Some additional comments: It isn't essential, but any of you who have ever heard the Sawyer Brown song "Another Side" from their "Six Days on the Road" CD might recognize some of my Ezra's sentiments. If you've never heard it, you're just missing out on great music.

Ghosts, Voodoo and the Measure of Friendship
by T'Yanna Wiles

Ezra Standish hovered at Vin Tanner's shoulder. He knew that he would have to step out of the shadows soon, but for now he wanted to stay in the safety of the porch. Looking out into the street, he realized his luck had run out. The past had finally caught up with him. This time he was not going to let anything run him off. Not even the demon of his existence.

"Ez, what the hell is that?"

Vin's hand hovered over his gun. Every muscles was tensed ready for action and his eyes narrowed as he stared out into the street. He looked ready to take on anything. Even....

"A specter."

The street was eerily quiet considering the number of people scurrying for safety. Only inside wasn't an safety. Only inside wasn't any safer. No where was. No one could escape if it chose to attack them, except Ezra and maybe Nathan.

Vin tensed as his friend stepped around him. Ezra was not a big man or very strong. He was quick, smart and knew how to fight dirty, but what good was that against a ghost? Especially one over six feet tall and as broad as a bridge plank.

"It's alright, Mr. Tanner. I can handle this."

The ghost turned at the sound of his voice. It's eyes went from a glazed blue to fiery red. They narrowed and the gaping hole where the nose and lips should have been widened into a horrific smile.

"Hello, Ezra." The voice sent chills up and down his spine. It was rough like sandpaper, ominous like church bells before a funeral and dark like a moonless night. It was also about as harmless as the calm before a tornado.

He allowed nothing to show on his face as he gazed at the ghastly form in front of him. With each passing year, the pale visage of this apparition came to appear increasingly like the rotting corpse he'd left behind, only at a with greater rate of decay. Time was never kind to those who refused to let go of this life. Ezra had learned that during the War, when his cousin's specter had followed him through those four hellish years, but a least he had let go after seeing Ezra safely home.

This spirit however lived on for a much different reason, Revenge. He held Ezra personally responsible for his death and that of his friends. Captain Mayfield has started haunting him not long after Appomattox and the southerner had been on the run ever since.

He'd never thought to settle down, make friends, have a home since Mayfield had begun taking all those things away from him. The hollow, decimated house in New Orleans had survived the War but not one night of ghostly fury. It was also the last time and place Ezra had truly let himself become close to anyone.

That was until now, until this dusty little town with its generous spirit. It had taken a while, but the people here had learned to overlook his past and accepted him and that was something worth fighting for.

"Mayfield, lets get this over with."

The ghost's rotting face showed surprise. Ezra repressed a smile. He hated being thought of as predictable. He certainly had surprises for his tormentor. It was time to take his life back.

Anger and rage quickly filled Mayfield's glowing eyes. With almost blinding speed he lunged toward Vin. The young man brought his rifle up and fired. The shot hit the target square in the chest. The ghost slowed to laugh at the gaping hole it left.

It gave Ezra the time he needed. He'd been using the voodoo he'd learned in New Orleans to keep Mayfield from finding him. Now he used it to ensure that he was the only one the apparition could see. No one in this town would be endangered if Ezra could help it.

Mayfield turned toward him, his ghostly foot passing through the now shocked JD Dunne, who'd come running at the sound of gunfire. He wasn't the only one. Chris Larabee and Buck Wilmington had come out of the sheriff's office, guns drawn and eyes wide. The church door was wide open with Josiah standing open-mouthed in it.

While it heartened Ezra to see his friends come to his and Vin's defense, he had to be careful. They couldn't interfere. Not if his half baked plan had a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding.

"This is between you and me, Mayfield. No one else needs to be involved." He certainly hoped they got the message.

His ghost had. A half eyebrow twitched. "Finally grew a backbone, boy?"

Ezra shrugged. "Call it what you will. Let's talk."

Mayfield laughed sending a chill up the entire town's sine. "You think you can talk your way out of what's rightly coming to you? Think again, Reb."

The southerner didn't try to side step the hot rush of air that accompanied the specter's anger. It wasn't hot enough to singe but it was a near thing. He knew the specter wouldn't kill him right away.

"I'm willing to give you whatever you want, if you swear on your own grave that you'll leave this town alone."

Mayfield's head cocked to the side. It slid grotesquely, unnaturally too far. His eyes still ablaze that terrible, deceptively calm voice sounded. "What makes you think you can give me that?"

"You want my suffering. I'll let you torture me until I go on to my eternal torment at Lucifer's hands."

He heard but ignored his friend's protests. Ezra didn't plan on staying dead. Nathan Jackson would be able to bring him back, he was sure. Even if he couldn't it wouldn't be much of a sacrifice if this town continued to thrive. Maybe these kind folks would give another con artist and gambler a second chance at redemption.

"Who ever said I'd settle for you suffering?"

Ezra jerked. "Anything within my power to give."

A blue-clad arm moved toward him. He tried to stay still as bone and decaying skin wrapped around his neck. He was lifted off his feet to dangle an inch from the specter's face.

"I want your remorse.'

The words were soft and for once in an almost human tone. Ezra blinked. It was not what he'd been expecting. He'd lived long enough too know better, but was still unprepared for it. There was only one thing he could do. It was something that was coming more naturally to him these days - telling the truth.

"Of all the things I've done, the cons I've run, the games I've cheated at, the War is the thing I regret most. Letting my foolish stubborn Pride get me into a fight I didn't believe in. There could have, should have, been a better way." Ezra drew a ragged breath, feeling his neck muscles expand and rub against rotting flesh. "I wish I could take back the letters wives and mamas got because of it, because of me."

The specter shook him roughly one, as if he were trying to shake sense into Ezra or the truth out. "Is that all?"

Ezra shook his head within the bony hand "I regret the lives I let you take because I was too stupid and scared to stand up to you."

Mayfield smiled, his jaw and cheek bones showing along with his teeth, a small piece of gum hanging from between his bottom incisors. It wasn't reassuring to anyone seeing it. "Finally, you are worthy."

He most definitely did not like the sound of that. It made him sound like some sort of virgin sacrifice. That was not according to plan. Ezra tried to gulp but felt Mayfield's hand close more tightly.

"When I kill you, I'm going to take your body and live on."

Ezra clawed at the hand and arm cutting off is air supply. Short cut nails and fingers weren't much help against bone and supernatural strength. His vision dimmed as he heard his friends cry out and rush towards him. He knew they wouldn't shoot with him in the road, but saw JD pass right through Mayfield's chest inches from him. He could only hope that the herbs he'd swallowed would keep the spirit from his goal of inhabitation.

Suddenly, Ezra hit the ground. He sucked in air and turned to look up at his personal demon. Mayfield was on fire and screaming in agony. The southerner blinked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nathan take a large drink from a steaming glass and spit it through a lit torch right into the specter's face. With one last blood-curdling screech, Mayfield began to dissipate just as Ezra's cousin had. His body slowing taking on the loose appearance of smoke and then dust before being sucked upward into the sky as if by a giant tornado.

Ezra's coughing was the only sound for long moments. Then chaos erupted with the five regulators demanding answers as to what they'd just seen. Nathan said nothing, merely moving to help put out his torch. Ezra fought to clear his throat.

"Just had to lay some of my ghosts to rest."

Chris glared, Buck whined and JD tried his puppy-dog eyes and got no further response. Finally realizing they would get no answers, the five men gave up and with good wishes on Ezra's continued breathing slowly went their ways. Slowly calming the frightened folks of Four Corners, all of them kept half an eye on Ezra and Nathan who remained in the street.

Ezra couldn't stand the silence for very long. "I didn't realize you were so well versed in voodoo, Mr. Jackson."

"There are lots of things you don't know about me, Ez." With that and a squeeze the Ezra's ass, he left the southerner standing, mouth agape.

Fin