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Two years later
Ben pulled the wagon to a stop and gazed at the familiar scene. The Texas backwater miles out of Clear Creek hadn’t changed a jot since the last time he’d been there. The little grove of mesquite trees, the stone cabin, falling in now, and the overgrown yard were just older and suffering the wear of time.
Clara’s eyes were on his face as he scanned his family’s old homestead. She sensed that he was feeling far more than he showed, and she was right. His brother’s laughter still echoed in his memory, the yells of the circling Rangers still haunted his nightmares, and the memory of his father cradling his motionless mother made him close his eyes.
“Are you all right?”
He turned to look at her and mustered a crooked smile. “I’m fine. Let me see my boy.”
He needed his son, and he reached for little Samuel and pulled him into his arms before he climbed down from the wagon and walked over to the cabin. He pressed his lips to his toddler’s smooth cheek as his eyes moved over the cracked and sagging cabin door. It was a sacred place to him, but also a haunted one, and he used his boot to pry open the door and peer into the dark interior.
He half-expected to see three coffins, like in his nightmares, but there was nothing inside except woody vines and plants pushing up through cracks in the floor. The windows were still shot out, and daylight sifted down from open patches in the sagging roof.
Clara’s gentle fingers curled around his shoulder in wordless support, and he was grateful that she said nothing. There was a burning lump in his throat. Coming back for the first time in years had hit him harder than he’d expected.
But a lot had changed during that time, too, and that was the biggest reason he’d come back. He was an attorney now in Colorado, as close to reformed as a man like him could be, but still enough of an owl hoot to be shrewd. It had worked out well for him.
He had a practice in Denver, and there were enough outlaws, shady businessmen, and crooked politicians in that place to keep him busy for a thousand years. He had a nice place in town, a shiny buggy, good horses, and plenty of food on the table.
He’d become what Samuel would’ve been. He sometimes took the same cases Samuel would’ve, defending poor or wronged people who didn’t have a shot without him. He’d never be as good and kind as his brother, but he could honestly say he’d done his best.
He’d gone to the cemetery in Clear Creek to tell Samuel about it. That he’d tried to replace the good he’d cost the world when his twin died. He’d needed to do that, and now he needed to tell his parents.
He stared into the dismal little cabin. So much had happened since he left that the place hardly seemed connected to him anymore. But he couldn’t move on with his life until he put his ghosts to rest.
He pressed Samuel to his chest and walked around the side of the tumbledown shack to the back yard. It was overgrown with weeds and scrub, and it took him a minute or two to pick out the two little stone markers that were the only sign his parents were buried there.
He handed Samuel to Clara and knelt to uproot weeds and vines from his mother’s grave. He was going to have proper headstones made for both of them, and he was going to have Samuel moved from the cemetery to rest beside them. The property would always be his, and he was going to have it kept up so he could come back now and then and talk to his brother.
He moved to his father’s grave and stared down at it through sudden tears. He wiped his nose and nodded.
“Well, Pa, you had to grow up by yourself. I guess you did the best you could according to your lights,” he sighed. “But I wanted you to know that Samuel turned out the best of any of us. You were wrong about him. He wasn’t weak. He was good. He made something of himself. He made me want to make something of myself, too.”
He sighed and glanced at Samuel as Clara held their son in her arms. “I’m going to raise my son like Samuel, not like you,” he murmured. “Not even like me. He’s gonna grow up to use words, not a gun. He’s gonna be a good man.”
Clara’s eyes brimmed with tears, and he wiped his own before straightening. He glanced around to take in the bleak, scrubby land, the collapsing cabin, the broken windows. Yes, this was his past. But it wasn’t going to be his children’s future.
“Come on,” he muttered. “I’ve done what I came to do.”
He led the way back to the wagon and held Samuel as Clara climbed up. He passed the baby to her and walked around to the rig to climb into the driver’s seat.
He turned the horses’ heads and sent the wagon bouncing back toward town. They were expecting another baby in a few months, and he hoped it would be a boy. Seeing his boys play together would soothe something in him. The empty spot in his heart would never be fully healed. But he’d honor his brother’s memory, and that would come pretty close.
Clara’s eyes were on his face as they drove, and she curled her fingers over his. He slipped an arm around her shoulder, and at last he turned his face to the future.
OFFER: A BRAND NEW SERIES AND 2 FREEBIES FOR YOU!
Grab my new series, "Grit and Glory on the Frontier", and get 2 FREE novels as a gift! Have a look here!
Hello there, I really hope you liked my new Western Adventure story and the extended epilogue! I would be very happy to read your thoughts below.