A Man with a Past by Mary Connealy

THREE

He kept the animals with him all the way to Omaha. There he’d gotten decent money for the horses and other things he’d taken from the men. Except he kept a six-gun and a rifle for himself and sold his own single-shot rifle and the ancient pistol that was a breechloader.

He couldn’t shake the itch of concern between his shoulder blades ever since he’d snared those two men, so he decided to take the train west rather than ride Harvey. With some serious second thoughts, he sold Harvey to a nice family that pulled a cart delivering supplies from their general store. He expected that Harvey would be treated well.

He had money enough after his train ticket to buy a horse when he got where he was going.

He boarded the train, gritting his teeth against the roaring engine and the blasting whistle.

Stowing his bedroll and satchel beside him, he sat down. They said he’d be in Casper, Wyoming, tomorrow or the next day. Train travel was a wonder.

He’d planned on taking most of the summer to get there.

As he relaxed onto the wooden bench, he thought of Patsy and how she would have enjoyed this train ride. She’d always been a curious girl, ready for adventure. Though in the Blue Ridge Mountains the closest they came to adventure was riding over the ridge to see her folks.

Back home, it was a twenty-mile ride on Harvey to reach a trading post. And since there wasn’t much Falcon couldn’t catch or build himself, he didn’t make the ride any more’n he could help it.

A peddler came through pulling a brightly painted cart once or twice a year and carried more than anyone might need.

Falcon had had a good life. A sturdy cabin, plenty of food, and a pretty wife who was quick with a smile and seemed to love him.

And then Patsy had died.

And her folks blamed him.

Why wouldn’t they? He blamed himself.

But havin’ a baby was as natural a part of living as breathing, and no healthy, happily married man and wife were gonna do naught but bring young’uns into the world.

Patsy Sulky Hunt was the prettiest girl Falcon had ever seen. Blond and blue eyed. Smart too. That woman could find a possum in an apple tree, fetch the food home, and make everything up into a stew and a cobbler without hardly anyone knowin’ she’d been gone.

She’d been the shinin’ light of his life. And she’d died in his arms.

When Patsy died, the babe went with her. And Falcon’s heart went right on along.

Then her menfolk came around, ragin’ mad. Falcon figured they’d shoot him, and he wasn’t much inclined to object. He was that sad. That weary of the thought of years stretching out before him without his Patsy.

It must’ve been why he just plumb turned himself over to the Sulkys. And his not fighting back had saved him.

After swingin’ a fist or two . . . or twenty . . . they saw he was like to just stand there while they beat him to death, and that must’ve taken any satisfaction out of it for ’em.

Or maybe they could just see his broken heart—which matched their own.

They headed on home and told him not to come around ever again.

Falcon’s ma had died years ago, and he’d lived in that dirt-floor cabin that clung to the side of the mountain alone. He’d lived the kind of life where a boy got tough or died, and Falcon got tough. He was strong as a herd of bulls and mean as a badger.

And then he’d met Patsy.

She’d tamed the mean out of him and liked the rest. A strong, savvy woman to match him.

A big strapping woman but not strong enough to bear his child, which meant he dare not ever have another, as no woman was going to be bigger and stronger than Patsy.

And he’d been taken into Patsy’s family. When she died, he lost her family along with her.

Before he’d more than healed from the beating, before he’d figured out how to go on living alone again, a rider came to his cabin carrying a telegram—and the rider was good enough to read it to him. That telegram tore loose everything he’d thought he knew about his raisin’.

A telegram telling him he owned part of a ranch in Wyoming. Left to him by his pa.

His pa who’d been dead, as far as Falcon knew, for twenty-some years. He’d sure enough been gone that long. A letter had come, back before Ma died, with the news of Pa’s passing. Falcon was sure of it, but it was a vague memory, something his ma spoke of now and then.

But here was Pa newly dead again and owning a ranch. Part of it to go to his son Falcon. To share with his brother in Wyoming. Another family.

It was a stab to his already bruised heart to think Pa had gone off to find a family he liked more’n the one here in Tennessee. Had another son. Probably hoping to do better.

Well, Falcon wasn’t in any frame of mind to hurt even more.

Instead of taking that stab like he’d taken the beating, he got mad.

The mad in Falcon overcame the broken heart over Patsy, or at least distracted him from it. He actually owned the cabin he’d grown up in and had a few fixin’s. He sold what he could and scraped together a bit of money.

Without speaking to a soul beyond those he sold to—who else was there to speak to?—he decided to claim his land and start a new life far away from this place of sadness, all the while wondering what exactly a ranch was.

He made up a bedroll and packed all the food he could gather. He had a change of clothes besides the ones on his back. Then, because he knew he faced a long hard trail, he strapped his rifle gun on his shoulder, and his pistol on his hip and gathered every bullet he owned and the mold for making new ones. Finally, he saddled Harvey and set out for a place called Bear Claw Pass, Wyoming.

Mad as a rabid skunk, he rode across the country, aiming first for Independence, Missouri, and planning to follow the Oregon Trail to Wyoming. Once he got there, he could talk to the lawyer, some fella by the name of Randall Kingston, from Casper, who’d sent the telegram. He’d ask Kingston where the Rolling Hills Ranch was and get a few more details about his new life.

Now, instead of a long ride on Harvey, he’d bought a ticket. The train was going straight to Casper, and the conductor would let him know when it was time to get off.

He settled in to ride this rattling train across two states in two days.