Magnificent Seven 1. Vin Tanner

**A/N: Here it is at last! I promised in September at the completion of "Unexpected" to write up a piece for the other six members of the group to detail their experiences leading up to their arrival in Four Corners and it only took me until now to get the thing done. (Fall is a very busy time in college admissions!)**

**So here's the deal: If you want to read about Chris and Mary's paths to the pilot episode, check out "Unexpected." To read about the other six members of the seven, you're in the right place. We're starting out with Vin and will continue until we run out. (And by "we," I mean me – but you knew that.) And don't sue me during any course of this story because I have nothing you want and that includes ownership of the Magnificent 7. If you like what you're reading, though, let me know!**

_Human behavior has often defied the best laid plans. David Tichenor_

One month at the most. He didn't plan to stay in the miserable town of Four Corners for any longer than he had to and he figured it would take three to four weeks maximum in order to earn enough money to continue on to Tuscosa and clear his name. He'd let it go too long and a man could only carry that weight with him so far before it was bound to break his back – and his spirit along the way.

Of course, staying tied to one place doing a job you hated could do the same thing. He remembered a guy he'd known once – a tracker and buffalo hunter, like him – who told the story of a herd of mustangs he'd seen captured to be sold and trained as cavalry remounts. On the day the officers had shown up to take the herd, this tracker swore he'd seen three horses drop dead on the spot.

"They seen the future," he'd said in a hazy, far off tone. "They seen it and they figured death was a sight better than giving up their freedom. Load was too heavy to bear."

Still, he didn't figure that working in a hardware store pushing a broom had ever broken a man's spirit (or killed anyone) if performed in small amounts, but just in case that old mountain man had been right, Vin Tanner figured he should shoot for the short side of a month. Better safe than sorry and all that.

Besides, the only reason he'd ended up here – of all places - was that the reward money from his last bounty had run out one town over and his supply of beef jerky, hard tack, and other necessities had had the audacity to follow suit shortly thereafter. And, since a man couldn't eat his freedom for breakfast without feeling hungry an hour after, he found himself in windblown Four Corners, broom in hand as he tried hard not to scowl in dismay at customers or (more importantly) his employer, a tall, bespectacled man whose muscles and reflexes were soft from years of comfort and routine and whose brain had become a wealth of dollars and cents and not much else.

If being like that man was the future that came attached to broom pushing, Vin thought he'd best keep his tenure as a shop hand to a minimum - otherwise the route those horses took might begin to look more and more appealing.

The apron around his waist and the feel of the smooth broom handle slowly wearing a callous into the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger were torture, as was the sensation of his usually catlike reflexes slowing down as he spent more of his days cooped up inside instead of on the trail. All were unfamiliar and unwelcome sensations for a man used to living by his own schedule and his own code. He'd been places, seen things, and had skills with a gun and with his tracker's sensibilities that most men would envy – and if it weren't for the fact that none of those things were paying for his supplies at the moment, he'd still be on the trail. But jobs paid hard cash and Vin was broke. It was as simple as that and he liked things simple.

Now if only getting to Tuscosa and clearing his name could turn out as easy – then wouldn't life be grand? After all, how could he continue to pay the bills as a bounty hunter if he had to go around with a five hundred dollar price tag on his own head? Irony wasn't anything remotely as simple as Vin liked and he'd decided on the day that Eli Joe set him up that irony was just as much the enemy as the wily outlaw.

"Stupid," he muttered under his breath, lost in his own thoughts as he reached under a nearby bench with the broom, chasing a stray clump of dried mud that had evaded his ministrations earlier. "Plum stupid."

A passing couple raised their eyebrows as though to question his low outburst and he gave a half-smile and indicated the dirt clod: "I just hate a dirty porch, don't you?"

The woman gave a high, nervous chuckle in return and the couple passed quickly, their actions indicating that his explanation hadn't helped.

Vin rolled his eyes and continued sweeping. Stupid, indeed. He couldn't pinpoint the exact circumstances that had put his life on this particular path, but he suspected that he may have gotten a little overconfident in his success as a bounty hunter and in his own abilities – which, in turn, had given Eli Joe an advantage that he'd decided to use.

And now Vin was stuck sweeping up another man's mess instead of taking care of his own.

_Never forget you're a Tanner_, his mother had told him before she passed. As a small child, he wasn't sure what exactly she meant - and even as a grown man he still couldn't define it in words - but he'd always held himself to a particularly high standard, one that he considered to be that of a Tanner. He hadn't foreseen this latest career path, but he figured a Tanner would put everything he could into it and not be ashamed. A Tanner would hold his head up high no matter what the circumstance.

_Wouldn't he?_

Wryly, Vin thought to himself that he didn't actually know the answer to that question, but he suspected that it was "yes." He hoped it was anyway – though even if it wasn't, he didn't have a better plan at the moment.

He continued to sweep in silence.

He'd heard a poem once – something about "The best laid plans of mice and men…" – and he'd always liked the easy, foreign sound of it. Words intrigued him, whether in English, or Spanish, or any of the native dialects he'd encountered in his travels and, even though he couldn't read or write, he had always enjoyed mulling them over in his head, letting the sounds wash his mind clean the way a good rinse in a river could cleanse the body. Still, that particular poem never really meant anything to him until that day when he had the broom in his hand. On that day, the words began flitting around his mind like a flock of persistent birds and he had no idea why.

The first gunshots fired into the air and the first drunken whoops of cowboys exiting the saloon caused the blood to quicken in his veins for the first time since he'd picked up a broom. Guns and whiskey weren't usually a friendly combination – particularly in a town like Four Corners, which Vin had found to be (in his short time as a resident) rather lawless. Sure there was a marshal and a deputy, but they were as likely to be found drinking in the saloon with the outlaws as they were arresting them for their crimes. (In fact, Vin had thought fleetingly that he might have seen a "Wanted" poster with the deputy's face on it a few towns back, but he couldn't be sure. Besides, a man with his very own "Wanted" poster couldn't very well be hypocritical in such a situation.)

The first thought in the lanky tracker's mind after he heard the shots was that the rowdy cowboys who had just come off the trail that morning had had the stupid audacity to tangle with the man in black who had ridden in a day prior, his face an unreadable mask and his expression deadly. The Texans been trouble when they'd first ridden in (he'd seen the way they'd acted in the store when they replenished their supplies) and their boss had been in a bad way – gangrene, it looked like - so he hadn't expected things to take a turn for the better. Experience told Vin that liquor, time on the trail, and sheer stupidity were a dangerous combination – and if the black-clad figure who had ensconced himself in the saloon before their arrival was as deadly and menacing as his face would suggest, they'd be dead on the floor before they knew what hit them and it would serve them right.

But it wasn't the man in black they were tangling with at all, Vin realized as one of the drunken crew members came riding around the corner at a hard gallop and another shot his pistol into the air in the middle of the street, his horse rearing and spinning on its hind legs. Innocent bystanders leapt for cover, panes of glass exploded into shards as stray bullets ricocheted through them, and Vin ducked into the hardware store to avoid the melee – but not before he'd seen that the mob had grabbed hold of Nathan Jackson, the black man who served as the town's sole source of medical care, and were dragging him to the town cemetery with clear intent to lynch him.

Yup, liquor and stupidity were no doubt the leading cause of death in Four Corners – for both the guilty and the innocent it seemed.

Yet it wasn't that sight of Nathan being dragged down the stairs and tossed unceremoniously onto the back of a wagon that brought the words of that long ago poem into Vin's mind; instead, it was the sight of tiny Mary Travis, publisher of the town's newspaper, standing before the hell-bent cowboys with a rifle that was bigger than she was, defying every statute set for a proper lady and demanding that Nathan be set free. Her stance was rigid, her face stony, and she looked both competent and scared to death in the same breath as she demanded the release of her friend, her blonde hair escaping its bun and her hands still stained with printers' ink.

No good man could stand by idly while a woman held off a mob single-handedly and Vin was not just an ordinary good man: he was a Tanner.

His gut wrenched when the lead cowboy kicked Mary Travis to the street and a second wrested the rifle from her grasp and he'd cast off the broom and apron and grabbed a brand new rifle and handful of shells from behind the counter of the store before he realized what he was doing. Yet he didn't grasp the full weight of how much his life was about to change until seconds later, directly after the store owner threatened him as he passed by on his way to the street, saying, "You walk out with that rifle and you're fired."

"Hell, I'm probably going to get myself killed," Vin commented with a frown, part of him wanting to laugh at the man's misplaced priorities, but growing more annoyed by the second as he shoved the shells into the gun with deft fingers, "and now I got to worry about a new job too."

But the job didn't matter anymore and despite the danger inherent in the situation before him, Vin felt his muscles relax and his breathing slow for the first time in a week. It was as though the tightness of the apron had made it hard to breathe and without it, he could move about, unrestricted. The gun fit into his hands easily where the broom never had, sliding into the groove between thumb and forefinger as though made for him. Absent was the weight of a gun belt around his waist, the familiar mare's leg he preferred to shoot stowed with his possessions in the room he rented, but the rifle was all that was available and it would have to do.

It was as he moved to step into the street that he saw him again – the man in black – standing on the porch of the saloon in a thoughtful pose. His manner was unruffled, despite the charged air surrounding them, and his face, while not as stony as when Vin had seen him ride into town, was still relatively unreadable.

Casting off the chewed butt of a cheroot, the stranger locked eyes with Vin and opened his gaze so that they conversed without a single word:

_Can't let them hang him._

_Nope. It'd be a shame._

_Better go do something about it. You in?_

_Lead the way._

The best laid plans, indeed.

Ordinarily, going into a situation where he knew he was outnumbered – and particularly now, with his reflexes a bit duller than usual and a gun he'd never fired before – Vin felt a few flutters of fear in his stomach, but they were just enough to remind him of the gravity of the situation and so were welcome. Yet as he and the man in black walked in silence and pretended that they weren't facing possible death, there was nothing but steely resolve and assuredness that coursed through him – all accompanied by a mantra of those familiar words: "The best laid plans of mice and men..."

And perhaps it was then that he should have realized it; perhaps then he should have known that his plans weren't in his control any longer and that by joining the man in black – a man whose name he didn't even know but would later learn to be Chris Larabee – he was altering his fate forever.

He didn't know that they'd soon be joined by five more – by Nathan himself, and Chris's old friend Buck Wilmington, by dandy card shark Ezra Standish, devout Josiah Sanchez, and by greenhorn JD Donne.

He didn't know that Tuscosa would be less and less important once he and the other six were hired to watch over the town of Four Corners and her citizens.

He didn't know that in the sleepy dust bowl where he'd hoped to only stay a month at most he'd find something that he'd never had and didn't think existed: a home.

He also didn't know that with the men he'd soon join forces with he'd find something that any self-respecting Tanner wouldn't feel worthy of: a family.

He simply knew that he was doing the right thing – the sort of thing that a Tanner would do. The rest would sort itself out later, as it always did.

At the gateway to the town cemetery, the pair pushed through the assembled crowd and halted just inside the gate, where Vin could see that Nathan was already wearing a noose around his neck. The tall healer stood perched in the back of the mob's wagon and looked prepared to meet his Maker while the crowd muttered uselessly amongst themselves.

The lead cowboy noticed the pair of gunmen watching and strode over to menacingly ask, "What the hell you want?"

Beside Vin, the man in black spoke in an even tone: "Cut him loose."

"Reckon y'all would be happier if you just rode away," Vin put in. He never relished killing people and, despite the cloud of danger that shrouded his counterpart, he suspected that the stranger beside him felt the same. If Nathan were released, the whole thing would just blow over.

The cowboys all laughed and their leader shook his head. "Not a chance, boys."

The man in black spoke again in the same low voice, though this time laced with a thread of danger: "Shot a lot of holes in the clouds back there. Anybody stop to reload?"

Puzzlement, then fear crossed the faces of the cowboys then and Vin wanted to chuckle when he saw that the implied threat had sobered them up more quickly than a few gallons of hot coffee could.

When the shooting started, Vin was pleased to realize that his reflexes were still

as sharp as ever – which paid off when the team of horses attached to the wagon on which Nathan stood bolted in fear, leaving the black man hanging in midair. It would have been an easy shot for the former buffalo hunter under normal circumstances, but under fire it caused a bit more of a challenge. The first shot missed when he was forced to duck behind a nearby tombstone but the second was dead on and Nathan dropped to the ground, alive and gasping for breath.

The last remaining cowboy hightailed it out of the cemetery on foot, weaving unevenly in a manner that displayed his still-drunken state and Vin didn't have time to move or think as a wiry young man in tweed ran up, gun drawn and yelling, "I got him! I got him!"

The man in black was in motion before Vin realized what was happening, firing a shot into the ground to stop the kid's flight.

"You don't shoot nobody in the back!" he admonished and the kid slunk away, looking startled and chagrined.

Vin exhaled slowly, then looked appraisingly on the man beside him – a man with principles that were as scrupulous and firmly-held as his own. He'd often held himself to such a high personal standard that he'd found it impossible to imagine that someone else might see things the same way. Perhaps that meant that being a Tanner was something greater than just living up to his last name. Perhaps it was something that a person couldn't even put words to.

He wasn't sure he'd have enough time in Four Corners to figure it out, but then, "The best laid plans of mice and men..."

When the stranger spoke again, it was with the same easy, low tone he'd used with the cowboys, only this time friendlier: "Name's Chris."

"Vin Tanner," Vin told him. Conversationally, he asked the question he already knew the answer to. "New in town?"

"Yesterday," Chris replied.

"Last week," Vin told him.

Chris gave Vin the same quick, appraising once-over as the tracker had given to him, then asked, "Buffalo hunter?"

Vin frowned. "Among other things. Not many left to hunt."

Neither noticed the wounded cowboy on the ground pick up a pistol and aim it at them until Nathan had thrown a knife that hit him square in the back, killing him instantly. Then the pair exchanged a look between them in similar fashion to the way they had on the street.

_Good shot._

_Not bad for a man who was near dead a few minutes ago._

_Think you could have done it?_

_Nope._

_Me neither._

"One of y'all want to pull the knife out of that fella and cut me loose here?" Nathan wanted to know.

Silently, the pair acquiesced, helping the black man to his feet in time to see Mary Travis hurrying towards them.

"Gentlemen, I run The Clarion News," she said briskly, by way of introduction. "Where did you come from?"

Chris frowned and Vin fought the urge to chuckle when the man responded dryly, "Saloon."

The newly-formed trio began to walk away, Vin's nerves suddenly telling him that a shot of whiskey wasn't a bad idea right about then. Nathan too could probably use a few sips to soothe his rattled spirit.

Mary protested their departure. "Hey! I want to talk to you. Where are you going?"

Chris and Vin exchanged another look between them, eyes smiling as they shared a joke, and answered in unison: "Saloon."

And when Vin felt his strides matched by the two men who flanked him as they made their way back into town, the words of the poem began to cycle through his mind again: "The best laid plans of mice and men…"

Somehow he knew that his plans were about to change irreparably – and yet he didn't think he minded. Whatever was about to happen beat dying with a broom in his hand and at least this time he'd have company for the ride.

**TBC**


	2. Nathan Jackson

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay – I had a few unforeseen things come up that slowed my writing for a while (one of which was trying to get Nathan's voice right – he's tricky!) That said, here's part two with part three (JD's chapter) on the way. Let me know what you think.

_None of us knows what the next change is going to be, what unexpected opportunity is just around the corner, waiting a few months or a few years to change all the tenor of our lives._ Kathleen Norris

He figured the best thing to do was keep pushing slowly west – maybe even take up with one of the native tribes who occupied the nether regions of the desert, down near the Mexican border and up in the mountains where they were cordoned off into their own little worlds. They were known for taking in former slaves, for treating them like long-lost family members and allowing them to join in as full tribal members eventually. Maybe if he could join the tribe, he'd have a family again – like before the war.

"The best laid plans of mice and men…" Nathan Jackson had heard his former master recite a poem with that phrase in it from time to time but he'd never put much stock in the words. After all, when your life amounted to that of a mere mouse in the mind of another rather than the man in that line in the poem, it didn't matter how many plans or goals or hopes you had for yourself; in the end, you were still subject to the whim of that other person.

That's what slavery did to a man: it left him at the whim of another. On the day the Civil War had ended and he'd found himself a free man at no one's whims but his own, Nathan had vowed to live for no one but himself for the rest of his life. Mice be damned.

He had to admit, however, that ending up in Four Corners wasn't _exactly_ part of his plan when he'd come west. It had sort of happened before he'd realized it. One afternoon he'd stopped in town to replenish his supplies before heading to the mountains (vanishing, more like – if he did it right anyway) and by the next day he was still there, treating maladies and quickly garnering a reputation among the locals as a gifted healer. It was a bit startling actually, when he considered that his battered medical kit was a relic of the war and lacking in more than a few of the items that he considered to be essential to good care. What was more (and possibly of the most vital importance), his knowledge was limited to only that which he'd been able to sponge off the Union doctors while serving as a stretcher-bearer, picking up bits and pieces of information the way he did soiled bandages and other castoff remnants of battle and injury. He'd eavesdropped as much as he could (and even dared to ask questions on a few occasions), though that sole fact alone didn't, in the grand scheme of things, make him feel necessarily qualified to be giving as much advice as the townspeople of Four Corners began to seek from him – and yet to leave them suffering was a far worse crime in his mind.

No one should suffer for any reason. He'd learned that firsthand.

And so Nathan stayed. After all, the native tribes would still be there if he waited a few weeks – or even months – before joining them. People needed healing and if he could help them, so be it. Just because he wasn't following "The best laid plans of mice and men" didn't mean that he'd been demoted to mouse status. He was still a man – and an important one too at the moment.

One of the people he'd helped during that first week in town – the one person who looked at him like an equal from the beginning, never treating him like an outsider despite his short-term residency and dark skin – was Mary Travis, and for her unwavering faith in him, he'd always be grateful. Perhaps it was because she too was something of an anomaly – a woman daring to do the work of a man by publishing the town's sole newspaper. She understood what it was to be a mouse and, like Nathan, she wasn't fond of the feeling. Better to be a man, even if the application of the term was only figurative in her case.

She'd come to see him in the upstairs room he rented from the owner of the hardware store, green eyes sheepish as she extended her right hand in greeting and held her left protectively against her side in a pained manner.

"I feel so stupid," she'd shaken her head, embarrassed and not quite finding the words she sought. Holding out her left hand for his examination, she'd explained, "I've had this splinter for two days and I thought I'd be able to get it out on my own but it won't budge and it hurts terribly. It's such a silly thing."

She'd given a short, quick laugh and then lifted her eyes to his to gauge his reaction. No one had ever looked him in the eye with trust right from the start and it made him smile.

Nathan had held her tiny hand in his larger ones and examined the forefinger – the source of her problem – with a practiced gaze, noting that the inflamed area was ripe for infection if the splinter was not removed quickly.

Reassuringly, he told her, "Oh, Mrs. Travis, this ain't nothing. Let me get a needle and we'll get it right out for you."

Her already pale face blanched at the word "needle." "I, um…"

"You afraid of needles, ma'am?" Nathan asked her gently, trying not to smile again for fear of embarrassing her more than she already was.

"I like to sew with them," she offered a small smile, looking sheepish anyway. "That's all."

He chuckled. "Don't worry, ma'am, I'll be real gentle; you shouldn't feel a thing."

She hesitated briefly, then nodded her assent. "All right then."

Nathan gestured for her to seat herself in the straight-backed chair nearest the door while he reached past his medical bag and found the sewing kit he'd learned to keep at hand for repairing his own shirts and socks – something else he'd learned in the Union army and a skill that had saved him pocket money on more than one occasion. A man who was unsure of finding consistent work had to be prepared for such things and couldn't go wasting money on new clothes all the time.

While he waited for a pot of water to boil so he could sterilize the needle, Nathan told Mrs. Travis the first observation that came into his mind. He wanted to reel the words back in the moment they were out, and yet curiosity prevented him from apologizing and telling her to forget the whole thing.

"You know, people are no doubt gonna talk about you coming up here all by yourself, ma'am," he said, not meeting her gaze. "It probably wasn't the wisest decision to make."

Yet instead of scrambling to protest or darting out the door with the realization he was right, Mrs. Travis surprised Nathan yet again by replying in a level tone: "I can't afford to live my life by living up to other people's expectations, Mr. Jackson. I have a son to think about."

"A son?" he frowned in a puzzled manner, trying to remember if he'd ever seen her around town with a little boy.

"He lives with his grandparents for the moment," she told him, green eyes firm and face resolute. "Since his father was killed, I don't think it's safe for him to live here – and that's exactly why I need to do whatever it takes to make this town a safer place, which includes publishing my newspaper." She paused to chuckle, then added, "I cannot, however, publish my newspaper very efficiently with an infected finger – which is why I came to see you today."

"Townsfolk be damned?" he asked, then quickly apologized, "Sorry, ma'am – I didn't mean to say that."

If Nathan was shocked at his ability to be so open and at ease with Mrs. Travis, he was doubly surprised when she smiled and agreed with him. "Yes, townsfolk be damned, Mr. Jackson."

If Nathan had been keeping score, the count would have rolled to Mice 2, Men 0 at that particular juncture. But he wasn't – and neither he nor Mrs. Travis was a mouse anymore; that much was clear.

The water began to boil then, saving Nathan from further conversation long enough to drop the needle in the pot and cut a strip of clean bandage from the nearby roll. In a few moments, he had seated himself opposite a now-nervous looking Mary Travis and was holding out his hand to her.

She bit her lower lip nervously. "This is going to hurt, isn't it?"

"Ma'am, I'm going to do my best to make it quick and painless," Nathan told her in his most soothing tone, then changed to wheedling in order to add, "You know that splinter's got to come out now. Can't have you losing the whole hand – how would you publish your paper then?"

She was visibly swayed by that and held out her left hand to him, albeit gingerly.

Nathan chuckled. "You just look over my head and out the window, Mrs. Travis. Look at all that blue sky and think about the things you need to do this afternoon and by the time you get done with your list, I'll have it out."

"What makes you think I keep lists in my head?" she raised a suspicious, yet teasing eyebrow at him.

"Don't everyone?" he replied lightly and she smiled, then obeyed him and looked away when he picked up the needle.

The first thing Nathan did was pinch her finger between his own, holding it tightly to numb the sensation in the nerve – an action that made her inhale sharply, but elicited nothing more even after he began to poke gently with the tip of the needle, letting him know that it was working. Three gentle prods later and the splinter emerged in all its torturous glory.

"All done, Mrs. Travis," he told her, holding out the splinter like a prize. "We'll bandage you up and you'll be as good as new."

"That's it?" her gaze fell back to him and then to the splinter in his hand. "You're all done?"

"I told you, ma'am – it weren't nothing," he shrugged, making sure the affected area was clean and wrapping a neat bandage around the finger.

"Nathan, I feel as though you've saved my life," she said, the words sounding exaggerated to his ears even though her facial expression was in earnest. "Thank you."

"Just an itty bitty splinter," he shrugged and moved across the room to stow his sewing needle.

"What do I owe you?" she asked, her tone becoming proprietary again.

"Nothing," he shook his head.

"Certainly you must…" she began but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.

"Don't worry about it," he told her. "You just go on back and get that paper of yours printed."

"I'll do that," she smiled. "You have a good day, Mr. Jackson."

"You too, ma'am," he nodded.

And after she'd gone, he smiled thinking about how good it felt to be called _Mister_ Jackson. No mouse warranted a "mister." No mouse indeed.

Yet if he'd saved her life that day with his sewing needle and a bit of precision, he had no idea how great the scale of her attempt to save his life was. The two couldn't be compared - and he didn't even consider doing so a week later when the rowdy cowboys rode into down, their boss riddled with gangrene and their attitudes sour and rank as the sore-footed broncs they rode in on. The man's death wasn't Nathan's fault by any means – in fact, the only service he was able to render was to allow the poor sick bastard to die in a bed with his head on a pillow instead of on the hard, rocky ground somewhere. (And perhaps it wasn't that much of a service in the first place – most cowhands would be plenty happy to just die in the middle of the open range and lie interred there for all eternity.)

The cowboys who worked for the man didn't see it that way, though – all they saw was black man who told them of the death of a white man they knew and respected. Several bottles of whiskey later, that hatred boiled over into an ugly something that Nathan hadn't anticipated and he kicked himself for it, for going soft now that he had come west. At home, lynchings were part of the way of life for slaves and so he should have seen the attempt on his life coming, but he'd been lulled into a sense of false security by the town of Four Corners and its inhabitants who were eager for any medical treatment they could find, whether the doctor was black or not.

Thus, as he rode out of town in the back of a wagon, his hands bound and future grim, he vowed to not lose that awareness of his surroundings again – provided, of course, that he lived through this ordeal.

And God bless Mary Travis – tiny and shaking, she stood before the mob who held Nathan hostage and demanded that he be released, a rifle in her hands and steel in her voice.

"Nathan didn't kill your boss – gangrene did," she spat with such vehemence that Nathan didn't have to see her face to know that her green eyes were sparking and her blonde hair was escaping its bun.

"Ain't no darkie doctors," came the sardonic reply from the gang's leader, "and there never will be."

At once, Nathan felt right back at home in the South – and he didn't like the feeling one bit. Nor did he appreciate the feeling of the rope being roughly trussed around his neck while he perched precariously in the back of the wagon, praying to every god he could think of to deliver him from what seemed to be the inevitable. Mrs. Travis hadn't been able to single-handedly stop the drunken mob and even if the townspeople of Four Corners were willing to let him save them, it was quite apparent that they were unwilling to return the favor. Once again, he'd been relegated to mouse from man, a transition he had hoped never to make now that he'd come west. It was a shame that hate didn't seem to have a specific address.

Yet if hate could be found everywhere, so could heroism – a truth that Nathan Jackson discovered upon the appearance of two very capable looking gunmen at the gate to the cemetery. He hadn't seen them around town – though maybe the lanky one with the rifle had been in the hardware store earlier pushing a broom in awkward and unaccustomed fashion – and from the look of them, after this incident they'd get out as soon as they could and he certainly wouldn't blame them for it.

The lead cowboy – the one who'd earlier pushed Mary Travis down in the street when she tried to stop the horrible proceedings - took notice of the pair of gunmen as well and strode over to menacingly ask, "What the hell you want?"

It was the same tone he'd taken with Mrs. Travis – and yet this time it didn't carry nearly as much weight because these men were his size, a fact he seemed somewhat aware of (despite the effects of the liquor).

The man dressed in black from head to toe – the one with the stony face - spoke in an even tone: "Cut him loose."

"Reckon y'all would be happier if you just rode away," the lanky one beside him put in. The rifle seemed to fit his hands in all of the places that the broom hadn't.

The cowboys all laughed and their leader shook his head. "Not a chance, boys."

The man in black spoke again in the same low voice, though this time laced with a thread of danger: "Shot a lot of holes in the clouds back there. Anybody stop to reload?"

Nathan fought back a laugh then, knowing it would seal his death more quickly than the mob otherwise intended. But it was a good point and any man who had the balls to point it out when outnumbered almost three to one had the sort of confidence that was contagious. Nathan respected him instantly.

In the end, the healer wasn't sure who fired first, but he was acutely aware of the moment when the horses attached to the wagon on which he stood bolted in fear, leaving him hanging from the tree and gasping for air. The rope burned – or was that his lungs? He wasn't sure but his eyes saw stars and he suspected that he and his Maker were about to come face to face and it didn't seem like an altogether too depressing thought – if only because there had to be air in heaven (and if there wasn't, he wouldn't need it anyway).

Then there was the quick report of a rifle – sharper than the roar of the six shooters the cowboys were using - and he felt the tree limb from which he hung shudder as a bullet lodged itself inside. Through half-lidded, delirious eyes, Nathan could see that the rifle-wielding man from the hardware store was attempting to shoot through the rope that held him aloft and he fought the urge to laugh a second time, thinking of the folly of it. No man was that good – good enough to shoot a rope wrapped around a narrow limb while ducking flying bullets – _was he_?

The answer was a resounding "yes" because the second shot was true, snapping the rope and dropping Nathan unceremoniously to the ground, knees buckling on impact and air flooding his lungs while his senses slowly returned in tingling bursts of feeling that began at his toes and worked their way up to his head. His neck would no doubt bear rope burns for the next week or so, but somewhere in his medical case was a salve that would ease the sting.

(The fact that he could think of these things so coherently told him he'd be all right sooner rather than later, however.)

He pulled himself into a sitting position in time to see a young man in his early twenties and a dandy's suit and derby rush forward, pistol waving wildly and yelling, "I got him! I got him!"

The pair of men who had been conversing easily with the air of two people who hadn't just been in a deadly gunfight, reacted in unison and so quickly that Nathan knew they were the kind of men who slept with one eye open at all times. The one in black fired a shot into the ground to stop the kid's flight.

"You don't shoot nobody in the back!" he admonished, tone incredulous, and the kid slunk away, looking startled and chagrined.

It was in the quiet that followed the brief melee when a mortally wounded cowboy at Nathan's feet raised a pistol in the direction of the two startled men whose backs were now to the cemetery. The healer didn't think or breathe before snatching a knife from the ground nearby and letting it fly so that it lodged fatally in the man's back. It was an old skill – one he'd learned in childhood – and it had served its purpose for him more often than not. A black man didn't always have access to a gun but knives were often readily available.

Nathan's saviors exchanged a new look between them, impressed.

"One of y'all want to pull the knife out of that fella and cut me loose here?" he asked them conversationally, knowing from their recent display that, despite their admiration for his skill, their attitudes weren't going to change. They'd remain staunch and approach every situation in an easygoing manner.

They obeyed and helped him to his feet just as Mrs. Travis hustled forward, her face still a mask of concern.

"Gentlemen, I run The Clarion News," she said briskly to the pair of rescuers by way of introduction after she'd given Nathan a visual once-over. "Where did you come from?"

The one in black frowned and responded dryly, "Saloon."

Nathan smiled and looked down. Yes, there was something about that man that gave the healer complete confidence in him. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was – perhaps a confidence bred out of being world-weary?

The trio turned to depart, Nathan following so he'd have an opportunity to thank them for their actions.

Mrs. Travis protested their departure, confused and surprised. "Hey! I want to talk to you. Where are you going?"

Nathan's rescuers exchanged another look between them, eyes smiling as they shared a joke, and answered in unison: "Saloon."

Their feet never stopped moving and Nathan felt himself being buoyed away in their wake, striding right through the saloon doors with them – a place he hadn't ventured during his time in Four Corners – and up to the bar, where a bottle of whiskey materialized before the two white men.

Nathan's stomach sank again – from man to mouse to man and back to mouse again. Never before had he felt such highs and lows in one day and if he was going to stay a mouse, he'd soon depart Four Corners to seek his manhood once again.

"One for the doc too," the lanky rifleman said in a low voice to the bartender, sliding a shot glass over to Nathan in a gesture of true solidarity.

Nathan's eyes met those of Vin Tanner and then Chris Larabee on his other side and he suddenly knew what the line from the poem had been about. "The best laid plans of mice and men…" Whether mouse or man, no one could know the future and therefore it couldn't be planned for. All Nathan Jackson knew at that exact moment was that the pair of gunslingers beside him saw him as a man – and that his plans for departing the rowdy town were altering completely.

He didn't know the future and so he had no idea that they'd soon be joined by four more just like them – by hopeless ladies' man Buck Wilmington, by Southern dandy Ezra Standish, penitent Josiah Sanchez, and by the greenhorn from the cemetery, JD Dunne.

He didn't know that he would come to view healing as not just something for the body, but for souls, for relationships, and for communities.

He didn't know that in the backwater desert town in which he'd hoped to only stay a few weeks at most he'd find something that he'd thought could only be found in the mountains with the natives: a home.

He also didn't know that he'd discover in the group of seven something which he'd always thought to be something fleeting and transient and not available to mice who lived at the whim of others: brotherhood.

All he knew at the moment was that he'd been reverted back to a man with a simple, friendly gesture – a shared bottle of whiskey. It wasn't something that was part of his plans, but it was better than he'd expected.

Mice be damned; Nathan Jackson would live the rest of his life a man.

TBC


	3. JD Dunne

**Author's Note: Apparently this is going to be one of those horribly drawn-out stories that annoys readers with the infrequency of its updates. I didn't plan it that way – but since the unplanned is a running theme of the whole thing, perhaps it's a move by my subconscious mind to make a point…**

**(Yeah – or I could just be that busy. I'm guessing that you, dear readers, are smart enough to realize the truth.)**

**At any rate, here's JD's chapter. I tried to remember while I was writing it that he's uber-idealistic and stays that way for a while, so if he doesn't quite grasp the concept of "the best laid plans," that's by design. Read, review, and don't sue. That's all I ask.**

_Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me._ Carl Sandburg

The stagecoach driver yelled for him to get back inside, but JD Dunne could barely hear the man's words over the pounding of his own heart as he gripped his saddle in one hand and thrust his feet to the ground, the lurching of the coach as it jerked to a hasty stop managing to throw him a bit off-balance upon landing. A cloud of dust swirled around him as horses snorted and tried to regain their wind, and the smell of the frontier hit him for the first time in all of its unmitigated glory, no longer filtered and muted by the stale, mustiness of the coach. It was everything he'd expected – the odor of dirt, horses, sweat, gunpowder, and something else he couldn't identify, something untamed and wild, filled his nostrils. Was it freedom, perhaps?

He was running as soon as he landed, ignoring the film of dust that clung to his new tweed suit and the disapproving faces of the townspeople he skirted jerkily in his flight, muscles somewhat protesting the sudden transition from being folded into the rickety seat inside the coach for the last several hours to a headlong sprint down the middle of the street.

"This is why I came west!" he'd cried to the driver just before his unceremonious leap – and it was. Right there in front of him was the makings of a real live gunfight, the kind that Bat Masterson himself had been in the thick of on so many occasions. The Wild West he'd read about so many times – the one that he'd pictured in his imagination on those lazy summer afternoons when he'd been able to sneak into the hayloft of the stable with a dime novel and while away a few hours between brushing down horses and cleaning tack and harness – was a real living and breathing entity and, so far, it was better than he'd dreamed it would be.

Gunfights. Hangings. The real things - all in front of him, ready to play out, and he ran after the gathering mob as fast as his legs could carry him, all while a phrase flitted into his mind that seemed to fit the moment: "The best laid plans of mice and men…"

One day when he was eleven or twelve, JD had been summoned into the library of the manor house for one thing or another – he couldn't even recall now – and while he'd waited for his employer (or rather his mother's employer; JD's job as stable boy was a position of convenience, considering he'd been born on the grounds of the manor house and his mother was employed there), he'd taken the liberty of picking up a nearby book of poetry and thumbing the pages. The volume was heavy and leather-bound with gold leaf lettering on the cover – much more substantial than the cheap paperbacks JD favored – and the words inside were poetic and lilting. He'd been painfully aware of the smoothness of the volume contrasting with his work-roughened and calloused hands with their blunt, chipped nails and had held it as lightly as he might a sparrow, cradling it softly and gingerly, as though afraid it might go to dust under his touch.

That phrase had stood out in his mind, though, when the pages fell open before his eyes: "The best laid plans of mice and men..." but he hadn't been able to finish the poem because in had walked his boss and the book had been hastily closed and placed back in its resting place, JD's face red and sheepish for overstepping his boundaries. No mention had been made of it, but JD had always thought that the man probably thought him impertinent. There had been no love lost between them, that was for sure, and when JD's mother had passed away and he'd announced his plans to leave the manor and head west, he'd simply given his notice, collected his wages and paltry belongings, and left.

And now here he was – in the very place he'd always dreamed of.

Still, since that day in the library, he'd always wondered what happened with the best laid plans of mice and men, even as he'd begun preparing for his journey. Now, he had a feeling he was about to find out because all of his planning and preparations – all of the hours in the saddle, the practicing with his secondhand six-shooter he'd bought at a pawn shop with three weeks worth of wages, and the time he'd spent memorizing Bat Masterson's life and times – were about to pay off. He was about to engage in his first gunfight!

He hadn't caught a lot of the action from the coach – at first, they'd been too far out of town for him to really gauge what was happening in the middle of the street, but even as they'd gotten closer, JD had been forced to hang his head out the window to catch a glimpse of the goings on.

"Where are we?" he'd yelled up to the driver.

"Get your head back in there, fool!" came the growling response as the coach lurched over a dip in the road.

"Almost to Four Corners!" cried a fellow traveler seated opposite him.

JD leaned back against the seat and smiled. _Four Corners._ He was almost there.

Four Corners, an old man on the porch of the last stage stop had told him, was a wild place where the town marshal and his deputy worked the law from both sides and anyone who spoke out on the side of right could easily be singled out and shot to death. Gamblers frequented the town's saloon, horse thieves had been known to pass through on their way to parts unknown, and gunslingers, Indians, and buffalo hunters often outnumbered the local ranchers and townsfolk. It was a place teeming with danger and excitement.

JD thought it sounded perfect.

"You know they shot a newspaperman last year? Or was it the year before?" the coot had asked conversationally, rocking back on his ladder-backed chair and crossing his arms over his chest. "Huh. Doesn't matter. Any rate, a group of them murdered him in cold blood inside his own home. Guess the wife runs the paper now, but who knows how long before they don't like what she's printing either. Wouldn't put it past them to shoot a woman – that's how rough that town is."

"Sounds like a regular Tombstone," JD had breathed, picturing it in his mind's eye.

The chair had slammed back down onto the porch floor and the old timer had leveled his watery gaze at the youth before him: "It's worse'n Tombstone in some ways, young man – and if you know what's good for you, you'll stay on that stage all the way to San Francisco. You get off anywhere before and you're likely to be shot before you're there a day. Hell, I don't figure you'd make it more than a couple of hours – 'specially in that funny-looking hat."

"I can take care of myself," JD straightened the bowler on his head – his homage to his longtime hero Masterson - and patted his holster confidently. "I've had a lot of practice."

The old man had stood then, head shaking in disbelief. His eyes were weary but the light in them was strong as he told JD, "Shooting at trees and targets ain't shooting at men, son. Trees and targets don't shoot back, for one thing. And for another, they don't have eyes."

He stepped closer, eyes holding JD's. "You ever seen the eyes of a dying man? You do and you'll never forget it – pierces your soul, even if he's the meanest bastard you ever encountered in your whole life. Light, then dark. Like watching a candle go out, except it's a hell of a lot more permanent."

"I…" JD started to say but was cut off.

"Stay on that coach all the way to 'Frisco, son," the codger patted his shoulder and walked past him, headed back inside the stage stop. "But if you don't, I'd give some thought to buyin' a new hat."

A coward, that's what the old man had been, JD had later concluded as the coach rocked and swayed across the desert. It wasn't a nice thing to say about anyone, but sometimes it was true. And when a man could handle a pistol – a skill JD was confident that he possessed – what was there to be afraid of? Four Corners sounded as though it was right up his alley.

By the time he reached the gate to the cemetery, the crowd was clustered thickly behind two capable-looking men who were staring down a group of what looked to be drunken cow hands. At the base of a large tree in the center of the graveyard was a wagon, inside of which a very large black man was perched, a noose tied around his neck. A real live lynching!

The lead cowboy confronted the pair and the blonde woman beside JD gasped. "What the hell you want?"

The man dressed in black spoke in an even tone that belied no fear, no anger, and no emotion of any kind. He was staring them down the way a man might examine a horse he wanted to buy – looking for strengths and weaknesses and not willing to haggle on price: "Cut him loose."

"Reckon y'all would be happier if you just rode away," the lanky man beside the black-clad figure put in. His tone too was easy and strong. Both men spoke the way that JD had always imagined the characters in his dime novels would sound – only the words sounded much better spoken aloud. JD's heart thrilled to hear it.

The cowboys all laughed derisively and their ringleader shook his head at the men. "Not a chance, boys."

The man in black spoke again in the same low voice, though this time laced with a thread of danger that made the hairs on the back of JD's neck stand up: "Shot a lot of holes in the clouds back there. Anybody stop to reload?"

And in the moment of stunned pause that followed that question, JD sensed that his life was about to change – just as he'd always planned.

What he didn't know – and couldn't know – was that his plans were no match for the likes of Chris Larabee, Vin Tanner, Nathan Jackson, Joshiah Sanchez, Ezra Standish, and Buck Wilmington.

He didn't know that he'd soon be part of a group of men who would mentor, tease, support, belittle, and accept him in a way he'd never experienced before.

He didn't know that dime novels would lose all appeal once he experienced the true West firsthand, that somehow their words would ring hollow for him.

He didn't know that the longer he stayed in the town of Four Corners, the more he would come to view it as home.

He also didn't know that he would learn something new from those men every day and that being called "Kid" wouldn't bother him after a while because it meant they accepted him.

But mostly, he didn't know what it was that he didn't know.

His first lesson was about to come, however, as he watched the gunfighters trade shots with the cowboys, gun smoke dissipating quickly into the desert air while the bystanders around him dove for cover. Even the lanky gunfighter with the rifle was forced to take shelter behind a tombstone, shooting once at the limb from which the black man was now dangling, the horses having spooked and taken the wagon with them. A split second later, though, the black man fall unscathed to the ground, the rope severed by a second quick shot from the rifle held by the lanky tracker – a shot that JD told himself he probably could also have made. He was somewhat aghast, however, at the nonchalant manner of the gunfighters, though, as the battle quickly ended and they stood silently by, catching their breath while the dead and dying cowboys writhed on the ground before them and the rescued black man gasped for air at the base of the tree from which he'd recently been hanging.

How could they just stand there like that? Didn't they see the bandy-legged cowboy fleeing the scene? Wasn't he just as guilty as the rest of his compatriots? Weren't they going to do _anything_?

Some heroes!

They obviously needed help – and JD's feet were in motion, his pistol sliding easily out of its holster the way he'd practiced countless times, and gun coming up cocked and ready. It felt natural and right and he willed himself to remember to breathe as he moved forward.

"I got him!" he cried, pistol waving. "I got him!"

A shot exploded into the dirt at his feet, sending up a cloud of dirt and dust and stopping his forward flight as effectively as though he'd run into a brick wall. Stunned, he stared wide-eyed at the man in black who'd fired the shot.

"You don't shoot nobody in the back!" the black-clad gunslinger admonished him, tone implying that anyone with a lick of sense in his head would automatically know that. Beside him, the tracker's eyes looked JD over appraisingly and obviously saw nothing of value, for he returned his attention to his compatriot rather quickly.

And JD realized it then – he suddenly understood full well what happened to "the best laid plans of mice and men:" they never worked out the way they were supposed to. The look of shocked disbelief in the eyes of the man in black and those of his tracker friend had said more than just the words; they'd told JD under no uncertain terms that he had no idea what the real west was like. The novels hadn't done it justice. Only when a man had actually experienced it for himself – like Bat Masterson, like the old man at the stage depot, and like the two who stood before him – would he gain true understanding.

JD picked up his saddle and turned to begin his slow walk back to town when he heard the men – Chris Larabee, the man in black had said, lanky tracker Vin Tanner, and the recently rescued black doctor, Nathan Jackson – talking with a blonde woman at the edge of the cemetery, the one that JD had been standing by earlier.

"Gentlemen, I run The Clarion News," she said briskly, by way of introduction. "Where did you come from?"

Chris frowned and responded dryly in a tone similar to that which he'd used on JD moments earlier, "Saloon."

The newly-formed trio began to walk away and the woman protested. "Hey! I want to talk to you. Where are you going?"

Chris and Vin exchanged another look between them and answered her in unison: "Saloon."

JD didn't turn or stop, but he chuckled to himself as he walked. Every gunfighter needed a mentor – or two, or three – and since his "best laid plans" hadn't panned out the way he'd expected them to, it was time to rethink his approach. He was confident in his skills as a horseman and in handling his pistol, but he needed to know the ways of the west, how to behave in situations like the one he'd just seen. What better place to learn that sort of thing than from men who were obviously experts?

And suddenly he felt better. Having a new plan in place bolstered his spirits and JD headed off to the town livery stable to see about purchasing a suitable mount for his new life and new pursuit. By the next morning, he'd have his new plan in action – mice and men be damned!

He still didn't know what it was he didn't know – but as he made his way back into the town of Four Corners, JD Dunne knew he was one day closer to finding out.

**TBC**


End file.
