Cole stood looking down at the grave marker.
It’s been a year now, he thought. A year since Em passed, took that bullet up in the mountains. He bent and rubbed mould from the cross that was threatening to obscure the inscription he himself had carved.
Emlyn Royston Tanner, born: unknown. Died: 1879—a good friend dearly missed. Now resting with his maker.
Behind him there was a double plot, containing both Clem and Sam Bowden. And like Em’s the grave was well tended, with fresh flowers in the silver vase that sat below the headstone.
No one in town knew who tended to the Bowden plot but Cole knew and kept the knowledge a secret.
Folk wouldn’t understand.
He turned and walked away from the graveyard and met his wife who was waiting at the gates. Together they walked down the hill towards town, Cole carefully supporting the heavily pregnant schoolteacher.
The End of a
Piccadilly Publishing Western
By Jack Martin