Main Character: Ezra Standish
Rating: Rating: PG13, some language
Universe: Alternative Old West
Series: Home is Where the Heart Is
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue. You'll only get some Cheez Doodles and a bag of muffins.
Comments: Didn't write Ezra with his sexy Southern accent this time. I'm a Southern girl myself, and it's easier to think and talk in Southern than to write it after years of English class for ėproper English' lessons. And yes, Ms. Canary, I don't write in complete sentences! Oh, and I'm going on the premise that Serpents was the last show. The Obsession story just didn't seem like the ending show to me even though Obsession is listed last on episode guides. It made no mention of anything that had happened in Serpents or made closure on its topics. So here's my hack at it!
John Watson and CBS own The Magnificent Seven and all of its characters. I seek, nor shall receive, profit from this narrative.
They were all going to die.
He calculated the odds and it did not look good for the Seven. If he were a gambling man, which he wasn't, he wouldn't put money on them surviving the day. Hell, they wouldn't survive the next ten minutes. Unless something was done.
Unless he did something.
Aw, hell.
It had been two months since he tried to take the money and had come back to save Mary Travis from the assassin. His physical wounds had healed, but not the mental ones.
With no hard evidence to make any arrests over the whole political debacle or someone to come forward for the money, it was never claimed. Ezra couldn't bring himself to keep his share when it was finally divided up and given out. He had only taken one of the bills that saved his life, one that showed a bullet hole and his blood. It was to be a reminder to himself of how his greed had almost destroyed his life and yet saved his life at the same time. His own private riddle of a mercurial universe. He kept it in his inside coat pocket over his heart with his other important valuables.
Ezra quietly went to Mary Travis and gave her his share of the money. The rumor was going around that she was collecting money to help out the school fund and Ezra had always been a sucker for children. She didn't seem surprised to see him with his offering. She just touched him softly on the shoulder and murmured her thanks with understanding eyes.
There were hazy recollections that Louisa Perkins left Buck's proposal of marriage behind citing irreconcilable differences with the man, leaving the Romeo at a loss. Ezra wasn't sure what had happened between them since he had been dwelling on other matters as the time of the affair. And to lose her so close to the loss of Hilda during that whole Ella Gaines set-up must have been heart wrenching. If Ezra hadn't been so far down himself at the time, he might have tried to cheer Buck up.
During his own down spiral, he had sometimes caught Buck's sad eyes going back to Inez to appease his loneliness. Over those two months, Buck seemed to bounce back from the loss of Louisa. His natural sunny nature slowly came back to him and he went back to hitting on Inez every day in the saloon.
Ezra didn't bounce back.
Buck didn't known, but Louisa had taken one look at Inez and had understood without a doubt that Buck loved the Mexican woman no matter how much he said that he loved her and wanted to marry. In some part of his heart, he would always pine for Inez. Louisa left town with the hope that Inez would soon see what she was missing.
Buck and the rest of the Seven still seemed to allow Ezra to be with the group. They played poker games and drank a few whiskeys with him on occasion but otherwise gave him a wide berth. He couldn't ascertain their intentions toward him. Emotions that he had buried long ago resurfaced to cloud his ability to read people. But he did know one thing. There was a pain so deep in his soul that it took his breath away. He couldn't really identify the pain yet, not being on too intimate of terms with emotions, but he would figure it out eventually.
All he knew was that he felt the pain each time the others shared a joke or moved in tandems to quiet down the rowdy cowboys in the saloon. Each time JD was slapped in the back of the head by Buck. Each time Vin and Chris sat in their corner and shared a quiet moment. Each time Nathan asked Josiah to help him with a patient or Nathan helped Josiah with his church.
Each time he was left alone at his card table with strangers for company.
And each time Chris Larabee and the others had cut him with searching looks. He didn't know what they were looking for when they watched him from a distance.
What was the pain? He didn't know, but ever since the night he took that money Ezra P. Standish had become a lost man.
His mind forced him to turn back to the present. Oh yes, the moment they were all about to die.
It was a gang that was going to kill them. The Seven were finally meeting their match. Led by the Morales brothers, it was made up of more than 17 members of cutthroats, rapists, thieves, and murderers. Up to this point, they had raped and pillaged their way across a good area of the territory, leaving broken homes and dead bodies behind them.
The orders came from Judge Travis to hunt down these mad dogs. As if nothing could stop the Seven. Never mind the odds.
Ezra snorted.
Of course, Larabee came up with a plan. It was his job as leader to lead the way. That was why Ezra was up here on the ridge with a box connected to twenty loads of TNT in strategic locations along the ridge and trail below. The plan was to decoy the gang into the pass and get out as fast as they could so Ezra could fall back to a safe distance and trigger the loads to bury the gang. They would all go back in and pick up the wounded gang members and stragglers. If anything was left of them.
Only it was going all wrong.
The decoy group was pinned down in the rocky pass. For the moment, Ezra was relatively safe on the ridge with a bird's eye view of the whole mess.
He was beginning to feel a slightly different pain as he saw the others being slowly overrun. He didn't even try to take a moment to figure out this new emotion. There wasn't any time.
From his belly down position on the ridge, he raised his Remington rifle and sighted in on one of the gang and fired. The man went down. He was not as good as Vin was at long distance shooting, but he was an excellent shot.
Something more drastic was needed if the others were going to get out of this alive.
Odds ran through his head again. Balancing the numbers like he was taught to do at a very early age. The most important number he had been taught by his mother was the number one. As in, ėlook out for number one'. At all costs. But he shook his head like a dog and flung that idea away. He already listened to that advice twice before. It hadn't worked then and it wouldn't work now.
Now, six was a better number. He glanced over the pass laid out in front of him and came up with a plan.
Ezra raised his rifle again and sighted. He shot. A very angry Vin looked up as rock dust flashed in front of his face. He angrily waived Ezra off with his mare's leg when he spotted Ezra's red coat on the ridge. Ezra just waived his rifle to the east and then made a hand signal that they should retreat. All six of them.
Vin's anger dissipated and he studied Ezra's movements.
Vin finally elbowed Chris in the side next to him. "Hey, Chris, looks like Ez's got a plan." He pointed up to the red-coated man on the ridge.
"He's probably got squat for a plan," growled out Chris. He was angry and a little fearful for his men. This was his plan and it was going all wrong. It was up to him to straighten this mess out. He didn't have time for the gambler's wild schemes right now.
So Chris crossly shrugged it off and went back to ignoring the man in the red coat. Vin gave Ezra one more look and then went back to watching the gang as well.
Ezra looked at them in disbelief. They would rather die by being overrun by a cutthroat gang than listen to what he told them to do? That made him mad! That emotion he readily identified. He also felt something that was deeper that made his soul burn.
Suddenly all the searching looks, all the silence, all the solitude came to a boiling head and took on a new connotation in his mind. He felt a hot/cold chill run down his spine and his eyes hardened into light jade chips. Something deep inside of him abruptly broke.
They didn't trust him. Most of them had made it clear that they didn't trust him with that money and he had proved them right. That had to be it. That would certainly explain their behavior toward him the past two months.
He lifted his rifle again and sighted. This time Chris's hat went sailing as far as the chin strap would allow. Chris turned a glare up the ridge at the con man.
Ezra emphatically raised his hand and made the retreat signal again and waived his arm to the east.
"He shot my hat," grumbled Chris and lifted his rifle.
Vin pushed the gun down and squinted up at Ezra. "Maybe he's got a good plan. He is up high. Maybe he sees something that we don't."
"Doubt it," replied Chris sullenly and went back to watching the advancing gang.
By now, the others in the rocky debris overheard the comments made by Vin about Ezra.
"Maybe we best get out of here, Chris," commented Nathan as he brought up his gun and fired at a slinking man near the inner pass rocks.
"What, you trust what that Johnny Reb is telling us?" Chris wasn't able to think up one option to get them out of this pass alive and it was making his heart skip a beat. Focusing on his fear, he needed someone to vent his frustrations on and that someone was Ezra.
Nathan looked up at Ezra. He and the gambler had a rocky past, both on polar opposites. "I don't want to die down here. Maybe we need another plan."
They were considering their options as they went back to watching the gang advance.
What the absolute bowels of Hades? Ezra could definitely not believe this! They were just going to ignore him. He looked over to the east and saw the large cliff rocks that could be used as cover when he blew the TNT. They would be safe there if they would only fall back a few hundred feet.
They didn't even trust him enough to get them to safety. They were all going to die because they didn't trust him to back them up in a fight. This was his fault. It would be on his head if they died now.
No, they were going to live today and he was not going to be denied. His usual self preservation deserted him.
'What the hell,' Ezra mentally asked himself as he stood up on the ridge, completely exposing himself to any gunfire that might come from below. He knew where each of his charges of TNT lay. He also knew that at the depth that he had buried them that his Remington rifle's bullets would set them off if he hit them right. And he would hit them right.
He picked a charge that was exactly between the main part of the advancing gang and his associates. He held his breath and let the shot go. An explosion following that threw dirt, sand, cacti and wagon wheel sized rocks into the air. One of the gang members screamed in agony as the blast ripped off his leg.
The six of the Seven that were hidden in the rocky debris looked up at the ridge, startled. Ezra still stood without cover, his rifle still raised to his eye with his right hand and his left hand ordering them to retreat to the east again.
When they didn't respond, he sighted and triggered another bundle of TNT that was closer to their hideout in the rocks.
By this time, the outlaws had noticed Ezra and were trying to get a bead on him. Lucky for him, they were all bad shots when it came to shooting uphill with the sun in their eyes.
"Damn! What is he doing!" screamed Chris as the rocks fell on their position. "He's goin' to get shot standin' up like that!"
"I guess our brother really wants us to fall back to the east," murmured Josiah as he looked at the figure on the edge of the ridge. "Looks like he means business."
In seconds, Ezra and his rifle forced the six men on the ground to retreat to the east. He gave them the signal to retreat one last time and then turned his attention back to the gang.
Rifles were being carefully positioned and shot in his direction. He crouched for a moment as he felt the heat and wind of a bullet pass his ear. The gang was getting better at judging the angle to get at him. He raised back up and put a round into one of the men. The man went down in a bloody heap.
Ezra gave one more look to see if his associates made it to the cliff rocks. They must have. He could no longer see them.
Now was the time.
He felt a ricochet catch him high on his left arm, but it didn't matter now. He went back to the box that was connected to the rest of the charges. With his rifle, he only triggered five loads of his TNT and most of them had been in the ground. The ones that he would trigger with the box would topple the sides of the pass down on the rocky bottom. And he didn't have time to get to a safe distance with the trigger box.
He was going to blow it now.
Six was better than one. That was sound odds.
Maybe this would bring him some peace from the unfamiliar feelings that had been boiling inside of him since he took that money. Possibly ease that broken thing that beat quickly beneath his ribs as he lay his hand on the trigger.
He closed his eyes and hit the plunger.
His world was turned into Armageddon.
Chris and the others heard the explosions just as they hunkered behind the big cliff rocks. The rocks were just as Ezra expected. Perfect cover to stop them from being crushed in the turmoil. The harshest thing to reach them was a fine grit that coated them all from head to foot.
When the sound died down, JD leaped up from his spot. "Vin, was that the count we agreed on?"
Vin looked out from behind his rock with his mare's leg in his hands and carefully looked for any gang members. There was only rubble from the pass' walls in sight.
He knew what JD was asking. The plan called for the six on the ground to get the gang in the pass and then skedaddle out. Ezra was to make sure they were out and then retreat to safety with the trigger, give it a quick fifty count and then blow the TNT. It didn't seem like a quick fifty count to Vin.
"No, Kid, I don't think it was."
JD moved to leap over his rock and head back to the site. Buck grabbed him by his gun belt and pulled him back. "Now, Kid, you got to wait. Some of that gang might have gotten through before the TNT blew."
"What about Ezra," asked JD, his eyes wide with fear.
"We'll just have to wait, Kid," replied Buck, with just as much fear.
Ezra woke up suddenly and painfully. He was surprised to find himself alive. He hadn't expected to live through the experience.
Ezra carefully raised himself and noticed that the sky was no longer so close to him. He was at ground level and not on the ridge. In fact, he looked up to see that there was no longer a ridge. Huge rends were in the sides of the rocky pass. It looked like God's own hand struck the cliffs with a mighty blow.
The newer, unidentified emotion from the ridge was back. He twisted around. Where were the others? Were those cliff rocks safe enough? Had they survived? He couldn't take it if they died because they couldn't trust him to help them in their time of need.
He picked himself up and tried to brush himself off. His red coat was a total loss. It was a mess with tears in it and blood from various cuts on his body darkening the material. He shrugged out of the coat and let it drop to the rock pile he was standing on and found that his shirt and vest appeared no better. He also felt a terrific pain in his right wrist. He looked down to see that his derringer's rigging was badly bent and it was pressing into his wrist and tendons with a vengeance. He popped the derringer out with a little difficulty and then unstrapped the useless harness. He also let that drop to the rocks as he pocketed the small gun.
He checked his other weapons. His Colt was still in his shoulder holster and his Remington was still at his right hip, both being held in place by the leather loops over the triggers. His rifle was no where to be seen. His brown leather holsters seemed fine with no damage to the buckles or strappings as he checked them over.
He unlooped his Remington and Colt, moving them in their sheaths to make sure the inside of the holsters were not roughed up or dust clogged to mess up a fast draw. He then drew both of the guns and checked the actions and bullet chambers to make sure all was in working order. He held the guns lightly as he carefully looked around for the gang. He saw no one.
Ezra quickly holstered his guns and started climbing over the rock pile that was facing east. Where he had sent the cretins before the big bang that still rang in his ears. He wanted to see if they were alive.
He almost fainted in relief when he heard them coming in his direction. He paused until he could identify all six voices.
Each of them were checking the rocks for gang members. JD and Vin were even calling for him.
Calling for him.
Ezra started toward the sounds of their voices when a funny thing happened. The closer he got to them, the slower his feet moved. He finally stopped cold. Just as he saw the top of Vin's dusty brown slouch hat, he jumped to his right and hid in the rocks.
He hid from them.
His emotional pain was so bad he hardly felt his physical pain from the explosion. He needed a horse and he needed to get away. He needed to think about these past two months of solitude and his sloppily controlled emotions.
Mother would be so disappointed to see her son such an emotional wreck when he wasn't supposed to have emotions to begin with. She'd made sure to brow beat them out of him years ago.
He thought back to the encounter with the gang. Most of them had been on foot in the pass so that they could keep to the cover of the rocks. Somewhere to the west was bound to be a few orphaned horses. He would hate to leave his own horse behind, but getting away without being seen was paramount.
He listened to his team, his former friends, searching the rocks for a moment longer, not able to face them now. And then he left.
He just left.
"You see him?" shouted JD over the piles of rocks.
No one saw anything as of yet. The gang was probably buried so deep that they would never find them.
Then Josiah shouted over from the base of the ridge.
The other five scrambled to his position in a panic over the pained tone of his voice.
Josiah turned and they saw that he held a red scrap of material in his hands. There were tears in his eyes. It was Ezra's coat.
"No," said JD. Buck grabbed him around his shoulders and hugged him to his side.
Vin went over and searched the rocks. His hand came up with the bent rigging of the derringer that they had all seen a hundred times over the last two years. Both items were stained with blood.
"Damn fool," muttered Chris. Why had Ezra done this?
"You shut up, Chris!" JD suddenly shouted from Buck's grasp. "He made us leave and then sacrificed himself for us. He didn't even give it a quick fifty count like we planned." Tears started streaming down his face. "He forced us to go knowing he would have to do it! And all you can say is 'Damn fool'!"
Chris flinched back in shock. No one talked to him like that, especially JD. "Ezra didn't have to do this, JD. We could have—"
"Shut up!" shouted JD again. "Where were all your damn plans when we were pinned down? It was our job to get out so that he could get to safety and blow the walls. We're the reason he did this!" he jerked his finger down to point at the devastated ground. Buck hugged him tighter, letting the Kid's tears fall.
"May the good Lord watch over him," murmured Josiah as he held the red coat closer to his chest. Nathan placed a hand on Josiah's shoulder and bowed his head.
Vin just let his mare's leg sag as he put the bent derringer rigging in his waist band to take back to town.
Chris just turned away and went back to the task at hand. No one saw the glitter of unshed tears in his eyes.
It was a very quiet group of men that picked over the rubble, gathering up what evidence that was left of the gang so they could head back to town.
Back to town with one less member by their side and a hurting in their hearts.
The magic that made up the Magnificent Seven was no more.
Ezra found the horses on the west side. He picked out the best, a red and white paint with lots of bottom and let the rest of them loose to forage for themselves. He mounted up and looked over his shoulder where his former colleagues were going over the rocks in the pass. He knew what they would infer from his bloody coat and destroyed rigging. Maybe it would be better this way.
He kicked his new horse into a gallop and turned south, away from the town he had lived in for the past two years. He didn't have anything with him other than his guns, three rings, a pocket watch and the sixty dollars in his boot that he kept for his nightly poker games. It would have to be enough.
As of today, Ezra P. Standish, con man and card sharp, no longer existed.
But it didn't mean that the pain was any less.
The next months in town went badly for the remaining six members of the Magnificent Seven. They couldn't bring themselves to ask the Judge to hire a replacement for Ezra. They tried to inform Ezra's mother, but she was no where to be found. She only let her presence be known when she wanted Ezra for some con or other. One of these days she would come breezing through and find out her ėdarling boy' was dead.
Chris was back in his bottles of whiskey and, for the first time, Vin was joining him. All JD and Buck could get out of Chris was an occasional 'Damn fool' as he constantly stared at the raised gambling table that Ezra used to occupy. Vin just brooded over a glass of amber fluid and shook his head as he thought of ways this whole thing could have been avoided. He couldn't come up with one single plan that would have kept Ezra alive.
Nathan was staying close to his clinic and saw the sick folks in the area. He was keeping busy and his hands were occupied. When Vin wasn't looking, he stole the beat up derringer rigging from Vin's wagon and at night he worked on straightening the metal out and replacing the torn and pulled leather straps. He didn't know why he needed to do it since he never really got along with the gambling, amoral man. He just did.
Josiah could be seen working on his church. He would only leave it when an emergency in town came up or if he was in need of supplies such as nails or wood from the local stores. In the trunk at the foot of his bed in the church, were the tightly rolled up remains of the robin red coat that he found at the pass. Josiah prayed over them every night before going to bed.
JD and Buck were basically keeping the town together. JD was staying at the sheriff's office most of the time, keeping a close eye on the wanted posters and locking up the occasional drunk from the saloons in town. Buck made sure he went out to greet each of the stages and carefully looked over the strangers that loafed into town.
They both split the duties of caring for Ezra's beloved horse. He was found wandering in the area with the other horses in the aftermath at the pass. The horse had pulled his line free during the explosion, but he looked like he came through it fine. It gave them a little comfort to have something of Ezra's nearby.
They both hurt. Heck, they all hurt even though none of them would discuss it out loud. But JD's basic youthful energy and ability to heal and Buck's natural sunny outlook was getting them on the road to recovery. They knew if anything big happened in town, they could count on their brooding friends to help. Nothing would ever change that. Not even a heavy blow like losing Ezra.
He had tended his own wounds on the trail and was starting to heal nicely. He had even started wearing the plain shirts in the paint's saddle bags so he wouldn't be seen in public covered in blood. Of course, he had washed the garments in a small creek with a sliver of soap he had found before allowing them to touch his body. Some things about him would never change. His pants had been salvageable, needing only to be washed and some sewing at the first town he reached.
He started affecting a softer southern accent and spoke without his fancy words. He was a good actor when he needed to be.
Days later and three towns to the south, the new man in the town of Silverton was making a new life for himself. This was the fourth town he had reached and he registered at the hotel for three days as Devin Haywood to study the town. After deciding this was a good town for settling, he went to the local bank. He wired St. Louis and emptied an account he owned under an assumed name that even his mother didn't know about. He got the money transferred to a bank in New Orleans and then to Chicago. When he felt the money was bounced around to enough false names and accounts, he finally transferred it to a town about fifty miles away by the name of Shuker. He personally went to that town and picked up his money.
By the time he got back to Silverton, he was carrying a thousand dollars in his boots. He was also the proud owner of a new wardrobe.
Gone were the flashy coats and expensive materials. He now wore dark blue jeans, either blue or tan shirts, a dark blue tanned leather vest and a dark brown leather overcoat for rain that went past his knees. He got rid of his expensive squaretoed boots and got a pair of rich brown boots that matched his rig for his Remington and was more suitable for a working cowhand. He no longer carried his Colt under his left arm. His derringer was permanently packed away.
The only thing he kept was his black gambler's hat, but even that got a new look. He added a dark blue leather band to the base of the brim that matched his vest and asked the local leather shop to punch holes in the brim to run a chin strap through to keep it from blowing away if he got a job as a cowboy or shotgun man on an ore wagon from the local mine. Oh, yes, he could pull off either job if he had to.
Dev started asking around about who needed help with their ranches or if the mine was in need of a shotgun for runs. He also asked about the situation regarding land for sale.
And then he went to the local saloon and sat in a corner with a bottle of whiskey and thought about the rest of his life.
He knew one thing for sure. He would not gamble in this town. Oh, he would play a few friendly games of poker on Friday night, but not his cutthroat games that he used to play. Gamblers garnered too much attention from the community.
His mother had forced him to learn a lot when he was growing up. She also made sure he stayed with relatives that could teach him cover trades for their various con operations.
His old associates would be astounded to know what he could do when he put his mind to it.
Out of everything he ever learned, ever was forced to do by his mother or relatives, he liked working with horses the best.
That gave him a momentary pang as he remembered his own horse that he was forced to leave behind. He really needed him back. He was a good quality horse. His stallion would make a good start to his horse breeding ranch. Yes, that's what he would do.
And he knew just how to get his horse back.
JD was mad as fire. How could she? The woman was a cold-hearted bitch! He blasted into the saloon with a push that caused the batwings to slam dents into the walls. Inez looked up in irritation.
"Sorry, Inez," he ducked his head at her and then stomped up to the table that held Buck, Chris and Vin. All of them looked to have downed a few drinks already and it was only noon.
"What's up, Kid?" asked Buck. He wasn't really serious about getting drunk, but felt the need to sit with Chris and Vin for a while. Try to get back a little of how it used to be.
JD waived a telegram in front of them. "I don't know how she found out, but she wants his things boxed up and sent to her in Chicago!"
Buck was confused. "Who are you talking about, JD?"
"Maude! Ezra's Ma! She wants us to immediately box up everything we have of Ezra's, including his horse, and send them to Chicago. She even wired the money to make the arrangements!"
Chris and Vin were a little tipsy. "Well, do it," slurred out Chris.
"Hell, all she's going to do is sell them off for the money!"
"So," asked Vin. "They're just sitting in storage in the saloon's cellar right now. And you and Buck have been paying these past months for the horse's upkeep. It's got to be taking a chunk out of your pay."
"But, but—" sputtered JD.
Buck lowered his head. He knew how JD felt about Ezra's horse. It was a piece of Ezra to hold on to. "They're right, Kid. If his Ma wants his things then we have no right to stop her. She's his family."
JD slumped into the chair next to Buck and stared at the telegram. Its point of origin was listed as Kirby's Creek. He'd never heard of it. So that's where she's been when they had been searching for her.
He nodded slowly and, after a shot of whiskey that burned like fire to his virgin throat, he got up to do what the telegram asked.
As his wire in his mother's name had requested, his things were shipped to Chicago. Ezra then contacted a broker in Chicago and all of his personal items were sold off and the money wired to Kirby's Creek in his mother's name. Ezra shipped his horse to New York from Chicago and then to a different dusty town by the name of Kent's Bend.
He took no chances and personally went to Kirby's Creek to pick up the money and then to Kent's Bend to pick up his spirited animal. Putting his hand on his horse's forehead was like coming home.
And a little bit of what was broken inside of him was healed.
But the pain was still burning in his soul and in his gut. What was it?
When he returned to Silverton, he introduced his stallion to the three mares he had previously purchased in anticipation of reuniting with his stallion. All three mares were good quality mares. He got rid of the 'borrowed' red and white paint gelding that had carried him up to this point and purchased a nondescript buckskin gelding. He needed an everyday horse to ride now that his chestnut was being retired to stud at his new ranch.
He was now officially a horse rancher.
But it would take time to build up a herd of horses to the point that he could start selling them. It would take a few more stallions and a few more mares to fill out his herd. He needed something else to do to keep up with the finances until then.
He could sell the rings, but he quickly put that idea away. The first one he wouldn't sell for old reasons, the second one he wouldn't sell for painful reasons and the last one he wouldn't sell for hopeful reasons. He'd just have to find some other way.
By now, the people in Silverton were used to the quiet, soft-spoken Southerner with the intense light green eyes and ready smile. He went out of his way to help in town when he could to build the right kind of reputation with the town folk.
But he was absolutely shocked when Sheriff Colman came into the saloon one day and asked the quiet man to become his part time deputy.
"You want me as your deputy?" asked Dev in astonishment.
"Yeah, you seem a good sort. I saw you helping out the Widow Evans with her bags yesterday. Townsfolk seem to like you and you don't get into any trouble here in the saloon." He looked Dev over carefully. "And I know you just started a ranch. It's going to take a while before it starts to pay. I figure we both get what we want if I took you on."
Inside Dev was laughing. Here was another thing he was good at. A lawman. How life can turn you in a full circle.
"All right, you got yourself a deputy. How much?"
The sheriff smiled. "I would say dollar a day and found, but you got your own place to eat and sleep. How about dollar and a half a day? And I supply you with the bullets for your Remington?"
Well, well. This was a better deal than before.
They shook on it before the sheriff left the saloon. A gold badge was on his blue leather vest by nightfall.
He was scheduled to be in town during the daylight hours. Nights would only be necessary if the sheriff was to be out of town or was out looking for criminals. That suited Dev. He wanted to be close to his horses at night to make sure they were kept from the itchy fingers of horse thieves.
Dev took to deputy sheriffing like a duck to water. He even gained a small reputation as a fast gun when rowdies hit the town. He didn't mind, he'd had a reputation before as a quick gun, and the sheriff seemed pleased with his work. And the horse ranch was coming right along with all three mares pregnant by a very proud chestnut stallion.
And that was Dev Haywood's life.
But the pain was never far away.