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Vin sighed, sipping at his beer in the autumn twilight. The seven of them were relaxing around their usual table. It had been a hard couple of weeks, but Nettie Wells’s ranch was safe from Guy Royal and his men, even if they hadn’t been able to save poor old Cody.
Josiah seemed to be healing from the hurt Emma Dubonet gave his heart, and everything was returning to what passed for normal around here. Was about time for some good excitement, and Vin was waiting for somebody to start it. He fingered the present in his pocket.
Weren’t going to be him, though.
“Many happy returns, Mr. Sanchez.”
Ezra, bruise finally fading on his cheek, placed a book on the table in front of Josiah and took his seat. It was almost exactly what he’d done a couple of months ago with Buck, but without the alcohol. Nobody smart’d give Josiah alcohol to celebrate anything.
The preacher picked up the black, leather-bound book. “The Aeneid,” he read reverently. “Translated by John Conington.” Vin had heard Chris explaining translations to Billy one day, but he still didn’t get it. Figured if a man wrote a book, he done wrote it, right? Didn’t matter that it was based on something someone else wrote in another language.
“It’s not the most faithful of translations,” Ezra explained off-handedly, “but it does have a certain poetic flair all its own.” True to his last birthday gift, Ezra immediately took to his cards, shuffling one-handed and pretending he hadn’t just dropped a present in his friend’s lap. Seemed a present that took some thought, too…
Josiah leafed through it for a few moments before his deep voice rang through the mostly empty saloon:
“The journey down to the abyss
Is prosperous and light,
The palace gates of gloomy Dis
Stand open day and night.”
He grinned and shot Ezra a sly look. “I’m certain I’ve never heard the Sibyl quite so glib about the ruination of a man’s soul.”
Ezra kept his poker face, but Vin wondered if maybe he wasn’t a little hurt that his present wasn’t so happily received. “Perhaps a translation more for my tastes, than yours, then,” he offered lightly. “Still, I thought you might—“
“I’ll treasure it, Ezra,” Josiah cut in sincerely. “Thank you.”
Ezra cracked a small smile, obviously pleased. “Happy birthday, Josiah.”
JD and Buck clamored to get Josiah to read more of it, and he pecked through the thing, finding bits and pieces. Were awful lovely words, Vin thought, that yearning in his heart again. Reading… another thing he’d never really thought to miss until he came to Four Corners. He wondered if maybe Josiah or Ezra might teach him how… If he could get up the courage to ask one of them.
Ezra maybe. He was a strange one. Vin watched as the gambler looked on, apart from the commotion and celebration, but obviously amused by it. Tried awful hard to look like a spoke broke off the wheel, but then he’d up and do something that made the rest of them realize he wasn’t near the uninterested party that he seemed. That business with Nettie and her mortgage was just Ezra being Ezra—money sure seemed to mean too much to the man—but Vin had known Ezra’d give him the money when he asked for it. Making it hard was just his way.
Vin found himself wondering whose birthday was next. And what Ezra Standish would drop into that man’s lap. Which led him to frown slightly. Maybe he’d go ahead and call that first full moon of summer his birthday after all. Get in on this birthday celebration tradition all his friends enjoyed so much.
As he accepted a shot of whiskey from Chris, who’d bought for the table in honor of the day, he fingered his own present again. He’d give it to Josiah once things quieted down some. Fanfare wasn’t something he took to naturally.
He’d been lucky Nathan had said something just after Buck’s birthday, mentioning that Josiah would be the next of them. Gave Vin time to get together what he needed, work on it in the evenings when no one was watching.
Ezra hadn’t been around for that discussion, so Vin wondered how he’d found out. Didn’t seem like a slick conman like Ezra’d do something so straight-forward as ask. Probably pulled some trick or something to get Josiah to admit to it. He seemed to like surprising the birthday boy with knowing the day and preparing for it.
Vin could play that game, too, this time.
“Oxford, huh?” JD was saying. “That’s in England, right?”
Josiah nodded, and Vin wondered what he missed while he was wool-gathering. “It is, JD. A grand old school full of poetry and scholarship the likes of which I’d never seen!”
“You’ve been to England, then?” Ezra asked, wistful. “I have always wanted to travel to the Isles.”
Josiah sighed at an obviously happy memory. “I spent a year at Oxford—though I never met Professor Conington, sadly.” He looked at Ezra, surprised by the younger man’s admission. “I took you for a global traveler, Ezra. You certainly seem to be particularly knowledgeable about the ways of the world.”
Ezra smiled wanly at that. “Alas, books have been my sole means of visiting foreign lands—save Mexico, of course.” He sighed. “My trail of deeds goes no further afield than Charleston.”
“I been there,” Nathan said quietly. Vin could see it weren’t a happy memory. “Don’t aim to go back.”
“Nor I,” Ezra agreed, more breezy, less hurt in it. “I fear I’d find no warm welcome there.”
“I thought you were from Charleston?” JD piped up. “Didn’t your ma say something about it?” Kid knew the damnedest things. Everybody seemed to talk to him. Maybe he told Ezra about Josiah…
“I’m surprised she remembered,” Ezra replied, that harsh hurt and powerful love in his voice, like he always seemed to get when talking about his ma. “We were hardly there for long. Though her father owned a fine plantation there,” the gambler continued, an old, guilty glance at Nathan that no one but the black man and Vin noticed. Ezra knocked back his whiskey, looking at no one. “At least I’ve heard it was fine.”
Vin wondered about it, but it weren’t his business to ask. He could see JD getting ready to, but the naked memory in Ezra’s voice made Buck elbow the kid hard and stopped his mouth.
Ezra recovered, just like he always did. “I returned there as a man for a time, but I fear that city and I will never agree with each other. I expect it’s a bit like your connection to Tascosa, Mr. Tanner,” he offered, brightening up some. “A lovely place to be born, but nowhere you’d want to go back to.”
Vin snorted. “Hell, I ain’t from Tascosa, Ezra,” he replied. “What gave you that idea? Born in Lubbock.”
“I been there,” Buck said quietly. Unlike Nathan earlier, though, the man broke into one of those smiles of his—made him look like a kid of twenty-one, fixing to sow his oats. “I get enough money together to visit Madame Heide’s, well, I might aim to go back there.”
His randy guffaw was all they needed to clear out the darkness, and Vin knew that was just why Buck had said it. He was a good man. A good friend, too.
“So come on, now, Josiah,” Chris cajoled, happier than he’d been lately, which was nice to see. “Read us some more of that Greek poetry.”
Ezra sighed. “Virgil was Roman, Mr. Larabee.” He leaned back, but glanced toward Vin sadly, and murmured loud enough for everyone to hear. “They’re heathens, Mr. Tanner. Educating them may take me a lifetime.”
Vin smiled. Yeah. And he reckoned, more and more, that Ezra’d take that lifetime, too. Used to think the man would up and leave during the night, but he just stayed.
Like all of them.
Gave him a warm feeling—or maybe it was just the whiskey.
****
They all went their separate ways before the night got on too far. Nathan was called away, as Mrs. Gendry’s birthing was going badly, and JD offered to come help. Buck had his woman of the night, Chris wandered off to wherever he went sometimes, and Ezra pointedly remarked that he planned to make some money tonight to “recoup the loss incurred by my recent purchase” (which Vin took to mean he wanted to make enough money to cover Josiah’s present), so would they please all clear out so he could get to work…
Vin went to the bar for a bit, watching the saloon fill up—watching Ezra’s table fill up with ranch hands from a drive that had stopped nearby, trying to get north to Colorado before the winter set in.
After a time, he wandered out into the warm night and made his way to the church, finding Josiah sitting on the step, reading quietly by the light of the near-full moon and a nearby street fire. The preacher looked up at him and smiled contently.
“Vin,” he greeted him warmly. “Nice night for October, huh?”
“I reckon so.” Vin slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out his present, holding it out for Josiah to see. “I didn’t wrap this, or nothing, but…” Josiah took the jewelry from him and Vin shrugged self-consciously. “Happy birthday, Josiah.”
“This is beautiful, Vin,” Josiah murmured, watching the way the feathers and beads and silver caught the light of the street fire.
“Knew a wise man with the Comanche once, Quiet Flame.” Vin fancied he could smell the sage and wood smoke that had always surrounded the man. “He had a bracelet like it—a ward against the evil spirits that’d take a man’s soul.” He shrugged again. “Ain’t sanctified or nothing, but I figured a wise man could always use some help.”
Josiah grinned at that. “I’m no wise man, Vin, but I thank you. Truly.” He carefully tied it round his left wrist, finding it fit just right. Vin hadn’t been sure it would—he couldn’t rightly take the measure of the man’s wrist. Would’ve spoiled the surprise.
The preacher studied it for a long moment before looking up at Vin with a crafty smile. “Gonna have to think long and hard about your gift, now, Vin,” he told him. “Hope I’ll be able to live up to this.”
Vin didn’t know what to say to that. Weren’t nothing to live up to. He’d been happy making that bracelet. It reminded him of Quiet Flame and he’d liked wondering if Josiah would like it.
He wondered if that was why Ezra seemed to be going to lengths for his friends; just for the enjoyment of doing it. Seemed a strange thing for the gambler to do, though maybe just one more proof that he wasn’t quite the son his ma had raised him to be. Thank God.
“You got a while to think on it, Josiah,” Vin assured him. “I’d better bed down for the night. Gotta head to Nettie’s in the morning and finish those fence posts for her.”
“You’re a good man, Vin Tanner,” Josiah told him, rising like a small mountain in the night, new book in his right hand, eyes still drawn to the bracelet on his left wrist. He headed up the stairs to the church doors. “Sleep well. I’ll meet you at Nettie’s in the morning and we’ll see if we can’t get that work done up tomorrow.”
Vin grinned, already turning for his wagon. “Thanks, Josiah. Could always use the help.”
“See if you can’t get that gambler to come with you,” Josiah called after him.
“I said I wanted help, Josiah!” he protested happily.
Josiah’s chuckle followed him home, and he slept soundly til morning.
****
The End