Chapter 3 - The Morning Graham Rode Away
Three days into the journey, Graham began remembering the morning whether he wanted to or not.
The country had changed from wide Wyoming grassland into broken ridges and stands of pine.
They stopped near a creek shortly before dusk.
Leah gathered branches while Silas tended the horses.
Graham sat against a fallen log, staring at flames that had not yet been lit.
Memory required very little invitation.
Six years earlier, Graham Alder had been twenty-four years old and certain he understood almost everything that mattered.
His father had been dead four months.
Thomas Alder had gone into winter with a cough and never seen spring.
Death changed the Alder house quickly.
Before, it had been noisy.
Thomas sang badly while repairing harness.
Matilda criticized the singing while secretly smiling.
Silas wandered in without knocking because nobody had ever bothered teaching him not to.
Graham complained about the farm and dreamed aloud about Wyoming land.
After Thomas died, every room seemed larger.
The table had an empty chair.
The barn had tools nobody wanted to move.
Matilda stopped singing altogether.
Then the money disappeared.
Thomas had sold eighty-three head of cattle shortly before becoming ill.
The payment was supposed to clear debts and give Matilda enough to survive the year.
It never arrived.
Silas had handled the cattle transfer.
Pike Freight had transported the animals.
Gideon Pike produced records showing payment had been collected by somebody using Silas Boone’s name.
Silas denied it.
Graham believed him.
Matilda did not.
The argument that destroyed everything happened on a cold April morning.
Graham had been loading his saddle.
Not because of the money.
His departure had been planned months earlier.
Wyoming was offering land.
Silas had contacts near Marrow Creek.
Graham intended to go west, work a year and send money home.
That had been the plan.
Until Matilda walked into the barn holding Pike’s papers.
“You’re not going with him.”
Graham remembered looking over the saddle.
“With who?”
“Silas.”
“He’s leaving with me.”
“No.”
Graham had laughed.
He still remembered how young that laugh sounded.
“Mother, I’m twenty-four.”
“And he stole from your father.”
Silas had been standing ten feet away.
He went completely still.
Graham’s smile disappeared.
“You know that isn’t true.”
“I know what these papers say.”
“Pike wrote those papers.”
“The bank confirmed the money was collected.”
“Then somebody forged Silas’s name.”
Matilda’s face had been pale.
“Graham.”
“No.”
“You don’t know everything.”
“And neither do you.”
“I know we are almost broke.”
“I know.”
“I know your father trusted Silas.”
“So do I.”
“And I know two thousand eight hundred dollars vanished while Silas was responsible for the sale.”
Silas spoke quietly.
“Matilda, I never touched Thomas’s money.”
She did not look at him.
That hurt Graham more than if she had shouted.
Silas had carried Thomas into the house the night his fever became dangerous.
He had dug the grave beside Graham when frozen earth made every shovel strike painful.
He had worked without wages for three months afterward.
And Matilda would not even look at him.
Graham stepped between them.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to stay.”
“For what?”
“To help me save this place.”
“I can send money.”
“With him?”
“There is nothing wrong with Silas.”
“Pike says—”
“I don’t care what Pike says!”
The shout echoed through the barn.
Matilda flinched.
Graham immediately regretted it.
Then she said the sentence that changed everything.
“If you ride away with Silas Boone after what he did to your father, don’t come back.”
Silas closed his eyes.
Graham stared at his mother.
He waited.
Some part of him believed she would take it back.
Matilda waited too.
Two proud people.
One dead man.
One false accusation.
Enough grief to make both of them cruel.
Graham finally said, “You mean that?”
Matilda’s chin lifted.
“If you choose him, yes.”
Graham had never forgotten the word.
Choose.
As if Silas were asking Graham to abandon her.
As if trusting a man who had loved their family for twenty years meant betraying Thomas.
He picked up his saddle.
Matilda’s face changed.
For one second she looked terrified.
Then pride covered it.
“Graham.”
He walked past her.
She followed him into the yard.
“Graham.”
He saddled the horse.
Behind him, the kitchen door stood open.
He remembered thinking something strange.
There had been a package on the table wrapped in brown paper.
Blue thread around it.
He had never known what it contained.
Until Leah arrived.
The spurs.
His mother had intended to give them to him that morning.
Before everything broke.
Graham mounted.
Matilda stood beside the porch.
“Son.”
He looked down at her.
He wanted her to apologize.
He wanted her to say she did not mean it.
He wanted her to look at Silas and admit that grief had made her suspicious.
Instead she said nothing.
Graham turned the horse.
He rode away.
Silas followed several minutes later.
Graham did not look back.
Not once.
For six years, that had been one of the facts he was proudest of.
Now he wondered what he might have seen if he had.
“Coffee.”
Leah’s voice returned him to the present.
Graham looked up.
She held a tin cup.
The campfire was burning.
Night had settled around them.
Silas sat several yards away checking a horseshoe.
Graham accepted the coffee.
“You whistle.”
Leah sat opposite him.
“What?”
“When you remember things you don’t like.”
“I wasn’t whistling.”
“You were.”
“Silas?”
The older man did not look up.
“You were.”
Graham muttered something impolite.
Leah smiled.
For a moment, the road felt easier.
Then Graham noticed she was holding Matilda’s letter.
Not his letter.
Another one.
“What’s that?”
Leah’s smile disappeared.
“She wrote this the week before she died.”
“To you?”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
Leah looked at the page.
“Some of it is private.”
“Then why bring it out?”
“Because one part is about the morning you left.”
Graham set his coffee aside.
“Read it.”
Leah hesitated.
Then she did.
“‘There was a package on the kitchen table that morning. I had saved for four months to buy those ridiculous silver spurs because Graham had stared at them every time we went into town.’”
Silas quietly smiled.
Graham did not.
Leah continued.
“‘I thought he would laugh when he opened them. Instead, by breakfast, I had accused Silas of theft and told my only child he no longer had a home if he trusted his own judgment over mine.’”
Graham looked toward the darkness beyond the fire.
Leah’s voice softened.
“‘He rode away without them. I never moved the package for three weeks.’”
She stopped.
Graham said nothing.
“There’s more.”
“Keep going.”
“‘Every morning I walked past it. Every night I thought I would write. Pride is a strange thing. It convinces you that because you cannot repair all the damage, you should repair none of it.’”
Silas lowered his head.
Leah read the final sentence.
“‘By the time I understood pride was only cowardice wearing better clothes, too much time had passed and I was afraid my son had learned to live without me.’”
Graham stared into the fire.
“She was right.”
Leah folded the paper.
Silas looked at him sharply.
Graham ignored him.
“I did learn.”
Leah did not argue.
That was one of the things he was beginning to understand about her.
She rarely softened truth simply because it hurt.
“You did,” she said. “But so did she.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She learned how to live without you too.”
Graham’s eyes hardened.
Leah continued before he could respond.
“She did not enjoy it.”
“That matters?”
“I think it does.”
“She made the choice.”
“Yes.”
“And I lived with it.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are we discussing feelings beside a creek in the middle of nowhere?”
“Because you asked why she didn’t write.”
He had no reply.
Silas stood.
“I’m checking the horses.”
“They were checked ten minutes ago,” Graham said.
“Checking them again.”
He disappeared into darkness.
Leah watched him go.
“He does that often?”
“Leaves when conversation becomes uncomfortable?”
“Yes.”
“Learned it from me.”
Leah looked back at Graham.
“You were supposed to leave home anyway.”
“Yes.”
“So the fight wasn’t about you going.”
“No.”
“It was about who you believed.”
Graham’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“Did your mother know Pike before your father died?”
“Everybody knew Pike.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Graham thought.
“He came to the house.”
“How often?”
“More toward the end.”
“To see your father?”
“Usually.”
“Did Thomas trust him?”
“Not particularly.”
Leah frowned.
“Matilda told me something different.”
Graham looked up.
“What?”
“She said Pike and your father had once been partners.”
“No.”
“She was certain.”
“My father would have told me.”
“Maybe.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means parents hide things.”
Graham almost laughed at the understatement.
Leah continued.
“Your mother found an old partnership agreement two months before she died.”
“Between Pike and Father?”
“Yes.”
“What business?”
“Cattle shipping.”
Graham felt the first cold edge of something larger than a disputed mortgage.
“Where is it?”
“In Colorado.”
“Why didn’t you bring it?”
“Because somebody searched the house after Matilda died.”
Graham stood.
“What?”
“The night after the funeral.”
“Was anything taken?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t mention this.”
“I’m mentioning it now.”
“Leah.”
“I was traveling alone carrying papers that Gideon Pike may want. Forgive me for not announcing every document I knew existed.”
“You think he followed you?”
“I think one of Pike’s men watched the station when I boarded the train.”
Graham looked toward Silas.
The older man had stopped beside the horses.
He had heard.
“Describe him,” Graham said.
“Tall. Gray coat. Scar near his left eyebrow.”
Silas cursed.
Graham turned.
“You know him?”
“Caleb Doss.”
“Who?”
“Works for Pike.”
Graham looked at Leah.
“You’re sure?”
“I remember faces.”
Silas returned to the fire.
“If Pike knows she came here, he knows you know.”
“That might be the idea,” Graham said.
Leah frowned.
“What idea?”
“If he searched the house and watched you leave, why let you travel all the way to Wyoming?”
Silas understood first.
“He wants Graham back.”
Leah stared between them.
“Why?”
Graham looked east again.
Because six years ago Gideon Pike had won largely because Graham had left.
Maybe Pike believed he could win twice.
Or maybe something remained hidden in the Alder house that Pike could not find without the man who had grown up there.
Graham reached for his bedroll.
“We leave before sunrise.”
Leah looked at the black horizon.
“We’ve been riding ten hours.”
“Tomorrow we ride twelve.”
“You always this pleasant?”
“No.”
Silas answered for him.
“He’s tired.”
Graham ignored them.
He lay down beneath the open sky but sleep took a long time coming.
When it finally came, he dreamed of the Alder kitchen.
A package wrapped in paper waited on the table.
Blue thread circled it.
His mother stood behind it.
But every time Graham tried to reach her, Gideon Pike stepped through the doorway.
And when Graham woke before dawn, one thought remained.
May you like
Perhaps Pike did want him home.
The question was why.
