Chapter 17 - The Apple Trees
By 1906, Montana had changed.
Railroads crossed places where Silas once needed days on horseback.
Towns grew.
Telephones appeared.
Hope returned home one autumn with a young doctor named Samuel Reed.
Silas disliked him immediately.
Cora found this hilarious.
“You haven't spoken ten words to him.”
“Enough.”
“What did he do?”
“Looked at Hope.”
“He intends to marry her.”
“Exactly.”
Samuel eventually earned Silas's reluctant approval.
Mostly because he wasn't intimidated by him.
At dinner, Hope announced their engagement.
Silas dropped his fork.
Cora laughed.
Later, Hope walked with Silas toward the apple orchard.
“You know I won't disappear.”
“People say that.”
“Papa.”
He looked at her.
Hope took his hand.
“You found Mama and me before I was even born.”
Silas swallowed.
“You don't have to keep saving us.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Silas smiled.
“Working on it.”
Hope married Samuel beneath the same apple tree where Silas had proposed.
Cora cried.
Silas claimed smoke was responsible.
There was no fire.
Years passed.
Grandchildren arrived.
The ranch house expanded.
One evening, Hope asked Silas to tell her children the story of her birth.
Silas refused.
Cora told it instead.
She exaggerated his panic.
“I did not panic.”
“You froze.”
“For three seconds.”
“Five.”
“Three.”
Hope laughed.
Her children listened wide-eyed.
“And then?” one asked.
Cora looked at Silas.
“Then he stayed.”
That became the family version.
Not the gunfights.
Not Gideon Vale.
Not the ledger.
Not even the storm.
A man stayed.
A woman survived.
A child lived.
May you like
Sometimes the simplest part of a story was the part that mattered most.
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