for etakyma (orig, gen)

this one is more just fiddling around to get feel of set of characters than anything. but ~shrugs~ here it tis.





"Leaves are pretty," Sam said startling Gabriel.

Gabriel looked around worriedly, relaxing when he saw Ev and Jones on the back porch of the main house. Jones could run, damn fast on his feet and able to catch up with Sam in no time if need be.

"Yeah, they are," Gabriel agreed. He hadn't noticed, hadn't been looking, lost in throught and staring at nothing. The leaves were pretty, at the height of reds and oranges, just starting to fall. In a week they'd mostly be gone. In two even the last would be crunched dead and brown on the ground. The day had been crisp was just now getting cold with evening's approach. Winter with its endless grays and white wasn't far off and would leave Gabriel stuck indoors more than not. No matter how hard the others tried the winter still left him prisoner in the house too often. The snow was too deep or the cold was too bitter and dangerous with what remained of circulation in his legs, frostbite too easily set in and he would never feel it anyway making the damage that much worse.

"We got the cabin ready, Ev an' me, Jones did heavy stuff."

Gabriel nodded. "Good."

"Be good to have Micah home," Sam said quietly.

Gabriel blinked.

"Yeah, yeah, it will," he agreed rough voiced. Sam only remembered Micah was coming home because that had been the topic of the week. Sam had gone up to the cabin with Ev and Jones to get it ready. Micah had cut Aaron off before he even started with the fact he was going to stay at the cabin, not the main house.

"Leaves were just starting to turn when Charlie and Bill hired me," Sam said uncertain, brown eyes. "Quiet here did me good, maybe it will Micah now."

Gabriel reached for Sam's hand, hating how thin and frail it was, lacing his fingers with Sam's as if he was five again and tugging Sam away from his work to see the latest litter one of the barn cats popped out. "You showed him where to find it before he left, he knows where the quiet is."

"Emil was a damn fool. Charlotte never cared none. She had him home, that was all that mattered."

"Sam?" Gabriel frowned having no idea who the old man was talking about. There hadn't been an Emil or a Charlotte on the Flying B, at least not anytime in the last eighty years or so. Ev had been born on the B, his father foreman for Gabriel's grandfather. Sam had been there for over fifty years. Between the two of them Gabriel and his brothers and sister had heard recountings of everything notable event that had happened in Ev's lifetime, echoed with Sam's stories since he'd been on the B, and every story Ev had grown up hearing.

"Landmine crippled him. Just a few feet from me, George Durst was the one that stepped on it. Blew him to bits, Emil caught a lot of the the shapnel, piece in his back when he was knocked down...lost most of one leg and the other foot, shrapnel in his back woulda had him in a chair anyway. Ate a bullet. Son of a bitch was gonna do that, shoulda done it before he got back home. Charlotte was the one that found him. She never cared none, loved him to distraction, she had him home, all she cared about and he did that to her."

"You served in...Korea?" Gabriel guessed. That seemed more likely than World War II, Sam would have only been sixteen in 1945. Not impossible, god knew there were stories of kids claiming older and no one double checking thier ages and all, but Korea seemed more likely.

"Yeah, Korea," Sam said sounding distant. Whatever minute of here and now Sam had caught was drifting away.

Gabriel squeezed Sam's hand lightly, carefully.

"Gabriel?"

"Yeah?" He could almost see the thought, whatever it had been flee. Sam confused and helpless.

Sam shook his head.

Gabriel forced the smile through the hurt and anger. Ev knew the ranch, knew cattle, knew how the air felt when a blizzard was gearing up to come down from the mountains long before the weather man on tv figured it out. Sam...Sam had known just about everything else it seemed. Including how to keep Ev and Gabriel's oldest brother Aaron from going at each other's throats for a couple years there. After their mother's death and father's disappearance into a bottle of whiskey, Ev and Sam had kept the bunch of them, and the ranch together. Sam had always seem to know the answer to everything, now he barely knew who they were.

"Leaves are pretty."

"Yeah, they are Sam," Gabriel agreed.

"Member you, Ev an' Kane a rollin' roun' in the leaves like little kids. First I laid eyes on any of you."

"I'm Gabriel, Sam, not Gray," he sighed.

Sam looked at him confused.

"Kane was my dad. Grayson was my uncle. I'm Gabriel."

"Beth's smile."

"Yeah, Beth was my mom."

Sam's expression threatened to crumble. "They did. Ev, Kane and Grayson, actin' like little kids a-jumpin in the leaves. Even Gray was fourteen or fifteen then. Ev was nineteen and Kane eighteen."

Gabriel smiled. "Yeah, everytime you tell that story when Ev's around he blusters and blames Gray."

"Should get one of Miz B's pups. Bring it in the house for ya. You always liked critters. You always look so sad, Gabriel." Sam said.

"Maybe," Gabriel shrugged.

"What are you two doin'?" Ev asked ambling up.

"Looking at the leaves, and hearing about you, dad and Uncle Gray jumping and wrestling in the leaves the day Sam hired on up here."

Ev snorted and shook his head. "We were humorin' Gray."

Gabriel chuckled. "Of course you were, Ev."

Ev shook his head. "Little smart alec, what'd you make for supper? I smell pie."

"You're eating roast before apple pie, Ev," Gabriel shook his head. "You used to make me eat that damned cauliflower, you aren't getting pie til you've eaten roast."

"Well! When's the roast done? I'm hungry!" Ev shot back.

Gabriel glanced at his watch. "About ten minutes or so. Time enough for you to get washed up."

"Bad as your mother for fussin', boy." Ev teased and reached to ruffle Gabriel's hair. "And you need a hair cut. Next time that sister of yours gets herself out here, 'member to make her cut it for you. You're lookin' like a damned sheep dog."

"You need to smile more, Gabriel," Sam said. "Got a fine smile."

"I'll try, Sam."

"JONES! Give the boy a push. Damn yard's no good for that chair. How the hell'd you get out here on your lonesome anyway?"

Gabriel shrugged.

"C'mon, Sam, lets get washed up, betcha we can snitch a bite of pie before he gets back to the house."

"Like hell you will, Ev," Gabriel laughed. He gave Sam a smile at the weak squeeze the old man gave his hand.

He stifled the sigh at Jones' approach. The cowboy looked awkward and mostly like he'd rather be shot as he went for the handles of the wheelchair to push Gabriel back to the house.

"Cripple ain't contagious, Jones," Gabriel snorted bitterly, voice low and quiet, once the two old men started up toward the main house and were a few feet away.

Jones had the grace to redden a bit but didn't say a word. Dug in and started doing his best to shove the chair back through the yard toward the main house, the chair's wheels not all that cooperative on the uneven ground and grass.

"The hell'd you come out to the orchard for anyway?" Jones muttered.

"No one was around to stop me and figured I might as well before I'm trapped in the house til April or so when the snow melts and the mud dries unless I want one of my brothers throwing out their damn back trying to carry me to the truck and freeze my ass off in the truck while they check fence and animals."

Jones stopped cold a second.

Gabriel snorted and reached for the wheels, actually having a bit better luck at getting through the grass wheeling himself than Jones pushing him. Chair or no chair, Gabriel had a good six inches and probably fifty pounds of solid muscle on Jones, without the weight of the chair thrown in. The cowboy was only about five-eight and wiry, quick and tough, but Gabriel had raw bulk muscle, arm and shoulder strength in spades no matter how wasted away his legs were, he wasn't little and he wasn't light.

"I'd go goddamned crazy in the house," Jones said catching up, hands on the back of the chair, catching the momentum Gabriel had built. "Move your hands before I hurt them by accident or those two get fussing."

Gabriel did, letting the hired hand push, deciding it wasn't worth arguing with Jones or chancing Sam and Ev getting upset.

Jones had only been there since July. His voice carried a Texas drawl and Gabriel expected one Montana winter would be enough for Jones, and he'd head back south. Jones said he'd grown up somewhere near San Antonio and he'd been complaining about the cold that morning with October still days away. If Jones made it through January, Gabriel would be surprised.

"Damn orchard though," Jones muttered under his breath.

"I'm not deaf, I'm not stupid, and like Sam said...the leaves are pretty."

"Can't anyone around here figure out how to lay a goddamned sidewalk? Mixin' cement ain't that damn hard," Jones muttered.

Gabriel shook his head. "Time and money, I keep the damn books, I know what there is to spare--none."