by Ember Pierce
What if something had happened to him on his way home? Should she go over to her in-laws’ and tell them what was going on?
* * *
She dismissed that thought as soon as it entered her head. The things that happened between them should stay private.
* * *
That was one of the things she had always disliked about the house she had grown up in. Every fight her parents had had was audible throughout every room.
* * *
Their harsh whispers were even worse. Those angry words had been where she had learned to hate the effects that alcohol had on her father, on anyone.
* * *
Still, she needed help. She needed someone to tell her not to worry, that Kristian was okay.
* * *
If she couldn’t go to his parents, her new family, what else could she do but wait and worry?
* * *
No, she refused to just be a massive pile of nerves. She was going to do something. All she had to do was go into town.
* * *
If he was already on his way home, she would meet him on the road and they could talk on their way home together. If something had happened to him, she could help.
* * *
Determined to make this happen, Bonny pulled on her shawl, securing it with a pin before fastening her bonnet on her head.
* * *
She strode out to the barn, pretending that she felt a confidence that eluded her in the moment. Luckily, she had walked the path from the house to the barn so many times that she found she knew the way by feel.
* * *
After she saddled Rook, the horse she had been given to ride, she led him out of the barn. She walked Rook to the road before mounting him.
* * *
Digging her heels gently into Rook’s sides, she urged the horse into a trot.
* * *
The ride to town had never seemed so interminable. Her mind raced as she got closer.
* * *
She knew she should feel relieved that Kristian wasn’t lying on the side of the road, but she kept feeling like something wasn’t right.
* * *
Thoughts of Kristian dominated her mind, though she did realize that being out alone on such a dark night wasn’t the safest thing she could have done. Still, she rode on.
* * *
When she got to town, she slowed Rook to a walk. The main street was quiet as she entered, all the houses and businesses closed, shuttered.
* * *
She could see that the livelier end of the street was where the saloon was. Her stomach tightened.
* * *
If the people here were anything like back in Philadelphia, plenty of them would be drunk already. Possibly getting to the point of being violent.
* * *
She was going to keep going, though, so she could find Kristian. She had to find Kristian.
* * *
The end of the street came much faster than she had anticipated. She was almost going to turn around to head home when she saw him.
* * *
Kristian was right there, standing in front of the saloon. He was grinning as if he had just told a joke.
* * *
She loved that grin. It meant he was having a good time, that he was doing something that made him happy.
* * *
He clapped the man he was standing with on the shoulder. This must have been his old friend that he had told her he ran into the other night.
* * *
Yeah, she thought bitterly, he had just run into this old friend randomly. Clearly he had been lying to her.
* * *
Kristian said something she couldn’t hear, and she saw him walk toward his horse. He was going home.
* * *
She didn’t even think as she turned her horse toward home. Urging Rook into a gallop, she raced away from what she had seen.
* * *
Her heart hammered. It didn’t want to believe the information her eyes and brain were feeding it, but it was also breaking at the same time.
* * *
Kristian had been at the saloon. That was the only place he could have come from. The livery had been closed for hours at this point in the night.
* * *
He had told her that much when he had started working there. That was why she had been so worried about him, for him.
* * *
What was he doing there? Certainly he hadn’t just stopped in to visit with his old friend. What did he take her for, a fool?
* * *
Was he drinking? Gambling? Worse? She tried to calm her racing thoughts.
* * *
Maybe there was a reason for him to be there. Some business reason? Something connected to the trouble he was in?
* * *
Even as she wanted to talk about it, she knew she was reaching for something that didn’t exist. What about all the things that Kristian had told her?
* * *
He had told her that he didn’t drink. Was he lying about that? She had never smelled alcohol on him like she had on her father, but did that really prove anything?
* * *
And if he was lying about that, what else was he lying about? The thought sent a chill through her body.
* * *
Was that where all the money was going, after all? To support Kristian’s drinking habit?
* * *
Tears began to leak down her cheeks as she neared the ranch. Bonny didn’t have the answers to any of these questions, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.
22
The night felt impossibly fresh to Kristian. He was positive that he had never seen the stars twinkle at him the way they did as he mounted his horse to head out of town.
* * *
John used to insist that being out at night under the big canopy of sky was his favorite thing in the whole world. Kristian felt a pang of regret as he remembered how he used to scoff at his brother for such romantic notions.
* * *
Kristian’s thoughts drifted toward his grief for his brother. What would John have thought about the things that had happened over the past few months?
* * *
Kristian knew his brother would be happy for him, with his new wife. Proud that Kristian was turning his life around would be an obvious emotion.
* * *
He had always felt immense pride at being John’s brother. The reverse probably had rarely been true.
* * *
Now, though, Kristian knew to his core that John would have felt that way. Turning down Jock’s offer to go into the saloon for just one drink was life-changing in ways that Kristian had never even considered.
* * *
The obvious result was that he was still sober. Being sober was a requirement for making good decisions. He had never really considered that before.
* * *
The feeling of confidence he had in himself right now was what surprised him the most. Growing up, Kristian had been the one to swagger through the streets of town, projecting a false sense of superiority wherever he went.
* * *
Everything else he had done with his life had come from that feeling that he was better than everyone else around him.
* * *
That was what had led him to think that his drinking wasn’t a problem—he could hold his liquor better than anyone.
* * *
He’d placed bets higher than anyone else because he had been convinced that he could never lose—even when he did. He saw those times as temporary setbacks.
* * *
That feeling was also what had led him to make disastrous choices, like borrowing money from O’hara. A chill stole over Kristian.
* * *
Someone was walking over his grave, as his mother liked to say. He never really knew what that meant, but he could define the feeling.
* * *
The best he could figure, he had almost half of what he ne
eded to pay off O’hara, but he didn’t have much time left.
* * *
Kristian wished that he could tell Bonny the whole truth so that he had someone to share his stress and fear with. But if he told her, she might decide to leave him, and he couldn’t let that happen.
* * *
He slowed his horse to a walk, not because he didn’t want to get home, but because he wanted to let himself enjoy the beautiful night.
* * *
When was the last time he had paid attention to something like that?
* * *
Shrugging to no one in particular, Kristian sat back in the saddle, whistling a tune that he hadn’t realized he still remembered.
* * *
It was a song that John used to sing all the time when they were young. Bittersweet though that was, Kristian was glad that it had come to mind.
* * *
“I did a good job tonight, John,” he said, feeling foolish for a moment, but then deciding that he liked believing that his brother could hear him from the Great Beyond.
* * *
“I almost went into the saloon with Jock. You have no idea how much I wanted to. Just to take the edge off the stress.”
* * *
“Good for you, buddy.”
* * *
Kristian had to look around to make sure that his brother’s ghost hadn’t suddenly joined him on the ride home. He shook his head hard to clear his mind.
* * *
Despite the fact that he felt vaguely like he was going crazy, he was glad he’d heard the words, clear as day, that his brother always used to say to him.
* * *
Those were the words he had most needed to hear.
* * *
Still, his heartbeat quickened and he urged his horse on faster. He needed to get home to Bonny and tell her everything that had happened that night.
* * *
He had almost had one drink. That had been the line that he had almost crossed, the edge of a precipice that he had almost fallen back into.
* * *
Even now, fully removed from the situation, Kristian could just about feel the liquor burning its way down his throat, the pleasant buzz that always followed one drink taking over his brain as he distanced himself from the world that demanded so much from him.
* * *
Explaining the appeal of drinking to John was something Kristian had always struggled to do. That was why he drank, he supposed.
* * *
It had just seemed like an inevitable outcome of his life. Stumbling home in the wee hours of the morning, knowing that his parents would be disappointed with him when he woke up was reassuring.
* * *
He knew how to behave as the failure of the family. This whole ‘carrying on the legacy of his dead brother’ was much harder.
* * *
That first drink would have led to a second, which would have led to a third.
* * *
Kristian had learned much about himself over the past few months of trying to change his life, and the most important thing he had realized was that he was weak in so many ways.
* * *
Yet another way he was the exact opposite of John. His brother had always been such a strong person.
* * *
“John?” Kristian startled at the sound of his own voice in the quiet night. He waited, as if he actually expected his brother to answer him.
* * *
No voice spoke, though, not even resounding in his head as memories flooded his mind. “Why did you have to go and die? I could really use your advice here.
* * *
“I know if I took Jock up on his offer, it would be a slippery slope. One drink would just lead to another. You never had that kind of problem. How is that even possible?”
* * *
The question got Kristian thinking about his brother. How did he even know that John had never faced temptations?
* * *
If he was fair and honest, their relationship had never included any deep heart-to-hearts about their feelings.
* * *
Now that he was looking back on that life that they had shared, he wished they would have had those conversations. Kristian knew he would have benefited greatly from such a sharing of wisdom.
* * *
That was when a recollection broke loose from the stream-of-conscious memories pouring through his mind. He had been pretty young—maybe eleven or twelve—and he had been neglecting his chores.
* * *
Instead of mucking out the horses’ stalls, he would take his slingshot and hide out in the hay loft, shooting targets that he made himself.
* * *
He had been skipping the afternoon chores for nearly a week, and he’d been thrilled that his father hadn’t figured it out yet. Then, one afternoon, he had fallen asleep in the hay.
* * *
It had been warm and cozy inside the barn, despite the fact that summer had already given way to autumn. Kristian had been awakened by the sound of someone down in the main part of the barn, talking softly to the horses.
* * *
Kristian could still remember the way his breath had hitched in his chest. He had been positive that his father had found out and was waiting to give him a spanking with the switch.
* * *
Wondering if he could simply wait his father out, even if he had to sleep in the barn for the night, Kristian had crawled over to the edge of the hay loft opening.
* * *
What he had seen had shocked him.
* * *
John had been singing softly to the horses as he mucked out the stalls himself. Shame had crept over Kristian as he skulked away from the opening, settling himself back in the hay.
* * *
He wasn’t sure how to process why he felt so bad for what he had seen, and he spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out a way to ask John about it.
* * *
That night, as they had settled into their beds in the room they shared at the back of the house, Kristian had blurted out, “Why are you covering for me?”
* * *
John had set down the book he was reading by candlelight, rubbed his eyes, and asked, “What do you mean?”
* * *
Kristian had stared at his brother with his mouth hanging open. “The stalls,” he had spluttered.
* * *
“You mucked them out. I saw you! Why are you doing that for me? You could just tell Pa and get me in trouble.”
* * *
Propping himself up on his elbows, John had given him a kind smile that made the shame he’d been feeling open like a gaping maw in his chest.
* * *
Kristian had wanted to hide under his blankets. Instead, he’d forced himself to continue to look at his brother as he waited for an explanation.
* * *
“Getting you in trouble doesn’t do any of us any good,” John had said. “Pa would be angry, you would be sullen. Ma and I would have to watch people we love be in great pain.”
* * *
“But… you’re doing my chores,” Kristian had said, at a loss for anything else to say.
* * *
He had been so sure that he was going to get in trouble that he hadn’t been sure how to respond to John. His brother had ruffled his hair, told him good night, and rolled over to go to sleep.
* * *
Kristian had lain awake for hours, possibly until the sun began to peek over the horizon. He had never skipped his chores again… well, that wasn’t entirely true.
* * *
But he had tried his best not to let John down.
