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Rating: R for Ranting
Disclaimer: Everything Magnificent belongs to CBS and the Mirisch Legion.
Author’s Notes: Hey everyone, I was planning on posting a part of ‘Sin’s
of the Father’ tonight. I had even scheduled in time to work on ‘The Great
Divide.’, but then someone went and did the unthinkable and all thoughts
of writing went out the window.She said it was nothing 'personal'. That
it wasn't done out of some sort of repressed aggression towards me. Freud
and myself would beg to differ. But, no matter, depression set in. And
I became obsessed with revenge. This is the sad result. Please send all
disgruntlements to jas214@bellsouth.net
other feedback welcome at: earthsong_71@yahoo.com
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‘Et tu, Brute.’- Cass
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“Why don’t you put the gun down, and we’ll talk about this in a calm fashion.” Chris Larabee spoke softly to the distraught figure holding a gun on his best friend. “I know you don’t really want anyone to get hurt.”
“That shows how much you’ve been paying attention.” Vin’s captor shoved the barrel of the gun into the young man’s side for emphasis. The tracker, who was bound hand and foot,gagged, and suspended by his wrists from one of the beams in the livery stable, turned a disbelieving, and somewhat panicked, look to the older man. “I’m not hanging around here on a Saturday night to benefit my social life , you know.”
“We do appreciate the reason for you being here, mam.” Nathan Jackson’s calm voice sounded from somewhere behind Larabee. “But I think there’s been enough bloodshed for one night, don’t you?”
The black-cloaked villian let haunted eyes play across the four men, now standing side by side. It was a heartbreaking sight. “Far too much.”
The choked whisper made Josiah Sanchez remember his own misery. “Then why don’t you just let Vin go, Miss Cassie. Killing him won’t bring Buck and J.D. back.”
Chris watched as the young woman seemed to consider the preacher’s words. He waited for the moment when he saw the doubt flash in the light blue eyes and decided to make his move.
Unfortunately, a low growl stopped him in his tracks.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Chris.” Cassie regained her composure and repositioned the revolver against the tracker’s heart. “I wasn’t so distraught that I’d come here to face you all alone. The girl, who’s name I refuse to speak, may have betrayed me, and I might not have wanted to place the other writers in the middle, but there is another.”
As if to punctuate the girl’s statement a menacing black figure appeared out of the shadows and eighty-pounds of sleek muscle and sinew planted itself between the dangling tracker and his partners .
“Boys, meet, Matisyn Dale, the baddest Rottweiler puppy this side of the Pecos. And don’t let those big brown eyes fool you, ‘beef cake’ is her favorite meal.”
“Surely you wouldn’t expect us to believe that this lovely creature could be so dastardly as to inflict bodily harm upon one of us, would you?” Ezra Standish turned adoring green eyes on the pup.”Why that’s almost as unbelievable as thinking you could kill , Mr. Tanner in cold blood.”
Mati tilted her head, as if to contemplate exactly what the strangely dressed human was babbling about, and sat back on her haunches as the gambler took a tentative step towards her.
“You best stay where you are, Standish,” Cassie threatened. “She’s just as upset as me about her namesake’s demise and she’s none to happy with her Aunt’s, who shall remain nameless, part in it either. We both can get pretty nasty when push comes to shove."
The blond cast an annoyed glance in the gambler’s direction. “I do Taebo
three times a week, you know.” To prove her point, Cassie tried twisting
her face into a maniacle scowl and twirling the gun she was holding around
her finger. After all, if the
unforgiven one could do it, so could she.
Unfortunately, the young woman had forgotten about the sun tan oil she had applied earlier in the day. She realized a moment too late that, Banana Boat, inspite of it’s skin-saving UV blocker, would not have been an advantagious addition to the gunslinger’s hygeine ritual. For, quite to her detriment, the Colt 45 escaped from Cass’s grasp and flew across the stable floor.
Unlike her owner, Matisyn was quite pleased with the turn of events. *Yes! Fetch.* The big, black pup abandoned her post and loped after the object, that was being substituted for her favorite tennis ball, leaving her master unprotected. And to the mercy of what was left of the Seven.
“This just hasnt’ been my day,” Cass threw her arms up in the air, as ‘her’ partner returned with the weapon, only to drop it in front of Ezra’s Standish, before positioning her happy bottom on the gambler’s shiny, black boots.
“It’s not exactly been good for us either,” Chris snapped, taking a step towards the distraught girl and pulling a knife from his pocket. “And your little stunt sure didn’t help things.”
The blond met his furious gaze and took a bold step forward. “Go ahead, plunge the blade right here, Mr. Larabee.” The girl placed her hand over her heart. “That way, it’ll match the one sticking in my back.”
The gunslinger rolled his eyes at the writer’s melodramatics and began the task of sawing through the ropes binding Vin. “ I think you’re taking this whole thing a little hard, aren’t you?”
Cassie’s jaw dropped. “And I suppose if it had been Vin that J.D. just happened to blast , you’d be so calm about it?”
Chris shot the blond an icy look that said more than any words could, but continued working on freeing his best friend. Reasoning with an angry woman was right up there on his list with shooting someone in the back. He just didn't do it.
“I think what Chris is getting at, Miss Cassie, is the fact that, as terrible as it was, ‘A Fateful Day’ was just a story.”
The blond woman tossed her hair over her shoulder and glared at the
healer as if he had grown a second head. “Just another story! She killed
them , Nate!” Cass thrust her finger in the air. “Worse than that, she
did it in the most vile and unimagineable
way possible.”
The doctor shrugged sympathetically. “Still, couldn’t you just bring them back?”
The blond took a reflexive step away from the black man, her hand going to lightly cover her mouth. “Bring them back?”she whispered, in horror. “ Have you people not watched ,‘Pet Cemetary’?” Cass shook her head emphatically. “Trust me, if Buck were here, he’d definitely vote ‘no’ on that brilliant idea.”
“Then talk to, Maggie.” The hoarse voice brought everyone’s attention to the tracker, now resting, unbound, on the floor. Chris was kneeling next to him, trying to rub some of the circulation back into his bruised wrists. “Maybe, she could write a sequel or something.”
“Are you kidding?” Cassidy looked disbelievingly at, Vin. “Have you
not been paying attention this last year, Tanner. This is the woman who
has blinded you, shot you, stuck you in a little metal box, and had you
staked out in the desert with a bunch of
scorpions crawling on your de-shirted body.”
“I do believe I must have had a previous engagement during that last enstallment of Margarrett’s unusually cruel work.” Ezra shot an amused smile in the, suddenly pale, bounty hunter’s direction.
“Sorry,” Cass faked an ‘oops’ look. “That’s an upcoming story.”
She knelt by the shaken man’s side and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “ Now, don’t you see the kind of person we’re dealing with here? I mean who would have ever dreamed of making poor J.D.kill Buck? And then writing him so distraught as to take his own life? There was no purpose in it. She’s a sick, sick , puppy!” The blond shot an apologetic look to her Rottweiler. “No offense, Matisyn.”
“But she’s your bestfriend.” Chris was quick to point out. “Your writing partner.”The gunslinger shrugged. “People make mistakes.”
“And forgiveness is the first step to redemption.” Josiah added his two cents worth.
Cassie ignored the words of wisdom from the other men and turned pleading eyes on the tracker. “But she knows how I hate death fiction, Vin. We just talked about it the other day. I can’t read it.” The blond bowed her head and when she looked back up her large eyes were brimming with unshed tears and her full lips trembled slightly. “I couldn’t even read this one. She just told me about it to be..,” her voice caught, “to be cruel.”
The young woman covered her face with her hands and began to weep. Vin, being the man he was, gathered the sobbing girl in his arms and held her close. “Don’t cry, Cass. I promise you that everything will be okay.”
The tracker didn’t know what it was, but something about Cassidy Smith, cried out for a hero, a person to protect her from the savagery of the world, from the evilness of her best friend; and with every second that he held the young woman against his chest, his resolution grew. He would be that person.
”Shhh, I’ll take care of you.”
Cass pulled back so that she could gaze into the familiar blue eyes. “Even after what I tried to do to you? I’ve been so terrible.”
Vin reached up and brushed some long strands of golden hair from the girl’s damp cheek.”It wasn’t your fault, sweetheart. Maggie drove you to it.”
“I..I ..don’t know what to say.” The blond bit her lip and leaned a
little closer, grasping the soft leather of the bounty hunter’s
buckskin coat.
“Then don’t ‘say’ anything.” Vin brought his hands up and pulled Cassie’s lips to his.”Words are so overrated,”he breathed, before covering her mouth with his, in a passionate kiss, that seemed to trancend both time and setting.
A loud, blood-curtling, scream resounded in the small stable area and Cass would have swallowed her gum, had she not been ‘preoccupied’ at the moment.
Thunder rumbled, lightning struck simultaneously, and wind roared about the small building so fiercely that the other four gunmen and Matisyn began to rethink there participation in Cassie and Vin’s little revenge plot.
“Uh, do you think that means it worked?” Tanner pulled back from the blond and let his hands slide from her hair.
Cass grinned devishly,all tears replaced by a bright twinkle in her blue eyes. “Oh yeah. You were so smart to suggest it.”
Vin looked embarrassed. “Weren’t nothing, mam.”
“Are you kidding?” Cass gushed. “Nothing could have been worse punishment. After all, what does Maggie hate worse than I hate Death Fics?”
Tanner let a slow smile spread acrosss his handsome features. “ ‘MARY SUE’ Stories.”
“Yep!” Cass high-fived the bounty hunter. “Especially when it’s the Vinster gettin’ lucky!”
“So, you think this will convince the ‘evil’one to bring back Buck and J.D.?” Chris Larabee asked, reaching a hand out to help Cassie up from the floor.
The blond smiled and looked back over her shoulder to Tanner, before turning back to the black-clad man. “Let’s just say if it doesn’t, Vin may be in need of a bestman.”
“Of course, I’ll want you to do the honors.” The tracker told Larabee as the older man gave him a hand to his feet also.
“I do believe Buck’s pride would be quite wounded at how fast you’ve taken to another of the Seven, Miss Cassie.” Nathan gave the girl a wry grin.
Cassie shook her head. “Oh, you misunderstand, Mr. Jackson. ‘I’ won’t be marrying, the wild and wooly, Vin.”
A maniacle gleam flashed in the blond woman's eyes. “‘Charlotte’ will.”
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And don’t tempt me, Margarett Ann! I want a sequel. A ‘it was all a
bad dream’ or ‘it was just a farce to trick someone into believing the
Seven were vulnerable’ or ANYTHING as long as Buck and J.D. are alive and
well! Remember, I do Taebo three times a week and although my Rottweiler's
favorite food is beef steak, she has been known to consume
the occasional 'rat' from time to time!
Together Again: Sequel and Peace Offerin'
