Epilogue
Four days later
“Are you sure you want to come with us to New York?” Alice asked yet again.
Chrissie nodded vehemently. “After everything, neither of us can stand to be anywhere near that farm.”
“And Jason, your mind is made up too?” Kyle asked. “Selling it is final. Your ancestor’s farm will belong to someone else.”
Jason shrugged. “I never really liked sugarcane farming. I’m more of a carpenter at heart.
” He sighed. “It’s sad, but I can’t stay in that place.
There’s too much sadness there now. Joel ruined it.
The whole place is tainted for me. I could hardly stand to go back and get our things.
” He gestured to the bags at their feet. “No, it’s got to go.”
Alice nodded. It was easy to understand why Chrissie and Jason had decided to accompany her, Kyle, Warren, and Michael back east. Their happy life here had been interrupted when it was just beginning.
She was only grateful that her sister’s relationship was still intact.
She and Jason seemed to love each other very much.
“Well, then, we’re very glad to have you along,” Kyle said, smiling now. “I think I’ll be really glad to see the back of this place.”
Over the last four days, they had all had time to speak to Sheriff Butler, write out their witness statements and affidavits, and there was nothing he needed from them to prosecute Joel and his men. They would be going to jail for a long time, and that was exactly what they deserved.
“Safe journey,” Sheriff Butler said, shaking each of their hands in turn. He had come to the train station to see them off—and perhaps to make sure they really got on the train. Alice suspected that he would be glad not to have to share the credit of the bandits’ demise for much longer.
“It’s wonderful that they have the trains up and running again, isn’t it?” Sheriff Butler asked, smiling.
“Yes, so that all the reporters can get to you easily now,” Kyle said under his breath.
“Oh, you,” Alice said, elbowing him in a friendly manner. “He had to get something out of it.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Kyle agreed, taking her hand. “I got you, so it’s fair that he gets some press.”
She grinned.
He certainly had her. She couldn’t believe how in love she was.
She’d been teetering that way before being held hostage, but since his rescue, she couldn’t stand to be away from him for more than a short while.
If he asked her to marry him at that moment, she would rush him off to the chapel without looking back.
Reading the romantic writing on the wall, Warren warned that that would be unwise because he had read something somewhere about how romances started in strife ended in …
She’d forgotten what he said. Basically, it meant that she and Kyle should get to know one another before getting hitched.
That was fine too, so long as marriage was in the cards before too long.
“All right, everyone,” Michael said, his voice booming over the platform. “Here comes the train.”
With a puff of steam and a squeal of brakes, the train came to a halt.
The sinkhole was still there, and a lot of the previous train’s wreckage hadn’t been cleared away.
The new train stopped at the far end of the station platform and then began a complicated bit of maneuvering to get to the other side of the track.
This involved the train being steered to a siding and driven out way past the platform.
The group of travelers walked to the end of the platform and watched the work. It was slow. The new tracks had been laid recently, and Alice wondered if perhaps the engineers were a little nervous about the ground beneath them. She wouldn’t blame them if they were.
“Look how long the train is,” one little girl said to her mother. She smiled, and Alice couldn’t help but smile too. She wondered vaguely if she’d one day have a little girl with Kyle’s big smile.
Although everything was different from how she’d initially envisioned her life turning out, she had her sister back and had gained a brother-in-law. Only God could bring light out of so much darkness.
“Who will handle the sale of your farm?” Alice asked Jason as they watched the train chug along.
“The bank manager here in Grunnersberg,” Jason said with a nod. “The man I’m selling to has been hounding me for years about the property. He’s so happy. I didn’t tell him everything that happened there.”
“Probably for the best,” Alice agreed. She wondered if Chrissie would ever tell her what had taken the light from her eyes and left her looking so haunted. Would Jason? Neither of them was okay. Their physical hurt would heal, but there was something deeply scarred inside them she couldn’t fathom.
Perhaps it was something that time would have to work on to soften and smooth out to the point where they could talk about it. Everything was so fresh and close. Perhaps that was the point of getting on this train with everything they owned, leaving the past behind and starting completely anew.
“Are you planning to stay back east?” Kyle asked Jason.
Jason shrugged. “I don’t think so. Chrissie doesn’t like the idea of being far from Alice.”
“Well, there’s always room in Unity,” Kyle said.
Jason looked at him blankly.
“The town we started in Texas,” Kyle explained. “Surely, you’ve told them where you’re heading once we’ve done with our work in New York, Alice?”
“I told Chrissie,” Alice said with a frown.
Her sister, who had been speaking to the little girl and her mother, walked over to them.
“You didn’t tell Jason about Unity?” Alice asked.
“Oh, I meant to,” Chrissie said with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I wanted Alice with me though, so she could answer any questions we might have.”
Jason sighed and smiled. “Okay, tell me about this place.”
“Well,” Kyle said, beaming. He truly loved his town. It shone through each and every pore in his skin when he spoke about it. Which he did now, at length, while the train slowly turned itself around. Alice enjoyed watching him tell the tale of the town’s birth and growth.
“So, most folks are miners?” Jason asked. “I’d rather make furniture and things.”
“When we left, we didn’t have a carpenter,” Warren said thoughtfully. “You could fill that need.”
A hopeful light ignited in Jason’s eyes. “Do you think we could?”
“What? Live in the same town as my sister?” Chrissie asked. Her eyes lit up in a way they hadn’t since Alice first found her. “Definitely.”
“I haven’t agreed to move there yet,” Alice said, trying to look sober and stern. As though she would refuse. Honestly. It was more likely to snow here in August than her refusing to move to Unity.
Shaking her head, Chrissie sighed. “You’re moving there, all right, because Kyle won’t live anywhere else.”
Turning to Kyle, who stood beside her, Alice nodded and grinned. “Yes, I am. And I can’t think of a place I’d rather be.”
“Well, you’ll have to put up with New York—more of a little hamlet outside of New York—for a while,” Michael said. “We have some business with a prominent financier, and we’re late. He’s left to go to his winter home in the Appalachians.”
“They’re lovely,” Chrissie said. “Very picturesque mountains. Very cold in winter, though. Why would he want to go there?”
“Search me,” Michael said. “But he does. And he has, so that’s where we’re headed.”
“Sounds like an adventure,” Alice said.
“Or maybe just a little time to breathe some mountain air before the snow sets in?” Kyle asked. “I want to get home before next year.”
“And we will,” Michael said. “We’ll go, we’ll talk to Mr. MacGregor, and he’ll agree to help us. Then things will be fine. You know it.”
“Sure,” Kyle said.
“And failing that, we’ll hire some mercenaries and—” Warren began, but Michael clamped a hand over his friend’s mouth.
“We will do no such thing!”
“It’s an option,” Warren said. “I thought we should evaluate all options before making a decision.”
“Come, Warren, you and I will have a little talk,” Michael said.
He led him to a far-off spot on the platform, and the two stood speaking in soft voices, gesticulating wildly. Alice had to laugh, knowing Warren would never do anything to harm anyone. The man was just an oddball in the best possible way.
“Your friends are strange,” she said. “Strange, but lovable.”
Kyle smiled. “Yes, they are. And now you get to spend some time with them on a train. It’s an experience. How do you feel about poker?”
“The game?” she asked. “I’ve been known to win a game or two.”
Kyle’s smile broadened. “Excellent. We won’t die of boredom.”
“I can’t imagine ever being bored with you,” Alice replied with a laugh.
He took her hand and kissed her knuckles tenderly. “It’ll be the adventure of a lifetime sharing my world with you, Alice Emmerson.”
All she could think as they boarded the train with the others was that she couldn’t wait to get started on that adventure.
Thank you, Lord, for new beginnings!
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