Tears ran unchecked down Ike's face. Emma's talk of memories at supper had his head swimming. He remembered how Ma's smile lit up a room. The deep baritone of his pa's voice. The tinkling sound of his little sister's laughter.
Many more memories flooded his mind. The trek across the prairie. The log cabin taking shape under his pa's skilled hands. Colorful laundry on the clothesline, fluttering in the wind. Playing ball with his sister. Hunting with his pa. They had all been so happy.
Until the day the men came. He was hiding in the barn, afraid of the scolding he was going to get from his ma for coloring in the family Bible. His pa was walking toward the barn to get him, when three men rode into the yard. He heard his pa call out to his ma to go inside the cabin with his sister, and saw her turn to do what he had asked.
His pa turned to greet the men, but before he could say anything to them, one of the riders shot him. Ike squeezed his eyes shut trying to dispel the memory, but couldn't. He saw his pa fall to the ground. Heard the terrified screams of his ma and sister as they fled from the intruders. He jerked involuntarily as the remembered echo of gunshots rung out in his mind and the screams were suddenly silenced.
He felt again the terror that had coursed through him as he scrambled up the ladder to the loft and buried himself in a mound of fresh hay, and held his breath as one of the men entered the barn. He waited for death to claim him, but it never did. Instead he had been left all alone to mourn for the family he was too little to protect.
Silent sobs shook his slender form and he hugged himself. He pressed his face into his pillow and fought to bury the painful memory in the back of his mind. He vowed again to one day find the men responsible for killing his family and make them pay for what they had done.