Festus brought the mail back from Greeley in the early dawn of a June morning. He'd had a good night that involved liquor and the attentions of a very pretty dark-haired girl who not only served him the liquor, but welcomed him back to her room when the saloon closed. He handed the mail off to Matthew as he led Ruth into the corral and unsaddled.
The fat envelope decorated with foreign stamps stood out, and, laying the rest of the mail down on the kitchen table, Matt stared at the letter they'd waited so long for. Kitty turned from the cookstove to look at him. "What is it Matt?" she asked.
"Letter from the American embassy in Portugal," he answered.
"Oh, my," was all she said.
"Where's Luiz?" Matt asked.
"He's out doing the milking," Kitty said.
Matt wound his arms around her waist from behind and kissed the back of her neck. "I'm goin' out to the barn, sweetheart. You keep the girls in here with you for a while?"
"I love you, Matt," was her response.
Matt pressed his lips into her temple and then headed out to the barn to find Luiz. They only kept one milk cow, and Luiz was almost through with her when Matt arrived. He waited silently, watching the tall, dark-haired young man with his head against the cow's side and his strong hands squeezing milk from her teats. Matt thought his heart might break, but his face was calm.
Luiz saw him when he stood to pick up the milk pail and grinned. "I wasn't sure if Festus would get back in time or not, Pop, and I didn't want ol' Bonnie to be hurtin' while she waited for him."
Matt nodded silently and held out the letter. Luiz's face fell. "Let's take a walk, son." Matt said.
They walked up the little rise behind the house, and Matt settled down on the far side of the one big apple tree that topped it. Luiz stood beside him and they both looked out over the rolling green pasture land before them. "You ever think about the sea, Pop?" Luiz asked.
"Not really think about it, Luiz. I dream about it sometimes." Matt answered.
Luiz nodded. "That too." He waited. He knew Matt would wait with him as long as he wanted. "Do we have to open it?"
"Yes, we do, son," Matt said.
"All right then, padrinho. Let's do it." It had been months since Luiz had called him that.
There were three letters in the envelope. The first was a short one from the US ambassador to Portugal saying that he had verified and investigated the case, and that the man responding to Dillon's inquiry was indeed who he said he was. The second was written in Portuguese on heavy paper with a crest at the top. The third was a translation of the second. Luiz stared at the crest. "I remember this, Pop. This was carved into the stone at the top of the gate into the stable yard."
Matt had been reading the translation with a sinking heart. "Can you read the letter, Luiz?"
He tried reading it out loud, got a few words, sounded out others, and then gave up. "I can't do it anymore. I can read the little words, and some of the big ones, but I don't really know what it all means."
"It's from your uncle. Your mother's brother. He wants you to come back and live with him." Matt handed Luiz the translated letter.
Luiz read the letter, then gave it back. He stepped away a little and stood looking down at the horses in the pasture below them. After a time he came back and sat in front of Matt and let his father put his arms around him and rest his cheek on his hair. "Eu tenho que ir, padrinho?" Luiz asked.
"No, son. You don't have to go," Matt said. "But you need to know why you're making that choice."
That took longer. Matt sat thinking of the boy who had come to him in the depths of hell and taken his hand and led him onto the deck of a ship. It had been almost five years since that day. International mail was slow, and tracking down Luiz's family had not been easy, even with the fading papers from his caixa.
"Pop, I feel like such a failure." Luiz said at last.
"Why's that, son?" Matt asked.
"You tried so hard to get home. You didn't let anything stop you. You never gave up. And you forced people to let me come with you. I feel like I should be as brave as you were, as determined," Luiz said. "But I just don't want to. Those people, maybe they are my relatives, but you and Kitty and Estelle and the kids – you're my family now. When I try to think in Portugee, Pop, all I think are bad things. The Lupinho, and Martinez, and Malachai. Men hurting me and me being afraid all the time. It's… it's dirty in those memories."
Luiz hung his head and let Matt stroke his hair, "I know my family would be different. I remember my Uncle Renaldo, at least a little, he lived in the city but he would come home for Christmas and he had a son my age, Bartolomeo, and we would ride the horses together and get in trouble. But none of that is real for me anymore." Luiz scooted around to look up in Matt's face, "This is real, Pop. This ranch, and you, and Kitty, and the horses. This is how I want to spend my life. Am I a bad person because that's all I want? Because I don't want to go to a home that isn't my home anymore?"
"No, Luiz, you're not bad at all."
"Do you want me to leave, padrinho?" Luiz said, his words hauntingly echoing those he'd spoken at the Collier station outside Sydney.
"No, son. I just want you to be free to choose your own way." Matt told him.
"This is what I choose, Pop," Luiz said softly. "Eu te amo, padrinho."
"I love you, too, Luiz."
"I'd better get that milk in before it goes sour and Kitty has a fit," Luiz said standing up. He headed down the rise towards the barn, but Matt just sat, his back against the old apple tree, and looked out over the green acres where his spotted horses grazed.
It might have been an hour later that Kitty climbed up to sit next to him, taking his arm and laying her head against his shoulder. "Luiz tell you he's stayin'?" Matt asked. Kitty nodded her head against him.
"You happy, Kitty?"
"More happy than I ever believed I could be, Matt," she said. "'cept I'm gettin' fat."
"That's just the new baby, sweetheart. It won't last long. Anyway, it just makes you more beautiful." Matt told her with a kiss.
Kitty knew better, or thought she did, but she didn't argue. Matt's two daughters were the light of his life, but she was pretty sure he was hoping for a boy this time.
"Doc with the girls?" Matt asked.
"No, someone came and got him for a broken arm. Doesn't matter how many times he tells them he's retired, they just keep comin'. Luiz is with them," Kitty said.
"And Saturday Estelle gets home for the summer." Matt said with satisfaction. "And we'll have Sam for at least a week." He liked it best when all his family was at the ranch, but he hadn't said a word against it when Estelle told them she wanted to stay winters with Sam and go to high school in Denver. "Did you ever think we'd have so much to love, Kitty?" he asked.
"No. I could never see much farther than just loving you, Matt." Kitty said. "The rest, well, the rest all just happened."
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Dedication
Many of us who read these stories are in the same age group. Most, though not all, of us are Americans. I am, and my own college years were 1968-1972. Men I knew and loved went to Vietnam. Some chose to go. Some had no choice. Some returned. Some died. Some simply disappeared. This story is about a man who disappeared, but eventually came home. It's also about a boy who disappeared and chose not to go home. And so I dedicate this story to those men, and women, who are still "Missing in Action, Body not Recovered". They left wives, parents, lovers, and children born and unborn – all of whom, one way or another, had to go on with their lives.