Appearances, Mag7/HL, slash, R, 2/4
ETA: Final, beta'd version here.
Previously in this story:
"Good night, Señor Standish."
"We'll turn the lamps down when we go up, Inez," Standish promised her before contemplating the chess board again. He eventually moved a rook up the board to threaten Matthew's knight and asked quietly, "So who are you looking for, Matthew?"
They'd shifted to first names after the first chess game, when Ezra had been forced to return the dollar he'd won from Matthew at poker. Chris had rolled his eyes at their shared amusement and general rapport and gone out to take the watch, after keeping his too-sharp eye on the poker game. Josiah had left halfway through the first chess match, chatting amiably with Wilmington about some roof repair job; Matthew had carefully not volunteered to help. With the bartender gone at last, it was finally quiet, and Matthew glanced over, wondering where this discussion was about to go.
"Truth be told, the gentleman in question is a friend of mine." Matthew chuckled quietly. "I'm here because I'd heard about a well-dressed conman with green eyes in Four Corners."
"And this friend's name? I do hear names dropped over poker games, after all. Unless you'd rather he were unaware of your approach...?"
"I'm not after any bounty he might have on his head, Mr. Standish," Matthew answered quietly and took the rook with his bishop.
The reversion to formality made Ezra wonder how tender the nerve actually was, or if Matthew were just issuing an early warning. "And if I were?" Ezra asked, gaze on the chessboard again.
"Wiser if you weren't," Matthew said lightly. "I said he's a friend, not a fool. Nor safe, if someone gets in his way."
"Survival in this profession doesn't allow folly, Mr. McCormick," Ezra agreed, moving his bishop out of the way of an impending trap. "He dresses well, I take it?"
Matthew moved a pawn to force the bishop into a different pin. "Tolerably so, when he can. He generally finds other uses for his money." He leaned back and added, "Mind, stopping to protect a town is exactly the sort of thing he'd do. Doing so on the side of the law is the detail that would surprise me."
Ezra glanced up at him, barely moving his head as he did. "You do have a gift for noticing traps, Matthew."
"Mm. The instinct can be developed, surely." Matthew leaned back, attention seemingly on the shadows of the room; Ezra didn't believe for a moment that it was. "My queen's vulnerability, you mean?"
"No, Mr. McCormick." Ezra shifted his bishop back three spaces, threatening the rook again. "I meant the story of your sword practices with Carl Hobart."
Matthew's hand never hesitated in its movement, brushing lightly over a bishop, a rook, a knight, before moving a pawn to take Ezra's knight. "Do feel free to take that rook, sir."
Ezra kept his right hand under the table. With his left hand he advanced the other bishop, angling to pin Matthew's queen away from retaliatory measures. "Not just yet, thank you."
Matthew sat upright to look the board over more closely, a raking glance that took in the pieces, their alignments to each side, and the play at hand. Ezra suspected he was reevaluating precisely what game was afoot... and what strategies. What he asked, however, concerned another topic altogether.
"Why was I arrested, Mr. Standish? Surely not for loitering; I'm hardly indigent."
"I'm afraid I don't pretend to claim prescience as to Mr. Larabee's motives."
Matthew only smiled, slow and dangerous. "I daresay you do know this much, however. I worried someone about something. If it wasn't that I'm looking for Corwin -- I'll give you that much of his name -- then what is it? Who, precisely, is Mr. Larabee worried I'm here for? And is he worried about unofficial action, Mr. Standish, or official?"
Ezra settled back into his chair, right hand -- and holstered derringer -- still resting on his thigh, under the lip of the table. "That's a great many questions, Mr. McCormick. Information has always been a commodity, as I'm sure you're aware."
"I've heard that suggested once or twice." Matthew shifted a pawn forward another space, watched imperturbably as Ezra captured it immediately, and shifted the next pawn forward. "However, so is peace. I've rather gotten the impression that researching those questions would not be appreciated." He smiled slowly. "I don't require appreciation, Mr. Standish."
Ezra frowned. "Mr. Larabee's reputation is well-deserved." He took the rook with his bishop. "You've already disturbed the serenity of Four Corners."
"By asking questions about a man who's not here?" Matthew drawled. "A fragile quiet, then -- so fragile I daresay it's not my questions that are the problem." He advanced his queen to threaten Ezra's second bishop then glanced up, his expression so indecipherable that Ezra had no doubt he was thinking very swiftly indeed. "Someone's past, perhaps. Or several people's. Do have to wonder why I'm considered such a danger, though."
"Perhaps because you are," Ezra drawled. "And none of this, however interesting, touches the matter of you, Carl Hobart, and two swords which were quite real, sir, and quite assuredly not cavalry sabers."
"Cavalry, Mr. Standish? The war's over, and has been for a number of years now." Matthew indicated the board. "Your move, sir."
Ezra shifted his bishop out of harm's way. "Yours now. About Carl Hobart? And, for that matter, sir, your own appearance."
Matthew shifted his pawn forward and Ezra suddenly saw just how badly he'd lost this game. A second queen was going to be behind his king in two moves and he had nothing he could shift to stop that; he'd been busy harrying Matthew's queen out of the king's line of defense.
When Ezra looked up from the board, Matthew was studying him again, and something about his eyes was most unsettling. It wasn't simply that he was evaluating how much of a threat Ezra might be, although that was surely part of it. Something in the man's gaze spoke of far too much experience to match his apparent age, of a refusal to take surface appearances for granted, and of an implacable will that would be pushed only so far. The best profits undoubtedly lay along that line of resistance, but so did most of the danger. Pushing a man too far, derringer to hand or no, was a good way to end up dodging bullets. In this case, he might be dodging a blade, as well.
Ezra had been concerned with one major question: If the man who'd used the name Matthew McCormick in Belle Chassee, Louisiana was also the man sitting here -- and Ezra had no doubts he was -- then how had he managed to avoid aging over the last eighteen years? Now, watching that steady appraisal, Ezra realized there was another question: How long had McCormick kept himself from aging... and what had he learned over the years?
I never thought his secret was one to be given to all and sundry, but I believe I've overplayed the hand. Ezra tipped his king over. "My congratulations, sir. I failed to anticipate that."
Matthew McCormick only nodded, still watching him, still expressionless. "So did I, Mr. Standish." He waited while Ezra handed over another faded bank note, folded it neatly, and stood, bill still in his hand. "A most enlightening pair of games, sir; I do appreciate them. Good night."
McCormick slipped through the tables without a sound, made his way up the stairs (stepping on the edge of the fifth step that tended to creak), and vanished down the hall without taking a light with him. Ezra watched him go, smiling slightly and appreciative of the man's almost feline ease of movement. He always had liked a dangerous game, and the pot on this one was almost incalculable. So was the level of risk, but that was no small part of the fun.
Ezra packed the chess pieces away again before he leaned back in his chair and reached into his pocket for a deck of cards. The familiar feel and motion of cards in his hand, of solitaire patterns on the table, would help him think, and he had a great deal to think about. Such as the levels of risk in asking a man how not to age (or simply age more slowly), and how he was going to ask, and what risks he was willing to take to gain that secret.
Money, however, seemed unlikely to work, certainly in the amounts Ezra had freely available, and honor didn't suggest any obvious handles on the man. McCormick hid his interest well, but it was there, if controlled. That had possibilities. Men and women did tend to talk more after sex, Ezra had noticed, and if McCormick still refused to tell him, it would let the man think he had something on Ezra. Perhaps he would. Perhaps not. The problem with small towns, to Ezra's mind, lay in everyone's interest in every other person's doings. In a city, a night in another man's rooms could be easily concealed. It would be more difficult in Four Corners.
No. Carl Hobart was McCormick's vulnerability. A slave who'd run away -- no, not run away, but what? Ezra felt a memory try, and fail, to surface. He shifted more of his attention to his cards, refusing to pressure himself and lose whatever it might be.
Four of diamonds on five of spades. Nine of hearts on ten of clubs. Jack of clubs on queen of hearts, and he had it. Carl Hobart, rumor said, had come back from the dead to kill Seth and Silas Hobart. The court of gossip had also found him guilty of getting Melissa Hobart in a family way, now that Ezra thought about it. The court of gossip was very likely wrong. A field hand spending too much time at the house, or a daughter of the house spending too much time at the field, would have been noticed. And, rumors of voodoo aside, men did not come back from the dead. The War had taught Ezra that even before the West had.
Beyond the claims of the court of gossip, however, lay facts. Matthew McCormick, Seth Hobart's son-in-law, had spent hours every afternoon teaching one of Hobart's slaves to use a sword. Treating a slave as a student and a human was an act that in those days could have had McCormick ostracized from Louisiana society at best, if not flogged half to death... or all the way. Even today it would be difficult at best to explain away.
Why? Word had it that the marriage had been as much a love match as a alliance of money with money. Why would McCormick risk all that for a slave?
Ezra studied his game, noting idly that the jack of hearts was trapped and his game with it. He sighed, suddenly weary, and gathered up his cards. There was a great deal of risk in taking on a man who fought the way McCormick had, a man whose presence in town disturbed Chris Larabee so thoroughly, and worst, a man whose motives were so opaque to Ezra. Swift healing and a chance at more decades in which to see and learn the world were surely worth the risk, but he'd consider how to approach this in his bed. Possibly after sleep.
# # #
Matthew McCormick had already stepped into his room and closed the door behind him before he realized that the shadows didn't look as they should. A voice he hadn't heard before suggested, "Might not want to go for your gun."
Matthew shook his head, almost amused at himself. However much of a threat Standish might be, he'd let himself get too distracted. "Planning on shooting me?"
"Only if I have to."
The voice came from the deepest shadow of his room. Unfortunately, that shadow lay over his bed -- and his sword. Matthew could smell sweat, damp leather, and gun oil, and he hadn't heard the voice before. So he shrugged and said, "Mind if I sit down, then?"
"Go ahead." He couldn't see the man yet, his eyes not completely adjusted to the darkness of the room. "Chair's just past your right hand, 'bout half a step forward."
"And you'd rather I not light the lantern?" Matthew took the half-step, however, and settled himself onto the chair. He extended his legs, crossing them at the ankles, and let the tips of his boots brush the sword still sheathed under the bed.
"'Preciate if you didn't." Same light, husky voice, and a rustle of leather followed by the quiet creak of the bed. "Need to ask you a couple questions, and then I'll go away, let you sleep."
"Kind of you," Matthew drawled, amused despite himself. Dawn wasn't far off, and his day had begun before the previous dawn, but this whole town had been full of surprises, and he was starting to enjoy the way they kept rocking him off balance. "I suppose you'd like me to keep my hands where you can see them while you ask?"
"'Preciate that, too, yeah." Matthew's eyes had adjusted to what little light the moon gave as it set; he could see a profile, tanned skin, a silver line along a long gun held lightly but without motion. Dangerous, whoever this man was. "Need to ask who you're looking for."
"And if I choose not to tell you?" Matthew asked steadily, ignoring memories of dying gutshot during the War.
"Don't rightly know. Can't see shootin' you for it, but I got to know."
"So you can look for him?" Matthew tilted his head, trying to sort out this puzzle. The man's stillness was impressive; that was not a small-caliber gun.
"Got other responsibilities," came the response, equally surprised and surprising.
Matthew raised an eyebrow, all too aware the moonlight was falling mostly on him. "As I told Mr. Standish, it'd take a fool to hunt Corwin for any bounty that might be on his head."
"Corwin, huh? Corwin. The man rolled the name on his tongue as if to taste something of Cory's nature in it. Much luck he was likely to have of it, and Matthew wished him none. The man cocked his head, changing the flow of silver across cheek and eye, the shadow cast by nose and brow. That shift was enough to let Matthew finally identify him as Larabee's morning shadow, Vin Tanner.
"Don't s'pose I could have your word that's the name of the fellow you're huntin'?"
"Hunting implies I mean him harm when I find him," Matthew said mildly. "I don't. Other than that, sir, you have my word: I'm looking for a man named Corwin." On a hunch, Matthew added, "Not you. And no, your visit tonight won't prompt me to go hunting you."
His visitor tensed, then relaxed again, slowly. "You're as bad as Ez for words and usin' 'em. Corwin, huh?" He shook his head and stood up. "Tomorrow you might tell Chris who you're looking for. Ease his mind."
Matthew found himself grinning despite the gun still pointed at him. "Easing Mr. Larabee's mind is the least of my concerns, despite my precipitate detainment. Will you answer a question for me, then? On your own oath?"
That got a soft laugh out of the darkness. "Every bit as bad as Ezra.... Might answer. If I can and it won't hurt nobody here. Only seems fair, you takin' this so calm. What'd you want to know?"
"Have you run into a man named Corwin in the last five years or so?"
That got a shake of the head. "Not a one. Not by that name, anyway. I'll swear to it, if'n you want, but I don't know what you'd want me to swear on."
"This is the West, sir, not the East. I'll take your word." Matthew yawned, energy draining from him now the crisis felt done.
"You say you're not huntin' Corwin." His visitor finally moved, slipping into the moonlight. "Doesn't mean he's going to be glad if you show up."
Matthew smiled at that and stretched, slow and careful to keep his hands visible, but he'd been still too long now. "He'll yell at me because he always does, but he won't mind, either."
That got a sudden smile, one that lit Tanner's face. "Yeah, might know what you mean there. Friends, huh?"
"And kin," Matthew said, "but friends as well." He shrugged. "I'd heard rumors that made me think he might be here, so I came looking."
"Must be friends. We're a long way from much else." Tanner grinned and waved a hand at the bed. "Sorry to keep you from it. I'll just use the door, if'n you don't mind?"
Matthew did laugh, finally. "Feel free. Much easier than going back out the window." Tanner moved past him to the door, keeping as much distance from him as the room allowed. Hand on the doorknob, he paused long enough that Matthew had to ask, "Was there something else, sir?"
"No. No, s'pose not." He nodded with a courtesy that made Matthew think Tanner didn't break and enter very often. "Night."
After he'd gone, Matthew checked under the bed, but his sword was still there and apparently unmoved. That didn't entirely reassure him.
# # #
And that's about the first half of what's written, probably about the first 30-40% of the fic, so I'll now go back to making them cough up the rest! Part three: here.
Happy birthday, medie!