The Game is
Afoot
By JudyL
May 12, 2013
Summary
- 1 hr fic – Boot - Sequel to my Challenge story saga J - you can find
the others here: http://www.pawfectmanners.com/fanfic/m7challenge1.htm
*******
Vin
frowned. He’d been watching Ezra since the man first exited the saloon this
morning, wanting to make sure the gambler was okay after his recent injury.
Ezra still hadn’t remembered why he’d been taking the more dangerous shortcut
home from Eagle Bend earlier in the week. And his current behavior made Vin wonder if the head injury hadn’t done more harm than
Nathan thought.
Ezra had come out onto the boardwalk with an odd, stilted
pace, stopping every couple of steps to rock back and forth on his feet. Vin checked for horse traffic then crossed the street as
Ezra sat down on one of the chairs in front of the saloon and took of one of
his boots.
“Ezra?”
Vin asked softly once he reached the Southerner. “Somethin’ wrong?”
His friend grumbled under his breath as he stuck his
hand into the boot he’d already removed. “Nothing!” he exclaimed with a
grimace, tossing the boot to land with a clunk on the ground beside him.
“Alright,” Vin replied,
taking a step back, knowing how cantankerous Ezra could be and not wanting to
get into it with the still recovering man.
Ezra looked up, bewildered. “What?” he asked, then
his face cleared as he realized he had an audience. “Oh, Vin, I didn’t see you
come up. What did you say?”
Vin
pursed his lips, was this a trap? Were Ezra’s brains scrambled enough to make
him act so erratic? He decided to give it another try. “I asked if there was
somethin’ wrong,” he tilted his chin up briefly, “with your boots?”
Ezra looked down at the offending articles and
scowled. “Yes, there is. I thought perhaps there was simply something that had
slipped down into the lining or a clod of dirt on the
sole, but,” he looked into the dark interior of the second boot, “I cannot see
or feel anything that would make them uneven. It feels as though I am walking
on an irregular surface.”
Vin
picked up the boot Ezra had tossed and examined it closely. He stuck his hand
in to feel and found nothing. He turned the boot over and saw only a smooth, well-tooled leather sole. Then he looked along the
stitching that bound the sole to the upper boot. His eyes widened momentarily
then squinted as he examined the stitching more closely.
“The stitchin’s been cut
along here,” he said. “Looks like it’s been glued back down though.” Vin handed the boot back to Ezra, swapping him for the
second boot. “This one, too,” Vin said after a moments
study.
“Why on earth…” Ezra asked rhetorically. “I must
assume that I did this, though I cannot imagine why.”
Vin
shrugged. “Only one way to find out,” he said, unsheathing his hunting knife
and holding it out questioningly. “You want to do it?”
Ezra sighed. “I suppose they will need to be
re-soled in any case.” He took the knife and carefully inserted it between the
boot leather and the sole where the stitching had already been cut. The glue
was stiff, but gave with a little pressure. He pried the sole away enough to
stick his finger in and looked up in surprise to meet Vin’s
eyes. “There is something in there.”
It took a few minutes to get the folded sheets of
paper out of each boot. Ezra opened them and together he and Vin
examined the pages.
Ezra gasped, his fingers tracing the familiar
handwriting, though he still had no recollection of how the pages had come into
his possession.
“What is it, Ezra?” Vin
asked, seeing the gambler’s complexion pale.
“This is Mother’s handwriting, but I’ve never seen
these pages before.”
“Did you meet her in Eagle Bend?”
Ezra rubbed his forehead. “I do not recall.”
“Well, what do they say?” Vin
asked, not sure why Ezra would hide letters from his mom in his boots like
that.
“I’m not sure,” Ezra answered as he looked at the
fancy writing.
“Why not?”
Vin asked, suddenly concerned that the head injury had
affected Ezra’s ability to read.
“It’s in code,” Ezra replied, missing Vin’s concern completely as he pondered the letters. “A code
we only use when we need utmost secrecy. I need to decipher it with the key.”
“Key?”
“The key to the code, it’s a list of what each
symbol means,” Ezra answered distractedly. “This cannot be good, Vin. Did I hide these, or did Mother? Did we meet in Eagle
Bend?” A moment of silence stretched between them, then
Ezra stood abruptly. “I must decipher this immediately,” he said by way of
explanation as he turned and headed back into the saloon and presumably to his
room.
Vin
frowned. Was Maude in trouble? Why hadn’t she come to Four Corners? What had
happened in Eagle Bend? His gaze drifted to the boardwalk and landed on Ezra’s
abandoned boots.
The end…. For now
I like feedback. JudyL