As they laughed, Jake hoped that none of them would ask to watch. It wasn’t that he was concerned that they might want to fire one of the rifles, it was because he wasn’t sure of his accuracy beyond two hundred yards. The army had issued him a Spencer carbine and he’d been proficient at that distance, but the army’s target range was only marked to two hundred yards. In a little while, he’d see how far he could reach with the Sharps and Martini-Henry. But first, he had to visit his mother.
Before anyone could ask to join him, he gulped down the last of his coffee, then stood and carried the empty cup to the large basin and left it inside.
As he walked past the three men, Jake said, “I’m going to the family cemetery for a while.”
Each of them nodded and understood why he’d told them. He wanted his privacy.
Jake left the chow house and began walking to the fenced graveyard. He didn’t feel as guilty as he had when he’d first visited his mother’s gravesite, but it was still there. He wasn’t about to ask her to forgive him, either. He felt that he had earned it.
He removed his hat before he swung the gate open, then closed it after he stepped inside. After he took three long strides to the foot of his mother’s resting place, Jake stopped and stood in silence.
He spent a full minute studying her memorial stone again. His mother had celebrated her fortieth birthday while he was at Fort Buford. He wished that he’d been here to wish her a happy birthday, but he couldn’t turn back time.
He then looked over the top of the stone to the west. His father was somewhere out there and may even be peacefully sleeping. He wasn’t going to promise his mother that he would find justice for her because he was certain that she’d tell him to let his father live his new life. She’d want Jake to marry Sara and fill the house with her grandchildren. But knowing what she would say wouldn’t deter him from leaving. Only Sara could convince him to stay. She only had a few hours on Monday to get him to change his mind, but he knew she wouldn’t even try. She already understood him better than his father.
He finally bowed his head and said a few prayers that his mother had taught him. He could hear her soft, lyrical voice as the words passed through his mind.
When he finished, he smiled and said, “Take care, Mom. And even if you didn’t let me bump into Sara, I’ll give you credit. So, thank you.”
Jake thought he was finished, but when he tried to turn, he felt as if his boots were glued to the ground. He looked down and there was nothing keeping him from moving, so he lifted one foot and then the other.
He looked back to his mother’s grave and said, “I’m still leaving, Mom,” then turned and walked to the gate.
After he left the family cemetery, he had no explanation for his inability to leave when he’d first tried to go. He suspected his mind was acting on behalf of his mother’s wishes, but he wouldn’t dwell on it.
As he walked back to the house, he glanced at Dave’s small house and assumed he was still sleeping. He was smiling when he hopped onto the ranch house’s back porch. He’d awaken Dave and all the other sleepyheads soon.
He walked to the office, removed two of each of the rifles’ cartridges and slid the Sharps .45-100s into his jacket’s left pocket and the tapered Martini-Henry cartridges into his right. He then took down each of the massive rifles from their holding pegs and carried them out of the office.
Once he was outside, he looked once more at the foreman’s house then grinned and stepped off the porch. He walked to the west side of the house and stopped outside of his bedroom window. He leaned the Sharps against the wall then swung the lever to open the Martini-Henry’s breech. He loaded a cartridge, then pulled the lever back which closed the breech and cocked the hammer. He had already selected his target before he left the house and had set the sights on both rifles to five hundred yards.
When he was just a boy, he’d look out his bedroom window and believed that the gnarled, leafless oak five hundred yards away was a goblin coming to get him. When the sun was setting behind it, he swore it was getting closer.
He’d made the mistake of asking his father to chop it down to keep it from getting him while he slept. But his father had just told him to grow up and not be such a sissy. When he told his mother, she took him out to the misshapen, dead tree. She snapped off a branch and tossed it into the wind to show him that the tree wasn’t some evil spirit. But that tree had continued to haunt him for years, and now it was time for revenge.
He aimed at the center of the trunk about three feet from the ground to give him an idea of the fall of the heavy slug. He made mental adjustments for the altitude, but there was no wind, and the temperature was almost perfect. When he squeezed the trigger, the rifle rammed into his shoulder and a large cloud of gunsmoke blew out of the muzzle as the thunderous echo rippled across the ranch. Jake was able to spot the hit even at this range as the trunk was almost black and the bullet had created a lighter, greenish-gray hole when it drilled into the wood. The mark
