Dishonor

by Setcheti

 

 

Disclaimer: Don’t own them, never have, never will.

Author’s Note:  Not really sure what to call this.  It started out as a scene, grew to be sort of a description of a story…and then kind of stalled out there.  A lot of them seem to do that.  If anyone else wants to play with this, be my guest. 

 

At first, not too many people took notice of the man riding up the street.  There were still a few Chinese around even though the railroad camps had long since left the area, so the man’s nationality was not so unusual that it would garner him a second look.  And the mule he rode, narrow-backed and plodding, was no novelty either.  His pajama-like clothing was probably black under its thick coating of road dust, and his wide-brimmed straw hat was faded yellowish gray with its own brownish overlay.  He carried a basket the same aged, faded color as his hat before him on the mule’s narrow back, balancing it with his arm as he held the reins.  It was on seeing his face, however, that people stopped and stared.  It was deeply creased with age, thin lips set into a harsh line, black eyes deep and dark in the set face like pools of immanent damnation.  People looked, then quickly looked away when those eyes swung their way.

 

The citizens of Four Corners knew trouble when they saw it.  And the lawmen of Four Corners didn’t even have to see it.

 

Or so the townspeople thought, anyway.  The fact that Chris Larabee, Vin Tanner and Buck Wilmington walked out of the saloon just then was, of course, a coincidence; but to the wary citizens it was a sign that the coming trouble had been sensed and was about to be dealt with rather than evidence that Buck had, once again, gone too far with Inez and the bar manager had thrown him out.  Josiah Sanchez and Nathan Jackson appearing in the street was likewise attributed to some sixth sense of impending action instead of the two men just heading to the restaurant for an early lunch, as was the appearance of JD Dunne heading for the same destination.  Ezra Standish appeared last, also thinking of lunch, but frowned and headed off the boardwalk into the dusty street when he saw the old Chinaman on the mule watching him.

 

The old man reined in his mule when the gambler approached.  “You I know,” he said, his rough, accented voice as dry as the dust that covered him.  “Where are the others?”

 

It was more of a demand than a question, but by the time Ezra spotted the other six lawmen and waved them over they were already heading in his direction anyway.  Josiah’s broad face lit up when he saw the old man.  “Mr. Li!” the ex-preacher greeted him, brushing the gambler aside as he approached.  “How is your granddaughter?”

 

“Dead.”  The word fell heavily from pinched lips, and the hard black eyes raked the shocked ex-preacher from head to foot.  “You said to me when you returned she who was my granddaughter that she had been under the protection of yourself and these men.  Men of honor, you said.  You did not speak the truth.  The girl had been dishonored, and I bring her dishonor back to the one who caused it.”  The basket in front of him leaked a baby’s thin, fretful wail, and the thin lips twisted as the lawmen’s eyes widened.  “Let the man who purchased my granddaughter’s freedom bear the burden of shame he has created, our family will not.”

 

Another wail went up, and Josiah turned red with rage.  He swung around with astonishing speed for a man so large and backhanded Ezra before the openmouthed gambler could say a word.  The force of the unexpected blow nearly lifted the smaller man off his feet and sent him crashing down hard into the dusty ground several feet away where he lay in an unmoving heap.  Nathan looked away from the sight, disgusted, and stepped up beside Josiah.  “Mr. Pong, we’ll make sure he’s punished for what he did.  But you can’t give a man like that a child, even if it is his…”

 

“This child is dishonor, and the man who fathered it is a dishonorable man,” the Chinese man interrupted even more harshly, thrusting the basket into Nathan’s hands.  “Li Mei is yours, do with her what you will.”  And with that he spat in the dust at Nathan’s feet, tugged at the mule’s reins and rode back up the street the way he had come without another word.

 

None of the men followed him; they were all in shock.  But when the basket emitted yet another fretful cry Josiah plucked it from Nathan’s hands.  “Well, I say our erring brother should be made to know the burden of fatherhood,” he stated roughly.  “If we let him dump this child his sin created into an orphanage he won’t learn anything…”  He pulled back the rough-woven blanket that was protecting the baby within from the sun and dust…and gasped, almost dropping the basket.  He turned horrified, disbelieving eyes on the healer.

 

The other men crowded around to look, and their gasps echoed Josiah’s.  “She’s…she’s yours!” JD exclaimed.

 

Nathan winced.  The baby lying in the basket had slanted dark eyes like her mother…and rich brown skin like her father.  “She…she came to me, Li Pong,” he stammered.  “She was grateful, she wanted to show it and I…”

 

“Suffered a regrettable lapse in judgment, apparently,” Josiah rumbled, frowning at him.  “Brother, I believe we should take…the child up to the clinic.  We can discuss this there, in private.”

 

There was a murmur of agreement from the other men and Buck took Nathan’s arm, offering support as they led the shocked healer toward the stairs that led up to his clinic.  At the last minute JD remembered what the others had apparently forgotten and looked back…but the street was empty.  Ezra was gone.

 

 

It was two hours before four of the Seven left the clinic, leaving Nathan and the baby behind; Vin had departed some thirty minutes earlier to run his patrol, promising to meet the others in the saloon when he returned.  JD had mentioned that someone might want to check on Ezra at about that same time, only to be reprimanded harshly by Buck that they ‘didn’t need to be talking about that damned gambler’ when they should be helping Nathan come to terms with the new and shocking problem he was now confronted with.  Wisely, at least to his own way of thinking, the young sheriff had kept his mouth shut about Ezra from that point onward; he was still somewhat concerned about the way they had just walked off and left the gambler in the street, but he hadn’t wanted to make himself the next target of Buck’s anger – or even worse, Josiah’s.  He even reasoned that Ezra had most likely gotten off the street so quickly for the same reason, and so couldn’t have been that much hurt in the first place.  The gambler was probably up in his room…

 

But he wasn’t.  When Chris and Josiah pushed through the saloon’s swinging doors, the first thing they saw was Ezra leaning rather heavily against the bar with an open bottle of whisky beside him while Inez finished tying a sling into place around his left arm.  They both looked up when the other lawmen entered, Ezra with a pained, shuttered expression and the bar manager with pure rage.  “Vamanos!” she snarled.  “You are not welcome here!”

 

The men stopped in their tracks and Chris’ eyes narrowed.  Josiah spread his hands out in a placating gesture.  “Miss Inez, it was an understandable mistake…”

 

“No, it was not!” she interrupted.  “Senor Ezra is not that kind of man!”

 

“A fact ah am troubled none of you appeared cognizant of,” Ezra added wearily, gingerly touching his bruised cheek with his good hand.  “Nor did any of you attempt to verify mah well-being once you realized your error.”

 

There was some uncomfortable shuffling and the ex-preacher shook his head.  “We just thought…”

 

“That ah was such a moral deviant that ah would act our mah carnal desires on a child?” Ezra finished for him scathingly.  “The gross insult to mah character aside, ah can well understand how the mere suggestion of such perversion could stimulate a violent reaction; ah experienced such a reaction mahself.  But ah suppose it is too much to hope for that Mr. Jackson received any retribution from the five of you for his dishonorable actions, isn’t it?”

 

Josiah tried again.  “Our brother is pretty broken up about this whole thing, he needs our support right now.”

 

“Ah expected as much.”  Ezra looked over the five men with contempt and just a flicker of…disappointment?  It was gone too quickly for anyone to tell.  Then he shared a long look with Inez, and a silent understanding seemed to be reached between them.  “Ah am goin’ up to mah room to rest; bein’ assaulted without warnin’ by someone of Mr. Sanchez’ size is an experience that cannot fail to have a deleterious effect on a person.  And for the record, you gentlemen are to consider our professional relationship to be at an end.”

 

Chris glowered at him.  “You runnin’ out?”

 

Ezra snorted.  “Hardly.”  He started limping up the stairs with obvious effort, not looking back.  “If anything, ah’d have to say that you gentlemen ran out on me.”

 

 

Four Corners’ remaining lawmen quickly figured out what the gambler meant.  They’d expected him to leave town, but he didn’t.  Instead, Ezra stayed on at the saloon and alternated helping Inez manage things with holding court in his usual place and keeping the card games lively.  Not too lively, though; whatever he was doing in there, he was keeping brawls to a bare minimum and handling the ones that started on his own.  And business for the saloon started to pick up accordingly…although that could also have had something to do with the rest of the Seven being forced to patronize the only other saloon in town.

 

The story of what had happened had gotten around.  At first it had gotten around wrong, as gossip is wont to do, but after the first person saw the much-talked-about baby the story straightened itself out immediately and local sentiment shifted.  A lot of the people in town remembered the Chinese railroad workers’ camp and the little girl the Seven had sent back to her family.  Unfortunately for Nathan, a lot of people also remembered that not only had he borrowed money from Ezra to ‘buy’ the girl, but that the gambler had been opposed to the idea of getting involved with the situation.  Now, people thought they knew why; Ezra went from being barely tolerated to being a pillar of gentlemanly virtue practically overnight.

 

Nathan’s attitude wasn’t helping his own end of the situation.  He was trying to act like everything was normal but not succeeding too well at it, and since his manner had been a little on the brusque side before the baby’s arrival the change wasn’t something people were willing to overlook.  They might have been more charitable if the healer had been seen making an effort to accept his new status as a father…but he very obviously wasn’t.  In fact, he would hardly speak of his daughter even if asked directly and left her to someone else’s care at any and every opportunity.

 

‘Someone elses’ had turned out to be hard to find, seeing as how the town’s women were the ones spreading the stories and weren’t inclined to help him, and of the other lawmen only Josiah proved willing to babysit even occasionally.  So that left the working girls, whom Nathan paid to watch the baby…which in turn led to a very interesting  and wholly unexpected turn of events as concerned little Li Mei.

 

Because the working girls of Four Corners were, well, working girls – their job may not have been respectable, but they took a certain amount of pride in doing it well.  And when business was good, which it often was, it just wasn’t possible or desirable to keep the baby with them.  So they passed it off to the only other person in town who would take it, who also happened to be someone Nathan wasn’t able to ask.  That person was Inez.

 

Many people saw little Li Mei in the saloon, asleep in her basket or held in the bar manager’s arms, or even occasionally being held and bottle-fed by Ezra at his poker table when Inez was busy with customers.  Li Mei was a smiling, happy baby at those times, rarely crying, rarely fussy.  In contrast, the baby could be heard to both cry and fuss when she was with her father in his clinic, and more than one person who had need to visit him there professionally noted that he paid as little attention as possible to his child and was never seen to hold her at all.  And the more times this was witnessed, the uglier sentiment in town became – towards not only the healer, but also spreading to cover the town’s other five lawmen as well.  JD hadn’t been the only one bothered by what had happened in the street the day the baby had arrived in town.  He’d just been the only one who’d stopped being bothered by it.

 

In spite of this he had, of course, attempted to talk to Ezra on several occasions since the incident – as had Vin, and finally Chris had tried to demand his way into the saloon.  Inez had warned Larabee off at the end of her shotgun, and after that the leader of the Seven – now down to six – had told the rest of his men to stay away from the saloon if they knew what was good for them.

 

 

It was nearly six weeks after the old Chinaman had brought Li Mei to Four Corners that Judge Travis arrived back in town, and the morning after he did Josiah and Nathan took the baby and went to talk to him.  They’d gone early, meeting the rest of the peacekeepers there at the newspaper office as soon as it opened, and had therefore been surprised when Mary informed them that Inez had gotten there before them and had been joined by Ezra only a few minutes earlier.  The men reluctantly arranged themselves around the cramped space to wait; the sooner they explained things to the judge, the sooner they could transport the baby to the nearest orphan home.  Nathan had considered doing it before the judge had arrived, but due to the level of hostility in town Josiah had deemed it best to wait and gain the man’s public approval first.

 

Ezra and Inez were in with the judge for a long time, and when they finally came out Travis shook the gambler’s hand and accepted a hug from Inez before turning to the waiting men.  The look of admiration he’d been wearing faded immediately, replaced by a look of distaste.  Ezra started to step towards them, but the older man stopped him before he’d moved so much as an inch.  “No, son, allow me.”  Striding over to Nathan, he looked down at the baby in the basket and then frowned up at the healer.  “This is your daughter, Mr. Jackson?  And you want to give her up for adoption – that is why you’re here, right?  You realize that because of her…origin that will mean placing her in an orphanage which she will most likely never leave, as it will be difficult if not impossible to find a family willing to raise a mixed-breed child?”

 

“I can’t raise her, Judge Travis,” Nathan answered in a low voice, not meeting the older man’s eyes.  “I got responsibilities as a healer and a lawman to this town, I can’t be any kind of a father to her.”

 

“I see.”  Travis eyed him a moment more, then held out his arms for the baby.  When Nathan picked up the basket the judge shook his head.  “No, take her out of that contraption and hand her to me – that’s a baby, not your market shopping.”  Chastened, the healer gingerly extracted the quietly fussing baby and, handling her like she was something he didn’t want to touch, placed her in the older man’s arms.

 

Travis looked down into the wide, slightly slanted brown eyes that blinked up at him, and he smiled.  “What a beautiful child,” he said.  Nathan stepped back like he was afraid the judge would try to hand the baby back to him, and Travis snorted.  “I’m ashamed to know you, Jackson.”

 

Josiah stepped in and began the explanation he’d tried to offer those few people in town who had tried to approach him, as a man of God, with complaints about the situation.  “Judge, you can’t possibly understand.  Our brother suffered a regrettable lapse in judgment; all this child can ever be to him is a mark of dishonor, a terrible reminder of his own weakness.  Little Li Mei …”

 

“That isn’t her name, Mr. Sanchez,” Travis interrupted gravely.  “And you’re no better than he is.”  He carried the baby back to Ezra and Inez and transferred her carefully to the bar manager’s eager arms.  “Mr. and Mrs. Standish, your petition for adoption is granted; congratulations on the new addition to your family.  I am confident that I am giving little Maribelle Lee to the best possible parents a child could have.”

 

“What?!”  The shocked exclamation rattled through the lawmen, but Josiah’s deep bass rumble cut above the rest.  “Parents?  Judge, you can’t…”

 

“I most certainly can grant a petition for adoption,” Travis told him.  “Mr. Jackson brought the child to me this morning in order to obtain my official approval for the severing of his parental responsibilities. I have signed statements from several upstanding members of this community, asserting that Mr. and Mrs. Standish have already been taking care of the child and have proved to be more than acceptable guardians for her.”  He fixed a hard eye on Nathan.  “I also have several other statements regarding your apparent…lack of feeling for your offspring,” he told the healer.  “If you gentlemen, and I use the term loosely, hadn’t brought the baby to me this morning, I would have been coming to find her to see the state of things for myself.”  He cocked an eyebrow.  “A whorehouse is not an acceptable dumping ground for a child, Mr. Jackson, no matter how busy you claim you are.  And before you say anything,” he raised an admonishing finger when the healer started to speak, “one of the most condemning messages I received was from Miss Lillian, the madame of that whorehouse, and was so blistering I’m surprised the paper it was penned on didn’t catch fire.”  His attention turned to Buck, who was standing there openmouthed.  “You may have noticed, Mr. Wilmington, that said establishment no longer welcomes your patronage.”

 

Buck may or may not have heard him; he was staring at Ezra, who had slipped an arm around Inez’ shoulders and was talking softly to the cooing baby she held.  “You…and Inez?” Buck stammered in disbelief, but a scowl was forming on his handsome face.  “But I thought we had an understandin’ about that, you knew I wanted Inez…”

 

“And ah knew exactly what you wanted her for,” Ezra cut him off coolly.  “At no time did you ever take mah feelin’s for the lady into consideration, nor hers for me, and out of fear of retaliation from your compatriots if ah were to trespass on your carnal claim both she and ah held ourselves in check.”  He glared defiantly but proudly at the six dumbfounded men.  “Ah cared deeply for this lady and mah intentions were honorable; ah wanted to settle down.  But of course in the rest of your eyes Mr. Wilmington’s desire for a temporary dalliance was the stronger claim.”

 

“Which it wasn’t in mine, and still isn’t,” the judge interjected.  He rested a fatherly hand on the gambler’s shoulder.  “Take your family home, son, and we’ll see you at supper tonight.  I’ll take care of the rest of the little details.”  He waited until Ezra, Inez and the baby were gone before rounding on the other six men.  “They are married, and they have been, legally, for the past two weeks.  What God and the Territory of New Mexico have joined together, I had damned well better not hear of you boys trying to pull asunder, do we understand each other?  If I do, I’ll have the sheriff arrest the lot of you.”  JD winced, and the older man’s frown deepened.  “And if he doesn’t, he won’t be the sheriff any more.”

 

Chris found his voice.  “Judge, I know everyone’s runnin’ hot right now, but I think you’re making a mistake.”

 

“I made one, that I admit.”  Travis looked him over coolly.  “You know, Mr. Larabee, I’m curious about something.  In spite of the fact that I never gave you a badge, you’ve placed yourself at the head of these men.  Not to mention that you’ve been a father yourself, and I’ve seen you show a great deal of fatherly attention to my grandson.  So how could you allow Jackson here to go on the way he has been?  I’d have expected you to be first in line every time he deserved to have some sense knocked into him, but I understand you’ve barely spoken of the situation at all.”

 

Josiah tried to answer for him when the gunslinger hesitated.  “This has been difficult for all of us…”

 

“I don’t believe I was talking to you, Mr. Sanchez,” the judge snapped.  “So keep your mouth shut unless I ask you to open it.  Mr. Larabee?”

 

Chris cleared his throat.  “I didn’t see that it was my business to ride herd on Nathan, Judge.  He’s a grown man, and a good man.”

 

“That’s debatable,” Travis answered.  “In fact, given the circumstances, I’d say it’s been disproved rather thoroughly – I’ve seen a good many not-so-good appearing men step up to the plate and start swinging when presented with something like this.  ‘By their actions ye shall know them’, the Good Book says, and Mr. Jackson’s actions have been of a very telling nature lately.  As have the rest of yours.  I am very disappointed in the six of you, very disappointed.”

 

JD hung his head, and Nathan shuffled his feet; Buck and Vin seemed to be finding the room’s farthest wall extremely interesting.  Even Chris looked somewhat ashamed of himself, but Josiah was getting angry.  “Judge,” he rumbled.  “You have no right to do what you’ve done here today.  Brother Nathan is a good man, and we, his friends, have been doing our best to support him in his hour of need.  You say you are disappointed; well, your honor, I am as well, deeply disappointed.  You took that innocent child and gave her to a lying, conniving criminal.  And you took his word, and the gossip-fueled opinions of a few uninformed townsfolk, over that of six honest men.”

 

His voice had gotten louder as he spat the words out, easily loud enough to be heard in the street outside by the time he was finished, but Travis didn’t appear to be intimidated.  Instead the judge pursed his lips and looked over the other men.  “Perhaps I was mistaken.  Does Mr. Sanchez indeed speak for all of you, gentlemen?”

 

More looking, more shuffling.  Buck cleared his throat.  “Well, Judge…Ez is a criminal.  You had the kid arrest him right after we got back from the village.”

 

The judge focused on him.  “Mr. Tanner has a criminal background of his own, as I recall.”

 

“That’s not the same thing, Judge,” JD spoke up at once.  “Vin’s innocent…”

 

“I never said Standish was guilty,” was Travis’ immediate answer.  His eyes narrowed.  “Of course, none of you would know that, would you?” he questioned in a softer, albeit more dangerous tone.  “I don’t suppose he would have volunteered information to men he knew wouldn’t believe him anyway, would he?”  He met Sanchez’ eyes - the only man there who would meet his eyes – and held them.  “Mr. Standish saw fit to free himself from my custody while he was awaiting trial for murder in a small territorial town.”  A small, unpleasant smile curled his lips when five other heads shot up.  “He shot one of the town’s deputies, in the back.”

 

The room erupted, but this time it was Chris Larabee’s voice that rose above the others, low and dark with dawning rage.  “You saddled us with a two-bit killer?!”

 

Travis was still smiling.  “I never said he was a killer; I said he shot a man in the back.  Neat piece of shooting it was, too.  I don’t think I could have done it, and I don’t think most other men could have either.”  The look in the judge’s eyes stopped Chris from opening his mouth again.  “You see, it was an extremely difficult shot.  The deputy in question was engaged in forcing himself on an unwilling young woman in one of the jail cells – Standish had come in to speak to someone who happened to be incarcerated there, so he was at that time locked in the cell across the way.  He managed to stop the deputy without harming the young woman, but there were some people who didn’t think stopping the man had been quite that important so they held him over.”  He snorted.  “Lucky for him I was there to hear the evidence before the lynch mob formed; he got himself away before they broke into the jail to get him.  I pronounced him innocent of murder in absentia, but when I saw him here I thought he might be able to make himself useful for what I had in mind, so to keep him here I charged him with jailbreaking.”  His smile became more approving.  “I’d say it worked, even better than I’d expected.  He must have been ready to hang up his hat, and thirty days was just the nudge he needed to do it.”

 

No one had anything to say to that, and Travis hadn’t expected them to.  He let the silence grow into uncomfortable shuffling and then waved a careless hand at the door.  “I believe you gentlemen know the way out.”

 

They all went, Larabee forcibly moving Josiah when the older man looked inclined to hang back, and within moments the judge was alone in the room.  He walked over to the desk, keeping one eye on the six men’s progress through the window while he fingered several yellow slips that had lain unremarked among Mary’s other papers on the desk.  A U.S. Marshal would be arriving in Four Corners in a few days, and two men Travis trusted were riding in from a nearby town to serve as interim deputies until the marshal showed up and got settled.  The judge had no illusions about JD Dunne’s ability to control the other five men, especially not Sanchez.

 

Travis smiled to himself without humor.  If Larabee only knew that the real ‘two-bit killer’ was actually Josiah Sanchez; the big old outlaw had gotten religion some years back and preacherized himself, but obviously the change didn’t run very deep.  The judge thought that if he were very lucky tonight Sanchez would get drunk and start something Larabee or Tanner would be forced to finish, which would save everyone a lot of trouble on down the road.  Not that there wasn’t going to be trouble anyway, of course, at the very least from Buck Wilmington, but the judge was certain that Standish could handle Wilmington on his own.

 

Or someone else would.  Amusement slid into Travis’ smile as he saw the ‘ladies man’ heading in a direction that could mean he had only one destination in mind, and the judge chuckled before turning away from the window.  Wilmington would doubtless be in no condition to cause trouble at the saloon once Miss Lillian and her girls got done with him.