Deception, his inner voice whispered.
Four
Corners was paying the price for trusting Ezra Standish. The fine tuned plan
the gambler had worked on for almost a year now finally paid off. Or so he
thought. He stored the wads of money in his boots and jacket, hastily packet
his saddlebags, stuffed clothes and provisions into the leather bags. Mother
would be proud, and he could now buy himself the finest establishment in St.
Louis.
Disgrace, his conscience screamed.
“Going
anywhere?”
Chris Larabee’s voice was cold as stone,
sending a chill through the con man. Ezra spun around, a smile on his face,
trying to dispel the gunslinger’s tension. With any luck he’d be out of this
dustbowl before anyone learned about his actions.
“Mr. Larabee…” his voice trailed off when he
saw the mistrust and disappointment in the older man’s hazel eyes. Ezra
swallowed nervously as he realized that Larabee knew and that there was no
escape. “Aw hell!”
Ezra bolted for the door, but Chris’ fist hit him square in the face,
leaving a laceration on the gambler’s cheek.
Evil as plain as the scar on his face, his sub-consciousness accused.
Before Standish had
a chance to recover, Larabee hit him again, this time knocking him out cold. Just
when the darkness consumed Ezra, he could hear JD’s sad question from the
doorway.
“Why, Ezra? I thought we were friends…”
Deception,
the hatred voice pierced through the shadows.
An outrage!
a woman sneered.
Disgrace…
Vin? Ezra wondered.
For shame!
Mrs. Travis damned him.
He asked for trouble the moment he
came,
Nathan’s disappointment was almost touchable,
forcefully pushing him to wakefulness.
When Ezra came around, he found himself in the middle of Four Corner’s
Main Street, on his knees, an highly irritated mob of townspeople building a
circle around him which inner parameters were drawn by five of the six
remaining lawmen.
Chris stood next to Ezra, keeping
the people that the gambler had conned out of their earnings and cheated out of
their money at bay with his glare and a drawn weapon. For a moment, Standish
wasn’t sure if he should be glad or scared, until Larabee’s command of
“Silence” boomed over the crowd, followed by a gunshot. The effect was instant,
the shouting was reduced to single outbursts.
Deception,
Ezra heard the voice of the Judge. How did
Judge Travis get here?
An outrage!
Was that Mrs. Potter?
He can't change his stripes,
Josiah apologized to the crowd and it sent a
shiver down the gambler’s spine.
Ezra could feel the dried blood itching on his
cheek, interfering with his attempts to maintain a cool and uninterested
façade. Inside, however, he was desperately rattling through his options,
nullifying each with disturbing fatality. He knew his friends – no, his marks,
he corrected himself quickly – too well to recognize the signs of determination
in them.
Larabee was deadly in his anger, the trust and
friendship that he might have felt for the gambler being burned away by the
depth of the betrayal. The putrefied glare that Chris shot him seared Ezra’s
psyche, effectively cutting down his defences. The deadly silence on the street
gave the scene an almost unearthly feeling, nagging on the last strains of self
control that the Southerner still possessed.
“Standish…“ When Chris finally spoke up, the
con man began to realize that he would pay dearly for his con. “We all thought
we could trust you…”
Ezra winced, then gathered himself. “I’m sorry.”
Larabee seized him with a look that pierced
straight through the Southerner’s heart and he lowered his head in shame. What
on Earth had he done? When did marks turn into friends? It was too late now,
the Judge would lock him up for good this time.
“You’re not worth a trial, you little cheat,”
Travis sternly said. “You will leave this territory and never come back. If you
don’t comply, you will pay for your crimes with your life.”
On the Judge’s words, Larabee trained his gun
on Ezra, indicating him to move through the passage that the townspeople had
formed.
Disgrace,
Ezra could see the message written
crystal clear in Buck’s eyes.
For shame!
JD muttered and turned away.
You know these Outsider types,
Mr. Conklin spat out.
He asked for trouble the moment he
came,
Nettie Wells glared at him.
See you later, agitator!
Chris smiled menacingly.
Ezra stared at the friends he had conned and
his face barely covered the panic he felt. They were driving him out of Four
Corners, had joined up with the mob. Faces full of anger, hate, betrayal, hurt.
He staggered backwards, trying to escape the angry shouts and accusing glares
that were thrown at him, fearing for his very life. Ezra stumbled some more
steps towards the edge of town.
Deception,
Chris uttered.
An outrage!
Josiah’s expression of pure regret
left nothing to guessing.
Just leave us alone!
Vin’s words hurt more than Ezra had
ever thought possible.
Disgrace
Nathan shook his head in disgust
over Standish’s actions.
For shame!
Buck stated with vitriol.
Traitor, go back with your own!
Ezra wasn’t sure what hurt more, the words or
the tone of JD. The gambler had stooped lower than low in the youth’s opinion. He
suppressed and agonized scream, instead he accelerated his steps until he was
running.
He asked for trouble the moment he
came,
someone shouted.
See you later, agitator!
A stone hit Ezra square in the back. The crowds
were getting violent.
Born in grief
Raised in hate
Was the con he had pulled to get the city’s
money worth the price he ways paying? Emotions were running wild in Ezra now
that he sprinted towards safety, away from the place he had almost considered
his home.
Helpless to defy his fate.
The gambler looked back as the angered shouts
behind him grew softer, they were no longer following him. Ezra took in the
sight of Four Corners and its citizens, gathered on the main street at the edge
of town, caught a final glimpse of the six lawmen that had been friends. Lined
up like a protective barrier they shielded him from the revenge the mob had
planned.
Let him run
Let him live
But do not forget what we cannot
forgive
And
he is not one of us
He has never been one of us
He is not part of us
Not our kind
Someone
once lied to us
Now we're not so blind
For we knew he would do what he's
done
And we know that he'll never be one
of us
Larabee’s voice carried clear and with a lethal
threat over the growing distance between con man and town. His words let
everything inside Standish freeze, would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Running, he had to keep running. Running away
from the shame, the guilt, his failing, the loss, running from the pain and
emptiness inside, the faces of his friends, running from Chris’ words…
He ran miles after miles, not caring about his
burning feet, the unbearable thirst, the physical and emotional exhaustion
creeping into him, or the direction he took.
The sun burned down merciless on the lone
figure that had collapsed in the middle of the desert, vultures’ screams
announced impending death. But all Ezra heard were the words of the man who had
given him a second chance once. A chance for achieving more in his life than
money could ever buy.
He is not one of us
And with his final ragged breath, Ezra Standish knew that he had lost
everything he ever truly cared about over a con that in the end was just a lie,
after the marks had become friends.
Deception,
Disgrace,
Deception,
Disgrace,
The words echoed through Ezra’s dream
and he muttered them over and over again as he tossed in his sleep until
he let out a strangled scream. The gambler bolted upright, bathed in sweat and
took a few calming breaths before he pried his eyes open. With a sigh, he
identified the room as the one he occupied in Four Corners since he took up his
duties as law keeper in the backwater dustbowl. Home. Friends.
A smile tugged his lips and Standish
silently thanked his creator that he had never given in to the demands of his
mother to con this town out of all its meagre riches. Instead of fleeting
monetary values, the gambler had
achieved some true values, a feeling of belonging, and have a man like Chris
Larabee say: “He’s one of us.”
The
End