lit_gal | Sunstroke, Insanity, and Faith

Magnificent Seven

I am trying to work my way through the prompts. Today is: "No one was quite sure where the child had come from, or for that matter, what to do with her." So, I am back to trying to introduce you guys to MY version of Magnificent Seven: The Tucson Team. Anyway, you've met Josiah, the odd holy man and Vin, the undercover cop and J.D., the enthusiastic young man. Are you ready to meet Buck and Ezra?

Title: Sunstroke, Insanity, and Faith
Genre: Gen... an introduction to the characters before I do much with them.
Fandom: Magnificent Seven
Taming the Muse prompt: Gentrification

Summary: An undercover cop finds himself in deeper than he ever expected when a local priest hires him to defend the church in an all out gang-war.

( Part One... )

"Hidalgo Josiah says that you shouldn't be coming around." The woman stuck her foot out from under her skirt and rested it against the handle of the church's main doors. She was sitting on a barrel that someone had rolled up the three steps and onto the narrow stoop in front of the old adobe church.

"Hidalgo Josiah?" Vin asked. He wasn't sure whether the woman really thought of Josiah as some sort of Spanish nobleman or if she'd just done too much crack. Her face had the drawn and lined contours of an addict, but her eyes were clear, so he was guessing she was either a recovering addict or an incredibly good actress.

"Hidalgo Josiah," she repeated firmly. "He said that if you're so worried, you should go pray for your soul somewhere else." Vin stood on the top step of the church not sure what he was supposed to do now. Captain Rodriguez had made it clear that he wanted the East Side Los Cuatro Milpas, and if they had a chance to protect Josiah along the way, that was just a bonus. Vin ran his thumb across the turquoise jewelry in his pocket, not sure why he hadn't turned that over when he'd debriefed his boss, but he hadn't.

"I really need to get through," Vin said. He gave the woman his best charming smile. Unfortunately, she wasn't charmed. She just looked at him like he was a bug that was in danger of getting stepped on.

"Now darling," a new voice called. "Do you really want to treat him like that?" A dark haired man swept past Vin and stopped no more than an inch from the woman. The man tilted his head and studied her. "You are looking more and more beautiful every day."

Vin's eyebrows nearly crawled off his forehead and up into his hairline. The woman wasn't buying it, either. "Buck, don't you give me that line of yours."

"Maria, it is obviously not a line. You have such wisdom in those deep brown eyes of yours that I just want to lose myself in them." He took her hands in his and leaned over to kiss them. The gesture was so unctuous, so totally over the top, that Vin expected the woman to curse the guy out. Instead, she got a fond expression on her face and shook her head slowly.

"Your momma raised a scalawag."

"My momma raised me to see the beauty of a woman, and you, Maria, are a beautiful woman."

She snorted.

"Now, since I am going to see Josiah, I know you'll let me through."

"Never said you couldn't go through, Buck."

"Ah, but I plan to take our young friend with me."

"But Josiah said..."

"Yep," Buck interrupted her. "He says all sorts of things, particularly when he gets a notion in his head. I'm still trying to decide why one dream about a crow means he's fated to die in this church of his."

"It wasn't a crow, it was a whole flock of birds of darkness swooping down upon me, and when I woke up, the crow was sitting on my windowsill." Josiah walked around from the side of the building, a board over his shoulder, and a tool box in his other hand. "Maria, I do appreciate your assistance."

"No problem, Hidalgo Josiah." She stood up and gave Buck a quick kiss on the cheek before she headed down the steps.

"Hidalgo?" Buck asked with some amusement. "You giving out promotions? If so, I've always had a yen to be a duke, myself."

Josiah sighed and headed toward the main doors. "I told her that she couldn't call me Father Josiah. I'm not an ordained priest."

"Ah, so she promoted you." Buck was still smiling, and Vin was starting to get the impression he was the kind of man who generally did. "So, you're the latest stray Josiah picked up in the streets?" Buck turned to Vin and stuck out his hand. "Buck Wilmington."

"Vin Tanner." They shook hands for a second and then Buck stepped back to open the door for Josiah.

"So, why the guard on the door?"

"She was entirely self-appointed." Josiah shifted the board up higher and headed into the church. "I might have mentioned that Vin has chosen to not join us..."

"I never said that," Vin defended himself as he followed Josiah into the church. Josiah turned around, and Vin had to duck to avoid getting clocked by the wood beam. "What I said was that defending ourselves against the Los Cuatro Milpas was just plain stupid."

"He's got you there, Josiah. It does seem a mite bit on the dumb side," Buck agreed. Vin blinked, momentarily caught off guard by the way Buck agreed with him.

"So you think we should call the police?" Vin asked.

"Never said that. I just said it was stupid, but that doesn't mean anything since we have a long and proud history of stupid around here." Buck closed the door behind them. "Is J.D. still playing carpenter?"

"Playing might be the word," Josiah said, giving his head a little jerk toward the room where he had been mounting metal plates last time Vin had seen him. "I need to get some work done around back. I assume you can keep an eye on our friend." Josiah was talking to Buck, but his gaze stayed on the floor, like he was searching for the meaning of life in the terra cotta tile or something.

Vin jumped when Buck threw an arm around his shoulders. Buck gave Vin a little hip bump like they'd been friends for years, and Vin was really starting to wonder if Buck was artificially cheerful. Usually the people down here got the cheap drugs, the ones that made them slur and stagger, but Buck was acting like he had taken a few too many prescription happy pills. "I'll keep him out of trouble," Buck offered. "So, should I go do a little rummaging around in the basement?"

"Might be a good idea," Josiah agreed without ever taking his eyes off those tiles. And then, he just ambled off again toward a side door.

"So, Vin, what brings you to this little cesspool we call home?" Buck asked as he took a step back. Vin frowned and reached under his shirt to check on his gun. It was there, but Vin suddenly realized that Buck had used the distraction of the hip-check to feel for weapons. Crossing his arms, Vin glared at Buck. Buck just smiled at him. "Is that a SIG-Sauer pistol? I'm a fan of the .45 ACP 1911, myself, but every man has to choose his own weapon."

"Buck!" a voice called out. Vin took a step back to cover this new person darting into the room, who turned out to be J.D.

"Hey, kid. You about done in there?"

"It's looking good, but I expected you earlier."

Buck shrugged. "You know how it goes. These women sure do hate to see me leave, and I have trouble leaving them when they're crying for me to stay."

J.D. rolled his eyes. "You got stuck talking to that IRS guy again, didn't you?"

"Yep," Buck agreed with a smile. Reaching over, he took a swipe at J.D.'s head, but J.D. danced away, blocking Buck's move. Buck just laughed. "But that doesn't mean I don't still have animal magnetism with the ladies. It only means that my natural charm does not extend to government employees. I don't know what they guy thinks he's going to find, but he is welcome to enjoy an intimate evening with my books. Personally, I can think of far more pleasant ways to spend a night." Looking over at Vin, Buck wiggled his eyebrows.

Vin understood locker-talk, the way some men felt a need to talk up their conquests with women. However, he generally didn't approve of it, and he was starting to take a dislike to Buck. Unfortunately, J.D. was watching Buck with almost worshipful eyes. Josiah definitely should keep him away from men like Buck who could get the kid twisted around, especially since Vin was still not convinced that Buck was entirely sober.

"So," Buck said, turning to face Vin, "you were going to tell us what brings you to Tucson."

"I was?" Vin stared at Buck, not letting any emotions through. Buck raised one eyebrow and just waited.

"He's been doing some small time stuff on the streets," J.D. finally answered for him. "Josiah thought he might be willing to give us a hand, but he didn't seem all that interested in helping." Now J.D. crossed his arms and gave Vin a look that would make a cactus wither with shame.

"I didn't say I wouldn't help, kid. I said that going to war with a gang is stupid."

"It is," Buck agreed before J.D. could go off, and the kid looked like he was about to give Vin a seriously big piece of his mind. "'Course, it's even more stupid for the gang to go to war with us, but I figure they'll need to learn that one on their own. Some people, you just can't teach 'em." Buck gave an exaggerated shrug. "So, I was going to go poke around a basement. Anyone interested in giving me a hand?"

"With Vin?" J.D. looked over toward Vin with near-panic in his eyes, and the hair on the back of Vin's neck stood on end. Whatever was in this basement, it was serious trouble, and Buck was offering to bring him into the middle of it. Fuck. He hadn't told his handler he was heading into any trouble, and he didn't have even a tracker much less a wire on him. Vin tried to keep his face impassive, but it wasn't easy with Buck studying him.

"Josiah picked him up, right?" Buck asked. "The man does have a good eye for talent. After all, Josiah saved your scrawny ass from about a million years of community service scrubbing walls." Buck smiled and threw his arm over J.D.'s shoulders. Instead of freezing or stiffening up the way Vin had, J.D. seemed to lean into the touch. Vin didn't know these two well enough to understand their dynamics—were these two brotherly or sexually involved or just really blissed out on some good scripts?

"That's how I met Josiah," J.D. admitted with a sheepish grin. "I was tagging walls, and he grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and dragged me into the church about two seconds before a cop car came by. Man, I thought he had saved me because I already had two arrests for tagging, and they would have thrown the book at me." J.D. laughed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Instead, I figured out that getting caught by Josiah was way worse than the cops. He really makes you not only work your ass off to atone for your sins, as he calls it, but he makes you feel really shitty about having sinned in the first place. Still, he's a good guy."

"Yep, that's why we all look out for the church," Buck agreed. He moved to the narrow slot window at the front of the church and looked out, all the humor of just a second ago gone. "Tanner, this is likely to get ugly, and I'm going to tell you this right now—Josiah won't give up on his church or his people, and we're not going to give up on Josiah. If you want to stay out of the middle of this, you need to leave and not come back here. If you stay, you'd better be willing to defend this place and the people who take refuge in it." Buck turned back around and gave Vin an even stare, one that promised that he would return any trouble Vin brought to this place.

For a minute, Vin was caught between competing goals. If these people had something illegal in their basement, as a detective he had an obligation to find and report that. However, Captain Rodriguez had made it abundantly clear that defending Josiah Sanchez was priority number one and taking the gang down was priority number two. If Vin tried taking down Sanchez and his defenders, he was definitely going off the script, and the captain wasn't likely to appreciate that. "I don't really know what you have in mind," Vin said slowly, not willing to commit himself unless he knew more.

Buck gave a slow smile. It wasn't the same sort of open, carefree smile he'd thrown around a few minutes ago, but rather it was a small one, one that gave Vin his seal of approval. "That's a good answer for a man," he said. Vin was just starting to think Buck had more depth than was immediately apparent. "Why don't you ride along and see what we have planned. I'll tell you how I hooked up with Josiah, and you can tell me that story you keep ducking."

"Ducking?" Vin frowned.

"Yep. The one about why you showed up in Tucson. Not to offend a city my family has lived in for five generations, but Tucson is the sort of place where people end up when they're trying to get out of any other place. It isn't really a destination people willingly choose."

"Amen to that," J.D. said with a shake of his head. "My bus money ran out when I hit Tucson, so here I stayed."

"Your family isn't here?" Vin asked. J.D. might technically be a man, but he certainly seemed young enough to stick close to home.

"No. I actually grew up in L.A., but my mom got sick and then she died. It's a long story." J.D. shrugged and then headed for the door, obviously unwilling to discuss that with a near-stranger. "What about you? What brought you to the land of cactus and heat and heat and heat?" When he opened the door, a wave of that heat swept into the room. These old adobes were built to hold off the brutal desert heat, but Vin started sweating at the thought of walking back out into the bake oven. Tucson was usually a little cooler than Phoenix, but nature had been playing some nasty pranks lately, and it left Vin with an irrational desire to quit his job and curl up under the nearest air conditioning vent.

"Had some trouble in Texas," Vin admitted. Buck waved a hand, inviting Vin to go out ahead of him, and Vin's back itched at the thought of Buck back there. Yeah, the man put off some class-clown vibes, but Vin was starting to think that was a cover that he carefully tended. Either that or he had multiple personalities rattling around in his brain.

"Is this the sort of trouble that would send you running from the law?" Buck asked.

"Is that any business of yours?" Vin stopped on the steps and turned to face the other man.

Buck had on his silly grin again; it made him look like an overgrown boy. "Seeing as how I put up bail and do a bit of bounty hunting as my primary sources of income, yeah, it would be my business."

When Vin had first met J.D., he had thought him little more than a boy, but now J.D. moved to the opposite side of the steps, out of the crossfire and in a perfect position to cover Buck if trouble started. The hair on the back of Vin's neck was getting really tired of standing at attention, but these two were enough to make a grown man give up undercover work. It was downright stressful. "Didn't go that far," Vin said carefully. From the way J.D. had angled his body, he had a weapon in his jeans and Buck wasn't even being subtle about resting his hand on his hip, right near a suspicious bulge. If he was a bounty hunter, he'd have a license to carry a concealed weapon, and Vin didn't need this to escalate. He held his hands out away from his body. "There's no one looking for me, so if you want a payday, you'll have to track down some other felon."

Buck shrugged. "Can't blame a man for trying. I mean, I have an IRS fellow back at the office trying to take what little profit I've made this year, so a big payday would come in handy."

"That's no joke," J.D. added. "It'd be nice if we got paid at some point this month."

"Keep it up, and you'll be looking for other work altogether," Buck warned.

Shit. The man was teaching J.D. bounty-hunting. That was a sport most men picked up after doing time in the military or the police, but J.D. was just a kid. Vin didn't like this. Then again, he didn't have to like this. According to the captain, he just needed to get information on where the gang was and when the gang planned to attack. The Tucson PD would do the rest.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," J.D. said in a singsong, clearly not that intimidated by Buck's threat to fire him. Trotting down the steps, he pulled open the passenger door on a '77 or '78 Cadillac Fleetwood that was so dirty it looked gray instead of white. "Coming?"

"I thought we were going to the basement," Vin said carefully.

"A basement, just not the basement here," Buck said with another of his ridiculous smiles. "So, I told you I'd spill the beans about me and Josiah." He trotted across the pavement and opened the driver's side door and stood there leaning on the car. "It was about six or seven years ago at Christmas. Someone left a tyke of about three or four on Josiah's steps, right there where you're standing. No one was quite sure where the child had come from, or for that matter, what to do with her."

"And that's where you came in?" Vin asked. Glancing up and down the street, he made his choice. He was dumb as a post for getting into a car with two strangers and no backup, but that was the nature of undercover work. He headed for the backseat door, grateful that he wasn't going to have to ride with J.D. at his back the whole time.

"Yep. Josiah asked me to find the mother. I am known for being able to find my man or my woman anywhere. Truth be told, I'm even better at finding women." Buck winked and then ducked into the car.

"But why did he want to find the mother?" Vin asked. "Shouldn't he have called Child Protective Services or the fire department or something?"

J.D. twisted around in his seat as Vin got in. "That's the thing about Josiah—he's all about second chances. He said that no mother would give up a child on Christmas if she wasn't desperate, so he asked Buck to find her and make sure she was okay."

"Were you around then?" Vin asked, wondering if J.D. was some runaway who had gotten caught up with Buck when he was still too young to smell bullshit when it came his direction.

"Um, no. I was still in L.A. back then."

"Well he's telling the story right," Buck glanced over his shoulder and frowned at Vin for a second. "Sure enough, Josiah wanted me to find the mother and check on her. It turns out she'd fallen in with a pimp who was a real son of a bitch."

"Is there any other kind?"

"Well, sure," Buck answered, a little too quickly for Vin's taste. "Plenty of women have used their bodies to get out of poverty or raise families. There's a reason it's called the oldest profession, and in some places, the house only takes a big enough percentage to cover the costs. But this woman, she'd gotten hooked up with the worst kind. He'd get his girls hooked on drugs and sell them to anyone with ten dollars. Even worse, that pile of shit had started taking notice of her daughter." Buck stopped talking for a second and focused on driving. That and trying to strangle the steering wheel. Vin could see where his knuckles were turning white as he told the story. "Hell was too good for that piece of shit."

"Amen," J.D. agreed softly.

"Anyway," Buck continued, taking a large breath as he very obviously tried to shove his anger aside, "I found the mother and helped her get free of that bastard. Josiah found her a better place and reunited her with her daughter. It turns out that woman thought that a cute little girl like hers being found on Christmas would land on the news and get Marcela a good home. But all Marcela wanted was her momma back, and Josiah gave her that." Buck finished his story and after that, there were a few minutes of relative silence as he drove farther into town.

"Was there a reason for that little lesson?" Vin finally asked. He was more for plain talk, and if Buck had something to say, he should just come right out and say it.

Buck waited until the next red light, and then he turned around in his seat. "You met Marcela's mother on the church steps today. Maria and a couple of dozen more just like her will throw themselves between Josiah and any trouble. That means that we are going to do whatever it takes to make sure that self-destructive old piss-ant stays safe, even if he has a thousand dreams about his damn birds of darkness. Got it?"

Vin didn't answer right away, and Buck had to turn back around when the light turned green and the car behind them laid on his horn.

It was J.D. who spoke next. "It's not exactly like Josiah can't take care of himself."

"Oh, I do know that," Buck agreed cheerfully. "Josiah may feel guilty for knowing a dozen ways to kill a man with a paperclip, but that doesn't change the fact that he knows 'em and he'll use 'em if his flock is in danger."

"He... what?"

Buck grinned as he looked in the rearview mirror. "Didn't you know Josiah is one of our Vietnam veterans?"

"Yeah," Vin said slowly. When he'd told the captain that Josiah had made contact, Captain Rodriguez had gotten him a dossier that had included the years Josiah had served in the Army.

"He was special forces. There are a lot of rumors about what Josiah did in the jungle, and he's not denying any of them." Buck pulled into the parking lot of a place called the "Players Only" club. It looked like a refurbished warehouse, but the billiard balls on the sign suggested that it had found a new life as a pool hall. "Don't underestimate Josiah."

Vin looked from one man to the other. "Are you trying to convince me to help or convince me that you don't need my help?" he asked them.

"Maybe both," Buck said before he got out and started striding toward the front door of the club. J.D. lagged behind, waiting as Vin got out of the back.

"Nevermind him. He just worries about Josiah, and the IRS audit has him a little twitchier than normal."

"Funny, I thought imminent death at the hands of the East Side Los Cuatro Milpas would do that."

"Nah," J.D. said with a grin of his own. "They really wouldn't mess with us if they knew who we were." And then J.D. went trotting after Buck. For his part, Buck had been standing at the door, watching. They might have brought Vin along, but Buck clearly wasn't going to trust Vin around J.D., that was for damn sure. Either these two had some sort of relationship or Buck was just the biggest mother hen Vin had ever met.

Pulling the doors open, Buck flashed the room a wide smile. "Ladies and gentleman, Buck has arrived, and the fun can commence." J.D. rolled his eyes and Vin was left trailing after them as they all entered the club. The inside was nicer than he'd expected with a dozen pool tables on one side, a small sitting area near the door and a well-stocked bar. "Where's Big Lester?" Buck asked.

Vin could see the flash of panic in the bartender's face, and he moved to cover the door as his hand fell close enough to his weapon to pull it if he needed it. He was grateful to see J.D. ease into some cover by a large square pillar.

"Gentleman," a man in a tailored gray suit walked out from a backroom, "I am afraid Big Lester found himself in a difficult situation monetarily, and he has retired to St. Louis to lick his rather substantial wounds. Do I gather from your exuberant greeting that you are associates of his?" The man gave them the sort of helpful smile that Vin might expect from a teacher or a policeman, someone who was being paid to be particularly polite. He also noticed that the man was holding his left arm out and to the side. Vin was guessing he had a weapon up his sleeve.

"Buck Wilmingon." Buck offered his hand, and the man took it gingerly, letting go and backing away a step as soon as politeness allowed. "My friends, J.D. Dunne and VinTanner." Vin wasn't sure how he felt about being included as one of Buck's friends, but he certainly wasn't going to debate that now in front of this stranger.

The stranger smiled. "Ezra Standish, at your service. I am the new owner and proprietor of "Players Only." Now the expression looked genuine enough—pride with more than a little greed mixed in.

It took Buck a second to respond. "Well, shit."