20. Elias
ELIAS
Isaddle up early, before the ranch stirs into its full rhythm, and point my horse south under a sky still blushing with dawn.The ride stretches quiet, broken only by leather creaking and the gelding’s occasional snort as the familiar trails roughen the deeper we move in.
South Gate rises ahead after a few hours, the keeper’s structure crouched on the horizon with a kind of expectant stillness.
I tie off at the boundary fence and walk the rest, dust lifting around my boots and settling on my jeans.
The spot hasn’t changed much. Same scattered rocks, same stubborn bunchgrass pushing through cracked earth, same weathered posts where everything went wrong that day.
I stand there for a stretch, letting the memories flood without the usual walls I slam up.
Noah’s laugh echoes first—high and reckless, the way only a kid brother can laugh when he’s convinced the world bends to his games.
He’d dared me to race him to the old gate, reins loose, sun beating down just like now.
I remember yelling after him to slow down, the way his horse spooked at a rattler or loose stone, the sickening thud as he hit the ground wrong.
The blood on my hands when I reached him. The silence after.
Hours slip by as I pace the area, touching fence wire, crouching by the dip in the terrain where it happened.
Every detail I’ve buried claws back up: the way his small hand went slack in mine, the dust settling on his shirt, the helplessness that swallowed me whole while I screamed for help that came too late.I’ve spent years pushing it aside, pouring myself into the ranch, trying to build something strong enough that I’d never have to come back to this spot.
But the land remembers. Every ghost, every alternate life.
This patch feels ruined, grief-soaked, choking off anything that tries to grow around it.
Selling it isn’t betrayal. It’s survival.
Clearing out what’s killing the rest. I go through the remaining notes and shut the folder.
I sink onto a flat rock, elbows on knees, staring at the ground until the sun climbs higher and beats warm on my neck.
The quiet wraps thick, broken only by wind rattling through dry brush.
Part of me waits for some release, some sign that facing it head-on loosens the knot.
Instead it tightens, confirming what I’ve told myself all along. This place doesn’t heal. It reopens.
Hooves sound in the distance, steady and unhurried.
I don’t turn right away. Only one person tracks me this far without announcement.
Wyatt’s horse blows out a breath as he dismounts nearby, boots hitting dirt with purpose.
He walks over slow, hands in his pockets, eyes scanning the same ground I’ve been wearing down with my boots.
“Didn’t figure you’d come out here alone,” he says, voice low and even like he’s testing the air between us. He stops a few paces away, giving me space but not enough to hide. “Been a while since either of us stood on this spot.”
I rub a hand over my jaw, feeling the stubble I didn’t bother shaving this morning. “Needed to see it clear. Without the noise.”
He nods once, gaze drifting to the keeper’s structure before coming back to me. “And? Clear enough to sign it away?”
The challenge sits there plain in his tone, no sugar on it. Wyatt’s never been one to dance around what he thinks. He’s worked this land longer than I’ve been running it, seen me through the worst days, but that doesn’t soften the edge when he decides to push.
“It’s the right call,” I tell him, standing up to meet his eyes. “Preserving this piece only drags the suffering out. Every time I ride past or Lila points her camera this way, it pulls me right back into that day. The ranch moves forward without it. We all do.”
Wyatt kicks at a clump of dirt, watching it scatter.
“You really believe that? That handing it over to Caldwell Ridge scrubs the slate clean? I’ve known you since you were knee-high, Elias.
This land isn’t cursed. It’s just dirt and history, same as the north pastures where your granddad built the first barn.
You’re the one carrying the grief like it’s welded to your bones.
Selling won’t change how you face it—or don’t. ”
His words land solid, stirring up the anger I’ve kept banked since the meeting with Alden and Nathan.
I pace a short line, boots scuffing louder now.
“Easy for you to say. You weren’t the one who watched him slip away right here.
You didn’t carry him back or hear my mother’s voice crack every time someone mentioned the south boundary after.
Keeping it means waking up every damn day knowing the place that took him is still mine to tend.
Like I owe it something. I don’t. We don’t. ”
Wyatt doesn’t back off. He leans against a fence post, arms crossed, the picture of a stance that’s been thought through more times than I have.
“The problem ain’t the land, son. It’s you refusing to look the truth square in the eye.
Noah was a wild kid who loved this ranch fiercely.
He’d hate seeing you carve it up to run from a memory.
Lila’s been out here too, capturing what makes this place alive.
You think she won’t notice when that piece disappears?
Or that you won’t feel the hole it leaves? ”
Mention of her name twists something deep.
I see her face from last night, the way she curled against me trusting and warm, no idea about the documents sitting in my desk.
The fracture I’ve started feels wider now, out here where everything started.
Wyatt’s right, damn him, and that burns hotter than the sun overhead.
I know it in my gut—the refusal to let the grief shift into something I can live with instead of around.
But admitting it out loud means tearing open wounds I’ve patched too many times already.
“Doesn’t matter,” I say, my voice rougher than I want. “The deal’s moving. I signed the next set of papers yesterday. It’s practical. The money stabilizes the operation, keeps jobs steady, gives us room to grow without that shadow hanging over everything. I’m not changing course now.”
Wyatt studies me for a stretch, the kind of quiet that says more than words.
He finally pushes off the post, clapping a hand on my shoulder once, firm and familiar.
“You’re angry because you know I’m not wrong.
Think on that before you burn another bridge.
Ranch needs you whole, not half-running from ghosts. ”
He mounts up and rides out without another word, leaving me standing in the dust he kicks up.
I watch him go until he’s a speck against the hills, my fists clenched at my sides.
The anger simmers, hot and justified in my chest because facing what he said means admitting I’ve been dodging the real weight for years.
But knowing it doesn’t shift my feet. The sale goes through.
It has to. That’s the only way I see clear to the other side—Lila’s smile in the mornings, the ranch thriving without this anchor, me finally stepping forward instead of circling the same old pain.
I stay longer than I should, walking the perimeter one last time, letting the memories wash over me until they dull to a steady ache.
By the time I swing back into the saddle, the sun sits high and unforgiving.
The ride back feels heavier, but my mind stays fixed.
Forward. That’s the commitment I made. Even with Wyatt’s words echoing and Lila’s trust pulling at me from the other direction, I hold to it.
South Gate ends here, with me. The rest of us keep riding.