DISCLAIMER: The following is an original work of fan fiction based on the television series "The Magnificent Seven". No infringement upon the copyrights held by CBS, MGM, Trilogy Entertainment Group, The Mirisch Corp. or any others involved with that production is intended. No profit is being made - enjoy!!

Mongoose: A Sensible Man

by
Eleanor Tremayne, Ezquire

ACT ONE

If you would like to see St. Barb's illustrations, click on the links as you read.

Chris looked down at the blood-slicked stack of ten-dollar bills in his hand and frowned.

"Where's the rest of it?" he asked Nathan.

"That's all he's got on 'im," Jackson shrugged. "Probably stashed the rest somewheres safe."

'Like in his goddamned horse's saddlebags,' Chris sighed to himself.

"Y'couldn't shoot him first?" Buck scolded Standish, easily scooping the smaller man up off the ground and into his arms.

Ezra made no reply, and what was worse, he didn't try to retrieve his hat when it tumbled from his head to land in the dust and muck of Main Street. Buck's worry grew, prompting him to jog toward the clinic rather than walk. Pausing only long enough to rescue Ezra's hat, J.D. followed along behind Wilmington.

"Don't worry," Nathan told Chris. "I won't let Ezra outta my sight until we find the rest of that money."

Chris nodded, and Jackson trotted away to the clinic.

Vin walked out of the shadows to stand beside Chris, the sniper-rifle cradled against his shoulder as though it had grown there.

"How's Ezra?" Tanner asked.

"Nathan says he'll be all right," Chris answered, tightening his hold on the wet greenbacks.

Mary joined the two men, holding her arms tightly against her stomach. She gave Chris a funny little look.

"Why'd Ezra have the money in his jacket?"

"Told him to put it somewhere safe," Chris lied.

"That makes sense," Mary smiled.

"I wouldn't be the man that tried to take it," Vin agreed with a smile.

Chris shifted his weight, the money feeling strange in his grip, as though his hands were backwards on his wrists.

"Chris? Vin asked softly, sensing something was wrong with Larabee other than Ezra being shot, a dead assassin lying on the street, and someone trying to kill Mary Travis.

"I'm missing something," Chris murmured, his fingers shuffling through the sticky paper bills. He wondered again where the rest of the ten thousand dollars was. The stack of low denomination bills Nathan had taken from the lining of Ezra's jacket was only about fifteen hundred dollars. Jackson had done a thorough pat down of Standish, looking for the other eight thousand and had come up empty, though Ezra bleeding all over him at the time might have distracted Nathan a little.

'Fifteen hundred dollars,' Chris mused. 'Not enough to buy a saloon in St. Louis, but Ezra might have had enough to make up the difference… but why take fifteen hundred when he could have taken ten thousand for the same trouble and risk…?'

"Keep an eye on Mary," Chris told Vin, striding off in the direction of the saloon.

Mary traded a look of concern with Tanner.

"I'll go help Nathan," she volunteered, freeing the tracker from his baby-sitting duties.

Tipping his hat to her, Vin waited until the door to the clinic had closed behind her before he followed Larabee.

++++

Vin found Chris upstairs in Ezra's room, sitting in a chair with its back to the window, looking at Stutz's open satchel and the just over eight thousand dollars worth of greenbacks that it held. He looked up with a frown when Tanner walked through the open door.

"Mary's at the clinic," the tracker explained, shifting the suddenly awkward weight of the long-range rifle into the crook of his arm. He said nothing more, looking down at Larabee and waiting for an explanation.

Chris rose abruptly, the movement shoving the chair backward to hit the windowsill.

"It's a seventh," Larabee said.

"Do what?" Vin blinked.

"Fifteen hundred dollars is roughly one-seventh of ten thousand. That's why he thought we'd let him get away with stealing the money – he was only taking his share before he ran out on us in the middle of a fight again.

"Don't sound like Ezra," Tanner said.

Chris glared at Vin. "It sounds just like him."

"Thieves don't justify stealin' – and besides, I didn't notice Ezra runnin' anywheres 'cept up the barrel of a gun."

"He was supposed to be here, watching for a long-range shot," Chris pointed out. "Instead, he was on the street, by the livery, his jacket stuffed full of money. He was runnin' out on us, Vin."

Tanner frowned. "If'n he was running out fer the money, why didn't he take all of it? And why'd he come back?"

"Hell, I don't know. I still can't tell ya why he came back the first time." Shaking his head, Chris punched his fist into his palm in frustration. "Why the hell did Josiah give him that damn money in the first place? I told him to keep it safe from Ezra, damn it!"

Vin blinked. "You did what?!"

"You mean to tell me you'd trust Ezra with ten thousand dollars?"

"Hell, Chris, I know my hide's only worth five hundred, but I trust Ezra with it every day."

"It ain't the same thing," Chris dismissed, shoving the money from Ezra's coat into the satchel. "He'd a been outta here in a heartbeat if I'd let him get his hands on that money."

After a moment of tight silence, Vin smiled.

"He had his hands on that money, Chris. Y'know, Ezra's a real clever fella when it comes to justifyin' gettin' what he wants, and if he'd wanted the money, he'd a taken it all. If'n he'd a wanted the money, he wouldn't never a let us know he'd found it. All I ever heard him say he wanted t'do with the money was split it up amongst the seven of us."

"It don't make any difference," Chris insisted. "Whether it's fifteen hundred, ten thousand, or five dollars, he still stole it. How am I supposed to trust him after this?"

"How's he s'posed t'trust you?" Vin asked, his voice soft. "All I ever heard him say he wanted to do with it was split it seven ways, between us… Would you ride with a man who expected ya to rob him? Would you trust that man to watch your back, or would y'expect him to leave ya t'twist in the wind when you got caught up on a short rope? As far as Ezra was concerned, that was our money."

"It's not the same thing…" Chris repeated, harboring an uneasy feeling that Vin might be inclined to agree with Ezra's point of view.

"Ain't it?"

"No," Chris snapped, shutting and buckling Stutz's leather satchel. "Come on – I wanna have a little talk with Governor Hopewell before he leaves town."

"Why? What about Ezra?"

"Figure he's learned his lesson about other people's money," Chris replied. "And Hopewell's the one gunnin' for Mary."

Vin thought better of what he was going to say and shook his head instead. Tugging the brim of his slouch hat down low over his eyes and cradling the sniper-rifle as if it were a child, he followed Chris out the door.

++++

"I suggest you produce more evidence before you sully a man's reputation," Hopewell said with convincing outrage. Taking his seat, he gave the signal to his driver to get him the hell out of this town, the sooner the better.

Vin shifted his weight from one foot to the other, disgusted. "He's lyin' so hard his teeth are rattlin'."

"I know," Chris agreed. "Can't do anything about it."

In silent agreement, the two men turned and walked down the boardwalk, keeping an eye on the rapidly departing governor until all they could see of him was a cloud of dust in the distance.

"That's a good sign," Vin said, pointing with his chin to where Ezra and Nathan stood on the roof of the livery, just outside Nathan's clinic. Standish looked like a man who was happy to be alive, despite his left arm being in a sling and having just had a bullet dug out of his hide.

Chris didn't reply, walking across the street to stand under Jackson's balcony.

"How ya feelin', Ezra?" he asked.

Standish smiled, lifting his arm out of the sling's cradle and wiggling his fingers. As Chris had suspected, Nathan had slung the arm to help the chest wound and not because it had been injured.

"Well, I'll be uh, shufflin' one-handed for a while, but otherwise I'm right as rain," Ezra said cheerfully.

Chris nodded. "All right," he said, turning his back on Ezra and walking away.

'Evidently, I warrant no more concern than a naughty child who helped himself to the cookie jar,' Ezra fumed behind his smile.

'But that's a good thing!' his common sense reminded him as he glanced over at his guard, leaning on the balustrade that ran around the roof. 'You want them to underestimate you – the more useless they think you are, the more you can take them for…. Now set the bastards up, just like your mother taught you….'

He smiled at Nathan, getting a smug little grin in return.

'Keep smiling!' his better judgment ordered, barely able to keep his hands from clenching into fists. 'You want 'your friends' to think you're harmless!'

'No, I don't,' his temper countered. "I want to break every patronizing bone in their goddamned bodies…!'

Ezra kept the smile on his face and returned his attention to Chris.

"Oh, by the way," he called after Larabee, watching Nathan's expression from the corner of his eye. "What are we plannin' to do with that money?"

'Get the hell out of this dust bowl and get back to making a decent living?' his common sense hoped.

'Shove it down their fucking throats until they choke on it?' his temper suggested.

Chris stopped walking, looking back over his shoulder. Ezra gave him his best shameless grin and Larabee turned his gaze to Nathan, sharing a knowing look with Jackson that cracked Chris up.

'I might as well be invisible,' Ezra realized, his face aching with the effort it took to keep his grin in place. 'You might not trust me, and maybe I'm not the kind of man you can respect, but I have shed enough blood and sweat in this town to have earned common courtesy!'

"So you gonna tell us where you hid the rest of that money, or are we gonna have to find it?" Nathan asked him. There was no rancor in Jackson's voice, just amusement, and a vast, self-satisfied superiority that cut Ezra to the quick.

'You've been conning yourself again,' his bitter experience chided. 'How many times does your mother have to be right before you start listening to her?'

"I imagine Mister Larabee already has the remainder of the misappropriated funds in his possession," Ezra said, rubbing his shoulder so he could use his pain as an excuse to stop looking like the village idiot. "He wouldn't be laughin' if he didn't."

Nathan chuckled. "The devil himself ain't got half your sass, Ezra."

'I'll be sure to tell him that, should he ever have the misfortune to cross my path again,' Ezra's temper seethed.

Wiggling his fingers, he sighed theatrically. "I don't suppose I could interest you in a game of chance?" he asked, turning to look at Nathan so Jackson wouldn't see him keeping track of Chris and Vin walking through the front door of the Clarion office. Mary owned the only safe in town other than the bank's vault; a safe that was soon to become the home of a satchel just bursting with money that didn't rightfully belong to anybody.

'Gotcha!' his pride, common sense, better judgment, bitter experience, and temper crowed in gleeful unison.

"Hell no," Nathan said, declining the invitation to play. "I'll bet you even cheat one-handed!"

Ezra ran his thumb along his chin, his tongue dancing along his bottom lip. "Solitaire it is," he purred.

++++

Louisa was keeping Buck awake. Had he been lying in bed with her arms around him, Wilmington wouldn't have minded all that much, but he wasn't. She'd sent him off to think about his choices all by his lonesome, not wanting to find herself on the road with a regretful, unhappy husband.

Lord, there was a powerful lot of smart in that woman!

Sighing, Buck looked over to the invitation of the lighted saloon. That Chris was there, no doubt drinking away the day's close calls, kept him from its refuge. This wasn't something he wanted to discuss with Chris, and he certainly didn't want to talk to J.D. as it was the kid's big mouth that had gotten him in this predicament in the first place. He looked up at the clinic, wondering if Ezra's wound was keeping him awake….

A soft neigh sent prickles through his mustache. What the hell was Ezra's goddamned horse up to now? He drew his Winchester just to be on the safe side as he approached the livery.

"Hush!" Ezra's voice softly scolded Chaucer from the darkness. "What's the mattah with you?"

"Ezra?" Buck asked as he approached horse and rider. "What's goin' on?"

"I'm leavin' town, Mister Wilmington," Standish answered, moving Chaucer out into the street at a walk. The light of the watch fires threw his face into high relief, washing out his already pale skin. Ezra's head seemed to float in the darkness, his hands and the white cuffs that framed them looking disembodied where they held Chaucer's reins. Buck tried to blink the gambler's body into being once or twice before he realized that Ezra was wearing his black hat, his black jacket, his black vest, his black trousers, and his black boots. If Chaucer hadn't sounded out, Buck would have walked right by him.

"You ain't in no shape to be ridin'."

"I'm afraid it can't wait."

"What happened?" Buck was starting to get worried that he'd been so preoccupied with the impending possibility of the marital noose that he'd missed trouble bad enough to get Standish up out of his sick bed. Ezra chuckled in reply, smiling like a happy man.

"What's so all-fired important ya gotta head out in the middle a the night?" Buck demanded.

"It's what thieves and deserters do, sir."

Buck laughed out loud. "You outta your head from lead poisoning, Ezra? You ain't no thief – and you couldn't run out when ya tried! Now what's goin' on?"

Ezra's smile twisted, breaking his imperturbable mask into an expression of pain so raw it made Buck take a step backward.

"Thank you, my friend," Ezra managed to whisper. "But I am afraid you have been outvoted."

Buck lunged for Chaucer's bridle at the same moment Ezra's heels kicked the quarter horse into a sprint.

"Ezra!" Buck shouted after the disappearing rider, not giving a damn whom he woke up. "EZRA!"

Wilmington was taking Clyde out of his stall when Chris and Vin raced into the livery, Chris with his Colt in hand and Vin with his shiny new toy at the ready.

"What's goin' on?" Tanner demanded.

"Ezra left town," Buck explained, grabbing his saddle blanket from its place. "He shouldn't be ridin' so soon after gettin' that bullet dug outta him."

Chris muttered something profane under his breath, holstering the Colt and leaving the livery without a word to the other two men.

"What's goin' on, Vin?" Buck asked, watching Larabee disappear beyond the street illumination.

"Don't rightly know, but I reckon Chris n' Ezra had words."

"I wanna know what the hell Chris said," Buck growled, putting Clyde back into his stall. It would do no good to find Ezra if he didn't know what had made his friend look at him like that in the first place.

++++

Buck and Vin found Chris in the office of the Clarion, standing beside a barefoot Mary who stared with sleep-blurred eyes at her wide-open safe. Everything she kept locked in it was where she had left it, but the satchel with the ten thousand dollars Larabee had put there hours earlier was missing.

Chris looked from Buck to Vin, murder in his eyes.

"We ride at first light," he ordered, pushing past the two men on his way out.

"What's going on?" Mary demanded, shivering despite the warmth of her robe.

Buck looked at Vin, who took a deep breath and shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

"I dunno, Missus Travis," Buck answered. "But I'm sure as hell gonna find out."

++++

"Chris!" Buck called from outside the door to Larabee's room. It was all the warning he gave before he and Vin stormed inside.

"Just what the hell –" The rest of Wilmington's question went unasked, stopped by the sight of Chris sitting on the edge of his bed, staring off at a faraway piece of nothing. He held a letter in one hand and an ace of spades in the other. Beside him on the bed sat Stutz's satchel. It was open, the bloody, torn bills Nathan had taken from Ezra's jacket on the top of the pile of money overflowing its brim.

"Chris?" Buck said again, his voice gentle. He'd seen that vacant stare before and it always scared the hell out of him.

Larabee startled, looking up at Buck. Without a word, he handed Wilmington the folded letter. Buck took it from him, despite a deep conviction that he would not enjoy reading it.

"What's it say, Buck?" Vin asked, his voice loud in the room.

Buck flicked a look at Chris before clearing his throat. "It says – it says – ah hell…."

Clearing his throat, Wilmington began to read the elegant copperplate hand aloud.

"Mister Larabee:

After Mister Sanchez remanded this disputed bounty into my keeping, I realized that even had I returned it to your custody intact and untouched, that action would have done no more than prove my ineptitude as a thief. In the heat of my wounded pride, I admit to having acted somewhat hastily, for when he cannot have what he wants, a sensible man will settle for what he can get.

If I have failed to earn your respect and trust as well as that of our colleagues after the present length of our association, then, as a sensible man, I must recognize that I never shall, as I must acknowledge why. Despite an occasional delusion to the contrary, I am now, as I have always been, my mother's son. History has proven the futility of fighting a lost cause, so I choose to yield to the inevitability of my own character, as Mister Sanchez so wisely advised me to do.

Therefore, I hereby resign my ill-considered employment as an officer of the law in the municipality of Four Corners, said resignation to become effective immediately.

Adieu, Sir.

Ezra Standish."

It was a tongue-twisting effort for Buck to get out and a couple of the words went completely over Vin's head, but both men now understood exactly why Ezra had left Four Corners in the middle of the night. From the way Chris's thumb was stroking back and forth across the spade in the center of the ace of spades, so did he.

"If I'd been accused, tried, and convicted of a crime I didn't commit, I might feel entitled to the loot myself," Chris admitted, breaking the tense silence. He tucked the ace of spades into his shirt pocket and stood up. Grabbing the satchel, he headed for the door.

"Where you goin'?" Buck asked, grabbing Larabee as he went past.

"T'talk to Josiah," Chris answered.

++++

The candle flames burning in the church jumped and danced in the sudden draft of the front door opening.

"Josiah!" Chris Larabee bellowed, his voice ringing out like the trumpet of judgment.

Sanchez turned his gaze toward his visitors, not rising from where he sat on his bed. Vin Tanner followed Larabee, carrying his new rifle like the gleaming sword of Michael. Buck Wilmington stalked behind the two of them, his scowl as black as Satan himself.

They came to stand before him, their words shocked into silence by the scant handful of ten-dollar bills he held in his hand.

"What the hell are you doin' with that?" Chris demanded, his voice pealing through the church like Jove betrayed.

"I am the serpent," Josiah answered heavily.

"I ain't got time for riddles," Chris growled.

"The serpent was the first to taste the apple and learn the bitter wisdom of the darkness of his own soul. He was the first to sin, and in his agony of self-knowledge he thrust temptation upon the innocent, so that he might have other souls to hide his shame behind." Josiah held the money up to Chris. "I found them under my pillow and behind my bed when I set myself the penance of cleaning the church."

Buck did his best to smooth out the letter he'd unthinkingly crumpled in his fist when he'd seen Stutz's money in Sanchez's hands. He pushed past the frozen Chris, shoving the letter at Josiah.

"Just what kinda advice you give to Ezra – preacher?"

Josiah took the letter in one big hand, tilting it toward the light to read it.

"God forgive me," Sanchez prayed, closing his eyes.

Buck grabbed Josiah's shirtfront with both hands, pulling him up even as he leaned over and got into the older man's face.

"Ain't God you should be worrying about right now, Josiah."

Vin shivered as he realized that Sanchez wanted Wilmington to hit him. Reaching out, the tracker took Buck's arm and pulled him off Josiah. No way the preacher was gonna get outta this so easily.

"Ezra's quit," Chris said. "He left town a little bit ago."

"Like a thief in the night," Sanchez said sadly. It took both Chris and Vin to keep Buck from grabbing Josiah's throat and squeezing it until his eyes popped out of his skull.

"Ezra ain't no thief!"

"He's a cheat," Chris said, letting go of Buck.

"Not when cheatin' would be stealin'," Wilmington countered. "C'mon, Chris – you know Ezra better'n that… ain't no fun in robbin' a man 'less he thinks he's robbin' you."

Chris dropped his gaze to consider the toes of his boots. Buck was right – hell, that was why he liked Ezra….

"My father was a righteous man," Josiah announced to no one in particular. "He fought against the flesh all his days… and every time the needs of flesh betrayed him as the hunger that would break his fast or as pleasure in the wife who carried the guilt of Eve, he knew the pain of the Fallen. The faces of his own children were the evidence of his weakness before temptation…. When my father knew his own wickedness before the Lord, he would find a greater sinner to stand upon to lift him closer to heaven. All my life I watched my father turn uncertainty into guilt, pain into sin so that he could have someone between him and the fires of hell…."

Josiah closed his hands into fists, clenching his fingers white around the money in one hand and the letter in the other.

"I am," he confessed, "my father's son."

"I'm goin' after Ezra," Buck snarled, quite sure he knew what had sent his friend riding out of town as though Old Nick was at his heels.

"New moon," Vin said. "Won't be able to follow 'im 'til mornin'."

"Don't need to follow him. I know where he's goin'."

"St. Louis," Chris nodded.

"Frisco," Buck corrected. "His ma ain't gonna let him through the door in St. Louis if he ain't got two thousand dollars t'hand her."

"Ridge City," Chris agreed, turning to go. Buck stepped in front of him.

"Goin' alone. If Ezra sees you, he'll probably figger you're gonna shoot 'im."

Vin looked at Chris as the chiming stomp of Buck's footsteps echoed through the nave. Without a word, the tracker took the rifle off his shoulder and handed it to Larabee. Tipping his hat to Josiah in acknowledgement of his inability to throw a stone, Vin left the church.

Long minutes ticked by as Chris and Josiah cut themselves on the blades of their own regrets. Finally, Chris hurled the satchel of money on the bed beside Josiah, laying the rifle down beside it.

"I'll wire Judge Travis, hand the money and the rifle over to him. They'd both had better be here when he arrives," Chris said, holding out a hand to Josiah.

Sanchez offered him the money and Larabee's eyes grew colder than death. Josiah handed him the letter, unable to watch as Chris smoothed at the hopelessly wrinkled letter. Giving up, he folded it carefully back into its thirds, then folded that in half before shoving it in his trouser pocket and re-setting his hat on his head.

The slam of the door behind Chris sent a blast of air into the church that blew out all but a few of the candles.

"Lord, help me," Josiah pleaded into the darkness. Even as he said it, he realized that it wasn't his salvation for which he should be praying.

"Selfish bastard," he acknowledged, hanging his head.

++++

"Louisa," Buck called, tapping on the window of her hotel room. "Louisa, darlin', I gotta talk to ya!"

The redhead was at the window in a moment, throwing up the sash.

"Buck!" she cried. Neither one of them even tried to resist the kiss that inevitably followed.

It took every ounce of fortitude Wilmington possessed to pull away from the woman he wanted to die holding.

"Darlin', I got a friend who needs my help. Gotta ride tonight – right now. Ain't sure how long it'll take me to get everything straightened out – will you…. Will you be here when I get back?"

Louisa's face fell and her shoulders sagged. "I do love you, Buck Wilmington," she sighed. "But I'm gonna be on that stage when it leaves town today, just like I told you."

Buck blinked back tears. "I can't let him down, darlin'. I just can't."

"I'll write," she promised. "Maybe what can't work now, will work later."

"Maybe," Buck said. "Louisa…."

She kissed him again, softly.

"Goodbye, Buck," she whispered against his mouth.

Then she was gone, the window closing on his rambling rose.

++++

It was early afternoon when Buck trotted Clyde into Ridge City. Chaucer stood in front of the hotel, still saddled and kitted up for the road. His reins trailed in the dirt, and the humans and the four-footed citizens of the town were giving the bay a wide berth.

Wilmington frowned. The train to San Francisco had left hours ago, and there wouldn't be another until tomorrow. Ezra wouldn't leave Chaucer standing untended in the hot sun, certainly not after the ride they'd had.

Catching Clyde's familiar scent, the bay turned his handsome head toward Buck, calling out with the same little neigh that he'd used to snitch on his master the night before.

Buck reined in next to Chaucer, who shook his head in displeasure at his current circumstances.

"I'm not sure what the hell's goin' on, either," Buck admitted, warily reaching out to pat Chaucer's neck. "Be nice to Clyde, hear? I'm goin' to have a talk with your Daddy, then we'll make sure you both get to the livery."

Buck was aware that he was getting more than one strange look as he backed away from the bay up onto the porch of the hotel. Ignoring them, Wilmington turned around and strode into the lobby and up to the front desk clerk.

"Name's Buck Wilmington," he told the skinny young man who came to stand by the register. "Lawman outta Four Corners. I'm lookin' fer a green-eyed fella, talks like he had an encyclopedia fer supper an' a dictionary fer dessert."

"Mr. Standish," the clerk recognized.

Nodding, Buck helped himself to the register. Ezra's signature took up two lines in the book.

"Sir!" the clerk protested, making aborted snatching gestures at the guest ledger. "That's confidential –!"

"Oh, he won't mind," Buck promised, shoving the register back to the clerk and looking for the stairs. According to the clerk's slanted notation, Ezra was on the second floor, in room 2D.

++++

Buck stood outside the door to room 2D, thinking. There was a pretty good chance Ezra wouldn't answer if he called out to him, and Wilmington knew Standish would never stay in a room that only had one exit. Then again, if Ezra hadn't taken care of Chaucer, there was a good chance he couldn't answer….

"Ezra!" Buck barked, banging a fist on the door. "Open up, Ezra!"

No answer came and Buck decided he'd better bully the spare key out of the clerk. More by reflex than any real hope, he tried the door handle. It was unlocked, and Buck felt his stomach knot.

"Ezra?" he called again, crouching down low and pushing the door open.

When no shot came pinging over his head to lodge in the doorframe, Buck straightened up and stepped over the threshold. Ezra was in front of him, lying face down next to the narrow bed, breathing loudly and carefully. A porcelain washbasin lay close beside him, perfuming the stuffy little room with a foul smelling mix of water, vomit, and undigested whiskey. He stepped on a warped floorboard, its sharp creak of protest provoking a pitiful moan from Standish.

"Ezra, what're you doin' on the floor?" Wilmington asked, carefully pushing the basin out of his way before kneeling down beside Standish.

"You can't fall off the floah, Mister Wilmington…" Standish gurgled.

"Little dizzy there?" Buck guessed, touching the back of the gambler's hot skull. "Think it might have somethin' to do with ridin' half the night after bleedin' half the damn day?"

"Softly…" Ezra begged

Shaking his head, Buck rose to his feet. Crossing the room, he threw open the window to let in the air. Walking back to the landing, he shouted down to the clerk.

"Hey, you! Curly! Go get Doc Sylvester, get him back here on the double. Move, boy!"

Satisfied when he saw the clerk head at high speed through the front door, Buck returned to the room and picked up Ezra's hat from the braided rug that lay at the foot of the bed. Standish had missed the bedpost with his usual toss, but considering his condition, the poor fella probably had other things on his mind at the time. His black coat and tie lay crumpled beside his upside down hat, and his watch and fob lay inside the silk lined crown.

Dropping the watch and chain in the inside lapel pocket, Buck hung the jacket by its collar from a bedpost and put the hat over it.

"Easy there, pard," Buck cautioned, noticing Ezra trying to raise himself up on his knees. Kneeling beside Standish once again, Wilmington helped the smaller man sit back on his heels.

"You are a mess," Wilmington pointed out, pressing his fingers against a spreading patch of darker black above the empty waistcoat pocket. Ezra hissed and Buck's fingertips came away red with tacky blood.

"Doc's on his way," Buck soothed, putting a steadying arm around Ezra's back. He could feel Ezra trembling beneath the perspiration-soaked fabric of his vest.

The quivering muscles tensed and Ezra's shoulders rose and his jaw muscles bunched.

"Mister Jackson is with you?" he grated.

"Nope," Buck answered, frowning when he felt Ezra relax against him. "It's just me and Clyde."

Ezra's blood-shot green eyes went wide with alarm. "Chaucer –!" he realized.

"Will be fine. As soon as the Doc gets here, I'll get him to the livery. I'll even give Clyde some extra oats so Chaucer can con 'em outta my damn dumb horse."

Ezra dipped shaking fingers into his waistcoat pocket and pulled forth a silver dollar, holding it out to Wilmington. "He likes carrots, if you can find 'em. Apples, too."

"I know," Buck replied, engulfing the wavering hand with his own to steady it long enough for him to get the coin before Standish dropped it. At Ezra's raised eyebrow, Buck sighed, "He's a horse, Ezra."

"In here, Doc," the clerk shrilled from outside the door.

Ezra winced. "Softly…."

"C'mon," Buck ordered, pocketing the money before hauling Standish to his feet. Ezra swayed alarmingly, his white face turning an alarming shade of gray. Carefully, and making sure he was as much out of range as possible, Buck guided Ezra's buckled-knee collapse into a sitting position on the edge of the bed.

"Och," said the elderly, white haired doctor who had begun his life in Glasgow. "Yon laddie's a puny sight."

"That's a word for it," Buck agreed, shaking the old man's hand. "How ya been, Doc?"

"Well enou'," the Scot answered absently, his attention focused on his patient.

Buck moved away from the listing Standish to allow the grizzled physician room to begin his examination. He lifted Ezra's eyelids, felt his forehead, checked his ears, took his pulse, and finally unbuttoned his vest to feel his heartbeat.

"There's yer problem," Sylvester announced with satisfaction as he stepped back from peeking under the bloody, loosened bandages around Ezra's chest. "Ye've been shot, laddie."

"Ah know," Ezra drawled, squinting balefully up at the Gaelic gnome smiling beatifically down at him. The two words managed to leave no doubt as to his less than stellar opinion of Sylvester's professional ability.

"Is he a criminal?" the clerk asked Buck, thrilled at the excitement that had been added to his daily routine.

Things got a little more exciting than he'd planned when he found himself a foot off the ground with Wilmington's forearm pressed into his throat.

"Ezra ain't no criminal!" Buck growled. "He's one a my partners."

"Ah resigned," Ezra managed to growl out past the bile in his throat. He swallowed, his eyes starting to cross with nausea.

"Shut up, Ezra!" Buck barked, letting go of the clerk. Pointing at the basin, Wilmington ordered the breathless youth to empty it and bring it back – both to be done on the double. The young hotel employee did as he was told, arriving back in the room with the empty basin just in time.

Buck held the back of Ezra's vest, keeping him from falling into the bowl as he puked out what was left of his guts.

"Puir bairn," the doctor clucked sympathetically. "Hurt's like t' divil's horns to haver wit' a chest wound."

When Ezra was finished, Sylvester dug through his bag, letting Buck bully the clerk into removing and cleaning the basin once again.

Standish let himself hang from Wilmington's grip, heat and pain crushing his head and his body in a vice. He felt a glass of water being pressed to his lips and turned his head away from it. A stomach-turning tug on his waistcoat made him reconsider his decision to cooperate with the doctor.

He managed to get the whole glass down – he wasn't given a choice, really. Clamping his eyes shut, he fought to keep the water in his stomach. He'd always known that obedience to medical practitioners was a foolish, foolish idea – when would he learn to trust his instincts?

"Open," the doctor's burr ordered, his gnarled hands pressing on Ezra's jaw. Standish did as he was bid, planning on making sure that the doctor would replace the washbasin as the recipient of the inevitable.

A spoon was shoved into his mouth and he swallowed out of reflex, eyes flying open as he tasted the medicine. Gripe water! Good Lord, he was no colicky infant –!

A second spoonful followed the first, then more water, until Ezra was gasping for air.

"That'll either calm his stomach or hurl the divil out o' it," Sylvester told Buck. "Get those clothes off him, cool him down. Ye, laddie," he commanded the clerk, "run t'me wife and tell her to send up a jar o'beef tea and a bottle o'claret, and some good soft bannock."

The clerk fled on his appointed errand.

"We'll get that down him after we change t' bandages."

Ezra let out a sigh that was half-misery and half-happiness. His lurching stomach had rolled, peaked – and then begun to settle.

"How'd he get himself shot up?" Sylvester asked, as he took off his coat and began rolling up his sleeves.

"Threw himself on a hired killer's gun to save a lady's life," Buck answered as he shucked Ezra out of his vest.

++++

Ezra woke with his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

"Gnnnn," he said, working it loose without opening his eyes.

"Thirsty?" Buck asked him. Ezra had been sleeping for the better part of the day and well into the night, his thirst waking him for a few minutes at a time. He'd gulp down beer or broth, mutter a polite 'thank you' if it was beer and something entirely different if it was broth, and then fall heavily back asleep.

"Ggkkk."

Taking that as a 'yes', Buck poured out a glass of Mrs. Sylvester's small beer, helping Standish steady the drink with one hand and lifting Ezra's head from the pillows with the other. You were always thirsty after losing blood, Wilmington knew. He remembered the horrible sound of the cries of 'water!' from the men dying on the battlefield; it was worse to hear them grow weaker and then stop all together as they slowly died under the hot sun or in the freezing cold. He'd bled enough to know the sharpness of that thirst, could imagine dying of it all too well.

"Thank you…" Standish mumbled, eyelids making a half-hearted effort to open.

"Go back to sleep, Ezra," Buck ordered.

"Mmmm," the gambler answered, doing what he was told with a promptitude that proved the depth of his exhaustion.

"Damn fool," Buck sighed, rubbing his face with the palm of a hand.

It always troubled Wilmington when Ezra did what he was told without protest. It just wasn't right somehow – it seemed contrary to the nature of things, like the sun rising in the west.

The gambler's docile obedience just added to his depression. How the hell was he supposed to talk Ezra out of his resignation? Should he even try? The thought had crossed his mind more than once of talking Ezra into joining him on the road with Louisa. It wouldn't work, he knew – three wheeled wagons never rolled.

Then again, neither did ones with seven.

++++

"Buck?"

Wilmington started awake in his chair, blinking at Ezra. The morning sun was filtering into the room, warming the air and annoying Standish into consciousness.

"Hey there," Buck greeted him with a smile. "How ya feelin'?"

'Like a damn fool…' Ezra thought bitterly.

"Like I've been shot at close range by a high caliber pistol, Mister Wilmington," he growled.

"Good t'see you're feelin' better," Buck sighed.

Ezra wiped the sleep from his eyes with his good hand, then used it to cover a yawn.

"You seem rather more pensive than is your usual wont," Standish observed.

"What?"

"Your mustache is droopin'."

Buck stroked the hair across his upper lip with his thumb. "Been a bad week, Ezra."

Standish closed his eyes, not trusting himself this early in the morning to maintain anything resembling detachment.

"This melancholy air wouldn't have to do with your latest Columbine, would it?" he inquired.

"Huh?"

"Things go badly with the redhead?"

"Louisa? Well, I guess ya might say things didn't work out the way I wanted 'em to…."

"It has been that sort of week," Ezra agreed. "I rather thought she'd fallen before your charms…?"

"Other way 'round, pard. Asked her to marry me."

Ezra's eyes popped open. Had he fallen asleep again and dreamed that he'd heard Buck Wilmington say he'd asked a woman to marry him?

"You proposed matrimony?"

"Surprised me, too."

"And she said 'no'…?"

"Said yes – if I'd come with her on the road."

Ezra gave himself a minute to process what Buck was telling him.

"Our employment in Four Corners was never meant to be permanent. Surely six – surely, five lawmen would be abundant to protect the town."

"Yeah," Buck agreed. "Reckon five of 'em could take care a the town all right. Only thing is, Ezra – who's gonna take care of the five of them?"

'Not me,' Ezra reminded himself, his lips compressing into a thin white line above a stubborn chin.

"They are grown men, Mister Wilmington."

"J.D. ain't," Buck pointed out.

"Mister Dunne is of an age to be responsible for his actions," Ezra snapped.

'Great,' Wilmington mentally sighed. 'So J.D. got a kick in, too.'

"Kid ain't got a lick a sense. 'Course neither does Chris, when it comes to riskin' his own neck. Half the bounty hunters in Texas are after Vin, and he's too busy watchin' Chris's back to worry 'bout his own." Buck waved a hand at Ezra. "Mary ain't gonna shut up about statehood, neither. Ranchers won't stop goin' after her."

Ezra refused to meet Wilmington's eyes. "It is no longer any of my concern, sir."

Standing up, Buck yawned and stretched. "I'm gettin' some grub," he announced. "Holler at Curly if you need anything."

Ezra stared silently through the window at nothing. Wilmington was actually outside the room when Standish called out, "Buck?"

"Yeah?" Buck said, sticking his head back through the doorway. Ezra was still looking out the window.

"Perhaps you should be more concerned with the question of who will take care of you."

"Maybe…" Buck said, after a moment. "I dunno, Ezra…. Got this feelin' I could live with me dyin' a lot better than losin' one of them."

After a moment, Ezra asked, "How often did your mother drop you on your head when you were a baby, Mister Wilmington?"

Satisfied he'd made his point, Buck laughed and shut the door behind him.

++++

Doc Sylvester had told Ezra to stay in bed for a week, hoping for two, perhaps three days of obedience. Much to the Scot's surprise and Buck's concern, Standish had been a model invalid, sleeping the days away and playing endless games of Solitaire or reading old, leather-bound books in foreign languages that Sylvester lent him through the nights.

Four days with a quiet, withdrawn Ezra had Buck climbing the walls without being any closer to answering his own questions about what he wanted for his future.

'You're gettin' old, Buck,' he told himself. Old men worried about what could happen; Buck had always felt that the present held more than enough trouble and treasure for him to handle. Somehow, he'd always figured he'd die young….

Shaking his head, he walked through the swinging doors of the local restaurant, figuring a good meal couldn't do anything but help him think.

"Mornin'," Vin greeted him nonchalantly from the table closest to the door.

Buck stopped in his tracks, the batwing doors rebounding off his ass.

"Mornin'," he answered after a moment, walking forward to take the chair beside the tracker. "What brings ya here?"

"Judge's comin'."

'And Chris wants Ezra back before Travis knows he was gone,' Buck correctly extrapolated.

"How's Ezra?" Tanner asked him, casual like.

"Polite."

Vin sighed heavily.

"How's Chris?" Wilmington asked, winking at the waitress coming toward him.

"Mostly gone," Tanner answered.

"Drinkin'?"

"Yep." The tracker waited patiently in silence while the waitress took Buck's order for steak, biscuits with gravy, and coffee along with his usual compliments.

"Reckon we'll all move on sooner or later," Vin said when the waitress left. "Town's growin' too civilized fer varmints like us."

It was Buck's turn to say, "Yep."

Vin shifted, lifting a foot to the seat of one of the table's empty chairs. "Always figured Ezra'd be the last one t'leave. He likes it civilized."

"Yep," Buck agreed.

Vin shoved the chair his foot was perched on before stamping his boot down on the rough planking of the floor.

"It ain't right, Ezra leavin' like this."

"Nope."

"Think he'll come back?"

"Not unless we make him."

"How the hell we gonna do that?"

A grin spread across Buck's face. "Like my mama always told me, 'Buck, darlin', never ask the cat if it wants a bath'."

++++

"Oh, ya shoulda seen them twins!" Ezra heard Buck croon.

'Good Lord!' Standish thought. Groaning he grabbed the quilt and tried to pull it over his head, rolling on his side to get away from Wilmington's favorite story.

"Aaooow," he moaned, thinking better of his retreat.

"Little tender, Ezra?" Buck asked, amusement in his voice.

Ezra muttered something from under the blanket that sounded like Spanish, but wasn't.

"What'd he say?" the desk clerk squeaked from where he sat next to Buck.

"Who the hell knows?" Buck answered. "He's an educated man."

The clerk rolled his eyes. "They're the worst kind," the youth sighed. "So, what happened after ya got into the barn?"

Ignoring Ezra's muttering, Buck grinned. "Well, there was this hay loft, y'see…."

"Mister Wilmington, please!"

"Go back to sleep, Ezra. As I was sayin', there was this hay loft, an' it had this rope and pulley rig –"

Ezra's pillow landed squarely on Buck's head with a muffled 'thump'.

"OUT!"

"Doc says you shouldn't be by yourself as long as you're still in bed," Buck reminded him, throwing the pillow back.

"That Jacobean quack can go to hell!" Ezra fumed.

"Is that any way to talk about a man who's nursed ya like you was his own son?"

"Might I suggest you join him at the gates of Dis, Mister Wilmington? I understand that it is always…" there was a pause and a wriggle under the blankets as a hand stretched out to the night table. The rattle of a watch chain was followed by a yelp of pure agony. "Five thirty in the mornin' in that ungodly realm."

"What about the pulley rig?" the desk clerk demanded, not about to be denied his education.

"Well, that was a challenge," Buck answered, eyeing the body squirming under the blanket with wary expectation, "but I got me some goose grease and the girls' flannel drawers –"

"Where the hell are my guns?!"

"Oh," Buck said innocently. "Sheriff's got 'em. Didn't want anybody walkin' off with 'em while you were incapacitated-like."

An herbal sleeping draught in that last cup of beef tea and claret had made damn sure the gambler was unconscious when they'd taken his weapons. Even then, Wilmington had made Vin actually remove the Remington from its owner's hand.

The blanket flew off Ezra and he launched into an oration of profanity that made Buck blush and cover the delighted desk clerk's ears. The clerk's eyes grew even wider when he realized that Ezra had been sleeping in his boots and trousers.

Grabbing his suspenders, shirt, waistcoat, and jacket, Standish made his escape from the details that got more prurient each time he was forced to hear them. Buck and the desk clerk both jumped at the rattling force of the door slamming behind Ezra.

"I ain't never heard anything like that," the clerk said with wonder and admiration. Buck beamed with a filial pride.

"Told ya he was an educated man."

++++

Ezra frowned at the food stained paper menu he held gingerly at its least soiled edge.

"What ya want t'eat, sugar?" the waitress demanded with cheerful vulgarity common to her profession.

'A plate of Rappahannock oysters,' Ezra thought, 'and an iced bottle of champagne…'

Throwing the menu as far across the table as he could get it without sending it fluttering to the floor, he gave the waitress a stiff smile. "I'll have a coffee."

"Y'want chicory in that coffee, darlin'?"

"Lord, no!" he refused, wincing at the very idea. "Forget the coffee, just bring me a beah."

"Ezra!" Buck boomed, stiff-arming his way through the bat-wing doors.

"Make that beah a whiskey."

"Whiskey or Bourbon?"

"May the angels bless you for knowin' the difference, madam. Whiskey, if you please."

"Good mornin', darlin'!" Buck greeted the waitress affectionately, noisily grabbing a chair and joining Ezra at the table.

"Mornin'," the waitress returned. "The usual, handsome?"

"That'll suit me fine," Buck agreed, watching her walk away with thoughts of Louisa.

"What are your plans, Mister Wilmington?" Ezra astonished himself by asking.

"My plans?"

"As you can see, your Samaritanship – while appreciated – is no longer needed."

"Ain't decided yet," Buck answered, truthfully. "What about you?"

"Have you evah been to San Francisco?"

Buck shook his head. "Ain't been that far north yet. Heard plenty about it, though."

"It's a promisin' little city. Lively, as Mister Tanner would say, and the bay is quite beautiful. One would be hard-pressed to find dust in its balmy environs," Ezra said, patting the forearm of his jacket in a futile attempt to remove the sand and grit that came with the air you breathed in the deserts of the New Mexico Territory.

"You thinkin' 'bout headin' up that way?" Buck asked, forcing the smile he gave to the waitress when she sat his plate of bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy, and a cup of coffee down in front of him. Ezra, he noted, was drinking his breakfast today.

"A man can forget a lot of things in a city like San Francisco," Ezra continued, toying with his whiskey. "And he can make a lot of money very quickly. And we do have contacts there."

"We do?" Buck blinked.

"Miss Lydia and her delightful charges are runnin' a very successful hotel and casino near Union Square."

"How the hell would you know that?"

Ezra tugged at his collar, an unforgivable revelation of discomfort that he was too tired to suppress. "I have been asked to manage it."

"You have?"

"Initially the offer was to manage…" Ezra paused, running his thumbnail along the edge of his lower lip, clearly uncomfortable with what he was saying. "To manage their… business affairs."

"You ain't no flesh-peddler, Ezra," Buck stated flatly.

"No, I am not. But I do know how to run a casino…. And what happens in hotel rooms that I rent is none of my business."

"Until the first time one of those girls gets hurt."

Ezra shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Perhaps… some arrangement could be made with our courtesans where they could find the financial security and personal independence they desire in – some other way…."

"Y'tried that, Ezra."

"One solution only. A casino could have a – floorshow. Something… Parisian. There is a difference between an actress and a prostitute."

"There is?"

The fingers around Ezra's glass grew white. "My mother was an actress on the New York stage when she met my father."

Buck pushed his not-quite-finished plate away from him, wiping his mouth and mustache with the checkered napkin he pulled from his collar. "My mother wasn't."

It took Ezra a moment to understand what Buck had just told him, and another for him to bring his astonishment under control.

Dropping his gaze to his glass, Ezra considered the color of his scotch. "The difference is that the actress can choose who comes through her dressin' room door. And sometimes an actress can even con a gentleman into taking a cuckoo into his family's nest."

Wilmington would have given his right arm to understand what the hell Ezra had just confided to him.

"Ezra…."

The gambler looked up at Buck and then past him, his neutral expression assuming a deadly impenetrability that told Buck Vin had arrived.

Before the thought was finished in Buck's head, Tanner was slamming through the batwing doors in a cloud of trail dust.

'Jesus,' Buck thought at the tracker, swiping at his watering eyes. 'What'd ya do – roll in the street?'

Coughing in the sandy cloud the tracker was stamping up, Wilmington managed to wheeze, "Vin!"

Tanner smirked at him, and Buck mentally heard Vin's twang quote, 'Success lies in the details, Mister Wilmington.'

"Gotta go," Vin announced, getting straight to the point. "Judge's comin' in on the late stage, wants t'talk t'us – private-like."

Buck rose, tossing enough coins to cover the cost of breakfast and a generous tip onto the table with one hand and grabbing what was left of his meal in the other. Ezra didn't twitch an eyebrow, calmly taking his first sip of whiskey.

"C'mon, Ezra," Vin ordered, grabbing the gambler's Stetson from the back of his chair.

"I beg your pardon, Mister Tanner?" Ezra replied, raising an eyebrow in puzzlement.

"Gonna hafta ride hard to beat the stage t' Four Corners," Vin explained, stealing Ezra's drink from his hand and polishing it off.

"I have no intention of ridin' anywhere," Standish informed them, folding his arms across his chest. He could always buy another hat.

Buck caught Vin's eye before grabbing the bottom rung of Ezra's chair back and pulling it out from under Standish. Vin grabbed Ezra's arm, hauling him up and onto his feet before his butt could hit the floor.

Gasping in pain, Ezra pressed his arm against his injured side, turning his back to the door and Vin to hide the weakness.

"You okay there, Ezra?" Buck asked sympathetically.

"I'm fine," Standish grated out from between clenched teeth. "Just fine," he repeated, forcing himself to stand up straight.

"Good," Buck grinned, swinging to face the door and catching Ezra's inside elbow with his arm. On the other side of Standish, Vin did the same thing, so that before Ezra was able to catch his breath he was being dragged backwards out of the restaurant.

"What the hell are you doin'?" Ezra demanded, telling himself it was a desire not to re-open his wound that lay behind his decision not to fight – much – against the coordinated assault upon his personal liberty.

"Ain't got time t'argue," Buck explained. "Judge's expectin' us."

"I've quit," Ezra reminded his former associates, the batwing doors of the restaurant swinging shut in front of him. "I am no longer in the employ of that draconian Methuselah!"

"Do what?" Vin asked, tipping his hat to the citizens of Ridge City gaping at he and Buck plowing twin furrows down Main Street with the heels of Ezra's boots.

"Make sure y'wrap that chest good when ye get home, laddie!" Doc Sylvester called from the porch of his office, waving goodbye to the trio as they passed him.

"Ah'm not goin' home!" Ezra snapped, inwardly wincing at the slip. "I'm goin' to San Francisco!"

"Safe trip, folks!" Curly squeaked from the hotel verandah. "Come back soon!"

"Ah'm bein' shanghaied!" Standish bellowed, vainly searching the grinning faces of the crowd gathering to watch his humiliation for one soul sympathetic to his plight.

"Now Ezra, there ain't a ship in three hundred miles a'here," Buck clucked.

"Abducted! Kidnapped! Forced to labor against mah will! Impressed! Enslaved! Indentured!" the gambler clarified at the top of his lungs.

"Y'r teeth look fine t'me," Vin consoled him, reducing Ezra's indignation to incoherent sputtering.

"It's time to ride," Buck said firmly, bringing Vin and Ezra to a stop in front of the livery.

Ezra snorted. "The day you can saddle and bridle mah horse without mah permission is the day I'll ride back to Four Corners with mah hat in mah hand."

"Deal," Vin agreed, helping Buck set Ezra upon his feet and shoving the gambler's hat on his head.

Ezra straightened his hat and adjusted his jacket before turning around with a cocky step, anticipating the fun of watching Tanner and Wilmington tangle with his horse.

"Chaucer…!" Ezra gasped, staring in shock at the bay standing between Clyde and Peso, bridled and saddled with his kit packed and ready on its back.

"Et tu, Brute?" he whispered, cut to the core by this last, worst, most unexpected betrayal.

The horse answered with a guilty little whicker, walking up to Ezra to push against his arm with a lowered head.

Standish ignored him, turning away from the contrite animal. "When a man can't trust his own horse…" he muttered, shaking his head.

"Time to go, Ezra," Tanner laughed, cherishing the rare win over Ezra. Putting a foot in Peso's stirrup, he made the mistake of turning his back to the furious Standish.

The next thing Vin knew, he was sitting in a puddle of trough water, horse piss, and manure, looking up at Ezra swinging onto Peso's back.

"He saddled you – he can ride you," Ezra informed Chaucer, kicking Vin's long-legged dun into sprinting down the main street in the direction of Four Corners.

With a heart-broken whinny, Chaucer raced after Peso, leaving Buck looking down at the soggy, swearing tracker.

"Y'give a cat a bath, y'gotta be ready to get scratched some," Buck consoled him.

"Your mama tell you that, too?" Vin asked, shaking foul-smelling sludge off his hands.

"Yep. 'Course, she waited until after I'd thrown the cat in the tub."

++++

"Rider comin' hard!" J.D. called into the interior of the saloon, returning to the chair he'd placed beside Ezra's all too-empty seat. J.D hadn't allowed anyone to sit in it while Standish was gone – it would have made his absence too permanent, somehow.

Chris pushed through the batwing doors onto the porch, blinking in the bright sunlight and chewing on a toothpick. By the time his eyes adjusted to the daylight, two horses were clearly visible at the edge of town.

"Aw, hell," Larabee sighed. Peso was in the lead and the black-jacketed figure on his back sure as hell wasn't Vin. Half a length behind the dun ran Chaucer, riderless but loaded with a full kit.

"Don't see anything chasin' 'em," J.D. said as he came to stand by Larabee. Shielding his eyes, he strained to see into the distance. "Why they runnin' so hard? And where's Buck and Vin?"

"Ridin' double," Chris guessed, frowning at the realization Ezra wasn't even trying to hide his military seat, which meant that he was hurt, exhausted, or angry, or maybe even all three.

Ezra pulled Peso up hard and short in front of the saloon, kicking dust up into Chris and J.D.'s faces. He dismounted stiffly, lurching up to the hitching post to wrap the dun's reins around it.

"Hey, Ezra," J.D. greeted Standish with a hopeful smile. Ezra ignored him, producing a sharp, shrill whistle between teeth, lips, and fingers that brought the livery boys running. A dime flipped to each assured that both horses would be properly cared for.

Chaucer resisted the urging of the boy at the end of his reins and reached out to try to grab Ezra's hat. Standish stepped away before the bay could succeed, deliberately raising a cloud of dust from his jacket sleeves to make the horse sneeze and shake its head.

"Ah'm not speakin' t'you," Ezra announced, turning a cold shoulder to his horse and limping past Chris and J.D. into the saloon.

"Was he talking to us or Chaucer?" J.D. whispered to Chris.

"Yep," the gunslinger answered, watching the bay just miss with a vicious kick that would easily have crippled Peso had it connected.

"Think he'll be speakin' to the judge?" J.D. asked, his shoulders slumping.

For the first time in days, Chris grinned. "Yep."

++++

Orrin Travis grimaced as the stagecoach lurched across another one of the endless ruts on the road into Four Corners. Two letters and a telegram sat in the breast pocket of his jacket, weighing on him far more than their scant two ounces warranted. One letter was from his daughter-in-law, the other was from an old friend, and the telegram had been wired by his favorite aggravation.

The telegram had arrived first, and it said, "Your Honor (STOP) I quit (STOP) Ezra Standish, Esquire (FULL STOP)."

It had been sent C.O.D.

He'd immediately cabled Mary, demanding the details that lay behind Ezra's terse resignation. Her reply had been the equally short and maddening, "Buck has situation in hand (FULL STOP)."

Then her letter had arrived, with lurid details of dead assassins, an attempt on her life, Ezra's nearly fatal rescue, a blow-up amongst the seven over something Mary had been unable to ascertain, Ezra's midnight flight, and Buck's departure for Ridge City.

Evie had his bag packed before he'd finished swearing.

The second letter arrived the morning he left: A quick note from an old friend telling him that while Stutz might be dead and Hopewell warned out of Four Corners, the governor's campaign of terror was far from over.

Travis had always liked Clayton Hopewell, but where politics and money were concerned, he trusted the man about as far as a dead tick could spit. Trouble was, Hopewell was as smart as he was crooked and catching him was going to be far from easy – and until he was caught, Mary was going to be in danger. He knew it and she knew it, which is why her letter also contained a will with explicit instructions about what he should do if the worst happened.

"Whoa!" he heard the driver call out to the team, the swaying of the coach decreasing along with its speed. "Four Corners!"

Mary was waiting for him when he stepped out of the coach, a pretty shawl around her shoulders. She was the only one on the street.

"Orrin!" she smiled, grateful for the strength of the older man's embrace. "How's Billy?"

"Safe. He misses his mama, but he's safe."

Mary smiled with wistful relief.

"I wish I could say the same about you," Travis told her.

Mary's gaze went to the saloon. "It's been a long week," she confessed.

"Town's awfully quiet."

"Nobody wants to get caught in a crossfire."

"Mm," Travis grunted. "Somethin' tells me it's not the ranchers they're hidin' from."

Giving her a peck on the cheek and promising to tell her over dinner everything her son had been up to since she'd last seen him, the judge headed for the ominously silent saloon.

Travis paused just inside the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the murkiness. The only people in the saloon were the bartender polishing the glasses, an old drunk sleeping it off in a corner, and the seven hired guns who had become his friends.

Chris, Josiah, Buck, J.D. and Nathan sat together at the table the judge had come to think of as belonging to Ezra. Standish sat by himself on the far side of the next table, his hat covering his face, his arms folded over his chest, his crossed legs stretched out in front of him and his chair balanced on its two back legs.

Vin also sat by himself, banished to a chair some distance from the main table. One whiff of the filthy tracker told Travis why. They all looked like they were nursing a grudge and, in Larabee's case, a bad hangover.

"Credo non nunnulos hic mortuos esse,^[i]" the judge observed, grinning at Chris.

"Futue te ipsum et caballum tuum,^[ii]" Ezra drawled from under his hat, taking Travis's greeting personally.

"Huh?" J.D. blinked, looking at Josiah for a translation over the judge's roaring laughter that filled the room. Vin and Buck threw the kid grateful looks.

"Judge said it looked like some of us were dead," Sanchez explained in a loud whisper.

J.D. nodded, agreeing with Travis. "What'd Ezra say?" he whispered back.

"Roughly translated, screw you and the horse you rode in on," Travis answered. "What the hell's been goin' on here, boys?"

"Governor tried to kill Mary," Chris said flatly.

"Ya got proof?"

"If we did, d'you think the son of a bitch would still be alive?" Buck asked.

Recognizing a rhetorical question when he heard one, Travis grunted and sat down at the main table.

"You think the governor's gonna give up this particular method of gettin' his opponents to shut up?" the judge asked.

Chris shook his head. "Not while the ranchers are paying his bills."

"Can't say I like the idea of statehood," Nathan mused, "but it ain't worth murder one way or the other."

Ezra fell off his chair laughing. Seven men stared in stunned silence at Standish sitting on the floor, clutching his injured side and howling with an unholy mirth and the bartender wisely found a pressing task in the storeroom.

"I say somethin' funny?" Nathan frowned.

"Oh, Lord yes," Ezra gasped. "Though I am certain your irony was unintentional…. Who would have thought to find an advocate of local autonomy over Federal authority in you, Mister Jackson?"

Nathan jumped to his feet, the sound of Jackson's chair scraping on the floor making Chris's bloodshot eyes cross.

"Not that it will mattah," Ezra sighed, fanning himself with his hat while righting his chair and getting settled back down. "The ranchers would be far bettah off usin' their money to bribe Congress to send the Army marchin' in heah for our own protection. I'm sure an Indian uprisin' punctuated by several well-publicized atrocities will be providin' a fine excuse any ol' day now. Mustn't have those railroads carryin' our taxes back east disrupted by disgruntled… coloreds."

Chris and Buck grabbed Nathan's arms, physically holding him back from flying across the table to punch the innocent expression off Ezra's face.

After a moment, Nathan pulled his arms free and sat back down. He knew by the gleam in Ezra's eyes that he was being deliberately baited. Jackson would be damned if he'd give the little bastard the satisfaction.

"What do ya know about rumors of an uprising?" Travis scowled.

"Only what I read in The National Era,^[iii]" Standish drawled. "An' the fiction of Harriet Beecher Stowe.^[iv]"

J.D. looked from familiar face to familiar face, watching hackles rise and lips draw back from fangs without a clue as to why.

"Uhh," he said, taking his mug of milk, if not his life, in both hands, "what about the governor?"

Buck cleared his throat. "Kid's right. We gotta stop 'im from killin' anyone else."

"Perhaps you could persuade him to appeal to the Supreme Court instead," Ezra murmured, loud enough to wake the drunk in the corner.

Travis gritted his teeth against the slap that had been directed at him. "The local statehood advocates are talking about fightin' Hopewell's fire with fire by raisin' the alarm against the local tribe."

"I'll bet the story goes like this," Ezra yawned. "The Indians are livin' on the land they consider theirs by tradition and treaty, followin' the ways of their forefathers – only the land they own can be exploited much more effectively by, say, certain non-agrarian business interests if they – and their way of life – are destroyed? And those same interests will be best served if our fair territory becomes a State of Mister Lincoln's ever-blessed Union?"

Travis wished he had an answer other than 'yes, but', wondering what the hell had provoked the mean streak in Ezra – and just why the hell this particular group of men was letting Standish take it out on them.

"It's just as likely Hopewell's boys will rile up the Indians to prove that statehood will bring war," Chris pointed out, breaking the tense silence.

"Either way, the Indians lose," Vin said quietly.

"The Indians lost the moment the Susan Constant^[v] dropped anchor, Mister Tannah," Ezra laughed, his smile flashing briefly in the dimness.

Travis cleared his throat. "I've got a favor to ask you boys."

Ezra stretched elaborately – and carefully – before lounging back into his chair and putting his hat back over his face. He clearly had no intention of breaking his long-standing and frequently articulated policy of never doing anyone a favor.

"What kind of favor?" J.D. asked, trying not to look over at Standish.

"My friend's the mayor of Domino Flats, a day's ride from here goin' north-east. Got a ranch hand in jail for killin' a Ute family he says was trespassing on his boss's land. Rancher wants to cut a deal. Says he can give us enough on Hopewell to impeach the governor if we'll commute his sentence to life."

"I'm astonished twelve good men and true found anythin' wrong with the killin' of Indians," Ezra observed from under his hat.

After a moment Travis admitted, "Turned out the Ute family was headed by a white trapper."

Ezra laughed and Vin shifted silently in his chair.

"The ranch hand is willing to testify against Hopewell and his bosses, if we can guarantee his safety," Travis continued.

"Now there's a man rushin' into the arms of heaven," Ezra's muffled voice chuckled.

"Not if we can keep him alive," Chris said.

"Why not turn him over to the army?" Buck asked.

"We're not sure the army can be trusted," Travis said. "You know they aren't being paid the way they should, and the ranchers are makin' up the difference with some of the soldiers."

"Corruption in the Federal ranks?" Ezra laughed through his hat. "Such shockin' news!"

"As a Federal Judge, I don't give a damn about whether we're a state or a territory. I want both sides to know that the law applies to them equally, no matter what happens at the ballot box," Travis said.

Pushing his hat up onto his head, Ezra sat up in his chair and clapped. "Well spoken, suh! Such noble sentiments deserve to be put right next to Andrew Jackson's answer to John Marshall – and I'm willin' to bet they'll have about as much effect on this little range war as the Chief Justice's famous rulin' on sovereignty."

"So," J.D. tried again, desperate to make this fight he didn't understand stop, "y'want us to go get this fella?"

"Yep," the judge answered, after he'd silently finished counting to ten – in Latin and Greek.

"In other words, Mister Dunne, His Honor would like you to lay yourselves as sacrifices upon the altar of justice – or does anyone else heah find the mayor's timin' terribly convenient?"

"Convenient?" J.D. echoed. "What's convenient about it?"

Ezra lifted his upper lip in a golden sneer. "It's been less than a week since the governor left your little town – with Mister Larabee's threats still rattlin' in his ears, no doubt – and here, like manna from heaven, is the means with which to bring Hopewell to justice."

The table was silent a moment, waiting to see how Chris would react to being called a snake. Gritting his teeth, Larabee let the insult pass in silence, ratcheting up the tension in the room by several notches.

"I'd trust Jim Rupert with my life," Travis said, after a long moment.

Ezra snorted. "It's not your life you're offerin' the gentleman!"

"You sure about your friend?" Chris asked the judge.

"I've known him for forty years," Travis said. "My daughter married his son."

"Recent history would warn against trustin' family ties t'win out over the lure of power and money," Ezra reminded him softly. "Tell me, when's the last time you actually sat down across the table from His Honor the Mayor?"

"Three years ago," Travis admitted. Ezra just smiled and shook his head, the tip of his tongue dancing along the edge of his bottom lip.

"Reckon it's a chance I'm willin' to take t'get Hopewell, Vin said softly.

"Well, boys, how about it?" Travis asked. "Feel like bein' reckless?"

One by one, each man nodded – except for Ezra.

"Let's stop this before it starts," Chris agreed for all of them.

"Very noble," Ezra said, putting his hand over his heart. "I'm sure contemplating your gallantry will be a comfort to Mrs. Travis as she's dyin' – or are you expectin' the governor not to take advantage of your sudden absence?"

"You volunteerin' to stay behind?" Chris asked him.

Ezra's hand left his heart and settled over the bulge in his jacket where the fabric pulled over the thickness of his bandages. "I do believe I've had my fill of Mrs. Travis's politics."

"That's enough, Ezra," Chris snapped.

"Indeed it is, Mister Larabee," Ezra growled.

"I'll look after Mary," Travis said gruffly, heading off the fight it seemed Standish was itching to provoke.

"Governor Hopewell's Christmas is comin' early," Ezra said, grinning at Chris's clenched fists.

"So we'll split up," J.D. said. "Half of us will stay here, half of us will try and decoy the ranchers."

"Knowin' your civic passion as ah do, Mister Dunne, might I recommend that you, Mister Tannah, and Mister Larabee be the three who ride into the ambush His Honor has so thoughtfully arranged for you? It will save the town a fortune, as Mister Wilmington, Mister Sanchez and Mister Jackson will not fit any of the caskets the undertaker currently has in stock."

"We all ride out," Chris decided. "There's someone who owes us a favor whose people can garrison the town while we're gone."

"And what if he feels that he has already discharged his contractual obligation to you, Mister Larabee?" Ezra asked. "Which reminds me – you still owe me five dollars."

"I think I can persuade him it's in his people's best interests to support the winning side," Chris replied.

"Huh?" J.D. mouthed at Buck, who shrugged.

"It is entirely possible that Tastanahi and his people would enjoy watchin' the ranchers and the farmers kill each other," Ezra pointed out.

'Ohhh,' J.D. nodded to himself.

"He knows that he and his people won't be tolerated by either side once one or the other is firmly established in power," Standish continued. "His people are best served by allowing the whites to kill each other for as long as they are inclined so to do. And besides, your 'side' is a long way from winnin' this skirmish. I wouldn't bet on your chances."

"Our chances," J.D. corrected him.

Ezra turned to look the kid up and down with a mocking smile. Making a show of pulling his watch from his waistcoat and checking the time, he yawned again. "Well, gentlemen, as amusin' as this has been, y'all must excuse me. It's past mah bedtime."

"You're comin' too, Ezra," Chris said, not looking at Standish.

"No, ah'm not, Mister Larabee," Ezra said, rising stiffly to his feet. "Not only do I have no interest in the success or failure of His Honor's 'Forlorn Hope', it is guaranteed to make this town less than profitable for a man of my profession."

Chris pushed himself away from the table and stood with a chime of spurs to face Ezra.

"Be ready to ride at first light," he ordered Standish.

"No." The single syllable cracked through the room like a warning shot.

"You got a stake in this too, Ezra," Chris reminded him, reaching out to poke the wound the governor's assassin had given him. Ezra blocked the attempt to touch him, knocking Larabee's arm aside with enough force to rock Chris's balance.

"The man who shot me is dead – and his employer has no further interest in me unless I give him a reason to be interested," Ezra said. "Somethin' that I have no intention of doin'. Half the game is knowin' when to fold your hand and walk away, and I do believe that time has come."

Tipping his hat to the stunned assemblage, Ezra turned toward the stairs.

"I'm gonna need you to make this work," Chris admitted, resisting the urge to reach out and grab Standish.

Ezra stopped, stroking his thumb along the edge of his chin as he turned to look back at Chris.

"Will you?" he asked. "Yes, I can see how you might need a cheat – don't you agree, Mister Jackson?"

'Good ears,' Vin thought. 'Better memory….'

Nathan shifted uneasily on the seat of his chair, unable to meet Ezra's amused gaze. "Ain't never said you didn't have your uses, Ezra," Jackson answered.

Ezra laughed, shaking his head. "No, indeed. In fact, I have always admired your keen perception of the health and usefulness of others. Such a pity times have changed – you would have made a fine overseer."

Ignoring the ruckus of Josiah wrestling Nathan back into his chair, Ezra again turned towards the stairs.

"Ezra?" Buck called after him. "What about Billy?"

Standish stopped, his coat suddenly straining across his shoulders. He almost looked back, but stopped himself before he could actually see Buck.

"Master Travis is no concern of mine," Ezra answered. "Besides, even if I was foolish enough to agree to join you, ah can't. Ah'm findin' my… transportation… unreliable."

"You got a problem with your horse, you fix it," Chris said. "I don't care how you do it, but we're ridin' at first light."

Ezra turned around again, his expression dangerously pleasant. He met Buck's gaze briefly, acknowledging Wilmington with the barest glimmer of a nod that disappeared into the annoying bonhomie that made Chris ache to punch him at the best of times.

"Very well, Mister Larabee," he announced with a twinkle in his eyes that made the men watching him uneasy. "One last ride – for which I expect to be restored to the payroll." He touched the brim of his hat to them. "Bon soir, gentlemen."

No one said a word, but they all watched Ezra climb the stairs to his room. When the slam of a door assured them Standish was out of earshot, Travis looked at Larabee.

"What the hell's gotten into him?" the judge demanded, the telegram in his pocket burning like a coal.

It was a question no one wanted to answer. After a moment, Vin shifted in his chair.

"Don't mind Ezra none, Judge," the tracker advised. "His horse done hurt his feelings."

++++

With the door to his room safely closed and locked behind him, Ezra allowed himself to sag. How did Vin manage to ride that rabbit-gaited nag and still walk? No wonder the man wore spurs – it was pure self-defense.

"Oh, no," he sighed, taking in his room's appearance.

'The appearance of the room where you're currently sleeping,' he corrected himself sternly.

There were fresh little white flowers in a pretty blue medicine bottle sitting on his bed table. Miss Amelia's handiwork, he was certain. He paid the child the outrageous sum of a dollar fifty a week to sweep and dust the room daily and change the linen on the bed twice a week. Her brother, Joshua, was paid the same to see that Ezra had hot water for the portable tub under his bed on a daily basis.

The room was immaculate. There was even a new quilt on the bed, one he'd seen many happy hands at work on for some time. Bits of some of his favorite clothes had been contributed to its construction and he allowed himself to trace the golden pattern of an emerald silk brocade waistcoat that had been sacrificed in the name of apprehending some miscreant. Or had it been the one mangled when he'd been inadvertently caught between two jealous Cyprians and the object of their affections? Chris still owed him for that ruined suit….

"Don't do this, Ezra…" he warned himself as he touched the crocheted doily under the blue medicine jar with wondering fingertips.

Shaking his weary head, he painfully removed his filthy jacket and hung it on the hook on the back of the door. Opening his wardrobe to get a hanger, he discovered his brown, blue, and red boots had been polished until he could see his reflection in them, a task young Mister Potter occasionally undertook for an extra quarter or two. Hanging above them was the scarlet jacket he'd been wearing when he was shot….

Dusting his hands off one against the other, Ezra took the spotless coat out of the wardrobe. Even with the most intense scrutiny he could barely see where the invisible mend had been made to cover the bullet hole, and absolutely no trace of the bloodstains remained. Mrs. Potter's skilled hands had been at work. Opening the jacket, he checked the lining; it was also perfectly mended.

Catching his lower lip between his teeth, he carefully hung the jacket back in the wardrobe. As he did so, a stack of handkerchiefs on its top shelf caught his gaze.

Strange…. He kept his handkerchiefs in his top dresser drawer. Picking up the stack, his eyebrows rose as he felt the quality of the silk fabric from which they'd been made. A smile fought its way across his face as he realized he was looking at the salvaged remains of the shirt Stutz's bullet had ruined, the rolled hems stitched by three different hands: Miss Amelia, Mrs. Potter, and Mrs. Travis….

His shoulders slumping, he shut the wardrobe without bothering to retrieve the hanger.

"What are you people doin' t'me?" he muttered, putting the handkerchiefs away in his dresser.

A knock at the door startled him.

"Who is it?" he called, his gun in his hand.

"It's Josh. Will ya be wantin' your hot water?"

"Thank you, Mister Potter. That would be most welcome."

The eager patter of young feet running down the hall toward the back stairs made the dull ache in the back of his neck throb into the front of his skull. Ignoring the calico covered basket sitting on top of his dresser, Ezra crossed the room to his bed. On the other side of it stood his mirror and shaving basin and a fresh pitcher of washing up water that no doubt had a sprig of rosemary floating in it.

"Oh, shut up," he told his ridiculously happy reflection, throwing his dusty body on top of the clean quilt and flinging his arm over his eyes, the impetuous act pulling on his stitches.

"Aaooow," he moaned.

++++

Putting a hand in the small of her back, Mary stretched her aching muscles. Dinner with Orrin had left her behind schedule in putting the press to bed. It was going to be a late night….

A knock on the door and a soft "Missus Travis?" made her smile.

"Come in, J.D.," she called, smiling wider as she realized that she'd been expecting the young easterner to come calling. He always did after the seven had a meeting with the Honorable Orrin Travis.

"Evenin'," J.D. said, taking his hat off as he came into the room. "Need any help?"

"Just the usual, sheriff."

A second knock on the door made Mary frown.

"Missus Travis?" Buck Wilmington called.

The frown became a smile. It must have been an interesting meeting!

"Come in, Buck," she said.

Buck took his hat off as he came through the door. "Evenin', Mary. Need any help?"

"Just the usual. I'll leave you and J.D to it while I put on the kettle."

++++

Half an hour later, Buck and J.D. gingerly held delicate china cups filled with aromatic tea, watching Mary put her dictionary down on the table of her office cum after-hours parlor.

"I take it Ezra and Orrin had their usual contretemps?" she smiled.

"No, ma'am," J.D. said, sipping the milk and sugar into which Mary had managed to pour a little tea. "They had a fight."

"They always fight," Mary smiled, a little sadly. She found she missed Stephen the most when Ezra and Orrin engaged in their affectionate verbal sparring.

"Not like this," J.D. insisted, shaking his head.

"Ezra was firin' on Fort Sumter," Buck explained.

"So that's what it was all about," J.D. exclaimed. "No wonder Nathan wanted to punch him!"

"Did Orrin declare war?" she asked, setting her cup down on its saucer.

"We managed to keep Ezra from seceding," Buck sighed. 'I hope….'

"Who was John Marshall?" J.D. asked. "And why was Ezra comparin' him to the Judge?"

"Beats me, kid," Buck shrugged, the slug of brandy Mary'd flavored his tea with warming his blood.

"John Marshall was the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was one of the most influential men in the history of American law and politics," Mary answered, as they hoped she would.

"So why'd the judge get mad? Sounds like a compliment t'me."

Mary's brow wrinkled as she sipped her tea, sorting through the clues of J.D.'s questions and what Orrin had told her about the Domino Flats case over dinner. After a moment, her eyes widened.

"Ezra didn't say anything about President Jackson, did he?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," J.D. answered, nodding along with Buck.

"Oh, my," Mary blinked, after thinking about J.D.'s question for a moment. "I think Mr. Standish was referring to Worcester v. Georgia. In a decision written by Chief Justice John Marshall, the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was a sovereign country, making the Indian Removal Act of 1830 illegal."

"I… don't understand," J.D. admitted.

"The Removal Act was declared illegal in 1832. But, by 1838, the Federal Army had forced the Cherokee people to march out of Georgia, to Oklahoma. Many thousands of people died along the way…. The Cherokee call their forced march "the trail of tears"."

"Why'd they make 'em move? I mean, were they makin' trouble?"

"Ah," Mary hedged. "Well… actually, they were pretty good neighbors."

J.D. looked into the bottom of his teacup, mulling over the conversation he'd heard but hadn't understood.

"What business interests," he asked slowly, "were better served by moving the Indians off their land?"

Mary bit her lip. "They found gold on the Cherokee land," she explained reluctantly.

"Gold?" J.D. repeated.

"Gold," Mary confirmed. "Add that to the fact that a lot of people just don't like…."

"Coloreds?" J.D. softly prompted.

Mary winced. No wonder Nathan had wanted to punch Ezra.

"I suppose that's one way of saying it."

"I wouldn't talk to Josiah about it," Buck advised.

J.D. put his half-finished cup into his saucer with a rattle. "I wish you guys'd never found that money. Excuse me, Missus Travis."

"Good night, J.D.," Mary told him, waiting until the door had closed behind the young man to turn to the troubled Wilmington.

"What's the money have to do with all this?"

"Just a misunderstandin'," Buck assured her. "It'll blow over, give or take a shoutin' match and maybe a sore jaw or two."

"Mmm," Mary said, recognizing that pushing Wilmington for more information would get her nowhere. "Were you just checking up on J.D., or was there something you wanted to discuss?"

"I was talkin' to Ezra…."

They both laughed, Mary thinking how strange it had been to not engage in a single conversation in the last week that had begun with that phrase.

"About what?"

"Birds… sorta. Cuckoos…. Them's birds, right?"

"Yes," Mary nodded. "Let me guess – Aristophanes?"

"What kinda bird is that?"

"A Greek one," Mary chuckled. "It's the name of an ancient Greek writer. He wrote a play called 'The Birds', in great part about cuckoos. It's really very funny."

"No, I don't think he was talkin' 'bout… him. I been racking my brains, but I can't figure it out what the hell he meant. Now, I call someone a cuckoo, that means he's loco, or just plain dumb, but I'd bet my last dollar that wasn't what Ezra was gettin' at."

"Maybe if you told me what he said…?"

Buck had the grace to blush, his big hands toying gently with the delicate cup as he shook his head.

"I see," Mary nodded, having another sip of her tea. "Well, I know cuckoos are found in the New World as well as the Old… and I know they're seldom seen or heard, and I know they're bullies –"

"Bullies?" Buck interrupted.

"An anthropomorphic judgment," Mary apologized.

"Missus Travis –!" Buck pleaded.

Mary smiled. "They lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, and the baby cuckoos often destroy the legitimate fledglings. I can look it up in one of Stephen's natural history books… I think Darwin has something to say about it."

"That's all right, Mary… I think I figured out what he was tryin' t'say."

"I know something's not right, Buck. If there's anything I can do…?"

"Best just to leave it alone," Wilmington told her, draining his cup.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it? Just between us?"

"I appreciate that, ma'am, but my mama always told me to listen to my own advice. Thank y'for the tea."

"You're welcome," she murmured after she'd heard the door shut, looking at the little cups sitting on their saucers beside her dead husband's dictionary. They looked as lonely as she felt.

"Anthropomorphic judgments," she sighed, getting wearily to her feet to gather the dishes up onto the tea tray.

++++

"Oh, Lord," Buck muttered to Chris as they walked into the restaurant for a pre-dawn breakfast the next morning. "J.D.'s readin' again."

"Hey!" J.D. squawked when Buck waved a hand between his nose and the page of the book he was buried in.

"Time t'eat, J.D. We gotta ride, remember?"

Closing the book, J.D. sat it down under his chair and dug into his plate of bacon, beans, and biscuits. "Didja know that the Susan Constant was the name of the first English ship to land colonists in North America?"

"No it wasn't – that was the Mayflower, with the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock," Buck corrected him, helping himself from the platters and bowls set out on the table for the six lawmen who felt getting up for a free breakfast was worth the effort. Not that Ezra wouldn't occasionally join them for a late supper….

"You're both wrong," Chris said with a grin, attacking his own plate. "The first English ship to land in America was the Tyger, at Roanoke, North Carolina. 'Course, it was Virginia then – but so was Massachusetts."

Buck batted his eyelashes at Chris as he grabbed a biscuit off J.D.'s plate. "You the new schoolmarm, beautiful?"

Chris shot Buck with an index finger and thumb.

"How come I never learned any of this stuff in school?" J.D. complained.

"Mornin'," Vin greeted them as he walked into the restaurant. "Quiet night…."

"Noisy mornin'," Buck grinned, taking a swat at J.D.'s hat that the kid automatically blocked.

Josiah and Nathan came into the restaurant a few minutes after Vin, bringing their numbers up to six. Of Standish, there was no sign.

"I get to wake up Ezra," Nathan announced as the last bite disappeared off the serving platters. There was an evil grimness to the statement that bespoke much forethought. Josiah allowed himself a faint smile, but said nothing.

"Go in low," J.D. advised.

"'Cause he shoots high," Vin, Chris, and Buck chorused.

Nathan just grinned.

"Let's go," Chris ordered, putting on his hat as he rose from the table. With a great rattle and scrape of furniture, the other five followed the gunslinger out of the restaurant and onto the porch. Five pairs of eyes looked speculatively from Nathan to the saloon as Jackson set out toward it with a determined stride.

"I gotta see this," Chris grinned, leading his pack after Nathan. As they passed the livery, they heard Chaucer whinny loudly.

'Try and warn him all ya want,' Nathan thought at the bad-tempered bay. 'Won't do neither of ya no good!'

"For shame, gentlemen!" Ezra's voice called from behind them. "First light was ten minutes ago."

Ezra had the satisfaction of watching the grin on Larabee's face die when he turned around to find Standish sitting astride Job. Tipping his hat to his six associates – and Chris Larabee in particular – Ezra turned the big black smartly around, urging him into a fast run out of town, heading northeast.

"Get back here with my horse, you son of a bitch!" Chris howled, actually taking a few running steps after the rapidly disappearing horse and rider.

"Looks like Ezra's done solved his transportation problems, cowboy," Vin grinned.

"At least he left ya your own tack," Buck told Chris, patting the disappointed Nathan on the arm.

"That little mother-fucking bastard –" Chris snarled.

"NNNNNNNGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Chaucer replied from the livery, his outrage punctuated by the unmistakable sound of a horse's steel-shod hooves kicking its stable door to splinters.

"Uh, Chris," Buck said, risking putting a consoling hand on his seething friend's shoulder. "Maybe ya better not swear."

Larabee's face turned purple.

"I'll ride Chaucer," J.D. volunteered. "He likes me."

"Like he–Like heck you will, J.D.!" growled Chris Larabee, former officer of the United States Cavalry and champion broncobuster.

No one made any move to follow Chris as he stalked into the stable. By silent, common consensus, they all decided to wait until Chaucer and Larabee had left the livery before going after their mounts.

"I got a dollar says Chris'll be in the dirt within five miles," Buck said.

"I got one says he won't last two," J.D. agreed.

"I got two says Larabee won't make it outta town without bein' bit," Vin countered.

"I got a dollar says Chris bites the damn horse back," Nathan grinned.

Listening to the racket from the livery, no one took Jackson up on the bet.

++++

"Are you through fussin'?" Chris asked Chaucer, halfway expecting the horse to answer him in English. The bay flicked its ears at him, its muscles twitching under his sweat-glossed hide.

"Look, I don't like this any better than you do," Larabee assured him, cautiously approaching Ezra's dangerous mount.

Chaucer stamped a front hoof on top of a broken board, splintering it with his toe-clip. Chris decided he was going to have a little talk with Standish about shoeing his horse with something less lethal than a razor blade.

"I don't much wanna ride you, either," the gunslinger growled. "Trouble is, there ain't another nag in this town that can keep up with Job and the others. So, if you don't wanna get left behind, calm down and let me get ya saddled!"

Chaucer's ears twitched again, but he let Larabee approach.

"That's better," Chris approved, patting the bay's quivering flank before looking for Chaucer's brush. He found it in a wooden trunk in the back corner of the double-stall, along with a pile of soft rags, a wide-toothed silver comb and a green bottle of soft soap that smelt like chamomile and rosemary. Its label was written in French and it had a picture of a fine-limbed trotter on it, ribbons in its mane and a bow on its tail, its black coat gleaming like lacquer.

'Only Ezra would buy French shampoo for his horse,' Chris sighed to himself.

"How about we make a deal?" he offered Chaucer, beginning to brush down the bay. "When we catch up with 'em, I won't shoot your Daddy if you won't kill my horse."

++++

"What on earth is Chris doing?" Mary wondered, setting the tea tray down on her desk as Chaucer stepped away yet again from Larabee's attempt to get his foot into his stirrup, leaving the gunslinger hopping on one leg in the middle of Main Street.

Travis just shook his head, watching Chris chase Ezra's damned horse down Main Street, two steps at a time.

"Dancin' a jig!" Francis Corcoran chortled, helping himself to a mug of milk, tea, and real white sugar after making one for the distracted lady.

"He should know better than to try and ride Chaucer," Mary said, shaking her head and accepting the mug of tea the big Irishman handed her.

"Has to," the judge grunted. "Ezra stole his horse."

'The things you miss when you're in the kitchen!' Mary thought to herself, sipping her tea and settling in to enjoy the show.

++++

"Owww!" Buck complained when Chris stepped on him.

"It ain't funny, Buck," Larabee growled, stepping on him again.

"Yeah, it is," Buck wheezed, clutching his aching sides. His knees had given way five minutes ago and he sat on his butt on Main Street.

"Gosh dang it!" the gunslinger barked, kicking the hitching post in his frustration. Chaucer rocked his head at him, pawing up dust. The only one of the peacekeepers that wasn't helpless with laughter was Vin, who had foolishly done as Chris had requested and held Chaucer's head steady the second time Larabee had tried to mount. He was too preoccupied with the damage the bay's teeth had inflicted on his left arm to be amused.

"All right," Chris said, taking a deep, steadying breath. "We're gonna try this again…." It had been a long time since he'd vaulted into the saddle, but he'd chased the bay up and down Main Street for twenty minutes now and he had exactly enough patience for one more try.

He slowly approached Chaucer, deciding not to tip the horse to his intent to mount by gathering up the reins. Not a soul could be seen from the street, but Larabee was aware of curtains all over town being drawn back to witness his humiliation. Ezra's goddamned horse was making him a laughing stock.

"Easy, easy…" he coaxed, watching the bay's ears twitch forward. "'At's right…. Atta boy!" he encouraged, getting ready to spring. "Good boy…."

With a disgusted whicker, Chaucer knelt at the same moment Chris leapt, sending Larabee sailing over his back by a good three feet. The gunslinger flew into Josiah and Nathan like a ball into ninepins, sending them sprawling into the dirt.

Cursing, Chris tried to climb to his feet only to be thwarted by Nathan trying to do the same thing. Older and wiser, Josiah rolled on his side, curling up and putting his arms around his head to protect it while Jackson fought it out, over and on Chris for who would use whom to climb to their feet first.

"NNNNNnnnnngggghhhh!" Chaucer scolded Larabee, allowing the gunslinger to win the wrestling match by sending Nathan to his knees with laughter.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Larabee demanded of the annoyed horse as it heaved itself to its feet.

Shaking his head until his mane flew, Chaucer trotted up to Chris, who automatically stepped out of biting range. Flipping his lip in derision at the wary gunslinger, the bay swung his head down to pick Josiah's boot up in his mouth, shaking the big man's leg until the spur rang.

"Spit him out!" J.D. ordered. Chaucer twisted the yelping Josiah around onto his back as he turned to face the kid, shaking the boot harder. Closing his eyes in concentration, J.D. repeated the order in Latin, like Ezra had taught him to.

Disgusted, the bay dropped Josiah back into the dirt.

"See?" J.D. told Chris proudly. "Ya just gotta know how to talk to him."

Just when Chris had decided the morning couldn't get any worse, he heard Mary call his name.

"Mr. Larabee?" she called again as Chris pulled himself together and turned to face her. Corcoran and the judge flanked her as she stepped out onto the street. Neither man was even trying to stop laughing.

"Mrs. Travis?" he replied, using the formality to warn her that he just wasn't in the mood.

Unfortunately for Chris, Mary was. "I'm not an expert on horses like you are, Mr. Larabee," Mary sweetly – and loudly – said. "But I couldn't help noticing your… problem."

To rub salt into the wound, Chaucer trotted right up to Mary, giving her a dressage bow before offering her his nose to be scratched. Chris decided that Chaucer was really Ezra's twin brother who'd been changed into a horse by a merciful witch.

"Mary, don't –" Judge Travis called as his daughter-in-law hitched her skirts to the side and easily stepped into the stirrup and then up into the saddle, hooking her free leg awkwardly over the pommel to mimic a modest sidesaddle seat.

"Well, I'll be –" said Francis.

"Don't swear!" eight voices interrupted Corcoran in chorus.

"Blessed!" the Irishman finished.

"How the…. How did you do that?" Chris demanded in a voice that snapped like a bear trap.

Milking the moment for all it was worth, Mary held her arms out for Larabee to help her down from the saddle.

"I don't think he likes your spurs," she told him, wrinkling her nose at him as he put her feet down on the ground.

Chris swallowed. "My spurs?"

"I've noticed that Mr. Standish doesn't wear any."

"No spurs?" Chris asked.

Mary patted his arm. "Mr. Standish doesn't seem to need any."

"I'd feel naked without my spurs…."

"Mr. Larabee!" Mary said primly, not quite managing to keep the smile off her face.

Blushing beet red, Chris let go of Mary and turned back toward Chaucer.

"No spurs," he repeated with a sigh, walking away from the danger of the Clarion's front porch to sit on the saloon steps to unbuckle his spurs. It was hard to get the buckles to cooperate; they were as used to being removed as his boots were to being polished. Finally, the deed was done, the rowled spurs safely stowed in the outside pockets of his long black duster.

Chaucer whickered and stamped his foot, but stood still long enough for Chris to swing up into his saddle. Once he felt the weight of his rider settle, Chaucer began to head out after Ezra.

"Oh, no ya don't," Chris said, pulling back on the reins and holding the horse tightly with his legs to let it know who was boss.

Chaucer obediently reared and spun on his back legs, leaping ten feet ahead and hitting the ground in a dead gallop, racing out of Four Corners at top speed as his rider had requested.

"Dang, that horse is fast," Buck admired, watching the dust cloud the bay kicked up as Chris crashed to the ground beside him.

"Are you all right?" Mary cried, rushing out into the middle of the street where Larabee lay spread-eagled in the dirt. Nathan also trotted toward the fallen gunslinger as fast as his aching sides and choking laughter allowed him.

"How many fingers?" Jackson asked Chris, holding up two. The answer he received had nothing to do with numbers and quite a lot to do with Nathan's ancestry.

"He's fine," the healer decided.

"Like hell I am!" Chris yowled, rolling over onto his stomach to get off his spurs. Ezra's goddamned horse had hair-trigger reflexes and cavalry training, and Chris had almost forgotten what kind of skill it took to manage a horse like that.

"You gonna be able to ride, cowboy?" Vin inquired with great satisfaction.

Flipping the tails of his duster to the side, Larabee rolled back onto his smarting backside and let Nathan help him up.

Chaucer trotted back into town, stopping a few feet away from the gunslinger; the bay hobbied its head and flipped its lip as if to say, 'You're supposed to stay in the saddle when I do that, stupid human!'

Dusting himself off, Chris limped determinedly toward the bay and heaved himself up into the saddle. It took a few circles that should have been turns for Larabee to get the hang of the light touch it took for Chaucer to obey his rein commands.

"Okay, let's go get 'em," Chris told the bay, hunkering in the saddle and kicking Chaucer into a sprint out of town. Despite himself, Larabee couldn't resist the thrill of an honest to God charge, especially one where there was no cannon or infantry waiting at the end of the ride to blow his head off.

++++

A few hundred yards out of town, Ezra Standish sat on the back of the ever-patient Job, Vin Tanner's spyglass raised to his eye as he watched the opera buffa performance play itself out on the main street in Four Corners. If Mister Tanner noticed his property was missing before Ezra had managed to return it to the tracker's possession, Standish was not above pointing out that he had simply borrowed the glass out of necessity, much as Vin had 'borrowed' Stutz's rifle. Ezra refused to admit to himself just how deeply it had cut him that not one of his associates had found anything amiss with Tanner's appropriation of the assassin's weapon, and yet they considered him to be a thief.

When Larabee finally got the touch right and raced out of town, the gambler lowered the telescope, collapsing it between his hands with an air of tremendous satisfaction. Wiping tears of mirth from his eyes and cheekbones, Ezra smiled fondly at the approaching dust cloud.

"All is forgiven, my own Bucephalus," he promised. "Indeed, I am greatly in your debt."^[vi]

End of Act One

ELEANOR'S NOTES - Eleanor's explanation of the story Acts, plus her 'thank yous'.

ST. BARB'S MONTAGES - The whole collection of Act One montages in a smaller format.

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NEXT CHAPTER OF MONGOOSE: A SENSIBLE MAN

[i] "I think that some of the people here are dead."
[ii] "Screw you and the horse you rode in on."
[iii] A violently anti-Southron Abolitionist newspaper. (Southron is an archaic spelling much used in the Confederacy to indicate a People as opposed to a direction)
[iv] Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin
[v] The Susan Constant was the name of the ship that brought the first successful English colonists to Virginia; the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock fame arrived later on. Jamestown was the first successful British colony in North America.
[vi] Bucephalus was the name of Alexander the Great's Horse.

Author's Confession: A silly point, but one that's important to me. The word 'sensible' has undergone a change in colloquial meaning through the years. In Jane Austen's and George Washington's time, to call someone 'sensible' would be like me calling someone 'sensitive', or 'emotional', or 'high strung'. What it meant to the West of the 1870s, I have no idea. I don't know when 'sensible' came to mean level-headed and practical, but since I'm writing and reading today, I'm using it as it would be used today. I apologize if this potential anachronism ruins the story for the historically sensitive.