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My stepdad hobbled out the door right after Cass left. He nodded to Sammy and turned to me. "Jack, could you give me a few minutes of your time?" I wondered what happened to his usual growled "Jack, I want to talk to you."

Sammy patted my back, nodded to my stepdad and headed inside.

"What can I do for you this morning?" I asked. I stood my ground and let him come down the steps to me. The way he moved I could tell that he was really stiff and sore. If he’d had his hat he’d have been nervously rolling the brim in his two hands.

He cleared his throat and kicked at a tuft of grass growing in a crack in the concrete walk. He glanced up at me, obviously ill at ease, and cleared his throat again. I waited.

"I don’t suppose you’d consider doing something for me, but your mother made me promise I’d ask." He studiously kicked at the tuft of grass for a moment before raising his head and looking right at me.

I had a difficult time not smiling. "What is it that Mom wants?"

He looked away. "Well, she wants it, but I kinda want it more at this moment."

I silently waited for him to go on.

He went back to harassing the tuft of grass, then looked up at me again. "You know how much your mom loves it up at the Pecos spread. Would you let us move up there? You could move down here where you belong and I could run the outfit up there for you." He dropped his head again.

I waited for him to look up at me before I answered. When he did, I said, "Yeah, Mom has always loved it up there."

"Yeah, she has." He went back to kicking the tuft.

"She’d be out from under Gran’s thumb and be the boss of her own house."

He looked out over the swale below the yard and replied, "That would make her happy."

"And you wouldn’t have to face the hands here that witnessed what happened yesterday."

He glanced up at me; for a millisecond there was fire in his eyes. It quickly disappeared when he noticed I was grinning. He nodded and ducked his head.

"Jack... I don’t know how to say this... I feel guilty over what I did to you, so I need to ask..." He glanced up at me. "I need to ask your forgiveness." He dropped his head back down and stared intently at the toe of his boot as he kicked that damned tuft of grass.

My mind stopped processing. Forgive him? I’d never thought about it. I’d never dreamed that he would even think of asking for it. Forgive him; what did that mean? I watched him kick that infernal tuft of grass.

I felt more than saw him lift his head to look at me. I raised my eyes and stared into his. I don’t think I’d ever done that. I couldn’t have told you their color before today. They were a warm brown. I could see how troubled he looked as he watched me. Realizing that he was watching me stare, I came to myself and thought about what he’d asked. I made myself look at his face, not just his eyes. Could I forgive him?

"You know that I’ll carry the scars on my back for the rest of my life," I said. "If you were me would you be able to forgive you?"

He ever so slightly shook his head.

"Are you aware of the little frightened boy in me that still cringes when I’m around you? All he wanted was a daddy to love him, but what he got was a monster, a bully that put a fear in him that I still today have to fight. I may be able eventually to find that I can forgive you, but I don’t think that little boy ever will. And that’s something you’re just going to have to live with.

"As for moving up to the Pecos, I think that may be a good solution to the problem. Let me run it by Gran and get her approval. I don’t think she’ll have any objections." I headed up the steps into the house.

Gran was standing right inside the door waiting for me. "Jack, are you alright? You look a bit upset."

"You listen to our conversation?"

"Yes, and I think that was damned nice of you letting him think it was his idea to move," she said, leading me into the office just off the entry way.

I grinned and shook my head as I closed the door. "Wasn’t being particularly nice, Gran. I forced him to ask. Now he’s beholding to me for doing him a big favor after I beat the hell out of him yesterday."

"What do you mean? You let him walk away, didn’t you?"

"Gran, you can see how he’s walking like an old man today. No one watching yesterday really noticed, but he was taking a beating. It was like he knew it and was begging me to do it. I think he wanted it – to alleviate his guilt."

She sat down and stared at me. "You are so much like your granddaddy."

There was a lot that I admired about my grandfather. In most ways he was a very admirable man... in most ways – if it didn’t involve his baby girl.

"In what way?" I asked.

"He never humiliated a man. He always let him keep his dignity."

I thought about it for a moment, nodded my head and said, "Oh."

Gran studied me, then asked, "Jack, what did he do that alienated you?"

"You don’t really want to know, Gran."

"Of course I do. I know whatever it was it involved Karny. I know you were the apple of his eye. He thought the sun rose for you."

"Maybe he did, but the rest of the day he thought it shone for Karn."

"So what happened?"

I ended up telling her the whole episode of the rifle practice. "I’ve never understood why he did it, Gran. He wasn’t that way about anything else."

Gran sighed. When I looked at her there were tears in her eyes.

"I knew I shouldn’t have told you," I said. "I’ve made you cry."

"I should go to my grave with this. But that would be unfair to you, Jack." I waited for her to continue. She fiddled with the spread of dress material across her lap. "Your granddaddy was a very virile man. I loved that about him, but that quality also made him vulnerable.

"I don’t think that to this day Karny knows that I know what she did. But your granddaddy couldn’t hide his guilt from me." Gran paused and stared off for a moment. "My youngest was a real Lolita when she was sixteen. She seduced her own father, then held it over his head to make him do whatever she wanted. That’s why he let her have the rifle and didn’t punish her."

I thought about Granddad’s strange response when I accused him of loving Karny more than me when he lay dying. It made sense now, and I knew that he really had loved me. I couldn’t keep my eyes from watering. I wiped my shirt sleeve across my eyes and asked, "Knowing what Karny did, how do you continue to abide her?"

Gran stoically blinked the tears out of her eyes. "She’s my daughter."

There was a knock on the door and we heard Karny ask, "Mom, are you in there?" Gran rose and walked to the door. She paused. I could see her draw on her inner strength and stand a little taller before she opened it.

I heard Karn say, "Cass and I are leaving... just wanted to say good bye."

I watched her give Gran what I’ve come to call an effete French greeting -- a light squeeze of the upper arms while planting an air kiss on each cheek. Gran copied her, then turned to Cass and took his hands in hers. "It was wonderful meeting you, Cass. Seeing you brought back some very fond memories of your uncle. Jack tells me that he’s invited you back. Make it soon. It will be nice to meet your partner." She kissed his cheek.

I glanced at Karn who was looking impatient. I stared at her and shook my head. I think she sensed that I finally knew what she’d done. She looked abashed. At some point in the future I knew that I was going to accost her about Granddad. I smiled warmly at Cass and said, "See you soon, Cuz." He grinned at me as they left.

Gran and I stood there for a moment, each lost in our own thoughts. Neither of us had spoken of my stepfather asking for forgiveness. Then she broke the moment by saying, "We’d better join the others, Jack. We are the hosts." She gave me a smirky little smile and added, "Since your stepfather has abdicated."

My stepfather was waiting where I’d left him. I stopped at the top of the step and nodded to him. "Gran agrees. You may move up there when you’re ready."

I wasn’t surprised a couple of hours later when I saw Donny and Dwayne coming down the staircase carrying a load of Mom’s clothes. Clothes and personal belongings were all that Mom and her husband needed to move since the Pecos house was fully furnished. I made a note to myself that I’d have to go up and remove all my stuff from the Pecos house and bring it down here. I’d also need to move out of the bunk house and into the main house.

Mom stopped me with a hand on my arm. "Son, you and I haven’t really had much of a chance to talk in recent months. We need to rectify that soon. Thanks for letting your stepdad move up to the Pecos."

"Mom, you know I did it for you. I’ve always known how much you love that place."

She smiled lovingly at me. "Well, it’s damn nice of you to let him think it was because he asked."

I had no response except to smile.

"And, Jack, I want you to know I’m very proud of what you did yesterday."

I tried to look innocent as I dissembled. "I don’t know what you’re referring to, Mom."

She grinned and shook her head. "If that’s the way you want it, Son, but know that I’m glad you did it. I may love the bastard, but he deserves every colorful spot he has on his body." With that she kissed me on the cheek and said, "I’ll see you up at the Pecos later this week." I watched her walk into the living room before I headed for the kitchen.

* * *

I sat down at the kitchen table next to Josh, took one of the twins from him and got a juicy kiss on my cheek and a neck hug from the little guy. Sammy was sitting across the table with J.C. asleep on his lap between Dad Bowden and my Uncle Bill (he’s married to my aunt Jean and is my favorite uncle, but don’t tell Uncle Jim that). Jake was sitting at the end of the table. In the quiet I could hear the rest of the family in the living room laughing about something.

They all looked at me as if I was expected to say something profound. So I did. I said, "What?"

Jake grinned mischievously and explained, "We were just wondering how it’s going to work with you and Sammy becoming partners. You got an answer?"

Slightly miffed at his cavalier attitude in front of Bill and Dad Bowden, I gave him a smart-assed answer. "Sure, Sammy, his dad and son can all move in here with me, you and Gran." There was a bunch of head twisting as everyone glanced from me to Sammy to Dad Bowden and back to me. I looked at Sammy’s startled expression. I could see him thinking it over. Dad Bowden looked surprised. I thought, ‘Oh shit, I was just joking,’ but everyone was taking me seriously.

"You know that just might work," Bill said. "The three of you could easily run both spreads from here. And God knows this ol’ house is certainly big enough for all of you and then some."