AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Benjamin takes a big breath as he walks past me and takes one of the photos off the wall. “This here is Eugene Halford McCormick. My great, great, great, great uncle. And in this photo? He’s dead.”
The picture he’s holding up to me shows someone with his eyes opened and faintly smiling. He’s in his twenties if I have to guess, a little older than me. “Doesn’t look dead to me.”
“Back at the tail end of the nineteenth century, taking pictures wasn’t easy. But people wanted to remember their relatives. And if someone met their end prematurely, they had ways of getting you a picture of your recently departed loved one. I believe it involved a lot of wire and makeup. People are surprisingly clever.”
“As much as I like a history lesson, Mr. McCormick, I don’t see where this little bit of trivia is going.”
“The Rowdy family and their roving band of horse-riding goons killed him. Pelted him in the chest with buckshot and revolvers. Eugene’s brothers returned fire, but it was too late for him. The best medical science of 1897 wasn’t going to rescue someone with a heart full of lead.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “What led to such a thing?”
He hangs the picture frame back up on the wall. “It was a territorial dispute. Our families squabbled over where the Rowdy grazing lands ended and the McCormick farmland began. It got heated. They brought in a lawyer after Eugene’s death and drew the line clearly. Neither family was happy. Compromise often ends up that way, but we didn’t want another incident.”
As he tells his side of the story, it jogs something in my mind. My dad didn’t really care about the feud, but I remembered a story that my grandfather told me during a picnic when I was young. “If what my grandad told me is true, your great uncle might not have been the only loss that day.”
Benjamin looks my way. “Are you saying my family killed one of your ancestors?”
I nod. “It’s an old legend. Yancy Rowdy is buried at the edge of the legally drawn property line. He was shot in some big gun fight, and knew he was dying. So he asked to be buried face down, ass up, so he could, in his words, ‘show those McCormick bastards his ass for the rest of forever.’”
Benjamin is forced to laugh again. “Really?”
I shrug. “I am not gonna start digging up the land to find him. I guess you could look around for obituaries and death certificates to see if Yancy Rowdy actually existed or if my grandpa was just telling tall tales to entertain us. But that’s what I was told.”
Ben leaned against his desk, looking down at the floor. “I have no doubt that’s what happened. I told you my family returned fire. But the Rowdys started it.”
I let out an annoyed groan. “Does it honestly matter?”
“Of course it does. It means it’s the fault of the Rowdys.”
“No, really, does it matter? This was over a hundred years ago, Mr. McCormick. It was ancient history when your grandfather was alive. And it’s even more ancient now. Are you going to keep holding the sins of our grandfathers against us? The sins of men we didn’t know. I can apologize for Eugene’s death, but it’s as empty as me apologizing for the death of the Queen of England, because I’m as close to her as Eugene, and about as responsible.”
Benjamin takes my words in, they’re influencing him. I’m breaking through.
So I don’t let up. “What matters is today. You. Nicole. Me. And the fact that I love her. I love her no matter what her last name is, or what blood flows through her veins. We have so much in common that this feud only seems sillier and sillier the more time we spend together.”
“You love her?” he says, quite surprised.
“I do. We’re more alike than we are different, Mr. McCormick. Have you ever thought about why your family, as rich as they are, never moved away from the small town of Burly? Even when your neighbors were people you hated? Even when you could easily afford some luxurious home in the hills of Los Angeles?”
“No. I never put much thought into it. This was the home of my father. This is where I was born, and I see no reason why it shouldn’t also be the place where I die.”
“You love Burly, Mr. McCormick. Despite your wealth, you see a town worthy of raising a family in. One with good values, full of people looking out for one another, rising to the defense of our fellow man. We love our wives, our husbands, our families with all our hearts, and want to spread that joy to everyone around us. We’re all Burly men, Mr. McCormick, born and raised, and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can put this feud behind us.”
Another soft laugh that escapes his lips. Benjamin McCormick had tried to be stoic, unbreakable, showing me only rudeness in hopes it would drive me off. But I struck him in a way that breaks that demeanor, because it isn’t the real him. “You got me, Rowdy. Yes, we’re both Burly men. Born and raised. And if you’re passionate enough to come in here and give me that speech, I have no reason to doubt how you feel about my daughter.”
“She means everything to me. And if you listen to her, you’ll see I mean everything to her too. This isn’t a fling, Mr. McCormick.”
“Fine, fine. To hell with this feud. For now anyway,” he shoots me a sly grin. “If you hurt her, I’m going to hurt you back enough to make the last hundred years feel like a second.”
“That’s a threat that’ll stay empty, because I would never dream of doing such a thing.”
“All of my ancestors are spinning in their graves right now, just from me thinking about burying the hatchet. And now that I tell you that you have my blessing? I can expect them to rise from the dead and choke me to death in my sleep for my blasphemy.”
I smile. I did it. I broke through his hard-headedness. “Well, I’m glad we came to an understanding. It was quite anxiety-inducing to come over here to get her today. Not enough to stop me, mind you, but it’s something I’d rather do without.”
“Go,” he says. “You came over to get her for the lantern-lighting ceremony, and at this point, I’m just holding you up. Show her a good time. Be a good man to her. Or else.”
“I will. And thank you, Mr. McCormick.”
