As Teaspoon settled down for the night, the chatter about memories at supper had him thinking of his own. He had a passel of them. Some good, some bad. All of them were hard earned and honest. His childhood memories were few and the faintest in his mind. His ma was blonde haired, blue eyed, and smelled of lemon verbena. His pa was strong, fair, and honest to a fault.

His folks worked hard to scratch out a living out of the patch of earth they owned in Texas. They never had much of anything, but what they did have was enough. Love was plentiful in the Hunter household and Teaspoon was thankful for that.

His earlier foundation was what helped him through life after his folks took ill with influenza, and died hours from each other. He was in his teens when they died, and he remembered feeling so alone and lost. He had gotten through losing his folks by remembering what they had taught him.

He lived his life with a strong code of ethics whose beginnings stemmed from his childhood, and what he had learned as he aged. He hoped to pass down some of the wisdom to his riders. Lord knew they were rough around the edges. And all had such sorrow and anger in them.

It hurt his heart to see. He hoped that in teaching them his bag of tricks, mixed in with a bit of wisdom, and nurturing from Emma, some of the hurts and anger they were feeling would eventually dissipate.

Teaspoon scratched his whispered chin and snuffled at his foolishness. He sighed and closed his eyes. Morning would come soon and old bones needed more rest than they used to.