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On the other hand, maybe he and Shane could’ve had a relationship if Alex had stayed in touch. Maybe they’d have been brothers again.
Shit. Who could say? There was no changing anything now, and no point wasting more time thinking about it.
He pulled into the parking lot of the ghost town and parked the bike next to his brother’s truck. The place wasn’t quite as dead as it had been, but Alex refused to see that as any sort of metaphor.
This was where the Bishop money had gone. The place had been forced alive with cash.
He’d been here long ago with his brother and dad, but there’d been no parking area and no big glossy sign to mark the place. The road that ran through Providence had been nothing more than a wide expanse of tamped ground broken liberally by sagebrush and grass and an occasional scrub oak. All the vegetation had been cleared away now and the road smoothed until it looked like a wagon full of hay could come rolling down it at any moment. The buildings looked better, too, from what he could see.
Alex walked down the road.
Yes, the buildings definitely looked better. The Bishop money had been put to good use. Nothing had been painted or buffed to a shine, but the fallen boards and collapsed roofs had been repaired. Signs that had long ago been buried in the dirt had been resurrected and rehung. The saloon and mercantile had their identities again. A couple of the small houses even looked almost livable. And almost all the buildings had a placard set in front of them with text and sometimes pictures identifying the buildings and who had used them.
Alex heard voices ahead just before Merry Kade stepped into the road at the farthest end of the town and waved at him. He raised a hand and took a deep breath to try to gather some patience before seeing his mom.
“Hi,” he said to Merry when she met him halfway through town. “It’s quiet out here.”
“Yeah, weekdays during the slow season aren’t exactly our busy time. But this summer was pretty exciting! And we’ve set up a few field trips for the elementary school later this month. I can’t wait. They’re going to love it.”
“Absolutely,” he said, wondering how many kids she knew who got that excited about history, but he kept that thought to himself. If anyone could inspire school-age kids to love history, it would be Merry.
“Come on,” she urged. “I have something so great to show you. The signs were installed yesterday. Your family is the first to see them!”
Apparently he was moving too slowly, because Merry grabbed his hand and pulled him forward, her feet sending up tiny puffs of dust as she dug in.
Alex shook his head at her enthusiasm, but he picked up the pace, raising a hand to his brother as Shane turned around to watch.
“You weren’t trying to resist her, I hope?” Shane drawled as they drew closer.
“I could see it was futile.”
“Alex!” their mother gushed, and rushed over—an awkward, limping kind of rush—to give him a hug.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Oh, you know. I’m old. The cold doesn’t help.”
He frowned at her weary sigh, but gave up. If there was something seriously wrong, she’d make a big deal out of it.
“Well?” Merry finally asked. “What do you think?” She gestured toward a tall sign, which stood next to a foot trail angling through the grass ahead. A narrow creek flowed next to it, though it was nearly dry at this time of the year.
Their mom moved back toward the sign with a satisfied nod. “‘The Wyatt Bishop Memorial Trail,’” she read in a booming voice. “Look at that. Shane, Alex, your father is finally getting the recognition he deserves.”
Below the name of the trail was a picture of the town of Providence taken just after the flood had destroyed most of it. The Fox Creek, which this trail follows, was the lifeblood of the Providence community, providing clean drinking water and irrigation for crops. However, a series of environmental catastrophes led to the destruction of most of the town when the creek flooded in 1899.
There was a description of a landslide and then the eventual burst of that natural dam along with some other historical details, but Merry was waving them forward along the trail. “There’s more,” she said excitedly.
They all followed her down the trail another fifty feet or so and there it was, a metal plaque set on a stake overlooking the creek bed. A picture of his father was etched into the silvery metal.
Wyatt E. Bishop
1948–1989
Beloved husband and father, and cherished
member of the Bishop family,
one of the founding families of
