The Gambler’s Family, Part 1
part of The Gambler's Heart series
by Setcheti
Please see disclaimer and
acknowledgements on The Gambler’s Heart Series Index Page.
Gonna make it, gonna make it, almost there…
Across the street from the hotel, a woman talking to two others in front of the dry-goods store spotted the black-clad man easing his way along the boardwalk and frowned. “If you ladies will excuse me,” she said politely. “It seems there is somethin’ I must attend to.”
Chris didn’t see her coming until it was too late and the small, scowling woman was blocking his path into the hotel. “Mistah Larabee! What exactly do you think you’re doin’? I do not believe for one moment that you’ve been released from the clinic!”
He almost smiled; Ezra was right, she did look like a hissing kitten when she was angry. He did his best to look intimidating. “I’m going to get some breakfast, Mrs. Standish. Now if you’ll kindly move…”
His best obviously wasn’t enough. A slender hand grasped the ends of his bolo tie and pulled, drawing him down closer to her level; the other hand gently touched his forehead, then his cheek. Indigo eyes darkened with concern, and she shook her head as she released him. “Clinic. Now.”
“After I eat.”
“Now, Chris.” Her expression softened slightly as those delicate hands began pushing him in the direction she wanted him to go. “I’ll bring you some breakfast.” He still resisted, and she sighed. “I’ll bring you French toast…but only if you go back to bed.”
This time he did smile; as ludicrous as it might seem considering her size and age, Juliet had slipped into a mothering role with regards to the six lawmen her husband rode with—a position none of them had realized needed to be filled until it already was. Chris had been worried before that, unsure what effect the marriage of one of the Seven would have on the group as a whole, but none of the complications he’d feared had ever arisen. As a matter of fact, the presence of a loving, caring woman in their midst seemed to be having a settling effect on the seven volatile men, for which their leader was exceedingly grateful.
And of course it didn’t hurt that she was willing to make his favorite breakfast just to get him back into his hated sickbed in the clinic. Pretending a put-upon attitude that he didn’t really feel, Chris offered the small woman his arm to cross the dusty street, seeing the twinkle in her eye that said she knew what he was up to. He shook his head. “I’m not sure if I should be envying Ez or pitying him.”
“Definitely pitying,” was the amused reply. Any comment he might have made was drowned out by the clatter of the arriving stage behind them, something neither of them gave much attention to. The familiar voice that cut through the dry air moments later spun them both around, though; Larabee’s expression one of surprise and Juliet’s of dismay. “Mother Standish!” she exclaimed softly.
Chris put a comforting hand over the smaller one that had briefly tightened on his arm. “You didn’t know she was coming?”
“Not this time.” They
both stood in front of the clinic and listened as the demanding Southern voice
that hadn’t been heard in
The tall gunslinger’s opinion of Ezra’s marriage went up another notch at the quietly spoken words; even he would think twice about tangling with Maude when she was obviously up to something. Ezra, you are one lucky bastard, he thought admiringly. Not just any woman would take on your mother for you—especially after the scene she made at your wedding. He patted the small hand again. “Nathan may need your help today, you know. He has a difficult patient to take care of, one that always gives him lots of trouble.”
“One that needs to get back up those stairs and into bed if he wants his breakfast.” Her hand slipped from beneath his, but the small smile she turned on him showed her gratitude for his offer. “Quickly, Mr. Larabee, before I forget how much you like powdered sugar.”
He was tipping his hat in grinning surrender when his attention was caught by a young woman stepping away from the stage with Maude. Something about her seemed familiar…he felt more than saw Juliet turning back to see what he was looking at and almost jumped at her sudden sharp intake of breath. “What is it?”
No answer, but she took an unsteady step backward and might have fallen if he hadn’t been there. The abrupt change from confident lawman’s wife to frightened girl hit him hard; her indigo eyes were wide as saucers in her suddenly pale face, unblinkingly fastened on her mother-in-law’s companion. Her mouth soundlessly formed a single word…
Chris suddenly realized why the young woman with Maude looked so familiar; it was the escaped Baxter sister. Without another moment’s thought, he grabbed Juliet and propelled her up the stairs and into the clinic. “Nathan!”
The dark healer was already at his side. “What happened?”
To both men’s surprise, Juliet answered him. “It was Catie,” she whispered. “It was Catie, she came back…”
The small woman started to shake, and Nathan quickly sat her down in his rocking chair and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. “You jus’ take it easy,” he said soothingly. “You’re safe in here.” He picked up one small hand and rubbed it gently. “She’s cold as ice, Chris. You sure it was that Baxter girl?”
“It was her,” Chris confirmed, slumping down on the cot he’d snuck away from not that long ago and shutting his eyes; his head was spinning. “Oh God, Nate, why didn’t I recognize her? She was standing right there next to Maude…”
“You didn’t recognize her because you’re still fightin’ a fever from that sickness that’s goin’ around, Chris,” the healer scolded. “You ain’t exactly a hundred percent right now—and besides, why would you expect Ezra’s mother to be travelin’ with someone who’s out to kill his wife…” His words gave them both the same idea, but the healer’s strong hands kept Larabee from standing back up. “No, now you just stay right here—you can keep an eye on Miz Julie while I go round up the others, ‘cause she sure don’t need to be left alone after a shock like that. And it may all just be a misunderstandin’. Maude might not know…”
Slightly glazed turquoise eyes bored angrily up into his concerned brown ones. “You don’t believe that.”
Nathan shook his head, giving Juliet one more concerned look before heading for the door. “Nope, but I’d like to. I’ll be right back, don’t y’all go anywhere.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Chris closed his eyes again. His head was spinning, and not just because of his fever. “Don’t want her to forget the powdered sugar.”
Nathan might have put up a good show for Chris, but he burst into the jail almost as violently as the gunslinger had kicked his way into the clinic. “Buck! JD! We’ve got trouble!” Both men shot to their feet. Nathan gulped in air, trying to push back his panic. “Maude just got in on the stage, Chris says she’s got that Baxter girl with her.”
Buck’s face drained of color. “We’ve got to warn Miz Julie…”
Nathan caught his arm before he could reach the door. “She’s at the clinic with Chris, Buck.” He took a deep breath. “When is Ez due back from patrol?”
JD checked his watch; he’d taken over the patrol schedule while Chris was laid up. “Any time now. Is Miz Julie okay?”
“She could be better—gave her a bad shock when she saw that girl with Maude,” the healer answered grimly. “Chris was almost in a panic when he brought her in, blamin’ himself for not recognizin’ who Maude had with her.” The worry lines on his face deepened. “He don’t think it’s a coincidence them two are travelin’ together.”
“Neither do I,” Buck replied unhappily. He gathered himself together, planning. “JD, go round up the others double quick. Nate, you go on back to the clinic with Chris and Miz Julie—we’ll all meet up there to decide what to do next.”
A few miles to the north, Ezra smiled as he came within sight of the town; his patrol had been dusty, hot and boring…but he had something to look forward to at the end of it, and that made everything else negligible. It felt so good to have a home again, to have a loving wife waiting for him. He remembered several months previous when an attempt to dodge a bullet during a gunfight had knocked him out of his saddle and brought him to an up close and personal encounter with an unyielding rock. Normally the first thing he would have seen on regaining consciousness would have been Nathan and his hated clinic, but on that occasion he’d been stunned to awaken in his own bed in his own house and under the tender care of his own very worried wife. And he’d liked it—not worrying Juliet, of course, but having a place to be taken to, a place where he belonged and could feel completely safe…
…A place where he was loved. A smile graced his handsome face, lighting up his green eyes. Oh yes, he was loved. And, he loved in return. The world was a much brighter place to Ezra Standish these days.
The streets were quiet as he rode into town, and he decided to stop and see the wife he’d been thinking about before heading over to the jail to report to Buck. Not that he had all that much to report anyway, since it had been just as quiet outside of town as it was inside. Ezra put up Orpheus in the small stable he’d built on the north side of his property and then slipped in through the screened kitchen door, expecting to find Juliet there. She wasn’t, but there was a pan of something set to rise under a towel on the back shelf of the stove and some vegetables were laid out on the counter next to a scrub brush and a knife. He was just about to assume that his wife had stepped out momentarily when the sound of a strange feminine voice from the front parlor reached his ears…and was answered by an older woman’s voice that was all too familiar to him. Angry and worried now, Ezra checked his guns and then left the kitchen for the parlor.
His mother greeted him with a professionally pleasant smile. “Ezra, my dear boy! We were just wonderin’ when you’d be comin’ home. And where is your lovely bride? It was quite rude of you to not have us met at the stage, you know, or at the very least to have been awaitin’ us here at the house.”
Ezra’s frown became a scowl; the second half of the ‘us’ was a young woman he’d recognized immediately, even though she was now dressed very properly and fashionably and her still-short black hair was held back with a ribbon instead of sticking up in spikes all over her head. “I can arrange to have your companion met at the jail,” he answered. “In fact, we’ve been awaitin’ her return for some time, she’ll receive quite the enthusiastic reception once the good townspeople realize she’s finally arrived.” He gave a short, sarcastic bow. “I don’t suppose you’d care to accompany me peacefully, Miss Baxter?”
“You are just so amusing, Mr. Standish,” Catie simpered at him, and he recognized the signs of his mother’s training in the girl with more than a little disgust. “But you didn’t answer your mother’s question, you know. I have missed dear little Juliet so much since I left her here, and I just can’t wait to see her again. We have so much to talk about, so much…history we share that really ought to be discussed.”
Ezra actually took a step back – not from the girl, but from the knowing glitter in his mother’s eyes at the innuendo-laden statement. “You…she told you?” he questioned. “You know about them, about where they’re from?”
Maude’s expression hardened, by which Ezra assumed that she hadn’t been certain he was cognizant of those particular details of his wife’s background. “You’ve been holdin’ out on me, Ezra. Accordin’ to Miss Caitlin here your little marital acquisition has quite a past…or should I say, a future? Just when were you plannin’ on sharin’ all this valuable foreknowledge with me, son?”
“Nevah,” Standish spat, his expression equally compounded of disgust and disbelief. “And if you’re tellin’ me that you came here knowin’ what this hellion wanted with mah wife her first time through the area, Mothah, then nevah is also the next time you will be welcome in mah home.”
Catie giggled, and Maude shook her head disapprovingly. Her voice turned icy and threatening. “Now you listen to me, you disrespectful, ungrateful, disappointin’ child! For whatever misguided sentimental reason, you have managed to lay claim to a most valuable opportunity and I am not goin’ to stand idly by and watch you waste it! Now you can either make up your mind to come with Miss Caitlin and I to a place where we can better exploit this resource, or you can stay here in this dung-heap of a town with those six worthless killers you call friends and wonder what you’re missin’. The choice is yours.”
Ezra’s voice was rough with tightly controlled rage. “You’ll take my wife ovah my dead body!”
“That sounded like choice number two,” Catie said happily, bouncing to her feet and completely ignoring the gun pointed at her. “I can see why you’re disappointed, Miss Maude; I find it hard to believe this soft fool is actually your son.”
“Yes, I know, dear. It really is disgraceful.”
The words didn’t really upset Ezra—he’d heard them countless times before—but the gun that suddenly appeared in his mother’s hand honestly took him by surprise. “Mothah, you can’t be serious!”
Maude just shook her head. “You really are bein’ disgustingly melodramatic about this, Ezra P. It’s just business, after all.”
“Like settin’
bounty hunters on Mr. Tanner was just business?” Ezra’s voice was flat. “And the boy you tried to have hung at
“If someone gets in your way you have to get them out of it,” Catie smirked at him primly. “By whatever means are most expedient.”
Ezra just looked at her for a long moment, recognizing the source of the words, and then he nodded. “So you do,” he replied…and then he triggered his derringer and fired.
After going up to the clinic to talk out the situation with the others, Buck had returned to the jail and settled himself outside on the porch to wait for Ezra – who he knew should have been back by now. Worry had strung his nerves tight, and so the sound of gunfire had him off the porch and halfway down the street before he consciously registered moving at all. The door to Ezra’s tidy home flew open just as he drew near and a familiar figure stumbled backwards off the porch and wound up sprawled on the ground, clutching his right arm while trying to aim his gun into the house. “Ezra!”
Ezra’s head snapped around, seeing the ladies’ man running towards him followed at a distance by Vin, JD and Josiah. “She’s after Juliet!” he yelled back. “Don’t let her get away!”
The four men expected he was speaking of the Baxter girl, and so were taken absolutely by surprise when Ezra’s mother stepped out of the open door, looked around, and then ran straight for Josiah. “Oh, Mr. Sanchez, it was so horrible!”
“NO! Josiah, she’s the one who shot me!”
Maude stopped in her tracks, staring at the large gun pointed her way in disbelief. “Mr. Sanchez, my son is confused! His wound, you know. It was that girl, she worked her way into my confidence, told me that my daughter-in-law was not all that she seemed. I came here to protect Ezra…”
“Which of course explains why you broke into mah house in mah absence.” Buck was helping Ezra to his feet; the gambler’s green eyes were flinty, his jaw set. “As well as this inconvenient hole in mah arm. Ah suppose ah should be thankful you weren’t aimin’ for mah heart?”
She ignored him. “Mr. Sanchez…Josiah, surely you don’t believe…”
“I believe,” the large man rumbled ominously, “that my boy has been through enough because of you, and I won’t be allowin’ it to go on anymore.” His icy blue eyes never left her face. “Son, get up to the clinic and let Nathan fix that arm; we’ll take it from here.”
Ezra sagged a little against Buck’s support, relief showing in his face as the older man took charge of the situation. “Yes suh,” he said softly, allowing himself to be led away.
A small smile quirked the corner of Josiah’s mouth and just as quickly disappeared. “Vin?” he called out. “What about the Baxter girl?”
The long-haired tracker emerged from the house smiling, a
smaller body draped over his shoulder.
“She ain’t dead,” he called back as he
carefully pulled the door shut behind him.
“JD, you’d best wire
“Federal…!”
“Federal.” Chris had come up behind Josiah, smiling grimly at the Southern conwoman’s confusion. “By rights this falls under their jurisdiction, not ours—that little animal you brought with you is wanted by half the territory and the Secret Service. And don’t tell me you didn’t know that your daughter-in-law’s uncle is Agent Gordon, one of Grant’s most trusted men?” He shook his head at her look of openmouthed shock. “Maverick was right, Maude, you’re gettin’ soft.”
“Or maybe just greedy,” Vin chimed in, shifting the burden on his shoulder. “What’cha doin’ out of the clinic, Chris?”
“I wanted in on this. And Nate has his hands full right now.” He jerked his head at the body Vin was carrying. “Little bitch got the drop on Ezra, huh?”
The tracker scowled, shooting a hateful look at Maude. “Naw, the big one did.”
It took some time to get Maude and Catie secured in the jail, and then Nathan had to be fetched down from where he was seeing to Ezra in the clinic in order to tend to the Baxter girl’s wound. “She’ll live,” he told the other men once he’d finished and let them back into the jail, having shooed everyone but Josiah outside for propriety’s sake while he took care of things. “Ez wasn’t shootin’ to kill, but the bullet hit bone and she might not have much in the way of usin’ that arm any more.”
That didn’t seem to worry anyone all too much. “How is Ez?” Buck wanted to know. “I know it didn’t look like a bad one…”
“It wasn’t.” Nathan cast a sidelong, disapproving glance at Maude, who’d had the entire time he was in the jail to ask after her son and hadn’t – and who didn’t look any too interested now, either. “Just tore through the muscle, he’ll heal up just fine so long as he don’t overdo things for a week or so.”
“Miz Julie won’t let him.” Chris was sure about that. He turned his attention to Maude, turquoise eyes narrowing. “So what was it going to be, Maude? Kidnapping or blackmail?”
The Southern conwoman drew herself up haughtily. “The only crime bein’ perpetrated here is your unlawful detainment of my person. I came here to visit my son and his new wife, Mistah Larabee. Along the way I happened to encounter Miss Caitlin, who claimed to be an old acquaintance of my new daughter-in-law’s, and so we finished off the last part of our journey together.”
“Yeah, and then once you got here you decided to break into his house and shoot him,” Vin drawled from where he’d perched himself on the edge of the desk. He smiled at her disdainful look. “It don’t matter now how nice a story you can tell, ma’am; it was your gun shot Ezra and we know it, and we also know that he wasn’t expectin’ you and that no one was home when you went into his house. Sounds like a whole lot of lawbreakin’ to me, and all of it yours.”
“Not to mention that I warned you last year not to come back
to
Maude’s firm self-composure faltered for a moment. “President Grant? You can’t be serious.”
“Oh yes he can.” Chris smiled at her sudden look of shock, shaking his head. “Maybe the soft you’re gettin’ to be is really just soft in the head; Gordon and his connections aside, I know for a fact that Miz Julie’s brother had a few words of his own with you after the wedding, and it was Judge Travis himself who put you on the stage the next day and told you that maybe this part of the country wasn’t any to good for your continuin’ health.”
“Just a lot of talk,” the conwoman blustered. “I admit I was a bit…precipitate when I arrived at the weddin’, gentlemen, but that was only due to mah fear that Ezra was makin’ yet another mistake.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Such a stubborn boy, and rather unbalanced as well. Ah was thinkin’ of the girl’s welfare as well as his own…”
“So I guess that kidnappin’ his wife seemed to you to be a good way to protect her from Ez, now that makes sense,” Buck commented sarcastically. “Got an excuse for shootin’ him too?”
Maude sniffed. “He drew his weapon – and as I said before, although it shames me to admit it, my son is unbalanced and therefore quite unpredictable. I only resorted to usin’ my own gun out of self-defense.”
“Sounds good,” Vin said, nodding thoughtfully. “ ‘Course, it would sound a lot better if you hadn’t already tried to tell us you came out here to save Ez from Miz Julie because of somethin’ that Baxter girl told you.” His blue eyes sparked with a hard, dark humor, and he winked at her. “Got to keep them stories straight, you know – blows the whole con if you get ‘em mixed up.”
“It don’t help any when you try to run the con on people who know better in the first place, either,” Buck added helpfully. When Maude snorted her contempt of that, though – or maybe just of him – the ladies’ man’s dark blue eyes narrowed. “Or when you show up in the company of someone who’s got half the men in these parts stockin’ up on rope.”
“That’s all we need is a double lynchin’ – Travis would never let us live it down. So we should probably keep two men on watch until Grant’s men get here,” Chris observed. He was already moving toward the door. “We’ll work out the schedule tonight, might have to pull in some of the Slash Five boys to help out.”
Maude was doing her best to look unconcerned, but when the rest of the men made to follow Chris the mask dropped. “Wait…where do you gentlemen think you’re goin’? Didn’t you just say…”
At first she thought no one was going to answer her, but then JD turned just before going out the door…and smiled. “Sure did – say that, I mean,” he confirmed. “But right now not too many folks know you’re in here…or why you’re in here either, so I guess you’d best be stayin’ put and keepin’ quiet until someone gets back to watch the jail. Lynch mob is awful hard to stop once it gets started.” And with that he tipped his hat to her and followed the other men, closing the door behind him…although it didn’t escape Maude’s notice that he hadn’t locked it.
She might have felt better about that if she’d realized that both Josiah and JD had stayed outside on the porch to keep watch, but making the conwoman feel better hadn’t been on any of the men’s minds – just the opposite, in fact. After some whispered instructions and a lot of grinning and quiet back-slapping, Chris and Buck followed Nathan back to the clinic to check on Ezra.
The healer had been hoping that he could get Chris to stay in the clinic once they were back there, but as soon as he had eased open the door he knew the gunslinger would be resting in his room at the boarding house instead. Juliet was kneeling on Nathan’s narrow bed, her slender arms wrapped tightly around her husband; Ezra’s face was pressed hard against her shoulder, his shoulders shaking with the release of silent tears. A thick bandage was visible through the ripped, bloody sleeve of his white linen shirt, and his right hand was gripped into a white-knuckled fist around a handful of his wife’s blue skirt. The raw anguish that radiated from the two of them hit Chris like a physical blow, and he staggered slightly when Nathan pulled him back and shut the door. “Are you sure he’ll be all right?” he whispered.
The healer just shook his head, tugging the unsteady gunslinger back down the stairs. “I hope so,” he answered in kind. “I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this happen, though; I can’t even imagine what he must be feelin’ right now.”
“He has Miz Julie,” Buck stated firmly. “He has all of us. Ez ain’t alone anymore, he’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, you’re right, Buck,” Chris agreed. “But I don’t think I will be until that bitch who calls herself his mother is out of our town and out of his life for good.”