CHAPTER 13
The afternoon was already starting to fall, so they got up and after another light kiss with the promise of a lifetime together, they headed towards Abgail's house, where Elizabeth would get ready for the wedding. As for Jack, Bill and Henry made a point of tidying him up, the two older men said that a young man like Jack wouldn't even know how to wash behind his ears... And laughing they took him to Henry's house.
Bill had already ironed Jack's dress uniform, he didn't have a wrinkle. Jack noticed at that moment Bill's love for him, everyone knew how much being a mountie was so important to Jack and Bill when passing and fixing his uniform showed that he was proud of Jack's choices. Bill was a grim judge, considered by many an honorable man, but who put fear in everyone; He was his father's friend, they worked together as partners most of their lives, until Bill at the time was punished for insubordination and sent to another battalion, far out in the country, where he was left out of contact with Tomas, as the village Bill went to work there was no telephone or telegraph and even diligence only every sixty days, a totally isolated place, where there were wars between Indians and the new colonizers and farmers and Bill had express orders to end or circumvent conflicts in the region. During this period his father had a new partner, Lieutenant Hargraves, according to his mother. His father Tomas Thorton never liked this partner Hargraves, he was a strange man, he was calculating, he thought a lot about money, he was a man who messed with women and he began to notice traces of cruelty from Hargraves with his prisoners. Tomas spoke to his superior several times, but he always got the same answer "TOMAS, YOU CAN'T CHOOSE YOUR PARTNERS. HARGRAVES IS A GREAT PROFESSIONAL, HE IS THE COLONEL'S GRANDSON… HE IS HARD SOMETIMES, BUT IT'S JUST THE WAY TO SHOWING THAT THE POLICE RULES MORE THAN THUGGING".
And so the months went by, Tomas was unhappy at work. He was always proud of his profession and his work team and at that time he felt powerless. When several crimes were about to be solved, especially when they involved arms trafficking or large sums of money, the bandits always escaped from one moment to another, it was as if they knew about the police's plans. Tomas was already suspicious of an informant inside the Battalion or worse still on his team. But more than ever he missed his friend Bill. One night, Jack heard his father talking to his mother and talking about the big difference between when Bill was on the team and that's when Jack heard for the first time that his father suspected an informant. Ha my father, he was a very honest man, and when he set his mind to something, he moved on until he found the problem, and he was trying to find out some things, and one of them was Bill's whereabouts. Until then, it was not known where he had been scheduled, but in his police documents it appeared in 'STATE SECRET'. One day, after several team disagreements, my father and his group went to answer a call for a family fight, where the son shot the father and several members of that family got into a physical fight with the use of knives. When it was all over, several people were injured, everything seemed under control, my father received two shots in the chest, leading to death hours later. The mountie never knew how to explain who shot. There was a trial and Kebeke, the youngest son of that gentleman involved in the fight, was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment, that boy screamed all the time that he was innocent, but Jack couldn't even think, and he already had ten years of his imprisonment. Jack to this day had trouble thinking about his father's death. At that time Lieutenant Hargraves approaching his mother, neither he nor Jack liked to see that man's advances on his mother. Charlotte ran away from him at all costs, she tried to be polite, as she knew that the man was her late husband's partner, and the mountie's motto was to protect the family from a mountie fallen in combat, but she began to feel very uncomfortable with his insinuations ; Hargraves always ordered Jack and Tom to leave the house and go to the market to buy something, it was a long walk, other times he sent them to their room to sleep, and Hargraves never left room for a no, he was trying to take over our family , or rather, I discovered that man wanted my mother. He was trying to make her his wife, my father had not even been dead for three months and that man was more and more on top of my mother. Charlotte was a beautiful woman, in her thirties, she didn't look like she already had two children aged thirteen and fifteen, she had a beautiful body and black hair that caught everyone's attention. As my father used to say, she was a delicacy... her goddess.
Today, as he was getting ready for his wedding, Jack noted that his mother had gone through a lot to get away from that man. Jack had a lot to say thank you, when he and Tom went to a soldier's day party, and they met a soldier, who knew his father and Bile was an old friend in uniform, and he knew how to locate Bill. And as soon as Bill received the message sent via a hunter returning to that region, he got a month's layoff citing family problems. Bill was shocked by the death of his friend tomas, he had not been informed by the headquarters of this fact, and when he arrived he was still faced with his successor Hargraves, doing everything to win Charlotte. Jack saw in Bill, a great mentor in this At the time, thanks to him, they managed to keep Hargraves away from his family and it was Bill who helped Jack to fulfill his dream and become a mountie. Their friendship was enormous. Jack had a great friendship for this man. Jack never saw Hargraves again, learned that Bill used his influences and that he was posted in the northern territories in places far away from everything. Bill had proved in court that he had done nothing wrong at the time he was punished, and that at no time had there been any insubordination, but in that period Bill discovered that the Hargraves family was responsible for Bill's departure from that battalion. Much later, Bill found out through investigations that Hargraves wanted tomas' place, he wanted his post and especially his wife Charlotte. Hargraves was madly in love with her, and he wasn't about to leave her with tomas. There were still doubts about his father's death. His mother was the best at everything, but Bill was the male role model that Jack and Tom needed, even when Bill disappeared and married Nora out of the blue and they only kept in touch through letters for years after years, until today Jack never I had understood that marriage... Then, Bill had a boy, years later he died of a serious illness and a while later came the end of Bill's marriage to Nora. Jack only saw Bill again, when he posted in Hope Valley, needed help from a great investigator and so he requested the best... Bill Avery. Jack was now wearing his red mountie jacket, his smile with the memories of life, was longing. Missing a time that would never come back, her father and all the happiness her family could have had at that time, but it was a smile of gratitude for the good friendships and for finding the love of her life. Plus there was Henry Gowen, who would have thought he'd be helping the town's mountie get ready for the wedding. This seemed like a fairy tale, a fantasy story, the bad man in town, the one where money was more important than anything else in life, a man who controlled a town with its rules and was responsible for forty-seven deaths of miners in a coal mine in the city, a man who tried to take away widows' houses, a type of person who was tried and convicted and who served his entire sentence without change in his life until the day of his death. conditional where he should render servisse in solidarity with the community, he was forced to work with Elizabeth for a fortnight straight inside the school full time. On his third day there, everyone noticed a big change in him. Jack put it in his mind, when Henry entered that room, he would ask what happened in those school days, his curiosity was at its peak now.
When she was fixing her hair with the perfumed gel that Elizabeth loved so much, the door opened and Henry came in carrying Jack's boots all polished. It looked like a mirror. Jack was grateful, as the job had never been so perfectly executed.
"Henry, can I ask you something?"
Bill, who had just walked in with Jack's Medals of Honor, sat down to listen to the conversation, as it looked like something serious was going to come from there.
- Of course Jack… replied Henry.
"When you did charitable service on your probation, you spent the first few days at school with Elizabeth, what happened for you to change so quickly?
— Jack, first she received me in the classroom with all due respect even though I had that horrible past of mine, she introduced me to the children as Mr. Henry, as a cultured man who brought many benefits to the community, but who for one slip did something I shouldn't, that I was there to redeem myself, but that I needed help from all the students and residents of the city. And he even said that I had a lot to teach them. Look Jack! She taught and always kept me up to date with everything that was happening there, on the second day she even made me talk about a certain subject in front of the children, explaining why we should study to be a good employee and succeed in life. When I went to carry firewood for the school stove, she and the children formed a single line and so the wood passed from hand to hand, she just said one hand washes the other and the two together and united are much cleaner and laughed … On the third day, she had already noticed that I didn't bring food, I until early in the cafe and then until again in the late afternoon, I had no money, after all I had arrived from prison a few days ago. At the cafe Abigail always fed me and well. That day, I arrived at school, first she served all of us cookies saying Abgail had sent them, and at lunch time she gave me a lunch box. It was bread, hard-sealed vegetables and a burnt chicken fillet, she and I had the same to eat in our lunchboxes, she gave me a glass of natural orange juice saying it would be good for my health, and said that she had woken up at dawn , to cook for me and even said that it wasn't good food like Abgail's, because she was still trying to learn to cook, but that I needed homemade food and made with love to recover from the falls of life.
Bill had tears in his eyes, he knew this story, Elizabeth had asked him for the recipe, and explained why that meal had to be perfect. It was the meal for a man to feel special and accepted by the community.
"Do you understand now, Jack?" How can I not change my self, having a person like her fighting and challenging herself just because of me?
- I know what it is, Henry! She is amazing.
Jack once again felt his chest filled with love for that woman. She could draw water from a stone. His Bella was the most amazing person in the world.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: At first we had a few very small chapters, but with so many requests for longer chapters we started posting them in a larger size, this story would only be a brief thought, but I was asked to make it a story and off we went. For those who follow, you already noticed that we already have bandits, young ladies, weddings coming up, but that we are already giving tips before the wedding on some things that need to be solved... As for the wedding, just have a little more patience because, as I said, As they prepare for their wedding, we're giving you tips and reasons to keep reading this story.
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