Hey Everybody! It's been awhile for this one, but as the chapters aren't meant to be more than four pages long for this one I'm hoping to do more regular updates. Real life has been kind of crazy-if you're interested the A/N at the beginning of Rebuilding (which was just updated, but is rated M and doesn't show automatically in story listings) explains it.
Enjoy!
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Orin did his best to keep his face from showing too much disapproval as Ezra started telling his story, the boy doing his best to act as though he were merely recounting a cheerful misadventure in-between bites of food, but from the beginning, when he'd told them, "Ah first encountered Mistah Larabee and his compatriots when Ah had a bit of difficulty with some disagreeable fellows at the saloon-Ah would have been able to extract mahself easily enough, but their arrival and offer allowed me to do so with more grace.", Orin had known he wasn't going to like this story. His first thought was that Ezra's 'difficulty' was either the boy getting accused unfairly of cheating, or less likely, but certainly possible, actually cheating at cards. But well he could see Larabee stopping the lad from getting himself shot without much prompting, that was no reason to offer him a spot with the rest of his men. Clearly the boy was smoothing over something fairly significant, but knowing that he probably didn't want to know every scrape and bad spot Ezra had gotten himself into over the past year, he let it go.
Probably had something to do with that damn pop gun of his.
It wasn't that he wasn't proud that the boy was willing to put himself at risk to defend others, he was. Very proud. That, that spirit and heart, that's what he'd seen in the boy in the first place. And if he was going to run with a band of hired guns, Larabee and the others with him, at least from what he'd seen that day, were the sort that wouldn't steer him wrong. But Ezra, well a damn good shot and a possessor of a strategic mind that would have served him well if he'd been old enough for the war, had no real experience in any sort of fights behind fisticuffs and a bar brawl or two. Getting himself out of dangerous situations alive, yes, but that wasn't the same thing.
"And Ah think Mistah Wilmington was quite disappointed to find that fathahs, whethah in towns or Indian villages, have verah comparable thoughts when it comes to that gentleman being in close proximity to their daughtahs." Ezra had warmed up to his tale now, was enjoying putting on a show, but he was also talking about everyone he'd been riding with rather than himself as much as possible. "There was a lovely young lady, named Miss Rain, and when Buck tried to talk to her, her fathah...", Ezra trailed off, the smile staying on his face but losing its realness as his eyes shuttered. The bite of mashed potato he took a second later merely a chance to turn his eyes down toward his plate, to get his composure back. Orin supposed he should say that Ezra hadn't had experience in real fighting before this. It did not seem to be true anymore.
"Did something happen to Miss Rain or her father Ezra?" Mary's voice was concerned, her hand moving so it was nearer Ezra's on the table, and whether he took comfort in it, or was simply trying to save face, he straightened, lightly clearing his throat before he spoke, voice somber.
"Miss Rain is perfectly fine, her fathah Tennessee, however, is no longah with us." Ezra swallowed, clearly upset now, and judging from the way he would look neither of them in the face, let alone the eye, feeling guilty. Hell. Survivor's guilt was pretty damn normal, but it wasn't something he wanted Ezra to be dealing with. "Ah fear that this is too depressing a subject mattah for the dinnah table."
Knowing that that was the boy's way of saying he wanted to talk about something else, Orin opened his mouth to tell a story about Billy that should amuse them all, but Mary beat him to it, voice overly sympathetic. "If you want to talk about it, don't worry about us. We're here to listen." She meant well, but she wasn't quite fluent in the language of young men. Nothing would get Ezra to shut-up quicker than sentiment, and that was when he wanted to talk.
"Ah'm fine. When did you make the return journey to this wild cornah of the world? It looks as though you've reopened the newspapah?" Mary looked as though she didn't want to change the subject to her, but she did reluctantly, and Orin knew once she'd warmed to the topic discussing the newspaper and her plans for it could go on for ages. Ezra always had had a knack for turning a conversation the way he wanted it to go, and he'd let it alone for now. When he met with Mr. Larabee to thank him for his back up he could ask him for the details on this fight, figure out exactly what had happened and just what Ezra had seen.
"Well, yes I have. It's so important for people this far out to have a reliable way of getting information, and it can also encourage community building, something badly needed out here. Back when we had a few more people we'd advertise dances and church potlucks, have contests sometimes, but well..." Mary trailed off for a minute and then put on what Orin thought of as her 'making do' face, the one that said she was determined to do what needed to be done, however it effected her, good or bad. He both respected that face and disliked it. "Things are a little unsettled out here right now, but I have hope with Orin here, we can start to turn that around. Make Four Corners the town it was really meant to be."
"I'll do my best, but it's hard to see much hope when you can't even raise a jury for a murder that happened in broad daylight."
"People are scared," Mary said it like she was appealing to him, like she thought he didn't already know that, "yes, they're losing hope, but with some changes, with the streets safe, we can help them find it again."
"It takes a while to make changes like that, and the way things are going you might not have enough people left to make a town soon," His voice was gentle, but he wasn't going to try and sugarcoat the possibilities, and Mary wouldn't appreciate it if he did.
"I can't give up on this town or the newspaper Orin. On Steven's and my dream. I just can't." Orin nodded. He knew that. He also knew that if the day came when the town was simply gone, and there was nothing left of that dream neither he or Evie would be letting her fade away with it. Most of the time he didn't think they'd have to worry, Mary was stubborn, but she wasn't more stubborn than she was a survivor. The way her voice had sounded there though, that gave him pause.
"Well, we'll have to see what happens. With what happened to that passel of cowboys that tried to lynch that colored man-"
"Nathan Jackson, he's the town's healer, and one of the men who helped with James." Orin nodded at the reminder of the name.
"That tried to lynch Mr. Jackson unlawfully, and for no damn reason, you might get a reprieve for a little while as the word spreads. When you have problems with locals, like the James family, that can be a little trickier to settle."
"Perhaps Mistah Larabee and some of the othah's could help Mistah Dunne in protecting the town until after the trial? Ah would speculate that an unexpected show of force would cause an interlude, if not a cessation, in their schemes, in even a family as vile as the James clearly are." He listened to Ezra's suggestion, nodded as he heard the merit in it, but he was pretty sure the gleam in the boy's eye did not bode well.
"Not a bad plan at all." Ezra's shoulders raised just a bit at the praise, pleased, though he tried not to show it. "I was planning to talk with Mr. Larabee either later today or tomorrow, and I'll see what he says." He fixed his eyes on Ezra, serious, "I want it clear that you will not be one of the 'others' helping him whatever the answer, you hear?"
A face that could have been the dictionary definition of 'affronted' was the response he got to that proclamation, and when Ezra said, "Why, of course not, Uncle, Ah wouldn't dream of it.", sounding a bit too innocent for his liking, he tightened his expression to make it clear-his nephew was in enough trouble as it was, he did not need to go borrowing more.
"I mean it, you keep your nose clean."
The, "Yes, sah," he got back was a little offended, but he could live with that as long as Ezra did as he was told and he turned back to the remains of his meal, satisfied for the moment. He wasn't sure if there was enough of this town left to save it, though he would try, both for Mary's sake, and his poor Steven who had been taken from them much to young. Try, but not risk what family he had left in the meantime. Stuart James and the casual, smug, way the man had threatened him as he waited for the order he'd put in to be brought out. He doubted the man would have the guts to go after him personally-it really would bring the union army down on his head, and there wasn't much point in chasing off homesteaders if you died before you could use the land you'd extorted them for. So far, from what he understood none of James's men had been rough towards any of the women in town, and he hoped that held out, as it was no secret that Mary was his daughter-in-law.
Ezra, on the other hand, he could see being targeted if anyone in the saloon had been paying attention earlier, and even with the distraction of the murder someone was sure to have been. And in a small town...he shifted his gaze back to his nephew, done with his meal and chewing on an extra biscuit, plate pushed forward. Well, he'd give him plenty of incentive to do as he was told. "If you're done eating, I'd like to talk to you upstairs." A questioning look, and a resigned nod at whatever the boy had seen in his face as he looked at him, and then Ezra pushed back his chair and headed for the small hallway that led to the front of the newspaper office and the stairs at a fair clip, and with a sigh Orin followed after him.