Big Ben finished reading the letter, then folding it over, he tapped it against his hand.

“This letter was almost more frustrating than it’s worth.”

“No, don’t say that, Ben. You know as well as I do that we have spent the last two months worrying about her, wondering if she was all right. I’ve had nightmares about what could have happened to her. It is good of her to write to us, to let us know that she is all right,” Julia said.

“That’s true, I guess. She’s been gone for almost three months now, and this is the first letter we have gotten from her. Why did she wait so long? She had to know that we would be worried about her.”

“At least she has written. And she did say that she might come home for Christmas.”

“I hope I can believe that,” Big Ben said.

“Why wouldn’t you believe it?”

“She didn’t bother to tell us where she was, or how we could even get in touch with her,” Big Ben said. He handed the envelope to his wife.

“As you can see, this is postmarked from New Orleans. Is she really in New Orleans? Or did she just give the letter to someone who was going to New Orleans to have them mail it?”

“Why would she do something like that?” Julia said.

“Because she is a very smart girl,” Big Ben said. “And if she was serious about keeping us from finding her, this is exactly the kind of thing she would do.”

Even though Big Ben had already read the letter to her, Julia re-read it. “Oh,” she said. “Ben, do you think she really will be back by Christmas?”

“I don’t know,” Big Ben said. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“I know that you are worried about her, as am I,” Julia said. “But I have a feeling that all will be well.”

“I pray that you are right,” Big Ben said.

“Who knows? Maybe she will be back home for Christmas,” Julia said. “She suggested that.”

“What a wonderful Christmas present that would be,” Big Ben said.

He walked back to his chair and sat down again and thought about his conversation with Tom Whitman. What if she did marry him? How bad would that be? Tom Whitman was, without a doubt, the most unusual cowboy Big Ben had ever been around.

But that’s because he wasn’t a cowboy, Big Ben realized. At least he certainly was not a cowboy in the normal sense of the term. But Clay liked him, Dusty liked him, Mo liked him, even Dalton liked him. He was smart as a whip, strong as an ox, and had as even a disposition as anyone Big Ben had ever known.

So why was he here? What was he running from?

That was what bothered Big Ben more than anything else—not just that he wasn’t really a cowboy.

Back in the bunkhouse, Tom put the letter under the false bottom of his locker, then lay back on his bed with his hands folded behind his head. He stared up at the ceiling, and thought of the letter he had just read. He was the cause of her leaving. He had thought that all along, and this letter confirmed it.

He was glad to have gotten the letter, because he had been feeling very anxious about her. He wished, though, that she had told him where she was.

The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her, and that was exactly why he had reacted as he did. If he could only tell her the truth, tell her how much he loved her. But he couldn’t tell her, because he knew that there would be as much pain as joy in such a relationship. And while he could live with it, he had no right to inflict that on anyone else.

“Hey, Tom, did you hear?” Mo asked, stopping by Tom’s bunk. “Big Ben heard from Rebecca.”

“Did he?” Tom asked.

“Dalton is the one that told me about it, and he said she didn’t tell him where she was, just that she was all right.”

“I’m glad to hear that she is all right,” Tom said.

“Who was your letter from?”

“What?”

“When Big Ben went into town, he picked up a letter for you too. I’m the one who gave it to you, remember?”

“Oh, yes, you did. It wasn’t anything, just a letter from someone I used to know.”

“Mo!” someone called from the other end of the bunkhouse. “Want to play some cards?”

“I ain’t got no money,” Mo said.

“That don’t matter none. We’re playing for matches, tobacco, and cigarette paper and such.”

“Yeah,” Mo called back. “If that’s all we’re playin’ for, it’s fine by me.”

Tom thought of the cowboys he was living with now. This was an entirely new experience for him. Never before had he been around men like these, men who fight at the drop of a hat, with fists or guns, men who would gamble for matchsticks with as much intensity as if they were gambling for real money, and men who were loyal to their last breath to the outfit they rode for.

Tom was not a gambler, and because the ranch provided him with food and a place to sleep, his forty dollars a month was enough for him. Nobody knew, and he had not yet had to touch, the five thousand dollars in cash he had brought with him. That money was hidden in his chest, under the same false bottom where he had put his letter.

He and his father had talked about the money just before he left home.

“If you are going to run away, there is no need for you to wear a hair shirt,” his father had told him. “Take some money with you. Take the time to travel, see the country, hell, see the world. It isn’t like you can’t afford it.”

“You don’t understand,” Tom said. “I need to find out what I’m made of. How am I ever going to find that out if I travel first class, live in the finest hotels, dine at the best restaurants?”

“Do you really want to see what you are made of ?” Tom’s father had asked. “Take some money with you, say, five thousand dollars, and see if you have the strength of character to have the money, but not use it.”

“You think I can’t do that?”

“No. I think you can,” Tom’s father had said. “But I think that you don’t believe you can. This would be the ultimate test for you, Tom. If you have the courage to do it.”

After breakfast the next morning, Big Ben walked around to Julia’s side of the table and kissed her. “I’m going to go into town for a while,” he said. “Is there anything I can pick up for you? I’m taking the buckboard, so it would be no trouble.”

“That’s sweet,” she said. “But I can’t think of anything I might need.”

When Dusty saw Big Ben getting a team together to hitch them up to the buckboard, he hurried over to perform the chore for him.

“Thanks, Dusty,” Big Ben said as Dusty started attaching the harness. It only took him a couple of minutes until he had the team hitched and ready to go. He indicated that Big Ben could climb into the buckboard.

“Dalton said you got a letter from Miss Rebecca,” Dusty said as he handed the reins to Big Ben.

“I did.”

“But he said that she didn’t tell you where she is?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about it, Colonel. I expect she’ll come back home bye and bye,” Dusty said.

“I pray that you are right,” Big Ben said. He snapped the lines against the team and clucked to them. The team started forward, pulling the buckboard and Big Ben out of the barn and into the open.

Dusty was the only one who ever called Big Ben ‘Colonel’ because he, alone, of all the hands who worked on the ranch, had served with Big Ben during the war. He had just told Big Ben that he believed Rebecca would come back home bye and bye, but would she?

He certainly hoped that she would. He hoped she would not do as he had done. Because from the time Dusty

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