An Outlaw's Silence (manxman)(second story in The Crane Gang series)

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-One

Days passed and became weeks which turned into months. Seasons changed. The cold of fall froze the dirty ground before the spring thaw brought everything back to life.

The early summer heat was oppressive and didn't bode well for the rest of the season. If it was a taste of what was to come, they'd likely all die of heat stroke.

Wyatt found it hard to care.

Zachariah had never come home. He had never sent word. It had been roughly eight full months and everyone on the ranch had begun to accept the fact that he was never coming back.

Everyone except Wyatt.

Even Eleanor had stopped talking about her brother as if he were a living person and instead referred to him in the past tense. She still didn't talk much, though she no longer acted uncomfortable around the gang. She did like to keep her body completely covered at all times—even going so far as to wear a long-sleeved dress with a shawl in the heat they were now experiencing.

She lived in Jeb and Gill's home. Her and Preston had formed a unique and heartwarming bond and Wyatt suspected that she was comfortable living with the two men because she knew that neither of them would ever show any interest in forcing her to lay with them the way Clint's gang had.

Wyatt hefted up the sledge hammer he was holding and brought it down hard upon the fence row he was driving into the ground. Thoughts of Clint made him want to have that man's head on the post he was pounding.

Wyatt's mind was sharp enough to know that Zachariah must have failed in his quest. He understood that, chances were, Clint and his men had managed to kill Zachariah—but Wyatt's heart was another story.

His heart refused to accept that without proof and Wyatt refused to force it. If he forced his heart to believe something like that then he would probably curl up and die. He had to believe that someday Zachariah would come back to him.

Laughter came from Jeb's porch and Wyatt glanced up to see Jane holding a giggling Willie on her hip as the boy gripped Preston's blond hair in his chubby little hand.

"Make him let go!" Preston exclaimed painfully.

Pete's laughter grew as Eleanor hopelessly attempted to disentangle Willie's fingers from Preston's hair. "Control your child," Gill teased Pete from the barn door.

Pete winked. "There won't be any such thing as controlling the boy," he assured him. "He's my youngin through and through."

Wyatt's lips curved in the ghost of a smile at the antics of his family. He wanted to join in with them. He wanted to feel like the light-hearted, fun-loving person he'd once been. But it was hard.

He missed Zachariah. Maybe if he knew... if he had proof that the man wasn't coming home, he could figure out a way to move on... Until then he was going to be forever waiting and forever wondering.

"You okay?" Craig's voice broke through his thoughts.

Wyatt glanced at the other man who was standing with a roll of wire in his hands, wrapping it around the posts Wyatt was pounding. They were making an extra corral to house the ponies that Jeb had ordered. All it had taken was Preston asking if he could have a pony to have Jeb ordering several of the beasts.