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On a slow walk back from the restaurant, Josiah became aware his presence was requested. He knew that because a figure was pacing in a particular manner a little way from the front steps of his church. Clearly waiting on him. The figure limply held the distinctive flimsy paper of a telegram in their hand.
A tweak of irritation bothered Josiah, although he immediately felt guilty for his lack of seasonal goodwill. Not to mention that he supposed the sender of the telegram had, as usual, sent its recipient into a tailspin. Or maybe it was even bad news.
“Ezra,” he said, walking past him up the steps.
The sound of soft-falling boots followed him inside.
The church was full of shadows in the fading December light. Josiah crossed to light his candles. There were always many of them, but even more than usual as Christmas approached.
“No trouble I hope?” he said over his shoulder.
There was a surprising silence for a while and then a response.
“I’m not here in a professional capacity. All is quiet.”
When Josiah turned, taper smoking in his hand, Ezra was still standing awkwardly at the end of the aisle. His face in the light seemed strained.
“I find myself in a quandary.”
Josiah waved towards the nearest wooden pew but Ezra shook his head, distracted. He wasn’t wearing either his jacket or his hat. His white shirtsleeves were rumpled and his hair was oddly unkempt, as if he’d been raking and pulling on it.
“If I can help,” Josiah said, somehow troubled by that. “I will.”
Ezra’s eyes strayed to the telegram, as if he’d just remembered its existence, and then strayed away again. “There is someone I know,” he began. “Someone close to me – perhaps too close – who is suffering. And I find I don’t know how to proceed.”
Josiah’s heart squeezed a tad as he contemplated the hard thought that, wherever she was, and for whatever reason, Maude Standish was suffering.
“Well you offer your support freely, Ezra. That is certainly what this – person – needs. Anyone suffering needs that.”
He assumed from Ezra’s nervous shambling outside the church and obtuse language inside that he didn’t want to openly mention that he was seeking counsel in regard to his mother. This seemed understandable, given Josiah’s... warm feeling towards her. He supposed it took some balls for Ezra to have come to him in the first place.
“It’s this time of year,” Ezra said, voice low and wretched. “It’s associated with so much loss.”
“For many, yes.” Such thoughts had been occupying Josiah much lately, and it felt strange that Ezra should now be part of this inner dialogue. “But the message of hope and goodwill does prevail.”
Ezra seemed to ignore the second part. “This person finds it almost unbearable that certain others are no longer... I want – I want to make this person feel less...” He raked his hair. “Less hopeless, Josiah. I cannot bear to see them so hopeless and alone.”
Dear Lord.
Josiah took a step away from the candles.
“Well we cannot change the past. There is nothing we can say or do to erase loss.”
“But there must be something, something I can say? I know I say a lot, most of the time, but on this occasion... Surely you have some suitable parable or form of words to suggest?” Ezra swallowed, spots of emotion appearing on his pale cheeks. “I’m begging you here.”
Josiah’s heart thumped. He gave a grave nod. “Of course. But it shouldn’t be my parable or form of words. You have to tell this – person – yourself. You have to tell them exactly and unambiguously, in your very own words, what they mean to you, Ezra. What is truly in your heart.” Josiah scratched his head a little when he’d said that because he’d counseled Ezra to look into his heart once before, and that whole encounter hadn’t gone very well at all. He was acutely aware, however, of the faint shadow of whiskers on the man’s normally smooth chin and the too-dark rings under his eyes. Signs of neglect and misery. Whatever the problem was with his mother was crushing him, that much was plain. And Josiah found he couldn’t stand that. For either of them.
“Exactly and unambiguously,” Ezra then repeated in a hollow-sounding voice, as if the prospect made him deeply fearful. Josiah did know that mother and son were not effusive in their outward affection.
Josiah decided, with a frisson of shame, that he wasn’t reaching out far enough.
He took a step forward. He laid a hand on the side of Ezra’s arm, could feel the tension through the cotton lawn. He kneaded the rigidly held muscle, almost without thinking. “You have to tell this person how much you care about them – how much you love them – and how that will never change.” He sighed, dropped his hand. “And that’s it, Ezra. That’s the totality of my advice.”
“Yes,” Ezra said vaguely. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right.”
He raised the telegram limply and looked at it again, and then pushed it into his vest pocket. Then he swiped a nervous hand across his brow. Finally he met Josiah’s eyes squarely.
Josiah stared into his face. A familiar one, and yet... There was not one amongst his six friends that did not continually reveal new things about themselves and Ezra was certainly no exception. Josiah marveled at it, at the richness of the personalities he had come to live amongst.
“There are no magic solutions, Ezra. But words of love –”
“I hear you.” Ezra drew himself up, not very convincingly, suppressed a shiver. It was chilly in the church. The desert grew cold early at this time of year. Josiah couldn’t help but raise his hands and rub awkwardly at the shirt-sleeved arms. The touch was brief but meaningful, more to signify care than to attempt wholesale warming.
Ezra’s eyes flared wider for a second, surprised. And then, unmistakeably, touched.
“You should wear a coat,” Josiah said, gruff.
Ezra’s lips curved minutely. “Somehow I forgot. But thank you, yes I should. And thank you for hearing me out.”
Josiah shrugged, faintly magnanimous. It was what he was here for, and what the church was here for. Ezra, however, didn’t like to be preached at. He was probably at his limit as it was.
“Let me know how it goes.”
“Well,” Ezra said, one brow quirking. “Perhaps I might.” He cast about as if looking for his hat and then remembered he hadn’t brought it. “And now I should bid you good evening, Josiah. When you are preaching joy to the world here in a few days’ time I will be sure to join the congregation.”
Josiah showed his teeth, somehow doubting it. “Well don’t forget to bring something for the collection box.”
“The collection box,” Ezra repeated. There was still something stilted and off-balance about his voice. “Why... yes. Yes of course.” He turned to go.
Josiah watched him towards the door. “Ezra?” he said.
Ezra turned. “Josiah?”
“Give my regards and seasonal good wishes to your mother won’t you.”
In the half light Ezra’s frown was a strange distortion. “As you like.”
There was a little creak as the door was pushed open and then Ezra had gone.
Vaguely dissatisfied, Josiah turned slowly back to his candles. Ezra had reminded him that he would need to have a good sermon for Christmas Day. The church would be more full that morning than any other day of the year, and he knew he should make the most of it.
Succour for the suffering, light in the darkness.
He picked up the taper, held it towards the nearest flame.
*
The only part of Ezra that felt warm as he walked up the street towards the saloon was the side of his arms. Where Josiah had chafed him. Almost like a parent.
Reminded of the telegram he plucked it from his pocket, read it again as he walked.
Dear Son. Regret cannot join you for Christmas after all. Wonderful project in New Orleans! Perhaps early new year? As always I remain your loving mother Maude P. Standish
He shook his head. Lord only knew what the wonderful project was. Probably a potential husband if he knew Mother. Doubtless he’d get to hear about it eventually. There was a feeling of slight under his ribs, the lightest knick of her rapier, but he supposed he was glad she seemed cheerful at least. A heaviness followed on from the slight. A cold wind seemed to buffet him and he picked up pace towards the saloon and his room. He needed to find some warm clothes for the expedition he had planned.
“Signor Ezra, will you be eating with us tonight?” Inez called to him as he pushed through the batwings and crossed the floor towards the stairs. She was hanging paper decorations across the back of the bar – cut-out angels and stars that Billy Travis and his small band of friends had made. There was something about that thought that made Ezra jittery. Fatherless sons and son-less fathers.
“I’m afraid not, Inez, not this evening.”
“But you will be here for the Christmas Eve celebrations tomorrow?”
He smiled wanly at her, one foot on the bottom step, hand on the banister. “That sounds delightful. I will do my best.”
In his room he packed a saddle-bag with a clean shirt and underdrawers, a handkerchief, a small bottle of whiskey, his comb and his razor. Then he checked his guns before shrugging on his red jacket with an overcoat. Leaving the room in near darkness he slipped down the back stairs and walked quickly to the store for a few purchases, and finally to the Livery. There was a light burning on the balcony, and Nathan was leaning over the rail.
“Where you off to?” he demanded, suspicious.
“An errand.”
Nathan leaned further over the balcony. “Well you take care out there. Can’t see why you fools are forever riding out after dark when you don’t have to.”
Ezra looked up at him, the usual mutual respect and mistrust prickling between them. “As I said, I have an errand. It’s an important one and therefore I do have to.”
“Huh,” Nathan said. “Well and as I said, you just take care out there.”
Ezra relaxed a little. He nodded, tipped his hat in gratitude, passed into the Livery. As he was coming out, leading his horse, he nearly stumbled over Vin, J.D. and Buck coming in.
“Hey there, hoss, where in tarnation you off to at this time of day?” Buck was in good spirits and clearly in the mood to be aggravating. “You ain’t telling me you’re going courting some lady friend under cover of darkness?” And he laughed, hearty, pinching the end of his mustache which was always a sign he was pleased with himself.
J.D., however, shoved him. “Leave him alone, Buck. He don’t need to tell you every darn thing.”
“Good question though, J.D.” Vin was more serious, gave Ezra a careful look. “Where are you going, Ezra?”
Ezra sighed, wanting secrecy but not wanting to lie. “The cabin,” he said.
“Oh now hell,” Buck said, losing his good humor. “We’ve all tried every which way to get him to come back to town, Ezra. If he won’t listen to me and he won’t listen to Vin I don’t see you’ll make any difference.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Ezra said, smooth. “But I believe it is incumbent upon me to try.”
“You sure about this, pard?” Vin looked doubtful. “Happen Chris just needs his alone time. We may not like it, but if it’s what he wants...”
“Well yes.” Ezra swallowed. “But, one last try. Nil desperandum.”
“Remember you two ain’t always exactly best friends.” Vin was more than doubtful now. He looked downright worried. “Reckon you might not be the right person to go ridin’ in right now.”
“Yup,” Buck said as if he thought that sealed it.
Ezra looked between them. “If he shoots my head off, be sure I shall hold only myself to blame.”
Vin stepped back, a wry amusement crossing his face. “Well you go parly with him then, Ezra, if you reckon you know best.”
Buck blew out a breath. “Your funeral,” he said.
Ezra glanced at J.D. as he prepared to mount up. The young man wasn’t hobbled by any of the others’ concerns and suspicions. He grinned, dark eyes full of hope. “Good luck with it, Ezra,” he said. “It’d be something all right if you could bring Chris back to town for Christmas.”
Bring him back to town? Ezra hadn’t been thinking that far.
“It certainly would,” he conceded, and swung himself up into the saddle.
“Got yourself a torch?” Buck said, arresting him with a hand to his boot.
“In my saddlebag. But, as I am sure Mr. Tanner has told you, we’re due a clear sky and a near full moon tonight. My way will be perfectly well illuminated.” He turned his head to look at the road out of town, and then back. The three of them standing there shoulder to shoulder worrying about him and Chris, the thought of Josiah in his church full of candles, and Nathan in his clinic full of medicines, filled his chest. “Good evening, gentlemen. Until we meet again.”
He touched his hat brim at them, wheeled his horse around.
As he trotted out of town, the sky was turning dark blue. Ezra suddenly thought that he should have brought a muffler. There was a cutting wind picking up, sending moonlit cloud formations scudding across the dark sky. He didn’t have his gloves either. But it was too late now. He wanted to get to Chris’s cabin as quick as he could, no delays. If he was to turn around now he thought he might not set out again. Vin had been right. He and Chris had not parted on very amicable terms, and Ezra feared Chris when he wasn’t amicable.
He rode at a good pace because the light was good most of the way. His horse knew the track, knew the route. A couple of hours out of town he came up the hill that led to the cabin. Cresting the brow he could see it down in the dip beyond, its roof a black zigzag, smoke curling from the oddly angled chimney pot. Chris was keeping warm at least. He was alive.
As his horse stepped cautiously down the slope towards the rough little homestead, Ezra’s anxiety increased. Chris wouldn’t hesitate to use firepower to repel boarders.
By the time he’d ridden close, he could see Chris himself standing out on the rough porch in the moonlight. He didn’t have his gun in his hand although it was hanging, as ever, on his hip. He looked as if he’d been working hard all day. Or else drinking hard. Perhaps both. His demeanor was forbidding, as Ezra would have expected.
“What the hell you doing here?” he growled when Ezra’s horse had been reined in. “Who sent you? Buck? Nathan?”
Belly trembling, Ezra dismounted. He wound the reins around the hitching rail, trailed a hand down his horse’s warm flank, feeling the muscles jump. “I’ll be with you in a moment, my friend,” he said quietly.
“I said who sent you?” Chris’s voice was devoid of either welcome or warmth. There was two days’ worth of stubble on his face and his hair looked dark and thick with sweat.
“Nobody sent me.” Ezra ducked under his horse’s head, stepped up towards the porch. There was a grudging fire struggling in the small grate inside, sending a feeble light across the bare wood floor. The interior was gloomy.
“I’m not set up for visitors, because I don’t want any. How many times? We had all this out countless times. There ain’t no point me being around people right now. Nobody benefits from it.” As Ezra came nearer Chris spread himself across the doorway as if to prevent entry. “No point you coming in and making yourself comfortable either. I’ll bring you some coffee out there and then you can turn right around and ride back to town same way you came.” His eyes strayed up towards the brightness of the sky. The moonlight limned the top of his head and under his jaw. Strange emotion seized Ezra. Longing and regret and fear. The cold, fierce eyes turned back to him.
“Very well then,” Ezra said, stomach twisting with nerves. “If you won’t let me in, I’ll say to you what I have to say out here.”
Contemptuous, Chris waved him ahead. He still stood implacably in the doorway. Their past, occasional closeness came back to Ezra in a bitter flood. There had never been words, of any tender sort, but there had been intimacy. There had been skin and lips, the brush of warm breath, the light skim of tongue on tongue. There had.
“I can’t know,” he began falteringly, “any of what you feel. I’m afraid to even imagine it.”
“Fine,” Chris said. “So go home. You’re the last person I need coming out here talking at me about what I feel and trying to make me forget.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“Well what?” Chris’s fine bottom lip curled in disgust. “You going to start in with Nathan’s line about how I’m dishonoring their memory by shutting myself away at Christmas-time? How much Sarah would cry to see me burying myself in this damned place, like Buck says? Well go on. I’ve had it before. I’ve had Vin telling me I’m a self-pitying, selfish son of a bitch and Josiah telling me my family’s in town now. The fact that they ain’t, that they’re buried six feet under the goddamned fucking ground and ain’t ever coming back isn’t going to cut any deeper than it already has.” His nostrils flared and he held Ezra’s eyes, intimidating. “So, what? You have some new line? Something from J.D. maybe, this time? Or is it going to be all your very own?”
“My very own I’m afraid,” Ezra said. “Or at least, that’s the counsel I’ve been given.”
“Counsel?”
“Yes. Poor Josiah believed he was giving me advice about something completely different, but I think what he said applies.”
Chris’s expression became darker than ever. “Don’t mess me around with your bullshit, Ezra,” he said, warning. “This ain’t what I need and if you don’t leave me alone like I’m asking then you’re going to be punched out and sent back to town tied to your bitching horse.”
Ezra knew it was possible. Likely even. His jawbone pricked in anticipation. He couldn’t stand to see the icy scorn in Chris’s eyes. Maybe even being punched would be better than that. His heart thumped dully in the base of his throat.
“There can’t be a substitute,” he said, helplessness creeping through his veins. “I understand that. Nobody can bring back your wife and your sweet boy, and nobody can replace them. Maybe Mr. Wilmington’s right to say half your soul got burned away when you lost them and I don’t know, maybe you feel some of the fault was yours, and dear God at this time of year the loss of them must tear at you inside until you likely can’t bear it.” He swallowed violently. Chris was staring at him as if he couldn’t quite believe anyone would dare say such words to him and expect to keep breathing. The coldness in his eyes seemed stripped away though, and behind it there was just pain. Too raw to contemplate.
Ezra took a ragged breath. “Please,” he said. “I don’t seek to diminish any of that. It’s just... you should know. You have our friendship, all of us. That deal is done and it won’t change.”
His eyes strayed past Chris again, through to the cabin’s little room. On the table in the dim light of a single candle was one lonely plate, one mug, one fork. Further inside, hidden in the corner, Ezra could picture the drab little cot covered in saddle blankets. His packing of a change of clothes was now seeming overly optimistic.
“Leave,” Chris said in a low, tense voice. “Just leave now. I know about the friendship and I appreciate it. Still doesn’t mean I’m coming back to town.” He pressed a hand to Ezra’s chest, keeping him back.
“And more than that,” Ezra blundered on, feeling as if he were dancing on the edge of a precipice, blind and out of control. The strength in Chris’s hand was both exhilarating and fearsome. Even so he pushed back against it, stubborn. “You have something more.” A sudden resentful anger flushed through him. All his plans to follow Josiah’s advice and be straightforward and unambiguous, as he’d suggested, went flying out of his head.
He felt Chris’s hand curl hard against his chest, as if he was clawing at him. “And what the hell’s that?” Still there was a rich, self-protective disgust clothing his tone. Ezra doubted his ability to pierce it.
“My regard for you,” he said, wondering if Chris could feel the crescendo of a heartbeat against his fingertips. His mouth was dry. “My feelings for you. They’re a done deal, too. As true and sure as anything I ever felt in my life. Something I can’t ever change, even if I wanted to, even if you wanted me to.”
A wind whipped across the hill he’d ridden over to reach the cabin. It caught at Chris’s grimy hair, rippled his gray shirt.
“So. You came all the way out here in the dark to say that?” The wind buffeted them again, whipped a hank of dark blond hair down over Chris’s brow.
Ezra’s left hand lifted, unthinking, to smooth it back. Chris’s lips pressed together but he didn’t flinch. Didn’t bat him away, either. The press to Ezra’s chest didn’t relax one iota.
“I thought you needed to know,” Ezra said. All the energy seemed to be draining out of him into the ground, but it was done.
“Well,” Chris said, and he finally let go with a little push. “You said your piece, so now you can water your horse while I fetch you some coffee. And then you can git on back to town same way as you came.”
Most of Ezra wasn’t surprised, not really. But a part of him jangled with pain nevertheless.
“I don’t need coffee,” he said, sharp. He jammed his hat back on his head, turned to his horse and the saddlebag. All the time he was unbuckling the straps and pulling it open he was aware that Chris was still standing unmoving in the doorway. “I brought you some fresh bread. And a ham – or a half a one, it was all they had left. Oh, and this.” He turned back, the bottle of whiskey in one hand, the food in another.
“So you thought you’d be stayin’ to feed?” Chris sounded amused, but not in a very kindly way.
Ezra continued to hold out the offerings, stubborn, until Chris took them. Then he moved his horse along to the water trough, found the nosebag. Up above the cabin the moon hung, white, bright, intense.
“Maybe,” he said. “But mostly of course I came to ask you to come back to town – for Inez’ special meal tomorrow. It’s what she’d like. What everyone would like.”
“Tell ‘em thank you.” Chris stepped back over his threshold, got a hand to the side of the door. “Tell ‘em I’m grateful for their concern but I’m doing fine.”
Ezra’s failure settled over him like a cloak. He gripped his horse’s mane. “Good evening to you then,” he said, piqued and hurt and furious with himself as well as Chris. He swung up into the saddle, turned the horse around towards town. “Enjoy the whiskey.”
“Oh I will,” Chris said, unrelenting. “Believe me.”
And then, almost unbelievably, the door was shut.
Ezra rode for home. The moon stayed bright and the sky was clear but he hardly noticed. When he reached town, there was nobody around. Nobody to commiserate with his disappointment or crow at his defeat. He went to bed, anticipating the dawn, desolate. Awoke in the late morning with a flutter of nerves. This day, Christmas Eve, was going to be a trial. No Mother. No Chris.
“Ah hell,” Buck said, heaving a great overblown sigh, when he heard. “Still, we did tell you.”
“How was he?” Nathan asked, chewing over his breakfast.
“Bad-tempered.”
“But not sick?”
“No, not sick. Not even drunk, not yet anyways. Just all on his own, and liking it.”
“Huh,” Vin said, stabbing at his bacon.
*
It was very late afternoon again when Chris came riding into town. And it was almost as if Ezra had been able to feel him coming, like a storm. He was outside the saloon when he arrived, taking a break from all the table decorating and shenanigans.
Chris’s saddlebags looked full. As if he’d come back for good.
He rode up the street, making straight for Ezra and the saloon. Dismounted outside and slung the reins of his horse over the rail. He looked up the streets both ways as if acclimatizing himself, with some reluctance, then at Ezra as he came down the steps.
“You came back.” Ezra tried to be cool, but he didn’t feel it, not at all.
“Seems so.”
“For Signorita Recillos’ Christmas celebration.” He made it a statement rather than a question since that seemed safer.
“Nope.” Chris’s voice was matter-of-fact. It was also crusty with fatigue and the dust of the trail. “Believe me, I don’t want to sit around being seasonal now anymore than I did two days’ ago.”
“So what then?” Ezra was aware – already - that they’d been spotted. That it was Buck and J.D. tramping at speed down the street toward them, their excitement palpable even from a distance.
“Want to hear you say those things to me again.” There was a burn of sincerity in Chris’s eyes that rocked Ezra down to his boots. “I liked it. Liked how you looked when you were saying it. Guess there’s some things I need to say to you, too.” His keen gaze went to the dust being kicked up by the approaching welcome party and his lips curved. “Not right now, though.”
Ezra looked past him, knees shaky with relief and what might have been joy. “No,” he agreed, “absolutely not right now.”
*
The next day, Christmas proper, Josiah gazed out over his congregation.
He had a sore head, but he was glad to see them all, every one. But mostly Chris, their missing element, sitting up front, stiff-backed. Larabee was sunk in his own dark world still, but he was there nonetheless.
A few rows back sat Ezra, smart and out of place. His face was flushed and Josiah wondered if he’d been at the Christmas Day wine already. Lord knows he’d imbibed enough yesterday at Inez’ little party in the saloon. Josiah hoped it wasn’t because of Maude and her troubles. Whatever they were.
He nodded and smiled some more, then moved past Chris towards the lectern. Looking out across his dusty little church he felt a wry smile coming. Just as he’d thought, more folk than usual. And more of his six friends than usual. Not Vin and Buck, to be sure, but certainly more than would be here next Sunday or most of the Sundays of the year. It didn’t matter much though.
Time to speak. Certainly he’d spent long enough thinking about it. About the right form of words for the occasion and for the people. Succour for the suffering, light in the darkness. That was what had been on his mind.
But now it came to it, he found he wanted to say something else. He wasn’t entirely sure what.
Something of love, perhaps.
Josiah laid his hands on the rough edges of the lectern, cleared his throat, and began.
-ends-