“You gonna write to her?” James asked.
“This letter was sent three months ago,” Shaye said. “There’s no telling if she’s even still in Pearl River Junction.”
“So are we going to go there?” Thomas asked.
“We’re going to have to send some telegrams first,” Shaye said. “Check the situation out. At least find out if she’s still there.”
“And then what?” James asked.
“She can’t be tellin’ the truth, Pa,” Thomas said. “Not about Matthew.”
“We’ll have to see, Thomas,” Shaye said. “If this girl’s boy in Matthew’s son, we’re going to have to help her.”
“And if it’s not?”
“We’ll see,” Shaye said. He stood up. “I’m going to make supper tonight. I want you boys to go to the barn and take that wire off the buckboard and store it in a corner.”
“Off the buckboard?” Thomas asked. “I thought we were gonna start stringin’ it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow we’re going to town to send those telegrams.”
“We can start on the wire while you do that, Pa,” James said.
“No,” Shaye said. “I don’t want to start on the wire if we’re going to end up leaving town. Let’s find out what we’re doing first.”
“But Pa—” James started, only to be cut off by Thomas.
“Okay, Pa,” he said, standing up, “you’re the boss. Come on, James.”
James opened his mouth to say something, but Thomas grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him toward the door.
“I should have supper ready by the time you’re through,” Shaye said.
“Fine,” Thomas said and yanked James out the door with him.
“What’re you doin’?” James asked as Thomas released his hold on him.
“You’re the one who doesn’t want to be a rancher,” Thomas said. “We could be headin’ for Pearl River Junction in a couple of days instead of stringin’ wire.”
“But I thought you wanted to get started—”
“I don’t want to do this back-breakin’ work any more than you do, James,” Thomas said.
“But…but you act like you do.”
“That’s for Pa’s sake.”
“So you wanna go back to bein’ a lawman?”
“I want to get back on the trail and see what happens,” Thomas said. “Once Pa gets back on a horse and away from here, maybe he’ll have a change of heart.”
“And wanna wear a badge again?” As they headed for the barn, James trotted to keep up with Thomas, whose legs were longer.
“A badge…maybe he’ll just want to start man hunting again.”
“You mean…like bounty huntin’?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know if I wanna be a bounty man, Thomas.”
“James,” Thomas said as they reached the barn and stopped in front of the buckboard filled with barbed wire, “anythin’s better than this.”
In the house Shaye threw together a quick meal, frying up some salted meat and opening some cans he’d bought that day. None of the Shayes were good cooks. Since Mary’s death, meals had become totally different to them, just something to soothe the rumblings in their bellies.
Shaye prepared the meal by rote, his mind elsewhere. If there was a grandson out there—Matthew’s blood, his own blood—it was their duty to make sure the boy was raised right. If it turned out not to be Matthew’s son, then the girl needed to stop saying it was.
Shaye wasn’t sure which way his hopes were leaning.
4
Thomas didn’t like the town of Winchester.
The first time the Shayes rode into town, a year or so ago, he didn’t like the way it felt. The people eyed them in a funny way, a way he knew his father could not miss, and yet Dan Shaye insisted that this was where they were going to settle. Not in town, but on a small ranch just outside of town that he knew was for sale cheap.
Every time Thomas rode into Winchester, he had the same feeling—and this was no exception. Maybe this girl’s baby wasn’t Matthew’s son at all, but maybe the little tyke was going to pry them away from Winchester, Wyoming, once and for all.
The three of them reined in their horses in front of the telegraph office and dismounted.
“Go over to the cafe and get a table, boys,” Shaye said. “I’ll join you for breakfast after I’ve sent my telegrams.”
Eating at the cafe—at any cafe—was a treat for Thomas and James and they were looking forward to it today. Eating away from home was the only time they really looked forward to a meal as something other than a necessity.
As they were shown to a table, Thomas felt the eyes of the other early diners on them.
“I don’t know what they’re so all-fired curious about all the time,” James said.
“You feel it too?”
“Every time we come into town.”
“I felt it the first time we rode in, but I didn’t wanna upset Pa,” Thomas said. “He seemed so set on settling here.”
James took his hat off and set it underneath his chair, then ran his hand through his hair.
“I reckon we got to talk more, brother,” he said. “I didn’t know you felt the same way I do.”
“You’re right, little brother,” Thomas said. “We do have to talk more—to each other and probably to Pa too.”
“God,” James said, “we’ve spent the better part of a year here, not really knowin’ what each other was thinkin’? That’s sad. Thomas, I woulda told anybody that we was a close family.”
“Reckon we ain’t as close as we thought we were at all.”
James was going to say something else, but the waiter came over and asked what they wanted. Thomas ordered three steak and egg breakfasts and a pot of coffee.
“He acts like we ain’t never even been in here before,” James complained, “and I know he’s waited on us more’n once.”
“James, this letter is our chance to get out of this town,” Thomas said. “All three of us.”
“Yeah, but…do you really think this gal’s baby could be Matthew’s?”
“No, I don’t,” Thomas said, “but I think Pa is gonna be the one to decide that. And I guess this is gonna depend on how bad he wants to be a grandpa.”
Dan Shaye sent a couple of telegrams to the town of Epitaph, Texas: one to the man who had replaced him as sheriff when he and the boys left and one to the mayor, Charles Garnett. One or both of them would be able to check with the authorities in Pearl River Junction to find out if a gal named Belinda Davis was still living there.
He told the clerk he’d be at the cafe across the street when a reply came in and then left to join his boys for breakfast. Crossing the street, he found himself thinking about Mary and how she’d longed for a grandchild. She’d always wondered which of her sons would marry first and make her a grandmother.
“Thomas,” she would say, “because he’s the oldest and the most charming.”
Then, on another day, she’d say, “Probably James. He’s the most sensitive and romantic.”
But Shaye could not ever remember her guessing that it would be Matthew. His middle son was neither charming, nor was he romantic. Matthew, to the day he died, was childlike himself and never gave any indication that he’d change. The probability that he’d sired a child seemed small, and yet Shaye felt compelled to check it out
