“I didn’t mean no offense,” Bobby said, hauling Will back to the present.
“Huh?”
“What I said. Or what I was fixing to say. About the clothes. I didn’t mean no offense.”
Will shook his head. “None taken. I’d best get back to work.”
“All right,” Bobby said. But then, in the manner of boys everywhere, he asked another question. “Did you own slaves?”
Will shook his head. “We just had a little pig farm. No slaves. None of the men I fought beside did, either. Maybe the officers. But none of us enlisted men.”
“Why fight, then?”
“Because Texas joined the Confederacy. I was loyal to the Republic, not the Union.” Will grinned. “Besides, us Texans don’t like folks telling us what to do. Especially outsiders.”
The boy nodded then looked at Will again, seemingly impressed. “I never knew you was a rebel.”
“It’s not something I tell many folks,” Will said, “and I’d appreciate you not mentioning it to anyone. Otherwise, some Colorado militiaman might start asking me about Glorieta Pass.”
“I won’t say nothing to nobody,” the boy said with solemnity that Will believed. After all, he knew very well how seriously a young man could take a promise.
So seriously that it could set the course of his whole life.
“Well, you’d best go mix some more mud,” Will told Bobby. “I’m fixing to top out this wall.”
The boy left, and Will turned his attention to a heavy, boxlike stone that would work well as an endcap.
He lifted the rock and studied its angles and composition. Looking for weak points and finding none that mattered, he balanced the big stone on his thigh and started chipping with his rock hammer, flaking away knobs and ridges, shaping the thing patiently, exerting his will against its hard surface.
“Mr. Bentley?” a voice asked.
Will turned to see a boy not much older than Bobby standing there with a piece of paper in his hand and a businesslike expression on his young face.
“That’s right. I’m Will Bentley. What can I do for you?”
“Telegram for you, sir.”
Feeling a twitch of unease, Will held out his hand. The boy gave him the telegram.
Will read the note in silence, then read it again. And again.
For a moment, Will stood there, his eyes locked on the last line of the telegram.
Life had been good here. Quiet. He’d put his past behind him.
But they said you couldn’t escape your past.
And maybe they were right.
Will crumpled the note in his calloused hand and let it drop to the ground. Saying nothing to his fellow stonemasons, he picked up his hammer and walked off the job.
“Where you going, Will?” Bobby called after him.
Will marched away, the hammer swinging at his side.
One of the men picked up the telegram. It was from Will’s mother in Clarksville, Texas.
Will Bentley,Denver City, CO– Come home son (stop) We need you (stop) Your sister has been kidnapped (stop)
