A Little Help From My Friends

Disclaimer: I don't own the Magnificent Seven, not making any money, just cheap thrills.

Warnings: Angst

Rating: FRT

A Little Help From My Friends
Chapter 2

Ezra let a heavy sigh pass his lips as he entered the small Wyoming town. He hoped there would be work available to him as his funds were quite low. As he made his way down the street, he feared his hope wouldn't be realized. The few shops he saw on the main street were already closed, though it was only just now four in the afternoon. Such an early closing time wasn't entirely unusual for a general store, but he could see that the only garage in the small town seemed to be closed as well, not a good sign. Spying a dingy looking bar across from the bus depot, he casually moved towards the small structure. It seemed that would be the best place to inquire after the possibility of employment. If employment wasn't to be found, then perhaps he could interest a few of the patrons in a small poker game.

Fred Baker, as he could be found six evenings a week, was behind the bar. He looked up as the door opened, expecting to see somebody he knew, he was surprised to see a stranger enter his establishment. The man's clothes had seen better days, but clearly they were of a high quality. Like so many others, this man must have fallen from the heights with the crash of '29. He hadn't seen the bus pull into the depot which could only mean the man walking across the room was traveling by other means. The small bag in one hand told him that the man was likely on foot. Just what this town needed, another drifter looking for work that didn't exist. "What can I get you?"

"A beer please," Ezra replied. Fishing a nickel from his pocket, he slid it across the counter to the bartender as the beer was placed in front of him.

"Bus ain't come yet," Fred commented as he dropped the nickel in the till.

"Has it not?" Ezra asked. "I'm afraid I have not kept up with the bus schedules as I have been reduced to traveling by shanks mare," he ruefully confessed.

"Figured," Fred nodded. "Where you headed?"

Ezra shrugged, "Nowhere and everywhere." He took a sip of the beer, grimacing at the bitterness of the cheap brew. "This is a lovely little burg you have here." It never hurt to compliment a man's home, be it town or house.

Fred set the glass he had been drying on a shelf and picked up another, "It's okay I guess. Leastways we're still here," he added as an afterthought.

“Indeed.” Ezra glanced around the bar, hiding his disappointment at the lack of clientèle. “It seems I am either early or late for happy hour.”

“Folks should start coming in soon.” No sooner had the words left Fred's mouth when the door opened and two men stepped inside, calling out greetings to him while shooting curious glances Ezra's way.

Ezra sipped his beer as he watched the room slowly fill up. He frowned thoughtfully, clearly these men were all of the working class. He sincerely hoped that employment would be found, the thought of winning money from these men was abhorrent and distasteful. That didn't mean he wouldn't engage them in a game of course, a man had to eat after all.
Fred returned to the bar. “Another beer mister?”

Ezra inclined his head, “Please.” The glass was taken away and refilled, Ezra slid another nickel onto the smooth surface of the bar. “I wonder sir if you might know of any opportunities for employment in the area,” he quietly inquired.

Fred started to shake his head, when a scene from a few days ago replayed itself in his mind. “Nobody really has any need for more workers, but I might know of one possibility. Don't know if you'd be suited for it though,” he admitted.

His mother would be most disappointed if she were here now. “I may not look as if I am acquainted with difficult work, but I assure you sir that I am willing to perform any job that is available. That is as long as it's legal of course,” he added. He had no wish to become the patsy for some enterprising criminal nor did he desire to give the man the impression that he was untrustworthy.

“Nothing illegal,” Fred quickly assured him. In better times he would have been insulted at the implication. Things were different now. He personally knew at least three men who had turned to criminal activity to support their families, men who before the crash would never have considered such a thing. “Fella a few miles from town lost his wife recently and could use somebody to look after his kids while he works his fields. Doubt he could pay much, maybe just room and board.”

Ezra wasn't too sure about the idea. It was true he had always enjoyed a certain rapport with children, but there was a difference between occasionally entertaining a child and caring for them full-time. “How old are the children?”

Fred furrowed his brow in thought, “Let's see...JD is about five I reckon, so that'd make Vin seven, Buck ten and Nathan must be about twelve now.”

That wasn't too bad, at least none of them were in diapers. “Does this gentleman have a name?”

“Josiah Sanchez,” Fred replied. “His place is about ten miles from town.” Grabbing a piece of paper, he quickly wrote out directions.

“Thank you,” Ezra took the paper with a smile. Certainly it wasn't the ideal situation, but if it worked out he would at least have a place to live while he made inquiries into more desirable employment.


Nathan sat at the kitchen table, looking through the recipe box. There had to be something in here that he could fix for supper. Nobody had complained yet, but they had to be getting tired of breakfast foods three times a day, especially their father. No man wanted to return after working all day in the hot sun to a supper like that. The trouble was Nathan had only ever fixed breakfast for the family. He had only helped with the other two meals, leaving him at a disadvantage now.

“Nathan?”

“What is it Buck?” Nathan tiredly asked.

Buck frowned at the tone of voice. Nathan sounded like his Ma had done sometimes. He was a kid, he wasn't supposed to sound all worn out. “You want some help?” he quietly asked. Vin and JD could wait.

Nathan wasn't fooled, he'd heard the sound of raised voices a few minutes ago and now there was silence. “That really what you came out here for?”

“No, but helping you is more important,” Buck honestly replied.

Nathan smiled sadly. Buck was only ten, he should be playing, not trying to take care of everybody else. “I got it Buck. So what did you need?”

Buck hesitated, he didn't know if he should tell Nathan.

“You can tell me Buck, whatever it is. I won't get mad,” he assured the younger boy. He suspected that was why the boy didn't want to tell him what the problem was. Still Buck was silent. “It have anything to do with the yelling I heard a few minutes ago?”

Buck finally nodded. “JD got mad at Vin. He said it was his fault Ma left and that he hated him. I ...I told him to shut his mouth and now he's in our room crying.”

“What about Vin?”

“He's in the hall closet,” Buck almost whispered. It worried him that the younger boy was hiding there when he knew how much he hated it.

Nathan frowned. Vin had always been one to go off by himself when he was upset, but not inside. The younger boy, raised on a reservation for the first five years of his life, was always more at home outside. It was to the hills that he usually ran when he needed to be alone, never indoors. Certainly he shouldn't be hiding in the closet that Lucille had always forced him into as punishment. “Punishment,” he whispered, horrified at where his thoughts were taking him.

“Buck you go talk to JD, tell him you're sorry for yelling at him and try to make him understand. I'm gonna go see to Vin.” He hated to ask, but he couldn't take care of both boys and Buck shared a particular bond with JD.

“Sure Nathan,” Buck readily agreed. Turning around, he hurried to the room he shared with his brothers. He had felt terrible for yelling at JD, he knew the five year old didn't understand why their mother had left, but that didn't mean he could hurt Vin. “I'm sorry JD,” he softly said. Sitting down on the edge of his brother's bed, he began to slowly rub circles on the boy's back. “I shouldn't have yelled at you.”

“He made mama leave,” JD sobbed.

Buck sighed, “Why do you think that?”

“He was always being bad and mama'd get mad.”

“You know that ain't true...”

“Is too,” JD snapped. “Mama was always mad cause of him.”

“JD how many times did you come to me or Nathan cause Ma had punished Vin for something he didn't do?”

JD frowned. “I was wrong.”

Buck might have laughed if things weren't so serious. “I love Ma, I always thought she was perfect.” He paused, silently asking God to forgive him for what he was gonna say. “But she wasn't perfect JD and she was wrong for the way she treated Vin.”

JD scrambled onto his knees, punching his brother on the nose. “Take it back! Mama's good...she only lefted cause of him.”

Buck grabbed JD's hand. He was glad the boy couldn't punch too hard yet or he'd have a bloody nose for sure. “She might be good JD but that don't mean she's right. Vin is just a little boy, like you, Ma's a grown up, she should have done better.” It hurt to say it, but he knew he was right. No matter why, Ma shouldn't have been mean to Vin especially when she was mad at Pa. It wasn't Vin's fault.

“He shoulda been better,” JD stubbornly insisted.

Buck sighed. “Vin did all of his chores, more than you or me ever did, and he tried not to ever bother Ma. What else was he supposed to do?”

JD sniffled, “I don't know. He shouldn't a made her leave.”

“So you gonna be like Ma?”

JD looked up, confused by the question. “Huh?”

“That's what Ma did. She blamed Vin for stuff that wasn't his fault.”

“What stuff?”

Buck hid his smile. He knew that now that JD was curious he'd listen. “I don't understand exactly, but Nathan explained it to me once. He said that Pa liked Vin's mama too and that Ma didn't like that none. He said that Vin reminded Ma that she wasn't the only girl Pa had liked and that was why she was mean to him.”

“That ain't right,” JD hollered, his innate sense of fair play coming to the surface. “Didn't Ma know that it was okay for Pa to have more than one friend?”

“I think it's different with grown ups,” Buck replied. That part had confused him too.

JD frowned, “Then I don't want to ever grow up.” He glanced down at his knees. “I'm sorry Buck.”

“It's okay JD, but maybe you should tell Vin.”

JD nodded and scrambled off the bed. “Where is he?”

“He's hiding in the closet. Nathan's talking to him, so maybe you should wait.”

“Okay.”


Nathan quietly opened the closet door and lowered himself to the floor next to his younger brother. “Vin, why you hiding in here?”

“I was bad,” Vin sniffled.

“What did you do?” Nathan gently asked.

“I made Ms. Lucille leave,” Vin quietly admitted. He held himself as still as he could, bracing himself for Nathan's anger. Now that the older boy knew what he'd done, he'd be mad at him too.

“No you didn't.”

“Uh-huh, she said so. I was a bad boy and that's why she left.” Vin wrapped his arms around his knees, hugging himself as best he could.

Nathan sighed, wrapping his arm around the smaller boy. “You weren't bad Vin and you ain't why she left.” No response came from the younger boy. He wasn't surprised, he knew that Vin was convinced he deserved all of the punishments he got. Why shouldn't he be? Lucille had always told him so and Pa had never done anything about it. Nathan suspected that the man didn't know how badly Lucille had treated the boy and he was equally sure that Vin didn't realize it. He probably thought that since his Pa didn't make her stop it must mean that he was just as bad as Lucille told him he was. “Do you think I'm bad?”

“No! You're the best Nathan,” Vin assured him.

“Lucille didn't exactly treat me nice, did she?”

Vin thought about it and shook his head.

“Did I ever tell you how I come to live here?”

“No,” Vin quietly replied.

“My first Pa brought me here so's I'd have a place to live when he was gone. Ya see, he knew he was dying and he maybe could've lived longer if'n we'd went to someplace like Arizona.”

“Why didn't ya?”

He'd asked his father that same question. “Cause he knew that I'd end up in an orphanage there, but cause I'm black it'd be more like a workhouse. Pa knew Mr. Sanchez, they'd been friends but they hadn't seen each other for a long time. Your Pa had always told him that he could come to see him anytime, for anything...so he did. He knew that Wyoming had a history of being fair to folks so he figured that folks here wouldn't have a problem with white folks taking in a black child.”

“Folks is mean when you're different,” Vin mumbled.

Nathan hugged the small boy. He knew that being half Apache, Vin had seen that side of people too. “Some of them are, but not all of 'em. Anyway, when we first got here Ms. Lucille didn't treat Buck or JD very good either. Oh she wasn't never as mean to them as she was to me or you, but she didn't pay them much attention either. It concerned Pa, but by then he was too tired and weak to travel any further. He told me to be careful of her, said that she didn't seem like she much cared for being a mother. After he passed and your Pa unofficially adopted me, she started treating Buck and JD better. Guess it helped her some having me to boss around. You see what I'm getting at Vin?”

“You think she just wasn't supposed to be a Ma?”

Nathan nodded, “Something like that. Now, what do you say we get out of here?”

“Okay,” Vin hesitantly agreed.

Nathan stood up and helped Vin out of the small space. Placing his fingers under Vin's chin, he tilted the boy's head up until he could look him in the eye. “It ain't your fault that she left, you understand?” Vin nodded, but he knew the younger boy didn't really believe him. Maybe someday he would. “No more punishing yourself.”

“But what if...”

“No Vin,” Nathan firmly interrupted. “If you think you need punished you tell me or Pa and we'll decide if you do. Promise me.”

Vin wasn't sure that Nathan was right, but the older boy had looked out for him from the first day he had come here. He couldn't refuse him anything. “I promise.”

“Good boy,” Nathan smiled. “Now why don't you come out to the kitchen with me and help me figure out what to fix for supper.”

Before they could move more than a step, the bedroom door opened and a small brown whirlwind rushed out. Barreling into Vin, JD wrapped his arms around the older boy. “I'm sorry Vin, I'm sorry. You ain't bad, you ain't, and I don't hate you.”

Vin wrapped his arms around the smaller boy, a smile on his face. “It's okay JD,” he assured the small brunette.

“You can hit me if you want,” JD bravely offered.

“I don't want to hit you JD.”

“Good, cause I don't like getting hit,” JD admitted.

Vin giggled. “Want to play cowboys and indians?” At JD's nod, he rushed outside with his younger brother, forgetting all about helping Nathan.

Nathan watched them go, a grin on his face. He didn't mind losing the help. He'd only asked so that Vin would have something to take his mind off of his worries. Playing with JD was a better solution.


An hour later Nathan was no closer to coming up with something for supper. A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. He pulled it open. “Yes sir, can I help you?”

Ezra hid his surprise. He'd had no idea the family he'd been referred to was black. Inwardly he chuckled at the irony of him playing mammy to a family of coloreds, while outwardly he was the epitome of politeness. “Good day young man, would your father be available?”

“He's in the fields, but he should be back in a while. Can I give him a message?”

Ezra frowned. “To be honest young man, I would be most obliged if I could wait for him. I will of course remain on the porch if you wish,” he offered when he saw the uncertainty on the boy's face.

Nathan shook his head, Pa would skin him if he made this man wait outside. “You don't have to do that. You're welcome to come inside.”

“Thank you...”

“Nathan,” he dutifully supplied.

“Ezra Standish at your service Master Nathan,” Ezra responded with his own introduction and a winning smile.

“I'm working on supper Mr. Standish but you can read one of Pa's books while you wait, if you want.” Nathan wasn't sure if it was proper to leave company alone, but he couldn't let Pa come home to no supper. It was bad enough that it wouldn't be as filling as the man would probably like.

Ezra didn't relish the idea of rifling through the few books the boy's father probably possessed. Undoubtedly he would find nothing new to peruse. “Perhaps I could be of assistance,” he offered.

“You can cook?” Nathan winced. He knew his surprise was easy to see, he only hoped the man wouldn't be too insulted.

Ezra grinned, “Most assuredly. I am no master chef, but I am quite handy in the kitchen. Lead on young sir,” he added with a flourish of his hand.

Nathan eagerly led the way, maybe tonight his father would have the kind of meal he deserved after a hard day of work.

TBC.

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