Chapter II: The Nightmares

Ezra dropped into the chair holding his right arm, the white handkerchief JD had tied around it early was now a deep red. He watched as Buck went to get some water, while JD disappeared up stairs to get Nathan, the team’s healer.

“Alright Hoss, we’ll just get ya cleaned up here.” Buck sat the water down on the table next to Ezra, pulling a chair up to sit down himself. He started unwrapping the makeshift bandage, stopping when he saw the cut. There was a lot of blood and he wasn’t sure if he should take the cloth off the wound. It’s the only thing stopping the blood, Buck thought, he looked up to see Ezra’s head slump back over the chair. “JD, NATHAN!”

Ezra’s head shot up, a pounding right behind his eyes, why me?, he asked himself. He didn’t know why they were making such a big thing out of a little cut. Although he was losing focus and having trouble keeping his eyes open but Buck’s yelling wasn’t helping. “Master Wilmington, if you could please keep it down?” He just glared at the man, who was now trying to hide a smile behind his mustache and doing a very poor job at it. Buck Wilmington was a good man, light hearted and always thinking on the positive side of things, which was most likely why him and Ezra got along so well. He’s also one of the only three to welcome the gambler and ex-con to the group when Lord Travis brought him to the team, letting the man have a chance to prove himself.

His head turned toward the stairs as JD came running down them adding more pounding to his already hurting head.

“He’s coming!” He looked once more up the stairs before running to Ezra’s side and knelling down besides him. “How ya doing?” He eyed the wound, his handkerchief still on it with Buck pushing on it. This is all my fault, JD thought, he dared to take a quick look at Ezra’s face and was surprised when he saw the gambler looking back at him.

“Now JD, don’t blame yourself for my present condition. It was my own doing by dropping my guard to those miscreants.” Ezra could see the disappointment in the youth’s eyes and knew that it was going to be some time before JD let this go. John Dunne, knew by the team as JD Dunne, was the youngest of the team, though Ezra was only older by four years. He was the second to welcome Ezra, having problems himself when he joined because of his age.

“I’m sorry Ez, I should have been faster with my gun.”

“He’s alive because of you JD,” Buck said trying to cheer the boy up.

Dunne only nodded looking again at Ezra’s arm, “Oh no!”

“What the matter?” Buck almost jumped out of his sit.

“Ezra, that’s your favorite jacket,” now he really felt bad. He had forgotten that Ezra had worn his favorite red jacket tonight and now it had a huge cut in it.

The gambler only looked at the sleeve, upset about the whole thing but JD was already hating himself about the wound. He stared back, his face as clam as ever, “Nothing a well trained seamstress can’t handle. Not to worry Master Dunne.”

“Maybe, but we should get you out of it before Nathan gets to it.”

At this Ezra’s eyes grew a size bigger, why me, it was fine right now but if the healer got to it there would be no saving the poor jacket. He did his best not to show the pain that shot through him as he sat forward to take the jacket off.

Buck had to go ahead and take the handkerchief off the wound but the moment the jacket was out of the way he push it back to it. “Should we get your shirt off too?” He already knew the answer to his question just by the look in his friend’s eyes. Come on Nathan, he didn’t like how the gambler’s skin was starting to look.

“I knew it! I knew it!” Nathan was yelling as he came running down the stairs, he stopped dead upon seeing Ezra’s arm and the blood red handkerchief wrapped around it. “I just knew one of ya all would come back hurt.” Just my luck too, the one that never wants my help, he thought to himself. He walked the rest of the way to the three men, little black bag in hand. Buck had moved letting Nathan have the chair next to the wounded arm.

“I am sure you Master Jackson that I’m quite well and that our companions …”

“Oh be quiet Ezra.”

“How bad is it Nat, is he going to lose the arm?”

Ezra couldn’t help the shock that went across his face at JD’s words, “Now Master Dunne let us not jump to conclusions before the good doctor has a look.”

Nathan give the two a huge grin and he didn’t even try to hid it, “It’s not that bad JD,” he had already started cutting the sleeve of the shirt away. They got him out of his jacket, he eyed the pile of red fabric sitting on the table. He never understood why Ezra made such a big thing about the red jacket but all he really knew about it was that the gambler had won it, where else but in a poker game. He noticed the eyes that was watching him and looked up to see JD staring at him, Nathan looked to Buck standing behind the youth, he’s blaming himself again?

Nathan didn’t have to ask the question, Buck knew what the dark healer was thinking and only nodded in reply. The womanizer look on as Nathan went back to his work, pulling the sleeve away from the wound and quickly putting a clean piece of cloth on to stop the flash blood that started bleeding as the dried blood was pulled away. Buck noticed that Ezra’s kept slipping forward and sitting up like he was trying to stay awake, “Maybe we should get Ez into bed ‘fore he passes out on Nettie’s new carpet.”

At the sound the nickname they’d given him, he came back to where he was. “I’m alright gentlemen, it’s only a small cut no need to over react. I quite w…” he had tried to stand and if it wasn’t for the three men standing around him, Ezra would have found himself on the ground.

“Come on Ez, let’s get you upstairs.”

Ezra would have preferred to stay where he was but Buck was right, Nettie Wells, the housekeeper would give him more to worry about then just his arm if he bled all over her new carpet that Lord Travis finally let her have. He unwillingly gave in to JD and Nathan helping him to stand and then up the case of steps, Buck came up close behind them encase someone lost their balance and started to fall backwards.

“Don’t worry Ezra, the cut itself ain’t bad but it’s close to a vein, al’ we gonna do is stop the bleeding and ya’ll be back to cheating at cards ‘fore ya know it.” Nathan was saying as they got the Southerner into his bedroom and onto his bed.

“Miss Nettie, ain’t gonna be happy about those sheets,” JD stated fearing the wrath of the housekeeper.

“Better then the carpet,” Buck said helping Nathan to get Ezra as comfortable as they could.

Why me? Ezra asked again, he knew that they were just trying to help but with every little movement there were huge waves of pain and dizziness. The last thing he saw was Nathan replacing the bandage that he was holding on the wound down stairs, ‘cause just like JD’s handkerchief it was already no longer white but blood red.

*   *   *   *

The sun was already rising when Nathan finished seeing to Ezra’s arm. The cut wasn’t that bad, like he had thought but with Ezra not holding still. The Southerner opened the wound wider and then ended up needing stitches. Nathan also had to argue with the gambler about not getting out of bed, that he still needed rest.

Why can’t any of these fellows take care of ‘emselves, he thought, half the time instead of treating their wounds Nathan ended up fighting with them to take better care of themselves and to listen to him. Ezra was probably the worst out of them, second only to their leader Chris Larabee. When Ezra started complaining about the way he’s being taking care of that normally meat that he was fine but when Ezra started saying that he was fine and didn’t want to be looked after then there was normally something really wrong. Nathan and the team had learned about this habit of his the hard way and the healer didn’t plan on making that mistake twice.

He came to the dinning room to find Buck sitting by himself already eating breakfast, “Where is everyone?” He made his way over to the food table, Nettie had too many things to do besides serving them breakfast, so she always just set it up on the side and let them serve themselves.

Buck looked up from his plate of eggs and bacon, looked around the table and then grinned at the healer, “Not here.”

Nathan just rolled his eyes at the man as he took a sit across from him. “Wonder where they’re all at.”

“Chris said they might be late coming back from Lord Traivs’s and if I know Chris, if Lady Mary was anywhere around he’ll try to stay as long he can.”

Nathan grinned back at the comment, knowing full well what he meant. As much as Chris denied it, the whole team knew that the man cared for Lady Mary Travis. The daughter-in-law of Lord Orin Travis, she had married his son but by unhappy events he past away a few years ago leaving her alone with a son and Chris had fallen for her and her kid when he first meet them.

“Didn’t think they would be this late though,” Buck looked over at the grandfather clock that set in the corner of the room. “Thought they would have gotten back during the night.” Chris and the other two members of the team had to go to a party last night at the Travis’ manor. “How’s Ezra doing?”

“Doing fine last I checked, be doing better if he hadn’t argued with me all night and lost so much blood.”

“That’s Ez for ya.” Buck lowered his head so Nathan wouldn’t see the smile under his mustache.

Nathan just shook his head, “Where’s JD?” trying to change the subject off of the gambler lying in bed.

“Still asleep I guess,” Buck didn’t miss the concerned look that passed over Nathan’s face. Normally JD was always the first one up in the morning, the only times they’ve known him to sleep in was when he had his ‘dreams’, those mornings he woke up even later then Ezra and the Southerner was known to not wake up not until noon.

“Maybe I should go check on him,” Nathan said, being the ‘mother hen’ that he was.

“Leave him Nat, he probably just needs to rest.”

“I don’t like those ‘dreams’ of his, it’s unhealthy when someone don’t get enough …”

“Mornin’ JD!” Buck yelled the greeting a little bit louder then he had meant to, hope he doesn’t realize we were talking about him. “How are ya kid?”

JD only nodded as he got some coffee and then took a sit next to Buck. Why don’t they just ask me?, he thought to himself. He knew that they were talking about him not being up before them, he hated it when they talked about him like that and think he doesn’t notices.

“Did you sleep well?” Nathan asked.

“How’s Ez?” He didn’t want to talk about last night not after what he’d been through.

“He’s fine,” Nathan stated, “just needs some rest and then he’ll be back to cheating at cards.”

Again JD only nodded his head.

“JD, you had another dream, didn’t ya?” Nathan asked. When no answer came he just shook his head, stood and headed over to the food table. This time he came back with a plate and set it down in front of JD. “You need to eat something.”

JD didn’t feel like arguing so he just started eating.

“You wanna talk about it?” Buck asked, he hated seeing the kid like this, in fact it kind of scared him when the boy shut down.

“Not really but if you have to know it was the same one,” he took a sip of coffee, “so I guess last night didn’t help any.”

“Didn’t help! JD what are you talking about? ‘Course it helped those two women are alive ‘cause of last night.”

“But if I’m still having the same ‘dream’, then…”

“Look JD we’ll figure it all out later, right now you’re eating.”

JD looked up at Nathan, don’t see how eating is going to help with not getting any sleep, he thought to himself but he decided to go along with the healer. After the night Nathan had with Ezra, JD didn’t want to push the healer into another fight. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Buck grinning at him, as if he could read the boy’s mind. JD grinned back trying to thank Buck for the attempt at cheering him up.

Although he still treated JD like a little brother and doesn’t let him do anything to dangerous, Buck had been the first to really welcome him to the team. The others didn’t understand why Lord Travis’s wanted him in the group until he had his first ‘dream’ with them. Why do they call them ‘dreams’?, he asked himself. His team mates called them ‘dreams’, Josiah, the religious expert on the team calls them ‘visions’, JD just calls them ‘nightmares’.

When he started having the ‘nightmares’, he thought it was just brought on by all the news that was going through town, about Jack the Ripper. Until one night when he dreamt about one of his friends being killed, he try telling her about it but she just wave it off as nothing but a dream. Then two days later she was found died, with the same wounds that JD had seen in his nightmare. He started looking in the past news stories and found that the first three girls that he dreamt about came true, the police finding their bodies four days after he remembered having the nightmares. He went to the hospital, hoping that maybe they could help but all they saw was a young boy with no parents going on and on about dreaming about Jack the Ripper’s victims before they were killed. They would have locked him up if it hadn’t had been for Lord Travis believing him and telling JD about the team that he was putting together.

Buck watched as JD started eating again, he could tell that the youth blamed himself for Ezra’s arm. It was because of one of his dreams that the three of them had even went out last night, even after Chris had told them not to. Chris didn’t care for times when the whole team couldn’t go on the ‘Hunt’ and since he and the others had to go to Lord Travis’ party, he had pretty much ordered them to stay in. The old war dog should have known better, Buck thought to himself, ordering us not to leave the house, he was just daring us to leave.

“So,” Nathan said breaking the silence, “Who’s going to tell Chris?”

“Tell me what?”

At the unhappy sounding voice three heads turned to the hallway, there in the black out fit that they’d grown use to him wearing, stood Chris Larabee, their leader and on earthier side of him was Josiah Sanchez and Vin Tanner. Both of them with just as unhappy looks on their faces as Larabee.

JD and Buck looked at each other at the same time, both with a huge grin on his face, not wanting to be the bearer of the news. “So,” JD said, “do you want to tell him or shall I?”

TBC