Main Character: Ezra Standish
Rating: Rating: PG13, some language
Universe: Alternative Old West
Series: Home is Where the Heart Is
Disclaimer: I don't own them, don't sue. No money! I do not intend to make any money from this story or any of my other endeavors.
Comments: Read The Return of Love first.
Everything changed the day that Ezra Standish got a letter from the stagecoach mail.
Since his mother had wired that she would not be coming in the spring as she had previously said, Ezra had been relieved. Even happy when around the other Seven and his new bride Pong Li Standish.
The others had no idea what was going on when that letter arrived. So they sat at their usual table in the saloon and watched as Ezra quietly and sullenly got semi-drunk at a table in the corner near the shadows.
He would mumble to himself every once in a while, but none of them were close enough to hear what he was saying.
Finally, at midnight, he stumbled up from the table and went down to the stable with his letter still clutched in his hand. He rode out of town, steady in the saddle even though he was as close to drunk as he could be.
The other six just looked at each other and shrugged. Everything would be back to normal the next day. It usually was when the gambler got a burr under his saddle about something.
The town went on as it always did the next morning. Six of the Seven went on with business as usual. All but the gambler.
He was still out of town at ten in the morning. He was not expected to be anywhere for the next six hours, today being Friday and the time he usually started court at the raised poker table. It was one of three nights he played to supplement his ranch's cash flow.
Pong had not been happy to see him in his inebriated state the night before. She got up at the crack of dawn, leaving him to deal with his slighth hangover by himself.
Ezra carefully got up from his bed around nine and went to his closet and opened the door. Inside was a rainbow of working shirts, leather vests and pairs of matching pants. All exceptionally done at the local seamstress. Not the same quality as his fine gambling clothes of last year, but good enough.
But he wasn't looking for them this morning. He parted the clothing until he reached the large cloth bag that hung on a nail in the back of the closet. He carefully pulled it out and beat some of the collected dust from it before laying it on the bed.
Ezra opened the bag and for the first time since getting the letter from his Mother, he smiled.
"Hey, Buck, you seen Ezra around today?" asked JD as he skittered into the saloon for his lunch and milk.
Buck was sitting at their table with Chris and Vin. He looked up from his plate and frowned. "Naw, ain't seen that boy in three-four days except for the back of his head. You, Chris?"
Chris Larabee shook his head and sipped on an early whiskey. "Nah. Got a note from him to switch day and night duty at the jail. Ain't seen him face to face in days."
JD frowned again as he sat down and ordered from Inez. "Don't seem like him, not being amongst people. I don't even think I've seen him play any poker since he got that letter four days ago."
Nathan and Josiah came through the doors and sat down at the table. Nathan was also frowning.
"Got a problem, Nathan?" asked Buck.
Nathan shook his head. "Damndest thing. I got a note from that fool Southerner for some of the oil I recommend for chapped skin or sunburn. Wrote me a note and slipped it under my door the other night. Wanted me to give it to Inez so he could pick it up later."
Vin shook his head. "Maybe he's got a sunburn. Ya know he's fair skinned. Easy to burn in this country."
"Nah. I told you. He's been taking nights for the past four nights. Can't be that," said Chris.
Buck chased his beans around on his plate. "Boy's acting mighty strange lately. Mighty strange."
Chris finished off his food and sat back with another nip at his whiskey chaser. "Well, as long as he does his job, I don't care what he's up to."
Two more days went by and they began to worry.
No sign of the sociable gambler in the saloon or at the poker table. No day work at the jail or walking the streets, greeting the townsfolk. No one they talked to could say for sure that they had spoken to him face to face for days.
Buck and JD were getting a little frustrated. Other than being a con man and a gambler, Ezra most of the time presented a cheerful outlook that went along well with Buck and JD. JD looked up to him like an idol just as he did Buck and the others. He wondered where his friend had gone to.
Meanwhile, Chris and Vin were getting a feeling in the pit of their stomachs that something was about to happen in their town.
Nathan just shook it away as just a damn fool Southerner up to foolishness and Josiah was staking out the church like he expected Ezra to come down from the holy mountain and confess his sins.
On the seventh day after the letter and on the day the stage was due in town in one hour, a miracle happened.
Ezra came out into the daylight and sauntered over to the table that the Seven had claimed.
Everyone of them was shocked at his appearance. Nathan even dropped his fork and completely smushed the pumpkin pie he had been eating with his coffee.
Chris immediately straightened up in his chair and recognized what he saw. He had seen it a million times as he wandered the West as a gunfighter.
Standing in front of them was a man who knew how to handle a gun and would not hesitate to kill if provoked.
Gone was the work clothes and boots.
Ezra Standish stood in front of them as what Mary would claim as a 'bad element'.
His tight black boots came almost to his knees with a black sheath sewn on the outside of the right boot for a pearl handled knife. His pants were faded denim that was crossed by twin black leather holsters with matching pearl handled Remingtons. All he had on was a faded denim shirt and a black leather shoulder holster that housed a black handled snub-nosed Colt under his left arm. Ezra's derringer rig was no where to be seen and it was obvious by the two top buttons undone at his neck that he was not wearing long johns or an undershirt.
But most shocking of it all was that Ezra now sported a close-cut beard and mustache and his skin was the color of a man who spent many of his days in the baking desert sun. The dark color made his light green eyes pop from his face with a thousand-yard stare that made you shiver at what could be going on behind them.
The only thing that remained the same about the man was his cocked black flat-crowned hat.
Ezra ignored the stares of the men and Inez and ordered two straight shots of whiskey for his lunch.
Silence reigned for all of five minutes as Ezra gracefully picked up one whiskey after another and gulped them down and then ordered a beer as a chaser.
"Uh, Ezra?"
"Yep."
The others turned to each other with opened eyes. Did Ezra just say 'yep'?
"Ezra, you doin' okay. Feeling all right?" asked Nathan as he pushed his ruined pie away from himself.
"Uh-huh."
"Um, nice guns you got there, Ezra. Where'd you get them?" asked JD.
"Off a dead man in Savannah."
"Oh," was JD's weak reply.
There was silence until someone called out that the stage was coming in and the other six got to their feet to go for their usual study of who was coming into their town. Ezra stayed put.
"Ezra, ain't you coming out to see if they's any poker players comin' in?" asked Vin.
"Nope." Ezra raised up a new glass of beer and took a sip. He had been drinking steadily since he came into town an hour ago.
"Well, uh, see you later, son," said Josiah as he took Nathan by the arm to keep him from going over to the 'gambler' and feeling his forehead.
The stage carried the usual complement of newcomers to the town. One girl for the saloon down the street, much to Buck's delight. An older woman who had come to visit Mrs. Kresh at a near by ranch. A boot salesman from New Orleans. And an old fop of a man duded up to the nines and holding an ebony cane.
"Ah say, dear fellows, can you direct me to a man named Ezra Standish? Ah heard he was in this Godforsaken town and Ah need to see him on a little family business." The man's voice was a high tenor and reeked with a Southern accent.
They all watched as he looked around the town and pulled a delicate lace hanky out to place over his nose when he saw a few horse patties in the street.
"And your name would be?" questioned Chris.
"Oh, dear me, how dreadful of me. I'm Satchel Cove. You know, of the Atlanta Coves." He didn't present his hand to the rough looking men on the sidewalk. He didn't want to get his hands dirty.
"Uh, well Ezra is in the saloon here," spoke up Nathan, still in the grip of Josiah in case he got the bad idea to go in and take Ezra's temperature.
"How dreadful! A saloon. Ah was assured that he was the most consummate of gentlemen."
And like a cue from a play, out stepped Ezra into the light of the noon day. A cigar in his teeth and smoke gently rising around to cup under his hat brim for a moment and then be pulled away by the slight breeze. His wrists were resting lightly over the handles of his matching Remingtons.
"Somebody say mah name?"
It was almost comical the way Satchel Cove's eyes bugged out of his head at the sight of Ezra. It was obvious that Ezra's former style of dress had been described to him before Cove got to town. Cove had no idea what to do with the gunfighter he found standing before him.
Ezra, as usual to him, took immediate control of the whole situation. "Why, Ah believe it's Old Satch up here from the deep South." His accent became more pronounced at each word. "What's a man like you doing here in mah town?" It was an innocent sounding question, but not in the tone that Ezra said it.
Satchel Cove used his dainty hanky to mop the sudden sweat from his forehead as he studied the young man before him. He found nothing staring back at him but a life long gunfighter who cared not a whit about him or his business.
This was not what he had been promised. Where was the genteel man who did not let the rough nature of the West to detour him from acting and dressing as a gentleman from the South? The man he had been promised he would receive as man he would be proud to call a son and business partner?
"Yes, um, Ah do have some business to discuss with you ... son." Satchel said the last word with a little trepidation as to how the rough man before him would react with all his weapons.
Ezra just smiled a smile that would have made a rattler proud. "Oh, son. Ah think Ah like that. Does that mean that ol' bitch has sent you to me?" He went down off the sidewalk and put his arm around the thin, pale man. "How is the ol' woman? Ah ain't seen her in months."
"Uh ... uh, she is fine. Yes, a fine paragon of a woman," stuttered out the pasty man as Ezra steered him up the boardwalk and into the saloon.
Before he knew it he was in front of the long bar and Ezra was behind it picking up a bottle of Inez's most cheapest Red Eye and sloshing out two glasses of it before them. He put the bottle down with a thump and picked up his glass and indicated that Satchel should pick his up as well.
The rest of the Seven went back to their table to watch the show.
Ezra slightly raised his glass. "Well, here's to the ol' woman, wherever she is." And with that he turned the shot glass up and drank the awful stuff in one gulp and then stared at Satchel until he raised his glass and copied Ezra's gulping action.
The cost of such a foolhardy move was not lost on the man who did not imbibe in strong spirits. Cove quickly put down the glass and covered his mouth with his hanky and began a deep, rattling cough. His high tenor voice was lowered several octaves as he tried to talk through the shock to his system.
"Mr. Standish, Ah have a business opportunity that Ah felt needed your attention. It seems that Ah find myself without an heir and several large businesses that need a strong, Southern hand to control them." He looked uncomfortable as he looked over Ezra's rough dress. "Ah was told that you were the very soul of a gentleman from the South. A man who likes fine clothes and fine things around himself." The man seemed to steel himself as if he were about to drink another glass of Red Eye. "Suh, Ah have come, since you are the only male relative of Maude, to ask for your permission in marrying that lovely vision and making you mah son and business partner in Atlanta."
Ezra grinned at him until Satchel Cove flinched away from him at the bar. Ezra slowly leaned forward until both of his hands were resting on the bar and his face was less than a foot from that of the older man. "Iffen you want to marry my ol' lady, go right ahead. But Ah don't come with the package. You ain't marrying me. Ah'll stay right here and keep at what Ah've been doin' for the past three years, and that's shooting fellas." His right hand strayed to his Remington and caressed it like a lover would caress his woman. "Ah'm right good at what Ah do and Ah wouldn't take kindly to anyone trying to force me out of my spot here. Do you get my drift, Mr. Cove?"
The pasty older man gulped and then pulled on his sleeves until he could meet Ezra's cold green eyes again. "Uh, Ah'm glad you approve of your Mother's marriage to me. And Ah hope in time you'll come to think of me as a Fathah and join us in Atlanta. It would be very profitable to both of us if you did."
Ezra leaned back with a snort and put back the whiskey. "Have a good lawyer handy, because when she divorces you, she'll take you for everythin' you have. And the only profit Ah want is the satisfaction of taking down a man who's gunning for me. Anything else is for fools. Money won't do you no good in the grave." He looked back at Cove with a dead face and glowing eyes. "And Ah'll most likely be dead before Ah'm thirty-five."
"Oh, you, uh, ... look handy enough with those guns, son. And if you come to glorious Atlanta you won't have to worry about all that."
Ezra laughed out loud. "Mr. Cove, have you ever heard of the Atlanta Quick Gun?"
Suddenly, Chris and Buck straightened up in their chairs. That was a name that was heard often about years ago in the gunfighter circles and trails just after the war.
"Pard, you don't think ... " asked Buck in a whisper.
Chris shook his head in wonder and waived him off, trying to hear Ezra's conversation.
The others just looked confused as to what was going on with their gambler.
"Uh, yes-yes. Ah've heard of that particular piece of legend in Atlanta. It's nothing but fluff, Ah assure you. You have nothing to worry about in Atlanta, son." The man looked pleased with himself.
Ezra leaned back against the small ledge that was in front of the shelves that were lined with Inez's tools of the saloon trade. His posture was relaxed but his eyes were tight, looking over the saloon with a practiced eye looking for trouble.
"Then you're looking at a tough piece of fluff, Mr. Cove. And Ah don't have anything to worry about in Atlanta from the Quick Gun because Ah'm the Quick Gun."
That was the last straw for the gentleman from Atlanta. He took one look at Ezra's guns and high tailed it out of the saloon with Ezra's delighted laugh following on his heals. It took almost five minutes for the man to finally come to a snorting halt as he picked up a bottle of better whiskey and a few glasses and ambled over to the Seven's table.
Chris Larabee was looking at him like he was a wolf in sheep's clothing and Buck's eyes were bugged out of his head. Buck leaned over to Chris. "I told you he was fast when that Sweet fella tried to kill him. Didn't I try to tell you?"
The rest were still confused and JD was beginning to get cross. "Would someone mine telling me what's going on? Who the hell is the Atalanta Quick Gun? And why the hell is Ezra dressed like that," asked J.D.
Buck smacked the younger man across the back of his head, causing his hat to fall to the table. The younger man was about to whine, but Buck shook his head.
"The Atlanta Quick Gun was a man who killed four men in Atlanta over debts they owed to him. Then he moved on to Savannah and set up there until he killed himself four more men over faro debts. He was said to be one of the fastest guns to come out of the South," explained Chris with a pensive look in his eyes.
The others turned to look at Ezra as he calmly sipped his whiskey and pushed the bottle to the center of the table to allow the rest to help themselves.
"Is that true, Ezra? You're a killer?" asked JD in a quivering voice.
Ezra put down his glass and turned to the youngest of the group. He had never lied to JD and he wouldn't start. "Yes, Ah'm the Atlanta Quick Gun. Mothah had gotten up to no good and forced me to defend our honor before we could get out of town. Now, Savannah wasn't just over a faro game. Those were name makers. Ah'm sure Mr. Larabee can describe what a name maker is."
JD turned to Chris with a question in his eyes. Chris sighed. "Yeah, I know what they are. They're the ones that want to get a name for themselves as gunfighters and then hire themselves out to the highest bidder. You bag yourself a big name and you're bound to have your own name by the end of the week as a fast gun."
JD turned back to Ezra. "So, you were just defending yourself?"
Ezra sighed right down to his bones. "Yes, JD. It was either me and Mothah in Atlanta or them, and I decided that it would be us that rode out of that town alive. Savannah was just an accident. Somehow I got recognized from Atlanta and my hand was forced."
Chris grew quiet. Then he spoke. "They say the Atlanta Quick Gun was a fast son-of-a-bitch. One of the fastest. What would have happened should I have tried to make you leave after you took that money?" The question was softly put, but the underlying hard meaning to it was unmistakable.
Chris had always thought of himself as the fast gun of the seven. The man with the tough reputation that was respected by other gunfighters and his men in town. He couldn't conceive of another taking his place in the ranks of the Seven as the local gunfighter. Even after Ezra had taken Emy Nye in Silverton and Lucas Sweet just outside of town.
Ezra's green, vibrant eyes looked over at Chris with a calculating look. "As Ah have seen and studied you for two years by then, you would have bit the dust. Mrs. Travis would even now be wearing black in memory of your name."
"And if we went at it when we met?"
Ezra's eyes hardened. "This is not a good topic of conversation, Mr. Larabee."
Chris pushed. "What would have happened?"
Ezra cocked his head and his right hand patted his guns in a compulsive way. "Then Mary Travis would not have known you well enough to wear black in your memory."
Satchel Cove sent a wire to his lady love, Maude Standish, to tell her that the deal was off. It took her all of two days hard riding to get to town. She reined up in front of the saloon she had cut out from under Ezra some time back and stormed the building.
Inside, she got a shock.
Her son was still wearing his Atlanta Quick Gun get up and the oil cooked with coffee beans was still making his face a darker color. Pong had decided that he could keep the beard and mustache for now, but only until his business was done with Mr. Cove and his Mother.
Maude was speechless for a moment.
Ezra was sitting at the table with Vin and Chris when he noticed his Mother at the door. "Well, hello, Mothah. I see that Fathah has already contacted you ovah your plans falling through. You arrived here in town in an amazingly good time."
She took four steps forward from the door and slapped him across the face. "How dare you? Do you know how much money Cove is worth? Do you realize how much you have cost me?" She was panting hard by the end of the sentence. "And what in the Good Lord's name are you doing in that get up from Atlanta?"
Ezra slowly put a hand up to the cheek that she had slapped.
Money.
That's all she had ever cared about.
"Ah will not be used in your schemes anymore, Mothah. You want money, go get it yourself."
His hard edged voice broke her out of her momentary fury and she pulled out a chair at the table and sat near him. "But son, he's rich. Ah could be a very rich widow and you could be a very rich owner of several businesses. All you have to do is ... is go back to your usual dress and manner and Cove will offer you his fathahly duties."
"Ah have a ranch here, Mothah. Ah don't need businesses or Mr. Cove's fathahly duties."
He paused as the rest of the seven filed into the saloon and stopped dead at the sight of Maude at their table. They took a nearby table and sat with eyes glued to her and Ezra. Ezra sighed. He hated it when he had an audience for his private business.
He held up his left hand to show his mother. "Besides, Ah have husbandly duties here."
Maude snapped back like he had slapped her in return. "And when did this happen," she hissed through clenched teeth.
Ezra shrugged and picked up the whiskey bottle on the table and poured out a glass. He didn't offer his mother any.
Anger kindled in her normally bland eyes. She wasn't an emotional person, but the fall through of this deal had put a fury in her. "Why do you have to be so much like Daniel?"
Ezra's eyes snapped up from his glass and he stood up so fast that his chair toppled over. "Don't you ever mention him again. You have no right to even say his name." Ezra's eyes were hard and had gone a shade of green that Chris and Vin had never seen before. "And as for mah marriage, I can marry if Ah want. Ah don't need your permission. She happens to be a very lovely Chinese girl by the name of Pong." He leaned in close to his Mother. "And if you ever go near her, I'll do more than that slap you gave me when you came in that door."
With that, he left, his angry stride making his black boots hit the wooden floor with sharp sounds.
Maude tried to recover in front of the other men. She patted her hair and then smoothed her dress. "Well, whatever has gotten into that boy. Talking to his Mothah that way."
Chris smirked. "A lot's gotten into that boy since you didn't show up for your visit to see his ranch this spring."
She fluttered a hand. "A ranch is not for a gentleman."
Chris outright laughed. "I hate to break it to you, Maude, but your son ain't no gentleman any more."
Ezra got home in a foul mood. How dare she bring up Daniel? And in public?
But one look at Pong in the kitchen fixing supper was a good cure for what ailed him. She looked up at his entrance and smiled.
"You look good, gunfighter man. Can you shave that beard yet?"
He snorted a laugh. "Ah will, my dear, just for you." He went to their washstand in the bedroom and scrapped the beard and mustache off and then vigorously rubbed his face to get some of the color off.
It would take a week or so, but the false color of his skin would rub off.
He went back to the kitchen and got a kiss for his troubles. Now that was something that made a man stand up and take notice.
They had been married since his thirtieth birthday and had been a happy couple since that time. But now he sensed some hesitation in her.
"What is it Pong?"
Pong looked down at the floor of her new home. "Is your Mother coming out here?"
Ezra shook his head. "No, little one. I told her to stay in town."
Pong seemed to let out a breath of relief. "Good, I have something to tell you."
Ezra became concerned. Pong was not acting at all like her excited girlish self since they had been married. It was if she expected some kind of rejection from him. "What is it, darlin'? You can tell me."
"I think I pregnant," she softly whispered out.
It took a moment for it to sink in. "Pregnant?" Without another word he grabbed her and swung her small frame around in tight circles. "We're goin' to be parents?" he asked in a hushed voice. A joyful voice.
Not getting the rejection she expected, she returned his wide smile. "Yes. And I bet he just like you, my love."
Was he ever going to have a party when he got back to town tomorrow and told the others!
Next: The Lessons on Keeping Sharp
The End
February 10, 2003
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