'A brother is a friend God gave you;

a friend is a brother your heart chose.'

Proverb

MY BROTHER'S KEEPER

Jantallian

GONE

1

The letter lay open on the table. Lay where Jess had dropped it, forty eight hours ago. He stood in the shadowy room, staring down at it, not reading, but recalling …..

# # # # #

….. Recalling the evening he had ridden into the relay station, tired but with a sense of satisfaction at the end of a long day checking the western fence boundary and driving down the last few steers to the lower pastures where they could more easily be attended to. It was hard running the ranch and relay station on his own, with only occasional help from hired hands when they were really needed. But he had promised Slim to keep the place running economically while he was away visiting his newly-discovered relations in St. Louis and, on the whole, he felt he had succeeded. Today had been something of a reward – a day on his own. The kind of day he still relished for the solitude it gifted to him, a solitude as necessary to his spirit as the warmth of the welcome that was waiting for him in the place he could now call home.

It seemed so long ago now from the day he had ridden over the same trail and paused on the very same ridge, looking down into the relay station. Seeing for the first time the small ranch house, tucked against the hillside, the spread of the corral, the north and south paddocks and the strong, well-kept barn. Here was a place that was cared for. Cared for in a way which spoke to his heart as well as his shrewd, practical mind. But his mind had been savage then, ruthlessly bent of finding the man who had slugged and robbed him and left him for dead. The man he thought he could call a friend, but who had ultimately paid the penalty of being less swift and accurate with a gun than Jess Harper.

What would have happened if he'd ridden on into Laramie that day, seeking retribution? What if he had never met the tall blonde rancher with whom he had so nearly come to blows over a little matter of trespassing on private property? A fine way to start the best friendship he had ever experienced! It made him grin to think that, from being a homeless and feckless saddle-tramp with a fast gun and no ties, he was now the protector and developer of the very same property. Because it also seemed such a short time in which he had come to know Slim Sherman and to forge with him a strong and successful working partnership which combined highly effectively their respective skills and strengths. This was despite the fact that Slim was often exasperated by Jess's impulsive recklessness and Jess ribbed Slim unmercifully for his serious attitude to life.

For that reason alone, it was a good job the first person Jess had got to know on the relay station was Slim's feisty kid brother, with whose rebellious desire for freedom Jess had felt an immediate and deep-rooted affinity. Andy had taken Jess instantly under his youthful wing and fought his cause staunchly on every issue, even the ones he knew perfectly well Jess was in the wrong about. At twelve years old, Andy was still full of energy and mischief, with a desire to seize whatever opportunities life had to offer and a wicked sense of humour which exactly matched Jess's own. If the pair of them often drove Slim half-mad with their irrepressible antics and jokes, these released something in Jess which had been ruthlessly hidden and suppressed since he'd first been driven out of his childhood home in Texas.

In contrast to the stable and conservative upbringing which the Sherman brothers had experienced, Jess's young life had been characterised by trouble and danger. His unpredictable character and violent background caused both Slim and Jonesy, the ranch's faithful cook and handyman, some heart-searching at first. This was because Andy, and the way Slim was trying to bring him up after the loss of both their parents, was often a bone of contention between the ranch-owner and his employee. It was as well that Jonesy, with his wisdom, humour and domestic skills, held body and soul together for them all. It was equally important that he was there to umpire and arbitrate as the father-figure whom all three of them lacked.

But whatever the disagreements, bickering and sometimes outright scrapping that took place over the two young men's different viewpoints on life, they also had a total respect for and trust in each other. They gave unfailing support to each other in the face of danger, of which, it must be said, they encountered plenty, both in the ranch work and in the hazards which passing strangers could bring with them. And there was never any doubt at all about the depth of feeling Jess had for the little brother he had adopted as his own.

He'd ridden in that evening, half expecting Andy to be hanging on the gate or even swinging from a branch of the great oak tree which marked the boundary of the western ridge trail. Andy, waiting to ambush him with the huge hug of unconditional affection that Jess still found a source of wonder and surprise, as well as of deep contentment. He'd promised Slim nothing would happen to the boy or to Jonesy, while it was within his power to prevent it. But, in truth, he'd have willingly given his own life for all three of them without any promise to bind him.

But the yard was quiet. Too quiet. There was a stillness about the place he didn't recognise and which immediately put him on full alert. He left Traveller standing ready in the shadow of the barn and trod silently towards the house, noting that there were no lights at the windows, no smoke from the chimney. The whole place was as silent as a grave.

When he cautiously opened the front door, he found Jonesy, sitting at the table - sobbing.

Young man and old stared at each other. For Jonesy was old now, no disguising it. Something had robbed him of his vitality and left a husk, cleaned out of wisdom and song. He said; "Jess, they took the boy. They took Andy!"

Jess froze. In the horror of the moment, he felt as if he had been mortally wounded. Then his mind pushed aside all feelings of guilt, blame and recrimination, all anger and retribution, to concentrate on the facts of what had happened. Although his every reflex was tightened like lightning about to strike, he came quietly over to the table, sat down and took Jonesy's shaking hands in his own.

"Jonesy, tell me what happened."

"They came this mornin', from Laramie. Mort Corey was with them. They took Andy away with them, Jess."

"Who took him, Jonesy? Tell it like it happened."

"The lawyers. They rode in on the mornin' stage to Cheyenne, with Mort followin', and took the boy onto the stage with them. Mort said they had the legal right. They were from his guardians, his next of kin."

"Next of kin?" It didn't make sense. Slim was Andy's next of kin. The youngster had no need of guardians, let alone lawyers. And why would the sheriff be backing up anyone else's claim? If it was legal, for whatever reason, why would they need the protection of a lawman?

"What next of kin?" Jess demanded again, his voice rasping with a horror that reflected the savage shock to his mind.

Jonesy looked up, his own grief all too clearly etched on his tear-stained face. How could he put it into words? How could he express the devastation of nearly thirty years of loving care, guardianship and devotion he had given unstintingly to the Sherman family and, most of all, to the sons? And how could he tell Jess? How could he be the one to sever the indescribable bond which had grown between two such very different young men?

He found himself looking into a pair of blue eyes driven to blackness by shock and impending grief. Somehow Jess knew without telling. Time seemed to stop as they sat there at the table, in a room grown cold and ghostly with the memory of all that had been. Then Jess stirred, rose slowly and came round the table. He put both arms round Jonesy, holding him gently, rocking him as the old man must once have rocked a much younger Slim. There were no words.

It had been later, when he had dosed an unprotesting Jonesy with the medicinal whisky he had so often supplied to the two younger men, and persuaded him finally to sleep, that Jess had found the letter addressed to himself.

'Sir,

As executors of the estate of the late Matthew John Sherman (Junior), we are issuing you with notice that your contract of employment with the Sherman Relay Station will cease from 10th of this month. You will be paid in full to the end of the month on the terms agreed.

An audit and inventory of the assets of the said Sherman Relay Station will be conducted by our agents, who will arrive on the date. You are reminded that you are personally responsible for any defalcations or shortcomings.

You are required to quit the premises on the 10th when our agents will take sole possession for the duration of the minority of Andrew Sherman.

Yours faithfully,'

And later still, screwed up in a tear-stained ball, he had also found the letter which had been sent to Jonesy. It had not been much better, but it did at least invite him as a "faithful long-term servant of the family" to travel to St Louis by the 15th of the month and offered to reimburse him for his travelling expenses. The letter went on: "You will understand that prolonged contact with the young heir to the estate is inadvisable, as he will require time to adjust to his new status and situation." Jonesy was instructed to stay with his own relatives in the town and await details of the … funeral.

Andy! Jess had doubled over the table in gut-wrenching pain at the thought of the boy in the hands of strangers as he faced this final bereavement, more terrible because it was so distant. Andy would have no-one to turn to, no-one who knew him as he really was, no-one who could share his pain. Having lost both his parents not so very long ago, how would he possibly bear now being bereft of his only brother? But Jess simply could not think about Slim, unless it was to cry desolately in his innermost being: Why did you have to go? Why did you leave us?

Even later still, he had remembered Traveller, faithfully waiting. He had gone out to the barn, made the horse comfortable and spent the rest of the night leaning against him, the last solid thing in a dissolving world …..

# # # # #

….. He stood, now, staring at the letter in the gathering dusk. Since that night, he had not sat down at the table. He had not eaten. He had not slept. He had drunk deeply but only water, knowing that he must drink to keep functioning. Functioning in a world as grey to him as the thin layer of dust which was insidiously covering everything in the ranch house.

After that first night, he had not retreated to the barn. If he was to bear this at all, he had to face the reality of the ranch, where every single thing was a reminder. He cleared the living room, laid the fire, set the kitchen in order and made up the stove without lighting it, tidied the bunk-room and made the beds, for all the world as if he expected everyone suddenly to walk in and the world to return to normal. But he knew it could not. He was just preparing for an audit, an inventory of assets.

Similarly outside, the yard and barn were set in immaculate order, stock fed and tended, horses readied for the changing of the stage teams. Word had spread quickly along the stage line, for Slim Sherman had been liked and respected by everyone who knew him. The drivers and guards were full of sympathy for his ranch-hand and friend, whom they had come to see as hard-working and reliable, despite his hair-trigger reputation. But one look at Jess quelled any impulse to express this feeling. The easy banter which had developed as he got to know the teams might never have been. Now he was monosyllabic at best and more often than not totally silent, his face expressionless and his eyes hard as steel. If he was grieving, this was the only way it showed, by making him unapproachable in a way that he had never been as a newcomer to the station.

Now he stood staring at the letter, thinking, planning ….. After forty eight hours, the initial shock had gone through him, leaving only an iron will keeping him to his purpose.

He was on his own now on the silent ranch. Jonesy had gone, following Andy, the last of his adopted sons, the last of his children. His final act had been to take the buckboard bearing Andy's menagerie to a like-minded friend in town because both he and Jess were convinced it would break Andy's heart all over again to lose the animals he had rescued, raised and cared for. But what would Andy think when Jess did not come to St Louis too? What kind of betrayal would it seem, when the friend who had been closer even than a brother deserted him? Jonesy would not be allowed to explain, Jess was certain of that. For some reason, Andy was being cut off from the people who loved him. The only hope lay in the words Jess had entrusted to Jonesy: "Tell him I have something to finish." Only Andy would know the promise which was enshrined in those words: the promise Jess had made to him that whenever and where ever he had to go away, he would always find Andy again, when he had finished what he had set out to do.

It was what had happened to Andy which raised not just fury and disbelief, but a sense of foreboding in him, in the same way that expertise and experience would have warned him of the coming of an ambush, a stampede or a storm. The tone of the lawyer's letters he could understand, but not a family who would deprive a child in such a situation of the support and comfort of those who knew him best. They might dismiss Jess himself as a mere employee of the relay station, but they could not fail to know how many years Jonesy had lived with the Sherman family and what trust Slim put in him. Why had he not travelled with Andy? What was meant by Andy's 'new status and situation'? Why had he been taken away without even so much a female relative to comfort him? After all, Slim had been on the point of marrying one.

That letter was still in the breast pocket of the shirt Jess was wearing. Slim had written to Andy regularly once a week while he had been away, detailing the differences of life in a bustling and expanding city and showing clearly that he was enjoying the new experiences his wealthy Sherman relatives were providing. Despite being descended from one of his less reputable great uncles, this branch of the family was most respectable and moved in the highest echelons of St Louis society. Slim had mentioned his meeting with a remote second cousin, Catherine Sherman-Gordon, described her as beautiful and charming, said they enjoyed spending time together, but nothing more. It was only in the single, private letter he had written to Jess that he had been more forthcoming, pouring out his real feelings and his growing passion for her. Jess had read his enthusiastic descriptions with an affectionate grin: he knew Slim, despite his normal practicality, was an incurable romantic when it came to women. In all probability, Jess reckoned, he would come to his senses before long and realise a city-bred girl was highly unlikely to be suited to the hard life of the ranch and relay station. It was only right at the end of the letter, when Slim had written 'the pastor having ruled that consanguinity is no impediment', that the seriousness of this relationship had dawned upon him.

This letter was the last word he would ever have from Slim. He needed to be absolutely sure of the details, if he was to make any attempt to work out what had happened and to find out if Andy was being truly cared for. But he simply could not force himself to take the folded paper from his pocket and read it again. He was only conscious of a sickening anguish because this woman, who was supposed to care for Slim, had apparently given no thought at all to the feelings his little brother would experience at this terrible moment. And Jess was in no doubt whatsoever that Slim would have told the woman he loved how important Andy was to him.

He stood for a long time, leaning his hands on the table until he could barely feel his arms – thinking, planning …..

Presently he made his first definite decision. Going quietly and methodically through the house, he selected the things he thought would matter most to Andy, when he was able to look at them again. If someone else, who cared so little for the boy's grief, was going to take over the running of the relay station, there was no guarantee that they would have any respect for Andy's memories of his family. He took care not to remove all the personal touches from what the agent would expect to look like a family home – there was no sense in provoking a search for missing items – but he did his best to pick out things which would be special to Andy because they were associated with his parents and Slim. Whatever happened when the relay station was taken over, there would be precious items which would not be lost for ever. These Jess wrapped carefully in waterproof tarpaulin, found an old iron chest in the barn in which they fitted and, in the darkness of the night, took them out onto the ridge above the ranch-house and buried them.

For all chapters: The great creative writing of the 'Laramie' series is respectfully acknowledged. My stories are purely for pleasure and are inspired by the talents of the original authors, producers and actors.