Author's Note: Sorry for the delay – I had a few unforeseen things come up that slowed my writing for a while (one of which was trying to get Nathan's voice right – he's tricky!) That said, here's part two with part three (JD's chapter) on the way. Let me know what you think.
None of us knows what the next change is going to be, what unexpected opportunity is just around the corner, waiting a few months or a few years to change all the tenor of our lives. Kathleen Norris
He figured the best thing to do was keep pushing slowly west – maybe even take up with one of the native tribes who occupied the nether regions of the desert, down near the Mexican border and up in the mountains where they were cordoned off into their own little worlds. They were known for taking in former slaves, for treating them like long-lost family members and allowing them to join in as full tribal members eventually. Maybe if he could join the tribe, he'd have a family again – like before the war.
"The best laid plans of mice and men…" Nathan Jackson had heard his former master recite a poem with that phrase in it from time to time but he'd never put much stock in the words. After all, when your life amounted to that of a mere mouse in the mind of another rather than the man in that line in the poem, it didn't matter how many plans or goals or hopes you had for yourself; in the end, you were still subject to the whim of that other person.
That's what slavery did to a man: it left him at the whim of another. On the day the Civil War had ended and he'd found himself a free man at no one's whims but his own, Nathan had vowed to live for no one but himself for the rest of his life. Mice be damned.
He had to admit, however, that ending up in Four Corners wasn't exactly part of his plan when he'd come west. It had sort of happened before he'd realized it. One afternoon he'd stopped in town to replenish his supplies before heading to the mountains (vanishing, more like – if he did it right anyway) and by the next day he was still there, treating maladies and quickly garnering a reputation among the locals as a gifted healer. It was a bit startling actually, when he considered that his battered medical kit was a relic of the war and lacking in more than a few of the items that he considered to be essential to good care. What was more (and possibly of the most vital importance), his knowledge was limited to only that which he'd been able to sponge off the Union doctors while serving as a stretcher-bearer, picking up bits and pieces of information the way he did soiled bandages and other castoff remnants of battle and injury. He'd eavesdropped as much as he could (and even dared to ask questions on a few occasions), though that sole fact alone didn't, in the grand scheme of things, make him feel necessarily qualified to be giving as much advice as the townspeople of Four Corners began to seek from him – and yet to leave them suffering was a far worse crime in his mind.
No one should suffer for any reason. He'd learned that firsthand.
And so Nathan stayed. After all, the native tribes would still be there if he waited a few weeks – or even months – before joining them. People needed healing and if he could help them, so be it. Just because he wasn't following "The best laid plans of mice and men" didn't mean that he'd been demoted to mouse status. He was still a man – and an important one too at the moment.
One of the people he'd helped during that first week in town – the one person who looked at him like an equal from the beginning, never treating him like an outsider despite his short-term residency and dark skin – was Mary Travis, and for her unwavering faith in him, he'd always be grateful. Perhaps it was because she too was something of an anomaly – a woman daring to do the work of a man by publishing the town's sole newspaper. She understood what it was to be a mouse and, like Nathan, she wasn't fond of the feeling. Better to be a man, even if the application of the term was only figurative in her case.
She'd come to see him in the upstairs room he rented from the owner of the hardware store, green eyes sheepish as she extended her right hand in greeting and held her left protectively against her side in a pained manner.
"I feel so stupid," she'd shaken her head, embarrassed and not quite finding the words she sought. Holding out her left hand for his examination, she'd explained, "I've had this splinter for two days and I thought I'd be able to get it out on my own but it won't budge and it hurts terribly. It's such a silly thing."
She'd given a short, quick laugh and then lifted her eyes to his to gauge his reaction. No one had ever looked him in the eye with trust right from the start and it made him smile.
Nathan had held her tiny hand in his larger ones and examined the forefinger – the source of her problem – with a practiced gaze, noting that the inflamed area was ripe for infection if the splinter was not removed quickly.
Reassuringly, he told her, "Oh, Mrs. Travis, this ain't nothing. Let me get a needle and we'll get it right out for you."
Her already pale face blanched at the word "needle." "I, um…"
"You afraid of needles, ma'am?" Nathan asked her gently, trying not to smile again for fear of embarrassing her more than she already was.
"I like to sew with them," she offered a small smile, looking sheepish anyway. "That's all."
He chuckled. "Don't worry, ma'am, I'll be real gentle; you shouldn't feel a thing."
She hesitated briefly, then nodded her assent. "All right then."
Nathan gestured for her to seat herself in the straight-backed chair nearest the door while he reached past his medical bag and found the sewing kit he'd learned to keep at hand for repairing his own shirts and socks – something else he'd learned in the Union army and a skill that had saved him pocket money on more than one occasion. A man who was unsure of finding consistent work had to be prepared for such things and couldn't go wasting money on new clothes all the time.
While he waited for a pot of water to boil so he could sterilize the needle, Nathan told Mrs. Travis the first observation that came into his mind. He wanted to reel the words back in the moment they were out, and yet curiosity prevented him from apologizing and telling her to forget the whole thing.
"You know, people are no doubt gonna talk about you coming up here all by yourself, ma'am," he said, not meeting her gaze. "It probably wasn't the wisest decision to make."
Yet instead of scrambling to protest or darting out the door with the realization he was right, Mrs. Travis surprised Nathan yet again by replying in a level tone: "I can't afford to live my life by living up to other people's expectations, Mr. Jackson. I have a son to think about."
"A son?" he frowned in a puzzled manner, trying to remember if he'd ever seen her around town with a little boy.
"He lives with his grandparents for the moment," she told him, green eyes firm and face resolute. "Since his father was killed, I don't think it's safe for him to live here – and that's exactly why I need to do whatever it takes to make this town a safer place, which includes publishing my newspaper." She paused to chuckle, then added, "I cannot, however, publish my newspaper very efficiently with an infected finger – which is why I came to see you today."
"Townsfolk be damned?" he asked, then quickly apologized, "Sorry, ma'am – I didn't mean to say that."
If Nathan was shocked at his ability to be so open and at ease with Mrs. Travis, he was doubly surprised when she smiled and agreed with him. "Yes, townsfolk be damned, Mr. Jackson."
If Nathan had been keeping score, the count would have rolled to Mice 2, Men 0 at that particular juncture. But he wasn't – and neither he nor Mrs. Travis was a mouse anymore; that much was clear.
The water began to boil then, saving Nathan from further conversation long enough to drop the needle in the pot and cut a strip of clean bandage from the nearby roll. In a few moments, he had seated himself opposite a now-nervous looking Mary Travis and was holding out his hand to her.
She bit her lower lip nervously. "This is going to hurt, isn't it?"
"Ma'am, I'm going to do my best to make it quick and painless," Nathan told her in his most soothing tone, then changed to wheedling in order to add, "You know that splinter's got to come out now. Can't have you losing the whole hand – how would you publish your paper then?"
She was visibly swayed by that and held out her left hand to him, albeit gingerly.
Nathan chuckled. "You just look over my head and out the window, Mrs. Travis. Look at all that blue sky and think about the things you need to do this afternoon and by the time you get done with your list, I'll have it out."
"What makes you think I keep lists in my head?" she raised a suspicious, yet teasing eyebrow at him.
"Don't everyone?" he replied lightly and she smiled, then obeyed him and looked away when he picked up the needle.
The first thing Nathan did was pinch her finger between his own, holding it tightly to numb the sensation in the nerve – an action that made her inhale sharply, but elicited nothing more even after he began to poke gently with the tip of the needle, letting him know that it was working. Three gentle prods later and the splinter emerged in all its torturous glory.
"All done, Mrs. Travis," he told her, holding out the splinter like a prize. "We'll bandage you up and you'll be as good as new."
"That's it?" her gaze fell back to him and then to the splinter in his hand. "You're all done?"
"I told you, ma'am – it weren't nothing," he shrugged, making sure the affected area was clean and wrapping a neat bandage around the finger.
"Nathan, I feel as though you've saved my life," she said, the words sounding exaggerated to his ears even though her facial expression was in earnest. "Thank you."
"Just an itty bitty splinter," he shrugged and moved across the room to stow his sewing needle.
"What do I owe you?" she asked, her tone becoming proprietary again.
"Nothing," he shook his head.
"Certainly you must…" she began but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.
"Don't worry about it," he told her. "You just go on back and get that paper of yours printed."
"I'll do that," she smiled. "You have a good day, Mr. Jackson."
"You too, ma'am," he nodded.
And after she'd gone, he smiled thinking about how good it felt to be called Mister Jackson. No mouse warranted a "mister." No mouse indeed.
Yet if he'd saved her life that day with his sewing needle and a bit of precision, he had no idea how great the scale of her attempt to save his life was. The two couldn't be compared - and he didn't even consider doing so a week later when the rowdy cowboys rode into down, their boss riddled with gangrene and their attitudes sour and rank as the sore-footed broncs they rode in on. The man's death wasn't Nathan's fault by any means – in fact, the only service he was able to render was to allow the poor sick bastard to die in a bed with his head on a pillow instead of on the hard, rocky ground somewhere. (And perhaps it wasn't that much of a service in the first place – most cowhands would be plenty happy to just die in the middle of the open range and lie interred there for all eternity.)
The cowboys who worked for the man didn't see it that way, though – all they saw was black man who told them of the death of a white man they knew and respected. Several bottles of whiskey later, that hatred boiled over into an ugly something that Nathan hadn't anticipated and he kicked himself for it, for going soft now that he had come west. At home, lynchings were part of the way of life for slaves and so he should have seen the attempt on his life coming, but he'd been lulled into a sense of false security by the town of Four Corners and its inhabitants who were eager for any medical treatment they could find, whether the doctor was black or not.
Thus, as he rode out of town in the back of a wagon, his hands bound and future grim, he vowed to not lose that awareness of his surroundings again – provided, of course, that he lived through this ordeal.
And God bless Mary Travis – tiny and shaking, she stood before the mob who held Nathan hostage and demanded that he be released, a rifle in her hands and steel in her voice.
"Nathan didn't kill your boss – gangrene did," she spat with such vehemence that Nathan didn't have to see her face to know that her green eyes were sparking and her blonde hair was escaping its bun.
"Ain't no darkie doctors," came the sardonic reply from the gang's leader, "and there never will be."
At once, Nathan felt right back at home in the South – and he didn't like the feeling one bit. Nor did he appreciate the feeling of the rope being roughly trussed around his neck while he perched precariously in the back of the wagon, praying to every god he could think of to deliver him from what seemed to be the inevitable. Mrs. Travis hadn't been able to single-handedly stop the drunken mob and even if the townspeople of Four Corners were willing to let him save them, it was quite apparent that they were unwilling to return the favor. Once again, he'd been relegated to mouse from man, a transition he had hoped never to make now that he'd come west. It was a shame that hate didn't seem to have a specific address.
Yet if hate could be found everywhere, so could heroism – a truth that Nathan Jackson discovered upon the appearance of two very capable looking gunmen at the gate to the cemetery. He hadn't seen them around town – though maybe the lanky one with the rifle had been in the hardware store earlier pushing a broom in awkward and unaccustomed fashion – and from the look of them, after this incident they'd get out as soon as they could and he certainly wouldn't blame them for it.
The lead cowboy – the one who'd earlier pushed Mary Travis down in the street when she tried to stop the horrible proceedings - took notice of the pair of gunmen as well and strode over to menacingly ask, "What the hell you want?"
It was the same tone he'd taken with Mrs. Travis – and yet this time it didn't carry nearly as much weight because these men were his size, a fact he seemed somewhat aware of (despite the effects of the liquor).
The man dressed in black from head to toe – the one with the stony face - spoke in an even tone: "Cut him loose."
"Reckon y'all would be happier if you just rode away," the lanky one beside him put in. The rifle seemed to fit his hands in all of the places that the broom hadn't.
The cowboys all laughed and their leader shook his head. "Not a chance, boys."
The man in black spoke again in the same low voice, though this time laced with a thread of danger: "Shot a lot of holes in the clouds back there. Anybody stop to reload?"
Nathan fought back a laugh then, knowing it would seal his death more quickly than the mob otherwise intended. But it was a good point and any man who had the balls to point it out when outnumbered almost three to one had the sort of confidence that was contagious. Nathan respected him instantly.
In the end, the healer wasn't sure who fired first, but he was acutely aware of the moment when the horses attached to the wagon on which he stood bolted in fear, leaving him hanging from the tree and gasping for air. The rope burned – or was that his lungs? He wasn't sure but his eyes saw stars and he suspected that he and his Maker were about to come face to face and it didn't seem like an altogether too depressing thought – if only because there had to be air in heaven (and if there wasn't, he wouldn't need it anyway).
Then there was the quick report of a rifle – sharper than the roar of the six shooters the cowboys were using - and he felt the tree limb from which he hung shudder as a bullet lodged itself inside. Through half-lidded, delirious eyes, Nathan could see that the rifle-wielding man from the hardware store was attempting to shoot through the rope that held him aloft and he fought the urge to laugh a second time, thinking of the folly of it. No man was that good – good enough to shoot a rope wrapped around a narrow limb while ducking flying bullets – was he?
The answer was a resounding "yes" because the second shot was true, snapping the rope and dropping Nathan unceremoniously to the ground, knees buckling on impact and air flooding his lungs while his senses slowly returned in tingling bursts of feeling that began at his toes and worked their way up to his head. His neck would no doubt bear rope burns for the next week or so, but somewhere in his medical case was a salve that would ease the sting.
(The fact that he could think of these things so coherently told him he'd be all right sooner rather than later, however.)
He pulled himself into a sitting position in time to see a young man in his early twenties and a dandy's suit and derby rush forward, pistol waving wildly and yelling, "I got him! I got him!"
The pair of men who had been conversing easily with the air of two people who hadn't just been in a deadly gunfight, reacted in unison and so quickly that Nathan knew they were the kind of men who slept with one eye open at all times. The one in black fired a shot into the ground to stop the kid's flight.
"You don't shoot nobody in the back!" he admonished, tone incredulous, and the kid slunk away, looking startled and chagrined.
It was in the quiet that followed the brief melee when a mortally wounded cowboy at Nathan's feet raised a pistol in the direction of the two startled men whose backs were now to the cemetery. The healer didn't think or breathe before snatching a knife from the ground nearby and letting it fly so that it lodged fatally in the man's back. It was an old skill – one he'd learned in childhood – and it had served its purpose for him more often than not. A black man didn't always have access to a gun but knives were often readily available.
Nathan's saviors exchanged a new look between them, impressed.
"One of y'all want to pull the knife out of that fella and cut me loose here?" he asked them conversationally, knowing from their recent display that, despite their admiration for his skill, their attitudes weren't going to change. They'd remain staunch and approach every situation in an easygoing manner.
They obeyed and helped him to his feet just as Mrs. Travis hustled forward, her face still a mask of concern.
"Gentlemen, I run The Clarion News," she said briskly to the pair of rescuers by way of introduction after she'd given Nathan a visual once-over. "Where did you come from?"
The one in black frowned and responded dryly, "Saloon."
Nathan smiled and looked down. Yes, there was something about that man that gave the healer complete confidence in him. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was – perhaps a confidence bred out of being world-weary?
The trio turned to depart, Nathan following so he'd have an opportunity to thank them for their actions.
Mrs. Travis protested their departure, confused and surprised. "Hey! I want to talk to you. Where are you going?"
Nathan's rescuers exchanged another look between them, eyes smiling as they shared a joke, and answered in unison: "Saloon."
Their feet never stopped moving and Nathan felt himself being buoyed away in their wake, striding right through the saloon doors with them – a place he hadn't ventured during his time in Four Corners – and up to the bar, where a bottle of whiskey materialized before the two white men.
Nathan's stomach sank again – from man to mouse to man and back to mouse again. Never before had he felt such highs and lows in one day and if he was going to stay a mouse, he'd soon depart Four Corners to seek his manhood once again.
"One for the doc too," the lanky rifleman said in a low voice to the bartender, sliding a shot glass over to Nathan in a gesture of true solidarity.
Nathan's eyes met those of Vin Tanner and then Chris Larabee on his other side and he suddenly knew what the line from the poem had been about. "The best laid plans of mice and men…" Whether mouse or man, no one could know the future and therefore it couldn't be planned for. All Nathan Jackson knew at that exact moment was that the pair of gunslingers beside him saw him as a man – and that his plans for departing the rowdy town were altering completely.
He didn't know the future and so he had no idea that they'd soon be joined by four more just like them – by hopeless ladies' man Buck Wilmington, by Southern dandy Ezra Standish, penitent Josiah Sanchez, and by the greenhorn from the cemetery, JD Dunne.
He didn't know that he would come to view healing as not just something for the body, but for souls, for relationships, and for communities.
He didn't know that in the backwater desert town in which he'd hoped to only stay a few weeks at most he'd find something that he'd thought could only be found in the mountains with the natives: a home.
He also didn't know that he'd discover in the group of seven something which he'd always thought to be something fleeting and transient and not available to mice who lived at the whim of others: brotherhood.
All he knew at the moment was that he'd been reverted back to a man with a simple, friendly gesture – a shared bottle of whiskey. It wasn't something that was part of his plans, but it was better than he'd expected.
Mice be damned; Nathan Jackson would live the rest of his life a man.
TBC