Chapter Seven: Hole in the Desert

Ben woke, his body rising with the sun that was beginning to ascend in the horizon. His back felt tight and sore, complications due to the combination of his age and yet another night spent on the cold, hard ground, no doubt.

He and Adam had spent the night a short distance away from the camp that once belonged to the dead drifter. The space they finally settled on was neither as close to the abandoned camp as Adam had wanted to be nor as far away as Ben had advocated for. It was merely a compromise that had rendered them both slightly disobliged. They had a shared a quiet, simple meal as they sat next to a modest campfire and then swiftly retired to bed.

Turning in place, Ben yawned and rubbed tiredly at his eyes as he began to blink, taking stalk of his surroundings. It didn't take long to realize that something was wrong; although, he knew immediately he should have taken note of it earlier.

Adam was gone.

Briefly, he felt a familiar panic build in his chest, his stomach feeling laden with dread. Then he took a deep breath and thought about the development as he quickly rolled up his bedroll, tied it to his saddle, and mounted his horse. He rode off, his only intention to locate his misplaced son. He knew there was only one place he needed to look; there was only one place Adam would go.

Coming up upon the dead drifter's camp, Ben found Adam appraising the wooden structure that had been built to provide protection from the sun.

"Good morning, Pa," Adam said nonchalantly.

"Good morning, Pa," Ben repeated, his voice a low grumble. Dismounting Buck, he strode to stand in front of his son, planted his hands on his hips, and frowned. "Do you have any idea the worry I felt, awakening, and finding you gone, missing in this desert once more?"

"Well, I am sorry I worried you. I didn't mean to. You just seemed to be sleeping so well; I didn't want to wake you. I am glad you're up now." Adam cast his father a serious gaze. "I need your help, Pa."

For one fleeting moment Ben was hopeful, then his son handed him the shovel. He looked between the item and Adam dumbly, his eyes wide and mouth agape, his stomach turning uneasily. How exactly did his son plan to spend the day? Surely, he couldn't believe he would agree to engage in or support any hole digging—behavior which Adam himself had already admitted was compulsive. He must have known that such things were no longer allowed.

"Adam," Ben said firmly. "I am neither going to help nor am I going to allow you to dig holes."

Adam lifted his index finger into the air. "Just one last hole."

"Absolutely not."

"Come on. I promise, I won't need to dig any more than that."

"Given recent history, I'm not sure that's a vow you are capable of upholding, son."

"This time I will, because now I'm certain of what I need to do," Adam assured. "Just one more hole, a much bigger one this time." He tilted his head, indicating at the donkey's corpse. "I want to lay that poor animal to rest, and then I want to tear this camp down. We'll use the wood from the shelter to board up the entry to the mine, and we'll pack up whatever's left in the wagon, take it back to Eastgate and hand it over to the sheriff. The man who made this camp may be dead, but I don't want anyone else stumbling upon this camp and becoming stuck here, held captive to an endless search for gold like I was."

It was such a thoughtful and pivotal response. Ben didn't have any other choice but to agree. They spent morning and early hours of the afternoon completing his son's list of necessary tasks, before hitching the abandoned wagon to Buck so it could be pulled back into civilization.

Directing his horse away from the camp, Ben prayed the return visit had been long enough to appease all compulsions and allow Adam to stop digging up the past and lay it permanently to rest instead. It was a prayer that seemed to be answered almost immediately, because this time, when they emerged from the desert, Adam allowed Ben to present as he spoke to the sheriff.

Looking the gruff, aged lawman in the eye, Adam opened his mouth and finally gave the drifter a name. "Peter Kane," he said. "That was the name of the man in my company. I thought you oughta know."

The sheriff appraised Adam lazily. "You came all the way back here just to tell me that?" he asked. "Seems like a telegraph or a letter would have done the job."

"I suppose, I didn't know if you would be interested in questioning me again."

The sheriff was decidedly uninterested. "Well, I ain't," he said flatly.

"You're not even curious?" Adam asked doubtfully.

"No."

"Not even a little suspicious?"

"Nope."

"Why not?" Adam asked.

Leaning back in his chair, the sheriff propped his feet upon his desk, and looked apathetically between father and son "I've been the sheriff of these parts for a long time," he said. "The heat of the desert, it has a way of making people a little crazy. I've seen a lot of strange things and heard some pretty tall tales, but I figure there ain't really nothing strange about what happened to you, or that drifter." He nodded at Adam. "Besides, you look like a pretty decent man. If you were trying to get away with something then you wouldn't have come back. You sure wouldn't be willing to tell me the dead man's name. Nah, I don't have any interest in knowing anymore about him than I currently do, and I don't care to be responsible for unloadin' his leftover gear. You can take it on over to the livery if you want. I'm sure Jeff'll give you a fair price for it all."

And with that, the meeting was over before it had been given the chance to truly begin. There was nothing left to do but leave Kane's wagon at the livery—a donation-of-sorts seeing as Adam refused to take payment for it—and head out of town.

They spanned the landscape a little slower this time, taking respite in the steady comfort of each other's presence. It was so infrequent when just the two of them were able to travel across the land like this. There was nowhere they were expected to be, no time at which they were projected to return to the ranch. In the daylight, they allowed their horses to span the landscape at a casual distance, and when night fell around them, they shared a companionable silence and bottle of something Ben had secretly procured at the Eastgate saloon.

"Hey," Adam said, his lips curling into a smile as his father handed him the unopened bottle of whisky and settled down next him in front of the fire. They sat closer than maybe they once would have, though, not quite as close they had been during the duration of their first return trip.

"I thought you might enjoy that."

"You thought right."

Opening the bottle, Adam took a drink, then passed it to his father, who did the same. And that's the way things went for a while, father and son passing the bottle back and forth, sharing a drink and series of quiet moments in front of an idyllic campfire.

Sitting with his son, Ben couldn't help thinking of the past—the distant past. There had once been a time, many years ago, when he and Adam had spent every night beneath a sky like this. A time when it was only the two of them, both them so much younger than they currently were. Adam had called him "Papa" then and he had been so much more comfortable with words that could express the feelings that lurked inside of his heart. Things had been easier back then, and, in a way, more difficult too. There was no pain Adam could feel, no cruel words he could hear that couldn't be soothed away by a long hug, or a proper conversion.

"I'm never going to tell you what happened, you know," Adam said eventually, when the drink began to take slight hold of him, making his tongue a little looser than it would normally be.

Maybe the drink had taken ahold of him too, because suddenly Ben thought if Adam could be at peace with such a thing then so could he. "Alright."

"Alright?" Adam snorted. "When have you ever thought a statement like that to be alright?"

"It's alright if you don't want to talk about it, just as long it isn't affecting you anymore, as long as you allow me to ask at least one question to which you give an honest answer."

"My answer is completely dependent on the question."

Ben assumed as much. "This drifter, that Peter Kane," he corrected. The man had a name now, there was little reason not to use it. "Did you kill him?"

He didn't know why he wanted to ask such a thing, or why the detail seemed so important. It wasn't important to him, at least. Whether it was important to Adam was another thing entirely. In a world in which no one cared enough to hold on to any memory of a man named Peter Kane, for whatever reason, Adam couldn't seem to let him go.

Smiling sadly, Adam did not immediately answer. It wasn't until Ben was convinced he would never speak on the subject that he finally did. "I reckon it isn't the bad things that another did to him that can carve holes into a man's heart, rather the bad things they allowed themselves to do in return." Adam's expression became grim. "No, I did not kill that man, but I came damn close. Too close, really."

And with that, Ben finally understood. It wasn't what the drifter had done to Adam that had been so haunting. It was what Adam had almost done to Kane that his son had been struggling with. When he was alive, Kane had wanted gold, a detail made obvious by Adam's past statements and the mine found on the camp, and, in an odd way, Adam searching for it after the man's death was a way of making amends. Still, with all the digging he had done, he hadn't truly buried anything. In the end, he had only uncovered the truth about himself.

"You're a fine man, Adam," Ben said, just in case his son was harboring any lingering doubt. "You're moral, kind, and strong. There is a goodness in your heart and soul that would rival the sheen of any gold."

"Yeah, well, you're my father. You have to say things like that."

"I don't have to say anything, but I will say this: what happened in the desert isn't a declaration of your weakness."

"Then what is it?"

"A testament of your strength. You could have killed that man, and nobody would have thought anything of it, or less of you. But you didn't. It doesn't matter how much you wanted to, or how close you came. All that matters is the fact that you held yourself back. You didn't kill him. Dragging him around that desert, you tried to save him instead."

"Yeah," Adam sighed. "The thing about that is, I don't think it was him I was trying to save. When I was… stuck in that man's company and in that mine, I kept hearing your voice in my head, and later I heard it in the air; it was enough to keep me strong until it wasn't. Until I… well, until I finally broke under the weight of what that man wanted from me. I didn't kill him; I pulled myself back just in time, packed him up, and started walking. Taking him with me, I think I was trying to hold on to something. I didn't know until after I'd been found and you took me into your arms that what I was really trying to hold to was you."

Passing the bottle of whiskey back to Adam, Ben wondered if it was his turn to cry. The words were simple yet evocative, as close to a soppy as his eldest son would ever get. Beneath the simple words lurked a much fuller message. If there was good in Adam then it had come from Ben, because he was the one who had raised, guided, and shaped him into the man he had become.

Clearing his throat, Ben extended his arm and rested it against Adam's back; elbow bent, he palmed the back of his neck and squeezed. "I love you, you know."

"Ugh," Adam groaned, his expression contorting with disgust as he shifted in his seat. "Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Don't let the stars and the moon and the liquor go to your head and get all…" Adam waived his hand through the air as he seemed to search for the correct word. "Sentimental," he finished, his tone strong and deep.

"I think at my age I've earned such a right. I know we don't say it often, but I don't like to think I've raised a son afraid to hear declarations of fondness from those who care about him."

"I'm not afraid to hear it. I just don't need to. I know how you feel."

"Okay," Ben conceded easily. "Then what do you need to hear?"

"Nothing that hasn't already been said."

"Then what do you need to do?"

Adam shook his head. "Nothing, not anymore."

"So, what does that mean?"

Adam took a drink of whisky and deep breath. When he spoke again his voice was no more than a whisper. "It means that the time has come for me to let it all go. No more digging. No more pacing. No more holes. No more thinking I should have done things differently than I did. That's the plan anyway."

That, Ben thought, was a very fine plan indeed. He squeezed his son's neck again, an unspoken gesture of support and approval.

They sat in silence, neither of them eager to pull away from the other. It was nice to sit with Adam like this; it was comforting to know he finally seemed to have it all figured out. His grief over his actions would be a process, of course, but at least now he was on the right path. Thinking of the conversation they just shared and the result, Ben smiled. Maybe there were just some things the passing of time could not change.

When time came to lay out their bedrolls, Adam arranged himself neither too close nor too far away. There was an acceptable distance between them now. Ben felt confident his son was finally on his way to returning exactly where he belonged.

They laid still for a while, each waiting for sleep to claim them. Morning would eventually come, and they wouldn't talk about the desert outside of Eastgate or a man named Peter Kane. They wouldn't need to, because Adam had decided it was time to let go of the memories of what had taken place. He had a plan. He had his family. And he had his father to hold on to if need be.

"Papa?" came Adam's whisper through the darkness.

Ben smiled. Who was feeling sentimental now? "Yes?"

"I love you, too."

That night, it was Ben who extended his arm through the darkness and held his son's hand tightly in his own. Like Adam, he didn't need to hear the statement; he knew how his son felt. But with the way things were and how they could have been, he was grateful to be allotted the chance to hear it again.

END

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