The McKettrick Legend: Sierra's Homecoming

“I’m still here.”

“I would get the teapot out,” Eve re counted, “and leave the room to do something else. When I came back, it was in the china cabinet again. The same thing used to happen to my mother, and my grandmother, too. They thought it was Lorelei.”

“How could that be?”

“Who knows?” Eve asked, patently unconcerned. “Life is mysterious.”

It certainly is, Sierra thought. Little girls get separated from their mothers, and no one even comes looking for them.

“I’d like to come and see you,” Eve went on, “as soon as the weather clears. Would that be all right, Sierra? If I spent a few days at the ranch? So we could talk in person?”

Sierra’s heart rose into her throat and swelled there. “It’s your house,” she said, but she wanted to throw down the phone, snatch Liam, jump into the car and speed away before she had to face this woman.

“I won’t come if you’re not ready,” Eve said gently.

I may never be ready, Sierra thought. “I guess I am,” she murmured.

“Good,” Eve replied. “Then I’ll be there as soon as the jet can land. Barring another snow storm, that should be tomorrow or the next day.”

The jet? “Should we pick you up some where?”

“I’ll have a car meet me,” Eve said. “Do you need anything, Sierra?”

I could have used a mother when I was growing up. And when I had Liam and Dad acted as though nothing had changed—well, you would have come in handy then, too, Mom. “I’m fine,” she answered.

“I’ll call again before I leave here,” Eve promised. Then, after another tentative pause and a brief goodbye, she rang off.

Sierra sat a long time in that chair, still holding the phone, and might not have moved at all if Liam hadn’t come to tell her break fast was on the table.

1919

It was a cold, seemingly endless ride to the Jessup place, and hard going all the way. More than once Doss glanced anxiously at his nephew, bundled to his eyeballs and jostling patiently along side Doss’s mount on the mule, and wished he’d listened to Hannah and left the boy at home.

More than once, he at tempted to broach the subject that was uppermost in his mind—he’d been up half the night wrestling with it—but he couldn’t seem to get a proper handle on the matter at all.

I mean to marry your ma.

That was the straight for ward truth, a simple thing to say.

But Tobias was bound to ask why. Maybe he’d even raise an objection. He’d loved his pa, and he might just put his old uncle Doss right square in his place.

“You ever think about livin’ in town?” Tobias asked, catching him by surprise.

Doss took a moment to change directions in his mind. “Some times,” he answered, when he was sure it was what he really meant. “Especially in the wintertime.”

“It’s no warmer there than it is here,” Tobias reasoned. Whatever he was getting at, it wasn’t coming through in his tone or his manner.

“No,” Doss agreed. “But there are other folks around. A man could get his mail at the post office every day, instead of waiting a week for it to come by wagon, and take a meal in a restaurant now and again. And I’ll admit that library is an enticement, small as it is.” He thought fondly of the books lining the study walls back at the ranch house. He’d read all of them, at one time or another, and most several times. He’d borrowed from his uncle Kade’s collection, and his ma sent him a regular supply from Texas. Just the same, he couldn’t get enough of the damn things.

“Ma’s been talking about heading back to Montana,” Tobias blurted, but he didn’t look at Doss when he spoke. Just kept his eyes on the close-clipped mane of that old mule. “If she tries to make me go, I’ll run away.”

Doss swallowed. He knew Hannah thought about moving in with the home folks, of course, but hearing it said out loud made him feel as if he’d not only been thrown from his horse, but stomped on, too. “Where would you go?” he asked, when he thought he could get the words out easy. He wasn’t entirely successful. “If you ran off, I mean?”

Tobias turned in the saddle to look him full in the face. “I’d hide up in the hills some where,” he said, with the conviction of innocence. “Maybe that canyon where Kade and Mandy faced down those outlaws.”

Doss suppressed a smile. He’d grown up on that story him self, and to this day, he wondered how much of it was fact and how much was legend. Mandy was a sharpshooter, and she’d given Annie Oakley a run for her money, in her time. Kade had been the town marshal, with an office in Indian Rock back then, so maybe it had happened just the way his pa and uncles related it.

“Mighty cold up there,” he told the boy mildly. “Just a cave for shelter, and where would you get food?”

Tobias’s shoulders slumped a little, under all that wool Hannah had swaddled him in. If the kid took a spill from the mule, he’d probably bounce. “I could hunt,” he said. “Pa taught me how to shoot.”

“McKettricks,” Doss replied, “don’t run away.”

Tobias scowled at him. “They don’t live in Missoula, either.”

Doss chuckled, in spite of the heavy feeling that had settled over his heart after he and Hannah had made love and stayed there ever since. Gabe was dead, but it still felt as if he’d betrayed him. “They live in all sorts of places,” Doss said. “You know that.”

“I won’t go, anyhow,” Tobias said.

Doss cleared his throat. “Maybe you won’t have to.”

That got the boy’s full attention. His eyes were full of questions.

“I wonder what you’d say if I married your ma.”

Tobias looked as though he’d swallowed a lantern with the wick burning. “I’d like that,” he said. “I’d like that a lot!”

Too bad Hannah wasn’t as keen on the prospect as her son. “I thought you might not care for the idea,” Doss confessed. “My being your pa’s brother and all.”

“Pa would be glad,” Tobias said. “I know he would.”

Secretly, Doss knew it, too. Gabe had been a practical man, and he’d have wanted all of them to get on with their lives.

Doss’s eyes smarted something fierce, all of a sudden, and he had to pull his hat brim down. Look away for a few moments.

Take care of Hannah and my boy, Gabe had said. Promise me, Doss.

“Did Ma say she’d hitch up with you?” Tobias asked, frowning so that his face crinkled comically. “Last night I said she ought to, and she said it wouldn’t be right.”

Doss stood in the stirrups to stretch his legs. “Things can change,” he said cautiously. “Even in a night.”

“Do you love my ma?”

It was a hard question to answer, at least aloud. He’d loved Hannah from the day Gabe had brought her home as his bride. Loved her fiercely, hopelessly and honorably, from a proper distance. Gabe had guessed it right away, though. Waited until the two of them were alone in the barn, slapped Doss on the shoulder and said, Don’t you be ashamed, little brother. It’s easy to love my Hannah.

“Of course I do,” Doss said. “She’s family.”

Tobias made a face. “I don’t mean like that.”