Rating: PG
Disclaimer: A long time ago, God created the Earth, stars, sky, animals and other various stuff. On the seventh day he rested and he liked that number so much, he decided to create seven men on the eighth day. (Go figure) These men were beautiful, talented, magnificent in all senses of the word and just down right nifty. God decided that these men needed two beautiful, talented, magnificent in all senses of the word and just down right nifty women to watch over them. But unfortunately, being tired, he created The Immortal and Saaa. (Who were beautiful, talented and just down right nifty but not magnificent in all senses of the word. Very close mind you but just not there.) And God also created CBS. He looked on it and it was bad, but being the benevolent God that he is, he let it live. Anyway, these nine people lived together in utter bliss. But then one day, CBS was stupid and ate the forbidden fruit. This got all of the beautiful, talented and just down right nifty people kicked out of the garden. Fortunately though, they found a nice place on TNN. (CBS wasn’t invited). However, during the transfer, The Immortal and Saaa lost all rights to the magnificent men and therefore haven’t made any profit off this piece of fiction. (Bummer) But unconditional love keeps us writing. The end.
Author's Note: Inspired by the song "The Gambler." Some spoilers: The New Law, Sins of the Past
Now every gambler knows
The secret to surviving
is knowing what to throw away
and knowing what to keep
because every hand’s a winner
and every hand’s a loser
and the best you can hope for
is to die in your sleep
~Kenny Rogers "The Gambler"
Ezra Standish stood outside of the brightly lit saloon and leaned up against the rough wood. The rambunctious voices of drunks and revelers drifted out to him. Usually that sound was comforting and soothing. But not today. Not right now. Not when two of his friends were in danger.
The rogue let out a breath, watching it billow up and away in the night air. He had turned his back on saloon life and had fallen into a family. Now, that family was threatened. Instead of returning to his old vices and searching for solace, he now stood outside in the bitter cold. No, he would not give up on this family. As long as they didn’t give up on themselves.
The fastidiously dressed gambler pulled a worn deck of cards from his pocket and began to absently shuffle them in his hands. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint the precise moment when he had irrevocably turned his back on the life of running. But one memory stood out in his mind.
Don’t run out on me again.
Now that family was falling
apart around him.
Ezra lifted his emerald eyes
up to Nathan’s clinic. No doubt Josiah and the dark healer were working hard
now trying desperately to pull
JD was undoubtedly pacing
outside the door. The young man had boundless energy when worried. But he had
an extraordinary amount of confidence in both Nathan to help and
Ezra shifted his gaze down the street to the livery. And Vin was leaving.
Sorrow lanced through the
gambler like a bullet. Vin would leave and turn
himself in.
Ezra shivered in the cold. Part of him wanted to return to the saloon, drink some whiskey and swindle some poor unfortunate soul out of every last penny. He stared into the saloon and almost took a step but stopped. ‘Running was not a life, Ezra Standish,’ he quietly told himself. He had one here. He would not go back. Ezra’s feelings of disheartenment turned into resolve. He had lost enough relatives. He drew the line here.
The gambler pushed himself off the wall and put his cards back into his breast pocket. He made a bee line for the clinic, intent on finding out the condition of Mr. Larabee and then hunting the ornery tracker down and talking some sense into him. Or conning him into staying. Despite what his mother believed, he was not wasting his God-given gifts.
The dark night matched the gambler’s mood perfectly as he strode across the street to Nathan’s clinic. He barely made it two steps up the stairs when JD’s head popped out of the door. Ezra smiled reassuringly at the youth, hiding his own concerns.
“There you are, Ezra.”
“How’s
“Nathan got the bullet out but he’s lost a lot of blood. They still don’t know.” Ezra nodded. “Hey, where’s Vin?”
Ezra avoided JD’s hazel eyes. Instead, he looked down the street to the darkened livery. “You don’t really think he’ll leave do you, Ezra?”
“Honestly, JD. I don’t...” he stopped when he looked into JD’s sad face. He too seemed to know what Vin’s leaving would do to the group. Ezra changed his tune. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
The livery was dark but at least
it was warmer than the outside. Ezra cautiously walked toward Peso’s stall. And
as he assumed, Vin was there getting the poor beast
ready. The gambler didn’t have to make his presence known, the tracker already
knew.
“What do you want, Ezra?” the clipped tone carried across the quiet building.
Ezra ambled closer to the stall. “Why, nothing at all, Mr. Tanner.”
Vin eyed him suspiciously. He knew the gambler had something up his sleeve. Hell, he always did. But there was nothing that was going to change his mind. This was the second attempt on his life and only God knew how many more bounty hunters would come. He couldn’t risk the life of his friends and of the people in this town. No, he had to go. And now that Eli Joe was dead, he couldn’t clear his name. He either had to go south or he had to face the music. He hadn’t decided which one he would do yet.
“Then what are you doing here?”
Ezra contemplated what he was going to say. He took out the same deck of worn cards and began shuffling. It not only kept his hands warm, but it assisted in his thinking. A small smile played at the corner of the gambler’s mouth as an idea filtered its way into his mind. He just hoped it would work.
“Well, I’ve made my life by reading other individuals and knowing what their cards read by the way they held their eyes. So if you don’t mind me saying, Mr. Tanner, from the looks of yours, it seems you are completely out of aces.”
Vin snorted. “Ezra, I don’t want to hear any of your gambling bullshit right now.”
Ezra laughed lightly. He moved closer to Peso and rubbed the horse’s neck while his owner prepared him for the long journey ahead.
“Please indulge me. It always seems that everyone else deems it necessary to impart the knowledge of their expertise on me. I rarely have the opportunity to do the same, except of course, to JD. And you never know, Mr. Tanner, you might actually find some of it useful where you are going. You might need to take a gamble.”
Vin shot the fancy dressed man a glance. “You have as long as it takes me to finish getting Peso ready.”
At least it was a start. Ezra quickly noted that the horse had only its bridle on. Vin was giving him around ten minutes. Long enough to get his point across. The gambler took a deep breath and started his story.
“Well, when I was at the youthful age of 16...”
Vin stopped the gambler in mid speech. “I didn’t say you could tell me a story.”
“Mr. Tanner, you are curtailing my allotted amount of time and you never put a restriction on what I could talk about.” Vin didn’t respond but shot Ezra contemptuous glare. “As I was saying, I was at the youthful age of 16 and had been recently urged to leave a certain hamlet.”
“Anything to do with tar and feathers.”
“Something like that...”
The young man ran for all his worth away from the angry mob of townspeople. Money still tightly clutched in his hand and his dark green coat flying behind him. His sights were on the livery where his chestnut stallion patiently waited for his owner. The gambler spared a glance behind him. About six men, all carrying blunt weapons of some kind, followed a few yards behind. When he got out of this, if he got out of this, he would never again gamble with an entire clan.
Ezra pumped his legs faster and disappeared into the livery. He heard the curses of the men he had just swindled right behind him. His horse, his only friend, sat saddled and ready. The young man expertly flung himself into the saddle and he was off. The townspeople didn’t have a chance.
“What did you do to cause all
that commotion?” Vin asked while situating the saddle
blanket on the back of Peso.
“That is besides
the point, Mr. Tanner.”
Ezra rode quickly away and pushed the horse until he was entirely sure that the townspeople were not following. Only when the town had been long out of sight, did Ezra slow the horse. A few minutes later, the stallion picked up a stone, and the gambler, who was now covered in dust, was forced to walk.
It hadn’t been a bad town. In fact, it had potential. Surely, he could’ve stayed a little longer. That was until they had realized that he had been cheating. A small slight of hand trick that he used often had been noticed. He shrugged his shoulders. Must be getting careless. Well, he had come out with money. And he didn’t need to stay in the town. It was nothing but a filthy, rat infested dump. There had been nothing there for him. Nothing at all. He sighed and tried to dust himself off. Then why did he feel so bad?
Ezra glanced wistfully back in the direction of the small town that he had just been driven out of. Maybe, he could go back and...No, too late. They’d lynch him on sight. It was time to move on. One thing mother had driven into him was never wear out your welcome. Ezra pulled out the stack of money he had one. Only $100. Was it even worth it? The loneliness? The alienation?
Ezra walked until the warm sun slowly began to sink in the sky. His stomach rumbled and he rubbed it absently. It was still quite a walk to the next town. He heard the rumbling again and realized it wasn’t his stomach. He looked behind him and saw a cloud of dust heading down the road toward him. He smiled. A wagon.
He turned to his horse and rubbed its nose. “Seems that we have not completely run out of luck my friend. Now, let me do the talking.”
The wagon stopped in front of the filthy but smiling young man that stood on the side of the road. The driver stared down at Ezra, studying him with a crucial eye. Ezra stared back. The driver was an older man with silver hair and a beard. His blue eyes twinkled, like he knew something that the young man didn’t. Finally, Ezra broke the awkward silence.
“Good afternoon, sir. My horse seems to have picked up a stone and it is quite a long walk to the next town.”
“You asking for a ride?” The driver asked with a voice rough from age and smoking.
“Yes. I believe I am.”
The older man broke into a wide grin. “Tether your horse to the back and climb aboard.”
Ezra let out the breath he had been holding. Maybe, his luck was turning. Soon he was sitting beside the older man and carrying on a polite conversation.
“What’s your name, son?”
“Ezra Simpson. You?” the younger man drawled.
“I just go by Brady these days.”
Vin
had stopped saddling Peso and now lounged on a bale of hay. “So you gave him a
fake name.”
Ezra smiled and a stray moonbeam
hit his gold tooth. “Another rule in my line of work.
Aliases make one harder to find.”
Vin shook his head. “You sure are a snake in the grass, Ezra.”
Ezra smiled again. Not just at the comment but at the fact that Vin had abandoned his task of saddling his horse. The gambler had just bought himself some time.
“What’s a southerner like you doing out west?”
Ezra smiled. “Trying my luck.”
The older man shot him a glance. “Well, no offense son but by the looks of it, you’re sort of down on your luck, ain’t ya?”
Ezra shrugged. “My horse should be fine in a few days.” He replied while pulling out his silver flask of brandy.
“I wasn’t talking ‘bout the horse, son.”
Ezra shot him a quizzical look. “What ever do you mean, sir?”
The older man chuckled. “I’ve made my life out of reading people’s faces, and knowing what the cards read by the way they held their eyes. I can read your green eyes like a book. You’re troubled.”
“So that’s where you got that
line.”
“May I continue Mr. Tanner?” Vin waved his hand in a ‘go ahead’ gesture. “Thank you.”
Ezra’s mouth dropped… Brady was a gambler as well and obviously a good one at that if he could read the younger man’s poker face. Maybe he could learn something from him. Maude was an excellent teacher but sometimes it helped to get another perspective.
Brady seemed to sense this and winked. “For a sip of your Brandy, I’ll give ya some advice.” Ezra eagerly handed the silver flask over to the older man. He took a long swig from it and handed it back. “Now, for starters, if you’re going to play the game son, you’ve got to play it right. You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em and you’ve also got to know when to fold. Sometimes, you’ll walk away from the table and other times, you’re going to have to run.”
Ezra sighed. “I’ve learned that lesson.”
Brady observed the dusty and tired young man that sat next to him. “Yes, it looks like you have.” He took a breath and continued, his voice dropping and taking on a serious tone. “Every gambler knows that the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep. All cards, no matter how diverse, always have potential. It just depends on how you play them. Every hand is a winner and every hand is a loser. The best you can hope for is to die in your sleep.”
“It took me several years to fully understand what the old gambler meant,” Ezra sighed as he finished the story. “But I’ve held on to those words and have used them more than once. And they are the wisdom I’m passing on to you, Mr. Tanner.” Ezra stared into the crystal blue eyes of the tracker. “What are you going to do with the hand you’ve been dealt? Will you throw it away, or will you keep it?”
Vin stared back, stood than began to saddle the horse. Ezra’s heart sunk. Vin Tanner was folding the best cards he had ever been dealt. The gambler slowly turned around and began his trek back to the clinic.
“Hey, Ezra?” the western drawl cut through the heavy silence.
“Yes, Mr. Tanner?” he replied without turning around.
“What ever happened to Brady?”
“He got what he wished for. He died in his sleep the first night we were in town.” Ezra drawled with a tint of remorse in his voice.
“What are you going to do with your cards?” Vin asked again as he strode up next to the gambler, leaving Peso behind.
Ezra turned toward him, a slow
smile gracing his lips. “I intend on keeping my hand close to my chest.”
Vin
shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I ain’t much of a gambler, you know that. But, I
know a good hand when I see it. And this is the best damn hand I’ve seen in a
while. Why go trading it in?”
Ezra slapped his friend on the back and his smile widened. Vin returned it with one of his own. “Shall we go see how our fearless leader is doing?”
Vin’s smile slipped but he recovered it. “That’s a good idea, Ezra.”
The two unlikely friends walked together out of the dark livery, leaving the horses behind. Despite the night’s chill, Ezra’s heart was warmed. Yes, his God given gifts were still useful. He still had his eclectic family. And he had given Vin the piece of wisdom that had kept him alive, an ace that he could keep.
~The END