Fine, but I won't ramble for much longer. Writing is tiring work, and I want to finish this tonight. Then I will seal it and tuck it away in the safe where we keep the things we want to survive the years. Maybe some Isaiah descendant will find it, and I hope it comes into the hands of someone who made it this far rather than throw the book in the fire, disgusted by its contents.
But by then, I'll be dead and gone, and I'm not going to care.
What is there to say that shouldn't already be obvious? We've lived longer than we probably had any business living, and I've lived a lot longer than I ever thought I would, that's for sure. Then again, I never expected to spend my life with someone. Especially not double what I'd spent without a partner, but here I am.
But yes, we've been together this whole time, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. No, not even if it meant getting my parents back. For all the things I’d been forced to endure after their deaths and my subsequent revenge, I received so much inreturn. Maybe my life could have been better if my parents had lived and I’d kept on with the peaceful life I'd had before, but there was no way to know one way or another, and I wasn't interested in playing mental games.
Because I did have a wonderful life. It meant changing so much, but that was, by and large, the best thing for me. At the ranch, I found a place to belong, where these men have been my family just as much as my parents, where I found purpose and a place to rest my head to sleep peacefully at night. A place that, although it didn't start that way, has proven to be a place where I could ultimately settle down and find peace.
And, of course, there was Ambrose.
Ours was a good life, but it had its problems. Not just with one another, as, after all, our personalities bounced off one another quite frequently, and that wasn't going to change just because we wanted to make things work. We got on one another's nerves, and there had been times when I found myself sleeping in a different room because I couldn't stand the sight of his face. Of course, that would last only so long before I sought him out again, but sometimes that space was necessary.
Our relationship was never exactly broadcast to the rest of the ranch, and neither did we display our affection for one another in front of a witness. But people knew. They figured it out eventually. I suppose that's easy to do when we shared a room and were always around one another...and bickered like we did. If any had a problem, they generally kept it to themselves. And if their mouths began to run a little too freely with a sharp, nasty tongue? Well, remember I said that Elizabeth was damn good at scaring the piss right out of them.
Seriously, those shooting lessons Ambrose had given her made her a better shot than him, and she was not afraid to demonstrate.
It had always been a rule in the West to mind your affairs, and you'd be left alone...for the most part. Even when the wild freedom of the West had finally died out, taken over by the encroachment of the government and the modern era, that attitude still survived. People outside the ranch knew as well and kept their mouths shut around us, which suited us just fine. We didn't want the attention but to be left to our own business.
And that, my dear patient reader, is the point of this entire story. It wasn't just for me to relive the time in my life when everything changed but to make the point that has been the rallying cry of this ranch for decades now.
Change for the better is possible, and the opportunity doesn't always come in an obvious shape or guise. Sometimes, it sneaks up on you, and other times, it looks like a grumpy old man in a young man's body who somehow manages to steal your heart so thoroughly you never want it back. And sometimes, it means coming to some dusty ranch and discovering there is more to life than just survival.
So, if there is anything I want you to take from this, know this: there is more to life than just survival because that's not living.
Love is living, happiness is living, and peace is cobbled together from all the good things in your life in a warm circle around you.
So find that love, that happiness, and make your peace.
Yours, Samuel.
My fingers strokedthe signature of a man who’d died a little over a century ago, and I wondered just how different things were...and how similar. Theirs had been a story that was so familiar to me but so different at the same time. His part-journal, part story had grabbed me from the moment I openedthe pages and began to read. It had been carefully stowed in the back of a safe that contained family heirlooms. Mona had insisted on cleaning it out, and as always, my curiosity about the ranch had pulled me into helping her.
I stroked the cover, knowing it was a bad idea to do it with bare hands but unable to help myself, wanting to feel something physical, a connection with two men who’d been brave and infuriating at the same time. I would ask to have the book scanned and stored digitally and then tell Mona that things like this needed to be stored better, and I would probably consult some archivists. There was bound to be someone out there who would take better care of the original, though admittedly, it had lasted this long in their care.
The floor creaked behind me, and I chuckled softly. “When I'm not locked into a book, I can actually hear you skulking around."
"I don't skulk," he said in an annoyed voice.
"Mmm," I hummed, tilting my head back to stare up into his eyes. They had been the first thing I'd noticed about him...well, other than his scowls and bad attitude, much like someone else I’d just spent days reading about. "But you clearly aren't above pouting."
He huffed. “Done with the book?"
I smiled, not fooled by the nonchalant question. "Are you trying to tell me I need to come to bed?"
"I'm exhausted."
"So sleep."
"You're going to make me say it, aren't you?"
"Say what?"
He sighed, shaking his head in irritation I knew he didn't mean. "I hate trying to sleep without you in bed with me."
"And here I was going to run the book through my head a little longer," I said, stretching in the chair and preparing to stand up.
Strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me close, his rough voice low in my ear. “Then come tell me about the book. Tell me about these men you've been so obsessed with."
I laughed, breathing in the smell of horses and dirt still clinging to his clothes. “Jealousy, Max?"
"Riley," he growled.
I laughed and let him drag me back toward the bedroom, where I would proceed to irritate him by talking incessantly about the characters. No, not characters, the people I had just read about. It would all be pretend, though, because he loved listening to me talk, even when he wanted to get some rest. Maybe he would find another way to shut me up and make me tired, hoping I would tell the story to him another time when he wasn't worn out.
That was alright, though. We had all the time we needed.
Because, like Samuel and Ambrose, we had found our love, we had our happiness, and peace was with us in this warm cabin.
