Ezra sat playing poker with three new comers into town. He had already learned each of their tells. The man with the blue kerchief always rubbed his mustache when he thought he had a winning hand. This occurred often. However, Ezra had learned that this man's idea of a winning hand was a pair of eights. When the man thought he had an unbeatable hand, he tapped his right index finger on the table. The man never bluffed. The man with the brown plainsman fiddled with the string of his hat when he was bluffing. The remaining man, a rather scruffy looking individual who had already consumed two bottles of whiskey, bet on any hand. However, he did not know how to play the game and often would throw away cards that he should have kept.

The game was rather unchallenging; however, as long as these individuals were willing to make contributions to his saloon fund, he would play them.

Ezra looked up as gunshots were fired in the street. However, he was in the middle of a game. Unless one of the other men called for him, he was not going to abandon such easy marks.

After a moment, the gunshots ceased. He knew that they had not needed him. Ezra watched the doors. Any moment now, Buck would saunter through the door and order a beer.

Minutes passed. Buck didn't show up. Neither did Chris or the others. Ezra looked at the men sitting at his table. He knew he'd won anything worth winning from them. At the end of the hand, he picked up his winnings.

"Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure," Ezra said formally as he stood up.

"Yeah, I can see that, seein's how you took all our money, mister."

Ezra fixed a cool stare on the man who had spoken. "Good sir, I did not force you to engage in this game of chance, nor did I prevent you from departing at any time. You incurred those losses on your own."

The man looked at him coldly for a moment, then nodded.

"Good day to you." Ezra turned and left the saloon.

When he stepped out and looked down the street, Ezra knew there was trouble. There was a crowd of at least forty rough looking gunslingers. He could see that Chris was trussed up and tied onto a horse. Vin was slung over the saddle of another one. JD and Buck were lying on the dirt. Nathan was hollering at someone. Josiah was being tied onto a horse.

The leader of this gang was shouting. "Now, I know there are seven men who protect this town. I got six of them. What I want from you," he said as he waved his gun to the crowd, "is the seventh."

No one in the town moved. No one in the town spoke. No one looked at Ezra. Ezra was impressed.

The leader continued. "If you do not give up the seventh man, I am going to kill someone every 10 minutes." Then he pointed a gun at Mary Travis, who was standing in the front of the Clarion office.

Ezra knew he could not give himself up, not if he wanted to help the others out. And he could not allow Mary Travis to be shot to protect him.

Ezra was a con-man, first and foremost. That was something his mother had drilled into him from a young age. It was what he knew best. But did he have the skills to get everyone out of this alive?

The leader of the gang lowered his gun. "You have ten minutes to hand over the seventh man. If I don't have him by then, this pretty little lady dies." Then he grinned evilly, and looked straight at Mary. "But don't worry, darlin'. It won't be right away."

Ezra saw Mary flinch. Clearly, she understood precisely what the man was implying. Ezra stared at the man who was leading this group. Then he looked at the remaining gunmen. With forty of them, there had to be some weak link he could exploit.

And he found it. Ezra grinned, revealing his gold tooth. As he did whenever he was beginning to formulate a plan, he ran his tongue under his teeth and then licked his lips. His eyes sparkled. He knew one of those men. He'd run a con with him several years back. It had been a particularly nasty one, one that he had never been proud of. Actually, that con was one of the reasons he gambled mostly now. That con had cost a man his life. Ezra felt responsible for it. No, he had not actually pulled the trigger of the gun. But he had conned the gentleman in question out of everything he owned.

None of the other men knew this, and his mother definitely didn't know this, but he had actually seen to it that the man's little girl had been provided for. Every month, he sent off something to her. It was anonymous, of course. For he knew the girl would never accept anything from someone responsible for her papa's death.

However, something good was about to come out of that con. Ezra walked up to the leader of the group and smiled. "Good day to you sir. I really must congratulate you on your accomplishment."

"Who the hell are you?"

Ezra had already pondered that. Joe Wilkins, the man he had worked with, knew him as Ezra Sanders. And that was who he was going to be now. "Ezra Sanders, at your service," Ezra said with a flourish.

The lead gunman pointed his weapon in Ezra's face. "Well, Ezra Sanders, unless you got information on the seventh lawman, I ain't got much use for your face."

Ezra allowed a brief laugh. "Ah yes, the seventh lawman. He and I met yesterday. Seems he had decided to take a journey on his own. He's not coming back." Ezra grinned wickedly. "You can ask them if you like. I'm sure they'll tell you that Charlie Johnson, that's the lawman by the way, headed to Eagle Bend."

He hoped he had spoken loudly enough that Chris and Nathan had both heard him.

Chris turned to him and shouted over the din, "Sanders, you Bastard!"

Ezra looked at Chris and smiled. "Ah yes. Bastard. How very original."

Chris glared at him, fury building in his darkening eyes.

Just then, Joe Wilkins walked up to the leader. "Carlton. I know him. A smarter gun you could not hire."

Carlton looked over at Joe. Ezra nodded his thanks. When Carlton looked back at Ezra, Ezra smiled. "You mind if I ride out with you. I have a feeling this town won't be overly enthusiastic about my presence once you leave."

Carlton nodded. Ezra ran to the stable to saddle his horse. Fortunately, experience had taught him to always be prepared to leave and his saddlebags were always ready. He rode out and joined the gang. By the time he got back, the others were all tied to horses. Some of his friends were unconscious, all were bleeding.

He looked at Mary on the way out of town. He knew that she would wire Judge Travis as soon as the gang left. Unfortunately, half of the gang stayed behind. Whatever these men wanted required that there be no law in Four Corners.

All he could hope was that the citizens, most especially Mary who had a tendency to get involved, stayed away from those men until he could get back with the Chris and the others.

Carlton and his men rode out of town about five miles before making camp. Ezra still didn't know what was going on. Obviously, there was some reason Carlton had not killed the others. Ezra knew the man had to have a reason to keep them alive.

Ezra needed information. But before he could get that, he needed to get trust and build a rapport with the gang. He had to be a member of that gang for them to trust him.

Ezra took out his Remington revolver and checked the chambers. Then he went over to the fire. Ezra squatted down next to Joe. He took a deck of cards out of his waistcoat pocket.

"Care to partake in a game of chance?" Ezra asked.

Joe and a few other guys nodded. Before long, they had a makeshift table set up and the men were playing. Ezra listened. Sure, he knew that most folks thought his best skill was his speech, but that was really only partially correct. He actually preferred folks to believe that. His best skill, however, was really directing the conversation.

Ezra skillfully directed the conversation, and listened to the outcome carefully. He needed two pieces of information. The first was: what did Carlton want with his friends? The second was: what was going on in Four Corners? He could not help Chris and the others until he knew that information.

Over the course of the game, Ezra watched the other men carefully. They looked to Joe a great bit. This told him that Joe really was in the line of command in this gang. He was not the leader, but he was one of the leader's confederates. This was good.

Ezra regaled the gang with tales of his cons, mostly made up. And he learned that the reason the others had not been killed yet was that some rancher had put a bounty on all of their heads. And basically, the gang didn't want to lug dead bodies to where ever this rancher was. Quite understandable. Dead bodies tended to attract all sorts of things...and became quite odorous in the middle of summer.

On the other hand, live prisoners would try to escape. Ezra was planning on helping them to do just that. He knew that armed, and uninjured, they could handle twenty men. Ezra needed to know how badly the others had been hurt.

While he was playing cards, however, he did manage to acquire something other than information. He won Buck's gun and Nathan's knives.

Ezra closed the game. Afterall, garnering all the information in one game would be suspicious. He didn't want these people thinking he was pumping them for information. Right now, he was a man on the inside, and he needed to keep it that way until the whole gang was out of Four Corners.

Shortly after midnight, Ezra walked around the campsite, getting acquainted with everyone there. He noticed that Chris and Vin were in one area, Buck and JD were together, and Nathan and Josiah were kept together. The men were relatively close to one another.

As Ezra walked past Chris and Vin, he noted that the tracker was awake. Chris looked mad. "Well, Mr. Larabee," Ezra said in his most hateful voice, "seems you're in a bit of a predicament."

Chris fixed a glare on him. "So it would seem."

Ezra looked at Chris, trying to determine where he'd been shot before. It looked to be in the side. Chris seemed to be in a bit of pain, but he was doing pretty well, all things considered.

Ezra looked at Vin and commented, "He ain't gonna make it."

Chris stated, "He'll be just fine."

Ezra raised an eyebrow. That helped. As he was finishing the conversation with Chris, Carlton came up.

"What are you doing, Sanders?"

"Just tormenting Mr. Larabee. He and I had a bit of a run in a while back. It's nice to see him like this." Ezra grinned.

"Tell ya what, Sanders. I'm going to let you shoot him."

"It would be my pleasure." With that, Ezra took out his revolver, aimed it at Chris, and fired.

Ezra watched dispassionately as Chris rolled to his side and bit back a scream. Vin glared at him.

Carlton walked over to Larabee and stated, "He ain't dead yet."

Ezra merely laughed derisively. He brought his gun up and looked into the chambers again. "You didn't say I had to do it in one shot. That man deserves to suffer first."

"You sick bastard," Vin said while looking at Ezra.

Carlton nodded. "Yes, indeed. I like the way you think. I could definitely use a man like you."

Ezra smiled. "What did you have in mind?"

Carlton started to walk off. "Why don't we talk this over a bit? You can come back and torment this cowboy later."

Ezra nodded and left with Carlton.

Chris rolled onto his back. Vin watched him, his eyes filled with silent worry.

"You mind telling me what the hell that was about?" Vin asked. He was trying to get a look at Chris, to see how much damage Ezra had done. "I thought he was on our side."

Chris looked at Vin. "He is."

"Damn it Chris, he just shot you."

"With a blank. And he took a great risk doing that much." Chris winced. Rolling over when Ezra had shot at him had jostled his already sore side. "He's all that is standing between us and death right now."

Vin nodded. "We still have to get out of here. Town's in trouble."

Chris nodded. "Vin. We're going to have to trust that Ezra knows how to cheat the odds, because right now...it doesn't look good."

Vin grinned. "Looks a hell of a lot better now than it did ten minutes ago."

Neither man said anything more.

Ezra listened as Carlton explained what he needed from him. Apparently a large shipment was coming through town...munitions, money, supplies. It was a valuable enough shipment that it would supply this gang for a good period of time. And make them a lot more dangerous than they were before.

The members that stayed in town were to blend in and see to it that the soldiers were not warned. They were going to follow the shipment. This half of the gang would meet it. The soldiers would then be trapped between two groups of angry gunmen.

He had to admit. It was a sound strategy. All he had to do was figure out how to free his friends, and stop the gang. Ezra grinned and thought sarcastically to himself, "This should be a piece of cake."

Chris looked up as Ezra sauntered over to them. "Back to give me some more, eh?"

Ezra nodded. "Think you can take it?"

"Try me."

Ezra snorted. He looked over toward where JD and Buck were being held. "Friends with those two, are you?"

Chris nodded. Ezra was obviously trying to tell him something without making it look suspicious. And understanding Ezra never was an easy task in the first place.

"You'll be pleased to know that you'll die before they do."

Chris hid his relief. The last time he'd seen Buck and JD, they were unconscious. For all he had known, they were dead. It took all of Chris's concentration to get the gist of what Ezra was telling him. Ezra's voice was harsh and malicious, as if he was taunting him.

Ezra glared at him one more time, then stood up and left. Chris watched as Ezra moved to the guard near them and started playing poker with him. A few others joined in the game. Chris was amazed when he saw Ezra win JD's guns, but lose Nathan's knives.

Ezra came back a while later and fired another blank at Chris. Then he winked. Chris grinned. Apparently, Ezra wanted to get everyone used to gunfire at random intervals. Chris groaned loudly. Vin rolled his eyes.

Ezra looked at his watch then looked Chris in the eye and nodded. Then Ezra walked off.