Chapter Twelve
Weston stormed into the barn, as the door slammed against the wall with a crack that sent a flock of sparrows scattering from the rafters.
His boots struck the packed earth like thunder.
His hands were trembling not from the cold, but from rage, grief, guilt.
He yanked off his coat and tossed it over a rail, pacing the length of the stall as the echo of the night clung to him like smoke.
Mary Jane. She’ll be all right.
But what worried him deep down was the look in her eyes. They were wide, glassy with shock. The image was stuck in his head: A threadbare nightdress, bare feet on splintered floorboards…
He cursed aloud, dragging a hand through his hair, fingers catching in tangles. The memory wouldn’t let go. It was enough to rip open the old wound he carried like a second spine.
Weston sank down on a bale of straw, with elbows on his knees, and tiny breath coming hard.
Lottie, his sister, had been the same way near the end.
She had been frail, fever-slicked, too young to die but already halfway gone.
He remembered holding her hand through nights that stretched like eternity, remembered the sound of her coughing until it was blood she spat into a handkerchief he washed in secret.
He remembered their mother, too sick to care for herself, and how Weston, barely a man himself, had tried to be everything: a nurse, a brother, a son, and a savior. All at once.
But I hadn’t saved anyone.
The barn smelled of hay and horses, but it was her scent that clung to him now. It was Lottie’s: lavender soap and sweat. He squeezed his eyes shut and saw her again, her thin face lit by lamplight, whispering his name like a prayer or a goodbye. Don’t let me go alone, Wes.
He had promised, he wouldn’t. And still, she died clutching his shirt, mouth parted in a silent cry, and eyes wide in terror as life slipped from her. He had never forgiven himself for that. Not once.
Now Mary Jane’s trembling lips, her fear, her youth…God, she could’ve been Lottie.
He stood abruptly, unable to sit in it any longer. He busied his hands with the saddle blanket draped over the stall gate, folding it, unfolding it, anything to keep from shaking. He didn’t deserve this place. Didn’t deserve Nora’s kindness, nor the tentative trust he’d begun to see in her eyes.
What kind of man am I, that I cannot protect one girl from a memory and another from dying?
He braced his hands against the wood, and felt the way his chest heavied.
“I won’t fail her,” he muttered aloud. The words were barely audible over the sound of the horses shifting behind him. Not again.
The saddle blanket slipped from his fingers, half-folded, as a creak split the silence.
Weston turned fast and instinctive, with his muscles taut.
For a heartbeat, he saw shadows, the past, the life was desperately trying to forget.
But it was only Duke. The boy was standing in the open barn door with his hands tucked deep into the pockets of his coat, shoulders hunched like he’d been watching for a while.
“I ain’t looking for conversation,” Weston said, uninterested. He bent to pick up the blanket again, but his fingers shook too much to fold it right.
Duke didn’t move. Instead, he just leaned against the frame. Weston noticed his eyes; they were calm and steady. “Didn’t figure you were,” Duke said. “But you look like a man about to knock his head against a wall just to feel something else. Figured I’d say something before you do something dumb.”
Weston snorted and shook his head. “I’m fine.”
“Sure you are.”
The silence settled again. It was way too thick and weighty for Weston to break it. He didn’t have it in him.
After a pause, Duke stepped in, His boots sounded somewhat soft on the straw-covered floor. He didn’t come close, just stood a few feet off, hands still buried, watching the horses as if talking to them instead of Weston.
“My Ma and Pa died in a fire,” Duke said quietly. “Eight years back. Left a candle burning. Or maybe it was lightning. Never got a clear answer, not that it matters now.”
Weston froze, as one of his hands kept resting on the stall gate.
“I couldn’t step into a church for three years after that,” Duke continued, with a voice so even, it surprised Weston how calmly the boy talked about the tragedy.
“Couldn’t walk past a ribbon in a girl’s hair without feeling like I was choking.
I stayed drunk for the first two. Mean drunk.
Quiet drunk, after that. Thought if I didn’t say their names out loud, maybe I could outrun them. ”
Weston’s jaw clenched. He didn’t want this. Didn’t ask for it. But the words were rooted in him anyway. “Did you learn anything?” Weston asked, surprised by the question once it left his mouth.
Duke shrugged. “I learned that grief doesn't go anywhere. It just gets tired of yelling. And starts to whisper, instead. And if you don’t listen to it when it whispers, it comes back louder.”
Weston turned away, gripping the edge of the stall. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t know what to say, actually.
Duke’s voice softened, as he added, “You ain’t weak for hurting. You’re only weak if you pretend you ain’t.”
The barn seemed to breathe around them. One of the horses whuffed gently behind Weston, as if agreeing. Duke pushed off the wall, and his boots started crunching straw as he headed for the door. He paused before stepping out into the night.
“Took me years to say their names again,” he said. “But when I did, it stopped feeling like they died for nothing.”
Then he was gone.
Weston stood still. His eyes stung though he hadn’t cried. Not really. Not yet. The wind stirred through the crack in the wall, and he exhaled shakily. Under his breath, barely loud enough even to himself, he muttered, “You’re tougher than me, Duke.” And he meant it.
Left alone, Weston leaned his weight into the stall gate, letting the rough wood press into his palms. The barn had gone still again, but Duke’s words hung in the air like smoke. You ain’t weak for hurting. You’re only weak if you pretend you ain’t.
Weston thought about it. He’d spent years pretending.
Whiskey. Distance. Silence. They’d all done a fine job of making sure no one got close enough to see the cracks.
But Duke, a boy who’d lost everything and still stood tall, still spoke the names of the dead without flinching, had done something Weston hadn’t managed in all these long, drifting years. He’d faced it.
Weston rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the day’s grit, the weight of his past pressing behind his eyes.
He wasn’t ready to let go of the guilt. Not yet.
Maybe not ever. But there was something to learn from the boy’s quiet kind of strength; not the kind that shouted or fought, but the kind that endured. That stayed. That remembered.
***
The air outside was cool and still damp with dew. Weston stepped out into the morning just as the first full rays of sun spilled over the hills, lighting the yard in a golden haze. He blinked against it. The weight in his chest was lighter somehow, though he couldn’t say why.
Then he saw Mary Jane sitting cross-legged in the garden, picking at something in the dirt with the tip of a stick.
A worn bonnet hung down her back, untied, and her dress was already stained with earth.
Her braid, messy and half-unraveled, swung like a pendulum every time she leaned in close to inspect whatever had caught her fancy.
She looked like a child again. She was safe, whole, and unbroken.
Weston hesitated, then stepped off the porch, as he heard his boots crunching softly on gravel. Mary Jane didn’t look up right away, and when she did, her grin cracked wide, all impish glee.
“I thought it was a horse coming to me,” she said.
Weston huffed a quiet laugh, surprised by how good it felt. “Just checking on you.”
She sat up straighter, brushing dirt off her knees. “I’m not sick no more. Just dirty.”
“Didn’t say you were.” He crouched beside her, resting his arms on his knees. “So, you’re feeling better?”
Mary Jane shrugged, poking the stick into the soil again. “Much, much better.”
There was a glint in her eye, mischievous and sharp, the kind of spark he’d come to associate with Mary Jane before last night’s shadows had stolen it from her. He didn’t press. Instead, he let the quiet settle between them.
Then something caught his eye.
He leaned forward, brushing aside a patch of loose dirt near her foot. There, in the sandy soil, a shallow, cone-shaped pit. At the bottom, half-hidden, a tiny flicker of movement, barely visible.
“Look there,” Weston said, pointing. “See that little crater?”
Mary Jane leaned in, as nose practically touched the ground. “That’s not from me,” she said quickly, as if she was defending herself.
He smiled. “It’s not yours. That’s an antlion trap. See how it’s shaped like a funnel?”
She narrowed her eyes. “So… it eats ants?”
“Yep. Sits at the bottom, hidden. Ant walks in, slips down, and the antlion grabs it from underneath. It even throws sand to knock them down if they try to climb back out.”
Mary Jane let out a delighted gasp. “That’s horrible!” Then she carelessly added, “I love it.”
Weston laughed, and its full, quiet sound surprised them both.
They stayed like that for a while, crouched in the dirt, watching.
A few ants wandered nearby but none fell in.
Still, Mary Jane didn’t lose interest. She leaned her chin on her fists, watching the trap like it was the greatest show in town.
“Do you think he ever gets bored, waiting down there?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Weston said. “But he’s patient. Knows what he’s after.”
She nodded solemnly, then cracked a smile. “If I was an ant, I’d be the kind that learned to fly.”
“You already are,” Weston murmured before he could stop himself.
She looked at him curiously sideways, but he just smiled and kept his gaze on the dirt.
It wasn’t until the breeze shifted that he looked up and caught sight of Nora, standing quiet on the porch.
One hand was resting against the railing, the other one was loosely wrapped around her neck.
Weston held her gaze for a moment and this time, he didn’t feel the urge to look away.
***
Later that day, the saloon door creaked on its hinges as Weston stepped inside, the dusty afternoon sun slanting behind him in long, golden beams. It smelled like sour whiskey, old smoke, and cheap perfume. It was the kind of scent that never washed out of a place once it’d soaked in deep.
He kept his hat low and made straight for the bar.
Old habits, bad ones, had a way of finding him when his chest felt too tight to breathe.
He hadn’t had a drop since arriving on Nora’s land, but today, the weight had crept in quietly, heavy and hot behind his ribs.
It was Duke’s words, Mary Jane’s laugh and Nora’s eyes on him from the porch that kept him uneasy.
It was all too much and not enough, and he couldn’t make sense of any of it.
He slid onto a stool, nodding at the barkeep. “Just a whiskey.”
The glass came full, and Weston took it without ceremony. He let the rim rest against his lip before he finally sipped. It burned on the way down in a familiar way. And he hated how good it felt.
The saloon was nearly empty. Two men played cards at a table near the back, with their heads bent low.
A girl with curls too bright to be real swept up broken peanuts off the floor.
And a man he didn’t recognize, dressed in a crisp white shirt with suspenders stretched over a wide chest, stood near the piano, chatting up the bartender.
Weston paid him no mind at first. But something in the man’s tone prickled his skin. It was too casual, too practiced.
“…goes by Weston Crane, I heard. Tall fella, quiet. New to these parts. That sound familiar to you?”
Weston stiffened. The glass hovered in his hand, as if it was completely forgotten by him within a moment. Weston kept listening.
“Might’ve seen someone like that. Why’re you asking?” the bartender grunted.
“Just a friendly interest,” the man said. “He’s got a face some folks might remember. Got a past too, from what I hear.”
The bartender said nothing. The man smiled, tipped his hat, and then, as he turned to leave, his eyes swept the room.
And landed on Weston. Weston didn’t flinch, didn’t blink, but something passed between them, like a knife hidden under a napkin.
The man’s smile didn’t falter. He touched the brim of his hat again, slower this time, like he’d found what he was looking for.
Then he turned and walked out through the swinging doors, as his boots echoed on the saloon floor. Weston watched him go through the slats. The burn in his throat had nothing to do with the whiskey now. He stood slowly and stepped closer to the bar. “Who was that?” he asked with a low voice.
The bartender eyed him warily, polishing the same glass twice. “Name’s Elias Pike. He’s not from here. Rides in now and again on Nash Colter’s coin.”
Weston’s jaw tightened. A slow, familiar, ugly coil of heat curled in his gut.
Nash Colter. He hadn’t heard the name spoken in days, but he’d felt its shadow everywhere.
In the stiffness of Nora’s spine. In the way she looked at the edge of her land like she expected it to be stolen.
And now, one of Colter’s men was sniffing around, asking him by name.
Weston looked down at the drink still sitting half-full on the bar. He pushed it away. He then turned and walked out into the dying light, pulse ticking hard in his throat. He didn’t know what Nash wanted, but one thing was clear. Whatever peace he thought he’d found, it wasn’t going to last.