Shotgun surrender, p.18
Shotgun Surrender, page 18
“Is that true?” Brandon asked Anna.
She rose slowly from her seat at the table. She was a beautiful woman, just as her mother had been. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a thick envelope of papers and handed them to her husband. “These are for Asa.”
Brandon took them and, without looking at them, passed them down the table to Asa.
“It’s true, my father purchased the mineral rights lease,” Anna said. “It was his wedding present to me and Brandon.” She met Asa’s gaze. “And a peace offering, so that the children and grandchildren of the McCalls and the VanHorns can finally live in peace.”
Asa felt his hands begin to shake as he read the papers, his eyes filling with tears of gratitude as he looked down the table at his daughter-in-law. He could only shake his head in disbelief, his sworn enemy coming to his rescue.
The irony wasn’t lost on him. VanHorn had made a fortune in gas wells—something Asa had sworn would never be found on his ranch. And in the end? VanHorn had used that fortune to buy back Asa’s soul from the devil. In return, Mason VanHorn asked for nothing. Nothing, after all the years of the bad blood between them.
“Thank you,” Asa said. “I look forward to the day when I can thank your father in person.”
“But there’s more, isn’t there?” Cash said. “More you need to tell us.”
Asa nodded and looked to Dusty. “But first, I think there is something you’d like to say?”
Dusty got to her feet, all eyes on her. “I’m in love with Ty Coltrane.”
Everyone looked at her as if waiting for more.
“Of course you are,” Shelby said, smiling, as if she’d known it all along.
“He’s asked me to marry him,” Dusty continued, her gaze shifting to her father. “It’s going to be a small wedding. Just family. Tomorrow.”
There were sounds of surprise around the table, but Dusty saw her father nod and Shelby start to cry quietly.
“You sure about this?” J.T. asked, looking around the table in confusion. “This is so sudden. You haven’t even dated.”
Dusty smiled. “Someone once told me that when you found your true love, you just knew. You didn’t have to kiss a lot of frogs. Or a lot of princes. You just had to know in your heart that this was the right person for you. Ty’s my true love.” Tears rushed to her eyes as she looked at her father, saw him squeeze the hand of his true love. “I want you to give me away,” she said to her father.
His jaw tensed, as if he were fighting to keep his face from showing the emotion she saw in his eyes. “It would be my pleasure,” he said, voice cracking.
J.T. let out an expletive. The rest of the family had fallen silent. He looked down the table at his father. “How long do you have?”
“Not long enough.”
Epilogue
Rain fell in a light drizzle on the day of Asa McCall’s funeral. Dusty stood on the hillside, her husband Ty beside her, his arm around her as she huddled against the cold and wetness and grief.
Across from her stood her brothers Rourke, Cash and Brandon, next to them their wives, their expressions somber as they stared down at their father’s casket.
Brandon’s eyes filled with tears. Dusty saw Anna clutch his hand tighter. Mason VanHorn held his daughter’s hand as he, too, stood in the rain over his once worst enemy’s grave. The two had found peace only at the end of Asa’s life, a horrible waste that Dusty knew would haunt Mason to his own grave.
Shelby stood between Dusty and her eldest son J.T., his wife Reggie next him.
The pastor cleared this throat. “As anyone standing here knows, Asa McCall wasn’t much of a churchgoer.” There was a slight nervous titter from the crowd. “In fact, he didn’t hold much patience with a man of the collar.” Pastor Grayson smiled. “I remember the first time I met Asa McCall. We got into a discussion about God.” He chuckled. “Asa said he had a fine arrangement with God. God tried his patience every day—and Asa tried the Lord’s. He said they’d been getting along just fine with that arrangement for years, and he saw no reason to confuse God by acting any different.”
A smattering of laughter, then sniffles.
“That strong, sometimes impossible, man is who we are putting to rest here today,” the pastor said. “Asa lived life on his terms and took full responsibility for the whole of it. He was a God-fearing man who, like the rest of us, made his share of mistakes.” Pastor Grayson looked over at Shelby. “I had the good fortune to speak with Asa before he passed away. He told me of his regrets—the greatest one being not living long enough to see all of his grandchildren.”
Dusty blinked back tears. Ty pulled her closer.
“But Asa died knowing that his children and their children would continue the legacy his father had begun so many years ago when he brought the first herd of longhorns to Montana and settled in this valley. That, he told me, was more than he ever could have wanted—to see his lifework continued by his own children and their children.”
Pastor Grayson opened the small black Bible in his hands and looked down. “Asa asked me to read this today. It’s something he wrote just before he died.”
The pastor cleared his voice and began to read, “By the time you hear this, I will be gone from you. Don’t mourn my passing. I had a long and fruitful life. Bury me on the hillside with the rest of the McCalls and then get on with your lives. You have a ranch to run and children to make and raise. Don’t try to make me into a saint. I was a stubborn jackass. I want my grandchildren to know the man I really was. Maybe it will keep them from making the mistakes I did.
“I ask only one other thing. Take care of your mother. Don’t blame her for my asinine behavior so many years ago. Pushing her from my life is my greatest regret, second only to never telling all of you how much I love you, admire you, respect you. You have all made an old man proud.”
Tears streamed down Dusty’s face as she looked over at her mother and saw the naked grief in her face. Dusty reached out and took her mother’s hand. Her mother seemed surprised, then smiled through her tears and squeezed her daughter’s hand.
Slowly, Asa McCall’s casket was lowered into the ground on the ranch he’d loved. Dusty looked past the old family cemetery to the view of the Big Horn Mountains and McCall land stretching as far as the eye could see. Her father’s view for eternity, she thought as she turned her face into Ty’s strong shoulder, felt his arms come around her as she said goodbye to her father.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6177-2
SHOTGUN SURRENDER
Copyright © 2005 by Barbara Heinlein
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*Cascades Concealed
*Cascades Concealed
*Cascades Concealed
†McCalls’ Montana
†McCalls’ Montana
†McCalls’ Montana
†McCalls’ Montana
†McCalls’ Montana
B.J Daniels, Shotgun Surrender
