Maximus more than once.”
“Maximus? He that guy took Alice upstairs?”
“That’s him, only you’ve got to remember that’s not Alice. Her name is Caroline, and they are very much in love.”
“He in the army?”
“He was, Ben. He was a general, in fact.”
“In the war?”
“Not the war you mean. His wars were fought nearly 2,000 years ago. He’s a Roman, Ben, and much more out of his time than you and me.”
“I got to think about all this,” Ben said.
“I know. Why don’t I show you where your room is and you can try and rest. It’s a lot to deal with, more than most folks ever face, and it takes a lot of getting used to. My room is right through here.” He pointed down the hall. “If you need me, wake me up.” He led Ben up the stairs to the empty bedroom. “Three beds. Take your pick.” Then he showed him the bathroom and, bone tired, went to his own bed.
ON TO PART 2
BACK TO THE DEADLY OUTLAW ENDING
BACK TO NANOCORP INDEX
BACK TO LIBRISCROWE