Sometimes it just didn't pay to get up. Be it in the morning or the late afternoon, or even at night.
No, it didn't pay off.
Trouble would find him on those days.
Like today.
Ezra Standish knew it had been a big mistake the day he had let a Section Judge coerce him into working as a Territory regulator. Well, Travis had more or less threatened to throw him into jail to rot if he didn't take up this job. A paid job. A truly official job, but with a whole tangle of strings attached. He had dangled a pardon in front of his nose, promised him a clean slate. A new start. Away from everything that had happened to him and because of him in the past.
People who came out here, into the untamed wild of a Territory, who turned their back on modern civilization with all its perks and technological amenities, fell into several categories.
There were the fortune hunters, the entrepreneurs, those who thought they could undermine or circumvent the Protection Act and make money off the land.
Ezra had to confess he had fallen into that category when he had arrived so long ago. Well, he hadn't been interested in the wealth he had to dig up from the ground or tear off the mountains himself. He had been looking into relieving some gents from their hard earned money another way. A game here, a con there, nothing to outrageous to get him on anyone's radar.
Then there were those lonely souls who were overwhelmed in the cities, who preferred a simpler lifestyle, maybe even alone in the middle of nowhere with just the occasional human contact.
Flocks of scientists sometimes overran the towns dotting a Territory, convinced they had found a way to make technology work as it was supposed to out here, even though it was a hard fact that it wouldn't. The Territories were resistant in a way and no one knew why for sure. Everyone had a different theory.
And then there was the criminal element running from the law.
Out here, it was easy to hide, to go under cover and lay low. It was where the regulators came in, the men and women working as law enforcement, as a police force, as search and rescue, as the protectors. It was a hard, harsh and dangerous job.
Ezra had accepted in the end. Maybe because he had been hit in the head once too often. Maybe because of the enigmatic, powerful presence no three feet behind him at the time, watching the proceedings and judging his new team.
Yes, maybe because of this very man, Chris Larabee, and Ezra's promise to him.
It had been an even worse mistake not to make a run for it the moment the Judge had left, taking his chances in becoming a fugitive with a sizeable bounty on his head. Ezra was used to hiding who he was, becoming someone else and blending in wherever he went.
But he hadn't run. He hadn't turned tail and left Chris Larabee and his rag-tag band of men. He had stuck around despite his continued misgivings about his own situation. He had stuck around and fought battles, had warded off robberies and kidnappings, had gone into towns undercover to spy and gather intel. He had done everything their leader had asked of him.
He had become pack.
He had stayed longer than the year that had been his sentence. He had his pardon, he had a clean slate, he was free, but he hadn't left. Four Corners was suddenly no longer just one of the many towns to pass through and then forget about. It had become more.
Now, after two years, it was too late to think about turning away and leaving. He was in too deep, entangled with the Larabee pack, part of them in so many ways, and he had let down his guard too often. There were relationships now. He had formed ties of friendship with them all, some stronger, some more personal, than others.
And he had connected on a very different, very much personal level to the man in charge.
A man he trusted with his very life, but not his very core, he reminded himself grimly. Because some secrets Ezra still kept. Secrets that might just get him killed at the hands of the pack he had come to rely on in so many ways, his mother would be ashamed of him.
Four Corners Territory was large for only seven peacekeepers to handle, but Chris hadn't had a problem so far. The main town was under his protection and everyone knew it. That they had a pack of shifters as the Territory's regulators had spread quickly and the unsavory elements had become wary. Larabee's reputation was legendary after just two years now, some of it almost like myth and magic, and Ezra had laughed at some of the more outrageous rumors.
Chris was secretly amused, but he never did anything to stop the grapevine.
It served a purpose.
It served them.
Shifters weren't an aberration or a mutation of the human form. They were just a variation like skin or hair color. They were just… there. A fluke of nature, accepted, end of story. Not everyone who had the ability came out bragging. Not everyone shifted on a daily basis. Some went through their whole lives with only immediate family and select few friends knowing about them.
Throughout history, the shifters came and went in society, just like any group or part of the population. There were those that sought solitude; others that mingled with humans.
Each shifter had only one other form and it wasn't predetermined by nationality, gender or preference. While the form mimicked an animal and they had those instincts, some shifters displayed a greater control over their physical forms than others.
Four Corners was special in many ways, but to have the Seven was a matter of pride and dark warnings not to cross Larabee.
Seven men, all of different origin, with different backgrounds and stories, but they had formed a pack and become family.
Which might be the only explanation Ezra could come up with for why he had gone after Josiah when the man had stormed out of the local watering hole, a full bottle clutched in his hand, and made off.
Josiah and liquor were a dangerous mix.
A very dangerous one.
Now even more so because Inez had told Ezra that it hadn't been Josiah's first bottle. Not even his second. The man had gone through two and a half very potent liquors before disappearing with his bottle for the road.
Oh fun.
All of Ezra's instincts had screamed at him to leave the man alone, but Chris was still handling matters at the Peterson Spread just outside town together with Vin. Buck and JD had patrols, and Nathan was treating a few of the townsfolk who needed medical assistance.
Up to me, he thought with resignation.
Handle a drunk Josiah before he did any damage. The man was usually a very laid-back person, who had had a violent past he wanted to put behind. He found peace in rebuilding an ancient chapel a little outside town, offering an open ear to whoever wanted to talk, and giving sage advice. Sometimes unwanted advice, in Ezra's case, but always sound one.
Ezra knew a little of Sanchez's past, that he had been a gun for hire, had killed, had had temper problems, had had family problems. An abusive family, with a sister who had mental deficiencies, and with a father who had ended up dead one day. Judge Travis had given Chris Josiah's known file and Larabee had still been unimpressed, had told the Judge that Josiah was pack and would be under his command.
A massive bear shifter in a wolf pack. Well, Ezra mused with grim humor, why not? Aside from Chris, Buck and JD, no one was a wolf anyway. They were most unlikely alliance in the history of Territory regulators.
And this feeling of alliance, of friendship, of belonging to the pack might be the reason why he had gone after the other man.
He should have left it to someone else. He should have left Josiah to himself, to handle his demons.
But no… here he was…
Good lord, he thought to himself. What had he turned into?
A good Samaritan?
Whatever it was, he might just be in over his head.
"Leave me alone!" Josiah roared, face twisted in a pain only he could feel, only he remembered from somewhere deep in his past.
A pain triggered by whatever had happened in the last hours.
Ezra couldn't care less, because in that very moment he knew he was in deep, deep trouble. He wasn't just in over his head, he was on this sinking ship without a lifeboat. He had jumped off a cliff without a parachute. He had made the biggest blunder in his illustrious career.
Never get caught with your back against the wall, his mother had always told him. Know your opponent, know the territory, know how far to go and when to leave well enough alone to count your losses. Leave. Run. Play a new card from a tricked deck another day.
Well, he had gone into this without following the sacred words. He hadn't thought for a moment; he had simply acted.
Oh, his mother would lay into him, tear him a new one. If he was lucky she would cut all ties.
The blur of the shift caught him by surprise and he gave an exclamation of denial as the massive bear reared up before him. Josiah was huge, a lot larger than Nathan could ever hope to be, with shaggy, dark brown fur and a maw full of dagger-like teeth.
Ezra's mind blanked as he saw the bear stand on his hind legs, towering over the hapless man. The dark eyes were filled with anger, close to rage, and while a part of Ezra knew it wasn't a rage directed at him, another couldn't care less.
Whatever the alcohol had done to Josiah, it had erased all rational thought.
A massive paw swiped for him and he jumped back, stumbling over an exposed root. The second swipe came in and he wasn't fast enough.
Sharp claws slashed at his clothes and found vulnerable skin and flesh.
There was a hot pain racing over his nerve endings and Ezra heard himself gasp, then instinct took over and he ran. Shifted and ran.
The bear on his tail.
And he was fast. Crashing through the forest with no regard for whatever vegetation was in his way, Josiah chased after the slender shadow that tried to whisk through the undergrowth, lose the enraged predator.
Ezra felt the pain with each step, knew he was bleeding massively, but he couldn't give in. He had to get out of Josiah's reach. There was no reasoning with the intoxicated man, he knew that only too well. Alcohol was Josiah's vice, his downfall, his devil and his salvation in so many ways. Whatever had pushed him toward a bottle now, Ezra couldn't care less.
He just had to get away from the man and wait it out, let the poison run through the other shifter's system. With any luck Sanchez wouldn't remember a thing, wake up with a hangover and just drown his sorrows and his headache in strong coffee.
Ezra stopped suddenly, aware he had backed himself into another corner, and he felt panic starting to rise. Before him was nothing. Just… nothing. A steep, steep canyon wall falling into nothingness, the bottom barely visible, and all over the horizon was nothing but darkness.
The storm front.
There had been warnings all day yesterday, with bleaker and more dangerous predictions every hour, and just this morning the warning had been upgraded to severe.
Well, shit, he thought briefly.
And then the bear was there, mad fury reflecting in the dark eyes. Ezra was shaking, his body weakened because of his injury, the blood loss, and he knew there was little he could do.
Except…
He started to run along the edge, using boulders to jump longer stretches, Josiah still following.
He just needed this running start.
He just needed a little time…
Concentrating, aware this would hurt, would weaken him further, would reveal his nature to everyone, he made a choice.
Well, the revelation might just go unnoticed since his only witness was a drunk, raging bear.
Wings burst out of his back, a fox's back. A fox that normally didn't come with wings.
He jumped.
There was a furious roar behind him.
Then he fell.
The storm was still not upon him, but the winds in the canyon were definitely not in his favor. His small body was thrown around and he hit the canyon wall with one wing, felt the sharp pain, then he angled it automatically and tried to find a place to land.
Or crash.
Probably crash.
Most definitely crash.
The sharp pain in his side flared with a vengeance and he had more and more trouble staying focused. With the wind and his declining strength, each wing flap was sapping the strength from him.
Ezra yelped as he involuntarily banked to the left as he wing gave out briefly. He managed to right himself, but it was too late to avoid the tree.
The fox crashed into the pine with so much momentum it was a small miracle he didn't break either wing. He simply plummeted to the ground in a heap of feathers and fur, screaming in pain as he landed on his bad side.
Panting, vision darkening, Ezra just lay there, dazed and confused. In pain. A lot of pain.
He was alone.
No one knew he was here.
No one…
Dear lord, he was going to die.
tbc...