Michael Ricco stared out the window as they sped through the Virginia countryside. His head was full and his heart was heavy. Long suppressed memories encroached, despite his best efforts to prevent them. The finality of seeing his father's grave brought unwanted tears to his eyes. His hand lay in Maggie's, but he made no effort to hold hers. Although he accepted the reality of his age, in his mind he remained that nineteen-year-old boy who left for war so very long ago.
He clearly remembered his last conversation with his daddy. The words were clear, forever etched in his memory, but his father's face had faded with the passage of time. He'd been sitting on the front porch, dressed in fatigues and waiting for the bus to take him away. He remembered how his daddy's blond hair had been bleached nearly white by the summer sun, his tanned leathery skin. The thin, gold wedding band on his left hand, dented and nicked by hard work. He could almost see Daddy's blue eyes and easy smile, but the details of his face were lost...
"You scared, boy?" His daddy asked him.
Michael thought about lying, but he had never lied to his daddy before and couldn't think of a good enough reason to start now.
"Yes, sir," he said, and looked down at his father's mud-caked boots. Rich, dark Virginia dirt, the kind that got under your fingernails and wouldn't come out even with scrubbing. The kind his mother yelled at him for when he sat down at the dinner table at night. Yeah, he was scared. Scared right down to his soul. He didn't want to leave home, didn't want to go kill people. He wanted to stay at home, marry Emma, help his daddy with the farm.
His daddy put an arm around his thin shoulders.
"Me too," he said. "Listen to your COs—they'll keep you safe—and listen to that little voice in the back of your head. It'll keep you out of trouble."
Michael nodded, unable to meet his father's eyes. He stayed frozen in place, secretly hoping the bus would never come for him.
"I love you Michael John," his daddy said.
Michael looked up then and saw something he had never seen before, tears in his father's eyes. "Keep yourself safe and come home to your mother-you hear?"
Michael felt the tears hot and wet on his own face as he answered. "Yes, sir," he managed in a whisper. "I'll do my best."
It was a promise that took a long time in the keeping.
His father had died believing his oldest son had perished, a faceless, nameless, casualty of war. He could never change that, and he couldn't decide whether to be angry or sad over the fact.
The view out his window had only been background to his thoughts, but now something changed. Michael sat up a little straighter, his attention focused on the view. "I recognize this place. It's different, but I still recognize it. This is the back road to my house." He looked to Maggie for confirmation, but suddenly didn't need any as the limo rounded a bend in the road and a large, white, rambling farmhouse came into view.
He came to life, sent his gaze roving over the landscape and the house before him. "I'm home." His quiet words spoke of a lifetime of hopes and dreams.
The driver stopped the limo half-way down the long dirt driveway, in the shade of an ancient elm tree.
He saw a man leave the comfort of the padded rocker he had been sitting in and descend the wide porch steps. It was clear he was unsure whether to wait or walk to the limo.
The driver opened the slide and said, "Let me go brief him." He stepped out and met the man half-way. After exchanging a few words, they shook hands.
"It's bigger than I remember." Michael's heard his voice go soft and dream-like.
"What?" Dakota said.
"The house. I don't know why, but I always thought if I ever saw it again, it would seem smaller. But it isn't, it's bigger."
"They've added additions over the years," Maggie said.
"They never sold it." He had had secretly feared never having a home to go back to.
"It was specified in your brother's will," she said. "The house and the land were to remain intact. It's pretty much the same as when you left."
"Trees are bigger." He gave her a sad smile. "Life went on without me."
Montana said, "It waited for you."
"Who is that the driver's talking to?" Michael said.
Maggie referred to her clipboard. "That should be your brother's grandson. His name is Matthew too."
Michael felt his breath catch in his chest. "Mattie has a grandson?"
"Several. Your family had been quite prolific Michael. Most of Corbin County is populated by Riccos."
He licked his lips. "I know I asked for this, but I'm not sure I can do it." Sending a pleading glance at the men who had brought him to this point in his life, and the woman who would take him beyond it, he fought the urge to laugh, wholly inappropriate as it seemed. His stomach clenched, and his legs felt like they were made of water.
Dakota said, "You can do this, Michael, one step at a time. This is your family, and family is the one thing in your life you can always count on." He sent a quick glance toward Montana. "Trust me on that."
"Will you come with me?"
"We came with you this far, Private," Montana opened the limo door. The scents of freshly mowed grass and tilled fields wafted inside.
Michael lifted his head, and closed his eyes, letting the scents fill him. If he kept his eyes closed he could almost believe he was that nineteen year old kid again. He shook his head and opened his eyes. "No sir, not Private, not ever again. It's Michael," he said. "Just Michael."
Montana gave him a respectful nod and held out his hand. "Let's go meet your family, Michael."
As he took Montana's hand, a thousand reasons not to get out of the car ran through his head. That old house on the hill held the ghosts of a life that had nearly been wiped from his memory, ghosts he wasn't sure he had the strength to face. He hesitated behind the limo door as if it could shield him from the unknown, from his fears and his future, until only one thought remained. One compelling reason to walk up that dirt road and face the ghosts of his past.
They are family.
He stepped out of the limo and started the long walk toward Matthew Ricco.
* * * *
It was like watching mirror images approach each other. Dakota half expected each of them to put a hand out to touch his reflection. He wondered If Michael was aware of it, of the way they walked, both hands tucked deep into back jeans pockets. Blond heads lowered, eyes downcast but peeking up through bleached lashes as they approached one another. Matthew Ricco had a good twenty pounds on Michael, but it was more than obvious that they shared the same DNA.
They looked like reluctant gun fighters, as they slowly walked down the dirt lane towards one another. They stopped about five feet apart, and Dakota saw Michael raise his head and slowly appraise the man in front of him.
"You look just like my daddy."
Matthew smiled. "I know, I've been told that since I was old enough to understand." He did his own thorough assessment, and nodded as if in approval. "So do you, look like my grandfather, I mean. You're a carbon copy of pappy."
Michael raised his brows and let out a low laugh. "Pappy? Mattie let you call him that?"
"Well, I got the broke in model. I was his third grandchild."
Michael looked past his great-nephew to the large house and wiped a hand over his face. Dakota recognized the gesture for what it was—nerves, and overwhelming emotions threatening to break through the thin veneer of calm. He stepped forward with the intention of providing a distraction until Michael could get it together again, but it wasn't necessary, because Matthew seemed to understand. "There's a whole house full of people in there, who have come from three counties, and waited an awful long time just to meet you, Michael Ricco."
Michael lowered his head. "I don't think it would hurt any if they waited a bit longer." He looked straight at Matthew, and Dakota could see hope emanating from the look.
Matthew said, "Would you like to take a walk with me, maybe we could talk. I could answer anything you like. If I were you, the questions I'd have would take a week's worth of answering."
Michael's hunched shoulders relaxed and tension visibly drained out of him. "Yeah, I would like that."
Matthew held his hand out. "I don't think we've been properly introduced," he said, as Michael took his hand. "My name is Matthew Thomas Ricco, and on behalf of three very excited generations of Riccos, it is my great pleasure to welcome you home, at last."
Michael swiped a hand over eyes that were shiny with unshed tears, and he looked slowly over the place where he had grown up. Dakota couldn't begin to guess what he might be feeling at that moment.
"Do you remember the pond?" Matthew said.
Michael nodded. "Daddy and I fished there all the time, there used to be a big catfish in there. We called him Walter. He had to be at least four feet long."
"Still is. Only my kids named him Otis. He's probably a relative."
Dakota heard them laugh as they walked away, their gaits identical, like clones separated by a hundred years. Watching them, he believed that Michael had truly reclaimed his soul after all those years of hopelessness. He felt tears on his face, and lifted a hand to wipe then away. He hadn't even realized he was crying.
Maggie and the driver entered the house.
Dakota had forgotten about Montana, until he came to stand beside him. "Dak...you okay?"
Dakota took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "You know, I really think I am."
The first subtle signs of twilight painted the Virginia sky with haunting shades of red and purple. For once, the coming night didn't seem so endless. He turned to face his brother, his family, and for the first time since meeting the General he felt hope of his own.
He looked back at Michael Ricco, walking alongside a nephew he was never supposed to know, and then flexed his healing arm. If Michael was strong enough to reclaim his past and make it real, maybe he had a chance as well.
Mary Stromm was right. He had a choice. He would find a small seed of strength and nurture it, until he, too, reclaimed what was taken from him. He owed Michael Ricco that much at least, to try.
Dakota cast his eyes to the horizon and his thoughts to the future. A weight lifted from his soul with the realization that a new life lay before him. Montana's words came back to him: "Find a way around it." Michael Ricco might have done just that. He found a way around the life he had been given, a way back to the one taken from him.
Dakota watched the sun give way to night with one last dazzling display of color and light, and made a decision. He would not let the second chance he'd been given be for nothing. The future was not yet written, but he had a pretty good idea of how he wanted to fill the blank pages.
Dakota Thomas would not only find a way around his past, he would find a way to survive his future.
THE END