It wasn't anything he'd done, nothing he'd said, just the damned poor luck of a man who didn't move fast enough when trouble came calling. Not that he was in any condition to move at anything beyond a snail's pace, thanks to the loving care provided by the guards at Camp Hoffman - the wound that had led to him being captured had been bad enough, but starvation and disease had done the rest. The bullet slammed into the wall beside his head, splinters flying. Raucous laughter sounded as Ezra ducked instinctively, uncertain what if had caused him to become a target other than sheer bad luck of a kind he might not survive. "Damn it, Jones, you missed him!" A choice now, stay still and hope the guards quickly bored of their sport, or edge his way onwards, all the time hoping the next shot would be equally as poor. He'd heard, though he wasn't sure from where, that you never heard the shot that killed you and he hoped that was true. "Hold still, Reb!" One of the guards had crossed to where Ezra stood, uncertain, shoving him back against the wood with the casual arrogance of the well-fed and well-armed. Close up, his breath stank of bad food and worse whiskey, either of which Ezra would now happily have taken from him without a second thought. Ironic, really, as he'd been something of a connoisseur before the War, insisting on the best for table and glass no matter the cost. He wasn't sure what made him move, despite the words snarled at him and the overhanging threat of a slow and painful death. Ezra shifted his weight, took a step to the side and then tried to run, one well-placed punch from the guard laid him on the floor, gasping for breath. "I said hold still." The words were punctuated by kicks, each one more savage than the last. A blow from a rifle butt to Ezra's shoulder ended the sentence; the guard had already begun to walk away before Ezra lost consciousness.

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