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She squeezed his hand. He seemed not to notice that, either.
“At least he managed to establish your innocence before he died.”
“I always hoped both he and Pa would stop their outlawing, even though I knew if they did they would hang.”
“Such a waste of both lives. How did your mother cope?”
Brand leaned his head back against the wall. “She prayed every day that they would repent. She tried to stay away from them just as I have. It meant always being ready to leave. Hoping no one would associate us with the Duggan gang.”
“Her prayers were answered.”
He stared at her. “I guess they were.” He sounded both surprised and unconvinced.
“I hear Eddie invited you to stay in the bunkhouse.”
“It was kind of him.”
“But you aren’t going to do it, are you?”
Brand shook his head. “I don’t think everyone would welcome me. I’m still a Duggan....”
His fatalism made Sybil want to shake him. “The Duggan gang are dead. Isn’t it time you stopped living like you’re part of them?”
“I’m not. I don’t. I never thought that.”
“I think you do. They will never be a threat to you again, but they still have a hold over you. When will you stop looking over your shoulder to see if they’ve found you? When will you stop expecting others to see you as one of the Duggan gang?” She’d said far more than she should, and none of the things she’d wanted to say, but her insides burned with unnamed emotions. She rose to her feet and strode toward the door, pausing with her hand on the knob. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The others were gone and she slipped to her room and sank to the edge of her bed. What was wrong with her? She’d never been outspoken in her life and yet she couldn’t seem to stop speaking her mind around Brand.
Maybe Proverbs would help her regain control. Sybil reached for her Bible and notebook. Just below, hidden by a scarf, were the pages she’d written about Brand. She pulled them out and glanced over the words, then dipped her pen in ink and wrote.
Cowboy had a name...that of a notorious outlaw gang. All his life he’d tried to distance himself from them. He’d run, he’d remained aloof from others.
She stopped there. How long would it take for him to stop living like a man on the run? Would he ever?
* * *
Despite Eddie’s generous invitation, Brand took his horse and his bedroll and returned to the campsite he’d used before. Dawg turned about three times before he settled down and instantly fell asleep.
Brand knew sleep would not come as easily for him, if indeed it came at all.
Sybil had suggested he needed to stop seeing himself as part of the Duggan gang. He’d never been one of them...except in name. But she was right about one thing. It would take a long time for him to feel free of them.
Tomorrow he’d bury Cyrus, and then he’d move on before—
He was doing it again. Running from a now nonexistent danger. Perhaps the sense of impending doom would never leave him.
He wouldn’t run from them this time. When it was time to leave, he’d just leave. Sybil’s concerned face came to mind. Her laugh. Her courage in facing Cal...and him. Maybe he wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave. But then he thought of Eddie and Linette’s house, a beautiful home full of lovely things. Why, the staircase itself had more wood in it than most of the houses he’d lived in. He looked about. The only wood in his current home burned in the fire. Sybil belonged in a house like that, married to a rich landowner.
The night closed in around him and he shivered. The first snowfall would come in the mountains anytime. He’d soon have to find a place to spend the winter.
What better place than Eden Valley Ranch?
But did he have any reason to stay? Would Sybil want him to? Or was he mistaking kindness for something more, looking for hope when there was none?
The questions lingered in his mind through the night.
Next morning, Brand returned to the ranch, Dawg patiently at his side. He asked Bertie to say the final words over Cyrus, and then led the way up the hill. Cyrus’s body was wrapped in a gray woolen blanket and draped over the same horse the Mountie had brought him in on. Likely most of the assembled figured it was all the outlaw deserved. Cyrus would have been the first to say it was the kind of burial he wanted.
