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An open expanse of land, sky, and horizon settled Max's thoughts as the enclosed slopes and valleys of the mountains never had. Here on the high plains, a man could breathe. He could see what was coming.
Shifting his weight on Marva Lee, he let his eye follow a line of tall cottonwoods and wild plums banking a dry creek bed that flooded every spring. Long after he had crumbled into dust, the land would endure, cycling through the seasons with an ageless predictability. Usually this thought made his problems seem small. But today, his problems struck too deep.
Hoofbeats sounded behind him, and he straightened in the saddle, waiting for his brother.
Wally reined up, and silently they watched a steer just visible through a leafy stand of ripe chokecherries.
"The roundup starts the day after tomorrow?" Max asked finally. Ironically, the fall roundup had been a consideration when he and Philadelphia had discussed dates for the wedding.
"Right," Wally confirmed. "We'll bring all the cattle to Ma's place, then sort out which beeves belong to who. We figured we'd divvy up any unbranded stock."
Very likely this would be the last year they ran the four parcels as one ranch. Dave had already started fencing his and Gilly's land, and Max's hands were also putting up fence.
"You'll have to handle it without me this year," Wally said, squinting at the ragged line of peaks shadowing the horizon.
Max clenched his teeth, and his thighs tensed, sending Marva Lee into a sideways dance.
He circled her back alongside Wally's roan. "I spent last night sitting in the barn thinking about…
everything. I wish I knew what to say." Neither of them looked at the other. "Thank you and I'm sorry don't begin to cover it." He wanted to ask what had happened at this morning's meeting between Wally, Livvy, and Howard Houser, but pride got in the way.
"You'd do the same for me."
"I would. But that doesn't make any of this right. I keep going over and over it." He watched the steer hiding in the chokecherry bushes. "If I hadn't drawn a marble out of the hat. Or if I hadn't gotten sick. If I'd stayed here and hadn't gone to Piney Creek in the first place." That's why they had made love. She'd wanted to entice him to stay in Fort Houser and give up his summer in the mountains. Why hadn't he?
"Did you find what you were looking for up there?" Wally jerked his chin toward the line of mountains to the west.
"It doesn't seem important anymore."
He'd been trying to comprehend the longing in his father's voice when Jason McCord recalled the three years he'd worked the streams and mines near Central City. Those three years of searching for gold had been the defining years of his father's life, a passion Max had never understood.
If his father had been beside him now, Jason would have fixed his gaze on the mountains, and a half-smile of memory would have twitched his lips. He wouldn't have seen the steer or noticed the geese passing overhead in an arrow-shaped formation.
When Jason McCord finally came out of the mountains to join his family, the fire had gone out of him.
Max had wanted to know why. He'd wanted to understand the expression in his father's eyes when he turned his face to the far horizon. Now maybe he did. And oddly, it wasn't the gold as Max had always believed. It was the search itself and the dreams of a life changed. Jason McCord had left his dreams in the streams near Central City.
"Whatever you found up there… was it worth it?" Wally asked in a low, curious voice.
He didn't answer.
"We'll live with Ma in the main house," Wally announced abruptly, tapping the end of the reins against his thigh.
That decision surprised him. He'd assumed that Wally would move to town.
"This way she'll have Ma, Gilly, and Louise to help with the delivery or if anything goes wrong along the way."
Good God. He hadn't given Louise a thought since he'd left her in his mother's parlor yesterday afternoon.
"There are obvious disadvantages to me and Miss Houser— Philadelphia —living out here," Wally continued carefully, "but Ma and Mr. Houser agree it's the best choice. The progress of the pregnancy won't be as easily noted by every gossip. And this is one way to take some of the punch out of the scandal. Make it seem like there's no hard feelings between you and me."
Max squinted at a second squadron of geese heading south, then shifted in his saddle. "Are there hard feelings, Wally?"
Something hot flickered in his brother's eyes, a quick flame that died before the heat burned either of them. "All my life I've had to take your leavings," Wally said in a flat tone. "I never had a schoolbook that didn't have your scribbling in the margins. It was years before I owned a new shirt or a pair of boots that you hadn't worn first. As you outgrew a chore, it became mine. Now I'm getting the bride you jilted, and you were there first. How do you think I feel?"
Max covered his eyes. "I wish to Christ none of this had happened."
