Read Online The Long Road Home by Mary Alice Monroe - Free Book Online

gathering around him and listening to the ribald stories that he told with professional skill. But his eyes were cold and calculating.
    “At least he was honest about it,” added C.W., kicking the dirt. “Mike wanted to make money. And boy did he. Some called him a genius. Others called him a shark. He had an instinct for the kill and devoured businesses and swallowed profits in huge gulps. And that was business.” He shrugged. “I saw him as a highly leveraged con artist.”
    “I guess I ain’t surprised you’re some kind of money man, the way you handle numbers. Still, it makes me wonder. I know how MacKenzie left. Why’d you leave?” Seth asked.
    C.W. flinched, hearing in his mind the revolver’s retort, Mike’s blood blurring his vision again. His nose burned.His breath choked. C.W. wiped a shaky hand across his face, squeezing his eyelids tight. Then, suddenly, the answer came to him. A burst of clarity, after so many months of confusion. C.W. took a great gulp of air before speaking, more to himself than to Seth.
    “I don’t want a killer instinct.”
    C.W. didn’t move; he stared out of the barn with his hands in his hip pockets, while a muscle twitched in his broad jaw. From across the barn the sound of bleating was a staccato against the quiet dusk. Seth waited, giving C.W. the time he needed to clean out the wound.
    After a spell, C.W. blinked, absently stretched his shoulders, and turned toward Seth, a sheepish look on his face.
    “I suspect the boil burst.”
    “Yeh-up.” Seth shifted his weight. “Speakin’ on MacKenzie. The missus, she ain’t nothing like the mister.”
    “Oh? How is she different?”
    “She’s a sad one. Used to wonder what made her so. When they first came up here she laughed all the time. Sweet thing, always comin’ down to the house with a gift from town or to buy more syrup from us than she’d ever use. They didn’t always have that big house. Nope. Used to camp up there before the building set up…and during. Some of them nights was cold enough to freeze water in a pail.”
    He shook his head and chuckled. “We used to credit it to love. And them being young, ’course. Heard he got pretty rich, real quick. Money can change a man.”
    C.W. felt a chill. “So I hear.”
    “Not her though. She was sweet as ever. But she started getting that sad look on her face, like a ewe what’s been left behind in the field.”
    “Then they just stopped coming up?”
    “Yeh-up. No word, no nothin’. Just stopped coming.” Heshrugged. “I guess that’s the way it is with rich folks. Maybe they just get bored. Still…” Seth scratched his belly then his head, ending the pause with a slap of his cap against his thigh.
    “This still be her place and she’s a nice lady.”
    “I understand, Seth.”
    “Figured you would. Well, better get down to dinner before Esther starts to calling. Lord, how that woman can holler.”
    C.W. walked over to the hay pile and resumed a steady rhythm of throwing hay.
    Seth slipped his hat on, paused, then added, “If you feel like jawin’ a bit more, you know where to find me.”
    C.W. stopped and faced the old man. His chest swelled.
    “Thanks, Seth. I believe I will.”
    Seth gummed a bit, then gave a brief wave. Before he left the barn, he threw a final sentence out. It seemed to reach C.W. after Seth had left the barn.
    “You’re a good boy.”
    The few words touched C.W. in a deep place that no words had reached in a very long time. It had been a very long time since anyone had called him a good boy. Or since he had thought that of himself.
    C.W. sat on a bale of hay and rested his head in his hands.
     
    The blue skies outside the great room were turning misty, signaling the end of her first day home in the mountains. Birds skittered in the sky, frantic at being away from home so close to dark. Nora went out on the deck to watch them arc, swoop, and bank turns, understanding how they felt. The warm day was becoming cool night.