Teaspoon watched after Rawnie, uncertainty haunting his mind. ‘Was it as the girl had said or was there another reason behind her visit?’ Surely enough he had her promise, but he knew from his own experience that promises where easily made and broken when love was at stake. He turned to the young rider, but there was no clue to what had occurred in Buck’s face. The urge to know suddenly became too great for him.

“What did Rawnie want?” he asked.

Buck stared at the stationmaster with surprise. He had expected Teaspoon to ask him if he knew about Cody’s whereabouts, and certainly not what Rawnie had wanted. He squirmed uncomfortably under Teaspoon’s gaze. He had no wish to reveal his hard words or Rawnie’s behavior towards Ike. He chose the easy way out.

“She just wanted to know if I wanted some lemonade,” he replied with a shrug and picked up the hayfork. Therefore he missed the hint of fear in Teaspoon’s face.

“That’s all?”

Buck looked up and nodded, still confused over the situation.

Teaspoon, realizing he wouldn’t find out anything, nodded. “When you see Cody, tell him I want to see him, will you?” he concluded.

“Will do,” Buck replied quickly and returned to his chore.

Teaspoon hesitated for a second, but then he turned around and walked out, more worried than he was ready to admit, even to himself.

*********

Teaspoon looked with dismay at the letter in his hand. Pete Mason’s wife had taken ill and he was forced to tell Teaspoon a change of plan. Teaspoon’s niece, although much welcomed, couldn’t be offered a place at this time. Pete was hopeful that maybe in a month or two, when his wife was on her feet again, they could see about taking care of the girl.

Teaspoon felt a hint of panic rise in his heart. For the last week he had witness several encounters between Rawnie and Buck. On the surface perfectly innocently, but they were enough to place a thorn in Teaspoon’s heart for every time he discovered them. His one hope had been Pete Mason and now that had been taken away from him. He sunk down on his cot, staring at the letter. What was he supposed to do now?

‘You could tell them’, a voice inside his head stated.

He closed his eyes. Tell them. It sounded so simple, so easy. All he had to do was to confess to whom his brother really had been, to what he had witnessed so many years ago and then take responsibility for it.

But what would be the consequences?

Rawnie would find out what kind of person her father had been.

How would she take it?

Teaspoon had a feeling that Logan had left her mother with a very different view of who he was, but then again Logan had left both Rawnie and her mother. Maybe he was worried for nothing – the girl might already resent her father for leaving.

Buck was another matter.

The boy seldom spoke about his life among the Kiowa; in fact, it was only in answering a direct question they had learned about his brother. Teaspoon held no illusion about how it had been. A child born out of violence, violence inflicted by a white man no less. Teaspoon was sure Buck’s life hadn’t been easy, and he would hate to make it worse.

And then there was Logan and his own guilt to face as well. If it were hard to tell the children of their father, it would be even harder to reveal the sorrowful truth about Logan, and, in the extension, about himself.

He couldn’t tell them.

There just had to be another way.

An easier way.

He lifted his head and stared up at the roof as if the answer to his dilemma would present itself.

“What am I to do,” he muttered into the solitude of his shed. “Damn it, Logan, why did you have to leave me in this mess?”

The answer came immediately to his mind; ‘Because you owe him it. You left your brother to fend for himself, now it’s time to make it up for his children.’