Page 93 of Guitars and Cages

“Both. I’ve seen both. And the mountains of Colorado, too, and Texas. It’s as big as they say. Wish you could have seen it all with me.”

“Didn’t...ever...wanna...leave here.”

“I know. That’s why I never pushed.”

“When...the last...time you...rode?”

“My Harley is my horse now. I haven’t ridden since I left Texas two years ago.”

“You should...ride...more...you were amazing...on a horse.”

“There are no horses in the city.”

“You...don’t belong in...the city.”

I reached up and touched his face, a gentle slide of fingers, but he closed his eyes and moved his head against my hand so I was touching him more.

“Don’t leave...me...again.”

“I won’t,” I promised, even as both his father and I noticed the same thing. The beep of the monitors was coming farther apart. His heart rate was slowing way down. “You gotta promise me something, though.”

“W-what?”

“That you ain’t gonna leave me, okay? No dying, Gage.”

He smiled at me, pressed his head just a little bit more into the touch of my hand, closed his eyes, and said nothing as the machine went from beep to whine.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The preacher’s words rang hollow, while the brightness of the sun seemed a mockery of the moment. I stood beside Earl, watching as they lowered the casket into the grave beside his mother’s. I wanted to look away, but couldn’t. The numbness I’d felt since they’d told us he was gone made it impossible to move. In my head it was like a movie, still showing clips of the way he’d been as a kid—laughing, running, happy, free. The box was like a prison; it couldn’t really be Gage inside.

The preacher finished speaking and closed his book, and I wanted to yell at him to open it, to read the part about Jesus, the healing and resurrections, and demand to know why he hadn’t done that for Gage. What good were all those words if they were meaningless, empty; what good were his condolences if they didn’t wash the sting of the loss away?

I glared as the preacher walked up to Earl, placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder, and offered even more words. Words were worthless; they couldn’t roll back the hands of time. People were moving and dropping handfuls of dirt into the grave; the sound of them striking the casket seemed to echo over the hills of the cemetery, louder than my heart, which was pounding in my ears. They filed away until just the four of us stood looking down into that hole, misery etched into each of our faces.

Eve had fought so hard to control her tears, her arms around the red-headed little boy who clung to her legs, sobbing openly; my son. For a moment I’d almost reached out to the boy, lifted him up, tried to tell him it would be okay, but who was I to say that? It was another lie. Earl gripped my arm, frail fingers so different from the strength of the man I remembered. I moved when he wanted me to, supported him as we shuffled along, neither able to find words as we dropped the dirt in and stepped away.

Through it all, Conner had stayed, this calming presence at my side, never interfering but willing to do anything that was asked of him. He stood there now, against a tree in the shade, watching us file down the hill. I walked Earl to Eve’s car. She was gonna be staying with him, her and the kid; he’s the closest thing to a grandson that the old man would ever have. Somehow, it was all fitting.

“There’s one more thing you need to do before you go, boy,” Earl said, his voice rough and thick with emotion.

“What’s that?” I asked, confused. I didn’t think I’d forgotten anything.

“Come back out to the ranch with me; you’ll see.”

I frowned, even more confused. I’d been with him at the ranch since we’d left the hospital, but I wasn’t about to deny him. “Yes, sir.”

He nodded, letting go of my arm, and I went around to Conner’s car, climbing in and resting my head against the glass. I figured he’d start the car up right away, but he didn’t. Instead he turned to me and touched my shoulder, just enough to get my attention.

“That was the hardest part,” he said.

“Yeah.” For a second I wanted to move closer, to wrap my arms around him, bury my head against his chest, and bawl my eyes out, but I didn’t. I gave him a tense attempt at a smile and put my seatbelt on, staring out the window as he drove us toward the ranch. The roads out there are gravel, ditches on either side, long rows of fields stretched out as far as the eye can see. We rounded a corner and I saw two riders crest the hill, a paint and a sorrel horse racing side by side, and for a moment I couldn’t breathe because the boys on the backs of them reminded me so much of Gage and me that I could almost hear the laughter and the challenge yelled over the wind.

Tears spilled hot and thick, and I tried to swallow down a sob, but I couldn’t, so I curled against the window, refusing to let Conner see. I stayed that way until we pulled up at the ranch, where I dried my eyes on my sleeve and got out. Earl was waiting for me, leaning against a fence post, his battered hat pulled low.

“I wanted to see you ride before you left. I wanted to be sure you’d do it one more time, for him, because he always admired your skill with the horses.”

I understood then what he wanted from me—something so simple, and yet so hard. I looked over the fence into the corral where the pinto pranced, his proud head tossing in the wind, and then back at Earl. “Okay.”

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