Dispatches from the Author: All coding issues are on my end as I am transferring and keeping my work in two spaces. Updates are slower as I re-edit my work to be as good as it is gonna get. i'm a single stoic operation so, slow but quality.
He had been through the desert on a horse with no name. It was no different when the rain came on through the desert.
Jack had been through it so many times now that he could manage well enough without stopping.
His bones ached and he wanted to get back into town.
Amarillo wasn't far.
The horse didn't care.
He had done it.
The ride kept on going past Amarillo and past the McFarlane's, past Beecher's Hope and far down South. Past Blackwater, past everything he had every known and the rain seemed to stay with him as he rode.
He stopped briefly in Beecher's Hope. He had to pay respect to the last of his family line.
Ma, Pa, and Uncle.
Jack had gone back in and picked up the journal.
He stopped in Rhodes.
He found Sean's grave in the thicket of trees and sighed, he could barely remember any of it and he was already too set in the path.
The lake was a nice spot.
Kieran was next and he shuddered at the memory. He never told Ma that he still dreamed of the day that the O' Driscoll's had attacked Shady Belle.
He lay a dime on each one he visited. The desert was calling back to him but he had to do this. Then he could disappear once again.
It took him two weeks after he had finished the job.
It found him in the city that care had forgot.
A long way from where he had started.
A long way.
Jack found himself back in Saint Denis, hitched his horse near the graveyard. He found the priest's house and was introduced to Fr. Murphy.
"I heard you rode quite a long way. Should I-wouldn't you like to get changed?"
Jack was disgusting. He had been through the rain and smoke, all for this moment.
"I heard my grandfather was buried in this cemetery when it expanded." He said, bitterly.
"What was the name?"
"Hosea Matthews. He was buried next to his friend. I figured I could see it. They was both Catholic." Jack said, lazily sitting there.
"Ah. Well, we did rebury them in St. Patrick no. 2 just off Lamarque and Elysian. I have the plots for both of them, actually."
"How much would it be to bury my ma and pa next to them?" Jack asked, not sure why he asked.
"Well, there are six plots for sale next to them. I can get the secretary-
"I'll take four, sir. I'm burying family with family and he was all I had." Jack said as he got up.
The re-interment service was held on a Tuesday and all the former members came to bury Jack's family.
"It feels right this way." He said, simply.
"I know they would have loved that you were doing this." Mary-Beth said as she sat next to him.
Sadie, Charles, Mary-Beth, Tilly, Pearson, and surprisingly to him Karen had also come.
"Arthur would have liked being buried next to family, yer daddy was the best family he had." Karen said, steadying herself on the seat next to Mary-Beth.
"They all fell by each other's sides. It felt right they have a plot together." He said simply.
"You did good kid." Pearson said as he sat down as well, "real good."