Chapter 8 - THE HOUSE WYATT WAS AFRAID TO OPEN
Winter slowly released the valley.
Benton Rusk remained jailed in Denver awaiting trial.
Henry Vale pleaded guilty.
The federal survey was certified.
Wyatt’s water rights were confirmed.
Black Ridge Mining Company collapsed beneath lawsuits and criminal charges.
The silver beneath Wyatt’s pasture remained untouched.
When a Denver company offered Wyatt eighty thousand dollars for mineral access, he refused.
Cora stared at him.
“Eighty thousand?”
“Yes.”
“You said no?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever considered that your sons may enjoy being absurdly rich?”
Wyatt smiled.
“They already think jam is a luxury.”
“Because you ration it like ammunition.”
“It costs money.”
“You own three thousand acres.”
“Land is not cash.”
“Mountain men are exhausting.”
He kissed her forehead.
That had become normal.
Almost.
They shared kisses.
Hands.
Sometimes long evenings talking beside the fire after the boys slept.
But Cora still had her separate room.
Wyatt had kept every promise.
One morning in March, Cora found him standing at the attic stairs.
A locked door sat at the top.
She knew what was behind it.
Margaret.
Or rather, everything Wyatt could not touch because Margaret had.
“You don’t have to.”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Why today?”
“Seth asked where the Christmas ornaments are.”
Cora’s expression softened.
Wyatt opened the door.
Dust floated in pale sunlight.
Trunks.
Dresses.
A rocking cradle.
A wooden horse with one broken wheel.
Wyatt stopped at the sight of it.
“Grace’s.”
Cora touched his arm.
He swallowed.
“Margaret painted it.”
They opened trunks slowly.
Caleb came upstairs first.
Then Seth.
The boys stood in the doorway.
Caleb looked frightened.
Not of objects.
Of memory.
Wyatt lifted a red glass ornament.
“Your mother liked this one.”
Caleb’s eyes filled.
“You remember?”
Wyatt looked at him.
“Everything.”
“You never talked about her.”
“I thought it hurt you.”
Caleb’s face crumpled.
“It hurt more when you didn’t.”
Wyatt closed his eyes.
Then he sat on the floor.
The boys sat too.
Cora stayed near the door.
This belonged to them.
Seth picked up a faded ribbon.
“Was Ma funny?”
Wyatt laughed softly.
“No.”
Cora raised an eyebrow.
Wyatt continued.
“She believed she was.”
Caleb smiled.
“She sang bad.”
“Terribly.”
“I remember.”
There it was.
A family remembering without drowning.
After an hour, Wyatt reached for the cradle.
His hands shook.
Cora came beside him.
“Grace?”
He nodded.
“She was so small.”
Cora waited.
“I held her once.”
His voice broke.
“I was afraid after she died that I hadn’t held her enough.”
Cora touched his hand.
“You loved her.”
“Wasn’t enough.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
She did not offer false comfort.
That was why he trusted her.
“Love does not always save people,” she said.
His eyes filled.
“No.”
“But sometimes it gives the people who remain a reason to keep living.”
He looked toward Caleb and Seth.
Then toward her.
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“What?”
“Giving me a reason?”
Cora’s throat tightened.
“No.”
His expression changed.
She smiled.
“You already had reasons.”
She nodded toward his sons.
“I’m just making you look at them.”
That night Wyatt did something he had not done since Margaret died.
He brought the boys into the parlor.
They decorated a tree.
In March.
Because Seth said Christmas had been “stolen four times” and there was no law saying it had to happen in December.
Cora suspected there might be, but she declined to research it.
They hung Margaret’s ornaments.
Grace’s ribbon.
Cora contributed a piece of chalk from the burned schoolhouse.
Wyatt frowned.
“That is ugly.”
“It survived.”
He nodded.
“Then it belongs.”
Caleb placed it near the top.
After the boys slept beneath the tree, Wyatt and Cora stood alone.
“You’re happy,” she said.
He looked confused.
“That worries you?”
“You look like you don’t trust it.”
He laughed once.
“I don’t.”
Cora stepped closer.
“Neither do I.”
“Why?”
“Because everything good I had used to disappear.”
Her school.
Her room.
Her savings.
Her parents before that.
Cora rarely spoke of them.
Fever had taken her mother.
A mill accident took her father.
Teaching had become the only thing she controlled.
Until fire took that too.
Wyatt touched her hair.
“You think I’ll disappear?”
“Yes.”
He did not look offended.
“You?”
She nodded.
“Sometimes.”
He thought.
“Then we’ll have to be boring.”
Cora smiled.
“Boring?”
“Wake up. Feed boys. Fix fences. Burn bread.”
“I no longer burn bread.”
“Occasionally.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
She looked at him.
“No.”
The word changed the room.
Wyatt’s voice lowered.
“Cora.”
She took his hand.
Then led him upstairs.
Not to his room.
To hers.
At the door she stopped.
“You promised.”
“I remember.”
“That it would be my choice.”
“Yes.”
Cora opened the door.
“I choose.”
The next morning, Seth found Wyatt leaving Cora’s room.
Both froze.
Seth stared.
Wyatt stared back.
“Morning.”
“Why were you in there?”
Wyatt considered lying.
Cora appeared behind him.
“Adult business.”
Seth narrowed his eyes.
“Boring?”
“Yes,” Wyatt said.
Cora said, “Very.”
Seth shrugged and walked away.
Caleb stood at the end of the hall.
He had heard everything.
His expression of disgust nearly killed Cora.
By summer, Cora was teaching again.
Wyatt built a new schoolhouse on land near the ranch road.
Not because she asked.
Because twenty-three children in the valley needed one.
He placed the deed in Cora’s name.
She stared.
“Why?”
“So no council can take it from you.”
Her eyes filled.
“I married you for shelter.”
“I remember.”
“And now you give me buildings?”
“Bad habit.”
She kissed him.
Then punched his shoulder lightly.
“What was that?”
“Balance.”
The first day of school, Seth sat in the front row.
Caleb in the back.
Cora rang the bell.
Children rushed inside.
Wyatt stood outside watching.
Jonas came beside him.
“You look stupid.”
Wyatt frowned.
“Why?”
“Smiling.”
Wyatt looked through the window.
Cora stood at the blackboard.
Seth raised his hand.
Caleb pretended he was too old to care.
Sunlight filled the room.
“I suppose I am.”
Then Jonas’s expression changed.
“What?”
He pointed toward the road.
A rider approached hard.
Sheriff Dalton.
Wyatt stepped outside.
The sheriff dismounted.
“Rusk escaped.”
Everything in Wyatt went still.
Cora saw his face through the window.
She came outside.
“What happened?”
Dalton looked at both of them.
“Prison wagon overturned near Red Gorge.”
“Accident?” Cora asked.
“No.”
Wyatt’s jaw tightened.
“Where is he?”
“Unknown.”
Dalton hesitated.
“He killed one guard.”
Cora looked toward the schoolhouse.
Twenty-three children.
Including Caleb and Seth.
Wyatt followed her gaze.
Then the school bell rang once.
Not by Cora.
Not by any child inside.
From the ridge above them.
A shot followed.
The bell shattered.
Children screamed.
And a voice carried down from the trees.
May you like
“Thornton!”
Benton Rusk had come home.
