By: Angela B
Disclaimer: Not mine and never will be
Note: This is my answer to the June challenge issued
to Katherine. ::::: What I want us a story
that fills in
some detail on the missing parent's or even the ones
that we do kow something about the people that bought
them into this world. (paraphrased)
The First Con
The southerner was saddling up his beloved steed,
Chaucer. The sun had long set and the moon in its
third phase gave enough light to make everything in
its reached have a luminescent glow. Ezra was so
intent on burrowing down inside of himself and trying
not to think of the previous conversation he had
previously been listening to by his fellow friends
that he did not hear the tall black haired cowboy
enter the barn.
"Hey Ez," Buck said softly. "Mind some company?" he
asked.
Ezra recovered from his sudden nerve startling
experience and started to refuse the man his request.
Right now he just wanted to get out of town, start on
his tour of patrol and be by himself. Looking up at
Buck to denounce his request, the gambler saw a look
of sadness on his friend's face and relinquished. "Be
honored to have your company, Mr. Wilmington," Ezra
granted.
The two rode out into the dark desert in silence. Each
caught up in their own thoughts of their past. The men
had been discussing parents earlier as they sat around
the table and ate supper. It had all started, as most
conversations do, with a simple question. Josiah had
asked JD how he had come to work in the stables at the
mansion where his mother was maid instead of something
else. JD had seemed a little shocked at first and
Josiah was about to ease the conversation elsewhere
when the kid broke out into a grin and started talking
about his father. It turned out that JD's father was
head foreman in charge of the horses at the same
mansion where his mother had worked. That's how the
two met. When JD was born, his father couldn't wait
until the child was old enough to start going to the
stables with him. JD then told them how he had
literally learned to ride before he could walk. His
father had later been killed in an accident when JD
was fifteen. JD had already been working as a go-for
for the fellows in the horse arena and was just hired
on to help train the horses.
After that each of the men took turns telling about
their youths and more specifically their parents. They
already knew about Nathan and Josiah's parents, but
they still shared off tidbits. Even Chris and Vin had
been in their two cents. Vin hadn't recalled his
father, but did state that his mother was awful proud
of the man people called, ' Mr. Tanner'. He had been
some type of law keeper back in Texas and they had
lived on a small farm outside of Brownsville, near the
Mexican border. Chris had added that his parents
owned a small farm in Ohio and later they had moved to
Indiana.
Ezra had sat back very discreetly and listened. It was
then that it occurred to him that Buck wasn't talking
either. They exchanged a quick look and half-smile
across the table and kept silent.
They had ridden a couple of miles and were halfway
through the circle they took around the outlying land
of the town when Buck quietly spoke up and asked, "Do
you remember him?"
Ezra stared straight ahead and hesitated whether or
not to talk to the other man. Since joining this
little group the only one Ezra truly felt safe in
confiding in was the man beside him. He had shared
things Maude had written him about in her missives and
even told him once she had asked for him to help her
in financial gain summation. Buck had only laughed at
the wording and asked, "How much she want?" That was
what Ezra liked about Buck so much; he took things as
value and didn't get bothered easily.
While Ezra was still trying to figure out what to say,
if anything, Buck started talking again. "Never knew
who mine was. My mom said she was sure it was one of
the fine, upstanding, moral gentlemen of the community
that fathered me, but she didn't know which," he said,
then shrugged his shoulders, "Or if she did she never
said it aloud."
After a couple of seconds he said, "She said it didn't
matter none because she thanked him every night for
the gift he gave her."
Ezra looked over and if the light was anything to go
by he could have sworn the ladies man who had no
problems running down the street in his red unions was blushing at his own admission. The gambler smiled and
wished internally he could say the same. Maude had
never made him feel like a gift. His talents, yes;
him, no.
Ezra took a breath and made the plunge. "Maude didn't
talk about her past, except once when I wanted to know
why she couldn't stay married to one of her husbands.
I liked the man and wished she would try harder to
stay. I asked her why we kept leaving and moving on?"
The gambler looked a little embarrassed at his mention
of wanting to stay with someone, but Buck held his
tongue and waited for the rest.
"She talked then about her past. She had been raised
by parents, who were just poor dirt farmers with a
large brood." Ezra's voice became soft and low. "She
mentioned having nine siblings at the time of her
departure. When she was fifteen she ran away and
headed for the glamorous big city she had always heard
of by passing strangers. She was adamant that she
wasn't going to wind up marrying some farmer and
leading her mother's life. After her departure and
subsequent arrival to the big city, at that time I
believe she was referring to Macon, Georgia. She
became quite fascinated with the lights and the life
other people were leading,"
Ezra let his mind drift completely back to that
conversation. They had been sitting on his bed, while
she packed his bag. Maude look disdained as she
recalled how she had thought Macon was the big city.
Later she would learn what a big city really looked
like. She had worked for a woman tending her children
for a while until she earned enough money to catch the
train for Atlanta. She quickly learned if she wanted
the rich life she needed money and soon learned money
was the most important thing in the world. Without it
you were just a poor girl from a poor farm. "Money
gives you everything," Ezra said, repeating what his
mother had told him that night and almost every other
night that they were together. He thought about this
then mentally said, 'Well, maybe not everything.' as
he looked over to the tall man riding with him.
"She met a young man. Supposedly from a well-to-do
family and fell in love," Ezra started up again,
keeping his voice neutral. The idea of his mother
loving anything was a hard concept to visualize, but
that night he had actually looked into her eyes and
believed her. Maude had told him the man had talked of
having a large family with lots of sons to teach
skills to and girls to have sit on his knee be the
apples of eye. Then that awful day had come. The day
when he told Maude his family was sending to Virginia
to meet a girl they wanted him to marry. Maude had
been devastated by the news. She was hurt worse when
she arrived at his home late one night with a plan to
run away. There on the porch was the love of her heart
sitting in a swing with another girl. Maude had left
that night upset, humiliated and alone.
Ezra stopped his reiteration as the picture of Maude's
face came into clear view as she told that part. She
had truly loved the man and had been shattered to
learn of his betrayal. Maude never told the man of her
dreams she had let herself become pregnant and was in
the family way. She would not lower herself to beg or
trap a man into marrying her that didn't want her. She
had become pregnant for a man she had loved, out of
love, for love. That sudden realization flashed into
Ezra's mind and he halted all other thoughts. He'd
never though of it that way before. She had become
pregnant for love. Ezra felt the weight of the world
on his shoulders as he realized that at one time Maude
had been just as desperate for love as he had been as
a child.
Buck quietly cleared his throat to bring his friend
back to the present and out of whatever kind of dark
pit he'd fallen into in the recesses of his mind. He
suddenly felt very bad for bringing up the issue. He
was about to start talking about something else, light
and amusing when Ezra began talking again. "Maude had
me and knew she could not return to her family
with.with.with a child born out of wedlock," he
stumbled. "Maude persuaded a clerk in the city's
office that she needed a death certificate. She got it
and that was the first con she ever pulled," the
gambler said with a half sad smile. Buck didn't say
anything, but he had the distinct feeling it wasn't
the first con, but the second one. From just being
around Maude the little he had, Buck had the feeling
she had ulterior motives when she got pregnant, but he
didn't say anything. Let Ezra believe his mother.
"She returned to her parent's home and told them her
husband had been killed shortly before my arrival. She
stayed until I was a year-old and then left again. She
couldn't stand the life on the farm. She bounced in
and out until I was four and then took me away for
good. She said she wasn't raising no child of hers to
be a farmer," Ezra finished, his voice holding a note
of sadness. Buck figured maybe that would have been
preferred over the life he was raised in, but again
kept his thoughts to himself. Ezra didn't often share
anything about his life and he wasn't going to do
anything to ruin it.
The two men rode the rest of the patrol in silence.
One man knowing he was born from a mistake, but loved
anyway and one man knowing his birth was caused by
love, but was thought of as a mistake for the rest of
his life.
THE END