Part 4
Buck was still mulling over what had happened a couple hours later. Nathan had gotten him to leave long enough to get some food and fill the others in on what had happened, but now he was back at his post beside Ezra’s bed.
It frightened Buck that Ezra had not known them. And who was this Rachel he had asked about? And Jonathan and Josiah?
He obviously hadn’t meant Sanchez, so who were they? Buck kept trying to remember any time Ezra
had ever talked about people he knew before coming to
Chris had joined them and was discussing Ezra’s condition with Nathan by this time. Nathan was a little encouraged that Ezra had woken, but still worried about his mental state and the fever that was still hanging on.
“It’s good that he’s come to once, but I’m worried about his fever,” Nathan explained, “We need to get it down soon. It hasn’t risen any more in the last few hours, but it’s still dangerous. I’m hoping that as the fever comes down, Ezra’s mind will heal too. Sometimes things like this have a way of straightening themselves back out.”
Buck cringed internally at the unspoken statement that sometimes they didn’t. He looked at the flushed, still face on the pale pillow and swallowed hard. Loosing any of them would be hard, but he was convinced that this was his fault. If Ezra died, his blood would be on Buck’s hands alone. Buck closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to control the grief and guilt that welled up at the thought. He opened his eyes just in time to see Ezra’s eyelids flutter.
“Nathan,” Buck called softly.
Nathan arrived at the side of the bed with Chris just as Ezra’s eye opened fully. Buck was surprised to see a look of pure hatred and fury cross Ezra’s face when he saw Nathan standing there. He didn’t have a chance to say or do anything before Ezra tried to launch himself out of the bed at Nathan, his hands extended reaching for his neck. Buck and Chris grabbed him and pushed him back down on the bed, but they had their hands full. Ezra was much stronger than he looked, and Buck and Chris had a hard time controlling him.
“You bastard! WHY?!? What could she have possibly have done? She helped you! And the boys! What about them?!?” Ezra shouted at Nathan. He didn’t seem to really notice that Chris and Buck were in the room, he just fought to get at Nathan. The hatred on his face and in his voice was staggering.
Confused, Buck shouted, “What the hell is he talking about?”
Nathan had backed away a few steps and was looking at Ezra with a mix of sorrow and anguish in his eyes. “Buck, he isn’t seeing us,” Nathan replied. When Buck looked toward him in confusion, he explained, “Look at his eyes, Buck.”
Buck looked down at the face of the writhing, struggling man on the bed and understood. There was no awareness in Ezra’s eyes this time. They had the glazed, distant look of a man firmly gripped in delirium. Ezra’s emerald eyes stared straight past Nathan into a scene only he could see, and all they could do was keep him from hurting himself or someone else. They could do nothing to help him with the demons that tormented his mind.
Suddenly Ezra went completely stiff for a few second, then collapsed limply back against the bed. Buck yelped when he jerked forward and butted heads with Chris as he lost his balance. He managed to catch himself before he landed on Ezra, but he and Chris were going to have headaches for a while. Nathan immediately moved forward to check Ezra out.
They were shocked when they saw the first tears well up in Ezra’s eyes, then spill down his face. In all the time that they had known Ezra, he had never cried where others could see him. Once or twice they had seen evidence of dried tears on his face, but never had he allowed them to see him. He was more likely to go completely quiet in rage and fight like hell to fix what was wrong. After the situation was dealt with, he would quietly slip away to deal with his grief.
Now Ezra wept openly and unashamedly in front of them and they felt very uncomfortable, almost as if they were intruding.
“Rachel, my darling,” Ezra sobbed. “All this…my fault. Forgive me. I killed you the day I married you. I’m so sorry, my love.” Ezra continued to ask forgiveness from the absent and apparently deceased woman, while the three men stood around in astonishment and helpless distress. They could barely believe what they were hearing, but they were forced to because delirious men couldn’t lie. Within ten minutes Ezra had exhausted himself and fallen back to sleep.
Buck regarded the ill man lying there in light of the things that had just been said and found that some previously confusing things now made sense. Why Ezra had reacted so greatly to the deaths of Clair Mosby and Irene Dunlap. Why Ezra had reacted so violently in Harvest Hills and his subsequent retreat into depression. Dear God, the man had seen more pain than any of them could dream of except Chris, and they had never known.
Chris was the first to find his voice after Ezra quieted. “That explains a lot,” he muttered as he also thought of Ezra reaction to the bodies of the two murdered young woman.
Buck hearing him, shook his head and sat back down. “Explains more than you think.”
Chris and Nathan both turned questioning expressions to Buck, wondering what he was talking about.
Sighing, Buck said, “Remember I was telling you that the situation in Harvest Hills brought up some bad memories for Ezra?” When Chris nodded that he did, Buck went on. “There was a man in the saloon there that was mouthing off about the lady that owned the grocery. He kept sayin’ that no black woman should own a shop.” Buck hesitated a moment before finishing. “He said that a black woman’s only place was on her back.”
Buck saw the disgust and fury that lit both Chris and Nathan’s faces and nodded. Turning back to watch Ezra, he said, “Yeah, me too. I was going to do something, but Ezra beat me to it. He grabbed that guy by the throat and threatened him. Shook him hard enough to rattle his eyeballs. Ezra glared down anyone in the saloon that might have wanted to stand with the guy. Then he lit out of there like a pack of wolves was on his tail.
“When I caught up to him, I asked him what was going on. He told me that he had known of a similar situation that didn’t turn out well. I asked him what happened.” Buck looked up at Nathan and Chris. “He said that no one had stood up for her, and she and most of her family were killed two days later.”
Nathan’s mouth nearly dropped open in shock. “But…”
Chris closed his eyes and quietly whispered, “Damn it.”
Buck knew that assumptions had been made when Ezra first joined them. It had taken them two years, with a couple of false starts, to start breaking down the walls Ezra had built around himself. In the two years since that however, Buck thought that they had grown into a close knit group. A kind of family of brothers, so to speak. Now he was wondering if they had ever known Ezra at all.
His musings were interrupted by Nathan blurting out, “But that’s impossible.”
Buck looked up directly into Nathan’s eyes and said, “How do you know that?”
“You said the woman they were insulting was black. Ezra wouldn’t have married no black woman, Buck. You remember what he said that first day,” Nathan reasoned.
“You ever hear Ezra make any other comments like that? Has he ever done anything against you? I ain’t never seen him choose no favorites when he goes to play with the children, in town or at the village,” Buck challenged him. He could tell Nathan still wasn’t convinced, so Buck got up and headed for Ezra’s saddle bags, which were being kept in the clinic for the moment.
“What are you doing?” Chris asked.
“Ezra was looking at something the other day out at the pool. It looked like a miniature. He put it in here before he fell.” Buck took a few minutes to find what he was looking for, but when he found it, he sat back on his heels and murmured, “Oh, God damnit!”
Chris and Nathan walked over to see what Buck had found. When Chris reached him, Buck stood and handed him the small picture without being asked, then headed back to his seat beside Ezra and resumed wiping Ezra’s face and forehead with the wet towel.
Chris looked at the picture for a few moments before he closed his eyes, wishing he could go back in time and recall some of the words he had hurled at the Southerner. Words born in his pain that accused a man who had lost more than he had of not understanding what pain was.
When Chris didn’t say anything, Nathan maneuvered beside him to look over his shoulder. What he saw was a small painting, incredibly detailed, of Ezra and a delicately beautiful dark-skinned woman, each of them holding a young boy of about two years. They were obviously twins, and Nathan had the sinking feeling that these were the Jonathan and Josiah Ezra had asked about.
