Main Character: Ezra Standish
Rating: Rating: PG13, some language
Universe: Alternative Old West - U.S. Marshals
Warning: This first story is a deathfic — for most of the characters. It's a life overview of the seven if they had met in a different way, under different circumstances and how their lives would have played out. Don't worry — be happy for them. I'll bring them back for other stories if you like this one.
Disclaimer: I don't own them, I have no money! Me — broke! I will not make any money from this story.
Comments: Forget Four Corners and Mary Travis. They don't exist in this story or this AU. Forget the Ghosts of the Confederacy and the two years of shows.
This is the thing that all others want. Complete happiness of having accomplished your goals in life. I have it, this thing that all others want. And yet, I don't want it. As someone told me years before, it's that road traveled that was more interesting than the final destination. I want to have the road back, to be traveling it once more.
I was once a gambler, and yes, a con that stripped men of their money and possessions. And women too, for that matter. Any who would listen to me was a potential victim of my silver tongue and good graces. Then I met some men who were ... exceptional. I thought to get in their confidences and then strip them as well. Well, it was I who was stripped.
Our leader, Chris Larabee, was a man of strong morals and a U.S. Marshal for the government. Not one to drink, unless reminded of his dead family, he was the most strong willed man that I had ever met. He tolerated me not too well in the beginning, seeing as how I did not want to be along in the first place. At first.
Our tracker of men was a man named U.S. Deputy Marshal Vin Tanner. We called him Vin for short. He didn't look like a Vin with his sewn leather pants and hide jacket. He would always remind me of those wild stories I had heard about mountain men.
Our doctor was a half-breed that called himself Nathan Jackson. Also, a Deputy U.S. Marshal. Part Indian and part Negro, it was interesting when he treated a patient. His methods were part medical, part Indian medicine man and part White brimstone preacher. While he would be giving you laudanum, he would be throwing twigs and bark on you to convince the earth demons to leave your wound and for the good Lord to heal you. I think he mostly did it to cause a scene. Most of his chanting took place in towns with plenty of witnesses. I think Nathan was mostly a thespian at heart.
We did actually have a White preacher with us, but it was mostly in his past. Deputy U.S. Marshal Josiah Sanchez liked to talk about crows and death. He was always going on and on about his own death coming to get him. But, for all that, I liked him. And sometimes he said something that would put me back on my path. The one I found after joining with these men.
Then there was Deputy U.S. Marshal Buck Wilmington. Oh, was he the best with the ladies. I think I could have given him some competition if I had tried a little harder, but I let him get most of the fair ones. He had been a longtime friend of Chris Larabee. Had been there when Chris' family was killed. He was the one that dragged Chris kicking and screaming from a whiskey bottle and took him to a friendly judge and had themselves made into U.S. Marshals.
The youngest of us was a boy named J.D. Dunne who had just turned nineteen and thought the world, especially gun fighting and being a Deputy U.S. Marshal, was made only for him to live and breathe. And to our surprise, he could conquer most things that he put his mind to. Most of the time that was fighting.
In the beginning, the day they came for me was not a good one for me. I was at a table with a few other gamblers and a few citizens who thought they could make some quick money and have a good time. I looked up from the deal and Larabee was there, staring me in the eyes. Now at that time, I was wanted for a few things I had done. A little conning, a little fraud and maybe some cheating at cards with the people of a little fort in Texas. Nothing really serious, but enough that the judge decided that I needed to be arrested and put in jail.
If I was sensible, I would not have run from Larabee and the others. I could have saved myself some energy and a few bruises. He chased me out of the saloon and down the back alleys and right into Vin who promptly tackled me and put me in the dirt.
I was wearing my good jacket and my good hat, so I didn't take that very well. I kicked him in the head and knocked him over, so Nathan jumped on me and put me in the dirt again. My guns were taken, along with my holsters, and they were put up in Larabee's saddle bags.
After they had me tied up, Larabee came up with a piece of paper. The others were crowded in close with hands on guns and looking out for trouble if I happened to have friends in this dirty little town.
"You Ezra Simpson or Ezra Standish?"
What could I say, they had me trussed up like a pig for slaughter. I gave up and told him everything he wanted to know, from my name to what states I was wanted in and for what incidents. At the end of my little speech, he just looked at me and shook his head.
We were on the trail the same day back to Texas when a terrible thing happened.
Nathan had been on point about a mile ahead of us when he came back and whispered to Larabee. They both came over to the rest of us and Larabee told J.D. to keep an eye on me while they went ahead to check on some smoke in the sky.
It was nightfall when they returned and I had given the young one no trouble. I hadn't wanted to be shot over a try to escape. I just figured to string them along and get myself out of this mess before getting back to Texas.
The smoke had been a cabin in the nearby woods that was now a burnt pile of ash. Three bodies had been found inside, one of which looked to have been shot before the fire. Larabee looked stricken and Buck hovered over him like a mother hen. I could see old demons coming awake inside of that strong willed man.
As Larabee talked, I became more certain of the identity of the victims. In my one year of residence in the area and making my home at the Four Star Saloon, I had become familiar with the surrounding area and the people who lived there. It sounded like Tate Cole and his wife and daughter.
I said as much to Larabee who gave me a look that would cut barbed wire. But I did not let him silence me. A gambler I was, but not a killer. Nor one who would tolerate murder of people in their own home.
So our trip to Texas was dropped for the moment and they preceded to drag me on a three-week investigation of the Cole killings.
I was untied and told in no uncertain terms that if I fled from arrest that I would be hunted down and most likely shot. I shrugged. I would not run now. I was still looking for a nonviolent way to skin my way out of trouble. Maybe use a little of my silver tongue. So I went along with their plans. I had some money in my boots, no real need of money at the moment and no urge to be anywhere else. I was content to follow in their wake.
And after a little while, the lines began to blur. I stopped thinking of them as the law and me as a prisoner. They weren't marks to me anymore. I think maybe they forgot as well.
Then a turning point in our relationship came one day as we were camping out near a trail.
"Hey, Ezra! Come here."
I looked up from my practicing with my deck of cards to see J.D. standing near a tree. I got up and put my deck away.
"What is it, my young law enforcement friend?"
He pointed at the bark of the tree. "You ever see this before?"
I looked close at a small carving in the bark. Since I was most familiar with the area, they usually asked me questions first and then Vin, who seemed to know most anything instinctively about the land he read like an open book.
The mark was small and recent. The letters CR with a circle around it with a diamond connected to the circle. I placed a hand on it and thought. I had seen it before, in town.
I went without thinking to my horse. A voice brought me up short.
"Where are you going?"
Larabee was standing nearby with Vin looking at a map of the area. I turned my head to look at them with my foot still in the stirrup. I didn't say anything as I took my foot out of the stirrup and went back to the place I had been practicing with my deck of cards.
J.D. came over in a hurry. "I found a mark over there on that tree and Ezra took out."
Larabee rounded back on me. "Recognize the mark?"
I sighed. "I've seen it around town and meant to go recheck the fact, Mr. Larabee. Don't recall whose mark it is, but it's carved on a table back in the Four Star."
Larabee just looked at me for a moment. "Don't recall? Or don't want to tell?"
I shook my head. "Why don't you just take me to jail, Mr. Larabee? I'm not going to sit around catching all your critical looks every time something happens or I open my mouth."
Larabee looked at Vin and Josiah, who both shrugged. "Okay, go on."
I looked up. "What?"
Larabee looked a little uncomfortable. "I said go on. It might lead to something. Take J.D. with you since you're not armed."
And with that the lines that had been blurred were gone.
J.D. and I took out for town and soon found the little carving in the table that I had remembered from my many games. I asked the bartender if he knew the symbol.
"Carl Reynard from the Circle Diamond. A ranch over the hill yonder. He comes every once in a while."
I thought. "Related to Sam Reynard?"
He nodded.
I knew Sam Reynard, but hadn't known he had a son named Carl. We decided to stay in town overnight and see if he showed for a drink or a game.
It didn't work out that way, but I ended in a game with a man who knew him. After a few drinks he seemed willing to talk about Reynard.
We learned that Reynard fancied himself a land tycoon and was buying up nearby property that connected to his father's ranch. And the Coles just happen to be near to his ranch. Nobody had seen the old man, but Carl was often out on his horse covering ground that he owned. I asked how long the old man had been out of sight. The man said almost two months.
After the man was gone, I sat at my table alone and smoked a cigar. J.D. was off with some girls from the saloon. He was starting to take too much after Buck. I snorted, a very ungentlemanlike thing to do. I took out my watch and looked at the time. It was after two in the morning.
A family dead. A man out of sight for two months. A son who had money to buy connecting land. A symbol carved into a table in town and a tree between town and the unfortunate family's burned cabin.
I went to bed thinking, with no results or positive conclusions. I decided to tell Chris and let him figure it out. He was the lawman.
When we got back to camp in the morning, we found Nathan. He led us to a new Circle Diamond. This one was on a piece of leather that looked to have been part of a saddle. It was lying on the ground with Vin making slow circles around it and Chris sitting not far away with Buck and Josiah, watching.
It wasn't long before he led us to a spot with turned soil. A new grave. Horse prints were around the area, little CR's pressed into the dirt.
The grave had no marker and I got out a shovel. I had a suspicion who was in the grave and meant to have an answer. I dug with no help. Digging was hard going for a man who usually didn't do manual labor, but I got the odious chore done. Chris and the others sat down to a dry camp and watched me ruin my best silk shirt. At the bottom of the hole was a blanket wrapped body. When I pulled the corner back, I knew I was right. It was Sam Reynard.
His wedding ring was gone and the diamond stick pin that was usually near his throat was gone as well. He looked to have been dead for almost a month, maybe two. He had been shot in the chest.
Chris came over and looked at the body. "You know him?"
I nodded. "Sam Reynard. Owner of the Circle Diamond."
Chris turned to Vin. "How far are we from the burned cabin?"
Vin took off his slouch hat and looked at the sky. "About a mile, maybe two."
Chris looked back at the body. "Road nearby. Plenty of wagon tracks."
I knew he wouldn't like it, but I spoke anyway. "The son has plenty of money lately. Buying land connected to his father's. Never reported his father missing or dead. And the Coles just happen to connect to his ranch."
He nodded and didn't say anything, which surprised me. "Bury him again, Ezra. You help him, Nathan."
Chris kept the scrap of leather with the Circle Diamond on it. Every once in a while he would get out a small book and a pencil and write. I looked at Nathan, but he just shrugged. Chris always kept his own counsel when doing law work. We were just his information gatherers.
Larabee finally looked up after we were done. "Boys, we're going into town to find this Carl and see what he knows about all this." He went to his saddle bags and came back to me while I was stripping off my soiled shirt to put on a new one. He threw down my gunbelts. "You may need these in town. But don't get any ideas. You're still under arrest."
I only nodded and quietly put my guns back on, finally feeling like I was fully dressed again.
By the time we reached town, Carl was there. He was sitting at the table that the symbol had been carved on with two other men. They were involved in a small game of cards.
I looked at Chris with a hand held out. He nodded and I joined the card game. Carl wasn't too friendly. He grew even less friendly when I proceeded to clean them all out in a few hands.
Chris sat nearby. He seemed to be judging Carl Reynard like a hanging judge measuring for a noose. "Hey, Reynard. See your father lately?"
Carl showed no emotion. "My father is not your business."
Chris cocked his head, but was silent. Vin, Josiah, J.D. and Buck were at a table, trying to fade into the background. And I do mean try. There wasn't a subtle one in the bunch and they stood out like a bunch of hogs at a mayor's parade.
Carl dug out some more cash and put it on the table. The other two men left mumbling about high stakes. I didn't mind the large bills laying on the table. More to line my pockets if Reynard thought he could beat me.
I didn't realize that Vin had left the saloon until he came back in and went straight to Chris. He bent over and whispered something and then sat back down. Chris nodded.
"Reynard, that your gray horse outside?"
Reynard looked up long enough to give an annoyed look. "He's got my brand doesn't he?"
"Know the Cole family, live about two miles from here?"
I laid down a full house, kings over tens. All Reynard had was a pair of Queens. I won a goodly sum and redealt the cards.
Reynard shot Chris a look. "I'm kind of busy here. Get lost."
"Interesting shoes on that horse of yours. Little CR's etched in the front. Found a few prints near a grave."
Now some men were not like me. When I was arrested, I didn't want to get shot so I hadn't used a gun, just run. Some men kind of lose it and think they can shoot their way out of any problem. I guess Carl Reynard was that kind of man.
He may have been right. Usually Chris Larabee was the fast man with a gun. Vin mostly relied on a short shotgun. Nathan had his gun in an awkward position high on his hip, but was more a knife user. J.D. and Buck could be fast with their guns, but had gotten up and had drifted back near the bar trying to pay attention to anything funny in the saloon. Josiah, he had a gun, but I'd yet to see him pull it or even put a hand near it.
Not to be bragging, but I could haul out a gun pretty fast. In fact, I had two guns, one on my right hip and one under my left arm. And a little bonus gun near my right wrist. As Carl began to get out of his chair and reached for his gun, I also kicked back my chair and drew both my guns. My hip gun with my right hand and my left gun by twisting my wrist and hand. My right came up first and fired, catching Carl in his arm as his gun came up.
Before I could fire again, Chris had his gun out and was charging Carl as he fell to the floor. He and Josiah had him tied with a piece of rawhide before I could put away my guns.
Chris looked at me, I'll never forget it, and said, "Good job."
J.D. and Buck ran over, but it was too late, they had missed the fight. "Aw, why didn't you wait for us?"
Chris was not too pleased with them. "Boys, when we go into town to question a suspect in some murders, you don't go wandering off too far away to be any help."
Chris and Nathan dragged him down to the jail where Nathan had fun digging out his bone rattle and healing paint and dancing around. He howled at the Lord to heal Carl Reynard and then called for the Lord to help the local judge to have the wisdom to hang the bastard from a high tree.
Two deputies were at the jail, the sheriff being out of town, so we left Carl and Nathan with them. We knew Nathan would be at it for some time. Chris had already given the evidence to the deputies for safe keeping until the trial.
When we swung by after lunch to pick Nathan up, he had his full regalia on including paint and a headdress of painted vulture feathers. The deputies' eyes were as big as saucers and Carl Reynard looked as if he would like to kill Nathan with his bare hands.
"Nathan, you through healing that heathen trash yet," asked Josiah.
Nathan nodded. "All I can do. He'll be healthy for the hanging."
We left Carl there, cussing and spitting at us as we left. Back to the road where our journey to Texas had been halted almost three weeks before.
I was ready. I trotted down some ways before I realized the others had stopped in the center of the road. I turned back.
"We going?"
Chris looked at me. "Good job back there in the saloon. You're pretty fast for a gambler."
I raised a shoulder. "Fast enough, I guess. Texas is a bit of traveling. Let's go if we're going."
"I don't like Texas, " he replied. "Nothing but cold desert at night and catus up to your ass. Not to mention the cows."
I looked at Vin. "I don't like Texas, either. Law down that way is a shame to other lawmen. Disgraceful."
I was confused. "But, Vin, you're from Texas." I pointed out.
Vin just shook his head. "Yeah, but I'm a good Texan. Them's down there at that fort, well they's the bad kind."
Chris nodded. "Only been to Texas once and look what happened. I pick up a worthless gambler's warrant and end up in a three-week investigation of a murder on the way back. I think from now on I'll stick to Arizona or maybe the Nations. Maybe investigate some nice peaceful range wars or cattle rustling."
"Maybe we should swing by Judge Travis' office in Tullyville. Give him some papers that I think were forged. Who would bring a man up on charges of cheating at cards? Some kind of joke, I reckon."
And that was how I got off from my charge from that judge in Texas. Chris went to a judge he knew, the one that had made him a U.S. Marshal, and had me cleared of all my charges in my various states. A pardon he called it, and the papers for my arrest were revoked. Judge Travis later said he got a few letters from the judge in Texas, but threw them in the trash.
I was free to go where I pleased. Only when Chris, Nathan, Vin, Josiah, Buck and J.D. mounted up to leave, I found myself going along with them. I suddenly had an urge in me to see what was down the road. I decided that maybe being a Deputy U.S. Marshal and riding for Chris Larabee wasn't that bad a deal for a part time gambler and con man.
So I was sworn in as an honest to God Deputy U.S. Marshal.
Eventually I met my dear wife, Moira, a fiery haired woman who really knew how to call all my bluffs. She even gave me a full house, two girls and three boys. But meanwhile, I was out and about with Chris and the boys looking down the road.
It came one day, years later that I stayed home because our youngest was sick with a fever and Moira wanted me close in case we needed a doctor from town. Chris and the gang had taken out after some bank robbers and later that night there was a knock at our door. It was Chris. Nathan was dead, shot through the heart by one of the robbers before the robber was himself shot by J.D.
The guilt I felt at not being there was great. No more of Nathan's dances, no more bone rattles. No more shouted prayers to the Lord. I vowed never to stay behind again at his grave side.
Years passed and we rode, still looking down that road.
Josiah met a woman in the Territories and married but didn't live to see his first wedding anniversary. You see: his crows finally came to call with a heart attack. And we were less one more.
J.D. finally settled down and had a few children of his own. His boys were a handful. All thinking, like their Pa so many years ago, that the world was theirs for fighting and breathing.
Vin took up with a woman of the hills and raised two wild sons. No better trackers you could ever find than those boys of Vin's.
Chris, however, stayed single until his middle years, finally taking a wife and having a single son almost fifteen years after we met.
Buck, who had been waiting for Chris to finally overcome his grief of his first family, got himself a woman. Yes, one woman. He was happy for a time and pulling his hair over raising girls to worry over, because he knew how men could be. He had been one of those men.
Misae Tanner came to visit us with her two sons to tell me of Vin's death in the mountains. The result of a fall while tracking a man on the rocky heights for Chris Larabee.
Again, I felt guilt for not going. This time my horses had been stolen and I had ridden to town to report it to the local law to gain their help in tracking the horse thieves down.
The next time Chris went out, I kissed my wife and children and went with him, Buck and J.D. after rustlers a few weeks later.
We rode in the dark, tracking them by moonlight. J.D. had become our tracker since Vin's death. He had learned well by watching and listening to Vin. We trusted him completely. Later, J.D. would say nothing could have been done, but I knew differently.
They were waiting for us. As we rode up, Chris suddenly yelled out a warning, seeing something that I hadn't. We hit the dirt and the next few minutes were hell. Bullets coming from the dark, rustling in the grass, and sometimes not being able to make out friend from foe.
When it was quiet, I got up slowly to scout it out. I got across the clearing with no incident. Chris got up and immediately fell to the ground, smoke from the shot drifted over the clearing. For a moment all was frozen in time. Chris on the ground, the smoke, and the man who held the gun. I didn't think, I drew my gun and shot him dead center. He fell, but I paid him no attention. I went to Chris, J.D. and Buck behind me.
He was still alive. He looked at us with calm eyes. As strong willed as ever and showing no pain. "Ezra, you got him."
"Not quick enough."
He caught my hand. "Not your fault. Bound to happen. Been a lawman for a time now. A lot of years of luck." He shook my hand. "Not your fault for any of us. Vin or Nathan or any of us. These things just happen and you couldn't always be there. You couldn't have stopped it. If they were here, they'd tell you. When it's time, it's time."
He turned to Buck. "Thanks, Buck. Tell my wife and my boy I love them. Tell them not to worry, I'll be with Sara and Adam waiting for them in the hereby."
He turned his head to look at J.D., now no longer a boy. "You take over, boy. Go to Judge Grady in Judge Travis' old office. He'll give you my place." He reached down with cold fingers and pulled off his badge. "Take my badge and remember what we taught you."
J.D. only had time to take the badge when Chris left us. It gave me a feeling that chilled me to the bones until I returned home to my family.
We lost Buck a little while later, I think from a broken heart. His childhood friend was gone and not even his wife and grown girls could make that up for him. He died on his ranch trying to break a wild horse that had no business being broken for it was a truly cruel animal. A rogue stud. His wife sold their ranch and moved in with their eldest daughter and her husband.
J.D. took over the badge of U.S. Marshal and did a fine job. He rarely called on me as a deputy to go on trails with him. I think he was wary of causing my death since I was the last.
And over the next few years I began to long for the road. I had happiness. My wife and children saw to that. I watched my children grow and bred horses. I gambled occasionally to keep myself in practice, but never for high stakes like in my youth.
But, whenever the night fell and the moon rose to shine on my porch I would think of seven men in the dark and on the road. Of how I thought I would play along with them and then strip them of everything they had and skin my way out of that warrant.
But in the end I was stripped, as easily as many of my marks. Stripped of my lust for money and need to win, to get ahead. Instead, all I wanted was to be on a horse with those men and ride the road. Most of them were gone now, except for J.D. who was younger and maybe luckier than the rest of us.
When J.D. finally came to me and asked me to ride with him once more on the trail of stagecoach robbers, I was relieved. My wife had died the year before from fever, my bones were hurting and my children were now living lives of their own. So I accepted with an easy heart.
And as I sat on my horse with J.D. beside me, waiting for the gang we had been tracking to come around the bend in the canyon, I found myself thinking of Vin, Chris, Josiah, Buck and Nathan. J.D. turned to me, his dark hair now etched with gray, his babysoft face now hardened with years of work in law enforcement.
"Are you ready, Ezra?"
I nodded. "Don't worry, J.D. I'm ready."
And I was, for whatever would come.
We heard them coming and got our guns ready. J.D. looked left and right at the men that were with us in the posse. He gave the signal and all exploded into motion. Guns fired and men shouted, on both sides.
It was over quickly, men died and were captured. Wounded lay on the ground bleeding, crying. J.D. dismounted to look the wounded over. And as he turned I saw it. A gun in a man's hand that lay mortally wounded. As he raised it I didn't shout, but immediately dived forward. The gun was pushed down away from J.D., but into me. It went off and I felt a blow.
I felt myself being pulled away and the man under me was hit over the head. I looked up to see J.D., his face white.
"Ezra?"
I nodded. "Don't worry, I'm ready."
"I shouldn't have let you come, Ezra."
I gripped his arm. "I wanted to come. Don't worry."
As I faded away, I heard another shot and J.D. was pulled from me, but I didn't have time to worry. I was gone.
At least, I thought I was. I opened my eyes to see Nathan with his face painted red and shaking his damn bone rattle in my face. I blinked and sat up.
Chris was on his horse and I could see Vin, Josiah and Buck next to him. Chris was smiling as he held up the reins he was holding. "I brought you a horse, Ezra."
I was confused. Where was J.D.?
"For what?"
Nathan got on his horse and put away his rattle. "It's time to ride the road, Ezra."
Chris nodded. "Time to ride," he said and pointed down the road behind him. "The families tolerate it and we like to do it. You want to?"
I got up and dusted myself off. There was no blood on my shirt. I looked at my hands. They were unlined and no longer hurt with arthritis. I looked closer at Chris as I took the reins from him. He looked like he had in the beginning, at his prime.
I swung up on my horse and then looked behind us. "What about J.D.?"
Chris laughed. "Oh, he'll be along. One of these days."
And with that, we turned our horses and began the journey again, down that long dusty road.
The End
January 28, 2003
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