Stepping out of the boarding house first thing in the morning, Vin stopped under the porch overhang to pull on his leather coat before venturing into the downpour. Rain had been pounding the town for so long, the streets were bear traps of grasping mud and every creek had already overflowed its banks.

Vin considered a moment if he wanted to head over to the restaurant for breakfast, or hunt up Larabee first to see if he'd join him. As he turned, he saw the usual trail of water flow down the roof of the dry goods store just across the alley. He watched the narrow river wash around the tin chimney, then cut diagonally across the roof to a worn spot on the end of a shingle where it sprayed onto the porch roof to finally roll off the corner and into the mud street.

It wasn't much amusement, but there wasn't much other amusement to be had in a rainstorm that hadn't let up for four days.

The early stage pulled in, stopping a few buildings away and Vin turned his attention to it from the growing lake in the alley next to him. Two passengers got off and the driver hefted down a small box with rope handles and spoke a few words to Ezra who was walking by. Probably just going to bed.

Vin was too far to hear the words, but he saw Ezra shake his head while pointing to the box, then the driver pointed to the box and shrugged, and resumed his seat on the stagecoach to drive off again.

Intrigued by the exchange, Vin braved the deluge to walk down to Ezra and the box.

"What y'got there?"

"That, my dear Mr. Tanner, I am about to discover. The driver said there was no name, only vague instructions to drop it here." From an inside pocket, Ezra produced a small pry bar.

"Ezra, I swear one day I expect to see you on a poster wanted for bank robbery."

"You wound me Mr. Tanner, you absolutely wound me."

Using the pry bar Ezra lifted the lid of the box only to let out a disappointed sigh.

"Well, one could hope that a fortune had been dropped into our laps."

Vin peered into the box and saw that it was packed full of bibles.

"Reckon they must be for Josiah."

"Yes, I reckon they must be." Ezra agreed.

Vin waited. He knew Ezra would never offer but he waited anyway to chaff him a little.

"You gonna bring 'em down to the church?" he asked.

"I? Pray tell why should such a duty fall to me? Especially on a day as dreary as it is drizzling?"

"What's the matter Ezra? You made of sugar? Think you're gonna melt?"

Vin kept his own face a blank mask of seriousness but he enjoyed the look of pure peevishness he saw in Ezra's face.

"I do not think I'm made of sugar. I am simply not inclined to dash through this precipitation, overburdened with a crate of the Good Word on the presumed chance that they do indeed belong to -."

His tirade was cut short when Vin grinned and bent down to shove the lid shut again. Hooking his hand through one of the rope handles, he straightened up with the box slung over his shoulder.

"Don't choke yourself Ezra, I'll tote 'em down." He walked a few paces down the boardwalk but turned back.

"Hey Ez - what was it you called it? The rain? Precipice? Ain't that a cliff?"

"Indeed, a precipice is a cliff." Ezra replaced the pry bar in his pocket and brushed off his hands. "And it sounds quite a bit like precipitous because if you do something too fast, you might go over a cliff. However, rainfall is referred to as precipitation."

"Pre-cip-ah-tay-shun." Vin repeated, then nodded his head once in gratefulness. "See y'around Ezra."

Crossing a few drenching alleys brought Vin to Josiah's church. He found the preacher inside placing basins under quite a few dripping spots in his roof.

"Ain't it about time we started the ark?" Vin asked as he lowered the box onto a dry pew and took off his water dripped from his hat and his coat onto the wood floor.

"I have been considering it." Josiah answered as he nudged a still empty basin into place with his boot. "But I'm afraid Buck's 'cargo' would swamp us. What have you got there?"

"Box of bibles, just got dropped off the stage. No name, no address but the town apparently, thought they might be yours."

"I don't recollect ordering any bibles, but maybe the Good Lord decided I needed a few." Josiah dried his hands on his trousers and pulled up the lid of the wooden box. "Let's have a look."

He'd only taken out one bible when Chris burst into the church. He wore a dark slicker over his clothes and his expression was grim.

"Vin - Josiah, we need you. The creek's flooded down near the Gaskell's farm, their baby son got swept away. Yosemite's saddling the horses."

Box and bibles were forgotten as the three men ran to the livery.

M7*M7*M7

Chapple Creek churned angry and determined along its tortuous course through the Gaskell homestead. Normally a narrow, placid flow, now it overflowed even its usual flood plain and elbowed its way across the plowed fields and toward the small house.

At a curve in the creek bed stood a small cave formed into the side of a low hillock amongst some ancient boulders. It once stood a good distance from the water, but now the creek flowed into it and back out again in an erratic whirlpool. As the three men came into view of it, Mrs. Gaskell ran towards them from the mouth of the cave.

Clearly with child, hatless and coatless in the cold pouring rain, she was practically sobbing as she reached them through ankle deep water.

"He's in there! He's in there!" She shouted to be heard over the roar of rain and raging water, pointing to the cave. "We can't reach him - please - please."

"Ma'am, you shouldn't be out in this weather." Josiah was the first one to her side, but she didn't hear him. She grabbed Chris and Vin by their sleeves as soon as they dismounted.

"Please - he's drowning!"

Leaving Josiah to try and calm Mrs. Gaskell, and to keep her out of their way, Chris and Vin hurried into the cave. With the only light coming from the gray sky outside, the small cave was dim. They could hear a young child screaming and the clearly frantic voice of his father calling to him.

"Grab the rope Robert. Grab the rope! I can't reach you - grab the rope!"

"Mr. Gaskell?" Chris shouted. As their eyes adjusted to the dimness, Chris and Vin saw the father lying in the swirling water, calling down into some hole or opening in the cave floor. A steady wave of water poured around him into the hole.

"I can't reach him!" Mr. Gaskell barely turned away from the hole. "It's too narrow and he's too far down. I can't reach him!"

Vin was already pulling off his hat, coat and slicker, throwing them onto a boulder still above the water before the father was done talking. They'd passed the rock dam a quarter mile up the creek and it looked about ready to let go. If they didn't have the boy safe before then, he'd be lost.

As Chris helped Gaskell up out of the water, Vin pulled the rope out of the hole and tied it around his waist. Not waiting to see that Chris took hold of the other end, he dropped to his knees then to his stomach in the cold water and began squeezing himself into the hole where the little boy still screamed.

In the darkness, Vin could just make out a boy, about two or so he figured, standing mostly waist deep in water that filled up and then emptied down. Huddled about four or five feet from the lip of the hole, he was too far down to reach up, and the hole was too narrow for the broad shouldered Mr. Gaskell or his pregnant wife to fit through.

Even for Vin it was a tight squeeze and he moved as fast as he dared, feeling hands holding his legs, and the slack tightening up on the rope. His body blocked the water that had been pouring in and what little light there was. He tried to talk calmly to the boy as he made his way further into the cramped, watery hole.

"Hey Robert. We're comin' to getcha. Found yourself a pretty good hidey hole, didn't you? I used to be pretty good at finding hidey holes myself when I was a young 'un. We'll have you outta here pretty quick."

He wasn't sure the boy could hear him or even understand him; he talked not only to calm the boy, but himself. He had a fear of small spaces that he could check when he had to, but only as long as he could keep his mind on something else. In this small hole, filling and emptying with water, with the boy's screams bouncing off the sides and hardly any room to move, it was hard to keep his mind on anything else but feeling trapped.

"A little more, a little more," he called to the hands steadily lowering him into hole. "I nearly got him. A little more. C'mon Robert, reach up to me. Reach up to me."

Into the hole nearly to his knees, Vin finally found the two little hands desperately reaching up. They were icy cold and muddy and he didn't trust the purchase he had on them, so he grabbed hold of an arm and a handful of wet hair and hung on.

"I got him! I got him!" He called out and the rope and the hands pulled them up. Soon man and boy were both free of the hole, both soaked through with cold water, scratched and muddy but alive. Vin ended up on his back on the wet ground with the boy in his arms.

Mrs. Gaskell was there with her husband and she grabbed her son from Vin and held him tight in her arms, crying over him and kissing him repeatedly. Mr. Gaskell started thanking them profusely but Vin waved him off.

"Later," he said, dizzy from hanging upside down and breathless from being so confined. He pulled himself to sitting up. "Get him inside, get him warmed up. We'll be in directly."

As Josiah shepherded the family to the house, Chris stood in front of Vin and offered him a hand.

"Planning on sitting there all day are you?"

"That's a lotta blow from a man who don't look like he even got wet." Vin took his hand and got to his feet. "I hope they got a good fire going in that house 'cause I don't aim to move from in front of it 'til daybreak tomorrow."

"Hey! Looks like we missed all the fun!" Buck and JD appeared at the mouth of the cave.

"Just doin' a little fishing was all." Vin said. He wearily sloshed through the water, intending to retrieve his hat and coat from the dry boulder. Suddenly, outside the cave, they heard a crashing rumble.

"That's not thunder..." JD said.

"It's the dam -" was all Vin had time to say before a wall of water, wood and stone raged into the cave. He saw Buck shove JD out of the way before falling into the churning water, and off to his right, Chris was thrown against the wall of the cave. Then the water hit his own feet and he felt himself being dragged towards the rabbit hole he'd just saved the boy from. Wood and rocks as big as his fist pelted him relentlessly and everything went black.

to be continued