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At the hole he’d dug, Brand stopped. Constable Allen and Eddie helped him lower the body into the grave.
People gathered to one side. He glanced at them. Sybil stood front and center in a black dress and bonnet, as if in mourning.
The idea jolted through him. The only time she’d met Cyrus he’d given her no reason to mourn his death.
Brand met her gaze, felt her blue eyes bore through him, challenging him. What did she want from him? What did she expect?
Bertie cleared his throat and Brand brought his focus back to the reason for being there.
“This is not a happy occasion for us, but it’s especially sad for Brand. He’s buried his father and his brother in two days. There are no words to erase the sorrow he must feel.”
Brand began to wish he hadn’t asked Bertie to speak. The man had a way of probing at pain with his words. Pain that Brand would just as soon ignore. He did his best to block out the rest of what Bertie said until the final “amen.”
Again those present passed by, tossed a handful of dirt into the yawning hole and spoke condolences. He mumbled appropriate responses, though he couldn’t have told anyone what he said.
Then he stood alone at the grave, Dawg at his side.
Time to fill in the hole. He turned to grab the shovel that someone had placed nearby...and came face-to-face with Sybil.
“I thought everyone had gone.”
“I couldn’t leave you alone with...” She nodded at the shovel in his hand. “It doesn’t seem right.”
“I’ve been alone a long time. Every Christmas. Every beautiful spring day. Every time I rode through a town or worked at a new place. Dawg here has been about my only companion.” Now why had he said all that? As if he cared. As if he wished it could be different.
“Didn’t you ever wish it could be different?”
What? She could read his mind? “Not much point in wishing for stars. Might as well be content with candles.” He threw in three shovelfuls of dirt.
She leaned back on her heels and watched. Seems she didn’t intend to leave.
He paused to listen as she spoke.
“On the other hand, why would you stick to a flickering candle if someone offered you a handful of stars?”
He stared at her. Did she mean it as it sounded? “Are you offering stars?”
“Would you prefer to hang on to your candle?”
“Do you see a candle in my hand?” He returned to throwing dirt over Cyrus’s body, trying to think of it as only filling in a hole, not saying goodbye forever to his brother.
Brand stopped and backed away from the hole. He leaned on the shovel, trying to control the way his breathing came in choked sounds. “We used to be best of friends.” His words grated from a dusty throat.
Sybil moved to his side and rested her black-gloved hand on his forearm, warm and gentle. “I always wished I had a brother or sister.”
“He taught me how to chop wood, how to build a fire, how to cook a meal over a campfire. He made me run hard to keep up with him. Challenged me to take chances beyond my years, rather than let him think I was afraid.” Brand couldn’t go on. This was the Cyrus he remembered and missed. Not the angry, hurtful man of later years.
“That’s how you should remember him.”
Again, she had read his mind, voiced his thoughts. How did she do that?
Brand swiped his arm across his face, hoping she would think he wiped away sweat rather than the tear that escaped the corner of his eye. For a moment it was impossible to speak. Then the words came out slowly, haltingly. “Pa and Cyrus weren’t always outlaws. Not until...” He let himself remember those strain-filled days for the first time in years. “Pa bought a little farm. He was so proud of it. We had every sort of animal. I loved them all. And Pa never said no to me bringing another one home.” Brand paused, gathering together his memories, sorting through them, trying to understand. “He’d had to borrow to buy the place. We lived there for four years and Pa was so proud that he always made the payments on time. ‘No banker will ever take the farm,’ he used to brag.”
Sybil’s hand rubbed up and down Brand’s arm, soothing away the anger that usually accompanied the memory of those final normal days.
