"A lone pair of watchful eyes oversee the living."
Trust the preacher to go right to the heart of a thing. In the weeks since Ella Gaines made her play to draw me into her trap that's all I've been. All I've allowed myself to be. Overseer of the living, keeping everyone away with the infamous Larabee glare, harsh words, and harsher actions when they tried to push to close. To urge me back to life's endeavor.
Life's endeavor. That would be Ezra's ill-fated attempt. I wanted to shoot him less than a minute after he opened his mouth. Managed to ignore him a whole five before I thanked him for the trouble by forcing him off the little square of boardwalk I've claimed at gunpoint.
They all tried of course. All of them in their own way, to reach out to me. Sometimes on their own, and once as a group. Vin, Buck, the kid, Nathan, Ezra, even the Judge and Mary Travis. Funny, don't think Josiah was in that bunch. He's the only one that's kept his distance. Until now. What in the hell makes today any different Preacher Man? My soul's not worth saving so go do His will somewhere else.
Leveling the glare at him didn't work, but then I didn't think it would. Instead he settled on the boardwalk, back against the same post I've got my booted feet planted against. For a moment I thought about lifting a foot and shoving him off into the dirt. Would serve the big bastard right accept he ain't done nothing. Said nothing at all to warrant an attack. Not since he sat down after uttering that quite observation.
"A lone pair of watchful eyes over see the living."
His words echo through my mind and my gaze drifts from the street to the time and weather worn face of Josiah Sanchez, preacher turned gunslinger turned lawman. Drawing on the cheroot between his lips, with face turned up to the sun and eyes closed he looks for all the world like a man content with the world and his place in it.
It's a illusion of course. He's got demons of his own and like me now, when they take hold of him the last thing he wants is for anyone to tell him he's not to blame, or that he has to move on. No matter how well meaning the words, they're a lie. I am to blame and damn it all to hell, I don't want to move on. Not yet. She killed Sarah and Adam because I loved 'em. That makes it my fault, just as surely as if I'd put a gun to their head and pulled the trigger myself.
And she nearly did it again. Nearly took another family from me. And that would have been my fault too. I wanted so badly to feel something other than the tortured weight of loss that I've carried since the fire that I allowed her to seduce me with false memories. The times I had with Ella Gaines all those years ago weren't happy. They were wild, and they were fun, but I didn't know what happiness was until Sarah, and Adam. They taught me what family was and if I let her take that from me then she's won.
"A lone pair of watchful eyes oversee the living."
If I didn't know any better I'd say the old fool's gone to sleep. He hasn't moved since he sat down. The only sign that he ain't become a slumbering giant in my path is the occasional exhalation of smoke. "It ain't gonna work old man." The moment I said the words I should have realized I'd loss. Like it or not it was time to retake my place among the living, among the strange family I've come to know since that day I stepped off this very boardwalk into a new life.
One big hand came up to take the cheroot and toss it aside, then blue eyes turned my way as a smile spread slowly across the leonine face. "The past is gone, Larabee and you're trying to let it take you with it. But you can still be free. That's the beauty of living. Time may not heal all wounds but, thankully, it allows us to move beyond them." Booted feet swung down to the dirt and Sanchez stood. He moved across the street toward the saloon and the five men we both call brother the wind carrying his final words back to me. "You coming over to the saloon for a drink or not?"
The End
