Before he left, he asked that he be given time on his own to settle in, but they all knew he had to deal with his sorrow. Each of them knew how much he loved his mother and while he may not have hated his father before he left, to a man, they believed he despised Chet Elliott now.
Jake walked out of the chow house as the sun set but didn’t head back to his home. He angled to his right and stepped toward the corral to reacquaint himself with Emperor’s firstborn. He had been there when the deep red colt had dropped and had asked his father if he could have him. He hadn’t started rebelling yet, so his father had let him keep the colt. He’d been with the young horse for almost three years before he left. When he had started to confront his father, Jake expected that he’d find the horse gone one day. But when he left, the three-year-old was still in the corral. Like his stallion father, Mars was headstrong and only allowed Jake to ride him. Now Jake wanted to see if his red gelding remembered him.
He didn’t bother opening the gate but climbed over the split fence. He thought that he’d have to spend a few minutes searching for Mars in the low light but didn’t have to take a single step into the mass of horses.
His foot barely touched the ground when he heard loud whinny and saw Mars almost shove four horses aside blocking his path as he trotted close.
Jake grinned and rubbed Mars’ nose as he said, “I missed you, Mars. You’re even more handsome than you were when I left.”
The man and the horse looked at each other as Jake said, “I’ve got to go back to the house, but I’ll take you for a ride tomorrow. I doubt if you’ve even worn a saddle since I left, so don’t toss me all the way to Canada when I mount. Even if I wanted to bring you with me when I enlisted, I figured that some officer would take you away. You’re much better than any of the nags they let me ride.”
Jake laughed lightly, then patted Mars on his powerful left shoulder before he turned and climbed back over the fence. He looked back at his horse and wasn’t surprised to find the big gelding’s enormous brown eyes still focused on him.
He knew that he’d been intentionally delaying what he had to do. The reintroduction to Mars was just a pause before the much more emotional visit to his mother’s gravesite.
Jake removed his hat when he was just a hundred feet away from the small, fenced family cemetery. He soon opened the gate and stepped closer to the fresh gravesite. He stopped at the foot of the grave and read the stone that Dave had the stonemason carve.
Rose Anne Elliott
Apr 21, 1841 ~ July 2, 1881
Beloved Mother
Jake noticed that Dave hadn’t added ‘and Husband’. He could understand why Dave would have left it off the stone. Jake would have had a difficult time having the stonemason add those words himself. But despite what his father had done and the vast difference in their personalities, Jake was certain that his mother still loved her husband. His father’s character prohibited him from expressing affection to anyone, including his mother.
But even when he and his father had their shouting matches, Jake never believed that his cold, almost mute father didn’t love his mother. Whenever Jake would talk to her after one of the verbal battles, she would listen to his side of the story. Then after she soothed his agitated state, she would invariably ask him to try to understand his father better. Now he knew that he would never understand the man, even if his father tried to explain why he’d murdered his mother before he ran off like a coward.
He put all thoughts of his father aside for the time being as he concentrated on the headstone. He bowed his head and said a silent prayer, knowing that it was more for his soul’s benefit than his mother’s.
When he opened his eyes, he quietly said, “Mom, I know that you would say exactly what Dave just told me. You’d tell me that what happened to you wasn’t my fault. In my mind, I can understand that, but in my heart, I can’t accept it. I should have been here. Dave couldn’t come into the house, but I could. I would have stopped dad. Dave was right that you’d probably tell me to find a wife and start my own family, too. I promise to do that as soon as I can because it’s something I wanted before I left. Of course, you know how that turned out. Kay couldn’t leave her sick mother and she married Homer James just a few months after I enlisted.”
After a slight pause, he said, “Speaking of Kay, I almost ran over Sara when I got into town today. What was odd was that it was almost exactly how I met Kay. Sara has grown up, Mom. She’s even prettier than Kay, but she was always much different than her older sister. Of course, that was three years ago, so maybe she’s matured in her personality, too. She said that I shouldn’t be a stranger, but I imagine that she has a long line of beaus already begging for her hand. She’d be eighteen now, if my mom-taught arithmetic is right. Kay married Homer when she was that age. But you know all that; don’t you? I’m just talking to myself, I guess. But after I find dad, I’ll see about starting that family.”
His lips turned up slightly as he said, “I know that you’d tell me
