Chapter 12
Oscar sat six feet away carving a stick with my father's old blunt knife.
I remained in the doorway.
Peabody had been almost pleasant when I paid him.
Almost.
He counted the money twice, stamped the receipt, and said, "Brandt's a reliable employer."
I had disliked that he knew already.
Men in town carried news faster than telegraph wire when a woman's business was involved.
Curtis rubbed his palms together.
"You paid the bank?"
"Yes."
"All of it?"
"The amount due."
He nodded.
"Good."
The word irritated me.
"What do you want?"
He looked at Oscar.
"Maybe the boy should go inside."
"No."
Curtis sighed.
"Rosalie."
"If you have something to say about him, he has a right to hear it. If you have something to say that he should not hear, come back when he is at school."
Oscar kept shaving curls from the stick.
Curtis stared at the yard.
"I had a rough few years."
I said nothing.
"I went south after I left."
"I didn't ask."
"I know."
He swallowed.
"I worked cattle near Cheyenne first. Then freight."
Oscar stopped carving.
Curtis saw.
"I thought I'd make money. Come back with enough that things would be different."
"You left a note saying you were sorry."
"I was ashamed."
"So you solved it by making me carry the shame for you?"
His face hardened.
"You always knew how to make a man feel small."
"No, Curtis. Life did that. I only stopped pretending it hadn't."
He stood.
"Do you want to know why I didn't write?"
I did.
God help me, I did.
But wanting truth from Curtis had once consumed years of my life.
I would not beg for it.
"If you want to tell me, tell me."
He looked toward the hills.
"I lost the horse."
My father's chestnut.
"Cards?"
His silence answered.
"How long after you left?"
"Six weeks."
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
"My father raised that horse from a yearling."
"I know."
"You knew then too."
"Yes."
Oscar watched us.
Curtis looked miserable.
A younger version of me would have rushed to soften that misery.
I remained where I was.
"I lost money too. Then I owed men."
"How much?"
"Enough."
"And that prevented you from writing to your son?"
"No."
At least he said it.
"What did?"
He looked at Oscar.
"Cowardice."
The knife in Oscar's hand went still.