Author's Note: We are born in pain, then relief comes. We are lost in the dark, then day breaks. – VIGIL POEM by Maya Angelou
Disclaimer: I don't own any of this, except in the sense that love is ownership.
Heath's first knowledge of his family was pain. The shocking cold of the water when the bridge collapsed under himself and the man who turned out to be Nick. The cut of Audra's little whip. The insistent pounding of Nick's fists, and of his voice: "Who are you? What are you doin' here? The truth! I wanna hear!"
He hadn't meant to tell them. Truly. He hadn't meant to say any of the things he'd told them in that gorgeously appointed study. That he 'wanted what was his.'
It wasn't true.
He didn't want money.
He wanted them. His brothers. His sister.
He loosed a sigh, the air heavy in his lungs.
He had ruined everything.
He shouldn't have lied to them. Momma always said lying was wrong. He hadn't really believed her, but more fool him. He'd tried to trick them, and now he had his just deserts.
In the darkness of the bunkhouse, Heath gathered his few belongings and shoved them back into his saddlebags.
A figure appeared in the doorway, and in the few brief moments before he pegged the barely visible man as the foreman McNally, Heath had time to both hope and fear that it was one of his brothers.
Come to what? Call him back? Or 'finish what Nick had started'?
No such luck.
His body ached from the beating Nick had given him. He raised a hand to his shoulder, to touch one of the places where Audra's little whip had raised a fine welt, and winced at the sting.
It was all he would ever have of them.
He smiled a little, there in the darkness. They were a fine family, anyway. Tough and proud. His father's ranch was a beautiful place, lovingly kept. He wished—
Nevermind what he wished. His fool wishes had brought him to his present pass. He forced himself into movement again. As he slid past the shadow in the doorway, the older man whispered, "Leaving so soon?"
Heath paused a moment, to consider what it was best to say. "Nick decided, on second thought, that I wasn't Barkley material after all."
Which, all things considered, was the truest remark he'd made all night.
The Modoc barely whickered as he saddled her once again. He whispered a promise to her that they would go no further than the nearby town of Stockton that night. That he'd put her up in the livery stable, that she'd eat her fill of oats.
He told himself that it was for the Modoc's comfort that he had decided to stay close by.
But that was a lie as well.