AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s my news to tell, son.” He slid a hand over Jason’s on the bar. “And I wanted to choose when and how to break it to the three of you.” He sighed, then shot Jason a look. “Have you told your brothers?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
Jason sighed, shook his head sadly. “Didn’t want to go off half-cocked. Thought I should talk to you first. And besides, it’s almost Christmas.”
“Our last one together,” Bobby said softly. “We think alike, you and me. I didn’t want to ruin everyone’s holiday with this news, either. I wanted to make this Christmas special, the best one yet. And I didn’t want it spoiled by premature grieving, son. Hell, you’ll have time enough to mourn me after I’m gone. Don’t start early, all right?”
Jason stared at his dad for a long time. Then he said, “What is it, exactly?”
He shrugged. “It’s a blood disease. Bone marrow’s not producing the right cells or something. There are lots of long-winded explanations but what it comes down to is that it’ll be fast once it kicks in. I’m not gonna suffer.”
“But they do bone marrow transplants, right? Couldn’t one of us–”
“My doc looked into all that. Yes, a transplant could cure it. No, none of you boys are compatible, and yes, I am on a waiting list for a donor. If one comes along in time, this conversation will be moot.” He shifted his gaze away, feeling guilty for throwing even that morsel of false hope his son’s way.
“How long...do you have?”
He shrugged. “Doc said three months at the outside.”
“And how long ago was that?”
Bobby bit his lip, took a deep breath, nodded hard. “‘Bout three months.”
The bar was between them. Bobby didn’t know if Jason would’ve hugged him or not. Probably not. He wasn’t a hugging sort of a man.
Instead, he just kept his head down as he took a bracing gulp of his beer. “You didn’t want to spend that time with us?”
“I had something I had to do first.”
“Right. Sell off damn near everything you owned, buy a feed store in some backwoods part of Oklahoma, and turn it into a saloon. It’s always been work first with you. Even now.” He picked up one of the flyers, eyed it with disdain, and dropped it again.
Bobby withstood the accusation without flinching. It hurt, but he had it coming. “You’re right about that last part. It alwayshas beenwork first with me. It’s something I regret right to my bones, son, I’ll tell you that. Sometimes it takes facing his own mortality to wake a man up to what really matters. But I am awake now. And you’re dead wrong on the rest of it.”
“Then why are you here? Why didn’t you come to us, talk to us?”
Bobby Joe drew a deep breath, counted to five, let it out again. “There are guest rooms upstairs. Just like in the real Long Branch. Here.” He pulled an old fashioned, heavy key on a numbered wooden ring out from underneath the bar, and slid it across to him. “Go on up. Take your beer with you. They hooked up the wireless yesterday, so you can get online all right. Get your email.”
“I didn’t bring anything. I didn’t plan to stay. I just wanted....” He shook his head. “Hell, I don’t know what I wanted.”
“You can get what you need in town. Your brothers’ll be here by tomorrow. I hope. You might as well wait for them to get here at least.” He shook a finger at his son. “But don’t you tell them about the...about my condition. It can wait. Consider it my final request, if that’s what it takes, but I’m serious about this Jason. After Christmas, not one minute before December twenty-sixth. All right?”
Jason met his father’s eyes, pressed his lips. “I don’t know if they’ll ever forgive me if I do that.”
“Then I guess you’ve gotta decide the right thing to do. Go on up, son.”
* * *
The daughters of Vidalia Brand didn’t work full time at the OK Corral anymore. Two of them were mothers, and all five were married with careers and lives of their own. Hanging out in the family saloon wasn’t really necessary, though they did still come by anytime she needed an extra hand. If a barmaid or waitress got sick or she needed extra help for busy nights, the summer holidays and Halloween. New Year’s Eve they usually needed the whole crew, sons in law included. But on Christmas Eve, the Corral was always closed. Family was what mattered on Christmas.
Tonight wasn’t one of those busy nights at all, so Vidalia was kind of surprised to see Maya, her firstborn, and Melusine, her fourth, come in through the batwing doors at about 6:30 pm. The place was all but empty. One or two regulars nursing their beers slowly in opposite corners, too bored with life to wait for things to pick up. Always the first to arrive and the last to leave, usually with some friend helping them home.
So it was good and quiet, and the girls knew that it was at this time of the evenin’, so she expected they had something on their minds. Something discussion-worthy, and she had a pretty good idea its name was RJR McIntyre.
And she was right. When they came up to the bar, it was Maya who slid a glossy poster across the hardwood and said, “Have you seen this?”
“Course she’s seen it,” Mel said. “She’sinit.”
